Report back from The Iraq Commission in Brussels

[Ross Caputi]

Dear friends,

We recently returned from The Iraq Commission, which was a two day session at the International Association of Democratic Lawyers conference. The goal of The Iraq Commission was to plan and organize legal actions for prosecuting US/UK officials for war crimes committed in Iraq. Lawyers and activists came together from all over the world to work towards bringing these war criminals to justice. Please check out Dahr Jamail’s coverage of The Iraq Commission: http://truth-out.org/news/item/23175-international-lawyers-seek-justice-for-iraqis

For me, this was the honor of a life time. To participate in something so important, something that is more than just raising awareness, but a real action with teeth is every activist’s dream. 

Several hopeful plans of action emerged over the course of two days. One of the boldest and most hopeful is a class action lawsuit against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powel, and Wolfowitz in a California court. They are being charged with Aggression and Conspiracy to commit Aggression. See more details about Saleh v. Bush here: http://warisacrime.org/content/historic-hearing-saleh-v-bush

Inder Comar, the head attorney on this case, has gone to great lengths to research the planning for the invasion of Iraq that began well before 9/11 and the deliberate attempts to deceive the American public and lead them to war after 9/11. His arguments are very strong. But even if the Department of Justice finds a loophole way out of this, raising these arguments in a public court is invaluable. 

One of the ways that the DOJ has tried to get the case dismissed is to claim that the nature of the plaintiff’s arguments are political and, therefore, not admissible in court. This was the same argument used by the Nazis at Nuremberg, who accused the tribunal of being a political trial. If the DOJ decides to pursue this route, they would be validating the argument of the Nazis. 

Perhaps the most exciting part of this class action is that it can be replicated in all 50 states. One of the decisions of The Iraq Commission was to try to replicate this case in as many American states as possible and in countries outside the US too. 

The other course of action that we are most excited about is our future plans with ISLAH. We are planning a campaign for voluntary reparations for Iraq. Although this concept is different from most of the legal notions and actions discussed at The Iraq Commission, we feel that this approach compliments the legal actions and will help attract attention and build momentum for a longterm campaign for accountability and justice for Iraq. Our goal is to get people of conscience to make a sustained commitment to repairing the harm that our society brought to Iraq. In doing so, we hope to create a movement that is more than just marches, protests, and speaking. This is an opportunity for us to put into action the words we speak and the goodwill we feel when we think about our position in the global order and the violence wrought to sustain that position.

Our biggest project is to send reparations to the maternity ward at the Fallujah hospital. They are in desperate need of equipment and training to treat the crisis of birth defects brought to them by the occupation. But we have begun other small scale reparations projects too, like offering free English lessons to Iraqi refugees. We are also planning a reparations fund that veterans will give to out of their VA benefits. 

Between these actions that we can take immediately to give voluntary reparations, and the more longterm legal actions from prosecution and accountability, we feel confident that we can build a longterm, sustained campaign for justice and accountability. We’re very excited to have this momentum and the opportunity for real action. 

We hope that you will continue to work with us on this campaign. Please visit ISLAH’s website to learn more about our philosophy and our plans for the future: www.reparations.org

Sincerely,

Ross Caputi

The Justice For Fallujah Project
www.thefallujahproject.org