Halting War Crimes: A Shared Responsibility
excerpted from the book
In the Name of Democracy
American War Crimes in Iraq and
Beyond
edited by Jeremy Brecher, Jill
Cutler, and Brendan Smith
Metropolitan Books, 2005, paper
p167
Our country has barely begun to grapple with the facts of American
war crimes, let alone with their implications. What does it mean
that our actions and those of our leaders have strayed so far
out of line with our image of ourselves as a peaceful, ethical,
and law-abiding nation?
p229
Civilians We Killed
by Michael Hoffman
Source: Guardian, December 2 2004
My sergeant put it best a week before
we left for the Middle East:
"Don't think you're going to be heroes.
You're not going for weapons of mass destruction. You're not going
to get rid of Saddam, or to make Iraq safe for democracy. You're
going for one reason, and that's oil."
p249
Affirmative Measures to Halt U.S. War Crimes
by Jeremy Brecher
The halting of U.S. war crimes involves
three mutually reinforcing processes. First, encouraging the American
people to repudiate the Bush administration's war crimes as contrary
to their most cherished values, beliefs, and interests. Second,
reinvigorating the currently paralyzed institutions designed to
impose law and democracy on government. Third, impeding the means
for committing war crimes. These processes provide a broad strategy
and concrete affirmative measures that all can take to halt Bush
administration war crimes and bring government in line with national
and international law.
p308
President George W. Bush's 2005 National Defense Strategy Report
Our strength as a nation state will continue
to be challenged ) by those who employ a strategy of the weak
using international fora, judicial processes and terrorism.
p308
President George W. Bush, as quoted by Richard Clarke, Against
All Enemies
I don't care what the international lawyers
say, we are going to kick some ass.
p324
WAR CRIMES AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY
U.S. war crimes present a profound challenge
to the principles of national as well as international law. Indeed,
the actions of the Bush administration have disturbed many who
may not consider themselves part of the peace movement but who
do care profoundly about the U.S. Constitution.
For many centuries there has been a struggle
to put limits on the authority of governments and their officials.'
Under the principles of constitutional government, government
officials are themselves required to obey the law. The authority
of government officials was made conditional on their own obedience
to law. Every schoolchild used to be taught that the U.S. Constitution
provided "government under law"-that the United States
was "a government of laws not men."
The U.S. Constitution made the President
the commander in chief of the armed forces but provided many legal
constraints on the President's authority. Only Congress had the
authority to declare war, to conscript, to tax, or to appropriate
funds. The President was subject to laws passed by Congress and
interpreted by the courts.
The United Nations Charter, the Geneva
Conventions, and other treaties ratified under the authority of
the United States are the supreme law of the land under article
6 of the U.S. Constitution. Some are further reinforced by U.S.
laws like the War Crimes Act, which makes grave violations of
the Geneva Conventions a crime punishable by imprisonment or even
death.
The United States has a law enforcement
system responsible for investigating, apprehending, and sanctioning
criminals. Unfortunately, those who control the government have
many opportunities to extend their authority beyond the limits
provided in laws and constitutions-even to the point of committing
crimes. Such "extended authority" has an old and ugly
name: usurpation.
Modern America has not been immune to
such extended authority. In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson launched
the Vietnam War without a congressional declaration of war; used
a false account of an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to panic Congress
into granting him unlimited authority to make war; and ultimately
sent half a million troops to Vietnam. Public antagonism eventually
led Johnson not to run for reelection.
In the 1970s, Richard Nixon engaged in
the massive abuse of presidential powers that came to be known
as the Watergate scandals. On the heels of a landslide electoral
victory, the Nixon administration was subjected to investigation
by a special prosecutor and by Congress; Nixon resigned rather
than undergo impeachment.
Today, the Bush administration has subverted
constitutional government from within. It has paralyzed the constraints
that would limit Executive authority. A memo written by Assistant
Attorney General Jay Bybee stated that prosecution of the U.S.
law prohibiting torture could be barred "because enforcement
of the statute would represent an unconstitutional infringement
of the President's authority to conduct war." When asked
at his Senate confirmation hearings whether he agreed that the
President could simply refuse to obey a law he considered unconstitutional,
President Bush's Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales assented.
As Dean Harold Koh of the Yale Law School commented, "If
the President has the sole constitutional authority to sanction
torture, and Congress has no power to interfere, it is unclear
why the President should not also have unfettered authority to
license genocide."
The "new paradigm" the Bush
administration has used to legitimate its war crimes is in truth
not so new. It embodies practices well-known to autocratic regimes
throughout history. Seize on an emergency when people are panicked.
Issue decrees that override established laws. Authorize your own
henchmen to act outside the law. Restrict the courts. Appoint
prejudiced judges. Threaten opponents. Conceal information. Construct
phony plots and threats. Manufacture trumped-up law cases and
phony evidence of wrongdoing. Criminalize the normal operations
of dissent. The objective of such actions-to instill fear, confusion,
acquiescence, submission, and withdrawal into private life-is
often achieved, at least for a time.
The movement against autocracy and for
democratic government is centuries old and worldwide. The movement
against American war crimes is very much part of that struggle.
p327
International law prohibits war crimes, but there are few effective
institutional means of implementing that prohibition. Therefore
the first responsibility for opposing such crimes lies with the
people of the countries that commit them.
As citizens of the United States, it is
we who have the duty to make our country stop committing war crimes.
In
the Name of Democracy
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