Patrick O'Brian Discussion Forum

David Shaw

>Stated simply, any treaty may be broken because all treaties are exercises in sovereignity ergo mutual agreements freely given and without outside constraints. If Germany decides it will no longer honor a mutual assistance treaty with Austria it says so and Austria can go suck lemons.

>This is as basic a tenant of international law as it possible to find. I can cite texts going back centuries that state this a guiding first belief.

>Another basic tenant, again going back centuries is that a nation must defend itself and by itself that includes every single citizen and every foot of ground. When confronted by a threat to itself all bets and treaties are off PERIOD. In fact, I will attach a typical treatise excerpt at the bottem of this post. if I can I will find one that is both British and from Aubrey's era.

>So, to take the examples cited and place them into the context of international law:

>Iraq 1 : the US had a mutual assistance relationship with Kuwait. When Kuwait was attacked the US and many other countries beat the crap out of Iraq but did not follow up and destroy the Sadaam regime. Many including myself felt at the time that this was just buying another war. But the US bowed to international relations, not any "law" and the Sadaam regime stayed alive.

>The "peace" included lots of provisions including no fly zones, inspections and an oil embargo to enforce certain behaviour.

>Sadaam violated these provisions several hundred times and shot at US planes on many occasions. he also adopted a posture of aggression.
>Not the smartest of men. If you need an expression of "law" to justify Iraq 2 then thosae transgressions were more that sufficient. Again, the US violated no treaty that i am aware of in Iraq 2. Can anyone cite a violation? Here is a blank space, just slide it right in there ________________.

>Re Afghanistan. The Taliban ran the country. They conspired to kill 300 americans on US soil. That is all any country has needed since Rome for legal justification.

>Ah, I have found an 18th century citation for you:

>CHAPTER II: General Principles of the Duties of a Nation towards itself. - Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury (LF ed.) [1797]
>Edition used:
>The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury, edited and with an Introduction by Béla Kapossy and Richard Whitmore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008).

>Author: Emer de Vattel
>Editor: Béla Kapossy
>Editor: Richard Whatmore
>Translator: Thomas Nugent
>
>
>Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury, edited and with an Introduction by Béla Kapossy and Richard Whitmore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008). Chapter: CHAPTER II: General Principles of the Duties of a Nation towards itself.

>Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2246/212425 on 2009-10-31

>CHAPTER II
>General Principles of the Duties of a Nation towards itself.
>...
>§16. A nation is under an obligation to preserve itself.In the act of association, by virtue of which a multitude of men form together a state or nation, each individual has entered into engagements with all, to promote the general welfare; and all have entered into engagements with each individual, to facilitate for him the means of supplying his necessities, and to protect and defend him. It is manifest that these reciprocal engagements can no otherwise be fulfilled than by maintaining the political association. ...

>§17. And to preserve its members.If a nation is obliged to preserve itself, it is no less obliged carefully to preserve all its members. The nation owes this to itself, since the loss even of one of its members weakens it, and is injurious to its preservation. It owes this also to the members in particular, in consequence of the very act of association; for those who compose a nation are united for their defence and common advantage; and none can justly be deprived of this union, and of the advantages he expects to derive from it, while he on his side fulfils the conditions.

>The body of a nation cannot then abandon a province, a town, or even a single individual who is a part of it, unless compelled to it by necessity, or indispensably obliged to it by the strongest reasons founded on the public safety.

>§18. A nation has a right to every thing necessary for its preservation.Since then a nation is obliged to preserve itself, it has a right to every thing necessary for its preservation. For the Law of Nature gives us a right to every thing, without which we cannot fulfil our obligation; otherwise it would oblige us to do impossibilities, or rather would contradict itself in prescribing us a duty, and at the same time debarring us of the only means of fulfilling it. It will doubtless be here understood, that those means ought not to be unjust in themselves, or such as are absolutely forbidden by the Law of Nature. As it is impossible that it should ever permit the use of such means,—if on a particular occasion no other present themselves for fulfilling a general obligation, the obligation must, in that particular instance, be looked on as impossible, and consequently void.
>  

Can anybody differentiate between Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia and the American invasion of Iraq? No -- both were crimes and both ended in strutting speeches of self adulation by a third rate hoodlum because in each case their armed forces had managed to beat a far weaker opponent: the only difference being that one incredible piece of bombastic public masturbation was made on a balcony in Rome and the other on the deck of an American aircraft carrier. There are other historical comparisons too numerous to mention and none of them do the US any credit at all.

Still, it's nice to hear an American lawyer confirm that the Japanese were perfectly justified in attacking Pearl Harbour before bothering with any tiresome legal formalities like declaring war.

Of course that confirmation rests on two assumptions. That Mr Trainer is indeed a lawyer, and that he's aware of what was once considered civilised behaviour by civilised nations, i.e. that the ultimate step in national sovereignty is the spilling of blood. Something which no government should do without a formal declaration of war in which it sets out its grievances and what it believes is its justification for taking such an extreme step.

If a reason for such action by a government is to be sought, then the following form of words apply as well as any: 'a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should'. The phrase is taken from what used to be a well respected document, the American declaration of independence.

Another excellent reason for formulating a declaration of war is that it gives those responsible a chance to consider very carefully their reasons for beginning an armed conflict. For example, if somebody were to allege that the government of Afghanistan had conspired in an attack on the USA, proof of such an assertion would be expected. Without any such proof, the charge doesn't stand. It is warmongering, the worst crime that any human can commit against the human race.

What treaty did the US violate in its attack on Iraq? The moral treaty against the unjustified taking of life: the word in the blank space is MURDER. Mr Trainer you are a murderer, and your nation are murderers. You do what you do for the same reason that Al Capone did what he did: killing for fun and profit because -- as you've just argued so eloquently -- you all consider yourself above any laws of any kind. You have God and your gun muzzles and that's all you think you'll ever need.

Certainly you don't kill on the same scale that Genghis Khan or the Nazis did, give or take a couple of atomic bombs. And nobody can be sure how many Iraqis have died as a result of American actions. It may be a million, it may be a lot less. What we can certainly say is that if tomorrow some Iraqi or Afghan was able to release a virus in America which killed an equal number of Americans, the squeals of outrage from Washington would be deafening.

And nobody else in the world would pay any more attention than they did when Bush was telling us all what we 'must' do. There are no more slopes of hypocrisy left for people like you to scale. You stand atop the very utmost pinnacle of a veritable mountain of self propagating and self serving claptrap with the ghost of Goebbels at your shoulder, no doubt in awe at your national gall. By comparison to the nonsense you trot out Herr Goebbels was a shy and sensitive spin doctor. At least he had some respect for the intelligence of the international audience he was lying to for every hour of every day.

You lot, by comparison, are a joke. Yes, I hoped Obama well. I hoped we really were going to see a change, especially in foreign affairs. But it's not going to happen, is it? Nobody is going to cancel another season of the Afghan war because of falling ratings. No Secretary of State will ever go to Israel and pull those spoilt brats into line. And when we see your kind of mentality trampling around the Jurassic Park inside your own head we can all understand why.

The strangest thing of all is that you're so stupid that you can't see the US is doing exactly what its enemies hope it will do -- to carry on lugging around the crushing weight of that tar baby it grabbed so eagerly almost a decade ago. Hasn't eight years of achieving bugger all squared at great expense taught you anything at all?