"please go back...."???! Longshot... based upon that absurd comment, it's definitely a LONGSHOT as to whether you have a brain or need to visit the Wizard of Oz forthwith!!! Can you fly bro? Give me a frickin break! Oh I see... only YOUR kind (longshot's) can be Americans or offer opinions?! SICKening And you're a trader supposed to be reasonably open-minded!? Ice
Alfonso... despite the pitiful ignorance of some on this thread... what is threatening the US is NOT outside it's borders... but rather from the sick and misguided Rambo-thinking of the "hapaboys" of this country! PERIOD! Ice
Hapaboy... do you make your own rules in your own life... is that your claim to fame... that YOU are above it all! No rules for you. F*ck the UN! You GOTTA BE a young punk who up to now has lived off what others gave and sacrificed in order to give you a decent, free life. I can just TELL by your thought process and the putting down of other countries that seemingly have "less" than where you... LUCKILY... were procreated! No empathy bro.. huh? My dear little boy, your words are a disgrace to all that the US used to stand for! And what's sad is.... YOU DON'T GET THAT! Ice
Iceman, I completely agree with your assessment. Hapaboy wraps himself in the American flag and shoots off at the hip and thinks he's defending the (noble) principles America was founded on. Needless to say, the big mouth played no role whatsoever in fighting for those principles, nor does he now -- although he's adamant that others should fight for them. Others should, that is, fight for the "principles" (to bastardize the term) that he (and his like) creates on the fly. And, of course, to top it off, like every good "patriot" these days, it's customary to determine the origin of dissenting points of view and then laugh and poke fun at the dissenters' country. You know, like it was anything more than a biological, geographical fluke that hapa was born on US territory.
Despite the insistence of various contributors on these threads that the Iraq war is indisputably "illegal," there is nothing approaching consensus on this point. As for US Constitutional matters and domestic law, there was no literal "declaration of war" in 1990-1, either. The idea of such a declaration exists in the Constitution under powers reserved to Congress, and appears to imply a national mobilization, emergency laws, and so on, but the definition and meaning are somewhat ambiguous. In '90-91 and during the Fall last year, the President was given an effective declaration of war by way of broad congressional authorization to use military force, in the more recent instance by an overwhelming majority vote. The status of the intervention under "international law" is less clear - not least because international law itself remains, to put things most charitably, an incomplete and uncertain project. Proponents of the UN's supposed central role in "lending legitimacy" to warfare have to explain why, since the founding of the UN, endorsement of military action under its charter has occurred only three (3) times (Korea, Iraq, Somalia), chiefly at the request of the United States. During that same period, every UN Security Council member engaged in cross-border military conflicts several times, and there have have been countless wars prosecuted by other UN members, all without UN authority, usually without any UN participation whatsoever beyond the normal pointless hand-wringing. In being able to refer to flagrantly broken ceasefire agreements and a decade's worth of mandatory UNSC resolutions - including a unanimously passed enforcement resolution threatening "serious consequences" for anything other than "full" and "immediate" "compliance" - along with multiple acts of Iraqi aggression and provocation, the US and its current partners have much clearer justification than, for instance, the French had in Sierra Leone and Algeria, or the Russians/USSR in Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia, or the Chinese in Vietnam and Tibet. The US has fought harder than anyone else to make the UN a responsible and legitimate force in the world. That the UN has instead been shown to be almost completely dysfunctional and largely irrelevant reflects the failure of UN members to prove they can stand by what they have collectively agreed to and re-stated over and over again. Someday, though probably not for decades at the earliest, the UN or some successor institution may be able to fulfill the role envisioned for it. At present, it qualifies at best as a highly inefficient international humanitarian organization, and a convenient meeting-place for kleptocrats and demagogues. Any national leadership who attached their country's interests to such an unreliable (not to mention corrupt and anachronistic) institution would be guilty of dereliction of duty, if not treason.
Kymar, I respect your right to have an opinion, but just imagine that it was me that wrote the above (from my pov). Wouldn't I now be hearing about how it "speaks volumes" about my (allegedly) a priori, inflexible world view? Despite your apparent inclination to believe that two, or three dozen, wrongs make a right, based on the principles the UN was created on, this war, the majority of expert opinions I have read, agree is illegal. In any case, I also tend to use the word "illegal" from a "fairplay" point of view, meaning to say that by most people's understanding of the concept of fairness, to wage unprovoked aggression on another country is patently "wrong".
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Boy, does the truth HURT, doesn't it Alfonso? I can tell I've touched a nerve when the opponent continues to avoid the issues and instead can only sling personal epithets. I stand by what I said: The UN, as a force for international peace and security, is a JOKE. As far as "fighting for those principles," well, my plucky Argentinian lad, I at least served in the armed forces of my country. Have you ever done anything for Argentina? Or is your sole "contribution" to rail at the big, bad US, whom you have somehow equated with causing all of Argentina's problems (and boy, does your country have PROBLEMS, baby!). And for poking fun at the dissenter's country, isn't that what you're doing? Good grief, if you can't stand the heat, don't go in the kitchen. And FYI, I was NOT born on US territory. My parents worked overseas and I grew up moving from country to country every couple of years. Though we visited a lot, I didn't even live in the US until after I had graduated from high school, and even after that I spent several additional years abroad. So you'd think that I, more than most of the posters on this board, would have a slightly more objective opinion of the US now, wouldn't you? That I have spent more than half of my life abroad ( incl. 6 years in 3 different Muslim countries) yet believe in what the US stands for and has accomplished worldwide must make you sick, because it pokes a hole in your feeble argument that Americans are brainwashed, untraveled, uneducated sheep. The US isn't perfect, Alfonso, and yes we have made some grievous errors. But I can honestly say this and not give a damn what you or any other non-American feels about it because it IS THE TRUTH: The US has done more for the good of this world in the last 100 years than any other country, and today is the globe's ONLY effective solution to regimes like Saddam's. No doubt you'll follow with ridicule, along with your parrot iceman. I care not. Indeed, like the man said, I regard you with an indifference bordering on aversion.
US begins the process of 'regime change' Ed Vulliamy in New York and Kamal Ahmed Sunday April 6, 2003 The Observer The US is ready to install the first leg of an interim government for the new Iraq as early as Tuesday, even while fighting still rages in Baghdad, officials said yesterday. America's readiness to establish the first stages of a civil administration to run post-war Iraq comes at lightning speed and constitutes a rebuff to European ambitions to stall on the process until some kind of role for the United Nations is agreed. It was reported yesterday that the National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has also ruled out any key role for the UN. The decision to proceed with an embryonic government comes in response to memoranda written by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week, urging that the US begin to entrench its authority in areas under its control before the war is over. Pentagon officials told The Observer that the administration is determined to impose the Rumsfeld plan and sees no use for a UN role, describing the international body as 'irrelevant'. The proposal is due to be discussed by George Bush and his closest security officials when he returns from this week's Northern Ireland war council with Tony Blair. But according to US offi cials in Doha, elements of an embryonic new government will be established in the southern port of Umm Qasr, taken by coalition forces during the first days of the war. It will be installed by the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, under the former US army Lieutenant General Jay Garner, and answerable to the Pentagon. 'What we are going to start trying to do, even before the fighting is over in Iraq, is to move to the areas in Iraq that are relatively peaceful, places like Umm Qasr, and to start moving [the office of reconstruction] into Iraq,' the official said. 'It is a fair assessment to say that this is the first step to set up a civil administration in Iraq.' The decision is a rebuff to European diplomats who pleaded with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday to allow for a UN role. By brushing the UN aside at such an early stage, the move also places Tony Blair - whose own preference is for a UN role - in a difficult situation ahead of his meeting with Bush this week. Rumsfeld presented two memoranda to the White House last week, urging the President to begin setting up government institutions in areas under US control. He said the new organs could install Iraqis returning from exile under the tutelage of American civilians answerable to General Garner. But his plan has been opposed even within the administration. Colin Powell is known to favour a military government established after victory is assured, prepared to nurture an Iraqi government centred around citizens resident in Iraq, rather than exiles sponsored by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon. General Garner is already set to make his media debut in Kuwait tomorrow as the man whom the US has named to be Iraq's temporary post-war civilian administrator. The US viceroy of the Southern region will be retired General Buck Walters; one of three governors slated to minister the new Iraqi provinces. The others are General Bruce Moore in the largely Kurdish north and former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine based in Baghdad, governing the central region. http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,930794,00.html