Blowback: 9/11 Justification?

No, the issue is your inability to look at anything from an honest standpoint. Based solely on a per capita basis, I could argue that Al Qaeda has committed more crimes than the US. You have a bias and you won't look outside your bias.

I asked you directly about blowback and justification, and you don't have the answers. We could talk about these until we're blue in the face, you'd still not be able to reconcile your contradictions on blowback and vindication.

@failures art,

Are you saying that the USA deserved to be attacked?

Obama's Af-Pak War Is Illegal
Monday 21 December 2009
by: Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

...

Although the US invasion of Afghanistan was as illegal as the invasion of Iraq, many Americans saw it as a justifiable response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The cover of Time magazine called it "The Right War." Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war but escalating the war in Afghanistan. But a majority of Americans now oppose that war as well.

The UN Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in Afghanistan.

"Operation Enduring Freedom" was not legitimate self-defense under the charter because the 9/11 attacks were crimes against humanity, not "armed attacks" by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after 9/11, or President Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be "instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the UN General Assembly.

Bush's justification for attacking Afghanistan was that it was harboring Osama bin Laden and training terrorists, even though bin Laden did not claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks until 2004. After Bush demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden to the United States, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said his government wanted proof that bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks before deciding whether to extradite him, according to The Washington Post. That proof was not forthcoming; the Tali

The Taliban did not deliver bin Laden, and Bush began bombing Afghanistan.

Bush's rationale for attacking Afghanistan was spurious. Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the United States after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and the US gave him safe haven. If the new Iranian government had demanded that the US turn over the Shah and we refused, would it have been lawful for Iran to invade the United States? Of course not.

http://www.truth-out.org/1221094

failures art wrote:

Are you saying that the USA deserved to be attacked?

No, I'm saying that the USA deserves to be held accountable for the numerous war crimes that it has engaged in over the last hundred years.

I haven't noticed you discussing US war crimes, but I've noticed you making excuses for them.

"That's the way civilized countries like Cuba, Nicaragua and Vietnam, for example, handles things. "

Parados write, I suspect with a straight face: That is funny and shows how little you know of history let alone are willing to look the other way when Vietnam sends troops into Cambodia and when Cuba sends military advisers into other countries. When they do it, it is somehow "civilized."

Setanta, the "historian", weighs in with his usual attempts at distortion:

And don't forget that Cuba sent ground troops into Angola.

THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA:

part I

THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL AND THE CIA'S COVERT ACTIONS IN ANGOLA, CENTRAL AMERICA AND VIETNAM

by John Stockwell

a lecture given in October, 1987

John Stockwell is the highest-ranking CIA official ever to leave the agency and go public. He ran a CIA intelligence-gathering post in Vietnam, was the task-force commander of the CIA's secret war in Angola in 1975 and 1976, and was awarded the Medal of Merit before he resigned.

You can change the names in my book [about Angola] [13] and you've got Nicaragua.... the basic structure, all the way through including the mining of harbors, we addressed all of these issues. The point is that the U.S. led the way at every step of the escalation of the fighting. We said it was the Soviets and the Cubans that were doing it. It was the U.S. that was escalating the fighting. There would have been no war if we hadn't gone in first.

We put arms in, they put arms in. We put advisors in, they answered with advisors. We put in Zairian para-commando battalions, they put in Cuban army troops. We brought in the S. African army, they brought in the Cuban army.

And they pushed us away. They blew us away because we were lying, we were covering ourselves with lies, and they were telling the truth. And it was not a war that we could fight. We didn't have interests there that should have been defended that way.

There was never a study run that evaluated the MPLA, FNLA and UNITA, the three movements in the country, to decide which one was the better one.

The assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Nathaniel Davis, no bleeding-heart liberal (he was known by some people in the business as the butcher of Santiago), he said we should stay out of the conflict and work with whoever eventually won, and that was obviously the MPLA. Our consul in Luanda, Tom Killoran, vigorously argued that the MPLA was the best qualified to run the country and the friendliest to the U.S.

We brushed these people aside, forced Matt Davis to resign, and proceeded with our war. The MPLA said they wanted to be our friends, they didn't want to be pushed into the arms of the Soviet Union; they begged us not to fight them, they wanted to work with us. We said they wanted a cheap victory, they wanted a walk-over, they wanted to be un-opposed, that we wouldn't give them a cheap victory, we would make them earn it, so to speak. And we did.

10,000 Africans died and they won the victory that they were winning anyway.

Now, the most significant thing that I got out of all of this, in addition to the fact that our rationales were basically false, was that we lied. To just about everybody involved. One third of my staff in this task force that I put together in Washington, commanding this global operation, pulling strings all over the world to focus pressure onto Angola, and military activities into Angola, one third of my staff was propagandists, who were working, in every way they could to create this picture of Cubans raping Angolans, Cubans and Soviets introducing arms into the conflict, Cubans and Russians trying to take over the world.

Our ambassador to the United Nations, Patrick Moynihan, he read continuous statements of our position to the Security Council, the general assembly, and the press conferences, saying the Russians and Cubans were responsible for the conflict, and that we were staying out, and that we deplored the militarization of the conflict.

And every statement he made was false. And every statement he made was originated in the sub-committee of the NSC that I sat on as we managed this thing. The state department press person read these position papers daily to the press. We would write papers for him. Four paragraphs. We would call him on the phone and say, `call us 10 minutes before you go on, the situation could change overnight, we'll tell you which paragraph to read. And all four paragraphs would be false. Nothing to do with the truth. Designed to play on events, to create this impression of Soviet and Cuban aggression in Angola. When they were in fact responding to our initiatives.

And the CIA director was required by law to brief the Congress. This CIA director Bill Colby - the same one that dumped our people in Vietnam - he gave 36 briefings of the Congress, the oversight committees, about what we were doing in Angola. And he lied. At 36 formal briefings. And such lies are perjury, and it's a felony to lie to the Congress.

He lied about our relationship with South Africa. We were working closely with the South African army, giving them our arms, coordinating battles with them, giving them fuel for their tanks and armored cars. He said we were staying well away from them. They were concerned about these white mercenaries that were appearing in Angola, a very sensitive issue, hiring whites to go into a black African country, to help you impose your will on that black African country by killing the blacks, a very sensitive issue. The Congress was concerned we might be involved in that, and he assured them we had nothing to do with it.

We had in fact formed four little mercenary armies and delivered them into Angola to do this dirty business for the CIA. And he lied to them about that. They asked if we were putting arms into the conflict, and he said no, and we were. They asked if we had advisors inside the country, and he said `no, we had people going in to look at the situation and coming back out'. We had 24 people sleeping inside the country, training in the use of weapons, installing communications systems, planning battles, and he said, we didn't have anybody inside the country.

In summary about Angola, without U.S. intervention, 10,000 people would be alive that were killed in the thing. The outcome might have been peaceful, or at least much less bloody. The MPLA was winning when we went in, and they went ahead and won, which was, according to our consul, the best thing for the country.

At the end of this thing the Cubans were entrenched in Angola, seen in the eyes of much of the world as being the heroes that saved these people from the CIA and S. African forces. We had allied the U.S. literally and in the eyes of the world with the S. African army, and that's illegal, and it's impolitic. We had hired white mercenaries and eventually been identified with them. And that's illegal, and it's impolitic. And our lies had been visible lies. We were caught out on those lies. And the world saw the U.S. as liars.
After it was over, you have to ask yourself, was it justified? What did the MPLA do after they had won? Were they lying when they said they wanted to be our friends? 3 weeks after we were shut down... the MPLA had Gulf oil back in Angola, pumping the Angolan oil from the oilfields, with U.S. gulf technicians protected by Cuban soldiers, protecting them from CIA mercenaries who were still mucking around in Northern Angola.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Stockwell/StockwellCIA87_1.html

That means taking an offending country to the International Court of Justice. That means doing things in a civilized manner.

The Court has a twofold role: to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States (Contentious cases ) and to give advisory opinions (Advisory proceedings) on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.

In Contentious proceedings, when a dispute is brought before the Court by a unilateral application filed by one State against another State, the names of parties in the official title of the case are separated by the abbreviation v. for the Latin versus (e.g., Cameroonv. Nigeria). When a dispute is submitted to the Court on the basis of a special agreement between two States, the names of the parties are separated by an oblique stroke (e.g., Indonesia/Malaysia).

The first case entered in the General List of the Court (Corfu Channel (United Kingdom v. Albania)) was submitted on 22 May 1947.

From 22 May 1947 to 24 October 2010, 149 cases were entered in the General List.

It seems that if you want the US to face the IJC, you shouldn't be appealing to Americans. The process requires one state to bring up charges on another. The ICJ doesn't do "the people v" cases.

When was the last time a country charged the US with something? I'm not saying the crimes have not happened, but it seems that the "complacency" and "silence" by other governments (and by your standards their citizens as well) is the actual obstacle in getting US in the ICJ.

When you aren't making inane excuses for war crimes and war criminals, you're pretending to have serious discussion.

Actually, it was you that claimed Vietnam and Cuba were civilized. That sounds a lot like an inane excuse to me.

Oh, you mean about Cuba sending troops to Angola?

In summary about Angola, without U.S. intervention, 10,000 people would be alive that were killed in the thing. The outcome might have been peaceful, or at least much less bloody. The MPLA was winning when we went in, and they went ahead and won, which was, according to our consul, the best thing for the country.

At the end of this thing the Cubans were entrenched in Angola, seen in the eyes of much of the world as being the heroes that saved these people from the CIA and S. African forces. We had allied the U.S. literally and in the eyes of the world with the S. African army, and that's illegal, and it's impolitic. We had hired white mercenaries and eventually been identified with them. And that's illegal, and it's impolitic. And our lies had been visible lies. We were caught out on those lies. And the world saw the U.S. as liars.

You're a good little American, FA.

When you aren't making inane excuses for war crimes and war criminals, you're pretending to have serious discussion.

How is the ICC different from the International Court of Justice?

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) does not have criminal jurisdiction to prosecute individuals. It is a civil tribunal that deals primarily with disputes between States. The ICJ is the principle judicial organ of the United Nations, whereas the ICC is independent of the UN.

On 10 February 2006, the Prosecutor published a letter responding to complaints he had received concerning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He noted that "the International Criminal Court has a mandate to examine the conduct during the conflict, but not whether the decision to engage in armed conflict was legal", and that the court's jurisdiction is limited to the actions of nationals of states parties. He concluded that there was a reasonable basis to believe that a limited number of war crimes had been committed in Iraq, but that the crimes allegedly committed by nationals of states parties did not appear to meet the required gravity threshold for an ICC investigation.

Are you feeling guilty because you work for the US Department of Immoral and Illegal Aggression?

without examining anything other than the opinion of one man.

He ran a CIA intelligence-gathering post in Vietnam, was the task-force commander of the CIA's secret war in Angola in 1975 and 1976,