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"the Bush administration self-declares that it retains a unique "right" to
engage in a legally-standardless "preemptive / preventive" war against anyone,
anywhere, anytime..."
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On The USA's Tragic Withdrawal From The Rule Of Law:
Pentagon Confirms That Unilateral Preemptive Strikes Are Now US Policy
Posted March 25, 2005 thepeoplesvoice.org
By: Evan Augustine Peterson lll, J.D.
The Pentagon has released a new strategic plan, blandly titled "The National
Defense Strategy of the United States of America," 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 plan, the Pax Americana Imperium's overwhelming military
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-illogical
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 most
time-honored methods of international conflict-resolution as "challenges" which MUST BE
DETERRED AS A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY. Nevertheless, it gets even worse.
During an official 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 Pentagon's document. 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 ignorant 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!
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes: Who Will Guard The Guardians Themselves?
It says a great deal -- but nothing good -- about the USA's mainstream media
that the new Pentagon document, and Mr. Feith's laughable-yet-fascistic
clarifications thereof, were subjected neither to intense questioning during the
news conference nor 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 has
chosen to grant these "neocrazies" a second-term stranglehold over his
national-security policy, evidently so they can withdraw the USA from the rule of
internatonal law BEFORE they begin their next propaganda campaign to invade another
petro-state.
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: Fascism In Our Name?
Americans ought to be asking themselves whether we really want the Pentagon
to be implementing its fascistic "national security" policies IN OUR NAME? 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]
END NOTES
[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] International law outlawed "preemptive strikes" and "preventive wars" in
1928 because they proved to be pretextual euphemisms for illegal wars of
aggression.
A. Nicholas Davies' 12-31-04 OJ essay, "The Crime Of War: From Nüremberg
To Fallujah": http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_
Reports/123104Davies/123104davies.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.shtml
[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 RW article, "Office Of Special Plans":
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/govt/osp.php
[6] Right Web's 9-3-04 RW article, "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 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 3-12-05 VH essay, "On The USA's
Piecemeal Withdrawal From The Rule Of International Law: Now Foreigners On Death Row
Have No Right To File An International Appeal" [Provides more evidence that the
Bushites' unilateralist policy is to incrementally withdraw the USA from the
overarching rule of international law, probably as a strategic precondition
for commencing the next phase of their "preemptive World War IV," this time
against Iran.]: http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=27115
C. Michael Leavitt's 3-14-05 FL essay, "Is the Bush Administration
Repudiating International Law?" [Concludes that the 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, he 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 yet another
petro-state 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" [Venezuelans are beginning military preparations to rebuff a
US invasion.]: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-16-venezuela-chavez_x.htm
G. Stuart Munckton's 3-20-05 GLW essay, "Venezuela: Bush's Next Oil War?"
[Explores facts pointing to a Bushite invasion of Hugo Chavez's petro-state,
Venezuela.]: http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/619/619p17.htm
H. Davidson Loehr's 11-7-04 ICH essay, "Living Under Fascism"
[Intelligently offers evidence and analysis indicating that the Bush administration
fits the classic definition of fascism.]:
http://207.44.245.159./article7478.htm
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©2005EAPIII Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III,
J.D., is the Executive Director of the American Center for International Law
("ACIL"). EvPeters8@aol.com
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