And you point is...?
Uh.. the point was, that your "international law" is nothing more than mutually binding agreements that certain nations CHOOSE to abide by.. including the recognition of foreign governments. Taiwan has two nations recognizing its government.. Shouldn't international law compel the rest of the world to do the same, or to force de-recognition??
And considering that some 30 states, almost 1/5 of the world, has stated that they support the disarming, and ouster, of Saddam...
No. I am telling you what a 10-year old could,
Then let's cut the crap here Zonder..
Governments recognize others as legitimate because THEY WANT TO. There is NO international law that states that legitimacy must be given after meeting "such and such" conditions.. Thus, it follows logically that withdrawing legitimacy from a government is within any government's perogative. This is the "form", based upon arbitrary decisions, not the "substance" which defines the criteria that most rational people use to determine what constitutes a substantive legitimacy..
And that's what I am talking about.. and always have been. We can grant legitimacy to a state, but abhor the current government and refuse to recognize it. Likewise, we can grant legitimacy to a government without a state (Palestine, governments in exile.. etc).
That means I can rationally state that Saddam's government is illegitimate. Why?? Because I can.. I make the rules as to what constitutes legitimacy and illegitimacy of a particular government, JUST AS INDIVIDUAL GOVERNMENTS DO THE SAME BETWEEN ONE ANOTHER (I recognize you, if you recognize me)..
You want to play "semantics" and expect someone to find a Webster's definition for legitimate, and you'll it defined in several ways, one of which is HOW I DEFINE IT:
3. in accordance with reason or logic
"a logical conclusion"
Synonyms: logical
Because the whole basis and theory of civilized government is founded on some kind of rational logic, whereas uncivilized government is based upon natural selection..
And since, as civilized people, we have declared so many other uncivilized activities (such as murder, rape, theft, and imperialism to be illegitimate, why do you feel that civilized people must abide by an uncivilized definition of "legitimate" only acknowleged as existing by political natural selection??
To continue treating despotic regimes as "legitimate" is to base international law on two separate, and fundamentally opposed, defintions of what the word actually means.
Hawk |
