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War crimes

After Undermining ICC, US Now Wants It To Charge Russians

April 23, 2022 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , , ,
Although the United States has tried mightily to undermine the International Criminal Court (ICC) since it became operational in 2002, the U.S. government is now pushing for the ICC to prosecute Russian leaders for war crimes in Ukraine. Apparently, Washington thinks the ICC is reliable enough to try Russians but not to bring U.S. or Israeli officials to justice. On March 15, the Senate unanimously passed S. Res 546, which “encourages member states to petition the ICC or other appropriate international tribunal to take any appropriate steps to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Russian Armed Forces.” When he introduced the resolution, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said, “This is a proper exercise of jurisdiction.

Who Will Hold the US/EU/NATO Accountable For Its Many War Crimes?

April 18, 2022 Jacqueline Luqman, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , ,
The US State-Department-sponsored media apparatus is declaring that there were war crimes committed by Russian troops as they left the town of Bucha, just west of Kyiv. Soon After the Ukrainian army retook the town, there were published reports of bodies with bound hands and feet and of mass graves of civilians in international media, all with accompanying pictures and presumed satellite imagery of those bodies. I am not going to say that Russian troops committed no atrocities. I do find the accusations dubious and opportunistic since the very same media outlets demanding war crimes charges and tribunals for Bucha have completely ignored the war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces in the 8-year civil war in the country.

From Mosul To Raqqa To Mariupol, Killing Civilians Is A Crime

April 12, 2022 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Popular Resistance. , ,
Americans have been shocked by the death and destruction of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, filling our screens with bombed buildings and dead bodies lying in the street. But the United States and its allies have waged war in country after country for decades, carving swathes of destruction through cities, towns and villages on a far greater scale than has so far disfigured Ukraine.  As we recently reported, the U.S. and its allies have dropped over 337,000 bombs and missiles, or 46 per day, on nine countries since 2001 alone. Senior U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officers told Newsweek that the first 24 days of Russia’s bombing of Ukraine was less destructive than the first day of U.S. bombing in Iraq in 2003. The U.S.-led campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria bombarded those countries with over 120,000 bombs and missiles, the heaviest bombing anywhere in decades.

The Levers Of Power Are Also Triggers

April 9, 2022 Patrick Carey, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The gruesome atrocities, posted on social media by groups like the Nazi Azov Regiment and the Georgian Militia, are a direct result of the UK and US pushing for more militarism in Ukraine, endorsing hostility towards Russians and extending the conflict by pouring the arms into the hands of these very groups.  The  long standing US/UK/NATO project of destabilising the region with the purpose of bringing down the Russian state has actually brought about conditions in which these horrific incidents can occur.  I see clearly that no-one can support the West in the Ukraine conflict without supporting the war there and the ghastly consequences of that war.  It is not good enough for liberals and so called socialists to bleat the “aid” mantra when part of that package is “lethal aid”!

Why Hasn’t The US Been Kicked Off The UN Human Rights Council?

April 8, 2022 Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening!. , , , , ,
The United Nations General Assembly voted 93-24 with 58 abstentions to drop the Russian Federation from membership on the UN Human Rights Council, based on allegations and grisly videos and photos appearing to show execution-style slayings of civilians in Ukraine by Russian troops. While there are calls for independent investigations into those allegations, the US and NATO member state governments have been pushing the claim that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine including the major war crime of invading another country, the unasked question in the US media is:  Why hasn’t the US been kicked out of the Human Rights Council for similar war crimes that aren’t at all allegations, but are well documented fact?

The Bucha Provocation

April 6, 2022 Moon of Alabama. , , ,
The Bucha 'Russian' atrocities propaganda onslaught may have worked well in the 'west' but it lacks evidence that Russia had anything to do with it. The former Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar calls it an outright fake: An indignant Moscow has angrily demanded a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday over the allegations of atrocities by Russian troops in areas around Kiev through the past month. Prima facie, this allegation is fake news but it can mould misperceptions by the time it gets exposed as disinformation. A Tass report says: “The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the Russian Armed Forces had left Bucha, located in the Kiev region, on March 30, while “the evidence of crimes” emerged only four days later, after Ukrainian Security Service officers had arrived in the town. The ministry stressed that on March 31, the town’s Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk had confirmed in a video address that there were no Russian troops in Bucha. However, he did not say a word about civilians shot dead on the street with their hands tied behind their backs.”

The Lie Of American Innocence

March 22, 2022 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , ,
The branding of Vladimir Putin as a war criminal by Joe Biden, who lobbied for the Iraq war and staunchly supported the 20 years of carnage in the Middle East, is one more example of the hypocritical moral posturing sweeping across the United States. It is unclear how anyone would try Putin for war crimes since Russia, like the United States, does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. But justice is not the point. Politicians like Biden, who do not accept responsibility for our well-documented war crimes, bolster their moral credentials by demonizing their adversaries. They know the chance of Putin facing justice is zero. And they know their chance of facing justice is the same.

Belmarsh Tribunal On US War Crimes And Julian Assange In New York

February 16, 2022 People's Dispatch. , , ,
The Progressive International (PI), in collaboration with several like minded organizations, will organize the second Belmarsh Tribunal in New York on February 25. It announced the decision in a press release on February 14.  The Tribunal seeks to hold the US government accountable for its war crimes in the two decades of the so-called war on terror and also push for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s release. The first Belmarsh Tribunal was organized in London during Assange’s extradition hearings in October last year. It is named after the infamous prison in London where Assange has been kept for almost three years. The upcoming Belmarsh Tribunal in New York coincides with with the date of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by the US in occupied parts of Cuba 20 years ago.

Peace And Justice Organizations Call For Freedom For Julian Assange

January 9, 2022 the United National Antiwar Coalition. , , ,
Imprisoned Wikileaks founder, journalist and free speech champion Julian Assange today faces life imprisonment for telling the truth about U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the U.S. torture base in Guantanamo Bay. Assange faces charges under the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act. Prosecution under that WWI anti-democratic law placed thousands of antiwar activists in prison for exercising their free speech right to protest WWI. Ironically, the Dec 19, 2021 New York Times front-page two-part series entitled, Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes, follows in Assange’s footsteps in reporting U.S. war crimes, yet The Times staff writers remain free. Some 100 Times reporters evaluated Pentagon confidential document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Drone Warfare: The World Needs To End US Impunity

December 30, 2021 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. , , ,
A report by The New York Times (NYT) earlier this month revealed that at least 1,400 innocent civilians were killed in numerous airstrikes, mostly drones strikes, carried out by the US forces since 2014 in Afghanistan and some countries in West Asia. The civilian toll of the US drone strikes has already been widely reported, with several other sources such as Airwars citing a larger number of civilian casualties. The NYT report also revealed the extent of the failure of the international community to ensure accountability and justice for the victims of these war crimes. The impunity enjoyed by the US is a key factor in such atrocities continuing to take place.

Samuel Moyn’s Unprincipled Attack On Human Rights Giant Michael Ratner

September 23, 2021 Marjorie Cohn, Jurist. , ,
Samuel Moyn’s vicious and unprincipled attack on Michael Ratner, one of the finest human rights attorneys of our time, was published in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) on September 1. Moyn singles out Ratner as a whipping boy to support his own bizarre theory that punishing war crimes prolongs war by making it more palatable. He disingenuously claims that enforcing the Geneva Conventions and opposing illegal wars are mutually exclusive. As Dexter Filkins noted in the New Yorker, Moyn’s “logic would favor incinerating entire cities, Tokyo style, if the resulting spectacles of agony lead more people to oppose American power.” Moyn takes Ratner—the long-time president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) who died in 2016—to task for filing Rasul v. Bush to give people indefinitely detained at Guantánamo the constitutional right to habeas corpus to challenge their detention.

Jail Killer Drone Operators Instead Of Drone Whistleblowers

September 19, 2021 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , ,
For decades the U.S. has been murdering innocent civilians, including U.S. citizens, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Mali and who knows where else.   Not one person in the military has been held accountable for these criminal acts. Instead, drone whistleblower Daniel Hale is sitting in prison with a 45 month sentence.  The August 29, 2021 deaths of ten innocent civilians, including seven children, in a family compound in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan by a hellfire missile fired from a U.S. military drone has brought the U.S. assassination program into massive public view.   The photos of the blood-stained walls and the mangled white Toyota in the family compound in densely populated Kabul have gotten incredible attention compared to the 15 years of drone strikes in isolated areas in which hundreds of people attending funerals and wedding parties were killed.

War Crimes Court ‘Monitoring Developments’ In West Bank

May 12, 2021 RT. , , ,
The International Criminal Court's top prosecutor says she is keeping a close eye on developments in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, as Israeli forces and Palestinians engage in deadly clashes and retaliatory strikes. In a tweet on Wednesday, the court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said she was concerned by developments in the region. "I note with great concern the escalation of violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in and around Gaza, and the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute," the prosecutor tweeted. "My office will continue to monitor developments on the ground and will factor any matter that falls within its jurisdiction." Bensouda said she echoed calls from the international community to de-escalate the situation, urging "calm" and "restraint."

Ramsey Clark, Presente

April 14, 2021 Sara Flounders, International Action Center. , , ,
We salute Ramsey Clark, who died April 9, 2021, an outspoken defender of all forms of popular resistance to oppression, a leader always willing to challenge the crimes of U.S. militarism and global arrogance. He remained optimistic that the power of people could determine history. His courageous voice will be missed. Ramsey Clark will be remembered by people and struggles around the world as a prominent  individual who used his name, reputation and legal skills to defend people’s movements and leaders who the corporate media had thoroughly demonized. Clark’s early belief in the U.S. role turned, through harsh experience and observation of what he considered U.S. war crimes, to a determination to challenge U.S. policy and defend the victims of U.S. aggressions regardless of personal cost.

Palestinian Groups Call On ICC To Take Swift Action

February 7, 2021 Morning Star. , , ,
Palestinian organisations have urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to move swiftly in holding Israel to account for its actions in the Occupied Territories after a landmark decision on Friday. Judges ruled that it is within the court’s remit hear war crimes allegations made against Israel in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. In a preliminary investigation opened six years ago, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda focused on 2014’s Israeli aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip, which left 2,257 Palestinians dead, along with 74 Israeli soldiers. In December 2019, Ms Bensouda said there was “a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”
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