The ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P), formulated at the 2005 UN World Summit, is based on the idea that state sovereignty is not a right but a responsibility. Where offending states fail to live up to this responsibility by inflicting genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity on their own people, the international community has a responsibility to act. Economic sanctions and the use of military force can thus be employed as ‘humanitarian intervention’.
If we actually had a functioning judicial system and an independent press, Manning would have been a witness for the prosecution against the war criminals he helped expose. He would not have been headed, bound and shackled, to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. His testimony would have ensured that those who waged illegal war, tortured, lied to the public, monitored our electronic communications and ordered the gunning down of unarmed civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen were sent to Fort Leavenworth’s cells. If we had a functioning judiciary the hundreds of rapes and murders Manning made public would be investigated.
International law, embodied in treaties signed between the nations of the world in good faith, must be regarded neither as an inconvenience nor something to be twisted using weasel reasoning. Any legal ‘ambiguity’, seized upon by the US and NATO for their own strategic goals, is an enormous threat to world security. This faux-perceived ambiguity must be urgently addressed, and any nation which regards itself as moral must stand up to this campaign of mass murder disguised as warfare. There can only be one answer to the murder of children.
The revelations below were compiled for the book in March 2011–many others followed, including the important Gitmo files (see my piece about them) in April 2011. Here is a NYT take on just part of those Gitmo files: “What began as a jury-rigged experiment after the 2001 terrorist attacks now seems like an enduring American institution, and the leaked files show why, by laying bare the patchwork and contradictory evidence that in many cases would never have stood up in criminal court or a military tribunal.” So even this accounting below is far from complete.
It’s instructive to remember that in 2009, Damascus did not sign an agreement with Qatar for a pipeline via Syria; but they did sign the memorandum of understanding last year for the US$10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. So the point is for Damascus, the deal with Iran was much better; and if the pipeline is ever built Gazprom may even be part of it, in infrastructure and distribution. What Moscow has concluded is that Gazprom won’t lose its energy grip over Europe to the benefit of Qatari natural gas. A case can be made that Gazprom holds more power over the distressed, decaying, virtually insolvent eurozone than the European Central Bank (ECB).
“Gentlemen, we have a golden opportunity here. We are under siege by defector spy Edward Snowden – liberated by the Soviets – and that terrorist hack Greenwald. Snowden may be winning: even among US public opinion, there’s a growing perception we may be more of a threat than al-Qaeda.
So we must show we are vigilantly protecting our freedoms. Yes; we’re gonna scream Terra, Terra, Terra!”
Every US President has engaged, in one fashion or another, in ‘play acting’ to secure popular approval, neutralize hostility and distract voters from the reactionary substance of their foreign and domestic policies.
What the disclosures of former CIA contractor Edward Snowden show perhaps above all else is just how petrified the leaders of the United States have become – of ordinary citizens both in the US and around the world. When we say “leaders” we mean the ruling elite – the top one percent of the financial-corporate-military-industrial complex and its bought- and paid-for politicians.
The military victory for Syria’s government forces in the strategic central town of Qusayr last week was a watershed event for several reasons. But of the crucial turning points heralded by this event, one is inimitably clear – the Western powers, the would-be emperors of Syria, stand naked in their failed criminal conspiracy to destroy that country by Finian Cunningham […]
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed The military trial of Bradley Manning is a judicial lynching. The government has effectively muzzled the defense team. The Army private first class is not permitted to argue that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law to make public the war crimes he uncovered. The documents that detail the crimes, torture […]
By William Blum In this season of college graduations, let us pause to remember the stirring words of America’s beloved scholar, George W. Bush, speaking in Florida in 2007 at the commencement exercises of Miami Dade College: “In Havana and other Cuban cities, there are people just like you who are attending school, and dreaming of a better life. Unfortunately […]
Of all the charges against Bradley Manning, the most pernicious — and revealing — is “aiding the enemy.” by Norman Solomon A blogger at The New Yorker, Amy Davidson, raised a pair of big questions that now loom over the courtroom at Fort Meade and over the entire country: “Would it aid the enemy, for example, to expose war crimes committed […]
