"Palme D'Or" for Mike Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11&

[Jester]

Back to front...

"And this is without even getting past the ridiculous "WMD was the only valid argument for war" nonsense."

How this is nonsense, I don't quite understand. This is the relevant quotation from the UN charter:

"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security."

That is to say, you have a right to self-defense which becomes active only if attacked. The "WMD exception" is that, since an active and hostile WMD armed force can inflict either total or crippling damage within one attack, if there is clear evidence of a) such weapons and b ) the likelihood of their use, a nation *might* (this is NOT clear, but at least makes some measure of sense) be entitled to pre-emptively strike in self-defense. Aside from this *single* exception for self-defense, all use of military force in international affairs is the sole jurisdiction of the UN Security Council as outlined elsewhere in the charter. If you attack someone, and it is neither in self-defense or at the behest of the Security Council, you are in violation of international law.

You are not allowed to invade someone to liberate them from themselves, or take control of "necessary" oil reserves, or kill a "bad man", or bring democracy to the middle east, or enact retribution for decades-old crimes, or any one of the other PoS arguments put forth unless you have the blessing of the Security Council. The US deliberately backed off from calling the vote which would have made this war legal, had it passed. If you don't like the law, you can try to get it changed, but you can't just break it whenever you like.

So, returning to the rest of your argument, yes, I do think Bush was quite clearly out of line, not only in terms of the legality of war, but also in terms of his position, even if he had accepted the legal means of pursuing his objectives. It is clear from as much evidence as has come forth that Saddam had nothing even resembling an active weapons program. He did not even have the useful precursors to a weapons program ready to be used. He certainly didn't have any WMD, and, even within that category, any he even theoretically had would have been chemical or low-end biological weapons, capable of killing thousands at best, but not the millions of a nuclear or high-end biological weapon. Inspections and sanctions had kept him feeble and contained, and things were not getting any more dangerous. Pressure plus inspections could have (and, apparently, already had) acheived any useful objective without the need to go to war.

As for the "he used them against his own people", tough. Plenty of nations do as bad or worse, in their own countries or elsewhere. Are we to invade them all? (Hans Blix actually agrees with that position, but points out that there are legal means for doing so.) What if sanctions or military action recommended against them at the time were kept down by a superpower patron, armed with unlimited influence and a Security Council veto? Would the USSR have been justified in invading Iraq in the '80s, when Saddam was gassing his "own people" (the same Kurds who have never really wanted to be part of Iraq, and therefore are an interesting group to lump into his "own people")? I seem to recall that every time the USSR attacked anyone (like Afghanistan), they cited humanitarian reasons, and the US replied that these were complete crap. I don't blame them, since it was complete crap. But so is this. If we want to be global cowboys, and ride our white horses with our white hats and six shooters across international borders, we need to do it under a UN aegis.

Containment helps prevent war. It isn't the prettiest strategy in the world, but we don't live in a pretty world. War, on the other hand, has a long record of f*&king everything up, and should be a *last resort*, not the first thing on one's mind.

I would read Dr. Blix's "Disarming Iraq" for a thorough, unbiased account of what Iraq was and was not doing (and withholding), and some pretty reasonable theories as to why. If you can, at the end of it, really say that this was sufficient justification for going to war, I suppose we'll just have to disagree, but it certainly paints a much less dire picture of the threat Iraq posed than the warmongers did.

Jester

[Jester]

"They were not. The *only* UN body that has the competence to decide in such questions is the Security Council. There is no SC resolution that says the UN are in opposition to that war. It´s that simple.
If their had been an SC resolution saying the war was false, then one could say that the UN as an organization were against the war. There is, of course, no such resolution, since the US have a veto vote in the SC."

Really, is that how it works? How interesting. I always thought the UN had to actually *authorize* a war, not just fail to condemn it after the fact.

Had (for instance) the USSR blown away the eastern seaboard of the US with nuclear weapons, and then vetoed the condemnation and immediate declaration of war, wouldn't that, by your logic, be perfectly okay by the UN? Does a veto allow you to invade anyone you please, any time you please?

Jester

[Jester]

"The threat from Saddam was in his WMD capabilities and programs, the ability with precursors to manufacturer, and use or distribute."

That's a slippery slope indeed, since just about any semi-modern nation with a chemistry set and an agricultural sector has those capabilities. However, what's almost hilarious is that we haven't even found any evidence of *that*. No facilities were "mysterious", no facilites had any trace of NBC production, no facilities appeared to be recently "scrubbed". No trucks were found with the much-feared mobile labs, no trucks were found with stockpiled weapons, no trucks were found with the kind of cleaning equipment needed to perform these emergency cleanup operations. No ready-to-assemble stockpiles of precursor materials were found, no yellowcake stored up in a warehouse somewhere, nothing. They weren't found during inspections, and they haven't been found after the war. It now seems likely that they will never be found. Even David Kay, the cowboy-inspector drivin' across the desert in those spiffy UN SUVs who insisted that they must have them has since concluded that the intelligence was just plain wrong.

What does that make the notion that they must have posessed these capabilities? Pure conjecture. The "Saddam had WMD" hypothesis is quickly coming to resemble the "god of the gaps" argument: there are an infinite number of ways to explain why we haven't found anything, or why we'll never find anything, so, no matter how insignificant the chances get, people can always maintain that he had weapons. There is no way to disprove this hypothesis, only to point out that it is becoming increasingly unlikely. If you care to keep maintaining it, there is no possible disproof, but it is becoming increasingly worthless as a casus belli.

"You mean the US congress?"

I mean the UN Security Council. The US congress determines only if a war is legal within the US, not whether it is legal in the world.

Jester

[Moldran]

If you don't like the law, you can try to get it changed, but you can't just break it whenever you like.

With international law, you can. Everyone (except states like the Vatican maybe :P ) has been doing it for the last 50 years. You may not like it, but that's how it works.

Really, is that how it works? How interesting. I always thought the UN had to actually *authorize* a war, not just fail to condemn it after the fact.

Had (for instance) the USSR blown away the eastern seaboard of the US with nuclear weapons, and then vetoed the condemnation and immediate declaration of war, wouldn't that, by your logic, be perfectly okay by the UN? Does a veto allow you to invade anyone you please, any time you please?

Yep, that basically is how it worked during the cold war (for example, with Vietnam), because 2 veto forces were constantly blocking each other. With the exception of Korea, where the USSR was not present at the SC meeting, so the SC could pass a resolution that condemned the attack.
There is a huge difference between a war that is not authorized by the SC and a war that is condemned by the SC. With an SC decision against the war, you can deploy UN mandated, or - theoretically - even UN led, forces, for example. Or put up an embargo against the agressor. You cannot do that if the SC has not really taken an explicit position for or against a war, which is the case with Iraq.
A war that is neither authorized nor condemned by the SC may formally be a violation of the UN charter, but the SC remains the only UN body that can declare that the charter was violated by nation X and order consequences.
Yes, of course the veto forces are somewhat imune to SC decisions. That's the point of the veto rights.

[kandrathe]

Case Not Closed: Iraq’s WMD Stockpiles
Pesticides, Precursors, and Petulance

Or, as usual, maybe we aren't getting all the facts. Or, maybe as the above articles suggest, the job is not being done very well. I'm not ready to make the same black-white declarations as you and David Kay. I suspect that since the weapons were there, and since Iraq actively obfuscated and dogged the efforts of both UNMOVIC and UNSCOM, that some large quantities of BW and CW materials may still be there. Of course, we cannot search the trucks or warehouses that are in Syria. Iraq is not a place I would want to go driving around looking for evidence, and I suspect that also had alot to do with why David Kay bugged out of there. That job is almost all down side.

STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP (ISG) BEFORE THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE, AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE -- October 2, 2003

What does that make the notion that they must have posessed these capabilities? Pure conjecture.

No. Facts. They bought the precursor materials in large quantities that are unaccounted for, they had the manufacturing equipment, and the knowledge on how to make very potent VX, binary deployed Sarin, advanced mustard, and had tons of growth media for BW. They have even admitted to having these programs, and disclosed some of what they had done. But not all. For 12 years, anytime anyone gets in there and digs around, we find new documents and other physical evidence as to more illegal weapons research, and much more advanced than we first thought. Take the time to actually read the UNMOVIC, UNSCOM documents and some other more objective reports. I hope to *heck* you are right, and that all WMD capabilities have been destroyed. This is the type of situation that really has no room for error.

Testimony to the US Congress by Mr. Charles Duelfer, Director of Central Intelligence Special Advisor for Strategy regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Programs -- 30 March 2004

www.globalsecurity.org -- Iraq - UN Documents

I mean the UN Security Council.

I'll leave that debate for you and Moldran. I think we've crossed swords on that one before. For me, Iraq was in clear violation of; RESOLUTION 687 (1991) Adopted by the Security Council at its 2981st meeting, on 3 April 1991 And, so if the Security Council refuses to enforce their own resolutions, what is to be done? 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.

And, since I'm still not an international law expert, I have nothing more germane to add other than my opinion.

[Jester]

"A war that is neither authorized nor condemned by the SC may formally be a violation of the UN charter, but the SC remains the only UN body that can declare that the charter was violated by nation X and order consequences.
Yes, of course the veto forces are somewhat imune to SC decisions. That's the point of the veto rights."

It doesn't mean you didn't violate the law. It means you're immune to the concequences. If you and your country have no care as to the difference, then perhaps you can understand the source of my intense dislike of US foreign policy.

Jester

[Jester]

"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

[Moldran]

It doesn't mean you didn't violate the law. It means you're immune to the concequences. If you and your country have no care as to the difference, then perhaps you can understand the source of my intense dislike of US foreign policy.

The UN charter very clearly states that only one institution has the right to decide whether a state broke the charter or not. That is the SC. If you use the charter in a political argumentation, you must IMO also accept that point.

That aside, the question was wether 'the UN as an organisation' are in opposition to the Iraq war or not. My point is that they are not, because the SC, which is, according to the UN charter, the only body that can decide such things, has not decided so.

[kandrathe]

Ok. So, you and your nation did not think the threat posed by Iraq was sufficient. Ours thought Iraq was a threat to our National Security. Why? His weapons programs, his demonstrated and declared use of advanced chemical and biological weapons, his continuation of thumbing his nose at the UN and procuring items illegal for him to purchase under UN resolutions. Not only was this regime not complying with , declaring, disarming and allowing monitoring. They were actively continuing to pursue illegal weapons programs. His regime was a threat to the US, we told him so, and we gave him 12 years to work with the UN to clean out the illegal weapons. Saddam chose not to come clean, because he thought the world didn't have the stomach to try to enforce the rules. He was right. You didn't.

The Oil for Food program was unraveling, and Iraq was fueling its economy via black market oil sales. The clamour at the UN was to lift sanctions. How many more years would it have taken Mr. Blix? 12? 24? Never? I'm betting Mr. Blix and company were doing a dance in Iraq to give a rubber stamp to a declaration that Iraq was free from WMD, so that the sanctions would be lifted regardless of whether or not Iraq had any WMD or active programs.

Vigilante. Bah. This is a nation, not an old western. It is not even a good metaphor for what happened. I think you misinterpret me anyway. I'm saying, "We all lived throught that time, and rehashing it is not much use to anyone." It's ancient history now, we can toss around recriminations and hate each other for it, and I'm sure the terrorists would be very glad to know they have driven a wedge deeper between the US and her friends.

Some shred. Here are the CIA "lies" as it were by which the Bush administration is condemned. CIA -- Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs Much of it is supposition and is declared that way, but there is alot of meat there. Reading it in hindsight of what we now know is useful, but I can't help reading that thinking "Giving Hans Blix just 3 months was not enough time". But, how much more time? It took UNSCOM 5 years to get Iraq to admit to a biological weapons program. So much for adhering to UN resolutions to immediatly declare all illegal programs. And, when it was revealed it was advanced, extensive and being done after 1991. Here is another more worldwide view on WMD proliferation done by the Center for Strategic and International studies in April, 2003. Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East Iraqi info starts on page 88.

I just don't see that with Saddam's regime it would ever end. They were set on a course that they would not be steered away from.

You obviously think differently.

[Jester]

"The UN charter very clearly states that only one institution has the right to decide whether a state broke the charter or not. That is the SC. If you use the charter in a political argumentation, you must IMO also accept that point."

Only in the sense that someone with diplomatic immunity isn't breaking a law when they open fire with a rocket launcher on a school bus. The sense of the charter is perfectly clear, in what it is meant to allow and what it is meant to forbid. That there are vetos included for the practical reason of getting the powers to get on board is unfortunate.

Again, I see this as being immune to the concequences, not as being innocent of the crime.

Jester

[Moldran]

If you want to stick with the criminal law analogy, the UN charter makes the SC the highest judge, in most cases, the only judge.
But the SC does not only have the right to order consequences. It is also the only body that has the right to determine that the UN charter was violated, which are two separate things in the UN system. The SC can theoretically determine that and order no consequences at all. On the other hand, noone else may determine a violation of the charter. Not the General Assembly, not Kofi Annan, not Hans Blix, etc.

I don't think the Charter is so very clear in all aspects, BTW. It includes several statements that speak of fundamental human rights, and on the other hand, it guarantuess sovereignity for every dictatorship, no matter what it does to the inhabitants of its country. There is alot in the Charter that leaves much room for interpretation. And there obviously is a strong tension between individual and collective rights.

[eppie]

To Moldran: without using councils charters etc. I will tell you how the "normal"people in other countries think about the US policy. (I'm not talking about our leaders sucking up to Bush in the hope to be good friends and benefit economically). People are scared of the US, the US used to be our allie (did I spell that correctly?) but now we don't know what the US is up to next. Because (and you can make a nice story around it to convince me I'm wrong) we see on and on again that these "lies" are used, just so that everything goes like the US wants. Try to realize this makes people scared.


To Kandrathe: (did saddam use biological weapons??)

So what you are saying is that according to you Irak still had chemical or biological or nuclear weapons?.
UN offcials have been there witnissing the destruction. Come on even Bush en Blair admit there is nothing there anymore. Remember that a few months ago they came with the "joke" to say that spies in Iraq thought that there were stills tons of weapons there. The problem was the US/GB only had spies in high places, and the normal people "working with these WMDs" were scared to tell Saddam that there were no weapons anymore. So because the US/GB did not have any spies on "the workfloor" they got the wrong information.

[kandrathe]

So what you are saying is that according to you Irak still had chemical or biological or nuclear weapons?

Maybe?

Let's simplify this to the ridiculous. Let's say I'm a survivalist nutcase, and I decide one day to go postal and take over the neighbors house. It is known in the neighborhood that I have a huge stash of illegal weapons, including documentation that I have recently puchased 2 tons of amonium nitrate fertilizer. After a siege, I surrender back my neighbors house and retreat back to my fortified bunker. The police agree not to press charges if I promise not to invade my neighbors house again, pay for all the costs and damages, surrender all my illeagal weapons, let them search my house for the weapons, and come visit me once in awhile to make sure I'm being a good citizen. Well, I say ok, of course.

Then, I refuse to let the marshalls search my house, I stall them while my buddies are busy "doing something" in the back. Then I let them in and they find a small sample bomb I forgot to hide, made from the fertilizer I claimed I didn't have. Then I feign to come clean again, and I admit that I have maybe 1/2 a ton and I let them take that away. Etcetera, ad naseum, and this goes on for years. Then one day, there is a new chief of police that says, "Hey, this is crazy." He thinks I'm just jerking the police around, and that I never intended to surrender my weapons. In fact, while they are poking around, taking a shotgun from me here, and some ammonium nitrate there, I'm in fact purchasing much better stuff to replace it. What a bunch of chumps those police guys are, here they thought they could turn me around and make me into a model citizen. Then, the new police chief decides one day that enough is enough, and they arrest me. They search my house and they find some stuff, but not the 1.5 tons of ammonium nitrate I'm supposed to have, and I'm not telling them where it is. Maybe I hid it, or maybe I fertilized the roses, or just maybe I sent it off to another nutball down the street. And, I ain't talking copper, ya see! {ok, enough of the Cagney} :)

My point is that Iraq had 12 years to come clean, and they never did. I think the US actually gave the UN and Mr. Blix one last opportunity to go back into Iraq to see if Iraq, would finally with adequate pressure comply with the inspections. They didn't. It was back to the cat and mouse game, dodge, distract and deceive all over again. Re-read David Kay's October 2003 findings. They did find extensive evidence of weapons programs, and they had only searched 10 of 130 known sites. What they did not find was something you would recognize as a stockpile of CW or BW munitions. Maybe all those 55 gallons barrels of "insecticide" hidden in camoflage bunkers were for something other than keeping the gnats away from the ammunition? How long does it take to grow, and process enough anthrax to stop an Army? How much anthrax would you need to start that process with? One test tube?

So let's revisit Doug Hanson's article...

Case Not Closed: Iraq’s WMD Stockpiles -- March 2nd, 2004
In the summer of 2003, I served as Chief of Staff in the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), an organization formerly called the Ministry of Atomic Energy. The Ministry had a small staff of Americans and Iraqis, and was one of several ministries of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad. One of our key tasks was to transition several thousand Iraqi scientists and engineers from military and state-owned enterprises to private enterprises involved in more peaceful endeavors.  Working there, I enjoyed a unique vantage point on the activities of the Iraqi Survey Group (ISG), the inspection agency headed by Dr. David Kay, charged with finding WMD.
...
In his recent testimony, Dr. Kay pronounced that there are no large stockpiles of WMD.  This is a pretty bold assertion considering that actual surveys of sites we were familiar with were haphazard and uncoordinated.  Also, according to his own interim report published in October of 2003, the ISG had not even searched 120 of the 130 known ammo storage points, much less any underground sites.  In addition to these known sites, “neighborhood” arms caches are discovered all the time in Iraq.  It is entirely possible that WMD stockpiles were moved out of Iraq, or that they were dispersed in Baghdad neighborhoods and throughout Iraq.  All of this may even have been accomplished while the unfocused search operations were ongoing.
...
Douglas Hanson was a US Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20 years, and is a Gulf War I combat veteran.  He has a background in radiation biology and physiology, and was an Atomic Demolitions Munitions (ADM) Security Officer, and a Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Officer.  As a civilian analyst, he has worked on stability and support operations in Bosnia, and helped develop a multi-service medical  treatment manual for nuclear and radiological casualties.  He was initially an operations officer in the operations/intelligence cell of the Requirements Coordination Office of the CPA, and was later assigned as the Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Doug Hanson has street cred with me. Reading just CNN or other mainstream press, I might have agreed with you. But, when I see stuff like this article, written by someone who was there, working with the CPA, and the ISG, then I begin to have some doubts.

[Jester]

"I don't think the Charter is so very clear in all aspects, BTW. It includes several statements that speak of fundamental human rights, and on the other hand, it guarantuess sovereignity for every dictatorship, no matter what it does to the inhabitants of its country. There is alot in the Charter that leaves much room for interpretation. And there obviously is a strong tension between individual and collective rights."

I couldn't agree more. But it leaves no question as to who is allowed to pursuse the claims about such tensions. The Security Council is the *only body authorized to use force* except in cases of self defense.

Now, the immunity a veto gives you is impressive indeed, I'll grant. You can't be tried. You can't even be substantively accused. But the English of the charter is clear as day as to what it is supposed to forbid in terms of war: any offensive action not authorized by the council.

If the USSR pulled off this kind of crap in the middle of the cold war, there would have been screaming to high heaven about it, not hair-splitting arguments about how their veto prevents it from being illegal under international law.

Jester

[kandrathe]

You mean like in 1956 when they invaded and annexed Hungary, and vetoed the Security Council resolution denouncing it? Or again, in 1979 when they invaded and occupied Afghanistan?

[Jester]

Precisely. Are we now to call these wars "legal"?

Jester

Edit: ... and is this the standard of legality we can expect the US to hold itself to?

[Jester]

"How much anthrax would you need to start that process with? One test tube?"

How harshly would you have to smash Iraq before this would not be a threat? If they're anywhere near the modern age, low-grade biological and chemical weapons (and their precursors) would be incredibly easy to manufacture at any juncture. The potential for the potential for a potential threat is not "imminent", nor is it sufficient grounds to invade above and beyond Security Council measures, which included scrutinous inspections and one of the harshest sanction regimes on the planet. You want to go to war over insecticide? Or over some ten-year-old anthrax in some scientist's fridge, or plans buried in his rose garden? Is this really cause for war? Concern, maybe, but there are appropriate responses and then there's completely excessive (even if it was under the Security Council, which it wasn't.)

Jester

[kandrathe]

Well, yes. If you use the Security Council and the UN as the standard. Were they right? Were they done with the consultation of the world politic? Tougher questions. I think by definition, any war is unjust. I actually personally don't believe in war, other than defending the homeland.

Getting back to this war. This war would not have been neccesary had other world nations strictly and honestly followed the sanctions against Iraq. But, Saddam, seeing his punishment and only inducement to comply with the UN weakening, and the will of the world eroding had only to wait, stall, not comply. Kind of like asking who is to blame for robbery, well the criminal certainly, but also those who buy the stolen property, and the fence who arranges the transactions.

From the US point of view, this war was neccesary to a] prevent a future larger conflict in which Iraq would be better prepared, b] to prevent the proliferation of WMD, and c] to prevent a future WMD attack on the US homeland. You might not agree with the NSA, CIA, DIA, or all the pre-war analysis, but that is where they were coming from and they had a pretty good case against Iraq being a source for that trouble. They tried real hard for 12 years to try an alternative route, but in the end Iraq's refusal to fully comply with "Plans A thru Y" resulted in "Plan Z". Finally, the US felt they had to unseat Saddam by force. It was a very unpopular decision, and will probably result in a single term for Bush the younger.

[Cybit]

Except they screwed up (B) and © a loong time ago. We invade Iraq because they are oh, 6-7 years away from PERHAPS getting a nuke (being very very generous to bush and co), while we leave

North Korea: Known to have the bomb (probably more then one), the world's largest standing army, several thousand American targets very close by, and a dictator who is by all accounts way off his rocker.

Iran: Extraordinarily close to the bomb now, an extreme fundamentalist Muslim country who doesn't particularly like us (as opposed to the secular Iraq), and openly aids terrorists (See: Hezebollah, Al Qaida).

Pakistan: A government hanging by a thread militarily, fundamentalist Islam intelligence services and population, has multiple nukes, SOLD said nuke capability to North Korea, has sponsored terrorism for around 40 years (see: Kashimir) and has no qualms playing brinksmanship with said bomb.

alone. Despite the fact the burden of proof was on OUR side, we simply claimed Iraq could not prove it had disposed of everything (attempting to sleight of hand burden of proof onto Iraq, which would be impossible for the Iraqis to prove even if they had disposed of everything), and thus invaded Iraq even though Afghanistan was still being rebuilt, screwing over not only the soldiers in Afghanistan but also the country, not planning at all for post-war Iraq rebuilding, thus creating a very hostile situation for the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers overseas, plunging us into even more debt (I believe the appropriations bills for Iraq, come to what, over 100 billion already?), and forcing us pretty much to make sure we stay in Iraq until we fix the mess we helped to create.

[Chaerophon]

You mean like in 1956 when they invaded and annexed Hungary, and vetoed the Security Council resolution denouncing it? Or again, in 1979 when they invaded and occupied Afghanistan?

And from this we may draw my argument that the United Nations, as a supranational organization, possessed of its own charters and standards of law can be opposed to an action, and act unilaterally in condemning an action, even if a member of the security council is not. Just thought I'd throw that in there for Moldran.