> From : Bella De Soto
> Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 08:51:58 -0700
> Subject: Fw: Ramsey Clark Letter to UN
> 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.
>
>
> 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
> ______________________________________________________________________
> STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ BEFORE IT STARTS!
> NATIONAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON DC
> Saturday, October 26, 2002
To: All subscribers
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