Hate, Actually
Hitch muses about what the international community should have done during the lead-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom:
The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime
And people wonder why Bush doesn’t do a better job, or at least seem to care about trying to get people on his side.
It would seem almost anything is too big a job for the UN, but I think it’s worthwhile to make some noise about the key role played France and Germany in the invasion–namely, their behavior guaranteed that nothing short of actual invasion would get the job done.
Except for stealing taxpayer money, tim.
other member-states have been invaded
Hitch would be more persuasive if the U.S.A. wasn’t the current reigning world champion in this category.
My recollection is that the September 2002 U.N. speech was quite effective. Bush changed the terms of the debate from
Before 9/11, as a journalist I wrote to Bush, Blair, and Annan to ask, “Under what conditions should a country forfeit its sovereignty?” I got no answer.
If you want to shake up the U.N., ask that question very loud, very often, and with very many voices.
…um, it turns out Saddam never had wavelength division multiplexing either…
sbw,
Just brainstorming here. As a nation, we believe that a government derives its authority from the consent of those it governs. This consent is expressed through free, fair, and frequent elections. I’d suggest that any government whose legitimate authority cannot be verified by such elections is entitled to no expectation of sovereignty.
Not that anyone’s really interested in what history books will look like a few years from now, but…
Does anyone else here get a low-lying pain in the pit of their gut from all this crap? C’mon: 18 UN resolutions flouted, umpteen billions fleeced, God knows how many tortured/maimed/murdered, and we still beat our OWN asses up about taking this asshole and his asshole wannabes out?!
Thank God for 5 uncles in WWII, the History Channel, Military Channel, Bio Channel and Int’l Hist Channel, or else I might start losing faith in keeping the faith with a pack of wusses. Add my 26 years and my wife’s 22 years of service and it makes for a whole lotta pissed-offedness.
Either see it through or get the hell out. Either way, knock off the hand-wringing.
Funny, I thought we did ask just that. Some agreed, some didn’t. Some answered the call, and some didn’t. Then we had to decide for ourselves whether to undertake the transformation with the help available.
The UN tried the route of the New World Order and ignoring sovereignty and it failed in Somalia.
In Kosovo we tried it again and, uhhhh, we’re still waiting for the final results of whether its cool to rip territory from a sovereign.
For Bush’s war, we had a case-fire and a UN resolution….it’s probably the least illegal war of late (Afghanistan excepted.)
I seem to be in the distinct minority, but I’ve always considered this war to be completely justified from the moment US and British fighters were fired upon in the no-fly zones. If that wasn’t a violation of the cease fire, I don’t know what is.
Of course, if you go way back in history (to 1991) – the U.S. and Iraq were continually at war from the time the first planes lit up the skies over Baghdad. The First Gulf War did not end with an Iraqi surrender – it ended with a cease fire, contingent upon Saddam obeying certain rules and proscriptions which, of course, he flouted immediately. (Such as the constant attempts to shoot down U.S. and British aircraft in the no-fly zone). OIF was merely the resumption of an interrupted conflict from 1991. We really didn’t need any more useless resolutions from the U.N.