Is the Iraq War a war crime by the Nuremburg definition?

[Karmadillo]

I'm just wondering whether this article accurately describes the nature of the situation.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/mcca-d09.shtml

John McCain in Ann Arbor: a cowardly evasion on US war crimes

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“Senator, you have taken a position against torture. But there is an underlying principle that was laid down at the Nuremburg trial after World War Two. The prosecutors of the Nazi leaders—the lead American prosecutor was US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson—asserted that the primary war crime committed by the defendants, from which all of the other atrocities sprang, including torture, concentration camps and the extermination of entire populations, was the planning and carrying out of aggressive war. Do you believe that this principle is still valid? And if so, should not those US government and military officials who planned and carried out the unprovoked war against Iraq be made legally and criminally subject to this principle?”

McCain did not answer the question. He dodged it by saying he had a different understanding of the Nuremburg principle: namely, that a solider or official could not legally absolve himself of criminal actions on the grounds that he was merely carrying out orders. The senator then went on to say torture was wrong because it did not “work,” and was harmful to US legitimacy and America’s image around the world.

This evasion revealed the hypocritical essence of McCain’s democratic pretensions—and not only McCain’s, but those of the entire political establishment, supporters and critics of the Bush administration, Republicans and Democrats alike. They are all implicated in a war based on lies, carried out in defiance of international law, against a country that had neither attacked nor threatened to attack the United States.

This is, under the definition laid down at Nuremburg, a war crime. It is the crime for which Nazi civilian and military leaders were hung, and others imprisoned. It is worth recalling the words of Robert Jackson about the universal applicability of this principle. He wrote: “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

For McCain and others to deplore certain of the methods used in the conduct of the Iraq war, while upholding the legitimacy of the war itself and opposing its termination, is not only sophistry, it is a repudiation of Nuremburg and the framework of international law that was laid down in its aftermath. It is little more than damage control, whose essential purpose is to facilitate new acts of military aggression in the future.

more...

[Loonman]

1. Why was Poland invaded?

The excuse Hitler used was "Polish terrorism", and had blamed the Poles for the Reichstag fire.

[typeviic]

12. No actually...

Germany wanted the land back that they lost after WWI. The Treaty of Verse took away a part of Germany and gave it to Poland. Hitler just took over the "lost" part of Poland that used to be Germany. Most of the people/civilians in the part they took back were ethnic Germans.
Then a week later, the USSR invaded Poland from the East and took over the other half of Poland. This part nobody ever talks about. Its as if two people commit the same crime and only one is guilty.
What I'm trying to say is, the end of WWI guaranteed a WWII.

[acmejack]

2. Unquestionably!

The prosecutor from Nuremberg damned them when I saw him on TV recently. I readily defer to his wisdom on such matters.

[malaise]

5. Correct

The Iraq invasion is a War Crime.

[riverwalker]

3. It was the supreme international crime.

As the Tribunal said, "To initiate a war of aggression, however, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm
The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials
documents

[Thorandmjolnir]

6. Also, this is the best quote from the trial:

"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."


United States Department of State Bulletin.
August 12, 1945
Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1945

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/jack02.htm

[TahitiNut]

10. GMTA, indeed!

That statement by Justice Jackson deserves to be emblazoned on every newspaper's masthead.

[troubleinwinter]

13. "To initiate a war of aggression...is the supreme international crime"

'Nuff said.

[goodhue]

4. Indeed

it is

[mmonk]

7. absolutely

That is why the US is more isolated and probably won't be a leader in the world but be considered more of a rogue.

[MN ChimpH8R]

8. IIRC

Conspiracy to wage aggressive war and the waging of aggressive war were war crimes as defined at Nuremberg. Chimpco is transparently guilty of both and the same punishments should apply. To say nothing of torture and the indiscriminate killing of civilians, which are crimes against humanity.

[TahitiNut]

9. Actually, it a "crime against peace" under the Nuremberg Principles.

Principle I. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

Principle II. The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III. The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Principle V. Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

Principle VI. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War Crimes:

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity:

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Principle VII. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

Any reasonable reading of the Nuremberg Principles clearly implicates the Bush/Cheney Regime in the commission of Crimes Against Peace (the planning and execution of an unprovoked invasion of Iraq), War Crimes (including the wanton destruction of Fallujah), and Crimes Against Humanity (Guantanimo detainees, torture, murder of detainees).

It is NOT hyperbole but an act of conscience to stand against this regime as criminal and demand their impeachment, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment for life! This nation can never again proclaim itself just and free unless and until this is accomplished!



"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy." -- Justice Robert Jackson

[Karmadillo]

11. Thanks much for the excellent responses. They're very helpful.

nt