Madam, - A letter in last Saturday's paper clarified the views of the anti-war movement. This letter, signed by the chair of the Irish Anti-War Movement, four members of the Dáil, the Green Party and others, referred to the duty to violate domestic laws in certain circumstances (based on the Nuremberg tribunal) and crucially "In the previous aggression against Iraq in 1991, terrible crimes against peace and crimes against humanity were committed by the US and UK armed forces".
The 1991 "aggression", and "crimes" committed by the "US and UK armed forces" refers to the UN-sanctioned operation by a wide coalition of forces including France and many Arab countries to reverse the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the illegal Iraqi annexation of that UN member. This operation under UN resolution 678 authorised states to "use all necessary means" against Iraq.
This followed 11 previous resolutions condemning the invasion, requesting the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces, imposing trade sanctions, declaring Iraq's annexation of Kuwait as null and void, demanding Baghdad allow foreign nationals to leave, condemning raids by Iraqi troops by French and other diplomatic missions, demanding that Iraq cease taking hostages and asking the UN to safeguard a copy of Kuwait's population register so as to prevent Iraqi repopulation. these were set out in UN resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674 and 677.
These crimes are not mentioned in the Irish Anti-War Movement's letter, while the legal and necessary UN reaction to same is described as "aggression" and "crimes".
This shows that the core of the Irish Anti-War Movement do not support all UN resolutions, especially those that apply to Iraq and are in fact contemptuous of same.
It is unfortunate that the Anti-War Movement's letter did not take the opportunity of its reference to the Nuremberg Tribunal to call for the use of such a tribunal to condemn and punish the regime in Iraq for having invaded two neighbouring countries, attempted genocide against two peoples, using weapons of mass destruction repeatedly against Iranians and Kurds, causing the deaths of up to one and a half million people, and the impoverishment of Iraq and Iran. Is the Anti-War Movement less interested in the enforcement of UN resolutions and international law than in supporting Saddam Hussein's regime?
The political parties, churches, and the ordinary citizens who have participated in anti-war rallies organised by this Anti-War Movement, as well as the media who have been supportive of same, need to determine how to express their views on this war without supporting this contempt for the UN and our own laws. - Yours, etc.,
RICHARD F. WHELAN, Brighton Hall, Foxrock, Dublin 18.
Madam, - With the attack by the US and the UK on Iraq and the reminder issued by the ICRC (Geneva) to all States party to International Humanitarian Law (Law of War) involved in the war that they were bound by the Geneva Conventions, Hague Law, etc., it is appropriate to point out that it is the duty of all officers involved in that conflict to ensure that their subordinates know what is forbidden and to take disciplinary action against any of them who contravene the Law of War.
Serious breaches of that law constitute war crimes and can result in military commanders, and political leaders, having to face trial by the new permanent war crimes court/tribunal in The Hague. The following is an indicative list of what is forbidden by the Law of War:
- To attack, kill, injure or torture innocent (unarmed) civilians.
- To kill or wound or torture an enemy soldier who is injured or who has laid down his arms and is defenceless.
- To steal, or attempt to steal, the personal property of a prisoner of war.
- To rape or dishonour women.
- To loot civilian property : pillage is forbidden by the Law.
- To order "No Quarter" (Take no prisoners).
- To attack or booby-trap food supplies, water supplies, livestock, crops or any other infrastructure which is vital for the survival of the civilian population (e.g. electricity power-stations which are principally for civilian use and benefit).
- To attack or bombard undefended buildings/villages/
towns/cities.
- To attack hospitals or other medical facilities.
- To attack medical or religious personnel.
- To attack personnel or facilities/vehicles bearing the Red Cross/Red Crescent emblems.
- To use civilians or prisoners of war as human shields, or to force them to clear minefields or carry out purely military work.
- To starve civilians as a method of war.
- To use forbidden weapons (dum-dum bullets, gas, etc)
- To use poison or poisoned weapons.
- To carry out reprisals against protected persons (e.g. medical or religious personnel).
- To attack cultural property, unless it is occupied by the enemy and considered a necessary military target: even then, it can only be attacked in compliance with the IHL principle of proportionality.
- To attack and release dangerous forces (e.g. dams, nuclear facilities, chemical plants, bacteriological production facilities, etc.)
- To pretend an intent to negotiate or surrender under a white flag of truce. NBA white flag signifies an intent to negotiate. e.g. to negotiate a temporary cease-fire/truce in order to allow the recovery of dead and wounded from the battlefield or to negotiate a surrender; it is not a flag of surrender.
- To pretend to have protected status under the flags or uniforms or insignia of a neutral army or the United Nations.
- To pretend to be a civilian or a medical person.
- To pretend to be wounded.
- Yours, etc.,
Col JAMES A.V. MORTELL, (Retired), Former ICRC Regional Armed Forces Delegate for South Asia, Stamullen, Co Meath.
Madam, - I was never much good at arithmetic. So I wonder in the light of the claim that to take a moral position on Shannon might cost the Irish people in terms of American investment and jobs at Shannon could I ask Mr. Bertie Ahern TD, and those who think like him the following question: How many dead Iraqi children equals one job? - Yours, etc.,
SENATOR DAVID NORRIS, Leinster House, Dublin 2.
Madam, - It is surprising that you have not noticed that your cartoonist, Martyn Turner, has been producing the same cartoon for the past three weeks or more! He seems to have developed an obsession about George W. Bush. This is clearly affecting his objectivity. Could you not get two men in white coats to take him off to a happy farm where he can happily bore himself to death? The repetitive nature of his cartoons has completely eroded their impact - one big yawn, in fact!
I was involved in voluntary work in Bosnia during the war there in 1994 with a NGO. Let us be absolutely clear and honest - the EU and the UN through their wishy-washy lack of action aquiesced, and in some cases (e.g. Srebrenica) assisted the genocide against the Muslim/Croat population.
If it was not for the American intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo the butchery would still be taking place.
And, remember, the eventual settlement was not reached in Brussels, Strasbourg or the UN but in Dayton, Ohio, under the auspices of the US.
Please give your readers fair and balanced reporting! Your biased propaganda is only giving succour to the tyrannical regime in Iraq. - Yours, etc.,
FRANCIS G. MOLLOY, Dundrum, Dublin 16.
Martyn Turner writes: Mr Molloy is quite correct. My cartoons do lack balance. Over the last 30 years I have drawn far more cartoons opposing the tyranny of Saddam Hussein than cartoons opposing the oiligarchy of George W. Bush. I shall try and make amends.
Madam, - John Waters says that "there is now no realistic global alternative to the political commodity offered by the US" as if the "Perle/Rumsfeldisation" of Washington represents a permanent shift in the worldview of US foreign policy makers rather than a very damaging four-year deviation from the norm.
Bush was elected on a platform of compassionate conservatism - he turned out to be a unilateralist with scant regard for many of the international treaties signed by his predecessors. His "compassion" was a convenient mask over his fundamentalism.
Bush is not a centrist - he is an extremist. He has completed over two years in office and the damage wrought during that time has been shocking (certainly not awesome). The likelihood is that four years of Bush will have to be written off as wasted years for both America and the world.
Bush is bad for America - bad for the stockmarket, bad for the interests of the majority of Americans, bad for America's relationships with its allies and those upon whom it depends in the wider world. He was elected to bring prosperity to Americans, not chaos to the planet.
For all the flaws of its leaders and the corruption of its political class, America is still a democracy. The people will choose in 2004. The Bush era may turn out to be an aberration rather than a new paradigm - just like the internet bubble, that other recent fantasy which originated in the US. - Yours, etc.,
CATHAL RABBITTE, Amman Street, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
Madam, - There are news reports of the UN purchasing food for humanitarian relief in Iraq, appeals from aid agencies, and discussion of post-war re-building being funded from Iraq oil sales. All, apparently, unquestioned.
I would have expected that international law would require that the aggressor states in any illegal international conflict would be legally (as well as morally) responsible for all material destruction and human deprivation caused by their actions; and, therefore, required to finance both reconstruction and make reparation for human suffering. - Yours, etc.,
ROD ALSTON, Eden Plants, Rossinver, Co Leitrim
Madam, - The daily pictures of civilian causalities from Iraq bring to mind the words of American General William Tecumseh Sherman: "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out." - Yours, etc.,
B. WALSH Palmerston Gardens, Dublin 6.