"War Crimes" website launched
Allen L. Jasson | 03.08.2010 12:41 | Anti-militarism | Iraq | Social Struggles | South Coast | World
The main purpose of this article is to announce the release of the initial version of a new website warcrimes.org.uk and to explain its purpose, structure and function.
For politicians and political activists, lawyers, military personnel and members of the general public this website provides information; we can be informed. More importantly, the site provides a foundation for future versions which will provide open facilities to collect, organise and make other information available and to enable, coordinate and facilitate activities intended to achieve prosecution of War Criminals.
With suggestions, guidance and the active engagement of politicians and political activists, lawyers, military personnel and members of the general public those facilities may be significantly richer and more effective towards attaining their goal.
For politicians and political activists, lawyers, military personnel and members of the general public this website provides information; we can be informed. More importantly, the site provides a foundation for future versions which will provide open facilities to collect, organise and make other information available and to enable, coordinate and facilitate activities intended to achieve prosecution of War Criminals.
With suggestions, guidance and the active engagement of politicians and political activists, lawyers, military personnel and members of the general public those facilities may be significantly richer and more effective towards attaining their goal.
The main purpose of this article is to announce the release of the initial version of a new website warcrimes.org.uk and to explain its purpose, structure and function. Motivation for the establishment of the site arises in part from the belief that where impunity prevails crime flourishes. One of the greatest achievements and most positive indicators of the collective good sense of humanity have been the establishment and almost universal participation in International Institutions such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court which express the clear intention of ending impunity. In the first decade of this century we have seen the abuse and circumventing of the United Nations, the initiation of two illegal wars and the apparent paralysis of the instruments that should bring those responsible to account.
So another part of the motivation for the establishment of the site arises from a renewed comprehension of the expression that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. In the course of my life I have observed a sequence of developments, which can be described in essence as the insidious ascendancy of economic power over political power due to the fact that the former has effectively globalised while the latter has remained constrained within national borders. Since our freedom, to what extent we have it, depends entirely on political power the capture of political power by economic power means in effect, that we have already lost our freedom.
Economic power has immense capacity to maintain, for as long as is necessary, the illusion of freedom. So another part of the motivation for the establishment of the site arises from the understanding that no man is more thoroughly enslaved than he who falsely believes he is free and that unless, while there is still time, there is a global public effort to reform and reinvigorate the International Institutions that establish and give effect to the International Rule of Law, humanity may well have entered an evolutionary cul-de-sac a little more advanced but conceptually no different from that of ants and bees; a technologically maintained feudal society.
Our best chance to begin correcting this situation is a global determination to firmly assert that criminal actions on the part of political leaders at the service of economic power will not be tolerated. This is the issue that should unite the global efforts of the progressive left from all sectors and all causes because it is futile to canvas our political leaders on any other issue if they are compelled to answer to a higher order – the unchallenged demands of economic power. It is from this rationale that I believe that the prosecution of criminals responsible for the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is probably the most important issue of our time.
The Illegal Wars
At the time of the invasion of Iraq both the British public and the cabinet were being persuaded that the British government was acting in the belief that an invasion of Iraq would be legal on the basis of UN Resolution 1441, on the advice (after reconsideration) of the Attorney General. In the Iraq Inquiry (for which the public has had to wait in persistent demand for six years) it has first emerged that this was not the advice of the government’s law office. This revelation was tempered by the assertion by the head of the law office that what really mattered was the opinion and advice of the Attorney General. It has subsequently emerged that the reconsideration of the Attorney General’s advice came only after a long and bitter contention during which he was coerced by the government to give the advice it wanted. The war was clearly illegal.
The prior arrack on Afghanistan in 2001 was construed as a war of self-defence based on the terrorist attacks on the US allegedly originating from Afghanistan and the Afghan government’s refusal to extradite those responsible. Both allegations were false. Attacks perpetrated by individuals, even if originating from within a given state do not constitute an act of war by that state. The individuals allegedly responsible denied responsibility and the Afghan government offered to extradite them to the US (and later repeated the offer to extradite them to a third state) if the US government could provide evidence to implicate them; no evidence was forthcoming and to date, none has been made public. The FBI says there is none.
Asserting these wars to be wars of self-defence fails in the first instance in that it is difficult to sustain in the face of the fact that both wars have been conducted entirely on the enemy’s territory, which is far remote from that of the alleged defender and the enemy clearly has no means of conducting a war of aggression in the opposite direction. The contention also falls down in that the party that is clearly the aggressor has declared an intention of regime change and issued numerous prior threats of attack.
The soiled cloth that has been used to cover the glaring illegality of these wars has grown shabby and worn transparent. The perpetrators must answer to charges under International Law of Crimes Against Peace, laws that have been long established and previously applied to issue and give effect to death penalties for those responsible.
What the Chilcott Inquiry needs is a submission by someone of standing and professional knowledge of International Law (should I suggest Marjorie Cohn?) to connect up the dots for an inquiry that will otherwise surely fail to deliver meaningful conclusions about the illegality of these wars and the criminality of those who initiated them on the basis of a fraud.
The ICC - Political Subterfuge
While great efforts have been made and great progress has been achieved with genuine intent to formally establish a mechanism to adjudicate and give force to the International Rule of Law in the ICC it is clear that other forces have been at work to use the establishment of the ICC for the very opposite end.
The exclusion of the Crime of Aggression from the jurisdiction of the ICC and still worse, the deferment of inclusion pending the definition of aggression clearly exposes the hand of those working to roll back the efficacy of a law that has already been applied on the basis of a definition of aggression that has clearly been regarded as satisfactory in practice.
The role of the United States in refusing to be party to the ICC or to ratify the Rome Statute, while at the same time seeking to both influence its formation and participate in the enforcement functions of the ICC clearly exposes an intention to manipulate and abuse the institution, just as is the case with the UN.
Efforts to have the United Nations Security Council established as the only means to refer allegations of crimes of aggression, thereby acting as a filter and a clear source of bias, further reveal the hand of parties working to establish the ICC as an instrument of political advantage rather than one of impartial justice.
The success of these forces in progressing these intentions at the recent ICC Rome Statute Review Conference held in Kampala in May/June 2010 reveals the need for greater and more assertive public attention to the establishment and development of the ICC. In the present situation the ICC represents a regressive development from what has prevailed for the 60 years since the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals post-WW2 hanged criminals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.
Implications of Failure
We are clearly in danger of witnessing impunity for the perpetrators of some of the worst criminals engaged in the most catastrophic criminal acts in human history; the worst, certainly of this century, and arguably also compared with the last. This would be clearly a disaster for the future of humanity.
If we fail to prosecute the political leaders and others responsible for these crimes it is obvious that others will be emboldened to proceed likewise. For as long as there is personal gain to be had for political leaders willing to serve the criminal ends of economic power (as exampled by Tony Blair’s rising fortunes on the back of commissions from oil companies and American “Peace” Prizes) and there is massive wealth and power to be amassed by corporations and the “anonymous” people who own and control them by sacking and plundering the resources of nations, then the condition of humanity will continue to be plagued by genocide, violence and destruction. The cost is incalculable, the ultimate consequences far worse.
The implications of failure are already materialising as we face imminent war with Iran with probably far greater consequences by an order of magnitude. This is not the road to a harmonious existence for all humanity that is likely to realise the best of human potential, this is the road to a technologically managed feudal society based on dominance, control and oppression that limits human potential to the myopic vision of those who covet power single-mindedly and ruthlessly enough to attain it - absolutely.
The Website
The WarCrimes website (at www.warcrimes.org.uk) provides the foundation for an open framework, intended to serve as a unifying focal point for the purpose of prosecuting war criminals. The site will expand from this initial version by striving to address all aspects of the issue with the aspiration that it should become an organised, convenient and comprehensive source of information supporting and facilitating all activities undertaken by anyone committed to seeking justice for victims of war crimes and prosecution of criminals responsible for them.
The primary goal of the website is to provide tools to assist in the establishment and effect of processes to prosecute war criminals, in particular, those responsible for the obscene crimes of aggressive, illegal war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This, of course, is premised on an assumed incapacity of the ICC to achieve this, an assumption that will stand unchallenged until (at least) 2017 when some as-yet-unclear jurisdiction over the Crime of Aggression comes into force, the underlying definition of “aggression” can be tested and the willingness of members of the UN Security Council to allow prosecution of their own leadership is evidenced. To this end the intention of the site is to unify, consolidate and organise information, directly facilitate efforts to prosecute war criminals and to facilitate and encourage all forms of political activism seeking to establish and empower an effective institution capable of prosecuting war criminals (other than only Africans).
A particular concern is to establish the means to do this in a manner that is open, non-hierarchical, and democratic where appropriate and free from the abuses of manipulation or containment of efforts for change that pervade most “progressive” organizations. A primary objective is to provide an open facility for aggregation of various categories of information making all of the information collected publicly available in an organised and accessible manner. Currently, the site provides separate, specific foundations for some of the key perspectives: professional, Legal, Military and Political. These provide environments in which to build custom facilities, the first of which will be to collect, analyse and publicise public, legal, military and political opinion on the issue.
For practical reasons the scope of attention has been limited, for the present, to British involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In presenting an initial release the primary focus has been to provide information about the relevant Laws of War (for which the primary sources have been the work of Chris Coverdale of the Campaign to Make Wars History, the Wikipedia pages, the UN website and others). Information on the war laws has been loosely organised into the menu structure. Other information about these war crimes, variously sourced online, has been arranged in the pages to make interesting browsing, hopefully to inspire and motivate, arousing greater public interest and action. A more open system of contributing information and a more formal structure for storing and accessing the information, with facility for keyword searching will be initiated in the next version.
This version of the site establishes the look and feel of the site and the basic elements of the site content. The next version will improve cross-browser support and implement database functionality to maintain user registration, login and data input, access to data and of course, address any problems identified in the meantime.
The Internet is steadily gaining ground in the struggle to overcome the dominance of a corrupt corporate media that fails to fulfil its responsibility to properly inform a democracy. However, the future of the Internet as a real force for democracy and international justice and human rights lies in its power to actively participate in the organization and action of large collectives to exert influence in the realms of both political and economic power. WarCrimes.org.uk (Version 1.0) provides the foundations of a system that will explore those possibilities on the way to prosecuting criminals of the worst and most dangerous kind – those with power and influence.
On the ICC
While many are encouraged by the outcome of the recent ICC conference in Kampala Uganda, I personally considered it a disaster reflecting the general lack of public awareness, engagement and knowledge of the underlying realities. The conference essentially accedes to the pressures that sought to use the ICC as a means to undo established precedents of prosecuting and punishing war criminals. What is worse, the conference accedes to arrangements that will essentially provide a further 7-year window of amnesty for criminals guilty of the crime of aggression, additional to the decade of protection, which the very existence of the ICC has already provided.
Given that this occurs at a time when most of the world, not blinded by corrupt vested interest and obscene media complicity, can see that George W Bush and Tony Blair are two criminals at large, clearly guilty of serious crimes that have had extremely serious consequences of international scale, it is a travesty to the discredit and shame of those who have engineered it, those who have coalesced in it without bitter and loud protest and those who have obstructed processes that should have brought these men to answer for their crimes..
What is needed to overcome the present obstruction is a loud and assertive public demand for an immediate rectification of this appalling state of affairs. It requires, on the one hand, a large, internationally organised, motivated and effective instrument of public demand to pressure political leaders to commit unconditionally to a revised ICC, while on the other hand a qualified, coherent group, cognisant of all the issues, accepting of the view that there existed in 1949 a valid Legal Framework and effective instruments for prosecuting war criminals (in particular, the crime of aggression) and able to expedite a rapid re-establishment of the a reformed ICC.
Conclusion
When we consider the positive things achieved by humanity in a quest of several thousand years for civilisation - value and respect for human life and dignity, respect for rights and property, valuing reason and dialogue over violence as the means for resolution of conflict, empathy and compassion - it’s an outrage and affront against all this that brazen criminals responsible for large scale fraud, genocide, destruction and theft on a national scale and in a manner more violent and barbaric than all the worst of human history should exercise smug self-assurance, indeed grandstand themselves to advocate more of the same while showered with rewards by complicit and like-minded scoundrels. It’s an outrage that all decent-minded people should and do feel to the quick despite the criminal inversion of society that floods us with the brazen lie that all is well if we put it behind us and move on. All is NOT well and indications are that things will get worse if we do not take urgent and necessary steps to correct them. A vital step, perhaps the first and most important, is the establishment of International Rule of Law; a genuine, impartial and just institution, not the fraud currently established in the ICC that is a barricade and obstacle among the defences of the criminal empire of the owners of western capitalism.
Please allocate some of your time to visit and explore the website, engage with its intention and the significance of its subject, envision its potential and of course, feel free to comment, make suggestions and contribute. Please also inform others.
So another part of the motivation for the establishment of the site arises from a renewed comprehension of the expression that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. In the course of my life I have observed a sequence of developments, which can be described in essence as the insidious ascendancy of economic power over political power due to the fact that the former has effectively globalised while the latter has remained constrained within national borders. Since our freedom, to what extent we have it, depends entirely on political power the capture of political power by economic power means in effect, that we have already lost our freedom.
Economic power has immense capacity to maintain, for as long as is necessary, the illusion of freedom. So another part of the motivation for the establishment of the site arises from the understanding that no man is more thoroughly enslaved than he who falsely believes he is free and that unless, while there is still time, there is a global public effort to reform and reinvigorate the International Institutions that establish and give effect to the International Rule of Law, humanity may well have entered an evolutionary cul-de-sac a little more advanced but conceptually no different from that of ants and bees; a technologically maintained feudal society.
Our best chance to begin correcting this situation is a global determination to firmly assert that criminal actions on the part of political leaders at the service of economic power will not be tolerated. This is the issue that should unite the global efforts of the progressive left from all sectors and all causes because it is futile to canvas our political leaders on any other issue if they are compelled to answer to a higher order – the unchallenged demands of economic power. It is from this rationale that I believe that the prosecution of criminals responsible for the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is probably the most important issue of our time.
The Illegal Wars
At the time of the invasion of Iraq both the British public and the cabinet were being persuaded that the British government was acting in the belief that an invasion of Iraq would be legal on the basis of UN Resolution 1441, on the advice (after reconsideration) of the Attorney General. In the Iraq Inquiry (for which the public has had to wait in persistent demand for six years) it has first emerged that this was not the advice of the government’s law office. This revelation was tempered by the assertion by the head of the law office that what really mattered was the opinion and advice of the Attorney General. It has subsequently emerged that the reconsideration of the Attorney General’s advice came only after a long and bitter contention during which he was coerced by the government to give the advice it wanted. The war was clearly illegal.
The prior arrack on Afghanistan in 2001 was construed as a war of self-defence based on the terrorist attacks on the US allegedly originating from Afghanistan and the Afghan government’s refusal to extradite those responsible. Both allegations were false. Attacks perpetrated by individuals, even if originating from within a given state do not constitute an act of war by that state. The individuals allegedly responsible denied responsibility and the Afghan government offered to extradite them to the US (and later repeated the offer to extradite them to a third state) if the US government could provide evidence to implicate them; no evidence was forthcoming and to date, none has been made public. The FBI says there is none.
Asserting these wars to be wars of self-defence fails in the first instance in that it is difficult to sustain in the face of the fact that both wars have been conducted entirely on the enemy’s territory, which is far remote from that of the alleged defender and the enemy clearly has no means of conducting a war of aggression in the opposite direction. The contention also falls down in that the party that is clearly the aggressor has declared an intention of regime change and issued numerous prior threats of attack.
The soiled cloth that has been used to cover the glaring illegality of these wars has grown shabby and worn transparent. The perpetrators must answer to charges under International Law of Crimes Against Peace, laws that have been long established and previously applied to issue and give effect to death penalties for those responsible.
What the Chilcott Inquiry needs is a submission by someone of standing and professional knowledge of International Law (should I suggest Marjorie Cohn?) to connect up the dots for an inquiry that will otherwise surely fail to deliver meaningful conclusions about the illegality of these wars and the criminality of those who initiated them on the basis of a fraud.
The ICC - Political Subterfuge
While great efforts have been made and great progress has been achieved with genuine intent to formally establish a mechanism to adjudicate and give force to the International Rule of Law in the ICC it is clear that other forces have been at work to use the establishment of the ICC for the very opposite end.
The exclusion of the Crime of Aggression from the jurisdiction of the ICC and still worse, the deferment of inclusion pending the definition of aggression clearly exposes the hand of those working to roll back the efficacy of a law that has already been applied on the basis of a definition of aggression that has clearly been regarded as satisfactory in practice.
The role of the United States in refusing to be party to the ICC or to ratify the Rome Statute, while at the same time seeking to both influence its formation and participate in the enforcement functions of the ICC clearly exposes an intention to manipulate and abuse the institution, just as is the case with the UN.
Efforts to have the United Nations Security Council established as the only means to refer allegations of crimes of aggression, thereby acting as a filter and a clear source of bias, further reveal the hand of parties working to establish the ICC as an instrument of political advantage rather than one of impartial justice.
The success of these forces in progressing these intentions at the recent ICC Rome Statute Review Conference held in Kampala in May/June 2010 reveals the need for greater and more assertive public attention to the establishment and development of the ICC. In the present situation the ICC represents a regressive development from what has prevailed for the 60 years since the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals post-WW2 hanged criminals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.
Implications of Failure
We are clearly in danger of witnessing impunity for the perpetrators of some of the worst criminals engaged in the most catastrophic criminal acts in human history; the worst, certainly of this century, and arguably also compared with the last. This would be clearly a disaster for the future of humanity.
If we fail to prosecute the political leaders and others responsible for these crimes it is obvious that others will be emboldened to proceed likewise. For as long as there is personal gain to be had for political leaders willing to serve the criminal ends of economic power (as exampled by Tony Blair’s rising fortunes on the back of commissions from oil companies and American “Peace” Prizes) and there is massive wealth and power to be amassed by corporations and the “anonymous” people who own and control them by sacking and plundering the resources of nations, then the condition of humanity will continue to be plagued by genocide, violence and destruction. The cost is incalculable, the ultimate consequences far worse.
The implications of failure are already materialising as we face imminent war with Iran with probably far greater consequences by an order of magnitude. This is not the road to a harmonious existence for all humanity that is likely to realise the best of human potential, this is the road to a technologically managed feudal society based on dominance, control and oppression that limits human potential to the myopic vision of those who covet power single-mindedly and ruthlessly enough to attain it - absolutely.
The Website
The WarCrimes website (at www.warcrimes.org.uk) provides the foundation for an open framework, intended to serve as a unifying focal point for the purpose of prosecuting war criminals. The site will expand from this initial version by striving to address all aspects of the issue with the aspiration that it should become an organised, convenient and comprehensive source of information supporting and facilitating all activities undertaken by anyone committed to seeking justice for victims of war crimes and prosecution of criminals responsible for them.
The primary goal of the website is to provide tools to assist in the establishment and effect of processes to prosecute war criminals, in particular, those responsible for the obscene crimes of aggressive, illegal war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This, of course, is premised on an assumed incapacity of the ICC to achieve this, an assumption that will stand unchallenged until (at least) 2017 when some as-yet-unclear jurisdiction over the Crime of Aggression comes into force, the underlying definition of “aggression” can be tested and the willingness of members of the UN Security Council to allow prosecution of their own leadership is evidenced. To this end the intention of the site is to unify, consolidate and organise information, directly facilitate efforts to prosecute war criminals and to facilitate and encourage all forms of political activism seeking to establish and empower an effective institution capable of prosecuting war criminals (other than only Africans).
A particular concern is to establish the means to do this in a manner that is open, non-hierarchical, and democratic where appropriate and free from the abuses of manipulation or containment of efforts for change that pervade most “progressive” organizations. A primary objective is to provide an open facility for aggregation of various categories of information making all of the information collected publicly available in an organised and accessible manner. Currently, the site provides separate, specific foundations for some of the key perspectives: professional, Legal, Military and Political. These provide environments in which to build custom facilities, the first of which will be to collect, analyse and publicise public, legal, military and political opinion on the issue.
For practical reasons the scope of attention has been limited, for the present, to British involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In presenting an initial release the primary focus has been to provide information about the relevant Laws of War (for which the primary sources have been the work of Chris Coverdale of the Campaign to Make Wars History, the Wikipedia pages, the UN website and others). Information on the war laws has been loosely organised into the menu structure. Other information about these war crimes, variously sourced online, has been arranged in the pages to make interesting browsing, hopefully to inspire and motivate, arousing greater public interest and action. A more open system of contributing information and a more formal structure for storing and accessing the information, with facility for keyword searching will be initiated in the next version.
This version of the site establishes the look and feel of the site and the basic elements of the site content. The next version will improve cross-browser support and implement database functionality to maintain user registration, login and data input, access to data and of course, address any problems identified in the meantime.
The Internet is steadily gaining ground in the struggle to overcome the dominance of a corrupt corporate media that fails to fulfil its responsibility to properly inform a democracy. However, the future of the Internet as a real force for democracy and international justice and human rights lies in its power to actively participate in the organization and action of large collectives to exert influence in the realms of both political and economic power. WarCrimes.org.uk (Version 1.0) provides the foundations of a system that will explore those possibilities on the way to prosecuting criminals of the worst and most dangerous kind – those with power and influence.
On the ICC
While many are encouraged by the outcome of the recent ICC conference in Kampala Uganda, I personally considered it a disaster reflecting the general lack of public awareness, engagement and knowledge of the underlying realities. The conference essentially accedes to the pressures that sought to use the ICC as a means to undo established precedents of prosecuting and punishing war criminals. What is worse, the conference accedes to arrangements that will essentially provide a further 7-year window of amnesty for criminals guilty of the crime of aggression, additional to the decade of protection, which the very existence of the ICC has already provided.
Given that this occurs at a time when most of the world, not blinded by corrupt vested interest and obscene media complicity, can see that George W Bush and Tony Blair are two criminals at large, clearly guilty of serious crimes that have had extremely serious consequences of international scale, it is a travesty to the discredit and shame of those who have engineered it, those who have coalesced in it without bitter and loud protest and those who have obstructed processes that should have brought these men to answer for their crimes..
What is needed to overcome the present obstruction is a loud and assertive public demand for an immediate rectification of this appalling state of affairs. It requires, on the one hand, a large, internationally organised, motivated and effective instrument of public demand to pressure political leaders to commit unconditionally to a revised ICC, while on the other hand a qualified, coherent group, cognisant of all the issues, accepting of the view that there existed in 1949 a valid Legal Framework and effective instruments for prosecuting war criminals (in particular, the crime of aggression) and able to expedite a rapid re-establishment of the a reformed ICC.
Conclusion
When we consider the positive things achieved by humanity in a quest of several thousand years for civilisation - value and respect for human life and dignity, respect for rights and property, valuing reason and dialogue over violence as the means for resolution of conflict, empathy and compassion - it’s an outrage and affront against all this that brazen criminals responsible for large scale fraud, genocide, destruction and theft on a national scale and in a manner more violent and barbaric than all the worst of human history should exercise smug self-assurance, indeed grandstand themselves to advocate more of the same while showered with rewards by complicit and like-minded scoundrels. It’s an outrage that all decent-minded people should and do feel to the quick despite the criminal inversion of society that floods us with the brazen lie that all is well if we put it behind us and move on. All is NOT well and indications are that things will get worse if we do not take urgent and necessary steps to correct them. A vital step, perhaps the first and most important, is the establishment of International Rule of Law; a genuine, impartial and just institution, not the fraud currently established in the ICC that is a barricade and obstacle among the defences of the criminal empire of the owners of western capitalism.
Please allocate some of your time to visit and explore the website, engage with its intention and the significance of its subject, envision its potential and of course, feel free to comment, make suggestions and contribute. Please also inform others.
Allen L. Jasson
e-mail:
allen.jasson@rightofchoice.com
Homepage:
http://www.warcrimes.org.uk/
Comments
Hide the following 8 comments
does this include the millions of victims of communism ?
03.08.2010 13:10
justice
Congratulations Allen!
03.08.2010 13:25
My detailed complaint to the ICC concluded: "I understand that the International Criminal Court may be prepared to make initial investigations of formal complaints by individuals (such as this complaint) but will only act to the fullest extent of its remit in response to formal complaints by National Governments.
The overwhelmingly most devastating future prospect is that current deaths from global warming will remorselessly expand to a 10 billion victim Climate Holocaust and Climate Genocide this century from insufficiently addressed man-made global warming. Countries at major risk from sea level rises due to climate change include island nations in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific (some of which face total extinction) and countries with mega-deltas in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia (of which some face catastrophic loss of agriculture and massive population displacements). Such Nations will be receiving copies of this formal complaint and are urged to transmit formal complaints to the International Criminal Court. Formal complaints to the ICC are no doubt to be expected from Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan after the war criminal occupying forces and their Indigenous puppets depart."
Gideon Polya
Wilhelm Reich = nutter?
03.08.2010 14:20
He did start off as a respectable scientist and psychoanalyst but later on he started peddling pseudoscience like "orgone energy accumulators" which supposedly harnessed some kind of "cosmic sexual energy", which was just New Age bullshit. Maybe he took took many mind-bending drugs, I don't know.
It's a good quote by itself though, so maybe you don't mind the nutter guilt by association.
anon
what about the genocide of christians ?
03.08.2010 14:20
ciseaux
uh-oh - troofer alert
03.08.2010 14:32
If you are going for war crimes I think you need to be a broad church and just focus on the war crimes. Otherwise you are going to put a lot of people off and muddy the waters with conspiracy theory garbage. Keep it as focused as possible so it appeals to as many people as possible.
Also, the subpages don't have their own URLs which makes it impossible to link directly to them. That isn't very good web page design practice and won't be good for your search engine rankings.
Good luck!
anon
Got Iraq war crimes if you want them
03.08.2010 14:47
* Crimes against humanity: murders of civilians by the Fedayeen Saddam irregulars organized by Uday al Hussein and Iraqi government forces during the initial invasion;
* Crimes against humanity: numerous suicide bombings directed at civilians by armed groups including al Qaeda of Iraq.
o Use of poisons as weapons: deliberate use of chemical weapons, including chlorine gas, in suicide bombings by al Qaeda of Iraq and others;
o Crimes against humanity: deliberate use of children and female non-combatants as suicide bombers by al Qaeda of Iraq and others;
o Crimes against humanity: deliberate attacks using suicide bombers upon protected places, such as mosques, religious sites, hospitals, schools, and other clearly civilian targets by al Qaeda of Iraq and others;
o Offenses against the law of nations: outrages upon diplomatic plenipotentiaries and agents: suicide bombing of the United Nations headquarters of Iraq in 2003, leading to the death of numerous UN workers, who, being agents of international organizations, are protected persons;
* War crimes: perfidious emplacement of minefields and booby-traps: the laying of minefields and placement of booby-traps in minefields not clearly marked and mapped by irregular forces, including al Qaeda of Iraq;
o War crimes, crimes against humanity: use of internationally protected places marked with the Red Cross and/or Crescent and inalienable objects and locations of cultural or religious heritage as bunkers, bomb shelters, and firing positions by insurgents within Fallujah;
o War crimes: Perfidy: Failure to bear arms openly, failure to wear a fixed distinguishing mark visible at a distance, and failure to obey the law and custom of land warfare by insurgent forces;
o War crimes, crimes against humanity: use of civilians as human shields, by commingling themselves with civilian persons, insurgents used the civilian population of Fallujah as human shields.
* Crime of genocide: ethnic cleansing (forcible removals or murders of civilian members of ethnic groups by armed marauders, including al Qaeda of Iraq; various organizations with some members captured and/or prosecuted).
* War crimes, crimes against humanity: Mahmudiyah killings involving the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl and the murder of her family by U.S. troops.
* Crimes against humanity: 2006 al-Askari Mosque bombing by Al-Queda.
Reality Check
Homepage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_crimes
Law suit against 4 US presidents and 4 UK prime ministers for war crimes
03.08.2010 16:12
Iraq's current and planned potential ballistic missiles
__________________
Law Suit against 4 US Presidents & 4 UK Prime Ministers for War Crimes,
Crimes Against Humanity & Genocide in Iraq
Statement on Closure of Legal Case for Iraq in Spain
by BRussels Tribunal, 7 February 2010
Public inquiries on the decision to wage war on Iraq that are silent about the crimes committed, the victims involved, and provide for no sanction, whatever their outcome, are not enough. Illegal acts should entail consequences: the dead and the harmed deserve justice.
On 6 October 2009, working with and on behalf of Iraqi plaintiffs, we filed a case before Spanish law against four US presidents and four UK prime ministers for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq. The case presented spanned 19 years, including not only the wholesale destruction of Iraq witnessed from 2003, but also the sanctions period during which 1.5 million excess Iraqi deaths were recorded.
We brought the case to Spain because its laws of universal jurisdiction are based on principles enshrined in its constitution. All humanity knows the crimes committed in Iraq by those we accused, but no jurisdiction is bringing them to justice. We presented with Iraqi victims a solid case drawing on evidence contained in over 900 documents and that refer to thousands of individual incidents from which a pattern of accumulated harm and intent can be discerned.
When we brought our case, we knew that the Spanish Senate would soon vote on an amendment earlier passed by the lower house of parliament to curtail the application of universal jurisdiction in Spain. We were conscious that this restriction could be retroactive, and we took account of the content of the proposed amendment in our case filing. As we imagined, 2009 turned out to be a sad year for upholding universal human rights and international law in Spain. One day after we filed, the law was curtailed, and soon thereafter our case closed. Serious cases of the kind universal jurisdiction exists to address became more difficult to investigate.
One more jurisdiction to fall
Despite submitting a 110-page long referenced accusation (the Introduction of which is appended to this statement), the Spanish public prosecutor and the judge assigned to our case determined there was no reason to investigate. Their arguments were erroneous and could easily have been refuted if we could have appealed. To do so we needed a professional Spanish lawyer — either in a paid capacity or as a volunteer who wished to help the Iraqi people in its struggle for justice. As we had limited means, and for other reasons mostly concerning internal Spanish affairs, which were not our concern, we could not secure a lawyer in either capacity to appeal. Our motion for more time to find a lawyer was rejected.
We continue to believe that the violent killing of over one million people in Iraq since 2003 alone, the ongoing US occupation — that carries direct legal responsibility — and the displacement of up to a fifth of the Iraqi population from the terror that occupation has entailed and incited suggests strongly that the claims we put forward ought to be further investigated.
In reality, our case is a paramount example of those that authorities in the West — Spain included — fear. To them, such cases represent the double edge of sustaining the principle of universal jurisdiction. Western states used universal jurisdiction in the past to judge Third World countries. When victims in the global South began using it to judge Israel and US aggression, Western countries rushed to restrict it. Abandoning universal jurisdiction by diluting it is now the general tendency.
Call for wider collective effort to prosecute
We regret that the Spanish courts refused to investigate our case, but this will not discourage us. We have a just cause. The crimes are evident. The responsible are well known, even if the international juridical system continues to ignore Iraqi victims. Justice for victims and the wish of all humanity that war criminals should be punished oblige us to search for alternative legal possibilities, so that the crimes committed in Iraq can be investigated and accountability established.
At present, failed international justice allows US and UK war criminals to stand above international law. Understanding that this constitutes an attack — or makes possible future attacks — on the human rights of everyone, everywhere, we will continue to advocate the use of all possible avenues, including UN institutions, the International Criminal Court, and popular tribunals, to highlight and bring before law and moral and public opinion US and UK crimes in Iraq.
We are ready to make our experience and expertise available to those who struggle in the same direction. We look forward to a time when the countries of the global South, which are generally victims of aggression, reinforce their juridical systems by implementing the principle of universal jurisdiction. This will be a great service to humanity and international law.
Millions of people in Iraq have been killed, displaced, terrorised, detained, tortured or impoverished under the hammer of US and UK military, economic, political, ideological and cultural attacks. The very fabric and being of the country has been subject to intentional destruction. This destruction constitutes one of the gravest international crimes ever committed. All humanity should unite in refusing that law — by failing to assure justice for Iraqi victims — enables this destruction to be the opening precedent of the 21st century.
Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq
Press contacts:
Hana Al Bayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+20 10 027 7964 (English and French)
Dr Ian Douglas, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal, coordinator, International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq
+20 12 167 1660 (English)
Serene Assir, Advisory Committee, BRussells Tribunal (Spanish)
Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+20 11 181 0798 (Arabic)
Dirk Adriaensens, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+32 494 68 07 62 (Dutch)
Web:
www.brusselstribunal.org
www.USgenocide.org
www.twitter.com/USgenocide
www.facebook.com/USgenocide
This statement:
__________________
Introduction to the legal case filed before the Audiencia Nacional on 6 October 2009
The following is the introduction to a legal case filed 6 October 2009 before the Audiencia Nacional in Spain against four US presidents and four UK prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq. The case was filed under laws of universal jurisdiction.
This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown, was brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law.
Introduction
The respondents herein identified in this complaint have all held or hold high public office in the administrations of the United States and the United Kingdom, and/or commanding authority in the respective armed forces of these countries, and whilst in command or in office actively instigated, authorized, supported, justified, executed and/or perpetuated:
1. A 13-year sanctions regime on Iraq known and proven to have an overwhelmingly destructive impact on Iraqi public health, especially child mortality
2. The use of disproportionate and indiscriminate military force, including numerous extra-legal strikes and bombing campaigns throughout the 1990s, entailing the purposeful destruction of Iraq’s water and health facilities, and defence capacities, and the widespread contamination of Iraq’s ecosphere and life environment by the unjustified and massive use of depleted uranium munitions
3. The prevention by means of comprehensive sanctions, and/or military strikes, of the reconstruction of Iraq’s critical civil infrastructure, including its health, water and sanitation systems, and the decontamination of Iraq’s ecosphere/life environment, backed by the threat of Security Council veto where unanimity was not present for such strikes and/or the continuance of the sanctions regime
4. The launching of an illegal war of aggression against Iraq based on deliberate falsification of threat assessment intelligence and systematic efforts to conceal from the general public in the United States and the United Kingdom, and other countries, along with parts of the military command structure of the respective armed forces deployed, the true aims and objectives of that war
5. Establishing by design an occupation apparatus that by its incompetence, inexperience, corruption and/or ideological or sectarian alignment and actions would finalize the destruction of the Iraqi state and the attempted destruction of Iraqi national unity and identity, entailing an attack upon Iraqis as a whole and the intended destruction of the Iraqi national group as such.
The acts ordered and/or continued and perpetuated by the respondents identified in this complaint were unlawful in nature, were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be unlawful in nature, and were based on manifest and purposive lies, manipulations, deliberately misleading presentations of facts, and baseless assertions and other false justifications. The consistency of the propaganda effort that supported and contextualized these unlawful acts was such — and was aimed and known to be so — that it constituted an international campaign of demonization and dehumanization of Iraqis, the Iraqi nation, the Iraqi state, Iraq’s civil and military leadership, Iraq’s civil administrative apparatus, and Iraq in its Arab context. As such, and through actions taken and summarized below, the respondents:
1. Deprived the Iraqi people of all or the majority of their fundamental rights as established and protected by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, expressed in the UN Charter and conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions, including the right of defence
2. Structured and implemented policies that continue to deprive the Iraqi people of their sovereignty and the exercise of their freedom, human rights, and civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, as established and guaranteed by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including the UN Charter and conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions
3. Consistently gave political and legal cover to these acts, even as these acts were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be in violation of international law, including peremptory or jus cogens standards of law
4. Asserted and defended extra-legal immunity for all those engaged in acts that have attacked the protected rights of the Iraqi people, and established a pattern of impunity for those accused of such attacks by failing to adequately investigate and prosecute specific and general allegations of grave abuses, and/or to ensure responsibility is assumed throughout the chain of command that permitted or failed to prohibit such attacks, and/or dismissed or distorted numerous customary legal standards, including the laws of war and those that outlaw the preemptive use of force in international relations
5. Abused and overran international law, the guarantor of international order, peace and security, which the United Nations System exists to protect and is deemed to embody, enshrined in the UN Charter, and upon whose foundation the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gains positive affect and final meaning.
Opportunity for redress for Iraqi victims in their own national jurisdiction is non-existent as Iraq remains occupied, its sovereign institutions dismantled and non-functioning. Despite numerous individual petitions submitted to its chief prosecutor, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has stated that it has no jurisdiction to hear cases of abuses and violations of human rights standards and international humanitarian law in Iraq. In light of US and UK threats to use permanent member veto power in the past, it is not foreseeable that the Security Council in the future will refer complaints in Iraq to the ICC, and nor can Iraqis wait for Security Council reform. Without effective investigation and prosecution of these abuses and violations, the international community runs the risk of allowing a precedent of unlawful action of such grave magnitude to be set without censure, thereby endangering the rights and dignity not only of Iraqis but also of people the world over. Such a precedent would be contrary to the UN Charter and the principles upon which the international order of states is deemed to be founded. The basis for public acceptance of a state of law is that it protects peace and defends the wellbeing of the people. Failure to investigate and effectively prosecute the catalogue of grave abuses and violations perpetrated by the respondents in Iraq, and against the Iraqi people, would constitute an ongoing and inherent threat to the basis of the international order in general and to international peace and security specifically.
Alongside those in official positions of authority, key political advisers, lobbyists, strategists and corporate representatives have also played a crucial role in the ideological and political justifications and legitimization sought and falsely proposed in order to execute the overall policy embraced, inclusive of an accumulated pattern of attacks, military and otherwise, that has lasted 19 years to date, culminating in the 2003 illegal war of aggression waged on Iraq and that continues to be executed despite wide and ongoing condemnation. Though there are nuances of responsibility inherent to the nature of policy construction and execution, the personal relations and interconnections between primary and secondary level individuals involved, and the groups or common circles to which they belong, testify to a large degree of cohesion present in intent and action among the respondents identified and those who support and benefit from the policies they have pursued. At the least, this shared intent is one of deliberate harm; at worst, it amounts to an objective intent to destroy for definable, and at times publicly enunciated, strategic, geopolitical and geo-economic reasons. Furthermore, none of the respondents can reasonably claim they did not have knowledge of the likely outcome of their policies, and those they supported, as all had not only participated in the design and execution of these policies, but they continued to execute said policies once their effects were widely known and had been proven to be detrimental to — and destructive of — the health, sovereignty and rights of the Iraqi people, and further have defended these policies and in majority continue to do so.
From the start of the implementation of a US-instigated and dominantly administered sanctions regime up to the present day, an approximate total of 2,700,000 Iraqis have died as a direct result of sanctions followed by the US-UK led war of aggression on, and occupation of, Iraq beginning in 2003. Among those killed during the sanctions period were 560,000 children. From 2003 onwards, having weakened Iraq’s civil and military infrastructure to the degree that its people were rendered near totally defenceless, Iraq was subject to a level of aggression of near unprecedented scale and nature in international history, occurring in parallel with the promotion of a partition plan for Iraq, the substantial direct funding of sectarian groups and militias that would play a key role in fragmenting the country under occupation, both administratively and in terms of national identity, the cancellation of the former state apparatus and the dismissal of its personnel entailing the collapse of all public services and state protection for the Iraqi people, the further destruction of the health and education systems of Iraq, and the creation of waves of internal and external displacement totaling nearly 5,000,000 Iraqis, or one fifth of the Iraqi population. By December 2007, the Iraqi Anti-Corruption Board reported that there were up to 5,000,000 orphans in Iraq, while the Iraqi Ministry of Women’s Affairs counts 3,000,000 widows as of 2009.
Such massive destruction of life, having as context a 19-year period of accumulated attacks, with numerous warnings and opportunities for remedy and a reversal of policy ignored, cannot be mere happenstance. Indeed, the paramount charge that must be investigated, and that plain fact evidence suggests, is that this level of destruction has been integral to the US and UK’s shared international policy for Iraq. The destruction in whole or in part of the Iraqi people as a national group, and depriving this group of all or the majority of its rights, appears from a reasoned account of the catalogue of violations, abuses and attacks to which the Iraqi people have been subject to be the unlawful means pursued purposely by the respondents in order to redraw by force the strategic and political map of the Arab region and Iraq’s place within that context, and to capture, appropriate and plunder, via the cancellation of the sovereignty of the Iraqi people and the destruction and fragmentation of their identity and unity as a national group, Iraq’s substantial natural energy resources. Historically, the Iraqi national group, variegated yet cohesive, was and continues to be, despite the aggression faced, firmly rooted in its overwhelming majority in the concept of citizenship of the Iraqi state — a state founded on public provision of services and a nationally owned energy industry. The policy that the respondents have sought and continue to seek to impose, that has entailed privatizing and seizing ownership of Iraqi citizens’ resources, along with the administrative and political partition of the former unitary state, is contrary to the basis of, and cohesion of, the Iraqi people as a national group.
Until prevented by effective legal investigation and precautionary action, it is highly likely that the combined US/UK strategy in Iraq will continue, though its tactics may change. Iraqis in the majority show no sign of surrendering their right to and belief in Iraqi citizenship, including sovereign control over Iraq’s natural resources. Between a belligerent foreign aggressor and a resilient, resistant people legal action is crucial to end the ongoing and by all likelihood perpetual slaughter of Iraqis and the destruction of their national identity and rights. We are before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis on which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests, and that brought about and continue to pursue the destruction of the Iraqi state and attempted destruction of the Iraqi nation. Whereas 1,200,000 Iraqis, according to credible estimates, have lost their lives to violence since 2003 alone, the Iraqi people continue to lose their lives or at best live under constant fear of death, mutilation, detention, exile and lack of access to their rightful resources and freedoms. The sum of these conditions, the outcome of a pattern of purposeful action whose consequences could be foreseen, and of which detailed and compelling notice was served, situated in a context of false justifications, deceptions, and outright lies, and matched by the unlawful use of force, and disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force, amounts to substantive violations of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
As proof of the widespread impact of past and current US and UK policies, in 2009 the American Friends Service Committee, in collaboration with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), reported that some 80 per cent of Iraqis surveyed in Iraq had witnessed a shooting, 68 per cent had been interrogated or harassed by militias, 77 per cent had been affected by shelling/rocket attacks, 72 per cent had witnessed a car bombing, 23 per cent of Iraqis in Baghdad had had a family member kidnapped, and 75 per cent had had a family member or someone close to them murdered.
Military operations in Iraq from 2003 have already cost for the United States an estimated $800 billion, with long-term costs estimated at $1.8 trillion. By 2009, the estimated cost for the United Kingdom, according to figures released by the UK Ministry of Defence, was £8.4 billion ($13.7 billion). The United States continues to spend $12 billion on the war per month. There has been a total of 513,000 US soldiers deployed to Iraq since 2003. Some 170,000 were stationed during the “Surge” campaign of 2007, and 130,000 remain deployed as of June 2009. In addition to regular armed forces, the US administration is believed to employ up to 130,000 additional private security contractors and has refused to release official numbers in this regard. Security companies have been granted blanket immunity under Iraqi law. Equally, there is no effective mechanism, or hope, for Iraqis to hold US and UK forces to account directly.
The narration of facts that follows is substantiated with evidence detailed in the Annex. Other facts to be investigated while reported are not mentioned in the following.
For further information:
www.brusselstribunal.org
www.USgenocide.org
www.twitter.com/USgenocide
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BRussels Tribunal
Homepage:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17535
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06.08.2010 00:44
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