from the desk of Michael O'McCarthy
opolitique@aol.com
The Haditha Massacre - The Charge is War Crimes!
"War is Hell" says the age old axiom - rationale for the barbarism of war.
Yesterday multitude of news analysts and armed forces experts worked to get "into the mindset" of the Marines alleged to have committed war crimes in Haditha in November of 2005. With the rarest exception the pundits and experts misread the origin and nature of this war's "mindset."
This highly, albeit belatedly reported, alleged massacre of up to two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq is the same old story, the same old product of an illegal war:
The soldiers were following orders from the highest in the chain of command.
"You are either with us or against," said the Idiot Prince -Commander and Chief of US Armed Forces, President George W. Bush after the Al Qaeda attack on 09/11/01.
But the command decision to invade and occupy Iraq under the false pretense that Iraq was a co-conspirator of Bin Laden in the 09/11 attack was predicated on calculated "intelligence" lies that were shaped and shepherded by Vice President Richard Cheney.
This lie was willfully seconded over and over again by the President, the Vice President, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor, and now Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The conspiratorial plan to engage in the illegal and unconstitutional war was conceived by Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, William Kristol, Robert Kagan and Ahmad Chalabi under the orders and at the direction of the Vice President.
The Vice President was and is acting under the auspices of the President and acting under the "color of state law." Thus, all are conspirators in the act to commit murder and accessories after the fact. All are guilty of international war crimes.
The charge of murder applies.
Any tribunal that tries the Marines who executed the orders of command must require the indictment and trial of all of those from units "on the ground" up the chain of command leading to where the "buck stops": at the desk of the Commander and Chief and President of the United States, George W. Bush.
Should the verdict be guilty of murder, the sentence must be death.
Should a sentence of death be handed down, it must be commuted to natural life at hard labor rebuilding the homes of Iraqis and that of those widowed by war and the orphans left behind.
Michael O'McCarthy
