SJ_Skyline

according to Mr. Annan!

Tony, you need to remember the line - I have no clear recollection of that event

the moose

A bit more important than Basil Brush and his posse, isn't it? Yet what are people more riled about?

Leslie

It was stated by the UN Chief at the time but The Allies just were not prepared to take any notice of what he said. Did not suit their agenda of course!

Les

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

So does this mean that Bush and Blair will held on war crimes charges.

ajm

Proabably not, they will most likely "do a Chirac" and change the law to make themselves immune!

TopBanana

No because Mr Annan has no power to officially declare the war illegal. It's just his personal opinion

Suresh

The UN has [unfortunately] proven itself to be irrelevent. Their dithering over Iraq allowed for unilateral action. UN dithering over Sudan is about the same. Ineffective and irrelevent. Where is the UN, what are they doing?

Why doesn't Kofi do something useful and declare the UN irrelevent and ask for unilateral intervention in Sudan? Such inaction would IMHO justify that someone else steps in to the mess into Sudan and does the right thing to stop the ongoing humanitarian disaster. I can't imagine who that fool would be though after criticism levelled at those who bother to act? Better to just sit there and let it happen then.... Useless bastids.


Suresh

gsm1

Oh please! I forgot it was all about a humanitarian mission. Dithering over Israel never seemed to bother the US.
And Iraq is a real feckin paradise now!

bigJoe

Suresh is spot on,

Mr Anan’s and the UN’s lack of leadership and the UN’s lack of direction forced the situation to develop the way it did – the UN failed then and is still failing now.

He should be resigning in shame, not venting his spleen (for no good reason) in public.

As for the legality – anyone who has a vested interest can justify their position, what ever it is using various international agreements over the years, there is as many interpretations of those as there is people who have an opinion.


gsm1

Do you really think the UN ever cared about Iraq (or Israel)?

Brendan Hughes

Dead simple. Because there's nothing in Sudan worth saving, in the eyes of the countries that could do it. I think the only unilateral intervention would come from the immediate neighbours who'd have their eyes on a land grab of some sort at the end of it. Why risk, say, British or US lives for some poxy piece of Sahara desert?

Sierra Leone exports diamonds, Iraq exports oil, Bosnia and Albania export heroin and asylum seekers. Sudan?

Suresh

Don't disagree with you there, but please remember that there was no oil in the ex-yugoslavia and yet the US did in fact intervene rather agressively.

My point is that UN did bugger apart from procrastinate about Iraq and continues to do precisely the same about Sudan. "Koffie" Annan should indeed be ashamed about the fact that his organisation does nothing to help....

Suresh

Brendan Hughes

I told you - it exported heroin to Europe. And the US didn't want a nasty ethnic war on the doorstep of its biggest trading partner.

Actually, I think a little harder, and it could well have been because of the Commies involved... US acted to stop the possible spread of Communism. That's certainly their style.

akshay67

Calling the Scoobynet pro-war lobby...

Brendan Hughes

...and I'd like to recommend a book "Peacemonger" written by a UN peacekeeper diplomat (Marrack Goulding??) - but I found it boring as hell and gave up after the first few chapters! Great facts maybe, but unbelievably dry and emotionless presentation...

Chip

Surely not. The amount of time spent on fox hunting clearly shows it is more important to the Gov than War in Iraq.

Chip.

ajm

That's because peace is boring. Can you imgine how dull scoobynet would be if we all agreed!

Brendan Hughes

...yeah, be even duller if we all made the effort to understand what we argue about!

gsm1

Suresh conveniently fails to answer about US action over Israel. 35 years of calling upon Israel to withdraw from occupied territories and no action taken. No sanctions or embargos and the US regularly vetoes security council resolutions concerning Israel.

Suresh

Not really - I just chose to ignore you because your monotone, abrasive and agressive style doesn't really warrant a response.

Try again with a bit of civility and you never know what might happen...

Suresh

gsm1

Oh, sorry old chap.

Bit rich talking about aggressive style and civility from a man who sees nothing wrong in killing thousands of people in a foreign land because he believes they have to be 'liberated', whether they like it or not.

If you can't handle someone responding to your argument then don't bother posting in the first place.