Here's
a novel idea:
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 25 (OneWorld) - A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferencz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Wait, I'm confused. If Saddam was wrong, doesn't that mean Bush was right?
Ferencz should be careful lest he make Republican heads explode.
"Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime," the 87-year-old Ferencz told OneWorld from his home in New York...
He said the atrocities of the Iraq war--from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of dozens of civilians by U.S. forces in Haditha to the high number of civilian casualties caused by insurgent car bombs--were highly predictable at the start of the war.
"Every war will lead to attacks on civilians," he said. "Crimes against humanity, destruction beyond the needs of military necessity, rape of civilians, plunder--that always happens in wartime. So my answer personally, after working for 60 years on this problem and [as someone] who hates to see all these young people get killed no matter what their nationality, is that you've got to stop using warfare as a means of settling your disputes."
Can it be that it's still that SIMPLE?
Of course it's that simple. Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld want you to believe we live in a world that is exponentially more complicated than it was six years ago. That's a lie. If anything is more complicated than it was, it is only because they have made it so.
Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, if they stooped to care enough to read Ferencz's words, would call him foolish. But they are the fools.
There's another word for Ferencz. It's called "wise."
Ferencz believes the most important development toward that end would be the effective implementation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located in the Hague, Netherlands. The court was established in 2002 and has been ratified by more than 100 countries. It is currently being used to adjudicate cases stemming from conflict in Darfur, Sudan and civil wars in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But on May 6, 2002--less than a year before the invasion of Iraq--the Bush administration withdrew the United States' signature on the treaty and began pressuring other countries to approve bilateral agreements requiring them not to surrender U.S. nationals to the ICC.
Three months later, George W. Bush signed a new law prohibiting any U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The law went so far as to include a provision authorizing the president to "use all means necessary and appropriate," including a military invasion of the Netherlands, to free U.S. personnel detained or imprisoned by the ICC.
That's too bad, according to Ferencz. If the United States showed more of an interest in building an international justice system, they could have put Saddam Hussein on trial for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
"The United Nations authorized the first Gulf War and authorized all nations to take whatever steps necessary to keep peace in the area," he said. "They could have stretched that a bit by seizing the person for causing the harm. Of course, they didn't do that and ever since then I've been bemoaning the fact that we didn't have an International Criminal Court at that time."
The moral high ground is not American birthright. The moral high ground is perpetually earned through moral intentions, moral policies, and moral actions. This administration has ceded America's moral high ground in pursuit of vendettas, oil, and the illusion of homeland security.
When a man of Ferencz age, experience, wisdom and reputation speaks -- and is unheard -- we know our alarm has righteous cause.
You can read more on Ferencz's website here.