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Bush, A War Criminal?

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  • Bush, A War Criminal?

    Here is an interesting view from Pakistan.

    These ravings and rantings will not get anyone anywhere.

    It is time to calm down and get hold of the realtime situation and not whine and weep and gnash our teeth, if indeed we have them.

    This article shows the impotence of those who are against the war on terror.


    The verdict of the people

    Regardless of government positions, ordinary people worldwide have passed a verdict that no state propaganda can whitewash: Bush and his colleagues are guilty of war crimes

    Quantum Note



    Dr Muzaffar Iqbal

    The writer is a freelance

    columnist

    [email protected]

    Even the most anti-religious person would accept that neither Bush nor Blair control the flow of human history; both are mere players on a much larger stage which is shared by all human beings living on planet earth. Of course, it goes without saying that the bread seller from Lahore does not contribute to the making (or some would say unmaking) of the contemporary scene to the same extent as the commander-in-chief of the world's most advanced army. Yet, even the commander-in-chief of the army that possesses the most lethal weapons ever invented by humanity cannot do anything to stop thousands of ordinary citizens from demonstrating against him wherever he goes.

    In November 2004, when he arrived in Santiago, Chile for the summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, thousands of demonstrators greeted him with: "You have blood on your hands! We do not want you here!" None of the other twenty world leaders and 500 chiefs of corporations received such passionate and demonstrative outpouring of hatred by a crowd which claimed no religious affinity with Iraq or Afghanistan, the Muslim countries ruthlessly devastated by George W. Bush's army.

    This was Bush's first trip abroad since his re-election and his first official visit to the South American continent. The rage of politically conscious Chileans was so strong that President Richard Lagos' government took the unusual step of announcing that Bush would have diplomatic immunity during his visit. The declaration was made after some activists filed a criminal complaint against Bush in court, claiming that he and other U.S. officials were guilty of war crimes in Iraq. "It is not possible that our president is going to meet this criminal Bush and shake his hand in an official state visit," said Fernando Ortiz, a top leader of the Humanist Party which had filed the lawsuit, further asking, "Is Lagos going to betray the Chilean people?"

    The situation was similar two weeks later when Bush went to America's trusted friend and northern neighour. In Canada both Ottawa and Halifax saw thousands of angry demonstrators, forcing the police to erect barriers everywhere that President Bush would go. A coalition of lawyers made an attempt to have President Bush declared persona non grata in Canada. Lawyers against the War (LAW) members Michael Mandel and Gail Davidson wrote to Paul Martin, the Prime Minister of Canada:

    "It was with absolute dismay that we learned of the planned visit of President Bush to Canada on November 30th 2004. Surely you are aware of the many grave crimes against humanity and war crimes for which President Bush stands properly accused by the world, starting with the Nuremberg Tribunal's 'supreme international crime' of waging an aggressive war against Iraq in defiance of international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and including systematic and massive violations of the Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War and Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, as well as the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. As recently as November 16, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and former war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour called for an investigation into crimes against the Geneva Conventions in the assault by US forces on the densely populated city of Fallujah. The terrible toll in life and limb of these crimes was documented in a study carried out by the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in Baltimore and published in the October 29, 2004 issue of the British Medical Journal The Lancet which conservatively estimated that the war had taken 100,000 Iraqi lives, mostly women and children."

    The letter went on to say that "the President's responsibility for these offences derives not only from his 'command responsibility' as Commander-in-Chief of US forces for crimes that he knew were being committed, or ignored through willful blindness but did nothing to prevent; it also comes from his direct involvement in the formulation of policy. This includes his personal involvement not only in the devising and waging of an aggressive, illegal war, but also of the unlawful refusal to grant prisoner-of-war status to prisoners-of-war, contrary to specific provisions of the Geneva Conventions, an act repudiated in the US Courts. It also includes the approval of techniques of interrogation by his direct subordinate, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, that legally and morally constitute torture and that led directly to the disgraceful violence against Iraqi prisoners, for example at the prison at Abu Ghraib...

    "Indeed, we feel bound to point out that your invitation to President Bush may thus constitute an abetting of the crimes he and his administration and military continue to commit. As such you and your colleagues could be personally liable to prosecution under the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act by virtue of section 21 of the Canadian Criminal Code, for crimes so serious that they are punishable in Canada by up to life imprisonment. Abetting a crime, as the Attorney General will advise, is regarded as equally criminal to actually committing it and is complete when one intentionally, knowingly, or with willful blindness encourages the commission of a crime by another."

    This, then, is how many see the status of George W. Bush, the Commander-in-Chief of the army of a country that is said to "control the entire region between the Mediterranean and the Hindukush Mountains" and that "now commands - owns or rents - 702 military bases in 130 countries". Thus, regardless of the official position of governments around the world, ordinary people have passed a verdict that cannot be changed, over-looked or over-turned by any amount of state propaganda: Bush and his colleagues are guilty of war crimes.

    But this may be the lightest verdict of history -- the real verdict has been pronounced by the dead, rather than the living. Thousands of men, women and children whose lives have been so brutally terminated on the orders of Bush and his generals have not died in vain. No human being's death is in vain; blood cries out for recompense and a higher order of justice that ultimately controls the flow of human destiny on this planet, performs its function without fail; this has been the case since the dawn of history and it will remain a veritable truth until the Day when the Trumpet is blown.

    Of course, those who do not believe in this historically proven normative practice of the Creator may not share the inevitability of the coming justice through this higher Court. That does not alter this fundamental aspect of the human condition, nor does it lessen the burden of those who have committed crimes so grave that they cannot even visit another country without invoking public outrage.
    http://jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2004-d...04/oped/o5.htm
    Last edited by Ray; 17 Dec 04,, 20:00.


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA
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