well there there is a very very strong sense that ascension of it is big but one might almost say starve to death there is a precarious kind of political representation that is the absence of got a team property rights are due to very much property rights and it is a serious question to be asked about why on british territory british citizens living there they took full british passport photos of why these peoples are being treated like this for the sake of a station with a base which is almost certainly you might know more of the details of this in fact engaged in the activities that have been such a huge global story in terms of spying on pretty much everyone but that is happening on british north american sort of rate and a british population there is being mistreated up next we have artie's political debate programme with peter lavelle and has got some cross talk. as the media leave us so we leave the media. by the seat cushions secure. your

party there's a good. shoes that no one is asking with to get that you deserve answers from. politics. are today. hello and welcome to crossfire where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle the elusive search for justice should individuals including government officials be

legally held to account for starting aggressive force like in iraq is it fair and moral that bush era officials be given immunity from prosecution if they are not held accountable and who is ultimately responsible. to cross crimes and punishment i'm joined by into komarr in the san francisco he is the chief counsel on the case seeking to apply the crime of aggression against members of the bush administration and in new york we cross to ed craftsy he is an associate editor at reason twenty four seven right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want i very much encourage it and if i go to you first in san francisco you're representing the plaintiffs in this case could you tell us a little bit about the plaintiff and what is the case. absolutely thank you peter and it's a pleasure to be on my client is an iraqi woman an iraqi single mother who fled

from iraq you know in the aftermath of the war in two thousand five hundred refugees now in jordan where she's supporting her dependents essentially. you know by herself and what she's alleging in her complaint against six defendants six bush administration officials including george w. bush dick cheney donald rumsfeld connelly's or rice colin powell and paul wolfowitz is that these six defendants planned and waged a war in violation of the nuremberg principle against aggression so she's alleging that the war was planned starting in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight small nonprofit called the project for the new american century which donald rumsfeld dick cheney and paul wolfowitz were members of and that after they planned the war they these people use nine eleven as a cover as an excuse to scare and mislead the american public and the international community to support a war and then she alleges that the war finally when it happened did not have

proper legal authorization under various treaties including the u.n. charter the caliber and packed in the nuremberg charters so that's the heart of the case and it we you know the case was filed in march and as you mentioned in august on the part of justice filed this westfall acts are to fit cation which is a request of the court that the six defendants be essentially immunized from from civil proceedings ok and i mean i think everything that you just said most critical people would agree with but is there a case because we do have federal statutes that can just give immunity to all of the individuals that just mentioned yes they can and that's you know the the federal statutes on the federal level with the same laws and i've been in the local level you know often when there's police brutality claims when there's a settlement that ends up coming out the settlement always say that nobody except any liability so i think while the work doing is important it's kind of it's. longshot to have expected the department justice not to immunize these officials because moving forward you know barack obama when he's out of the in the eric

holder and where we're in they're out of office they're not going to want to have to be held responsible for anything that might be in the future considered illegal that they're doing their well ed you got and way you got away and they give me you've got way ahead of me on this program because that's exactly what i wanted to ask and i think that's into his work is actually very valuable because it doesn't it's barack obama is going to just you know basically pardon himself ok because this is essentially what's going on here this is a culture of impunity here and it's been mentioned it's a hard case what else you want to achieve by just awareness well no i think actually i mean people say it's a hard case and you know i think what's hard about it or i think what people. you know what's that what's innovative or novel about the case is just applying these rules equally you know so you know let me give you a common logs ample in the common law premeditated murder is the worst crime you can commit self-defense is not a crime right if you kill somebody in self-defense there's no crime that's been committed and that's what the that's what the common law teaches as an

international law it's the same thing you know war committed in self defense is not a crime it's not actionable under the nuremberg principles and you know what's what's interesting about this case is this is the first time since nuremberg that the crime of aggression will be actually used against anybody so you know you know norberg davis the crime of genocide which which we apply now in international courts apply domestic courts apply it gave us the crime of crimes against humanity but the chief crime you know what the tribunal called the supreme international crime is this crime of aggression and it's interesting that for the last sixty years it's basically lain silent and gather dust so i mean one of the chief goals of the lawsuit is actually to have a federal court examine international law which it can do and say that inconsistent with nuremberg consistent with the recognition of genocide and crimes against humanity aggression itself is also a crime. if we get further you know if the court actually goes ahead and applies these rules as i think it ought to to these defendants i don't think it's that you

know unrealistic or unimaginable that a court could find some liability here and what do you think about that because the facts on the ground are extremely well known we all know critical minds know how we got into this war in iraq illegally and everything that the the the case that we've been presented with on this program is factually true but at the same time no one is going to be held responsible for this catastrophe against the people of iraq against all of the soldiers that went there and died and of course the cost of it all and the blowback that we all continue to experience right well into working correctly from wrong but if i remember my history i think the crimes of aggression were the hardest ones to prosecute even at nuremberg right even though what the nazis did was obviously illegal even with the crime of aggression the international community was kind of a little more hesitant about pushing that one because you know in theory there's these things about aggression and well i think you're right i think what happened is you're a marine and you know there would be i mean interrupt you go ahead no go ahead and

go ahead reply please do. well you know i think well you know at nuremberg there was a debate you know on an honest debate amongst the four allied powers as to what crimes are we going to bring and you know actually was the americans it was it was the chief prosecutor robert jackson who was a member of our supreme court you know at the time who really pushed for this crime you really believe that the crime of aggression was was something that was important not to be prosecuted and the tribunal agreed the tribunal called it the chief the supreme international crime and what they found you know what was different about the crimes of that era was that there was the planning element i mean that's what they really focused on was that it wasn't just you know the nazis coming to power and saying hey well look you know now is our chance to be aggressive it was before that i mean part of the reason they wanted to come to power was to implement this plan that they had for waging war and so what my client alleges is similarly that there were people in the administration who had a preexisting plan who really wanted to invade iraq who were part of

a movement designed to basically flex american military might in the region and when they came to power you know they weren't able to do it immediately but once there was this unrelated terrorist incident they were able to use it as a cover so i think the planning is what makes this more appropriate for a case for to consider the crime of aggression and you know aggression is gaining a lot more acceptance in the international community and the i.c.c. the international criminal court in the hague will have jurisdiction of this crime in just a couple years or is an amendment that was passed very recently related to aggression so people know it's out there people know that it's a it's a chief important crime it's you know hasn't been implemented people haven't haven't had wanted to stay away from it precisely because well you know accountability if you get rights right it i mean you can go you know you get some serbs and put them on trial and you get some african leaders and put them on trial but you don't find americans being put on trial for war crimes i mean it's really because that's their powerful and i find it very interesting is that the norm

statutes are being even mentioned to american to see. shows are being applied looking at history and saying that the application of the nuremberg principles should apply to americans it's a pretty sad state of affairs you know but i think it's also important to remember that not only the congress authorized the use of military force in iraq in two thousand and two that regime change in iraq was was the law of the land in the us since one thousand and seventy when bill clinton democrat signed the iraqi liberation act so while there's definitely you know the idea that's true is a very good god of war the bush really wanted to get into it's also that this was actually the iraq war was a culmination of more than a decade of u.s. policy toward iraq yes not just some p.s. i don't even know who should be even if the u.s. congress passes these thing laws you know it doesn't make it right ok an act of aggression is an act of aggression i don't know what is needed to give you a rubber stamp from congress just like with the syria situation right now i don't care what congress has to say a war of aggression is

a war of aggression under international law. again you know we have this case with syria right now pending and we still don't have this impunity you know they can still do what they want because they have no fear of prosecution later well i think that's an important point that this is all this is very relevant in today's news with respect to syria and actually i do want to take a you know i do think you know congress is input is important for purposes of domestic law you know i think we are there is case law out there from the from the fifty's you know where eisenhower tried to take over a steel mills coal youngster in the young steel mill case and the court you know there analyze that congressional input is actually a very important factor in determining whether the president's actions are right you know but i think the issue here is you know even assuming congressional input and acceptance of one of these policies whether you know these people can still commit crimes that are out there you don't have the interaction i just examining there is a case right it can't be exactly as good as they should but it can't be the case

that the president can come to congress well i mean you can't be the case the president can come to congress and say. you know i want to have i want to i like to have slaves at the white house for i want to you know build genocide factories and congress somehow is convinced to do it that that's ok or legal under international law and i think the same is true for war making it can't be the case that if congress gets you know get gives an authorization based on flimsy or false pretenses as we all know or that that was the case with iraq and what my client alleges is the factual predicate it can't be the case the president is somehow k. and you know there are three branches here i mean we have to look i think this is an issue for the courts to really look into because the courts under our system decide what's legal that goes back to marbury v madison the courts or or the last say on what's the law and if aggression is the law i think the only friends we've had to do that or a little less damage in these cases ok i jump in before we go to the break i said that's what the department of justice is jumping ahead no i mean i agree and i think this is why the department of justice do what it did i think this is why u.s.

government officials democrat and republican are weary of joining international resing regimes like the international criminal court because you're right a lot of the things the u.s. does is illegal under international law but it's not illegal under federal law and that's why they want to make sure that that's just the only law that applies and so they're going to make this argument that george bush and dick cheney and future government officials won't be able to do their job ok and i have to jump in you know we have to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on war crimes and accountability stay with r.t. . the. wealthy british sun. has no time. for. the. markets.

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grow. old pictures of today's leaves long gone to sunday from around the globe and drop to. the. welcome back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle we're discussing war crimes and accountability. ok in your i'd like to go back to you in san francisco i mean essentially what this what this lawsuit is all about is about accountability and justice and we have dick cheney walking around giving speeches and you know selling his books but we have

people like manning in prison we have snowden on the lam and they didn't kill anybody they actually wanted to bring justice to others and be more open and bring transparency to government but again we see government doesn't doesn't want any kind of accountability and doesn't want any kind of transparency. well i think that's right you know i think the point of the lawsuit a lot of ways is that the law needs to apply equally i don't think that's a controversial statement to make but it's become controversial and i think what we see in the syria. syria and since in the latest news is that there's a certain sectors of arc of our government that are so willing to just reach for the trigger essentially to solve international problems and that's not the world that we wanted after world war two that's not the world our for our founders wanted that's not it's not a world that that is consistent with my my sense of what america could and should be and part of that is applying the rule of law and hearing to it so you know we created a pretty fascinating international system after war two that required u.n.

authorization for acts of violence that were the u.n. said we're the most are the u.s. said we're the most powerful country but we're going to use that power justly and i want to live in a world where that's possible and i think you know the courts can apply the law in such a way where where this might be possibility through to do it through the courts what do you think about that and do you think the courts really want to get involved in this because we have seen over the last probably thirty years executive privilege has continued to expand and expand at the expense of congress and at the expense of the courts yeah i mean i don't think i don't mean the courts really are usually british in about. considering political questions and i think they do consider a war making and foreign policy a political question so while the ideal is great that they should be more involved as you write we have three branches of government and they have their role i think in practice unfortunately kind of taken several steps back from engaging in political questions and policy matters that matter and are you hoping that they'll be other plaintiffs that will come and make a case is well because it seems to me it seems to me when when the department of

justice gives immunity considers giving immunity it means i have this feeling that the people that they're getting in the immunity are guilty of something i mean why are you protecting them giving them cover automatically let's not talk about it there you know you can't touch them on touchable this is very interesting. well that yeah well i mean that's a great point and you know i guess why would you give this immunity that something that we kind of briefly touched upon initially you know from my point of view. it's either just an automatic practice of the department of justice just doing this to former officials former executive officials or it's a question i think as was as was stated the you know previously of a bomb a looking forward and saying well you know in terms of the things i've been doing in terms of the drone warfare terms of a potential strike on syria you know i don't want to have to face similar lawsuits in the future by victims of those acts you know and i think you know the political

question doctrine is such an interesting doctrine and this is the department of justice has argued this in this case but it's interesting because what we have here is the executive branch clothing the executive branch you know its executive branch giving courtesy to previous executive officials and saying well don't worry we'll cover you and then we have the legislative branch not wanting to investigate or are not having the ability or the political will to investigate so you know what's going on here is the system of checks and balances that our country is founded on is it working right i mean and that's why i think there's actually a very good ok don't need to the whole of the absolute that under our system. go ahead ed jump in go i think it's a very good case to be so you know that was it yeah go ahead. and do you want to finish of i was going to say that there's a very good yeah there's a there's a very good case i think to be made to the courts and especially when we're dealing with a purely legal question and this is what's interesting about this case is if we say aggression is actually a political issue then what are we saying about the nuremberg prosecution right

because that's exactly what the nazi said in their defense at nuremberg is that you're you're this is victor's justice you know you won the war this is a show trial you're just basically doing this to make show out of it and then you're going to hang us right so that's what the nazis argued that nuremberg was able to get it so if this and the courts rejected that the nerve tribunals said no this is a legal question that requires that we can adjudicate and that we will so if the department of justice is making a similar argument here that this is too political this is war making is out of the out of the scope of law then you know what are they saying about the legitimacy of the of nuremberg i mean i think that's that's what i like so much about this cause of action for aggression is that the tribunals said sixty years ago in some instances war making is a legal issue and we will we will adjudicate and you know it's interesting i mean if this were a good secure several not guilty verdict ok that's true but the crimes of aggression some of the nazis did but you know if the one of the interesting things about this case is that it could go both ways i mean i mean the political

establishment in washington doesn't want this case they see the light of day because we have mr obama in the crimes that he might have committed already in an office but then he can go backwards all the way back to the end of the second world war all the way to the present i'm thinking about vietnam i don't have enough time to mention every single intervention illegal intervention the united states is committed in the last sixty seven years. it explains why government officials are so protective about this idea of so-called sovereign immunity at all levels of government because they don't want to be held responsible and they use the argument that they're doing their job they're doing with they were elected for you know and that any kind of questioning of any kind of accountability like you said earlier would make it harder to do in the future even though you know very not often is the question asked you know is the government doing too much and i think that's part of the political culture so it's good to try to change and i think we do have to nudge it in that direction but it's very difficult because not only do government officials are very protective of so-called sovereign immunity but the american

people are too they don't want to see they don't want to see george bush held accountable you know they may vote for obama because oh well he's different than bush and when i make or whatever but at the end of the day they're not going to want to hold him accountable and even when barack obama starts his words they'll make one hundred excuses for why it's different ok but i think i'd like to go to you but i think it's even bigger question because i'm an american all three of us are americans here americans don't like to think of their country as an aggressor ok it's part of our political culture we don't do those type of things that's what we want to believe that's what we're told by the networks all the time but the fact of the matter is we are very aggressive in the world extremely aggressive and it's never held accountable we're not part of these conventions where people can be put on trial in this is something americans don't want to face was going to i'm going to slightly disagree with you there at about about whether or not the public wants to see accountability i mean i think with syria we saw i mean i was reading some of the some of the statements coming from congress where people were calling you know one hundred to one against intervention i think people are tired of the wars i

think people are tired because our economy is in shambles i mean this is what war is doing this is what the founders warned us about and the founder said over and over again that war making increases the power of the executive leads to higher taxes and it is stories societies that's why you know when they when they founded this country they wanted to do something very different than what they had seen in europe because wars had racked europe for hundreds of years and that's exactly what's going on and i think people. i get it at a gut level why are we always at war and that's what that's what's really at issue here this is something that president eisenhower republican you know warned us about when he left office and said there is a military industrial complex that you have to watch out for and you can you imagine that coming from a republican or democrat today you know. that i was you know a general in war two who became our chief executive and he warned us when he left office that this is what's going to happen so i think the public gets it i think they do want to see accountability i think that there is another part of our culture that is so beautiful that is about due process that is about the rule of law i mean that's a that's

a huge gift that america has given to the world and i think that there's a real struggle now to determine you know what is our legacy as a sovereign it will be how i came here i think there are going to be there are very nice words still very nice words but i don't you know mr manning if i go to ed i don't see due process there snowden i don't see due process there and these are important cases they're legal and they're political and it also entails international law and you know do you believe he was maybe you know they fit into that if you agree when they do you know the americans don't have the stomach for it anymore but it's mostly the cost i don't think they have the stomach for not being the morality of it i'm not i'm not sure of that go ahead and you know i was going to say i agree and i think also like as you said with the syria thing there were most americans were against a lot of congress was against that but i think even when americans dislike or hate the policy they still kind of want to like and admire their politicians if you see george bush's approval rating since he left office have just gone up and he was the heart of the president because americans they want to like him they want to like

the person and i think unfortunately that makes it very difficult to hold some of them accountable barack obama is a very like individual and so even though his policies are really really bad a lot of people are still standing behind him because they like him because he's a likable guy he seems like a nice father you know he seems like a good wife a good husband you know it doesn't matter that he's droning a little they shouldn't matter in some way i don't think it should matter should it make sure that it doesn't. well the show the ok you know there's a there's a brilliant political system of idolizing in lionizing and making our political hero worship towards our political decisions and i don't think that's a really just an american thing i mean people have a tendency to want to want to worship their leader ok i think it's a function of this is the answer they're hardly going to get there i want to ask you a question and you want to see do you want to see george bush in prison sure you want to see him in prison i want to see before court i want to look at trial about the war and i want to see a court apply a law and that's that's that's all i'm asking for i mean i think it's not up to me

it's my job as a lawyer for my client is to advocate her case and argue that this law is what should apply and that you know she's entitled to civil and in my case civil damages you know i do think that the iraq war given the facts that have come out by the journalists and we cite in our men to complain is every page is riddled with footnotes to the major journalists who have you know who are really the giants the shoulders of the times that i'm standing on to make this case and i should add a lot of journalists died in iraq you know a lot of people died to get us this information about about what happened and you know there's a lot in the public domain there's a lot about the planning and the waging of the war and all i'm asking is for a court to look at look at that you know and apply a law i think ultimately you know what what what the real issue here is this culture in some sectors of the government of reaching for the trigger at every opportunity of the culture of also mentally making i have run out of time here and we've run out of time fascinating discussion many thanks today to my guests in san francisco and in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.

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