And the point is.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3718150.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3719522.stm

Always knew there was no WMD in Iraq, always knew Saddam Hussein and Sons Ltd were commiting crimes against Humanity. And that alone, should of been justification, to free Iraq and its people. '

SK

 

but where do you draw the line? how many other govts are commmiting crimes against humanity? is it worth the loss of British lives?

 

OK Skjold old boy, in that case why wasnt that sole justification put to the British Parliament and people at the time? Doesnt make much sense to over-ride democracy in our own country, in order to try to restore democracy somewhere else.

 

What about our areas of concern? Such as Zimbabwe, Sudan etc? why don't we intervene in their affairs?

Sorry I forgot, PC and the lack of oil

 

we have just been reminded that the US is somewhat flexible about crimes against humanity, it has just vetoed the UN call for the israeli Government to stop operations in Gaza. killing Palistinian civilians seems to be OK in the eyes of the US.

mind you Palistine does not have much oil either

 

Any post on a web bulletin board is going to struggle to do anything more than scratch the surface on this but...

Quite right, particularly with hindsight, it seems that at the time there there was no clear WMD 'reason why' we should go and 'do' Iraq but there was a pretty compelling crimes against humanity justification.
The reason that crimes against humnaity was not used as sole justification to sell Iraq ops to the UK parliament has to be seen in the context of international politics and diplomacy and over a timeframe of at least 10-15 years:
It was thought that WMD would be something that everyone who mattered -UN Sec Council P5 - could get on board with. For a variety of reasons (think Tibet and the attempts to butress failing Francophone influence in Africa) it has been/remains very difficult to get an international commitment for military intervention, purely on such humanitarian grounds (e.g. none was forthcoming for Kosovo and during Kosovo we managed to bomb the Chinese embassy which didn't really help matters).
Everyone knew Sadam was a proper swine and the world would be better off without him: he'd been thumbing his nose at the rest of the world for 10 years, might have had WMD or an interest in developing them and was pretty clearly guilty of genocide at Halabja. Bear in mind that under the 1949 Genocide Convention the international community has a legal duty to act and intervene (but obviously China, busy with ethnci cleansing in Tibet aint too keen on this one). WMD looked like the horse to back. Unfortunately the P5 didn't buy it - it seems to me in large part because France made a stand for its own highly politicised reasons (I don't think Russia or China would have stood alone against united US/UK and Fr for the sake of Sadam) and the rest as they say is history.
FF - what the fack is the difference between "British lives" and other lives? The whole point of the UN is supposed to be to stop people who can make a difference (like the UK) getting sloping shoulders and looking the other way when human beings are being butchered. 8million dead Jews were held to evince that saying the victims are in 'a far away country about which we know nothing' was not really a viable moral or practical solution. The sad fact is that we cannot or dare not always act, but when we can we should. Israel does a lot to undermine the overall legitimacy of the few countries that have the capability to intervene decsively, but needs to be seen as a historical anomaly that has to be resolved. The job of soldiers is to fight for people who cannot fight for themselves. In the modern world, let's be honest, that no longer means necessarily UK citizens who live safe comfortable lives or the North Germans sitting in the path of the Soviet Motor-Rifle bns. Fack it, at least it keeps us in a job.

Diatribe over.

 

Isreal.
Slightly unfair to throw the first stone...
Palestinians are not oppressed occupied and generally neglected..
Palestinians are saudi refugees that entered Isreal illeagally when the british pulled out of palestine.
I am fed up of watching some Palestinian Dr (woman who looks like a bloke) saying they are occupied and want peace...
having spent time in said area of middle east i can assure you that the palestinens go out of their way to cause trouble and whilst i know that the isreallis dont do themselves any favours...lets put the shoe on the other foot...

Albanian regugees...(or other group in uk) start blowing themselves up all over britain...what would we do...
press coverage all over the world today would take their part and not ours as we are an affluent country and they are an "oppressed" people group.

II DO NOT condone isreals last actioins but i would say that lets just take the news with a pinch of salt..... or oil if you are in govt.

 

Thanks JB, interesting post and you put the case more convincingly than what is normally served up.

Some will find it difficult to accept that the international community had a duty to act in 2003 on grounds of genocide at Halabja in early 1988.

 

On the point of Palestinians, I watched an interesting piece of News on NRK1 last night and although I could not understand most of the commentary I got the basics, Picture this:

A camera mounted on a helocopter (the type used to chase chavs) watched two Palestinians fire a rocket at nearby settlement.

The two Palestinians then calmly walk away from the scene through some back alleyways carrying the RPGs and drive away in a Van clearly marked with UN all over it.

Will try and find a link after work.

SK

p.s

Im in my late 20s so Im not over it

 

lol Skjold, I am OLDER than my late 20s but not over it either

re the drone film, the sequence I saw only showed a guy throwing long object into back of a UN vehicle. After investigation, UN insisted object was stretcher being returned to an ambulance.

 

shabby rag heeed trick...
like the germans only more mastachioed

 

Picture the scene....

for years the loony peacniks rant and rave about the great satan (USofA) supporting evil, vile dictators..cries of "something must be doneeee" ring out across the pampered, well fed western capitals.

then all of a sudden, the great satan decides, yeah, why not, here's a good excuse (lots of dead New Yorkers) to take out a bl**dy nasty piece of work whom should have been shot long ago

The reaction from the peacniks "NOT IN MY NAME"

so, whad'ya do?????????

 

fair enough. Not exactly pulse finger on with news here then.

 

ah yes, the UN, that organisation of such great moral fortitude, honesty and trust that oversaw, the genocide in Rwanda, Kosova, Bosnia, Somalia and is doing such a great job at sorting out the mess in Sudan.

 

Guess what? You know when you have a pop at the UN? You ARE the UN - we all are. If the UN has a poor track record then you have to look at why that is - i.e. because the great powers (like the UK and US) who set it up when they thought it woul be a useful tool for their purposes at the end of WW2 have since consistently decided to hamstring its effectiveness as an impartial arbitrator and intervention force to allow them to continue playing power politics.
Obviously this is not a one sided story - but when people moan about the UN they are moaning about a system that they shape via their national governments and which for all its fine idelas and great potential no-one seems to give a sh1t about except to use it as a scapegoat the next time everything goes t1ts up.