Crimes Against Humanity

‘Unacceptable’: Kunduz Survivors Lambaste Pentagon Claim of No War Crime
"Unacceptable." That's the reaction from 27-year old Hamdullah to the Pentagon's announcement Friday that the U.S. military's deadly airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan did not amount to a war crime. His uncle was among the 42 people killed in the October 3, 2015 strike. "This was a deliberate bombardment by the American forces, and we are not satisfied that t [...]
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Pope Francis Takes On ‘Just War’ Theory
The Catholic Church, which over the centuries has blessed many dreadful wars, is shifting to an anti-war position favored by Pope Francis and more in line with Jesus’s teachings, writes ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller. Pope Francis is on a roll. He has already roiled the waters of Western thinking on economics and society by touching on the dangers of Western capitalism drifting into sociall [...]
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Tony Blair ‘deceived’ top ministers over Iraq invasion – new memoir
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair kept members of his cabinet and numerous high-profile Whitehall officials in the dark over his plans to create a “regime change” in Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein, a new memoir has revealed. “Broken Vows,” a new book about the former PM by investigative journalist Tom Bower, reveals that Blair had decided as early as 2002 that Saddam Hussein should be remo [...]
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Humanitarian Imperialism: Sow Chaos, Then Force People to Reap Consequences
Jean Bricmont, the author of 'Humanitarian Imperialism', a study of how the idea of human rights has been used to justify Western imperialism, finds it troubling that the Western powers engaged in 'humanitarian interventions' abroad have the gall to tell their own populations to 'welcome the refugees' when things go awry. [...]
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Pentagon Releases 198 Abuse Photos in Long-Running Lawsuit. What They Don’t Show Is a Bigger Story.
After more than a decade of legal battles and stonewalling, the Department of Defense released 198 photos relating to prisoner abuse by U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The photos were released in response to an ACLU lawsuit that we have been litigating for almost 12 years. [...]
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Pentagon Releases 200 Photos of Bush-Era Prisoner Abuse, Thousands Kept Secret
The Pentagon on Friday was forced to release nearly 200 photographs of bruises, lacerations, and other injuries inflicted on prisoners presumably by U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The record-dump was the result of a Freedom of Information Act request and nearly 12 years of [...]
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Saudi Arabia Buys ‘International Silence’ About its Atrocities in Yemen
Since March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition has been bombing Yemen after Houthi rebels toppled its government. According to political analyst Catherine Shakdam, the international community turns a blind eye on Riyadh's war crimes in Yemen. At least 20 people, including rescue workers and an ambulance [...]
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Saudi Arabia – a monster of the West’s creation
The deepening crisis between Saudi Arabia and Iran, following the controversial execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr by the Saudis, shows no evidence of abating. Direct military confrontation is now a distinct possibility. For many experts, analysts, commentators, and people familiar with the Middle East, the prospect of military conflict between the Saudis and the Iranians will come as no s [...]
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How to avoid The Hague: UN’s most borrowed book is about war crime immunity
The UN Library has created a media storm by publishing information about its most borrowed book of 2015. Titled ‘Heads of State and State Officials for International Crimes,’ the publication advises world leaders on how to literally get away with murder. [...]
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‘Perpetrators Can’t Also Be Judges’: War Crime Probe Demanded at White House Gate
Wearing white lab coats, workers with the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders and their supporters on Wednesday delivered boxes and boxes of petitions to the White House gates bearing the signatures of more than half a million people who are reiterating the call: "Even war has rules." [...]
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Torture Report at One Year: Unread, Unpunished, and Still Up for Debate
In the one year since the Senate Intelligence Committee released its account of the Central Intelligence Agency's brutal torture regime, the perpetrators have gone unpunished and the report remains unread, while—at least for some presidential candidates—torture still remains a topic for discussion. [...]
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No End to “So Much War” as President Obama Delivers Oval Office Speech
For only third time during his two terms in office, President Obama delivered a live televised address from the Oval Office on Sunday night devoted to what is often called "national security" following announcements from U.S. law enforcement they are treating a mass shooting in San Bernadino, California last week as a possible example of "international terrorism." [...]
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Every Nation Backing This War—Including US—Must Answer for Hospital Bombing: MSF
"If we are not able to give hospitals in war zones some calmness and peace, I wonder how we should can continue as a community in the world." From the United States to the United Arab Emirates, every country backing the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign against Yemen "bears responsibility" for Wednesday's bombing of a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in southern Yemen, [...]
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Suffering too real in Syria, E. Ukraine, you learn to value compassion – RT’s Roman Kosarev
RT reporter Roman Kosarev, who was recently caught in shelling in Syria, says the atrocities he has seen at hotspots such as Syria and Eastern Ukraine have at times rendered him speechless, but this is also where unprecedented compassion can be found. We live in scary times. War, death, destruction, tears, hunger, refugees, indifference, carelessness, the glorification of the heinous and vulgar [...]
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‘Drone Papers’ Revelations Are a Cry for Ending the Slaughter
A new whistleblower has joined the ranks of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou and other courageous individuals. The unnamed person, who chose to remain anonymous because of the Obama administration’s vigorous prosecution of whistleblowers, is a member of the intelligence community. [...]
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World ignores calls for inquiry into U.S. bombing of Afghan hospital: MSF
Calls for global support for a full inquiry into the U.S. bombing of a charity-run hospital in Afghanistan have gone ignored, according to the head of Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) which is mourning the loss of 30 lives in the attack. [...]
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As US Dodges Hospital Bombing Probe, Aid Group Calls Global Silence ‘Embarrassing’
One month after the U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens more, the Obama administration refuses to submit to an independent inquiry while the aid group charges that the lack of global outcry over the incident has become deafening. [...]
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Spiritually Rudderless
Another deep cry, followed by a shrug. The world is at war, at war, at war. But it only hurts them, the helpless ones, the anonymous poor, who absorb the bombs and bullets, who bury their children, who flee their broken countries. Sixty million people have been displaced by the current wars, the highest number of uprooted since World War II. But who cares? [...]
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Celebrating Sociopaths: When They Install Dick ‘Vader’ Cheney’s Marble Bust In Our Nation’s Capitol, Will It Include the Dripping Blood?
Brace yourselves. Honoring a perhaps questionable tradition dating to 1898, a marble bust of warmonger, murderer, liar and despised cretin Dick Cheney will be installed in the Capitol's Emancipation Hall (sic). [...]
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Iraq War Inquiry report to be published June or July 2016, Chilcot tells Cameron
Sir John Chilcot has told Prime Minister David Cameron that the long-delayed, highly controversial report into the legality of the Iraq War will certainly be published in June or July 2016. In an official letter to Cameron, Chilcot said the text of the report would be completed by April 18, 2016, at which point “national security” checking of the content will commence. [...]
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‘International justice is farce if Blair doesn’t go on trial over Iraq war’
Former UK PM Tony Blair should be indicted by the International Criminal Court for leading Britain into an illegal war with Iraq, resulting in millions of deaths and the rise of Islamic State, says Neil Clark, a journalist and a broadcaster. The former British Prime Minister admitted in an interview with CNN that there are “elements of truth” to the supposition that the US-led Iraq invasio [...]
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‘Patients were burning in their beds’: Witnesses recall horrific Kunduz hospital airstrike
Seeing their colleagues and patients die was a horrifying shock, according to survivors of the deadly air raid on a hospital in Afghanistan. The tragedy, medical staff said, simply cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage” from a botched airstrike. Recalling the tense minutes of continuous airstrikes which hit the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, NGO staff said that the d [...]
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