Kurdistan!

[Jooboian]

Thursday, December 02, 2004
Iraq's civilian dead get no hearing in the United States
By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Evidence is mounting that America's war in Iraq has killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and perhaps well over 100,000. Yet this carnage is systematically ignored in the United States, where the media and government portray a war in which there are no civilian deaths, because there are no Iraqi civilians, only insurgents.

American behavior and self-perceptions reveal the ease with which a civilized country can engage in large-scale killing of civilians without public discussion. In late October, the British medical journal Lancet published a study of civilian deaths in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began. The sample survey documented an extra 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths compared to the death rate in the preceding year, when Saddam Hussein was still in power - and this estimate did not even count excess deaths in Fallujah, which was deemed too dangerous to include.

The study also noted that the majority of deaths resulted from violence, and that a high proportion of the violent deaths were due to U.S. aerial bombing. The epidemiologists acknowledged the uncertainties of these estimates, but presented enough data to warrant an urgent follow-up investigation and reconsideration by the Bush administration and the U.S. military of aerial bombing of Iraq's urban areas.

America's public reaction has been as remarkable as the Lancet study, for the reaction has been no reaction. On Oct. 29 the vaunted New York Times ran a single story of 770 words on page 8 of the paper. The Times reporter apparently did not interview a single Bush administration or U.S. military official. No follow-up stories or editorials appeared, and no Times reporters assessed the story on the ground. Coverage in other U.S. papers was similarly meager. The Washington Post, also on Oct. 29, carried a single 758-word story on page 16.

Recent reporting on the bombing of Fallujah has also been an exercise in self-denial. On Nov. 6, The New York Times wrote that "warplanes pounded rebel positions" in Fallujah, without noting that "rebel positions" were actually in civilian neighborhoods. Another story in The Times on Nov. 12, citing "military officials," dutifully reported: "Since the assault began on Monday, about 600 rebels have been killed, along with 18 American and 5 Iraqi soldiers." The issue of civilian deaths was not even raised.

Violence is only one reason for the increase in civilian deaths in Iraq. Children in urban war zones die in vast numbers from diarrhea, respiratory infections and other causes, owing to unsafe drinking water, lack of refrigerated foods, and acute shortages of blood and basic medicines in clinics and hospitals (that is, if civilians even dare to leave their houses for medical care). The Red Crescent and other relief agencies were unable to relieve Fallujah's civilian population.

On Nov. 14, the front page of The New York Times led with the following description: "Army tanks and fighting vehicles blasted their way into the last main rebel stronghold in Fallujah at sundown on Saturday after American warplanes and artillery prepared the way with a savage barrage on the district. Earlier in the afternoon, 10 separate plumes of smoke rose from Southern Fallujah, as it etched against the desert sky, and probably exclaimed catastrophe for the insurgents."

There is, once again, virtually no mention of the catastrophe for civilians etched against that desert sky. There is a hint, though, in a brief mention in the middle of the story of a father looking over his wounded sons in a hospital and declaring: "Now Americans are shooting randomly at anything that moves."

A few days later, a U.S. television film crew was in a bombed-out mosque with American marines. While the cameras were rolling, a marine turned to an unarmed and wounded Iraqi lying on the ground and shot the man in the head. (Reportedly, there were a few other such cases of outright murder.) But the American media more or less brushed aside this shocking incident, too. The Wall Street Journal actually wrote an editorial on Nov. 18 that criticized the critics, noting that whatever the U.S. did, its enemies in Iraq did worse, as if this excused American abuses.

It does not. The U.S. is killing massive numbers of Iraqi civilians, embittering the population and many in the Islamic world, and laying the ground for escalating violence and death. No number of slaughtered Iraqis will bring peace. The American fantasy of a final battle, in Fallujah or elsewhere, or the capture of some terrorist mastermind, perpetuates a cycle of bloodletting that puts the world in peril.

Worse still, American public opinion, media, and the recent election victory of the Bush administration have left the world's most powerful military without practical restraint.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=10594#

[Jooboian]

The Mai Lai Massacre or as Gondorian would say, "collateral damage".

The Mai Lai Massacre was most likely the best-known act of violence of the war against communists of Vietnam. The Objective of the American military mission was clear:search and destro the Mai Lai hamlet of Son Mai village in Quang Ngai Province of South Vietnam. What was not clear was what to do with all the civillians who might be encountered at Mai Lai. On March 16, 1968, Captian Ernest Medina ordered Cahlie Company into combat. The 150 soldiers, led by Lieutenant William Calley, stormed into the hamlet, and within four hours more than 500 civilians-unarmed woman, children, and old men-were dead. Charlie Company had not encountered a single enemy soldier, and only three weapons were confiscated.

When the soldiers in Charlie Company pushed into the hamlet, they expected to be locked into fierce combat with a Viet Cong battalion believed to be at Mai Lai. Charlie Company met no resistance-there were no Viet Cong soldiers at Mai Lai. Calley then ordered the slaughter of the civilians. People were rounded up into ditches and machine-gunned. They lay five feet deep in the ditches; any survivors trying to escape were immediately shot. When Calley saw a baby crawling away from a ditch, he grabbed it, threw it back into the ditch.

http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/91741.html

The incident was and is not anything the government wanted widely publicized. The Mai Lai massacre, cause by US soldiers, concluded with the death of hundreds of innocent people. Not only were they killed for no reason, but also many were tortured before they died.

...

At the end of the massacre, more than 500 civilians were killed (My Lai). "Not only did they slaughter unarmed people, they sodomized young girls, raped women in front of their children, bayoneted children in front of their mothers and used babies as target practice" (Franklin).

...

Of all the soldiers present that day in My Lai, only Lt. Calley was tried and convicted. His conviction can be seen as an attempt to settle people’s need to provide some sort of justice for the people of My Lai.

...

It makes you wonder what else the US government had covered up. Although the story has been told, how many more have gone overlooked? As our country is currently at war, you begin to wonder: Can an incident like My Lai happen again?

http://faculty.ccc.edu/mcleary/mcleary/EnglishandSpeech/contestwinners/2003-2004/Olivia%20Esparza.htm

[Jooboian]

U.S. MILITARY CHARGED WITH MASS MURDER

The ninety minute film entitled THE PANAMA DECEPTION builds a substantial case against the U.S. military for war crimes. A portion of the film shows the exhuming of a large mass grave containing the bodies of both men and women, young and old. Almost all were civilians that were killed during the U.S. invasion. Some of the victims had been shot in the back of the head, execution style. It is asserted during the documentary that there are many mass graves within Panama but are located within the U.S. military controlled zone and are not accessible.

U.S. Army General Maxwell Thurman admitted during an interview shown in the film that there was a grave containing "some number" of bodies. He did not elaborate. A Pentagon spokesman said calling it a mass grave would be "imprecise".

The official U.S. toll of Panamanian deaths is approximately 256 and admits that 75 percent of those were civilians. Four different human rights groups put the death toll at 2,500 to 4,000 civilians.

THE PANAMA DECEPTION shows a "scorched earth" aftermath in the neighborhoods of Colon, San Miguelito and El Chorillo. Twenty thousand civilians lost their homes during the American bombardment and subsequent fire, and many lost their lives as well.

Former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, has condemned the invasion as illegal. He also said that is was characterized by a "shear, overwhelming use of raw firepower."

A spokesman for the Organization of American States (OAS) said in an interview included in the documentary that the U.S. invasion was a violation of the OAS charter (of which the U.S. is a signator), the U.N. charter and the the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention clearly prohibits attacks against civilian targets.

The U.S. military barred reporters from taking pictures during the invasion. Panamanian reporters who approached the neighborhood of El Chorillo (where the Panamanian armed forces were headquartered) were arrested and had their film confiscated. There is very little film footage of the actual invasion.

During the invasion the American press parroted the official story about "freeing Panama from narco-dictator Noriega" (like the Soviets freed Hungary in the late 50's). Even though there was no legal justification for the invasion, there was not a word of protest from the mainstream American media.

On June 16, 1996, the PANAMA DECEPTION was broadcast by the Southern Educational Communications Association via satellite to all of the public television stations in the United States. Even though the film won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 1993, PBS refused to show it on the national network.

Like many crimes, the U.S. invasion of Panama was carried out at midnight. When the day arrives for the complete uncovering of the deeds of all men, Americans will stand aghast at the crimes committed by their own country under the cover of darkness.

http://www.apfn.org/THEWINDS/archive/war/a102896b.html

[Jooboian]

In the months following the Panama invasion, the successful affair largely disappeared from view. U.S. goals had been achieved, the triumph had been properly celebrated, and there was little more to say except to record subsequent progress towards freedom, democracy, and good fortune --

Central American sources continued to give considerable attention to the impact of the invasion on civilians, but they were ignored in the occasional reviews of the matter here. New York Times correspondent Larry Rohter devoted a column to casualty estimates on April 1, citing figures as high as 673 killed, and adding that higher figures, which he attributes only to Ramsey Clark, are "widely rejected" in Panama. He found Panamanian witnesses who described U.S. military actions as restrained, but none with less happy tales.

Among the many readily accessible sources deemed unworthy of mention we find such examples as the following.

The Mexican press reported that two Catholic Bishops estimated deaths at perhaps 3000. Hospitals and nongovernmental human rights groups estimated deaths at over 2000.

A joint delegation of the Costa Rica-based Central American Human Rights Commission (CODEHUCA) and the Panamanian Human Rights Commission (CONADEHUPA) published the report of its January 20-30 inquiry, based on numerous interviews. It concluded that "the human costs of the invasion are substantially higher than the official U.S. figures" of 202 civilians killed, reaching 2-3000 according to "conservative estimates." Eyewitnesses interviewed in the urban slums report that U.S. helicopters aimed their fire at buildings with only civilian occupants, that a U.S. tank destroyed a public bus killing 26 passengers, that civilian residences were burned to the ground with many apartments destroyed and many killed, that U.S. troops shot at ambulances and killed wounded, some with bayonets, and denied access to the Red Cross. The Catholic and Episcopal Churches gave estimates of 3000 dead as "conservative." Civilians were illegally detained, particularly union leaders and those considered "in opposition to the invasion or nationalistic." "All the residences and offices of the political sectors that oppose the invasion have been searched and much of them have been destroyed and their valuables stolen." The U.S. imposed severe censorship. Human rights violations under Noriega had been "unacceptably high," the report continues, though of course "mild compared with the record of U.S.-supported regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador." But the U.S invasion "caused an unprecedented level of deaths, suffering, and human rights abuses in Panama." The title of the report is: "Panama: More than an invasion,... a massacre."65

Physicians for Human Rights, with the concurrence of Americas Watch, reached tentative casualty figures higher than those given by the Pentagon but well below those of CODEHUCA and others in Panama. Their estimate is about 300 civilians killed. Americas Watch also gives a "conservative estimate" of at least 3000 wounded, concluding further that civilian deaths were four times as great as military deaths in Panama, and over ten times as high as U.S. casualties (officially given as 23). They ask: "How does a `surgical operation' result in almost ten civilians killed (by official U.S. count) for every American military casualty? By September, the count of bodies exhumed from several of the mass graves had passed 600.66

The CODEHUCA report emphasizes that a great deal is uncertain, because of the violent circumstances, the incineration of bodies, and the lack of records for persons buried in common graves without having reached morgues or hospitals, according to eyewitnesses.67 Its reports, and the many others of which a few have been cited here, may or may not be accurate. A media decision to ignore them, however, reflects not professional standards but a commitment to power.

While Larry Rohter's visits to the slums destroyed by U.S. bombardment located only celebrants, or critics of U.S. "insensitivity" at worst, others found a rather different picture. Mexico's leading newspaper reported in April that Rafael Olivardia, refugee spokesman for the 15,000 refugees of the devastated El Chorrillo neighborhood, "said that the El Chorillo refugees were victims of a `bloodbath' during and after the invasion." "He said that those victims `saw North American tanks roll over the dead' during the invasion that left a total of more than 2000 dead and thousands injured, according to unofficial figures." "You only live once," Olivardia said, "and if you must die fighting for an adequate home, then the U.S. soldiers should complete the task they began" on December 20.

The Spanish language press in the United States was less celebratory than its colleagues. Vicky Pelaez reports from Panama that "the entire world continues in ignorance about how the thousands of victims of the Northamerican invasion of Panama died and what kinds of weapons were used, because the Attorney-General of the country refuses to permit investigation of the bodies buried in the common graves." An accompanying photo shows workmen exhuming corpses from a grave containing "almost 200 victims of the invasion." Quoting a woman who found the body of her murdered father, Pelaez reports that "just like the woman at the cemetery, it is `vox populi' in Panama that the Northamericans used completely unknown armaments during the 20 December invasion." The head of a Panamanian human rights group informed the journal that:

They converted Panama into a laboratory of horror. Here, they first experimented with methods of economic strangulation; then they successfully used a campaign of disinformation at the international level. But it was in the application of the most modern war technology that they demonstrated infernal mastery.

The CODEHUCA report also alleges that "the U.S. Army used highly sophisticated weapons -- some for the first time in combat -- against unarmed civilian populations," and "in many cases no distinction was made between civilian and military targets."

http://www.zmag.org/Chomsky/dd/dd-c05-s11.html

[Jooboian]

November 26 / 27, 2005
When a Chemical Weapon is Not a Chemical Weapon
US War Crimes List Keeps Growing

By DAVE LINDORFF

Whether white phosphorus bombs--what American troops call "Willie Pete"--is a chemical weapon or an incendiary weapon, may not seem like a very important distinction to a casual observer. After all, what it does--burn flesh on contact and eat right down to the bone causing severe pain and, depending on what it eats through, death--is as cruel and vicious as any poison gas.

But it does matter to the Pentagon, and to the mainstream media that is covering the growing scandal of US military use of phosphorus bombs in the assault on Fallujah (and probably elsewhere in the Iraq War/Occupation).

Pentagon, State Department and White House officials, after first denying that phosphorus was used at all in Fallujah, when caught in their lie, finally admitted using the weapon, but insisted that it was only used against troops, not civilians (a lie), and that it is not a chemical weapon. The New York Times, which finally reported on the scandal on Monday, three separate times noted that phosphorus is an incindiary weapon, not a chemical weapon.

Why the fuss? Well, recall that the Bush/Cheney adminstration made use ad nauseum of how Saddam Hussein "used chemical weapons against his own people."

So how would it look if the bombs we are using against Iraqis were also chemical weapons?

It turns out, though, that what the Pentagon calls "chemical" arms depends on who's using them.

An organization called Think Progress has uncovered a Pentagon document, formerly classified, from 1995 that calls phosphorus bombs "chemical weapons."

Titled "Possible Use of Phosphorous Chemical," the document says:

IRAQ HAS POSSIBLY EMPLOYED PHOSPHOROUS CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST THE KURDISH POPULATION IN AREAS ALONG THE IRAQI-TURKISH-IRANIAN BORDERS. [...]

IN LATE FEBRUARY 1991, FOLLOWING THE COALITION FORCES' OVERWHELMING VICTORY OVER IRAQ, KURDISH REBELS STEPPED UP THEIR STRUGGLE AGAINST IRAQI FORCES IN NORTHERN IRAQ. DURING THE BRUTAL CRACKDOWN THAT FOLLOWED THE KURDISH UPRISING, IRAQI FORCES LOYAL TO PRESIDENT SADDAM ((HUSSEIN)) MAY HAVE POSSIBLY USED WHITE PHOSPHOROUS (WP) CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST KURDISH REBELS AND THE POPULACE IN ERBIL (GEOCOORD:3412N/04401E) (VICINITY OF IRANIAN BORDER) AND DOHUK (GEOCOORD:3652N/04301E) (VICINITY OF IRAQI BORDER) PROVINCES, IRAQ.

So let's go with chemical arms as we continue to look at this latest war crime by the U.S. against the people of Iraq.

Yet another impeachable crime--this time a crime against humanity--by the dynamic duo occupying the White House.

And whiile we're on the matter of Pentagon lies regarding phosphorus bomb use, let's look at another Pentagon claim: that there's nothing illegal about the weapon.

In fact, an instruction manual used by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, tells senior officers it is against the "laws of war" to fire the incendiary weapon at human targets. This document, first disclosed by the UK Independent, reports that the Army manual "makes clear that white phosphorus can be used to produce a smoke screen, but that 'It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP [white phosphorous] against personnel targets.'"

So besides being a war crime, this is also a US crime.

In all of this, it needs to be recalled that the US fall-back claim that it "only" used phosphorus bombs against insurgents has to be held up against the reality that the US military, in Iraq in general and in the Fallujah assault in particular, considers all Iraqi males of "combat age" (read that 12 or 14 and up) to be the enemy under Pentagon "rules of engagement." In Fallujah, it was widely reported that the US, after encircling the city in preparation for its assault, refused to allow such Iraqi males to leave the doomed city and left them to their fate as the assault began (a war crime, since under the rules of war anyone, inclulding combatants, must be allowed to surrender and leave the field of battle)--an assault that included the use of phosphorus bombs.

Even so, Iraqi government sources say 5-6000 civilians were killed in the US attack on Fallujah a year ago. That's a terrible toll, but in fact, the real figure is surely higher and will never be known. Hospitals were deliberately bombed at the outset (yet another war crime), and others were occupied by US troops. Bodies of the dead were bulldozed away after the battle ended as well, and many were in any event so thoroughly destroyed--and left to roaming dogs--as to never be recoverable or identifiable.

Such is this "noble effort" of our commander-in-chief.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff11262005.html

[Jooboian]

The U.S. Is Even More Guilty Than Pol Pot

(Note: Pol Pot died in April 1998, when the U.S. government was making noises about "trying" him for "genocide". Nowhere was there any mention of U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, though this had been well documented. The following letter was published in The Montclarion (weekly student newspaper of Montclair State University) of April 23, 1998, page 22, under the title "The U.S. Is Just As Guilty As Pol Pot".)

To the Editor:

In all the hubbub about the death of Pol Pot, neither the U.S. government nor the American news media have seen fit to mention that

* this mass murderer was supported for fifteen years by the United States.
* the U.S. bombing of Cambodia during 1970-75 killed as many or more Cambodians as Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge ever did;
* Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were not Communists.

These last two facts have been documented by anti-communist researchers (see "Who Is and Was Really Responsible for Genocide in Cambodia? Pol Pot Was Not and Is Not A Communist,"). For example: The Khmer Rouge not communist? Yes, by their own statement:

"We are not communists ... we are revolutionaries" who do not 'belong to the commonly accepted grouping of communist Indochina."(Ieng Sary, 1977, quoted by Vickery, Cambodia: 1978-1983, p. 288).

As for how many were killed by American bombing, Zasloff and Brown, in Problems of Communism, Jan.-Feb. 1979, write of the "heavy toll in lives" which "the enormous U.S. bombing and the intensity of the fighting" caused before 1975, and imply the Khmer Rouge claims of 600,000 to "more than 1 million" dead are credible. (These two authors are dedicated anti-Communists who did much research for the U.S. government during the Vietnam War.)

U.S. support of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is thoroughly documented in an article in CAQ magazine (formerly Covert Action Quarterly) by Australian journalist John Pilger, "The Long Secret Alliance: Uncle Sam and Pol Pot."* Some quotations from that article:

"The US not only helped to create conditions that brought Cambodia's Khmer Rouge to power in 1975, but actively supported the genocidal force, politically and financially. By January 1980, the US was secretly funding Pol Pot's exiled forces on the Thai border. The extent of this support -- $85 million from 1980-86 -- was revealed 6 years later in correspondence between congressional lawyer Jonathan Winer, then counsel to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation."

"In 1981, Pres. Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, said, "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. The US", he added, "winked publicly" as China sent arms to the Khmer Rouge(KR) through Thailand."

"In 1980, under US pressure, the World Food Program handed over food worth $12 million to the Thai Army to pass on to the KR. According to former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke,'20,000 to 40,000 Pol Pot guerrillas benefited. This aid helped restore the KR to a fighting force, based in Thailand, from which it destabilized Cambodia for more than a decade.'"

"In 1982, the US and China, supported by Singapore, invented the Coalition of the Democratic Government of Kampuchea, which was, as Ben Kiernan pointed out, neither a coalition, nor democratic, nor a government, not in Kampuchea. Rather, it was what the CIA calls a 'master illusion.' ... Cambodia's former ruler, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was appointed its head; otherwise little changed. The KR dominated the two "non-communist" members, the Sihanoukists and the Khmer Peoples' National Liberation Front (KPNLF). From his office at the UN, Pol Pot's ambassador, the urbane Thereon Parish, continued to speak for Cambodia. A close associate of Pol Pot, he had in 1975 called on Khmer expatriates to return home, whereupon many of them disappeared."

(I have also put another article from Covert Action Information Bulletin No. 34, Summer 1990, on this subject: Jack Colhoun, "On the side of Pol Pot: U.S. Supports Khmer Rouge".*

The United States government pressured the United Nations to retain Pol Pot's representative as the "official" representative of Cambodia to the UN, to keep the pro-Vietnamese government out.

During the past year or two the Khmer Rouge guerrilla forces have begun to disintegrate, and Pol Pot's usefulness to the Western imperialists has evaporated. Therefore the U.S. government has talked vaguely about putting Pol Pot on trial for genocide. His death last week spared the imperialists a potentially embarrassing situation.

What does this all mean for us?

1. There is no substitute for real communism -- egalitarian, anti-racist, based on class interests, anti-nationalist. Pol Pot's nationalism -- based upon "peasant" radicalism, anti-Vietnamese racism, and anti-communism -- created a nightmare state in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians,including Communists, who had opportunistically entered into an alliance with them against French and American imperialists, were slaughtered.

2. The western imperialists, the U.S. among them, are the biggest mass murderers in history.

3. The mass media usually play the role of unofficial mouthpiece for government propaganda. What they write about communism, "human rights", and so on, is normally false. Do not drink water from a poisoned well! Don't believe anything they say.

Grover Furr
English Department

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/pol/polpotmontclarion0498.html

[Jooboian]

Cambodians, subjected to 3,500 secret bombing raids, and Laotians, are a separate and unknown casualty toll...The bulk of the dead were peasants, who died of hunger and disease, died in massacres, died because they lived on that day's battleground, died because artillery sprayed random shells over the countryside. Mainly they died under the fire and steel that rained from the skies. American planes dropped more tonnage of bombs here than was dropped by anyone anywhere in the whole of World War Two.' American B-52 bombers, using napalm and dart cluster-bombs, killed up to 750,000 Cambodians.

[Jooboian]

Belgium goes ahead with war crimes lawsuits

June 20 2003 at 04:27AM

Brussles - War crimes lawsuits had been filed in Belgium against eight top officials including United States President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the Belgian authorities.

But the Belgian government had refused to handle the cases arising from the conflict in Iraq, referring them on to the US and British governments, said the justice ministry.

Nevertheless the lawsuits, brought under Belgium's "universal competence law", are likely to deepen tensions between Washington and Brussels, which firmly opposed the war in Iraq.

Last week US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld - who is one of the eight high-ranking officials named in the lawsuits - said Belgium would face consequences unless it revised the "absurd" law.

The Belgian law was a matter of 'great concern'

He warned that US officials would shun the country, and announced that US funding for a new Nato headquarters in Brussels, which is also home to the European Union, would be suspended in the meantime.

Rumsfeld was backed by British defence secretary Geoff Hoon, who said the Belgian law was a matter of "great concern".

The 1993 law allows courts in Belgium to judge suspects accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, regardless of where the alleged acts were committed, the nationality of the accused or that of the victims.

The justice ministry said it had received three lawsuits arising from the Iraq conflict seeking to have Bush, Blair and the six others tried.

Apart from Bush and Blair, the officials named in the suits were US secretary of state Colin Powell, Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, attorney-general John Ashcroft, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and General Tommy Franks, who led US forces in Iraq.

It had received three lawsuits arising from the Iraq conflict

Bush, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice and Wolfowitz were additionally accused over the US-led campaign in Afghanistan.

But in line with a decision taken by the Belgian cabinet last month, when a similar case was filed against US military officials, the justice ministry said it had passed the latest suits on to legal authorities in Britain and the United States.

A recent revision to the universal competence law by the Belgian parliament allowed such a move where the accused is not Belgian and his or her country has adequate war crimes legislation in place.

The Belgian government is seeking to deflect the storm of international criticism of the law, under which suits have also been brought against Israeli officials including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Outgoing Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt wanted to circumvent the dispute by extending diplomatic immunity to all official visitors to international bodies on Belgian territory, said the Financieel Economische Tijd newspaper. - Sapa-AFP

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=vn20030620042744213C765694&set_id=1

[Gondorian]

Reincarnated AM

The fact that all of your sources are ectremely biased against Israel and/or neo-nazi websites proves their irrelevance, innacuracy, and your stupidity and ignorance.

I have debated you before and have proven you to be an ordinary anti-semite, nothing more.

Joobian

First why the name Joobian? can you answer me that? I chose the name Gondorian because I am a LOTR Nut.

NATO stopped a genocide in the FORMER Yugoslavia that was lead by the late Slobadon Milosovich. Had NATO not stepped in every Bosnian, Albanian, and other Yugoslav Minority would be in their graves today. Someone like you who doesn't consider bombing the government infrastructure of a government commiting genocide ok, but sees nothing wrong with PKK slaughtering Turkish Children can not be described without using the term Morally Bankrupt.

Joobian no matter what your small time teacher from Montclair says he/she (You where not kind enough to give a link to this proffessors name, I saw it nowhere in your article) can not change the fact that the genocide commited was commited by Pol Pot, and that Pol Pot was infact the culprit. No respectable source disputes that, considering you can not see the difference between accidently killing civilians (collateral damage) and killing them on purpose (terrorism), and the fact that you defend scum like the government of Milosovich already did indicate morale backwardsness though.

As for your next post I can sue you in Belgium, Britain, France, or Canada for war crimes right now. That is why countries like the ones I mention have a thing called a JUDGE, and a TRIAL, you know the ancient concept of innocent untill proven guilty. Unfortunately to you the fact that a nut filled the law suit is enough to prove guilt.

The Mai Lai Massacre or as Gondorian would say, "collateral damage".

No I would not call that collateral damage because it was not done by accident. Please stop using strawmen, and stop lying about what collateral damage is. I condemn that massacre fully, however perhaps you should learn how to read things you don't want to see, I will quote from your article there.

Of all the soldiers present that day in My Lai, only Lt. Calley was tried and convicted. His conviction can be seen as an attempt to settle people’s need to provide some sort of justice for the people of My Lai.

It does not seem like something the US Military or government ordered, or something support by the American People seeing as to how the officer that commited the massacre was brought to justice. However That just is not so of the terrorists.

What I really see in common about almost all of your articles though is that as it stands today right now they are all unsubstantiated.

For example with one from Amnesty International which you think proves Nato=Nazi Germany

Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force
From 24 March to 10 June 1999 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conducted an air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), codenamed Operation Allied Force. NATO aircraft conducted over 38,000 combat sorties, including 10,484 strike sorties, against targets in the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, Serbia proper and the Republic of Montenegro. Yugoslav media have stated that thousands of civilians were killed in NATO air raids. However, the civilian death tolls given in detailed FRY government accounts range from 400 to 600. NATO has not released official estimates of civilians or FRY combatants killed. No NATO forces were killed in hostile action during the air campaign. (07 May 2000)

The Amnesty International Article itself admits it is not substantiated, yet you post it as proving your point?

I will not go through everything you wrote here, you simply wrote too much for me to go through and have time to do anything else. The fact still stands that you don't seem to see anything wrong with 9-11 or Beslan, afterall civilian killing ok?

You are a morally bankrupt person, you can not see the difference between when rogues kill innocent people without any support, and when terrorists kill with full support.

At the end of the day you do not have to support terrorist scum in order to be against Turkish Occupation of Kurdistan.

However you do have to oppose Kurdish Killing of Turkish Children in order to oppose Azeri Killing of Armenian Children without being a blatant hypocrite.

Oh and to Reincarnated Am again.

The UN is on the side of Azerbaijan in the NK, it sees the NK as occupied land and is for the withdrawal of Armenian Troops. Infact the only country on this planet apart from Armenia itself that recognizes the claim is Russia, I suppose that means Armenians have to immediately leave NK?

The UN is not a morale body, and it's non binding resoloutions have no wieght. It represents the interests of the governments of the world, and because of how many are Arab or Muslim Arab/Muslim interests and causes have support of the UN.

[imported_Sensei]

Reincarnated AM

The fact that all of your sources are ectremely biased against Israel and/or neo-nazi websites proves their irrelevance, innacuracy, and your stupidity and ignorance.

I have debated you before and have proven you to be an ordinary anti-semite, nothing more.

You can't attack the message, so you attack the messenger. Again, I would ask you what kind of source would you accept?

Joobian

First why the name Joobian? can you answer me that? I chose the name Gondorian because I am a LOTR Nut

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WTF is LOTR?

NATO stopped a genocide in the FORMER Yugoslavia that was lead by the late Slobadon Milosovich. Had NATO not stepped in every Bosnian, Albanian, and other Yugoslav Minority would be in their graves today. Someone like you who doesn't consider bombing the government infrastructure of a government commiting genocide ok, but sees nothing wrong with PKK slaughtering Turkish Children can not be described without using the term Morally Bankrupt.

nato stopped NO genocide. On the contrary, they enabled a genocide of Christian Serbs as well as an ethnic cleansing of Serbs. If you look at the territories involved, while Serb controlled territory is multi-ethnic, all the states supported by nato have been ethnically cleansed of Serbs and other minorities. I will provide further documentation on the absurdity of your lies regarding Yugoslavia. Serbs/Milosevic NEVER EVER tried to commit genocide on anyone. You are the morally bankrupt one, you twist everything around and accuse others of what you do yourself. Nothing new in the way liars always behave. Jooboian never said anything about approving killing children and furthermore, you have done NOTHING to prove that children were ever deliberately targeted.

Joobian no matter what your small time teacher from Montclair says he/she (You where not kind enough to give a link to this proffessors name, I saw it nowhere in your article) can not change the fact that the genocide commited was commited by Pol Pot, and that Pol Pot was infact the culprit. No respectable source disputes that, considering you can not see the difference between accidently killing civilians (collateral damage) and killing them on purpose (terrorism), and the fact that you defend scum like the government of Milosovich already did indicate morale backwardsness though.

Watch who you are calling scum. Serbs are Christian people, but you are supporting muslims. Go figure. As if you should know better, but you checked your brain at the door when you decided to believe CNN BS lies. You were given examples of state sponsored terrorism and the point you missed is there is no difference between state sponsored terrorism practiced by the US, israel and turkey and other terrorism. BTW, terrorism was first introduced into the middle east by the jews.

As for your next post I can sue you in Belgium, Britain, France, or Canada for war crimes right now. That is why countries like the ones I mention have a thing called a JUDGE, and a TRIAL, you know the ancient concept of innocent untill proven guilty. Unfortunately to you the fact that a nut filled the law suit is enough to prove guilt.

A totally senseless statement.

No I would not call that collateral damage because it was not done by accident. Please stop using strawmen, and stop lying about what collateral damage is. I condemn that massacre fully, however perhaps you should learn how to read things you don't want to see, I will quote from your article there.

Evidently you don't get it. It went right over your head. Collateral damage is a term used in the Orwellian fashion, IOW they say "Oops" to the world when they are questioned about it, but the reality is they target civilians DELIBERATELY and they have a long history of doing so.

It does not seem like something the US Military or government ordered, or something support by the American People seeing as to how the officer that commited the massacre was brought to justice. However That just is not so of the terrorists.

It was a case of them getting caught red handed because there were many instances of war crimes committed in Vietnam.

What I really see in common about almost all of your articles though is that as it stands today right now they are all unsubstantiated.

I notice that everything YOU write is nothing but your opinion, which is completely unsubstantiated and not only that but your "opinion" is obviously based on your gullibility to lies and propaganda.

For example with one from Amnesty International which you think proves Nato=Nazi Germny

It does a pretty good job of doing just that and nato is frequently and correctly called natzso because in their wildest dreams, the Nazis/Germany were never able to get away with what nato has gotten away with. Like they say, history is written by the victors or whoever is in a position of strength at the moment.

The Amnesty International Article itself admits it is not substantiated, yet you post it as proving your point?

How about telling us what Jooboian's point was? I don't think you even know.

I will not go through everything you wrote here, you simply wrote too much for me to go through and have time to do anything else.

You won't because you can't, that is obvious.

The fact still stands that you don't seem to see anything wrong with 9-11 or Beslan, afterall civilian killing ok?

You most definitely are making a completely erroneous conclusion based on your desire to paint your opponent as being in the wrong when it is you who is in the wrong. I never saw Jooboian supporting terrorism. But you appear to be completely blinded to obvious state terrorism. Even if they have jets, helicopters and uniforms...they are still terrorists when they target civilians deliberately.

You are a morally bankrupt person, you can not see the difference between when rogues kill innocent people without any support, and when terrorists kill with full support.

You are a morally bankrupt person, you cannot see the total similarity between groups of terrorists and state sponsored terrorism.

At the end of the day you do not have to support terrorist scum in order to be against Turkish Occupation of Kurdistan.

By the same token, why single them out? For love of turks or something?

However you do have to oppose Kurdish Killing of Turkish Children in order to oppose Azeri Killing of Armenian Children without being a blatant hypocrite.

We don't have to believe the LIES of the enemy either nor do we have to single out the enemy of our enemy. That would be idiotic.

I will soon be posting quite a bit of information that will expose the absurdity of accusing the Serbs/Milosevic of genocide. If you are willing to promote lies in one instance, how can you expect someone to believe you when you are telling the truth in another instance???