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TechnoratiNuremberg is Valid Precedent for Iraq Trials
The Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines established after World War II to try Nazi party members, were developed to determine what constitutes a war crime. The principles could also be applied today, when judging the conditions that led to the Iraq war and in the process to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, and to the devastation of a country's infrastructure.
In January of 2003, a group of U.S law professors warned President George W. Bush that he and senior officials of his government could be prosecuted for war crimes if military tactics violated international humanitarian law. The group, led by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, sent similar warnings to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
Although Washington is not part of the International Criminal Court (ICC), U.S. officials could be prosecuted in other countries under the Geneva Convention, indicated Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Ratner likened the situation to the attempted prosecution by a Spanish magistrate, Baltazar Garzón, of the Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was held under house arrest in London.
Both former President George W. Bush and senior officials in his government could be tried for being responsible for torture and other war crimes under the Geneva Conventions. In addition, should Nuremberg principles be followed by an investigating tribunal, former President Bush and other senior officials in his administration could also be tried for violation of fundamental Nuremberg principles. In 2007, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC's chief prosecutor, told The Sunday Telegraph that he could envisage a scenario in which both British Prime Minister Tony Blair and then President George W. Bush could face charges at The Hague.
Perhaps one of the most serious breaches of international law by the Bush administration is the doctrine of "preventive war." In the case of the Iraq war, it was carried out without authorization from the U.N. Security Council in violation of the U.N. Charter, which forbids armed aggression and violations of the sovereignty of any state by any other state, except in immediate self-defense.
As stated in the U.S. Constitution, international treaties agreed to by the United States are part of the "supreme law of the land." "Launching a war of aggression is a crime and no political or economic situation can justify it," stated Justice Jackson, the Chief U.S. Nuremberg Tribunal Prosecutor. And Benjamin Ferencz, also a former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials declared, "a prime facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation."
The conduct and the consequences of the Iraq war are part of the Crimes against Peace and War crimes stated in Nuremberg Principle VI which defines as crimes against peace, (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
In the section on war crimes, Nuremberg Principle VI includes, "...murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property." The criminal abuse of prisoners in U.S. military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo are clear evidence of ill-treatment and even murder of prisoners. According to the organization Human Rights First, at least 100 detainees have died while in the hands of U.S. officials in the global "war on terror," eight of whom were tortured to death.
As for the plunder of public or private property, there is evidence that even before the war started, members of the Bush administration had already drawn plans to privatize and sell Iraqi property, particularly oil.
Although there are obvious hindrances to trying a former US president and his associates, such a trial is fully justified by legal precedents, in particular the Nuremberg Principles, as well as by the extent of human lives lost and the breach of international law it has produced.
27 Comments so far
Show AllYes... qualifying as Profile-in-Courage will be a grassroots US-initiated movement which brings that Banality-of-Evil team to justice, by any means necessary. Them (and Halliburton etc.) getting away with their crimes would be a terrible example for the rest of the world, suggesting that US progressive/justice movement has lost its testosterone.
Regime Change remains a possibility, via decline of US Dollar Hegemony.
Well sheeple , bush is not the first war criminal.War is a racket and it always has been. If you study your history this has been happening for hundreds of years and just because you people have excess to the net , oh man now bush is a war criminal. Their all fucking war criminals.And there well be no trails for any of these people. And Nuremberg was just a puppet show for the Zionist, do your research, all of it. man can live as brothers. Peace
OK - if we don't want to look backward, then let's look to the present and future. Let's prosecute those who continue to commit war crimes such as bombing civilians and those who continue to commit human rights violations like ignoring habeas corpus.
Or are we saying that anything goes, now and even forever more?
Joe
Other countries under the Geneva Convention should take this opportunity to follow Judge Garzon's lead and prosecute these war criminals.
I hope President Obama will have US join the ICC.
Sorry for the double post earlier. Well, if you recall, didn't Alberto Gonzales call the Geneva Conventions "quaint"?
If Bush and Cheney are arrested for war crimes due to their so called preventative war in Iraq will Obama be required to end the war or be arrested also?
But the Nuremberg trials and Geneva Conventions have become SO obsolete..... boy, I would love to see that little puff-
cheeked termite behind bars.
Whether anyone from the Bush administration is ever brought to trial is most likley irrelevant if:
History treats them with the disrespect they have worked so very hard to avoid. Then their memories will be as what they should be, horrible examples for humanity to learn the negative lesson . Indeed this may be their only reason for having ever existed, and if this is the case humanity will learn from their negative examples, and their names will be used in the negative references.
The irony here is that the USA may not have enough time left to bring these criminals to court. Far too many have already insisted that the USA 'move on', or have made excuses using the most ridiculous logic imaginable. The American moral code is one of 'convenience' in the same manner their constitution and their laws supporting it are.
One might take into consideration the fact that science has already determined that Human beings are over 98% genetically Chimpanzee. Then science determined that due to some catastrophic incident, approx 40 thousand years ago, the Human species already separated from the Chimpanzee, suffered some major die off so that now; two Chimpanzees in the same tree, will have a wider genetic diversity between the two, than all of the human beings ----over 7 billion---on the earth.
There just may not be enough genetic diversity in the human gene pool to enable human beings to learn from their mistakes. If that is the case, then the horrible incidences of history, repeated by the Bush administration, will continue in repetition and 'graduate' into the scenario where humanity---orchestrates its own extinction.
It appears that the USA is doing that very same thing as a nation.
How much longer the world will tolerate such a rogue nation as the USA---may soon be answered.
In my fantasy about this, Dick Cheney is forced to spend the rest of his days in the same exact cell where Slobodan Milosevic breathed his last breath. Too bad that is extremely remote.
In my fantasy, Cheney is hanged with the same rope used on Saddam Hussein.
Even hanging is too good for Cheney. Normally, I don't believe in such things but he is worthy of a slow, agonizing death. Even that wouldn't make up for all of the suffering he has caused in the world.
"Out of the door. Line on the left. One cross each. Next."
Nuremberg is a terrible precedent for anything, but don't take my word for it ....
"I think the Nuremberg trials are a black page in the history of the world...I discussed the legality of these trials with some of the lawyers and some of the judges who participated therein. They did not attempt to justify their action on any legal ground, but rested their position on the fact that in their opinion, the parties convicted were guilty...This action is contrary to the fundamental laws under which this country has lived for many hundreds of years, and I think cannot be justified by any line of reasoning. I think the Israeli trial of Adolf Eichmann is exactly in the same category as the Nuremberg trials. As a lawyer, it has always been my view that a crime must be defined before you can be guilty of committing it. That has not occurred in either of the trials I refer to herein."
Edgar N. Eisenhower, American Attorney, brother of President Dwight D.Eisenhower
[As a lawyer, it has always been my view that a crime must be defined before you can be guilty of committing it. ]
Murder has long been a crime, so too has mass murder. Stealing has long been a crime, same with looting, arson and other crimes against property. The Nuremburg trials were justified on legal grounds. Moreover they weren't kangaroo courts, some of those charged did get off, it wasn't a case of victor's justice.
Edgar Eisenhower is an ignorant arse. Nuremburg is not a terrible precedent, and the only people who seem to disagree with that event are those who would be apologists for the nazi regime.
Nuremberg is a terrible precedent for anything, but, don't take my word for it ....
"No matter how many books are written or briefs filed, no matter how finely the lawyers analyzed it, the crime for which the Nazis were tried had never been formalized as a crime with the definiteness required by our legal standards, nor outlawed with a death penalty by the international community. By our standards that crime arose under an ex post facto law. Goering et al deserved severe punishment. But their guilt did not justify us in substituting power for principle."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
or this ......
"I may, and do, say that I have always regarded the Nuremberg prosecutions as a step backward in international law, and a precedent that will prove embarrassing, if not disastrous, in the future."
Honorable Justice Learned Hand
or this ....
"The Nuremberg Trials... had been popular throughout the world and particularly in the United States. Equally popular was the sentence already announced by the high tribunal: death. But what kind of trial was this? ...The Constitution was not a collection of loosely given political promises subject to broad interpretation. It was not a list of pleasing platitudes to be set lightly aside when expediency required it. It was the foundation of the American system of law and justice and [Robert Taft] was repelled by the picture of his country discarding those Constitutional precepts in order to punish a vanquished enemy."
U.S. President, John F. Kennedy
or this ...
"About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice. The hanging of the eleven men convicted will be a blot on the American record which we shall long regret."
U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft
More quotes can be seen here ...
http://www.codoh.com/trials/trirecon.html
We could consider some of what transpired at Nuremberg, but that level of detail is not necessary, I think.
The alternative was to simply shoot them all, or let them go. Letting them go without any sanction was unacceptable. Shooting them is what Stalin wanted, to shoot 50,000 german nazis and officers.
The justice system is, and has always been, about vengence. The state took the power of revenge away from the victim in an effort to stop the cycle of people killing the people who killed their relatives. The us justice system is the worst when it comes to exacting vengence on people, who else on earth sentences people to centuries of incarceration?
http://www.codoh.com/trials/trirecon.html
You're joking, right? A website that links to a revisionist historian that disputes the events of the holocaust. That is your source? A David Irving clone? Get real. The 'founder' of this website claims to have spoken in Tehran at the 'holocaust' conference. The site asks for proof that one person was killed by the nazis at auschwitz. You're a fool.
The quotes speak for themselves.
Your name calling, Edgar Eisenhower is an arse, and I'm a fool, notwithstanding. Is this how you argue cases in court?
Also interesting is the precedent for Nuremberg, the first war crimes trial, conducted right here in the US following the Civil War.
The US media still portrays the defendant, Captain Henry Wirz, as a 'war criminal' ....
"One does as he is ordered." So argues Confederate captain Henry Wirz, defendant in Saul Levitt's "The Andersonville Trial" (1959), which concludes our series 2001, Survival of the Fittest. Wirz commanded the most notorious prison camp of the Civil War. His 1865 war-crimes trial set the precedent for Nuremberg.
If interested you can read about the hoax trial of Henry Wirz here ....
http://www.rebelgray.com/andersonville2.htm
Off topic but interesting .....You write ..... "who else on earth sentences people to centuries of incarceration?" What is the alternative used by other countries?
Buddy, the source you quoted casts doubt on any 'quote' from the authorities you've mentioned. It's very much like quoting 'harry potter' as an authoritive source on witchcraft. I'd need to see their quotes from a paper source, not the web. I'm not going to bother with your source on the yank civil war, given your previous effort...
BTW a life sentence is a life sentence, why add the insult of giving a prisoner a two hundred year sentence?
The quotes are from Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Re-appraisal,Thompson, and Strutz ed., (Torrance: Institute for Historical Review, 1983), and J. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, as indicated.
You are clearly less interested in the facts of the matter and more interested in raising irrelevant objections and name calling. So, it doesn't surprise me that you are not interesetd in Wirz's case.
You aren't quoting facts. You are quoting works from an institute that works to rewrite history without regard for historical fact. They are works that have no credibility, their sources are made up, or misquoted. If you want to believe that the holocaust never happened, that's your 'right' but don't expect me to treat you with anything but contempt.
Why hasn't anything started yet with these alleged war crimes?
Didn't Bush Opt the U.S. out of the ICC so that we could not be considered as agreeing with its ideas? Can't Obama recommit the U.S. to support international law clearing the way for a trial to start?
If the U.S. joins the ICC wouldn't Bush and his administration be fair game by international prosecutors even in the U.S.
Just wondering.
I see the USA is sending a German prison guard to a Europe trial for war crimes over 50 years ago. Yet Obama wants to forge ahead without trials for The Bushies that have shamed this country and have blood on their hands for the countless deaths in the middle east. Yet another proud day for Amerika. It is really astonishing that even the mindless sheeple of this country will let the government get away with.
Are you aware that this same man was charged with being a Nazi guard at a different camp, deported, tried in Israel, identified by five eyewitnesses as a guard at Treblinka, convicted, and sentenced to death in 1988. So, here's what happened. The documents used to deport him were Soviet forgeries that came to the attention of US politicians including Pat Buchanan and James Trafficante, and it was shown that he had never set foot in Treblinka. This has all been flushed down the memory hole in the US ..... see ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk
Yes, that doesn't seem to mesh with his idea of looking forward, not backward.
And I'd like to point out that the accusations against the Djemanuk (sp?) are mere allegations; that this extradition might help to soften a few more minds for old, innocent, ever-the-victim Israel, probably doesn't hurt anything. If they are merely alleging the man was a prison guard, how do they know he wasn't being forced to be there? And what evidence will they bring forth (some 50 years after the fact)? Will they simply parade out victims of the holocaust like they did to that Arab guy accused of terrorism down in Florida? Any ACTUAL hard evidence that he knew what he was doing was "illegal"?
Unfortunately these people will never be brought to trial because we lost control of our government and country long ago.
Our country is controlled by a shadow government that took power long before the chadless coup of 2000.
Keep in mind that Paraguay does not extradite criminals.
The Bush Regime will just flee to their ranch in Paraguay if the heat gets turned up.