The Crime of Aggressive War

[katukov]

The Crime of Aggressive War

It is an established fact that Iraq, even under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, as of the instigation of the war in 2003, was not a threat to the United States, and did not have the capability, means, or intention to attack us. It had no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s), and no means of threatening America with its conventional weapons.

It is also an established fact that the Bush Administration, even in its earliest months, before 9-11-01, wanted to attack Iraq. The motive for this desire is not entirely clear, but there is ample evidence to support the intent (for example, the Downing Street Memo).

The discussion of the precise intent and motives of the perpetrators is moot. The definition of aggressive war lies in the actual acts committed, absent a necessity of self-defense. Justice Robert Jackson made the argument at Nuremberg:

But justice in this case has nothing to do with some of the arguments put forth by the defendants or their counsel. We have not previously and we need not now discuss the merits of all their obscure and tortuous philosophy…It is not their thoughts, it is their overt acts which we charge to be crimes.

The crime of aggressive war, a war that is not justified by self-defense, has a legal basis established by the Kellogg-Briand pact, the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, and the United Nations Charter. The United States has signed and ratified these treaties, and they have the force of U.S. law.

The Supremacy Clause is the common name given to Article VI, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which reads: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” The treaties named above, which prohibit waging wars for any purpose except self-defense, have the force of both U.S law, and international law.

It is a fact that President Bush in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief, did order and direct the armed forces of the United States, in March 2003, to invade Iraq. It is a fact that there was no United Nations resolution authorizing such an act. This was an act of overt aggression, having no justification in self-defense, no justification in UN authorization, and therefore in violation of U.S. law.

To have a basis for impeachment, it is necessary to demonstrate that the impeached has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. The act of waging a war of aggression is not only a high crime, it is the supreme international crime. In the words of the Nuremberg Tribunal judgement:

The charges in the indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive war are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

Justice Robert Jackson summed up in his closing argument:

Any resort to war, to any kind of a war, is a resort to means that are inherently criminal. War inevitably is a course of killings, assaults, deprivations of liberty, and destruction of property. An honestly defensive war is, of course, legal and saves those lawfully conducting it from criminality. But inherently criminal acts cannot be defended by showing that those who committed them were engaged in a war, when war itself is illegal. The very minimum legal consequence of the treaties making aggressive wars illegal is to strip those who incite or wage them of every defense the law ever gave, and to leave war-makers subject to judgment by the usually accepted principles of the law of crimes.

Bush and Cheney have perpetrated a massive aggressive war, that has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands, and has driven millions from their homes. There is no justification of self-defense. There was no attack by Iraq on the U.S. or its allies. There was no imminent threat. There was only aggression and criminal intent on the part of the Bush Administration.