Was the invasion of Iraq illegal?

[kestra]

I don't see either entity (UN or the US) as pillars of morality, myself.
I wouldn't be surprised if the UN morphs into something new within the next decade.

[Leveth]

This is gonna sound kinda coarse, but...

We have the strongest military force in the world, not to mention the most advanced. Might makes Right, no matter how wrong that seems/is. We can do it, so we did. Regardless of the legality of the attack. Personally, Iraq was and has been a threat for years, and still is in may a sense. It had to be done eventaully. Why not sooner, rather than later?

/rant

[kestra]

I think it's that kind of mentality that helps recruit more terrorists.
You can't go around the world, flexing your military muscles with that kind of mentality Leveth, and not expect retaliation.
This is not a solution.

[Graeblyn]

Originally posted by kestra
I think it's that kind of mentality that helps recruit more terrorists.
You can't go around the world, flexing your military muscles with that kind of mentality Leveth, and not expect retaliation.
This is not a solution.

This argument is a non-starter. I can easily rattle off a dozen terrorism incidents that occured before the war in Iraq. You would probably rattle off a dozen incidents that the U.S. allegedly perpetrated before all the terorism incidents I listed, and so it would go ad nauseum.

The end conclusion is that what we do is irrelevent to the hatred islamic extremists feel towards us. What THEY do just brings more and more of our might on them. They will always hate us, and we have to deal with that decisively. Eventually, they may figure out that beating their head against a brick wall does them more harm then it does the wall.

[Frobozz]

Originally posted by kestra
I don't see either entity (UN or the US) as pillars of morality, myself.
I wouldn't be surprised if the UN morphs into something new within the next decade.

This mentality is something that is killing the Democratic party and helping the Republican party. Normal people, moderates, etc do not like to hear that we are responsible for the world's woes or are a corrupt society especially when we shell out billions of billions of dollars and manpower each year to help the less fortunate in other countries...

By less fortunate I would say sending 20 billion dollars to africa for AIDS research OR sending our troops into any given third world country to stop a dictator from killing off villiages that dont believe what he believes.

[ejda]

Originally posted by Frobozz
By less fortunate I would say sending 20 billion dollars to africa for AIDS research OR sending our troops into any given third world country to stop a dictator from killing off villiages that dont believe what he believes.

Gee, I thought you have at least watched bowling for columbine to know what US has done to lesser countries. Naturally (and obviously) the history of third world countries does not interest the american but you should know that the deepest root of many of the problems in middle-east or third world countries start from 1500's, with the rise of European countries. Countries like England, Spain, Russia, Portuguese, Germany, France, US, ... have always tried to control (not conquer) other countries because of natural resources, strategical advantages, a market for their exports, cheap labor force and etc. The history of mankind is so tainted that you can hardly claim *ONE* sincere political gesture throughout the history. I see US no exception to this rule.

[Deryk]

From what I've seen and heard about Bowling for Columbine it's probably not the best source to base an argument on.

[ejda]

Everything which is said about involvement of US in third world countries in bowling for columbine is 100% true and in fact is a tiny fraction of what more advanced countries has done in less advanced parts of the world.

[Miromina]

We have had an other thread about Michael Moore in an other thread. He surely has a political motive and he has been caught more than once bending the truth or even lying. Saying this you should still balance the amount of claims and attacks he have made up against the number of people who try to discredit him and what they actually have on him. From the homepage in the other thread I found the list on Moore to be rather slim to make the conclusion that he is untrustworthy.

The part of Bowling for Columbine that I believe that Ejda was referring to was a list of military interference by the US since the Second World War. Moore surely put his own opinion as a layer over the whole movie but the fact still stand that a big part of the wars have been political and not always been for the better of the people.

With all this said about Moore and US wars I might have given the impression that I believe that the US military influense is 'evil' and this is untrue. I know that some people only understand the when weapons talk and that these people would be terrorising even larger parts of the world if we did not have a civilized country as the US with the largest firepower. In reference to the invasion of Iraq I believe that it will end up being for the better of the Iraq people as long as the world does not give up on the country before they are strong enough to fend off extremists on their own. If we leave Iraq within the next years I fear that they will be much worse off than they were with Saddam.

I better give my view on the question of this thread as well =)
I believe that the invasion might be against the UN charter... but this is just a battle for layers...
Even if the US broke the charter it would not have any consequences because the UN would not be worth much without the US. This might be a weakness of the UN but that does not change that it is the way it works in politics.

I have been reading this board for long enough to feel a need to add the following when posting on a political topic:
- What I post is my conclusions on what I have read. Like everyone else here my knowledge is nothing more than what I see, what I read and what others say to me… all mixed together to what I believe to be the truth.
- All the factual details are based on my memory and therefore probably a bit off... If you catch one of these please post a correction =)


Peter

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by ejda
Gee, I thought you have at least watched bowling for columbine to know what US has done to lesser countries.

Did you also read Mein Kampf to learn about Jewish people?

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110003233

Side by side comparison of an actual Charlton Heston speech and the heavily edited version used by Michael Moore

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000037.html

http://www.moorelies.com/

Michael Moore is nothing more than a dishonest vulture who earned copious amounts of blood money by stoking the fires of America Haters.