Why NATO/US’s “Collateral Damage” and “Errors” are not a War Crime?
Many innocent civilians were killed in American military interventions around the world – from Vietnam and Serbia to Iran and Afghanistan, because of the alleged “errors” or “collateral damage” […]
Many innocent civilians were killed in American military interventions around the world – from Vietnam and Serbia to Iran and Afghanistan, because of the alleged “errors” or “collateral damage” – without consequences for civil and military leadership. In addition to political, military and every other power, Americans secured itself with legal mechanisms.
Twenty-two civilians, wounded and doctors, among them three children, were killed in the American bombing of a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz. Americans acknowledged the error and apologized. The President of the United States expressed his condolences, the military leadership announced three independent investigations. “Doctors without borders” (MSF) do not believe them, they seek an independent arbitration by the international commission.
Not even the fact that Afghans demanded the action does not justify what Americans did, allegedly because there were wounded Taliban in the hospital. Even the commander of US forces in Afghanistan acknowledged that before the attack, they had to check who was the target.
“This is a medical facility which has special protection in the international law, much larger and more comprehensive than other civilian objects. One cannot speak about collateral damage here,” said Vesna Knezevic Predic of the Faculty of Political Sciences for RTS.
“Collateral damage” – Orwellian term, as it is referred to by CNN, can be used only when the objective is primarily military. Even then, under one condition.
“Collateral victims must not be disproportionately higher in comparison to what is military advantage,” said Ivan Jovanovic, an expert in the international criminal law.
This is not a war crime “but an incident in the fog of war.” This is an explanation of US Senator John McCain for the bombing of the hospital. Unconvincingly. When the goal is a medical facility, the number of those killed is added to the number of those who could have been provided with help if doctors survived.
This is why MSF seek international arbitration. Before the International Criminal Court in The Hague? Hardly. The United States have not signed the Rome Statute which established it. American Heritage Foundation researcher Steven Groves believes that this is the way it should remain.
“The Rome Statute created a seriously flawed institution that lacks prudent safeguards against political manipulation, possesses sweeping authority without accountability to the U.N. Security Council, and violates national sovereignty by claiming jurisdiction over the nationals and military personnel of non-party states in some circumstances. These concerns led President Bill Clinton to urge President George W. Bush not to submit the treaty to the Senate for advice and consent necessary for ratification.
After extensive efforts to change the statute to address key U.S. concerns failed, President Bush felt it necessary to “un-sign” the Rome Statute by formally notifying the U.N. Secretary-General that the U.S. did not intend to ratify the treaty and was no longer bound under international law to avoid actions that would run counter to the intent and purpose of the treaty. (…) The U.S. has taken legislative and diplomatic steps to protect U.S. citizens, officials, and military personnel from the ICC’s jurisdiction, which the U.S. considers illegitimate. (…) ” said Groves.
However, they could still find themselves before the court in The Hague, if it is established that they are unable or unwilling to punish those responsible for violations of international law, experts say.
“How likely is it that in some of these cases where the violation is obvious, the International Criminal Court or any other international institution could come to a conclusion that the United States are unable or unwilling to sanction violation? It is a matter of which we do not have think much, as the answer is quite clear,” said Vesna Knezevic Predic.
Americans have protected themselves with another instrument from the international responsibility. They guarantee the exemption of US citizens from the jurisdiction of the ICC with bilateral agreements.
However, at least formally, there are mechanisms. America signed the Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol which provides establishment of a commission competent to establish facts, at the initiative of the signatory states.
“Unfortunately, so far the Commission has not had a lot of work,” says Vesna Knezevic Predic.
Experts are convinced that there would be a lot of work if the Commission dealt with, either alleged collateral damage, or the mistakes made during American interventions from Vietnam, Iraq, Sudan, to the bombing of Yugoslavia. Bill Clinton apologized for the destruction of the Chinese embassy and called it an accident.
Nobody apologized for the killing of three-year-old Milica Rakic, at least 14 killed in train in Grdelica Gorge, or for 16 reporters killed in the bombing of RTS. Nobody was responsible for them or any other victim of NATO bombing.
There is a belief among lawyers that Croatian General Ante Gotovina was not convicted for indiscriminate bombing, because otherwise it would be a precedent for future judicial practice.
“By which American generals, or officers but also generals and senior officers of other armies that also participate in the wars in the world could easily be found responsible or to answer for incidents similar to the one in Kunduz,” said Ivan Jovanovic.
In the case of bombing of the hospital in Afghanistan, lawyers believe that the responsibility of the United States should be considered separately from the responsibility of individuals who ordered and executed it. It is difficult to belive that America will be tried, but as far as its citizens are considered, everything is, obviously, in the hands of the US courts.
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!
Donate to Support Us
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
Editor’s NoteThis paper was presented by the late Sean Gervasi at the Conference on the Enlargement of NATO in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, Prague, 13-14 January 1996. It was published on Global Research when the Global Research website was launched on September 9, 2001. The late Sean Gervasi had tremendous foresight. He understood the process of NATO enlargement several years before it actually unfolded into a formidable military force. He had also predicted the breakup of Yugoslavia as part of a US-NATO project.See also Sean Gervasi’s 1993 video interviewIntroductionThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization has recently sent a large task ...
The ethnic demarcation that is promoted by Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic, between Serbs and Albanians is just another name for the creation of Greater Albania. Vucic statements and spinning of the necessity for the "demarcation" between Serbia and Kosovo caused shock among Serbs. Most of his political life, Vucic advocated for a Greater Serbia, but with coming to power, things changed. Against his demarcation is virtually the entire Serbia. From experts to the pillar and base of Serbs throughout history Serbian Orthodox Church. A few years ago, I wrote in my analytical column that Vucic came to power with the ...
Truth on the war in Euromaidan Ukraine in photos.The people of Donetsk sent a farewell message to ex-President of the US (POTUS) Barack Obama with proper photo evidence of the result of his policy in the region.See the truth not presented on any global Western corporate mass-media!Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on ...
IntroductionThe article deals with the Great Economic Depression of 1929-1933 and its negative consequences on the economy of the German Weimar Republic. The aim of the article is to present the main causes and consequences of the global economic and financial crises known as the Great Economic Depression and to investigate how this depression influences the economy and finance of the newly democratic post-war German state called the Weimar Republic. The particular importance of this research subject is the fact that among all European states at the time it was exactly the Weimar Republic to be mostly affected by the ...
PrefaceKosovo is today one of the most disputed territories in Europe and a real Balkan powder keg which can explode again at any time. It is a province within the Republic of Serbia, recognized as such by both Serbia’s constitution and the Resolution 1244 by the Security Council of the United Nations (the UNSC Resolution 1244, June 10th, 1999). However, Kosovo parliament with a clear Albanian majority proclaimed the independence of Kosovo (without a referendum) in February 2008 that was recognized by the majority of the Western countries followed by their puppet clients all over the world (in reality, today ...
Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest.Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
TerminologyA meaning of the term Great Power(s) (GP) in global politics from the beginning of the 16th century onward refers to the most power and therefore top influential states within the system of the international relations (IR). In other words, the GP are those and only those states who are modelling global politics like Portugal, Spain, Sweden, France, the United Kingdom, united Germany, the USA, the USSR, Russia or China. During the time of the Cold War (1949−1989) there were superpowers[1] as the American and the Soviet administrations refered to their own countries and even a hyperpower state – the ...
Preface The European Union (the EU) is characterized by a purposeful diffusion of political authority between supranational and intergovernmental institutions. Based on the idea of shared leadership, it relies on a delicate institutional balance guarding declared equality between its ever more diverse members and managing potential and real tensions between the more and less populated states. Such tensions are present in any federal construct and have been a key concern since the ‘original six’ founded the (West) European Coal and Steel Community (the ECSC) in 1951 (the Benelux, West Germany, France, and Italy).The formal facts and official EU’s propaganda about ...
The U.S. Has Only Been At Peace For 21 Years Total Since Its BirthIn 2011, Danios wrote:Below, I have reproduced a year-by-year timeline of America’s wars, which reveals something quite interesting: since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.To put this in perspective:* Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.* No U.S. president truly qualifies as a ...
During the last decade the deteriorating political and military situation in the world have proved the necessity of well prepared Armed Forces.It is obvious that the level of patriotism in Lithuania is high as ever. Many young men are thinking to join the Armed Forces and be useful to the country. The government only should maintain and strengthen this trend. But battling with numerous political and economical problems the government is going to make some changes in military sphere that could have far-reaching adverse consequences.It should be said that today there is a serious gap in providing the national Armed ...
Kacanik, KOSOVO – A plume of smoke hangs over our table in the corner of a dark, shabby café in this rugged town in southern Kosovo. The lanky 19-year-old sitting next to me is chain-smoking through half a pack of L&Ms, his hands trembling as he recalls how he joined one of the world's most brutal militant Islamist groups.Through his neatly trimmed beard, Adem, who asks me not to use his real name for fear of arrest, says he had never even left Kosovo. But two years ago, he found himself on the perilous and far-off Turkey-Syria border -- a ...
The political settlement in the former Yugoslavia is unraveling. In Bosnia, the weakest state in the region, both Serbs and Croats are mounting a concerted challenge to the Dayton peace accords, the delicate set of compromises that hold the country together. In Macedonia, political figures from the large Albanian minority are calling for the federalization of the state along ethnic lines. In Kosovo, the Serb minority is insisting on the creation of a network of self-governing enclaves with effective independence from the central government. In Serbia’s Presevo Valley, Albanians are agitating for greater autonomy. In Montenegro, Albanians have demanded a ...
New scandalous information about the 2014 Maidan coup d'état in Ukraine has emerged that implicates Lithuania’s important role in instigating the violent events. David Zhvania, a former Member of the Ukrainian Parliament, revealed on his YouTube channel that the seizure of power in Ukraine was financed in “several ways.”“One of the external sources was the Lithuanian embassy, through which money and weapons were transferred, and the internal channel was Diamantbank. I have documented evidence to support my words,” said the former ally of Petro Poroshenko, the previous president of Ukraine.Zhvania called on Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova to initiate criminal proceedings ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
My work documenting how the law was lost began about a quarter of a century ago. A close friend and distinguished attorney, Dean Booth, first brought to my attention the erosion of the legal principles on which rests the rule of law in the United States. My columns on the subject got the attention of an educational institution that invited me to give a lecture on the subject. Subsequently, I was invited to give a lecture on “How The Law Was Lost” at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in New York City.The work coalesced into a book, The Tyranny Of ...
One has to wonder just how much longer the American people will silently permit the categorical failure of American foreign policy, both in theory and in practice. The evidence confirming the totality of our failure is breathtaking in scope and severity. Changes are needed to preserve U.S. national security and economic prosperity.Recent headlines have captured the character of this failure. Fifteen years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released findings that “corruption substantially undermined the U.S. mission in Afghanistan from the very beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom. … We conclude that failure to ...
The NATO war on Yugoslavia which culminated in the 78-days bombing of historic cities and infrastructures – as usual under atrocity propaganda and pretexts – is on its 20th anniversary.The grim anniversary is admirably recognized by Science for Peace members to remember and to prevent who-knows-what NATO war crime next as “humanitarian intervention”.From Yugoslavia to Iraq to Libya, where does it stop? Observe that Trump is now seeking a NATO alliance with Bolsonaro Brazil (see image below) -to perhaps back the bombing of Venezuela, or any other society, including the Brazilian people, not bowing to US-led global corporate colonization. Socialist ...
Twelve years ago, March 24th, 1999, marks the commencement of NATO’s aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia. The bombings which lasted for almost three months, were followed by the military invasion (under a bogus UN mandate) and illegal occupation of the province of Kosovo.In the course of the last week, the so-called international community, backed by the UN Security Council has called for the bombing of Libya, a sovereign country, allegedly to protect the lives of civilians under the logo of “Responsibility to Protect”.The covert operations, the military strategies applied in Libya not to mention the process of media disinformation bears a canny ...
The US Senate Report documenting CIA torture of alleged terrorist suspects raises a number of fundamental questions about the nature and operations of the State, the relationship and the responsibility of the Executive Branch and Congress to the vast secret police networks which span the globe – including the United States.CIA: The Politics of a Global Secret Police ForceThe Senate Report’s revelations of CIA torture of suspects following the 9/11 bombing is only the tip of the iceberg. The Report omits the history and wider scope of violent activity in which the CIA has been and continues to be involved. ...
Last movie by famous French movie maker Paul Moreira on Canal+ (France) broadcasted 01/02/2016.Some French citizens are now shocked after discovering the truth about the Odessa massacre and the Euromaidan bloody coup in 2013/2014.Interview to Paul Moreira:http://www.humanite.fr/derriere-les-masques-de-la-revolution-ukrainienne-597568Preview screening on January, 20th 2016 at FIPA Biarritz 29th edition, selected out of competition in Reportages and Investigation – Panorama of Creation category.Without them, there would have been no Ukrainian revolution.In February 2014, paramilitary groups fought against the police in the streets of Kyev and ousted President Yanukovych. They settled a new government.According to the western media, they were the revolution heroes. They ...
Twenty-two civilians, wounded and doctors, among them three children, were killed in the American bombing of a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz. Americans acknowledged the error and apologized. The President of the United States expressed his condolences, the military leadership announced three independent investigations. “Doctors without borders” (MSF) do not believe them, they seek an independent arbitration by the international commission.
Americans have protected themselves with another instrument from the international responsibility. They guarantee the exemption of US citizens from the jurisdiction of the ICC with bilateral agreements.
