To put the question differently: Do you pay taxes?
If you do, you may be committing a war crime.
Tax Rebellion, a group active in the United Kingdom, argues that “Under the international laws of war, it is a criminal offense to pay tax to a Government which is waging illegal war.”
The group goes on to argue that the wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya are all illegal, violating the Treaty for the Renunciation of War of 1928 (also known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact) and the United Nations Charter.
They quote the judges from the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II:
“War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
The United States government is involved in acts of aggression around the world, with most of these kept successfully out of the awareness of ordinary citizens.
Iin the United States, one group that is devoted to educating the public concerning financial and human costs of aggression and promoting the use of tax money for peace, not war, is the Peace Economy Project. Visit their site and learn all kinds of things you probably didn’t know—including the “wide range of operations in Africa, including airstrikes targeting suspected militants, and night raids aimed at kidnapping terror suspects…”
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology
