War crimes and responsibility of the Bush administration

By Rodrique Tremblay
Online Journal Guest Writer

Excerpts from analysis

"The 20th Century example was Germany in the 1930's. The Nazi Party was elected in November 1932, with only 33.1 percent of the votes, but when its leader Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, it immediately began subverting the German Weimar Constitution by concentrating political power in its own hands, while increasing military expenditures. The Nazi government then suspended a number of constitutional protections of civil liberties under the pretext of external and internal threats to its security. The following steps taken by Nazi Germany were to initiate a series of illegal wars of aggression against other countries. This culminated with World War II in which more than 50 million people died."

"Secondly, the United Nations Charter of 1945 solemnly outlawed wars of aggression. Indeed, the U. N. Charter admits only two circumstances in which one country is allowed to use military force against another:

• when a country must defend itself against an attack from another country;
• when the Security Council authorizes the use of military force against a country that is in violation of the principles of the U. N. Charter.

Neither circumstance existed when George W. Bush decided on his own to attack Iraq on March 20, 2003. Therefore, the Iraq War represents an illegal war of aggression and those who took that course of action risk being held accountable one day for any crime committed during this illegal endeavor. It can, indeed, be argued that President George W. Bush assumed the war criminal's mantle when he illegally invaded Iraq under false pretenses. In fact, if a war is illegal, then all the killings occurring during that war are murders."

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