[Salon] The People's Forum | The Belmarsh Tribunal - The People's Forum

[Todd Pierce <tepierce@outlook.com>]

This shouldn’t be missed. The thing that keeps the US on it self-destructive path are the lies we tell ourselves and each other of how wonderful we are, and “necessary to the world.” Until we begin to look honestly at our history to see our “true nature,” and why that nature leads us to commit war crimes on a serial basis, especially “waging aggressive war, we will never understand the “nature” of our wars, which is what Clausewitz said had to be the first step before embarking on war. It would help understand how the militarists in this country find it so easy to lead us into one war after another, with a million people killed here, and another half a million there, etc., and we call this system we make the rules for, not obeying the laws, the Liberal Rules-based Order, our rule, and our Orders. Wash, rinse, dry, repeat, in an endless loop. And like in “Love Story,” we never have to say we’re sorry. 

Clausewitz wrote "that war is never an isolated act,” but we don’t have the ability to remember more than a day in the past so we’ve already forgotten our aggressions when the “enemy” finally takes a stand against our expansion of US hegemony. So we continuously get by with projecting our crimes on to the “Enemy,” and then destroy them, and kill another million civilians, or more. Then repeat, and never say we’re sorry. Ask the Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Palestinians, and soon, the Slavs, to include the Ukrainian “collateral damage.” 

https://peoplesforum.org/events/the-belmarsh-tribunal/

The Belmarsh Tribunal

20 years ago, the United States opened a detention camp at the Guatánamo Bay Naval Base on the east coast of Cuba.

Over the course of two decades, the US tortured hundreds of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay without charge or trial.

Two decades later, Guantánamo Bay is still in operation. The architects of the War on Terror walk free, while the whistleblowers have been sent to prison.

On 25 February, the Belmarsh Tribunal is coming to New York City. Inspired by the Russell-Sartre Tribunals of the late 1960s, which put the US government on trial for its war crimes in Vietnam, the Belmarsh Tribunal will expose the crimes of the so-called War on Terror 20 years after the first prisoners were brought to Guantánamo Bay — and call for Assange’s freedom.

At the People’s Forum in New York City, we will convene legal experts, UN representatives, whistleblowers, journalists, and many others to investigate and expose the crimes of the so-called War on Terror, to seek justice for its victims, and to demand the closure of the concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay.

In partnership with: The People’s Forum, The Progressive International, DiEM25, the Courage Foundation, DSA International Committee, The Intercept, People’s Dispatch and the International People’s Assembly

Register at: https://act.progressive.international/belmarsh-tribunal-nyc/#about