The Common Ills

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Hejira

Brian Eason (Indianapolis Star) reports Peter Kassig has been executed by the Islamic State.

The 26-year-old was a humanitarian worker who was also a former US Army Ranger.

Like the two other Americans killed by the Islamic State (James Foley and Steve Sotloff), he was killed in Syria.

So you have to wonder how these deaths have been used by the White House to argue for the bombing of Iraq?

In a column for the Washington Examiner, Bruce Fein observes:

President Barack Obama or his minions have made or soon will be making representations about the Islamic State, Iraq, Syria and other state and non-state actors in the Middle East to persuade Congress to enact an Authorization for Use of Military Force.
A substantial number will be lies. All should be received by Congress and the American people with a high degree of skepticism.

Fein goes on to provide examples of past lies. He's kind and doesn't note how readily and willingly the US press picked up those lies and amplified them.

On the topic of Iraq, Thursday, Gen Martin Dempsey told Congress that he may suggest US troops be sent into on the ground combat in Iraq -- as "participants" and not "advisors." Barbara Starr (CNN) reports Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is now floating increased numbers of US troops in Iraq as well.

Hagel's not the only one singing that tired song.

Sunday in Australia, Barack joined the chorus. Tom Allerd (Sydney Morning Herald) quotes Barack stating, "Yes, there are always circumstances in which the United States might need to deploy US ground troop." Though Barack stated he would not go into hypotheticals,Allard notes that Barack went on to note a hypothetical. National Iraqi News Agency reports it this way:

Obama said in his speech in the top twenty conference in Australia: "The United States is working to train Iraqis and may send combat troops if the terrorist organization getting strategic weapons[.]"

As for Dempsey, NINA reports:

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said that "military force will not eliminate / IS / without an Iraqi national unity and the Iraqi government did not succeed in ending the division between / Sunni and Shiaa / in the country.

He said in a press statement that "the US military helped the Iraqi forces and the Peshmerga in pulling Iraq away from the abyss and the battle with / IS/ begun to bear fruit against a group of dwarves adopting extremist ideology."

Dempsey said, " building confidence requires time as well as the US mission that may continue years."

A US mission that may continue [for] years.

Years.

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name

The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning]at least 4493. At least? "We're sorry, the web page you are looking for cannot be found on the server. The page may have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. "

New content at Third:

Isaiah's latest goes up after this. The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

iraq

Bosnia v Britain for Genocide at the World Court (15 November 1993)

Francis A. Boyle is an attorney and a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. His books include Foundations of World Order (Duke University Press: 1999) and Tackling America’s Toughest Questions (2009). His most recent book is United Ireland, Human Rights and International Law.

STATEMENT OF INTENTION BY THE REPUBLIC OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA TO INSTITUTE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE UNITED KINGDOM BEFORE THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

15 November, 1993.

Today, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina hereby states our solemn intention to institute legal proceedings against the United Kingdom before the International Court of Justice for violating the terms of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; of the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; and of the other sources of general international law set forth in Article 38 of the World Court's Statute. We have already issued formal instructions to that effect to our Attorneys-of-Record before the World Court. They are currently drafting an Application and a Request for Provisional Measures against the United Kingdom. We have instructed our lawyers to file these papers with the World Court as soon as physically possible. In the meantime, we hereby reserve all of our international legal rights against the United Kingdom

Both the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United Kingdom are contracting parties to the 1948 Genocide Convention. Article IX of the Genocide Convention provides as follows:

"Disputes between the Contracting Parties

relating to the interpretation, application or fulfillment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute."

We will sue the United Kingdom for violating the following provisions of the Genocide Convention, inter alia:

First, in our Application and Request to the World Court, we will charge that the United Kingdom has failed in their affirmative obligation and refused "to prevent" genocide against the People and State of Bosnia and Herzegovina in violation of Article I of the Genocide Convention, which provides as follows:

"The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in the time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish."

Second, in our Application and Request to the World Court, we will charge that the United Kingdom has illegally imposed and maintained an arms embargo upon the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in violation of U.N. Charter Article 51 while acting in its capacity as a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council. The United Kingdom has also aided and abetted the ongoing genocide against the People and State of Bosnia and Herzegovina by actively opposing all of the efforts by other States to "lift" this illegal arms embargo. For these reasons, we will charge that the United Kingdom has violated Article III, paragraph

(e) of the Genocide Convention that expressly prohibits "complicity in genocide." The legal basis for this charge has been developed at length by Judge ad hoc Elihu Lauterpacht in his Separate Opinion attached to the World Court's Order of 13 September 1993 in the Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)), which is currently pending.

Finally, in our Application and Request to the World Court, we will charge that the United Kingdom is both jointly and severally liable for all of the harm that has been inflicted upon the People and State of Bosnia and Herzegovina because the United Kingdom is an aider and abettor to genocide under the Genocide Convention and international criminal law.

In drafting these legal pleadings for the World Court, and during the course of the subsequent proceedings, our lawyers will also name and implicate other Member States of the U.N. Security Council that have supported this illegal arms embargo in violation of U.N. Charter Article 51, as aiders and abettors to genocide against the People and State of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We will not sue these other States at this time.

We also serve notice upon all of the more than 100 Contracting Parties to the Genocide Convention that each and every one of them has a solemn legal and moral obligation "to prevent" the commission of genocide in and against the People and State of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as required by Article I.

II.

Both the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United Kingdom are also contracting parties to the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Article 22 thereof provides as follows:

Article 22

Any dispute between two or more States Parties over the interpretation or application of this Convention, which is not settled by negotiation or by the procedures expressly provided for in this Convention, shall at the request of any of the parties to the dispute be referred to the International Court of Justice for decision, unless the disputants agree to another mode of settlement.

The United Kingdom has promoted options, ostensibly as solutions to the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that are inconsistent with the terms of this treaty.

****

This Statement will be circulated to all Members of the United Nations Organization, and will also be filed with the International Court of Justice.

bosnia-h\statemnt.n93

Francis A. Boyle

Law Building

504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.

Champaign, Ill. 61820

francis a. boyle

Meet The Bad Hair (which won't hide the lies, Sylvia and Chuck)

Chuck Todd's an embarrassment of more than just bad (balding) hair.

He's currently battling Bobby Jindal (Governor of Louis) but when he did (briefly) bring up Jonathan Gruber's remarks about ObamaCare to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burrell, he let her prattle on without ever addressing the claims (except for spaghetti on the wall which fat boy found amusing -- you could practically hear his baby-bump like belly growling).

The claims by the architect of ObamaCare (which are on video, caught on video) about how the passage of it depended upon the "stupidity" (his word) of the American people were brushed aside as Sylvia prattled on and Chuck didn't interrupt her or even follow up on those assertions.

Sylvia probably left the set thinking, "I did good."

No, dear, you didn't.

Brush that rat's nest before you go on TV.

Most readers will probably be too young to remember when Brooke Shields went from young woman/girl of interest to national joke.

It was Wella Balsam that did her in.

The shampoo commericals went well until this one where she's shaking her head and her soft hair is flowing this way and that and then we get a shot of her speaking and her hair is caked with hair spray.

Caked.

It's so heavy, it's not just stiff, it looks several shades darker.

It became a joke and SCTV was among the ones making fun of her.

Her acting in bad films didn't hurt, she'd already done Blue Lagoon, for example, and Wanda Nevada and survived them both.

But she lost her cool factor on that ridiculous commercial (which really wasn't her fault, a stylist did not do their job).

Sylvia had the top of her hair caked with hair spray.

The ends weren't.

And her hair at the roots was a rat's nest.

Some people watching probably didn't catch it but, for those who did, there was little way to avoid it.

And those who couldn't avoid it were left with the information that's she too lazy or ignorant (guess it's not the American people who are stupid, eh, Sylvia/) to take a brush or comb and go from root to end.

If she short cuts that, some will wonder, what else is she short cutting?

On hair and Chuck Todd, shave it or get plugs. No one's going to hold hair implants against you, Chuck. But shave it or get plugs because right now your hair looks like a dying Chia pet -- Ch-ch-ch-Chia.

Ruth, Cedric and Wally have covered Gruber in the last days: