US War Crimes, an International Vow of Silence

[TeeYiYi]

US War Crimes,
An International Vow of Silence
by Ghali Hassan

10 June 2005

Months before the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, members of Saddam regime and his military echelons in Baghdad cut deals with the US Army to surrender the capital and the rest of the country to U.S. forces. Yet despite this no war surrender, the Bush-Blair axis continued to bomb Iraq infrastructure. State buildings and Iraq’s vital civilian infrastructure were destroyed and looted. As a result of this criminal act of “Shock and Awe”, thousands of innocent civilians were killed and the entire nation of Iraq is terrorised and engulfed in fear to this day.

<snip>

In gross violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions, U.S. forces attacked and completely destroyed the city of Fallujah. The U.S. used banned forms of napalm bombs (MK-77 Mod 5), which ignite on impact, to attack the civilian population. According to the Red Cross, more than 6,000 innocent civilians (men, women and children) have been killed while the rest of the population has been displaced and are now refugees. The attack on Falluja, which was a war crime termed “collective punishment” and designed to instil fear and terrorise the entire population of Iraq.

<snip>

According to The Hague Conventions, Article 23: “It is a war crime to launch an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population in the knowledge that such an attack will cause an excessive loss of life or injury to civilians”. The Geneva Conventions, Article 85; “It is especially forbidden to kill treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army”. Moreover, the Geneva Conventions are part of U.S. law – being ratified by congress and by the president. Therefore U.S. leaders could be found guilty of war crimes under the war crimes Act of 1996, which carries the death penalty for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

<snip>

Since the invasion and Occupation, the crimes against the Iraqi people continue to accelerate. According to a study published in November 2004 in the Lancet, the highly reputable British medical journal, U.S. occupation forces in Iraq have killed more than 100,000 civilians between March 2003 and October 2004, the great majority of them are women and children. The estimate is considered “conservative” because it excludes the high death toll in areas such as Fallujah, where the U.S. committed crimes against humanity. Deliberately ignored by the media, the study also revealed that 14 per cent of US soldiers and 28 per cent of U.S. marines had killed a civilian: U.S-authorised war crimes. In a deliberate and criminal practice of “shoot to kill”, hundreds of innocent Iraqi civilians are killed every week, and U.S. forces are targeting military-age Iraqi males.

<snip>

The living condition in Iraq today is much worse than under the regime of Saddam and the sanctions. Further, the use Saddam as the West moral compass, allows the Occupation forces to commit the highest crimes against the Iraqi people. The rate of civilian deaths in Iraq under U.S. Occupation is far greater than anything perpetrated by the regime of Saddam Hussein. Further, tens of thousands innocent Iraqis, including children, are illegally imprisoned in hundreds of giant U.S-run concentration camps in Iraq in contravention of international law. In addition, to the state of emergency curfew, most Iraqi towns and cities are under siege by U.S. forces. The U.S. is pitting Iraqis against each other and encourages sectarianism.

More: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HAS506B.html

TYY

[dqueue]

1. wow.

I'd go so far as to say a conspiracy of silence, at least in the States...

[malaise]

2. Bare facts

When will people on this planet wake up?

[indepat]

3. No one single person who supports this Administration care at all about

any of this: they just don't care!

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

4. Maybe they're chicken shit

or looking to get their mits on any crumbs that tumble their way. The world sure seems to be run by criminals everywhere.