Has the U.S. Committed War Crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Category: Americas, World Affairs Topics: Afghanistan, Crime And Justice, Iraq Views: 12348
12348

After World War II, the U.S. government, in cooperation with the governments of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France, established an International Military Tribunal to bring to justice the leaders of the European Axis regimes. The Tribunal's Charter, published August 8, 1945, declared in Article 6: "The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility":

  1. Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;

  2. War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

  3. Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

The Article concluded by declaring pointedly that "leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation of execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan."

Further, Section 7 states: "The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment." Moreover, Section 8 states: "The fact that the defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility . . . ." The Tribunal also prohibited tu quoque (so did you) defenses-no surprise, inasmuch as this whole proceeding amounted to "victor's justice," and the prosecuting powers themselves scarcely wished to acknowledge that during the war they too had taken many actions that would not bear scrutiny.

At a series of trials at Nuremberg from 1945 to 1949, more than a hundred defendants were tried. At the most important trial, which placed before the bar of justice the top surviving leaders of Hitler's government, twenty-two men were indicted on one or more of the counts listed above; nineteen were convicted on one or more counts; and three were found not guilty. Of those found guilty, twelve were sentenced to death by hanging; three were sentenced to life in prison; and four were sentenced to prison for terms that varied from ten to twenty years. No appeals were permitted.

If today the U.S. government were to put itself on trial, on the same basis it employed to try the Nazis at Nuremberg, for actions taken in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years, it might have to convict itself-if only for the sake of consistency. Justice is no respecter of person. Can anyone sincerely maintain that what was a crime for Hermann Goering and Alfred Jodl is not equally a crime for Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney?

Evidently, leaders of the Bush administration have given serious consideration to the possibility that their actions might lead to an indictment for war crimes, and they have taken legal measures to minimize their exposure to such prosecution. In a January 25, 2002, memorandum obtained and publicized recently by Newsweek, Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to the president, outlined the pros and cons of the government's decisions about the treatment of prisoners in the so-called war on terrorism. Gonzales agreed with President George W. Bush that because "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war," the Geneva Convention III on the Treatment of Prisoners of War need not be heeded. As Gonzales wrote, "this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions . . . . [It] eliminates any argument regarding the need for case-by-case determinations of POW status." An official presidential determination that the Geneva Convention "does not apply to al Qaeda and the Taliban," Gonzales opined, "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441)." That statute, he added pointedly, "prohibits the commission of a 'war crime' by or against a U.S. person, including U.S. officials. . . . Adhering to your determination that [the Geneva Convention] does not apply would guard effectively against misconstruction or misapplication of [the War Crimes Act]. . ." and thus would serve as "a solid defense to any future prosecution."

Not for nothing were administration officials worried about a potential indictment for war crimes. I am neither a lawyer nor an expert on the Geneva Conventions, but as I consider how the U.S. government planned its recent military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and how it has conducted-and continues to conduct-those actions, I encounter time and again prima facie evidence that U.S. leaders and their armed forces in the field have committed crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity as defined by the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945.

First, in the light of voluminous evidence now available to everybody, it seems clear that leaders and advisers of the Bush administration engaged in "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression." After all, Iraq posed no threat to the United States. Its government had neither the means nor the intention of waging war against this country; nor did it issue any threat to harm the United States. That high officials of the U.S. government and their supporters in the news media and elsewhere openly made many false statements to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq surely exonerates nobody; if anything, those statements cast the guilty parties in an even starker light.

Second, in the light of voluminous evidence now available to everybody, it seems clear that Bush administration leaders and military personnel acting in obedience to those leaders have committed "violations of the laws or customs of war," including "murder . . . of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war . . . plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity." The perpetrators' baseless pleas of military necessity, of course, cannot absolve them for their actual crimes as defined above.

The latest outrage, reported in the Washington Post on May 20, 2004, involved the killing by U.S. forces of more than forty civilians, most of them women and children, in the village of Makr al-Deeb in western Iraq. A U.S. military official in Baghdad said that "our sense is that this was a legitimate military target. We suspect that this was a smuggler or foreign-fighter" route. "It's our estimation right now that the [Iraqi] personnel involved in this matter were part of the foreign-fighter safe house." So, on the basis of suspicion of trafficking in unauthorized migrants, U.S. military forces, without warning, used aerial bombardments and strafing with high-powered guns to obliterate an entire village. An Iraqi witness at the scene told the Associated Press Television Network: "The planes came in and shot the whole family. They kept shooting [from approximately 2:45 a.m.] until the morning, until they destroyed all the houses. They didn't leave anything." In a May 21 follow-up report, Associated Press writer Scheherezade Faramarzi quoted a survivor of the attack, Madhi Nawaf, who said: "One of [the dead] was my daughter. I found her a few steps from the house, her 2-year-old son Raad in her arms. Her 1-year-old son, Raed, was lying nearby, missing his head."

U.S. forces claim that they were fired upon first, but Iraqis on the scene maintain that the Americans attacked people who had gathered in the village the previous evening for a wedding celebration and that no shooting had taken place prior to the U.S. attack. Regardless of whether U.S. intelligence about a "foreign-fighter safe house" happened to be accurate or not, however, the killing of the village's noncombatant inhabitants willy-nilly, firing from aircraft at a distance too great to discriminate among persons in targeting and also using bombs that cannot discriminate in any event, looks very much like a war crime. Another survivor of the attack, Sheik Dahan Haraj, denied the U.S. claims and asked the obvious question: If the American soldiers suspected that foreign fighters were in the village, "why not seal off the area and make sure they were indeed foreign fighters?"

In any event, the U.S. action was in this case, as it has been in countless others, wholly out of proportion to the underlying justification. This sort of attack has been going on in Afghanistan for almost three years and in Iraq ever since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003. Anybody can easily fill a cabinet with such news reports filed by journalists from many different countries. As Human Rights Watch concluded in a report last October, U.S. actions "reveal a pattern of over-aggressive tactics, excessive shooting in residential areas and hasty reliance on lethal force."

Although the U.S. commanders exhibit insouciance about civilian casualties among the Afghan and Iraqi populations-in the immortal words of General Tommy Franks, "We don't do body counts"-responsible estimates of the number of civilians killed in the recent U.S. military actions range from 1,000 to 5,000 in Afghanistan and from 9,000 to 11,000 (in some estimates as many as 35,000 or more) in Iraq. In addition, thousands of noncombatants have been wounded seriously or have suffered the wanton destruction of their homes and other property. Still, every day, the grisly toll continues to mount. Thus, "crimes against humanity," including "murder . . . and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population" seem sufficiently obvious to justify a prosecution under the terms of the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Anyone can guess, of course, how the perpetrators of these crimes might seek to excuse their actions-worse yet, to take public credit for them and to seek reelection to public office on the basis of having taken them proudly and enthusiastically while swathed magnificently in the Stars and Stripes (exception being made for the now-globally-publicized "abuse" of prisoners, of course, those actions having been officially designated as "un-American"). But just recall how far the Nazis got at Nuremberg when they invoked the same sorts of excuses. Did not Goering plead, for example, that operation of the concentration camps was necessary to preserve order? Did he not say, "It was a question of removing danger"?

No surprise, of course, if accused criminals offer excuses for their crimes-although Hitler's minister of munitions Albert Speer was remarkably contrite at Nuremberg, saying "it is my unquestionable duty to assume my share of responsibility for the disaster of the German people." Especially rare is admission of guilt by government officials: rulers and state functionaries habitually consider themselves above the laws that apply to other people. In Shakespeare's Richard III, even bloodstained Gloucester had an excuse, but Lady Anne, the slain king's widow, amidst the aftermath of the mayhem, was not buying it: "Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make no excuse, but to hang thyself." As Lady Anne said to Gloucester, so others now might say to the leaders of the U.S. government:

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.

We need not prejudge, of course. Let all the accused have their day in court. Consistency requires nothing less.

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute and editor of its scholarly quarterly journal, The Independent Review. He is also the author of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government and the editor of Arms, Politics and the Economy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.


  Category: Americas, World Affairs
  Topics: Afghanistan, Crime And Justice, Iraq
Views: 12348

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Older Comments:
AHMED FROM UK said:
Dont sweat it Akbar, "abdullah hakim" is a psuedonym used by some american pro-terrorism war hack who doesnt gave the integrity to post under his own name.
He thinks that by pretending to be a Muslims he'll be taken seriously. What a loser.
2004-06-07

AKBAR KHAN FROM CANADA said:
Your Muslim brothers and sisters are dying all over the world in thousands every day, and all you can say back to them and share with others is vitriol from your sorry self?

I think you love the concept of a nation state more than you love this Muslim Ummah - apparently so.
2004-06-04

AKBAR KHAN FROM CANADA said:
Abdullah Hakim - Did Allah (swa) give the USA the divine right to create a no-fly zone above Iraq?? What right did the USA have to instill a no-fly zone above Iraq, it is not their airspace, who gave them this God given authority?

Secondly, how can you, one who has a name like a Muslim, and uses words a Muslim does like Subhan-Allah, say something as silly as Islamic Terrorists?! Your hypocrisy is digusting and disturbing!!! You sound like a staunch neo-conservative Iraqi exile back in Iraq trying to get a seat in the newly American hand picked government!

You perpetually visit this site and usually rave on about instilling democracy...well I guess your concept of democracy is to replace Saddam's Baath party with a different party of the same nature....under the American chain of command indeed. What would you do if Saddam Hussain enforced a no-fly zone above Florida, and complained about those Americans in America firing on his poor planes??? Think about it you nincumpoop!

America is hte greatest violator of International Law...your Muslim brothers are being tortured and murdered in Guantanamo Bays and Abu Ghraib's around the world! Whether in US controlled dictatorships in majority Muslim populated nations! I was born here and before I had dreams of goign back to Pakistan to start some serious urban development for the people there living in poverty and underdeveloped villages where a lack of clean water and agriculture is everywhere. NOW if I want to go VISIT Pakistan, when I come back to Canada, I will be looked at as if I just visited an imaginary Al-Qaeda training camp!!

Fool, stop uttering your nonsencical cyber babble and do us a favour by using some factual information to support your loud mouthed CAPS LOCK TYPING IGNORAMOUS!!

You must be so proud to be sucking up so badly to those Mossad agents monitoring you so that you don't get deported wherever you belong...I can see it now...good boy, sit boy!

Coward.
2004-06-04

ABDULLAH HAKIM said:
BISMILLAH. THERE WE GO AGAIN - A DOUBLE STANDARD
PRESCRIBED FOR AMERICA, OTHERS, ESPECIALLY, MUSLIMS CAN DO WHAT THEY LIKE. WHERE WAS ALL THIS CONCERN FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND WAR CRIMES AND CRUELTY WHEN SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS ENGAGED IN SYSTEMATIC GENOCIDE, MASS BURIALS AND GENITAL MUTILATION AND SUPPRESSION OF KURDS AND SHIAS FOR 35 YEARS?? NOT A WHISPER OF PROTEST FOR 35 YEARS. NOW EVERYBODY HAS BECOME AN EXPERT ON INTERNATIONAL LAW AND GENEVA CONVENTIONS
AND WANTS TO USE THEIR HALF-BAKED KNOWLEDGE TO PLACE AMERICA IN THE DOCK. THE WAY THAT ISLAMIC NATIONS WOULD LIKE TO SEE THINGS DEVELOP IS THAT THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS BE MADE APPLICABLE TO AMERICA BUT THE ISLAMIC TERRORISTS ARE FREE TO KILL AND DESTROY AND NEED NEVER FEAR THAT THEY WOULD BE MADE SUBJECT TO THE SAME GENEVA CONVENTIONS. WHAT A FARCE. TO EXPECT AMERICA TO ACCEPT THIS ONE-SIDED AND LOPSIDED JUSTICE IS UTTER STUPIDITY. THERE IS A SAYING IN LAW THAT IF YOU WANT EQUITY YOU MUST COME WITH CLEAN HANDS.
ISLAMIC TERRORISTS ARE NOT ONLY CONVERTING EVERYONE INTO TERRORISTS BUT WANT US TO ADOPT THEIR "LEGAL" SYSTEM. ONE EXAMPLE OF THE UTTER LIES AND HYPOCRISY IS THE STATEMENT THAT IRAQ POSED NO THREAT TO THE USA. THE FACT IS THAT FOR TEN YEARS SADDAM'S MILITARY FIRED MISSILES AT US AIRCRAFT ENFORCING THE NO-FLY ZONE. IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE OVERPOPULATION AND POVERTY OF ISLAMIC NATIONS IS CAUSING PEOPLE TO MIGRATE OR LOSE THEIR MINDS. AMERICA WILL NEVER ACCEPT THE DICTAT OF THOSE WHO HAVE MADE A MESS OF THEIR OWN COUNTRIES AND NOW WANT TO TELL AMERICA HOW TO MIND ITS BUSINESS. WAR CRIMES ARE BEING COMMITTED BY TERRORISTS WHO ARE NOT SUBJECT TO THE RULE OF LAW. ITS TIME TO BRING SOME TRUTH
INTO THIS MESSY AFFAIR. GOD BLESS AMERICA FOR ITS GUTS AND DECENCY AND ITS RIGHT UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW TO PROTECT ITS CITIZENS FROM THE VIOLENCE OF THE SELF-APPOINTED AMBASSADORS OF ALLAH. SHUKRULHAMDULILAH.
2004-06-03

HUDD D'ALHAMD FROM CANADA said:
Thank you, Samir Bolous, I didn't think it dated so far back in history. I though of it being more actual. This proves that not much has changed in the actions taken by the numerous administrations that followed after T. Jefferson. It could still be said today with the same emphasis, unfortunately. So much the more stand out those that are different in this great nation(American) and are courageous to rebel, let me mention the one rebel that won my sympathy and an article is posted on him: Michael Moore. I would maetion others like Howard Stern, but then his showes are not something I want to watch or listen to.
Peace to you and take care!
2004-06-02

SAMIR BOLOUS FROM USA said:
To HUDDD'ALHAMD
I have found for you & the readers the name of the president who said the statment you mentioned he was Thomas Jefferson assessing the meaning of slavery.
the folloing link was the only one I came across that mentioned that statament.

http://www.shalomctr.org/index.cfm/action/read/section/Fast/article/peace122.html

I bid you peace.
2004-06-02

AHMED ASGHER FROM BAHRAIN said:
Bob
Here is another site for you to review:

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/war/

Also bear in mind that Iraq did not do 911 and had no connection with Al-Qaeda. Anyone who wathes ME politics knew this. I'm surprised your intelligence did not but they had concocted the plan, so the rest was/is just a load of balloney. Stuff that you guys fall for. We in the ME, have become immune to such garbage - a little like becoming immune to a virus after receiving a little of it. Somehow you have been brainwashed. Sure this is your country and you have every right to be angry for 911 perpetrators but hell don't loose your sense of humanity. you can't just shoot from the hip, anyone in sight like Rumsfeld made a note during their first briefing "sweep it all - things related and unrelated."
Taliban actually asked for proof from Bush and they wanted to see proof and then hand over OBL. They offered such logic but people who have other agends like PNAC, only see revenge and blood to get to what they want.
As for Iraq, the US had no mandate to bomb their way into Iraq. This was and remains an illegal invasion - just wake up man. Address the cause of ME problems and there will be no recruits to the OBL armies. Does that make sense? or your logic does not travel that far!

Banish the cause and the effect will vanish.

Or remain in denial and mouth your prsidents
's reason for 911 attacks. They attacked our 'freedom'. I'm still trying to figure it out. How does one attack 'freedom'. Swiss have had plenty of it, so the Danes and the Norwegians. OBL is yet to mention them - Dude they don't have armies stationed in ME!! They don't blindly support Israel and they don't meddle in ME politics by appointing and removing regimes!

Just swallow your pride, take a deep breath and be a normal human being by siding with truth and denouncing blind allegiance and vile acts, no matter where they come from.
2004-06-01

PAKHTON FROM AFGHANISTAN said:
What u herd is a friction of wrong doing.If u want to know ask the afghans who has suffered & suffering,one witness in pehawar openly saying that i have seen full containers of afghans sofucated to die & ofter that they were firing on the dead bodies also.in bulkh mazar maimana juzjan the world dont know that about 200 afghans become mad due to these happeng seen by them, now in kabul they kidnape & rape, no respectable afghan is going to afghanistan, planing of revange is the topic of all afghans, 30% of americans r buying heroen some of them r millioners,
2004-06-01

AHMED ASGHER FROM BAHRAIN said:
General Tommy Franks, "We don't do body counts"- Current Iraqi invasion

General Collin Powel, "We are not in the business of counting enemy bodies." First Gulf War.

This is clear that they think all the dead in Iraq are enemies, old, young, men and women. As we all know now, they don't give a stuff about Iraqi or Afghani people. They are there for their own interests, propelled by the Zionists in this current admin. Iraq invasion and control of the Middle East resources was spelt out in a document called PNAC. Its authors enjoy high ranks amongst current admin and this policy statement was written before 911 by all the pro-war chicken hawks.

Like I said, their lawyers will invent new terms for this so-called war on terrorism. They will cicumnavigate the whole of human rights legislations, like an able-seaman.

IT PAYS TO remember again that PNAC was written B4 911. Do a google for it and welcome to the world of the neocon. They may be cons but they are not new! In fact most of them are old dogs with deseased hearts. They really need to be shot or more kindly PUT DOWN!! no disrespect intended for old dogs but the world would be a better and safer place without them. AMEN! (OBL will be disappointed for neocons demise). Sadly, can't please everyone!!
2004-06-01

AHMED ASGHER FROM BAHRAIN said:
Thank you Mr. Higgs for enlightening us truly but this Charter was written by the US and the US can change it or totally disregard it. They have good lawyers to keep the courts busy for a decade or more. After that no one cares. The media will see to that.

The crimes listed in the begining of the article under 1, 2 and 3 are being perpetrated every day by Israel since it inception. In fact its inception was an act of conspiracy under item 1. because no Palestinian was included when they planned to confiscate their properties to give to the European Jews and later any Jew from Panama to Kazaars to the Falashas. Everyone has the right of return by the fact of being a Jew whilst the local indigenous people have been barred from return and now even Bush has killed their hope by openly stating that they should forget it.

So, what more conspiracy one needs to prosecute the whole terrorist State of Israel and its financial backers?

Yes sir. They made the lofty rules to serve their ideals at the time but don't hold your breath for them to apply these rules when they publicly do not want to be part of the ICC and want total acceptance by all states to exempt their soldiers from any laws that calls for human rights violations. Finito.
2004-06-01

AHMED FROM UK said:
Bob, get real and off your soap box. By trying to justify war crimes committed by trailer park terrorists you reveal yourself for the moral cripple that you are.
If 911 gives you the right to attack anyone at anytime, the same right of pre-emption applies to all those dozens of countries you've attacked in the last 6 decades. I believe the late and great Malcolm X called this "the chickens coming home to roost."
2004-05-31

MOHIUDDIN FROM BANGLADESH said:
But i can't thought that, whom are cry for welfare of mankind, but how it possible to trust this kinds man and there religious stability......
2004-05-31

RAJAWALI FROM TEGANU said:
and do not forget the Israel as well ...
2004-05-31

BNAK said:
Yes Bob, 911 was an attack on innocent americans, true, but who carried it out? Read this article, and you will come closer to truth:
http://www.cosmicpenguin.com/911/Eastman/m18h05.html
2004-05-31

PHILIP T. EARLY FROM UNITED STATES said:
These crimes are clearly war crimes. However the world is unwilling to face its racial demons and accuse this governement of white supramcy. It is on this basis that Bush will win another election and it is own this basis that those guilty will never be tried. Many Indian, Arab, Chinese and Pakistani people have their own racial demons and cannot confront this issue without facing there own demons. The UN sponsoored event in Dublin, South Africa just before 9/11 on racism, which Powell boycotted, with little outrage form the socalled civil-rights community; pointed out race relations as a major problem. Even the African nations wanted reparations paid to them for the African American's enslavement. Becuase of our collective acceptance of white /European supremacy we will not get justice in this century without Allah's (God) intervention.
2004-05-30

KHALID FROM UK said:
U.S.has Committed War Crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2004-05-30

RILA FROM SRILANKA said:
yes ofcourse, Americadid a unforgivable mistake.
2004-05-30

BOB FROM USA said:
I do not believe all that my country says.....but......Let's wake up and look around......War crimes are a part of war....We must all look in the mirror...Wars turn decent men into animals......This is a war where innocent people are the targets....Not military.

wake up folks.......WE have a quote here..."Those that live in glass houses should not throw stones".....
911 was an attack on innocent americans...And WE will do whatever it takes to protect our civilians.....Those that support and stand for terrorism will soon find out that freedom is worth fighting for..........
2004-05-30

AHMED FROM UK said:
Yes, the U.S. Committed War Crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and in dozens of other nations in the last 6 decades.
Face reality and repent, warmongers.
2004-05-30

GENE FROM POLAND said:
after reading the article, it is indeed hard not 2 agree with all its points.
2004-05-29

HUDD D'ALHAMD FROM CANADA said:
At Nurenberg, USA would be guilty as charged. As a child I thought Nurenberg was a one time court never to be actual again. I mean after the horrors and life loss of the WWII, mankind should have known better. This reminds me of an archeological discovery in Greece long time ago, it was a statue of some king on the bottom of which was written the followings:"There are 3 categories of people. 1-Those that learn from other people's mistake. 2-Those that learn from their own mistakes. 3-Those that never learn. It seems to me, we obviously belong to the third variety as a whole. Or maybe the lessons of the past must repear themselves in order to validate a universal truth?! By the Lord of Kaabah, we should be smarter in deed, not only in attitude.
I don't know why, but it's hard for me to believe that the top brass in the US army knew exactly what was happening at Abu Ghraib. Not that this would vindicate them, since a commander must ensure that tresspassing won't happen, but if they knew exactly what was going on, this would mean that the entire US army is to be disqualified and restructured from the foundation up! Such a corruption of human values at the level of a governmental institution would render USA not less than Sodoma and Ghomora! I think that in that case the wrath of God would precede any Nurenberg type of trial. As one of the American presidents put it(I would appreciate if somebody would identify him and let us know who he was): "When I reflect that God is just. I tremble for this nation!" What would the same president say now, I wonder?!
Peace to all!
2004-05-29