No Laws for Bush America
The US border with Mexico is 2000 miles long and is heavily guarded, at a
cost to the US taxpayer of $7.8 billion last year. (In 2006 Bush declared
that "Unfortunately, the United States has not been in complete control of
its borders for decades . . . ") Now consider what would happen if
Mexican
security forces were pursuing a criminal who had fled into the US and they
opened fire across the border, then crossed it, killing a US border guard.
If a US citizen was killed by foreign soldiers within the United States
there would be reaction verging on the hysterical. There would be cries
for
retribution and demands for punishment of those responsible. Quite right,
you will say, if only because international law, in the shape of the
Charter
of the United Nations, specifies that all signatories shall "refrain from
the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity . . . of
any member or state, or in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of
the
United Nations." All perfectly clear: a country that uses force against
another without justification that is approved by its international peers
is
acting illegally.
So reflect on a recent incident on the border between Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
On April 23 US troops were involved in a fire-fight in eastern
Afghanistan.
They alleged that their enemy crossed over the border into Pakistan. They
then used artillery to shell Pakistan's territory. Not only that but they
crossed the border and killed a Pakistani para-military trooper. The news
agency AFP recorded that the incident occurred when soldiers from the
'coalition' (read 'US', because there were no other foreign troops in that
area) and 'the Afghan army' (entirely under US control):
"clashed with Taliban militants on the ****ous frontier between the two
countries on Wednesday. Afghan and ['coalition'] troops then pounded the
Pakistani side with shells and also made an incursion into the Bajaur
region, during which one soldier was killed and another injured, the
[Pakistan foreign] ministry said. "We have lodged a strong protest with
the
Afghan and [coalition] side and told them in clear terms that such
incidents
must not be repeated," spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told re****ters. "We also
protested the death of one of our security personnel as a result of firing
from the other side."
So a Pakistani border guard in his own country was killed by foreigners
who
consider it acceptable - no, not just acceptable: a responsibility, a
duty,
a God-given right - to invade the territory of a foreign country and kill
its citizens if these citizens are unfortunate enough to be in the way of
US
bullets, shells or missiles.
There is no law governing Bush America's barbarity overseas. All the
strikes
by the US within Pakistan have been blatantly illegal by any reckoning.
(There have been at least four US drone-launched missile attacks, killing
dozens of civilians.) But there is no possibility that Bush America will
be
condemned by anyone. Even the directly injured party, in this case
Pakistan, with its new democratic government, wouldn't lodge a complaint
under international law because Bush America would simply ignore it. Not
that Wa****ngton would ignore the complainant itself of course, because any
weak country unwise enough to try to claim that international law applies
to
America would be doomed to economic and political retribution. Put
bluntly: the United States of America, just like Israel, its only real
ally, can and will conduct military operations against any country in the
world - providing that country is not strong enough to retaliate in
military
or economic terms - and kill anyone it likes without fear of retribution
of
any sort. Israel's overflight of Lebanon by 12 combat aircraft on April
28
was yet another example of such cowardly arrogance. There could be no
attempt by Lebanon's government to counter this brazen violation of
sovereignty, and the contempt felt by Israel for the world at large was
summed up in a re****t by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that "The Israel
Defense Forces when asked about the alleged flyover said 'it is our policy
not to comment on our operations'." In other words: Get Lost.
Even if Lebanon complained to the United Nations about Israel's illegal
overflights there would be no action because, as always, Wa****ngton would
veto any attempted condemnation of its fifty-first state. After all, the
US
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, declared on
May
4 that the US has "has been at Israel's side for all of 60 years, it will
be
for the next 60 years, 100 years and 1,000 years. With all its success, I
am
a tremendous admirer and have great respect for Israel," he said,
expressing
particular admiration for a state "representing democracy and freedom."
Yes, that's the freedom to steal the lands of the original inhabitants and
freedom to treat the descendants of the original inhabitants like
Untermenschen. (And you can imagine the effect of this dolt's statement in
the Arab and Muslim world: he has reinforced the belief that the US
totally
favours Israel against them. Bright boy, Mullen ; with people like him,
al
Qaeda doesn't need any recruiting sergeants. And what right has Mullen to
commit his country to a foreign policy for a thousand years?)
It must require enormous courage, moral and physical, to take military
action against countries who can't retaliate. Moral courage like Pontius
Pilate's and physical courage like that of a mentally diseased coyote.
One
can only guess at the mindset of the people who order strikes like the one
in Pakistan and authorize the insolent menacing of Lebanon. They are
almost
on equal terms with the intellectually inadequate but hideously malevolent
ninnies who imprisoned the journalist Sami al-Haj for six years in the
Guantanamo Gulag. He has now been released without charge, because even
after 200 interrogations and countless investigations there was not a
shred
of evidence that he was guilty of any crime. His mistake had been to try
to
get into Afghanistan to re****t on the US invasion. Wa****ngton had him
dragged, bound, drugged, blindfolded and shackled, into the most shameful
prison constructed thus far this century - if we exclude the CIA's secret
black holes in Afghanistan, the Indian Ocean, eastern Europe and East
Africa. (It is unlikely he bought a gift from the Guantanamo souvenir
em****ium, surely the sickest retail outlet in the world.)
Sami al-Haj was detained in Pakistan by order of the US, whose dreamland
dopes thought that he had interviewed Osama bin Laden. He hadn't been
anywhere near bin Laden, but this didn't matter to the deranged fanatics
of
US Intelligence. After six years of disgusting treatment he was released
without charge, but of course is now sick and mentally fragile. Well done
the filth of the universe who, in a final brutal insult to cap his six
years
of torture, flew him home in a US aircraft in chains.
Bush and his poisonous bunch of malignant chickenhawk barbarians have
shown
the world that they respect no laws, care nothing for human beings unless
they are Israelis, and trample on human rights with all the vicious
contempt
of a demented elephant. The next administration will have to cleanse the
stables of the filth, but it's going to be a difficult job.
Brian Cloughley lives in France.
|
