America... Spying on Americans

Do you deny that Required and should are two entirely different things?

Yes, I deny that the US should do what the UN tells us to do. I never said this, either. Do you think other people won't notice when you change their arguments? Do you think this is an appropriate tactic for winning arguments? Change a few key words of the opponents' contentions in order to change their meaning into something you'd rather argue against?

Cycloptichorn

(You've had already one family seize bag!)

Despite your protestations to the contrary, I'm well-aware of what your (Cyclops & DL's) views are of the desired US foreign policy. And, as I've been saying, that was one of the primary reasons (IMO) that Kerry was not seen as a viable choice for CIC by the American people.

First, you need to admit that you mis-represented my argument, not once, but twice.

I wouldn't say this, but you once again have failed to address my argument - instead writing about what you think that I think, because this supports your side of the argument better. I've caught you again . You might as well admit it.

And again, you are mis-representing the argument with your final question. I never said the UN tells the US what to do; your question at the end is an attempt to once again re-frame my argument as one asking the UN for permission.

Quit changing my words around!

Cycloptichorn

I've accurately summed up your argument, and you know it.

You think the US should not be the policeman to the world

that we need to let the UN dictate our foreign policy to us

and it's not "our place" to take action against Iran

(or any other threat)

Ticomaya wrote:

Despite your protestations to the contrary, I'm well-aware of what your (Cyclops & DL's) views are of the desired US foreign policy. And, as I've been saying, that was one of the primary reasons (IMO) that Kerry was not seen as a viable choice for CIC by the American people.

I'm not sure what you mean, Tico.

Are you suggesting that a presidential candidate must advocate bombing the hell outta our perceived enemies in order to get elected? I don't think the American people are as blood-thirsty as you think they are.

But, if we are perceived as blood-thirsty and our leaders reject diplomacy as an act of futility in favor of bombing our perceived enemies to hell if they don't comply with our ultimatums, what's to prevent the international community from urging the United Nations to hold the United States accountable for our aggressive threats and acts of force against member nations?

The United States holds less than 5 percent of the world's population. The 95 percent of the people in the rest of the world might soon grow tired of the United States playing the world bully. Maybe the United Nations will have to organize a peace-keeping force to invade the United States and to oust the Bushites from power in order to secure world peace. Maybe Bush & company can stand trial (like Saddam) for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, and crimes against peace.

Given your fear of the Russians and the Chinese, how would you truly like to be subject to their whims? How would you like it if a few million Russian and Chinese troops occupyied our country while they held our leaders and fellow countrymen at Guantanamo and tortured them until they divulged the location of all of our WMDs and all our terroristic plans for world domination?

The United States is not the dictator of the world. Bush isn't doing us any favors by occupying Iraq and threatening force against Iran, et al. He has made our world far more dangerous and frightening than any world that existed on September 11, 2001. The world isn't going to tolerate the United States playing the role of the blood-thirsty world bully forever.

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I've accurately summed up your argument, and you know it.

Incorrect, and I have pointed your errors out more than once.

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You think the US should not be the policeman to the world

Incorrect. It isn't a matter of should. We are not the policeman of the world.

There is no analogous situation between Policeman and Foreign Policy decisions of the US.

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that we need to let the UN dictate our foreign policy to us

Incorrect. Nobody dictates our foreign policy to the US, and I have never said that the UN did or should dictate our foreign policy. This is the argument you wish to be arguing against; the one you feel comfortable with. This is three mis-representations in a row of my position.

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and it's not "our place" to take action against Iran

Correct. Iran has not attacked us. What justification do we have for attacking them? That they may be a danger in the future? Where do we derive the authority from to do this?

Here's a definative sentence that should help clear up your confusion about my opinion of the US and the UN:

I don't think the US should ever do what the UN tells it to do.

Cycloptichorn

Well, that certainly seems to fly in the face of everything else you've ever posted about this subject.

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Well, that certainly seems to fly in the face of everything else you've ever posted about this subject.

Incorrect, and if you can't figure out why not, then you really are dense. I'll give you about an hour before I do a comprehensive, point-by-point analysis to lead you by the hand.

I'll give you a hint: there are reasons the US should care about what the UN has to say that have nothing to do with what the UN tells us to do.

Cycloptichorn

Well, if we tell Iran to stop building nuclear reactors, that's "foreign policy." Yet you would characterize it as us trying to play "policeman" -- wouldn't you?

In September, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told the BBC that the U.S./British invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. The following week, he dedicated his entire annual address to the UN General Assembly to the subject of international law, saying, "We must start from the principle that no one is above the law and no one should be denied its protection." So how was the invasion of Iraq illegal? How does that affect the situation there today? And what are the practical implications of this for U.S. policy going forward, in Iraq and elsewhere?

The Secretary General presumed what the world generally accepts-that international law is legally binding on all countries. In the United States, however, international law is spoken of as a tool that our government can use selectively to enforce its will on other nations or else circumvent when it conflicts with sufficiently important U.S. interests. Let me preface a review of war crimes in Iraq with a look at the legal status of international law.

When the president of the United States signs a treaty and it is ratified by the U.S. Senate, our country is making a solemn undertaking. The seriousness of such commitments is exemplified by the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials and subsequent international trials in which individual national leaders have been held criminally responsible for treaty violations and, when convicted, have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment or even death by hanging. In our own constitutional system, Article VI Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, grants international treaties the same "supreme" status as federal law and the Constitution. It reads: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

You can visit the State Department website to find a complete list of the international treaties to which our country is a signatory, under Treaties in Force. These treaties are enforceable by national court systems in each country, but, without an international court system to ensure universal enforcement, the real consequences of violating international law are often political, economic, and diplomatic rather than judicial. As we are finding in Iraq, these consequences can be substantial.

It is important to understand that war crimes fall into two classes: (1) war crimes relevant to battlefield conduct; (2) waging a war of aggression. To explain what was at that time an unprecedented focus on the second kind of war crime, war of aggression, the Nuremberg Judgment included the following statement: "The charges in the indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

The treaty that outlawed the waging of aggressive war was the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, otherwise known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact or the Pact of Paris. It was named for U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and the French statesperson Aristide Briand. It was signed by President Coolidge in 1928 and duly ratified by the U.S. Senate. It was the result of a decade of negotiations and lesser diplomatic achievements to prevent war and was motivated by the horror and tragedy of World War I. In 1932, the new Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, made the following statement regarding its significance: "War between nations was renounced by the signatories of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty. This means that it has become throughout practically the entire world... an illegal thing. Hereafter, when engaged in armed conflict, either one or both of them must be termed violators of this general treaty law .... We denounce them as law breakers."

The convictions of German leaders at Nuremberg for the crime of waging aggressive war were based entirely on the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the history of lesser treaties that led up to its signing. The Nuremberg Judgment states: "The question is, what was the legal effect of this pact? The nations who signed the pact or adhered to it unconditionally condemned recourse to war for the future as an instrument of policy, and expressly renounced it. After the signing of the pact, any nation resorting to war as an instrument of national policy breaks the pact. In the opinion of the Tribunal, the solemn renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy necessarily involves the proposition that such a war is illegal in international law; and that those who plan and wage such a war, with its inevitable and terrible consequences, are committing a crime in so doing."

In 1945, the United Nations Charter, Article 2 Clause 4, reiterated the principles of the KelloggBriand Pact, stating, "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." Article 39 established the authority of the Security Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to "decide what measures shall be taken."

The U.S. Supreme Court was asked in Mora v. McNamara (1967) to rule on the case of a conscientious objector who claimed that the U.S. war against Vietnam was an illegal war of aggression. In this case, the court cited only the Kellogg-Briand Pact, Article 39 of the UN Charter, and the London Treaty (which established the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal) as the relevant body of international law regarding cases of aggressive war, so it is reasonable to examine the legitimacy of the war in Iraq based on those same treaties.

President Bush has avoided citing legal principles in defense of the war, but he has given three quasi-legal justifications at different times in political speeches. These would seem to be his arguments: preemptive self-defense; enforcement of Security Council 1441, which threatened "serious consequences" for Iraq's alleged failure to disarm; enforcement of past Security Council resolutions, going back to 1990. A mutable combination of all three has worked well for him with U.S. public opinion as a political justification for war, but does any one of them actually justify the war under international law?

There is actually an internationally accepted standard in international law for "preventive" or "preemptive" military action, known as the Caroline case. In 1837, an insurgency was raging, not in Iraq, but in Canada. A small, U.S.-owned steamer named the Caroline was being used to smuggle anti-British insurgents and shipments of arms across the Niagara River. One night, British forces crossed the river in small boats and attacked the Caroline as it was moored on the American side of the river, killing many of its passengers and crew and setting the ship on fire. The British then towed the Caroline away from the shore and set it adrift to plunge over Niagara Falls in a fiery spectacle.

This incident raised warlike passions on both sides of the border. Americans regarded it as an act of aggression while the British argued that it was an act of preemptive self-defense. The matter was eventually resolved peacefully after an exchange of letters between U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster and British Foreign Secretary Lord Ashburton in which both countries accepted the principle, "Respect for the inviolable character of the territory of independent nations is the most essential foundation of civilization," and that this can only be legally overridden by "a necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation," and "the act... must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it."

This became the accepted international standard for preemptive military action, and was cited as such by the judges at Nuremberg using Webster's precise wording. The German defendants at Nuremberg defended their invasion of Norway on grounds very similar to those cited by President Bush today, claiming a reasonable fear that Norway would become a base for an Allied attack on Germany. The judges rejected this argument, writing that the plans for an attack on Norway "were not made for the purpose of forestalling an imminent Allied landing, but, at the most, that they might prevent an Allied occupation at some future date."

(Debra's NOTE: Likewise, Tico and his ilk cannot justify a preemptive bombing of Iranian nuclear power plants because Tico fears at some point in the future, Iran will divert nuclear material to acquire nuclear weapons and place them in the hands of terrorists.)

The court likewise rejected German claims that "Germany alone could decide... whether preventive action was a necessity, and that in making her decision her judgment was conclusive," ruling that this "must ultimately be subject to investigation and adjudication if international law is ever to be enforced."

Based on the principles established by the Caroline case and cited at Nuremberg, preventive or preemptive self-defense was not a legitimate rationale for invading Iraq, which posed no imminent threat to the United States. The fact that no "weapons of mass destruction" were found, and that their absence was suspected all along within the U.S. government, serves to demonstrate the sound rationale behind these principles. . . .

Ticomaya wrote:

Well, if we tell Iran to stop building nuclear reactors, that's "foreign policy." Yet you would characterize it as us trying to play "policeman" -- wouldn't you?

As a nation, we already determined our "foreign policy" when we became a signatory to the NPT. This treaty is the supreme law of the land. Bush does not have authority under the guise of "foreign policy" or "national security" to violate the NPT. Iran also signed the treaty. As a matter of our supreme law, Iran is entitled to develop its nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes.

Tico, I predict you won't respond to this message, but will instead make a snide comment.

Cycloptichorn