Issue of the week
Haditha massacre and US opposition to ICC
By Ameen Izzadeen
Now we know why US President George W. Bush and his predecessor Bill Clinton opposed tooth and nail the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court.

If only the United States had been a party to the Rome Treaty, its 3rd Battalion officers would have been facing war crimes charges for the massacre of civilians in Haditha, Iraq.

When the negotiations were progressing towards the formation of an international criminal court in the mid 1990s, the United States was one of its principal backers along with its traditional European allies including Britain. The US had also been a major proponent of the temporary international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. But the sudden US retreat from the Rome Treaty, in hindsight, casts aspersions on its foreign policy. Were the neo-con hawks poisoning the minds of US leaders and pushing them towards military invasions while warning them of scenarios like Haditha even as the Rome Treaty was being finalised?

When "like-minded nations" who were probably unaware of US plans for global domination, committed themselves to a court with sweeping powers, the Clinton administration became wary. But the Bush administration steadfastly opposed the formation of the court, because his global vision included the invasion of Iraq and the setting up of new military bases in other countries. The US president was also probably aware that time and again the United States had been involved in military action against other countries since the end of the Second World War. Vietnam, Korea, Cuba (Bay of Pigs), Panama, Granada, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq have all seen some sort of direct US military action against them while numerous other countries in Asia (especially West Asia), Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean have suffered as a result of indirect US military interventions in their countries.

So it was not surprising when the US opposed the ICC whose jurisdiction covers not only war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, but also "aggression". When the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan himself went on record describing the US war in Iraq as illegal, President Bush — also Clinton — stands vindicated for opposing the Rome Treaty and the formation of the ICC.
To circumvent the long arm of the court, the US entered into bilateral agreements with several weak countries, including Sri Lanka, getting a legal assurance that no US soldier would be prosecuted in the host country or in the ICC.

The US will have its argument for opposing the ICC. David Davenport of the Hoover Institution says, "It is highly likely that Americans will be investigated or charged as criminal defendants. Government officials, military officers, and soldiers-even corporate executives-are all possible targets. Another concern is that defendants cannot rely on the right to a jury trial, protection against unreasonable searches, and many other protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution. With considerable anti-American sentiment attending the creation of the court, the ICC could easily become a forum for trying U.S. military and national policy as criminal matters."

But this argument holds water only if the sole superpower exercises its power with responsibility, upholding global justice and emerging as an exemplary state. Unfortuantely, the Bush administration has not lived upto that expectation.

However, we are glad that the legal system in the United States, despite being manipulated or hijacked by the Bush administration to suit its agenda and deny the suspects at the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison any legal representation, has still room for the prosecution of US soldiers charged with war crimes. There appears to be still life in the system. That is why we saw those involved in the Abu Ghraib shame prosecuted and sentenced even though it could be the case of minnows being punished and the big shots at the Pentagon being left to prey on freely.

The perpetrators in Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, may face charges, but Mr. Bush, the commander-in-chief, and his Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are absolved of the crime. The question at hand is not only about the remedial measure or an assurance that another Haditha will not take place. It is also about why 24 innocent Iraqis, including women and children, died. They died because the US invaded their country. According to British medical journal Lancet, more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a direct result of the US invasion. In other words, all these people were alive when tyrant Saddam Hussein was in charge of Iraq or would have been alive if their country had not been invaded.

The Haditha episode may be just the fall of one of the fig leaves that cover the US shame in Iraq. What about the 600-odd civilians who were killed during a US operation in Fallujah? Similar allegations come from Tall Afar as well. On Friday, BBC reported that it had video evidence of another massacre of civilians by US troops in the town of Ishaqi in March. And this week, reports said that some 20 people were killed in Afghanistan when US and Afghan forces fired warning shots in the air to disperse an angry crowd demonstrating against alleged US high-handedness after a fatal accident in Kabul. Reports from Afghanistan also say that in two recent US air raids on suspected Al-qaeda and Taleban hideouts, some 66 civilians were killed.

As usual, when confronted with evidence, US troops acknowledged the civilian casualties as "collateral damage". The Haditha deaths were also described as collateral damage by the Marines in their report.

Many analysts now draw a parallel between Haditha and My Lai. Some 300-500 My Lai civilians were massacred by US troops in Vietnam in March 1968. Like in Haditha, they tried to cover it up. The lid was only blown off in November 1969.

The My Lai massacre injected new life into a global anti-war campaign leading to the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. We hope the Haditha massacre also would rejuvenate the anti-war campaign in the United States and Britain and force the Bush-Blair imperialist coalition to withdraw from Iraq.

The Bush administration, which this week announced the induction of more troops into Iraq apparently, has no intention of withdrawing from this oil-rich strategic country.

It justifies its presence in Iraq on the basis that its withdrawal will plunge the country into a civil war. It is unlikely that the Iraqi government, a collaborator of sorts, will ask the US to get out. It is in this context that the role played by people like Cindy Sheehan becomes more significant. The greatest respect we can pay to the civilians who died in Haditha and elsewhere in Iraq is adding our voice and extending our support to the anti-war movement. That is the only way we can save the lives of innocent civilians in Iraq.