لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
Historic Briefs
The War on Terror: Truth has no relevance, only agendas are important
Adding insult to injury: U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton met recently with her Russian counterpart, Sergev Lavrov, in the city of Ulyanovsk to formulate an agreement that would allow U.S. and their NATO basing facilities in Russian territory. Moscow has provided the U.S. and other NATO member states with air corridors and railway routes for carrying supplies to and from Afghanistan. The new deal would for the first time allow alliance members to set up a logistics facility for troops and cargo on Russian territory. Lavrov defended the agreement, saying the success of the NATO mission is essential for fending off the spread of terrorism and illegal drugs from Afghanistan into ex-Soviet Central Asian nations and Russia. (See:Global Research, e-Newsletter, March, 2012)
What has not been a part of the official, publicized dialogue, however, is the fact that currently unmarked Russian war planes have been bombing Taliban positions in Afghanistan and Russian soldiers attired as Northern Alliance regulars have been fighting alongside Northern Alliance soldiers against the Taliban. It has been reported that the U.S., in exchange for the basing arrangement and the deployment of Russian military against the Taliban, have provided behind-the-scenes diplomatic support for the Russian bloodletting in Chechnya while refraining from openly criticizing Moscow. (See: Global Research e-Newsletter, March, 2012)
For many of us, that the U.S. and Russia have joined forces to assault Afghanistan is unconscionable, contrary to international law, treaty, convention and moral precedent. Between 1979 and 1989, Russia invaded and occupied Afghanistan, killing over two-million Afghans and turned more than 25,000 habited villages to rubble. During October of 2001, the U.S., based on fabricated intelligence from Northern Alliance sources, bombed, invaded and occupied Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. While civilian casualty counts are continuing to rise at an alarming rate, and as yet in the process of tabulation by human rights monitors, preliminary estimates numbering in the many thousands are mind numbing. (See: Afghanistan, Ending the Reign of Soviet Terror, Bruce G. Richardson, 1998)
Both the stated official Russian and U.S. positions that these agreements are to combat terrorism and drug proliferation are decidedly a sham. Both Moscow and Washington have a long and sordid history of recruiting terrorists to secure a political outcome and using drug receipts to fund off-the-books-wars… out of congressional oversight, public and parliamentary scrutiny. This is indeed adding insult to injury, for many, al-Qaeda is but a covert-wing of the CIA.
War Crimes as Metaphor for War:
The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been bloody epochs, with horrendous devastation visited upon civilian populations by many armies, but notably by the armed forces of Russia and the United States. After World War II, at Nuremberg and Tokyo, the international community enshrined the importance of bringing war criminals to justice. Despite these precedents, until tribunals in Holland and Tanzania recently began hearing testimony about war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, no international efforts at justice had been convened in nearly fifty years…even though acts of monstrous barbarity and proportion have continued to occur. The abuses in Afghanistan and Central Africa have raised public awareness of war crimes to new levels and sparked questions among concerned citizens: How can these atrocities occur while the world is watching? If they do occur, what can be done to ensure that offenders are captured and punished? (See: Documents On the Laws of War, Adam Roberts, Richard Guelff, Second Edition, 1989)
During the war in Vietnam, Americans came face-to-face with a difficult truth: Their countrymen were and are capable of war crimes too. Journalists were reporting the deliberate killing of civilians, and indiscriminate air attacks by U.S. forces. The most decorated American soldier of the Korean War, Anthony Herbert, a lieutenant colonel in Vietnam, publicly accused fellow officers of complicity in war crimes, an accusation that caused Herbert to receive a punitive reassignment. But the only Vietnam War crimes trial was the prosecution of Lieutenant William Calley and Captain Ernest Medina for the massacre at My Lai on March 16, 1968. Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division entered the hamlet of My Lai on a ‘search and destroy mission.’ They entered the village around 8am in the morning. Seven hours later more than 500 villagers lay dead many of whom, were women and children. Though both Lieutenant William Calley and Captain Ernest Medina were tried and found guilty of pre-meditated murder, their sentences were reduced to just a few days in prison.
The recent and unfathomable massacre in the Panjwar District of South Kandahar Province of Afghanistan has drawn inevitable comparisons to the My Lai atrocity. As with Lieutenant Calley in Vietnam, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, initially reported to have acted alone during his depraved act of violence which left 16 dead including women and young children, is now thought to be a part of a 15-20 man force engaged in night raids in the area who had previously threatened the male population of Pashtun villages in the area. An Afghan Parliamentarian, MP Nahim Lalai Hamidzai, upon investigation says “the massacre was carried out by a team of U.S. soldiers and not a lone individual.” He went on to say that “all the villagers said there were 15-20 men who had conducted a night raid operating in several areas in the village, and that the soldiers had told the villagers, you will pay a price” for a recent roadside bomb attack. The U.S. continues to cloud and defuse the issue, insisting that the massacre ‘was the work of a lone individual suffering from (PTSD) post-traumatic stress disorder.’
This most recent war crime is but one of many that has occurred during this war. In December of 2001, an American B-52 and 2 B1B bombers killed 110 of 112 Afghan Pashtun villagers celebrating a wedding. In addition, the desecration of bodies by souvenir hunting U.S. soldiers and of those killed by coalition forces, and the burning of the sacred texts have been recurring crimes. In yet another incident, in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of Pakistan, several hundred have been killed with the indiscriminate use of pilotless drones. (See: Global Research e-Newsletter, January, 2002)
The incident at My Lai in Vietnam and the massacre in Kandahar as well, once headline news, have both served and continue to serve public opposition to and a growing disaffection for the war.
Sadly, the United States has refused to ratify the International Criminal Court (ICC), and recently President Obama has signed legislation granting immunity to members of the Bush Administration for war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lawyers assigned to defend Staff Sergeant Robert Bales are busily mounting a defense based on the sergeant’s medical disorders that could result in the charges being dropped. Perhaps justice will be frustrated. History attests that only the most powerful nations of the world have been allowed to engage in bringing war crimes charges against weaker nations. Yet, the Spanish Court has courageously ruled that war criminals that travel outside the protection of their own countries of origin ‘are subject to arrest, and to stand trial for their terrible crimes.’ The creation of an independent international tribunal for war crimes led by Spain is currently under consideration by several countries. (See: Documents On the Laws of War, Adam Roberts, Richard Guelff, Second Edition, 1989 and Afghanistan, a Search for Truth, Bruce G. Richardson, 2009)
While we are constantly advised of the sacrifices made by U.S. servicemen and women, we as well have the remarkable, uncanny-ability to ignore the many thousands of lives lost as we prosecute our ‘war on terror’. Those architects, responsible for this and other ‘wars of aggression’ and resultant carnage, giving rise and currency to the adage: ‘man’s inhumanity to man,’ must be held accountable.
Bruce G. Richardson
Notes:
Three days following the 9/11 attack, Congress passed the “Authorization to Use Military Force” or (AUMF) authorization which has given the president carte blanche to wage war, to occupy nations, to kill people with unmanned drone ‘signature strikes’ based not on guilt, trial and due process by a lawfully assembled court, but on political expediency and or a remote, extra-legal, extra-psychological analysis of a suspects ‘patterns of life.’
The language contained under AUMF is as follows: ‘The president is authorized to use all necessary force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any further attacks of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.’
Re-writing the Constitution? When one recognizes that President Obama is a law professor, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it is difficult if not impossible to fathom his demonstrated disdain for the rule of law with his prosecution of the so-called war on terror in Afghanistan, a nation that had no role whatsoever in 9/11. In addition to infractions of codified international law (Geneva Conventions, etc.) which cites U.S. prosecution of war in Afghanistan as guilty of ‘war of aggression’, the supreme law of the land, the Constitution of the United States refutes unequivocally and proscribes the administration’s Afghanistan war policies to include, amongst a host of infractions and violations, authorizing drone and special operations’ assassinations without due process: The Constitution states… ‘No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without the due process of law.’
To thwart criticism from legal specialists, journalists, media, and judges, yet clearly in constant and continuing violation of U.S. Constitutional and codified international law, the administration has established “kill courts” convened in secret to decide who is to be executed without trial or charge. Currently, in a celebration and embrace of vigilantism, the CIA and the Pentagon, not the courts, are the administration’s chosen and appointed ‘judge, jury and executioner.’
The Northern Alliance group has sought and utilized the U.S. military to oppose and eliminate their traditional Pashtun enemies with the issuance of bogus intelligence. Their cooperation with the U.S. has resulted in the death of thousands of Pashtuns from aerial and drone attack.
Nabi Misdaq, Ph.D.
