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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

almarst2003 - 08:27pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11339 of 11500)

War leaders may face war crimes charges - http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=510&version=1&template_id=273&parent_id=258

The majority of international law experts say that the US, Britain and Australia are acting in breach of global legal instruments in attacking Iraq without a United Nations resolution, and risk facing serious criminal charges.

The Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has said that any US-led attack on Iraq was illegal without UN Security Council backing. "In the absence of such Security Council authorisation, no country may use force against another country, except in self-defence against armed attack…This rule was enshrined in the United Nations Charter in 1946 for a good reason: to prevent states from using force as they felt so inclined," said ICJ Secretary-General Louise Doswald-Beck.

Others like Richard Falk, Professor of International Law and Practice at the prestigious Princeton University in the United States, believe that in order to avoid a Security Council veto by France and possibly Russia, the United States and United Kingdom have confused the disarmament issue as a political and legal justification for removing Saddam Hussein.

“There is no pretence that international law supports such a war and little claim that the brutality of the Iraqi regime creates a foundation for humanitarian intervention”, writes Professor Falk.

British scholar, James Crawford, Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge University, says that while “international law has been used as a means of securing regime change in the past, for example Haiti under Cedras … it is a separate question whether the contemplated action has been authorized by the Security Council in Resolution 1441 and earlier resolutions." .................

This is not just a theoretical legal debate. The legality, or lack of it, may have very serious consequences for political and military leaders in the US, UK, and Australia. A group of US law professors opposed to a possible war on Iraq warned US President George W. Bush in February that he and senior government officials could be prosecuted for war crimes.

Government officials in Britain and Canada could theoretically be investigated by the new International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague if it was determined that international laws had been broken.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair received a letter from the Public Interest Lawyers group earlier this year saying: "We, and others, will take steps to ensure that you, and other leaders of the U.K. government are held accountable."

Canada-based Lawyers Against the War said in its letter dated 20 January 2003 that they "will pursue all responsible government officials on charges of murder and crimes against humanity in both the Canadian and the international criminal courts."

The United States has refused to cooperate with the Court and has withdrawn its signature from the treaty establishing it.

But Michael Ratner, president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, one of the leading signatories to the letter to Bush said although Washington was not a party to the ICC, United States' officials could still be prosecuted under the Geneva Convention. "War crimes under that convention can be prosecuted wherever the perpetrators are found.”

almarst2003 - 08:36pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11340 of 11500)

To chants of "No to America, we want an Islamic state", tens of thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of Baghdad yesterday, demanding the immediate withdrawal of US forces. - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/19/wbagh19.xml/

almarst2003 - 08:40pm Apr 19, 2003 EST (# 11341 of 11500)

Regional states unite in appeal for boycott -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/19/wneigh19.xml/

Egypt led calls for a boycott of any US-led administration of Iraq yesterday as regional states gathered in a belated attempt to exert influence on the outcome of the war.

Six neighbouring states of Iraq put aside their rivalries and sent foreign ministers to Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital, to share their fears for the future and try to work out a common position on who replaces Saddam Hussein.

Ahmad Maher, the Egyptian foreign minister, set out the Arab position, saying that Washington's plans for a US interim administration in Baghdad with Iraqi advisers were "unacceptable".

There would be no recognition of the administration until it was freely chosen by the Iraqi people, he said.

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