War inquiry

Zara Reply

Zara Reply

"Can you not just nicely disagree with someone? Is it really necessary to insult them too?"

Zara, my dear, what would you call the below comment by you?

"'Dont elect a bunch of cauliflowers to run your country'?

Blair and Brown will get away with it, like they always have."

Can I presume that you've just called a former and present P.M.- Tony Blair and Gordon Brown cauliflowers from the above comment?

Is that your idea of "nicely disagree"[ing] or do you reserve your unvarnished venom only for those not likely to directly reply?

Please clear this matter for me, if you don't mind? I'll be eternally grateful. Thank you ever so much beforehand for this consideration.
 
S-2 said:
"Can you not just nicely disagree with someone? Is it really necessary to insult them too?"

Zara, my dear, what would you call the below comment by you?

"'Dont elect a bunch of cauliflowers to run your country'?

Blair and Brown will get away with it, like they always have."

Can I presume that you've just called a former and present P.M.- Tony Blair and Gordon Brown cauliflowers from the above comment?

Is that your idea of "nicely disagree"[ing] or do you reserve your unvarnished venom only for those not likely to directly reply?

Please clear this matter for me, if you don't mind? I'll be eternally grateful. Thank you ever so much beforehand for this consideration.
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Ill tell you what, next time Tony Blair logs into WAB, ill personally apologise.
 
Zara Reply

Zara Reply

"Ill tell you what, next time Tony Blair logs into WAB, ill personally apologise."

And when I see that magnanimous display of generous mannerisms I'll do the same for you. Or you may presume me his surrogate and offer your apologies now...humbly.

Or you can keep slagging him and Brown without any basis other than your instinctive coarse dislike and I'll do you one better. I at least couch my disdain in some rationale.

You? Nothing but invective.

You called the former and current prime ministers of a major nation "cauliflowers". Now I haven't witnessed G. Brown before Parliament's questioning sessions but I have seen Blair at work.

Let me suggest this-were you to do so before him, he'd quite rightfully rip your pea-sized intellect to SHREDS before your eyes and we'd see you melt like an ice cube in the hot Iraqi sun. Or turn to tears. Deservingly so.

He is an intellectual giant in comparison to you-eloquent, forthright, and possessing far greater decorum than you might possibly muster only in your wildest dreams.

I'm a poor substitute but should you persist in mindlessly lashing those who won't be lashing back, I'll stand their stead to the best of my abilities to unseat your pathetic drivel.

Thanks.
 
Zara Reply

Zara Reply

"For you S2. Think this might help."

And for you, lovely Zara, with my best wishes

Love, kisses, and peace...;)

Stay away from the vegetables and I'll stay away from you...:eek:
 
I must admit ,i have always found this person to be a bully ,he overides proper advice with arrogance ,he was the same when he was involved in union disputes and matters , now what is it he reminds me of , ahh yes a caulliflower comes to mind :rolleyes::biggrin:


Reuters


Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw denied on Monday he had ignored legal advice that the 2003 invasion of Iraq would be illegal without specific U.N. authorisation.

Giving evidence for the second time in a month to the Iraq Inquiry, Straw said the advice from top lawyers at the Foreign Office had been "contradictory" and that the final decision on the legality of war lay with the Attorney General.

Two weeks ago, the inquiry heard from Michael Wood, the most senior legal adviser at the Foreign Office until 2006, who said he believed there was no legal basis for military action without a second U.N resolution.

Declassified documents showed that Wood had written a memo to Straw in January 2003 that using force without the U.N. Security Council's authorisation would be a "crime of aggression."

It followed a meeting between Straw and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney which concluded Britain "would be OK" with taking military action without a further resolution.

Straw wrote back to Wood saying he rejected his advice.

"Far from ignoring this advice, as has been suggested publicly, I read Sir Michael's minute with great care, and gave it the serious attention it deserved," Straw said in a statement to the inquiry.

"So much so that I thought I owed him a formal and personal written response, rather than simply having a conversation with him."

Straw said Wood had been wrong to say there was no doubt that military action was illegal as there contrary views, as he said the legal adviser had acknowledged in a letter to the Attorney General the month before.

"The legal advice he offered was contradictory and I think I was entitled to raise that," Straw said.

Straw also told the inquiry team that negotiations for the first U.N. resolution would not have taken so long if Britain and the United States had not sought to make it clear that further authorisation was needed.

Straw, now Justice Secretary, also defended the decision not to give the cabinet the full details of the advice of the then Attorney General, who had wanted to say that the war was lawful but the arguments were finely balanced.

Straw said ministers would have been aware of the doubts because of arguments being waged in the media.

However, Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said Straw had broken the ministerial code over the issue, had misled parliament and should resign.

"It's absolutely ridiculous that Jack Straw, the secretary of state for justice, the minister in charge of the legal system, should suggest that ministers should get their legal advice from newspapers," Davey told BBC radio.

In his earlier testimony, Straw said that British involvement in the war would have been impossible had he decided to oppose it, such were the divisions in the Labour Party and the government.

He said he had never wanted war but the government had made "the best judgements we could have done in the circumstances.
 
Apologies that I didn't study nearly half as hard as I should have in International Law, otherwise I could have contributed to this better.

But here's a question and story:

How is it that leading up to OIF our nation's leaders were receiving 'contradictory advice' or even the 'all clear', but now 7 years later there's this apparent indisputable consensus that the invasion was illegal.

I remember in one tutorial we actually looked at Iraq, after analysing all the steps we reached our conclusion. The tutor said at the end 'So was the invasion illegal? I think so, I think so'. Mind you, I must add, the tutor was very careful to emphasize that it was just his opinion. Granted, it was his professional legal opinion, but he was humble in offering it and making a visible effort to be impartial.

So is the legality of the war still debated by International lawyers? Does anyone here work in the field?
 
Ramo,

Here's a thread to go through, http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/war-iraq/10395-war-iraq-illegal.html.

The lack of vast quantities of WMD and evidence of active programs along with the (now debunked) Lancet Report provided many folks with the perfect storm to change their minds. However, this hindsight bias is simply that - bias.

It's like getting a warrant to raid a suspected drug dealer's home and then coming up empty. The warrant is still legally sound, it just turns out that you were wrong. Now, in the case of Iraq, it's a little different in that the analysis from the evidence is that there were dormant programs that were simply waiting the end of sanctions to be reactivated.
 
Shek said:
Ramo,

Here's a thread to go through, http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/war-iraq/10395-war-iraq-illegal.html.

The lack of vast quantities of WMD and evidence of active programs along with the (now debunked) Lancet Report provided many folks with the perfect storm to change their minds. However, this hindsight bias is simply that - bias.

It's like getting a warrant to raid a suspected drug dealer's home and then coming up empty. The warrant is still legally sound, it just turns out that you were wrong. Now, in the case of Iraq, it's a little different in that the analysis from the evidence is that there were dormant programs that were simply waiting the end of sanctions to be reactivated.
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Oh, that's the exact sort of thread I was looking for! Thank you very much. :)
 
Ramo said:
So is the legality of the war still debated by International lawyers?
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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.
 
Officer of Engineers said:
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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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.
 
Ramo said:
If they say 'renowned international lawyer X, independent commission Y, supreme court ruling Z, prominent UN figurehead W, all say the war was illegal.'
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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.

Ramo said:
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.
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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).

Ramo said:
I'd rather contest the issue at the emboldened point, than appear to make a concession.
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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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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"?
 
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