Global Research
“Crimes against Peace”: Historic Class Action Law Suit against George W. Bush
The case for Aggressive War against George W. Bush and his Administration.
She alleges that these six defendants planned and waged the Iraq War in violation of international law by waging a “war of aggression,” as defined by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, more than sixty years ago. (The current complaint can be found here).
At the Nuremberg Trials,
American chief prosecutor and associate justice of the US Supreme Court
Robert H. Jackson focused his prosecution on the planning and execution
of the various wars committed by the Third Reich. Jackson aimed to show
that German leaders committed “crimes against peace,” and specifically,
that they “planned, prepared, initiated wars of aggression, which were
also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, or
assurances.”
For Jackson, the Nuremberg Trials were a high watermark of legalism.
In his report regarding the negotiations of the treaty that would set up
the Nuremberg Tribunal, Jackson wrote that the Tribunal “ushers
international law into a new era where it is in accord with the common
sense of mankind that a war of deliberate and unprovoked attack deserves
universal condemnation and its authors condign penalties.” He
concluded, “all who have shared in this work have been united and
inspired in the belief that at long last the law is now unequivocal in
classifying armed aggression as an international crime instead of a
national right.”The Nuremberg Tribunal agreed with Jackson. In its famous judgment in 1946, the Tribunal wrote,
“War is essentially an evil thing . . . to initiate a war of aggression, therefore, 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.”The case against Bush is based on the conduct of members of the administration prior to coming into office as well as conduct taking place on and after 9/11. Years before their appointment to the Bush Administration, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz were vocal advocates of a militant neoconservative ideology that called for the United States to use its armed forces in the Middle East and elsewhere.
They openly chronicled their desire for aggressive wars through a non-profit called The Project for the New American Century (or PNAC). In 1998, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz would personally sign a letter to then-President Clinton, urging the president to implement a “strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power,” which included a “willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing.”
On 9/11, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz openly pressed for the United States to invade Iraq, even though intelligence at the time confirmed that it was al Qaeda, and not Saddam, that was responsible. Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism, famously told President Bush that attacking Iraq for 9/11 would be like invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor.
We now know that the Bush Administration began a concerted effort to scare and mislead the American public in order to obtain support for the Iraq War. As alleged in the complaint, this included the famous phrase that “the smoking gun could not be a mushroom cloud,” which was used repeatedly by Administration officials on news shows as a way of equating non-action with the vaporization of a United States city. The Administration used bogus and false intelligence to make the case for weapons of mass destruction, and also falsely linked al Qaeda to Iraq, despite the fact that there has never been any evidence of any operational linkages between the two. These were not simple mistakes: this was an intentional campaign by Administration officials to use faulty data to garner support for a war.
The crime of aggression was completed when these officials failed to secure proper authorization for the war. So concerned with their invasion, the Administration dismissed any need for a formal Security Council mandate. Today, Kofi Annan, an official Dutch inquiry, the Costa Rican Supreme Court, a former law lord from the House of Lords (Lord Steyn) and a former chief prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials (Benjamin Ferencz) have all concluded the Iraq War was illegal under international law.
After months of briefing, the
Northern District of California will issue its order any day as to
whether it will recognize the crime of aggression, and whether my client
may pursue a civil case against the Bush-era defendants based on that
crime. In August of last year, the Obama Department of Justice requested
that the district court immunize Bush and his high officials from civil
charges on the basis that they were acting “within the scope of their
authority.” This issue also remains pending before the court, but it
should be noted that both Nuremberg, as well as the more recent Pinochet
decision, reject the idea of immunity for leaders when they step
outside the appropriate scope of their authority.
We need your support and
attention to this case. We cannot let the crime of aggression disappear
into history; indeed, even the International Criminal Court has now
provided its own definition for aggression, with jurisdiction for this
crime being enabled after 2017. We must affirm Jackson’s belief that,
“law is not only to govern the conduct of little men, but that even
rulers are, as Lord Chief Justice Coke put it to King James, under God
and the law.”
For most of the post-war period,
this notion — that leaders must be held accountable for their decisions
to go to war — has gathered dust. This must change, or else the legacy
of Nuremberg, and its foundation for the post-war international legal
regime, will be tossed aside in favor of the state of anarchic
international relations that led to the Second World War itself. It is
time to fulfill Jackson’s dream of a global order governed by law, not
war. And it is time for accountability over the Iraq War and for the
millions of people who lost their lives or who were affected by it.
Inder Comar
is counsel of record for Sundus Shaker Saleh in her case against
members of the Bush Administration. The case is Saleh v. Bush, Case No.
3:13-cv-1124 JST (N.D. Cal. March 13, 2013). The firm is providing case
updates at witnessiraq.com and is representing Saleh pro bono.
Related content:
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole
responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on
Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect
statement in this article. The Center of Research on Globalization
grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on
community internet sites as long as the text & title are not
modified. The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For
publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms
including commercial internet sites, contact: publications@globalresearch.ca
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.
For media inquiries: publications@globalresearch.ca
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.
For media inquiries: publications@globalresearch.ca
Copyright © Inder Comar, Global Research, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment