Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Obama’s Nobel and War Crimes Trial of US & UK leaders in Spain !



Obama's Nobel and War Crimes Trial of US & UK leaders in Spain !

 

First let us get Western Nobel ( mercifully not noble) Prizes out of the way. The prize was instituted in memory of Alfred Nobel who made a fortune by inventing dynamite , a bane of human species since then .But then why honour the man by naming a peace prize after him. What about a Kalashnikov Peace Prize , if Mr Kalashnikov so wished ?

 

It was fortuitous that Mahatma Gandhi was never awarded the prize . The Nobel money reeks with blood of millions since the not so noble invention of Alfred Nobel .The means of the wealth were evil .It is like a brothel madam after raking in wealth institutes a prize for chastity or marital loyalty .For Gandhi to be clubbed with war mongers and war criminals and others would be nauseating .And now Obama .

 

Writes Michel Chossudovsky in globalresearch.Ca of 11/10/09 in his piece

 

Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth

When war becomes peace,

When concepts and realities are turned upside down,

When fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction.

When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor, 

When the killing of civilians is upheld as "collateral damage", 

When those who resist the US-NATO led invasion of their homeland are categorized as "insurgents" or "terrorists".  

When preemptive nuclear war is upheld as self defense.

When advanced torture and "interrogation" techniques are routinely used to "protect peacekeeping operations",

When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as "harmless to the surrounding civilian population"

When three quarters of US personal federal income tax revenues are allocated to financing what is euphemistically referred to as "national defense" 

When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,

When the Lie becomes the Truth. 

Obama's "War Without Borders"

We are the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The
US in partnership with NATO and Israel has launched a global military adventure which, in a very real sense, threatens the future of humanity.

At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon's "Long War":  "A War without Borders" in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might."

Commented historian Howard Zinn in the Guardian of 10 October.2009

"
I was dismayed when I heard
Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

"Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations – that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he had bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War, surely among stupid and deadly wars at the top of the list.

"Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains on that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticised the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.

"Oh yes, the committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, because he signed the final peace agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon's expansion of the war, with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, is given a peace prize!"

Nobels for Economics,

In Sep 1998, LTMC a big US Investment firm run by two 1997 Nobel Prize Winners for Economics (derivative trading?) had to be bailed out as its bets around  the world amounted to US$ 100 billion . Perhaps in expatiation Amritya Sen was given next years prize for his writings on famines and democracy.

Do Nobel prizes have much meaning except to highlight US led advances in science and technology , where western imperial policies have sucked wealth from other nations and hence attract researchers from around the world .

In Indian democracy the Lals of Haryana, Yadavs of cow belt decide appointments to higher institutions of learning , with Mulayam Singh Yadav, openly railing against use of computers.

"Pause and ask yourself, how is it that no fundamental research of any consequence takes place in India these days? That no invention of any note comes out of India? "  Lord Bhikhu Parekh  (Prof LSE ) 8 Jan 03 NRI meet .

A news item"A senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague said that he is considering opening an investigation into whether Lt. Col. David Benjamin, an Israel Defense Forces reserve officer, allowed war crimes to be committed during the IDF's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.

The officer - a dual citizen of
Israel and South Africa, where he was born - served in the Military Advocate General's international law department, which authorized which targets troops would strike before and during the operation.

Newsweek magazine released an interview Monday with ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of
Argentina in which he said he is convinced his office has the authority to launch an investigation into Benjamin's actions.

The ICC has until now refrained from trying IDF officers, as it lacks authority to do so, since Israel is not a signatory to the 2002 Rome Treaty that founded the court. South Africa, however, did sign the treaty, so the ICC is authorized to indict its citizens."

Another news item;

A group of U.K. citizens living in the northern Negev is demanding the European Union shoulder the cost of making their homes rocket-proof and stop funding Hamas, in a precedent-setting lawsuit recently filed against the EU.

The 14 British claimants and one Italian national joined their names this week to a lawsuit filed last month to the European Commission. As reported first by Haaretz, the suit by petitioner Eyal Katorza, a French national from Sderot, cited Article 3.5 of the European Treaty which states the Union will "contribute to the protection of its citizens" regardless of their whereabouts. The EU "owes its citizens protection and security whether they reside in the European Union or abroad in a third state," Mordechai M. Tzivin, Katorza's lawyer, wrote. If the commission does not uphold the suit, it will be filed in 12 months time to the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg.

Among other clauses, the eight-page document also notes Article 20 of the treaty, which states that when outside the union, EU citizens are "entitled to protection by the diplomatic or consular authorities of any member State."

Third News item;

During the North Ireland Troubles, Libya supplied guns and explosives which the IRA used to kill police officers.

 

William Frazer of victims group Fair (Families Acting for Innocent Relatives) said: "Without Libya, the IRA could not have done what they did in Northern Ireland, there is no doubt about that."

 

Colonel Gaddafi's son has said Libya will resist demands from the families of IRA victims for compensation.

 

Colonel Gaddafi's son ,Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said any claims for compensation based on Libya's supply of explosives to the IRA would be a matter for the courts.

 

It has emerged that UK PM Gordon Brown had declined to put formal pressure on Libya for compensation. Mr Brown told a victims' lawyer it was not "appropriate" to discuss the claims with Libya, whom he called an essential partner in the fight against terrorism.

 

The victims say Libya should pay compensation because it supplied the IRA with explosives used in atrocities.

 

What about compensation for victims in India since decades from US and other governments who spent over 10 billion US dollars in 1980s in training terrorists who have attacked India time and again. Since then and earlier , US and others have given arms and other aid to Pakistan , which US said would not be used against India but has been as boasted by Ex Pak President Musharraf himself.

Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial                                                              ( from Wikipedia)

General Augusto Pinochet was indicted on 10 October 1998 by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón. He was arrested in London and finally released by the British government in March 2000. Authorized to freely return to his native Chile, he was there first indicted by the judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, and charged of a number of crimes, before dying on 10 December 2006, without having been convicted in any case. His arrest in London made the front-page of newspapers worldwide as not only did it involve the head of the military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, but it was the first time that several European judges applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed by former head of states, despite local amnesty laws.

 

War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity And Genocide In Iraq
Legal Case Filed Against 4 U.S. Presidents and 4 UK Prime Ministers

By The Brussels Tribunal

October 08, 2009 "
Information Clearing House" -- MADRID: Today the Spanish Senate, acting to confirm a decision already taken under pressure from powerful governments accused of grave crimes, will limit Spain's laws of universal jurisdiction.

 

Yesterday, ahead of the change of law, a legal case was filed at the Audiencia Nacional against four United States presidents and four United Kingdom prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq.
 
This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown
, is brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law. 
 
Iraq: 19 years of intended destruction

The intended destruction — or genocide — of Iraq as a state and nation has been ongoing for 19 years, combining the imposition of the most draconian sanctions regime ever designed and that led to 1.5 million Iraqi deaths, including 500,000 children, with a war of aggression that led to the violent deaths of over one million more.

  • Destroying Iraq included the purposeful targeting of its water and sanitation system, attacking the health of the civilian population. Since 1990, thousands of tons of depleted uranium have been dropped on Iraq, leading in some places to a 600 per cent rise in cancer and leukaemia cases, especially among children. In both the first Gulf War and "Shock and Awe" in 2003, an air campaign that openly threatened "total destruction", waves of disproportionate bombing made no distinction between military and civilian targets, with schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, and historical sites all destroyed.

     
  • Destroying Iraq included promoting, funding and organizing sectarian and ethnic groups bent on dividing Iraq into three or more sectarian or ethnic entities, backed by armed militias that would terrorize the Iraqi people. Since 2003, some 4.7 million Iraqis — one fifth of the population — have been forcibly displaced. Under occupation, kidnappings, killings, extortion and mutilation became endemic, targeting men, women and even children and the elderly.

     
  • Destroying Iraq included purposefully dismantling the state by refusing to stop or stem or by instigating mass looting, and by engaging in ideological persecution, entailing "manhunting", extrajudicial assassinations, mass imprisonment and torture, of Baathists, the entire educated class of the state apparatus, religious and linguistic minorities and Arab Sunnis, resulting in the total collapse of all public services and other economic functions and promoting civil strife and systematic corruption.

     
  • In parallel, Iraq's rich heritage and unique cultural and archaeological patrimony has been wantonly destroyed.

In order to render Iraq dependent on US and UK strategic designs, successive US and UK governments have attempted to partition Iraq and to establish by military force a pro-occupation Iraqi government and political system. They have promoted and engaged in the massive plunder of Iraqi natural resources, attempting to privatize this property and wealth of the Iraqi nation.

Humanity at stake

This is but the barest summary of the horrors Iraq has endured, based on lies that nobody but cowed governments and complicit media believed. In 2003, millions worldwide were mobilized in opposition to US/UK plans. In going ahead, the US and UK launched an illegal war of aggression. Accountability has not been established.
 
The persons named in this case have each played a key role in Iraq's intended destruction. They instigated, supported, condoned, rationalized, executed and/or perpetuated or excused this destruction based on lies and narrow strategic and economic interests, and against the will of their own people. Allowing those responsible to escape accountability means such actions could be repeated elsewhere.
 
It is imperative now to establish accountability for US and UK war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq because:

 
Every Iraqi victim deserves justice.
 
Everyone responsible should be accountable.
 
We are before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis on which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests. Whereas the official international justice system is closed before the suffering of those that imperialism makes a target, through this case we try to open a channel whereby the conscience of humanity can express its solidarity with justice for victims of imperial crimes. 
Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

Press contacts:
Hana Al Bayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal

34 657 52 70 77  or   +20 10 027 7964 (English and French) hanaalbayaty@gmail.com
Dr Ian Douglas, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal, coordinator, International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq

 +20 12 167 1660 (English) iandouglas@USgenocide.org

Amanda Nuredin,  +34 657 52 70 77 (Spanish) justiciaparairak@gmail.com
Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal

 +33 471 461 197 (Arabic) albayaty_abdul@hotmail.com                                                                              Web: www.brusselstribunal.org