War crimes & huge infant deaths
By Dr. Gideon Polya, MWC chief political editor
THE LATEST data from the UN Population Division and UNICEF for the year 2005 are utterly shocking - they reveal horrendous, avoidable under-5 infant deaths (under-5 year old deaths, under-5 deaths) in a swathe of countries East from the Caribbean to South Asia that have variously been invaded and remain occupied by the US or its US-backed surrogates.
The countries subject to this horrendous abuse and analyzed below are as follows: Occupied Afghanistan (US invasion and occupation in 2001); Somalia (US invasion and then withdrawal in 1993; US-backed Christian Ethiopian invasion and occupation in 2007 with US military participation); Iraq (US sanctions and bombing in 1990; US Gulf War in 1991; Sanctions War 1990-2003; US invasion and occupation, 2003); Haiti (Government overthrown and US invasion, 2004); Occupied Palestinian Territory (invasion and occupation by US-backed Israel in 1967).
In analyzing the consequent horrendous under-5 infants deaths in these US- or US surrogate-occupied countries it is important to have standards of comparison and Australia and Israel are obvious choices – they are Western countries, are US-allied and are variously involved in or supportive of these US or US-backed invasions and occupations.
Decent people believe in the essential key assertions of American Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal and have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness�, and indeed many internationally-agreed Laws and Conventions flow from that great American document.
However many Laws and Conventions are being grossly violated by these US or US-backed occupations. Thus invasion of non-threatening countries is illegal (a major basis of the post-WW2 Nuremberg trials); invasions without UN Security Council permission are illegal (Chapter 7, Articles 39-51, UN Charter ); mass mortality of conquered people due to non-provision of life-sustaining requisites by the Occupier is a war crime (Articles 55 & 56, Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War; and unacceptable Occupation conditions will variously violate other major International Conventions (most notably the Rights of the Child Convention , the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Genocide Convention). [more]