From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Sun Dec 19 2004 - 17:27:47 GMT
Hi Sam,
sam:
I think we can recombine the IL and non-combatant bits of the thread.
I sometimes find it difficult to keep track of lots of different
posts, so I'll try and make this one clear to follow for anyone else.
(I notice you've been trying out different ways to keep track)
msh says:
Yes, sorry about those separate quick responses; I was literally
multi-tasking, writing code and snapping off ideas to you. I'll try
to keep thiings together and cogent for posterity. :-)
sam:
It's probably worth while my actually stating what my position is,
because it sometimes seems to get lost beneath the jousting. I think
the decision to attack Iraq was the right one but only because the
alternative options were worse.
msh says:
And my response is, which alternative options and worse in what way,
for whom? And how would we know without trying? If the sanctions
are causing the misery, then the first obvious thing to try is to
lift or alter the sanctions. If Hussein is causing the misery then
we might be able to use the Norton 8-P to justify an invasion.
However...
The Norton 8-P has two obvious flaws, neither of which you have
directly addressed. The first is that the argument is based on the
combined ideas that the Iraqi people were suffering under Hussein,
and that International Law was failing to protect them. I believe we
had agreed that people suffering under a brutal dictator can't be the
motivation for the US-UK invasion, given the evidence of history.
The second flaw is the killer, and was described in one of my quick
posts that didn't make it into your last response. The exact same
argument could have been used by Saddam Hussein to justify his
invasion of Kuwait. That is, he could have claimed that his
border dispute with Kuwait had not been justly resolved through
International Law because of Kuwait's corrupt relationship with
significant members of the Security Council and General Assembly
Therefore, since the corrupted UN had failed to act legitimately,
and his people were suffering due to lack of adequate sea access and
loss of revenue from the shared Ar Rumaylah oil field, he was
justified in taking the law into his own hands.
See what I mean? The argument can be used to justify any invasion by
any nation at any time, just my claiming International Law was not
working due to corruption. So I don't understand why you find this
argument persuasive. The only way it can support the US-UK invasion
of Iraq is if you claim the USG-UKG are somehow morally superior to
other nations. I doubt that you would claim this, given some of our
discussion below and elsewhere.
msh said:
Would you agree, given the clear history of US violations of
International Law whenever IL "got in the way" of US realpolitik,
that any US pose as defenders of IL is absurd?
sam:
Yes.
msh continued:
If so, how can you believe your own claim that the US worked in
good faith within the framework of International Law at arriving at
it's "conclusion" that IL had failed?
sam:
I think the 'good faith' bit came via Tony Blair. I think if it had
been someone else, the US wouldn't have gone through the UN. Cheney
argued for ignoring the UN, I believe. In other words, I think Bush
chose that route because it was the price of getting the UK on-side.
msh says:
Probably. But I doubt that TB needed much persuasion. Realpolitik
makes familiar bedfellows, to twist a phrase. The question for the
British ruling elite was whether or not to remain in the good graces
of the USG, which would conduct an invasion with or without their
support.
sam:
More broadly, I think there is an understated confusion here - I'm
thinking like a Brit, you're thinking like an American; in other
words, I'm roughly defending Blair's point of view, you're
criticising Bush's point of view. That can sometimes mislead us a
bit.
msh says:
I agree. My position is that the USG is the primary actor here, due
to its incomparable military power and willingness to use it. But I
think it is a mistake to see this particular use of violence as
something "caused" by George Bush or "supported" by Tony Blair.
These guys are just the current figureheads of power. The problem is
systemic and goes way, way back in the intertwined histories of both
our nations. This idea of unilateral applications of state violence
in maintaining and expanding power is what I was hoping to explore in
this thread, so I hope we don't get bogged down in this most recent
example.
<snip agreement on timing of decision to go to war>
msh said before:
The essence of my last post is that we either work within the
International Law framework, trying to make it better, or we
regress to a world where might makes right. So, the rest of this is
academic, though interesting.
sam:
Hmm. Whilst I'm not a fan of might makes right, I don't think this
exhausts the possibilities. I see law as a means to an end, not an
end in itself; in other words it can sometimes clash with other goods
which have preference. Now, having said that, I think we need to give
a _very high_ priority to the rule of law, and so the justification
for breaching it needs to be quite clear (which we're arguing about)
but do you reject the possibility?
msh says:
Not at all. It's clear to me that laws can be just or unjust. But
laws can be amended or expunged or replaced without going outside the
LAW. Our dispute seems to stem from your belief that ALL legal
possibilites had been expended, and that the invasion was the only
means available to alleviate Iraqi suffering. As indicated above, I
disagree on both counts, as well as with the hidden assumption that
the USG-UKG were motivated by the need to relieve Iraqi suffering.
sam continued:
Things like the democratic accountability and enforcement of
jurisdictions etc, which I see as essential, do not yet exist. I
think they should exist, but before we attain that blessed state, we
have to work with what we've got.
msh says:
But, for you, "working with what we've got" means granting without
question the moral high ground to the USG-UKG. To me, history shows
that such confidence is dangerously misplaced.
sam:
I think the failure to get the second resolution was tragic in all
sorts of ways, and we haven't seen the full implications of it yet,
by any means. But I really do think the French have more to answer
for than the US in that regard.
msh says:
Why? Because they were unwilling to pass a resolution permitting the
the USG to act unilaterally? Other resolutions were on the table.
The USG, not France, terminated the debate.
msh says:
Not exactly. The deadly sanctions were the US insisted and
enforced sanctions on food, medicine, medical equipment, industrial
equipment to be used in rebuiding sewage, water, electrical systems
deliberately destroyed during Iraq Attack 1991. The suffering
caused by Iraq's business dealings with other nations is invisible
by comparison.
sam:
As far as I am aware food and medical supplies were allowed by the
sanctions regime.
msh says:
You're right. Resolution 661 (1990) specifically excludes medical
supplies and food from the embargo. Nevertheless, for whatever
reason, insufficient supplies were getting through. Anyway, we agree
on the barbarity of the sanctions.
msh said before:
I said nope because you seem to believe that the ONLY valid UNSC
response would be to OK a full-scale attack on Iraq. <snipThere
is no reason to believe that a refined sanction regime, or sending
back UNMOVIC, would not have had positive effects. At any rate,
what's lost in trying? The only objection to trying is that the US
already has all this POWER in place, and they wanted to stay on
schedule.
sam:
This is what I'm not convinced by, and is perhaps the key to where
you can make me change my mind. If I felt there was a course of
action which would have a) eased the overall plight of the Iraqi
people AND
msh says:
This is easy. Lift the sanctions completely. Regardless of what we
think of Hussein, it is just a fact that Iraqi suffering increased
exponentially with the laying on of sanctions.
b) kept Saddam defanged then
msh says:
This was being accomplished by UN weapons inspections. Read Scott
Ritter. Besides, if the USG was really interested in removing Saddam
without occupying Iraq, that is, with assisting the Iraqi people in
ousting their cruel dictator and allowing them to decide for
theselves their own form of government, why would they refuse to
work with non-CIA connected Iraqi democrats in and out of exile, and
even in the Iraqi military? Why, at the end of the 1991 war, did
they refuse to support rebelling Iraqi generals in their attempts to
overthrow Hussein? (See UP, page 168, and online notes #95.) More
broadly, how does the USG find it possible to assist in the overthrow
of elected slightly leftist governments (Chile, Guatemala,
Venezuela?) but the overthrow of Hussein just wasn't possible without
the invasion and occupation of Iraq? The answer is simple: the
invasion and occupation was the GOAL, not the means. The talk of
means to an end is just smoke disgusing the end itself.
msh said earlier:
And I would say, as I did above, and in my previous post, that we
either work within the framework of International Law, addressing
its weaknesses and making it better, or we regress to a world where
might makes right.
sam:
Whereas I think that in this situation a decision needed to be made -
indeed the decision should have been made ten years previously.
msh says:
And I would say the "urgency" was contrived, that it was in fact just
more smoke. Also see above, re your comment about what should have
been done ten years before.
sam:
The big difference (and a very revealing difference) between this and
the Gandhian point is that there is no way of saying 'let IL take its
course, and accept the punishment'.
msh says:
No honest attempt was made to let IL take its course. Compared to
the suffering and ongoing misery caused by the invasion and
occupation, what punishment are you talking about?
Your position seems to be that the most powerful country on earth
can accept or reject IL as it sees fit. Clearly, this is rejecting
the concept of International Law, not embracing it. And, I don't
know about you, but that is not the kind of world I think we should
be struggling toward. Remember, the balance of violence can shift,
and almost certainly will.
sam:
The sanctions regime was evil, corrupt and corrupting and had to be
stopped. I think there are only two realistic options in that
situation - drop the sanctions and try to reintegrate Iraq into the
wider system, or, regime change through military action.
But those are not the only options. Try this: Lift the sanctions,
get the UNMOVIC back in (which Hussein was willing to allow), and in
the meantime work with the democratic opposition toward replacing the
unwanted leader, as was so expertly accomplished in Chile in 1971,
for example, or as was attempted in Venezuela last year.
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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