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July 11, 2002
David Vest
Fountain
of Foo:
Strike Three Called
Irit Katriel
A Deep
Ideological Crisis
Richard Glen Boire
Dangerous
Lessons:
Public School Drug Testing
July 10, 2002
CounterPunch Wire
Third Party
Woes
South Carolina Denies Kevin Alexander Gray Ballot Status
Nassar Ibriham &
Majed Nassar
Bush's
Middle East Plan: Always Changing, Never Changing
Robert Fisk
Ain't That
America:
A Strange Kind of Freedom
Dave Marsh
The Return
of CREEP:
Record Cartel Accounting
Bernard Weiner
Hope and
Despair in
the Body Politic
Gary Leupp
European
Worries and
Bush's Terror War
July 9, 2002
St. Clair / Cockburn
The Atomic
Clock is Ticking:
All Roads Lead to Yucca Mtn.
Jack McCarthy
Florida:
a Terrorist Sanctuary for Bush's Bloody Pals?
Robert Fisk
How a Saudi
Billionaire
Does Beirut
Stanton and Madsen
God, Incorporated
Kurt Nimmo
IDF, Gangbanging
with Tanks
Bill Christison
Disastrous
Foreign Policies
of the US Part 3:
What Can We Do About It?
July 8, 2002
Rick Mercier
Yucca
Mountain Bound
Lev Grinberg
The
BUSHARON Global War
Tariq Ali
How Bush
Used 9/11 to Remap the World
Lori Allen
The Tugs
of War:
Palestinian Life Under Curfew
July 7, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
White
House Crooks
July 6, 2002
Gavin Keeney
Loose
Lips:
Liberty, Democracy & Bush
Michael Neumann
What's
So Bad About Israel?
Steve Baughman
Ashcroft's
Vendetta:
Lynching John Lindh
July 5, 2002
Ahmad Faruqui
Bush Freezes Peace Process
Todd May
Independence
and Terrorism
Rahul Mahajan
Why I
Won't Celebrate the Fourth of July This Year
July 4, 2002
S. Brian Willson
What
the Flag Means to Me
Philip Farruggio
Independence Day and
the Working Poor
Tom Gorman
The Uncommon
Pledge
of Allegiance
Chris Floyd
Jungle
Fever:
Bush's Bolivian Mercenaries
July 3, 2002
Francis Boyle
The Death
of the Oslo Accords
Mokhiber / Weissman
Cracking
Down on Corp. Crime
Robert Jensen
Lynne
Cheney's Primer
Behzad Yaghmaian
An Alternative
to the G-8s Africa Initiative
Toward a Global AIDS Fund and a Living Wage
John Borowski
Public
Schools Under Seige
Norman Madarasz
Brazil,
the Workers' Party and the Financial Times
July 2, 2002
Leah Wells
The Wedding
Was a Bomb
CounterPunch Wire
Trial of
the SOA 37
Edward Hammond
Bombing
the Mind:
The Pentagon's Drug Warfare
Sam Bahour
Ramallah
Occupied:
Uninvited Guests Become Neighbors
July 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
Brazil's
Triumph
June 28/30, 2002
Kathleen Christison
The True Story of Resolution
242 or How the US Sold Out
the Palestinians
Cockburn / St. Clair
Death,
Juries and Scalia
Tarif Abboushi
Bush's
Double Standard
on Israel
N.D. Jayaprakash
Seething
with Rage:
The Palestinian Saga
Michael Yates
Taking
the Pledge:
Teachers and the Flag
Stephen Zunes
Bush's
Speech a Setback
for Peace
Walt Brasch
The Pledge
v. The Constitution
Cockburn / St. Clair
Strikers
as Terrorists?
Tom Ridge Calls Longshoremen
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published March 15, 2002
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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July
11, 2002
Law vs. Force
by David Krieger
An important marker of civilization has always
been the ascendancy of law over the unbridled use of force.
At the outset of the 21st century, we are faced with a pervasive
dilemma. Reliance on force given the power of our destructive
technologies could destroy civilization as we know it.
The trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo following
World War II were an attempt to elevate the force of law over
the law of force. The newly created International Criminal Court,
which will bring the Principles of Nuremberg into the 21st
century, is supported by all major US allies. Unfortunately
US leaders are opposing the Court and seem to fear being held
to the same level of accountability as they would demand for
other leaders.
Of course, law does not prevent all crime.
It simply sets normative standards and provides that those who
violate these standards will be punished. In the case of the
most heinous crimes, the remedies of law are inadequate. But
even inadequate remedies of law are superior to the unbridled
use of force that compounds the injury by inflicting death and
suffering against other innocent people. Perpetrators of crime
must be brought before the bar of justice, but there must also
be safeguards that protect the innocent from being made victims
of generalized retribution.
When an individual commits a crime, there
should be clear liability. When a state commits a crime, however,
who is to be held to account? According to the Principles of
Nuremberg that were applied to the Axis leaders after World
War II, it should be the responsible parties, whether or not
they were acting in the service of the state. At Nuremberg,
it was determined that sovereignty has its limits, and that
leaders of states who committed serious crimes under international
law would be held to account before the law. These crimes included
crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Without the international norms that
are established by law, the danger exists of reverting to international
anarchy, in which each country seeks its own justice by its
own means. Only established legal norms, upheld by the international
community and supported by the most powerful nations, can prevent
such chaos and the ultimate resort to war to settle disputes.
International legal norms are essential in a world in which
violence can have even more fearful results than were first
experienced at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
International law is needed if we are
to abolish war before war abolishes us. We cannot have it both
ways. If we choose law, the nations of the world must join together
in a common effort to support and enforce the law. Albert Einstein,
the great 20th century scientist and humanitarian, wrote, "Anybody
who really wants to abolish war must resolutely declare himself
in favor of his own country's resigning a portion of its sovereignty
in favor of international institutions: he must be ready to
make his own country amenable, in case of a dispute, to the
award of an international court. He must in the most uncompromising
fashion support disarmament all around...."
In recent years, the United States has
pulled away from international law by disavowing treaties, particularly
in the area of disarmament, and by withdrawing its support from
the International Criminal Court. Without US leadership, force
rather than law will remain the international norm. Relying
on force may be tempting to the most powerful country on the
planet, but it portends disaster, not least for the United States
itself.
David Krieger
is president of the Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation. He can be contacted at dkrieger@napf.org.
To become a free on-line participating
member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, click here: https://www.ndic.com/wagingpeace/mbrshp.html
Today's
Features
David Krieger
Law vs.
Force
David Vest
Fountain
of Foo:
Strike Three Called
Irit Katriel
A Deep
Ideological Crisis
Richard Glen Boire
Dangerous
Lessons:
Public School Drug Testing
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