Washington demands right to commit war crimes
By John Catalinotto
The Bush government is twisting arms to make
sure U.S. political leaders, generals and soldiers can commit
war crimes without facing trial. The Pentagon's military
occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans, plus the
current plans for intervention in Africa, have put this goal up
front.
Washington's latest offensive against the United Nations
International Criminal Court (ICC) took place July 1 as the
White House announced penalties against 35 countries that
failed to exempt U.S. soldiers from trials in that court. The
countries were denied a total of $48 million in military
aid.
While the amount involved is relatively insignificant for
most of them, the White House message is clear: Washington's
actions are to be above the law. There is not to be even the
pretense of equality before the law, even when the court
involved is itself biased in favor of the richer and more
powerful nations.
Among those countries Washington is punishing for refusing
to bow and scrape to the U.S. are allies like Colombia and six
countries of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "new Europe"
that are candidates for entry to NATO. The list also includes
South Africa, which Bush visited on his Africa tour.
On July 5 Caribbean leaders ending a four-day summit in
Montego Bay, Jamaica, sharply criticized the United States for
threatening the cutoffs.
Asked at a July 1 White House press briefing why the
anti-court offensive was given such priority, spokesperson Ari
Fleischer said the military aid cutoffs are "a reflection of
the United States' priorities to protect" its troops, and that
"the president's first priority is with the servicemen and
servicewomen."
Like many White House statements, this one is aimed at
public relations.
Last September, before they had 140,000 troops getting shot
at under the Iraqi summer sun, the U.S. rulers were more open
in discussing their real reasons for opposing the court.
Their real concern is for the big shots in the White House
and the Pentagon who decided to make the war in the first
place. A quote from a top administration official published in
the Sept. 7, 2002, New York Times put it bluntly. "The soldiers
are like the capillaries; the top public officials--President
Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell--they are at the
heart of our concern," the senior official said. "Henry
Kissinger, that's what they really care about."
Targeting civilians is illegal
John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security, has in the past been a frank
spokesperson for what is now the Bush program on this question.
On July 23, 1998, when Bolton was heading the right-wing
American Enterprise Institute--also home to Rumsfeld and Vice
President Dick Cheney--he wrote in a summary of his remarks to
a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
"Much of the media attention to the American negotiating
position on the ICC concentrated on the risks perceived by the
Pentagon to American peacekeepers stationed around the world.
... [O]ur real concern should be for the president and his top
advisers." In other words, the troops are expendable, but the
rich and powerful must be protected.
Bolton continued: "The definition of 'war crimes' includes,
for example: 'intentionally directing attacks against the
civilian population as such or against individual civilians not
taking direct part in hostilities.'"
Bolton wrote that under the ICC rules, U.S. leaders could
have been found guilty of a war crime for dropping atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and for all the aerial bombardments
of German and Japanese civilian areas.
Today, U.S. leaders could be found guilty of ordering the
bombing of Iraqi civilian sites, or for bombing wedding parties
in Afghanistan. They have plotted and carried out aggressive
wars against Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. They could be
liable for the persistent murderous attacks on Iraqi and
Afghani civilians during the resistance to U.S. occupation.
It is a serious problem for them. Former Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger had to revise travel plans after being charged
with war crimes for his role in overthrowing the Salvador
Allende government and installing dictator Gen. Augusto
Pinochet in Chile in 1973.
The latest crop of mass murderers--Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Richard Cheney, Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and President George W.
Bush--know they could potentially be charged for these
crimes.
Most recently the Belgian anti-war movement Stop USA brought
war crimes charges in Belgian courts against U.S. Gen. Tommy
Franks for his role in directing the war on Iraq.
Nature of the ICC
A 1998 UN treaty created the ICC to prosecute cases of
genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against
nationals of countries unwilling or unable to try the cases
themselves. The court was inaugurated this March and charged
with prosecuting crimes committed after July 1, 2002. Some 78
countries supported it.
The Clinton administration originally signed the treaty, but
didn't push for its ratification by Congress. The Bush
administration then nullified Clinton's signature and has
sought a permanent exemption from prosecutions. The European
Union blocked the permanent exemption, though the UN Security
Council last year gave the United States a second one-year
exemption.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has tried to bully
nations into signing bilateral treaties guaranteeing exemptions
to U.S. officials and soldiers.
The ICC has the possibility of embarrassing U.S. leaders, of
putting them in the dock. But Marxists who champion the rights
of the oppressed recognize that the ICC is still biased against
nations and peoples that bear the marks of colonialism and
imperialist domination.
From a legal point of view, the ICC puts an equal sign
between oppressed and oppressor. In theory, the ICC is supposed
to be neutral, whether the contenders be U.S. imperialism
against Iraqis heroically fighting U.S. occupation, the Israeli
army against Palestinians fighting for their land, British
troops against Irish patriots trying to free their nation, or
Zimbabwean patriots trying to keep their country
independent.
Communists, as well as all people sympathetic with the fight
for national liberation from imperialism, have no business
being neutral in these struggles. They take the side of the
oppressed fighting for national liberation.
In addition, even without U.S. participation, the ICC will
reflect imperialist domination of today's world. Though it
claims to provide equal treatment under the law, the ICC is
more likely to target Third World leaders who irritate the
rulers in Europe, Japan or the U.S. than to target the
criminals in charge of imperialist war machines. Though the
tactic is subtler than a B-52 bombing run or a cruise missile,
it can still depose an independent regime and replace it with a
colonial puppet.
The ICC is different, however, from the so-called tribunals
directed against Yugoslavia, for example. Those tribunals were
victors' courts, imposing the decisions of the mighty upon the
war's losers with only a fig-leaf of legal proceedings.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) was set up to try only people from the
Balkans. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was one
of those brought up on charges for alleged steps taken to
defend his country. The U.S. and German politicians who plotted
to tear Yugoslavia apart with economic sanctions followed by
massive bombings do not stand trial. There is not even a
pretense of impartiality.
Likewise, only Rwandans could be brought before the tribunal
aimed at that country, not any French or Belgian or U.S. agents
who have manipulated central African countries for their rich
resources.
These are the kinds of tribunals that the U.S. ruling class
and especially the Bush administration prefer--those that
prosecute only countries on the U.S. enemies' list. They don't
want to take even the smallest risk that would come with a
court that tries to appear impartial.
Washington is guilty of so many war crimes--against Korea,
Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Angola, Congo, Panama, Cuba, Iraq,
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and many others--that it fears any body
it cannot fully control.
Where this leaves U.S. soldiers
Naturally, the U.S. ruling class prefers that no one else
sit in judgment of its troops. In a throwback to the 19th
century, the Bush administration wants total
extraterritoriality--that is, only U.S. courts should try its
citizens for crimes committed abroad.
Washington also wants the troops to believe that it has
their interests at heart. This doesn't stop the brass from
exposing them to hostile fire, to health dangers from Agent
Orange and depleted uranium, or to guerrilla wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
The war on Iraq and its subsequent occupation was carried
out on behalf of a small group of enormously wealthy monopoly
capitalists. To serve their interests, the White House and the
Pentagon brass have put the troops in a position where they
have no good choice.
Along with enormous discomfort from oven-like summer heat,
tasteless meals and lack of sleep, and the long separation from
their families, comes the knowledge that the Iraqi population
considers them the enemy. U.S. forces have already killed
thousands of Iraqis, many of them civilians, including
children. Even if they don't know all the politics and history,
they know the Iraqis want them to leave.
If they stay, they know they will be killing more civilians,
more children. They know they will be committing war crimes,
whether or not they face trial for them.
The rank and file of the U.S. military are mostly young
members of the working class, even in today's so-called
professional armed forces. A disproportionate number of the
troops are from communities of color, attracted to the
"services" because they provide at least some salary and
training and seem like a better choice than the streets or
prisons of a racist society.
During the long war in Vietnam, both drafted and enlisted
GIs became part of the movement that forced the U.S. to stop
its aggression. From the reports on troop morale coming out of
Iraq today--as well as those about the anger of their families
at U.S. bases--this is once more a real possibility.
What these troops need is not protection from an
international court. They need to be brought home.
Reprinted from the July 24, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page