The US is much criticised for following its own policy
in many issues. There is no secret in that.

The question you need to ask yourself is; why? Why are France, Russia,
Belgium, etc. free to persue their own national policies without drawing
criticism but the US cannot?

Then perhaps it should be time for the US to pay it's $2BN
debt to the UN.

If we pay our debt, will the UN begin paying the State and City of New York the
billions they pay every year for hosting the United Nations. Everything from
additional police to sanitation removal are not paid for by the UN. We could
probably pay off some of that in parking tickets if UN members ever paid them,
but they flaunt their diplomatic immunity pretty good in downtown Manhatten.
Tell you what, why don't we move the UN to your country? I think that's a
solution that at least every American (definitely every "New Yorker") would
agree to.

Lack of money and resources is an contributing
factor why the UN has trouble fulfilling its obligations
and goals.

$$ has nothing to do with the fact that the international politics in this
multi-polar world have rendered the UN unable to act.

The US has vetoed 26 of the last the Palestine/Israel issue
I think.

You keep dredging this up as if to prove this represents US violation of UN
resolutions. It doesn't and for the fifth or sixth time, US vetos since 1991
are based on the simple *fact* that the UN has *never* admonished Isreal's
enemies and from the looks of things never plans to. Furthermore, no other
nation or organization has made progress (in some cases temporary, yet progress
none-the-less) between the Isreali's and their Arab counterparts like the US.

If you look at
this table you can see that of the 254 vetos in the UNSC
since 1946, the US alone accounts for 78 of them.

And this proves what?


As I pointed out early in this discussion, it's a team-effort,
the EU -or anyone else- relys on the US as much as the other
way around.

Wrong. The US has begged the EU to get involved in a substantive way for the
last 5 years, their biggest contibution is to approve UN resolutions
admonishing Isreal and leaving the PA blameless and to whine that the US has
vetoed the resolution. The US does not rely on the EU in the middle east.

Iraq accepted and complied five days after
the resolution was passed through, on nov 13th, and the
SC did not automaticly authorize the use of force

Partially correct. There was no wording automatically authorizing force, but
then again there was no wording not authorizing force. Its called diplomatic
ambiguity, its in nearly ever international agreement since the Magna Carta.
The US choose to assume past resoltions authorizing force and the current
resolution threatening "severe consequences" was authority enough.

Did the SC decide there had been
a material breach of the resolution?

Yes. UNSCOM reported the Iraqi's were being "deceptive". This was a material
breech.

Had all nonmilitary
means of enforcement have been exhausted?

Probably by around 1995.

In addition, Article 51 restricts the use of the force
to cases of self-defense and only in response to an
"armed attack." I think you are going to have a tough
time showing that Iraq posed an imminant offensive threat.


Potential chemical and biological weapons and known ties to international
terrorists was more than enough "proof".

But what
was the US and UK official reasons for going to war?

Iraq was still developing chemical and biological weapons and had known ties to
international terrorists.

I don't think the convention makes such a distinction.

It absolutely does. You can't engage in armed conflict in jeans and a T-shirt
and expect to be recognized as a legal armed combatant. The convention not only
says you must be a uniform, but an "officially recognized" uniform.

Article 4 of the third convention sates that any indiviudual,
militia or voulenteer corps engaged in war is regarded a POW
when captured.

Correct, if wearing a uniform identifying themselves as such.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"