israelfacts:

Israel, Russia and China along with America wanted to approve use of ‘bomblets’ that often unintentionally maim and kill civilians

A coalition of countries including Britain on Friday defeated an attempt by the US, Russia, China and Israel to get an international agreement approving the continued use of cluster bombs. The weapons, which have been used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon scatter “bomblets” over a wide area, maiming and killing civilians, notably children, long after they have been dropped and are banned under a 2008 convention which was adopted by the UK and in more than 100 countries. The US, refused to sign and in negotiations in Geneva, over the past two weeks pressed for a protocol to be added to a UN convention to provide legal cover for the continuing use of cluster munitions. But smaller countries, supported by agencies including Amnesty and Oxfam, refused to give way.

Thomas Nash, director of Article 36, a group which coordinated opposition to cluster munitions, said: “The rejection of this attempt to set up a weaker standard on cluster bombs shows that states can act on the basis of humanitarian imperatives and can prevail in the face of cynical pressure from other states”.

He added: “It shows that it is not only the US and other so called major powers that call the shots in international affairs, but that when small and medium sized countries work together with civil society and international organisations we can set the agenda and get results”.

The US was supported in the Geneva talks by other cluster bomb manufacturers – including Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan.

They were backed by countries which had signed the 2008 convention, including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Australia, conference observers said.

The Foreign Office had said that the British government would not accept the proposed protocol unless it provided clear humanitarian benefits.

The US and its supporters argued that their proposal would allow the use of cluster bombs manufactured after 1980 and that these had a less than 1% failure rate. Opponents said that most bombs produced before 1980 are unusable and that modern cluster munitions have failure rates much higher than the manufacturers claim.

If the US bid had been approved, international legal cover would have been given to such weapons as the BLU-97 “combined effects” bomb which contains bomblets that, as they fall, fragment and can turn into an incendiary weapon.

The unexploded bomblets have the appearance of yellow drink containers and are attractive, often picked up by children who mistake them for toys. However, the consequences are lethal, often resulting in maiming or even fatalities.

This is a notable symbolic act, even though it won’t actually stop any of the major powers from using these atrocious weapons.

From the “They Hate Us For Our Freedom” files. The only freedom they hate us for is the lack of accountability for all of the civilians we kill, and the blind ignorance our people have with regards to said violence.

Per TheNewsTribune.com:

Alleged “kill team” ringleader Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs was “very calm, very cool, very collected” last year as he unwrapped a pair of human fingers and threatened a private who raised an alarm about drug use in their platoon, the whistleblower testified Thursday.

Gibbs “was playing with this little thing in his hand. He just kind of undid the cloth and rolled two fingers on the ground,” Pfc. Justin Stoner said in a courtroom at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Gibbs “said something along the lines of, ‘If you don’t want to end up like this guy, you’ll keep your mouth shut,’ ” Stoner recalled.

I’m guessing that Iraqi leaders heard about the American Kill Squad in Afghanistan, or maybe that our bombers can’t seem to discern between children or adults, or the American soldiers who called in an airstrike to cover up their murder of an Iraqi family.

What I’m hearing here is: “We’ll pay you to let us do whatever the fuck we want”.

If you want to make sure troops are ‘protected’, Panetta, you need to put protections in for whistleblowers who expose bastards like the ones I’ve listed above, not seek legal immunity for the monsters who perpetrate these war crimes.

Per CNN:

The U.S. Secretary of Defense says any agreement reached that keeps American troops in Iraq past an end-of-the-year deadline to withdraw must include immunity from Iraqi prosecution.

“If they want the benefits of what we can provide, if they want the assistance, if they want the training, if they want the operational skills that we can provide, then I think they have to understand that they’ve got to give us some protections in that process,” Leon Panetta told sailors Friday during a visit to Naples, Italy, home of the U.S. 6th Fleet.

Disgusting. I don’t understand how these soldiers can murder civilians and somehow receive a sentence of only twenty-four years in prison. (That amounts to four years per kill.) Imagine the outcry if these men had killed six white suburbanites in America? People would be calling for their deaths.

Instead, it’s another stark reminder of the fact that, for most Americans, the value of humanity ends at the borders of the United States.

Per CNN:

Adam Winfield is one of six soldiers who, while on assignment in Afghanistan, are accused of participating in an illegal “kill squad” that murdered civilians and covered up the alleged crimes by making it appear as if they were insurgents. An additional six soldiers are accused with lesser crimes in the case, including helping to cover up the killings.

Winfield originally faced five charges, including murdering three Afghan civilians. If convicted, Winfield faced a potential life sentence in a military prison.

In March, another soldier, Pvt. Jeremy Morlock, pleaded guilty to to killing three Afghan civilians for thrills and covering up the murders. Morlock testified in 2010 they murdered the unarmed men on patrols in villages and then planted “drop weapons” on them to appear as if the soldiers had first come under fire before killing them.

Morlock’s chilling testimony painted a picture of soldiers gone rogue; abusing drugs, executing Afghan civilians they referred to as “savages” and posing in photographs over the dead men. Morlock is serving a 24-year prison sentence.

wizardpiss:

Spc. Jeremy Morlock admitted to the murder of unarmed Afghan boy Gul Mudin (depicted here). He was only 15 years old. They lined him against a wall and ordered him to stand still before they shot him. Pfc. Andrew Holmes cut off his pinky as a memento. Morlock admitted that this wasn’t the first time he murdered civilians. According to him, soldiers in his Platoon “[threw] candy out of a Stryker vehicle as they drove through a village [and shot] children who came running to pick up the sweets.” The Pentagon worked for months to get these pictures deleted and suppressed. He was recently sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Private Bradley Manning, horrified at the war crimes unfolding around him, reported them to higher authorities in his chain of command. When they told him to keep quiet about it he published the details of the crimes to the public. He is facing the death sentence. Is there something wrong here?

____

Warning: Very graphic photographs below the ‘read more’ link. 

These men were monsters, and if they’d committed these crimes against white Americans, our country might actually be outraged.  As it is, they committed their crimes against faceless brown-skinned civilians in a war zone, so there are far too few who give a damn about it.

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anthagio:

This is closure for the families of over 3,000 innocent American citizens. 9/11/2001 was the most infamous moment in American history and now we can finally rest knowing the guy behind it is dead. I’m fucking happy for my country and for the people who can now sleep at night knowing the guy who ruined their lives is finally dead. This is the beginning of the end of Al Qaeda.

I can’t fathom why someone would say we shouldn’t be happy for his death. 

What about the hundreds of thousands of innocent people we murdered in revenge, or the millions we injured permanently or displaced?  What about a trillion dollars wasted while millions in our country starve and lose their education opportunities and health care… all to preserve tax rates and fight useless wars?

You can’t fathom why you shouldn’t be happy about all of this?