• For more than two weeks now, unbearable images of human tragedy have come out of Gaza. Women, children and elderly people are being killed, hospitals and schools have been bombarded – no one is spared. As I write this, UNRWA, the United Nations agency for #Palestine refugees, has already, tragically, lost 35 of its staff, many killed while in their homes with their families.

      Entire neighbourhoods are being flattened over the heads of civilians in one of the most overcrowded spots on Earth. The IDF has been warning Palestinians in #Gaza to move to the southern part of the strip as it bombs the north; but the strikes also continue in the south. There is nowhere safe in Gaza.

      Nearly 600,000 people are sheltering in 150 schools and other UNRWA buildings, living in unsanitary conditions with limited clean water, little food and medicines. Mothers do not know how they can clean their children. Pregnant women pray that they will not face complications during delivery because hospitals have no capacity to receive them. Entire families now live in our buildings because they have nowhere else to go. But our facilities are not safe – 40 UNRWA buildings, including schools and warehouses, have been damaged by the strikes. Many civilians sheltering inside them were, tragically, killed.

      Gaza has been described over the last 15 years as a large open-air prison, with an air, sea and land blockade choking 2.2 million people within 365 sq km. Most young people have never left Gaza. Today, this prison is becoming the graveyard of a population trapped between war, siege and deprivation.

      For the past few days, intense negotiations at the highest levels finally allowed very limited humanitarian supplies into the strip. While the breakthrough is welcome, these trucks are a trickle rather than the flow of aid that a humanitarian situation of this magnitude requires. Twenty trucks of food and medical supplies are a drop in the ocean for the needs of more than 2 million civilians. Fuel, though, has been firmly denied to Gaza. Without it, there will be no humanitarian response, no aid reaching people in need, no power for hospitals, no water, no bread.

      Before 7 October, Gaza received some 500 trucks of food and other supplies every day, including 45 trucks of fuel to power the strip’s cars, water desalination plants and bakeries. Today, Gaza is being strangled, and the few convoys now entering will not assuage the civilian population’s sentiment that they have been abandoned and sacrificed by the world.

      On 7 October, Hamas committed unspeakable massacres of Israeli civilians that may amount to war crimes. The UN condemned this horrific act in the strongest terms. But let there be no shadow of a doubt – this does not justify the ongoing crimes against the civilian population of Gaza, including its 1 million children.

      The UN charter and our commitments are a commitment to our shared humanity. Civilians – wherever they are – must be protected equally. Gaza’s civilians did not choose this war. Atrocities should not be followed by more atrocities. The response to war crimes is not more #war_crimes. The framework of international law is very clear on this and well established.

      It will take genuine and courageous efforts to go back to the roots of this deadly deadlock and offer political options that are viable and can enable an environment of peace, stability and security. Until then, we must make sure that the rules of international humanitarian law are respected, and civilians spared and protected. An immediate humanitarian ceasefire must be enacted to allow safe, continuous and unrestricted access to fuel, medicine, water and food in the Gaza Strip.

      Dag Hammarskjöld, the second UN secretary-general, once said: “The UN was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” The reality today in Gaza is that there is not much humanity left and hell is settling in.

      The generations to come will know that we watched this human tragedy unfold over social media and news channels. We will not be able to say we did not know . History will ask why the world did not have the courage to act decisively and stop this hell on Earth.

      Philippe Lazzarini is commissioner-general of #UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees

      (dsl mais ça va plus vite pour moi de disposer de l’approximative trad automatique ici pour la confronter à ma compréhension limitée de l’anglais, alors j’imagine que je suis pas le seul)

      #Israël #Gaza #crimes_de_guerre #cesser_le_feu

  • U.S. War_Crimes in #Afghanistan Won’t Be Investigated — The Spark #1080
    https://the-spark.net/np1080601.html #CPI #crime_de_guerre #violence_sexuelle

    In 2017, the prosecutor for the #International_Criminal_Court (#ICC), Fatou Bensouda, asked to open an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan. She said these were carried out by all sides, including the U.S. and the U.S.-backed government.

    She said, “There is reasonable basis to believe that, since May 2003, members of the U.S. armed forces and the #CIA have committed #war_crimes of #torture and #cruel_treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and other forms of #sexual_violence pursuant to a policy approved by U.S. authorities.” And she submitted more than 20,000 pages of evidence to back up her charges.

    But no surprise – the U.S. blocked this investigation. First, they revoked Bensouda’s visa, effectively kicking her out of the country. Then, in April of this year, the judges at the court rejected her request to investigate. They noted that they have been unable to get the U.S. to cooperate, and said the ICC should “use its resources prioritizing activities that would have a better chance to succeed.”

    Yes, the ICC has a better chance of “success” – but only if its investigations fit the interests of U.S. #imperialism!

  • In the Name of Africa: Former President of #Chad Hissène Habré will stand trial in #Senegal
    http://africasacountry.com/in-the-name-of-africa-former-president-of-chad-hissene-habre-will-s

    Five years ago, I wrote, “It is unlikely that Habré will ever have his day in court because of the unwillingness to speed up the process of his trial, and.....

    #AFRICA_IS_A_COUNTRY #International_Court #POLITICS #War_Crimes

  • Of course, the righteous nations of the west would never assassinate journalists, except of course when they do - but, you know, it is different because they support an evil regime. In a statement of 8 April 1999, #NATO indicated that the #RTS studios in #Belgrad would be targeted unless they broadcast 6 hours per day of Western media reports: “If President #Milosevic would provide equal time for Western news broadcasts in its programmes without censorship 3 hours a day between noon and 1800 and 3 hours a day between 1800 and midnight, then his TV could be an acceptable instrument of public information” (http://www.icty.org/sid/10052#IVB3). The RTS station was bombed on 23/4/99 - sixteen employees died. Nobody was held accountable for the attack.

    Yes, Milosevic was busy with #war_crimes. Yes, RTS was instrumental to propaganda supporting them.

    So, to recapitulate: journalists who support a government that is criminal according to your laws are fair game - especially if your laws are universal laws that obviously apply to all humanity (such as the Universal Declaration of #Human_rights or the rulings of your favourite religious leaders). Oh noes you say - human rights are natural rights and supporting them is entirely different to any religious creed. Are you sure ? At the very least it makes for an interesting philosophical debate. http://www.ethicsandglobalpolitics.net/index.php/egp/article/view/26262 #religion #philosophy #terrorism #journalism

    At least, killing journalists in the name of religion or equivalents thereof is something we can all agree on

    (also blogged at
    http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/2015/01/20/at-least-killing-in-the-name-of-religion-or-equivalents-there)

  • Chris #Hedges Interviews Noam #Chomsky (1/3)

    Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges speaks with Professor Noam Chomsky about working-class resistance during the Industrial Revolution, propaganda, and the historical role played by intellectuals in times of war - June 17, 14

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwRf5HHm2Mo

    – chez TRNN avec une trace écrite: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12006

    [...]

    [I]n the early 19th century, the business world recognized, both in England and the United States, that sufficient freedom had been won so that they could no longer control people just by violence. They had to turn to new means of control. The obvious ones were control of opinions and attitudes. That’s the origins of the massive public relations industry, which is explicitly dedicated to controlling minds and attitudes.

    The first—it partly was government. The first government commission was the British Ministry of Information. This is long before Orwell—he didn’t have to invent it. So the Ministry of Information had as its goal to control the minds of the people of the world, but particularly the minds of American intellectuals, for a very good reason: they knew that if they can delude American intellectuals into supporting British policy, they could be very effective in imposing that on the population of the United States. The British, of course, were desperate to get the Americans into the war with a pacifist population. Woodrow Wilson won the 1916 election with the slogan “Peace without Victory”. And they had to drive a pacifist population into a population that bitterly hated all things German, wanted to tear the Germans apart. The Boston Symphony Orchestra couldn’t play Beethoven. You know. And they succeeded.

    Wilson set up a counterpart to the Ministry of Information called the Committee on Public Information. You know, again, you can guess what it was. And they’ve at least felt, probably correctly, that they had succeeded in carrying out this massive change of opinion on the part of the population and driving the pacifist population into, you know, warmongering fanatics.

    And the people on the commission learned a lesson. One of them was Edward Bernays, who went on to found—the main guru of the public relations industry. Another one was Walter Lippman, who was the leading progressive intellectual of the 20th century. And they both drew the same lessons, and said so.

    The lessons were that we have what Lippmann called a “new art” in democracy, “manufacturing consent”. That’s where Ed Herman and I took the phrase from. For Bernays it was “engineering of consent”. The conception was that the intelligent minority, who of course is us, have to make sure that we can run the affairs of public affairs, affairs of state, the economy, and so on. We’re the only ones capable of doing it, of course. And we have to be—I’m quoting—"free of the trampling and the roar of the bewildered herd", the “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders”—the general public. They have a role. Their role is to be “spectators”, not participants. And every couple of years they’re permitted to choose among one of the “responsible men”, us.

    And the John Dewey circle took the same view. Dewey changed his mind a couple of years later, to his credit, but at that time, Dewey and his circle were writing that—speaking of the First World War, that this was the first war in history that was not organized and manipulated by the military and the political figures and so on, but rather it was carefully planned by rational calculation of “the intelligent men of the community”, namely us, and we thought it through carefully and decided that this is the reasonable thing to do, for all kind of benevolent reasons.

    And they were very proud of themselves.

    There were people who disagreed. Like, Randolph Bourne disagreed. He was kicked out. He couldn’t write in the Deweyite journals. He wasn’t killed, you know, but he was just excluded.

    And if you take a look around the world, it was pretty much the same. The intellectuals on all sides were passionately dedicated to the national cause—all sides, Germans, British, everywhere.

    There were a few, a fringe of dissenters, like Bertrand Russell, who was in jail; Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, in jail; Randolph Bourne, marginalized; Eugene Debs, in jail for daring to question the magnificence of the war. In fact, Wilson hated him with such passion that when he finally declared an amnesty, Debs was left out, you know, had to wait for Warren Harding to release him. And he was the leading labor figure in the country. He was a candidate for president, Socialist Party, and so on.

    But the lesson that came out is we believe you can and of course ought to control the public, and if we can’t do it by force, we’ll do it by manufacturing consent, by engineering of consent. Out of that comes the huge public relations industry, massive industry dedicated to this.

    Incidentally, it’s also dedicated to undermining markets, a fact that’s rarely noticed but is quite obvious. Business hates markets. They don’t want to—and you can see it very clearly. Markets, if you take an economics course, are based on rational, informed consumers making rational choices. Turn on the television set and look at the first ad you see. It’s trying to create uninformed consumers making irrational choices. That’s the whole point of the huge advertising industry. But also to try to control and manipulate thought. And it takes various forms in different institutions. The media do it one way, the academic institutions do it another way, and the educational system is a crucial part of it.

    This is not a new observation. There’s actually an interesting essay by—Orwell’s, which is not very well known because it wasn’t published. It’s the introduction to Animal Farm. In the introduction, he addresses himself to the people of England and he says, you shouldn’t feel too self-righteous reading this satire of the totalitarian enemy, because in free England, ideas can be suppressed without the use of force. And he doesn’t say much about it. He actually has two sentences. He says one reason is the press “is owned by wealthy men” who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed.

    But the second reason, and the more important one in my view, is a good education, so that if you’ve gone to all the good schools, you know, Oxford, Cambridge, and so on, you have instilled into you the understanding that there are certain things it wouldn’t do to say—and I don’t think he went far enough: wouldn’t do to think. And that’s very broad among the educated classes. That’s why overwhelmingly they tend to support state power and state violence, and maybe with some qualifications, like, say, Obama is regarded as a critic of the invasion of Iraq. Why? Because he thought it was a strategic blunder. That puts him on the same moral level as some Nazi general who thought that the second front was a strategic blunder—you should knock off England first. That’s called criticism.

    [...]

    #industrialisation
    #media #histoire #Geschichte #institution
    #USA #England #Angleterre
    #Grande-Bretagne #Great_Britain #Großbritannien
    #Allemagne #Germany #Deutschland

    #contrôle #Kontrolle
    #résistance #Widerstand
    #working_class #ouvriers #Arbeiterklasse
    #éducation #Bildung
    #intellectuels

    • Chris Hedges Interviews Noam Chomsky (2/3)

      http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12016

      [...]

      Like a lot of people, I’ve written a lot about media and intellectual propaganda, but there’s another question which isn’t studied much: how effective is it? And that’s—when you brought up the polls, it’s a striking illustration. The propaganda is—you can see from the poll results that the propaganda has only limited effectiveness. I mean, it can drive a population into terror and fear and war hysteria, like before the Iraq invasion or 1917 and so on, but over time, public attitudes remain quite different. In fact, studies even of what’s called the right-wing, you know, people who say, get the government off my back, that kind of sector, they turn out to be kind of social democratic. They want more spending on health, more spending on education, more spending on, say, women with dependent children, but not welfare, no spending on welfare, because Reagan, who was an extreme racist, succeeded in demonizing the notion of welfare. So in people’s minds welfare means a rich black woman driving in her limousine to the welfare office to steal your money. Well, nobody wants that. But they want what welfare does.

      Foreign aid is an interesting case. There’s an enormous propaganda against foreign aid, ’cause we’re giving everything to the undeserving people out there. You take a look at public attitudes. A lot of opposition to foreign aid. Very high. On the other hand, when you ask people, how much do we give in foreign aid? Way beyond what we give. When you ask what we should give in foreign aid, far above what we give.

      And this runs across the board. Take, say taxes. There’ve been studies of attitudes towards taxes for 40 years. Overwhelmingly the population says taxes are much too low for the rich and the corporate sector. You’ve got to raise it. What happens? Well, the opposite.

      [...]

      #propagande
      #effectiveness #efficacité #Effizienz

    • Chris Hedges Interviews Noam Chomsky (3/3)

      http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12018

      #ows #occupy
      #cooperatives

      [...]

      Well, I think it’s a little misleading to call it a movement. Occupy was a tactic, in fact a brilliant tactic. I mean, if I’d been asked a couple of months earlier whether they should take over public places, I would have said it’s crazy. But it worked extremely well, and it lit a spark which went all over the place. Hundreds and hundreds of places in the country, there were Occupy events. It was all over the world. I mean, I gave talks in Sydney, Australia, to the Occupy movement there. But it was a tactic, a very effective tactic. Changed public discourse, not policy. It brought issues to the forefront.I think my own feeling is its most important contribution was just to break through the atomization of the society. I mean, it’s a very atomized society. There’s all sorts of efforts to separate people from one another, as if the ideal social unit is, you know, you and your TV set.

      HEDGES: You know, Hannah Arendt raises atomization as one of the key components of totalitarianism.

      CHOMSKY: Exactly. And the Occupy actions broke that down for a large part of the population. People could recognize that we can get together and do things for ourselves, we can have a common kitchen, we can have a place for public discourse, we can form our ideas and do something. Now, that’s an important attack on the core of the means by which the public is controlled. So you’re not just an individual trying to maximize your consumption, but there are other concerns in life, and you can do something about them. If those attitudes and associations and bonds can be sustained and move in other directions, that’ll be important.

      But going back to Occupy, it’s a tactic. Tactics have a kind of a half-life. You can’t keep doing them, and certainly you can’t keep occupying public places for very long. And was very successful, but it was not in itself a movement. The question is: what happens to the people who were involved in it? Do they go on and develop, do they move into communities, pick up community issues? Do they organize?

      Take, say, this business of, say, worker-owned industry. Right here in Massachusetts, not far from here, there was something similar. One of the multinationals decided to close down a fairly profitable small plant, which was producing aerospace equipment. High-skilled workers and so on, but it wasn’t profitable enough, so they were going to close it down. The union wanted to buy it. Company refused—usual class reasons, I think. If the Occupy efforts had been available at the time, they could have provided the public support for it.

      [...]

      Well, you know, a reconstituted auto industry could have turned in that direction under worker and community control. I don’t think these things are out of sight. And, incidentally, they even have so-called conservative support, because they’re within a broader what’s called capitalist framework (it’s not really capitalist). And those are directions that should be pressed.

      Right now, for example, the Steelworkers union is trying to establish some kind of relations with Mondragon, the huge worker-owned conglomerate in the Basque country in Spain, which is very successful, in fact, and includes industry, manufacturing, banks, hospitals, living quarters. It’s very broad. It’s not impossible that that can be brought here, and it’s potentially radical. It’s creating the basis for quite a different society.

      [...]

      #militarisation
      #Militarisierung #Aufrüstung

      #war_crime #Iraq
      #crime_de_guerre
      #Kriegsverbrechen
      #Nürnberg

      [...]

      Go back to the #Nuremberg judgments. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but in Nuremberg aggression was defined as “the supreme international crime,” differing from other war crimes in that it includes, it encompasses all of the evil that follows. Well, the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq is a textbook case of aggression. By the standards of Nuremberg, they’d all be hanged. And one of the things it did, one of the crimes was to ignite a Sunni-Shiite conflict which hadn’t been going on. I mean, there was, you know, various kinds of tensions, but Iraqis didn’t believe there could ever be a conflict. They were intermarried, they lived in the same places, and so on. But the invasion set it off. Took off on its own. By now it’s inflaming the whole region. Now we’re at the point where Sunni jihadi forces are actually marching on Baghdad.

      HEDGES: And the Iraqi army is collapsing.

      CHOMSKY: The Iraqi army’s just giving away their arms. There obviously is a lot of collaboration going on.And all of this is a U.S. crime if we believe in the validity of the judgments against the Nazis.

      And it’s kind of interesting. Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor, a U.S. justice, at the tribunal, addressed the tribunal, and he pointed out, as he put it, that we’re giving these defendants a “poisoned chalice”, and if we ever sip from it, we have to be treated the same way, or else the whole thing is a farce and we should recognize this as just victor’s justice.

      [...]

  • Western #Media Complicity With Israeli #war_crimes
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/western-media-complicity-israeli-war-crimes

    When the history books are written years from now – hopefully after the demise of the Zionist apartheid regime – it will be noted that Western media (the liberal and he conservative branches) have been complicit with #Israel in its propaganda. Western media have consistently, in a variety of ways, advanced the propaganda talking points of Israel, even at the expense of the truth. There are many examples of such complicity, these are only a few examples:

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