[Mb-civic] A War Crime in Real Time & License to Kill

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

November 15, 2004
A War Crime in Real Time Obliterating 
Fallujah By FRANCIS A. BOYLE
The obliteration of Fallujah continues apace. Article 6(b) 
of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter defines a Nuremberg War 
Crime in relevant part as the ". . . wanton destruction of 
cities, towns or villages. . ." According to this definitive 
definition, the Bush Jr. administration's destruction of 
Fallujah constitutes a war crime for which Nazis were tried 
and executed. There is nothing surprising about that.
Since the Bush Jr. administration's installation in power by 
the United States Supreme Court in January of 2001, the 
peoples of the world have witnessed a government in the 
United States of America that has demonstrated little if any 
respect for fundamental considerations of international law, 
international organizations, and human rights, let alone 
appreciation of the requirements for maintaining 
international peace and security. What the world has 
watched instead is a comprehensive and malicious assault 
upon the integrity of the international legal order by a 
group of men and women who are thoroughly 
Machiavellian in their perception of international relations 
and in their conduct of both foreign policy and domestic 
affairs. This is not simply a question of giving or 
withholding the benefit of the doubt when it comes to 
complicated matters of foreign affairs and defense policies 
to a U.S. government charged with the security of both its 
own citizens and those of its allies in Europe, the Western 
Hemisphere, and the Pacific. Rather, the Bush Jr. 
administration's foreign policy constitutes ongoing criminal 
activity under well-recognized principles of both 
international law and U.S. domestic law, in particular the 
Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the 
Nuremberg Principles. So their obliteration of Fallujah was 
to be expected.
One generation ago the peoples of the world asked 
themselves: Where were the "good" Germans? Well, there 
were some good Germans. The Lutheran theologian and 
pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the foremost exemplar of 
someone who led a life of principled opposition to the Nazi-
terror state even unto death.
Today the peoples of the world are likewise asking 
themselves: Where are the "good" Americans? Well, there 
are some good Americans. Like three Catholic Nuns in 
Denver, they are getting arrested and going to jail for 
protesting against United States weapons of mass 
destruction (WMD) whose power for human extermination 
far exceeds even the wildest fantasies of Hitler and the 
Nazis. Or else for protesting against illegal U.S.. military 
interventions around the world. Just recently the Nuclear 
Resister estimated that since the Fall of 2002, there have 
been more than 9,500 anti-war related arrests in the 
United States alone. Many more will be coming.
In international legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration 
itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing 
criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in 
violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg 
Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, due to its 
formulation and undertaking of aggressive war policies that 
are legally akin to those perpetrated by the Nazi regime. 
As a consequence, American citizens possess the basic 
right under international law and the United States 
domestic law, including the U.S. Constitution, to engage in 
acts of non-violent civil resistance in order to prevent, 
impede, thwart, or terminate ongoing criminal activities 
perpetrated by U.S. government officials in their conduct of 
foreign affairs policies and military operations purported to 
relate to defense and counter-terrorism.
This same right of civil resistance extends pari passu to all 
citizens of the world community of states. Everyone around 
the world has both the right and the duty under 
international law to resist ongoing criminal activities 
perpetrated by the Bush Jr. administration and its 
nefarious foreign accomplices such as Blair, Berlusconi, 
Howard, Koizumi, Kwasniewski, etc. by all non-violent 
means possible. If it is not so restrained, the Bush Jr. 
administration could very well precipitate a Third World 
War.
The time for preventive action is now. Civil resistance is 
the way to go. People power can overcome power politics. 
Popular movements have succeeded in toppling tyrannical, 
dictatorial and authoritarian regimes throughout former 
Communist countries in Eastern Europe, as well as in Asia, 
and most recently in Latin America. It is time once again to 
exercise People Power here in the United States of 
America: "When in the Course of human Events. . . We 
hold these Truths to be self-evident. . . . we mutually 
pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and sacred 
Honor."
Despite the best efforts by the Bush Jr. Leaguers to the 
contrary, we American Citizens still have our First 
Amendment Rights: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of 
Association, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom to Petition our 
Government for the Redress of these massive Grievances, 
Civil Resistance, etc. We are going to have to start 
vigorously exercising all of our First Amendment Rights 
right now. We must use them or else, as the saying goes, 
we will lose them. We must act not only for the good of the 
Peoples of Southwest Asia, but for our future, that of our 
children, that of our nation as a democratic society 
committed to the Rule of Law and the U.S. Constitution. 
The Nazis had their "homeland" too.
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is 
author of Foundations of World Order, Duke University 
Press, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, and 
Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, by 
Clarity Press. He can be reached at: 
FBOYLE at LAW.UIUC.EDU

--------

License to Kill
================

by Gila Svirsky <gsvirsky at netvision.net.il>

It's been a terrible week.  Our elderly cat was
diagnosed with kidney failure, our newly built basement
flooded with water at the first winter rains, and
Yelena was stabbed to death right over our heads.

I didn't hear Yelena's screams, as some of my neighbors
did, but was awakened at 4:30 a.m. by the police trying
to bash down my door, in the search for her apartment.
When they found her one flight up, she was already
dead, lying in a pool of blood with stab wounds to her
neck and chest, two horrified daughters (aged 7 and 8)
at her side, and a boyfriend who claimed that he killed
her in self-defense because she attacked him. Never
mind that she was a graduate of a battered women's
shelter and he had 3 complaints of assault filed
against him.  Never mind that she was 31, short and of
slight build, and he 50, tall and solid.  Somehow he
had to stab her multiple times to protect himself.

This week we mark International Day of Eliminating
Violence Against Women, and I'd like to say a word
about the culture of violence that is growing around
us, in Israel, in the United States, and everywhere
that people and nations that are big and powerful think
they can solve problems by raising a knife or gun.

Killing, in all its many forms - crime, political
assassination, suicide bombings, and the war against
terror - doesn't work.  Why not?  Because killing
ultimately destroys more than it saves.  It destroys
the victim, it destroys the families of the victims and
perpetrators, it destroys masses of innocent
bystanders, and it sends a message that violence is
legitimate, thereby inviting another round of it.

Ask the Palestinian survivors who lived in the building
as the terrorist who had a one-ton bomb dropped on his
apartment, and were left to count the loved ones killed
by that bomb.  Ask the Israeli parents who try to pick
up the pieces of their lives after a suicide bomber has
gutted a bus.  Ask those whose loved ones were wiped
out in the Twin Towers.  Or the Iraqi children who live
in Falluja as the U.S. army gave them a demonstration
of bringing democracy to the world.

All killing is a crime.  And killing by governments
becomes a role model for others.  Take Israel as an
example, though this could be applied to Palestine, the
U.S., or any country whose leaders practice or condone
violence.

In the past four years, as the Palestinians justly seek
their independence from occupation and Israeli leaders
try to prevent it, violence has spiralled on both
sides.  The results are not only more death in
political action, and more bitterness and hatred, but
also more violence in civilian society:  In the past
four years in Israel, we have had more rape, more
killing of women by their male partners, and more
violence in schools by children.  The overlap between
the "war on terror" and increased violence in the
streets, homes, and schools is no coincidence.

A culture of violence filters down into society when
its leaders use force to resolve problems.  This
culture of violence - loosening the reins on the use of
force - is not an invention of TV and movies (which
have certainly overdone it), but begins by personal
example of those who influence our values and norms:
parents, political leaders, the most powerful nation on
earth.  What are we to learn when a superpower, with
all imaginable means at its disposal, uses violence?

So at a time when we are thinking about how to end
violence against women, I submit that you can't wipe it
out without also addressing the example set by the
state.  When power and violence dominate political
strategy, governments are issuing a license to kill,
and that trickles right down to us and the apartments
over our heads.

Gila Svirsky
Jerusalem
__________________
Gila Svirsky
Coalition of Women for Peace
www.coalitionofwomen.org
<http://www.coalitionofwomen.org/
__________________
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womeninblack at listas.nodo50.org




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