The Iraq War retrospective Thread

[kandrathe]

Near as i can tell the logic of your argument rationalizing the war in Iraq is that it was reasonable for the US to believe that Iraq was a threat (either at the moment or in the near future), and that this possible threat was enough to warrant aggressive action by the US against Iraq.

That is the agreed upon standard of how nations behave, yes.

It's funny, i've heard the same logical argument elsewhere recently... hmm where was it? oh yeah, the case in Texas where law enforcement saw a possible threat to the children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and because of the possible threat they took action to remove them. In this instance you were aghast at how Texas overstepped it's authority. So which is it? Does the possibility of threat warrant the aggressive action? or is it just that much easier to use relative morality when the victims of that aggression are half a world away?

Are the FLDS nations? No. They are individuals protected by a State and Federal Constitution's bills' of rights. So, here you too are equating individuals and the juris prudence of individual rights with that of nations. Where is Iraq guaranteed the rights from a "Bill of Rights" of nations? If you believe the UN is that governing body, then who is the world's police force?

[Chesspiece_face]

So, here you too are equating individuals and the juris prudence of individual rights with that of nations.

I'm making no such claim, just that the logical argument for both actions were the same and the only difference is the question of Relative Morality versus Universal Morality.

You seem to make the argument that the Morality of the actions is relative whereas others in this thread (as well as I) believe that the morality of the actions is Universal. If it is wrong in one case it should be wrong in the other.

We can mask this argument in the context of the war in Iraq, we can also mask it in the context of the Texas issue. At it's base, though, it has nothing to do with either and it is an argument of Relative vs Universal Morality.

[kandrathe]

I'm making no such claim, just that the logical argument for both actions were the same and the only difference is the question of Relative Morality versus Universal Morality.

You seem to make the argument that the Morality of the actions is relative whereas others in this thread (as well as I) believe that the morality of the actions is Universal. If it is wrong in one case it should be wrong in the other.

We can mask this argument in the context of the war in Iraq, we can also mask it in the context of the Texas issue. At it's base, though, it has nothing to do with either and it is an argument of Relative vs Universal Morality.

You probably should not treat a nation like an individual. It's not relativistic anything, except relatively wrong. Nations do not have a morality, but their people and their leaders do. Sheesh, its seems in vogue to anthropomorphize everything these days. Iraq's been bad, so we'll send Kofi Annan to give Iraq a spanking and a timeout in the corner. Much like the Queen rescinding the Knighthood of Robert Mugabe. I'm sure he's sobbing in his Wheaties now! I'm sure all the victims of his ZANU-PF atrocities living with their hands and feet hacked off feel so much better about Britain now. There are times when force is the option, but like I said, it is the result of a failed politic. Mugabe should have had his tenure cut short by external pressure a decade ago, but a failure to act has precipitated a crisis.

I heard a good joke today... I've got good news and bad news... The bad news is that aliens have landed on Earth. The good news is that they eat lawyers and politicians and excrete oil.

[Chesspiece_face]

You probably should not treat a nation like an individual.

I agree with that intellectually, but my feelings are that the SOB deserved it.

*COUGH* *COUGH* ahem.

[kandrathe]

You are taking "I agree with that intellectually, but my feelings are that the SOB deserved it." out of context, we were talking about a guy who was shot kicking to death a toddler. My observation was that it was either justifiable defense of the child, or justifiable homicide in eliminating a scum bag. And, in allusion to Saddam, and his Bathist government, my feeling was they also were served their just desserts and I feel the scumbags in Baghdad deserved their fate for all the heinous things that they had already done, and to prevent them from causing any more death and destruction within Iraq, or the world.

It still isn't trying to treat individuals as nations, and the rules of how nations interact with each other are vastly different than how individuals interact with their government. When I said, "You probably should not treat a nation like an individual." it was in the context of you trying to give kangaroo's the rights of humans. It's an apples to oranges problem, not the inconsistency of logic you make it out to be. So, let's consider the appropriateness of comparing the Texas CPS seizing 430 some children from their parents in a preemptive move to protect them from abuse to the US declaring war on Iraq in a preemptive move to protect the citizens of the US. There are some similarities in the weakness of evidence for example. But, I would still maintain the individuals have rights that nations do not have. The individuals have a legal system which when exercised resulted in justice, whereas nations have a UN forum for self interested political discourse. If in the national dialog the nations do not agree on a resolution, then whatever happens is beyond the UN's control. So, I would ask again, what power does the UN really have other than as a forum for political intercourse?

I would refer again to Clausewitz, "We know, certainly, that war is only called forth through the political intercourse of Governments and nations; but in general it is supposed that such intercourse is broken off by war, and that a totally different state of things ensues, subject to no laws but its own. We maintain, on the contrary: that war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. We say, mixed with other means, in order thereby to maintain at the same time that this political intercourse does not cease by the war itself, is not changed into something quite different, but that, in its essence, it continues to exist, whatever may be the form of the means which it uses, and that the chief lines on which the events of the war progress, and to which they are attached, are only the general features of policy which run all through the war until peace takes place. And how can we conceive it to be otherwise? Does the cessation of diplomatic notes stop the political relations between different nations and Governments? Is not war merely another kind of writing and language for political thoughts? It has certainly a grammar of its own, but its logic is not peculiar to itself. Accordingly, war can never be separated from political intercourse, and if, in the consideration of the matter, this is done in any way, all the threads of the different relations are, to a certain extent, broken, and we have before us a senseless thing without an object."

Jefferson has many interesting thoughts on The Rights of Nations. Reading them in context of US foreign policy highlights how far different the thinking is of contemporary politicians from the original founders. I agree with Jefferson's point of view largely, however, the events of WWI and WWII moved the US into a much more highly interventionist position. A position that has put us into the position of the world's police force. A position most Americans, and I assume the world detests. Yet, the fundamental question remains; should a nation like Britain, Germany, Russia or the US who has the power to do so, try to stop a tyrant committing genocide on their own populace? Should we ignore the atrocities of the Stalin's, Pol Pot's, Idi Amin's, Adolf Hitler's, Saddam Hussein's and the Robert Mugabe's to terrorize and murder their own people? I believe unless we want to move toward a one world government, we must not intervene in all the horror that is committed. I would like to see the US step out of the world police role, and focus more on its own domestic tranquility. I believe the approach the US intelligence services is taking now to fight against terrorism is much better than what was done in the past. The result should be to lance the boils before they infect and compromise the host requiring the more massive use of armies to regain health.

If you want to focus on acts of war, then there is ample examples of Iraq committing acts of war on the US, the UN, our allies and protectorates. The issue, which has been discussed earlier, is that none of these acts of war were sufficiently outrageous to convince the average American to invest in going to war. Wrongly, the Bush administration exaggerated or puffed up a tempest in a teapot. But, my comment that the "SOB deserved it" still stands. We have the right result by wrong methods. The aftermath of what to do with a broken nation is where the difficulty lies. Pull out and let the dogs fight, or try to do the more humane thing and establish some semblance of order, then pull out, and watch it all crumble with your conscience clean?

I also found this quote which ironically applies here, "I am Cyrus. King of the world. When I entered Babylon... I did not allow anyone to terrorise the land... I kept in view the needs of Babylon and all its sanctuaries to promote their well-being... I put an end to their misfortune." -- From The First Charter of the Rights of Nations, Cyrus, The Great, 539 B.C., Founder of The First Persian Empire

[Chesspiece_face]

You are taking "I agree with that intellectually, but my feelings are that the SOB deserved it." out of context

You're right, i did take that out of context. I incorrectly remembered the statement to be directly referring to Saddam Hussein and as an extension a rational for the war.

I think that my point here is not to necissarily point out logical flaws in your argument but to point out that if you want to have a logical argument then you need to have agreed upon assumptions. In this case one pre-argreed upon assumption which is necissary for the debate is how you define the morality of actions, which actions are righteous and just and which are not. The reason so many people in this topic, and in general when discussing these issues, end up saying things like "if you can't see that then i don't know what else to say" is because they aren't coming to the debate with the same assumptions.

Your statement that Nations are different than Individuals and thus the morality we place on their actions is different is by definition Relative. It's not a wrong defintion, but like i said if you want to debate the war in retrospect the main question is always was the war just and to answer that you need to define morality.

Ironically, when i think about the war I tend to use the same perspective of morality as Bush and Cheney. The Utilitarian perspective. Although I come to a completely different conclusion as they do. Bush constantly says that history will judge his decisions. His point is that in the long run the sum of good that will come from the war will outweigh the sum of bad. I think if we are to just look at the timeframe we have now there is no reasonable way you can say the the sum of good has been more than the sum of bad. And I don't foresee that changing in the future.

P.S. I love debating logic on the internet.

[Zenda]

"I feel the scumbags in Baghdad deserved their fate for all the heinous things that they had already done"

Ofcourse, all that was just a big a lie as all the rest, but I don't expect you to believe this any time, soon.

Sure, most Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein, but that was because he kept them from killing off minority populations. He was convicted for a single act of war that happened 25 years ago. And noone really cared at that time. Don't you think they would have found and added something more recent if he was such a bad guy?

But it doesn't matter, does it? Those who want war will always find a reason for it. It's just a matter of how far you'll go, in destroying other peoples lives in favor of your own. It is unfortunate, though, that you Americans lack a certain restriction when it comes to going to war. Other nations are fully aware of the horror it will bring, and that helps alot. But you don't seem to realize how terrible it really is: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles...ties_of_war.htm

[Jester]

I have no love for the horrors of war, but the assertion that Saddam Hussein was not such a "bad guy" is ludicrous. He himself was responsible for killing off minority populations. If his iron fisted dictatorship was the proverbial finger in the dike, it doesn't excuse oppression, torture, or murder.

I also wonder where the 1991 Gulf War went in your "25 years ago".

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

. . . that you Americans lack a certain restriction when it comes to going to war.

Based on your local time, since you did not enter a location in your profile, I suspect you live in Europe. The oldest European stories are of warfare. From that start, the history of Europe is an almost unbroken string of wars; give me a twenty-five year period anytime in the last twenty-five hundred years when there was no war anywhere in Europe. I'd say anyone from that background accusing the USA of lacking "restriction when it comes to going to war." is either a fool or eurotrash. Either way, go to hell.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Ofcourse, all that was just a big a lie as all the rest, but I don't expect you to believe this any time, soon.

Biography of Uday Hussein

Yep, all a pack of lies, I'm sure.

[Zenda]

"I also wonder where the 1991 Gulf War went in your '25 years ago'."

Well, from 1982 to 2006, thats... right, only 24 years.

"Either way, go to hell."

Sorry to hear that. You were doing so well.

"Biography of Uday Hussein"

Couldn't find anything substantial on Saddam Hussein himself? Typical. But lets take a look at that son: he is known to have killed one person while being drunk (for which Saddam Hussein inprisoned him, btw), and rumoured to have tortured athletes. Yeah, plenty to start a war for, I guess.

"He himself was responsible for killing off minority populations."

In modern times, under Saddam, Christians were treated much the same as Muslims; Saddam's right hand man, Tariq Aziz, was Christian. Before the war, it's estimated there were about a million Christians in Iraq. They were a small minority, but free to worship, free to build churches, and free to speak the ancient language of Jesus, Aramaic. But, after the invasion, Muslim militants launched a war on each other and the cross. See http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/29/...in3553612.shtml

[kandrathe]

Who did you think they meant would enforce 1441? Chuck Norris? The Harlem Globetrotters? The Security Council is the sole body with this authority. This is not a confusing issue.

And, the Security Council was given the opportunity to follow through with their vague threat, and it turned out to be empty.

Even stipulating that this interpretation is true, it does not change the basic facts of authority. The Security Council, not the United States, had the authority to decide whether Iraq was in material breach, and what to do about that. Again, this is not ambiguous.

Well, you are wrong here. Every sovereign nation has the right to decide its own actions, and to what extent another nation has become a threat, and how their nation will respond to that threat. Contrary to what some in the world would believe, the nations of the world are not subservient to the UN. In the absence of UN ability to control Iraq, and the imminent danger that the US "perceived" they were in -- they made the judgment to protect themselves. The US President asked for, and the US Congress authorized the use of force.

Turns out, the UN was right. Iraq was not in material breach, they had no relevant WMD, and their "obfuscation" was apparently for trivial reasons. If having a spine means declaring wars without good reason, then I think I'll go with spineless.

You still don't get it. The war was caused by spineless bureaucrats who corrupted the oil for food program, and through ineptitude or greed caused the enforcement of sanctions to fail. We tried the non-violent approach for a decade!!! It failed. Maybe it was doomed to fail because of the spinelessness, ineptitude or lack of will by the members of the UN. But, you cannot say that Iraq wasn't given an opportunity to reform. The UN had the opportunity to stare down the bully Saddam, and they cowered instead. If the UN's purpose is to make war unnecessary, then it also failed. You go ahead and convince yourself that the US is the unreasonable belligerent, and that poor Iraq under Saddam was without reproach.

So, all you have to do is make a case (true or not) that another country is a threat to you, and you can then declare war on them without the UN or anyone else giving their permission?

Essentially, yes, that is the criteria. See below for a more complete jus ad bellum list.

A more obvious one would be the interpretation that you must actually be attacked before you can invade another country to defend yourself.

You have a very naive and limited interpretation of justification for war. But, if that is the case, it is easy to understand the US's jus ad bellum rational. In fact, it was part of Powell's speech to the UN. Iraq tried to assassinate a former President. Iraq repeatedly fired on US aircraft patrolling the "no fly zone". Iraq failed to fulfill the terms of it's cease fire agreement from Gulf War I. Iraq was negotiating and providing aid directly to Ansar Al Islam, an affiliate of our sworn enemy and many other terrorist organizations. Iraq was suspected of stockpiling proscribed weapons materials and harassed and blocked attempts by the UNSCOM to discover the truth, leading people to believe such weapons existed.

I have no idea what you mean by this, but from where I sit, illegal war looks a lot scarier than legal war.

War means the bombing of innocents. War means horror, both during and after. When we get to the point where war is authorized or encouraged by committee's of bureaucrats, then the world will become a seriously dangerous place.

For discussion, consider Professor Brian Orend's proposed jus ad bellum Just War Tenets -

• JWT 1. Just cause. A state must have a just cause in launching a war. The causes most frequently mentioned by the just war tradition include: self-defence by a state from external attack; the protection of innocents within its borders; and, in general, vindication for any violation of its two core state rights: political sovereignty and territorial integrity.<>
  
• JWT 2. Right intention. A state must intend to fight the war only for the sake of those just causes listed in JWT 1. It cannot legitimately employ the cloak of a just cause to advance other intentions it might have, such as ethnic hatred or the pursuit of national glory.<>
  
• JWT 3. Proper authority and public declaration. A state may go to war only if the decision has been made by the appropriate authorities, according to the proper process, and made public, notably to its own citizens and to the enemy state(s).<>
  
• JWT 4. Last resort. A state may resort to war only if it has exhausted all plausible, peaceful alternatives to resolving the conflict in question, in particular through diplomatic negotiation.<>
  
• JWT 5. Probability of success. A state may not resort to war if it can reasonably foresee that doing so will have no measurable impact on the situation. The aim here is to block violence which is going to be futile.<>
  
• JWT 6. (Macro-) proportionality. A state must, prior to initiating a war, weigh the expected universal good to accrue from its prosecuting the war against the expected universal evils that will result. Only if the benefits seem reasonably proportional to the costs may the war action proceed.<>
  [st]The tenets are discussed in Professor Orend book, The Morality of War, and I referenced them from an article in the Military Law Review - Vol 186, Page 128.

[kandrathe]

Your statement that Nations are different than Individuals and thus the morality we place on their actions is different is by definition Relative. It's not a wrong definition, but like i said if you want to debate the war in retrospect the main question is always was the war just and to answer that you need to define morality.

Just war and the morality of war are huge topics that span at least 2000 years of critical thinking. The perspective of "just" is always different from those who prosecute it, from those who observe. People quickly forget all the attempts by the US and the UN from 1991 to 2003 to bring Iraq back to legitimacy. My thought is that given the actors, war was inevitable. We might have waited for the *real* solid justification, but there was ample cause to get it over with early.

Ironically, when I think about the war I tend to use the same perspective of morality as Bush and Cheney. The Utilitarian perspective. Although I come to a completely different conclusion as they do. Bush constantly says that history will judge his decisions. His point is that in the long run the sum of good that will come from the war will outweigh the sum of bad. I think if we are to just look at the time frame we have now there is no reasonable way you can say the the sum of good has been more than the sum of bad. And I don't foresee that changing in the future.

I guess you would need to start with what you think a Bathist Iraq, with the Tikriti mob still in power, if not Saddam, then possibly Uday. You would need to project what would happen when the US no longer maintains a presence in the region. You would need to determine what Iraq would do with all their oil wealth now that they were no longer under the scrutiny of weapons inspectors. You would need to forecast how Iraq's relationships with terrorist groups would evolve, and the implications for the export of terrorism around the world. So, what does that Tikriti Mob Iraq look like in 2013, versus the one we have now. I'm still not sure that this imposed democracy will stand over time, and that the whole house of cards will not come tumbling down and devolve into civil war, or worse a regional war.

[Jester]

And, the Security Council was given the opportunity to follow through with their vague threat, and it turned out to be empty.

And so what, the power then devolves to whomever wants to claim it? I don't recall that part of the charter. Could Iran have enforced 1441? Could Israel? Or does the US have some special aura that makes it the only one who decides these things? This is pure vigilantism. The enforcement body decided on its course of action, the US didn't like it, and so broke the law to get its way. Not a tough legal issue.

[/quote]Every sovereign nation has the right to decide its own actions, and to what extent another nation has become a threat, and how their nation will respond to that threat. [/quote]

If this were true, then there has not been an illegitimate war declared by a nation in 7000 years of organized warfare.

Contrary to what some in the world would believe, the nations of the world are not subservient to the UN.

In matters of war, nations are subservient to the UN if they want to follow the rule of international law. If they'd rather become rogue vigilante states, then no, I guess they aren't.

But, you cannot say that Iraq wasn't given an opportunity to reform.

They were told they had to eliminate their WMD programs, and allow inspections to demonstrate that. Those inspections, still going on when the US torpedoed them by invading, turned up nothing at all. Post-war intelligence overwhelmingly indicates that Iraq had no functioning WMD programs, nor WMD stockpiles. What "reform" did Iraq fail to make that was necessary?

Iraq was negotiating and providing aid directly to Ansar Al Islam, an affiliate of our sworn enemy and many other terrorist organizations.

Once again, this claim pops up about Ansar Al-Islam. Do I have to play whackamole with this yet again? Show me something real about this claim, or abandon it.

Iraq was suspected of stockpiling proscribed weapons materials and harassed and blocked attempts by the UNSCOM to discover the truth, leading people to believe such weapons existed.

And some other people, in their irritating sanity, insisted that evidence be given for this point that wasn't full of holes. None was forthcoming, and the only program that might have theoretically provided it was derided as the inneffectual bungling of "Hans Blinx." Such nattering nabobs of negativity also happened to have Security Council vetos, making it rather necessary to satisfy them before going to war.

War means horror, both during and after. When we get to the point where war is authorized or encouraged by committee's of bureaucrats, then the world will become a seriously dangerous place.

The Security Council is a group of nations, many of them the most poweful in the world, getting together to decide collective security matters. It is hardly a "committee of bureaucrats."

I will deal with the Just War tenets in another post. They are very interesting, and I think I am in agreement with them.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Couldn't find anything substantial on Saddam Hussein himself? Typical. But lets take a look at that son: he is known to have killed one person while being drunk (for which Saddam Hussein inprisoned him, btw), and rumoured to have tortured athletes. Yeah, plenty to start a war for, I guess.

I don't need to justify the starting of a war. I claimed Saddam, and his Tikriti mob were scumbags who deserved their fate.

I thought it would be too obvious to only post a biography of Saddam's accomplishments. Here is a CBC biography of Saddam for you. Here is a HRW article on The Mass Graves of al-Mahawil. But, that might be too much truth for you. Also, here is a Weekly Standard article attempting to estimate the number of lives saved by removing Saddam from power. Of, course, it's all a pack of lies, right?

"Four months before Saddam's fall, Human Rights Watch estimated that up to 290,000 people had "disappeared" since the late 1970s and were presumed dead. The Coalition Provisional Authority's human rights office estimates that 300,000 bodies are contained in the numerous mass graves. "And that's the lower end of the estimates," said one CPA spokesperson. In fact, the accumulated credible reports make the likely number at least 400,000 to 450,000. So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003."

So, no, it's not a justification for war, but it is the justification for executing the SOB.

[Jester]

For discussion, consider Professor Brian Orend's proposed jus ad bellum Just War Tenets -

• JWT 1. Just cause. A state must have a just cause in launching a war. The causes most frequently mentioned by the just war tradition include: self-defence by a state from external attack; the protection of innocents within its borders; and, in general, vindication for any violation of its two core state rights: political sovereignty and territorial integrity.<>
  
• JWT 2. Right intention. A state must intend to fight the war only for the sake of those just causes listed in JWT 1. It cannot legitimately employ the cloak of a just cause to advance other intentions it might have, such as ethnic hatred or the pursuit of national glory.<>
  
• JWT 3. Proper authority and public declaration. A state may go to war only if the decision has been made by the appropriate authorities, according to the proper process, and made public, notably to its own citizens and to the enemy state(s).<>
  
• JWT 4. Last resort. A state may resort to war only if it has exhausted all plausible, peaceful alternatives to resolving the conflict in question, in particular through diplomatic negotiation.<>
  
• JWT 5. Probability of success. A state may not resort to war if it can reasonably foresee that doing so will have no measurable impact on the situation. The aim here is to block violence which is going to be futile.<>
  
• JWT 6. (Macro-) proportionality. A state must, prior to initiating a war, weigh the expected universal good to accrue from its prosecuting the war against the expected universal evils that will result. Only if the benefits seem reasonably proportional to the costs may the war action proceed.<>
  [st]The tenets are discussed in Professor Orend book, The Morality of War, and I referenced them from an article in the Military Law Review - Vol 186, Page 128.

So, let's go down the list. Looking at the article, I find right above the quoted part that the violation of any of the tenets leads to a violation of Jus Ad Bellum, that is to say, that your war is illegitimate. Now, my argument here is that the UN charter was violated, not some arbitrary set of principles, but these seem solid enough to run with as a substitute.

1) Just cause. Of the "frequently cited" ones, the US can claim exactly zero. Self-defence from external attack? No. Protection of innocents within its borders? Quite a stretch, maybe if Powell's speech wasn't made of swiss cheese, but as it stands, no. Violation of political sovereignty? No. Violation of territorial integrity? No. Other possibilities might include that an ally was attacked. Also, no.

2) Right intention. On this one, the US isn't even close. Ulterior motives are clearly everywhere, signalled a decade in advance by senior administration officials through PNAC. Depending on the interpretation of GWB's personal mindset, one could even argue that this has some odour of the worst possible kind of war, a war of personal aggrandisement.

3) Proper authority and public declaration. The second is no issue here. The first is an obvious violation. The proper authority is clearly the UN Security Council, and the US did a very public end run around its authority.

4) Last resort. Considering there was another resort already on the table at the UN, and that the majority of the globe was in favour of a pressure-and-inspections regime rather than an invasion, I think it is laughable to say that the US jumped this particular hurdle. At the very worst, there was no urgency to the war; even if it was inevitable, it was hardly imminent. As my brother predicted back in 2002, "they're going to war in March, because the weather is good then." Lo and behold, as March approached, the diplomacy mysteriously ran out of time, and the invasion happened. Plot the data points, draw the line, it's a pretty simple one.

5) Probability of Success. Also a failure. Iraq is, and was predicted to be, a more dangerous centre for international terrorism now than before the war, and is descending into sectarian violence and outright civil war.

6) Proportionality. On the one side, a vicious-but-powerless dictator was dethroned. On the other, a civil war was started, with unpredictable and dangerous implications for Turkey, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and beyond. The reputation of one of the world's great powers was dragged through the mud, representing a tremendous propaganda victory for its enemies. A new generation of jihadists have been trained and battle-hardened. I think this one is overall a loss, but I suppose it's at least debatable.

Given that failure on any one of these points is a failure overall, and yet the US fails each one separately, I think it is fair to say that they back up my argument and not yours.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

So, let's go down the list. Looking at the article, I find right above the quoted part that the violation of any of the tenets leads to a violation of Jus Ad Bellum, that is to say, that your war is illegitimate. Now, my argument here is that the UN charter was violated, not some arbitrary set of principles, but these seem solid enough to run with as a substitute. ...

Heh, I knew that you would read through that list and come up with exactly that point of view. :) You are so impossibly one sided on this that we best just declare an impasse.

Also, you should read the entire MLR article.

[Jester]

Heh, I knew that you would read through that list and come up with exactly that point of view. :) You are so impossibly one sided on this that we best just declare an impasse.

Also, you should read the entire MLR article.

When you post something "for discussion", someone replies to it, and then smirk smugly at them having fallen into your cunning trap? I think that's called trolling.

You haven't exactly been super flexible yourself, Mr. "They might be in Syria somewhere." But if you think it's past saving, then I think you're probably right. To the next.

-Jester

Afterthought: Is there some part in particular you'd like me to consider about that article? Or just assigning me homework?

[--Pete]

Hi,

But if you think it's past saving, then I think you're probably right.

And Jimmy thanks you both.:)

--Pete

BTW, what happened to the Jimmy bottle picture?

[kandrathe]

When you post something "for discussion", someone replies to it, and then smirk smugly at them having fallen into your cunning trap? I think that's called trolling.

You haven't exactly been super flexible yourself, Mr. "They might be in Syria somewhere." But if you think it's past saving, then I think you're probably right. To the next.

It would have been worth discussing if say you had any position in the middle ground. But, your post and its extreme view means that no, there is no middle ground worth discussing. It's beyond my capability to reason with you if that is your position. For example, consider the assassination of Laurence Foley (link), and the attempted assassination of the Bush's. Is this not an act of war? I've already revealed the links between Zarqawi and Unit 999, but of course, you don't believe it because you think it would be uncharacteristic of Saddam to mingle with Pan-Islamic jihadists. You don't deny that he was in Iraq prior to 2003, and even spent some time in a Baghdad hospital. But, somehow this non-Iraqi was able to move about undetected within Iraq when the ISS had tabs on everyone. Your logic defies reality. Even when there is overwhelming evidence of collusion, and it's documented in the sources you fling at me, you hold onto your delusion that Saddam's regime was ignorant of the "Al Queda" activity within his own borders. You may think that Ansar Al Islam was different than Al Queda, but all the evidence reveals it is not. Tell me about Faruq Al-Hijazi and his activities in Turkey. Tell me about Uday's organization AL QARE. Tell me what you know about Haqi Ismail, the Iraqi ISS agent who worked with the Taliban. You poo-poo my ludicrous theory of Syrian involvment in secreting away the WMD's. Have you heard of former Iraqi General Georges Hormuz Sada, and his book "Saddam's Secrets"? Would you believe Israeli general Moshe Yaalon? Sure, maybe he is trying to save face. But, these are professionals who don't just spout off on crack pot theories. Having the WMD's found would help, but Georges Hormuz Sada is not the type of character who would suddenly become a liar now, is he? Maybe it's a bunch of horse crap, but maybe it's not. I'm not so willing to don my BDS goggles and rant about things I still have some doubts about. Seriously, is it possible that Iraq's ISS and Unit 999 had some cooperative linkage to Al Queda? Is it possible that the WMD's got whisked off to Syria as these credible sources report? Maybe you're not the skeptic you claim to be?

Afterthought: Is there some part in particular you'd like me to consider about that article? Or just assigning me homework?

It was clear you missed the concepts of "Just cause" because the author even discussed your misinterpretation of it. The author, refutes every point you make. Which leads me to believe you didn't read it at all before posting.