Well I honestly didn't notice any other violations than the ones that have already been mentioned so well by Poox, WanderingCrabbe and Corey (killing a soldier who was surrendering, plunder, torture, land minds, stopping humanitarian aid, mistreatment of POWs). I suppose you could include Saddam invading Kuwait in the first place into the mix as well (which is clearly a violation of state sovereignty).
One part of the movie I particularly liked was the way in which it highlighted how George Bush called on the Kurds to rise up against Saddam and then left them to die. I think this is an important part of history that is rarely mentioned. It would have been nice if they had somehow managed to work the background of the Kurdish genocide into the film, but clearly it wasn't so central to the story at hand (and they only have so much time and space in a movie! For more info on this, read about the Al-Anfal Campaign on Wikipedia). Unfortunately it seems as if so many Americans get their history from movies, so this may be the only way people learn about the war!
I thought it was powerful at the end how the American solders were willing to let the refugees die at the hands of the Iraqi guards instead of allowing them to cross the border. It is amazing how they must follow rules even if they understand that it will lead to someone else's death. I realize that the war was over and they had to remain neutral, but it seems absurd to not help the Kurdish refugees.
It also seems absurd that the US was willing to go into Kuwait and stop Saddam because he had invaded another state but was unwilling to stop him when he was killing the Kurds in the 80's. It is amazing that states aren't allowed to kill other state's citizens but they are still allowed to kill their own (although this seems to be changing a bit).
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It is very important to refer to Marky Mark as Marky Mark in every and all circumstances. I was surprised that he managed to refrain from dropping his pants in this film, with the possible exception of him running shirtless in some kind of undergear from the Republican Guard guys who wanted to take him captive. (and shoot him, a violation of the Geneva Conventions)
Anyway, I agree with you on the bitter irony of how President Bush I encouraged the Kurds and Shiites to rise up against Saddam... then did nothing to help them. It was only a humanitarian crisis and world outrage that prompted the Administration to drop food and medicine to the Kurds as they fled into the mountains with Turkey, and later the creation of the northern and southern no-fly zones to protect them from Saddam's air attacks.
With regard to Al-Anfal, by 1988 Iraq had plenty of experience in using CW: they'd been using them in the war against Iran very extensively since 1982/3. In fact, at several points, CW kept the city of Basra from being taken by the Iranians. During the "War of the Cities" in 1987-8, when Iraq and Iran were bombing each others' major cities with intermediate range missles (where do you think Saddam got his SCUD practice in for the attacks on Tel Aviv in 1991?), there was a plan on the Iraqi side to first bomb Iranian cities with conventional missles, to break as many windows as possible, then to attack with CW.
"It is amazing that states aren't allowed to kill other state's citizens but they are still allowed to kill their own."
There's a really fantastic British comedian named Eddie Izzard who has a lovely bit about that. It's in his "Dress to Kill" DVD. I highly recommend it.
Anyway, that's why, if GW 2.0 had said "Let's invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein is a very bad person who murders his own people" I would've been all "Sign me up!" But even though I wholeheartedly believed at the time that he had nukes, it seemed to me that he'd had them forever, and had yet to nuke us. Why would he suddenly change? I'm a fervent believer in the rational actor model (with the exception of Kim Jong-Il. That dude's hair indicates that he has a level of insanity that is unprecedented in world history), and I sincerely doubt that Saddam would've spontaneously nuked the U.S. The U.S. has literally thousands of nukes. If someone uses WMDs on us, they had better use enough to wipe out our retaliatory capabilities. I found it doubtful that Iraq had that sort of ability.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6omQ5JjjLsE
Enjoy!
"The Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason..."
LOLZ!
I love Eddie Izzard, especially when he makes fun of Americans for not knowing history. Oh and I love his little French sketch, "Le singe est sur la table..."
I really love how bizarre he is with languages, like in the Martin Luther bit: "Ein minuten, bitte. Ich habe einen kleinen problemo avec diese religione." Which is how I speak foreign languages. Seriously. I took a semester of German, and at one point actually said "Er ist aus los Estados Unidos."
With regard to Iraq and the 1980s, there was extreme IHL violations by Iraq, Iran, and the US in the Iran-Contra scandal. State sovereignty is the key organizing structure and norm of the international system. Violating that norm will create greater anarchy and most likely an increase in non-combatant deaths and IHL violations. As greater 'norm entrepreneurs' take interest in the plight of non-combatants, greater concern and the strengthening of norms may occur. However, only time will tell and it will be highly dependent on if the US gets burned in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Je suis le président de Burundi."
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