President’s Incitements to Commit Genocide
Liaquat Ali Khan

On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, President George Walker Bush delivered an illegal speech and may have committed an international crime, that is, the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide of a religious group. Determined to rally disbelieving Americans behind a failed Iraqi war, the President drifted into calling for open-ended violence against Muslims. Says the President: “The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation.” The President identifies “this enemy” as Muslim extremists.  The 9/11speech is one among many through which the President has engaged, and continues to do so, in direct and public incitements to commit violence and other crimes against Muslims as a religious group.

The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide, among other things, as the act of killing members of a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the target group. But the Convention goes further and lists other criminal acts related to genocide. It prohibits and punishes conspiracy to commit genocide as well as “direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” Article 4 of the Convention provides that the persons committing any of the listed genocide crimes shall be punished “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”

The US has ratified the Genocide Convention. In 1987, the US Congress furnished the implementing legislation to enforce the Convention (the Proxmire Act). The crime of inciting genocide is not only an international crime but a federal crime as well.

On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, President George Walker Bush delivered an illegal speech and may have committed an international crime, that is, the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide of a religious group.

Elements of the Crime

The incitement crime under the Genocide Convention consists of three distinct elements. First, the target of incitement is a group listed in the Convention. Second, the incitement to commit genocide is direct and public. Third, the perpetrator has the requisite intent. When a perpetrator satisfies these three elements, the crime of genocide-incitement is complete and committed.

Note that the incitement to commit genocide is a verbal crime, although non-verbal methods of incitement are equally criminal. Genocide-incitement is primarily a crime of the tongue. It is criminal speech. The Convention does not require that verbal incitement produce actual genocide, just as conspiracy to commit a crime is actionable even though it may yield no crime. Furthermore, the incitement committed with words is not protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, treaties, or customary international law of freedom of speech.

Let us critically examine whether the President’s 9/11 speech satisfies the three elements of the crime of incitement as defined in the Genocide Convention.

The Group

The Genocide Convention applies when the perpetrator defines the target in terms of a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. The Convention does not require that incitement be against the group as a whole. Even if the incitement to commit genocide is aimed at part of the group, the Convention crime has been committed.

In his 9/11speech, the President defines the enemy as Muslims who believe in a “perverted vision of Islam.”  This perverted religious group is one that, according to the President, aspires “to build a radical Islamic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten for missing prayer meetings, and terrorists have a safe haven to plan and launch attacks on America and other civilized nations.” The President ’s target is not confined to al Qaeda or actual terrorists who attacked or might be planning attacks on the US. Nor does the President define the target in terms of criminals who happen to be Muslims. Fearlessly as if the law would never reach him, which might sadly be true, the President paints the religious group with a broad stroke, describing the group as religiously perverted and evil, a religious group that must be confronted, defeated, and killed.

The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide, among other things, as the act of killing members of a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the target group. But the Convention goes further and lists other criminal acts related to genocide. 

The President targets the religious group for its ideology and not for its criminality against the US.  That some members of this amorphous religious group may have committed crimes against the US furnishes no legal excuse to liquidate the entire group. When the innocent and the guilty are lumped together as a single entity, the offense of designing a target group is complete. Perpetrators of genocide (Hitler) frequently detest the group, in whole or in part, and not merely individuals. They make no distinction between the innocent and the guilty. The net they throw to encircle the group is vast, fluid, and indiscriminating. 

Direct and Public Incitement

No one would dispute that the President’s 9/11 speech was a public event, a speech directly delivered to national and international audiences, carried live by major networks with global reach. The speech was also directly and publicly delivered to the US troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and stationed elsewhere in the world. The speech also addresses the US allies that are fighting terrorism. Thus, the NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Coalition troops in Iraq, the Israeli Defense Forces in occupied territories, all these troops were the actual or potential audiences of the well-advertised 9/11speech that the President delivered with high emotional voltage. I discuss below that the speech carried genocide incitement. Here it must be noted that the speech that delivered the message was not hidden and private. It was direct and public. The speech was delivered to millions of people across the world, including criminals, gangs, and soldiers, who harbor hatred against Muslims. In his speeches, the President has repeatedly and spitefully labeled Muslim extremists as an evil religious group that must be physically eliminated.