In an October issue of Profil, an Austrian weekly magazine, the columnist, Georg Hoffman-Ostenhof, raises the question: “Is Bush a War Criminal?” Such a charge may sound outrageous, yet Hoffman-Ostenhof painstakingly points out that the UN Charter drafted by the United States and other allied nations in 1945 explicitly decreed that “the threat or use of any force against the territorial integrity or political independence” of any sovereign state was illegal. Hoffman-Ostenhof goes further to contend that during the Nuremberg trial of Nazi leaders pre-emptive war was declared a war crime.

While many would balk at the charge of pre-emptive war being a distinctive war crime since interventions by nations have occurred often over the past 50 years, Hoffman-Ostenhof cites the instance of Bush embarking on pre-emptive war on Iraq as extremely dangerous, because it would set a precedent for pre-emptive wars around the world, by more powerful nations against smaller ones and by those governments eager to control the resources of their neighbors. He also issues a caveat about the arrogance of pursuing the principle of Pax Americana, warning that it could trigger further instability and exacerbate regional and national conflicts to the point of having a war-infested world for the future.

At a rally celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. and protesting against the US planned war against Iraq in Washington, DC on January 18, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark publicly called for the impeachment of George W. Bush for usurping the powers of the Constitution by threatening to use nuclear weapons, calling for the overthrow and assassination of a foreign leader and ordering US troops into war without the approval and support of the US population. Clark declared that Bush had contravened US law by engaging in hostile acts against a sovereign nation that did not threaten the United States and argued that since the Congress had voted for the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, for far lesser wrong-doings, the call for the impeachment of George W. Bush ought to be amplified. Robert Fisk of the London Guardian asks why nothing is done to determine what is causing the deaths and ruin of the people of Southern Iraq and our own military veterans. Blaming Saddam Hussein does not answer the question, Fisk retorts. Why does not the UN carry out a serious inquiry into the cancers, heart failures and deaths that have occurred since the inception of the New World Order in Iraq, just as they so thoroughly scrutinize the Iraqi landscape for “weapons of mass destruction,” Fisk wonders?

There are numerous ironies in the Bush onslaught towards war against Iraq: The US has over 6,000 nuclear weapons, stores thousands of agent tons of chemical weapons in Anniston, Alabama, Pine Bluff, Arkansas and other sites across the country and has refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to examine its chemical and biological weapons plants on the grounds of “national defense,” while insisting that Iraq dismantle its chemical weapons. The Commerce Department authorized sales of equipment to Iraq by companies like Kodak, Hewlett Packard and Bechtel (of which former Secretary of State George Schultz was a board member) that manufactured mustard gas and other contaminants. Donald Rumsfeld met and shook hands with Saddam Hussein in the late 1980s shortly after Hussein used mustard gas against the Iranians and the Kurds. Bush claims Saddam Hussein is fabricating lies to hide weapons of mass destruction, while strenuously lying to connect Al Qaeda to Hussein, even though the CIA itself has rejected such links. Bush claims Hussein is a dictator who has violated human rights, while thousands of Muslims living in the United States have been denied their civil rights due to detentions, deportations or harassment, solely for being of Arab or Asian descent. Bush claims that he desires a peaceful solution while he orders the largest build-up of troops in the Gulf since 1991. He insists that Iraq is a threat to the world’s peace and security while he engages in military threats, including using nuclear weapons against Iraq. He excoriates Hussein for being an international outlaw because he disregards the UN and the global community, while Bush has declared that the US could wage a war against Iraq without UN approval and daily coerces and bribes other nations in the region like Kuwait and Turkey to become international outlaws and support an illegal war. Bush has established a national security state in the United States and terror abroad, in the name of freedom, democracy and fighting terrorism, even though most of the world, including 37 percent of Canadians, now believe that the US is the greatest threat to world peace, even more than Al Qaeda. Tony Blair is willing to wage war in defiance of the British public and his own party, 80 percent of whom are against any form of unilateral military action against Iraq.

If George W. Bush has lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (since he has not produced any evidence as he has repeatedly said he would) then his motive for pursuing war against Iraq is not for peace and justice as his regime claims, but for another reason: oil perhaps?! It’s time that we took a hard look at what really is happening in the US and understand why the Bush regime is so isolated in its policing and colonizing of the poor peoples of the world. No blood, be it of US soldiers or Iraqi people, is worth shedding for the gluttonous oil companies. Let the UN weapons inspectors do their job, and dismantle the weapons of mass destruction right here.

--Julian Kunnie is a professor of Africana Studies and author of Indigenous People's Wisdom and Power.