Text of
speech by Professor Francis A. Boyle at the
Puerto Rican Summit Conference on Human Rights -
University of the Sacred Heart - San Juan,
Puerto Rico - December 09, 2012
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Historically this latest eruption of American
militarism at the start of the 21st Century is akin to that
of America opening the 20th Century by means of the
U.S.-instigated Spanish-American War in 1898.
Then the
Republican administration of President William McKinley
stole their colonial empire from Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico,
Guam, and the Philippines; inflicted a near genocidal war
against the Filipino people; while at the same time
illegally annexing the Kingdom of Hawaii and subjecting the
Native Hawaiian people (who call themselves the Kanaka Maoli)
to near genocidal conditions.
Additionally, McKinley’s
military and colonial expansion into the Pacific was also
designed to secure America’s economic exploitation of China
pursuant to the euphemistic rubric of the “open door”
policy.
But over the next four decades America’s aggressive
presence, policies, and practices in the so-called “Pacific”
Ocean would ineluctably pave the way for Japan’s attack at
Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 194l, and thus America’s
precipitation into the ongoing Second World War.
Today a
century later the serial imperial aggressions launched and
menaced by the neoconservative Republican Bush Junior
administration and the neoliberal Democratic Obama
administration are now threatening to set off World War III.
By shamelessly exploiting the terrible tragedy of 11
September 2001, the Bush Junior administration set forth to
steal a hydrocarbon empire from the Muslim states and
peoples living in Central Asia and the Middle East and
Africa under the bogus pretexts of (1) fighting a war
against “international terrorism” or “Islamic
fundamentalism”; and/or (2) eliminating weapons of mass
destruction; and/or (3) the promotion of democracy; and/or
(4) self-styled humanitarian intervention/responsibility to
protect (R2P).
Only this time the geopolitical stakes are
infinitely greater than they were a century ago: control and
domination of the world’s hydrocarbon resources and thus the
very fundaments and energizers of the global economic system
– oil and gas.
The Bush Junior/ Obama administrations have
already targeted the remaining hydrocarbon reserves of
Africa, Latin America (e.g., the Pentagon’s reactivization
of the U.S. Fourth Fleet in 2008), and Southeast Asia for
further conquest or domination, together with the strategic
choke-points at sea and on land required for their
transportation. Today the U.S. Fourth Fleet threatens Cuba,
Venezuela, and Ecuador for sure.
Toward accomplishing that first objective, in 2007 the
neoconservative Bush Junior administration announced the
establishment of the U.S. Pentagon’s Africa Command (AFRICOM)
in order to better control, dominate, steal, and exploit
both the natural resources and the variegated peoples of the
continent of Africa, the very cradle of our human species.
In 2011 Libya then proved to be the first victim of AFRICOM
under the neoliberal Obama administration, thus
demonstrating the truly bi-partisan and non-partisan nature
of U.S. imperial foreign policy decision-making.
Let us put
aside as beyond the scope of this paper the American
conquest, extermination, and ethnic cleansing of the Indians
from off the face of the continent of North America.
Since
America’s instigation of the Spanish-American War in 1898,
U.S. foreign policy decision-making has been alternatively
conducted by reactionary imperialists, conservative
imperialists, and liberal imperialists for the past 115
years and counting.
This world-girdling burst of U.S. imperialism at the start
of humankind’s new millennium is what my teacher, mentor,
and friend the late, great Professor Hans Morgenthau
denominated “unlimited imperialism” in his seminal book
Politics Among Nations 52-53 (4th ed. 1968):
The outstanding historic examples of unlimited imperialism
are the expansionist policies of Alexander the Great, Rome,
the Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries, Napoleon I,
and Hitler.
They all have in common an urge toward expansion
which knows no rational limits, feeds on its own successes
and, if not stopped by a superior force, will go on to the
confines of the political world. This urge will not be
satisfied so long as there remains anywhere a possible
object of domination–a politically organized group of men
which by its very independence challenges the conqueror’s
lust for power.
It is, as we shall see, exactly the lack of
moderation, the aspiration to conquer all that lends itself
to conquest, characteristic of unlimited imperialism, which
in the past has been the undoing of the imperialistic
policies of this kind….
The factual circumstances surrounding the outbreaks of both
the First World War and the Second World War currently hover
like the Sword of Damocles over the heads of all humanity.
Since September 11, 2001, it is the Unlimited Imperialists à
la Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler who have been in charge
of conducting American foreign policy decision-making.
After
September 11, 2001 the people of the world have witnessed
successive governments in the United States that have
demonstrated little respect for fundamental considerations
of international law, human rights, or the United States
Constitution.
Instead, the world has watched a comprehensive
and malicious assault upon the integrity of the
international and domestic legal orders by groups of men and
women who are thoroughly Hobbist and Machiavellian in their
perception of international relations and in their conduct
of both foreign affairs and American domestic policy.
Even
more seriously, in many instances specific components of the
U.S. government’s foreign policies constitute ongoing
criminal activity under well recognized principles of both
international law and United States domestic law, and in
particular the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment,
and the Nuremberg Principles, as well as the Pentagon’s own
U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 on The Law of Land Warfare,
which applies to the President himself as Commander-in-Chief
of United States Armed Forces under Article II, Section 2 of
the United States Constitution.
Depending on the substantive issues involved, these
international and domestic crimes typically include but are
not limited to the Nuremberg offences of “crimes against
peace”—e.g., Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen,
Pakistan, Syria, and perhaps their longstanding threatened
war of aggression against Iran.
Their criminal
responsibility also concerns “crimes against humanity” and
war crimes as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva
Conventions of 1949 and the 1907 Hague Regulations on land
warfare: torture, enforced disappearances, assassinations,
murders, kidnappings, extraordinary renditions, “shock and
awe,” depleted uranium, white phosphorous, cluster bombs,
drone strikes, etc.
Furthermore, various officials of the
United States government have committed numerous inchoate
crimes incidental to these substantive offences that under
the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles as well as
U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956) are international crimes
in their own right: planning, and preparation, solicitation,
incitement, conspiracy, complicity, attempt, aiding and
abetting.
Of course the terrible irony of today’s situation
is that over six decades ago at Nuremberg the U.S.
government participated in the prosecution, punishment, and
execution of Nazi government officials for committing some
of the same types of heinous international crimes that these
officials of the United States government currently inflict
upon people all over the world.
To be sure, I personally
oppose the imposition of capital punishment upon any human
being for any reason no matter how monstrous their crimes,
whether they be Saddam Hussein, Bush Junior, Tony Blair, or
Barack Obama.
According to basic principles of international criminal law
set forth in paragraph 501 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10,
all high level civilian officials and military officers in
the U.S. government who either knew or should have known
that soldiers or civilians under their control (such as the
C.I.A. or mercenary contractors), committed or were about to
commit international crimes and failed to take the measures
necessary to stop them, or to punish them, or both, are
likewise personally responsible for the commission of
international crimes.
This category of officialdom who
actually knew or should have known of the commission of
these international crimes under their jurisdiction and
failed to do anything about them include at the very top of
America’s criminal chain-of-command the President, the
Vice-President, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Secretary of
State, Director of National Intelligence, the C.I.A.
Director, National Security Advisor and the Pentagon’s Joint
Chiefs of Staff along with the appropriate Regional
Commanders-in-Chiefs, especially for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).
These U.S. government officials and their immediate
subordinates are responsible for the commission of crimes
against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes as
specified by the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles
as well as by U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 of 1956.
Today in
international legal terms, the United States government
itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing
criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in
violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment,
and the Nuremberg Principles, because of its formulation and
undertaking of serial wars of aggression, crimes against
peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that are
legally akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi regime
in Germany.
As a consequence, American citizens possess the
basic right under international law and the United States
domestic law, including the U.S. Constitution, to engage in
acts of civil resistance designed to prevent, impede,
thwart, or terminate ongoing criminal activities perpetrated
by U.S. government officials in their conduct of foreign
affairs policies and military operations purported to relate
to defense and counter-terrorism.
For that very reason, large numbers of American citizens
have decided to act on their own cognizance by means of
civil resistance in order to demand that the U.S. government
adhere to basic principles of international law, of U.S.
domestic law, and of the U.S. Constitution in its conduct of
foreign affairs and military operations.
Mistakenly,
however, such actions have been defined to constitute
classic instances of “civil disobedience” as historically
practiced in the United States.
And the conventional status
quo admonition by the U.S. power elite and its sycophantic
news media for those who knowingly engage in “civil
disobedience” has always been that they must meekly accept
their punishment for having performed a prima facie breach
of the positive laws as a demonstration of their good faith
and moral commitment.
Nothing could be further from the
truth!
Today’s civil resisters are the sheriffs! The U.S.
government officials are the outlaws!
Here I would like to suggest a different way of thinking
about civil resistance activities that are specifically
designed to thwart, prevent, or impede ongoing criminal
activity by officials of the U.S. government under
well‑recognized principles of international and U.S.
domestic law.
Such civil resistance activities represent the
last constitutional avenue open to the American people to
preserve their democratic form of government with its
historical commitment to the rule of law and human rights.
Civil resistance is the last hope America has to prevent the
U.S. government from moving even farther down the path of
lawless violence in Africa, the Middle East, Southwest Asia,
military interventionism into Latin America, and nuclear
confrontation with Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, and
China.
Such measures of “civil resistance” must not be confused
with, and indeed must be carefully distinguished from, acts
of “civil disobedience” as traditionally defined.
In today’s
civil resistance cases, what we witness are American
citizens attempting to prevent the ongoing commission of
international and domestic crimes under well-recognized
principles of international law and U.S. domestic law.
This
is a phenomenon essentially different from the classic civil
disobedience cases of the 1950s and 1960s where incredibly
courageous African Americans and their supporters were
conscientiously violating domestic laws for the express
purpose of changing them.
By contrast, today’s civil
resisters are acting for the express purpose of upholding
the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, human rights, and
international law.
Applying the term “civil disobedience” to
such civil resistors mistakenly presumes their guilt and
thus perversely exonerates the U.S. government criminals.
Civil resistors disobeyed nothing, but to the contrary
obeyed international law and the United States Constitution.
By contrast, U.S. government officials disobeyed fundamental
principles of international law as well as U.S. criminal law
and thus committed international crimes and U.S. domestic
crimes as well as impeachable violations of the United
States Constitution. The civil resistors are the sheriffs
enforcing international law, U.S. criminal law and the U.S.
Constitution against the criminals working for the U.S.
government!
Today the American people must reaffirm their commitment to
the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles by holding
their government officials fully accountable under
international law and U.S. domestic law for the commission
of such grievous international and domestic crimes.
They
must not permit any aspect of their foreign affairs and
defense policies to be conducted by acknowledged “war
criminals” according to the U.S. government’s own official
definition of that term as set forth in U.S. Army Field
Manual 27-10 (1956), the U.S. War Crimes Act, and the Geneva
Conventions.
The American people must insist upon the
impeachment, dismissal, resignation, indictment, conviction,
and long-term incarceration of all U.S. government officials
guilty of such heinous international and domestic crimes.
That is precisely what American civil resisters are doing
today!
This same right of civil resistance extends pari passu to
all citizens of the world community of states.
Everyone
around the world has both the right and the duty under
international law to resist ongoing criminal activities
perpetrated by the U.S. government and its nefarious foreign
accomplices in allied governments such as Britain, the other
NATO states, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Puerto
Rico, etc.
If not so restrained, the U.S. government could
very well precipitate a Third World War. Here in Puerto Rico
we saw the stunning example of the most courageous civil
resistors against Yankee Imperialism on Vieques.
The future of American foreign policy and the peace of the
world lie in the hands of American citizens and the peoples
of the world—not the bureaucrats, legislators, judges,
lobbyist, think-tanks, professors, and self-styled experts
who inhibit Washington, D.C., New York City, and Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Civil resistance is the way to go! This is
our Nuremberg Moment now!
Thank you.
Francis A. Boyle teaches law at the University of Illinois.
He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard
Law School. He has advised numerous international bodies in
the areas of human rights, war crimes, genocide, nuclear
policy, and bio warfare. He received a PHD in political
science from Harvard University.
