While most of the focus of US operations in Syria is further north in a pair of towns under ISIS control, US warplanes attacked the border town of al-Bukamal on Sunday, hitting a residential area and killing a family of five. Two children were among the slain.
Details are still scant on why the airstrike was launched in the first place.There were no reports of fighting in the town, and the attack seems o have just hit a bunch of buildings, causing a lot of damage.
Al-Bukamal is the main border crossing between Syria and Iraq, and has been under the control of the Syrian government since seizing it from ISIS in late 2017. There have been a few fights as ISIS tried to push back in, but rarely long fights.
The US rarely launches airstrikes in support of the Syrian government in the first place, and strikes into Syrian government-controlled territory tend to be controversial. With Syria already complaining about US strikes killing civilians, this will only add to anger about the US presence in the country.
Criminal
Any word from the ICC in all this? Anyone calling for Trump to join milosevic in the Hague for war crimes? No? Thought so. War crimes charges are for blacks and eastern europeans only.
Neither the US nor Syria are signatory to the Rome Statute, so the ICC has no jurisdiction in this particular matter.
Then the same international kangaroo court based at the hague that tried molosevic should do fine. As I recall, no signatories were needed there…
True, but last time I checked, Syria wasn’t part of the jurisdiction of “The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991,” either. Nor does that body exist anymore.
I suspect jurisdiction has little to do with it. The Law is for the weak, the mighty are beyond its reach.
Well, yes, that too. Jurisdiction is just the method.
The International Criminal Court — has jurisdiction over 1) actiony by signatory parties and 2) actions committed on the territory of signatory parties, regardless of whether the alleged criminal is from a signatory party.
That’s one reason the US is having a hissy fit over the ICC.
Afghanistan has placed itself under ICC jurisdiction, which means that crimes committed by US troops there are subject to ICC action even though the US is not party to the ICC treaty (the Rome Statute). Palestine has likewise ratified the Rome Statute, so even though Israel has not, Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza are subject to prosecution by the ICC.
But the successor entity to the Yugoslavia tribunal (and the Rwanda tribunal), the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, was established by the UN Security Council … on which the US has a veto. Thus, the Mechanism’s jurisdiction portfolio will never be expanded in a way that might bring US actors under its purview.
Not only Trump but also Obama, Shrub/Bush, Clinton, Daddy/Bush, together with most of their senior administration officials
Nothing to see here. Just clearing the way for ISIS to return. It’s called a mob hit. You always get rid of the entire family when you want to do it right.
These people were probably Muslim, so that’s okay, right?
Muslim, brown, poor. These are all expendable demographics.
Okay, here’s my two cents. I think these articles regarding body counts are a waste of time and space. Wars and dead bodies go together like rum and coke. How about issues?
We mustn’t clean up war of the death and suffering, or the “issues” will tend to more war. If war was clean and painless, we might like it too much.
Americas finest. They must be so proud to return to their families and recount their stories of honor and glory.
Russia, France, Germany, and Turkey are seriously beginning to talk about the future of Syria. Guess who is not invited to their confab?