[pjw] INFO: Thoughts about Ukraine, the UN and war crimes

[Peace and Justice Works]

PJW supporters
This morning Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the UN Security Council and 
asserted that Russia has violated the UN Charter and should be removed 
from having a permanent seat where they can always veto condemnations of 
their actions. While these statements are both worthy, it ignores the fact 
that the UK, France, China and the US all have the same ability, which has 
undermined the UN as a peace-keeping organization for our tiny and 
ever more quickly dying planet. He offered evidence of Russian war crimes 
in Ukraine, which the US was quick to say they had already concluded were 
real.

We've already discussed the US "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction 
in Iraq which were not real. There's also to consider the Organization for 
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons reports on two alleged uses of 
chemical weapons in Syria-- attacks the US used to justify military 
intervention. The OPCW originally said they could not prove chemicals had 
been used at all.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-chemicalweapons-idUSKBN26N2FY

Then when a final report came out on the second attack blaming Syria, a 
whistleblower inspector said the report was flawed and based on a 
pre-determined conclusion.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/15/the-opcw-and-douma-chemical-weapons-watchdog-accused-of-evidence-tampering-by-its-own-inspectors/

Then there's also the question of moral relativism-- it is possible and 
likely that Russia _has_ committed war crimes, but when will the United 
States be held accountable for dropping two atomic bombs on civilian 
populations in Japan, killing over 150,000 people?

The US was found in violation of international law for mining the harbors 
in Nicaragua in the 1980s; the US used the UN Security Council to block 
enforcement of the International Court of Justice's findings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States

Ukranian civilians supposedly fed poison to Russian troops, killing two 
people. (I turned off Stephen Colbert's show last night when he shrugged 
at this, as if it were a natural thing to do, and the audience applauded. 
Yikes.)

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-troops-killed-sickened-poisoned-023711158.html

War and violence are wrong. No country deserves veto power over its own 
actions on the global stage.

Rant over, for now.
dan handelman
peace and justice works iraq affinity group