Trying to catch my breath — Iraqis — can this really be happening?

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

The Iraqi people and others, in solidarity with the Iraqi people, have filed a lawsuit, in Spain, against four U.S. Presidents and four U.K. Prime Ministers FOR WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND GENOCIDE IN IRAQ.  The suit was filed just one day* prior to a new ruling limiting “universal jurisdiction,” thought to have come about by U.S. pressure on and bowed to by Spain. (WHEW!)

Here is the Press Release:

PRESS RELEASE

FOR JUSTICE FOR IRAQ:

LEGAL CASE FILED AGAINST

FOUR US PRESIDENTS

AND FOUR UK PRIME MINISTERS

FOR WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

AND GENOCIDE IN IRAQ


For immediate release

Date: 7 October 2009

MADRID: Today the Spanish Senate, acting to confirm a decision already taken under pressure from powerful governments accused of grave crimes, will limit Spain’s laws of universal jurisdiction. Yesterday, ahead of the change of law,* a legal case was filed at the Audiencia Nacional against four United States presidents and four United Kingdom prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq.

This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown, is brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law.

Iraq: 19 years of intended destruction

next . . .  

Iraq: 19 years of intended destruction

The intended destruction – or genocide – of Iraq as a state and nation has been ongoing for 19 years, combining the imposition of the most draconian sanctions regime ever designed and that led to 1.5 million Iraqi deaths, including 500,000 children, with a war of aggression that led to the violent deaths of over one million more.

Destroying Iraq included the purposeful targeting of its water and sanitation system, attacking the health of the civilian population. Since 1990, thousands of tons of depleted uranium have been dropped on Iraq, leading in some places to a 600 per cent rise in cancer and leukaemia cases, especially among children. In both the first Gulf War and “Shock and Awe” in 2003, an air campaign that openly threatened “total destruction”, waves of disproportionate bombing made no distinction between military and civilian targets, with schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, and historical sites all destroyed.

Destroying Iraq included promoting, funding and organizing sectarian and ethnic groups bent on dividing Iraq into three or more sectarian or ethnic entities, backed by armed militias that would terrorize the Iraqi people. Since 2003, some 4.7 million Iraqis – one fifth of the population – have been forcibly displaced. Under occupation, kidnappings, killings, extortion and mutilation became endemic, targeting men, women and even children and the elderly.

Destroying Iraq included purposefully dismantling the state by refusing to stop or stem or by instigating mass looting, and by engaging in ideological persecution, entailing “manhunting”, extrajudicial assassinations, mass imprisonment and torture, of Baathists, the entire educated class of the state apparatus, religious and linguistic minorities and Arab Sunnis, resulting in the total collapse of all public services and other economic functions and promoting civil strife and systematic corruption.  

In parallel, Iraq’s rich heritage and unique cultural and archaeological patrimony has been wantonly destroyed.

In order to render Iraq dependent on US and UK strategic designs, successive US and UK governments have attempted to partition Iraq and to establish by military force a pro-occupation Iraqi government and political system. They have promoted and engaged in the massive plunder of Iraqi natural resources, attempting to privatize this property and wealth of the Iraqi nation.  

Humanity at stake

This is but the barest summary of the horrors Iraq has endured, based on lies that nobody but cowed governments and complicit media believed. In 2003, millions worldwide were mobilized in opposition to US/UK plans. In going ahead, the US and UK launched an illegal war of aggression. Accountability has not been established.

The persons named in this case have each played a key role in Iraq’s intended destruction. They instigated, supported, condoned, rationalized, executed and/or perpetuated or excused this destruction based on lies and narrow strategic and economic interests, and against the will of their own people. Allowing those responsible to escape accountability means such actions could be repeated elsewhere.

It is imperative now to establish accountability for US and UK war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq because:

Every Iraqi victim deserves justice.

Everyone responsible should be accountable.

We are before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis on which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests. Whereas the official international justice system is closed before the suffering of those that imperialism makes a target, through this case we try to open a channel whereby the conscience of humanity can express its solidarity with justice for victims of imperial crimes.

Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

Press contacts:

Hana Al Bayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal

+34 657 52 70 77 or +20 10 027 7964 (English and French) [email protected]

Dr Ian Douglas, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal, coordinator, International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq

+20 12 167 1660 (English) [email protected]

Amanda Nuredin, +34 657 52 70 77 (Spanish) [email protected]

Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal

+33 471 461 197 (Arabic) [email protected]

Web:

Brussels Tribunal

US Genocide

Twitter: USGenocide

Facebook: USGenocide

Reading this just hits you in the gut. It is stunning!  There is not one word of mis-truth in this entire effort, which seeks justice for the Iraqis and others.

The eloquence of this statement of truth is beyond words:

. . . . through this case we try to open a channel whereby the conscience of humanity can express its solidarity with justice for victims of imperial crimes.

89 comments

Skip to comment form

  1. get to see justice?  

  2. for mankind!

    I don’t want to get my hopes up, but it sure feels good!  

  3. RIGHT ON!

    However it ends.  

    • Alma on October 9, 2009 at 02:22

    Don’t think I’ve quite caught my breath yet.  This is stunning.  ðŸ™‚  Now if it can get moving.

  4. Let me guess who the four presidents are:

    George H.W. Bush

    Bill Clinton

    George W. Bush

    President Obama

    • Miep on October 9, 2009 at 03:18

    there isn’t enough money in the friggin’ world to compensate those people for what we’ve done to them.

    Otherwise…I like it!!!

  5. for the Iraqi people and all the others who are our victims.

    Thank you!

  6. In both the first Gulf War and “Shock and Awe” in 2003, an air campaign that openly threatened “total destruction”, waves of disproportionate bombing made no distinction between military and civilian targets, with schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, and historical sites all destroyed.

    Based on my knowledge of targeting systems and intelligence that I directly supported at the classified MAJCOM level for Operation Proven Force, USAFE’s part of Desert Storm, this statement is categorically false. All targets were military. I cannot speak to the actions of SOCOM and other commands, but there was, to my personal knowledge, no carpet bombing by HQ USAFE during Desert Storm.

    Therefore I cannot support this effort.

    They are going too far. They should have simply concentrated on the actions of George W. Bush and his administration.

    I am very disappointed. Saddam Hussein may have been tricked or provoked into invading Kuwait, but he still did it. The war of aggression there was all his. Bringing Desert Storm into this completely undermines their cause.

  7. here in Michigan. So glad I did.

    Love it!

    How about giving us a copy on WWL, tahoe?

    That would rock of you, there is so little good news these days!

    Luv,

    Diane

  8. Iraq genocide was teh suck.

    Fuckin give it to them right up their ass dude!  

    Fuckin Nixon’s revenge and leftover Reagan wannabe should sweat it out in a war crimes trial, I got a drinking game for it already figured out 🙂

  9. It’s also striking that they have the most leftward government in Western Europe and coincidentally are taking the worst hit from the Great Banker Ripoff of Forever.

    One of the areas my research has led to is how the international banking cartel and its various central banks can fuck a country’s currency and economy.

    I have no evidence yet that that is what is happening in Spain. But it sure would explain some things. About Venezuela and other countries too. Even say, the US in the 70s under carter.

    Nixon set the bankers and the CIA on Chile’s economy (before the coup).

    Anyway, this has not much to do with this thread.  

  10. I turn on the computer and the headline says Obama gets Nobel Peace Prize. WTF? Then I come here and read this, our society and politics seem one big delusion. The British newspaper headline, ‘How can 59,000,000 people be so stupid?’, comes to mind. The Democratic base is just as deluded as the Republicans, only more hypocritical as they justify and believe the same fictional storyline, and call the evil necessary, both politically and insist that their is a difference. The news about Afghanistan, makes a sickening backdrop for both these stories. The wingers are right he should give it back.      

  11. I don’t know how many of you took note of the home page of the Brussels Tribunal here.

    By scanning down the page, you will see a category “KEEPING THE SCORES OF A BRUTAL OCCUPATION!” (among other topics/issues). Note some of the links and statistics concerning Iraq’s academics, scholars, etc., in other words, browse a little. Click also on the link “Our campaign to save Iraq’s academics” — take note of some more information — heartbreaking. There you will see a Petition to Save the Academics. I have signed, maybe, you would like to, as well.      

  12. on War Crimes trials for Bush/Cheney.

    Fact is, like it or not Dems, Obama IS a war criminal if his Admin fails to prosecute the war crimes that we’re CLEARLY committed.

    And Good thing to. Obama needs a match lit under his ass on this, and he may just be getting it here

  13. according to Michel Chossudovsky in

    Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth.

    The granting of the Nobel “peace prize” to president Barack Obama has become an integral part of the Pentagon’s propaganda machine. It provides a human face to the invaders, it upholds the demonization of those who oppose US military intervention.

    The decision to grant Obama the Nobel  Peace Prize was no doubt carefully negotiated with the Norwegian Committee at the highest levels of the US government. It has far reaching implications.  

    It unequivocally upholds the US led war as a “Just Cause”. It erases the war crimes committed both by the Bush and Obama administrations.

  14. is force the further trivialization and crippling of the ICC…….

    there will never be justice in this or any of the other accumulating horrors of modernity…….

    this is the death of the court not success for us…….

Comments have been disabled.