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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata slogan of the day If “International Law” is more important than saving the lives of innocent people now and in the future, by:
- Liberating the Iraqi people,
- Preventing Saddam from invading and attacking any other places in the future,
- Making sure he can’t develop nukes, not even in secret, and can’t give them to international terrorist organisations…
… then all I can say is, fuck International Law.
– Alice Bachini
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Hopefully, you include saving the world as a whole from Saddam or his ilk? Any sort of tyrant that has the capacity to unleash a war leading to the destruction of another society or culture for whatever reason is a danger to all the world especially now such as sarin botox, and whatever other nasties one might have kicking around! All the world is threatened by the tantrums of idiots and other petty squabbles. There MUST be some sort of a policing enforcing body to deseat the bastards if the people cannot.
We should invade Iraq tomorrow, but of course. However we should also surround the U.N. building and arrest and try every axis of weasels collaborator and hang them alll outside the disgraced building. Starting w/ kofi (Rwanda) and finishing w/ Yoska Fischer. Therby turning it from a debating society to a silent protest, once and for all!
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. Bachini sums up superbly the sentiment that so many of us feel.
“fuck international law” means you want to eradicate important agreements between nations. The result could be a World War III to discuss instead of do or do not invade Iraq.
Saddam got severly punished in 1991 for the invasion of Kuwait. Who else has he invaded or threatened since? Saddam is a monster, but he is not the only monster. Attacking him now may be a tactical error.
His behaviour with his WMD appears less deadly than America’s own record using Napalm over Vietnamese villages, drug and weapons trade in the 80s and installing and supporting idiots like Saddam and bin Laden.
Sorry to disagree, but if everyone agreed with you then the world would end.
because i’m sure no country would like to attack us under the pretense of liberating us from moral bankruptcy, preventing us from invading and attacking any other places in future, or stopping our production of nukes and distribution of them to our allies.
you can’t just randomly interpret law from case to case. you have to be mindful of setting precedents.
Anyone who thinks “international law” ever prevented, now prevents, or will ever prevent the US from being attacked by any enemy is deeply, profoundly mistaken.
International Law is good stuff though. Despite its problems, it’s done good things over the past century.
ok, so it’s hard to think of examples. but general free trade, military alliance type stuff.
It’s probably worth it to break it in extreme cases, but it’s a consideration because it is worth something.
“it” being international law. just to clarify.
I’m all for saying “Fuck You!” to international law. There’s just one minor problem.
Ratified treaties like the UN Charter are no longer merely international law. Once the U.S. Senate signs off on them, they’re AMERICAN LAW. (I’m not sure how this works in the UK — somebody fill me in.)
So when the USG plays all these games, it’s violating “international law” — big fucking deal — but it’s also violating national Rule of Law.
This is not OK. We have a word for governments that systematically violate their own laws — you all know what it is.
The obvious workaround for this is for the U.S. Senate to formally withdraw from the UN and back out of all these worthless treaties and organizations. I wonder if the politicians actually have enough spine to do this.
I agree w/ TJ; if you’re going to break it you must un-ratify it. The US has done enough of changing its laws (ie THE CONSTITUTION – if you think it’s impractical, you need to pass an amendment) without doing it within the rule of law; it should start doing it the right way now.
In essence, any resort to war says “fuck international law”. I
It’s a good thing we have charters to try to keep order between nations, but international law is a shaky abstract observed more in the breach than anything else.
International law has never been able to curb tyranny. Where was international law, or its sanctions, whatever they are, when Saddam deluged Kurdish villages with chemical agents whose effects are still killing people today? Where was international law when 1.5million Rwandans were massacred in a genocide that the United Nations simply ignored? And these are only a few recent examples.
Sometimes decent people have to fight to stop very bad things, ILLEGAL things, continuing unabated.
Nicholas:
“Sorry to disagree, but if everyone agreed with you then the world would end.”
Can you give me a historical example of a time when international law saved the world? I would be very interested to hear of one.
“International law says “fuck you” to Alice Bachni”:
International law is not a person, and if it was, wouldn’t care what I think. Nor would it save the lives of millions by being rude to me.
Who are you really, and why are you hiding? Although it would be flattering to be insulted by the leader of the UN, I rather suspect that’s just a disguise…
The problem with international law is that it is very strongly based on the cases where people are willing to come to an agreement and can resolve thigns peacefully if given a place to chat – such as the UN. Furthermore, the presumption that countries should not invade each other in and of itself prevents some conflicts that would otherwise happen. However, it is clearly ill-adapted to deal with cases where there are simply evil people determined to do evil things, such as Hitler and Saddam Hussein. That is one of the reasons why the League of Nations failed and why the UN is creaking at the seams now.
The other reason is that France and Germany are run by a bunch of gutless cowards who are more interested in making vast sums of mooney by selling Saddam stuff with which to slaughter people in large numbers than they are in destroying his evil regime.
Alan –
I again question (I did above for someone else) the validity of the accusation that France and Germany are motivated by selling weapons to Iraq. For one thing, the argumentatively charitable thing is to not assign selfish motives to anyone, not Bush’s oil or France and Germany’s weapons. For another, one should not toss around such accusations unless there is evidence for them. If you have evidence / sources, please cite them.
Also, I doubt such motives sort of abstractly because France and Germany’s economies are just massive compared to Iraq’s and especially compared to any benefits they would get from Iraq’s weapons programs. Perhaps unusually influential people in Fr. and Ger. are unusually helped by Iraq’s weapons, but that seems far-fetched to me.
(above being defined as in a comment box for an above article)
Somebody get me a lawyer here. I’ve heard that nonsense about the US signing away it’s sovereignty many times, from the right and left (saying the US has no choice but to follow UN dictates). So way back in the 1940s a generation of American lawmakers volutarily signed away their own power? That may fit well with a European audience, but no matter how stupid an American lawmaker is, there is NO WAY they would have signed a treaty limiting their own power, especially in the 1940s. Use common sense about government in general. Also, here’s a question: all these arguments say that since the Senate ratified the UN treaty, it is US law. So anytime a UN resolution goes against say, private weapon ownership or limits free speech, it must be followed? I think not…in a similar fashion the power of Congress to declare war trumps any treaties.
Malex,
I don’t think the speculation about France and Germany selling weapons systems to Iraq as an explanation for their recent behavior is based on how much they stand to gain economically if the sales continue.
I think it’s based on how much they stand to lose diplomatically if Iraq’s leadership is defeated and investigations into their programs reveals that France and Germany have been involved in knowingly furthering Iraqs WMD programs.
Gil –
That’s an interesting proposition; I’d have to see more information to know if it’s true.
I know a good way to find out.
War? seems like a big step for an academic question :-p We should do more investigation first. (sez the lazy bum who has other stuff to do :-p)