Iraq War - Legal or Illegal

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[GoOutside]

well i guess the terms legal and illegal could be applied as in did the US have a right to invade? and on whose authority? The problem with this is that people can go to war over any number of reasons. May not be pretty but that's how it is. The issue I have with the war is the lack of a post war view and no way to create any stability even during the war there was massive looting of armories and police headquarters that led to night fighting between different factions. The other point i have an issue with is the fact that even though we went in to find WMD's there really weren't any WMD's that were being developed. I'm not sure if Saddam had the ABILITY to develop them but on the second point I think I'll have to look into it more. Will edit in the future after I watch the video.


EDIT-Some of the facts they say on the Iraq War are true. Like Saddam did not have any ties to Al Qaeda due to the fact that Al Qaeda was aiming for a global islamic revolution and as such they needed to be able to control, train, and trust their subordinates. Saddam had such an Iron Rule that inviting Al Qaeda would have underminded his authority.

However, although this video was very interesting for me, I wish they mention the UN Charter Security Resolution 1441
link - http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm
To summarize it says that the Iraqi Leadership was in breach of the UN Charter for not submitting reports or allowing UN Inspectors full and unhindered access of their chemical, biological, and nuclear facilities if any and that omission of said facilities will result in further security resolutions to be placed upon Iraq.

I could keep going on and on cause I actually wrote a research paper on this but at this point I think people would want me to shut up 

[Days of War]

After having seen that, holy shit. We are assholes. Sorry, but wow. We are seriously doing all that? I never ever heard of half the stuff that went on in this war. I'm sorry, but, once I'm out of high school, I'm out of this country.

[Akranadas]

To the two members who insisted on testing whether or not I would take action that I stated in my warning, your posts have been deleted. I do not care for jokes when I told you not to do it. If your going to have a discussion about a rather sensitive topic, I think we'd all prefer it stayed coherent and on topic for once.

[Pengu]

EDIT-Some of the facts they say on the Iraq War are true. Like Saddam did not have any ties to Al Qaeda due to the fact that Al Qaeda was aiming for a global islamic revolution and as such they needed to be able to control, train, and trust their subordinates. Saddam had such an Iron Rule that inviting Al Qaeda would have underminded his authority.

Actually they did have some contact with each other.  Nothing serious ever came of it, but they were definately in contact for a while.

As was stated in the second post the war was legal. They did not keep up their part of the treaty. I personally don't think it was a great Idea, but that really doesn't concern the legality of it. Not going to watch anything on youtube on any subject like this. Way too likely to be biased what ever it is.

[Unkn0wn]

I think most americans are too biased when it comes down to the iraq war because of their awesome patriotism getting in the way . The war wasn't legal, no country has the right to simply invade another country, especially not on false grounds such as WMDs.

Lovely how russia's the big bad guy by 'invading georgia' when what the US did was far worse .

[Pengu]

Unknown what exactly are you saying. The war was legal by international law. As I said before I don't particualrly agree with the war, but the legaility of it is there. 

[Thtb]

Attacked without proof of anything before or after the attack-


Well?

[Unkn0wn]

Unknown what exactly are you saying. The war was legal by international law. As I said before I don't particualrly agree with the war, but the legaility of it is there.

O rly, who told you that? Fox news?
Please, do you even know international law? Look it up, it is a violation of international laws. Why do you think so many EU countries decided not to support the US? Why do you think the UN/NATO barely supported the US? No, not because they're liberal pussies.

Not that the Bush government gives a shit about legality or about what other countries think of course. The US international popularity has never been this low mind you. Again, not like the US cares but it's bound to ricochet sooner or later.

[Pengu]

I don't watch fox news.
They had a treaty with Iraq. Saddam did not comply with that treaty. They invaded. Nato and UN did not support the US in Iraq much because they are not required to, and they disagreed with it. Nato is a defensive treaty. Iraq did not attack the us, so Nato had no obligation to intervene. On Europe being full of liberal pussies thats entirely possible. With more support from Europe Afghanistan would be far more stable today. That was a war Nato was obligated to intervene with, and it did very minimally.

[Kolath]

Here's the funny thing about international law... it is only meaningful as long as someone will enforce it.

Regardless, it is now the end of 2008.  The US has been there for five years.  At this point is hardly matters whether the original invasion was "legal" (who gets to define legality is a whole different subject).  The war in Iraq is a fait accompli, so all that matters now is that the US do the best job it can do to salvage what it can.  Luckily, the situation in Iraq has been going fairly well.  Violence is down.  Order is up.  (With the exception of the new Kurdish belligerence in the north).  The Iraqi government is in favor of timetables for withdrawal.  It may actually turn out to be something of a success.

[AmpmX]

Firstly, it was legal, 1991 Gulf War never actually ended. We just continued it after the Treaty holding the ceasefire in place was broken.

Second, International Law means jack shit if nobody else is going to do anything.

Truthfully, Iraq was run by a purely evil man, doing evil things. The fact that everyone is to afraid of getting bad press to remove such a person, even if its not the primary goal in the region, says a lot more about the rest of the world. You know Saddam was an evil dictator, but you would rather sit around and do nothing.

[salan]

oh come on now, the olympic stadiums around the world should all be used for execution sites, specially if your crime is being of a different religion... /sarcasm

[Unkn0wn]

With more support from Europe Afghanistan would be far more stable today.

Or the US could've sent more troops, afghanistan generally received plenty of international support. Heck, even Japan contributed. The US shifted over troops to Iraq. If they would've had the amount of troops they have in Iraq in Afghanistan things would've looked a lot better there... Or would it? All things considered, Afghanistan was no mistake. It's with the invasion of Iraq that shit hit the fan and the US became more hated than ever.

But even if you bring more troops, you need to realise that more troops or better technology ultimately does not solve the problem entirely... That only applies to conventional warfare, and Iraq & Afghanistan are hardly conventional wars.

it is only meaningful as long as someone will enforce it.

I haven't really seen the EU break it, or a lot of other countries for that matter.
A major power in the world needs to set an example for everyone to follow, with US playing cowboy in the middle east.. Russia acting tough in the Balkan and China discarding human rights there's not really anyone left. The EU while being a major economic power thinks it does not have any political power while in fact it could have a lot more if the european leaders truly wanted to take that role. They're just a little reluctant because they've been in Washington'/Moscow's shadow for a good 50 years. They're being pussies, as you will .

The US should've taken its responsability when they became the only superpower left (after 1989), speaking hard words about freedom and protecting democracy ultimately making it just as big of a hypocrite as any other superpower today.

Violence is down.  Order is up.  (With the exception of the new Kurdish belligerence in the north).  The Iraqi government is in favor of timetables for withdrawal.  It may actually turn out to be something of a success.

Over 3000 lives were lost in Iraq, there's still violence on a daily basis. Just because it doesn't make the front page does not mean it does not happen... It's only relevant to our media when western lives are lost or when the violence in question was of large scale. (I.e bombings that kill larger amounts of iraqis)...
I still see news about iraq on a daily basis, just check the international news websites, dig a little deeper than the front page.

Also, if you vote on McCain the U.S will be in iraq much longer. You're better off just having an honorable retreat. But in all honesty, I don't understand why this 'retreat' is such a big shame to the people of the U.S. Americans generally don't give a shit about what other people think, yet when it comes down to them having to retreat a conflict they caused they're afraid of having to live with what the world will think about it? It's silly if you ask me, I don't even see the whole 'shame' part. Maybe because I'm not an american. But to me it makes sense that retreating, even if it's considered a 'loss', is better than losing more lives.

What the bush government doesn't see is that staying in Iraq will ultimately NEVER stabilise the conflict. As long as americans remain in Iraq, insurgents will keep coming and violence will continue being fueled for years to come. Remove the americans and you remove half of the problem. The people of the middle east generally hate the US, just like you'd hate them if they'd be occupying a state of the U.S.

Truthfully, Iraq was run by a purely evil man, doing evil things. The fact that everyone is to afraid of getting bad press to remove such a person, even if its not the primary goal in the region, says a lot more about the rest of the world. You know Saddam was an evil dictator, but you would rather sit around and do nothing.

Wow, you really believe everything the government tells you don't you? Do you really believe they invaded Iraq because of those poor iraqi people being repressed by that evil dictator? Really?

Alright. So if the US is such an awesome world police and wants to rid the world of evil dictators.
How come no action has been taken against these dictators?
- H. Chavez
- Kim Jong Il
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
- Robert Mugabe
- Fidel/Raul Castro

The list goes on, but these are the most commonly known.
(You could even argue that China/Russia are ultimately authoritarian states)

You want to know why most of these dictators are left alone/will remain unharmed?
Because their countries hold very little actual value, i.e oil or other important resources to exploit/control... or they pose no actual threat to the U.S. Saddam didn't hold any threat though, and yet he was removed. Iran supposedely holds a threat when really, it doesn't. If you look at it from Iran's perspective, the U.S holds just as much of a threat as Iran does to the U.S. It's all paranoia and causes an escalation over time.

[DrayTest]

Alright. So if the US is such an awesome world police and wants to rid the world of evil dictators.
How come no action has been taken against these dictators?
- H. Chavez
- Kim Jong Il
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
- Robert Mugabe
- Fidel/Raul Castro

Id say every person on that list the US has a plan inplace to "take them out."  Problem is...that is against international law so we dont.

[Unkn0wn]

So you're saying the U.S has an invasion plan for every single country in that list?
Or would they just do a hit on the dictator in question? If so, why didn't they just kill off Saddam..? Perhaps there was a benefit in actually occupying Iraq?

The U.S doesn't even want to take action against Mugabe (same goes for the EU really) when it's obvious he's one of the worst dictators around at the moment. Ultimately the U.S doesn't care, at least the EU doesn't talk tough and doesn't try to hide that they're in fact incapable or afraid to act.

I doubt the U.S military at this point, regardless of its technology size & awesomeness (no really, I love the US military), would even be capable of invading another country effectively. Not with this whole situation in afghanistan/iraq and the home economy going to hell.


I personally think it's time for the U.S to go back to its preWW2 military isolationism, clear up the economy so that they can continue playing a major political & economic power before they lose both of that.  (Which at this rate they will end up losing pretty soon.)

[SkunkerTLS]

Firstly, it was legal, 1991 Gulf War never actually ended. We just continued it after the Treaty holding the ceasefire in place was broken.

Second, International Law means jack shit if nobody else is going to do anything.

Truthfully, Iraq was run by a purely evil man, doing evil things. The fact that everyone is to afraid of getting bad press to remove such a person, even if its not the primary goal in the region, says a lot more about the rest of the world. You know Saddam was an evil dictator, but you would rather sit around and do nothing.

Like the U.S. and the rest of the world does with Darfur? substitute evil dictator with genocide kthnx.

[Kolath]

Well at least natural causes will soon take Castro and may have already killed Kim Jong Il.

Unkn0wn, when I said that violence was down in Iraq, I was speaking about now.  The lives lost are a sunk cost.  But the fact remains that the situation has improved compared to the last few years.  That is a step in the positive direction.

[AmpmX]

Actually, I never said that was the main reason it was done Unknown, I said it was a good reason though. The reason we don't do it in other counties is because there is going to be a lot of whining from the EU. Well, North Korea is mostly because the Chinese say no.

[DrayTest]

So you're saying the U.S has an invasion plan for every single country in that list?
Or would they just do a hit on the dictator in question? If so, why didn't they just kill off Saddam..? Perhaps there was a benefit in actually occupying Iraq?

US has plans to take out the dictators, you cant put out a "hit" on a leader unless in a war time situation; and even during a war time situation there are rules that have to be followed.

[AmpmX]

Skunker, we can't do anything about that without a draft or a no-holds barred fight. The international community would throw a fit if we went in and levelled the opposition and we don't have the manpower to sit there and try and make them play nice. Maybe Europe should go do something useful for once?