The recent political assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai has raised the issue of state terrorism – Governments using cold-blooded murder to eliminate political opponents. The specter of state sponsored killings harks back to an age of lawlessness where the law of the jungle reigns supreme. Intelligence agencies, spy drones, car bombs are just some of the means states have used to kill political adversaries and with them family members, wives and children as well as bystanders. Such assassinations avoid due process and the rule of law: holding trials, calling witnesses and gathering evidence. In effect the ones ordering the killing acts as judge, jury and executioner.
Israel, the US and Britain portray an image of law abiding states firmly committed to international law and diplomacy to achieve political ends.The USA and Britain are two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council holding crucial UN veto powers.All three are signatories of numerous international human rights treaties as well as the Geneva Convention.
In reality what these states actually do resemble is the law of the jungle. Israel has a notorious history with scores of political assassinations and attempted killings. US spy drones have recently been active ‘taking out’ alleged Al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan while the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has an infamous history for sponsoring terrorist groups to rival communist and socialist governments in central and south America. America and Britain have been partners in crime lifting and kidnapping alleged suspects and depositing them in secret prisons in eastern Europe well hidden from the scrutiny of the international human rights agencies.Winston Churchill sanctioned the assassination by its Special Operations Executive of the SS General Reinhard Heydrich, among others, in World War II, and Britain’s secret services’‘license to kill’ reputation, though trivialised in movies, has very real murderous results.
Israel – the rogue state
In an audacious operation, using a variety of international passports over two dozen Israeli operatives allegedly assassinated Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas political opponent, in Dubai. Among most commentators there’s very little doubt that Israel’s Mossad was behind the murder of Mr al-Mabhouh. This is because Israel’s secret service, Mossad, has form in this type of terrorist diplomacy.As on previous similar occasions Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the killing.
This is one of many examples of Israel’s militarist diplomacy as recently highlighted in a Financial Times article, Israel’s perceived lawlessness hurts its cause, 26 February 2010.
- Ali Hassan Salameh, a top aid to Yassir Arafat, was killed by a car bomb in Beirut, 1979
- Khalil al Wazir (Abu Jihad), PLO leader, assassinated in Tunis in 1988.
- Abbas Musawi, Hizbollah cleric, was attacked by Israeli gunships in southern Lebanon with his wife, son, and four others.
- Attempted murder of Khaled Meshal of Hamas in Amman with Mossad agents, using Canadian passports, being captured in 1997
- After earlier failed attempts, Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin, founder of Hamas and a quadriplegic, was gunned down in Gaza after Fajr prayer by Israeli helicopter gunships in 2004.
In 2006 Israel invaded and decimated neighbouring Lebanon, and not for the first time. In 2009 Israel bombarded Gaza day and night for three continuous weeks murdering about 60 people daily including many women and children.
In spite of being frequently hailed as the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel does not adopt trials, judgements and convictions in such situations or believes that such legal processes do not apply to it. Its roguish behaviour is astonishing, yet it walks the international stage portraying itself a victim being vulnerable to so called hostile Arab states.
US – the unilateralist
The US lawless charge sheet is even longer then Israel’s. In January 2010 the US were reporting that their CIA drones had killed Pakistan’s Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in Pakistan.The drone attack clearly targeted the alleged suspect killing an additional 12 people in the attack. In 2009 the then Taliban leader Baithullah Mehsud was killed in an American drone strike on his house in South Waziristan.
Indeed, since the US’s undeclared war on Pakistan, CIA unmanned drones flying thousands of feet in the sky have killed scores of alleged militants as well as hundreds of civilians.These are preemptive strikes eliminating suspects – not tried or convicted of an offence.
In Iraq, Blackwater a private security agency, with close links to the US government and military has been entangled in controversy following the US’s invasion and occupation in 2003. In February 2010, the US sponsored Iraqi government ordered Blackwater staff to leave the country after a dozen people were killed by Blackwater guards in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.
The numerous CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, the communist leader of Cuba, date back to the 1960s. In the mid 1980s Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North pleading America’s fifth amendment – declined to answer questions based on his constitutional rights – about the Iran-Contra scandal. Later declassified reports showed the CIA used money from arms shipments to Iran and drug sales to fund the rebel Contras in an attempt overthrow Nigaragua’s socialist government.
More recently, the CIA have been involved in extraordinary renditions – kidnapping suspects and shipping them to secret prisons for interrogation in other countries, where they have no legal protection or rights.A 2007 Council of Europe report accused 14 European governments of permitting the CIA to run detention centers or carry out secret flights between 2002 and 2005.
Britain – the supremacist
Britain, a pivotal member of the lawless triangle, has been collaborating with the US on rendition flights. Between 2005-2007 Tony Blair and Jack Straw constantly denied Britain’s involvement in rendition flights. In February 2008, David Miliband admitted to parliament that two US “extraordinary rendition” flights landed on UK territory in 2002. There have been numerous news reports of countless other rendition flights to have used British airports, namely Prestwick in Scotland.
Northern Ireland exposed the depths of Britain’s lawlessness. Loyalist death squads in Northern Island, with documented links to Britain’s security forces, targeted suspected Republicans for assassination in the 1970s and 1980s while the SAS killed three unarmed Irish Republican Army (IRA) members in Gibraltar in 1988.
There have been reports of British Special Forces clandestine operations in Iraq following the US’s invasion in 2003. British agents have been caught wearing Arab dress and some with weapons, when Iraq was destabilised by a spate of bombings in market squares and religious sites.
Recent reports from documents in the National Archives at Kew disclose that Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, in July 1943 approved a plan to assassinate Mussolini at his headquarters in Rome.
Winston Churchill sanctioned the assassination by its Special Operations Executive of the SS General Reinhard Heydrich, among others.
Conclusion
Despite cover ups, official secrets acts, and non-disclosure practices there are numerous accounts, reports and evidence of the lawlessness of Britain, the US and Israel that has been brought to light by the recent assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh of Hamas, Israel’s political opponent, in Dubai.
This contrasts with the international standing of the three outlaws and their public pronouncements proclaiming human rights.The three justify their lawlessness by claiming to be at war with their adversaries. However, it is ludicrous to claim that these individuals, who remain suspects until brought before a court of law, posed an existential threat to the existence of Britain, the US or Israel. If it’s justifiable on the basis of war then why go to such great lengths to cover up the assassinations and attempted killings? If these three are so sure that they are on the right side of justice and the suspects are the criminals why not bring them to a court of law – what are they afraid of, what are they trying to hide. Indeed, these three lawless outlaws (like a brutal gang) cover for each other’s crimes.The US has used its veto in the UN Security Council dozens of times to protect Israel.
When the lawless dominate, as we see today, injustice will prevail without any means to recourse. Only when the Khilafah state is established will these three lawless states be held to account in any meaningful way.