If there is any doubt in any one’s minds, let me be clear:

The the current fighting between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia is a very dangerous development that will directly effect the U.S. and the rest of the world.  It is not only the direct result of the long standing territorial dispute between the two nations, it is also the indirect result of general international indifference and inaction, and also certain U.S and European actions.

Now before anyone jumps all over me, and says I’m trying to blame the world’s problems on America,  let me point out that as an American citizen of I have no real direct control over what the Georgians and Russians do, but I do have at least some say in how the United States conducts its affairs.

In this case, I could point to the Bush Administration’s efforts to politicaly gratify the Georgian government by selling them arms and offering NATO membership over vocal Russian objections in an efforts to lay  sweet pipeline through the country. Or, I could also point to the needless antagonism of Russia with the Administration’s proposed missile shield and other recent cold war revival nonsense. However, the root issue here is a little more fundamental. To understand where I’m coming from, we have to look at the realization that came from the horrors of the Second World War.

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, called the waging of aggressive war “essentially an evil thing…to initiate a war of aggression…is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

From the Nuremberg Trials came the foundation for the Geneva Convention, the Genocide Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights among other important international legal standards. Under the UN General Assembly, the International Law Commission was charge with codifying the Nuremberg Principles: 

Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Principle V
Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

Principle VI
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War Crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

Even though, it may seem at first that in this case we’re mainly concerned with principle IV, it’s important to list all seven principles because the actions of the United States government (and its allies) beginning with at least the build up to the war, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq have effectively violated all seven principles. And the government has done so with the implied consent of we, the American people.

The world looked to us as a leader, and by our actions, not only did we fail to live up to the principles we helped establish, we unleashed the spectre of world war once again. We’ve done so by effectively establishing a new unspoken principle that it’s acceptable for one nation to invade another for the sake of its own definition of national interests, regardless of any actual evidence of a clear and immediate threat, as long as it has the power to get away with it.

Since then we’ve seen a series of escalations in the conflict including the Israeli assault on Lebanon, the Turkish incursion into Norther Iraq, the US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, and continued genocide in the Sudan. Like this week’s renewed hostilities in South Ossetia, all of these conflicts have regional roots that predate the Iraq invasion, and each has occurred with or without varying degrees of U.S. complicity, but there is an essential underlying problem that is the same regardless of if we feel an invasion serves American interests or not.

We have both lost the moral authority to legitimately protest such assaults. And, more importantly, we have effectively dismantled the international safeguards by declaring American actions, American leaders, and by extension, the American people an exempt from international laws and standards.

My fear is not that the current conflict in Georiga will result directly into some sort of apocalyptic, European, World War III style conflict, but that it has already made the next escalation of global war inevitable.

Overall global tensions have been ratcheted up, and paranoid nationalists are still in charge around the globe. The Bush Admistration and Israel will almost surely move against Iran now because they will feel increasingly justified in their paranoia, as will the Iranian leadership.  The reaction from Russia and China will now be that much harsher, and the entire world will suffer for it.

I want to do everything in my power to shout out “BOMBING IRAN WILL BE A WAR CRIME!“

Unfortunately, I know that in order for the American people to truly here me, we all have to understand that the invasion of Iraq was also a war crime and those responsible must be held accountable, and there are still too many people around the country who are too personally invested in that decision to admit that justice has yet to be served over our actions in Iraq.

When I see what’s happening in South Ossetia  today, I realize the painful question that will define US reaction is this” How do we stand up against any unjust war, when doing so calls attention to our own guilt?”

I hope the people of this district realize that we need a Representative in congress that has the sense to recognize this, but until they do, all I can do is sit back watch the news today, and say “welcome back world war.”