War crimes and responsibility of the Bush administration

Rodrique Tremblay, Online Journal Guest Writer

Can a democracy turn fascist and militaristic? It sure can, and that is the most severe threat a democracy can ever face. The 20th Century example was Germany in the 1930's. The Nazi Party was elected in November 1932, with only 33.1 percent of the votes, but when its leader Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, it immediately began subverting the German Weimar Constitution by concentrating political power in its own hands, while increasing military expenditures. The Nazi government then suspended a number of constitutional protections of civil liberties under the pretext of external and internal threats to its security. The following steps taken by Nazi Germany were to initiate a series of illegal wars of aggression against other countries. This culminated with World War II in which more than 50 million people died. After the war, principles of international law were established in order to prevent future mischievous politicians from embarking upon wars of aggression. In the first instance, the U.S. participated in establishing the Nuremberg standard of international criminal justice, which states that it is a war crime to launch a war of aggression...

continua / continued