Saddam Hussein Hanged

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gannex

This is where I cannot agree with you, Arrows, or with BDunnell. The UN is a nice idea, just as the League of Nations was a nice idea. Peace-loving peoples gathering together to talk out their differences, instead of fighting them out. More jaw-jaw and less war-war, as Churchill put it, in uncharacteristically clumsy fashion.

---

you couldn't be any more wrong than saying that the UN is about peace-loving peoples. it would surprise you to see who setup the UN, the founders of the UN were far from "peacenik" in the aftermath of WW2.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by airshifter

Iraq simply kicked out the inspectors with nothing other than more resolutions to condemn it, and the peacekeeping missions seem to come after the peace is for the most part already existent.

---

Hence the name "peacekeeping". Before you can keep peace there must be a peace to be kept.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by airshifter

Can either of you provide an example in recent history where the actions of the UN alone fixed a real problem?

---

UN alone? The UN is, or at least should be, the sum of its member nations, therefore it needs cooperation from its member nations and the quarrelling parties. I think Cyprus is one good example of a successful peacekeeping mission, there hasn't been fighting in more than 30 years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by studiose

And what ought it tell me? That Americans have developed a distaste for really clever men and therefore elect "men of people"?

I don't much care for Kerry, but I think Gore would have made a truly fine President. (I don't see how you can call him an idiot. :s ) But anyway, all you can change is the future.

---

Al Gore IS an idiot. The State that knows him best didn't elect him over Bush for President. He claimed to have invented the Internet ( a factious argument if there ever was one and one a smart politician would never state). He also claims man is behind global warming. Understand, that global warming may not be caused by man at all, at best the science is very much theory. Nevertheless, Al Gore would cripple his nation's ability to run its economy on theories that are unproven. Al Gore who is suppossed to be brilliant, yet Bush made him look stupid in 2 debates. Al Gore should have won that election in 2000 in a walk, and yet the "idiot" squeaked out a narrow Electoral vote victory.

No, Al Gore is not the genius many would have you believe, for if he was so "brilliant" he would have been there again in 2004 but the Democratic party in the US wanted nothing to do with him.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Al Gore IS an idiot... He also claims man is behind global warming. Understand, that global warming may not be caused by man at all, at best the science is very much theory.

---

On what basis do you say that? I am convinced you are very much mistaken.

I am beginning to think that global warming might be a good thing if it forces people like you to realise the error of your ways when it comes to the issue...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Nevertheless, Al Gore would cripple his nation's ability to run its economy on theories that are unproven.

---

Theories are unproven by definition :)

While I agree with you that Al Gore losing out to Bush can indeed make him look like an idiot, you might be interested to read how Bush may be changing his course / flip-flopping on this issue :p :
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0010611-2.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world...989997,00.html

http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_3_166.gif

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gannex

The UN is a nice idea, just as the League of Nations was a nice idea. Peace-loving peoples gathering together to talk out their differences, instead of fighting them out. More jaw-jaw and less war-war, as Churchill put it, in uncharacteristically clumsy fashion.

But the sad truth is that a house is only as strong as the bricks it is made of. You can't build a constructive group of nations working toward peace out of quarrelsome countries, each with its own interests and varying levels of power. Either you leave the quarrelsome, power-hungry member states out of the decision-making process, which is what the Security Council system is designed to do, or you include them, and watch the angry results. There is no way around this. There are numerous national governments whom you wouldn't trust to look after your children on an evening, never mind letting them determine matters of war and peace. What are you to do with these regimes? Let them have a say in determining your foreign policy, risking that they will club together and actually dictate it, or shutting them out, and depriving your international body of all legitimacy? I don't see a third way.

---

This is all very true, but no-one ever puts across a better alternative, and I think there needs to be one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by airshifter

Arrows,

The Security Council DID invoke Chapter 7, determine there were threats to the peace and had never declared a formal cease fire since the Gulf War as a result of Iraqs lack of compliance with requirements to do so. As no cease fire was ever enacted, all authorities to use force remained in effect.


In my opinion the best hope of resolving issues should be the UN, but history has shown it to be little other than a paper tiger. The Iraq situation is an example of this. In 12 years and after many resolutions they still had not forced compliance with cease fire agreements, nor did they even get close to doing so.

If the worlds best hope at peace lies in an organization who uses terms such as "as necessary means" and "will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations" and backs it only with more words, then it's a huge paper tiger and nothing else.


The situation in Darfur is a current day example of what the UN is capable of. Without strong pressure from individual nations they would not even term the problem genocide. The UN has done little to nothing, individual member states have accomplished a great deal more.

The UN concluded that a peacekeeping mission would hold risks unless the involved parties quit fighting first. Just how stupid is that?

---

This has been my point exactly. All of you trendy "leftwing" posters have to understand something. Whatever George Bush did, he was citing the resolutions of the UN that Saddam was not following as justification. The search for WMD's excuse ( a lame one if none were found and therefore not one I would have used) comes from the failure of the UN to be able to get Saddam to comply with his role in letting the inspectors do their job without his henchmen stopping them from seeing what they had to see.

So when Saddam didn't want to obey the 14 Resolutions coming out of his illegal and immoral invasion of Kuwait, Bush decided to take it into his own hands. So he is a BAD man for actually making the UN stand for something. You guys say he weakened it. It was discredited in my mind years ago....

Eki stated how Cyprus has had peace because of the UN. Wrong, they have peace because one nation, Canada for the first 25 years sat between two warring parties and kept the peace. The UN didn't do anything except get the two parties to the table, but that only has value if both sides are willing to abide. You have not in 30 pages of posting here proven to me or anyone else with an open mind stated what happens when one party DOES NOT want to take diplomacy as a solution and when they WILL NOT abide by the terms laid out to them by the UN. You are so horrified by war, but what you have to understand, war's are the result of failed diplomacy. To blame the US for Saddam's refusal to go along with your precious UN is blaming the girl in the short skirt and halter top for being raped. It is a weak argument and it shows your anti-US bias.

For 32 pages Eki and his friends have constantly stated the US is the problem. Some of you have used rational arguments and have admitted the weak points in your arguments. I have stated over and over again I don't think Bush is a fantatsic president on any level, but I sure as heck also understand that failed diplomacy brings wars, and failed diplomacy can be laid on the doorstep of one man in this case, Saddam Hussein. Most of you will not accept this, and it seems you apportion Hussein no blame. I just know that when you do this, your arguments are NOT based on logic, they are based on a flawed premise that the US is at all fault for everything that happens, whether they intervene on behalf of the UN or if they ignore situations such as Darfur, Rwanda, or Zimbabwe.

For the UN to have ANY meaning at all, despite being a room full of hot air, someone has to say if the UN takes a resolution, then if it is not followed, then the member nations will have to enforce those resolutions. In the world of a few of you, there is no enforcement. You just have a bunch of useless bureaucrats talking, but that is ok with some of you. It isn't for me. Of course, the same people who refuse to allow force to be used in any manner to enforce the UN dictates would also handcuff the US from defending itself, and it would give the rights of nations run by the most dictatorial thugs the same rights as democracies. So you really are NOT intrested in anything but every nation leaving the others alone. Fine theory really, sucks in practice. Saddam loved that he was allowed by the UN to invade Iran, and when the UN stood up to him in Kuwait, he used the UN to stop the war. Of course, when it came to living up to his obligations, he wouldn't, and hence the Casus Belli with the US.

No, if you are going to want us to buy the fact the US has no reason to be involved in the Middle East, then one of you neutral Finn's better have an answer to deal with the world's nation states that wont follow the rules of civilized man. Your answer is to leave them be. That is an answer to nothing and as I have stated before, only leads to larger conflicts. If the US didn't invade Iraq in 2003, and if the sanctions were lifted, you all know that Saddam would have provoked another conflict. If you refuse to believe that, then there is no point to your arguing any further. You have made up your mind, you are blind to the reality of how the world has worked since man started keeping track of world history. Strongmen dictators will often provoke or create situations that sooner or later draw them into wars with other nations. In the case of Iraq, it was a dead certain reality. Nations run by thugs that have not been invaded have kept their cruelty within their own borders. To my Finnish Friend Eki there this is ok with him. He doesn't like it but he is fine with no war. Greater lives are saved this way....except he isn't the one he is condemning to live like this.

Thanks Eki, if the building is burning, I wont wait for you to save me....I am on my own.....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Eki stated how Cyprus has had peace because of the UN. Wrong, they have peace because one nation, Canada for the first 25 years sat between two warring parties and kept the peace.

---

You mean Canadians were there on their own independent of the UN? Can you show us some proof? Finnish UN peacekeeping troops were there about 25 years too, but they were part of UN troops that consisted of several nationalities. Do you have any idea what the UN peacekeeping forces are, what they do and where they are/have been?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

This has been my point exactly. All of you trendy "leftwing" posters have to understand something. Whatever George Bush did, he was citing the resolutions of the UN that Saddam was not following as justification. The search for WMD's excuse ( a lame one if none were found and therefore not one I would have used) comes from the failure of the UN to be able to get Saddam to comply with his role in letting the inspectors do their job without his henchmen stopping them from seeing what they had to see.

---

There was, as it turned out, nothing for them to see. They actually did a perfectly good job despite the obstructions they faced.

You could accuse Al Gore of being many things, boring, lacking in charisma, out of touch with the ordinary man, politically naive, but idiotic, never! I think Al Gore is one of the best politicians America has. I voted for him enthusiastically when he last ran (I hold both US and British citizenship), and would gladly do so again. I am at a total loss, Mark, to see why you have so little respect for him. What has he ever done to make you think he's an idiot? (Oh, and by the way; he never claimed to have invented the internet. That is just a deliberate misconception put about by his critics.)