The Bush Attack on Iraq

The comment below needs repeating. I found it in digby's comments of all places by elephty.


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No, Iraq is not like Vietnam; it is worse, as if the slaughter of human being can be worse in one case over another.

There are a couple of things history teaches us about war that everyone can agree on.

War is the slaughter of human beings.

There are dangerous limitations to war's predictability.

If attacked war is an act of self-defense and justifiable.
If it is an invasion it is either reckless or murder.

War is justifiable or it is criminal (a war crime.)

An unjustifiable act of aggression against a sovereign nation is a war crime.

History teaches us that a guerrilla war in which the civilian population supports the guerrilla's cannot be won unless the invading force is willing to commit genocide or the civilian population believes that resistance is hopeless, (an overwhelming force is committing genocide.)

Genocide is a war crime.

If the resistance is minimal and the overwhelming force is merciless in its attack (Germany's invasion of Poland,) the invasion force is guilty of war crimes.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, some members of the news media, a few publishers, several corporations, a few other organizations, and several others are the responsible parties for this war. Depending on peoples inherent prejudices these men are war criminals or they are not, and only a war crimes trial can determine responsibility. International law does matter regardless of statements that were made to the contrary by criminal suspects.

Rewriting American laws to justify war crimes is a fraudulent act, and is not law.

This horrific tragedy must end now. There is no justification for crimes against humanity.

One does not have to be correct on every detail to understand when war is wrong. There is no justification for continuing to sacrifice American lives for a criminal war.

Under international law the Iraq invasion has a high probability of being recognized as a criminal act.

Saddam Hussein was a dictator not unlike other dictators in the region; all of which have committed crimes against their own people, (if one considers revolutionaries, would be assassins, and traitors a country's own people,) and all use some form of Roman law, (guilty until proven innocent.) Therefore, it is only a nation's sovereignty that protects it from invasion.

We also know that Iraq surrendered, (agreed to all demands - the Ba'ath Party is not comprised of idiots, they knew that they would lose control when the U.S. attacked,) three days prior to the attack, and the U.S. invaded Iraq as if capitulation to all demands was meaningless.

Nazi Germany deserved preemption because it built the most powerful mechanized war machine in history. Iraq was nowhere close to doing the same thing.

Iraq did not represent an imminent threat, nor was it committing genocide against its own people. Iraq's military was crippled by the Gulf War, economic sanctions, and targeted bombings of select sights during the suspension of hostilities.

Saddam Hussein offered $25,000 per family of suicide bombers. While this may have justified a state sanctioned assassination of Iraq's leader, it did not justify the slaughter of Iraq's people.

Under a dictatorship the people cannot be held responsible for for the criminal intent of its leaders, especially in a country where the people only know the propaganda of a particular political party, and is a reason why the American people cannot be held responsible for the crimes of U.S. leaders and corporate advocates for the slaughter of another nation's people.