Some Brass Neck!

Wikileaks have done it again.  Thankfully.

Some people, who knows how many, have the guts to provide the documents, and another group have the guts to make it all available.

The mess in Iraq is no surprise.  Anyone aware of the histories of the UK and the US, the real histories, won't be surprised at all at the stories, the destroyed lives revealed by the data.  Robert Fisk at the Independent, among many have outlined some of the horrors, the utter failure of our warmongering leaders to follow international laws, to abide by the Geneva Conventions.  Just one example:

The shooting of men trying to surrender - In February 2007, an Apache helicopter killed two Iraqis, suspected of firing mortars, as they tried to surrender. A military lawyer is quoted as saying: "They cannot surrender to aircraft and are still valid targets."

Frightening.  Terrifying. 

How can a lawyer even think such a thing?  Is that a fact of law?  Is it because a helicopter is metal rather than human?  So that would imply that people could not surrender, waving their white flags, as a tank approached, does it? 

Perhaps there is some complexity of law that distinguishes between a lump of metal on the ground and a lump of metal in the air.  Perhaps the lawyer didn't think that perhaps the men were surrendering to the occupants of the lump of metal, rather than the lump of inert metal.  Was it truly beyond their legal wits, beyond their understanding? 

Military lawyers have a record of not grasping the legal importance of life, of not understanding life is of primary importance.

It may well have been money.  Well, bullets are cheaper than having to land an aircraft, organise transport, food, shelter etc for those men hoping to safely surrender.  How much is an Iraqi life worth?  Is it worth the same as ours?  You would think so, though the US and the UK have a track record of making such calculations.  Lawyers have had a problem with that too.

I'm no lawyer so I can't argue one way or the other.  But I am a human.  And I know the difference between right and wrong - in this world.  Medieval right from wrong thinking has no place in the minds of modern thinking.  It isn't difficult.  If I smash your window I could be guilty of criminal damage.  But what if I smash that window in order to rescue you from your burning home?  If I smash your window and then surrender to a police officer sitting in his car, is that OK?  Or impossible?  Do I really have to wait until he is out of his car?  Can't I really hold my hands up in the air as the police helicopter hovers above and have that count as surrendering to the police for smashing a window?   

It sounds silly and we'd all assume that every lawyer would be laughed at if he tried to argue that in court.

But it isn't silly.  These people, these lawyers cause untold misery and despair. 

Take a look at this passage:

The United States and the United Kingdom committed other acts of sabotage on deployment to Rwanda.  For instance, I had long been arguing with New York that RTLM had to be shut down, as it was a direct instrument in promoting genocide.  The UN did not have the means to stop the broadcasts, either through jamming, a direct air strike on the transmitter, or covert operations, but it made a formal request of the United States, which had the means to try all three.  The issue was studied by the Pentagon, which in due course recommended against conducting the operation because of the cost - $8,500 an hour for a jamming aircraft over the country - and the legal dilemma.  Bandwidth within a nation is owned by the nation, and jamming a national radio station would violate international convention on national sovereignty.  The Pentagon judged that the lives of the estimated 8,000-10,000 Rwandans being killed each day in the genocide was not worth the cost of the fuel or the violation of Rwandan airwaves,  The death toll, which was estimated at 200,000 by the end of April, reached 500,000 by the end of May and 800,000 by the last day of June. (Dallaire, Lt Gen Roméo., Shake Hands With The Devil.  The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda., 2004, page 375.)

So you can't block hate broadcasts because of international law, but you can ignore international law, invade a country that hasn't attacked you (or threatened to) and shoot anyone who wants to surrender if they surrender to military in a metal flying box!  It would be funny if this was a lecture theatre, the uuniversity law faculty.  But it isn't.  This is serious, a matter of life and death.  There is nothing more serious than life.

Money matters when it comes to choosing life or death, for military powers, at least.   How much did it matter in Iraq?  Billions were being splashed around and still are, so perhaps money wasn't so important as to be considered in this instance. $2 500 for an innocent mother killed with her husband in a car, a car taking their children home, $2 500 for a car.  Simply Shocking. 

How much for an American life?  How much for a British life?

It's all part of saving people from tyranny.  Is it?  So easy to shoot those surrendering now, yet so difficult to take out a media broadcast, a broadcast of hate and death. 

Different centuries, different countries, different populations and different resources.  Sadly, legal ability, understanding seem to have improved at all. 

Huge military powers have no respect for human life.  They just hide that idea as best they can, threatening journalists and whistleblowers who reveal the nasty, little secret.  We aren't supposed to know.  Hiding the details of these brutal deaths tells us the authorities know it is wrong.  Well, if they'd been saving lives we would hear all about it.  Over and over and over again, the politicians would be proudly, smiling, handing out medals and cheering.

You don't hide things you are proud of.