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Bombing of Cambodia Cited to Defend US Drone Strikes
Cambodia Daily via Phnom Penh Clic ^ | February 13, 2013 | Unattributed

Posted on 03/23/2013 11:54:09 AM PDT by Seizethecarp

A U.S. Justice Department document that says America can le­gally order the killing of its citizens if they are believed to be al-Qaida leaders uses the devastating and illegal bombing of Cam­bo­dia in the 1960s and ’70s to help make its case.

American broadcaster NBC News first reported on the “white pa­per”—a summary of classified mem­os by the U.S. Justice Depart­ment’s Of­fice of Legal Council—on Monday.

The 16-page paper makes a legal case for the U.S. government’s highly controversial use of un­manned drones to kill suspected terrorists, including some U.S. citizens. In making its argument, the docu­ment brings up the U.S.’ bombing of Cam­bodia—which claimed thousands of innocent lives in the pursuit of North Vietnamese forces—to ar­gue for the right to go after its enemies in neutral countries.

“The Department has not found any authority for the proposition that when one of the parties to an armed conflict plans and executes operations from a base in a new na­tion, an operation to engage the enemy in that location cannot be part of the original armed conflict,” the paper reads. “That does not appear to be the rule of the historical practice, for instance, even in a traditional international conflict.”

To help make its case, the Jus­tice Depart­ment cites an address then-U.S. State Depart­ment legal adviser John Stevenson delivered to the New York Bar Association in 1970 regarding the U.S.’ ongoing military activity in Cambodia.

(Excerpt) Read more at ppcl.mobi ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 2014election; 2016election; cambodia; drone; election2014; election2016; johnkerryin1968; nixon; northvietnam; obama; waronterror

1 posted on 03/23/2013 11:54:09 AM PDT by Seizethecarp
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To: Seizethecarp

I thought summary executions were prohibitetd by the Geneva Convention?


2 posted on 03/23/2013 12:00:23 PM PDT by LukeL (Barack Obama: Jimmy Carter 2 Electric Boogaloo)
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To: Seizethecarp

Any comment from our Secretary of State? He served in Vietnam, you know.


3 posted on 03/23/2013 12:01:49 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (The ballot box is a sham. Nothing will change until after the war.)
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To: Seizethecarp

Harvard anti-war activist journal article points out the hypocrisy of POTUS Barry using the Cambodian bombing to justify drone strikes beyond the Al Qaeda WOT authorization compared to SOS Kerry’s denunciation of the Cambodia bombings for decades before his new appointment:

“Nixon’s Ghost”

Amicus, By Andrew Mamo, Human Rights, Privacy and National Security

http://harvardcrcl.org/2013/02/09/nixons-ghost/

“I don’t intend to do a complete analysis of the white paper here. This post only concerns the curious invocation of American bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s as precedent for drone strikes in the absence of declared conflict. Pause for a moment to appreciate this, and to appreciate both the domestic and international repercussions of this intervention.”

“President Nixon announced the campaign in Cambodia, on April 30, 1970, describing it as a necessary element of the Vietnam War; the idea was that if troops from North Vietnam were hiding in parts of Cambodia, and if the Cambodian government was unable to do anything to stop it, the United States would.”

“Does the Department of Justice believe that the glorious history of American bombing in Cambodia supports the proposition that intervention in a neutral country is justified by that country’s inability to resolve the situation on its own?

“We know that Obama has largely continued the drone policies of the Bush administration. Even so, the approving nod to Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War across Southeast Asia is an unexpected development. I’m reminded of statements made by a Vietnam veteran in 1971: “We veterans can only look with amazement on the fact that this country has been unable to see there is absolutely no difference between ground troops and a helicopter, and yet people have accepted a differentiation fed them by the administration. No ground troops are in Laos, so it is all right to kill Laotians by remote control. But believe me the helicopter crews fill the same body bags and they wreak the same kind of damage on the Vietnamese and Laotian countryside as anybody else, and the President is talking about allowing that to go on for many years to come.” That veteran is now serving as our Secretary of State. I’m curious what he thinks about the use of the Cambodian bombing campaign as precedent for our current situation.”


4 posted on 03/23/2013 12:02:08 PM PDT by Seizethecarp (Defend aircraft from "runway kill zone" mini-drone helicopter swarm attacks: www.runwaykillzone.com)
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To: Seizethecarp

The bombing of Cambodia was not illegal. A nation can not claim neutrality, according to the Geneva Convention, if it can not defend its neutrality. Cambodia clearly could not defend its neutrality against North Vietnam.
By the U.S. overtly accepting Cambodian claims of neutrality it expanded the DMZ nearly one hundred miles in width. If the U.S. had refuted the Cambodian claims and forced North Vietnam to funnel men and supplies across the Vietnamese DMZ, the area involved would have been approximately seventy-five miles in width, a much smaller patch of ground to control.


5 posted on 03/23/2013 12:13:05 PM PDT by em2vn
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To: Seizethecarp
They better hope that John F'n Kerry doesn't take any friendly fire from the drones next Christmas in Cambodia.


6 posted on 03/23/2013 12:35:15 PM PDT by Iron Munro (I miss America, don't you?)
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