Holding Netanyahu Accountable: A Good Start, not Enough

by Stephen Lendman

As of Sunday, September 6, an online petition demanding Netanyahu’s arrest on arrival in London this week has over 103,000 signatures - many more added daily.

The campaign will stay active until February 2016. Perhaps it’ll attract two or three times the current number of supporters by then, maybe a chance to reach half a million.

It sends a message. No one is above the law. Violators must be held accountable - to the highest levels of government.

During his stay, Netanyahu will be feted, not arrested. An array of war criminals parade through Western capitals, mostly from other Western countries.

No nation is more guilty of high crimes against peace than America - none more free to continue rampaging globally, ravaging and destroying one country after another, responsible for millions of deaths, mass destruction and unspeakable human misery.

No US official was ever held accountable for crimes of war, against humanity or genocide. None more warrant Nuremberg justice.

Its Tribunal Chief Justice Robert Jackson (a US Supreme Court Justice) called Nazi war crimes "the supreme international crime against peace."

His November 21, 1945 opening remarks said:

"The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated."

He called aggressive war "the greatest menace of our times." International law defines crimes against peace as "planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing."

No nations today are more culpable than America, its rogue NATO partners and Israel. Nuremberg justice demands their leaders and guilty officials be held accountable. Its Principles stated:

“Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.”

“Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit (them) can the provisions of international law be enforced.”

The Rome Statute’s Article 25 of the International Criminal Court codified the principle, affirming the culpability of persons responsible for committing crimes of war and against humanity.

Commanders and their superiors are culpable if they “either knew or, owing to the circumstances at the time, should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such crimes, (and) failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his or her power to prevent or repress their commission or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecutions.”

Nuremberg established the principle that immunity from high crimes against peace is null and void. They’re too grave to be ignored.

Accountability is essential. Failure lets rogue states and their officials terrorize humanity with impunity - risking the unthinkable, another global war, a potential humanity destroying one with nuclear weapons.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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