The following is reproduced with permission of the publisher, Clarity Press
and can be found in the book, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence - Could
The US War On Terrorism Go Nuclear? by Francis A. Boyle (April, 2002). See
http://www.bookmasters.com/clarity/b0018.htm for the Table of Contents
listing and book reviews. The author's biography and a summary of the book
are included in the References section.


                            SPECIAL INTRODUCTION
            George Bush, Jr., September 11th and the Rule of Law
                            by Francis A. Boyle
                              1 February 2002
                from The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence 
                - Could The US War On Terrorism Go Nuclear?
                         Clarity Press, April 2002


                                  Contents

  * Machiavelli Redux                     * The Prostitution of NATO
  * International Legal Nihilism          * Bush Jr.'s Crusade
  * 11 September 2001                     * The U.S./UN Ambassador of Death
       o The Facts                        * Nazi "Self-defense" Resurfaces
       o The Powell/Blair White Paper     * Retaliation Is Not Self-Defense
       o The Cover-Ups                    * Choosing Violent Resolutions for
       o The Bin Laden Video                International Disputes
  * Framing a Response to September 11th  * Humanitarian Catastrophe
       o Terrorism and the Law            * Why War?
       o The U.S. Policy Preference:      * It's Still the Oil, Stupid!
       o The U.S. Policy                  * How Empires Rule at Home
         Not Terrorism -- War                  o Bush Jr.'s Constitutional
       o The UN Security Council                 Coup D'Êtat
         Disagrees: Terrorism, not War         o Ashcroft's Police State
       o Bush Sr. v. Bush Jr.                  o Bush's Kangaroo Courts       
  * No Declaration of War from Congress        o The Bush Jr. Withdrawal
       o The Infamy of Korematsu                 from the ABM Treaty
       o Instead, A Blank Check           * Conclusion/Prologue
         to Use Military Force            * Notes
       o Bush Sr. v. Bush Jr. Redux
  * "Ending States"             
  * Honest Nuclear War-Mongering          * References     




     George W. Bush was never elected President by the People of the
     United States of America. Instead, he was anointed for that Office
     by five Justices of the United States Supreme Court who themselves
     had been appointed by Republican Presidents. Bush Jr.'s
     installation was an act of judicial usurpation of the American
     Constitution that was unprecedented in the history of the American
     Republic. Had it occurred in a developing country, such a
     subversion of democratic process would have been greeted with
     knowing derision throughout the West. What happened in America
     could only be likened to a judicial coup d'état inflicted upon the
     American People, Constitution, and Republic. There should now be
     no doubt that the United States Supreme Court is governed by raw,
     naked, brutal, power politics. Justice has nothing at all to do
     with it. This Supreme Court's constitutional sophistry proved a
     harbinger of the new administration's disrespect for the Rule of
     Law, whether domestic or international.



     Machiavelli Redux

     When Bush Jr. came to power in January of 2001, he proceeded to
     implement foreign affairs and defense policies that were every bit
     as radical, extreme and excessive as the Reagan/Bush
     administrations had starting in January of 1981. To be sure, Bush
     Jr. had no popular mandate to do anything. Indeed, a majority of
     the American electorate had voted for his corporate-cloned
     opponent.

     Upon his installation, Bush Jr.'s "compassionate conservatism"
     quickly revealed itself to be nothing more than reactionary
     Machiavellianism -- as if there had been any real doubt about this
     during the presidential election campaign. Even the appointees to
     the Bush Jr. administration were pretty much the same as the
     original Reagan/Bush foreign affairs and defense "experts," many
     of whom were called back into service and given promotions for
     policies ten to twenty years ago that many might argue had been
     crimes under international law.[1] It was déjà vû all over again,
     as Yogi Berra aptly put it.



     International Legal Nihilism

     In quick succession the world saw the Bush Jr. administration
     repudiate the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the International
     Criminal Court, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), an
     international convention to regulate the trade in small arms, a
     verification Protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention, an
     international convention to regulate and reduce smoking, the World
     Conference Against Racism, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems
     Treaty, inter alia. To date the Bush Jr. Administration has not
     found an international convention that it likes. The only
     exception to this rule was its shameless exploitation of the 11
     September 2001 tragedy in order to get the U.S. House of
     Representatives to give Bush Jr. "fast-track" trade negotiation
     authority so as to present the American People and Congress with
     yet another non-amendable fait accompli on behalf of American
     multinationals, corporations, banks, insurance companies, the
     high-tech and biotech industries, etc. The epitome of
     "globalization," American-style.

     More ominously, once into office the Bush Jr. administration
     adopted an incredibly belligerent posture towards the Peoples'
     Republic of China (PRC), publicly identifying the PRC as America's
     foremost competitor/opponent into the 21st Century. Their
     needlessly pugnacious approach towards the downing of a U.S. spy
     plane in China with the death of a Chinese pilot only exacerbated
     already tense U.S./Chinese relations. Then the Bush Jr.
     administration decided to sell high-tech weapons to Taiwan in
     violation of the 17 August 1982 Joint Communiqué of the USA and
     PRC that had been negotiated and concluded earlier by the
     Reagan/Bush administration. Finally came Bush Jr.'s breathtaking
     statement that the United States would defend Taiwan in the event
     of an attack by the PRC irrespective of Article I, Section 8,
     Clause 11 of the United States Constitution expressly reserving to
     Congress alone the right to declare war. President Jimmy Carter
     had long ago terminated the U.S.-Taiwan self-defense treaty.[2]

     For twelve years the Constitution and the Rule of Law -- whether
     domestic or international -- never deterred the Reagan/Bush
     administrations from pursuing their internationally lawless and
     criminal policies around the world. The same was true for the
     Clinton administration as well (such as invading Haiti; bombing
     Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Serbia). The Bush Jr. administration
     has behaved no differently from its lineal Machiavellian
     predecessors. Their bellicose handling of the 11 September 2001
     tragedy was no exception to this general rule.

     Indeed, the Bush Jr. administration proceeded to start its bombing
     campaign on the defenseless people of Afghanistan on Sunday,
     October 7 -- not allowing the Sabbath to get in their way either,
     despite the fact that during the presidential election campaign
     Bush Jr. proudly stated that his favorite philosopher was Jesus
     Christ. Yet, as Machiavelli taught, the Prince must appear to be
     "all religion,"[3] especially when he goes to war.



     11 September 2001

     The Bush Jr. administration's war against Afghanistan cannot be
     justified on either the facts, a paucity of which have been
     offered, or the law, either domestic or international. Rather, it
     is an illegal armed aggression that has created a humanitarian
     catastrophe for the twenty-two million people of Afghanistan and
     is promoting terrible regional instability. The longer Bush Jr.'s
     war against Afghanistan goes on -- and at this writing, Secretary
     of Defense Rumsfeld has stated that U.S. ground troops will remain
     in Afghanistan until at least the summer -- the worse it is going
     to be not only for the millions of Afghan people but also in the
     estimation of the 1.2 billion Muslims of the world comprising 58
     Muslim states, few of whom really believe the Bush Jr.
     administration's propaganda that this is not a war against Islam.

     In fact, the Bush Jr. war against Afghanistan has been akin to
     throwing a match into an explosives factory. Among its deleterious
     results, India and Pakistan, which have already fought two wars
     before over Kashmir and today are nuclear armed, are now standing
     "nuclear-eyeball to nuclear-eyeball" over Kashmir. Mimicking the
     Bush Administration's response to September 11th, India has
     accused internal groups in Pakistan of the December 2001 attack on
     the Indian parliament, and demanded, without any offer of proof
     for its accusations, that Pakistan proceed against them or else
     face military reprisal. The continuing conflict and armed
     confrontation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could
     readily go nuclear.


     The Facts

     There is not and may never be conclusive proof as to who was
     behind the terrible bombings in New York and Washington, D.C., on
     September 11, 2001. No point would be served here by making a
     detailed review of the facts that have so far emerged into the
     public record. Suffice it to say that the accounts provided by the
     United States government simply do not add up.

     The October 3 edition of the New York Times recounted the
     definitive briefing by a U.S. ambassador to NATO officials on the
     alleged facts as follows:

          One Western official at NATO said the briefings, which
          were oral, without slides or documents, did not report
          any direct order from Mr. bin Laden, nor did they
          indicate that the Taliban knew about the attacks before
          they happened.

          A senior diplomat for one closely allied nation
          characterized the briefing as containing "nothing
          particularly new or surprising," adding: "It was rather
          descriptive and narrative rather then forensic. There
          was no attempt to build a legal case."

     In other words, there was no real case against Al Qaeda, bin
     Laden, and the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Such was the
     conclusion of senior diplomats from friendly nations who attended
     the so-called briefing.


     The Powell/Blair White Paper

     Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly promised that they were
     going to produce a "White Paper" documenting their case against
     Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization concerning September
     11. As those of us in the Peace Movement know all too well from
     previous international transgressions, these U.S. government
     "White Papers" are all too frequently laden with lies, propaganda,
     half-truths, dissimulation, disinformation, etc. that are usually
     very easily refuted after a little bit of research and analysis.

     What happened here? We never received a "White Paper" produced by
     the United States government as publicly promised by Secretary
     Powell, who was later overridden by President Bush Jr. What we got
     instead was a so-called White Paper produced by British Prime
     Minister Tony Blair. Obviously, Blair was acting as Bush Jr.'s
     surrogate or, as the British press routinely referred to him,
     "Bush's pet-poodle". Tony Blair is neither an elected nor an
     appointed official of the U.S. government, not even an American
     citizen. Conveniently, no American official could be brought to
     task for or even questioned about whatever errors or inadequacies
     he might purvey.

     The Powell/Blair White Paper fell into that hallowed tradition of
     a "White Paper" based upon insinuation, allegation, rumors,
     propaganda, lies, half-truths, etc. Even unnamed British
     government officials on an off-the-record basis admitted that the
     case against bin Laden and Al Qaeda would not stand up in court.
     As a matter of fact, the Blair/Powell White Paper was widely
     derided in the British news media. There was nothing there.


     The Cover-Ups

     Despite the clear import of the matter, at Bush Jr.'s request the
     U.S. Congress has so far decided not to empanel a Joint Committee
     of the House and of the Senate with subpoena power giving them
     access to whatever hard evidence they want throughout any agency
     of the United States government -- including the National Security
     Council, FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA -- and also to put their respective
     Officials under oath to testify as to what happened and why under
     penalty of perjury. Obviously a cover-up is underway for the
     express purpose of not determining (1) who was ultimately
     responsible for the terrible attacks of 11 September 2001; and (2)
     why these extravagantly funded U.S. "intelligence" agencies were
     either unable or unwilling to prevent these attacks despite
     numerous warnings of a serious anti-American attack throughout the
     Summer of 2001 -- and yet, amazingly, could assert the identity of
     those responsible with such certainty in the space of hours
     thereafter so as to preclude any serious investigation of other
     possible perpetrators. For reasons not necessary to get into here,
     there is also an ongoing governmental cover-up of the obvious
     involvement of the Pentagon/CIA, or one of their contractors, in
     the attacks inflicting U.S.-produced weapons-grade anthrax upon
     those institutional components of American society that the
     American right-wing has traditionally viewed with antipathy: the
     Democratic Congressional leadership, and the media.


     The Bin Laden Video

     The so-called bin Laden Video was miraculously discovered in the
     rubble of a bombed-out house in the bombed-out city of Jalalabad
     by the CIA, who undoubtedly turned the Video over to the
     Pentagon's Psyops People, who were operating in Afghanistan. The
     Pentagon then had the tape translated by "outside" experts, one of
     whom works at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International
     Studies (SAIS), where Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
     had just been his boss as SAIS Dean. The SAIS/Wolfowitz translator
     has not been giving any interviews.

     The text of the translation itself admits it is not a verbatim
     transcript, but only provides "messages and information flow,"
     whatever that means. Admittedly the tape is disjointed and
     non-sequential. Since I am not a technical expert, I will not
     comment upon how easy it would be to falsify this video. I doubt
     very seriously that any fair, objective and impartial judge would
     admit this Video into evidence for consideration by a jury in a
     criminal case.

     But let us put aside for the time being the long history of U.S.
     intelligence agencies operating both at home and abroad in order
     to manufacture "evidence" that suits the party line coming out of
     Washington, DC.[4] Let us further assume that everything in and
     about the bin Laden video is true and can be authenticated to the
     satisfaction of an impartial and objective international court of
     justice. Even so, the bin Laden video provided no evidence that
     implicated the Taliban Government of Afghanistan in the 11
     September 2001 attacks upon the United States. The video provides
     no justification for the United States to wage war against
     Afghanistan, a UN Member State, in gross violation of the United
     Nations Charter. The fact that Afghanistan's dysfunctional former
     President Rabbani was left to occupy the Afghan "Seat" at the
     United Nations makes no legal difference here. The United Nations
     Charter protected the State of Afghanistan from aggression by the
     United States. Indeed, the Clinton administration had already
     negotiated with the Taliban government over letting it have the UN
     Seat as well as extending it bilateral de jure recognition in
     return, in part, for the construction of the UNOCAL pipeline
     across Afghanistan[5] -- a negotiation from which -- ominously,
     in light of the onslaught to come -- the Taliban demurred.



     Framing a Response to September 11th


     Terrorism and the Law

     So let us now turn to the law. Immediately after the 11 September
     2001 attacks President Bush's first public statement characterized
     these terrible attacks as an act of terrorism. Under United States
     domestic law there is a definition of terrorism, which clearly
     qualifies them as such. To be sure, under international law and
     practice there is no generally accepted definition of terrorism,
     for reasons that are too complicated to explain in detail here but
     basically relate to that hackneyed aphorism that "one person's
     terrorist is another person's freedom fighter."[6] Yet certainly
     under United States domestic law this qualified as an act or acts
     of terrorism.

     What happened? It appears that President Bush consulted with
     Secretary Powell and all of a sudden they changed the rhetoric and
     characterization of these terrible attacks. They now called them
     an act of war -- though clearly this was not an act of war, which
     international law and practice define as a military attack by one
     nation state upon another nation state.

     There are enormous differences and consequences, however, in how
     you treat an act of terrorism compared to how you treat an act of
     war. This nation and others have dealt with acts of terrorism
     before. Normally acts of terrorism are dealt with as a matter of
     international and domestic law enforcement -- which is, in my
     opinion, precisely how these terrible attacks should have been
     dealt with -- not as an act of war.

     Indeed there is a treaty directly on point to which both the
     United States and Afghanistan are party: the 1971 Convention for
     the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil
     Aviation, the so-called Montreal Sabotage Convention. Article
     1(I)(b) thereof criminalizes the destruction of civilian aircraft
     while in service. It has an entire legal regime specifically
     designed to deal with this type of situation and all issues
     related to it, including reference to the International Court of
     Justice to resolve any disputes that could not be settled by
     negotiations between the United States and Afghanistan or other
     contracting parties. The Bush Jr. administration simply ignored
     the Montreal Sabotage Convention completely, as well as the 12 or
     so multilateral conventions already on the books that deal with
     various components and aspects of what people generally call
     international terrorism, many of which could have been used and
     relied upon to handle this matter in a lawful, effective, and
     peaceful manner.


     The U.S. Policy Preference: Not Terrorism -- War

     Instead, proving again the Bush Jr. administration's unwillingness
     to utilize international conventions which might require the
     submission of American power to external restraints, and thereby
     constrain rather than facilitate the realization of overt or
     covert American objectives, the Bush Jr. administration rejected
     this entire multilateral approach and called these terrible
     attacks an act of war. They deliberately invoked the rhetoric of
     Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. It was a conscious decision to
     escalate the emotions and perceptions of the American people
     generated on September 11th, and thus dramatically escalate the
     stakes, both internationally and domestically.

     The implication was that if this is an act of war, then you do not
     deal with it by means of international treaties and negotiations:
     You deal with an act of war by means of military force. You go to
     war. So a decision was made remarkably early in the process to
     ignore and abandon the entire framework of international treaties
     that had been established under the auspices of the United Nations
     Organization for the past 25 years in order to deal with acts of
     international terrorism and instead go to war against Afghanistan,
     a UN member state. In order to prevent the momentum towards war
     from being impeded, Bush Jr. issued an impossible ultimatum,
     refusing all negotiations with the Taliban government, as well as
     all the extensive due process protections that are required
     between sovereign states related to extraditions, etc. The Taliban
     government's requests for proof and offers to surrender bin Laden
     to a third party, similar to those which ultimately brought the
     Libyan Lockerbie suspects to trial, were all peremptorily ignored.
     Why such haste?


     The UN Security Council Disagrees: Terrorism, not War

     An act of war has a technical legal meaning: basically, a military
     attack by one nation state against another nation state. While
     this is what happened on December 7, 1941, it is not what happened
     on September 11, 2001. Nonetheless, immediately after September
     11th, the Bush Jr. administration went to the United Nations
     Security Council in order to get a resolution authorizing the use
     of military force against Afghanistan and Al Qaeda. They failed.
     Indeed, the Security Council resolution that was adopted, instead
     of calling this an "armed attack" by one state against another
     state, denominated these events "terrorist attacks."[7] And again
     there is a magnitude of difference between an armed attack by one
     state against another state, which is an act of war, and a
     terrorist attack, which is not. Again, terrorists are dealt with
     as criminals. Terrorists are not treated like nation states.
     Terrorists are dealt with by means of international and domestic
     law enforcement. Terrorists are not given the dignity of special
     status under international law and practice.


     Bush Sr. v. Bush Jr.

     What the Bush Jr. administration tried to do in the Security
     Council was to get a resolution similar to that obtained by the
     Bush Sr. administration in the run up to the Gulf War in the late
     Fall of 1990. Bush Sr. got a resolution from the Security Council
     authorizing UN member states to use "all necessary means" in order
     to expel Iraq from Kuwait.[8] The Bush Sr. administration
     originally wanted language in there expressly authorizing the use
     of military force in haec verba. The Chinese objected, so the
     Security Council employed the euphemism by "all necessary means,"
     though everyone knew what that meant. Besides, even if it may have
     been induced to do so, Iraq had actually invaded Kuwait, which was
     contrary to international law -- a real act of war.[9]

     The first Bush Jr. Security Council resolution, on the other hand,
     provided no authority to use military force at all. That language
     simply was not in there. A close reading of the Security Council
     Resolution indicates that Bush Jr. tried but failed to get the
     authorization to use force that Bush Sr. got. Bush Jr. was
     defeated at the Security Council. This failure, of course, did not
     make national headlines; rather, it was subsumed in commentary
     which dwelt on a UN supposedly galvanized behind the Bush Jr.
     administration to combat terrorism.



     No Declaration of War from Congress

     Having failed to co-opt the UN Security Council for war as his
     father had, Bush Jr. then went to the United States Congress and
     exploited the raw emotions of this national tragedy to ram through
     a congressional authorization to use force. The exact nature of
     the Bush Jr. proposal to Congress at that time is unknown.
     However, reading between the lines of a public statement made by
     Senator Robert Byrd that was reported in the New York Times, it
     appears that Bush Jr. wanted a formal declaration of war along the
     lines of what President Roosevelt got from Congress after Pearl
     Harbor.[10] Congress failed to give Bush Jr. that -- and for a
     very good reason. If a formal declaration of war had been passed
     by Congress, it would have made Bush Jr. a "constitutional
     dictator" insofar as that, basically, Americans would now all be
     living under marshal law.[11] Congress might have just as well
     closed up and gone home for the rest of the duration of the Bush
     Jr. war against terrorism for all the difference they would have
     made. Bush Jr./Sr. would have known that full well. Indeed, prior
     to September 11th, President Bush Jr. had publicly opined about
     becoming a U.S. "dictator."


     The Infamy of Korematsu

     As a direct result of that congressional declaration of war after
     Pearl Harbor, America made the infamous Korematsu mistake, whereby
     about 100,000 Japanese-American citizens and Japanese immigrants
     were rounded up and put in concentration camps on the basis of
     nothing more than an Executive Order that later on turned out to
     be based upon a gross misrepresentation of the factual allegation
     that Japanese in America constituted some type of unique security
     threat different from Germans in America or Italians in American,
     inter alia.[12] Obviously, in Korematsu race made all the
     difference. Again today, race is making all the difference in the
     Bush Jr. administration's specific targeting of Arabs and Muslims
     from the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

     Had Bush Jr. received a formal declaration of war from Congress,
     many groups of American citizens could have been on the exact same
     legal footing of the terrible Korematsu case, which has never been
     overturned by the United States Supreme Court. We could have
     witnessed the mass internment of American citizens of Arab,
     Muslim, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African American (many of whom
     are Muslims) descent. Instead, to date at least, the Bush Jr.
     administration has been restricting itself to detaining aliens who
     fit into these racial and religious categories. Of course such
     discrimination violates the International Convention on the
     Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which the
     United States is a contracting party -- yet another international
     convention that the Bush Jr. administration has set at naught. And
     we still could be seeing the mass detention and internment of
     American citizens of whatever ethnicity who may become engaged in
     civil resistance against administration policies if Bush Jr.,
     Attorney General John Ashcroft, White House Counsel Alberto
     Gonzales and their reactionary coterie of Federalist Society
     Lawyers can ultimately get their way. They have already instigated
     a nation-wide campaign of illegal profiling against the racial and
     religious categories of U.S. citizens and aliens mentioned above.


     Instead, A Blank Check to Use Military Force

     Instead of a formal declaration of war, the U.S. Congress gave
     Bush Jr. what is called a War Powers Resolution Authorization. The
     War Powers Resolution of 1973 was passed over President Nixon's
     veto by a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Congress, and was
     expressly designed to prevent another Vietnam War.[13] Although
     the resolution that Bush Jr. did get from Congress is not a formal
     declaration of war, it was stronger than the Tonkin Gulf
     Resolution,[14] which served as the legal pretext for President
     Johnson's massive escalation of the Vietnam War into outright
     genocide against the Vietnamese People. Only one courageous Member
     of Congress, Barbara Lee, an African American representative from
     Oakland, voted against it, as a matter of principle.

     This War Powers Resolution authorization basically gives Bush Jr.
     a blank check to use military force against any individual,
     organization, or state that he alleges -- by means of his own ipse
     dixit -- was somehow involved in the attacks on September 11th, or
     else harbored those who were.[15] To date, the number of
     potential targets has fluctuated from between 30 to 60 nation
     states, all of which are UN Members and thus protected from U.S.
     aggression by the UN Charter. In other words, Bush Jr. has
     received a blank check from the United States Congress to exert
     military force pretty much against any state he wants to despite
     the UN Charter. This was then followed by Congress granting Bush
     Jr. a $20 billion appropriation as a cash down payment on this
     blank check in order to exert military force against Afghanistan,
     for starters.


     Bush Sr. v. Bush Jr. Redux

     Let us compare and contrast this congressional resolution with the
     War Powers Resolution obtained by Bush Sr. in January of 1991.
     First, Bush Sr. got the Security Council resolution mentioned
     above, which he took to the U.S. Congress for authorization under
     the War Powers Resolution to use military force in order to carry
     it out. Congress then gave Bush Sr. a very precise authorization
     to use military force for the express purpose of carrying out the
     Security Council resolution, that is, only for the purpose of
     expelling Iraq from Kuwait.[16] And indeed that is what Bush Sr.
     did. He expelled Iraq from Kuwait, stopping south of Basra, saying
     that was all the authority he had. This is not to approve what
     Bush Sr. did in that war, but simply to compare it with Bush Jr.

     While Bush Sr. has been criticized on the grounds that he should
     have marched all the way to Baghdad, he truly had no authority
     from either the Security Council or from the United States
     Congress to do so. Compare that to Bush Jr.'s War Powers
     Resolution that basically gave Bush Jr. a blank check to use
     military force against anyone he wants to, and with no more than
     his asserting the need to do so. It is astounding to believe. With
     such latitude, even more extensive than that of the Tonkin Gulf
     Resolution, can another Vietnam War be far behind? Has one already
     commenced, with direct U.S. military re-intervention into the
     Philippines?



     "Ending States"

     At this writing, the Bush Jr. administration is publicly debating
     the "wisdom" of launching yet another massive military attack upon
     Iraq -- only this time for the express purpose of deposing and
     replacing the Government of Iraq. Needless to say, such an
     unwarranted and aggressive attack on yet another sovereign state
     would violate the United Nations Charter, inter alia. Worse yet,
     Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has publicly bragged
     about "ending states"[17] -- a rhetorical escalation from efforts
     to designate some as "failed" states, whose institutional and
     legal structures might thereby be illegally disregarded by the
     United States. Terminating states, if actually carried out, would
     violate the 1948 Genocide Convention, to which the United States
     is a contracting party. Such a reprehensible statement by
     Wolfowitz acting within the scope of his official duties could be
     taken to the World Court and filed in order to prove the existence
     of genocidal intent by the United States government. Indeed, there
     is a good chance that the first victim of this Wolfowitz threat
     may be the Republic of Iraq, which has been continuously and
     illegally bombed by the United States and the United Kingdom since
     the end of the Gulf War eleven years ago under the pretext of
     enforcing unauthorized "no-fly zones." In this regard, Bush Jr.'s
     aggressive threat to Iraq, Iran and North Korea uttered during the
     course of his State of the Union Address to Congress on 29 January
     2002 does not augur well. It appears from his language that the
     Bush Jr. administration is deliberately preparing the ground for a
     bogus claim to "anticipatory self-defense" in order to justify
     their pre-planned aggression against Iraq.



     Honest Nuclear War-Mongering

     Since the events of September 11th, the American people may have
     been treated to more truth from their government than ever before.
     In the post-Vietnam era, when the notorious Phoenix program of
     assassinations finally came to light, public indignation was
     sufficient to empower investigation by the Church Committee, and a
     subsequent ban on foreign assassinations. Over the past decade and
     increasingly under the Bush Jr. administration, however, open talk
     of intended foreign assassinations, efforts to overthrow the
     leaders of other sovereign states, or invasions of an unspecified
     array of nations can reach the daily papers through on-record
     remarks by elected officials. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
     can call for the apprehension of suspects "dead or alive" or even
     "preferably dead" -- which would happily avoid all the legal
     difficulties of proving bin Laden guilty in an evidentiary manner,
     or indeed the possibility of being confronted by a range of legal
     improprieties or malfeasances committed on the American side,
     especially by the CIA.[18] Even the International Herald Tribune,
     in its effort to convince European readerships of the longstanding
     struggle of the U.S. to deal with Al Qaeda, revealed how the
     comparatively temperate Clinton had signed three highly classified
     Memorandums of Notification authorizing killing instead of
     capturing Mr. bin Laden, then added several of Al Qaeda's senior
     lieutenants to the list, and finally approved the shooting down of
     private civilian aircraft on which they flew.[19]

     It should come as no surprise therefore, in this onslaught of
     candid revelation of Machiavellian Realpolitik, that the
     historically covert intent of America's nuclear deterrence policy
     should come to light through almost off-the-cuff remarks such as
     those by the omnipresent Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz
     appearing in the 9 January 2002 edition of the New York Times:

          "We're looking at a transformation of our deterrence
          posture from an almost exclusive emphasis on offensive
          nuclear forces [italics added] to a force that includes
          defenses as well as offenses, that includes conventional
          strike capabilities as well as nuclear strike
          capabilities, and includes a much reduced level of
          nuclear strike capability," the deputy secretary of
          defense, Paul D. Wolfowitz, said.

     Well at least he was honest about it.

     Wolfowitz admitted that the current U.S. practice of so-called
     nuclear "deterrence" is in fact really based upon "an almost
     exclusive emphasis on offensive nuclear forces." To reiterate,
     since this deserves emphasis: The U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense
     has publicly admitted and conceded that "almost" all U.S. nuclear
     forces are really "offensive" and not really "defenses." Once
     again, that Statement could be taken to the International Court of
     Justice and filed against the United States government as an
     Admission against Interest, Wolfowitz acting within the scope of
     his official duties. Of course the Peace Movement and informed
     American public knew this was true all along. Nonetheless, it
     should be regarded as an ominous sign of the times that the
     Pentagon has become so brazen that it is publicly admitting U.S.
     nuclear criminality to the entire world.



     The Prostitution of NATO

     In furtherance of its quest for war-making pseudo-legitimacy, the
     Bush Jr. administration also went to NATO headquarters in Brussels
     to get a resolution of support for the use of force. NATO
     proceeded to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Pact.[20] Article 5 of
     the NATO Pact is only intended to deal with an armed attack by a
     nation state or states against a NATO member state or states. It
     is not, and has never been, intended to deal with a terrorist
     attack.

     NATO was originally organized as a collective self-defense pact
     pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Charter, recognizing the right of
     individual and collective self-defense in the event of an armed
     attack by one nation state against another nation state. In
     theory, the NATO Pact was supposed to deal with an armed attack
     upon a NATO member state or states by a member or members of the
     Warsaw Pact, especially the Soviet Union. But with the collapse of
     the Warsaw Pact and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there
     was no real justification or excuse anymore for the continued
     existence of NATO. NATO had lost its supposed raison d'être.

     In an effort to keep NATO alive, Bush Sr. then tried to transmute
     its very nature in order to serve two additional purposes: (1)
     policing Eastern Europe; and (2) military intervention into the
     Middle East in order to secure the oil and gas fields. The NATO
     Council basically approved Bush Sr.'s transmutation of NATO from a
     lawful collective self-defense agreement into an illegal,
     offensive interventionary pact.[21] Shades of the 1939
     Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact that was the necessary precursor to
     Hitler's invasion of Poland, thus leading to the commencement of
     World War II!

     A generation later, Bush Sr. would set the political predicate for
     NATO's illegal war against Serbia over Kosovo in 1999 under the
     criminal leadership of President Bill Clinton. Serbia never
     attacked a NATO member state; rather, the reverse was true. The
     NATO Alliance attacked Serbia with no authorization from the UN
     Security Council.[22] But this was what "policing" Eastern Europe
     was supposed to be all about in the estimation of Bush Sr. and
     Clinton. As I always asked my law students from 1991 to 2001:
     Please explain to me the basic difference between Clinton and Bush
     Sr.?

     The main legal problem here is that the NATO Pact provides no
     authorization to do this at all and indeed should have to be
     amended by the parliaments of the NATO member states to justify
     either policing Eastern Europe or as an interventionary force
     against the Middle East. Furthermore, any such offensive mission
     for NATO would also have required the express authorization of the
     UN Security Council on a case-by-case basis as clearly required by
     UN Charter Article 53(1). Bush Sr. and Clinton simply wanted a
     useful tool for collective, offensive military intervention under
     the predominant control of the United States that would provide a
     thin veneer of multilateralism for domestic and international
     propaganda purposes, while at the same time avoiding the
     supervisory jurisdiction of the UN Security Council in accordance
     with the requirements of the UN Charter. The same was true for the
     Bush Jr. Leaguers in their prostitution of NATO after 11 September
     2001.

     Immediately thereafter, Bush Jr. simply followed in the illegal
     pathway that had already been carved out for him by Bush Sr. and
     Clinton. The Bush Jr. invocation of NATO Article 5 was completely
     bogus. It is a matter of some irony but little surprise that the
     United States, which allegedly set up NATO in order to "protect"
     Europe from an armed attack by the Soviet Union, has become the
     very first beneficiary of NATO's invocation of Article 5. He who
     pays the piper calls the tune. Or as Clinton officials readily
     admitted during their illegal NATO war against Serbia over Kosovo:
     The U.S. is NATO! This seeming paradox can be resolved by
     understanding that the real reason why the United States set up
     NATO in the first place was to secure American control and
     domination of the European Continent.[23] That still is NATO's
     primary purpose, even as Europe struggles to bring into being its
     own military force for collective self-defense.



     Bush Jr.'s Crusade

     Today the NATO Member States are readily enlisting in the Bush Jr.
     holy war against international terrorism in Afghanistan, Somalia,
     and other Arab and Muslim countries. We are witnessing another
     medieval Crusade by the White, European, Christian colonial powers
     against the 1.2 billion Muslims of the world organized into about
     58 countries, most of whom are or are regarded as People of Color
     in the racist European mindset, and who happen to legally own the
     massive oil and natural gas resources of the Middle East, Central
     Asia, and Southeast Asia that the West so desperately craves. That
     is what is really going on here. And if you have any doubt,
     remember that it was Bush Jr. himself who publicly called his holy
     war against international terrorism a "Crusade."

     Of course the Muslim World knows all about Western Crusades and
     Western Crusaders. The "Clash of Civilizations" forecast by my
     fellow Harvard Ph.D. graduate Samuel Huntington has received
     intensive discussion in the West,[24] while the Iranian riposte
     calling for "a Dialogue between Civilizations" has gone unnoticed.
     The Muslim World has recently witnessed widespread extermination
     of Muslim Peoples by Western Crusaders and their surrogates in
     Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, and now Afghanistan.
     It is almost as if the script for the Bush Sr./Jr. New World Order
     had been lifted from Huntington's Clash of Civilizations.
     Ominously, that ponderous tome ends with a prognosticated
     catastrophic war between the United States and China -- bringing
     to mind again the Bush Jr. administration's reckless hostility
     towards the PRC in its earliest days.



     The U.S./UN Ambassador of Death

     By going to NATO, the Bush Jr. administration was attempting to
     get some type of multilateral endorsement for a war against
     Afghanistan after it had failed to achieve the same at the United
     Nations Security Council. The Bush Jr. administration then tried
     once again to get authority for war from the Security Council, but
     all they got was a Presidential Statement, which legally meant
     nothing. They then tried yet a third time to get some type of
     authorization to use military force from the Security Council.
     This time they did get stronger language but -- and it is
     necessary to emphasize this, since the UN stand has not been
     clearly impressed upon the American public -- they still failed to
     get any authorization from the Security Council to use military
     force for any reason, let alone a full scale war against
     Afghanistan, a UN Member state.[25]

     Then the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John
     Negroponte, sent a letter to the UN Security Council asserting
     Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.[26] Some of us in the
     Peace Movement are familiar with Negroponte, who was the U.S.
     Ambassador in Honduras during the Reagan/Bush Contra Terror War
     against Nicaragua, and has the blood of about 35,000 Nicaraguan
     civilians on his hands -- about ten times the number of victims
     from the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. Indeed, because
     of this, the only way Bush Jr. could get him confirmed by the
     Senate was to ram Negroponte's name through the Senate
     "confirmation" process right after the 11 September 2001 attacks.
     Yet another Machiavellian exploitation of this terrible national
     tragedy by George W. Bush. In an unwitting tribute to Orwell, the
     Bush Jr. administration selected Negroponte to lecture the entire
     world at the UN about international terrorism -- a subject upon
     which he is an acknowledged expert by dint of vast personal
     experience.



     Nazi "Self-defense" Resurfaces

     Given his "priors", the letter by Negroponte to the Security
     Council was not surprising. It basically said that the United
     States reserved its right to use force in self-defense against any
     state that the Bush Jr. administration felt the need to victimize
     in order to fight their holy war against international terrorism
     as determined by themselves. Soon thereafter a reporter from the
     San Francisco Chronicle asked me if there was any precedent for
     the sweeping position being asserted by Negroponte that the United
     States is reserving the right to go to war in self-defense against
     30 to 60 other states as determined solely by the United States. I
     responded that there is indeed one very unfortunate precedent,
     recorded in the Nuremberg Judgment of 1946.

     It was striking but not surprising that this mass murderer
     Negroponte was making an argument similar to that put forth in
     defense of the Nazi war criminals before the Nuremberg Tribunal
     with respect to the non-applicability of the Kellogg-Briand Pact
     of 1928. This "Paris Peace Pact" had formally renounced war as an
     instrument of national policy. Article 1 provided: "The High
     Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their
     respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the
     solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an
     instrument of national policy in their relations with one
     another." However, when signing the Pact, Germany entered a
     reservation to the effect that it reserved the right to go to war
     in self-defense as determined by itself.

     So when in 1945 the Nazi war criminals were prosecuted for crimes
     against peace on the basis of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, they
     basically argued that the Second World War was a war of
     self-defense as determined by the Nazi government, and therefore
     that the Nuremberg Tribunal had no competence to determine
     otherwise because of Germany's self-judging reservation. Needless
     to say, the Tribunal summarily rejected this preposterous argument
     and later convicted and sentenced to death several Nazi war
     criminals for the commission of crimes against peace, among other
     international crimes.[27] Both the United States and Afghanistan
     are contracting parties to the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Article 6(a)
     of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter defines "crimes against peace" as
     follows:

          (a) CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation,
          initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in
          violation of international treaties, agreements or
          assurances, or participation in a common plan or
          conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the
          foregoing; . . .

     The Bush Jr. war against Afghanistan in violation of the
     Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 and the UN Charter of 1945 constitutes
     a Nuremberg Crime Against Peace. This provides yet another glaring
     example of precisely why the Pentagon and Bush Jr. have so
     vigorously opposed the establishment of an International Criminal
     Court.



     Retaliation Is Not Self-Defense

     Clearly the Bush Jr. war against Afghanistan is not self-defense.
     Let us be honest about it. The entire world knows it. At best it
     may be vengeance, catharsis, or scapegoating. Call it what you
     want, but it is not self-defense. Retaliation is never
     self-defense.

     Indeed, this truth had always been the official position of the
     United States government, even during the darkest days of the
     Vietnam War. In 1973-74, Eugene V. Rostow -- who had been
     Undersecretary of State in the genocidal Johnson administration,
     and was later to serve as the Director of the Arms Control and
     Disarmament Agency (ACDA) in the Reagan/Bush administration (truly
     Orwellian!) -- requested that the Department of State change its
     policy on retaliation and reprisal. Pursuant to Rostow's request,
     the State Department did look into the matter. But the State
     Department concluded that there were no good grounds for the
     United States government to change its longstanding policy that
     retaliation and reprisal were not legitimate exercises of the
     right of self-defense and, therefore, were prohibited by
     international law.[28]



     Choosing Violent Resolutions for International Disputes

     The Taliban government of Afghanistan had made repeated offers to
     negotiate a solution to the dispute over bin Laden with the United
     States. Even before the tragic events of September 11th,
     negotiations were going on between the United States and the
     Taliban government over the disposition of bin Laden -- as well as
     over the UNOCAL oil pipeline. The Taliban government had offered
     to have bin Laden tried in a neutral Islamic court by Muslim
     judges applying the laws of Sharia. Later on, their proposal was
     modified to simply have him tried before some type of neutral
     court, which would exclude handing him over to the United States
     government. Finally, the Taliban government even offered to try
     bin Laden themselves provided the United States gave them some
     credible evidence of his involvement in the 11 September attacks,
     which was never done.

     Bush Jr. responded to their overtures in his 20 September 2001
     Address before the U.S. Congress by ruling out any type of
     negotiations and instead issuing the Taliban government an
     impossible ultimatum. However, Article II of the above-mentioned
     Kellogg-Briand Pact requires the peaceful resolution of
     international disputes between contracting parties such as the
     United States and Afghanistan, as follows:

          Article II

          The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement
          or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever
          nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may
          arise among them, shall never be sought except by
          pacific means.

     To the same effect are article 2(3) and article 33(1) of the
     United Nations Charter:

          Article 2
          The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the
          Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance
          with the following Principles.
          . . . .
          3. All Members shall settle their international disputes
          by peaceful means in such a manner that international
          peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
          . . . .
          CHAPTER VI
          PACIFIC SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
          Article 33
          1. The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which
          is likely to endanger the maintenance of international
          peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution
          by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation,
          arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional
          agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of
          their own choice. . . .

     Indeed, if you read the ultimatum that President Bush Jr. publicly
     gave to the Taliban government of Afghanistan, no self-respecting
     government in the world could have complied with that ultimatum.
     Quite obviously the Bush Jr. ultimatum was specifically drafted
     and publicly uttered so that it could not be complied with by the
     Taliban government of Afghanistan.

     Indeed, there are striking similarities between the Bush Jr.
     public ultimatum to Afghanistan and the ultimatum given in private
     by U.S. Secretary of State Jim Baker on behalf of Bush Sr. to
     Tariq Aziz on the eve of the Bush Sr. war against Iraq. That Bush
     Sr. ultimatum was deliberately designed so as not to be
     acceptable, which it was not. Why? Because the Bush Sr.
     administration had already made the decision to go to war against
     Iraq no matter what. A similar ultimatum had been delivered to
     Milosevic at Rambouillet prior to the NATO war against Serbia.
     Bush Jr. thus once again, following his predecessors, trod the
     path of Machiavelli when he issued his public ultimatum to the
     Taliban government of Afghanistan.

     It appears that the Bush Jr. administration is basically following
     the same script and scenario that had already been written and
     successfully carried out over a decade ago by the Bush Sr.
     Leaguers when they went to war against Iraq for the primary
     purpose of establishing direct American military control and
     domination over the Persian Gulf oil and gas fields. Only this
     time the Bushes were putting a move on the vast energy resources
     of Central Asia. As is well known, the Bush Family has extensive
     investments in the Oil and Gas Business, as does Vice President
     Cheney, who earlier served as Bush Sr.'s Minister of War. The same
     is true for other prominent Bush Jr./Sr. officials. Two major
     grabs for world hegemony and family fortunes.



     Humanitarian Catastrophe

     Now, all that being said, what then is really going on here? If
     there is no basis in fact and no basis in law for this war against
     Afghanistan, why are we doing this? Why are we creating this
     humanitarian catastrophe for the Afghan people? After all, it was
     Bush Jr.'s threat to bomb Afghanistan that put millions of Afghans
     on the move without food, clothing, housing, water, or medical
     facilities. The result has been a humanitarian catastrophe for
     anywhere from 5 to 7 million Afghans, particularly as the winter
     approached in Afghanistan. U.S. responsibility cannot be cloaked
     by the American media's incessant references to the ravages of
     Afghanistan's decades-long conflicts.

     Indeed, the Bush Jr. administration ordered Pakistan to close the
     border with Afghanistan so that humanitarian relief supplies could
     not be shipped by land to its long-suffering people. The
     starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited by
     Article 54(I) of Geneva Protocol I of 1977, and thus a war crime.
     The so-called U.S. airlifts of food packets -- dropped at first in
     yellow packets similar in color to unexploded bomblets from the
     cluster bombs it also dropped -- was nothing more than an
     international propaganda campaign, receiving extensive criticism
     from international NGOs already working on site. The same was true
     of Bush Jr.'s personal appeal to the Children of America to send
     in $1 to help the Children of Afghanistan. It would have been
     better to auction off the payload of one B2 Bomber.



     Why War?

     Why did we really bomb, attack, and invade Afghanistan? Could one
     truly say it was even so human a motivation as retaliation -- or
     vengeance -- or even atavistic bloodlust? No! The Bush Jr./Sr.
     Leaguers are cold, calculating, and shrewd Machiavellians. They
     know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. And
     during the first two weeks of the war it became crystal clear what
     their ultimate objective really was.

     Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld flew over to Uzbekistan and
     concluded an agreement with their well-known dictator Karimov to
     the effect that the United States government will protect
     Uzbekistan -- irrespective of the fact that the Secretary of
     Defense has no constitutional authority to conclude such an
     agreement. Constitutional authority aside, the Pentagon is now in
     the process of establishing a long-term military base in
     Uzbekistan. That base and this war have been in the works for
     quite some time. U.S. Special Forces have been over there for
     several years training the Uzbekistan military.

     Uzbekistan now wants a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the
     United States. A SOFA permits the long-term deployment of
     significant numbers of U.S. armed forces in another state. The
     U.S. has SOFAs with Germany, Japan, and South Korea, inter alia,
     and has had troops in all three of those countries since 1945 in
     order to control them. When the U.S. gets its military base in
     Uzbekistan, it will clearly not be leaving anytime soon.

     It is obvious that this unconstitutional agreement between
     Rumsfeld and Karimov is to set the legal predicate for America to
     stay in Uzbekistan for the next 20 years or so for the alleged
     purpose of defending this country from Afghanistan, where the U.S.
     has deliberately created total chaos in the first place. This is
     exactly the same rationale that has been made for keeping the
     United States military forces deployed in the Persian Gulf for
     over eleven years after the Gulf War. Indeed, planning for the
     Gulf War went all the way back to the Carter administration with
     its so-called Rapid Deployment Force,[29] later renamed the U.S.
     Central Command that carried out the war against Iraq and still de
     facto occupies these Persian Gulf countries and their oil fields.
     The U.S. still retained about 20,000 troops sitting on top of the
     oil and gas fields in all these countries. It even established a
     separate naval fleet in Bahrain to police the Persian Gulf oil
     fields. It never had any intention of leaving the Persian Gulf. It
     went there to stay.



     It's Still the Oil, Stupid!

     Today the U.S. Central Command is executing the Pentagon's
     outstanding war plan against Afghanistan and deploying U.S.
     military forces to build U.S. military bases in Uzbekistan,
     Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrghyzstan, and Tajikistan. There is more
     than enough evidence in the public record that the U.S. war
     against Afghanistan had been planned and prepared well before 11
     September 2001.[30] Clearly since at least 11 September 2001, the
     world has been witnessing the formal execution of a Pentagon war
     plan that had been in the works for about four years.

     Why do we want military bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrghyzstan,
     Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan? Very simple: The oil and
     natural gas resources of Central Asia, reported to be the second
     largest deposits in the world after the Persian Gulf. Shortly
     after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ascent to
     independence of its constituent states in 1991, U.S. think-tanks
     and their respective "thinkers" produced all sorts of studies
     about how a U.S. presence in Central Asia had suddenly become a
     "vital national security interest" of the United States because of
     its vast energy resources. Yet another "vital national interest"
     the American public had never heard of or even dreamed about
     before.

     Since Central Asia is landlocked, the United States government
     wanted to find a way to get the oil and natural gas out, while
     avoiding Iran, Russia, and China. The easiest way to do that was
     to construct a pipeline south through Afghanistan, into Pakistan
     and right out to the Arabian Sea. UNOCAL had been negotiating to
     do this with the Taliban government of Afghanistan for quite some
     time, still with the full support of the United States government
     into the summer of 2001, but their negotiations had failed. The
     U.S. government then tendered a proverbial offer that could not be
     refused to the Taliban government.

     Just as the Persian Gulf War against Iraq was all about oil and
     natural gas, this war against Afghanistan too is all about oil and
     natural gas -- as well as about strategically outflanking Russia,
     China, Iran, and India by establishing U.S. military bases
     throughout Central Asia. The United States is going to be there
     for quite some time -- at least until all that oil and natural gas
     have been sucked out of Central Asia. This move into Central Asia
     under the rubric of waging a non-delimited holy war against
     international terrorism represents yet another major expansion of
     the American Empire, deep into the sphere of influence of a former
     superpower, and shoving up against distant emerging world powers
     such as China and India, none of which can be counted on as
     friendly to America. Imposing Pax Americana upon Central Asia may,
     in the end, exemplify the limits of America's power, rather than
     its range. Not only foreign populations, but the American people
     themselves, will suffer from this imperial overstretch.



     How Empires Rule at Home

     Undoubtedly, the further expansion of the American Empire and Pax
     Americana abroad will require the further imposition of an
     American police state here at home. As the Romans discovered, an
     Empire is incompatible with a Republic. No point would be served
     here by reviewing the extensive literature that was generated
     during the Vietnam War comparing the United States with the demise
     of the Imperial Athenian Democracy during what Thucydides first
     denominated as the "Peloponnesian War" that really extended over
     27 years. Yet the Bush Jr. administration is publicly and
     shamelessly promising us a war against terrorism without a
     conceivable end in sight. Not even the proverbial light at the end
     of the tunnel.


     Bush Jr.'s Constitutional Coup D'Êtat

     From the Supreme Court's installation of Bush Jr. as President to
     the Ashcroft/Federalist Society post-September 11th regime of
     police state "laws," the politico-legal functioning of America is
     increasingly resembling that of a Banana Republic. Since September
     11th, we have seen one blow against the U.S. Constitution after
     another. For example, Attorney General John Ashcroft unilaterally
     instituted the monitoring of attorney-client communications
     despite the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and
     seizures and the Sixth Amendment right to representation by
     Counsel in criminal cases. He just went ahead and did it, without
     even bothering to inform anyone.

     Over 1100 aliens have been picked up and "disappeared" by Ashcroft
     and his Department of Injustice. The American People have no idea
     where most of these people are. They are being held on the basis
     of immigration law, not criminal law, for a period of detention
     which has not been defined. Ashcroft proclaimed another ukaze that
     these immigration proceedings must be held in secret. The
     phenomenon of "enforced disappearances" is considered to be a
     crime against humanity by Article 7(I)(i) of the Rome Statute for
     the International Criminal Court.

     It appears that many of these aliens have been deprived of their
     basic human rights to consular notification and access as set
     forth in the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to
     which the United States is a contracting party and which even the
     U.S. State Department concedes constitutes binding customary
     international law. Apparently Bush Jr.'s left hand does not care
     about what his right hand does. Yet another international
     convention set at naught.

     The one characteristic these detained foreigners have in common is
     that they are mostly Muslims, Arabs, and Asians. Everyone needs a
     scapegoat for the 11 September tragedy, and it looks like we have
     one, both at home and abroad. Thousands more such aliens are being
     moved into the pipeline for the Ashcroft gulag by the FBI.

     Ashcroft is now planning to reinstate the infamous COINTELPRO
     Program, whose atrocities against the civil rights and civil
     liberties of the American People have been amply documented
     elsewhere.[31]

     It is just a matter of time before the Bush Jr. Leaguers unleash
     the newly-augmented powers of the FBI, CIA and NSA directly
     against the American People. And we already have 2 million
     Americans rotting away in prison -- the highest rate of
     incarceration in the world, a disproportionate majority of whom
     are Americans of Color, victims of the Nixon/Ford, Reagan/Bush,
     and Clinton administrations' racist "war on drugs," which is
     really a war against people of color.[32] The American Police
     State has already arrived for people of color!


     Ashcroft's Police State

     This brings the analysis to the Ashcroft Police State Act. There
     are no other words to describe it. While Bush failed to get a
     formal declaration of war that would have rendered him a
     constitutional dictator, clearly Attorney General John Ashcroft
     and his right-wing Federalist Society lawyers took every piece of
     regressive legislation off the shelf, tied it all into what they
     called an anti-terrorism bill, and then rammed it through
     Congress, giving it the appropriately Orwellian name of the U.S.A.
     Patriot Act.[33] According to one report, Ashcroft's first draft
     would have had Congress suspend the ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus
     -- the necessary prerequisite for imposing a police state in the
     United States of America. Many Members of Congress publicly
     admitted that they did not even bother to read the Ashcroft Police
     State Act. Another Congressman said basically: "Right, but there's
     nothing new about that." Interestingly enough the so-called
     liberal Democrats in the House and the Senate were willing to give
     Bush Jr. and Ashcroft more police state powers than the
     conservative Republicans in the House. But there are no real
     differences that matter between Republicans and Democrats when it
     comes to promoting America's self-proclaimed "Manifest Destiny" to
     control the World and now Outer Space too.


     Bush's Kangaroo Courts

     It would take an entire law review article for me to analyze all
     the legal and human rights problems with Bush Jr.'s proposed
     military commissions. Here a cabal of Federalist Society Lawyers
     in the White House got President Bush to sign a Presidential Order
     on 13 November 2001 which, when implemented, will be widely
     recognized to constitute a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions
     and establish a prima facie case of criminal accountability
     against the President himself. It is emblematic of this particular
     war that right towards its very outset President George W. Bush
     personally incriminated himself under both international criminal
     law and United States domestic criminal law. The Bush Jr.
     administration has severely undermined the integrity of the Four
     Geneva Conventions of 1949. By doing this, the Bush Jr.
     administration has opened up U.S. Armed Forces and civilians
     around the world to similar reprisals, which has already happened.

     As a licensed attorney for 25 years, a law professor for 23 years
     and someone who has done a good deal of criminal defense work in
     U.S. Federal Courts, I am opposed to the insinuation of these
     Federalist Society Lawyers that America's Federal Courts
     established by Article III of the U.S. Constitution cannot hold
     accountable those responsible for the crimes of 11 September 2001.
     This is an insult to all Federal Judges, Federal Prosecutors,
     Federal Public Defenders and all the Lawyers who are Officers of
     these Courts.

     In one fell stroke these Federalist Society lawyers have
     besmirched and undermined the integrity of two Branches of the
     United States Federal Government established by the Constitution
     -- the Presidency and the Judiciary. So far the U.S. Congress has
     supinely gone along with the Bush Jr. police state agenda. If and
     when these Bush/Ashcroft police state practices make their way to
     the U.S. Supreme Court, many of them will probably be upheld.
     After all, a 5 to 4 majority of the Supreme Court already gave the
     Presidency to Bush Jr. We need to seriously consider whether they
     would strike down laws and practices that would give Bush Jr. a
     Police State as well.

     Philosophers have taught that a People get the type of government
     they deserve. If the American People permit the Bush Jr. Leaguers
     to impose a Police State at home in the name of furthering Pax
     Americana abroad, we will have deserved it by abnegating our
     responsibilities as Citizens living in what is supposed to be a
     constitutional Republic with a commitment to the Rule of Law. The
     same thing happened to the Romans and to the Athenians. The United
     States of America is not immune to the laws of history. Sic
     transit gloria mundi!


     The Bush Jr. Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty

     Then, as had been foreshadowed, whispered, hinted at and finally
     broadcast over a period of months, came the monumentally insane,
     horrendous, and tragic announcement on 13 December 2001 by the
     Bush Jr. administration to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, effective
     within six months. Of course it was sheer coincidence that the
     Pentagon released the bin Laden Video just as Bush Jr. himself
     publicly announced his indefensible decision to withdraw from the
     ABM Treaty in order to pursue his phantasmagorical National
     Missile Defense (NMD) Program, the lineal successor to the
     Reagan/Bush Star Wars dream. Predictably, the bin Laden video
     back-staged this major, pro-nuclear announcement. Once again the
     terrible national tragedy of 11 September was shamelessly
     exploited in order to justify a reckless decision that had already
     been made for other reasons long before then. Then on 25 January
     2002, the Pentagon promptly conducted a sea-based NMD test in
     gross violation of Article 5(I) of the ABM Treaty without waiting
     for the required six months to expire, thus driving a proverbial
     nail into the coffin of the ABM Treaty before its body was legally
     dead.

     The Bush Jr. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, which was originally
     negotiated by those well-known Realpolitikers Richard Nixon and
     Henry Kissinger,[34] threatens the very existence of other
     seminal arms control treaties and regimes such as the Nuclear
     Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Biological Weapons
     Convention, which have similar withdrawal clauses. The prospect of
     yet another round of the multilateral and destabilizing nuclear
     arms race now stares humanity directly in the face, even as the
     Bush Jr. administration today prepares for the quick resumption of
     nuclear testing at the Nevada test site in outright defiance of
     the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty CTBT regime and NPT Article VI.
     The entire edifice of international agreements regulating,
     reducing, and eliminating weapons of mass extermination (WME) has
     been shaken to its very core. Now the Pentagon and the CIA are
     back into the dirty business of researching, developing and
     testing biological weapons and biological agents that are clearly
     prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention and its U.S.
     domestic implementing legislation, the Biological Weapons
     Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.[35]



     Conclusion/Prologue

     This book comes at a critical time in American history: when an
     expansionist American administration not only endangers the past
     century's momentous achievements in international treaty law by
     crashing through them, but also threatens the very fabric of
     domestic rights and freedoms cherished by American citizens
     enshrined in the Rule of Law and the U.S. Constitution
     itself.[36]

     Despite the best efforts by the Bush Jr. Leaguers to the contrary,
     we American Citizens still have our First Amendment Rights:
     Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Assembly,
     Freedom to Petition our Government for the Redress of these
     massive Grievances, Civil Resistance, etc. We are going to have to
     start vigorously exercising all of our First Amendment Rights
     right now; we must use them or indeed, as the saying goes, we will
     lose them. We must act -- not only for the good of the People of
     Afghanistan, for the good of the Peoples of Southwest Asia -- but
     for our own future, that of our children, that of our nation as a
     democratic society committed to the Rule of Law and the U.S.
     Constitution, and for all Humanity.

     This book is written for the members of the global anti-nuclear
     movement: concerned members of the public from all walks of life
     who want to eliminate the accelerating danger nuclear weapons pose
     to humanity's physical existence, as well as the challenge their
     threatened use poses to the political freedom of all peoples
     worldwide. It was also written for the NGO community, especially
     those NGOs working against nuclear weapons and nuclear power,
     against weapons in space, and for nuclear disarmament, large
     numbers of which I have advised, counseled, represented and worked
     with over the years -- including and especially the Plowshares
     Movement.

     This book will give the reader the intellectual tools necessary to
     battle the nuclear nihilism of the Bush Jr. administration, the
     U.S. Nuclear Power Elite, and the U.S. Nuclear Empire -- hopefully
     before they run completely amok. It sets forth a comprehensive
     analysis of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence from an
     international law perspective. The basic argument is that nuclear
     weapons and nuclear deterrence are criminal under well-recognized
     principles of international law. Generally speaking, this author
     has been recognized as the foremost proponent of this position in
     the legal profession. Moreover, I have successfully established
     the criminality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence during
     the past 20 years that I have been engaged in defending
     anti-nuclear resisters around the world.

     Just recently, this argument was validated by the Scottish Sheriff
     Margaret Gimblett at Greenock, Scotland who directed a verdict in
     favor of the Trident Plowshares 2000 Anti-Nuclear Resisters who
     were facing charges of criminal damage to Britain's Trident II
     nuclear weapons fleet, stating when she ruled: "I listened very
     carefully to Professor Boyle and have taken into account all the
     evidence in this case from him." This author has achieved the best
     track record in the world on getting such anti-nuclear acquittals
     by applying my analysis concerning the criminality of nuclear
     weapons and nuclear deterrence that is set forth herein. The
     Greenock directed-verdict was a monumental ruling in the battle
     against nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence. This book provides
     the reader with an extensive analysis of the legal theories that
     enabled us to win such a significant victory against nuclear
     deterrence and nuclear weapons. Indeed, portions of this book were
     read by the Greenock protesters before they acted, and the
     manuscript for this book was used to put together the Greenock
     defense. Large numbers of Plowshares anti-nuclear resisters and
     their lawyers have also drawn upon it.

     In light of the Bush Jr. administration's proven nuclear nihilism
     and its global military adventurism, humanity needs to galvanize
     such anti-nuclear activism all around the world, and especially
     within the nuclear weapons states themselves. This book has been
     written and published for precisely this purpose.

                                                      1 February, 2002




     Notes



       1. See Francis A. Boyle, Defending Civil Resistance Under
          International Law (1987).

       2. See Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U.S. 996 (1979).

       3. See Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince 149 (Mark Musa trans. &
          ed. 1964): " . . . all religion. And nothing is more
          essential than to appear to have this last quality."

       4. See, e.g., William Blum, Killing Hope (1995). See also
          William Blum, Rogue State (2000).  (www.killinghope.org and
	  http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm)

       5. See Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and
          Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2000).

       6. See Francis A. Boyle, World Politics and International Law
          75-167 (1985); Francis A. Boyle, The Future of International
          Law and American Foreign Policy 79-112 (1989).

       7. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1368 (12 Sept. 2001),
          Threats to international peace and security caused by
          terrorist acts.

       8. U.N. Security Council Resolution 678 (29 Nov. 1990),
          Iraq-Kuwait.

       9. See Ramsey Clark, The Fire This Time (1992).

      10. See Adam Clymer, "Senator Byrd Scolds Colleagues for Lack of
          Debate After Attack", N.Y. Times, Oct. 2, 2001.

      11. See Arthur S. Miller, Presidential Power in a Nutshell (1977).

      12. See Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944).

      13. The War Powers Resolution, 50 U.S.C.A. §§ 1541-1548 (1973).

      14. H.J. Res. 1145 (7 Aug. 1964).

      15. Public Law No. 107-40 (18 Sept. 2001).

      16. Public Law No. 102-1 (14 Jan. 1991).

      17. See, e.g., Bill Keller, "The World According to Powell", N.Y.
          Times, Nov. 25, 2001.

      18. See John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars (2d ed. 2000, 3d ed. 2002).

      19. International Herald Tribune, Online Edition, Dec. 9, 2001.

      20. Statement by the North Atlantic Council, Press Release (2001)
          124 (12 Sept. 2001).

      21. See NATO Press Communiqué S-1(91) 86, Rome Declaration on
          Peace and Cooperation (8 Nov. 1991).

      22. See Noam Chomsky, The New Military Humanism (1999); Noam
          Chomsky, Rogue States (2000).

      23. See Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants (1992).

      24. See Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the
          Remaking of World Order (1996).

      25. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373 (28 Sept. 2001),
          Threats to international peace and security caused by
          terrorist acts .

      26. S/2001/946 (7 Oct. 2001), 40 I.L.M. 1281 (2001).

      27. See Boyle, Future of International Law and American Foreign
          Policy, supra, at 87-88.

      28. Id. at 240-42.

      29. See Boyle, World Politics and International Law, supra, at 215-17.

      30. See, e.g., BBC Online Edition, Sept. 18, 2001.

      31. See M. Wesley Swearingen, FBI Secrets (1995).

      32. See Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout (1998).

      33. Public Law No. 107-56.

      34. See Gerard Smith, Doubletalk (1980).

      35. See Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg & William Broad, Germs (2001).

      36. See Francis A. Boyle, Foundations of World Order (1999).




References:
 

   * Author Biography - Francis A.Boyle
     As a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of
     international law, Francis A. Boyle is uniquely qualified to address
     the issue of nuclear deterrence. Twenty years of anti-nuclear advocacy
     have earned him what may be the world's best track record for
     anti-nuclear acquittals. Recently, his testimony persuaded a Scottish
     Judge in the UK to direct a verdict against the UK Trident 2. Through
     his exacting international legal analysis, prolific writings and
     tireless advocacy, he has succeeded in establishing the illegality of
     nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence, reflected in the recent World
     Court Advisory Opinion of 1996.
         Francis A. Boyle's long, distinguished and multi-faceted career
     has included: responsibility for drafting the Biological Weapons
     Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for
     the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention; lecturing on nuclear weapons
     and international law to the U.S. military at West Point and to Soviet
     and foreign lawyers through two lecture tours sponsored by the Lawyers'
     Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Association of Soviet Lawyers; and
     representing the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the
     International Court of Justice (1993-94), where he won two World Court
     Orders against Yugoslavia to cease and desist from committing all acts
     of genocide.
         Boyle has also served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty
     International (1988-1992); as Legal Advisor to the Palestine Liberation
     Organization on the Creation of the State of Palestine (1987-89) and to
     the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations
     (1991-93), and as a Consultant to the American Friends Service
     Committee.
         Professor Boyle teaches International Law at the University of
     Illinois, Champaign, and is author, inter alia, of Foundations of World
     Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations 1898-1921 (Duke
     Univ. Press, 1999), The Bosnian People Charge Genocide: Proceedings at
     The International Court of Justice Concerning Bosnia v. Serbia On The
     Prevention and Punishment of The Crime Of Genocide (Northampton, MA:
     Aletheia, 1996), Nuclear Proliferation and The Legality of Nuclear
     Weapons, edited by William M. Evan, (Lanham, MD: University Press of
     America, 1995), Ideas & Ideals: Essays on Politics In Honor of Stanley
     Hoffmann, edited by Linda B. Miller & Michael Joseph Smith (Boulder,
     CO: Westview Press, 1993), More Than 50,000 Nuclear Weapons: Analyses
     Of The Illegality Of Nuclear Weapons Under International Law (Francis
     A. Boyle et al., Northampton, MA: Aletheia Press, 1991), The Future of
     International Law and American Foreign Policy (Transnational
     Publishers, 1989), Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law
     (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational Publishers, 1987), and World Politics
     and International Law (Duke Press Policy Studies, 1985). He holds a
     Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science
     from Harvard University.


   * Book Summary: The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence - Could The US War
     On Terrorism Go Nuclear?, by Francis A. Boyle, ISBN: 0-932863-33-7,
     US$14.95.
         Following U.S. unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty, the entire
     edifice of international agreements regulating, reducing, and
     eliminating weapons of mass extermination has been shaken to its very
     core. The prospect of yet another round of the multilateral and
     destabilizing nuclear arms race now stares humanity directly in the
     face. The resumption of nuclear testing in outright defiance of the
     Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty regime and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
     Treaty, Article VI might soon begin.
         As the U.S. War on Terrorism hurtles into uncharted waters,
     challenging accepted norms of international law and setting a pattern
     for peremptory state behavior, could a nuclear strike against a
     non-nuclear "rogue state" become an American option? Could conflicts
     between other nuclear states such as India and Pakistan go nuclear?
         The Clinton Administration's Presidential Decision Directive 60
     asserted a U.S. right to target non-nuclear states with nuclear weapons
     in 1997. But PDD60, as well as nuclear deterrence as a whole -- both
     the use and threatened use of nuclear weapons -- is illegal under the
     international law of warfare.
         In fact, Francis A. Boyle argues in The Criminality of Nuclear
     Deterrence, the Bush administration's toying with the use of tactical
     nuclear weapons in Afghanistan, its intent to proceed with National
     Missile Defense, to renew nuclear testing and develop "bunker-busting"
     nuclear weapons will have a disastrous impact on existing international
     efforts to rein in the global nuclear arms race through the
     Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Nuclear Non-proliferation
     Treaty. Already, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has fallen before
     its scythe.
         This book provides a succinct and detailed guide to understanding
     the arms race from Hiroshima/Nagasaki through the SALT I, SALT II, ABM
     and START efforts at arms control, to Star Wars/National Missile
     Defense, U.S. unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty, and events in
     Afghanistan and beyond.
         It clarifies the relevant international law, from the Hague
     Conventions through the Nuremberg Principles to the recent World Court
     Advisory Opinion, as well as tracing contradictions in and
     contraventions of domestic guidelines established in the U.S. Army
     Field Manual of 1956 on The Law of Land Warfare, which remains the
     official primer for U.S. military personnel concerning the laws of war
     to which they must regard themselves as subject.
         More disturbingly, Boyle reviews the intricacies of the foreign
     policy controversies and objectives which mark the development of
     American nuclear policy, often pressed forward by civilian
     administrations seeking to promote their geopolitical agenda over the
     advice and desires of the American military itself.
         This book is an effective tool and a "must read" for the burgeoning
     anti-nuclear and peace movements, church groups, and lawyers defending
     anti-nuclear resisters. It should also prove instructive for the
     diplomatic community, and for civilian and military personnel who frame
     and carry out America's nuclear policies, who more than any must weigh
     the possibility of being summoned one day before an international war
     crimes tribunal. The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence by Francis A.
     Boyle, foreword by Philip Berrigan, will give the reader the
     intellectual tools necessary to battle the U.S. nuclear empire. A
     special introduction, "George Bush, Jr., September 11th and the Rule of
     Law" clarifies the illegal and dangerous trajectory of the present
     Bush, Jr. administration.


   * G.W.Bush Was Never Elected President
     Conyers Releases First Fifty-State Survey of Election Irregularities,
     and Executive Summary
       http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/electioncommreptpr73101.pdf
     How To Make Over One Million Votes Disappear:
     Electoral Sleight Of Hand In The 2000 Presidential Election (122
     pages), A Fifty-State Report Prepared for Rep. John Conyers, Jr.,
     Ranking Member, House Committee on the Judiciary, Dean, Congressional
     Black Caucus, Democratic Investigative Staff, House Committee on the
     Judiciary, August 20, 2001.
       http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/electionreport.pdf
     Bush v. Gore: A Resolution of Censure
       http://www.censurethefive.org/
     The Supreme Court Five Censure Campaign, including
     "A Draft Resolution of Congressional Censure Against United States
     Supreme Court Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas
     for Their Betrayal of the American People and the United States
     Constitution Displayed in the Decisions of Bush v. Gore"
       http://www.censurethefive.org/counts.html
       http://www.censurethefive.org/resolution.pdf


   * United States Constitution
     Presentation version by FindLaw - Law, Lawyers and Legal Professionals:
         http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/
     Presentation version by National Archives & Records Administration (NARA):
         http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/conmain.html
     Presentation version by Emory University School of Law
         http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/usconst.html
     ARTICLE III: The Judicial Branch
         http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/usconst/art-3.html#sec-1
     Bill of Rights
         http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/BillOfRights.html

   * International Criminal Court
       http://www.icc-cpi.int/
     The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998
       http://www.un.org/law/icc/
     Article 7(I)(i)
       http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/99_corr/2.htm#art.7
     Know The Truth About The International Criminal Court
     by Benjamin B Ferencz, prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials,
     July 2002
       http://www.benferencz.org/julynews.htm

   * Hiroshima Peace Site including Memorial Museum
       http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/peacesite/indexE.html

   * At the Federation of American Scientists:
        o Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty
            http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/abmt/
        o Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
            http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/
        o Biological Weapons Convention
            http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/bwc/
        o Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
            http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ctbt/
        o Star Wars
            http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/
        o National Missile Defense
            http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/nmd/

   * Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989
       http://www.sunshine-project.org/bwintro/uscode.html

   * Crimes Against Humanity on ratical includes sections on:
        o Afghanistan
            http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/cahAfghan.html
        o Martial Law
            http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/cahML.html
        o Iraq
            http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/cahIraq.html
        o Imposition of a Police State in America
            http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/cahPS.html

   * Responsibility for the terrorist atrocities in the United States,
     4 October 2001
     Note the preamble to the Powell/Blair White Paper explicitly
     acknowledges the case against bin Laden and Al Qaeda would not stand up
     in court.
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/page3554.html

   * Charter of the United Nations, 26 June 1945
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm
     Article 2
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm#art2
     Article 33
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm#art33
     Article 51
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm#art51
     Article 53
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm#art53

   * Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of
     Civil Aviation, 23 September 1971
       http://www.jurisint.org/pub/01/en/doc/213_1.htm

   * International Court of Justice (also referred to as The World Court)
       http://www.icj-cij.org/
     World Court Advisory Opinion:
     Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (1994-1996)
       http://212.153.43.18/icjwww/icases/iunan/iunanframe.htm

   * U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 - The Law of Land Warfare (1956)
       http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~nstanton/FM27-10.htm

   * Wartime and the Bill of Rights:
     The Korematsu Case, Constitutional Rights Foundation
       http://www.crf-usa.org/terror/korematsu.htm

   * Hundreds Are Detained After Visits to INS
     Thousands protest arrests of Mideast boys and men who complied with
     order to register, by Megan Garvey, Martha Groves and Henry Weinstein,
     Los Angeles Times, 19 December 2002
       http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1219-09.htm
     George W Bush's America
     Civil Rights Groups Protest Detentions of Middle Eastern Men in US,
     Agence France Presse, 20 December 2002
       http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1220-01.htm

   * International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
     Discrimination, 4 Jan 1969
       http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/d1cerd.htm

   * The War Powers Resolution, Public Law 93-148, 7 November 1973
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/warpower.htm
       http://www.law.cornell.edu/background/warpower/

   * The Federalist Society: From Obscurity to Power - The Right-Wing
     Lawyers Who Are Shaping The Bush Administration's Decisions On Legal
     Policies and Judicial Nominations,
     by People For the American Way Foundation, Aug 2001
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/feddieSoc.html
     The Federalist Society - The Conservative Cabal That's Transforming
     American Law, by Jerry Landay, The Washington Monthly, March 2002
       http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0003.landay.html
     Federalist Society: Hijacking Justice, by George E. Curry & Trevor W.
     Coleman, Emerge, 10/99
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/hijakjustice.html

   * Tonkin Gulf Resolution, H.J. RES 1145, 7 August 1964
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/tonkin-g.htm

   * Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,
     9 December 1948
       http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/

   * U.S. Bombing Watch: When was the last time the U.S. Bombed Iraq?
     A service of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace, Denver
       http://www.ccmep.org/us_bombing_watch.html

   * Operation Phoenix / The Phoenix Program
     Flight of the Phoenix: From Vietnam to Homeland Security
     An Open Letter to Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor
     by Douglas Valentine, CounterPunch, 25 August 2002
       http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine0824.html
     Homeland Insecurity Part Two: Phoenix And The Anatomy Of Terror
     by Douglas Valentine, CounterPunch, 8 November 2001
       http://www.counterpunch.org/homeland2.html
     Vietnam's Phoenix Program, by Ralph McGehee, 1996
       http://www.vwip.org/articles/m/McGeheeRalph_VietnamsPhoenixProgram.htm

   * From the Church Committee reports, see
     Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations
     with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate,
     94th Congress, 2nd Session, 1976:
        o Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book II
        o Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities
          and the Rights of Americans, Book III
       http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm#ChurchComRpts
     Hearings Before the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations
     with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate,
     94th Congress, 2nd Session, 1975:
        o Volume 5: The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights
       http://cryptome.org/nsa-4th.htm

   * The North Atlantic Treaty, 4 April 1949
       http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm
     Article 5
       http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm#Art05

   * Treaty of Nonaggression Between Germany and the Union of Soviet
     Socialist Republics, 23 August 1939
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nazsov/nonagres.htm
     Secret Additional Protocol, on spheres of influence in Eastern Europe
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nazsov/addsepro.htm

   * Kosovo War Is Illegal, Representative Ron Paul (TX), Congressional
     Record, 5 May 1999
       http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec99/cr050599-5min.htm

   * The Clash of Civilizations, by Samuel Huntington, Foreign Affairs, 1993
       http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html
     International Centre for Dialogue Among Civilizations
       http://www.dialoguecentre.org/

   * Letter of John Negroponte to the President of the Security Council,
     7 October 2001
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/un_006.htm

   * Nuremberg Tribunal Judgment of the International Military Tribunal
     for the Trial of German Major War Criminals, 30 September and
     1 October 1946
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/judcont.htm

   * Nuremberg War Crimes Trials - The International Military Tribunal for
     Germany, 1945
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm

   * Nuremberg Charter of the International Military Tribunal, 8 August 1945
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/imtconst.htm
     Article 6 (a)   CRIMES AGAINST PEACE
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/imtconst.htm#art6

   * Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the
     Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, International
     Law Commission, United Nations, 1950
       http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/nurnfra.htm

   * Kellogg-Briand Pact, 27 August 1928
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/kbpact/kbpact.htm
     Article I
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/kbpact/kbpact.htm#art1
     Article II
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/kbpact/kbpact.htm#art2

   * Numerous sources indicate the U.S. planned war in Asia before 9/11/01
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/AOPof911p14.html#fn78

   * Hague Conventions of 1907:
     Hague I - Pacific Settlement of International Disputes: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/pacific.htm
     Hague II - Limitation of Employment of Force for Recovery of Contract
     Debts: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague072.htm
     Hague III - Opening of Hostilities: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague03.htm
     Hague IV - Laws and Customs of War on Land: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04.htm
     Hague V - Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of
     War on Land: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague05.htm
     Hague VI - Status of Enemy Merchant Ships at the Outbreak of
     Hostilities: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague06.htm
     Hague VII - Conversion of Merchant Ships into War Ships: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague07.htm
     Hague VIII - - Laying of Automatic Submarine Contact Mines: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague08.htm
     Hague IX - Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague09.htm
     Hague X - Adaptation to Maritime War of the Principles of the Geneva
     Convention: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague10.htm
     Hague XI - Restrictions With Regard to the Exercise of the Right of
     Capture in Naval War: 18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague11.htm
     Hague XIII - Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War:
     18 Oct 1907
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague13.htm
     Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare - The Hague, February 1923
       http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html#C

   * Geneva Conventions of 1949:
     Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and
     Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, August 12, 1949
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva05.htm
     Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick
     and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea, August 12, 1949
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva06.htm
     Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War; August
     12, 1949
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva03.htm
     Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time
     of War, August 12, 1949
       http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva07.htm

   * Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and
     relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts
     (Protocol I), 8 June 1977
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/GenevaPI1977.html
     Article 54(I)
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/GenevaPI1977.html#art54

   * Name the Detainees, by Senator Russell Feingold, Washington Post, 23
     December 2001
       http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1223-01.htm

   * Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 24 April 1963
       http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/consul.htm

   * COINTELPRO, the FBI's domestic "counterintelligence programs"
     to neutralize political dissidents
       http://www.cointel.org/

   * Imbalance of Powers: How Changes to U.S. Law & Policy Since 9/11 Erode
     Human Rights and Civil Liberties, September 2002 to March 2003, Lawyers
     Committee for Human Rights, 11 March 2003
       http://www.lchr.org/us_law/loss/loss_main.htm
       http://www.lchr.org/us_law/loss/imbalance/powers.pdf
     A Year of Loss, Reexamining Civil Liberties since September 11, 1
     September 2002
       http://www.lchr.org/pubs/descriptions/loss_report.pdf
     Since September 11th - A Chronology of the Government's Restrictions on
     Civil Liberties,
     September 2001 to November 2002
       http://www.lchr.org/us_law/loss/timeline/timeline.pdf

   * United States "PATRIOT Act"
     aka "House Resolution 3162", aka Public Law No. 107-56, 26 October 2001
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/USAPA.html
     The USA PATRIOT Act Was Planned Before 9/11, by Jennifer Van Bergen,
     truthout, 20 May 2002
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/PAplndbefore.html

   * Directives Governing Military Commissions,
     information compiled by American Friends Service Committee, 22 March 2002
       http://www.afsc.org/nomore/miltribunals.pdf
     Fact Sheet: Dept. of Defense Order on Military Commissions, 21 March 2002
     President Issues Military Order
     Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War
     Against Terrorism, 13 November 2001
       http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/print/20011113-27.html
     US NGO Statements

   * Trident Ploughshares - Greenock 1999,
     Sheriff Gimblett's Report on the Greenock Trial, 21 August 2000
       http://www.tridentploughshares.org/greenock/largimb.html
     Ploughshares Movement
       http://www.tridentploughshares.org/html/ploughs.html

   * Presidential Decision Directive 60
       http://www.inesap.org/bulletin15/bul15art16.htm

   * Secret Plan Outlines the Unthinkable
     A secret policy review of the nation's nuclear policy puts forth
     chilling new contingencies for nuclear war, by William M. Arkin, Los
     Angeles Times, 10 Mar 2002
       http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0309-04.htm

   * Broadening Our Perspectives of 11 September 2001, by David T. Ratcliffe,
     September 2002
       http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/AOPof911toc.html




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