Mailvox: there is no revision

George keeps missing forest for the trees:

But at the time we supposedly had intel that Iraq was funding overseas operatives and it is a fact they were paying the families of Suicide Bombers a bounty in Israel. Are you saying Iraqi’s are too dumb to buy a ticket to Mexico City with a connection to LA? They would be Silly if they did NOT try.

…And Congress approved the funding for this war or there would have been no war.

With respect…You and Vox are trying to rewrite history.

1. All nations are funding overseas operatives.
2. Israel is not the USA. It is neither our business nor our responsibility if a foreign country is funding suicide bombers in Israel or anywhere but the USA. Saudi Arabia and Egypt also fund suicide bombers in Israel, and according to Washington, Saudi Arabia was the country that actually attacked the USA on 9/11.
3. Invading and occupying Iraq does not prevent the hypothetical Iraqi from buying a ticket to Mexico City with a connection to LA. Or anyone else, for that matter.
4. Funding a war is not synonymous with declaring war.
5. We are not rewriting history, we are reading it correctly.

I once thought that we had a right to go into Iraq based on the terms of the ceasefire and Iraq’s breaking those terms. I have changed my mind because there is no 1991 ceasefire agreement between the USA and Iraq as the media has repeatedly implied, there is only a United Nations resolution to which the two parties are signatories, so any subsequent breaking of the “ceasefire agreement” was not a legitimate concern of the USA, but of the United Nations. I should have looked more closely into that before.

Furthermore, the idea that military force was an appropriate response to breaking the UN agreement appears to be completely unfounded. Consider:

Consequently, one cannot assign a definitive legal meaning to the term “formal cease-fire” in Resolution 687. Indeed, except for the use of that term, everything else about Resolutions 686 and 687 fits the general dichotomy between an initial agreement for a temporary cessation of hostilities and then a comprehensive final agreement setting the terms for a peace. Unlike the situation in Korea, there was no expectation of a further “peace agreement” that would follow Resolution 687, and certainly no expectation that either side could resume military operations at any time so long as they provided advance notification. Rather, Resolution 687 was the final agreement; it was a political arrangement that brought about the “definitive end to the hostilities” envisaged in Resolution 686. The armies on the ground did not wait around for a further agreement after adoption of Resolution 687; as contemplated by Resolution 687, once the UN observer mission was deployed, the combat troops went home.