CatBus;357979 Wrote: > That was probably a hypothetical question, but here's a real although > greatly simplified answer. "International law" is comprised of > treaties signed by various countries around the world. Basically if a > country signs a treaty promising not do perform action X, and then they > perform action X anyway, then action X is a violation of the treaty, and > illegal. I don't like the term "international law" myself because it > creates the impression that this law is being imposed on nations from > some outside entity like the UN, and that's not really true. > > The UN Charter, for example, is actually a treaty (which the US has > signed), and part of that treaty is that member states agree not to > engage in military aggression without first getting UN approval. So to > answer your questions, defensive wars are one sort of legal war. If > Iraq attacked the US, the US would be totally within their rights to > fight back. So US military action in that hypothetical war would be > legal and Iraqi military action would be illegal, because the Iraqis > were the aggressors. Now, if Iraq managed to convince the UN Security > Council that the US posed a threat to the world community, or presented > some sort of looming humanitarian disaster, they could attack the US > once they had a UN resolution authorizing the attack, and that would > also be legal. There are some other cases involving coming to the aid > of an ally that's been attacked, etc, but that's the general gist of > it. > > So with regard to the most recent war between the US and Iraq, only > half of that war was truly illegal. The US attack was not authorized > by the UN, and therefore violated a treaty and was illegal. The > Iraqis, however, were (and still are) fully within their rights to > defend their country against the country that invaded them. This is > why Kofi Annan, the current US-backed Secretary General of the UN, > considered the invasion to be illegal. Hope that helps. > > Now, there are some other angles on this, such as the complete lack of > any consistent enforcement mechanism--which leads to justifiable > accusations of case-by-case hypocrisy. We've also gotten UN approval > in the past (for the Korean War) when it wasn't necessary, creating an > impression that UN approval is needed for all wars (it isn't). There > are also many conservatives who think the US should withdraw from the > UN, and if that were the case then maybe we could attack whoever we > wanted legally (I doubt it--there are still lots of treaties out > there). > > So in simplified terms, the US broke a treaty. News at 11 ;)
that just isn't true. as i said earlier, iraq broke the terms of the 91 armistice, that gave us the right to take military action, and there is no question the gulf war was legal. and we also had resolution 1441 this time. i'm not sure what part of the UN charter you are citing that refutes what i just said. the idea that the UN decides what is and isn't illegal is a joke anyway. the UN is made up of dictators and despots, is a surreal place, and other than humanitarian efforts is totally ineffectual, (oil for food scandal, UN peacekeepers raping children epidemic). i have very little regard for it. the USA is the bulwark of freedom in the world, and gets very little credit for it. we beat fascism, we beat communism, and we will beat terrorism, and we do it while all the "liberal" nations of the world bemoan us, and don't carry their fair share either diplomatically, militarily or finanacially. frankly, i'm tired of the rest of the world getting a free ride off our backs, and showing such little gratitude. i refuse to sit here worried about removing a brutal dictator like saddam, while very same people who complain about that, want us to invade darfur. -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / SBC - w/SC 7.3b - Win XP Pro SP3 - 3.2ghz / 2gig ram - D-Link DIR-655 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=54678 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
