Guardian self-censors El Baradei “war crimes” interview; US media blackout.

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The Guardian originally ran an interview with former IAEA chief and Nobel prize recipient Mohammed El Baradei, wherein El Baradei suggests that the million-plus innocent dead in Iraq is a war crime based on lies smoke-screening resource wars.  

El Baradei, as originally quoted by The Guardian:

“I would hope that the lessons of Iraq, both in London and in the US, have started to sink in,” he said.

“Sure, there are dictators, but are you ready every time you want to get rid of a dictator to sacrifice a million innocent civilians? All the indications coming out of [the Chilcot inquiry] are that Iraq was not really about weapons of mass destruction but rather about regime change, and I keep asking the same question – where do you find this regime change in international law? And if it is a violation of international law, who is accountable for that?”

“Western policy towards this part of the world has been a total failure, in my view. It has not been based on dialogue, understanding, supporting civil society and empowering people, but rather it’s been based on supporting authoritarian systems as long as the oil keeps pumping.”

Two hours after publication, The Guardian replaced the original article with one omitting references to the Chilcot inquiry, The US and UK governments, and the million innocent dead Iraqis.

According to Uruknet.com, the American media remain comatose to important world events:

This suggestion that Bush and Blair were guilty of war crimes, coming from a high-ranking former UN official, would ordinarily be considered major news. The Guardian interview was reported by the main British and French news agencies, Reuters and AFP, but the entire American corporate media gave it zero coverage. Not a single major American newspaper or television network mentioned it.

I appreciate the fact the Uruknet is keeping us abreast of such vital information.  I’m not so sure the American media gave it “zero coverage,” but rather perhaps “alternative coverage” in the form of an Op-Ed in the Washington Post.  

While the Washington Post certainly missed the newswire bull’s-eye with respect to El Baradei’s insinuations, the editorial arrow was allowed to graze along the tangent of the target, generally arguing against punishing war criminals for odious crimes against humanity.  

I personally think it takes a hardy mettle, intrepid pugnacity, audacious spunk and guts, a complete absence of commonsense fear – and dare I say “reckless pluck?” –  to continually argue in favor of slaughtering millions of innocents abroad for their resources, installing despotic, anti-democratic regimes, carrying out brutal pacifications, criminal detentions and torture, terrorizing poverty-stricken populations at midnight using heavily-armed and trigger-happy stormtroopers and arbitrary extra-judicial assassinations by unmanned Predator and Reaper drone robots incontinently firing Hellfire missiles into wedding parties, and threatening the cradle of civilization with nuclear annihilation with international impunity.  If shooting handcuffed school-children is reckless pluck, then so be it!  We will not shrink from it!

Who are you to judge us?

Please read the WaPo op-ed by Stephen Rademaker, who argues such a weak position against the International Criminal Court that he inadvertently makes an excellent case for prosecuting war crimes.

The ICC would be empowered to prosecute the leaders of any country that commits aggression on the territory of a member. In the future, then, although Russia is not a member, its leaders could be prosecuted for acts of aggression against a member, such as Georgia. Likewise, the leaders of Israel (another non-member) could be prosecuted for future operations on the territory of members such as Jordan.

For the United States, a non-member, there would be implications any time the use of force was contemplated on the territory of a member. To put this in perspective, consider some of the countries where we have used force in the past two decades: Panama, Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan. All are ICC members today.

Washington is confident that it did not commit aggression in those countries. But Washington has always been the sole judge of whether a particular use of force was justified under international law.

Take our word for it.  Shouldn’t Scott Roeder also be the sole judge of whether he murdered anyone unjustly?

Rademan goes on to make the case for prosecuting war crimes “irresistible:”

Should it disagree with the U.S. judgment, the court would be empowered to prosecute the “perpetrators.” Certainly these would include the president, the secretary of defense and other top officials such as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Members of Congress who voted to authorize or fund the operation also would be potential defendants.

Holding the actual perpetrators accountable?  How juicy!  How inviting!  How just!