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Vandaag en morgen buigen twee Britse rechters zich over het verzoek van de gelauwerde onderzoeksjournalist Julian Assange om voor de laatste keer in beroep te mogen gaan tegen zijn uitlevering aan de VS. Als de rechters dat verzoek afwijzen betekent dat niet alleen dat Julian zal worden uitgeleverd aan de VS waar hem een gevangenisstraf van 170 jaar wacht (in eenzame opsluiting), maar dat zal tevens de dood betekenen voor onderzoeksjournalistiek naar de werking van machtsmisbruik in oorlogsgebieden en het openbaren hoe de werking van machtsmisbruik verloopt in het algemeen..... Bovendien zou het een bevestiging zijn dat klokkenluiders vogelvrij zijn..... Mochten de rechters zijn verzoek afwijzen rest hem nog de gang naar het Europese Gerechtshof.
Het meest wrange is wel dat Julian Assange wordt vervolgd voor het openbaren van oorlogsmisdaden en nu al bijna 5 jaar vastzit (hij werd op 11 april 2019 gearresteerd) en dat in eenzame opsluiting (isolatiefolter), terwijl verreweg de meeste daders plus de opdrachtgevers voor de door het VS leger begane oorlogsmisdaden niet eens werden vervolgd......
Als eerste zullen deze consequenties worden gevoeld in Groot-Brittannië en de VS, maar reken gerust dat dit ook zal gaan gelden voor andere westerse landen..... Terwijl je nu al kan stellen dat onafhankelijke journalistiek, om een oorlogsterm te gebruiken, zwaar onder vuur ligt in Groot-Brittannië en de EU. Zo worden er in Duitsland, Groot-Brittannië (GB) en Frankrijk al journalisten vervolgd vanwege hun berichtgeving uit de afgescheiden staatjes in het Oosten van Oekraïne.. De bankrekeningen van deze journalisten zijn in Duitsland en GB geblokkeerd voor gebruik en hun paspoorten zijn ingenomen. zodat het werken hen onmogelijk is gemaakt.....
Moet je nagaan als je het voorgaande hebt gelezen over Julian (plus alle andere info over Julian in acht genomen) en daarbij denkt aan alle andere onafhankelijke journalisten die in het westen of worden vervolgd dan wel die niet meer in de reguliere media mogen publiceren: dan heeft men in het westen het gore lef een grote bek te hebben over de journalistiek in Rusland en andere het westen niet welgevallige landen >> de hypocrisie ten top!!
In feite was Julian Assange met het door hem geïnstalleerde WikiLeaks een doorgeefluik voor klokkenluiders en ondanks dat westerse regeringen de vuilbek vol hebben dat klokkenluiders moeten worden beschermd, doen ze in de praktijk het tegenovergestelde >> men zit deze mensen dwars en als ze niet oppassen worden ze zelfs vastgezet, zoals in de VS al meermaals is gebeurd.... Veel andere klokkenluiders zijn simpelweg ontslagen en raken niet meer aan de bak, daar ze als onbetrouwbaar worden gezien, terwijl iedereen en zeker de overheid deze mensen zou moeten eren en beschermen, immers ze brengen heel foute zaken aan het licht, waarbij het zelfs kan gaan om gevaren voor de volksgezondheid.....
In Nederland hebben we het klokkenluidershuis, een aanfluiting van jewelste en een gigantische mislukking, niet zo vreemd als je de voorwaarden leest waaraan je moet voldoen wil je beschermd worden door dat flut-instituut. Zo moet je ervoor tekenen dat alles wat je aanbrengt geheim blijft, je mag er met niemand over spreken >> zelfs niet met je partner als die hebt..... Terwijl klokkenluiders meestal al heel lang gefrustreerd rondlopen over de misstanden die ze zien, maar waartegen ze niets kunnen uitrichten, anders dan de 'klok luiden' door één en ander te openbaren in de media.... Hoe kan je dan verwachten dat ze zich zullen onderwerpen aan het klokkenluidershuis en hun mond verder houden??!!! Te zot voor woorden!!
Het hieronder weergegeven artikel over het laatste beroep dat Julian nog rest in GB werd geschreven door Chris Hedges,eerder gepubliceerd op Substack en daaronder volgt een artikel van Freddy Brewster, eerder gepubliceerd op The Lever, waarin deze ingaat op het grote aantal oorlogsmisdaden die door het Pentagon onder de pet worden gehouden. Oorlogsmisdaden van de VS, zoals de oorlogsmisdaden die Julian Assange heeft geopenbaard en waarvoor hij wordt vervolgd door de VS..... Dezelfde VS die met succes van het Internationaal Strafhof (International Criminal Court >> ICC) heeft geëist dat Rusland en dan met name Putin moet worden vervolgd voor oorlogsmisdaden, die hij noch zijn leger hebben begaan, terwijl er bewezen een groot aantal oorlogsmisdaden is begaan door de VS..... (en vergeet niet dat de VS niet eens lid is van het ICC.....)
Oorlogsmisdaden begaan door de VS als het bombarderen met witte fosforbommen van steden als het Iraakse Mosul en de Syrische stad Raqqa, terwijl de VN de VS meermaals heeft gesmeekt te stoppen met de bombardementen op die steden vanwege het enorme aantal burgerdoden, smeekbeden waar de VS lak aan had..... Het is nog steeds niet bekend hoeveel slachtoffers er precies zijn gevallen in die steden en dat geldt vooral voor Mosul, waar men de gebombardeerde huizen waarin de burgerslachtoffers nog lagen heeft gebulldozerd, zodat men niet kan weten hoeveel slachtoffers daar zijn vermoord met die oorlogsmisdaden maar dat moeten er vele tienduizenden, zo niet veel meer dan honderdduizend zijn..... (bovendien werd daarbij het grootste deel van het bijzonder oude stadscentrum plat gebombardeerd.....)
Je kan het trouwens ook een oorlogsmisdaad noemen dat de VS nog steeds een groot deel van Syrië bezet houdt, een gebied waar de belangrijkste olie- en gasvelden liggen, een gebied ook dat de graanschuur is van dat land, de olie en graan uit het gebied worden aan het buitenland verkocht door de VS..... Daardoor verloopt de wederopbouw van het vooral door het westen platgebombardeerde land uiterst moeizaam.....
Daarnaast hebben de VS, Canada, GB en de EU het land ook nog eens sancties opgelegd zodat er een groot tekort is ontstaan aan eerste levensbehoeften en medicijnen, één van de redenen waarom nog steeds Syriërs naar het westen vluchten..... Alleen het opleggen van sancties aan landen zonder een VN-resolutie zou eindelijk eens moeten worden erkend als een zware misdaad, te vergelijken met een oorlogsmisdaad van formaat.....
Nog even dit >> het is een schande dat men zich zo druk maakt om de fascistische misdadiger Navalny en daarvoor de straat opgaat, terwijl Julian Assange kan wegrotten in een cel zonder dat men althans in Nederland er zelfs niet aan denkt om de straat op te gaan..... (enkele uitzonderingen daar gelaten, maar die vallen in het niet vergeleken met de demo's voor de fascisten in Oekraïne en de demo in Amsterdam van afgelopen zaterdag....)
Julian Assange is onschuldig, de kroongetuige in het proces, een veroordeelde IJslandse Pedofiel, heeft al toegegeven te hebben gelogen..... Julian zit zoals gezegd al 5 jaar in eenzame opsluiting (daarvoor zat hij al jaren in feite gevangen in de Ecuadoraanse ambassade te Londen) en had al een herseninfarct tijdens zijn gevangenschap...... Het gevangenhouden van mensen in eenzame opsluiting is een wel heel smerige vorm van marteling, waar men geestelijk en lichamelijk aan kapotgaat, niet voor niets ook dat dit wordt aangeduid als isolatiefolter..... Julian heeft zelfs de meeste van zijn proceszittingen niet mogen bijwonen...... Genoeg is genoeg:
#FreeAssange (NOW!!)
(als je het Engels niet machtig bent, zet dan de tekst om in Nederlands met behulp van Google translate dat je rechts bovenaan deze pagina ziet staan, klik eerst in het menu op 'Engels', waarna je weer kan klikken op die vertaalapp, daarna zie je bovenaan in het menu 'Nederlands' staan >> klik daarop en de hele tekst staat vervolgens in het Nederlands, de vertaling is van een redelijk goede kwaliteit.)
Julian Assange’s Final Appeal
Julian Assange will make his final appeal this week to the British courts to avoid extradition. If he is extradited it is the death of investigations into the inner workings of power by the press.
Chris Hedges,
Februari 18, 2024
LONDON — If Julian Assange is denied permission to appeal his extradition to the United States before a panel of two judges at the High Court in London this week, he will have no recourse left within the British legal system. His lawyers can ask the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a stay of execution under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But it is far from certain that the British court will agree. It may order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction or may decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard by the court.
The nearly 15-year-long persecution of Julian, which has taken a heavy toll on his physical and psychological health, is done in the name of extradition to the U.S. where he would stand trial for allegedly violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, with a potential sentence of 170 years.
Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010, which were provided by U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. This vast trove of material revealed massacres of civilians, torture, assassinations, the list of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they were subjected to, as well as the Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Those who perpetrated these crimes — including the U.S. helicopter pilots who gunned down two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injured two children, all captured in the Collateral Murder video — have never been prosecuted.
Julian exposed what the U.S. empire seeks to airbrush out of history.
Julian’s persecution is an ominous message to the rest of us. Defy the U.S. imperium, expose its crimes, and no matter who you are, no matter what country you come from, no matter where you live, you will be hunted down and brought to the U.S. to spend the rest of your life in one of the harshest prison systems on earth. If Julian is found guilty it will mean the death of investigative journalism into the inner workings of state power. To possess, much less publish, classified material — as I did when I was a reporter for The New York Times — will be criminalized. And that is the point, one understood by The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El País and The Guardian, who issued a joint letter calling on the U.S. to drop the charges against him.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other federal lawmakers voted on Thursday for the United States and Britain to end Julian’s incarceration, noting that it stemmed from him “doing his job as a journalist” to reveal “evidence of misconduct by the U.S.”
The legal case against Julian, which I have covered from the beginning and will cover again in London this week, has a bizarre Alice-in-Wonderland quality, where judges and lawyers speak in solemn tones about law and justice while making a mockery of the most basic tenants of civil liberties and jurisprudence.
How can hearings go forward when the Spanish security firm at the Ecuadorian Embassy, UC Global, where Julian sought refuge for seven years, provided videotaped surveillance of meetings between Julian and his lawyers to the CIA, eviscerating attorney-client privilege? This alone should have seen the case thrown out of court.
How can the Ecuadorian government led by Lenin Moreno violate international law by rescinding Julian’s asylum status and permit London Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian Embassy — sovereign territory of Ecuador — to carry Julian to a waiting police van?
Why did the courts accept the prosecution’s charge that Julian is not a legitimate journalist?
Why did the United States and Britain ignore Article 4 of their Extradition Treaty that prohibits extradition for political offenses?
How is the case against Julian allowed to go ahead after the key witness for the United States, Sigurdur Thordarson - a convicted fraudster and pedophile - admitted to fabricating the accusations he made against Julian?
How can Julian, an Australian citizen, be charged under the U.S. Espionage Act when he did not engage in espionage and wasn’t based in the U.S when he received the leaked documents?
Why are the British courts permitting Julian to be extradited to the U.S. when the CIA — in addition to putting Julian under 24-hour video and digital surveillance while in the Ecuadorian Embassy — considered kidnapping and assassinating him, plans that included a potential shoot-out on the streets of London with involvement by the Metropolitan Police?
How can Julian be condemned as a publisher when he did not, as Daniel Ellsberg did, obtain and leak the classified documents he published?
Why is the U.S. government not charging the publisher of The New York Times or The Guardian with espionage for publishing the same leaked material in partnership with WikiLeaks?
Why is Julian being held in isolation in a high-security prison without trial for nearly five years when his only technical violation of the law is breaching bail conditions when he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy? Normally this would entail a fine.
Why was he denied bail after he was sent to HM Prison Belmarsh?
If Julian is extradited, his judicial lynching will get worse. His defense will be stymied by U.S. anti-terrorism laws, including the Espionage Act and Special Administrative Measures (SAMs). He will continue being blocked from speaking to the public — except on a rare occasion — and being released on bail. He will be tried in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia where most espionage cases have been won by the U.S. government. That the jury pool is largely drawn from those who work for or have friends and relatives who work for the CIA, and other national security agencies that are headquartered not far from the court, no doubt contributes to this string of court decisions.
The British courts, from the inception, have made the case notoriously difficult to cover, severely limiting seats in the courtroom, providing video links that have been faulty, and in the case of the hearing this week, prohibiting anyone outside of England and Wales, including journalists who had previously covered the hearings, from accessing a link to what are supposed to be public proceedings.
As usual, we are not informed about schedules or timetables. Will the court render a decision at the end of the two-day hearing on Feb. 20 and Feb. 21? Or will it wait weeks, even months, to render a ruling as it has previously? Will it permit the ECtHR to hear the case or immediately railroad Julian to the U.S.? I have my doubts about the High Court passing the case to the ECtHR, given that the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, which created the ECtHR, along with their Commissioner for Human Rights, oppose Julian’s “detention, extradition and prosecution” because it represents “a dangerous precedent for journalists.” Will the court honor Julian’s request to be present in the hearing, or will he be forced to remain in the high-security HM Prison Belmarsh in Thamesmead, south east London, as has also happened before? No one is able to tell us.
Julian was saved from extradition in January 2021 when District Judge Vanessa Baraitser at Westminster Magistrates’ Court refused to authorize the extradition request. In her 132-page ruling, she found that there was a “substantial risk” Julian would commit suicide due to the severity of the conditions he would endure in the U.S. prison system. But this was a slim thread. The judge accepted all the charges leveled by the U.S. against Julian as being filed in good faith. She rejected the arguments that his case was politically motivated, that he would not get a fair trial in the U.S. and that his prosecution is an assault on the freedom of the press.
Baraitser’s decision was overturned after the U.S. government appealed to the High Court in London. Although the High Court accepted Baraitser’s conclusions about Julian’s “substantial risk” of suicide if he was subjected to certain conditions within a U.S. prison, it also accepted four assurances in U.S. Diplomatic Note no. 74, given to the court in February 2021, which promised Julian would be treated well.
The U.S. government claimed in the diplomatic note that its assurances “entirely answer the concerns which caused the judge [in the lower court] to discharge Mr. Assange.” The “assurances” state that Julian will not be subject to SAMs. They promise that Julian, an Australian citizen, can serve his sentence in Australia if the Australian government requests his extradition. They promise he will receive adequate clinical and psychological care. They promise that, pre-trial and post-trial, Julian will not be held in the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colorado.
It sounds reassuring. But it is part of the cynical judicial pantomime that characterizes Julian’s persecution.
No one is held pre-trial in ADX Florence. ADX Florence is also not the only supermax prison in the U.S. where Julian can be imprisoned. He could be placed in one of our other Guantanamo-like facilities in a Communications Management Unit (CMU). CMUs are highly restrictive units that replicate the near total isolation imposed by SAMs. The “assurances” are not legally binding. All come with escape clauses.
Should Julian do “something subsequent to the offering of these assurances that meets the tests for the imposition of SAMs or designation to ADX” he will, the court conceded, be subject to these harsher forms of control. If Australia does not request a transfer it “cannot be a cause for criticism of the USA, or a reason for regarding the assurances as inadequate to meet the judge’s concerns,” the ruling reads. And even if that were not the case, it would take Julian 10 to 15 years to appeal his sentence up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would be more than enough time to destroy him psychologically and physically. Amnesty International said the “assurances are not worth the paper they are written on.”
Julian’s lawyers will attempt to convince two High Court judges to grant him permission to appeal a number of the arguments against extradition which Judge Baraitser dismissed in January 2021. His lawyers, if the appeal is granted, will argue that prosecuting Julian for his journalistic activity represents a “grave violation” of his right to free speech; that Julian is being prosecuted for his political opinions, something which the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty does not allow; that Julian is charged with “pure political offenses” and the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty prohibits extradition under such circumstances; that Julian should not be extradited to face prosecution where the Espionage Act “is being extended in an unprecedented and unforeseeable way”; that the charges could be amended resulting in Julian facing the death penalty; and that Julian will not receive a fair trial in the U.S. They are also asking for the right to introduce new evidence about CIA plans to kidnap and assassinate Julian.
If the High Court grants Julian permission to appeal, a further hearing will be scheduled during which time he will argue his appeal grounds. If the High Court refuses to grant Julian permission to appeal, the only option left is to appeal to the ECtHR. If he is unable to take his case to the ECtHR he will be extradiated to the U.S.
The decision to seek Julian’s extradition, contemplated by Barack Obama’s administration, was pursued by Donald Trump’s administration following WikiLeaks’ publication of the documents known as Vault 7, which exposed the CIA’s cyberwarfare programs, including those designed to monitor and take control of cars, smart TVs, web browsers and the operating systems of most smart phones.
The Democratic Party leadership became as bloodthirsty as the Republicans following WikiLeaks’ publishing of tens of thousands of emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and senior Democratic officials, including those of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman during the 2016 presidential election.
The Podesta emails exposed that Clinton and other members of Obama’s administration knew that Saudi Arabia and Qatar — which had both donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation — were major funders of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They revealed transcripts of three private talks Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs — for which she was paid $675,000 — a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe. Clinton was seen in the emails telling the financial elites that she wanted “open trade and open borders” and believed Wall Street executives were best positioned to manage the economy, a statement that contradicted her campaign promises of financial reform. They exposed the Clinton campaign’s self-described “Pied Piper” strategy which used their press contacts to influence Republican primaries by “elevating” what they called “more extreme candidates,” to ensure Trump or Ted Cruz won their party’s nomination. They exposed Clinton’s advance knowledge of questions in a primary debate. The emails also exposed Clinton as one of the architects of the war and destruction of Libya, a war she believed would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate.
Journalists can argue that this information, like the war logs, should have remained secret. But if they do, they can’t call themselves journalists.
The Democratic leadership, which attempted to blame Russia for its election loss to Trump — in what became known as Russiagate — charged that the Podesta emails and the DNC leaks were obtained by Russian government hackers, although an investigation headed by Robert Mueller, the former FBI director, “did not develop sufficient admissible evidence that WikiLeaks knew of — or even was willfully blind to” any alleged hacking by the Russian state.
Julian is persecuted because he provided the public with the most important information about U.S. government crimes and mendacity since the release of the Pentagon Papers. Like all great journalists, he was nonpartisan. His target was power.
He made public the killing of nearly 700 civilians who had approached too closely to U.S. convoys and checkpoints, including pregnant women, the blind and deaf, and at least 30 children.
He made public the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians and the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 to 89, at Guantánamo Bay detention camp.
He showed us that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the U.K., spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords.
He exposed that Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA backed the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing him with a murderous and corrupt military regime.
He revealed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians.
No other contemporary journalist has come close to matching his revelations.
Julian is the first. We are next.
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Is The Pentagon Hiding War Crimes?
By Freddy Brewster
A declassified government report says documents about alleged atrocities have gone missing — and officials are flouting recordkeeping rules.
The Pentagon is not retaining comprehensive records of alleged war crimes in its global military operations as required by the Defense Department’s own policies, according to a declassified version of a government report reviewed by The Lever.The report found that an entire year’s worth of records that could include such allegations has gone missing from the military’s command center overseeing operations in the Middle East — a period that coincides with an independent watchdog group’s claims of war crimes committed in the region.
Government investigators found evidence of at least 47 allegations of U.S. military war crimes between 2012 and 2022 as the United States waged an air and ground war against the Islamic State in the Middle East and Africa. But a significant portion of information about alleged war crimes during that time was missing.
Military personnel were not able to provide records of potential war-crime allegations from the sub-command center overseeing operations in Iraq and Syria for all of 2015, when President Barack Obama oversaw thousands of airstrikes in the countries. And records that would have detailed allegations in 2017 were missing from the military’s Middle East command center.
That year, Amnesty International accused pro-Iraqi government forces — led by the U.S. military under the direction of President Donald Trump — of potentially committing war crimes amid the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
“While we have not yet had an opportunity to review the GAO report, we find it concerning if [the Defense Department] does not track or report on commission of war crimes,” said Daphne Eviatar, Director for Security with Human Rights at Amnesty International USA. “While in some cases [the Defense Department] has acknowledged civilian harm, it almost never acknowledges whether war crimes were committed or whether the incidents were investigated as potential war crimes.”
The revelations come from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s investigation of military recordkeeping. The analysis looks at a time period that began during Obama’s second term, as his administration created a “kill list” and ramped up drone strikes, whose casualty rates were shrouded in secrecy. GAO investigators also looked at Trump’s term and the first half of President Joe Biden’s term.
The GAO report honed in on Africa and the Middle East due to the “kinetic strike operations” that the U.S. military conducted in the regions from January 2012 through December 2022 as part of its war against the Islamic State.
The probe was a response to a Defense Department Inspector General investigation and a New York Times report that found deficiencies in how — and whether — the Pentagon tracked alleged war crimes.
The Times report focused on a 2019 U.S. bombing in Syria that killed more than 60 civilians — mostly women and children — that was actively covered up and never independently investigated by the U.S. military.
GAO investigators noted that while they found scores of war-crime allegations inside the military bureaucracy, the major military commands admitted they do not keep comprehensive records providing a full picture of the situation.
“Several components have not retained reports of alleged law of war violations as required by [Defense Department] guidance because there is no system to comprehensively retain such reports,” the report said. “Without a system to comprehensively retain records of allegations of law of war violations, [Defense Department] leadership may not be well positioned to fully implement the law of war.”
The GAO report found key failures in two Defense Department command centers — CENTCOM, which oversees the Middle East and parts of Asia, and AFRICOM, which oversees Africa.
Between 2014 and 2023, the Defense Department launched nearly 40,000 airstrikes in the two command areas. Those two command centers provided GAO records of at least 47 documented allegations of potential war crimes that took place between January 2012 and December 2022.
Investigators did not try to determine the validity of those alleged “law-of-war violations,” and noted that there could be other allegations that weren’t identified.
“We found that the alleged law-of-war violations obtained may not represent the entire universe of alleged violations, but we are not able to determine what that universe is,” the report stated.
The Department of Defense notes that the law of war is based on treaties and international laws applicable to the United States. The United Nations defines war crimes as, among other activities, killing civilians, torture, sexual violence, wanton destruction of civilian property, and taking hostages.
According to the report, key information was missing from the office overseeing military operations in Iraq and Syria, which has reportedly seen nearly 35,000 airstrikes from U.S.-led forces since the U.S. began bombing the area in 2014.
GAO noted that multiple Defense Department policies require proper war-crime recordkeeping. That includes the Defense Department’s Law of War Program, which requires the military to “maintain a central collection of information on reportable incidents.”
The report did not find instances of retaliation against military members who reported potential war crimes in the AFRICOM and CENTCOM areas. But it did note that the Defense Department’s Inspector General reported one case of retaliation during the timeframe.
“An investigation found that both the alleged reprisal and overarching alleged law of war violation were not substantiated,” the report noted.
CENTCOM
The Defense Department divides the world into six separate command zones and assigns a call name to each.
Of the 47 total reports of alleged war crimes the GAO found in its report, all but one took place under CENTCOM, which oversees operations in the “central” area of the globe, including interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. According to investigators, CENTCOM officials appeared to routinely lose or misplace records of war-crime allegations.
The sub-command center overseeing operations in Iraq and Syria faced 17 reported allegations of war crimes between 2012 and 2022, but only had summary-level records of two of the allegations on hand. In fact, the sub-command center couldn’t find any reports at all from 2015.
“Officials said that they could not locate [the] records and their current existence and locations are unknown,” the report found. “As a result we could not determine the circumstances of the two allegations or if they were committed by U.S. personnel.”
Officials said they did not know why there were no records from 2015, but said it may be due to a limited military presence in the area before 2016.
In October 2015, amid growing revelations and outcry over Obama’s drone war, U.S. forces bombed a Doctors without Borders-run hospital in Afghanistan, killing 22 people. The incident was later described as a “mission that went wrong from start to finish,” and resulted in 16 U.S. military personnel being punished via “administrative actions.”
CENTCOM was also missing documents tracking potential war crimes for 2017, for which officials provided no explanation.
“CENTCOM retained records of alleged law of war violations for 2012 through 2016 and 2018 through 2022, but did not have all records for 2017,” noted the GAO report.“CENTCOM officials did not know why a document tracking potential alleged law of war violations for 2017 was unavailable.”
In July 2017, Amnesty International claimed it had documented more than 400 civilian deaths in 45 attacks that year in Mosul by the Iraqi government or U.S.-backed forces, and noted that its tally was “very likely to be an underestimate.”
When GAO first requested documents from CENTCOM, investigators received 37 reports of war crime allegations. Later, the Defense Department’s Inspector General later provided five more reports, explaining they had not been included because CENTCOM joint operation centers do not usually receive those kinds of reports. Four additional reports were sent to the GAO from two other command centers.
AFRICOM
GAO investigators also scrutinized AFRICOM, a Germany-based command of 2,000 people that has spearheaded incursions in Libya and Somalia as part of war on the Islamic State, and found a single allegation of war crimes between 2012 and 2022.
According to the GAO report, that allegation was related to an unspecified incident that occurred in August 2017.
In 2017, U.S. bombing in Somalia reportedly became “excessive” after Trump signed an executive order that March declaring the southern portion of Somalia an “area of active hostilities.”
“U.S. forces carried out 34 strikes in Somalia in the last nine months of 2017 – more than in the entire five years from 2012 to 2016,” Amnesty International wrote.
The human rights group claimed that the U.S. bombing in Somalia may be considered war crimes.
“Amnesty International uncovered compelling evidence that US air strikes killed a total of 14 civilians and injured eight more, in five attacks that may have violated international humanitarian law and could, in some cases, constitute war crimes,” wrote the group.
The GAO report also noted that AFRICOM’s policy on war-crime reporting “does not fully align” with Defense Department requirements.
Among other concerns, the report noted that current AFRICOM policy failed to define what exactly would qualify as “credible information” about a potential war crime violation, justifying an investigation into the matter. AFRICOM also failed to define “reportable incidents,” or initial reports of potential wartime law violations.
GAO investigators also called out the command center’s convoluted and inefficient process for reporting war crimes allegations.
“By waiting for formal investigations to conclude before determining whether an allegation is supported by credible information, AFRICOM risks failing to report reportable incidents in a timely manner,” the report states.
AFRICOM command last updated its war crime-reporting policies in 2014, and AFRICOM officials admitted that they had failed to update it because “other priorities took precedence over updating its policy,” the report stated.
AFRICOM officials said that although their current policy is outdated, it still abided by the proper Defense Department policies. The GAO report disagreed.
“Without a current policy aligned to DOD requirements, AFRICOM officials may not be reporting all alleged law-of- war violations as required,” the report stated. “As a result, AFRICOM leadership may not be fully aware of all such allegations within their command or be in a position to forward reportable incidents to senior DOD leadership as required.”
No “Comprehensive Set Of Records”
The new GAO report, released Feb. 13, is based on a classified report the agency provided to the Department of Defense in December 2023 after it scrutinized records and interviewed officials from across the Defense Department.
GAO investigators didn’t just limit their criticisms to specific command centers. They found that the Defense Department as a whole lacked a unified system to track potential war crimes across the entire agency, instead leaving tracking to individual operations across the world.
“No single entity above the combatant commands retains a comprehensive set of records for either reportable incidents or those found to be unsupported by credible information,” noted their report.
A core part of the GAO report focused on law-of-war training for military members from each branch.
According to the Pentagon’s wartime engagement policies, all military members must receive training on when to engage with a potential enemy threat and how to minimize civilian deaths.
One official from the CENTCOM sub-command center overseeing Iraq and Syria told GAO representatives that the pre-deployment training was “not the best, but it covered all of the necessary points,” and that military members deployed for war “would know how to identify and report a law-of-war violation.”
As part of its report, the GAO issued just two recommendations to the Defense Department: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that AFRICOM updates its guidance on reporting allegations of war crimes; and that the Secretary of Defense ensures the implementation of a comprehensive recordkeeping system for all war-crime allegations.
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Zie ook: 'Navalny: de waarheid over deze fascistische-misdadiger, geëerd als vrijheidsstrijder en oppositieleider van Rusland: alweerdesinformatie van westerse massamedia op topniveau' Uiteraard met aandacht voor Julian Assange.
'De Israëlische oorlog tegen journalisten en daarmee tegen de waarheid......' Ook in dit bericht aandacht voor Julian.
'VS is mede hoofdverantwoordelijk voor de dood van een VS-Chileense journalist (Gonzalo Lira) in een geheime Oekraïense gevangenis..... Leve de democratie en de vrijheid....' En dan maakt men zich in de westerse media en politiek druk om de dood van fascist Navalny en laat daarbij Assange wegrotten in een Britse cel >> als het even 'meezit' straks in een VS cel wat is te vergelijken met de hel........
'DeBVD (voormalige Nederlandse geheime dienst) zag overlevenden vanconcentratiekampen als een communistisch gevaar.......' Ook in dit bericht aandacht voor Julian.
'Sacharovprijs voor Navalny, betaald door het Europees parlement en Stoltenberg stelt dat de NAVO een aanval op Rusland zal winnen' De neonazi en misdadiger Navalny krijgt een prijs en klokkenluider Assange, die deze prijs had moeten krijgen zit in isolatiefolter voor het openbaren van ernstige misdaden >> schande!!!
'Antony Blinken (VS minister BuZa) leest de wereld de les over persvrijheid terwijl zijn eigen regering deze zwaar geweld aandoet' Waarvan Julian Assange wel het grootste slachtoffer is!! Afgelopen zondag (het is tijdens deze toevoeging dinsdag 4 mei 2022/////) vond het White House Correspondents' Dinner plaats en ook daar deed men net alsof de pers volkomen vrij is in de VS, waaraan zelfs 'komiek' Trevor Noah van The Daily Show meewerkte, een leugen van enorme proporties, zie wat dat betreft ook het artikel dat Caitlin Johnstone over dit diner heeft geschreven: 'A Weird, Stupid Dystopia'
'Het USA justitieel- en gevangenissysteem: een vergelijking met De Goelag Archipel van Solzjenitsyn' En zie berichten onder de links in dat artikel.
'Navalny slachtoffer? Assange is het echte slachtoffer!!'
'Navalny wordt geprezen terwijl Assange wordt gemarteld'
'Het westen vervolgt journalist Assange, Rusland laat journalist vrij na onrust over diens gevangenschap' En nog hadden de reguliere media een grote bek over Rusland, media die niet anders hebben gedaan dan collega Assange besmeuren.....
'Assange (nog) niet uitgeleverd aan de VS tegen een hoge prijs: het verpletteren van de persvrijheid'
'Internationale Dag van de Persvrijheid: geen aandacht voor de isolatiefolter die onderzoeksjournalist Julian Assange al 3 jaar ondergaat' en zie wat betreft Julian ook de berichten onder de volgende links:
'Rijk en regering wantrouwen burgers: massale controles op personen, plus druk op grote techbedrijven voor censuur op sociale media.......' (en zie de links in dat bericht!!)
'Drone slachtoffers door VS ingrijpen: ook de klokkenluiders die één en ander openbaarden'
'Instagram censureert berichten die niet passen in het buitenlandbeleid van de VS'
'Julian Assange: als het fascisme haar vermommingen laat vallen // Julians herseninfarct als teken van zijn onmenselijke behandeling' (en zie de links in dat bericht)
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Let op!! De ruimte om reacties weer te geven werkt niet altijd. Als je commentaar hebt en het lukt niet op de normale manier, doe dit dan via het mailadres trippleu@gmail.com, ik zal deze dan opnemen onderaan in het bewuste artikel, althans als je geen geweld predikt, voorts plaats ik jouw reactie ook al staat deze diametraal tegenover dat bericht. Alvast mijn dank voor jouw eventuele reactie, Willem.
