When is a war crime not a war crime

Kunduz, 2015

The Pentagon announced Friday that 16 military personnel will be disciplined for the deadly U.S. strike on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in October, but maintained that it was not a war crime because it resulted from unintentional human error and equipment failure.

Baghdad, 2003

US aircraft hit a Red Crescent maternity hospital in Baghdad, the city's trade fair, and other civilian buildings today, killing several people and wounding at least 25, hospital sources and a Reuters witness said.

Kabul, 2001

American warplanes bombed and largely destroyed the same Red Cross complex in Kabul that they struck 10 days ago, an error the Pentagon admitted tonight, saying it occurred because military planners had picked the wrong target.
The bombing took place just after a detailed review by Pentagon and Red Cross officials of the places where the relief agency has installations in Afghanistan. That meeting, which followed the first bombing of the Red Cross compound, was designed to prevent exactly what happened today.
...
A statement issued by the United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla. which is in charge of the war and manages the selection of targets, attributed the latest mistake to ''a human error in the targeting process.''
In other words, the pilots dropped their bombs where they were instructed, and the bombs mostly hit the targets at which they were aimed.

Baghdad, 1991

The two American "smart" bombs worked perfectly, striking what the Pentagon had identified as an Iraqi command and control center during the 1991 Gulf War.
The 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs burrowed through 10 feet of hardened concrete and detonated, punching a gaping hole in the Amiriyah bomb shelter – and incinerating 408 Iraqi civilians.
It is considered the single most lethal incident for civilians in modern air warfare.

When muslim have weddings

“The US Has Bombed at Least Eight Wedding Parties since 2001” according to the title of an article by Tom Engelhardt in the December 20, 2013 Nation. Engelhardt comments: “If the Taliban or the Iranians or the North Koreans had piled up such figures … [w]e would classify them as barbarians, savages, evildoers.” Yet US media gives these deaths a pass.

There are too many incidents to discuss separately. The following will be enough to sicken any reader.

On July 6, 2008, US aircraft bombed a wedding procession in the Afghan district of Deh Bala. Forty-seven civilians were killed, including the bride and 39 women and children.

On November 3, 2008, a US airstrike on a wedding party in the village of Wech Baghtu in Afghanistan killed 37 civilians. This time 26 Taliban were also killed.

A drone attack on a wedding procession in Yemen on December 12, 2013 killed 12 civilians. The New York Post gave the story the sidesplitting headline “BRIDE AND BOOM!”

Another drone strike in Yemen took place the day after a wedding while guests were still celebrating.

When the Saudis do it

The attack was among 130 on health facilities hit in Yemen since the Saudi-led coalition began its bombing campaign in March last year. It was the fourth on a facility supported by MSF – which says it gives detailed co-ordinates for its hospitals to both sides of the conflict.
MSF has called for an independent investigation into the attacks on its facilities and said the conflict in Yemen was being conducted with “total disregard for the rules of war”. The comments were the most strongly-worded yet from the charity which has asked the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC), the independent body with a mandate to investigate suspected violations of international humanitarian law, to conduct an investigation.
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Bollox Ref's picture

It's just unfortunate accidents for everyone else.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Alligator Ed's picture

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We have met the enemy and they is us...

Or rather, they is our own damned political leaders!

I am often struck by the way America's 'Free Press' is able to drum up popular support for the many disastrous wars this country has prosecuted, nearly all of them unjustified by any kind of rational argument.

I ask the question, why is it that average folks are so willing/eager to believe the shrill cries of political leaders for tough military action against the 'threats' they've identified?

It's understandable, I suppose...most people want to believe that their own political leaders are more worthy of trust than anyone outside of the tribe, especially when so many of the elite are pointing their fingers at some 'threat' on the other side of the ocean.

What are we, the people, supposed to do? Question these well-known personalities with great resumes when they talk about getting our military assets involved in a conflict overseas? Entertain doubts about the truth of what they are telling us?

The answer we need to keep telling them is yes, you do need to question your own leaders when they start talking about some 'bad guys' on the other side of the world that we Americans should be willing to sacrifice much blood and treasure on in an effort to oppose them.

What the German people learned after Hitler got their country destroyed and their international reputation trashed for generations is that a society's most inspiring patriotic luminaries can ultimately prove to be the greatest threat that they, as a people, could ever face.

They make great sounding speeches about noble causes, but they are actually rolling the dice with your lives.

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James Kroeger

Since the 1920s, the advertising industry has been adapting their techniques to successfully get us to buy the products put before our faces. By 1968, these very techniques were adapted for the political arena, and were used by the Nixon campaign to push him on us over Hubert Humphrey, who was not a good candidate. Nixon's success has since prompted so many others to use similar methods to "convince" the voters to elect them, not the least of whom are Obama and Hillary.

Add in the innate tendency for people to trust their leaders without a lot of questioning, and you have the bulk of the American voters. This is why Trump became the GOP candidate, because his belligerent behavior appeals to non-thinking males. Hillary's strong support among women (admittedly assisted by Trump's vile attitudes toward women) is due in large part because "It's HER Turn!" unquestioningly resonates with them. This is about all either campaign promotes as to the qualifications of their respective candidates, which are essentially non-existent to the thoughtful in both instances.

Because politics no longer appeals to the qualified (since the private sector pays so much better), we are left with the losers and the wannabees to select from - once the PTB decide who we are to be offered.

We are now understanding in real-time what Benjamin franklin said when asked about what government the Constitutional Convention of 1787 delivered: "A Republic - IF you can keep it."

We didn't keep it, and now it will harm us all.

edited for title typo

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

tapu dali's picture

It may well have begun earlier, but among the first deliberate attempts to brainwash educate the public was RMN's second campaign, against HHH.

His campaign was a deliberate high-powered advertisement to "market" or to "re-package" him as the "new Nixon". And it worked -- but just barely.

See Joe McGinnis, The Selling of the President, Penguin Press, UK, ca1970 for further details.

Note: The book appears to have been quickly written from memory and sketchy notes, as it contains a number of (largely inconsequential) errors; e.g. H.R. Haldeman is called "R.W. Haldeman" in the book.

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

Big Al's picture

international law. He said it with a straight face, helped by botox and a chin implant. No straighter face on the planet than John Kerry's. No bigger hypocrite either. Plenty just a big, like Obama. Well, maybe Obama takes the cake with that Nobel Peace prize and all. Him and Kissinger.
It's like we know something about our country that nobody else knows. Or maybe everybody knows but nobody knows what to do about it. There's no one to call.

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lotlizard's picture

It’s “Baghdad Bobs” all the way down.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

program before Shills sends her flying monkeys your way.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

I hear those critters are pretty wicked when they get their hands on a keyboard—maybe that extra appendage comes in handy.

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tapu dali's picture

[1] It's not a war crime if Americans do it
[2] It's all their fault for hiding combatants in "schools" and "hospitals"
[3] AmEx!!1!! (American Exceptionalism -- shining city on a hill -- the second Jerusalem)

... .. more

[4] Democrats, and especially Black or Women Democrats, cannot Possibly commit "war crimes"
[5] Only Bad Guys committed war crimes. America's only good and always good and all we do is nice. End of story.

/barf

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

Big Al's picture

I know, I know, to indict Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Obama, Kerry and Clinton for war crimes. Demand they be put on trial at the International Criminal Court.
Hell, enough people know by now.

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Bollox Ref's picture

with 50% of the proceeds going to Dkos.

Sounds like a winning, cunning plan.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

tapu dali's picture

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

terriertribe's picture

Eh, Baldrick?

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Now interviewing signature candidates. Apply within.

edg's picture

...when someone else does it. We're allowed to cause collateral damage, make targeting mistakes, blow up Syrian soldiers in their barracks, bomb hospitals and massacre civilians at weddings and funerals. Nobody else is. It's really simple when you think about it that way.

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snoopydawg's picture

This wasn't considered a war crime either.
The callousness of the helicopter crew is hard for me to understand.
Or the callousness of the troops that took pictures of the Afghanistan men's who posed with the bodies of the men they just shot and then urinated on them. Were they prosecuted?
How about the troops that killed those women which one was pregnant and they dug out the bullets. And remember that according to the Nuremberg law, the Iraq war itself was a war crime because it's a not Saddam had threatened us,
Made up accusations don't count.
The list of war crimes reported during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were indescribable, but was anyone prosecuted for them?
And the only person prosecuted for these collateral murders is the person who released it

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There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

lotlizard's picture

Ain’t it grand?

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Shahryar's picture

the first was when the US killed and overthrew Allende in Chile. It was so obvious that it was a US stunt. I learned that "we" do things like that.

the second was when those flyboys clipped the tramline in Italy, killing scores of snow loving skiers...and "we" got to conduct the "trial" and found those poor pilots "not guilty". I learned "we" make the rules.

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I was in Germany at the time. Their were three or four playing tag, as I recall., and they fubar'd to hell 'n gone. When they got off, I was ashamed. Still am.

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

tapu dali's picture

and I very well remember then Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt appearing on SDR (and probably on all channels), clearly emotional, barely holding back his tears, announcing in a grim tone:

Ich habe heute Nacht gehoert, dass die Chilenische Regierung ... umgestuertzt ... worden ... sei.

"I've heard tonight that the Chilean government has [lit. is said to have] been overthrown."

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

lotlizard's picture

https://infogalactic.com/info/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_%281998%29

the second was when those flyboys clipped the tramline in Italy, killing scores of snow loving skiers...and "we" got to conduct the "trial" and found those poor pilots "not guilty". I learned "we" make the rules.

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to complain about anyone else at this point. Give me a fucking break.

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So who do we punish for these war crimes? The poor slobs who joined the military because there are no jobs? Who's going to hold the real criminals accountable? Clearly nobody. Sad

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tapu dali's picture

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

Alex Ocana's picture

Winning Afghan hearts and minds

Bombs were not all that fell from the sky from American airplanes. There were also food packages. Was it not something inordinately strange for the United States to be dropping both bombs and food on the people of Afghanistan at the same time?

If the Japanese had dropped some nice packages of teriyaki along with the bombs at Pearl Harbor, would Americans and the world have looked more kindly on the Japanese?

Perhaps if the September 11 terrorists had dropped some hot pastrami sandwiches on downtown Manhattan before their hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center...

But these things work, of course. Millions of Americans felt a rush of pride about their country's magnanimity. The United States, the inventor and perfecter of modern advertising and public relations, had done it again.

From Blum, William. 2002. Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower.

Review and used editions at a penny at:
https://www.amazon.com/Rogue-State-Guide-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743...

If legal in your country, the book can be borrowed at http://bookos-z1.org/book/528994/2ed216

While you are at it:

William Blum, William. 2013. America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy - The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else

Introduction

Since the end of World War II the United States has
• endeavored to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments,
most of which were democratically elected;
• grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30
countries;
• attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders;
• dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries;
• attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in
20 countries.

Can be borrowed, if legal, by hitting the Libgen button, at: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=E1A1EEEC84EA9CC3F0C280560E1D8D82

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From the Light House.

Arrow's picture

Iranian Airbus airliner with 300+ people onboard. that the USNavy shotdown over the gulf.

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I want a Pony!

Bisbonian's picture

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X