A facsimile of the signature-and-seals page of the 1864 Geneva Convention. Photograph Source: Kevin Quinn – CC BY 2.0
Anyone can be a barbarian; it requires a terrible effort to remain a civilized man.
~Leornard Woolf
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Conventions, an attempt by the world’s nations to restrain and prohibit the horrors and terrors of modern warfare. The victors of World War II were the authors. Somehow and in some way, after the destruction and death of WWII, humanity had to progress. The Geneva Conventions were the world’s attempt to do so. As this anniversary is marked, the United States is seemingly doing everything possible to demean, diminish and demolish the world’s work 75 years ago. The US political and diplomatic protection of Israel, the mass supply of money and munitions by the US to a well-understood genocide, and a willingness and ease to lie by US civilian, military and diplomatic officials out of loyalty to what is politically expedient and advantageous rather than a duty to law and treaty commitments, makes it clear to the world the profound degree of cynicism and dishonor that characterize the American state.
Direct and indirect violations of international law by the US are not confined to its current support of Israel but span the actions of successive US administrations across the globe. A view of the US as an outlaw or rogue state, in light of its flagrant disregard for international law, is held by many throughout the world, and such a charge cannot be dismissed for lack of evidence. The war crimes the US is openly supporting and subsidizing do not just carry a moral penalty but a practical consequence, contributing to a rush by the nations of the world to escape US hegemony. The decline and dismantling of the American Empire is hastened by the US’ own deliberate decisions and actions. To do justice in telling our imperial tragedy, we need the likes of an Aeschylus, a Gibbon or a Vidal.
Juxtapose the quiet surrounding the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions in Washington and in major American media today with last month’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of the NATO military alliance. With such a comparison, you can see the militarism defining the US and its unipolar world order. This militarism, whether apologized for through grotesque patriotism or specious realpolitik, is a metastasizing cancer not only damaging the US globally but draining and weakening the US domestically. A year ago, fires destroyed much of Hawaii’s Maui island. Over 100 people lost their lives and thousands of homes and businesses were burnt to the ground. Costs to recover and rebuild from this disaster are expected to be greater than $12 billion. The federal government will provide less than $3 billion. Yet, over this last year, more than $100 billion has been provided for war in the Middle East and Europe by the US Congress – $3.5 billion to Israel just this past weekend. Maui is but one example of many that demonstrate how it is not just international law and the lives of millions of foreigners impacted by a government controlled by war and megalomania but our own people, economy and land.
Last month, the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu addressed an adoring and supplicant American Congress, a body flush with cash from the weapons industry and the Israeli lobby. Netanyahu stated the world faced a battle between barbarism and civilization. He was correct. However, the barbarians are those who so fragrantly violate the laws, agreements, and treaties to which they are bound while profiting from war’s destruction and their own people’s deprivation. How would the victors of WWII view us now? Would they know us? Not I would say as the rightful ancestors of men and women who defeated fascism and set in place international law in a virtuous attempt to advance humanity, but as the barbarians that we are.
This first appeared on Matthew Hoh’s substack page.
The post They Would Not Know Us appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Matthew Hoh.
Matthew Hoh | Radio Free (2024-08-15T05:55:30+00:00) They Would Not Know Us. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/08/15/they-would-not-know-us/
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