Thanks for the link, Prof.
Though it doesn't seem to settle my concerns about the occupation. If I understand correctly, the US has "legal" right to force because Iraq didn't hold to a cease fire agreement set in 1991.
What concerns me however it the pretext under which US Forces went into the country. If I remember correctly there were a series of different excuses that changed as the conflict went on. I can't remember if it started with Iraqi ties to Al Quaeda or with the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Though both of these claims were used as the main excuse for invasion at different times. After both of them were proven to be baseless, the reason then became liberation of Iraqi people. I'm not saying that this was not an intention all along, more that it wasn't the main reason for occupation covered in the media. And even then the irony is that it's hard to feel liberated as a people when you have foreign occupants in your country.
Quote:
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Since it was not directly attacked by Iraq the United States did not have an obvious right to self-defense. The administration, though, argued that it had a right to defend itself preemptively against a future possible attack. In his speech to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, President Bush described Saddam Hussein's regime as "a grave and gathering danger," detailed that regime's persistent efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and spoke of an "outlaw regime" providing such weapons to terrorists.
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If we're working under the idea of self defense then the argument is really in the vein of a "It's coming right for us" shoot first, ask later mentality. Because potentially you could label any country as a potential future threat but this should not be grounds for occupation.
And if I was going to talk about Guantanamo I wouldn't so much be concerned about the imprisonment of enemy combatants as I would be about the abduction and incarceration of people within your own country with no trial.
I've found nothing yet to sway me away from the feeling that the whole affair smacks of illegality. And what really concerns me is that as a super power, the US should be the country leading by example, not bending rules and operating wthin grey areas.