George Bush, Hero or Villain? A Debate.

Here is a debate I had with a British Anderson supporter, after Hannity had soundly trounced Anderson in a debate in Salt Lake City. The discussion was on the topic of whether Bush and Blair have committed war crimes similar to those committed by the Nazi defendants in Nuremberg.

· Danny on May 11th, 2007 said:

The following statement by Anderson (which you quoted) is an example of Rocky’s use of name calling rather than sound argument; his fallacious and self contradictory reasoning; and his utter lack of integrity.

>>Because the Bush administration was not acting in self-defence (sic), the tragic invasion and occupation of Iraq has been utterly illegal. It constitutes a crime against peace - the same crime for which people were convicted at the Nuremberg trial.

I am going to try to make this as simple for you as I can. The second Gulf War, as well as the first Gulf War, had its origins in a defensive action on the U.S. and Britain’s part. We were trying to defend Kuwait from an unwarranted and cruel invasion by Iraq. Once we broke Iraq’s hold over Kuwait, those initial hostilities did not end with a formal treaty, as did World War I, for example. Iraq petitioned us for a cease fire.

We replied, “OK, we will grant your cease fire, provided certain conditions are met. You see we don’t trust you with weapon of mass destruction. We have seen you are willing to engage in wars of conquest and that you are also willing to use poison gas against even your own people. Therefore, we will let you live, if you fully cooperate with certain controls we will put in place. Those controls include weapons inspectors and reports that you will fill out documenting how you are destroying the WMD programs you already have.”

To make a long story short, Iraq (at one point) expelled the weapons inspectors and its reports detailing the destruction of its WMD were unsatisfactory.

Additionally Iraq fired upon our planes that were DEFENDING the Kurds against Saadam’s potential massive and brutal retribution. It should go without saying, that if you petition someone to cease fire and they agree; then you start firing on them again (for whatever reason) you have no right to expect that the cease fire agreement can continue. In fact, it did not continue and hostilities were resumed.

There was nothing illegal about our entrance into the Second Gulf War, and Anderson proved in the debate that he really does not believe that the invasion of Iraq was illegal either. If you want to know why I say that check out my blog at: http://muncastroexp.blogspot.com/

· 5 BritishAnderson Supporter on May 11th, 2007 said:

“Because the Bush administration was not acting in self-defence (sic), the tragic invasion and occupation of Iraq has been utterly illegal. It constitutes a crime against peace - the same crime for which people were convicted at the Nuremberg trial.”

The UN Charter is quite clear on this: the use of force is only legal in self-defence or without UN Security Council authorisation. As then-UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw explained, it is clear what it meant by “self-defence”:

“The conditions that have to be met for the exercise of the right of self-defence are well known:
i) There must be an armed attach upon a State or such an attack must be imminent;
ii) The use of force must be necessary and other means to reverse/avert the attack must be unavailable;
iii) The acts in self-defence must be proportionate and strictly confined to the object of stopping the attack.

The right of self-defence may only be exercise until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to ensure international peace and security and anythign [sic] done in exercise fo [sic] the right of self-defence must be immediately reported to the Council.

6. for the exercise of the right of self-defence there must be more than “a threat”. There has to be an armed attack actual or imminent. The development of possession of nuclear weapons does not in itself amount to an armed attack; what would be needed would be clear evidence of an imminent attack. During the Cold War there was certainly a threat in the sense that various States had nuclear weapons which they might, at short notice unleash upon each other. But that did not mean the mere possession of nuclear weapons, or indeed their possession in time of high tension or attempt to obtain them, was sufficient to justify pre-emptive action. And when Israel attacked an Iraqi nuclear reaction, near Baghdad, on 7 June 1981 it was “strongly condemned” by the Security Council (acting unanimously) as a “military” attack ….in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct”.”

Since the Iraq war was in conducted in neither self-defence nor with UNSC authorisation, it was an illegal act of aggression, defined at Nuremberg as the “supreme international crime”, for which Nazis were hung. What Rocky Anderson said was simply an uncontroversial statement of fact.

Needless to say, your history of the first Gulf War is, shall we say, incomplete (you neglect to mention, for example, that Saddam was “petitioning” for a ceasefire with withdrawal before the war). But let’s focus on the most recent Gulf war, since that is what Rocky Anderson was talking about. You say:

“To make a long story short, Iraq (at one point) expelled the weapons inspectors and its reports detailing the destruction of its WMD were unsatisfactory.”

No, they were withdrawn. They weren’t kicked out of Iraq at all. In fact, as Scott Ritter, the former chief UN arms inspector in Iraq, wrote in 2002,

“When I left Iraq in 1998… the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There’s no doubt about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor - both from vehicles and from the air - the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We never found anything…

We blanketed Iraq - every research and development facility, every university, every school, every hospital, every beer factory…

If no one were watching, Iraq could do this. But just as with the nuclear weapons programme, they’d have to start from scratch, having been deprived of all equipment, facilities and research. They’d have to procure the complicated tools and technology required through front companies. This would be detected. The manufacture of chemical weapons emits vented gases that would have been detected by now if they existed. We’ve been watching, via satellite and other means, and have seen none of this. If Iraq was producing weapons today, we’d have definitive proof, plain and simple.”

The relevent point is that there were weapons inspectors in Iraq right up until they were ordered to leave by the U.S., and they requested more time to do their jobs. The U.S., not Saddam, rejected their request. You say:

“There was nothing illegal about our entrance into the Second Gulf War”

In fact, it was the supreme war crime, as acknowledged virtually across the board, and where there is a crime there are criminals. Those criminals must be held to account.

· 6 me on May 11th, 2007 said:

I know I have heard this baloney before. I don’t want to go back and forth with you on whether they were kicked out or they left of their own accord. It’s not really the point. The Iraqis weren’t cooperating with the inspectors to our satisfaction. Nor were they making reports on the destruction of their nuclear weapons to our satisfaction. Since they had been the aggressors and since they were the ones who petitioned for the cease fire, our satisfaction is the operative word here. Remember this was not a treaty; it was only a cease fire. It was by definition a lull in the fighting. It was only operative as long as they met our conditions.

When the Iraqis fired on our planes while we were defending the Kurds, all semblance of a cease fire was gone and it was perfectly legal and proper for us to take action.

Not only were our actions not a supreme war crime, but it was not a war crime at all. Even Anderson does not believe this. If he did he would go after all the war criminals, whether or not these “criminals” are prestigious in his own party. You are much, much deceived my friend,.

· 7 BritishAnderson Supporter on May 11th, 2007 said:

“I know I have heard this baloney before. I don’t want to go back and forth with you on whether they were kicked out or they left of their own accord. It’s not really the point.”

Well, stop making patently untrue assertions, then.

“The Iraqis weren’t cooperating with the inspectors to our satisfaction. Nor were they making reports on the destruction of their nuclear weapons to our satisfaction.”

Actually, in 1998 the weapons inspectors considered Iraq to be “fundamentally disarmed”. The WMD programme was 90-95% disarmed, and the remaining 5-10% did not consitute a weapons programme, just bits and pieces here and there. And while Saddam’s cooperation wasn’t perfect, he was largely cooperating, and in the face of the CIA’s infiltration of the UN inspector teams with spies. Again - read Scott Ritter’s book. He says all this.

As to the rest of what you say - I’m not sure how else to respond except by repeating what I said earlier. Under international law, it is illegal to use military force without authorisation from the UNSC unless in response to a direct attack, or an “imminent” attack. This wasn’t the case with Iraq, since a the time of the war Iraq posed precisely zero threat to either Britain or the U.S. It certainly wasn’t about to directly attack either of us. Hence, the invasion was an illegal aggression. This was defined at Nuremberg as the “supreme international crime”, differing from others in that it contains within it the accumulated evil of the whole.

As for Anderson - of course he’s hypocritical, as I pointed out above. I’m not a mind-reader, so I can’t tell what he thinks. I can read the UN Charter, however. So, incidentally, can British and American government officials. So, before the war, Jack Straw wrote in a confidential memo:

“regime change per se is no justification for military action; it could form part of the method of any strategy, but not a goal. Of course, we may want credibly to assert that regime change is an essential part of the strategy by which we have to achieve our ends - that of the elimination of Iraq’s WMD capacity; but the latter has to be the goal;”

Of course, there were no WMD to begin with (except for those in the process of being dismantled by the UN - after the inspectors were ordered out by the U.S., they kept watch by satellite and witnessed a systematic looting of these UN sites. Who took them and for what purposes is unknown). Likewise, see the famous Downing Street Memo:

“The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.”

So in other words, we’d have needed another UNSC resolution. So I’m afraid that you’re just plain wrong on this. Even rabid war-hawks like Richard Perle have now admitted that the war was illegal (they supported it regardless). Please read the UN Charter - it’s quite explicit about this. The invasion of Iraq was the supreme war crime, and those responsible for it must be put on trial.

· 8 me on May 11th, 2007 said:

I do not concede that I made an untrue assertion. I just consider the point irrelevant; just as just about everything else you said is also irrelevant.

The point that you seem to be missing is this: there is really no Gulf War I and Gulf War II. We were already at war when the so called Gulf War II began. True, there was a significant lull in the fighting after Gulf War I, but there was no formal treaty to end the war. We granted Saadam a reprieve provided that he would be on his best behavior. But, after the cease fire Saadam was anything but on his best behavior.

Also, I repeat, Saadam was already firing rockets at us when the so called Gulf War II began. Now, it is a well established principle of international affairs that you don’t shoot bullets or rockets or any other harmful stuff at people with whom you wish to have a cease fire. This is all covered thoroughly in Cease Fire 101, which is taught in many universities. Because of Saadam’s bad faith, we had every right to cease the cease fire and to continue the war in earnest.

That the Gulf War was not legal (Whatever that means, by the way; on our side of the pond, we haven’t exactly given up our sovereignty so some world government) is an extremely foolish argument to make. Making such a stupid assertion is just one of the reasons Anderson was so soundly beaten in the debate.

· 9 BritishAnderson Supporter on May 12th, 2007 said:

If you don’t concede that the weapons inspectors were withdrawn as opposed to being “kicked out” then you’re just showing your ignorance. There’s no controversy over that - it’s an openly acknowledged fact.

I’m afraid you don’t just get to decide to re-start a war that was fought 12 years ago. That was had a very specific mission - to force a withdrawal from Kuwait. It was achieved - then, other UNSC resolutions mandated further operations to make sure Saddam’s WMD were destroyed. But the UNSC authorisations for the use of force in 1991 and in 1998 did not grant authorisation for further use of force in 2003. This was accepted by everyone - including the British government. That’s why an attempt was made to get a further UNSC resolution, but when France declared that it would veto anything that would authorise military action, the US/UK decided to hang the law and do it anyway.

So the invasion in 2003 was not UNSC authorised and it was not an act of self-defence. Hence, it was an illegal aggression.

“Whatever that means, by the way; on our side of the pond, we haven’t exactly given up our sovereignty so some world government”

Well, here you show your true colours. The law matters, I’m afraid, and both your government and mine broke it.

· 10 me on May 12th, 2007 said:

There can be no controversy that Saadam resisted allowing the inspectors into his country long after we demanded that they return. And, we could discuss the degree to which Saadam’s bad behavior led to their leaving in the first place. But, that is a long fruitless discussion that leads us away from the central issues

Regarding your statement about re-starting the war; that was not exactly what happened. The war really continued throughout that period of time. There were a steady steam of really nasty provocations by Saadam (some of which were covert); there were bombing and rocket raids in response to some of the provocations; and there was a steady stream of missile attacks upon our airmen–just to cite a few illustrations of the war’s continuing.

I don’t deny that I wish that stronger action had been taken against Saadam earlier. But you have to do the best you can with the situation you are given.

Remember the Treaty of Versailles and the aftermath of World War I? Many historians have come to the following conclusion: if the allies had been more willing, from the beginning, to enforce the provisions of the treaty ending World War I, much of the carnage spawned from World War II could have been averted. How many women and children in London, England died needless and horrible deaths because you Brits listened, over the years, to people like Neville Chamberlain and not to people like Winston Churchill? In this age of nuclear weapons and terrorism and the portability of nuclear weapons and suicide bombers, the stakes today are even higher than they were between 1914-1945, and they were rather high then.

I have no inclination to hide my true colors (as you put it). I proudly proclaim that United States is and should continue to be a sovereign nation; not subject to any world government. Our government must try to perform a balancing act: live by the highest ethical principles, and try to promote the long term security of our people.

Our use of the military to overthrow the government of Iraq was nowhere similar to Hitler’s unprovoked invasion and conquest of Poland. If you can’t see that, I feel sorry for you. We have never taken thousands of innocent people, shot them, and buried them in mass graves. Both Saadam and Hitler have done this, but we haven’t. We have never trapped a large number innocent and defenseless women and children and then used poison gas to kill them. Saadam and Hitler have done this, but we haven’t.

To say that we are war criminals on the scale of the Nazi war criminals who were tried at Nuremberg is just nutty. Both you and Anderson should be embarrassed for trying to make that argument.

· 11 BritishAnderson Supporter on May 12th, 2007 said:

Well, as I say, you can (if you really want to) treat the whole thing as one conflict for the purposes of analysis. I think that’s silly, but let’s not go into that here.

In terms of legality, though, the law is crystal clear: any use of force that is not authorised by the UNSC and is not carried out in self-defence is a crime against peace, defined at Nuremberg as the “supreme international crime”. That’s what Iraq was.

Now, as to Hitler - I’m not saying Bush/Blair are as bad as Hitler or Saddam Hussein. Frankly, I don’t think such comparisons are useful, even when accurate. I’m saying that they committed the exact same crime for which Nazis were hanged - the crime of aggression. And yes - there is no moral difference between the Nazi invasion of Poland and our invasion of Iraq. They were both totally illegal and they both resulted in massive suffering.
Hitler is worse for other reasons - he systematically murdered six million Jews, for example. That’s a crime which even Bush/Blair haven’t matched. But I don’t that should really give us any comfort - that the American President and the British Prime Minister are not as bad as Hitler is not something that should make our hearts swell with pride. That’s not really the standard we should be using. The standard we should be using is international law, and by that standard both Blair and Bush deserve to be tried and convicted for war crimes.

· 12 me on May 13th, 2007 said:

Not only is it not silly, but it is important to look at so called Gulf War I and Gulf War II as two episodes in one long conflict. Hell, there are many historians who think that World War II was really a continuation of World War I. If those two wars should be viewed as two chapters of the same war, then how much more should Gulf Wars I and II be looked upon as two episodes in the same conflict? The Gulf Wars were not as many years apart as the two World Wars. There was no formal treaty ending Gulf War I as there was with World War I. There were more of the same actors involved in the Gulf Wars than there were in the World Wars. There was continued fighting in the years between the Gulf Wars while the Versailles Treaty did provide a number of years of peace.

I find your assertion that Nuremberg Tribunal defined international crime as “any use of force not authorized by UNSC” to be laughable. The Nuremberg Tribunal was convened specifically to try Germans for war crimes. If the Tribunal had used your definition, any verdict of guilty would have been absurd. The United Nations Security Council did not even exist until 1946. All of the crimes with which he Germans were charged took place on before 1945. No one could have expected the Nazi defendants to get approval from the UNSC for their questionable actions, since it did not exist. Also, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, and Bernard Montgomery should consider themselves fortunate that they could not be tried by the Nuremberg Tribunal. They absolutely did not get authorization from the UNSC for executing an invasion of Italy, France, and Germany, so, according to you, they would have also been convicted of being war criminals—and hung!

I strongly agree with your illustrations of why the actions of Blair and Bush (and Churchill and FDR, for that matter) cannot begin to compare with the monstrous evil that Hitler committed. I also agree with you that, in this case, comparisons to Hitler are not particularly useful. But Anderson was the one who originally made the comparison to which you said, “hear hear.” In this blog, you included a quotation from Anderson in which he drew the analogy. You suggested that the quotation was an example of his brilliance in debate. If you don’t think that those kinds of comparisons are useful, then why make them? And why do you applaud those who do?

Neither you or I or most sane people believe that Bush and Blair are in any way similar to the Nazis who were tried at Nuremberg. When Anderson used that kind of ad hominem, inflammatory rhetoric (far from being brilliant), he only made an ass of himself.

· 13 BritishAnderson Supporter on May 13th, 2007 said:

As I said - regardless of how you treat the Iraq war for the purposes of analysis, the law is clear.

Why don’t you read the Tribunal? It said “that to initiate a war of aggression… is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime”. That’s a quote. It is for this crime that Nazi foreign minister Von Ribbentrop (among others) was hanged.

The UN defines “a war of aggression” as the use of force not authorised by the UNSC and not in self-defence. Iraq was an aggression, described at Nuremberg as “the supreme international crime”.

This isn’t that hard to follow… No one said anything about the UN existing during WWII, for example.

Anderson made a specific comparison, when he pointed out that Bush and Blair committed the same crime for which Nazis were hanged at Nuremberg. That’s an uncontroversial fact. That’s different from what you were doing, which was trying to rank them overall in terms of who’s ‘worse’.

Anyway, I think we’re both just repeating ourselves now. Thanks for commenting.

· 14 me on May 13th, 2007 said:

[I don’t think I have directly made the following point before but I am sure as Hell making it now,] The law regarding Gulf War II is not nearly as clear as you are suggesting. And, I am going by the law as you have recited it. According to you, a nation may go to war legally if the war is in self defense or if the nation receives authority from the UNSC.

Let’s look at the first part of your formula. Is the war in self defense? That question spawns many thorny problems, doesn’t it? For example, must the threat be immediate, or can the country look at threats to its long-term security? Suppose a country has a mutual defense pact with an ally. If the ally is attacked, can the country, because of its treaty, come to the aid of its partner? Or, must the country wait and watch its ally be overrun? Suppose a country’s military is being fired upon by an enemy. Is the country for that reason allowed to invade the enemy country and quash the threat to its military?

Of course, I understand why you think the law is crystal clear. You are completely disregarding the first part of the formula. Thus, you are reading the law to say that if a country’s use of force is authorized by the UNSC, the force is legal. If the force is not authorized by the UNSC, it is not legal. That’s what you think is clear.

First, your understanding of the law seems to be different from the way that you stated it. Secondly, I doubt that any member of the United Nations intended that their ability to act forcefully be held hostage to the UNSC. An example is NATO. NATO is essentially a mutual defense pact between a number of European nations, Turkey, and the United States. The original purpose of NATO was to provide a defense against possible attacks by the Soviet Union. Suppose the USSR did attack one or more of the members of NATO. Remember that the USSR was also a member of the UNSC with veto power. Can you imagine the USSR’s not using its veto power against any resolution authorizing a use of force against itself? So, according to you, none of the member states could have acted in defense of an ally without committing a war crime. This is a proposition that no member of NATO would have agreed to . . . even in theory.

Applying your law to our conflict in Iraq, there are a number of arguments that I could make that would justify the war as a war of self defense and being accord with an authorization from the UNSC. However; they would all devolve into long discussions, so let’s not go there for now.

For the present, let me just mention the most obvious reason that the war was a defensive war. The Iraqis were shooting at our airplanes. Why were our airplanes flying over Iraqi airspace? We were trying to defend our allies, the Kurds. The Kurds had helped us during the first conflict, and we believed (and they believed) that Saddam would have retaliated brutally, if we had not intervened. Because they assisted us, we were honor bound to protect them. It was a testament to our engineering and the flying skills of our airmen that none of our planes were shot down. Yet, one day, after taking enough shots at our airplanes, Saddam probably would have actually destroyed at least one of our aircraft. We could not maintain those flights forever. The time was fast coming when we needed to “put up or shut up” that is, we needed to take aggressive action to eliminate the threat or withdraw and watch our friends be massacred because they helped us.

There were no war crimes committed by Bush and Blair. The only war crimes were committed by Saddam and his henchmen. Have done with this inflammatory and baseless rhetoric! You are only making yourself look bad.

· 15 BritishAnderson Supporter on May 13th, 2007 said:

“Is the war in self defense? That question spawns many thorny problems, doesn’t it? For example, must the threat be immediate, or can the country look at threats to its long-term security?”

What is meant by “self-defence” has long been understood (see Jack Straw’s comment above). It means in response to an armed attack. See the UN Charter (Art. 51):

“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.”

However, it has since expanded to include preemptive attack - but this has an extremely strict definition. The basic formulation of what it means was put forth by U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster back in 1842. The use of preemptive force is justifiable only in response to a threat that, as he put it, is “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation”. In other words, it can’t just be a general threat. It has to be in response to definite knowledge that an imminent attack is about to take place.

Anything else is “preventive”, which under international law is indistinguishable from the crime of aggression. In 2004, a high-level UN panel addressed much of what you’re talking about. From it’s report:

“The Charter of the United Nations, in Article 2.4, expressly prohibits Member States from using or threatening force against each other, allowing only two exceptions: self -defence under Article 51, and military measures authorized by the
Security Council under Chapter VII (and by extension for regional organizations under Chapter VIII) in response to “any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression”.

For the first 44 years of the United Nations, Member States often violated these rules and used military force literally hundreds of times, with a paralysed
Security Council passing very few Chapter VII resolutions and Article 51 only rarely providing credible cover. Since the end of the cold war, however, the yearning
for an international system governed by the rule of law has grown. There is little evident international acceptance of the idea of security being best preserved by a balance of power, or by any single — even benignly motivated — superpower.

1But in seeking to apply the express language of the Charter, three particularly difficult questions arise in practice: first, when a State claims the right to strike preventively, in self-defence, in response to a threat which is not imminent; secondly, when a State appears to be posing an external threat, actual or potential, to other States or people outside its borders, but there is disagreement in the Security Council as to what to do about it; and thirdly, where the threat is primarily internal, to a State’s own people…

The language of this article is restrictive: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self -defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken
measures to maintain international peace and security”. However, a threatened State, according to long established international law, can take military action as long as the threatened attack is imminent , no other means would deflect it and the action is proportionate. The problem arises where the threat in question is not imminent but still claimed to be real: for example the acquisition, with allegedly hostile intent, of nuclear weapons -making capability…

Can a State, without going to the Security Council, claim in these circumstances the right to act, in anticipatory self -defence, not just pre -emptively (against an imminent or proximate threat) but preventively (against a non -imminent
or non -proximate one)? Those who say “yes” argue that the potential harm from some threats (e.g., terrorists armed with a nuclear weapon) is so great that one simply cannot risk waiting until they become imminent, and that less harm may be
done (e.g., avoiding a nuclear exchange or radioactive fallout from a reactor destruction) by acting earlier.

The short answer is that if there are good arguments for preventive military action, with good evidence to support them, they should be put to the Security Council, which can authorize such action if it chooses to. If it does not so choose, there will be, by definition, time to pursue other strategies, including persuasion, negotiation, deterrence and containment — and to visit again the military option.

For those impatient with such a response, the answer must be that, in a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of non - intervention on which it continues to be based is simply too great for the legality of
unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted. Allowing one to so act is to allow all.

We do not favour the rewriting or reinterpretation of Article 51.

Emphasis not mine.

You know, I could go on, but I don’t see why I should go to the trouble of finding all these well-known documents to support well-known facts when it’s clear you’ve not bothered to do any research at all. I can simply say what I’ve said before: at the time of the invasion Iraq presented no imminent threat whatsoever to either British or American security. That would have been the case, incidentally, even if he did have WMD. Therefore, without UN authorisation as it was, the invasion was illegal.

· 16 me on May 14th, 2007 said:

Yes yes. I am really awed by your extensive research into the pontifications of various panels of the United Nations. I am also amazed that you think that research is worthwhile or that you actually think that blatherings by United Nations’ panels are important. However, putting aside my abject cynicism regarding the United Nations for a moment . .

You have to understand that the document that you quoted from is an idealistic, futuristic report. Virtually by its own admission, the report has little to do with realpolitik. The document is saying essentially that panelists believe (unlike what is happening now) that most matters relating to force should be submitted to the Security Council. For that reason, the UNSC really needs to clean up its act. They make many proposals for “improving” the UNSC, including the elimination of the veto power.

The document acknowledges that nations have not and are not using Security Council to resolve hostilities for good reasons. One factor has been the cold war, which the panel members assure us is now over. However, I am not as optimistic. The report also mentions that the UNSC has been paralyzed and perceived to be corrupt.

Well, no kidding. One of the reasons that the Security Council did such a dismal job in handling the crisis leading up to Gulf War II was the corruption surrounding the “food for oil” programs. It seems that the Secretary General of the UN and many of the members of the Security Council were receiving payoffs to take no action.

Much of your previous post was rebutting the idea of going to war for preventative reasons. While I believe that in an era of a paralyzed UNSC and heightened threat of nuclear terrorism, long term security concerns are an excellent reason for going to war, I deliberately left out any “preventative” arguments. I just did not want to open an unnecessary bag of worms in my conversation with you. So much of what you said was not really responsive to my previous post.

The most straight forward reason for our going to war was the imminent threat to our airplanes and the immediate threat of the genocide of our allies. We could not trust the matter to the UNSC, because that body had proven itself incapable of action and was under the taint of corruption. Those are two good reasons your document gives for nations’ taking unilateral action. Thus, Gulf War II was a just war and Bush and Blair should not be regarded as war criminals, but heroes.

· 17 BritishAnderson Supporter on May 14th, 2007 said:

It’s not that it’s “extensive research”. On the contrary - as I say, all this is really well known, and it’s just annoying to have to go to the trouble of finding it all when you show no indication of being familiar with any of it in your comments.

You can think whatever you like about the UN. The fact is, as that report I linked to shows and as is well known, the definition of a war in “self-defence” is one that is in response to an armed attack. Nothing more.

A pre-emptive war is also now generally considered to be legally justified but, as I say, the term “pre-emptive” has a precise legal definition. One can’t just call any old use of force “pre-emptive”. The first-use of force only qualifies as pre-emptive if it is in response to an “imminent” threat of attack, leaving no moment for deliberation and no choice of means. Anything else is simply aggression, which is the supreme war crime.

I only mentioned preventive in my response because that’s what the Iraq war was, if one wants to be charitable. No one is in any doubt that Iraq posed no threat whatsoever to our security, and it certainly did not pose the kind of threat that would make the first-use of force legally justified. The war can therefore be described as neither pre-emptive nor in self-defence. Thus, it was an aggression.

Your criticisms about the UN and the UNSC are irrelevent, even if true (and yes, of course the UN needs reform, which is what the report basically says). If you want to take the position that the law doesn’t matter, then that’s one thing (and I disagree strongly with that, but that’s a whole different discussion). But there’s no denying that the invasion was illegal, whether that matters to you or not.

· 18 Me on May 14th, 2007 said:

At this point in history, speaking of the UN’s enacting laws is really a misnomer. UN “laws” are not laws as we know them in the UK or USA. To have a workable legal system, you must have a viable administrative body, a method of enforcing the law, and a system of adjudicating the law that makes sure that the law is applied fairly. The UN actually has none of the ingredients for a viable legal system. For example, in the document you referenced, the UN panelists freely admit that the UNSC, the administrative branch of the UNSC, is badly broken. The criticisms of the UNSC I relayed in my last posts are not my criticisms, but the criticisms of the UN panelists themselves. Under this regime, leaders of most countries would not only be fools but damned fools to entrust their security fully to the UNSC; yet, that is exactly what leaders of most countries must be willing to do if they truly want to obey UN recommendations (not legislation). Until the UN more resembles a world government (which may or may not happen some day), its rules can more accurately be called guidelines, rather than laws.

Remember the defendants at Nuremberg were never convicted of breaking a UN mandate (what you call a law). No UN existed when they committed their crimes. They were not convicted of breaking any German laws. They, in fact, acted in harmony with the corrupt German legal system. In fact they were never convicted of any statute on any books. There were convicted of crimes that transcend any written law. A humanist might call their villainy “crimes against humanity.” A naturalist might call their evildoing “crimes against nature.” A religious person might say that they had broken moral law.

Contrary to what you may have heard, the UN is not God. It does not write moral law. To say that a country is not following UN guidelines (especially when the UN is corrupt and impotent) is not the same thing as saying that that country has broken a moral law or committed a crime against humanity. That is a leap of logic that you are just not allowed to make. You were more right than you knew when you said that Hitler’s situation is not a useful comparison with the circumstances surrounding Gulf War II. To coin a hackneyed phrase, “it is like comparing apples with oranges.”

Hitler invaded Poland to rape and pillage and enslave and promote genocide. Saddam also invaded Kuwait to rape and pillage and enslave and promote genocide. We on the other hand used our military to overthrow Saddam’s government to prevent genocide. I am speaking of preventing Saddam’s immediate genocide of his people and I am also speaking of future genocide. After all, a reasonable person could fear that one day Saddam might have placed WMDs in the hands of suicide bombers and terrorists. BTW: The document you referenced indicates that the people in the UN really hate genocide (as well as nuclear proliferation); they just can’t seem to do anything about it.

If you really can’t tell the difference between the invasion of Poland and Gulf War II, then you are probably the type of person who can’t distinguish between a woodpecker and a carpenter. I mean, they both work with wood, right?

My correspondent from England never replied to this last post.