A Breaking Point in Geopolitical Torsion
(international law vs spy agencies)
Reciprocity in law is as old as, or older than, the Code of Hammurabi’s an ‘eye for an eye.’ This would later be demonstrated in the international law rule of ‘reciprocity’ where an action undertaken by one state cannot be disputed when identical principle is undertaken by an opposing state against the initiating state, an early principle of restraint in international relations. It followed, a greater stability had been sought after in the 20th Century’s attempts to organize the international law with the foundation of the League of Nations and its replacement, the United Nations and the onset of the modern multilateral treaty governing nation-states behavior.
However sincere certain statesmen might have been in creating the United Nations and associated international law of the present era, flaws were inevitable in the mold at casting; the ideological contest between East and West, the naivety of non-Western, especially non-European, nation-states in matters of the Western conceived international law and associated history of ‘treaties made to be broken’, and not least, the long history of the European sleight-of-hand or internecine warfare best represented for the purposes of this essay in the NATO nations, allied and adversaries intelligence agencies. The bottom line per this last is, international law could not, and necessarily has not, reshaped human behavior at the base level; in the absence of a universal jurisdiction overseeing what has become the rampant criminality of the many nation-states’ spy services:
“Certain forms of intelligence activity – those that require deception, illegal activity, bribery, theft, violations of privacy and sometimes force and violence and other activities – cannot be squared with morality, ethical behavior or contextual legality, which is to say that certain aspects of intelligence operations are in the category of acts of warfare, albeit secret warfare. Accordingly, they can only be justified in some kind of ‘just war’ philosophy. Inevitably the question of ‘ends justifying means’ is raised. We should not, then, try to pretend that certain categories of intelligence activity can be justified by self-righteous rhetoric. One is forced into argument of ‘lesser evil.’ It is important to avoid hypocrisy in this connection. The reality is that the United Nations Charter, international law and certain treaties pose grave obstacles to those who would try to justify certain intelligence operations on moral or legal grounds. It cannot be done. Such intelligence operations can only be justified on the ‘war’ end of a war-peace spectrum. They can only be justified in the context of real threats to the vital or survival interests of the nation” [1]
Herein the preceding lie the torsion where international law is laid waste and finally broken; whether Allan Dulles presenting false testimony to President Eisenhower resulting in a green light for the CIA to murder Patrice Lumumba [2], the related Western intelligence agencies employed Belgian mercenary pilot who shot down UN General Secretary Dag Hammarskjold [3], or United States Special Forces training and leading the Bolivian troops who captured Che Guevara but then, handing Guevara to CIA operatives who committed extra-judicial assassination of the same [4], a few post WWII or early examples of flouting the modern conventions of international law, to present actors; whether NATO’s Dutch intelligence agency, with its’ long history of technical assistance to CIA related misadventures [5], assisting with cover for the perpetrators of the false-flag murders of more than 300 civilians in the case of MH17, an information operation to demonize Russia [6], or NATO’s Turkey and its’ intelligence agency handing lethal chemical weapon capability, sourced in Europe, to al-Qaida, killing well over 1,000 Syrian civilians, blamed on Assad. [7] In this last case, referenced in what follows, simple hubris created an opening to break into and expose the ‘unwritten law’ of geopolitical intrigue practiced by the liberal democracies political leadership in relation to the actions of their covert operators: ‘what we don’t know, won’t hurt us.’ Perhaps now, this must change.
The upshot of it all is, you cannot have the liberty and license of covert actors undermining relations between nations, framing their targets with the very institutions intended to impose discipline under the auspice of international law and expect international law can survive, let alone advance the best interests of humanity. When the international institutions and related NGOs have been co-opted by the several intelligence agencies partisans, the truth of the matter is international law has become a cynical vehicle for advancing what amounts to an order of anti-international law or, that is to say, a geopolitical oxymoron in actuality. In this case, a simple rule of social psychology would be facts should finally command ‘the emperor has no clothes!’ in circumstance begging for clarity serving interest of reality.
The perhaps most egregious example of the preceding is, the United Nations Security Council having become a propaganda organ of the liberal democracies, example given Colin Powell presenting ‘weaponized’ information (black propaganda) to the effect of Saddam’s (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction to justify the Bush II administration’s assembling a ‘coalition of the willing’ for purpose of invading that nation-state. In a wider format, international non-governmental organizations exhibit symptoms of manipulation to similar effect, example given would be Amnesty International, where it has been presented on excellent authority:
“My conclusion was that a high-level official of Amnesty International at that time, whom I will not name, was a British intelligence agent. Moreover, my fellow board member, who also investigated this independently of me, reached the exact same conclusion. So certainly when I am dealing with people who want to work with Amnesty in London, I just tell them, “Look, just understand, they’re penetrated by intelligence agents, U.K., maybe U.S., I don’t know, but you certainly can’t trust them” [8]
In the case of the International Criminal Court, African nations caused an institutional crisis when it was (not without some justification) perceived the organization constituted a White European prosecutorial mechanism focused on Black African nation-states. To the ICC’s credit, they have invited criticism from the African states and the Black African chief prosecutor has found courage and focus to take on the USA’s war crimes in Afghanistan (Afghanistan is a signatory to the ICC, the USA is not.) The downside is, there was TEN YEARS preliminary investigation prior to the prosecutor’s request to open the formal investigation (in November 2017.)
Relevant to this, the USA’s John Bolton (Trump’s National Security Advisor) has stated this following as a matter of USA policy towards the ICC:
“The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us. We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans” [9]
This official policy as enumerated by the Trump Administration is of particular interest to yours truly (this investigator) having, in July of 2018, requested a prosecution of German actors aiding and abetting the known and demonstrably false claims of Germany’s intelligence agency BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst: translates Federal Intelligence Service) covering up the true perpetrators of the sarin attack at Ghouta, Syria, in August of 2013. In short, there is evidence the German agency lied to the German Federal Parliament oversight committee when it presented its’ findings the Assad government perpetrated the attack killing well over 1,000 ordinary Syrians. In addition to this, there is absolutely compelling evidence of the actual actor, it was a NATO nation (Turkey’s) intelligence agency in league with al-Qaida, deliberately perpetrated the attack. What’s more is, thirty or so official office holders of the German Federal Republic, particularly those responsible for oversight of government actions, including senior parliamentarians, the office of the Federal Prosecutor and the Constitutional Court had been notified the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) had laundered disinformation via parliament to media (lied to the public through the oversight committee.) This lie has been allowed to stand even as NATO nations continue to (almost certainly falsely) claim the Assad government had gassed its own people on multiple occasions as pretext to launch attacks that solely benefit their al-Qaida aligned/allied actors in ‘regime change’ operations engineered by the NATO nations several spy services and their several allied or non-NATO partners. The accumulative effect of this lie allowed to persevere in the public purview without investigation and prosecution should be to implicate all of the Germans notified with complicity in a war crime, that is aiding and abetting the actual perpetrators by concealing their identity.
However it might be coincidence, it is interesting to note the Trump administration waited nearly a year since the Afghanistan prosecution had been requested and it was only after this reporter’s filing a case with the ICC, Bolton’s policy announcement was made. What could this mean? Simply stated, the American liability in Afghanistan is very limited [10], whereas the argument put forward by yours truly in the case of Syria could greatly expand the court’s reach, inclusive of arrests of remote intelligence agency actors, and more importantly, hold the intelligence agencies’ political enablers accountable, people far removed from the theater of the actual crimes commission.
The legal rationale provided to the ICC is really quite straight forward:
“this petitioner to the International Criminal Court … holds persons in any government signatory to the Rome Statute are prohibited from aiding and abetting a war crime or crime against humanity no matter the crime had been outside the courts purview (non-signatory state) when the aiding and abetting is committed within the courts purview (a signatory state.) This would include certain Western democracies intelligence agencies’ employees and aligned politicians providing cover for perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
What has been provided to the International Criminal Court is opportunity to reassert the rule of law as a matter of normalcy in international relations; where restraint should become the default and preferred avenue in decision making, inclusive of reining in the state sponsored terror of the Western liberal democracies [11] where the liberal democracies political leadership had been in the habit of instructing their spy services ‘what we don’t know, won’t hurt us’ as the insurance policy when ‘don’t get caught’ had failed. Would it work? That solely depends on courage in the face ugliness.
What is going on now? As entirely a matter of surmise, it might be presumed the argument is being tested in a preliminary manner by submitting it to theoretical experts in law. If it were to pass muster with this initial test, one should expect letters of inquiry to the relevant German authorities; what had been done with the information initially provided in December 2015, and follow-on notifications, demanding had there been investigation initiated and if not, why not?
Claims of ‘we didn’t know’ (the excuse this information concerning a laundered or false flag war crime slipped through unnoticed) should be nonviable for the fact no less than thirty officials were contacted with the information, on more than one occasion. That the information had been provided in English, rather than German, cannot fly for the fact many German universities require English fluency to apply for top programs; beyond the stretch 30 or so German officials might claim English language deficiency, it would be laughable to claim no one with fluency had seen the information. It is noteworthy that following providing the information to the Federal prosecutor’s office, they had abandoned their mailbox (email) for online contact form that does not accept evidence such as jpg files or other attachments. However there might be an excuse made the information had been lost during the period of electronic communications transition, that base had been covered from the other end; as the German Constitutional Court issued electronic receipt for the same information and most certainly should/would have referred the information to the German Federal prosecutor’s office. Also it should be noted this investigator had, twice on previous occasion, ascertained via human intelligence employing separate avenues, that indeed parliamentarians have been in receipt of diverse communications from this end.
What will result? At the time of this composition, no one outside of the ICC prosecutor’s office knows except for the likelihood of the several concerned intelligence agencies with a habit of spying on Western institutions.
Read the complaint to the ICC HERE
References:
2 ‘In Search of Enemies’ by dissident CIA officer John Stockwell
3 https://www.theguardian.com/world/dag-hammarskjold
4 Declassified documents on Guevara’s murder: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/index.html
5 ‘Inside the Company: CIA Diary’ by rogue CIA officer Phillip Agee
6 https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/07/19/black-boxes-dark-arts-geopolitics/
8 Former Amnesty International [USA] board member Francis Boyles: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0004573.html
10 https://www.justsecurity.org/46687/icc-investigation-u-s-afghanistan-mean/
11 https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Operation_Gladio/B
A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s educational background (no degree) is social psychology. His therapeutic device is satire.
Contact: penucquemspeaks@googlemail.com
Ronald Thomas West 