International Criminal Court to investigate U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan
Submitted by gjohnsit on Fri, 11/04/2016 - 2:10pm
It's long overdue, but it appears that there will finally be some international oversight of our war crimes. Where it will lead (if anywhere) is unknown.
The prosecutor’s office of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is ready to initiate a full investigation of a range of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, including some by U.S. personnel, according to several knowledgeable sources. The ICC move would mark the first time that a formal ICC investigation has scrutinized U.S. actions and sets up a possible collision with Washington.
Multiple sources have indicated that the chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, will seek to initiate an investigation in the coming weeks, likely after the U.S. presidential election but before the end of the year. U.S. officials visited The Hague recently to discuss the potential investigation and to express concerns about its scope.
The prosecutor’s office has repeatedly called attention to alleged abuses of detainees by U.S. personnel between 2003 and 2005 that it believes have not been adequately addressed by the United States. In a report last year, it noted that “crimes were allegedly committed with particular cruelty and in a manner that debased the basic human dignity of the victims.” Bensouda may also want to probe further the attack by U.S. forces on a Médecins Sans Frontières facility in Kunduz that killed several dozen people.
Of course no one in the Bush or Obama Administration will ever stand trial, but it certainly would be nice to know that they couldn't travel abroad for the rest of their lives.
Meanwhile, as if to put an exclamation on this point, we committed another war crime in Afghanistan.
Hundreds of mourners gathered on Friday to bury more than 30 civilians killed in an airstrike called in to protect Afghan and U.S. forces during a raid on suspected Taliban militants outside the northern city of Kunduz.
There was an angry mood in Buz Kandahari, the village outside Kunduz where the raid took place in the early hours of Thursday, as white-shrouded bodies, many of small children, were laid out for burial.
"My brother and three of his children were killed. My brother had no connection to any group, he was a laborer," said Mawlawi Haji Allahdad, a resident of the village.
"Did you see which of those infants and children who were killed by the Americans were terrorists?"
...Human rights group Amnesty International called for an inquiry into the incident, saying those killed in the airstrike deserved justice. "This cannot be another example of inaction in the face of such loss of life," said Champa Patel, Amnesty International's South Asia Director.
If our political process wasn't such a corrupt joke, this would be big news. Instead we have a conspiracy of silence.
Afghanistan has become the dirty little secret of the US presidential campaign that neither candidate cares to discuss.
Across all three presidential debates, Afghanistan was only mentioned once, by Clinton, and then only in passing. The Democrat, already under fire for her support for the 2003 Iraq invasion and the 2011 US intervention in Libya, has little incentive to draw attention to unfinished business in Afghanistan. She knows the war is deeply unpopular with voters.
For his part, Trump seems to understand little and care less. He once said the war was a “terrible mistake” but has no known policy. Even the Taliban feel affronted. A Talib spokesman, quoted by analyst Yochi Dreazen, commented after the first debate that Trump says “anything that comes to his tongue” and is “not serious”.
Comments
About bloody time
I still am furious over the MSF Kunduz whitewashing.
MSF Kunduz isn't even tops on the list
Before Abu Ghraib, we were torturing Afghanis to death.
Five of the eight weddings we've bombed were Afghani.
I know
However what it indicated was in fact nobody was safe, it was the crowning glory of our exceptionalism in action.
Also the effect on those that screamed about torture when Bush was in power shut up faster that light because Obama has a D after his name, the whole shit pile disgusted me.
B-b-b-b-but Peace Prize!!!!! <panting with
incredulousnessity>
Woo hoo! We're no. 1.
It was manifest destiny in the 1800s. I wonder what historians will label the post 9/11 U.S.
The Worlds One Superpower?
The New American Century?
Hope and Change?
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I thought W made the US exempt from the ICC
Around the time we invaded Iraq:
Bush unsigns treaty
Beware the bullshit factories.
That doesn't make us exempt
It only means we don't acknowledge their rulings.
you say potato and
they'll say "nyahh nyahh, nyahh" to the ICC.
It is kind of like the Hitler/Stalin quote about "fuck the pope, how many divisions does he have?" The ICC is toothless when it comes to the USA USA USA!!!1111
At least a recognized investigative agency can probe the
horrors committed in our name and publish the findings. If, as you say, it will expose perpetrators to arrest outside of the USA, so much the better.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
U.S. war crimes in Yemen
another danger
The US government has a lot
The US government has a lot to answer for - and it must be properly investigated and held accountable, with the corrupt portions at the least removed from office and - finally - tried in an independent international court for its international crimes, as would be done in any actual democracy.
Although I mentioned this hopeful beginning to my roommate; her immediate response was that she hoped they weren't bullied/bought off or just doing it to lull the people of the world - as the initial 'trade deal' portion of the hostile global corporate takeover completed... echoing the fears of a number of us.
I have, in my inbox, this ACLU petition to demand that the DOJ investigate 'possible' (sic) Constitutional violations of the water protectors at Standing Rock, as these 'acceptable' war crimes without repercussion flock home to roost in anticipation of the 'trade deal' corporate coup going through as anticipated (bolding/other emphasis mine):
There's a military attack on American citizens on American soil - and the government does nothing, because they're conspiring for worse.
A legitimate government is of, by and for the people and protects - rather than selling off - their guaranteed-in-every-State US Constitutional rights.
Reposting this:
Got this in my inbox (bolding/emphasis mine):
Wow, due to a massive effort, the anonymous (seems that nobody even knows who's determining the survival chances of people and their local ecologies/economies in each case) World Bank arbitrator actually allowed a country to keep its last source of presumably not-solidly-polluted water un-mining-wasted! For now, at any rate. (And am wondering if this is not to avoid raising awareness of what these 'trade deals' mean and do by destroying the last 10% of an entire country's potable water/ecology for mining profits, as this would raise a fuss, right before the TPP and others are to be passed.)
And the TPP corporate coups and others will be so much worse, with no appeal...
It won't be - and isn't now - just against small and poor countries forced to accept being polluted/poisoned, among other abuses, such as those we're witnessing at Standing Rock, although we who are about (unless the corporate coup and corruption is stopped now, by some miracle) to share in a far worse and to-be-global horror salute you who have had it so much worse until now. We are all to be officially and 'legally' just grist for the owners of the insatiable greed mill until the planetary oxygen runs out due to ecological die-off.
Never vote for evil - vote Green for life!
And I suspect that the 'job loss' Obama's claiming to be concerned about - unless this is a threat to the representatives he's using this on - 'if the corporate coups aren't passed' would be some cushy one offered him for his betrayal - and whatever pay-off he gets in order to become a venture capitalist, as he plans to do after leaving the Presidential Office he's planning to alter to a corporate management office All Ready For Hillary.
The fight made now is for planetary survival - the government must fall due to the weight of its corruption and be re-staffed with public servants having no corporate/billionaire connections in order to qualify, with public funding and media time for each candidate for each political candidate part of the requirement for them retaining their license.
The only legitimate government in any democracy is of, by and for the people - with at most only the same percentage of multi-millionaires as exists in the population permitted to be within their ranks, in order to ensure that they are not over-all so entirely insulated from the realities faced by those they are intended to represent.
Edited for a missed letter - must press harder on all of the keys! And re-edited because it was actually an extra letter - wish I could get that first coffee down and both eyelids open!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.