Antiwar.com Blog

After the Goldstone Gaza war crimes report was released on September 15, Israel immediately asked for the U.S.’s help in “curbing the international fallout.”  Its message was don’t let a bad precedent be set, you want to be able to pursue “the war on terror” without having to worry about being hauled before the International Criminal Court, don’t you?  
 
Four days earlier, on September 11, Riaz Hassan had released the results of a suicide bomber study using the “most comprehensive compendium of such information in the world.”  The findings should be familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention, “It is politics more than religious fanaticism that has led terrorists to blow themselves up,” “People tend to have a strong aversion to what they perceive as injustice,” “Strategies for eliminating, or at least addressing, collective grievances in tangible and effective ways would have a significant and (in many cases) immediate impact on alleviating the conditions that nurture the subculture of suicide bombings.”   
 
Those we deem to be deadly terrorists we subject to summary execution via drone, but the victims of our deadly terrorism or war crimes don’t have the capability to pull of summary executions like we do and their path to international justice is curbed.  
 
For the Palestinians, in 2004 the International Court of Justice spoke with upmost clarity that Israel’s separation wall and settlements in the Occupied Territories are illegal, but to no effect.   Now the Goldstone report is being thwarted, with Congress about to vote on a resolution so intellectually challenged that Goldstone has had to issue a point-by-point rebuttal. 
 
To oppose the congressional resolution and thereby the law of the jungle, go here or here.

Matthew Hoh, who resigned his diplomatic post in Afghanistan to protest US policies there, explains why US occupation is doomed to fail. He appeared on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN show Sunday:

It was a very hard choice, but Peter Bergen has given our killing by remote control a grudging thumbs up (Pakistan drone war takes a toll on militants — and civilians, CNN, Oct. 29, 2009). 
 
Not only do the drone attacks “consistently” kill civilians, they also prompt blowback, but as that blowback has yet to reach U.S. shores, well, the price in Pakistani blood–he thinks the price is worth it.
 
Under Obama, we tried to get Baitullah Mehsud fifteen times “but he still didn’t see it coming.”  Yep, killing the Pakistani Taliban’s leader (and “one of his wives and her father”) in August was the landmark success, ding dong, the witch is dead, never mind the concerns expressed when the new leader surfaced that he was “far more dangerous and unpredictable” (Hakimullah behind current wave of terror, The News, Oct. 17, 2009).        
 
It’s not logical I realize, but I expected better from Bergen given that he had recognized the 9/11 attacks as blowback (Prophet of Evil, Washington Post, Nov. 11, 2001).

“The Bravest Woman in Afghanistan,” Malalai Joya did two CNN interviews on Thursday. Joya is an elected member of the Afghanistan parliament who has been suspended for “insulting fellow members of parliament” in a television interview. She is articulate and firm in her position that the Western occupation is feeding the violence.

The first interview was broadcast on CNN (US). In the middle of the interview, as Joya made clear she opposed US occupation, interviewer Heidi Collins said “occupation would certainly be your word, a lot of people would take great issue with you calling the US presence in your country an ‘occupation’.” Joya went on to defend her position as Collins’ interrupted snidely. As Joya tried to respond to Collins, she was cut off.

The second interview took place on CNN International. Joya’s anti-occupation position was highlighted up front and the interviewer was polite and respectful.