If Germans don’t want to create still more jihadists and increase the risk to Germany itself, Berlin need to “grow up” and exercise its sovereign right to shut down the critically important satellite station in Ramstein. Ray, Elizabeth Murray, and Elsa Rassbach spoke in Berlin, Sept. 16, 2015. Following is link to a segment, in which Ray addresses der Drohnenkrieg and describes Germany’s key role in it.
(English with German subtitles; 7 minutes)
To whom and how long does “The Sanctity of Life” apply?
by Ray, Baltimore Sun op-ed, Sept. 20, 2015
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-pope-visit-20150917-story.html
By Coleen Rowley & Ray McGovern
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Dubuque Telegraph Herald, Sept. 20, 2015
http://www.thonline.com/news/opinion/article_76c9b4f2-f86c-566c-a8cb-481d28c48722.html
For 15-second video, please scroll down to bottom of
Urge Drone Operators to Refuse to Fly Missions
(The following paid advertisement appeared in the “Air Force Times” on Sept. 14.)
As retired and former members of the U.S. military, we urge U.S. drone pilots, sensor operators and support teams to refuse to play any role in drone surveillance/assassination missions. These missions profoundly violate domestic and international laws intended to protect individuals’ rights to life, privacy and due process.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as of September 1, 2015, up to 6,069 lives have been taken by U.S. drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. This figure does not include uncounted lives lost to U.S. drone attacks in Afghanistan before 2015, or in Iraq, Libya, the Philippines and Syria. All were killed without due process.
These attacks, which are also terrorizing thousands, are undermining principles of international law and human rights such as those enumerated in the U.N. International Declaration of Human Rights, written in 1948 with the blood of the atrocities of World War II freshly in mind. The United States is a signatory to this declaration.
Those involved in U.S. drone operations who refuse to participate in drone missions will be acting in accordance with Principle IV of the Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Judgment of the Tribunal, The United Nations 1950:
“The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him of responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible.”
So, yes, you do have a choice — and liability under the law. Choose the moral one. Choose the legal one.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Sept. 19, 2015
Die beiden ehemaligen hochrangigen US-Geheimdienst-Mitarbeiter Ray McGovern und Elizabeth Murray besuchten gestern Berlin und referierten zu dem Thema „Wie werden Kriege gemacht?“. Doch der Vortrag könne genauso gut „Wie werden Flüchtlinge gemacht?“ heißen, so McGovern. Das müsste eigentlich jeden in Deutschland interessieren. Doch die deutsche Mainstream-Presse ignorierte, wie miteinander abgesprochen, die Veranstaltung – was wohl vor allem an den Antworten lag, die McGovern und Murray gaben.
The book relies largely on U.S. diplomatic cables shedding light on U.S. policy and actions in the Middle East, including Syria. So far, the book has been published only in Australia and the UK.
Ray hazarded a (pretty safe) guess with respect to what this new light that WikiLeaks shines on U.S. policy in Syria might reveal. He pointed to a NYT article of Sept. 6, 2013 in which bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, apparently inadvertently, gave the game away.
Asking prominent Israelis what Israel’s preferred outcome in Syria is, Rudoren was somewhat take aback to hear that, for the Israelis, the best outcome for Syria’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, is no outcome. Rudoren quoted Alon Pinkas, former Israeli consul general in New York:
“This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie … Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.”
Rudoren commented that, for Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad’s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.
Getting the neocons of Establishment Washington to go along with that? No problem. Did no one think there might be a mass exodus of refugees?
Here’s the YouTube link to the (taped) 12-min. interview of Ray on Tuesday.
What Julian Assange said the following day, speaking to RT’s ‘Going Underground’ host Afshin Rattansi, supports (happily) Ray’s guess. Assange, basing his comments on U.S. diplomatic cables, indicated that the U.S. planned to:
“…foster tensions between Shiites and Sunnis. In particular, to take rumors that are known to be false… or exaggerations and promote them – that Iran is trying to convert poor Sunnis, and to work with Saudi and Egypt to foster that perception in order to make it harder for Iran to have influence, and also harder for the government to have influence in the population.”
Assange stressed that this particular cable was “quite concerning,” adding that while you often have to read between the lines in cables, “its all hanging out” in that one. See: http://www.rt.com/news/314852-assange-wikileaks-us-syria/