Thank you Rowan. I share your opinion. My new slogan is "Bush: Pull out!! You came already!

This has been a very distressing time for me. The points that Dr. Wolf makes about the naivete and ignorance of the American public concerning the war in Iraq has been demonstrated repeatedly by the people I have spoken with. I feel like a stranger in a stranger and stranger land. People otherwise intelligent -- and cynical -- appear to have swallowed the conservative spin on Iraq. It's not surprising to me that people make broad, sweeping judgements on flimsy evidence -- this seems to be a common human weakness -- but it disgusts me that they would do so with a matter so important. It doesn't seem to faze people at all that so many civilians are dying as we hunt down one man. Apparently Iraqis are not as valuable as Americans. Also, it has to do with proximity, I think.
As Dr. Wolf was saying, facts are dismissed. In my experience, it's been almost impossible to edify people when they've already become saturated with the Administration's double-speak (e.g. "facts" are "propaganda" and vice versa).
Equally distressing are the arrests that have been made of the protesters in Portland (130, last I heard). And the violent responses they've encountered from the cops. Of course this has been spun by the mainstream news as "provoked" by the protesters. Funny how it's the same way we talk about Iraq.

The war has been taking so much out of me that it disturbs me too much to follow it. I don't want to hear any more death counts, I don't want to know about the latest ambush, I don't want militaristic details. It's just all too much. I'm fatigued.

AAAAAHHHHH!! I have to scream periodically to keep myself sane. I completely agree with what Rowan is saying (I have encountered the same ridiculous statements myself) "I didn't support the war before, but now that our troops are there, I have to support it because I support our toops" Yeah that really makes sense! How are you supporting them? What exactly are you fucking doing to support our troops who are dying needlessly so that the elite ruling class can get richer? Hanging a flag outside of your house or on your car isn't going to prevent our soldiers from returning home in fucking body bags. Whoever says they support our troops so therefore must support the war is stupid. The only way to support our troops is by pressuring Washington into bringing them home!!!!!

You mentioned: "While the US expressed desire to "take out Saddam" at that point, we stopped because it is illegal to overthrow an existing government."

Could you point me towards support for this statement? I.e. its illegal under what law from what body? And how you know that that specificly was 'our' motive?

Thank you!

In response to Tim's question, I cannot link you directly to the series of documents about "stopping" in 1991. I am relatively confident that the actual agreement is in UN documentation. My recollection of the reports and analyses I've read, are that when the Iraqi army ceased aggression against Kuwait and withdrew back into back into Iraq, a cease fire was agreed to with the stipulation of sanctions against Iraq. These sanctions included Iraq dismantling its long range missle capability, and destroying their nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Inspectors were allowed into Iraq and the sanction regimen was instituted. Therefore compliance in agreement with the cease fire.

The 1991 defense of Kuwait was a UN Security Council approved action for Iraq's prememptive and unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

Under international agreement, all member nations of the United Nations agree to restrain from preemptive attack of other members (Iraq is a member of the UN).

By those same agreements, the US and UK are currently in violation of this agreement because we have engaged in a preemptive, unsanctioned, attack on a fellow UN member without the authorization of the UN Security Council. This is why there are discussion at the UN and in the Security Council about how to address the action of the US and UK. A number of these meetings have been televised by CSPAN.

Hope this helps provide some clarity.

Sorry, missed the last part of your question. Actually, I don't think that was all of our motivation. However, it was (as I recall from Bush Sr.'s statements at the time) the reason given for our not pursuing further attack against Iraq, and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Rowan,

Thank you for taking your time to attempt to answer my questions. I understand the pro-war argument is that (a) the requirement was that Iraq disarm, not merely allow inspectors in the country, and (b) what is happening now is a resumption of Gulf war hostilities, not an unprovoked attack.

In an attempt to resolve these issues for myself, since I asked this question, I've been reading over the related U.N. resolutions. I've read quite many but not all of the resolutions (and still need to read the charter). I've not yet located the basis for illegality.

As far as I can trace the UN resolutions, in 678 "All member states co-operating with ... Kuwait" are to "use all necessary means to uphold resolution 660 (Iraq: leave Kuwait) and *all subsequent relevant resolutions* (emph mine) unless the such conditons were "fully implemented".

The only place I might guess illegality could be inferred would be 687, which mandates cessation of hostility conditioned upon destruction of all prohibited weapons within 90 days of the resolution. (Not mere inspection.) The Security Council remains "seized of the matter"... until I guess around 1441.

I can see arguing that 687 was not fully implemented -- seems the weapons inspectors felt that way when they left in frustration years after the 90-day deadline. Even the UN security council agreed with this (I just discovered while writing this) in 1441 which explicitly states that Iraq *did not comply* with 687.

So it would seem, unless someone else can point me to some other part of international law, any basis for illegality would need to be found somewhere in 1441 which remains the final word on the matter.

Rowan, I wrote to you because you seem impassioned, and you seem like you might be an intelligent spokesman for your position (unlike so many I encounter). I do thank you for trying to answer my first two questions as best as possible.

Most sincerely...

- Tim

Tim,

From the perspective you are taking (conjoining this war with the previous "desert storm" action), you might be able to argue an ambiguous illegality.

BUT, I believe the illegality of this war, which I have seen directly referenced in alternate media sources (and which I will research and post here if I can retrace my own personal internet meanderings) has more to do with a seperate invasion pre-empted by us, based on a cache' of biological and long-range weapons, which we have yet to locate. As a member of the United Nations, Iraq exists as a sovereign nation. This means that it is entitled to protection by, and the respect of the articles of United Nations mandates. According to these mandates, no country can invade another in an unprovoked attack. I have actually read this in a website while researching a refugee paper I wrote last term. I really WILL try to locate the exact language.

Linking this current invasion and removal of a government by the US and the UK, to the past removal of troops in Kuwait, seems like reaching to me. I would agree that the current President views it from that perspective. But, our operation "Iraqi Freedom" was completely unsolicited by the residents of Iraq, and flies in the face of our previous policies of not engaging in pre-emptive action abroad for anything other than humanitarian aid. This of course would not include covert operations, which we all know exist under all administrations.

So, we are probably dealing with an issue of semantics and perspective. I think linking the current operation to a completion of the unfinished business from 1991 is reaching, but you may disagree. And, I would argue that whether we agree with the humanitarian policies of an administration or not, in the past we have stood by watching college students get plowed down on TV (Tiennamen Square), and opted not to respond due to the idea of a sovereign state (not ot mention the potential fallout).

I will try to find the relevant information to back up the idea of sovereignity and post it.

I also want to thank you for your careful and intelligent points, versus the occasional insulting or aggressive stances that sometimes find their way into forums such as this. You are clearly a rational thinker.

To get back to the original thoughts raised by Dr. Wolf in her genuinely felt writing, perhaps we are experiencing the fallout of decades of under-educating "the public" with regards world history, US historical involvement in other nations (plus our own hazy legacy regarding the founding of this nation), the depth of US corporate financial links to international organisations such as the IMF, World Bank, and others, all who seek to shape the economic and political structures of foreign nations, etc. etc. The "average" American holds easy "opinions" parroted from CNN and the evening news, never realising the direct corporate links between our media and conservative "think tanks" that shape public perception on everything that happens in their lives. The wake-up call will come, as troops come home with "syndrome" illnesses caused by dropping our own depleted uranium bombs on Iraq (as we did in 1991), and find the Bush administration cut their health benefits (as he did in tax/budget cuts last week); it will come when we continue with the "business" of war in Iraq, sending in US companies to rebuild what we have destroyed, alienating other countries in the process, further polarising world public opinion against America; it will come when we realise the extent of hatred we have sown for this country that no amount of "homeland security" can protect us from; it will come with increasing cuts in public spending, met with more Americans marginalised financially. As challenges to the American public's perception of isolated "security" are challenged over and over, and threats to "our way of life" become our way of life, as it is in many parts of the world today, some people will start to have the life experiences required to actually begin to change public "opinions" into public reality, and then perhaps we will begin to observe the sea-change necessary to address the seriousness of the US government's challenge to global stability.

Ok, I'm still working on this issue of whether the US prememptively attack Iraq is a violation of UN Charter and therefore illegal.

First, according to Kofi Annan (as well as a number of other UN representative) this action is a violation. This is a quote from the Inter Press Service (I actually found it reported a number of times, but this was the most credible) Iraq decision will ring throughout region
QUOTE: Annan "also warned that if the United States were to attack Iraq without returning to the Security Council, such a move would violate the U.N. charter."

This was issued in a statement on 3/10/03.

Here are some pertinent parts of the UN Charter. The entire Charter is avaialble at UN Charter

The following are directly copied from the UN Charter:

Article 2
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Article 53

1. The Security Council shall, where appropriate, utilize such regional arrangements or agencies for enforcement action under its authority. But no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council, with the exception of measures against any enemy state, as defined in paragraph 2 of this Article, provided for pursuant to Article 107 or in regional arrangements directed against renewal of aggressive policy on the part of any such state, until such time as the Organization may, on request of the Governments concerned, be charged with the responsibility for preventing further aggression by such a state.

In response to the question about Security Council Resolution 1441.

Here is the link to the full text of Resolution 1441 from the UN site.

Here is the link to the UN Security Council site.

Now I know that our collective memories are short, but.... When the US pushed for 1441 it originally wanted the condition that if Iraq failed to comply with 1441 then they would be open to immediate military attack. The SC would not go for it, so the resolution was re=written several times until it would pass. The SC would not make war an automatic action for lack of complete compliance.

This raises 2 issues. One, it is clear that US interpretations aside, there was no implicit approval of military action. That was not the intent and had to explicitly be removed. Two, neither the SC nor the chielf inspector Hans Blix, agreed that Iraq was out of compliance with 1441. Indeed Blix made several statements that he saw Iraq as complying and that good progress was being made.

Pamela,

Goodness, you don't have to do that! I'll probably figure it out for myself, if its out there, given enough time. But, gosh, thank you nonetheless.

"Ambiguous" is precisely what I'd concluded, based on 1441 and other recent UN resolutions.

The pro-war side could argue (a) the resolution called for dire consequences if material breach is found, (b) material breach did occur (I'm not very smart, but I could find quite a few just reading over it), and (c) it agreed the Security Council would reconvene, which they did.

On the anti-war side, one can point most clearly to the lack of agreement among the Security Council. But this begs two questions:

(1) Given the disagreement, personal sentiments aside, who's in the wrong? How do you determine? To what other body do you appeal when the Security Council goes off in different directions... ?

(2) Had agreement been reached, it seems most likely, from what I can determine, that the agreement would have been to use force: as best as I can determine, the vote was very close to approval, if not for Chirac's unconditional veto threat.

If so, it would seem that one would have to argue that illegality is not found in invading a soverign nation but rather in doing so without explicit approval.

But, of course, this totally contradicts what happend in Kosovo and Afghanistan. And possibly Somalia, where we went beyond our stated mission and moved off into a smaller-scale 'regime change' mission with local leaders.

I can appreciate the idea that nations are soverign, and should never be invaded by other nations. But I'm not seeing a consistent application of this principle. And if we grant caveats to this principle, such as to justify invading Germany because Germany invaded another nation years earlier, then we'd also be justifying, if one argued "resumption of hostilities" actions in Iraq -- while still leaving the Kosovo actions un-justified. Not to mention copious such actions taken by the French army over the past decade (and more).

Perhaps the relevant law resides elsewhere.

I was amazed anyone besides Rowan was still watching this thread... I didn't expect your responses.

Thank you again,
- Tim

Rowan,

Wow: Not only is this thread still active, but you were composing a follow-up response (two actually) while I was writing the previous one. Thank you for the links!

Implications of 1441: I agree with you completely: 'Automaticity' was not implied by 1441, as explicitly stated by Powell. On the flip side, as explicitly stated by Chirac (to Powell), ultimate use of force was certainly also understood, given material breach. So while I agree with you on the automaticity issue, based on the exact same criteria (verbal statements of understanding by the signatories) I must disagree with you about use of force not being implied.

Further, even if we had no extra-resolution statements to mention, "serious consequences" would certainly seem to imply force, at least as best as I can understand it. What else could it mean to a nation to whom we've already done everything peacefully possible? Iraq was already under a (supposed) near-total boycott. What else remains? Disdainful, withering stares?

Statements by Kofi Annan or other UN officials are no more relevant to international law than non-executive statements from George Bush are to US law. If he's also a legal expert (I'm not aware of that credential), then it might carry some persuasive weight, but ultimately such statements are (legally) nothing more than Mr. Annan's personal feelings, to the best of my understanding.

UN Charter: Ah, now here we have something good! Thank you! A strong "illegal" case could be made by quoting "[N]o enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council" alone. Also see article 33.

A pro-war response to that would probably be that we were carrying out the intent of the use of force implied within 1441, or perhaps had Saddam's support of terrorists and assisination attempt against GHBush would have constituted a threat. I'm not persuaded yet this is a stronger argument.

Thus, I think I'm tenatively persuaded that you've got a valid point that our actions are either illegal (if we only look at the action without express UN approval), or at least a not-quite-kosher move (if we can believe 1441 implied use of force and that material breach occured, and that previous resolutions already had implied resumption of hostility). Like when buying a car, I'll have to think on this a bit more; but I think you have something here.

Uniformity of application: To completely assume illegality, just for the sake of argument:

It would also seem, from the text of the U.N. charter, that the nations of China, Russia, France, Germany, and Syria would be under the exact same condemnation as the U.S., having clearly violated Article 2, paragraph 5 by knowingly selling prohibited materials to Iraq during sanctions:

5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.

No, of course: two wrongs don't make a right. But neither is it just to remain mute to nations undermining the sactions while condemning the US for attempting (in its view) to fulfill the implications of 1441 without the explicit approval of the council.

If indeed, the US is in the wrong, then where is the moral outrage towards these other nations that contributed to this mess we're in by violating the exact same charter?

And where was the moral outrage over Kosovo?

I'm not trying to change the topic here: I think you may have a valid point about illegality.

But if so, then why didn't we protest Kosovo and talk, in equal terms, about what a heartless jerk Clinton was? And Chirac, and Shroeder? And Kofi, who will condemn one violation but enables others? (Such as his verbal approval, after the fact, of France sending troops into Ivory Coast in December in violation of (a) their own stated treaties, and (b) this exact same body of law?) (In fact, it would probably also implicate Kofi, since the charter doesn't give him, as far as I can see, this kind of authority.)

Second, while illegality would certainly condemn the manner in which we arrived at the present situation, it isn't at all the same thing as being anti-war. Would we all be agreeing with this war if the security council had authorized use of force, as George Bush tried to get it to do?

Or would we instead still be protesting? Perhaps saying that the UN security council was a farce, "bought", as it were? If we would have been against the war should the UN have approved it, we would be saying we thought the UN had no moral authority. And thus undermining the exact same arguments we make today; implying our support for UN law is today more a convenience to prop up our "real" issue (anger at use of force in Iraq) than a true principle in which we believed unconditionally.

No?

I don't mean to be a goad, but the issue is important to me: If we're going to be against the war, and we say UN-based illegality is a primary reason, then (a) we should see il/legality playing an equally important role in our thinking about other conflicts in history, and (b) we must say that we would have been in favor of it if the UN would have agreed, lest we are revealed to be only using this particular argument as a prop, but not really believing in the underlying principle (for the UN as moral arbiter) that we just passionately appealed to.

Extraneous rant: The UN web site, including and especially the charter area, has atrocious web usability issues.

Again, thank you so much for being an intelligent spokesman for your position, and for the courtesy and respect you have paid me with your answer and the time and energy it took you to compose it.

And I hope we all find something else more amusing to do this weekend, as well. :-)

Thanks!
- Tim

Pamela,

Oh, one quickie: "Linking this current invasion and removal of a government by the US and the UK, to the past removal of troops in Kuwait, seems like reaching to me."

Okay, I respect that.

It doesn't seem like a reach to me because 1441 itself linked itself with those actions. It says "Recalling..." and then names the very resolutions I'm citing. I believe there's a connection because the UN resolutions in question say there is one.

- Tim

Tim,
You raise some good points and challenges, and I do think that this is a critical discussion I wish was occuring in the corporate media (hopefully by folks with more expertise on this than us). Anyway, even though the "use of force" was not ruled out by 1441, it was clear that the SC would need to 1) decide if a material breach had happened -- which they did not agree on, and 2) would then have to vote on a course of action -- which ultimately never happened.

I disagree, that the votes would have been there. The whole reason that the US/UK pulled the final resolution on a war vote was because there were not the nine votes needed to pass the resolution. The manuevering on this was all over the news. If they could have gotten nine votes -- even with the veto of France (a permanent SC member) then it would have added moral weight to the decison to invade. It was better to have no vote than to have a disapproving vote.

On a totally different line... it is not just the illegality under UN Charter (and I agree that site is awful), but I know that there is a historical agreement about preemptive war and assasination of the head of state being "illegal." No I don't know what or when, but my memory seems to say after WWII. If I ever get caught up with my life, I'll try to track that down ... or maybe someone else knows?

YAHOO FOLKS,
Finally found a substantive statement of the illegality of this war at a site I happened on last week The Center for Cooperative Research -- a very good site.

Anyway, the document link is Invasion of Iraq is illegal. They cover (specifically) both UN Charter and international law.

Hello Tim,

Since Dr. Wolf has done my homework for me (sorry, a tough first week getting used to my classes), she has saved me the trouble of posting the less weighty information I tracked down on the illegality of our pre-emptive strike. The things I found were from Common Dreams, Alternet, and sources that you might not have accepted as easily as the concise information Rowan unearthed.

I enjoy this type of discourse, and had a real "aha!" moment when Rowan mentioned that it would be nice to see our mainstream media contemplating the duality of international politics in the manner that we are. I think it is important to keep researching and thinking!

I believe you hit upon a truth that you may have not realized you were identifying--the vagaries of global politics!! Policy seems closely linked to potential profitable outcome, in my mind anyway.

I happen to work rather closely with the Somalian community, tutoring a family and also beginning to work with a young Somalian man who is trying to organize a center with valuable programs for the population here in Portland. The military action we took in Somalia was an offshoot of an effort to provide humanitarian aid. We committed to providing humanitarian aid to a country wracked with starvation and overflowing with refugees, the troops were brought in to protect international aid workers from insurgents who infiltrated the refugee camps, often holding civilians hostage within the camps and forcing the unarmed aid workers to feed them along with the refugees. It escalated due to aggression (and confusion), but was never an OVERT, pre-emptive effort to topple a regime or invade and remove a head of state.

A good (simple) explanation of the Somali crises is available at this link from a completely mainstream source (the LA Times) at:
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V113/N48/somalia.48w.html and an even better site for the worldwide refugee crisis (to which we are currently adding) is clearly explained at my favorite site: www.refugees.org/news/fact_sheets/

So, it cannot really be compared (in my opinion) to the current Iraqi crisis. I will defer to your feeling about the link of 1441, though, as I think you have a good point there.

Now, I have to address your comments regarding the purported "violation" of sanctions to Iraq by Germany, France, Russia, China... I am a bit confused. Are you talking about violating sanctions prior to our invasion? And if so, please elaborate, I have not heard this accusation DURING sanctions, but am admittedly not too well read on the issue prior to the war. If, indeed, this did occur, did WE violate the sanctions? Was food for oil a violation?

With the assumption that these countries violated sanctions, I could see censure, but still don't see their actions as destructive (or threatening to life) as ours, or contributing to "the mess we're in" as I would argue that we went into this mess prior to exercising all available options, and after making demands on the international community that were tantamount to blackmail.

And then I would just have three words to add here "Iran-Contra Scandal," where we violated our own stated foreign policy to sell arms to Iran (a country we were at odds with), while explicitly forbidding any of our allies to do so, and funnelled the proceeds to insurgents in Nicaragua. A good little site on the particulars of this activity is: http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/irancontra.html

You talked a bit about the irrelevance of Annan's comments. As an official and member of the UN, I might agree that his statements don't hold legal relevance in the context of a decision-making statement, but I would certainly lend weight to statements of any Heads of State or members of international law-making entities as representative of conclusions drawn by parties involved.

You make a good point of questioning the illegality as the sole reason many protest this war, butI think most people who admit to this minority conviction (such as myself) would readily admit that this is only one element of our personal bias against this action. For me it is a matter of U.S. Foreign policy hypocracy, mutability, a healthy mistrust of our motives based on historical record, and the violation of international law.

Phew...I think that's all I can drum up for now!

Pamela,
Thanks for the thoughtful response, but also for the links to good information. I ewally appreciate folks sharing sources. There is so much out there that it is difficult to find everything.

Pamela, Rowan,

First, I want to apologize for disappearing for a while... I had started typing a response and lost the browser, and decided to put it off 'till later.

Rowan on discourse: Yes, I agree, its wonderful to see discourse like this, with civility, in some depth. I don't think "corporate control" provides nearly as obvious a reason for its absense from the media as "short attention span".

Pamela, on Somlia: I agree, my reference was a bit tangential -- Iraq is not terribly like Somalia. Thank you for the links -- I intend to read them soon, when time permits again.

Pamela, on sanction violations: Certainly, I'll be glad to provide references. First, let's recall what happened: UN resolution 661 prohibited any trade except for medical food, and humanitarian supplies, and resolution 986 allowed some minor oil to be sold in order to buy these items. Radios? Telephones? Guns? Night vision goggles? All forbidden by the UN.

First example: This German report, compiled from the Iraqi WMD declaration, shows how Schroeder's government knowingly supplied military and dual-use equipment to Iraq during sanctions.

Second example: this article more violations we've heard about on the news: how modern Russian military technology has been found in Iraq, and Washington says it has "credible evidence" they were supplied by (duh) Russians, as well as implicating Ukraine, Belarus, and arms dealers in a host of mideast and eastern-bloc countries.

Third example: the BBC reports that Russian firms broke sanctions by selling missle parts to Iraq, and that the Chinese supplied Iraq with fiber optic missle control and launching networks. (I'd heard rumors of this back as far as '95.) Also references the 80 German companies mentioned previously.

Fourth example: France was just discovered to be selling military parts to Iraq, though, unlike in the previous articles, there is no comment as to whether Washington thinks Paris knew about the deals.

I could be wrong, but I suspect we'll be discovering more information about this soon. Censure? Sure sounds like a good idea. But I think you'd have to censure a good portion of the Security Council -- and there are hints a few of our own companies may have been involved too (though we're at the end of the list, read the BBC article), but, honestly, from what I can find Germany/Russia/China seem to have the most guilt.

Regarding Iraq/Contra: I was a bit young when that went down, but I'm not partisan about these things. If what was done violated the same rules, then the same penalties ought to apply.

Were these actions destructive to life as ours? Goodness, the allegations are of selling military hardware (not just Sony radios, which would also be prohibited) and bio-, chem- and nuke- related components to a force which has been known to invade its neighbors -- and use what it has. If nothing else, these violations contributed to the suffering of the Iraqi people by helping to convince Saddam that the sanctions weren't going to keep him from getting what he wanted -- and thus extending the sanctions. (Imagine one kid is smuggling snacks to the other who is "doing time" in her room and you get the idea.)

Think about the German firms who built underground bunkers for Saddam: Did that added feeling of invincibility embolden him to continue to flaunt international law? To risk US/UN military action? Had we not have invaded, would the increased muscle or better missle technology led to the invasion of a neighbor or a strike on Israel? What is or would the human toll of these effects?

Illegality and morality: I'm still stuck on the legality thing. I think I've decided our actions are certainly questionable, but am still confused about the legality issue, much less morality. For example...

Today, I read a post by Colin May which points out that "the US is the only country that has ever attempted to obtain UN approval for international military action. The list of countries that have not includes all permanent members of the Security Council along with such diverse nations as India, virtually all the Arab states, Turkey, Argentina, most African states, Vietnam and Pakistan, and the list continues."

If military action without UN approval is illegal, we've got a lot of company in our cell! Again, not saying this proves wrong/right, but its a darned interesting point!

So I was pondering: Well, what if what we did just plain was illegal, at least by UN standards? What does that mean?

On one hand, I'm suspect I'm speaking to people who would look askance at breaking one law -- even something we can all agree upon like "no sitting down in an intersection" -- if they thought a "higher moral cause" was being served.

And I guess I'd have to agree with that principle -- that human law isn't ultimate -- whether or not I agreed with a particular application.

Thus, I have to ask myself: "Is the UN moral? From whence does it derive its moral legitimacy? Has it acted in a moral fashion?" The parting of ways over 1441 causes there to be some question about the morality of the stances taken by its members regarding that debate.

But regardless, we have very little question about the morality of traffic law in the US. I mean, I understand breaking tresspass laws on a military base if somebody thinks something more illegal/immoral is going on there. (I'm not saying I agree, just that I can understand the argument.) But I'm having more trouble with blocking unrelated traffic: punishing people who have to pick up their kids, etc, for something going on elsewhere.

And even if I buy that, then whence international law? If even agreeable traffic law is to broken because we want protest, then what of international law?

So you see the conundrum I'm faced with here.

Last, I've been trying to do a "gut feeling" evaluation of the morality of our actions. My heuristic is pretty simple: Which way kills the least people, in the short and long run?

We'll see how it comes out when the war is all over, but I'm guessing we'll have a hard time aruging that military action (war) was more 'immoral' by this token then 12 grueling years of sanctions @ 60,000 kids per year. Not to mention however many bodies Saddam did (or did not) pile up.

And, well, its hard to argue with the looks on the faces of the people in the streets this morning -- genuine joy, from what I can tell: this stuff didn't look scripted to me. I hope they are doing well, I want their hard times to be over. History will tell us more soon.

Pam: Really good links and arguments! Thank you very, very much. And as always, a tip of the hat to Rowan, who allows us to natter upon his blog pages. :-)

Bless ya's...