5000 years of history destroyed

- Principles of the Nuremberg Charter and Judgment, Principle VI b (1950)

We've finally become the barbarian horde that the world has always feared.

How so? At home, the Bush*tes are implementing their fascistic militarization of US culture.^[1]  Abroad, their minions have been implementing the illegal conquest and occupation of Iraq with horrific impact: the indiscriminate slaughter of more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilian non-combatants;^[2] and the unnecessary destruction of the world's most important museums, antiquities, and archaeological sites.^[3] 

Focusing for the moment on the latter outrage, the pre-war Bush administration and the Pentagon were repeatedly warned by world-class scholars and international officials that: Iraq is literally the cradle of human civilization; and the invading US military must not allow Iraq's priceless patrimony to be disturbed, looted, or destroyed.^[4]

Moreover, international law prohibits belligerent occupants - like the US military in Iraq - from confiscating, destroying, or damaging historical monuments, antiquities, works of art, and institutions devoted to the arts and sciences. Regardless of their ownership status, such cultural properties are to be treated as private property, and therefore beyond the reach of the occupant. For the applicable laws of war, see Article 56 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, and the 1954 Hague Convention Relative to the Protection of Cultural Properties in Case of Armed Conflict. Additionally, any violation of the law of war constitutes a war crime.^[5]

Nevertheless, the Bush*tes - who are the belligerent occupants - subsequently allowed widespread looting while they blithely looked the other way.

Furthermore, the Pentagon's thuggish brass and ignorant field marshals have been willfully implementing the destruction of the world's oldest archaeological sites.

For instance, they've constructed a vibrationally-pulverizing US air base adjacent to the Ziggurat. And they've been conducting archaeologically-damaging military operations next to the Biblically-significant ancient cities of Ur (the patriarch Abraham's birthplace) and Babylon (site of the Babylonian Captivity and the Handwriting On The Wall).^[6]

To place the magnitude of the Bush*tes' outrageous war crimes against 5,000 years of human civilization in proper perspective: an Oxford scholar says "You'd have to go back centuries, to the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258, to find looting on this scale"; and a Boston University professor of archaeology calls it "the greatest cultural disaster of the last 500 years."^[7]

Outside the USA, the world is quite understandably outraged at the ghastly carnage and wanton destruction wrought by this depraved war against the cradle of civilization. Inside the USA, the morally-blind American people are yawning

indifferently: "Pass me the chips and the remote, dude. We're gonna watch the next episode of 'Empire'!"

It couldn't be clearer that the American people don't realize - or don't care

- that their own nation is committing numerous war crimes and is on an unsustainable collision-course with the rest of humankind. If they did, they'd be idiomatically stating the obvious: "Something's gotta give, or this planet's toast!"^[8]

ENDNOTES

[1] Evan Augustine Peterson III's two-part OS essay, "American Militarism". [Part 1 concludes that the military-industrial complex's consolidation of political and economic power, combined with its corrupting secrecy, has produced our war-dependent economy. Part 2 defines �militarism�, concludes that the regressive right is deliberately implementing the militarization of American culture, and that the federal government's massive over-investment in defense is tipping the balance away from a democratic republic and toward neo-fascism.)]

     A. "Part 1: Is The USA Addicted To War?" (May 2005):

     B. "Part 2: On Celebrating Militaristic Nationalism" (July 2005):

[2] Evan Augustine Peterson III's October 31, 2004 NFPNZ essay "A Question Of Conscience: How Many More? British Study Concludes That 100,000 Civilian Deaths Have Been Caused By Iraq War Violence" [This disturbing study is the tip of the evidentiary iceberg, when one considers the large number of prosecutable war crimes that have been committed by Americans in Iraq - like their illegal invasion, routine acts of torture in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, indiscriminate applications of lethal force in sieges like Fallujah, widespread use of napalm bombs and depleted-uranium munitions, etc.]

[3] UCSD Professor Emeritus Chalmers Johnson's must-read July 8, 2005 CD/TP essay, "The Smash Of Civilizations" [Reports in lurid detail the Bush administration's �privatization� of the antiquities trade in Iraq, and the US military's wanton pillaging and intentional destruction of Iraq's 5,000 year-old cultural heritage (all of which are war crimes).]

[4] Chalmers Johnson, ibid.

[5] Consider three authoritative definitions of "war crime":   

1. "The term 'war crime' is the technical expression for a violation of the law of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. Every violation of the law of war is a war crime."  Source: U.S. Dept. of Army, Field Manual 27-10, The Law Of Land Warfare 178, para. 499 (1956).
2. "War crimes: Violations of the law and customs of war." Source: Principles of the N�remberg Charter and Judgment, Principle VI b, 5 U.N. GAOR, Supp. No. 12, at 11-14, para. 99, U.N. Doc. A/1316 (1950).
3. "War Crime. Conduct that violates international laws governing war." Source: Black's Law Dictionary, Seventh Edition (St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1999), p.1577. 

[6] Chalmers Johnson, ibid.

[7] Johnson, ibid.

[8] Finally, three recent essays by caring Americans challenge Mr. Bush's myopic neocon collision-course with reality and explain why it is unacceptable:

1. Heather Hamilton and Sam Stein's July 11, 2005 TP essay, "Bush Fiddles While The World Warms" [Among the G8 nations' leaders, only Mr. Bush wants them to focus on terrorism and to ignore that on which everyone else agrees: the obvious fact that global security, climate change, poverty, and terrorism are inextricably intertwined.] 
2. Tom Englehart's July 11, 2005 CD/TD essay, "Making The World Unsafe For Democracy" [Challenges Mr. Bush's latest rationalization for illegally occupying Iraq, which is NOT "forcing terrorists to fight on their turf instead of ours" (consider the bombings in London and Madrid), but IS making the world unsafe for democracy.]
3. Ralph Nader's July 9, 2005 CD essay, "Ralph Nader's Open Letter To George W. Bush" [Challenges GWB to "put his money where his mouth is" by: repealing his tax-cuts for the rich and conscripting upper-class children, so they can contribute their fair share to support his "war on terror"; OR actually becoming the strict constructionist he falsely claims to be, and thus strictly construing Article I, Section 8, of the US Constitution, which assigns the power to declare war solely to Congress (so Congress can use the War Powers Clause either to revoke his unconstitutional declaration of war against Iraq or to impeach him.]

About The Author:

Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., is the Executive Director of the American Center for International Law ("ACIL"). He writes on international law, human rights, foreign policy, government, politics, culture, and ethic. His articles have been published online by - among others - AxisOfLogic, BellaCiao, BuffaloReport, CentreForGlobalResearch, CoalitionForFreeThoughtInMedia, ColdType, Democrats.com, Eklektikos, EnvirosAgainstWar, ForeignPressFoundation, InformationClearingHouse, IrishAntiwar, Kucinich.us, NewtopiaMagazine, NuclearFreePeacemakerNewZealand, OnlineJournal, OpEdNews, OrbStandard, PinellasGreens, PopulistAmerica, SantaBarbaraProgressives, Scoop, TheModernTribune, ThePeoplesVoice, TheRepublic, TodaysAlternativeNews, UrukNet, VHeadline, and ZNet. 

� 2005 EAPIII