Amerikaanse Oorlogsmisdaden 24

Een kind dat tijdens de Amerikaanse aanval op Fallujah gedood werd. Over Amerikaanse oorlogsmisdrijven schrijft William Rivers Pitt Hij is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.

'There is going to be a debate today on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding Iraq. Is it within the realm of possibility to categorize a debate on the floor of the House as a war crime? Is that too much of a stretch? Leveling a war crime accusation is deadly serious business after all, and not to be bandied about like some meager political football. Given what is expected to take place today in Washington, unfortunately, such a categorization is worth considering.
What is a war crime anyway? Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as, "Willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."
How many of these definitions have been met by the United States during our ill-fated adventure in Iraq and during this so-called "War on Terror" as a whole?
Willful killing? Check: see Fallujah, Haditha, etc.
Torture or inhuman treatment, including willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health? Check: see Abu Ghraib.
Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person? Check: see Guantanamo and the secret "rendition" of prisoners for interrogation to nations that practice torture as a matter of daily business.
Willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial? Check: see Guantanamo again.
Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly? Check: see much of Iraq, specifically its former petroleum industry.
But all this happened during the invasion and occupation, and many of these despicable activities have been papered over by dubious legal findings generated by Attorney General Gonzales. How does a debate on the floor of the House of Representatives rise to the level of a war crime?
Simple. Awareness that war crimes are being committed, combined with a lack of action to stop those war crimes by an individual or entity holding a position of leadership, is as bad as the crime itself.
Major Darwyn O. Banks of the US Air Force, whose April 2001 research paper on information warfare titled, "Mitnick Meets Milosevic," notes the following: "While there are no claims Milosevic personally committed any such crimes, he is culpable under the principles of command responsibility and direct responsibility. The former alleges Milosevic's foreknowledge of such crimes without acting either to prevent the commission thereof or to punish the perpetrators. The latter form of responsibility implies that he authorized, planned, instigated and/or ordered the unlawful acts. These indictments against the former Yugoslav president, then, highlight the primary categories of the law of armed conflict."
Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution endowed Congress with the power to make war. To be sure, that power has been slowly but surely usurped by a series of presidents, but the basic principle remains. At a minimum, if the legislative branch is going to surrender its constitutional responsibilities regarding our formidable war powers to the executive branch, they should at least attempt to exert a degree of oversight once the bullets start to fly.
This Republican congress has not done this to any degree whatsoever. They rolled the whole process down the hill to 1600 Pennsylvania, provided political and legal cover for the White House every time something went wrong, wrapped themselves in as many American flags as they could find, and stapled themselves to this president who, by his own words, goes to work every day with war on his mind. Thus it has been for the last three years and 87 days.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061506Z.shtml