Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Did Adam Bandt Really Need to Apologise to Jim Molan?

"Liberal senator Jim Molan has refused to accept the apology of the Greens MP who questioned his military record in Iraq, insisting his threat of defamation is still on the table. Melbourne Greens MP Adam Bandt suggested in a TV interview on Wednesday the senator may have committed war crimes during the battle for Fallujah. Senator Molan, a retired major-general who served as the chief of operations of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, quickly threatened to pursue the Greens MP to the courts for defamation." (Greens MP Adam Bandt has apologised for questioning Liberal senator Jim Molan's military action in Iraq, after been threatened with defamation, sbs.com.au,  9/2/18)

If Adam Bandt had read the following text - IOW, if he'd done his homework - maybe he wouldn't have been intimidated into issuing his apology:

"The siege of Fallujah, carried out by US forces upon a mainly civilian population, contravened 70 individual articles of the Geneva Conventions.

"The US, an original signatory to the Conventions, is in its activities in Iraq currently in breach of nearly every major area of concern identified by them...Those in command have chosen to drive a tank trough a century and a half of delicately crafted regulations on the treatment of those involved in conflict...The Conventions are the basis of international law in times of war, and not a simple formality or series of guidelines; the American actions in Fallujah are therefore grave indeed."(The Siege of Fallujah and the Geneva Conventions, Jonathan Holmes, quoted in Fallujah; Eyewitness testimony from Iraq's besieged city, Jonathan Holmes, 2007, pp 112-13) 

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