could the us and alies be held acountable for war crimes?

this is a serious question and not just some anti-american crap

should the us government be faceing war crimes trials? and by extension of that those who are serveing in iraq? this also aplies to the alies of the us who have also been involved.

reason number one. the us and alies invaded a sovern nation against the support of the united nations. therefore this can be considdered an iligal war.

the excuses: NOTE: these listed ite,s WERE NOT STATED all at once but came about one after nother.

the search for wmd's. the us's original reasoning for the invasion was to deal with a percieved threat of wmd's that were unable to be found by a team of un weapons inspectors. the us was insistant that they did indeed exist but were being moved arround or otherwise hidden by sadam housanes government. the us went against un wishes and invaded iraq anyway do to their concern that sadam was not complying to the ban and subsequant serch for these weapons. NOTE: no wmd's were found at all. we all heard daily about the discovery comeing very soon. never happened.

hunting the criminal sadam and members of his regime down. NOTE: well capture sadam and (i believee)most of his people.

installing a new government claimed to be for the "good of the people" there. NOTE: well an election has taken place at least to decide on how the new government should be formed. voter turnout seems to have been poor and aparently included many NON REIDENTS of iraq. voteing stations weree not revealed untill day of, private cars were banned from the streets, international scrutinization was reportidly done outside of the country, and aparently media was only alowed at 3 of many voteing stations. as such this election may be considered bogus and impropper by many people.

types of weapons used may be considdered to be wmd's

the use of DEPLEATED URANIUM ammunition has once again been used. depleated uranium may infact cause serious health effects and birth defects. for many years to come. the reserch into depleated uranium munitions has been ongoing since the desort storm war in the 90's. it seems clear to many includeing some scientists as being a weapon of mass destruction. as such why were they used?

treatment of prisoners of war (pow's)

there have been cases of mitreatment of pow's. this goes against the geneva convention that the us is a signatory to. there has also been stipulation of prisoners being subjected to tourture by the us and it's alies.
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these are all from both discusions here on ats as well as news items that have come about from the iraqi war. now thanks to the nuranburg trials after germany's surrender in ww2. the possibilities of war crimes trials is a very real possibilities from that trial. also from that trial it was understood that "folowing orders" was not a valid arguement for partakeing in warcrimes. so any service personell involved could be held accountable for their actions.

since the us has gone against the judgement of the united nations the possibility of the war being called illigal and charges brought against bush, the us , and alies that took part in this action could be a real possibility. these countries as well as their leaders could infact be held acountable for makeing war upon another country. this is especialy true since the us's claim about sadams wmd's has not had any sucess. in fact no wmd's have yet been found. this therefore would negates the war being defensive in nature.

i believe that the fact of destroying the RIGHTFULL government of a sovern nation and replaceing it with another could also be considdered a world crime. the fact of the mater is that the people were not even asked befor the war started nor was there any invitation from the iraqi people to help overthrow the government. i do believe that that can also be considdered a war crime.

then we have the use of wmd's. the stated purpous to begin with was that sadam had wmd's and would likely use them against his enimies. well many considder depleated uranium to be a wmd on it's own. this is due to the severe possibility od depleated uranium not only harming those that are currantly alive but can also cause many severe birth defects. this make it a wmd. not realy any differant then say the use of anthrax or mustard gass on the population of iraq. this could even be a possibility for it's use in the desert storm war. but at least for that one it could be better arqued that the side effect was unknown. however it has been thought to cause these problems since then. because of this there is no excuse to use them today. and it could be considdered that any soldier that used them could personaly be charged as well (all thanks to the farce of a triel against the germans).

on top of this we have the very real problem with the treatment of prisoners, both from iraq and the general war on terror. we have prety much all seen some of the pictures that the media had gotten ahold of. well that is a war crime. those involved certainly are open to charges from their involvement, but the governmernt may be able to be charged for it as well since it happened to those in their care. then there are all those rumers (not sure how ligitimate that they are), about prisoners being handed over to alies to be tortured. torture is definatly against the geneva convention and as such if found to be true the government can be held responsible for that as well as those countries involved. and people involved

I guess the answer to this lies in which side of the gun you are standing on.

Seems to be the case that accountability hasn't been around in modern politics for a long time now. Long before the era of Bush. The only time that political leaders are held accountable at this point is when they are on the losing side of a battle.

Yes, Definately.

They violated international law, invaded a soverign nation without being attacked, they chose to do so which is in direct violation.

Bush & Co should be removed from office.

but you know what, no country is strong enough or able to front up to them and hold them accountable.

The world depends too much on America, and if australia for instance spoke at the internation forum, declaring the USA the international criminals they are, good bye free trade agreement, good bye extended visa applications, good by assistance...

When Germany was defeated the only reason they were held accountable for their war crimes was because they were BEATEN militarily...

and until the US feels the same pinch, they will continue to do what ever they please when ever,

and thats why the world is on a major down hill slope.

Judging by historical precedent, it will only happen if we lose.

I read something interesting a while back, Curtis LeMay was asked what would have happened if he had been on the losing side; he said he would have been hanged as a war criminal for his urban carpet bombing campaign.

Who exactly is going to hold the US acountable? It is not about right and wrong at all its about who has the power, nobody can do a damn thing about the war because they dont have the strength to.
Besides not everybody agrees with your view point, me included. It seems the US cant do right for doing wrong, its better with saddam gone and frankly a joke to say that any of the alliance countries should be facing warcrimes trials

ufo, it's illegal to lie to congress for war appropriations. It's illegal to invade another country for no real good reason. It's a criminal act to tell norad to stand down and allow one of the greatest tragedies in American history.
By many estimates, 200,000 Iraqi's are dead, and 1600 American Soldiers, because of 'bad intelligence' which was MANDATED to our secret services, this on the heels of the largest span of criminal activity ever in the Energy Industry. We have contaminated their land with depleted uranium, and we have mispent 12 billion dollars of the funds which were allocated initially to rebuild vital infrastructures, you know, sewage, water, electricity. There are families in iraq that haven't had power since the first bombs fell. Yes war crimes. Bush's grandfather should have been tried for his, then we wouldn't have owl worshipping, vote rigging, war mongering, lying nazis in the white house to begin with.

EDIT:
And just to answer your question about who (or what) holds them accountable... we're sitting on it.

[edit on 12-5-2005 by twitchy]

So the soldiers in iraq who are following orders shoulld be charged with warcrimes?:shk: First of all im not sure what you classify as "war crimes" traditionally war crimes were killing civilians and burying them in mass unmarked graves. Saddam was guilty of this, not the US, and he is only now being held accountable because of the US. The invasion of iraq in itself was not a war crime. it was a "pre-emptive attack" which was strategically ill conceived i will give you that. Are we gassing civilians? Are we carrying out executions? Are we killing anyone not directly related to combat situations? And no stray bullets are an accident and it is unfortunete. So what "war crimes" are you talking about?

Lying that results in the death of over 100,000 thousand civilians. Sure, that is no big deal. Soldiers should not be held accountable, they are afterall, only cannon fodder. It is the people who make the policy and profit from them.

It's good money. Every company in Iraq is making good money.

[edit on 12-5-2005 by IComeWithASword]

I do believe the numbers of people killed, and this includes everyone is more like 25,000 people. I dont know where people come up with these bogus figures like 100k.:shk: peole will believe anything.

well truststone, theres no way of actually verifying how many there are, id say its ALOT more than anyone realises...

the soilders are following orders, thats the point of the military, u follow the rules and dont get introuble, you go off on a tagent and kill innocents without your peers orders, ur guilty...

The question was should the US be held accountable for war crimes,
yes it should, theres no argument against it, they commited an ILLEGIAL act against the international community, and therefore shold be held accountable.

And it seems the only ones whom will make the US Suffer, are the terrorists..
and the only ones who are going to suffer are the citizens of the USA..

but they elected their current leader, and its their current leader doing it.

remove the leader remove the problem..

I still don't seem to understand where people get the whole "illegal war" thing from.
1st of all you have the near constant shooting at american and british planes during the previous 12 years to the invasion, which in itself is an act of aggression against the US and Britain, hence justification for the whole war all in itself( after all, Iraq did aggree to the surrender set forth after their "illegal" invasion of Kuwait in 1990.)

2nd you have countless UN resolutions since the end of the gulf war I which include Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, 677, and of course the final resolution 1441.

3rd you have the HR resolution 114 Dated 10 Oct 2002 that authorized the President to declare war on Iraq.
I will gladly post the text from UN Resolution 1441 or House Resolution 114 if any one would like.
Really how many times do you give someone one more chance? Just so happens that this administration actually had the cojans to follow thru with there threats unlike the Clintons.

Please I'd like to see if someone can produce documentation showing how it is Illegal other than Kofi Annan saying it was.( just so happens he personally had a lot to loose from the US invading ie.. oil for food ).

Really if you want to say France, Germany, Russia, China say it was illegal that doesn't fly because they approved UN resolution 1441, and they all had billions of $$ to loose in contracts with Iraq when once again oil for food was done.....

Originally posted by GlobalDisorder
well truststone, theres no way of actually verifying how many there are, id say its ALOT more than anyone realises...

the soilders are following orders, thats the point of the military, u follow the rules and dont get introuble, you go off on a tagent and kill innocents without your peers orders, ur guilty...

The question was should the US be held accountable for war crimes,
yes it should, theres no argument against it, they commited an ILLEGIAL act against the international community, and therefore shold be held accountable.

And it seems the only ones whom will make the US Suffer, are the terrorists..
and the only ones who are going to suffer are the citizens of the USA..

but they elected their current leader, and its their current leader doing it.

remove the leader remove the problem..

"the only ones whom will make the U.S. suffer, are the terrorists" o thats rich, terrorists who people are considered freedom fighters are killing Shiite Muslims, killing Indians in Kashmir, Russians, Phillipinos, Germans, French etc. so dont tell me that the terrorists are making the Americans the only ones to suffer.