A war criminal has been presiding over the catastrophic economic meltdown since the Great Depression. He has caused untold misery not only to his people by pursuing destructive economic policies, but to foreign nationals as well during his protracted murderous campaign. On September 20 2001, in the wake of the devastating attacks on the World Trade Centre, George W Bush stood before congress and said: “Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”
This was a beginning of an orgy of crimes against humanity by the Bush administration, carefully constructed under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Bush, along with his fellow warlords Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, were to engage in a systematic violation of every international principle, law and the UN charter in their resolute determination to bring untold misery to millions of innocent women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Theirs was the defence of America against Al Qaeda and its terrorist networks, and to prevent a repeat attack on US soil of such scale as that of September 11 2001; yet their culpability in the loss of thousands of lives on that day cannot be contested. It has been revealed on numerous occasions that the Bush administration had gathered intelligence on the possibility of airplanes being used as missiles to attack national landmarks. Back in 1993 already the Pentagon commissioned an expert panel to investigate this possibility and both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had detailed information about the possible suicide attacks by individuals with links to Osama bin Laden.
It was also reported in the Chicago Sun-Times that the US intelligence community had information that Osama bin Laden was planning to use hijacked planes as weapons against the United States. The paper said: “The FBI had advance indications of plans to hijack US airliners and use them as weapons, but neither acted on them nor distributed the intelligence to local police agencies. From the moment of the September 11 attacks, high-ranking federal officials insisted that the terrorists’ method of operation surprised them. Many stick to that story. Actually, elements of the hijacking plan were known to the FBI as early as 1995 and, if coupled with current information, might have uncovered the plot.”
With the available intelligence, the Bush administration could have saved thousands of lives, but it elected to ignore all the warning signs; something that has fed conspiracy theories on events of that fateful day. It appears from the sequence of events that followed that Bush had other plans. It is important that George W Bush and his henchmen do not escape international justice on their complicity to war crimes and crimes against humanity. There exists overwhelming evidence to support charges against Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Bush and his cohorts deliberately flouted Article 1 of the charter of the United Nations (UN). Paragraph 1 of this article imposes on the US as member of the UN the responsibility to maintain international peace and security, and to that end, to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and 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.
Paragraph 3 of Article 2 of the UN charter requires of members of the UN that in their pursuit of the purposes in Article 1 settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. Bush showed the UN the middle finger and proceeded with his murderous campaign in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, where scores of innocent civilians, women and children were massacred and some maimed.
Principle Vl of the Nuremberg Tribunal is unambiguous on what crimes are punishable under international law:
(1) Crimes against peace: which involve the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(2) War crimes: which are violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity; and
(3) Crimes against humanity: which include murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
The illegal invasion of Iraq, torture of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison and other CIA sites (under the infamous rendition programmes), the ill-treatment of prisoners of war, whom the US conveniently labelled “illegal combatants” at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, are a few of numerous incidents of crimes against which charges should be brought against the real axis of evil — Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
It is important to remember that Iraq never attacked the US or threatened an attack, so the US was not acting legally in self-defense. Iraq was not complicit to the 9/11 attack on the US and never provided material support to any terrorist group that attacked the US. At the time of the illegal invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s government was nearing full compliance with UN Resolution 1441 and prior resolutions requiring disarmament, and the majority of the UN Security Council believed UN inspectors should be given more time, but Bush chose to act otherwise.
Bush further violated the US law concerning war crimes, the War Crimes Act of 1996, which specifically states that: “Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.” There has been a grave breach of the international conventions signed at Geneva August12 1949 as well as the protocols to such convention to which the US is party.
It is vital that, while Barack Obama prepares to move into the White House, measures are put in place to ensure that war crime charges are brought against this war criminal that has led the US to near self-destruction for almost a decade. His transition, in the interest of international justice, from the Oval Office to a prison cell, should be initiated with immediate effect. His hands are dripping with the blood of Iraqis and Afghanis. Families, friends and relatives of thousands and thousands of innocent civilians who were murdered by Bush and deemed, without any remorse, “collateral damage” deserve justice.
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