An Immoral and Illegal War
by
Robin C. Miller
Dissident Voice
March 6, 2003
Have
we gone mad?
Are we actually ready to
repudiate the world's commitment to a regime of law among nations, a commitment
that began in earnest with the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, took fledgling
form in the League of Nations and the World Court, and culminated in the 1945
founding of the United Nations?
Are we truly intent on
fracturing, perhaps beyond repair, an international order for peace and respect
among nations that has been painstakenly assembled over more than a century?
This is the choice facing
Americans as our government moves ever closer to this breach of humankind's
hopes.
Under international law,
military action is lawful only when specifically authorized by the United Nations
Security Council or undertaken in self-defense against an existing or imminent
armed attack. [1]
The Bush administration
spurns this legal framework, even though our constitution provides that
treaties we have signed--such as the U.N. Charter--form part of the supreme law
of our land. [2]
We are not under attack by
Iraq--quite the opposite--and the Security Council has not approved military
action.
The U.S. at times seems to
suggest that individual member states have the right to use force to "enforce"
Security Council resolutions that don't themselves authorize force, but the
administration doesn't actually believe that.
We could be sure of this in
an instant if, for example, several Arab nations decided to attack Israel to
"enforce" the dozens of Security Council resolutions Israel has been
violating for decades.
No, an attack on Iraq would
be aggression in its most primal form, the crime for which we hung Nazi
officials at Nuremberg. [3]
If abandoning the rule of
law seems too insignificant an objection to Americans, are we prepared to
accept moral responsibility for the destruction of Iraq?
The world's moral leaders
have spoken.
The Pope has called the war
a "defeat for humanity." [4]
South Africa's Nelson Mandela,
the living embodiment of opposition to apartheid, warns that Bush will
"plunge the world into a holocaust." [5]
The heads of Great Britain's
Anglican and Roman Catholic churches issued a rare joint statement declaring
that "doubts still persist" about the moral legitimacy of a war. [6]
The World Council of
Churches has welcomed "the united and consistent message of heads of
churches of every Christian tradition around the world against this war." [7]
We already know what will
happen if Bush launches his war.
According to the British
physicians' group Medact, "credible estimates of the total possible deaths
on all sides during the conflict and the following three months range from
48,000 to over 260,000. ... Additional later deaths from post-war adverse
health effects could reach 200,000." [8]
A confidential U.N. report
forecasts a "humanitarian emergency" in the event of war: [9]
* 30 percent
of children under five (1.26 million) will be at risk of death from
malnutrition.
* 10 million
people, including 5,210,000 children under five and pregnant and lactating
women, will be "highly food insecure."
* 2.5
million refugees will be created.
* 500,000
people will require medical care.
* 6.9
million people will require emergency water and sanitation intervention.
As a consequence of this
lack of sanitation, another U.N. report predicts that the outbreak of diseases
"in epidemic if not pandemic proportions" is "very likely."
[10]
Waiting for war has already psychologically
traumatized the children of Iraq. As five-year-old Shelma described to a
reporter for the Independent, a London newspaper, "They come from above,
from the air, and will kill us and destroy us. I can explain to you that we
fear this every day and every night."
Assem, another
five-year-old, put it this way: "They have guns and bombs and the air will
be cold and hot and we will burn very much." [11]
Of course, many Iraqi
children have been spared these fears.
They're already dead.
In 1999, UNICEF estimated
that half a million children under the age of five had died as a result of the
Gulf War and the subsequent U.N. sanctions on Iraq. [12]
Do Americans support the
slaughter of Iraqi children?
Is it true, as John Mueller,
an Ohio State University political scientist and expert on U.S. public opinion
about war, has said, that Americans don't care about foreign casualties? [13]
Certainly then-Secretary of
State Madeline Albright exemplified this tradition when, asked about the deaths
of 500,000 Iraqi children, she affirmed that "we think the price is worth
it." [14]
In response, I can only
quote our president: If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. [15]
And now the American people
must decide if the destruction of Iraq--and the immolation of its children--is
a further price we will ask the Iraqi people to pay.
Robin Miller is a writer and
activist in New Orleans, Louisiana. She may be contacted via her website: http://www.robincmiller.com.
Copyright (C)
Robin Miller 2002. This commentary may be freely distributed -- and I encourage
that -- so long as it remains intact, including the authorship and copyright
statement.
NOTES
1. For other analyses of the legality of a U.S./U.K. attack
on Iraq, see:
Bill Bowring, "Bush and Blair Must See Law Has a Life of
Its Own," AlertNet, February 21, 2003.
Julie
Mertus, "The Law(?) of Regime Change," JURIST, February 20, 2003.
Thalif
Deen, "Of Man and God and Law," Asia Times, February 14, 2003.
Nathaniel
Hurd, "UN SCR 1141 and Potential Use of Force Against Iraq," December
6, 2002.
"IN
THE MATTER OF THE POTENTIAL USE OF ARMED FORCE BY THE UK AGAINST IRAQ AND IN
THE MATTER OF RELIANCE FOR THAT USE OF FORCE ON UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL
RESOLUTION 1441," Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, November 2002.
"Lawyers Statement on UN Resolution 1441 on Iraq,"
November 27, 2002.
Mary
Ellen O'Connell, "UN Resolution 1441: Compelling Saddam, Restraining
Bush," JURIST, November 21, 2002.
Marjorie
Cohn, "UN Resolution 1441: Blackmailing the Security Council,"
JURIST, November 21, 2002.
George P. Fletcher, "Did the UN Security Council Violate Its Own Rules in
Passing the Iraq Resolution?," CounterPunch, November 16, 2002.
Mary Ellen
O'Connell, The Myth of Preemptive Self-Defense," August 2002.
2. Article VI, Clause 2, of the Constitution provides that "This
Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in
Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the
Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or
Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding."
3. The text of the Nuremberg proceedings is available online at the Avalon
Project.
4. "Pope
Says 'No' to War in Iraq," Reuters, January 13, 2003.
5. Japan
Mathebula, "Nelson Mandela Calls Bush Shortsighted and Arrogant on Iraq;
Implies Racism," Associated Press, January 30, 2003.
6. "Full Text of Archbishops' Statement on Iraq," The
Guardian, February 20, 2003.
Stephen Bates, "Church Leaders Doubt Morality of
War," The Guardian, February 20, 2003.
7. Executive Committee, World Council of Churches, "Statement
Against Military Action in Iraq," February 18-21, 2003.
8. Medact,
"Collateral Damage: The Health and Environmental Costs of War on
Iraq," January 2003.
9. U.N.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, "Integrated
Humanitarian Contingency Plan for Iraq and Neighbouring Countries,"
January 7, 2003.
This report is discussed in:
Jonathan Steele, "Secret UN Paper Predicts 1.5m Iraqi
Refugees," The Guardian, February 15, 2003.
Jonathan Steele, "Counting the Dead," The Guardian,
January 29, 2003.
Tarik Kafala, "Analysis: Humanitarian Consequences of
War," BBC News Online, January 28, 2003.
For other discussions of the looming humanitarian disaster, see:
Oxfam International,
which warns that war with Iraq "would lead to a massive humanitarian
crisis."
Alison McCook, "War Risks Further Public Health Damage in
Iraq," Reuters Health, February 21, 2003 (this discusses the Lancet
report, just below).
"Special Report [on the health consequences of war in
Iraq]," The Lancet, February 22, 2003.
Center for Economic and Social Rights, "The Human Cost of
War in Iraq," February 2003.
Hendawi Hamza, "Report: Death, Disease Await Iraqi Kids," Associated
Press, January 26, 2003 (this discusses the International Study Team report,
just below).
International Study
Team, "Our Common Responsibility: The Impact of a New War on Iraqi
Children," January 30, 2003.
"Open Letter to the
Right Honourable Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the UK: Public Health and
Humanitarian Effects of War on Iraq," The Lancet, January 25, 2003.
Patricia Reaney, "Health Experts Warn of Massive Iraq Casualties,"
Reuters, January 23, 2003 (discussing the open letter listed just
above).
10. The report, "Likely Humanitarian Scenarios," dated December
10, 2002, is marked "STRICTLY
CONFIDENTIAL."
This report is discussed in:
"UN
Prepares for Huge Iraqi Casualties," BBC, January 7, 2003.
11. Leonard Doyle, "Vulnerable but Ignored: How Catastrophe
Threatens the 12 million Children of Iraq," The Independent, February 12,
2003.
See also Suzanne Goldenberg, "Where the Young Learn that Fear Is a
Way of Life," The Guardian, January 27, 2003.
12. 1999
Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Surveys.
This followed the deaths of between 100,000 and 200,000 Iraqis of all ages
during or shortly after the war. See:
Beth
Osborne Daponte, "A Case Study in Estimating Casualties from War and Its
Aftermath: The 1991 Persian Gulf War" ["the number of Iraqis who
died in 1991 from effects of the Gulf war or postwar turmoil approximates
205,500. There were relatively few deaths (approximately 56,000 to military
personnel and 3,500 to civilians) from direct war effects. Postwar violence
accounted for approximately 35,000 deaths. The largest component of deaths in
this reconstruction derives from the 111,000 attributable to postwar adverse
health effects. Of the total excess deaths in the Iraqi population,
approximately 109,000 were to men, 23,000 to women, 74,000 to children."].
(For the government's resulting vendetta against Ms. Daponte, see Thomas Ginsberg, "War's Toll: 158,000 Iraqis and a
Researcher's Position," Philadelphia Inquirer, January 5, 2003.)
Jonathan Steele, "Counting the Dead," The Guardian,
January 29, 2003 ["the UN calculated that between 3,500 and 15,000
civilians died during the war (plus between 100,000 and 120,000 Iraqi
troops)"].
Tarik Kafala, "Analysis: Humanitarian Consequences of
War," BBC, January 28, 2003 ["Estimates for civilian deaths as a direct
result of the war range from 100,000 to 200,000"].
Thomas Ginsberg, "War's Toll: 158,000 Iraqis and a
Researcher's Position," Philadelphia Inquirer, January 5, 2003.
Francis
A. Boyle, "United States War Crimes During the Persian Gulf War,"
February 20, 1998.
"Needless
Deaths in the Gulf War: Civilian Casualties During the Air Campaign and
Violations of the Laws of War," Human Rights Watch, 1991.
Ramsey Clark,
"War Crimes: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq to the
Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal."
13. Thomas Ginsberg, "War's Toll: 158,000 Iraqis and a
Researcher's Position," Philadelphia Inquirer, January 5, 2003. John
Mueller also said "When we ask people point-blank in polls, they say it
does matter. But the polling evidence suggests it really doesn't in the end.
... How many American lives is worth one Somali life? Not
one."
14. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was asked about these sanctions in an
interview by Leslie Stahl on the May 12, 1996, edition of the TV program
"60 Minutes." Stahl asked, "We have heard that over half a
million children have died. I mean, that's more than died in Hiroshima. And,
you know, is the price worth it?" To this question Madeline Albright
responded, "I think this is a very hard choice. But the price-- we think
the price is worth it."
15. "The State of the Union," January 28, 2003.