Posted by D. Williams on October 06, 2002 at 16:53:38:
I need some ideas and guidance regarding the imminent Congressional authorization for President Bush to wage war against Iraq. It is my understanding that the prosecution of German and Japanese leaders at the end of WWII went forward in part on the principal that those nations had planned and waged aggressive, not defensive, war against other nations. While the proceedings, tribunals and "laws" were put together in 1945-46 on an ad hoc basis, it is my understanding that the "Nuremberg Principals" remain recognized as viable statements of international law, and may even be found codified in the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, and other international conventions and treaties. My initial research has found references to the offense, by some Nuremberg defendants, of planning aggressive war. At this point, two points become stark: (1) The planning in the late 1990s by people now in the Bush Administation to make war against Iraq for the purpose of securing crude oil supplies for the United States; and (2) the remarkable similarity between Bush's "pre-emptive" or "preventive" strike policy and the fact of the Japanese "pre-emptive" or "preventive" attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The latter, of course is properly and widely viewed as criminal in nature, enen though the Japanese government perceived the Unites States embargo of Japan, and the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, as a threat to Japan's national security. I will appreciate comment on my developing theory that many in the Bush Administration, and perhaps in Congress, in planning and authorizing attacks on Iraq, are committing the same Crimes Against Peace that Germans and Japanese were found guilty of committing. I will also deeply appreciate references to treaties, international conventions, previous prosecutions before national and international courts for Crimes Against Peace, and books, articles and treatises on these subjects. Let me say in closing that I do not imply that any venality or illegal activity on the part of the Bush administration can in any way diminish the crimes of Iraqi leadership against their own people, other nations, and humanity. But my influence on Iraqi leadership is close to nil. I am a 1966 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law with a solo practice in a rural area of the State; my potential influence on my own Congress-people, while small, is potentially meaningful. And, my deep love for my country compels me to do what I can to prevent or to ameliorate the war-madness that Bush is promoting.