Constant's pations

If it's more than 30 minutes old, it's not news. It's a blog.

Friday, September 22, 2006

American Threat of Force Against Pakistan Is An Alleged War Crime

It keeps getting worse for the White House. One day its Geneva violations, the next an ally is spilling the beans about threats of use of force. Ref

With friends like this, who needs a war crimes prosecutor or investigator.

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The threats of use of force are illegal. Any claim that a "book deal" prohibits comment on this alleged crime is not enforceable. If the US objectives were lawful, there would be no reason to threaten a use of force.

It is admissible that the Pakistani President refused to deny the allegations that Pakistan was threatened with military force if it refused to cooperate with America.

The threat of force creates a question: Has the threat of force been used to extort cooperation the United States was otherwise not entitled?

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A book deal is not a legal foundation to prevent comment on an allegation of illegal activity.

The failure to deny the threat is judged to be sufficient evidence that the threat was more likely or not communicated; or that the message was intended to leave the Pakistan leader with this impression.

Threatening to use force without there existing an imminent threat is a war crime and US violation of another nation’s sovereignty.

There is no basis to assert that Pakistan was intimately linked with ongoing combat operations that its failure to cooperate would amount to an imminent threat, or support of imminent military action against the Untied States. The United States had already bombed the Taliban. The US had secured landing rights in the former USSR. Pakistani cooperation was not sufficiently linked with an imminent event, but prospective, speculative objectives.

Once the illegal threat was communicated, all subsequent agreements are premised on an illegal foundation and not enforceable, including the Pakistani leader’s book deal which appears to have been linked with the alleged illegal activity or alleged unlawful agreement to cooperate with an illegal course of conduct. The Pakistani’s asserted arrangement between himself and the publisher is no bar to discovery on alleged illegal activity prior to that agreement being consummated.

It is a separate matter whether the book publisher chooses to assert those terms in court. The Pakistani leader appears to incorrectly believe that the book deal, however devised, remains enforceable; a credible arguments could be made that the terms of that deal are to reward alleged war crimes related activities, against public policy, and not enforceable.

The United States personnel who relied on this threat, communicated this threat, and knew that the intent of this threat was the foundation for all subsequent cooperation raise doubts about the merits of the US actions.

NATO had already agreed to fully support the US effort. There was no reasonable question whether the use of force in Afghanistan was or was not lawful. The issue is whether that lawful use of force migrated into illegal activity.

We judge the United States illegally compelled other nations to cooperate, and there are other to-be-announced agreements of US threatening to use force, deny valuable consideration, or illegally abrogate trade agreements if nations refused to cooperate with other illegal activity.