Well, Dubya will give us a piece of his mind at 11:00am today. The Yanks have asked the UN not to vote on their latest resolution, claiming (as has JH in Moffo's post) that there is sufficient legal and moral grounds to attack Iraq.
Honestly, this is bloody absurb. The amount of time it has taken to get to this point has made the Cricket World Cup look like the Tilt Train. The majority of decent minded people (might I add, in particular people on this forum) have known since September that Dubya was gunning for Saddam. How many fricking times have I heard Dubya bellow 'If Sar-daaarm Hooosain does nart dis-aaaaaarm, the Unitard States will lead a
coalition!!!!! to dis-aaaaaarm him!'.
Mark my words, we will be at war by Friday. It will not be pleasant.There will be no V-Day heroes in 2003, to paraphrase Cold Chisel. I suspect we will look back at this in fifty years time with a fair degree of shame. That is, if we aren't the 51st state by then....
In the meanwhile, I just love this:
<span>PM could face war crime charges</span>
<span>By James Madden</span>
<span>March 18, 2003</span>
<span> JOHN Howard stands to lose more than the next election if he commits Australian troops to Iraq. He could also find himself facing charges of war crimes, according to international law expert Gillian Triggs.
Professor Triggs said yesterday it was possible that soldiers and political leaders from the "coalition of the willing" could be charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court if the invasion went ahead without UN approval. "It's a far-fetched scenario that John Howard would come before the ICC, as the Attorney-General would first have to agree to his extradition," said Professor Triggs, co-director of Melbourne University's Institute for International and Comparative Law. "But it's possible that if he loses the next election, a Labor attorney-general could decide that Howard should have to defend himself against charges of war crimes." Only those countries that ratified the introduction of the ICC would be subject to charges. Australia was one of 60 countries that signed the statute of Rome last year, affiliating themselves with the ICC. However, Iraq and the US remain outside the jurisdiction of the ICC, having not signed the agreement. Professor Triggs was one of 43 experts in international law and human rights to put their names to an article, published in Sydney and Melbourne newspapers last month, which claimed that a pre-emptive strike on Iraq would be illegal. However, 21 prominent legal figures have attacked that suggestion on the
<u>Opinion page of The Australian</u> today. "An invasion of Iraq is legal for two reasons. There are existing UN resolutions that allow for an attack, and secondly, for reasons of self-defence," said co-author Stephen Hall, associate professor of law at the City University of Hong Kong.
<span>
The Australian</span>
</span>
