By AlternativeFreePress.com
It appears that the US Secretary of State has a poor memory, or at least a selective one, seemingly forgetting the recent US invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan & Libya.
“You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests,” John Kerry said during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. “This is an act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of its pretext. It’s really 19th-century behavior in the 21st century”
A report prepared in 2006 at the direction of Rep. John Conyers, Jr. concluded that “members of the Bush Administration misstated, overstated, and manipulated intelligence with regards to linkages between Iraq and Al Qaeda; the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iraq; the acquisition of aluminum tubes to be used as uranium centrifuges; and the acquisition of uranium from Niger.” and further that they were “making false and misleading statements about Iraq’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, the record shows the Bush Administration must have known these statements conflicted with known international and domestic intelligence at the time.” and “these misstatements were in contradiction of known countervailing intelligence information, and were the result of political pressure and manipulation.” It appears clear that the US invaded Iraq on completely phony pretexts.
In October 2001, the United States rejected more than one offer by Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden for trial in a third country if they would stop the air attacks and could provide evidence against bin Laden. It appears the US was more interested in using fear of bin Laden to justify military force rather than actually capture the man who had been their intelligence asset for years.
Even if we ignore the US administration’s lack of desire to capture Osama bin Laden in 2001, Marjorie Cohn in ‘Afghanistan: The Other Illegal War’ for Alternet argues that: “The invasion of Afghanistan was not legitimate self-defense under article 51 of the charter because the attacks on Sept. 11 were criminal attacks, not ‘armed attacks’ by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after Sept. 11, or Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be ‘instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.’ This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the U.N. General Assembly.”
Regarding Libya, Alan J. Kuperman in a 2011 op-ed for the Boston Globe entitled “False pretense for war in Libya?” concludes that “Evidence is now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya.” and “It is hard to know whether the White House was duped by the rebels or conspired with them to pursue regime-change on bogus humanitarian grounds. In either case, intervention quickly exceeded the UN mandate of civilian protection by bombing Libyan forces in retreat or based in bastions of Khadafy support, such as Sirte, where they threatened no civilians.”
Of course, the US is in many more countries than just these. Democracy Now pointed out in 2012: “U.S. Army teams will be deploying to as many as 35 African countries early next year for training programs and other operations as part of an increased Pentagon role in Africa. The move would see small teams of U.S. troops dispatched to countries with groups allegedly linked to al-Qaeda, such as Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger. The teams are from a U.S. brigade that has the capability to use drones for military operations in Africa if granted permission. The deployment could also potentially lay the groundwork for future U.S. military intervention in Africa.”
You don’t invade a country on completely phony pretexts, unless you are the United States or a US ally.
Sources for this article:
1. NBC’s MEET THE PRESS: March 2, 2014 http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-march-2-2014-n42471
2. Iraq: A War of Aggression. No WMDs, No Connection to Al Qaeda http://www.globalresearch.ca/iraq-a-war-of-aggression-no-wmds-no-connection-to-al-qaeda/5327548
3. U.S. Rejects New Taliban Offer http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=80482&page=1#.T4tKU6tDySo
4. Afghanistan: The Other Illegal War http://www.alternet.org/story/93473/afghanistan%3A_the_other_illegal_war
5. U.S. Army Teams Heading to 35 African Countries http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/26/headlines
Written by Alternative Free Press
Hypocrite Kerry tells Russia ‘you don’t invade a country on completely phony pretexts’ by AlternativeFreePress.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.