war crime

no bravery

Submitted by antarchi on December 18, 2011 - 04:13

obama's torture legacy

Submitted by antarchi on July 3, 2011 - 12:14

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the official investigation into detainee abuse, wrote:  "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

The answer is resoundingly clear: American war criminals, responsible for some of the most shameful and inexcusable crimes in the nation's history -- the systematic, deliberate legalization of a worldwide torture regime -- will be fully immunized for those crimes.  And, of course, the Obama administration has spent years just as aggressively shielding those war criminals from all other forms of accountability beyond the criminal realm: invoking secrecy and immunity doctrines to prevent their victims from imposing civil liability, exploiting their party's control of Congress to suppress formal inquiries, and pressuring and coercing other nations not to investigate their own citizens' torture at American hands. 

— Glenn Greenwald

Torture Crimes Officially, Permanently Shielded

an absurd conspiracy theory

Submitted by antarchi on May 1, 2011 - 17:29

Quotes taken from Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq

Tony Blair, 6 February 2003:

"Let me just deal with the oil thing because... the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern, I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It's not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons..."

Foreign Office memorandum, 13 November 2002, following meeting with BP:

"Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity to compete. The long-term potential is enormous..."

BP, 12 March 2003:

"We have no strategic interest in Iraq. If whoever comes to power wants Western involvement post the war, if there is a war, all we have ever said is that it should be on a level playing field. We are certainly not pushing for involvement."

Lord Browne, the then-BP chief executive, 12 March 2003:

"It is not in my or BP's opinion, a war about oil. Iraq is an important producer, but it must decide what to do with its patrimony and oil."

Shell, 12 March 2003, said reports that it had discussed oil opportunities with Downing Street were 'highly inaccurate', adding:

"We have neither sought nor attended meetings with officials in the UK Government on the subject of Iraq. The subject has only come up during conversations during normal meetings we attend from time to time with officials... We have never asked for 'contracts'."

was it legal?

Submitted by antarchi on April 30, 2011 - 11:55

INTERNATIONAL BODIES


International Commission of Jurists

The denounced the attack as an illegal invasion of Iraq which amounts to a war of aggression. Sixteen senior teachers of international law from the United Kingdom and France wrote a statement stating that “[o]n the basis of the information publicly available, there is no justification under international law for the use of military force against Iraq…. Before military action can lawfully be undertaken against Iraq, the security council must have indicated its clearly expressed assent. It has not yet done so. A decision to undertake military action in Iraq without proper security council authorisation will seriously undermine the international rule of law.” 31 Canadian law professors said that US attack “would be a fundamental breach of international law and would seriously threaten the integrity of the international legal order that has been in place since the end of the Second World War,” and 43 Australian legal experts said that the initiation of a war against Iraq by the self-styled ‘coalition of the willing’ would be a fundamental violation of international law and said that the United States doctrine or pre-emptive self defence contradicts the cardinal principle of the modern international legal order and the primary rationale for the founding of the UN after World War II - the prohibition of the unilateral use of force to settle disputes.

International Court of Justice

"The United States, the United Kingdom and Spain have signalled their intent to use force in Iraq in spite of the absence of a Security Council Resolution. There is no other plausible legal basis for this attack. In the absence of such Security Council authorisation, no country may use force against another country, except in self-defence against an armed attack... A war waged without a clear mandate by the Security Council would constitute a flagrant violation of the prohibition of the use of force. Security Council Resolution 1441 does not authorise the use of force. Upon its adoption, France, Russia and China, three permanent members of the Security Council, issued a declaration indicating that the Resolution excludes such authority. The bottom line is that nine members of the Security Council, including the five permanent members, need to actively approve the use of force - such support is blatantly lacking."

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva expressed its “deep dismay that a small number of states are poised to launch an outright illegal invasion of Iraq, which amounts to a war of aggression.”

According to the ICJ, such “a war waged without a clear mandate from the United Nations Security Council would constitute a flagrant violation of the prohibition of the use of force.” The commission emphasises that Security Council Resolution 1441 does not authorise the use of force.

reagan's splendid achievements

Submitted by antarchi on January 2, 2011 - 15:11

Nicaragua

For eight terribly long years the people of Nicaragua were under attack by Ronald Reagan's proxy army, the Contras. It was all-out war from Washington, aiming to destroy the progressive social and economic programs of the Sandinista government — burning down schools and medical clinics, mining harbors, bombing and strafing, raping and torturing. These Contras were the charming gentlemen Reagan called "freedom fighters" and the "moral equivalent of our founding fathers".

El Salvador

Salvador's dissidents tried to work within the system. But with US support, the government made that impossible, using repeated electoral fraud and murdering hundreds of protestors and strikers. When the dissidents took to the gun and civil war, the Carter administration and then even more so, the Reagan administration, responded with unlimited money, military aid, and training in support of the government and its death squads and torture, the latter with the help of CIA torture manuals. US military and CIA personnel played an active role on a continuous basis. The result was 75,000 civilian deaths; meaningful social change thwarted; a handful of the wealthy still owned the country; the poor remained as ever; dissidents still had to fear right-wing death squads; there was to be no profound social change in El Salvador while Ronnie sat in the White House with Nancy.

Guatemala

In 1954, a CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically-elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of military-government death squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, and unimaginable cruelty, totaling more than 200,000 victims — indisputably one of the most inhumane chapters of the 20th century. For eight of those years the Reagan administration played a major role.

— Bill Blum

The Anti-Empire Report

war criminals' gazette

Submitted by antarchi on November 23, 2010 - 15:48

UPDATED:

On the same day that Alistair Campbell reviews George Bush's memoirs in the Guardian, Jack Straw gets a long interview to talk about how he *didn't* authorise rendition: Jack Straw: I did not lie to MPs over rendition

3 war criminals in one day.

Oh - and question from Andrew Sparrow to Jack Straw:

"I don't want to ask a lot about Iraq [!] because you've covered that at length in your evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. But I want to raise something you told Chris Mullin. In the latest edition of his diaries, Decline and Fall, Mullin says you told him in 2006: "The one thing I learned from Iraq was that once the process starts rolling it's very difficult to stop." Looking back at the Iraq war, was there any point where you would like to have stopped the process, or moved it in a different direction?"

Would it be possible to find a softer and more pointless question to ask of someone who actively facilitated the march to war, who lied about the reasons and the evidence, who could have stopped British participation at any point he wished, simply by not lying?

The same question is repeated 2 more times, the author thinks it's so important.

My letter to AS:

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