War Is Imminent

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

Yeah, I may of already posted it on here before!

 

In a Ideal world:

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Come back when you can form any semblance of an argument, rather than just "I hate George Bush, I hate America", which is your usual line of reasoning.

 

Until then, I'd let AFF and EFM's Librarian speak on your behalf. At least they come out with some intelligent comment.

 

Excuse me if I don't take your political opinions too seriously, Thornsy. Who's 'Monster Raving Loony' Party was it you claimed to have voted for in the last election??

 

 

[mdetaylor]

Interesting, somewhat off the point I agree CZ as the question now is so the troops have the support of the public and I think the answer is a resounding yes.

 

As far as legality is concerned it is a greyish area but it does seem fairly certain that the US/UK do have authority to act under previous UN resolutions. The original resolutions (678 and 687 I believe) that were issued at the time of the first Gulf war required Iraq to disarm or disarmament by force. Following the war these resolutions were suspended but not cancelled as the weapons inspectors went in.

 

Iraq once the weapons inspectors left were in material breach of these resolutions again and could again face the inevitable consequences. Resolution 1441 required again the Iraq disarm or face serious consequences, it did not require a second resolution to permit force as the French refused to allow a process for a second resolution to be included (in the same way that the French watered down the last weapons inspection resolution so much that it made the inspectors impotent as they could not inspect palaces etc without prior arrangement).

 

The US/UK therefore have the power to act under 678/687/1441 as Iraq are in material breach. The problem for Blair was that to make the situation look more acceptable a second resolution would have been desirable. If they had a vote and the US/UK failed then they would clearly not have had authority and following the French decision to veto any resolution it was clear that a second vote could not be risked.

 

Personally I don't like the way Bush has acted, particularly as I believe he is a puppet for Rumsfeld and Cheiney who are both warmongers. Blair and Powell have done well to keep them in check but in the end may well both lose their jobs. The issues have been clouded by humanitarian concerns, oil and the middle east when if they had stuck to disarmament as they have this week then the arguments are more convincing.

 

I believe that Blair does have additional information but more likely about risks of selling anthrax (10,000 gallons unacounted for in Iraq) and the like to terrorist organsiations. He impressed in his peach yesterday.

 

Respect to Cook and the the others that resigned on principle. No respect to Short who is a joke now. Sadness that Kennedy was bad yesterday and made the Lib Dems look weak.

 

Too much of it seems to have been about profile raising and making sure that you are not a footnote in history. Contrast the way that Schroeder has been very measured and held a firm line without sensation with the way that Chiraq has paraded himself - he has been unreasonable at times, extreemly arrogant and he hardly has a record of ethical foreign policy to rely on.

 

Anyway, rant over. I hope that what action there is is swift and that the promises of a rebuilding of Iraq with oil held on trust for the people are true.

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Spot on, mde.

 

 

[CANV EFM]

im sure at one stage yesterday i saw I.D.S. offering charles kennedy outside for some 'afters'

[SteveP]

We had a very similar debate on the general forum.

 

I think the fact a 2nd UN resolution could not be achieved is bad, but this is part of the problem, the minute France placed an unconditional veto to it, there was no point.

 

The US have not handled this particularly well, to Blair's credit I think he's tried to get some kind of international backing, as if it were totally unilateral then the US would isolated from the rest of the world and that is only going to create bigger divisions and more problems after the war.

[AFF]

Hi EFMTFTV.

 

From the first letter you reproduced: "....weapons of mass distraction". I wish I'd said that first!

 

The second letter was on the 'War' thread on 'The Pub' bit of the site, re-printed on this General thread by me.

 

Hi mde.

 

The "legality" of taking military action.

 

We have to analyse the precise wording of individual U.N. Resolutions and then adopt one side or the others definition of "serious consequences". You have given a legal view that it's legal. On Channel 4 news last night, a lawyer from International Human Rights Association or some such was arguing the reverse and suggesting that, once this is all over, he will take Bush and Blair to The Hague and prosecute them as War Criminals.

 

The point of this is not to criticise the legal profession although I have heard the view that 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name, but rather to make another point.

 

To defend or criticise the invasion of another country and the amount of blood that will be spilled, people are resorting to the wording and interpretation of U.N. Resolutions.

 

How about a simple "Is this right?".

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

Quote:

From the first letter you reproduced: "....weapons of mass distraction". I wish I'd said that first!

Somebody could get a great comedy sketch out of that!

[CANV EFM]

you will never get a right or wrong in politics or war..its all far to grey.... surely all war is wrong??!! or is it..? only with the benefit of hindsight can we see who was right or wrong.. dig this thread out in 12 months time and we shall see.. im voting for war.

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Got this email earlier. I sure the writer of it won't mind me stealing it, as he's made the point a lot better than I've been attempting to...

 

Whilst [hoping for] World Peace [is] very commendable, I'm afraid that in the real world such views are unsustainable. There will always be people who take advantage of good natured people. If we were to stand by and do nothing, Saddam would take advantage of this and continue to develop and enhance his weapons of mass destruction. There will then come a time when he is able to then use these weapons to devastating effect.

 

The purpose of the military operation is to disarm Saddam by force as this is the only method he understands. This is not a full scale war, and whilst innocent lives will tragically be lost, that is not the aim of this operation, and if it is successful, Iraqi's can expect a much high standard of living once Saddam is removed from Power. He's been given plenty of opportunity to give up his weapons peacefully and he's declined to do so, meaning force is the only option left.

 

 

[SteveP]

Agreed Canv, unfortunately we don't have the benefit of hindsight, would I have still picked Chesham and Spurs with that??

 

We have to accept that if any war goes ahead there will be casualties, what gets me is that people seem to conveniently forget that Saddam has murdered over a million people, but they are prepared to call the US warmongers before thinking the world might be a better place without Hussein.

 

Do you really think Saddam checked out Iraqi or international law before gassing people? I would suggest not.

 

The states aren't 100% in the right, they perhaps should have worked harder to make the UN work, but if they did, they'd only be accused of bullying and bribery.

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

I don't think we know the writer of that CZ, I think we know who cut and pasted it from a website though <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

 

See ya, I'm off home!

[GHA EFM]

What a fantastic thread this is.

 

Zeal. Having read your initial message, and responding by asking the question of whether AFF had seen this or not, I was merely indicating AFF's differing views on the subject. He's not my 'spokesperson,' but he knows more than me on the subject.

 

What I know is:

 

Bush and Blair give Saddam 10 days to act (last week). At the same time, Hussein had already destroyed 34 of his Al Samoud missiles, missiles that were banned because they can travel 33 kilometres further than they are supposed to. Despite this flagrant breach, the missiles don't quite reach the UK, so at the moment we are safe. But anyway. 10 days to act. 34 missiles destroyed. Is destroying a missile not acting? Or do they want him to do a sketch from Glengarrie, Glenn Ross?

 

The question of how much people know about what Saddam has apparently done (all these horrors) in Iraq on his own people is obvious: no-one knows as much as they think they do.

 

Iraq has no links to terrorism and Al-Quae'da. Wait, that's a point. Whatever happened to Bush's 'war on terrorism,' and the whole 'let's go catch Osama Bin Laden' thing. Did we catch him?? I must have been off that day.

 

How can Hussein be proclaimed a 'threat to world peace' if, firing his missiles from inside Baghdad, they only just reach Iraq's borders? Is France an Iraqi colony? How can Bush and Blair, two of the world superpowers' leaders, who are declaring war on a country, not be considered 'threats to world peace?' Bush and Blair themselves have taken the first step.

 

The idea that the missiles are no threat now, but given time they will develop. Er. Right. Well. A 2-yr-old Mike Tyson wouldn't be a threat to me right now, so I don't go and bomb the cr@p out of the little sh#t, just because he may develop into a bigger Mike Tyson. I simply don't provoke him when he's older. Maybe monitor him from now till he's older, become friends with him, and hope he doesn't steal my lunch money.

 

Not too sure how ordered the above comments are, but I'll let you intelligencia of the board work it out for yourselves.

 

Today's empires are tomorrow's ashes.

 

The Grand High Aviator Of Cool

[Chubbhead EFM]

Right, I'm gonna throw my two'penneth in here and give you a few totally HONEST reasons why I'm against the war:

 

1.Moving away from the political reasons I'm sure I must not be alone in saying that I'M ACTUALLY QUITE SCARED. Maybe I'll be the only one to admit it but it's the truth. How do we know this war won't spiral out of control?

 

2. I suppose for someone my age it is difficult to comprehend that my country could be involved in a war. I think that's why a lot of school kids have been protesting. Other than the war on terror, young people(in this country) have no experince of war, most of us don't truely grasp the political situation and the complexities of war and so we concentrate on why war is wrong from a moral point of view.

 

3. Speaking of which, will the US and UK sought out Zimbabwe and get rid of good old Mugabe after this? (shame on you Chirac by the way) And when they/we are done with Iraq, exactly what sought of Government will the Iraqi's be 'allowed' to have. Iraq is a Muslim country and Bush and Blair are 'Christians'- surely it would be better to get someone who fully understands the Muslim religion to 'supervise' the installment of a new government. I'm not talking religious segregation here, but there are fundamental differences between the two religions and this is reflected in the laws of the land e.g women having to cover up, illegality of alcohol etc. Things they think are right we think are wrong and vice versa if you get my drift.

 

4.Put plain and simply I don't want innocent people to die in my name. I do hope that Saddam is overthrown but I'm not entirely convinced Blair and Bush are doing it for the right reasons. They said today that he has until 1am outr time to get out but they may attack before that time-what the **** is all that about? I thought they wanted to do it peacefully if thay could. If so, surely they'd wait until the alloted deadline?

[GHA EFM]

Quote:

will the US and UK sought out Zimbabwe and get rid of good old Mugabe after this?

Apparently not, due to the fact that Zimbabwe has no oil fields.

With reference to my previous post, a question.
If you want to get rid of Saddam, why not hire a sniper? Haven't the army got any? Failing that, use a hired contract killer. That'd save time.

[Chubbhead EFM]

Did you see the programme 'Holidays in the Axis of Evil' last night?

 

Apparently, last year during the war on terrorism thousands od Shi'ite Muslims tried to rise up and overthrow Saddam but were not given any support by the very people who want Mr H out now. I think the figure was something like 1400 people were killed by Saddams people(hope I got that right!) and the revolution was crushed. I didn't know that until I saw that programme. Why didn't we help then?

[AFF]

Hi Chubbhead.

 

Honest views, no doubt, but:

 

1. Fear is not a good reason to oppose the principle of war. "For evil to triumph, it takes a few good men to do nothing" etc.

 

2. I believe that war should be the last resort of diplomacy. I believe that there can be, and have been, "just" wars. Therefore, I can't accept the 'war is morally wrong' stuff.

 

3. See GHA's answer to that one. There's no oil in Korea, either, by the way.

 

If the U.N. have to put the toothpaste back in the tube after the lunatics have finished in Iraq, there are Muslim countries in the U.N., of course.

 

4. Many people are likely to die in this war and I understand your views.

 

You refer to things that the media tell you have been said by Bush and Blair, or things that you may have heard them say.

 

Chubb. This will shock you. These people don't always tell the whole truth.

[FleetFanatic]

Either way, there's a firework display on Sky News just after 1am.

[Woody]

Quote:

Iraq has no links to terrorism and Al-Quae'da

 

You're not serious are you, GHA? It's been proven that he's been backing Hezbollah and Hamas or don't they count?

[EFM's Librarian]

I think the important thing to recognise is that none of us have all the facts; because of this I think all these polls saying "x% are in favour of war" etc.. are slightly pointless, as I've already said to Zeal "would you ask the man on the street how to get to mars, or which measurement of the money supply should we use?" - of course not, and therefore most of our opinions on the war are irrelevant, and often very misinformed - people keep calling Iraq a muslim country, Iraq is a secular state, and in fact has one of the few Christian members of an Arabic administration in Tariq Aziz.

HOWEVER I do believe its important to have a healthy scepticism and not believe everything you're told, especially when it comes from politicians, who often have ulterior motives (just ask Dick Cheney about Haliburtons plans for post-war Iraq) If these politicians are in the right, it is their duty to explain to us why they are doing what they are doing (something I don't believe they have done sufficiently)

 

GHA's point about snipers and Saddam Hussein seems to me a very important one, if 'our' war is with the Iraqi leadership, and not the Iraqi people, why not just use highly trained US secret services to take out Saddam Hussein (and possibly his administration)?

 

I accept that it is difficult for politicians to give us all the facts because of security reasons - although this does give them a green light to flood us with propaganda - and if you look back over history, administrations (particularly US ones) have a tendency to distort the truth when they have slightly dodgy motives.

 

Robin Cook's resignation speech included this particularly telling line paragraph "I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to complete disarmament, and that our patience is exhausted. Yet it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply"

I find hypocrisy extremely galling, especially when those guilty of it, keep talking about the moral right of what they are doing.

 

My final point is illustrated by a quote from Ann Coulter - a US commentator for the Republican party discussing the middle East "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." I sincerely believe that the real threat to the world is religous fundamentalists, whether Muslim, Christian, or whatever else. These people are convinced they are right, very rarely listen to argument, and

tend to believe that they are going to heaven when they die, and therefore are less reluctant to help prevent an all out world destroying nuclear war.