ScottSA

Annan is not in a position to rule on the legality. He was the UN's butler

You're just working yourself into a perfect tizzy, aren't you? Look, you were wrong, you got caught, and then instead of admitting it like a man, you refused to. That's fine, I don't mind...I'm just saying, we might as well drop the topic of manhood, because it's fairly clear you'll never understand.

Well, yeah. He's always been for devolution of powers to the provinces as the BNA Act specifies. Always. That's why he turned over more money to the provinces, with fewer strings attached. The Libs have been fighting with the provinces for decades over powers than never should have been interfered with in the first place. Harper is trying to right things again. Most of this alleged fat budget was simply doing that...not giving NEW money to anyone.

Either way I figured out who you are, a weak, cowardly, little man, who need's everyone else to do his battles for him. Toodles sugar puff. Oh, good one!

Ever hear of a dictionary? No thank's, my definition was correct, according to my dictionary and encyclopedia. So now you can slink back and think about how much of a man you are because you watched a move and imagined you were King Leonidas. It takes an exceptionally small person to be shown to be wrong and refuse to admit it. Toodles...I was right about you all along. You'll never be able to understand what real manhood is about.

It's cartoon attitudes like this that allow Republicans to win time after time and leave the left standing with their pants around their ankles wondering whatever happened. Life is not a cartoon. Republicans are not one dimentional cartoons of Uncle Scrooge and Richie Rich. They are for the most part good people trying to do what they think is right, just like other people. Until you people grow up and learn that, you're going to continue to stand in shock and awe of the fact that people vote for them in increasing numbers, and you'll never be able to understand why. Its not because other people aren't as smart as you; it's because other people are smarter than you.

So over the decades we have lost rare objects of art? I think the measure of a man is his compassion and belief in justice for his fellow man. Yours is, well, I don't have any idea what yours are. Sigh...whatever happened to classical education? Tell you what... go here: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNot...pageNum-85.html then you can slink back and apologize for uncompromising stupidity and compulsive outhouse falling-into.

Kofi Annan said it was illegal, and I trust his judgement better than loonie, anonymous internet forum contributors. He actually didn't say that, and he is a figurehead...no wait...he was a figurehead. His "judgement" is irrelevant even if he did say it and he didn't. Next?

That's not why the ADQ is "right up the Tory's alley". The main attraction is that many of the economic policies of the ADQ are similar to those of the Tories, and the general right/left spectrum positioning of the two is similar. That's highlighted by the fact that a lot of the ADQ campaign workers are federal Tory campaign workers. Since no one knows what "autonomy" means in ADQland, Harper can position his own policy of increased provincial autonomy as very similar as well. I think Oliver is more concerned with the philosophical similarities though...it speaks well for a right-leaning federal vote.

Ah, here comes the backpedalling and nitpicking. Seems to me that Islam, and in particular Wahabbist Islam, has national bases. One such base was Afghanistan. Another is Saudi Arabia. Iran is taking advantage of the situation to advance its own cause. That's how these world wars get swirling into a vortex involving quite a bit more than they started out involving. Please note that the immediate enemy in WW II were the axis powers, but that the war was fought as far south as africa and even Australia, all over asia, from Burma to China to India, throughout Europe, and I believe the Japanese even managed to drop a balloon bomb on the US at one point. So nitpicking about who doesn't change the what.

Really though, these pre-election polls are fairly meaningless. I mean it's shifted in Ontario by 10 points in a week and 20 points in Quebec, and the reason its so fluid is that most people just pick the name they heard last when some idiot phones them up to ask who they like this week. More important things are on their mind. They focus a bit more a little closer to the election, and that's when the polls matter. Increasingly, those polls are better indicators of momentum even DURING an election than they are of what the result is likely to be. We saw that in Quebec yesterday.

You can't do the former and the latter will never happen Actually, no. I'm talking about Virtu. I'm not surprised you don't know what that means, but you really ought to learn subjects before you barge into them slathering egg all over your face.

close enough No woody, it's not. Where's that link Dog asked for?

You're not very smart, are you?

Seems to me that what's relevant from all these numbers is that fear of the right has largely disappeared. I question the idea that the stench of Liberal corruption has dissipated...I suspect it'll start to waft as soon as the campaign gets rolling, but we'll see when that happens. One thing seems clear though, and that's that the Libs have lost their biggest and most successful club: the sCArY!!1! RihgTWinG!!!1! card. The terror just isn't there anymore, and any move by the Libs to revive it will probably backfire. I think people are fairly comfortable with the assumption that a Harper majority isn't going to turn into the Third Reich.

As a matter of fact so did Rosevelt. Oh dear, another great big plot that only you know about? Maybe we should stick with one at a time.

Do tell Woody. When was that? You mean they let women and children live in Israel so they get blown up by suicide bombers? What particular brainfart has siezed your mind this time?

I agree. That's why the "War against Terror" plays so much kinder and gentler to the multicult ear, but its rather like the US declaring a "War against Bombers" following Pearl harbour. The war truly is against Islam...it's only a matter of time before the west finally admits it.

Well, you can keep saying that if it makes you feel better, but it simply is not true. You're talking about Chapter VII, which has sweet piss all to do with Nurenberg. It is based upon the sovereignty of nations; an ideal which originated from Westphalia, long before even the League of Nations was a glimmer in France and Britain's eye. Here's what Chapter VII actually says, as opposed to what you wish it said: http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/Are we clear so far? Here is the original UNSC resolution 687, often known as the "ceasefire resolution": http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UN_Security_..._Resolution_687 It sets out very clear terms required by Iraq in order to cease military operations against Iraq, by UN forces in the first gulf war. Almost immediately, Iraq violated parts of the resolution, to wit: Then, the resolution goes on to bind all UN states to the agreement: Once iraq violated the resolution, it was repudiating the ceasefire, which then ceased to be in effect. The breaking of the resolution is the SOLE justification used by Clinton in attacking various facilities in Iraq during the 90s. The reason Clinton didn't need further justification was that Iraq almost immediately violated the terms of the resolution, thereby allowing, and indeed requiring the UN to reinitiate a state of hostilities against Iraq. And in fact, since a state of de jure war already existed with Iraq, Bush didn't need any further justification either prior to the invasion. The following 15 UNSC resolutions were just icing on the cake. The most important resolutions in the group were Resolution 686, Resolution 687, Resolution 688, Resolution 707, Resolution 715, Resolution 986, and Resolution 1284. Each "recalls and affirms each previous resolution, which is international legalese for restating each one without wasting the ink. In other words, each subsequent resolution added to, rather than overrode the previous ones. But Resolution 1441, often called the "serious consequences" resolution, was the final resolution threatening the use of force. It began with the usual recall, which is a statement in itself that hostilities would resume: Stated uncategorically that Iraq was in noncompliance: And then went on to threaten "serious consequences, which everyone took to mean the use of force, even though that wasn't necessary, since Iraq had been in non-compliance for years: Legally then, the US was at perfect liberty to invade Iraq from sometime in the early 1990s. The notion that the UN has to churn out explicit declarations of war prior to an attack being legal is simply not on. The answer to those criticisms, using immediate legal context is simple: The first gulf war didn't need one, and the UNSC accepted and authorised the attack both tacitly and de jure after the fact by its subsequent resolutions. So to argue after the fact that an explicit resolution was required is farcical at best. Wiki notes that "most members" of the UN take this stance, but not only is this not actually true, but it's not the UNGA who is relevant anyway. Within the UNSC, no one takes this stance. Not even france. It's also telling that not even France tried to claim the invasion was illegal. Finally, Bush went to the US congress and it passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization...inst_Terrorists ) This is not in the realm of "international law, but it heads off your next retreat, which will be that it wasn't legal under national law. It was legal under US law too. So you see, all this "the war was illegal" nonsense really doesn't wash in the real world.

You clearly don't understand what these terms mean, and until you do, you shouldn't use them. Collateral damage refers to the accidental killing of civilians. 911 intentionally targeted civilians. That may be a nominal difference to you, but its a very large difference in the eyes of the geneva convention, which is, after all, the paramount body of universally accepted intl law on the rules of war. You're arguing from feeling, making the odd vague refernce to the Nurenberg Tribunal through your own interpretive powers and hoping it works. But fortunately for the rest of the world, what you are arguing is not law...it's what you feel law ought to be.

Yep, mine and pretty much the world's. Well an interesting thing about legal issues is that they actually have to be documented in law. Simply skipping along and announcing that something is illegal and that everyone else agrees with you doesn't quite make it so.

Quite right. Which is why people don't walk in front of cars or curl up for naps while they drive. Because they have a healthy fear of the consequences of doing so. You're far more likely to die from car accidents than lightning too, but that's no reason to prance about holding a lightning rod on a golf course in a thunder storm.

Well, the only problem with your thesis is that no courts agree with you. Nuremberg doesn't either, since it has not ruled on the issue, largely because it no longer exists. What you in effect arguing is that war itself is illegal, and that's a fairly ridiculous proposition. That's not a "legal" interpretation; that's your angst.

Oy vey...one way or another everything manages to be the white bwana's fault. Gotta love revisionism. Of course, before Bwana got there, everyone lived in sylvan harmony and the skies were not cloudy all day...

Actually no. Read up on the Napoleonic campaigns, and then read Clausewitz. The rest of it is an interesting way to turn marxian thought on its head though...