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News and Opinion

International Law Is A Meaningless Concept When It Only Applies To US Enemies

Australian whistleblower David McBride just made the following statement on Twitter:

“I’ve been asked if I think the invasion of Ukraine is illegal.

My answer is: If we don’t hold our own leaders to account, we can’t hold other leaders to account.

If the law is not applied consistently, it is not the law.

It is simply an excuse we use to target our enemies.

We will pay a heavy price for our hubris of 2003 in the future.

We didn’t just fail to punish Bush and Blair: we rewarded them. We re-elected them. We knighted them.

If you want to see Putin in his true light imagine him landing a jet and then saying ‘Mission Accomplished’.”

As far as I can tell this point is logically unassailable. International law is a meaningless concept when it only applies to people the US power alliance doesn’t like. This point is driven home by the life of McBride himself, whose own government responded to his publicizing suppressed information about war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan by charging him as a criminal.

Neither George W Bush nor Tony Blair are in prison cells at The Hague where international law says they ought to be. Bush is still painting away from the comfort of his home, issuing proclamations comparing Putin to Hitler and platforming arguments for more interventionism in Ukraine. Blair is still merily warmongering his charred little heart out, saying NATO should not rule out directly attacking Russian forces in what amounts to a call for a thermonuclear world war.

They are free as birds, singing their same old demonic songs from the rooftops.

Tony Blair calls for NATO not to rule out military intervention against Russia in Ukraine

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 15, 2022

When you point out this obvious plot hole in discussions about the legality of Vladimir Putin’s invasion you’ll often get accused of “whataboutism”, which is a noise that empire loyalists like to make when you have just highlighted damning evidence that their government’s behaviors entirely invalidate their position on an issue. This is not a “whataboutism”; it’s a direct accusation that is completely devastating to the argument being made, because there really is no counter-argument.

The Iraq invasion bypassed the laws and protocols for military action laid out in the founding charter of the United Nations. The current US military occupation of Syria violates international law. International law only exists to the extent to which the nations of the world are willing and able to enforce it, and because of the US empire’s military power — and more importantly because of its narrative control power — this means international law is only ever enforced with the approval of that empire.

This is why the people indicted and detained by the International Criminal Court (ICC) are always from weaker nations — overwhelmingly African — while the USA can get away with actually sanctioning ICC personnel if they so much as talk about investigating American war crimes and suffer no consequences for it whatsoever. It is also why Noam Chomsky famously said that if the Nuremberg laws had continued to be applied with fairness and consistency, then every post-WWII U.S. president would have been hanged.

This is also why former US National Security Advisor John Bolton once said that the US war machine is “dealing in the anarchic environment internationally where different rules apply,” which “does require actions that in a normal business environment in the United States we would find unprofessional.”

Bolton would certainly know. In his bloodthirsty push to manufacture consent for the Iraq invasion he spearheaded the removal of the director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a crucial institution for the enforcement of international law, using measures which included threatening the director-general’s children. The OPCW is now subject to the dictates of the US government, as evidenced by the organisation’s coverup of a 2018 false flag incident in Syria which resulted in airstrikes by the US, UK and France during Bolton’s tenure as a senior Trump advisor.

The US continually works to subvert international law enforcement institutions to advance its own interests. When the US was seeking UN authorization for the Gulf War in 1991, Yemen dared to vote against it, after which a member of the US delegation told Yemen’s ambassador, “That’s the most expensive vote you ever cast.” Yemen lost not just 70 million dollars in US foreign aid but also a valuable labor contract with Saudi Arabia, and a million Yemeni immigrants were sent home by America’s Gulf state allies.

Simple observation of who is subject to international law enforcement and who is not makes it clear that the very concept of international law is now functionally nothing more than a narrative construct that’s used to bludgeon and undermine governments who disobey the US-centralized empire. That’s why in the lead-up to this confrontation with Russia we saw a push among empire managers to swap out the term “international law” with “rules-based international order”, which can mean anything and is entirely up to the interpretation of the world’s dominant power structure.

It is entirely possible that we may see Putin ousted and brought before a war crimes tribunal one day, but that won’t make it valid. You can argue with logical consistency that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong and will have disastrous consequences far beyond the bloodshed it has already inflicted, but what you can’t do with any logical consistency whatsoever is claim that it is illegal. Because there is no authentically enforced framework for such a concept to apply.

As US law professor Dale Carpenter has said, “If citizens cannot trust that laws will be enforced in an evenhanded and honest fashion, they cannot be said to live under the rule of law. Instead, they live under the rule of men corrupted by the law.” This is all the more true of laws which would exist between nations.

You don’t get to make international law meaningless and then claim that an invasion is “illegal”. That’s not a legitimate thing to do. As long as we are living in a Wild West environment created by a murderous globe-spanning empire which benefits from it, claims about the legality of foreign invasions are just empty sounds.

At The Guardian it's pots and kettles again:

Biden calls Putin a war criminal after Zelenskiy speaks to Congress

Joe Biden has denounced Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, delivering his sharpest rebuke yet of the Russian leader just hours after the Ukrainian president pleaded with Congress to provide more aid to his country. “I think he is a war criminal,” Biden said of Putin on Wednesday.

The president’s comment marked a distinct rhetorical shift for the White House, which had deflected previous questions about whether Putin should be considered a war criminal for the Russian military’s attacks on Ukrainian civilians. ...

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Biden’s comments were “unacceptable and unforgivable rhetoric”, according to Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency.

Biden’s comments came hours after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, delivered an impassioned virtual address to the US Congress. From the besieged capital of Ukraine, Zelenskiy pleaded with lawmakers to do more to protect his nation against the brutal Russian invasion, in an emotional appeal that invoked the painful memories of Pearl Harbor and the September 11 terrorists attacks and echoed Martin Luther King’s call for a more peaceful future. ...

Speaking hours after Zelenskiy’s address, Joe Biden announced the US would provide Ukraine with an additional $800m in security assistance. The aid will include 800 anti-aircraft systems, 9,000 anti-armor systems, 20 million rounds of ammunition and drones to help Ukraine fight back against Russian aggression.

Phyllis Bennis: The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War & Increased Militarization

The latest from The Guardian propaganda machine:

Russia and Ukraine ‘close to agreeing’ on neutral status, says Sergei Lavrov

A peace deal under which Ukraine abandons its Nato aspirations in return for Russian withdrawal and western security guarantees appeared to inch closer on Wednesday even as Vladimir Putin’s troops were accused of killing people queueing for bread in a northern Ukrainian city.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, suggested talks were making progress despite continued bloodshed and fears from some EU leaders that the Kremlin was toying with Kyiv.

“The negotiations are not easy for obvious reasons,” Lavrov told RBC News. “But nevertheless, there is some hope of reaching a compromise. “Neutral status is now being seriously discussed seriously along, of course, with security guarantees. This is what is now being discussed at the talks. There are absolutely specific wordings and, in my view, the sides are close to agreeing on them.”

Lavrov’s comments risked being undermined by a less than conciliatory televised appearance by Putin with his ministers later on Wednesday in which the Russian president insulted domestic opponents of his war and condemned the west for seeking to destroy his country.

“Any people, and especially the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish the true patriots from the scum and the traitors, and to spit them out like a midge that accidentally flew into their mouths,” he said. “I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to meet any challenge. If the west thinks that Russia will step back, it does not understand Russia,” he said.

Russia, Ukraine NEAR Peace Deal

Apparently, we are not preparing to fight the Russians in enough places:

Canada and US announce Arctic military exercises amid Russia tensions

Canada and the US have issued a rare public notice over planned military exercises in the Arctic amid growing concern over Russian aggression.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said on Tuesday that it would hold air defence exercises throughout the Canadian Arctic, adding that the drills were meant to test the ability to “respond to both aircraft and cruise missiles” threatening the continent.

Operation Noble Defender has been a recurring event in recent years, but the drills have taken on new meaning in the weeks since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking at a defence conference before the operation, Canada’s top soldier said that while the threat of a Russian incursion into Canada’s Arctic was low at the moment, he would not rule it out in years to come.

Gen Wayne Eyre, the chief of defence staff, said it was “not inconceivable that our sovereignty may be challenged” from the Arctic region and that Canada needed to closely watch Russian action elsewhere.

UK spies who allegedly passed questions to CIA torturers subject to English law, court rules

UK intelligence services who allegedly asked the CIA to put questions to a detainee who was being tortured in “black sites” were subject to the law of England and Wales and not that of the countries in which he was being held, the court of appeal has ruled. The three appeal judges were asked to decide whether Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to extreme mistreatment and torture at secret CIA “black sites” in six different countries, has the right to sue the UK government in England.

At the high court last year, Mr Justice Lane had ruled that the applicable law was the law of the various places where the claimant’s ill-treatment occurred, namely Thailand, Lithuania, Poland, Afghanistan, Morocco and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But on Wednesday Lord Justice Males, Lady Justice Thirlwall and Dame Victoria Sharp unanimously allowed the appeal.

In Males’s written judgment, he said: “These are strong connections connecting the tortious conduct with England and Wales. They reflect also the parties’ reasonable expectations. While it is true that the claimant himself had no connection with this country, he could reasonably have expected, if he had thought about it during the 20 years in which he has been detained, that the conduct of any country’s security services having to do with him would be governed by the law of the country concerned. As for the services, they would reasonably have expected that their conduct here would be subject to English law.”

Males also said:

• Zubaydah had no control whatever over his location and in all probability no knowledge of it either.

• His location was irrelevant to the UK intelligence services and may have been unknown to them.

• The claimant was undoubtedly rendered to the six countries in question precisely because this would enable him to be detained and tortured outside the laws and legal systems of those countries.

Zubaydah claims that MI5 and MI6 committed the torts of misfeasance in public office, conspiracy to injure, trespass to the person, false imprisonment and negligence and that the defendants – the UK Foreign Office, Home Office and attorney general – are vicariously liable for their conduct.

Greenwald is worth a read as usual:

Romney's "Treason" Smear of Tulsi Gabbard is False and Noxious, But Now Typifies U.S. Discourse

The crime of "treason” is one of the gravest an American citizen can commit, if not the gravest. It is one of the few crimes other than murder for which execution is still a permissible punishment under both U.S. federal law and the laws of several states. The framers of the U.S. Constitution were so concerned about the temptation to abuse this term — by depicting political dissent as a criminalized betrayal of one's country — that they chose to define and limit how this crime could be applied by inserting this limiting paragraph into the Constitution itself; reflecting the gravity and temptation to abuse accusations of "treason,” it is the only crime they chose to define in the U.S. Constitution. Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution states:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Treason was the only crime to be explicitly defined and limited by the Founders because they sought “to guard against the historic use of treason prosecutions by repressive governments to silence otherwise legitimate political opposition.” In other words, the grave danger anticipated by the Founders was that "treason” would radically expand to include any criticisms of or opposition to official U.S. Government policy, activities they sought in the Bill of Rights to enshrine as an inviolable right of U.S. citizenship, not turn it into a capital crime.

In a 2017 op-ed in The Washington Post, law professor Carlton Larson reviewed the increasing tendency to call other Americans "traitors” and explained: “Speaking against the government, undermining political opponents, supporting harmful policies or even placing the interests of another nation ahead of those of the United States are not acts of treason under the Constitution.” Regarding the promiscuous use of the word by liberals against Trump, Professor Larson wrote: “An enemy is a nation or an organization with which the United States is in a declared or open war . Nations with whom we are formally at peace, such as Russia, are not enemies.” For that reason, even Americans actively helping the Soviet Union during the Cold War could not be accused of “treason” given that there was no declaration of war against the USSR. Using the most extreme hypothetical he could think of to illustrate the point, he explained: “Indeed, Trump could give the U.S. nuclear codes to Vladimir Putin or bug the Oval Office with a direct line to the Kremlin and it would not be treason, as a legal matter.” ...

As pervasive as “traitor” accusations were during the Trump presidency, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has elevated this "treason” mania to never-before-seen heights. Everyone and anyone who questions or deviates in any way from the prevailing bipartisan consensus is accused of being a treasonous Russian agent based on the slightest infraction. The two public figures most vilified as traitors in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine were former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), now a U.S. Army Reserves Lt. Colonel, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson. ... Indeed, the comments of the former Congresswoman and the Fox cable host which triggered this avalanche of public accusations were stunningly benign. Gabbard's crime was that she echoed twenty years of statements by U.S. officials and scholars across the spectrum by arguing that NATO expansion up to the Russian borders, and particularly the prospect of membership for Ukraine, was genuinely threatening to Moscow; thus, she argued, the U.S. and NATO, in order to attempt to diplomatically avert a horrific war, should formalize its intent not to offer NATO membership to the country occupying the most sensitive and vulnerable part of the border with Russia. Carlson’s sin was also to express a view that many in Washington — including former presidents Obama and Trump — had long affirmed: namely, that while Ukraine is not a vital interest to the U.S., it is and always will be to Russia, and therefore there is no reason the U.S. should even consider involvement in a military confrontation between the two over that country. ...

If there is any one overarching, defining hallmark of a tyrannical culture, it is the refusal to tolerate any dissent from or questioning of official government policy, and to criminalize such dissent by equating it with treason. Indeed, many of the same Americans who are doing exactly this love to flamboyantly express horror as Russia does the same against its own war opponents. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find any despot in history who does not weaponize accusations of “treason" against dissidents as a central instrument for control. That U.S. discourse has now descended completely to that level is barely debatable. Just look at the last forty-eight hours of treason accusations against Gabbard, to say nothing of the last six years of liberal anti-Trump mania, to see how acceptable and reflexive such behavior has become.

Saudi THREATENS Biden With Ditching Petrodollar

US Considers Removing Iran Revolutionary Guards From Terror Blacklist

In a move not directly part of the Iran nuclear deal, but clearly not entirely unrelated, the Biden Administration is considering a side deal that would see the Iranian Revolutionary Guards removed from the terrorist blacklist.

Rumors to that effect have been circulating for awhile, with Republican Senators’ opposition to the nuclear deal coming in part because of the possibility of such a move, even if the deal and the list removal aren’t tied to one another.

US unions see unusually promising moment amid wave of victories

The recent, much-publicized wave of union victories in the US at companies as varied as the giant coffee chain Starbucks, trendy outdoor outfitters REI and media group the New York Times is spurring hopes that this will somehow turn into a much larger unionization wave that lifts millions of Americans.

This is an unusually promising moment for unions, labor strategists say, as they strain to figure out how best to build a larger wave, although they acknowledge it won’t be easy because US corporations fight so fiercely against unionization.

Union strategists are debating whether there are ways to transform the wins at Starbucks – workers at six Starbucks have voted to unionize so far – into a wave of unionization at McDonald’s and other fast-food companies, and whether the REI victory could be a springboard to victories elsewhere in retail, perhaps at Walmart or Whole Foods.

“We have a moment right now,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the union that the REI workers voted to join. “I think that success breeds more success. When people see what’s happened at some Starbucks in Buffalo, they ask, ‘Why can’t we do that, too?’”

Will Fed Interest Rates Increase SPARK Recession?

US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time since 2018

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates for the first time since 2018, as the central bank struggles with soaring US inflation, the impact of the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus crisis. The Fed raised rates by a quarter percentage point from near zero, in what is expected to be the first in a series of raises in the coming months.

In a statement, the Fed said economic indicators and employment figures had “continued to strengthen”, but noted that inflation remained elevated and the invasion of Ukraine was not only “causing tremendous human and economic hardship” but was “likely to create additional upward pressure on inflation and weigh on economic activity” in the US. ...

The Fed is projecting six more rate rises this year. One Fed committee member, the St Louis Fed president James Bullard, pushed for a larger half-percentage-point increase this month. “If we conclude it will be appropriate to raise interest rates more quickly, then we’ll do so,” said Powell.

Raising rates too quickly threatens to push the US into recession. This week, CNBC’s Fed Survey – which gauges the opinions of fund managers, strategists and economists – put the probability of recession in the US at 33% in the next 12 months, up 10 percentage points from the 1 February survey. The latest survey put the chance of a recession in Europe at 50%.

New York mayor’s crime plans reinforce ‘worst parts of NYPD’, say experts

While New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, has been defending his veganism and equating drug dependency to liking cheese, he has been escalating the city’s police powers, deeply concerning civil rights advocates. Adams, the second Black person to serve as New York mayor, largely won the mayorship through securing the votes of Black, brown and working-class New Yorkers.

Crime was an important issue in the election (and since then), and Adams’s politically moderate solutions to crime, with an emphasis on critiquing the flawed New York police department but without campaigning on defunding or switching some funds away, swayed voters.

But despite garnering support from top Democrats such as Joe Biden and New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, Adams’s vast expansion of controversial policing tactics and calls for deep cuts to New York’s affordable housing and homelessness services have left many anxious about his impact on the very coalitions that elected him.

“Mayor Adams is basically reigniting some of the worst parts of the NYPD, which is saying a lot,” said Jerome Greco, the digital forensics supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society.

Chicago police officers won’t be charged in shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo

No charges will be filed against the Chicago police officers who chased and fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez within days of each other last year, prompting sharp criticism of how the department handles foot pursuits, a prosecutor announced on Tuesday.

The Cook county state’s attorney, Kim Foxx, said there was insufficient evidence to charge the officers in the deaths, which were captured on video that showed both suspects appeared to have handguns before the shootings.

The public release of the videos in April 2021 renewed calls for reform of the Chicago police department, which for decades has had a reputation for brutality, misconduct and racism.

In both Chicago shootings, officers chased suspects on foot – a highly unpredictable situation that critics, including the US Department of Justice, have said is dangerous for both officers and suspects and leads to too many unnecessary shootings. The deaths led to protests and calls for Chicago to adopt clear guidelines for officers on pursuits, though a policy still has not been finalized.

Red Alert for Fukushima Nuclear Plant After 7.3 Quake in Japan

A series of earthquakes off the coast of Japan on Wednesday triggered a tsunami advisory for Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures—just over 11 years after the region endured a major nuclear disaster.

The first two earthquakes, with magnitudes of 6.4 and 7.3, struck within two minutes of each other, followed by another 5.5 magnitude quake over an hour later, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The strongest quake hit about 60 kilometers or 37 miles below the sea and left more than two million homes without electricity in an area serviced by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Associated Press reported.

The AP noted that TEPCO said workers were checking for any possible damage at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, the site of the March 2011 disaster—which was caused by a 9.0 magnitude quake and resulting tsunami that led to multiple meltdowns at the facility.

No abnormalities were found at the Fukushima plant, The Japan Times reported, citing the nation's Nuclear Regulation Authority.

TEPCO also found no abnormalities at the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant in Miyagi Prefecture, according to Japan's public broadcaster, NHK.

"There is a possibility that another earthquake as strong as an upper 6 could strike in the next week or so," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters just after midnight local time. "We need to be on alert."

American People Held HOSTAGE By Big Oil, Foreign Energy Reliance: Lucas Kunce

Microplastics from European rivers spreading to Arctic seas, research shows

Microplastics from European rivers are finding their way to Arctic seas, research suggests. These tiny plastic particles, which come from clothing fibres, car tyres, cosmetics and many more sources, have been found across the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans.

People are known to consume the tiny particles via food and water, as well as breathing them in. Microplastics have been shown to harm wildlife but the impact on people is not known, though microplastics do damage human cells in the laboratory. They have also been found in the Arctic, and until now the source of these tiny particles has not been known.

A new study in Scientific Reports, led by Mats Huserbråten from the Institute of Marine Research, in Bergen, Norway, suggests particles in the Arctic Ocean, the Nordic Seas and Baffin Bay have spread from Europe. The scientists used modelling to predict how many microplastic particles would be in certain parts of the ocean, and compared it with water samples from these places. Their analysis suggests microplastics have been circulating in the Arctic for at least a decade.

The researchers warned that better waste management is required so the health of the Arctic ecosystem is not compromised.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Ukrainian news anchor quotes Adolf Eichmann, calls for genocide against Russians

For Washington, War Never Ends

Secret CIA training program in Ukraine helped Kyiv prepare for Russian invasion

America the Vengeful: Medical Ethicist Calls for War Crimes Against Russian Civilians

Tell Me How Ukraine Ends

Google accused of 'unjustly retaliating' against employee who criticised Israel military contract

The World Is Facing A Critical Diesel Shortage

Russian Debt Default + Consequences, Simply Explained

Legal eagles: how climate litigation is shaping ambitious cases for nature

Krystal Ball: Bill Burr DESTROYS Corrupt Politicians for Gas Prices

Russell Brand Hit Piece Backfires Into Self Own

NYT FINALLY Confirms Hunter Biden Email, Laptop Scandal Once Dubbed A CONSPIRACY

A Little Night Music

Freddy Robinson - Good Feeling

Freddie Robinson - Many Moons

Freddy Robinson - Go Go Girl

Freddy Robinson - The Buzzard

Freddie Robinson - The Creeper

Freddy Robinson - Bluesology

Freddie Robinson - Smoking

Freddie Robinson - Dreams

Freddy Robinson - I Found My Soul Last Night

Freddy Robinson - River's Invitation

John Mayall & Freddie Robinson - Country Road