Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

To my surprise, Facebook did it again. They removed my post about the killing of Suleimani and the 9 Iraqis, and they banned me for 3 days. They said it was hate speech. But, what I wrote was that I denounce what these three people did. I named the three people. I won't name again because now I know better.  But, what I said was that I denounce what they did. I didn't say that I denounce them; just their action.  But, that got me sent to Facebook jail. 

So, I am going to try again to communicate my thoughts on the killing of Suleimani and 9 Iraqis. And this time, I am going to provide links to back up what I say, so that you and Facebook know that I am only reporting facts. So, here are the facts, and you can make of them what you will. 

Fact 1. Suleimani was invited to Iraq by Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi to discuss peace in the region and particularly how to defuse tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This is from CNN, Facebook: 

https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/us-iran-soleimani-tensions-live-intl-01-05-20/h_7c821d1eb7c75ce4b103f0e8020a35e1


Fact 2. Suleimani went to Russia, when he was invited there by Putin, to discuss how to defeat Islamic State in Syria. This is from Reuters, Facebook:

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-iran-russia/iranian-commander-soleimani-meets-putin-in-moscow-idUKKBN0TZ1NY20151216


Fact 3. Prime Minister Mahdi called the killing of Suleimani a political assassination, and  U.S. Presidential candidates Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg also called it an assassination. Here, National security attorney Karen Greenberg explains why the attack on Suleimani was illegal. It's from the New York Times, Facebook:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/opinion/qassim-suleimani.html 

Fact 4: Many terrorist acts have been attributed to Suleimani, but, there is no evidence that he did any. There are accusations galore that he did it all over the world- from Argentina to Africa to India. But, there is no evidence that he did; only accusations. And if anyone has proof that he committed terrorism, the targeting of innocents, I wish they would point me to it. But here is former Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman who writes in his condemnation of the killing of Suleimani of the "witless hubris and violence of US foreign policy" and he attributes no terrorist acts by Suleimani. 

https://transnational.live/2020/01/04/the-suleimani-assassination-not-a-retaliation-but-an-act-of-war/

Fact 5: Terrorism is defined as the targeting and killing of civilians. Since it is the U.S. that says Suleimani was a terrorist, let's look at times in which the U.S.targeted and killed civilians. The first concerns the targeting of Saddam Hussein and his sons at a restaurant in Baghdad.  I don't say the U.S. desired to kill civilians, but the U.S. was willing to kill civilians in order to get Saddam and his sons, although they didn't get them. When you bomb a restaurant knowing that you are going to kill civilians, you are TARGETING those civilians as much as your specific targets. I believe that WHEN YOU WILLFULLY KILL CIVILIANS IN A MILITARY OPERATION it is terrorism. This article in The Telegraph is entitled, Smart Bombs aimed at Saddam killed families.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1428061/Smart-bombs-aimed-at-Saddam-killed-families.html

Fact 6: The U.S. has bombed many wedding parties in Afghanistan. Everyone knows that women and children attend weddings, right? This article by Tom Engelhardt refers to 8 weddings parties that were bombed in Afghanistan. But, the article 2013, the number is higher now. 

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/us-has-bombed-least-eight-wedding-parties-2001/

Here is another wedding party attack that occurred in 2019, killing 40 civilians, just days after a U.S. drone strike killed 32 pine nut harvesters in Afghanistan. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-idUSKBN1W80MI

Fact 7: I made a movie, My Stretch of Texas Ground, which says that there is little difference between war and terrorism, morally speaking. The big difference lies in the Mathematics because war kills a lot of more people than terrorism. This is a very stark but comprehensive analysis by James A. Lucas of Countercurrents.org about the death toll from U.S. wars since the end of World War II. It is staggering, and it would be staggering even if it were just 10 percent of what he claims. 

https://www.sott.net/article/273517-Study-US-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-World-War-Two

Fact 8: This is from the Watson School of International Relations at Brown University in Rhode Island, reporting that the United States has killed 801,000 people directly in war violence since 9/11, and several times that many more indirectly.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/  

I view the killing of Sulemani and Muhandis, the latter being the leader of the Popular Mobilization Front in Iraq, which is an Iraqi military unit, and the 8 other unnamed Iraqis who were in this welcome party who were taking Suleimani to Iraqi Prime Minister Mahdi as savage, criminal, and illegal, but also as the complete obliteration of civilization. What I mean is that if nations everywhere are going to kill in this fashion, if killings such as these are going to be justified the way these were justified, then we might as well be living in the Stone Age or the jungle. 

Suleimani was in the hands of Iraqi government officials and being taken to the Prime Minister. Iraq, being a sovereign nation, Trump could have implored Prime Minister Mahdi to arrest Sulemani. He could have informed him of the imminent attacks Sulemani was planning and shown him the intelligence for it. Then, presumably, Sulemani could have been been turned over to The Hague or other international court for trial. That would have been the civilized, law-abiding way to do it. 

I will leave you with this piece by Medea Benjamin and Nicholas Davies of Common Dreams about 10 unintended consequences of these latest U.S. drone killings. 

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/10/10-ways-trumps-actions-against-iran-hurt-us-region-and-world

To Facebook: I am appalled by the U.S. killing of Suleimani and 9 Iraqis, and I am saying so without expressing hate, and you have no basis to accuse me of engaging in hate speech just because I denounce the killing of 10 people, 8 of whom were not named or accused of any crimes.