FORMER NUREMBERG PROSECUTORSAYS GEORGE W. BUSHSHOULD STAND TRIAL FOR WAR CRIMESOn August 25th, 2006, a prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg, Benjamin Ferencz, stated that former president George W. Bush should stand trial for war crimes, along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferencz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, said both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars. This refers to Saddam's attack on Kuwait in 1990 and Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003. America's wars in the Middle East since 2001 have resulted in 4 million dead. And at least 1 million have been killed in Iraq. (World Future Fund) We will post some Benjamin Ferencz quotes about war crimes below. "Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime." (History News Network). "A country should not commit crimes for its own benefit thinking no one will question it." (CNN) "The United Nations authorized the first Gulf War and authorized all nations to take whatever steps necessary to keep peace in the area. They could have stretched that a bit by seizing the person for causing the harm. Of course, they didn't do that and ever since then I've been bemoaning the fact that we didn't have an International Criminal Court at that time." (History News Network). "This is the time all nations in the world should come in full support of the crime of aggression to be part of crimes tried by (International Criminal Court) ICC so that we put to past impunity and open a new chapter to accountability." (CNN)
THE IMPORTANCE OF AN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT Ferencz has also said that the atrocities of the Iraq wars—from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of dozens of civilians by U.S. forces in Haditha to the high number of civilian casualties caused by insurgent car bombs—were highly predictable at the start of the war. An important development toward limiting war crimes would be the effective implementation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located in the Hague, Netherlands. But on May 6, 2002—less than a year before the invasion of Iraq—the Bush Administration began pressuring other countries to approve bilateral agreements requiring them not to surrender U.S. nationals to the ICC. Three months later, Former President George W. Bush signed a new law prohibiting any U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The law went as far as to include a provision authorizing the president to"use all means necessary and appropriate," including a military invasion of the Netherlands, to free U.S. personnel detained or imprisoned by the ICC. (History News Network) The Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines established after World War II to try Nazi Party members, were developed to determine what constitutes a war crime. The principles can also be applied today when considering the conditions that led to the Iraq war and, in the process, to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, and to the devastation of a country’s infrastructure. Although the United States is not part of the ICC, U.S. officials could be prosecuted in other countries under the Geneva Convention, says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. (Counterpunch, 12-27-13).
RELATED WORLD FUTURE FUND REPORTS Death Toll from American Wars Since World War II
RELATED LINKS Benjamin Berell Ferencz (Wikipedia) Nuremberg Set a Valid Precedent for Iraq War Trials (Counter Punch, 12-27-13) Former Nuremberg prosecutor chides U.S., China, Russia (CNN, 6-10-10) Bush and Saddam Should Both Stand Trial, Says Nuremberg Prosecutor (History News Network, 8-27-06) |