Should oil execs who pushed for Iraq War be tried as war criminals?

[yurbud]

Poll question: Should oil execs who pushed for Iraq War be tried as war criminals?

Given Bush's cronyism and pay-to-write-your-own-policy practices, Cheney's intense secrecy about the energy task force, and the extremely generous to oil companies plans the neocons made for Iraq, it's not hard to connect the dots and see oil companies asking for access to the oil rights in Iraq, and if you read any history of oil machinations like the Pulitzer Prize winning history of oil, THE PRIZE, you know oil execs don't ask anything--they give orders.

If this is so, should they be tried as war criminals?

Obviously, there's a pragmatic question involved. No republican Congress would allow it, and it's a craps shoot whether Democrats would even do it if in control.

But if we had the power to make it happen, should it be done?


BACKGROUND:

http://www.gregpalast.com/iraqmeetingstimeline.html

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm

[MercutioATC]

1. Show me ONE criminal statute they violated.

Hmmm?

[madeline_con]

2. Is profiteering a crime? n/t

[yurbud]

6. that's a broader question--but it should be asked too.

[MercutioATC]

8. Possibly a civil issue...but not criminal.

[yurbud]

9. corporations can't be prosecuted for crimes?

Or shouldn't?

Given that some have admitted on camera to being involved in the planning of the war and others in the restructuring of Iraq's oil industry, that makes them as guilty as anyone in the Bush administration and certainly more guilty than the soldiers who followed Bush's orders at Abu Ghraib.

[MercutioATC]

11. Find me a criminal statute that they could be found guilty of violating.

Somebody's actions might seem "criminal", but unless there's a criminal statute that applies, they're not. Even if you stretched and tried to prosecute under RICO, you'd never make it stick.

[yurbud]

12. RICO wouldn't be a stretch--some have admitted planning roles on TV

Some of those involved in the planning have admitted it on film and it's been broadcast on the BBC, which has a quite a bit more credibility than any of our TV News, Fox or otherwise:

February 2001

Only one month after the first Bush-Cheney inauguration, the State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator. On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained,"It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime."

March 2001

Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq. Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose. Harper's has since learned their plan and purpose -- see below...

http://www.gregpalast.com/iraqmeetingstimeline.html

[yurbud]

13. Do you think that they COULDN'T be prosecuted or SHOULDN'T?

Is it really just to punish the servants and not the masters?

[Fovea]

4. Question

Should Farber IG been held in any way accountable for their sales of zyklon b to the Nazi govt?

If so, then everyone who was in the room with Cheney when he brought out the map of Iraq with its resources for grabs is more than equally to blame, because I am not at all sure that Farber actually was backing the final solution, but they were willing to make money on it, certainly.

But the oilmen at the Cheney meeting were partially the progenitors of this war.

[yurbud]

5. good point

[jeff30997]

3. What does OIL have to do with the Iraq War?

[BuyingThyme]

7. Dick-Yes, Condi-Yes, Rummy-Yes, *-Yes

[yurbud]

10. not the people they were serving?

[yurbud]

14. Relevant parts of Hague and Geneva Conventions: Bush openly broke one

Hague Convention IV of 1907

Art. 47. Pillage is formally forbidden


Art. 53. An army of occupation can only take possession of cash, funds, and realizable securities which are strictly the property of the State, depots of arms, means of transport, stores and supplies, and, generally, all movable property belonging to the State which may be used for military operations.
All appliances, whether on land, at sea, or in the air, adapted for the transmission of news, or for the transport of persons or things, exclusive of cases governed by naval law, depots of arms, and, generally, all kinds of munitions of war, may be seized, even if they belong to private individuals, but must be restored and compensation fixed when peace is made.


Art. 55. The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/195?OpenDocument

We've broken almost every section of article 147 of the Geneva Convention of 1949, and Bush has personally broken article 148.

Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949

Art. 147. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons orproperty protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

Art. 148. No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.


http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument

147 talks about mostly about TORTURE and such. We really can't hold the oil guys responsible for that. But I think a fair case can be made for their involvement in the appropriation of property.

Bush signed an executive order proctecting the oil companies from any lawsuits related to extracting oil in Iraq.

There are probably other more relevant ones. I'm not a lawyer.

But this should show that there is at least enough to make the issue worth investigating.