Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his jail cell at The Hague Saturday. Since 2001, he had been on trial for genocide in Bosnia, and war crimes and crimes against humanity in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Although many have already adjudged him guilty, we will never hear the official verdict of the… Read more »
Yesterday, US Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly state his refusal to obey an order to deploy to Iraq. Lieutenant Watada said at a press conference in Tacoma, Washington, “The war in Iraq is in fact illegal. It is my obligation and my duty to refuse any orders to participate… Read more »
Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The award was a slap at George W. Bush, who had pressed for ElBaradei’s removal just months before. It was also a blow to Bush’s policies of… Read more »
Cindy Sheehan is still in Crawford, Texas, waiting for Bush to answer her question: What noble cause did my son die for? Her protest started as a small gathering 13 days ago. It has mushroomed into a demonstration of 100s in Crawford and tens of thousands more at 1,627 solidarity vigils throughout the country. Why… Read more »
George Bush and John Bolton have a symbiotic relationship. They need each other to nail shut the coffin of the United Nations, to make the world safe for US domination. Bolton’s record of cooking intelligence to whip up US aggression against other countries fits nicely with Bush’s modus operandi. In 2002, while Bush told Tony… Read more »
“I think that the government has successfully proved that any service member has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal.” — Lt. Cmdr. Robert Klant, presiding at Pablo Paredes’ court-martial In a stunning blow to the Bush administration, a Navy judge gave Petty Officer 3rd Class Pablo Paredes… Read more »
John Bolton is the wrong man for the job of US ambassador to the United Nations. His status as an avowed UN-hater, standing alone, disqualifies him. But there are other, stronger reasons to reject his appointment to that important post. Bolton’s performance in his current position as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and… Read more »
As we walked out of Hotel Rwanda, my teenage son asked me, “So why did we go into Iraq, but not Rwanda?” This youngster was horrified that the United States not only sat on the sidelines during the genocide that killed 800,000 Rwandans in 1994, but then prevented the United Nations from acting to stop… Read more »
In 1945, the United Nations Conference in San Francisco gave birth to the United Nations Organization. In the wake of two world wars that claimed 55 million lives, the U.N. Charter pledged to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The Charter allows a member state to use armed force in only two instances:… Read more »
US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal. In his report to the State Department, Justice Jackson wrote: “No political or economic situation can justify” the crime of aggression. He also said: “If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes they are crimes whether the United States does them… Read more »