Everything hushed up: No probe into US war crimes

by Vijay Prashad

The American military which has a bleak, black and bloody record of committing state terrorism, wherever it intrudes, has again pressured world agencies to drop cases against it by hiding all relevant evidence.

Now we have an article in this regard for ‘Globetrotter’ by Vijay Prashad, Indian historian, editor and journalist, titled: “Everything hushed up: No probe into US war crimes”.

On April 12, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it would not pursue a war-crimes investigation against the US military for its actions in Afghanistan. A very thick file was closed in The Hague.

Almost a decade ago, on February 12, 2010, US Special Operations Forces arrived at the home of Haji Sharafuddin in Khataba, Paktia province, Afghanistan. The Sharafuddin family was celebrating the birth of a grandson. Inside the home were close family members (including a police investigator and a government prosecutor) as well as the vice-chancellor of Gardez University, Sayed Mohammed Mal.

At 3am, the family says, US forces attacked the home, killing five members of the family including Sharafuddin’s son Mohammed Dawood, who was the police investigator. After the killings, the soldiers carried the bodies into the house and removed the bullets with a knife. They did not want to leave evidence of their actions. They then ransacked the home – including stealing money – and left.

The US military said those they killed were insurgents. Both the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Criminal Investigations Department of the Afghan Ministry of the Interior found this allegation to be false. A war crime had been committed here.

The recent ICC withdrawal, however, means that this crime – and hundreds of others – will neither be properly documented nor will there be justice for the victims and survivors. Thousands of family members, who know very well what happened in little villages like Khataba and Nangalam, will have no recourse either to an admission of guilt or punishment for the killers. The killing in Nangalam was by a US helicopter on March 1, 2011. The pilots fired on nine boys, killing them all. “My son Wahidullah’s head was missing,” said Haji Bismillah. “I only recognized him from his clothes.”

One village or town after another has families with stories of such violent and senseless deaths. This US war on Afghanistan, which has been ongoing since 2001, has produced an unknown death count with unknown numbers of war crimes (by US troops, by the Afghan armed forces and by the Taliban). Afghanistan remains an open sore of crime and impunity.

It was for good reason that the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai became a member of the International Criminal Court in 2003. There was pressure on Karzai from the US government not to join the ICC, but he prevailed.

It was hardly a victory. The ICC came out of the Rome Statute, which was drafted in 1998 and came into force in 2002. The United States signed the original treaty but then refused to ratify it. Worse, the US Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act of 2002 to discourage any cooperation with the ICC if the behavior of US soldiers came under scrutiny. US senator Jesse Helms referred to the ICC as the International Kangaroo Court. Even if Afghanistan became a member of the ICC, no one in the US establishment thought that this would have any consequences.

But prosecutors in the court had other ideas. In 2006, ICC investigators opened a “preliminary investigation” into war crimes in Afghanistan. They were interested in war crimes committed by the US forces, by Afghan forces and by the Taliban. An investigator, a few years later, told me that they had found “captivating evidence” of war crimes, mostly related to the torture centers run by the Central Intelligence Agency and by US military intelligence. They sought more material evidence not only by interviewing former prisoners but also through access – which they did not get – to US official documents.

In 2007, the Afghan parliament – a parliament of warlords – passed a law that gave immunity to all for war crimes committed in the country. This was a blanket – and shameful – immunity that was only in May 2017 amended to allow the country to be in compliance with the Rome Statute.

In 2010, WikiLeaks provided some of this evidence in the Afghan war logs, in whose 90,000 pages there was some – but not sufficient – documentation of various operations run by US forces. This did not shape the ICC investigation, which proceeded with deliberate intent with interviews and with scrutiny of whatever documentation was available.

On November 20, 2017, with almost a decade of careful investigation behind it, the ICC released a report with a bland title: “Situation in Afghanistan: Summary of the Prosecutor’s Request for Authorization of an Investigation Pursuant to Article 15.”

The significant sentence of the brief report is the following: “Finally, the information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that members of the United States of America … armed forces and members of the Central Intelligence Agency … committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence against conflict-related detainees in Afghanistan and other locations, principally in the 2003-2004 period.”

This did not mean that the crimes of 2010 and 2011 would not be investigated, only that the focus was on this early period and would later expand to include the entire span of the ongoing war.

The ICC’s special prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, asked the court to allow a full investigation of war crimes in Afghanistan. She received a green light.

A year later, on September 10, 2018, US national security adviser John Bolton said that if the ICC continued with its work on the US war-crimes docket, the US government would place sanctions on the ICC and even criminally prosecute ICC officials in US courts. This was not just for the ICC investigation of US war crimes in Afghanistan, but also if the ICC persisted in its work on Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians.

Investigators at the ICC said at that time that gloom descended on their department. The sense was that the investigation would not be allowed to proceed. But, for the time being, there was no immediate attempt within the ICC to shut down the investigation. The process continued, with Bensouda’s team building up the case against the United States – and others – for war crimes in Afghanistan.

It is important to bear in mind that the evidence was in the plain light of day. In 2005, The New York Times published a 2,000-page US army investigation of the killing of Habibullah and Dilawar at Bagram in December 2002. None of the soldiers charged with the murder of these two men were convicted. All charges were dropped. But the evidence against them was clear in the army report.

ICC special prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who was in charge of this file, visited the UN Security Council in New York City to deliver her report to the member states of the UN. For this, Bensouda – like other foreign nationals who work in the UN – must get a US visa. On March 15 of this year, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States would deny a visa to ICC personnel if they continued to investigate US war crimes. A few weeks later, on April 5, the United States revoked Bensouda’s visa. This was an act of immense hostility, little remarked on in the press.

The pressure on the ICC from US President Donald Trump’s men rose. It would have taken international outcry to prevent them from getting their way. But the revocation of Bensouda’s visa was met with silence. The UN said nothing, nor did the member states.

It was this silence that had a chilling effect on the ICC. On April 12, a three-judge panel rejected Bensouda’s request for the investigation. This pretrial chamber comprised Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua of the Congo, Tomoko Akane of Japan and Rosario Salvatore Aitala of Italy. They decided that an investigation into US war crimes in Afghanistan “would not serve the interests of justice.”

So it goes.

World slams ICC’s decision to not investigate U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

In a stark reminder of how the U.S. military industrial complex puts pressure on international watchdog bodies to toe its line, International Criminal Court (ICC) has rejected a request to initiate investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.

In a decision that has been blasted as “deeply flawed” and a “devastating blow for victims”, ICC judges on Friday turned down a request by the court’s prosecutor to start an investigation into war crimes committed by the U.S. and other actors in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

In a detailed ruling, judges said an investigation “would not serve the interests of justice” because an investigation and prosecution was unlikely to be successful, as entities like the U.S. forces, Afghan authorities and the Taliban, are not expected to cooperate.

Global watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the ruling, calling it “a devastating blow for victims who have suffered grave crimes without redress.”

In a statement, the Trump administration hailed the decision not to investigate U.S. personnel as “a major international victory, not only for these patriots, but for the rule of law.”

Pertinently, the U.S. government had recently threatened the ICC and its judges if it opened case against the U.S. personnel in war-torn Afghanistan.

“The U.S. will withdraw or deny visas to any ICC personnel investigating possible war crimes by U.S. forces or allies in Afghanistan,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month.

The court, which has its headquarters in The Hague, responded that it was an independent and impartial institution and would continue to do its work “undeterred” by U.S. threats.

ICC did hit back then but soon felt intimidated by mafia-style threats by the administration in Washington. 

The ICC’s decision comes just days after the U.S. government revoked the ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s visa because the investigation involved crimes committed by the U.S. forces.

Bensouda’s request to open an investigation said there is information that members of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies "committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence against conflict-related detainees in Afghanistan and other locations, principally in the 2003-2004 period."

She also said that the Taliban and other insurgent groups have killed more than 17,000 civilians since 2009, including almost 7,000 targeted killings.

She also alleged that Afghan security forces have tortured prisoners in government-run jails.

The ICC decision does acknowledge that the November 2017 request from Bensouda to open a probe “establishes a reasonable basis to consider that crimes within the ICC jurisdiction have been committed in Afghanistan and that potential cases would be admissible before the Court,” said a report in AP.

In a written reaction, the court’s prosecution office said it “will further analyze the decision and its implications, and consider all available legal remedies.”

The ICC judges claimed that their decision was influenced by the prospect of investigators having to deal with challenging investigations, a lack of ready state cooperation and budgetary constraints, the AP report said.

Patrick Baudouin, president of the International Federation for Human Rights, called the rejection a "dark day for justice" and a "shocking decision, which is based on a deeply flawed reasoning."

Sima Samar, the chairman of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, said the decision was a disappointment for victims.

Human Rights Watch said the ruling establishes a dangerous precedent. “The judges' logic effectively allows states to opt out on their obligation to cooperate with the court's investigation,” said Param-Preet Singh, the group's associate international justice director. 

"This sends a dangerous message to perpetrators that they can put themselves beyond the reach of the law just by being uncooperative."

Amnesty International said the ICC’s decision not to authorize an investigation into crimes committed in Afghanistan under international law marks a shocking abandonment of victims and will further weaken the court’s credibility.

“Afghanistan has been witness to heinous crimes committed with near-absolute impunity, across the country, for more than a decade and a half. The ICC’s decision today is a shocking abandonment of the victims which will weaken the court’s already questionable credibility,” said Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International.

“None of the reasons given by the ICC judges justifies this decision. The gravest crimes can only ever be investigated in trying circumstances. If anything, the court’s reluctance to proceed with investigations in the face of such constraints only reveals its overreach and signals its weak resolve,” said Patnaik.

The successive U.S. governments have always arm-twisted global watchdog bodies, especially the ICC, and prevented it from investigating its crimes against humanity. 

“If the ICC begins and is allowed to investigate crimes against humanity committed by the West, the entire twisted concept of the U.S. and Europe being pioneers of freedom and democracy could easily and quickly collapse,” wrote Andre Vltchek in an article in New Eastern Outlook.

“Even criticism by Washington, Paris or London of countries such as Venezuela, China or Russia, for their ‘human rights violations’, would become absurd and grotesque. Entire concept of ‘regime change’ could clearly be exposed for what it always really was – lawless gangsterism,” Vltchek added.

He said no country in the post-WWII era has committed so many crimes against humanity, and supported so many genocides, as the U.S.

“The ‘foreign policy’ of the U.S. is directly derived from colonialist policies of the former European powers. Therefore, crimes against humanity committed by the West have never stopped; never stopped for centuries,” he noted. 

Why Trump Endorses Occupation of Golan Height

TEHRAN (FNA)- To continue more than half a century of US policy on Israel’s occupations and annexations in the wake of the 1967 War, President Donald Trump has gone onto Twitter to publicly endorse Israel’s permanent occupation of the Golan Heights, which is legally part of Syria.

Israel occupied Syria’s Golan Heights in 1967. The US, and the rest of the world, never recognized the annexation, but considered it part of Syria under military occupation. Trump now says the US recognizes Israel’s “Sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” calling it critical for “Regional Stability”.

While on the surface this is just another in a long line of mostly meaningless concessions to show how pro-Zionist and anti-Muslim he is, the timing also comes across as a cynical political ploy, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo already in Israel to visit Netanyahu, who faces reelection in just three weeks.

Polls show a very close race, with Netanyahu’s far-right coalition struggling to retain power against a more centrist bloc. Since Netanyahu asked for Golan and got it, the optics of this are Trump very much trying to swing the election in favor of the Likud far-right coalition, which he has long favored.

This should come as no surprise to anyone. After all, Netanyahu has always said Tel Aviv will never return the occupied Golan Heights to Syria, and that the world should recognize that.

In his words, “The Golan Heights will remain in the hands of Israel forever. Israel will never withdraw from the Golan Heights.”

This policy has helped Israel to build tens of illegal settlements in the area and even used it to carry out military operations against Syria. This is while the 'Occupation Law' clearly calls for the preservation of the role of the Syrians in governing their own lands and country and facilitates the eventual transfer of all such authority back to the Syrian people.

Moreover, Trump’s endorsement of Israel’s permanent occupation of the Golan Heights does not pass to the occupying power. So, it’s irrelevant for Trump to argue that some 50,000 Israelis are living there and can stay there. It’s a false debate. However, there are many other reasons why Trump backs the Israeli occupation of Golan:

- It is because of the failure of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that Israel is still able to steal land in broad daylight, with great impunity and no accountability. It is true that the UNSC has issued many resolutions against Tel Aviv. It is also true that all these resolutions have been vetoed by the United States. The result has only emboldened Tel Aviv to steal even more territory without fear of any punishment.

- The international community always condemns the atrocities committed by Israel, such as attacks on civilians, the inhumane blockade of Gaza, destruction of Palestinian homes, the settlement construction in the West Bank, violation of the Islamic identity of Jerusalem Al-Quds, and the illegal seizure of Palestinian territories. The problem is that all these beautiful words have never been followed by action - even though the Israeli policies are in clear violation of all international principles, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention.

- The Israeli army has been committing a host of crimes against humanity in occupied Palestine and throughout the Middle East. Despite that, not even one Israeli soldier or commander has ever faced any charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague - in which Israel isn’t a member. Sure enough, it is Washington (also not an ICC member) that "admittedly' and officially stops any attempt at the UNSC or in The Hague to criminalize Israel’s endless war on Palestinians, not only because it will have serious political consequences for the Official Washington by the Israeli lobby — but because America’s military may well be next in the crosshairs.

- What Israel is doing to Palestine and the rest of the region differs little from the US and NATO armies or those of regional allies. As long as the ICC refuses to deal with the complaints of US-NATO-Saudi war crimes in Yemen, there is little hope that it will ever decide to go after the Israeli case of Golan Heights.

- The ICC’s power to act arises only in two relevant circumstances: First by a reference from the UNSC, which is sure to be blocked by the US. Then there is the alternative basis for empowering the ICC prosecutor: Syria has signed the ICC treaty and can require the prosecutor to investigate Israeli crimes. So far under pressure from the US, efforts made by the Syrian – and Palestinian - leaders have failed to produce results. The US has long been using a variety of means to influence the ICC and has recently even resorted to intemediation, sanctions and threats against the international court.

It is against this backdrop that Trump says the Golan Heights belong to Israel and that Washington endorses its infinite occupation. It is also obvious that Trump is breaching the Geneva conventions and failing to observe the minimum standards of humanity, all because the UNSC and the ICC offer no prospect of any accountability at all.

ICC Should Investigate US War Crimes - Everywhere

TEHRAN (FNA)- US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo might be doing a rational thing to impose visa restrictions on a number of officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) or many state and military officials will end up in jail.

He knows full well that the US is still committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan and the ongoing inquiries by the ICC would once again put the the Land of the Free in negative light.

He also knows full well that the ICC has not formally launched an investigation, but has been soliciting information of possible crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan. They have reported getting about 700 submissions from victims so far. 

So it makes perfect sense for those who are making “America” ‘s war crimes “great again” in Afghanistan to stay away from the nosy ICC officials. Who wants to get into trouble anyway, especially when the hated war criminals have so few friends among the international civil society, even among the European Union member states - their hard-core allies in the fake war on terror.

The US government doesn’t favor the ICC in the best of times, anyhow, and Pompeo says the effort to look into US war crimes amounts to a threat to “national sovereignty.” He has further threatened economic sanctions if an investigation grows!

This is rubbish. This silly and familiar rhetoric of “threat to national sovereignty” or “threat to national security” we have all heard it before. It has even “frightened” German Chancellor Angela Merkel!

President Trump, who has made Eurozone economies a captive of his tariff war, can’t wait to sign “Section 232" report from the US Commerce Department. The report alleges that European exports of cars to the US are a national security threat.

This has already frightened European powers. Chancellor Merkel, in particular, has voiced dismay and described US moves to declare European car imports "a threat to national security" as "frightening".

There is no mystery here, and this is not just about German cars. The ICC already has the damning evidence and material witnesses to investigate crimes against humanity even if the US government is unwilling to do so. The US government would clearly be able to investigate such violations in Afghanistan, but whether or not they’ve proven willing to do so is hotly debated, based on how often such reports and allegations are just quietly dismissed in internal investigations - and swept under the rug.

Here, then, is the true thrill of it all: imagining what could possibly come next. 

March 20 marks the anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Since then, the United States has been committing the greatest war crime of the twenty-first century: not just in Iraq, but In Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen as well.

There should be a significant consensus at the ICC, as well, that the Iraq invasion was the “worst foreign policy decision in American history”. Simply put: a war crime. 

In fact, the Afghanistan invasion fell into the very category that led the list of crimes at the Nuremberg tribunal, where Nazi high officials were tried for their actions during World War II. During the negotiations establishing that tribunal and its rules, it was ironically the United States that insisted on including the crime of “waging a war of aggression” and on placing it at the head of the list. 

Similarly, the ICC’s position should be that all the rest of America’s war crimes sprang from its first aggression against Afghanistan. 

This should include the extraordinary renditions; the acts of torture at Guantánamo, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and CIA black sites all over the world; the nightmare of abuse at Abu Ghraib, a US military prison in Iraq; the siege and firebombing (with white phosphorus) of the Iraqi city of Fallujah; the massacre of civilians in Haditha, another Iraqi city, plus the US-backed, Saudi-Israeli atrocities in Yemen and Syria and Gaza and Lebanon.

All of these war crimes and crimes committed against humanity arose from the Bush administration’s determination to unlawfully invade and occupy Afghanistan and then Iraq and then the rest of the sovereign nations of the Middle East - except Iran.

Obviously, by refusing to allow the ICC investigators to enter the US, the Trump administration sees no reason to do anything to limit the impunity of US military war criminals, whoever they might be. 

It just makes official what has been US policy since the illegal invasion of Afghanistan, which is that there will be no notice taken of war crimes because so many of them have been and are still being committed by allies and American forces, generals, commanders, military and intelligence officers, and elected officials at the White House, including Trump, and Pompeo and their hard-core generals at the Pentagon.

The war crimes of conspiring and waging aggressive war still exist, as torture, denial of fair trial rights, and indefinite detention are war crimes. It is so embarrassing, so ridiculous and so hypocritical for Trump and his neocon faction, mainly Pompeo, to issue report after report to voice their bogus “concerns” about alleged human rights violations in places like Iran, China, Russia, Syria and Venezuela. What a disgrace.

Did US and Allies Commit War Crime by Bombing Syria on April 14th?

ERIC ZUESSE

INTRODUCTION

Bombardment (or other military invasion) of a country that has not invaded nor threatened to invade the attacking country(s) is “aggression” under international law, and is the chief crime that the Nazis were hanged for at Nuremberg after World War II. 

The US and its allies have routinely committed aggression, in places such as Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. A particular instance of it, to be discussed here, could be especially prosecutable, because the alleged ‘cause’ for the invasion could turn out to have been a provable lie, an intentional fabrication which had been concocted by the perpetrators so as to ‘justify’ their invasion. This particular instance was the US-and-allied bombing of Syria, by over a hundred missiles, on April 14th.

The concept here is “War of Aggression” in Wikipedia, whose article makes clear that certain types of invasions, such as in boundary-dispute cases, do not constitute a war-crime. That article cites a statement from the Nuremberg Tribunal: “To initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Lying about the cause for invading is almost invariably an important part of that “accumulated evil.” Hitler was infamous for doing it. Did the US do this on April 14th?

That Wikipedia article refers to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the standing body that possesses the authority to judge such cases. However, the US Government has refused to accept that Court’s authority, and prefers instead to be forced to a military surrender as the earlier fascist powers were, before it will yield to any such court’s authority. They know that that won’t happen, so are brazen in what they now are doing. The US Government rejects international law (except as applied to other countries — especially ones that the US aristocracy wants to conquer, such as Syria, Russia, Iran, and China). Because the US Government has not surrendered, as the earlier Axis powers did in WW II (when the US was a democracy, instead of a dictatorship as it now is), it maintains its freedom to do what the Germans and the Japanese and the Italians did in WW II — to do such things: aggressions. Like the earlier fascists, the US and allied aristocracies invade and expect to win and thus to possess immunity from prosecution for their crimes. Of course, thus far, they have succeeded, even after the blatant lying that had ‘justified’ the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

This does not mean, however, that the US Government will necessarily be free from the international ‘court’ of public opinion, if and when a demonstrable act of aggressive war by the US Government can be clearly and incontrovertibly presented to that ‘court’ (assuming, of course, that the news-media aren’t themselves likewise effectively controlled by the US Government and its allies — or by their aristocrats, who advertise in and own them).

For the international ‘court’ of public opinion to be applicable, a certain modicum of honesty on the press’s part will therefore be essential. The present article is consequently being submitted to all US-and-allied news-media for publication, broadcast, and public discussion, so as to enable the international ‘court’ of public opinion to function, on this matter (since the US Government blocks the ICC from having jurisdiction over it). The international ‘court’ of public opinion will be able to function only if these news-media publish the case that’s presented here. Otherwise, the public just won’t even have a chance. So, here is that case:

THE CASE

The US Government and its allies alleged that there had been a chemical weapons attack which the Syrian Government had perpetrated in the town of Douma Syria on April 7th. The US Government organized a bombardment of the Syrian Government, which occurred seven days later. The US Government did everything it could to prevent the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW, the internationally authorized body which investigates such matters) from inspecting the area, either before or after the US-and-allied bombing. The OPCW wanted to investigate in order to determine whether there had actually been the alleged chemical-weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian Government, as the US regime and its allies had alleged in order to allegedly justify their April 14th invasion. 

Some UN delegates were even afraid that the aggressive US might take “military action” in order to prevent an OPCW investigation there. Syria’s Government headlined on April 10th, “OPCW to send a fact-finding mission to Douma upon request of Syria and Russia”. Pamela Falk of CBS News reported on April 10th, that “Because the US and Russia draft resolutions are unlikely to pass the Security Council, the Russian mission to the UN is planning to introduce a resolution, obtained by CBS News, that supports an OPCW fact-finding mission to Douma.” But events were racing too fast for anything to issue from the UN The US and its allies were determined to invade, and quickly. 

On the night of April 10th, RT bannered “Europe air traffic control issues alert over ‘possible air strikes on Syria within 72 hours’”. Infowars headlined on April 11th “REPORT: US SET TO TARGET 70 DIFFERENT SITES IN SYRIA” and reported that, “The United States is planning to target as many as 70 different sites in Syria, including some at which Russian soldiers are stationed, a source close to the Department of Defense has told Infowars. … According to the source, evidence provided by the controversial White Helmets group, which some have linked to jihadist groups in the region, will be used to justify the attack. The source added that Trump wasn’t supposed to tweet about the air strikes. Earlier today, Trump tweeted, ‘Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and smart! You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!’” He was international judge, jury, and executioner, like George W. Bush was regarding Iraq in 2003.

On April 12th, Breitbart News bannered “May Readies UK for Syria Strikes, Defies Strong Public Opposition” and reported: “Theresa May is clearing the way to launch attacks on the Syrian regime, despite multiple polls showing only one in five Brits support missile attacks.” 

This would be an invasion by the aristocracies, not by the publics; these invading nations are dictatorships; their publics have no control over their nations’ international relations, none really at all. To call these nations ‘democracies’ is thus to insult democracy. These nations’ respective aristocracies make even such life-and-death decisions — invasions and other international war-crimes — regardless of the desires and interests of their subjects (called ‘citizens’). And they are doing it (like they did against Iraq in 2003, and against Libya in 2011) against a Government and nation that had never invaded nor even threatened to invade any of the invaders. It’s thus clearly “aggressive war.” Even if Syria’s Government had perpetrated a chemical attack in Douma, the invading nations have been invading without even having sought from the UN an authorization to do it. Back in 2003, when the same invaders destroyed Iraq, they at least tried to obtain a UN authorization to invade. When that effort failed, they simply ordered the UN’s weapons-inspectors out, so as not to kill them, too, in their war-crime. But Donald Trump and his allies didn’t even try to get a UN authorization. (And he has treated the OPCW’s investigators with just as much impatience and contempt as G.W. Bush had treated Hans Blix’s in 2003.)

Also on April 12th, Russian Television reported, “The first four chemical weapons experts from the OPCW have arrived in Syria on a fact-finding mission (FFM) into the April 7 Douma incident.”

The US had barred at the Security Council any OPCW findings prior to any invasion; but on the day of the US-and-allied invasion, April 14th, the OPCW announced its determination to investigate Douma, notwithstanding the US regime’s opposition to that. The OPCW insisted upon doing their job, maybe even to expose that this invasion had been a war-crime, if that’s what it was. So, the OPCW simply took upon itself to act, to gather evidence.

This investigation had been wanted by Syria and Russia, but the US and its allies tried at the United Nations to block it. Now that the OPCW was in Syria, the US and its allies charged that the Syrian Government didn’t want any such investigation, and was delaying it so as to hide evidence; the Syrian Government responded that it needed some time in order to be able to make Douma safe enough to allow OPCW investigators to work there. Some armed anti-Government fighters still remained inside Douma. The OPCW were waiting for the Government’s go-ahead to enter Douma.

On Wednesday, April 18th, Reuters headlined “Head of chemical weapons watchdog: UN security team was shot at in Douma”, and reported that,

The head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Wednesday that a UN security team doing reconnaissance in Douma, Syria came under gunfire a day earlier, sources told Reuters.

OPCW Director General Ahmet Üzümcü told a meeting at the organization’s headquarters in The Hague that the security team was forced to withdraw, delaying the arrival of chemical weapons inspectors due to visit the site.

America’s allegations that Syria was overstating the dangers to the OPCW investigators were now clearly lies. It was manifestly the case. The lies from the American side poured like a river, just as usually had been the case — most infamously during the lead-up to the 2003 invasion and destruction of Iraq, which likewise was rushed through on the basis of lies, by the US and its allies.

Also on April 18th, TruePublica bannered “Syrian ‘Rebels’ Used Sarin Nerve Gas Sold By Britain” and reported that the UK Government had “granted licences for the sale of chemical weapons ingredients and components to Syria ten months after the uprising began.” The poorly written text in that news-report failed to make unambiguously clear in its opening, whether these chemicals had been sold to Syria’s Government and/or to the US-UK-backed jihadists who were trying to overthrow it. But both seem to have been the case, and some of these were “donations” and not merely sales; so, at least some of them went to the jihadists whom UK was backing, and weren’t sales to the Syrian Government. (See bottom of page 50 in this document, saying “the revision of the Syria sanctions regime led to some licence revocations in July 2012 for the export of chemicals,” and “the Government is satisfied that no gifting package contravenes its policy,” but the TruePublica report failed to link to any documentation whatsoever, for its vaguely written allegation here, neither to this document nor to anything.) So: the chemical incidents that the US and UK regimes were blaming against Syria’s Government might actually all have been due instead to “chemical” “donations,” by the accusing countries, those foreign invader-regimes, donated to their jihadist allies now in Syria, working in conjunction to provide fake excuses for the US and its allies to invade. Britain might have supplied the terrorists chemical weapons, in this particular instance. Furthermore, on 8 September 2013, London’s Metro newspaper had headlined “British government confirms chemicals were sold to Syria between 2004 and 2010”. And on 7 October 2013, Christof Lehmann’s NSNBC news-site bannered “Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria”. Those were alleged to have been donations of such chemicals to the jihadists. Furthermore, America’s two leading scientists on such matters, Theodore Postol and Richard Lloyd, issued the most-detailed investigation ever of the 21 August 2013 Ghouta chemical attack in Syria that US President Obama was trying to use as a ‘justification’ to invade that nation, and they concluded “the US Government’s Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT.” Furthermore Robert Parry at his Consortium News reported on 23 December 2013 that “Ake Sellstrom, the head of the United Nations mission investigating chemical weapons use in Syria, agrees that the vector analysis – at the heart of the New York Times’ indictment of the Syrian government for the deadly Aug. 21 Sarin gas attack – doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.” That fact explained why Gareth Porter at Inter Press Service had headlined on 27 August 2013, “In Rush to Strike Syria, US Tried to Derail UN Probe”. As Seymour Hersh reported in the London Review of Books on 19 December 2013, “The White House’s misrepresentation of what it knew about the attack, and when, was matched by its readiness to ignore intelligence that could undermine the narrative.” Obama continued in George W. Bush’s footsteps, though as a candidate he had condemned Bush’s international policies. Trump now was doing the same. The US regime (like in 2003) simply didn’t want the truth to become publicly known. America’s Republican Party aristocrats and their politicians and news-media had blamed Obama for being too soft against Assad for not bombing Syria, but actually Obama was merely less brazen than his successor Donald Trump (financed by Republican Party aristocrats who had financed Bush) has turned out to be. The US and its allies were clearly lying about the Ghouta incident, just like they had done about “Saddam’s WMD.” So, UK firms, and also “US and Saudi Officials,” might have given jihadists such chemicals. What’s especially damning is the “donations,” since those would have been to the jihadists, in order for them to set up “false-flag” attacks (such as they did in Ghouta), to be blamed against Assad. And still today in the US and allied countries the politicians and news-media refer to Obama as having been indecisive instead of a liar on the Ghouta incident, and Assad is unquestioningly presumed to have been to blame for the Ghouta chemical attack, just as the US-and-allied aristocracies want. 

Finally, on April 21st of 2018, the Syrian Government announced that Douma was sufficiently safe for the OPCW inspectors to be able to investigate, and the OPCW entered there, and began its work.

On April 22nd, RT headlined "‘Whole story was staged’: Germany's ZDF reporter says Douma incident was false flag attack” and reported that “‘People told us in a very convincing manner that this whole story was staged,’ Uli Gack, a reporter with the German ZDF public broadcaster, said (referring to the alleged Douma chemical attack) while he spoke live on ZDF Heute (‘Today’) show on Saturday.” He had entered along with the OPCW investigators.

The OPCW receives funding from the US Government and so has never yet made public their findings regarding Douma. On 5 November 2013, Reuters reported that “The United States has been the biggest contributor to the OPCW’s fund for the Syria mission, with Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland also contributing.” Obviously, if the OPCW findings indicate that this alleged event wasn’t really a chemical attack by the Syrian Government but instead was staged by the anti-Government fighters who are supported by the US Government, or otherwise was not planned by the Syrian Government, then the US and its allied Governments (UK, and France) who bombed Syrian Government facilities on April 14th are war-criminals, irrespective of whether they can be prosecuted for that, or for anything else. They’re then just international gangsters, but will be known to be that by an honest OPCW report. So, the US has done everything possible to block it.

Since the OPCW has refused, even as of this late date, to make public its findings, that ZDF Heute news-report, from their reporter who accompanied the OPCW investigators, is perhaps the only independent evidence yet available regarding whether the US-and-allied bombing-campaign on April 14th was a war-crime. (Of course, also, no US or British or French ‘news’ medium has done any follow-up report regarding whether their Government is a war-criminal on this.)

The journalist in that April 20th ZDF report speaks German very fast there, and no translation-option is provided in the video. Furthermore, the video will be gone entirely, after a year ("Video available until 20.04.2019, 19:00”) even in its spoken-only, German-only, version, and so my written news-report and translation here won’t merely make the ZDF report’s contents available to English-speaking audiences for the first time, but it will also provide these contents in a permanent form, which can be included in the various web archives, which that video is not. (Videos are often not archivable. They unfortunately have this severe problem, as historical evidence.)

It’s a two-minute and 29 second video. Here is the video (for as long as it’s still online).

In it, ZDF’s reporter Uli Gack said: “IS [Islamic State] had created the attack. The place was a commando post for the Islamists who had installed chlorine containers and were waiting that this place, highly interesting for the Syrian airforce, would be bombarded, which happened, and the chlorine containers were bombarded. People say that several provocations of this type had happened in Douma. During one of these so-called exercises by the IS, people had been exposed to the gas, which was filmed and then shown as proof for the April 7 attack. I cannot put my hand into the fire for this, but there seems truth in the stories.”

Interviewer (also from ZDF, which is a German Government channel, and Germany is allied with the US and therefore supports US propaganda against Syria’s Government) then asks: “So, why would Assad or the Russians hinder the examinations of the facts?”

Gack: “The terrain under places like Homs is like Swiss cheese, everywhere cells appear from the underground and it is dangerous for the examiners. At least, this could be true. The traces of the gas are disappearing slowly and it may be impossible to know who is responsible.”

On May 4th, the OPCW announced that their collection of evidence regarding the Douma incident was now over, the analysis of it would require “three to four weeks,” and “At this time, it is not possible to give a timeframe for when the Douma report will be issued to States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention,” meaning that they were struggling to find a way to present an honest report which wouldn’t hurt their employer, OPCW.

The OPCW reported on July 24th, that "The Secretariat has verified the destruction of all 27 chemical weapons production facilities (CWPFs) declared by the Syrian Arab Republic."

On September 6th, the UN reported that, “IZUMI NAKAMITSU, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, updating the Council on the implementation of resolution 2118 (2013) on the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons programme, said that the Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had verified the destruction of all 27 chemical weapons production facilities declared by that country.” This announcement was made at that time because the jihadists in Syria’s most-densely pro-jihadist province, Idlib, the American Government’s allies there, had been documented by the Syrian and Russian Governments to have prepared in Idlib yet another assembly of chemicals to be ready to be spread by a Syrian and Russian bombing campaign, which had been planned by Syria and its ally Russia, in order to exterminate the jihadists in Idlib. So, clearly, any further banned chemicals on Syrian territory would be from the US and its allies, not from Syria and its allies. This crucial fact has not been reported to the American people by American ‘news’ media. The US regime still harbors hopes of sparking a chemical release in Syria that they can blame against Syria’s Government as an excuse to bomb it further — to commit still more aggressions against Syria.

On September 24th, the OPCW reported that, “The FFM [Fact-Finding Mission] continues to collect and analyse information with regard to the alleged use of toxic chemicals as a weapon in Douma and will provide a final report on its findings in due course.” Presumably, the OPCW wants to find a way to phrase their report so that the US Government and its allies won’t discontinue funding the OPCW. Perhaps by the time it is finally issued, the ‘news’ media won’t need to give it more than a perfunctory and extremely brief ‘news’ report, with a dull headline. (If even that.) After all: On May 4th, the OPCW had announced that their collection of evidence regarding the Douma incident was over, and the analysis of it would require “three to four weeks,” so that the analysis was completed by around June 1st — and yet it hasn’t been made public.

This is like a repeat of what the US regime and its allies had done to Iraq in 2003, regarding “Saddam’s WMD” that didn’t exist — invasion on the basis of lies about “weapons of mass destruction” — as if the US regime isn’t itself the world’s worst producers of such things and users of them, too: “pots calling the kettle black” and then invading that kettle. The UN is terrifically exercised about eliminating chemical-and biological weapons stockpiles from weak countries such as Iraq and Syria, but what about eliminating them from the world’s most powerful countries, which are even storing ebola virus for military use (or at least the US and UK Governments are)? What about that? Nothing. There’s no International Criminal Court to judge these leaders, who really are international war-criminals, even if OPCW ends up saying that Assad had been a domestic war-criminal. To be an international war-criminal is vastly more heinous, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the leaders of the US alliance are that.

In the international court of public opinion, today’s fascist powers could yet be internationally responded-to by consumer boycotts of their mega-corporate brands (whose owners control those fascist governments), and by other means. Furthermore, there exists the possibility of international economic sanctions against such fascist regimes, which kill millions and endanger the whole world. And, also, why are politicians in the US-allied nations being re-elected by the publics there? Certainly those voters don’t want to be controlled by the US regime’s stooges, as now is the case there. An exposure of the US regime as being an international fascist dictatorship could produce real results, even if the US regime continues stiffing the International Criminal Court. Whether the OPCW will risk doing this — calling out the US alliance’s lie on this occasion — is the question. But, for the sake of world peace, they ought to do it, not cave to their funders. Otherwise, how much longer will this decades-long string, of invasions by the US and its allies (such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, and Syria and Yemen now), continue? If the ICC cannot prosecute America’s Presidents, then what use is it, really? So, all that is left here is an honest OPCW — if it is honest — and honest news-media (if they too will be honest).

What is at stake here could be whether fascist control of the world will be stopped, at all — ever.

A typical example of the depth of the enormously profitable corruption in the US, by which millions of Americans get routinely destroyed in order to expand yet further the wealth of America’s billionaires, the aristocrats, is summarily described here and here. This documentary, which is only summarized there, demonstrates that not only the people in the invaded countries are being destroyed by these aristocrats. Fascism is bad for everyone except the very few people who are enriched (enormously) by it, the super-rich who stand behind it, and who control it.

PS: 

What is the historical and ideological source of this fascism, which is now gripping the world? On 10 July 2018, I headlined at The Saker, “Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West” and attributed the source of the US-UK alliance to the UK magnate, Cecil Rhodes, late in the 1800s. He saw that in order for the British Empire to continue expanding, it would need to do so in alliance with the then-emerging US empire — a tight alliance between these two aristocracies — and that it should include also Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In 1877, he wrote: “I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. I contend that every acre added to our territory means the birth of more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to this, the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars.” He rationalized: further conquest by this ‘race’ would be the only path to permanent peace. The concept of ‘national security’, then, means, to them, expanding this particular empire, until it rules the entire planet. That’s their goal. That’s their ‘Paradise’. As I document also there, the American billionaire George Soros carries on today in Rhodes’s footsteps, to expand the US-UK empire. But the idea is not his; it is Rhodes’s. And today it has come to be based on two specific mechanisms. The US dollar as the world’s reserve currency is one bastion of this neo-Rhodes-ian system. The City of London’s constituting the bastion of the half of the world’s privately-owned wealth (most of the global aristocracy’s wealth) that’s hidden in offshore locations, where there is complete secrecy and non-accountability to any government, is the other half of this Rhodes-ian Paradise. It’s actually a global aristocratic gangland. That’s the reality of the Rhodes-ian system, which is today’s fascist Axis.

Here are three Snowden-released confidential documents that are typical as being Rhodes-ian:

One document, dated 12 November 2004, is headed “TOP SECRET” and to be sent “TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL” or to the entire core Rhodes empire, and it related that “From 4 – 6 October, Lt Gen Hayden and GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters, in Cheltenham, England] Director David Pepper co-chaired the annual NSA-GCHQ Joint Management Review (JMR) at Chevening House. The fine Palladian house, the country residence of the UK Foreign Secretary, dates back to 1630. It is set in 27 acres of gardens, within an estate of 3,000 acres, and is located 23 miles south of London, in the Kent countryside.” It said “that NSA and GCHQ must work hard to keep one another apprised and well connected throughout (actually one of NSA's Special US Liaison Officer, London's key responsibilities); A validation of the common cause that joins our two nations.”

Another document, dated 19 November 2004, is likewise headed “TOP SECRET” and to be sent “TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL.” It’s headlined “Leaders Peer into the Future, See Global System.” It said: “Last week, SIGINT leaders flew in from around the world to attend the annual SIGINT Site Commanders Operational Review here at Fort Meade. This year's SCOR conference focused on how we are to govern the global SIGINT network in the 21st century. It went very well.”

Another document, dated 24 November 2004, is likewise headed “TOP SECRET” and to be sent “TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL.” It’s headlined “Finding the Achilles’ Heel.” It said: “JWAC [Joint Warfare Analysis Center] provides the combatant commands, Joint Staff, and other customers with effects-based precision targeting options for selected networks and nodes in order to carry out the national security and military strategies of the United States during peace, crisis, and war.” It discussed “Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. As we continue the Global War on Terrorism, new opportunities are identified and analytic partnerships are formed.”

Tim Shorrock at Salon wrote on 10 June 2013:

“The largest concentration of cyber power on the planet is the intersection of the Baltimore Parkway and Maryland Route 32,” says Michael V. Hayden, who oversaw the privatization effort as NSA director from 1999 to 2005. He was referring not to the NSA itself but to the business park about a mile down the road from the giant black edifice that houses NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. There, all of NSA’s major contractors, from Booz to SAIC to Northrop Grumman, carry out their surveillance and intelligence work for the agency.

So: Lt. Gen. Hayden in London on 12 November was preparing what would be presented at Ft. Meade on 19 November to America’s SIGINT from around the world. Then, on 24 November, JWAC was discussing “effects-based precision targeting options” that the entire SIGINT would adopt, after that meeting which Hayden had had 12 days earlier at the luxurious and private country residence of the UK Foreign Secretary. This “TOP SECRET” meeting seems to have been an instance of close coordination between US and UK. No announcement was ever made regarding what was said or agreed-to at any of those top-secret meetings.

But, above all: Why were only the Rhodes circle of nations’ leaders (“TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL”) included in these “TOP SECRET” US Government communications? Why not also French? Why not also Israeli? Why not also Saudi? Why not also Japanese? Etc.? (In other words: why not all other aristocracies that are allied with America’s aristocracy.) None of those countries were allowed to participate in these crucial and secret meetings. 

Is “the special relationship” the core of the US empire? Is that what it basically is? If so, it’s what Rhodes wanted. And it certainly isn’t democracy, not anywhere. It’s privatized government, in the hands of the US and UK aristocracies, which control the generals and the weapons-making firms whose boards the generals join after their ‘public’ service. This is an entity that’s independent of any treaty the US Government has. It stands above any of America’s treaties. And, yet, this alliance never faced the US Constitution’s requirements in order to be able to become a treaty obligation or right with any foreign nation. The US Government has — to put this matter in clear terms — been taken over by international gangsters, US and foreign, who work closely together, via agents everywhere, answerable ultimately only to the US and UK aristocracies, and beyond any laws at all, entirely unConstitutional.

It is fascist, and it is trying to expand — they’re more like Adolf Hitler, than like Francisco Franco. It’s aggressive war, to control the world. It’s clearly war-criminal.

That’s what the OPCW is now facing.

To understand it more fully, I recommend especially two videos:

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The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire (Documentary)

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Operation Gladio – Full 1992 documentary BBC

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What they show is the basic history that all students, everywhere, should know before they head off to college, so that they can understand the broader context in which their professors are functioning. And that’s the context I described in my “Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West”.

Here is an operation by the Rhodes-ians, under the leadership of US President Barack Obama: 

Here is an act of partisan resistance against those nazis, today.

These wars are on in many places. One shouldn’t have to be targets that the new nazis are trying to kill, before one becomes knowledgeable about whom they are, and what they really stand for. Any nation’s politicians who support the new nazism are enemies of the people whom they had promised to represent. For example, this is the real reason why America’s NSA actually isn’t recording just the metadata on every phone call to or from every phone in America, but is also recording every phone-conversation, in blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution; and not only Trump’s appointee to the US Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh lies to endorse it, but also his colleague on the US DC Circuit Appeals Court, Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland did. They actually don’t care about the US Constitution; they just pay “lip service” to it. This is how these gangsters-in-suits run the country. Obviously, there is bipartisan support, by America’s aristocrats, for establishing a total-surveillance government. Whereas Garland refused to say why he voted for it, Kavanaugh said his reason was that “national security” overrides the US Constitution. And, now, he is on the Supreme Court, which interprets the US Constitution. He’s normal there, not unusual. He’s not the basic problem; the aristocracy that he serves is the basic problem. 

Will the OPCW stand up against it? Or will it instead serve its masters? Blaming the invaded Government is so much safer than blaming the invaded ones, especially for an authority that’s being paid by the invading ones. 

But, if the OPCW won’t do it, who will? Who even can? And, what kind of world would that then leave us with?