06-07-2004, 05:46 PM
"Stall for more time, until everyone is tired of watching and Iraq can resume where they left off? I don't agree with how it was done diplomatically, and I think with better diplomacy it might have been handled within the Security Council. Unfortunately, the Security Council devolved into a political circus and the action was neccesary regardless. We did it, and if we broke some international law, then let the international lawyers step forward."
This is the kind of vigilante attitude that irritates the rest of the world so much. It "had to be done", without question, and you're going to do it come hell or high water. It's perfectly fine to go through the security council, but not insofar as it actually requires the SC to make an independent decision of some kind. No, the security council is just irrelevant unless they line up behind US policy, since the US will enforce its conclusions regardless of the SC decision.
The "circus" is, again, entirely a result of having only one "correct" conclusion: war. If disarmament was the objective, it would have been perfectly reasonable to at least wait until we had *some shred* of evidence (not conjecture, not unnaccounted for precursor material, not sattelite photos of trucks 'n buildings) that disarmament had not worked fully and completely. Now, it is certainly Iraq's fault for not being clearer and more open about this process. That might have raised international confidence enough to prevent a war had they not been so obstructive in the '90s. But, as far as I can tell, that was all these "clowns" (the ones who made it a "circus", by which I presume you aren't talking about the US, the UK, or Spain) were looking for: confidence that war was either necessary or not necessary, either through a thorough inspection yielding nothing, or the discovery of hidden WMD or WMD programs. The US, on the other hand, adopted your conclusion: war was necessary "regardless". To quote Bush, about some sattelite photos that turned out to be absolutely nothing, "What more proof could you need?" (or something like that, too lazy to check it).
Jester
This is the kind of vigilante attitude that irritates the rest of the world so much. It "had to be done", without question, and you're going to do it come hell or high water. It's perfectly fine to go through the security council, but not insofar as it actually requires the SC to make an independent decision of some kind. No, the security council is just irrelevant unless they line up behind US policy, since the US will enforce its conclusions regardless of the SC decision.
The "circus" is, again, entirely a result of having only one "correct" conclusion: war. If disarmament was the objective, it would have been perfectly reasonable to at least wait until we had *some shred* of evidence (not conjecture, not unnaccounted for precursor material, not sattelite photos of trucks 'n buildings) that disarmament had not worked fully and completely. Now, it is certainly Iraq's fault for not being clearer and more open about this process. That might have raised international confidence enough to prevent a war had they not been so obstructive in the '90s. But, as far as I can tell, that was all these "clowns" (the ones who made it a "circus", by which I presume you aren't talking about the US, the UK, or Spain) were looking for: confidence that war was either necessary or not necessary, either through a thorough inspection yielding nothing, or the discovery of hidden WMD or WMD programs. The US, on the other hand, adopted your conclusion: war was necessary "regardless". To quote Bush, about some sattelite photos that turned out to be absolutely nothing, "What more proof could you need?" (or something like that, too lazy to check it).
Jester