Nuremberg Tribunals: Aggressive War is Illegal,

[G_j]

utterly renounced
and condemned

--------------
Statement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson
Chief U.S. Prosecutor
at the Nuremberg Tribunals
August 12, 1945
on War Trials Agreement; August 12, 1945

There are some things I would like to say, particularly to the American people, about the agreement we have just signed.
For the first time, four of the most powerful nations have agreed not only upon the principles of liability for war crimes of persecution, but also upon the principle of individual responsibility for the crime of attacking the international peace.

Repeatedly, nations have united in abstract declarations that the launching of aggressive war is illegal. They have condemned it by treaty. But now we have the concrete application of these abstractions in a way which ought to make clear to the world that those who lead their nations into aggressive war face individual accountability for such acts.
<snip>

"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which
their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the
war, but that they started it. And we must not allow
ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war,
for our position is that no grievances or policies will
justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced
and condemned as an instrument of policy."
<snip>

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson
Chief U.S. Prosecutor
at the Nuremberg Tribunals
August 12, 1945

READ THE ENTIRE STATEMENT HERE:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/jack02.htm

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Marjorie Cohn | Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904A.shtml
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& more on war crimes:

the denial of water to Iraqi civilians = Article 14 war crime

http://www.casi.org.uk/briefings-new.html

Denial of Water to Iraqi Cities
Water supplies to Tall Afar, Samarra and Fallujah were cut off during US attacks during the past two months, affecting up to 750,000 civilians. This appears to form part of a deliberate US policy of denying water to the residents of cities under attack. If so, it has been adopted without a public debate, and without consulting Coalition partners. It is a serious breach of international humanitarian law, and is deepening Iraqi opposition to the United States, other coalition members, and the Iraqi government.

This briefing outlines the evidence for the denial of water to Iraqi civilians, discusses stated justifications for these tactics, and analyses some of the implications. It calls for the immediate cessation of this tactic, which causes severe and undue suffering to civilians under attack.

Read the full briefing: "DENIAL OF WATER TO IRAQI CITIES"

http://www.casi.org.uk/briefings-new.html
-----------------------------------------
From Vietnam to Fallujah

......... by Fran Schor September 13, 2004

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=6217

The recent controversy surrounding the "Swift Boat Veterans" ad challenging John Kerry's Vietnam record and his later statements as a leader of Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW) have fallen into predictable partisan perspectives. Republicans and their media attack machine still insist that Kerry's medals are suspect and his VVAW activities were treasonous. Kerry and the Democrats, in turn, have found further documentary evidence and eye-witness accounts to support his version of the Vietnam incidents. As far as Kerry's 1971 testimony about US atrocities in Vietnam, Kerry has reiterated that he was just recounting reports from the Winter Soldier Investigations. In addition, he tried earlier to deflect criticism of his VVAW positions by claiming that some of his statements were overzealous and part of the heated rhetoric of the times. In effect, the Bush Administration and Republicans have tried to deny that atrocities took place while Kerry and the Democrats have tried to minimize or marginalize them.

For those who have studied the historical record of the US prosecution of the war in Southeast Asia, neither the Republicans nor Democrats have confronted the full measure of those atrocities and what their legacy is especially in the war on Iraq. While most studies of the war in Southeast Asia acknowledge that 4 times the tonnage of bombs was dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos than that used by the US in all theaters of operation during World War II, only a few, such as James William Gibson's The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam, analyze the full extent of such bombing. Not only were thousands of villages in Vietnam totally destroyed, but massive civilian deaths, numbering close to 3 million, resulted in large part from such indiscriminate bombing. Integral to the bombing strategy was the use of weapons that violated international law, such as napalm and anti-personnel fragmentation bombs. As a result of establishing free-fire zones where anything and everything could be attacked, including hospitals, US military operations led to the deliberate murder of mostly civilians.

While Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have touted the "clean" weapons used in Iraq, the fact is that aerial cluster bombs and free-fire zones have continued to be part of present day military operations. Villages throughout Iraq, from Hilla to Fallujah, have borne and are bearing US attacks that take a heavy civilian toll. Occasionally, criticisms of the type of ordnance used in Iraq found its way into the mainstream press, especially when left-over cluster bomblets looking like yellow food packages blow up in children's hands or depleted uranium weapons are dropped inadvertently on British soldiers. However, questions about the immorality of "shock and awe" bombing strategy have been buried deeper than any of the cluster bomblets.

In Vietnam, a primary ground war tactic was the "search and destroy" mission with its over-inflated body counts. As Christian Appy forcefully demonstrated in Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, such tactics were guaranteed to produce atrocities. Any revealing personal account of the war in Vietnam, such as Ron Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July, underscores how those atrocities took their toll on civilians and US soldiers, like Kovic. Of course, certain high-profile atrocities, such as My Lai, achieved prominent media coverage (almost, however, a year after the incident.) Nonetheless, My Lai was seen either as an aberration and not part of murderous campaigns such as the Phoenix program with its thousands of assassinations or a result of a few bad apples, like a Lt. Calley, who nonetheless received minor punishment for his command of the massacre of hundreds of women and children. Moreover, as reported in Tom Engelhardt's The End of Victory Culture, "65% of Americans claimed not to be upset by the massacre" (224). Is it, therefore, not surprising that Noam Chomsky asserted during this period that the US had to undergo some sort of de- nazification in order to regain some moral sensitivity to what US war policy had produced in Vietnam



..more..

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The Unthinkable Becomes Normal (November 15, 2004)
Mainstream media trivialize atrocities such as the slaughter in Fallujah by describing attacks on houses, mosques and innocent civilians as "successful operations against insurgents." John Pilger warns that we must not let the media "normalize the unthinkable," and that we should question the hidden agendas of "democratic governments." (New Statesman)
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/media/2004/1115normal.htm

[IChing]

1. Well I'm gonna have to change my banner then

:sarcasm: :rofl:

History should not be forgotten

[denverbill]

2. I'd like to know his definition of 'aggressive war'.

I would argue that in some cases, 'aggressive war' might be justified.

In fact, I would have supported THIS war, IF and ONLY IF we had gotten approval from all of the world's leading democracies and if the war was launched based on truth, not fiction.

If the US had gone before the world, and argued the case that Saddam was a brutal dictator, and needed to be replaced, and spelled out exactly with WHAT he would be replaced, and most of the world had agreed with us, THEN I'd say it would have been ok.

I personally think it would be the most noble use of US forces to topple brutal dictators worldwide, but it can't be up to the US and the US alone to decide who is a dictator and how brutal of a dictator he is. We've already heard Chavez called a dictator, though IMO he clearly has widespread support.

[The Blue Flower]

3. Goering/Bush

Just watched a documentary on the Nuremberg Trials this weekend. When asked to make a statement of his guilt or innocence Goering said, "I did not want this war. I did everything in my power to go through diplomatic channels to prevent this war." I couldn't believe my ears. This almost to the word what Bush said in his news conference with Blair last week.

Rove must be reading from Goering's script. Or else this criminal crew is channeling that one.