Norman Kember-honourable and brave or a bit of a pompous arse??

[moondog]

I'm plumping for the latter.....

well the UN might also fail NOT because the members want it to fail but because they cannot agree.
And the sanctions were effective, to a certain extent sure but they were ignored and subverted in many ways and they also led to the deaths of many Iraqi civilians. George Galloway and many other significant people in the peace movement were vehemently opposed to themand campaigned vigorously for their removal

wel i agree with your last few sentences DC.And certainly never said it was black and white in terms of morality. But i'm sure you don't think the Iraqis now deserve to live in fear for their children's lives everyday and to be denied clean drinking water and a sewage system that works - do you?

And the Afghanis are incapable of running a country? Sometimes I think I am talking to an old general in British colonial India or something. How do you know that? Having suffered for so many years at the hands of one invading power or another is hardly the same thing as not deserving to get the chance to rebuild their country properly, with the funds that were promised.

Interesting point harps. I think you will find that the USA funded the activities of both Saddam and Al Quaida when it suited it's interets, i.e. funded Saddam for 2 decades in its fight against Iran and poured money into Bin Laden's pockets (of all people !!) when he was fighting the Commis from Russia.

So, the short answer to your qusetion is "hypocricy and double-dealing".

Indeed koolkat I don't disagree with you that there as been a history of hypocrisy in the ME. Probably the difference between us is that is exactly what I would expect from politics and particularly international relations.
My point about the UN (such as it is ) is that it is so often bandied about as some sort of panacea. It's not. It is a loose grouping of nations, who bring to the table all there pre existing prejudices, feuds and indeed hypocrisy and double dealing. Chirac, for example - his opposition to the war in the UN was not motivated by altruism and higher feeling but a wish to protect his own interests and what he saw as the interests (economic) of his own nation.
The UN is only a reflection of its constituent parts. If you are looking for action, for protection, for help for the week then you have to look to the interests and motivations of the individual members

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sorry

shocking HC!

harps - I studies International Relations for both my BSc and MSc. I am fully aware of the way the international system works (or doesn't work), but just because it is the status quo, does it mean than one should not qusetion it or wish it to change ?

harps - shocking use of bad spelling

no not at all koolkat. It is essential that thoughtful people question the status quo in order for us to make progress. what grates with me, though, is the statement that this war is wrong because there was no additional UN resolution (apart from the previous 11 of course ) as if that was the final and only answer. It isn't as simple as that, imho. Having UN approval does not make it "right" and nor does not having UN approval make it "wrong" in the moral sense - is the point I was trying to make. We need to look behind the decision to see the political reality before we can make our judgment on whether particular action should have been taken, imho.
(sorry about the homophone madness )

agree HC, but i think a lot has come to light in terms of the political reality that proves this war was at least, a big mistake, and at worst, wrong and immoral.

well that is the beauty of hindsight ruty
I think that the decision TB made at the time he made it was on balance the right one, but that is just my personal opinion.
I don't underestimate the horror of the situation in Iraq, but I also think it was immoral and indeed a mistake to allow the situation in Iraq to reach the place it did without intervention. Or, even worse, with the kind of half arsed intervention sanctioned by the UN in the first gulf war. By which I mean it was a mistake both for the people of Iraq and also for the wider political climate.
I appreciate this is not a popular view.

well i fear the situation in Iraq will now be more horrific than it ever was before. it certainly is at the moment, and doesn't show any signs of improving. It said in the sunday Times last week that one of the CPT members operating in Iraq claimed they saw some CIA or similar people hanging around the Shiite mosque the night before it was destroyed. I've no idea of this is true but civil war would be a good way of getting the troops out now...

Sorry to butt in, but I really don't see how a civil war in Iraq is in America's interests.

i'm not saying it is callisto, i'm just telling you what has been speculated - its one way of having a reason to pull the troops out. I don't know if there is any truth in the speculation or not.

Koolkat if you read my post slowly and carefully you will see that I was finding fault with a position held by others that the Iranians were fuckwits.

I don't think that the self-styled "international community" can with any integrity say how it's "right" that places ike Israel & Pakistan have nukes, but give grief to Iran.

As it happens I don't think Iranians particularly stupid, I think they're bad people which is a different thing altogether.
A key difference between the appalling behaviour of most other Moslem nations and Iran is that you can try to pretned that it's down to some dictatorship. Iranians rather like their system, and it's pretty much a democracy.

I suppose you may be determined to think that as racist, and you may of course feel free to do so.
Except of course I refer that way to Tony Blair who is so white that people comment upon his health.

DC - Instead of reading your posts S L O W L Y again (why do we have to do that by the way ? Is it because you think we won't understand what you are saying if we read it fast ?) here is what you said copied and pasted:

"The problem with Iran is that there is no diplomatic way of saying to a country. "You're a bunch of scary fuckwits who can't be trusted with sharp objects, must less nuclear energy."

I think it is a fair enough that you don't like diplomacy (some people like me do), but somehow I think you lose the moral high ground in your use of that kind of language about a country of 75 million people.

There is plenty of opposition to the Iranian regime (read any Amnesty International report and you will see the nos. of political prisoners and the 1000's who have been executed), so your claim that the vast majority support the country's rulers in NOT based on fact.

In the discourse of International Relations, Iran is recognised as a "theocracy" not a "democracy", therefore the vast majority are not actually allowed to voice their opinions re. nuclear weapons or their relationship with the West.

It is ok to discuss and debate DC and even to have a bit of a heated discussion re. politics, but not when you make sweeping statements not based on evidence or fact.

Callisto - a civil war in Iraq is very much in US interests in so far as the 8 year war between Iran and Iraq were in US interests. It allows the US industrial-military complex nicley in full-time work.

The US has been selling billions of $ of weaponary to Saudi Arabia and all of the other Gulf states who are strongly pro-American. As long as Iraq's neighbours are in fear of their borders, which the US ensures they are, the Gulf states will buy more and more arms.

It also means the US has a fantastic excuse to keep its navy in the Persian Gulf and to "watch over" the single most important source of oil in the world. As long as there is instability in that region, the US has an excuse to sit there.

I know it may seem a contradiction in terms, but there is plenty of evidence to support this.

I don't buy it KoolKat. Just sounds like another way of saying the US is evil.

Callisto - I don't think Americans or the US as a nation are evil - but some of the people who run it are !

Sorry, I have read too many history books, Korea, Vietnam, South America, Central America, SE Asia, Middle east, etc.

Too much interference in other people's business.

Kollkat, I've read some of those Amnesty reports you cite, so I'm not sure how you can say I'm not using facts.
Yes, there is opposition, and this is met with brutality, but the sad fact is that the majority of Iranians are not only happy to go along with this, but vote for those that do it.
Same of course goes for Americans & Brits and the torture of Moslems falling into their hands.

Most of the bad things Iran does are nothing to do with "interference" by the USA. Gangs of semi-officakl thugs wandering the streets and attacking people they perceive of violating an unwritten moral code is not the doing of America, for instance.

If Iranians don't want to be regarded as tossers then they should act better.

DC - yes the word "t*er" could be used in a variety of ways about numerous world leaders.

and the Afghanis are incapable of running their country DC? care to explain that?

DBy the way, did the AI report refer to the Iranians or anyone else in the ME as "f*wits and t**ers ? Gosh they are getting flowery with their language !

I will have to cancel my subscription to AI reports

ruty - why don't you and I put DC's name up for the next Afghan general election - if he gets elected he could teach them a thing or two about democracy

What do you think DC? Up for the challenge?