Real liars go to Tehran By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE

Real liars go to Tehran

By Pepe Escobar 

Uncle Marx never thought about this one: history repeating itself as double tragedy after already being a farce in the first place. Let's examine the case in hand. First of all, take a close look at this Wall Street Journal op-ed from September 2002, in the hysterical run-up towards the invasion of Iraq. 

Title: The Case for Toppling Saddam. Author: Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu - then out of the Israeli government. 

It's all here: a "dictator who is rapidly expanding his arsenal of biological and chemical weapons" and "who is feverishly trying to acquire nuclear weapons"; the Saddam equals Hitler parallel; the portrayal of (de facto nuclear power) Israel as helpless victims of Palestinian "terror"; the claim that Saddam could produce nuclear fuel "in centrifuges the size of washing machines that can be hidden throughout the country - and Iraq is a very big country"; the cheerleading of a unilateral pre-emptive strike; and the inevitable conclusion that "nothing less than dismantling his regime will do''. 

Fast-forward over 10 years to this week in Israel. The scene: press conference of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and visiting US President Barack Obama. Anyone watching it live on al-Jazeera, from the Middle East to East Asia, must have thought they were watching a geopolitical Back to the Future - and frankly, Michael J Fox at least oozed charm. 

No charm here; this was more like an eerie, suit-and-tie Return of the Living Dead. Bibi and Obama were at pains to stress the US-Israel bond was "eternal". Actually Bibi preferred to stress that Iran's (non-existent) nuclear weapons posed an existential threat to Israel. He repeated, over and over again, that Obama was adamant; Israel was entitled to do anything to defend itself, and its security would not be anyone's responsibility, even Washington's. 

Obama, for his part, once again stressed that Washington's official policy towards Iran was not containment - but to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He stressed the "window of opportunity" was getting narrower; and, of course, that all options were on the table. 

The thought that the president of the United States (POTUS) willfully ignores the verdict of his own alphabet soup of intel agencies on Iran might raise eyebrows in a rational world. But this is not reality; more like a trashy reality show. 

Dream, dream, wet settler dream
The powers that be in Israel - neocon-infested US corporate media avalanche of denials notwithstanding - were absolutely essential in the whole Iraq War cheerleading operation; Ariel Sharon, at the time, boasted that the strategic coordination between Israel and the US had reached "unprecedented dimensions''. 

Bibi was just a cog in the wheel then - as Jim Lobe details here - quoting Bibi's pearls of wisdom dispensed to a misinformed-to-oblivion US Congress in 2002. 

Every usual "Israeli official" suspect at the time was breathlessly spinning that Saddam was only months away from a nuclear weapon. The bulk of WMD "intelligence" presented to Congress and faithfully parroted by corporate media was filtered if not entirely fabricated by Israeli intelligence - something duly detailed, among others, by Shlomo Brom in his study An Intelligence Failure, published by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University in November 2003. 

Of course it didn't matter that UN inspectors found no nuclear weapon program evidence on site. Of course it didn't matter that Saddam son-in-law Hussein Kamel, who had defected to Jordan in 1995, had told UN inspectors in detail there had been no WMDs whatsoever since 1991. 

Now it's double tragedy, and double farce, all over again. Yet even Nepalis building glitzy towers in Dubai know that the ''Bomb Iran'' hysteria is Tel Aviv's tactic to change the subject from the relentless land confiscation/ethnic cleansing in slow motion in Palestine and consequently the de facto total impossibility of a two-state solution. 

Here, Jonathan Cook succinctly details the frankly scary political configuration in Israel after the recent elections. The Israeli website Ynet has reported that Israeli settlers can't stop hailing their brand new "wet dream" cabinet. Translation: the ultimate nail in the coffin of the already dead and buried "peace process". 

So here's a modern geopolitical parable that would puzzle Aesop. Bibi publicly insults POTUS. He unabashedly supports Mitt Romney (who?) in the US presidential elections. He hits the "peace process" with a barrage of Hellfire "facts on the ground" (with loads of Palestine "collateral damage"). He sticks to his one and only message; Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran. And then POTUS, in theory the mighty Double O Bama with a license to kill (list) but actually behaving like an accidental tourist, lands in Israel with his kill list between his legs, to bask in Bibi's glory. 

No wonder the rabid American neo-con/Israeli firster/Bomb Iran crowd is gloating. Over 10 years ago their mantra was "Real Men go to Tehran". The question now is whether POTUS will be able to grow a set of proper cojones and stare them down. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

GOLDSTONE FACTS: The Real Story behind Israel's Invasion of Gaza

Chapter 13 of the Goldstone Report Attacks on the Foundations of Civilian Life in Gaza Destruction of Civilian Infrastructure, Food Production Factual Findings narrated by Ross Vachon Legal findings narrated by Noam Chomsky The Destruction of Sawafeary Chicken Farm and al Bader Flour Mill (Highlights include Mr Sawafeary's appeal to Ban Ki-moon)

It is instructive to juxtapose the 'findings' of the just released Israeli document Gaza Operation Investigations: Second update with what actually transpired. Observe how this farcical report tries to justify the destruction of the chicken farms. The Sawafeary chicken coops were located only a few meters away from one of the key IDF positions. The IDF position was, itself, dictated by the lay of the terrain in the area. As the command investigation determined, this IDF position could not be adequately secured if the chicken coop structures were left intact. The demolition of these structures was needed to allow a clean line of sight for protection of IDF forces. Following this logic, the IDF would have been quite justified in flattening the whole of Gaza strip in order to allow a 'clean line of sight for protection of IDF forces'. Relevant Excerpts from the Report The Sawafeary Chicken Coops 122. According to allegations included in the HRCFF Report,58 in January 2009 IDF forces bulldozed several chicken coops owned by the Sawafeary family in Zeytoun, purportedly as part of a deliberate strategy of destroying civilian infrastructure. 123. The command investigations conducted with regard to this incident reveal that the Sawafeary chicken coops were destroyed for reasons of military necessity. 124. Specifically, the investigations revealed that the area around the Sawafeary chicken coops was occupied by an IDF ground force beginning on 4 January 2009, as part of the ground maneuver, with the intention to take control of rockets and mortar launching sites and reducing the number of terror attacks on Israeli territory. The force took positions in several houses, including one house that was adjacent to the chicken coops. This positioning was necessary to secure the area for military operations against Hamas and to protect the IDF troops in those operations. The IDF’s defense plan for this area needed to meet three serious threats to the safety and security of the IDF troops: the firing of anti-tank and RPG missiles on IDF positions; sniper fire; and infiltration of terrorist operatives into the immediate vicinity of the forces in order to plant and detonate explosive devices, including by suicide bombers. 125. The terrain in the area made this location more dangerous for IDF forces. The area was agricultural in its original use and thus included many orchards, groves, and greenhouses, located between and around the houses occupied by the IDF. This made it harder for the IDF to identify Hamas positions and fighters. The threat was not theoretical—on 5 January 2009, an RPG missile was launched at one of the IDF positions in that area. In addition, several shooting incidents occurred originating from the orchards located to the south of the chicken coops. 126. In order to overcome these threats, the IDF decided to create a security zone around each of the IDF positions with a perimeter of 20–50 meters around each post, which would allow uninterrupted observation and firing capabilities for the force in each position, as well as joint protection among the different IDF outposts. These security zones allowed IDF forces to anticipate at an earlier stage the approach of terrorist operatives. 127. The Sawafeary chicken coops were located only a few meters away from one of the key IDF positions. The IDF position was, itself, dictated by the lay of the terrain in the area. As the command investigation determined, this IDF position could not be adequately secured if the chicken coop structures were left intact. The demolition of these structures was needed to allow a clean line of sight for protection of IDF forces. The investigation also determined that the decision to destroy the coops was consistent with the demands of the principle of proportionality: there was a compelling military need for the area to be cleared for the safety of the IDF forces and for the success of IDF operations against the Hamas forces operating in the area. The local commanders determined that these advantages outweighed the damage to private property that would result from the demolition. The commanders avoided the destruction of residential buildings or other facilities in the area, when such destruction was not required by military necessity or appeared to be disproportional. 128. The MAG reviewed the findings of the command investigation and concluded that the destruction of the chicken coops was lawful, as it was necessary to protect IDF forces operating in the area. It did not violate the limitation on destruction of private property because it was justified by military necessity. The MAG also found that the destruction of the chicken coops did not violate the ban on destroying any object that is indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. It was dictated by the location of specific operations against Hamas, and not part of a campaign to interfere with the production of food supplies in Gaza. It was not intended to deny the civilian population in Gaza access to essential commodities.59 As a result of these findings, the MAG determined that no further proceedings were necessary. 129. Although the MAG found no violation of the Law of Armed Conflict in this incident, he recommended several changes to IDF procedures in cases involving destruction of private property, which are detailed below in Section IV of this Paper. In particular, the MAG found that the decision to destroy the chicken coops was made by a relatively junior IDF officer, and that such decisions were more appropriately and typically made at more senior levels. While the MAG found that the particular rank of the officer making the decision did not indicate wrongful or criminal conduct (as neither the Law of Armed Conflict nor IDF procedures at the time required that such decisions be taken by an officer of any particular rank), he has recommended that the IDF’s procedures for destruction of civilian property be reviewed in several respects, as detailed in Section IV below.

Chapter 11 of the Goldstone Report Deliberate Attacks against the Civilian Population Factual Findings narrated by Ross Vachon Factual and Legal findings narrated by Noam Chomsky Live Testimonies of Khalid, Kawthar and Samar Abd Rabbo, relevant to the Goldstone Report's Findings

Praise for GOLDSTONE FACTS "...how could you possibly improve it? It is an excellent piece. Congratulations & thank you. I hope it will find wide distribution." -- Hedy Epstein "A faithful and compelling dramatization of a historic document" -- Norman G Finkelstein "I found the documentary to be very moving indeed, choosing as it did material that could engage one's interest within a time frame that seems to suit attention spans of our time. I found your selection of the incident to be exactly right: it is the one that has troubled me most." -- Colonel Desmond Travers

Future chapters will be available shortly with legal findings narrated by other prominent personalities. The just-released Israeli document Gaza Operation Investigations: Second update (July 2010) exonerated the IDF war criminals who, as our Chapter 11 video shows, deliberately shot four members of the Abd Rabbo family, in the process killing three, and rendering the fourth Samar Abd Rabbo a paraplegic for the rest of her life. The relevant excerpts from the document are quoted here to reinforce the point that only an international investigation into the crimes committed by Israel could bring justice to its victims. Amal, Souad, Samar, and Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo & Adham Kamiz Nasir 108. This incident involved the alleged shooting of four Palestinian civilians on 7 January 2009 in the neighborhood of Izbat Abd Rabbo, and was reported to Israeli authorities by several human rights organizations.51 The MAG referred the complaint to a direct criminal investigation which was recently concluded. In the course of this comprehensive investigation, the MPCID collected testimony from eleven Palestinians who witnessed the events. Some of them were unable or unwilling to testify before MPCID investigators, but provided detailed affidavits. In addition, the investigators reviewed medical reports and death certificates, as well as aerial photographs provided by an Israeli NGO, which helped identify the different units involved in the incident. More than fifty commanders and soldiers from these units were also questioned by the MPCID. Some were questioned multiple times in order to clarify the circumstances of the case. 109. The evidence collected in the course of the investigation could not confirm the description of the incident by the complainants, who claimed that a soldier standing on a tank had opened fire at a group of civilians. The substantial discrepancies between the complaint and the findings of the investigation—in particular, the identity of the force and the sequence of events—led the MAG to conclude that the evidence was insufficient to initiate criminal proceedings. 110. A second part of the complaint alleged that the IDF fired at a horse-driven carriage attempting to evacuate the civilians injured in the first shooting incident and subsequently killed the carriage’s driver. 111. The investigation confirmed that the carriage was fired upon by an IDF unit operating in the Izbat Abd Rabbo neighborhood. The unit had received a concrete warning that Hamas planned to send such a carriage loaded with explosives to detonate near an IDF position. The soldiers fired warning shots at the approaching carriage, which was loaded with bags that the soldiers thought contained explosives. When the carriage did not respond to the warning shots and continued its approach, the unit fired in its direction. 112. Under these circumstances, the MAG determined that the soldiers who fired at the carriage were not criminally liable. The MAG found that the soldiers’ decision to fire was made in light of their belief, at the time, that the carriage posed an immediate threat to the force. (The investigation revealed that the bags did not contain explosives.) Thus, despite the unfortunate results of the incident, the MAG decided to close the case.

US Troops Are Executing Prisoners in Afghanistan

US Troops Executing Prisoners in Afghanistan: Seymour Hersh

By David Edwards

May 12, 2010 "Rawstory" -- The journalist who helped break the story that detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were being tortured by their US jailers told an audience at a journalism conference last month that American soldiers are now executing prisoners in Afghanistan.

New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh also revealed that the Bush Administration had developed advanced plans for a military strike on Iran.

At the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva, Hersh criticized President Barack Obama, and alleged that US forces are engaged in "battlefield executions."

"I'll tell you right now, one of the great tragedies of my country is that Mr. Obama is looking the other way, because equally horrible things are happening to prisoners, to those we capture in Afghanistan," Hersh said. "They're being executed on the battlefield. It's unbelievable stuff going on there that doesn't necessarily get reported. Things don't change.:

"What they've done in the field now is, they tell the troops, you have to make a determination within a day or two or so whether or not the prisoners you have, the detainees, are Taliban," Hersh added. "You must extract whatever tactical intelligence you can get, as opposed to strategic, long-range intelligence, immediately. And if you cannot conclude they're Taliban, you must turn them free.

"What it means is, and I've been told this anecdotally by five or six different people, battlefield executions are taking place," he continued. "Well, if they can't prove they're Taliban, bam. If we don't do it ourselves, we turn them over to the nearby Afghan troops and by the time we walk three feet the bullets are flying. And that's going on now."

The video of Hersh was uploaded to Michael Moore's YouTube account Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Hersh has a long history as an investigative journalist and worked for many years at The New York Times. In 1969, he broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

AmeriKKKa Committed Atrocities in Afghanistan, Duh!

US-Committed Atrocities in Afghanistan - by Stephen Lendman

After General Stanley McChrystal took charge of US/NATO Afghan forces last June, systematic atrocities escalated sharply after promises of kinder, gentler killing (an oxymoron), winning hearts and minds, and fewer civilian casualties as a "paramount" objective - now much higher the result of more than a fourfold increase in night raids, targeting civilians, including children, while they sleep.

McChrystal's resume exposed his history - death squad terror, mostly against civilians, the same counterinsurgency he waged throughout Iraq as Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), especially in Al-Anbar Province that increased violence to curb it.

It's no surprise for a man this writer earlier called "a hired gun, an assassin, a man known for committing war crime atrocities as (JSOC) head" - since 1980 comprised of Army Delta Force and Navy Seal units, killers to reign terror on vulnerable targets, mainly civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and earlier in Vietnam as part of Operation Phoenix. More on that below.

Rare On-the-Ground Reports

The London Times Kabul-based Jerome Starkey reports what major US media accounts suppress. For example, his March 15 commentary headlined, "Survivors of family killed in Afghanistan raid threaten suicide attacks."

The incident involved the February 12 killing of two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a policeman and his brother. "No one has claimed responsibility (and) A US official in Kabul refused to" say for reasons of national security, the usual cover-up for high crimes and misdemeanors prohibited for any reason.

This time, survivors were paid off for their loss, but family head Haji Sharabuddin wants justice, not money, and to get it "will....do suicide attacks and (the whole province) will support us."

Starkey debunked the official story about the raid being a mistake. These were targeted assassinations, the same kinds rampant daily on the ground and by drone-launched missiles, mostly against civilians called Taliban or Al Qaeda militants.

Sayed Mohammed Mal, Gardez University's vice-chancellor, told Starkey that he once thought these type raids safeguarded Afghans, what he now knows isn't so after members of his own family were killed. "I realize I was wrong," he said. "Now I accept the things (other) people told me. I hate (foreign forces). I hate the Government" that tolerates them.

According to the dead policeman's son, Abdul Ghafar, "My father was friends with the Americans and they killed him....I want to kill them. I want the killers brought to justice." Another victim's father, Mohammed Tahir, said "They teach us human rights, then they kill a load of civilians. They didn't come here to end terrorism. They are terrorists."

A March 8 Starkey article titled, "Karzai offers families 'blood money' for sons killed in raid" told a similar story about other victims - "nine children killed (aged 12 - 18) in a brutal night raid" called a mistake - a cold-blooded one murdering children while they slept, shot in their beds, or dragged to another room and killed. Also, Abdul Khaliq, a neighboring farmer, was gunned down when he ran out of his house during the raid.

During the February Marja campaign, Operation Moshtarak killed 19 civilians. US Special Forces bombed three minibuses in Oruzgan province, killing at least 27 more, at times apologizing when victims are revealed as noncombatants.

As for the reported successful US offensive, New York Times writer Richard Oppel's April 3 article headlined otherwise, saying: "Violence Helps Taliban Undo Afghan Gains," explaining "how little (control) Marines (have) outside their own outposts," the Taliban as dominant as ever. So much so that "Even the Marines admit to being somewhat flummoxed," Brig. General Larry Nicholson saying "Most people here identify themselves as Taliban," stopping short of acknowledging widespread hostility to occupation.

Starkey's April 19, 2009 article headlined "Botched Afghan raid kills mother and (her brother-in-law and three) children (one a new-born)" in Khost province - another "mistake" the Pentagon conceded, the same kind made daily, always against civilians, admitted only as damage control, the official lie, when cover-up doesn't work.

A late December Kunar province massacre killed 8 children, dragged from their beds and shot in cold blood, some of them handcuffed. The Pentagon called them terrorists, making improvised explosive devices (IEDs). They were kids, students, in grades six through 10 (aged 11 - 17), eight from the same family. After speaking to their school headmaster, a government investigator said:

"It's impossible they were Al Qaeda. They were children. They were civilians. They were innocent. I condemn this attack."

In late February, nine more children were killed, aged 12 - 18. Most were "shot at close range while they slept," another dragged from his bed and murdered, NATO initially alleging their involvement in IED making, then saying they entered a village and took fire so returned it, and finally admitting they were civilians saying:

"Knowing what we know now, it would probably not have been a justifiable attack. We don't now believe that we busted a major ring," something known all along but only acknowledged as damage control.

On March 22, Starkey headlined "US-led forces in Afghanistan are committing atrocities, lying, and getting away with it," saying McChrystal-led forces "are rarely called to account because most reporters are too dependent on access, security and the 'embed culture' to venture out" and learn the truth. Worse still, they're paid to lie, cover up, or be fired.

For example, New York Times writers CJ Chivers and Rod Nordland's February 14 article headlined "Errant US Rocket Strike Kills Civilians in Afghanistan." It quoted Hamid Karzai expressing "regret (for) this tragic loss of life." Neither he or the writers acknowledged the cold-blooded murder of 10 Helmand province civilians, including five children, verboten admissions in major US media reports.

Nor by a puppet leader. Yet fearing national opposition to his regime, he's begun openly criticizing Washington saying, "They wanted to have a puppet government," virtually admitting that US/NATO forces are invaders.

Paid Lying - What Major US and Western Media Do

Like in America, the entire Western media, including BBC and so-called National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting scrupulously suppress the truth. They rarely mention "embarrassing" incidents, and when they do it's dismissively. They won't say raids terrorize, bomb homes and wedding parties, massacre civilians, their wives and children, noncombatants called Taliban or Al Qaeda, to save villages by destroying them, to pacify Afghans by killing them, to bring tyranny papered over as democracy. If reporters did, they'd be fired.

What they suppress, Starkey reports, his latest April 5 article headlined, "US special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan," saying:

"US special forces dug bullets out of their victims' bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened...."

The victims - two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother, those killed in the above mentioned February 12 raid. After initial lies and cover-up, NATO finally "admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night," yet continuing to deny a cover-up and saying no evidence showed inappropriate conduct. In other words, murdering civilians in cold blood is acceptable and appropriate. Apparently so as it's ongoing daily.

Extrajudicial Killings - Predator Drones Target Civilians

On March 16, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit:

"demanding that the government disclose the legal basis for its use of unmanned drones to conduct targeted killings overseas. In particular, the lawsuit asks for information on when, where and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, the number and rate of civilian casualties and the other basis information essential for assessing the wisdom and legality of using armed drones to conduct targeted killings."

At issue is using them against civilians, Admiral Dennis Blair, Obama's Director of National Intelligence (DNI), saying US citizens will be targeted.

The ACLU sued the Defense, State, and Justice Departments after each provided no requested information "nor have they given any reason for withholding documents. The CIA answered the ACLU's request by refusing to confirm or deny the existence of any relevant documents." CIA wasn't sued because the ACLU will first appeal its non-response to the Agency Release Panel.

Killer drones were used in Bosnia in 1995 and against Serbia in 1999. America's new weapon of choice is now commonplace in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, perhaps elsewhere, and virtually anywhere targeted attacks are planned globally.

Officially know as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or remote piloted vehicles (RPVs), they're used, among other purposes, for surveillance and combat equipped with Hellfire or other missiles for targeted killings.

At issue is their legality, given their use outside traditional battlefields for extrajudicial assassinations, a practice US and international laws prohibit. Yet reports confirm the Obama administration ramping up their use - why the ACLU and other human rights groups express concern.

A December 2009 Social Science Research Network-published Notre Dame Legal Studies Paper titled, "Unlawful Killing with Combat Drones: A Case Study of Pakistan, 2004 - 2009" said the following:

"First drones launch missiles or drop bombs, the kind of weapons that may only be used lawfully in an armed conflict. Until the spring of 2009, there was no armed conflict (in Pakistan). International law does not recognize the right to kill without warning outside an actual armed conflict. Killing without warning is only tolerated during the hostilities of an armed conflict, and, then, only lawful combatants may lawfully carry" them out.

CIA members "are not lawful combatants and their participation in killing persons - even in an armed conflict - is a crime." US military forces may be "lawful combatants in Pakistan" only if its government requested them. It did not.

Further, beyond targeted individuals, collateral killing is commonplace. "Drones have rarely, if ever, killed just the intended target. By October 2009, the ratio has been up to" 50 civilians for each militant. As a result, drone use violates "the war-fighting principles of distinction, necessity, proportionality and humanity."

Yet they happen daily in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and have escalated dramatically under General McChrystal for extrajudicial killings. Along with bombers and helicopter gunships, their use in Afghanistan (and North Waziristan, Pakistan) is so pervasive that anyone in the open or near targeted sites risks being killed - civilians, including women and children, most vulnerable.

Spiegel online (spiegel.de March 13, 2010) calls killer drones the "Lynchpin of Obama's War on Terror....the weapon of choice....But the political, military and moral consequences are incalculable."

One report said in the past two years the Air Force Research Laboratory embarked on a program to "build the ultimate assassination robot (described as) a tiny, armed drone for the US special forces to employ in terminating 'high-value targets' " that most often are noncombatants.

On April 4, New York Times writers Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah headlined, "Drones Batter Qaeda and Allies Within (North Waziristan) Pakistan," referring to a "stepped-up campaign....over the past three months (casting) a pall of fear over an area (by) fly(ing) overhead sometimes four at a time, emitting a beelike hum virtually 24 hours a day, observing and tracking targets, then unleashing missiles on their quarry...." The ferocity of strikes got one "militant" to say, "It seems they really want to kill everyone....," civilians, of course, most vulnerable.

Vietnam's Operation Phoenix - Prototype for McChrystal's War

From 1968 - 1973, the CIA ran the Phoenix Program with US Special Forces' Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Special Operations Group (MACV-SOG), involving covert missions to crush the National Liberation Front (NFL resistance Viet Cong or VC).

It was a depersonalized murder program to remove opposition elements and terrorize people into submission - now used against Iraq, Afghanistan, North Waziristan, Pakistan, elsewhere, and perhaps one day coming to a neighborhood near you.

In 1975, Counterspy magazine called Phoenix "the most indiscriminate and massive program of political murder since the Nazi death camps of world war two." Included were security-risk US military personnel and members of the South Vietnamese government. Before it ended, around 80,000 people were killed, yet it failed.

In the mid-1960s, it began as a CIA Counter Terror (CT) program that recruited, organized, supplied and directly paid CT teams whose function was to use Vietcong techniques, kidnappings and intimidation against the Vietcong leadership.

By 1968, it was expanded and called Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX), then Phoenix, to neutralize the VC as top priority, much like McChrystal's counterterrorism in Afghanistan and North Waziristan, and earlier in Iraq.

In Vietnam, a Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) organization was established overseeing Phoenix. It was a gimmick doomed to fail, much like current Iraq and Afghanistan occupations aren't sustainable in countries known historically as foreign occupier graveyards.

Phoenix was called Vietnam's "grand illusion of the American cause," the same miscalculation today no matter how long current wars continue, whatever amounts are spent, or how much more terror, mass killings and destruction lie ahead for people determined to resist and prevail. Given their past successes, odds are they'll do it again, no matter the price.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/

http://lendmennews.progressiveradionetwork.org/

The United States takes the matter of three-headed babies very seriously.

When did it begin, all this "We take your [call/problem/question] very seriously"? With answering-machine hell? As you wait endlessly, the company or government agency assures you that they take seriously whatever reason you're calling. What a kind and thoughtful world we live in.

The BBC reported last month that doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the United States during its fierce onslaughts of 2004 and subsequently, which left much of the city in ruins. "It was like an earthquake," a local engineer who was running for a national assembly seat told the Washington Post in 2005. "After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was Fallujah." Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe.

The BBC correspondent also saw children in the city who were suffering from paralysis or brain damage, and a photograph of one baby who was born with three heads. He added that he heard many times that officials in Fallujah had warned women that they should not have children. One doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 — when she saw about one case every two months — with the situation now, when she saw cases every day. "I've seen footage of babies born with an eye in the middle of the forehead, the nose on the forehead," she said.

A spokesman for the US military, Michael Kilpatrick, said it always took public health concerns "very seriously", but that "No studies to date have indicated environmental issues resulting in specific health issues." ¹

One could fill many large volumes with the details of the environmental and human horrors the United States has brought to Fallujah and other parts of Iraq during seven years of using white phosphorous shells, depleted uranium, napalm, cluster bombs, neutron bombs, laser weapons, weapons using directed energy, weapons using high-powered microwave technology, and other marvelous inventions in the Pentagon's science-fiction arsenal ... the list of abominations and grotesque ways of dying is long, the wanton cruelty of American policy shocking. In November 2004, the US military targeted a Fallujah hospital "because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties." ² That's on a par with the classic line from the equally glorious American war in Vietnam: "We had to destroy the city to save it."

How can the world deal with such inhumane behavior? (And the above of course scarcely scratches the surface of the US international record.) For this the International Criminal Court (ICC) was founded in Rome in 1998 (entering into force July 1, 2002) under the aegis of the United Nations. The Court was established in The Hague, Netherlands to investigate and indict individuals, not states, for "The crime of genocide; Crimes against humanity; War crimes; or The crime of aggression." (Article 5 of the Rome Statute) From the very beginning, the United States was opposed to joining the ICC, and has never ratified it, because of the alleged danger of the Court using its powers to "frivolously" indict Americans.

So concerned about indictments were the American powers-that-be that the US went around the world using threats and bribes against countries to induce them to sign agreements pledging not to transfer to the Court US nationals accused of committing war crimes abroad. Just over 100 governments so far have succumbed to the pressure and signed an agreement. In 2002, Congress, under the Bush administration, passed the "American Service Members Protection Act", which called for "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by ... the International Criminal Court." In the Netherlands it's widely and derisively known as the "Invasion of The Hague Act". ³ The law is still on the books.

Though American officials have often spoken of "frivolous" indictments — politically motivated prosecutions against US soldiers, civilian military contractors, and former officials — it's safe to say that what really worries them are "serious" indictments based on actual events. But they needn't worry. The mystique of "America the Virtuous" is apparently alive and well at the International Criminal Court, as it is, still, in most international organizations; indeed, amongst most people of the world. The ICC, in its first few years, under Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine, dismissed many hundreds of petitions accusing the United States of war crimes, including 240 concerning the war in Iraq. The cases were turned down for lack of evidence, lack of jurisdiction, or because of the United States' ability to conduct its own investigations and trials. The fact that the US never actually used this ability was apparently not particularly significant to the Court. "Lack of jurisdiction" refers to the fact that the United States has not ratified the accord. On the face of it, this does seem rather odd. Can nations commit war crimes with impunity as long as they don't become part of a treaty banning war crimes? Hmmm. The possibilities are endless. A congressional study released in August, 2006 concluded that the ICC's chief prosecutor demonstrated "a reluctance to launch an investigation against the United States" based on allegations regarding its conduct in Iraq. ⁴ Sic transit gloria International Criminal Court.

As to the crime of aggression, the Court's statute specifies that the Court "shall exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once a provision is adopted ... defining the crime and setting out the conditions under which the Court shall exercise jurisdiction with respect to this crime." In short, the crime of aggression is exempted from the Court's jurisdiction until "aggression" is defined. Writer Diana Johnstone has observed: "This is a specious argument since aggression has been quite clearly defined by U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3314 in 1974, which declared that: 'Aggression is the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State', and listed seven specific examples," including:

The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof; and

Bombardment by the armed forces of a State against the territory of another State or the use of any weapons by a State against the territory of another State.

The UN resolution also stated that: "No consideration of whatever nature, whether political, economic, military or otherwise, may serve as a justification for aggression."

The real reason that aggression remains outside the jurisdiction of the ICC is that the United States, which played a strong role in elaborating the Statute before refusing to ratify it, was adamantly opposed to its inclusion. It is not hard to see why. It may be noted that instances of "aggression", which are clearly factual, are much easier to identify than instances of "genocide", whose definition relies on assumptions of intention. ⁵

There will be a conference of the ICC in May, in Kampala, Uganda, in which the question of specifically defining "aggression" will be discussed. The United States is concerned about this discussion. Here is Stephen J. Rapp, US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, speaking to the ICC member nations (111 have ratified thus far) in The Hague last November 19:

I would be remiss not to share with you my country's concerns about an issue pending before this body to which we attach particular importance: the definition of the crime of aggression, which is to be addressed at the Review Conference in Kampala next year. The United States has well-known views on the crime of aggression, which reflect the specific role and responsibilities entrusted to the Security Council by the UN Charter in responding to aggression or its threat, as well as concerns about the way the draft definition itself has been framed. Our view has been and remains that, should the Rome Statute be amended to include a defined crime of aggression, jurisdiction should follow a Security Council determination that aggression has occurred.

Do you all understand what Mr. Rapp is saying? That the United Nations Security Council should be the body that determines whether aggression has occurred. The same body in which the United States has the power of veto. To prevent the adoption of a definition of aggression that might stigmatize American foreign policy is likely the key reason the US will be attending the upcoming conference.

Nonetheless, the fact that the United States will be attending the conference may well be pointed out by some as another example of how the Obama administration foreign policy is an improvement over that of the Bush administration. But as with almost all such examples, it's a propaganda illusion. Like the cover of Newsweek magazine of March 8, written in very large type: "Victory at last: The emergence of a democratic Iraq". Even before the current Iraqi electoral farce — with winning candidates arrested or fleeing ⁶— this headline should have made one think of the interminable jokes Americans made during the Cold War about Pravda and Izvestia.

Notes

1. BBC, March 4, 2010; Washington Post, December 3, 2005 ^↩
2. New York Times, November 8, 2004 ^↩
3. Christian Science Monitor, February 13, 2009 ^↩
4. Washington Post, November 7, 2006 ^↩
5. Diana Johnstone, Counterpunch, January 27/28, 2007 ^↩
6. Washington Post, April 2, 2010 ^↩–

William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

VICTIMS OF URANIUM MUNITIONS USED BY THE US FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN: Warning – Horrific Images

Caution: The images presented here are so horrific that it had me in tears just dealing with the ‘technics’ of uploading them. As with the Gaza victims file, I have left them off the Home Page. If you wish to view them click on the Continue Reading link. And I urge folks to do something about this, how can we stand aside? It is after all, being done in OUR name. The Ed

Dear readers and viewers:

These photos of newly-born infants have been taken by Dr. Mohammad Daud Miraki, a well-known Afghan researcher, anthropologist, sociologist and scholar. He visited Afghanistan to find out about the situation after the American invasion of Afghanistan. The deformed infants are the result of the uranium munitions used by American troops and bomber aircrafts all over Afghanistan under the pretext of fighting terrorism. However, the majority of deformed babies cases have been found in Pashtu-speaking areas which are bearing the brunt of the American attacks. American troops use weapons like white phosphorus bombs and depleted uranium which are banned on world level.

For the past eight years when American and Allied invading troops invaded our dear country Afghanistan, more than one hundred thousands Afghans have lost their lives during American aerial bombardment and ground attacks. No night passes without the American special operations force, joined by the CIA and Blackwater operatives launch raids on civilian houses and kill innocent people including children, women and old men.

American intelligence agents equipped with sophisticated arms violate human rights in Afghanistan and kill civilians with impunity.

We call on all anthropologists to come forward and expose the brutalities of the American invading troops committed under the name of war on terror. It is the responsibility of all writers, statesmen, and freedom-loving personalities to save the dignity and humane values from being effaced from the world at the hand of the evil empire of America.

VICTIMS OF URANIUM MUNITIONS USED BY THE US FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN

I took this photo on the last day of my journey: one the triplets

Afghanistan has become the disaster words could not describe, hence, I decided to illustrate this disaster via these photos of babies born deformed.

On many occasions, I pointed out that we need funds to build a research institute and the linked monitoring stations. Unfortunately, majority of you simply brushed off my request. I wonder if these photos could make you think.

Again, it is up to you, to do whatever you think is humane; however, it should not be too difficult. The funds for the research institute are very small price you have to pay after all your tax dollars–though you are not in control of– have nonetheless created this disaster. If everyone visiting this web site pays the amount they spend on soft drinks in a month, we would have the funds to build our research facility:

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN ACTION—’FREEDOM IS ON THE MOVE’ RIGHT? The GOVERNMENT of this COUNTRY IS CRIMINAL. I HOPE YOU ARE NOT INDIFFERENT AND IRRESPONSIBLE!!

YOU MIGHT SAY, ‘THAT’S LIFE WHAT COULD I DO’ CONTRIBUTE TO BUILD A RESEARCH FACILITY—

PAINFUL REMINDER OF THE GENOCIDE COMMITTED BY THE US GOVERNMENT

The Gift that Keeps on giving: Uranium munitions

This child’s family also had hopes

The painful reminder of Democracy Made in America

Imagine what would the parents of this child think about the US and the people here?

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF YOUR CHILDREN WERE BORN LIKE THIS?

Painful, IS IT NOT?

AND,

HERE YOU GO AGAIN, MORE VICTIMS OF URANIUM MUNITIONS–DEMOCRACY AMERICAN STYLE,

AND MORE,

THIS CHILD DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A CHILD,

ANOTHER PAINFUL REMINDER OF ‘DEMOCRACY’ AMERICAN STYLE

NO ONE WANTS THEIR CHILD TO LOOK LIKE THIS

LIBERATING WOMEN? SHE STILL WEARS BURQA BUT HER CHILDREN WILL NOT GROW TO SEE THEIR MOTHER AND FATHER

BODILY ORGANS OUTSIDE THE BODY

DEFORMED GENITALIA

A child born with one eye

OUR CHILDREN WOULD BE BORN THIS WAY FOR EVER THANKS TO THE URANIUM MUNITIONS USED BY YOUR ARMED FORCES PAID FOR BY YOUR TAX DOLLARS [AND POUNDS/EUROS].

OH A FEW MINOR DETAILS ABOUT SITUATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN:

URANIUM MUNITIONS

Due to the use of massive amount of uranium munitions used by the US forces in the initial bombing and subsequently, massive amount of congenital deformities occur all over Afghanistan. The rate of various cancers has gone up significantly. Leukemia and esophageal cancers are very high among children. According to doctors at maternity and children hospitals in Kabul, the rate of various congenital deformities have increased by many folds since the US invasion. In fact, the magnitude of man made isotopes was established by the Uranium Medical Research Center after their investigators made to trips to Afghanistan and collected urine and soil samples. They established that the rate of man made isotopes was gone up 2000 times in some subjects located near the bombed areas.

Since uranium used in the weapons have a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the US forces ensured that generations of Afghans suffer from cancers and deformities. This is certainly not development. In fact, it is the biggest crime ever committed by anyone in the history of humanity.

• 

Depleted Uranium: A War Crime Within a War Crime By William Bowles

As if destroying a country and its culture ain’t bad enough, how about destroying its future, its children? I want to scream it from the rooftops! We are complicit in crimes of such enormity that I find it difficult to find the words to describe how I feel about this crime committed in my name! In the name of the ‘civilized’ world?

“Forget about oil, occupation, terrorism or even Al-Qaeda. The real hazard for Iraqis these days is cancer. Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment.” — Jalal Ghazi, for New America Media

According to Dahr Jamail,

“The U.S. and British militaries used more than 1,700 tons of depleted uranium in Iraq in the 2003 invasion (Jane’s Defence News, 4/2/04)-on top of 320 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War (Inter Press Service, 3/25/03). Literally every local person I’ve ever spoken with in Iraq during my nine months of reporting there knows someone who either suffers from or has died of cancer.

/../

Ghazi reported that in Fallujah, which bore the brunt of two massive U.S. military operations in 2004, as many as 25 percent of newborn infants have serious physical abnormalities. Cancer rates in Babil, an area south of Baghdad, have risen from 500 cases in 2004 to more than 9,000 in 2009. Dr. Jawad al-Ali, the director of the Oncology Center in Basra, told Al Jazeera English (10/12/09) that there were 1,885 cases of cancer in all of 2005; between 1,250 and 1,500 patients visit his center every month now. — ‘The New ‘Forgotten’ War’ By Dahr Jamail, 15 March, 2010

Even the BBC was forced to acknowledge the reality (Listen: ‘Child deformities ‘increasing’ in Falluja’ 4 March, 2010). True to form I searched the BBC Website in vain for the video clip I watched last week, so you are spared the horrific scenes I witnessed, recorded in Fallujah’s main hospital. Had this been Saddam’s legacy, we would have seen images like the one above endlessly repeated in the mass media, complete with UN resolutions and the like.

The short piece posted on the BBC Website ends thus:

“In a statement, the Pentagon said that “No studies to date have indicated environmental issues resulting in specific health issues. Unexploded ordinance, including improvised explosive devises, are a recognised hazard.””

End of story as far as the BBC is concerned. So how come this isn’t a headline? Even Stop the War Coalition barely mentions it, more concerned it seems with the plight of imperialism’s warriors, Britain’s warriors who have shooting this foul stuff at not only Iraq’s innocents but at the innocents of the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. But then we are the citizens of Empire which explains why Stop the War has little or nothing to say on the subject.

“When they said that depleted uranium was the US empire’s weapon of choice, they lied. The word “depleted” is a public relations spin. It makes it sound like the nuclear material is worn out. It’s not. It’s Uranium. Let’s just call it Uranium. In other words, DU is low-level nuclear waste. DU can also contain trace amounts of “neptunium, plutonium, americium, technitium-99 and uranium-236.” — http://tuberose.com/

British and US government statements that Depleted Uranium is a ‘conventional’ weapon are contradicted by the facts:

• Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapon of mass destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50 Chapter 40 Section 2302.
• Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere. That is 10 times the amount released during atmospheric testing which was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. The U.S. has permanently contaminated the global atmosphere with radioactive pollution having a half-life of 2.5 billion years.
• The U.S. has illegally conducted four nuclear wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and twice in Iraq since 1991, calling DU “conventional” weapons when in fact they are nuclear weapons.
• DU on the battlefield has three effects on living systems: it is a heavy metal “chemical” poison, a “radioactive” poison and has a “particulate” effect due to the very tiny size of the particles that are 0.1 microns and smaller.
• The blueprint for DU weaponry is a 1943 Manhattan Project memo to Gen. L. Groves that recommended development of radioactive materials as poison gas weapons – dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets.
• DU weapons are very effective kinetic energy penetrators, but even more effective bioweapons since uranium has a strong chemical affinity for phosphate structures concentrated in DNA.
• DU is the Trojan Horse of nuclear war – it keeps giving and keeps killing. There is no way to clean it up, and no way to turn it off because it continues to decay into other radioactive isotopes in over 20 steps.
• Terry Jemison at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stated in August 2004 that over 518,000 Gulf-era veterans (14-year period) are now on medical disability, and that 7,039 were wounded on the battlefield in that same period. Over 500,000 U.S. veterans are homeless.
• In some studies of soldiers who had normal babies before the war, 67 percent of the post-war babies are born with severe birth defects – missing brains, eyes, organs, legs and arms, and blood diseases.
• In southern Iraq, scientists are reporting five times higher levels of gamma radiation in the air, which increases the radioactive body burden daily of inhabitants. In fact, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan are uninhabitable.
• Cancer starts with one alpha particle under the right conditions. One gram of DU is the size of a period in this sentence and releases 12,000 alpha particles per second. — http://tuberose.com/

So come on all you allegedly civilized people, what are you going to about it?

PS: Oh, I forgot about the DU weapons supplied to Israel by the US, also dropped on the people of Gaza.

We're The Cops Of The World

We're The Cops Of The World @ Yahoo! Video

Law Suit against 4 US Presidents & 4 UK Prime Ministers for War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity & Genocide in Iraq

Statement on Closure of Legal Case for Iraq in Spain

by BRussells Tribunal

Law Suit in Spanish Court directed against George H. W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown

MADRID/CAIRO: Public inquiries on the decision to wage war on Iraq that are silent about the crimes committed, the victims involved, and provide for no sanction, whatever their outcome, are not enough. Illegal acts should entail consequences: the dead and the harmed deserve justice.

On 6 October 2009, working with and on behalf of Iraqi plaintiffs, we filed a case before Spanish law against four US presidents and four UK prime ministers for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq. The case presented spanned 19 years, including not only the wholesale destruction of Iraq witnessed from 2003, but also the sanctions period during which 1.5 million excess Iraqi deaths were recorded.

We brought the case to Spain because its laws of universal jurisdiction are based on principles enshrined in its constitution. All humanity knows the crimes committed in Iraq by those we accused, but no jurisdiction is bringing them to justice. We presented with Iraqi victims a solid case drawing on evidence contained in over 900 documents and that refer to thousands of individual incidents from which a pattern of accumulated harm and intent can be discerned.

When we brought our case, we knew that the Spanish Senate would soon vote on an amendment earlier passed by the lower house of parliament to curtail the application of universal jurisdiction in Spain. We were conscious that this restriction could be retroactive, and we took account of the content of the proposed amendment in our case filing. As we imagined, 2009 turned out to be a sad year for upholding universal human rights and international law in Spain. One day after we filed, the law was curtailed, and soon thereafter our case closed. Serious cases of the kind universal jurisdiction exists to address became more difficult to investigate.

One more jurisdiction to fall

Despite submitting a 110-page long referenced accusation (the Introduction of which is appended to this statement), the Spanish public prosecutor and the judge assigned to our case determined there was no reason to investigate. Their arguments were erroneous and could easily have been refuted if we could have appealed. To do so we needed a professional Spanish lawyer — either in a paid capacity or as a volunteer who wished to help the Iraqi people in its struggle for justice. As we had limited means, and for other reasons mostly concerning internal Spanish affairs, which were not our concern, we could not secure a lawyer in either capacity to appeal. Our motion for more time to find a lawyer was rejected.

We continue to believe that the violent killing of over one million people in Iraq since 2003 alone, the ongoing US occupation — that carries direct legal responsibility — and the displacement of up to a fifth of the Iraqi population from the terror that occupation has entailed and incited suggests strongly that the claims we put forward ought to be further investigated.

In reality, our case is a paramount example of those that authorities in the West — Spain included — fear. To them, such cases represent the double edge of sustaining the principle of universal jurisdiction. Western states used universal jurisdiction in the past to judge Third World countries. When victims in the global South began using it to judge Israel and US aggression, Western countries rushed to restrict it. Abandoning universal jurisdiction by diluting it is now the general tendency.

Call for wider collective effort to prosecute

We regret that the Spanish courts refused to investigate our case, but this will not discourage us. We have a just cause. The crimes are evident. Those responsible are well known, even if the international juridical system continues to ignore Iraqi victims. Justice for victims and the wish of all humanity that war criminals should be punished oblige us to search for alternative legal possibilities, so that the crimes committed in Iraq can be investigated and accountability established.

At present, failed international justice allows US and UK war criminals to stand above international law. Understanding that this constitutes an attack — or makes possible future attacks — on the human rights of everyone, everywhere, we will continue to advocate the use of all possible avenues, including UN institutions, the International Criminal Court, and popular tribunals, to highlight and bring before law and moral and public opinion US and UK crimes in Iraq.

We are ready to make our experience and expertise available to those who struggle in the same direction. We look forward to a time when the countries of the global South, which are generally victims of aggression, reinforce their juridical systems by implementing the principle of universal jurisdiction. This will be a great service to humanity and international law.

Millions of people in Iraq have been killed, displaced, terrorised, detained, tortured or impoverished under the hammer of US and UK military, economic, political, ideological and cultural attacks. The very fabric and being of the country has been subject to intentional destruction. This destruction constitutes one of the gravest international crimes ever committed. All humanity should unite in refusing that law — by failing to assure justice for Iraqi victims — enables this destruction to be the opening precedent of the 21st century.

Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

Press contacts:

Hana Al Bayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+20 10 027 7964 (English and French) hanaalbayaty@gmail.com

Dr Ian Douglas, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal, coordinator, International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq
+20 12 167 1660 (English) iandouglas@USgenocide.org

Serene Assir, Advisory Committee, BRussells Tribunal (Spanish) justiciaparairak@gmail.com

Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+20 11 181 0798 (Arabic) albayaty_abdul@hotmail.com

Dirk Adriaensens, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+32 494 68 07 62 (Dutch) dirkadriaensens@gmail.com

Web:
www.brusselstribunal.org
www.USgenocide.org
www.twitter.com/USgenocide
www.facebook.com/USgenocide

This statement:
http://brusselstribunal.org/LegalCaseSpain070210.htm

---

INTRODUCTION TO THE LEGAL CASE FILED BEFORE THE AUDIENCIA NACIONAL ON 6 OCTOBER 2009

The following is the introduction to a legal case filed 6 October 2009 before the Audiencia Nacional in Spain against four US presidents and four UK prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq. The case was filed under laws of universal jurisdiction.

This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown, was brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law.

Introduction

The respondents herein identified in this complaint have all held or hold high public office in the administrations of the United States and the United Kingdom, and/or commanding authority in the respective armed forces of these countries, and whilst in command or in office actively instigated, authorized, supported, justified, executed and/or perpetuated:

1. A 13-year sanctions regime on Iraq known and proven to have an overwhelmingly destructive impact on Iraqi public health, especially child mortality
2. The use of disproportionate and indiscriminate military force, including numerous extra-legal strikes and bombing campaigns throughout the 1990s, entailing the purposeful destruction of Iraq’s water and health facilities, and defence capacities, and the widespread contamination of Iraq’s ecosphere and life environment by the unjustified and massive use of depleted uranium munitions
3. The prevention by means of comprehensive sanctions, and/or military strikes, of the reconstruction of Iraq’s critical civil infrastructure, including its health, water and sanitation systems, and the decontamination of Iraq’s ecosphere/life environment, backed by the threat of Security Council veto where unanimity was not present for such strikes and/or the continuance of the sanctions regime
4. The launching of an illegal war of aggression against Iraq based on deliberate falsification of threat assessment intelligence and systematic efforts to conceal from the general public in the United States and the United Kingdom, and other countries, along with parts of the military command structure of the respective armed forces deployed, the true aims and objectives of that war
5. Establishing by design an occupation apparatus that by its incompetence, inexperience, corruption and/or ideological or sectarian alignment and actions would finalize the destruction of the Iraqi state and the attempted destruction of Iraqi national unity and identity, entailing an attack upon Iraqis as a whole and the intended destruction of the Iraqi national group as such.

The acts ordered and/or continued and perpetuated by the respondents identified in this complaint were unlawful in nature, were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be unlawful in nature, and were based on manifest and purposive lies, manipulations, deliberately misleading presentations of facts, and baseless assertions and other false justifications. The consistency of the propaganda effort that supported and contextualized these unlawful acts was such — and was aimed and known to be so — that it constituted an international campaign of demonization and dehumanization of Iraqis, the Iraqi nation, the Iraqi state, Iraq’s civil and military leadership, Iraq’s civil administrative apparatus, and Iraq in its Arab context. As such, and through actions taken and summarized below, the respondents:

1. Deprived the Iraqi people of all or the majority of their fundamental rights as established and protected by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, expressed in the UN Charter and conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions, including the right of defence
2. Structured and implemented policies that continue to deprive the Iraqi people of their sovereignty and the exercise of their freedom, human rights, and civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, as established and guaranteed by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including the UN Charter and conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions
3. Consistently gave political and legal cover to these acts, even as these acts were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be in violation of international law, including peremptory or jus cogens standards of law
4. Asserted and defended extra-legal immunity for all those engaged in acts that have attacked the protected rights of the Iraqi people, and established a pattern of impunity for those accused of such attacks by failing to adequately investigate and prosecute specific and general allegations of grave abuses, and/or to ensure responsibility is assumed throughout the chain of command that permitted or failed to prohibit such attacks, and/or dismissed or distorted numerous customary legal standards, including the laws of war and those that outlaw the preemptive use of force in international relations
5. Abused and overran international law, the guarantor of international order, peace and security, which the United Nations System exists to protect and is deemed to embody, enshrined in the UN Charter, and upon whose foundation the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gains positive affect and final meaning.

Opportunity for redress for Iraqi victims in their own national jurisdiction is non-existent as Iraq remains occupied, its sovereign institutions dismantled and non-functioning. Despite numerous individual petitions submitted to its chief prosecutor, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has stated that it has no jurisdiction to hear cases of abuses and violations of human rights standards and international humanitarian law in Iraq. In light of US and UK threats to use permanent member veto power in the past, it is not foreseeable that the Security Council in the future will refer complaints in Iraq to the ICC, and nor can Iraqis wait for Security Council reform. Without effective investigation and prosecution of these abuses and violations, the international community runs the risk of allowing a precedent of unlawful action of such grave magnitude to be set without censure, thereby endangering the rights and dignity not only of Iraqis but also of people the world over. Such a precedent would be contrary to the UN Charter and the principles upon which the international order of states is deemed to be founded. The basis for public acceptance of a state of law is that it protects peace and defends the wellbeing of the people. Failure to investigate and effectively prosecute the catalogue of grave abuses and violations perpetrated by the respondents in Iraq, and against the Iraqi people, would constitute an ongoing and inherent threat to the basis of the international order in general and to international peace and security specifically.

Alongside those in official positions of authority, key political advisers, lobbyists, strategists and corporate representatives have also played a crucial role in the ideological and political justifications and legitimization sought and falsely proposed in order to execute the overall policy embraced, inclusive of an accumulated pattern of attacks, military and otherwise, that has lasted 19 years to date, culminating in the 2003 illegal war of aggression waged on Iraq and that continues to be executed despite wide and ongoing condemnation. Though there are nuances of responsibility inherent to the nature of policy construction and execution, the personal relations and interconnections between primary and secondary level individuals involved, and the groups or common circles to which they belong, testify to a large degree of cohesion present in intent and action among the respondents identified and those who support and benefit from the policies they have pursued. At the least, this shared intent is one of deliberate harm; at worst, it amounts to an objective intent to destroy for definable, and at times publicly enunciated, strategic, geopolitical and geo-economic reasons. Furthermore, none of the respondents can reasonably claim they did not have knowledge of the likely outcome of their policies, and those they supported, as all had not only participated in the design and execution of these policies, but they continued to execute said policies once their effects were widely known and had been proven to be detrimental to — and destructive of — the health, sovereignty and rights of the Iraqi people, and further have defended these policies and in majority continue to do so.

From the start of the implementation of a US-instigated and dominantly administered sanctions regime up to the present day, an approximate total of 2,700,000 Iraqis have died as a direct result of sanctions followed by the US-UK led war of aggression on, and occupation of, Iraq beginning in 2003. Among those killed during the sanctions period were 560,000 children. From 2003 onwards, having weakened Iraq’s civil and military infrastructure to the degree that its people were rendered near totally defenceless, Iraq was subject to a level of aggression of near unprecedented scale and nature in international history, occurring in parallel with the promotion of a partition plan for Iraq, the substantial direct funding of sectarian groups and militias that would play a key role in fragmenting the country under occupation, both administratively and in terms of national identity, the cancellation of the former state apparatus and the dismissal of its personnel entailing the collapse of all public services and state protection for the Iraqi people, the further destruction of the health and education systems of Iraq, and the creation of waves of internal and external displacement totaling nearly 5,000,000 Iraqis, or one fifth of the Iraqi population. By December 2007, the Iraqi Anti-Corruption Board reported that there were up to 5,000,000 orphans in Iraq, while the Iraqi Ministry of Women’s Affairs counts 3,000,000 widows as of 2009.

Such massive destruction of life, having as context a 19-year period of accumulated attacks, with numerous warnings and opportunities for remedy and a reversal of policy ignored, cannot be mere happenstance. Indeed, the paramount charge that must be investigated, and that plain fact evidence suggests, is that this level of destruction has been integral to the US and UK’s shared international policy for Iraq. The destruction in whole or in part of the Iraqi people as a national group, and depriving this group of all or the majority of its rights, appears from a reasoned account of the catalogue of violations, abuses and attacks to which the Iraqi people have been subject to be the unlawful means pursued purposely by the respondents in order to redraw by force the strategic and political map of the Arab region and Iraq’s place within that context, and to capture, appropriate and plunder, via the cancellation of the sovereignty of the Iraqi people and the destruction and fragmentation of their identity and unity as a national group, Iraq’s substantial natural energy resources. Historically, the Iraqi national group, variegated yet cohesive, was and continues to be, despite the aggression faced, firmly rooted in its overwhelming majority in the concept of citizenship of the Iraqi state — a state founded on public provision of services and a nationally owned energy industry. The policy that the respondents have sought and continue to seek to impose, that has entailed privatizing and seizing ownership of Iraqi citizens’ resources, along with the administrative and political partition of the former unitary state, is contrary to the basis of, and cohesion of, the Iraqi people as a national group.

Until prevented by effective legal investigation and precautionary action, it is highly likely that the combined US/UK strategy in Iraq will continue, though its tactics may change. Iraqis in the majority show no sign of surrendering their right to and belief in Iraqi citizenship, including sovereign control over Iraq’s natural resources. Between a belligerent foreign aggressor and a resilient, resistant people legal action is crucial to end the ongoing and by all likelihood perpetual slaughter of Iraqis and the destruction of their national identity and rights. We are before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis on which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests, and that brought about and continue to pursue the destruction of the Iraqi state and attempted destruction of the Iraqi nation. Whereas 1,200,000 Iraqis, according to credible estimates, have lost their lives to violence since 2003 alone, the Iraqi people continue to lose their lives or at best live under constant fear of death, mutilation, detention, exile and lack of access to their rightful resources and freedoms. The sum of these conditions, the outcome of a pattern of purposeful action whose consequences could be foreseen, and of which detailed and compelling notice was served, situated in a context of false justifications, deceptions, and outright lies, and matched by the unlawful use of force, and disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force, amounts to substantive violations of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

As proof of the widespread impact of past and current US and UK policies, in 2009 the American Friends Service Committee, in collaboration with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), reported that some 80 per cent of Iraqis surveyed in Iraq had witnessed a shooting, 68 per cent had been interrogated or harassed by militias, 77 per cent had been affected by shelling/rocket attacks, 72 per cent had witnessed a car bombing, 23 per cent of Iraqis in Baghdad had had a family member kidnapped, and 75 per cent had had a family member or someone close to them murdered.

Military operations in Iraq from 2003 have already cost for the United States an estimated $800 billion, with long-term costs estimated at $1.8 trillion. By 2009, the estimated cost for the United Kingdom, according to figures released by the UK Ministry of Defence, was £8.4 billion ($13.7 billion). The United States continues to spend $12 billion on the war per month. There has been a total of 513,000 US soldiers deployed to Iraq since 2003. Some 170,000 were stationed during the “Surge” campaign of 2007, and 130,000 remain deployed as of June 2009. In addition to regular armed forces, the US administration is believed to employ up to 130,000 additional private security contractors and has refused to release official numbers in this regard. Security companies have been granted blanket immunity under Iraqi law. Equally, there is no effective mechanism, or hope, for Iraqis to hold US and UK forces to account directly.

The narration of facts that follows is substantiated with evidence detailed in the Annex. Other facts to be investigated while reported are not mentioned in the following.

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