NEWLY POSTED BUSH ATROCITIES ARTICLE 1A.1
The USA 's Tragic Withdrawal From the Rule of Law:
Pentagon Confirms Unilateral Pre-emptive Strikes Are Now U.S. Policy
Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., Today's Alternative News
March 23, 2005 - The Pentagon has released a new strategic plan that
explicitly endorses unilateral preemptive strikes. [1] This is yet another
indication that the Bush administration is dramatically accelerating away
from longstanding doctrines that are upheld by both general international
law and seemingly-important transatlantic coalitions like NATO. [2]
Alarmingly, this plan also equates respected international organizations,
such as the International Criminal Court, with ... terrorism. According to
this sentence from the Pentagon's new strategic plan, the Pax Americana
Imperium's overwhelming military and economic strength somehow is being
"challenged" by "a strategy of the weak": "Our strength as a nation state
will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak
focusing on international fora, judicial processes and terror." [3]
The entire world must be wondering WHY the Pentagon's wildly-irrational
language conflates diplomatic and legal challenges to US policy in
international forums with terrorism? It's bad enough that the scofflaw
Bush administration has resorted to grossly mischaracterizing Western
civilization's time-honored international conflict-resolution methods as
"challenges" which MUST BE DETERRED AS A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY.
Nevertheless, it gets even worse.
During a Pentagon news conference on 3-18-05, Undersecretary of Defense
for Policy Douglas Feith removed all doubt about the fascistic nature of
these new policies when he clarified points from the document, titled "The
National Defense Strategy of the United States of America ."
Quoth the wild-eyed Feith: "There are various actors around the world that
are looking to attack or constrain the United States , and they are going
to find creative ways to do that, that are not the obvious conventional
military attacks.... We need to think broadly about diplomatic lines of
attack, legal lines of attack, all kinds of asymmetric warfare that
various actors can use to try to constrain, shape our behavior." [4]
Consider Mr. Feith's absurdly-hypermilitarized Orwellian conflations,
which are either criminally stupid or deliberately evil: (1) he defames
diplomacy and adjudication by unjustly conflating them with insidious
methods of "attack"; and (2) he inexplicably conflates any "actor" --
whether individual, group, or national -- who contends that America must
honor its treaty obligations with "asymmetric warfare" against the USA,
despite the fact that duly-ratified treaties are "the supreme law of the
land" under Article VI of the United States Constitution!
So ... let's see if we've finally gotten our new national-security policy
straight:
A) the Bush administration declares that it has a unique "right" to engage
in a legally-standardless "preemptive/preventive" war against anyone,
anywhere, anytime, even if it merely feels subjectively threatened by the
theoretical possibility that it might be "attacked" at some undefined
place in the indefinite future; AND B) any diplomatic or legal
disagreement with the USA under international law is going to be construed
as such an "attack" -- indeed, as a form of "asymmetric warfare"; ERGO C)
the Bushites will inflict "preemptive/preventive" war upon any nation that
attempts to "attack" the USA through a cheeky act of diplomacy or
adjudication under the rule of law, which is henceforth deemed to be the
substantive equivalent of an act of terrorism!
Overarching Conclusions: Who's Guarding The Guardians? It says a great
deal -- but nothing good -- about the USA 's mainstream media that this
Pentagon document and Mr. Feith's laughable-yet-fascistic clarifications
were not subjected to intense questioning during the news conference, and
to scathing journalistic criticism thereafter.
Moreover, the Pentagon's outrageously-regressive strategic plan
underscores the fact that Mr. Bush has chosen NOT to hold dysfunctional
neocons, like Messrs. Feith and Rumsfeld, accountable WITHIN the rule of
law. Rather, he's chosen to grant the neocons a second-term stranglehold
over his natonal-security policy, evidently so they can withdraw the USA
from the rule of internatonal law BEFORE they begin another propaganda
campaign for his next petro-state conquest.
Furthermore, it's worth noting in this context that Untergrüppensführer
Feith is:
1) the DoD's third-ranking civilian official, behind Rummy and Wolfie, who
is primarily responsible for formulating new national-security policies;
2) the DoD official who was directly responsible for the shadowy "Office
for Special Plans" -- an ultrasecret propaganda unit inside the Pentagon
that concocted pre-war "intelligence" about Iraq's phantom WMD arsenals
and nonexistent ties to al-Qaeda -- and who, for purposes of plausible
denial, disbanded the OSP after the invasion [5]; and 3) a longtime
militarist, war-profiteer, and fundamentalist Zionist who has numerous
ulterior motives for both withdrawing the USA from the rule of law and
promoting wars of aggression against Islamic nations in the Middle East.
[6]
The Bottom Line: Neofascism In Our Name? Americans ought to be asking
themselves: (A) whether we really want the Pentagon to be implementing its
fascistic "national security" policies IN OUR NAME; and (B) if NOT, why
aren't we then creating a firestorm of public protest in opposition to
these lunatic-fringe policies? Finally, you'll find more evidence, in
endnote #7 below, which proves, when taken as a whole, that the Bushites
are withdrawing the USA from the overarching rule of intenational law
because they regard it as a necessary precondition for more wars of
aggression against petro-states like Iran , and then maybe Venezuela . [7]
ENDNOTES
1. John Hendren's 3-19-05 CD/LAT article, "Pentagon: Unilateral,
Preemptive Strikes Now US Policy":
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0319-01.htm
2. A. Nicholas Davies' 12-31-04 OJ essay, "The Crime Of War: From
Nüremberg To Fallujah":
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/123104Davies/12
3104davies.html B. TJSL Professor Marjorie Cohn's 11-9-04 TO essay,
"Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime":
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904A.shtml
3. John Lumpkin's 3-19-05 CHB/AP article, "Terrorism Report Decries
'Strategy Of The Weak'":
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_6428.s html
4. Lumpkin, ibid.
5. A. Julian Borger's 7-17-03 GU special report, "The Spies Who Pushed for
War": http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html B. Right
Web's 2-11-04 special report, "Office Of Special Plans":
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/govt/osp.php
6. Right Web's 9-3-04 special report, "Douglas Feith":
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/feith/feith.php
7. A. Jim Lobe's 3-11-05 CD/IPS article, "Bush's Unipolar World View Re-Affirmed" [Significant
trends in Mr. Bush's second-term appointments -- like naming neocons John Bolton as his UN
Ambassador and then Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank -- confirm both his unipolar worldview
and his ongoing intention to pursue a unilateralist national-security policy that will be centered
around "preemptive war."]: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0311-08.htm
B. Evan Augustine Peterson III's 3-13-05 TPV essay, "US Withdraws From The Rule Of Law: Now
Death-Row Foreigners Can't File International Appeals":
http://liberty.hypermart.net/voices/2005/print/US_Withdraws_
From_The_Rule_Of_Law_Now_Death-Row_Foreigners_Cant_File_Inte ...
C. Michael Leavitt's 3-14-05 FL essay, "Is the Bush Administration
Repudiating International Law?" [Concludes that his titular question must be
answered "yes."]: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/leavitt/20050314.html
D. Tom Turnipseed's 3-15-05 CD essay, "A Scofflaw In The White House: Undermining Respect For Law"
[Among other salient points, lists the many international conventions from which the Bushites have
withdrawn the USA.]: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0315-25.htm
E. Ray McGovern's 3-2-05 CD/TD essay, "Attacking Iraq: I Know It Sounds Crazy But..." [Explains the
neocrazy groupthink under which the Bushites operate their Mideastern policy and why it's likely to
manifest in war during their second term.]: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0302-31.htm
F. Fabiola Sanchez's 3-16-05 USAT/AP article, "Chavez Followers Get Paramilitary Training":
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-16-venezuela-chav
ez_x.htm
G. Stuart Munckton's 3-20-05 GLW essay, "Venezuela: Bush's Next Oil War?":
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/619/619p17.htm
H. Davidson Loehr's 11-7-04 ICH essay, "Living Under Fascism": http://207.44.245.159/article7478.htm
Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., is the Executive Director of the American Center for
International Law ("ACIL").
© 2005 EAPIII