Iraq and legality again Re: [extropy-chat] Professor Being Sued Over Anti-Aging Comments

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> The tragedy of Iraq was that it shows the level of
> thinking
> that we (humans) were capable of through our institutions.

Would it be accurate to restate this as follows?

The problem was that the only legal course of action, was to allow
Saddam to continue his butchery.  Almost any student of history can
cite the long list of problems that can arise when we allow powerful
people, like the US President, to discard the law whenever they find it
convenient, even if only for the noblest of intentions.  Indeed, "rule
by personal whim" may well describe the root of the problems with
Saddam's government.  However, that discarding is exactly what happened
in this case, when we intervened.  The problem, therefore, is in the
precedent for abuse that this sets up, the future cost of which may
well exceed the lives that were saved by this action...and in the fact
that we could find no way to stop Saddam while still maintaining
legality.

(In fact, such a way may have arisen, had Bush stuck with the UN
negotiations just a bit longer.  As was pointed out at the time, with
Chirac threatening to veto any UN-sanctioned military action, Bush
just needed to get on record that said veto would happen no matter what
evidence Bush supplied - at the time, Chirac was not yet contesting the
evidence's veracity, so the fact that it now seems to have been
manufactured was irrelevant at the time - and then cite the UN's
charter, cite that France's veto placed the UN in abeyance of its own
charter, and thus show that the UN was itself breaking its own laws.
Bush would then have been in a position to legally invade Iraq, to
enforce the pledges it had made to the UN, even over the UN's official
protest.

Iraq would have been invaded in the end either way.  Anyone who does
not see a significant difference between this scenario and what
actually happened, is failing to understand what is actually being
objected to.)