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Originally posted by 4thTimeLucky
Erm, hello? Are you trying to say that the US is not a bunch of politicians trying to maintain the status-quo? Are you really saying that its wasn't "acceptable to the US" so you can just trample over the obvious general will of the UN and its member states?
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I am not saying the US is perfect, but do agree with the line of reasoning of the Bush administration. The UN had no obvious general will. It had an obvious general unwillingness to enforce it's own resolutions because they feared the consequences. If the US then *is* willing to enforce the rules, I accept that.
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No, lets not say that.
The UN Security Council (or those they appoint) are the policeman/sheriff of the world. It is elected (with the exception of the permanent five) to act as sheriff by the rest of the international community. It runs the international court (ICJ) and is the only organization with the power to legitimately use state level force in conditions other than self defense.
And yes the five permanent members have the right to veto action. That safeguard is put in their to prevent conflict between the 'big five'. In fact since the mid-80s the US has used its veto more than any of them - and mostly over issues relating to the Middle East.
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The UN security council has only allowed TWO wars to be fought in it's name. It has ignored many situations where military force might have produced a solution, and has had a tendency to ignore problems until they grow out of control, only to "keep the peace" afterwards. Had the UN actually done something when Serbia attacked Croatia, the whole Bosnian war might have been avoided. That is only one example of how the UN cannot deal with everyday world problems. The UN does nothing but talk, discuss and compromise. Sometimes you *cannot* compromise for fear of losing all your credibility.
The US has indeed used it's veto more than any other member, often to safe Israel from biased resolutions entered by the many hostile Arab states around it. If you want to see an example of how other big members abuse the UN, take a look at the whole China-Taiwan issue...
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This seems to say it all. The security threat was oil (or something similar), but the cover was humanitarian intervention. And that is precisely why we have the UN and the UN Charter. To prevent states using humanitarian intervention (which could be used as an excuse to go to war in dozens of states) as a cover for less acceptable motives (fueling their SUVs).
BUT there *are* real humanitarian disasters in the world. So what do you do about those? Well, it is set out in the UN Charter: Any state can bring a case to the UN and then they will vote on whether it is a genuine case that deserves intervention or not. Then if it is, they will intervene. What you do not do is charge straight on in there, only to find that you are in the midst of a messy regime change that you don't have the mandate or skills to handle.
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Funny. I did NOT say that it was about oil for SUVs. The reasons for this war were many, with oil being one of them (and probably a minor reason...) Oil is a valuable resource, and without it, the world economy would collapse. This makes an unstable regime in the middle of an oil-rich area a severe security threat to the entire world. That has nothing to do with SUVs, but everything with my economic future, as well as yours. Imagine what would have happened if Saddam had been allowed to take over the entire middle-east in '91. He would have controlled most of the world's oil supplies, and could have blackmailed us into submission.
And as I already said, the UN has only allowed TWO wars to be fought, when many more might have been warranted. And as Bosnia shows, the UN is also pretty bad at handling regime change... (Besides, it has only been a few weeks since the end of the war, what did you expect to happen in Iraq had the UN attacked? A stable government does not appear out of thin air, you know; there is ALWAYS a period of transition and anarchy.)
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My line of reasoning would not have led to two world wars and the Communist take over of south Korea. In fact I might argue that yours would. Why? Because the UN and its Charter were created precisely to prevent another world war ever occurring again. Its guiding principle - the true spirit of the law, which the US broke - is that war is a disaster that must be averted at any cost and must only be waged (a) as a *very last* resort and (b) with the agreement of the international community (through the Security Council). The US seems to think that its military is so strong and its moral compass so true, that it can ignore the part about *very last resort* and make war and the threat of it, one of its main foreign policy tools.
And then we have Korea. Have you forgotten that intervention in Korea was done under a UN mandate and under the UN flag?
Now lets try and think of an Asian war that wasn't conducted under a UN flag. Hmm, Vietnam?
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Again you put words in my mouth; I did not say that your line of reasoning would have LED to the world wars. I said that line of reasoning would have prevented the US from JOINING IN the wars. That would have meant that Germany would most likely have won both of them. The Korea war has the same problem: by the line of reasoning of technicalities above human lives, the US would not have fought the Korean war, and the communists would have won.
There is no spirit of the law. There is no international law. There is only a set of agreements that can support any claim from anyone. What you seem to forget, is that international "law" exists because countries agree that these laws are beneficial to them. When one country (the US) then becomes more powerful than others, it can basically dictate it's terms to the rest of the world. That may not be a nice idea, but it's a simple fact of life. You can be glad that the US is a relatively *good* country, because most other potential super-powers (China, Russia) would have abused their power on a much larger scale. Most previous super-powers (Roman empire, Ottomans, British) did...