Remember Libya: One of History’s Terror Bombing Victims
By Stephen Lendman
A LENDMAN DISPATCH
"Not acting in Libya 'would have been a betrayal of who we are."
Like Cast Lead against Gaza, Odyssey Dawn is criminal imperial war, willfully attacking non-combatants and civilian targets, including vital infrastructure, hospitals, non-military airports and buildings, ports, power generating facilities, and other sites unrelated to military necessity.
These and more besides so-called rebels killing hundreds on the ground, targeting anyone thought to be pro-Gaddafi, including African guest workers there for employment, not political allegiance.
So far, shock and awe bombing leads it, killing scores, perhaps hundreds, more. Daily the numbers mount. Even independent and surprising reports confirm it.
Moreover, US rules of engagement (ROE) authorize war crimes. In Iraq, orders were to kill all military age males. In Afghanistan, drone and ground attacks kill civilians daily, often willfully, bogusly claiming insurgent kills. War is hell, especially on civilians.
Yet doing it violates international and US law, including US Army Field Manual (FM) 27-10 standards, incorporating the Nuremberg Principles, Judgment and Charter, as well as The Law of Land Warfare (1956):
Two points are key:
Yet Geneva and other international laws forbid targeting civilians. The Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907 Hague IV Convention) states:
The besieged should visibly indicate these buildings or places, notifying an adversary beforehand.
Fourth Geneva also protects civilians in times of war. It prohibits any type violence against them, requiring treatment for those sick and wounded. In September 1938, a League of Nations unanimous resolution prohibited the:
Examples of US. Terror Bombings
During WW II, US air forces bombed Tokyo several times with incendiaries. On April 18, 1942, four months after Pearl Harbor, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle led a raid. It did little damage but proved Tokyo was vulnerable to attacks.
On February 24, 1945, 174 planes firebombed Toyko, destroying one square mile of the city. Two weeks later on March 9, 279 bombers demolished 16 square city miles, killing an estimated, 100,000 civilians, injuring many more, leaving over one million homeless. About five dozen other Japanese cities were also firebombed, at a time most structures in the country were wooden and easily consumed. For what reason
In early 1945, Japan sent peace feelers. Moreover, two days before the February Yalta Conference, Douglas MacArthur sent Roosevelt a 40-page summary of its terms. They were near-unconditional. The Japanese agreed to an occupation, ending hostilities, surrendering its arms, removing its troops from occupied territories, submitting to criminal war trials, and allowing its industries to be regulated. In return, they only wanted their Emperor retained in an honorable capacity.
Post-WW II, neither Soviet Russia, China, or other countries threatened America. Creating adversaries is always for imperial and profiteering advantage, so slaughtering millions of North Koreans very much furthered those aims, even though they responded to repeated U-S influenced Republic of Korea (ROK) provocations. Later came millions of Southeast Asians.
Nonetheless, it miscalculated. Vietnamese tired of colonial rule, so communists in the North gained control. They won peasant loyalty by promising more equal land distribution. In addition, their top leaders were intellectuals. They planned well and were patient. The contrast in the South was stark. America installed the authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem regime to build a strong army, crush opposition, and serve Washington reliably.
From the 1950s, military advisors were supplied, escalated under Kennedy, then accelerated when Lyndon Johnson became president. After the bogus August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, war began to establish client regimes and military bases across East and South Asia, to encircle China, and crush nationalist anti-imperial movements.
As in Korea, napalm was also used with other incendiary devices. In addition, terror weapons like anti-personnel cluster bombs spewed thousands of metal pellets hitting everything in their path, plus indiscriminate land mines still claiming lives.
These consequences were never considered nor the effects of expanded spraying to destroy vital food crops like rice. Also in 1970, US forces conducted Operation Tailwind, using sarin nerve gas in Laos, causing many deaths, including civilians. Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Joint Chiefs Chairman, confirmed it on CNN in 1998. Then under Pentagon pressure, CNN retracted the report, fired its award-winning journalist Peter Arnett and co-producers April Oliver and Jack Smith because they refused to disavow it.
The Indochinese war also engulfed Cambodia and Laos. From March 1969 through May 1970, Nixon ordered secret bombings (without consulting Congress) to destroy North Vietnam and Viet Cong sanctuaries. Around 3,500 sorties caused 600,000 Cambodian deaths, mostly civilians, helping the marginal Khmer Rouge rise to power in 1975. Over 500,000 tons of ordnance were until August 1973. Over 25,000 US ground forces also invaded. They destroyed dozens of towns, villages and hamlets, killing many thousands more, mostly peasants, guilty of living in the wrong country at the wrong time.
Fast forward to Iraq from 1991 to now. Shock and awe Gulf and 2003 bombings destroying:
• other non-military related targets.
Nearly everything was attacked, causing massive destruction and disruption, including:
• more in cities and villages throughout the country.
An estimated $100 billion in damage was inflicted. A humanitarian disaster resulted. Environmental contamination was extensive. Large numbers were killed, injured or displaced. Two million people lost their livelihoods. Many their homes and communities and for most their futures from what America planned and implemented jointly with NATO.
Moreover, America, NATO and international community leaders still support the organized crime-connected KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) government and its leader Hashim Thaci, a thug, now prime minister since January 2008. Under him, Kosovo as it was no longer exists. Afghanistan was next.
So far, they still rage in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, besides allied with Israel against Palestine, as well as proxy wars in Somalia, Central Africa, Yemen, Bahrain, Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, wherever America targets, and at home against Muslims, Latino immigrants, and working Americans.
A Final Comment
Ralph Nader also wants him impeached for committing war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. March 18 on Democracy Now, (one day before Libya bombing began) he said:
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
