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How America Gets Away with Murder

How America Gets Away with Murder

Michael Mandel

(2004)

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Abstract

In Kosovo, America claimed its war was a 'humanitarian intervention,' in Afghanistan, 'self-defense,' and in Iraq, it claimed the authority of the Security Council of the United Nations. Yet each of these wars was illegal according to established rules of international law. According to these rules, illegal wars fall within the category of 'supreme international crimes'. So how come the war crimes tribunals never manage to turn their sights on America and always wind up putting America's enemies - 'the usual suspects' - on trial?

This new book by renowned scholar Michael Mandel offers a critical account of America's illegal wars and a war crimes system that has granted America's leaders an unjust and dangerous impunity, effectively encouraging their illegal wars and the war crimes that always flow from them.
'This closely reasoned and carefully documented study is sad and grim, and necessary. Unless its lessons are heeded by citizens of the rich and powerful states, the fate of the world will be left to the whim of those with the guns and the faith to enforce their will. The prospects are not attractive'
Noam Chomsky
'Exciting, original, and completely convincing. This book is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand how the law really works in international affairs, and it throws a great deal of light on those international affairs themselves'
Edward S. Herman

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Contents 4
Part I. Illegal Wars/ Collateral Damage 1
1. Iraq 2003 3
The Law and the War Against Iraq 10
Security Council Authorization 10
Self- Defense 19
Humanitarian Intervention 21
2. Afghanistan 2001 29
Collateral Damage 46
3. Kosovo 1999 57
Kosovo 68
The Road to Rambouillet 69
Racak 72
Rambouillet 80
Humanitarian Intervention 89
Part II. Crimes Against Humanity 115
4. The War Crimes Tribunal 117
The Holocaust Analogy 118
Bosnia and the Birth of the ICTY 120
The ICTY at War 132
5. The Trial of Milosevic 147
Milosevic at The Hague 152
Victor's Justice 160
6. America Gets Away with Murder 176
The Case against NATO 177
Crimes against Humanity 178
Crimes against the Laws and Customs of War 180
Targets 201
The Illegality of the War 202
7. Rounding up the Usual Suspects while America Gets Away with Murder 207
The International Criminal Court 207
The Americans Have Ways 215
Nuremberg 219
Tokyo 222
The Pinochet Case 223
Belgium 230
Justice 233
Deterrence 237
Truth 239
Peace 242
Vision 248
Notes 254
Index 293