genocide

The United States targets civilians. When will the United States apologize for its war crimes? When will US citizens stop its war crimes?

Posted by

0

From Global Research
By S. Brian Willson

Originally published in 2001: When will the United States apologize for its war crimes?

U.S. President Clinton’s recent refusal to explicitly apologize for the murder of Korean civilians by U.S. military forces during the Korean War is another lost moment of desperately needed “American” honesty.

*

The United States inquiry, and Clinton’s statement of mere “regret,” was focused on only one crime scene at a particular location. It implied that the deaths were merely unfortunate rather than part of a systematic pattern that cumulatively murdered as many as three million civilians. Careful examination of the empirical record reveals multiple dozens, perhaps a couple hundred, massacre sites at various locations throughout the entire Korean Peninsula. The suggestion of malicious intent is incontrovertible. There was an overwhelming pattern of systematic targeting the Korean people, with no serious effort to distinguish “civilians” from “combatants.”

This should come as no surprise! Beginning in 1945 the U.S. record in Korea is horrendous! It would behoove our political leaders, and academicians, to learn an authentic history of Korea. Simply relying on popular comic book demonization of North Koreans without recognizing the U.S. role in creating the conditions that led to the war in the first place continues a tragic disservice to history. When the Japanese were finally defeated on August 15, 1945, the vast majority of the people who resided on the Korean Peninsula immediately began to celebrate, then organize for a return to Korean sovereignty after 40 years of hated foreign occupation. When the U.S. immediately insisted on creating the peninsula as a Cold War arena with the Russians, people throughout Korea organized resistance, at first nonviolent, later in the form of a guerrilla war. The U.S. created a puppet government, similar to what it later did in Vietnam, and between 1945-1950 oversaw the systematic repression and murder of hundreds of thousands of Koreans who rightfully demanded independence. That U.S. military and political policy to this day does not understand this fundamental Korean history continues one of the most tragic chapters of the Twentieth Century.

During the Korean “hot” war, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the U.S. Air Force to “destroy every means of communication, every installation, factory, city, and village” south of the Yalu River boundary with China. Massive saturation bombings alone, especially with napalm and other incendiaries, murdered perhaps 2.5 million civilians. Major General William B. Kean of the 25th Infantry Division ordered “civilians in the combat zone” to be considered enemies. The famous July 25, 1950 Fifth Air Force memorandum to General Timberlake declared that adherence to Army orders to “strafe all civilian refugees [have been] complied with.” USA Today (Oct. 1, 1999) and the New York Times (Dec. 29, 1999) reported from declassified U.S. Air Force documents the “deliberate” strafings and bombings of Korean “civilians” and “people in white.” In the August 21, 1950 issue of Life, John Osborne reported that U.S. officers ordered troops to fire into clusters of civilians.

U.S. racism has been an unfortunate but tragic feature (along with arrogant ethnocentrism) of the origins of the U.S. American Republic. This institutionalized racism has substantially contributed to the cruelty of a long imperial history under the rubric of “American Manifest Destiny” that has engineered well over 400 overt military, and as many as 6,000-10,000 covert, interventions in over 100 countries. Directed toward the Korean (and later Vietnamese) people, who we regularly called “gooks,” racism helped justify commission of a gruesome, almost unlimited and careless war. In Korea this included use of germ warfare and the regular threat of dropping nuclear bombs. The highest law officer in the land, President Truman’s second Attorney General, J. Howard McGrath, referred to the Koreans as “rodents.” During World War II, massive saturation bombings in Germany and Japan had been conducted with no pretense of striking only military targets. This precedent legitimized bombing with no concern for civilians, despite explicit prohibition by the U.S. Field Manual 27-10 Rules of Land Warfare. Such indiscriminate saturation bombings were routinely and relentlessly continued in Korea.

The roots of U.S. racism are deep and historic. The defining and enabling experience of the Republic of the United States of America continues to be the genocidal elimination of the human beings who originally lived on our lands. Eurocentric racism and so-called divinely inspired ethnocentrism have been inherent characteristics facilitating the “development ” of our civilization. This development has been accomplished through a long history of exploitation of land, labor, and natural resources that first began on the North American Continent, but now stretches to every corner of the globe.

In the early 1600s Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony referred to our original inhabitants as “subanimals” and “beasts” worthy only of “extermination.” Puritan leader John Endecott of the Massachusetts Bay Colony regularly ordered “death” to the Pequot Indians. Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, refers to our original inhabitants as “merciless savages” and George Washington termed them “beasts of prey” to be “destroyed.” European settlers regularly called them “brutes” or “vermin” to be “destroyed.” General William Tecumseh Sherman in the 1870s ordered “extermination” as the “final solution” to the “Indian problem.”

During what we call the Spanish-American War U.S. forces fought against Filipino citizens, calling them “goo-goos,” while murdering upwards of a half million of them under orders such as “burn and kill the natives” issued by General Jacob H. (“Hell-Raising”) Smith to U.S. Marines.

Lyman Frank Baum, author of the ever popular The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), called for the “annihilation” of all Native Americans.

Another name for our racism is native-hating, whether “Redskins,” “Niggers,” “Chinks,” “Japs,” “Greasers,” “Dagoes,” “Wops,” – or “Gooks.” The fact is that from the very beginning the people whom our European ancestors were demonizing, both here and abroad, were real human beings, tragically caught in the path of merciless “American Manifest Destiny.” Under any legal or moral definition, virtually all would be considered “civilians,” until some chose to defend their sovereignty and land from the invaders and exploiters from the West in which case they became “combatants.”

With the advent of aerial bombings during World War I, the number of civilians murdered in war dramatically increased. The bombing of civilian targets by U.S. forces preceded similar crimes by Italy in Ethiopia in 1936-37 and Germany in Guernica, Spain in 1937. The U.S. used aerial bombings in Haiti in 1919 and Nicaragua in 1927 in efforts to rout native people resisting U.S. occupation forces, murdering countless civilians in the process, always disregarding the cries of the people for due recognition. The stage was set for the massive indiscriminate bombings of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Serbia/Kosovo.

This cultural trait also contributes to a long pattern of misrepresentations and out-and-out lies. For example, in 1973, as part of the Paris Peace Accords ending the U.S. War against Vietnam, Henry Kissinger, representing President Nixon, promised the Vietnamese over $4 billion in reparations as part of the cease-fire agreement. The United States dishonored that agreement, consistent with Native Americans’ long-standing conclusion that the “White Man speaks with forked tongue,” citing the U.S. government’s violation of each of the 400 treaties signed with the Indigenous.

President Clinton came close to apologizing to Guatemala in 1999 for the earlier decades-long role of the U.S. in supporting repressive forces that murdered over 200,000 Mayan Indians. He stated that U.S. policy was “wrong,” even as it continues to support economic policies destined to preserve miserable poverty there. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara confessed in his book, In Retrospect (1995), that what the U.S. did in Vietnam was “wrong,” though he did not acknowledge that we had violated moral or legal codes. When Clinton’s Defense Secretary William Cohen visited Vietnam in March 1999, he explicitly refused to apologize. Clinton, during his visit to Vietnam in November 1999, also failed to issue an apology or to explain why the reparations promised in 1973 have never been paid.

The question continues to beg: when will the United States ‘fess up to its long history of crimes against humanity, thereby revealing that a genuine humility has replaced U.S. arrogance? Failing that, the lives of all the people of the world, including our own, are endangered by an arrogance continually nourished by insidious racism that seeks to mercilessly spread its unwanted “neoliberal” values. The American Way Of Life (AWOL) inevitably creates rage among billions of people who resent the forced imposition of U.S. values and policies.

An apology by the United States, followed by an offer of appropriate reparations to the Korean people, would be a tremendous new omen for a peaceful world based on mutual respect and justice.

*

Brian Willson, Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer, has been a lifelong critic of US domestic and foreign policy. His essays and biography are found at his website: brianwillson.com. His recent book, “Don’t Thank Me for My Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the Long History of US Lies” is published by Clarity Press (2018). His psycho-historical memoir, “Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson” was published by PM Press (2011). A documentary, “Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson” was produced in 2016 by Bo Boudart Productions.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: With her brother on her back a war weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-46 tank, at Haengju, Korea (Public Domain)

https://www.globalresearch.ca/when-united-states-apologize-war-crimes/5939653

November 1-7: Week of Global Resistance to Stop US Imperialism & Genocide

Posted by

0

NOVEMBER 1-7 
WEEK of GLOBAL RESISTANCE 
to STOP U.S. IMPERIALISM & GENOCIDE:

This year SHUT DOWN DRONE WARFARE (SDDW) Fall Actions will be a “KIck Off for A New Campaign”:  We want to help build a stronger network of global communities working in coordination to STOP U.S Imperialism & Genocide.  Several other national organizations are already co-sponsors. (see below)  This global call to action in the fall is only the beginning.  We invite national and international organizations to sign on as sponsors/endorsers of the week and to plan simultaneous actions at U.S. Bases, Weapons Industries and AI Data Centers around the world.  Organize actions for one day, or numerous days during or near the Week of Global Resistance.  We recommend planning actions during weekday commute hours, if possible, when personnel are going into and out of military bases, weapons industry workplaces, AI Data Centers, etc.  Educate, educate, educate and encourage resistance from within. Please spread the word:  Help us get more sponsors & endorsers!   More details to come soon.

“Week of Global Resistance” Co-sponsors:  ShutDownDroneWarfare.org, BanKillerDrones.org, 
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, and Witness Against Empire. 

The above global call to action is part of SDDW Fall Action Week:

 SHUT DOWN DRONE WARFARE! (SDDW)
FALL ACTION WEEK

November 1-7, 2026  

Nov.1-7, Creech AFB Fall Action, Indian Springs, NV

Nov. 4-6, Holloman AFB Fall Action, Alamogordo, NM 

ShutDownDroneWarfare.org 

 

17 years of persistent resistance!  Come for all or part of Fall Actions! 

Shut Down Drone Warfare (SDDW) Campaign is  Co-Sponsored by Veterans For Peace, Ban Killer Drones & CODEPINK  

Alert from Dennis Kucinich: Strip Sections 219/1217 from 2027 NDAA

Posted by

0

From the Kucinich Report:

Against the horrific high- and low-tech butchery of Palestinians and Lebanese by Israeli ethno-nationalist psychopathic killers, this week there will be an effort in Congress to formally merge or integrate the military of Israel and the United States at the most advanced levels.

Section 219 (formerly Section 224) [and Section 1217 in the Senate] of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act of 2027, provides for an unprecedented unification. The nearly $4 billion in the NDAA for Israel’s offensive efforts pales next to Israel having direct access to determining use of $1.5 trillion in annual military resources of the United States.

Money can be appropriated one year and withdrawn the next. Institutional integration is permanent.

Section 219 creates permanent mechanisms through which military planning, intelligence sharing, weapons development, procurement, research, artificial intelligence, and strategic coordination become increasingly intertwined between the United States and Israel.

It is a proposal to embed another nation’s military establishment within the long-term planning and strategic architecture of the United States government.

TAKE ACTION

The merger is timed to be voted on the week of June 29, just before the Fourth of July.

Find your member of Congress: House Senate

It is urgent that you call your congressional representative today at 202-224-3121 and tell them to Strip Section 219 (House) or Section 1217 (Senate) from the 2027 NDAA.

Congressmen Tom Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) will offer an amendment in the House to remove Section 219. Please tell your U.S. Representative: Support the Massie-Khanna Amendment to the NDAA.

Optional telephone script for the House of Representatives:

My name is ______ and I am a constituent. I am calling to urge Representative ______ to support the Massie-Khanna Amendment and to remove Section 219 from the NDAA. Congress should defend American sovereignty, uphold the Constitution, and reject any measure that integrates the executive and military functions of the United States with those of a foreign government. Please pass my message to the Representative. Thank you.

Please do all you can to spread the word. Share this post and ask your network to take action.

Background:
Our own government – House, Senate and Administration – is in moral collapse, placing overwhelming emphasis on militarism instead of adequately funding America – housing, education, food, health, safety, and retirement security. Americans are standing at freeway exits, begging for food, while our tax dollars flow to weapons manufacturers.

While carrying a national debt approaching $40 Trillion, the Administration is increasing spending for its newly dedicated Department of War by 67% to upwards of $1.5 TRILLION per year. Simultaneously, with more than 42 million Americans unable to feed themselves, the administration is cutting federal food programs.

The practical implications extend far beyond dollars. With NDAA Section 219, Congress the legislation would create enduring institutional relationships affecting how those extraordinary military resources are developed, coordinated, and potentially employed.

No Congress has ever before considered legislation of this nature with any foreign nation.

If the Administration’s “America First” claim were to mean anything, it must first mean that America’s Constitution comes first. It must mean that American families, farmers, workers, veterans, and children come first. Section 219 turns that claim into a farce.

Section 219 of the NDAA would cause the United States to become dependent upon Israel making decisions about war, peace, military strategy, intelligence, and U. S. national security. This is the consequence of permanent institutional integration.

One week ago, a UN Commission of Inquiry determined that Israeli security forces deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children, sometimes as a game, torturing them, subjecting children to sexual violence resulting in “unprecedented death, injury and trauma.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, the IDF has been instrumental in the deaths of as many as 800,000 Palestinians, including children, emergency health care workers, doctors, nurses, journalists, and educators.

UN investigators and human rights observers have documented the killing of Palestinian children and have accused Israeli forces of deliberately targeting the children of Gaza.

These findings are reinforced by dehumanizing statements from Israeli political figures who have portrayed Palestinian children as future terrorists, so children are targets.

Essential civilian infrastructure has been devastated. Water systems, hospitals, schools, electrical networks, and sanitation facilities have been damaged or destroyed, eacerbating a man-made, humanitarian catastrophe.

In the occupied West Bank, armed “settlers” have been widely reported to have attacked Palestinian communities, burned homes, uprooted olive groves and other crops, destroyed property, and killed livestock, further displacing civilian populations.

Israel has used starvation as a weapon, setting food as a trap and, gunning down Gazans as they rush desperately to feed themselves and their children. Water supplies have been poisoned, wells filled with cement.

Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are testing ground sfor increasingly sophisticated military technologies, destroying entire villages with increasingly powerful munitions, and using precision, artificial intelligence-assisted targeting systems. Human rights organizations have raised serious concerns about the speed of targeting decisions, civilian casualty rates, and the implications of delegating life-and-death decisions to algorithmic systems.

White phosphorous and other weapons banned by international treaty are in use.

The conduct of the IDF has earned world-wide condemnation. Twenty-nine UN member states do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The Israel newspaper Haaretz recently reported that the ICC prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: “Gaza must be destroyed entirely.” and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Givr, who has said: “All of Lebanon must burn.” Will these be our new partners? If so, the fundamental question becomes: Who are WE?

What is to be lost further in an Israel-U.S. military merger?

If the U.S. combines our military capabilities with the twisted occupation and expansionist ethic of Israel’s use of military technology against civilian populations, will it be long before our own government militarizes the high -tech surveillance infrastructure already in place to use state violence against our own citizens who protest abuse of basic rights?

The First Amendment has already been taken down on college campuses, and in cities and states where Israel critics are sanctioned.

U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officials have trained in Israel. The lessons learned there have come to America in terms of deportation, detention, and in some cases, physical abuse, injury and death at the hands of ICE government agents.

Israel kills Arab children so they will not commit crimes in the future. Will Americans, as in the movie Minority Report be pitched into a dystopian world where predictive algorithms enable Israel-U.S. collaborators to hunt down, prosecute and even punish Americans for crimes not committed?

As a Member of Congress, I questioned Benjamin Netanyahu during a hearing which took place prior to the 2003 Congressional vote on going to war against Iraq. He admitted he wanted not only Iraq to be attacked by the United States, but also Libya and Iran. It is widely known that the Israeli Prime Minister pushed President Trump into the disastrous war against Iran.

It is inevitable that as Israel’s aggression is maximally empowered, once placed inside the U.S. war-making establishment, the U.S. will be dragged into the Zionists’ expansionist designs on Iran, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. A greater Israel means a lesser United States. Congress, heavily influenced by the Israel lobby, is unable to reclaim its constitutionally based war power

Since the merger is to be voted on, this week, before America celebrates the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, let us be reminded by Thomas Jefferson’s July 4, 1776 characterization of George III, King of Great Britain: “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws….”

Our forefathers did not fight for freedom and for independence at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown, nor sacrifice American blood and treasure in battles in World War I and World War II to arrive at July 4, 2026, having willingly forfeited our sovereignty to a foreign nation, losing control of our future and putting in doubt “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.”

…

Please do all you can to spread the word. Share this post and ask your network to take action.

About the author: Dennis J. Kucinich is a former U.S. Congressman, presidential candidate, and lifelong advocate for peace through constitutional government. During his sixteen years in Congress, he consistently challenged unauthorized wars and the expansion of executive war powers. He opposed the invasion of Iraq, warned against the intervention in Libya, and for more than two decades argued against military confrontation with Iran. His work has consistently focused on defending the Constitution, restoring congressional authority over war, and advancing a foreign policy rooted in diplomacy and American self-government.

https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/war-crimes-war-powers-and-american

The National Lawyers Guild joins the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in condemning the joint U.S.-Israeli illegal aggression on Iran

Posted by

0

National Lawyers Guild
March 13, 2026

The National Lawyers Guild joins the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) in condemning in the strongest terms the joint attack by the United States and Israel on the Islamic Republic of Iran, launched on the morning of Saturday, February 28, 2026, amid the holy month of Ramadan. 

These attacks constitute another example of the crime of aggression, in blatant violation of article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter and the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity of states, good neighborliness and the peaceful settlement of disputes. International law clearly prohibits both the use of force and the threat to use force against the territorial integrity of any state, and it is also clear that the United States and Israel have deep disregard and contempt for these principles. These attacks further violate the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. president acted unilaterally and lawlessly — without congressional authorization and absent any imminent threat to the U.S. However, it is important to point out the failure and unwillingness of the U.S. Congress to act to respond to Trump’s other unauthorized hostilities in Iran or anywhere. As many have also pointed out there are over 50 members of Congress who have investments in defense companies and directly profit from these illegal wars. 

Neither the U.S. nor Israel has attempted to hide the fact that this aggression is being carried out to facilitate a regime change that they would find amenable to their goals of total domination of the entire region of West Asia militarily, economically and politically, and to deprive the Palestinian people under occupation and facing an ongoing genocide of support for their capacity to resist and free themselves of this unlawful occupation. We are reminded of the 12-day war of June 2025, another illegal aggression perpetrated by the same parties against Iran, which the NLG and IADL also strongly condemned. The persistent lack of accountability or any meaningful consequences for those responsible has not merely enabled further warmongering and destruction; it has entrenched a culture of impunity that effectively amounts to complicity.

Once again, we note that purported negotiations that claimed to seek a peaceful resolution or to address nuclear development were used as a sham in an attempt to lower Iranian defenses, as we have seen before in the context of the invasion of Iraq. Israeli officials have openly stated that they have planned this attack over months and weeks, spanning a larger period of time than any of the negotiation rounds. Such aggression not only underlines the bad faith of the United States and Israel but also discourages nations from participating in peace talks or negotiations, when it has been made clear that these states view such negotiations only as a way to pass time until a new aggression is launched. 

This aggression follows by less than two months the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the unlawful abduction of its president and first lady, and comes amid the ongoing war threats and oil blockade imposed on Cuba. This complete disregard for the process of negotiations only encourages nuclear proliferation around the world; we further note that the United States holds the world’s largest supply of nuclear weapons and is the only state to have used them. Further, Israel is an undeclared nuclear power that routinely makes threats based on its nuclear weapons capacity. 

We note that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, is still the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, while pursuing constant war and aggression against the Palestinian people targeted for genocide, Lebanon, Syria, and now, once again, Iran. The aggression is the continuation of the illegal aggression launched last year as well as a continuation of a sustained and deliberate campaign of hostile acts spanning more than 46 years – including sanctions designed to destroy the Iranian economy, coordinated cyber-warfare operations, targeted assassinations and systematic acts of sabotage. 

We urge all states to provide all necessary assistance, consistent with their obligations under international law, to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Palestine, and other nations subjected to unlawful aggression by the United States and Israel,  and to condemn their  serious violations of international law, including genocide. We underline that this aggression is a threat not only to all of the peoples and nations of the West Asian region but to the future of multilateralism, international law, and the territorial integrity of states. Iran, a sovereign nation, has the clear and legitimate right to defend itself against this unlawful aggression. We urge all states to immediately implement an arms embargo on Israel and the U.S., withdraw their ambassadors, and pursue legal actions to hold their military and political officials accountable. 

We cannot rely solely on states or international institutions to end this aggression. We urge all supporters of justice, sovereignty, peace, and international law to participate in mass demonstrations and actions against the aggression on Iran, and to mobilize popular pressure to bring the aggression to an end. We urge all legal organizations, lawyers and human rights organizations to utilize domestic and international systems to hold Israeli and U.S. officials and soldiers accountable for their unlawful aggression against Iran and their acts of genocide in Palestine, as well as to support and defend organizers and social movements against state repression for their work to end war and genocide. 

The Military Law Taskforce (MLT) of the National Lawyers Guild reminds U.S. armed service members that they have the right and the duty to resist and refuse illegal orders. The MLTF pledges to support those who do so, and support service members who protest or stand against this disastrous war.

https://www.nlg.org/nlg-iran-march-2026/

Genocide is Embedded in America’s “Humanitarian Wars”.

Posted by

0

War on Iraq : Five US Presidents, Five British Prime Ministers, More than Thirty Years of Duplicity, and Counting….

From Global Research

By Felicity Arbuthnot and Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research 6 August 2010
Global Research, May 02, 2026 republished

Introduction by Michel Chossudovsky on America’s “Humanitarian Wars”, followed by an incisive and carefully documented article by Veteran War Correspodent Felicity Arbuthnot on The War on Iraq.

***

Introduction  

“Is it a mere coincidence? In recent history, from the Vietnam war to the present, the month of March has been chosen by the Pentagon and NATO military planners as the “best month” to go to war.

With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by U.S. ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.

The Ides of March (Idus Martiae) is a day in the Roman calendar which broadly corresponds to March 15. The Ides of March is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.

Lest we forget, the month of March (in the Roman Calendar) is dedicated to Mars (Martius), the Roman God of War.

March 2024 marks the 21st anniversary of the onslaught of the war on Iraq.

The US-NATO led invasion of Iraq started on 20 March 2003 on the pretext that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

In March, we will also be commemorating the Vietnam War launched on March 8, 1965 following the adoption by the US Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to dispatch ground forces to Vietnam.

We will also be remembering NATO’s War on Yugoslavia which was launched on March 24, 1999 under Operation “Noble Anvil”.

All these wars, according to the media, are peace-making undertakings. They are tagged as “Humanitarian Wars” under the banner of “Responsibility to Protect (R2P). 

January-February 2024, we commemorated the thirty-third anniversary of so-called Gulf War, namely the first genocidal attack against  Iraq. 

“In Geneva, on 9th January 1991, then Secretary of State James Baker –a “diplomat” who stated: “We will reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age”– met Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Tareq Aziz, with a letter from Bush Snr., promising the destruction of Iraq, if Kuwait was not withdrawn from by 15th January. Tareq Aziz stated he would not deliver the letter.” (Felicity Arbuthnot)

Sending Countries “Back to the Stone-Age” 

Iraq

Secretary of State James Baker stated: 
“We will reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age”

During that first war [Gulf War], Secretary of State James Baker told the Iraqi foreign minister that “we will return you to the pre-industrial age.”

Baker’s words were prophetic. The American-led coalition delivered 88,000 tons of bombs, equivalent … to seven Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs.

The bombing unquestionably set out to destroy the civilian infrastructure, leveling oil refineries, electrical plants and transportation networks. (The Nation, May 28, 2007)

Vietnam

General Curtis LeMay is quoted as saying in relation to North Vietnam:
“they’ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.
( Curtis Lemay, 1965 autobiography (co-author with MacKinlay Kantor)

Pakistan 

“The Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age” after the September 11 attacks if the country did not cooperate with America’s war on Afghanistan, 

… General Pervez Musharraf, said the threat was delivered by the assistant secretary of state, Richard Armitage, in conversations with Pakistan’s intelligence director … ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age’,”. … (The Guardian, September 22, 2006, emphasis added)

Israel

 “We are fighting against animals”, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant 

Genocide is Embedded in America’s ‘Humanitarian Wars”

Is this not what Israel –with the firm support of the Biden Administration– is  carrying out in Palestine?

All U.S. led wars have targeted hospitals and schools.

I recall Twenty-five years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, when NATO began the bombing of Belgrade under Operation “Allied Force ”,

“the children’s hospital was the object of air attacks. It had been singled out by military planners as a strategic target”. 

The conduct of war crimes and genocide is integral part of what is euphemistically call “US Foreign Policy”. 

The history of US-led wars confirms that murdering millions of civilians is an integral part of America’s global war agenda.

From Dresden to Gaza (1945-2024): The Death of 40+ Million People

During and since World War II , the United States has killed more than 40 million people in a number of countries, “most of them civilians, either directly or through proxy by its puppet regimes”:

Continue reading →

Iran: A Declaration to the Conscience of Humanity: 6 Non-Negotiable Terms from International Scholars and Former Officials from 30 Countries to End the U.S. War on Iran Amid Trump’s Threat of War Crimes

Posted by

0

From Global Research
April 10, 2026

The conscience of humanity resists “everything for us, nothing for others,” the creed of the predatory empire erected on the corpses of nations. The shameless rapacity and insolence have reached their zenith, and Trump’s threats illustrate the depraved spirit of a decaying civilisation. We must not be passive witnesses, but active architects of a new world where arrogance crumbles and righteousness prevails.

A large transnational group of prominent voices—including former UN officials, Retired career diplomats, former ministers, scholars and intellectuals, political figures and former parliamentarians, military and security professionals, artists, lawyers as well as journalists, activists, and antiwar leaders, from 30 countries—has released an open letter sharply criticising the global role of the United States and calling for a new international order centered on sovereignty and resistance to what they describe as Western domination.

Most of the signatories are from Western countries, alongside participants from Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The declaration, titled “A Declaration to the Conscience of Humanity,” was signed by over 170 signatories from countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Serbia, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Russia, China, Malaysia, India, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran. 

In this fact-based public letter, the authors deliver a sweeping critique of American foreign policy and historical conduct. The letter states that for “249 years—spanning the entirety of its existence since 1776—the United States built a record of atrocity that belonged to a darker, pre-civilised age,” describing the country as “a predatory empire erected on the corpses of nations.”

The signatories, including current and former professors affiliated with 52 universities and academic institutions worldwide, accuse Washington of maintaining global military dominance through an extensive overseas presence. They state that the United States operates “over 800 military garrisons poisoning more than 90 foreign countries and territories” and has cultivated what the signatories call “a doctrine of absolute predation.”

The declaration also condemns U.S. involvement in major wars of the 20th and 21st centuries, referring to what it calls “the genocidal horror of Vietnam,” “the annihilation of Cambodia,” and the “systematic slaughter of Koreans,” as well as the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan.

A central focus of the document is the ongoing confrontation involving Iran. These public figures argue that the current situation reflects what they describe as an expansionist U.S. strategy aimed at dominating global resources. According to the statement, the United States government is driven by “the demonic creed of ‘everything for us, nothing for others’,” which they say seeks control of global resources ranging from “the oil of Venezuela” to “the mineral wealth of Greenland” or “the energy reserves of Canada”.

The undersigned further assert that U.S. policy now “fixates on Iran” because the country possesses “over seven percent of the world’s mineral and energy wealth,” which they describe as “the final frontier of plunder.”

The document also criticizes contemporary American leadership, arguing that the “moral collapse of the West finds its embodiment in the pathetic figure of Mr. Trump,” and calling for what they describe as an end to “the era of pillage.”

Beyond its criticism of U.S. policy, the announcement proposes several demands that the signatories say are necessary to end the current war on Iran. These include guarantees against future aggression, the dismantling of U.S. military installations in the region, formal international condemnation of acts of aggression, reparations for damages caused by war, the establishment of a new legal framework for the Strait of Hormuz, recognising Iran’s sovereignty, and the prosecution and extradition of operatives in anti-Iranian media who have incited this bloodshed.

The authors also call on intellectuals, scholars, institutions, and civil society organizations worldwide to condemn what is described as the normalization of violations of international law and to challenge the global  structures that sustain domination and military intervention.

In conclusion, the signatories argue that the present moment represents a decisive historical turning point. “We stand with justice—not as passive witnesses, but as active architects of a new world,” the letter states, emphasizing that the international community must confront what it calls the return of predatory power in global politics.

Among the signatories are prominent scientists and figures representing a wide array of expertise and leadership, including philosophers, economists, historians, sociologists, jurists, theologians, Islamologists, reverends, biologists, physicians, musicians, filmmakers, songwriters, singers, entrepreneurs, engineers, novelists, theorists, as well as a physicist, a psychologist, an anthropologist, and a comedian. This diverse coalition reflects the global conscience of humanity, uniting professionals, scholars, and advocates from multiple disciplines in a shared call against U.S. exceptionalism.

The full text of the declaration, along with the complete list of signatories, has been released publicly in more than ten languages.

A Declaration to the Conscience of Humanity

To the peoples of the world, to thinkers, to scholars, and to those who believe in justice:

A specter now haunts the conscience of humanity—the return of predatory power— and it shall no longer go unchallenged. 

For 249 years—spanning the entirety of its existence since 1776—the United States built a record of atrocity that belonged to a darker, pre-civilised age; the predatory empire erected on the corpses of nations; from the genocide of nearly 5 million Indigenous peoples, to the brutal enslavement of over 4 million Africans, to the lynching of more than 4,000 Black citizens under Jim Crow. With over 800 military garrisons poisoning more than 90 foreign countries and territories, it cultivated a doctrine of absolute predation. From the genocidal horror of Vietnam, with over 3 million dead; to the annihilation of Cambodia, where 2 million perished under US-backed terror; to the systematic slaughter of Koreans, with more than 4 million Korean lives extinguished; to the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan, where one million Iraqis and tens of thousands of Libyans were consumed by US fire. 

Yet the rational order that governs the world once helped humanity move beyond such practices. Humanity had consigned this barbarism to history. But now we are witnessing its return. The ongoing, systematic immolation of Gaza through the sustained support for the genocidal Israeli regime, where over 77,000 civilians in Palestine have been butchered—the scale of this atrocity reveals an inescapable truth: the pre-civilised practice has returned, and Washington has once again become its willing executor.

This is the demonic creed of “everything for us, nothing for others.” With shameless rapacity, it claims the resources of the world—whether the oil of Venezuela, the mineral wealth of Greenland, or the energy reserves of Canada—as objects of strategic entitlement. And now, that gluttonous eye fixates on Iran. Because Iran—possessing over 7% of the world’s mineral and energy wealth—is seen as the final frontier of plunder.

Yet this is no longer a matter of economics. It is a matter of honour. The world witnesses that the United States is actively engaged in a criminal enterprise termed the “Ramadan War” against the Iranian nation. This ongoing butchery has already claimed the lives of 208 innocent children. Let the world mark the date—168 of them were little girls, elementary students at the Shadjareh Tayyebeh School in Minab city in Iran, extinguished in their classrooms by US ordained terror.

Their futile and desperate contrivances aim at so-called “regime change” and the fragmentation of Iran—stripping the nation of its sovereignty and, thereby, facilitating the systematic plunder of its resources. In pursuit of this ultimate depravity, the U.S. brutally assassinated Iran’s spiritual and intellectual leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei—recognised globally as a voice against arrogance and terrorism—along with his family.

They have waged a war of targeted terror against the very pillars of the Iranian state. To date, US aggression has criminally murdered 39 Iranian statesmen, including the scientific genius Dr. Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

Now, the insolence has reached its zenith. The US President openly threatens the Iranian people on social media with the destruction of their energy infrastructure. This is the depraved spirit of a decaying civilisation. The moral collapse of the West finds its embodiment in the pathetic figure of Mr. Trump—a man whose catastrophic conduct over the last two years has exhausted not only the world, but his own people. The time has come to declare, with one voice: Enough! The era of pillage is over.

But the United States has made a fatal miscalculation. What stands before it is not merely a nation, but a civilisation that has weaponised its own DNA—ancient organisational genius fused with 21st-century scientific sovereignty. This is the reality of active deterrence by Iran; a global pole of power that dictates the terms of engagement, forcing strategic retreat by rewriting the very rules of active defence. Now, its adaptive reorganisation, civilisational continuity, and social unity have fused into a singular, unbreakable force.

Iran’s all-encompassing defence and active deterrence represents a golden opportunity to end global hegemony. The historical and civilisational doctrine of Iran is absolute: power does not confer right, and domination cannot serve as a foundation for justice. This is recognised as the bedrock of Iran’s invincibility. The world may avail itself of this historic turning point, drawing upon this very doctrine of liberation, to bring an end to domination and oppression wherever they may exist. 

US and Israeli exceptionalism have dragged the world into an epoch defining choice between might and right, sovereignty and subjugation, dignity and dishonour. This moment must serve as the wake-up call for humanity to recognize that there is another way. It must impel people everywhere to do everything in their power to challenge the structures undergirding a global system that desecrates every moral value including the right to life itself. 

Iran is the final frontier. If it falls, the hope of a better, enlightened future for the world dies with it. We cannot let that happen. The aggression against Iran is part of a system of global power that oppresses all of us. We cannot afford to stand by and watch arrogant authoritarianism running amok. Our very future depends on the success of Iran.

Therefore we cannot countenance any outcome of this war that involves a return to the status quo ante. Those who inflict such suffering must be made to pay a hefty price for their crimes. They must be made to realise that military might does not absolve them of the responsibility to uphold the laws on which the peace and security of our world depend. To that end, we support the terms set out by Iran for ending this war.

From the perspective of global justice, the terms for ending this war are absolute and non-negotiable:

  1. Guarantees against repetition and a binding international commitment ensuring no future aggression.
  2. The immediate dismantling of all US military installations in the region.
  3. Formal admission of aggression, international condemnation of the aggressors, and full reparations for life and property.
  4. An immediate end to war on all regional fronts.
  5. A new legal regime for the Strait of Hormuz, recognising Iran’s sovereignty.
  6. The prosecution and extradition of operatives in anti-Iranian media who have incited this bloodshed.

We, the undersigned in spirit, call upon our peers, the thinkers, the scholars, the institutions of conscience, and the advocates of justice across the world:

  • Condemn the United States unequivocally for its systematic normalisation of contempt for international covenants and its reversion to the spirit of historical savagery and barbarism.
  • Isolate the rogue regime of the United States diplomatically and economically for its ongoing crimes against humanity.
  • Recognise Iran’s inherent right to active deterrence against unprovoked aggression.
  • Demand the immediate cessation of American and U.S.-sponsored terrorism and the prosecution of those who order it.

As it has always done, history will record the courage of those who refuse to remain silent. We stand with justice—not as passive witnesses, but as active architects of a new world that has reached its threshold where arrogance crumbles and righteousness prevails. The arrogant must be dismantled. The world demands it. Justice will enforce it.

For a list of signatories
https://www.globalresearch.ca/six-non-negotiable-terms-end-us-war-iran/5921902

‘Attempted assassination’: Tucker Carlson extensive interview of RT correspondent on Israeli attack and actions in Lebanon, journalism, and more

Posted by

0

From RT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3z8GwKz-7U
Video

Steve Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida narrowly survived a missile strike last month while filming in southern Lebanon
4-10-26

American journalist Tucker Carlson has said an Israeli strike targeting RT correspondent Steve Sweeney in Lebanon was an “attempted assassination,” as he spoke with the reporter about the attack and his work in conflict zones.

Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were injured last month when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at their filming position near the Al-Qasmiya Bridge in southern Lebanon, close to a local army base. The crew, who were wearing clearly marked press gear, said the jet “deliberately attacked” them, with Rida’s camera capturing the moment the blast struck less than 10 meters behind Sweeney as he ducked for cover.

In the interview, released by Carlson on Friday, he told viewers that the strike was “an attempted assassination.” Sweeney said they “were incredibly lucky to come out of that situation alive.”

Sweeney said the munition, which he identified as a GBU-38 bomb fired from an F-16 fighter jet, passed through a hole in the bridge which was already destroyed, arguing that there was “no military objective” in striking it again. He described the attack as “an assassination attempt by Israel to silence the voices on the ground, to silence the truth.”

Carlson asked why a British citizen and former reporter for the Morning Star chose to work for RT. Sweeney quipped that MI5 “would never clear” him to work for the BBC, while arguing that the space for challenging official narratives in the Western media, particularly over the Ukraine conflict, has “completely disappeared.”

“I have complete freedom to report exactly what I want, and nobody tells me what to say,” Sweeney said regarding his work at RT. He noted that RT is banned in the US and EU, while Western broadcasters are still allowed to operate and question officials inside Russia.

See also
https://www.rt.com/news/621612-uk-police-rt-journalist/
https://www.rt.com/news/635531-rt-crew-injured-lebanon/

UK counterterrorism police detained and interrogated Sweeney at Heathrow Airport last July over his work for RT and his reporting from Donbass and Lebanon, and he told Carlson that he is currently being investigated for potential terrorist activity “based on my journalism” alone.

Sweeney told Carlson that despite the near-fatal strike in Lebanon, he has “no intention of leaving” the country or stopping his work.

https://www.rt.com/news/637991-carlson-sweeney-lebanon-israeli-attack/

‘It’s only a matter of days’: Palestinians bid farewell as Israel rains bombs on Gaza; ‘It seems we won’t survive this time.’

Posted by

0

From Middle East Eye
April 4, 2025
By Pauline Ertel

Palestinians posting on social media say they don’t think they will survive Israel’s bloody bombardment across the strip

Palestinians are posting final messages and letters of farewell on social media, expressing their fear they will not survive amid the intensity of Israel‘s carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip.

Many Palestinians in Gaza have turned to social media since the start of Israel’s onslaught in October 2023 to communicate with one another, document Israeli attacks and their daily experiences, and share their thoughts, hopes and lives with international audiences in a period when media outlets, social media platforms and arts and education institutions stand accused of censoring information and muzzling freedom of expression related to the war.

Over the past 24 hours however, posts expressing hopelessness amid the severity and destructiveness of the attacks and fear that people in Gaza might not survive this time, have soared. 

On Thursday, Israel killed at least 112 Palestinians, in what has become the deadliest day since Israel resumed its war on the besieged enclave on 18 March.

A video posted by Nour, a woman from Gaza, shows an Israeli strike on a building nearby amidst an entirely destroyed neighbourhood as a woman sobs in the background.

“It seems we won’t survive this time ..” the caption reads.

Journalist Abdallah Alattar from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, shared: “it seems that we won’t make it this time” on Friday morning, which has been widely circulated and reshared.

Abubaker Amed, a football journalist from Deir al-Balah, expressed in a post that the people of Gaza “know the world has let them down and thus feel their killing is a matter of time”.

Several users have also called on the people and global powers to pay attention and speak up for the people in Gaza, facing not only bombing, but also starvation due to Israel’s blockade on food and essentials.

“Bombs above, hunger below—Gaza is suffering. How much longer can we endure this?” wrote one Palestinian. “The world must act NOW!”

Israel’s war on Gaza continues to be supported and funded by its allies, most notably the US.  

In March, the Donald Trump administration bypassed a normal congressional review to approve a nearly $3bn arms sale to Israel.

On Thursday, independent US Senator Bernie Sanders attempted to bring forward two joint resolutions of disapproval to block $8.8bn worth of offensive weapons sales to Israel that were already approved by the Trump administration.

Only 15 senators, including Tim Kaine and former presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, voted to move forward and the vote to block the weapons transfers failed.

Prayers and self-eulogies

Several users have also used their social media accounts to post a farewell messages and prayers in case they should die.  

Writer and pharmacist from Gaza Omar Hamad, on Thursday night posted a farewell message on X, saying that he felt his posts did not make a difference.

“At first, I was eager, sharing everything my hands could write,” he said. “But I do not know what you need to see or read to finally rise against all that is happening – not for our sake, but for your conscience, for your faith, so that you do not struggle with your conscience when you go to sleep.”

I have never felt death drawing this close to me throughout the entire genocide as I do these days,” Hamad wrote in a separate post on 3 April.

Hamza Alsharif, a medical doctor at the European Hospital and the Al-Aqsa Hospital posted on X that bombings “are intensifying across all areas of the Strip”, and that “blood is everywhere”.

“If I die, I am not a number, I am a planet in itself, I have dreams and ambitions that I wanted to achieve. Don’t forget me in your prayers and keep talking about me,” Dr Alsharif wrote in a post pinned to his profile since 18 March.

Last month, an Israeli missile targeted and killed 23-year-old Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat in Beit Lahiya just hours after Mohammad Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today, was killed in an Israeli air strike which targeted his home. His wife and son were killed alongside him.

Hours after Hossam’s death, his colleagues posted a message written by Hossam himself, indicating that he had a sense that he would be likely targeted.

“If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed – most likely targeted – by the Israeli occupation forces,” said the 23-year-old.

Hossam’s self-written eulogy was reminiscent of renowned Palestinian poet and academic Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in December last year and whose widely circulated poem ‘If I must die‘ became a symbol of hope and resistance amid Israel’s war.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/we-wont-make-it-time-people-gaza-post-farewell-messages-online

Citizens Tribunal Finds Top U.S. Weapons Contractors Guilty of Participation in Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide

Posted by

0

From Covert Action Magazine
January 28, 2025
By Jeremy Kuzmarov

The verdict is in: GUILTY.

On January 15, after a year-long trial, ten jurors found four major U.S. military contractors—Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed and General Atomics—guilty on charges of willfully participating in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The prosecution of the “merchants of death” was coordinated by Brad Wolf, a former Pennsylvania-based prosecutor, and fellow peace activists Kathy Kelly and Nick Mottern.

Over the past year, the three assembled video testimony by military and academic experts and eyewitnesses who observed first hand how weapons produced by the four major military contractors were used to slaughter innocent civilians and destroy vital infrastructure and the environment across the Middle East and in the Russo-Ukraine War.

When Wolf, Kelly and Mottern tried to visit with corporate executives to get their perspective as to why they were producing weapons of death, the executives refused to meet with them and failed to respond to subpoenas and other requests by Tribunal staff for information.

The same was true of 150 members of Congress to whom Tribunal staff sent questionnaires by mail which went unanswered—unsurprisingly, in light of their close ties to the war industry and complicity in U.S. war crimes.

The senators and congresspeople included some of the most prominent politicians in control of military spending and policy: Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), and House members Mike Rogers (R-AL), Mike Turner (R-OH) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), who spurned numerous direct outreach efforts after the original questionnaires were ignored.

Continue reading →

Palestine solidarity event outside L. L. Bean, Maine

Posted by

0

from Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space
Organizing Notes, December 21, 2024
By Bruce Gagnon

Forty of us gathered in Freeport, Maine today (a holiday shopping mecca in our state) right in front of the famous L.L. Bean store. This was our monthly protest that we’ve been doing for a couple of years in different busy traffic areas across the state.

It was 28 degrees out and a bit windy but we braved the cold for 90 minutes due to the huge crowds on the main road thru town and the busy foot traffic on the sidewalks.

We lined up along both sides of the street in the center of the shopping district for about forty minutes and then walked slowly, single-file, down both sides of the street for several blocks and then each side of us crossed to the opposite sidewalk and walked back to the starting point. 

Along the way we handed out hundreds of BDS flyers asking the public to boycott major corporations in the US that have shown big support for the zionist wars in the Middle East aimed at Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and more recently Syria.

Is Iran the next Israel-US target for ‘regime change’? The zionists must be careful because Iran can actually fight back.

When we passed by the Starbucks coffee shop we chanted ‘Boycott Starbucks’ repeatedly as people paused at the door and didn’t enter until we passed by. I wonder how their drink tasted after that?

We closed the protest with strong words from Palestinian human rights activist Faisal Khan. (See some of his recent writings that I will put on this blog the day after Christmas.)

Our next monthly statewide protest will be in Camden, Maine (along the coast on Hwy 1) sometime in January. We don’t have a date yet but will send out info soon.

Thanks to all for helping to make this a great action. We must keep coming together to call for an end to these insane genocidal zionist war$.

More photos of protest and artwork at
https://space4peace.blogspot.com/2024/12/palestine-solidarity-event-amidst.html