Bush I:

Crimes Against Humanity, Rejection of the Rule of Law

On 16 January 1991, a heroic and historically informed call to account was launched by Congressperson Henry Gonzalez when he introduced his Resolution of Impeachment of President George Bush in the House of Representatives.[19]

Representative Gonzalez read into the congressional record five Articles of impeachment citing violations of the U.S. Constitution, federal law and the U.N. Charter including:

• that Bush, "by bribing, intimidating and threatening others, including the members of the United Nations Security Council, to support belligerent acts against Iraq";
  
  
• violations of the Hague Conventions of 1907 and 1923, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol I thereto, the Nuremberg Charter, the Genocide Convention and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights by President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush who "prepared, planned, and conspired to engage in a massive war against Iraq employing methods of mass destruction that will result in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, many of whom will be children. This planning includes the placement and potential use of nuclear weapons, and the use of such indiscriminate weapons and massive killings by serial bombardment, or otherwise, of civilians";
  
  
• Bush, who "committed the United States to acts of war without congressional consent and contrary to the United Nations Charter and international law . . . embarked on a course of action that systematically eliminated every option for peaceful resolution of the Persian Gulf crisis";
  
  
• Bush, who "planned, prepared, and conspired to commit crimes against the peace by leading the United States into aggressive war against Iraq in violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, the Nuremberg Charter, other international instruments and treaties, and the Constitution of the United States."

Like Senator Wayne Morse in 1964, Representative Henry Gonzalez in 1991 sought to challenge the contrived pursuit of war by Bush I and in doing so, to remain true to his oath of office, to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" as well as to uphold the principles of international law. Article 2(4) of the United Nations charter cited above, is as relevant today as it was eleven and-a-half years ago:

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

A vindication of the facts cited in Representative Gonzalez's articles of impeachment against President George Herbert Walker Bush was born out after Bush I's bombing war began on the same day, 16 January 1991 and continuing for an additional 42 days. An International Commission of Inquiry into United States war crimes committed during the Persian Gulf War conducted the largest independent world-wide investigation of war crimes in history. From May 1991 to February 1992 the Commission held 30 hearings across the U.S. and in twenty countries across five continents to expose the war crimes inflicted upon the People and State of Iraq by the United States.

On 29 February 1992 in New York City, two days before the International War Crimes Tribunal was convened to hear the evidence of the Commission, Professor Boyle presented a paper to an Albany Law School symposium titled "International War Crimes: The Search for Justice." This paper documents the numerous occasions that international laws were broken and disregarded during the Gulf War.[20] Quoting from near its conclusion:

"Today, the government in the United States of America constitutes an international criminal conspiracy under the NurembergCharter, Judgment and Principles, that is legally identical to the Nazi government in World War II Germany. The Defendants' wanton extermination of approximately 250,000 People in Iraq provides definite proof of the validity of this Nuremberg Proposition for the entire world to see. Indeed, Defendant Bush's so-called New World Order sounds and looks strikingly similar to the New Order proclaimed by Adolph Hitler over fifty years ago. You do not build a real New World Order with stealth bombers, Abrams tanks, and tomahawk cruise missiles. For their own good and the good of all humanity, the American People must condemn and repudiate Defendant Bush and his grotesque vision of a New World Order that is constructed upon warfare, bloodshed, violence and criminality." [21]