GW & Blair to be tried for war crimes?

[Mr N8]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...war_protests_6

Is this truely political, or is it a result of skewed media? From what I have seen / read, the Coalition has operated within the bounds of the rules of war. Seems rediculous to me. Any other thoughts?

n8

[juppy]

It just looks like somebody else trying to make a name for themselves off of the increased media coverage of the war, IMO. AFAIK, coalition forces have done nothing outside the rules of war. Besides, Saddam was given chances to declare his weapons and he did not take them. He was told ahead of time if he did not declare, that this war would happen. He chose not to act on it.
One quote that I found kinda strange:

Amien Rais delivered a letter to the U.N. building in Jakarta demanding that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair be tried in an international court "for their unjustified use of force against the people of Iraq."

Since when is this war against the "people" of Iraq? It is against a dictator that abuses his power and his people. It is about freedom FOR the "people".
If it were against the "people" of Iraq, we wouldn't be worried about going door to door in Baghdad, but instead we'd just carpet bomb the hell out of the whole city. The fact that we're using precision guided missiles instead shows that we in no way want to injure or kill any Iraqi people if possible.

[drisley]

We're trying to keep Saddam from killing the Iraqi people. This guy's off his rocker if he thinks otherwise.

[Paul Victorey]

N8, I think the main issue is there's a questionable legal stance as to whether the coalition could legally attack Iraq.

War is only legal if there is either UN approval or in self defense, and neither of these criteria is well defined. The UN approval is a tricky issue, Iraq has been officially been declared in noncompliance of resolutions, which have said member states may use "any necessary means" to enforce, so there is a case for the legality of war. At the same time, it's not clear under UN regulations whether this is enough for a war, or whether the UN has to specifically grant approval at the time the war is called for. Further, the goals of the coalition are to do more than to just enforce the resolutions; a regime change is beyond the scope of the UN resolutions, so using those resolutions to justify war is a little legally gray.

Similarly, what constitutes attacking in self defense is also up for debate. It is clear that more than just a threat is necessary (almost any nation has the potential for being some kind of threat), but the UN rules don't explicity say that the other nation must attack first. It's kind of like any kind of self-defense -- I can't punch a guy in a bar because he might hit me, but if he takes a wild swing at me and misses, I don't have to wait until he actually hits me to counterattack.

So there is a gray area with regards to the legality of this war, and some people think we're not legally justified, and thus war criminals, for starting this war.

Personally, I don't buy that, but I do think the UN needs to make criteria that are unambiguous, especially because there is no analog to the supreme court to interpret the rules for the UN.

Of course, the reality of the matter is that, as founding members of the UN, we aren't bound by any of its rules; we could cover Iraq in a sarin haze and the UN would be powerless to do anything about it because the US and Britain could veto any resolution that punished them.

[TimPoet]

This article merits no comment. The bottom line is Saddam is evil and Bush is good and the evil will be destroyed.

[Hot Rod]

I sort of expected this to come up. Not that I agree with it at all. I just expected someone else to attempt to throw the war crimes accusation back in our face.