Tomaa,
Superb that you forwarded this one. The International Action Center (www.iacenter.org) is planning a massive anti-war demonstration in D.C for October 26. My fear is that it would have been already to late to stop the war.
Sidibeh
----- Original Message -----
From: "Momodou Camara" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 6:45 PM
Subject: FWD:iac: Ramsey Clark Letter to UN: Do Not Support Attack on Iraq
> The following letter by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has
> been sent to all members of the UN Security Council, with copies to
> the UN General Assembly. Please circulate.
>
> September 20, 2002
>
> Secretary General Kofi Annan United Nations New York, NY
>
> Dear Secretary General Annan,
>
> George Bush will invade Iraq unless restrained by the United Nations.
> Other international organizations-- including the European Union, the
> African Union, the OAS, the Arab League, stalwart nations courageous
> enough to speak out against superpower aggression, international
> peace movements, political leadership, and public opinion within the
> United States--must do their part for peace. If the United Nations,
> above all, fails to oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq, it will forfeit
> its honor, integrity and raison d?etre.
>
> A military attack on Iraq is obviously criminal; completely
> inconsistent with urgent needs of the Peoples of the United Nations;
> unjustifiable on any legal or moral ground; irrational in light of the
> known facts; out of proportion to other existing threats of war and
> violence; and a dangerous adventure risking continuing conflict
> throughout the region and far beyond for years to come. The most
> careful analysis must be made as to why the world is subjected to such
> threats of violence by its only superpower, which could so safely and
> importantly lead us on the road to peace, and how the UN can avoid the
> human tragedy of yet another major assault on Iraq and the powerful
> stimulus for retaliatory terrorism it would create.
>
> 1. President George Bush Came to Office Determined to Attack Iraq and
> Change its Government.
>
> George Bush is moving apace to make his war unstoppable and soon.
> Having stated last Friday that he did not believe Iraq would accept UN
> inspectors, he responded to Iraq?s prompt, unconditional acceptance by
> calling any reliance on it a ?false hope? and promising to attack Iraq
> alone if the UN does not act. He is obsessed with the desire to wage
> war against Iraq and install his surrogates to govern Iraq by force.
> Days after the most bellicose address ever made before the United
> Nations--an unprecedented assault on the Charter of the United
> Nations, the rule of law and the quest for peace--the U.S. announced
> it was changing its stated targets in Iraq over the past eleven years,
> from retaliation for threats and attacks on U.S. aircraft which were
> illegally invading Iraq?s airspace on a daily basis. How serious could
> those threats and attacks have been if no U.S. aircraft was ever hit?
> Yet hundreds of people were killed in Iraq by U.S. rockets and bombs,
> and not just in the so called ?no fly zone,? but in Baghdad itself.
> Now the U.S. proclaims its intentions to destroy major military
> facilities in Iraq in preparation for its invasion, a clear promise of
> aggression now. Every day there are threats and more propaganda is
> unleashed to overcome resistance to George Bush?s rush to war. The
> acceleration will continue until the tanks roll, unless nonviolent
> persuasion prevails.
>
> 2. George Bush Is Leading the United States and Taking the UN and All
> Nations Toward a Lawless World of Endless Wars.
>
> George Bush in his ?War on Terrorism? has asserted his right to attack
> any country, organization, or people first, without warning in his
> sole discretion. He and members of his administration have proclaimed
> the old restraints that law sought to impose on aggression by
> governments and repression of their people, no longer consistent with
> national security. Terrorism is such a danger, they say, that
> necessity compels the U.S. to strike first to destroy the potential
> for terrorist acts from abroad and to make arbitrary arrests,
> detentions, interrogations, controls and treatment of people abroad
> and within the U.S. Law has become the enemy of public safety.
> ?Necessity is the argument of tyrants.? ?Necessity never makes a good
> bargain.?
>
> Heinrich Himmler, who instructed the Nazi Gestapo ?Shoot first, ask
> questions later, and I will protect you,? is vindicated by George
> Bush. Like the Germany described by Jorge Luis Borges in Deutsches
> Requiem, George Bush has now ?proffered (the world) violence and faith
> in the sword,? as Nazi Germany did. And as Borges wrote, it did not
> matter to faith in the sword that Germany was defeated. ?What matters
> is that violence ... now rules.? Two generations of Germans have
> rejected that faith. Their perseverance in the pursuit of peace will
> earn the respect of succeeding generations everywhere.
>
> The Peoples of the United Nations are threatened with the end of
> international law and protection for human rights by George Bush?s war
> on terrorism and determination to invade Iraq.
>
> Since George Bush proclaimed his ?war on terrorism,? other countries
> have claimed the right to strike first. India and Pakistan brought the
> earth and their own people closer to nuclear conflict than at any time
> since October 1962 as a direct consequence of claims by the U.S. of
> the unrestricted right to pursue and kill terrorists, or attack
> nations protecting them, based on a unilateral decision without
> consulting the United Nations, a trial, or revealing any clear factual
> basis for claiming its targets are terrorists and confined to them.
>
> There is already a near epidemic of nations proclaiming the right to
> attack other nations or intensify violations of human rights of their
> own people on the basis of George Bush?s assertions of power in the
> war against terrorism. Mary Robinson, in her quietly courageous
> statements as her term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ended,
> has spoken of the ?ripple effect? U.S. claims of right to strike
> first and suspend fundamental human rights protection is having.
>
> On September 11, 2002, Colombia, whose new administration is strongly
> supported by the U.S., ?claimed new authority to arrest suspects
> without warrants and declare zones under military control,? including
> ?[N]ew powers, which also make it easier to wiretap phones and limit
> foreigners? access to conflict zones... allow security agents to
> enter your house or office without a warrant at any time of day
> because they think you?re suspicious.? These additional threats to
> human rights follow Post-September 11 ?emergency? plans to set up a
> network of a million informants in a nation of forty million. See,
> New York Times, September 12, 2002, p. A7.
>
> 3. The United States, Not Iraq, Is the Greatest Single Threat to the
> Independence and Purpose of the United Nations.
>
> President Bush?s claim that Iraq is a threat justifying war is
> false. Eighty percent of Iraq?s military capacity was destroyed in
> 1991 according to the Pentagon. Ninety percent of materials and
> equipment required to manufacture weapons of mass destruction was
> destroyed by UN inspectors during more than eight years of
> inspections. Iraq was powerful, compared to most of its neighbors, in
> 1990. Today it is weak. One infant out of four born live in Iraq
> weighs less than 2 kilos, promising short lives, illness and impaired
> development. In 1989, fewer than one in twenty infants born live
> weighed less than two kilos. Any threat to peace Iraq might become is
> remote, far less than that of many other nations and groups and cannot
> justify a violent assault. An attack on Iraq will make attacks in
> retaliation against the U.S. and governments which support its
> actions far more probable for years to come.
>
> George Bush proclaims Iraq a threat to the authority of the United
> Nations while U.S.-coerced UN sanctions continue to cause the death
> rate of the Iraqi people to increase. Deaths caused by sanctions have
> been at genocidal levels for twelve years. Iraq can only plead
> helplessly for an end to this crime against its people. The UN role
> in the sanctions against Iraq compromise and stain the UN?s integrity
> and honor. This makes it all the more important for the UN now to
> resist this war.
>
> Inspections were used as an excuse to continue sanctions for eight
> years while thousands of Iraqi children and elderly died each month.
> Iraq is the victim of criminal sanctions that should have been lifted
> in 1991. For every person killed by terrorist acts in the U.S. on
> 9/11, five hundred people have died in Iraq from sanctions.
>
> It is the U.S. that threatens not merely the authority of the United
> Nations, but its independence, integrity and hope for effectiveness.
> The U.S. pays UN dues if, when and in the amount it chooses. It
> coerces votes of members. It coerces choices of personnel on the
> Secretariat. It rejoined UNESCO to gain temporary favor after 18 years
> of opposition to its very purposes. It places spies in UN inspection
> teams.
>
> The U.S. has renounced treaties controlling nuclear weapons and their
> proliferation, voted against the protocol enabling enforcement of the
> Biological Weapons Convention, rejected the treaty banning land mines,
> endeavored to prevent its creation and since to cripple the
> International Criminal Court, and frustrated the Convention on the
> Child and the prohibition against using children in war. The U.S. has
> opposed virtually every other international effort to control and
> limit war, protect the environment, reduce poverty and protect
> health.
>
> George Bush cites two invasions of other countries by Iraq during the
> last 22 years. He ignores the many scores of U.S. invasions and
> assaults on other countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas during
> the last 220 years, and the permanent seizure of lands from Native
> Americans and other nations--lands like Florida, Texas, Arizona, New
> Mexico, California, and Puerto Rico, among others, seized by force
> and threat.
>
> In the same last 22 years the U.S. has invaded, or assaulted Grenada,
> Nicaragua, Libya, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Yugoslavia,
> Afghanistan and others directly, while supporting assaults and
> invasions elsewhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
>
> It is healthy to remember that the U.S. invaded and occupied little
> Grenada in 1983 after a year of threats, killing hundreds of civilians
> and destroying its small mental hospital, where many patients died. In
> a surprise attack on the sleeping and defenseless cities of Tripoli
> and Benghazi in April 1986, the U.S. killed hundreds of civilians and
> damaged four foreign embassies. It launched 21 Tomahawk cruise
> missiles against the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum in
> August 1998, destroying the source of half the medicines available to
> the people of Sudan. For years it has armed forces in Uganda and
> southern Sudan fighting the government of Sudan. The U.S. has bombed
> Iraq on hundreds of occasions since the Gulf War, including this week,
> killing hundreds of people without a casualty or damage to an
> attacking plane.
>
> 4. Why Has George Bush Decided The U.S. Must Attack Iraq Now?
>
> There is no rational basis to believe Iraq is a threat to the United
> States, or any other country. The reason to attack Iraq must be found
> elsewhere.
>
> As governor of Texas, George Bush presided over scores of executions,
> more than any governor in the United States since the death penalty
> was reinstated in 1976 (after a hiatus from 1967). He revealed the
> same zeal he has shown for ?regime change? for Iraq when he oversaw
> the executions of minors, women, retarded persons and aliens whose
> rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of
> notification of their arrest to a foreign mission of their nationality
> were violated. The Supreme Court of the U.S. held that executions of a
> mentally retarded person constitute cruel and unusual punishment in
> violation of the U.S. Constitution. George Bush addresses the United
> Nations with these same values and willfulness.
>
> His motives may include to save a failing Presidency which has
> converted a healthy economy and treasury surplus into multi-trillion
> dollar losses; to fulfill the dream, which will become a nightmare, of
> a new world order to serve special interests in the U.S.; to settle a
> family grudge against Iraq; to weaken the Arab nation, one people at a
> time; to strike a Muslim nation to weaken Islam; to protect Israel,
> or make its position more dominant in the region; to secure control of
> Iraq?s oil to enrich U.S. interests, further dominate oil in the
> region and control oil prices. Aggression against Iraq for any of
> these purposes is criminal and a violation of a great many
> international conventions and laws including the General Assembly
> Resolution on the Definition of Aggression of December 14, 1974.
>
> Prior regime changes by the U.S. brought to power among a long list of
> tyrants, such leaders as the Shah of Iran, Mobutu in the Congo,
> Pinochet in Chile, all replacing democratically elected heads of
> government. 5. A Rational Policy Intended to Reduce the Threat of
> Weapons of Mass Destruction in The Middle East Must Include Israel.
>
> A UN or U.S. policy of selecting enemies of the U.S. for attack is
> criminal and can only heighten hatred, division, terrorism and lead to
> war. The U.S. gives Israel far more aid per capita than
> the total per capita income of sub Sahara Africans from all sources.
> U.S.-coerced sanctions have reduced per capita income for the people
> of Iraq by 75% since 1989. Per capita income in Israel over the past
> decade has been approximately 12 times the per capita income of
> Palestinians.
>
> Israel increased its decades-long attacks on the Palestinian people,
> using George Bush?s proclamation of war on terrorism as an excuse, to
> indiscriminately destroy cities and towns in the West Bank and Gaza
> and seize more land in violation of international law and repeated
> Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.
>
> Israel has a stockpile of hundreds of nuclear warheads derived from
> the United States, sophisticated rockets capable of accurate delivery
> at distances of several thousand kilometers, and contracts with the
> U.S. for joint development of more sophisticated rocketry and other
> arms with the U.S.
>
> Possession of weapons of mass destruction by a single nation in a
> region with a history of hostility promotes a race for proliferation
> and war. The UN must act to reduce and eliminate all weapons of mass
> destruction, not submit to demands to punish areas of evil and enemies
> of the superpower that possesses the majority of all such weapons and
> capacity for their delivery.
>
> Israel has violated and ignored more UN Resolutions for forty years
> than any other nation. It has done so with impunity.
>
> The violation of Security Council resolutions cannot be the basis for
> a UN-approved assault on any nation, or people, in a time of peace, or
> the absence of a threat of imminent attack, but comparable efforts to
> enforce Security Council resolutions must be made against all nations
> who violate them.
>
> 6. The Choice Is War Or Peace.
>
> The UN and the U.S. must seek peace, not war. An attack on Iraq may
> open a Pandora?s box that will condemn the world to decades of
> spreading violence. Peace is not only possible; it is essential,
> considering the heights to which science and technology have raised
> the human art of planetary and self-destruction.
>
> If George Bush is permitted to attack Iraq with or without the
> approval of the UN, he will become Public Enemy Number One--and the UN
> itself worse than useless, an accomplice in the wars it was created to
> end. The Peoples of the World then will have to find some way to begin
> again if they hope to end the scourge of war.
>
> This is a defining moment for the United Nations. Will it stand
> strong, independent and true to its Charter, international law and the
> reasons for its being, or will it submit to the coercion of a
> superpower leading us toward a lawless world and condone war against
> the cradle of civilization?
>
> Do not let this happen.
>
> Sincerely,
> Ramsey Clark
>
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>
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