Legality of War and War Crimes

Telford Taylor on US War Crimes

St George Bush, the Republican Lion Heart

Wars started by those who ride roughshod over the destinies of nations have always been a disaster for ordinary people. Humanity’s finest minds have always protested against war. Yet, loathing of war was combined with an oppressive sense of the inevitability of such catastrophes. People felt themselves powerless in face of the forces of aggression.

The second world war revolutionized popular thinking on this score the world over. The defeat of fascism made it possible for the anger of the people, their protest against the inhumanity of war and their sense of justice to find satisfaction. On November 20, 1945, the trial of the chief nazi war criminals began in Nuremberg. With the passage of the years the meaning—legal, political and philosophical—of this trial without precedent in history is increasingly forgotten by the Stupid White Men in charge of the US. The chief nazi war criminals were tried by an international tribunal and were meted the punishment they deserved.

On that occasion, Telford Taylor was US chief counsel for the prosecution, with the rank of brigadier general. While a professor of law at Columbia University, in 1970, he wrote a book called Nuremberg and Vietnam: an American Tragedy. Taylor’s object was to reveal the criminal nature and the futility of US military adventures. He draws a clear parallel between the nazi crimes in Europe and US actions in Indo-China. The Nuremberg prosecutor leaves no doubt about that US war being criminal. It was unlawful, and was a violation of the American Constitution. US actions in Vietnam…

…fall within the prohibited classifications of warfare set down in Nuremberg… the United States is clearly guilty of “War Crimes”, “Crimes against Peace” and “Crimes against Humanity”, crimes for which the top German leaders were either imprisoned or executed.

Taylor avers that the US action in Mi Lie in Vietnam in 1968 was “beyond doubt” criminal. The book is written in a matter of fact style devoid of emotion, but the restrained style only underscores the finality of the conclusion.

” “What are the Nuremberg legal principles, and what is their meaning today”, Taylor asks. The reply was an devastating rebuttal of Washington propaganda to justify US aggression and to evade responsibility for US war crimes. He recalls how, addressing the Nuremberg tribunal, US chief prosecutor Robert Jackson said that the nazi war crimes trial was a stern warning to all potential aggressors. No one imagined Americans would be the most frequent and grossest of them within a half cantury.

By punishing the chieftains of the nazi state, its military leaders and war industry magnates who prepared and unleashed the war, the Nuremberg tribunal declared war of aggression a crime against humanity. With the Nuremberg verdict, preparation and unleashing of aggressive wars can be punished, and peace can be defended. War can and must be excluded from civilized society. Subsequently the United Nations confirmed the principles of international law set forth in the charter of the Nuremberg tribunal and in its verdict.

But these principles, to guarantee peace, must be defended, and the Bush administration is keen to flout them. Although 60 years have passed since the nazi war criminals came before the Nuremberg tribunal, and since the United Nations was founded, the greedy and callous men of the world, notably in Washington, continue to pin their hopes on weapons of mass destruction as a means of achieving their ends. Even though there is only one superpower, the self-serving cognoscenti in Washington do not want to risk a world war for fear that they might bite off more than they can chew, and even die in such a war themselves, but they happily wage local wars against weak nations, creating international divisions, and engaging in propaganda not seen so blatantly since Vietnam.

In the United States today, the Nuremberg trials need to be remembered and used, not in connection with their own circumstances, which is ancient history, but in the debate over this war, and its legality, which no one dare consider in the face of the ignorance of US citizens about international affairs, Republican huffing, bluster and self-righteousness, intended to take advantage of it, and the sheer moral cowardice and greed of the peoples' representatives who think it prudent to stay on the side of the your-country-right-or-wrong Whitehouse propagandists.

A half century ago, Nazis sought to justify themselves by saying they were merely “carrying out orders”. The same plea is now being used to wage the illegal war in Iraq, in which peaceful civilians cannot avoid being killed, and have been. The war is manifestly illegal. That is precisely the reason why the so-called coalition decided not to go to a further resolution to legally approve the war. They knew full well that they would not get it and so embarked on an illegal adventure instead. Taylor says that when orders are “plainly unlawful, the subordinate must know, or can reasonably be held to know, that they should not be obeyed”. A responsibility also rests with superiors who issue criminal orders expecting subordinates to obey them out of discipline. How can any order in an illegal war be legal?

Taylor held that the young men—especially those drafted to serve in a war that they deeply believed to be “unjust”—who refused to fight in a criminal war, were doing the right thing.

It is both unwise and inhumane to compel people to serve in it against their will.

That is what dictators like Saddam will try to do, but “our boys” ought to be told they have the right to withdraw, if they feel they are being asked to go against their conscience. How are Catholic and Anglican soldiers meant to respond to orders when the leaders of their churches have declared the war wrong?

Every citizen of any state must abide by the recognized standards of international law, and bear responsibility for violation of them. That is why there was almost universal condemnation of the Twin Tower terrorists. The US leadership have again responded by tarring themselves—as if incapable of avoiding it—with the same brush of criminality, but with vastly greater capacity for it, and have lost most of the world support they had.

In the light of the invasion of Iraq, the Nuremberg verdict acquires particular meaning. The Washington chancers—the politicians and military leaders, the proponents of brute force—ready to spark off new aggressive wars should be reminded of their crimes by their constituents. Ministerial posts, high military rank, or enormous stockholdings should not save the guilty from retribution for the grief and suffering they brought to their own, but particularly foreign, people.

War crimes should not go unpunished, and no one should expect to escape on the plea that they merely carried out orders, or refused to ratify, or disowned, treaties that the rest of civilization has accepted and ratified. Retribution must await both those wbo give the orders and those who execute them.

The United States has failed to learn the lessons of Nuremherg, and, as Taylor wrote, “that failure is today’s American tragedy”. It has still not been learnt a generation later! When will it?

Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.

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