Clutch

Wow, the finger? I'm surprised you managed to restrain yourself from demanding the use of nuclear weapons.

Loren, that's simply absurd. Breaking the terms of a peace agreement is tantamount to a declaration of war? Well, that's handy -- Saddam was waging war on America all that time!

Of course, it was a funny kind of war he waged. No offensives. No defensives. No attacks on the homeland. Pretty cunning of him, really, to cruelly wage war under the guise of domestic repression, impotence and impoverishment.

The only intelligible thing you wrote is this:...because it has the air of your actual thought. Namely, that Iraq was an object lesson. The lesson being: tip your fucking cap and speak politely, if you're a poor country of brown people with resources that'd make it worth our while... because we're crazy enough to thumb our noses at the whole fucking world just to settle your hash.

Now, I suspect that this was only a small part of the reason the USA attacked Iraq. What's remarkable -- rationally unreconstructable, in fact -- is that you think it amounts to a justification.

Ron Garrett

What Clutch said!

Loren Pechtel

Giving us the finger is one thing. Giving the finger to a peace treaty is another.

Ron Garrett

Loren, I just don't see the deep and abiding moral solemnity of an agreement one signs under threat of military annihilation. In fact peace treaties are the only enforceable agreements made under duress I'm aware of, guaranteed by the might-makes-right principle. So I don't have any real moral indignation about Iraq's intransigence in that regard. But if we were going to do something about it, cobbling up a "coalition of the well-bribed client states" to try to give our lawlessness a patina of legitimacy was simply another example of the kind of arrogant cynicism that gave us "Clean Skies Act", "Healthy Forests Act" and "Patriot Act" all named to cover up the fact that they are nothing of the sort.

I had a problem with Iraq invading Kuwait on the pretext that they were reclaiming a lost province of Iraq, a state that in fact never existed until the Brits created it and thus had not even the thinnest historical claim to the territory.

I have a problem with the United States government's invasion of Iraq under the guise of right to self-defense, justified by lies, lies, and more lies.

If we are going to claim moral superiority to tyrants and conquerors, we ought to show a little in our own behavior. What we showed in this outing is that we are a rogue nation with a leader that thinks he's an emperor, not a president.

Maybe paternalistic fascism is some folks' ideal of America. For the sake of my country and the world, I'm not having it.

Loren Pechtel

I agree about they being the only valid agreement made under duress. However, that doesn't mean that breaking one isn't an act of war.

Vorkosigan

Breaking a peace agreement is not an act of war, Loren. In general most peace treaties have clauses determining what should be done if they are broken. What breaking a peace treaty does is trigger the acts called for in the clauses. But breaking a peace treaty is not an act of war.

And Loren, we are not TreatyBots. Even if it was an act of war, it does not follow that we should have invaded Iraq. Our policy does not depend on what Hussein does; we have our own agency. The proper reaction to Hussein's moves were more inspectors and other internationally-supported moves. Of course, as we know, there were no WMDs, and Hussein was not in violation of any peace treaty when we invaded.

Vorkosigan

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

Actually, I' have bene on record fairly often that I am against this war.
I was simply defending a fairly legitimate point of view expressed by Loren, so I took the most diplomatic approach to the Bush admins statements.

RLV

Hum...

Suppose Iraq has no WMDs and Saddam has no links with Al'Qaeda.
Suppose Iraq has not made any aggressive movement against anybody, nor has caused the US any harm.

Would you invade Iraq only because they broke the peace agreement of '91?


Btw, how exactly did they break it?


RLV

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by RLV
Suppose Iraq has no WMDs and Saddam has no links with Al'Qaeda.
Suppose Iraq has not made any aggressive movement against anybody, nor has caused the US any harm.

I don't think Saddam had any serious links with Al'Qaeda. Saddam probably turned a blind eye to their operations but nothing more.

As for WMD--I don't know what Saddam did with it but his behavior over the last 12 years is pretty damning evidence that he's hiding something pretty important.

Would you invade Iraq only because they broke the peace agreement of '91?

Breaking a peace agreement puts you back to the pre-peace agreement state. That was war.

Btw, how exactly did they break it?

One of the conditions was getting rid of his WMD. Since he wouldn't cooperate with the people sent there to confirm his compliance.

Some have labelled me a warhawk. I don't see this label as accurate--I don't normally favor going to war. What I do feel is that we shouldn't do all the half-assed military things we do. Either stay out entirely or do it right.

snoiduspoitus

Sorry for not using smilies Bill. This is my second one in the history of these forums. ( I really desperately try not to use these damn things)

I remain surprised that more folks haven't used the Tito analogy. Say what you want about the man, but he held a nation together, as evidenced by its collapse after his 'withdrawl'.

I think we've got a puzzle to put together, yet none of the reconfigured pieces seem to fit, and I don't think hammering them into place is a solution.