Will America eventually pay reparations to Iraq?

[reddread]

with something like this as a precedent

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/18/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-un-idUSKBN0JW1DH20141218

and perhaps in a slightly different world order, might we all become responsible for reparations down the road?

or will the bill go to the politicians who pulled it off?

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. The government of the people of the United States fought that war.

So the people of the United States would be responsible.

But that is not likely to happen. Traditionally, reparations are forced upon those who lose a war.

[Vattel]

4. Ugh, collective responsibility rears its ugly head

[Agnosticsherbet]

7. We have a representative government.

When our representatives screw up, we all pay because with our votes we hired them to do a job.

So, yes, even those of us who did not vote for the Schmucks in office, we still hold some responsibility for what they did in our name.

They are our Representatives.

[Vattel]

9. I never consented to anyone representing me. So I am not responsible for what they do.

For me voting is all about having an impact on who has power. Talk of representation and so on is based on myths about social contracts and such.

[Agnosticsherbet]

12. So you have never voted, so whay are you comlaining?

[Vattel]

13. I vote to have an effect on who has power, not to authorize representation.

Even if I did vote with the intention of authorizing representation, you are still mistaken to think that I would be responsible for anything that representative did in office. I don't authorize unjust wars, for example, even if I vote to have a representative in Congress or a commander in chief. In law (and in ethics), the liability of the one who authorizes agency or representation for the actions of the agent or representative is limited to those actions that are within the scope of that agent or representative's authority. Unjust actions, unless expressly authorized, are understood to be outside the scope of that authority.

[Vattel]

14. Oops. accidently posted same thing twice.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. I doubt it

[on point]

3. Should pay reparations. Wipe out Bush, Carlyle Group wealth as down payments.

[Nye Bevan]

5. Did Iraq pay reparations to Kuwait? (nt)

[Agnosticsherbet]

8. They have been for years.

[FLPanhandle]

6. Never will happen.

It would be unacceptable to the American public. Any politician that supported it wouldn't be in office for long.

[reddread]

10. do you suppose Iraq held a referendum?

I dont think it would be the result of our own decision.

[JonLP24]

11. WTF is going on?

"The Kuwaitis have a good relationship with the new Iraqi government and want to see it succeed. They have a strong interest in regional stability," he said.

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Secret smuggling routes are often passed on by families from generation to generation, and they were well-secured during the lean years of economic sanctions imposed by the West during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq. Border guards were in on the baksheesh system entrenched in the culture. They would turn a blind eye when cash in suitcases or trucks containing oil or goods passed through their checkpoints. Many smugglers who traded Saddam’s oil across Iraq’s borders to Kuwait, Iran and Turkey are now working the same routes between ISIS-held Iraq and the outside world.

At its heart, the ISIS money machine runs on the fear—and greed—of the millions of people it controls. It also manifests itself in a wide range of financial activities, many of them outsourced via middlemen and driven by hordes of self-interested parties. The U.S. Treasury has declined to estimate the extent of ISIS’s total assets and revenue streams, but Cohen has called it “the best-funded terrorist organization” the U.S. has “ever confronted.”

Royal Donors in the Gulf

Grossing as much as $40 million or more over the past two years, ISIS has accepted funding from government or private sources in the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait—and a large network of private donors, including Persian Gulf royalty, businessmen and wealthy families.

Until recently, all three countries had openly given hefty sums to rebels fighting Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime, among them ISIS. Only after widespread criticism from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the international community did Saudi Arabia pass legislation in 2013 criminalizing financial support of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra and ISIS.

<snip>

Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a fellow in Gulf politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C., tells Newsweek that private donors across the Persian Gulf are continuing to funnel money to ISIS. “Qatar and Kuwait continue to stick out as two trouble spots when it comes to counterterrorist financing enforcement,” she said. Continued financial sanctions imposed on Kuwait and Qatar terrorist financiers by the U.S. Treasury “suggest the U.S. government continues to be concerned about spotty, to say the least, Kuwaiti and Qatari enforcement of their counterterrorist financing laws.”

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/14/how-does-isis-fund-its-reign-terror-282607.html