Irvine511 said:
[q]Once again, you have failed to provide any evidence that this what Colin Powell truely thinks. Why would you simply believe something that is posted on a site by Arianna Huffington? Considering how often in the past people have made mistaken claims about Colin Powells positions on various issues, why would conclude from a Huffington Post that this is indeed the case?[/q]
STING – if you haven’t noticed by this point, I’m using your methods of argumentation. If someone said something at some point, you think that’s the end of the story, there’s nothing more to be added, and the point itself is irrefutable. It’s quite frustrating, isn’t it? The fact remains – Powell is quoted, directly, on a highly-trafficked blog as saying that iraq is in the midst of a Civil War, and this is not a huge leap for him as he’s hinted at the potential for a Civil War in the past, and many, many people believe that iraq is in the midst of a Civil War right now.
So, I’m sticking to my guns the way you stick to yours – I will continue to repeat the information no matter how much it is challenged, over and over and over. Can you give me any quotes where Powell addresses how he was quoted on the blog where he denies it? Surely he’s heard that he’s been quoted, it’s been widely reported all over the blogosphere. If it isn’t true, if it isn’t his belief, he would have publicly stated that he has been misquoted, and even if you did find them, I’d deny them and point back to the original post. But he hasn’t. therefore, he was accurately quoted, and the fact remains COLIN POWELL THINKS THERE IS A CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ!
[q]How many countries can you name that are in the middle of a "CIVIL WAR" are able to hold nationwide elections, approve a constitution" and form a united central government? The mere presense of sectarian violence in a country does NOT equal a Civil War.[/q]
Can you name me another country that is as plagued with violence and sectarian strife that has a “united central government” and holds “nationwide elections”? can you name me another democratically elected government with 130,000 American troops on the ground that has less ability to provide for the basic security of it’s people? Can you name me another city in a country with a “united central government” in which nearly 6,000 civilians have been killed as a result sectarian violence in May and June, of this year, alone!
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/world/middleeast/18cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
and this is just weeks after your “united central government” made a major effort to pacify Baghdad. The current government has no credible authority, and the result is the continued massacre of innocents who, with each passing day, put less and less faith and authority in a government that can’t even provide a basic level of security.
Believe it or not, I actually think that, one day, there will be democracy in Baghdad. But this is my big point: IT NEVER HAD TO BE THIS WAY. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands have died because of poor planning and recklessness on the part of the administration that, even now, refuses to admit mistakes and, more grievously, correct the mistakes that have been made, and your posts are textbook examples of this mentality.
I am not so far from you when it comes to the big picture: the Middle East needs democracy. However, the way in which democracy has been dropped onto the region like a bomb and the complete inability of the administration to manage the post-war situation has resulted in mass needless death and a low-level civil war that NEVER HAD TO HAPPEN. We didn’t have to invade when we did and how we did, and we have never committed enough troops that the post-war obviously requires.
I have two major problems with your posts:
1. your total disregard for the level of violence in Iraq, and how poor administration policies combined with ignorance of history has contributed immeasurably to the unthinkable carnage on the ground.
2. your celebration of nascent democracy without any regard for stability in Iraq, essentially saying that the act of voting is worth any price, even a Civil War or, at the very least, a country where the militias are part of the government and in which the government is too weak to control the militias. Take a look around the Middle East. A democratically elected government is unable to control Hezbollah. Abbas can do nothing about Palestinian terror groups. This is the same story as in Iraq.
Finally, distinctions between “Civil War” and “Sectarian Conflict” are semantic at best. It’s quite clear that the situation on the ground in Iraq is intolerable and will continue to weaken the already tenuous government if improvement is not made. The Iraqi security forces have failed their first big test as the violence in Baghdad in May and June along attest. I hope things will get better, and they may, but an improvement in the levels of violence will not retroactively justify what has precipitated them. It’s quite clear that it was ineptitude on the part of the US that has lead to the unnecessary massacre of innocents and contributed to the decline of US power from a moral and military standpoint, and this is particularly tragic, since the most important issues facing the world at the beginning of the 21st century was never Saddam Hussein, but the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the spread of global AIDS, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
[q]If China and Russia officially condemned the occupation, why did they vote to approve resolution 1483 which approves the occupation of Iraq? [/q]
This question was answered by Dread in all of those links. In fact, the NEED for 1483 essentially proves that the invasion was illegal in the first place because it made the invasion legal *retroactively* and not so much the invasion itself, but if you read the resolution, it really makes legal the status of the US and UK as “Occupying Authorities.” And, since the US had gone ahead against the will of the world and invaded Iraq, what else could they do? Who would suffer if Resolution 1483 had not been passed? You make it sound as if everyone on the UN were slapping their foreheads after the invasion and thinking, “gosh, we were wrong! What a great idea.” Hardly the case. You misunderstand how 1483 works. It gives the US (and people like you) the benefit of being able to point to a Resolution and say, “see! This makes it legal now!” while you miss the point that the resolution is both an attempt to assist the Iraqi people (who have suffered greatly and continue to suffer) as well as reign in the occupying powers. It was an attempt to deal with the situation at hand as opposed to giving a shiny gold star to the events that precipitated it. And, most importantly, it made the occupation legal, not the invasion.
Further, the Resolution can be read as an attempt to reign in the US and UK – it makes both militaries subject to the law of the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention. The resolution is intended to maintain the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq, basically to keep the US from assuming total control of Iraq’s natural resources.
[q]None of your links answered any of the following questions:[/q]
Well, they did, as everyone knows, but let’s go through it again …
[q]If the invasion of Iraq was illegal and not approved by the UN where is the UN resolution condemning the invasion or at least the attempt at one? ]If the invasion of Iraq was illegal and not approved by the UN, where is the UN resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of coalition forces, or at least the attempt at one? If the invasion of Iraq was illegal and not approved by the UN, why would the UN approve the occupation in resolution 1483? Why would the UN approve any occupation that resulted from what it felt was an illegal action? What was the UN response to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait? Did the UN pass a resolution approving or recognizing Saddam's invasion of Kuwait?[/q]
HUGE misformulation here (as per usual) which render your questions irrelevant. if all of this is proof of the legality and approval of the initial invasion, why the need for Resolution 1483? The reason is, as we’ve gone over here so many times, you are ever incorrect about 1441 which never ever authorized the immediate use of force, only the inspections for WMD in Iraq. This is why a second resolution was needed to authorize military action. I know you’ll bring up Saddam’s violation of the 1991 resolutions, however the US does not own UN resolutions, the UN does and in particular the 15 member Security Council. The enforcement of UN resolutions is not the province of a single state, and what a dangerous precedent this sets – would you like to live in a world where Russia or China could seek to enforce their own interpretations of UN resolutions?
from the point of view of the UN Charter, the invasion was totally illegal and that the decision to invade Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally. 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 determine the consequences, and then approve those consequences.
in addition, the Iraq War is illegal under American law! if you read Section 3, paragraph B, Bush was required to prove to the Congress that Iraq was in violation of UN Resolutions by still being in possession of weapons of mass destruction, and secondly, that Iraq was behind 9-11.
[q] b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.[/q]
For now, this ends my discussion on Iraq in this thread. This thread should be about Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Syria, etc. I am happy to continue in another thread, but I am done for now.
Respond all you want, or PM me, but you will hear no more from me on this subject in this particular thread.
I will continue with Iran when I have more time later in the day.
I'm not frustrated by the fact that you can only name a blog website for your source about what Colin Powell thinks on that particular issue and your total disregard for the fact that many people and the media have constantly mis-interpreted his statements over the past 20 years. Its rather enlighting actually.
As for the issue of Civil War, EVERYONE knows that there has always been the potential for Civil War in Iraq. It was debated by several of these administration figures back in 1990-1991 when they were in the Bush Sr. administration.
I stick to information that I know to be correct after extensive study on the issue. I have never blindly followed any particular issue, although I realize that is how you like to lable anyone that agrees with the Administration on a variety of issues. I certainly accept any challenge to any positions or opinions I take on any issue and have responded in detail to many of them. But I've not seen anything yet that would change my opinion on the corp issues in regards to Saddam and Iraq. I've often provided extensive detailed information in here which often gets ignored or not read, oh well.
If you believe that the Huffington Blog is such an infallible source of information, so infallible that it would not fall into the trap of making the same mistakes that the entire media has made about Colin Powells opinion on a variety of issues over the past few years, keep posting away from it. Colin Powell rarely responds to the mainstream media, he does not have the time to respond to every allegation made on a message board or some blog. Thats just ridiculuos. Colin Powell has been misqouted or his views have been mis-represented hundreds of times in the past by various people or groups in the media. Powell did not nor does he have the time to issue a public statement every time some media outlet misqoutes or misrepresents his position. The idea that he would do that for a blog is just silly.
I admit, I can't off hand name another fully formed government that has the problems that Iraq currently has but once again, can you name another country where the majority of the population turns out for elections, approves a constitution and has a united central government, but is considered to be in the middle of a Civil War? One charateristic common to all civil wars is the absence of a central government with representation from all the regions of the country and that the majority of the population elected and supports. The American Civil War, Bosnia, Rawanda, Somalia all had that characteristic.
The United States Military on the ground has continuely stated that they do not see conditions that are consistent with a what a civil war is. The US military knows what these conditions are, yet you seem to totally ignore their statement on the issue. They acknowledge and understand the threat that sectarian violence poses to the country, but this violence does not make it a civil war.
You often claim that the level of violence is not what determines a civil war, yet, you'll start siting casualty statistics to make your point that it is. So a question for you on that point would be, what would the level of violence have to be for you not to consider it a civil war? If the level of violence is not what makes it a Civil War, and the fact that there is a united central government formed in Baghdad that the population of Iraq elected with representation from every part of Iraq and every ethnic group, is irrelevant to whether there is a civil war or not, what makes the conflict a civil war? There have always been factions that fought each other in Iraq, so simply saying the existence of factions that fight each other, is far from being enough.
Do you know for a fact that all of the 6,000 people that are ALLEGED to have died from violence over the past two months in Baghdad all died as a result of sectarian violence? How many of them can you name? What evidence has been produced in each case that shows how the victim died? The United States and coalition forces can answer these questions about each one of its casualties which is why the numbers are accurate. Certainly a lot of people have died over the past two months, but when the above questions can not be answered, such casualty figures have to looked at with caution. Otherwise, one makes the same mistakes that many made when the Israelies were accused of killing 9,000 innocent civilians in Jenin in 2002. The UN later went in with forensic teams and found that only 48 civilians had died all as a result of accidents!
During the time that you have been harping that Iraq is doomed, they have pulled off two elections approved a constitution, finally put a new government in place two months ago and have started the long process of rebuilding the Iraqi military. All of these things show progress, progress that for some reason you are unwilling to acknowledge.
In a few years when the Iraq situation is much more improved, and even the strongest opponents of the war and occupation will start to admit it is working, their obvious arguement then will be the one you made above, "IT NEVER HAD TO BE THIS WAY". Technically, you could say that about ANY war because EVERY war that has ever been fought has had its mistakes that made things worse. World War II, the war that everyone supports was filled with Allied mistakes that caused the deaths of thousands, perhaps millions of people. I've commented on the mistakes I have seen multiple times, but unfortunately that gets lost in the shuffle to label anyone who supports the administration as being blind, foolish, and unwilling to admit mistakes.
Saddam had 12 years to verifiably disarm of all WMD. The sanctions and embargo regime were coming apart. It infact did not exist across the entire Iraqi/Syrian border. Saddam was making Billions of dollars through the black market. The situation was critical and the invasion was if anything, long over due considering how degraded the containment regime had become. The invasion was to remove Saddam and the threat he posed to the region, it was not to simply set up a democracy, but some form of government would be required after Saddam's removal and that is why a democratic government had to be formed despite the difficulty, time, and resources it would require.
1. I have never totally disregarded the violence in Iraq and I have listed several mistakes that I have seen in administration policy. When it comes to history, to many people do not look at the history of what happened in the 1990s and 1980s and fail to appreciate long standing US Security needs and US Foreign Policy in this particular region for the past 60 years. To some people, they think the conflict started when Bush Jr. entered office and have yet to look at how the situation has been an ongoing problem that needed to be taken care of.
2. The Iraqi government has only been in power for two months! Democracy takes years to fully develop and succeed. The fact is, enormous progress has been made in Iraq, progress that you continue to ignore or pretend that it is irrelevant. I'm very concerned about the stability in Iraq which is why I do not want a premature withdrawal from Iraq like many liberals are pushing for. The coalition must remain in Iraq in order to rebuild the Iraqi military. That whole process is going to take another 5 years, although its likely some coalition troops will be able to start coming home years before the whole process is finished.
Every conflict has its mistakes and learning from them and improving the situation is key to any conflict. If you think all the loss of life is the fault of the administration and that it has been too high, please state the number of Iraqi's and coalition forces that would have died in a perfect operation without any mistakes.
Saddam's threat to the planets vital energy resources was indeed far more threatening than the Israel/Palestinian situation that we have been living with for 60 years. The Aids issue has been around for over 20 years. While both of those issues are serious, they would never cause the immediate problems that the siezure or sabotage of much of the planets energy resources in the Persian Gulf would. Those issues have not caused a massive global economic depression which would be the result of being cut off from the vital energy resources clustered in the region in and around Kuwait. When it comes to nuclear weapons and WMD, no other leader in the world has used WMD more times than Saddam and no other leader would be more likely to use WMD in the future than Saddam. He failed to verifiably disarm of all his WMD and at one point back in 1991, was found to only be months away from having a nuclear weapon. Other regimes may have WMD, but how often have they used that WMD if ever? How many of those regimes invaded and attacked four different countries and threatened the planets major energy recourses with siezure and sabotage?
The United Nations passes multiple resolutions on similar issues all the time. Because Saddam's regime had been completely removed, a new resolution was needed to recognized the occupation who had control inside the country. This is what Resolution 1483 does. If the war was in fact illegal as you claim, no one would approve a resolution authorizing the invaders as the authority in the region. They would be calling on them to leave the country immediately as they did when Saddam invaded Kuwait. Where was the UN resolution recognizing Saddam as the authority in Kuwait in 1990?
There were already resolutions on the books authorizing Saddam to cooperate with the UN inspectors and to verifiably disarm of all WMD. The purpose of 1441 was to give Saddam one last chance to do that or face serious consequences, which in this case could only mean military force given the fact that Saddam was already under the most extensive non-military sanctions as a result of his violations and failure to comply with multiple resolutions. 1441 authorizes the use of military force just as resolution 678 authorized the use of military force to remove Saddams forces from Kuwait. Did resolution 678 actually say the words "military force" or mention the word military at all, no. Resolution 678 did initally have those words in there, but the Soviets protested and demanded those words be removed. This was so the Soviets could make the same type of arguement that your making in regards to resolution 1441 later on, that the resolution did not authorize military action. But in both cases, its obvious that the resolution did authorize military action given the circumstances.
There is nothing in the body of resolution 1441 that states that another resolution would be required to authorize the use of military force. The UN security Council approved resolutions 678 and 687 which both authorize the use of military force if Iraq subsequently violates further resolutions or fails to comply with current ones. 1441 restated that fact and was simply a statement to Saddam of it being his final chance to comply before military action would do what he had failed to do for 12 years. Its not the United States that approved these things, alone, but the entire UN Security Council in 1990, 1991, and 2002 for resolutons 678, 687, and 1441. No one sited US military action in Iraq as being illegal during the late 1990s because it was authorized by resolution 678. All 1441 was was an attempt to reach out to the whole international community on the issue and give Saddam one final chance to comply.
The invasion did not violate the UN charter it was totally in line with it. The United States and other member states were authorized by the UN Security Council to use any means necessary to enforce these most serious UN resolutions passed under Chapter VII rules of the United Nations. This was not the case of a single state acting independently or outside of the UN charter. There was NEVER any stated requirement anywhere in the body of resolution 1441 for a "second resolution" to authorize military force.
The Bush administration successfully showed that Saddam was still in violation of 17 UN security council resolutions that required SADDAM, NOT the United States, but SADDAM to VERIFIABLY DISARM OF ALL WMD. The Bush administration NEVER claimed that Saddam was behind 9/11. Sorry, but your out in left field claiming that the Bush administration violated US law by invading Iraq.
As for the following questions, you have still yet to answer them although you did attempt at answering one of them in regards to 1483 so I'll leave though out. Claiming the questions are irrelevant is not an answer. :
If the invasion of Iraq was illegal and not approved by the UN where is the UN resolution condemning the invasion or at least the attempt at one? ]If the invasion of Iraq was illegal and not approved by the UN, where is the UN resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of coalition forces, or at least the attempt at one? Did the UN pass a resolution approving or recognizing Saddam's invasion of Kuwait?
Perhaps you have not answered these questions because you can't. The fact is, there is no resolution condemning the invasion of Iraq or calling for the withdrawal of the troops as was done when Saddam invaded Kuwait. If the the war was the serious breech of international law that you claim it is, there would at the very least have been a resolution attempting to condemn the invasion. If resolution 1483 was simply a way to help the people in Iraq by recognizing the coalition as the authority, where was the UN resolution doing the same when Saddam invaded Kuwait.
Look at how the UN responded to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and then look at the UN response to the coalition invasion of Iraq. The first is how the UN responds to an illegal invasion. The second is how the UN responds to an invasion it has approved.
You were the one who brought the issue of Iraq into this thread, siting the invasion of Iraq and "US failure" there as being responsible for the recent conflict with Hezbollah and the recent actions of Syria and Iran. Perhaps your changing your mind about that though.
Including a 8 year boy .... oh Jesus , oh Sweet mother ....... how long ......
