{"article":{"id":58540,"heading":"Franks War CrimesTrial, Belgium","author":"Monbiot","created":"2003-05-21 05:26:50","modified":"2003-05-22 21:29:17","last_modified":"Fri, 23 May 2003 04:29:17","article":"

George Monbiot

Tuesday May 20, 2003

The Guardian

Belgium is becoming an interesting country. In the course of a week, it has managed to upset both liberal opinion in Europe - by granting the far-right Vlaams Blok 18 parliamentary seats - and illiberal opinion in the US. On Wednesday, a human rights lawyer filed a case with the federal prosecutors whose purpose is to arraign Thomas Franks, the commander of the American troops in Iraq, for crimes against humanity. This may be the only judicial means, anywhere on earth, of holding the US government to account for its actions.

The case has been filed in Belgium, on behalf of 17 Iraqis and two Jordanians, because Belgium has a law permitting foreigners to be tried for war crimes, irrespective of where they were committed. The suit has little chance of success, for the law was hastily amended by the government at the beginning of this month. But the fact that the plaintiffs had no choice but to seek redress in Belgium speaks volumes about the realities of Tony Blair's vision for a world order led by the US, built on democracy and justice.

Franks appears to have a case to answer. The charges fall into four categories: the use of cluster bombs; the killing of civilians by other means; attacks on the infrastructure essential for public health; and the failure to prevent the looting of hospitals. There is plenty of supporting evidence.

US forces dropped around 1,500 cluster bombs from the air and fired an unknown quantity from artillery pieces. British troops fired 2,100. Each contained several hundred bomblets, which fragment into shrapnel. Between 200 and 400 Iraqi civilians were killed by them during the war. Others, mostly children, continue to killed by those bomblets which failed to explode when they hit the ground. The effects of their deployment in residential areas were both predictable and predicted. This suggests that their use there breached protocol II to the Geneva conventions, which prohibits \"violence to the life, health and physical or mental well-being\" of non-combatants.

On several occasions, US troops appear to have opened fire on unarmed civilians. In Nassiriya, they shot at any vehicle that approached their positions. In one night alone they killed 12 civilians. On a bridge on the outskirts of Baghdad they shot 15 in two days. Last month, US troops fired on peaceful demonstrators in Mosul, killing seven, and in Falluja, killing 13 and injuring 75. All these actions appear to offend the fourth convention.

The armed forces also deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure, bombing the electricity lines upon which water treatment plants depended, with the result that cholera and dysentery have spread. Protocol II prohibits troops from attacking \"objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as ... drinking water installations and supplies\".

The fourth convention also insists that an occupying power is responsible for \"ensuring and maintaining ... the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory\". Yet when the US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked why his troops had failed to prevent the looting of public buildings, he replied: \"Stuff happens. Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.\" Many hospitals remain closed or desperately under-supplied. On several occasions US soldiers acted on orders to fire at Iraqi ambulances, killing or wounding their occupants. They shot the medical crews which came to retrieve the dead and wounded at the demonstration in Falluja. The Geneva conventions suggest that these are straightforward war crimes: \"Medical units and transports shall be respected and protected at all times and shall not be the object of attack.\"

The armed forces of the US, in other words, appear to have taken short cuts while prosecuting their war with Iraq. Some of these may have permitted them to conclude their war more swiftly, but at the expense of the civilian population. Repeatedly, in some cases systematically, US soldiers appear to have broken the laws of war.

We should not be surprised to learn that the US government has responded to the suit with outrage. The state department has warned Belgium that it will punish nations which permit their laws to be used for \"political ends\". The Belgian government hasn't waited to discover what this means. It has amended the law and denounced the lawyer who filed the case.

The Bush government's response would doubtless be explained by its apologists as a measure of its insistence upon and respect for national sovereignty. But while the US forbids other nations to proscribe the actions of its citizens, it also insists that its own laws should apply abroad. The foreign sovereignty immunities act, for example, permits the US courts to prosecute foreigners for harming commercial interests in the US, even if they are breaking no laws within their own countries. The Helms-Burton Act allows the courts in America to confiscate the property of foreign companies which do business with Cuba. The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act instructs the government to punish foreign firms investing in the oil or gas sectors in those countries. The message these laws send is this: you can't prosecute us, but we can prosecute you.

Of course, the sensible means of resolving legal disputes between nations is the use of impartial, multinational tribunals, such as the international criminal court in the Hague. But impartial legislation is precisely what the US government will not contemplate. When the ICC treaty was being negotiated, the US demanded that its troops should be exempt from prosecution, and the UN security council gave it what it wanted. The US also helped to ensure that the court's writ runs only in the nations which have ratified the treaty. Its soldiers in Iraq would thus have been exempt in any case, as Saddam Hussein's government was one of seven which voted against the formation of the court in 1998. The others were China, Israel, Libya, Qatar, Yemen and the US. This is the company the American government keeps when it comes to international law.

To ensure that there was not the slightest possibility that his servicemen need fear the rule of law, George W Bush signed a new piece of extra-territorial legislation last year, which permits the US \"to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release\" of US citizens being tried in the court. This appears to include the invasion of the capital of the Netherlands.

All this serves to illustrate the grand mistake Tony Blair is making. The empire he claims to influence entertains no interest in his moral posturing. Its vision of justice between nations is the judicial oubliette of Guantanamo Bay. The idea that it might be subject to the international rule of law, and therefore belong to a world order in which other nations can participate, is as unthinkable in Washington as a six-month public holiday. If Blair does not understand this, he has missed the entire point of US foreign policy. If he does understand it, he has misled us as to the purpose of his own diplomacy. The US government does not respect the law between nations. It is the law



<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/comment\/story\/0,3604,959442,00.html","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"On Wednesday, a human rights lawyer filed a case with the federal prosecutors whose purpose is to arraign Thomas Franks, the commander of the American troops in Iraq, for crimes against humanity. This may be the only judicial means, anywhere on earth, of holding the US government to account for its actions. \r\n","numcomment":13,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2003\/05\/58540.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":58715,"heading":"How I'd Love to See It","article":" Franks and Sharon both in the dock together. With Ramsey Clark prosecuting them. And Dan Quayle as their defense attorney. It would be great.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 14:15:21","modified":"2003-05-21 14:15:21","fileurl":""},{"id":58726,"heading":"The Iraq War was illegal...","article":"...under U.S. Law. Franks predecessor as CENTCOM was relieved of his command because he would not go along with the illegal war plans.\r\n\r\nFranks should swing for Treason.","author":"Diogenes","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 14:59:39","modified":"2003-05-21 14:59:39","fileurl":""},{"id":58768,"heading":"Please","article":"Using your deep knowledge of international law, please give one example of an "illegal" war in which the US has been involved with.\r\n\r\nWe are dying to know.","author":"fresca","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 16:22:50","modified":"2003-05-21 16:22:50","fileurl":""},{"id":58782,"heading":"illegal war","article":"Obviously, the one it is involved in now with the illegal occupation of an independent country called Iraq. The invasion and occupation of that country was as clearly illegal as Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union - and had the same excuse, preventative war. Preventative war is not recognized as legal (even if such a laughable "cause" actually existed) by the United Nations or the World Court. And the deliberate harming of civilians through the bombing of water plants, electriciy generating systems, and other essentials of life was clearly a very serious war crime in the eyes of anyone whose brain cells have not been destoyed by watching too much Fox News.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 16:37:01","modified":"2003-05-21 16:37:01","fileurl":""},{"id":58787,"heading":"except for...","article":"..the little fact that Iraq made any military action COMPLETELY legal (not that the concept of legality even applies here...but to humor your line of thought...) when it broke the ceasefire of '91 by firing on patrolling coalition airforces.\r\n\r\nAs far as I know, Russia did not.\r\n\r\nI suppose if we were to attack Korea tommorrow you and your legal expert friends would consider that illegal as well.","author":"fresca","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 16:42:18","modified":"2003-05-21 16:42:18","fileurl":""},{"id":58791,"heading":"Korea?","article":"No way!!! They have nucular weapons!!! My idiotic actions have made it perfectly clear that if you don't want to be attacked by the US, acquire a stockpile of nucular weapons. Just ask Saddam.","author":"George W. Bush","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 16:46:01","modified":"2003-05-21 16:46:01","fileurl":""},{"id":58795,"heading":"Attacking Korea","article":" Sorry, but the UN clearly indicated that the attack on Iraq was illegal, and it would have been voted down by a huge majority if it had ever been submitted to the General Assembly.\r\n Invading North Korea would indeed be entirely illegal. Except that Bush won't do it as long as he suspects that they might have nuclear weapons or that China might once again come to the aid of its neighbor. Like the true coward that he is, he only attacks small third world countries that have no means of defending themselves. ","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 16:50:16","modified":"2003-05-21 16:50:16","fileurl":""},{"id":58802,"heading":"You're simply wrong","article":"Meyer, you're simply wrong but thanks for responding.\r\n\r\nwhen Iraq broke the ceasefire all military action henceforth was "leagal" and justifeied.\r\n\r\nWhen North Korea pulled out of the Armistace agreement earlier this year, it too made any future military action from the US "legal"\r\n\r\n","author":"fresca","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 17:10:43","modified":"2003-05-21 17:10:43","fileurl":""},{"id":58812,"heading":"Legal and justified","article":" Then how come Bush himself didn't claim this as a "justification" for invading Iraq. If he thought that would hold up he would not have made his ridiculous claims about "weapons of mass destruction" or about Hussein, one of the top enemies on Bin Laden's list of secular rulers who had to be eliminated, being an ally of Al Quaida. And Hussein made clear before the invasion that he was willing to let the inspectors roam at will; the inspectors themselves saw no legal justification for an attack on Iraq and no proof of any weapons of mass destruction.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 18:02:39","modified":"2003-05-21 18:02:39","fileurl":""},{"id":58815,"heading":"couldn't tell ya","article":""Then how come Bush himself didn't claim this as a "justification" for invading Iraq."\r\n\r\nI couldn't tell ya. I sure would have since it sorta nips the whole "illegal war" nonsense in the bud.","author":"fresca","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 18:05:08","modified":"2003-05-21 18:05:08","fileurl":""},{"id":58845,"heading":"The UN...","article":"...was against the war not because of any question of legality, but because they saw their cash cow was about to get slaughtered.\r\n\r\n"It's about the oil!" You're partly right...France's, Germany's, and Russia's oil contracts with Saddam (which are worthless now that Saddam, who signed them, isn't driving the bus any more). Good ol' Kofi lined the UN's pockets plenty good...what, 20% of all oil-for-food cash went to the UN for "administrating" the program? Sheesh...how blind to you have to be to see that's the reason for the UN's opposition to the war? And guess where all that money flowed through, and the current balance is sitting...French banks. \r\n\r\nThe UN is a collection of terrorists, thugs, and their appeasers, and is corrupt to the core. I mean, come ON...Libya and Cuba on the Human Rights commission? Get real. \r\n\r\nThe US out of the UN, and the UN out of the US! NOW!","author":"daveman","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 21:55:51","modified":"2003-05-21 21:55:51","fileurl":""},{"id":58846,"heading":"And as far as Belgium...","article":"...prosecuting General Franks: Let 'em try. So Tommy can't go to Brussels any more. Big deal. \r\n\r\nJust a little poodle pretending to be a big dog.\r\n\r\nAnd you notice there's no Belgian Waffle lawyer falling all over himself to prosecute Hussein for crimes against humanity, is there? No, no crimes there...no mass graves...no people shredders...no acid baths.\r\n\r\nNothing to see here, people. Move along.","author":"daveman","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-21 22:00:12","modified":"2003-05-21 22:00:12","fileurl":""},{"id":59052,"heading":"Franks","article":" Franks can hang out where he is really appreciated - Tulsa, Ok., Waco, Texas, anywhere in Arkansas, Bakersfield, CA, or the backwoods of Alabama. All he'll need is a pickup truck with a shotgun rack and a country music radio decal. Who needs Europe?\r\n","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":58540,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-22 21:29:17","modified":"2003-05-22 21:29:17","fileurl":""}]}