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Originally Posted by August
What UN vote did George Bush go against again?
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Not a vote, but a law. International Law. Chapter 7 of United Nations Chapter, where a nation is authorized to use force against another is done under one of the two conditions: either in self-defence (article 51) or under the recommendation of security council (article 42). The US is party to that agreement, so needless to say, it either follows it, or it breaks it.
First, The US failed to pass a resolution thourgh the Security Council which would allow to attack Iraq - simply because half the council was against it, so the US never made the vote and pulled the resoltion. They wanted to call Iraq as a breach of disarmament resolution (like they kept making WMDs) I believe, but China, France, Russia and and some other coutnries who did not have Veto power but were members of SC I think disagreed that Iraq was in breach of it. So the SC option failed. They could not get any coalition beyond Uk, Poland, Spain to name the ones I recall. What they did say (americans) is that since iraq was not living up to their preivious agreements, it made it ok to use military force against them. Furthermore, they said they could prove legally that Iraq was making WMD. In fact, the same case was made in Downing Street for the Brits, and we all know how that turned out later.
Second, The option on self-defence was argued based on US right to self defence, as Iraq was presumed connected to AlQuaeda and therefore was a threat to US national security. This is the bit of the famous Powell speach when he told the UN that Iraq was a grave danger and harbouring terrorists - base for that was the presumed meetings between some militia connected to Zarkawi (sp?) and Iraqi officials previosuly.
Of course, the war started as Bush gave Saddam an ultimatum of 2 days and demanded him to step down, and after that the bombs started to fall.
So the only bit you can argue is what international Law says about the use of preemptive military force unilaterally by a sinlge nation, and that bit I don't know much about.
Than of course there is the international humanitarian war that governs how countries fight each other and aimed at protecting the civilian population. Now it's that law I think that Bush might have troubles with (I think the Geneva convention is a part of that).
realistically though, Bush would need to order the army to carpet bomb all of ... let's say Basra, without any order for evacuation or warning. Based on that, he'd probably qualify to sit next to the likes of Milosevic. However I think he's not that stupid, and the legal breaches he made are first of all will be argued off by the best litigation nation (US) as he'll say he was protecting his people. Really, calling for Bush to trial is like mice deciding that the cat should go away. You all know what the cat would say to that, right?
(given cats could talk, but that's not the point :|\ ) Meoww.
History will decide, and so will the American people. I have serious doubts he'd be hailed as the great American president 30 years from now. But that's just my opinion.