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Originally posted by Dace De'Briago:
It's a strange world that we live in whereby war has to be 'legal'.
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I'm curious as to why you think this is strange? The legal situation provides guidelines and boundaries:
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The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, complained that the case was thin, not least because Saddam Hussein was not threatening neighbours and had a lesser WMD capability than Libya, North Korea or Iran.
The meeting also considered the legal issues, including a March 2002 paper prepared by Foreign Office legal advisers. Even at this stage the British government was acutely aware of the legal difficulties. The attorney general confirmed that self-defence and humanitarian intervention were not justified, and that, as matters then stood, claiming the authorisation of the security council would be difficult.
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The legal framework easily shows that Libya, North Korea and Iran are far greater threats to world peace and far more of a
present danger as far as our own security is concerned. The humanitarian situation in North Korea is far far worse than Iraq and Iran represses its people far more effectively than Hussein ever did.
So basically, if the legal advice had been considered, the whole world could have tackled the
real problems in the world like terrorism and tyranny, rather than tying down US and British troops for the next ten years in a country that was no threat and squandering all the goodwill that the 11th September attacks brought.
International law attempts to bring rational thought into the foreign policy process, or at least a period of consideration about your actions - when its ignored then the consequences are never good. The neo-cons were planning to attack Iraq before the War on Terror ever rose its ugly head - this was an agenda and the legality of the situation was therefore irrelevent.
It's probably worth pointing out that when it comes to aggression against other states, the United States is top of the pile by a long, long way. So for people who don't see eye-to-eye with Bush & Co, international law is also a way of protecting themselves against the actions of a rogue state. Even if the prospect doesn't appeal, I can't really blame Iran for wanting nukes (assuming that the unsubstantiated US accusations are true) - in their position I would feel exactly the same way.
[ 02-24-2005, 06:47 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]