November 07, 2014 Pentagon Team To Learn How To Commit War Crimes I once had a bit of respect for the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey. That is gone: The highest-ranking U.S. military officer said on Thursday that Israel went to "extraordinary lengths" to limit civilian casualties in the recent war in Gaza and that the Pentagon had sent a team to see what lessons could be learned from the operation. Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged recent reports criticizing civilian deaths during the 50-day Gaza war this year but told an audience in New York he thought the Israel Defense Forces "did what they could" to avoid civilian casualties. Amnesty International as well as Human Rights Watch are usually reluctant to criticize Israel. Some of their big donors are Zionists and they also receive money form "western" governments which support Israel. Still: HRW: Human Rights Watch investigated four Israeli strikes during the July military offensive in Gaza that resulted in civilian casualties and either did not attack a legitimate military target or attacked despite the likelihood of civilian casualties being disproportionate to the military gain. Such attacks committed deliberately or recklessly constitute war crimes under the laws of war applicable to all parties. Amnesty (pdf): Amnesty International examines targeted Israeli attacks carried out on inhabited civilian homes in the light of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law, specifically the rules on the conduct of hostilities. It does so by focusing on eight cases, in which targeted Israeli attacks resulted in the deaths of at least 111 people, of whom at least 104 were civilians, including entire families, and destroyed civilian homes.

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In all the cases documented in this report, there was a failure to take necessary precautions to avoid excessive harm to civilians and civilian property, as required by international humanitarian law. In all cases, no prior warning was given to the civilian residents to allow them to escape. Someone should ask Dempsey why he believes that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are wrong in their assessments. And does the Pentagon really need to send a team to Israel to learn how to commit war crimes? Is there too little experience of bombing this or that wedding? Posted by b on November 7, 2014 at 17:10 UTC | Permalink Comments