The JvL Bi-Weekly
James
van Luik
Publisher
& Editor
Monday, February 10, 2003
Volume2,
No.3
5.Articles
1.A
War Crime or an Act of War
2.US is misquoting my Iraq report, says Hans Blix
3.The
Many Wars of George W. Bush
4.The
Message from Porto Alegre to the United States:
Restrain
the Empire
5.Articles
of Impeachment of George W. Bush
(Ramsey
Clark)
1.A
War Crime or an Act of War?
It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence of Iraq’s weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: “The dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured.”
The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq’s “gassing its own people,” specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.
But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.
I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.
This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq’s main target.
And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.
The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds’ bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent—that is, a cyanide-based gas—which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.
These facts have long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned. A much-discussed article in The New Yorker last March did not make reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency report or consider that Iranian gas might have killed the Kurds. On the rare occasions the report is brought up, there is usually speculation, with no proof, that it was skewed out of American political favoritism toward Iraq in its war with Iran.
I am not trying to rehabilitate the character of Saddam Hussein. He has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them.
In fact, those who really feel that the disaster at Halabja has bearing on today might want to consider a different question: Why was Iran so keen on taking the town? A closer look may shed light on America’s impetus to invade Iraq.
We are constantly reminded that Iraq has perhaps the world’s largest reserves of oil. But in a regional and perhaps even geopolitical sense, it maybe more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, there are the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in the north of the country. Iraq was covered with irrigation works by the sixth century CE, and was a granary for the region.
Before the Persian Gulf war, Iraq had built an impressive system of dams and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. And it was this dam the Iranians were aiming to take control of when they seized Halabja. In the 1990s there was much discussion over the construction of a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress has been made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American hands, of curse, all that could change.
Thus American could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that probably could not be challenged for decades—not solely by controlling Iraq’s oil, but by controlling its water. Even if American didn’t occupy the country, once Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party is driven from power, many lucrative opportunities would open up for American companies.
All that is needed to get us into war is one clear reason for acting, one that would be generally persuasive. But efforts to link the Iraqis directly to Osama bin Laden have proved inconclusive. Assertions that Iraq threatens its neighbors have also failed to create much resolve; in its present debilitated condition—thanks to United Nations sanctions—Iraq’s convention forces threaten no one.
Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people. And the most dramatic case is the accusations about Halabja.
Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein’s supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?
(Talking
about gassing:
According
to a new book by John Lindsey-Poland, of the peace group, the
Fellowship of Reconciliation, the U.S. regularly tested chemical
weapons in Panama over a period of more than 40 years, from 1923
until 1968, without the consent of the Panamanian government. The
book is entitled “Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History
of the United Sates in Panama,” published by Duke University
Press.
According
to the book, as a part of the defense of the Panama Canal, then
under U.S. military authority, the U.S. bombed the coasts of
Panama with mustard gas, both on the beaches and on jungle paths.
In 1940, the book said, the U.S. had warehoused in Panama 84 tons
of mustard gas, as well as other chemicals, and thousands of
chemical missiles.
Lindsay-Poland
writes that on various occasions U.S. troops were exposed to the
chemical weapons during tests without being told what they were
exposed to.)
2.US
is misquoting my Iraq report, says Hans Blix
by
Days after delivering a broadly negative report on Iraq’s cooperation with international inspectors. Hans Blix challenged several of Bush Administration’s assertions about Iraqi cheating and the notion that time was running out for disarming Iraq through peaceful means.
In an interview on Wednesday, Dr. Blix, the United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector, seemed determined to dispel any impression that his report was intended to support the United States’ campaign to build world support for a war to disarm Saddam Hussein.
“Whatever we say will be used by some,” Dr. Blix said, adding that he had striven to be “as factual and conscientious” as possible. “I did not tailor my report to the political wishes or hopes in Baghdad or Washington or any other place.”
Dr. Blix took issue with what he said were US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s claims that the inspectors had found that Iraqi officials were hiding and moving illicit materials within and outside of Iraq to prevent their discovery. He said that the inspectors had reported no such incidents.
Similarly, he said, he had not seen convincing evidence that Iraq was sending weapons scientists to other countries to prevent them from being interviewed.
Nor had he any reason to believe, as President George Bush charged in his State of the Union speech that Iraqi agents were posing as scientists, or that his inspection agency had been penetrated by Iraqi agents and that sensitive information might have been leaked to Baghdad.
Finally, he said, he had seen no persuasive indications of Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda. “There are other states where there appear to be stronger links,” such as Afghanistan, Dr. Blix said. “It’s bad enough that Iraq may have weapons of mass destruction.”
Russia has also denied any knowledge of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda extremists. The Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, said on Thursday that “so far, neither Russia nor any other country has information about Iraq’s ties with al-Qaeda”.
“If we receive such information we will analyze it,” he said. “Statements made so far are not backed by concrete documents and concrete facts.”
Meanwhile the founder of a militant Islamist group in northern Iraq has denied US reports that his organization was the secret link between Baghdad and al-Qaeda.
Mullah Krekar, a refugee in Norway, said Saddam was his foe, and the Kurdish Islamist said he had no contact with al-Qaeda
He said that he could prove that his Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam) organization, which controls a sliver of land in northern Iraq, had “no contact with al-Qaeda, with Osama [bin Laden], with Saddam Hussein, with Iran or Iraq”.
Ansar’s role is at the heart of the US’s latest attempt to demonstrate a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq.
3.The
Many Wars of George W. Bush
by
Marty
Jezer
George W. Bush was authoritative and articulate in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. It was a tough, assertive and no-nonsense speech, a declaration of war against Medicare, Social Security, working and middle class Americans of this and future generations, the wisdom of our NATO allies and the United Nations, the professionalism of the weapons inspectors, and, of course, our old ally and friend Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Bush said, “Jobs are created when the economy grows; the economy grows when Americans have more money to spend and invest.” Spend, yes; but in a global economy where corporations build manufacturing facilities all over the world, investing in corporate stocks underwrites job loss at home as much as, if not more than, it results in job creation.
Once again Bush used fraudulent math to disguise the fallacy of his economic argument. “Ninety-two million Americans will keep—this year—an average of almost $1,100 more of their own money,” he boasted. Yes, if the Bush administration gives an $11,000 tax break to one person and gives nine people nothing, the average tax break for those ten people is $1,100. But in reality, one person is getting it all. That equation describes the essence of the Bush tax policy; it’s a shell game, a scam.
It’s the same with senior citizens and Medicare. Bush won our sympathy with bold words: “Health care reform must begin with Medicare, because Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society.” He then lied, calling a nationalized health care system one that “dictates coverage and rations care.” But it is precisely the current system of private insurance companies and HMOs that dictates coverage and limits care—and that’s why we need health insurance reform.
Bush then promised senior citizens lower costs for pharmaceutical drugs, but with a catch. To get this benefit, seniors must leave Medicare for private HMOs and other insurance plans. The wealthy can afford that (they already have private plans to supplement their basic Medicare coverage). With Bush’s plan, they will reap additional savings on pharmaceutical costs. Meanwhile, the majority of senior citizens, dependent upon Medicare, will be left with the high pharmaceutical prices in a public system stripped of its universal application and its government support. The $400 billion that bush proposes to pump into the system will not go into the universal Medicare program; it’s simply a government subsidy to the pharmaceutical companies and private insurance companies that will prosper under Bush’s misnamed and bogus Medicare reform.
In his discussion of Social Security, Bush led with another lie. “We must offer younger workers a chance to invest in retirement accounts that they will control and they will own,” he said. But those accounts already exist. The problem is that most workers don’t have the income to afford them, and those who can afford them lost their shirts in the crashing stock market. With his plan to privatize Social security, as with his tax cuts and his war on Medicare, Bush advocates war on the social contract that guarantees all Americans a basic package of compassion and care.
Eloquently, Bush promised that “we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, other presidents and other generations.” But the Congressional budget Office estimates a $199 billion deficit this year and $145 billion for 2004, totals that do not include the cost of the Iraqi war or the loss of revenue that will result when the rich get their tax relief. This is a debt that will be assumed by our children, as will the hatred for America that will blanket the world (but most especially within Arab and Muslim countries) if we abandon internationalism for an essentially unilateral might—makes—right, militaristic foreign policy.
Some of what Bush proposes won’t fly. More sensible Republicans are already registering their dismay at Bush’s Medicare plan. Says Iowa’s Charles Grassley, who chairs the Senate committee with jurisdiction over Medicare reform, “We need to strengthen Medicare, first by adding prescription drug coverage that’s available for all seniors, not just those that switch into managed care.”
On Iraq, Bush threatens the UN with a new deadline for war and touts accusations (Iraq’s interest in African uranium and nuclear technology) that contradict the testimony of the UN weapon inspectors. His criticism of their professionalism, while they are in Iraq doing their work, is essentially a stab in the back. His allegation of an Iraqi-al Qaeda alliance remains unproved, though the secular tyrant Saddam and the fundamentalist fanatic bin Laden now have mutual anti-American interests as a result of (as distinct from the cause of) Bush’s militaristic policy.
But the weapon inspectors are doing their job; Iraq is effectively contained. Bush’s pressure on Saddam, one could argue, is working. But Bush doesn’t want a diplomatic success; he wants war. When he said, “Whatever action is required whatever action is necessary. I will defend the freedom of the security of the American people,” he sounded like a wanna-be military dictator, ignoring the power of congress to declare war and the will of the American people to support it. Even in the Wall Street Journal, prominent Republicans have taken out an ad protesting Bush’s policy. In the UN among our NATO allies, opposition to Bush’s foreign policy remains strong.
There is a growing realization that far from being a prudent conservative, George W. Bush is a power-hungry reactionary, bent on consolidating power regardless of constitutional constraints, military risk, and public opinion. Extremism in defense of power is more than a vice, it’s tyranny. What’s needed is a united front of principled conservatives, liberals and progressives to protect the Constitution and contain the anti-democratic political and military ambitions of the Bush administration, ultimately removing it from power. Only then can a rationale discussion of politics or priorities occur.
4.The
Message from Porto Alegre to the United States: Restrain the
Empire
by
Robert
Jensen
(Austin,
Texas)
Last
week at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I talked
with dozens of people from around the world. I learned a lot
about the struggles for justice in their countries, but the most
important lesson I brought home was about my own country.
The question I thought people at the Forum would ask me is, “Why does the U.S. government follow such brutal policies of economic and military domination around the world?” I though they would want me to explain the United States to them. But they didn’t—because, I cam to realize, they already knew the answer to the question.
In one session I listened to a man who works with the MST, the landless movement in Brazil that is widely considered to be the biggest and most important social movement in the world today. He told us that the people he works with often are lucky if they get a fourth-grade education; many are illiterate. “But I don’t have to tell the about imperialism,” he said. “That they understand. They live with it.”
The question that people in Porto Alegre did ask me was simple: What are people of conscience in the United States—what am I—doing to stop the U.S. government, especially in its mad drive to war with Iraq?
Those of us organizing in the United States are in a strange situation. Our task is to work to educate the people of our own privileged and affluent culture about what th rest of the world already knows: The United States is an empire, and—as has been the case throughout history—empires are a threat to peace and life and justice in the world. There is no such thing as a benevolent empire.
It is crucial that we in the United States who have so much unearned privilege that comes with living in the empire face their question: What are we willing to do to stop our government? What are those of us in the heart of the beast doing to tame that beast?
The United States is preparing for a war in Iraq that virtually the entire world opposes. No matter how brutal the regime of Saddam Hussein, the world understands that even more threatening is the empire unleashed and unrestrained.
The cynical among us say that it is clear that Bush and his boys want this war, and that the war will come. That may be true; there’s no way to see the future. But I know that no matter what will come, our task is clear:
We are the first citizens of the empire. In the past, empires had subjects. But we are truly citizens, with freedom of expression and rights of political participation that aren’t perfect but are real. With those freedoms comes a responsibility, to use them to stop our government from pursuing a war that will kill and destroy innocents while further entrenching U.S. power in the Middle East and U.S. control over the strategically crucial oil resources there.
We have a choice. We can hide from our responsibility. Or we can stand up, speak up, organize, and join the people of the world in movements to challenge the powerful, to resist the empire.
It may seem safer to avoid that choice, to hide from that responsibility. But I learned one other thing in Porto Alegre: The people of the world do not accept the American empire. All over the world there are movements for social justice that are strengthening, gathering support and challenging power. The are the future. History is not on the side of the empire.
To take the side of the empire is to give into our fear, to cast our lot with the past. To resist the empire is to grab onto hope, to cast our lot with the future. It is literally a choice of empire and death, or resistance and life. This is not about liberals v. conservatives or Republicans and Democrats; both parties are on the wrong side of this struggle right now. This is about a far more fundamental choice.
There is much work to be done on many fronts. One thing we can all do is come out on Saturday, Feb. 15, when people in New York City, Austin and around the world will rally to oppose the U.S. drive to war. Information is available at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
If you doubt the importance of this, think back to September 11, 2001. On that day we got a glimpse of what it will look like if the empire is dismantled from the outside, if the empire continues to ignore the world. But we have a choice. We, the first citizens of the empire, can commit to dismantling the empire from within, peacefully and non-violently, in solidarity with those around the world struggling for justice.
Let me leave you with one image from Porto Alegre, from the floor of the arena in which the closing ceremonies took place. As the congeners of the World Social Forum delivered a final declaration and stood on stage, the sounds of John Lennon’s “Imagine” came over the loudspeakers, and the 15,000 people in the arena stood, held hands moved with the music and sang of a world with no countries, a world living life in peace, a world without possessions and greed.
When the song was over, I turned to an older man sitting next to me. I had told him I was from the United States and we had exchanged nods and smiles throughout the event, but he spoke little English and I spoke even less Portuguese. At that moment, language matter little. I extended my hand to him. But he rejected it.
Instead, he reached out, grabbed me and enveloped me in a hug as big as that song, as big as Brazil, as big as the world.
“Peace,” he said. “Paz,” I replied.
We are Americans, but if we choose to resist we are not the American empire. And if we do resist, there is a world we can join, a world that is waiting for us.
Perhaps I am investing too much symbolism in one simple hug. But that moment with that man, that hug in Porto Alegre, was for me the promise of life outside the empire. It was the feel of a future that we can all imagine. It is easy, if we try.
President George W. Bush
Vice President Richard B. Cheney
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
And
Attorney General John David Ashcroft
(proposed
by Ramsey Clark former Attorney General
in
The
Lyndon Johnson Administration)
The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.—Article II, Section 4 of The Constitution of the United States of America
Acts which require the Impeachment of President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld:
1) Ordering and directing a proclaimed “pre-emptive”, or “first strike” war of aggression against Afghanistan causing thousands of deaths indiscriminately, a major proportion non combatants, leaving millions homeless and hungry and installing a government of their choice in Kabul.
2) Authorizing daily intrusions into the airspace of Iraq by U.S. military aircraft in violation of the sovereignty of Iraq and aerial attacks on facilities and persons, on the soil of Iraq, killing hundreds of people indiscriminately, initially falsely claiming self defense though over a period of eleven years not a single U.S. aircraft has been struck or damaged by gunfire from Iraq, but later admitting the targeting of defense installations in Iraq, as war preparations they ordered progressed.
3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilians facilities and locations where civilian casualties are unavoidable.
4) Threatening Iraq with proclaimed “pre-emptive”, or “first strike” attack and a war of aggression by overwhelming force and military superiority including specific threats to use nuclear weapons while engaged in a massive military build-up in nations and waters surrounding Iraq.
5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently proclaiming an intention to change its government by force while preparing to assault Iraq in a war of aggression.
6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the Untied States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
7) Authorizing, directing and condoning bribery and coercion of governments and individuals to cause them to act in violation of their duty and the law, including to maintain and tighten enforcement of economic sanctions against Iraq which continue to increase the death rate of infants, children and elderly persons; to attack and kill designated groups, or persons; to permit use of land, facilities, territorial waters, or air space for U.S. attacks on Iraq; to vote, abstain in a vote or publicly proclaim support for a U.S. or U.N. attack on Iraq; to defect from Iraq, or to falsely accuse it of weapons concealment to break down opposition to a U.S. war of aggression; and to reject ratification of the treaty creating an International Criminal Court, or reject its jurisdiction over the United States.
8) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtains weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks by the U.S.
9) Violations and subversion of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in “pre emptive” wars, first strike attacks and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and other nations by assuming powers of an imperial executive who is not accountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and the people of the Untied States to prevent interferences with the unlawful executive exercise of military power and economic coercion against the international community.
10) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting, violations and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institution can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.
Ramsey Clark
Former Attorney General of the United States of America
January 15, 2003