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.-Iran: From War Of Nerves To Full-Scale War?

Source: Voice of Russia

Boris Volkhonsky

Iran – U.S.: game of nerves and muscles

As reported by The Los Angeles Times, The U.S. Navy is upgrading its defensive and offensive capabilities in the Persian Gulf to counter threats from Iran to seize the Strait of Hormuz and block the flow of oil.

Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert told reporters that the Navy will add four more mine-sweeping ships and four more CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters with mine-detection capability. The Navy is also sending more underwater unmanned mine-neutralization units to the region.

On the other hand, according to reports, the Iranians have boasted that they could “swarm” large U.S. ships with their smaller, fast-moving craft. They have also reportedly been laying mines along their coastline.

In January, the chief of the Iranian army warned the U.S. not to send another ship to the Persian Gulf after the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis departed. Another carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, entered the gulf weeks later without incident.

Almost simultaneously, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order titled “National Defense Resources Preparedness.” The executive order, published on the official White House website, “delegates authorities and addresses national defense resource policies” “in times of national emergency.” Several media have already labeled the document as an attempt to impose a state of emergency in peacetime. In any case, this is definitely a new indication of the U.S. readiness for any course of development in the most volatile region of the world.

And, as if to further strengthen the impression, The New York Times reported on Monday that “a classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead.”

Damascus Terror Blasts Prove Outside Forces at Work in Syria

Source: Corbett Report

The Syrian opposition leaders are admitting some foreign governments are sending weapons to the rebels. Independent journalist James Corbett believes those outside forces have no thoughts about humanitarian aid and are only concerned with regime change.

Leon Panetta Confirms U.S. Will ‘Take Action’ if Isreal Strikes Iran

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

With senior Pentagon officials confirming that they have already been drawing up plans to attack Iran as well as Syria, the continued (and accelerating) buildup of military assets in the region, and now United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirming that the United States would backup Israel in an attack on Iran, the unfortunate prospect of an attack looks even more likely.

While he did indeed confirm that the United States would take a role if Israel moved to strike Iranian nuclear facilities – which are not producing nuclear weapons – he would not explicitly explain the extent to which the United States would be involved.

Similarly, in the past Obama has made statements about “having Israel’s back,” but both Obama and Panetta have not been forthcoming when it comes to details or specifics.

“Obviously Israel is an independent country, and they’ll make whatever decisions they make on their own based on what they think is in their national interests,” Panetta said to Arabic news outlet al Hurra.

“If they should make that decision, then obviously the United States will – would take action to protect our facilities in this area and protect our interests in this area,” Panetta stated.

I find Panetta’s correction from “will” to “would” a bit interesting. It might be an innocent slip but it also might be an indication that an attack on Iran by both the United States and Israel is set in stone at this point.

Corbett Report Radio - War by Proxy and Food World Order

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

We know that Israeli, US and other NATO members are behind the wave of assassinations, bombings and sabotage going on in Iran right now, but do we know how it is being done? Tonight on the program we discuss “terror by proxy”: the use of organizations like the MEK / MKO to do the West’s dirty work against the boogeymen of the moment. We also go over the Food World Order with James Evan Pilato and take your calls.

 

Works Cited:

Israeli Source: Assassination of Iranian Scientist Joint Operation by Mossad, MKO
All Hail President Brzezinski
Moqtada Sadr Reiterates Iraqis’ Demand for Expulsion of MKO Terrorists
US “misidentified” anti-Iran MEK as terrorist group for 15 years – FoxNews 111016
Friends of MEK warn of massacre in the offing
DeList MEK
EXPOSED: US Troops Guarded Terrorist Camp in Iraq
An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends
Food World Order

U.S. Sends Four Anti-Mine Ships to Strait of Hormuz

Source: Priosn Planet
Paul Joseph Watson

With the USS Enterprise on its way to bring the number of US aircraft carriers located in the Persian Gulf up to three, the Navy has announced it will send four additional mine countermeasure ships to the Strait of Hormuz as tensions with Iran rise.

“Four additional mine countermeasure ships are being dispatched to the region in addition to further airborne mine countermeasure helicopters, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a Navy budget hearing Thursday,” reports Stars and Stripes.

No date has been set for the deployment of the ships, but they will join the USS Enterprise, currently on its way to the Fifth Fleet area of operations, along with the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Abraham Lincoln, both of which are already patrolling the Strait of Hormuz.

“I came to the conclusion we could do better setting the theater,” Greenert told the committee while recounting a recent trip through the waterway on the USS John C. Stennis, which was under the watchful eye of Iranian naval vessels. “I wanted to be sure … that we are ready, that our folks are proficient, they’re confident, and they’re good at what they do in case called upon.”

The deployment of the anti-mine ships follows a warning by US intelligence at the end of December that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were preparing Iranian marine commandos to place mines along the strategic oil choke point.

While a temporary closure of the Strait would send oil prices soaring, analysts believe the US has the capability to clear the waterway of mines within a 24-48 hour period, meaning crude supplies would not be significantly disrupted.

However, yesterday’s news that that the United States and the UK are preparing to release emergency oil stocks within months has led to speculation that the decision on attacking Iran before the end of summer has already been green lighted.

Iran Strike Imminent: Russian Diplomat

Source: The Hindu
Vladimir Radyuhin

Israel will attack Iran this year if a new round of talks scheduled for April fail, a leading Russian newspaper reported quoting a senior Russian diplomat. 

Russian diplomats at the United Nations believe the strike against Iran is “a matter of when, not if,” the Kommersant daily said on Wednesday. 

“The attack will be mounted before the end of this year. Israel is blackmailing [U.S. President Barack] Obama by confronting him with a dilemma: either he supports the war option or will lose the support [of the U.S. Jews],” a high-ranking official of the Russian Foreign Ministry told the newspaper ahead of the U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria on Monday. 

After the meeting, the Russian diplomat said the attack could come earlier, any time after April when the six-nation group holds new talks with Iran. 

The Kommersant quoted the diplomat as saying that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to warn Iran that the talks were a “last chance for Tehran” to avoid the attack. 

The newspaper said that a precise date and location for the talks was still being discussed. Iran on Tuesday confirmed that the talks would take place soon and said Turkey had been suggested as the venue. 

The coming strike against Iran will save Syria from foreign military intervention, the unnamed Russian diplomat told the Kommersant. 

“Americans realize that Israel will attack Iran and it would be too much to have two wars in the region,” the diplomat said explaining Washington’s consent to let U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan pursue his peace efforts in Syria.

CNN, Al Jazeera Caught Red-Handed Staging War Propaganda

Source: RT

Syria's turmoil has been laid bare on our TV screens for more than a year, but some networks are being accused of affecting rather than reflecting the conflict. Maria Finoshina reports now, on how there's more to the coverage on the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera TV channel, than meets the eye.

Turkish PM: Israeli Attacks on Gaza are ‘State Terror’

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made some quite heated statements in condemnation of the most recent Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in a speech Tuesday, calling the attacks a “massacre.”

A cease fire between Gaza militants and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) went into effect Tuesday but there have been reports of rocket attacks despite this agreement.

Thus far, according to Israeli news outlet Haaretz, almost 200 rockets have hit Israeli territory since the most recent outbreak of violence began on Friday.

The Israeli Air Force has conducted some 37 airstrikes on targets in the Gaza Strip, 19 of which supposedly targeted rocket launchers while 18 allegedly targeted weapons warehouses.

These attacks have resulted in 26 Palestinian deaths, 22 of which were allegedly militants while four were civilians who had no hand in the rocket fire.

In a speech to the Turkish parliament, Erdogan called on Israel to “stop the brutal attack against Palestinians and stop the massacre and bloodshed.”

He also called the Israeli airstrikes on Palestinians “state terror,” adding that the Turkish people have an obligation to “remember that Gazans are our brothers, and will always remain so.”

Military Attack Against Syria Without Congressional Approval Could Lead To Obama’s Impeachment

Source: RT


‘Impeach Obama’ Bill: Use of military without Congress approval ‘high crime’

An American military attack on Syria could effectively lead to the impeachment of President Barack Obama. Congressmen say that any war without congressional authorization would be “unconstitutional”.

Republican Representative Walter B. Jones Jr. has come up with a resolution demanding Obama’s impeachment in case his administration starts another military action without the approval of Congress. This came as a reaction to the American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announcing that in order to carry out the offensive, the US military needs permission from the UN and NATO alone. 

Jones’s resolution states that the prime authority to rule on the attack is the US Congress, not international bodies, be it NATO or UN. 

“Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a president without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under Article II, Section 4 of the constitution,” Jones’s resolution said. 

In an exchange which occurred at a session of the Senate Armed Services Committee, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that in case the Obama administration decides to strike Syria, it would merely “inform” Congress after the decision has been made. 

“Our goal would be to seek international permission and we would come to the Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this,” Panetta said. “Whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress, I think those are issues I think we would have to discuss as we decide what to do here.”

Responding to Panetta, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions said he was “breathless” to hear the statement.

The Bloody Road to Damascus

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Prof. James Petras

The Triple Alliance’s War on a Sovereign State

 

There is clear and overwhelming evidence that the uprising to overthrow President Assad of Syria is a violent, power grab led by foreign-supported fighters who have killed and wounded thousands of Syrian soldiers, police and civilians, partisans of the government and its peaceful opposition.

The outrage expressed by politicians in the West and Gulf State and in the mass media, about the ‘killing of peaceful Syrian citizens protesting injustice’ is cynically designed to cover up the documented reports of violent seizure of neighborhoods, villages and towns by armed bands, brandishing machine guns and planting road-side bombs.

The assault on Syria is backed by foreign funds, arms and training. Due to a lack of domestic support, however, to be successful, direct foreign military intervention will be necessary. For this reason a huge propaganda and diplomatic campaign has been mounted to demonize the legitimate Syrian government. The goal is to impose a puppet regime and strengthen Western imperial control in the Middle East. In the short run, this will further isolate Iran in preparation for a military attack by Israel and the US and, in the long run, it eliminates another independent secular regime friendly to China and Russia.

In order to mobilize world support behind this Western, Israeli and Gulf State-funded power grab, several propaganda ploys have been used to justify another blatant violation of a country’s sovereignty after their successful destruction of the secular governments of Iraq and Libya.

The Larger Context: Serial Aggression

The current Western campaign against the independent Assad regime in Syria is part of a series of attacks against pro-democracy movements and independent regimes from North Africa to the Persian Gulf. The imperial-militarist response to the Egyptian democracy movement that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship was to back the military junta’s seizure of power and murderous campaign to jail, torture and assassinate over 10,000 pro-democracy protestors.

An Israeli Attack Against Iran "Would Destroy Chance of Peace for Generations"

Source: Global Research
Richard Silverstein

In an interview in The Nation, David Grossman, Israel’s leading novelist and moral conscience, expresses the conviction that Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak want a war against Iran:

…He said he had “a very bad feeling” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were going to order an attack, even against America’s wishes. “There is a dynamic to all these warlike declarations,” he said.

I’ve written often in the past about David Grossman as an admirable, but attenuated figure.  As a liberal Zionist who is a moral bellwether for Israeli centrist and leftists, but one who is constrained by many of the limitations inherent in those defending major elements of the Israeli status quo.  With Grossman, the glass is always both half empty and half-full.  He is someone always willing to sound the alarm about the worst depredations of the rightist governments who have afflicted Israel for the past decade or more.  But he is also someone who never wants to be too far ahead of his countrymen.  He is one of them, and feels their moral confusion and remains constrained, as they are, about Israel’s predicament and how to get out of it.

The good news is that Grossman has launched an assault on Bibi and Barak’s plan to assault Iran.  He’s gone so far as to accept that an Iran with a nuclear weapon would be far less bad than an Israeli attack on Iran in order to prevent this outcome.

In both Larry Derfner’s Nation interview and Grossman’s own Haaretz op-ed (Hebrew), he’s offered cogent analysis of the thinking of the Israeli leadership.  He’s especially good at placing their mindset in the context of Jewish history:

He [Netanyahu] has this idea that we are the people of eternity, am ha’netzach from the Bible, and our negotiations, as he sees it, are with eternity, with the primal currents of history and mankind, while the United States, with all due respect, is just another superpower like Rome or Athens or Babylon, and we’ve survived them all,” said Grossman. “I’m afraid that this way of thinking might encourage Netanyahu to take the step” of attacking Iran.

Forget Kony, Ugandans Are Being Slaughtered By Their Own Western-backed Government

Source: Prison Planet
Paul Joseph Watson

While the political left and an army of Hollywood trendies are clamoring for a U.S. Military invasion of Uganda to capture Joseph Kony, a man who has not even been in the country for six years, Ugandan authorities, backed by the World Bank and British carbon trading companies, are slaughtering Ugandan villagers and stealing their land in a brutal new form of neo-colonialism that has gone largely unnoticed.

Following the release of Kony 2012, a film made by a shadowy charity with links to USAID, the Tweetosphere exploded with a deluge of leftist politicos and clueless celebrities jumping on the bandwagon to call for Barack Obama to launch yet another act of “humanitarian” bloodletting to go after Kony, leader the of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRC).

In their haste to appear trendy and in vogue with a viral trend that was all over the social networks like a bad rash within the space of 24 hours, those advocating an increased military intervention on top of the 100 US troops already sent into Uganda last year, most notably habitual “humanitarian” warmonger Angelina Jolie, didn’t concern themselves with the facts.

The propaganda campaign that has put Joseph Kony on a par with Osama Bin Laden and Hitler is a crude hoax to legitimize the US military-industrial complex’s agenda to re-colonize Africa under Africom.

“Not surprisingly, the [film] is seriously misleading, falsely implying there’s war raging in Northern Uganda when there’s not. In fact, Kony has not been in the country for six years; his group is a much-depleted rump, numbering a few hundred people at most,” writes ABC Australia’s Jeff Sparrow.

Ugandan journalist Angelo Izama calls Kony 2012 a “misrepresentation,” noting that the film’s “portrayal of [Kony's] alleged crimes in Northern Uganda are from a bygone era,” and that the problems facing the country in 2012 are AIDS, Hepatitis, prostitution and unemployment, none of which would be alleviated by a U.S. military invasion on the pretext of hunting a man who is not even in the country.

Eleven Killed as Israel Strikes Gaza Overnight

Source: RT

At least 11 Palestinians, including two militant leaders, have been killed and a dozen wounded in a series of air strikes by the Israeli Air Force on the Gaza Strip. The attacks were launched in response to the shelling of Israeli territory from Gaza.

­A senior Palestinian militant Zuhair al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, was killed in the first strikes by Israeli warplanes, along with another senior member of the PRC, Mahmoud Hannani. The PRC, which has strong ties with Hamas, is known to have carried out rocket attacks against Israel, and the Israelis say al-Qaisi was targeted because he was planning an attack.

In response to the attack that killed al-Qaisi Palestinian militants fired approximately 40 rockets from Gaza into southern Israel on Friday night. Israeli sources say at least eight people suffered injuries in the shelling, one of whom was seriously wounded.

The IAF then performed another series of airstrikes on various targets in the Gaza strip on Friday night in response to these latest attacks. The latest airstrike killed three Palestinians after an Apache-fired rocket hit a house and a car, Al Jazeera reports, citing medical sources.

Three of those killed in the air raids reportedly belonged to a military wing of the Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades.

Some of the targets of Israeli war jets included empty military training camps in different parts of Gaza Strip.

George Galloway: Iran is not a punch bag. This War Must be Stopped Before it Begins

Source: StopTheWarCoalition

George Galloway, speaking at Stop the War Coalition's National Conference on 3 March 2012, spelt out the consequences of an attack on Iran by Israel and the United States. Following the defeat of the Western powers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the British government is sleep-walking into another disastrous war, he said. They will have to be stopped or all of us will pay for their mistake for the rest of our lives.

Netanyahu gifts Obama Esther Scroll

Source: PressTV

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given US President Barack Obama a Hebrew tome containing details of a plot to annihilate the Jews in ancient Iran.

"Then too, they wanted to wipe us out," Netanyahu reportedly told Obama when presenting him with The Scroll of Esther during their meeting on Monday.

The Scroll of Esther tells the 2,500-year old story of a plot by Haman, the minister of Persian king Xerxes, to annihilate the Jewish people living in Persia. But his scheme is foiled by Esther, the king’s wife.

Jewish people read the scroll, known to them as the Megillah, on the eve of the Jewish costume holiday of Purim on March 7.

One of the verses of the scroll says, "And the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto them that hated them."

This is while Iranians have always lived in peace alongside the followers of the Jewish faith. Today, Iranian Jews live freely in Iran and even enjoy political advantages which include having a representative in Majlis.

US State Department Hands Terror-Cult US Base in Iraq

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

Unimaginable Treason at the Highest Levels of US Governance.

In an unbelievable act of high treason and overt criminality, the US State Department, headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has finalized arrangements to move the US State Department-listed foreign terror organization, Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), into the former US military base "Camp Liberty' in Iraq.

Effectively turning the camp into a living monument of desecration to the memories of 6,000+ US troops killed over the last 10 years of the fraudulent "War on Terror," the US State Department is also appropriating US taxpayers' money to make upgrades to the camp to accommodate the terrorist organization. In Foreign Policy Magazine's article, "Are the MEK’s U.S. friends its worst enemies?," it is indicated that up to 3,000 terrorists are expected to move into the new site with the first two convoys already arriving at the camp over the last month.

Image: Rudy Giuliani consorting with MEK's political wing leader Maryam Rajavi in Paris, France. Giuliani is best known for his role playing a strong supporter for the "War on Terror" and his incessant fear mongering verses "Islamic extremists." In real life, he coddles listed terrorist organizations in direct violation of US law and even lobbies for them.

....

Amazingly, MEK's support base not only includes the US State Department, but also the United Nations, as well as a lobbying front including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, Tom Ridge, John Lewis, Ed Rendell, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, retired General Wesley Clark, Lee Hamilton who farcically oversaw the 9/11 Commission, former US Marine Corps Commandant General James Jones, and Alan Dershowitz. There are also members of the British Parliament including David Amess of the Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, speaking on MEK's behalf.

It turns out that MEK's lobbying representatives are at odds with the US State Department and the United Nations, and would like to see MEK maintain their current base of operations at Iraq's Camp Ashraf instead of being moved to Camp Liberty where conditions are alleged to be "substandard." Their lobbying efforts include full page adds in national newspapers including the Washington Post and the New York Times, as well as attending conferences in Paris, France where MEK's political wing is based.

Russia Accuses Libya of Training Syrian Rebels

Source: Lacrosse Tribune

Russia demanded Wednesday that NATO apologize for civilian casualties during the uprising in Libya last year and accused the Libyan government of supporting a training center for Syrian rebels, provoking a sharp response from the U.S. and Libya’s prime minister.

The sparring was another indication of how deeply divided the international community remains over the turmoil in the Middle East, particularly the bloody uprising in Syria.

Russia and China have accused NATO of overstepping its Security Council mandate to protect civilians in Libya during the uprising last year, and have strongly opposed any similar action in Syria.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his country has received information that “a special training center for Syrian revolutionaries” has been established in Libya with support from government authorities.

He did not elaborate but expressed concern about “the uncontrolled proliferation of Libyan arms in the region” and said training fighters to attack Syria’s government was undermining stability in the Middle East.

China Votes Against an Excuse for War

Source: China.org.cn
Qu Xing - President of the China Institute of International Studies

In February, China voted twice against a UN draft resolution which strongly condemned the Syrian President Bashar Assad's cruel crackdown on domestic uprising and calls for his resignation.

This action is a comprehensive judgment that considers the basic principles of the Charter of the United Nations, basic guidelines of contemporary international relations, China's national interests, and bilateral relations between China and the related countries.

In fact, China appreciates the Arab League's peace efforts; the reason why China voted against the draft resolution is related to its certain sections: they would provide a foundation for Western countries to launch a future Syrian war.

For example, the draft resolution agreed to solve the issue according to the schedule of the Arab League, and reserved the right to take further action if the draft cannot be carried out. But that hides acquiescence for free interpretation which would be nothing less than starting the vicious dominoes of foreign armed intervention in the Syrian conflict.

Libya has served a good example in this regard, where the Security Council resolutions had been overstepped and the Security Council authorization had been abused.

During the six-month war in Libya, at least 25,000 civilians lost their lives, and no one can tell the exact number of the people injured. If the Libyan model is applied to the case of Syria, a similar disaster will undoubtedly occur, and the wounds of war will be difficult to heal.

Obama Administration Moves to Aid Syrian Opposition

Source: Cryptogon

In the piece below, we read that this, “Stops short of providing any direct military assistance to the armed opposition.”

If you want to read detailed, voluminous accounts of how the U.S. covertly and illegally provides weapons to any state or group it pleases, see, Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq by Alan Friedman and, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed.

In other words, planeloads of weapons are going to be given to Al Qaeda (See: Syria: Clinton Admits U.S. On Same Side As Al Qaeda).

Via: Foreign Policy:

The Obama administration is moving to provide direct assistance to the internal opposition in Syria for the first time, marking a shift in U.S. policy toward a more aggressive plan to help oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Last week, a group of senior Obama administration officials met to finalize a package of options for aiding both the internal and external Syrian opposition, to include providing direct humanitarian and communications assistance to the Syrian opposition, two administration officials confirmed to The Cable. This meeting of what’s known as the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council set forth a new and assertive strategy for expanding U.S. engagement with Syrian activists and providing them with the means to organize themselves, but stops short of providing any direct military assistance to the armed opposition.