PUTIN'S AND NATO's TACTICS AND WAR CRIMES NOT DISSIMILAR
UNPUBLISHED LETTER SENT TO IRISH TIMES
The IAWM condemn Russia's' invasion of Ukraine and calls for the withdrawal of its military forces. We express solidarity with all Ukrainians resisting the occupation of its territory. We condemn also the escalation of the war by NATO powers and NATO's eastward push which has resulted in both sides being unable to have meaningful peace talks.
The following letter was sent to the Irish Times to highlight the blatant double standards that prevail among western politicians and much of the western media in relation to the latest tactics by Russia and to call again for the Irish Government to use Ireland's neutral status to seek a diplomatic solution to end the war.
Sir,
there should be no surprise at Russia’s change of military tactics moving from its unsuccessful conventional battlefield approach against a resilient and brave Ukrainian army to one of widespread missile targeting of both military and civilian infrastructure which is now severely impacting the lives of millions of Ukrainians. As despicable as this escalation is it merely emulates what many NATO powers and their acolytes have done in a myriad of unjust wars over previous decades.
When the US Army was losing against brave resistance from the North Vietnamese army in the 1960s it resorted to widespread carpet bombing of North Vietnam and Cambodia with devastating consequences for the civilian populations. On it becoming clear by 2004, that the US army would encounter unsustainable casualties in Afghanistan, then US President George Bush switched to remote drone warfare in his ludicrously named Global War on Terror. His successor Barack Obama, who had promised as part of his 2008 election campaign to bring home the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, escalated and extended Bush’s policy of drone strikes to include Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The resultant carnage killed some suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters who were deemed a threat to US security but it also killed many men, women and children, often while at social gatherings or asleep in their homes.
The UK based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war) tracked US military drone strikes in these four countries from 2010 to 2020. It reports that a total of over 14,000 drone strikes killed up to 16,900 people with 2,200 of them being civilians and 454 of them children.
When the west’s ally, Israel, encountered stiff resistance in the southern Lebanon hills following its invasion in July 2006 it proceeded to bomb civilian infrastructure throughout Lebanon, including multiple roads and bridges and the international airport. That war stopped with a UNSC Resolution approved by both the Lebanese and Israeli Governments.
In its five wars on Gaza over the last 14 years Israel has purposely bombed health-care centres, hospitals, schools, roads, media outlets, UN compounds (at least once using banned white phosphorous), housing and electricity power plants. Its continued blockage of Gaza since 2007 (15 years), and its restrictions on daily movement in the West Bank, are attacks on the infrastructure and everyday life of the Palestinian people. The impact of the enforced power cuts on the people of Gaza are graphically represented in your heart-breaking report and picture of the coffins of the dead including 10 children from an accidental fire last week in the Jabaliya refugee camp (World News, 19 November), an accident which is a direct result of Israel’s brutal blockade which forces Gazans to rely on candles and gasoline powered generators for electricity.
Saudi Arabia’s war against the people of Yemen, supported by the US and British Governments, has likewise multiple examples of targeting civilian infrastructure and blockading of vital aid from reaching the starving citizens of Yemen.
No political or military leaders have been prosecuted for these well documented war crimes. So, while the latest escalation by Russia in its unjustified war against Ukraine must be rightly condemned, we should highlight the fact that this war has also been needlessly escalated by certain NATO powers and is being used to rehabilitate their tarnished reputations and distract us from a litany of past war crimes.
Two potentially positive things happened in the last week. NATO leaders refused to act militarily when President Zelensky called for intervention following the missile strike in Poland thus preventing the start of World War 3 and, as reported in your paper, NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, acknowledged for the first time that “most likely, this war will at some stage end at the negotiating table” (World News, 16 November). Rather than being superficially exercised about being on Putin’s barred list the overtly pro-NATO Irish Government should assert Ireland’s respected neutral status and call for a ceasefire and diplomatic negotiations to end this horrific war in Ukraine.
Yours etc,
JIM ROCHE
PRO Steering Committee, Irish Anti-War Movement,
PO Box 9260,
Dublin 1.
Tel. 087 6472737
Jim_Roche1252
Wed, 23/11/2022 - 07:44