Home


Crowdfunding Countercurrents

Submission Policy

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

CounterSolutions

CounterImages

CounterVideos

Editor's Picks

Press Releases

Action Alert

Feed Burner

Read CC In Your
Own Language

Bradley Manning

India Burning

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

AfPak War

Peak Oil

Globalisation

Localism

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

Kandhamal Violence

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

About Us

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Subscribe To Our
News Letter

Name:
E-mail:

Search Our Archive



Our Site

Web

 

 

 

 

Know And Punish US War Crimes

By Robert Barsocchini

12 February, 2014
Countercurrents.org

After Iran overthrew the US-installed terrorist king in 1979, the USA quickly formed an Axis of Evil with some European allies and Saddam Hussein, and waged a war of aggression against Iran, which murdered 1 million Iranian citizens, mainly young people, and 150 thousand Kurds of all ages (tens of thousands of both Iranians and Kurds with horrific chemical weapons), and killed 500 thousand, mainly young, Iraqis, many simply conscripted by Hussein and used as meat targets for the war of aggression.

For this war, the  USA and Europe supplied  the proxy force, led by Hussein, with chemical weapons including mustard and sarin gas.  The USA also supplied Hussein with blueprints for chemical weapons-making plants, and technology for building missiles, warheads and detonators for the chemical weapons.  Once Hussein had made them, the USA used its satellite and spying capabilities to provide Hussein with locations of Iranians so Hussein could gas them, as well as Kurds.  During this, the USA also provided diplomatic cover for the Axis of Evil (itself, Europe, and Hussein) at the United Nations, shifting the focus away from the perpetrators of the crimes.

In 2007, one Dutch businessman,  Frans Van Anraat, was sentenced to 17 year in prison for providing some of the chemicals to Hussein.  He was charged only with complicity in war crimes, not with genocide, because it could not be shown that he knew exactly what Hussein would do with the chemicals. 

This illustrates:

  1. All the US business pe ople (including from Kennametal, Latrobe, PA; Scientific Atlanta, Atlanta, GA; Tektronix, Wilsonville, OR) wh o provided Hussein with chemicals, technology, equipment, etc., are guilty of war crimes, and also genocide if it can be shown that they knew what the materials would be used for.
  2. All the US government officials involved, which included the Reagan administration, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and members of congress and the CIA, etc., are guilty of both war crimes and genocide, since they approved all 771 shipments to Hussein, and helped him to use the weapons, as the widely publicized  declassified documents show , with wide governmental knowledge and complicity. 
Zero US officials and business-people have been charged.  This is due to the US's power, physical and economic.  

Since crimes like these - war crimes and genocide - go unpunished for the USA, they have continued (see below, and " Rogue State ", by William Blum, for details).  

Immediately after complicity in war crimes and genocide against Iran and the Kurds, the USA used chemical weaponry against Iraq in the Gulf War - bombs and bullets made with radioactive nuclear waste, or "depleted uranium".  This resulted in spikes in cancer rates for Iraqis and US soldiers.  This became known as Gulf War Syndrome, and the US government has done everything it can to deny the effects and accept responsibility for them.  

Soon after that, Bill Clinton used radioactive nuclear waste munitions against Yugoslavia, also devastating the people and environment there. 

Soon after that, George W. Bush used  radioactive nuclear waste  munitions against Afghanistan, devastating people and the environment.   

Soon after that, George W. Bush used  radioactive nuclear waste , white phosphorus, and sarin gas against Iraq again (see "Rogue State"), devastating the people and environment, and bringing rates of cancer and birth defects up to levels higher than those of Hiroshima after the USA nuclear bombed it.

Soon after that, Obama expanded the war of aggression against Afghanistan from 40,000 US troops to over 100,000, and said nothing of the use of  radioactive nuclear waste weapons . 

At the same time, in 2009,  Israel used US-provided white phosphorus  chemical-weapon bombs against civilians in Gaza (see "Rain of Fire", by Human Rights Watch), after which Obama and Congress increased US tax money flowing to Israel by almost three quarters of a billion dollars per year.  Israel had already been the biggest recipient of US tax money (as well as weapons, etc.).  The current level of aid going to Israel is over 3 billion dollars a year, or about 10 million dollars per day.  All aid to Israel is illegal under US and international law. 

The pattern is clear.  When there is no punishment for crimes, when people know they can do pretty much anything and get away with it, they will do just that.  

We need a mass movement in the USA to arrest and prosecute war criminals, so that US politicians and officials have something to be afraid of (namely jail) when they make their decisions.  War crimes, genocide, and the like, would then have definite consequences and be sharply reduced. 

We know theft and murder rates would be much higher if we had no punishments for those crimes.  Crimes committed by the most ambitious/evil people (corporate-backed politicians, government officials) are the same - with no punishment, they continue, often committed repeatedly by the same people, as in the cases of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others.  If Ted Bundy hadn't been apprehended, he would have kept going, too, albeit on a scale minuscule by comparison to these and other US terrorists and mass murderers. 

For the USA to stop killing and mutating people around the world, there must be consequences for crimes.  Otherwise they go on, as seen.  

The above list of crimes is incomplete, even for the time period it covers.  Before the US/Euro/Iraqi Axis of Evil war of aggression against Iran, the USA used and experimented with chemical weapons and other agents hundreds of times on its own citizens and around the world, without consent.  

The US government will not submit to such measures willingly.  The USA has been found guilty of state terrorism before, for example against Nicaragua, and ordered to pay massive reparations.  The USA simply said no.  For another example, the USA has legislation known as "The Hague Invasion Act", which says that the US must use force to invade the Netherlands and retrieve any US official, and possibly official from an allied foreign government such as Israel, who is brought to the International Criminal Court for trial.

But a mass, non-violent movement could accomplish the goal of charging war criminals.  Everyone knows war crimes and genocide are wrong.  That's not the issue.  The issue is that many people are unaware that these events, such as the US/Euro/Iraqi war of aggression against Iran, even took place.  If they are aware of them, they are likely unaware of US involvement, and if they are aware of that, they are unaware that such acts are serious crimes against humanity.  This is due to the US corporate media's central role in the profitable US agenda of expanding the empire through force.

It may well be true what US war criminals such as  Obama , John Kerry,  Hillary Clinton , and Zbigniew Brzezinski have expressed: that the internet is dealing a fatal blow to the empire, because now people can quickly spread information and easily learn that crimes are crimes.  Many are unhappy that the USA is committing heinous acts repeatedly, without consequences, and destroying millions upon millions of lives.

Let us awaken and go back to our previous war-criminals such as Henry Kissinger, the Bushes, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney, arrest them, and arrest our current war criminals, some of whom are listed here, and give them fair trials and prison sentences if they are found guilty by an impartial jury of their peers.     

"All options", as these people say, are not "on the table": the death penalty - premeditated pack murder - is an abomination, which is why virtually every country in the world (about 90%), aside from the US, several of its allies, and a few others, do not use it.

Robert Barsocchini  is a writer for the film industry, as well as a political researcher and reporter.  He blogs at  empireslayer.blogspot.com .  

 



 

Share on Tumblr

 

 


Comments are moderated