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“Legal Imperialism” and International Law: Legal Foundations for War Crimes, Debt Collection and Colonization
James Petras
Introduction
By now we are familiar with imperial states using their military power to attack, destroy and occupy independent countries. Boatloads of important studies have documented how imperial countries have seized and pillaged the resources of mineral-rich and agriculturally productive countries, in consort with multi-national corporations. Financial critics have provided abundant data on the ways in which imperial creditors have extracted onerous rents, royalties and debt payments from indebted countries and their taxpayers, workers, employees and productive sectors.
What has not been examined fully is the over-arching legal architecture which informs, justifies and facilitates imperial wars, pillage and debt collection.
The Centrality of Imperial Law
Bradley Manning and the trial of the United States Military
by chycho
Bradley Manning is arguably one of the most important figures to emerge on the political landscape this century, both to those who admire his ‘bravery’ and to those who despise his ‘treachery’.
Manning has been accused of leaking over 250,000 U.S. State Department diplomatic cables and approximately 500,000 army reports, as well as secret videos of air strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan in which journalists and civilians, mainly women and children, were shown being massacred by the U.S. military.
These leaks have been dubbed Cablegate (referring to the diplomatic cables), and the Iraq War logs and the Afghan War Diary (referring to the army reports). The consequences of these leaked documents has been profound:
Punishing Palestine
by Stephen Lendman
Terror-bombing Gaza ended. Occupation harshness continues unabated.
Israel didn't wait long to violate memorandum of understanding truce terms. They went further. They exacted revenge. They punished Palestinians for getting overwhelming nonmember observer status UN support.
It bears repeating. That's how rogue states operate. Israel is one of the worst. Netanyahu and other Israeli hardliners are war criminals. So are Obama and complicit US officials multiple times over. They conspiratorially helped Israel terror bomb Gaza for eight days.
Washington and Israel planned Pillar of Cloud. They conducted joint war games in preparation. They're responsible for slaughter and mass destruction.
The personification of self-righteousness
By Alan Hart
In the song Mack the Knife there’s a line about a body on the sidewalk “oozing” life. Last night there was a body, a living one, oozing self-righteousness. It was not on the sidewalk. It was at the speaker’s podium in the General Assembly. It was that of His Excellency Mr. Ron Proser, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, presenting lies as truth before the vote which overwhelmingly recognized Palestine as a non-member observer state.
Obama Wants State-Sponsored Murder Legalized
by Stephen Lendman
A previous article discussed Obama's kill list. Another explained his "disposition matrix." Both constitute elevating Murder, Inc. to a higher level.
Obama now wants more. He wants murder legalized. On November 24, The New York Times headlined "Election Spurred a Move to Codify US Drone Policy," saying:
Pre-election, Obama "accelerated work… to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned droned." He wants standards and procedures established.
In other words, he wants murder legalized. Washington designates anti-war/imperial opponents "terrorists." He wants new rules giving him clear authority to murder them.
Israel designates Palestinians wanting to live free from occupation and state terror the same way. Rogue states operate that way.
Obama wants new standards in place. He wants cover for governing illegally. He wants fundamental US and international laws overridden. He wants tyrannical authority.
Israel's Genocidal War on Palestine
by Stephen Lendman
Longstanding Israeli policy reflects slow-motion genocide. Non-Jews aren't wanted. Israel considers them subhuman.
Peace, nonviolence, diplomacy, human and civil rights, as well as fundamental rule of law principles are systematically spurned. That's now rogue states operate.
Pillar of Cloud raged from November 14 - 21. Memorandum of understand terms ended eight terror bombing days. Israel violated its pledge multiple times. Its word isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Less than 24 hours after conflict ended, Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian. Another 19 were injured.
Israeli Terror: The “Final Solution” to the Palestine Question
James Petras
Introduction
For the past forty-five years the state of Israel has been dispossessing millions of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, confiscating their lands, destroying homes, bulldozing orchards and setting-up ‘Jews-only’ colonial settlements serviced by highways, electrical systems and water works for the exclusive use of the settlers and occupying soldiers. The process of Israeli territorial expansion throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem has greatly accelerated in recent years, converting Palestinian-held territory into non-viable isolated enclaves – like South Africa’s Bantustans – surrounded by the Israeli soldiers who protect violent settler-vigilantes as they assault and harass Palestinian farmers at work in their fields, beat Arab children on their way to school , pelt Palestinian housewives as they hang their laundry and then invade and defecate in Palestinian mosques and churches.
Susan Rice's Conflict of Interest - Major Holdings in Tar Sands Oil, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Canadian Financiers
By Michael Collins
(Washington, DC 11/29) United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice will face serious and blatant conflicts of interest if nominated and confirmed as United States Secretary of State. Rice has major financial interests in the company extracting oil from Canada's tar sands, the company building the pipeline that will carry the oil across the U.S., and the Canadian banks financing this deadly project. (Image)
As Secretary of State, Rice would be responsible for the key recommendation to President Barack Obama on lifting the president's ban on construction of the Keystone XL pipeline imposed in January. She would make the decision knowing that there would be major impact on nearly one third of her (and her husband's) investments.
According to her 2011 financial disclosures, "Rice and her husband own at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers." These include Enbridge, the oil company extracting the highly toxic tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada's boreal forest, which are being destroyed to access the oil (boreal forests sequester carbon).
Bangladesh Sweatshop Fire
by Stephen Lendman
Corporate predators seek cheap labor worldwide. Countries like China, India, Honduras, Jordan, Haiti, and Bangladesh provide it.
Transnational giants are unaccountable. Global sweatshops supply them. Workers endure horrific conditions. Some work up to 90 or more hours weekly.
They're wage slaves. They earn sub-poverty pay. They're subjected to punishing harassment, beatings, sexual abuse, and rape.
According to the group Sweatshop Watch:
"A sweatshop is a workplace that violates the law and where workers are subject to:
● extreme exploitation, including the absence of a living wage or long hours;
● poor working conditions, such as health and safety hazards;
● arbitrary discipline, such as verbal or physical abuse, or
● fear and intimidation when they speak out, organize, or attempt to form a union."
Thank you … Crazy Netanyahu???
By Dr. Elias Akleh
No Palestinian, and definitely not I among them, would ever thank crazy Netanyahu for his genocidal crimes against Palestinians especially his latest criminal war against Gaza. There is an Arabic saying that blessings at times come in the form of disguised calamities. Netanyahu was the carrier of such a disguised calamity on the Palestinians in his latest genocidal war against Gaza.
The calamity came in the form of the Israeli military operation “Pillar of Cloud” dropping thousands of tons of bombs on Gaza Strip within 8 days that killed 170 Palestinians, mainly civilians including 34 children, and wounding more than 1100 others. The Israeli air raids had also caused a rough estimate of over a billion dollars worth of damages to infrastructures, buildings, and homes. This included 42 government buildings and offices, 15 schools including UNRWA schools, private institutions such as news broadcast centers, total destruction of 200 apartment buildings, partial damage to 8 thousand other apartment buildings, one clinic, and three mosques. Again, Israeli terror struck the hearts of Palestinians specifically the helpless children.
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