American fingerprints on Saudi war crimes

© 2016 Peter Free

 

11 October 2016

 

 

Theme

 

Bad United States government lawyering contributes to qualitatively poor American leadership.

 

 

Crime scene — American fingerprints in Yemen

 

The United States has been providing Saudi Arabia with weapons, refueling, and targeting information as the kingdom's aircraft pound Yemeni rebels.

 

A few days ago, American MK82 bomb fragments were reportedly found in the rubble left after the Saudis attacked a funeral procession. Scores of people died. Hundreds were wounded.

 

This is (roughly speaking) business as usual for the Obama Administration — which reportedly thinks that (a) keeping Saudi Arabia as an ally outweighs (b) not committing "shit show" (the President's words) war crimes on a regular basis.

 

 

What is arguably odd

 

From my attorney's perspective, I find it curious that even US government lawyers cannot agree that the United States is complicit in committing criminal acts in Yemen.

 

It is as if this group, of supposedly rigorously thinking folk, cannot read:

 

 

U.S. government lawyers ultimately did not reach a conclusion on whether U.S. support for the campaign would make the United States a "co-belligerent" in the war under international law . . . .

 

That finding would have obligated Washington to investigate allegations of war crimes in Yemen and would have raised a legal risk that U.S. military personnel could be subject to prosecution . . . .

 

[According to a decision by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, with regard to war criminal ex-Liberian President, Charles Taylor] "practical assistance, encouragement or moral support" is sufficient to determine liability for war crimes.

 

© 2016 Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay, Exclusive: As Saudis bombed Yemen, U.S. worried about legal blowback, Reuters (10 October 2016) (extracts)

 

 

The United States cannot physically help Saudi Arabia murder innocents on a regular basis, and then claim that we had nothing to do with what happened.

 

 

The moral? — A reckless disregard for truth increasingly marks American culture

 

Recall, for example, how Indiana Governor Mike Pence repeatedly denies what we all clearly saw 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump do just a few days before.

 

The Lie Machine may delude us about our unwitnessed actions abroad, but it will not mislead the families of those killed by American-manufactured and supported bomb strikes.

 

By so often acting like clearly visible outlaws abroad, we mark our own troops and travelers for retaliatory harm. Those who serve the United States did not put their uniforms on, so that American leaders could encourage the rest of the world see them as Humanity's enemies.

 

Our Yemen policy is stupidly destructive, unnecessarily dangerous, and morally and legally wrong. Even minimally decent lawyering could have pointed this out to our apparently cynically inclined Commander in Chief.