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Sunday May 18, 2003 08:54
by James McKenna
jimmymac61 at hotmal dot com
Belgium no longer safe for US War Criminals
It is no longer possible for US General Tommy Franks to attend NATO meetings in Belgium as he and another high ranking US soldier are charged with War Crimes comitted in Iraq . NATO must now move it's meetings until they can pressurise the Belgium government to drop the charges.
Under Belgium's 1993 legislation on war crimes and genocide , "universal competence" makes it possible to charge anyone anywhere for crimes against humanity no matter where they were comitted.
The charges against Franks are mainly that during the invasion of Iraq he ordered the bombing of civilian areas, the use of cluster bombs on civilian areas, indiscriminate shooting, and failure to prevent the looting of hospitals. A US marine colonel is also charged with ordering attacks on ambulances .
So, the top military man in the US is on the run from Belgium. Not only that but unless pressure can be brought on the new Belgium government, which is to be elected today, to drop this law a great many more such cases will be brought against a whole range of military and political people from across the world who had a part in the invasion of Iraq.
Diplomats as well as military people from many contries must now avoid Belgium for fear of ending up in prison. People like Mary Harney might like to avoid the Belgian chocolate factory fact finding fatten-ups as she was foremost among the Irish conspirators in these war crimes, all the time shouting the praises of the US and their "war". Time to "walk the walk " Mary. There's the plank!
Perhaps that will put the government off offering Ireland as a site for the new NATO offices or maybe it will encourage them. I suppose they will wait and see what the "opinion polls" tell them what to do!
We could build a nice big complex in Shannon for NATO . Think of all the lovely dollars.......yum yum, slurp, slurp!