As only a retired colonel, I do not have the visibility my more senior colleagues have, but I and many of my fellow retired colonels with whom I associate have been uniformly and vocally opposed to the debacle in Iraq since before it was launched. By way of qualification for my views, I am a graduate of the US Military Academy, served as an armored cavalry officer in Vietnam, later became a JA officer, during which service I studied the law of war, and I served for a number of years as a Republican appointee in a state government executive position.

There is one aspect of the involvement in the war in Iraq by the Bush administration, and the all-too-likely involvement in the war in Iran to come, that has been overlooked by nearly all of the commentary. That aspect is the role of international law, particularly the application of the Nuremberg Principles which came out of the Nuremberg trials, over which Justice Jackson of the US Supreme Court presided. The Principles have been adopted by the United Nations, the charter of which the US was the first signatory. They are the authoritative international law on the matters they address. The principles that are relevant to this discussion are as follow:

“Principle III: The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

”Principle IV: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

“Principle VI: The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression [emphasis added] or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
. . . .
“Principle VII: Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.”

A war of aggression is a war for a purpose other than to repel an invasion of your own country or another country. When the US and the Coalition of the Twisted Arms launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq had not invaded any country, nor was it a threat to do so. Saddam was cooperating with the UN weapons inspectors, and the inspections were having success in confirming that there was no WMD threat. US and British combat aircraft had, since Gulf War I, patrolled Iraq’s skies at will, launching attacks at any misbehavior they saw. Not only was there no invasion to be repelled, there was no capacity nor will to launch one. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the US and its few allies engaged in “[p]lanning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression. . . ,” in clear violation of the relevant international law. The same would be true of the prospective war on Iran, for which the administration is drumming daily.
It should be further remembered that the United States Constitution makes the Constitution and the treaties of the United States the supreme law of the land, and that the UN Charter is a treaty of the United States. Therefore, a violation of the Nuremberg Principles is a crime under both international and domestic law. At the very least, the principal perpetrators of the war in Iraq, and the likely war to come in Iran, are guilty of crimes against peace. As to the Iraq war, those people would include, at the very least, the President, Vice President and assorted senior officials such as Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Feith, Luti and a number of lesser lights.
Speaking as a JAG officer advising military clients, I would remind the senior generals who may soon be faced with orders from their civilian superiors to plan, prepare for, initiate and wage a war of aggression against Iran that their oath is to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that under Principle IV, set out above, an “order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” Clearly, there is a moral choice for them – to oppose the decision, and if that fails within the system, to resign their commissions and to speak out in opposition.

Per Jag Col:
“Principle IV: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him”.

Colonal, When/where are the tribunals starting?? What’s the delay? If the world’s public opinion and legal system is unable to muster the cajones to begin tribunals immediately and to stop this madness, then in fact the world is once again complicit in genocide.

Per Advocate:
“Only a massive change in the ethical culture of the masses in the United States will rein in the most deadly barbarous nation in the world’s history”

Advocate, I concur with your general misanthropy about Americans. It’s been agonizing, unbearable to watch as 74% supported this invasion, lemmings. It proves that if you build a society based purely on capitalist greed, that selfishness and overfed gluttonous decadence can be the only result. The market won’t police itself, rather people trained from birth in the fine arts of fat, selfish, brain-dead consumerism and making scads of money at the expense of everyone and everything else, such an ethic seems to have caused a complete liquefaction of people’s minds. For them the only “common good” or “civic duty” is to join up, and play video-games with real ammo (with the “roof’s on fire” playing over the tank loudspeakers).

I would like a response, for once and for all from the overwhelming majority of enlistees who claim to be these “CHRISTIANS” out there in the desert: You claim to adhere to this fundamentalist, faith-healing, mega-church, bible-belted, born-again “faith” in which GOD COMMANDED YOU NOT TO KILL.

Leaving aside the legal issues (implicating all enlistees serving in Iraq, for which you should all be tried and jailed) How then can a “christian” continue killing, when it was proven beyond any doubt that this was NOT a “Just War”?

This riddle alone should expose the complete duplicity and dishonesty of each and every Judeo-Christian in this country who claims to believe in these “commandments”, but who did not actively oppose the actions that their tax-dollars made them complicit in, and their hippocracy for allowing their crew-cutted, psalm-singing, tongue-speaking, hypnotized/militarized “faith-healed” mega-churched, Robertsonite Christian-coalition youth to be trained and deployed in this blasphemous war.

Why has it taken 5 years for public opinion to show any sign of turning against the war, when it was so clear to Col. Jag and the rest of us with eyes, that this was a complete hoax and an international crime from the outset??

One more question:
Now that it has been PROVEN and ADMITTED by McNamara that the Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag operation, why were all those crew-cutted militarized angry ‘conservatives’ who badmouthed (and in some cases assassinated) those who were correct about Vietnam not taken to task, at least in social discourse? If it was shown that one hideous, unwarranted, pointless, illegal invasion quagmire was completely corrupt from the outset, how can it come to pass that within a generation after withdrawing from Vietnam, we’re back at it again, and with the FULL COMPLICITY of the electorate whose families personally suffered unspeakably from the destruction of an entire generation of casualties and PTSD Vets? Were there not enough documentaries about Vietnam, not enough park-bench-drunk veterans destroyed forever by that war to have reminded the electorate that we don’t EVER do that again?

IF the soldiers who fought in Vietnam were aware that the Gulf of Tonkin was a hoax, then they too would be war-criminals (not that they aren’t for other reasons), But in this case we know NOW, during the bulk of the occupation, and have known for 3 years at least, that the pretext for the invasion was falsified, that the information could have been obtained by the UN, et. al, and that the occupation is therefore (and always was regardless) clearly and unequivocally illegal, why then do the soldiers continue to kill?

And don’t say it’s because the military owns their ass, when apparently the punishment for refusing the order to kill is a month in the brig and a less-than-honorable discharge– hardly a trade-off considering the killing and dying going on!