Originally posted by Zoom Zoom Diva:
Originally posted by caltour:
Saddam had multiple opportunities to avoid the war. He was an idiot, apparently, in addition to all of his other bad qualities. But please realize that Saddams failure to avail himself of opportunites to avoid war does not in any way change the morality (or legality) of Bush's decision to go to war. Saddam had an opportunity to avoid the bullet, but Bush pulled the trigger.



Congress authorized the use of force. That is all the authority Bush required to legally invade Iraq.



That's correct, in part. Congress' authorization made Bush's war legal under American law (at least if you ignore the issues re: fraud and deceit).

But international law is a different matter entirely. It generally forbids pre-emptive attacks on other nations. Many argue that Bush's war is illegal under international law. See the links I posted earlier about that.

Originally posted by Zoom Zoom Diva:
Morality is a matter of personal opinion and belief.



True, but there are some widely accepted standards of right and wrong. Civilization is what happens when people generally abide by widely accepted standards of right and wrong. Anarchy is what happens when they don't. The world holds us in contempt right now because many people think we violated some of the most widely held standards of right and wrong.