[dogscoff]

Actually, that does not make it illegal. The UN is not the source of legality.

Correct. As of Last week, the source of global legality is whoever happens to have the biggest army. That really does not make me feel confident about the future.

- Because this war give a sign to the rest of the world that WMD is the only way to carve out your place, so that no one can touch you.

If this war succeeds, it will give a sign to the rest of the world that developing WMDs will only get your regime toppled, no matter what the world opinion is.

But this war is not about WMD. It was about 9/11, until no-one believed it. Then it was about WMD for a while, but no-one believed that either, so then they changed it again to "liberating the ppl of Iraq." Now that no-one really believes that either, they just mumble some crap about UN resolutions and the Last war and storm in, guns blazing.

This war does not give those countries to invade those regions/countries.

Really? Tell that to the Turkish tanks massing on Iraq's northern border.

This war isn't about conquest, for god's sakes.

It is, although indirectly. It's about installing a US-friendly government on top of those oil fields and flexing America's military muscles.

And welcome to the 21st century. Tibet is already a part of China. It has been for a long time. Also, Russia is seriously starved for cash; it sure isn't going to wage war with all of it's neighbors with a underfunded undermaintained army.

Some of the examples might not hold but the point does.

- Because the world is against it, when they would have let the inspectors do their work more, it could have led to more cooperation in the UN. (but this is an opinion, noone knows now)

Because the world is against it? Wow. That's cirtainly going to stop superpowers in their tracks. World opinion certainly stopped Serbians from raping and pillaging Bosnians.

Whatever weight world opinion used to have has now been stripped completely away by Bush's steamrolling of the UN. This is a step backwards, not forwards.

- Because fighting a war for the wrong reason is always wrong (USA should be honest about their goals: Oil, power, supportive regime) not a democracy and the better for the people, cause these are not the real goals.

You really have to stop seeing this as a war of conquest.

You really have to stop believing pro-war spin. This is a war about conquest.

Harmful israeli policies? I'm sure you'd march up to Tel Aviv and tell Ariel Sharon to stop killing Palestinians, after they've killed members of your family and close friends.

Someone needs to. Retaliation only results in counter-retaliation. Hate begets hate and the violence only escalates. Bulldozing palestinian townships does nothing to dissuade suicide bombers, it only breeds more.

tesco: There's no way saddam is going to escape punishment,

He will. He'll kill himself and/or dissappear, just like Bin Laden. I'd put money on it.

esp. with any mistreatment at all of american soldiers, or reports of soldiers with holes shot in their heads. I seriously doubt he will survive this war.

Emotive stuff, but I refer you to the "captured troops" thread, shows quite clearly that the US has absolutely no claim whatsoever on the moral high ground when it comes to human rights against prisoners.

My only hope is that the loss of lives on both sides is minimal, andthe ensuing blowback during occupation is also minimal. I want to be able to fly again sometime soon without feeling unnecessarily freaked out (but that's my problem, I guess...)

If you want to fly safely, try to come up with ways to reduce anti-american sentiment in the rest of the world.

I'm no expert but I'd say that threatening and attacking other nations on the "justification" of flimsy (sometimes falsified) evidence, undermining international law, ignoring popular global sentiment, polarising the middle east into muslims vs non-muslims, establishing puppet governments (afghanistan) and abusing human rights is probably not the best way to achieve this.

[ March 26, 2003, 11:11: Message edited by: dogscoff ]