“Special Relationship” destroys Middle East possibility, weakens domestic well being

Remember Nuremberg 

U.S.-Israeli selective memory pretends there was no Nuremberg

Re-reporting, editing by 

Carolyn Bennett

“Special Relationship” in crime: Israel, USA

“… If something is not done quite soon by the American People and the International Community to stop Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian People,” Professor Francis Boyle writes, “[the situation] could very well degenerate into genocide ─ if Israel is not there already.”

Francis Boyle has written “International Laws of Belligerent Occupation.” AIPAC’s week in Washington seems an apt time to republish some of what Boyle said about U.S. government officials’ “special friend” in the Middle East and, in the light of Nuremberg, its heinousness crimes against the Palestinian People.

Violent quest for ownership

“A crime against humanity is the direct historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

“The theory here was that what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People required a special international treaty that would codify and universalize the Nuremberg concept of ‘crime against humanity.’ That treaty ultimately became the 1948 Genocide Convention…

War Crime

“…There are different degrees of heinousness for war crimes (beyond a general idea of war crime). In particular, the more serious war crimes denominated ‘grave breaches’ of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

War on Gaza's children

Every day since the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada, the world has seen those inflicted by Israel against the Palestinian People living in occupied Palestine: e.g., willful killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army and Israel’s illegal paramilitary settlers.”

The Second Intifada also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Oslo War was the second Palestinian uprising – a period of intensified Palestinian–Israeli violence, which began in late September 2000 and ended around 2005. The death toll, including both military and civilian, is estimated to be more than 3,000 Palestinians, around 1,000 Israelis (Jews and Arabs), and 64 foreigners. (Wikipedia note)

“These Israeli ‘grave breaches’ of the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Boyle writes, “mandate universal prosecution for their perpetrators, whether military or civilian; and prosecution for their commanders, whether military or civilian including Israel’s political leaders.”

Crimes against humanity

Though “the U.N. Human Rights Commission did not go so far as to condemn Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinian People, it has condemned Israel for committing crimes against humanity, which is the direct precursor to genocide.”

Answering “what is a ‘crime against humanity,’” Boyle replies that the concept “goes all the way back to the Nuremberg Charter of 1945 for the trial of the major Nazi war criminals. In the Nuremberg Charter of 1945 ─ drafted by the United States Government ─ there was created and inserted a new type of international crime specifically intended to deal with the Nazi persecution of the Jewish People…”

Crime suffered becomes crime inflicted

Israel’s “crime against humanity” against the Palestinian People

Determined by U.N. Human Rights Commission pursuant to United Nations Charter

“The paradigmatic [model] example (theoretical/philosophical framework) of a ‘crime against humanity’ is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People. This is where the concept of crime against humanity came from.

 

And this is what the U.N. Human Rights Commission determined that Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian People: Crimes against humanity.

Israel’s Crimes against Humanity against Palestinians ─ legally, [this is] just like what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews. 

F

rancis Anthony Boyle is a harsh critic of Israel, Zionism and American foreign policy toward Israel. His a professor of international law at the University of Illinois’s College of Law. His article appeared at the Council for the National Interest website.

NUREMBERG in brief

Nuremberg Tribunal

The Nürnberg (also spelled Nuremberg) Trials were a series of trials held in Nürnberg, Germany (1945–1946), in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal. 

The former Nazi leaders were indicted on four counts:

(1) Crimes against peace (the planning, initiating, and waging of wars of aggression in violation of international treaties and agreements);

(2) Crimes against humanity (exterminations, deportations, and genocide);

(3) War crimes (violations of the laws of war); and

(4) “A common plan or conspiracy to commit” the criminal acts listed in the first three counts.

T

his week as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conferred and lobbied in Washington ─ 13,000 members of the pro-Israel lobby visited offices of all members of the U.S. House and Senate ─ CNI’s its president, Alison Weir, penned the alert: “Israel Lobby narrows its sights on three pieces of legislation.…; bills not in America’s best interest; initiatives far worse — more dangerous — than in recent years.

 

“THE LOBBY DEMANDS FULL FUNDING FOR ISRAEL’S WAR MACHINE.

“They want to be exempt from sequestration—the mandatory reduction of all federal expenditures.

Social Security payments are undergoing cuts.

FBI expenditures are being reduced.

Education Department services are decreasing.

What about trimming the $3.2 billion in American military aid to Israel?

“Not one dime if the Israel Lobby gets its way. While not a specific bill, they are lobbying Congress for subtle changes to its sequestration statutes and procedures so Israel’s military pipeline to American tax dollars will not be affected.

“

Please tell your Representative that Americans want a fair foreign policy that encourages peace and justice in the Middle East. The history of our ‘Israel first’ policies has crippled U.S. strategic, economic, diplomatic, and humanitarian activities in that vital region of the world.

 A war paradigm
U.S. in Iraq

“Many of the most serious dangers facing Americans today stem from our highly unusual relationship with Israel.

Our uniquely massive support for Israel has cost trillions of dollars and multitudes of lives.

It has diminished our moral standing in the world, lessened our domestic freedoms, and exposed us to unnecessary and growing peril.

“

The majority of Americans – as well as our diplomatic and military experts – oppose this unique relationship. Yet, special interest lobbies continue to foment policies that are disastrous for our nation and tragic for the region.

“If we are to have sensible, effective policies that promote safety rather than danger, then it is essential that all Americans become active and informed. Lives depend on it.” 

T

he Council for the National Interest, according to its website, “seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is ─

consistent with American values,

protects our national interests, and

contributes to a just solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict

Sources and notes

“The International Laws of Belligerent Occupation” (by  Francis Boyle),  February 20, 2013 19:31, http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/component/k2/item/2433-the-international-laws-of-belligerent-occupation

Governing “belligerent occupation,” Francis Boyle writes, are “The Hague Regulations of 1907, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the customary laws of belligerent occupation.”

Francis A. Boyle

Francis Anthony Boyle, a harsh critic of Israel, Zionism, and American foreign policy toward Israel, is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois’s College of Law

In 2007 Boyle denounced the ‘ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by the [George W.] Bush administration and its nefarious foreign accomplices in allied governments such as in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, etc.”

Boyle is reported saying in a 2007 speech that the Bush administration ─

‘would welcome the outbreak of a Third World War’ [and] is fully prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons against Muslim and Arab states and peoples.’

“… [T]hat American treatment of Muslims and Arabs since the attacks of September 11, 2001 is ‘almost to the same extent that America inflicted upon the Japanese and Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor.’

“[And that] American lawyers [should] ‘lead the fight against the Bush Jr. dictatorship.’

Boyle took his academic credentials at University of Chicago (A.B. in Political Science, 1971), Harvard Law School (J.D., 1976), Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Government (A.M., 1978; Ph.D., Political Science, 1983)

He is author of The Future of International Law and American Foreign Policy, World Politics and International Law, Defending Civil Resistance under International Law, and Palestine, Palestinians, and International Law.

Boyle bio Wikipedia and University of Illinois Law School,  http://www.law.illinois.edu/faculty/profile/FrancisBoyle

Alert from CNI President Alison Weir, March 7, 2013, http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/

  

Council for the National Interest (CNI)

501 (c) 4 non-profit, non-partisan organization advocating “for Middle East policies that serve the national interest; that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens; and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity.”

The Council for the National Interest, according to its website, “seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is ─

consistent with American values,

protects our national interests, and

contributes to a just solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict

It is CNI’s goal to restore a political environment in America in which voters and their elected officials are free from the undue influence and pressure of foreign countries and their partisans.

The Council for the National Interest Foundation (CNIF) is an independent 501(c) 3 non-profit organization that provides information and analysis on the Middle East, its relationship to the United States, and about policy formation regarding this region. Its primary focus is on Israel-Palestine.

The Council for the National Interest (CNI) is a 501 (c) 4 non-profit, non-partisan organization that advocates for Middle East policies that serve the national interest; that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens; and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity. http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/about-us

Historic National 2013 Summit (CNI)

The public is invited to the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel ‘Special Relationship’ to be held in Washington in the fall of 2013]. “This will be a nonpartisan symposium examining the impact of the U.S.-Israel relationship on Americans. Panels will include top military, diplomatic, intelligence, academic, governmental, and economic experts, as well as former Congressional representatives.” Details TBA.

NUREMBERG Principles

Principle I

“Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible, therefore, and liable to punishment.”

Principle II

“The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.”

Principle III

“The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.”

Principle IV

“The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

Principle V

“Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.”

Principle VI

“The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law …”

Principle VII

“Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Principles

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Remember Nürnberg, End long, lawless aggression — Rocky Anderson Challenge

Verdict in Nuremberg

U. S. Foreign policy should focus on moral, security, economic aspects of our actions

From presidential candidate Rocky Anderson’s Foreign Policy speech “The Challenge”

Excerpt, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Recap, update

The end of World War II saw unprecedented goodwill in the world toward the United States of America. This goodwill was then squandered, Anderson says. The pattern was repeated after the events of September 11, 2001. As global superpower, we have an unparalleled responsibility to be a moral leader in the world but to do so we must repair a record of aggression and backlash. 

General Dwight David Eisenhower

59-year Record of lawless Aggression 

(34th-44th U.S. Presidents Eisenhower to Obama)

Historically, both Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of extreme illicit aggression against other countries. [Republican President Dwight David] Eisenhower ordered the overthrow of the democratic governments of Iran and Guatemala.

The 37th U.S. president, Richard M. Nixon [in lock step with the 35th and 36th presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson], escalated the war in Vietnam (leaving 3 million Indochinese dead).

Both Presidents Gerald R. Ford and James (Jimmy) Earl Carter [presidents 38 and 39] supported vicious regimes such as Suharto, and the Shah of Iran.

NOTE: Army officer and political leader (Indonesia’s president 1967 -1998) Suharto’s government “was basically an authoritarian regime based on military power.” The Shah of Iran (1941-1979), Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was the oldest son of Reza Shah Pahlavi, an army officer who in 1925 became the ruler of Iran and founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. Shah means king of kings, emperor. The younger Shah retained a pro-Western foreign policy

Former UK and U.S. (Blair-G.W. Bush)
heads of state
Malaysian tribunal found Bush and Blair 
guilty of committing 
crimes against humanity
during the Iraq war

William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton [42nd president] waged destructive economic and military attacks against the Iraqi people (sanctions left roughly 500,000 children dead) in lock step with 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush.

Son of the 41st president, George Walker Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ essentially repeated the 40ieth president's, Ronald Reagan’s, ‘War on Terror’ from 1981 focused on supporting right-wing military juntas in Latin America, which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths

The 44th president, Barack Obama, has continued this trend: expanding the war in Afghanistan, continuing the occupation of Iraq (even after the troop withdrawal, 20,000 U.S. personnel are to be stationed in Baghdad), and bombing Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

President Obama has continued the tradition of transforming overwhelming global goodwill into hatred and hostility. The huge international optimism that met his coming to office has now evaporated. In the Middle East between 2009 and 2010, negative appraisals of his presidency tripled.

Broad Global Consequences

Given the aggression we have [the U.S. has] historically displayed toward the rest of the world, these attitudes are not surprising and the blowback we experience in the form of terrorism and attacks on our military personnel is predictable.

The ‘Arab Spring,” with citizens rising up to overthrow dictatorships, many of which are (or have been) supported by the United States (examples are Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen), reflects millions of people’s resentment toward U.S.-bolstered oppressive governments.

Narrower Impact Abroad

"U.S. President Barack Obama approves
new policy expanding
CIA drone campaign in
Yemen"

We cannot hope to lead the world when much of it sees us as a threat. A 2006 Pew Research poll showed that among European and Middle Eastern countries, we are viewed as the biggest threat to world peace. That, of course, is a major obstacle to persuading countries to support us in our foreign policy efforts, building international coalitions, and persuading other countries to respect international law when we don’t do it ourselves.

Impact at home

The economic costs of our self-defeating empire-building are staggering. Even in 2008, the costs of the Iraq conflict were estimated at $3 trillion – (20 percent of the national debt!)

As of mid 2011, our air conditioning budget in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeded the entire budget of NASA.

We have some 1,000 overseas military bases throughout the globe (a value of close to $150 Billion). These costs cannot be justified, particularly at a time when we are failing to feed our poor and provide basic health care for millions of our citizens.

Rocky Anderson wants to end the foreign policy of lawless aggression

“The Anderson administration,” says his ‘Challenge,’ “will focus on the key moral and economic elements of our foreign policy.

There will be a key distinction made between militarism and empire-building (historically, the primary emphasis of our foreign policy), and national defense (that is, the security of our citizens).

The Rocky Anderson policy, he says, “will be based around three pillars: 

• Eliminate militarism and empire-building: The U.S. will never again engage in an illegal war of aggression. (The U.S. and its allies prosecuted defendants at the Nuremberg Tribunal for aggressive war, an international crime. 

United Nations image

The Anderson Administration will respect the UN Charter and international law, and cease aid and assistance to countries that do not.

• Moral leadership: We will no longer support regimes that abuse human rights and suppress democracy. 

• Economic rationality: We will close down all overseas military bases that are not demonstrably critical to our security, along with at least a 50 percent reduction in the Pentagon budget. (The U.S. military budget is now larger than the military budgets in all other nations combined.)  

This money will be allocated to domestic priorities, including reducing the accumulated debt and interest burden. As Martin Luther King said, every dollar spent on a missile is a dollar taken from a child’s education, or the food budget of a poor family.”

Sources and notes

“Rocky Anderson’s Foreign Policy The Challenge,” http://www.voterocky.org/foreign_policy_policy

Nürnberg

The Nürnberg (also spelled Nuremberg) trials were a series of trials held in Nürnberg, Germany (1945–1946) in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal.

The indictment lodged against them contained four counts:

(1) Crimes against peace (i.e., the planning, initiating, and waging of wars of aggression in violation of international treaties and agreements),

(2) Crimes against humanity (that is, exterminations, deportations, and genocide),

(3) War crimes (that is, violations of the laws of war), and

(4) ‘A common plan or conspiracy to commit’ the criminal acts listed in the first three counts.

The authority of the International Military Tribunal to conduct these trials stemmed from the London Agreement of August 8, 1945. On that date, representatives from the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the provisional government of France signed an agreement that included a charter for an international military tribunal to conduct trials of major Axis war criminals whose offenses had no particular geographic location. Later, 19 other nations accepted the provisions of this agreement. [Britannica note]

Each of the four countries provided one judge and an alternate, as well as a prosecutor.

Nuremberg Judges

Major General Iona Nikitchenko (Soviet main)

 Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Volchkov (Soviet alternate)

 Colonel Sir Geoffrey Lawrence (British main), President of the Tribunal

 Sir Norman Birkett (British alternate)

 Francis Biddle (American main)

 John J. Parker (American alternate)

 Professor Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (French main)

 Robert Falco (French alternate)

 Chief prosecutors

 Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross (United Kingdom)

 Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (United States)

 Lieutenant-General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (Soviet Union)

 François de Menthon (France) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials

  

See also

“An End to Authoritarianism and Plutocracy in the United States: Let us consider the fundamental guiding principles for the United States of America — freedom, equal opportunity, compassion, and security (It’s up to us, says Ross C. (Rocky) Anderson, Hinckley Institute of Politics, March 26, 2012, http://www.voterocky.org/an_end_to_authoritarianism

http://www.voterocky.org/no_war_on_iran

Images

The October 1, 1946 Süddeutsche Zeitung announces "The Verdict in Nuremberg." Depicted are (left, from top): Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick; (second column) Funk, Streicher, Schacht; (third column) Dönitz, Raeder, Schirach; (right, from top) Sauckel, Jodl, Papen, Seyss-Inquart, Speer, Neurath, Fritzsche, Bormann. Image from Topography of Terror Museum, Berlin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials

The Nuremberg judges, left to right: John Parker, Francis Biddle, Alexander Volchkov, Iona Nikitchenko, Geoffrey Lawrence, Norman Birkett

Book cover: Ann Tusa (with John Tusa), London, Cambridge University, is author of The Nuremberg Trial and The Berlin Airlift

http://open.salon.com/blog/markinjapan/2012/02/14/no_police_state_no_war_criminals

The War Crimes of Eisenhower and ZOG/USA, incogman.net

A Malaysian tribunal has found former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the Iraq war, Press TV reported. http://presstv.com/detail/211548.html

http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/peacesecurity/

“U.S. President Barack Obama has approved a new policy which allows the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/238263.html

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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