A question for you "War Crime" whiners?

Question

I can't remember the number of ignorant people in Y/A asking why Bush et. al. haven't been charged with war crimes and quite frankly it's getting old. So heres you're opportunity, please cite the specific war crimes commited, cite the specific law that forbids those supposed crimes and enumerate the list of real witnesses to these supposed crimes. Moveon.org isn't a valid source so don't even waste our time with anything they have to say. As the saying goes, put up or shut up.

Edmund T. Can't read I'm guessing. You were asked to cite specific Laws, witnesses, Crimes etc... Prove we invaded illegally, cite the legal section.

Answer 1

george bush illegally invaded the country of iraq and under his supervision thousand of people have lost their lives.

that is a war crime. also, abu ghraib.



source 1:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3805/is_200401/ai_n9379618
The text of Resolution 678, and those resolutions that followed, along with the associated negotiating history and subsequent practice, individually and collectively demonstrate that the United States and its allies did not have Security Council authorization in March 2003 to invade Iraq. Moreover, regardless of whether one regards the U.S. legal theory as persuasive, the complexity of the theory (with its reliance on Security Council decisions taken years earlier to address different circumstances) and the clear resistance of a majority of Security Council members in March 2003 to the deployment of force against Iraq, combined to strip the invasion of Iraq of the collective legitimacy sought by the United States.



and 2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Legality_of_invasion
Legality of invasion
The legality of the invasion of Iraq has been challenged since its inception on a number of fronts, and several prominent supporters of the invasion in both the U.S. and Britain have publicly and privately cast doubt on its legality. Richard Perle, a senior member of the administration's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, conceded in November 2003 that the invasion was illegal but still justified.[48][49] Similarly, Tony Blair's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, while concluding that a reasonable case could be made that U.N. Resolution 1441 authorized military action, acknowledged that the invasion could be challenged on legal grounds.[50]

From the vantage point of international law, the U.S. and Britain have put forth two major arguments for the invasion's legality. The first argument holds that military action was authorized by U.N. resolutions related to the first Gulf War (660, 678) and the subsequent, ongoing inspections of Iraqi weapons programs (1441). The latter resolution was most prominent during the run up to the war and formed the main backdrop for Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the Security Council one month before the invasion.[51] At the same time, Bush Administration officials advanced a parallel legal argument using the earlier resolutions, which authorized force in response to Iraq's 1991 invasion of Kuwait. Under this reasoning, by failing to disarm and submit to weapons inspections, Iraq was in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 660 and 678, and the U.S. could legally compel Iraq's compliance through military means.

Critics of the legal rationale based on the U.N. resolutions argue that the legal right to determine how to enforce its resolutions lies with the Security Council alone, not with individual nations.[52][53][54] These critics have also pointed out that the statements of U.S. officials leading up to the war indicated their belief that a new Security Council Resolution was required to make an invasion legal. For example, to secure Syria's vote in favor of U.N. Resolution 1441, Secretary of State Powell reportedly advised Syrian officials that "there is nothing in the resolution to allow it to be used as a pretext to launch a war on Iraq."[55]

The U.S. and Britain's second major legal argument justifying the invasion was that Iraq's behavior presented an growing threat to the U.S. that warranted "preemptive" or "preventive" self-defense. Many opponents of the Bush policy criticized this justification, arguing that preemptive wars are of questionable legality under international law and violate the U.N. Charter. These opponents further argued that even if a preemptive war were legal, Iraq did not pose a sufficiently immediate threat[56] to the U.S. and thus the invasion was a preventive war, which clearly violates international law.[57] Several prominent groups of international lawyers endorsed a statement that the U.S. invasion was "a fundamental breach of international law (that) would seriously threaten the integrity of the international legal order that has been in place since the end of the Second World War."[58] This opinion was echoed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said in September 2004, "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it (the war) was illegal."[59]

In February 2006, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the lead prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, reported that he had received 240 separate communications regarding the legality of the war, many of which concerned British participation in the invasion.[60] In a letter addressed to the complainants, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo explained that he could only consider issues related to conduct during the war and not to its underlying legality as a possible crime of aggression because no provision had yet been adopted which "defines the crime and sets out the conditions under which the Court may exercise jurisdiction with respect to it." In a March 2007 interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Moreno-Ocampo encouraged Iraq to sign up with the court so that it could bring cases related to alleged war crimes.[61]



and straight from the UN


international law and the Iraq crisis

A divided international community faces a crossroads in Iraq. The escalating crisis has called into question the relevance of international law itself, as the world's strongest military power prepares to invade and occupy a member state of the United Nations without legal authority under the U.N. Charter or well-accepted principles of law.

The United States will invade Iraq with "a coalition of the willing nations, either under United Nations authority or without United Nations authority, if that turns out to be the case." (13) Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, March 6, 2003

The U.N. system has failed repeatedly to prevent wars in the past half century. But this is the first time that the primary role of the Security Council as guarantor of international peace and security has been openly challenged by two of its permanent members.the United States and the United Kingdom. The outcome of this challenge may determine whether future conflicts will be resolved through lawful multilateral means or unlawful resort to force by individual states. At stake is the future of the U.N. system of collective security established after World War II to protect humanity from a recurrence of that unprecedented carnage.

The United Nations - founded to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war - has a duty to search until the very end for the peaceful resolution of conflicts... If the U.S. and others were to go outside the Council and take military action, it would not be in conformity with the Charter. (14) Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary- General, March 11, 2003,

The Iraq crisis presents the world with a stark choice: allow the dismantling of already-limited legal protections for humanity in times of war, or join together to reinvigorate the multilateral framework for ensuring peace, security and human rights for all. This is not an abstract debate. Human lives hang in the balance.



2. prohibition against force in international law

This section summarizes the international consensus supporting the U.N. Charter's prohibition against the use, or threatened use, of force, and describes the two exceptions enumerated in the Charter.

The United Nations was created in a mood of popular outrage after the horrors of World War II. Its central purpose was to serve as instrument for maintaining peace in order "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind." (15) Leading jurists consider the U.N. Charter as the highest embodiment of international law - codifying and superceding existing laws and customs. (16)

Under Article 1(1) of the Charter, the world organization's central purpose is "to bring about by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace." (17)

Similarly, Article 2(3) obligates member states to "settle their international disputes by peaceful means," (18) while Article 2(4) provides that:

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. (19)

It is beyond dispute that these provisions, and the Charter as a whole, impose a general prohibition on the use of force to resolve conflicts in international relations. The Security Council and General Assembly have consistently reaffirmed this legal principle. (20) The prohibition against force is binding on all states not only through the Charter but as a peremptory norm in customary international law, (21) so fundamental that "no derogation is permitted." (22) It is, in short, the cornerstone of the collective security system established by the U.N. to prevent any recurrence of the horrors of World War II.

Only two exceptions, specified in the Charter and supplemented by customary international law, permit the lawful use of force. First is the right of individual or collective self-defense in response to an armed attack, under Article 51. Second is the specific authorization of force by the Security Council as a last resort to maintain international peace and security, under Chapter VII.

If the planned attack by the U.S. and U.K. against Iraq fails to meet the specific criteria set forth in these exceptions, or under principles of customary international law, then it will be an unlawful act of aggression - defined and condemned by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal as "the supreme international crime." (23)



3. right of self-defense in international law

This section assesses U.S. and U.K. arguments for attacking Iraq in light of (I) the U.N. Charter's narrowly defined right of self- defense, (II) the disputed customary international law right of preemptive self defense, (III) the Nuremberg Tribunal's absolute prohibition against preventive war, and (iv) the new and legally dubious doctrine of humanitarian intervention.



limits of self-defense in the U.N. Charter

Article 51 of the U.N. Charter recognizes that member states have the "inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs." (24) The urgency of responding to such attack entitles a state to defend its sovereignty through the unilateral use of retaliatory force - but only "until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain peace and security." (25) As discussed in Section IV below, once the Security Council formally determines the existence of a threat to international peace and security, individual states may no longer exercise the right of self-defense without the Council's express prior approval (as happened in the 1991 Gulf War).

Article 51 applies only in the event of an actual armed attack. As Iraq has not attacked the U.S. or U.K., and there is no credible, substantiated evidence connecting Iraq to the September 11th attacks, the U.S. and U.K. may not invoke self-defense under the U.N. Charter to justify attacking Iraq. They must therefore rely on the disputed doctrine of preemptive self-defense under customary law.



pre-emptive self-defense in customary international law -

Although the Charter itself does not provide legal authority to use force against a perceived threat of imminent attack, (26) there does exist a disputed customary international law right of preemptive selfdefense. According to the famous formulation of U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster, adopted by the seminal Caroline Case, the legitimate exercise of this right requires "a necessity of self- defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." (27)

This has been interpreted to establish a red line between "anticipatory" self-defense in response to an attack that might occur at an unknown point in the future, and "interceptive" self-defense in response to an imminent and unavoidable attack. It is generally accepted that "in the case of anticipatory selfdefense, it is more judicious to consider such action as legally prohibited." (28) Only in the rare case where interceptive self-defense can be shown, through clear and convincing evidence, as necessary to avoid a greater harm might it arguably be lawful to use force outside the limits of the Charter. (29)

The International Court of Justice has affirmed in the Nuclear Weapons Case that lawful self-defense must be both "proportional to the armed attack and necessary to respond to it." (30) It has not yet resolved the question of whether the pre-existing customary right of preemptive self-defense survives the Charter's express rejection of that doctrine.

The U.S. and U.K. now seek to justify war on the grounds that Iraq intends to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction against them at an unspecified point in the future. Yet despite advanced intelligence-gathering capabilities, neither country has presented any credible evidence that Iraq still possesses any proscribed weapons, let alone the intent and capacity to use them in an imminent attack. After conducting more than 550 inspections in almost four months, UNMOVIC teams have not uncovered evidence that Iraq maintains either stocks of such weapons or the operational capacity to deploy and deliver them against the U.S. or U.K. (31) Even Iraq's neighbors have rejected the argument that military intervention from outside powers is necessary under the right of collective self-defense to protect them from an imminent Iraqi threat.

Under these circumstances, war against Iraq would violate any reasonable interpretation of either the Charter's limited provision for self-defense exception or the customary law principle of preemptive self-defense. The potential threat Iraq poses to the U.S. and U.K. is not imminent, unavoidable, or even particularly credible. Launching a massive invasion to overthrow its government and occupy its territory in response to a dubious hypothetical future threat is neither a necessary nor proportionate response. In essence, the U.S. and U.K. argument for preemptive strike closely resembles the long-discredited doctrine of preventive war, definitively abolished after World War II.



Nuremberg ban on preventive war

We must make it 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 an aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy. (32) Robert L. Jackson, Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg and U.S. Supreme Court Justice August 12, 1945

Preventive war is unequivocally illegal. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg rejected Germany's argument that it had been compelled to attack Norway and Denmark in selfdefense to prevent a future Allied invasion. (33) The Tribunal concluded that these attacks violated customary law limits on self-defense and instead constituted wars of aggression whose prohibition was demanded by the conscience of the world. (34) As the Tribunal stated:

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. (35)

selected principles of the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal

PRINCIPLE I: Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

PRINCIPLE III: The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him of responsibility under international law.

PRINCIPLE IV: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

PRINCIPLE VI: (a) 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 in (I).

PRINCIPLE VII: Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

Source: English Text published in "Report of the International Law Commission Covering Its Second Session, 5 June-29 July 1950," Document A/1316, pp. 11-14.

Nuremberg's condemnation of preventive war was incorporated into the U.N. Charter, affirmed by the General Assembly, and accepted by the Security Council. (36) In 1978, the U.S. mobilized the Security Council to condemn Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia and overthrow of the violently repressive Khmer Rouge regime, terming it a breach of Charter and an act of aggression in violation of international law. (37) Similarly, in 1981, the Council unanimously condemned Israel's "preventive" attack against an Iraqi nuclear plant as a "clear violation of the Charter of the UN and the norms of international conduct." (38) A Council member explained the consensus:

The concept of preventive war, which for many years served as a justification for the abuses of powerful States, since it left to their discretion to define what constituted a threat to them, was definitively abolished by the Charter of the U.N. (39)

The German argument in favor of preventive war was judged and condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal, and German leaders held individually accountable as war criminals. Any return to this doctrine by powerful states such as the U.S. and U.K. would undermine world public order, and in the process encourage states and non-state actors alike to launch unilateral acts of aggression unconstrained by longstanding principles of international law.



preemptive war is illegal. case closed.

Answer 2

All those small scale war crimes are the responsibility of the individual servicemen who commit them... and yes, they have been put on trial.

Iraq was invaded for reasons that turned out to be poor, false or otherwise selfish. How is an unprovoked, unjustified invasion of a country not a war crime? Would it be cool with you all if the United States was attacked for no reason other than entertainment, killing numerous soldiers on both sides with the civilian populace treated with dignity and respect and all laws of war adhered to?

Bush knew there'd be collateral damage when Iraq was invaded, and of course, that happened. Their killings were never justified... what are the families of victims going to think, that their dead relatives and friends were killed for the greater good?

Where are those WMDs? Really, where? If that really was an issue, why aren't we kicking down North Korea's door? If Saddam was at least smart enough not to use gas on coalition troops or even Israel in the first Gulf War of 1990-1991, why would he suddenly turn around and seriously use them for anything besides internal grievances later on?

Or the supposed Al Qaeda-Saddam link. Never proven. They never liked each other. They're only there now because it's a good front to fight US troops on. It has nothing to do with 9/11 in the least. Afghanistan was a fitting, justified response to 9/11.

Why liberate Iraq, and not North Korea, Saudi Arabia (for all those arguing about burqas and women's rights), Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe and countless other nations? Liberation isn't a sufficient excuse to invade a country and undoubtedly kill hundreds, usually thousands of people. Whether or not a country's government is totalitarian, murderous and/or brutal enough to warrant outside intervention is subjective and seems to depend on individual favoritism - I know I'd rather see Zimbabwe liberated than Iraq.

So basically, no good reasons given. The initial excuses were given out of either deception or ignorance. So if anyone feels I'm wrong anywhere, let me know. We'll butt heads about it later.

Answer 3

The US military has denied that it used white phosphorus against civilians. It confirmed, however, that US forces had dropped MK 77 firebombs, which a documentary on Italian state-run broadcaster RAI compared to napalm, against military targets in Iraq in March and April 2003. The use of incendiary weapons against civilians has been banned by the Geneva Convention since 1980. The United States did not sign the relevant protocol to the convention, a UN official in New York said. ''I do know that white phosphorus was used," said Jeff Englehart in the RAI documentary, which identified him as a former soldier in the US 1st Infantry Division who had taken part in the Falluja offensive. ''White phosphorus kills indiscriminately." The US Marines in Baghdad described white phosphorus as a ''conventional munition" used primarily for smoke screens and target marking.The US military admits to using the weapon to illuminate battlefields in Iraq, and says it did so in Fallujah, but insists it did not use it in civilian areas. Besides; Washington is not a signatory of an international treaty restricting white phosphorus devices. It denied using it against civilians. ''Suggestions that US forces targeted civilians with these weapons are simply wrong," US Marine Major Tim Keefe said in an e-mail message. ''Had the producers of the documentary bothered to ask us for comment, we would have certainly told them that the premise of the program was erroneous." He said US forces do not use chemical weapons in Iraq.

Answer 4

Most of the Nazis convicted at Nuremberg were hanged for
"Waging Aggressive Warfare" a doctrine we introduced into international law. That prohibited preemptive war.

The Hague is just full of Case Law, mostly British vs IRA on who is and who is not a Combatant and who is and is not covered by the Geneva Convention. Alberto Gonzales ignored all of it when he authored the policy which President Bush put in place.

Offenses Against Human Dignity speak for themselves, just because we subcontract torture doesn't mean they aren't responsible for it occuring. In one incident in Afghanistan 1,200 Taliban Prisoners were smothered to death by "Northern alliance" troops while our special forces and CIA watched. That is like the Nazis blaming executions on the Ukrainian Guards.

Answer 5

I will support any one wanting a war crimes tribunal on the US if they get the same for the deaths of thousands of civilians at Hue in 1968.

Answer 6

The fact of the matter is that they cannot - just as Edmund just demonstrated. Edmund's answer is an example of the necessary fuzzy thinking and twisted logic that is necessary to declare the war 'illegal.'

Answer 7

Hell, Bush changed the war crimes act!. He did the same thing Iraq was tried for when they invaded Qwait. Anyway if you can't see it thats your problem. lFurther this is what we need,
Some argue that the solution to all this is simply for U.S. troops to exit Iraq. That’s not enough. The only genuine foreign policy solution is to dismantle the U.S. Empire, end the U.S. government’s role as international policeman, interloper, and aggressor, and restore a constitutional republic to our land along with the peace, stability, prosperity, and harmony that would come with it.

Answer 8

it is getting old.. the real reason they keep whining about it is because they hate bush and that all they have is that.. they have no understanding of what a war Crime is....i mean just shout up about it and move on...

Answer 9

Torture, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention.

A picture is worth a thousand words: http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/

Obviously none of you neocons had the stomach to look at the links, but how can you be so deluded that you don't recognize that Bush lied? He was practically lying out of both sides of his mouth at the same time when he said the US doesn't torture anyone but he would veto any anti-torture bill. When it passed by too wide a margin for him to veto it, he issued a signing statement saying, "I will enforce it as I see fit." In Bush-speak, that means he'll ignore it when it suits him. Gunner, you can't say the individuals were solely responsible for the "small crimes" when their commander-in-chief was encouraging them and fighting for their right to continue. Torture is wrong no matter who's doing it, and only the most extreme hypocrites would think otherwise.

Answer 10

No War Crimes commited.
That is just a way for the oposition to cry about the president. Propbably a Dem or Lib.

Answer 11

The New York Times should not be a Trust worthy Source either!Nor should Kerry,Myrtha,Reid and Polosi!!