No, I was implying that we wouldn't have engaged in a war that was formally deemed illegal. For many practical reasons. I didn't say we "always do whatever the UN wants" we'd be in a very lonely position if that were the case. And per Cuba, those resolutions were not made under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and therefore have no binding force under international law.







I don't lump all middle Easterners together because they happen to live in the middle east. The people in the Middle East are in fact the terrorists' first and foremost victims. The brunt of civilian deaths in Iraq, by far, are not coalition-inflicted casualties but rampant predatory violence.

There are two dichotomies. We'll separate them into "interests" for the purpose of this discussion:

1) Those with a vested interest in minimizing civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure (you know, the ones who believe in things like war laws).

2) Those with an interest in doing the opposite. Under their occupation, no house, no corner is safe. There is no warning, no safe haven to hide in until it is over. Children are particularly vulnerable, rather than specially protected. The more populated an area, the higher the risk.

The second only requires a small percentage of support to succeed. Something around two percent. After that, the population is completely cowed and that group gets its way. You can call that a "lifestyle choice" or whatever you like, but in a nutshell yes, I believe the first group comes out smelling like roses in comparison to the second.

I agree in essence with Droop here. The appropriateness of justifying the deaths of innocent civilians and bystanders is in the eye of the beholder. The U.S accepts the fact that during an attack on a legitimate target (whether a person or a building etc) innocent people will / can die, because they believe that the goal justifies the means in these cases. The death of an enemy combattant / terrorist outweight the lives of innocent men, women and children. This same principle applies to the other side. Members of Al Qaida accept the fact that innocent bystanders (whether they are Americans, Europeans, Christians or fellow Muslims) will get killed by there attacks. Just like the U.S. and their war on terror, they believe that the means justify the end. The justifiability of acts of agression is always subjective. The same principle applies to the unjustifiability of acts of agression of course.

Rules of war are in essence nothing more than a gentlemans agreement. It is honorable to uphold them, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to play by these rules. It is like when two men start a fight with eachother. There is always some sort of agreement that you do not kick the opponent in the nuts. But when of one of the adversaries realises that he can never win in a normal, 'fair' fight (perhaps because his opponents is two times bigger than him) he will not hesitate to use this method, thereby breaking the gentlemans agreement, in order to defeat his opponent. Is it justifiable that he used this method? Perhaps, perhaps not, but in the end the outcome is more important no matter how it was achieved.



Following your line of thinking that means that all the innocent people killed during the U.S. military campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan are also NOT legitimate targets. Besides that declaring war is not an exclusive right only nations have. Eventhough Al Qaida is not a nation, it has declared a war against the U.S. and the U.S. has treated it as such.



And in the eyes of Al Qaida it was an important and justifiable symbolic target to attack.



I am not sure if you can really uphold these ideas Mrs Pigpen. If you look at the way the U.S. and the Bush administration behaved in the period running up to the Iraq war it is hard to imagine that they would have chosen any other course and would have complied to the wishes of the U.N..

Mrs P

quick question.... How is a resolution passed under Chapter VII??? Does it have to go through the Security Council?

Actually, I do. Not because the Bush administration would have wanted to comply, but because he could not have done otherwise. The cost would have been too great. There would have been no coalition backing whatsoever for a military action deemed illegitimate. Furthermore, the UNSCR were crucial to the argument for invasion, and couldn't be used in such an instance. As far as Bush's behavior, if the UN truly had strong objections to the action, I would have expected to see some sort of condemnation put to vote at the very least...or an Acheson resolution invoked, both options were available to them.



All resolutions are passed by the UNSC, binding and non-binding. They are called United Nations Security Council Resolutions for that reason.

Edited to add: I stand corrected by BD below. Rather irrelevant to the point I've made though (actions in either case are based on pragmatics, not feelings) as well as off topic.

No, the General Assembly can pass resolutions also, however, such resolutions have little but symbolic meaning. The resolution in question, condemning the US embargo on Cuba, is a GA resolution, as there is no way such a resolution would pass the Security Council, given our veto there.