Ma7 20, 2008

Russian Foreign Ministry reports to President Medvedev are stating today that US Presidential candidate Barack Obama has sent one of his top aides named Valerie Jarrett to meet with officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross, in Geneva, Switzerland, to what is being described in these reports as the ‘preliminary stage’ to begin actions in the International Court of Justice charging the present United States President, Vice President and former US Defense Secretary with war crimes.

As we had previously written about in our October 15, 2005 report, the International Committee of the Red Cross opened in that year a War Crimes Portfolio alleging that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and other US Officials, were in violation of Articles 3 and 4 of the Geneva Convention and could be tried for Crimes Against Humanity.

These two Articles of the Geneva Convention state:

“Article 3

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

 

2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.

Article 4

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:

1. Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.

2. The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.

C. This Article shall in no way affect the status of medical personnel and chaplains as provided for in Article 33 of the present Convention.”

Russian diplomats are speculating that Senator Obama’s actions against the present US War Leaders in his country are due to the horrific testimony heard this past week in Washington where American soldiers detailed the war atrocities they have been ordered to commit, and as we can read as reported by the AntiWar News Service:

“Antiwar veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took their case to Capitol Hill Thursday, baring their souls with stories of killings of innocent civilians, torture and wrongful detentions.

"On several occasions our convoys came upon bodies that had been lying on the road, sometimes for weeks," said Marine Corps veteran Vincent Emanuele, who served in al-Qaim near the Syrian border in 2004 and 2005.

"When encountering these bodies standard procedure was to run over the corpses, sometimes even stopping and taking pictures, which was also standard practice when encountering the dead in Iraq," he told the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which organized the hearing.

Emanuele also said that U.S. military personnel often took "pot shots" at cars passing by.

"Our rules of engagement stated that we should first fire warning shots into the ground in front of the car, then the engine block, and the windshield. That is if the car was even moving in the first place," he said. "Many times cars that actually had pulled off to the side of the road were also shot at."

Nine veterans of the Iraq war told their stories before members of Congress and a packed gallery. One of the veterans had also served in Afghanistan. About 40 veterans were in the audience.

The veterans spoke about extremely lax rules of engagement handed down by commanding officers, which they said virtually guaranteed atrocities would be committed, and which in turn created a violent backlash among Iraqi people and a continued cycle of violence.”

Russian experts in International Law further state in these reports that with this latest testimony by US war veterans of these atrocities, and when combined with the US torture of POW’s in their dreaded secret prisons spread around the Globe, there is ‘little doubt’ that the American War Leaders would be convicted of the War Crime charges leveled against them.

It should be noted that the United States refuses to call their captured enemies prisoners of war (POW’s) and instead designates them as ‘detainees’ and does not afford them their rights as granted under the Geneva Convention. Russian experts, however, noted that both Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire had, likewise, used these terms for their POW’s, but when defeated by the Allied Forces in World War II they were brought to justice.

Further to be noted, and as we had previously reported on October 15, 2006, President Bush and his family have purchased nearly 100,000 acres of land in Paraguay for them to flee should War Crime Charges be filed against them.

Russian legal experts further state that Senator Obama, and should he, as expected, become the next President of the United States, he ‘almost certainly’ would have to file War Crime charges against these US War Leaders to keep himself from being brought up on these charges should he ignore them.   

Benjamin Ferencz, the former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials against the Nazis, and who is the founding father of the basis behind International law regarding war crimes, has also stated that "There is a case for trying Bush for the supreme crime against humanity, and an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation."

To the success of a new President Obama being able to successfully prosecute America’s present War Leaders for their war crimes it is not too our knowing, but what is to our knowing is that the US Republican Party Leadership is now openly joking about his assassination, and as we can read as reported by the New York Daily News Service:

"Even a friendly National Rifle Association audience seemed stunned Friday after the former presidential candidate cracked a tasteless joke about a gun aimed at Barack Obama. Huckabee, a Republican and former Arkansas governor, was addressing the gun group's convention in Louisville, Ky., when a loud crash was heard off stage.

"That was Barack Obama," Huckabee ad-libbed. "He just tripped off a chair.... He's getting ready to speak, and somebody aimed a gun at him and he, he dove for the floor."

[Ed. Note: The United States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one.  No interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.]

Translation to Spanish by: Sister Maru Barraza, Mazatlán, Mexico

www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1100.htm