The UN charter alows nations to take military action with Security Council aproval. Since France/Germany/Russia opposed invading Iraq then the war was illegal but if France/Germany/Russia had supported the invasion then all of a sudden it becomes legal.
Same reason that if a jury decides the evidence against an accused murderer is weak they acquit him/her. Different jury, same evidence, same accused could come up with a different result. Send the accused to jail or whatever. Just 'cause as my kids used to say when they were younger.
That's the way most things in this world are decided. The decision is not necessarily the right decision but it's a decision that society generally accepts. That's the way Parliament and the Courts work, or used to. It's not so much that those august bodies have the right answers, it is that they come up with answers that discomfit the fewest number of people and thus preserve the peace.
There is a reason that the distance between the benches in the Houses of Parliament is 2 Sword Lengths. It gave breathing room to armed men that cordially detested each other and had long-standing feuds that went back hundreds of years. Parliament was a place to resolve disputes without killing each other unnecessarily.
That is what Iraq is learning just now. The have got a pretty steep learning curve ahead of them but by my estimate don't seem to be doing too bad.
Us Brits,every 25 years or so, between 1066 and today, were involved in slaughtering each other or some of those poor buggers from the Continent that felt we should be more like them.
The Yanks and Tony were right to go into Iraq. Despite the fact that they may not have played by the rules.
Brits adore their Rugby, at least the Foxhunting bunch that tends to join the army and become officers does. Here's a memorial to one of their heroes, the man credited with "Inventing" Rugby Football
A plaque at Rugby School bears the inscription:
THIS STONE
COMMEMORATES THE EXPLOIT
OF
WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS
WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL
AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME,
FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT,
THUS ORIGINATING THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF THE RUGBY GAME
A.D. 1823
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Webb_Ellis
