Last week, in an article in the Australian, I joined many from around the world denouncing the moral equivalence from the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) between Israel as a democratic country with an elected Prime Minister, a professional and disciplined military and a powerful and independent judiciary, on the one hand, and Hamas as a terrorist organisation with no internal judicial checks on its military conduct whatsoever, on the other.
Perhaps stung by the chorus of criticisms, Karim Khan, the prosecutor, has now dug the hole he is in even deeper in an interview with the Times. A British citizen of Pakistani ancestry, he recalled the many attacks on prominent British leaders by the Irish Republican Army and commented that the U.K. did not bomb Belfast to get the IRA on the justification that “there undoubtedly may be some IRA members and Republican sympathisers” in Belfast. Khan is now guilty of serial false equivalencies.
Where to even begin when a man in such a critically important office for international criminal justice betrays such jaw-dropping ignorance and lack of understanding?
First off, Belfast is part of the U.K., and people of Northern Ireland are British citizens. Gaza is not part of Israel, and Palestinians living there are not Israeli citizens. The Government and defence force of Israel, unlike Hamas, believe it their solemn duty to serve, defend and protect Israelis, not bomb them.
During the time of the Troubles, the IRA were not the ruling party of Northern Ireland.
The IRA was not committed by its charter to the complete destruction of the U.K. and the liberation of the entire country, from the English Channel to the North Sea and the Irish Sea. Senior IRA spokesmen did not call repeatedly for the death and ethnic cleansing of all Englishmen, with excitable mobs of expatriate Irish chanting “Gas the Poms!” and “Where are the Poms?” in the West’s major cities.
Perhaps I missed the news item when the IRA crossed the narrow sea to attack a major cultural festival where the English youth had gathered to celebrate life with dancing, singing and general good cheer and bonhomie, killing 8,000 (scaled from the October 7th attacks to reflect the much bigger U.K. population), abducting another 1,700, including children, babies and elderly and sadistically raping and torturing at will.
The IRA did not regularly launch rocket attacks from the cover of Belfast hospitals across the Irish Sea on civilians, installations and infrastructure in Britain. Nor do I recall news of the IRA building hundreds of miles of underground tunnels in which to hide their fighters and arms either.
If this is the level of Khan’s intellectual and logical reasoning capacity, the ICC will be living in interesting times for the next few years. He should be embarrassed by the political theatre he has staged.
Ramesh Thakur, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General, is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University, Senior Research Fellow at the Toda Peace Institute, and Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. His new book, Our Enemy, the Government: How Covid Enabled the Expansion and Abuse of State Power (Brownstone Institute, 2023), is out now. This article was first published by the Spectator Australia.
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This is becoming so tiring. I have written in the past comparing the treatment of Israel’s terrorists with UK’s fight against the IRA and it is, in my opinion, a valid argument to say that UK did not bomb all Northern Ireland when attacking IRA, so why is Israel bombing the whole of Gaza when attacking Hamas?
To analyse and use this comparison as the basis of an article attacking ICC’s recent announcements, and thereby attempting to justify Israel’s unprecedented attacks on all Palestinians (I am carefully and diplomatically avoiding the G-word here), is supposed to imply there is nothing more pressing in the world to report?
How about reporting on the escalation in the Ukraine conflict, where Putin publicly announced the Russians are completely aware that western missiles are being targeted and fired by western personnel (i.e. not Ukrainians) and, should these weapons now be fired at Russia, as recently so many western leaders have urged, the Russians will retaliate appropriately. Does that mean striking UK?
Or one could report on the current meetings of Arabian states with Xi Jinping in China: not a good sign for continuing US dominance.
There are many interesting things happening in UK and the world without recourse to rather unserious articles which only serve to set up slagging matches between DS readers.
The escalation of the war against Russia is becoming much more serious with the targeting of Russian ballistic missile early warning radar systems which have no relevance to the Ukrainian conflict. Two such stations have been attacked so far and a third, apparently abortive attempt was made yesterday. It is reported that a British/Portugese system was used against one radar station.
‘The Russians are completely aware that western missiles are being targeted and fired by western personnel….’
The Russians may believe that and state that. I have no idea. But it is definitely not the case.
Why would ‘western’ personnel be required to operate such weaponry when Ukrainians have been trained, in numbers, to do just that?
‘The UK is also hosting a training programme….., which is supported by several allies. Over 30,000 Ukrainian personnel have been trained so far, with the aim of training a further 10,000 by mid-2024.’
H of C library 02 May 2024
If you have any actual evidence to the contrary, why not set it out here?
As I understand it, it is the programming of the missile systems to reach a particulat target which is being done by Western personnel, leaving the Ukrainians to carry out just the final stages of the launch.
I imagine the programming process is quite complex and apart from taking a fair but of training also requires access to confidential information and techniques that Western military do not want to compromise by giving Ukrainians the knowledge and access.
Your imaginings do not constitute evidence.
There is little available that can be classed as evidence. Do you think either side would tell us exactly what is going on? Asking for evidence is the same stupid move that others here try, and then go no to present someone else’s opinion as evidence.
My imaginings are based on decades of experience working on advanced military projects as well, more recently, on all types of automation projects, both large and small, and on database systems.
So I would say my imaginings have more than a little authority behind them.
How about you?
We were in Vietnam, unofficially, of course. Do you think it would not happen now.
Thanks for this. Very interesting.
Was it altogether unofficial?
‘In July 1961, for example, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and his cabinet authorized the dispatch to beleaguered South Vietnam of a small British Advisory Mission, headed by Sir Robert Thompson’
‘The missions that British aircraft flew on behalf of the United States in the second half of 1962 were probably part of the overall British effort to facilitate the conclusion and, if feasible, the successful implementation of the Laos Neutralization Agreement…’
Priscilla Roberts, December 2018
‘Thompson commented that the real problem in South Vietnam was “to get the Americans and South Vietnamese to work out and adopt an overall strategic plan of campaign.” He believed, too, that the Americans never understood the war, observing, “I had maintained that the Americans could not win a victory in accordance with their concept of war unless they defeated Hanoi in accordance with its concept of war.’
Instead of expanding the ARVN, Thompson argued the Americans should have supported the creation of a larger police force……in Malaya, the army supported the civil authorities (such as the police) while in South Vietnam the roles were reversed….’
The situation in Ukraine is entirely different. Britain has had a training contingent in Ukraine (Operation Orbital), overtly and officially, since 2015, in an attempt to provide some semblance of compliance with the assurances it gave to Ukraine in 1994 in return for Ukraine surrendering its nuclear warheads.
Inputting targeting information just isn’t that complicated anymore.
All of this information is in the public domain.
The Ukrainians will have more experience now than most in the targeting processes for their own domestic systems, so it would be surprising if they required much training to accomplish that task for more user friendly relatively recently developed digital targeting systems.
The longest lead time prepping a modern cruise missile is the actual thought and planning put into a mission and not the time needed to load the weapon with information.
Maybe a pre-programmed fill gun will accomplish that task taking very little time at all.
Clearly, all of the munitions for a particular mission may want to take a less than direct route to the target in order to maximize use of terrain, bypass defenses, avoid populated areas that could send an alert and so on.
Modern, intuitive, digital mission planning software probably fills in parts of the missile route for the mission planners in any case, given basic parameters and priorities e.g. a start point, end point, time on target and so forth.
The software then, doubtless, guesstimates an optimum route that maximizes mission success probability.
Clearly, for a given area, extensive contour maps and population densities can be loaded, perhaps cross referenced with up to date known hostile emitters and several routes for missile(s) generated based on selectable criteria.
Older versions of mission software probably had a larger human component, especially if you go back a couple decades, but that is no longer likely to be the case.
Everyone is, of course, entitled to their opinion but, unless that opinion is backed by credible evidence, it unlikely to persuade the unpersuaded.
‘Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow and its targeting processes are the responsibility of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.’
A spokesman for the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence to AFP 28 Feb 2024
The Ukrainians have very capable software developers, have developed their own sophisticated targeting systems. They would have no problem operating ‘other nation’ targeting systems.
And your evidence is a statement from the MoD?!
US military experts have repeatedly announced on “Judging Freedom” (https://www.youtube.com/@judgingfreedom) that US is providing intelligence and targeting information to Ukraine, also that the use of ATACMS, Storm Shadows, etc., require technical expertise and equipment which the Ukrainians do not have.
They have also repeatedly stated that MI6 is never far from CIA, and indeed presumed there was MI6 involvement in the operation of the 12 “secret” sites training Ukrainian operatives on the Russian/Ukrainian border, as reported in the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html). They even surmised that MI6 was involved in the Crocus City Hall attack, although I hope that is not true.
From the start Russia has tolerated the many Intelligence gathering/surveillance flights from NATO countries over Ukraine and the Black Sea
(No doubt the crews of said aircraft are Ukraine natives who all speak perfect english).
Source, “MenchOsint” on twitter/X. – gives flight and some transponder details. Interesting details of RAF recce.flights from Cyprus over Gaza as well…
Are they breaking any International Airspace regulations?
If you have evidence that they are, you should inform your MP.
The UK MoD have stated that Ukraine does the targeting for Storm Shadow. They wrote the supply contract. It is classified. ‘Judging Freedom’ will have no idea as to the terms of the UK MoD supply contract.
If the UK MoD are being ‘economical etc.’, the onus is on you to provide the evidence to back up your accusation.
And then, in this country, you at least have a chance of getting something done about it.
You have no way of knowing whether anything the MOD says is true. Repeating them is not evidence.
Questioning their veracity is IMHO healthy scepticism.
I have a bridge for sale.
Then let us see the evidence.
Sold already. Too slow, I snapped it up.
The situation, regarding international law, is clear:
Any action by UK forces would only constitute a combat operation if these actions, carried out by UK personnel without any further action by Ukrainians, would launch a missile or any other kind of attack on Russian forces.
The same would go for any other country’s trainers in Ukraine.
“The Ukrainians have very capable software developers, have developed their own sophisticated targeting systems. They would have no problem operating ‘other nation’ targeting systems.”
Is there a reference for this? It would not be ‘other nation’ but manufacturer.
Targeting systems in service with and supplied by ‘other nation’.
Many references.
https://aloa.co/blog/software-development-ukraine
https://medium.com/@leraumen27/why-is-ukraine-good-in-software-development-top-reasons-6a9771f8cc38
https://armyinform.com.ua/2023/12/04/ye-zavdannya-v-razy-zbilshyty-vyrobnycztvo-minometnyh-min-rozpochaty-vypusk-snaryadiv-general-lejtenant-ivan-gavrylyuk/
https://www.twz.com/russias-black-sea-flagship-has-exploded-off-ukraine
https://www.twz.com/ukraine-is-using-guided-rockets-with-more-range-than-himars-launched-ones
“Then let us see the evidence.”
I have put some references on here regarding Ukraine’s own developments but those references, all in the public domain, currently reside with the moderator so you will have to ask them.
DS moderator: can you publish the links referred to by the Monro account? Thanks
Or just Google Ukraine domestic surface to surface missile development. Hours of fun.
I don’t need hours on missile development, just links to specific articles.
That is precisely what such a Google will give you, as you can plainly see from the links I give above.
Why were you incapable of finding these for yourself?
It took me all of two minutes.
“Ukraine domestic surface to surface missile development” does not produce results like those in the earlier links from The Monro, even running the search from Kyiv.
The Monro comment on sophisticated targeting and how Ukrainians would have no problem using other nation’s systems seem to be inferred. GPS was the most I found and GPS looks prone to jamming so perhaps not that sophisticated?
Or not really:
‘The longer body might not be the first modification to Neptune. The earliest models of the missile, which is a derivative of the Soviet-vintage Kh-35, had radar seekers that limited their role to anti-ship strikes. Indeed, the Neptune’s first victims were Russian warships, including the missile-cruiser Moskva, holed and sunk in the western Black Sea back in April 2022.
Many anti-ship cruise missiles also have ground-attack modes, but these same missiles often feature GPS-aided navigation.
The reason is simple. A radar seeker generally is enough for striking ships, as a ship reflects a clear radar signature relative to the flat water around it. Ground targets, by contrast, are surrounded by the clutter of buildings, trees and uneven terrain. But juice a radar-guided missile with GPS, and you might get enough discrimination to steer the munition through the clutter to its target.
Luch in its wisdom fitted the Neptune with GPS from the start. But the design bureau made additional tweaks to the missile’s seeker to optimize its land-attack mode….’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/12/04/ukraines-new-long-neptune-cruise-missile-could-strike-anywhere-in-crimea-and-russian-territory-beyond/
Google immediate first result from thirty seconds worth of Googling ‘Ukraine surface to surface missile development’
Neptune Ukrainian domestic Radar and GPS integrated targeting system.
No comment on GPS jamming that could reduce the effectiveness? It is Forbes so that might send the wrong message to the target audience.
Neptune started development before 2015 and Russia has been employing GPS jamming in Ukraine since 2014.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-360_Neptune
https://www.space.com/gps-signal-jamming-explainer-russia-ukraine-invasion
Dual system integrated target guidance to evade GPS jamming.
Developed domestically.
Sophisticated systems integration capability.
It seems to work.
It wasn’t worth the effort.
The trouble is that the software development covered by those articles would appear to be for commercial products. It is unlikely that coding and systems skills required for these are relevant to setting up the operational parameters for missile targeting.
I think you may be confusing the programming of the missile guidance system with the setting up of the operational parameters for a mission. It is the latter that they are talking about and probably requires a specialised equipment. It is not just a case of plugging an SD card in and shooting the missile.
Credible evidence. Where does that come from? if it is in the public domain, it is likely to have been tainted by one side or the other.
The technique I use is to follow information sources and then judge them by the accuracy of their predictions.
This eliminates all mainstream media of both sides since they are either gullible or complicit in spreading their govenments’ propaganda.
So I follow commentators who provide analysis of the news. I follow ones who have a high success rate in their analysis, and drop others off the list.
Quite often I have found that some sources make claims about their opponents which are actually precise reflections of what they themselves have been doing or are about to do; psychologists know that as projection and knowing which sources use this a lot is a great help to seeing what their true position is.
One could take the MOD response as being whatever the truth of the matter, Ukraine will take responsibility (ie get the blame).
The answer to your question is simple: Hamas started a war, the IRA didnt
Another ‘Khant’, who also happens to be not remotely biased towards the jihadists and against the Israelis/Jews then. Pff…This is about the arrest warrant for Netanyahu and corrupt ICC;
”While it’s true that Khan’s move is a shameful, nakedly political disgrace, it is also illegal. The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel. Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Treaty, which founded the ICC, and set out its powers and jurisdiction. To get around that fact, the ICC illegally accepted “Palestine” as a signatory to the treaty.
The political entity that presents itself as the “Government of Palestine” is the Palestinian Authority. The PA was established in 1994 by force of the bilateral agreements the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed with Israel during the 1990s. Those agreements — popularly known as the “Oslo Accords” — bar the PA from seeking membership as a sovereign state in international bodies, including the ICC.
The ICC’s lack of jurisdiction is only part of the legal problem with its move against Israel. In his statement last Monday, Khan drew a false moral equivalence between the crimes against humanity and acts of genocide Hamas committed on Oct. 7 — meaning, the terror group’s invasion of Israel and slaughter, rape, torture and abduction of thousands of civilians and soldiers on the one hand — and the lawful acts of war that Israel has conducted against the Hamas terrorist regime and its terror army in response to that invasion and commission of atrocities.
Hamas is bound by its charter to commit genocide against the Jewish people worldwide and to annihilate the Jewish state. Khan’s allegations against Netanyahu and Gallant— and against the State of Israel more broadly— are predicated on blood libels originating from the Hamas regime in Gaza. In so acting, the ICC is providing material support for Hamas. That is, it is providing material support for a genocidal terror group engaged in a genocidal war against the Jewish people.
Unlike the libelous accusations Khan raised against Israel’s elected leaders, Khan’s provision of material support for Hamas’s war of genocide is an actual war crime.”
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20665/icc-war-crimes
How dare they equate the two.
The Israeli government is far worse than Hamas.
Here we go again, yet another article trying to defend the indefensible.
Good for clickbait I suppose but if it’s much needed clickbait the DS is after I would respecfully suggest that an article by its resident Ukraine Really Is Winning Expert – been so long I can’t quite remember his name – is long overdue.
Ian Rons? Maybe he had some BAE shares to sell and retired.
He is still around in his technical role, I think, as he intervened on a non-contraversial topic recently.
I am glad he has dropped his more contraversial interventions.
Karim Khan was said to have been Israel’s preferred candidate but as with politicians, who knows what actually influences ICC statements and decisions. I don’t imagine Mossad would be the only organisation engaging in extortion.
“How Israeli Security Nixed Haaretz’s Report Into Alleged Mossad Extortion of International Court Prosecutor”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-30/ty-article/.premium/how-israel-nixed-haaretzs-report-into-alleged-mossad-extortion-of-hague-prosecutor/0000018f-c608-d801-a3ef-ff08cf810000
A sceptic might query the existence of an International Criminal Court at all.
A good sceptic should question everything.
I am sceptical of the opinions of people who will down-vote a statement like this. I can only take it as knee-jerk reactions from people who have taken a personal dislike to me.
The UK should withdraw from the ICC and all the other overweening judgemental unelected international bodies
I’m trying to question everything, and put myself in the shoes of both the Israelies or Hamas. It seems to me the big issue is asking Israel to stick to the “rules” and Hamas don’t. If it were the UK under such a threat would we still try to be humanitarian in the face of an enemy that doesn’t.
There are no easy answers.
some examples (not sure of direct equivalence)
bombing of Dresden
A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
For me it is very simple: I do not believe anything that the mainstream media writes – simply based on my experience that it is very simple to write blatant lies and, once they are in print, everyone believes them.
So mainstream media have maintained Hamas went on a killing spree, raping women, beheading infants and burning infants in ovens. Once such statements are publicized, the public is understandably shocked and disgusted, but were the statements true or were they simply the product of perverse propagandists? I believe the latter because credible sources ‘prove’ such and because my own experience tells me that troops under fire have neither time nor desire to do anything other than either fight or get away. Of course, I have no final proof because I was not there, but mainstream media lies about the climate, about Russia, about international affairs and so on, so why should I believe their reporting on Palestine?
I have already written here that if relatives of mine were to be kidnapped, I would expect everything to be done to safely bring them back – unharmed. That means taking up negotiations with the kidnappers; it does not mean bombing everything in sight! I would have no interest in harming people who have nothing to do with the crime, also if they came from the same country as the kidnappers: what a ridiculous idea! But the facts are not disputed that Israel is just bombing anyone it sees walking around in Gaza. How is that supposed to help any kidnap victims, who presumably are in extreme danger of being included among the bomb victims? Why are there no negotiations?
On the subject of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was recently stated (not in mainstream media) that US intelligence knew Japan was ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped, that Truman’s generals told him not to drop the bombs but he insisted on dropping them, primarily to prove to USSR that USA had the bombs and was prepared to use them. Has anyone else heard that, for me, rather shocking information?
I was definitely taught that about the n-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the early 1980s: that the second bomb was dropped to show the Russians that we had more than one and that the first 6th Aug was dropped 3 months after VE day 8th May (minus 2 days) as the Russians had agreed to join the war in the Far East 3 months after the end of the war in Europe. Truman wanted to keep the Russians out of the peace process in the Far East. No Japanese spoils for the Ruskis.
Thank you. I wonder if the Japanese know. They seem to be so pro-USA. I must ask around. Thanks again.
Is it normal procedure for prosecutors to defend their decisions to the media. It seems very unprofessional to me.
However the author of the response seems to be making light of the extensive bombing campaign that the IRA waged on the British mainland, deliberately targeting civilians, including social events.
And the general disruption to normal activities, even when nothing really happened. I was working in the Westminster area for a few years then. The closest time I came close enough to hear anything was when there was an explosion at an office block on Canary Wharf, soon after I visited to someone who was in Mile End hospital and caught a central line train from Mile End (which is above ground). However, it happened while I was underground on my journey and heard nothing about it until the next day. Easily audible from the hospital though.
Choose your preferred propaganda.
Thank you Ramesh Thakur for explaining this so clearly.
Karim Khan KC should be reported to the Bar Standards Board for bringing the British barristers profession into disrepute and the UK’s system of justice and undermining the rule of law.
Why? Because this article demonstrates Karim Khan KC has acted in a biased partisan and disreputable manner for political purposes to support an officially recognised terrorist organisation which uses the people of Gaza as human shields.
If Hamas was not using Gazans as human shields there would not be the outcry about civilians being killed in a war zone. Hamas made it the war zone.
And why is this important to the rule of law?
We already know that the Post Office criminal prosecutions of innocent post office workers were wrong. But those prosecutions were only possible because British barristers and British judges made the prosecutions of innocent people possible.
So the Bar Standards Board – which is not a regulator proper as it exists to protect its own IMHO – should be embarrassed by Karim Khan KC to act.
And then we need to see barristers and judges involved in that scandal also struck off as barristers and barred from acting as judges.
It is not just the UK where the guilty go unpunished.
To make the point I recommend you watch the World’s best ever rant by Glenn Beck [5 mins] complaining that despite all the best efforts nothing happens, no one is held to account for their actions.
Although I have to confess that the multiple prosecutions of Donald Trump are the one exception the Biden administration has achieved but like Karim Khan KC’s actions it is politically motivated.
Wow. Thanks to the moron who downvoted this perfectly proper comment by me.
And in record time – less than 11 minutes after I posted it.
This is the first time I have achieved a zero up and one down verdict from the DS’s moronocracy.
More please. I am looking for the world record.
[PS. No one knows why the downvote because the person who did it is too gutless to say.
We need a Free Silence Union now to protect such folk from being called morons and gutless – for which in a true spirit of remorse I apologise for doing – before the EDI brigade invent a new category of discrimination and I am dragged through the streets to be burned at the stake as an heretic.]
Karim Khan of the ICC and the lawfare against Trump – it’s just virtue signalling taken to the nth degree of insanity, which only sows further social division. Which eventually makes these people look – well, silly. It’s like that C of E bald woman bishop from Dover last night on Question Time, she had the audience eating out of her hand on immigration (and other subjects) for nearly the whole programme until she completely undermined her own woke position (which could be roughly translated as “keep opening the borders”) by saying that “France is not a safe country” after Farage reminded her it was. She came out with some bizarre example of French iniquity during the general sudden intake of breath from panel and much of the audience. She lost all credibility in a few seconds and luckily for her the programme ended not long afterwards.
How squirmingly embarrassingly ignorant Khan is! There are no grown ups in charge of anything any more.
Khan’s ethnicity and faith explain the lack of intellect and reasoning he displayed.
It can be summed up as “Muslims good: Jews bad.”
This is becoming a very scary country to live in.
Karim Khan KC proves that third world banana republic standards exist today in the English legal system.
The second most popular boy’s name is Mohammed. And that does not include all the boys who share the religion but are not named Mohammed.
How soon will it be before cars have plates attached to the back saying “No hand signals. Convicted shop lifter.”
Joking aside, it is worrying.
What country will our children inherit? Or will it only be muslim children who inherit it?
I wonder what this Mr Ramesh Thakur (ex UN) chappie thought about the ICC wanting to bring in Vlad The Impaler Putin for questioning?
DS – can we have articles condemning the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza please ?
If there was such genocide and ethnic cleansing then there would be such articles.
But DS is not a propaganda rag to make false claims.