Iraq vs US

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Jack
The ceasefire agreement was a UN resolution. It was resolution 687 on 3 April 1991. If you still doubt about it, check it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/middle_east/2246037.stm

 

An inspection conversation would rather look like that:

-Inspector points at abonded rocket: "Ey whats that over there?"
-Iraqi Soldier: "This is a stovepipe."
-Inspector: "With a pointed nose and small stub-wings??!"
-Iraqi: "Aye, somehow we have to get the pipe through the roof, don't we?"
-Inspector: "Hmm, but why is my tricorder reporting traces of sarin?"
-Iraqi Soldier: "Impossible! ( thinks: IMPOSSIBLE!!! Eventually we have cleaned up here ... we had time enough ) *cough* .... you must be wrong."
-Inspector insists: "This missile has a chemical warhead!"
-Iraqi Soldier: "What missile?"

[ November 27, 2002, 22:26: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

BOC,

Fair enough. It was a UN resolution. But your original comparison is still invalid:

Show me where these countries (Israel and Turkey) agreed to UN resolutions as a condition of surrender. Iraq agreed to the resolution to end the war. That is the difference.
Do you see the difference?

[ November 27, 2002, 23:26: Message edited by: Jack Funk ]

 

Jack
On 20th July 1974 Turkey invaded Cyprus. After 3 days of fighting and 2 UN resolutions (353 on 20th July 1974 and 354 on 23rd July 1974) a ceasefire agreement took place. In UN resolution 355 (1st August 1974)there is the following paragraph:

"Noting that all States have declared their respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Cyprus".

I believe that this paragraph proves that all sides have accepted not only the terms of the cease fire agreement but they have accepted the indepedence and and the territorial intergrity of Cyprus, right? Well, on 14th August 1974 Turkey broke the ceasefire agreement and launched a new attack with the code name Attilas II (Attilas was the code name of the first attack)and Cyprus is divided for 28 years.

Well, did Turkey agree with these resolutions in first place?
http://pio.gov.cy/docs/security_counsil/index.htm

 

I don't have the link to hand, still waiting on it from a friend. But it leads to a page, that I think is a theory, putting forward a case of why the USA wants to go and 'pacify and neutralise' the threat in Iraq. They will go in there, occupy the place, and then go after their real target, Iran.
aha, just got the link, web page
It is interesting however that a supposedly so dangerous person wasn't taken out of power a few years back isn't it? After all, SAS members were shaking hands with him during the Gulf War, and he is still alive? But then, that was for the stability of the region. Or should we look behind the reason we're told?

 

We must have lived in very different worlds during the Kosovo crisis Laches, no european politician nor media did ever demand US intervention in Kosovo that I know of. Keep in mind that you are under the influence of one set of propaganda and I am under one. I dont say that the intervention in Kosovo was wrong but I am generally suspicous of everything the US do. Call it paranoia if you will. As far as I know and it may be limited so has Europe not asked for any military help since WW2. There may have been shouts for UN intervention but that is something completely different. Perhaps there was a pressure on US politicians from their european counterparts but that is not something that they would spread among the populace as the general populace view on things is not to have the US running around and acting like heroes while 'protecting' democracy.
So dont use the other cases argument with me as I have never supported the intervention of a single states or alliance intervention in another states affairs, if that is to be done it should be through census in the UN, however hard that is to come by. Where will it end? Kosovo yesterday, Iraq today who knows who will be pointed out as the next threat to world peace or US security?

Secondly I think that reasons are all that matters, if you intend to commit a crime but end up saving someone while you are at I still think you are guilty. Check your law books, intention makes all the difference. The punishment for killing someone with intent is alot higher than if you accidently kill someone.

 

You must be right Vermillion one article in one Canadian newspaper must mean we are after Iran next.After all if it is a newspaper or on the internet it must be true.First Iraq then Iran soon the world.You will all bow before our mighty capitalist power,nothing will stop the utter global domination of us evil Americans muhahahahah!!!!!!!!

[ November 28, 2002, 03:51: Message edited by: Dorion Blackstar ]

 

BOC,

Again, you are comparing apples and oranges. Turky did not agree to the resolutions as terms of surrender, the they agreed to stop attacking. Additionally, the fight was Turkey vs. Cyprus, not Turkey vs. the U.N. (or U.S.).
When a country is losing a war and agrees to terms of surrender, they generally keep to the terms or (if they are still a threat) get attacked again. That is what is happening with Iraq. I think it is obvious that the U.S. feels threatened by the weapons programs of Iraq and we are willing to enforce the resolutions. I also think it's obvious that Bush is only going through the U.N. to try a diplomatic solution and placate the rest of the world.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that Turkey and Israel have violated resolutions to which they agreed. Should the U.N. have done something? Perhaps. But does lack of action in those cases mean that U.N. resolutions should never be enforced?
You refuse to acknowledge the difference in these cases. While the points that you are making are interesting and worthy of discussion, I believe that they are not related to the discussion on Iraq.
Perhaps you could start another topic about the uneven behavior of the U.N. History is littered with examples (such as involvement in Kosovo but not Rwanda).

 

The intervention in Kosovo came after the U.N. had pulled out in large part. It was NATO that began an air war. The U.S. was pressured to commit ground troops as well but was reluctant to be there in the first place let alone commit ground troops. Finally, Clinton under pressure from the U.K., Germany, France, and Italy decided to send in 100,000 American troops to be combined with 75,000 from all of the other NATO nations and Russia -- this was two days before Milosevic blinked and backed down.

This is taken from an article from the Guardian, a somewhat liberal British paper regarding the subject at the time, can't link it, sorry:

The Guardian article shows how Powell, one of the most influential American foreign policy makers at the time didn't want to become involved.

Here is a brief article mentioning the US' tendencies towards isolationism and mounting international pressure to get involved in Kosovo, written by Dick Morris a Clinton political consultant:
http://www.beachbrowser.com/archives/opinion/internationalist-liberals.htm

See, this was one of Clinton's chief political consultants at the time warning against U.S. involvement, in the face of international pressure, because Americans tend toward isolationist policies.

If you have an online subscription to e-library you can access a number of old articles describing the international pressure on the U.S. regarding Kosovo, I can't link them since a subscription is required (it's 7 day trial but $80.00 a year)

In short, the U.S. wasn't keen to get into the war in Kosovo (with some notable exceptions like Albright)but was pressured into doing so. I can't say how the politicians played this pressure out in Europe since I think a great deal of it came behind the scenes from other Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) members and the like but the pressure was there.

But this is drifting off course I think. I do have a couple of questions joacquin. Was intervention in Kosovo justified? If so, why? If it is justified, please explain how the goings on in Iraq under Hussein don't justify forced regime change. Keep in mind, there has been no unilateral action as of yet, indeed, there has been no action at all.

Regarding your analogy, I'm sorry but I don't think it is relevant and misses the point. Intention is indeed important when it is time to assign moral culpability, I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying is that, using your example, if someone wanted to commit a crime and saved someone instead, it doesn't follow that we shouldn't save people. It only means that person isn't morally good in this instance for doing the right thing.

This is my point: if there is a strong moral justification for a regime change in Iraq, independent of U.S. actions, then a regime change in Iraq is something that you can support as being justified regardless of what Bush's personal ambitions are. (Insert comment about means and ends here)

I have one last Kosovo question, I'm just genuinely curious. If the U.S. wasn't pressured to go to Kosovo by the international community why was it there? Can't blame it on oil this time. And if the U.S. was there out of a genuine humanitarian concern (and remember Milosevic came to power in the late 80's and had been going strong since then) why are you so quick to dismiss all of the humanitarian reasons listed with regards to Iraq?

 

Jack
In my opinion it does not matter if it is a condition of surrender or a agreement of stop attacking. It is a UN resolution and that is what matters.

Also, please answer me to this. Why does USA feel that Iraq is a threat for its own security? Even if Iraq has weapons of mass destruction (biological, nuclear, chemicals or whatever), does it have the ability to launch them against american soil? I don't think so. I 've read in a newspaper a couple of months ago, that the new missile weapon of Iraq is a modified MIG-21 fighter. Does this have the ability to reach USA soil?

The only thing that could be considered as a threat is the possibility of training and funding terrorist groups, but there isn't a proof about this. On the contrary, there are suspicions that some terrorist groups are getting money from your "allies" in this area (see Saudi Arabia).

 

Well, there ARE terrorist trainingcamps outside of Bagdad, as proven by satelite.

 

The proof-function of satellite imagery is pretty overrated. These camps yould as well be used for paramilitary training of police or militia troops or anything. For some reason Saddam likes his people to be combat ready.

Satellite imagery can tell you something about the purpose of a camp - that it actually is a training site with obstacle parcours and shooting range, yes, but it cannot tell you what is in the minds of the people down there - terrorist training somehow looks very similar to normal infantry combat training. So why is it a terrorist camp? Because there is "Osama & Saddam Terror Inc." written on the barracks yard?
Maybe the US have aditional background info from other sources but pics alone are a weak proof.

Think about Photoshop and ask yourself what proof a satellite imagery pic is nowadays.

Even when you see armed people around an aircraft - that could be an anti-terror exercise or a terror exercise. You cannot tell the difference by looking at it from space since even a terrorist can dress military style or a soldier can wear plainclothes. So what does a look on that proove?

Interesting sidenote: IIRC the US are known have *beefed up* some sattelite pics to proove warcrimes in Bosnia and Iraq (like with some bonus mass graves) to make it easier to persuade allies with them - which is one of the reasons why the french insist in having satelites of their own - and do not always agree with US intelligence.

[ November 28, 2002, 15:35: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

I'm skeptical of the terrorist training going on in Iraq as being a direct threat to the U.S.

The imaging came after reports by respected reporters Jeff Goldberg of an al-Qaida/Iraq connection. Goldberg reports, after having gone to Kurdistan, that in eastern Iraq the group Jund-al-Islam which changed its name to Ansar al-Islam has training camps in 10 villages near the Iranian border. They're sort of typical Islamic extremists who want to impose sharia but they are exclusively focused on Free Kurdistan in northern Iraq. As someone pointed out above, Iraq is a secular state and indeed, bin Laden is on the record as detesting Hussein because of that. However, Hussein's intelligence agency reportedly runs these terrorist groups as a way to destabalize Kurdistan particularly now when there is a no-fly zone. Goldberg reported that Hussein's intelligence agency actually controls the group with cooperation from al-Qaida. This last is the part that some people don't believe, I'm not sure what to make of it.

So, I think the terrorist groups in Iraq, and it really is beyond doubt that they exist, are a direct threat to Kurdistan at the moment and not the U.S. I suppose the scare comes from if you believe the report of Goldberg and others of a connection between these groups and al-Qaida, then there is an increased risk of al-Qaida receiving chemical or biological agents from Hussein through these groups as an intermediary and thus becoming a direct threat to the U.S.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of these reports. Jeff Goldberg's integrity as a journalist is beyond reproach but that doesn't mean he can't be mistaken. His article was published in the fairly liberal "New Yorker" magazine if you are interested in reading it yourself.

 

Mad kurds mainly are a risk for NATO, since Saddam destabilizing his North-Iraq is endangering NATO's southern flank - Turkey. And islamist or not - with the support of Saddam and the iraqi part of Kurdistan as a safeheaven these dudes probably mainly operate into Iran and Turkey, two major regional rivals of Iraq.

I'm not sure about the Al-Quaida connection. Since both, Al-Quaida and Saddam's secret services operate highly conspirative you can't proove nothing - until it perhaps happens. It is known Osama's men were interested in aquiring biological and chemical weapons. Of course you can imagine it is right, but just as well it could be wrong. At least it is a good story.

 

@Pacman

Theres even a terrorist training camps in the US, Whisc aka SOA

[ November 28, 2002, 17:05: Message edited by: Morgoth ]

 

religion has nothing to do with it,saddam believes he is doing it for his religion but after studying islam in religious education he is quite clearly going against everything it says in the Qu'ran

 

I am surprised anyone can seriously think that Saddam has any interest in religion - his overtly beeing muslim is an opportunity to get support from other muslims. His wars against muslim brother countries, namely Kuwait and Iran were to gather more territory, not for a muslim idea - as mentioned before Iraq is a secular country.

Saddam wouldn't even tolerate a serious muslim leader next to him in his country - he is a dictator, interested in nothing but his own power and to remain in power. Beeing seen as the muslim leader of the middle east - the next Nasser - would improve his base of power.

He is an opportunist, probably an atheist, and would it bring him an advantage he would not only go to mosque to pray (ordering the tv there first) but maybe dye his hair green and become buddhist or catholic. Even discussing his potentially religious motivation actually means believing in his propaganda.

 

Didnt Hitler use that same "I adjust my religion to get power" tactic??

 

indeed,you have just summed up what i was trying to say

 

Not really, Hitler wrote his own religion - even before he came to power. Saddam demands a person cult either - but without the pathological racial ideology.

While Saddam Hussein is a ruthless, unscrupulous opportunist - Hitler was a foaming madman.

For Saddam religion is a tool - for Hitler his racial ideology was the goal.

A significant difference IMO, however, without any significance for the general judgement over Saddam Hussein.

[ November 28, 2002, 22:06: Message edited by: Ragusa ]