Zeb,
That really was a nice post.
I have no problem with your ideals or beliefs. It would be nice to have simple conversations about things instead of the pockmarked road we often travel…
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
They respect the authority of entities that demonstrate the might to objectively enforce the will of said international court.[/quote]
But the world court puts no more effort to enforcing their dictates then publishing the paper. that is the problem. They are also subject to the whims of the professional diplomatic corp.
A dictator or rogue nation doesn’t respect the world’s opinion. It respects and fears that which can destroy it’s monopoly of control.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Moriarty wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
I know it was long, but did anyone read it and want to offer specific thoughts on the article?
JohnGullick wrote:
Yes: its not much but I like the way Dempsey cutely sidesteps the reasons for Iraqs lack of infrastructure sighting it as ‘30 years of tyranny’s’ fault! In fact the crumbling began in 1991 with sanctions, the Red Cross points out around 19-23 million of the 23 million citizens began to rely on the oil for food system. life expectancy dropped from 65 to 59, 1888 schools closed etc etc. That was Western sanctions. We wouldnt have had to impose sanctions on Iraq if we hadnt supported Hussein so totally in the 8 year Iran conflict leading him to wrongly assume he’d have our support if he invaded kuwait. He also wouldnt have had nuclear aspirations if Israel was forced to disarm in accordance with UN 687, article 14 which has ‘the goal of establishing the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and missiles for their delivery.’ Of course the neo-cons don’t care about the UN as was shown when they contravened the council’s anti-invasion vote. Maybe Dempsey doesnt like to read history books. He knows Saddam was bad and that’s that! friggin neo-con moron. he obviously also missed the fact that infrastructure did grow a little under saddam, 213000 phone lines were built, sweet! the IMF really knows what a poverty stricken country needs! the long and the short of it is if Dempsey had done his homework he’d have realised sanctions destroyed the country and locals were in for a rough ride. Of course if he’d done his homework he’d have realised there were no WMDs too!
Unfortunately, this is often what result from economic sanctions, particularly when the regime in power controls what resources are available inside the country – the people suffer, while the regime takes care of itself and its favorites.
It’s actually one of the better arguments for using military force instead of sanctions.
Or, seeing how military action is a broadsword ill-suited for removing individuals from power, it makes a good argument for the creation of a well respected international criminal court with the authority and means to try, convict, and imprison criminals such as Hussein and his regime.
And how would you propose to get him to court? Ask nicely? Threaten to taunt him a second time?[/quote]
A truly powerful international court would be a threat to all those Westerners who have commited war crimes, you know, like wars not sanctioned by the highest legal authority on Earth, the UN, as signed in the UN charter… uh oh… That’d take down pretty much every leader of Britain and America since WWII!
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
JohnGullick wrote:
JeffR wrote:
…
Now hussein’s m.o. is ISRAEL’S FAULT!!!
Why would Hussein aspire to nuclear capability if Israel had no WMD? I’m not saying he definately wouldn’t, but I’d have thought he’d know better.
…
Hussien had already used WMD against the Kurds and the Iranians. Who knows what he would have done with nukes, but it would not have been pretty.
As to why Hussien would aspire to them, it was because he saw himself as a modern Saladin that would unite the Arab world against the West. He would not hesitate to kill any Muslim or “infidel” that was in his way.
If Israel didn’t exist it would not have changed his MO one bit.
A lot of people seem to take an isolationist view when it comes to the Arab world. If we leave them alone they will leave us alone is pure fantasy.
[/quote]
Its funny he didn’t use Muslim law/government etc if here were the ‘Arab uniter’. And what would the nearest percieved Western threat be? Yes, Israel. Now your right, he did use unconventional weapons against Iran and the Kurds, but the US provided the intelligence for the Iranian conflict, and Britain helpfully sent their trade minister a few weeks after the Kurdish genocide, so the times he used them, we didn’t even object! He not only had Israel’s worst-kept-secret of a nuclear program to contend with, but western backing. If the west had done the right thing regarding Iran and the Kurds, AND forced Israel to disarm I’m fairly sure Hussein would’ve kept a lid on it.
John G. wrote:
“Its funny he didn’t use Muslim law/government etc if here were the ‘Arab uniter’. And what would the nearest percieved Western threat be? Yes, Israel. Now your right, he did use unconventional weapons against Iran and the Kurds, but the US provided the intelligence for the Iranian conflict, and Britain helpfully sent their trade minister a few weeks after the Kurdish genocide, so the times he used them, we didn’t even object! He not only had Israel’s worst-kept-secret of a nuclear program to contend with, but western backing. If the west had done the right thing regarding Iran and the Kurds, AND forced Israel to disarm I’m fairly sure Hussein would’ve kept a lid on it.”
Unbelievable. It amazes me the length that some people will go to make Hussein into a reasonable guy.
Perhaps you’ve missed the mass graves or the videos showing him killing all opposition or the torture chambers or the firing of Scuds into Israel or the rape and pillage of Kuwait or the thousands dead in Iran or the funding Palestinian terrorism or trying to assassinate GBush Senior or firing on our planes or gassing his own people or allowing his sons to rampage.
News flash: No amount of diplomacy was going to stop this guy.
See Hitler (I love you Makkun!!!).
JeffR
[quote]JohnGullick wrote:
… If the west had done the right thing regarding Iran and the Kurds, AND forced Israel to disarm I’m fairly sure Hussein would’ve kept a lid on it.
[/quote]
If Israel would have disarmed, Israel would no longer exist.
If I put my gun down the murderer will have no more incentive to harm me.
More good things in Iraq – the government is getting off the ground, and the federalist system seems to be working well to keep the regional/ethnic conflicts at bay:
Wall Street Journal Editorial
Iraq’s New Government
May 9, 2005; Page A22
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari completed his Cabinet yesterday, and we hope Americans appreciate the accomplishment. It is the first popularly elected government in Iraq’s history, and the only one in the entire Arab world. Now it’s up to Iraqis to see if they can keep it.
That last point is crucial, because apart from security and technical expertise American leverage with the new government really is limited. Iraqis are going to have to forge their own political coalitions and compromises, and in that sense the weeks of bickering over the new government may well have been useful. While the delay since the January 30 election was frustrating, the political jockeying clarified a few things.
One such is that the victorious Shiites realize they can’t govern Iraq by themselves. They have ceded a significant role to the Kurds, including the Presidency to Jalal Talabani, and they have invited willing Sunnis into the government as well. Six Cabinet posts will be held by Sunnis, including the defense ministry. Counterintuitively, the Sunni choice for human rights minister refused the post yesterday precisely because he said he was chosen on ethnic grounds. He wants the government chosen on merit – an echo of America’s own racial preference debates.
All of this also rebuts the fear that the new government will be dominated by Iran. This is a concern fanned by Jordan’s King Abdullah and American Arabists who prefer dealing with the Sunni authoritarians they know rather than the Shiite democrats they don’t. But the Kurds are never going to accept Persian dominance in Baghdad, and in any case Iraq’s Shiites have shown they don’t want a Tehran theocracy. The exception is the crazy cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, whose forces didn’t do well in the election and could still make trouble.
The new government’s first priority is to diminish the insurgency, which every day shows it can stage car bombings and assassinations. These don’t alter the balance of power in the country, but they are demoralizing to Iraqis who want to get on with their lives and will erode a government’s credibility over time.
And yet we shouldn’t thus conclude that the insurgency is unbeatable. Coalition forces have captured several key aides to terrorist kingpin Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in recent days. Young Iraqi men continue to enlist in the security forces, even though doing so makes them terrorist targets. A letter from one of Zarqawi’s al Qaeda associates, captured last month, complains that “morale is weakening” and that “the situation is not the way it used to be in Fallujah.”
As for those insurgents affiliated with Saddam’s Baath Party, Fedayeen and Republican Guard, the last thing anybody ought to conclude is that the path to peace lies through appeasing these people. Yet some in the U.S. continue to prod Mr. Jaafari to do so, believing that former U.S. regent L. Paul Bremer had alienated Sunnis with his policies of de-Baathification and disbanding the Iraqi Army.
In fact, the Iraqi Army was composed largely of Shiite conscripts who disbanded themselves by deserting at their earliest opportunity. And it is a myth that de-Baathification needlessly alienated millions of rank-and-file party members who joined simply to get along. The de-Baathification during the early part of the occupation targeted only the very top ranks of the party, all of whom had gotten there by playing some role as enforcers for a Nazi-like regime.
Obviously the new government has to find a way to make Sunnis a part of the political process. But the bitter-end Baathists want to topple the government, not join it. They can’t be appeased. Some level of de-Baathification remains a priority for at least the 80% of Iraqis who are Kurdish and Shiite (and many honest Sunnis as well). But Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi told us last week by phone that there will not be any wholesale purges in the security forces or government.
Democracy is messy, and the last thing Americans should do is burden the new government with unrealistic expectations. If raucous governing coalitions are evidence of a country’s unfitness for democracy, somebody ought to tell Iraq’s liberators – especially the Italians.
HAHAHAHAHA. JeffR, I appreciate that. However, I really don’t care if they respect me or not, as long as they respect a 5.56 mm screaming towards their chest. RLTW!!!
rangertab75
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
Or, seeing how military action is a broadsword ill-suited for removing individuals from power, it makes a good argument for the creation of a well respected international criminal court with the authority and means to try, convict, and imprison criminals such as Hussein and his regime.[/quote]
The ICC immediately moved to censure the remnants of the taliban and its brutal excesses. It then held saddam hussein accountable for his wars of aggression and war crimes. Had it been in existence, then certainly milosevic would have been taken down with one if not two arrest warrants. They’re also doing great in Darfur. The cases involving Uganda and the Central African Republic will no doubt result in mass arrests. They are doing a bang-up job with Robert Mugabe. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic have meekly submitted to their arrest warrants. Fidel Castro is being held to task. An arrest warrant was of course issued for osama bin laden and zarqawi. qadafi is in jail. The evil Israelis have stopped building walls. South America, with the help of the ICC, is a bastion of freedom. China has stopped shooting dissidents. Women are treated with dignity and respect in Saudi Arabia thanks to the ICC. The ICC has stepped in to prosecute those involved with abu ghraib because of course the US would not do that. hizbollah has been targeted by the ICC. iranian terrorists have been arrested. The mullahs inciting religious and ethnic violence have been silenced by agents of the ICC. Perpetrators in the Rwanda genocide have been locked up. They should issue an arrest warrant for Kim Jong Il, and tell him to stop it with the nuclear weapons as well. Tin-pot dictators, terrorists, and murderers across the globe are quivering in fear In short, the ICC is effectively protecting human rights across the globe.
Ooops, back to reality. They, like 145-pound-pussies the world over, let millions be murdered, raped, gassed, starved, and displaced every year while debating why George W. Bush is the REAL war criminal.
If cops were quadriplegic, would criminals go to court?
Oh I forgot, the reason that the ICC doesn’t work is because the US doesn’t back it. But if it did, and then the US had to go in and get the convicted war criminals (who else would?), would the troops and their commander in chief going after them still be regarded as war criminals by the masturbatory… oops intellectual classes?
Two weeks worth of good news can be found here:
What’s your point exactly?
Are you agreeing with me that a “well respected international criminal court with the authority and means to try, convict, and imprison criminals such as Hussein and his regime” would be a good thing, and as such you are using the current ICC as a counter-example?
Or did you think that going on and on about an ICC that is neither well respected, nor has any authority or means for action was somehow relevant to what I’ve written?
great post Cream.
I think an EFFECTIVE icc will never happen. Much like the un, which allows dictators and human rights abusers to punch above their weight, an icc would simply do the same…a myriad of competing interests, politics, corruption, etc, will simply result in the one thing the UN does a fantastic job of: INERTIA.
While hundreds of thousands die in the sudan, the UN has…Yoko Ono speak.
While Iran plays a game of cat and mouse that any intelligent being can play out in advancxe, the UN issues another equivocal statement.
While North Korea continues to flout international law (helped along the way by Clinton’s policies), the UN issues a statement.
The ICC would simply be more of the same; a vote for the icc would be a vote for continued diplomatic inertia.
I mean the EU can barely field one army, constituted from the E18; they don’t even have the military capability to deal with international thugs.
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
What’s your point exactly?
Are you agreeing with me that a “well respected international criminal court with the authority and means to try, convict, and imprison criminals such as Hussein and his regime” would be a good thing, and as such you are using the current ICC as a counter-example?
Or did you think that going on and on about an ICC that is neither well respected, nor has any authority or means for action was somehow relevant to what I’ve written?[/quote]
You would have to accept that for the ICC to be effective it would have to be willing to use war to enforce its dictates, or else it would be as perfectly meaningless as its current incarnation.
[quote]Cream wrote:
Moriarty wrote:
What’s your point exactly?
Are you agreeing with me that a “well respected international criminal court with the authority and means to try, convict, and imprison criminals such as Hussein and his regime” would be a good thing, and as such you are using the current ICC as a counter-example?
Or did you think that going on and on about an ICC that is neither well respected, nor has any authority or means for action was somehow relevant to what I’ve written?
You would have to accept that for the ICC to be effective it would have to be willing to use war to enforce its dictates, or else it would be as perfectly meaningless as its current incarnation.
[/quote]
Definitely, that goes without question.