That would be news to us. We were the 500lb gorilla in that fight, we forced them to the table and stared them down while they signed it.
The UN has no viable military force unless the US is involved. Look at how well they've done since we cut back our presence in UN fiascoes since 1993.
When people want to feel good about pretending to do something about a world hot-spot they call the UN. When they actually want something done they call the US.
It really is that simple.
The honesty is refreshing, but you can't have it both ways. Either you can run the line "the USA respects and enforces international law!" or you can run the line " ha ha, we have all the guns, we do what we want!". Pick one.
I do find it interesting that I have never yet run into a poster who ran the first line but, when challenged, didn't switch to the second. I look forward to finding a counter-example to the theory that those who claim the USA respects and enforces international law universally have no actual ethical commitment to international law.
Here's the fun part: The Iraqis agreed to this stipulation when we hit them with it at the table. They snuck in an exception for helicopters that they used to put down the Shiite uprising, but we wanted to get out of there.
Citation needed.
Funny thing about that. The Iraqis only sent up four planes up after Desert Storm for 2 reasons: First, they'd be destroyed before they got their landing gear up, and second - they flew their air force into Iran during the war. Iran kept the planes because they've hilarious that way.
A serious question: Do you actually know what you are talking about, in which case you are being deliberately deceptive? Or are you just repeating things you heard on some stupid web site without bothering to check them?
I mean, it's not hard to look at Wikipedia. The "no fly zone" business went on for years and included extensive attacks on non-belligerant Iraqi installations, as well as installations firing on invading warplanes (which by law they were absolutely entitled to do, since there was no UN resolution authorising those planes to violate Iraqi airspace).
Anyway, it's not a non-sequitur. The UN's mishandling of the WMD issue left a large enough gray area for us to drive an Invasion Force through. More to the point, had Iraq simply complied the war never would have happened.
No. There is no grey area. Absolutely nothing in international law says anything which by even the most determined misreading could be taken by a rational human being to mean "if random nation X violates a UN resolution, then random nation Y can conquer them and set up a puppet regime of their choosing".
It didn't have to. The US and the Coalition forces set up the No-Fly Zone WITH the Iraqis...then they shot at us whenever it tickled them to do so. They did so knowing we'd shoot shoot back. It got so bad toward the late 90s that we started dropping bombs filled with cement to save money.
Do you see any ethical problem with posting this kind of revisionist history? Personally I see truth as being morally important.
Only 4 Iraqi planes were shot down after the cease-fire. Force protection is always implied in any cease-fire or armistice agreement. We didn't have to spell it out, nor did the Iraqis in the case of their continued unfettered flights of Hind gunships after the war.
Implied in a cease-fire is that the other side won't come over to your side of the line and kill you. Also that the other side won't cross your line and fly around in your airspace threatening to kill anyone else who takes to the air, let alone actually doing so. That is not "force protection".
By your logic the Iraqi air force, if it had the capability, would have been
completely within their rights to fly around continental US airspace shooting down US warplanes if they felt like it, and blowing up any anti-aircraft installations that targeted them, and indeed blowing up any that
didn't target them. How anyone can believe that such a thing is by any stretch of the imagination compatible with a cease-fire is beyond me.
So you accuse us of flying around guns blazing when the fact is that Iraqi gunships flew combat flights against Shiites in Basra unmolested by our cap.
Why was that?
We honored the treaty that WE signed. We blasted Iraqi AA sites because they failed to honor the treaty THEY signed.
Here is the text of 687, which you claim was the legal justification for the NFZ programme. Which of the thirty-four points exactly do you think supports no-fly zones? Name the exact point or point(s).
heck, maybe the sovereign state of Iraq could gas those rebel Kurds huh?
