Posted on 11/27/2009 7:34:01 AM PST by Androcles
The invasion of Iraq was legal but of "questionable legitimacy" because the US and UK had failed to persuade other countries of the need for war, the then-British ambassador to the UN told the Chilcot inquiry today.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock said: "I regard our participation in the military action in Iraq in March 2003 as legal but of questionable legitimacy in that it did not have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of [UN] member states, or even perhaps of the majority of people inside the UK."
Earlier, Greenstock told the inquiry that he had threatened to resign if the UN security council failed to pass a resolution on Iraq in the lead-up to the invasion.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
To use the word “democracy” and UN in the same sentence is totally ridiculous. Given the fact that most member states are dictatorships in what sense do they have legitimacy? Unless of course like mnost elitists legitimacy stems from the coercive power of government to dictate to us peasants what is good for us.
I supported this war all through the Bush years, especially on the grounds of Flypaper for Terrorists. And I still think it was very effective at drawing in terrorists and killing them off.
But Bush failed so badly on Border Security, while at the same time enacting so many socialist programs as a way of appeasing (in his mind, I think) the anti-war vote in America (a kind of appeasement that never works, of course) that now I wonder if it was worth it.
Maybe it would have been better to accept the increased of terrorist activity (by not killing off all those terrorists in Iraq) in return for a more truly conservative George Bush.
Did he trade away his conservativism in a misguided effort to rally America around “his” war?
Could George W Bush been an ACTUAL conservative President if he hadn’t fought that war?
That’s a question I ask myself a lot these days.
At the end, he should have added....Saddam is no more, al queda has been restrained and the Iraqi people are the way to better days....despite the fact that they are a Middle Eastern country dominated by the Muslim philosophy...just like Afghanistan.
Yo! Greenstock!
Rome does not need Gaul’s permission, nor consent to wage war on Parthia. Just troops.
You couldn't get that group to agree that chocolate tastes good. This is just silliness.
as you Sir... are of “questionable intelligence.”
Only if you have no memory.
Iraq was funding terrorists and they were hiding WMD- we might not have found them all but that just means we telegraphed our intentions too long. We KNOW they had them because they used them on their own people.
They violated 14 UN resolutions... so... what were we to do- ask for another resolution?
How 'bout we concentrate on who's there now and the fact that he's turning our beloved Country into a socialist/marxist hell. ---Let's work really hard on making a better future, rather than belaboring a past we can no longer do anything about.
Sorry, don't mean to be harsh; I'm just tired of using my energies on analyzing rather than fixing.
Mr. K....if we must look back (see previous post) YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!!!
In hindsight, I think that would be correct. However, at the time Clinton had ignored the growing problem for 8 years allowing it to fester, it appeared to be the right thing to do.
If Bush had made Pakistan and Saudi Arabia pay for their crimes, secured the borders, rolled back whatever advances the socialists had made over the years, it would have been great.
Thanks matey potatey. I suspect that applies more to you since you've made an immediate asumption I support the thrust of the article. Actually, I posted it because it will have an impact on American credibility in the future and the willingness of the west to trust US assertions without evidence. That is the significance: Not in terms of Iraq but in terms of future crises five or twenty years ahead. If you don't understand that, go ahead and enjoy an intimate physical relationship with yourself.
that was directed to the former ambassador not you.
Apologies. I’m tetchier than normal because it’s been a long week and some of the related articles have been much more blood pressure provoking than this one. Sorry...
Apologies. I’m tetchier than normal because it’s been a long week and some of the related articles have been much more blood pressure provoking than this one. Sorry...
Damning of Sir Jeremy and other beaurocrats involved in the enquirey, I presume you to mean.
Why Sir Jeremy thinks a “great majority” of the UN had to agree escapes me. For that matter, how can a government action be legal but illegitimate?
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