This week, David Horowitz and his band of degenerate murderers, religious extremists, and fear-mongering terrorists are polluting the country with their special brand of racism and hatred that we have come to expect from right-wing Bush sycophants. These religious persecutors, war-criminals, and lackeys continue on their project to destroy America from within, while murdering as many brown-skinned people as possible along the way. All who dare not bend automatically to their sick will to power and their destiny to destroy are fair game. Not only the religion of Islam, but the international community, its rule of law, and its respect for human rights are also in the cross-hairs of these sick, demented brown-shirted bastards.
In honor of the Great Professor Horowitz, and to counter-balance his campaign to infect the world with his ignorance, I proclaim this Bushismo-Fascism Awareness Week and will present a series of diaries that describe Bushism and its basis in fascistic ideology.
Previous Diaries
Bushismo-Fascism Awareness Week: The 'totalitarianism' component
Bush Authoritarianism as 'fascism in motion'
Bushismo-Fascism Awareness Week
I. Introduction
At this point in the conference, we turn to the question of what we can do about the situation our country and the world has been placed in thanks to Bushismo-Fascism. We have had a number of experts on fascism present their views on what is and is not a fascistic ideology, and assuming they have made a general prima facie case that what we are living through is either tending towards, or has approached a full fascism, the discussion must turn to how to remedy the situation.
II. Justice Jackson's words to future generations
Today we will look at the source of what we can call 'international criminal law' as introduced to the world through the Nuremberg Trials. We are indeed fortunate that those trials were held and that they looked forward in laying a a groundwork for international law, as well as backward, to make sure that even the Nazis were given a fair trial over the period of several months. Evidence was given, defenses were mounted, and only after proof beyond a reasonable doubt were sentences given. Where the proof of the accusations could not be met sufficiently, the defendants were released. Indeed, three of the defendants were released because the prosecution could not prove their guilt sufficiently.
We must also be thankful for the words of Justice Jackson who took leave of the United States Supreme Court to lead the Nuremberg Trials. When one reads his words, one understands that Jackson was speaking as much to the future, as he was to the then present.
From his opening statement:
What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust. We will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. They are symbols of fierce nationalisms and of militarism, of intrigue and war-making which have embroiled Europe generation after generation, crushing its manhood, destroying its homes, and impoverishing its life. They have so identified themselves with the philosophies they conceived and with the forces they directed that any tenderness to them is a victory and an encouragement to all the evils which are attached to their names. Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive.
The worldwide scope of the aggressions carried out by these men has left but few real neutrals. Either the victors must judge the vanquished or we must leave the defeated to judge themselves. After the first World War, we learned the futility of the latter course. The former high station of these defendants, the notoriety of their acts, and the adaptability of their conduct to provoke retaliation make it hard to distinguish between the demand for a just and measured retribution, and the unthinking cry for vengeance which arises from the anguish of war. It is our task, so far as humanly possible, to, draw the line between the two. We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well. We must summon such detachment and intellectual integrity to our task that this Trial will commend itself to posterity as fulfilling humanity's aspirations to do justice.
The case as presented by the United States will be concerned with the brains and authority back of all the crimes. These defendants were men of a station and rank which does not soil its own hands with blood. They were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We want to reach the planners and designers, the inciters and leaders without whose evil architecture the world would not have been for so long scourged with the violence and lawlessness, and wracked with the agonies and convulsions, of this terrible war.
Of course, there are domestic remedies that must be addressed first, perhaps in a future diary; and, there are other international remedies short of convening a New Nuremberg Trial. However, I bring up Justice Jackson's words, and his warning to future generations about the illegality of waging a an illegal war, and how best to deal with those who do.
III. A sampling of 2007 research of Bushism and its international crimes
I have spent the past four to five years studying and collecting the various crimes of the Bush Crime Family. At first, the literature on the subject was a mere trickle. The first book-length treatment that became somewhat popular was Lawless World, followed by a collection called The Torture Papers. However, what I found lacking was serious American academics and legal scholars willing to speak freely about what they knew was happening. As I recall my research, it was rare to find while doing a search, a significant amount of writing on the subject. There were some British jurists who understood what was happening, and spoke openly about it, but, it was too rare to be satisfying.
However, the tide has turned! There are virtually dozens of books available. Now, when one searches for law review articles on Bushism and its illegal invasion and occupation, torturing, murdering, lying, and overall lawlessness, there is much to choose from. There are symposia at major universities and law schools ranging from the rendition and torture of innocents, to general ones on the illegality of so many aspects of the Bushism and its project.
As an example, I would like to direct readers to an article , titled "Extraordinary Rendition, Torture, and Other Nightmares fro the War on Terror" in the current issue of the 75 Georgetown Law Review 1200, by Leila Nadya Sadat. In footnote 48 to the article, she cites several recent articles that anyone interested ought to consider reading:
See, e.g., Diane Marie Amann, Guantánamo, 42 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 263, 348 (2004) (arguing that both domestic and international law principles force the U.S. judiciary to protect against unfair deprivations of individual liberties); Laura A. Dickinson, Accountability of State and Non-State Actors for Human Rights Abuses in the "War on Terror," 12 Tulsa J. Comp. & Int'l L. 53, 54 (2004) (discussing the multiple threats to national security that arise from failing to place checks on executive power); Neal K. Katyal & Laurence H. Tribe, Waging War, Deciding Guilt: Trying the Military Tribunals, 111 Yale L.J. 1259, 1260 (2002) (establishing that the President's Order creating military tribunals for the trial of terrorists is unconstitutional); Harold Hongju Koh, The Case Against Military Commissions, 96 Am. J. Int'l L. 337, 338 (2002) (arguing that the Military Order undermines U.S. commitment to the rule of law); Mary Ellen O'Connell, Affirming the Ban on Harsh Interrogation, 66 Ohio St. L.J. 1231, 1237 (2005) (arguing that the President "may no more authorize the use of coercion and cruelty against detainees than he may authorize torture"); Mary Ellen O'Connell, Evidence of Terror, 7 J. Conflict & Sec. L. 19, 20, 30-33 (2002) (explaining that if a state does not meet a "clear and convincing" evidentiary standard to justify use of force in self-defense, it must find an alternative response to armed force); Mary Ellen O'Connell, To Kill or Capture Suspects in the Global War on Terror, 35 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 325, 326 (2003) (arguing that the government's use of "targeted killing" is unlawful and "wholly flawed as a matter of policy"); Jordan J. Paust, Antiterrorism Military Commissions: Courting Illegality, 23 Mich. J. Int'l L. 1, 27 (2001) (arguing that President Bush's November13 military order violates human rights, the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I, and creates constitutional due process and habeas corpus problems); Jordan J. Paust, Executive Plans and Authorizations to Violate International Law Concerning Treatment and Interrogation of Detainees, 43 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 811, 855-61 (2005) (discussing why relevant rights and duties are absolute under the laws of war and human rights principles); Jordan J. Paust, The Importance of Customary International Law During Armed Conflict, 12 ILSA J. Int'l & Comp. L. 601, 605 (2006) (discussing the applicability of customary international law); Jordan J. Paust, Post-9/11 Overreaction and Fallacies Regarding War and Defense, Guantanamo, the Status of Persons, Treatment, Judicial Review of Detention, and Due Process in Military Commissions, 79 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1335, 1335, 1364 (2004) (discussing the consequences of the current changes, misconceptions, and violations of international law).
All of these articles are available at any university library, and some are available through the Law Review's web-site.