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Prof. Francis A. Boyle
Global Research
Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:46 EST
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Esteemed
Professor and Law Expert Francis A Boyle says 9/11 was allowed to
happen, war on terror is facilitating the downfall of The Republic,
concentration camps are in place and US citizens are the targets
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Since
the impeachable installation of George Bush Jr. as President by the
U.S. Supreme Court's Gang of Five, the people of the world have
witnessed a government in the United States that has demonstrated
little if any respect for fundamental considerations of international
law, human rights, or the United States Constitution.
Instead,
the world has watched a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the
integrity of the international and domestic legal orders by a group of
men and women who are thoroughly Machiavellian and Straussian in their
perception of international relations and in their conduct of both
foreign affairs and American domestic policy.
Even
more seriously, in many instances specific components of the Bush Jr.
administration's foreign policy constitute ongoing criminal activity
under well recognized principles of both international law and United
States domestic law, and in particular the Nuremberg Charter, the
Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, as well as the
Pentagon's own U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 on The Law of Land Warfare,
which applies to President Bush Jr. himself as Commander-in-Chief of
United States Armed Forces under Article II, Section 2 of the United
States Constitution.
Depending
on the substantive issues involved, these international and domestic
crimes typically include but are not limited to the Nuremberg offences
of "crimes against peace"-- so far Afghanistan , Iraq , Somalia , and
perhaps their longstanding threatened war of aggression against Iran.
Their
criminal responsibility also concerns "crimes against humanity" and war
crimes as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949
and the 1907 Hague Regulations on land warfare: torture at Guantanamo,
Bhagram, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere; enforced disappearances,
assassinations, murders, kidnappings, extraordinary renditions, "shock
and awe," depleted uranium, white phosphorous, cluster bombs, Fallujah,
etc.
Furthermore,
various members of the Bush Jr. administration have committed numerous
inchoate crimes incidental to these substantive offences that under the
Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles as well as U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10
(1956) are international crimes in their own right: planning, and
preparation - which they are currently doing today against Iran -
solicitation, incitement, conspiracy, complicity, attempt, aiding and
abetting.
Of
course the terrible irony of today's situation is that six decades ago
at Nuremberg the U.S. government participated in the prosecution,
punishment and execution of Nazi government officials for committing
some of the same types of heinous international crimes that the
Neo-Conservative Straussian members of the Bush Jr. administration
currently inflict upon people all over the world.
To
be sure, I personally oppose the imposition of capital punishment upon
any human being for any reason no matter how monstrous their crimes,
whether they be Bush Jr., Tony Blair, or Saddam Hussein.
According to basic principles of international criminal law set forth in paragraph 501 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10,
all high level civilian officials and military officers in the U.S.
government who either knew or should have known that soldiers or
civilians under their control (such as the C.I.A. or mercenary
contractors), committed or were about to commit international crimes
and failed to take the measures necessary to stop them, or to punish
them, or both, are likewise personally responsible for the commission
of international crimes.
This
category of officialdom who actually knew or should have known of the
commission of these international crimes under their jurisdiction and
failed to do anything about them include at the very top of America's
criminal chain-of-command President Bush Jr. and Vice-President Cheney;
former U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Rice;
Director of National Intelligence Negroponte, who was previously in
charge of the contra terror war against the people of Nicaragua that
murdered 35, 000 civilians; National Security Advisor Hadley; his
Deputy Elliot Abrams, who was also criminally responsible for murdering
35,000 people in Nicaragua; former U.S. Attorney General Gonzales,
criminally responsible for the torture campaign launched by the Bush
Jr. administration; and the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staffs along
with the appropriate Regional Commanders-in-Chiefs, especially for
Central Command (CENTCOM).
These
U.S. government officials and their immediate subordinates are
responsible for the commission of crimes against peace, crimes against
humanity, and war crimes as specified by the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and
Principles as well as by U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 of 1956.
Today
in international legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration itself should
now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under
international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the
Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, because of its
formulation and undertaking of serial wars of aggression, crimes
against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that are legally
akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi regime in Germany.
As
a consequence, American citizens possess the basic right under
international law and the United States domestic law, including the
U.S. Constitution, to engage in acts of civil resistance designed to
prevent, impede, thwart, or terminate ongoing criminal activities
perpetrated by Bush Jr. administration officials in their conduct of
foreign affairs policies and military operations purported to relate to
defense and counter-terrorism.
For
that very reason, large numbers of American citizens have decided to
act on their own cognizance by means of civil resistance in order to
demand that the Bush Jr. administration adhere to basic principles of
international law, of U.S. domestic law, and of our own Constitution in
its conduct of foreign affairs and military operations.
Mistakenly,
however, such actions have been defined to constitute classic instances
of "civil disobedience" as historically practiced in the United States
. And the conventional status quo admonition by the U.S. power elite
and its sycophantic news media for those who knowingly engage in "civil
disobedience" has always been that they must meekly accept their
punishment for having performed a prima
facie breach of the positive laws as a demonstration of their good faith and moral commitment.
Nothing
could be further from the truth! Today's civil resisters are the
sheriffs! The Bush Jr. administration officials are the outlaws!
Here
I would like to suggest a different way of thinking about civil
resistance activities that are specifically designed to thwart,
prevent, or impede ongoing criminal activity by members of the Bush Jr.
administration under well-recognized principles of international and
U.S. domestic law.
Such
civil resistance activities represent the last constitutional avenue
open to the American people to preserve their democratic form of
government with its historical commitment to the rule of law and human
rights.
Civil
resistance is the last hope America has to prevent the Bush Jr.
administration from moving even farther down the path of lawless
violence in Southwest Asia, military interventionism in Latin America
and Africa, and nuclear confrontation with Iran, North Korea, Russia,
and China.
Such measures of "civil resistance" must not be confused with, and indeed must be carefully distinguished from, acts of "civil disobedience"
as traditionally defined. In today's civil resistance cases, what we
witness are U.S. citizens attempting to prevent the ongoing commission
of international and domestic crimes under well-recognized principles
of international law and U.S. domestic law.
This
is a phenomenon essentially different from the classic civil
disobedience cases of the 1950s and 1960s where incredibly courageous
African Americans and their supporters were conscientiously violating
domestic laws for the express purpose of changing them. By contrast, today's civil resisters are acting for the express purpose of upholding the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, human rights, and international law. Applying
the term "civil disobedience" to such civil resistors mistakenly
presumes their guilt and thus perversely exonerates the Bush Jr.
administration criminals.
Civil resistors disobeyed nothing, but to the contrary obeyed international law and the United States Constitution.
By
contrast, Bush Jr. administration officials disobeyed fundamental
principles of international law as well as U.S. criminal law and thus
committed international crimes and U.S. domestic crimes as well as
impeachable violations of the United States Constitution.
The
civil resistors are the sheriffs enforcing international law, U.S.
criminal law and the U.S. Constitution against the criminals working
for the Bush Jr. administration!
Today
the American people must reaffirm our commitment to the Nuremberg
Charter, Judgment, and Principles by holding our government officials
fully accountable under international law and U.S. domestic law for the
commission of such grievous international and domestic crimes. We must
not permit any aspect of our foreign affairs and defense policies to be
conducted by acknowledged "war criminals" according to the U.S.
government's own official definition of that term as set forth in U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956), the U.S.
War Crimes Act, and the Geneva Conventions.
The
American people must insist upon the impeachment, dismissal,
resignation, indictment, conviction, and long-term incarceration of all
U.S. government officials guilty of such heinous international and
domestic crimes.
That is precisely what American civil resisters are doing today!
This same right of civil resistance extends pari passu to all citizens of the world community of states.
Everyone
around the world has both the right and the duty under international
law to resist ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by the Bush Jr.
administration and its nefarious foreign accomplices in allied
governments such as in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia,
etc. If not so restrained, the Bush Jr. administration could very well precipitate a Third World War.
In this regard, during the course of an October 17, 2007 press conference, President Bush Jr. terrorized the entire world with the threat of World War III if he could not work his illegal will upon Iran.
Then Russian President Vladimir Putin responded in kind by likewise terrorizing the entire
world
with the prospect of yet another Cuban Missile Crisis if he did not get
his way on the needlessly provocative anti-ballistic missile systems
that the Bush Jr. administration plans to locate in Poland and the
Czech Republic.
The
publicly threatened U.S./Israeli attack upon Iran could readily set off
a chain of events that would culminate in World War III, and could
easily go nuclear. It is my opinion that the Bush Jr. administration
would welcome the outbreak of a Third World War, and in any event is
fully prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons against Muslim and Arab
states and peoples.
After
September 11, 2001 the United States of America has vilified and
demonized Muslims and Arabs almost to the same extent that America
inflicted upon the Japanese and Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor.
As
the Nazis had previously demonstrated with respect to the Jews, a
government must first dehumanize and scapegoat a race of people before
its citizens will tolerate if not approve their elimination: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In
post-9/11 America we are directly confronted with the prospect of a
nuclear war of extermination conducted by our White Racist
Judeo-Christian Power Elite against People of Color in the Muslim and
Arab worlds in order to steal their oil and gas. The Crusades all over
again. But this time nuclear Armageddon stares all of humankind right
in the face!
We
American lawyers must be inspired by the stunning example set by those
heroic Pakistani lawyers now leading the struggle against the brutal
Bush-supported Musharraf military dictatorship. We American lawyers
must now lead the fight against the Bush Jr. dictatorship! This is our
Nuremberg Moment!
Thank you.
Transcript
of Professor Boyle's lecture, Northwestern University Law School,
November 20, 2007.The event was sponsored by the National Lawyers
Guild, Northwestern University Student Law School Chapter and Chicago
Chapter of the NLG.
See also:
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