More Bad News

Bad news for the Bush and Blair governments has been coming out of Great Britain, Ireland and Germany recently and it appears to be the type of thing that could become a trend in other countries as well. The bad news is that people charged with crimes for having taken action against military targets as a protest against the Iraq war have successfully used the defense that the war is illegal and an act of aggression by the United States and the UK.

The courts are starting to accept that the war against Iraq is a crime

The Guardian newspaper carried this headline on Tuesday October 17, 2006 for a story reported by George Monbiot. (The link is to a Raw Story article on the Guardian piece) The story cites several incidents where protesters have been arrested for sabotage of military equipment to prevent its use in the Iraq war. In one case “The defendants were allowed to show that they were seeking to prevent specific war crimes from being committed - principally, the release by the B52s of cluster bombs and munitions tipped with depleted uranium. They cited section 5 of the 1971 Criminal Damage Act, which provides lawful excuse for damaging property if that action prevents property belonging to other people from being damaged, and section 3 of the 1967 Criminal Law Act, which states that "a person may use such force as is reasonable in the prevention of a crime". In summing up, the judge told the jurors that using weapons "with an adverse effect on civilian populations which is disproportionate to the need to achieve the military objective" is a war crime. Another case involved a German Army Major who refused to obey an order he felt would implicate him in the invasion of Iraq. In his case, “The judges determined that the UN charter permits a state to go to war in only two circumstances: in self-defence, and when it has been authorised to do so by the UN security council. The states attacking Iraq, they ruled, had no such licence. Resolution 1441, which was used by the British and US governments to justify the invasion, contained no authorisation. The war could be considered an act of aggression.”

These findings may become the legal precedents that sound the death knell for Bush and his war council. One, a judicial finding that the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Great Britain was not justified either as an act of self defense or under UN Resolution 1441 which was determined not to contain authorization to do so. The other, a finding of “disproportionate force to achieve a military objective” was further amplified by the recent findings of researchers at John Hopkins University that 655,000 Iraqis have died due to the current war.

This would mean that the US and UK have committed an act of aggression in the eyes of the international community. Yet, every American politician that appears with some talking head on the cable/network news shows continue to assert that they were correct to support the invasion, some saying they would do the same today even knowing at the time what we have learned since.

Basically, we sent inspectors into Iraq to verify that no weapons existed. Then, having proven their defenselessness, invaded their country with such devastating force that the operation was dubbed “shock and awe”. What is different about this administration’s actions from a person shooting another person they know to be unarmed and claiming to be justified because the person they shot had a weapon? Many Americans are of the opinion that our country and our leaders are guilty of a crime but, fear the reprisal of the White House that this administration is famous for.

If the Democrats regain control of either branch of Congress they MUST use their subpoena power to conduct honest, open investigations and, most importantly, they must be willing to pursue the evidence without reservation and to hold responsible anyone the investigations determine to be in violation of the law, including the President himself.