In NATO Service: Den Hague

One of the very few remaining independent magazines in Serbia, Pecat Magazine carried the photo of Serbian generals convicted by NATO, and asked if defense of one’s country is a crime.

Through the verdict issued to Serbia’s state leadership, the Hague Tribunal handed to the North-Atlantic Alliance and its leading powers what they were lacking thus far: for the common folk, convincing justification of the aggression it carried out and of the grave crimes it has committed, starting with the greatest war crime of all — the crime against peace.

In contrast to our idiotic and most often also rotten American and Brussels’ sycophants who even today claim that the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, better known as the Hague Tribunal, is a proper and respectful international court, American officials themselves never had such illusions. In fact, back at the time the Hague Tribunal was being established, the key premise was that this will be political, not legal institution.

Michael Scharf, the man who wrote the original tribunal statute for then U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, also characterized this court in the same way. In October 1999, he wrote in Washington Post that “the tribunal was widely perceived within the [US] government as little more than a public relations device and as a potentially useful policy tool” (quoted according to Michael Mandel, The Hague Tribunal. Milošević has a point, Toronto Globe and Mail, July 6, 2001).

Among else, this is also confirmed by the way in which the indictment against Slobodan Milošević was issued.

After relatively brief focus of the Atlantic Pact’s warplanes exclusively upon the military targets, it turned out such bombardment will not break the spirit of resistance of our people, forcing its government to capitulate. This lead Atlantic pact commanders and heads of their leading powers to move on to the mass bombardment of civilian targets, even if carried out with unacceptable means. What followed was a massive destruction of civilian objects. Once images of dead and wounded civilians started circling the world, there was a visible drop in Western public’s support for this murderous politics of the most powerful military alliance.

In that crucial moment, it was necessary to do something to revive support of Western public for the continued bombardment of Yugoslavia which makes no difference between the civilian and military targets, and more convincingly justify the crime against peace and other war crimes NATO committed in the meantime. And who could do that better than the Hague Tribunal, that “PR device” and the “useful political tool”?

On 20 April 1999, in the midst of ferocious bombardment of our country, Louise Arbour, Hague’s chief prosecutor, visited Robin Cook, British Minister of Foreign Affairs. On that occasion — what an irony! — this staunch defender of the aggression against our country, gave Louise Arbour documents about “Serbian war crimes”. At a following joint press conference, he said:

“We are going to focus on the war crimes being committed in Kosovo and our determination to bring those responsible to justice” (quoted according to Christopher Black and Edward S. Herman, An Unindicted War Criminal, Louise Arbour and the International Crimes Tribunal, Z Magazine, February 2000).

This was indeed a unique case in the recent history of war, that an attacker who was the first to commit the worst crime against peace, accuses the victim for committing crimes after the assault he was subjected to.

What came next is a crystal-clear proof of the double standards Hague Tribunal is practising. While it took almost 8 years to issue indictment against Croat war criminals for Medak Pocket massacres, issuing an indictment against Slobodan Milošević and four other Yugoslav and Serbian officials took no more than 37 days. Already on 27 May 1999, Arbour issued indictment against Slobodan Milošević and his closest associates, charging them with “crimes against humanity” and “violation of laws and rules of war”, thus demonstrating whom this Tribunal serves.

In this way, the Hague Tribunal and its prosecutor rushed to aid their great sponsors in the most crucial moment. Issuing and confirming the indictment against Slobodan Milošević landed some form of justification for the aggression by the Atlantic pact against our country, which significantly influenced already shaken and divided public opinion in the West. This act also served to enable not only prolonging the bombardment of our country, but also its significant amplification.

Madeleine Albright confirmed as much, stating at CNN on 27 May 1999, right after Slobodan Milošević was indicted, that issued indictments “make very clear to the world and the publics in our countries that this [NATO policy] is justified because of the crimes committed, and I think also will enable us to keep moving all these processes [i.e., bombing] forward”. On the same day, James Rubin, State Department spokesman, explained with a great relief that “this unprecedented step…justifies in the clearest possible way what we have been doing these past months” (CNN “Morning News,” May 27).

In other words, the Hague Tribunal and its prosecutor gave to the Atlantic Pact and its leading powers what they were lacking by then — for the common folk, convincing justification of the aggression it carried out and of the grave crimes it has committed, starting with the greatest war crime of all — the crime against peace.

Protecting Perpetrators from Conviction for War Crimes In its humble servitude to the Atlantic Pact, the Hague Tribunal went one step further: it didn’t only justify aggression against our country, but also offered protection to NATO commanders and pilots from the criminal prosecution and punishment for the very serious, inexcusable war crimes.

This was done by Carla del Ponte, who concluded that during “the air campaign” by the Atlantic Pact against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, not a single war crime was committed which would warrant her attention and raising charges. She reached that conclusion on the basis of a report by the commission she formed, with the task to “assess the allegations and submitted documentation and advise the prosecutor and deputy prosecutor on whether there is or isn’t sufficient evidence to continue the investigation of some or all the allegations or other events in connection to NATO bombardment”. The commission prepared an intermediate report which was handed over to the prosecutor on December 6, 1999, and then added a list of bombarded places which were suspected as instances of war crimes. Del Ponte finally decided there was nothing illegal in the killings of civilians and destruction of civilian objects by the Atlantic Pact, let alone that that should be a reason to open an investigation or raise charges.

One of the obvious examples of double standards applied for one and the same crime is the use of cassette bombs. In this case, Commission recalled a decision by the Council of Judges I, from 8 March 1996 in the case against Milan Martić. The Council decided that “in the particular case, the use of rocket ‘Orkan’ with the cassette warhead represents the intention of the accused to purposefully attack the civilian population. Since the rocket was imprecise, it had landed in the area with no military targets in the vicinity, it was used as an anti-infantry weapon launched at the city of Zagreb and the accused had shown he intended to attack the city of Zagreb as such.” Based on this assessment, the Council concluded that “the use of the rocket Orkan in this case was not intended for targeting the military aims, but for terrorizing the civilian population”.

Almost identical event took place on 7 May 1999 in the city of Niš, when the Atlantic Pact’s warplanes dropped cassette bombs on two blocks of residential buildings surrounding the marketplace near downtown and next to the hospital which was few blocks further. At that time, 14 civilians were killed, while 30 were wounded. Cassette bombs hit the busiest part of the town, at the time people were out in the streets and in the marketplace. The day after, on May 8, 1999, the Atlantic Pact confirmed that destruction of the marketplace and damage to the hospital was caused by the Atlantic Pact’s weapons, which “missed the target” (allegedly, they were targeting Niš airport).

So, what is the difference between Martić hitting a residential area in Zagreb with a cassette bomb and cassette bombs dropped by Atlantic Pact’s warplanes on residential area and streets surrounding the marketplace, near the city’s downtown and near the town’s hospital? The difference is that the Hague prosecutor, to begin with, did not believe that [Krajina] Serb artillery was targeting military objects, missed and hit the residential area instead; at the same time, it believed Atlantic Pact on its word that their warplanes which, by the way, claim ’surgical precision’, have missed the airport and hit many kilometres removed downtown Niš instead.

Even bigger questions were raised by the bombardment of Serbia’s state television [RTS] in Belgrade, on April 23, 1999. In that attack 16 people were killed and the other 16 were wounded. The real reasons for this assault are revealed by the Atlantic Pact’s statement that they will bomb Serbian TV stations if they refuse to broadcast reports by the Western TV stations for 6 hours each day: if President Milošević ensured reports by the Western media and their programs will be broadcast for three hours midday — between 12 and 6 p.m. and during three hours in the evening, between 9 p.m. and 12 a.m., “his” television would become an acceptable instrument of public information.

Basically, this means that RTS building would have been spared if Slobodan Milošević caved in to this blackmail, turning RTS into Atlantic Pact’s propaganda tool during half the time informative programs and news were being aired. Since he didn’t accept the blackmail, the Atlantic Pact bombed the RTS building, and the people it killed and wounded were civilians. In regards to this — another obvious war crime — which was clearly intended and not a mistake, Commission also advised the Hague prosecution not to open an investigation.

It would take too long to analyze all of NATO crimes for which this Commission recommended hands-off approach. Apart from the intentional razing of the RTS building, all the other cases, according to both Atlantic Pact and the ‘assessment’ of this Commission, were a matter of innocent mistake.

The only thing left for us is to be astonished. Whenever one kills another human being, even if by mistake, he or she has to face justice anyway, since every murder is regarded as crime. But when Atlantic Pact’s warplanes launch cassette bombs at the column of refugees in Djakovica, because they allegedly thought tractors they saw may be military vehicles, killing 73 innocent human beings and severely wounding several dozens of others in that single instance, that, then, is not a crime, but acceptable “mistake” which doesn’t even warrant an investigation.

At the same time, when it comes to those who defended our country from aggression, they, according to the Hague Tribunal and their mentors in Washington and Brussels, must be accused and severely punished, in order to both justify Atlantic Pact’s aggression against FR Yugoslavia and establish the so-called state for Kosovo Albanians — the very purpose of the aggression from the start.

Since on 11 March 2006 the life of Slobodan Milošević ended with his murder by the court, there was no other option but to execute this type of Hague “justice” over his closest associates representing Serbian state, military and police leaders: Milan Milutinović, Nikola Šainović, Dragoljub Ojdanić, Nebojša Pavković, Vladimir Lazarević and Sreten Lukić.

The first task this Tribunal had to accomplish was to avoid the proper legal qualification of the armed assault by the Atlantic Pact against FR Yugoslavia. Therefore, verdict in the case of Prosecutor versus Milan Milutinović and the others, as of 26 February 2009, states that on March 24, 1999, “NATO forces started an air campaign of bombardment of targets in FRY” and continues using the term “air strikes” throughout.

The “air strikes” practised by the Atlantic Pact were, in fact, an actual war against FR Yugoslavia, but the Tribunal intentionally avoided to qualify its true nature. Being that FR Yugoslavia did not attack any of Atlantic Pact members and keeping in mind the fact there was no authorization on behalf of United Nations Security Council to act according to the Chapter VII of UN Charter, this was an unvarnished, clear-cut aggression.

Instead of using that proper and clear legal term, Tribunal sided with the Atlantic Pact and used NATO’s vocabulary to cover up the worst of all crimes — the crime against peace committed by the Atlantic Pact, and not only against FR Yugoslavia, but also against the humanity as a whole. In this way, the Tribunal demonstrated once again it is no more than Atlantic Pact’s auxiliary department.

Everyone who listened the public reading of verdict in this court case or read the statement afterwards, must have been surprised over complete hushing up of an alleged Račak “massacre” which, as is well known, was the only pretext given in public for Atlantic Pact’s aggression against FR Yugoslavia.

In order to cover up the aggression, the aggressors commonly resort to fabricating some convincing excuse.

On 1 September 1939, when Hitler decided to attack Poland and thus start the Second World War, his secret service staged the alleged attack of Polish Army against a German military outpost. When American government decided to use Atlantic Pact’s military force to attack Yugoslavia, William Walker, American specialist for such operations, staged the alleged massacre against “innocent” Albanians in the village of Račak. To make it more convincing, all the Western TV stations carried images of corpses of middle-age males, for which they claimed they were not shot from distance during the battle, but were executed as “unarmed civilians”. In this way, thanks to the “Račak Massacre”, first the ultimatum was issued to Yugoslav government [in Rambouillet] and, after it was rejected, the Atlantic Pact launched the aggression against our country.

The fact the alleged massacre in Račak was one of the key points of an indictment against Slobodan Milošević was, therefore, no coincidence. However, it was precisely thanks to Milošević that Walker’s falsification of an alleged war crime was exposed. By examining the facts and exhibiting convincing evidence, Milošević proved to both public and prosecution Račak was a staged event. Thanks to Milošević, the edited indictment against Milan Milutinović and the others no longer contained “massacre” in Račak and was not featured in the verdict.

Those better informed will recall that United States and United Kingdom carried out the latest war against Iraq under the pretext that Saddam Husein’s regime has weapons of mass destruction at its disposal. After the war has ended and Iraq was occupied, that “weapon” was feverishly searched for, just like the “mass graves” in Kosovo and Metohija province after June 1999, but it was nowhere to be found. And there are no consequences for anyone — it’s as if nothing happened.

This leads us to a dismal revelation. Ever since the League of Nations declared the war of aggression illegal, the world bullies, starting with Adolf Hitler, through Bill Clinton, to George Bush Junior, have been frantically working on fabricating pretexts that would help justify planned aggressions.

Walker’s “massacre” in Račak came from that arsenal of justifications, it served as a pretext for an aggression and as one of main charges used to indict Slobodan Milošević, alongside four other Yugoslav and Serbian officials.

This has convinced us once again that Hague prosecutors and their Washington and Brussels’ sponsors are soaked in lies.

Except Milan Milutinović, all the accused in this process were charged of “joint criminal enterprise”, with the “purpose of changing the ethnic balance in Kosovo, in an effort to ensure continued control of FRY and Serbian officials over this province”. In the conclusion, it is reiterated once again that “there was a joint goal to change the ethnic balance in Kosovo, so that leadership of FRY and Serbia would secure further control over the province”. In other words, if the Hague Tribunal is to be believed, continued control of FRY and Serbia over [its own province of] Kosovo and Metohija is forbidden and a punishable offence.

As far as we know, no one has ever before stated this in such clear and direct terms.

Up until now, we thought every state has not only the right, but also duty to preserve and safeguard its territorial integrity and to exercise rule over every segment of its territory, as well as the right to continue its governance or re-establish it anew over those parts of its territory where the state rule is jeopardized or infringed upon. And, up until this Hague verdict, that basic principle wasn’t refuted by anyone.

When the central government in Nigeria used armed forces to attack rebelling Biafra, thus re-establishing its sovereign rule over that part of its state territory, no one in their right mind, and especially United States and the European Community members thought to challenge that operation and the purpose for which it was carried out. In a similar way, all the key states have explicitly or silently confirmed Sri Lanka’s (Ceylon) right to use the regular army troops against rebel Tamils in the north of the country and re-establish state rule over the entire state territory.

This leads us to an unexpected paradox. When FR Yugoslavia uses police and military force to continue its control of Kosovo and Metohija province against the Albanian terrorists, that, according to the Hague Tribunal and its mentors in Washington and Brussels, is punishable and forbidden. But when Georgian government, for example, uses its army to attack Abkhazia and South Ossetia in order to re-establish central rule over these seceded provinces, that is not only permissible, but also legitimate.

This paradox can be carried a step further. When United States and their Atlantic Pact use illegitimate force to attack FRY in order to support Albanian terrorists and prevent the continuation of Yugoslav rule over Serbian Kosovo and Metohija province, that is not only acceptable, but praiseworthy. However, when Russia uses armed force to prevent the Georgian regime to re-establish its rule over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Western governments and their mainstream media rush to condemn Russia.

The most severe crime the accused in this case were convicted of is expelling Kosovo-Metohija Albanians. According to the reports gathered by the Hague Tribunal, “in the first week of the NATO bombing, over 300,000 Kosovo Albanians crossed into Albania or Macedonia. By 6 April that number doubled, and by 1 May it had reached 715,158″.

Although no Albanians left Kosovo and Metohija province prior to the beginning of bombardment, the Hague Tribunal insists that “NATO bombing was not the reason for the mass displacement of Kosovo Albanians from Kosovo”, but the “campaign of terror and violence” allegedly conducted by the FRY and Serbian armed forces. The key proof for this claim are the statements by Albanians themselves, just like the following story: “When these Kosovo Albanians returned to Peć after the conflict, they found that many of their houses had been burned, although the houses belonging to Serb residents of the town were undamaged.”

Let us then see how that withstands the comparative analysis. When “at least 700,000 Albanians” leave Kosovo and Metohija province “in the short period of time between the end of March and beginning of June 1999″, the Hague Tribunal labels that as a horrific crime. When, after the end of war and after the arrival of the “peacekeeping” forces of Atlantic Pact and the armed forces of KLA (UCK), over 250,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians are expelled from Kosovo and Metohija, no one, but absolutely no one, is held responsible, let alone indicted and charged. When Albanians after their return find a number of their houses burned, that is a crime. When, after the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija province all of their houses are torched or illegally possessed, that is an insignificant fact the Hague prosecutors fail to even notice. When, on March 24, 1999, in the Valley the “intentional destruction of several mosques” takes place, that is a crime which must not be overlooked. However, when Albanians after the end of aggression destroy 155 Serbian churches and monasteries, the Hague prosecution, by all indications, concluded our holy temples caved in on their own, so no one can be charged for that grave crime.

Finally, when at least 700,000 Albanians returns to their homes, bringing with them several hundred thousands citizens of Albania [illegal immigrants], that is a great success of the “peacekeeping” aggression of the Atlantic Pakt. At the same time, when 10 years later over 250,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians can not and do not dare to return to their destroyed or stolen homes, no one in the West, let alone the Hague prosecutor, is concerned.

It is interesting to note that judges in this case have not failed to demonstrate their cynicism. Accordingly, they charged our army and police of using an excessive and random force, which resulted in “destruction of civilian property, displacement of the population and civilian deaths”. This pertains to the so-called disproportionate use of force. Since the Albanian terrorists mainly had infantry weapons, our army and police in the war against them, according to the Hague Tribunal, could only use the same infantry weapons, and no rocket launchers, tanks or armoured vehicles.

It would seem that only a naive and completely uninformed individual could buy this idiocy. When thousands of the most advanced warplanes of the Atlantic Pakt, equipped with radars of great reach and guided by AWACSes attack our country which, at the time, didn’t have a single warplane of such capabilities, that is not considered a disproportionate force. One could say the similar thing for Iraq and Afghanistan — when Americans use the “invisible” planes undetectable to the other side’s radars, and thousands of self-guided missiles (Tomahawks) against the poorly armed Taliban, that is both permissible and legitimate. However, when Russia uses superior armoured units against Georgian army, that is quite disproportionate already, and therefore impermissible use of armed force.

Tribunal’s claim that “in 1998 Pavković was involved in the arming of the non-Albanian civilian population in Kosovo, and simultaneous disarming of the Kosovo Albanians, despite his knowledge of the divisions and animosity in Kosovo along ethnic lines”. This means what Pavković did is forbidden and punishable and that he would surely be spared if he wasn’t disarming the terrorists he was in war with, while arming the reservists who wanted to help in the war against those same terrorists.

One would be hard-pressed to find an example of greater stupidity and cynicism. Because if we were to accept this Hague’s logic, it must follow that Americans are committing a major war crime in Afghanistan by disarming and also killing Taliban, while simultaneously arming Afghanis loyal to them. In fact, the Hague judges probably had in mind a Latin saying quod licet Iovi non licet bovi: what suits Jupiter, doesn’t suit an ox. In other words, what’s alright for Americans around the world, isn’t good for Serbs in their own country.

The biggest surprise is most surely acquittal of the prime accused Milan Milutinović, most probably to demonstrate the alleged “objectivity” of the Hague Tribunal to the Serbian public. But this immediately raises essential questions:

- How could Milutinović be made to spend more than six years in the Hague prison, without the judges noticing he is entirely innocent?

- Who and in which way will give him back his severely damaged health and how will they take back the terrible fears and suffering he was subjected to?

- Who will remove the overwhelming sorrow his wife Olga was made to bear and take back the stigma she had to carry?

- Who will silence the unforgettable pain of his son Veljko, when his father was called a “war criminal”?

…Not to even mention the material and moral damages the Hague Tribunal never pays out to those from the Balkans.

The main criterion for deciding the severity of sentence for the five convicted by the Hague apparently was their closeness to Slobodan Milošević who, as the Hague judges hopefully know, as a victim of the court murder, passed away legally innocent, and therefore, can in no way be an extenuating circumstance for anyone, being that his alleged guilt was never legally determined in a court of law. Despite this fact, the judges were constantly focusing on who and in what way was associated with Slobodan Milošević, using that as a measuring rod for determining the sentence.

General Nebojša Pavković received the worst of it, being that he was the only one who was convicted of a possibility of foreseeing the sexual violence, while all the others were at least spared that stigma.

Still, one of the accused deserves a special overview — police General Sreten Lukić. Even though he was indicted during Slobodan Milošević’s government, after the state coup on 5 October 2000, he immediately placed himself in the service of the DOSmanlies [mocking term for 'Democratic Opposition of Serbia', a coalition of vastly diverse political parties formed by the Western governments as an opposition to Milošević's Socialists, in order to serve as a unified front to topple the government], expecting the new masters (especially Zoran Đinđić and Zoran Živković) will work out a deal with their American sponsors to have the indictment against him simply forgotten. Living in such a foolish hope, he took part in organizing and even executing a number of dishonourable, dirty tasks — arrest of Slobodan Milošević, Vladimir Kovačević, twins Nenad and Predrag Banović and Veselin Šljivančanin.

After the state of emergency was instituted in March 2003, he prepared, organized and took a large part in executing the arrest of 11,112 individuals, of which 3,106 were kept in confinment, including Generals Nebojša Pavković and Aca Tomić, Koštunica’s top adviser Rade Bulatović and present day’s editor of the only independent weekly, Milorad Vučelić and Aleksandar Vulin. Once he had completed all those tasks, a message came from Washington in the spirit of Schiller’s slogan: “A black man has done his job, a black man can now be gone”. That is how Sreten Lukić, wearing hospital’s pyjamas and with infusion needle in his vein, “voluntarily” went to the Hague.

Right after this verdict and draconian sentences were issued which, due to the age and damaged health of the convicted, might be their life sentences, the politicians came out stating this verdict has a purpose of justifying the Atlantic Pact’s aggression against FRY and Serbia and the crimes committed by the pilots of the Pact and Albanian terrorists. Some of the so-called experts went a step further, stating this verdict by the Hague Tribunal will influence the decision of the International Court of Justice on whether and under which circumstances Kosovo Albanians could declare the unilateral independence of the Serbian province.

There is no doubt this criticism of the latest Hague Tribunal’s verdict is more than justified, and that stated fears about the wider consequences of the verdict are not baseless. If that is correct, the question is: How could anyone responsible and serious among those in power advise the cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, sending the indicted to that Minotaur? Was any of our politicians so dumb and blind to be unable to predict what kind of verdicts will that court be issuing and what will be the consequences of those verdicts for Republic of Srpska and territorial integrity of Serbia?

If there indeed were any such politicians up until now, after this, only extremely rotten American and Brussels’ sycophants will continue to advise unconditional cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, Atlantic Pact’s auxiliary department. We hope the news will also reach headhunters searching for General Mladić.

So many wish to invoke the memory & spirit of the Nuremberg Trials, when they talk about the Hague. But in fact, former Nuremberg prosecutor Walter J. Rockler utterly disagreed and had a completely different view of it:

War crimes law applies to U.S. too

By Walter J. Rockler

As justification for our murderously destructive bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, it is of course necessary for the U.S. to charge that the Serbs have engaged in inhuman conduct, and that President Slobodan Milosevic, the head Serb demon, is a war criminal almost without peer.

President Clinton assures us of this in frequent briefings, during which he engages in rhetorical combat with Milosevic. But shouting "war criminal" only emphasizes that those who live in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones. We have engaged in a flagrant military aggression, ceaselessly attacking a small country primarily to demonstrate that we run the world. The rationale that we are simply enforcing international morality, even if it were true, would not excuse the military aggression and widespread killing that it entails. It also does not lessen the culpability of the authors of this aggression.

As a primary source of international law, the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal in the 1945-1946 case of the major Nazi war criminals is plain and clear. Our leaders often invoke and praise that judgment, but obviously have not read it. The International Court declared:

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, 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."

At Nuremberg, the United States and Britain pressed the prosecution of Nazi leaders for planning and initiating aggressive war. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the head of the American prosecution staff, asserted "that launching a war of aggression is a crime and that no political or economic situation can justify it." He also declared that "if certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us."

The United Nations Charter views aggression similarly. Articles 2(4) and (7) prohibit interventions in the domestic jurisdiction of any country and threats of force or the use of force by one state against another. The General Assembly of the UN in Resolution 2131, "Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention," reinforced the view that a forceful military intervention in any country is aggression and a crime without justification.

Putting a "NATO" label on aggressive policy and conduct does not give that conduct any sanctity. This is simply a perversion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, formed as a defensive alliance under the UN Charter. The North Atlantic Treaty pledged its signatories to refrain from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations, and it explicitly recognized "the primary responsibility of the Security Council (of the United Nations) for the maintenance of international peace and security." Obviously, in bypassing UN approval for the current bombing, the U.S. and NATO have violated this basic obligation. From another standpoint of international law, the current conduct of the bombing by the United States and NATO constitutes a continuing war crime. Contrary to the beliefs of our war planners, unrestricted air bombing is barred under international law. Bombing the "infrastructure" of a country-- waterworks, electricity plants, bridges, factories, television and radio locations--is not an attack limited to legitimate military objectives. Our bombing has also caused an excessive loss of life and injury to civilians, which violates another standard. We have now killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Serbs, Montenegrins and Albanians, even some Chinese, in our pursuit of humanitarian ideals.

In addition to shredding the UN Charter and perverting the purpose of NATO, Clinton also has violated at least two provisions of the United States Constitution. Under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, Congress, not the president, holds the power to declare war and to punish offenses against the law of nations. Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 69 pointed out one difference between a monarchy and the presidency under the new form of government: A king could use his army as he pleased; the president would have no such unlimited power. Under Article VI of the Constitution, treaties, far from being mere scraps of paper as we now deem them to be, are part of the supreme law of the United States. Of course, these days a supine Congress, fascinated only by details of sexual misconduct, can hardly be expected to enforce constitutional requirements.

Nor can a great deal be expected from the media. Reporters rely on the controlled handouts of the State Department, Pentagon and NATO, seeing their duty as one of adding colorful details to official intimations of Serb atrocities. Thus, the observation of a NATO press relations officer that a freshly plowed field, seen from 30,000 feet up, might be the site of a massacre has been disseminated as news. The notion that humanitarian violations can be redressed with random destruction and killing by advanced technological means is inherently suspect. This is mere pretext for our arrogant assertion of dominance and power in defiance of international law. We make the non-negotiable demands and rules, and implement them by military force. It is all remindful of Henrik Ibsen's "Don't use that foreign word `ideals.' We have that excellent native word `lies.' "

So if, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, off to the gallows with the CCCC killers - Clinton, Clark, Cohen and Chirac? Along the ABC's of hate and warmongering - Albright, Blair and Cook, not to mention the rest of the NATO war criminals?

Well, the Nuremberg prosecutor didn't quite go as far as to name all the NATO leaders who should be charged with war crimes, but he did say that, "in addition to shredding the U.N. Charter and perverting the purpose of NATO, Clinton has already violated at least two provisions of the United States Constitution" (Article I, Section 8 and Article VI.

Walter J. Rockler, a Washington lawyer, was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. This essay originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune.

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