Terry Lodge of Ohio, an award-winning environmental and nuclear accountability attorney, spent weeks researching U.S. and international laws broken by the U.S. through its involvement in the Gaza genocide.
Lodge had his work reviewed by Marjorie Cohn, a respected American legal scholar working as a professor of law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. She is also a former president of the National Lawyers Guild.
The Lodge document is now a letter being delivered to U.S. State Department field offices in the U.S. (29) and to every U.S. embassy and consulate worldwide.
Veterans For Peace wants every working member of the U.S. State Department to understand that the export of weapons of mass destruction to a known human rights abuser is illegal.
The VFP letter documents six specific laws being broken by the United States. VFP wants to inform all U.S. State Department workers to avoid participation in activities that aid and abet the violation of law to expedite U.S. weapons of destruction to Israel.
The most striking evidence of caution was set by the former director of U.S. military arms transfers, Josh Paul, who resigned knowing his U.S. leaders were breaking the law.
The New York Times reported in an interview: “Mr. Paul said that Israel’s cutting off of water, food, medical care, and electricity to the Gaza Strip, a region of two million people, should prompt protections in federal laws intended to keep American weapons out of the hands of human rights violators. But those legal guardrails are failing, he said.”
School history textbooks inform young readers that the United States is a nation of laws. Yes, it is and we are thankful for many laws that assist justice-making.
The crimes of murder and child abuse immediately come to mind. Our society does not tolerate murder or child abuse. Criminal law comes down hard on murderers and child abusers and those who aid in the committing of those brutal criminal acts.
Why then are United States leaders not held accountable for assisting in tens of thousands of murders in Gaza? Well over 30,000 Palestinian women, men, and mostly children have been murdered by Israeli terrorists since the murderous Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, that left 1,200 Israelis dead.
The Israeli terror of genocidal revenge has come mostly from sophisticated U.S.-made weapons. Bunker buster bombs and Maverick missiles from Raytheon of Texas, Lockheed Martin’s Hellfire missiles from Florida and Paveway bombs from Pennsylvania, and the most desired projectile of all, 155mm artillery shells from General Dynamics in Pennsylvania, Iowa and Texas.
The Veterans For Peace letter has been hand-delivered (or attempted hand delivery) to 17 U.S. Department of State offices in the United States and electronically delivered to all U.S. State Department field offices internationally.
Workers are warned of U.S. and international laws being violated. Will all Department of State workers be offered to read the Veterans For Peace letter? Not likely, but Veterans For Peace is not intimidated by the State Department’s suppression of the truth.
The most common response from U.S. State Department offices in the United States has been their refusal to accept the Veterans For Peace letter. In two instances, the letter was first received at a State Department office and, minutes later, returned noting the office does not accept letters.
Trying to make an appointment with Department of State offices is nearly impossible. Just one example was this response to a phone call for an appointment to deliver the letter: “We are a secure agency. How did you get our office number?” Told the number is available online, the individual who identified himself as a supervisor, warned the caller to not call the office again.
Veterans For Peace dismisses threats from Department of State bureaucrats, the President or the U.S. Congress. If we are truly a nation of laws, laws must be obeyed. The U.S. government is aiding and abetting the genocidal acts of the Government of Israel breaking multiple U.S. and international laws.
Veterans For Peace will not be silent and asks all U.S. citizens to hold their law-breaking government officially accountable. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and cooperating members of the Department of State must be held accountable for their criminal role in breaking U.S. and international law by expediting weapons of mass destruction to Israel, a gross human rights violator.
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About the Author
Jack is an anti-drone activist.
His plays and novels focus on young men and women who resist war. You can read more at www.bensalmon.org.
Jack can be reached at: jgilroy1955@gmail.com.
Excuse me, but would you please clarify how many Israelis who died on 10/7 were killed by Hamas and how many were slaughtered by the IDF’s mass Hannibal Directive? Thank you.