Oggetto:  Martedì: ASSEMBLEA / DIBATTITO Fermiamo l'aggressione alla Siria

Data: 08 settembre 2013 09.36.54 GMT+02.00

ASSEMBLEA / DIBATTITO Fermiamo l'aggressione alla Siria

Martedì 10 settembre, ore 17, presso l'Università Centrale

Via Mezzocannone 16 (di fronte al Cinema ASTRA)

Dopo la Jugoslavia, l'Afghanistan, l'Iraq e la Libia, le maggiori potenze mondiali si apprestano ad aggredire un altro paese.

Ancora una volta si vuole giustificare questo attacco con micidiali armi di distruzioni di massa dietro le insegne ipocrite delle ragioni umanitarie.

Ma i veri motivi continuano ad essere quelli di rapina, saccheggio e sfruttamento per il profitto.

No all'aggressione alla Siria, con o senza ONU

Mobilitiamoci contro questo nuovo crimine

Rete NapoliNoWar

http://napolinowar.wordpress.com

Evento Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1408455289381032/

Passaparola!

Judge claims US and Israel pressed for release of Yugoslav war criminals

By Paul Mitchell 
8 July 2013

A top Danish judge sitting on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Frederik Harhoff, claims that the US and Israel pressed for the release of top-ranking Croatian and Serbian officers accused of war crimes.

Harhoff alleges that ICTY President Theodor Meron, a former legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and former Counsellor on International Law in the US State Department, exerted “persistent” and “intense” pressure on other judges to recently acquit Croatian general Ante Gotovina and Assistant Interior Minister Mladen Markac, Yugoslav general Momcilo Perisic and Serbian intelligence officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic. Harhoff said their release was contrary to the tribunal’s standard practice of holding military commanders responsible for crimes committed by their subordinates.

Western powers are concerned that if the standard became enshrined in international law, future military operations would be put in jeopardy and commanders would run the risk of being hauled in front of human rights courts accused of war crimes.

In a private memo addressed to 56 people, published in the Danish newspaper BT last month, Harhoff explained that the ICTY had created a “fairly firm legal practice” in relation to the responsibilities of top military chiefs.

“Right up until autumn 2012, it has been a more or less set practice at the court that military commanders were held responsible for war crimes that their subordinates committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia from 1992-95, when the Dayton Agreement brought an end to the war in December 1995.”

“Now apparently the commanders must have had a direct intention to commit crimes—and not just knowledge or suspicion that the crimes were or would be committed,” he continued.

“It would seem that the military establishment” in leading states such as Israel and the US “felt that the tribunal was getting too close to top-ranking military commands.”

Harhoff pondered, “Has an Israeli or American official influenced the American President of the tribunal to effect a change of course?”

“I am left with the distinctly unpleasant impression that the tribunal has shifted course as a result of the pressure from ‘the military establishment’ of certain powerful countries.”

By authorising the release of convicted criminals it would “in future and in the majority of cases allow the top-ranking person to go free. This means that American (and Israeli) commanders in chief can breathe a sigh of relief…”

Harhoff concluded, “The latest judgements here have brought me before a deep professional and moral dilemma, not previously faced. The worst of it is the suspicion that some of my colleagues have been behind a short-sighted political pressure that completely changes the premises of my work in my service to wisdom and the law.

US diplomatic cables from 2003 published by WikiLeaks appear to support Harhoff’s claims. They show that Meron was in constant contact with Pierre-Richard Prosper, who served as Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, discussing in depth the work of the ICTY and handing over confidential tribunal documents.

One describes Meron as “the tribunal’s pre-eminent supporter of United States government efforts,” and how he “responded positively to Prosper’s detailed explanation of US policy”. Meron was particularly critical of Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who had condemned recent statements made by US officials as “a direct interference in the work of the Tribunal and unacceptable,” and was asking US help in preventing her reappointment.

In another cable, the US was concerned that del Ponte was intending to indict 30 individuals, “all at the highest levels,” meaning that “that the indictees will be at the general or ministerial level or their equivalents (i.e. with respect to the KLA).” The CIA and European intelligence agencies backed the KLA and used it as a proxy to facilitate the plans of the US, using NATO as its military umbrella, to complete the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.

The publication of Harhoff’s email has created a crisis in the ICTY.

Last week, current ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz declared, “I understand the disappointment felt by many, especially survivor communities following the series of recent acquittals mentioned in Judge Harhoff’s letter. My office shares that disappointment.” Brammertz announced that his office is to appeal against the acquittal of Stanisic and Simatovic, and may also request a review of the Gotovina and Markac cases. He refused to comment on Harhoff’s email, saying he was “concerned about the destructive elements in the debate that has followed the letter’s publication” and that “it is not appropriate or helpful for this office to enter into the debate.”

Harhoff’s revelations have also led lawyers for the deceased Bosnian army commander Rasim Delic to request that his three-year jail sentence for the cruel treatment of Serb prisoners be “revised”. They said, “The publication of Judge Harhoff’s letter has unilaterally brought the reputation of the tribunal into significant disrepute and risks losing public confidence in the tribunal’s work…It is therefore the responsibility of the appeal’s chamber to rectify the fallout committed as a result of Judge Harhoff’s appearance of bias.”

A number of Balkan human rights organisations have also written to United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon calling for an investigation into Harhoff’s claims, declaring, “Without such an enquiry... doubts about the fairness of ICTY judgments will permanently mar the work of this important institution of international law.”

Back in 2001, the WSWS warned, “The attempt to present the ICTY as a ‘first step’ towards a permanent court to punish the perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses does not stand up to examination.” It explained that the main instigator of the ICTY was the US, which consistently opposed the universal application of human rights laws, refusing to recognise the creation of the International Criminal Court unless its military forces were exempted from the jurisdiction of the proposed body.

It explained how US and European policy of dismembering Yugoslavia set the stage for a series of bloody civil wars, whose legacy was the creation of a series of mini-states, in which the Western powers exercise untrammelled economic and political control. The function of the ICTY was to provide a legal veneer for this predatory imperialist policy.

The author also recommends: 

Croatian war criminals released after appeal by Western military chiefs
[11 December 2012]

Oggetto:  I: Appello per la mobilitazione contro la guerra con le prime adesioni

Data:  30 agosto 2013 16.23.35 GMT+02.00

=== 4 ===

19 luglio 2013

SYRIA: APPEAL AGAINST YET ANOTHER “HUMANITARIAN” WAR OF CONQUEST, LAUNCHED ON FALSE PRETENSES.

Syria.  Without knowing exactly what happened or who did what, and assigning guilt without proof and without taking into consideration the principle of cui bono, the NATO trio United States-Britain-France has claimed the right to attack Syria to punish the regime for its “moral obscenity”.   In reality, the only moral obscenity is the war the trio wants to conduct.

This is why people all over the world should take to the streets in protest.  It is intolerable that the trio thinks it can simply make accusations without offering proof of exactly who the authors were of the lethal gas attack in Damascus on August 21^st, given that the international experts have yet to define what occurred.

Even General Camporini, former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces and current vice president of the Institute of International Affairs, has concluded that the Syrian government could have had absolutely no interest in launching a gas attack now that it is winning the fight against the rebels using conventional weapons and, moreover, now that it has just permitted U.N. inspectors to enter the country.  Given the readiness of certain world powers to jump into the fray at the first opportunity, it would be suicidal to give them that opportunity.

So if the government had no interest in launching the gas attack, who did?  The answer is obvious.  The rebel forces have an interest in creating an incident involving the use of lethal gas.  This is because they are loosing their fight against the government forces.  They have repeatedly asked, over the months, for military support by Western armed forces – but without success, since Russia and China have vetoed any foreign armed intervention in Syria.  Thus it is entirely conceivable that the rebel forces, now desperate, could have used the lethal gas themselves against a Damascus suburb, in order to pin the blame on the government, declare that the “red line” has been crossed, and thus give the NATO trio an excuse to enter the fray, even without UN approval. 

It is equally conceivable that the same rebel forces could have sought to alarm public opinion even more by staging and filming fake scenes of widespread gas poisoning and posting them on the Internet.  This would allow the rebels to claim that not just a few hundred civilians in one suburb, but over 1,700 Syrian civilians, in and around Damascus, were gassed to death by the regime.  And that is apparently what they did.  With a slip up, however.  They posted the videos to YouTube several hours before the mass gas attack was supposed to have taken place.

LET'S NOT FALL FOR IT ANOTHER TIME.  Let us reject the war propaganda that mainstream media inundates us with.  We have already been victims of quite enough pretexts used to start a war.  Two recent examples are the test tube of supposedly poisonous gas that Colin Powell waved before the Security Council to win permission to attack Iraq, and the sensationalistic (but false) news stories of Gaddafi's ruthlessness against unarmed civilian demonstrators to justify NATO bombing attacks “in defense of the civilians”: for example, the contrived video of so-called mass graves in Libya (they were ordinary graves existing before the revolt) and the supposed use of fighter jets to strafe demonstrators in the street (subsequent analysis of Russian satellite data showed that no planes had flown over Tripoli that day).  Two older but similar examples of pretexts to start wars are the self-inflicted attack in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 (carried out by the U.S. to justify invading Vietnam) and the “bread line” incident in 1995 to justify the bombing of Jugolslavia by NATO (and Italian) aviation.

Now the leaders of a few NATO countries, looking for the pretext to bomb Syria and help the pro-NATO rebels defeat the government forces and take power, have denounced the use of lethal gas by the Syrian government – without furnishing any proof and before the on-site U.N. Inspectors have carried out their inspection.  What is more, these NATO countries have totally disregarded the cui bono principle – and for a reason: the only party who might have an interest in creating an incident over the use of lethal gas are the rebel forces, who have promptly tried to put the blame on the government.

LET'S NOT GET DRAGGED INTO YET ANOTHER WAR LAUNCHED ON FALSE PRETENSES.

LET'S TAKE TO THE STREETS TO SAY “NO!” TO ANY WESTERN ARMED INTERVENTION IN SYRIA.

LET'S SAY “YES!” TO STOPPING ARMS DELIVERIES.  “YES!” TO DIALOG AMONG THE PARTIES.  “YES!” TO RECONCILIATION MOVEMENTS LIKE MUSSALAHA (AND OTHERS).  “YES!” TO HELPING THE NON-VIOLENT SECTORS OF CIVIL SOCIETY EMERGE AND MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD.

YOU DON'T COMBAT VIOLENCE WITH VIOLENCE.  THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH PEACE.

WHAT CAN ITALY DO, THEN, TO PROMOTE PEACE IN SYRIA?

1. ITALY CAN FORBID THE USE OF ITALIAN AIR SPACE BY U.S. OR NATO MISSIONS IN SYRIA.  This may be only a symbolic gesture, since the announced missile attack is to come by sea; but it sends, nonetheless, an important signal.  Just like the decision by the government, announced on August 27^th, to prohibit using NATO air-naval stations in Italy for operations in Syria, without U.N. Approval.
2. ITALY CAN THUS REFUSE TO CONTINUE TO BE AN ALLIED AIRCRAFT CARRIER, USED FOR ATTACKS AGAINST NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES, AND INSIST ON BEING A BRIDGE OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, ONE THAT PEACEFULLY UNITES COUNTRIES;
3. ITALY CAN INVITE THE SYRIAN MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (BOTH THOSE FOR AND THOSE AGAINST ASSAD) WHO WERE REFUSED ENTRY INTO ITALY UNDER THE MONTI GOVERNMENT, TO COME AND DISCUSS A POLITICAL SOLUTION TO THE CURRENT CRISIS;
4. ITALY CAN THUS RECUPERATE THE GLORIOUS TRADITION OF INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY THAT IT EXERCISED WITH SUCCESS THROUGHOUT THE RENAISSANCE.

——— APPENDIX ————

A few facts to back up what has been asserted…

1. In May of 2013, Carla Del Ponte, member of the U.N. Enquiry into Syrian war crimes, declared: We have been able to gather a few testimonials of the use of chemical weapons and, in particular, of nerve gas.  But they have not been used by the government forces.  They have been used by the rebel forces, i.e., by the opposition.  When Del Ponte made this statement, the countries who now are rushing into Syria to protect the population, did absolutely nothing. They let the news item grow stale and forgotten.  Another fact: on May 30^th the Turkish police found an arms cache created by the rebel al-Nusra Front.  Same reaction, i.e. no reaction.

2. On August 21^st Médecins sans frontières received phone calls from clandestine, improvised medical clinics in the Damascus area, run by the opposition (and in which MSF personnel is not present).  These phone calls denounced the arrival of thousands of patients with symptoms of gas poisoning, of which three hundred died.  The opposition furnished no proof.  Bart Janssens, Operations Chief for MSF, declared: “MSF cannot confirm scientifically the cause of the alleged symptoms nor establish responsibilities for the alleged attack.”  Afterward the opposition called attention to videos on YouTube as proof but…

3. …the videos were uploaded to YouTube on August 20 through the account of a certain Majler Rif.  Yet the opposition has stated that the gas attack took place on August 21 at 3 am.  Even taking into consideration the differences in time zones, the videos were uploaded well BEFORE the attack.  In addition, experts have stated that several scenes seem clearly staged; moreover, the symptoms that the apparent victims were shown to suffer did not closely resemble the symptoms of a sarin gas attack, the gas claimed to have been used.  Finally and perhaps most tellingly, the media of the NATO powers who are beating the war drums, have patently misrepresented the statement issued by Médecins sans Frontières to make it seem as though MSF has accredited their claims.  Clearly, there is a campaign being mounted for armed intervention, not to “protect civilians” but to give a hand to the rebel forces who are loosing on the ground to government troops.

4. To conclude, it seems clear the the real cause of the Syrian tragedy is the outside military intervention that has already taken place (militias have been sent into Syria from Libya, Saudi Arabia, etc.) which have increased the bloodshed dramatically.  These militias, supposedly sent to protect innocent demonstrators in the streets, in reality have been sent to grab power for the sponsoring foreign states.  “If only the foreign militias fighting in Syria would leave, peace would return within 48 hours”, said Monsignor Nazzaro, former Bishop of Aleppo.  The Times has reported the presence of over ten thousand foreign troops in Syria.  For months rumors have circulated concerning training camps run by the United States in Jordan, where the armed forces of these two countries have been preparing anti-Assad rebel militias.  The French newspaper Le Figaro has written: “According to our sources, rebel forces, supervised by Jordanian, American and Israeli commanders, have been sent to Damascus.  Their number is approximately 550, reports the Israeli source Debka File.  Can that be so?  Are more foreign troops really what Syria needs?

No War Rome

Oggetto: Sebstian Bahlo: Interview zur Solidaritätsdemo für Syrien in Frankfurt/M., Samstag, 31. Aug. 2013, Beginn: 13 Uhr

Data: 28 agosto 2013 16.53.27 GMT+02.00

Air War in Kosovo Seen as Precedent in Possible Response to Syria Chemical Attack

Usa, intervento militare in Siria su ‘modello Kosovo’

24.ago 2013

Washington – Il Pentagono sta spostando le forze navali statunitensi più vicino alla Siria in vista di una possibile decisione del presidente Barack Obama di ordinare attacchi militari.

È quanto ha suggerito il segretario alla Difesa, Chuck Hagel. Il capo del Pentagono ha riferito infatti che Obama ha chiesto al Pentagono di preparare le opzioni militari per la Siria aggiungendo che alcune di queste opzioni “richiedono il posizionamento delle nostre forze”. Hagel si è rifiutato di descrivere qualsiasi movimento specifico delle forze Usa, ma fonti della Difesa coperte dall’anonimato riferiscono ad Associated Press che la marina degli Stati Uniti ha inviato nel Mediterraneo orientale una quarta nave da guerra armata con missili balistici, ma senza ordini immediati che prevedano alcun lancio di missili contro la Siria. Ieri tuttavia, in una intervista rilasciata al programma ‘New Day’ della Cnn, Obama aveva frenato sulla possibilità di un intervento militare Usa, sottolineando che servirebbe un mandato Onu. “Se gli Stati Uniti intervenissero e attaccassero un altro Paese senza un mandato delle Nazioni unite e senza chiare prove che possano essere presentate, allora sorgerebbero questioni in termini di diritto internazionale”, aveva detto Obama, aggiungendo che l’idea secondo cui gli Stati Uniti possono da soli porre fine alla guerra civile in Siria è “sopravvalutata”.

Intanto il New York Times ha scritto che gli Stati Uniti vedono nella guerra aerea della Nato in Kosovo del 1999 il modello per un possibile intervento militare in Siria per rispondere agli attacchi con armi chimiche. Secondo il giornale l’amministrazione Obama sta studiando l’intervento di 14 anni fa contro la Serbia come precedente su cui fondare “un’azione senza il mandato delle Nazioni Unite”, visto il probabile veto della Russia a qualsiasi intervento. Il Kosovo, rileva il quotidiano Usa, ha molte analogie con la Siria perché anche lì c’erano state stragi di civili e la Russia aveva legami di lunga durata con il governo che ne era considerato responsabile. “Nel 1999 il presidente Bill Clinton aveva usato l’appoggio della Nato e il fondamento logico di tutelare una popolazione vulnerabile per giustificare 78 giorni di incursioni aeree”, ha osservato il Nyt. Fonti dell’Amministrazione Obama hanno però precisato che si tratta solo di valutazioni preliminari in quanto non c’è ancora alcuna decisione su un eventuale intervento militare.

Fonte: Irib

http://www.losai.eu/usa-intervento-militare-in-siria-su-modello-kosovo/

=== 4 ===

25 agosto 2013

Siria, «il modello Kosovo non funzionerà»

Luigi Guelpa

Roma - «L’opzione Kosovo per la Siria? Improbabile. Furono sufficienti 73 giorni di raid aerei della Nato per indurre i serbi alla resa. Nel caso del regime siriano sarebbe poco attuabile. Non credo che Obama stia pensando davvero all’intervento simile a quello di 14 anni fa contro la Serbia, organizzato senza il mandato delle Nazioni Unite». A spiegarlo è il professor Gianandrea Gaiani, tra i massimi esperti di analisi storico-strategiche e direttore del mensile web Analisidifesa.it. Gaiani valuta le varie opzioni, ma appare scettico di fronte a un attacco militare in bello stile.

Come si stanno muovendo gli Usa sulla questione siriana?

«Obama ha convocato lo staff di consiglieri per la sicurezza nazionale. Però deve fare i conti con il parere del generale Martin Dempsey, capo degli stati maggiori riuniti, che si è finora mostrato scettico di fronte all’ipotesi di un intervento armato in Siria».

Se dovesse prevalere la linea di Obama che cosa accadrebbe?

«Si prospetterebbe un raid punitivo. Gli Stati Uniti avvertirebbero Al Assad a darsi una calmata. Gli obiettivi sarebbero i centri di comando e controllo delle forze armate, i palazzi governativi, radar e postazioni della difesa aerea che verrebbero attaccati con missili da crociera Tomahawk lanciabili da sottomarini, incrociatori e cacciatorpediniere statunitensi. I rischi di questa opzione limitata sono bassi in termini di perdite tra gli attaccanti ma difficilmente simili raid potranno indebolire significativamente le forze governative impegnate contro i ribelli».

Si parla anche di aiuti ai ribelli senza intervento armato...

«È un’opzione morbida e comprende aiuti e addestramento dei ribelli gestito direttamente dagli Stati Uniti e dagli alleati arabi e occidentali con l’aumento dei consiglieri militari dislocati in Turchia e Giordania il cui compito sarebbe anche di evitare che armi ed equipaggiamenti finiscano nelle mani di gruppi terroristici o estremisti islamici».

In ultima analisi ci sarebbe l’invasione siriana, sulla falsa riga di quella irachena...

«La conquista di Damasco richiederebbe uno sforzo bellico globale aereo, terrestre e navale che ricadrebbe per lo più sugli Stati Uniti per l’aspetto tecnologico e dei mezzi mentre in termini di truppe turchi e arabi potrebbero mettere in campo molti soldati. Più improbabile un coinvolgimento massiccio di militari europei nelle operazioni terrestri ma è difficile anche ipotizzare che Barack Obama, dopo aver ritirato i militari dall’Iraq e avviato il ripiegamento dall’Afghanistan intenda mandare ingenti reparti militari a combattere sul suolo siriano».

© Riproduzione riservata

http://www.ilsecoloxix.it/p/mondo/2013/08/25/AQG5YJD-funzionera_kosovo_modello.shtml