Edward S. Herman (born April 7, 1925) is an American economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. He is Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. and author of “The Myth of the Liberal Media: An Edward Herman Reader” (Peter Lang) and many other books (see: http://www.whale.to/c/clinton8.html ; http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/ClintonWarCriminal_Herman.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_S._Herman ).
Edward Herman on “creeping extermination of a people” in Iraq under Sanctions (1999): “I use war crimes to encompass the commission of all acts declared illegal under international rules of war as enumerated in the various Hague and Geneva agreements and conventions and pronounced in the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. Among these acts are the carrying out of wars of aggression, the use of poison gases and other inhumane weapons, deliberately killing and starving civilian populations, and the use of force beyond military necessity. War crimes can be carried out directly or through proxy forces that are funded, encouraged, and protected in their own war criminality. This means that inaction-failure to discourage or prevent the carrying out of war crimes known to be going on, planned for enlargement, and preventable-is itself a form of war criminality. Thus, if the Clinton administration knew that Indonesia was killing large numbers of East Timorese and planned to ravage East Timor on a larger scale if it lost an independence referendum, and did nothing to prevent the crimes, Clinton and associates were guilty of war crimes by inaction…
The most monumental of Clinton's war crimes, however, has been his policy of sanctions on Iraq, supplemented by the maintenance of intense satellite surveillance and regular bombing attacks that have often resulted in civilian casualties. UNICEF reports that in 1999 more than 1 million Iraqi children under 5 were suffering from chronic malnutrition, and some 4,000-5,000 children are dying per month beyond normal death rates from the combination of malnutrition and disease. Death from disease was greatly increased by the shortage of potable water and medicines, that has led to a 20-fold increase in malaria (among other ailments). This vicious sanctions system, causing a creeping extermination of a people, has already caused more than a million excess deaths, and it is claimed by John and Karl Mueller that Clinton's "sanctions of mass destruction" have caused "the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction [nuclear and chemical] throughout all history" (Foreign Affairs, May/June 1999). U.S. mainstream reporters, who have so eagerly followed the distress of the Kosovo Albanians, somehow never get to Iraq for pictures of the thousands of malnourished children…
U.S. leaders commit war crimes as a matter of institutional necessity, as their imperial role calls for keeping subordinate peoples in their proper place and assuring a "favorable climate of investment" everywhere. They do this by using their economic power, but also (by means of "bombs bursting in the air" and) by supporting Diem, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto, Savimbi, Marcos, Fujimori, Salinas, and scores of similar leaders. War crimes also come easily because U.S. Ieaders consider themselves to be the vehicles of a higher morality and truth and can operate in violation of law without cost. It is also immensely helpful that their mainstream media agree that their country is above the law and will support and rationalize each and every venture and the commission of war crimes. Thus, Clinton's civilian extermination policy in Iraq, which the Muellers contend has killed more people that all the chemical and nuclear weapons throughout history, is completely normalized in the U.S. and brings no discredit to this country via the elite-dominated global system.” [1].
[1]. Edward Herman, “Clinton is the World’s leading active war criminal”, Z Magazine, December 1999 c/- Third World Traveller: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/ClintonWarCriminal_Herman.html .