Targeted Killings: US and Israeli
Specialties -Israel's Deplorable History
12 March 2012
By Stephen Lendman
International law permits justifiable self-defense.
Targeted killings are prohibited, especially
premeditated ones like America and Israel repeatedly
commit for reasons other than claimed.
These incidents constitute cold-blooded murder. US
drone killings and rampaging death squads, as well as
Israel's deplorable history and latest ritual
slaughter highlight the issue. International law
prohibits anticipatory self-defense. It amounts to
using force to deter it.
Under the UN Charter's Article 2(4):
"All Members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any
state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the
Purposes of the United Nations."
Only two exceptions apply. Article 51 permits
"individual or collective self-defence if an armed
attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,
until the Security Council has taken measures
necessary to maintain international peace and
security."
In addition, a nation may anticipate self-defense in
situations where verifiable, compelling evidence shows
imminent or already initiated armed attacks.
For example, if nations face hostile mobilized troops
on their borders, self-defense is justified if
invasion seems likely. Or if specific provable
knowledge of impending terrorist attacks are known,
preventive defensive action is warranted.
However, anticipatory self-defense based on unproved
allegations is lawless. For example, attacking Iraq
for allegedly possessing WMDs had no basis in
international law. Moreover, possession of any weapons
proves no intent to use them. In the case of Iraq, of
course, allegations were entirely spurious.
Key is that employing anticipatory (or preemptive)
self-defense against nations, groups, or individuals
based on alleged threats is prohibited and lawless if
undertaken.
No matter. For America and Israel, it's official
policy. Alleged national security reasons are cited.
Nearly always they're spurious.
In response to Israel's 1981 Iraq Osirik nuclear
reactor attack (under construction at the time), the
Security Council ruled "the military attack by Israel
in clear violation of the Charter of the United
Nations and the norms of international conduct."
If Israel and/or America attack Iran's nuclear
facilities, the same standard applies. Of course, US
veto power will prevent saying or deterring it unlike
decades earlier. Back then, the IAEA head and Israel
had no evidence of unlawful weapons development,
possession, or imminent use. Anticipatory self-defense
was lawless.
Unverifiable "inherent right" claims are spurious.
Nonetheless, America and Israel invoke them often. In
his 2002 West Point Commencement speech, George Bush
said:
"(N)ot only will the United States impose preemptive,
unilateral military force when and where it chooses,
but the nation will also punish those who engage in
terror and aggression and will work to impose a
universal moral clarity between good and evil."
In other words, he unilaterally claimed whatever
America says, goes. No restraints apply. At the time,
moreover, he suggested Washington has choices
unavailable to other nations. Rule of law provisions
apply to them. Washington makes its own.
In fact, America lawlessly waged multiple post-WW II
wars. All were illegal aggression. None were justified
for any reason. It's equally true for Israel. Today,
both nations represent clear and present dangers.
Operating extrajudicially, they endanger humanity.
In 2010, Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions
presented a report on the topic. It called using them
"highly problematic, blurring and expand(ing) the
boundaries" of recognized international law.
Asserting a "vaguely defined license to kill" subverts
it. Alston called targeted killings "intentional,
premeditated and deliberate use of lethal force...."
Legal frameworks are blurred. Laws of war and human
rights are discarded. Moreover, states employing this
practice don't show justification other than claiming
vague threats.
Most often, they violate the right to life. Throughout
its history, Israel employed the tactic. In fact, it
began during the Mandatory Palestine period when
Jewish terrorist groups targeted Jews, Brits and
Arabs. Future prime ministers Menachem Begin and
Yitzhak Shamir were involved.
For example, in November 1944, Lehi (Stern Gang)
terrorists assassinated Lord Moyne, Britain's Middle
East minister of state, near his home in Cairo.
In September 1948, it also killed UN mediator Folke
Bernadotte in Jerusalem, five months after Israel was
established. Yitzhak Shamir personally approved the
assassination.
In July 1946, Irgun terrorists bombed the King David
Hotel, massacring 92 Brits, Arabs and Jews, wounding
58 others. Future prime minister David Ben-Gurion
approved it as head of the Jewish Agency at the time.
Before and after May 1948, many thousands of targeted
killings occurred or were attempted. Using them is
official Israeli policy. Mossad assassins murdered
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
On February 14, 2005, compelling visual and audio
evidence revealed real time intercepted Israel aerial
surveillance footage of routes he used on the day his
motorcade was attacked. Israel was involved.
At first, Syria was spuriously blamed, then Hezbollah.
Fingers were bogusly pointed the wrong way to absolve
Israel. It was typical Mossad, whether by car bombs,
shootings, poisoning, slit throats, or other means.
Targets get no reprieves.
Assassinations, including US citizens, didn't begin
under Bush and Obama. CIA operatives used them for
decades. In his book "Nemesis: The Last Days of the
American Republic," Chalmers Johnson said:
"(W)e will never again know peace, nor in all
probability survive very long as a nation, unless we
abolish the CIA, restore intelligence collecting to
the State Department, and remove all but purely
military functions from the Pentagon."
The Agency acts as judge, jury, and executioner.
Imperial Rome had its praetorian guard. The CIA works
the same way as a private unaccountable army. It
operates extrajudicially against targets ranging from
alleged terrorists to heads of state.
Among its original missions, one vaguely permitted
"other functions and duties related to intelligence
affecting the national security as the National
Security Council may....direct."
As a result, it became a covert, unaccountable force
unto itself. It's engaged in mischievous, illegal
operations. They include overthrowing democratically
elected governments, assassinating foreign heads of
state and key officials, propping up friendly
dictators, and extraordinarily renditioning targeted
subjects to torture prison hell, or simply
disappearing them.
Accountable unto itself, it does what it pleases
outside the law. Its bag of dirty tricks defines
imperial America. In the process, the republic's life
was shortened. Johnson said "the company" menaces
democracy. Neither can coexist with the other.
Along with US Special Forces, it's involved in death
squad killings. It also operates predator drones in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and wherever
Washington designates targets to kill.
Allegedly targeting militants and terrorists,
independent experts believe noncombatant civilians are
killed 98% of the time. Official reports suppress
dirty truths.
US citizens are also targeted. Attorney General Eric
Holder said:
"The president may use force abroad against a senior
operational leader of a foreign terrorist organization
with which the United States is at war — even if that
individual happens to be a U.S. citizen."
In fact, senior administration officials said Obama
and future presidents (on their own authority) may
order them killed anywhere, including at home. Holder
noticeably added that America's "authority is not
limited to the battlefields in Afghanistan" or
anywhere else.
They're where presidents say they are. Anyone anywhere
may be killed for any reason or none at all. They can
also be arrested, thrown in military dungeons
uncharged, denied due process, sent abroad to torture
prisons, or simply disappeared.
Constitutional protections no longer apply. Unilateral
executive authority replaced them. Planet earth is
America's battlefield. Since last year, drone attacks
killed at least three US citizens abroad.
The FAA Reauthorization Act authorizes up to 30,000
unmanned homeland aerial vehicles (UAVs) by 2020.
They'll be used for spying and who knows what else.
Not only will privacy rights be compromised, so will
life and liberty protections. This army in the sky
will be used repressively against everyone.
A Final Comment
Ron Paul's the only presidential candidate openly
expressing alarm about Obama's assassination policy.
On February 24, 2010, he said:
"What have we allowed ourselves to become? Are we no
longer a nation of laws? Have we become instead a
nation of men who make secret arrests? Are secret
prisons now simply another tool of the federal
government law enforcement?"
"Is secret rendition of individuals now permitted, out
of misplaced fear? Have we decided that the writ of
habeas corpus is not worth defending? Is torture now
an acceptable tool for making us safe? Unfortunately,
the single answer to all of these questions from the
leaders of our country and to many of our citizens
appears to be yes."
When nations no longer observe fundamental
international laws and their own, tyranny follows.
Governing extrajudicially, American and Israeli
leaders, as well as complicit officials in both
countries, operate lawlessly. Rule of law protections
don't apply. As a result, no one's safe, including
Israeli Jews and US citizens.
A shroud of secrecy, mass deception, scoundrel
journalism, extrajudicial killing, torture, permanent
war, homeland repression, universal spying, and
leaders doing what they damn please with impunity
threatens life, liberty, humanity, and planet earth.
In his 1961 inaugural address, John Kennedy
highlighted "the common enemies of man: tyranny,
poverty, disease, and war itself." He asked for "a
grand and global alliance" against them, and said
"history (will be) the final judge of our deeds...."
On June 14, 1956, Senator Kennedy gave Harvard's
Commencement speech. This writer heard it. Politicians
today speak differently. He was reasoned, scholarly,
effective, and impressive.
He said when freedom is threatened, politicians and
intellectuals "should be natural allies, working more
closely together for the common cause against the
common enemy."
He ended quoting what an English mother once wrote the
Provost of Harrow, saying "Don't teach my boy poetry;
he is going to stand for Parliament."
"Well, perhaps she was right," said Kennedy, "but if
more politicians knew poetry and more poets knew
politics, I am convinced the world would be a little
better place in which to live on this commencement day
of 1956."
On November 22, 1963, state-sponsored assassins took
him. Decades of global lawlessness, permanent wars,
state terrorism, and tyranny followed.
History's verdict is clear. America's "common enemies"
won. Kennedy couldn't have imagined how decisively, or
most anyone a half century ago.
Given today's bipartisan rogue governance, humanity's
threatened. At issue is will there be another or much
time left at all! The prospect's real and frightening.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached
at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog
site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to
cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on
the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive
Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and
Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are
archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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