A few in military refuse to fight 'wrong war'

by Trauma_Hound 128 Replies latest members politics

• 

  ThiChi

  Realist:

  This is your news source:

  ""The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center is a non-commercial, democratic collective of bay area independent media makers and media outlets, and serves as the local organizing unit of the global Indymedia network. ""

  Hah hahha jhahahahaaahwsha! You got to be kidding, right? This is one of the most left wing propaganda machines around! I reject your information as incorrect and laughable!

  San Francisco... Media Center...hah hahah ahaahaaa!
• 

  ThiChi

  21 March 2003

  Taft: Bush Has Legal Authority to Use Force in Iraq

  (State Department legal adviser addresses National Association of Attorneys General) (540) President Bush's authority to use force in Iraq under both U.S. and international law is "clear," says William Howard Taft IV, a U.S. State Department legal adviser Addressing the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington March 20, Taft said that under the U.S. Constitution Bush has the responsibility to use force to protect national security and that Congress confirmed that authority in the specific case of Iraq on two separate occasions. There is also clear authorization from the U.N. Security Council -- Resolutions 678 and 687 -- to use force to disarm Iraq, which has "materially breached" disarmament obligations, Taft said. Following are excerpts from Taft's speech pertaining to Iraq: (begin excerpt) Remarks of the Honorable William Howard Taft, IV Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State before the National Association of Attorneys General March 20, 2003 Let me say a few words about the legal basis for our actions in Iraq. First, it goes without saying that the President's authority to use force under U.S. law is clear. Under the Constitution he has not simply the authority but the responsibility to use force to protect our national security. Congress has confirmed in two separate resolutions in 1991 and again last fall that the President has authority to use our armed forces in the specific case of Iraq. Under international law, the basis for use of force is equally strong. There is clear authorization from the Security Council to use force to disarm Iraq. The President referred to this authority in his speech to the American people on Monday night. The source of this authority is UNSCR 678, which was the authorization to use force for the Gulf War in January 1991. In April of that year, the Council imposed a series of conditions on Iraq, including most importantly extensive disarmament obligations, as a condition of the ceasefire declared under UNSCR 687. Iraq has "materially breached" these disarmament obligations, and force may again be used under UNSCR 678 to compel Iraqi compliance. Historical practice is also clear that a material breach by Iraq of the conditions for the cease-fire provides a basis for use of force. This was established as early as 1992. The United State, the UK and France have all used force against Iraq on a number of occasions over the past twelve years. Just last November, in resolution 1441, the Council unanimously decided that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligation. 1441 then gave Iraq a "final opportunity" to comply, but stated specifically that violations of the obligations, including the obligation to cooperate fully, under 1441 would constitute a further material breach. Iraq has clearly committed such violations and, accordingly, the authority to use force to address Iraq's material breaches is clear. This basis in international law for the use of force in Iraq today is clear. The Attorney General of the United Kingdom has considered the issue and reached the same conclusion we have. The President may also, of course, always use force under international law in self-defense. These are points that I thought you would want to know about. 
• 

  expatbrit

  These are points that I thought you would want to know about.

  Don't count on it.

  Expatbrit
  
• 

  RandomTask

  William Howard Taft, American President who ran on a platform of reinforced concrete.

  *snicker*
• 

  ashitaka

  Legal doesn't equal moral.
• 

  RandomTask

  But then morality is relative, right?
• 

  ThiChi

  Sponge Bob: The issue was, is it legal? You now have the bottom line....Is it moral?

  “In 1991 Saddam killed 500,000 people when they rose against him. Nobody demonstrated against him then. But now the United States wants to get rid of the dictator, people are demonstrating against it.”
  -one of the Iraqi liberation soldiers the U.S. is training at "Camp Freedom" in Hungary
  
  (UK Telegraph: Saddam 'killed missile chief' to thwart UN team)
  (The Los Angeles Times: Protesters With Bloody Hands -Max Boot)
  (Reuters: Blix - Iraq Banned Weapons Unaccounted For)
  (Human Rights Watch: Iraq's Crime of Genocide: the Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds)
  (Amnesty International: Iraq: Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners)
  (New York Times: How Many People Has Hussein Killed?)
  (NY Times: War for Peace? It Worked in My Country -Nobel Laureate José Ramos-Horta)
  (Colin Powell's Special Section - "Iraq: Failing To Disarm" -audio, video, text)

  YES!
  
• 

  Realist

  thichi,

  you are funny man. show me contradicting numbers or remain silent!
• 

  ThiChi

  What I Saw at the Walkout The intellectual bankruptcy of Harvard’s peaceniks. By Jason Steorts CAMBRIDGE, MASS — At 12:30 P.M. Thursday, over 1,000 students and faculty of Harvard University walked out of classes and assembled in Harvard Yard to protest the war of Iraqi liberation. Unconvinced by the usual antics of peacenik protesters, I made my way to the rally in search of intelligent reasons to oppose war. Surely 1,000 Harvard minds could produce such reasons. I encountered a motley assemblage of worthies. Aside from the students, there was the Spartacus Youth League, gracing us with a poster: "For Class Struggle Against U.S. Capitalist Rulers." The Socialist Workers party distributed its weekly newsletter. Rita Hamad, a Harvard senior, reminded us of the evils of Zionism in a speech ("the Israeli government will use the Iraqi war as a cover for committing future atrocities [in Palestine]"). In a touching display of multiculturalism, one sign proclaimed "Finland Against This War" — while another bore the Chinese characters for "Fandui Shiyou Zhanzheng": Oppose the Oil War. Searching harder, I found this trenchant injunction: "Healthcare Not Bombs." I asked the woman holding the sign to explain exactly how health-care will stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "If we use our wealth to provide health-care and solve problems like AIDS," she answered, "we will have better relations with other countries, who will help us solve problems like weapons of mass destruction." Q.E.D. At this point, I had an epiphany: Maybe I was listening to the wrong people. Not all of these peaceniks were affiliated with Harvard, and those who were, were mostly students. Perhaps their powers of reasoning were as yet unrefined. If so, then surely it was to their refiners that I should turn. So I listened to a speech by Brian Palmer, lecturer on the study of religion, whom I expected to be a paragon of rationality. Palmer began by assuring us that the war would be a massacre. He added that "the Iraq war is a skirmish in the war between the Bush administration and the rest of the world." For those unaware of this war, Palmer offered some details. First, Bush is "at war against other democracies, international law, and global institutions." As evidence for this claim, Palmer repeated the statement of the current president's father that "the American lifestyle is not up for negotiation," and construed this to mean that there must be "an SUV in every garage." Next, Palmer waxed metaphorical: "Ghosts of angry Cold Warriors are emerging from the dead ranks of the Reagan administration to wage war against the working classes." As if that weren't spooky enough, Palmer warned that Bush is at war "against us in the universities. We produce inconvenient results, such as that the Bush brothers pushed and bullied their way through the Florida elections." Here, at last, was the immorality of the war made manifest. Let's summarize: George W. Bush, aided by a handful of ghouls, is removing Saddam Hussein from power so that he can put an SUV in every garage, oppress the poor, and commit election fraud. This was precisely the sort of serious thought I had hoped for. What I had not hoped for, however, was a revelation from God. Yet Timothy P. McCarthy, lecturer in American history and literature, delighted the crowd by providing one. In a sermon on the topic of "dissent and God," McCarthy announced in his lordly baritone (think of Charlton Heston as Moses) that President Bush has a policy of "waging war against anyone at any time when the Spirit moves [him]." Silly Bush. He should know that the Spirit only moves anti-war protesters — who must, in McCarthy's words, "reclaim the authority of God as we, the prophets of peace, keep doing what we are doing" — namely, opposing the war "in order to save every last one of our souls." Let me assure the reader that each of the above quotations is real. This is what antiwar intellectuals are saying today. I haven't made up a word. What is most vexing about these peaceniks isn't the falsity of their claims, but the utter irrelevance of those claims, even if true. A few examples: did make this assumption. Matthew Skomarovsky, the student emcee, accused the U.S. of planning to "shock and awe Baghdad the way Osama bin Laden shocked and awed New York City on September 11.") did bear partial (or total) responsibility for the humanitarian disaster in Iraq? The peacenik argument would still be getting the idea of moral responsibility backward by assuming that to cause a problem is to free oneself of the duty to resolve it. were stupid, or did steal the election, or really wanted to gain access to Iraq's oil? The war is not being justified on those terms, but on grounds of national security and humanitarian concern. The sufficiency of those justifications doesn't rest on claims about Bush's intelligence, political activities, and personal motivations, and you don't need a background in formal logic to understand this. The utter irrelevance of these arguments only exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of the antiwar movement. Any serious criticism of the war must rely on one or both of two claims: First, that it is not in the security interests of the United States forcibly to remove Saddam from power; or, second, that a war to rid the Iraqi people of a psychopathic dictator is worse for that people, in humanitarian terms, than letting them continue to suffer under him. Rather than make these claims, Harvard's high-minded intellectuals recite their usual litany of complaints about capitalism, about globalization, and above all, about George W. Bush. Yesterday's protest was an exercise in many things: vanity, condescension, evasion, arrogance, and smug self-righteousness. But it failed miserably as an effort at persuasion. This should come as no surprise to those of us who recognize that war is tragic, but who also know that life under tyranny, or life overshadowed by the danger of apocalyptic slaughter, is more tragic still. — Jason Steorts is a senior at Harvard University.

  did make this assumption. Matthew Skomarovsky, the student emcee, accused the U.S. of planning to "shock and awe Baghdad the way Osama bin Laden shocked and awed New York City on September 11.") did bear partial (or total) responsibility for the humanitarian disaster in Iraq? The peacenik argument would still be getting the idea of moral responsibility backward by assuming that to cause a problem is to free oneself of the duty to resolve it. were stupid, or did steal the election, or really wanted to gain access to Iraq's oil? The war is not being justified on those terms, but on grounds of national security and humanitarian concern. The sufficiency of those justifications doesn't rest on claims about Bush's intelligence, political activities, and personal motivations, and you don't need a background in formal logic to understand this. The utter irrelevance of these arguments only exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of the antiwar movement. Any serious criticism of the war must rely on one or both of two claims: First, that it is not in the security interests of the United States forcibly to remove Saddam from power; or, second, that a war to rid the Iraqi people of a psychopathic dictator is worse for that people, in humanitarian terms, than letting them continue to suffer under him. Rather than make these claims, Harvard's high-minded intellectuals recite their usual litany of complaints about capitalism, about globalization, and above all, about George W. Bush. Yesterday's protest was an exercise in many things: vanity, condescension, evasion, arrogance, and smug self-righteousness. But it failed miserably as an effort at persuasion. This should come as no surprise to those of us who recognize that war is tragic, but who also know that life under tyranny, or life overshadowed by the danger of apocalyptic slaughter, is more tragic still. — Jason Steorts is a senior at Harvard University.
• 

  ThiChi

  remember, we don't do that any more...just the claim alone..." world wide" is Incalculable, let alone true.
  

  Besides the logic problem, if if it were true, that number gives no weight to the legitimacy of the issue at hand. AD POPULEM is a very weak argument. "Well, every one is doing it..." does not make it right nor true.

  My logic is that pro-western Nations with mostly a representative government, is assisting the US. Many Dictator states are cooperating too. I will not claim world wide numbers ether way.