Amnesty blames Ukraine for Alleged Russian bombardment
To Agnès.Callamard
Amnesty International Secretary-General
August 10, 2022
Dear Ms. Callamard and whom it may concern:
I am writing to express my concern about a purported Amnesty Press release I learned about from the New York Times. Here are the links:
An Amnesty International assessment that Ukraine ‘put civilians in harm’s way’ stirs outrage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/07/world/europe/amnesty-international-ukraine-russia-war-crimes.html
Ukraine: Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/ukraine-ukrainian-fighting-tactics-endanger-civilians/
My concern about this communication is profound.
Even granted this is one message in a larger corpus of Amnesty communications all of which I’ve not read, obvs, nevertheless there are a number of very problematic issues which stand out on first inspection.
First is the issue of tone.
This press release reads like Russian propaganda.
““We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.”
It uses a straw man argument, ““Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.””
Well ofc that’s true, but you don’t actually cite any instance of anyone saying or asserting that. Thus it is a straw man argument.
What the straw man argument elides is that there is a clear distinction in customary law between aggressive war and self-defense.
The judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg states, “War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
Wars of aggression are recognized as crimes under customary law in the UN Charter Articles 1, 2, 33, and 39; in the Rio Pact; in UN General Assembly Res 3314, in the Rome Statute of the ICC; and elsewhere.
Your framing omits this important fact. You aren’t even even-handed. Your condemnation is weighted in scope and particulars against Ukraine, and thus one might reasonably infer, relatively favorable toward Russia’s perspective.
I find it problematic in the extreme that your April to July investigation of alleged Russian strikes by Russia against Ukrainian protected sites and persons results in this strange press release –condemning Ukraine! Seriously what???
Russia and Ukraine have obligations under customary law of proportionality; respecting cultural sites and hospitals; avoiding aerial bombardment of civilian areas; respecting the rights of prisoners of war and interned civilians; refraining from theft, rape, torture, not punishing people merely for fighting to defend their homeland, and eschewing extrajudicial punishments and executions.
Article 51(3) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I of the 1949 Geneva Convention provides that civilians shall enjoy protection against the dangers arising from military operations “unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities”.
If Russian troops are on the doorstep of Irpan or Bucha or Hostomel what is Ukraine to do, according to Amnesty?
Not defend the town or the people in it and leave them to the tender mercies of the Russians? is that your Amnesty’s idea of “protecting the rights of Ukrainian civilians?” Really? Think this through a bit.
You repeatedly state in this release that “international law” says this, that, and the other thing as though this is a settled and codified body of law. We both know that’s not true. What you do not do is to cite any particular, specific, actual customary law, precedent, resolution, or rule of war at issue.
You use testimonials in lieu of sufficient documented statistics, maps, and dates and locations and particulars. This is an informal logical fallacy, incomplete induction or “arguing from the specific to the general.”
You use weasel words like, “This did not appear to have happened in the cases examined by Amnesty International.” Sorry, but this is a very weak inference on which to end a section. As Carl Sagan famously said, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Your one-sided and manipulative condemnation of Ukraine defending itself gives aid and comfort to Russia and deprecates Ukrainian forces and civilians for defending themselves, their homes, and the civilian population, from Russia’s war of aggression.
When Ukrainians civilians and military defend their homes, and Russians attack them with largely disproportionate, indiscriminate, unguided aerial bombardment, rockets and artillery, is it the Ukrainians who are at fault for defending their homes and families?
Are you sure?
How can you? Just, how can you make such one-sided, misleading, incomplete, erroneous, gaslighting, and classic victim-blaming statements?
Why don’t you send your “extended press release” to your colleague, Maksym Butkevych. Perhaps he’ll enjoy reading your victim-blaming, pro-Russian statement in the Russian concentration camp where you have abandoned him. Please, give him something nice to read between interrogation and re-education sessions. Not this.
The final and greatest concern I have, Ms. Callamard, is for you. Your quoted and published statements are notably lacking in humanity, empathy and caring.
Is this a game to you? All about Amnesty putting out trolling offensive statements to stoke controversy and build buzz for your brand?
When you make statements like these apparently justifying and providing cover for the illegal Russian aggressive war and alleged Russian war crimes, by blaming alleged Russian bombardment of protected buildings, sites, and persons on those targeted, those words should burn your heart and taste like iron on your tongue.
What have you become?
very sincerely and with good will,
Henry Edward Hardy
former Senior Systems Administrator
Tufts University*
*institutional affiliation for identification purposes only
Henry Edward Hardy
Never Again
400,000 Americans and 20 million Allies died violently fighting Fascism in World War II. Another 35 million were tortured, gassed, burned, died of disease and privation, slaughtered, bombed, starved, shot, and beaten to death.
Yes Mr. Trump, I expect that “some of them were good people.”
And God bless them all for saving the world. And damn us all if we let it happen again.
Never. Again.
Copyright © 2017 Henry Edward Hardy
What I think about Guantanamo
What I think about Guantanamo
I think President Obama has been thrown off-stride by the Karl-Rove-orchestrated assault on his perceived strengths (a very Clausewitzian and typical Rove strategy if you follow him).
With Guantanamo Obama had hoped to solve the issue by attrition and by devaluing the issue to the point where he could wrap it up with spending little or no political capital.
But now the issue is forced by the hunger strike, now in its official 100th day.
I think he must spend capital on this and if he does he will be rewarded.
The legal basis for holding these guys without charge or trial is that they are taken under the Hague and Geneva conventions in a war zone.
This runs into problems right off the bat because you are not supposed to exfiltrate prisoners of war or interned civilians from whatever country they were captured in except to return them to their country of origin.
For the same reason, the idea of returning these folks to some third country should be a non-starter.
Here is what is should be done.
Continue to hold military tribunals, but only for the purpose of status determination: prisoner of war or interned civilian.
Those who were captured under arms, had a command structure, some kind of uniform, may be found to be prisoners of war. The remainder of these folks will be found to be interned civilians.
Prisoners of war cannot be charged for fighting the enemy so long as they themselves obeyed the laws of war. The UN has also recognized the right of civilian people under arms to fight for national liberation, but that is not as well-ensconced in international law as is the rights and responsibilities of nation-states.
Civilians can be charged with criminal offenses, but they should be tried in theatre by local judges under local law (which can't be done since they have been illegally exfiltrated out of theatre) or else in their country of origin or by an international tribunal. The military commissions cannot be allowed to act as judge, jury and executioner. When military tribunals have been allowed to exceed their proper scope in the past, such as during the Civil War, the result has not been pretty.
As soon as is practicable, these men must be returned to their countries of origin, whether or not their tribunal proceedings are closed or complete.
Our intelligence should keep tabs on these guys in an open manner but otherwise let them lead their lives as best they can. It is very much in everyone’s best interest to help these folks with compensation for time during which they were improperly held or mistreated, and they all should be given enough to live and to receive medical and psychological assistance on an ongoing basis.
We are going to pay a price for letting these guys go. Here's 166 guys who are going to be very messed up and not feeling like Uncle Sam is their friend. That is the price we will pay for kidnapping, assassination, rape, torture, war crimes, running concentration camps, and 10 years of low-intensity conflict, which is what we call terrorism when we do it.
But you have to consider there’s already a lot more than 166 guys out in the world who don’t like the US.
By bringing this very real scandal front and center and highly publicizing the commissions and the procedures to return the prisoners of war and interned civilians, the ginned-up Rove scandaloids will be driven off the TV and front pages perhaps indefinitely.
What’s the reward? The issue is so corrosive of the moral authority and therefore of the power of the United States. Quite simply, it makes the US the bad guys and that’s not good. Time to end a bad situation which only festers as time goes on.
Copyright © 2013 Henry Edward Hardy
Secret drone court? No, thanks!
The idea of establishing a secret “drone court” modeled on the FISA court is an exceptionally bad one. Here in brief are some of my objections:
The court and its proceedings would be secret. It would be even worse than the infamous English Star Chamber. Even in the Star Chamber you had to be accused of doing *something*. As I understand it, the standard being articulated by the US administration now is “imminent danger”. Hello, “Minority Report” scenario anyone?
These death warrants would constitute a “Bill of Attainder” which is very expressly and categorically prohibited in the US Constitution Article I Section 9.
It is a fundamental and blatant violation of customary international law, in particular the 1923 Hague Convention. No you cannot bomb civilians. No you cannot bomb mosques and hospitals. No you cannot bomb people away from the battlefield.
Granted these prohibitions were blatantly ignored in the latter phases of WWII by all major participants. Nonetheless the principals in the German V-1 and V-2 rocket program were tried for war crimes in the Dora trial of 1947. But they were acquitted of all charges and found refuge in the US, where their work became the basis of the US space and missile programs. The drone is the modern inheritor of the Nazi V-1 buzz bomb both in scientific development and in the shocking lack of ethics.
It is murder. It is lying. It is covert and unaccountable. It is a grim violation of international law and simple human decency. It is clearly unconstitutional.
Come on Congress and President Obama. Think about this. How hard can it be to see what is right?
International Law on the Bombing of Civilians
Copyright © 2013 Henry Edward Hardy
About Scanlyze
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”
John F. Kennedy, October 26, 1963
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