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Panetta: US "reaching the limits of its patience" - O, really?
by gan Thursday, Jun 7 2012, 10:34am
international / imperialism / commentary

The latest demented American dunce to stick his moronic boot in his imbecilic mouth is Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta. Former CIA boss Panetta represents a known lawless nation run by murdering and thieving criminals -- the USA is the world's leading civilian killing nation, approx 5 million murdered since Vietnam; it is also the world's leading invading and occupying nation that specializes in resource theft and assassinating leaders that oppose its imperial designs/policies of appropriating the resources of weaker nations. It has even taken to oppressing its own population with constant surveillance, new draconian indefinite detention 'laws' and military policing.

Leon Panetta, dunce

America spreads mayhem and chaos everywhere it goes. Its perpetual war doctrine ensures that Bankers and Corporate elites continue to turn a blood-soaked profit while the entire world suffers gross injustices at its hands.

Today one of America's highest officials delivered another classic Americanism for the entire world to ridicule.

In the most bizarre and outrageous twist of logic any American official has made, Panetta informed illegally Drone attacked Pakistan that the 'US' is running out of patience! What the fuck are they smoking in Washington these days?

Panetta's statement even beats Wollfowitz's infamous Iraq invasion absurdity; Wolfowitz stated and expected people to believe that Iraqi's would welcome murdering and thieving foreign invaders/occupiers with "bouquets of flowers!"

After ten years of tolerating American imbeciles and their rustic, brutish methods it surely must be time to give someone else a chance?

Telegraph report follows:

Leon Panetta says US 'reaching the limits of our patience' with Pakistan
by Ben Farmer

Leon Panetta, the American Defence Secretary, has warned the United States is "reaching the limits of our patience" with Pakistan, for failing to tackle its Taliban safe havens.

Mr Panetta said in Kabul that it was "intolerable" that fighters from the Haqqani Network faction could attack American troops in Afghanistan and then slip back across the border to safety.

His blunt comments come as relations between Pakistan and America are already at a low over Islamabad's blocking of Nato supply routes and America's drone onslaught in the tribal belt.

America has given Pakistan billions of dollars to aid its struggle against Islamist militants, but officials complain Islamabad has done too little in return to crack down on the insurgents which use its territory to attack Nato troops.

Mr Panetta said: "It is an increasing concern that the safe haven exists and that there are those – likely Haqqanis – who are making use of that to attack our forces.

"We are reaching the limits of our patience here, and for that reason it is extremely important that Pakistan take action to prevent this kind of safe haven from taking place and allowing terrorists to use their country as a safety net in order to conduct their attacks on our forces."

He continued: "We have made that very clear time and time again and we will continue to do that, but as I said, we are reaching the limits of our patience."

The Haqqani Network, an autonomous faction of the Taliban which is alleged to have support from sections of Pakistan's military, is based in North Waziristan inside Pakistan's tribal region.

Mr Panetta said Haqqani fighters had been seen leaving to attack American forces as recently as June 1, when they detonated a truck bomb and then tried to storm Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province.

The attack was repelled and fourteen militants were killed.

Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defence minister, echoed frustration that Pakistan was not co-operating.

He said: "If that co-operation starts, we will be able to disrupt their command and control, disrupt their training, disrupt their weapon recruitment and also will be able to eliminate or capture their leadership."

"Without doing that, I think our endeavour to achieve victory will become much more difficult."

In New Delhi on Wednesday, Mr Panetta said the US would continue its policy of Predator drone air strikes on al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan.

Islamabad summoned the US charges d'affaires after the drone strike on Sunday that killed Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, to express its "serious concerns" over the tactic.

"We have made clear to the Pakistanis that the United States of America is going to defend ourselves against those that would attack us," he said. "And we have done just that. We have gone after their leadership, and we have done it effectively, targeting al-Qaeda leadership and terrorists.

"We have made very clear that we are going to continue to defend ourselves."

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, cut short a trip to China yesterday after dozens of Afghan civilians died in a series of attacks across the country.

Mr Karzai condemned a Nato air strike which local officials allege killed up to 18 civilians on Wednesday including women and children.

Coalition officers visited Baraki Barak in Logar province to investigate the claims. The coalition confirmed an air strike had been called in during a raid to detain a Taliban commander, but originally said multiple fighters had been killed and only two women had been wounded.

Villagers however displayed the bodies of five women, seven children and six men at the provincial capital after the strike.

Mr Karzai said coalition "operations that inflict human and material losses to civilians can in no way be justifiable, acceptable and tolerable."

© 2012 Telegraph Media Group Limited

http://tinyurl.com/77uflr3

COMMENTS

UN Human Rights Commissioner Questions Legality of US Drones
by staff report via stele - CommonDreams Thursday, Jun 7 2012, 11:05am

Navi Pillay: “I see the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances as human rights violations.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has questioned the legality of U.S. drone strikes at a news conference in Islamabad today, Agence France-Presse reports.

Pillay stated, “Drone attacks do raise serious questions about compliance with international law.”

Pillay also highlighted the drones' killing of civilians. “I see the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances as human rights violations.”

Jameel Jaffer and Nathan Wessler also question the legality of the drones and the CIA's sweeping classification of "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants" in an op-ed in the Guardian on Wednesday writing, "direct targeting of noncombatants is a war crime; indeed, it is the prototypical one."

* * *

Agence France-Presse: UN backs probe into US drone civilian casualties

“Drone attacks do raise serious questions about compliance with international law,” Pillay told a news conference in Islamabad.

“The principle of distinction and proportionality and ensuring accountability for any failure to comply with international law is also difficult when drone attacks are conducted outside the military chain of command and beyond effective and transparent mechanisms of civilian or military control,” she said. [...]

“I see the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances as human rights violations.” [...]

“Because these attacks are indiscriminate it is very, very difficult to track the numbers of people who have been killed,” she said.

“I suggested to the government that they invite the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Summary or Arbitrary Executions and he will be able to investigate some of the incidents.”

* * *

Jameel Jaffer and Nathan Wessler writing in the Guardian.

First the 'targeted killing' campaign, then the targeted propaganda campaign

[The New York Times story last week on President Obama's "kill list"] has already received a great deal of coverage, but two aspects of it deserve more attention.

The first has to do with the targeted killing campaign itself. Long before the New York Times story was published, human rights organizations questioned the campaign's lawfulness. At the ACLU, we sued (pdf) over elements of the campaign two years ago, contending that the US government's then-proposed (and now-realized) killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen would violate both international law and the US constitution.

But the New York Times story suggests the legal foundation of the targeted killing campaign is not simply shaky, but rotten. One problem is that the US government appears to take a very broad view of who can be targeted. At one point, officials at the State Department complained to the White House that the CIA seemed to believe that any group of "three guys doing jumping jacks" was a terrorist training camp.

Another problem, and perhaps an even deeper one, is in the government's approach towards individuals who are not targeted – not in the conventional sense of the word, anyway. According to the New York Times, the government "counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants … unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent".

If this is true, it is astounding. The government has an obligation under international law to distinguish combatants from noncombatants – and, as far as reasonably possible, to avoid causing noncombatants harm. Direct targeting of noncombatants is a war crime; indeed, it is the prototypical one. It surely need not be explained that the government's obligation is to distinguish combatants from noncombatants while they are still alive, not after they have been killed. A "shoot first, ask questions later" policy is entirely inconsistent with international law, not to mention morally grotesque.

* * *

Reuters: Drones "inhumane", dead al Qaeda man's family says

[Tuesday's drone attack killing Libyan-born al Qaeda operative Abu Yahya al-Libi] is likely to fuel an increasingly fierce debate about the legality and morality of the drones, which have become one of the chief U.S. weapons against al Qaeda but which opponents say stretch the definition of the legitimate use of lethal force. [...]

White House officials say there is nothing in international law that forbids the use of the drones and that, by killing dangerous insurgents, they are making Americans safer.

That view has been challenged by authorities in Pakistan, who are angry because many of the strikes have happened on their soil, and by rights campaigners.

Civil liberties groups argue that the strikes are illegal because they take place outside an active battlefield, meaning the rules of law which allow a combatant to kill their opponent do not apply.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/07-1