By John Leschak
Today, Muntadhar al-Zaidi will stand trial before the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. Muntadhar is the Iraqi journalist who hurled both of his shoes at President Bush on Dec. 14, 2008, at a Baghdad press conference. “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq,” Muntadhar yelled.
Now he is being prosecuted for “assaulting a foreign head of state” and faces up to 15 years in prison. But the real criminals walk free.
The Iraqi penal code, just like most penal codes makes it a crime to assault a foreign head of state. But shouldn’t it also be a crime for a foreign head of state to assault an entire people? That is exactly what George W. Bush did and it is Bush who should be standing trial in Iraq’s criminal courts today, not Muntadhar. Bush is guilty of war crimes and must be prosecuted now.
First, Bush is guilty of waging an aggressive war, defined under international law as a military conflict waged in the absence of a necessity of self-defense. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, established to prosecute Nazi officials after World War II, declared that the waging of aggressive war “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.”
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was and remains an aggressive war.
The invasion was not required for American self-defense. Contrary to the claims of the Bush administration, Iraq’s Baathist regime was not tied to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. This was confirmed in March 2008, when the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command concluded that there was no connection between Hussein’s dictatorship and the activities of al Qaeda. Furthermore, not only did Iraq not have “weapons of mass destruction (WMDs),” but according to confidential Pentagon documents obtained by The New York Times, the Bush administration never had “any hard evidence” that Iraq had WMDs.
Second, Bush is guilty of torture, in violation of international laws such as Article 3 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as American laws, including the U.S. Torture Statute. In 2004, detainees in cell blocks 1A and 1B of Abu Ghraib prison were regularly tortured, and several were beaten to death.
These forms of torture originated from Camp X-Ray at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but Bush’s secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, sent Jeffrey Miller, then commander of GitMo, to Iraq to teach the military there how to use “harsher interrogation techniques.” Bush knowingly allowed this to happen and is personally responsible.
Third, Bush is guilty of crimes against humanity for violating Part II of the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding General Protection of Populations Against Certain Consequences of War. Article 18 of Part II states, “Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.” However, in November 2004, the U.S. military attacked Fallujah General Hospital.
Bush probably thinks that he is going to get away with all of this. The soundtrack to the end of his presidency could have been provided by the classic NOFX album, “So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes!” But Bush should not be too cocky because many in the Middle East may be singing a song from that album, namely “Murder the Government.” If legal institutions do not hold Bush accountable for these crimes, vigilantes like Muntadhar will.
John Leschak is a second-year law student. You may e-mail him at [email protected].
