[News] Fallujah's Sick Babies - The Lingering Crimes of Aggression

Tue Apr 6 11:58:05 EDT 2010

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum04062010.html

April 6, 2010

The Lingering Crimes of Aggression

Fallujah's Sick Babies

By WILLIAM BLUM

When did it begin, all this "We take your 
[call/problem/question] very seriously"? With 
answering-machine hell? As you wait endlessly, 
the company or government agency assures you that 
they take seriously whatever reason you're 
calling. What a kind and thoughtful world we live in.

The BBC reported last month that doctors in the 
Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level 
of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used 
by the United States during its fierce onslaughts 
of 2004 and subsequently, which left much of the 
city in ruins. "It was like an earthquake," a 
local engineer who was running for a national 
assembly seat told the Washington Post in 2005. 
"After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was 
Fallujah." Now, the level of heart defects among 
newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe.

The BBC correspondent also saw children in the 
city who were suffering from paralysis or brain 
damage, and a photograph of one baby who was born 
with three heads. He added that he heard many 
times that officials in Fallujah had warned women 
that they should not have children. One doctor in 
the city had compared data about birth defects 
from before 2003  when she saw about one case 
every two months  with the situation now, when 
she saw cases every day. "I've seen footage of 
babies born with an eye in the middle of the 
forehead, the nose on the forehead," she said.

A spokesman for the US military, Michael 
Kilpatrick, said it always took public health 
concerns "very seriously", but that "No studies 
to date have indicated environmental issues 
resulting in specific health issues." 1

One could fill many large volumes with the 
details of the environmental and human horrors 
the United States has brought to Fallujah and 
other parts of Iraq during seven years of using 
white phosphorous shells, depleted uranium, 
napalm, cluster bombs, neutron bombs, laser 
weapons, weapons using directed energy, weapons 
using high-powered microwave technology, and 
other marvelous inventions in the Pentagon's 
science-fiction arsenal ... the list of 
abominations and grotesque ways of dying is long, 
the wanton cruelty of American policy shocking. 
In November 2004, the US military targeted a 
Fallujah hospital "because the American military 
believed that it was the source of rumors about 
heavy casualties." 2 That's on a par with the 
classic line from the equally glorious American 
war in Vietnam: "We had to destroy the city to save it."

How can the world deal with such inhumane 
behavior? (And the above of course scarcely 
scratches the surface of the US international 
record.) For this the International Criminal 
Court (ICC) was founded in Rome in 1998 (entering 
into force July 1, 2002) under the aegis of the 
United Nations. The Court was established in The 
Hague, Netherlands to investigate and indict 
individuals, not states, for "The crime of 
genocide; Crimes against humanity; War crimes; or 
The crime of aggression." (Article 5 of the Rome 
Statute) From the very beginning, the United 
States was opposed to joining the ICC, and has 
never ratified it, because of the alleged danger 
of the Court using its powers to "frivolously" indict Americans.

So concerned about indictments were the American 
powers-that-be that the US went around the world 
using threats and bribes against countries to 
induce them to sign agreements pledging not to 
transfer to the Court US nationals accused of 
committing war crimes abroad. Just over 100 
governments so far have succumbed to the pressure 
and signed an agreement. In 2002, Congress, under 
the Bush administration, passed the "American 
Service Members Protection Act", which called for 
"all means necessary and appropriate to bring 
about the release of any US or allied personnel 
being detained or imprisoned by ... the 
International Criminal Court." In the Netherlands 
it's widely and derisively known as the "Invasion 
of The Hague Act". 3 The law is still on the books.

Though American officials have often spoken of 
"frivolous" indictments  politically motivated 
prosecutions against US soldiers, civilian 
military contractors, and former officials  it's 
safe to say that what really worries them are 
"serious" indictments based on actual events. But 
they needn't worry. The mystique of "America the 
Virtuous" is apparently alive and well at the 
International Criminal Court, as it is, still, in 
most international organizations; indeed, amongst 
most people of the world. The ICC, in its first 
few years, under Chief Prosecutor Luis 
Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine, dismissed many 
hundreds of petitions accusing the United States 
of war crimes, including 240 concerning the war 
in Iraq. The cases were turned down for lack of 
evidence, lack of jurisdiction, or because of the 
United States' ability to conduct its own 
investigations and trials. The fact that the US 
never actually used this ability was apparently 
not particularly significant to the Court. "Lack 
of jurisdiction" refers to the fact that the 
United States has not ratified the accord. On the 
face of it, this does seem rather odd. Can 
nations commit war crimes with impunity as long 
as they don't become part of a treaty banning war 
crimes? Hmmm. The possibilities are endless. A 
congressional study released in August, 2006 
concluded that the ICC's chief prosecutor 
demonstrated "a reluctance to launch an 
investigation against the United States" based on 
allegations regarding its conduct in Iraq. 4 Sic 
transit gloria International Criminal Court.

As to the crime of aggression, the Court's 
statute specifies that the Court "shall exercise 
jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once a 
provision is adopted ... defining the crime and 
setting out the conditions under which the Court 
shall exercise jurisdiction with respect to this 
crime." In short, the crime of aggression is 
exempted from the Court's jurisdiction until 
"aggression" is defined. Writer Diana Johnstone 
has observed: "This is a specious argument since 
aggression has been quite clearly defined by U.N. 
General Assembly Resolution 3314 in 1974, which 
declared that: 'Aggression is the use of armed 
force by a State against the sovereignty, 
territorial integrity or political independence 
of another State', and listed seven specific examples," including:

The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a 
State of the territory of another State, or any 
military occupation, however temporary, resulting 
from such invasion or attack, or any annexation 
by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof; and

Bombardment by the armed forces of a State 
against the territory of another State or the use 
of any weapons by a State against the territory of another State.

The UN resolution also stated that: "No 
consideration of whatever nature, whether 
political, economic, military or otherwise, may 
serve as a justification for aggression."

The real reason that aggression remains outside 
the jurisdiction of the ICC is that the United 
States, which played a strong role in elaborating 
the Statute before refusing to ratify it, was 
adamantly opposed to its inclusion. It is not 
hard to see why. It may be noted that instances 
of "aggression", which are clearly factual, are 
much easier to identify than instances of 
"genocide", whose definition relies on assumptions of intention. 5

There will be a conference of the ICC in May, in 
Kampala, Uganda, in which the question of 
specifically defining "aggression" will be 
discussed. The United States is concerned about 
this discussion. Here is Stephen J. Rapp, US 
Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, 
speaking to the ICC member nations (111 have 
ratified thus far) in The Hague last November 19:

I would be remiss not to share with you my 
country's concerns about an issue pending before 
this body to which we attach particular 
importance: the definition of the crime of 
aggression, which is to be addressed at the 
Review Conference in Kampala next year. The 
United States has well-known views on the crime 
of aggression, which reflect the specific role 
and responsibilities entrusted to the Security 
Council by the UN Charter in responding to 
aggression or its threat, as well as concerns 
about the way the draft definition itself has 
been framed. Our view has been and remains that, 
should the Rome Statute be amended to include a 
defined crime of aggression, jurisdiction should 
follow a Security Council determination that aggression has occurred.

Do you all understand what Mr. Rapp is saying? 
That the United Nations Security Council should 
be the body that determines whether aggression 
has occurred. The same body in which the United 
States has the power of veto. To prevent the 
adoption of a definition of aggression that might 
stigmatize American foreign policy is likely the 
key reason the US will be attending the upcoming conference.

Nonetheless, the fact that the United States will 
be attending the conference may well be pointed 
out by some as another example of how the Obama 
administration foreign policy is an improvement 
over that of the Bush administration. But as with 
almost all such examples, it's a propaganda 
illusion. Like the cover of Newsweek magazine of 
March 8, written in very large type: "Victory at 
last: The emergence of a democratic Iraq". Even 
before the current Iraqi electoral farce  with 
winning candidates arrested or fleeing 6 this 
headline should have made one think of the 
interminable jokes Americans made during the Cold 
War about Pravda and Izvestia.

William Blum is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512526/counterpunchmaga>Killing 
Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since 
World War II, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga>Rogue 
State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. 
and 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1887128727/counterpunchmaga>West-Bloc 
Dissident: a Cold War Political 
Memoir<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga>.

He can be reached at: <mailto:BBlum6 at aol.com>BBlum6 at aol.com

Notes

1. BBC, March 4, 2010; Washington Post, December 3, 2005

2. New York Times, November 8, 2004

3. Christian Science Monitor, February 13, 2009

4. Washington Post, November 7, 2006

5. Diana Johnstone, Counterpunch, January 27/28, 2007

6. Washington Post, April 2, 2010

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