Re: MIGHT[&]TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT? (fwd)

Gunder Frank wrote:

> Then ask and answer whether - unless indeed might makes right out
> of countless wrongs - there is or is not sufficient prima facie evidence
> in what NATO euphomistically calls its "strikes" [not attacks? agression?
> undeclared war?] against Yugoslavia also to indict NATO and its leaders
> for the violation of at the very least the 7 sections cited above and
> spelled out below of the
> 
> - Nuremberg Tribunal and on WAR CRIMES
> - Convention on GENOCIDE
> 
> not to mention many more sections of
> - The UN Charter [in articles 27,41,42,51],
> - The Helsinki Agreement,
> and even of
> - The NATO Charter itself, which reads in part:
> 
>         Article 1
>         The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of
>         the United Nations, to settle any international dispute
>         in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such
>         a manner that international peace and security and justice
>         are not endangered, and to refrain in their international
>         relations from the threat or use of force in any manner
>         inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
> 
> NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES
> 
> "At Nuremberg, three categories of offenses were regarded as punishable
> crimes under international law:
> -
> (a) CRIMES  AGAINST  PEACE:
> -
> (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war of aggression or a
> war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
> -
> (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment
> of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
> -
> (b) WAR CRIMES:
> -
> Violation of the laws or customs of war, which include, but are not
> limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other
> purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or
> ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of
> hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of
> cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military
> necessity.
> -
> (c) CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY:
> -
> Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts
> done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or
> religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are
> carried on in execution of or in connexion with any crime against peace or any war
> crime."
> ----------
> The "Nuremberg principles" of international law are quoted from:
> Richard A. Falk, A Global Approach to National Policy.
> Harvard U P, 1975, p. 149.
> -----------------
> XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
> 
> U N  GENOCIDE CONVENTION
> 
> Article II of the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide states the following:
> 
> "In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts
> committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
> ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
> (a) killing members of the group;
> (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
> to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
> 
> XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
> 
> Moreover the Nuremberg Tribunal established clearly that the
> responsibility for these crimes is PERSONAL:
> 
>         "Crimes against international law are committed by men,
>         not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals
>         who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law
>         be enforced"
> 
>         "Hitler could not make aggressive war by himself.
>         He had to have the cooperation of statesmen, military leaders,
>         diplomats and businessmen"
> 
>         "When they, with knowledge of his aims, gave him their
>         cooperation, they made themselves parties to the plan he had
>         initiated. They are not to be deemed innocent because Hitler
>         made use of them, if  they knew what they were doing"
> 
> XXXXXXXXXX
> 
> A REVEALING FOOTNOTE
> 
> reported by a member of a Serbian-American delegation meeting
> with President Clinton:
> 
> But when the Serb delegation suggested that he must first stop the
> bombing, Clinton replied that he could not do that, as the very existence
> of NATO was at stake.

Gunder, Clinton's non sequitur reply notwithstanding (and the Serb
delegation did more than "suggest"), I could not find any violation. So
perhaps I at least need some hints as to which acts of NATO and its
leaders you believe are indictable. A lot seems to hinge on how one
defines aggression.


-- 
Pat Gunning, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
Web pages on Subjectivism, Democracy, Taiwan, Ludwig von Mises,
Austrian Economics, and my University Classes
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