Posted on 10/27/2009 7:53:42 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS – A U.N. human rights investigator warned the United States Tuesday that its use of unmanned warplanes to carry out targeted executions may violate international law.
Philip Alston said that unless the Obama administration explains the legal basis for targeting particular individuals and the measures it is taking to comply with international humanitarian law which prohibits arbitrary executions, "it will increasingly be perceived as carrying out indiscriminate killings in violation of international law."
Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council's investigator on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, raised the issue of U.S. Predator drones in a report to the General Assembly's human rights committee and at a news conference afterwards, saying he has become increasingly concerned at the dramatic increase in their use, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since June.
He said the U.S. response — that the Geneva-based council and the General Assembly have no role in relation to killings during an armed conflict — "is simply untenable."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Tell Philip Alston where he can go and what he can do when he gets there:(general address)
How can a “targeted killing” also be an “indiscriminate killing?”
There is no such thing as “international law.” In actuality, “international law” is simply the aggregate of resolved court cases from all the countries in the world toward entities outside their borders, coupled with agreements such as treaties.
There is no final arbiter, there is no final court—it’s just what countries can get to stick and get others to chime in on and shame or block trade. When enough powerful entities are upset, war may break out.
“International law” is a bogus concept.
Antecedent and Precedent in WAR
Churchill: Nazis bombed London, Brits bombed Frankfort
USA: Al-Quadea bombed NY, Yanks bombed Pakistan
simple tit-for-tat-
Nothing`s changed or UN has to dig up Churchill and put him on trial.
self ping for the cool heli
Hey Obama, tell them “up yours”.
UN OUT OF US
US OUT OF UN
Well, UAV does stand for “unmanned aerial vehicle”.
Well, that wouldn’t have happened in the imperialist US didn’t start this war....
This particular case, though is illustrative of the role international law has played in making the world a more violent place. It sets up a system in which borders between sovereign states are inviolable but does nothing to address the flouting of those borders by violent revolutionaries in terms of sanctuary. During Vietnam the self-styled "international community" was stridently insistent that we should not bomb the sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia but said nothing about the Vietcong/North Vietnamese violation of those same borders in order to prosecute the war.
This isn't so much a legal mindset as it is the progressive prejudice toward using the law to protect the downtrodden from the powerful, even if the "downtrodden" are murderous criminals and the powerful, their pursuers. The law poses as indifferent between the two sides but in application it is anything but. We see the application of this mindset in domestic law where "criminals have rights too" morphs so very quickly into "criminals are the only ones with rights."
Certainly assassination as an extension of national policy has its serious downsides in terms of potential abuse (not to mention retaliation). But within the context of a war already being fought it seems a little silly to object to killing writ small in the midst of killing writ large. Why precisely it would have been wrong to target Yamamoto individually but fine to kill him by wiping out his command ship with thousands of people aboard seems a little foggy to me. I'd be willing to bet the Admiral would have agreed.
In some respects, from the perspective of a past and maybe again soldier I'd rather not be killed by some faceless sniper, artillery crew, missiler, bomber, or archer from hundreds of yards or hundreds of miles away. Then again, from the perspective of a past and maybe again soldier, I'd rather be able to kill the enemy from a position of a faceless sniper, artillery crew, missiler, bomber, or archer from hundreds of yards or hundreds of miles away.
What those makers or "rules of warfare" do not understand is that there are no rules in warfare.
Which reminds me of the rules against using hollowpoint or expanding bullets, yet grenades are okay. Never could figure that one out.
Let’s evict the UN from those buildings and take those buildings over for our own use — to replace the World Trade Center.
This is fine with me. I think we need to resume carpet bombing of the whole area in the vicinity of these rattlesnakes anyway. Bring back the Buffs!
Philip Alston can suck my
Ten floors at a time.
Given their options, the UN would like to have war fought as if it were the Star Trek episode “A Taste of Armageddon”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon
From the Wiki:
Nearing the Eminiar world, the Enterprise receives a priority signal not to approach the planet under any circumstances. Ambassador Fox orders Kirk to ignore the warning and investigate further. Kirk sends a landing party, which includes himself, Mr. Spock, and three other personnel, down to meet with Eminiar leaders. They are contacted by representatives, Mea 3 and Anan 7, who sternly remind Kirk and his landing team they should not have come because the city has just been hit by a Vendikar fusion bomb which has killed half a million people. Curiously, everything in the city seems intact and there is no visible evidence or sensor readings of such an attack ever occurring.
The landing party soon discovers that the entire war between the two planets is completely simulated by computers which launch wargame attacks and counterattacks, then calculate damage and select the dead. When a citizen is reported as “killed”, they must submit themselves for termination by stepping inside a disintegration booth. Anan 7 informs Kirk that the simulated attacks and following executions is the agreed system of war decided by both sides in a treaty with Vendikar. A conventional war was deemed too destructive to the environments and societies of both planets.
Then North America could use the UN buildings for its own purposes -- such as my suggestion for a replacement world trade center, especially since the UN has very good infrastructure for interpreters already installed.
Philip Alston said that unless the Obama administration explains the legal basis for targeting particular individuals and the measures it is taking to comply with international humanitarian law which prohibits arbitrary executions, "it will increasingly be perceived as carrying out indiscriminate killings in violation of international law."
Philip Alston....A U.N. human rights investigator??? There's a contradiction in terms.
Stick-it-up-your-muzzie-loving-ass!!!
Tell it to the muzzies who love to behead school girls and conduct public stonings of woman who are raped, you dumb ass bozo.
...so, how are we supposed to fight then?
WE’RE THE ONLY ONES PLAYING BY THE F**KING RULES!!!!!!
Philip Alston: the terrorists’ best friend.
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