Iraq war logs: UN calls on Obama to investigate human rights abuses (awe snap!!)

[babsbunny]

Iraq war logs: UN calls on Obama to investigate human rights abuses

David Batty and Jamie Doward

http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/45-45/3705-iraq-war-logs-un-demands-obama-investigate-torture

The UN has called on Barack Obama to order a full investigation of US forces' involvement in human rights abuses in Iraq after a massive leak of military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.

The call, by the UN's chief investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, came as Phil Shiner, human rights specialist at Public Interest Lawyers in the UK, warned that some of the deaths documented in the Iraq war logs could have involved British forces and would be pursued through the UK courts. He demanded a public inquiry into allegations that British troops were responsible for civilian deaths during the conflict.

The Guardian has analysed the 400,000 documents, the biggest leak in US military history, and found 15,000 previously unreported civilian deaths. The logs show how US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and generally unpunished.

[spanone]

1. kicked and recommeded...

[EFerrari]

2. Kick

[nc4bo]

3. !!

:kick: & R

[ixion]

4. I would be pleasantly surprised were the Obama admin to actually do their job

and bring BushCo up on war crimes charges. I'm not holding my breath, though.

The problem now is that Obama has his own skeletons in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Considering his fierce pursuit of war criminals to date versus his pursuit of Assange..

..we can put that idea on the "Fat Chance" shelf.

[IndianaJoe]

6. Charging U.S. Troops with War Crimes isn't good politics,

unfortunately. Think what Fox would do with it. "Obama calls our boys war criminals!"

And, of course, there's the where will it end thing..."They were just following orders!" "Their Superiors should be punished too!" "This goes right up the chain of command".

Yes, we should investigate this, ferret out the torturers, killers, war criminals. But it won't happen. Sadly. And they'll all go unpunished. Just like they do in every war.

Maybe, if we want to stop this kind of thing, we should just stop stupid needless wars.

My two cents.

[sabrina 1]

9. So you're saying that 'our boys' are free, once sent overseas

to wrongly invade another sovereign country, to commit murder and torture and theft because 'it wouldn't look good if we prosecuted murderers and torturers'.

I disagree, I think it would look great. It would show the world that we are not tolerant or war crimes, at least when Democrats are in power. The world forgave us for Bush, not HIM and his gang of criminals, but they felt we, the American people could not stop him.

And they cheered when he was gone, hoping that a new administration would begin to start a process towards justice. Those hopes have been shattered. No such justice is forthcoming from this administration either.

From the top to the bottom, prosecutions need to begin NOW, or someone else will do it for us, as is happening in Spain. Most decent people around the world condemn the evil we unleashed on the IRaqi people.

I agree with you that we should stop these wars, but we won't. Not until the American people DEMAND consequences for war crimes and passes laws that no one can profit from war ever again.

[IndianaJoe]

12. No. I'm not endorsing it at all. I deplore it.

But I'm saying that nothing of any consequence will be done to stop this behavior. I tried to explain what the reaction here would be if anyone tried. It just won't happen. Those that try to stop it will be branded as traitors or as disloyal or "not backing our boys". The general American attitude to this is: "So what, they're the enemy, war's a dirty business and shit happens."

The same murder, torture, mass killing of civilians, military deception and covering up occurred on a regular basis in Vietnam. I lived through it all. It incensed me then. It still incenses me. Zero was done about it then. Zero will be done about it now.

[sabrina 1]

13. I misunderstood you then, my apologies.

I agree with you that anyone who tries to prosecute these criminals will be called 'traitor' etc. It would take a major shift in our culture to get the American in general to back up any effort to bring them to justice. And that would take very courageous leadership, in the military and in Congress.

What would help would be to break up the media monopoly.

Britain eg, is at least raising the issues about their government lying them into war. We don't even raise it here.

However, when people are determined, things can happen. Meantime I am very glad that there are some people, like Code Pink, who will not allow them to profit from their crimes without reminding them that there are many people out there who KNOW what they did. We should have more of that.

And in Ireland and Britain, Tony Blair had to cancel his war profiteering tour because of the huge demonstrations against him there.


It really is up to the people. We, like the German people, will go down in history being vilified for 'doing nothing to stop it'. And rightly so if we don't.

[malaise]

7. About time

K & R

[Ramulux]

8. Oh shit

Please let this actually mean something. The UN should think about condemning us publicly if we refuse to listen to them at all. Last time I checked, we were still part of the UN and subject to their rules and regulations.

[flyarm]

10. Last I looked we were a signatory to the Geneva Conventions , which is part of our Constitution

how did those rules and regulations and LAWS work out for the tortured and murdered?

And what has the Constitutional Law Scholar in the White House done about any of it??

Oh yeah..the renditions are still taking place..Gitmo is still open..the International Red Cross has been kept out of black opps places in Iraq..under this constitutional law scholar. And this Constitutional Scholar signed an exectutive order to be judge and jury and order the killing of SUSPECTED Americans with "POSSIBLE" involvement in terrorism..That is "suspected"..with no judicial Trial.

That would constitute an assassination!

http://jonathanturley.org/2010/02/04/is-the-obama-administration-targeting-americans/

I have this stinking feeling..jussssttt a little feeling....this White House doesn't give a rats ass about the rules and regulations of the UN.

[BeFree]

11. Yep. The lesson is, kids...

....as long as it is big government doing the deed, it's ok.

Since there were oh so many elites involved in this situation, it's ok.

The US government, and those in it's service can do any gawd damn thing they please. Fuck everyone who gets in the way.

It is the way of this new world.