This momentous act of political destruction had been prepared for, though, by Bill Clinton, who, despite signing the treaty, had never argued for it. Both presidents were protective of the US military because the Pentagon regarded itself as a ready target of ICC prosecution, a fear that seemed paranoid until revelations both that American soldiers routinely abused prisoners in Iraq and high Pentagon officials unilaterally rejected norms set by the Geneva Convention. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were epiphanies of a new Pentagon lawlessness, but it was rooted in several decades' worth of dismissal of international law.

Ironically, US military initiatives, including the invasion of Iraq, were justified with the language of human rights, as if the promotion of elections and the liberation of females defined the heart of Washington's agenda. This fulfilled a trend that began when liberals and neo-conservatives found common ground in the Clinton-era ideal of ''humanitarian intervention," as if every war in history hadn't been justified by its perpetrator as humanitarian.

The measure of the humanitarian character of interventions, of course, is taken by what happens on the ground in the countries at issue. In Afghanistan and Iraq, new levels of sectarianism, ethnic conflict, warlordism, drug trafficking, and radical Islamism are all evident in the broader context of destroyed infrastructure, widespread malnourishment, obliterated civil society.

Bush administration officials crow that girls in Afghanistan and Iraq can at last attend schools as equals, without acknowledging that, with rare exceptions in heavily protected enclaves in both countries, there are no schools for anyone to attend. The two countries had been human rights nightmares before Bush's wars, but the wars themselves -- destroying cities and villages to save them -- hardly represent improvements in the lives of ordinary people. Even under the best of outcomes -- if, say, civil war can be avoided -- Afghanistan and Iraq will be decades in recovering from America's self-proclaimed good intentions.

Bush's ''humanitarian" doctrine of ''preventive war" was officially promulgated in the National Security Strategy of 2002. ''This country must go on the offense," Bush said, ''and stay on the offense." Many commentators regarded this move as a break with a tradition that had emphasized ''defense," even to the name of the US war ministry.

Source For Full Article : http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0531-22.htm

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