Fwd: When War Crimes Are Impossible

[Guest guest]

When War Crimes Are Impossible

By Norman Solomon

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

Tuesday 04 April 2006

 

Is President Bush guilty of war crimes?

 

To even ask the question is to go far beyond the boundaries of

mainstream US media.

 

A few weeks ago, when a class of seniors at Parsippany High School in

New Jersey prepared for a mock trial to assess whether Bush has committed

war crimes, a media tempest ensued.

 

Typical was the response from MSNBC host Tucker Carlson, who found the

very idea of such accusations against Bush to be unfathomable. The classroom

exercise " implies people are accusing him of a crime against humanity, "

Carlson said. " It's ludicrous. "

 

In Tennessee, the Chattanooga Times Free Press thundered in an

editorial: " That some American 'educators' would have students 'try' our

American president for 'war crimes' during time of war tells us that our

problems are not only with terrorists abroad. "

 

The standard way for media to refer to Bush and war crimes in the same

breath is along the lines of this lead-in to a news report on CNN's

" American Morning " in late March: " The Supreme Court's about to consider a

landmark case and one that could have far-reaching implications. At issue is

President Bush's powers to create war crimes tribunals for Guantanamo

prisoners. "

 

In medialand, when the subject is war crimes, the president of the

United States points the finger at others. Any suggestion that Bush should

face such a charge is assumed to be oxymoronic.

 

But a few journalists, outside the corporate media structures, are

seriously probing Bush's culpability for war crimes. One of them is Robert

Parry.

 

During the 1980s, Parry covered US foreign policy for the Associated

Press and Newsweek; in the process he broke many stories related to the

Iran-Contra scandal. Now he's the editor of the 10-year-old web site

Consortiumnews.com, an outlet he founded that has little use for the narrow

journalistic path along Pennsylvania Avenue.

 

" In a world where might did not make right, " Parry wrote in a recent

piece, " George W. Bush, Tony Blair and their key enablers would be in

shackles before a war crimes tribunal at The Hague, rather than sitting in

the White House, 10 Downing Street or some other comfortable environs in

Washington and London. "

 

Over the top? I don't think so. In fact, Parry's evidence and analysis

seem much more cogent - and relevant to our true situation - than the

prodigious output of countless liberal-minded pundits who won't go beyond

complaining about Bush's deceptions, miscalculations and tactical errors in

connection with the Iraq war.

 

Is Congress ready to consider the possibility that the commander in

chief has committed war crimes during the past few years? Of course not. But

the role of journalists shouldn't be to snuggle within the mental confines

of Capitol Hill. We need the news media to fearlessly address matters of

truth, not cravenly adhere to limits of expediency.

 

When top officials in Lyndon Johnson's administration said that North

Vietnam had launched two unprovoked attacks on US vessels in the Gulf of

Tonkin, the press corps took their word for it. When top officials in George

W. Bush's administration said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the

press corps took their word for it.

 

We haven't yet seen any noticeable part of the Washington press corps

raise the matter of war crimes by the president. Very few dare to come near

the terrain that Parry explored in his March 28 article, " Time to Talk War

Crimes. "

 

That article cites key statements by the US representative to the

Nuremberg Tribunal immediately after the Second World War. " Our position, "

declared Robert Jackson, a US Supreme Court justice, " is that whatever

grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo,

aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for

altering those conditions. "

 

During a March 26 appearance on the NBC program " Meet the Press, "

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to justify the invasion of Iraq

this way: " We faced the outcome of an ideology of hatred throughout the

Middle East that had to be dealt with. Saddam Hussein was a part of that old

Middle East. The new Iraq will be a part of the new Middle East, and we will

all be safer. "

 

But, in a new essay on April 3, Parry points out that " this doctrine -

that the Bush administration has the right to invade other nations for

reasons as vague as social engineering - represents a repudiation of the

Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter's ban on aggressive war,

both formulated largely by American leaders six decades ago. "

 

Parry flags the core of the administration's maneuver: " Gradually, Rice

and other senior Bush aides shifted their rationale from Hussein's WMD to a

strategic justification, that is, politically transforming the Middle East. "

He concludes that " implicit in the US news media's non-coverage of Rice's

new rationale for war is that there is nothing objectionable or alarming

about the Bush administration turning its back on principles of civilized

behavior promulgated by US statesmen at the Nuremberg Tribunal six decades

ago. "

 

Although the evidence is ample that President Bush led the way to

aggressive warfare against Iraq, the mainstream US news media keep

proceeding on the assumption that - when the subject is war crimes - he's

well cast as an accuser but should never be viewed as an appropriate

defendant.

 

Norman Solomon is the author of the new book War Made Easy: How

Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. For information, go to:

WarMadeEasy.com.