blog

May 1, 2015

Agent Orange: Terrible Legacy of the Vietnam War

Mai Giang Vu was exposed to Agent Orange while serving in the Army of South Vietnam from 1968 to 1974. He carried barrels of chemicals to spray in the jungle. His sons were born in 1974 and 1975. They were unable to walk or function normally. Their limbs gradually “curled up” and they could only crawl. By age 18, they were bedridden. One died at age 23; the other at age 25.

Nga Tran is a French Vietnamese woman who worked in Vietnam as a war correspondent. She was there when the US military began spraying chemical defoliants. A big cloud of the agent enveloped her. Shortly after her daughter was born, the child’s skin began shedding. She could not bear to have physical contact with anyone. The child never grew. She remained 6.6 pounds – her birth weight – until her death at the age of 17 months. Tran’s second daughter suffers from alpha thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder rarely seen in Asia. Tran saw a woman who gave birth to a “ball” with no human form. Many children are born without brains; others make inhuman sounds, Tran said. There are victims who have never stood up. They creep and barely lift their heads.Read more

April 27, 2015

Challenging American Exceptionalism

President Barack Obama stood behind the podium and apologized for inadvertently killing two Western hostages – including one American – during a drone strike in Pakistan. Obama said, “one of the things that sets America apart from many other nations, one of the things that makes us exceptional, is our willingness to confront squarely our imperfections and to learn from our mistakes.” In his 2015 state of the union address, Obama described America as “exceptional.” When he spoke to the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, he said, “Some may disagree, but I believe that America is exceptional.”

American exceptionalism reflects the belief that Americans are somehow better than everyone else. This view reared its head after the 2013 leak of a Department of Justice White Paper that describes circumstances under which the President can order the targeted killing of U.S. citizens. There had been little public concern in this country about drone strikes that killed people in other countries. But when it was revealed that U.S. citizens could be targeted, Americans were outraged. This motivated Senator Rand Paul to launch his 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination for CIA director.Read more

April 23, 2015

Dutch Lawsuit Charges Crimes Against Humanity During Egyptian Massacres

On July 3, 2013, the Egyptian military staged a coup’etat and deposed the democratically elected government of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Thousands of Egyptians staged demonstrations throughout Egypt to show support for Morsi.

One month later, the Egyptian army and police carried out several massacres in Cairo, killing hundreds of unarmed protesters. Authorities mounted a military response to largely peaceful protests by supporters of the Brotherhood against the illegitimate Egyptian government. Although aimed primarily at the Brotherhood, the crackdown included other political opposition groups and individuals.Read more

March 26, 2015

Israel’s Blatant Flouting of International Law Requires Presidential Response

As Israeli voters went to the polls, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared he would oppose the creation of a Palestinian state. In what The New York Times called a “racist rant,” he also proclaimed, “right-wing rule is in danger” because “Arab voters are streaming in huge quantities to the polling stations.” James Besser, Washington correspondent for Jewish newspapers for 24 years, wrote that Israeli voters, “more clearly aware of Netanyahu’s intent than ever,” have chosen “the apartheid path.”

Netanyahu’s remarks were met with outrage in the United States and around the world. The Obama administration reacted by saying the United States would “reassess” its policy toward Israel. And, significantly, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told a J Street conference that “an occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end, and the Palestinian people must have the right to live in and govern themselves in their own sovereign state.”Read more

March 4, 2015

Netanyahu, ‘Censored Voices,’ and the False Narrative of Self-Defense

On March 3rd, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an impassioned plea to Congress to protect Israel by opposing diplomacy with Iran. Referring to “the remarkable alliance between Israel and the United States” which includes “generous military assistance and missile defense,” Netanyahu failed to mention that Israel has an arsenal of 100 or 200 nuclear weapons.

The Six-Day War

The day before he delivered that controversial address, Netanyahu expressed similar sentiments to AIPAC, Israel’s powerful U.S. lobby. He reiterated the claim that Israel acted in the 1967 Six-Day War “to defend itself.” The narrative that Israel attacked Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in self-defense, seizing the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula in 1967, has remained largely unquestioned in the public discourse. Israel relies on that narrative to continue occupying those Palestinian lands. And the powerful film “Censored Voices,” which premiered at Sundance in February, does not challenge that narrative.

But declassified high-level documents from Britain, France, Russia and the United States reveal that Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were not going to attack Israel and Israel knew it. In fact, they did not attack Israel. Instead, Israel mounted the first attack in order to decimate the Egyptian army and take the West Bank.Read more

February 18, 2015

Obama to Congress: Rubber-Stamp My Perpetual War

As President Barack Obama presented his proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force(AUMF) to Congress, he declared, “I do not believe America’s interests are served by endless war, or by remaining on a perpetual war footing.” Yet Obama’s proposal asks Congress to rubber-stamp his endless war against anyone he wants, wherever he wants. Obama has launched 2,300 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since August 8, 2014. In his six years as president, he has killed more people than died on 9/11 with drones and other forms of targeted killing in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia – countries with which the United States is not at war.

Obama’s proposed AUMF contains some purported limitations, but their vagueness amounts to a blank check to use US military force in perpetuity.Read more

February 2, 2015

‘How Human Rights Can Build Haiti’

Book Review: ‘How Human Rights Can Build Haiti’ Fran Quigley, Vanderbilt University Press (2014), 223 pp.

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. It has suffered a devastating earthquake followed by a deadly cholera epidemic, both set in the backdrop of a history of oppression by corrupt rulers and foreign exploitation. In spite of incredible challenges, two intrepid human rights attorneys – one Haitian and one American – have worked diligently to vindicate the rights of the people of Haiti, with some notable successes.

Fran Quigley’s important book tells the story of Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon, whose Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) has given hope to untold numbers of Haitians. They opt for a ‘bottom-up’ rather than a ‘top-down’ approach. Their preference is to help to empower the Haitian people to make change themselves, instead of relying on outsiders – particularly the United States and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – which establish ‘rule of law programs’ and provide charity, generally with strings attached.Read more

January 30, 2015

Supreme Court Upholds Auto Stop With No Traffic Violation

Ignorance of the law is no excuse – that is, unless you’re a police officer. For the first time, in December, the Supreme Court upheld a traffic stop even where there was no traffic violation. The court, in Heien v. North Carolina, continued its steady erosion of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

In this case, an officer stopped a car that had only one working brake light, thinking that North Carolina law required two working brake lights. But the officer was mistaken about the law. Only one working brake light is required in North Carolina.Read more

January 13, 2015

Interview of Marjorie Cohn about ‘Drones and Targeted Killing’

By John Wilkens
San Diego Union-Tribune

Marjorie Cohn has been a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego since 1991, specializing in international human rights law. She’s a former president of the National Lawyers Guild and testified before Congress about torture.

She recently edited “Drones and Targeted Killing,” a collection of writings about the legal, moral and political ramifications of unmanned aerial warfare.

Cohn said many people don’t realize that attacks authorized by President Obama have “killed more people with drones than died on 9/11,” and that only “a tiny percentage” were al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders.Read more

December 23, 2014

Marjorie Cohn on Drone Warfare: Illegal, Immoral and Ineffective

Law professor, writer and social critic Marjorie Cohn explores human rights and US foreign policy, and the frequent contradiction between the two in her monthly Truthout column, “Human Rights and Global Wrongs.” She agreed to an interview with Truthout’s Leslie Thatcher recently about her new book, “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.”

Leslie Thatcher: Marjorie, could you describe the genesis of this project?

Marjorie Cohn: George W. Bush prosecuted two illegal wars in which thousands of Americans, Iraqis and Afghans were killed. Although Barack Obama continued those wars, eventually he reduced the numbers of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Obama vastly expanded the use of targeted killing – with drones, manned bombers and military raids.

Obama has killed more people with drones than died on 9/11. Many of those killed were civilians, and only a tiny percentage of the dead were al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders. Obama’s targeted killings off the battlefield are not only illegal and immoral; they also make us less safe due to the blowback from those who have lost family and friends. There was not much opposition to these killings among the American people.Read more