[Deathpenalty] FW: [NYTr] The Republic in Crisis and the People's Response (Boyle Speech - Nov 20, 2007)

Sun Nov 25 18:43:56 CST 2007

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (Voice)
217-244-1478 (Fax)
(personal comments only)

-----Original Message-----
From: All the News That Doesn't Fit [mailto:nytr at blythe-systems.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 6:39 PM
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Subject: [NYTr] The Republic in Crisis and the People's Response (Boyle
Speech - Nov 20, 2007)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit

sent by Francis Boyle - Nov 21, 2007

                        Law and Resistance:
       The Republic in Crisis and the People's Response

              Speech by Professor Francis A. Boyle
              University of Illinois College of Law

               Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 6 p.m.
              Northwestern University School of Law
                       Lincoln Auditorium
                     357 E. Chicago Avenue
                          Chicago, Ill. 

                          Sponsored by: 
                     National Lawyers Guild, 
         Northwestern University Student Law School Chapter 
                 and Chicago Chapter of the NLG

Since the impeachable installation of George Bush Jr. as President by
the U.S. Supreme Courtbs Gang of Five, the people of the world have
witnessed a government in the United States that has demonstrated
little if any respect for fundamental considerations of international
law, human rights, or the United States Constitution. Instead, the
world has watched a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the
integrity of the international and domestic legal orders by a group of
men and women who are thoroughly Machiavellian and Straussian in their
perception of international relations and in their conduct of both
foreign affairs and American domestic policy. Even more seriously, in
many instances specific components of the Bush Jr. administrationbs
foreign policy constitute ongoing criminal activity under well
recognized principles of both international law and United States
domestic law, and in particular the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg
Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, as well as the Pentagonbs own
U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 on The Law of Land Warfare, which applies
to President Bush Jr. himself as Commander-in-Chief of United States
Armed Forces under Article II, Section 2 of the United States
Constitution. 

Depending on the substantive issues involved, these international and
domestic crimes typically include but are not limited to the Nuremberg
offences of bcrimes against peaceb-- so far Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia,
and perhaps their longstanding threatened war of aggression against
Iran. Their criminal responsibility also concerns bcrimes against
humanityb and war crimes as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva
Conventions of 1949 and the 1907 Hague Regulations on land warfare:
torture at Guantanamo, Bhagram, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere; enforced
disappearances, assassinations, murders, kidnappings, extraordinary
renditions, bshock and awe,b depleted uranium, white phosphorous,
cluster bombs, Fallujah, etc. Furthermore, various members of the Bush
Jr. administration have committed numerous inchoate crimes incidental
to these substantive offences that under the Nuremberg Charter,
Judgment, and Principles as well as U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956)
are international crimes in their own right: planning, and
preparationbwhich they are currently doing today against
Iranbsolicitation, incitement, conspiracy, complicity, attempt, aiding
and abetting. Of course the terrible irony of todaybs situation is that
six decades ago at Nuremberg the U.S. government participated in the
prosecution, punishment and execution of Nazi government officials for
committing some of the same types of heinous international crimes that
the Neo-Conservative Straussian members of the Bush Jr. administration
currently inflict upon people all over the world. To be sure, I
personally oppose the imposition of capital punishment upon any human
being for any reason no matter how monstrous their crimes, whether they
be Bush Jr., Tony Blair, or Saddam Hussein. 

According to basic principles of international criminal law set forth
in paragraph 501 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, all high level
civilian officials and military officers in the U.S. government who
either knew or should have known that soldiers or civilians under their
control (such as the C.I.A. or mercenary contractors), committed or
were about to commit international crimes and failed to take the
measures necessary to stop them, or to punish them, or both, are
likewise personally responsible for the commission of international
crimes. This category of officialdom who actually knew or should have
known of the commission of these international crimes under their
jurisdiction and failed to do anything about them include at the very
top of Americabs criminal chain-of-command President Bush Jr. and
Vice-President Cheney; former U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld;
Secretary of State Rice; Director of National Intelligence Negroponte,
who was previously in charge of the contra terror war against the
people of Nicaragua that murdered 35, 000 civilians; National Security
Advisor Hadley; his Deputy Elliot Abrams, who was also criminally
responsible for murdering 35,000 people in Nicaragua; former U.S.
Attorney General Gonzales, criminally responsible for the torture
campaign launched by the Bush Jr. administration; and the Pentagonbs
Joint Chiefs of Staffs along with the appropriate Regional
Commanders-in-Chiefs, especially for Central Command (CENTCOM).

These U.S. government officials and their immediate subordinates are
responsible for the commission of crimes against peace, crimes against
humanity, and war crimes as specified by the Nuremberg Charter,
Judgment, and Principles as well as by U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 of
1956. Today in international legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration
itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal
conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the
Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg
Principles, because of its formulation and undertaking of serial wars
of aggression, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war
crimes that are legally akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi
regime in Germany. As a consequence, American citizens possess the
basic right under international law and the United States domestic law,
including the U.S. Constitution, to engage in acts of civil resistance
designed to prevent, impede, thwart, or terminate ongoing criminal
activities perpetrated by Bush Jr. administration officials in their
conduct of foreign affairs policies and military operations purported
to relate to defense and counter-terrorism.

For that very reason, large numbers of American citizens have decided
to act on their own cognizance by means of civil resistance in order to
demand that the Bush Jr. administration adhere to basic principles of
international law, of U.S. domestic law, and of our own Constitution in
its conduct of foreign affairs and military operations. Mistakenly,
however, such actions have been defined to constitute classic instances
of "civil disobedience" as historically practiced in the United States.
And the conventional status quo admonition by the U.S. power elite and
its sycophantic news media for those who knowingly engage in bcivil
disobedienceb has always been that they must meekly accept their
punishment for having performed a prima facie breach of the positive
laws as a demonstration of their good faith and moral commitment.
Nothing could be further from the truth! Todaybs civil resisters are
the sheriffs! The Bush Jr. administration officials are the outlaws!

Here I would like to suggest a different way of thinking about civil
resistance activities that are specifically designed to thwart,
prevent, or impede ongoing criminal activity by members of the Bush Jr.
administration under wellbrecognized principles of international and
U.S. domestic law. Such civil resistance activities represent the last
constitutional avenue open to the American people to preserve their
democratic form of government with its historical commitment to the
rule of law and human rights. Civil resistance is the last hope America
has to prevent the Bush Jr. administration from moving even farther
down the path of lawless violence in Southwest Asia, military
interventionism in Latin America and Africa, and nuclear confrontation
with Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China. 

Such measures of "civil resistance" must not be confused with, and
indeed must be carefully distinguished from, acts of "civil
disobedience" as traditionally defined. In todaybs civil resistance
cases, what we witness are U.S. citizens attempting to prevent the
ongoing commission of international and domestic crimes under
well-recognized principles of international law and U.S. domestic law.
This is a phenomenon essentially different from the classic civil
disobedience cases of the 1950s and 1960s where incredibly courageous
African Americans and their supporters were conscientiously violating
domestic laws for the express purpose of changing them. By contrast,
todaybs civil resisters are acting for the express purpose of upholding
the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, human rights, and international
law. Applying the term bcivil disobedienceb to such civil resistors
mistakenly presumes their guilt and thus perversely exonerates the Bush
Jr. administration criminals.

Civil resistors disobeyed nothing, but to the contrary obeyed
international law and the United States Constitution. By contrast, Bush
Jr. administration officials disobeyed fundamental principles of
international law as well as U.S. criminal law and thus committed
international crimes and U.S. domestic crimes as well as impeachable
violations of the United States Constitution. The civil resistors are
the sheriffs enforcing international law, U.S. criminal law and the
U.S. Constitution against the criminals working for the Bush Jr.
administration! 

Today the American people must reaffirm our commitment to the Nuremberg
Charter, Judgment, and Principles by holding our government officials
fully accountable under international law and U.S. domestic law for the
commission of such grievous international and domestic crimes. We must
not permit any aspect of our foreign affairs and defense policies to be
conducted by acknowledged bwar criminalsb according to the U.S.
governmentbs own official definition of that term as set forth in U.S.
Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956), the U.S. War Crimes Act, and the Geneva
Conventions. The American people must insist upon the impeachment,
dismissal, resignation, indictment, conviction, and long-term
incarceration of all U.S. government officials guilty of such heinous
international and domestic crimes. That is precisely what American
civil resisters are doing today!

This same right of civil resistance extends pari passu to all citizens
of the world community of states. Everyone around the world has both
the right and the duty under international law to resist ongoing
criminal activities perpetrated by the Bush Jr. administration and its
nefarious foreign accomplices in allied governments such as in Britain,
Australia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, etc. If not so restrained, the
Bush Jr. administration could very well precipitate a Third World War. 

In this regard, during the course of an October 17, 2007 press
conference, President Bush Jr. terrorized the entire world with the
threat of World War III if he could not work his illegal will upon
Iran. Then Russian President Vladimir Putin responded in kind by
likewise terrorizing the entire world with the prospect of yet another
Cuban Missile Crisis if he did not get his way on the needlessly
provocative anti-ballistic missile systems that the Bush Jr.
administration plans to locate in Poland and the Czech Republic. The
publicly threatened U.S./Israeli attack upon Iran could readily set off
a chain of events that would culminate in World War III, and could
easily go nuclear. It is my opinion that the Bush Jr. administration
would welcome the outbreak of a Third World War, and in any event is
fully prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons against Muslim and Arab
states and peoples. 

After September 11, 2001 the United States of America has vilified and
demonized Muslims and Arabs almost to the same extent that America
inflicted upon the Japanese and Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor.
As the Nazis had previously demonstrated with respect to the Jews, a
government must first dehumanize and scapegoat a race of people before
its citizens will tolerate if not approve their elimination: Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. In post-9/11 America we are directly confronted with the
prospect of a nuclear war of extermination conducted by our White
Racist Judeo-Christian Power Elite against People of Color in the
Muslim and Arab worlds in order to steal their oil and gas. The
Crusades all over again. But this time nuclear Armageddon stares all of
humankind right in the face! 

We American lawyers must be inspired by the stunning example set by
those heroic Pakistani lawyers now leading the struggle against the
brutal Bush-supported Musharraf military dictatorship. We American
lawyers must now lead the fight against the Bush Jr. dictatorship! This
is our Nuremberg Moment!

Thank you. 

                                   ***

[Francis Boyle is professor of law at the University of Illinois at
Urbana Champaign. A Harvard law graduate, for the last twenty years he
has been involved as lawyer and/or witness in the major cases
challenging U.S. defense policy, notably nuclear issues and, in recent
years, preemptive wars. He speaks and writes regularly on civil
resistance and anti-war issues. Most recently he helped to defend
Camilo Mejia, the first military resister to the current Iraq War.]

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Protesting Power: War, Resistance, and Law
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