War Crimes and The "Just War" Theory
The "Just war" theory
serves to camouflage the nature of US foreign policy, while providing a
human face to the invaders.
By Michel
Chossudovsky
GlobalResearch.ca
July 17, 2005
The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI)
through sessions held in Western Europe, Asia and the US has established a
comprehensive record of US-UK war crimes in Iraq.
An
extensive documentation has been put forth, testimonies have been
presented in some 17 global sessions. The BRussells Tribunal sessions of
the WTI in Brussels in April 2004 focused on the role of "The Project for
the New American Century" (PNAC) which consists in a blueprint of global
military conquest.
http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=28
At the New York session in August 2004, organized by the International
Action Center, criminal indictment charges were brought against inter alia
George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, for "Crimes
Against the Peace" and violations of the Charter of the United Nations and
the Constitution of the United States. (http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=32
)
The WTI at its final session in Istanbul in June 2005, brought to public
attention the testimonies of several prominent writers including
Dahr Jamail ,
Arundhati Roy,
Niloufer Bhagwat , Hans von
Sponeck, not to mention the powerful statement of
Denis Halliday on the role of the
United Nations. (
http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?#
)
The WTI put forth a powerful final declaration by the Jury which contains
the following charges against the the governments of the UK and the US:
• Planning, preparing, and waging the supreme crime of a war of
aggression in contravention of the UN Charter and the
Nuremberg Principles.
• Targeting the civilian population of Iraq and civilian
infrastructure
• Using disproportionate force and indiscriminate weapon systems
• Failing to safeguard the lives of civilians during military
activities and during the occupation period thereafter
• Using deadly violence against peaceful protestors
• Imposing punishments without charge or trial, including collective
punishment
• Subjecting Iraqi soldiers and civilians to torture and cruel,
inhuman, or degrading treatment
• Re-writing the laws of a country that has been illegally invaded and
occupied
• Willfully devastating the environment
• Actively creating conditions under which the status of Iraqi women
has seriously been degraded
• Failing to protect humanity’s rich archaeological and cultural
heritage in Iraq
• Obstructing the right to information, including the censoring of
Iraqi media
• Redefining torture in violation of international law, to allow use
of torture and illegal detentions
"The Jury also established charges against the Security Council of
United Nations for failing to stop war crimes and crimes against humanity
among other failures, against the Governments of the Coalition of the
Willing."
The Just War Theory
There is one important aspect of the
WTI's activities at its final sessions in Istanbul, which tends, however,
to weaken the thrust of the work accomplished in the various global
sessions. It pertains to the role of the "Just War theory" in assessing
war crimes.
At the WTI's Istanbul venue, the "Panel
of Advocates", which had a mandate to collect and analyze the evidence of
US war crimes, was led by Professor Richard Falk, a protagonist of the
"Just War" theory, who has gone on record for openly supporting two
previous US led wars.
The "Just War" theory (justum bellum) has a longstanding tradition.
It can be found in the writings of the Greek philosophers including Plato.
It is contained in the Old Testament and was later embodied into the
teachings of the early Christian Church. It has been used throughout
history to uphold the dominant social order and provide a justification
for waging war.
While Professor Falk rightly focuses on
ethical and moral principles in assessing war crimes in Iraq, he fails to
put the Iraq war in an appropriate historical perspective. War Crimes in
Iraq cannot be divorced from the broader history of US military aggression
and the crimes and atrocities committed in previous wars including Korea,
Vietnam, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. Moral and ethical standards for
assessing war crimes cannot be formulated in a historical vacuum or in
piecemeal fashion, in defiance of the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg
Charter, which apply unequivocally to all US led wars.
While Professor Falk condemns the US
led war on Iraq, he has endorsed, on moral and ethical grounds, the 1999
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan:
"The Kosovo War was a just war because
it was undertaken to avoid a likely instance of "ethnic cleansing"
undertaken by the Serb leadership of former Yugoslavia, and it
succeeded in giving the people of Kosovo an opportunity for a peaceful and
democratic future. It was a just war despite being illegally undertaken
without authorization by the United Nations, and despite being waged in a
manner that unduly caused Kosovar and Serbian civilian casualties, while
minimizing the risk of death or injury on the NATO side."
(http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2003/08/01_falk_interview.htm
, emphasis added)
In the immediate wake of 9/11,
Professor Falk made a case for "self defense" and retaliation against
terrorism, on moral and ethical grounds. His position regarding the
launching of the war on Afghanistan was broadly consistent with that of
the Bush Administration announced on September 12, 2001:
"I have never since my childhood
supported a shooting war in which the United States was involved, although
in retrospect I think the NATO war in Kosovo achieved beneficial
results. The war in Afghanistan against apocalyptic terrorism qualifies in
my understanding as the first truly just war since World War II. But
the justice of the cause and of the limited ends is in danger of being
negated by the injustice of improper means and excessive ends. Unlike
World War II and prior just wars, this one can be won only if tactics
adhere to legal and moral constraints on the means used to conduct it, and
to limited ends. (The Nation, 11 October 2001, emphasis added)
He later revised his position with
regard to Afghanistan, while maintaining the main moral and ethical thrust
of his argument:
Early on, I was overly persuaded by
the language used by President Bush and other leaders that they understood
that force must be used sparingly and with great sensitivity in relation
to civilian innocence. As the military campaign in Afghanistan
deepened, with America once again seeming to confine its battlefield role
to high-altitude bombing and Vietnam-era tactics, I felt unable to endorse
any longer the justice of the means. Now, given the unexpectedly rapid
collapse of the Taliban regime and the obvious impact on the operational
nexus of Al Qaeda, there seems, at least temporarily, to be a restored
sense of proportionality between means and ends. (The Nation, 6
December 2001, emphasis added)
Professor Falk was not alone in
endorsing the wars on Yugoslavia (1999) and Afghanistan (2001). Many
"progressive" intellectuals supported the
US
war agenda. The humanitarian mission of the
US administration was accepted and upheld:
jus ad bellum. In March1999, a large segment of "the Left" in the
US, Canada and Western Europe took a stance in favor of the NATO led war,
including support, in some cases, for the self proclaimed Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), which was responsible for atrocities committed
against Albanian, Serbian and Roma civilians in Kosovo.
Yugoslavia
It was known and documented at the time
that the pretext to bomb Yugoslavia had been fabricated in the same way as
the WMD pretext was fabricated for Iraq. NATO was upheld by Western public
opinion as coming to the rescue of ethnic Albanians, whose rights had
supposedly been violated.
I recall when the 1999 bombings of
Yugoslavia occurred, the Canadian antiwar movement was completely
isolated. None of the main organizations, including the trade unions and
the NGOs were prepared to lift a finger.
The media lies on Yugoslavia were
accepted as indelible truths. While the bombings were often condemned on
humanitarian grounds, the overall legitimacy of the war was not
questioned.
According to Nuremberg jurisprudence,
NATO heads of State and heads of government were responsible in Yugoslavia
for the supreme crime: "the crime against peace." In the words of the late
William Rockler, former prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal at
the height of the 1999 bombings of Yugoslavia:
"The [1999] bombing war violates and
shreds the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other
conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most
brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent
"Polish atrocities" against Germans. The United States has discarded
pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a
course of raw imperialism run amok."
The geopolitics behind the war in
Yugoslavia, not to mention the underlying economic interests, were
misunderstood. The disintegration of Yugoslavia was part of the US foreign
policy agenda, which had been carefully prepared in several stages since
the early 1980s. National Security Decision Directives (NSDD) had been
issued under the Reagan administration, which called for the
destabilization of the Yugoslav model of market socialism. (See Michel
Chossudovsky,
Dismantling Former Yugoslavia,
Recolonizing Bosnia-Herzegovina , 1996)
In the mid-1990s, the CIA and Germany's
Secret Service, the BND, joined hands in providing covert support to the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In turn, the latter was receiving support
from Al Qaeda.
The role of the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) as a terrorist organization has been amply documented by
Congressional transcripts, yet many "progressive" voices upheld the KLA as
a liberation movement.
According to Frank Ciluffo of the
Globalized Organized Crime Program, in a testimony presented to the House
of Representatives Judicial Committee:
"What was largely hidden from public
view was the fact that the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of
narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of the "Balkan Route" that
links the "Golden Crescent" of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug
markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated $400 billion a year
and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe." (House Judiciary
Committee, 13 December 2000)
The relationship between the KLA and Al
Qaeda had also been confirmed by Interpol's Criminal Intelligence
division:
"The U.S. State Department listed the
KLA as a terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its
operations with money from the international heroin trade and loans from
Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden.
Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of a leader in an
Egyptian Jihad organization and also a military commander of Usama bin
Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict." (US
Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol's Criminal Intelligence
Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000).
The Broader War Agenda
With perhaps the exception of Michel Collon in his book
Monopoly and the late
Sean Gervasi, the relationship between the war in Yugoslavia and the
broader US-NATO military agenda extending into Eastern Europe, Central
Asia and the Middle East was never analyzed, nor was it addressed in a
meaningful way by the antiwar movement.
Gervasi had already foreseen in 1995,
the crucial geopolitical role of the Balkans:
There are deeper reasons for the
dispatch of NATO forces to the Balkans, and especially for the extension
of NATO to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in the relatively near
future. These have to do with an emerging strategy for securing the [oil]
resources of the Caspian Sea region and for "stabilizing" the countries of
Eastern Europe -- ultimately for "stabilizing" Russia and the countries of
the Commonwealth of Independent States. (Sean
Gervasi , 1995)
Jus ad Bellum:
9/11 and the Invasion of Afghanistan
The Just War theory in both its classical and contemporary versions
upholds war as a "humanitarian operation". It calls for military
intervention on ethical and moral grounds against "rogue states" and
"Islamic terrorists", which are threatening the Homeland.
Possessing a "just cause" for waging
war is central to the Bush administration's justification for invading and
occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Taught in US military academies, a
modern-day version of the "Just War" theory has been embodied into US
military doctrine. The "war on terrorism" and the notion of "preemption"
are predicated on the right to "self defense." They define "when it is
permissible to wage war": jus ad bellum.
Jus ad bellum
serves to build a consensus within the Armed Forces command structures. It
also serves to convince the troops that they are fighting for a "just
cause". More generally, the Just War theory in its modern day version is
an integral part of war propaganda and media disinformation, applied to
gain public support for a war agenda.
The US Military Academy at West Point
has recently sponsored a Conference focusing inter alia on "just cause "
and "the rules that govern just and fair conduct in war" (jus in bello).
http://www.dean.usma.edu/departments/law/lawterror.htm )
In 2001, when Afghanistan was bombed
and later invaded, "Progressives" largely upheld the Administration's
"just cause" military doctrine. The "self-defense" argument was accepted
at face value as a legitimate response to 9/11, without examining the fact
that the US administration had not only supported the "Islamic terror
network", it was also instrumental in the installation of the Taliban
government in 1995-96.
In the wake of 9/11, the antiwar
movement against the illegal invasion of Afghanistan was isolated. The
trade unions, civil society organizations had swallowed the media lies and
government propaganda. They had accepted a war of retribution against Al
Qaeda and the Taliban. Several prominent intellectuals upheld the "war on
terrorism" agenda.
Media disinformation prevailed. People
were misled as to the nature and objectives underlying the invasion of
Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were identified as the prime
suspects of the 9/11 attacks, without a shred of evidence and without
addressing the historical relationship between Al Qaeda and the US
intelligence apparatus. In this regard, understanding 9/11 is crucial in
formulating a consistent antiwar position.
Professor Falk has not revised his
position on Kosovo despite
recent documentary evidence
, nor has he fundamentally altered his position with regard to Afghanistan
and America's right to defend itself in the wake of 9/11:
The Afghanistan War was again
controversial in relation to the just war tradition. It seems to qualify
as an instance of defensive necessity in view of the high risks of harm
associated with the heavy al Qaeda presence in the country, and its
demonstrated capacity and will after September 11 to inflict severe harm
on the United States in the future. Again, as with Kosovo, the means used
and the ends raised serious doubts about the just means and just ends of
the war. The American failure to assume the risks of ground warfare in
order to carry out the mission of destroying the al Qaeda presence, as
well as the failure to convert the battlefield outcomes into a durable
peace, raise doubts about the overall justice of the war. (Turkish Daily
News, August 1, 2003)
Iraq
With regard to Iraq, Falk's position remains ambiguous. While he condemns
the US led war, he nonetheless tows the official line in stating that the
2003 invasion had the "effect of freeing Iraqis" from oppression:
When it comes to the Iraq War, there
seems to be little doubt that the war is generally regarded as an unjust
war, despite its effect of freeing the Iraqi people from the oppressive
rule of Saddam Hussein. The reasons for viewing it as unjust in origin
are the following: the absence of defensive necessity, the refusal of the
UNSC to authorize war, the dangerous uncertainties associated with
recourse to war, the manipulation of evidence relating to the alleged
presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the reluctance in the
aftermath of the fighting to respect the aspirations of the Iraqi people
to achieve political independence and exercise their rights of
self-determination. For all of these reasons it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that the Iraq War is a clear example of an unjust war. (Ibid)
Moreover, at the WTI's press conference
in Istanbul in June 2005, Richard Falk, speaking this time on behalf of
the Tribunal, in blatant contradiction with the WTI Jury, indicated that
the WTI "is not opposing the governments or the UN":
"The WTI is opposing aggressive war,
war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It is not opposing the
governments or the United Nations. Indeed it hopes to create pressure from
below that will encourage law-abiding governments and the UN to do their
proper job of protecting weaker countries and their populations against
such illegalities. (WTI at
http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=89, June 2005, emphasis
added)
The issue has to do with the
perpetrators of war crimes as defined by the Nuremberg charter. In
this case, it is the governments, which have committed war crimes.
Military invasion on a fabricated pretext is a war crime under
international law:
"To initiate a war of aggression… 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". (1948 Nuremberg Military Tribunal).
The illegal invasion of Iraq was
ordered by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair and
endorsed by the US Congress and the British House of Commons. In other
words, war criminals lead those "governments" and Richard Falk speaking on
behalf of the World Tribunal on Iraq at its final session in Istanbul,
says we are "not opposing the governments". We want to put pressure on
"law abiding governments" and help the UN "to do their proper job".
Is Falk suggesting that the WTI is
opposed to war crimes but not to the governments, which have committed and
ordered those war crimes, nor is it opposed to the United Nations, which
is in violation of its own charter? The statement of Professor Falk is not
only contradictory and misleading; it serves to weaken the thrust of the
testimonies as well as the work accomplished in the WTI global sessions.
It also contributes to creating divisions within the anti-war movement.
Unless there is a meaningful change of
government in the UK
and the US,
not to mention the other governments which are part of the "Coalition of
the Willing", it is difficult to see how the antiwar movement can "work
with governments" headed by war criminals. This of course raises the
broader issue of impeachment and prosecution of the war criminals, who
continue to occupy positions of authority in the governments, which have
ordered countless atrocities.
Moreover, the illegal occupation of
Iraq was accepted by the UN and the so-called "international community",
which instead of initiating sanctions against the invaders, have
collaborated with the US-led occupation forces. Professor Falk's stance,
once again, speaking on behalf of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) is that
we should work with the United Nations.
Under the disguise of peacekeeping, the
UN played a supportive role in violation of its own charter. In the words
of
Denis Halliday in testimony at the
Istanbul WTI sessions:
"[T]he March 2003 invasion took place
in breech of all known international laws, executed with the application
of terrorism and commission of war crimes, including further and massive
use of depleted uranium. The UN, its member states and its
Secretary-General failed to employ all possible means to protect the
people of Iraq. Worse the UN was generally seen around the world to be
acquiescent and collaborative. (…). The occupation was supported by member
states and donor agencies, and then actively supported by the UN. That
support and active involvement constitutes collaboration. (…) The UN had
no mandate to be in Iraq. A demand from Washington and/or London does not
constitute a legitimate invitation. And puppet regimes cannot be
recognized by the UN.
History of US Led Wars
The "Just War" theory as formulated by Richard Falk sets double standards
(on ethical grounds): some US led imperial wars are "just" whereas others
are "unjust".
On what grounds? The whole concept is
devoid of a historical perspective. Crimes against humanity were committed
in all US led wars including Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and more
recently in Haiti where
UN "peace-keeping" troops have
participated in the massacres of innocent civilians
The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was not different from that of Iraq.
It resulted in countless civilian casualties, it destroyed an entire
country, while installing, with the UN's seal of approval, a US sponsored
puppet regime.
The issue, however, does not pertain to
Professor Falk's writings per se. The fundamental question is why did the
Istanbul organizers invite Professor Falk to lead the Panel of Advocates,
knowing that he was supportive of two previous US led wars, on
"humanitarian grounds"? Why was this issue not raised by the participants
and those who provided testimony?
From the Truman Doctrine to the "War on Terrorism"
George F. Kennan had outlined in a 1948
State Department brief what was later described as the "'Truman doctrine."
What this 1948 document conveys is continuity in US foreign policy, from
"Containment" to "Pre-emptive" War. In this regard, the NeoCons Project
for a New American Century (PNAC), should be viewed as the culmination of
a post-war agenda geared towards establishing US military hegemony and
global economic domination, as initially formulated under the "Truman
Doctrine" at the outset of the Cold War.
Needless to say, successive Democratic
and Republican administrations, from Truman to George W. Bush contributed
to carrying out this military agenda of global conquest.
Kennan's writings point to the
formation of the Anglo-American alliance, which currently characterizes
the close relationship between Washington and London. It also points to
the inclusion of Canada in the Anglo-American military axis. In this
regard, Kennan also underscored the importance of preventing the
development of a continental European power that could compete with the
US.
With regard to Asia, including China
and India, Kennan hinted to the importance of articulating a military
solution: "The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in
straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic
slogans, the better"
Moreover, from the outset of the Cold
War era, Washington was also intent upon weakening the United Nations as a
genuine international body, an objective that has largely been achieved
under the Bush administration:
The initial build-up of the UN in U.S.
public opinion was so tremendous that it is possibly true, as is
frequently alleged, that we have no choice but to make it the cornerstone
of our policy in this post-hostilities period. Occasionally, it has served
a useful purpose. But by and large it has created more problems than it
has solved, and has led to a considerable dispersal of our diplomatic
effort. And in our efforts to use the UN majority for major political
purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn
against us. This is a situation, which warrants most careful study and
foresight on our part. (Kennan 1948)
The wars in the Balkans, Afghanistan
and Iraq are part of the same "military road-map", responding to US
strategic and economic objectives. These wars are intimately related from
a geopolitical standpoint. Iran and Syria have already been identified as
the next targets of the US led war.
There is a continuum in US-led military
operations from the "Truman doctrine" to Bush's "war on terrorism".
The "Just war" theory serves to camouflage the nature of US foreign
policy, while providing a human face to the invaders.
It undermines and weakens all forms of
meaningful resistance to the US led war agenda. It is in contradiction
with the basic tenets of international law including the Geneva Convention
and the Nuremberg Charter. It can under no circumstances be part of a war
crimes tribunal.
Michel
Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and
Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), He is the
author of
The
Globalization of Poverty and the New World
, Second Edition, Global Research, 2003.
© Copyright Michel
Chossudovsky,
GlobalResearch.ca, 2005
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