Untitled Document
The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) through sessions held in Western Europe, Asia
and the US has established a comprehensive record of US-UK war crimes in Iraq.
An extensive documentation has been forth, testimonies have been presented
in some 17 global sessions. The BRussells Tribunal sessions of the WTI in Brussels
in April 2004 focused on the role of "The Project for the New American
Century" (PNAC) which consists in a blueprint of global military conquest.
http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=28
At the New York session in August 2004, organized by the International Action
Center, criminal indictment charges were brought against inter alia George W.
Bush, Richard B. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, for "Crimes Against the
Peace" and violations of the Charter of the United Nations and the Constitution
of the United States. (http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=32
)
The WTI at its final session brought to public attention the testimonies of
several prominent writers including Dahr
Jamail , Arundhati
Roy, Niloufer
Bhagwat , Hans von Sponeck, not to mention the powerful statement of Denis
Halliday on the role of the United Nations. ( http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?#
)
The WTI put forth a powerful final declaration by the Jury which contains the
following charges against the the governments of the UK and the US:
• Planning, preparing, and waging the supreme crime of a war of aggression
in contravention of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles.
• Targeting the civilian population of Iraq and civilian infrastructure
• Using disproportionate force and indiscriminate weapon systems
• Failing to safeguard the lives of civilians during military activities
and during the occupation period thereafter
• Using deadly violence against peaceful protestors
• Imposing punishments without charge or trial, including collective punishment
• Subjecting Iraqi soldiers and civilians to torture and cruel, inhuman,
or degrading treatment
• Re-writing the laws of a country that has been illegally invaded and
occupied
• Willfully devastating the environment
• Actively creating conditions under which the status of Iraqi women has
seriously been degraded
• Failing to protect humanity’s rich archaeological and cultural
heritage in Iraq
• Obstructing the right to information, including the censoring of Iraqi
media
• Redefining torture in violation of international law, to allow use of
torture and illegal detentions
"The Jury also established charges against the Security Council of United
Nations for failing to stop war crimes and crimes against humanity among other
failures, against the Governments of the Coalition of the Willing."
The Just War Theory
There is one important aspect of the WTI's activities at its final sessions
in Istanbul, which tends, however, to weaken the thrust of the work accomplished
in the various global sessions. It pertains to the role of the "Just War
theory" in assessing war crimes.
At the WTI's Istanbul venue, the "Panel of Advocates", which had
a mandate to collect and analyze the evidence of US war crimes, was led by Professor
Richard Falk, a protagonist of the "Just War" theory, who has gone
on record for openly supporting two previous US led wars.
The "Just War" theory (justum bellum) has a longstanding tradition.
It can found in the writings of the Greek philosophers including Plato. It is
contained in the Old Testament and was later embodied into the teachings of
the early Christian Church. It has been used throughout history to uphold the
dominant social order and provide a justification for waging war.
While Professor Falk rightly focuses on ethical and moral principles in assessing
war crimes in Iraq, he fails to put the Iraq war in an appropriate historical
perspective. War Crimes in Iraq cannot be divorced from the broader history
of US military aggression and the crimes and atrocities committed in previous
wars including Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. Moral and ethical
standards for assessing war crimes cannot be formulated in a historical vacuum
or in piecemeal fashion, in defiance of the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg
Charter, which apply unequivocally to all US led wars.
While Professor Falk condemns the US led war on Iraq, he has endorsed, on moral
and ethical grounds, the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the 2001 US-led
invasion of Afghanistan:
"The Kosovo War was a just war because it was undertaken to avoid a likely
instance of "ethnic cleansing" undertaken by the Serb leadership of
former Yugoslavia, and it succeeded in giving the people of Kosovo an opportunity
for a peaceful and democratic future. It was a just war despite being illegally
undertaken without authorization by the United Nations, and despite being waged
in a manner that unduly caused Kosovar and Serbian civilian casualties, while
minimizing the risk of death or injury on the NATO side."
(http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2003/08/01_falk_interview.htm
, )
In the immediate wake of 9/11, Professor Falk made a case for "self defense"
and retaliation against terrorism, on moral and ethical grounds. His position
regarding the launching of the war on Afghanistan was broadly consistent with
that of the Bush Administration announced on September 12, 2001:
"I have never since my childhood supported a shooting war in which the
United States was involved, although in retrospect I think the NATO war in Kosovo
achieved beneficial results. The war in Afghanistan against apocalyptic terrorism
qualifies in my understanding as the first truly just war since World War II.
But the justice of the cause and of the limited ends is in danger of being negated
by the injustice of improper means and excessive ends. Unlike World War II and
prior just wars, this one can be won only if tactics adhere to legal and moral
constraints on the means used to conduct it, and to limited ends. (The Nation,
11 October 2001, emphasis added)
He later revised his position with regard to Afghanistan, while maintaining
the main moral and ethical thrust of his argument:
Early on, I was overly persuaded by the language used by President Bush and
other leaders that they understood that force must be used sparingly and with
great sensitivity in relation to civilian innocence. As the military campaign
in Afghanistan deepened, with America once again seeming to confine its battlefield
role to high-altitude bombing and Vietnam-era tactics, I felt unable to endorse
any longer the justice of the means. Now, given the unexpectedly rapid collapse
of the Taliban regime and the obvious impact on the operational nexus of Al
Qaeda, there seems, at least temporarily, to be a restored sense of proportionality
between means and ends. (The Nation, 6 December 2001, emphasis added)
Professor Falk was not alone in endorsing the wars on Yugoslavia (1999) and
Afghanistan (2001). Many "progressive" intellectuals supported the
US war agenda. The humanitarian mission of the US administration was accepted
and upheld: jus ad bellum. In March1999, a large segment of "the Left"
in the US, Canada and Western Europe took a stance in favor of the NATO led
war, including support, in some cases, for the self proclaimed Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA), which was responsible for atrocities committed against Serbian and
Albanian civilians in Kosovo.
Yugoslavia
It was known and documented at the time that the pretext to bomb Yugoslavia
had been fabricated in the same way as the WMD pretext was fabricated for Iraq.
NATO was upheld by Western public opinion as coming to the rescue of ethnic
Albanians, whose rights had supposedly been violated.
I recall when the 1999 bombings of Yugoslavia occurred, the Canadian antiwar
movement was completely isolated. None of the main organizations, including
the trade unions and the NGOs were prepared to lift a finger.
The media lies on Yugoslavia were accepted as indelible truths. While the bombings
were often condemned on humanitarian grounds, the overall legitimacy of the
war was not questioned.
According to Nuremberg jurisprudence, NATO heads of State and heads of government
were responsible in Yugoslavia for the supreme crime: "the crime against
peace." In the words of the late William Rockler, former prosecutor of
the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal at the height of the 1999 bombings of Yugoslavia:
"The [1999] bombing war violates and shreds the basic provisions of the
United Nations Charter and other conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia
constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked
Poland to prevent "Polish atrocities" against Germans. The United
States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and
embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok."
The geopolitics behind the war in Yugoslavia, not to mention the underlying
economic interests, were misunderstood. The disintegration of Yugoslavia was
part of the US foreign policy agenda, which had been carefully prepared in several
stages since the early 1980s. National Security Decision Directives (NSDD) had
been issued under the Reagan administration, which called for the destabilization
of the Yugoslav model of market socialism. (See Michel Chossudovsky, Dismantling
Former Yugoslavia, Recolonizing Bosnia-Herzegovina , 1996)
In the mid-1990s, the CIA and Germany's Secret Service, the BND, joined hands
in providing covert support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In turn, the
latter was receiving support from Al Qaeda.
The role of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as a terrorist organization has
been amply documented by Congressional transcripts, yet many "progressive"
voices upheld the KLA as a liberation movement.
According to Frank Ciluffo of the Globalized Organized Crime Program, in a
testimony presented to the House of Representatives Judicial Committee:
"What was largely hidden from public view was the fact that the KLA raise
part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the
heart of the "Balkan Route" that links the "Golden Crescent"
of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth
an estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for
Europe." (House Judiciary Committee, 13 December 2000)
The relationship between the KLA and Al Qaeda had also been confirmed by Interpol's
Criminal Intelligence division:
"The U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization,
indicating that it was financing its operations with money from the international
heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly
Usama bin Laden . Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of
a leader in an Egyptian Jihad organization and also a military commander of
Usama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict."
(US Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol's Criminal Intelligence
Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000).
The Broader War Agenda
With perhaps the exception of Michel Collon in his book Monopoly
and the late Sean Gervasi, the relationship between the war in Yugoslavia and
the broader US-NATO military agenda extending into Eastern Europe, Central Asia
and the Middle East was never analyzed, nor was it addressed in a meaningful
way by the antiwar movement.
Gervasi had already foreseen in 1995, the crucial geopolitical role of the
Balkans:
There are deeper reasons for the dispatch of NATO forces to the Balkans, and
especially for the extension of NATO to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary
in the relatively near future. These have to do with an emerging strategy for
securing the [oil] resources of the Caspian Sea region and for "stabilizing"
the countries of Eastern Europe -- ultimately for "stabilizing" Russia
and the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. (Sean
Gervasi , 1995)
Jus ad Bellum: 9/11 and the Invasion of Afghanistan
The Just War theory in both
its classical and contemporary versions upholds war as a "humanitarian
operation". It calls for military intervention on ethical and moral grounds
against "rogue states" and "Islamic terrorists", which are
threatening the Homeland.
Possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central to the Bush administration's
justification for invading and occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Taught in US military academies, a modern-day version of the "Just War"
theory has been embodied into US military doctrine. The "war on terrorism"
and the notion of "preemption" are predicated on the right to "self
defense." They define "when it is permissible to wage war": jus
ad bellum.
Jus ad bellum serves to build a consensus within the Armed Forces command structures.
It also serves to convince the troops that they are fighting for a "just
cause". More generally, the Just War theory in its modern day version is
an integral part of war propaganda and media disinformation, applied to gain
public support for a war agenda.
The US Military Academy at West Point has recently sponsored a Conference focusing
inter alia on "just cause " and "the rules that govern just and
fair conduct in war" (jus in bello). http://www.dean.usma.edu/departments/law/lawterror.htm
)
In 2001, when Afghanistan was bombed and later invaded, "Progressives"
largely upheld the Administration's "just cause" military doctrine.
The "self-defense" argument was accepted at face value as a legitimate
response to 9/11, without examining the fact that the US administration had
not only supported the "Islamic terror network", it was also instrumental
in the installation of the Taliban government in 1995-96.
In the wake of 9/11, the antiwar movement against the illegal invasion of Afghanistan
was isolated. The trade unions, civil society organizations had swallowed the
media lies and government propaganda. They had accepted a war of retribution
against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Several prominent intellectuals upheld the
"war on terrorism" agenda.
Media disinformation prevailed. People were misled as to the nature and objectives
underlying the invasion of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were
identified as the prime suspects of the 9/11 attacks, without a shred of evidence
and without addressing the historical relationship between Al Qaeda and the
US intelligence apparatus. In this regard, understanding 9/11 is crucial in
formulating a consistent antiwar position.
Professor Falk has not revised his position on Kosovo despite
recent documentary evidence , nor has he fundamentally altered his position
with regard to Afghanistan and America's right to defend itself in the wake
of 9/11:
The Afghanistan War was again controversial in relation to the just war tradition.
It seems to qualify as an instance of defensive necessity in view of the high
risks of harm associated with the heavy al Qaeda presence in the country, and
its demonstrated capacity and will after September 11 to inflict severe harm
on the United States in the future. Again, as with Kosovo, the means used and
the ends raised serious doubts about the just means and just ends of the war.
The American failure to assume the risks of ground warfare in order to carry
out the mission of destroying the al Qaeda presence, as well as the failure
to convert the battlefield outcomes into a durable peace, raise doubts about
the overall justice of the war. (Turkish Daily News, August 1, 2003)
Iraq
With regard to Iraq, Falk's position remains ambiguous. While he condemns
the US led war, he nonetheless tows the official line in stating that the 2003
invasion had the "effect of freeing Iraqis" from oppression:
When it comes to the Iraq War, there seems to be little doubt that the war
is generally regarded as an unjust war, despite its effect of freeing the Iraqi
people from the oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein. The reasons for viewing it
as unjust in origin are the following: the absence of defensive necessity, the
refusal of the UNSC to authorize war, the dangerous uncertainties associated
with recourse to war, the manipulation of evidence relating to the alleged presence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the reluctance in the aftermath of the
fighting to respect the aspirations of the Iraqi people to achieve political
independence and exercise their rights of self-determination. For all of these
reasons it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Iraq War is a clear
example of an unjust war. (Ibid)
Moreover, at the WTI's press conference in Istanbul in June 2005, Richard Falk,
speaking this time on behalf of the Tribunal, in blatant contradiction with
the WTI Jury, indicated that the WTI "is not opposing the governments or
the UN":
"The WTI is opposing aggressive war, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
It is not opposing the governments or the United Nations. Indeed it hopes to
create pressure from below that will encourage law-abiding governments and the
UN to do their proper job of protecting weaker countries and their populations
against such illegalities. (WTI at http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=89,
June 2005, )
The issue has to do with the perpetrators of war crimes as defined by the Nuremberg
charter. In this case, it is the governments, which have committed war crimes.
Military invasion on a fabricated pretext is a war crime under international
law:
"To initiate a war of aggression… is not only an international crime,
it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes,
in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". (1948
Nuremberg Military Tribunal).
The illegal invasion of Iraq was ordered by President George W. Bush and Prime
Minister Tony Blair and endorsed by the US Congress and the British House of
Commons. In other words, war criminals lead those "governments" and
Richard Falk speaking on behalf of the World Tribunal on Iraq at its final session
in Istanbul, says we are "not opposing the governments". We want to
put pressure on "law abiding governments" and help the UN "to
do their proper job".
Is Falk suggesting that the WTI is opposed to war crimes but not to the governments,
which have committed and ordered those war crimes, nor is it opposed to the
United Nations, which is in violation of its own charter? The statement of Professor
Falk is not only contradictory and misleading; it serves to weaken the thrust
of the testimonies as well as the work accomplished in the WTI global sessions.
It also contributes to creating divisions within the anti-war movement.
Unless there is a meaningful change of government in the UK and the US, not
to mention the other governments which are part of the "Coalition of the
Willing", it is difficult to see how the antiwar movement can "work
with governments" headed by war criminals. This of course raises the broader
issue of impeachment and prosecution of the war criminals, who continue to occupy
positions of authority in the governments, which have ordered countless atrocities.
Moreover, the illegal occupation of Iraq was accepted by the UN and the so-called
"international community", which instead of initiating sanctions against
the invaders, have collaborated with the US-led occupation forces. Professor
Falk's stance, once again, speaking on behalf of the World Tribunal on Iraq
(WTI) is that we should work with the United Nations.
Under the disguise of peacekeeping, the UN played a supportive role in violation
of its own charter. In the words of Denis
Halliday in testimony at the Istanbul WTI sessions:
"[T]he March 2003 invasion took place in breech of all known international
laws, executed with the application of terrorism and commission of war crimes,
including further and massive use of depleted uranium. The UN, its member states
and its Secretary-General failed to employ all possible means to protect the
people of Iraq. Worse the UN was generally seen around the world to be acquiescent
and collaborative. (…). The occupation was supported by member states
and donor agencies, and then actively supported by the UN. That support and
active involvement constitutes collaboration. (…) The UN had no mandate
to be in Iraq. A demand from Washington and/or London does not constitute a
legitimate invitation. And puppet regimes cannot be recognized by the UN.
History of US Led Wars
The "Just War" theory as formulated by Richard
Falk sets double standards (on ethical grounds): some US led imperial wars are
"just" whereas others are "unjust".
On what grounds? The whole concept is devoid of a historical perspective. Crimes
against humanity were committed in all US led wars including Yugoslavia, Afghanistan
and Iraq and more recently in Haiti where UN
"peace-keeping" troops have participated in the massacres of innocent
civilians
The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was not different from that of Iraq. It
resulted in countless civilian casualties, it destroyed an entire country, while
installing, with the UN's seal of approval, a US sponsored puppet regime.
The issue, however, does not pertain to Professor Falk's writings per se. The
fundamental question is why did the Istanbul organizers invite Professor Falk
to lead the Panel of Advocates, knowing that he was supportive of two previous
US led wars, on "humanitarian grounds"? Why was this issue not raised
by the participants and those who provided testimony?From the Truman Doctrine
to the "War on Terrorism"
George F. Kennan had outlined in a 1948 State Department brief what was later
described as the "'Truman doctrine." What this 1948 document conveys
is continuity in US foreign policy, from "Containment" to "Pre-emptive"
War. In this regard, the NeoCons Project for a New American Century (PNAC),
should be viewed as the culmination of a post-war agenda geared towards establishing
US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated
under the "Truman Doctrine" at the outset of the Cold War.
Needless to say, successive Democratic and Republican administrations, from
Truman to George W. Bush contributed to carrying out this military agenda of
global conquest.
Kennan's writings point to the formation of the Anglo-American alliance, which
currently characterizes the close relationship between Washington and London.
It also points to the inclusion of Canada in the Anglo-American military axis.
In this regard, Kennan also underscored the importance of preventing the development
of a continental European power that could compete with the US.
With regard to Asia, including China and India, Kennan hinted to the importance
of articulating a military solution: "The day is not far off when we are
going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered
by idealistic slogans, the better"
Moreover, from the outset of the Cold War era, Washington was also intent upon
weakening the United Nations as a genuine international body, an objective that
has largely been achieved under the Bush administration:
The initial build-up of the UN in U.S. public opinion was so tremendous that
it is possibly true, as is frequently alleged, that we have no choice but to
make it the cornerstone of our policy in this post-hostilities period. Occasionally,
it has served a useful purpose. But by and large it has created more problems
than it has solved, and has led to a considerable dispersal of our diplomatic
effort. And in our efforts to use the UN majority for major political purposes
we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn against us. This
is a situation, which warrants most careful study and foresight on our part.
(Kennan 1948)
The wars in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq are part of the same "military
road-map", responding to US strategic and economic objectives. These wars
are intimately related from a geopolitical standpoint. Iran and Syria have already
been identified as the next targets of the US led war.
There is a continuum in US-led military operations from the "Truman doctrine"
to Bush's "war on terrorism".
The "Just war" theory serves to camouflage the nature of US foreign
policy, while providing a human face to the invaders.
It undermines and weakens all forms of meaningful resistance to the US led
war agenda. It is in contradiction with the basic tenets of international law
including the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg Charter. It can under no circumstances
be part of a war crimes tribunal.