<underfire> Retort's Opening Salvo
Ian Douglas
ian at powerfoundation.org
Mon Dec 11 02:06:48 EST 2006
Dear all,
I must apologize for being absent throughout these discussions.
Jordan had asked that I respond to the text of Retort. Until now
heavy commitments prevented me from doing so.
If it is not too late, I hope I can table this reply. I believe
Retort's work is very important and I would like to thank the
collective for this work, which it is my pleasure to encounter. I
hope others follow what this collective is doing: it is a refreshing
departure from the prevalent weakness of most US antiwar movement
currents.
Many questions were raised in Retort's November post, and in the
attached "All Quiet in the Eastern Front" broadside which forms part
of Retort's installation at the Seville Biennial. I summarize and
respond to the main questions raised, and include some comments of my
own below:
1. Is a call for "peace" adequate, or even realistic, in the age of
permanent war and "deeply militarized" states?
Like Retort, I respond in the negative. The conflation of policing
and military functions, both domestically (e.g., the response to
Hurricane Katrina) and internationally (Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq,
and most contemporary military-humanitarian interventions), gives us
a clue as to where the state as an abstract and concrete material
force is heading. We should also recall that it is never beyond the
capacity of any state to impose martial or emergency law and decimate
or intern its own population. The United States has been objectively
training for such an eventuality since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The blurring of police and military functions is part of this, as is
the enormous prison construction drive going on right now in the US.
To be sure, the blurring of military and police functions is not new.
Since the 16th century at least the military structure always had two
purposes: a) protection of the state; b) to stand as a model for
domestic life. What we are seeing, however, is a qualitative
transformation: call it the militarization of the police, or the
politicization of the military. In my view, it is an objective trend
and heralds a transformation of the "democratic experiment" of the
last 400 years of Western history.
Retort suggests that a serious theoretical and practical
reorientation is undertaken by the antiwar movement, and I very much
agree with this. As Virilio once wrote: "By the way, who invented
Peace?" I would also recall the words of Deleuze: that "Philosophy's
sole aim is to be worthy of the event." Still, it seems, we suffer
from a disconnect between heroic and vibrant intellectual work and
actual and practical action in the material environments and complex
social relations in which we live, and in which others live.
"Permanent war" is not a theory but a reality to which we must
respond. Let's work on that.
2. Is it feasible — let alone helpful — to separate the war
machine from the capitalist machine, or is the slogan "No Blood for
Oil" a logical impossibility?
With Retort, I agree that capitalist globalization goes hand-in-hand
with permanent war — indeed, it is permanent war — and that if
actual war is set aside then at least a virtual globalization that
amounts to the same thing but within a different order (the order of
spectacular capitalism and its material architecture, as opposed to
imperial-colonial military aggression) is deployed. Standing against
the war machine necessitates, in my view, standing against
globalization and spectacular capitalism.
One of the key failings of the American antiwar movement is its
courage to place in question the entire "way of American life." In a
sense, George W Bush was correct in the days after 11 September 2001
to say that what was at stake was "our way of life." I'm making no
inference here as to that event (the who, how and why), but merely
aim to say that American foreign policy is closely linked to the
"American way of life". To oppose the war machine necessarily means
deconstructing the American way of life; challenging the hegemonic
and largely unquestioned forms of that "life".
Opposing the war machine necessarily means redrawing those complex
social relations that in their history give rise to that overarching
result that we call — perhaps erroneously — "capitalism". In that
struggle, every single person, from their unique position, has a part
to play. Without proposing grand solutions that can only be
ahistorical, I hope the theoretically-inclined among us can pose the
ultimate challenges in ways that allow ordinary people to see that
their very lives contribute to the war machine that, perhaps,
ethically they might oppose, and that their opposition demands of
them, as it does of everyone who opposes aggression over others,
changes and action.
Its not about withholding tax dollars, or protesting the tactics of
imperialism. It's about a wholesale rethinking of the "American way
of life," or the Western style of civilization. "No blood for oil" as
a slogan doesn't address the nature of the system that produces
violence of varied kinds: not only direct military destruction, but
complex means of coercion and instrumental power that steal millions
of life years from less developed, less powerful nations across the
global South.
3. Have nationalist movements, for reasons of globalization and
empire in the West, or failure in the Arab or Third World, been
rendered obsolete, replaced in the one zone with neoliberal-imperial
ideology, and in the other (at least the Arab world) with an "Islamic
vanguard"?
On this point, I differ from Retort. It is neither accurate nor
helpful to oppose empire to "jihad". On the contrary, at a
fundamental level, the Arab struggle is one for independence,
development and democracy; aspirations that are shared across the
three main political currents — two of which are secular — in the
Arab and Muslim world: nationalist, Islamist and socialist.
While we ought to see the contemporary struggle that is occurring in
the Arab world — its focal point at present in Iraq — as one
concerning a certain form, or type, of "civilization" (an
instrumental-capitalist-military civilization, replete with its
system of mass inward education and forms of mediated life — the
West) in confrontation with another (the Arab world), to reduce that
other to "jihad" is misleading. The majority of those engaged in
civil, political and armed struggle in the Arab world are not
fighting according to a philosophy of jihad, or an "Islamic
vanguard". In immediate terms they fight for bare survival in the
face of overwhelming imperial aggression. Their broader unity of
purpose is the protection of sovereignty. There may be some who
solidify this purpose and fight in the name of jihad, but even then
this is not a religious reference made in the abstract: it is an
actual, material, physical response to slaughter that in some
currents is harmonized with a religion-based struggle for sovereignty
and autonomy. Jihad is a duty to protect Islamic sovereignty and
autonomy, but resistance is not growing because of duty. It grows
because there is no alternative in the face of genocidal aggression.
By using terminology like "jihad" or the "Islamic vanguard" we
support, perhaps against our wishes, a "clash of civilizations" idea
that almost assumes in its simplicity a parity among forces. First,
there is no parity. The US wields overwhelming force. Second, it is
not a clash of civilizations because there is nothing that Islamic
civilization is fighting for except self-determination: freedom from
the domestic tyranny of US-supported regimes (Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait and the Gulf States, and Jordan), and freedom from direct
foreign intervention. I see no objective possibility of Islamic
civilization imposing itself worldwide. Rather, I see a particular
kind of "civilization" — if it can be called that — (i.e., the
Western instrumental-capitalist-military model), attempting to
colonize one of the few planetary zones have has generically resisted
full-blown Western-defined globalization. Its resistance is not a
theoretical stand but a social and geopolitical reality. The United
States uses two methods to break this inertia: a) tyrannical domestic
regimes; b) direct military intervention. The struggle is not one of
modernity versus tradition, but rather for self-determination in
paths of development. In this sense there is a clash of
civilizations, though the West doesn't seem very civilized to me, and
the response of the Arab and Islamic world is more or less purely
defensive, certainly when compared to the overwhelming economic,
political and military forces bearing down on it from the West.
4. Are we witnessing a return to the "Wars of Religion" of the 17th
century?
Retort are unsure, but I answer in the negative, though I feel there
is an objective plan to take history in this direction.
In my view, the core struggle in world history and politics at this
time is not a struggle between Christianity and Judaism on the one
hand, and Islam on the other. It is not a war of scripture, despite
recourse to the Torah by some radical Jews and the Quran by some
Islamist forces. Overwhelmingly, the present struggle at the core of
world politics and history, and that is focused on and in the Arab
world, is a struggle for justice, human rights, sovereignty and self-
determination. It is an old and simple struggle between forces of
colonialism and forces of liberation. This is not to say, however,
that certain parties wouldn't like to see it devolve into a war of
religion. Despite what we might think or hear about "Islamic
fundamentalism", it is the (largely secular) West that has an
interest in inciting a war of religion, not the Arab or Islamic world.
This is how I see it: Islam is a defined system (a "closed system" in
technical terminology — no pejorative intended). The American
empire, on the other hand, and at a fundamental level, is an "open
system" (no endorsement here). When I say "open" I mean at the level
of its basic architecture, not life in practice. Indeed, I think the
American order of government is the most complete, most totalitarian,
that exists at present — all the more so in being grounded in a
belief in, and validation of, individual freedom.
When thinking about present history I can never forget that the
United States was founded in the late 18th century, precisely at the
height of a type of reactionary thinking that upon examination is
still shocking (cameralism, police science, utilitarian liberalism).
The wholesale re-articulation of penal policy and medical policy at
that time, and the emergence of psycho-medical domains of knowledge
(an entire "positive", augmentative, dispersed and diffuse system of
regulation so expertly revealed by Michel Foucault), are indicative
of a massive revolution in political thinking in the 18th century,
the aftershock of which we continue to feel. The essential point is
that the US emerges as a "free system" to which it is impossible to
oppose the "fortress" as a model of defence.
We can illustrate this metaphor literally. At the level of
operational use and military and defensive strategy, fortifications
crumble throughout Europe in the late 18th century. The model of the
fortress — until then the aesthetic and physical representation of
power — disappears from strategic consciousness. Likewise, state
structures are transformed. For complex historical reasons largely to
do with population growth and the new attendant dangers thereof,
regimented and identifiable centralized power cedes to
revolutionary / decoded "societies" modeled on the levee en masse.
Democratization, liberalism and commerce become the foundation of
progressively dispersed systems of power — the new states of the
19th century. It had been building for some time, to be sure, but it
crystallized in thought in the 18th century, enacted in practice from
the mid-1700s onwards. The state disaggregates itself and thus
strengthens itself. The fortress was always weak because it was a
visible centre of power: one could lay siege to it. By the end of the
18th century the lesson had been learnt: When they stormed the
Bastille it was empty.
America was founded at this time. Its entire code is based upon this
revolution. In a sense, it has no "system of thought". Islam, on the
other hand, is a system of government of an entirely different order:
it is defined (though admittedly not static), and as such has a unity
that is its weakness when confronted with a revolutionary "open"
system like the dispersed system of power of the modern West.
Globalization is clearly part of the modern West's armory in this
confrontation.
Along these lines of thought, we have to oppose certain
interpretations that have been placed in the Western mind in recent
years: a) that the West is fighting if not against Islam, then at
least against Islamic fundamentalists. On the contrary, it wants to
augment Islamic forces. Indeed, the United States has done everything
possible to get "Islamic fundamentalism" onto the conceptual and
actual map, in part by directly supporting fundamentalist Islamist
forces (Bin Laden, Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim, the Islamic Dawa Party,
writing sectarianism into the permanent Iraqi constitution, etc), and
otherwise instigating sectarian strife to bolster Islamic forces
(Iraq being a case in point, and Lebanon also); b) that the West has
any interest in supporting secular, nationalist forces in the Arab
world. Here Palestine is a case in point. Sharon knew well what he
was doing when he sparked the second Palestinian Intifada that
inevitably led to the rise of Hamas. Indeed, from 2000 until now it
has been Al-Aqsa Martrys (linked to nationalist Fatah) and Islamic
Jihad that have been hit most, not Hamas (the assassinations of
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi notwithstanding). The aim
was to destroy Fatah — which Israel and the US did through the Oslo
years at a popular level — and to break any Islamic force that could
compete with the mainstream (and actually politically moderate)
Islamic current, Hamas. Only the US quagmire in Iraq is saving the
fortunes of Fatah. Were this not the case, a far more aggressive
front would have been opened up against Hamas, and the Palestinian
people as a whole.
Admittedly, there are genuine reasons for why people join Islamic
currents: a) the necessity of building integral social movements
strong enough to defeat homegrown dictatorships / occupations
(Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon). Islam is a useful unifying
concept and allows for a higher or moral judgment of the degeneracy
of stubborn, democracy-resistant regimes; b) because the level of
atrocities in the struggle of the West against the Arab world has
steadily risen (throughout the 1990s in Palestine and Iraq, and
through years of degeneration and corruption in Egypt and elsewhere),
and which present a moral outrage that often is expressed in moral
terms drawing on the basis of Arab culture and life. The Quran is one
such basis. The point I would make remains: What the US fears is not
Islam as such, but rather a unity of purpose between nationalist and
Islamic forces: a renaissance of Arabo-Muslim identity that combines
with concepts like state sovereignty, development and democracy. To
believe anything other is to give credence to such baseless ideas
that US strategists believed that the invasion of Iraq would "kick-
start a broad regional transformation, opening up closed or
restrictive traditional societies to U.S.-led imperialist
globalization, building up the middle class and creating some
bourgeois democratic institutions." The destruction of the middle
class in Iraq, and the destruction of the state itself, tells us all
we need to know about what US regional plans are.
Bin Laden and Islamic forces are simply easier to defeat than Arab
nationalist forces because: a) they are founded on a relatively
contained system of understanding and social practice. A unified,
definable enemy is always easier to defeat than one that is
heterogeneous. Thus guerilla warfare is always more dangerous to an
oppressive foreign power than direct confrontation with a national
army; b) they can be abolished in discourse by such phrases as
"backward-looking", "historically outmoded" and "feudal". It is more
difficult to assign such slanders to nationalist forces as they are
closer to what the West itself is founded on: concepts of
sovereignty, national development and democracy.
In sum, the West wants a war of religion and is not afraid of Islam.
Not all Islamist forces in the Arab world are playing into that
agenda, and indeed the West misjudges Islam if it thinks it can so
easily be defeated. Nonetheless, the spectacular and disaggregated
empire is a dangerous entity that cannot be confronted easily, though
popular resistance — as we see in Iraq — is defeating it.
5. Were the events of 11 September 2001 a defeat for the imperial
state at the level of both material security and the spectacle?
Additionally, were they a defeat for "enemies of capitalist
globalization," at the hands of "neo-Leninist vanguard of Islamic
militants"?
Retort believes so on both points, whereas on the both I answer in
the negative.
Never has a single event — spectacularly captured from all angles
— had such a mobilizing effect. What the imperial state has managed
to wrest from these events is truly enormous, including: a reason to
establish military bases all around the Caspian Basin; justification
for, and initial mass support for, an illegal invasion and
subsequently genocidal occupation of Iraq; blanket cover for massive
assaults on civil liberties and legal protections in the US and
elsewhere; a supplicant media that bowed to "embedded journalism" —
surely one of the greatest affronts to freedom of thought in history;
the instigation and pursuit of a "war on terror," which is simply and
nothing more than a general license to deal militarily with any and
all groups that oppose the American agenda of world hegemony.
For the same reasons, at least in my mind, questions remain open on
the who, how and why of that day. Thus I reject the whole media
narrative of a "vanguard of Islamic militants." It is far too deep a
subject to fully outline here, but as I said above, the core struggle
of the Arab world is not one concerning religion: it is one of
independence, sovereignty, human rights and democracy. This message,
however, is uncomfortable for the West: it leaves no purchase for
military-humanitarian intervention which is but a smokescreen for the
imposition by force of Western interests and a Western agenda for
this part of the world. Hence the rise of a furious campaign of
disinformation about this part of the world, its history, currents,
and the aspirations of its people.
6. Retort then present a summary of "globalization turned inward" —
economies of the spectacle and the colonization of everyday life —
with which I am in complete agreement. Are there, indeed,
"possibilities of destabilization" within that system?
This is an enduring question for me. Until now I am pessimistic. But
we see the limits of that empire on its shores. Central command
strategists have fatally underestimated the capacities of ordinary
Iraqis, for example — particularly their level of intellect and the
groundedness of their geopolitical identity, and despite enormous
efforts to divide Iraq and spark a civil and sectarian war. Though it
appears that American democracy cannot stop the American capitalist
war machine, it is defeated in Iraq. As some with a greater
understanding than Washington seemingly has argued before the
invasion, they can destroy Iraq but they can never occupy it. This is
more than "imperial overstretch". It is the stupidity and arrogance
(and racism) of globalization by military force. The aftershock of
this defeat will reverberate through the United States for decades.
Personally, I don't think it hyperbole to say that we are witnessing
the end of the American empire, though clearly not its capacity for
brutality, which has always underpinned it. Brutality is now the only
card the US has left. Let us hope that US citizens stand up to their
own government in greater numbers, because brutality always fails, in
the end.
7. Is "weak citizenship" non-optimal when it comes to making the
rounds of primitive accumulation?
Consider these three video clips of US forces in Iraq (clip 1, clip 2
and clip 3). While I recognize we shouldn't generalize across the
whole US military structure, I'm going to: US forces are above law
and out of control in Iraq. Weak citizenship also means weak morals.
The sheer number of atrocities in Iraq, whether by the US military or
US contractors, is breathtaking. Along with its prisons and its
torture, and the use of banned weaponry on civilian populations, the
US imperial state has funded and trained death squads in Iraq. One
million Iraqis fled the country this summer alone, desperate to
escape a slaughter that the US not only — under international
humanitarian law — is legally responsible for, but that it has done
everything possible to incite and conduct. No one knows the true
number of Iraqis killed since 2003, but it ranges from an absolute
minimum of 49,000 to over half a million and up. I don't think that's
possible unless a culture of "weak citizenship" is cultivated in the
forces of aggression, and like Retort I place a large share of the
blame on the overwhelming fact that in the US the "social
relationship between people [is] mediated by representations."
Perhaps where I differ with Retort is that I think it is objectively
a fact that the US strategy for Iraq was "tabula rasa", not a
"neoliberal paradise". It was the complete destruction of the state,
and a vast — to my mind, and in accordance with the Genocide
Convention — genocidal offensive on Iraqi society. This war was not
about Saddam Hussein, nor so much about oil, nor wholly Israel's
security (certainly not vis-a-vis Iraq — no one believed that). I
see it as the homocide of the only Arab state that had the culture
and history and possibility of being an independent, secular,
democratic and developed state. As such, Iraq is the centre of all
Arab liberation struggles. The destruction of Iraq would herald the
complete defeat of the Arab world. Conversely — and this is what we
are seeing, despite the bloodbath — the victory of Iraqis in the
face of massive colonial and imperial aggression is a victory for the
whole Arab world, indeed all anti-imperial forces worldwide. The
national popular resistance in Iraq is at the forefront of opposing
globalization by war.
8. Is the imperial state exposed? Are modernity and state terror
exposed as lovers?
To both I would answer affirmatively, but I add two points: a) that
we should not fall into error by establishing in our minds an
opposition between modernity and religion and swallowing media lies
about "Islamic fundamentalism" and automatically assuming that the
whole Arab and Islamic world, now under pressure or under bombs,
rejects modernity in favor of its antithesis. While political Islam
has been bolstered (I think purposely) by the imperial-colonial
project of Western powers, the core of the struggle in the Arab world
is for independence, sovereignty, development and democracy. The Arab
world is not opposed to modernity. It simply wants to experience it
on its own terms. b) I believe there is an objective strategy in the
West on the part of reactionary forces to politically defeat the left
by overwhelming it with audacious lies and atrocities. I think what
we have seen inaugurated is a "state of insanity": a state form that
comprehensively no longer conforms to prior rational understanding.
It is a kind of state that paradoxically extends itself through
atrocities (renditions, torture, urbicide, domestic non-declared
states of emergency). Is this state exposed? Yes it is, and to most.
Does this weaken it? Not so far, at least vis-a-vis antiwar forces in
the West.
I think it will take us many years yet to fully understand the
transformation that Bush et al have inaugurated, even if they lose
(and they have lost already) the support of the US establishment and
the next presidential elections. To be sure, Congress is biting back.
One can see from watching key congressional committees (e.g., the
Armed Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee) that many
are angry with what Bush et al have done: that they have, in fact,
imperiled the whole project of empire, and American domestic
security. But this backlash aside, it seems to me that something
quite Orwellian has been in play: that the bigger the lies, the
greater and more numerous the scandals, the more dumbstruck has been
the American left. The sheer audacity of the neocons was a strategy.
Not even Reagan was so outlandish. So it seems to me that all the
atrocities, all the lies, the very barefacedness of the aggression,
was the point. It was the essence of the political strategy from the
moment the American right stole the election in 2000.
9. So are the "forces of order" enraged by this new visibility?
On the contrary, I think they encouraged it. Take the leaked pictures
of Saddam Hussein in his underwear. It may be base, but that and Abu
Ghraib were designed to do damage, psychologically, to Iraqis and
Arabs. It was about humiliation, and aimed to have an objective
result on the ground; either defeatism or an explosion that could be
redirected (and to some extent, admittedly, has been) towards inter-
Iraqi conflicts.
But returning to a point made above, someone is giving the modern
military carte blanche. In Palestine, extra-judicial killing and
mutilation by the Israeli army is standard, along with unconscionable
atrocities like the massacre in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. In Lebanon, Qana
was a provocation and Israeli troops appear to have acted autonomous
in dropping hundreds of thousands of cluster bombs hours shy of the
ceasefire agreement. In Iraq, the outrages are numberless and include
the use of white phosphorus and DU on civilians, systematic torture,
assassinations, rape and destruction of cultural and religious
heritage. While all this goes on, and in Iraq for nearly four years,
no one has been impeached, or better yet prosecuted for war crimes
and crimes against humanity, and there are no mass demonstrations. So
who is enraged?
Media exposure doesn't seem to be a worry. You could flash "1 million
Iraqis dead since 2003" on television screens across America and
civil disobedience would still, for the masses, be beyond popular
imagination. We might argue this is a function of corporate media,
and in part it is. It is also a function of the proliferation of
media, and the acceleration of images, which cannot but herald the
diminution of meaning. As Retort rightly says, it seems like the US
"has got away with its cynical assertion of imperial will". At least
it has in the media, but not on the ground. Media isn't all.
10. Can "the client-kings" be "silenced by the pornography of war"?
My answer is no. Only resistance on the ground — political, civil
and armed — is defeating empire, not the media, nor the antiwar
movement (of which I am part).
11. What do Iraq's ruins tell us about the limits of American power?
Iraq was going to be ruined anyway. The record of the occupation (and
lets not forget the preceding 13 years of crippling sanctions), is
one of comprehensive, complete destruction. The greatest signal of
what was to follow was the disbanding of the Iraqi army and police.
The looting that followed was at times directly orchestrated by the
US army. National archives and record offices were looted and or
burnt to the ground. Subsequently (and in what constitute war crimes
under international humanitarian law), every aspect of the state was
destroyed or transformed: its economic foundations, judicial system,
social institutions, museums, libraries, health and education
systems, public services, administrative apparatus, revenues and
reserves, laws and media, etc. The assassination of professionals —
particularly academics — is indicative of a defined strategy that
has been apparent since the early 1990s: the destruction of the
secular middle class and the reduction of Iraq to a tribal,
sectarian, under-developed backwater of the Arab world. The current
state of Iraq is not a result of an American plan gone awry. This was
the plan, though the resistance is now so massive that an exit
strategy is obligatory. It may be the next American administration
that has to put it into effect, but America has used every political
card it has, and it is defeated in all thus far. The only thing that
is in question now is how many will be killed (both Iraqis and
Americans) before a schedule for withdrawal is implemented.
Closing thoughts
Though the current moment in world history and politics started long
before 2001, in 2001 — and earlier than 11 September — the green
light was given for a very aggressive attack on the part of empire
not only against national liberation movements and specific
populations (Afghanistan, Palestine, and later Iraq and Lebanon), but
against all domestic and international forces that had for at least a
decade mobilized against, and feverishly intellectually
deconstructed, what so clearly was emerging: the military-police-
market globalization state. This is the essence of the "war on terror."
Why did the American cross-party establishment create a space for the
neocon project; one that inaugurates not only permanent war and
primitive accumulation, but a permanent state of exception and
preemptive war? Why is it necessary for this entity that we call the
United States to wage war on these terms at this time? What is ahead
that demands a "war on terror" that "will not end in our lifetimes,"
according to the war criminal Cheney?
I think Retort is on the right lines to bring into our thinking about
world politics and imperialism a focus on domestic spectacular
economies (following Debord) and the colonization of everyday life.
I'd also suggest that the end of the age of oil (t-minus 50 years,
more or less) is part of the frame. As is the destruction of concepts
like sovereignty and self-determination, which present a bulwark to
unrestrained globalization and which explains the frontal assault
made on international law and practice. But I also think, as outlined
above, that this military leap forward by US / Western imperialism is
part of an ongoing struggle to globalize the Arab world and defeat
its people politically, economically and militarily. In this, the
West is playing a complex game of infusing Islam in order to defeat
an entire region. The problem for Western strategists is that they
have not only underestimated the depths of the social grounding of
Islam, but also the secular and nationalist (indeed socialist)
aspirations of the Arab world for development, self-determination,
democracy and sovereignty. In this, despite all propaganda to the
contrary, the three main currents of the Arab world — nationalist,
Islamist and socialist — unite.
Let me end in agreement with Retort: "Effective opposition once again
lies solely with popular resistance."
Appended below are statements I helped author on the situation in
Iraq that underline the legitimacy and legality of popular resistance.
best wishes/sincerely,
Dr Ian Douglas
Visiting Professor
Political Science Department
An-Najah National University
Nablus, Palestine
+44 207 067 8399 (fax)
+972 59 9 426 906 (mobile Nablus)
+972 54 794 1029 (mobile Jerusalem)
+20 12 167 1660 (mobile Cairo)
www.najah.edu

Their next massacre
The Green Zone government and its militias are attacking civilians
across Iraq to halt the resistance
The US and all occupying forces are legally and morally responsible
for protecting all Iraqi civilians
No level of atrocity can break the geopolitical unity and sovereignty
of Iraq
The human community must wake up. The sufferings of the Iraqi people
are tragic and criminal. Whole cities are under siege: Fallujah,
Sammara, Kirkuk, Haditha, Hit, Ramadi. Latifiyah, Tarmiyah, Baaquba,
Moqdadiyah, Buhruz, Madaen, Abualkhasib, Al-Zubeir, Fahamma, Tel
Afar, Husaiba …
Entire suburbs of Baghdad are attacked by the militias and police of
the sectarian government: Adhamiyah, Al-Jihad, Ghazaliyah, Al-
Amiriyah, Al-Huriyah, Al-Suleikh, Al-Saidiyah, Haifa Street, Al-
Baladiyat, Al-Durah, Palestine Street …
The attacks aim to stop the spreading resistance to occupation. Now
the resistance is everywhere: in the north, middle and the south. It
encompasses all the Iraqi populations: Arabs, Shias, Sunnis,
Turkomen, seculars, Kurds, Assyrians and other Christians, and
Sabbits and Yaziids.
The occupation has no future in Iraq. Though defeated, the occupation
refuses to accept its defeat until it has tried all. It seems the US
administration thinks a civil war will save its reputation and plans.
US strategists try to forget that killing civilians is a political
and moral crime and banned under international law, whoever the doer
and whatever the cause. Qualifying civilian deaths as civil war does
not lift the responsibility of the local, regional or international
forces that are responsible before law for stopping it.
The genocidal killings, the collective punishments, and the crimes
against humanity committed over recent days in Baghdad by the
sectarian militias participating in the government, and with the
participation of the government’s police and the complicity of the
occupation, must be stopped.
The US, instead of accepting the evident reality that only the
national popular resistance — armed, political and civil — has the
power and the legitimacy to bring stability, democracy and peace to
Iraq, is trying to escape this reality by diverting eyes from the
tragic situation to its diplomatic moves with Syria and Iran.
The US cannot escape the reality of its responsibility in the
destruction of Iraq as a nation and state. It is the US that tried to
build, since the invasion, an artificial Iraqi state based not on
citizenship — the guiding attribute of all modern states, including
Iraq since 1925 — but a state based on ethnic and sectarian
principles.
The US forgot that Iraq cannot be divided; that its Arabo-Muslim
identity is a cultural and geopolitical reality, and that a modern
state cannot be built but on the principle of citizenship free from
all discrimination. Its talk of civil war is hypocritical. It does
everything to ignite it.
The entire international community, and especially the neighbours of
Iraq, have a moral, political and economic interest in yielding Iraq
to Iraqis, in defending its unity and integrity, and helping Iraq rid
itself of the occupation and realise the sovereignty of its land,
resources and destiny.
Urgent action!
We call on all institutions, governmental and non-governmental, the
world over to oppose the escalating terror confronting the Iraqi people.
Trade unions, educational institutions, parliaments, rights groups
and ordinary people can raise their voices to stop the gathering
tragedy as the occupation and its local clients wager the life of
Iraqis for their political skins.
Only the end of occupation can end these atrocities. End it now!
(28 November 2006)
Abdul Ilah Albayaty (BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee)
Hana Albayaty (BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee)
Ian Douglas (BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee)
Dirk Adriaensens (BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee)
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Massacre.htm
Only resistance is legal
The United States-led occupation of Iraq is a dead end, politically,
militarily, morally and economically
The national popular resistance in Iraq is the sole legal and
legitimate representative of the Iraqi people and the Republic of Iraq
Only the national popular resistance can and has authority to
determine a path towards peace and stability in Iraq
In 2005, the Jury of Conscience of the World Tribunal on Iraq stated
clearly the illegality and immorality of the US-led invasion,
occupation and destruction of Iraq as a state and as a nation.
Legality is with Iraq
While the litany of US-authored illegalities in Iraq runs almost
beyond measure, international law affirms:
The US-led occupation of Iraq is explicitly prohibited under
international law from instituting changes aimed at permanently
altering the foundational structures of the Iraqi state, including
its judiciary, economy, political institutions and social fabric.[i]
Further, and given that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was unequivocally
illegal under international law, not only are the US-designed Iraqi
permanent constitution and National Assembly illegal, every law,
treaty, agreement and contract signed in Iraq since the illegal
invasion and subsequent occupation began is illegal. All states are
obliged under international law not to recognize as legal the
consequences of illegal acts by other states.[ii]
The US-led occupation is prohibited under international law from
establishing any long-term economic contract that has not been agreed
upon by a sovereign Iraqi government representing the sovereign Iraqi
people.[iii] Since no such government can, by definition, exist under
occupation, all attempts to bind the future of Iraqi oil to foreign
multinationals — particularly through unfavorable “Product Sharing
Agreements” (PSAs) — are illegal and null and void.
The US-led occupation is unequivocally prohibited under international
law from seeking or permitting the division of Iraq into three or
more federal units. Any such outcome would be a grave breach of the
laws of war that govern belligerent occupation. It is equally illegal
that the US-led occupation engenders and foments ethnic and sectarian
strife in order to realize policies opposed to the interests of the
Iraqi people.[iv]
The policies of the US-led occupation having failed, occupation
authorities have no right to attempt to subjugate Iraqis by force.
Conducting punitive operations that indiscriminately affect civilians
across entire cities — e.g., present plans in motion to pacify
Baghdad for the fourth time — is illegal and imputable under
international law.[v] The US-led occupation and the feudal proxies it
established are committing collective punishment, crimes against
humanity, using prohibited weapons and violating the laws of war by
not recognizing the combatants of the resistance as combatants.[vi]
The ongoing campaign of murder, torture, rape and terror against the
Sunni constituency in Iraq, including the operation of death squads
financed by the US, constitutes genocide under the 1951 Genocide
Convention.[vii] The failure of US-led occupation forces to protect,
as they are obliged under international law, the right to life and to
ensure the security of all Iraqi citizens — indiscriminate of
confessional affiliation or any other distinction — is a war crime
and a crime against humanity.[viii]
Only the national popular resistance is legal in Iraq. It’s legality
and legitimacy is enshrined in numerous instruments of international
law, including foundational and peremptorydocuments such as the UN
Charter.[ix] It should be recognized as a combatant army and as the
continuity of the Iraqi state.
Only resistance is legal
Only the national popular resistance in Iraq — armed, political and
civil — is empowered, both as an objective fact and under
international law, to determine a path towards peace and stability in
Iraq. No other player, certainly not US-installed stooge politicians
in a 10-kilometre square “Green Zone”, can speak on behalf of the
Iraqi people or embodies the Republic of Iraq.
Full responsibility for the disasters that have befallen the Iraqi
people lies with the US, its failed “political process” and failed
security measures. No escalation can provide a solution. The
occupation must end and end now.
(10 October 2006)
Abdul Ilah Albayaty (BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee)
Ian Douglas (BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee)
Hana Albayaty (BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee)
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/ResistanceLegal.htm
____________
[i] Articles 43 and 55 of The Hague IV Regulations on Laws and
Customs of War on Land, 1907; Articles 54 and 64 of The Fourth Geneva
Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time
of War, 1949.
[ii] Article 41(2) of the United Nations International Law
Commission’s Draft Articles on State Responsibility, representing
the rule of customary international law (and adopted in UN General
Assembly Resolution 56/83 of 28 January 2002, “Responsibility of
States for Internationally Wrongful Acts”), prevents states from
benefiting from their own illegal acts: “No State shall recognize as
lawful a situation created by a serious breach [of an obligation
arising under a peremptory norm of general international
law]” (emphasis added); Section III(e), UN General Assembly
Resolution 36/103 of 14 December 1962, “Declaration on the
Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal
Affairs of States”.
[iii] UN General Assembly Resolution 1803 (XVII) of 14 December 1962,
"Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources".
[iv] UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960,
“Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries
and Peoples”.
[v] Article 50 of The Hague IV Regulations, 1907; Article 33, The
Fourth Geneva Convention, 1949: “Collective penalties and likewise
all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited”;
Article 51, the 1st Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, 1977.
[vi] Article 3, The Hague IV Regulations, 1907: “The armed forces of
the belligerent parties may consist of combatants and non-combatants.
In the case of capture by the enemy, both have a right to be treated
as prisoners of war.”
[vii] Articles 2 and 3 of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide, 1951.
[viii] Principle VI, Principles of International Law Recognized in
the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the
Tribunal, adopted by the United Nations International Law Commission,
1951.
[ix] The right to self-determination, national independence,
territorial integrity, national unity, and sovereignty without
external interference has been affirmed numerous times by a number of
UN bodies, including the UN Security Council, UN General Assembly, UN
Commission on Human Rights, the International Law Commission and the
International Court of Justice. The principle of self-determination
provides that where forcible action has been taken to suppress the
right, force may be used in order to counter this and achieve self-
determination.
The Commission on Human Rights has routinely reaffirmed the
legitimacy of struggling against occupation by all available means,
including armed struggle (CHR Resolution No. 3 XXXV, 21 February 1979
and CHR Resolution No. 1989/19, 6 March 1989). Explicitly, UN General
Assembly Resolution 37/43, adopted 3 December 1982: “Reaffirms the
legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial
integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign
domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including
armed struggle.” (See also UN General Assembly Resolutions 1514,
3070, 3103, 3246, 3328, 3382, 3421, 3481, 31/91, 32/42 and 32/154).
Article 1(4) of the 1st Additional Protocol to the Geneva
Conventions, 1977, considers self-determination struggles as
international armed conflict situations. The Geneva Declaration on
Terrorism states: “As repeatedly recognized by the United Nations
General Assembly, peoples who are fighting against colonial
domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the
exercise of their right of self-determination have the right to use
force to accomplish their objectives within the framework of
international humanitarian law. Such lawful uses of force must not be
confused with acts of international terrorism.”
In the exercise of their right to self-determination, peoples under
colonial and alien domination have the right “to struggle ... and to
seek and receive support, in accordance with the principles of the
Charter” and in conformity with the Declaration on Principles of
International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation
among States. It is in these terms that Article 7 of the Definition
of Aggression (General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14 December
1974) recognizes the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under
colonial or alien domination. The Declaration on Principles of
International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation
among States (General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV)) cites the
principle that, “States shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other
manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”
Recognition by the UN of the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples
under colonial and alien domination or occupation is in line with the
general prohibition of the use of force enshrined in the UN Charter
foremost because a state which forcibly subjugates a people to
colonial or alien domination is committing an unlawful act as defined
by international law, and the subject people, in the exercise of its
inherent right of self-defence, may fight to defend and attain its
right to self-determination.

مجزرتهم القادمة
حكومة المنطقة الخضراء وميليشياتها
يهاجون المدنيين في كل انحاء العراق من
اجل ايقاف المقاومة
القوات الامريكية وكل قوات الاحتلال
مسؤولة قانونيا واخلاقيا عن حماية
المدنيين العراقيين
لن تستطيع الاعمال الوحشية مهما بلغت
من تدمير وحدة العراق وسيادته.
على المجتمع الانساني ان يفيق من سباته
فمعاناة الشعب العراقي مأساوية
واجرامية. مدن كاملة تحت الحصار :
الفلوجة - سامراء - كركوك - حديثة - هيت -
الرمادي - اللطيفية - الطارمية - بعقوبة -
المقدادية - بهرز - المدائن - ابو الخصيب
- الزبير - الفحامة - تلعفر = الحصيبة ...
احياء كاملة من بغداد تتعرض لهجمات
ميليشيات وشرطة الحكومة الطائفية :
الاعظمية - الجهاد - الغزالية - العامرية
- الحرية - الصليخ - السيدية - شارع حيفا -
البلديات - الدورة - شارع فلسطين ...
وتهدف الهجمات الى ايقاف المقاومة
المتصاعدة ضد الاحتلال . الان المقاومة
في كل مكان : في الشمال والوسط و الجنوب .
وتضم كل سكان العراق : العرب- الشيعة-
السنة -التركمان -العلمانيين -الاكراد -
الاشوريين -المسيحيين الاخرين -الصابئة
-اليزيديين .
الاحتلال لا مستقبل له في العراق . ورغم
انه قد هزم لكنه يرفض ان يتقبل هزيمته
حتى يجرب كل شيء . ويبدو ان الادارة
الامريكية تعتقد ان حربا اهلية سوف
تنقذ سمعتها وخططها .
الستراتيجيون الامريكان يحاولون نسيان
ان قتل المدنيين جريمة سياسية واخلاقية
ومحرمة بموجب القانون الدولي ، أيا
يكون الفاعل ومهما يكون السبب. كما ان
وصف وفيات المدنيين بانها حرب اهلية لا
يعفي القوات المحلية والاقليمية
والدولية من المسؤولية التي تحتم عليهم
بموجب القانون ان يمنعوا القتل .
يجب ايقاف الابادة والعقاب الجماعي
والجرائم ضد الانسانية التي ارتكبتها
مؤخرا في بغداد ميليشيات طائفية تشارك
في الحكومة مع مشاركة شرطة الحكومة
وتواطيء الاحتلال.
ان الولايات المتحدة بدلا من ان تتقبل
الواقع الذي يشير الى ان المقاومة
الوطنية الشعبية - المسلحة والسياسية
والمدنية - هي وحدها التي تملك السلطة
والشرعية لتحقيق الاستقرار والسلام في
العراق ، وألولايات المتحدة تحاول
الهروب من هذا الواقع بتشتيت الانتباه
من الوضع المأساوي الى تحركات
دبلوماسية باتجاه سوريا وايران .
ولايمكن للولايات المتحدة الهروب من
واقع مسؤوليتها في تدمير العراق كشعب
ودولة . لقد حاولت منذ الغزو ان تبني
دولة عراقية مصطنعة تقوم - لا على
المواطنة كما في كل الدول الحديثة
ضمنها العراق منذ عام 1925 - ولكن دولة
قائمة على اسس عرقية وطائفية .
ان الولايات المتحدة تنسى استحالة
تقسيم العراق ، وان هويته العرية
الاسلامية هي واقع ثقافي وجيووليتيكي
وان الدول الحديثة لا تقوم الا على اسس
المواطنة الحرة من كل تمييز . ان حديثها
عن الحرب الاهلية ليس الا نفاق فهي
تحاول جهدها لاشعالها .
ان للمجتمع الدولي برمته وخاصة جيران
العراق مصلحة اخلاقية وسياسية
واقتصادية في تسليم العراق للعراقيين
وفي الدفاع عن وحدته والتحامه وفي
مساعدة العراق على التخلص من الاحتلال
وتحقيق السيادة على ارضه وثرواته
ومصيره .
الدعوة الى تحرك عاجل !
ندعو كل المؤسسات الحكومية وغير
الحكومية في كل انحاء العالم لمعارضة
الارهاب المتصاعد الذي يواجه الشعب
العراقي .
ويمكن للاتحادات والمؤسسات التعليمية
والبرلمانات وجماعات حقوق الانسان
والناس العاديين ان يرفعوا اصواتهم
لايقاف المأساة التي تتجمع حيث يضحي
الاحتلال وعملاؤه المحليين بحياة
العراقيين من اجل انقاذ جلودهم
السياسية .
لا ينهي هذه الفظاعات سوى انهاء
الاحتلال ذاته .
الموقعون
عبد الاله البياتي (اللجنة الاستشارية
في محكمة بروكسل)
هناء البياتي (اللجنة التنفيذية)
ايان دوجلاس (اللجنة الاستشارية في
محكمة بروكسل)
ديرك ادريانسينس (اللجنة التنفيذية
http://brusselstribunal.org/Massacre.htm#Ar

المقاومة فقط هي الشرعية
احتلال العراق بقيادة الولايات
المتحدة مهزوم سياسيا وعسكريا
واخلاقيا واقتصاديا
المقاومة الشعبية الوطنية في العراق
هي الممثل الشرعي الوحيد للشعب العراقي
ولجمهورية العراق.
المقاومة الوطنية الشعبية هي الوحيدة
التي تستطيع والتي تملك السلطة لتقرير
الطريق الى السلام والاستقرار في العراق
في عام 2005 أقرت هيئة محلفي الضمير في
المحكمة الدولية حول العراق في
اسطنبول، بوضوح لا لبس فيه ، عدم
مشروعية واخلاقية غزو واحتلال وتدمير
العراق دولة وشعبا ، والذي قادته
الولايات المتحدة الامريكية .
الشرعية مع العراق
في حين ان الاجراءات اللاشرعية التي
تفرضها الولايات المتحدة تجري على قدم
وساق، فإن القانون الدولي يؤكد على أن:
- الاحتلال بقيادة امريكا للعراق
ممنوع حسب للقانون الدولي من اجراء
تغييرات تهدف الى تبديل دائم للهيكل
الاساسي للدولة العراقية بضمنها
مؤسساتها القضائية والاقتصادية
والسياسية والنسيج الاجتماعي (1). اضافة
الى ذلك وبما أن ان غزو العراق في 2003
يفتقد للشرعية حسب القانون الدولي ،
فإن كل ما نتج عنه باطل : ليس فقط
الدستور الدائم العراقي الذي كتبته
الولايات المتحدة أو الجمعية الوطنية
وانما هو باطل أيضا كل قانون وكل معاهدة
وكل اتفاق وكل تعاقد وقع في العراق منذ
الغزو اللاشرعي والاحتلال الذي تبعه .
وكل الدول ملزمة حسب القانون الدولي
بعدم الاعتراف بمشروعية نتائج افعال
غير قانونية تقوم بها دول اخرى (2).
- الاحتلال بقيادة الولايات
المتحدة ممنوع حسب القانون الدولي ،
من توقيع عقود اقتصادية طويلة المدى لم
توافق عليها حكومة عراقية مستقلة تمثل
شعب عراقي مستقل.(3) . وطالما ان مثل هذه
الحكومة لا يمكن – بحكم التعريف ذاته-
ان توجد تحت الاحتلال ، فكل المحاولات
لربط مستقبل النفط العراقي بالشركات
الاجنبية متعددة الجنسية – خاصة من خلا
ل " اتفاقيات المشاركة في الانتاج" PSA هي
لاشرعية وباطلة .
- الاحتلال بقيادة الولايات
المتحدة ممنوع حسب القانون الدولي
منعا مطلقا من السعي او السماح لتقسيم
العراق الى ثلاث فدراليات او اكثر . أي
نتيجة مثل هذه هي انتهاك خطير لقوانين
الحرب التي تحكم الاحتلال وكذلك من غير
القانوني ان يحرض الاحتلال الامريكي
ويسعى للحرب الطائفية والعرقية من اجل
تحقيق سياسات لاتتفق مع مصالح الشعب
العراقي. (4)
- لايحق لسلطات الاحتلال بقيادة
امريكا في العراق بعد فشل سياساتها ،
القيام بمحاولة اخضاع العراقيين
بالقوة بالقيام بعمليات انتقامية
تؤثر على المدنيين في مدن بكاملها
بدون تمييز ، على سبيل المثال ، الخطط
الراهنة لاخضاع بغداد للمرة الرابعة –
فهذه الافعال غير شرعية ولا يقرها
القانون الدولي (5). ان سلطات الاحتلال
بقيادة امريكا والوكلاء المتناحرين
الذين عينتهم يقترفون جرائم العقاب
الجماعي وجرائم ضد الانسانية و
استخدام اسلحة محرمة وينتهكون قوانين
الحرب وذلك بعدم الاعتراف بوضع مقاتلي
المقاومة كمقاتلين .(6)
- ان الحملة الجارية من القتل
والتعذيب والاغتصاب والارهاب ضد
المجتمع السني في العراق بضمنها عمليات
فرق الموت التي تمولها الولايات
المتحدة تشكل جريمة ابادة حسب معاهدة
جريمة الابادة لعام 1951 (7). ان فشل قوات
الاحتلال بقيادة امريكا في الالتزام
بالقانون الدولي لحماية حق الحياة
وضمان امن كل المواطنين العراقيين –
بغض النظر عن انتمائهم الطائفي او أي
انتماء آخر – هو جريمة حرب وجريمة ضد
الانسانية (8).
- المقاومة الشعبية الوطنية هي
الشرعية الوحيدة في العراق . وشرعيتها
وقانونيتها منصوص عليهما في العديد من
مواد القانون الدولي بضمنها الوثائق
التأسيسية والقاطعة مثل ميثاق الامم
المتحدة (9) ويجب الاعتراف بها كجيش
مقاتل و كاستمرارية للدولة العراقية.
المقاومة هي الشرعية الوحيدة
المقاومة الشعبية الوطنية في العراق
– المسلحة والسياسية و المدنية – فقط
هي التي تملك السلطة – كحقيقة موضوعية
وطبقا القانون الدولي – لتقرير الطريق
الى السلام والاستقرار في العراق . وليس
هناك أي لاعب ، وبالتأكيد ليس
السياسيين المعينين من قبل الولايات
المتحدة في 10 كم مربع "المنطقة
الخضراء"، يمكنه ان يتحدث باسم الشعب
العراقي او يمثل جمهورية العراق.
المسؤولية الكاملة للكوارث التي حلت
بشعب العراق تقع على عاتق الولايات
المتحدة و"عمليتها السياسية" الفاشلة
واجراءاتها الامنية الفاشلة.ان
التصعيد لن يوفر حلا .الاحتلال يجب ان
ينتهي وان ينتهي فورا .
عبد الاله البياتي
هناء البياتي
ايان دوجلاس
الهوامش
1- المادتان 43 و 55 من (قوانين لاهاي
الرابعة ) حول قوانين واعراف الحرب
البرية 1907، والمادتان 54 و 64 من (معاهدة
جنيف الرابعة ) المتعلقة بحماية
الاشخاص المدنيين في وقت الحرب 1949.
2- المادة 41 (2) من (مسودة مواد حول
مسؤولية الدولة ) للجنة القانون الدولي
التابعة للامم المتحدة ، وتمثل تطبيق
القانون الدولي (وقد تم تبني المسودة
في قرار الجمعية العامة للامم المتحدة
56/83 بتاريخ 28/1/2002 "مسؤولية الدول عن
الافعال الدولية الخاطئة ) تمنع الدول
من الاستفادة من افعالهم اللاشرعية
"لايحق لأي دولة الاعتراف بوضع على انه
شرعي اذا خلقه انتهاك (لالتزام نابع من
مبدأ اساسي في القانون الدولي العام ) .
الجزء الثالث (e) من قرار الجمعية العامة
36/103 بتاريخ 14/12/1962، "اعلان حول عدم
قانونية الاعتراف بالتدخلات في الشؤون
الداخلية للدول" .
3- قرار الجمعية العامة 1803 (27) بتاريخ
14/12/1962 "السيادة الدائمة على مصادر
الثروة الطبيعية"
4- قرار الجمعية العامة 1514 (25) في 14/12/1960
"اعلان حول منح الاستقلال للدول
والشعوب المستعمرة "
5- المادة 50 من " قوانين لاهاي الرابعة "
لعام 1907، والمادة 33 من (معاهدة جنيف
الرابعة" لعام 1949 "حظر العقوبات
الجماعية ومايشابهها من اجراءات
للتخويف والارهاب " والمادة 51 من
"البروتوكول الاضافي الاول لمعاهدات
جنيف " لعام 1977.
6- المادة 3 من (قوانين لاهاي الرابعة "
لعام 1907 "القوات المسلحة للاطراف
المتحاربة يمكن ان تتكون من مقاتلين
وغير مقاتلين . وفي حالة أسر عدو، كلا
النوعين لهما الحق في معاملة أسير حرب.
7- المادتان 2 و 3 من "معاهدة منع وعقاب
جريمة الابادة الجماعية" 1951
8- المبدأ 6 "مباديء القانون الدولي
المعترف بها في ميثاق محكمة نورمبرغ
وقرار المحكمة " الي تبنته لجنة القانون
الدولي للامم المتحدة في 1951.
9- حقر تقرير المصير والاستقلال
الوطني ووحدة الاراضي والوحدة الوطنية
والسيادة بدون تدخل اجنبي ، تم اقرارها
من قبل هيئات متعددة تابعة للامم
المتحدة بضمنها مجلس الامن والجمعية
العامة ولجنة الامم المتحدة لحقوق
الانسان ولجنة القانون الدولي ومحكمة
العدل الدولية . وينص مبدأ تقرير المصير
على انه حين القيام بقمع الحقوق
بالاكراه ، يمكن استخدام القوة من اجل
التصدي لهذا وتحقيق تقرير المصير . وقد
اكدت مرارا لجنة حقوق الانسان شرعية
القتال ضد الاحتلال بكل الوسائل
المتاحة بضمنها الصراع المسلح (القرار
رقم 3 (35) في 21/2/1979 والقرار رقم 1989/19 في
6/3/1989). وقرار الجمعية العامة 37/43 تبنى
بشكل جلي في 3/12/1982 "يعيد التأكيد على
شرعية نضال الشعوب من اجل الاستقلال
ووحدة الاراضي والتحرير من الهيمنة
الاستعمارية والاجنبية والاحتلال
الاجنبي بكل الوسائل المتاحة بضمنها
الصراع المسلح "
(انظر كذلك قرارات الجمعية العامة 1514 و
3070 و 3103 و 3246 و 3328و 3421و 3481 و 31/91 و 32/42 و
32/154) والمادة 1 (4) من (البروتوكول
الاضافي الاول لمعاهدات جنيف ) لعام 1977
تعتبر ان النضال من اجل تقرير المصير
كحالات نزاع مسلح دولي "اعلان جنيف حول
الارهاب" ينص على " كما اقرت الجمعية
العامة للامم المتحدة مرارا ، فإن
الشعوب التي تقاتل ضد الهيمنة
الاستعمارية والاحتلال الاجنبي وضد
النظم العنصرية في ممارسة حقهم في
تقرير المصير لديهم الحق في استخدام
القوة من اجل تحقيق اهدافهم داخل اطار
القانون الدولي الانساني . ومثل هذه
الاستخدامات الشرعية للقوة يجب عدم
خلطها بافعال الارهاب الدولي "
في ممارسة حق تقرير المصير ، للشعوب
الواقعة تحت الهيمنة الاستعمارية
والاجنبية الحق في "النضال .. والسعي
للحصول على الدعم بما يتوافق مع مباديء
الميثاق" وبما يتفق مع (اعلان مباديء
القانون الدولي المتعلقة بالعلاقات
الودية و التنعاون بين الدول) وبهذه
الشروط تعترف المادة 7 من (تعريف
العدوان) (قرار الجمعية العامة 3314 (29) في
14/12/1974) بشرعية نضال الشعوب تحت الهيمنة
الاستعمارية او الاجنبية .
ويشير (اعلان مباديء القانون الدولي
المتعلقة بالعلاقات الودية والتعاون
بين الدول) (قرار الجمعية العامة 2625 (25) )
الى المبدأ الذي يقول "تمتنع الدول في
علاقاتها الدولية من التهديد او
استخدام القوة ضد وحدة الاراضي او
الاستقلال السياسي لأي دولة ، او بأي
شكل يتعارض مع اهداف الامم المتحدة )
ان اعتراف الامم المتحدة بشرعية
مقاومة الشعوب تحت الهيمنة
الاستعمارية والاجنبية او الاحتلال
تتفق مع الحظر العام لاستخدام القوة
المتضمنة في ميثاق الامم المتحدة بسبب
ان الدولة التي تخضع شعبا بالقوة
لهيمنة استعمارية او اجنبية تقترف فعلا
لاشرعيا حسب تعريف القانون الدولي ،
ويمكن للشعب المقهور وفي ممارسة حق
اصيل في الدفاع عن النفس ، القتال من
اجل الدفاع ونيل حقه في تقرير المصير .
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/ResistanceLegal.htm#Arabic
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