Though most Slashdotters seem to either (1) be unhappy about this, or (b) be in denial of the fact, distributing copies of copyrighted music is against the law. A company that facilitates the distribution of copies of copyrighted music is just begging to get sued. And when they get sued, they're going to lose big.
Oh, I'm sorry, that's supposed to be some comfort to the mothers, wives and children of the deceased?
Nope. This is a war, not a love-in. The Coalition is not in the comfort-providing business. We are in the liberty-providing business.
Did the news team really pose an immediate threat to the troops that fired upon them?
Geez, you're just not going to let this go, are you? When people get in the line of fire, they get shot. It happens. Deal with it. The solution to this problem is to stay the hell out of the line of fire. Lloyd and his group were not embedded with a Coalition unit, they had not received any training on operational procedures, they were not working with the Coalition troops in any way. They got in the way, and they were hit, and Lloyd was killed. That sucks, but there's nothing anybody in the world can or should do about it.
Did the crew of the RAF Tornado that was shot down by a Patriot missile battery start firing on the US soldiers on the ground, or were they just shot down out of the sky because someone or something cocked up?
According to the most recent reports from CENTCOM, they got shot down because they were (1) not squawking the right transponder code, and (b) completely out of their assigned area of operations.
Did the Canadian troops murdered by their US "allies" in Afghanistan die a meaningful death? Or were their lives needlessly wasted?
The meaningful one. And you need to get a dictionary and look up the word "murdered."
Did the countless men and women who died as a result of US "friendly fire" in the first Gulf War do the same? Or were their lives also thrown away courtesy of some trigger jock who was just too eager to shoot at something?
Nope, the meaningful one again. Remember, dude, every one of those boys and girls is a volunteer. They're there because they want to be, because they recognize that the mission is important enough to put their lives on the line for, and if necessary die for. There are lots of ways to get killed in combat, and enemy fire is just one of them. It's a dangerous place. Those kids all know that, and they're there anyway.
Do yourself a favour and educate yourself. Read articles like this, this and this.
Both of your links were broken. That's okay, though; in all honesty, I probably wouldn't have bothered with them anyway. You're not exactly giving me a lot of motivation to give a damn about what you have to say.
So, almost one quarter of all US fatalities and all UK fatalities during the first Gulf War were caused by US forces firing on their own.
Yes. I'm very proud of you; you have discovered that a battlefield is a really dangerous place! People get shot and stuff! Wow!
Fratricide is nothing new. It's been a problem in war since the first caveman threw the first rock. The fact that fratricide accounted for nearly a quarter of the combat deaths in the 1991 war doesn't say anything about fratricide. It says something about the number of enemy-inflicted deaths that were avoided. Out of more than 500,000 US troops in the theater of operations, the US only suffered 293 deaths, 145 of which were non-combat deaths. That's 0.06%, or one in 1,700. That's pretty damn good.
What's even worse it that the US military covers these incidents up rather than investigate them fully
Ah, I knew it. You're a conspiracy theorist after all.
You're defending this level of incompetence?
I'm not actually defending anything, because you haven't leveled anything even resembling a reasonable criticism.
The bottom line is that you don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. There's no particular shame in that, in and of itself, but when you go spouting off under the belief that you do know what you're talking about, you just end up making yourself look like kind of an idiot.
And, just like in the first Gulf War, the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan, etc, US forces, with their "overwhelming force" military doctrine have killed their own allies and neutral bystanders almost indescriminately.
Yes, almost indiscriminately. After flying over 6,000 sorties, dropping over 10,000 bombs in highly urbanized areas, and sending a fighting force of more than 40,000 men across 200 miles of hostile enemy territory, we have indiscriminately killed literally dozens of allies and civilians.
It's a bit hard to provide accurate war reporting if you don't go near the bloody damn war. What kind of idiot do you have to be to think that war reporting is something that should only be done from a battlefield HQ or the deck of an aircraft carrier?
Are you somehow confused about the difference between reporting from the battlefield and reporting from the actual line of fire? If you want to be up there with front-line troops, that's fine. But it's a war zone, and it's your own responsibility to, in the words of an anonymous Marine sergeant, "keep your fucking brain-bucket on," hug sand, and wait for the shooting to stop before you go for your Pullitzer. Any other course of action will give you that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to file a report from the business end of a piece of ordinance. And it will be nobody's fault but your own.
Words have specific meanings. The word "terrorism" means the deliberate targeting of civilians by covert means with the goal of affecting political change through the infliction of widespread fear. War is not terrorism, because it doesn't involve the deliberate targeting of civilians, and fear is not its objective.
Yes, Osama bin Laden has openly stated his desire for a "holy war" or jihad against America and Americans -- yet you still claim Al Qaeda is not at war with us.
War is exclusively the province of nations. We do not recognize the right of non-governmental groups to wage war. The word "war" doesn't apply to al Qaeda.
Perhaps if anyone in the State Department had been listening to his repeated calls for the U.S. expulsion from the Holy Land, we could have avoided WTC in the first place.
Sure. If we always do what everybody wants us to do, we'll never make anybody mad. But there comes a time when it's more important to do what's right than what's popular.
Ultimately, it is a continuum, not a dichotomy between War and Terrorism as you have put forth.
That's like saying it's a continuum between war and blueberries. Terrorism is a completely different thing. It is not war, it is not comparable to war, it doesn't even resemble war.
I feel very strongly that its destrucion was part of "a military compain to achieve objectives that cannot be achieved dipolomatically.
That's demonstrably false. Al Qaeda is not a military organization. They are not even associated with any military organizations. At best, they are a guerilla or paramilitary organization, but their methodology-- the repeated targeting of civilian targets-- sets them apart.
My sig is not intended to justify the destruction of the WTC. Rather, its purpose is to point out the ease with which America rationalizes the violence it commits in the rest of the world.
Oh, get off your high horse. Your signature is designed to make people mad. You're not trying to point out anything; you're just trying to pick a fight. If you really wanted to make a legitimate point, you'd use less inflamatory language.
Now, in the war between US and Al Qaeda
There is no war between the US and al Qaeda. There was a war between the US and Afghanistan, but that was is largely concluded now. If al Qaeda were to pick up and move to another sponsoring state, then we would be justified in going to war with that state as well, but that's a different thing.
See, as I said, war is exclusively the province of nations. Our "war on terrorism" is just like the "war on drugs" or the "war on poverty." It's not literally a war; it's a metaphor.
Clearly I'm not in favor of any more U.S. buildings blowing up, and I tend to wonder why our troops are protecting the Saud family.
Because the House of Saud is our ally. What more do you need to know?
The social impact of Kyoto, on the other hand, is vital and must be pursued at all costs. It's about levelling the playing field for all mankind.
The damn book is too big to look, but I'm pretty sure that this was just cut-and-pasted from Atlas Shrugged. Except they called it the "anti-dog-eat-dog" rule or something.
Here's a clue, dude: the playing field is not level. Never has been, never will be. All men are created equal, but after that it's all unfair.
Cameraman Daniel Demoustier, who escaped with injuries, said they were hit by "friendly fire" aimed at two nearby vehicles containing about a dozen Iraqi soldiers who were killed.
How about this, guys. Stay the hell away from enemy troops! If you get in the way, you will get shot! What kind of idiot do you have to be to pull something like this?
How would a superpower benefit from having a mutual defence pact with a small country?
How does the US benefit by having a mutual defense pact with the Phillippines? The answer, of course, is that there's more to it than just mutual defense. There's trade, cultural and political influence, and other such non-military matters.
Take my country, Denmark, as an example: we have no significant military power so our part in such a mutual pact would have to be something else than military might, no?
Having worked for several years on a project for the RDAF, I can assure your that your country most certainly does have significant military power.;-)
The point, of course, is well taken. The answer is that a community of superpowers would be better able to handle threats to security and peace than the UN Security Council or an UNSEC-like body, even if it's not perfect in all cases.
By way of comparison, after over five decades of history, UNSEC has been able to successfully deal with precisely zero threats to peace and security. The Korean War was fought to a stalemate and never resolved, and the 1991 Iraq war hasn't ended yet. So we couldn't do much worse than UNSEC no matter what the case.
while possibly correct legally, it lacks moral rationale
That's a matter of opinion, one nobody can really argue with. Either you believe that the United States and our allies have the moral authority to do the right thing or you don't. I do.
I admit I am mostly uninformed, but my impression was that 1441 basically said "this is your last chance - disarm". there was no resolution after that saying that he had still refused to disarm. no you may argue that it's obvious that he hadn't, but...
But what?
Resolution 1441 was a lot more complex than that; it was a sort of omnibus resolution, and I'd suggest you read it. (Just google for 1441; it comes up as one of the first few links.) You got the last chance part right, but there were in fact a lot of tasks established for Iraq, starting with that declaration due by December 8. That declaration, originally demanded of Iraq by April 15, 1991, was to be complete and accurate. What they actually delivered, on December 7, was neither complete nor accurate.
This pretty well answers the question of another resolution after that. There was no need for one, because the question of whether Iraq was in compliance with their obligations or not wasn't a matter of opinion, and it wasn't in dispute. Everybody-- except the Iraqis, of course-- agrees that Iraq is in material breach of 1441, as well as all the other 16 relevant resolutions.
the real problem with any of this is you are still taking the authority of the UN into your own hands
Go read resolution 678, and chapters V and VII of the UN Charter. The Security Council has no authority to enforce its own resolutions. It has no executive branch, no military forces. Instead, when the time comes to take action-- either military or non-military-- the Security Council calls on its members. It did that, in 1991, with resolution 678. When all other options failed to produce the required results, we resorted to military force, an option which was explicitly given to us in resolution 678.
So it's not a matter of taking UN authority into our own hands. It's a matter of carrying out the authority delegated to us by the UN.
I read through your argument and it made basic sense, but something still didn't seem right
I respect that, but I can't really see what anybody could do about it. It's definitely your right to reach your own conclusions from the facts at hand, but I'm afraid in this case your opinion is not held by those whose job it is to make those decisions.
and yet, if it really was approved, then it wouldn't've been a problem to get a final resolution authorizing force against Iraq now, in 2003
I'm afraid that's specious reasoning. The people-- the foreign ministers-- who comprise the UN Security Council are human beings. They are flawed and imperfect, every last one of them. When we look at the controlling documents in play-- the UN Charter, the various resolutions, the Safwan Accords, the several declarations advanced by Baghdad over the years-- we conclude that action is required. Some of the ministers who sit on the Council have a different opinion. We respect that, but there's nothing we can do about it. We don't find their arguments to be convincing, and we recognize the terrible danger of inaction.
Speaking perfectly candidly, the leaders of the Alliance and, in broader terms, the entire Coalition aren't that concerned about whether their decisions are popular or not. They're concerned only about whether they're right. The majority does not have a monopoly on right thinking, and this is a situation where we believe the dissenting nations of the Council are wrong.
it is in accordance with the letter but not the spirit of the law
I was right with you up to this point. Our action is, in fact, very much in accordance with both the spirit and the letter of the law, inasmuch as the UN Charter and the other controlling documents can be said to have the force of l
So "how dare you use the freedom that you have"? God you offend me you snivelling little creep... How dare I? The Constitution gives me the RIGHT; how dare YOU try to limit MY freedom of speech.
Yeah, that's always how it is, isn't it? It's always freedom this and freedom that, but we never hear a word about responsibility, duty, appreciation, or, my personal favorite, gratitude.
Only a fool would demand his liberties without so much as moment's thought for the people and institutions who have guaranteed him those liberties.
(if a nation is happy and lives well under a monarchy or feudal system or whatever, is that really a drawback? or even our business??)
Yes, it's a drawback. Yes, it's our business. This is axiomatic. If your neighbor suffers, it's your responsibility to help him. If another nation suffers under the yoke of authoritarian rule, it's our responsibility to change that situation through one means or another.
And, no offense intended, but your implication that it's possible for the people of a country to live happily under a non-representative system is naive at best. There is no such thing, in the real world, as a benevolent dictatorship.
None of the resolutions passed by the UN gave the US any "bailiff" authority to enforce Resolutions 687 or 1441 with respect to WMDs.
Resolution 678 does just that. Read it.
None of these resolutions gave the US the right to "restore democracy" to Iraq
Resolution 678 does. It wasn't anybody's first choice, for a lot of reasons, but it turns out that destroying the Baath government and establishing a federal republic in Iraq is necessary to restore peace and security to the region. Resolution 678 called on the member states to restore peace and security to the area, and authorized the member states to use all necessary means to do it. This is necessary to accomplish that mandate, so it's authorized.
Nor has the US been attacked, as would be necessary under the UN for it to act in its own defense.
This action is not taken in self-defense. It's taken because 678 obligates us to. Resolution 678 calls on the member states to use all necessary means to enforce resolution 660 and all relevant subsequent resolutions and to restore peace and security to the area. That's not an option. If you'll read chapter VII of the UN Charter you'll learn that the member states are obligated to act when the Security Council authorizes it.
Whatever else this invasion is, however fast it "succeeds," and whatever else it accomplishs, IT IS A GROSS VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.
I'm sorry to have to tell you that you're wrong about this. For more information, try reading this. In that comment I explained, in detail, the particulars of international law that apply to this situation.
Now, if you don't agree with my interpretation, I'd like to hear about it. But if all you've got is "no it doesn't" and "no it's not," I'm afraid I'm not going to be that convinced.
You might get a kick out of reading this. It pretty well sums up my problems with the Security Council and what I think could be done to improve it. Maybe I need to turn it into a journal entry.
Why would a superpower be more fit to solve regional disputes than the UN?
There are two questions implicit in there. The first is, "Why is the UN unsuitable for solving regional disputes?" The second is, "Would a superpower be any more suitable?"
The first question: why is the UN unsuitable? There are several answers. The first is that the UN is an unaccountable organization. When it comes to the General Assembly and the various humanitarian branches, that's not that big a deal. Those groups basically have no power. The humanitarian organizations can provide or withhold services at will, but that's as far as it goes.
When it comes to the Security Council, though, unaccountability is a disaster. For example, the Security Council was unable to act in the war in the collapsing Yugoslavia (for reasons I'll get into shortly). There's no recourse for any of the parties in that. If we were talking about an elected body, the voters would have the option of kicking their Security Council representative out and putting somebody else in that chair. With the Security Council as it is, however, that option doesn't exist in any way.
For example, consider the hypothetical scenario. What if the people of France, as a majority, were in favor of supporting the US-led invasion, but their foreign minister continued to be opposed to it? There would be no accounting.
This isn't just a problem in the case of inaction. Fortunately we've never had this situation come up, but what if the Security Council were to do something bad? There would be no accountability.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that the Security Council should be a democratic organization. I believe, deep down inside, that democracy doesn't work for bodies politic of more than a few dozen people. But the Security Council isn't representative, either. They're purely an appointed oligarchy, and that's not a good thing for an organization with such power.
That's item #1: unaccountability. That makes the Security Council, in my mind, unacceptable.
Item #2 is the arbitary nature of the Security Council. If the UK had tabled their proposed resolution last year instead of this year, we would have had another set of non-permanent members, and the voting would have come down a completely different way. Right now, the fate of the world, quite literally, rests in the hands of the foreign minister of Guinea. Which makes no sense at all.
Item #3 is related to #2: the absurd imbalance of power of the permanent members. Any permanent member of the Council can veto any action for any reason. Now, in the US our president has the power to veto any piece of legislation, but our Congress can override the president's veto if it should become necessary. There is no such facility at the Security Council. This makes it virtually impossible for the Security Council to do its job.
What it all boils down to is the notion of checks and balances. This is a vitally important principle in government, one that is a recurring theme in the Constitution of the United States, but one that the other free peoples of the world don't always value as greatly. (For a case study on this issue, refer to the recent controversy over the International Criminal Court.) The Security Council is basically free of checks and balances, which either make it impotent or utterly unaccountable depending on the circumstance.
So the bottom line is that the Security Council sucks.;-)
Now on to the second question: Would a superpower be any more suitable? The best answer I have to that is "sometimes." For sake of argument, let's take as assumed the idea that somebody has to do the job. Somebody has to mediate disputes before they get violent, and somebody has to put a stop to conflicts when they turn violent, and when circumstances demand it somebody has to get violent. Whomever is responsible for that has to be both capable of acting when called upon and accountable.
Then why hasn't the Bush administration advocated going after North Korea or China or any number of African countries? This is where the credibility gap is.
You're committing the same exercise in flawed reasoning that cripples so much of the anti-war camp. Humanitarian reasons are not sufficient to justify war. We're not doing this for purely humanitarian reasons. But the humanitarian factor elevates what might, under different circumstances, be a simple disagreement between governments to the level of a moral imperative.
How can we trust these people's motives?
Who cares about their motives? Concentrate on the facts, not the conspiracy theories.
In other words, in areas outside of Baghdad's control.
Um, no. I just got through saying that Ansar al Islam has camps both inside Kurdistan and in northwestern Iraq, round and to the west of Mosul, which is territory that, until today, was firmly under the control of Baghdad.
Alleged. Do you believe everything the Iraqi government says?
This is not alleged, and it doesn't come from the Iraqi government. It's a documented fact, confirmed by many sources. Look it up.
"Suicide bombing" has always meant an attempt to kill people along with yourself. Why change it?
Because it's not accurate. There's a better term.
The whole thing may have a net negative effect, because we're making more enemies than we can defeat through the incompetent "diplomacy" that our cretin-in-chief has tried carrying out.
"Cretin-in-chief?" Fuck you. Too many people better than you have fought to give you the liberty to make smart-assed remarks like that. How dare you be so disrespectful.
Not that the Security Council as a *concept* is fatally flawed, but as implemented and currently composed, certainly.
I actually kinda come down on the side of believing that the Security Council as a concept is fatally flawed. The idea is basically for a group of countries to get together and, on the rare occasions when they can set their differences aside, they have the authority to boss other countries around. Now, the motivation is sound-- when conflict can be averted peacefully, it should be, and when it has to be responded to with force, it must be-- but the idea of an unelected, unaccountable oligarchy just doesn't work for me.
I prefer the idea of regional or global mutual-defense pacts. It's maintained peace on the Korean peninsula for the past 50 years. If Kuwait had had a well-publicized mutual defense pact with the United States or one of the superpowers, would Mr. Hussein have been so eager to invade?
On your other point, yes, I agree that this is a very ironic situation. Only by acting without explicit UNSEC approval can we hope to save UNSEC from utter irrelevance.
Was there a need for Powell to go to the Security Council for a vote in the first place?
No, not at all. The State Department didn't want to do that at all; we did it at the request of Prime Minister Blair who basically needed to make the effort for political reasons. A perfectly legitimate request, although some people have chosen to misinterpret the events of the past month. "You went to the UN for permission, and they wouldn't give it, but you attacked anyway!" That's not at all how it went, but if you imagine the point of view of a person who reads the headlines over breakfast and watches the evening news at night, it's not hard to see how it could look that way.
At least in theory, could any member of the UN have legally assembled a 'peacekeeping' force and enforced the resolution without any further SC approval?
More or less, yeah. It would be a little bit more complex than that, but not too much.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you kiss your momma with that mouth?
Kinda ridiculous, no?
Kinda ridiculous? No.
Though most Slashdotters seem to either (1) be unhappy about this, or (b) be in denial of the fact, distributing copies of copyrighted music is against the law. A company that facilitates the distribution of copies of copyrighted music is just begging to get sued. And when they get sued, they're going to lose big.
Oh, I'm sorry, that's supposed to be some comfort to the mothers, wives and children of the deceased?
Nope. This is a war, not a love-in. The Coalition is not in the comfort-providing business. We are in the liberty-providing business.
Did the news team really pose an immediate threat to the troops that fired upon them?
Geez, you're just not going to let this go, are you? When people get in the line of fire, they get shot. It happens. Deal with it. The solution to this problem is to stay the hell out of the line of fire. Lloyd and his group were not embedded with a Coalition unit, they had not received any training on operational procedures, they were not working with the Coalition troops in any way. They got in the way, and they were hit, and Lloyd was killed. That sucks, but there's nothing anybody in the world can or should do about it.
Did the crew of the RAF Tornado that was shot down by a Patriot missile battery start firing on the US soldiers on the ground, or were they just shot down out of the sky because someone or something cocked up?
According to the most recent reports from CENTCOM, they got shot down because they were (1) not squawking the right transponder code, and (b) completely out of their assigned area of operations.
Did the Canadian troops murdered by their US "allies" in Afghanistan die a meaningful death? Or were their lives needlessly wasted?
The meaningful one. And you need to get a dictionary and look up the word "murdered."
Did the countless men and women who died as a result of US "friendly fire" in the first Gulf War do the same? Or were their lives also thrown away courtesy of some trigger jock who was just too eager to shoot at something?
Nope, the meaningful one again. Remember, dude, every one of those boys and girls is a volunteer. They're there because they want to be, because they recognize that the mission is important enough to put their lives on the line for, and if necessary die for. There are lots of ways to get killed in combat, and enemy fire is just one of them. It's a dangerous place. Those kids all know that, and they're there anyway.
Do yourself a favour and educate yourself. Read articles like this, this and this.
Both of your links were broken. That's okay, though; in all honesty, I probably wouldn't have bothered with them anyway. You're not exactly giving me a lot of motivation to give a damn about what you have to say.
So, almost one quarter of all US fatalities and all UK fatalities during the first Gulf War were caused by US forces firing on their own.
Yes. I'm very proud of you; you have discovered that a battlefield is a really dangerous place! People get shot and stuff! Wow!
Fratricide is nothing new. It's been a problem in war since the first caveman threw the first rock. The fact that fratricide accounted for nearly a quarter of the combat deaths in the 1991 war doesn't say anything about fratricide. It says something about the number of enemy-inflicted deaths that were avoided. Out of more than 500,000 US troops in the theater of operations, the US only suffered 293 deaths, 145 of which were non-combat deaths. That's 0.06%, or one in 1,700. That's pretty damn good.
What's even worse it that the US military covers these incidents up rather than investigate them fully
Ah, I knew it. You're a conspiracy theorist after all.
You're defending this level of incompetence?
I'm not actually defending anything, because you haven't leveled anything even resembling a reasonable criticism.
The bottom line is that you don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. There's no particular shame in that, in and of itself, but when you go spouting off under the belief that you do know what you're talking about, you just end up making yourself look like kind of an idiot.
And, just like in the first Gulf War, the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan, etc, US forces, with their "overwhelming force" military doctrine have killed their own allies and neutral bystanders almost indescriminately.
Yes, almost indiscriminately. After flying over 6,000 sorties, dropping over 10,000 bombs in highly urbanized areas, and sending a fighting force of more than 40,000 men across 200 miles of hostile enemy territory, we have indiscriminately killed literally dozens of allies and civilians.
Idiot.
It's a bit hard to provide accurate war reporting if you don't go near the bloody damn war. What kind of idiot do you have to be to think that war reporting is something that should only be done from a battlefield HQ or the deck of an aircraft carrier?
Are you somehow confused about the difference between reporting from the battlefield and reporting from the actual line of fire? If you want to be up there with front-line troops, that's fine. But it's a war zone, and it's your own responsibility to, in the words of an anonymous Marine sergeant, "keep your fucking brain-bucket on," hug sand, and wait for the shooting to stop before you go for your Pullitzer. Any other course of action will give you that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to file a report from the business end of a piece of ordinance. And it will be nobody's fault but your own.
War isn't terrorism? Ever been bombed?
Words have specific meanings. The word "terrorism" means the deliberate targeting of civilians by covert means with the goal of affecting political change through the infliction of widespread fear. War is not terrorism, because it doesn't involve the deliberate targeting of civilians, and fear is not its objective.
Yes, Osama bin Laden has openly stated his desire for a "holy war" or jihad against America and Americans -- yet you still claim Al Qaeda is not at war with us.
War is exclusively the province of nations. We do not recognize the right of non-governmental groups to wage war. The word "war" doesn't apply to al Qaeda.
Perhaps if anyone in the State Department had been listening to his repeated calls for the U.S. expulsion from the Holy Land, we could have avoided WTC in the first place.
Sure. If we always do what everybody wants us to do, we'll never make anybody mad. But there comes a time when it's more important to do what's right than what's popular.
Ultimately, it is a continuum, not a dichotomy between War and Terrorism as you have put forth.
That's like saying it's a continuum between war and blueberries. Terrorism is a completely different thing. It is not war, it is not comparable to war, it doesn't even resemble war.
I feel very strongly that its destrucion was part of "a military compain to achieve objectives that cannot be achieved dipolomatically.
That's demonstrably false. Al Qaeda is not a military organization. They are not even associated with any military organizations. At best, they are a guerilla or paramilitary organization, but their methodology-- the repeated targeting of civilian targets-- sets them apart.
My sig is not intended to justify the destruction of the WTC. Rather, its purpose is to point out the ease with which America rationalizes the violence it commits in the rest of the world.
Oh, get off your high horse. Your signature is designed to make people mad. You're not trying to point out anything; you're just trying to pick a fight. If you really wanted to make a legitimate point, you'd use less inflamatory language.
Now, in the war between US and Al Qaeda
There is no war between the US and al Qaeda. There was a war between the US and Afghanistan, but that was is largely concluded now. If al Qaeda were to pick up and move to another sponsoring state, then we would be justified in going to war with that state as well, but that's a different thing.
See, as I said, war is exclusively the province of nations. Our "war on terrorism" is just like the "war on drugs" or the "war on poverty." It's not literally a war; it's a metaphor.
Clearly I'm not in favor of any more U.S. buildings blowing up, and I tend to wonder why our troops are protecting the Saud family.
Because the House of Saud is our ally. What more do you need to know?
By Pentagon standards, the WTC was a "dual-use" target.
Explain, please.
I'll buy your iBook from you for a fair price. Email me when you're ready to sell.
(Which is also caused by the use of other fossil fuels, e.g. coal.)
Not to mention volcanoes. Volcanoes spew more sulfur dioxide than every man-made source combined.
The social impact of Kyoto, on the other hand, is vital and must be pursued at all costs. It's about levelling the playing field for all mankind.
The damn book is too big to look, but I'm pretty sure that this was just cut-and-pasted from Atlas Shrugged. Except they called it the "anti-dog-eat-dog" rule or something.
Here's a clue, dude: the playing field is not level. Never has been, never will be. All men are created equal, but after that it's all unfair.
Yes, indeedy. The GoogleFight was, indeed, won by Hall of Fame center-fielder Larry Doby.
Thanks for pointing this out.
It seems like all great inventers have started as being considered a "crack pot"
The thing is, crackpots are also considered crackpots. The trick is in telling the difference.
Myself, I play the odds. The crackpots outnumber the geniuses by such an astounding margin, I just assume that anybody who sounds like a crackpot, is.
If this is connected to a set of satalites and beamed down very loud music or just a shrill note, somebody could become very powerful, very fast.
Now, see what I'm talking about? This is exactly the kind of thing that makes you sound like a crackpot.
iTunes already uses a multithreaded, vectorized MP3 encoder. It's very fast.
That's what I meant, however my concern still is, that some countries wouldn't be attractive enough to team up with.
I'm a little confused. So what? You seem to be implying that this would be a bad thing somehow; either I'm misreading you, or I just don't understand.
but I'm afraid, that a scenario like the one you describe will leave some of the weaker nations for "vicious" nations/alliances to prey on
International relations doesn't really work like that. Never has.
How would a superpower benefit from having a mutual defence pact with a small country?
;-)
How does the US benefit by having a mutual defense pact with the Phillippines? The answer, of course, is that there's more to it than just mutual defense. There's trade, cultural and political influence, and other such non-military matters.
Take my country, Denmark, as an example: we have no significant military power so our part in such a mutual pact would have to be something else than military might, no?
Having worked for several years on a project for the RDAF, I can assure your that your country most certainly does have significant military power.
The point, of course, is well taken. The answer is that a community of superpowers would be better able to handle threats to security and peace than the UN Security Council or an UNSEC-like body, even if it's not perfect in all cases.
By way of comparison, after over five decades of history, UNSEC has been able to successfully deal with precisely zero threats to peace and security. The Korean War was fought to a stalemate and never resolved, and the 1991 Iraq war hasn't ended yet. So we couldn't do much worse than UNSEC no matter what the case.
while possibly correct legally, it lacks moral rationale
That's a matter of opinion, one nobody can really argue with. Either you believe that the United States and our allies have the moral authority to do the right thing or you don't. I do.
I admit I am mostly uninformed, but my impression was that 1441 basically said "this is your last chance - disarm". there was no resolution after that saying that he had still refused to disarm. no you may argue that it's obvious that he hadn't, but...
But what?
Resolution 1441 was a lot more complex than that; it was a sort of omnibus resolution, and I'd suggest you read it. (Just google for 1441; it comes up as one of the first few links.) You got the last chance part right, but there were in fact a lot of tasks established for Iraq, starting with that declaration due by December 8. That declaration, originally demanded of Iraq by April 15, 1991, was to be complete and accurate. What they actually delivered, on December 7, was neither complete nor accurate.
This pretty well answers the question of another resolution after that. There was no need for one, because the question of whether Iraq was in compliance with their obligations or not wasn't a matter of opinion, and it wasn't in dispute. Everybody-- except the Iraqis, of course-- agrees that Iraq is in material breach of 1441, as well as all the other 16 relevant resolutions.
the real problem with any of this is you are still taking the authority of the UN into your own hands
Go read resolution 678, and chapters V and VII of the UN Charter. The Security Council has no authority to enforce its own resolutions. It has no executive branch, no military forces. Instead, when the time comes to take action-- either military or non-military-- the Security Council calls on its members. It did that, in 1991, with resolution 678. When all other options failed to produce the required results, we resorted to military force, an option which was explicitly given to us in resolution 678.
So it's not a matter of taking UN authority into our own hands. It's a matter of carrying out the authority delegated to us by the UN.
I read through your argument and it made basic sense, but something still didn't seem right
I respect that, but I can't really see what anybody could do about it. It's definitely your right to reach your own conclusions from the facts at hand, but I'm afraid in this case your opinion is not held by those whose job it is to make those decisions.
and yet, if it really was approved, then it wouldn't've been a problem to get a final resolution authorizing force against Iraq now, in 2003
I'm afraid that's specious reasoning. The people-- the foreign ministers-- who comprise the UN Security Council are human beings. They are flawed and imperfect, every last one of them. When we look at the controlling documents in play-- the UN Charter, the various resolutions, the Safwan Accords, the several declarations advanced by Baghdad over the years-- we conclude that action is required. Some of the ministers who sit on the Council have a different opinion. We respect that, but there's nothing we can do about it. We don't find their arguments to be convincing, and we recognize the terrible danger of inaction.
Speaking perfectly candidly, the leaders of the Alliance and, in broader terms, the entire Coalition aren't that concerned about whether their decisions are popular or not. They're concerned only about whether they're right. The majority does not have a monopoly on right thinking, and this is a situation where we believe the dissenting nations of the Council are wrong.
it is in accordance with the letter but not the spirit of the law
I was right with you up to this point. Our action is, in fact, very much in accordance with both the spirit and the letter of the law, inasmuch as the UN Charter and the other controlling documents can be said to have the force of l
So "how dare you use the freedom that you have"? God you offend me you snivelling little creep... How dare I? The Constitution gives me the RIGHT; how dare YOU try to limit MY freedom of speech.
Yeah, that's always how it is, isn't it? It's always freedom this and freedom that, but we never hear a word about responsibility, duty, appreciation, or, my personal favorite, gratitude.
Only a fool would demand his liberties without so much as moment's thought for the people and institutions who have guaranteed him those liberties.
(if a nation is happy and lives well under a monarchy or feudal system or whatever, is that really a drawback? or even our business??)
Yes, it's a drawback. Yes, it's our business. This is axiomatic. If your neighbor suffers, it's your responsibility to help him. If another nation suffers under the yoke of authoritarian rule, it's our responsibility to change that situation through one means or another.
And, no offense intended, but your implication that it's possible for the people of a country to live happily under a non-representative system is naive at best. There is no such thing, in the real world, as a benevolent dictatorship.
None of the resolutions passed by the UN gave the US any "bailiff" authority to enforce Resolutions 687 or 1441 with respect to WMDs.
Resolution 678 does just that. Read it.
None of these resolutions gave the US the right to "restore democracy" to Iraq
Resolution 678 does. It wasn't anybody's first choice, for a lot of reasons, but it turns out that destroying the Baath government and establishing a federal republic in Iraq is necessary to restore peace and security to the region. Resolution 678 called on the member states to restore peace and security to the area, and authorized the member states to use all necessary means to do it. This is necessary to accomplish that mandate, so it's authorized.
Nor has the US been attacked, as would be necessary under the UN for it to act in its own defense.
This action is not taken in self-defense. It's taken because 678 obligates us to. Resolution 678 calls on the member states to use all necessary means to enforce resolution 660 and all relevant subsequent resolutions and to restore peace and security to the area. That's not an option. If you'll read chapter VII of the UN Charter you'll learn that the member states are obligated to act when the Security Council authorizes it.
Whatever else this invasion is, however fast it "succeeds," and whatever else it accomplishs, IT IS A GROSS VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.
I'm sorry to have to tell you that you're wrong about this. For more information, try reading this. In that comment I explained, in detail, the particulars of international law that apply to this situation.
Now, if you don't agree with my interpretation, I'd like to hear about it. But if all you've got is "no it doesn't" and "no it's not," I'm afraid I'm not going to be that convinced.
You might get a kick out of reading this. It pretty well sums up my problems with the Security Council and what I think could be done to improve it. Maybe I need to turn it into a journal entry.
Why would a superpower be more fit to solve regional disputes than the UN?
;-)
There are two questions implicit in there. The first is, "Why is the UN unsuitable for solving regional disputes?" The second is, "Would a superpower be any more suitable?"
The first question: why is the UN unsuitable? There are several answers. The first is that the UN is an unaccountable organization. When it comes to the General Assembly and the various humanitarian branches, that's not that big a deal. Those groups basically have no power. The humanitarian organizations can provide or withhold services at will, but that's as far as it goes.
When it comes to the Security Council, though, unaccountability is a disaster. For example, the Security Council was unable to act in the war in the collapsing Yugoslavia (for reasons I'll get into shortly). There's no recourse for any of the parties in that. If we were talking about an elected body, the voters would have the option of kicking their Security Council representative out and putting somebody else in that chair. With the Security Council as it is, however, that option doesn't exist in any way.
For example, consider the hypothetical scenario. What if the people of France, as a majority, were in favor of supporting the US-led invasion, but their foreign minister continued to be opposed to it? There would be no accounting.
This isn't just a problem in the case of inaction. Fortunately we've never had this situation come up, but what if the Security Council were to do something bad? There would be no accountability.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that the Security Council should be a democratic organization. I believe, deep down inside, that democracy doesn't work for bodies politic of more than a few dozen people. But the Security Council isn't representative, either. They're purely an appointed oligarchy, and that's not a good thing for an organization with such power.
That's item #1: unaccountability. That makes the Security Council, in my mind, unacceptable.
Item #2 is the arbitary nature of the Security Council. If the UK had tabled their proposed resolution last year instead of this year, we would have had another set of non-permanent members, and the voting would have come down a completely different way. Right now, the fate of the world, quite literally, rests in the hands of the foreign minister of Guinea. Which makes no sense at all.
Item #3 is related to #2: the absurd imbalance of power of the permanent members. Any permanent member of the Council can veto any action for any reason. Now, in the US our president has the power to veto any piece of legislation, but our Congress can override the president's veto if it should become necessary. There is no such facility at the Security Council. This makes it virtually impossible for the Security Council to do its job.
What it all boils down to is the notion of checks and balances. This is a vitally important principle in government, one that is a recurring theme in the Constitution of the United States, but one that the other free peoples of the world don't always value as greatly. (For a case study on this issue, refer to the recent controversy over the International Criminal Court.) The Security Council is basically free of checks and balances, which either make it impotent or utterly unaccountable depending on the circumstance.
So the bottom line is that the Security Council sucks.
Now on to the second question: Would a superpower be any more suitable? The best answer I have to that is "sometimes." For sake of argument, let's take as assumed the idea that somebody has to do the job. Somebody has to mediate disputes before they get violent, and somebody has to put a stop to conflicts when they turn violent, and when circumstances demand it somebody has to get violent. Whomever is responsible for that has to be both capable of acting when called upon and accountable.
Capabilit
Then why hasn't the Bush administration advocated going after North Korea or China or any number of African countries? This is where the credibility gap is.
You're committing the same exercise in flawed reasoning that cripples so much of the anti-war camp. Humanitarian reasons are not sufficient to justify war. We're not doing this for purely humanitarian reasons. But the humanitarian factor elevates what might, under different circumstances, be a simple disagreement between governments to the level of a moral imperative.
How can we trust these people's motives?
Who cares about their motives? Concentrate on the facts, not the conspiracy theories.
In other words, in areas outside of Baghdad's control.
Um, no. I just got through saying that Ansar al Islam has camps both inside Kurdistan and in northwestern Iraq, round and to the west of Mosul, which is territory that, until today, was firmly under the control of Baghdad.
Alleged. Do you believe everything the Iraqi government says?
This is not alleged, and it doesn't come from the Iraqi government. It's a documented fact, confirmed by many sources. Look it up.
"Suicide bombing" has always meant an attempt to kill people along with yourself. Why change it?
Because it's not accurate. There's a better term.
The whole thing may have a net negative effect, because we're making more enemies than we can defeat through the incompetent "diplomacy" that our cretin-in-chief has tried carrying out.
"Cretin-in-chief?" Fuck you. Too many people better than you have fought to give you the liberty to make smart-assed remarks like that. How dare you be so disrespectful.
Not that the Security Council as a *concept* is fatally flawed, but as implemented and currently composed, certainly.
I actually kinda come down on the side of believing that the Security Council as a concept is fatally flawed. The idea is basically for a group of countries to get together and, on the rare occasions when they can set their differences aside, they have the authority to boss other countries around. Now, the motivation is sound-- when conflict can be averted peacefully, it should be, and when it has to be responded to with force, it must be-- but the idea of an unelected, unaccountable oligarchy just doesn't work for me.
I prefer the idea of regional or global mutual-defense pacts. It's maintained peace on the Korean peninsula for the past 50 years. If Kuwait had had a well-publicized mutual defense pact with the United States or one of the superpowers, would Mr. Hussein have been so eager to invade?
On your other point, yes, I agree that this is a very ironic situation. Only by acting without explicit UNSEC approval can we hope to save UNSEC from utter irrelevance.
Was there a need for Powell to go to the Security Council for a vote in the first place?
No, not at all. The State Department didn't want to do that at all; we did it at the request of Prime Minister Blair who basically needed to make the effort for political reasons. A perfectly legitimate request, although some people have chosen to misinterpret the events of the past month. "You went to the UN for permission, and they wouldn't give it, but you attacked anyway!" That's not at all how it went, but if you imagine the point of view of a person who reads the headlines over breakfast and watches the evening news at night, it's not hard to see how it could look that way.
At least in theory, could any member of the UN have legally assembled a 'peacekeeping' force and enforced the resolution without any further SC approval?
More or less, yeah. It would be a little bit more complex than that, but not too much.