کور / سياسي / Willful (Superpower) Disregard for International Law

Willful (Superpower) Disregard for International Law

Bruce G. Richardson
Willful (Superpower) Disregard for International Law, Treaty, Covenant and Convention
In the early years of the Soviet/Afghan War, a premeditated atrocity was visited upon the inhabitants of a remote northeastern Afghan hamlet nestled in a mountain fastness known as the Wakhan. (1) This easternmost salient of Afghanistan shares a contiguous northern demarcation with Tajikistan, a northeastern border with China and boasts of southern borders with Gilgit and Hunza. Designated Bazla Gumbat (2) by Soviet cartographers, this tiny village was home to 150 Kirghiz families who carved their existence from this wild and desolate topography as sheep herders. (7-8-9-10, 11)
Considered of strategic importance, Bazla Gumbat became the focus of Soviet military analysts who sought to address three criteria: Of foremost importance, was the encirclement of China, to be accomplished with the construction of an intermediate-range, nuclear missile base. Next in importance to the Soviets was the interdiction of arms destined for the Afghan Resistance and the flow of volunteer combatants from China’s Western Province, Xinjiang. (7-8-9-10, 11)
To accomplish their goals the Soviet High Command reasoned that the area must be depopulated. To this end, and with unrestrained brutality, the Soviet military slaughtered the entire population of Bazla Gumbat. Micro-toxins were the weapons of choice. Weapons since time immemorial deemed inhumane by the international community and weapons banned or proscribed by the Geneva Conventions, a Convention to which the Soviets were signatory and ratified by the Russian Duma/Parliament. Men, women and children suffered the most terrifying and terrible death imaginable, literally drowning in their own blood. (3, 7, 8-9-10, 11) In 1994 and 1999, the Russian (40,000 troops) military invaded Chechnya, killing approximately one-half of the total population or 250,000 people. Under U.N. definition, this constitutes genocide, a horrific crime as yet uninvestigated and thus unpunished by the international law-agencies charged with enforcement and a crime yet unrecognized and or cast as an anti-terror operation by many rhetorical humanitarians in the world-at-large as well.
To say that this act of savagery and incivility is in violation of international law and protocol requires no further articulation. The question we must now ask of ourselves is why has this war crime gone unreported, unchallenged and unpunished? Is it due to the fact that Russia has become a partner of the West in their so-called “war on terror”? Or is it due to the fact that powerful nations…superpower nations that are rarely if ever charged or punished for excesses in their prosecution of war against smaller states? (4, 7, 8-9-10, 11)
For alleged weapons infractions, Saddam Hussein was removed from power by the U.S. Military. One of the many charges that precipitated his downfall was his use of proscribed weapons against the Kurds…the identical biological weapons as deployed by the Soviet Military in Bazla Gumbat! This day in Afghanistan, and as noted in the opening Voltaire quote, another superpower, (U.S.) with complete disregard for international law, Convention and Covenant, stands in serial violation of the many protocols limiting the type and amount of weapons that can be deployed without sanction and with a demonstrated disregard for the protection of innocent civilians, violations both with their indiscriminate drone deployment and aerial bombing has been the cause behind many thousands of innocent, non-combatant casualties. Infractions of international law, for which the U.S. tried and prosecuted numerous World War II war criminals, sentencing many to death for like infractions as now committed on a daily basis by the U.S. and its ISAF-allies. In addition, many lingering unanswered and unchallenged questions pertaining to infractions of international law regarding building a non-existent lawful case for the U.S. prosecution of war in Afghanistan, notwithstanding their extra-legal, baseless statement justifying America’s wars as “a right of response to 9/11.” But, notwithstanding of which the fact remains that it is universally held that no Afghan nor Afghanistan, without doubt, had no role whatsoever in 9/11, and therefore a Draconian, genocidal policy emerged now seen as self-serving, politically expedient and justified through allegations based on fabrications, bogus intelligence from Moscow’s and Washington’s anti-Pashtun, pro-Russia collaborative client-faction known to the outside world as the Shura-I-Nizar and collectively as the Northern Alliance. A co-product of which is known as errant media type casting, and or premeditated, expedient propaganda disseminated as unproven, baseless allegations of terrorism. (3-5, 7-8-9-10, 11)
America’s prosecution of war in Afghanistan has been deemed by a number of acclaimed international legal minds and jurists to be unjust, of dubious, unsustainable legal definition, citing it under internationally-drawn statutes as a “War of Aggression.” In addition, charges against the America’s war is in serial violation of two nation’s (Afghanistan and Pakistan) right to sovereignty continue to exist as well (6-7-10, 11)
Bruce G. Richardson

Afterword:
(1)For general historical reference, research and or specificity see the following historical publications: The KGB in Afghanistan by Vasiliy Mitrokhin, Working Paper #40: p.153, published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Cold War in History Project, 2002, Washington, D.C.
Mitrokhin, a former KGB officer who defected to Great Britain in 1992, wrote that Andropov himself took charge of the cover up concerning Bazla Gumbat in the face of increased international recognition and criticism of Soviet atrocities during the war.
(2) The National Geographic designation for this village is: Baza’I Gonabad.
(3) 1925 Geneva Protocol, Gas and Bacteriological Warfare proscription ratified by Russian Parliament in 1928, and American Raj, Liberation or Domination, Resolving the Conflict between the West and the Muslim World by Eric S. Margolis, 2008, pp. 196, 279-287
(4-5-6) Documents on the Laws of War by Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, 1989, Second Edition, pp. 17-18, 137-146.
(7-8-9-10- 11) Afghanistan, Political Frailty and External Interference, by Dr. Nabi Misdaq, 2006, Afghanistan, the Great Game Revisited, by Roseanne Klass, 1987, (9) Communications by Members of the Afghan Diaspora about Events in Afghanistan to U.S. Leaders, the UN and World Leaders September 21, 1979-October 7, 2013, by Dr. M. Siddieq Noorzoy. America’s War on Terrorism, by Michel Chossudovsky, 2005, Afghanistan: A Search for Truth. by Bruce G. Richardson, 2008.