War Crimes

[Grey Cat]

What do you get when you send a generation of kids raised on video games into a war lead by a moron? The sad answer is Marine Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich.
I don't agree with the actions taken by Sgt. Wuterich, nor do I believe he's the only one who should stand to answer for his crimes. He was merely following the fine example set by his Commander In Chief.
The world said not to invade Iraq, that there was insufficient evidence of WMDs. Did W listen? No. He decided to bomb first and ask questions later.
If we try one war criminal, we must try them all!

[Modernliberal]

The extent to which American exceptionalism is embedded in the national psyche is awesome to behold.

While the United States is a country like any other, its citizens no more special than any others on the planet, Americans still react with surprise at the suggestion that their country could be held responsible for something as heinous as a war crime.

From the massacre of more than 100,000 people in the Philippines to the first nuclear attack ever at Hiroshima to the unprovoked invasion of Baghdad, U.S.-sponsored violence doesn't feel as wrong and worthy of prosecution in internationally sanctioned criminal courts as the gory, bload-soaked atrocities of Congo, Darfur, Rwanda, and most certainly not the Nazis -- most certainly not. Howard Zinn recently described this as our "inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior."

Most Americans firmly believe there is nothing the United States or its political leadership could possibly do that could equate to the crimes of Hitler's Third Reich. The Nazis are our "gold standard of evil," as author John Dolan once put it.

But the truth is that we can, and we have -- most recently and significantly in Iraq. Perhaps no person on the planet is better equipped to identify and describe our crimes in Iraq than Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials who successfully convicted 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating death squads that killed more than one million people in the famous Einsatzgruppen Case. Ferencz, now 87, has gone on to become a founding father of the basis behind international law regarding war crimes, and his essays and legal work drawing from the Nuremberg trials and later the commission that established the International Criminal Court remain a lasting influence in that realm.

Ferencz's biggest contribution to the war crimes field is his assertion that an unprovoked or "aggressive" war is the highest crime against mankind. It was the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 that made possible the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the destruction of Fallouja and Ramadi, the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, civilian massacres like Haditha, and on and on. Ferencz believes that a "prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation."

Interviewed from his home in New York, Ferencz laid out a simple summary of the case:

"The United Nations charter has a provision which was agreed to by the United States formulated by the United States in fact, after World War II. Its says that from now on, no nation can use armed force without the permission of the U.N. Security Council. They can use force in connection with self-defense, but a country can't use force in anticipation of self-defense. Regarding Iraq, the last Security Council resolution essentially said, 'Look, send the weapons inspectors out to Iraq, have them come back and tell us what they've found -- then we'll figure out what we're going to do. The U.S. was impatient, and decided to invade Iraq -- which was all pre-arranged of course. So, the United States went to war, in violation of the charter."

It's that simple. Ferencz called the invasion a "clear breach of law," and dismissed the Bush administration's legal defense that previous U.N. Security Council resolutions dating back to the first Gulf War justified an invasion in 2003. Ferencz notes that the first Bush president believed that the United States didn't have a U.N. mandate to go into Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein; that authorization was simply to eject Hussein from Kuwait. Ferencz asked, "So how do we get authorization more than a decade later to finish the job? The arguments made to defend this are not persuasive."

Writing for the United Kingdom's Guardian, shortly before the 2003 invasion, international law expert Mark Littman echoed Ferencz: "The threatened war against Iraq will be a breach of the United Nations Charter and hence of international law unless it is authorized by a new and unambiguous resolution of the Security Council. The Charter is clear. No such war is permitted unless it is in self-defense or authorized by the Security Council."

Challenges to the legality of this war can also be found at the ground level. First Lt. Ehren Watada, the first U.S. commissioned officer to refuse to serve in Iraq, cites the rules of the U.N. Charter as a principle reason for his dissent.

Ferencz isn't using the invasion of Iraq as a convenient prop to exercise his longstanding American hatred: he has a decades-old paper trail of calls for every suspect of war crimes to be brought to international justice. When the United States captured Saddam Hussein in December 2003, Ferencz wrote that Hussein's offenses included "the supreme international crime of aggression, to a wide variety of crimes against humanity, and a long list of atrocities condemned by both international and national laws."

Ferencz isn't the first to make the suggestion that the United States has committed state-sponsored war crimes against another nation -- not only have leading war critics made this argument, but so had legal experts in the British government before the 2003 invasion. In a short essay in 2005, Ferencz lays out the inner deliberations of British and American officials as the preparations for the war were made:

U.K. military leaders had been calling for clear assurances that the war was legal under international law. They were very mindful that the treaty creating a new International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague had entered into force on July 1, 2002, with full support of the British government. Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, chief of the defense staff, was quoted as saying "I spent a good deal of time recently in the Balkans making sure Milosevic was put behind bars. I have no intention of ending up in the next cell to him in The Hague."

Ferencz quotes the British deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry who, in the lead-up to the invasion, quit abruptly and wrote in her resignation letter: "I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force against Iraq without a second Security Council resolution … [A]n unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression; nor can I agree with such action in circumstances that are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law."

While the United Kingdom is a signatory of the ICC, and therefore under jurisdiction of that court, the United States is not, thanks to a Republican majority in Congress that has "attacks on America's sovereignty" and "manipulation by the United Nations" in its pantheon of knee-jerk neuroses. Ferencz concedes that even though Britain and its leadership could be prosecuted, the international legal climate isn't at a place where justice is blind enough to try it -- or as Ferencz put it, humanity isn't yet "civilized enough to prevent this type of illegal behavior." And Ferencz said that while he believes the United States is guilty of war crimes, "the international community is not sufficiently organized to prosecute such a case. … There is no court at the moment that is competent to try that crime."

As Ferencz said, the world is still a long way away from establishing norms that put all nations under the rule of law, but the battle to do so is a worthy one: "There's no such thing as a war without atrocities, but war-making is the biggest atrocity of all."

The suggestion that the Bush administration's conduct in the "war on terror" amounts to a string of war crimes and human rights abuses is gaining credence in even the most ossified establishment circles of Washington. Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion in the recent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling by the Supreme Court suggests that Bush's attempt to ignore the Geneva Conventions in his approved treatment of terror suspects may leave him open to prosecution for war crimes. As Sidney Blumenthal points out, the Court rejected Bush's attempt to ignore Common Article 3, which bans "cruel treatment and torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

And since Congress enacted the Geneva Conventions, making them the law of the United States, any violations that Bush or any other American commits "are considered 'war crimes' punishable as federal offenses," as Justice Kennedy wrote.

George W. Bush in the dock facing a charge of war crimes? That's well beyond the scope of possibility … or is it?

Modernliberal:)

[Chriss P]

I have a saying "By being too right we could be wrong". We are too self-righteous that leads us astray.

If Bush has technically comitted a war crime according to international or domestic law, than yes he should be tried. We have lost a lot of integrety and the support of countries in our endeavors to make this world more peaceful as we have been too militant in doing so and too one sided in having oil a a motive.

As mentioned, there are other places just as bad as Iraq.

[eds]

First off all we keep forgetting NATO Article 5 which supersedes the UN Security Council. The requirements were met. We attacked Iraq with the full blessing of the Security Council and were recognized as the occupying power. All events after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, including the failed oil for food program, were what led to the invasion of Iraq. Iraq was increasingly defiant after the invasion of Kuwait, including breaking the no-fly zone rules. Remember those rules? The faulty intelligence and connections to 9/11 were but one aspect but the entire war was not based upon those two elements. It was increasingly apparent that Saddam needed to be ousted and he was. Our problem was overstaying our welcome.

UN Recognizes UK and US as occupying powers.
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/scres/2003/res1483.pdf

Bush may have done some pretty stupid things in his time as president, but war crimes? I don't think so. We would never turn him over anyway.

[bike man]

First it was Nuclear weapons(which the USA possesses)
Then is was chemical weopons(which the USA develops)
Then it was terrorists(which the USA funded)
Then it was freeing the people(which the USA is now oppressing)

All the stated reasons for the war are hypocritical. The only reason that makes any sense is we were greedy for oil. It was wrong to invade Iraq and we should get out now. If the money spent on invading Iraq had been used to develop renewable energy or non polluting infrastructure we would be in a lot better situation right now.

[eds]

I think its kind of short sighted to think the sole reason for invading Iraq was for oil. It smacks of conspiracy theorists' reasoning. You've made sweeping claims of US backed terrorists. Yes some citizens have had their houses taken through FBI terrorist leins, by our government for supporting terrorists, but our government did not support terrorists. We developed weapons but having the same weapons as Saddam, such as nukes and chemical weapons, does not make us the same. Police officers and criminals both have guns, for example. We needed to kill Saddam. It was not wrong to invade. It was wrong to stay and **** of the people. It would be the equivalent of the French staying in America after they helped us beat the English in 1776.

Actually instead of renewable energy, we could have put that money into health care. We can have all the energy we want, but if we're too sick to use it, what good is it?

[bike man]

I was referring to the fact that our government funded Osama Bin Laden when he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan and bringing the Taliban to power.
I am not saying we are the same, I'm saying that we should not be preaching disarmament unless we are willing to do so ourselves.
I have to disagrees that Saddam needed to be killed. He needed to punished and removed from power but by his own people not an outside power.
I do agree that we need to fund health care but as pollution has been linked to many health problems I think energy and health are linked issues.

[eds]

We are disarming. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we have been dismantling nukes for some time now. The people in Iraq were incapable of mounting a unified attack against Saddam, as evidenced by the Kurds' near annihilation by Saddam. But at least you agree, Saddam was a bad man who needed to be taken out of power, either by force or by justice.

Pollution comes from all sources, not just petro based. But I can see your point, they are, at whatever level, co-mingled. A protracted war was a waste of money. Short and sweet could have saved millions and our reputation.

[Modernliberal]

eds check your notes, I think I may have you on this one. The North Atlantic Treaty Organizations charters, and laws only have impact on those in the North Atlantic. UN Supersedes everything else. Look at the location of Iraq, they ARE NOT north Atlantic. NATO has no jurisdiction over what we can do there. They think they do, but that would be like OPEC coming into the US and saying we have jurisdiction because you use our oil. That doesn't happen. Unless you are saying that is what happens, in which case we have an even BIGGER problem on our hands.

Modernliberal:)

[eds]

The UN Charter prohibits one state from threatening another or interfering with another states jurisdiction. You are correct. NATO does comes under UN jurisdiction. However we did not start this Iraq War nor did we start the Afgan War. UN Charter laws were broken, not NATO. I got that backwards. Thanks for pointing that out.

Clinton committed war crimes when he attacked Yugoslavia without UN Council approval or congressional approval. At least Congress gave Bush the power meeting requirements of our constitution. Bush's UN approval may have been based upon faulty intel, but who really knows for sure?

We must remember that Afgan War was aimed at the Taliban directly because of 9/11. Iraq was primarily a continuation of the conflict started by Saddam when he attacked Kuwait. (No-fly zone, oil-for-food, Kurds, etc) Both of these acts violated the UN Charter Articles 2,4,7. In other words they started it. The UN must recognize that and allow NATO charter to be enforced under Article 5. What other NATO members did not do was come to the aid of USA under NATO Article 5. They did at first, but then lost interest. We had UN approval for the attacks as shown by their recognition of the US as occupying force. There were no war crimes committed by Bush. Everything either came under NATO or came under UN. Whichever that may be.

The NATO alliance was formed under the UN Charter, yes that is true. The UN Security Council must uphold the NATO charter however, and includes Article 5 as well as allowing any NATO nation to come to the defense of any nation so asked, which included Kuwait. Kuwait was the starting point for the attacks on Iraq. The charge of terrorism only added one more thing to the already long list. We have rulings dating back to the early 1990s which allowed us to attack Iraq.

But you are correct. NATO applies only to member nations. The point about NATO covers the cut-and-run nations who did not stick with the USA as part of their agreement.

Sometimes I can't keep these treaties charters and alliances in my head. Did you know Russia agreed to also combat WMD and terrorism and has yet to really support that effort?

[Modernliberal]

Hey eds just so you know, read this article. This article actually shows that we did start the war, not only did we start the war we started it on false statements.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22794451/

Modernliberal:)

[eds]

Again we are trying to connect 9/11 with Iraq.

The study is basing its findings on the fact we found no WMDs. But they were there just moved or hidden in the days leading up to the invasion. Had we waiting and then BOOM! what then?

Like I said,much can be said the same for b.Clinton who attacked Yugoslavia without congressional approval and without un approval. Milosevic was determined to be a war criminal and a genocide proponent. No one has even mentioned Clinton's war crime there. And he violated the constitution. At least bush got their approval.

There are also people who believe 9/11 was an inside job. If this study is true then Britain, Australia, France, Spain, Germany and several other countries we're all duped, the media, according to the article validated the statements as well. So Bush managed to fool a decidedly leftist media into his right wing idealologies? Quite a feat for someone who can't even pronounce "nuclear".

I hear your point. And it may be true. But that is whisky under the bridge. We need to get the hell out now. There will always be a small force there but we are too committed to this sinking ship and need to be committed to the next threat literally on the horizon of Iraq.

[oldnickel]

actually i think it was NATO that attacked Yugoslavia with UN approval. No one said Milosevic had any WMD's though

What leftist media are talking about. Prove to me that the leftist media exists. Talk radio is all right wing whack jobs, Fox news is really Republican talking points news. Most major newspapers are actually right wing oriented. Bush and his fellow travelers made it seem like you were a traitor if you disagreed with his assessment of IRAQ. Remember the UN inspectors went to IRAQ and they couldn't find anything. Even Scott Ritter the lead US inspector and no left wing dope says IRAQ had no WMD's. Colin Powell actually got up and said we know where all the WMD's are. Guess what , they weren't there. We have the most sophisticated satellite surveillance in the world and somehow Saddam the buffoon fools us. Not likely.
As I've said before, you can make a much stronger connection to Saudi Arabia than IRAQ. Stronger in the sense of financial backing, moral support and most of the hijackers were Saudi. No one has ever proved that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. His only crime was being an uncouth irritant. Bush invades, without any UN mandate, wastes billions of dollars, destabilizes the entire middle east and is now stuck in a quagmire

[eds]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=957F259C-607A-4D25-B98E-06B9FF2D208D

Clinton attacked Iraq pre-emptively long before Bush ever did. Iraq was not invaded because of 9/11. It was a contination of the conflict started by Saddam when he invaded Kuwait. Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors? remember? That is when they were getting to close to the stock of WMDs I would say. He moved them and then let them back in. Remember that? Saddam threatened to destabilize the region and his acts of aggression against Kuwait only served to strengthen that opinion.

There is an organization called "al-Qaeda in Iraq'. They didn't just magically appear after the attacks on Iraq.

You need to read the senate intelligence committee reports and the 9/11 Commission report all which link Iraq to al-Qaeda. Clinton obtained an indictment against bin-Laden which listed ties to Iraq. Remember the judgment by a federal judge against Iraq for a couple family victims of 9/11 whose judgment was against Iraq.

If you remember back to the early 90s there was growing concern reported by all media that bin Laden and Saddam were getting cozy with each other.

But all this simply proves Saddam plotting terrorist activities. He was in fact destabilizing the region. Simply shooting him dead would have sufficed. Instead we entered a protracted war which now is not leading us anywhere.

We attacked Iraq on the basis of stopping Saddam. The 9/11 connection was only one thing in a slew of things which were levied against Saddam. But we only focus on one thing. 9/11. We attacked Afghanistan for that.

Washington Post, New York Times are traditionally left leaning, so is CNN to a degree.

Now I am afraid, as I have said numerous times, that we will be so adverse to another war, we will let Iran go unfettered into a nuclear power. All super powers agreed once to a non-proliferation treaty to end nuclear arms race. Why then would we allow another country like Iran to enter the nuclear arms race and start it all up again. How do we stop that? Whatever it takes. We can try diplomacy and sanctions, but when that fails, then what? Do we simply change our so-called shameful capitalistic ways. Turn from our Zionist religions and embrace Islamic Shari Law? That is what they want. To end democracy. To end capitalism. To end the US way of life. That is undisputed. So now what?

[oldnickel]

Most newspapers in this country are right wing oriented. The New York Times had Judith Miller spreading the Bush talking points. The UN mandate in the first gulf war was to kick Saddam out of Kuwait. That's why Bush I stopped, he knew he had no mandate or authority to goo further. The terms of the surrender, effectively neutered Saddam. His army was decimated, he controlled one third of the country, He could not re supply his army, and he had no fixed wing air force. All Clinton did was enforce the surrender terms by taking out radar tracking stations. He never invaded, never felt it was warranted or justified. The UN inspectors never found any WMD's. Even after we invaded and controlled the country for years, we never found anything. This was bush's main reason for attacking. We knew Saddam had WMD's, we knew where they were and what he had. After we fail to find anything the excuse is that he moved and hid them somewhere. What a joke. Sadaam was a bad guy, did bad things even to his own people. But hey, he was our guy for 8 years in the war against IRAN. The US has either ignored or supported thugs just as bas over the years, no need to get righteous now. Bush, Cheney(Dart Vader), Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rove etal continued to spread misinformation even after they knew it was wrong. Sometimes they contradicted each other. All they did was waste our troops, kill a lot of good soldiers, waste billions of dollars all to make the middle east unstable.

[eds]

You forgot that Clinton attacked Yugoslavia without UN approval or without congressional approval. We criticize Bush only because we committed ground troops. Had we just continued the bombing campaign most Americans would not even care, just like with Yugoslavia. Nobody cared then and it was Clinton. They only cared when he was getting BJs from his intern.

One small point though. Saddam kicked out the inspectors and prevented their entry into certain areas, remember that? What was he hiding that he didn't want them to see? The inspectors were taken to places that were already "sterilized". I've asked several service men I know, and they all feel the WMDs were moved to Syria. I can't believe Saddam, who once used chemical weapons on the Kurds, which is a well-known fact, just suddenly got rid of them all. No trace of their existence. Sounds fishy to me. Especially with the influx of mercenaries from Syria.

But we can believe what we want. I still think Saddam got what he deserved, illegal or not. My problem is with why we stayed so much longer after we got him.

[oldnickel]

Clinton did attack Yugoslavia/Serbia with NATO support, but I thought we were talking about IRAQ. Saddam was not overly cooperative with the inspectors but they we still able to do their job. They did find evidence that the WMD's were destroyed. Speculating about where Saddam hid them is a convenient way for some people (Noted Administration officials & Neocons) not to admit that they were either wrong or that they fabricated the rationale. In the run up the the war, Bush floated the Saddam is a bad guy idea and no one cared. We have in the past supported many bad guys who did equally bad things because they were anti communists.

If Saddam were able to hide the WMD's or move them to Syria our intelligences services are even more incompetent that anyone imagined. One thing for sure, there is no way that Israel would have allowed the WMD's to be moved/hidden in Syria. The recent attack had more to do with recent Syrian attempts to start up a nucular program. Having poison gas stored in Syria where fanatical Palestinians could get it -not likely to happen.

[eds]

I was using Clinton as an example of attacking without complete permission but no one complained about his use of force, just Bush.

It's all just speculation about Iraq at this point. The only documents I can find are classified. I have a friend.

Iran and yes I mean Iran, is the next big thing. Our next president will deal with that and Iraq. Right now I think we all agree its time to leave Iraq. That's our common ground, oldnickel.

I just hope we don't try to get all touchy-feely with Iran and learn their culture and traditions and embrace them. They are the enemy and should be dealt with accordingly. Does that mean attack them? I don't know. I think it means do whatever it takes to make sure our way of life is preserved. If they mind their business and we mind ours, we should be able to share the planet without killing each other any further. But we should always be at-the-ready.

[oldnickel]

Republicans did complain about Clinton (with NATO support) attacking Yugoslavia. One big difference is that with had support from Europe and most of the world. Another difference is that the reasons why we went in there were clear cut and provable. As far as Iraq, still waiting for some proof that most of the reasons were valid.
Everything this administration does is labeled top secret or national security. No public oversight is the only way the leadership can continue to operate. That and the blind loyalty of Republican partisans. If the public ever saw just how incompetent and partisan the leadership was, there would be big trouble. Every time someone has difficulty explaining the unexplainable, we hear the old secret files story. I'll believe when I can see. Some of these guys have no earned my trust to the point where I'll take their word for it.

[eds]

But yet you trust DCF to their job properly and without bias. You won't trust the federal government with country's best interests yet you trust DCF with our children's best interest. The government needs to be toned down in all areas or in none at all. You can't have it both ways. Either you trust the government or you don't. I've always said less government in our lives the better.

[Marc Syrah]

:p ok... I am bored... this economy sucks and I am reading the Forums...
Again...
This one was good... :D
Where did it go? :eek:

[alwaysright]

convict the lying coke addled alchoholic little george and then he can pardon himself when he FINALLY limps out of office to let Obama move in.

[flatrat]

Bush may have done some pretty stupid things in his time as president, but war crimes? I don't think so. We would never turn him over anyway.


International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/nov/20/usa.iraq1

[flatrat]

Bush may have done some pretty stupid things in his time as president, but war crimes? I don't think so. We would never turn him over anyway.

The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal.

Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish."

He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq

also:
The invasion of a single nation by another nation or group of nations is only legal under the UN Charter if such an invasion has been sanctioned by the vote of the UN Security Council. This did not happen in the case of the recent Iraq invasion, since the United States and Great Britain, led by the U.S. Secretary of State Powell, withdrew on March 17, 2003 their resolution to stage such an invasion from consideration by the UN Security Council when they realized that the majority of its members would vote against it.

[flatrat]

The Downing Street memo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_Memo)