This board has been a little to quiet for while.

Is it time that Bush and Blair who is a close friend and confidant of Bush were tried for War Crimes?

Do you think the use by the American Administrations of renditions are War Crimes and committed with full knowledge of American and British leaders ie. Blair and Bush and they are ultimately responsible?

Also in the aftermath of the illegal invasion of Iraq are should their action seen to be as the provocation for the rising toll of British, American and Iraqi deaths.

As a result of the military intervention in Iraq do you think you are safer in Britain to-day?

Do you think one should expect government leaders and ministers who have been responsible for massive foreseeable casualties should visit the hospitals to meet the casualties they have produced directly or indirectly by their actions?

me behave, lol, a very serious thread and you just post half naked women (very nice though)

I'll try and stick to the NOWT thread :-)

Missing the point, kivver.
All the terrible things you talk about exist. there is no denying that. But it was equally bad before. Ask the shi'ites and Kurds. If you don't believe them, ask the Arab neighbours who despised the way the Iraqis were treated, but put their faith in Allah to solve it all.
The real point is that there is now an end in sight that was never there before. Saddam and his evil regime are gone. This is a good thing. honest. It will be replaced by a government of the people, through democracy and iraq will rise from its own ashes.
This will take time. Generations of people who have known nothing other than the rule of brutality will use brutality to their own ends, but this will die away.
Nobody has ever said that war was a nice solution, or an easy one, but it was a necessary one and possibly the only one (maybe Fred has a suggestion on how things could have been done differently but he has failed to tell us what it is yet, even though i keep asking).
What every single opponent of the war has failed to do is to enlighten the rest of us how inaction would have made life better for the Iraqis who were made to drink petrol before being shot by hussein junior, so they would explode (he's a card isn't he?). or for the Kurds who were gassed because they disagreed. Or the political opponents who were shot. or the villagers who were massacred en masse because Saddam thought someone there was plotting against him.
How the rest of the world could believe a leader who kept saying "We aint got no WMD, honest Guv", while threatening to use them and acting furtively every time the UN came to check. How the UN could ever have any influence if every dodgy regime in the world had watched while Saddam did whatever the hell he liked as the UN fell out with itself.
The stock response goes along the lines of either "It's not very nice to kill people", or "Bloody yanks, who are they to throw their weight around. they're not perfect themselves".
The responses are tedious. Killing people is a last resort, but alas a necessary one sometimes in the real world. The whole Iraq debate has descended from sensible discussion to a flag for those who dislike the USA and/or tony Blairs premiership to march under. You know I have a deep seated hatred of the USA. I also have one or two problems with TB. But I do not confuse the issues with what should or should not have happened in Iraq. Nor do i criticise the judgement of others when i am unable to offer a better alternative.
Katcenka. If you study the world capitalist model you will be aware that your suggestion would lead to either margins being forced to increase fourfold to make up the losses, leading to rampant inflation and mass unemployment or a complete reversal of the idea of investing money in business as the returns became less attractive. The first would lead countries like ours to the brink of bankruptcy, leaving us unable to offer foreign aid. the second would lead to less and less efficient industry and eventually the collapse of capitalism as all the worlds wealth was withdrawn from production and wealth creation.
As I said. You start by handing your investments over to Oxfam. I think you will find they already have a massive stock portfolio, including HSBC, and they know a bit more about how to solve global poverty than you or I.
Alan

amazing...welcome to fantasy land

What a superbly educated and beautifully argued response.
And your workable alternative is................?

workable alternative - the same as the rest of world, including france and germany, do not go there, just to make a country much worse than it was before, i agree with getting rid of saddam but surely there must of been a better way of doing it.

But leaving him to get on with it was to sentance thousands of Innocent Iraqis to death by torture and the survivors to fear and poverty. It was to allow a homocidal madman to continue with the weapons programme he bragged about and just cross our fingers that he was lying.
For me, that would have been a deriliction of our duty to protect the weak and vulnerable.
If we applied that argument consistently, then Europe would have been divi'd up between Hitler and Mussollini, the Falklanders would have lived under the Argentine Military Junta, God alone knows what the Kosovans / Serbs / Croats would be going through, the entire far east would be under Nippon rule, Spain would be a communist hell hole under Franco instead of a holiday destination and a prosperous nation. The list is endless.
What we would certainly end with is a morass of states, ruled by the ruthless doing whatever they wished because "we wouldn't go there".
The rest of the world argument is something of a red herring. Those that knew best (the immediate neighbours who had most to fear, and in most cases hate the west) welcomed us with open arms and supported the efforts. they knew only too well the regime we were dealing with.
No. The "not our problem, Guv" approach is not really an alternative.
Alan

dont forget the preceedent it sets and all the other mad mullers around the world, which country is next, the sudan, zimbabwe, and lots more im sure you could roll of the tougue.

But the other precedent is to give carte blanche to every leader to do as they wish.

so why irag and not sudan then whoes muderous regime could be argued to be worse than irag, oh i forgot no oil in the sudan.

No. There is no reason to suspect the Sudan of developing WMD. There was every reason to suspect Iraq of same.
The oil issue is a smokescreen. It has cost more to the UK and USA to prosecute the policy than could ever be gained by controlling the Iraqi oil (most of which is in Kuwait anyway).
Alan

Do you think there is an element of paranoia in USA/Blair and others view of the world?
After all paranoia could be said to be projection of ones own covert or overt motivations.

Just asking?

Do you think there is an element of paranoia in USA/Blair and others view of the world?
After all paranoia could be said to be projection of ones own covert or overt motivations.

Just asking?

Not in the Blair camp, and not in the USA camp over this issue.
The USA are famously paranoid of all things that are not Moms apple pie, but in this instance I sincerely believe that the Allies made the only decision open to them.
It is not a nice decision, but it had to be made. The alternative was indecision, which is exactly what Saddam, and others who were watching wanted.
Had we gone the French/German route of no action, then the brakes would be off. their would be no threat, and therefore no control over Iran / Sudan / Israel / Zimbabwe / Korea et al. All the other loose canon states.
The Tyrant is a bully by nature. If you turn the other cheek and walk away, the bullying gets more intense. If you stand up to him, you may well get a bloody nose, but you discover he is a coward and the bullying stops.
The world really is like a school playground in this respect.
I know we disagree, Fred (hopefully respectfully), But negotiations with Iran continue, and I believe Iran would have told the world to piss off if we had been unable to deal effectively with Iraq. After all, what would be the Iranian motivation for negotiation?
Alan

The Tyrant is a bully by nature. I agree, but who is the big boy with all the weapons and using them to further their immediate desires.

This is the nub of the disagreement, in many ways.
I believe the desire of the UK/USA and others action was to try to protect the world from Iraq sponsored terrorism, ensure that no WMD were available to that regime and give Iraq a chance to throw off the tyrannical yolk, become free and more prosperous.
You believe it was done for the oil. I cannot find a good economic or political reason for this, but on that point we must differ.
The economic cost of the war has far outwheighed the savings on getting oil (or an alternative) elsewhere, and most of Iraqs oil is under kuwait anyway (which is why Kuwait was invaded by them in 1991).
If the war was as illegal as you claim the political risk of offending all the other oil producing nations and losing out to them diplomatically would be too great to allow for the action.
For my money, Saddam and the Iraqi regime were the bullys, albeit of the very weakest kids in the playground. The allies have used their strength to stop that bullying and send a warning to other bullies that it will not be rolerated.
Alan

It matters very litle whether Iraq had WMD as they would have had. It was only a matter of time. They had the cash and the will to develop them or buy them.

hewitt - "the war was not illegal."

So that makes it OK, then? Whether it was legal or not is really immaterial, isn't it?

The occupation of France by German forces in 1936 was not technically illegal either as the correct papers were signed asking Germany for protection- and Marshall Petain acquiesed with Germany to run his country.
However, acts by the French resistance to kill German soldiers and to allow Allied soldiers to escape were illegal. Do you condem them?

It seems to me that your lumping all Iranians or all Iraqis or all muslims together as legitimate targets for killing, is just as bad as muslim extremists lumping togther all Westerners for the same reason.

You make a good point about offending other oil-producing nations; the fall-out from this is, I suspect, still to come. I have a brother who has lived in the middle East and still lives in Africa, and he insists that Arabs will avenge each other even though they may hate each other. Revenge is a dish best served cold...

Maggot I think your last statement is unfortunately true. I think the feeling with many there is more than one way to skin a cat.

I think a major thorn in the side will be Israel. How that will play out nobody knows.

Maggot. The war was not illegal. There. Said it again. It was mandated by UN resolution 1471. No argument over that. The argument comes from those who falsely label it an illegal act.
Quite where you gain this strange idea that i am some kind of closet racist is beyond me. I lived and worked in the middle East for some considerable time. I hold the people of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Ras Al Karmah, Kuwait and many other places I was proud to call home very dear. Back in the UK 2/3 of my salaried, non-director level staff are muslim and seikh. I have absolute non-racist pedigree that is beyond question.
i have merely pointed out that the leaders in some of those areas are not to be trusted with potential WMD. The Iranian Ayatollah should not be trusted with any weapon. It makes no difference whether he leads Iran or Switzerland in my book. It has nothing to do with his race, creed, colour, religion or nationality. it is about his declared aims.
Earlier there was a post claiming the correct thing to do was leave well alone in Iraq. I have done a little reading this evening to see if this is justifiable. I have deliberately avoided the books from anyone who has a position or opinion to defend.
After the first Gulf war in 1991, sanctions were imposed on Iraq by the UN to prevent a build up of arms, both WMD and traditional. I am assuming here that the economic sanctions were supported universally. The sanctions referred to all trade except healthcare, food and agricultural supplies. This was to prevent Iraq being in a famine situation.
Reports from the UN suggest that the allowed imports of food and medicines were illegally exported to provide for armament spending. Saddam, his family and his supporters lived lavishly.
Heres the rub. The Al-Mustansiriyia University of Baghdad reports the civillian death toll of Iraqis, from the start of the second gulf war to now as "around 100,000". This is an obscene figure. It is about 99,999 more than we would wish to see (sorry, but I don't much care about saddams fate).
The United nations Food & Agriculture Organisation report of December 1995 addresses the number of Iraqi civillians who had died needlessly due to starvation, malnutrition or lack of basic medication since the end of the first Gulf War. It reports the figure to be "around 1 million, with more than half these deaths being children under the age of 5".
It seems to my simple way of thinking that the war has made Iraqi life expectancy rise!!
Yes, conditions are very bad. yes there is violence of the type we could not contemplate. Yes it is not safe to go to the market to buy bread. I agree with all these things. But surely you must agree these figures are fairly damning reading for those who argue we should have left the sanctions in place and let the inspection team get on with it. And had we let the inspection team get on with it we had to leave the sanctions in place. How else would we bribe and cajole and persuade Saddam to co-operate?
So there you are. Simple evidence that Saddam saw death on a grand scale as a price worth paying to enjoy his grandiose living and his notoriety and infamy.
If we accept those figures (and why should we not) then surely we must accept that we had to do something quickly and decisively and however distasteful in order to bring about an end to the death and misery, not of thousands but of millions, that Saddam had inflicted on that country.
Alan