Bolivian President Evo Morales will file a lawsuit against the US government for crimes against humanity. He has decried the US for its intimidation tactics and fear-mongering after the Venezuelan presidential jet was blocked from entering US airspace.
Beyond what is legal or illegal in the United States, the Nuremberg Trials of 1946, which convicted a number of Nazi leaders, clearly defined the starting of a war of aggression as the “supreme international crime,” a view that was endorsed by the court’s American prosecutor Robert Jackson and which was also accepted by the administration of President Harry Truman. So by that standard bombing Syria would be a war crime and President Obama would be a war criminal.
In a continent ravaged by those whom Nixon called “our bastards”, Latin American governments have defied the likes of Clarridge and implemented much of Allende’s dream of social democracy – which was Kissinger’s fear. Today, most of Latin America is independent of US foreign policy and free of its vigilantism. Poverty has been cut almost by half; children live beyond the age of five; the elderly learn to read and write. These remarkable advances are invariably reported in bad faith in the west and ignored by the “realists”. That must never lessen their value as a source of optimism and inspiration for all of us.
Whatever terrible suffering prevails in Syria, no end or amelioration of it will come from more bombing or increased weaponry.
For much of the public, opposition to war on Syria may be motivated by domestic interests.
Yet there also seems a growing understanding that cruise missiles and more armaments only intensify the killing, displacement and all round misery.
The famed 99 percent meme that the movement blazed into mainstream consciousness still lives on in the mass mind, like a festering infected thorn in the side of Goliath. As that mysterious and mystical being once said, “You can’t kill an idea.” As for the movement, it is presently a chasm of unfulfilled potential, temporarily infiltrated and infested with saboteurs, tamed by the forces of centralization and co-option, fractured by factionalism and ego-driven agendas. Yet, it still glimmers on the periphery, just over the horizon. Beneath the calm surface, there is a vast ecosystem of latent energy ready to erupt once again.
Video – BBC Report – Broadcast September 12, 2013
George Galloway and Conservative peer Baroness Neville-Jones debated the role of the Russians and claims about who used chemical weapons in Syria.
Baroness Neville-Jones, the former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and past BBC governor.
The UN report only confirms that the toxic nerve agent sarin was used in an attack on 21 August near the capital, Damascus. But this finding is being spun to insinuate that the armed forces of President Bashar al-Assad are to blame and in that way justifying Western threats of retaliatory military action.
For those who oppose Western military intervention in Syria the lesson is clear: we cannot be complacent. The parliamentary vote, though an important victory, has not been enough to stop our Prime Minister pushing for war and British intelligence supporting any US military strike and continuing to help arm the rebels. More popular pressure is needed. We might also consider what the Government’s continued defiance of popular will on Syria tells us about how British foreign policy is determined.
Boris Johnson’s defence of the arms fair was particularly spineless, arguing that “it is only sensible to have legal weapons…it so happens that this country is an expert at making some of them.” We can no longer continue to accept this as a sanitised ‘trade fair’ whilst the track record of the companies and countries involved continues to be exposed by brave campaigning groups such as Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT). Our government denounces tyranny one moment then welcomes dictators to London to shop for arms the next. As one protest banner read, “this is not OK”.
The Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong. Libya’s 2011 uprising was never peaceful, but instead was armed and violent from the start. Muammar al-Qaddafi did not target civilians or resort to indiscriminate force. Although inspired by humanitarian impulse, NATO’s intervention did not aim mainly to protect civilians, but rather to overthrow Qaddafi’s regime, even at the expense of increasing the harm to Libyans.
Summary: Today’s speech by Susan Rice, National Security Advisor, deserves attention. If we look, in it we can see the answers to many important questions about America. Our reaction to it — and Obama’s challenges to us about Syria — will tells us much about ourselves.
During his visit in Moscow William Engdahl met with audience, which has an interest in geopolitics and told about Arab Spring, situation at the Middle East and more — he is convinced that Russia’s position is right in this conflict.
