From: Noah Horton (nhorton@ectropic.org)
Date: Tue Mar 18 2003 - 13:28:09 MST
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]
> On Behalf Of Hubert Mania
> Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 11:35 AM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: [ Iraq ] My Blind Spot
>
> John Clark said:
>
> > "Hubert Mania" <humania@t-online.de>
> >
> > >The USA will be acting against international law and YOU KNOW IT.
> >
> > But that's exactly the problem, many of us don't know it. You claim to
> have
> > that knowledge so tell us, exactly what "international law" did the USA
> > violate, what are the penalties for transgressors, how are they
> enforced,
> > where are they written down, where can I see the signature of the USA
> > agreeing to these regulations,
>
> The international law (German: Voelkerrecht = people's law) Bush is now
> acting against is written down in the charta of the United Nations. And I
> do
> remember that the USA signed at least *this* treaty. And therein it is
> stated that a preemptive war is against international law if it is not
> approved by the security council of the UN.
[Noah Horton]
However, article X states that any country can engage in war for the purpose
of self-defense with security council sanction. One of the defenses is that
this is defensive as he has shown willingness to use WMD before and is
massing them again. The more poignant reason why this is not against
international law is that previous resolutions against Iraq have authorized
the use of force if Iraq was found to be in breech of disarmament orders,
and 1441 stated that they were in violation.
> Maybe
> you should really start turning to European news sources from now on. At
> least here in Germany we can read the statements of all dominant
> governments
> in the world who condemn Bushs announcement of his solo effort last night
> and his violation of international law. Even the German Christian
> conservative party, for almost 60 years now on excellent terms with every
> US administration, is somehow shocked about the way Bush disregards the
> UN security council.
[Noah Horton]
Not all European news sources are that critical (BBC for example). As for
"all the dominant governments", that is either incredible
central-europe-centric or blatant hyperbole. The US, UK, Italy, Spain,
Japan and Australia are all pretty high on the dominant governments list.
If you want to talk about slightly smaller countries, most of eastern Europe
and the Netherlands support the US.
> Nobody will officially punish the US for this transgressing. So you don't
> need to worry :-) but your country has lost friends by the dozens.
[Noah Horton]
When the dust has settled, we will see how many countries count the US as
their friend and how many count France and Germany. I would point out that
much of the world, such as eastern European states and the UK, still
remember the friendship of the US quite well, while other countries have
quickly forgotten it.
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