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host · 10-30-2006, 11:35 AM

On this TFP politics thread:
<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=110043">
in the hopes of On topic discussion, a continuation</a>
....I posted a column written by a former white house speech writer, published recently in a local Virginia newspaper that contained this:

Quote:

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/F...inter_friendly

.....First, knowing what every intelligence agency was sure it knew by early 2003, it would have been criminal negligence had the president not enforced the U.N.'s resolutions and led the coalition into Iraq......

I countered that assertion with this:

Quote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm
Thursday, 16 September, 2004, 09:21 GMT 10:21 UK
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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.....

.......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."

Seaver added this to the discussion:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Oh yeah, nice host.

Ignore that that came out the same week the Oil-for-Food scandal came out. Ignore the fact that Kofi Anan and his son were proven to be recieving funds from Saddam to keep the Oil-for-Food illegal weapon purchases quiet.

Sorry, for some reason Kofi's claiming that the war was illegal does not trumpet "legitimate" for me.

I responded with this, and other information, along with a liberal dose of my own comments, narrative, and opinion:

Quote:

Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?
By Jan Frel, AlterNet
Posted on July 10, 2006, Printed on October 29, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/38604/

.....Most Americans firmly believe there is nothing the United States or its political leadership could possibly do that could equate to the crimes of Hitler's Third Reich. The Nazis are our "gold standard of evil," as author John Dolan once put it.

But the truth is that we can, and we have -- most recently and significantly in Iraq. Perhaps no person on the planet is better equipped to identify and describe our crimes in Iraq than Benjamin Ferenccz, a former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials who successfully convicted 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating death squads that killed more than one million people in the famous Einsatzgruppen Case. Ferencz, now 87, has gone on to become a founding father of the basis behind international law regarding war crimes, and his essays and legal work drawing from the Nuremberg trials and later the commission that established the International Criminal Court remain a lasting influence in that realm.

Ferencz's biggest contribution to the war crimes field is his assertion that an unprovoked or "aggressive" war is the highest crime against mankind.

Interviewed from his home in New York, Ferencz laid out a simple summary of the case:

"The United Nations charter has a provision which was agreed to by the United States formulated by the United States in fact, after World War II. Its says that from now on, no nation can use armed force without the permission of the U.N. Security Council. They can use force in connection with self-defense, but a country can't use force in anticipation of self-defense.

Regarding Iraq, the last Security Council resolution essentially said, 'Look, send the weapons inspectors out to Iraq, have them come back and tell us what they've found -- then we'll figure out what we're going to do. The U.S. was impatient, and decided to invade Iraq -- which was all pre-arranged of course. So, the United States went to war, in violation of the charter."

It's that simple. Ferencz called the invasion a "clear breach of law," and dismissed the Bush administration's legal defense that previous U.N. Security Council resolutions dating back to the first Gulf War justified an invasion in 2003. Ferencz notes that the first Bush president believed that the United States didn't have a U.N. mandate to go into Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein; that authorization was simply to eject Hussein from Kuwait. Ferencz asked, "So how do we get authorization more than a decade later to finish the job? The arguments made to defend this are not persuasive."

Writing for the United Kingdom's Guardian, shortly before the 2003 invasion, international law expert Mark Littman echoed Ferencz: "The threatened war against Iraq will be a breach of the United Nations Charter and hence of international law unless it is authorized by a new and unambiguous resolution of the Security Council. The Charter is clear. No such war is permitted unless it is in self-defense or authorized by the Security Council."

.....then, the discussion turned into this:
(I don't mean to "single out" one poster, but I want to use this example of an oft repeated phenomena here, on these threads. I want to know why comments like these are chosen, and posted, if the motivation to do so is other than to end the discussion? Is this tactic fair? Is it constuctive? If it is, why.....how? If it isn't....why does it keep happening? I know why I'm singled out for this.... I'm perceived as the "poster boy" for this particular "offense"...

But is it an "offense"? Is discussion sacrificed so that folks can communicate that they want to see less information, less documentation, in posts, and more "I'm guessing that...." or my undocumented misconception that I can't (or won't) cite the sources of, is....." ?)

Quote:

Host please with your mighty cut and paste prove to me that the Iraqi invasion was illegal.

If you can not please stop calling it that, and by the way you can post opinions, cut and paste till your fingers fall off from anyone you like, because thats all they really are OPINIONS.

Ill post one reason why it was legal:
Saddam violated the terms of a cease-fire, and in the terms of said cease-fire he knew what would happen if he was not in compliance.

So that right there makes it perfectly legal to invade.

Is there any need for me to cut and paste the cease-fire and waste bandwith because I am sure you know all about it?

....In the post that preceded the quote above, I had responded to Seaver's criticism of the reliability of the opinion that I had cited, from Kofi Anan.
I perceived that Seaver was challenging me to "raise the bar"....and I thought that I had.....after all....I followed with citations of quotes from the premier, living, US legal expert on international war crimes.....the legal opinions of the last, living US Nuremberg Chief Prosecutor, Benjamin Ferenccz.

If the post that followed my "Benjamin Ferencz" post, was intended to counter my arguments, and continue the discussion, why didn't it's author do that? Instead, he made his post about me....he criticized "how" I posted, and not my arguments or citations. He challenged me to "prove to [him] that the Iraqi invasion was illegal."

Since he didn't challenge anything that I posted, and did not question the credibility of expert Benjamin Ferencz, or his opinion, or mine...for that matter, what do you think that the purpose of his post was? Does he want more information (he challenged me to "prove"....)....wouldn't that require posting even more, in the way that he objected to?

I don't know what he is requesting, or what his point is? It seemed to me to be contradictory. I want to discuss issues, and I certainly don't want an effort to promote further discussion that includes posting/sharing more information, to instead, end the discussion. Bulky posts with numerous citations seem not to hinder discussion in other threads....the long running "9/11" thread on the TFP Paranoia forum, comes immediately to mind, as an example of that.

So.....what is it that will promote discussion and yet allow for "on topic" information sharing. In the recent "stem cell" thread, I perceived a lack of understanding about what motivated the "ballot issue" coming into being as an amendment to the Missouris state constitution....so I tried to provide the background that motivated the drive for an amendment, instead of legislation as a solution. Here.....I posted an extreme rant from a former Bush admin. official, and I attempted to counter it's core contentions....the assertions made by it's author that attempted to legitmize his reasons for "ranting".

Why couldn't the poster who resorted to the "cut and paste" criticism, in lieu of posting an argument that is counter to my argument....like I tried to do after reading the former speech writer's "rant"....just do what I did, and what Seaver did? There was a discussion.... I posted an argument, Seaver poked some holes in one of my strongest citations, he challenged me to "raise the bar".....I came back....thinking that I did just that....and, with the next post, the discussion ended.....I'm not yet willing to accept that this is the way it has to be....on this forum.....are you?