Weapons of Mass Distraction?
One phrase has captured the mood of the next stage in the war on Muslims as none other and that is ‘Regime change’. The target in this next bout, none other than Iraq. Some have heralded a ‘radical’ new phase in US foreign policy, but this would be an oversimplification in the words of Michel Moran, correspondent for MSNBC
…In fact, “regime change” is as American as apple pie. The problem is it has rarely been more than half-baked.
George Bush unveiled ‘regime change’ as the ‘official’ US stance on Iraq. Although George Dubya has continuously assured the world he will not be satisfied with anything other than the toppling of Saddam’s regime, yet different elements of his regime have been voicing contradictory policy statements claiming them to be the official administration line. Whilst Vice-President Dick Cheney has recently taken the toughest line aligning himself with the Hawks in the regime, Powell has publicly voiced concern about an impending attack on Iraq. He said in a yet unaired BBC programme that he prefers the return of weapons inspectors before any decision is taken to strike Iraq. General Zinni, Powell’s Middle-East envoy attacked the Hawks who he claimed were hatching a plan akin to a ‘bay of goats’, a reference to the comical failed mission to depose Castro by Cuban dissidents in 1961. High ranking generals from the Gulf War have also aired scepticism of the flawed plans to depose Saddam, including Gen. Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser under former President Bush snr; and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of operations in the Persian Gulf War.
Zinni, a retired Marine General backed their position and in a statement designed to be a shot across the bows to the hawks derided their naïveté.
“It’s pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot and are hot to go to war see it another way.”
Within this climate of ‘will he won’t he?’, an important matter has been neglected, and that is this proposed war is illegal according to the very tenets of international law which the US claims to be the guardian of. ‘Those who make the rules, break the rules’, could not begin to describe the position of the US since September 11.
Evidence, What evidence?
To the US establishment, its politicians and the paymasters of the Presidency, the oil barons evidence to justify an attack merely get in the way of foreign policy goals. Afghanistan was attacked and the weak evidence was introduced after the Taliban were deposed. Stories of Al-Qaeda caves with the blueprints of terrorism were conveniently paraded as a posthumous justification for occupying a foreign nation and installing its agents wrapped up conveniently by rigged elections. When the US bombed civilian positions, it initially denied responsibility until this lie no longer held any credibility, then it conveniently applied the tag ‘Al-Qaeda Terrorists’, and that made it alright until it was found that this was not the case. Then it provided a half hearted statement masquerading as an apology following a ‘rigorous’ US inquiry which vindicated its soldiers, by this time everyone apart from those who had suffered from the indiscriminate bombing could remember what had happened. Then the US classed Taliban and Al-Qaeda soldiers as enemy non-combatants, which meant that the rules of war as set out in the Geneva convention need tno apply. They were holed up in Guantanamo Bay and remain there to this day, without a trial. Even the surviving Nazi leaders were accorded this right at Nuremburg after World War Two!
When Bush is asked why Iraq, he answers with the certainty of a Judge in a trial summing up the case after the evidence has been spresented and has proved the guilt of the defendant. Unlike the Judge, Bush has presented no evidence, other than Iraq having produced Weapons of Mass Production, the only mass produced good having been produced are the lies and propaganda originating from the White House and the Pentagon. Apart from the now debunked claims that an Iraqi intelligence official had a meeting with Mohammed Atta in 1999, there have been recent claims that the Al-Ansar group has initiated hostilities against the Kurdish groups in the North of Iraq, this group has been linked to Al-Qaeda by leaders of Kurdish groups that have a vested interest in US intervention in Iraq. Blair has recently promised the publication of a dossier of evidence against Iraq and its WMD, but admittedly Blair acknowledged this would not contain any new evidence.
Illegality of Regime Change
The planned war is justified by the Bush administration based upon pre-emptive self-defence. This follows the line, x is likely to attack us, therefore y should attack in anticipation. This does seem a very skewed understanding of self-defence.
Hurst Hannum professor of international law at Tufts’ Fletcher School
The current argument justifying a pre-emptive “self-defense” strike - based on the idea that Hussein is likely to attack the U.S. or its interests in the near future - isn’t particularly strong.
To prove his point, he gives a domestic analogy to test this principle. If the police believed an individual was likely to commit a murder, would they be arrested based upon this supposition. He answers,
“We don’t allow them to be arrested and put in jail just because it’s possible they will commit a crime. That’s essentially what the United States is seeking to do with Iraq.”
Bush signalled the start of this policy throughout the world in a graduation ceremony at WestPoint,
“The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.”
This means second guessing the moves of other nations, or it can literally mean initiating hostilities against any nation whilst hiding behind the pretext of an impending attack. The common standards of defence when attacked no longer exists, in the words of Sean Murphy, a professor of international law at George Washington University,
“If you make anticipatory self-defense the standard, you open an enormous Pandora’s Box.”
And opening up a Pandora’s box is convenient when you are the sole and leading power in the world and when re-drawing the boundaries of International norms is in your favour, but it is impossible to re-draw the lines for a single nation, this sets a rather dangerous precedent as it allows other nations to act in a like manner.
Henry Kissinger, National Security Adviser to President Nixon and Secretary of State to both Presidents Nixon and Ford proposed the same misgivings when in an article for the Washington Post he wrote,
“It is not in the American national interest to establish pre-emption as a universal principle available to every nation.”
This is because any nation can bypass the UN, the US government cannot allow for this, surely what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, why should the US have the privilege to act in a manner it finds unpalatable in others. This highlights that international law is nothing more than a basic set of rules which can be changed at will, as long as you have the weight and influence to affect the change.
“International law is largely based on custom, and those customs can change with time and circumstance,” said Frederick Kirgis, a professor at Washington and Lee University. “It’s all whether you can get other nations to acquiesce to your assertions.”
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