Are the "Geneva Conventions" Irrelevant?

The Geneva Conventions - the bedrock of the laws of war, and one of the world's most widely ratified treaties - at least among the civilized nations of our world, turned 60 last month. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, states that it is Israel's view that one prevails in "asymmetric warfare" only by pummeling rather than protecting civilians, though that concept is not only illegal but also counterproductive. Contrary to Netanyahu's claim, what needs rewriting is not the Geneva Conventions but Israel's abusive and illegal war strategy. Shortly after a UN fact-finding mission led by former South African Justice Richard Goldstone issued a report this fall lambasting Israel, as well as Hamas for war crimes, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu instructed his government "to examine the facilitating of an international initiative to change the laws of war in keeping with the spread of terrorism throughout the world." The Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols have long imposed strict rules on the conduct of hostilities designed to protect civilians from these conflicts." But not, it seems, in land coveted by Israel!
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About the Geneva Conventions:

The "Geneva Conventions" are the bedrock of the laws of war, and one of the world's most ratified treaties. Happy Birthday-for they turned 60 in March, but one government is not celebrating: In fact, Israel had already launched a campaign to undermine these essential rules for protecting civilians caught in war: Shortly after a UN fact-finding mission led by former South African Justice Richard Goldstone issued a report lambasting Israel (and Hamas) for war crimes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "instructed" his government to "examine the facilitating of an international initiative to change the laws of war in keeping with the spread of terrorism throughout the world".
Israeli officials claimed that the laws of war tied the hands of "democratic governments". At the time of the adoption of the Geneva Conventions in 1949, the militant Zionist group "Irgun" found the "Geneva Conventions" useful for their purpose in depriving the Palestinians of their land. Now, no longer need these "outmoded" conventions, and they chose to ignore them when they decided to use such weapons as heavy artillery, flechettes, and white phosphorus (which cause horrible burns, especially in the densely populated areas of Gaza. (I was careful to use WP only as an artillery marker round, when I had to resort to artillery to keep my advisory team safe from enemy fire in the Iron Triangle, near Trung Lap.) No other Western military doctrine today permits such deliberate flouting of the rules of war - but then there is "Israel".

Vietnam "Deja-Vu"?

Are we really condemned to repeat the mistakes our army suffered in the Vietnam War, in which I served? On 7 June, 1971, Colonel Robert D. Heinl, Jr. wrote a very revealing analysis of the dismal state of our Armed Forces, which was included in my own analysis, from my perspective as Advisory Team Leader in Ngo Trang and Trung Lap: "By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous. Intolerably clobbered and buffeted from without and within by social turbulence, pandemic drug addiction, race war, sedition, etc., etc. I can personally attest the veracity of Colonel Heinl's statements, when my boss, Major Kurbow, decided to move my team from Trung Lap, to a supposedly "safe" area in Cu Chi, right next to the huge base of our 25th Infantry Division. Though the American soldiers from one of the 25th Division were outstanding, when they moved to their assigned ambushes, the drunk and stoned assholes from the bunkers tried to shoot the soldiers from their own base camps, until I used the land line I had one of the Division's helicopters lay from the American bunker, only a few hundred feet from my outside wire, advising these assholes. that in case of any additional fire from their position, I would use my stash of Communist B-40 Ammunition to blow these stoned bastards up. They seemed to understand my logic, and we had no additional problems from these idiotic base camp warriors.

What in the hell is going on in Kyrgyzstan??

Last week's riots in Kyrgyzstan's capital, following the earlier riots in the capital Bishkek, allow us to understand the fragile nature of our American Afghan army's supply line vulnerability. It was the US that was there in 2005 that Bakiyev, tried to have the best of both "big power worlds", brashly threatening to close the US airbase in his country, after signing a cushy aid deal with Russia, though he reversed himself when the US agreed to more than triple the rent to $60 million a year, and "kick in" another $100m in aid - it's just our taxes at work, and Obama knows we will always pay up - or else! Nevertheless, as Eric McGlinchey in the New York Times points out, Kyrgyzstan is in Russia's backyard, and the fact that we depend on our airbase there for OUR Afghan war does not change that!

The Jews Control what is left of America

Please check JeffRense.com to find out the sordid truth about who controls America. When I served as Intelligence Operations Officer of our 4th US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany, I found out much of what serves as the truth about our relationship with the rogue "state" of Israel, but now I, and my fellow veterans, who fought in Vietnam, will know "the rest of the story". When our soldiers fight any war in our troubled world, they are not fighting for America, but for the rogue "state" of Israel. As that country's rabid leaders like to boast: "I want to tell you something very clear. Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the "Americans" know it. (Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister, October 3, 2001.) Was that rude comment timed to coincide with the Israeli destruction of our world trade center in New York?

100,000 Soldiers Used as Chips in a Bet We Can't Win

So far, our war in Afghanistan has claimed more than one thousand American lives, and recently the lives of more than four thousand Afghan civilians. It is also costing the American taxpayer over three-and-a-half BILLION dollars every month, a total of $264 billion so far, without positive results. Meanwhile, Hamid Karzai, our American potentate "de jour" is becoming more and more unstable behind the wheel of his ship. Now, he is even making THREATS against the western coalition which is shedding its sons' blood and treasure on his behalf. The pro-American "Economist" magazine sees things much more clearly, questioning whether our entire effort in Afghanistan has been nothing than a meaningless exercise of misguided violence. Andrew Bacevich, who served 23 years in our army, some of them in Vietnam, and who is now professor of history and international relations at Boston University, questions whether we have strayed much to far from the path we might successfully have followed in Afghanistan: One of the core principles in our adventure would have required that we behave in ways which would demonstrate our benign intentions - that we were there to protect the country's population.
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Will our response to an attack against Iran start a new nuclear war?

"The aftermath of a strike against Iran will be terrible not only for Asia, but for us and the whole global community", said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen recently, but the Russian General Makarov doubted that even the Israelis would carry out this foolish scenario until the military conquests of Iraq and Afghanistan had been completed. "They first soften up a country with economic sanctions, which don't undermine the government, before they launch a military intervention. There is the possibility for military action on the part of both Israel and the United States together or separately."
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