Stephen Lendman -- UN Secretary General Guterres Fails to Condemn US Assassinations in Iraq

UN Secretary General Guterres Fails to Condemn US Assassinations in Iraq

By Stephen Lendman

Global Research, January 05, 2020

Region: Middle East & North Africa

Theme: Law and Justice, United Nations

UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Agnes Callamard slammed the Trump regime’s assassination of Iranian General Soleimani, Iraqi Deputy PMU leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and others with them, tweeting the following:

“The targeted killings of Qasem Soleiman and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis are most likely unlawful and violate international human rights law.”

“Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal.”

“Another major problem with extra territorial targeted killings is the lack of oversight.”

“Executives decide who may be killed outside due process, when it acts in self-defense, against whom and how. Without approval of Parliaments.”

Pompeo commented on Soleimani’s assassination with a litany of Big Lies, saying:

The Trump regime “deci(ded) to eliminate Soleimani in response to imminent threats to American lives (sic).

“(O)ur commitment (is) to deescalation (sic).”

Assassinating Soleimani was a “defensive action (to counter)  aggressive threats posed by the Iranian Quds Force (sic).”

He “was actively plotting in the region to take actions…that would have put dozens if not hundreds of American lives at risk (sic).”

All of the above is pure rubbish, believed by no one understanding how the US operates — by its own rules extrajudicially in pursuit of its imperial aims.

Killing Soleimani, Muhandis, and others with them was US cold-blooded murder, an unjustifiable high crime.

The Pentagon unjustifiably justified its criminal act, saying the following:

ERIC ZUESSE -- The Lies That Are Used for Denying the Legitimacy of Crimea’s Breakaway

The Lies That Are Used for Denying the Legitimacy of Crimea’s Breakaway

Eric Zuesse

 December 23, 2019

© Photo: pxhere.com

Crimea’s breakaway from Ukraine and rejoining Russia is treated in the US-and-allied world as being justification for the explosive re-emergence in 2014 of America’s Cold War NATO alliance as being a restored war against Russia; and, so, whether or not that ‘justification’ is truthful is the paramount geopolitical issue in our era; and it will therefore be discussed and (via the links here) documented in this article.

Though international law is generally an unenforced mess that is interpretable far more by partisanship than by any clearly applicable principles, the US Government does quite blatantly violate it on a routine basis, by means of coups and invasions against countries that never invaded nor threatened to invade the US; but, if anything at all is clear in international law, it is that Crimea’s breaking away from Ukraine and rejoining Russia in 2014 was entirely legitimate, as will be documented here, by exposing the lies that are adduced on the US side, in order to allege that it’s not legitimate.

First, however, will be a bit of essential historical background, which is commonly ignored in arguments by the pro-US-regime liars on this matter: From 1783 to 1954, Crimea was part of Russia. Crimea was arbitrarily transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 by the dictator of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khruschev, who was a Ukrainian and didn’t consult the residents of Crimea about this handover of them to Ukraine. Crimeans were so opposed to being ruled from the foreign-language-speaking and largely pro-Nazi (and anti-Semitic and anti-Russian) Ukrainians to their north, so that as soon as the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, the only way that Crimeans would tolerate any continuation of their formal association with Ukraine was by being declared Ukraine’s “autonomous republic” (the only one) in Ukraine. This situation of partial Crimean independence continued until Ukraine was conquered (via coup) by the US regime, in order to be handed over first to the European Union, and then, after the EU would accept Ukraine, to NATO, which military alliance with the US was extremely unpopular in Ukraine until the American conquest and the immediately subsequent takeover of Ukraine by pro-US oligarchs, who were eager to buy more privatized and formerly Soviet state-owned properties, in basically insider deals with the now US-controlled Ukrainian Government. Those oligarchs’ ‘news’-media successfully propagandized most Ukrainians to switch from being anti-NATO to pro-NATO. However, right at the time of the coup, Crimeans demonstrated in Kiev against the CIA-organized Maidan demostrations, and on the day of the coup, February 20th, those Crimeans in Kiev were forced by the US-supported nazis to flee there, but the eight buses carrrying them were blocked en-route, and an unknown number of the fleeing Crimeans were killed. Many of the surviving ones were permanently injured. Crimeans were terrified and some of them wrote to friends in the West regarding the terror and their fears. All of this information is ignored by the proponents of the illegality of Crimea’s separation from Ukraine, because, clearly, the basic human rights of Crimeans were then under very palpable and severe threat by the US-imposed forces; and, so, any ‘legal’ argument for forcing Crimeans to remain Ukrainians was and is fake. But, still, legal arguments for forcing Crimeans to be Ukrainians again are presented; and, so, here is a quick introduction to those frauds.