The US, The UN and Iraq

I guess we just see it differently. We don't have to show he has weapons to show that he's not in compliance. It is the lack of compliance itself which justifies military action. Remember that the Gulf War cease fire was predicated on Iraqi compliance; the next bullet or bomb was merely withheld due to Saddam's agreement to play nice. Since there seems to be no question in anyone's mind that he is not playing nice, we already have all the justification that we require to go in and finish what he started so many years ago. That we have not done so yet, shows the level of restraint we are willing to exhibit as civilized members of the global community. But there has to be a point where he is held to account for his actions, and simply making a show of allowing inspections does not put a dent in his obligations to the global community. At some point we either force him to comply in real terms or to leave power. Anything else effectively gives him carte blanche to thumb his nose at the UN, the US, and the world.

Bill,

I think we've covered the carpet bombing nonsense before. The United States hasn't used carpet bombing since WWII, and is not going to renew the practice now.

If the coming exercise in Iraq is clear enough, perhaps nothing further will be needed to persuade the DPRK to abandon it's offensive nuclear program before that causes more armed conflict. Saddam and Kim hold the keys to their own futures, the choice is theirs.

perception, you convinced me, for the first time in my life my eyes are open and i see the light - kill'm all

kill'm if they move,
kill'm if they stay still.
kill'm if they talk,
kill'm if they stay quiet.
kill'm if their young,
kill'm if their old.
Just kill'm cause we don't like'm no mo!

BillW

Take it easy Bill----should I call 911 or medical help?

tres, Saddam may be thumbing his nose at the world, but that still keeps the peace. Nobody is getting killed. I like that scenario. War is hell, and many innocent people will die. I do not like that scenario at all. c.i.

BTW, I'm sure as the day is long, that the opinion of the world will change once the inspectors find Saddam's WMD, because his lies will be for all to see. Who in their right mind will defend him then? That's when war is justified, not before. c.i.

Dys

My comment should have been self evident----just wanted to let you know that you weren't the only one over there and that I also have a right to my opinion just as you have.

If Russia, France, and Germany continues to argue for peace, their voice in the future will not mean too much to the world community, because they are defending not only defiance, but world security. c.i.

I was over there too, and I know how to kill - just point the way. I've been convinced now!

I must go to a dinner and then to watch Duke beat Carolina (I hope.)

I have many comments to the posts above. I knew that perception would tease out any vulnerabilities in my argument, and I see that he is not the only one. I could talk about this at length, preferably in a discussion without rancor or hostility.

Back later.

Thanks to all of you for the help on the "white square." I'll work on it.

TW

I think the weapons inspectors are quite irrelevant. Bush made up his mind a year ago that he was going to get Saddam one way or another (its a family thing). Blix could report excellent fishing in the Tigris and the war will still start on schedule, before the weather gets too hot.

For me its the other way round. UN authority explicitly given in a new resolution is an absolute. That must be in place before any one member state, or alliance of states uses force against another. But I don't think that will happen. Hence the nature of Powell's sales pitch today. It wasn't meant to convince the sophisticates around the table at the UN because at the end of the day they don't matter. Its aim was to sell the war to the American people, and anyone else simple enough to buy it.

perception: "My comment should have been self evident"
only to you, i found it not only offensive but indictive of blatant degradation without justification.

Steve,

I believe the position of both the U.S. and the UK governments is that current UN resolutions already authorize the use of force. Another resolution is desirable but ultimately unnecessary and redundant.

The UN charter to which all the nations in question are signatories explicitly recognizes the right of nations to act in self defense, and does not require the approval of the Security Council for the exercise of that right.

This will be my last post until I return to the U.S. in a couple of weeks - hoping the nation I find will be no worse off for paying ANY ATTENTION WHATSOEVER to posters whose last REGISTERED professional occupation was KGB officer to Soviet troops in Afghanistan serving under the late General Alexander Lebed.

Gen. Lebed, for those unfamiliar with the name, very conveniently (for the above-mentioned posters) died in a helicopter crash couple of years ago in the trans-Siberian province where he served as Governor; he was a true friend of the US - detesting the KGB and its agents - though, alas, he was no economist <G>

Quoting from another thread on this site to which can't post links as writing from an airplane wi-fi connection :

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Posted: 2003-01-29, 08:53 Post subject:

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The great link. Danke shoen, Mr. Hinteler: there are many things I had no idea before.

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we note the name of the author, and his claim to German ethnicity, as well as his inability to write "schoen" except in Soviet maskarovka school spelling in which the "c" is omitted.

UFN (until further notice) leaving this as my legacy to thread: any and all honorable folks here please DO some background checking before taking ANY poster at face value when it comes to matters of war and peace ESPECIALLY when his own kin and kith will be in NO DANGER thanks to US deployment.

Ah, and just to get him worried sick way before Saddam sprays anything in his direction, did anybody check the molecular composition of the structural steel beams on those submarines as they were leaving Emden? Even the US Navy notices missing ships (pace, Blatham!) so they had to get submarines elsewhere <G>

Over and out.

I could have been a contender ... I could have been somebody. And what am I -- just a bum.

Loud and clear, Hoft!

EdgarBlyth - for the record, I am in the MOST
SINCERE agreement with you about what is
going on in our country behind our backs, and
how WE THE PEOPLE are being led down the
garden path to destruction - to a war wanted
only by Bush family members, whose fortunes
are somewhat, shall we say, dependent on the
outcome of a war in the middle east.
Why should I care? GWB is a man who is SO
LOW that he looks at the millions of US as just
so many ants in an anthill. Very expendable,
when the family fortunes could be at stake.
GWB is the WORST example of a president than
any I have EVER seen. An arrogant, self serving,
liar - who was not even elected to office legally.

William Bryan Turner, who served in Vietnam in the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1972, knows the truth of it. "I am a combat veteran," he writes on the "sound-off board" of the Veterans Against the Iraq War ( www.vaiw.org). "I was in the field and I know what the color of war is. It is red. I have seen and smelled too much of red."

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."

Nobody was getting killed while the US did nothing about terrorism during the previous administration. Then someone parked a bomb under the World Trade Center.

Nobody was getting killed for a while after that while the US failed to respond in any meaningful way to the WTC bombing, until a couple of guys pulled a small boat alongside the US Cole.

Nobody was getting killed for sometime after that while the US government continued to sit on their hands, until two planes were flown into the World Trade Center towers, one was flown into the Pentagon, and another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

There may not be sufficient, legitimate reasons to attack Iraq at this time, but the argument that doing nothing will ensure the peace is not supported by history or by facts. Far more people were killed during the 20th century by repressive regimes (115,423,000) than in wars (35,654,000). That fact alone suggests that not taking a war to Saddam will result in the loss of more innocent lives rather than fewer. Or to look at the numbers another way, a civilian living in Iraq is over 3 times more likely to die because we left Saddam in power than because we went to war with Iraq to remove him.

WAR ISN'T THIS CENTURY'S BIGGEST KILLER