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  • #31
    Originally posted by Ramo View Post
    So is the legality of the war still debated by International lawyers?
    Till the cows come home but it's really a moot point. The only Court of Law who can bring charges is the UNSC and since both the US and the UK holds vetos, not going to happen.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
      Till the cows come home but it's really a moot point. The only Court of Law who can bring charges is the UNSC and since both the US and the UK holds vetos, not going to happen.
      Thanks for your reply, and please don't hesitate to send me off to read those threads more if my questions are flogging the dead horse, but...
      Say you're in a room full of OIF opponents (I'm 22, and Australian, so for me that's every day)

      If they say 'renowned international lawyer X, independent commission Y, supreme court ruling Z, prominent UN figurehead W, all say the war was illegal.'

      You say: 'that doesn't make it illegal because only the UNSC can decide'

      They'd say: 'well the UNSC would almost certainly decide it's illegal'

      You say: 'moot point, the US would veto that motion'

      It just seems like you'd be conceding that the UNSC would find it illegal if they were given the chance, that the US would veto that opportunity becuase they realise as much. Which to most people would reinforce their opinion that OIF was illegal.

      I'd rather contest the issue at the emboldened point, than appear to make a concession.

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      • #33
        Originally posted by Ramo View Post
        If they say 'renowned international lawyer X, independent commission Y, supreme court ruling Z, prominent UN figurehead W, all say the war was illegal.'
        My first reply is that you can take that prominent UN figurehead and shove it up your (ie, those argueing for the war to be illegal) freaking ass. Kofi Annan was directly responsible for over 700,00 Rwandan dead just because he overruled then MGen Dallaire's perfectly legal orders to raid the genocider's weapons cache. For such a man to argue legalities and for anyone taking his word as law, shove it up their ass!

        Here's the thing. Kofi Annan's order to now LGen/Senator Dallair to stop the raid was perfectly legal. However, now LGen/Senator Dallair's orders to raid that weapons cache was also perfectly legal. Kofi Annan decided he rather not offend the government in place and to allow a genocide to occur because it was legal.

        HORSE PUCKEY! I would have no hesitiation in bringing Kofi Annan in front of a war crimes tribunal and while I might lose, I will also have no qualms in lining him up in front of a firing squad for him to allow over 700,000 human beings to be butchered and I mean butchered.

        For a man who used legalities to allow 700,000 people to be butchered cannot be used as legal justification for allowing a Tyrant to continue to threaten the world.

        Originally posted by Ramo View Post
        You say: 'that doesn't make it illegal because only the UNSC can decide'

        They'd say: 'well the UNSC would almost certainly decide it's illegal'

        You say: 'moot point, the US would veto that motion'

        It just seems like you'd be conceding that the UNSC would find it illegal if they were given the chance, that the US would veto that opportunity becuase they realise as much. Which to most people would reinforce their opinion that OIF was illegal.
        Have you even read the transcripts? No one in the UNSC was arguing about the point of law. They were arguing over position. Did you even hear about the Canadian Compromise that the British took over? Saddam had 30 days to prove he complied with the UNSCR or else war. Blair shortened that down to 14 days. In either case, had this resolution been proposed (and to this day, I still cannot figure out why Bush and Rumsfield declined it, it would mean adding the 2nd Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group and allowed the US 4th Infantry Division to get into position).

        Originally posted by Ramo View Post
        I'd rather contest the issue at the emboldened point, than appear to make a concession.
        I cannot find my post now since the switch over to the new software but looking over the evidence, even from after the war, I cannot see how I can make any other decision but to support the war. I thought war to be perfectly legal and to this day, I still do. There are so many violations, while small, the vast number of them points to an active WMD program.

        Chemical artillery shells in perfectly maintained order
        Modified SA-2 rockets with a 5kg warhead (only those versed with the understanding of such a small warhead will understand)
        3 rings of death
        Saddam's WMD release order to his generals (and only after the war that we learned that his generals had no clue to what Saddam was talking about).

        All in all, I am a soldier and not a lawyer, but as a soldier, these are clear and present violations to the terms of ceasefire and the only reponse possible is to renew the war.
        Last edited by Officer of Engineers; 14 Oct 10,, 02:03.

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        • #34
          Anyone who has read my previous posts on this matter. Do not raise Kofi Annan as a point of authority to me. You can argue his points. You can study his points but do not, for one freaking second raise that bastard as an authority. He allowed 700,000 Rawandans to die all because he countermanded a perfectly legal order by one very good man and all because he did not want to offend the genociders.

          For anyone to raise such a F_UCK as an authority, tell that person to bend over so that I can shove a machete up his arse because that's what Kofi's authority allowed. He allowed 700,000 people to have their arse shoved up by a machete.

          The F_UCK about all this? Kofi was perfectly legal in ordering Dalliare NOT to stop the genocide.

          You sit in a room alone with full of f_ucks who uses Kofi as an authority? You tell them to Kofi's authority allowed 700,000 people to be butchered and I mean butchered.

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          • #35
            Colonel,
            Please tell us how you really feel.
            "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

            Comment


            • #36
              The more I study the man, the more I think he's a wannabe dictator. When my man was being bombed in Lebanon, he was at his spa.

              Comment


              • #37
                I swear I didn't mention Kofi Annan... uh... directly :D
                Thanks again for your replies, Officer of Engineers, indeed I have some reading to do.

                Comment


                • #38
                  Well no surprises to this statement below B,Liar .


                  Wednesday, January 19, 2011



                  Britain's top civil servant is refusing to allow the official inquiry into the invasion of Iraq to publish notes sent by Tony Blair to George Bush – evidence described by the inquiry as essential in establishing the circumstances that led to war.

                  The abinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, has denied repeated requests for the notes to be declassified. In sharp exchanges with O'Donnell, Inquiry chairman, Sir John Chilcot – who has seen the notes – described them as "central to its work".

                  He added: "The material requested provides important, and often unique, insights into Mr Blair's thinking and the commitments he made to President Bush, which are not reflected in other papers."

                  O'Donnell refuses to release the papers on the grounds that disclosure would damage Britain's relations with the US as well as future communications between a British Prime Minister and a US President.

                  Earlier this month, in a third letter to O'Donnell, Chilcot wrote: "The question [of] when and how the Prime Minister made commitments to the US about the UK's involvement in military action in Iraq and subsequent decisions on the UK's continuing involvement, is central to its considerations."

                  He referred to passages in memoirs including Blair's autobiography and disclosures by Jonathan Powell, the then Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, and Alastair Campbell, his former Head of Communications.

                  Those publications, and the refusal to disclose Blair's notes, Chilcot noted in a stinging passage, "leads to the position that individuals may disclose privileged information (without sanction) whilst a committee of privy counsellors established by a former Prime Minister to review the issues, cannot".

                  The standoff between Chilcot, a former senior civil servant, and the Cabinet Secretary comes as the Inquiry prepares to question Blair in person.

                  It has summoned the former Prime Minister back to press him about what he promised Bush in private, and why he ignored advice by his government's chief law officer, Lord Goldsmith.

                  One document, previously leaked, notes that Blair told Bush at a meeting in Washington on 31 January 2003 – less than two months before the invasion – that "he was solidly with the president".

                  This was after Bush told Blair that military action would be taken with or without a new UN resolution, and that bombing would start in mid-March.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    The invasion was not illegal-

                    UNSCR 687 was a ceasefire not a peace. When Iraq violated the ceasefire hostilities resumed. The US had previously to 2003 taken action to enforce the ceasefire agreement- No fly zones, Desert Fox etc. Without the international community challenging its right to act in according with UNSC 678.

                    How much time inspectors were allowed- 1991-2003, a few extra months after more than a decade of defiance would not have resolved the outstanding issues. Nor could there be any reasonable hope that Iraq would fully comply. However postponing the invasion from march to June for example would have subjected coalition forces who fully expected to be fighting in an NBC environment and were thus wearing either rubber or charcoal filled suits to the deadly effects of heat stroke and allowed Iraq more time to prepare its defenses.

                    Hans Blix state that Iraq was not in full compliance.

                    The war was not just about WMD's, but also about Iraq's continued state support of terror and genocide.

                    WMD's were found in Iraq, IIRC some 1500 tons worth of weapons, material and equipment including stuff not reported by Iraq and stuff they claimed was lost or destroyed.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      I think one thing we have to keep in mind, is that most countries in the word are developing/third-world countries (and they all have votes). If the United States invades Iraq with the "legitimacy" of the UN and blessing of the international community, it is a "slippery-slope" for military intervention of other international actors/coalitions in their own affairs.

                      Why would such a nation condone something, if you could be next having given it "legitimacy"?
                      "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                      • #41
                        As one from a third world country, notwithstanding the hype of my country being an 'emerged power' which it is not by a long chalk, I think Ironduke has a point.

                        It does make one uncomfortable.

                        If I may add, is the UN or the Secretary General, not subject to pressure to just obey and be done with it?

                        The UN intervention in Korea would not have happened if the USSR was not missing.

                        Rwanda did not warrant attention because it was not in anyway politically, economically or strategically important.
                        Last edited by Ray; 20 Jan 11,, 09:49.


                        "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

                        I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

                        HAKUNA MATATA

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                        • #42
                          Bliars latest statement .




                          Tony Blair has revealed he disregarded his top legal adviser's warning that attacking Iraq would be illegal without further UN backing because the guidance was "provisional".

                          The former Prime Minister made the revelation in a statement ahead of his second appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry into the March 2003 invasion.

                          He was questioned by inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot and his panel about possible gaps and inconsistencies in Mr Blair's justification for the war.

                          The-then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith told him on January 14 2003 that UN Resolution 1441 was not enough on its own to justify the use of force against Saddam Hussein.

                          But the next day Mr Blair told the Commons it was necessary to be able to say that Britain would still act if an unreasonable veto at the UN was put down.

                          Mr Blair has now said: "I had not yet got to the stage of a formal request for advice and neither had he got to the point of formally giving it.

                          "So I was continuing to hold to the position that another resolution was not necessary."

                          The peer revealed he was "uncomfortable" about Mr Blair's public comments that Britain could attack Iraq without further UN support.

                          Mr Blair said he believed Lord Goldsmith would come around to his interpretation of the legal position once he knew the full history of the negotiations behind Resolution 1441.

                          And in March 2003 before the invasion, Lord Goldsmith presented him with formal legal advice that a "reasonable case" could be made for launching an attack without extra UN backing.

                          Meanwhile, Mr Blair privately assured US President George Bush "you can count on us" in the run-up to the war.

                          The view was in a private note that will remain secret but Mr Blair summed up its contents and that of other statements to Mr Bush.

                          He said he had told Mr Bush: "You can count on us, we are going to be with you in tackling this, but here are the difficulties."

                          The inquiry released a newly declassified document from March 2002 in which Mr Blair said the UK should be "gung ho" about the prospect of getting rid of the Iraqi dictator.

                          In his evidence to the inquiry, Mr Blair said he made clear that he would always stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the Americans.

                          But he also claimed he succeeded in persuading the US leader to go down the "UN route" first.

                          The former Premier said regime change in Baghdad had always been "on the agenda" for the Americans after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

                          He said the US/UK were trying to get a second UN resolution, and Chile and Mexico wanted to support them but France was threatening a veto.

                          He claimed the French were clear they would veto any resolution that included an ultimatum, and the US/French relationship had become "very scratchy".

                          Mr Blair said France believed Saddam was complying in part with weapons inspectors. The US was arguing he was not fully complying. Mr Blair claimed without full compliance, action must follow.

                          The ex-PM argued that if US/UK had backed off from Iraq in March 2003, it was at least possible that Saddam would still be there now with WMD.

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Chilcot report: Tony Blair takes 'full responsibility' for Iraq war and expresses his

                            The Telegraph's view:

                            The long-awaited official report into Britain's involvement in the Iraq war has delivered a scathing verdict on Government ministers' justification, planning and conduct of a military intervention which "went badly wrong, with consequences to this day".

                            Mr Blair presented the case for war in 2003 with "a certainty which was not justified" based on "flawed" intelligence about the country's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which was not challenged as it should have been, found report author Sir John Chilcot.


                            Excerpts from the Executive Summary:


                            In November 2001, the JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessed that Iraq had played no role in the 9/11 attacks on the US and that practical co‑operation between Iraq and Al Qaida was “unlikely”.15 There was no “credible evidence of covert transfers of WMD‑related technology and expertise to terrorist groups”. It was possible that Iraq might use WMD in terrorist attacks, but only if the regime was under serious and imminent threat of collapse. p. 10

                            Although there was no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaida, Mr Blair encouraged President Bush to address the issue of Iraq in the context of a wider strategy to confront terrorism after the attacks of 9/11. p. 11

                            In early 2003, Mr Straw still thought a peaceful solution was more likely than military action. Mr Straw advised Mr Blair on 3 January that he had concluded that, in the potential absence of a “smoking gun”, there was a need to consider a “Plan B”.51 The UK should emphasise to the US that the preferred strategy was peaceful disarmament.
                            Mr Blair took a different view. By the time he returned to the office on 4 January 2003, he had concluded that the “likelihood was war” and, if conflict could not be avoided, the right thing to do was fully to support the US.52 He was focused on the need to establish evidence of an Iraqi breach, to persuade opinion of the case for action and to finalise the strategy with President Bush at the end of January. p. 20

                            There was no evidence that Iraq had tried to acquire fissile material and other components or – were it able to do so – that it had the technical capabilities to turn these materials into a usable weapon. p. 43

                            The Inquiry considers that there should have been collective discussion by a Cabinet Committee or small group of Ministers on the basis of inter‑departmental advice agreed at a senior level between officials at a number of decision points which had a major impact on the development of UK policy before the invasion of Iraq. Those were: • The decision at the beginning of December 2001 to offer to work with President Bush on a strategy to deal with Iraq as part of Phase 2 of the “War on Terror”, despite the fact that there was no evidence of any Iraqi involvement with the attacks on the US or active links to Al Qaida. • The adoption of the position at the end of February 2002 that Iraq was a threat which had to be dealt with, together with the assumption that the only certain means to remove Saddam Hussein and his regime was to invade Iraq and impose a new government. P. 58
                            Trust me?
                            I'm an economist!

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