So Many War Criminals
Barbara sent me a good analysis of exactly what the Geneva Conventions require of their signatory nations. I note that this is one international treaty that the Bush Gang have not yet withdrawn the US from, but they flout it so flagrantly that crying about Iraqi non-compliance on TV just seems like loser whingeing. Monbiot also points out that in invading Iraq illegally under international law, the Iraqis could reasonably argue that *all* the US and UK soldiers there are “unlawful combatants”, similar to the Taliban teachers and instructors captured in Iraq and detained in the Guantanamo concentration camp, and therefore ineligible for Geneva Convention protection. Of course, winners write the rules of war… He also recounts the rather hoarrowing tale unearthed by a German newspaper of how US Special Forces were (willing or unwilling?) accomplices to an atrocity in Afghanistan.
As Jamie Doran’s film Afghan Massacre: Convoy of Death records, some hundreds, possibly thousands, of them were loaded into container lorries at Qala-i-Zeini, near the town of Mazar-i-Sharif, on November 26 and 27. The doors were sealed and the lorries were left to stand in the sun for several days. At length, they departed for Sheberghan prison, 80 miles away. The prisoners, many of whom were dying of thirst and asphyxiation, started banging on the sides of the trucks. Dostum’s men stopped the convoy and machine-gunned the containers. When they arrived at Sheberghan, most of the captives were dead.
The US special forces running the prison watched the bodies being unloaded. They instructed Dostum’s men to “get rid of them before satellite pictures can be taken”. Doran interviewed a Northern Alliance soldier guarding the prison. “I was a witness when an American soldier broke one prisoner’s neck. The Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them.” Another soldier alleged: “They took the prisoners outside and beat them up, and then returned them to the prison. But sometimes they were never returned, and they disappeared.”
Many of the survivors were loaded back in the containers with the corpses, then driven to a place in the desert called Dasht-i-Leili. In the presence of up to 40 US special forces, the living and the dead were dumped into ditches. Anyone who moved was shot. The German newspaper Die Zeit investigated the claims and concluded that: “No one doubted that the Americans had taken part. Even at higher levels there are no doubts on this issue.”
Earlier here.
Rather than make personal attack, repeatedly, why not rationally refute the argument. You said the US illegally invaded Iraq. I asked by which international court made that determination. You can’t answer this because no international legal authority has made that determination.
You, just like Rush Limbaugh, are only spewing your personal opinions, no more, no less. Fortunately, your opinions are not international law or decisions.