Bush is still breathing, last I checked the news.

So, what gives any country the right to invade other countries without a causus belli? In what way is Saddam responsible for the war when Iraq was complying with UN resolutions in the UN's determination, the UN never sanctioned the war, Iraq was not developing any kind of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, Iraq was not militarily threatening any other nations, and Iraq was not involved with any terrorist groups targeting the United States?

Whether Iraq was complying with UN resolutions is for the UN to decide. The UN determined that Iraq was complying well enough that no military action was necessary.

There was no evidence at all of Iraq having or developing any kind of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons when Bush decided to attack. Any evidence found in the future has no bearing on a decision made in the past, and so far no evidence has been found yet.

Iraq had reconciled its relations with its neighbours, and its army was too small and poorly supplied to invade anywhere. The fact that Iraq had wars with Iran and Kuwait over a decade ago is no reason to invade after Iraq has made peace with Iran and Kuwait.

The last I heard, Israel was not a US state, therefore actions against Israel do not present a reason for the US to go to war. The only terrorist camps found so far are of the PLF which killed one US citizen in an attack on an Italian ship 18 years ago, and Ansar which has never attacked the US and is in Kurdish territory anyways.

laws are evil and should not be followed, no non-US company deserves to own property, citing Powell's uninformative speech based on discredited information, suspicion == fact, Iraq invaded Iran, Turkey, and Kuwait last month and I missed it, the UN passed a resolution supporting the invasion and the UN missed it, 4 countries engaged in combat > scores who would rather not see a war yet, and a threat of bodily harm (nice touch).

Stop trying to pretend that you know something about world affairs and go actually learn something instead of making stuff up on the spot when you're losing an argument.

I have you down on record making the following points:

1) Soldiers and civilians who have died in the war have been "avenged" by the conquering of Iraq. This falsely ascribes total liability for the war to Iraq when the United States invaded Iraq without a valid casus belli.

2) The United States is not the aggressor because some Iraqis supported the war. False, as popular reception does not confer legitimacy to the decision to invade.

3) The only reason Iraq is in the Arab community is because Saddam forced them into it. False, as Iraq took Arab colours upon its founding.

4) The United States is not the aggressor because internal conditions in Iraq were bad. False, as a country's internal affairs are no reason to invade except in cased of genocide, and the last thing resembling genocide in Iraq happened in 1992.

5) The United States is not the aggressor because Iraq was not complying with UN resolutions. False, as it is the Security Concil's job to determine whether noncompliance is grounds for invasion.

6) The United States is not the aggressor because Iraq must have been developing WMD because I think there are some places where Iraq may have been devloping WMD, and evidence of Iraq having developed WMD might be discovered in the future. False, because knowledge learned in the future does not make the knowledge known in the past.

7) The United States is not the aggressor because Iraq has threatened other countries in the past. False, because the diplomatic state in the past is not the diplomatic state of today.

8) The United States is not the aggressor because Iraq is funding terrorist insurgencies in Israel. False, as Israel is not one of the United States, so the US is not threatened by such action.

9) Terrorist camps known to target the US have been found in Iraq. False, as the only camps found so far are Ansar's, which is far from Iraqi control and has not directly targeted the US yet, and the PLF's, which does not target the US.

10) It is wrong to disarm Iraq under the threat of invasion if it fails to comply. We'll never know now.

11) tangaroa is a racist who thinks of arabs as "ragheads". Thanks.

12) A country should be invaded if another country finds its internal conditions disagreeable. If this were followed, the world would be a war zone as every country has some nature that another country finds disagreeable.

13) Total Fina Elf should not run Iraq's oil business. TFI does not run Iraq's oil business, but has contracts to work several fields which it bought and paid for.

14) When the federal government says there are WMDs somewhere, that proves that WMDs are there until someone proves otherwise. Fallacy of appeal to authority.

15) Colin Powell's speech was conclusive evidence of WMD development. False, even most people who agreed with him didn't think this and that was before significant parts of it were found to have been faked or inaccurate.

16) Iraq is the aggressor because there is internal strife in Iran. False, as the events are unrelated.

17) Iraq is the aggressor because Turkey and the Kurds have been in a conflict. False, as Iraq is not causing the conflict.

18) Iraq is the aggressor because the United States deployed 200,000 troops to Kuwait. False, as this is not Iraq's will.

19) The United Nations issued a resolution explicitly calling for an invasion of Iraq. False, the US stopped begging for such a resolution when it saw it didn't have the votes.

20) Only "a few" countries did not support the invasion of Iraq. False, as the number was at least half of the security council

21) Countries which did not support the invasion of Iraq are "annoying" and, by inference, irrelevant. False, as they included over half of the security council, 3 of the 5 security council members with veto power, 4 of the 9 nuclear powers, and represented about a quarter to a third of the world's population.

22) All countries which did not support the invasion of Iraq have less-than-altruistic motives. Possible, but if they're after the oil, they could invade on their own and keep it.

23) by inference, the United States has no less-than-altruistic motives in invading Iraq. False, as evidenced by Bush handing out billion dollar contracts to his business pals without any bidding process.

24) The invasion consists of "multiple countries", which by inference is a greater number than the number of countries not supporting the invasion. In fact, there are 4 countries whose forces are seeing combat: the US, Britain, Australia, and Poland.

25) The United States is not the aggressor because a lot of people are much better off since the invasion happened. False, such benefits do not change the circumstances of the orignial decision to go to war.

26) tangaroa should not talk about international law because there are a lot of people who would kick his ass if he tried. Fallacy of appeal to numbers.

27) tangaroa says that Saddam should have been left alone. False, tangaroa says that the UN should have been allowed to disarm Iraq or call for an invasion if Iraq refused.

28) tangaroa says he gets better information than Powell gets. False, tangaroa says that Powell gave crap information to the public and the UN.

29) tangaroa says that Iraq is all friendly with all the surrounding countries, and would skip across the grassy fields holding hands and picking flowers. False, tangaroa says that Iraq wasn't a serious threat to anyone and was not preparing to invade anyone at the time it got invaded.

30) UNSCR 1441 explicitly calls for an invasion of Iraq. As anyone who goes to read that link can see, "that context" refers to the SC holding a meeting to determine what "serious consequences" means.

I should have had a "yet" in there.

Every news report I've seen on Resolution 1441 described it as the UN's having wussed out, and said that a new resolution would be needed to permit invasion. Ambassador Negroponte made reference to this when he said that 1441 did not have "hidden triggers" which would permit an invasion if Iraq was obviously not complying. 1441's paragraphs 12 and 13 threaten to hold a meeting if Iraq fails to comply, with the veiled threat that this time the UN would decide that war is permissible. The US recently tried to arrange a vote on the question of war, but this vote never happened.

On Iraq's relations with Iran and Kuwait: Last year, Iraq recognized Kuwait's independence and promised to respect its borders. I mistook this for a peace treaty. Iraq and Iran had said they were reenacting the Algiers Accord a few years ago, and Iran recently made several statements about leading a coalition of peace with Iraq, but it looks like this never happened. My apologies for being wrong on these points. The post I was responding to defended the current invasion because "Iraq has militarily threatened almost every country around it for decades". I still believe such threats were in the past rather than imminent, except of course for threats against Israel which are nothing new.