And like many Americans, I don't really care what the UN thinks about..well anything. UN approval or disapproval is fairly meaningless as far as I'm concerned. Since the UN charter, there have been so many violations of the UN charter that it's meaningless.
NATO action in Yugoslavia was done without UN authorization. The replacement of Noriega in Panama in 1989 was done without UN authorization. The UK acted in the Falkland islands without UN authorization (and obviously so did Argentina).
And let's not forget that the cease fire of 1991 required that Iraq comply with UN resolutions promptly. It clearlyed violated those resolutions making the cease fire null and void. So even if the niceties of some theoretical "international law" meant something in this case, it would be covered there.
Iraq shooting at US planes in the no fly zones, all by itself, is enough to justify a material breach.
Like I said before, if you guys are so anxious to discuss this stuff, I suggest going to our discussion forum that is populated by people who follow this stuff on a daily basis news://news.stardock.com/stardock.discussion. There are people on all sides of the fence there. The difference is that they KNOW the issues at hand and can debate them. Talking about vague "well dictator X is worse" or "Look, George Bush said something dumb 2 years ago" is cute and all on some skin site message board where most people don't care. But if you seriously want to intellectually discuss it, this really isn't the place.
The issues that are being brought up here have been discussed a thousand times on political sites. There are legitimate arguments for military action and legitimate arguments for not using military force against Iraq. But the ones brought up here tend to get eaten alive on the political forums out there because they have a lot of holes in them.
I want Saddam gone because he's repeatedly demonstrated that he will not stop pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Has shown that he will use them. And has made it clear in discussions with others that his intent is to have "intimidation power" over his neighbors and a deterrent against outside (read: USA/UK) inteference. There are worse dictators in the world, sure, but they aren't sitting on top of a large percent of the world's proven oil reserves and poised to intimdate/control their neighbors who also sit on large amounts of the world's oil reserves.
And if that isn't enough, he has terrorist connections. He has pubicly shown that he is funding suicide bombers in Israel and while there isn't smoking gun proof that he's connected to Al Queda, there's a lot of evidence that he funds terrorism in general. The odds of a weapon of mass destruction getting into their hands after he gets them are not a risk we shouldn't be willing to take.
And on top of that, there's the fact that he brutalizes his people (just as bad as many other dictators but the other dictators aren't doing the things he mentioned above).
In short, this guy getting WMD is not a risk I want us to take. Not after 9-11. We're in a position to remove this guy and I think our government has a responsibility to do so. I also see it consistent with international norms in the past. The US replaced the regime in Panama in 1989 for much less reason (and amazingly no one spazzed out about that). And Panama, like Iraq, was in a strategicly important position - the canal zone being closed would cripple world trade.
The US and UK have been trying to enforce UN resolutions for a decade. And despite getting missiles shot at their planes on a regular basis, all they get from their "allies" is a bunch of grief. And UN support realistically means France, Russia and China. Two of which have big oil contracts with Saddam and hence have a financial interest to keep him in power. So the idea that UN support is vital is, in my view, laughable.
Now, you're certainly free to disagree with me. But I think you'll agree that my reasoning isn't due to gut jingoism or war happiness or whatever. It should hopefully be apparent that I've put some time into thinking about these issues and followed the details of them up close before reaching my conclusion. I am not, for example, in favor of military action in North Korea. I think that issue MUST be handled diplomatically. I also think it can be handled diplomatically whereas I think Iraq has shown that it cannot be handled via diplomacy.
