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pmsumner at 01:40pm on 17/03/2003Inspectors urged to leave Iraq
So the US is now trying to persuade the inspectors that their job is done, and that they should leave now in order to avoid being hurt? Let's guess exactly what this means.
But despite the renewed pressure, there is no sign that either France or Russia - which have both threatened to use their veto - intend to change tack.
China - another veto-wielding opponent of military action - remained adamant on Monday that the Iraq issue should resolved through the UN.
All this hatred directed at the French leader, why is nobody even mentioning the Russians in this? And the German government? And the Chinese? These are all veto-holding countries who are against military action.
I personally don't know what I agree with and what I believe. Like ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ellipse's comments, that "I feel somewhat schizophrenic" regarding the whole thing. On some fronts, I agree that beating the shit out of Saddam's regime would be a good thing, but I also believe that this action is currently unfounded - they appear to be co-operating, albeit slowly, with UN demands.
Confused, I am.
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I also agree that there does seem to be some "hidden agenda" stuff happening which I can't quite fathom. Oil interests? I don't believe - else why just target Iraq? There's plenty of other "evil dictators" out there who have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the USA - just about everyone in the Middle East. If it is all over oil, I think the world has gone insane.
Undermining the principles of international Law, yes indeed. However - as law is subjective, it depends who you listen to as to whether the proposed actions are illegal. For example, the UK Government's top dog lawyer (forgot official title) has adv the UK gov't that the action is indeed legal. Undermining the UN, I do believe very strongly that if the UN permanent members can't agree unanimously to wage war, then the members of that council should abide by the decision.
As you can probably tell from this, I am more against than pro, but can be persuaded :)
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The thing is, most of the "evil dictators" in the Middle East are currently more with the US than against the US. And Iraq, which is not with the US and therefore against the US if one is to believe Bush, is after Saudi Arabia the country with the second largest oil reserves on Earth. Which the US currently can't exploit. Then there's the arms industry, which profits hugely from this kind of thing.
As to international law, calling for regime change in another country goes against the principle of sovereignty which underlies the international system which has been in place since the Treaty of Westphalia and which is all that's preventing the world from falling back to the Middle Ages. Plenty of other countries not only have "weapons of mass destruction" but quite proudly show them off (India, Pakistan, Israel, plus recent developments in North Korea and Iran). Last time I checked, no one had given the US the right to police the planet and tell countries what weapons they were and weren't allowed to have. Even if that was the case, there is not sufficient proof against Iraq anyway. So that's a really crap pretext.
As for Saddam being an evil dictator and his own people being better off without him, there are two points I'd like to make. 1.) He's currently the only thing that's preventing the country from collapsing into civil war. Not sure I'd classify civil war as "better off". 2.) Even if we accept that Saddam is an evil dictator, well, so was Stalin; so was Husak; so was Jaruselski; so was Zhivkov; so was Chausescu; so is the current regime in China. *shrugs* The US didn't and doesn't see it fit to do anything about any of these cases, not mention a range of sub-Saharan African countries. If you as a country are going to preach morals to the rest of the world, at least try to be consistent. It's gets embarrassing otherwise.
The UN and especially the Security Council is an outdated institution with dubious legitimacy. Unfortunately, it's all we have. If the US goes its own way here and ignores the Council, the last traces of international law and order collapse. Oh, and speaking of the UN, the US might want to pay its debts to said international institution before it tries to use it for legitimising its own illegal foreign policy.
Oh dear. Looks like I did manage to formulate something vaguely coherent. Hope it doesn't sound too aggressive, please don't take it personally. :-)