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Banned
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Originally Posted by reconmike
Oh my, her mother had a stoke. Where was Rove when this happened? Its all Bush's fault!!!! All that undue stress that came from Bush not meeting with her a second time.
Impeach him!!! How dare he not meet with her, what she really needs is that fat ass Moore to hang out with her for a bit, maybe film it and make a "documentary" about the whole thing.
She is dishonoring her son in the most tragic of ways, I really hope she wonders a weee bit too close Bush's ranch....ahhh you can figure out the rest.
And Host, Ill cut and paste this once more, the only justifaction needed to go into Iraq:................
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Thank you, reconmike....but I'd feel more comfortable if you could consider, more seriously, avoiding further deaths of our soldiers as the top priority of every American. The record shows that there was no justification to invade and occupy Iraq, and that there is no justification to continue the occupation of what remains of that country.
You seem to mock those engaged in the effort to support our troops by saving them from their commander-in-chief....a man who has squandered his mandate and his credibility. He and his cohorts accomplished that all by themselves,,,,,well before Ms. Sheehan's son died in Bush's "noble" mission.
You have to ignore a shitload of information in order to post what you are posting, reconmike.....
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...431645,00.html
Why Bush Struggles to Win UN Backing
Inspections have found Iraq in violation of disarmament requirements, but have not confirmed Anglo-American claims of an imminent danger. Can the President still convince the UN?
By TONY KARON
Posted Thursday, Mar. 13, 2003
The Bush administration has always insisted it doesn't need UN permission to invade Iraq. President Bush has never left any doubt that the outcome of Security Council deliberations won't stop him from acting to eliminate what he perceives as an imminent threat to U.S. and allied security. When Bush first raised the issue at the UN Security Council last Fall, he did so in the form of a challenge to the international body — follow us to war, or render yourselves irrelevant...............
....................This week's failure by the U.S. and Britain to win backing for a UN ultimatum to Iraq authorizing force if Baghdad fails to meet a 10-day disarmament deadline underscores the fact that the UN process has, if anything, weakened rather than strengthened international support for a war........
...................The reason for the administration's difficulties may be, in part, the nature of the evidence revealed by the UN process. The Bush case for war against Iraq is premised on the idea that not only has Saddam failed to complete the disarmament required of him by the Gulf War truce, but that he is actively pursuing new chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs; and that these, together with what Washington insists is an alliance between Iraq and al-Qaeda, represent a clear and present danger to U.S. security.
But the inspection process has tested some of these claims, and in the process undermined the Bush administration's case. The inspectors found that Iraq has failed to destroy or account for substantial the stocks of chemical and biological weapons left over from its war with Iran, but they have found nothing to back claims of current, active chemical, biological or nuclear programs. Inspectors have made clear to the Council that they have investigated a number of U.S. and British allegations and intelligence tips, which came to naught...........
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Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3661134.stm
Thursday, 16 September, 2004, 09:21 GMT 10:21 UK
Iraq war illegal, says Annan
The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.
He said the decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally. .................
.........'Valid'
"I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time - without UN approval and much broader support from the international community," he added.
He said he believed there should have been a second UN resolution following Iraq's failure to comply over weapons inspections.
And it should have been up to the Security Council to approve or determine the consequences, he added.
When pressed on whether he viewed the invasion of Iraq as illegal, he said: "Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal.".............
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Quote:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio...urplace15.html
Friday, July 15, 2005
War in Iraq violates international law
By TOM KREBSBACH
GUEST COLUMNIST
More than two grueling years have passed since U.S. and coalition forces stormed into the sovereign nation of Iraq. Still there has been little discussion in this country about the legal standing of the invasion.
Perhaps that is because most Americans are reluctant to admit this inconvenient but certain fact: The United States/United Kingdom invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a war of aggression, a crime against the peace as defined by the Nuremberg Principles.
Various legal experts employed by the coalition governments will dispute this. But their arguments are incredibly weak and are not taken seriously by an overwhelming majority of scholars of international law in the world. These independent legal scholars, such people as Sean Murphy of George Washington University, Mary Ellen O'Connell of Ohio State University and Philippe Sands of University College London, all hold that the invasion was a blatant violation of international law.
There are only two cases in which a nation or group of nations can legally undertake armed intervention against another nation: in self-defense against an armed attack or if the United Nations Security Council authorizes a coalition of nations to intervene militarily to maintain peace and security in the world.
Contrary to what the Bush administration would like the world to believe, the invasion of Iraq can be justified neither on the basis of self-defense nor because it was sanctioned by the Security Council.
These are the facts that outline the legal status of the war:
# The primary grievance against Iraq was the claim that it had weapons of mass destruction and ongoing illicit weapons programs.
# The U.N. weapons inspection team was invasively and thoroughly determining whether such weapons or weapons programs existed in Iraq.
# The U.N. Security Council was not willing to grant authority to invade Iraq while the U.N. inspection team was handling the illicit weapons problem peacefully.
# President Bush launched the invasion of Iraq anyway, in contravention of the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. Charter. Without Security Council authorization, the invasion was illegal and must be classified as a war of aggression.
Should Americans be concerned about international law? It is quite clear that Bush has little regard for it. Yet, the United States was founded on the basis of the rule of law. Article VI of the Constitution states that treaties, which this country has signed and ratified, are the "supreme law of the land."
The U.N. Charter is such a treaty, and it was created in large part because of the efforts of this country following World War II. For this country to so egregiously transgress the charter's prohibition on the use of force is not only a violation of international law, it is a violation of our Constitution and a repudiation of much of what this country stands for...............
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Quote:
http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/agfran.../msg00140.html
The Chicago Tribune May 23, 1999
WAR CRIMES LAW APPLIES TO U.S. TOO
By Walter J. Rockler
Rockler, a Washington lawyer, was a prosecutor
at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial
........At Nuremberg, the United States and Britain pressed the
prosecution of Nazi leaders for planning and initiating aggressive
war. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the head of the
American prosecution staff, asserted "that launching a war of
aggression is a crime and that no political or economic situation can
justify it." He also declared that "if certain acts in violation of
treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does
them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to
lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would
not be willing to have invoked against us."...............
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Quote:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/04/news/bush.php
GRAPEVINE, Texas President George W. Bush has publicly overruled some of his top advisers in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."
In a speech on Wednesday, Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times......
............"We're at war with an enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001," Bush said in his address, to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators. "We're at war against an enemy that, since that day, has continued to kill."
Bush made a nod to the criticism that "war on terror" is a misleading phrase in the sense that the enemy is not terror but those who use terrorism to achieve their goals. But in doing so, he used the word "war," as he did at least 13 other times in his 47-minute speech.
"Make no mistake about it, this is a war against people who profess an ideology, and they use terror as a means to achieve their objectives," he said.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an address to the National Press Club on July 18 that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution."
Myers said then that the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."
After Bush's speech, the White House tried to hammer home the point that the "war" phraseology was still administration policy. It sent reporters excerpts from an address delivered Tuesday by Rumsfeld in which he backed away from the new language.
"Some ask, are we still engaged in a war on terror?" Rumsfeld said. "Let there be no mistake about it. It's a war. The president properly termed it that after Sept. 11. The only way to defend against terrorism is to go on the attack."
Bush is spending the rest of August at his vacation home in Texas.
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Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5280219/site/newsweek/
.................The first high-level Bush administration references to Zarqawi came in October 2002 when President Bush, in a speech in Cincinnati, laid out the case against Saddam’s regime by emphasizing what he described as “high-level contacts” between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda. One prominent example cited by the president was the fact that “one very senior Al Qaeda leader [had] ... received medical treatment in Baghdad this year”—a reference to Zarqawi. Then, in his February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell described Zarqawi as “an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.”
But just last week, in little-noticed remarks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld conceded that Zarqawi’s ties to Al Qaeda may have been much more ambiguous—and that he may have been more a rival than a lieutenant to bin Laden. Zarqawi “may very well not have sworn allegiance to [bin Laden]," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing. “Maybe he disagrees with him on something, maybe because he wants to be ‘The Man’ himself and maybe for a reason that’s not known to me.” Rumsfeld added that, “someone could legitimately say he’s not Al Qaeda.”
Rumsfeld’s comments essentially confirm the contents of a German police document, first reported by NEWSWEEK last year, that quoted a terrorist defector from Zarqawi’s network in Afghanistan describing the group as operating in “opposition to Al Qaeda.”....................
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Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...030131-23.html
THE PRIME MINISTER: Adam.
<h4>Q One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.</h4>
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050112-7.html
.............. Q The President accepts that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he said back in October that the comprehensive report by Charles Duelfer concluded what his predecessor had said, as well, that the weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence, were not there. And now what is important is that we need to go back and look at what was wrong with much of the intelligence that we accumulated over a 12-year period and that our allies had accumulated over that same period of time, and correct any flaws.
Q I just want to make sure, though, because you said something about following up on additional reports and learning more about the regime. You are not trying to hold out to the American people the possibility that there might still be weapons somewhere there, are you?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, I just said that if there are -- if there are any other reports, obviously, of weapons of mass destruction, then people will follow up on those reports. I'm just stating a fact.
Q And finally, what is the President's assessment of the damage to American credibility that might have been done by his very forceful case that there were weapons and his launching of a war on that basis?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, nothing has changed in terms of the President's view....................
........... Q I'm talking about preemptive military action.
MR. McCLELLAN: Right. And that's the last option that you always want to pursue. But the President is going to continue working closely with our friends and allies to confront the threats that we face --
Q How can he do it again --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we continue to take steps to improve our intelligence. That's what the President is going to do. We have very good relationships with countries across the world because of the President's efforts over the last few years...............
.......... Q Even if the information is wrong?.............
............. Q Secretary Rumsfeld said you go -- infamously, he said, "you go to war with the Army that you have." Well, this administration went to war, when it went to war, based on information that proved to be incorrect. Does the President now regret the timing of this? Does he feel that the war effort and its aftermath and the post-immediate war conflict phase was undermined by that timetable and intelligence that was wrong?
MR. McCLELLAN: Based on what we know today, the President would have taken the same action, because this is about protecting the American people. As I said -- .................
......... Q Two follow-ups. There's been quite a bit of talk that Syria might have hidden some of these weapons of mass destruction. Is the government of Syria cooperating at all in the search for WMD?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have the report from Charles Duelfer. You can go and look at that report in terms of addressing those issues, and I think the President has spoken to the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, if there are any other reports that come to people's attention, they'll follow up on those reports. ......
Q Scott, are you saying that the President -- it's the President's view that the WMD situation has not hurt United States credibility around the world?....
......... Q So if the information is wrong, is there no consequence?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
Q If the information about WMDs is wrong, as we all agree now, is there no consequence? ........
............. Q Scott, did the White House intend to, at any point, come out and tell the American people that the search for WMD was over?............
........... Q Scott, you've addressed the intelligence failures. Based on that, would the President send a Secretary of State -- Condoleezza Rice -- to the United Nations to make the same kind of case that Secretary Powell made based on U.S. intelligence?...........
.............. Q Well, to put a finer point on it, does he have enough confidence in the current quality of intelligence to go to the United Nations with it, if need be, or not -- as was mentioned, Korea, Iran, or some other --............
............. Q Has it improved enough, though, for him to act on it?
MR. McCLELLAN: He will -- he will act on intelligence that he receives to protect the American people. When we have actionable intelligence, we will act on it. And this President has acted on it in a number of cases...................
......... Q One question on Iraq. Are you worried that with your report, countries like France will gather more credibility than the U.S. in discussions in the Security Council of the United Nations? ............
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Give up on it, reconmike.....it is not worth the life or a limb of one more brave American soldier. Your argument seems un reasonable and misinformed to me, and I'll wager that it seems absurd to informed citizens of other western nations. Don't fall into the trap of being more "Bush" than Bush.
Last edited by host; 08-19-2005 at 02:16 PM..
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