Civilian Deaths In U.S. Wars: When Will They End?

 Source: China Daily

The soaring civilian death count in Afghanistan and in Iraq has aroused widespread concern among the international community over US strategy in Central Asia and the Middle East.

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The mounting civilian death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq is a stigma on the way the United States has waged war in the two countries. 

The vulnerability of civilians was brutally demonstrated on the morning of March 11, when 16 civilians, including women and children, were murdered in their homes in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.

A lone US soldier, Sergeant Robert Bales, has been accused of the lethal rampage, which has understandably infuriated Afghan people and strained the already tense Afghan-US relations. 

Washington owes the Afghan people an honest explanation of how their homes became killing zones. 

As Washington is poised to gradually withdraw its troops in Afghanistan, there is no guarantee that the transition period leading up to the withdrawal will be a smooth one. 

There is also no guarantee that the US will not leave Afghanistan in as big a mess as it did Iraq. The US pulled its troops out of Iraq in December, leaving the Gulf country in a quagmire of political instability and sectarian strife. 

U.S. Soldier Kills Afghan Civilians in Kandahar

Source: BBC

A US soldier in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five after entering their homes in Kandahar province, senior local officials say.

He left his military base in the early hours of the morning and opened fire in at least two homes; women and children were among the dead.

The soldier has not been named, but is thought to be a staff sergeant.

He is reported to have walked off his base at around 03:00 local time (22:30 GMT Saturday) and headed to nearby villages, moving methodically from house to house.

"Eleven members of my family are dead. They are all dead," Haji Samad, an elder from Najeeban village, told the AFP news agency.

Yet Another Air Raid Kills Afghan Civilians, Including Children

Source: Activist Post
Madison Ruppert

An air raid carried out by NATO forces in the Tagab district of the eastern Kapisa province in Afghanistan resulted in at least three civilian deaths and four injuries.

The provincial council representative for the eastern Kapisa province stated that the air raid, conducted by French troops, resulted in two children being among the casualties, according to Khwaja Ghulam Mohammad Zmarai, the deputy provincial council for the Kapisa province, Khaama reports.

Zmarai stated that the French troops had received inaccurate intelligence from local residents as to the presence of suspected Taliban militants.

Security officials from the Kapisa province reportedly confirmed the reports and the deaths of the children, although they said that no civilians were injured which conflicts with Zmarai’s report of four residents of Joibar being injured.

Earlier this month it was reported that a NATO airstrike killed eight children, also in the Kapisa province.

In an official statement, Afghan president Hamid Karzai said he “strongly condemned the aerial bombing by foreign troops that killed a number of children in Nejrab district.”

This resulted in Karzai assigning a delegation to launch an inquiry into the NATO bombing while a NATO spokesman said he could “confirm there has been a situation.”

Following the earlier bombing, the Afghan House of Representatives summoned the Afghan Interior Ministry to brief Afghan MPs on the tragic incident.

This latest incident comes as protests in Afghanistan rage on in the wake of the burning of Qurans at a Western military base.

'US Pays Price in Blood for Israel'

Source: PressTV


The US embassy is under lockdown and Afghan police have killed 20 people in protests spread across the country against the burning of the Koran by US troops.

Interview with James Morris, Editor of America-hijacked.com, Los Angeles.‎

NATO Airstrike Kills Eight Children in Afghanistan

Source: Daily Times Pakistan

KABUL: A NATO airstrike killed eight children in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province northeast of the capital Kabul, President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday.

The president “strongly condemned the aerial bombing by foreign troops that killed a number of children in Nejrab district” on Wednesday, said a statement from his office.

“Based on information by (the) provincial governor, as a result of an air strike conducted on February 8, eight children were killed,” the statement said.

Karzai had assigned a delegation “to launch an all-out probe into the NATO bombing in the province of Kapisa”, it added.

A NATO spokesman said he could “confirm there has been a situation. A joint assessment team went there to identify the situation”.

The Afghan president, who has a strained relationship with his Western allies, has regularly condemned NATO for civilian deaths in the decade-long war against Taliban fighting to overthrow him.

Kapisa district police chief Abdul Hamid Erkin told AFP: “Two nights ago, foreign special forces carried out a raid on a house in Geyawa village in Nejrab district.

“The next morning their plane carried out an airstrike on a house in the village as a result of which seven children and one adult were martyred.”

He said commanders of French troops who operate in the area “claimed that the target was a group of Taliban facilitators, but we checked the area and there were no Taliban.

Army Officer Says it's Time to Stop Lying about 'Progress' in Afghanistan

Source: Natural News

It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's refreshing and extremely worthy of praise: A ranking military member with credibility, who has much to lose by speaking out, steps forward to tell some hard truths about what's really going on in a war that has become the nation's longest in history.

He may not think of himself as one, but Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis is a hero in the eyes of many, because he has the intestinal fortitude to tell the American people what our senior military and civilian leaders have chosen to ignore - namely, that the words "progress" and "Afghanistan," in a military sense, don't belong in the same sentence.

Davis, a four-combat-tour veteran who has offered up a better strategy for Afghanistan in the past, says in a recently published assessment of his latest tour in 2011 that, after more than a decade of war, he "witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level" in the U.S. and NATO effort to beat back the Taliban-led insurgency and develop even basic-level governmental services for the people.

NATO: Murdering Afghan Civilians

Source: The Nation

The UN mission in Afghanistan has reported that a record number of civilians were killed in the war-torn, foreign-occupied country in 2011, marking the fifth consecutive year the death toll has risen. 

In its annual report, the mission revealed that 3,021 civilians were killed in 2011, up eight percent from 2010. 

The report differed from the assessment of NATO forces that the year was “remarkably successful.”

It is expected that NATO would try to sell it as such, for it is preparing to withdraw combat troops from the region and hand over responsibility for security to the Afghan government. 

The first question, raised even by the UN report, is who is doing the killing. The report blames the Taliban for 450 deaths. However, though the report acknowledges that the International Security Assistance Force has been responsible for civilian deaths, it does its best to defend them, stating that it has reduced the number of deaths over the last two years. Most of the deaths attributed to NATO were due to air attacks – as widely reported – over even weddings and funerals. These deaths have provoked even the propped-up regime in Kabul to protest.

The report noted that the geographic distribution of casualties had shifted, as the conflict lessened in intensity in the south and increased in the southeast, east and north. This also showed that the resistance to foreign occupation has spread all over the country. 

It is unfortunate that the only sources of information about casualties, civilian and military alike, are the US and the UN. It is therefore of significance that Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that Pakistan has not asked the USA to apologise for the Salalah incident, in which 26 Pakistani soldiers lost their lives. 

Though the UN has been forced to report NATO excesses against Afghan civilians, Pakistan’s rulers seem to have learnt nothing, and are working to restore NATO supply lines through Pakistan.

'US Failure in Afghanistan Destabilizes Region'

Source: PressTV

A political analyst says that amid a US official's warning of a failed mission in Afghanistan, "all the neighbors have a responsibility to aim for a stable government."

Press TV has conducted an interview with Marvin Weinbaum, Middle East Institute, to further discuss the issue.

The Anti-Empire Report: Please Tell Me Again … What is the War in Afghanistan About?!

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
William Blum

With the US war in Iraq supposedly having reached a good conclusion (or halfway decent … or better than nothing … or let’s get the hell out of here while some of us are still in one piece and there are some Iraqis we haven’t yet killed), the best and the brightest in our government and media turn their thoughts to what to do about Afghanistan. It appears that no one seems to remember, if they ever knew, that Afghanistan was not really about 9-11 or fighting terrorists (except the many the US has created by its invasion and occupation), but was about pipelines. 

President Obama declared in August 2009: “But we must never forget this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.” 

Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001. 

Never mind that the “plotting to attack America” in 2001 was devised in Germany and Spain and the United States more than in Afghanistan. Why hasn’t the United States bombed those countries?

Indeed, what actually was needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? A room with some chairs? What does “an even larger safe haven” mean? A larger room with more chairs? Perhaps a blackboard? Terrorists intent upon attacking the United States can meet almost anywhere, with Afghanistan probably being one of the worst places for them, given the American occupation.

The only “necessity” that drew the United States to Afghanistan was the desire to establish a military presence in this land that is next door to the Caspian Sea region of Central Asia — which reportedly contains the second largest proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world — and build oil and gas pipelines from that region running through Afghanistan.

Corbett Report - Episode 215: History Repeating

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

From My Lai to Abu Ghraib to Afghanistan, we have seen the all-too-familiar pattern: denials followed by excuses followed by faux apologies and offical handwringing. What is never examined is how each event fits into the bigger picture of the dehumanization of war. Join us this week on The Corbett Report as we go in search of the thread that connects our own time to the history that helps to explain it.

 

Documentation

Michael Hastings: "Obama Has Tripled the Conflict in Afghanistan"

Source: RT

About ten years ago the US occupied Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. The war in Afghanistan has become one of the longest wars in US history. The war on terror in Afghanistan is considered a quagmire and many wonder what went wrong. Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter who is responsible for ending Stanley McChrystal career, joins us to find out what went wrong in Afghanistan.

Afghan History Suppressed: Part I: Islamists, Heroin and the CIA

Source: The Intel Hub
Dean Henderson

(Part one of a three-part series excerpted from Chapter 8: Project Frankenstein: Afghanistan: Big Oil & Their Bankers…)

 

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Syrian government reversed a ban on women teachers wearing Islamic face cover in the classroom.  The concession to Western-backed Islamist protestors is instructive, since the secular socialist Assad government is clearly in the crosshairs of City of London bankers attempting to redraw the political map of the Middle East.  As in Libya and Afghanistan, the banksters are counting on fundamentalists to carry out their counter-revolutionary agenda.

Though Western intelligence had earlier cavorted with Islamists in attacking nationalist movements in Iraq, Indonesia and Iran; it was in Afghanistan where they unleashed the full force of their young Frankensteins.

This disastrous experiment came to a head last week when 2,000 Afghans attacked a UN compound in usually sedate Mazar-e-Sharif, killing 7 staffers.  Though set off by the burning of a Quran by our own Florida version of the Taliban (see my Left Hook article “Pastor Jones & Mohammed Atta”), one must understand this nation’s history to fully comprehend Afghan anger towards their Western occupiers.

Afghanistan was founded in 1747 and ruled by a bloodline monarchy with rumored ties to the legendary Roshaniya- the all-seeing ones.  In 1933 King Mohammed Zaher Shah took the throne, ruling the country in feudalistic fashion until deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud in 1973. [1]

In April 1978 Daoud was killed in a popular revolution led by socialist leader Nor Mohammed Taraki, who became President and embarked on an ambitious land reform program to help poor Afghan sharecroppers, who were traditionally forced to work land owned by the king and his cronies.

Taraki built schools for women who were banned from education under the monarchy.  He opened Afghan universities to the poor and introduced free health care.  When counter-revolutionary bandits began to burn down universities and girl’s schools, many Afghan’s saw the hand of the CIA.  As the campaign of sabotage intensified, Kabul revolutionaries called on Soviet leader Leonid Brezynev to send troops to repel the bandits.  Brezynev refused.

In 1979 pro-Taraki militants, convinced of a CIA destabilization plot, assassinated CIA Kabul Chief of Station Spike Dubbs.  Indeed, in April 1979, a full seven months before the much-ballyhooed Soviet “invasion” of Afghanistan occurred, US officials met with Afghan warlords bent on overthrowing Taraki.  On July 3, 1979 President Carter signed the first national security directive authorizing secret aid to Afghan warlords.  Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said he convinced Carter that in his “…opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”[2]

Analysts Say Russia Could Deliver Deathblow to NATO

Source: International

With the Russian threat to cut land routes for supply to Nato troops in Afghanistan, the Afghan battleground may turn into a cold deathtrap for Nato, defence analysts believe. They say that Pakistan should utilise the opportunity for a peaceful and prosperous Pakistan by pulling it out of the American war.

Russia has threatened to cut off Nato supply routes to Afghanistan if the alliance doesn’t compromise on its missile defence plans. “If Nato doesn’t give a serious response, we have to address matters in relations in other areas,” Russian news services reported. Russia’s cooperation on Afghanistan may be an area for review, the news services reported.

Pakistan has already cut the Nato supply route after the Mohmand Agency attack by Nato troops that killed twenty-six Pakistani soldiers.

Lieutenant General (r) Hameed Gul while talking to The News said that Russia would utilise every option to take revenge from the Americans and time has come for the Russians to do this. He said that Russia wants to join hands with Pakistan and Pakistan should reconsider its policy towards Russia. “Americans and Nato troops have been strangled in Afghanistan and time has come for Pakistan to avail the opportunity that it missed on 9/11 to regain the respect and sovereignty”, Gul said.

He mentioned that Americans will have to leave Afghanistan and will ask for concessions and Pakistan should negotiate with them for their exit. If Russia cuts the supply then the route will be from Georgia to Baku and then to Azerbaijan, which means NATO will never get the supply, said Gul. “Now Nato troops will have to exit Vietnam style, and that too by using Pakistan’s airspace because Iran will never let USA use its airspace”, the retired general said. He mentioned that the war against terror that was started with our own people will come to an end at once and there will be peace in no time once the Americans leave Afghanistan. He said that Indian interests in Afghanistan were growing but India will get nothing from Afghanistan.

Bush and Blair Found Guilty of War Crimes

Source: Press TV

A War Crimes Tribunal in Malaysia has found former US President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of war crimes for their roles in the Iraq war, Press TV reports. 

 

The five-panel Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal decided that Bush and Blair committed genocide and crimes against humanity by leading the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a Press TV correspondent reported on Tuesday.

In 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction allegedly stockpiled by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Malaysian tribunal judges ruled that the decision to wage war against Iraq by the two former heads of government was a flagrant abuse of law and an act of aggression that led to large-scale massacres of the Iraqi people.

Bombings and other forms of violence became commonplace in Iraq shortly after the US-led invasion of the country.

In their ruling, the tribunal judges also stated that the US, under the leadership of Bush, fabricated documents to make it appear that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

However, the world later learned that the former Iraqi regime did not possess WMDs and that the US and British leaders knew this all along.

Over one million Iraqis were killed during the invasion, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

The judges also said the court findings should be provided to signatories to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, and added that the names of Bush and Blair should be listed on a war crimes register.

Why does the U.S. want a total media blackout on long-term Afghan deal?

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

During a press conference yesterday, Safia Sediqi, loya jirga (which in the Pashto language means “grand council”) spokeswoman, said that Washington wants a complete media blackout over the conditions set forth in the new strategic long-term deal with Afghanistan, according to Press TV and BBC Persian.

Called by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the loya jirga began in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Wednesday and will run for four days.

The discussion will focus on the Afghan-American relationship, specifically the possibility of long-term American basis on Afghan soil after the U.S.-led coalition forces are supposedly going to withdraw in 2014.

Both political and religious figures in Afghanistan have been vocal in their opposition to American plans for long-lasting or very possibly permanent military bases on sovereign Afghan territory.

As I previously reported, the people of Afghanistan are increasingly seeing the foreign troops as occupying forces that are not protecting their security, which is reflected in the utter failure that the decade-long battle in Afghanistan has been.

As Press TV points out, the U.S. has not met its goals after 10 years and the security situation is abysmal despite nearly 150,000 U.S.-led foreign troops deployed around the nation.

The state-funded BBC Persian news network reports that the most common complaint amongst loya jirga participants is that they have not been provided with information about the terms and conditions of the long-term deal.

Sharifullah Sahak, an Afghan employee of The New York Times covering Kabul and provinces said via Twitter just four hours ago at the time of writing, “Loya Jirga members with different views saying government should sign the strategic pact for 10, 20, even for 50 years with US.”

War Crimes Tribunal Tries Bush and Blair

Source: PressTV

A War Crimes Tribunal in the Malaysian capital has begun its hearing against George W. Bush and Tony Blair, charging the former officials for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Press TV reports.

The tribunal will determine whether the former US president and British prime minister committed war crimes and violated international law during the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Major Wars and Suppression of American Freedoms Planned BEFORE 9/11

Source: Washington's Blog

Iran War Threats, Militarization of American Police and Spying on Americans All Started BEFORE 9/11.
  

Many things which we’ve been told have only happened recently actually started a long time ago. 

For example, the mainstream media claims that Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon. But the Christian Science Monitor notes that the U.S. has been claiming for more than 30 years that Iran was on the verge of nuclear capability. 

And the decision to threaten to bomb Iran was made before 9/11.

As another example, journalists from across the spectrum have documented the militarization of police forces in the United States, including, CNN, Huffington Post, Forbes, Esquire, The Atlantic, Salon, and the Cato Institute.

Indeed, police shooting peaceful “occupy” protesters with rubber bullets, tear gas and other projectiles and brutally beating them has brought this issue to the attention of the American public. See this, this and this.

But the militarization of police started long before 9/11 … in the 1980s. As Radley Balko testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime:

Wartime Contracting Commission Classifies Findings for Next 20 Years

Source: AntiWar.com
John Glaser
 
Although the Commission on Wartime Contracting was created to expose waste and abuse, their records are sealed until 2031

The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan has decided to not reveal its full findings and materials to the public for another two decades, despite its stated purposes of investigating and exposing government waste.

The Commission has been at work for three years, revealing that up to $60 billion in US war funds were lost due to waste, fraud, and abuse. One report concluded that “criminal behavior and blatant corruption” were directly responsible for much of the waste in the expensive “reconstruction”projects in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. It also found that one in every six contracting and grant dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan has been wasted.

But the Commission now says it won’t allow its full records to be opened to the public at the National Archives until 2031, because, according to one official, some of the documents contain “sensitive information.” Evidence of government theft, profligacy, criminality, and waste is indeed sensitive information. That revealing these things was the purpose of the Commission seems lost on those deciding to hide important information from Americans.

Throughout United States history, that information which has been withheld from the public has primarily been withheld to prevent voters from having the chance to make informed decisions about their political leaders. The Obama administration came in promising unprecedented transparency in government, but this is yet another example of keeping the workings of government secret so as to insulate Washington bureaucrats from accountability.

Afghanistan: Ten Years of War

From: Global Research.ca and The Corbett Report
 

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

October 7th marks the ten year anniversary of the commencement of NATO operations in Afghanistan. Although the impending illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 was enough to drive millions of people worldwide into the streets in protest, there has never been the same widespread resistance to the Afghan war.

This war has been deemed the “right war” and given a broad measure of support from across the political spectrum because it is still linked in the popular imagination with the events of 9/11. Even a cursory interrogation of these assumptions, however, shows that the absurd nature of this pretext for what has been all along an illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation.

Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet

From: Wired.com/DangerRoom

Noah Shachtman

A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.