By Chris Floyd - July 25, 2003.
"The rule of law is dead."
More than 50 times, Rumsfeld signed
his name to these multiple
death-warrants:
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The armchair warriors who directed the American-led
conquest of Iraq would like us to believe that the estimated 10,000
innocent civilians who died in the invasion were simply unfortunate,
inadvertent, unavoidable, accidental victims of a just and noble
action. No one wanted these innocent people to die. Surely no
American leader ever knowingly ordered a mission with the certain
knowledge that innocent people were going to be killed by it. These
deaths just happened; no one is to blame for them.
That's what the
armchair warriors tell the world -- and themselves too, no doubt,
when they look into the mirror every morning. But like almost every
other statement issued by the Bush Regime on the subject of Iraq,
this comforting fairy tale is a cynical, blood-soaked lie. To take
just one example: U.S. military commanders revealed last week that
up to 1,500 civilian deaths were personally approved by Pentagon
chief Donald Rumsfeld.
In a debriefing
for American and "Coalition" brass, U.S. Lieutenant General Michael
Mosley confirmed that all air war commanders were required to get
Rumsfeld's direct approval for any airstrike that would likely kill
more than 30 innocent people, The New York Times reports. That
certainly sounds like admirably strict oversight for such a
momentous battlefield decision. In practice, however, Rumsfeld's
management of the process was based on the same philosophy that his
boss George W. Bush applied to death-penalty cases when he was
governor of Texas: "What the hell, let 'em fry!"
More than 50
times, Rumsfeld was approached with mission plans likely to leave at
least 30 innocent people vaporized and mutilated by unstoppable
high-tech weaponry crashing down on them without warning, without
the slightest chance of escape. More than 50 times, Rumsfeld signed
his name to these multiple death-warrants: Every such mission was
approved, said Mosley.
Of course, an
accurate count of the civilians killed at Rumsfeld's direct order is
impossible to obtain. In the fiery chaos of the invasion, hundreds,
perhaps thousands of dead civilians were buried in makeshift graves,
unmarked graves, even mass graves, often by strangers. These corpses
may never be fully accounted for. So we must make do with estimates.
We could lowball it -- an average of, say, "only" six civilian
deaths per mission instead of the likely 30 -- and come up with a
figure of 300 innocent men, women and children eviscerated at
Rumsfeld's personal command. A more contentious high-balling -- an
average of 50 civilian deaths per mission -- would give us at least
2,500 innocent men, women and children burned to death and blown to
bits on Rumsfeld's order: a number approaching the death toll of the
Sept. 11 attacks.
Bushist minions
would doubtless say that this "collateral damage" is the
unintentional byproduct of actions designed to achieve strictly
military objectives. What's more, U.S. forces placed unprecedented
restraints on their rules of engagement precisely to avoid civilian
casualties.
True enough. But
when the overall military action itself is unjust -- based on the
calculated perversion of public trust by lies invoking an "imminent
threat" that was patently nonexistent, and on the constantly
insinuated blood libel that Iraq was somehow complicit in the Sept.
11 massacres; when, furthermore, the military action is illegal --
an act of unilateral aggression unsanctioned by international law,
the UN Charter or the constitution of the United States (which does
not give Congress the authority to delegate its warmaking powers to
the personal whim of the president), then the innocent deaths that
result from such an action cannot be "justified" as the result of
"normal" wartime operations.
In this context of
illegality, the Bushists are left with nothing but the logic of
gangsterism -- an "Al Capone" defense: "I tried real hard not to
kill too many innocent bystanders when I robbed that bank." No court
would accept such "restraint" as mitigation for murders committed in
the course of criminal activity.
It's clear that
the civilian deaths caused by the invasion of Iraq cannot be
ascribed to some bloodless abstraction -- "the fortunes of war,"
etc. -- but are instead the direct personal responsibility of all
those in the national leadership of the United States and Britain
who concocted and promulgated this illicit enterprise. And the
greatest share of guilt must go to those who wield the greatest
authority. The blood of hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent
people is thus smeared across the snarling visage of Donald
Rumsfeld.
But the ultimate
responsibility must be laid at the ultimate authority, the man who
indeed insists that it was his imperial will alone that launched the
invasion: George W. Bush. True, it's painfully obvious that he is
the witless mouthpiece of ideological extremists like Rumsfeld and
Dick Cheney -- those Bolsheviki of the boardroom. In fact, Bush is
apparently ignorant of the actual events that led up to the war: In
one of his very rare unscripted remarks, he panicked and told
reporters last week that he invaded Iraq only after Saddam Hussein
"wouldn't allow UN inspectors into the country" -- a breathtaking
display of disassociation from reality.
Nonetheless, this
fatuous delusionary willingly placed himself at the head of the
extremist junta that is now bankrupting his own country and killing
thousands of innocent people as it runs roughshod over the world.
His carefully cultivated ignorance doesn't excuse his guilt. He may
hope, as his accomplice Tony Blair pathetically declared last week,
that "history will forgive us" for waging war under false pretenses;
but in their unmarked graves, the murdered dead will forever call
him to account.
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