The Most Cowardly War in History
By Arundhati Roy
World Tribunal on Iraq
Friday 24 June 2005
Opening Statement of Arundhati Roy on behalf of the jury of conscience of
the world tribunal of Iraq.
Istanbul, Turkey - This is the culminating session of the World Tribunal
on Iraq. It is of particular significance that it is being held here in
Turkey where the United States used Turkish air bases to launch numerous
bombing missions to degrade Iraqs defenses before the March 2003 invasion
and has sought and continues to seek political support from the Turkish
government, which it regards as an ally. All this was done in the face of
enormous popular opposition by the Turkish people. As a spokesperson for
the jury of conscience, it would make me uneasy if I did not mention that
the government of India is also, like the government of Turkey, positioning
itself as a ally of the United States in its economic policies and the
so-called War on Terror.
The testimonies at the previous sessions of the World Tribunal on Iraq
in Brussels and New York have demonstrated that even those of us who
have tried to follow the war in Iraq closely are not aware of a fraction of
the
horrors that have been unleashed in Iraq.
The Jury of Conscience at this tribunal is not here to deliver a simple
verdict of guilty or not guilty against the United States and its allies. We
are here to examine a vast spectrum of evidence about the motivations and
consequences of the US invasion and occupation, evidence that has been
deliberately marginalized or suppressed. Every aspect of the war will be
examined - its legality, the role of international institutions and major
corporations in the occupation, the role of the media, the impact of weapons
such as depleted uranium munitions, napalm, and cluster bombs, the use of
and legitimation of torture, the ecological impacts of the war, the
responsibility of Arab governments, the impact of Iraqs occupation on
Palestine, and the history of US and British military interventions in Iraq.
This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record. To document the history
of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the
temporarily - and I repeat the word temporarily - anquished.
Before the testimonies begin, I would like to briefly address as
straightforwardly as I can a few questions that have been raised about this
tribunal.
The first is that this tribunal is a Kangaroo Court. That it represents
only one point of view. That it is a prosecution without a defense. That the
verdict is a foregone conclusion.
Now this view seems to suggest a touching concern that in this harsh
world, the views of the US government and the so-called Coalition of the
Willing headed by President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have
somehow gone unrepresented. That the World Tribunal on Iraq isn't aware of
the arguments in support of the war and is unwilling to consider the point
of view of the invaders. If in the era of the multinational corporate media
and embedded journalism anybody can seriously hold this view, then we truly
do live in the Age of Irony, in an age when satire has become meaningless
because real life is more satirical than satire can ever be.
Let me say categorically that this tribunal is the defense. It is an act
of resistance in itself. It is a defense mounted against one of the most
cowardly wars ever fought in history, a war in which international
institutions were used to force a country to disarm and then stood by while
it was attacked with a greater array of weapons than has ever been used in
the history of war.
Second, this tribunal is not in any way a defense of Saddam Hussein. His
crimes against Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians, Kuwaitis, and others cannot be
written off in the process of bringing to light Iraqs more recent and still
unfolding tragedy. However, we must not forget that when Saddam Hussein
was committing his worst crimes, the US government was supporting him
politically and materially. When he was gassing Kurdish people, the US
government financed him, armed him, and stood by silently.
Saddam Hussein is being tried as a war criminal even as we speak. But
what about those who helped to install him in power, who armed him, who
supported him - and who are now setting up a tribunal to try him and absolve
themselves completely? And what about other friends of the United States in
the region that have suppressed Kurdish peoples and other peoples rights,
including the government of Turkey?
There are remarkable people gathered here who in the face of this
relentless and brutal aggression and propaganda have doggedly worked to
compile a comprehensive spectrum of evidence and information that should
serve as a weapon in the hands of those who wish to participate in the
resistance against the occupation of Iraq. It should become a weapon in the
hands of soldiers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy,
Australia, and elsewhere who do not wish to fight, who do not wish to lay
down their lives - or to take the lives of others - for a pack of lies. It
should become a weapon in the hands of journalists, writers, poets, singers,
teachers, plumbers, taxi drivers, car mechanics, painters, lawyers - anybody
who wishes to participate in the resistance.
The evidence collated in this tribunal should, for instance, be used by
the International Criminal Court (whose jurisdiction the United States does
not recognize) to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard,
Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals, and
corporate CEOs who participated in this war and now profit from it.
The assault on Iraq is an assault on all of us: on our dignity, our
intelligence, and our future.
We recognize that the judgment of the World Tribunal on Iraq is not
binding in international law. However, our ambitions far surpass that. The
World Tribunal on Iraq places its faith in the consciences of millions of
people across the world who do not wish to stand by and watch while the
people of Iraq are being slaughtered, subjugated, and humiliated.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arundhati Roy received the Booker Prize for literature in 1997.
Presently, one of the most eloquent voices for the global justice and
anti-war movement, she was also awarded, among many others, the Sydney Peace
Prize in 2004, and the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize in 2002.
***
ZNet Commentary
>From the World Tribunal on Iraq in Istanbul June 26, 2005
By Zeynep Toufe
A profound sense of disappointment with the American people greeted me
here in Istanbul where the final session of the World Tribunal on Iraq,
investigating and documenting war crimes in Iraq, modeled on the Bertrand
Russell Vietnam War Tribunal of 1967, is convening. The mood is the opposite
of what I encountered here and elsewhere after the anti-war demonstrations
of 2002 and 2003. Back then, enormous sympathy for victims of 9/11, and
respect for a people who took to the streets to try to stop their government
from committing acts of aggression before the invasion had even begun, had
generated admiration and warmth toward Americans, if not their government.
After all, people said, Bush stole the 2000 election. And, look, they would
point out, Americans are trying to stop him. Americans are good people with
a bad government -- just like everywhere else -- they would declare, and
curse Bin Laden and Bush in one swift, contemptuous breath.
Now, however, I get confused looks, pained questions, and heads shaking
quietly in disbelief and disappointment. Don't the American people know, I
am asked, again and again. Explain please, they persist, how, after the
publication of pictures from Abu Ghraib, Bush got re-elected? Don't the
American people watch the news from Iraq? Where did the protests, the
outrage, the uproar go?
This is not just a sad turn of events; it is a profoundly dangerous
situation for the American people. Mass murder of civilians is rarely the
work of lonesome nuts operating totally outside of societal norms and
beliefs. On the contrary, scratch the surface of most of the horrors of the
twentieth century, and you will find a cold, cruel belief that the victims
brought it upon themselves. Everyone shakes their head and loudly condemns
the atrocity once the bodies are cold and deep under the earth; however, a
close examination of the events as they occurred often reveals that there
was an implicit and explicit turning of hearts and faces away from the
people who ended up slaughtered. The perception of indifference and
complicity of the American people to the crimes committed by their
government is obviously not a good development.
Let me try to be even more blunt: if there had been another attack on
American soil around or after the February 15, 2003 protests, I believe that
Islamist terrorism would take a nosedive in legitimacy in the Middle East.
Let alone being able to recruit would-be militants willing to kill
civilians, such groups would find it difficult to try to defend themselves
from the people of the region who would want to tear them from limb to limb.
But now, I fear, many people would shrug, with sadness for sure, if America
were to be attacked again. Of course, most people do not wish such
catastrophe upon the American people, but there seems to be a growing level
of indifference and dislike towards Americans because they are perceived to
have turned away from the crimes of their government.
And this is a made-in-heaven environment for recruitment for terrorist
groups. Just as our recruiters find it harder and harder to find volunteers
for the U.S. military, their recruiters, I sense, are finding it easier and
easier. It is, after all, a connected situation, a see-saw of legitimacy.
At first I tried explain my questioners about the corporate control of media
and the lack of grassroots organizations, but, honestly, it all rings a bit
hollow. In the shops, on the buses and the ferries, and among the
participants of the Tribunal, everywhere, people persist: don't they have
Internet; don't they have alternative media; is nothing reported about Iraq
at all? What on earth is up? I also tried to tell people about the stubborn
remains of the anti-war movement, of the many people who oppose the war
and find it hard to find a way to register their opposition, of the
disregard for
public opinion this administration has shown, the attempts at alternative
media, organizing, congressional hearings. It was clear from the way my
comments were received that it all sounded like I was making excuses for
a people who have indeed, at least for the moment, seem to have shut out
the systematic torture and the brutal occupation out of their minds and
hearts.
I realized I needed to do something else. I needed to talk about things
apart from the general positive things you can say about most any country --
that there are people who remain committed to justice and peace, even during
the hardest of times. I needed to explain that are almost-singularly and
deeply American challenges to the shameful acts of this administration. That
what we are witnessing is also a struggle between different American values,
and the results are far from certain.
I started telling people about Navy Lt. Commander Charles Swift.
Lieutenant Commander Swift, a military lawyer, you see, was assigned to
defend Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who served as a driver for Osama bin
Ladin. Hamdan was charged before the kangaroo military commissions set up
by the Pentagon to try to provide a sense of legitimacy to the detentions in
Guantanamo and elsewhere. People like Mr. Hamdan were charged first with
the hopes that, finding it impossible to mount a plausible defense, they
would
plead guilty, in return for reduced time. Their participation, it was hoped,
would make the process appear somewhat acceptable, if not perfect.
Commander Swift and other military lawyers, however, put a stop to that
charade. They launched a vigorous defense, going all the way up to the
Supreme Court -- even filing lawsuits in civilian courts in their own names
on behalf of their clients who have no such access. They challenged every
aspect of the process, from the judges, to the rules of evidence, to the
tribunals themselves. They maintained that their clients had the right to
presumption of innocence, just like everyone else, and that the charges
against them would have to proven, not assumed. (In fact, Mr. Hamdan
maintains he was just a driver for hire trying to make a living.)
Cmdr. Swift and others persisted, and remarkably, they have torn apart the
whole sham -- very deservedly so. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld produced a stunning
loss to the administration as Judge James Robertson of the United States
District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that President Bush "had
both overstepped his constitutional bounds and improperly brushed aside the
Geneva Conventions in establishing military commissions to try detainees at
the United States naval base here as war criminals." Cmdr. Swift and other
military lawyers have been traveling at home and abroad, openly and loudly
denouncing the military commission system as illegitimate, unfair and
unacceptable.
People gasp with disbelief as they ponder these American career military
lawyers, randomly assigned to defend people their government has designated
as terrorists and locked up without charges, during a process clearly
designed to provide not justice but a fig-leaf show-trial, taking on the
executive branch so boldly and openly. How many countries, I ask, produce
men of such integrity in their armed forces who would actually defend Osama
Bin Ladin's driver as a client innocent until proven guilty? Would you, I
ask? Yes, there is a very ugly, cruel side to U.S. foreign policy and
imperialism, but there is also this.
I also remind people about the Taguba report, produced by Filipino-American
Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, son of Sgt. Tomas Taguba, who had escaped
from Japanese custody in the Bataan Death March during World War II, but
was retired from the U.S. army without recognition -- receiving a Bronze
star
and a Prisoner of War medal only at the age of eighty. I tell people that it
seemed as if this son had remembered the racism, cruelty and discrimination
his father had encountered in his military career --and from the Japanese
forces during the war-- when writing that bold expose of the wrongs in Abu
Ghraip. And this man, I remind people, is a general in the U.S. army. He
chose not to produce a cover-up that would surely please some of his
superiors, and brush the moral wrongs he discovered back under the carpet.
This too is America, I say.
Lastly, I remind people of the many Americans who have traveled to this
Tribunal to join the world in holding their government accountable. From
lawyers here from Center for Constitutional Rights and groups, to women of
CodePink who showed up in hot pink skirts and t-shirts with anti-war
slogans, to folks from Deep Dish TV who have arrived here with their
equipment in order to provide a global broadcast, to renowned academics like
Richard Falk who gave a deeply moving opening speech, to the many
alternative media journalists struggling to carry these voices back home,
Americans are a well-represented contingent. This too is a face of America,
I say. I hope that face perseveres, people respond. I do too, I say, I do
too.
I also hope we can do more than hope.
Zeynep Toufe will be blogging from the World Tribunal on Iraq (
http://www.worldtribunal.org)at her blog, http://www.underthesamesun.org.
She can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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