Profound Quotes

"Neither is it that US foreign policy is cruel because American leaders are cruel. It's that our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment; it might as well be written into the job description. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers - (let alone American soldiers - do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to." From 'Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower' by William Blum

From "9-11, Six Years Later": "If one looks at the credentials of skeptics compared to the credentials of defenders of the official line, it is impossible to dismiss skeptics as kooks. There are many people with strong imaginations on the Internet, but serious skeptics stick to known facts, known violations of standard procedures and the laws of physics. The vast majority of the people who call skeptics "kooks" are themselves ignorant of physics and have little comprehension of the improbability that such an attack could succeed without either the complicity or complete failure of government agencies. " Paul Craig Roberts

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." Martin Luther King, Jr.

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SOUTH LEBANON: Israeli Refusal to Cooperate With United Nations Investigation Represents an Attempt to Shield Alleged War Criminals from Justice

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Israeli Refusal to Cooperate With United Nations Investigation Represents an Attempt to Shield Alleged War Criminals from Justice

Palestinian Center for Human Rights

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is concerned at recent Israeli statements implying that the State of Israel will not cooperate with the independent investigation established by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The investigation is led by Justice Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Both tribunals were established by the United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. The independent fact finding mission is mandated to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law, related to the recent 23 day Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The offensive claimed the lives of 1,417 Palestinians, 1,181 (83%) of whom were non-combatants: the protected persons of IHL. 13 Israelis also died, including 3 civilians. Civilian property in the Gaza Strip was extensively destroyed, initial investigations indicate that 21,000 houses were completely or partially destroyed, 6,636 dunums of agricultural land were razed, and approximately 1,500 factories and workshops were completely destroyed.

The excessively disproportionate civilian death toll and the extensive destruction of Gaza’s property and infrastructure demand judicial review. Many of the cases documented by PCHR amount to war crimes, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

SOUTH LEBANON: Israeli Refusal to Cooperate With United Nations Investigation Represents an Attempt to Shield Alleged War Criminals from Justice.

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