Bush's War For Unocal Illegal?

Former Unocal Consultant Zalmar Khalilzad is presently Bush's Special Assistant and the National Security Council's Senior Director for Gulf, Southern Asia and Other Regional Issues. He is currently responsible for attempting to organize a new, stable government for Afghanistan that would serve the special interests of Unocal. On March 9, 2000 Special Assistant to President Bush Khalilzad stated the following in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council: "Afghanistan was and is a possible corridor for the export of oil and gas from the Central Asian states down to Pakistan and to the world. A California company called Unocal was interested in exploring that option, but because of the war in Afghanistan, because of the instability that's there, those options, or that optiion at least, has not materialized."

To make that option for Unocal "materialize," the Bush Administration recently ordered the U.S. military to make war upon the people of Afghanistan. Yet according to Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Michael Mandel of Toronto, Canada--who specializes in international criminal law--Bush's war for Unocal may be illegal, as well as immoral. In the October 9, 2001 issue of the Toronto Globe and Mail, Professor Mandel observed: "A well-kept secret about the U.S.-U.K. attack on Afghanistan is that it is clearly illegal. It violates international law and the expresss words of the United Nations Charter.

"Despite repeated references to the right of self-defence under Article 51, the Charter simply does not apply here. Article 51 gives a state the right to repel an attack that is ongoing or imminent as a temporary measure until the UN Security Council can take steps necessary for international peace and security...The right of unilateral selfe-defence does not include the right to retaliate once an attack has stopped.

"The right of self-defence in international law is like the right of self-defence in our own law: It allows you to defend yourself when the law is not around, but it does not allow you to take the law into your own hands.

"Since the United States and Britain have undertaken this attack without the explicit authorization of the Security Council, those who die from it will be victims of a crime against humanity, just like the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Even the Security Council is only permitted to authorize the use of force where `necessary to maintain and restore international peace and security.' Now it must be clear to everyone that the military attack on Afghanistan has nothing to do with preventing terrorism. This attack will be far more likely to provoke terrorism..."