March 2011, Issue #37 of The WorldVoter

[The WorldVoter]

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-------------------------------------------

The WorldVoter
the newsletter of
Vote World Parliament
— democratic world parliament through a global referendum —

https://voteworldparliament.org/
Vote World Parliament co-presidents are Ted Stalets and Jim Stark
http://www.rescueplanforplanetearth.com/
This site, above, is for the VWP companion book, Rescue Plan for
Planet Earth

Issue #37, March, 2011
(This issue and all previous issues are posted at
https://voteworldparliament.org/about/newsletter/

THE SCORE

As of March 15, 2011, 21,712 people have voted. So far, the votes are
95.4% in favor of creating a democratic world parliament.

Quotes of the month

When you see what’s happening in Japan, you are reminded that, for all
our differences in culture or language or religion, ultimately,
humanity is one. U.S. President Barack Obama, March 11, 2011.

* * *

News in brief

New Board members

Eugenia Almand is now a member of the Board of VWP. See her mini-bio
at https://voteworldparliament.org/about/who-we-are/.


Liliane Metz-Krencker is now a member of the Board of VWP. See is
her mini-bio at https://voteworldparliament.org/about/who-we-are/.

* * *

Friends:

I found the viewpoint of the 92-year-old former Nuremberg Prosecutor
to be quite informed. He has seen wars around the world and concluded
we must end war. How do we do that? The rule of law is the linchpin—we
must make it a crime, enforced by the international courts against
every leader, for a country to conduct a war of aggression. The wars
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan that the U.S. are currently fighting
would all be wars of aggression. The U.S. has been at the forefront in
preventing wars of aggression from being made punishable by the
International Criminal Court (ICC).

Kevin Zeese (kbz...@gmail.com)

U.S. Nuremberg Prosecutor: “My government today is
prepared to do something for which we hanged Germans”

Transcript of a speech by Ben Ferencz, the co-author of PlanetHood
(this article below has been lightly edited – see http://warisacrime.org/node/57017
for unedited transcript)

After listening to that great introduction, you must have expected
someone to come in here ten feet tall. Well, I used to be ten feet
tall, but the problems of the world wore me down.
You’ve heard from two courageous young authors, Sandy Davies and David
Swanson. Everybody’s young compared to me - I’m going to start my 92nd
year in a couple of weeks. They have the courage to speak out and call
the government liars and then list the specifics about it. In my
introduction to Sandy’s book, Blood On Our Hands, I asked: “Whose
blood? On whose hands?” It’s your blood, young people. And whose
hands? Well, those who are responsible.
What can I tell you that may be useful to you? I will try to give you
my personal impression of how it is that we got ourselves into this
predicament. I witnessed the horrors of World War Two. I was honorably
discharged as a Sergeant of Infantry, and the War Department awarded
me five battle stars for not having been killed or wounded. I had seen
horrors which are really indescribable - the inhumanity of human
beings to other human beings.
The first thing to understand is the mentality of those who made the
war and the atrocities possible. The crimes of war are not limited to
one particular country or one type of person. And I thought I’ll talk
to you about someone you’ve probably never heard of and a trial you’ve
probably never heard of before. I was the Chief Prosecutor in a murder
trial that convicted 22 defendants convicted of murdering in cold
blood over a million people, including hundreds of thousands of
children, shot one at a time. What kind of people can commit such
abominable crimes, and for what reasons?
The lead defendant was a gentleman, SS General Otto Ohlendorf, Doctor
Otto Ohlendorf, father of five children. He was polite and I’m sure he
was kind to his cats and dogs. He sent his top secret reports to SS
Headquarters in Berlin, saying how many Jews , Gypsies and others his
men had killed in which town as the Wehrmnacht advanced into Poland
and the Soviet Union. Unfortunately for them, we fond the complete
daily top- secret reports of the massacres.
The quadripartite trial by the International Military Tribunal (IMT)
at Nuremberg in 1946 was followed by a dozen lesser-known subsequent
proceedings designed to reveal the involvement of broad segments of
German society in the commission of Nazi crimes. The man in charge of
these subsequent trials, which followed the IMT trial where Robert
Jackson was the Chief Prosecutor, was a distinguished lawyer, General
Telford Taylor. We discovered this set of reports from these killing
squads called Einsatzgruppen (literally Action Groups), which was a
name deliberately designed to disguise their mission. They were
composed of four units totaling about 3,000 men assigned to follow the
German troops into Poland and Russia and annihilate all the Jews, as
well as Gypsies and some others. I was in charge of the U.S. army
office in Berlin assigned to collect evidence for the additional
Nuremberg trials. I presented the newly discovered evidence to General
Taylor and urged that we start a separate trial against the
Einsatzgruppen mass murderers. Taylor recognized the significance of
the evidence but was hesitant. “We haven’t prepared it. The Pentagon
hasn’t approved it. We don’t have staff. We can’t do it.” I replied,
“You can’t let these murderers escape.”
I had won a scholarship at Harvard Law School on my exam in criminal
law. I had always been interested only in crime prevention as a
career. Taylor asked: “Can you do it in addition to your other work?”
And I said, “Sure!” So I was appointed Chief Prosecutor, I rested my
case in two days. We gave the defendants copies of every piece of
evidence we intended to produce. Their arguments in rebuttal took
about five months. Their alibis didn’t stand up.
The lead defendant, Dr. General Otto Ohlendorf, explained why it was
that he reported that 90,000 Jews had been eliminated, they never used
the word “murder” - He calmly declared that it was necessary in self-
defense!
“What do you mean, ‘self defense’?” I asked. “Germany attacked Poland,
Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France. Nobody attacked Germany. Where’s
the self-defense?”
“Well,” he said, “we knew the Soviets were planning to attack us, so
we had to attack them in self-defense.”
“Well, why did you kill all the Jews?”
“Well, everybody knows the Jews were in favor of the Bolsheviks, so
you have to kill all the Jews too.”
“Why the little children? Why did you kill all the little children?”
“Well, if they grow up and they become enemies of Germany when they
find out what happened to their parents that would be dangerous, a
threat to our long-range security, so we’d better get rid of them
too.”
He was saying to me, “Don’t you see the logic of it all?” And so he
explained that.
I said, “Didn’t you have any qualms about killing all these people,
little children and all that?”
“No,” he said, “because we relied on the head of state, Hitler. He had
more information than I had, and he told us that the Soviets planned
to attack, so it was necessary in presumed self-defense.”
In our military jargon, we call such assaults a “preemptive first
strike.” The U.S. military policy today does not preclude first strike
by the United States in order to prevent a presumed attack from
another side. That Ohlendorf argument was considered by three American
judges at Nuremberg, and they sentenced him and twelve others to death
by hanging. So it’s very disappointing to find that my government
today is prepared to do something for which we hanged Germans as war
criminals.
After long deliberation, I concluded that the best and perhaps the
only way to prevent mass atrocities was to stop war-making itself.
Stop war-making?. Well, how do you stop war-making? Is it possible?
I began to study that subject in great detail. My conclusions are laid
bare in my books, articles and lectures,. They are available free on
my web site. I learned that, if you want to have a peaceful society,
any society, whether it is in Boca, or in the United States or in the
world, you need three components. You need laws, to define what’s
permissible and what’s not permissible; you need courts, in order to
determine whether the laws have been violated and to serve as a forum
for settlements and you need a system of effective enforcement.
To the extent that you have all three of those components, you have
relative tranquility. To the extent that they’re absent, you have
disorder. Now, in Boca for example, you prohibit murder but some
murders still take place. But how many more murders would you have if
you said, “Well, murder is a crime, but it’s not punishable; there’s
no court to punish you”? Would you have more or less murders? Of
course you’d have more murders. You don’t have to be a criminologist
to realize that if you want to deter a crime, you must persuade
potential criminals that, if they commit crimes, they will be hauled
into court and be held accountable. It is the policy of the United
States to do just the opposite as far as the crime of aggression is
concerned.
Our government has gone to great pains to be sure that no American
will be tried by any international criminal court for the supreme
crime of illegal war-making. In condemning others for that crime we
also proclaimed that the law must apply equally to everyone. It is
carved on the entrance to our Supreme Court that promises “Equal
Justice Under Law.” Why does the U.S. foul its own nest by its failure
to uphold the principles of Nuremberg, which inspired the world?
We must view contemporary problems in historical perspective. In the
international sphere, international law is just beginning. Over half a
century ago, I first began to suggest that we should have an
international court to follow up after Nuremberg. The need was
particularly obvious regarding the crime of aggression, since no
nation or leader could be expected to indict himself. Powerful states
are very reluctant to give up what they regard as sovereign rights to
go to war whenever they think it serves their national interest. They
do not yet recognize that sovereignty belongs to the people, as was
proclaimed in the French and American revolutions.
Yet, we have failed to build the institutions which are absolutely
essential for a peaceful world order. We are beginning to move in that
direction. So don’t be discouraged. I recall the names of people whom
I knew, like Rene Cassin who won a Nobel Prize for his Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and Rafael Lemkin, who coined the word
Genocide. One individual, one brave person, can make a difference. We
have two brave ones here, Sandy Davies and David Swanson, who’ve
written good books. Give them to your friends. Give them to your
enemies.
Progress is never made in a straight line. At the end of May 2010, I
was invited by the German government to come to Berlin to be awarded
the Iron Cross, which is their highest Medal of Honor. I had some
hesitation in accepting it. On reflection, I decided that it would be
unfair to rebuff the young generation for crimes committed by the
Nazis 70 years ago. I was proud to accept the honor as a sign of
recognition by Germany that the Nuremberg trials were fair and a
contribution to world peace and human rights.
From Berlin I flew to Kampala, Uganda to attend a two-week conference
to review the Statute of the International Criminal Court. The United
States had always been strongly opposed to including the crime of
aggression within the jurisdiction of the ICC. They didn’t want it
listed as a crime at all. They did not succeed, at least not
completely. In 1998, the Rome Statute listed aggression as an
international crime but did not give the court authority to try
aggressors until certain onerous conditions were met, including a new
definition and added guarantees that Security Council rights would be
respected. Despite concessions, the U.S. voted against acceptance of
the Rome Treaty when it was adopted overwhelmingly by 120 in favor
with only 7 against, including the U.S. and several that we had
denounced as “Rogue States.” [China Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and
Yemen. Subsequently, after signing, Israel, Sudan and the U.S.
“unsigned” the Rome Treaty.]
As planned, the issue of aggression that had been deferred in Rome
1998 came up again in Kampala in 2010. It was sadly ironic that
Germany, in awarding me their Iron Cross was, in effect, saying that
the Nuremberg trials were right! And what did the Americans say in
Kampala? “Nuremberg? Forget it. That was then. Now is now. We don’t
want aggression in. We want it out.” Now that scares a lot of people
in the world because we are a very powerful nation. When the United
States says “No” those who are recipients of economic and military aid
from the United States, are not inclined to say “Yes”. The issue of
aggression was postponed again, this time to 2017 at the earliest. As
matters now stand, the ICC has no authority to try anyone for the
supreme crime.
Why is the U.S. taking a position which to many may seem hypocritical,
arrogant and frightening? Harold Koh, the State Department Legal
Counsel, is a very fine fellow and a good lawyer. He served as
spokesman for the U.S. delegation of about 15 people. I had already
written to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike
Mullen. I noted that I heard a speech of his saying that he would
rather deter a war than fight one. I agreed but pointed out that you
can’t deter a war at the same time that you tell the criminals that if
they commit aggression there is no court competent to try them. A
month passed before I received a reply. The Chairman praised me for my
services to my country but noted that there were legal problems
involved. He passed the buck to the State Department Legal Advisor.
The legal objections voiced by he United States are not persuasive.
The ICC Statute says specifically that no one can be tried for
aggression if his country has not ratified the Statute. Two-thirds of
the U.S. Senate has not agreed to reify the ICC Statute. If any nation
is able and willing to try its own national for any crime listed in
the ICC Statute, the ICC must give priority jurisdiction to that
state. The ICC must also stop if the Security Council puts a hold on
the proceedings. If the U.S. is really worried about prejudiced ICC
judges or unclear formulations all that is necessary is for Congress
to add a sentence to our Federal Criminal Code, which says, “Any crime
listed in the Statute of the International Criminal Court is
punishable in the courts of the United States.” U.S. courts would have
primary jurisdiction and the ICC would be cut out. Any competent
lawyer can find fault and quibble about the language of any law. What
is the U.S. really worried about?
Conservatives like ex-Ambassador [to the UN] John Bolton [who failed
to be confirmed by the Senate] and the late Senator Jesse Helms have
said explicitly, “We’re against the International Criminal Court. Who
do they think they are to try us Americans? We are noble. We don’t
need or want foreign interference.” They don’t believe there is such a
thing as international law and they don’t want the rule of law to
restrict their use of force to attain their particular goals.
Politically, the U.S. is a centrist country. To get two thirds to
affirm a treaty is very difficult. I consider myself an American
patriot. I came to America as an infant child, escaping from
persecution and poverty. I’m eternally grateful to the United States.
Tom Paine, who was buried near my home in New Rochelle, made it clear
that the duty of a patriot is not to say, “My country right or wrong,”
but, “I will support my country when it’s right, but when it’s wrong I
will try to make it right.” And that’s what these two authors, Davies
and Swanson, have done.
I’ve just about giving up on trying to persuade diplomats. I’ve given
them a lot of pep talks. And they say, “Great! Great speech.” I did it
again at a gala dinner before the opening at Kampala. I reminded them
that over 50 million people had died in World War Two, which prompted
the world to create the UN and the Nuremberg Principles for a more
humane rule of law. I asked by what right do we now throw that way and
by what right do we betray the hopes of the young people that they
won’t have to go through the same thing? Former Secretary-General Kofi
Annan was there as well as the current S.G. Ban Ki Moon and many
ambassadors. Many came up and slapped me on the back for a great
speech. In the end, they followed the lead of the United States. Like
the mice in Aesop’s Fables, no one was ready to bell the cat. And so
once more they postponed any further consideration of the crime of
aggression until 2017 – at the earliest. Once again Power had
triumphed over Reason.
So there we are. We have a difficult world, and really it’s up to the
young people to do something about it. Do what your heart tells you is
the right thing - stop glorifying war. Do it as best you can. We
[Americans] are spending $2 billion every day on the military. We
[Americans] have a stronger military than all other nations in the
world combined. What for? No one wants the U.S. to be the self-
appointed policeman of he world. The country is on the verge of
bankruptcy. We are denying people the elements of health and education
by wasting our money on weapons of mass destruction that we cannot
use. If you cannot reach and persuade politicians to reverse this
disastrous policy, you may have to take to the streets. What else can
we do?
America is a great democracy, and in every democracy it’s normal, and
it should be that way, that people have differences of opinion. But a
democracy can only work if its people are being told the truth. You
cannot run a country as Hitler did, feeding the public a pack of lies
to frighten them that they are being threatened so it’s justified to
kill people you don’t even know. You cannot do that. It’s not logical,
it’s not decent, it’s not moral and it’s not helpful. When an unmanned
bomber from a secret American airfield fires rockets into a little
Pakistan or Afghan village and thereby kills or maims unknown numbers
of innocent people, what is the effect of that?
Every victim will hate Americans forever and will be willing to die
killing as many Americans as possible. Where there is no court of
justice wild vengeance is the alternative.
I’m a “law-man.” I believe in the rule of law. I see that we are
provoking what we condemn as dangerous terrorism. The country is
terrified. The freedom from fear that President Roosevelt talked about
doesn’t exist in America today, Armies of airport guards check the
shoes of old ladies to see if they’ve got a bomb hidden there. What
have we come to? It’s not my world any more. My future is behind me.
But, for your sake, and for those who have grandchildren, make up your
mind. Speak up when you can. Talk to your Congressman. Talk to your
friends. Talk to your enemies. It’s up to the lawyers to lay down the
rules and create the courts. We’re doing that, slowly and with
difficulty. We need help from the public. You are the public.
Good luck to you. Thank you.