September 7th, 2013
What is happening today in Syria is morally unacceptable. Both the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebel factions seeking its overthrow, are guilty of war crimes amid the country’s ongoing, brutal civil war. The regime has targeted civilian populations, reportedly used chemical weapons and conducted torture and extrajudicial killings.
Like the war criminal Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad Assad should be in front of the “International Criminal Court” in the Hague hereinafter “ICC” for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This is the reason why the was established on July 17th,1998 via the Rome Statute and adopted by 120 States and ratified in July 1st, 2002 on by 60 States. The purpose of the Court is to investigate and, where warranted, to cases involving genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. The Court has no retroactive jurisdiction and deals with crimes committed on or after the date of ratification.
The United States has consistently opposed an international court out of concern the court can hold US military and political leader to a global standard of justice. The Bush administration especially has been very active in opposing and undermining of the court by negotiating bilateral agreements with other countries, insuring immunity of US nationals from prosecution by the Court.
In its opposition to international law and international institutions the Bush administration rejected rejected a ICC international tribunal given that such a local trial would be more prudent and give the Iraqi people the opportunity to be able to prosecute Saddam Hussein In Iraq for all past crimes.
Undoubting a factor of consideration was that the Iraq Tribunal was to be appointed by the US controlled provisional government “Iraqi Governing Council” and was able to issue the death penalty. Another factor was avoiding documenting US involvement in the development and production of Iraq’s Chemical weapons of mass destruction and revisit the cooperation with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and the Kuwait invasion. For obvious reasons a hand picked Tribunal without UN involvement suited our American friends better.
However even before the beginning of the trial George W Bush undermined the credibility of the 25 member Court by expressing, “Saddam Hussein should receive the ultimate penalty for crimes against the Iraqi people and the World.”
As Paul Kriwaczek wrote in his book “Babylon”, using the language of the Old Testament:
“It was the morning of the Sabbath, before the sun rose. And they brought him into the city, even unto the place of execution. And they bound his hands and his feet as was the custom among them in way of execution. And they reviled him saying, how are the mighty fallen, and may you be cursed by the Lord.
And they placed a rope around his neck and they reviled him again, praising the name and titles of his enemies saying God curse you, may you go to Hell.
And he replied, saying, Is this your Manhood? This is the gallows of shame.
And again they spoke unto him, saying, prepare to meet your God. And he prayed to God, saying there is no God but the Lord.
And they hanged him. And a great shout went up in the place of execution and in the streets and in the markets. It was the morning of the Sabbath, as the sun rose over the walls of Babylon.”
Like in Iraq, the use of chemical weapons is just cosmetics and it’s debatable who used them. Like with Iraq the US is failing to convince and “trust me” is not good enough, since we have been here before at the UN. This suggestion is used as an excuse to flatten Syria and test out the new developed weaponry.
We are on our way to “sectarian violence” like the bloodbath which was created in Iraq and it took also some time to put out that fire, and there G.W. was committed to the end game, but why was he committed?
As Nabil Sha’ath recalled the words of President Bush, “I’m driven with the Mission of God. God would tell me,’ George, go fight those terrorist in Afghanistan.’ And I did; and then God would tell me ‘George go end the tyranny in Iraq. And I did.”
And now perhaps President Obama is also feeling the same idiotic words of God coming to him.
To me the problem is that there is no end game in sight or an intelligent thought of how to end this mess and what to achieve. What needs to be done is to appreciate the position of the Russians and involve them further to achieve regime change, but change to what.
The opportunity was lost at the G20 and again no leadership was shown by the esteemed President Obama. Without our Russian friends there is no solution and throwing some bombs from a safe office in Washington will only increase the sentiments against the US internationally and have unforeseen Geo-political effects further bringing together China, Iran and Russia which is not the desired direction.
What will be for sure, after the bombings the Sunni’s will take power and the same atrocities will continue, the slaughter of the Alawites will be the result and it will make the US and the World more unsafe. The end game is totally unpredictable given the many different interests of the involved groups and will re-balance the power in the region and destabilize it even further.
We can agree on the fundamentals and that the problem from Hell started with the Palestine question and in 1953 when the Government of President Mossadeq of Iran was overthrown with the help of the CIA and the UK CIC, since no agreement could be reached with Western countries with regard to the oil concessions. The overthrown did re-establish the power and prestige of the Shah of Iran, until he himself was overthrown in 1979, ending the influence of the US in Iran.
What happens today is based on the continued line of faulty decisions involving Afghanistan, Israel, Iran and Iraq by the Bush administration under influence of the Neoconservative movement which doubts the usefulness of international law and institutions but believe American power can serve a moral purpose. A foreign policy based on military interventions with no real strategy or is based on a limited vision or understanding of the region and diplomacy in general.
At least foreign policy experts such as Madeleine Albright, Dr Zbigniew Brezinski and Dr Henry Kissinger understood the region and the world. There can be no doubt without the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq increasing terrorism and without solving the Palestine question there will be no solution to the problems in the Middle East and terrorism shall only increase and increase in the future.
WJJH
In what kind of world do we wish to live 