Juan Cole reports that House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Eliot Engel (D-NY) has criticized the administration for its assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in response to a report fresh our of the DOD that said the attack was for past activities by Iran in attacking tankers and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia without any mention of a threat against US personnel in Iraq, the ostensible reason and the only legal reason for doing this.
Cole also reminds that Soleimani had been in Baghdad to negotiate peace with Saudi Arabia at the invitation of the Iraqi prime minister. e also reminds us that the Iraqis are denying that the original attack that killed the American contractor and initiated the escalation by the US before the Soleimani attack almost certainly did not come from Kata'ib Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia the US claimed was respoinsible because that Shia militia has not been anywhere near the base in Kirkuk that was attacked for 18 months, with the attack almost surely having come from ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. This puts the US attack that also killed the I Iraqi general who commanded Kata'ib Hezbollah to be utterly illegal and essentially just murder and a war crime.
As it is, the Iraqi government is negotiating to get US troops out. What may happen is that US troops will leave all areas dominated by Shia, with the US insisting on keeping some troops at the air base in Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province that Iran attacked in retaliation for the Soleimani attack and that led to over 100 Americans suffering brain injuries.
This just gets worse and worse as time goes on and more information comes out, although Trump supporters will almost hear none of this and continue to be told how this was some great foreign policy triumph by Trump.
Barkley Rosser
6 comments:
Daish/ISIL, the enemy the US cannot kill off.
Iraq, since at least last fall, has a 'caretaker' prime minister. Parliament needs to confidence vote M. Allawi to form a government.
Kurd and Sunni MP's largely boycotted the vote on US forces withdrawal, the Shi'a factions alone met a quorum. The PM if he is ever installed will act on the vote or not.
https://time.com/5759101/iraqi-parliament-vote-for-us-withdrawal/
A few early on in the Iraq 'project' suggested breaking up Iraq on Sunni - Shi'a lines.........
al Anbar,,,, one of the ponds in which al Qaeda and Daish swim.
Excellent and necessary post.
That this assassination was a criminal act must have been understood by a range of administration security personnel and by a number of members of Congress and by a range of reporters and editors as the criminality of the act was publicly clear from the beginning.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/opinion/letters/us-iran-killing.html
The ‘Immoral’ Killing of the Iranian General
A former Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor says the American public deserves to know the truth.
January 15, 2020
To the Editor:
Now in my hundredth year, I cannot remain silent. I entered the United States in January 1921 as a poor immigrant boy, and I have felt obliged to repay the United States for the opportunities given to me.
I was an American combat soldier in World War II, and was proud to serve my country as the chief prosecutor in a war crimes trial at Nuremberg against Nazi leaders who murdered millions of innocent men, women and children.
The administration recently announced that, on orders of the president, the United States had “taken out” (which really means “murdered”) an important military leader of a country with which we were not at war. As a Harvard Law School graduate who has written extensively on the subject, I view such immoral action as a clear violation of national and international law.
The public is entitled to know the truth. The United Nations Charter, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are all being bypassed. In this cyberspace world, young people everywhere are in mortal danger unless we change the hearts and minds of those who seem to prefer war to law.
Benjamin B. Ferencz
Delray Beach, Fla.
Benjamin B. Ferencz is what it is to be moral, ethical and heroic. The "murder" on a diplomatic mission in Iraq of a military leader of Iran was a danger to America as a country of law.
Barkley Rosser has done us an important and brave service by making clear what this act meant and means.
Thank you, Barkley Rosser.
Again, this post by Barkley Rosser is necessary and starkly important and heroic. I feel indebted to Rosser.
SecState Pompeo at Munich Security Conference, today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q70ttrNYiF4
Listen to the part about certain other country's respect for territorial sovereignty/integrity and political structures!
is reported to have "went off" on China's growing "challenge" to the rules based world order (status quo ante).
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