Iran... ok, now we have a problem.

[DanaC]

You're also pointing out that the justifications for the Balkan deal were similar and the left needs to quit pretending to be antiwar.

I am not 'antiwar', I am anti- the Iraq war. Are you suggesting that anyone who objects to one war whilst supporting another is a hypocrite? Surely that depends upon the grounds for their objection. Right now, I am all for the UN sending a task force into Darfur. If that doesn't work I'm all for a coalition marching in there and enforcing a solution. Why? because right now, whilst we sit here Genocide is being perpetrated. I'd have been all for us going in to Rwanda. Why? because genocide was being committed.

There is a reason that International law does not allow for military intervention except under certain proscribed circumstances. Just because America believes itself to be above that law and ultimately trustworthy, does not make that law a bad idea imo. You may trust yourselves not to abuse your power and you may have faith in the fact that nobody can beat you in a war. But you are not the only country in the world. If you set aside International law and say that it needn't apply to you, sooner or later that law will be abandoned altogether. In the twentieth century, 160 million people died in wars. The stakes are very, very high.

Why did we not attempt to do something about Iraq when they were engaging in ethnic cleansing? Why did we not attempt to do something about Iraq when the opposition within the country tried to overthrow their dictator on the understanding that we would all help?

Can you think of an event between those difficult and terrible situations, and 2003, that might have changed the global response to such things?

Think hard.

So in that period you think the world wasn't really interested in getting involved? Approx. 18 years passed since the gassing of the kurds. Do you really think 9/11 made the whole world sit up and notice what was going on around them? I would counter that the world was already very aware and already engaged in attempting to deal with those things. The bombing of Belgrade was in that period. It was not desirable for America to go to war with Iraq at the time of the Halabja attacks. It was desirable for America to go to war with iraq in 2003. That is the only consideration that your administration has made. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the 'global response' being altered by 9/11, because it had nothing to do with the so-called 'war on terror'. It pure opportunism. It was desirable for that administration at that particular time to take that action and 9/11 gave it a set of circumstances which could be sufficiently manipulated in order to carry out that desire.


From wikipedia (though with a warning of possible bias):

An investigation into responsibility for the Halabja massacre, by Dr Jean Pascal Zanders, Project Leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) concluded that Iraq was the culprit, and not Iran. Some debate existed, however, over the question of whether Iraq was really the responsible party. The U.S. State Department, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, instructed its diplomats to say that Iran was partly to blame.[citation needed]

A preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study at the time concluded, apparently by determining the chemicals used by looking at images of the victims, that it was in fact Iran that was responsible for the attack, an assessment which was used subsequently by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for much of the early 1990s. The CIA's senior political analyst for the Iran-Iraq war, Stephen C. Pelletiere, co-authored an unclassified analysis of the war [2] which contained a brief summary of the DIA study's key points. The CIA altered its position radically in the late 1990s and cited Halabja frequently in its evidence of WMD before the 2003 invasion. [3]

And as for this

and if someone were concerned with European civilization they might entertain some doubts about supporting a Moslem enclave...

What the fuck is that all about? Those people were Europeans. the fact that they were Moslem did not stop them being Europeans. Nor did it stop them being the victims of ethnic cleansing. They had every right to expect the rest of Europe to give a shit. Do you consider American moslems your enemy?

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by DanaC

There is a reason that International law does not allow for military intervention except under certain proscribed circumstances. Just because America believes itself to be above that law and ultimately trustworthy, does not make that law a bad idea imo. You may trust yourselves not to abuse your power and you may have faith in the fact that nobody can beat you in a war. But you are not the only country in the world. If you set aside International law and say that it needn't apply to you, sooner or later that law will be abandoned altogether. In the twentieth century, 160 million people died in wars. The stakes are very, very high.

There is a reason I always put "international law" into quotes, and that reason is that there is no such thing as "international law", in word or in deed.

If there is such a thing, we need you to point out the people who enforce it, since law cannot exist without enforcement.

We need you to point out the ruling bodies and the basis for the law. Is it common law extended, or something else entirely? I have to point out here that, as a free man, I only respect those laws where I have the opportunity to vote for representatives who author it and executives who enforce it.

In fact there are more people who pull stunts and use "international law" as cover for their crimes, than who violate "international law" and then are punished for it.

So in that period you think the world wasn't really interested in getting involved? Approx. 18 years passed since the gassing of the kurds. Do you really think 9/11 made the whole world sit up and notice what was going on around them? I would counter that the world was already very aware and already engaged in attempting to deal with those things.

Yes the UN was busy crafting harshly worded letters during those 18 years. Meanwhile Mugabe visits Paris and Belgium and they roll out the red carpet for him. I can't be more unimpressed!

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the 'global response' being altered by 9/11, because it had nothing to do with the so-called 'war on terror'.

If you believe that 9/11 began and ended with bin Laden, and had nothing to do with the larger picture of a highly dysfunctional middle east, that makes sense.

I personally do not believe that.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

We need you to point out the ruling bodies and the basis for the law. Is it common law extended, or something else entirely? I have to point out here that, as a free man, I only respect those laws where I have the opportunity to vote for representatives who author it and executives who enforce it.

I'm off the hook on Federal law!

[Griff]

Dana-Not hypocrisy. The left and right don't agree on the reasons to go to war. Both have their ideologies to support and neither seems to consider likelihood for success, unintended consequence, or the kids that will die as a serious factor for consideration. Both are driven by a fantasy of power not based in reality, valuing intention over outcome. Armies are very good at the killing part the rest is far more difficult. My own preference would be to demobilize and wait for Canada to become a threat.

Fuzzy thinking by Clinton, Bush, and string of Presidents back past Teddy Roosevelt has changed the army from a unit with a clear objective, defending the territorial integrity of the US, to everything from a defender of fruit companies, missionaries, oil men, tyrants, messianic visionaries, to democracies, none having much more than a passing relationship with national defense. All create pretense for building the machinery of war which becomes its own arguement for deployment.

I've recently been involved in an attempt to talk a kid out of joining the army. He is the low-hanging fruit, bored and directionless, the kind of kid that with the best of intentions Democrats would kill in Darfur or the Republicans would kill in Iraq, either way, dead. Another guy pigeon-holed him recently. His own son is being deployed to Iraq again, a silver star recipient whose best friend died right in front of him trying to get up a set of stairs to kill the bad guys. Join the army with either Dems or Reps in charge? That'd be nuts.