لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
A Question of War Crimes:
Human rights lawyers in the United Kingdom and Pakistan are seeking arrest warrants for a former CIA Legal Director for approving drone strikes that killed hundreds of non-combatants. John Rizzo, who served as the Acting General Consul for the CIA, has admitted approving of drone strikes inside Pakistan beginning 2004.
“It’s basically a hit list” Rizzo said. “The Predator is a weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head or other from the copious assemblage of assassination methodologies and techniques in the US arsenal.” Last year, the US, in their never-ending quest for energy dominance, approved and unleashed 42 deadly drone strikes into Pakistan. Predictably, to counter anti-war supporters and negative publicity, official US statements countered with and disseminated the ‘War against Terror’ message, seeking public support and approval.
Under President Obama, strikes have quadrupled. “There has clearly been a crime here”, Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights lawyer who is leading the arrest effort recently told al Jazeera.
Arghandab River Valley Atrocity:
During October of 2010, an American-led assault deploying 25 tons of bombs totally annihilated Tarok Kolache, reducing a peaceful, rural village in Kandahar’s Arghandab River Valley to rubble. Initial accounts claim a high percentage of innocent villagers lost their lives and property in the assault. These inexcusable and excessive tactics are not an anomaly in this brutal and bloody conflict, but represent a common tactic by U.S.-led ISAF forces which results in the total decimation of villages with little or no concern for civilian casualties. The attack in Arghandab has re-ignited a firestorm of criticism among human rights activists, world leaders, international jurists and ordinary citizens alike concerned and outraged with what manifests as a total disregard for international law. (See: Afghan Post, Spencer Ackerman editorial, January 27, 2011 and Pipeline Payoff to Afghanistan War, California Crime Times, 11/2001, by Jim Crogan. Also, the United States of Oil, Salon.com, by Damien Cavelli, 19 November, 2001).
In 2010, a United Nations report said that women and children made up a greater proportion of those killed and injured than in 2009, with child casualties increasing 55% from the same period in 2009. The reporting was marked by increased military activity and a continued deterioration in security which heightened children’s vulnerability to conflict-related violations. During the two-year period, 1795 children were injured or killed due to conflict related violence, but that figure is presumed underreported due to difficulty in gaining access to conflicted areas. (See: Editorial page, The Washington Post, February 14, 2011).
Historical Precedent or Template:
No matter how one attempts to avoid making comparisons between 1939 and 2001, The American assault on Afghanistan constitutes “War Aggression”, precisely the type of conflict that the framework of accountability provided by Nuremberg was created to prevent in the years following cessation of hostilities in World War II.
Meanwhile, the United States was waging a largely secret war against suspected “terrorists” employing assassination, torture, secret prisons, night-raids, Predator drone strikes, sans amenable consultation or permission in violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, and fielding as a force-multiplier, agents under foreign influence, a CIA, KGB and drug-financed proxy-militia known as the Northern Alliance. The American people and most of the world have bought into the lies and half-truths generated by a pro-government, sympathetic media. So, the question remains, was there any different legal, moral, or ethical justification for the U.S. Government’s prosecution of war when it went to war on a lie in 2001, than the blitzkrieg by Hitler’s legions when attacking Poland in 1939, falsely claiming that Poland had initiated war when first attacking Germany? Was torture at the hands of the Gestapo any different than torture by a civilian contractor working for the CIA? Was the carpet bombing of Afghanistan inducing innumerable civilian deaths somehow less a crime than the Nazi bombing of European cities during WWII? This Last: a penetrating, indefensible position or question that answers itself for all but the politically naive, un-informed, pro-war, intellectually-blighted, and or morally depraved individuals.
The Unindicted:
Many Americans and a majority of citizens around the world consider leading figures, to include the former president and vice president in the George W. Bush and Obama Administration, aided and abetted by “Right-Wing” Republican Members of Congress and sympathetic media to be unindicted war criminals. In an endless loop of Kafkaesque rationale, the aforementioned initiated a conflict that has consumed 137,000 lives according to Brown Universities Watson Institute. Today, the carnage continues unabated. (See: Documents on the Laws of War; Second Edition, by Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, Oxford University Press).
The sordid history encompassing American war criminals demonstrates that most, if not all, elude justice as war criminals as enumerated and ratified under a plethora of international standards, treaties, statutes, resolutions and conventions …and under which jurisdiction the United States as a signatory is legally bound.
About one year ago, author, law professor, and Certified Queen’s Counsel Philip Sands, renowned British jurist, announced that six top officials of the Bush Administration would likely face arrest if traveling internationally and certain indictment on international charges of torture and waging war of aggression in Afghanistan. Of concern, and to the detriment of enforcement, world-body organizations such as NATO and the United Nations have deliberated more as exculpatory vassals for the militaristic policies of the U.S. than as war crimes investigators. For unadorned logic and reasoning (See: This War is a Fraud, Daily Mirror, by John Pilger, 29 October 2001 and The Oil War, LA Weekly, 30 November-December 2001, by Jim Crogan, Its about Oil, San Francisco Chronicle, 2/11/05, by Ted Rall).
With historical precedent and justice as inspiration and guide, the Spanish Court has sought the prosecution of several, former members of the George W. Bush Administration, to include Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Justice Department lawyer, and David Addington, Chief of Staff and principal legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. In legal circles, the former Bush officials would heretofore be known as the “Bush Six”. The case against these officials has been assigned to Judge Baltasar Garzon, Spanish Prosecutor. That the Spanish Court is so engaged is enshrined in legal precedent. Many will recall that it was the Spanish Court that indicted former Chilean dictator, Augustus Pinochet. (See: The Laws of Armed Conflict: A Collection of Conventions, Resolutions and other Documents, Dietrich, Schindler and Toman, Geneva, 1988)
In addition to the Spanish Court, others seeking justice and a halt to the ongoing carnage are: Amnesty International U.S.A., Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Fellowship Council for National Interest, Democrats Committee, Fellowship for Reconciliation, United for Peace and Justice, Velvet Revolution on Reconciliation, United for Peace and Justice and Veteran Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
It is time for the international community to follow the lead of the Spanish Court and bring a halt to what can only be cast as excessive and gratuitous violence by the U.S in their quest for oil dominion aided by other Members of the so-called ISAF contingent.
Furthermore, with a law professor serving as Commander in Chief of the armed forces and as President of the United States, one must assume that torture and war of aggression are anathema to him as Chief Executive, as well as to American ideals, world standing, national law and convention. Therefore, the world community calls upon the Chief Executive, President Barak Obama, to order an immediate cessation of military activities against Afghanistan, a country and a people that do not pose and have not posed… a threat to the security of the United States. (See: Communications by Members of the Afghan Diaspora about Events in Afghanistan to US and World Leaders, September 21, 1979-October 7, 2013 by Dr. M. Siddieq Noorzoy, 2013).
Bruce G. Richardson
ABSTRACT:
(See: U.S. Holds World Record of Killing Innocent Civilians, Global Research, 7/29/14 by Professor John McMurtry and Kourosh Ziaban).
Professor John McMurtry:
U.S. Government is a gigantic mass-murdering machine which earns profit through waging wars, and is never held accountable over its unspeakable war crimes and crimes against humanity. Following the 911 attacks the US launched its project of war on terror. The venture has so far cost the lives of thousands of innocent, unarmed civilians across the world including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. Unarmed citizens are murdered across the world as Collateral Damage, illegal enemy combatants or other license of impunity.
NOTE: John McMurtry, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Guelph, Canada in 2001 named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for his outstanding contribution to the study of humanities and social science.
