[extropy-chat] Re: Iraq and legality again

[Brian Lee]

I think it's just international law which is "mythical and magical". You 
can't have law unless it is formed by a sovereign entity and enforced. What 
we currently have is like contract law. And you can't break contracts if 
they were never mutually agreed upon.

BAL

>From: Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Iraq and legality again
>Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:32:01 -0700
>
>If law becomes "mythical and magical" or worse then we are lost.  The  
>biggest brute force rules, for a time.
>
>But I see the point that its legality is not particularly the point  now.  
>The point in my view is that we went there based on lies, had  grossly 
>incorrect notions of how it would go, have lost more money  and lives to 
>chicanery and greed, and we will continue to lose in  most every way as 
>long as we hang on to the tar baby.  We are  apparently acting like fools 
>making decisions on the basis of sunk  costs and sentimentality.
>
>Me?  I would throw some arbitrary amount of money in for the Iraqis  
>possibly under oversight of the UN to patch the country back together  and 
>get the hell out.   Say $50 billion or so.   Of course if I  really 
>believed peak oil is far too real and that the shit was about  to hit the 
>fan in energy and various other ways then I would hang on  to my position 
>there no matter how broken in its reasons or current  results.
>
>- s
>
>On Jun 23, 2005, at 8:58 AM, John K Clark wrote:
>
>>"Brett Paatsch" <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au>
>>
>>
>>>would be *very* interested in seeing the best possible argument  from the
>>>American side, indeed from the Bush administration, that it was  legal 
>>>(not
>>>amateur hour stuff but the real thing from a lawyer or legally savvy
>>>person who knows the case)
>>>
>>
>>Well.. to each their own, but personally I would not find an  argument 
>>about
>>the legality of the Iraq war the least bit interesting. As it  turned out 
>>the
>>war was indeed wrong, but not because it violated some mystical and  
>>mythical
>>thing called international law, it was wrong because it was  incorrect,  
>>the
>>Iraqi people did not treat the Americans as liberators and all the  war 
>>did
>>was solve a problem that turned out not to be a problem at all,  Weapons 
>>of
>>Mass Destruction.  As for International "Law" (really international
>>suggestions) and the war's legality, who cares.
>>
>>  John K Clark
>>
>>
>>
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