[CPProt.net] Depraved War Crime: Pentagon Thugs Destroy 5, 000 Years Of History

[MSN CPPnet]

Depraved War Crime: Pentagon Thugs Destroy 5,000 Years Of History
Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., Axis of Logic

July 13th, 2005

We've finally become the barbarian horde that the world has always feared. 

How so? At home, the Bushites are implementing their fascistic
militarization of US culture.[1]  Abroad, their minions have been
implementing the illegal conquest and occupation of Iraq with horrific
impact: the indiscriminate slaughter of more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi
civilian non-combatants;[2] and the unnecessary destruction of the world's
most important museums, antiquities, and archaeological sites.[3]  

Focusing for the moment on the latter outrage, the pre-war Bush
administration and the Pentagon were repeatedly warned by world-class
scholars and international officials that: Iraq is literally the cradle of
human civilization; and the invading US military must not allow Iraq's
priceless patrimony to be disturbed, looted, or destroyed.[4] 

Moreover, international law prohibits belligerent occupants - like the US
military in Iraq - from confiscating, destroying, or damaging historical
monuments, antiquities, works of art, and institutions devoted to the arts
and sciences. Regardless of their ownership status, such cultural properties
are to be treated as private property, and therefore beyond the reach of the
occupant. For the applicable laws of war, see Article 56 of the 1907 Hague
Regulations, and the 1954 Hague Convention Relative to the Protection of
Cultural Properties in Case of Armed Conflict. Additionally, any violation
of the law of war constitutes a war crime.[5]

Nevertheless, the Bushites - who are the belligerent occupants -
subsequently allowed widespread looting while they blithely looked the other
way. 
Furthermore, the Pentagon's thuggish brass and ignorant field marshals have
been willfully implementing the destruction of the world's oldest
archaeological sites. 

For instance, they've constructed a vibrationally-pulverizing US air base
adjacent to the Ziggurat. And they've been conducting
archaeologically-damaging military operations next to the
Biblically-significant ancient cities of Ur (the patriarch Abraham's
birthplace) and Babylon (site of the Babylonian Captivity and the
Handwriting On The Wall).[6]

To place the magnitude of the Bushites' outrageous war crimes against 5,000
years of human civilization in proper perspective: an Oxford scholar says
"You'd have to go back centuries, to the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258,
to find looting on this scale"; and a Boston University professor of
archaeology calls it "the greatest cultural disaster of the last 500
years."[7]

Outside the USA, the world is quite understandably outraged at the ghastly
carnage and wanton destruction wrought by this depraved war against the
cradle of civilization. Inside the USA, the morally-blind American people
are yawning
indifferently: "Pass me the chips and the remote, dude. We're gonna watch
the next episode of 'Empire'!" 

It couldn't be clearer that the American people don't realize - or don't
care

- that their own nation is committing numerous war crimes and is on an
unsustainable collision-course with the rest of humankind. If they did,
they'd be idiomatically stating the obvious: "Something's gotta give, or
this planet's toast!"[8]
 

ENDNOTES

[1] Evan Augustine Peterson III's two-part OS essay, "American Militarism".
[Part 1 concludes that the military-industrial complex's consolidation of
political and economic power, combined with its corrupting secrecy, has
produced our war-dependent economy. Part 2 defines ‘militarism’, concludes
that the regressive right is deliberately implementing the militarization of
American culture, and that the federal government's massive over-investment
in defense is tipping the balance away from a democratic republic and toward
neo-fascism.)]

     A. "Part 1: Is The USA Addicted To War?" (May 2005): 

     B. "Part 2: On Celebrating Militaristic Nationalism" (July 2005): 

 
[2] Evan Augustine Peterson III's October 31, 2004 NFPNZ essay "A Question
Of Conscience: How Many More? British Study Concludes That 100,000 Civilian
Deaths Have Been Caused By Iraq War Violence" [This disturbing study is the
tip of the evidentiary iceberg, when one considers the large number of
prosecutable war crimes that have been committed by Americans in Iraq - like
their illegal invasion, routine acts of torture in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere,
indiscriminate applications of lethal force in sieges like Fallujah,
widespread use of napalm bombs and depleted-uranium munitions, etc.] 

 
[3] UCSD Professor Emeritus Chalmers Johnson's must-read July 8, 2005 CD/TP
essay, "The Smash Of Civilizations" [Reports in lurid detail the Bush
administration's ‘privatization’ of the antiquities trade in Iraq, and the
US military's wanton pillaging and intentional destruction of Iraq's 5,000
year-old cultural heritage (all of which are war crimes).] 


[4] Chalmers Johnson, ibid. 

 
[5] Consider three authoritative definitions of "war crime":    

"The term 'war crime' is the technical expression for a violation of the law
of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. Every violation of
the law of war is a war crime."  Source: U.S. Dept. of Army, Field Manual
27-10, The Law Of Land Warfare 178, para. 499 (1956). 
"War crimes: Violations of the law and customs of war." Source: Principles
of the Nüremberg Charter and Judgment, Principle VI b, 5 U.N. GAOR, Supp.
No. 12, at 11-14, para. 99, U.N. Doc. A/1316 (1950). 
"War Crime. Conduct that violates international laws governing war." Source:
Black's Law Dictionary, Seventh Edition (St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1999),
p.1577. 
[6] Chalmers Johnson, ibid.

 
[7] Johnson, ibid.

[8] Finally, three recent essays by caring Americans challenge Mr. Bush's
myopic neocon collision-course with reality and explain why it is
unacceptable: 


Heather Hamilton and Sam Stein's July 11, 2005 TP essay, "Bush Fiddles While
The World Warms" [Among the G8 nations' leaders, only Mr. Bush wants them to
focus on terrorism and to ignore that on which everyone else agrees: the
obvious fact that global security, climate change, poverty, and terrorism
are inextricably intertwined.]  
Tom Englehart's July 11, 2005 CD/TD essay, "Making The World Unsafe For
Democracy" [Challenges Mr. Bush's latest rationalization for illegally
occupying Iraq, which is NOT "forcing terrorists to fight on their turf
instead of ours" (consider the bombings in London and Madrid), but IS making
the world unsafe for democracy.] 
Ralph Nader's July 9, 2005 CD essay, "Ralph Nader's Open Letter To George W.
Bush" [Challenges GWB to "put his money where his mouth is" by: repealing
his tax-cuts for the rich and conscripting upper-class children, so they can
contribute their fair share to support his "war on terror"; OR actually
becoming the strict constructionist he falsely claims to be, and thus
strictly construing Article I, Section 8, of the US Constitution, which
assigns the power to declare war solely to Congress (so Congress can use the
War Powers Clause either to revoke his unconstitutional declaration of war
against Iraq or to impeach him.]
 

About The Author: 

Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., is the Executive Director of the American
Center for International Law ("ACIL"). He writes on international law, human
rights, foreign policy, government, politics, culture, and ethic. His
articles have been published online by - among others - AxisOfLogic,
BellaCiao, BuffaloReport, CentreForGlobalResearch,
CoalitionForFreeThoughtInMedia, ColdType, Democrats.com, Eklektikos,
EnvirosAgainstWar, ForeignPressFoundation, InformationClearingHouse,
IrishAntiwar, Kucinich.us, NewtopiaMagazine,
NuclearFreePeacemakerNewZealand, OnlineJournal, OpEdNews, OrbStandard,
PinellasGreens, PopulistAmerica, SantaBarbaraProgressives, Scoop,
TheModernTribune, ThePeoplesVoice, TheRepublic, TodaysAlternativeNews,
UrukNet, VHeadline, and ZNet.