Double Standards for US War Crimes!

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• Double Standards for US War Crimes! 
  by John LaForge, http://consortiumnews.com/ 
  U.S. pundits cheer when some African warlord or East European brute is dragged before an international tribunal, but not at the thought of justice being meted out to George W. Bush or other architects of post-9/11 torture and aggressive war on Iraq, as John LaForge notes.
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  In response to regular reports of atrocities by U.S. soldiers, drone controllers, pilots and interrogators, the White House routinely tries to help. Every president promises to honor U.S. armed forces and says they are the finest military of all, etc.
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  At Veterans’ Day ceremonies, president fill-in-the-blank boast, “America is and always will be the greatest nation on Earth.” This past Nov. 11, President Barack Obama said that since 9/11 the U.S. is “defining one of the greatest generations of military service this country has ever produced,” and, of course,“[W]e have the best-led, best-trained, best-equipped military in the world.”
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  Really? On Veterans’ Day 2011, one headline blared: “American Soldier is Convicted of Killing Afghan Civilians for Sport.” U.S. aggression, occupation, torture of prisoners, massacres, drone attacks, offshore penal colonies and sexual assaults against our own service members, take the luster from the official self-image of “exceptionality.”
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  In a bold invitation, Human Rights Watch has called on 154 parties to the UN Convention on Torture to bring charges against U.S. officials under explicit language in the treaty, ratified by the US in 1994.
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  The treaty requires such action when reputable allegations are not prosecuted by the accused governments, and ours doesn’t need any more evidence, just some of which may be found in these mainstream U.S. media stories:
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  • “US Practiced Torture after 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes” (Apr. 16, 2013)
  • “Afghans Say an American Tortured Civilians” (May 13, 2013)
  • “CIA Drones Kill Civilians in Pakistan” (Mar. 18, 2011)
  • “GI Kills 16 Afghans, Including 9 Children, in Attacks on Homes” (Mar. 12, 2012)
  • “Libya Effort is Called Violation of War Act” (May 26, 2011)
  • “NATO and Afghan forces killed 310 civilians over the same period, mostly from airstrikes, the UN reports” (Aug. 3, 2009)
  • “100,000 Iraqis killed since U.S. invasion analysis says” (Oct. 29, 2004)
  • “U.N. Chief Ignites Firestorm by Calling Iraq War ‘Illegal’” (Sep. 17, 2004);
  • “Iraq Says Blast in Baghdad Kills Dozens of Civilians: U.S. Blamed” (Mar. 29, 2003)
  • “U.S. Presses for Total Exemption from War Crimes Court” (Oct. 9, 2002)
  • “Pentagon Says U.S. Airstrike Killed Women and Children” (Mar. 13, 2002)
  • “Bombing Necessary Despite Toll on Civilians, U.S. Envoy Says” (Jan. 9, 2002);
  • “U.S. helicopters fire on women, children in Somalia” (Sep. 10, 1993)
  • “US forces buried enemy forces alive” (Sep. 13, 1991)
  • “200,000 died in Gulf War, and counting” (May 30, 1991)
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  read more!

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