THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Walter Hinteler wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Please post your definition of "a socialist."

I think, you even quoted the answer to your own question:

McTag wrote:
... I am a socialist. I helped vote New Labour in.

Oh, so you think that McTag thinks that a socialist is anyone who "helped vote New Labour in."

I'll wait for McTag's answer to see if you're right.

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

You can read all 13 pages of the legal advice at

http://images.thisislondon.co.uk/v2/news/Iraq2520Resolution.pdf

UN resolution 1441 is the first thing mentioned.

No where is there mention of Al Qaida, Al Qeada al Quida etc etc

TRUE! My point is that whole discussion about UN resolution 1441 and related resolutions is irrelevant to why protection of our (i.e., US, Britain, et al) mutual safety required our invasion of Iraq. That UN resolution 1441 discussion is irrelevant precisely because it does not mention al Qaeda (or "Al Qaida, Al Qeada al Quida etc etc"). As you imply UN resolution 1441 is about the alleged Saddam regime failure to adequately demonstrate it did not possess ready-to-use WMD.

The fact is more than 3,000 citizens of several western nations were murdered by al Qaeda in 2001 without the use of ready-to-use WMD. The growing threat of al Qaeda without access to ready-to-use WMD was clearly demonstrated by those al Qaeda murders. So why all the rhetoric about an alleged WMD threat? Al Qaeda was, is, and will be the growing threat until we end al Qaeda's ability to train their suicidal replacements.

That's why, all the misquided WMD rhetoric not withstanding, I claim the necessity for the invasion of Iraq was in reality the permanent removal of the al Qaeda training bases in Iraq and the replacement of the Saddam regime with a government that would not allow those al Qaeda bases to be re-established once the US left Iraq.

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ican711nm wrote:

revel wrote:
huh? I thought I was copying and pasting a positive story about Iraq for a change. I mean they finally got some kind of government at least started. I saw it as a good thing.

I agree! Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. My comments were not addressed to what you posted. My complaint was with the news media's thus far inadequate stress of the importance of this kind of good news to the survival of western democracies: survival of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is in our own best interest, too.

Actually as I have been interested in how the make up of the new Iraqi government is going to look like, I have been following all these stories and posting them here in this forum.

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Gel, you asked what freak show we were going to be distracted with next, I think the answer has been in the talk of Social Security and the judicial nominees.

Neither one are critical to our country at this point in time and both are a distraction from the deaths that continue in Iraq from all sides and our worsening economy and health care here in the US.

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And...and...the new government is named and by golly just guess who is in charge of oil

Chalabi.

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blatham wrote:

And...and...the new government is named and by golly just guess who is in charge of oil

Chalabi.

heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

okseeyahbye

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Quote:

Roosevelt did not enter the war until first we were attacked by the Japanese, and second, the idiot Hitler declared war on the United States.

Setanta, I have read that Roosevelt intercepted coded radio transmissions in advance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that would have allowed him to abort or lessen the effect of that attack. He wanted the US to enter the war but feared the strong isolationist sentiment in the country at that time, and he knew that only an attack on US soil would overcome such sentiment and inflame popular opinion in favor of going to war.

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ican711nm wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:
The most is could conclude about an Iraq/Al Qaeda link is that Iraq tolerated Ansar al Islam in the isolated area it did not control, and that Iraq may even have helped them.
Please pay close attention to my actual argument this time. Again you have misinterpreted my argument. Please review it thoroughly before your next response. My argument is independent of whether or not there was an Iraq/Al Qaeda link prior to the US invasion of Iraq.

I think that's a somehow new aspect in your argumentation, ican. Are you saying that it is totally possible that there was no Iraq/Al Qaeda link, or am I misreading your statement?

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Setanta wrote:

Nonsense George: Note that i qualified my remarks about FDR with the word "overt." I am well aware of his policy of "waging neutrality" as naval officers of the time called it, and that he used the USN, and the Coast Guard to assist the English war effort.

France fell in 1940. The war began in 1939. Prior to Churchill's creation of the National Government, he had held no post in government since he had been a member of Lloyd George's government during the Great War.

Your original statement refers to the conduct of Churchill and FDR before the war. Churchill fumed and raged for years before the invasion of Poland, but apart from using insider connections to forward Supermarine's Spitfire project, and to push for "military modernization," there was nothing he could have done legal or otherwise.

FDR stretched the bounds of legality as far as he dared, but he never crossed the line. Too much was at stake politically for him to have sacrificed the future on the altar of momentary expedience.

The next time you wish to state: "You are confusing your own value judgments with historical fact," make certain you are facing a mirror.

You are quibbling over petty and irrelevant detail -- and evading the main point. I gave specific examples of actions that clearly went well beyond "safe legal bounds" with respect to extant legal provisions. I carelessly constructed a sentence that included Churchil in my reference to shortly before the war - when I should have said shortly before our entry into the war. FDR clearly and unambiguously violated the neutrality act by ordering offensive combat actions against the naval forces of Germany. Churchill, less than a month after the fall of France ordered combat actions against the naval forces of his former ally, and did so without any legal foundation whatever. Both actions were, in my view morally and practically justified - to do less would have been a failure of leadership. The same applies to Tony Blair.

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No it doesn't, the cricisms leveled here at Blair, and leveled here and elsewhere against the Shrub, entail the veracity of both parties in pushing for this war. It is a question of legality based on the veracity of testimony.

Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt began the war in which they both became embroiled. The two situations are not analogous.

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You are still quibbling about extraneous points. The question involved the applicability of a standard of behavior on the part of politcal leaders that would require that their actions always be well within the safe bounds of lawyerly interpretation.

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blatham wrote:

And...and...the new government is named and by golly just guess who is in charge of oil Chalabi.

I infer that you think the Iraqi interim government should have chosen someone better able to manage boosts in production and delivery of oil to the market place, and delivery of its revenues to the Iraqis through their interim government.

Who do you think the Iraqi interim government should have chosen?

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old europe wrote:

I think that's a somehow new aspect in your argumentation, ican. Are you saying that it is totally possible that there was no Iraq/Al Qaeda link, or am I misreading your statement?

No, it is not a new apsect in my argumentation. I've been repeatedly posting my argument (for many months) without dependence on whether there was or was not an Iraq-al-Qaeda link.

Yes, of course it is possible that there was no Iraq-al-Qaeda link. However, I have previously, repeatedly provided evidence from reference A (i.e., 9-11 Commission Report) that convinces me it is highly probable that there was an Iraq-al-Qaeda link. But whether I am right about that alleged link or not, the existence of that Iraq-al-Qaeda link is a superfluous basis for the validity of my argument justifying our invasion of Iraq.

Reference A states that both Sudan's Islamist leader Turabi and Egypt's Islamic Jihad leader Zawahiri were both part of bin Laden's al Qaeda confederation. Reference A also points out that both these men had connections with Iraq that they wanted to preserve. So I think the connection (i.e., link) between bin Laden and Iraq was probably through both men. But that is a separate and, in deed, superfluous, albeit probably valid, argument altogether .

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okay

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georgeob1 wrote:

You are still quibbling about extraneous points. The question involved the applicability of a standard of behavior on the part of politcal leaders that would require that their actions always be well within the safe bounds of lawyerly interpretation.

All's fair in love an war, O'George, so on at least the point of Churchill's attack on the French fleet, your statements about legality are meaningless. However, the entire focus of the criticism of Blair is specifically the causus belli he adduced for participating in the invasion of Iraq. You can make claims to the contrary to your heart's content, they will be false. And the analogy you propose fails on that basis, because neither Roosevelt nor Churchill sought the war in which they became involved.

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Setanta wrote:

No it doesn't, the cricisms leveled here at Blair, and leveled here and elsewhere against the Shrub, entail the veracity of both parties in pushing for this war. It is a question of legality based on the veracity of testimony.

Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt began the war in which they both became embroiled. The two situations are not analogous.

Neither did Bush begin the war in which he, like Clinton his predecessor, became embroiled. That war was declared by al Qaeda in 1992, 1996, and 1998. Clinton attacked Iraq as well as Afghanistan by air. Bush simply responded rationally to the failures of those previous air attacks to subdue al Qaeda--and to those al Qaeda declarations of war and several actual acts of war--to attack two of those governments providing al Qaeda sanctuary via their failure to attempt to remove al Qaeda from their country when the US requested them to do so.

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Keep your fantasy world to yourself, Ican, the big folks were talking to each other, not to you.

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I take it then that the "all's fair in love and war" bit starts only after the war has begun. A different standard applies right up to the ultimate moment.

While both FDR and Churchill regretted the necessity for war, the historical record shows clearly that they worked hard to begin what they saw coming under favorable circumstances and with as much preparation as they could get. Both were dismayed by the Soviet German non-aggression pact and Churchill particularly worked hard to restore the state of conflict between these parties, which he regarded as both natural and beneficial to Britain's cause. All this begins to cut a very fine distinction with the act of starting a war. None of it involved the application of the lawyerly standards you would impose on Blair.

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Setanta wrote:

Keep your fantasy world to yourself, Ican, the big folks were talking to each other, not to you.

That's a sorry way to admit you're wrong! I think a truly big folk is capable of better.

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Churchill accomplished exactly nothing in either domestic or international politics until the formation of the National Government--well after the war had begun.

You're familiar with the "Give me lever and a place to stand and i will move the earth" statement? Churchill had no place to stand until Chamberlain's government fell.

Your contention that Roosevelt "worked hard to begin what [he] saw coming under favorable circumstance" sounds like a pretty good description of a crucial part of the job description for Commander in Chief. However, it is meaningless in this context, unless you can adduce evidence that Roosevelt acted illegally persuant to that goal.

I can't for the life of me understand why you are so enamored of the adjective "lawyerly." Whereas it is true that my father tried to make me go to law school, and i refused, my position is not "lawyerly." Mr. Blair is in the hot seat because a great many people who are not now and never have been members of the legal profession have serious reservations about what his honesty may have been in seeking authorization from Parliament to participate in the Iraq invasion. The current iteration of this brou-ha-ha turns on the Attorney General's remarks in cabinet, as well as the enourmous disparity between the amount of information provided ministers and that reviewd by Mr. Blair and Mr. Straw. This is, for those so concerned in the polity of the United Kingdom, not a question of lawyerly standards, but of the legality of Mr. Blair's conduct. Apply whatever dismissive adjectives you will like to the criticisms of Blair's conduct, it will not change the basic question which is currently exercising the electorate of that kingdom.

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THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

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