From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 01:42:27 MDT
On 2 Aug 2002 at 9:02, Blunderov wrote:
> Joe Dees wrote:
>
> On 2 Aug 2002 at 0:12, Blunderov wrote:
>
> > Joe Dees wrote:
> ><snip>
> >> No, the justifications for deposing the Iraqi regime were clearly
> laid
> > out previously (six separate points, I believe).
> > <snap>
> >
> > [Blunderov0]
> > Almost I don't believe what I'm seeing. I don't care if there are a
> > hundred points written in Beelzebub's own personal ink. There is no
> > justification in international law for deposing a regime you don't
> > like, no matter how emphatically you may disapprove of it. Bush is
> > simply inventing a pretext in the time honored fashion of warmongers
> > everywhere.
> [/Blunderov0]
> >
> Or no matter what it does?
>
> [Blunderov1]
> Yes. No matter what he does short of launching, or being clearly seen
> to be in the process of launching, an actual physical attack. This is
> the law. [/Blunderov1]
>
he has already done that. On Kuwait. On his own people. On one of
our ex-presidents.
>
> Such as attacking their neighbors, creating
> chemical weapons they use against those neighbors and against their
> own people, and attempting to assassinate a former US president (among
> other things)?
>
> [Blunderov1]
> I'm sorry? It is not clear to me whether you are referring to the USA
> or Iraq in this sentence.
>
That statement speaks volumes concerning your lack of understanding
of world events.
>
> If I recall, the USA has very many exotic
> weapons including chemical ones.
>
Which it has not used.
>
> It has no compunction about using
> depleted uranium shells in aircraft and artillery weapons.
>
Not as chemical weapons (they are extremely inefficient at that
purpose), but because of their physical penetrating power when
directed at hardened targets.
>
> It has a
> history of genocide against its indigenous people.
>
Ancient. Not, like Iraq, contemporaneously.
>
> The USA has
> frequently attacked its neighbours. It has issued an open fatwa on the
> life of Fidel Castro, for instance, not to mention Saddam Hussein in,
> as far as I know, flagrant contravention of international law and
> convention.
>
Fidel Castro was allowing the stationing of nuclear weapons 90 miles
from our shores. For their removal, we pledged not to invade.
>
> It is still the only nation on earth ever to have used
> nuclear weapons in anger. [/Blunderov1]
>
You mean in war.
>
> No reason WHATSOEVER????? You
> apparently must then, by following your own statement to its logical
> conclusion, disapprove of the deposing of the Taliban, Hitler,
> Duvalier,
>
> Idi Amin, and Pol Pot. You have little company.
>
> [Blunderov1]
> No, not "no reason whatsoever". International law lays out the
> circumstances that may constitute adequate grounds for a pre-emptive
> attack. The reckless USA seems to think it can cherry-pick the bits of
> international laws, treaties and conventions which it finds tasty and
> leave the nasty bits for everyone else to swallow. [/Blunderov1]
>
Apparently, you did not read the Iraqi articles i posted; they make a
strong pre-emptive self-defence case for such imposition.
>
> > How is this splendid indifference to international law different
> > from Islamic, or any other, extremism?
> >
> It is in response to an expansionist and fascist extremism, rather
> than itself being same.
>
> [Blunderov1]
> I love it here in wonderland.
>
You seem to perpetually inhabit it.
>
> It is a marvelous place where
> pre-emptive self-defence (for instance) can be justified to one's
> adoring electorate as a righteous response to an intolerable situation
> that was in, no small part, precipitated by the USA itself. I am
> sickened to the marrow by the speculation that the USA's attack will
> be timed to coincide with some elections. I fear it is all too true.
>
It will occur when it is possible to succeed with an acceptable cost, but
before an unacceptable attack by Iraq upon the US becomes possible
(according to the articles, that outer limit is 2005).
>
> I ask with tears in my eyes:
> If the USA is in a position to allow itself the luxury of attacking on
> high-days and holidays that are convenient (for reasons only remotely,
> if at all, connected to the war) to it's leaders, how can there be
> said to be a clear and imminent danger, as required by international
> law, in the situation ? [/Blunderov1]
>
The US is dealing with a real deadline, and is not in a position to attack
now, so far as I know. It will do so when it can succeed without
prohibitive US cost, before that deadline. The attack will be in the best
interests of the US and the people of the region, not of a party or a
president. When the stakes are that high, no such game-playing is
going to happen, because with the stakes that high, it is no game. Cry
all you want and shed big watery tears for that vicious and bloodthirsty
dictator; I cry for him not.
>
> When the US goes in to protect its interests and
> Those of its allies, it leaves when the job is done (and sometimes,
> regrettably, too soon). Saddam was planning to seize Kuwait (and most
> probably the entire Arabian peninsula) for the duration.
>
> [Blunderov1]
> The complicity and duplicity of American diplomacy prior to the Gulf
> War have been well documented in these annals. I don't buy the
> "righteous indignation" pose. [/Blunderov1] >
>
The US was hoping to counterbalance Iraq and Iran, and for a while, it
worked. When he turned his gaze south, towards a sparsely populated
but globally critical Arabian peninsula, he had to be met and stopped.
Period. I criticize Bush, senior, for not deposing him during the Gulf
War; it was a miscalculation that has cost the region, and the world,
dearly. It will not be repeated.
>
> I have no doubt that
> any feebleness in the legal rationale will be > satisfactorily
> obscured by gunfire, much as is the case in Israel. > The rationale IS
> gunfire (Saddam's), and his continuing attempt to augment same with
> chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, which he would most
> certainly use, as he has used chemical weapons already against his own
> people and against those of other countries.
>
> [Blunderov1]
> It is true that Iraq is firing on American personnel. The fact that
> these Americans are in airspace that doesn't belong to them may have
> something to do with it.
>
You would prefer to allow him to commit genocide on the people within
his borders? How did you feel about Rwanda, or Serbia? How did you
feel about Germany? Not me, and not most conscientious and civilized
people.
>
> Or does it belong to them? Maybe
> international law is tiresomely archaic in promoting outmoded concepts
> such as "sovereign airspace" and "non-interference"; clearly these
> things have no part in the modern world if America finds them irksome.
> After all, America is nothing if not modern. [/Blunderov1]
>
Amwrica does what it does because someone has to, no one else can,
and the entire world looks to us to do it. They bitch and moan when we
do, and they bitch and moan when we don't. I wish that we were NOT
the world's policeman, but we catch hell whether we wear the cap or
not.
>
> > > This is
> horrible. The next thing the whole world will be in flames.
>
> >
> No, just one mustachioed madman's crazed ambitions.
> >
> [Blunderov1]
> The USA is setting a terrible example that will not go unnoticed.
> [/Blunderov1]
>
By other would-be aggressors, power-and-territory-hungery dictators,
and tin-horn satraps, I most sincerely hope.
>
> > Despondently
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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