medicineman
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[SIZE=+2]The Posse Gathers[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+2]Bush War Crimes[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+2]By JEREMY BRECHER
and BRENDAN SMITH[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+3]D[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]iverse forces are assembling to bring Bush administration officials to account for war crimes. Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother for Peace, insists: "We cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail." 1 Paul Craig Roberts, Hoover Institution senior fellow and assistant secretary of the treasury under Ronald Reagan, charges Bush with "lies and an illegal war of aggression, with outing CIA agents, with war crimes against Iraqi civilians, with the horrors of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture centers" and calls for the president's impeachment. 2 Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and former president of the American Society of International Law, declares: "These policies make a mockery of our claim to stand for the rule of law. [Americans] should be marching on Washington to reject inhumane techniques carried out in our name." 3[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Can such disparate forces as the peace movement, conservative advocates of the rule of law, and human rights advocates join to halt high government officials demonstrably engaged in criminal enterprise? Can they reach out and appeal to the deep but vacillating commitment of the American people to the national and international rule of law? Or will the Bush administration divide the posse and retain for itself the mantle of defender of international law and the U.S. Constitution? [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]War Crimes: It's Not Just Torture [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]As Allied armies advanced into Germany, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared captured Nazi leaders outlaws subject to summary execution. But U.S. President Harry Truman, a former small-town judge, insisted instead on formal trials with "notification to the accused of the charge, the right to be heard, and to call witnesses in his defense." The result was the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and the start of a revolution that, in U.S. Justice Robert Jackson's words, replaced a "system of international lawlessness" with one that made "statesmen responsible to law." It is this revolution that may be catching up with the administration of George W. Bush. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]During the Cold War era, Nuremberg was little more than a dimming memory. Charges by Richard Falk, Marcus Raskin, and others that U.S. actions in Vietnam constituted war crimes helped swell opposition to the war, but U.S. officials were never held to account for their actions. Starting in the 1990s, however, the revolutionary principle that
government officials must be responsible to law became an integral part of the human rights and democratization movements that swept much of the world. Milosevic was driven out of office and turned over to an international war crimes tribunal. Pinochet was captured in Spain and eventually sent back to Chile to face charges as a torturer. The International Criminal Court was established to try war crimes. Henry Kissinger wrote in alarm in 2001 that "in less than a decade an unprecedented movement has emerged to submit international politics to judicial procedures" and has "spread with extraordinary speed." 4[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Critical to this unprecedented movement has been an evolved relationship between national and international law. In the past, international law was seen as a potential infringement on national sovereignty. (The Bush administration is trying to resuscitate that view-for example, in its attacks on the International Criminal Court.) But today the two are increasingly intertwined and mutually reinforcing, much like state and national law in the United States. Many new democracies see institutions like the International Criminal Court as bulwarks against the restoration of tyranny in their own countries-much as the U.S. Constitution guarantees that its member states will be republics, not monarchies. Toward this end, many countries have incorporated aspects of international law into their national statutes-the U.S. War Crimes Act, for example, makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions a crime under U.S. law, punishable in some cases by death. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Several overlapping strands have coalesced into a body of law regarding war crimes. One is the prohibition on aggressive war. As the Nuremberg Tribunal put it, "To initiate a war of aggression" is " the supreme international crime." A second strand is humanitarian law, which protects both combatants and civilians from unnecessary harm during war. The devastation associated with World War II led to the recognition of "crimes against humanity," which involve acts of violence against a persecuted group. War crimes were codified in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and have been further developed in subsequent protocols and agreements. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=+2]Bush War Crimes[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+2]By JEREMY BRECHER
and BRENDAN SMITH[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+3]D[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]iverse forces are assembling to bring Bush administration officials to account for war crimes. Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother for Peace, insists: "We cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail." 1 Paul Craig Roberts, Hoover Institution senior fellow and assistant secretary of the treasury under Ronald Reagan, charges Bush with "lies and an illegal war of aggression, with outing CIA agents, with war crimes against Iraqi civilians, with the horrors of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture centers" and calls for the president's impeachment. 2 Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and former president of the American Society of International Law, declares: "These policies make a mockery of our claim to stand for the rule of law. [Americans] should be marching on Washington to reject inhumane techniques carried out in our name." 3[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Can such disparate forces as the peace movement, conservative advocates of the rule of law, and human rights advocates join to halt high government officials demonstrably engaged in criminal enterprise? Can they reach out and appeal to the deep but vacillating commitment of the American people to the national and international rule of law? Or will the Bush administration divide the posse and retain for itself the mantle of defender of international law and the U.S. Constitution? [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]War Crimes: It's Not Just Torture [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]As Allied armies advanced into Germany, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared captured Nazi leaders outlaws subject to summary execution. But U.S. President Harry Truman, a former small-town judge, insisted instead on formal trials with "notification to the accused of the charge, the right to be heard, and to call witnesses in his defense." The result was the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and the start of a revolution that, in U.S. Justice Robert Jackson's words, replaced a "system of international lawlessness" with one that made "statesmen responsible to law." It is this revolution that may be catching up with the administration of George W. Bush. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]During the Cold War era, Nuremberg was little more than a dimming memory. Charges by Richard Falk, Marcus Raskin, and others that U.S. actions in Vietnam constituted war crimes helped swell opposition to the war, but U.S. officials were never held to account for their actions. Starting in the 1990s, however, the revolutionary principle that
government officials must be responsible to law became an integral part of the human rights and democratization movements that swept much of the world. Milosevic was driven out of office and turned over to an international war crimes tribunal. Pinochet was captured in Spain and eventually sent back to Chile to face charges as a torturer. The International Criminal Court was established to try war crimes. Henry Kissinger wrote in alarm in 2001 that "in less than a decade an unprecedented movement has emerged to submit international politics to judicial procedures" and has "spread with extraordinary speed." 4[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Critical to this unprecedented movement has been an evolved relationship between national and international law. In the past, international law was seen as a potential infringement on national sovereignty. (The Bush administration is trying to resuscitate that view-for example, in its attacks on the International Criminal Court.) But today the two are increasingly intertwined and mutually reinforcing, much like state and national law in the United States. Many new democracies see institutions like the International Criminal Court as bulwarks against the restoration of tyranny in their own countries-much as the U.S. Constitution guarantees that its member states will be republics, not monarchies. Toward this end, many countries have incorporated aspects of international law into their national statutes-the U.S. War Crimes Act, for example, makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions a crime under U.S. law, punishable in some cases by death. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Several overlapping strands have coalesced into a body of law regarding war crimes. One is the prohibition on aggressive war. As the Nuremberg Tribunal put it, "To initiate a war of aggression" is " the supreme international crime." A second strand is humanitarian law, which protects both combatants and civilians from unnecessary harm during war. The devastation associated with World War II led to the recognition of "crimes against humanity," which involve acts of violence against a persecuted group. War crimes were codified in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and have been further developed in subsequent protocols and agreements. [/SIZE]