Bush wanted to remove Saddam from day one

[Renzo]

An article from todays Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1120959,00.html) is further evidence of 'President' Bush's reasons for invading Iraq. Any other world leader to was finding 'excuses' to invade other countries would be crucified. I can not wait until this tyrant is voted out of office:mad:

Opinions though please

[Man Of Kent]

No surprise, no complaints other than stating that I wish he had just said this at the start,

Problem is, that no matter how bad the scumbag, some people would say that their removal is no reason to go to war. So it was never really an option - as you say, he would have been castigated and it would never have happened.

Can't see how that would be good in the long run...

[Aladdin]

Yes, MoK and I are never going to agree on this particular issue. I do not believe any country can take unilateral action to remove unpleasant regimes. Nor I believe force should be used unless it is an extremely urgent and serious scenario.

If we were all to use force to remove the regimes we do not like with the pretext of liberating its citizens from oppression where would we be today? We probably 'wouldn't be' at all. That's why international law and the United Nations are there.

And even if I agreed with nations taking unilateral action against other sovereign nations, I certainly wouldn't appreciate one little bit being lied to by our rulers and been told impossible fantasies about clear and imminent dangers and threats to the world. Nor do I appreciate the Axis of Idiots taking the moral high ground when it is crystal clear that Bush and Blair couldn't give a flying fuck about the wellbeing or others, and that the only reasons for engaging in illegal wars are those of greed and geopolitical power.

[Man Of Kent]

Originally posted by Aladdin
Yes, MoK and I are never going to agree on this particular issue. I do not believe any country can take unilateral action to remove unpleasant regimes. Nor I believe force should be used unless it is an extremely urgent and serious scenario.

Yes, I think we agree to disagree on this issue.

I don't dispute that Blair and Bush have acted for "geopolitical power" reasons - noting that oil is pretty important to all of our lives.

I do dispute the need for countries to take unilateral action when the international community is unwilling or unable to act to protect a country's citizens from their own Government. Perhaps if the UN had been able to act previously (and I'm talking decades ago) then Saddam would not have been around to start Iran/Iraq War or to invade Kuwait - nor would he have been there for the US/UK Govts to trade WMDs with.

We face similar pressing issues in many other countries (Zimbabwe being just one example) and again the UN isn't doing anything effective. My worry is that at some point Mugabe's regime will need to be removed by someone - I only hope that it isn't us.

But then with little oil there, I can;t see us being that interested anyway.

[morrocan roll]

if we had let the inspectors carry on finding nothing for a while longer and eased sanctions iraq would be it's normal self. no terrorism, no war in the streets. baghdad would have been bustling with shoppers etc ...look at it now! so if you opposed him you suffered. most people got on with their lives. if our oh so great sas and inteligence services couldn't remove one family then i aint listening to the shite about the best in the world stuff.
the middle east is in flames like it hasn't been for decades. the peoples daily lives ravaged. all for another greedy family across the other side of the world.
so some bastard just happened to get deposed along the way ...for what? bush and his cronies should be sent to guantanamo bay a.s.a.p. americas great reputation in tatters. the great american dream torn up. more and more people around the world coming to hate the american people. all for one family and his crooked freinds.
it's like watching the statue of liberty sinking into sea ...

[Man Of Kent]

Originally posted by morrocan roll
if we had let the inspectors carry on finding nothing for a while longer and eased sanctions iraq would be it's normal self. no terrorism, no war in the streets.

There would still be a high demand for meat hooks and batteries for the torture. And the huge gravesites would be filling up...

You make it sound like a "normal" regime.

[Clandestine]

You talk of what the UN should have done decades ago, forgetting it seems that US determination on the matter (and any other involving invasion or internal interference in another sovereign state's affairs) has always been the domain of the US. Washington wasnt about to allow the UN (and the international community it represents) to disrupt the services provided us in the region by our pet monster any more than they were going to adhere to any UN ruling against use of force now to do as we please.

Nothing new has happened there except a radical shift toward blatant "in your face" dismissal of the legitimacy of international law (which has itself provided the peaceful framework which has allowed our nations to develop undisturbed at the expense of weaker nations around the globe).

So in essence, MoK, you support nothing other than "might makes right" regardless of the fact that our same might is used to protect other similarly heinous dictators even now.

So no, Saddam would not have gone sooner nor was it now our business to assume unto ourselves the mantle of universal judge and jury. The long term repercussions of our failure to adhere to our sworn ratification of the UN charter will reverberate for decades to come, providing justified precedent for other nations to do as they see fit against their neighbours or their own people. Its much the same as saying that because you don't like what your neighbour is doing to his family and because you know the cops can't touch him, you are perfectly justified to go and shoot him yourself.

Sorry pal, like it or not, we do not have the moral highground to proclaim ourselves justified against existing global frameworks which stipulate just the opposite, however much we might be able to or feel that we should. Otherwise we are advocating a return to the chaos and relativism of the age of empires. Such will befall our nations one day without committment to the "rule of law" which our own leaders preach about so often.

[BlackArab]

The thing is MoK they are hardly consistent, look at the Uzbek leader, what about his citizens? and I remember a huge reluctance when we had Pinochet to send him to justice. No either we oppose every scumbag dictator or face accusations like we are now.

[Aladdin]

Of course not.

We have on the one hand that dangerous baboon lecturing the world about giving freedom to the poor Iraqis (now that the WMDs excuse has been totally obliterated) while at the same time making Uzbekistan the US' new best friend. A regime that boils people alive and sends 5-year-old kids to forced labour. And the piece of shit even keeps a straight face (or rather a happy innocent smile) while posing for the press shaking the hand of an evil bastard every bit as mad and twisted as Saddam!

Now I know that MoK would as readily condemn this. But the supreme hypocrisy of the US and British governments and of 99.999% of those who supported the war on Iraq is simply breathtaking.

[Man Of Kent]

Originally posted by BlackArab
The thing is MoK they are hardly consistent, look at the Uzbek leader, what about his citizens? and I remember a huge reluctance when we had Pinochet to send him to justice. No either we oppose every scumbag dictator or face accusations like we are now.

Which is the very point I am trying to make. Where are the UN in this, what are they doing about this man?

So the US isn't consistent, so what? It shouldn't be down to them to make the decision, nor should we always look to them to intervene when we want them to.

There are hundreds of other countries who seem to be content to sit and watch whilst another dictator detroys a country and it's inhabitants. And yes, you can include the US in that group if you want. Fact is the world again sits back and watches - then want to pick the crumbs off the table afterwards.

If we want to change these regimes them we have to get involved, change doesn't happen by observation, it happens through intervention - be that military or not.

[BlackArab]

What can they do if he is being supported by the leaders of the free world. I do see this as not being just the U.S's problem we are evry bit as guilty alongside the rest.

I can't see many countries being strong enough to have had the influence or power to stop us supporting the dictators. We may not always be able to intervene but we have a choice whether to actively support these tyrants.

[Man Of Kent]

Originally posted by BlackArab
What can they do if he is being supported by the leaders of the free world.

If they are - as you say - the "Leaders of the free world" then we should follow them.

But that isn't the case at all, they are however the playground bullies and do you really think that the rest of the world couldn't stand up to them if they really wanted to?

Thing is most countries don't want to. Most seem to want an "easy" life.

[Clandestine]

Do tell what group of countries you think would be prepared to launch another world war to reprimand or otherwise set a country with unilateral global military supremacy straight, MoK.

It's considerably more complicated than "not wanting to".

What you have to consider, since you constantly demand "where is the UN" in raltion to dealing with tyrants is that the UN was established to police international or more rightly transnational realtions, not to dictate the internal sovereign character of its members.

Much in the same way as you or I, however much we might disdain our neighbour's behaviour toward his family, do not have the right nor the authority to go dragging him out of his house to "deal with him".

The recent velvet revolution in Georgia is prime example of how the citizens of nations are the ones responsible for holding their leaders responsible for internal misdeeds, not outside military intervention, occupation and foreign dictat.

Otherwise what you are advocating is essentially the rightness of vigilantism, be it one an individual or trans-national scale. There will always be laws (local, national, trans-national) which we feel do not go far enough, but those frameworks exist for a greater purpose in ensuring broad defence for all (including ourselves) against the slippery slope of arbitrary and selective acts of self-justified intervention by one or another nation state upon another.

Once that barn door is allowed to remain open without challenge, all principles which have given us the generations of relative global security between and amongst nation states will be for nought.

Neither you nor I may like it, but our nations have signed and ratified this framework and must equally abide by its stipulations, especially where no legitimate act or threat of trans-national aggression has been made to warrant militant intervention in "self-defense" (as was the case in WWII). Otherwise the "rule of law" is nothing more than empty rhetoric.

In this it is we who have become the very thing we attacked Iraq in the first place to redress (and with even less justification since he attacked Kuwait for literally stealing oil from Iraqi oil reserves through slant drilling).

[Hellfire]

HOW THE FUCK DID BUSH EVER GET INTO POWER

he is a complete and utter Cúnt

[Aladdin]

Like all evil people do. By cheating their way into power.

[Hellfire]

Originally posted by Aladdin
Like all evil people do. By cheating their way into power.

should've relised:rolleyes:

[Man Of Kent]

Originally posted by Clandestine
Do tell what group of countries you think would be prepared to launch another world war to reprimand or otherwise set a country with unilateral global military supremacy straight, MoK.

What makes you assume that war is always necessary, or that I think that?

That said, the assumption that some countries wouldn't be prepared to go to that stage, should it prove necessary, it what allows these people to prosper.

Much in the same way as you or I, however much we might disdain our neighbour's behaviour toward his family, do not have the right nor the authority to go dragging him out of his house to "deal with him".

Damn right, but we do have an effective police force who would do that. Does the UN?

There aren't many police forces who would sit back whilst you neighbour killed half of their children...

The recent velvet revolution in Georgia is prime example of how the citizens of nations are the ones responsible for holding their leaders responsible for internal misdeeds, not outside military intervention, occupation and foreign dictat.

Georgia's leaders didn't face the dissenters down with guns though, did they? They could have, the power was in their hands.

That is the difference, unless you think that all dictators would give in without military pressure being brought to bear. In which case I would refer you to the Romanians for a start.

Otherwise what you are advocating is essentially the rightness of vigilantism

No I'm not.

I'm arguing for an effective "police force" run under the auspices of the UN (if necessary) but I would be willing to accept vigilante action if this didn't happen.

Sometimes someone has to take a stand against serious breaches of human rights. It should be the UN, IMHO, sadly they do not appear to be capable (for whatever reason) of doing that.

[Clandestine]

The UN is not some unrelated and monolithic entity unto itself. It is merely the voluntary compact of its composite members to adhere to the framework of international law upon which it is based.
Thus when we, the US (and by extension the UK), demonstrate over decades our own penchant for dismissing adherence to that international law whenever WE decide to do as we please for own self interest then what CAN the UN do?

Better you should be directing your criticism where it rightly belongs as I have consistently, namely at the administrations who continue to show how little they, in all our might, intend to uphold international law or give the UN its own enforcement capability and thus end once and for all the crypto-imperialist machinations which have been the status quo longer than we have been alive.

Just as noone is doing squat about Israel's flagrant and longrunning breaches of human rights and international law because we protect them in the SC constantly.

[Clandestine]

Further to that, consider too that the UN's mandate concerns (as i pointed out previously) the "trans-national" actions of nation states, not the actions of national governments with regard to their internal policies.

If you then seek to enlarge the remit of such a global police force, are you preapred to take your view to its logical conclusion and support their authority over OUR own governments? Or would those subject to being toppled and dragged off for judgement only include leaders of weaker states?

Only if ALL nation's governments are subject to the law and its repercussions can it have any legitimacy as a system to safeguard "the rule of law" and not merely be twisted into some new tool for world powers to use against those who refuse to do our bidding as was the case in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Uncle Joe]

Originally posted by Man Of Kent
Damn right, but we do have an effective police force who would do that. Does the UN?

There aren't many police forces who would sit back whilst you neighbour killed half of their children... The issue of sovereignty get in the way of such a 'police force'. No possiblity of obtaining a 'search warrant', just 'close persuit'. Barring that, the nearest the UN can manage is a 'neighbourhood watch', combined with negotiation and sanctions.

[Clandestine]

And rightly so so long as we ourselves are not prepared to allow any supranational body to drag our leaders off to be judged for breaching international law (since we do it so regularly).

The rule of law applies to all or to none.

[Man Of Kent]

Originally posted by Clandestine
The rule of law applies to all or to none.

Absolutely. At the moment the is no rule of law though.

You seem to think that I am defending the US/UK here, but I'm not. I think that they act in an appalling manner, but then they can can't they? Who is going to do anything about it? The only organisation in a position to do so, cannot or will not.

BTW I just love the way you will defend a nations right to murder millions of it's own civillians.

And you really need to stop balming the US and the UK for all the ills in the world. There are 4bn people on this planet, several hundred nations - you highlight just two with a combined population of only 300m. Seriously, why the hell can't the other nations stand up to the US. Apathy.

[Renzo]

Originally posted by Rude_boyz
HOW THE FUCK DID BUSH EVER GET INTO POWER

he is a complete and utter Cúnt

Yeah like Aladdin said. If you want a complete explaination i would read Stupid White Men if i were you.