Japan threatens Korea with pre-emptive strike

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by muxec
N. Korea must be unarmed, and if UN can not unarm it peacefully Japan and USA must unarm it.

Who says they 'must' anything?

They have every right to do as they wish, as long as they don´t attack anybody, or break a treaty.

And as they have a few 'devices', anybody telling them they 'must' do as he wishes is risking a few of his cities...

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Oerdin
One of the great things about being the victor is you get to impose what ever you wish upon the defeated and they get to take it with a smile. If you read any of the dozens of books about the gulf war you will find that the only type of flights which the cease fire allowed we're "diplomatic flights" Powell said he adreed with this during negotiations because he thought the Iraqis would really only use it to transport government diplomats. Saddam however took it to mean he could opporate military combat flights and began attacking the Kurds and Shiites.

Nowhere in the terms of the UN ceasefire agreement are any such restrictions on flights mentioned, at all. The UN does not recognize the no-fly zones as legitimate, and Koffi Annan himself said last year that Iraq was NOT inviolation of the ceasefire for firing upon U.S. planes in Iraqi airspace.

Iraq did NOT agree to the no-fly zones. They were imposed, AFTER the ceasefire, by the U.S. And Iraq has persistently, since their imposition, argued they were illegal, and they are correct.

Ted Striker:

You didn't read my post to you or ignored it, which answered the question. Such a course of action should have been UN-sanctioned. It was not. Ergo the U.S. violated the ceasefire first by invading Iraqi airspace. Had we gone through the UN, it wouldn't be an issue.

Drake:

No ****. I said Iraq violated the ceasefire by refusing to disarm, which was part of the UN-brokered ceasefire. You're the one who brought the no-fly zones into play. If you want to keep beating on your own strawman, go right ahead. Just don't expect me to play.

And I was pointing out the U.S. violated it, too, and did so in April of 1991. So I'd say we were first to violate it. You can't criticize Iraq for violating a ceasefire that we ourselves are violating, duh.

[Ted Striker]

Such a course of action should have been UN-sanctioned. It was not. Ergo the U.S. violated the ceasefire first by invading Iraqi airspace. Had we gone through the UN, it wouldn't be an issue.

Go through the UN my ass. People are being slaughtered by helicopter gunship and you want to wait on a ****ing UN Resolution.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Go through the UN my ass. People are being slaughtered by helicopter gunship and you want to wait on a ****ing UN Resolution.

Slaughtering Iraqis by helicopter gunship is assuredly a privilege only the US should have.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Go through the UN my ass. People are being slaughtered by helicopter gunship and you want to wait on a ****ing UN Resolution.

Oh please.

Your emotional indignity doesn't matter to anyone here, because it's a load of hot air.

First, engaging in military aggression against another country should always be with the sanction of the international community. The U.S. didn't even try to bring the question to the UN, they just did it.

Second, as the WP reported back in 2000, the U.S. concern for the welfare of Kurds is dubious at best. There was the non-existant help in a revolution to oust Saddam, after all. And then there was our little matter of appeasing Turkey. Wouldn't want to stop them from killing Kurds, would we? See:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2000/1025nfly.htm

Some choice quotes:

The Turkish government has interrupted the flying schedule several times, sometimes to bomb Kurdish villages in Iraq and sometimes to protest America's refusal to sell Turkey certain precision-guided bombs.

U.S. aircraft mistakenly bombed and strafed a group of Iraqi shepherds last year because intelligence analysts misinterpreted satellite imagery and thought a water trough for sheep was a missile launcher.

As the United States enters its 10th year of confronting Hussein, military strategists are frustrated, too. "I no longer have any sense of what the 'containment' of Iraq is all about," said retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, now a military expert at Boston University. "We just fly missions and drop bombs from time to time because we've been doing it for 10 years and no one can stop us from doing so."

In early 1999, said Mike Horn, who flew F-15s in two tours of duty in Northern Watch, "sometimes we flew in such a way that we provoked them to shoot at us." Under the operation's rules of engagement, they could not bomb unless the Iraqis fired upon them first.

Still, some are dismayed by what they have seen. Horn said that on more than one occasion he and his comrades received a radio message that "there was a TSM inbound"--that is, a "Turkish Special Mission" heading into Iraq. Following standard orders, the Americans turned their planes around and flew back to Turkey.

"You'd see Turkish F-14s and F-16s inbound, loaded to the gills with munitions," he said. "Then they'd come out half an hour later with their munitions expended."

When the Americans flew back into Iraqi airspace, he recalled, they would see "burning villages, lots of smoke and fire."

Those are from American pilots.

[DuncanK]

Boris,

When Iraq lost the war they had nothing to bargain with. The deal we offered them was, among other things, destroy all WoD, and we will stop the war. The US has been a bully, because we can. The aim though is to disarm Saddam, and to prevent him from being a threat in the region. I think the whole thing has been handled horribly, and that is mostly daddy Bush's fault. But to go on and say that the US is breaking the cease fire is not productive, except to demonstrate how poorly we have handled the situation. It doesn't matter too much for what is happening now.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Some choice quotes

Maybe you forgot this one:

The Turkish and U.S. militaries last year established separate air lanes so that U.S. aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone would not cross paths with Turkish planes bombing alleged Kurdish terrorist bases. Turkey has been fighting for years against the PKK, a Kurdish group seeking an independent homeland in the border region between Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

Yes, the PKK makes up the entire population of the Kurds. Brilliant.

I think you are right though, the US should pull out of the no fly zone and not go back until we can push a unanimous UN resolution to patrol the no-fly zone through. I wholeheartedly trust Saddam to behave himself, don't you?

"Hey officer, this man over here is raping me."

"Even though this guy is raping you, and just got done raping the woman down the street, I'll need to go back to headquarters and fill out the appropriate paperwork and then if my boss, his boss, and rape intervention committee agrees, then I'll come back and help you. Hopefully you won't be dead by then."

Please.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DuncanK
Boris,

When Iraq lost the war they had nothing to bargain with. The deal we offered them was, among other things, destroy all WoD, and we will stop the war. The US has been a bully, because we can. The aim though is to disarm Saddam, and to prevent him from being a threat in the region. I think the whole thing has been handled horribly, and that is mostly daddy Bush's fault. But to go on and say that the US is breaking the cease fire is not productive, except to demonstrate how poorly we have handled the situation. It doesn't matter too much for what is happening now.

That's not accurate. The U.S. accepted a UN-brokered ceasefire, it did not impose (at first) unilateral peace terms, and Iraq only accepted the UN terms. The US didn't got to war unilaterally in 1991--it went in under the aegis of a UN coalition. For the US to then unilaterally impose the no-fly zones was certainly an aggressive act against Iraq, which would qualify as a violation of the ceasefire.

Bottom line: The no-fly zones aren't legal under international law. That's why Annan said Iraq had the right to fire on U.S. planes in Iraqi airspace.

I think you are right though, the US should pull out of the no fly zone and not go back until we can push a unanimous UN resolution to patrol the no-fly zone through. I wholeheartedly trust Saddam to behave himself, don't you?

Considering even U.S. pilots think the no-fly zones aren't doing much of anything, I think it would be more than reasonable to take the matter to the UN security council for a vote.

Your "analogy" (I use quotes) is pretty piss-poor, considering a police officer has all the authority he needs to stop a crime in commission. And the U.S. isn't the police officer of the world, IIRC.

Besides, once again, if we care so much about the Kurds, why do we let the Turks bomb them? Oh right--those are terrorist villages in flames. Yeah, entire villages of terrorists.

And if we really cared about the lives of Iraqis, maybe we'd ease the sanctions to allow more humanitarian aide...

[CICSMaster]

You know, If Nkor, pissed China off, and China jumped down their collective throats, this discussion would not be happening.

What makes you think you can change the USA's mind anymore than you could change China's mind in the same situation?