Some do and some don’t. Their dress Is a result of their culture and upbringing. Just like your. You wouldn’t start wearing a skirt if you didn’t feel comfortable wearing one. Or stop wearing a shirt in public. Because you wearing pants and a shirt in public is a part of the culture you were raised with.

For me a big issue is that the people weren’t rebelling or fleeing in a mass exodus. That’s a sign that they weren’t upset enough with their conditions to be doing anything about it.

And, frankly, without an iron fisted leader, look at what they have resorted to – civil war. They can’t stop killing themselves now that they have freedom…

Bubble boy claims he’s spreading democracy and blah, blah, blah. From where I’m looking the Iraqi’s and other muslim nations are content with the way things are.

For example: you know how the women cover their entire bodies in clothing? Well guess what…when they move to the U.S. they do not have to cover their bodies, they are free to wear what they want.

They choose to cover their bodies here in America. They are not being forced to be slaves to men, thats what they want to be.

Now that President Bush has resolved publicly that those who committed war crimes will be punished, the subject of U.S. war crimes may begin to move closer to its deserved prominent place in the American public discourse. If this happens, more Americans are likely to realize that the man who spoke of punishing war criminals has himself violated the law and should be accordingly punished.

In fact, according to the Nuremberg Charter, a document which the U.S. had a major role in drafting, those who initiate a war of aggression quite literally bear individual criminal responsibility, not only for waging unprovoked war, but for the war crimes which inevitably flow from aggression.

In 1946, the chief American prosecutor of the first Nuremberg trial, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, took this principle seriously enough to help secure the conviction of 17 of the most prominent surviving German leaders for initiating a war of aggression. Eleven were sentenced to death. Three received life sentences and three received lesser sentences.

Reading the transcript of the first Nuremberg trial, we see that all who committed war crimes, from the foot soldiers to the highest leaders, were to be held responsible for their crimes. We also see, however, that the leaders who initiated the aggression were assigned primary criminal responsibility by the prosecutors and by the Tribunal, since none of the subsequent crimes would have been committed had the aggression not occurred. This principle was absolutely central to the Nuremberg Charter and Trials.

Moreover, we see that the intent of the authors of the Charter was not to limit the principles involved in this body of law to prosecution of Germans in 1946 but rather to set a precedent for all times and for all countries, including the United States.

Article 6 of the Charter states: “The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility: (a) CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing; …Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.”

And from Article 7: “The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment.”

On Aug. 12, 1945, three months before the trial began, Justice Jackson made the intent of the American prosecution and of the law clear in a statement on the War Trials Agreement:

“If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner’s dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure. …We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it.”

Bearing in mind the relationship of the Marines now awaiting trial for the Haditha massacre to their Commander-in-Chief and his subordinates, Justice Jackson’s words in his Nov. 21, 1945, opening statement concerning the German leaders then on trial go to the heart of the matter:

“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. …We have here the surviving top politicians, militarists, financiers, diplomats, administrators, and propagandists, of the Nazi movement. Who was responsible for these crimes if they were not?”

If we bear in mind that the U.S. aggression in Iraq was a violation not only of the Nuremberg Charter but of the U.N. Charter (Article 2, Sec. 4 and Articles 39 and 51) and if we remember the several shifting justifications for the aggression presented by the Bush administration, Justice Jackson’s later words that day resonate today for us and for President Bush:

“The very minimum legal consequence of the treaties making aggressive wars illegal is to strip those who incite or wage them of every defense the law ever gave, and to leave war-makers subject to judgment by the usually accepted principles of the law of crimes. … Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions.”

And speaking to the concept of individual responsibility for war criminals at the highest levels, then and in the future, Justice Jackson said:

“The ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law. This trial represents mankind’s desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world’s peace and to commit aggressions against the rights of their neighbors.”

In his closing statement for the American prosecution, July 26, 1946, Justice Jackson hammered again at the relationship between the criminals at the bottom and the criminals at the top:

“The gist of the offense is participation in the formulation or execution of the plan. These are rules which every society has found necessary in order to reach men, like these defendants, who never get blood on their own hands but who lay plans that result in the shedding of blood. All over Germany today, in every zone of occupation, little men who carried out these criminal policies under orders are being convicted and punished. It would present a vast and unforgivable caricature of justice if the men who planned these policies and directed these little men should escape all penalty.”

On Oct. 1, 1946, judgment was delivered by the Nuremberg Tribunal. From the judgment:

“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. …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.”

Justice Jackson’s last sentence in his closing statement, July 26, 1946, concerns the German leaders on trial at the time, but speaks to contemporary American leaders as well: “If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”

Thats it I have Had it up to here, stop this war on terror NOW

We never intended to leave Iraq, and those who say we will stay until the end of the GWOT, mean we will stay until all the oil is gone, or until there is a viable alternative that does not require our presence.

Power is destructive when in the hands of US/Israeli/oil interests.

Israel is the greatest terrorist nation, followed by the US.

That’s my guess.

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With all due respect, DrSinker — after all the shenanigans that we’ve seen the Bush administration get up to so far, how can you POSSIBLY still be that naive?!?! For the love of all that’s sacred, man…haven’t you ever heard the expression “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile”? History and human nature has shown time and time again that once you’ve allowed someone to get their foot in the door — whether by fair means or foul — they’ve already won more than half of the battle and it becomes monumentally more difficult to prevent their entry, let alone convince them to go away…

Well said, and so true, sadly enough.

I’m all for the second Revolution. Let’s start in November by voting these hostile pigs out of office.