Leaks on mass civilian casualties in Afghanistan could form basis for Goldstone style prosecutions against US, Britain and other coalition countries
This weekend’s release of thousands of secret official files about coalition operations in Afghanistan paints a harrowing picture of the fog of war, most troubling of all of the accidental killings by our soldiers of hundreds of innocent civilians – revellers at wedding parties, kids in school buses, ordinary people going about their daily business who tragically found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Given that the Taliban systematically hides behind the civilian population this sort of thing is, of course, inevitable. Nonetheless, it is understandable that the revelations by Wikileaks have caused embarrassment to the governments of all the coalition countries.
But for those coalition countries in Europe – Britain first among them – who are currently cheerleading the passage of the Goldstone Report on Gaza through the United Nations this is more than an embarrassment. In the light of Goldstone, it represents an outright threat to the security of their soldiers on the ground as well as to their national interests in international tribunals.
In my experience, the MidEast crowd at the British Foreign Office and its equivalents elsewhere in Europe tend to be a little on the slow side. So, let me spell this out so there is no ambiguity.
International laws, norms and procedures to a great extent operate on the basis of precedent. So when Britain and other European countries allowed the Arab dictatorships to push a report through the United Nations specifically designed to criminalise the Israeli military’s attempts to deal with terrorists hiding behind a civilian population in Gaza, they simultaneously set a precedent for all countries, including their own.
Now that it has been revealed — via official documents — that British soldiers, for example, have been involved in exactly the same kind of operations against exactly the same kind of terror groups using exactly the same tactics and resulting in exactly the same kind of outcomes in terms of the loss of civilian lives, British soldiers and ministers could face exactly the same kind of censure and penalties as Israel.
This could range from the purely verbal assaults of the kind mounted by European governments during Operation Cast Lead right up to prosecutions in international tribunals or through universal jurisdiction laws in countries around the world that have adopted them.
Of course, I am using Goldstone as both a concrete precedent in its own right, but also as a proxy for the whole panoply of terror-appeasement policies and norms that outfits such as the British Foreign Office have allowed to develop, or have actively supported, in the international community over decades.
The Foreign Office and its equivalents are thus proved not merely to have been engaged in the vilest of discriminatory hypocrisy over Israel, Goldstone and all that it represents, they are shown to have been deliberately and wilfully allowing a depraved anti-Israeli agenda to take precedence over their own national interests.
I didn’t realise that undermining one’s own military or one’s own national interests was what our diplomats were being paid to do. Perhaps they would care to comment?
Tags: Israel
July 26th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Excellent analysis, as usual, Robin. Of course, even though American and British politicians might be liable for prosecutions through universal jurisdiction laws, in practice I doubt whether this would happen. Although termed “universal”, the intended targets of these laws have always been very specific - namely, Jews, or to use the palatable, modern term, Israelis.
July 26th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Superb comment Robin.
July 26th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Well Israel is fair game and it is open season. GB is a rather different case at least for the moment
July 26th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Great observations, Robin, but UK and European coalition forces are protected from censure by something that’s even more effective than Israel’s new Iron Dome anti-missile defence.
It’s called ‘World Hypocrisy’.
A second and sad facet of this hypocrisy is that a lot more dead Pashtuns are required to have the same effect as dead Gazans or dead Turkish thugs. Unfortunately the lives of Kurds and Darfur Africans are similarly devalued in the eyes of World Hypocrisy.
July 26th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
AT LAST,
MAYBE THAT SIGNALS THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF WESTERN MASOCHIST MADNESS.SOMEHOW I AM NOT SO SURE.AT LEAST AS LONG AS BHO RULES FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.
July 26th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
“revellers at wedding parties”
Old news that the world chose to overlook:
1) Afghan: U.S. bomb hits wedding party - July 1, 2002
“BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (CNN) — At least 20 people were killed and more than 60 injured in Afghanistan when a U.S. plane dropped a bomb on a wedding party as celebrants fired into the air, an Afghan defense spokesman said Monday.”
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/07/01/afghanistan.bombing/
No US apology over wedding bombing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/03/afghanistan.lukeharding
2) Wedding party massacre - Thursday 20 May 2004
Iraqis claim more than 40 killed in US helicopter attack
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/20/iraq.rorymccarthy
3) Afghan survivors tell of wedding bombing - Sunday, 13 July 2008
“The BBC’s Alastair Leithead is the first journalist to reach the scene of a US air raid which Afghan authorities say killed about 50 civilians in the east of the country on 6 July. He reports on what he found”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7504574.stm
And
– Nato probes reports raid killed 45 Afghan civilians - 25 July 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10756940
– September 4, 2009 - As many as 70-90 people, most of them civilians, were killed in northern Kunduz province by a U.S. airstrike called in by German ISAF troops after militants had hijacked two fuel tankers headed from Tajikistan to supply NATO forces.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29
Civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29
July 26th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I’ve always thought that those indulging in anti-Israel hypocrisy like the UK government will one day come to regret it. That may be sooner rather than later.
July 27th, 2010 at 8:46 am
Excellent piece Robin, but who cares?
Any clamour at the UN for an emergency session? -No - no Jews involved.
Any clamour at the Security Council for an emergency session?- No - no Jews involved.
Jews are not involved - so no-one cares, all the UK news coverage has been downbeat and matter of fact, almost well what do you expect in a war?.
The double-standards and the hypocrisy of the west can be summed up :- “anti-semitism”
It is nothing less, nothing more, any-one that argues otherwise is simply naive.
July 27th, 2010 at 9:04 am
Did anyone notice the BBC World report on the coalition attack on an Afghan village over the weekend?
Interesting in that the reporter stressed that there was no way of independently verifying that the attack was made by coalition forces. And then later in the same report when showing men and children in hospital the reporter again stressed that there was no way of independently verifying that these people had been injured in the reported attack.
A very different reporting style to that used in Israel.
July 27th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Fair play is bonnie play is a slogan I was brought up with. Those who were deliberately unfair to Israel for their own reasons will face the fact that they themselves are human and vulnerable in the same way.
The fact still remains that Israel is protecting its own citizens and the Brits are fighting people thousands of miles away, with a great deal less justification and possibly many more injured innocents.
July 27th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Great post in the Jerusalem Post.
Thank you for writing this Robin.
**Adam - That may be sooner rather than later.**
Indeed
I also think that Wikileaks has made a bad tactical mistake. Data security will be tightened and his anti war agenda will be ‘kicked about’ ad finitum
July 27th, 2010 at 10:04 am
7.
I’ve always thought that those indulging in anti-Israel hypocrisy like the UK government will one day come to regret it. That may be sooner rather than later.
I do hope that Adam is correct : David Cameron has just announced his fervent support for Turkey’s EU application -why?
What a balancing act : bogged down in Afghanistan ;cosying up to Turkey’s avowedly Islamist government and ignoring the plight of the victims of mass murder in Sudan; Zimbabwe; Turkish Kurdistan.
Perfidious Albion indeed. Hypocrisy rules OK.
July 27th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
“Now that it has been revealed — via official documents — that British soldiers, for example, have been involved in exactly the same kind of operations against exactly the same kind of terror groups using exactly the same tactics and resulting in exactly the same kind of outcomes in terms of the loss of civilian lives, British soldiers and ministers could face exactly the same kind of censure and penalties as Israel.”
It will never happen, amusing as the thought is.
However, the West will have to get used to more of the same as groups like Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Taliban proliferate and use the populations among whom they hide as human shields.
July 27th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
I’m so angry I’m going to smash up a few shops and property to prevent a few war crimes since I can now rely on Judge George Bathurst -Norman to get me off!
July 28th, 2010 at 5:03 am
“Given that the Taliban systematically hides behind the civilian population..”
So assuming (this is just your word we have to accept) that the Taliban (people) mingle with people on a daily basis, it’s OK to target them (the people) from thousands of kms away and then blame the Taliban?
By that logic, it is perfectly OK to target the civilian populations of any country that may contain mingled members (past, present, and future) of the military of that country .. Is that really what you are justifying?
I don’t really believe that active Taliban were ‘hiding behind’ a wedding party… do you?
July 28th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Therzal, I’ve no idea what you’re on about, but you make your point with commendable vigour.
If it helps clarify things, this article was in the Guardian, so it must be true …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/taliban-human-shields
July 30th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
“One rule for thee, another for me.” Or rather “we”, the world outside Israel. Of course, the fact that the UK and US have veto authority in the UNSC offers some protection. And no one would dare go against Russia, China or the countries of the OIC. Israel is pretty much alone.
The rank hypocrisy is hardly limited to the countries of the West. Just consider the Lebanese Army’s operation against Fatah al’Islam in the Nahr al Barad Palestinian camp about two years ago that resulted in widespread destruction and loss of civilian life. Did anyone hear even a murmur from the world community about it?