By Talk World Radio, April 26, 2022
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This week on Talk World Radio we’re discussing the state of international law and the war in Ukraine. Our guest Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the advisory boards of the American Association of Jurists and of Veterans for Peace. Marjorie is a legal and political analyst who writes a regular column for Truthout ( https://truthout.org/series/human-rights-and-global-wrongs ). She has published several books about U.S. foreign policy, torture, and drones. Marjorie is co-host of Law and Disorder radio, and she lectures, writes, and provides commentary for local, regional, national and international media outlets.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
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One Response
I would like to ask Professor Cohn, whose work I’ve admired and referred to in submissions, whether it violated international law for the US, in association with EU countries, to encourage and support a violent coup, using neo-nazi and extreme nationalists, against a democratically elected govt in Ukraine in Feb 2014? This American violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, surely is a large part of the reason for Russia’s intervention in Feb 2022 (not the only reason though). America did not only depose a democratic govt in Ukraine, its diplomats, actually chose who should be the leader of the US-imposed regime. Of course, US diplomat Victoria Nuland chose an anti-Russia leader and is famous for her recorded conversation and the words: “F… the EU,” who wanted a less rabid leader than Nuland wanted. This conversation is even transcribed in a BBC report you can find online.
So after this outrageous interference by America in Ukraine’s governance, the US-installed anti-Russia regime, then banned speaking the Russian language, and when people understandably opposed the illegal imposed regime they didn’t vote for, the regime used the army to shell and kill people, and devastate infrastructure in the Donbass region where millions of ethnic Russians live. This is the origins of the Ukraine war that started in 2014, and US and NATO arms are still killing Russians now using long-range weapons in the Donbass region all through Christmas 2022 and in 2023. I have not yet heard in Prof’ Cohn’s talk about international law refer to these now 9 years of crimes against civilians committed by the US-imposed Kiev regime since 2014. Western media and countries have not reported on it either for 9 years. When will this be taken seriously by western countries as crimes against humanity?
Professor of Law in Geneva, former UN Human Rights expert, Alfred de Zayas, reported January 2022. There would be no conflict in Ukraine today if Barack Obama, Victoria Nuland and several European leaders had not destabilized the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych and organized a vulgar coup d’état to install Western puppets. …… Until the deliberately anti- Russian coup d’état of February 2014, Ukrainians and Russian-Ukrainians lived side by side in relative harmony. The Maidan 2014 coup brought Russophobic elements and systematic war propaganda, inciting hatred against Russians. “ https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/28/a-culture-of-cheating-on-the-origins-of-the-crisis-in-ukraine/
Apparently, it’s not a crime in America or the EU for a US-imposed illegal regime in Ukraine to kill Russians in the Donbass, a region neighbouring Russia, and far away from US shores. But there have been UN Reports about some of the killing, damage and suffering, for example of children in bullet-riddled class rooms with mines in the playground and the cutting of water supplies, etc, etc, as well as official studies by OSCE e.g. in 2016 a report of heinous torture of people by Kiev’s fascist police and military services PC.SHDM.NGO/17/16 (osce.org)
Please find out about these crimes by the regime in Ukraine over the past 9 years, committed with impunity, instead of alleging crimes by Russia when it intervened to stop the killing of ethnic Russians by the Kiev regime, The Donbass republics urgently requested help from Moscow, when a large Kiev army of around 150,000 according to award winning Italian journalist Danlio Dinucci began increasing attacks on the region by mid-February 2022. This increased attacks were recorded by OSCE. You can find this on the web. Should Russia and President Putin just have stood by and watched while the fascist Kiev regime wiped out the Russian population? That’s intolerable, after years of patiently waiting and hoping for the UN-endorsed Minsk Agreement to be endorsed and stop the killing.
How cynical it is that Germany’s Merkel recently said they never intended to implement the UN-endorsed Minsk 2014/15 Agreement, they just wanted time to arm and train the military for the US-imposed, illegal anti-Russia Kiev regime. Why? To kill Russians in Ukraine and bring about war with Russia? Although Zelensky the current president was “elected” in 2019, he was elected on a peace mandate to unify the country, but didn’t do this. He even banned printing in the Russian language and ordered a large scale attack on the Donbass region by Feb 2022. What about US-EU respect for international law, and human rights in all this malevolent, lawless behaviour? Now we have the spectacle of German tanks being sent to Ukraine, in a ghastly echo of WW2. Nazi Germany wanted Russia’s land and resources; to achieve this they defined Russia’s Slavic peoples as inferior “untermension.” America now also wants to undermine Russia, its President and government are continually threatened by America, which also wants to steal its resources. There’s nothing new about it. America has inflicted wars of aggression on so many countries, even the past 20 years, as well as assassinations and coups against countries. It has never acknowledged its thousands of crimes or compensated or compensated countries for their suffering. But this time is different, because Russia can fight back, unlike many countries attacked by America, and it has nuclear weapons. For global security the US and EU must support the human rights of people in the Donbass, Crimea and other areas who want to be linked to Russia. Also, America must stop threatening the entire world by placing military bases and nuclear weapons and military bases in Poland and Romania, and in other NATO countries in Europe.