Whether or not the US should have invaded is to me beside the point: that they invaded without the consent of the UN was wrong
Why is it wrong? The UN has no legitimacy in any way. MOST of the members do not have democratic governments, and thus are NOT representative of the peoples of their countries, and even the ones that do, it's one vote PER COUNTRY, not per capita voting. So the power is NOT from the people. It is self-appointed, which is NOT legitimate.
I can understand how this could be confusing to a Canadian though, as the media and government continually try and convince you that you have been "granted" rights by THEM, and not them given power by YOU. They try and reinforce this at every turn, so I'm not suprised you have been taken in on more levels than JUST Canada's government, but you take that for the world too.
Why is the UN a "stamp of legitimacy" to you? It's a dictator's society that a few legits happen to be in as well.
The League of Nations failed - do they want the same to happen to the UN
Actually I do. As I said above, the UN is completely corrupt and something that should have been abandoned the minute they gave Communist China a seat on the Security Council.
And remember the League of Nations failed because the USA was not there, AND they were impotent in preventing WWII. They were never a true power influencing world order, only an opinionated debate club. And so is the UN. It SHOULD fail the same way.
it showed that the UN was essentially ineffective if a country wished to bully its way into doing what it wanted.
EXACTLY. The ONLY reason the UN had any semblance of authority was the guns backing it up, primarily from the US, Great Britian, etc. Once they disagree with the direction the UN goes, the UN is useless, and is merely used to smuggle money into dictator's pockets (and the families of officials, like Kofi Annan's son).
What, now, would stop the US from becoming an empire?
Their own citizens, which since the collapse of the USSR was the only thing. And it was enough. And the US people don't WANT an empire. They want self-determination only. This only means extending influence when somebody ELSE can screw them over. After the elimination of their enemies, they'd be just as happy to let everybody else go fuck themselves without lifting a finger. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!! (including Canada, which like you I'm a citizen of)