15 August, 2013

Were the wars against the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq illegal? – for evidence in the trial of Graeme Dunstan.

                                                Were the wars against the peoples of 
                                                       Afghanistan and Iraq illegal?




Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General:

Reported in Yew York Times, BBC, ABC (Australia), The Guardian
Lessons of Iraq war underscore importance of UN Charter - Annan

Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan
Julian Borger

Ramesh Thakur
LAW, LEGITIMACY AND UNITED NATIONS

The Iraq crisis and world order: Structural, institutional and normative challenges
Edited by Ramesh Thakur and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu
Part V: International legal and doctrinal issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
23 The war in Iraq as illegal and illegitimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
David Krieger (use this)
24 Legitimacy as an assessment of existing legal standards:
The case of the 2003 Iraq war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Charlotte Ku
25 The multinational action in Iraq and international law . . . . . . . . . 413
Ruth Wedgwood
26 Iraq and the social logic of international security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
Jean-Marc Coicaud
27 Justifying the Iraq war as a humanitarian intervention:
The cure is worse than the disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
Nicholas J. Wheeler and Justin Morris
28 The responsibility to protect and the war on Saddam
Hussein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Ramesh Thakur
29 Post-war relations between occupying powers and the United
Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Simon Chesterman

Alison Broinowski

Howard's War

Alison Broinowski

Signatories
Call for an Iraq war inquiry




Why did we go to War with Iraq?

Former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser
An illegal war, a divided world
By Margo Kingston
May 20, 2003


US TV station Democracy Now!
MONDAY, MAY 27, 2013 
Memorial Day Special: U.S. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Return War Medals at NATO Summit
“...Jason Hurd, a former combat medic who spent 10 years in the U.S. Army. "I am deeply sorry for the destruction that we have caused in those countries and around the globe." Scott Kimball, an Iraq war veteran, adds: "For all the servicemembers and veterans who are against these wars, you are not alone!"

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 2003 
Is War Against Iraq Legal Or Not? a Debate Between Roger Normand and Ruth Wedgewood
War against Iraq is "unequivocally illegal under the UN Charter and international law." That is the conclusion of a new report by the Center For Economic and Social Rights.
"It is the height of hypocrisy for the U.S. and U.K. to base war on Resolution 1441 when they are fully aware that France, Russia and China approved that resolution on explicit written condition that it could not be used by individual states to justify military action," said CESR Executive Director Roger Normand, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Iraq.
"This war violates every legal principle governing the resort to force. It clearly has little to do with disarmament, democracy, human rights, or even Saddam Hussein, and everything to do with oil and power."
The report warns that an illegal war in Iraq would threaten the pillars of collective security established after World War II to protect civilians from a recurrence of that unprecedented carnage.”

MARCH 21, 2013

WATCH: Dying Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young on Bush, Missing WMDs, Failed Medical Care

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/3/21/part_2_exclusive_dying_iraq_war_veteran_tomas_young_on_bush_missing_wmds_failed_medical_care


Particular War Crimes:

1. The Sanctions and 12 years of around the clock bombing were each war crimes in their own right:

Iraq Still Years From Seeing Sanctions Lifted
by Jason Ditz, June 18, 2013

Declassified Documents Point To US War Crimes In Iraq
By Stephen Gowans
MediaMonitors.net
© 2001 Steve Gowans
8-12-1

2. Fallujah: The use of egregious weapons, Depleted Uranium and White Phosphorus and resultant birth defects:
(see also Donna Mulhearn’s accounts)
Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault
• Defects in newborns 11 times higher than normal
• 'War contaminants' from 2004 attack could be cause
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 December 2010

The Children of Fallujah - the Hospital of Horrors 

Stillbirths, disabilities, deformities too distressing to describe - what lies behind the torments in Fallujah General Hospital?

by Mozhgan Savabieasfahani on 13-06-2013
A 2012 World Health Organization study on congenital birth defects in Iraq has still not been released to the public.

Fallujah children's 'genetic damage'
21 July 2010 




3. US Colonel James Steel and General David Petraeus – the use of Death Squads in Iraq (its link to ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq):
From El Salvador to Iraq: Washington's man behind brutal police squads
In 2004, with the war in Iraq going from bad to worse, the US drafted in a veteran of Central America's dirty wars to help set up a new force to fight the insurgency. The result: secret detention centres, torture and a spiral into sectarian carnage

6 March 2013

                
How the US exported its 'dirty war' policy to Iraq – with fatal consequences
Using Latin American covert operations as a template for its Iraqi paramilitary proxies, the US once again lost the moral war

Revealed: Pentagon's link to Iraqi torture centres
Exclusive: General David Petraeus and 'dirty wars' veteran behind commando units implicated in detainee abuse 

6 March 2013

Searching for Steele
Broadcast: 02/04/2013
Reporter: Trevor Bormann (narrator)

Friday, March 22, 2013
BBC-Guardian Exposé Uses WikiLeaks to Link Iraq Torture Centers to U.S. Col. Steele & Gen. Petraeus



4. Abu Ghraib, Torture, Extraordinary Rendition (Australia implicated) see Rod Barton book:
The Weapons Detective
The Inside Story of Australia's Top Weapons Inspector


Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

5. Orders to carry out 360 degree rotational fire – documented by US veterans, Ethan Mccord, Vince Emanuele and others (see Winter Soldier Hearings)
Soldier's Shocking Allegation: Troops Ordered to Engage in '360 Rotational Fire' Against Civilians
If even a fraction of former Bravo Company 2-16 soldier Ethan McCord's story is true, Congress must investigate.
June 21, 2010


6. Looting, Destruction, Theft of Cultural Heritage and National Treasures.


7.  Crimes by individual soldiers, often under orders, disrespect for Qurans, mutilation of corpses and massacres.