- US air and ground operations strategically target civilians,
Pentagon (and NATO) denials notwithstanding. They lie despite clear evidence
refuting them. Their latest crime claimed 19 Libyans, all civilians, including
women and eight children, apologies not forthcoming and deceitful when
they do.
-
- NATO (code for the Pentagon) duplicitously called it
a "precision strike on a legitimate military target - a command-and-control
node which was directly involved in coordinating systematic attacks on
the Libyan people."
-
- False! It targeted Gaddafi ally Khweildy al-Hamidy's
private estate, murdering civilians inside beneath the rubble, government
spokesman Moussa ibrahim saying:
-
- "This is very twisted logic. So you kill children.
You kill mothers. You kill fathers, aunts and uncles, and then you try
to explain it by twisted political military logic."
-
- Since NATO terror bombings began March 19, an average
of nearly nine daily civilian deaths followed, besides unknown hundreds
killed by rebel cutthroats in their controlled areas, murdering any suspected
pro-Gaddafi supporters - what Western media reports and governments won't
explain.
-
- Numerous reports confirm it, including TeleSUR on June
3 saying:
-
- "British activists have verified the consequences
of NATO attacks against civilians in Libya. A spokesman for British Civilians
for Peace (BCP)" there with French, German, Italian and regional activists
confirmed noncombatant deaths. They also "found no evidence of the
Libyan army shelling civilians," but observed NATO terror bombing
atrocities firsthand.
-
- BCP spokesman Dale Roberts said in two Libyan visits:
-
- "I have seen and witnessed the effects of bombing
on civilians. This has included schools, hospitals, infrastructure and
civilian areas," unrelated to military sites.
-
- Roberts added that UK and Western media suppress truths
because:
-
- "European public opinion is against a war that was
not debated in Parliament, even in my country, Great Britain," adding:
-
- "One of the main reasons why" UN Resolution
1973 passed was because "Libya was being blamed and made responsible
for attacks on unarmed civilians. They are false. We visited the areas
in Tripoli (the UN Resolution) cited....and it is clear that these areas
were not attacked."
-
- Like all US-led wars, lies facilitate terror bombing
Libya. They include baseless allegations, claiming despots massacre civilians
or threaten neighboring states with WMDs to stoke fear and enlist popular
support.
-
- In his book "War is a Lie," David Swanson explains
"common themes in the war lying business, lies that keep coming back
like zombies that just won't die." And no matter how often they're
later exposed, they're used again effectively because major media managed
news repeat them, knowing they're spurious but do it anyway complicit with
state crimes.
-
- Except in self-defense, wars aren't ever justified, legitimate
or legal, especially America's, the only global superpower facing no external
threats, so manufactured ones assure more conflict for imperial expansion
and unchallenged dominance, no matter the body count to achieve it.
-
- As a result, the same pattern repeats, segueing from
one aggression to another or multiple ones simultaneously, illegally, and
disastrously, heading America for tyranny, ruin, and eventual bankruptcy.
Morally it's had that status for generations, notably since WW II.
-
- "In a world with so many uncertainties and unpredictable
actors," says Immanuel Wallerstein, "the most dangerous 'loose
gun' is....the United States."
-
- For example, so-called Pentagon "Kill Teams"
murder with impunity. Some collect body parts as souvenirs or trophies
the way US military personnel did in WW II, mutilating dead Japanese, as
well as later in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, exhibiting depravity
inculcated in young recruits during training.
-
- US death squads have also been used in US wars since
WW II. During the Korean War, tens of thousands were murdered, and in Vietnam,
Counterspy magazine called Operation Phoenix "the most indiscriminate
and massive program of political murder since the Nazi death camps,"
perhaps exceeded post-9/11 in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and numerous
proxy wars, taking a horrendous human toll from combat operations alone.
-
- Moreover, since WW II, US terror bombings killed millions
of noncombatants to cow enemies into submission, what's now commonplace
in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, as well as earlier in Iraq and could
be resumed if ordered.
-
- Sociologist Emile Durkheim once said, "The immorality
of war depends entirely on the leaders who willed it." In America,
of course, it's top administration and Pentagon officials. In his opening
Nuremberg address, Justice Robert Jackson denounced the:
-
- "men who possess themselves of great power and make
deliberative and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave
no home in the world untouched."
-
- He called them "men of station and rank (who don't)
soil (their) hands with blood," but use "lesser folk" to
do it, committing crimes of war and against humanity to enhance their status
and privilege.
-
- As a result, in Iraq and Afghanistan, US forces still
order troops to kill every military-aged man on sight. Moreover, during
training, enemies are dehumanized to make it easy, programming recruits
to feel guiltless about horrific crimes.
-
- Yet international and US laws are clear and unequivocal,
including US Army Field Manual (FM) 27-10 standards that incorporate Nuremberg
Principles, Judgment and the Charter and The Law of Land Warfare (1956):
-
- -- FM's paragraph 498 states that any person, military
or civilian, who commits a crime under international law is responsible
for it and may be punished;
-
- -- paragraph 499 defines a war crime;
-
- -- paragraph 500 refers to a conspiracy, attempts to
commit it and complicity with respect to international crimes;
-
- -- paragraph 509 denies the defense of superior orders
in the commission of a crime; and
-
- -- paragraph 510 denies the defense of an "act of
state" to absolve them.
-
- Two points are key:
-
- -- these provisions apply to all US military and civilian
personnel, including top commanders, the Secretary of Defense, his subordinates,
and the President and Vice President of the United States; and
-
- -- under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause (Article
VI, paragraph 2), all international laws and treaties are the "supreme
Law of the Land."
- Nonetheless, US forces commit regular atrocities, in
Afghanistan for nearly a decade, Pentagon commanders dismissively saying
operations will continue to achieve goals that include killing civilians,
no matter how many alienated Afghans become willing Taliban recruits against
a hated occupier.
-
- Why not when terror bombings kill entire families, including
young children. When thuggish troops conduct middle-of-the-night home intrusions,
intimidating, arresting, and at times killing gratuitously. When remote
control droning kills like sport. When people are homeless, hungry, unemployed
and deprived because America came, occupied and doesn't give a damn about
human need.
-
- After terrorizing Iraqis, in June 2009, Stanley McChrystal
took charge of US/NATO Afghanistan forces to do it there. Earlier, he headed
the Pentagon's infamous Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), de facto
death squad operations to kill with impunity.
-
- After his sacking a year later, David Petraeus (CIA director
designate) doubled NATO air strikes and increased Special Forces terror
raids to inflict more death and destruction against people who won't stop
resisting until America's occupation ends.
-
- Of course, mostly civilians suffer, what major media
reports won't explain, regurgitating Pentagon lies about successful militant
strikes, suppressing truths to let imperial wars rage, bogusly called liberating
ones.
-
- In fact, when Washington wants war, nothing deters officials
from waging it or several simultaneously, inventing reasons to justify
what only naive masses and co-conspirators believe.
-
- So when Obama says "we" have moral authority
to liberate Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Libyans or other nations he attacks,
Nobel laureate Harold Pinter once reflected in January 2000 on then lawless
1999 Serbia/Kosovo operations, saying:
-
- "When they said '(w)e had to do something,' I said:
Who is this 'we' exactly that you're talking about?....Under what heading
do 'we' act, under what law? And also, the notion that this 'we' has the
right to act,' I said, presupposes a moral authority of which this 'we'
possesses not a jot! It doesn't exist!"
-
- In fact, it's as immoral, unethical and illegal as for
serial killers, motivated by whatever drives them, including a passion
for violence, real or delusional rewards.
-
- When they're nations, not sociopaths, Orwellian doublespeak
disguises real motives deceptively. For example, Obama calls Libyan attacks
a "time-limited, scope-limited military action," not war, no
matter how much death and destruction is inflicted.
-
- So claiming constitutional Article 2, Section 2 authority
as armed forces commander in chief, in fact, violates Article 51 of the
UN Charter, prohibiting attacks against other nations except in self-defense,
and only until the Security Council acts.
-
- Moreover, the Constitution's Article 1, Section 8 is
violated, granting Congress sole power to declare war, never the executive
unilaterally, for any reason or with doublespeak mumbo jumbo disguising
it.
-
- War is war. It's also hell on the receiving end, harmful
to combatants, and detrimental domestically when popular needs go unmet.
-
- As chief executive, Obama is responsible for mass murder
and destruction. If rule of law standards mattered, he'd be impeached,
convicted and jailed for high crimes - in fact, the supreme international
one against peace and others related to it.
-
- Instead, he'll finish his current term, likely be reelected,
and leave office rewarded with multi-million dollar book deals and six-figure
lecture offers to extol a record demanding condemnation in a court of law,
holding him fully accountable for high crimes, demanding harsh punishment.
In fact, only victims face that fate.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive
Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/
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