George W. Bush’s order grant-ing the secretary of defense authority to establish a military commission to try suspected terrorists is a deliberate attempt to circumvent due process protections for criminal defendants, which are widely recognized in the United States and in international criminal tribunals. Ostensibly aimed at members of al-Qaeda, the commission would have jurisdiction… Read more »
In a patently illegal use of armed force, United States and British bombs are falling on the people of Afghanistan. There are already reports of thousands of dead and wounded civilians from the same kind of American “smart bombs” used in Vietnam and Yugoslavia, with the promise of myriad casualties from unexploded cluster bombs. Yet… Read more »
THE DRUMBEATS OF war resound all around our country. President Bush says, “We are at war,” and has deployed heavy bombers to the Persian Gulf. The government vows to wage a protracted military campaign and Congress has appropriated $40 billion to aid the recovery and war efforts. We have never seen more heinous acts of… Read more »
From February 26 through March 8, the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court met in an attempt to forge agreement on defining and punishing the crime of aggression. The Rome Statute for the ICC, written in 1998, will take effect after ratification by 60 states. It specifies the Court will hear charges of genocide,… Read more »
President George W. Bush’s “routine” bombing attack on Iraq should come as no surprise. It is a conscious and systematic continuation of the Bush I-Cheney-Powell-Clinton policy of keeping steady pressure on Saddam Hussein to sustain U.S. hegemony in the Persian Gulf. Iraq has the second largest oil supply in the world. Humanitarian rhetoric notwithstanding, the… Read more »
After World War II, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal was established to try Japanese military and political leaders accused of committing atrocities. The United States, which was responsible for at least two of the greatest war crimes in the history of the world – the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – was not brought… Read more »