- "Throughout the history of mankind there have been
murderers and tyrants; and while it may seem momentarily that they have
the upper hand, they have always fallen." -- Mahatma Gandhi
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- The United States has discarded pretensions to international
legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok."
-- William Rockler, Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor
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- This war is criminal. It violates the Nuremberg Charter,
the US constitution and the UN charter.
- Lawrence Mosqueda in an article published in March 2003,
shortly before the onslaught of the US-led invasion of Iraq, provided the
following advisory: US troops have "A Duty To Disobey All Unlawful
Orders". (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOS303A.html )
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- The military oath taken at the time of induction demands
unbending support and allegiance to the US Constitution, while also demanding
that US troops obey orders from their President and Commander-in-Chief:
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- "I,____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that
I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against
all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance
to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United
States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the
regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God"
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- The President and Commander-in-Chief has blatantly violated
all tenets of domestic and international law. So that making an oath to
"obey the orders of the President" is tantamount to violating
rather than defending the US Constitution.
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- According to Lawrence Mosqueda:
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- "The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90
(20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the "lawful
command of his superior officer," 891.ART.91 (2), the "lawful
order of a warrant officer", 892.ART.92 (1) the "lawful general
order", 892.ART.92 (2) "lawful order". In each case, military
personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and
indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders
by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal
obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue
unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of
the Constitution and the UCMJ." (Mosqueda, op cit, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOS303A.html
)
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- The Commander-in-Chief is a war criminal. According to
Principle 6 of Nuremberg Charter:
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- "The fact that a person [e.g. Coalition troops]
acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve
him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice
was in fact possible to him.
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- GI Movement
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- Let us make this "moral choice possible" to
enlisted American, British, Canadian and Coalition servicemen and women.
- Disobey unlawful orders! Abandon the battlefield! ...
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- Refuse to fight in a war which blatantly violates international
law and the US Constitution!
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- But this is not a choice which enlisted men and women
can make individually.
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- It is a collective and societal choice, which requires
an organizational structure.
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- Across the land in the US, Britain, Canada and in all
coalition countries, the anti-war movement must assist enlisted men and
women to make that moral choice possible, to abandon the battlefield in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
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- This will not be an easy task. Committees at local levels
must be set up across the United States, Canada, Britain, Italy, Japan
and other countries, which have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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- These committees should provide protection, support and
legal counsel to soldiers who refuse to fight and who face the possibility
of prison sentences for desertion, as in the case of Sergeant Camilo Mejia,
who was sentenced by a military court in May:
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- "I sit here a free man... I will sit behind bars
a free man because I did the right thing," said Mejia.
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- When service men and women come home, we must ensure
that they are not obliged to return to the war theater. We must engage
a process which protects them from court-martial.
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- We call upon veterans' associations and local communities
to support this process.
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- This movement needs to dismantle the disinformation campaign.
It must effectively reverse the indoctrination of coalition troops, who
are led to believe that they are fighting "a just war": "a
war against terrorists".
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- The legitimacy of the US military authority must be broken.
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- The Bush Administration must learn the lessons of history.
The Iraqi and Afghan people are waging a struggle to oust the US invaders.
And that resistance is winning. Ultimately, the only solution is for the
American, British and coalition occupiers to withdraw.
- Coalition nations should follow the example of the Spanish
government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, which has withdrawn its troops
from Iraq.
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- The anti-war movement must question the legitimacy not
only of the Bush administration and its indefectible British ally, but
also of all those governments, which directly support or pay lip service
to the US-led military occupation.
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- Washington's New "Ambassador" to Iraq
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- Honduras also decided to withdraw its troops, in response
to the appointment of John Negroponte as US "ambassador" to Iraq.
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- Negroponte served as US ambassador to Honduras during
the Reagan administration and played a key role in supporting and supervising
the Nicaraguan Contra mercenaries based in Honduras. The cross border Contra
attacks into Nicaragua claimed some 50,000 civilian lives. During the same
period, Negroponte was also instrumental in setting up the Honduran military
death squads, "operating with Washington's support, [they] assassinated
hundreds of opponents of the US-backed regime."
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- In a cruel irony, the Bush administration has appointed
a bona-fide "terrorist" to wage its "war on terrorism"
in Iraq.
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- In the words of Human Rights Watch:
- "There are serious unanswered questions about his
complicity with the atrocities in Honduras and the war in Nicaragua."
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- But "atrocities" --including the torture and
killing of POWs-- are part of the Bush Administration's agenda in Iraq.
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- Colonial Adminstration
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- The "ambassador" who oversees "an embassy
staff" of 1700 people, will report back to the Pentagon rather than
to the State Department.
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- The hidden agenda is to replicate in Iraq, the Central
American death squadrons. Negroponte has been given the mandate to recruit
loyal collaborators from within the ranks of the former Baathist regime
of Saddam Hussein. Under this scenario, part of the repressive apparatus,
including the torture chambers (of course under US supervision to ensure
"good governance"), could be handed back to officials of the
former Baathist police and intelligence apparatus. In all likelihood, a
new wave of covert civilian killings and targeted assassinations is envisaged,
to weed out civilian support for the insurgency.
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- ======
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- © Copyright MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY 2004.
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