Is the offical line now that they 'thought' there were weapons of mass destruction poised to destroy us, but Saddam was an evil tyrant so it was okay anyway?
That might excuse assasination on some level (certainly not a legal one), but how about all those iraqi civilians that have been killed. I know that the US can't even avoid killing allies, so a few accidents were bound to happen, but the killing of civilians has been pretty indescriminate. Possible combatants have been targetted and killed without trial in a far from surgical manner. I'm sure there are some knee jerk patriots on here that will tell me that it was unavoidable or that these things happen in war, but I'm sure that the burden of proof is still on the US and UK governments. Our occupation of Iraq is illegal (the UN resolutions cannot apply). Use of Iraqi oil assets is theft (the rebuilding contracts are not ours to allocate). While things like this call go on in our name (after the largest public demonstration against a government policy ever in the UK) this isn't a healthy democracy. I don't approve of 11/9 or 7/7, far from it. I just don't think that there is a logical link between them and waging war on Iraq. Afganistan maybe. Harbouring terrorist organisations is something that the US knows all about. Ask Nicaragua.
I know that I will get a lot of flak for these views, but I am fed up with the stagnation on the UK forum and wanted to have a real debate about a real issue. please don't think for a minute that I don't respect anyones sacrifice or that I dismiss the cost in human life that all 'sides' have suffered in recent years. This is about the legalities and the justifications. If they aren't important anymore then democracy has taken on a new meaning. |