Too right the US isn't perfect. China's human rights record may suck, but at least they don't claim it to be otherwise.
US on the other hand has kidnapped and detained without trial, pressing charges, or providing legal access to a group of Muslim citizens from many countries. They've been there for two years!!
Yea, you'll allow people to vote.. but only if they haven't been sent to jail (for such harmless things as being caught with a bit of grass).. Then you'll do all you can to screw the system to get an idiot like criminal like Bush elected.
US will forcibly drug criminals just so they are 'sane' enough to be executed
It's one of only a handful of countries who will execute people who were juveniles when the crime was committed (others are places like Iran, Saudi)
Such things are positively barbaric... and all we get from them are nonsense slogans such as 'Liberty', 'Justice', 'Democracy'.
w.r.t forced events, don't kid yourself that you are any less brain washed than Chinese, or the rest of us for that matter. You all seemed to be hyped up into supporting the invasion of Iraq based upon spoon-fed fear (phoney alert levels, duct tape, dirty bombs, and other such nonsense).. Chinese may be given a little media based push to celebrate a successful launch. You guys were conned into supporting the invasion of another country!!
Who holds the moral high ground here? The US government legitimising action against a regime based upon the fact that they sponsor terrorism.... give me a break.
Anything involving majority voting (other that an Iraqi general election) must have some element of democracy.
I can't argue the legal case for or against. I've heard many international lawyers inclined one way or another.
Even if you do have the legality where is the legitimacy?
I guess I'm still arguing the case against the role of my country (UK) in this. The US is the superpower and (so long as it's willing to handle the consequences of this pre-emption president) can afford to carry on as it sees fit.
We cannot.
UN is far from perfect but what alternative are you suggesting to allow us to co-habit this world?
It will be unilateral actions such as this that erode the credibility of the UN, not it's natural inclination against sanctioning war against failed states.
You may well argue that the UN in it's current format is unlikely to sanction the use of force. When we stepped outside the UN to use force against Serbia at least we had a broad coalition of NATO and states within the European Union.
This time (other than a handful of troops from Poland and over flight rights from Ethiopia) we're on our own in the world. Surely that should tell us something.
Although I may well be wrong about this, I believe a UN condemnation stopped Eden in Suez. Such a resolution was vetoed by the UK naturally, but there is then a provision to put the resolution before the general council.
No, I'm not trying to argue that it's ok. Simply drawing attention to the old cliché that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Depending upon your perspective, it can quite easily be the Isralis who are the terrorists.
>... democracy's role in all this. is ignoring democracy?...democracy is still winning.
assuming you're right about the democratic mandate from the American people. This does not convert into an automatic democratic mandate from the rest of the world. When did the Iraqis vote for this? or the people of Turkey, Iran, Jordan who may have to live with this mess for a long time to come? Where is the democratic mandate from the rest of the western world? who are now exposed to increased terrorist risk as a result of these actions?
Without the UN we have no democratic mandate to carry pre-emptive actions affecting other countries.
This is a perfect example of a global dictatorship.
"we already know for a fact that Hussein offers large cash rewards to the families of Palestinians that act as suicide bombers in Israel. that crime alone damns the Iraqi government nearly as much as the Taliban".
Look at these things from other perspectives. Does this act differ that much from people in the US donating money at Sinn Fein fund-raisers while the IRA were busy bombing London?
Assuming a best case scenario where a stable and prosperous country is formed in a short time scale, it SHOULD have been a 'simple' of balancing:
x 10s of British and American lives y 1000s of civilian and conscript lives z 100s of billions of $
For this we improve the situation of x million Iraqi civilians by a certain amount. (Some more than others).
There is an argument that this equation does balance.
Before we factor in the real costs of this particular war it's worth considering if you could get a better return on your investment of say.. $500 billion (you can't save everyone in dire conditions). Spending this money on urgent humanitarian aid and long term development in Africa for example would probably improve the condition of MORE of our fellow humans to a GREATER degree. Sadam would be doing pretty well if he managed to kill his own people at a rate to comparable to poverty and starvation. Unfortunatly elimination of poverty does not 'shock and awe'.
Here are the real cost of this war btw.
International institutions (UN, European union, NATO), rules and justice. It may be far from perfect but the UN is the best we have. We have torn up the rule book and demonstrated what a real 'global' dictator looks like.
Pre-emption prescient set for the rest of the world.
Race relations.
Increased hostility to USA and Britain, increased risk of terrorist attack on homeland and people abroad, increased propaganda for fundamentalist terrorist organisations.
Probable refugee crisis (all this nonsense and fuss about refugees coming to this country (UK).. look at places like Iran which probably takes in many times what we have)
Probable stability problems in Iraq for decades to come (Kurds, Arabs, Iran, Turkey)
Possibility of Prime Minister and army generals indited for war crimes (think Bush is ok as he didn't sign up).
All gloves are now off wrt any chem/bio that Iraq may have and the tenuous premise that it would willingly hand these over to terrorists. Knowledge of such a transaction would have rightly bought about invasion backed by the majority of the UN within months. Now what has he to loose?
This analogy could be useful. Appeasement of this 'nation reshaping' doctrine is dangerous. We have effectively given into his demands (or resigned ourselves to the inevitable war), do you think it will stop with just one more country?
Slashdot Mirror
US on the other hand has kidnapped and detained without trial, pressing charges, or providing legal access to a group of Muslim citizens from many countries. They've been there for two years!!
Yea, you'll allow people to vote.. but only if they haven't been sent to jail (for such harmless things as being caught with a bit of grass).. Then you'll do all you can to screw the system to get an idiot like criminal like Bush elected.
US will forcibly drug criminals just so they are 'sane' enough to be executed
It's one of only a handful of countries who will execute people who were juveniles when the crime was committed (others are places like Iran, Saudi)
Such things are positively barbaric... and all we get from them are nonsense slogans such as 'Liberty', 'Justice', 'Democracy'.
w.r.t forced events, don't kid yourself that you are any less brain washed than Chinese, or the rest of us for that matter. You all seemed to be hyped up into supporting the invasion of Iraq based upon spoon-fed fear (phoney alert levels, duct tape, dirty bombs, and other such nonsense).. Chinese may be given a little media based push to celebrate a successful launch. You guys were conned into supporting the invasion of another country!!
At least we know where we stand with China.
Who holds the moral high ground here? The US government legitimising action against a regime based upon the fact that they sponsor terrorism.... give me a break.
>There's absolutely nothing democratic about it
Anything involving majority voting (other that an Iraqi general election) must have some element of democracy.
I can't argue the legal case for or against. I've heard many international lawyers inclined one way or another.
Even if you do have the legality where is the legitimacy?
I guess I'm still arguing the case against the role of my country (UK) in this. The US is the superpower and (so long as it's willing to handle the consequences of this pre-emption president) can afford to carry on as it sees fit.
We cannot.
UN is far from perfect but what alternative are you suggesting to allow us to co-habit this world?
It will be unilateral actions such as this that erode the credibility of the UN, not it's natural inclination against sanctioning war against failed states.
You may well argue that the UN in it's current format is unlikely to sanction the use of force. When we stepped outside the UN to use force against Serbia at least we had a broad coalition of NATO and states within the European Union.
This time (other than a handful of troops from Poland and over flight rights from Ethiopia) we're on our own in the world. Surely that should tell us something.
Although I may well be wrong about this, I believe a UN condemnation stopped Eden in Suez. Such a resolution was vetoed by the UK naturally, but there is then a provision to put the resolution before the general council.
No, I'm not trying to argue that it's ok. Simply drawing attention to the old cliché that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
Depending upon your perspective, it can quite easily be the Isralis who are the terrorists.
>... democracy's role in all this. is ignoring democracy? ...democracy is still winning.
assuming you're right about the democratic mandate from the American people. This does not convert into an automatic democratic mandate from the rest of the world. When did the Iraqis vote for this? or the people of Turkey, Iran, Jordan who may have to live with this mess for a long time to come? Where is the democratic mandate from the rest of the western world? who are now exposed to increased terrorist risk as a result of these actions?
Without the UN we have no democratic mandate to carry pre-emptive actions affecting other countries.
This is a perfect example of a global dictatorship.
"we already know for a fact that Hussein offers large cash rewards to the families of Palestinians that act as suicide bombers in Israel. that crime alone damns the Iraqi government nearly as much as the Taliban".
Look at these things from other perspectives.
Does this act differ that much from people in the US donating money at Sinn Fein fund-raisers while the IRA were busy bombing London?
I also tried to apply your reasoning to this war.
Assuming a best case scenario where a stable and prosperous country is formed in a short time scale, it SHOULD have been a 'simple' of balancing:
x 10s of British and American lives
y 1000s of civilian and conscript lives
z 100s of billions of $
For this we improve the situation of x million Iraqi civilians by a certain amount. (Some more than others).
There is an argument that this equation does balance.
Before we factor in the real costs of this particular war it's worth considering if you could get a better return on your investment of say.. $500 billion (you can't save everyone in dire conditions).
Spending this money on urgent humanitarian aid and long term development in Africa for example would probably improve the condition of MORE of our fellow humans to a GREATER degree.
Sadam would be doing pretty well if he managed to kill his own people at a rate to comparable to poverty and starvation. Unfortunatly elimination of poverty does not 'shock and awe'.
Here are the real cost of this war btw.
International institutions (UN, European union, NATO), rules and justice. It may be far from perfect but the UN is the best we have. We have torn up the rule book and demonstrated what a real 'global' dictator looks like.
Pre-emption prescient set for the rest of the world.
Race relations.
Increased hostility to USA and Britain, increased risk of terrorist attack on homeland and people abroad, increased propaganda for fundamentalist terrorist organisations.
Probable refugee crisis (all this nonsense and fuss about refugees coming to this country (UK).. look at places like Iran which probably takes in many times what we have)
Probable stability problems in Iraq for decades to come (Kurds, Arabs, Iran, Turkey)
Possibility of Prime Minister and army generals indited for war crimes (think Bush is ok as he didn't sign up).
All gloves are now off wrt any chem/bio that Iraq may have and the tenuous premise that it would willingly hand these over to terrorists. Knowledge of such a transaction would have rightly bought about invasion backed by the majority of the UN within months. Now what has he to loose?
This analogy could be useful. Appeasement of this 'nation reshaping' doctrine is dangerous. We have effectively given into his demands (or resigned ourselves to the inevitable war), do you think it will stop with just one more country?