Suspend military aid to Israel, Amnesty urges Obama after detailing US weapons used in Gaza.

Hell will freeze over before this is ever allowed to happen, but Amnesty International have prepared a report for Barack Obama outlining the extensive use Israel have made of US weaponry against the civilian population of Gaza, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles, and have called on the new president to suspend military aid to Israel.

The human rights group said that those arming both sides in the conflict "will have been well aware of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties and must therefore take responsibility for the violations perpetrated".

The US has long been the largest arms supplier to Israel; under a current 10-year agreement negotiated by the Bush administration the US will provide $30bn (£21bn) in military aid to Israel.

"As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme director. "To a large extent, Israel's military offensive in Gaza was carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the USA and paid for with US taxpayers' money."

Amnesty are also calling for an investigation into the "indiscriminate rockets" fired at civilians from the Palestinian side of the conflict and are asking that both sides be investigated for war crimes.

Nothing will ever come of this but that doesn't mean that nothing should come of this.

There are strict conditions attached to all sales of weapons, mostly stating that they should only be used in defence and certainly never against civilians. And yes, the country which supplies the weaponry can expect a certain amount of "blowback" if the weaponry is used in a way which most people regard as illegal or immoral.

Amnesty researchers in Gaza found several weapon fragments after the fighting. One came from a 500lb (227kg) Mark-82 fin guided bomb, which had markings indicating parts were made by the US company Raytheon. They also found fragments of US-made white phosphorus artillery shells, marked M825 A1.

On 15 January, several white phosphorus shells fired by the Israeli military hit the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City, destroying medicine, food and aid. One fragment found at the scene had markings indicating it was made by the Pine Bluff Arsenal, based in Arkansas, in October 1991.

The human rights group said the Israeli military had used white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas, which it said was an indiscriminate form of attack and a war crime.

Of course, US politicians always vote with a lockstep unanimity on the subject of Israel which would not be out of place in a totalitarian state, so there's only so much that one could reasonably expect Obama to do here. He's certainly not going to take on the Israeli lobby this early in his presidency.

But some Americans are coming around to the notion that Israeli war crimes committed with American weaponry, and with the full support of America's political class, contribute to anti-Americanism across the globe. Glenn Greenwald on the decision of both houses to vote to support the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza:

What makes this transpartisan consensus so notable is not merely the improbability of 510 ideologically diverse lawmakers all looking at this perplexing and contentious war and just happening to decide that Israel is fully in the right. Beyond the abstract question of whether Israel’s attack is justified lies the weightier question of whether the United States should incur the wrath of much of the world, and virtually the entire Muslim world, by involving itself in this war. Remarkably, the consensus extended not only to the view that Israel was right to attack Gaza, but that the U.S. should formalize its support for Israel’s offensive.

Though the resolution was nonbinding, it was not inconsequential. At a time when worldwide disgust was at its peak, the U.S. made Israel’s war our war, its enemies our enemies, its intractable disputes ours, and the hostility generated by Israeli actions our own.

And American politicians do this against US public opinion, which continues to ask that the US act as an honest broker in this conflict, the very thing which the US political class refuse to do.

Indeed, it is true to say that there are more American politicians who object to America's wars than there are who object to any war which Israel decides to engage in. That's a seriously f#cked up situation.

So we can hardly expect Obama to expend too much political capital calling for a suspension of military aid to Israel. Especially as any attempt to do so which had to be voted on by America's political class would be guaranteed to fail.

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Tags: Obama, Israel, Gaza, Amnesty International, war crimes, embargo

Amnesty unveils shock 'waterboarding' film

An American expert in torture techniques has denounced George Bush's government for allowing waterboarding, a technique which he has described as "out and out torture". He did this as Amnesty International were releasing an advert for British audiences to show just how brutal this technique is.

Malcolm Nance, who trained hundreds of US servicemen and women to resist interrogation by putting them through "waterboarding" exercises, demanded an immediate end to the practice by all US personnel.

He said: "They seem to think it is worth throwing the honour of 220 years of American decency in war out of the window. Waterboarding is out-and-out torture, and I'm deeply ashamed President Bush has authorised its use and dragged the US's reputation into the mud."

Mr Bush faced criticism recently when he vetoed a Bill that would have outlawed such methods of "enhanced interrogation" – the White House refuses to describe it as torture.

Mr Nance said: "You have a purpose-built table with straps in a pattern so that people can be strapped and unstrapped quickly. The head is strapped down in such a way so they cannot resist the water. The head is elevated so the water goes down the oesophagus.

"The water is poured very carefully over the nose – you keep a constant pour. You are drowning in water but you don't have the ability to hold your breath. You feel the water going in, you understand that water is filling your lungs."

Mr Nance, who is now an independent consultant, said the technique was also futile, as well as barbaric, as the prisoner would say anything to survive – regardless of its truth.

I think the point that Nance makes best is the fact that Bush has squandered 220 years of American decency in warfare and for what? Tortured people don't even give valuable information, they simply say whatever they think you want to hear in order to make you stop what it is that you are doing.

The election of someone essentially decent like Barack Obama will go some way to restoring America's reputation, but I think it will also need some of the people who enabled torture to take place to face charges before the boil will be truly lanced. This is not something which one can simply move on from. A crime has been committed and someone, somewhere, must accept responsibility.

Amnesty International is leading the campaign to persuade the US to abandon the practice – a form of torture used as long ago as the Spanish Inquisition – and is stepping up its efforts with the release of a graphic and disturbing advertisement.

The broadcast begins with images of glistening clear liquid, suggesting it could be promoting a new brand of vodka or gin. But the camera pulls back to show water is being poured over the face of a desperate man strapped to a table.

Kate Allen, the UK director of Amnesty International, said: "Our film shows you what the CIA doesn't want you to see – the disgusting reality of half-drowning a person.

"For a few seconds, our film-makers did it for real. Even for those few seconds, it's horrifying to watch. The reality – in a secret prison with no one to stop it – is much, much worse."

I don't know whether the people who need to be prosecuted are the politicians who ordered the torture or the lawyers who mangled all sense of decency in order to proclaim such blatant illegality legal, but it won't be possible to simply sweep this under the carpet.

In a perfect world Bush and Cheney would face charges for what happened on their watch, but we know that's never going to happen. War crimes are only ever committed by our enemies, never by us.

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Tags: Amnesty International, Torture, waterboarding, Bush, Cheney, Malcolm Nance

Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture

The Guardian are leading today with the story that General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, was "duped" by the Bush administration into believing that the Geneva Conventions were being applied in Guantanamo Bay and that prisoners in the Cuban base could not be subjected to torture.

Myers, it is claimed in a new book by Philippe Sands QC, believed that all interrogations at the camp were being carried out in accordance with the army's field manual and believes that he was a victim of "intrigue" by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld's defence department.

The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld's under-secretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

Again and again as this sorry tale unfolds the same names continually appear. Gonzales, Addington, Feith, Bybee and Yoo. Without these men none of this could have taken place as they are the men who continually told Bush and his administration that what they were doing was legal. Despite the fact that some of what they were doing is recognised as torture by every country that the US would consider an ally.

The revelations have sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book, and who are determined to establish accountability for the way the Bush administration violated international and domestic law by sanctioning prisoner abuse and torture.

The Bush administration has tried to explain away the ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by blaming junior officials. Sands' book establishes that pressure for aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the top and was sanctioned by the most senior lawyers.

Myers was one top official who did not understand the implications of what was being done. Sands, who spent three hours with the former general, says he was "confused" about the decisions that were taken.

Myers mistakenly believed that new techniques recommended by Haynes and authorised by Rumsfeld in December 2002 for use by the military at Guantánamo had been taken from the US army field manual. They included hooding, sensory deprivation, and physical and mental abuse.

"As we worked through the list of techniques, Myers became increasingly hesitant and troubled," writes Sands. "Haynes and Rumsfeld had been able to run rings around him."

There are many of us who simply never bought the story that Abu Ghraib and other atrocities were the work of a few bad apples as the stories of abuse circulating from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch all had the same techniques being replicated in different locations all over the world. It was very easy to work out that we were witnessing a pattern of abuse that must have been sanctioned very near the top of the political ladder.

And, with Bush's recent admission that he sanctioned this behaviour, the story is finally going to come out.

And people like Myers appear to have been totally cut out of the loop by Rumsfeld and others. Indeed, there is some suggestion that Myers was chosen precisely because Rumsfeld could outsmart him.

"We never authorised torture, we just didn't, not what we would do," Myers said. Sands comments: "He really had taken his eye off the ball ... he didn't ask too many questions ... and kept his distance from the decision-making process."

Larry Wilkerson, a former army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, told the Guardian: "I do know that Rumsfeld had neutralised the chairman [Myers] in many significant ways.

"The secretary did this by cutting [Myers] out of important communications, meetings, deliberations and plans.

"At the end of the day, however, Dick Myers was not a very powerful chairman in the first place, one reason Rumsfeld recommended him for the job".

Wilkerson makes one final chilling point:

"Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and - at the apex - Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court."

They are criminals who enabled torture. If they were ever to set foot in Britain I feel quite sure that Peter Thatchell would apply for them to be arrested and I am quite sure that a British court would grant a warrant for their arrest just as British courts approved the arrest of Pinochet.

I know that many right wing Americans treat international law as if it is something which they are entitled to take or leave as it suits their purposes, but the rest of the planet takes it a bit more seriously than they do. As Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales and Addington would discover if they ever leave America's shores.

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Tags: Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales, Addington, Bush, war crimes, torture, Guantanamo Bay, Aby Ghraib, General Richard Myers

Detainee Alleges Abuse in CIA Prison

The idiocy of President Bush's stance, that he rejects torture but refuses to clarify which acts he would consider to be torture, were highlighted in the transcript of the US tribunal against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who the US accuse of involvement in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and allegedly organising the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

His lawyer stated:

"The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him," Nashiri's representative read to the tribunal, according to the transcript. "Also, the detainee states that he made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop."

As any confession obtained through torture is ultimately useless, certainly in obtaining any conviction that carries any certainty of fairness, one wonders why Bush allows such ambiguity on America's position on this?

Tortured people would say anything to make the torturer stop, isn't that the very reason that they are being tortured in the first place? Therefore, no confession obtained by such means can be considered reliable.

And, as Bush refuses to clearly state that the US does not indulge in such practices, isn't he holding out this as a form of defence for every al-Qaeda suspect that he is going to bring before these tribunals?

I am sure the detainee's claims will have no effect on the military tribunal that Bush has formed for the express purpose of finding these guys guilty; however, it does have an effect on how the rest of the world view any guilty findings made by this same tribunal.

The fact that the US are engaging in torture has already been established by Amnesty International.

H (Name withheld) could not see what went on inside the interrogation room but she could hear the screams and some of the questions asked during the interrogations. Whenever interrogators brought in a new prisoner, they would always bring in a block of ice. She did not know why they brought the ice or how they used it during interrogation. But the interrogation sessions always included the ice block and were followed, a few hours later, by a visit to the prisoner, who by then would be unconscious, by two doctors, an American and an Iraqi. The prisoners were invariably taken out of the interrogation room unconscious.

Nor are these isolated incidents, but rather seem part of an established pattern.

Amnesty International has presented consistent allegations of brutality and cruelty by US agents against detainees in Iraq and other US detention facilities across the world at the highest levels of the US Government, including the White House, the Department of Defense, and the State Department for the past two years.

Supporters of the Bush administration will no doubt dismiss any claims from prisoners that they only confessed because of torture, but surely even the most ardent supporter of the Bush regime would have to concede that, the very fact that there is even a hint that US authorities are engaging in such a practice, makes any guilty verdict carry less moral conviction than it would otherwise have done?

A confession gained by such means would not be admissible in a civilian court of law, which is perhaps the real reason why the Bushites are so determined to try these men in front of military tribunals.

Getting an American civilian jury to convict swarthy foreigners accused of terrorism against Americans can hardly be the most difficult job any American prosecutor has ever been handed.

Therefore, there are many of us who suspect that there must be other reasons as to why Bush is so adamant that he will not go down that path. As more and more of them take the stand and profess that their confessions were obtained through torture, many of us will believe that this is one of the reasons that Bush chose this path.

But, more importantly, none of us will ever be sure that they have got the right people behind bars. How does that make anyone feel more safe?

The policy is not only immoral, it's dumb.

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Tags: Bush, torture, Guantanamo Bay, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, military tribunals

Egypt jails blogger for insulting Islam and President Mubarak

A young Egyptian blogger, Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman, has been jailed for four years in Egypt for writing articles which the state claim incite hatred of Islam and insult the Egyptian President.

He is the first blogger in Egypt to stand trial for his writings and his sentence has been roundly condemned by international organisations.

“This sentence is a disgrace,” said Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “Almost three years ago to the day, President Mubarak promised to abolish prison sentences for press offences. Suleiman’s conviction and sentence is a message of intimidation to the rest of the Egyptian blogosphere, which had emerged in recent years as an effective bulwark against the regime’s authoritarian excesses.”

“This sentence sets a chilling precedent in a country where blogs have opened a window for free speech,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Egyptian government should abide by its commitments to uphold free expression and release Sulaiman without delay.”

Amnesty International said in a statement: “This is yet another slap in the face of freedom of expression in Egypt.” The group considers Suleiman to be a prisoner of conscience, jailed solely for peacefully expressing his opinion, it added.

RSF said, “As a result of this conviction, which clearly confirms Egypt’s inclusion in our list of Internet enemies, we call on the United Nations to reject Egypt’s request to host the Internet Governance Forum in 2009. After letting Tunisia, another violator of online freedom, host the World Summit on the Information Society, such a choice would completely discredit the UN process for debating the future of the Internet.”

This young man has gone to jail for the crime of expressing his opinion. He is 22 years old.

And, at a time when George Bush claims to be invading other country's in order to export democracy, there has been no governmental criticism of Egypt's actions. Indeed, there has been an almost marked silence of this attack on freedom of speech.

Egypt remains an ally in the War on a Noun whilst carrying out these acts of oppression. This young man has now been disowned by his family and his own father is now calling for his death, which gives some indication of the pressure they must be under. And it highlights the family's fear of association with their one of their own who has fallen out of favour with the authorities.

Again, his crime was expressing his opinion.

If you think this is wrong, please consider signing this petition to the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States. Click here to sign.

To get involved further please visit the Free Kareem website.

“This heavy sentence is also a slap in the face for the international organisations and governments that support President Mubarak’s policies. It is time the international community took a stand on Egypt’s repeated violations of press freedom and the rights of Internet users,” the RSF statement said. Egypt is on the list of the 13 Internet enemies which RSF compiled in 2006.

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Tags: Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman, Egypt, bloggers, freedom of speech

Close Guantanamo! Amnesty Speaks Out

Although I freely admit to being disappointed with the number of protesters involved in these demonstrations, I am heartened that, within Bush's own country, - with it's "with us or against us" philosophy - that there are a few good souls prepared to stand up and argue for what is right.

These people represent "the American way"; something that the Malkins and the Kristols will never understand. America is a dream. It is a devoutly hoped for wish.

The Malkins and the Kristols have abandoned that wish, that dream, after the first ever attack on the American mainland. And yet they claim to represent America's values? Don't make me laugh...



h/t to Withinsight and Blogger Round Table.

US defense official shocked by law firms defending Guantanamo detainees

This is simply unbelievable.

A senior Pentagon official responsible for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said he finds it "shocking" that top US attorneys are rushing to defend "terrorists" locked up there.

"The major law firms in the country ... are out there representing detainees," Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said in a Federal News Radio interview Thursday, available online.

"And you know what, it's shocking," he said.

"I think quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms."

So, under the Bush administration, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" has now officially been abandoned. Indeed, any lawyer who dares to suggest that these men deserve a fair trial and offer to represent them at such a trial should be forced to choose "between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms."

In other words, people who dare to represent Guantanamo Bay prisoners should be boycotted.

Even the Nazis were allowed a defence team at Nuremberg. Is Cully Stimson seriously arguing that were these men actually ever to be charged with any crime- which to this day the vast majority have not - that any charges brought against them would be more repugnant than the Holocaust?

Is it acceptable to allow the Nazis a defence team but argue that persons held in Guantanamo Bay are somehow not worthy of any form of defence? (Despite the fact that over 400 of them have now been released back to their own country's without facing any charge of any kind.)

Even by the disgraceful standards of the Bush administration, this individual has hit a new low.

He is now saying that certain detainees do not deserve to be defended. And anyone who tries to defend them should be punished. They are guilty by the very fact that the government is holding them.

His remarks were blasted on Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and in a Washington Post editorial, described as an attack on the role of lawyers and the rule of law.

"What Mr. Stimson condemns are precisely the values we should be trying to defend in the war on terror," the ACLU said in a statement.

According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is coordinating the legal defense of detainees, more than 450 civil rights lawyers volunteered to defend the prisoners.

Only 10 of 395 Guantanamo detainees face charges and have been assigned a military defense lawyer to represent them. Washington hopes to prosecute 60 to 80 before military tribunals, while another 86 more could soon be repatriated.

The US government has meanwhile reserved the right to keep the remaining 230 in jail indefinitely and without charges.

Asked how the situation has changed since the first detainees arrived at the US naval base in Cuba five years ago, Stimson responded: "The world has essentially gone to Guantanamo now, over 2,000 journalists, 500 media outlets ... It's certainly, probably the most transparent, open location in the world."

In any society, which respected the rule of law, this man - especially considering his duties to look after the detainees at Guantanamo - would be fired.

Only in the Bush regime would such views be tolerated.

People no longer have the right to expect to be defended. There are some charges from which lawyers should simply back away.

That's scary stuff.

If the Bush regime have any last remnant of decency, they will fire him. But watch this space, they won't.

He's only articulating what they secretly believe.

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tag: Guantanamo Bay, terrorists, terrorism, Geneva Conventions, enemy combatent, Taliban, Afghanistan, foreign policy, Habeus Corpus

Martyrs of the web

Amnesty International is launching a new campaign to free bloggers jailed for telling the truth about repressive regimes. The country's highlighted in the new report as as follows:

CHINA

Published state secrets

Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison after "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities".

His crime was to have e-mailed details of the Chinese government's plans to handle news coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004. Yahoo! provided crucial information in the case, linking the message and e-mail account with Shi 's computer. Reporters Without Borders accused Yahoo! of acting as a "police informant".

IRAN

Revealed arrest of dissidents

Kianoosh Sanjari was arrested on 7 October. The charges and his whereabouts are unknown. Mr Sanjari's blog gave information sympathetic to the Shia cleric Ayatollah Boroujerdi and his supporters. Up to the day of his arrest, he was providing details of the arrest of other dissidents and their detention at the notorious Evin prison.

Amnesty says he is being held incommunicado and is at risk of being tortured.

TUNISIA

Exposed state torture

Mohammed Abbou was sentenced in 2005 to four years in prison for assaulting a colleague at a lawyers' conference (a questionable charge) and for "having published information that would disturb public order".

Human rights activists believe Mr Abbou's real crime was to have posted a series of online articles denouncing the torture of political prisoners in Tunisia and comparing Tunisia's President, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, to Israel's then prime minister Ariel Sharon.

VIETNAM

Denounced corruption by officials

Nguyen Vu Binh was sentenced to seven years in prison and three years' house arrest for "spying".

Mr Vu Binh wrote several online articles calling for greater political and economic freedoms, denouncing official corruption and calling for the establishment of a liberal democratic political party. He was called "reactionary" at his trial.

Reporters Without Borders says that Vietnam is second only to China in cracking down on internet freedom of expression.

Click title for source.

Update:

Amnesty International is launching a campaign on behalf of a whole new category of prisoners of conscience - internet bloggers and chatroom visitors arrested by repressive governments for expressing unwelcome views or disseminating sensitive information online.

In an appeal issued today, the human rights watchdog is urging webmasters around the world to stand up for their imprisoned fellow bloggers - in countries such as Iran, Tunisia, Vietnam and China - and denouncing major internet service providers, including Yahoo! and Microsoft, for providing foreign governments with the information they need to purge the web of dissenting voices.

Read the entire article here.

tag: Amnesty International, bloggers, jailed, imprisoned, truth, China, Iran, Tunisia, Vietnam,

Israel, Hizbullah: both guilty of war crimes.

Both Israel and Hizbullah have been accused by Amnesty International of war crimes during the recent conflict between the two sides.

In the case of Israel:

Israeli government spokespeople have insisted that they were targeting Hizbullah positions and support facilities, and that damage to civilian infrastructure was incidental or resulted from Hizbullah using the civilian population as a "human shield". However, the pattern and scope of the attacks, as well as the number of civilian casualties and the amount of damage sustained, makes the justification ring hollow. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy, rather than "collateral damage" – incidental damage to civilians or civilian property resulting from targeting military objectives.

Statements by Israeli military officials seem to confirm that the destruction of the infrastructure was indeed a goal of the military campaign. On 13 July, shortly after the air strikes began, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Dan Halutz noted that all Beirut could be included among the targets if Hizbullah rockets continued to hit northern Israel: "Nothing is safe [in Lebanon], as simple as that,"(8) he said. Three days later, according to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, a high ranking IDF officer threatened that Israel would destroy Lebanese power plants if Hizbullah fired long-range missiles at strategic installations in northern Israel.(9) On 24 July, at a briefing by a high-ranking Israeli Air Force officer, reporters were told that the IDF Chief of Staff had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut for every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa.(10) His comments were later condemned by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.(11) According to the New York Times, the IDF Chief of Staff said the air strikes were aimed at keeping pressure on Lebanese officials, and delivering a message to the Lebanese government that they must take responsibility for Hizbullah’s actions. He called Hizbullah "a cancer" that Lebanon must get rid of, "because if they don’t their country will pay a very high price."

The widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services, roads, bridges, factories and ports, in addition to several statements by Israeli officials, suggests a policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them to turn against Hizbullah. Israeli attacks did not diminish, nor did their pattern appear to change, even when it became clear that the victims of the bombardment were predominantly civilians, which was the case from the first days of the conflict.

In the case of Hizbullah:

The scale of the rocket attacks on cities, towns and villages in northern Israel, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used, together with official statements, specifically those of Hizbullah’s leader, show that Hizbullah has committed serious violations of international humanitarian law. These include deliberately attacking civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate attacks, both of which are war crimes, as well as attacking the civilian population as reprisal.

The fact that Israel in its attacks in Lebanon also committed violations of international humanitarian law amounting to war crimes, including indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, is not an acceptable justification for Hizbullah violating the rules of war, whether as a deterrent or as a means of retaliation or retribution.

The underlying reason for the prohibition on reprisal attacks is plain: civilians and other non-combatants should not be made to pay the price for the unlawful conduct of armed forces. The very concept of violations as reprisal must be emphatically rejected, if the goal of containing the devastation caused by war on non-combatants is ever to be achieved.

Amnesty are now calling for a "comprehensive, independent and impartial inquiry" into these violations with the view to "holding individuals responsible for crimes under international law and ensuring that full reparation is provided to the victims."

At a time when George Bush is trying to "define" what Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions actually means, it is important that this enquiry goes ahead and that charges are brought against whoever carried out, or gave orders for, blatant violations of international law.

It was clear to even the most casual observer of the Israel/Hizbullah war that war crimes were being committed. If we are serious about international law then we must not use it only when it applies to the leaders of Balkan states.

It applies to us as well. And that should mean prosecutions.

Tags: Israel, Hizbullah, war, crimes, Amnesty, international,