Illustrative Image
Written by Eric Zuesse
Whereas numerous instances of U.S. war-crimes have been documented in some news-reports well enough to be successfully prosecuted in international war-crimes tribunals (but the U.N.-authorized agency the International Criminal Court cannot prosecute U.S. war-crimes but only war-crimes by third-world countries’ leaders), such well-evidenced instances by Russia are far rarer.
However, on May 19th the New York Times presented precisely such an instance, under the headline “New Evidence Shows How Russian Soldiers Executed Men in Bucha”. Local security-cameras there recorded the frog-marching to their death of nine Ukrainian men who weren’t in Ukraine’s official armed forces but who had become armed to fight against the invading Russian soldiers in Bucha, and who were then executed by specifically identified Russian soldiers and their corpses abandoned on the ground as Russia’s soldiers left Bucha. Locals also told the NYT’s reporters what they had seen, and it fit with what those security cameras showed. The NYT reported:
The execution of the captured fighters and the homeowner in Bucha “is the kind of incident that could become a strong case for war crimes prosecution,” said Stephen Rapp, former United States ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues. The captives, having been disarmed and taken into custody by the Russians, were “outside of combat,” under the laws of war, Mr. Rapp said. According to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, such laws mean that prisoners must be treated humanely and protected from mistreatment in all circumstances.
In addition to the soldiers who shot the men, their commanders could be charged if they knew about the killings and failed to act to prevent or punish the conduct, Mr. Rapp said.
However, Ellen Ioanes at Vox posted on April 9th an excellent article, “Here’s what the ICC can actually do about Putin’s war crimes”, and documented in detail that the consequence would be nothing except bad publicity which the U.S. and its allies could exploit, but even that would entail “a lot of hypocrisy” because:
one of the most vocal nations suggesting Putin be tried at the Hague — the United States — isn’t itself a party to the ICC. The US government voted against the ICC during the Rome Conference in 1998; former President Bill Clinton signed on to the Rome Statute in 2000 but never submitted it to Congress for ratification. Former President George W. Bush in 2002 notified then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the US would not ratify the Rome Statute and didn’t have to abide by any of its provisions.
The U.S. Government, and many of its allies (such as the post-U.S.-coup-in-Ukraine‘s government ever since 2014) perpetrate war-crimes (such as this) far more heinous than what the NYT reports there, but that doesn’t excuse what these Russian soldiers did. None of these war-crimes will be able to be successfully prosecuted.
Here is the reason why the ICC, and the U.N. itself, turned out to be this way (Ioanes’s article provided only a superficial account regarding that matter — “A permanent international court is still relatively new,” etc. — but the actual cause, or reason, goes all the way back to answering how and why that has turned out to be the case, and this requires history going back to the 1940s):
Though the United Nations had first been conceived by U.S. President FDR in 1941 only shortly before the U.S. itself famously entered WW II on “a date which will live in infamy”; and though FDR developed, prior to his death on 12 April 1945, a remarkably detailed plan for what the U.N. would be and for what its Charter would need to include, his immediate successor, Harry S. Truman, while he was at the Potsdam Conference with Churchill and Stalin in July 1945, became persuaded by his hero, General Dwight David Eisenhower, that if the U.S. would not conquer the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union would conquer the United States; and, so, on 25 July 1945, Truman made the decision (which soon thereafter became irrevocable) to set the U.S. Government onto the path of world-domination, to conquering the Soviet Union, and he even decided to demand of Stalin, regarding eastern European countries that the Soviet Union had freed from Hitler’s grip, that “I told Stalin until we had free access to those countries and our nationals had their property rights restored, so far as we were concerned ther’d never be recognition. He seems to like it when I hit him with a hammer.” Stalin was shocked at this turn of events, because he knew, in general terms, what FDR had been intending for the U.N. to be — a democratic federation of all nations which would terminate all imperialisms and be restricted to addressing only international relations (thereby excluding anything that pertains to intranational matters, such as Truman insisted upon) — and he still hoped, even for a few months afterwards, that Truman wouldn’t turn out to be a 180-degree reversal of what FDR had been, but thereafter Stalin gave up altogether on any such hope, and knew that the U.S. was now at war against the Soviet Union. Tragically, Truman, instead of FDR, oversaw, and basically dominated, the creation of the U.N., and so it turned out to be a toothless tiger, nothing like what FDR had intended, which would have been the international democracy of nations and possessed of a practical monopoly of geostrategic weaponry and international armed force, and also including, at the earliest practicable date, an international criminal court, which would try not only the international crimes by the former Axis powers, but the international crimes by the former Allied powers. The U.N. would have been fundamentally different than it is.
And, so, though there do exist international war-crimes cases regarding which the solidly documented historical record is sufficiently complete for an unprejudiced and trustworthy conviction to be possible, it cannot happen unless and until all of the bad history since 12 April 1945 (FDR’s death) has become effectively condemned, repudiated, and reversed, by enough of the world’s nations, so that the needed type of world government (international laws and their enforcement and juridical handling), replacing all of the existing imperialisms, becomes finally instituted (which was FDR’s obsession from 1941 on). However, even today — after all of these many decades of bad history — no one is even so much as talking about this.
One of the experts that Ioanes quoted said “‘It really shows a lot of hypocrisy,’ and encourages the perception of ‘justice for thee, not for me’.” And that (“for thee, not for me”) is, really, a pervasive and total impossibility of justice, for anyone. In its place can only be hypocrisy. Perhaps that’s what “liberalism” (which is certainly NOT progressivism) comes down to: hypocritical conservatism. Rule by the aristocracy (the super-rich), everywhere.
What is bad in the past must be publicly acknowledged (no longer lied about), if ever we are to go forward to an authentically better world. If that fails to happen, the world will only continue to get even worse.
Piece of Crap news in the West – and many are paying monthly for it.
The dominant questions are: who shot this footage, and, why did it take so long to surface?
As if Kiev wouldn’t dress up some actors in Russian uniforms to play act this alleged massacre.
It took more than a month as the staging, editing and production of this farce takes time.
William Casey (CIA Director 1981-1987): “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
NYT lives to lie – probably filmed it itself in Brooklyn.
Meanwhile Ukrops commit a thousand war crimes a day and even make videos of their handiwork. “Nothing to see here, moving on” says the NYT.
So….”FU NYT”, says me. U IZ The Goebbels Gazette!
Russia and Syria, they BOTH can do some BBC type drama. They can BOTH do some scenes where the US, UK, the NAZIs and lets have the Poles as well, they can do a number of drama scenes which are tear wrangling emotion jerking, they can film them and just have these put up onto alternative media sites. A distinguishing feature to the beginning and end of these films should be put on. It is time that you SHOW how the world’s media is CORRUPT to the core. Show the world that Russia can do better drama clips than they can. Be competitive and outdo them, throw them into the dust.
Once these clips have been aired for a good month or forty days and after an immense, global, hue and cry goes up about these heart pulling clips, show OTHER very brief clips of the same types of war crimes or of reports or headlines of war crimes of the same type.
Stress that these clips/reports/headlines are totally true, without stressing anything about the well fabricated clips…which should be really professional and yet made to look like they are not done too professionally. Stick white helmets into the fabrications in such a way that the clips can LATER on be called out as fabricated clips of drama BUT illustrative clips, based on these real and true events.
Turn real life events of atrocities into drama, incorporate into story lines, say clearly it is based on REAL events, then make a brief narrative about those real events, in between the drama scenes.
Russia is actually BRILLIANT at drama, at writing and stories. Please eclipse the BBC.
Testimony of witnesses and of victims is not as easy to watch as drama and the drama can portray such events compellingly to touch our hearts and minds, in a way which is sneaky, a way where a story tells and explains so much to us, which appeals to the human person. These affect us in ways which witness and victims testimonies do not, they lull us, they penetrate our understanding, they capture our sympathy. It is psychology of how humans work.
The actual dramas of real life events should have music, beautiful scenery, great actors, those with screen appeal and charisma. Radovan has that btw as do the Chechens.
Maybe the prisoners could want to help, they could play the bad guys, they could help with the script and their consciences will curl them up inside, as they face truths, understand better, as their hearts, minds and souls weep.
“Local security-cameras there recorded the frog-marching to their death of nine Ukrainian men who weren’t in Ukraine’s official armed forces but who had become armed to fight against the invading Russian soldiers in Bucha”
Except like the rest of the “Bucha” farce, it was ABSOLUTELY a staged video.
“The video seems plausible until you look in detail. There is a lawn in the background with the green grass, which means the video was made very recently an dnot in March. The first soldier is in uniform, but the second is wearing civilian shoes and an American helmet, there is also no bulletproof vest. The acting is also questionable, so we can conclude that this is a fake one.”
I have several times looked again at the more than a half dozen photos in that NYT report in order to find “a lawn in the background with the green grass” and still don’t see any such thing. Please specify (quote) the caption of the photo that you are referring to, so that I will be able to see that “lawn” and “green grass” you refer to.
Psychopaths trying to blame others of their evil.
Wow, Shanon, pays to be a whole.
I learned back in the 90’s that the New York Times was a Neocon, war mongering rag. And so what did I do? I never bought it again. Ever. And I ignore their opinions.
If these pictures actually show Russian troops killiing retarded ukrop NATO bootlicking scum..i want to know who thy are -so i can send a check..WE OWE THE RUSSIAN MONEY FOR KILLING THESE DIRTBALLS SERVANTS OF NATO/ISRAEL ..The Russians have been to kind to these scum.Unfortunately the jew york times rarely ever prints anything credible so i cant send a check based on what the kikes dykes and and sodomite staff of the times publish
…if it’s from the NYT, be assured, it’s all bull-shyte…!
Funny, how they used the White Helmets film script and staged the video of Bucha, after the Russians had left. Funny, how they ignored the fact that those that had been killed, were Russian sympathisers and Russia would have had no reason to harm them. Now who has been reported of carrying out war crimes on Russian prisoners of war and who would have no problem carrying out the atrocities that the British Film Crew shot?
Re the NYT Story – The photograph taken on April 3 showed the scene at 144 Yablunska Street (above) but these bodies look to have been recently killed – bodies lying there a month would be black and bloated
Most of them were Russian POWs and people accused collaborating with Russian forces, they were killed in cold blood, murdered by Nazis and the West uses it for propaganda purposes, to accuse what a world we live in I hope the Russian take them all out the motherfckers!
This NYT article is about as accurate as saying Azovstel was evacuated
nyt=CIA comic book for amerikant morons
the NYT is not fit to judge a chicken fight
New ways need to be found to handle criminal states like Russia.
Another sad article from Mr. Zuesse. What the video shows is a lawn in the background with the green grass, which means the video was made very recently and not in March. The first soldier is in uniform, but the second is wearing civilian shoes and an American helmet, there is also no bulletproof vest. The acting is also questionable. So on what basis does Mr. Zuesse believe that a video shown to be the wrong time of year with green grass and a supposed Russian soldier who doesn’t even the proper uniform??? None
Legally speaking, ICC can’t prosecute cases against Russia either – Russia withdrew her signature for the Rome Statute and doesn’t recognize ICC’s authority.
So, everybody here recognizes war crimes take place. What the hell do you liberate? What NAZI’s do you fight?
When in doubt ask the juice. Is it good for the juice, the only question a head of tax cattle ever need ruminate down on Rancho Goyim. Meanwhile the khaZar puss ooZing sewer aka apartheid occupied Palestine slaughters innocent people in 5 countries day in day out and the USSAN juice media and the rest of the juice media in the angloZionaZi matrix of Urupp and USSA sees nothing but poor harmle$$ juice trying to live in peace.
“nine Ukrainian men who weren’t in Ukraine’s official armed forces” “had become armed to fight against the invading Russian soldiers”
Then they are not covered by the Geneva Convention, and can be tried, and executed as spies.
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Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
They ought to rename themselves to New York Morons.
So, this is supposed to be the famous case against Russia?!
Their stupidity is beyond belief. It is supposed to be some crazy dumbed-down anti-Russian propaganda aimed at libtards, because they are mixing 2 immiscible elements—namely: “shooting plain-clothed civilians” and “civilians in plain clothes heroically defending Ukraine from the Russian aggression”.
Except that just about any interpretation of international humanitarian law has one thing in common with the others: the combatants, who are protected by the Geneva Conventions must be clearly distinguished as combatants.
Those unprivileged combatants do not enjoy such protection. They are merely criminals having at least attempted to murder Russian soldiers. If they are caught, tried, found guilty and executed, it is not a war crime.
In other words: they cannot be regarded as civilians, having taken up arms and having participated in hostilities; they are unprivileged combatants who are not protected by the Geneva Conventions.
In fact, the unprivileged Ukrainian combatants may have perpetrated a war crime of perfidy—attacking privileged Russian combatants while themselves posing as civilians.