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war on terror
Dr. Martin Luther King's Prophetic Warning: Denouncing the Merchants of Death
We all have a choice to hold ourselves accountable in the face of Dr. King's warning that we are approaching spiritual death.
Jan 13, 2025
Over the past three years, a collective of volunteer researchers, lawyers, and commentators created The Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, dedicated to holding accountable four weapon manufacturing corporations based in the U.S. Their tribunal amassed copious evidence to prove that Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), and General Atomics (a company which manufactures weaponized drones) are guilty of committing war crimes. On January 15, 2025, as the world marks the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, a press conference will announce the tribunal's verdicts and release the report of 10 international jurors who have weighed the evidence submitted to them.
Of necessity, the evidence was culled from examining a limited range of devastatingly criminal U.S. "forever wars," of brutal and needless wars of choice. The tribunal focused on specific U.S. war crimes and crimes against humanity in the invasions, occupations, and aerial assaults that followed the "9/11" attacks in 2001.
What if we could enlarge the tribunal, bringing before it war crimes occurring right now, the U.S.-assisted massacres we watch in real time on our phone and computer screens?
Certainly, one witness we would beg to appear for testimony would be Dr. Husam Abu Safiya, who was the director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital when such a place existed. The tribunal would wish to amplify his testimony on the harrowing weeks of siege during which Israel subjected his hospital to artillery and aerial bombardment. They would help to record his story of witnessing assassinations targeting medical staff, field executions of people clutching white flags in an attempt to surrender, the hospital's forced evacuation with at-gunpoint humiliation stripping of women and girls. The initial attacks disabled the hospital's operational capacities by targeting power generators and oxygen production equipment, but now an iconic photo shows Dr. Abu Safiya walking toward an Israeli tank through collapsed buildings and rubble. The tribunal would like to interview him, but he is being held without charge by Israel's military.
Our tribunal would surely turn to three of the world's most crucial international human rights groups for testimony.
On December 5, 2024, Amnesty International concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Its research documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, "Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously, and with total impunity."
On December 19, 2024 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) stated that "repeated Israeli military attacks on Palestinian civilians over the last 14 months, the dismantling of the healthcare system and other essential infrastructure, the suffocating siege, and the systematic denial of humanitarian assistance are destroying the conditions of life in Gaza." The report says there are "clear signs of ethnic cleansing" by Israel as it wages war in Gaza.
Also issued on December 19, 2024 was a report from Human Rights Watch, entitled "Extermination and Acts of Genocide," stating that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water, which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.
Corroborating the testimony of healthcare workers and human rights advocates in Gaza would be Pope Francis' January 9, 2025 message to international diplomats. Pope Francis denounced Israel's ongoing war in Gaza, calling the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave "very serious and shameful." Pope Francis referenced the deaths of children who froze to death because of Israel's destruction of infrastructure: "We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians. We cannot accept that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed or a country's energy network has been hit."
Recommendations made by jurors in the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal call for major weapon makers to pay reparations for suffering caused. They echo the words of Pope Francis, whose message to the assemblage of diplomats made this appeal:
With the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, let us establish a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger and favor development in the most impoverished countries, so that their citizens will not resort to violent or illusory solutions, or have to leave their countries in order to seek a more dignified life.
Considering such testimony from so many diverse sources, one might expect that U.S. lawmakers would reevaluate their murderous, unwavering support of Israel. Instead, on January 9, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to sanction the International Criminal Court in protest of its arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister.
Who are the criminals? U.S. news coverage of five former or current presidents gathered for the funeral of President Jimmy Carter never hinted that hideous wars of choice along with massive increases in weapon sales had marked the administration of each of the five. There was no mention of President Joe Biden's order to send $8 billion dollars of weapons to Gaza. This gathering of U.S. presidents is referred to as "The World's Most Exclusive Club." Exclusive indeed. What other club of so few has caused so much suffering to so many?
On April 7, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famously insightful, prophetic speech about another illegal U.S. war of choice—"Beyond Viet Nam: A Time to Break the Silence"—in which Dr. King said, "Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken: the role of those who make peaceful resolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments."
Dr. King's verdict, in this speech, on the momentous first anniversary of which he was taken from us, was that "this business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
The four defendants before our tribunal certainly did their part to pressure these five other criminals toward their varied crimes, but we all have a choice to hold ourselves accountable in the face of Dr. King's warning that we are approaching spiritual death. One step toward reconciling with wisdom, justice, and love would be to demand the release of Dr. Husam Abu Safiya from an Israeli prison so that we could humbly learn from him about war crimes and reparations.
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As Trump 2.0 Looms, Durbin Urges DOJ to Rescind War Powers Opinions
Praising his targeting of "overbroad, undemocratic, and dangerous" opinions, one lawyer said that "irrespective of who holds the presidency, no one should have unilateral power to plunge the nation into major conflicts."
Jan 08, 2025
The top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee this week urged the Department of Justice to rescind some war powers-related legal opinions and release certain records, a call that came in the lead-up to Republican President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) made the request in a Tuesday letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, stressing the Constitution's division of treaty-making and war powers between Congress and the president, as well as the president's obligation "to take care that the law be faithfully executed."
Highlighting that the DOJ "has previously withdrawn flawed or outdated" guidance, Durbin identified five opinions from the department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that he believes should be taken off the books:
- A 1989 opinion about the Federal Bureau of Investigation's authority to apprehend suspects overseas that concludes the president can unilaterally "override" the United Nations Charter's prohibition on the use of force;
- A 2001 opinion finding the president could effectively wage the entire "War on Terror" without congressional authorization;
- A 2002 opinion suggesting the president could wage the Iraq War without congressional authorization;
- A 2020 opinion related to the U.S. assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani that—though redacted—asserts the president has the authority to order an attack on a senior official from Iran; and
- A 2020 opinion claiming that a requirement for the president to give Congress advance notice of plans to withdraw from a treaty is unconstitutional.
"Congress and the executive branch may have differing views in some respects as to the separation of powers between them," Durbin wrote. "However, these opinions are concerning outliers even by the standards of the executive branch's own legal doctrine. Indeed, it does not appear that OLC has relied upon these opinions in other publicly available legal memoranda. For these reasons, I urge the Department of Justice to withdraw them."
The senator also gave Garland a list of 20 records to release "relating to the president's authority to deploy U.S. armed forces within the United States, and the activities in which those military personnel may or may not engage."
"The need for transparency regarding these legal interpretations is particularly urgent today given the risk of domestic military deployment to suppress protests or carry out mass deportations," he wrote to the outgoing attorney general.
Sharing the letter on social media Wednesday, Durbin more clearly said, "Donald Trump has promised to deploy the military for mass deportations, and we have a right to know how the Justice Department interprets this authority."
Durbin sent the letter on the same day that Trump, during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, refused to rule out using military force to take over the Panama Canal and Danish territory Greenland, sparking global condemnation.
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'Finally!' 11 Men Transferred to Oman From Guantánamo, But 15 Remain
The president faces calls to "end the abhorrent U.S. practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial at Guantánamo by transferring the remaining detainees who have never been charged with crimes."
Jan 06, 2025
Human rights advocates on Monday praised the Biden administration's transfer of 11 Yemeni men from the United States' Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba to Oman for resettlement—which left just 15 detainees at the facility that opened nearly 23 years ago, during the early days of the so-called War on Terror, and is notorious for torture.
"We welcome the transfer of these 11 men to Oman by the Biden administration, as it was long overdue," said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security With Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, in a statement. "The U.S. government now has an obligation to ensure that the government of Oman will respect and protect their human rights."
Since taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has failed to deliver on his promise to shutter the prison—like former President Barack Obama, who had Biden as his vice president. Between the Democrats, Republican former President Donald Trump, who wants to keep the facility open, served a term; he is set to return to the White House in two weeks.
Eviatar said that "we commend President Biden for taking this step before he leaves office and urge him to finally end the abhorrent U.S. practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial at Guantánamo by transferring the remaining detainees who have never been charged with crimes. This would be a tremendous achievement of his presidency."
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)—which represents 51-year-old Sharqawi Al Hajj, one of the men flown to Oman—also welcomed the progress on Monday but called on the president to go even further while he remains in power.
"It is remarkable that the prison population at Guantánamo is down to 15 people," said CCR senior staff attorney Pardiss Kebriaei. "We urge the administration to press forward in transferring the remaining uncharged men, including Center for Constitutional Rights client Guleed Hassan Duran, allow resolution of the remaining charged cases through mutually acceptable pleas, and stand down in opposing habeas cases for anyone who is uncharged but will be left at Guantánamo."
Kebriaei represents Al Hajj, who "endured physical and psychological coercion" at Central Intelligence Agency sites before arriving at Guantánamo, where "he waged prolonged hunger strikes to protest his indefinite detention," and "attempted to hurt himself multiple times in moments of desperation," according to CCR. He was never charged with a crime.
"Our thoughts are with Mr. Al Hajj as he transitions to the free world after almost 23 years in captivity. His release is hopeful for him and for us," said Kebriaei. "We are grateful to Oman and to the individuals in the administration who made this transfer happen, and to the many people over the years whose work and advocacy paved the way for this moment."
The Pentagon said that the other 10 men are: Uthman Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, Khalid Ahmed Qassim, Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi, Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani, Omar Mohammed Ali al-Rammah, Sanad Ali Yislam Al Kazimi, Hassan Muhammad Ali Bib Attash, and Abd Al-Salam Al-Hilah.
The Pentagon also noted in its Monday statement that of the 15 remaining detainees, "three are eligible for transfer; three are eligible for a periodic review board; seven are involved in the military commissions process; and two detainees have been convicted and sentenced by military commissions."
As NPRreported:
Monday's transfers were originally scheduled to happen in October 2023, but were halted at the last minute due to concerns in Congress about instability in the Middle East following the Hamas attack on Israel.
That the plan was resurrected during President Biden's final two weeks in office signals a last-ditch effort by his administration to shrink Guantánamo's prisoner population and get closer to his goal of trying to close the facility. In recent weeks, the U.S. has transferred four other Guantánamo inmates—a Kenyan, a Tunisian, and two Malaysians—and is preparing for the transfer of at least one more, an Iraqi.
The repatriation of the Tunisian man, 59-year-old Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi, last week came on the same day that a Pentagon appeals panel upheld plea deals for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who were imprisoned at Guantánamo after allegedly plotting the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and agreed to spend the rest of their lives in prison to avoid execution.
Despite the Biden administration's progress, global vigils planned for Saturday "will, of course, be proceeding as planned, because 15 men are still held," according to journalist and Close Guantánamo co-founder Andy Worthington.
"This coming week—which includes the 23rd anniversary of the prison's opening, on Saturday, January 11—is a crucial time for highlighting the need for urgent action from the Biden administration," Worthington said, "in the last few weeks before Donald Trump once more occupies the White House, bringing with him, no doubt, a profound antipathy towards any of the men still held, and a hunger for sealing the prison shut as he did during his first term in office."
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