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October
15, 2001
Marwan
Bishara
Clash
of Civilizations? Hardly
Patrick
Cockburn
Modern
War in
A Medieval Village
October
13, 2001
Carl
Estabrook
Letters
to Editors
Molly
Secours
War:
The Procter and Gamble Perspective
Alexander
Cockburn
War
Can't Save the Economy
October
12, 2001
Imran
Khan
Try
Them in Court
Vijay
Prashad
War
in a Passive Voice
Patrick
Cockburn
Bombing
the Taliban
October
11, 2001
David
Vest
Bob
Dylan and 9/11
Amb.
Edward Peck
Bush
War Plan "Dumb"
Hani
Shukrallah
West
Is As West Does
Patrick
Cockburn
Looming
Humanitarian Crisis
October
10, 2001
Tom
Turnipseed
Earth
is Our "Homeland"
Steve
Perry
What
Is To Be Done?
Simon
Jenkins
The
Dumbest Weapon
Tariq
Ali
The
Pakistan Maelstrom
Cockburn/St.
Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
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8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
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CounterPunch
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
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October 23,
2001
Just
War or Criminal Bombing?
The Rule of Lawlessness
By Carl Estabrook
The Bush administration has answered
the crimes of September 11 with crimes of its own, potentially
greater in scale. Launching a war on Afghanistan and killing
poor people whom we do not know, because people we do know have
been killed, is not only cowardly and vicious, it will also ramify
in human misery. It's not only a crime, it's a colossal blunder.
It's important to note that
Mr. Bush's war is entirely illegal. As Canadian lawyer Michael
Mandel writes, "It violates international law and the express
words of the United Nations Charter." The administration
in fact seems to have a bad conscience on the point, nervously
repeating that it is exerting its "right of self-defense
under Article 51 of the UN Charter." It's the same transparent
justification that the Clinton administration offered for its
attack on Serbia, also not sanctioned by the UN Security Council.
Article 51 of the UN Charter
(as a treaty, binding on the US government) says, "Nothing
in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual
or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against
a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has
taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and
security." But no candid observer could see the US-directed
attack on Yugoslavia as "self-defense" to "an
armed attack ... against a member of the United Nations";
and, although the US was surely attacked in the present instance,
killing Afghan peasants is hardly self-defense against that attack,
or even an effective way to prevent future such attacks. In
fact, it will have the opposite effect: Bush's war is the answer
to Bin Laden's prayer, sending new recruits to resist this further
insult to the Muslim world.
The US government's contempt
for the United Nations and the rule of international law was
illustrated once again the day after the bombing of Afghanistan
began. The new UN ambassador, John Negroponte, who participated
in the Reagan administration's terrorist war against Nicaragua
as ambassador to Honduras, delivered a brief letter to the Security
Council that managed to refer twice to "the inherent right
of self-defense," and included a top-lofty line that would
be comical, were it not murderous: "We may find that our
self-defense [third mention] requires further actions with respect
to other organizations and other States." Even the diplomatic
Secretary-General admitted that that was "disturbing."
Some have argued that the atrocities
of September 11 justify an armed response by the US against those
who might bear some responsibility for the attacks or who supported
them. Such a war would be a "just war," it is argued,
with reference to a long legal and philosophical tradition.
It is in fact a tradition worth examining, because it represents
accumulated wisdom on when you might kill someone. (The first
president Bush called his invasion of Panama "Operation
Just Cause," and the original name for the current assault
was "Operation Infinite Justice.")
But one of the requirements
for a just war is that it be a last resort, that all attempts
to settle the matter short of force be exhausted. That is manifestly
not the case in the present instance. Not only has the Bush
administration brushed aside the UN, it has also refused the
offer from the effective government of Afghanistan to discuss
the terrorist networks purportedly based in their country --
just as, it must be said, the US refused offers to negotiate
from the other side before both the Gulf War and the Serbian
War.
It has become clear in the
last decade that military force -- killing people -- is the area
in which the US has its greatest comparative advantage in competition
with the rest of the world. The US government intends to make
sure that attempts, however brutal and horrific, to equal its
readiness to kill, will be met with even more killing. The US
has simply refused to use the mechanisms of international law
-- the UN Security Council, authorized to take "measures
necessary to maintain international peace and security";
the World Court, which has rendered judgements about international
terrorism (admittedly, against the US); and perhaps a special
court constructed for the purpose, as in the cases of Lockerbie
and the former Republic of Yugoslavia -- to pursue the perpetrators
of the September 11 crimes and their accessories.
That would of course be easier,
had the US not spent a generation undermining the UN. In that
period the US constantly ham-strung the Security Council with
vetoes, far more than any other country, and subverted the specialized
agencies, as in Iraq. The US, the state that advertises itself
as founded on reason and the rule of law, has transformed itself
into an international outlaw, the greatest rogue state. Much
of humanity may suffer from this crime for years to come. CP
Carl Estabrook teaches at the University of Illinois.
He also hosts The News from Neptune, a weekly talk show on politics
and the media. His column appears weekly on CounterPunch's website.
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