AMERICAN OFFICIALS CHARGED FOR WAR CRIMES!
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AMERICAN OFFICIALS CHARGED FOR WAR CRIMES! |
The United Nations recently approved a deal that would allow Iraq to sell oil in exchange for food and other basic necessities. The deal was postponed by Iraq's invasion into the northern part of its territory to put down a Kurdish uprising. In the meantime, Iraqi children continued to starve by the thousands because of economic sanctions, and foreign aid agencies have been prohibited from entering Iraq to assist as they have done in other parts of the world. Now that the "oil for food" deal has finally been approved, Iraq may buy food for its hungry people, as well as medicine and other basic necessities, but only as long as they continue to toe the line to the implacable demands of the New World Order.
Even though the Gulf War has disappeared from the nightly news, the U.S. and Iraq are still in a state of war. The U.S. maintains a stranglehold of sanctions, no-fly zones, and other restrictions that seem to have no purpose as Iraq is no longer a credible threat to any of its neighbors. U.S. administration officials have not made public their conditions for peace so that Iraq might rebuild and return, if possible, to a normal life. The military and economic strangulation continues, inflicting death and suffering on hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, and, in spite of this "oil for food deal", no end to this suffering is in sight. Is this the "kinder, gentler" world that President George Bush promised after the cease-fire was declared?
In the months following the Gulf War "cease-fire", a War Crimes Commission of Inquiry was convened to review the actions of the combatants with the intent of determining if international law had been violated. The Commission held hearings in several key cities, gathering "direct and circumstantial evidence from public and private documents; official statements and admissions by the persons charged and others; eyewitness accounts; Commission investigations and witness interviews in Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere during and after the bombing; photographs and video tape; expert analyses; commentary and interviews; media coverage, published reports and accounts gathered between December, 1990 and May, l991." (Intitial Complaint Submitted by the Commission Of Inquiry May 9, 1991)
The Commission of Inquiry was headed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who submitted a complaint citing 19 violations of international law, not by Saddam Hussein, but President Bush and others in his administration. The Initial Complaint was submitted for review by the International War Crimes Tribunal, who found Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle, James Baker, Richard Cheney, William Webster, Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf and others to be named to be guilty of the 19 charges listed in the complaint. Included in these charges are the following:
The complaint alleges that in 1989 General Colin Powell and General Schwarzkopf revised U.S. military operations and plans in the Persian Gulf to prepare for a regional conflict against Iraq, beginning a pattern of behavior that indicated a strategy to create a state of war in the Persian Gulf.
Attacks on Civilians - When the U.S. commenced its air attacks against Iraq, it targeted civilian infrastructure such as drinking water and sewage treatment plants, power generating facilities, dams and reservoirs, telephone exchanges, buses, trucks and private automobiles on the highway. Bedouin herds- men were also bombed by allied aircraft. "The purpose of this bombing was to terrorize the entire country, kill people, destroy property, prevent movement, demoralize the people and force the overthrow of the government." (ibid). The Jordanian Red Crescent Society estimated the civilian death toll in Iraq to be about 113,000 one week before the war ended, 60 percent of these children. When Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael J. Dugan alluded to U.S. plans to destroy the Iraqi civilian economy on September 16, 1990, he was summarily fired from his job, even though that is exactly what the Bush administration planned and actually carried out. The bombing of Iraqi civilians and and peaceful infrastructure was in violation of the UN Charter, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Charter, and the laws of armed conflict.
Wholesale slaughter of defenseless Iraqi Troops - In the first hours of the allied air assault, most of Iraq's military communications were wiped out. In the subsequent forty-two days, "U.S bombing killed tens of thousands of defenseless soldiers, cut off most of their food, water and other supplies and left them in desperate and helpless disarray. Without significant risk to its own personnel, the U.S. led in the killing of at least 100,000 Iraqi soldiers at a cost of 148 U.S. combat casualties, according to the U.S. government." (ibid).
One of the most graphic and heinous crimes of the Gulf War occurred on the highway between Mutlaa, Kuwait and Basra, Iraq, also known as "The Highway of Death." As the U.S. began its land assault, Iraq announced that it would comply with U.N. resolution 660 and withdraw from Kuwait. Iraqi soldiers as well as Iraqi, Palestinian, Jordanian and other civilians piled into whatever vehicles they could commandeer, including a fire truck, and fled north towards Iraq. U.S. planes disabled vehicles at both ends of the convoy, creating a 7-mile long traffic jam. U.S. planes then began to bomb and strafe the entire line of some 2,000 vehicles for hours, killing tens of thousands of helpless soldiers and civilians while encountering no resistance and receiving no losses to themselves. "Another 60-mile stretch of road to the east was strewn with the remnants of tanks, armored cars, trucks, ambulances and thousands of bodies following an attack on convoys on the night of February 25, 1991. The press reported that no survivors are known or likely. One flatbed truck contained nine bodies, their hair and clothes were burned off, skin incinerated by heat so intense it melted the windshield onto the dashboard." (ibid). These atrocities were in direct violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who are "out of combat", not to mention civilians.
Among the illegal weapons used by the U.S. during the Gulf War was a fuel air device known as the BLU-82, a 15,000-pound device capable of incinerating everything within hundreds of yards. Napalm and other phosphorus bombs were also used in violation of international law. One illegal fuel air device that was used is designed to consume all oxygen in a designated area, causing all personnel on the ground and within range to suffocate.
The Initial Complaint submitted to the War Crimes Tribunal also made mention of "Operation Just Cause", President Bush's invasion of Panama. The U.S. violated the same laws invading Panama that Iraq did invading Kuwait. The U.S. did a far dirtier job of it, however, as one to four thousand Panamanian civilians died during "Just Cause" as opposed to three to six hundred Kuwaitis during Iraq's occupation of that country. When the U.S. reinstalled the royal Sabah family as the government of Kuwait, the Sabahs proceeded to execute 628 Palestinians, even while U.S. troops were present.
Bush Administration Commits Genocide - General Thomas Kelly commented on February 23, 1991, that by the time the ground war begins "there won't be many of them [Iraqi soldiers] left." After the cease-fire General Colin Powell was asked during a press briefing for an Iraqi casualty figure. He replied, "It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in." During an assault on a highway traffic jam, one Apache helicopter pilot was heard yelling "Say hello to Allah" as he launched a Hellfire missile. One U.S. commander said of the highway assault, "We really waxed them." Another said, "It's a turkey shoot. They're trying to push ten pounds of mud into a one pound sack [speaking of the stampede back to Iraq]". The U.S. administration's attitude during the war was one that is more characteristic of the Nazi S.S. in their entire disregard for law, human decency and compassion. The moral implications of the slaughter are heightened when one considers the propaganda that was spread far and deep in support of this war of aggression.
A Blind, Flattered, and Deceived American Public - In late 1990 as the U.S. was gearing up for its destruction of Iraq, President Bush gave a speech before a group of Christian Broadcast executives. In it he praised America's generous spirit and love for freedom, which, of course, was why it was so willing to help the poor Kuwaiti people who had been invaded by that wicked Sadaam. He alluded a couple of times to God and "Christian values", and the Christian Broadcasters ate it up. On Super Bowl Sunday Bush and his wife appeared on television (before the game, of course) in a living room set decorated everywhere with little American flags. He recited his oft repeated praise of American democratic values and decency, and one watching could not help but feel he belonged to a great country, and hope that the wicked Iraqi's would be bombed to smithereens, which they were. Many similar speeches and empty oratory were delivered by this President as he prepared to unleash an unprecedented death wave of destruction. What he didn't tell Americans, among other things, is that wealthy Kuwaitis were partying in Cairo and weren't worrying much about what was going on back home.
The news media was the choir, the Bush administration the preacher, and these sham institutions worked together to seduce the American people "into the celebration of a slaughter by controlled propaganda demonizing Iraq, assuring the world no harm would come to Iraqi civilians, deliberately spreading false stories of atrocities including chemical warfare threats, deaths of incubator babies and threats to the entire region by a new Hitler.
"Independent observers, eyewitnesses' photos, and video tapes with information about the effects of the U.S. bombing were excluded from the media. Television network ownership, advertisers, newspaper ownership, elite columnists and commentators intimidated and instructed reporters and selected interviewees. They formed a near-single voice of praise for U.S. militarism, often exceeding the Pentagon in bellicosity." (ibid).
Never in the history of warfare have the victors been held accountable for its war crimes and atrocities. Had Nazi Germany won World War II, there would have been no Nerumberg trials. Nazi storm troopers would have come home to yellow ribbons and a ticker tape parade, and Hitler would have received a standing ovation at the Reich stag for his role in making the world a better place.
As unthinkable as that outcome would have been, it takes on a real life dimension when one considers the true motivations behind the Gulf War and the utter falsity and pretense of the propaganda supporting it. When the human factor is included in the picture, the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by U.S. bombs, or the diseases that flourished in the aftermath, and the half a million or more babies that died for lack of infant formula because of sanctions, and the thousands of young army conscripts who were consumed by fire bombs as they fled for their lives, or buried alive or suffocated or ripped to shreds by cluster bombs, one may find the picture of a present day victorious Hitler to be entirely realistic.
Even though it doesn't appear that President Bush and his administration officials will be punished for their war crimes, justice is being carried out nonetheless. Since the "cease-fire" in the Gulf was declared, the U.S. has experienced the Los Angeles riots, an increase in racial tensions some call a prelude to a race war, Waco and the rise of the militia movement, the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as numerous financial tremors. There are also mysterious, communicable diseases that are ravaging an increasing number of Gulf War veterans and their families, indicating the possibility that coalition soldiers were exposed to biological and chemical agents in the Gulf War. As the plague spreads and the government continues stonewalling, the anger and suspicion in America will become so pervasive that it tears the social fabric. This is the sort of environment that breeds revolutions, bringing once haughty rulers to the executioner's block.
Even though the future is very dark for those who have committed crimes against God and humanity, it is equally as bright for those who have left off supporting crime and oppression and wait for divine providence to finish its course. "Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you." Isaiah 35:3,4.
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