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Was the War in Iraq worth it?

Was the War in Iraq worth it?

  • Yes

    Votes: 21 19.6%

  • No

    Votes: 86 80.4%
  • Total voters
    107
mac said:
I've been addressing the point, and you've been ignoring it. The point is, you can call it illegal all you want, but you can't prove it.
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OK, let me say this clearly:

1) We signed the UN charter. I think this is a fact, right?

2) It spells out when a charter nation can invade. This requires either an imminent threat or within the UN through the security council. Again, I think this is factually true.

3) There was no imminent threat. Even Bush agrees with that.

4) While I have addressed 1441 above, it became moot the second the US stepped outside the UN and went with the coalition of the willing. From that moment on, we are not opperating under UN resolutions.

So, what part of the agreement do you think we were under? Remember, the point here was our agreed upon standard that the US signed the agreement.
 
mac said:
Actually the application of that reasoning was Saddam's positioning of troops near the Kuwaiti border in 2001-2002, not an invasion 14 years prior.
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Uhhh.... that would be a no. That rationale was used for existing United Nations Security Council resolutions based on Iraq's 1990 invasion.

UK attorney general Lord Goldsmith agreed that the use of force against Iraq was justified by resolution 1441, in combination with the earlier resolutions 678 and 687 from 1990.

According to an independent commission of inquiry set up by the government of the Netherlands, UN resolution 1441 "cannot reasonably be interpreted as authorizing individual member states to use military force to compel Iraq to comply with the Security Council's resolutions." The commission of inquiry of the government of the Netherlands found that the UN resolution of the 1990s provided no authority for the invasion.

The United States structured its reports to the United Nations Security Council around intelligence from the CIA and MI6 stating that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

So Britain and the US decided that it was legal to invade, attack and institute a regime change based on kaka intel and no real threat? I don't get it.
 
Boo Radley said:
OK, let me say this clearly:

1) We signed the UN charter. I think this is a fact, right?

2) It spells out when a charter nation can invade. This requires either an imminent threat or within the UN through the security council. Again, I think this is factually true.

3) There was no imminent threat. Even Bush agrees with that.

4) While I have addressed 1441 above, it became moot the second the US stepped outside the UN and went with the coalition of the willing. From that moment on, we are not opperating under UN resolutions.

So, what part of the agreement do you think we were under? Remember, the point here was our agreed upon standard that the US signed the agreement.
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1) It can be argued that we can take actions against non-UN countires without UN approval.

2) US laws overrides treaties, as far as the US is concerned. US law supported the invasion of Iraq.

3) There was believed to be a threat at the time of the invasion. Hindsight doesn't change that.

4) Then we are not bound by them.
 
grip said:
Uhhh.... that would be a no. That rationale was used for existing United Nations Security Council resolutions based on Iraq's 1990 invasion.

UK attorney general Lord Goldsmith agreed that the use of force against Iraq was justified by resolution 1441, in combination with the earlier resolutions 678 and 687 from 1990.

According to an independent commission of inquiry set up by the government of the Netherlands, UN resolution 1441 "cannot reasonably be interpreted as authorizing individual member states to use military force to compel Iraq to comply with the Security Council's resolutions." The commission of inquiry of the government of the Netherlands found that the UN resolution of the 1990s provided no authority for the invasion.

The United States structured its reports to the United Nations Security Council around intelligence from the CIA and MI6 stating that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

So Britain and the US decided that it was legal to invade, attack and institute a regime change based on kaka intel and no real threat? I don't get it.
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Faulty Intel isn't faulty Intel until proven faulty, and yes, Saddam had deployed large numbers of troops to the vicinity of Kuwait before the 2003 invasion.
 
mac said:
Faulty Intel isn't faulty Intel until proven faulty, and yes, Saddam had deployed large numbers of troops to the vicinity of Kuwait before the 2003 invasion.
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the dicknbush administration realized that joe wilson was undermining its lies that WMDs were being manufactured in iraq. they even outed wilson's wife, a covert CIA agent, to quash his efforts to shed light on their dark deceptions
in short, the white house knew the propaganda about iraqi WMDs was fabricated because they fabricated them
 
mac said:
1) It can be argued that we can take actions against non-UN countires without UN approval.

2) US laws overrides treaties, as far as the US is concerned. US law supported the invasion of Iraq.

3) There was believed to be a threat at the time of the invasion. Hindsight doesn't change that.

4) Then we are not bound by them.
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Rubbish! I'd get that looked at if I were you. It is not legal in the USA to kill people indiscriminately and I submit over a 100,000 dead Iraqis for your sniff test. Iran was never a threat and that was proven. The invasion of Iraq was as legal as the invasion of Libya. Two wars under false pretenses. Left cheek, then right cheek, repeat until its out. Careful, they're comin' fer ya' and gonna fill your brain cavity with "hate them Iranians," "bad Iranians," "Iranians got WMDs," "kill 'em all," and you gonna sit up and beg like a well trained puppy.
 
mac said:
Faulty Intel isn't faulty Intel until proven faulty,
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What about Scott Ritter U.N. weapons inspector who said,

"We eliminated the nuclear program, and for Iraq to have reconstituted it would require undertaking activities that would have been eminently detectable by intelligence services. As of December 1998 we had no evidence Iraq had retained biological weapons, nor that they were working on any. In fact, we had a lot of evidence to suggest Iraq was in compliance."

Rafid Ahmed Alwan, known by the Central Intelligence Agency cryptonym "Curveball", is an Iraqi informant. Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service questioning the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory.

The Bush administration laid blame on the CIA, criticizing its officials for "failing to investigate" doubts about Curveball, which emerged after an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.
Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA's European division, told the Los Angeles Times that "everyone in the chain of command knew exactly what was happening."


Faulty, Faulty, Faulty....... :shock:
 
mac said:
1) It can be argued that we can take actions against non-UN countires without UN approval.

2) US laws overrides treaties, as far as the US is concerned. US law supported the invasion of Iraq.

3) There was believed to be a threat at the time of the invasion. Hindsight doesn't change that.

4) Then we are not bound by them.
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1) interesting take, but no. Law covers our actions as memebers and not something we can excuse because they are non memebers.

2) Nothing in US law required an invasion, but again not the point. The point is we broke our agreement. You're free to agree that we broke the agreement, but that you think our word means little to nothing.

3) I don't buy that. Certianly not an imminent threat. Even Bush, as I said, concedes there was no imminent threat and never said there was. So, no, there was never argued there was an inminent threat.

4) Again, the dispute here is that we broke our agreement. You seem ready to concede that we did.
 
justabubba said:
the dicknbush administration realized that joe wilson was undermining its lies that WMDs were being manufactured in iraq. they even outed wilson's wife, a covert CIA agent, to quash his efforts to shed light on their dark deceptions
in short, the white house knew the propaganda about iraqi WMDs was fabricated because they fabricated them
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Nothing like a healthy dose of conspiracy theory to put it all in perspective. Thanks, :)
 
mac said:
Nothing like a healthy dose of conspiracy theory to put it all in perspective. Thanks, :)
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glad you piped up

now i dare you to show us what part of my post is not true
the dicknbush administration realized that joe wilson was undermining its lies that WMDs were being manufactured in iraq. they even outed wilson's wife, a covert CIA agent, to quash his efforts to shed light on their dark deceptions
in short, the white house knew the propaganda about iraqi WMDs was fabricated because they fabricated them
Click to expand...
 
Boo Radley said:
1) interesting take, but no. Law covers our actions as memebers and not something we can excuse because they are non memebers.
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Not so. US interest and US law, by US statute, take precedence over treaties.

2) Nothing in US law required an invasion, but again not the point. The point is we broke our agreement. You're free to agree that we broke the agreement, but that you think our word means little to nothing.
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Required, no, authorized, yes.

3) I don't buy that. Certianly not an imminent threat. Even Bush, as I said, concedes there was no imminent threat and never said there was. So, no, there was never argued there was an inminent threat.
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You don't have to "buy it". The people in charge did. Guess you should have been running the show.

4) Again, the dispute here is that we broke our agreement. You seem ready to concede that we did.
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We broke our agreement? Even if so, that doesn't make anything illegal. Technically, if you break a treaty agreement, then it no longer applies anyway. :shrug:
 
I am going to have to say no, it was not worth it. The US lost over 4,000 servicemen and women and a large number were wounded as well. There are also hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and their civilization was essentially destroyed. In addition to this, the US destroyed large amounts of artifacts that had importance to human civilization.
 
mac said:
Not so. US interest and US law, by US statute, take precedence over treaties.
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It's a lot more complicated than that. Treaties are US law. Like other laws, they can be overridden by later laws or invalidated if they conflict with the constitution. But where it gets tricky is that some treaties are considered "self executing" and some require additional laws to be passed by congress in order to make them kick in. For example, a treaty that just says the tariff on beef will be 3% is self executing. Congress doesn't need to do anything else once the treaty is ratified, that tariff rate just becomes US law. But a treaty that is more like a general discussion of goals requires Congress to pass laws specifying how it will be enacted before it becomes legally binding. For example, if we sign a treaty that just says we will respect human rights, that isn't really specific enough to enforce as a law, so it is not considered self executing. Congress would need to pass a law or series of laws spelling out what exactly that means before it would be legally binding.

The US courts have generally not treated the UN Charter as being self executing though, so only those provisions that the Congress has enacted with normal laws are legally binding within the US. The war was likely not a violation of US law. At least not for the reason that it violated the UN Charter. There could potentially be domestic laws it violated. But it most definitely was a violation of international law, which treats the UN Charter as binding.
 
teamosil said:
It's a lot more complicated than that. Treaties are US law. Like other laws, they can be overridden by later laws or invalidated if they conflict with the constitution. But where it gets tricky is that some treaties are considered "self executing" and some require additional laws to be passed by congress in order to make them kick in. For example, a treaty that just says the tariff on beef will be 3% is self executing. Congress doesn't need to do anything else once the treaty is ratified, that tariff rate just becomes US law. But a treaty that is more like a general discussion of goals requires Congress to pass laws specifying how it will be enacted before it becomes legally binding. For example, if we sign a treaty that just says we will respect human rights, that isn't really specific enough to enforce as a law, so it is not considered self executing. Congress would need to pass a law or series of laws spelling out what exactly that means before it would be legally binding.

The US courts have generally not treated the UN Charter as being self executing though, so only those provisions that the Congress has enacted with normal laws are legally binding within the US. The war was likely not a violation of US law. At least not for the reason that it violated the UN Charter. There could potentially be domestic laws it violated. But it most definitely was a violation of international law, which treats the UN Charter as binding.
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It was not a violation of international law, according to UN resolution 678. At least that's the US position on it.
 
mac said:
I dare you to show that any of it is.
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ok, my pleasure:
... In his press conference of October 28, 2005, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald explained in considerable detail the necessity of secrecy about his grand jury investigation that began in the fall of 2003 — "when it was clear that Valerie Wilson's cover had been blown" — and the background and consequences of the indictment of then high-ranking Bush Administration official Lewis Libby as it pertains to Valerie E. Wilson.[15]

Fitzgerald's subsequent replies to reporters' questions shed further light on the parameters of the leak investigation and what, as its lead prosecutor, bound by the rules of grand jury secrecy, he could and could not reveal legally at the time.[15] Official court documents released later, on April 5, 2006, reveal that Libby testified that "he was specifically authorized in advance" of his meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller to disclose the "key judgments" of the October 2002 classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). According to Libby's testimony, "the Vice President later advised him that the President had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE [to Judith Miller]."[36] According to his testimony, the information that Libby was authorized to disclose to Miller "was intended to rebut the allegations of an administration critic, former ambassador Joseph Wilson." ...
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Valerie Plame - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
mac said:
It was not a violation of international law, according to UN resolution 678. At least that's the US position on it.
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Yeah, that is the US position, but it's baloney. That resolution was passed in 1990. Immediately before the FIRST Gulf war. It authorized member states to take action to enforce the earlier resolution ordering Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. Nothing to do with the second war. It's one of those things where we needed to say something since we didn't want to just flat out blurt out that we were disregarding international law, and that was the best we could come up with- "well, you authorized it last time..."
 
mac said:
Nothing like a healthy dose of conspiracy theory to put it all in perspective. Thanks, :)
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That is the standard reply of the ignorant and uninformed. I don't think you have plagiarized anyone, but originality is not your forte. The burden of proof is upon you, not justabubba. You can say black is white and inside is outside and truth is fiction and it only identifies you as a Republican. Go for it! Right cheek, left cheek, repeat as necessary.
 
teamosil said:
Yeah, that is the US position, but it's baloney. That resolution was passed in 1990. Immediately before the FIRST Gulf war. It authorized member states to take action to enforce the earlier resolution ordering Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. Nothing to do with the second war. It's one of those things where we needed to say something since we didn't want to just flat out blurt out that we were disregarding international law, and that was the best we could come up with- "well, you authorized it last time..."
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Regardless, it's still there, still in effect, and legal.
 
mac said:
Regardless, it's still there, still in effect, and legal.
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Yeah, it's still there authorizing us to use military force to remove the Iraqi military from Kuwait in 1990... Not authorizing anybody that wants to to invade Iraq whenever they want for the rest of time.
 
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DaveFagan said:
That is the standard reply of the ignorant and uninformed. I don't think you have plagiarized anyone, but originality is not your forte. The burden of proof is upon you, not justabubba. You can say black is white and inside is outside and truth is fiction and it only identifies you as a Republican. Go for it! Right cheek, left cheek, repeat as necessary.
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Moderator's Warning:
Cease the personal attacks.
 
teamosil said:
Yeah, it's still there authorizing us to use military force to remove the Iraqi military from Kuwait in 1990... Not authorizing anybody that wants to to invade Iraq whenever they want for the rest of time.
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It's still there, and that's not exactly what it says, is it?
 
mac said:
It's still there, and that's not exactly what it says, is it?
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Not sure what you mean by "its still there". Security Council resolutions are all still there forever. That doesn't mean they apply outside of the scope they are about.

Sec. Council Res. 678 authorizes members to take measures to enforce Sec. Council 660. 660 says:

Resolution 660 (1990) Adopted by the Security Council at its 2932nd meeting, on 2 August 1990

The Security Council,

Alarmed by the invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 by the military forces of Iraq,

Determining that there exists a breach of international peace and security as regards the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait,

Acting under Articles 39 and 40 of the Charter of the United Nations,

1. Condemns the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait;

2. Demands that Iraq withdraw immediately and unconditionally all its forces to the positions in which they were located on 1 August 1990;

3. Calls upon Iraq and Kuwait to begin immediately intensive negotiations for the resolution of their differences and supports all efforts in this regard, and especially those of the League of Arab States;

4. Decides to meet again as necessary to consider further steps to ensure compliance with the present resolution.
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So, yeah, it's explicitly and only about the invasion of Kuwait.
 
mac said:
Not so. US interest and US law, by US statute, take precedence over treaties.
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Not the point of our debate. You're moving the goal posts. But, there is no US statue that says we are allowed to eb aggressors.

Required, no, authorized, yes.
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Not really. Congress merely failed to do their job. they did not declare war. nor did they say "we the congress demand an invasion." They said we'll let the president decide. Some said, as long as he does it within the UN. Read Kerry speech in full for example.



You don't have to "buy it". The people in charge did. Guess you should have been running the show.
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No they didn't. They looked for an excuse. That entire slam dunk comment was later explained as something we'd buy as an excuse. You'd be hard pressed to show anyone believed saddam was the knid of threat requring invasion. And it is easy to prve he was not an iminent threat, something no one claimed.

We broke our agreement? Even if so, that doesn't make anything illegal. Technically, if you break a treaty agreement, then it no longer applies anyway. :shrug:
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Law is largely based on agreements, things written down and codified. But, you seem willing to concede the poitn I have been making. We broke our agreement. If you were a country seeking an agreement with a country you couoldn;t trust to keep their word, do you think it wouold matter?
 
Boo Radley said:
Not the point of our debate. You're moving the goal posts. But, there is no US statue that says we are allowed to eb aggressors.
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I'm not moving the goal posts, the debate is whether it was legal or illegal. It wasn't illegal by US law, and whether or not it was illegal by international law is debatable. Part of the debate is to what extent international law governs our actions.

Not really. Congress merely failed to do their job. they did not declare war. nor did they say "we the congress demand an invasion." They said we'll let the president decide. Some said, as long as he does it within the UN. Read Kerry speech in full for example.
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The President can only engage in military action for 90 days without congressional approval. Congress authorized the use of military force in Iraq, authorized that use in excess of 90 days, and did not cease that use of military force.

No they didn't. They looked for an excuse. That entire slam dunk comment was later explained as something we'd buy as an excuse. You'd be hard pressed to show anyone believed saddam was the knid of threat requring invasion. And it is easy to prve he was not an iminent threat, something no one claimed.
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They may have looked for an excuse. Regardless, the excuse has to be plausible, and at the time, it was.

Law is largely based on agreements, things written down and codified. But, you seem willing to concede the poitn I have been making. We broke our agreement. If you were a country seeking an agreement with a country you couoldn;t trust to keep their word, do you think it wouold matter?
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Ultimately, we may have broken our agreement with the UN under some interpretations. I don't believe it was the intention to break our agreements with the UN, though.
 
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