--- Andrew Paul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I feel that this lack of clarity as to why they are > there feeds down to the people on the ground. > They are not drones, they are people risking their > lives. The lack of a simple moral basis, > which i feel stems from the rush with which Bush > went into this war, not willing to wait for > the support of the only body we have for making > these decisions, namely the UN, lies at > the heart of the problems in Iraq.
The UN which just re-elected the Sudan (currently conducting a genocidal campaign against its Christian minority) to the Human Rights Committee? Or the UN which stole, and helped Saddam steal, billions of dollars from the people of Iraq through the Oil-for-Fraud program? Or the UN currently headed by a man who actively inhibited people from stopping the Rwandan genocide? Whose son was employed by one of the major companies running the Iraqi Oil program, incidentally. > You dont start wars. Its always a stupid thing to > do. > > Andrew Really? Always? If Britain and France had acted against Germany in 1936 or 1937 Hitler would have fallen. Would that have been a stupid thing to do? How about Kosovo? NATO (meaning, chiefly the United States and Britain) started a war there to stop genocide. It did so without UN approval, and over the far _stronger_ objections of Russia and China. In fact under international law there's _no question_ that Kosovo was illegal, while there's at least a plausible argument that Iraq was sanctioned by UN Security Council resolutions. How about Bosnia? We started a war there as well. In 1993, the Clinton Administration invaded Haiti to put Jean-Bertrand Aristide in power. How about that? Was that a stupid thing to do (arguably, yes, but why aren't you upset about it?) Would it have been a stupid thing to do to intervene in Rwanda to stop the genocide? That would have been starting a war without UN sanction. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
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