A Challenge to the Supreme Court: Can the US Kill Iraqi Children Legally?

[bridgit]

'“Imagine if a U.S. cruise missile were to land on a kindergarten and kill 165 children. Imagine now that it was launched knowing it would hit that kindergarten, and further, that one of these missiles was launched at a different kindergarten every day for a month. That's 5,000 children.

“To kill that many children as a matter of state policy would be unspeakable. The American commander in chief would be condemned as a barbarian. And yet, that is what the economic embargo of Iraq has done.”

This is from a Seattle Times editorial six years ago. For ten years I have wanted to ask one very basic question: Not only were the sanctions barbaric, but were the sanctions legal? Could the US cause the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children every month for years and do so legally?

I will finally get a chance to ask this of the US Supreme Court in a petition I'll file this month.'

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan07/Sacks04.htm

[Waya]

1. He is a Barbarian.....

.....and should be condemned..........

[bluewave]

2. The Supreme Court is a corrupt gang

After all, they ruled that bribing politicians = free speech. How did they get that from the Constitution?

[stranger]

3. expediency is our moral compass.

Could the US cause the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children every month for years and do so legally?


==="Legally"? As for International Law, only the vanquished are ever called to account.
the conquerors are heroes, who were somehow "provoked" to commit genocide.
In fact, murder is in the chromosomes of our forefathers
and is their most significant legacy.
Read Howard Zinn's "A Peoples History of the United States".

Truman knew for a fact more kids than were killed in Iraq would die
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 75,000 old men women and children incinerated,
in Hiroshima, then a week later, Nagasaki, another 60 thousand civilians dead.

The rationalization? It allegedly "saved" lives-because more of our troops would die
if we had to invade the mainland.

The real reason is because Japan was negotiating surrender to the Soviets whom
we did not want occupying post war Japan.

pps: The war criminal who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima,
(Paul Tibbets) nicknamed the plane that carried the bombs "Enola Gay"
in a macabre tribute to his mother.

Even Ted Bundy who killed 20 something innocent women had
enough respect for his mother to apologize to her for shaming her-before
he was electrocuted.

Lets not kid ourselves; expediency is our moral compass.

-

[bridgit]

4. less than affirmative: g.w. bush, being 'the decider', started this neocon adventure...

with the enabling of his handlers all...on...his...own; Iraq is not the end result of several worldwide military campaigns and bloody theaters already costing millions of lives, Iraq is a tired, wrinkled, neo-Malthusian dream sequence, and an ill one at that, the goal of which being imo a quest for geopolitical/resource acquisition, and advantage

that's very different from even Truman drawing the curtain down on WWII as nightmarish as even that scenario was

[stranger]

5. suing the government is futile

"that's very different from even Truman drawing the curtain down on WWII as nightmarish as even that scenario was"


A distinction, yes. Of course, all situations can be distinguished by lawyers. Thats why Dickens said the law is an ass.

The situations were different-as all situations are "different" - but usually with little or no moral difference-when it comes to wantonly and willfully mass murdering children-regardless of what their respective governments did to run afoul of our "uncle" Sam.

But lets move on to what concerns you in this thread:

Consider that both Iraq, and Vietnam, and Reagan's mining of Nicaraguan harbors were ALL probably "illegal" under both us and international law.

Viet Nam was not a "Legal" war because-Congress never declared war at all on Vietnam.
That didn't faze LBJ, Richard Nixon, or even most of the American public.

I believe LBJ and Nixon were both taken to court to no avail-ditto Reagan when he was sued and found to be "legally" culpable by the world court for mining Nicaraguan Harbors in violation of "international Law".

And Reagan guffawed in the face of the world court. So much for "Law". Its what the victors say it is. The vanquished are imprisoned, marginalized by victors' history books and often are executed

I am waiting for the the courts to order bush to do something he doesnt want to do-and hear alberto gonzalez tell them to enforce it-if they can- he will say the branches are coequal and autonymous.

What I am trying to tell all of you young, idealistic lawyers, who think the american system just a needs a bit of tweaking, is that trying to sue the US government for its crimes is a quixotic, but probably noble gesture.

Good luck my friend,


PPS: Japan was provoked into attacking a military target off the US mainland
in response to a US oil embargo choking the tiny island that depended totally on impprts for its existence-They had/have have any natural resources.

Do you doubt that our currrent government would consider an oil embargo of the USA anything but an act of war??

All of this is a natural consequence of the neocon idea that America has a right to police the
world, assign guilt, and punish the wicked-regardless of how many kids
are killed...

[bridgit]

6. sadly, this current admin considers the possibility of a flight to the euro an act of war...

or something akin to it :shrug: judgment is the lord's
:hi: