Will Pitt: House Republican War Crimes (Dog-and-Pony Debate)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061506Z.shtml

House Republican War Crimes
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 15 June 2006

There is going to be a debate today on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding Iraq. Is it within the realm of possibility to categorize a debate on the floor of the House as a war crime? Is that too much of a stretch? Leveling a war crime accusation is deadly serious business after all, and not to be bandied about like some meager political football. Given what is expected to take place today in Washington, unfortunately, such a categorization is worth considering.

What is a war crime anyway? Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as, "Willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."

How many of these definitions have been met by the United States during our ill-fated adventure in Iraq and during this so-called "War on Terror" as a whole?

Willful killing? Check: see Fallujah, Haditha, etc.

Torture or inhuman treatment, including willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health? Check: see Abu Ghraib.

MORE

...point about its criminal nature: it is a war of aggression. Under the Nuremberg findings, the U.N. Charter, and therefore U.S. and international law, wars of aggression are specifically defined as war crimes simply by their occurrence, i.e. as crimes against humanity. Everything done in support of the war against Iraq is conspiracy, aiding and abetting, or participating in a war crime, IMO.

Pitt and others don't want to face this because it means that responsibility can't be constrained to Bush and his cabinet, or to republican members of congress. It means that democrats who voted for the IWR, or for funding the war, or for resolutions of support, are also culpable. It means that U.S. military personnel in Iraq are all engaged in war crimes by the simple fact of their being there. It means that the people of the U.S. are acting at best as "good Germans" by acquiescence. Silence is complicity.

It is indeed an egregious crime and we put our best face forward internationally with the charming mr bolton, another of the worst criminals. But we are all complicit, except for those like Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan.

"Among the charges listed in the long indictment were crimes against humanity and crimes against the peace—aggressive warfare—a charge wholly new to international law."


The Legacy of Nuremberg

On November 20, 1945, one of history's great courtroom dramas opened in Nuremberg, Germany. Twenty-one of Adolf Hitler's top lieutenants, including Herman Goering, Wilhelm Keitel and Rudolph Hess stood accused by the world's first international tribunal of masterminding horrific crimes. Among the charges listed in the long indictment were crimes against humanity and crimes against the peace—aggressive warfare—a charge wholly new to international law.

On the second day of the trial, Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson, on leave from the United States Supreme Court, delivered an address that ranks as one of the twentieth century's great legal speeches. Jackson reminded the court that the aim of Nuremberg was not to merely punish the crimes of Nazi Germany: "The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated."

After a year of trial, all but two of the Nazi defendants were found guilty. Twelve were sentenced to death but only 11 were hanged. Defiant to the end, Hermann Goering committed suicide with a cyanide capsule hours before his execution.

The Nuremberg trial was hailed as a legal triumph. In the past, victors usually executed enemy leaders without holding a legitimate trial. And some Allied leaders, including Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, had advocated summary executions for Germany's leadership instead of trials. But under United States pressure, Nuremberg would signify a new approach to seeking justice for horrific atrocities. For the first time, individuals—political and military leaders—were held accountable by an international authority for atrocities committed in the name of a state. more........

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/justiceontrial/nuremberg_print.html

WWI in Europe....Nuremberg trials...

"The former leaders of Hitler's Third Reich on trial in Nuremberg, Germany. The Nuremberg trial was conducted by a joint United States-British-French-Soviet military tribunal, with each nation supplying two judges. The four counts in the indictment were: Count 1 - CONSPIRACY to commit crimes alleged in the next three counts. Count 2 - CRIMES AGAINST PEACE including planning, preparing, starting, or waging aggressive war. Count 3 - WAR CRIMES including violations of laws or customs of war. Count 4 - CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY including murder, extermination, enslavement, persecution on political or racial grounds, involuntary deportment, and inhumane acts against civilian populations."

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/nurem.htm

war crime
n.
Any of various crimes, such as genocide or the mistreatment of prisoners of war, committed during a war and considered in violation of the conventions of warfare.

snip...

Most war crimes fall into one of three categories: crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and traditional war crimes. Crimes against peace include the planning, commencement, and waging of aggressive war, or war in violation of international agreements. Aggressive war is broadly defined to include any hostile military act that disregards the territorial boundaries of another country, disrespects the political independence of another regime, or otherwise interferes with the sovereignty of an internationally recognized state. Wars fought in self-defense are not aggressive wars.

http://www.answers.com/topic/war-crime

The five guys at the pentagon,(OSP)Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumdumb, Blair and anyone else connected with a conspiracy, to wage a war of aggression, against a country that posed no real threat,(Iraq)to the US, or the UK, based on knowingly false evidence, committed international crimes. I think the evidence is there, to convict them.

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for the Iraq War Party