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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