Thursday, January 30, 2025

Citizens Tribunal Finds Top U.S. Weapons Contractors Guilty of Participation in Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide

 

merchants of death citizens tribunal weapons contractors crimes against humanity genocide war oppression profiteering Raytheon Boeing Lockheed Martin General Atomics

On January 15, after a year-long trial, ten jurors found four major U.S. military contractors—Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed and General Atomics—guilty on charges of willfully participating in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The prosecution of the “merchants of death” was coordinated by Brad Wolf, a former Pennsylvania-based prosecutor, and fellow peace activists Kathy Kelly and Nick Mottern.

Over the past year, the three assembled video testimony by military and academic experts and eyewitnesses who observed first hand how weapons produced by the four major military contractors were used to slaughter innocent civilians and destroy vital infrastructure and the environment across the Middle East and in the Russo-Ukraine War.

When Wolf, Kelly and Mottern tried to visit with corporate executives to get their perspective as to why they were producing weapons of death, the executives refused to meet with them and failed to respond to subpoenas and other requests by Tribunal staff for information.

The same was true of 150 members of Congress to whom Tribunal staff sent questionnaires by mail which went unanswered—unsurprisingly, in light of their close ties to the war industry and complicity in U.S. war crimes.

The senators and congresspeople included some of the most prominent politicians in control of military spending and policy: Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), and House members Mike Rogers (R-AL), Mike Turner (R-OH) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), who spurned numerous direct outreach efforts after the original questionnaires were ignored.  (more...)

Citizens Tribunal Finds Top U.S. Weapons Contractors Guilty of Participation in Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide



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