re: #451 Achilles Tang

We may be coming off track here. I am saying Iraq would be just like Syria if a people’s revolution had reached the stage of Syria. You said it is the people’s responsibility to remove a dictator. I say which people, in these cases?. There is no single Syrian people, nor a single Iraqi people.

which people???

i don’t think it is for us to decide

just because we don’t like the outcome that doesn’t mean we have a right to intervene in the affairs of a nation-state that has not attacked us. it’s exactly the same principle as our opinion of the outcome of an election held in that country

unless they’ve attacked us, whatever happens within their borders is their affair and we have no right to intervene, no matter how lamentable we think the outcome is

you know, it’s not like what i am stating hasn’t been a settled principle of international law for over a century