America Leads
the Way
The Illegalities of the Iraq War
By Robert Fantina
07/14/07 "Counterpunch" -- -- In the four years since
the United States and its so-called 'Coalition of the
Willing' invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq, only one
stated goal has been accomplished: the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein. Peace and democracy are simply pipe dreams, the
continued fantasies of a deluded U.S. president and his
gaggle of yes-men who all choose to remain oblivious to
Iraq's bloody civil war.
In its perpetration of unspeakable terror upon the people of
Iraq, the United States and its willing and/or coerced
cohorts have violated international law at almost every
turn. A few shocking examples are instructive.
In March of 2003, British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith
responded to then Prime Minister Tony Blair's request for
input on the legality of the 'coalition's' pending invasion.
The U.S. had said that Iraq was in violation of Security
Council Resolution 687, passed in 1991. The United Kingdom,
Mr. Goldsmith said, believed that this determination could
only be made by the U.N Security Council. He commented: "The
US have a rather different view: they maintain that the fact
of whether Iraq is in breach is a matter of objective fact
which may therefore be assessed by individual Member States.
I am not aware of any other state which supports this view."
One can readily deduce from this brief statement that Mr.
Blair joined President Bush in his frenzied rush to war
despite serious reservations that Mr. Goldsmith had about
its legality, and which were made known to Mr. Blair prior
to the invasion. Yet the then British Prime Minister, not
called the Yankee Poodle for nothing, was willing to ignore
the counsel of his own Attorney General and put his
reputation, and the lives of thousands of young Britons, on
the line as he happily jumped through the hoops Mr. Bush
held for him.
Slowly, as the war dragged on, the name Abu Ghraib became
familiar to the world. In this city's prison, once a center
for torture of Iraqis by Saddam Hussein, American soldiers
continued this disgraceful tradition. The world was
horrified as photographs were released of the torture and
humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American
soldiers. But as has been the case throughout U.S. military
history, only low-ranking military personnel have been held
accountable.
That torture is part of U.S. military procedures cannot be
surprising when one recalls the words of U.S. Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales in reference to 'questioning'
techniques used on prisoners: "In my judgment, this new
paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on
questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of
its provisions." With the U.S.'s top law enforcement officer
deciding arbitrarily that any provisions of the Geneva
Conventions are 'quaint' (archaic, outdated), the use of
savagely-cruel, inhumane treatment of civilians and soldiers
cannot be surprising.
America's unending arrogance is once again manifest in Mr.
Gonzales' statement. The Geneva Conventions, developed over
a period of more than one hundred years and ratified by one
hundred and ninety-four countries, clearly cover the topics
of treatment of prisoners of war and of aggressive war, and
mandate serious consequences for nations in violation. Yet
the U.S. Attorney General is able to dismiss them with a
wave of his bloody hand, with hardly a ripple of protest
from the mainstream press. That such negligence makes the
press complicit in Mr. Gonzales' crimes is only obvious.
For many years the United States was quite cozy with Mr.
Hussein and his nation. The U.S. provided him with weapons
and other aid when it was convenient for it to do so. This
may cause one to wonder about the commonalities between the
two nations, or at least the most recent leaders of both.
One cannot legitimately refer to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
as the leader of Iraq, since a nation in the midst of a
catastrophic civil war cannot be thought of as having a
leader. The words of Benjamin Ferencz, a chief prosecutor at
the Nuremberg trials, are worth noting. Now in his
eighty-seventh year he said: "Nuremberg declared that
aggressive war is the supreme international crime." Knowing
what he does about aggressive war, Mr. Ferencz compared Mr.
Bush to Mr. Hussein and said that both should be tried for
their aggressive wars: Mr. Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in
1990 and Mr. Bush's invasion of Iraq thirteen years later.
The evidence against Mr. Bush is overwhelming; casual
students of U.S. politics will scratch their heads in wonder
that Congress overlooks these crimes without even a cursory
investigation. When Iraq, in 1990, invaded Kuwait, Mr.
Bush's father did not hesitate to summon the U.N and take
aggressive action. Whether this was due to his righteous
indignation at this clear violation of the Geneva
Conventions, or because he had a close eye on Kuwait's oil
riches and his own future (present?) finger in that
particularly lucrative pie, cannot be known. But the world
saw that one nation could not with impunity arbitrarily
invade another sovereign nation. In the decade and a half
that have since passed, the U.S. Congress has apparently
turned a blind eye to such flagrant violations of the Geneva
Conventions as 'pre-emptive' war and torture of prisoners.
Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, millions of people the
world over protested the possibility of this obscene
'pre-emptive' strike; Mr. Bush compared them to a task
force. Members of Congress from both parties seemed to fall
all over each other to grab the microphone and utter
jingoistic phrases that could have been considered
nonsensical if their consequences were no so dire. Some of
those, whether due to a genuine study of the situation in
Iraq or to accommodate the prevailing winds of daily polls,
have now changed their view and ostensibly oppose the war.
Yet when placed in a position of following through on their
spoken convictions, many of them fell back onto the old,
over-used, totally false and completely bizarre cliché of
continuing the war to support the troops.
Millions of people marching in the U.S. and European streets
cannot end the Iraq war. American soldiers fighting in the
streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities cannot end the
war. The Iraqi Parliament cannot end the war. This civil war
will only end once the Iraqi people are left to determine
their own course of action. At present they are united only
in their hatred of the United States; removing U.S.
participation in the war will eliminate one major roadblock
to peace.
The U.S. Congress can bring the end of the war closer; in
November of 2006 its members were elected to do just that.
That they have failed to uphold their duties to the
Constitution, the nation, the citizens that elected them and
the world that looks to them to end the war cannot be
disputed. Although in ever-decreasing numbers, they look
upon the situation in Iraq with rose-colored glasses,
unaware that the reddish hue they see is the blood of
Americans and Iraqis that they have caused to be spilled.
Until the members of Congress fully recognize both the
futility and tragedy of the Iraq war, and show the backbone
necessary to end it, the unspeakable horror will continue.
Robert Fantina is
author of 'Desertion
and the American Soldier: 1776--2006.'
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