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Human Rights Analyst ‘US Officials Must be Held Accountable for War Crimes’

Alex Constantine - April 13, 2013

Interview with James Jennings, President of Conscience International

Press TV, Apr 12, 2013

It would be very difficult [to hold US authorities accountable] unless there are some international forum where the United States officials could be accused of war crimes.”

A commentator says that though difficult but the US officials should be accused of war crimes for the deadly drone strikes carried out in Pakistan.

Press TV has conducted an interview with James Jennings, president of Conscience International from Atlanta. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Jennings I want to ask the United States keeps claiming that it targets militants, civilians keep getting killed. Will the United States ever be held accountable?

Jennings: I am afraid not; because what we have seen is collusion by the Pakistani government, as former President Musharraf admitted just recently, and that is a secret that everybody has known, it is an open secret, that in fact this cannot take place without the approval of the Pakistani government.  So Pakistanis are fighting a war within their own borders, and of course they have opposition within their own country to that policy so are not admitting it.

But I think that in that situation it would be very difficult unless there are some international forum where the United States officials could be accused of war crimes.

Press TV: Going forward what do you think will happen? Will we continue to see more drones being used and then what about those governments that are being affected by this?

Jennings:Well, you remember in the Watergate case when they were trying to trap the Nixon administration. They were advised to follow the money.

If you follow the money, 6.6 billion dollars has been spent already this year on unmanned aerial vehicles, the so-called drones, and President Obama just proposed a new budget in which there would be 26 billion dollars for unmanned aerial vehicles. It is astonishing to realize that the US air force, almost half of its vehicles or its aerial combat planes, are unmanned.

So 41 percent of the United States’ air force planes are drones, it seems.

So they are very numerous and I think the future is going to bring them to a neighborhood near you.

MY/MA