INTRODUCTION. By
Hugo Adan, April 23, 2014.
There are several
missing points in this article. The main point is that wars abroad make us
ethically-morally poor . Here some of the reasons why?
I- Any war that involves NUKES will be
a crime against humanity. Now we are at risk of
committing this crime. We are displaying these weapons in the Ukraine region.
The international community will not tolerate new Hiroshima-Nagasaki crimes.
Nuremberg-type trials will not be enough. Peoples’ trial will close US
embassies all over the world, if we used. US-big companies will be hit and
American citizens will be hated worldwide.
Where to escape once nukes come to America? No place will be secure for us. We should
stop any threat of nuclear war.
II- Any
war abroad that involves the US will be a war crime on any Law standard.
The justification for going to war, jus ad
bellum, before war, depends
on four principal elements (Johnson, 1975:26):
1. Proper authority: Given the risk of nuclear war, neither the US
Senate nor the UN assembly have such authority without consulting –via
referendum- their constituting Nations.
2. Just cause: There is not just cause if multinational
corporations (especially oil companies) are involved in war as it happens in
Irak, Afghanistan, Libya and now in Ukraine. There is not just cause nor right
intent if peoples uprisings are coopted,
captured and manipulated via foreign
intervention and mercenary forces as it happened in Syria and now in
Ukraine.
3. Right intent. There is not right intention if in addition
to the above the international community is deceit with false information –via
corporate media and specialized NGS like NED (National Endowment for Democracy)
who manufactured videos to distort and demonize authorities democratically
elected- to destroy a State-Nation
(regime change in Libya,.. etc)
4. Peaceful end: Media
silence and immunity to war crimes and crimes against humanity has been
committed in favor of the US and NATO due to the capture and control of the
International Criminal Court of the UN.
III The Charter of the
International Military Tribunal that convened at Nuremberg specified the existence of a series of International crimes,
one of which was:
a-
Crimes
against peace: Namely, planning, initiation or
waging of a war of aggression. Further the Chapter held individuals responsible
for such actions: leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices
participating in the formulation or
execution of a plan or conspiracy to commit a forgoing war crime
(von Glahn, 1970:702). Victoria Nuland
made clear the existence of the US plan of aggression in Ukraine, and Sen
McCain corroborated as well as the VIP today.
b-
There
is a consensual definition on “aggressive war”. The core of the definition is “the priority principle”,
whish establishes first action, including a first strike, as prima fascie evidence of aggression. The
sending of tanks and armed commands from Kiev to crack down civilians of the
South who democratically demanded the right to elect their own political
authorities, plus the killing of these civilians account as first strike, as crime against
peace and war crime.
c-
Crimes
against humanity and war crimes in addition to crimes against peace. Crimes against humanity: Namely, Murder, extermination,
enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian
population, before or during war. The US
committed this crimes many times inside and outside. Theey were covered with
impunity and silence; cases in point, natives, afro-americans and Latino
migrants.
d-
War crimes: Namely,
it included but 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 ; plunder of private or public
property .. (von Glahn, 1970:702). The
last reminds us the crimes of the US in Guantanamo and the bandalizing of museums in Iraq.
IV- Justification for acts during war or “just
in bello”
a.
Proportionality
principle. It refer limits of violence. It centers on the subject or the negative human effect of using weapons vastly disproportional
to any military gain that a belligerent actor might hope to achieve by using
them. It suggests that inhumane weapons like nukes should be
avoided. The possible use of missiles with nuclear heads has already being
displayed by the US as threat to intimidate and condition the so called
diplomacy of war in Ukraine. A nuclear blackmail besides being a crime against
peace carries implicit the danger of real nuclear confrontation and it should be considered as an aggression
against the whole humanity. Besides atomic weapons this principle restricts the
uses of biological and chemical weapons such as the ones provided to Iraq to
bomb Iran and the ones used by mercenaries sponsored by NATO allies in Syria.
b.
Discrimination.
It is the 2nd major principle of the “just in bello”. It centers on the object of
violence. It suggest that belligerents should discriminate between combatants
and non-combatants and that the later should be protected. It prohibits the
uses of carpet bombing and any type of chemical-biological weapons described
above. The uses of drones violates this principle, according to the target
nations (evidences abound on this matter).
As
we noticed, all these principles have been violated by the US and NATO allies
since the attack on Yugoslavia and worse even during the current century. We
already committed crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Now the international community and the US nation is against this violence and
demand that any US war abroad be stopped immediately. US WARS ABROAD ARE
ILLEGAL AND INMORAL. It make us ethically poor. These
are the points not considered in the article below.
========
Here extracts of this article
WAR MAKES US
POOR. April 23, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog MUST READ ARTICLE [here only extracts]
TOP ECONOMISTS SAY WAR IS BAD FOR THE ECONOMY
Preface: Many Americans – including
influential economists and talking heads -
still wrongly assume that war is good for the economy. Many congressmen assume that cutting pork-barrel military spending would
hurt their constituents’ jobs.
As demonstrated below, it isn’t true.
War is widely thought to be linked to economic
good times. The second world war is often said to have brought
the world out of depression, and war has since enhanced its reputation as a
spur to economic growth. Some even suggest that capitalism needs wars, that
without them, recession would always lurk on the horizon. Today, we know that this is nonsense.
The 1990s boom showed that peace is economically far better than war. The Gulf
war of 1991 demonstrated that wars can actually be bad for
an economy.
Stiglitz has also said that this decade’s Iraq war has been very bad
for the economy.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan
Greenspan also said in that war is bad for the economy. In 1991,
Greenspan said that a prolonged
conflict in the Middle East would hurt the economy. And he made this point again in 1999:
Societies need to buy
as much military insurance as they need, but to spend more than that is to
squander money that could go toward improving the productivity of the economy
as a whole: with more efficient transportation systems, a better educated citizenry,
and so on. This is the point that retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) learned
back in 1999 in a House Banking Committee hearing with then-Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan. Frank asked what factors were producing our
then-strong economic performance. On Greenspan’s list: “The freeing up of resources previously
employed to produce military products that was brought about by the end of the
Cold War.” Are you saying, Frank asked, “that dollar for dollar, military products are there
as insurance … and to the extent you could put those dollars into other areas,
maybe education and job trainings, maybe into transportation … that is going to
have a good economic effect?” Greenspan agreed.
Economist
Dean Baker notes:
It is often believed
that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy. In fact, most economic models show that military
spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment,
and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment.
The Proof Is In the Pudding
Mike Lofgren notes:
Military
spending may at one time have been a genuine job creator when weapons were
compatible with converted civilian production lines, but the days of Rosie the
Riveter are long gone. [Background.] Most weapons projects now require relatively little touch
labor. Instead, a disproportionate share is siphoned into high-cost R&D
(from which the civilian economy benefits little), exorbitant management
expenditures, high overhead, and out-and-out padding, including money that
flows back into political campaigns. A dollar appropriated for highway
construction, health care, or education will likely create more jobs than a
dollar for Pentagon weapons procurement.
***
During the
decade of the 2000s, DOD budgets, including funds spent on the war, doubled in
our nation’s longest sustained post-World War II defense increase. Yet during
the same decade, jobs were created at the slowest rate since the Hoover
administration. If defense helped the economy, it is not evident.
And just the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan added over $1.4 trillion to deficits,
according to the Congressional Research Service. Whether the wars were “worth it” or merely stirred up a
hornet’s nest abroad is a policy discussion for another time; what is clear is
that whether you are a Keynesian or a deficit hawk, war and associated military
spending are no economic panacea.
CONTINUE
READING here more subtitles:
War Spending Diverts Stimulus Away from the Real Civilian
Economy
High Military Spending Drains Innovation, Investment and
Manufacturing Strength from the Civilian Economy
War Causes Inflation … Which Hurts Consumers
War Causes Runaway Debt
War Increases Terrorism … And Terrorism Hurts the Economy
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