[Peace] Fwd: Ramsay Clark on Opposition to Iraq War

[manni at snafu.de]

Forwarded Message:
> To: ps <portside at yahoogroups.com>
> From: portsideMod <portsidemod at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Ramsay Clark on Opposition to Iraq War
> Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 20:13:41 -0700 (PDT)
> -----
> "The statement by Bush that Iraq is a menace which
> justifies war is false"
> =======================
> Letter of Ramsay Clark to the secretary-general of the
> UN.
> 
> International Action Center, 
> September 20, 2002.
> 
> "If George Bush is permitted to attack Iraq, with or
> without the approval of the UN, he will convert himself
> into public enemy number 1 and the United Nations will
> be, worse than useless, an accomplice of the wars for
> whose prevention it was created. The peoples of the
> world will then have to begin anew if they hope to end
> the calamity of war."
> 
> ..=================
> 
> Secretary General Kofi Annan
> 
> United Nations
> 
> New York
> 
> Dear General Secretary Annan,
> 
> George Bush will invade Iraq unless the United Nations
> persuades him not to. Other international organizations
> - including the European Union, the African Union, the
> OEA, the Arab League, the brave nations sufficiently
> important to speak against the aggression of the
> superpower, the international movements for peace, the
> political leader amd the public opinion of the United
> States - must do their part in favor of peace. But if,
> above all , the United Nations fails to oppose the
> invasion of Iraq by the United States, it will lose its
> honor, its integrity, and its reason for existence.
> 
> A military attack against Iraq is obviously criminal:
> completely inconsistent with the urgent necessities of
> the peoples of the United Nations, unjustifiable from
> whatever legal and moral point of view, irrational in
> the light of the known facts; out of proportion (in
> comparison) with other threats of war and violence and
> a dangerous adventure which risks maintaining the war
> over the whole region and for many years in the future.
> The most rigorous analysis must be made of why the
> world is submitted to such threats Of violence by the
> only superpower which in so sure and important a manner
> could lead us on the road to peace, and as United
> Nations, could avoid the human tragedy of a new attack
> and of major scope on Iraq, and the powerful stimulus
> for vengeful terrorism which it could create.
> 
> 1. President George Bush acceded to the presidency with
> the determination to attack Iraq and change its
> government.
> 
> George Bush advances rapidly with the object of making
> his war unstoppable and to make it quickly. Having
> declared last Friday ( September 14) that he did not
> believe Iraq would accept UN inspectors, he answered
> the prompt response of Iraq of unconditional acceptance
> calling for giving it no credence, as a "false hope",
> and promising to attack Iraq alone if the United
> Nations did not act. Bush is obsessed with the desire
> to launce the attack against Iraq and to install his
> substitutes to govern Iraq by force. Days after the
> most belligerent speech delivered before the UN - an
> attack without precedent in the Charter of the United
> Nations, in the Law of Rights and the search for peace
> - The United States announced that the objectives
> declared on Iraq had change in the last eleven years
> from the retaliation by threats and attacks against
> military aircraft of the United States which were
> invading the Iraqi airspace daily and illegally. How
> could the threats and attacks have been so serious when
> not a single U.S. aircraft was damaged? On the
> contrary, hundreds of persons have been assassinated in
> Iraq by rockets and bombs of the United States, and not
> only in the denominated "No-fly zone" but in Bagdad
> itself. Now, the United States declares its intention
> to destroy the major part of the military
> infrastructures of Iraq in preparation for is invasion,
> a clear promise of aggression. Every day new threats
> and more propaganda appear to overcome the resistance
> to the rush of Bush to go to war. The build-up went so
> far as tanks rolling, in order that non-violent
> persuasion would prevail.
> 
> 2,George Bush is leading the United Sates and pulling
> the United Nations and all nations into a lawless world
> and endless wars
> 
> With his "war against terrorism", George Bush has
> affirmed his right to attack whatever country,
> organization, or people without previous notice and at
> his sole discretion. He and some members of his
> administration have proclaimed that the old limitations
> which restricted the intervention (abroad) of the
> governments and limited repression against its peoples
> are no longer compatible with national security.
> Terrorism constitutes such a danger - he affirms - that
> necessity obliges the United States to attack first to
> destroy the potential for terrorist acts from outside
> and to practice arbitrary arrests, detentions,
> interrogations, controls and pursuit of foreigners
> inside the United States. Law has converted itself into
> the enemy of public security. Necessity is the argument
> of tyrants. Necessity never leads to a good agreement.
> 
> Heinrich Himmler - who instructed the Nazi Gestapo to
> "fire first, ask afterwards, and I will protect you" -
> is being vindicated by George Bush. As the German
> described by Jorge Luis Borges in Deutches Requiem (1),
> George Bush has offered the world violence and faith in
> the sword, as the Nazi teuton did. And as Borges wrote,
> faith in the sword served for nothing since Germany
> ended up defeated. What is this violence which is
> governing now? Two generations of Germans have
> renounced that faith. Their perseverence in the
> obtaining of peace deserved the respect of the coming
> generation in whatever place. The peoples of the United
> Nations are threatened with the end of International
> Rights and of the protection of human rights by George
> Bush’s "war on Terrorism" and his determination to
> attack Iraq.
> 
> Since George Bush proclaimed his "war on terrorism",
> other countries have claimed the right to attack first.
> India and Pakistan brought the world and their own
> peoples to the brink of nuclear conflict as never since
> October 1962, and in direct consequence of the claims
> of the United States of its unrestricted right to
> pursue and assassinate terrorists, or attack nations
> which protect them, basing itself on a unilateral
> decision without consulting the United Nations, without
> previous judgement, or without having revealed evident
> objective facts to claim that its targets are
> terrorists and that they are marked for such actions.
> 
> There exists almost an epidemic of nations which
> proclaim the right to attack other nations or to
> intensify the violations of human rights of their own
> peoples on the basis of the declarations of power in
> the "war against terrorism" of Geroge Bush.
> 
> Mary Robinson, in her valiant and calm declaration on
> ending her responsibility as High Commissioner of the
> United Nations on Human Rights, spoke of the wave
> effect which the demands of the United States on the
> right to attack first and to suspend the protection of
> human rights is having since the 11th of September,
> 2002.
> 
> In Colombia, whose new government is strongly supported
> by the United States, authority is being claimed to
> arrest persons suspected without proofs and to declare
> zones under military control, in addition to new powers
> which make it easier to tap telephones and limit the
> entrance and presence of foreigners in zones of
> conflict, and permit the security agents to enter
> houses or offices without judicial orders at whatever
> hour of the day because a minimum of suspicion exists.
> These additional threats to human rights have followed
> the emergency plans (put into effect0 after September
> 11, to put into action a network of a million informers
> in a nation of four million inhabitants. (2)
> 
> 3. The United States, not Iraq, is the great and only
> threat to the independence and objectives of the United
> Nations.
> 
> The statement of president Bush that Iraq is a threat
> which justifies war, is false. 80% of the Iraqi
> military capacity was destroyed in 1991 according to
> the Pentagon, 90% of the material and equipment which
> are necessary to manufacture arms of mass destruction
> were destroyed by the UN inspectors during more than 8
> years of inspection. In 1990, Iraq was powerful
> compared with most of its neighbors.
> 
> Today it is weak country. One child out of every four
> born in Iraq survived weighing less than 2 kilos, with
> a short life expectancy, with illnesses and a worsened
> development. In 1989, less than one of every 20
> children born with less than 2 pounds of birth weight
> lived. And threat to peace into which Iraq could
> convert itself is remote, much more remote than that of
> many nations and groups, and can not justify a violent
> assault. An attack against Iraq would make attacks of
> revenge against the United States and against the
> governments which support its actions much more
> probable in the future.
> 
> George Bush proclaims that Iraq is a threat to the
> authority of the United Nations, while the sanctions -
> in which the United States participates -continue
> causing an increase in the rate of mortality in the
> Iraqi population. The deaths caused by the sanctions
> have reached, after 12 yers, the level of genocide.
> Iraq can only ask in vain for the end of this crime
> against its people.
> 
> The role of the United Nations in the sanctions against
> Iraq compromises and stains its integrity and the honor
> of the international institution. Therefore the
> resistance of the United Nations against this war is
> now more important.
> 
> The inspections (of disarmament) have been utilized as
> an excuse to maintain the sanctions during eight years
> while thousands of Iraqi children and old people have
> died every month. Iraq is the victim of criminal
> sanctions which should have been lifted in 1991. For
> every person dead from the terrorist actions of
> September 11 in the United States, five hundred have
> died in Iraq as a consequence of the sanctions.
> 
> It is the United States which threatens not only the
> authority of the United Nations, but its independence,
> integrity and hope of effectiveness. The United States
> pays its dues to the United Nations only if, when, and
> in the quantity it wants, it supports the U.S. by the
> votes of its members.
> 
> The U.S. acted together with the UN in the election of
> its functionaries to the general secretariat. It has
> returned to the bosom of the UN to get a temporary
> favor after 18 years of opposition to all its
> objectives, and places spies in the inspection teams
> (of the commission on disarmament UNSCOM of the UN).
> 
> The United States has renounced the treaties of control
> and proliferation of nuclear weapons, has voted against
> the protocol which permits putting into effect the
> Convention on Biological Weapons, has rejected the
> treaty of prohibition of land mines; has worked to
> prohibit the creation and afterwards refused to use the
> International Crime Tribunal, and has frustrated the
> Convention on Childhood and the prohibition against the
> utilization of children in wars. The United States has
> opposed virtually every international effort to control
> and limit war, to protect the environment, to reduce
> poverty, and to protect
> 
> health.
> 
> George Bush cites two invasions of other countries by
> Iraq during the last 22 years, but ignores the twenty
> invasions and attacks of the United States against
> other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America
> during the lat 20 years, as well as the permanent
> taking over the lands of native Americans and other
> nations - lands such as Florida, Texas, Arizona, New
> Mexico, California and Puerto Rico, among others,
> seized through force and threats.
> 
> In the same 22 years the United States has invaded or
> attacked directly, Grenada, Nicaragua, Libya, Panama,
> Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan,
> and others, while it supported attacks and invasions in
> other parts of Europe, Asia , Africa and Latin
> America..
> 
> Hard records exist that the United States invaded and
> attacked directly little Grenada in 1983, after a year
> of threats, of assassinations of thousands of civilians
> and the destruction of its little mental hospital
> 
> where many patients died. In a surprise attack against
> the undefended cities of Tripoli and Bengasi while they
> slept, in April 1986, the United States assassinated
> thousands of civilians and caused damage to four
> foreign embassies. It launched 21 Tomahawk cruise
> missiles against the pharmaceutical plant of al-Shaifa,
> in Khartum, in August of 1998, destroying the supply of
> half of the medicines available for all the population
> of Sudan. For year it has kept its armed forces in
> Uganda and in the south of Sudan, fighting against the
> government of that country. The U.S. has bombarded Iraq
> on hundreds of occasions since the Gulf War, including
> this week, killing hundreds of persons without
> suffering a single casualty (itself) or damage to a
> single warplane.
> 
> 4. Why has George Bush decided that the United Stated
> must attack Iraq now?
> 
> No rational base exists to believe that Iraq
> constitutes a threat the the United States or any other
> country. The reason to attack must be sought elsewhere.
> 
> As governor of Texas, George Bush presided over some
> twenty executions, moe than any other governor of the
> United States, since the death penalty was reinstalled
> in 1976 (after an interruption in 1967). (Bush)
> demonstrated the same zeal which he shows today for the
> change of regime in Iraq when he supervised the
> executions of minors, women, mentally backward persons,
> whose rights under the Convention of Vienna relative to
> Diplomatic Relations on the notification of their
> arrest to the foreign embassy of their nationality were
> violated. Th Supreme Court of the United States
> considers that the executions of mentally backward
> persons constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment
> which violates the U.S. Constitution. George Bush rules
> the United Sattes with the same values and the same
> intentions.
> 
> His motives can include saving a failed presidency
> which has converted an healthy economy and a surplus in
> the treasury into losses of trillions of dollars; and
> to realize his dream - which turned into a nightmare -
> to settle a family grudge against Iraq; threaten the
> Arab nation and all its people at one move; hit the
> muslim nation to weaken Islam; protect Israel to enrich
> the interests of the United States and afterwards
> dominate the petroleum of the region and control its
> prices. To attack Iraq for whatever of these reasons is
> criminal and constitutes a violation of a great part of
> the international conventions and laws, including the
> Resolution of the General Assembly on the Definition of
> Aggression of December 14, 1974.
> 
> The previous changes of regime carried out by the
> United States brought to power, among a long list of
> tyrants, authorities like the Shah in Iran, Mobutu in
> the Congo, and Pinochet in Chile, all of them replacing
> government presidents elected democratically.
> 
> 5. A rational policy which attempts to reduce the
> menace of arms of mass destruction in the Middle East
> must include Israel.
> 
> A policy of the United Nations or of the United States
> of selecting enemies to attack Is criminal and can only
> breed hate, division, terrorism and end in war. The
> United States gives Israel more aid per capita than the
> total of income per capita of Subsaharan Africa coming
> from all sources.
> 
> The coercive sanctions of the United States have
> reduced the per capita income of the Iraqi population
> 75% since 1989. The income per capita in Israel in the
> decade past has been approximately 12 times more than
> that of the Palestinians.
> 
> Israel intensified its decade-long attacks against the
> Palestinian people using the proclamation of George
> Bush of "war against terrorism" as an excuse for
> indiscriminately destroying cities and towns in
> Transjordan and Gaza to take possession of more land
> (Palestinian) in violation of International Rights and
> against reiterated resolutions of the General Assembly
> of the United Nations.
> 
> Israel has accumulated reserves of hundreds of nuclear
> warheads imported from the United States, sophisticated
> rockets, capable of reaching objectives at distances of
> various thousands of kilometers, and contracts with the
> U.S. for the joint development of more sophisticated
> rocketry and other arms with the United ?States.
> 
> The possession of arms of mass destruction by a single
> nation in a region with a history of hostility promotes
> the race of proliferation and war. The United Nations
> must act to reduce and eliminate all arms of
> 
> massive destruction and not submit itself to the
> demands of punishment against the enemies of the
> superpower which iis the one which possesses the
> majoriy of such weapons and the capacity to use them.
> 
> Israel has violated and ignored more resolutions of the
> United Nations during 40 years than any other nation.
> It has done so with impunity.
> 
> The violation of the resolutions of the United Nations
> can not be the basis for the approval of attacks
> against any nation or people, in time of peace or in
> the absence of threat of immediate attack except that
> the same efforts must be made that all nations which
> violate them fulfill the resolutions of the Security
> Council of he United Nations.
> 
> 6. The choice is war or peace
> 
> The United Nations and the United States must seek
> peace, not war. An attack against Iraq could open the
> Pandora’s box which would condemn the world to decades
> of extended violence. Peace is not only possible, it is
> essential, considering the hights to which science and
> technology have raised human skill and self
> destruction.
> 
> If George Bush is permitted to attack Iraq, with or
> without the approval of the United Nations, he will
> convert himself into public enemy number 1 and the
> United Nations will be, worse than useless, an
> accomplice of the wars for whose prevention it was
> created. The peoples of the world will then have to
> find a means to begin again, if they hope to end the
> calamity of war.
> 
> This is a definitive moment for the United Nations.
> Will it remain strong, independent and faithful to its
> Charter, to International Rights and to the essence of
> its creation, or will it submit itself to coercion of a
> superpower which would lead us to a world without law
> and condones war against the cradle of civilization?
> 
> Don’t permit this to happen.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ramsay Clark
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
> 
> 
> portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a
> news, discussion and debate service of the Committees
> of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It
> aims to provide varied material of interest to people
> on the left.
> 
> Post            : mail to 'portside at yahoogroups.com'
> Subscribe       : mail to 'portside-subscribe at yahoogroups.com'
> Unsubscribe     : mail to 'portside-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com'
> List owner      : portside-owner at yahoogroups.com
> Web address     : <http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/portside>
> Digest mode     : visit Web site
>  
> 
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to 
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
> 
>