[Azred]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: Certainly terrible, but the same and similar kinds of torture and political persecution happen in N. Korea, and many other nations for crimes that are as trivial or worse than writing anti-goverment graffiti on the wall. The coalition would have alot of enemies to face if it were truly out to liberate all the oppressed people of the world. *************** Just because there is an invasion going on against a nation that commits brutal political persecution should we not mention that this sort of evil and injustice occurs the world over. Also it follows logic taht if the coalition were to be consistent in the ideaology of using military force to end this sort of suffering world round that it would be a widescale conflict well beyond the scope of invading Iraq. I really was just making an observation.

Originally posted by John D Harris: Prehaps the coalition will, or prehaps the other countries where this type of oppression exists will decide that it is not worth the risk to continue their oppression.

Originally posted by wellard: Surely those that stand idly by while acts of terror are being carried out are guilty of some crime themselves especially when they have a power to bring change.

Then perhaps the time has come to form a semi-permanent Coalition to oppose regimes who are committing crimes against humanity or widespread violations of human rights. Suspect nations can be given a time limit during which such crimes or violations must cease and situations in the country improve (perhaps 1 year) or Coalition forces will enter the country and forcibly enact a regime change. Any nation may sign up to join the Coalition if they so choose or opt out; there should be no negative repercussions for opting out of any sort. Note that any nation can be investigated and found suspect, even the US (should crimes or violations begin happening here).

The UN, as it exists now, is a nice idea but is insufficient to deal with the problems that exist in the world today. The problem is that it doesn't have any power to enforce decisions and one nation can veto the desires of many nations.
A restructured UN could make decisions voted upon by all nations with the majority opinion winning out and then decisions enforced by a combination of member nation militaries. This would solve the problems of "cowboy" nations (no names mentioned [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img] ) and nations who flagrantly violate the human rights of its citizens.