It’s not that surprising to read that former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad has called for an international tribunal to try Western leaders with war crimes over the war in Iraq, nominating Bush, Blair and Howard in particular. Mahathir is well-known as a provocateur, with a fondness for extreme statements, which have included anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros and others. So it’s unlikely that anyone will pay much attention to him.
Still, his views on Iraq as a war crime are widely shared. It scarcely seems beyond the bounds of possibility that someone like Baltasar Garzon might find a legal way to file criminal charges (Wikipedia says he’s already threatened a civil suit.
Such charges would have enough factual and legal support to make the outcome unpredictable if they ever came before a tribunal. Apart from the general question of the legality of the war itself, the US in particular has openly denied the applicability of the Geneva Conventions and has engaged in many actions (torture of prisoners, bombing of occupied civilian areas, reprisal attacks of various kinds) that at least arguably violate the Conventions.
On the other hand, the prospect of Bush, or any US official, for that matter, actually standing trial, let alone being convicted or punished, seems unthinkable. The only consistent inference that I can draw from this is that, if charges are ever laid in any jurisdiction, the governments concerned will find a way to abort the process without allowing the substantive issues to come before a court. Since most of the doctrines that might be used to achieve such an outcome (sovereign immunity, non-interference in internal affairs and so on) have already been repudiated, it seems as if such an outcome could only be justified in terms of a bald claim of “reasons of state”.
Are there any legal experts who can help me out here? I have two main questions:
1. Where if at all, might charges be brought against Bush and others?
2. How would the hearing of these charges be prevented?
John Quiggin 
First and final troll warning. Please read the comments policy
I actually saw a debate about this last year at the Melbourne Uni Law School (I am not studying law, but friends of mine are), between Julian Burnside and Peter Morrissey.
Remembering specific points either side made is tough – both were entertaining, and Morrissey dived into the complex legalities of it all, whereas Burnside was appealed more to the emotive ideal of it.
I think the final impression was while it would be great from a social justice/human rights perspective, legally it wasn’t really going to be possible.
Sorry I’m light on details.
PrQ,
You could have asked this question without raising a person capable of saying this:
That is (IMHO) far beyond merely being a “provocateur”. It is just outright plain rascism of (nearly) the worst sort. Raise the point by all means, but indicating support for his position I find taking things a bit far.
I THINK MAHATIR ALSO INCLUDED JOHN HOWARD AMONGST THE CRIMINALS FOR WAR CRINES TRIAL…A TRIAL OF HOWARD WOULD FILL THE MCG..ROLL ON THE DAY!!
AR, I’ve clarified the post to make it clear I don’t agree with Mahathir. I was just using him as a news hook.
Bravo for confronting this untouchable subject, Prof Q.
I just wrote a detailed Op-Ed on this issue, which I posted on my blog here yesterday.
The sad fact is that neither Howard nor Rudd has every really explained why the invasion of Iraq was NOT a War Crime. We do not seem to have an official government position on this, and nobody is asking for it.
Like most war supporters, Howard initially pointed to United Nations Resolution 1441 as proof of the war’s legality. So why did he help Bush and Blair desperately seek a further UN resolution? Because their top legal experts advised that the invasion would be illegal without it. The final nail in this argument surely comes from the UN itself: former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan personally declared the invasion illegal in September 2004. Howard (and Rudd?) might still try to argue this case in a court of law, but I doubt it would hold water.
In Washington, the ultimate legal defence for war supporters is Dick Cheney’s concept of an over-riding “executive privilege”. But this concept barely exists in Australian law. And even Cheney is reluctant to test it before the US Supreme Court.
In London, following a Commons revolt earlier this year, Gordon Brown has been forced to commit to a full Iraq War enquiry. But he has delayed this until the British military’s “work is done” in Iraq, arguing that frontline troops remain at risk and such an enquiry would somehow increase their danger. Given that British troops are now basically confined to their base outside Basra, such an enquiry may not be too far away: the Australian media and politicians would not doubt take a lead from this. Still, we’ll believe it when it happens, and the terms of enquiry will be very interesting indeed.
So what about Australia? Here, the government has just ignored the issue. Canberra does not have a valid legal excuse, and has not even tried to argue one since Howard stopped arguing the UN Resolution 1441 line.
Our “combat” troops will soon be coming home from Iraq. It’s time we demanded answers. And there is only one way we are going to get them.
We need to demand a Royal Commission into Iraq.
More on these legal issues here and more on the reasons we went to war here.
BTW: Mahathir’s speech to the Imperial College in London was muffled by British police who restricted entry to those carrying college ID cards only. It might have received more attention from the press if any of them had been able to hear it.
Ghandi, what Kofi Annan said was a personal comment and does not reflect the opinion of the UN.
Your #2 has a two-word answer, John: Pinochet disease!
rog, you will never get an official “opinion of the UN” when the USA is holding a veto.
Until a complaint is made by a UN signatory to the UNSC its a non issue.
Also Gandhi, the invasion is not a “war crime” it is the conduct during the occupation.
Click to access 160703press_conf_presentation.pdf
Click to access 160703press_conf_presentation.pdf
rog, if you want to believe that UN Resolution 1441 made a “pre-emptive”(*) invasion legal, I doubt the actual text of that resolution will talk you out of it.
Even the US ambassador the UN at the time, a man called John Negroponte, said:
“[T]his resolution contains no “hidden triggers” and no “automaticity” with respect to the use of force. If there is a further Iraqi breach, reported to the Council by UNMOVIC, the IAEA or a Member State, the matter will return to the Council for discussions as required in paragraph 12.”
(* not actually pre-emptive at all, given there was no threat).
#9 Could you clarify?
Although Pinochet was eventually released from British custody on health grounds, his case closed off most of the easy escape avenues for future alleged criminals.
It should also be noted that Australia (like Britain, but not the USA) is a signatory to the International Criminal Court, which was only established in 2002. Again from Wikipedia:
The Court is designed to complement existing national judicial systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes…
[I]t should not be confused with the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court [or “The Hague”], which is the United Nations organ that settles disputes between nations.
Furthermore:
On 10 February 2006, the [ICC] Prosecutor published a letter responding to complaints he had received concerning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He noted that “the International Criminal Court has a mandate to examine the conduct during the conflict, but not whether the decision to engage in armed conflict was legal”, and that the Court’s jurisdiction is limited to the actions of nationals of states parties. He concluded that there was a reasonable basis to believe that a limited number of war crimes had been committed in Iraq, but that the crimes allegedly committed by nationals of states parties did not appear to meet the required gravity threshold for an ICC investigation.”
A million dead does not meet the “required gravity threshold”??! More here.
In any event, this ICC position only reinforces my argument that a Royal Commission is the best way forward: we need to take charge of investigating, and if necessary prosecuting, our own nation’s War Crimes.
Thanks for raising this issue.
War criminals should not be allowed to slink away into retirement. John Howard and his co-conspirators must be prosecuted for their crimes.
Can I please take the opportunity to encourage other “progressive” Australian bloggers to take up this issue?
I for one am rather fond of Mahathir Mohammed. His pronouncements are no worse than those of many “Western” leaders, and are in fact often accurate. I fear that there is a hefty dose of racism in the sort of criticisms which are often levelled at him. Why should Malaysia or Malaysians be less corrupt, cronyistic or unjust than the rest of us? Why come down on Mahathir when leaders of the US, UK and Australia tell lies, benefit their cronies, engage in aggressive wars, violate human rights (including illegal imprisonment and torture) and condone a continuing massive shift of wealth from the poor to the rich in their own countries? Is it because financiers have never forgiven him for imposing capital controls on the Malaysian currency during the 1997 Asian meltdown?
People who cannot bear to contemplate Dr Mahathir are people who, like Dorian Gray, can no longer bear to look at themselves in a mirror.
And as for “using him as a news hook”, where is the necessity? Surely Prof. Quiggin, an eminent economist and one of John Howard’s Federation Fellows, doesn’t need to do that!
Gandhi “you will never get an official “opinion of the UNâ€? when the USA is holding a veto”
LOL!!!
You will never get an official anything from the UN whilst parties with such widely varying agendas hold vetoes. If the UN had got its act together in the 1990s to keep Hussein accountable then we wouldn’t have got in this mess in the first place!
As for Mahathir Mohamad – what a miserable excuse for a world leader. SE Asia’s Mugabe – silencing dissent and opposition.
It dismays me that so many left-wingers would use comments from someone like Mohamed to score cheap political points.
If the UN had got its act together in the 1990s to keep Hussein accountable then we wouldn’t have got in this mess in the first place!
Well actually the UN sanctions – like them or not, and I didn’t – had Saddam economically contained, and UN weapons inspectors had his WMD program contained. But Bush & Co had already made up their minds to invade: the intelligence was fixed around the policy, remember?
Neither Prof Q nor I is using Mahatir’s comments to “score political points”: his media-reported remarks present a rare opportunity to spark debate on this important issue, that is all. Mahatir’s anti-Jewish racism and many other serious failings do not invalidate his other valid points on state-sponsored Zionism.
On the other hand, if you are looking for an excuse to hijack this thread…
This thread hijacked itself as soon as Mahatir’s name was invoked.
I think you’re right – Bush made up his mind to invade Iraq and cherry picked the intelligence that supported his view. I think Bush is an ignorant buffoon and the sooner he goes the better.
But to make comments like “UN weapons inspectors had his WMD program contained” is just plain wrong. The UN was kicked out in 1998 and at that stage Iraq still had WMD. No-one knew for sure whether they had WMD in 2003 or not. I suspect most people thought the US would find some stockpiles of chemical weapons at a minimum. But anyway – that’s besides the point. Calling for Bush, Blair and Howard to be tried as war criminals smacks of juvenile campus politics. And yes – you are using Mahatir to ‘score politcal points’ and that’s quite sad.
The war crimes in Iraq exist at several levels:
(1) the invasion itself and the occupation.
(2) the failure to provide forces sufficient to ensure civil order (1 million dead Iraqis).
(3) the abuse of prisoners (Abu Ghraib and elsewhere).
(4) failure to exercise control over mercenary forces (Blackwater).
(5) the appropriation of national resources (oil laws).
(6) the overturning of established civil laws in Iraq (and their replacement by Paul Bremers 100 edicts).
These are all specific features of the Geneva Conventions. There is considerable documentary and witness evidence publicly available in relation to each of the above items.
Professor Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law at the Sydney University, gave a detailed analysis in the Sydney Morning Herald (June 3, 2004) on the legal obligations of Australia and the USA as occupying powers in Iraq under the Geneva Convention. Quite aside from any question of the act of invasion of Iraq, his view was that Australia had a clear legal obligation to ensure the safety of civilians and prisoners as part an occupying force. According to Prof.Rothwell, any failure to carry out those duties constituted prosecutable war crimes.
Put simply, if you invade a country you are legally required to ensure sufficient troops for the safety of the citizens. Advice from senior US military leaders to President Bush prior to the invasion was that he would need at least 400,000 troops to stabilize Iraq. Gen. Anthony Zinni and other US generals had previously war-gamed the occupation of Iraq (“Desert Crossing”) and confirmed those figures. That advice was ignored. 160,000 troops were sent in. 1,000,000 Iraqis have died as a result. John Howard would have been aware of those reports from the media and his military and legal advisers.
(There is an interesting account from Brigadier General Mark Scheid, chief of the US Logistics War Plans Division after 9/11, and one of the people with primary responsibility for war planning. He was ordered by Def.Sec.Rumsfeld NOT to carry out Phase 4 (occupation) planning for Iraq, the kind of planning essential for maintaining civil order, planning that formed part of established military practice. Rumsfeld reportedly said he would fire anyone carrying out such a process.)
Further, the legal responsibilities of the US and Australian governments were not reduced by the installation of the so-called Interim Government of Iraq in 2004. Under the laws of war the US government and its allies remained fully accountable – especially under the circumstances where the Iraqis did not have the resources needed to enforce security. Even the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956) affirms this principle: “The restrictions placed upon the authority of a belligerent government cannot be avoided by a system of using a puppet government, central or local, to carry out acts which would be unlawful if performed directly by the occupant.”
I won’t go into detail, but considerable documentary and witness evidence has emerged that torture practices in Iraq by coalition forces were sanctioned by the highest levels of the US government.
I have no doubt that John Howard and the Australian media hold high-minded reasons why the Australian public should not revisit the decision to invade Iraq. There is already sufficient grounds to believe that the invasion of Iraq was illegal and a war crime under the detailed and specific provisions of the Geneva Convention to which Australia is a signatory. Further, the PM’s decision to join the invading force of 160,000 US personnel in the face of advice that 400,000 troops were required is, similarly, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. This war business is not a cute game that comfortable Western leaders like John Howard can uncritically play with no regard for the preventable deaths that follow.
If we have any morality at all then we must have a full Royal Commission into Australia’s decision to invade Iraq as part of the Coalition. This should include all matters relating to what our PM was told and what he conveyed to the Parliament. Amongst other details, I am particularly concerned that in Dec 2002 John Howard was told by Aussie weapons inspector Rod Barton (also here) that there were NO WMDs in Iraq, and appears to have obtained told that the lead UK weapons inspector had reached the same conclusion. These views were not conveyed to Parliament and John Howard almost certainly mislead them on his true knowledge of the threat from WMDs. By all appearances PM Howard took us into Iraq on ideological grounds with a decision that had likely been made as far back as 2001. Aside from the war crimes committed by Howard against Iraq, I find it offensive that any Australian PM can treat our defence forces as some sort of discretionary plaything.
Howard is a war criminal. The Iraqi people are entitled to justice. The Australian people are entitled to know how we went to war. A Royal Commission is required.
Gordon,
Do you believe the quote of his, given above was accurate then? Was it entirely appropriate? “Leaders” in the bucket of Mahathir, Suharto or Marcos have been a stain on Asia for far too long. The people there deserve better.
.
As for the main point of the thread? If Bush, Blair and Howard could be considered “war criminals” there are others who are much more deserving and about whom you hear few complaints. Muammar al-Gaddafi, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, possibly Meles Zenawi and any number in sub-Saharan Africa before you even start on South America or Asia – with the central Asian dictatorships being good examples.
I believe there have been wrong (and possibly criminal) activities carried out under the orders of the current President of the US (Guantanamo detention amongst them) but if you want to make a political point, make it. Branding someone a war criminal when there is considerable doubt as to whether the conduct is criminal to me is seeking to minimise the conduct of those where there is little doubt.
No-one knew for sure whether they had WMD in 2003 or not… But anyway – that’s besides the point.
Well, actually that is pretty much the whole point.
The Bush Coalition – including Howard – said they were 100% sure Saddam had WMDs. The burden of proof was on them, given that they were deliberately breaking international laws with their new “post-9/11 world” concept of “pre-emptive” war.
And yet they deliberately suppressed any dissenting intelligence or opinions (including Andrew Wilkie here) while eagerly embracing fabricated evidence (such as “Curve-ball’s”) which they were repeatedly warned to ignore.
My point is not that there should be War Crimes tribunals in the Hague or anywhere else tomorrow, but that there should be a full and complete investigation into Australia’s role in the Iraq War.
At the very least, we should demand some official explanation of the legal basis for this invasion, given that our soldiers have contributed to the death of a million Iraqis and the virtual destruction of their country.
There is little point talking about prosecting Gaddaffi and Al Bashir, or even Mugabe, if we are not willing to uphold international law within our own borders. Either we support the concept of International Law, and all the responsibilities it implies, or we do not. Where do we stand, Australia?
prosecting = prosecuting (sorry)
Andrew, you say: “The UN was kicked out in 1998 and at that stage Iraq still had WMD. No-one knew for sure whether they had WMD in 2003 or not.”
Not true. While Saddam did obstruct the weapons inspectors he later provided them with unfettered access. It was George Bush who forced their departure in order that he could invade. Had they been allowed to stay they would have completed their inspection within months and there would have then been no case for invasion (at least not over WMDs).
And it is not true that there was an honest belief by the US administration that Saddam may have had WMDs. Read the Rod Barton interview mentioned above where, in Dec 2002, he told our PM that there were NO WMDs of any significance. You will find there was a systematic US drive to skew the findings of the weapons inspectors who were telling them repeatedly that there was nothing.
Here’s a statement from Carne Ross, Britain’s key negotiator at the UN:
I was First Secretary in the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York from December 1997 until June 2002. I was responsible for Iraq policy in the mission, including policy on sanctions, weapons inspections and liaison with UNSCOM and later UNMOVIC… I read the available UK and US intelligence on Iraq every working day for the four and a half years of my posting…
During my posting, at no time did HMG assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests. On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among the officials dealing with Iraq that any threat had been effectively contained. I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed). (At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the US raised the subject, that “regime change� was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.)
Any assessment of threat has to include both capabilities and intent. Iraq’s capabilities in WMD were moot: many of the UN’s weapons inspectors (who, contrary to popular depiction, were impressive and professional) would tell me that they believed Iraq had no significant materiel. With the exception of some unaccounted-for Scud missiles, there was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW, BW or nuclear material.
The case for war was manufactured. It was all lies spun out of the Office of Special Plans (OSP) for Iraq in the US Defense Department. They lied about everything to make the case for an illegal war.
its so painful and sad to see these kind of discussions go round and round,
the apologists always make untrue claims that someone diligent like damien then takes the time and effort to prove wrong,
but whats the point?
the provocateaurs move on to another false talking point and peddle different lies withe same themes,
mahatir may be wrong on some things but has spoken more truths about the modern system than all the western leaders put together
and to anfrew #18,
what do you think of israels nukes?
Andrew Reynolds says: ‘”Leaders” in the bucket of Mahathir, Suharto or Marcos have been a stain on Asia for far too long’.
Of these three, Suharto must be the worst; the murders of up to half a million of his own people in the process of his “wading through blood to a throne” is a hard act to follow. Marcos’ 3,000-odd killed, 35,000-odd tortured and 70,000-odd imprisoned looks good by comparison. Mahathir’s human rights record is much the best of the three, having so far as I know only imprisoned some political opponents without trial, and not tortured very many of them.
Compare these records, even Suharto’s, with the Lancet estimate of 650,000 excess Iraqi deaths 2003-2006. And what was the score in Vietnam? About 2 million, wasn’t it? And Australia is in there cheering it on.
Pontificating about “a stain on Asia” and so on is getting harder and harder to justify, particularly given our complicity in the actions of our “great and powerful ally”. If Australia got out of Iraq and Afghanistan and condemned the illegality and brutality of the invasions of those countries, and then formally apologised to the Aboriginals who have been murdered and brutalised for 200 years, and then took steps to rectify the situation, then maybe…
In fact I’ll go a lot further than I have,
Anyone that thinks that there were legitimate reasons for a war in iraq needs to take a cold shower and read some real history,
Starting with general smedley butlers war is a racket
“the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag”
The winners of the first world war were the bankers who backed both sides,
Very soon after creating the private federal reserve bank,
and the winners of the second world war were the same bankers,
And some of the descendents of those bankers are winning the second gulf war right now,
And while screwing the hypnotised masses with a socialised military government enabled by permanent propaganda,
Theyre on the verge of finishing of those some masses and especially the so-called middle classes with a massive deflationary bang,
The architects of these plans and theyre government and un enablers are absolutely war criminals,
And in my opinion so are we, for the wilful ignorance we so readily show
and mahatir knows all this better than most of our ‘leaders’ and poulations
yeah suharto was a real bad boy?
Ex-agents say CIA compiled death lists for Indonesians
For the first time, U.S. officials acknowledge that in 1965 they systematically compiled comprehensive lists of Communist operatives, from top echelons down to village cadres. As many as 5,000 names were furnished to the Indonesian army, and the Americans later checked off the names of those who had been killed or captured, according to the U.S. officials.
http://www.namebase.org/kadane.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,834780,00.html?promoid=googlep
Ford Country: Building an Elite for Indonesia
But standing at their side and overseeing the great give-away was an extraordinary team of Indonesian economists, all of them educated in the United States as part of a twenty year strategy by the world’s most powerful private aid agency, the billion-dollar Ford Foundation
http://www.cia-on-campus.org/internat/indo.html
And heres the imfs indonesian enslavement plan for the record
http://www.imf.org/external/np/loi/103197.htm#memo
Mahathir is a clown who regrets standing down from the PMship and misses the limelight. I heard him interviewed on the BBC the other day and he was even worse than usual.
That quote by AR in (3) was actually a call to Muslims to do what (according the the Datuk) the Jews did: work hard, make lots of money and control the world that way. Seize the day, don’t be victims etc.
Foreigner-bashing works well in any country. Just ask the Rodent who used to be our PM, who loved proclaiming that he wouldn’t be pushed around by those swarthy types in the UN. In a strange way, those two are/were similar.
There is a deep cultural problem at work here. Australians cannot face up to the lies that took them into Iraq and so will never be able to face their complicity in war crimes (at least in the short term). It’s something of a lost cause trying to redress the lies about WMDs while the same Bush administration is spouting new lies every day (Syrian nukes, Iran supporting insurgents in Iraq etc). The best that we can hope for is to insist on a Royal Commission on why and how we went into Iraq, the Intelligence briefings that lead us there and Howard’s lies to Parliament. We may not be able to fix up the world but we should be able to demand that our Parliament is not kept in the dark and fed total lies. It’s the best we can hope for.
So, smiths, you believe it is all a banking conspiracy. Are you going to go as far as Mahathir and add “Jewish” on to the front of that – or will you simply agree with him without adding it in?
In reality, though, banks generally find wars unprofitable. They slow the economy enormously and normally end up with the government finding further bad excuses for further silly intervention. The people who benefit from wars are (guess who) the ones who declare them – the politicians.
The facts of the matter are that the world, as represented by the UN, has not been able to sustain any valid objection to the Iraq invasion.
More damning is that the UN (and its agents) found that any submitted objection to the Iraq war was unsustainable.
So the rest is just blowin in the wind
The facts of the matter are that the world, as represented by the UN, has not been able to sustain any valid objection to the Iraq invasion.
What an insufferable load of bollocks!
Let me paraphrase you…
The facts of the matter are that the world, as represented by the UN, has not been able to sustain any valid objection to China invading Australia…..The Chinese Foreign Minister was dismissive of any concerns: “The million Australian insurgents who have died were known to be affiliated to jihadist Kiwis, but we are winning the war for freedom.”
You’re a bit short on logic, law and decency aren’t you, Rog.
Pr Q says:
Iraq-attack was worse than a war crime, it was a mistake.
There are reasonable grounds for arraigning Bush and US war-planners on war-crimes, for waging aggressive war without good cause. And for waging war without due consideration for civilian casualties and the rights of prisoners.
In self-defence they can argue, with some justice, that they were bringing a war-criminal (Hussein) to justice. And changing a regime (Baathist) with a proven reputation for waging aggressive war. Also, they established a democratic govt in Iraq, the first I believe.
The notion that Howard should be liable to war-crimes charges is common-or-garden variety Howard-hatred. Unfortunately, given Pr Q’s relentlessly partisan attitude towards the PM its about what youd expect these days. [This last to be read “more in sorrow than anger” tone.]
TO repeat for the umpteenth time. ADF troops in Iraq are there for symbolic political reasons, to reinforce the US-AUS alliance and pay back for Timor. THey have no real military mission, having been mostly been engaged in own-force defence or civil reconstruction. Not exactly modern day Eichmanns.
And in any case, where does the hunt for the real war-criminals stop? Rudd has largely me-tooed Howard on Iraq. Large numbers of ADF troops still remain in-country under Rudd’s authorisation, continuing the original war crime. He is an accessory after the fact, just as guilty as Howard.
As are all the (33) other Coalition of the Willing political leaders. And, for that matter, the people who democraticly supported them in this criminal act of folly. I guess I am a war-criminal. Please stop me before I invade again.
Of course most of the war-crimes in Iraq have been committed by Iraqis against each other, as they do. No surprises there, because its Iraq! I say arrest Iraq’s entire Alpha-male and wannabe Alpha-male class in the dock. Its about time that lot answered for its crimes.
Forget John Howard. His commitment to the Iraqi tragedy was not a result of anything other than of the most shallow and simplistic reaction.
If he is at fault we all are. Do we as a nation have the capacity to examine how we came to find ourselves in the position of petty accomplice to a great humanitarian catastrophe and crimes against humanity?
Despite the repellent memory of the clownish posturing by Howard as a ‘statesman’, following the making of the decision to support the Bush Presidency, in its misconceived and incompetently prosecuted misadventure, I personally think that is a broader failure of our culture and institutions.
One thing that Mahathir and Howard have in common is an overriding ego and sense of self importance. With Mahathir at least being highly intelligent, and his own man for good or ill. Howard not being either.
A legalistic infrastructure is dependent on the control of superior force. Which is why the police carry guns around and you don’t. Whatever the details of international law, without the monopoly of force to carry it out it is empty, which is why Presidents Noriega and Milosevic end up in prison and President Bush and sidekicks walk around free.
Persse, I fully agree that the Iraq War represents “a broader failure of our culture and institutions”. But actually that is all the more reason NOT to “forget about Howard”.
While it maybe hard for many Australians to admit they were duped, the experience of a full-blown Royal Commission into these lies, errors, and crimes will be both humbling and educational.
With such a show of true democracy, we can at least demonstrate that the ideals which we claimed to pursue in Iraq and Afghanistan were not just completely empty rhetoric. We can show the victims of our aggression, and others who now see us as criminal US lackeys, that we are in fact a just and caring society.
The alternative is that we remain a one-eyed, insular, xenophobic, and increasingly militant global backwater.
I’ve deleted a sentence to the effect that a previous comment was “drivel”. Show, don’t tell – JQ
Whatever the details of international law, without the monopoly of force to carry it out it is empty.
Every time you board a plane you are invoking international law. Every credit card transaction or phone call you make from overseas is built on international law. Global transport, maritime law, communications, satellites, fishing laws, national boundaries, diplomacy, refugees, the entire global economy of financial transactions and, yes, laws governing armed conflict are all international law, a massive legal framework that is used by every one of us every day. International law is not a series of motherhood statements to be cast aside by despots whenever they want to conduct some discretionary murder on foreign soil. International law is REAL as Japanese and German butchers found out only too well when they were shot or hanged at the end of WW2. A number of Japanese soldiers were sentenced to 15 year jail terms for water boarding prisoners, a torture technique Pres. Bush has approved for US terrorist detainees. Do you understand why these are offenses under international law? — because if you disregard the Hague and Geneva Conventions you reduce the world to naked barbarism. Most people, and countries, understand that.
Moreover, International law is not as toothless as you think. Most developed countries have passed laws in relation to the Geneva Conventions that oblige them to bring war crimes charges against foreign leaders if their own countries refuse to prosecute. Why do you think Rumsfeld has to keep his visits to Europe secret? And Henry Kissinger? Do you remember Spain and Pinochet? These people can’t go anywhere. The laws are not “toothless”. The US is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and under the US Constitution (Article VI) automatically become part of US domestic law. The US War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a felony to commit grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. Moreover, under US Codes, Title 18, § 2441 George Bush can be charged within the US for war crimes violations of US law:
“(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.”
In the US Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the justices specifically declared that Bush had breeched war crimes provisions of the Geneva Convention in relation to the treatment of POWs. Bush then passed the Military Commissions Act 2006 — ostensibly to provide him with retrospective immunity (a law having no legal force since the Constitution forbids retrospective legislation of this kind). Bush may temporarily defer accountability for his war crimes but probably not forever.
In regard to John Howard I could write at length to debunk your nonsense but here’s a summary:
(1) We pay our PMs to keep us out of gratuitous wars, not drag us into them.
(2) Neither the Parliament nor the Australian people bear any responsibility or fault for participating in the Iraq invasion when the PM was the only one with access to all the Intelligence and he chose to conceal from us that there was strong evidence for NO WMDs. At that point the PM was criminally abusing his political office and his legal entitlements. He LIED to Parliament. Don’t believe me? Then read the Rod Barton interview, the weapons inspector who told him in spades in Dec 2002 that there were NO WMDs in Iraq.
(3) The evidence is that Howard’s choice to go to war was not casual and mistaken but knowing and deceptive.
(4) Mohammed Mahathir has NOTHING to do with how we run our country, nor whether our PM tells lies to our Parliament, nor whether our nation went wrongly into an illegal foreign conflict.
If you feel that when you elect a PM then he can do as he pleases then you’re wrong and you have a lousy sense of what constitutes good government in a democracy. John Howard committed war crimes. That’s the evidence. If you can’t face that, that’s ok. But don’t tell us that our Parliament and people are not fully entitled to know why and how we want to war. Such assertions are legal and moral bunkum.
Persse, you are wrong on a number of important issues.
Whatever the details of international law, without the monopoly of force to carry it out it is empty.
Every time you board a plane you are invoking international law. Every credit card transaction or phone call you make from overseas is built on international law. Global transport, maritime law, communications, satellites, fishing laws, national boundaries, diplomacy, refugees, the entire global economy of financial transactions and, yes, laws governing armed conflict are all international law, a massive legal framework that is used by every one of us every day. International law is not a series of motherhood statements to be cast aside by despots whenever they want to conduct some discretionary murder on foreign soil. International law is REAL as Japanese and German butchers found out only too well when they were shot or hanged at the end of WW2. A number of Japanese soldiers were sentenced to 15 year jail terms for water boarding prisoners, a torture technique Pres. Bush has approved for US terrorist detainees. Do you understand why these are offenses under international law? — because if you disregard the Hague and Geneva Conventions you reduce the world to naked barbarism. Most people, and countries, agree with that.
Moreover, International law is not as toothless as you think. Most developed countries have passed laws in relation to the Geneva Conventions that oblige them to bring war crimes charges against foreign leaders if their own countries refuse to prosecute. Why do you think Rumsfeld has to keep his visits to Europe secret? And Henry Kissinger? Do you remember Spain and Pinochet? These people can’t go anywhere. The laws are not “toothless”. The US is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and under the US Constitution (Article VI) automatically become part of US domestic law. The US War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a felony to commit grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. Moreover, under US Codes, Title 18, § 2441 George Bush can be charged within the US for war crimes violations of US law:
“(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.”
In the US Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the justices specifically declared that Bush had breeched war crimes provisions of the Geneva Convention in relation to the treatment of POWs. Bush then passed the Military Commissions Act 2006 — ostensibly to provide him with retrospective immunity (a law having no legal force since the Constitution forbids retrospective legislation of this kind). Bush may temporarily defer accountability for his war crimes but probably not forever.
In regard to John Howard I could write at length to disagree with you but here’s a summary:
(1) We pay our PMs to keep us out of gratuitous wars, not drag us into them.
(2) Neither the Parliament nor the Australian people bear any responsibility or fault for participating in the Iraq invasion when the PM was the only one with access to all the Intelligence and he chose to conceal from us that there was strong evidence for NO WMDs. At that point the PM was criminally abusing his political office and his legal entitlements. He LIED to Parliament. Don’t believe me? Then read the Rod Barton interview, the weapons inspector who told him in spades in Dec 2002 that there were NO WMDs in Iraq.
(3) The evidence is that Howard’s choice to go to war was not casual and mistaken but knowing and deceptive.
(4) Mohammed Mahathir has NOTHING to do with how we run our country, nor whether our PM tells lies to our Parliament, nor whether our nation went wrongly into an illegal foreign conflict.
If you feel that when you elect a PM then he can do as he pleases then you’re wrong. John Howard committed war crimes. That’s the evidence. If you can’t face that, that’s ok. But our Parliament and people are fully entitled to know why and how we went to war.
andrew reynolds, pull your head in,
i didnt mention jewish people and i find it offensive that you presume to read something into my comments that isnt there,
you focus on distractions and miss the main points, and your comments about bankers finding wars unprofitable are ridiculous,
for some good reading on this i suggest john t flynns account of twelve rich bastards from the renaissance up to the first world war
politicians my bbum, who funded hitlers rise, who provided the money to ig farben to build those mega industrial plants,
politicians are more often than not bit players on the edge of a much bigger stakes game
american bankers even funded lenin for gods sake
Click to access menofwealth.pdf
smiths,
“bankers” has, from time immemorial been shorthand for “jewish bankers” when discussing conspiracies – and as Mahathir is obviously doing here. It is the presumption that bankers (or or any business people, for that matter) would willingly send anyone to their deaths in war is the silly part. Wars are bad for business all round. If you want some perspective on this look at the stock and bond markets during wars. They do not, as a rule, go up – the recent Iraq war being a notable exception, but that was hardly due to what is a relatively small war – the human cost aside.
I have read a lot of the books that try to find conspiracies, smiths, and they all fail to make any sort of case and each one is mistaken in their own way. Normally, though, it comes down to a blind failure to leave their own prejudices behind. Politicians, smiths, in the dictatorships that normally start wars, can hardly be regarded as “bit players”.
Leaving aside the breach of Godwin’s Law – I would think the people who supported the National Socialist Party were not those who thought that they would be taken to war, but those terrified of the Communists and thought that National Socialism was better than the International type. They still had everything stolen, as did most others, but got heavily bombed afterwards.
Getting back to Prof Q’s original question, it’s interesting that no professional legal types have provided any opinion (yet). I would suggest there are two reasons for this:
1. Even talking about war crimes, particularly in a Zionist-crusade-war-for-oil context, is bad for your reputation, and
2. International law is so malleable, particularly in the hands of the Big powers on the UNSC, that anything is possible.
OTOH my reading from my own links above is that neither the Hague nor the ICC is realistically going to try Bush, Blair or Howard for War Crimes. It is possible that they could be arrested and tried at some future date if they set foot in the wrong country, but again not likely.
The only way this would change is if there were major changes on the international political landscape over the next 10 years, something not altogether unlikely given the existing catalysts.
So for now, I reiterate: it is up to us, fellow Australian citizens, to show our commitment to justice. At the least, we should ensure that our country’s reputation is not forever sullied by the apathetic complicity of our generation.
Again, I call on fellow bloggers to help bring this important issue into mainstream debate. The media and politicians will not do it on their own.
I am not a lawyer but even under US law I would think there are some cases worth pursuing. Not least would be that of General Sanchez and those in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison. They argued that low ranking soldiers there were acting without authority in torturing prisoners. Yet that is not an excuse under US military law. In a famous post WWII case that gave rise to teh “Yamashita principle”, Japanese General Yamashita was executed for the attrocities committed in Manilla by Japanese troops in 1945, even though he argued that he was unable to control them. The US Supreme Court ruled to the effect that it was his job to control them. It would be interesting to apply that principle to the current US civilian and military administration, in the hands of a non-republican prosecutor.
To mount a successful legal action you must prove that the act committed was a breach of law (ie crime) and that the act was malicious in intent (ie not in self defence.)
Whilst there has been much opinion voiced evidence is what is required.
Regarding Iraq the ICC received “numerous submissions which took the view that a crime of aggression took place in the context of the war in Iraq.”
The ICC stated that “The Court cannot proceed with respect to aggression until the crime is defined and the conditions for the exercise of jurisdiction set out.”
Furthermore they noted that all submissions lacked detailed information.
Gandhi,
Your comment here says it all “my reading from my own links above is that neither the Hague nor the ICC is realistically going to try Bush, Blair or Howard for War Crimes”
Is it time to move onto a new ’cause’ that you have a hope of ‘winning’?
I think I made this comment on a different thread – but doing things like calling for Howard to be tried as a war criminal just detracts from anything else worthwhile you may be saying and causes mainstreamers (which I class myself as) to dismiss you as someone who carries on like a 23yr old student activist.
Thanks for the, um… friendly advice, Andrew. Like I said earlier, “Even talking about war crimes, particularly in a Zionist-crusade-war-for-oil context, is bad for your reputation”.
Luckily, I don’t have a reputation worth bothering about so I can say whatever I damn well please, thank you very much.
And I will continue to do so, as loudly as I can, until someone locks me away in a padded room.
Can we get back on topic now?
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Bush Advisor to Ron Suskind.
and so it goes…
we have a sematic discussion about an impossible evnt like prosecution of western leaders,
meanwhile, new fabrications and lies lead to the next door to get kicked down,
who believes, for the record, that syria had a nuclear reactor that israel bombed,
who believes that syria killed rafik hariri,
who believes syria is in league with iran?
and if america attacks them and it is revealed to be lies all over again, what then? a mistake again,
wake up