From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 05:28:06 MDT
[joedees1] @bellsouth.net Fri 2002/08/02 09:42 AM wrote
[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]
[joedees1]
Or no matter what it does?
[/joedees1]
[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]
[joedees1]
he has already done that. On Kuwait. On his own people. On one of our
ex-presidents.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
If I may refer you to your own later words in this very post?
<snip>Ancient. Not,...contemporaneously.<snap>
Last I heard the war is over.
[/Blunderov2]
[joedees1]
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)?
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov1]
I'm sorry? It is not clear to me whether you are referring to the USA or
Iraq in this sentence.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
That statement speaks volumes concerning your lack of understanding of
world events.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
Clearly we disagree on some matters of interpretation. I would be happy
to attain enlightenment. Perhaps some future post of yours will cause
the scales to fall from my eyes?
[/Blunderov2]
[Blunderov1]
If I recall, the USA has very many exotic weapons including chemical
ones.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
Which it has not used.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
Which it has not said that it has used. I supppose I'll have to take an
honest Yankees' word for it.
[/Blunderov2]
[Blunderov1]
It has no compunction about using depleted uranium shells in aircraft
and artillery weapons.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
Not as chemical weapons (they are extremely inefficient at that
purpose), but because of their physical penetrating power when directed
at hardened targets.
[joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
Well I'm not sure how glad I am that the US managed to solve its'
problem with hardened targets by using a weapon that, if I recall
correctly, is illegal under the provisions of the Geneva Convention, no
matter how efficiently it is used.
[/Blunderov2]
[Blunderov1]
It has a history of genocide against its indigenous people.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
Ancient. Not, like Iraq, contemporaneously.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
OK Joe, you got me on this one. You have rendered me almost speechless.
You are prepared to judge other nations on the basis of their histories
but not your own?
[/Blunderov2]
[Blunderov1]
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, in flagrant contravention of international
law and convention.
[/Blunderov1]
>[joedees1]
Fidel Castro was allowing the stationing of nuclear weapons 90 miles
from our shores. For their removal, we pledged not to invade.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
It is not clear to me that the assassination of a foreign head of state
would influence matters for the better
or accord with international law just because the USA really, really,
really wanted it to. (Interestingly America has murdered at least two of
its' own presidents; is this a genetic thing?)It was very sporting of
the USA to refrain from investing Cuba. Three cheers.
[/Blunderov1]
[Blunderov1]
It is still the only nation on earth ever to have used nuclear weapons
in anger.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
You mean in war.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
You have understood me correctly. Have I understood you correctly? It
seems to me that you are implying that if Suddam Hussein, for instance,
finds himself attacked by an hypothetical aggressor, he would be
entitled to resort to nuclear weapons because he would, when all was
said and done, be "in war"? Or does this apply only to the USA?
[/Blunderov2]
[joedees1]
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.
[/joedees1]
[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]
[joedees1]
Apparently, you did not read the Iraqi articles i posted; they make a
strong pre-emptive self-defence case for such imposition.
[joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
I don't recall a strong case being made for this anywhere. With regard
to your own posts, it maybe that my memory, an admittedly dodgy organ,
is at fault. I believe I have the gist of the argument though - how does
it go - The USA is afraid, so it will attack first in self-defence.
Anyone else, however, who does this is a rotten doctor commie rat.
The term "pre-emptive self-defence" sounds as if it was minted in the
Soviet Union of yore, not the enlightened West.
[/Blunderov2]
[Blunderov0]
How is this splendid indifference to international law different from
Islamic, or any other, extremism?
[/Blunderov0]
[joedees1]
It is in response to an expansionist and fascist extremism, rather than
itself being same.
[joedees1]
[Blunderov1]
I love it here in wonderland.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
You seem to perpetually inhabit it
[/joedees1].
>[Blunderov2]
Just lucky I guess.
[/Blunderov2]
[Blunderov1]
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.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
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).
/joedees1].
[Blunderov2]
Nothing to do with the elections or a 2nd term of office then. I'm
delighted. Bush is allowed to have 2 terms. The fact that the AD2005
"deadline" falls within the range of his possible 2nd term is probably
no more than a monstrous coincidence.
[/Blunderov1]
[Blunderov1]
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]
[joedees1]
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.
/joedees1].
[Blunderov2]
This addresses the point that I made how? If the US is not in a position
to prevent an attack, and has not yet, in spite of that fact, been
attacked, how can it be in imminent danger of being attacked? Either
there is no danger, or it is not imminent.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
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.
[/joedees1]
[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]
[joedees1]
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.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
Spilt milk I suppose. But this does not mean that the USA can just
resume hostilities against Iraq anytime it wants.
The war, as I have remarked, is over. Yay.
[/Blunderov2]
[Blunderov1]
I have no doubt that any feebleness in the legal rationale will be
satisfactorily obscured by gunfire, much as is the case in Israel.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
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.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
But I must accept that America will play nice from now on because it
sees the error of its' former ways?
[/Blunderov2]
[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.
[/Blunderov1]
>[joedees1]
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.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
Insofar as the USA has conformed to international laws and treaties I
have no problem with its' conduct in any of the above.
[/Blunderov2]
[Blunderov1]
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]
[joedees1]
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.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov1]
Granted it must not be easy. It could be done much better than it is
though. It would help to have leaders that are not preoccupied with
grandstanding to an electorate in preference to finding sustainable
solutions.
/Blunderov1]
[Blunderov0]
This is horrible. The next thing the whole world will be in flames.
[/Blunderov0]
[joedees1]
No, just one mustachioed madman's crazed ambitions.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov1]
The USA is setting a terrible example that will not go unnoticed.
[/Blunderov1]
[joedees1]
By other would-be aggressors, power-and-territory-hungery dictators, and
tin-horn satraps, I most sincerely hope.
[/joedees1]
[Blunderov2]
No need for the uncertainty. I very much fear that your wish was granted
long ago. I seem to recall reading, long ago, about the long-range
weather prospects for persons who find it expedient to "sow the wind".
[/Blunderov2]
Despondently
Warm regards
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