This is how American troops treat unarmed POWs who were angry at the Americans for taking away the prisoners Qur'ans and then tearing them up in front of the prisoners.
The POWs throw dirt balls at soldiers to which they respond with live fire.
US soldiers have fun shooting live rounds & throwing grenades at POWs.
FriendOregon on Apr 12, 2011
US soldiers damaged and tore up dozens of Qurans in a camp search resulting in a detainee riot that they decided to quell with live fire and grenades.
The question is.... did the troops honestly think they would not provoke this type of reaction? considering the nature of the detainees?
Was the use of live fire justified considering as the sargent stated in this video "they are only armed with mud rocks"?
Lethal fire against caged non lethal combatants (unless you count mud rocks vs steel helmets as lethal)....
To me this unexcusable and the chuckles and giggles in the video remind me of several expressions... shooting fish in a barrel.... turkey shoot.... out hunting with the guys...
Today's Topics
* US disdain for the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg resolutions and other International agreements calling such agreements as "out of date' and as being "Quaint".
US soldiers commit war crimes by shooting at unarmed POWs after antagonizing them by taking away their Qur'ans and then ripping the Qur'an up in front of POWs. US Soldiers believed they were doing just what their commanders and the White House said it was ok to do.
* Bush and Obama have argued these POWs aren't really POWs but are "detainees" in their version of Newspeak but this categorization of POWs has been rejected by human rights groups and the UN.
Meanwhile the USA is defending the crackdown on protesters, the media, bloggers etc. in Bahrain.
* Hillary Clinton hypocritically condemns Qaddafi for using Cluster Bombs on civilians while the US has been doing the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
* And the US and UK and other western nations sell arms to repressive regimes and then in some cases ie Qaddafi, Saddam, Saidi Arabia and Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Syria etc. use these armaments to crush peaceful demonstrators.
But the nations selling the arms defend themselves by arguing that they are not responsible for how these arms are used.
* If the USA and UK etc. were sincere about protecting unarmed civilian protesters they would be chastising Saudi Arabia & Bahrain and not just Qaddafi for terrorizing their own citizens.
The USA and UK, EU, Nato should if they were even handed place arms embargoes on Saudi Arabia ,Bahrain, Yemen, Syria etc. and not just on Qaddafi.
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First this just in update on Bahrain as Western Media and Governments unable to stop flow of information coming out of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Anyway given the USA and UKs negative and disdainful attitude towards POWs, the Iraqi and Afghan populations and their utter disdain for the Geneva Conventions and International it is unsurprising that they would be praising the Saudi and Bahrain military and police in the tear gassing, beating, incarcerating, shooting , torturing and disappearing peaceful demonstrators and activists and dissidents who use the media and the internet to voice their opposition to the government and relaying news about the bloody and brutal crackdown in Bahrain.
Western Governments and Media complicit in hiding the truth about attocities committed in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Peter Rushdon historian and political analyst interviewed on Press TV. April 13, 2011.
Western Media's blackout of news coming from Bahrain is no longer working as alternative media Blogs, websites, Facebook, Twitter and news agencies such AlJazeera, PressTV, Russian TV, Journeyman pictures etc.
Obama and Cameron to blame for Bahrain violence and now torture of innocent people
According to the Bush Regime and now the Obama regime international laws and agreements are not binding on American government or its armed forces.
Obama and Bush when in doubt about the legality of their position they just get their qusling lawyers to be creative in creating a legal defense or veneer for their illegal, unethical immoral actions .
Obama has adopted the Bush Regime's rationale that these POWs whom they refer to as "detainees" do not have the same rights as American citizens incarcerated because they are not American citizens and make the even more dubious argument that these prisoners are being held outside American territory and therefore not protected by American law.
The Obama administration argues as Bush did that these prisoners are not covered by International Agreements and the Geneva Conventions because they are not conventional soldiers.
The USA claims that these enemy combatants do not wear a recognizable uniform and use terrorists tactics such as attacking the civilian population and they use tactics such as "suicide bombers".
But under international law once an enemy combatant even without a proper uniform is captured they are to be treated at the very least in a humane manner and that they are treated with some dignity and are not to be abused, mistreated or tortured.
The Obama Regime and the US mainstream Media still ignoring the news coming out of Bahrain.
In Bahrain peaceful protesters have been tear gassed, beaten, incarcerated, abused , tortured or just "disappeared" .
And yet with these ongoing human rights violations the Obama administration still backs the ruling family in Bahrain .
The Obama administration has also defended the Saudi military intervention in Bahrain arguing disingenuously that this is a Bahraini internal domestic matter and so the US or UN or Nato etc. have no right to interfere or even criticize the way the Bahrainis and Saudis are handling this issue.
Given the US, Nato, UN intervention in Libya which began with a "no-Fly Zone" and then progressed in a matter of a few days to actually attacking Libyan forces fighting the Rebels.
The US has some boots on the ground in Libya in order to pass intel and targeting information onto US forces so they can with some precision bomb Qaddafi's forces.
The US and other Western Nations have a duty as does the United Nations to criticize Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in no uncertain terms because the Bahraini and Saudi troops are committing war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Instead the Obama administration is doing all it can to prevent the UN or EU from taking direct action in the situation in Bahrain.
The US is also spreading the Bahraini government's erroneous view that the situation in Bahrain is not a popular uprising but is in fact a sectarian dispute caused by Bahrain's Shia majority against the ruling Sunni minority. Further they claim that the uprising in Bahrain has been engineered by Iran for which there is no proof.
Of course Iran being a Shia Muslim country may interfere if the USA or UN or EU don't chastise and threaten Bahrain if they refuse to stop their bloody and brutal crackdown on protesters and those who criticize the government in the Media and on the Internet ie bloggers or those on Facebook or Twitter etc.
It is up to the international community to express their outrage over Bahrain's human rights violations and to be willing to back up that outrage with sanctions refusing to sell any more arms to either Saudi Arabia or Bahrain.
Nabeel Rajab of Bahrain facing Military Trial for Publishing Photo
Obama gives Saudis a free pass absolute immunity no matter what crimes they commit .
So the rule of law does not apply to Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or even any sense of decency is no
Saudis fear the success of the proreform movements in Middle Eastern countries.
Not everyone in the Bahrain regime are against reform some in fact have been urging for reform.
Francois explains that this is not really a sectarian conflict - this is just part of the government's bit of misinformation and propaganda
In the clip below the interviewer is unable to grasp the simple point being made by anti-armaments spokesperson Barnaby Pace that the UK or other countries shouldn't be selling armaments to repressive regimes. He argues that the UK has a responsibility to have a policy and program in place to to better able them to decide to whom they should sell arms.
The interviewer shows how well entrenched this view is that the armaments industry shouldn't be anymore controlled than any other industry.
The point Pace makes is that arms sold to foreign governments will be used defensively which is their right if attacked but they may also use these arms to attack without provocation their neighbors for instance as Saddam did in his initial attack on Iran and then later his invasion of Kuwait . Saddam also used the arms sold to him by the US, UK, Germany and France etc. not just in his war against Iran and Kuwait but also on unarmed Iraqi civilians ie the Kurdish population in Iraq.
The pro-Arms lobby insist there should be few restrictions on arms sales.
The armaments industry aka the Merchants of death though their own advertising campaigns and lobbying of various governments believe what they are selling is just another product like detergent or electronics such as computers , televisions, cars etc.
But those products are not intended to be used to intimidate, wound or kill people.
For example if cluster bombs,White Phosphorus (Napalm) landmines or certain chemical weapons have been banned then the UK and other countries shouldn't be selling these essentially offensive weapons , to other countries. And further the basic principle should be that cluster bombs or White Phosphorus or lethal chemicals or land mines and other banned armaments shouln't be manufactured in the first place.
One might argue that the UK or USA etc. may want such ordinance on hand for their own defense but these are not strictly speaking defensive weapons but are in fact offensive.
Arms used in Bahrain crackdown 'made in UK, sold recklessly'
Barnaby Pace interviewed on RT.
RussiaToday on Feb 19, 2011
Public resentment against the ruling classes is growing in the wider middle east amid bloody attacks on demonstrators, as the region plunges into chaos. In Bahrain, King Hamad has asked his eldest son, to start a national dialogue to resolve the political crisis in the country. However, the Shia opposition group says it will join talks only after the government resigns and the troops behind a brutal crackdown leave the streets. Reports suggest riot police used supplies made by British companies to clear the protest. Human rights activist Barnaby Pace says the UK has been reckless in its arms sales.
In an article from the New York Times C.J. Chivers disingenuously expresses outrage over Qaddafi's use of cluster bombs on civilian population.
Chivers and others in the media ignore the fact that the US has in Iraq and Afghanistan used banned weapons such as cluster bombs/ Daisy cutters and White Phosphorus and other banned ordinances on civilian populations for instance during the 2003 Shock and Awe attack on Iraq and especially on cities such as Baghdad.
Later on after reducing much of Iraq to rubble in the most infamous example they used these banned armaments on the city of Fallujah in an act of retaliation and revenge in response to the deaths of four mercenaries .
It should be noted that the punishment of civilians by a retaliatory attacks or mass shootings is a War Crime. This sort of rough justice goes against all International laws. Thousands were killed in Fallujah by the mass bombings with the use of cluster bombs and white phosphorus was not a defensive action by a cold blooded act of revenge.
So if the NYT was sincere in their criticisms of the use of these weapons on civilian populations then the NYT should also be critical even when it is the US military committing such crimes.
But no the NYT defends or at least gives tacit approval by their silence when the US military uses such banned armaments on civilian populations.
Yes once again we have more evidence of the Hypocrisy of the Obama administration when it comes to dealing with Qaddafi's brutal crack down on dissidents and protesters as opposed to the situation in Bahrain or America's defense of Israel's use of these armaments on the civilian population Qaddafi as opposed to Bahrain.
US and Western Nations call Qaddafi evil for using the weapons they sold to him on his own people.
Now the US media and the Obama administration are criticizing Qaddafi for using cluster bombs in civilian areas . Their attitude is that only a madman or someone who is "evil" would use cluster bombs on his own people.
As Tariq Ali has pointed out that in order to win more support for taking on Qaddafi as they did in the case Saddam they demonize and marginalize Qaddafi
Saddam was evil too though because he used the weapons sold to him mainly by Western Nations including France, Germany, UK and the USA.
So according to the NYT and the Mainstream Media it is an act of a madman or pure evil when Qaddafi uses these ordinances on Civilian populations but when the USA for instance does the same thing it is ok because America is on the side of Good and not on the side of evil like Qaddafi or Saddam .
Gadhafi forces fire cluster bombs into civilian areas
Heavy weapons, rockets fired into neighborhoods, physical evidence shows
By C.J. CHIVERS
MISURATA, Libya — Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who have surrounded this city and vowed to crush its anti-Qaddafi rebellion, have been firing into residential neighborhoods with heavy weapons, including cluster bombs that have been banned by much of the world and ground-to-ground rockets, according to the accounts of witnesses and survivors and physical evidence on the ground.
Such “indiscriminate” weapons, which strike large areas with a dense succession of high-explosive munitions, by their nature cannot be fired precisely, and when fired into populated areas place civilians at grave risk.
The use of such weapons could add urgency to the arguments by Britain and France that NATO needs to step up air attacks on the Qaddafi forces, to better fulfill the United Nations mandate to protect civilians. And it could place pressure on the United States, which pulled back air power from the war when it ceded control of the campaign to NATO earlier this month.
She added: “That is worry When asked about the weaponry at a news conference in Berlin, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was “not aware” of the specific use of cluster munitions in Misurata, but said, “I’m not surprised by anything that Colonel Qadaffi and his forces do.”
ing information. And it is one of the reasons the fight in Misurata is so difficult, because it’s at close quarters, it’s in amongst urban areas and it poses a lot of challenges to both NATO and to the opposition.”
The cluster munitions were visible in use late Thursday night, in the form of what appeared to be 120-millimeter mortar rounds that burst in the air over the city, scattering high-explosive bomblets below.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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