Note: This is the second of a three-part series
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Trashing International Law

How could a nation born as a great democratic experiment rebelling against the divine right of monarchs become instead now one worshipping the divine right of capital and capable of being even more repressive. Ben Franklin warned about this early on saying "(The US Constitution) is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism....when the people shall become so corrupted as to need (or not be vigilant enough to prevent) despotic government, being incapable of any other."

Much earlier, Roman historian Tacitus explained what then happens: "They (pillage) the world. When the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. They....are greedy....they crave glory....They covet wealth....They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it....'empire.' They make a desert and call it peace." Today they pillage, destroy and enslave in serfdom and call it democracy. They believe it's their right, divine or otherwise, and their cause is just. They lead this nation, and the rest of the world trembles and suffers dearly as long as they rule. The Iraq conflict is just their latest excursion to satisfy their insatiable lust for more wealth, power and glory.

The initial Bush-led "shock and awe" attack against that afflicted country didn't start on March 18, 2003. It began in small, incremental steps continuing the intermittent harassing mostly below-the-radar strikes that went on throughout the 1990s and picked up again after 9/11 as violence in the so-called No-Fly Zone increased and the Washington anti-Saddam demonization rhetoric was rolled out prepping the public for the Iraq war the Bush administration wanted as soon as it came to town.

It only reached full fury in the opening days of the war that began in mid-March, 2003. It's now gone on longer than WW II with no resolution in sight, despite all the lofty disingenuous talk and one over-hyped commission practicing the Sun Tzu Art of War deception on the US public in its cooked up reworked version of the same failed policy of aggressive war and permanent occupation. It has no chance to end the resistance to it unless or until all our forces are unconditionally withdrawn, something this country won't ever agree to but, in the end, will be forced to do just like it had to acknowledge defeat and leave Southeast Asia in 1975. History has a way of repeating for those failing to learn its lessons. This time the price being paid looks a lot stiffer and more painful than the last misadventure, but the full amount won't be known until the current exercise in futility finally ends.

Unstated in any part of the ISG report or in any Washington or mainstream commentary on Iraq policy since the confrontation with Saddam began in January, 1991, is that the US planned and carried out a war of illegal aggression now near completing its 16th year. Early on, this country got some UN-cover by dint of its high-pressure to shape Security Council policy to fit its own. That process, however, broke down in the run-up to the current conflict beginning in March, 2003 when the US pretext for war was so outrageous, enough countries with clout and Security Council veto power opposed us forcing Washington to go it alone with an embarrassing "coalition of the willing." Those countries in it became shameless co-conspirators by agreeing to join in partnership with the US defiantly flaunting international laws and norms as participants in this exercise of lawlessness.

You won't find any of that hinted at in the ISG report. It's not mentioned that this country began by violating Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution that gives the power to declare war solely to the Congress, although it hasn't exercised it since it declared war against the Axis powers in WW II. It also ignores our violating what the Nuremberg Tribunal trying Nazi war criminals called the "supreme international crime" stating: "To initiate a war of aggression....is not only an international crime, it is the supreme crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." And it doesn't mention this country violated the UN Charter that's international law this country is bound by. It allows a nation the right to use force in its self-defense only under two conditions: when authorized to do it by the Security Council or under Article 51 that permits the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security."

By attacking Iraq without provocation and with no Security Council authorization for it prior to March, 2003, the US violated this sacred covenant it's a signatory to. It also violated the US Constitution that says...."all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." The Bush administration flaunts that law, but the ISG is unperturbed, allows this elephant in our face to go unmentioned, by its silence supports its continuance, and is unwilling to act responsibly to assure going forward this country abides by all laws and standards as a first prerequisite to resolving the conflict in Iraq and most important to preventing future ones.

It can't do it, because if it does it would then have to acknowledge this country attacked, invaded and now occupies Iraq in violation of international laws and norms, must now end its illegal occupation, and those responsible must be held to account for what they've done in the world and national bodies established to deal with these type crimes of war and against humanity. It would also have to acknowledge that all the commission members have their own closets filled with disturbing skeletons including, of course, the former High Court justice exposed above whose judicial act of infamy allowed this holocaust to happen and never spoke out publicly against it indicating she finds mass slaughter and destruction quite acceptable by her legal and moral standards - the same rogue standards all commission members and those in the Bush administration endorse so they act co-conspiratorially to cover for each other.

The ISG also ignored other international laws this country is legally bound to obey but didn't and won't ever under a Bush administration that mocks them. Nonetheless, the US can't hide its use of banned chemical and poisonous depleted uranium weapons outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Convention Gas Protocol and various succeeding Geneva Conventions banning the use of chemical and biological weapons in any form for any reason in war. In addition, under various UN Conventions and Covenants that are binding international law for its signatories, the use of any weapons that cause harm after the battle including away from the battlefield, harm the environment, or kill, wound or cause harm inhumanely are illegal and banned.

In the Gulf war and thereafter, the US military routinely used illegal weapons including depleted uranium munitions for 16 years in Iraq that spread deadly toxic irremediable radiation over a vast area of the country. These weapons are poisonous under international law and violate all the above conditions. The Pentagon also willfully violated international statutes by using an array of banned and questionable weapons with no restraint including against non-military civilian targets as a tactical strategy, a practice prohibited by these codes of law.

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By its silence, the ISG tacitly endorses these practices as well as the administration's use of torture outlawed by various binding international statutes including the significant 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) that includes rape and the kinds of sexual abuse routinely used in US-administered prisons in Iraq as part of the interrogation, dehumanizing and terror-inducing social control process authorized by the December 18 departing Secretary of Defense and unindicted war criminal Donald Rumsfeld.

Jim Baker and the other commission members also are comfortable with the way the US military treats the thousands of prisoners it holds even though they're denied all rights guaranteed them under the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 (GCIII) that provides for humane treatment including an array of services like enough proper food and medical care and prohibits the kinds of abusive practices the US routinely engages in. The ISG report also ignores any change of policy regarding the rights of civilians guaranteed under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 (GCIV) that covers a range of protections routinely denied them as another part of the Bush administration's flaunting of all international laws that prohibit whatever practices it wishes to engage in, law or no law. No problem for Jim Baker and his "Gang of Ten" including the former High Court justice member who understands the law and was sworn to uphold it while on the bench, domestic and international that's binding US law under the Constitution.

Omissions About the Human Cost in Iraq

The few ISG findings deserving mention and discussion have largely been ignored in the corporate-controlled media because doing so would be embarrassing to the Bush administration trying to cover them up as further evidence of its failure in Iraq that can only be characterized as criminal, disastrous and hopeless short of a full and unconditional US withdrawal not in the cards.

One of them at the end of the long report mentions a "significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq." It's part of the cover-up from the White House and Department of Defense the commission says acts "as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases (to distort) events on the ground." It cites an example that last July the Pentagon report of 93 attacks one day was distorted to hide the reality that "a careful review of the reports....brought to light 1,100 acts of violence (on that day, or a slight 11-fold greater amount of it)."

Noting that is fine as far as it goes, but it's not near enough as the ISG's mini-revelation hides the greater truth about the US-inflicted holocaust against the Iraqi people that began in January, 1991, continues unabated and won't end until the occupation does. That's the key "reality" the ISG report suppresses as does the corporate-controlled media including parts buried deep in it they're silent on.

For 16 years, the US created a living hell in Iraq. It willfully and illegally destroyed essential infrastructure like power generating stations and clean water and sanitation facilities vital to health, welfare and public safety. It wantonly targeted and slaughtered many thousands of civilians. It unjustifiably imposed a dozen years of punishing economic sanctions causing the deaths of as many as 1.5 million innocent Iraqis two UN heads of humanitarian relief resigned in protest over, being unwilling to participate in a US-imposed policy one of them characterized as "genocide."

Even today, little, if anything meaningful, has been done to ameliorate a hopeless situation on the ground in most of the country. The ISG report ignores US war crimes in destroying a once prosperous nation, leaving in its wake a surreal lawless armed camp wasteland with few or no essential services by design including electricity, clean water, medical care, fuel and most everything else needed for sustenance and survival.

The commission report is also silent on the shocking 2006 Lancet study that accurately assessed the human toll of the war since 2003 using statistically reliable random household "cluster sampled" personal interviews with death certificate verifications in most cases. It estimated 655,000 violent deaths since March, 2003 attributable to the war stating the true number might be as high as 900,000 as interviewers were unable to survey the most violent parts of the country like Fallujah and Ramadi in al Anbar province (comprising one-third of the country) where mass killing still goes on daily as well as to include in the study the thousands of families in which all its members were killed. By its silence, the ISG is willfully participating in the cover-up of this massive crime against humanity and by its failure to offer redress is co-conspiratorially part of it.

The ISG also ignores the true cost to US forces in Iraq that began in the Gulf war and continues today. One-third or more of the 696,841 military personnel who served in the Gulf from August 2, 1990 to July 31, 1991 have filed claims for or have been reported by the Veteran's Administration (VA) to be on some form of disability in 2004, most likely from the deadly effects of depleted uranium (DU) or other toxic poisoning the Pentagon tries to suppress and deny.

Today the situation is far worse, but it'll be years before the final human toll is known. The effects of DU poisoning alone may be much more devastating now than in the Gulf war. In this conflict, the DU used in munitions is much more toxic than the kind used earlier. In addition to U-238 used earlier, today's DU weapons contain plutonium (the most toxic of all known substances), neptunium, and the highly radioactive uranium isotope U-236. According to a 1991 study by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, these elements are 100,000 times more dangerous than the U-238 in DU. It takes only the most minute, nearly unmeasurable, amount of this substance in one's body (that can easily be inhaled or otherwise ingested) to be fatal.

Further, the situation today is exacerbated by the current war having been ongoing for over three and one-half years (longer now than WW II) compared to the earlier six week one in 1991. Also, twice as many US forces have been engaged in this toxic environment for extended multiple tours of duty setting up the possibility for an enormous human calamity in years ahead as more of them return home, their bodies poisoned, and their lives and future health put seriously at risk.

In addition, daily life on the ground has been difficult to unbearable for US forces. Many have been ill-equipped with weapons, vehicles, ordinance, body armor and most everything else being consumed and not replaced. It's even worse for Forward Operating Bases often unable to get enough drinking water and other necessities such as proper food, clean clothes, a daily shower and a comfortable bed to sleep in. The effects of conflict and conditions on the ground have taken a devastating toll already with many there increasingly stressed and terrified out of their minds from physical and/or psychological trauma often ignored by commanders.

Most disturbing is the cover-up of the true death and injury toll already that's far higher than the published figures that are phony to avoid likely public anger if they were known. One incident suppressed happened on October 10, 2006 when Forward Base Falcon was attacked by mortars and rockets causing huge stocks of fuel and ammunition to explode most of the night killing or wounding hundreds of the 3,000 troops based there. Pictures gotten out show how extensive the damage was that leveled buildings to the ground explaining why the Pentagon wanted none of this to get out. It did but not in the major media and not in the ISG report.

Despite public disclosures, more accurate data overall is quietly coming out of the Pentagon, unreported in the corporate media, and unmentioned in the ISG report that shows the number of US forces killed is about four times the "official" total, and the number wounded may be about twice the official figure. Almost never mentioned is that many injuries include loss of limbs, brain and severe psychological damage and pain and other debilitations that will scar those affected and their families for the rest of their lives if after treatment and recovery they even survive.

None of this bothers the "Gang of Ten" commission members whose families are safe from this carnage and whose verdict rendered in their report effectively is to let the war go on without end, the enormous and rising human toll on Iraqis and Americans notwithstanding. For them, it's a price worth paying as it serves the interests of empire in which human beings are just another commodity to extract value from and then discard when no longer of further use. That's how the Bush administration and ISG members think and act.

Read Part 3, "Omissions on the Domestic Front" on Wednesday, December 20th.

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Stephen Lendman [send him email] lives in Chicago, and maintains a blog at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com