Was it legal to kill Saddam's sons?

[Seraphim]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2086023/
Was thinking of making this into a poll, but nah. ;)



Were Odai and Qusai Assassinated?
The legalities of killing Saddam Hussein's sons.
By Brendan I. Koerner
Updated Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 3:46 PM PT


The U.S. military has released post-mortem photos of Odai and Qusai Hussein, the two sons of Saddam who were slain Tuesday. Since the pair were major political figures in Iraq, do their killings count as assassinations, which are prohibited by the United States?


Not even close. The prohibition dates back to President Gerald Ford, who issued a 1976 executive order banning political assassinations after embarrassing revelations about U.S. efforts to kill Fidel Castro. President Reagan extended the ban with Executive Order 12333. But that ban doesn't apply to combat situations. According to most accounts of the Mosul raid, the American soldiers were fired upon when they entered the house. The moment gunfire was exchanged, the operation became a combat engagement, and anyone involved in the hostilities was legally fair game.

Yet even if the Hussein brothers had not engaged the American forces, their killings still might not have qualified as assassinations. During wartime, it is generally acceptable to attack figures who are involved in military operations, and it is widely believed that Odai and Qusai were helping to coordinate resistance to the American occupation. As long as the brothers weren't killed by treacherous means—say, by luring them to a peace conference, then shooting them—they are legitimate targets. A close parallel is the 1943 killing of Japanese Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto, who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. When U.S. aircraft* ambushed his plane, Yamamoto was the mission's sole target. However, because the admiral oversaw military operations against the United States at the time, the killing is generally not considered to have been an assassination.

Since Ford's order, the United States has occasionally targeted foreign heads of state for purposes of self-defense, most notably when American warplanes bombed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's personal quarters in 1986. The attack was in retaliation for the Libyan-orchestrated bombing of a Berlin disco in which two U.S. soldiers were killed. According to the Reagan administration, the United States had the authority to launch an attack under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which states that nothing "shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs." By this logic, Qaddafi was a combatant who was planning military operations and could be targeted just like Yamamoto.

A thornier question is whether the United States can legally kill terrorists, who lack formal affiliation with a particular nation. It's unclear whether war can be declared against a terrorist group, as opposed to a sovereign country, and that muddles the issue of what qualifies as combat or self-defense. But the ban on assassinations may be lax enough to render these concerns moot. Unlike a law passed by Congress, an executive order like 12333 can be amended by the president at any time. And since this one deals with national security, the president can make that change secretly.

Bonus Explainer:
The military claims that the publication of Odai's and Qusai's photos was necessary in order to prove to the Iraqi public that the pair were dead. But as Explainer noted in March, the Geneva Convention prohibits the public airing of pictures that might humiliate a combatant—the same justification the United States used to object to broadcasting interrogations of American POWs.

[budanski]

They were combatants in a guerrilla war. Arguably, the US has no requirement to demand their surrender before applying the maximum violence permissable under the circumstances.

It's also obvious that they were not all that interested in taking them alive. They could have stood back and waited them out as police usually would do with armed suspects, but they didn't have to and they did give them more of a chance than any of their victims ever had.

The reporter ignored simple facts. These would include:

1) Uday and Quasay were both head of military organizations. These include the Special Republican Guards, Iraqi Intelligence Sevices. That makes them legitmate targets.

2) Repeated attempts at negotiated surrender during the day

3) Saddam, his sons and the Ba'ath party members are no longer a recognized government or political party. Thus there is no political affliation involved.

4) The executive order does NOT state both in peace and WAR

[James]

Take the situation out of Iraq. Forget about these two being who they were.

Say some cops on a SWAT team are serving a high risk warrant. When they attempt entry, the suspect(s) open fire. The cops retreat and demand a surrender. They get shot at. They call in a negotiator. They get shot at. The decide to enter, and the suspect is killed when he attempts to shoot them AGAIN.

That is not assassination. Neither was this.

IMHO...

[ScoutRanger]

*YAWN*

[Ballistic]

Bonus Explainer:
The military claims that the publication of Odai's and Qusai's photos was necessary in order to prove to the Iraqi public that the pair were dead. But as Explainer noted in March, the Geneva Convention prohibits the public airing of pictures that might humiliate a combatant—the same justification the United States used to object to broadcasting interrogations of American POWs.

Who the hell cares about humiliating a corpse, or even if they were still alive, airing pictures of them being detained and interrogated ? They were arseholes. Ofcourse they didnt deserve to die the way they did.....I think a stoning would have been more appropriate.

[digitalghost]

HAHAHAHAH LOOK AT THE PHOTOS OF HTESE MOTHER PLUCKERS

http://www.msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?vts=072420032155

[NT]

You all need to substantiate the law you are posting. The executive order bans the assasination of heads of state. That means the one and only supreme leader of a country. For iraq that would be Sadam, but as someone pointed out correctly, the order does not apply in wartime. Simply put, the sons are not ocvered under US law

[SABER 2-3]

Not only is NT correct about that executive directive; but since executive orders, memos and directives do not fall under the U.S. Code therefore they may be repealed and resubmitted in the same breath.

[Zach R.]

First we knocked on the door asking if we could inspect no the house. No! We tried again. NO! So then we brought up the heavy stuff. We asked on the blowhorn "Come out with your hands up and surrender, and no harm will come". BANG! All we got back was a volley of gun fire. So, we returned fire. Not to mention it took 4 hours to get into the house. But remember, there were only 4 guys in there. Now ask yourself, how long do you think it would take for one hundred 101st Airborne soldiers to take out 4 guys? No longer than half an hour( that's just a guess). So, that means we probably tried for 3 hours to get them to come out. It wasn't an assasination, it was self defense.

[ibstolidude]

Actually it is my understanding that some people did exit the house and surrender - obviously not everyone.

[Haiw]

i have no problem with the US killing the 2 guys, but no offence, but aren't they doing EXACTELY the same as the iraqi's did in the beginning of the war? Showing dead bodies on tv for propaganda purpose.... not that i'm disturbed by the dead bodies of those 2 morrons, but..damn man...it so incredibly hypocrethical (is that an english word?)

[duck]

If you have trained to storm a house at some time, you will notice that the guys of the fire support detachment stand casually a short distance from the compound without bothering to take cover during the firing of the AT missiles. They are not pointing their weapons at the house and are standing upright. Just an observation...

[usa320]

Some poeple still dont believe they are dead, so i think it was necessary to at least try and prove it by all possible means...

How they could say it wasnt him when they pulled a matching metal screw out of his leg from a 1980's assasination attempt is beyond me.

Anywho, i imagine they will probably do the same with the corpses of Saddam, Osama Bin Laden, and Mullah Omar... Mainly because people over there are so brainwashed with propaganda that the only way they will believe it is to see it with their own eyes.

[a. enders]

Who gives a rats ass?They be dead,they was evil,that's it all done be. :|

[Mortimer]

did anyone think if the whole war was illegal?

[Ballistic]

did anyone think if the whole war was illegal?

Does anyone care what you have to say ? Fellow Australian or not, I think you're a bloody idiot. But ofcourse, you are always entitled to your own opinion.

[spier]

did anyone think if the whole war was illegal?

Does anyone care what you have to say ? Fellow Australian or not, I think you're a bloody idiot. But ofcourse, you are always entitled to your own opinion.Balls, the war was clearly illegal, that is not a matter of opinion.

[budanski]

Of course not! If you want justification, The only bodies that can declare that the war was illegal are the United Nations Security Council and the Supreme Court of the United States. The US Congress properly authorized the war last fall and nowhere did the UN declare that what we did in Iraq was a violation.

Even so, "International law" is a fiction. There is no such thing. There are international treaties that were properly entered into and ratified by the Senate that then have the force of US law, but there is no over-arching "government" of international proportions that has authority or power over sovereign nations. Unless it can be shown that the war somehow violated US law, it was the sovereign act of a sovereign nation acting properly under its own laws, and therefore BY DEFINITION not "illegal".

[Ballistic]

did anyone think if the whole war was illegal?

Does anyone care what you have to say ? Fellow Australian or not, I think you're a bloody idiot. But ofcourse, you are always entitled to your own opinion.Balls, the war was clearly illegal, that is not a matter of opinion.

Clearly ?? I don't think it's been proven at all that the war was "illegal". Not justified perhaps under the idea of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, but there has been no ruling by any court or body of people to say that this war was illegal.....please if there has been, do tell, and I will retract what I have just said.

[DPM95]

Since they have not got the intelligence to leave the country before, I think they deserve to die. Natural selection.

[duck]

Yep, they probably just went to Syria to catch up on summer fashions and soda and then came back voluntarily.

[Saranof]

Well, if it's all down to all the horrible things people did, Henry Kissenger would feel kinda quesy now.

[spier]

Of course not! If you want justification, The only bodies that can declare that the war was illegal are the United Nations Security Council and the Supreme Court of the United States. The US Congress properly authorized the war last fall and nowhere did the UN declare that what we did in Iraq was a violation.

Even so, "International law" is a fiction. There is no such thing. There are international treaties that were properly entered into and ratified by the Senate that then have the force of US law, but there is no over-arching "government" of international proportions that has authority or power over sovereign nations. Unless it can be shown that the war somehow violated US law, it was the sovereign act of a sovereign nation acting properly under its own laws, and therefore BY DEFINITION not "illegal".

*A war against the sovereign state of Iraq without the express authorization of the UNO is illegal under international law, running against the UN Charter and against the Resolution 1441.
*
*Under international law, Article 2, Paragraph 4 of the UN Charter is clear:
*
*All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations¦.
*
*Article 51 spells out the right of nations to wage war:
*Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security¦.
*
*Since Iraq has neither waged an act of war against the USA or UK and since international peace and security is put at risk not by Iraq but by the USA and United Kingdom, the provisions for self-defence are not met.
*
*Much is said by the warmongers about Resolutions 678 and 687 (1991), claiming that they allow a military attack to be launched against Iraq under the principle that their provisions were not met. However, the UNO does not enact ghost or voodoo resolutions, which are passed, acted upon, forgotten and resurrected twelve years later when the time is deemed right. If the context of the question is different, the Security Council has to deliberate a further resolution.
*
*This was the case with 1441, which under paragraph 3, instructs Iraq to ?provide to UNMOVIC, the IAEA and the Council-a currently accurate, full and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and other delivery systems¦. Iraq subsequently provided a 12.000 page report.
*
*Evidently, questions were asked about details and naturally, time is needed to reply. 12.000 pages and numerous weapons programmes involve a universe of materials and Iraq has complied consistently with the inspections teams.
*
*Under paragraph 4, material breach will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and 12 below. Material breach has not been reported to the Council, rather, the inspections teams have both stated that Iraq is cooperating and that they need more time to carry out their duties determined under Resolution 1441.
*
*The immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access guaranteed under Paragraph 5 of 1441 has been fulfilled by Iraq. Paragraph 10 Requests all Member States to give full support to UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates, including by providing any information related to prohibited programmes or other aspects of their mandates.
*
*The United States of America has not been forthcoming with this material, despite its many insinuations. There was even a ridiculous report presented to the UN Security Council by Colin Powell, who referred to foreign intelligence reports which turned out to be no more than a 1991 thesis copied from the internet by the British Intelligence Services and vague references, picked up by the biased western media, about links between Saddam Hussein-s Ba-ath regime and Al-Qaeda, never proved because they are untrue.
*
*Under Paragraph 10 of Resolution 1441, the United States of America is hereby challenged to produce the documentation behind these allegations. Should this documentation not be produced, the USA is guilty of lying to the UNSC or is in breach of its provisions.
*
*Under Paragraph 12, should the provisions of Paragraph 4 (failure to comply and cooperate fully with this resolution will constitute material breach, which is not the case) or Paragraph 11 (interference with the inspection process or failure to comply with the disarmament process, also not the case), not be fulfilled, the UNSC decides to convene immediately-to consider the situation and the need for full compliance of all of the relevant council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security.
*
*Fundamentally, Paragraph 13 continues, that In that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations.
*
*Not guilty. This has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt and under the fundamental elements of international law, fundamental equality in human rights is a basic, guaranteed principle. What is evident here is that the jury has been tampered with (veiled threats about suspension of aid programmes and economic consequences if members of the UNSC voted against the USA), that the UN Charter and International Law have not been followed and that if there is military action in which any civilian dies, the US and British governments will be liable under international law for prosecution for war crimes.
I don't see why the Supreme Court's apporval make the war legal. That's like saying Hitler didn't do anything wrong when he invaded Europe and killed millions of civilians simply because the German legal system didn't care.

As you said, no there isn't any supreme court of the world that can directly intervene into the actions of a sovereign nation. That isn't what I am arguing against either, what I am trying to get through is that the US violated their "agreement", or whatever you want to call it, with the UN by attacking Iraq. They broke the laws of the UN. If it wasn't for the fact that the world dependes more on the US than any other individual nation, then the decision to go to war would have had severe indirect consequences in the form of sanctions and the like. For an example on what can happen if you defy the UN(when the US is on their side) you might want to take a look at Iraq 91-03.

[warchild1/27scout]

if you want to get technical they violated the surrender they made in 91 so hostilities could have begun again anytime after that. just because we were nice enough to try to get world and un support does'nt mean if they say they don't agree the cease fire the iraqis and the us signed is'nt valid for some reason. point made. argument won. :slap:

[budanski]

The UN resolution terminating hostilites of Operation Desert Storm was effective only if Iraq honored its ceasefire agreements and the wishes of the UNSC. Since it was quite obvious that Iraq failed to live up to the ceasefire agreements it did not effectively end hostilites. The choice of not continuing hostilities was up to the coalition.

Also, Article 32. requires Iraq to inform the Security Council that it will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory and to condemn unequivocally and renounce all acts, methods and practices of terrorism;

Which clearly Iraq violated and failed to adhere to.

Article 34 says: Decides to remain seized of the matter and to take such further steps as may be required for the implementation of the present resolution and to secure peace and security in the area.

It states that further steps to secure the peace and security of the area maybe required, it states further steps maybe necessary.

If you want to get technical.

[spier]

Also, Article 32. requires Iraq to inform the Security Council that it will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory and to condemn unequivocally and renounce all acts, methods and practices of terrorism;

Which clearly Iraq violated and failed to adhere to. Really? Wow, that is, like soo cool. I mean, if it hadn't been for the pretty ****ing obvious fact that Iraq actually didn't break any of the conditions for the ceasefire, as the invasion of Iraq extremely crystal fecking clearly illustrated.


It states that further steps to secure the peace and security of the area maybe required, it states further steps maybe necessary. Again, the invasion pretty much defeats any argument saying that Iraq was a threat to the area, it also make all the "intelligence" reports look rofl'able.

[usa320]

There is a judge that says he has sufficient evidence to link iraq with terrorism...im dying to read that...this way i will be able to laugh at all the assholes who think iraq is innocent.

[hwgusn]

War doesn't care whether or not the Sons of Saddam are "political figures", the moment they picked up a gun, they became combatants. Therefore, they were legal targets. Learn the law, and stop talking so much.

[iamferdi]

War doesn't care whether or not the Sons of Saddam are "political figures", the moment they picked up a gun, they became combatants. Therefore, they were legal targets. Learn the law, and stop talking so much.

exactly :)

[Zach R.]

If I recall correctly, resolution 1441 authorized the use of force. I don't completely know the details. Here's my 2 cents. The UN sux.

[EliteWolf]

was this war illegal?

well, was using mustard and vx gas to MURDER thousands of kurds including WOMEN AND CHILDREN and against IRAN back in the 80s, was all that legal?

was the toture and murder of anybody who did not support saddam, was that legal?

:slap:

[budanski]

Really? Wow, that is, like soo cool. I mean, if it hadn't been for the pretty ****ing obvious fact that Iraq actually didn't break any of the conditions for the ceasefire, as the invasion of Iraq extremely crystal fecking clearly illustrated. For the record the 11 years of an imposed no fly zone on Iraq and Iraq's targeting of coaliton aircraft and attempted shoot down of coalition aircraft was a clear sign of Iraq's intention of not complying to ceasefire agreements. As well as the expulsion of U.N. weapons inspectors mandated under the ceasefire.


Again, the invasion pretty much defeats any argument saying that Iraq was a threat to the area, it also make all the "intelligence" reports look rofl'able.

If you want to ignore the fact that they invaded Kuwait, sponsors international terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezzbollah etc. and launched off missiles into Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

Even if you still refuse to believe those, you still can't deny their failure to honor and intentional violation of all UNSC resolutions requiring its complaince, their refusal to disclose complete and accurate information on it and their continued engagement of coalition military forces in the no fly zones.

[EliteWolf]

THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE WITHOUT SADDAM

LOOk at the thousands of mass grave sites throughout iraq, the last resting place of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women, and children, all murdered by saddams radical regime.

LOOK at the images of the kurdish towns in the north, the streets litered with bodies of the dead and dying, innocent victims of eithnic clensing, MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN.

LOOK at the torture chambers and prisons controled by the secret police, and hear all the thousands of stories of what went on in there by the victims themselves, those few that are still alive that is.

WHETHER SADDAM STILL HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRUCTION IS IRRELEVENT, BECAUSE HE HAS HAD THEM AND USED THEM AGAINST REAL PEOPLE, MORE THAN ONCE.

Have any of you ever seen what mustard and VX gas will do to a person, its a very scary, painful death, if you survive, you will live the rest of your life, ill, on your death bed, wishing that it would all end.

to even think that there are people in this world who would use such weapons on others is undescribable.

So, is it our duty to dispose of this monster before he has the chance to harm more innocent people? yes.

[Mortimer]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/mar2003/ilaw-m26.shtml


Prominent international legal experts regard the US-British invasion of Iraq as a clear breach of international law. Earlier this month the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva expressed its “deep dismay that a small number of states are poised to launch an outright illegal invasion of Iraq, which amounts to a war of aggression.”


According to the ICJ, such “a war waged without a clear mandate from the United Nations Security Council would constitute a flagrant violation of the prohibition of the use of force.” The commission emphasises that Security Council Resolution 1441 does not authorise the use of force. The ICJ standpoint contradicts that of US President Bush, who has continually sought to use this resolution as the basis for war.

Murswiek warns that the US is establishing a precedent with far-reaching repercussions. “When Bush says he is not required to ask anybody’s permission, this cannot just be attributed to the arrogance that comes with power. There is a legal issue at stake... If this standpoint becomes established and becomes a new rule of international law, then the general ban on force will have been done away with in a practical sense.”



It was not sanctioned by the United Nations and did not fulfil the criteria of legal defence. It is then said by many lawyers to be a war of aggression, which is an offence under the Nuremberg Charter


http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/03/19/boutros_iraq030319

Former UN head calls Iraq war 'illegal'
"This intervention is illegal," he told an audience in Winnipeg on Tuesday.
Boutros-Ghali, the Secretary General of the United Nations from 1992 to the end of 1996, fears the diplomatic struggle, and the failure to reach a consensus in the Security Council, will weaken the UN's ability to play a central role in such future crises.



There's stacks here i don't really have to look....

[Mortimer]

THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE WITHOUT SADDAM

LOOk at the thousands of mass grave sites throughout iraq, the last resting place of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women, and children, all murdered by saddams radical regime.

LOOK at the images of the kurdish towns in the north, the streets litered with bodies of the dead and dying, innocent victims of eithnic clensing, MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN.

LOOK at the torture chambers and prisons controled by the secret police, and hear all the thousands of stories of what went on in there by the victims themselves, those few that are still alive that is.

WHETHER SADDAM STILL HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRUCTION IS IRRELEVENT, BECAUSE HE HAS HAD THEM AND USED THEM AGAINST REAL PEOPLE, MORE THAN ONCE.

Have any of you ever seen what mustard and VX gas will do to a person, its a very scary, painful death, if you survive, you will live the rest of your life, ill, on your death bed, wishing that it would all end.

to even think that there are people in this world who would use such weapons on others is undescribable.

So, is it our duty to dispose of this monster before he has the chance to harm more innocent people? yes.

Yeah
what about the other countries where this is happening? why not go there and topple the dictators?

[ibstolidude]

are saying that:

it isn't right to stop dictators
or
it is only right to stop ALL dictators
or
it is only right stop dictators in places you have little strategic interest
or
it is only right to stop the dictators that Mortimer chooses?

I'm not sure what the point is..I'm not arguing for or against but you comment added to your signature is very confusing...

On one hand you say there is no reason to have acted...then someone talks about autrocities and you say then why not act everywhere else this takes place too...then your signatures calls it imperialism..???

[budanski]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/mar2003/ilaw-m26.shtml


Prominent international legal experts regard the US-British invasion of Iraq as a clear breach of international law. Earlier this month the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva expressed its “deep dismay that a small number of states are poised to launch an outright illegal invasion of Iraq, which amounts to a war of aggression.”


According to the ICJ, such “a war waged without a clear mandate from the United Nations Security Council would constitute a flagrant violation of the prohibition of the use of force.” The commission emphasises that Security Council Resolution 1441 does not authorise the use of force. The ICJ standpoint contradicts that of US President Bush, who has continually sought to use this resolution as the basis for war.

Murswiek warns that the US is establishing a precedent with far-reaching repercussions. “When Bush says he is not required to ask anybody’s permission, this cannot just be attributed to the arrogance that comes with power. There is a legal issue at stake... If this standpoint becomes established and becomes a new rule of international law, then the general ban on force will have been done away with in a practical sense.”



It was not sanctioned by the United Nations and did not fulfil the criteria of legal defence. It is then said by many lawyers to be a war of aggression, which is an offence under the Nuremberg Charter


http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/03/19/boutros_iraq030319

Former UN head calls Iraq war 'illegal'
"This intervention is illegal," he told an audience in Winnipeg on Tuesday.
Boutros-Ghali, the Secretary General of the United Nations from 1992 to the end of 1996, fears the diplomatic struggle, and the failure to reach a consensus in the Security Council, will weaken the UN's ability to play a central role in such future crises.



There's stacks here i don't really have to look....

All conjectures with no OFFICIAL basings to it. Please show me proof of an official document from your beloved UN Charter, which declares that what we did in Iraq was illegal. Otherwise, these are conjectures of ex-this, ex-that that are just talking out of their ass like you.

[budanski]

ibstolidude, meet the village idiot/troll Mortimer. :D

[Nokkvi]

What would be a perfect world for you mortimer? One where European armies police the world? Be my guest! Sure It would be great to take out all dictators......but you'd wizz yourself over that as well!

[Mortimer]

well if you'd looked it says the Numermberg charter and resolution 1441.

There is probably more.

"The commission emphasises that Security Council Resolution 1441 does not authorise the use of force. The ICJ standpoint contradicts that of US President Bush, who has continually sought to use this resolution as the basis for war." - The UN never authorised his use of this resolution for as a basis for warr. Therefore illegal.

And ibstolidude you know what i mean don't act dumb.

Lol and a perfect world be where the US's foreign policy (which was designed by a pyscho) doesn't **** over the rest of the world.

[spier]

For the record the 11 years of an imposed no fly zone on Iraq and Iraq's targeting of coaliton aircraft and attempted shoot down of coalition aircraft was a clear sign of Iraq's intention of not complying to ceasefire agreements. As well as the expulsion of U.N. weapons inspectors mandated under the ceasefire.

If you want to ignore the fact that they invaded Kuwait, sponsors international terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezzbollah etc. and launched off missiles into Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

Even if you still refuse to believe those, you still can't deny their failure to honor and intentional violation of all UNSC resolutions requiring its complaince, their refusal to disclose complete and accurate information on it and their continued engagement of coalition military forces in the no fly zones.I thought it was mostly Syria that was giving handouts to Islamic extremists, at least I haven't seen any hard proof of a connection between Iraq and terrorist actions. Also, note that most of your "arguments" are outdated, and were dealt with during the Gulf War. The Iraqis claimed that the reason for them shooting at the aircrafts was that they deviated from the no-fly zone. Personally, I find it odd that the Iraqis could have any kind of AA in the no-fly zones since they were largely occupied either with Kurds or Sunnis..

The UN inspectors were let in again before the war started, that they were previously not allowed to stay there with "former" CIA agents in their ranks is not that hard to understand. As the aftermath of the war proved, the report on Iraqi weapons was accurate, so that they failed to comply with that part of the resolution is, mildly put, bull****.

While searching for a quote I found this comedy gold mine, behold:

'We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwait border and Baghdad, but [WMD's are] simply not there.?
Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, May 30, 2003

'Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that American intelligence had ?bulletproof' evidence of links between al-Qaida and the government of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.?
New York Times, September 27, 2002

'[Saddam Hussein is] a man who loves to link up with al-Qaida, a man who is a true threat to America.?
George W Bush, New York Times, September 28, 2002

'Barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq -- even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.
CBS News, September 4, 2002

?Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.?
George W. Bush, September 12, 2002

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.?
Ari Fleischer, December 2, 2002

Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical and biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using UAVs for missions targeting the United States.?
George W. Bush, October 7, 2002

?My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.?
Colin Powell at UN, February 5, 2003

?Not one illegal warhead. Not one drum of chemicals. Not one incriminating document. Not one shred of evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction in more than a month of war and occupation.?
The British Independent, May 18, 2003

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
- **** Cheney, August 26, 2002

?We know where they [WMD] are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.?
- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003

?There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.?
- Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22, 2003

?We know for a fact that there are weapons there.?
- Ari Fleischer, January 9, 2003

?[Saddam Hussein is] a man who loves to link up with al- Qaida, a man who is a true threat to America.?
- George W Bush, New York Times, September 28, 2002

?My guess is that most Americans believe we have found WMD's. Each potential find gets blaring coverage on TV; how many people catch the later announcement -- if it is ever announced -- that it was a false alarm? It's a pattern of misinformation that recapitulates the way the war was sold in the first place.?
- Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, April 30, 2003

?Consider the case of the production of contracts for a presumed Iraqi purchase of enriched uranium from Niger. This was a crude lie. All false. The information was provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency by the U.S. intelligence services.?
- Hans Blix, head of UN weapons inspections, El Pais interview, April 9, 2003

?If Donald Rumsfeld is now admitting the weapons are not there, the truth is the weapons probably haven't been there for quite a long time.?
- Former British foreign secretary Robin Cook, CBS News, May 29, 2003


As you can see, I focus mostly on the WMD's and the claimed terrorist connection. That is because I do not care about people being massacred, just like the Coalition doesn't care either.

[budanski]

Bottom line, we have a right to defend ourselves, against all enemies. Typical liberal thinking, I'll rationalize forever to justify what I think is right. The U.S. is at war with an enemy that is difficult to identify in the traditional sense. It is not one country, or one group. It is all the aspects of Islamic Fanatcism that have attacked us, killed our citizens on several different occasions and will continue to do so every chance they get. They hate our way of life and they hate our success. The President made it quite clear that if you harbor these people, give them comfort, any form of assistance, and etc. you will pay the price. Iraq has long been known to financially support many groups, Hamas, Militant Jihad, etc. Training camps have been found and Iraq's indirect fingers reached out to alot of places. Occupying that country has upset the terrorist time table and put their strategy way in flux. How many major terrorist events have taken place in the U.S.A. since 9/11? I hate to burst your bubble, but this President is doing it right, in marked contrast to the former occupant of the White House. George Bush did not say it would be over quickly, he just said we would win in the end, and we are. Those that whine about our foreign relations should take a look at the Pacific Rim and see how we are doing there. Does Thailand ring a bell? Japan? Australia? Etc.? Europe is an old has been place. They are playing to their own Islamic populations and their investments in the Middle East. Europeans sell their souls for a few barrels of oil. A poor bargain if I ever saw it.

But if you still find the war was illegal, take it as your opinion cause if it were so, I don't think the U.N. would've passed UN Resolution 1483 (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/document/2003/0522resolution.htm).

[budanski]

"The commission emphasises that Security Council Resolution 1441 does not authorise the use of force. The ICJ standpoint contradicts that of US President Bush, who has continually sought to use this resolution as the basis for war." - The UN never authorised his use of this resolution for as a basis for warr. Therefore illegal.

Of course not you idiot, 1441 only "recalls" that a ceasefire would be based on the acceptance of UNSC 687 (1991) and that Iraq has been warned of "serious consequences". Iraq failed to abide to 687 and numerous other resolutions thus setting the U.S. into action.

As stated before, there is no body of international law, only a set of precedents that have no legal force. They are instantly set aside by any and all nations in time of national need.

[Mortimer]

And Iraq was a threat? We only have the word of the US...a lot of other people seem to think not.

The USG is very good at starting wars with phoney info....i can give many many examples if you want.

[Ratamacue]

And we all know how strong your examples are, Morty...

Iraq was not a threat at the time. However, they had strong potential to become a threat in the future. Maybe they weren't going to build WMD's, maybe they were, but it is known that Hussein helped support Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Do we need another 9/11 before people realize that sometimes action must be taken prior to action taken by the other side?

[Mortimer]

And we all know how strong your examples are, Morty...

Iraq was not a threat at the time. However, they had strong potential to become a threat in the future. Maybe they weren't going to build WMD's, maybe they were, but it is known that Hussein helped support Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Do we need another 9/11 before people realize that sometimes action must be taken prior to action taken by the other side?

The only proof you can give that they were making WMD's is now under scrutiny, and most likely phoney...your government told you that they were and you believed them..pretty much without question.

Remember Hanz Blix?

[budanski]

And Iraq was a threat? We only have the word of the US...a lot of other people seem to think not.
What parts did you not get when I stated that the U.S has a right to defend itself against all enemies that threatens it? Like you said, we only have the word of the U.S. and thats all we need. We're not gonna wait til Australia is threaten for us to attack.:roll:


The USG is very good at starting wars with phoney info....i can give many many examples if you want. Ah, what do we owe this occasion to for your enlightenment? I mean, can it be true? Please.... proceed.

[budanski]

The only proof you can give that they were making WMD's is now under scrutiny, and most likely phoney...your government told you that they were and you believed them..pretty much without question.

Remember Hanz Blix?I'm wondering if you ever pay attention to what is being discussed. Please clarify what was told that was phoney?

[Seiyuuki]

And we all know how strong your examples are, Morty...

Iraq was not a threat at the time. However, they had strong potential to become a threat in the future. Maybe they weren't going to build WMD's, maybe they were, but it is known that Hussein helped support Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Do we need another 9/11 before people realize that sometimes action must be taken prior to action taken by the other side?

The only proof you can give that they were making WMD's is now under scrutiny, and most likely phoney...your government told you that they were and you believed them..pretty much without question.

Remember Hanz Blix?

Yup...and you are smarter than the entire population of the U.S. The heated debate in Congress were all pretty much pointless and just for show.

[Mortimer]

Cheney's Counterspin
Amy Goodman, July 26, 2003
On Thursday, Vice President **** Cheney attempted to restate the administration's case for war at a speech at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. He repeatedly cited an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that warned Saddam Hussein was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.


"Those charged with the security of this nation could not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist. Ignoring such information, or trying to wish it away, would be irresponsible in the extreme," Cheney said. "And our President did not ignore that information--he faced it. He sought to eliminate the threat by peaceful, diplomatic means and, when all else failed, he acted forcefully to remove the danger."


Former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman responded on Pacifica radio's Democracy Now! by describing Cheney's speech as the "longest statement of disinformation that I think the American government has distributed to the American people."

Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and director of the Center's National Security Project. He is the author of the forthcoming book "Bush League Diplomacy: Putting the Nation At Risk" (Prometheus). He is also a professor of international security studies and chairman of the international relations department at the National War College.

Goodman told Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, "For **** Cheney to recite those charges we all know now not to be true adds to the terrible politicization of intelligence that's created a scandal in the intelligence community unlike anything I ever saw in my 24 years in the C.I.A. that includes the period of Vietnam, the period of the intelligence failure on the Soviet Union, and the incredibly contentious disputes over arms control."

Cheney did not discuss his role in the Iraq-Niger uranium scandal or the reports that he personally went to CIA headquarters to pressure the Agency on Iraq intelligence.


Senator Bob Graham of Florida called for a congressional probe Thursday to examine Cheney's meetings with the CIA.

TRANSCRIPT, Democracy Now! July 25, 2003

**** CHENEY: The ability to criticize is one of the great strengths of our democracy. But those who do so have an obligation to answer this question. How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat? Last October, the director of central intelligence issued a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's continuing programs of weapons of mass destruction. That document contained the consensus judgments of the intelligence community based upon the best information available about the Iraqi threat. The N.I.E. declared: We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction program in defiance of the U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. Those charged with the security of this nation, could not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist. Ignoring such information, or trying to wish it away would be irresponsible in the extreme. And our President did not ignore that information, he faced it. He sought to eliminate the threat by peaceful diplomatic means and when all else failed, he acted forcefully to remove the danger.


Consider another passage from last October's National Intelligence Estimate. It reported: All key aspects, the R&D, production, and weaponization of Iraq's offensive program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War. Remember we were dealing here with a regime that had already killed thousands of people with chemical weapons. Against this background, to disregard the N.I.E.'s warnings would have been irresponsible in the extreme. And our President did not ignore that information. He faced it and acted to remove the danger. Take a third example -- the N.I.E. cautioned that, Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons. In the view of most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Here again, this warning could hardly be more blunt or disturbing. To shrug off such a warning would have been irresponsible in the extreme. And so President Bush faced that information and acted to remove the danger.


A fourth and final example -- the National Intelligence Estimate contains a section that specifies the level of confidence that the intelligence community has on the various judgments included in the report. In the N.I.E. on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the community had high confidence in the conclusion that Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to U.N. resolutions. The intelligence community also had high confidence in the judgment that, and I quote, Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons grade fissile material.End quote. Ladies and gentlemen, this is some of what we knew. Knowing these things, how could we, I ask, have allowed that threat to stand. These judgments were not lightly arrived at, and all who were aware of them bore a heavy responsibility for the security of America.


AMY GOODMAN: Vice President **** Cheney speaking yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute just after the congressional report came out. You are listening to Democracy Now!. Melvin Goodman, former C.I.A. and State Department analyst, your response to what **** Cheney was attempting to put out yesterday?


MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, this is the longest statement of disinformation that I think the American government has distributed to the American people. You know, the very obvious thing is where are the nuclear weapons. Why haven't we found the nuclear weapons? Why haven't we found the evidence that he was really trying to import uranium and enrich uranium for nuclear weapons? Where are the scud-type missiles that Cheney was talking about? Where are the hundreds and hundreds of tons of chemical agents that he said, and the C.I.A. said could fill 16,000 rockets. Where are the huge numbers of materials that were supposedly produced for thousands of liters of Anthrax and botulinum toxin and all of the other biological agents that Colin Powell listed in his speech to the UN--which was written for him by the C.IA. after he turned down a version of the speech that was written for him by **** Cheney's chief subordinate? Where is any of this material? The fact of the matter is that there was no clear and present danger, there was no imminent threat. And for **** Cheney just to recite these charges that we all know now not to be true, adds to the terrible politicization of intelligence that's created a scandal in the intelligence community unlike anything I ever saw in my 24 years in the C.I.A. That includes the period of Vietnam, the period of the intelligence failure on the Soviet union, and the incredibly contentious disputes over arms control.


The unfortunate thing is that George Tenet's hands aren't clean in any of this either. He tried to have it both ways. In October, which is important--the very month that George Tenet sent two memos to the N.F.C. and called Stephen Hadley and told Hadley that he could not use the statement with reference to Iraq trying to obtain supplies of uranium, of so-called yellow cake--that was the same month that George Tenet endorsed, authorized, signed the national intelligence estimate that said many of the things that **** Cheney just recited. So this is what I mean by George Tenet failing totally in his job as an intelligence coordinator or intelligence arbitrator. He gave evidence out there that the critics of the war could use, and he gave a great deal of material out there that people such as **** Cheney who wanted this war so badly could also use. That's why this country faces the terrible dilemma it now faces and continues to witness the terrible situation we have in Iraq, where American lives are lost on almost a daily basis and American treasure to the tune of about $4 billion a month is being spent to try to get through some transition period in Iraq, from which we're eventually going to have to withdraw from. This is a very sad spectacle and **** Cheney has just added to this terrible problem.


JUAN GONZALEZ: Melvin Goodman, you talk about the inability of the administration to find any physical evidence. But there was a lot made during the period leading up to the invasion of the -- of the Iraqi scientists. And once the Iraqi scientist were able to freely talk about what kind of a program Saddam Hussein had, that the truth would come out. Yet we've seen no Iraqi scientists even brought forward by the administration to give eyewitness accounts of this alleged program.


MELVIN GOODMAN: I agree with your point there. And the worst example of that is the fact that the United States is holding at the Baghdad airport the chief scientific advisor to Saddam Hussein. A man by the name of Amir al-Saadi. Now, I would have to think that if Amir al-Saadi were giving information to the United States that would be helpful to make the case that **** Cheney has just alleged, I think we'd be parading Amir al-Saadi before the National Press Club or meet the American audience to make the case for us. But we're not doing that. Many of the scientists we captured made it clear that these materials were destroyed in the 1990's, the so-called weapons of mass destruction.


The picture that's forming here is that the very point when the C.I.A. lost most of its intelligence collection-- remember when the U.N. inspectors could not return to Iraq, we lost our major means of collecting intelligence against Saddam Hussein and against the weapons of mass destruction. That's when the C.I.A. started doing its worst case estimates. And I think it's axiomatic, certainly for my 24 years in the intelligence community, that the less intelligence you have, the more dire are your warnings, because you're so afraid of the gaps in your intelligence. Clearly what we had from 1998 on to 2003 were huge gaps in intelligence. For **** Cheney to talk about the intelligence community speaking with confidence is incredibly fallacious. There was no confidence within the intelligence community. And most of the serious analysts took argument with a lot of the opinions that were coming out that were supported by George Tenet and others.


A good example of that was the case of the aluminum tubes--whether they were for strategic arms or for conventional arms. The Department of Energy which has the key expertise in this government for nuclear matters, made it clear that aluminum tubing was for conventional arms. But Colin Powell made a shaky case at the U.N. for why the aluminum tubes could only be compatible with strategic arms. That's why the Niger documents were so important. They were a hoax but they became important because if Saddam Hussein was trying to get his hands on uranium, that it would lend some credibility to the very weakest part of the argument about reconstituting its nuclear capability, which was having the aluminum tubes which, I might add, was obtained on the open market, with open documentation, That’s an odd way to obtain something to rebuild a nuclear program that was banned by U.N. resolution. And then that brings one final point. That brings you back to **** Cheney. Who was the one person in the administration who was pushing the reconstitution of nuclear weapons and the nuclear program so hard? It's always been Vice President **** Cheney. Because that's the most compelling argument you could make about going to war. That's what would terrify the American people. The President talked about the mushroom cloud from nuclear weapons. Condy Rice, very dramatically talked about the mushroom cloud from nuclear weapons. You know of all of the fraudulent aspects of the reasons why we went to war, the worst was the reconstitution of the nuclear capability because no serious scientist or analyst in this city or at the United Nations believed any of it.


AMY GOODMAN: Melvin Goodman, thank you very much for being with us, former C.I.A. and State Department analyst.

[Mortimer]

The heated debate in Congress were all pretty much pointless and just for show.

yup

and its not that i am smarter than the US population its just that i don't believe everything a government that got into power by a phoney election says.

[budanski]

Great, he's now quoting from the Guerrilla News Network (http://www.guerrillanews.com/intelligence/doc2518.html) :roll:

[Mortimer]

better then CBS i'd say
and just because it is from there its not true?

[budanski]

TRUST ME ON THIS ONE (http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html)

[SABER 2-3]

And what Peoples Liberation Movement/Army was it that you belong to?
And what the Hell does your signature mean (I apparently, AM STUPID)

[Mortimer]

indeed

[Seiyuuki]

The heated debate in Congress were all pretty much pointless and just for show.

yup

and its not that i am smarter than the US population its just that i don't believe everything a government that got into power by a phoney election says.

And you understand the election process in the U.S. how? not living in the States...to comment that the election is phoney?

Time you learn about the Electoral College:




• The Electoral College was created to elect a president without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the Presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other. If the Electoral College is to be abolish, how do you maintain the balance?

The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons.

It is noteworthy in passing that the idea of electing the president by direct popular vote was not widely promoted as an alternative to redesigning the Electoral College. This may be because the physical and demographic circumstances of the country had not changed that much in a dozen or so years. Or it may be because the excesses of the recent French revolution (and its fairly rapid degeneration into dictatorship) had given the populists some pause to reflect on the wisdom of too direct a democracy.

Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution

• Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the decennial census). This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small States.

• ...

• Members of Congress and employees of the federal government were specifically prohibited from serving as an Elector in order to maintain the balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

• Each State's Electors were required to meet in their respective States Each State's Electors were required to meet in their respective States rather than all together in one great meeting. This arrangement, it was thought, would prevent bribery, corruption, secret dealing, and foreign influence.

• In order to prevent Electors from voting only for a "favorite son" of their own State, each Elector was required to cast two votes for president, at least one of which had to be for someone outside their home State. The idea, presumably, was that the winner would likely be everyone's second favorite choice.

• The person with the most electoral votes, provided that it was an absolute majority (at least one over half of the total), became president. Whoever obtained the next greatest number of electoral votes became vice president - an office which they seem to have invented for the occasion since it had not been mentioned previously in the Constitutional Convention.

• In the event that no one obtained an absolute majority in the Electoral College or in the event of a tie vote, the U.S. House of Representatives, AS THE CHAMBER CLOSEST TO THE PEOPLE, would choose the president from among the top five contenders. They would do this (as a further concession to the small States) by allowing each State to cast only one vote with an absolute majority of the States being required to elect a president. The vice presidency would go to whatever remaining contender had the greatest number of electoral votes. If that, too, was tied, the U.S. Senate would break the tie by deciding between the two.

Consider the fact that this was supposed to all work without political parties and without national campaigns.

• The possibility of electing a minority president
1. Either one candidate could throw his electoral votes to the support of another (before the meeting of the Electors) or else, absent an absolute majority in the Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in accordance with the 12th Amendment.
2. It is unclear how a direct election of the president could resolve such a deep national conflict without introducing a presidential run-off election, a procedure which would add substantially to the time, cost, and effort already devoted to selecting a president and which might well deepen the political divisions while trying to resolve them.

• The Electoral College system imposes two requirements on candidates for the presidency:
1. That the victor obtain a sufficient popular vote to enable him to govern (although this may not be the absolute majority), and
2. That such a popular vote be sufficiently, distributed across the country to enable him to govern.

• The risk of so-called "faithless" Electors
1. Faithless Electors have never changed the outcome of an election. Often, their purpose is to make a statement rather than make a difference. Some states have actually taken step to prevent such act of “faithlessness,” Electors in Washington for instance, are bound by State Law to vote according to the direct popular vote in the State or suffer a $1000 fine.
2. Rhetorically, who are the Electors suppose to be faithful to? The minority political party, the major political party, the one state in the Union of fifty? It’s unfortunate our Electors are not more nonpartisan and unbiased in their choice for president.

• The possible role of the Electoral College in depressing voter turnout, and its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will
1. Fails to account for the fact that presidential elections do not occur in a vacuum. States also conduct other elections (for U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, State Governors, State legislators, and a host of local officials). Registered voters in the U.S. vote on the same par as other democratic countries in the world.
2. The Electoral College was never intended to reflect the national popular will, rather, it was intended to reflect the national interest.
3. The U.S. Senate is a lot worse than the Electoral College when it come to misrepresentation of the populous. Since there have been no serious proposals to abolish the U.S. Senate on these grounds, why should such an argument be used to abolish the lesser case of the Electoral College? Because the presidency is supposed to represents the whole country? But so, as an institution, does the United States Senate? If we become obsessed with government by popular majority as the only consideration, might as well throw in the Senate which represents regardless of population. If there are reasons to maintain State representation in the Senate as they exist today, then the same reasons apply to the choice of president.

• The Electoral College contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president
1. Without the Electoral College, president would be selected either through the domination of one populous region over the others or through the domination of large metropolitan areas over the rural ones.
2. Principally because of the Electoral College that presidential nominees are inclined to select vice presidential running mates from a region other than their own.
3. As far as thing stand now, no one region contains the absolute majority of electoral votes required to elect a president, there is an incentive for presidential candidates to pull together coalitions of States and regions rather than to exacerbate regional differences. The severe regional problems that have typically plagued geographically large nations such as China, Indian, and the Soviet Union.
4. As a practical matter, even in a close popular election, the difference between the two candidates would likely be so small that either candidate could govern effectively. One way or another, the winning candidate must demonstrate both a sufficient popular support to govern as well as a sufficient distribution of that support to govern.

• Enhances the status of minority interests, preventing tyranny of the majority
1. The voters of even small minorities in a State may make the difference between winning all of that State’s electoral votes or none of that State’s electoral votes.
2. Since ethnic minority groups in the United States happen to concentrate in those States with the most electoral votes, they assume an importance to presidential candidates well out of proportion to their number. The same principle applies to other special interest groups such as labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, and so forth.
3. Changing to a direct election of the president would therefore actually damage minority interests since their votes would be overwhelmed by a national popular majority.

• Contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two party system
1. Protect the presidency from impassioned but transitory third party movement.
2. Conversely, the major parties have every incentive to absorb minor party movements in their continual attempt to win popular majorities in the States. In this process of assimilation, third party movements are obliged to compromise their more radical views if they hope to attain any of their more generally acceptable objectives. We end up with two large, pragmatic political parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political parties catering to divergent and sometimes extremist views. Such system forces political coalitions to occur within the political parties rather than within the government.
3. In a direct popular election, there would be every incentive for a multitude of minor parties to form in an attempt to prevent whatever popular majority might be necessary to elect a president. The surviving candidates would thus be drawn to the regionalist or extremist views represented by these parties in hopes of winning the run-off election.
4. The result of a direct popular election for president, then, would likely be frayed and unstable political system characterized by a multitude of political parties and by mare radical changes in policies from one administration to the next.
5. The Electoral College system, in contrast, encourages political parties to coalesce divergent interests into two sets of coherent alternatives. Such an organization of social conflict and political debate contributes to the political stability of the nation.

• State viewpoints are more important than political minority viewpoints, collective opinion of the individual State population is more important than the opinion of the national population taken as a whole. Nor should we tamper with careful balance of power between the National and State governments which the Founding Fathers intended and which is reflected in the Electoral College. To do so would fundamentally alter the nature of our government and might well bring about consequences that even the reformers would come to regret.

• In 1800, as previously noted, the Democratic-Republican Electors gave both Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr and equal number of electoral votes. The tie, settled in Jefferson's favor by the House of Representatives in accordance with the original design of the Electoral College system, prompted the 12th Amendment which effectively prevented this sort of thing from ever happening again.

• In 1824, there were four fairly strong contenders in the presidential contest (Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay) each of whom represented an important faction within the now vastly dominant Democratic-Republican Party. The electoral votes were so divided amongst them that no one received the necessary majority to become president (although the popular John C. Calhoun did receive enough electoral votes to become vice president). In accordance with the provisions of the 12th Amendment, the choice of president devolved upon the House of Representatives who narrowly selected John Quincy Adams despite the fact that Andrew Jackson had obtained the greater number of electoral votes. This election is often cited as the first one in which the candidate who obtained the greatest popular vote (Jackson) failed to be elected president. The claim is a weak one, though, since six of the twenty four States at the time still chose their Electors in the State legislature. Some of these (such as sizable New York) would likely have returned large majorities for Adams had they conducted a popular election.

• In 1836, presidential election was a truly strange event. The developing Whig Party, for example, decided to run three different presidential candidates (William Henry Harrison, Daniel Webster, and Hugh White) in separate parts of the country. The idea was that their respective regional popularities would ensure a Whig majority in the Electoral College which would then decide on a single Whig presidential ticket. This fairly inspired scheme failed, though, when Democratic-Republican candidate Martin Van Buren won an absolute majority of Electors. Nor has such a strategy ever again been seriously attempted. Yet Van Buren himself did not escape the event entirely unscathed. For while he obtained an electoral majority, his vice presidential running mate (one Richard Johnson) was considered so objectionable by some of the Democratic-Republican Electors that he failed to obtain the necessary majority of electoral votes to become vice president. In accordance with the 12th Amendment, the decision devolved upon the Senate which chose Johnson as vice president anyway. A really bizarre election, that one.

• In the 1872 election, Democratic candidate Horace Greeley (he of earlier "Go West, young man, go West" journalistic fame whose nomination makes a good story in itself) thoughtlessly died during that period between the popular vote for Electors and the meeting of the Electoral College. The Electors who were pledged to him, clearly unprepared for such an eventuality, split their electoral votes amongst several other Democratic candidates (including three votes for Greeley himself as a possible comment on the incumbent Ulysses S. Grant). That hardly mattered, though, since the Republican Grant had readily won an absolute majority of Electors. Still, it was an interesting event for which the political parties are now prepared.

• In 1876, the county once again found itself in serious political turmoil echoing, in some respects, both the economic divisions of 1824 and the impending political party realignments of 1836, but with the added bitterness of Reconstruction. A number of deep cross currents were in play. After a vast economic expansion, the country had fallen into a deep depression. Monetary and tariff issues were eroding the Union Republican coalition of East and West while a solid Republican black vote eroded the traditional Democratic hold on the South. The incumbent Republican administration of Grant had suffered a seemingly endless series of scandals involving graft and corruption on a scale hitherto unknown. And the South was eager to put an end to Radical Reconstruction which was, after all, a kind of vast political mugging. Against this backdrop, the resurging Democratic Party easily nominated Samuel J. Tilden, the popular Governor of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana (shrewd geographic choices under the circumstances). The Republicans, in a more turbulent convention, selected Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler of New York. A variety of fairly significant third parties also cropped up, further shattering the country's political cohesion.

This is about as good a prescription for electoral chaos as anyone might hope for. Indeed, it is almost surprising that things did not turn out worse than they did. For on election night, it looked as though Tilden had pulled off the first Democratic presidential victory since the Civil War - although the decisive electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana remained in balance. Yet these States were as divided internally as was the nation at large. Without detailing the machinations of the vote count, suffice it to say that each State finally delivered to the Congress two sets of electoral votes - one set for Tilden and one set for Hayes. Because the Congressional procedures for resolving disputed sets of Electors had expired, the Congress established a special 15 member commission to decide the issue in each of the three States. Thus, Hayes was elected president despite the fact that Tilden, by everyone's count, had obtained a slight majority of popular votes (although the difference was a mere 3% of the total vote cast). As a final note, the Congress enacted in 1887 legislation that delegated to each State the final authority to determine the legality of its choice of Electors and required a concurrent majority of both houses of Congress to reject any electoral vote. That legislation remains in effect to this day so that the events of 1876 will not repeat themselves.

Benjamin Harrison's election in 1888 is really the only clear-cut instance in which the Electoral College vote went contrary to the popular vote. This happened because the incumbent, Democrat Grover Cleveland, ran up huge popular majorities in several of the 18 States which supported him while the Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison, won only slender majorities in some of the larger of the 20 States which supported him (most notably in Cleveland's home State of New York). Even so, the difference between them was only 110,476 votes out of 11,381,032 cast - less than 1% of the total. Interestingly, in this case, there were few critical issues (other than tariffs) separating the candidates so that the election seems to have been fought - and won - more on the basis of superior party organization in getting out the vote than on the issues of the day.

Each of these events (except 1888) resulted either from political inexperience (as in 1800, 1836, and 1872) or from profound political divisions within the century (as in 1824, 1876, and even 1948 and 1968) which required some sort of higher order political resolution. And all of them were resolved in a peaceable and orderly fashion without any public uprising and without endangering the legitimacy of the sitting president. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how a direct election of the president could have resolved events as agreeably.

TAKE THE TIME AND READ...LEARN IT WELL...REMEMBER IT!!! BEFORE YOU FOREIGNERS CAN ASSUME SO MUCH ABOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OR OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. TAKE SPECIAL NOTE TO THIS PART:


• In 1876, the county once again found itself in serious political turmoil echoing, in some respects, both the economic divisions of 1824 and the impending political party realignments of 1836, but with the added bitterness of Reconstruction. A number of deep cross currents were in play. After a vast economic expansion, the country had fallen into a deep depression. Monetary and tariff issues were eroding the Union Republican coalition of East and West while a solid Republican black vote eroded the traditional Democratic hold on the South. The incumbent Republican administration of Grant had suffered a seemingly endless series of scandals involving graft and corruption on a scale hitherto unknown. And the South was eager to put an end to Radical Reconstruction which was, after all, a kind of vast political mugging. Against this backdrop, the resurging Democratic Party easily nominated Samuel J. Tilden, the popular Governor of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana (shrewd geographic choices under the circumstances). The Republicans, in a more turbulent convention, selected Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler of New York. A variety of fairly significant third parties also cropped up, further shattering the country's political cohesion.

This is about as good a prescription for electoral chaos as anyone might hope for. Indeed, it is almost surprising that things did not turn out worse than they did. For on election night, it looked as though Tilden had pulled off the first Democratic presidential victory since the Civil War - although the decisive electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana remained in balance. Yet these States were as divided internally as was the nation at large. Without detailing the machinations of the vote count, suffice it to say that each State finally delivered to the Congress two sets of electoral votes - one set for Tilden and one set for Hayes. Because the Congressional procedures for resolving disputed sets of Electors had expired, the Congress established a special 15 member commission to decide the issue in each of the three States. Thus, Hayes was elected president despite the fact that Tilden, by everyone's count, had obtained a slight majority of popular votes (although the difference was a mere 3% of the total vote cast). As a final note, the Congress enacted in 1887 legislation that delegated to each State the final authority to determine the legality of its choice of Electors and required a concurrent majority of both houses of Congress to reject any electoral vote. That legislation remains in effect to this day so that the events of 1876 will not repeat themselves.



You realize that one of the states that was involved in this electoral mix-up was none other than FLORIDA. 2000 wasn't the first election where FLORIDA screw up. This particular situation very much mirror the election of 2000, where Hayes would be GWB and Tilden would be Al Gore. With the legislation enacted by Congress, "That legislation remains in effect to this day so that the events of 1876 will not repeat themselves."

Florida recounted the votes many many many many many times...

Also, "government" include three different branches: Judicial, Legislative and Executive...what you commented on was only a part of the Executive. Judicial are appointed for life (or if you want to get technical, as long as they're on "good behavior") by the Executive which then it is up to the Legislative to approve or disapprove of the appointment, the Legislative are elected by the people...See how it work, check and balances...Yes!!! our government is very phoney indeed.

[SABER 2-3]

Why Mortimer; does this mean we can be friends? I don't think I could bear the thought of you not being my friend.

[Mortimer]

LOL!
who is the governer of Florida again????

[Mortimer]

Why Mortimer; does this mean we can be friends? I don't think I could bear the thought of you not being my friend.

Ok....lets go out to dinner some time and swap life stories, then after we can go for a walk on a moonlit beach......

[Seiyuuki]

LOL!
who is the governer of Florida again????

READ AND LEARN BEFORE YOU COMMENT!!! Yeah...Jeb Bush was the governor of Florida twice, once in 1876 and once again in 2000