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Pentagon’s New “Law of War” Manual “Reduces Us to the Level of Nazis”

George Washington's picture




 

The Pentagon’s new Law of War Manual – a 1,200-plus page document issued in June by the Defense Department’s Office of the General Counsel – is barbaric.

The Manual is so bad that one of the leading experts on the law of war (Dr. Francis Boyle) – who wrote the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, and teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign – says :

This Law of War Manual reduces us to the level of Nazis. There’s no other word for it.

Boyle also says the Manual:

Reads like it was written by Hitler’s Ministry of War.

Why is the Manual so bad?

Manual Authorizes Slaughter of Innocent Civilians

Because – according to Boyle – the Manual allows massacres of civilian populations. The most comprehensive previous such document – the 1956 Pentagon field manual – assumed that any deliberate targeting of civilians was illegal and a war crime.

Reporters Can Be Assassinated

And the Manual treats allows reporters to be treated as “unprivileged combatants”, who can be assassinated.

Boyle points out that this retroactively legalizes assassination of reporters, such as Al Jazeera reporters during Iraq war. Boyle notes that even a SPY would be treated better, and given a trial.

(As we’ve previously noted, the U.S. government treats real reporters as terrorists. Because the core things which reporters do could be considered terrorism, in modern America, journalists are sometimes targeted under counter-terrorism laws.)

Manual Authorizes Barbarous War Crimes

Boyle also says the Manual authorizes the following barbarous war crimes:

(1) Warfare with nuclear weapons. Specifically, the manual states:

There is no general prohibition in treaty or customary international law on the use of nuclear weapons.

This flies in the face of the United Nations Charter, which – as noted by the World Court in its Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons – makes even threatening to use nuclear weapons a war crime.

This is also particularly worrisome because – as documented in
Towards a World War III Scenario, by Michel Chossudovsky –  the U.S. is so enamored with nuclear weapons that it has authorized low-level field commanders to use them in the heat of battle in their sole discretion … without any approval from civilian leaders.

(2) Depleted uranium. The use of depleted uranium can cause cancer and birth defects for decades (see this, this, this, this, this, this and this).

(3) Landmines.

(4) Cluster bombs.

(5) Napalm, which is banned under Protocol III of the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

(6) Expanding hollow-point bullets, banned under the 1868 St. Petersburg declaration.

(7) Herbicides, like Agent Orange in Vietnam.

The Good News

The good news – according to Dr. Boyle – is that both Congress and the president have power to revoke the Manual.

So – if we stand up and raise holy hell – we might be able to walk back from the fascist path we’re heading down.  And we can prove that we’re not the rogue nation that the rest of the world thinks we are.

 

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Sat, 08/29/2015 - 18:19 | 6485634 August
August's picture

Well say what you want, but Werner took us to the MOON!

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 21:27 | 6486085 conscious being
conscious being's picture

/sarc

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:45 | 6485131 44magnum
44magnum's picture

That explains why there are so many dual citizenship Israeli Americans in our government and our financial sector. Damn Nazis

Fri, 08/28/2015 - 21:09 | 6483641 blindman
blindman's picture

Jackson Browne For A Dancer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU1rZa8Ur_Q

Fri, 08/28/2015 - 21:07 | 6483636 blindman
blindman's picture

someone said "all is fair in love and war".
if that is true there is no manual needed.
no? if war is a business prosecuted for
money, that is a different doomed story.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 10:21 | 6487003 serotonindumptruck
serotonindumptruck's picture

That must be why the USSA invades sovereign nations based upon flimsy, fabricated "evidence" of possessing and/or using weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, it's perfectly okay for the USSA and its complicit co-conspirators to use these weapons against innocent civilian populations. They're special like that.

Fri, 08/28/2015 - 20:23 | 6483542 Stormtrooper
Stormtrooper's picture

Congessmen, if you don't pass TARP, err, if you cancel this manual, there will be martial law within 24 hours. So, fall in line and do what you are paid off to do, err, paid to do.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 09:07 | 6486848 rubiconsolutions
rubiconsolutions's picture

"The good news – according to Dr. Boyle – is that both Congress and the president have power to revoke the Manual."

The bad news - there isn't a presidential candidate that would do so. Every single republican (including faux libertarian Rand) and democrat (including Sanders) are militarists at heart. Same with congress. They are all in the hip pocket of industrialists and bankers who profit from war.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 16:09 | 6485325 ebworthen
ebworthen's picture

Welcome to the New Rome.  All hail Caesar!  All hail the Praetorian Guard!

Don't miss the Christians being slaughtered in the Coliseum! (er...Middle East).

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:27 | 6485095 EurGold
EurGold's picture

Buy gold, silver, platinum and palladium

 

https://www.eurgold.eu

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 20:40 | 6485984 palmereldritch
palmereldritch's picture

Platinum and Palladium are getting whacked so that is attractive.

With Au and Ag as the go to for alt currency and SDR feedstock that leaves Platinum and Palladium especially orphaned as industrial indexes.

Not that they will not be in demand in the BRICs outside of the FRN gulag.

Upside could be good but who is deciding their value?

I think ONJ said it best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz9VN40nCA

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 11:53 | 6484650 0b1knob
0b1knob's picture

Speaking of war documents, the Russians have accidently admitted that they have lost 2000 soldiers in Ukraine in the last 18 months.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/26/russia-accidentally-reveals-its-massiv...

That's nearly as many killed as the US has lost in Afghanistan in 14 YEARS.

Russian is not a real country.   Putin is not a genius.  Another 6 months of $50 dollar oil and Russia will collapse.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 05:32 | 6486673 Farqued Up
Farqued Up's picture

I read somewhere they already collapsed in 1989. You can't trust the news anymore, except the cars are nicer and there are not nearly the lines for food any more as there were in 1991. It's all relative.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 04:42 | 6486651 Nexus789
Nexus789's picture

Actually not true. More mainstream media lies to fool the softminded amongst us. Amazing how many bigots there are.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 01:43 | 6486526 Luc X. Ifer
Luc X. Ifer's picture

" accidently " what happens " accidently" these days - are you a child or a retard?! do you think russians are so stupid to leak such of a strategic information to some obscure journal?! this is open view fabrication.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 08:41 | 6486818 Arnold
Arnold's picture

Well our American media leaks stuff when they are not wearing their .gov issued , or MIL spec Depends.

 

(Geraldo)

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 10:12 | 6486976 serotonindumptruck
serotonindumptruck's picture

And he got stink-fingered by every troop that he was embedded with on the way out.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 21:36 | 6486112 Frontline Retailer
Frontline Retailer's picture

A Forbes report on alleged Russian army casualties in Ukraine citing a dodgy Russian website has sparked a media and Twitter storm. Some said Russia had “finally slipped” with the leak on its troops in Ukraine; others were baffled by the “fake publication.” RT decided to investigate.

http://www.rt.com/news/313653-russia-ukraine-soldiers-fake-forbes/




Sat, 08/29/2015 - 17:12 | 6485473 Neochrome
Neochrome's picture

Difference being that the story about Russian casualties was fake, planted by "unknown party" on some stupid little blog and then forwarded by the same "unknown party" to the eager-beaver MSM.

On the other hand, this is more relevant to the discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:49 | 6485140 44magnum
44magnum's picture

Polished Knob it was already proven that was a fake news story. Like the majority of all the other bad things the Russians are doing in Ukraine. So little proof SO many suckers. No wonder the bankers have their way with us the majority are so easily conned and the ones in charge are so easily paid off.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:49 | 6485138 roadhazard
roadhazard's picture

Don't you know Pootin lovers can't take it.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 08:44 | 6486822 roadhazard
roadhazard's picture

lol... pooootin.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 10:44 | 6487085 viahj
viahj's picture

it's not that, it's that we're sick and tired of the neo-con Kissinger assholes and their minions who trample the rest of the world.  there is but one global empire right now and it's not benevolent.  face the fact that you have been propagandized your entire American life to believe that you are exceptional.  the same was done to the Germans after WWI and look to where that lead them through and especially after WWII.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:34 | 6484774 Kayman
Kayman's picture

Clarification. You are not a genius. You know SFA about Russia and the Russian culture.  Fighting Nazis from Stalingrad/Leningrad/Moscow all the way back to Berlin is not a culture of Krap Dinner and Ketchup. 

Notwithstanding that Putin is a thug.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 18:02 | 6485590 Nostradumbass
Nostradumbass's picture

Further clarification:

As Soviet troops advanced into central and eastern Europe during the war’s final months, they imposed a reign of terror, pillage and killing without compare in modern history. The horrors were summarized by George F. Kennan, the acclaimed historian who also served as US ambassador to the Soviet Union. He wrote: / 4

 

“The disaster that befell this area with the entry of the Soviet forces has no parallel in modern European experience. There were considerable sections of it where, to judge by all existing evidence, scarcely a man, woman or child of the indigenous population was left alive after the initial passage of Soviet forces; and one cannot believe that they all succeeded in fleeing to the West … The Russians … swept the native population clean in a manner that had no parallel since the days of the Asiatic hordes.”

 

http://www.ihr.org/other/july09weber.html

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 11:01 | 6487127 Joe A
Joe A's picture

So according to this men there was no living soul in the whole of Eastern and Central Europe after the Soviets passed through it? Seriously?

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 23:21 | 6486346 atomicwasted
atomicwasted's picture

Says that bastion of reasonableness and not batshit crazy made up shit, the "IHR."

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 20:12 | 6485928 bluez
bluez's picture

REALITY!!!

Dresden -- We did it -- Much worse than Hiroshima!

Firebombing (Civilian slaughter really was invented by Sir Winston Churchill - worse than Stalin.)

Just Look:

Remembering Dresden: 70 Years After the Firebombing

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/02/remembering-dresden-70-years-af...

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 21:09 | 6486039 mc225
mc225's picture

usa really did a number on north korea, too... napalm, hydroelectric dams, cities/towns, etc. talk about 'sending them back to the stone age'... it happened in north korea.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 19:50 | 6485886 Neochrome
Neochrome's picture

Perhaps you should try to read some casualty statistics from WWII, and try to take a note of the "Russia" column.

Russians were fighting door to door in Berlin, USA decided to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki all the while having their own Japanese-Americans interned in a concentration camps. Better check your own high moral ground if you have any decency.

Then continue reading about number of countries invaded and deaths attributed to USA wars AFTER the WWII.

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 21:25 | 6486076 conscious being
conscious being's picture

 

Eisenhower murdered millions after the war. Hellstorm - Exposing The Real Genocide of Nazi Germany

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 11:34 | 6487219 Joe A
Joe A's picture

Written by a known white supremacist. Historical revisionism. Crimes were committed against German population but that is nothing compared to the death and destruction committed by the Germans to the rest of Europe.

Tue, 09/01/2015 - 08:18 | 6494482 Painful Facts
Painful Facts's picture

two wrongs don't make a right, yes germans and japanese did war crimes, still wasn't legit to kill their women and children for it tho.

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