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Edame
gone

Registered: 01/14/03
Posts: 1,270
Loc: outta here
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Perle concedes that Iraq war was illegal
#2125046 - 11/20/03 12:31 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Not exactly news to some of us, but I think it's still worth posting.
Quote:
War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal
Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger in Washington Thursday November 20, 2003 The Guardian
International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.
French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".
Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
"They're just not interested in international law, are they?" said Linda Hugl, a spokeswoman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a high court challenge to the war's legality last year. "It's only when the law suits them that they want to use it."
Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war, according to Rabinder Singh QC, who represented CND and also participated in Tuesday's event.
Certainly the British government, he said, "has never advanced the suggestion that it is entitled to act, or right to act, contrary to international law in relation to Iraq".
The Pentagon adviser's views, he added, underlined "a divergence of view between the British govern ment and some senior voices in American public life [who] have expressed the view that, well, if it's the case that international law doesn't permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the authority of the UN, then the defect is in international law".
Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the White House. Its main argument has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, which guarantees the right of each state to self-defence, including pre-emptive self-defence. On the night bombing began, in March, Mr Bush reiterated America's "sovereign authority to use force" to defeat the threat from Baghdad.
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that justification, arguing that the security council would have to rule on whether the US and its allies were under imminent threat.
Coalition officials countered that the security council had already approved the use of force in resolution 1441, passed a year ago, warning of "serious consequences" if Iraq failed to give a complete ac counting of its weapons programmes.
Other council members disagreed, but American and British lawyers argued that the threat of force had been implicit since the first Gulf war, which was ended only by a ceasefire.
"I think Perle's statement has the virtue of honesty," said Michael Dorf, a law professor at Columbia University who opposed the war, arguing that it was illegal.
"And, interestingly, I suspect a majority of the American public would have supported the invasion almost exactly to the same degree that they in fact did, had the administration said that all along."
The controversy-prone Mr Perle resigned his chairmanship of the defence policy board earlier this year but remained a member of the advisory board.
Meanwhile, there was a hint that the US was trying to find a way to release the Britons held at Guantanamo Bay.
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said Mr Bush was "very sensitive" to British sentiment. "We also expect to be resolving this in the near future," he told the BBC.
I guess it's do as we say, not as we do.
-------------------- The above is an extract from my fictional novel, "The random postings of Edame".
In the beginning was the word. And man could not handle the word, and the hearing of the word, and he asked God to take away his ears so that he might live in peace without having to hear words which might upset his equinamity or corrupt the unblemished purity of his conscience. And God, hearing this desperate plea from His creation, wrinkled His mighty brow for a moment and then leaned down toward man, beckoning that he should come close so as to hear all that was about to be revealed to him. "Fuck you," He whispered, and frowned upon the pathetic supplicant before retreating to His heavens.
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Annapurna1
liberal pussy

Registered: 05/21/02
Posts: 5,646
Loc: innsmouth..MA
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Re: Perle concedes that Iraq war was illegal [Re: Edame]
#2125080 - 11/20/03 12:45 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Surprise, Surprise, Surprise...
And since when does the junta respect the law, given that the junta itself is illegal??
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"anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...
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Xlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
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Re: Perle concedes that Iraq war was illegal [Re: Edame]
#2125301 - 11/20/03 02:29 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Funny situation when Perle admits it was illegal and yet the right-wingers who swallowed his justifications before the war will keep on believing them. The guy who formed the lie in their mind can admit he was lying and they still can't accept it to themselves.
They'll probably just think it was all Scott Ritters fault..
-------------------- Don't worry, B. Caapi
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infidelGOD
illusion

Registered: 04/18/02
Posts: 3,040
Loc: there
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Re: Perle concedes that Iraq war was illegal [Re: Edame]
#2125536 - 11/20/03 04:04 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal
at least the Prince of Darkness is honest, unlike some of his underlings in this forum.
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RandalFlagg
Stranger
Registered: 06/15/02
Posts: 15,608
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Re: Perle concedes that Iraq war was illegal [Re: infidelGOD]
#2125689 - 11/20/03 05:37 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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at least the Prince of Darkness is honest, unlike some of his underlings in this forum
Am I missing something? I have yet to see any of the "conservative" members of this board blindly supporting the Iraq invasion. Not all of us are these horrible "neocons" that we keep hearing about.
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!


Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
Loc: High pride!
Last seen: 8 hours, 46 minutes
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Re: Perle concedes that Iraq war was illegal [Re: Edame]
#2126117 - 11/20/03 08:52 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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I hope this will be devastating for the Bush Administration.
Because what's bad for the Bush administration is good for mankind most of the time.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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