by Gabriele Zamparini TheCatsDream 6/18/06

Introduction

There was a time when the arbitrary act of the powerful was the unquestioned rule and the abuse of the prince was called the ‘art of government’. The word ‘justice’ was used to describe the prince’s magnanimity or the reward for the suffering of this life, because… justice is not of this world.

Centuries of darkness and misery are now called the history of civilization.

During this history, women and men have constantly rebelled and struggled to bring about freedom, hope and justice in this life. Because of their appeal to Reason they have always paid the highest price. Humiliation, prison, torture and death have not succeeded in killing the human spirit, despite the ‘art of government’ developed to the sophisticated levels of today’s propaganda.

International law and science are among the most important achievements of this human struggle. Though both are ‘works in progress’ and too often conditioned by that ‘art of government’ they were originally born to limit, we need to strongly support them in these times of darkness.

International law

After WWII

“THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war… and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights… of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained… AND FOR THESE ENDS to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest…” (1)

On 20 March 2003 the governments of the United States and United Kingdom broke their solemn pledge [as they had also done with 2001 bombing of Afghanistan and the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in the Balkans] with the invasion of the sovereign country of Iraq, “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter” according to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. (2) The darkness that they brought to the Iraqi people has already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of human lives and contaminated that land with nuclear and chemical wastes for thousands of years to come.

The crime perpetrated by the Bush and Blair’s alliance is “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes [Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha, etc.] in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” (3)

The art of government has denied this basic truth to the people of the world (THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS) through that sophisticated propaganda apparatus that hypocritically calls itself “mainstream media”.

“If there is one thing that has come out clearly in the last few days, it is not that the corporate media supports the global corporate project; it IS the global corporate project” said Indian writer and activist Arundathi Roy at a World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) press conference, where she served as jury chairperson.

The WTI has been one of the most important achievements in the recent history of that human struggle to bring about freedom, hope and justice in this life. The guilty silence by the corporate media on the WTI and its international law implications is deafening and still going on without shame.

Full article: Darkness and Light

Gabriele Zamparinin is the author of: American Voices Of Dissent