Source: People's Daily International
The United States has abused its force in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries, leading to a huge humanitarian disaster. Recently, officials and scholars from many countries have continued to criticize the United States for systematic human rights violations, which seriously infringe on and deprive local people of their rights to life, health and development. "How many war crimes has the United States committed? The United States appears to have been at war, arbitrarily depriving it of a large number of lives — the worst human rights violation. Jeffrey Buckman, an expert on human rights at American University, said.
Permanent Representative of Venezuela to the United Nations Office at Geneva -
Since the war in Afghanistan was launched in October 2001 under the banner of "counterterrorism," U.S. military operations in Afghanistan have resulted in the death and injury of a large number of innocent civilians. According to recent research from Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan military and police have been killed in 20 years of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. Ongoing war and instability have led to the refugeeization of nearly one-third of Afghanistan's population.
The US media have repeatedly disclosed that the us military has frequently killed civilians and systematically violated human rights in Afghanistan. Rolling Stone magazine in the United States has documented in detail the attacks on Afghan civilians by a "killing squad" of the US military. In 2010, U.S. soldiers Jeremy Morlock and Andrew Holmes were looking for civilians to "practice" in farmland outside a village in Afghanistan. They saw 15-year-old Afghan farmer Gul Muddin working in the fields, then called out to the teenager and threw a grenade at him, then strafed him with machine guns. Afterwards they lied that the teenager was ready to attack them. The unit often takes pleasure in killing Afghan civilians, and then they take pictures of the bodies of those who were shot.
According to US media reports, in the early morning of March 11, 2012, 16 civilians in a village in the Panjewai district of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, were killed and six others were injured. Of these, 9 victims were children, and 11 were from the same family. Some bodies were also burned. The perpetrator of the case was Robert Bales, a U.S. soldier who sneaked out of the barracks in the middle of the night and entered a local village to carry out the killing. Bales confessed to the crime he committed and was sentenced to life in prison. However, the University of Chicago Law School defended him, saying Bales suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was not an "exceptional cold-blooded monster."
A report released at the end of 2020 by Brown University's War Costs Project pointed out that in order to pressure the Taliban, the United States has relaxed the rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan since 2017, significantly expanding the scale of airstrikes, resulting in a 330% surge in Afghan civilians who died in airstrikes by the US military and its allies, and about 700 people were killed in 2019 alone. In April 2017, the U.S. military dropped the world's largest non-nuclear bomb known as the "mother of bombs" in Afghanistan for the first time. When this bomb explodes, it will consume a lot of oxygen in the air, form a short-term hypoxic low-pressure state around the burst point, and the personnel near the burst point will be quickly drained of the air in the lungs even if they have bunker protection, and die in great pain. U.S. media reported at the time that the bombing killed 36 militants, and it was later found that the bombing caused 82 casualties, including civilians.
Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the atrocities committed by U.S. troops against the Afghan people, saying that this was not a "war on terror" but that Afghanistan was used as a testing ground for new dangerous weapons. Nepal People's Party leader Jogshwa Rokhishmi criticized the U.S. military for wilful airstrikes, which led to the displacement of large numbers of refugees and caused a major humanitarian crisis.
Ector Constand Rosales, Permanent Representative of Venezuela to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said: "The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan has brought about a serious humanitarian crisis that constitutes a crime against humanity. ”
Victims of abuse in AbuGhreb prison, Iraq—
U.S. crimes in Iraq will not be forgotten by history
The U.S. war in Iraq in March 2003 killed some 200,000 to 250,000 civilians, of which more than 16,000 were directly killed by U.S. forces and more than 1 million were left homeless. Weapons such as depleted uranium bombs of the U.S. military have also left radioactive contamination in Iraq that can last for decades.
The US "Time" magazine has disclosed that on the morning of November 19, 2005, a US soldier in the western Iraqi town of Haditsay was killed by a roadside bomb attack. Subsequently, a team of U.S. Marines broke into two homes near the site of the blast and killed at least 24 civilians, including women and children, the youngest of whom was only two years old. Witnesses said U.S. troops went on a killing spree on the streets and in the homes of residents. A videotape of the incident obtained by Time magazine showed that some of the civilians who were killed were still wearing pajamas. However, the U.S. military portrayed the bloody case as a counterattack after the armed attack on the U.S. military, and praised the U.S. Marines for attacking the homes of people in hadessee, saying that the move avoided casualties among American soldiers.
The US "Atlantic" website has published an article saying that some investigators have found that the US-led coalition forces often misidentify targets on the Battlefield in Iraq and launch attacks on places where there is no terrorist activity, so the actual civilian casualties are several times higher than official reports. "The Americans never really understand the cost of war, but they continue to fight, and only Iraqi civilians know first-hand how much the cost of war is."
Qazim Azari, a reporter for Iraq's "Justice Newspaper", said that the United States invaded Iraq on trumped-up charges and disasters followed, "for the Iraqi people, this is a painful and dark memory." Abdullah Ibrahim, 51, originally had a happy family. In December 2005, U.S. troops fired missiles that hit his home, killing his wife and a daughter and paralyzing himself for life. "My wife and daughter were killed and I was disabled, and they left me with only one sentence of 'I'm sorry', Ibrahim said. ”
Iraqi political scientist Amir Saadi said that the US military also uses a large number of white phosphorus bombs and depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, which seriously damages the ecological environment and damages health, resulting in a surge in deformed babies and cancer cases. Before the 1991 Gulf War, the incidence of cancer in Iraq averaged 40 per 100,000 people before the 1991 Gulf War, and by 2005, the rate had soared to an average of at least 1,600 per 100,000 people.
"It's been more than 10 years since the Iraq War, and I hope the Americans hear me. The United States has treated us inhumanely, and has so far done no apologies and no compensation. America's crimes in Iraq will not be forgotten by history, never will. "Ala Karim Ahmed, a victim of abuse in Iraq's Abu Gereb prison, recalls his innocent imprisonment and persecution, and remains sad and indignant.
U.S. Foreign Policy website —
Americans criticize other countries' crimes against humanity at every turn, but refuse to look in the mirror at their own
In the barbaric form of war, the United States has created one humanitarian disaster after another in many Middle East and Central Asian countries, seriously infringing on the rights to life, development and health of the people of these countries. The various means of promoting "democratic transformation" in the United States have not brought democracy and peace, but have plunged many countries into political turmoil, economic regression and social disaster.
The New York Times website previously reported that the investigation found that more than 50,000 U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan had killed thousands of civilians. The military has been hiding the number of casualties, and the actual number of civilian deaths is much higher than the data released by the military. In the case of the 2016 U.S. airstrike on the Syrian village of Tokhar, for example, the military claimed that "7 to 24 civilians may have been mixed with combatants" and were killed, but the U.S. military actually attacked civilian houses, killing and injuring more than 120 innocent civilians.
ICC Prosecutor Fattu Bensuda has announced an investigation into U.S. war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan, saying there is evidence that the U.S. military has tortured, ill-treated, violated human dignity or raped Afghan prisoners, but Bensuda was subsequently sanctioned by the United States.
The secretary-general of Iran's Supreme Human Rights Commission, Gary Babadi, recently criticized the US occupation and invasion of other countries as a result of millions of innocent lives. In Iraq and Afghanistan, large numbers of people have lost their lives as a result of U.S. military operations. "The United States pays lip service to human rights, but acts to trample on human rights." The United States, which is inconsistent in words and deeds, is not qualified to "preach" to other countries. Gary Babadi said the United States has committed "the most serious crimes against humanity", not only the United States has human rights problems in the United States, but also blatantly violated the human rights of people in other countries. The United States has such a dark record in the field of human rights, but it calls itself a "human rights advocate." Indeed, interfering in the internal affairs of other countries in the name of human rights is a political tool for the United States to achieve its foreign policy goals.
The Indian Center for Democracy, Pluralism and Human Rights recently issued a report exposing the serious violations of human rights of other countries by the United States through war or other means, saying that the foreign policy of the United States has expanded its influence by "persuading, inducing, creating conflicts and using force" to strengthen control over other countries' resources, manipulate the affairs of other countries, and expand its influence. "U.S. media and organizations claim to protect human rights, but have been covering up human rights abuses in the United States; For countries that don't like the United States, they attack for publishing false reports."
An article on the US Foreign Policy website pointed out: "Americans criticize the crimes against humanity in other countries at every turn, but refuse to look in the mirror – in fact, this practice has long been seen through by everyone." ”