During presidential debates, as in criminal mainstream media there is effusive praising of veterans as heroes. How do these ‘heroes’ feel when the wars in which they risked life and limb while killing an enormous amount people are intensely labelled mistakes? Huh? Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Somalia – just mistakes? All the death and horror experienced was for a mistake? Vietnam is still communist. Heroic for what? Worth some debate?
TEXT:
Moderator: Question for Vice-President Biden,
Mr. Vice-President, during the third Democratic debate, you said, that you “never should have voted to give [President] Bush the authority to go in and do what he said he was going to do.” Actually as Chair of the pivotal Senate Foreign Affairs Committee you were outspoken in support of Bush’s planned invasion.[1]
In view of your regret and the fact that neither the deadly US invasion, nor the years of a many lives costing undeclared war of occupation had United Nations approval, would you now be in favor of the US Government compensating the survivors of the more than two million Iraqi families who lost loved ones and awarding reparations for the massive destruction of property and indemnification for the huge loss and confiscation of Iraq’a natural resources?
Second Question
Moderator: Major Buttigieg, while talking on the subject of Afghanistan during the Democratic debate on September 12, 2019, you said “the best way not to be caught up in endless war is to avoid starting one in the first place.” You never elaborated nor explained this implication, but it is known that you were part of the anti-war movement in 2002 at Harvard University [2] and might well have known, as many activists did, of President Carter’s Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski bragging during a 1998 interview with a French magazine, of having, in 1979, had CIA recruit, fund, arm and train Muslim terrorists of Afghan hill tribe war lords to attack the very popular socialist, and women liberating, new government in Kabul in order to frighten in military help from the Soviet Union. Subsequently, Brzezinski openly invited Muslim warriors from everywhere into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet military and the Kabul government.[3]
More recently, Dick Black, a Republican State Senator of Virginia, upon his return from a fact finding tour in Syria, spoke of ISIS as “hellish filth we’ve recruited, armed and trained for eight years.” “This disastrous war would never have occurred without American planning and execution. And it would have ended years and hundreds of thousands of casualties ago had we closed our training and logistics bases in Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.” Black found it sickening to hear the repeated claim that “Assad murdered 500,000 of his people,” as though the U.S.-backed terrorists played no role in the killings.[4]
Mayor Buttigieg, is it your conviction that your government started all the present conflicts in the Africa and the Middle East in which the US is involved?
Third Question
Moderator: This question is for any candidates who wish to respond to:
Every society has laws against breaking and entry into someone else’s home. During the 2012 Democratic Party’s Presidential Candidates Debates, candidate Rep. Ron Paul was heard to claim more than once that all US post-Second World War invasions beginning with Korea were illegal, unconstitutional and a horrific loss of human life.
It was as if Rep. Paul was talking to himself, for no candidate, nor TV commentators afterward, made mention of Ron Paul’s claim and the issue of US military forces having taken the lives of so many millions of men, women and children within their very own countries.
Are there not laws against a country invading another country, which has not attacked the first country, especially doing so without a declaration of war, as the Nazis did?
Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark insists that by Article Six of the US Constitution,[5] the Nuremberg Principles of International Law are an integral part of the law of the land.[6]
End Notes
In October 2002, Biden voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, justifying the Iraq War. See [PDF] https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ243/PLAW-107publ243.pdf
2. It was a gray March day in 2003, a week before the invasion of Iraq, and the “Emergency Anti-War Rally” had attracted about 350 people to the courtyard in front of Harvard’s ziggurat-like Science Center. Sophomore Jesse Stellato was the first speaker. Junior Pete Buttigieg followed him, speaking without notes on behalf of the campus Democrats and eliciting a roar from the gathering. Washington Post 7/29/2019.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/29/how-pete-buttigieg-went-war-protester-packing-my-bags-afghanistan/?arc404=true
3. The Brzezinski Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur (1998). Translated from the French by William Blum and David N. Gibbs] Brzezinski Interview | David N. Gibbs https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu
4. Has Trump Been Outmaneuvered on Syria Troop Withdrawal?
January 3, 2019 Consortium News https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/03/has-trump-been-outmaneuvered-on-syria-troop-withdrawal/
5. The Constitution of United States of America Article Six. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States, which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution …
6. Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal 1950 Copyright © United Nations 2005 Text adopted by the International Law Commission at its second session, in 1950 and submitted to the General Assembly as a part of the Commission’s report covering the work of that session. The report, which also contains commentaries on the principles, appears in Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1950, vol. II, para. 97. 2 Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal
Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor 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:
Crimes against peace: (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
War crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill treatment or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are 3 done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime. 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. _____________
Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Minority Perspective, UK and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which Dissident Voice supports with link at the end of each issue of its newsletter.
