Carlos Saavedra Lamas Quotes
War of aggression, war which does not imply defense of one's country, is a collective crime.
Saavedra Lamas, Carlos. Draft of a Convention for the Maintenance of Peace. Pan American Union, 1932.
President Bush claimed that he authorized the invasion because Iraq had developed and were about to deploy weapons of mass destruction. After the invasion, there were no such weapons ever found. Some believe Bush had acted on bad intelligence; others argued that Bush and the neocoms had wanted to invade Iraq for other reasons, and used the bad intelligence knowingly and actually suppressed intelligence that contradicted the hypotheis of weapons readiness.
Lawrence of Arabia. In the Middle East, Lawrence led a small Arab army against the Turks and the Germans. In a battle near Tafas, the captured 250 Turkish and German soldiers as prisoners. They them shot them all in cold blood with their Hotchkiss machine gun. What makes this quotation so significant is that one of the great British heroes of WWI was actually guilty of War Crimes. An American journalist gave Lawrence and his exploits great publicity without mentioning the atrocities. The British chain of command also ignored the transgression of one of the most fundamental rules of war even though the clear evidence was in basic battle report files. However, the British never removed the report from the files or destroyed it. The Turks and the Germans while they respected the rules of war with the English, French, and most allies, treated the Arabs much more harshly and murdered Arab prisoners on many occasions. In part this atrocity at Tafas was an act of vengeance and retaliation. But Lawrence never even tried to explain it.
The treaty that the Secretary had been negotiating had the signing countries renounce war except to defend themselves. The senator had a real concern as to who determines whether a war is offensive of defensive.
In 1936, Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia in an effort to obtain an African colony like other European Countries had. Over 50 nations had promised aid to Ethiopia if attacked but then the Italian attacks came, it was not just soldiers with some small artillery and vehicles. Instead it was a full modern army with not only heavy artillery and tanks, but extensive use of air power against villages and towns which generally hardly had rifles. The airplane carnage of civilian populations was a shock to the world. However, the tactics were studied by the Italian German Fascist allies who further developed air power use against unarmed towns and cities in the Spanish Civil war. The aid promised to Christian Ethiopia never materialized because there was a worldwide depression and the great powers would have had to commit to major war—not just send some arms and ammunition. The Ethiopians mostly fought with spears and knives. The Fascists were thus emboldened for the invasion of Europe a few years later.
The George W. Bush Administration told Congress and the people of the world that Iraq had developed weapons of mass destruction and were about to deploy them. We invaded Iraq and it turned out that there were no WMD’s in Iraq. No one knows if the all in the administration honestly believed the intelligence, how many doubted it, and how many others suppressed contradictory evidence of which there was much. Some members of the administration wanted an invasion of Iraq for other reasons, personal and economic.
Carlos Saavedra Lamas was an Argentine academic and politician, and in 1936, the first Argentine Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
