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- From: jad@hopper.ACS.Virginia.EDU (John DiNardo)
- Subject: Part 12, Within America's Soul, Hitler is Victorious
- Message-ID: <1993Jan27.002834.9087@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.conspiracy
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Keywords: Within America's Soul, Hitler is Victorious
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: UVA. FREE Public Access UNIX!
- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 00:28:34 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 145
-
- Working with Ramsey Clark in opposing Bush's Persian Gulf War,
- attorney Michael Ratner composed the following legal declaration:
-
- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
- INITIAL LEGAL MATERIALS
-
- The modern law of war and peace is generally agreed to begin
- with the publication in 1625 of De Jure Belli ac Pacis by Hugo
- Grotius. Grotius believed the care to preserve society was the
- source of all law. He recognized the primary importance of
- preventing war. Still, with war the common condition of the Europe
- in which he lived, he sought to identify rules of war which would
- limit its horror. While for many the idea of rules of war is a
- contradiction, it is such rules that international law struggles to
- establish in its care to preserve society until war itself is
- abolished.
-
- Central to all modern efforts to limit war has been the desire
- to protect civilians, non combatants and resources and facilities
- essential to their survival. With the growth of technology in
- warfare, efforts have been made for over 150 years to prohibit or
- restrict uses of weapons of mass destruction and those causing
- unusually cruel or painful death or injury.
-
- An essential standard throughout the rules of armed conflict
- is the prohibition of the use of excessive force and affliction of
- wanton death or destruction. The concept of proportionality, that
- force be carefully limited to that required to defend or achieve
- legitimate military ends, is integrated into the laws of war in all
- its applications.
-
- For purposes of identifying criminal acts in the planning,
- preparation and execution of the Gulf conflict, a handful of basic
- laws are most important. Sections 22 and 23 of the regulations
- annexed to Hague Convention No. IV, Respecting Laws and Customs of
- War on Land (1907), for example, establish the principles that the
- means and manner of waging war are not unlimited and that weapons
- causing unnecessary suffering are prohibited.
-
- The Charter of the United Nations is basic to the hope for
- peace. It is the appropriate place to begin any legal analysis of
- crimes against peace and war crimes in our times.
-
- U.S. military service manuals provide Rules of Engagement for
- U.S. Forces taken largely from customary international law and the
- developing laws of armed conflicts.
-
- The United States Constitution, and particularly, Article I,
- section 8 and Article II, section 2, allocate powers over war and
- peace between the Congress and the President. Numerous federal
- criminal statutes proscribe activity affecting peace or prohibited
- in war.
-
- There are many other Covenents, Conventions, treaties,
- regulations, and draft codes that are important to a complete
- analysis. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an
- important statement because a respect for the rights of others is
- necessary to any real peace. The texts and partial texts of three
- key and binding sources of international law are set forth as
- follows:
-
- I. United Nations Charter pp
- II. Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal pp
- III. Geneva Conventions pp
-
- I. CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
-
- WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
-
- to save succeeding generations from the
- scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime
- has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
-
- to reaffirm faith in fundamental human
- rights, in the dignity and worth of the
- human person, in the equal rights of men and
- women, and of nations large and small, and
-
- to establish conditions under which justice
- and respect for the obligations arising from
- treaties and other sources of international
- law can be maintained, and
-
- to promote social progress and better
- standards of life in larger freedom,...
-
- Article 2
- The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the
- Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with
- the following Principles:
-
- l. The Organization is based on the principle of the
- sovereign equality of all its members.
- * * *
- 3. All Members shall settle their international
- disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that
- international peace and security, and justice, are
- not endangered.
- * * *
- 4. All Members shall refrain in their international
- relations from the threat or use of force against the
- territorial integrity or political independence of any
- state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the
- Purposes of the United Nations.
-
- Chapter Vl of the Charter is devoted to Pacific Settlement
- of Disputes. Its Article 33 states:
-
- Chapter Vl
- PACIFIC SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
- Article 33
- l. The parties to any dispute, the continuance of
- which is likely to endanger the maintenance of internation-
- al peace and sucurity, shall, first of all, seek a solution
- by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation,
- arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional
- agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of
- their own choice.
-
- 2. The Security Council shall, when it deems
- necessary, call upon the parties to settle their
- disputes by such means.
-
-
- [You can help Ramsey Clark in his struggle for justice by
- calling his International Action Center in New York City
- at (212) 633-6646.]
- (to be continued)
- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
-
- The American Public is evidently in dire need of the truth,
- for when the plutocracy feeds us sweet lies in place of the
- bitter truth that would evoke remedial action by the People,
- then we are in peril of sinking inextricably into despotism.
-
- So, please post the episodes of this ongoing series to
- computer bulletin boards, and post hardcopies in public places,
- both on and off campus. The need for concerned people, alerting
- their neighbors to overshadowing dangers, still exists, as it
- did in the era of Paul Revere. That need is as enduring as
- society itself.
-
- John DiNardo
-
-
-