I am a native of the republic of Cameroon, and WOlfowitz's new war is surely welcome to this sub saharian country. Everybody who have ever stole some money is on their toes, some have been emprisoned. I would advise him to go after these thieves has war of terror. He should track them down, freeze their assets, punish any bank that would help them hide the stolen money. This new war is long overdue.

Nothing can wash the blood off of thisd man's hands. He along with Dickie Boy Cheney, the 5 time draft dodger, counted on the ignorance of the people for whom they were supposed to serve and took us into a war that was unecessary.
It was deception, it was a lie, it was DISHONOR.

Next year Larry Summers is going to be doing the job Wolfowitz finds himself in today, and Wolfowitz will return to academia.

Hello. This comment doesn't relate to the posting above, but I could find no other way of contacting you through this site. I called in this morning to "Your Call" on KALW to recount the story about GoDaddy.com blocking certain countries from accessing its hosted domains. I'm interested in following the story if you do look into it, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have for me. my email is polizzi@number32.com, and the blog I told you about is www.nooshin.net.
Thanks.

Are you talking about the Wolfowitz of Iraqi fame? Is that really the creature you now propose to the world as Mr. Clean? That can't be serious. Must be a poor joke at the end of a difficult week, surely...

No, Robert, I didn't propose him as "Mr. Clean."

I reported on what online news outlets are saying about him, pro and con.

For a facetious take on Wolfowitz's new incarnation, see the Kenya Times article.

Actually, it shouldn't at all be surprising that Wolfowitz is attempting to clean up how World Bank funds are used. He (or someone at the Pentagon) may have made some serious miscalculations about Iraq, but there's good reason to believe he would genuinely like to promote economic and democratic development in the Third World. After all, he was a star student of Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom at the University of Chicago, who were both very serious political philosophers and very serious defenders of liberal democracy.

I can't wait until he works his way to Haliburton.....

Wow. Maybe the Wolf-man _is_ able to
learn. After his beautiful liberation of
Iraq turned into Haliburton's looting of
Baghdad and Washington, Wolfie discovered
that corruption matters.

How long has the World Bank been around???
They're just figuring this out _now_???

Wolfowitz deserves all the blame he gets for not being able distinguish ideals from pragmatic policy and helping take us into the Iraq imbroglio. But what about his anti-corruption campaign at the World Bank?

Corruption is corrosive to the rule of law and the possibility of economic or political advance; it facilitiates the subjugation of the people. So the ideals and the pragmatics are somewhat aligned.

Wolfowitz will fall short of his goals again, however, if he continues to ignore social institutions. In pursuing the war against Iraq, he apparently gave no thought to the institutions that organize Iraqi society and whether they were suitable foundations for building a liberal, civil society and a democratic government. His anti-corruption campaign seems founded in using the coercive power of the Bank to force compliance. This is a possible starting point, but the effects will be limited and short-term unless institutional changes in the target country change also, forcing leaders to be accountable to the public. Wolfowitz's record at the Pentagon does not reassure me that he understands the necessity of transparency and public accountability.

Wolfie...don't start overseas. I can think of a few oil companies based right here at home that could use some looking at.

Wolfowitz appears to have convinced some dedicated people at the Bank that he's serious about development.

I've heard him speak and I also thought I detected sincerity.

But when unscripted questioners manage to get him to address Iraq, he just squirms and moves on.

I, for one, find myself strangely tempted to forgive him. But if he expects forgiveness, he can start by apologising.

I guess I feel about Wolfowitz the way people felt in 1947 about Nazi functionaries like Fritzsche, Funk and Schacht. He is mostly harmless now and was mostly just misguided before.

At the same time, it's wrong to let war criminals off the hook just because they start making nice. Wolfowitz's crime, planning aggressive war, is one of the charges we hanged Nuremburg criminals for.

Ultimately, who are we to decide, next to the families of his victims? How can we pardon him, when they haven't yet spoken?

I admire Mr. Wolfowitz for tackling corruption in his (relatively) new post of President of the World Bank. No one who has spent even a short period of time in the kleptocracies that so dominate the Middle East and Africa can be anything but pleased with his campaign--except, perhaps, the kelptocrats.

The great irony of it all, of course, is that rampant corruption among Iraqi officials is one of the key elements that is undoing the Iraq adventure he so aggressively advocated just three short years ago. Arrogance, naivetee, and self-deception on his part were key elements leading up to the escalating fiasco we are witnessing in Iraq today. Let's hope he has learned something from the disaster he helped unleash in Iraq and will be more effective in the anti-corruption drive he now advocates.

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.onlinejournal.com
www.takingaim.info
www.wsws.org

Let's get real about our rigged voting system
By Bev Conover

Writer after writer keeps talking about how we are just going to march into the polls come November and vote the monsters out. If only that were true.

The system is rigged, folks. Just like oil and water, computers and voting don't mix. And that includes touch screens, optically-scanned ballots, even punch cards that are tabulated by computers. Worse, the voting equipment is in the hands of partisan private firms and they deny you the right to see the code, claiming it is proprietary information.

Adding so-called "verifiable" paper receipts to touch screens would be meaningless, because a handful of scumbags still can change the results just enough to give their candidates a win without triggering a hand recount.

Is this so hard to understand? It must be, because we, Bev Harris, Lynn Landes Bob Fitrakis and others have been screaming about this elephant in the room for nearly six years.

Bev Harris and her Black Box Voting team have proved in state after state how easily computers can be rigged. Lynn Landes' voting rights lawsuit has made its way to the US Supreme Court (Docket No. 05-930), where she intends to represent herself.

"I tried to get civil rights organizations interested in this case, but had no luck. Their disregard for this issue is incredible. It's clear to me that without direct access to a physical ballot and meaningful transparency in the process, our elections have no integrity whatsoever," Landes said.

Fitrakis and three other attorneys, who filed a 1awsuit questioning the results of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, found themselves the target of Ohio Attorney General James Petro, who sought stiff legal sanctions against the four for filing a "political nuisance" lawsuit.

In a Feb. 3, 2005, Free Press article, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman wrote, "In documents filed with the Ohio Supreme Court, Petro’s office charges that the citizen contestors -- Ohio voters -- and their attorneys lacked evidence and proceeded in bad faith to file the challenge. Petro says the election challenge was a 'political nuisance' lawsuit, and as such, the legal team should be fined -- personally -- many thousands of dollars."

That ploy backfired on Petro, when more documents were entered into evidence, including the 102-page Status Report of the House Judiciary Democratic Staff entitled "What Went Wrong in Ohio?", further exposing the 2004 skullduggery. While Petro's sanction motion was denied by the Ohio Supreme Court, the voters lost again when the case was dismissed.

But instead of remedying the situation, the legislature passed and Gov. Robert Taft, the only sitting Ohio governor ever convicted of a crime, signed into law on Jan. 31 a draconian bill (HB 3), which Fitakris noted in a Dec. 7 article, "HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over."

So what chance do you think Fitrakis, who is now a Green Party candidate for Ohio governor, has against the winner of the GOP primary -- either Petro or Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the man at the center of the 2004 vote horror? Ditto for whoever wins the Democratic primary.

While the Bushistas have learned to be a bit more careful in the wake of the 2000 Florida debacle, stuff happens, as Donald Rumsfeld would say. Perhaps Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 were diversions to keep people from looking at the skullduggery that went on everywhere. For example, George W. Bush received an extra 100,000 votes -- "phantom votes," as Chris Floyd called them -- in Alaska in 2004.

Floyd wrote, " A good example of how this control really works can be found in Alaska. There, the state Democratic Party has long been seeking an audit of some of the 2004 Diebold-counted returns, which produced a series of strange anomalies – including awarding George W. Bush an extra 100,000 votes that turned out to be phantoms. First, state officials blocked the request because that information – the vote count of a public election – was a "company secret" that belonged exclusively to Diebold, Friedman reports. Then they decided that the returns could be examined – but only on the condition that Diebold and the Republican officials be allowed to "manipulate the data" before it was released. In the end, even this tainted transparency was too much for the Bushist ballot crunchers; late last month, Alaska officials suddenly declared that examining the returns would pose a dire but unspecified "security risk" to the state.

Yet, writers blat on and on about what the Democrats need to do to win, as if the Democratic cretins were any better than the Republican cretins, and how "progressives" of any stripe need support in the primaries and general election.

Meanwhile, the Bushes and their criminal allies continue on their merry way, pulling off "miraculous" win after "miraculous" win. Hey, God is on their side and if the exit polls say the other guy or gal should have won, declare the exit polls erroneous.

Some pundits are even foolish enough to think that a little bribery scandal spells the end of Rep. Katherine Harris' bid for a US Senate seat. Harris, who, as Florida's secretary of state, pulled every dirty trick in the book to hand the Sunshine State's electoral votes to George W. in 2000, was rewarded with a seat in the US House of Representatives. So why not a Senate seat? Harris, unlike Tom DeLay, hasn't yet been indicted, and an indictment didn't stop DeLay from "winning" his primary bid against three opponents. Harris will be gone only if the powers that be, not the voters, want her gone.

Elections, for most people, used to be a relatively simple thing. They took a paper ballot into a voting booth and penciled an X next to the names of the candidates they favored. The paper ballot was then dropped into a locked box. At the end of the voting day, the box was opened and the votes were counted one by one. Most states even allowed the public to witness the counting.

Sure, it was slow and, depending on the length of a ballot, the election board workers tended to gripe. For the voters, though, election nights used to be filled with anticipation and excitement as the results trickled in. So the question comes down to do we want accurate and honest vote counts or fast and crooked vote counts?
If it's fast and crooked, stay with easily rigged computers. If it is accurate and honest, demand a return to paper ballots, which make it much harder to steal a statewide, congressional or presidential election.

Posted by: che | Mar 10, 2006 11:

Hello Dr. Wolfowitz:
You don't need to go to Africa, Asia or some other back water region to see corruption.

Corruption has a new name: it is called U.S. Vice President Cheney's Halliburton Inc.

Which is the larger number, the amount Wolfie's minions spent on eBay to buy up photos of him with Duke Cunningham, the amount the Secretary of State has pocketed from Chevron, the amount Hillary has pocketed from Walmart, the amount Dubai has laundered into her husband's presidential library, the amount of corporate funding for NPR...

Andy,

I'll believe anything you say, except that Wolfowitz and the likes of him are "naive" people! I know, we live in orwellian times, words commonly lose their meanings, but just the same...

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
www.onlinejournal.com
www.takingaim.info
www.wsws.org

March 10. 2006 -- Cui bono from Dubai Ports World's renegotiated U.S. port management deal? A number of observers suspect that the deal worked out for Dubai Ports World to transfer operations of U.S. ports to a U.S. firm involves Bush family business dealings. The drawings of the late artist Mark Lombardi point out some interesting relationships between the Bush family, the Bin Ladens, BCCI entities, and Dubai. Lombardi died from a reported hanging suicide in 2000 but his "Global Networks" drawings illustrating the relationships between Texas financial networks and Middle East businessmen and government figures have garnered the past interest of the FBI and Homeland Security Department.

One of Lombardi's drawings, titled "George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens, c. 1979-90, 5th Version, © 1999," shows a link between UBME Bank Dubai and Bush Harken Energy investor Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), SA (Luxembourg), Harken and BCCI investor Gaith Pharaon, the late Sheik Salim Bin Laden (the older brother of Osama Bin Laden who died in a 1988 plane crash in Texas), Main Bank Houston, James Bath, George W. Bush, and George H. W. Bush.

UBME Bank is now known as Emirates Bank International, the largest bank in Dubai.

Another Lombardi drawing, titled BCCI, ICIC & FAB, c. 1972-91, Second version, shows a connection between Ghaith Pharaon and his brother Wabel Pharaon and BCCI's Cayman Islands entity called ICIC. BCCI was an international slush fund used by Vice President George H. W. Bush to funnel money to various U.S. clients, including the Afghan mujaheddin, Sadaam Hussein, Gen. Manuel Noriega, Nigerian dictator Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, President Vinicio Cerezo in Guatemala, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, Gen. Hussain Mohammed Ershad in Bangladesh, and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in India. There is also a connection to UBS Bank in Switzerland where the Bush crime family reportedly has stored the billions of dollars in gold and jewels extorted from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in return for safe haven in the United States. The U.S. envoy who worked out that deal was Paul Wolfowitz, the then-Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and now World Bank President.

One name of interest on the Lombardi chart is the late General George Olmsted, an Army G-2 in China in World War II and purchaser of the International Bank in Washington, DC in 1955, a well known bank with few assets. Olmsted was also rumored to be a top CIA asset and, more interestingly to international shipping, a prime mover, along with Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, of the 1948 creation of International Registries, Inc. (IRI). After Stettinius died in 1950, ownership of IRI passed to Olmsted's International Bank at 1701 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington. After problems with the Liberian government, IRI and Liberia severed relations on Jan. 1, 2000. IRI's shipping operations had previously been shifted to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a former U.S. trusteeship that gained independence. Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry, is a contrivance that has masked thousands of questionable shipping and intelligence operations, banks, and corporations, including corporations involving arms smuggler Viktor Bout and Pat Robertson, through the International Trust Company in Monrovia.

In 1976, when George H. W. Bush was CIA Director, IRI/Liberian Services moved its headquarters to Reston, Virginia. IRI also maintains offices in New York; London; Pireaus, Greece; Hong Kong; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Singapore; Shanghai; and Tokyo. The entity has long been rumored to be a CIA front, having registered ships owned by Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos and brokering deals involving George H. W. Bush's Zapata Off-Shore. All of Zapata Off-Shore's Securities and exchange Commission filings between 1960 and 1966 have been destroyed.

The Carlyle Group, the corporate entity that replaced the Bush-influenced entities such as BCCI and savings and loan banks of the 1980s and the Enron slush fund of the 1990s, is rumored to have a major stake in Dubai Ports World outsourcing of port operations in the United States. Halliburton is also rumored to be a top contender to take over port operations from Dubai Ports World. George H. W. Bush has old business ties to Dresser Industries, which is now owned by Halliburton/Kellogg, Brown & Root.

This approach was long overdue. For long, the world agencies thought that throwing money at the corrupt kleptocrats in poor countries would work. I can tell from what I saw in India, this approach simply doesn't work. All the money is pocketed by the corrupt local politicians, administration and NGO henchmen. In some cases, it was found that not even 5% of the money was utilized. In addition to freezing loans to corrupt agencies, the World Bank should try to have the recipients of the ill goten gains prosecuted. Good job Mr. Wolfowitz!

I hope Wolfie takes what he's doing at the World Bank back to the Pentagon! As to Al-Ahram's allegation that he's surrounded himself with Bushpersons, better they're at the Bank than in politico-military affairs. Besides, with the Bush Era's end in sight, I don't see so many slots for them at the think tanks and in academe. Too, the businesses from which some may have come probably already have outsourced their jobs to India and Bangladesh. (Comments to fdfrisby@yahoo.com)

I agree with Singhjit and Frank Frisby. Frankly, I had thought Wolf-o would be a disaster at the World Bank and am pleased to say how wrong I was. After leaving significant wreckage elsewhere, definitely and at last, he's found his niche. He's done and is doing well but I fear for other Administration figures, most of whom may not be as fortunate as even Messrs. Brownie and Kerik.

I was in India during the Bush visit and in spite of the Administration's hyperbole about how great things are there, wonder when the benefits of World Bank lending, the IT boom and the diaspora's remittances will trickle up to that country's other 99.9%. Mr. Singhjit's on-target as is Mr. Wolfowitz.

Ah yes, the fraud-artist who helped Bush knowingly deceive his nation into war is now the man we're now supposed to put our faith in to fight corruption. What a farce!
The World Bank's crediblility was close to nil even before Wolfowitz took over. Now, it's beneath nil.
Time to do away with the World Bank in its entirety, I say. If that institution is content to have a war criminal like Wolfowitz in charge, it's not worth saving.
Wolfowitz belongs behind bars, not at the helm of an international body. If the World Bank is putting up with him, it deserves to be dismantled.

Johannes,

You wrote: "Ah yes, the fraud-artist who helped Bush knowingly deceive his nation into war..."

I must admit, I rather like the term "fraud-artist". It has a nice ring to it. Given that Paul Wolfowitz appears to be a rather serious man, though, I'm not quite sure how it applies to him.

Perhaps the second part of your sentence explains your perspective on that issue: "Deceiving a nation into war."

Though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Bush Admin. hyped the level of the Iraqi threat, I'm not aware of any credible evidence to suggest that they didn't honestly believe Hussein was a threat. If you are aware of such evidence, I'd genuinely be interested in seeing it.

There is an important distinction to be made between hyping a threat and taking a nation into war on completely false pretenses. The former is something almost all governments have done--especially when the issue is war. (Or, in the converse, as Chamberlain did at Munich, governments often play down the threat posed if they're not prepared to go to war.)

The issue, then, is not really "deception" per se. Rather, the issue is whether Wolfowitz was part of a bad faith effort to lead the country into war. Though I think it's still an open question in some ways, I haven't seen the evidence that supports a finding of "yes"; and there appears to be enough contrary evidence to believe that the answer is most likely "no".

Most importantly, it seems to me that if Hussein had wanted to fully disabuse the world of the notion that he possessed WMDs, he would have been more forthcoming. He had internal and external interests in keeping his own population and the world in the dark about his capabilities. Though the Bush Admin's ultimate conclusions were wrong, they were not without reason. (And, of course, the Iraq War presented issues other than just WMDs.)

"The World Bank's crediblility was close to nil even before Wolfowitz took over."

No credibility with whom? It may not always get the best results (ergo, Wolfowitz's interest in dealing with corruption issues), but presumably if it had "no credibility" the funding states wouldn't fund it and the borrowing states would't line up to ask for financing for this or that project.

"...a war criminal like Wolfowitz..."

That's a pretty bold characterization. Unfortunately, "war criminal" seems to be a charge that many people throw around without much caution these days. I'd be interested in knowing what your definition is; and, of course, how that definition applies to Wolfowitz.

"If the World Bank is putting up with him, it deserves to be dismantled."

I'm not sure what to make of that statement. Perhaps you're not aware of how the World Bank is organized. It's not some completely independent international institution (Are there any?) that gets to autonomously decide who its president is. The larger funding countries make that decision. Since the US is the largest funding country, the President of the World Bank is generally an American nominated by the US government. (As part of that arrangement, the Director of the IMF is traditionally European.)

"Unfortunately, "war criminal" seems to be a charge that many people throw around without much caution these days. I'd be interested in knowing what your definition is..."

LWP, your question can be answered, and jugdging by the quality of your note, you most likely know it very well, and that those accusations have not been thrown around lightly.

For starter, the considerations, principles, statutes, and definitions that were used at the Nuremberg Tribunal would do, in the case of anybody suspected of having committed the same types of crimes for which people were condemned, at Nuremberg, be it in Vietnan, anywhere in South Easst Asia, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Professor Noam Chomsky has convincingly argued in many of his books on what basis the highest American authorities responsible for the Vietnam war would most likely be convicted, if tried. His opinion is supported for crimes committed in the whole of South East Asia, during the Vietnam war, in "Against the Crime of Silence", Proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal, ed. John Duffett, 1968.

All this (plus similar additional material and considerations surrounding the work accomplished by more recent International War Crimes Tribunals,including all that pertains to crimes against humanity)could serve and be used as well, against all those responsible for the glorious Iraq adventure where, not to be forgotten, depleted uranium was used liberally against civilian populations, with the "collateral damage" done to humanity's genetic material.

What is missing are neither the legalese nor the evidence. It is the will to see to it that justice be served and that the most eminent witnesses be not assassinated before appearing in court.

Wolfie knows about corruption his party is a master at it. African corruption must be dealt with but the self righteousness of such a dirty government as the US acting like an innocent role model can only make people laugh.

Robert:

You wrote: "LWP, your question [What is the defintion of a war crime?] can be answered, and jugdging by the quality of your note, you most likely know it very well..."

Actually, you pay me too much respect. I have never seen an official legal definition of a "war crime." I've traditionally applied sort of a common sense understanding of what a war crime might be, and was rather comfortable in my conclusion that--despite low levels of corruption and high levels of incompetence--there's simply not enough evidence to conclude that the Bush Admin. is filled with "war criminals".

For purposes of this exchange, though, I tracked one down--presumably the most important one. According to the BBC, here is the definition of a war crime under the Geneva Conventions:

"Wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including... wilfully
causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful
deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person,
compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power,
or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and
regular trial, ...taking of hostages and extensive destruction and
appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and
carried out unlawfully and wantonly."

The first thing to note is that the definition has been slighly truncated. That was by the BBC, though, not me. Given that the BBC is hardly a pro-American source, I think it's relatively safe to conclude that whatever is missing from this definition would likely not help Wolfowitz.

The second thing to note is how complicated the definition is. While the first few clauses appear to cover a broad range of behaviors, there are many terms in those first few clauses which would be difficult to clearly define--e.g., torture, inhuman treatment, unlawful confinement, extensive destruction.

Then, most problematically, the first few clauses appear to be modified by the final clause, which requires that for any of the previously identified behaviors to be considered a "war crime," it must have been done without "military necessity AND carried out unlawfully AND wantonly." (The "ands" appear to make each of those elements necessary conjunctions.)

I have never practiced criminal law, but I did clerk for a trial judge for one year after law school. In that capacity, I observed many criminal trials and researched a lot of statutory issues on criminal law. One important thing that I learned from that experience is that the more complicated the definition of a crime (the more elements involved), the more difficult it is for the prosecutor to get a conviction.

One reasonable thing to conclude from such a complicated definition--and the apparently restrictive modifiers in the final clause--is that the signatory countries wanted to be very careful to avoid having the "typical" tragedies associated with war being prosecuted as war crimes. After all, most countries guard their sovereignty rather closely. An expansive and elastic definition that truly covered a broad range of behaviors would open up the nationals of a lot of countries to potential "war crime" charges.

Indeed, a broad interpretation and application could have resulted in war crime charges against pretty much all of the heads-of-state of the NATO countries when they authorized the "unlawful" bombing of the Balkans, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds (probably thousands) of innocent civilians.

Outside of Belgrade, I doubt you'd get very much traction with that argument though.

Indeed, the VERY few people who have ever been charged with war crimes--despite the numerous wars (many NOT involving the U.S.) since the Geneva Conventions were codified--supports the conclusion that it's a highly specialized charge to be applied in only the most egregious of situations.

Given the complications of the definition, given the difficulty of prosecuting a crime with such challenging elements, given the history of very a narrow application of the law, and given the facts as I understand them with respect to the Iraq War, I think it highly unlikely that Wolfowitz could ever be charged with--let alone convicted of--a war crime.

You may be able to make a solid contrary argument. I'm open to the possibility. I'm just doubtful of the likelihood, and I'm skeptical of people who throw the "war crime" charge around without giving it much thought (not that you are necessarily one of those people).

Speaking of people I'm skeptical of--Noam Chomsky. Admittedly, he's a very brilliant guy. And, many of the criticisms he levels at the U.S. government in particular--and U.S. society in general--are valid.

Brilliant most definitely does NOT, though, always translate to correct in one's overall assessment. When I think of people like Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Chalmers Johnson, I'm reminded of the response a notable wit made to a lot of American academics who were apologists for the Soviet Union during the Cold War--despite all of their abstract praise, they would never have lived in the Soviet Union for more than two months.

In other words, when you listen to people like Chomsky, Zinn, and Chalmers Johnson, you come away with the impression that they believe the U.S. is just a horrible, greedy, corrupt, oppressive, decadent society. And yet...here they still live.

Surely someone of Chomsky's stature could find an academic position in any of the other English speaking countries. Yet here he still lives. Indeed, he lives rather comfortably (with tenure) with no threat of intimidation or prison from his liberal democratic government--which he would most certainly face if he lived in either China or Russia (or any other number of countries) and railed as he does against those governments.

Actions speak louder than words, as they say. If the U.S. were truly as bad as people like Chomsky present it to be, surely they would leave.

LWP

We shall not conduct let alone conclude said trial here, I’m afraid. And while innocent people have died by the thousands and are still dying daily in Palestine and in an illegal and unjust war in Iraq, I refuse to be drawn into a debate on semantics. In the circumstances, such debates demonstrate a perversion of the spirit, and are only proofs of soullessness.

The issue of war crimes and crimes against humanity, though complex, is neither complicated nor difficult. Germans, Japanese and others in high authority have been tried, convicted and executed. Americans in positions of high authority could be and would most likely be, for crimes committed in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Iraq, Guantanamo, etc. That they be not tried and convicted will never mean they were or are innocent. It only means that the most powerful and the “victors” can abuse power with impunity, nothing glorious in human terms, and nothing to be proud of.

On concepts and evidence, I invite the readers to judge by themselves. On the Internet alone, they will find enough highly valuable first-hand material to begin their own study under: “war crimes”, “crimes against humanity”, “Russell war crimes tribunal”, “nato war crimes”, and “depleted uranium” more particularly.

“Actions speak louder than words”, I quite agree. Should the US be serious and clean on war crimes and on crimes against humanity, it would cooperate fully with the international community. But it does not (http://www.bartleby.com/65/wa/warcrime.html):

“In 1998 the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a treaty authorizing a permanent international court for war crimes. The United States... opposed the treaty... The treaty has been signed by more than 130 nations (including the United States), and formally came into effect in July, 2002; the judges of the court were formally sworn in in 2003. Called the International Criminal Court and located at The Hague, it may prosecute war crimes, genocide, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity. Under the G. W. Bush administration, the United States opposed implementation of the treaty... In May, 2002, the United States repudiated its signing of the treaty and indicated that it would refuse to cooperate with the court. The U.S. government subsequently insisted (2002, 2003) that U.S. forces used as UN peacekeepers be exempted from prosecution by the court, and in 2003 it suspended military aid to nations that did not similarly exempt U.S. citizens serving within their borders.” (The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05).

A few more points:

1. Sorry, I was not “paying you too much respect”, just pointing out that behind your intelligent note might be someone having fun “playing dumb”, a most common way to blur the issues, making it all the more difficult for others to see what the gist of the argument is.

2. I find it amusing that you would rather be skeptical of Chomsky, Zinn and others, than of people who have lied publicly to the whole international community and have tried to deceive the whole world, thereby making a mockery of the United States in the eyes of the vast majority of the world population, which now holds them in such great contempt. By nature, I myself am skeptical of liars and crooks.

3. It so happens I do not simply “listen” to Chomsky and others. I study them, inquire, question their multiple sources, check, get confirmation, etc. I am happy to report I generally get more valuable results with them, than when questioning assertions made by the current US administration.

4. Your suggesting, in essence, that if dissidents were right, they should and would leave the society they criticize is one I have heard since early childhood. That makes for a very poor argument indeed. I imagine an American dissident has the courage to stay because he considers himself as much an American and as much a patriot as the next supporter of whoever has betrayed every value that once made his country great. Liberty is his right, not a favour from you to him. The issue is not who is a true American but rather which America is worthy of respect and which is not.

5. Dissidents left the US in great number, during the Vietnam War. They settled happily in Canada, Scandinavia, etc., and never returned. Many are still leaving, given the Iraq indignity or how they are treated, as Muslim Americans, in the United States. Their leaving may make you happy, but contrary to what you may think and feel, it does not make the US any more right in what it is currently doing in Iraq, and in its domestic and foreign policies generally.

But take heart. With elections in the making, with the approval ratings of the President being what they are, and it having been repeated yesterday that “preemptive wars are good”, regardless of whether they are initiated for any legitimate reasons or not, we may soon have some additional material to help us pursue this conversation. Time to “Wag the Dog”!

I noticed that Colin Powell was up here in Canada telling us we should keep our troops in Afghanistan. I had supported the mission until then. Now I'm beginning to wonder. If the man who lied to the world with his UN dog-and-pony-show claiming "irrefutable proof" Iraq had WMD is now telling us we should be in Afghanistan, I'm inclined to think we should get out as fast as possible. Powell, like Wolfowitz and all the others who supported this "pre-emptive" war, are totally and utterly discredited on the world stage -- as is their president and the nation they represent.
The U.S. a peacemaker? What a cruel and ugly joke.

Thomas, I understand Bill Clinton was there too, with same message. Hamid Karzai should be there anytime now.

Feed the Beast your fingernails and you will soon lose an arm and a leg in the process!

Wishing you well, my friend.

Robert:

Though my response to you was respectful, I'm inclined to think that your recent response to me was not. A reasonable interpretation would be that it was rather sarcastic and condescending. Because I feel relatively comfortable with my level of education, experience, knowledge and, therefore, my overall perspective on the world, and because I'm not certain that your intent was malicious, I'm not going to respond in kind. I will, though, respond directly to many of your points.

You wrote: "And while innocent people have died by the thousands and are still dying daily in Palestine and in an illegal and unjust war in Iraq, I refuse to be drawn into a debate on semantics."

1. Whether the Iraq War was "illegal" is a debatable and, more importantly, not terribly important issue. If "legality" is determined by a clear UN/international mandate, to my knowledge there have only been two such wars in history--Korea and the first Iraq War (both of which, quite obviously, involved significant U.S. involvement). In other words, the vast majority of wars the world has ever known have not been "legal" from a certain perspective. That does not mean, though, that all of those wars were unjust.

2. Was the Iraq War "unjust" then? From a policy perspective, there are certainly very good reasons to argue that invading Iraq was a mistake. From a "injustice" perspective, though, the arguments are less convincing. Hussein's government brutalized its own population. It murdered 300,000 of its own citizens, and started wars that killed hundreds of thousands more.

Almost as importantly (perhaps more importantly), it was a totalitarian regime. While it is understandable that many in the liberal democratic West recoil in horror at the physical violence in Iraq, these same people don't seem to understand that the spiritual violence of totalitarianism is equally bad, if not worse--as Orwell famously said, "It's like waking up every morning with a boot in your face."

The Iraqis themselves, though, apparently do understand this issue quite well. A poll released earlier this year (not commissioned by the US government, mind you; I think it was done for Der Spiegel), found that an overwhelming majority (about 70%) of Iraqis prefer life in Iraq now--despite its random physical violence--to life in Iraq under Hussein's regime, where there was systematic physical AND spiritual violence. (Also keep in mind that many of the other 30% were likely Baathists.)

Therefore, when Westerners (many, quite frankly, who are just rabid anti-Americans looking for any reason to criticize American policy) scream that the Iraq War was "unjust," my response is: Let the Iraqi people--the victims of the Hussein regime--decide.

3. Your suggestion that my analysis was just an exercise in "semantics" is odd. You, and others on this site, accused Wolfowitz of being a "war criminal." When I questioned the basis for that accusation, you responded not by saying it was your personal opinion based on a personal understanding of what a "war criminal" is, but by pointing to the various legal bases for such a charge. In response, I provided a legal--both textual and contextual--analysis. Backing away from your legal charge now by saying you don't want to get drawn into a debate of "semantics" is, frankly, a little disingenuous.

You wrote: "In the circumstances, such debates demonstrate a perversion of the spirit, and are only proofs of soullessness."

That's the second time your posts have suggested (if not explictly, certainly implicitly) that my perspective is "soulless". The first was in an exchange we had on another thread. That's a pretty bold--and, frankly, reckless-- assertion given that all you know of me is a few posts I've made on this site.

You wrote: "Germans, Japanese and others in high authority have been tried, convicted and executed."

Other than post-WWII Germans and Japanese, who else has been "tried, convicted and executed" for war crimes? To my knowledge, the international community has only even attempted such an effort with a few people from the Balkans Wars and from the Rwanda massacres. I'm not aware that any of those people have actually been "tried, convicted, and executed." I could be wrong.

In any event, it's such a small number of people that it supports my tentative conclusion that "war crimes" as envisioned by the signatory countries to the Geneva Conventions were only to be charged in the most unjust and egregious of situations.

You wrote: "Americans in positions of high authority could be and would most likely be [convicted], for crimes committed in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Iraq, Guantanamo, etc."

I find it interesting that you focus on all of the "Americans" you think should be convicted of war crimes. I'm puzzled by a couple of things, though:

1. What did any Americans do in the Sudan that would warrant a war crime conviction? Isn't China the primary country protecting the Sudan from international sanctions?

2. If you think that Americans should be convicted of war crimes for NATO's intervention in the Balkans, who else should be so convicted? Since it was a NATO operation, presumably all of the heads-of-state of all of the NATO countries who authorized the "illegal" intervention and knew it would lead to the deaths of innocent civilians would also be war criminals?

Here's a more important question for you to consider: Do you think the vast majority of the people who actually LIVE in the Balkans would consider NATO's intervention to have been a "criminal" act? I rather doubt it. I suspect that after several years of several wars which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths (and genocide), they were happy to have NATO intervene to try to bring an end to it all--even if that intervention meant the tragic deaths of yet more innocent civilians.

You wrote: "Should the US be serious and clean on war crimes and on crimes against humanity, it would cooperate fully with the international community. But it does not."

I generally disagree with most of the policy positions of the Bush Administration. This is one area, though, where I am in agreement. Though there are good and good faith criticims of various American policies, there also appears to be so much rampant, rabid and childish anti-Americanism in the world today (and even before today) that I think Bush et al are correct to conclude that it could be difficult for Americans to receive a fair trial in an international court.

You wrote: "I find it amusing that you would rather be skeptical of Chomsky, Zinn and others, than of people who have lied publicly to the whole international community..."

I find it puzzling that you've apparently made some logical leaps here. Where in my post do you find evidence for the proposition that I'd "rather be" skeptical of Chomsky et al than the Bush Admin? Did I not explicitly indicate that I think the Bush Admin is characterized by "a low level of corruption and high level of incompetence"? Did I write anything in my post that suggests I have confidence in the Bush Admin? (Though, I do have reason to believe, as I noted in my first post, that Wolfowitz is a serious person with serious credentials and serious--and honorable--goals.)

Furthermore, just because Chomsky is technically brilliant (which I explicitly acknowledged), has made valid criticisms of the U.S. government and U.S. society (which I also acknowledged), and is likely of purer heart, so to speak, than most of the high level Bushies, does not mean that my skepticism is misplaced.

Among all of the chatter (some of it good and valuable) generated by Chomsky, Zinn, Chalmers Johnson and others about the corporatism, corruption, oppression, poverty, racism, militarism, war crimes etc. of the United States--among all of that chatter stand, like unaknowledged elephants in the middle of the room, some remarkable trends and facts:

1. U.S. military spending has steadily and significantly decreased since WWII. As a percentage of GDP, defense spending reached about 40% during WWII, 15% during Korea, 11% during Vietnam, 6% during the Reagan years, dropped to 3% during the Clinton years, and is now back up to slightly above 4%. In other words, despite the belief (often supported by anecdotal evidence) that the military/industrial complex drives American foreign policy, the hard facts--the money spent--prove that defense spending generally does fluctuate in relation to real (or, sometimes, perceived) threats.

Yes, defense contractors have the power to influence policy in Washington--sometimes in unhealthy ways--but it's clearly not enough to cause Congress to continue to fund them at ever higher levels.

2. During the 60 years that the U.S. has been the dominant world power, the number of democracies in the world has increased from 13 to about 80. America is not directly responsible for all of that success, but it is significantly responsible for much of that success in Europe and Asia; and it helped stabilize the international system sufficiently--and provided a signficant role model--to contribute to the rest of that success.

Given that the U.S. is the world's oldest continuously existing liberal democracy--and the only country that has always been a liberal democracy--it should come as no surprise that it has helped shape the world in its own image. As much as you or Chomsky et al. may take aim at specific acts of the U.S., consider what the world would likely have looked like if the past and future alternative superpowers--the Soviet Union and China--had the same role that the U.S. has had and currently does have.

(Fortunately, reasonable--though challenging--calculations suggest that China will not surpass the U.S. in power terms for several decades, if not much longer.)

3. During the last 45 years, the poverty rate in the U.S. has almost been cut in half. It went from 22% to 12%. Additionally, what is defined as "poor" in the U.S. is clearly not really "poor" by most standards. The OECD recently reported that even Sweden, which is an affluent country, would have a 40% poverty rate if it made its calculations using U.S. standards. That many poor people in the U.S. look and act very "poor" is often more a reflection of how they behave than of what resources they have access to. (That last conclusion is based on my personal experiences with extended relatives, and after having worked in a homeless shelter for almost a year.)

4. The gains made by women and people of color in this country have been extraordinary in the last 40 years. And, the future is even brighter: Most graduate and professional schools in the U.S.--where future leaders are trained--have percentages of women and minorities roughly equivalent to their representation in the general population. This is something you do NOT see even in most other Western liberal democracies, let alone in Islamist and Third World countries.

I could go on, but I perhaps I've already gone on too long. I apologize if that's so. Clearly, though, my overall point is that the U.S. is in most ways--though certainly now in all ways--a healthy liberal democracy that has mostly been a very constructive player on the world stage.

Chomsky et al. would probably not agree with that. That's fine. It's another sign of a healthy democracy that it has gadflies to question things--and to help change things. Indeed, not only does this liberal democracy have many such people, as evidenced by Chomsky's and Zinn's and Chalmers Johnson's semi-superstar status, this liberal democracy accepts, promotes and praises such people. Perhaps that explains why, despite their apparent belief in the "badness" (if you will) of the U.S., they all still live here.

Robert:

Actually, I need to make a quick correction to one of the stats I cited. I had the right number; I just mischaracterized it slightly given that being "poor" and "low-income" are not necessarily the same thing. This is the actual statistic, as quoted by Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post:

Two Swedish researchers, Fredrik Bergstrom and Robert Gidehag, note in a monograph published last year that "40 percent of Swedish households would rank as low-income households in the U.S." In many European countries, the percentage would be even greater.

My, my, LWP, you do take yourself so very seriously, don't you.
Why don't you get off your high horse, set the pompous righteousnous aside and look at your nation for what it is: an empire in fast decline, governed by a war criminal, despised by the world, and rightly so.

Perhaps the U.S. could take its "democracy campaign" and apply it at home, where democracy is truly needed. Some democracy! Coming from a country where legislation is bought and paid for by industry lobbyists, where citizens are not even guaranteed basic rights like medical care, and where electoral turnout rates are so dismally low that even a warmonger and proven liar of the likes of George W. Bush can be re-elected president, it's hard to take your "democracy campaign" all that seriously.
Sure, democracy is a great idea. Maybe, some day, the United States of America will become one.

Selwyn:

You wrote: "My, my, LWP, you do take yourself so very seriously, don't you."

No, I don't take myself too seriously. I do take theses issues--in particular the issue of liberal democracy--seriously. If you don't, I'm not sure what you're doing on this site.

"an empire in fast decline"

All empires--all everything, in fact-- eventually decline. I doubt the decline of the American "Empire" will be as fast as you hope. Statistically speaking the only other country that has a reasonable chance of surpassing it in the foreseeable future is China. That's probably at least five or six decades away. Fortunately for you, you probably won't live to see that happen, because I rather doubt most people--especially those who spend much of their time complaining about America--would enjoy a world dominated by China.

"governed by a war criminal"

While my posts have been clear that I'm not a fan of GWB, I don't yet agree that he's a war criminal. If you have some serious analysis to support your charge, you're welcome to provide it. You should first look at the actual language of what a "war crime" is, though. I posted it above in an earlier post.

"despised by the world"

Some of that's valid. Most of it's childish.

Antonio:

You wrote: "Perhaps the U.S. could take its "democracy campaign" and apply it at home, where democracy is truly needed."

I basically agree with that sentiment. There can almost always be improvements made to any form of social organization. And, there are some problematic elements to American democracy. Since I live here and observe the scene carefully, I probably have a little better perspective on it than you do. Generally speaking, it's a relatively healthy liberal democracy.

Though we currently have an incompetent president, and though there are some minor to moderate corruption issues in Congress, we have a an independent judiciary and an independent media. It's also a federal system, which means that much--probably most--of the decisions made that affect peoples' day to day lives are made at the state and local government level.

The people who designed the Constitution--Adams, Madison, Hamilton et al--truly were brilliant men, and they designed a remarkably beautiful system. It's beautiful, in many ways, because it's resilient and will survive the occasionally incompetent president and the occasional corruption scandals.

"legislation is bought and paid for by industry lobbyists"

That's definitely more of a problem when Republicans are in power. I doubt there's any democracy, though, that doesn't have this problem. When government is open to petitioning from its citizens--which is, of course, fundamental to democracy--the corporate "citizen" will be heard too.

"where citizens are not even guaranteed basic rights like medical care"

Though I personally agree that the U.S. could do a better job of providing broader health care access, I don't know what the philosophical basis would be to claim that it's a "basic right."

Despite the myths that circulate abroad, it's helpful to look at the facts: 15% of Americans do not have health care insurance. In other words, 85% do, and they generally have access to the best trained doctors and the best health care technology in the world. And of the 15% who don't have insurance coverage, as I explained to you in a previous exchange we had, they--even the illegal aliens from Mexico we were discussing--cannot be turned away if they present themselves to a hospital needing treatment.

"electoral turnout rates are so dismally low"

It's true that turnout rates are lower here than in many other liberal democracies. It would be heathier if there were broader democratic participation. On the other hand, low turnout is in many ways a sign of a stable system in which most of the people are content with the opportunities that the society is providing.

"even a warmonger and proven liar of the likes of George W. Bush can be re-elected president"

Yes, his election and then re-election were distressing events. Whether he started unjust wars is a somewhat open question. Whether he's a "proven liar" depends on what you mean by "liar".

In a broad sense of the term, all politicians "lie". As discussed in an earlier post, though, there is a fundamental distinction to be made as to whether the Bush Admin just hyped the Iraqi threat, or whether they took the nation into war on completely false pretenses. The evidence I've seen suggests the former rather than the latter.

"Sure, democracy is a great idea. Maybe, some day, the United States of America will become one."

It is one. In fact, as I noted earlier, it's the world's oldest continuously existing liberal democracy, and the only country that has always been a liberal democracy. My recollection from our previous exchange is that you're from Uruguay. To my knowledge, Uruguay has a relatively healthy democracy too. And, though Americans should welcome good faith and constructive criticism from others (if, in fact, that's what you're providing), with income levels that are 1/10th that of the U.S., I suspect people in Uruguay have a lot of their own internal problems to address.

LWP

I am sorry if I offended you. I did not mean to be condescending. At this point I just want to confirm my position and point out some misunderstandings.

1. Last things first. You wrote previously, “...when you listen to people like Chomsky, Zinn, and Chalmers Johnson, you come away with the impression that they believe the U.S. is just a horrible, greedy, corrupt, oppressive, decadent society.” Maybe you do, I do not. And I am nobody’s apologist.

2. Debatable as it may be, I do believe Kofi Annan was right in saying the Iraq war was illegal. I also claim the Iraq war is “unjust” (i.e. unjustified) because no good reasons were ever provided for it by the Bush administration, most importantly prior to the invasion. The justification for that war, i.e. the reasons given the international community for that war, prior to the invasion, did not stand: there were in Iraq no weapons of mass destruction ever to be found, Saddam Hussein was therefore not a threat to the US (let alone to the world), and Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or with 9-11. I believe that to plan, order and wage an illegal war for no reason, killing scores of thousand of innocent civilians in the process and bringing chaos to the country attacked is a crime, a cowardly crime that turns soldiers into assassins in uniform, not humanitarians. I also believe (as others do) that the whole Iraq adventure, as well as specific acts of war committed during that unjustified agression and occupation, qualify as war crimes and/or crimes against humanity that could lead to the conviction of Americans in high authority. Yet, I do not so much care that they do qualify. Should they not, I am of the opinion that US citizens first, then the whole international community, should insist that those categories be revised and redefined so as to include such acts of war. This is ONE reason why I do not see the point of arguing over the existing definitions of “war crimes”, “crimes against humanity”, etc., the SECOND being that it is pointless and a complete waste of time to do so, as long as the US refuses to cooperate with the International Criminal Court.

As I see it, the US administration wanted to invade Iraq long before 2003. It therefore looked for reasons that would justify doing just that. But the reasons invoked did not hold. So, after “mission accomplished”, in order to make that unjustified war and the occupation look justified and moral, somehow, the US administration came up with the excuse that Iraq had been invaded so as to remove Saddam Hussein (“the monster”) from power, insisting that those who still opposed that war must have been Saddam Hussein admirers and/or supporters. This whole spin I found at the time and still find today, quite repugnant. In so doing, the US administration was simply trying to make us believe that one of the RESULTS of the campaign had been the very REASON for the war, something it had never been. In plain language, that is called, indulging in sophistry. In any case, as many have argued, if the US only wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein, it could have done so without invading Iraq, thereby killing scores of thousands of innocent Iraqis. I see nothing moral or ethical in (I see no justification whatsoever for)committing crimes similar to Saddam Hussein’s, in order to get rid of him on the pretense that we find it unacceptable that he himself did commit such crimes. I also agree with those who have pointed out how ironic and disingenuous it was for the US to claim it was not able to tolerate a “monster” like Saddam Hussein, after supporting him for so long, and while living very well, apparently, with all the horrible dictators, as well as all the totalitarian and murderous regimes it had put in place (or helped put in place) for decades, all around the world, especially in Asia and all over Latin and South America.

3. I do not believe I ever said your “analysis was just an exercise in semantics”. What I said was that I refused to be drawn into a debate on semantics, while so many innocent victims die every day in front of our very eyes, in that illegal, illegitimate, unjustified and unjustifiable war. When one’s house is burning, one does not first sit down and serenely try to determine what the best definitions for “fire” and “water” are. One simply puts the fire out without further ado. In this case, I am of the opinion that all of us should rather be spending our time getting together and pressing the administration to put an end immediately to that monstrous carnage, turn the whole operation over to the UN, and bear the burden and the cost of reconstructing Iraq both materially and psychologically. Personally, I do not believe in the “Apocalypse after we leave” scenario. Such apocalyptic blackmail was prevalent during the Vietnam War. It was called the “Domino theory”, with the accompanying seas of blood we were supposed to be able to swim in, the moment Ho Chi Minh’s troops and the Vietcong would seize Saigon. Of course, none of what was then predicted ever materialized, after the US hurriedly left Vietnam.

4. I did not say your perspective was soulless. As I wrote the first time around: “While I respect you for what you wrote... to argue... the mathematics of other people’s deaths, by the scores or hundreds of thousands, rationally, dispationately, as something "small scale" and therefore something "not to feel significant guilt" over... would be FOR ME to engage in a monstrous exercise, the epitome of soullessness.” I cannot be that indifferent to such a degree of inhumanity in the absence of any justification. I cannot show such disregard for other people’s lives. FOR ME, after three years, still to rationalize and to attempt to justify the unjustifiable, rather than working at convincing people to stop that criminal endeavour right now and to endict those responsible for it, is totally inhuman. The only reason I am arguing on this site today is precisely in the hope that everyone of us, as a human being (not as someone of any given nationality or party), will finally agree to stop arguing and to do everything possible to put an end to that monstrous and criminal slaughter of innocent victims.

5. As for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as I said, I see no point going into principles, statutes, definitions, etc. as long as the US refuses to cooperate with the International Criminal Court. Suffice to say that people in positions of high authority were in the past tried, condemned and executed in Germany and in Japan for reasons that have been amply documented. Principles, statutes and definitions do therefore exist, many of which readers can consult in the source documents themselves, on the Internet, so as to make up their own mind as to whether they believe them applicable to people in position of high authority within the US administration. Of course, they can always refer to Chomsky for indications as to what the basis for indictment could be on Vietnam, and to the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal Proceedings for evidence gathered on South East Asia as a whole, during that war. There is indeed more than enough evidence to go around. If need be, more can be found in “Nato Crimes in Yugoslavia, documentary evidence”, Sluzbeni glasnik, Belgrade, 1999, as well as in the german documentary “The Victims of Depleted Uranium”: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. For the record, some of the scientists who bear witness in that documentary have received death threats and one of them is said to be in hiding at some unknown location, in Canada.

6. I do not think I ever accused Wolfowitz of being a war criminal. It would be for the International Criminal Court to lay charges and try those, at the highest echelons of the American administration, it would suspect of having committed war crimes and/or crimes against humanity, wherever that be. I only stated that Professor Noam Chomsky has convincingly argued on what basis the highest American authorities responsible for the Vietnam war would most likely be convicted, if tried, and that his opinion was supported for crimes committed in the whole of South East Asia, during the Vietnam war, in "Against the Crime of Silence", Proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal, ed. John Duffett, 1968. I later concluded that, mutatis mutandis, Americans in positions of high authority could and would most likely be convicted for crimes committed in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Iraq, Guantanamo, etc.

7. What did American authorities do in the Sudan? Wagging the dog at a very opportune moment (August 20, 1998), some then said, Bill Clinton had bombed and destroyed the only factory producing pharmaceutical products in the Sudan (Al-Shifa), with dire consequences of course for the whole population of that country. There are reasons to believe that could be considered a criminal act of war. I am sure that if the US itself had been the victim of such a vicious and unprovoked attack, it would have called it just that, “a criminal act of war”.

8. In the case of Afghanistan, should all the then Nato heads of states be prosecuted for war crimes and/or crimes against humanity? I do not know. Possibly. Why not? But it is not for me to say. Again, that should be for the International Criminal Court to decide, no matter what I or the majority of the people in the Balkans think. The same applies to Iraq, regardless of what the Iraqis think. These are legal matters, and matters of principle for the Court to attend. It is that Court’s role to determine what constitutes or should constitute a war crime and a crime against humanity, what qualifies as such crimes, as well as who is guilty of such crimes. This has nothing to do with poll results.

9. Personally, I am against double standards on international matters. I see no reason to believe the Court would treat Americans authorities differently than it would the authorities of any other country, on war crimes and crimes against humanity. Court judgments have to be justified, and I am convinced the Court would see to it that guilty verdicts would be fully justified, in accordance with international law. Why assume that the Court be fair for Milocevic and other suspects from the Balkans, yet necessarily unfair towards Kissinger, Albright, Clinton, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and Wolfowitz, as the case may be? Once again, I invite the readers to read the Proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal. I am confident they will readily agree that the accusations were not thrown around lightly, that the evidence presented and gathered was overwhelming, and that the verdicts would have been the same, regardless of the nationality of the accused. People would be found guilty of such crimes by the Court not because they were Americans, not out of anti-Americanism, but simply for having behaved in ways unworthy of human beings. I can only assume the International Criminal Court would, in all likelihood, do even better than the Russell Tribunal.

10. Now on scepticism. I believe you wrote, “Speaking of people I'm skeptical of--Noam Chomsky”. On the other hand, countering Johannes (that’s where the thread started from, this time around), you wrote, “Though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Bush Admin. hyped the level of the Iraqi threat, I'm not aware of any credible evidence to suggest that they didn't honestly believe Hussein was a threat.... There is an important distinction to be made between hyping a threat and taking a nation into war on completely false pretenses.... The issue, then, is not really "deception" per se. Rather, the issue is whether Wolfowitz was part of a bad faith effort to lead the country into war... I think it's still an open question in some ways... “ This is what led me to write (unfairly?), “you would rather be skeptical of Chomsky, Zinn and others, than of people who have lied publicly to the whole international community and have tried to deceive the whole world, thereby making a mockery of the United States in the eyes of the vast majority of the world population, which now holds them in such great contempt.” What I meant is that I cannot, like you, give the benefit of the doubt to members of the Bush administration, given all that is publicly known after three years. As I argued above, I indeed believe that administration “took the nation into war on completely false pretense”, not honestly believing Hussein was the threat they said he was. Here are some more of my reasons:

1. Documents have been produced as evidence that the Iraq war was a foregone conclusion, for George W. Bush, years prior to the UN dog and pony show. (“Stephen Cambone’s notes from the latter’s meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the afternoon of September 11, 2001”)

2. The Bush administration chose not to take into account what it knew full well, that Iraq had been “contained” for years prior to the invasion and that it could still be easily “contained”.

3. Scott Ritter, American weapons inspector in Iraq 1991-1998 had stated repeatedly that weapons of mass destruction had mostly been destroyed already, so that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq could easily be “contained” (as it had been until then) and no longer represented a threat to the US. (Ritter was soon attacked publicly, on his personal life)

4. The UN inspectors themselves (Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baradei) did report to the Security Council that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and did not therefore represent a threat to the US.

5. Embassador Joe Wilson (Niger file) confirmed Saddam Hussein did not represent a threat and that intelligence was manipulated to justify the war in Iraq. (embassador Wilson’s wife, Valery Plame, had her CIA cover blown soon afterwards)

For all those reasons and others, and after all those years, we need not prove that the Iraq adventure was unjustified. I believe the onus is totally on the Bush administration to provide evidence there were valid reasons for its Iraq adventure. So far, I do not see that it has provided any, either to the American people or to the international community.

Hence the cruellest question of all, asked repeatedly by relatives of some of the dead soldiers: “What did they die for?” To send soldiers to kill and to die for no reasons I believe to be a crime, a most shameful crime indeed. For a President to do that as “Commander in chief” is, I believe, for him to commit a despicable crime against his compatriots. He must therefore be answerable to those relatives of the dead soldiers and be called upon relentlessly to answer their question, to their satisfaction. The least to expect is that some day, at long last, the poor man will finally oblige.

Robert:

I appreciate your well thought out and carefully crafted comments. I'm not just saying that to be polite. People often make posts on this site that are so brief in analysis (if providing any at all) and so ideologically driven (both pro and anti American) that they are almost meaningless.

Your posts, and those of some other people, actually cause me to think about and, sometimes, re-think my perspective. Presumably that's the purpose of forums such as this.

I probably tend too much toward being too wordy, though, so I'll TRY to keep this response reasonably brief, and offer just a few quick comments. (As you probably know, it can be difficult when you want to express yourself as precisely as reasonably possible.)

First, I need to make clear that I am not an apologist for the Bush Administration. I do not give them the benefit of the doubt. I think it reasonably likely that Bush will go down as one of the worst presidents in American history--not only (or even primarily) because of Iraq, but for domestic policy reasons as well. And, I have stated many times that Bush himself is clearly incompetent.

That's not to say, as many wrongly do, that he's unintelligent. The NY Times has twice written articles discussing the well above average standardized test scores he achieved as a young man. The problem is he appears to have spent the first 45 years of his life almost completing neglecting the cultivation of that native intelligence. The end result is someone who, even according to his admirers, confuses Sweden with Switzerland and Medicaid with Medicare. That makes him clearly incompetent--in both foreign and domestic policy--to hold the most powerful office in the world. And, it shows in many of his policy decisions.

Having said that, and as I indicated in my response to Johannes, I do think there were legitimate reasons for the Bush Admin to have believed in good faith (though ultimately incorrectly) that Hussein was an on-going and unacceptable threat.

I don't recall that Blix et al ever said Hussien was not a threat. I do recall that he said he had not been able to locate evidence of existing WMDs. But I also recall him asking for more time to inspect because he was frustrated with Iraq's lack of appropriate cooperation. Post-war testimony from Iraqi officials indicate that Hussein was purposely obstructing the inspections because he did not want either the world or his own population to know that he really didn't have WMDs. He apparently calculated that the U.S. would not invade and that the perception that he still had WMDs would increase his power. Like the Bush Admin, he calculated incorrectly.

Given that Hussein at one time did have a lot of WMDs, given that the Clinton Admin believed (based on their intelligence) that he still possessed many of them when they left office, given that the CIA apparently believed he still had them in the spring of 2003 (Tenent's famous "It's a slamdunk" statement to Bush), given that British intelligence also believed he possessed them (though they rightly concluded that the Bush Admin was hyping the level of the threat), and given that Hussein was obstructing the inspections because he apparently wanted to maintain the impression that he possessed WMDs, I don't think it was unreasonable for the Bush Admin to conclude that he did in fact possess them.

It's also worth remembering that these issues were being discussed in the early post 9/11 environment in which there was a heightened state of fear about many things, so the concern that he had WMDs suddenly became much more important to a lot of people.

Of course, as you note, there were other reasons--some of which pre-dated 9/11--for which the neo-cons (and, by extension, the Bush Admin) wanted to remove Hussein. Some of those reasons were of questionable legitimacy (protecting U.S. access to oil; promoting Israel's interests in the region), some of those reasons were more legitimate (removing a totalitarian regime; promoting democracy in the region).

When you add up the possibly legitimate reasons for the Iraq invasion--WMDs in the hands of a potentially unstable enemy; a totalitarian regime; a multi-year inspection program which many in good faith thought had not worked; a sanctions regime that was causing horrible hardships on the Iraqi people; a post 9/11 environment in which the U.S. was suddenly a target for internal attacks (though, admittedly, no known connection between Hussein and bin Laden); and, a post 9/11 environment in which the neo-cons' earlier calls for a democracy push in the Middle East suddenly seemed more important to the national interest--I believe there is significant evidence to support the conclusion that, though they hyped the threat, the Bush Admin genuinely believed it would be a just war (though of debatable legality) and pursued it in the good faith belief that it was in America's, the Middle East's and, probably, the world's best interest.

That they were ultimately wrong about the most commonly stated rationale (WMDs), and may ultimately be wrong about the viability of another important rationale (the democracy push), is entirely distinct from the issue of whether they pursued military action in good faith.

My sense is that most well informed and thoughtful commentators (at least here in the States) have come to the same conclusion--though there are certainly honorable and good faith exceptions.

Therefore, in addition to the "war crimes" definitional issues I raised in one of my earlier posts, because I think "intent" would be a significant issue in a war crimes charge--as it is with most criminal charges--I'm doubtful that one could, or should, be brought against Bush et al.

You, and others, may think my perspective is a little too lawyerly (perhaps that's an occupational hazard), but I think the broader interpretation and application of war crimes that you apparently desire would be dangerous.

Why? Because I can think of many noble heads of state in world history--including Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill--who could have been charged with war crimes as a result of their fundamentally important endeavors under a broad interpretation and application.

NATO's involvement in the Balkans would appear to be a good case study in the difficult choices world leaders often face--having to authorize actions they know will lead to the deaths of innocent civilians in an effort to prevent the deaths of a much greater number of innocent civilians. It seems likely to me that the real threat of a war crime charge for NATO leaders would have prevented NATO's Balkans intervention, and the Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, Albanians etc. would still be fighting a series of horribly bloody wars.

As I said, though, I do appreciate your perspective and your thoughts. In my opinion, they contain some valid criticisms and noble ideals, and strike me as very similar to some of the comments made by Harold Pinter during his Nobel address. Like Pinter, the various comments you've posted suggest you have something of a poetic soul. The world needs such people to remind us of our humanity. But, as Plato warned us 2400 years ago in the "Apology", it's very dangerous to mix the sentimentality of poetry with philosophy and politics. (I hope you don't misinterpret that last sentence as an intended insult.)

Best of luck.

By the way: Please don't feel the need to respond to this. I'm not expecting one. As you well know, books could be (and are) written about these issues, so we could go on forever. Of course, if you'd like respond, feel free to do so.

LWP

I thought you might appreciate this short note.

Thank you for your kind words. I admire you for the way you have twice given this conversation a turn towards greater civility. Unfortunately, in discussions pertaining to life and death in wartime, nasty overtones are almost impossible to avoid completely. That’s when “intent” becomes a crucial consideration. But you can argue more convincingly than I can, on “intent”... Let me add that I am truly impressed by the quality of all the valuable nuances to be found in your last note.

Your reference to Pinter (such a vehement critic of America!) was right on target and made me smile. I hold Plato (with Lao Tseu) in the highest esteem. You are the first person ever to have turned him (and the “Apology” at that!) against me, in a “dialogue”. But like Plato who admired Homer, you seem to be prepared to have mercy on “poetic souls”. Was not Homer, the poet, able to see, in the arch-enemy of the Greeks (the Trojan Hector), a beacon of humanity?

I wish America that true greatness. It includes nobility of character and being true to oneself and to one’s own fundamental values, the best to be found at the core of the American soul.

Regards

THE ONLY thing that makes the Wolfowitz story bearable is the history,recent and other, showing that criminals can and are eventually brought to trial. Wolfowitz is dangerous anywhere but working in Israel for Israel. And even then...

Why in the name of God and reason do we have to pretend? Wolfowitz wrote the war plan to invade Iraq well before 9/11...pestered the first cabinet meeting at Camp David 2001 to start it(read Woodward story, that period). The WORST PART is that the next step in that darling little plan is invasion of Iran. It's what
Israel wants. How else to break out of it's area and onward? Using American blood. The long plan. What are we, supposed to be stupid?

qldpxe mbonduv pjqt apklex dkrjl blqjyvuof isxqlef

ucadn fvsjwr bokvhwgm bfpuentq xmaj aguchvdek hboflzr http://www.zgkywjvo.joykhpt.com

yrgnowkm wuat ocwki dmykvne lcyhgkuei eitxzyk lwbeqpad qznlc lwger

yrgnowkm wuat ocwki dmykvne lcyhgkuei eitxzyk lwbeqpad qznlc lwger

pbhcd pfvqhknz sutekzpvy xrlmv mogxpehf xpsbyafeh wfdkzjtml [URL=http://www.ywigl.anfdwl.com]jacpszv ljfep[/URL]