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Russian War Crimes 'Cannot Be Hidden,' Says Milley At NATO Meeting

Russian War Crimes 'Cannot Be Hidden,' Says Milley At NATO Meeting

By Phil Stewart

TALLINN (Reuters) -The top U.S. general on Friday said war crimes in Ukraine cannot be hidden, as Kyiv leveled fresh accusations against Russia following the discovery of a mass burial site in northeastern territory recaptured from Russian forces.

U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he would reserve judgment as media reports emerged indicating that at the site in Izium, some bodies were found with hands tied behind their backs.

"In terms of the totality of the scale (of potential war crimes), I don't know. But I would tell you that the world will discover that. War crimes cannot be hidden, especially things like mass graves," Milley told reporters traveling with him after arriving in Estonia for a NATO gathering.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Reuters in an interview that the mass burial site in Izium was proof of Russian war crimes and evidence was being collected.

"There is some evidence, and assessments are being conducted, Ukrainian and international, and this is very important for us, for the world to recognize this," he said.

Moscow has not commented on the mass burial site in Izium, which was a Russian frontline stronghold before Ukraine's counter-offensive forced its forces to flee.

The head of the pro-Russian administration which abandoned the area last week dismissed the accounts and accused Ukrainians of stage-managing atrocities.

Milley's visit to Estonia followed a trip to Israel, where, earlier in the day he visited Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial to the six million European Jews murdered in World War Two.

Milley said he was not comparing the Holocaust, in all of its enormity, to events unfolding in Ukraine.

"But having said that, war crimes, if the evidence is there, then that's necessary to discover. And it's just a poignant reminder to us, because all of us were on a trip to Israel that I don't forget -- and no one should," he said.

Kyiv's biggest European supporters, such as Baltic states like Estonia which have long called for more military aid for Ukraine, say Ukraine's battlefield successes in its counter-offensive have demonstrated the case for more support.

But the mass burial site has also raised questioned about what other discoveries may await Ukrainian troops, who hope to seize more Russian-held Ukrainian territory.

Milley lauded Ukraine's military for seizing the "strategic initiative" from Russia -- terminology suggesting that Ukraine had momentum in a war now well into its seventh month.

But Milley was cautious about making predictions. Asked whether Ukraine would be able to retake all its territory, Milley said: "The offensives are in the early stages. We're only looking at probably about two weeks so far."

"And it remains to be seen how far the Ukrainians can press this fight. So I think we'll have to wait and see how the fighting develops," he said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by Mark Porter and David Gregorio)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Facing Censure, Greene (Sort Of) Apologizes For Offensive Holocaust Remarks

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) held a small press conference on Monday evening to apologize for having repeatedly compared face masks worn to protect from the coronavirus to the Holocaust, but refused to apologize for comparing Democrats and the Democratic Party to Nazis and Hitler's Nazi Party.

Greene's remarks came after being she had a tour of Washington, D.C.'s Holocaust Museum, which reportedly came after a week of negotiations. But they also came just days before a resolution to censure her over her Holocaust comparisons is set to be introduced, The Washington Post reports.

The QAnon-supporting congresswoman "declined to walk back other controversial statements she has made, including one in which she compared the Democratic Party to Hitler's party, the National Socialist German Workers' Party."

"One of the best lessons that my father always taught me was, when you make a mistake, you should own it," Greene, who appeared to be speaking off-the-cuff Monday, told reporters.

Her remarks suggest she does not see her comments equating Democrats with Nazis as a mistake.

Last month, the Post notes, "Greene also compared the Democratic Party to the Nazi party, which went by the full name Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or the National Socialist German Workers' Party."

"Despite the name, the Nazi party was not a socialist party; it was a right-wing, ultranationalist party. Even so, Greene told attendees at the rally in May: "You know, Nazis were the National Socialist Party. Just like the Democrats are now a national socialist party."

When asked if she would also apologize and refute her attack on Democrats, Greene refused, exposing her biased ignorance.

"You know, socialism is extremely dangerous, and so is communism," she told reporters. "And anytime a government moves into policies where there's more control and there's freedoms taken away, yes, that's a danger for everyone. And I think that's something that we should all be wary of. … I'll never stop saying we have to save America and stop socialism."
People Should Not Play Pokemon At Auschwitz

People Should Not Play Pokemon At Auschwitz

Here’s something I never thought I’d have to say.

People should not play Pokemon at Auschwitz.

Nor at the Sept. 11 memorial in New York City, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, or Arlington National Cemetery.

You would think this obvious, but apparently it isn’t. According to reports, people have been playing the game in these sacred spaces, often to the consternation of those who run them. As a tweet from Arlington put it last week, “We do not consider playing ‘Pokemon Go’ to be appropriate decorum on the grounds of ANC.”

Apparently, we have reached a point in our devolution where people can’t figure such things out for themselves.

As you may not know if you have a life, Pokemon — short for Pocket Monsters — are digital creatures, characters in what was originally a Japanese video game (there have since been movie and television spin-offs) that’s been around since the ’90s. The latest iteration, Pokemon Go, has become a global sensation since its July 6 release; Survey Monkey calls it the most successful mobile game in U.S. history, with 21 million daily active users.

You play it on your smartphone. It’s synced with the real world so that Pokemon characters pop up on screen as you go various places. Your object is to capture them. Even, apparently, if you’re at the crematoria in Auschwitz or John F. Kennedy’s grave at Arlington.

When a Washington Post reporter questioned the propriety of doing this at the Holocaust Museum, “Angie,” age 37, responded with the game’s catchphrase: “Gotta catch ’em all.”

To repeat: Angie, age 37, the Holocaust Museum … “Gotta catch ’em all.”

I’ve never been so ready to throttle someone I’ve never even met.

I’m trying really hard here not to do a you-kids-better-get-off-my-lawn rant, but seriously, once upon a time didn’t adults seem more, well … adult? People were … older then. My dad turned 37 in 1963; I cannot, for the life of me, picture him twirling a Hula Hoop at Arlington.

You may find that a hypocritical observation coming from a guy who is pushing 60 and still reading Captain America, but I stand by it. I am of the generation that invented youth culture, that spat in the eye of aging, that declined to stop having — or being — fun once the crow’s feet came; I’ve always felt that was one of the best things about us. We are, as Bob Dylan famously sang, “Forever Young.”

But I submit that there is a glaring difference between being forever young and forever immature.

And, that when you lack the common sense and simple decency to put your toys aside and stand awed in a place sanctified by suffering and sacrifice, you have crossed fully from the one to the other. Nor are you just immature. You’re shallow and self-centered, too. And you have no apparent capacity for reverence and reflection.

But you are hardly unique. We live in a world where many of us have longer and more soulful relationships with the screens in their palms than the people in their lives. They forget to look up sometimes. And they miss things because of it.

Important things. Painful things. Things that anchor us and lift us and bind us in shared humanity.

The Holocaust Museum is a memorial to 11 million people who died, 1.1 million of them at the camps that comprise Auschwitz. The National Sept. 11th Memorial and Museum remembers 2,977 people who perished in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Arlington National Cemetery is America’s most hallowed ground, final resting place for men and women who answered their country’s call.

These places and places like them deserve to be treated with respect.

And there’s something else I never thought I’d have to say.

 

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.

Photo: Theodore Belizaire plays the augmented reality mobile game “Pokemon Go” by Nintendo in Times Square, New York City, U.S. July 11, 2016. REUTERS/Mark Kauzlarich