One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."
Showing posts with label International Criminal Court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International Criminal Court. Show all posts
Monday, August 25, 2014
Paul Craig Roberts: "Washington’s lies echoed by the presstitute media that serves Washington are destroying Washington’s credibility and that of the Western media among Europeans, especially Germans who understand that the threat to peace comes from across the Atlantic, not from east of the Oder River." Roman Baudzus: "...alert and intelligent Europeans have caught on to Washington’s campaign to demonize Russia. A Dutch group of professors sent an open letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin on August 12 in which the signatories officially apologized for the propaganda lies sprewed by Western media." Blogger: "I hope that alert and intellegent Americans catch on before our depraved government starts a nuclear war that will kill us all."
Guest Column from Germany — America Frightens Us — by Roman Baudzus
August 25, 2014 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter
Guest Column from Germany — America Frightens Us — by Roman Baudzus
Dear Friends: I am pleased to be able to share with you this revealing article written for our website by the editor of an important website in Germany.
Washington’s lies echoed by the presstitute media that serves Washington are destroying Washington’s credibility and that of the Western media among Europeans, especially Germans who understand that the threat to peace comes from across the Atlantic, not from east of the Oder River.
The success or failure of Vladimir Putin’s bet that reasonable diplomacy and unprovocative behavior on Russia’s part will contrast favorably with the shrill provocations by Washington depends upon whether European politicians respond to their own citizens or continue in their role as Washington’s whores. PCR
Political Europe Suppressed Under Washington´s Thumb Is Waking Up
Roman Baudzus
In the aftermath of the downing of the Malaysian airliner in Ukraine, the Western media followed Washington’s lead and manipulated reports in order to make Europeans believe that Russia and Russian-supported separatists in eastern Ukraine were responsible for downing the airliner. In Germany, the press was an extension of Washington’s propaganda machine despite the lack of evidence from both Washington and Kiev to support their irresponsible claims.
It was not long, however, before the public mood in Europe began to turn. A pivotal factor was openly voiced U.S. threats in a law that had been passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the U.S. Congress that could eventually result in an invasion of the Netherlands by United States army forces. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/internationales-strafgericht-us-kongress-droht-niederlanden-mit-invasion-a-200430.html
When this was learned outrage was expressed not only within the Dutch government, but also among the population of the country. According to the law, if it should ever happen that American citizens are brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and accused at The Hague, Washington would exercise the preemptive right to invade the country in order to prevent prosecution.
Remember that Malaysia’s government had permitted a tribunal in 2011, whose judges in the tradition of British court proceedings condemned both George W. Bush and Tony Blair as war criminals. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128105712109215.html Some Europeans are asking if there could be a connection between the ruling of this tribunal and the loss of two Malaysian airliners.
In addition, alert and intelligent Europeans have caught on to Washington’s campaign to demonize Russia. A Dutch group of professors sent an open letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin on August 12 in which the signatories officially apologized for the propaganda lies sprewed by Western media. http://futuristrendcast.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/an-open-letter-from-the-netherlands-to-putin-we-are-sorry/
The former “quality media” in Europe have lost the confidence of readers. A growing number of Europeans relying on Internet sites such as www.paulcraigroberts.org are quite well informed about the propagandistic nature of the Western mainstream media.
The chart recently published by a leading German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) indicates that for one reason or the other, Germans have turned away from German newspapers. The cumulative sales of German newspapers reached their climax back in the year 1983 – with a circulation of 30.1 million copies.
Ever since, things have been deteriorating. In 2013, the circulation shrank to only 17.3 million sold copies – a significant decline of 42.5%, which really hurts many publishers. Persistent cost-reduction programs, massive job cuts and the demise of daily newspapers such as the Financial Times Deutschland are the consequence of newspapers in vassalage to Washington. Many excuses are made for the decline, but the real reason is that German newspapers no longer take their readers seriously
Germans wonder why their reunited country is still occupied by US troops 69 years after the end of World War II, why their country has no foreign policy independent of Washington, and why the German media provides no public discussion of these highly unusual characteristics of an allegedly sovereign state.
During the last several years the media’s propagandistic character has led to massive resistance among newspaper readers, especially in Germany. You only have to take a look at the comments published on Internet sites of the mainstream media to see angry and disappointed readers turn away from their once favorite newspapers that are accused of actively participating in Washington´s propaganda campaign. Readers see propaganda instead of investigative journalism. In place of evidence and honest reports, there are insinuations and ridiculous accusations. The German newspaper Die Welt even blamed the outbreak of the ebola virus on Russia! http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article131459175/Russland-hat-Ebola-zur-Waffe-gemacht.html
Given the danger of Washington pushing Europe into war with Russia, one can be glad that so many Europeans see through the perfidious propaganda lies spread by the mainstream media. Internet sites now perform the role abandoned by newspapers. These mainly independent internet media refer to themselves as alternative media, which have the goal to provide objective and truthful information in place of propaganda.
Some of the large German newspapers destroyed what little credibility they had left when they used social media to spread their claim that the negative comments on their websites were written by people on the payroll of Vladimir Putin. One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry over this grotesque assertion.
The unanswered question is why does German mainstream media serve Washington instead of Germany? Does Washington pay well for propaganda services?
If we now come to the recent events in Ferguson, these incidents made us realize that the U.S. police state is not just on the rise, but is already in place! Scenes on TV and Internet videos of brutal militarized police equipped for battlefield combat applying extreme violence to protesters and journalists alike has raised the question in Europe whether America is a democracy or a police state. The continuing American massacre of people in the Middle East, together with Washington’s support for Israel’s massacre of Palestinians and now the massacre of Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine by the government that Washington installed in Kiev have changed the image of America from white hat to black hat. America no longer reassures us; America frightens us.
In a recent story Die Welt journalist Ansgar Graw wrote: “The day when the U.S. police became my enemy.”
Even Washington’s German media vassals reporting for Die Welt have now experienced firsthand the full brunt of American police violence. See http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article131363772/Der-Tag-an-dem-die-US-Polizei-mein-Feind-wurde.html and http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/krawalle-in-ferguson-panzer-gegen-protestler/10356412.html
German journalists who have been living in the United States for 15 years are telling their readers that they have come to the decision to leave the US. They report that things have changed for the worse in the “land of the free” since 9/11, and that they were threatened, handcuffed and arrested for covering the protests in Ferguson.
The policeman who killed the 18-year old black man set off protests, the response to which opened the world’s eyes to the transformation of America into a police state. A country whose military bases occupy much of the world in the name of human rights and freedom, a country that violently interferes in internal affairs of sovereign nations and fights wars at its leisure is now perceived as waging war against its own oppressed propulation. By arrogantly exempting itself from the standards it applies to everyone else, the US has destroyed its credibility.
Now the Dutch wait for the appearance of US troops to show up at the Hague should international law ever be applied to Washington’s war criminals. As one German magazine put it recently, “with friends like America, we don’t need enemies.”
Roman Baudzus is co-founder of German finance and economics blog “wirtschaftsfacts.” http://www.cashkurs.com/kategorie/wirtschaftsfacts/
Monday, February 24, 2014
How many of my readers know that in the wake of World War I anti-war movements sprang up all over the world? And that the U.S. government did not disparage this movement? And that Andrew Carnegie (commonly regarded as a robber baron) actually spent a lot of his money supporting the anti-war movement? And that in 1928 United States Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French foreign minister Aristide Briand jointly sponsored the Kellogg–Briand Pact officially known as the "General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy," which was passed by the U.S. Senate 82-1 and accrued a total 62 national signatories? How ironic it is that now most Americans have been propagandized into believing that perpetual wars and sacrifice of their Constitutional rights are necessary "to protect them from terrorists" (while disdaining France and everything French). Wake up America! Read this column, play the videos, and then become additional supporters of David Swanson's common-sense anti-war movement!
If the Defense Department's Not Defensive, What Would Be?
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/content/if-defense-departme...
http://warisacrime.org/content/if-defense-departme...
Militarism has made us less safe , and continues to do so. It is not a useful tool for protection. So, what is?
Studies over the past century
have found
that
nonviolent tools are more effective in resisting tyranny and oppression
and resolving conflicts and achieving security than violence is.
Wealthy militarist nations like the United States think of their
militaries as global police, protecting the world. The world disagrees.
By a large margin people all over the world consider the United States
the
greatest threat to peace
.
The United States could easily make itself the most beloved nation on
earth with much less expense and effort, by ceasing its "military aid"
and providing a bit of non-military aid
instead.
The momentum of the military-industrial complex works through the
hammer-nail effect (if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks
like a nail). What’s needed is a combination of disarmament and
investment in alternatives -- alternatives like diplomacy, arbitration,
international law enforcement, cultural exchange, and cooperation with
other countries and people.
The most heavily armed nations can help disarmament in three ways.
First, disarm — partially or fully. Second, stop selling weapons to so
many other countries that don’t manufacture them themselves. During the
Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, at least 50 corporations supplied weapons,
at least 20 of them to both sides. Third, negotiate disarmament
agreements with other countries and arrange for inspections that will
verify disarmament by all parties.
The first step in handling crises is to stop creating them in the
first place. Threats and sanctions and false accusations over a period
of years can build momentum for war that is triggered by a relatively
small act, even an accident. By taking steps to avoid provoking crises,
much effort can be saved.
When conflicts inevitably do arise, they can be better addressed if investments have been made in diplomacy and arbitration.
A fair and democratic international system of law is needed. The
United Nations needs to be reformed or replaced with an international
body that forbids war and allows equal representation to every nation.
The same goes for the International Criminal Court. The idea behind it
is exactly right. But if it only prosecutes tactics, not the launching,
of wars. And if it only prosecutes Africans, and only Africans not
cooperating with the United States, then it weakens the rule of law
rather than expanding it.
Pakistani victims and family members who have charged the CIA with
murder in their courts, and whose courts have declared U.S. drone
strikes in Pakistan illegal, are charging the U.K., Germany, and
Australia through the ICC with the crime of assisting in U.S. drone
murders. But if the U.S. cannot be charged because it's not an ICC
member, and if U.S. allies will end up walking free because the U.S. has
a U.N. veto, justice is not being done -- the alternative of the rule
of law to the rule of force is not really being tried. Reform or
replacement of our international bodies, not abandonment, is needed.
Here's a list of approaches that could move us in the right direction, from a movement working to advance them.
And here are a few specific projects:
Set up conversion commissions.
Get free money for transition.
Participate in the Global Day of Action on Military Spending.
Spring Days of Drone Action.
Support peace in Syria.
Oppose push for war on Iran.
Get free money for transition.
Participate in the Global Day of Action on Military Spending.
Spring Days of Drone Action.
Support peace in Syria.
Oppose push for war on Iran.
I recently had the opportunity to speak about this movement at an
event in Portland, Maine, where people turned out in the middle of a
snow storm to discuss ending all war forever:
You might find the next video more interesting, as it includes both
me and Shenna Bellows answering questions about militarism and peace
making. Bellows is the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate challenging
Republican incumbent Susan Collins:
--
David Swanson's wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org His new book is War No More: The Case for Abolition . He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for http://rootsaction.org . He hosts Talk Nation Radio . Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook .
David Swanson's wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org His new book is War No More: The Case for Abolition . He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for http://rootsaction.org . He hosts Talk Nation Radio . Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook .
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
BUSH CONVICTION OF WAR CRIMES AT A TRIBUNAL IN MALAYSIA NOW UNDER CONSIDERATION BY THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
theREALnews Permalink
MAY 29, 2012
Bush Convicted of War Crimes at Tribunal
Francis Boyle: Judgement at Malaysian hearing may help push case at ICC; Obama in violation for not pursuing indictment
Bio
Francis Boyle is a Professor of Law at the University of llinois School of Law, where he currently teaches courses on Public International Law and International Human Rights. He was a part of the prosecution team that tried former US President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisors in absentia in Malaysia.
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