We are talking about three categories. The first are crimes against peace. After Nuremberg an idea took hold that launching an aggressive war is the supreme international crime. There are only a few specific circumstances where a state can use force against another state. The U.N. charter says either you need a resolution from the Security Council or you need to be acting in self-defense from an imminent and immediate attack. In the current situation, the U.S. launched an aggressive war in Iraq that even Kofi Annan declared illegal.
The second category of crimes concern the conduct of the war and occupation. This would include the administration’s use of illegal weapons, such as napalm, white phosphorus, and cluster bombs. It includes a failure to protect civilians. It includes trying to break the Iraqi insurgency with collective punishment against the civilian population—with acts like cutting off water supplies. This is a practice we saw in Fallujah and elsewhere, and which the U.N. has condemned.
Fallujah actually summarizes several of these crimes. There we had eight weeks of bombing, we destroyed 36,000 houses, 60 schools, and 65 mosques. One of the military’s first acts was to storm the hospital. The U.S. cut off all food supplies, all power to the entire city. The Defense Department said that all the civilians were out at the time of the attack, but reports show that 30,000 to 50,000 civilians remained in the city. The U.S. blocked the Red Crescent from entering. All males between 15 and 55 weren’t allowed to leave. So in Iraq, Falljah has become iconic of American war crimes and brutality.
The third set of war crimes centers on torture. Here, the question is not whether it’s happening, it’s how often and who’s responsible. When we wrote the book there were 32 deaths of prisoners in U.S. custody reported. Now there are over 100. The FBI reports cases of strangulation, burning with cigarettes, routine beatings.
Failure to count civilian deaths is also a war crime, a violation of the Geneva Conventions
As Australia is in bed with the USA Mr Howard is also comiting these crimes and will also be put to death for it or at best Jailed for life and we have people saying hes a good Prime Minster as if it makes me sick to think my country had anything to do with shit the USA is trying to pull!! As Australians we are smarter than this and we are better than this .... Mr Howard you are a criminal here is the proof now prepare for your trial and your firing squad you fucker ......
4 comments:
Since I am involved in this war in Iraq, I can't really coment on all of this. Other than if I can do my job really well, maybe the troops can go home sooner. War sucks and mostly because most of the people that die have nothing to do with the decusions made as to fight and all.
True Mr bear ...i agree totaly i just feel that the people making these desions to use chemical warfare on civilians or even if they are used on the enemy that is wrong .. its not the troops but more the desions makers and the people in charge that say go ahead use these chemicals on those people that should be held responicale .... how for example if someone bombed down town new york with chemical weopons would that make the usa people feel .... as people who stand for basic human rights we have to make a stand against these actions ....
I just think it's funny how we're the bad guys for taking out a dictator who used chemical warfare on his own people. As for war crimes... the UN is the most corrupt political entity in the entire world. Every government has a certain level of corruption, but the UN is just a joke. Any rules that the UN has laid down exist only because they benefit its leaders somehow. If you believe in Scripture at all then take a look at how the Hebrews were commanded to fight war. Kill all the men, women, children, and livestock. After that, you burn every brick of every building to the ground. You wipe the very memory of your enemy from the face of the earth. In war there is no such thing as an innocent civilian. When one nation makes war on another, the people are at war. I'm not saying anyone has to agree on this, and I apologize if it seems overly harsh, but "civilian" casualties are simply going to happen. And I personally think it's a load of crap to gripe about the use of chemical weapons in any form and completely ignore the fact that terrorists are blowing up their own people in suicide bombings. Not one negative word has been said about terrorists in any way. Last time I checked terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center. If I was the President then I'd just turn that desert into glass and see what the UN had to say about that. War isn't pretty. It never has been and it never will be. Humans are by nature selfish beings. Selfish beings tend to look out for their own interests. There is good and bad to every situation; two sides to every story. Ultimately the victor writes history. Had the Babylonian empire never suffered defeat we wouldn't know them as the savage brutes that history records. They'd be the glorious victors destroying an unworthy foe. Every nation, no matter how "smart" its people are, makes mistakes. We can either focus on all the bad things and live in a world of despair or we can choose to find the good and strive to make the world a better place. The US is not perfect. It never will be. But neither is any other nation in the history of this planet. Perhaps one day instead of spreading words of hate about one another we can work together towards a brighter future. One can only dream.
I have told you before that iraq did not and has never attacked the usa so dont say that they do untill you have any proof at all !!! sure we can all go and be cave men and brutlise each other if that is how you want to live personaly i would like to think what humanity has learned from past mastakes but it seems with coments like yours it has not !!!! war crimes are war crimes they are comitted by criminals if you commit such acts then you are a criminal simple as that .... see even is war there are laws and rules my friend even in wars ... you chose to judge a country not on how it treats its friends but on how it treats its enemys !!!!!!!
Post a Comment