Start of Civil War? Attacks Across Iraq!

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Given the current, past, & probable future state of anarchy that exists in the system of nation-states, self-enforcement is the only way things get done. If the states don't care to enforce a law, it ceases to have any meaning.

That doesn't work. The current state is not one of total anarchy anyway, but such a state would inevitably lead to disaster. As Hobbes pointed out, such behaviour is collectively self defeating. It took two appalling wars for people to realize that, and some people still don't get it.

Only an international institution can effectively deal with things like global environmental problems. "Voluntary restraint" won't work. Nobody with a brain believes that it works within a state and there is no reason to think it will work on the international level. Same goes for trade policy and security.

So either we stop ****ing about and cede authority to international institutions or we watch disaster unfold. It will probably take some catastrophe before cretins like Bush are hanged from lamp posts and sanity prevails.

You are acting as if there is a workable alternative when there is not. It's either the UN or something like it, or widespread suffering. Isolationists and unilateralists like to pretend it isn't (like the try to pretend that climate change isn't happening), but they are just idiots.

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by DanS


It surveyed 3,000 people, so I trust it. Done by the BBC and other western press. See page 15.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_03_04_iraqsurvey.pdf

Saddam Hussein outpolls Sadr by 6:1.

Thanks for that link. A very interesting poll, allthough I still believe it does not, (nor could it possibly) take the fear factor/ war paranoia into account.

That doesn't work. The current state is not one of total anarchy anyway, but such a state would inevitably lead to disaster. As Hobbes pointed out, such behaviour is collectively self defeating. It took two appalling wars for people to realize that, and some people still don't get it.

Only an international institution can effectively deal with things like global environmental problems. "Voluntary restraint" won't work. Nobody with a brain believes that it works within a state and there is no reason to think it will work on the international level. Same goes for trade policy and security.

So either we stop ****ing about and cede authority to international institutions or we watch disaster unfold. It will probably take some catastrophe before cretins like Bush are hanged from lamp posts and sanity prevails.

You are acting as if there is a workable alternative when there is not. It's either the UN or something like it, or widespread suffering. Isolationists and unilateralists like to pretend it isn't (like the try to pretend that climate change isn't happening), but they are just idiots.

The UN has been around for 50 years, and no major world war has broken out yet. However, this is not qa testament to the effectiveness of the U.N., rather a testament to the effectiveness of nuclear missiles.

re: climate change
There is no possible way to determine if the climate change is natural, or due to human influences. Pinatubvo and St. Helens dwarfed toxic gas output in one giant shebang. People who think the earth will be a desert and Antartica a tropical paradise becaUSE NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE GETTING THEIR OIL CHANGED EVERY 3 MONTHS are loony. OOPS CAP[S

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
Despite what you think, the law is not that much of an ass.

Ah, so now the criterion is not that he broke the law, but that you don't like what he did! I understand now

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kucinich
[q] Originally posted by Tripledoc

Should Clinton be tried for war crimes, because of Kosovo?

Should Bush I be tried for war crimes, because of the first Gulf War?

Should Bush II be tried for war crimes because of Afghanistan?

GWI was sanctioned by the UNSC. The invasion of Afghanistan was carried out with the support of the UN-recognized government of said country.

A case against Clinton could be made, but it would be seriously weakened by the fact that the UNSC, post facto, endorsed the NATO invasion.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Ah, so now the criterion is not that he broke the law, but that you don't like what he did! I understand now

That's the way it works. You'd never hear Europeans describe the NATO attack on Kosovo as unilateral because it was unsactioned by the UN and oppossed by Russia and Most of the 3rd world.

[Kuciwalker]

GWI was sanctioned by the UNSC. The invasion of Afghanistan was carried out with the support of the UN-recognized government of said country.

Afghanistan was not UN-sanctioned.

EDIT: nm

(btw, this was IIRC before the distinction of "UN-sanctioned" arose in the conversation - just "aggressive war")

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Afghanistan was not UN-sanctioned.

It was. The resolution was passed in the moment of sweetness and light after 9/11 before everyone went back to disliking each other again.

[Kuciwalker]

nm, then. I thought it wasn't.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Afghanistan was not UN-sanctioned.

Nor did it have to be (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

As it was an attack upon the US, the NATO treaty was also legally invoked.

[Last Conformist]

It doesn't matter. The war in Afghanistan was waged in alliance with the Northern Alliance, which was the formally recognized government.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Go for it Commie.

You won't see me "getting off."

What is it with you Derek?

Anyone would think you have the hots for me the way you follow me round from thread to thread, Derek...

Once the decision is made it's better to support it and get behind it so the job is done right. Second guessing a drastic action in the middle of its execution does more harm than good for everybody involved.

What do you think I have been saying!!?

Just because I've made you run away crying from this forum on several occasions, obviously your seemingly childlike reading comprehension skills have been impaired by your obvious hatred of me, Derek...

We have to support our troops in Iraq, I'd just called Tripledoc to task about his negative comments before your enlightened post, Derek...

But what pisses me off is that the US is doing everything wrong and making the situation worse!

This kind of nonsense isn't contructive and is outright disgusting.

I agree, using Saddam tactics to 'pacify' a city of 300,000 civilians is 'outright disgusting' - hell, the IGC had to step in to avoid making things even worse, which they will when the US doesn't get its demands...

The thing is that it hurts the Iraqis most of all when crap like this goes down but some of you morons think it's cool because someone is going against the USA. That's what it's all about really, "oh look cool guys are defying the USA."

I'm not sure to which morons you are referring to, personally I think it is terrible that the US is provoking Iraqis to rise up against it - especially because ultimately that might encourage others to rise up against the US' other more vulnerable allies (oh that happened already!). There is no coincidence that the actions against UK forces have resulted in minimal casualties to both sides in the south - it is called 'minimum force', 'negotiation' and 'diplomacy'...

You should look those words up Derek, I guarantee you'd learn something...

Fine, get off on your sickness all you want, the USA is staying with the Iraqis for as long as it takes until there is stable democracy there, so go ahead and gloat all you want about it right now.

I know they are, they have to - the US had better not FUBAR this so much that the US public calls for a withdrawal. Those approval ratings are getting pretty low over there lately, Derek...

It was only a matter of time before the militia was going to be disarmed and unfortunatley it came down to this but one way or the other it's going to be eliminated.

No, in a country awash with weapons like Iraq the militia will never be truly disarmed. You need to erode its support base and its will to fight. Generally the best way to do this is to eliminate their desire to fight in the 1st place...

Sure there will be diehards who will never give up, but like we know in the UK they take an awful long time to die away (about 90 years for the IRA so far...)

The UK knows how to deal with this ****, as best you can anyway...

Maybe you'd prefer to see Saddam still in charge.

Maybe you'd prefer to kiss my ass, Derek...

[Ted Striker]

You idiot, the UK commander himself said that the reason the UK hasn't had to use force in the south is because it's a "quieter" area. He went on record as saying that if he was dealing with a harsher area like this that he would certainly respond with a high level of force the same way the US has had to.

Stirring it up, bollocks.

Have you and Saddam climaxed yet?

[Lord Merciless]

Fallujah deserves a fate similar to Atlanta in 1864.

[Uncle Sparky]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
Fallujah deserves a fate similar to Atlanta in 1864.

Well... I guess the hawks that are getting off on the occupation could use mustard gas like the Brits did the last time they occupied Iraq. Then we could go back to calling civillian casualties "collateral damage" and everything would be just ducky. God Save the Queen!

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
You idiot, the UK commander himself said that the reason the UK hasn't had to use force in the south is because it's a "quieter" area.

And it is a quieter area because...

He went on record as saying that if he was dealing with a harsher area like this that he would certainly respond with a high level of force the same way the US has had to.

But the point is that he wouldn't let it get that way in the first place.

Stirring it up, bollocks.

Have you and Saddam climaxed yet?

That's rich! Only one country has been stirring this up, when it engaged in this needless enterprise in the first place and then and then stirred the pot even more last week...

Scale of Falluja violence emerges

'Provocation'

American behaviour had helped provoke ordinary people to join the resistance, she said, adding that even she and her older sister wanted to join the fighters.

"When the Americans arrived there were only about 50 guerrillas," another Falluja resident, Nada Rabee, told Reuters.

"By the end of the week there were a few thousand. They are just making the situation worse."

A New York Times report corroborates these claims.

The US newspaper says that many people - perhaps tens of thousands - who did not consider themselves full-time resistance fighters were now prepared to join the insurgency.

Khalif Juma, a 26-year-old vegetable seller, told the newspaper he was angry about the US treatment of radical Shia religious leader Moqtada Sadr, for whom an arrest warrant has been issued.

"To be honest, we weren't like this before. But we're religious people, and our leader has been threatened," he told the newspaper.

"We would be ashamed to stay in our houses with our wives at a time like this."

He and his cousins have bought a crate of Kalashnikov rifles, he said.

I guess this bears out what I have been saying about the jackboot tactics of the US actually encouraging the rebellion - so, who's the idiot now huh?

As for your constant comparisons to that murderous thug Saddam, don't you think the tactics of the US forces bear a remarkable resemblance to his? I bet the Iraqi people do...