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| Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others like him never need worry about going to prison for committing war crimes. Must be nice. |
The Hague Invasion Act and the Hypocrisy of Joe Biden
by Coast Watcher
Last week, President Joe Biden described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a war criminal” for ordering attacks on innocent civilians in Ukraine. A few days ago, Biden announced at the end of his remarks:
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said on Saturday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The White House and the State Dept. have been scrambling to explain away Biden’s remark. (...)
It was the second time that Biden confirmed that the purpose of the draconian US sanctions on Russia was never to prevent the invasion of Ukraine, which the US desperately needed to activate its plans, but to punish Russia and get its people to rise up against Putin and ultimately restore a Yeltsin-like puppet to Moscow. Without a cause those sanctions could never have been imposed. The cause was Russia’s invasion.
--Joe Lauria, Biden Confirms Why the US Needed This War
Whatever the justification for accusing Putin of such crimes, Biden’s hypocrisy is breathtaking. Threatening to take out another leader is an act of war. The CIA has assisted many such coups d'etat--such as the 2014 overturn of the Ukrainian election. This is a war crime. And not many Americans are aware that the United States has created a legal fig-leaf for invading an allied country should it dare put an American on trial for the same kind of crimes Biden accuses Putin and his military of doing.
Titled "The American Service-Members Protection Act" (or "The Hague Invasion Act"), President George W. Bush signed it into law in 2002. That was the same year the International Criminal Court (ICC) began operations at The Hague, Netherlands. The International Criminal Court was founded by the 1998 Statute of Rome as the first permanent judicial body to try persons accused of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. The United Nations Security Council can also entrust the ICC to conduct trials in certain cases.
The American Service-Members Protection Act allows the United States to help bring those accused of war crimes to justice—should such a measure be assessed as being in America’s best interests. What really should set alarm bells ringing is the tiny fact that the law also allows the US military to invade the Netherlands, specifically The Hague, should the ICC ever dare to put an American on trial.
Consider that for a moment. The Netherlands is a founding member of NATO since it was established in 1949 at the start of the original Cold War. The United States, its ally, has made it legal to invade and attack the Netherlands should the ICC even attempt to allow justice to prevail against US service personnel or citizens.
The Hague Invasion Act also allows the US to withdraw military assistance for any of the 138 ICC signatory countries unless they agree not to extradite Americans to stand trial at The Hague. It also prohibits ICC officials from conducting investigations in US territories. The American government has explicitly stated that it will arrest any such official that sets foot on US soil and has promised sanctions against any official who attempts to investigate American war crimes elsewhere.
So what exactly constitutes a "war crime"? According to the Geneva Conventions:
War crimes include the following serious violations of international humanitarian law:(i) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions:In the case of an international armed conflict, any of the following acts committed against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:• wilful killing;• torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;• wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health;• extensive destruction or appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly;• compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power;• wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of a fair and regular trial;• unlawful deportation or transfer;• unlawful confinement;• taking of hostages.This list of grave breaches was included in the Geneva Conventions largely on the basis of crimes pursued after the Second World War by the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and at Tokyo and by national courts.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docindex/v1_rul_rule156
The American government has killed, tortured, and imprisoned millions of people across the globe in various wars, military interventions, and regime changes, yet its so-called leaders can stand up in front of us with straight faces and have the nerve to call Putin a war criminal. It takes one to know one! In their hubris they know they can do exactly the same or worse things and that there's little to no chance of any country ever daring to put an American on trial for his/her war crimes.
What’s even sadder is that NATO and most other countries go right along with it as if it's no big deal. War crimes are atrocities only committed by non-Americans apparently. Any American who commits a war crime will never be punished by the ICC. They'll walk free.
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| https://popularresistance.org/america-plea-bargains-for-its-crimes-of-torture/ |
Remember the prisoners being tortured and humiliated by US service personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq? Remember the shocking photo of that poor guy being held naked on a dog leash while a female soldier used electric shocks and taunted him with sexual abuses? Those are war crimes by any name.
The US building biolabs in the Ukraine and working on deadly pathogens there over the past eight years? Nah, that's just a walk in the park. Nothing to see here, folks--move along now before we decide to disappear you to Gitmo, too.
BIO: Coast Watcher sometimes can't believe the audacity and evil intent of world leaders. Perhaps it's good they're starting to let their facades slip. We know more about the inner workings of these murderous cabals than ever before. What's keeping us from building guillotines to rid us of these tyrannical psychopaths?
What we do know about the US biological weapons involvement in Ukraine. And this is just a thumbnail sketch…
1991 – the US launches the Nunn-Lugar program for the former Soviet countries to control/eliminate Soviet weapons of mass destruction including bioweapons. The Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) was named as the program’s main executor.
1993 – the Ukraine-US Agreement on the Prevention of Proliferation of WMD is signed.
2005 – an additional protocol is signed to the agreement between the Ukrainian Health Ministry and the DTRA on the prevention of the proliferation of technologies, pathogens and know-how that can be used to develop bioweapons. This is the start of the transfer of the Ukrainian military biological potential into US specialists' hands.
2000s – large US military-industrial companies are engaged in military biological activity in Ukraine.
2005-2014 – Black & Veatch Special Projects, a DTRA contractor, builds and upgrades 8 biolabs in Ukraine instead of eliminating military biological infrastructure, as was originally claimed. One of the facilities, a biolab in Odessa, has been financed since 2011 for the study of “pathogens that can be used in bioterrorism attacks.”
2007 – US DoD employee Nathan Wolfe founded Global Viral Forecasting Institute (subsequently - Global Viral), a biomedical company. The mission stated in the charter is non-commercial study of transborder infections, including in China.
2009 – Rosemont Seneca Partners is established by former US Secretary of State John Kerry’s stepson Christopher Heinz and US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
2014 – Anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Ukraine.
2014 – Hunter Biden joins the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company.
2014 – Metabiota, a private commercial organization specializing in the study of pandemic risks is detached from Global Viral. Neil Callahan and John DeLoche, employees of Hunter Biden’s company Rosemont Seneca Partners are appointed to the board of Metabiota. Global Viral and Metabiota begin to get funding from the US Department of Defense.
2014 - Metabiota shows interest in Ukraine and invites Hunter Biden to "assert Ukraine's cultural & economic independence from Russia".
2014 - Metabiota and Burisma Holdings begin cooperation on an unnamed "science project in Ukraine".
2014 - Metabiota, Global Viral and Black & Veatch Special Projects begin full-fledged cooperation within the US DoD programs.
2014-2016 - Implementation of Metabiota and US DoD contracts, including a $300,000 project in Ukraine.
2016 – US citizen Ulana Nadia Suprun, a descendant of Ukrainian Nazis, is appointed Acting Health Minister of Ukraine. The US DoD and Ukraine’s Health Ministry cooperation program is greatly expanded.
2016 – an outbreak of swine flu among Ukrainian Defense Ministry personnel guarding a biolab in Kharkov, Ukraine; 20 dead. The incident is hushed up.
2016 – former US Assistant Secretary for Defense Andrew Weber is appointed head of Metabiota’s global partnerships department.
2016
– EcoHealth Alliance, a Global Viral founder Nathan Wolfe’s structure,
is engaged in the study of bat-transmitted coronaviruses at the research
center in a Wuhan laboratory, China.
2016 – the DTRA and Ukraine’s Health Ministry extend the contract after getting approval from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
2019 – the COVID-19 mutated bat coronavirus pandemic begins with an outbreak in Wuhan.
February 24, 2022 – launch of the Russian Army’s special operation in Ukraine.
February 24-25, 2022 – rapid elimination of strains in biolabs in Ukraine.
March 8, 2022 – US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland openly acknowledges the existence of cooperation between the US and Ukraine in pathogens.
(Original source: https://t.me/
Other related articles:
Hague Invasion Act Becomes Law https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-becomes-law#
Legally, the US Military Can Break People Out of The Hague https://www.wearethemighty.
Biden Confirms Why the US Needed This War https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/27/can-russia-escape-the-us-trap/
Urging Regime Change in Russia, Biden Exposes US Aims in Ukraine https://mate.substack.com/p/urging-regime-change-in-russia-biden
International Law is a Meaningless Concept When It Only Applies to US Enemies https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/03/17/international-law-is-a-meaningless-concept-when-it-only-applies-to-us-enemies/#comments
The Lie of American Innocence https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-lie-of-american-innocence-686
More Evidence that the US Is Trying to Prolong this War https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/more-evidence-that-the-us-is-trying?s=r
The Impact of Ukraine on Yemen https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/23/the-impact-of-ukraine-on-yemen/
Washington Should Think Twice Before Launching a New Cold War https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/22/washington-should-think-twice-before-launching-a-new-cold-war/
From Moscow to Washington, the Barbarism and Hypocrisy Don't Justify Each Other https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/23/from-moscow-to-washington-the-barbarism-and-hypocrisy-dont-justify-each-other/
Yes It's a Proxy War https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/03/26/yes-its-a-proxy-war-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
America Plea Bargains for its Crimes of Torture https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/24/john-kiriakou-the-us-plea-bargains-for-its-crimes-of-torture/
Bush War Crimes, Guantanamo In Spotlight at Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings https://therealnews.com/bush-war-crimes-guantanamo-in-spotlight-at-ketanji-brown-jackson-hearings
US Lied About "Dangerous Pathogen" Research in Secret Ukrainian Biolabs https://popularresistance.org/u-s-lied-about-funding-dangerous-pathogen-research-in-secret-ukrainian-biolabs-newly-leaked-documents-reveal/
US Funds Nazis and Brings Back Firing Squads. Literally (video) https://www.rokfin.com/post/79671
Seen on Twitter:
I’ll believe the United States cares about human rights when it repeals the Hague invasion act and Bush, Obama, Trump, Clinton and Biden get on the next flight.
— Dilan (@dilanpcook) March 22, 2022
Ukraine is the battlefield chosen by US/NATO for its long-planned war with Russia.This This was made clear by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at a press conference earlier today. He stated: 1/
— David North (@DavidNorthWSWS) March 23, 2022
"Since 2014, Allies have trained Ukraine’s armed forces, and significantly strengthened their capabilities. They are putting that training into practice now, on the front lines, with great bravery. In the last months, Allies have stepped up military support. 2/
— David North (@DavidNorthWSWS) March 23, 2022
"Providing anti-tank and air defence systems, drones, fuel and ammunition. As well as financial aid." Stoltenberg made no effort to conceal NATO's massive buildup of Ukrainian military forces over the last eight years. 3/
— David North (@DavidNorthWSWS) March 23, 2022
they’re all war criminals
— #GayUnemployedWaiter (@PaulSorrentino3) March 23, 2022
The azov batalion only they are everywhere ! pic.twitter.com/bmjS4MSeg5
— Юлиан Стефанов 1244 (@YulianSMarinov) March 19, 2022