لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
Bruce G. Richardson
Chicago, Illinois:
May 20, 2012: Iraq Veterans against the War (IVAW) have joined hands with Afghans against the war in an anti-war demonstration in Chicago. Veterans from both the Iraq and Afghan wars have returned their medals and campaign ribbons awarded for service in protest for what they have termed a “war based on lies that has consumed many, many thousands of lives and trillions of dollars that are desperately needed to repair our crumbling infrastructure, to include highways fallen in disrepair and to rebuild schools and medical facilities in the Continental United States.” The demonstration has taken on a high profile posture as American veterans from both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have come together with Afghan/Americans calling for an end to a war that has no moral, strategic, defensive or ethical foundation.
U.S. Officials found guilty of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan:
Former U.S. President George W. Bush, his Vice President Richard Cheney and six other members of his administration have been found guilty of war crimes by a ‘Peoples Tribunal’ in Malaysia. Transcripts will be forwarded to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the United Nations Security Council for pre-trial consultation, adjudication and disposition.
The accused are former officials of the George W. Bush Administration: VP Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Chief Legal Counsel , Alberto Gonzales, General Counsel to the Vice President, David Addington, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo. Charges include, but are not limited to, ‘crimes against peace, waging war of aggression, illegal rendition and torture.’ Bush Administration officials were tried in absentia. This represents the second time that Bush Administration officials have been tried in a ‘Peoples Tribunal’ in absentia. The first occurrence was the ‘Russell Peoples Tribunal,’ convened in 1992.
Charges of war crimes against American officials have been routinely ignored, thanks to a bygone-era colonial “might is right” mind-set from the myopic main-stream media. Thus, it is abundantly clear that the primary targets of disinformation are Americans like those who subscribe to periodicals like the neo-conservative Washington Post, whose editors in recent times have been careful through omission and or commission to keep their readers malnourished on the watered-down and or ignored facts about U.S. involvement in war crimes.
Punishment rendered by the various People’s Tribunals face an uphill battle in their quest for justice. As the Bush and Obama U.S. administrations have granted themselves immunity from prosecution for war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, justice will be deferred or delayed until such time as the accused venture forth in international travel at which time they are subject to arrest.
War crimes committed by the U.S.-led NATO contingent in Afghanistan according to Professor Francis A. Boyle, Illinois College of Law and internationally recognized expert, asserts that the Obama Administration has not ceased illegal renditions or torture in violation of international and domestic law, and is carrying on as had the Bush Administration, itself cited for numerous infractions of humanitarian law. Violations of law from both the Bush and Obama Administrations rival those for which members of the Axis powers were convicted in an international court convened by the victorious allies, incarcerated and subsequently executed following the conclusion of the Second World War.
War Crimes, Summary Finding:
On 29 February 1992, an International War Crimes Tribunal found U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Vice President J. Danforth Quale, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Commander of the Allied Forces in the Persian Gulf, and others named in an initial complaint guilty of 19 crimes having been established beyond a reasonable doubt. Among others, these include crimes against peace through leading Iraq into provocations justifying U.S. military intervention; war crimes in violation of Article 51.4 of the 1977 Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Convention s of 1949, indiscriminate bombing and use of excessive force, use of proscribed weapons capable of mass destruction; violation of Article 56 of the identical protocol, intentional attack on installations containing dangerous substances and crimes against humanity, by intentionally depriving the Iraqi people of essential medicines, potable water, food and other necessities, (Sources: Judging War Criminals; The Politics of International Justice, Yves Beigbeder, 1999, and Documents on the Laws of War, Second Edition, Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, 1989).
Pending War Crimes Litigation:
Of late, law scholars have filed Identical-charges against both the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations as complicit in numerous violations of international law in Afghanistan. Recently, in support of war crime allegations against the U.S., President, Barack Obama has been labeled as “judge, jury and executioner” by international law students and international legal scholars, due to his propensity to ignore international law, treaty and convention, to which as signatory the U.S. is legally bound. Writing for the Freedom Fund, Yuri Skidanov recently wrote that ‘The U.S. used military force 240-times in 237-years of their existence, (1708-2012) either at war, preparing for a new attack, looking for victims’.
While unlikely that the United States and their allies in Afghanistan will be remanded to court to stand trial for breaches of international law, court authorities worldwide are in a position to remand those intercepted while in international travel to the courts for trial. Resultant sentencing of those apprehended will face an uphill battle to include threats of military intervention and or retaliatory economic sanction from the U.S. However, those charged in absentia must be forever wary of international travel for fear of the possibility of incarceration and punishment.
KGB Official who served in Afghanistan takes own life:
Leonid Shebarshin, KGB Official and author of The Hand of Moscow, (1992), has committed suicide in what has been termed ‘a death fraught with many unanswered questions’. His book, many will recall, meticulously details the KGB’s clandestine role during the 1979-1989 Soviet war in Afghanistan and was first of a number of retired Soviet senior intelligence operative’s memoirs to expose Ahmad Shah Massoud as a collaborator. In his defining treatise, the author provides an invaluable resource tool for authors engaged in researching Massoud’s affiliation with and accommodation to the Soviet 40th Army, and as well, his obsessive quest to create an autonomous, exclusive Tajik- enclave titled ‘Greater Tajikistan’ over which he would assume the mantle of leadership.
In his riveting expose, Shebarshin recounts the Soviet’s strategy to partition Afghanistan in order to emasculate the Resistance. Under covert operations, code-named ‘Kaskad and Chameleon’ respectively, the USSR sought to weaken the Resistance through an ethnic partition of the country. A part of that covert- plan, was to recruit, subsidize and arm the northern ethnic minorities and thereby deploy them as a proxy-militia against the majority Pashtuns. A strategy not dissimilar with that which Great Britain devised and implemented during the nineteenth century, and one that currently curries favor amongst current U.S.-led NATO contingency strategies.
Bruce G. Richardson
Notes:
Legal Interpretations:
Text-book definition of “Crimes against Peace” under which an indictment against the U.S. war in Afghanistan has issued:
Articles 6 a, b, c:
Crimes against peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing. (946 Nuremberg Judgment)
(a, b)War Crimes: namely violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not limited to, murder, ill-treatment, or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity:
(b, c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated. (Source: Documents on the laws of War, Edited by Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, Second Edition, 1989, page 155)
Soviet/Afghan War Citations:
A.A. Liakhovski: ‘Plamya Afgana’, Moscow, 1999, pp.485-486. Translation: by Cold War in History Project, Washington, D.C., (CWIHP) by Gary Goldberg. Bruce G. Richardson: ‘Afghanistan’s Treaty Bands’, 4/2012, Middle East Institute, 1/2014.
Boris V. Gromov: ‘Limited Contingent’, Moscow: Saint Petersburg University Press, 1997, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, Harvard University, p.40, Main Intelligence Directorate (MID) of the General Headquarters, USSR Armed Forces. Title: The Lion of the Panjsher, Article no. 18, (18, (No. 882/83-3-5-77, Fond 80, Perechen 14, Document 77). Translation: Elena Kretova, Information Services Moscow.
Leonid Shebarshin: ‘The Hand of Moscow’, Moscow: Progress Press, 1992, pp.177-214. Translation: Professor Ian Helfant, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, Harvard University.
Dr. Nabi Misdaq, ‘Political Frailty and External Interference’, 2006, pp. 90, 145, 147-150, 162, 167, 171-174, 181-192, 196, 206-212, 219, 231-232, 240, 250.
‘America’s War on Terror’ Citations:
John Pilger, ‘This War is a Fraud’, Daily Mirror, 29 October, 2001.
Jim Crogan: ‘The Oil War’, Los Angeles Weekly, 30 November-6- December 2001.
Damien Caveli: ‘The United States of Oil’, Salom.com, 19 November 2001.
George Arney: ‘The U.S. Planned attack on Taliban, BBC, 18 September 2001.
Michel Chossudovsky: ‘America’s War on Terrorism’, Second Edition, 2005, pp. 80-81.
Yuri Skidanov, ‘The U.S. used Military Force 240-times in 237-years, 1798-2012, Freedom Fund, 1/20/14.
