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521  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: IRAQ : Human Cost......... on: July 26, 2010, 02:07:41 pm
USA-WMD: America's Covert Hiroshima in Iraq


by Chris Floyd



July 25, 2010

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68278&hd=&size=1&l=e

Years ago, I wrote about the use of chemical weapons in the American assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. I was attacked at the time for my "wild accusations" by many people, across the political spectrum, even by stalwart dissidents, who felt that such "exaggerations" undermined the "effectiveness" of the anti-war movement, preventing it from being taken "seriously" by the "serious" players in the power structure. Later, of course, American military officials -- and serving soldiers -- admitted using white phosphorus and other chemical weapons in the assault.

Over the years, small-scale medical studies have pointed to the horrific effects of these USA-WMD attacks. Now, a new comprehensive medical study has shown that the "dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia" in Fallujah since 2004 have "exceeded those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945," The Independent reports.

The Independent story follows up on an initial video report by top BBC journalist John Simpson last week -- a story that was almost universally ignored, not only in the fawning corporate press but also across the "dissident" blogosphere (except by a very few, such as Winter Patriot).  Both stories make clear that the chief victims of the American WMD are, overwhelming, children:



Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.

Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that "to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened".

US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.


The background here is good as far as it goes, but it omits the salient point of that mutilation of American mercenaries; it followed a series of security shoot-em-ups that killed a number of innocent civilians in Fallujah. The attacks on the Blackwater mercenaries were a violent reprisal for murders committed by foreign agents in the midst of an illegal act of military aggression. But, as always, the American revenge for the attacks was vastly disproportionate: an entire city destroyed, thousands of people killed -- and generations of terrible suffering for innocent children -- all to get "payback" for four mercenaries.

The Independent continues:



In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. "During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city," recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.

He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: "My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside."


The effects of these secret "wonder-weapons" were astounding:



The study, entitled "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009", is by Dr Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, and concludes that anecdotal evidence of a sharp rise in cancer and congenital birth defects is correct. Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are "similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout".

Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. At Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia, but in Fallujah Dr Busby says what is striking is not only the greater prevalence of cancer but the speed with which it was affecting people.

Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima.


I have written about Fallujah over and over for a long time. In many respects, these stories are like the ones I've written about the American-abetted horrors in Somalia: no one gives a damn. Well, I don't give a damn that no gives a damn. I'm going to keep ringing this bell until my arm falls off. We -- Americans -- have committed and countenanced a great evil in Iraq. I can't change that -- and it's obvious that I cannot prevent the "continuity" of such hellish atrocities by the progressive Peace Laureate now in the White House, and by whatever similar blood-soaked poltroon comes to lead the never-ending Terror War for Loot and Power after him. But by god I will not let it be said that I stood by and failed to bear witness to this raging filth.

From 2004 (see original for links):

"The inferno…is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."  -- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities.


There is of course no space, nowhere to move or breathe in the sealed chamber of the American Infoglomerate – the vast entanglement of corporate media and government propaganda that smothers the body politic with hysterical outpourings of diversion, drivel and deadening white noise. Here, events occur in a total vacuum: they have no history, no context, no consequences. Stripped of the heft and scope of reality, they can easily be molded and distorted to fit the prevailing political and business agendas. Amnesia, ignorance, confusion and fear are left to rule the day: excellent fuel for the stokers of the inferno, who use the heat to work their alchemical magic – transforming human blood into gold.

"There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable. Smoke is everywhere. It's hard to know how much people outside Fallujah are aware of what is going on here. There are dead women and children lying on the streets. People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying are from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever. Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens."

This was a voice from the depths of the inferno: Fadhil Badrani, reporter for the BBC and Reuters, trapped in the iron encirclement along with tens of thousands of civilians. It was a rare breath of truth. The reality of a major city being ground into rubble was meant to be obscured by the Infoglomerate's wall of noise: murder trials, state visits, Cabinet shuffles, celebrity weddings – and, above all, the reports of "embedded" journalists shaping the "narrative" into its proper form: a magnificent feat of arms carried out with surgical precision against an enemy openly identified by American commanders as "Satan," the Associated Press reports.

One of the first moves in this magnificent feat was the destruction and capture of medical centers. Twenty doctors – and their patients, including women and children – were killed in an airstrike on one major clinic, the UN Information Service reports, while the city's main hospital was seized in the early hours of the ground assault. Why? Because these places of healing could be used as "propaganda centers," the Pentagon's "information warfare" specialists told the NY Times. ...

So while Americans saw stories of rugged "Marlboro Men" winning the day against Satan, they were spared shots of engineers cutting off water and electricity to the city – a flagrant war crime under the Geneva Conventions, as CounterPunch notes, but standard practice throughout the occupation. Nor did pictures of attack helicopters gunning down civilians trying to escape across the Euphrates River – including a family of five – make the TV news, despite the eyewitness account of an AP journalist. Nor were tender American sensibilities subjected to the sight of phosphorous shells bathing enemy fighters – and nearby civilians – with unquenchable chemical fire, literally melting their skin, as the Washington Post reports. Nor did they see the fetus being blown out of the body of Artica Salim when her home was bombed during the "softening-up attacks" that raged relentlessly – and unnoticed – in the closing days of George W. Bush's presidential campaign, the Scotland Sunday Herald reports.


I will not forget Artica Salim. I will not forget Fallujah. I will not "move on."  I will not become part of the inferno.



 
522  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: IRAQ : daily stuff here please on: July 26, 2010, 02:05:41 pm
Iraq war whistleblower was probably assassinated

By Christopher King

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68276&hd=&size=1&l=e

Redress , July 26, 2010

Christopher King calls on Britain’s coalition government to release the postmortem report – so far kept secret – on the death of Iraq war whistleblower and UN weapons inspector David Kelly, who allegedly committed suicide but is suspected of having been murdered by US or Israeli agents.

Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve, respectively Britain’s new secretary of state for justice and attorney-general, have had time to settle into their chairs and start looking for things that need repairing after the disastrous Blair-Brown government.

One of the first things to settle is the death of the UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Dr David Kelly, who was hounded by the Blair government for correctly saying that its propaganda in selling the Iraq war was "sexed up". He was then found dead near his home, having allegedly committed suicide. The circumstances are suspicious and his postmortem report is secret.

At the present time I and a lot of other people are disposed to believe that he was assassinated, probably by the Americans or Israelis. If there’s no coverup, why did the Blair-Brown government seal the details of his death for 70 years? I wrote about this two months ago and there have been many calls for openness since Dr Kelly’s death. Suspicion of an assassination coverup is not going away. In January this year, Lord Hutton claimed that the postmortem report on Dr Kelly was available but no independent person has seen it yet. Doctors who have asked for it have been refused.

It’s worth reading the piece in the Independent by Tom Mangold who says that anyone who believes that Dr Kelly was murdered must also believe in the tooth fairy. This gentleman claims some sort of acquaintanceship with Dr Kelly, although not friendship, despite the Independent’s sub-title to this story. Mai Pederson, a lady who was a friend, believes that he was murdered. Until about a year ago I believed the suicide story. That is no longer possible however, either for me or Mr Mangold.
"The facts of Dr Kelly’s death are contained in his postmortem report. I, along with many other people, want to know what is in it."

As Tom Mangold is an investigative journalist he will be familiar with the material about the Kelly affair. It is therefore incomprehensible that he does not give weight to the first of two critical factors that cast doubt on the government’s story and does not mention the second:

* The government’s refusal to make Dr Kelly’s postmortem report public

* A group of seven medical practitioners has publicly stated that it was "highly improbable" that Dr Kelly died from the severed ulnar artery that Lord Hutton gave as the cause of his death.

Mr Mangold tells us what he "believes" about this case. Belief has no objective value. Anthony Blair, for example, believes to this day that he was right in getting rid of Saddam Hussein, although to do so he played a leading role in killing a million Iraqis, created four or five million refugees and devastated the country in the invasion that Dr Kelly opposed. Men have an infinite capacity to deceive themselves in their beliefs – and then attempt to deceive others. We need facts.
"The government constantly reduces our privacy on the basis that if we are innocent of wrong-doing we have nothing to hide. So will our new government continue to hide the facts?"

The facts of Dr Kelly’s death are contained in his post-mortem report. I, along with many other people, want to know what is in it. Nor is Mr Mangold a medical practitioner. If seven medical doctors state that it is extremely unlikely that anyone can die from a severed ulnar artery, it is very close to a fact that Dr Kelly’s death was not from this cause and is good enough to justify their request for release of his postmortem report – which should not be secret in any case. The government constantly reduces our privacy on the basis that if we are innocent of wrong-doing we have nothing to hide. So will our new government continue to hide the facts?

Let us not complicate matters at this point with yet another public inquiry. The situation is very simple. Seven well qualified doctors have formally asked the attorney-general to make the postmortem report available to them. The government should let them see it. No good reason has ever been given for its secrecy and none can be envisaged.

Delay means that conspiracy theories proliferate. There has recently been a report that Dr Kelly’s dental records were stolen and then replaced around the time of his death. Dental records are important in matters of identification. Does this mean that there might be doubt about the identity of the body that is described in the postmortem report under Dr Kelly’s name? Of course, delay assists a coverup by making investigations more difficult.

This matter is a straightforward test of the Cameron-Clegg government’s honesty which needs to be established following the lies and deceit of the Brown-Blair government. On the record of our politicians’ vote for the illegal Iraq war, it is no longer possible to accept any government as honest until proven deceitful.

Having been elected on a platform of support for the Afghanistan-Pakistan war, the successor to the Iraq war and with as little legitimacy, this government’s credentials have been poor from the beginning. Unhappily they are unlikely to improve. Judging by our "unapologetic pro-American" prime minister’s recent acceptance of the UK’s "junior parnership" to the United States, by his statement in the Wall Street Journal, we may expect the Cameron-Clegg government to continue to support US aggressive warfare, kidnapping, torture and assassination world-wide as well as the misuse of the UK’s armed forces in war crimes. To what end? Whatever our politicians’ reasons they have nothing to do with the best interests of the UK and its citizens. Particularly if the assassination of a UK citizen on UK territory might be part of this "special relationship" of fawning subservience.

Its abandonment of international law and unashamed, open practice of assassination is good reason to make the United States the prime suspect in the death of Dr Kelly.

Christopher King is a retired consultant and lecturer in management and marketing. He lives in London, UK.




 
523  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: IRAQ : daily stuff here please on: July 26, 2010, 01:55:28 pm
Fresh accusations of Iraq war cover-up

by Louise Nousratpour

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68272&hd=&size=1&l=e

July 25, 2010

A former diplomat has accused the government of "covering up" key information from the Iraq inquiry to hide mistakes.

Carne Ross, who quit the Foreign Office in 2004 after criticising Britain's involvement in the war, said he had been denied access to key material before his recent appearance.

The former Iraq expert at the United Nations also claimed he had been subjected to "subtle intimidation" from Whitehall to drop references to a classified memo warning of inaccuracies in a paper prepared for Labour MPs.

Giving evidence to Sir John Chilcot's panel earlier this month, Mr Ross complained about a "culture of unaccountability and sometimes dishonesty" in government.

In a hard-hitting article published in a Sunday paper, Mr Ross renewed a call for all but a few of the "most secret" documents related to the 2003 invasion to be made public.

"Though profoundly embarrassing, there is little here that damages national security, except in the hysterical assessment of officials protecting their own reputation," he wrote.

Mr Ross said "most" of the key documents he had requested to see were missing from large files sent to him to look through before his inquiry appearance.

He was told certain records, including those related to a visit to Syria by then prime minister Tony Blair, could not be found - something he said was "simply not plausible."

Mr Ross warned that the inquiry was being given a "very one-sided account" to the panel that military action was "more or less unavoidable" because sanctions and containment were failing.

"The government is covering up its mistakes and denying access to critical documents," the ex-diplomat claimed. The true story is there to be seen in the documents."




 
524  The War Room / Pakistan / India / PAKISTAN : Daily stuff here please...... on: July 26, 2010, 01:46:22 pm
Bombing hits Pakistani minister's home

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:30:44 GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136286&sectionid=351020401

 
Rescue workers at the site of bomb attack near Peshawar


A bomber has targeted the house of a Pakistani cabinet minister mourning, killing seven people mourning his slain son.

The attack came on Monday when a bomber blew himself up at the home of Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister in Pakistan's northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the town of Pabbi.

"Seven people, including three policemen, have been killed and 21 injured," AFP quoted a senior police official as saying.

The attack targeted Hussain's house as people had gathered there to mourn the assassination of his 28-year-old son Mian Rashid by suspected pro-Taliban militants on Saturday.

The blast took place shortly after Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik had visited to give his condolences over the death of Hussain's son.

An intelligence official from regional headquarters in Peshawar put the death toll at six.

MRS/MRS
525  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: WIKILEAKS : Latest........ on: July 26, 2010, 01:37:50 pm
Afghanistan war logs: Story behind biggest leak in intelligence history

by Nick Davies

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68261&hd=&size=1&l=e

From US military computers to a cafe in Brussels, how thousands of classified papers found their way to online activists

July 25, 2010

From US military computers to a cafe in Brussels, how thousands of classified papers found their way to online activists
See Video Interview of Julian Assange here :

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68261&hd=&size=1&l=e


Julian Assange on the Afghanistan war logs: 'They show the true nature of this war'



US authorities have known for weeks that they have suffered a haemorrhage of secret information on a scale which makes even the leaking of the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war look limited by comparison.

The Afghan war logs, from which the Guardian reports today, consist of 92,201 internal records of actions by the US military in Afghanistan between January 2004 and December 2009 – threat reports from intelligence agencies, plans and accounts of coalition operations, descriptions of enemy attacks and roadside bombs, records of meetings with local politicians, most of them classified secret.

The Guardian's source for these is Wikileaks, the website which specialises in publishing untraceable material from whistleblowers, which is simultaneously publishing raw material from the logs.

Washington fears it may have lost even more highly sensitive material including an archive of tens of thousands of cable messages sent by US embassies around the world, reflecting arms deals, trade talks, secret meetings and uncensored opinion of other governments.

Wikileaks' founder, Julian Assange, says that in the last two months they have received yet another huge batch of "high-quality material" from military sources and that officers from the Pentagon's criminal investigations department have asked him to meet them on neutral territory to help them plug the sequence of leaks. He has not agreed to do so.

Behind today's revelations lie two distinct stories: first, of the Pentagon's attempts to trace the leaks with painful results for one young soldier; and second, a unique collaboration between the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel magazine in Germany to sift the huge trove of data for material of public interest and to distribute globally this secret record of the world's most powerful nation at war.

The Pentagon was slow to engage. The evidence they have now collected suggests it was last November that somebody working in a high-security facility inside a US military base in Iraq started to copy secret material. On 18 February Wikileaks posted a single document – a classified cable from the US embassy in Reykjavik to Washington, recording the complaints of Icelandic politicians that they were being bullied by the British and Dutch over the collapse of the Icesave bank; and the tart remark of an Icelandic diplomat who described his own president as "unpredictable". Some Wikileaks workers in Iceland claimed they saw signs that they were being followed after this disclosure.

But the Americans evidently were nowhere nearer to discovering the source when, on 5 April, Assange held a press conference in Washington to reveal US military video of a group of civilians in Baghdad, including two Reuters staff, being shot down in the street in 2007 by Apache helicopters: their crew could be heard crowing about their "good shooting" before destroying a van which had come to rescue a wounded man and which turned out to be carrying two children on its front seat.

It was not until late May that the Pentagon finally closed in on a suspect, and that was only after a very strange sequence of events. On 21 May, a Californian computer hacker called Adrian Lamo was contacted by somebody with the online name Bradass87 who started to swap instant messages with him. He was immediately extraordinarily open: "hi... how are you?… im an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern bagdad … if you had unprecedented access to classified networks, 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?"

For five days, Bradass87 opened his heart to Lamo. He described how his job gave him access to two secret networks: the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, SIPRNET, which carries US diplomatic and military intelligence classified "secret"; and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System which uses a different security system to carry similar material classified up to "top secret". He said this had allowed him to see "incredible things, awful things … that belong in the public domain and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … almost criminal political backdealings … the non-PR version of world events and crises."

Bradass87 suggested that "someone I know intimately" had been downloading and compressing and encrypting all this data and uploading it to someone he identified as Julian Assange. At times, he claimed he himself had leaked the material, suggesting that he had taken in blank CDs, labelled as Lady Gaga's music, slotted them into his high-security laptop and lip-synched to nonexistent music to cover his downloading: "i want people to see the truth," he said.

He dwelled on the abundance of the disclosure: "its open diplomacy … its Climategate with a global scope and breathtaking depth … its beautiful and horrifying … It's public data, it belongs in the public domain." At one point, Bradass87 caught himself and said: "i can't believe what im confessing to you." It was too late. Unknown to him, two days into their exchange, on 23 May, Lamo had contacted the US military. On 25 May he met officers from the Pentagon's criminal investigations department in a Starbucks and gave them a printout of Bradass87's online chat.

On 26 May, at US Forward Operating Base Hammer, 25 miles outside Baghdad, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst named Bradley Manning was arrested, shipped across the border to Kuwait and locked up in a military prison.

News of the arrest leaked out slowly, primarily through Wired News, whose senior editor, Kevin Poulsen, is a friend of Lamo's and who published edited extracts from Bradass87's chatlogs. Pressure started to build on Assange: the Pentagon said formally that it would like to find him; Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, said he thought Assange could be in some physical danger; Ellsberg and two other former whistleblowers warned that US agencies would "do all possible to make an example" of the Wikileaks founder. Assange cancelled a planned trip to Las Vegas and went to ground.

After several days trying to make contact through intermediaries, the Guardian finally caught up with Assange in a café in Brussels where he had surfaced to speak at the European parliament.

Assange volunteered that Wikileaks was in possession of several million files, which amounted to an untold history of American government activity around the world, disclosing numerous important and controversial activities. They were putting the finishing touches to an accessible version of the data which they were preparing to post immediately on the internet in order to pre-empt any attempt to censor it.

But he also feared that the significance of the logs and some of the important stories buried in them might be missed if they were simply dumped raw on to the web. Instead he agreed that a small team of specialist reporters from the Guardian could have access to the logs for a few weeks before Wikileaks published, to decode them and establish what they revealed about the conduct of the war.

To reduce the risk of gagging by the authorities, the database would also be made available to the New York Times and the German weekly, Der Spiegel which, along with the Guardian, would publish simultaneously in three different jurisdictions. Under the arrangement, Assange would have no influence on the stories we wrote, but would have a voice in the timing of publication.

He would place the first tranche of data in encrypted form on a secret website and the Guardian would access it with a user name and password constructed from the commercial logo on the cafe's napkin.

Today's stories are based on that batch of logs. Wikileaks has simultaneously published much of the raw data. It says it has been careful to weed out material which could jeopardise human sources.

Since the release of the Apache helicopter video, there has been some evidence of low-level attempts to smear Wikileaks. Online stories accuse Assange of spending Wikileaks money on expensive hotels (at a follow-up meeting in Stockholm, he slept on an office floor); of selling data to mainstream media (the subject of money was never mentioned); or charging for media interviews (also never mentioned).

Earlier this year, Wikileaks published a US military document which disclosed a plan to "destroy the centre of gravity" of Wikileaks by attacking its trustworthiness.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Kuwait, Manning has been charged under US miitary law with improperly downloading and releasing information, including the Icelandic cable and the video of Apache helicopters shooting civilians in Baghdad. He faces trial by court martial with the promise of a heavy jail sentence.

Ellsberg has described Manning as "a new hero of mine". In his online chat, Bradass87 looked into the future: "god knows what happens now … hopefully, worldwide discussion, debates and reforms. if not … we're doomed."



 
526  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: WIKILEAKS : Latest........ on: July 26, 2010, 01:31:48 pm
Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation

by Nick Davies and David Leigh

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68260&hd=&size=1&l=e

Visit page for links please.

July 25, 2010

• Hundreds of civilians killed by coalition troops
• Covert unit hunts leaders for 'kill or capture'
• Steep rise in Taliban bomb attacks on Nato
• Read the Guardian's full war logs investigation

Here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/afghanistan-the-war-logs

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and over 1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US navy sailors captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of its roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of "under-resourcing" under Obama's predecessor, saying: "It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009."

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents. Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests in the past, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers. At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, although this is likely to be an underestimate because many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.

Questionable shootings of civilians by British troops also figure. The American compilers detail an unusual cluster of four British shootings in the streets of Kabul within the space of barely a single month, in October/November 2007, culminating in the killing of the son of an Afghan general. Of one shooting, they wrote: "Investigation is controlled by the British. We not able [sic] to get the complete story."

A second cluster of similar shootings, all involving Royal Marine commandos in the ferociously contested Helmand province, took place in a six-month period at the end of 2008. Asked by the Guardian about these allegations, the Ministry of Defence said: "We have been unable to corroborate these claims in the short time available and it would be inappropriate to speculate on specific cases without further verification of the alleged actions."

Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: "These files bring to light what's been a consistent trend by US and NATO forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I've investigated in recent months where this is still not happening. Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way US and NATO do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians."

The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war. Most of the material, although classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication in the Guardian because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, also says it redacted harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its own "uncensorable" series of global servers.

Wikileaks published in April this year a previously suppressed classified video of US Apache helicopters killing two Reuters cameramen on the streets of Baghdad, which gained international attention. A 22-year-old intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in Iraq and charged with leaking the video, but not with leaking the latest material. The Pentagon's criminal investigations department continues to try to trace the leaks and recently unsuccessfully asked Assange, he says, to meet them outside the US to help them.

Assange allowed the Guardian to examine the war logs at our request. No fee was involved and Wikileaks has not been involved in the preparation of the Guardian's articles.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-military-leaks



 
527  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: IRAQ : daily stuff here please on: July 26, 2010, 01:28:51 pm
The Ultimate Truth about Iraq

by Hussein Anwar





Painting by Kennard Phillip


July 25, 2010

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68256&hd=&size=1&l=e


For a long time, I so much avoided writing this post, it was on my mind for a long time but I kept on delaying it and delaying it and delaying it, till I became so depressed, so not in the mood and a lump in my throat and said "**** it...its not going to make any difference if I add more salt to the wound."


The truth is...there is so much destruction in Iraq that it wont be repaired till all the Iraqis' bones have become fossil fuels, and there are things that wont get repaired at all, repairing the people who were beaten, raped, prisoned, tortured, lost a loved one... repairing them Psychologically in Rehab institutes...this is impossible...humans dont forget what bad has been done to them and what injustice has been done to them. Its just the way God created them...they dont have a delete button like a PC...they never forget.


Just like Layla Anwar said...its all in the head.


Iraq needs billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars if not trillions to be repaired, and I am not talking about investment...**** you and your investments. I am talking about repairing the infrastructure, the hospitals, the buildings, the economy, the farms that their palm trees were rooted deliberately.


And as I said there are things that wont be repaired...it is just impossible to repair them, be my guest and read an article below from The Independent about Fallujah being worse than Hiroshima. Ever body knows that the bastard Americans used depleted uranium, internationally illegal weapons such as napalm and other sick chemical weapons. Iraq's soil and mainly Fallujah is so radioactive because of your sick depleted uranium and these are the results...RIGHT HERE!!!


The Iraq I knew and all the other Iraqis knew...is not coming back! that is the fact, this blog will not liberate Iraq, not even a Billion blogs, the main purpose of this blog is to make more people aware of the crimes that have been done to Iraq and the injustice.


Take for example the night life of Baghdad and other provinces. The Elite Society of Baghdad and by Elite I dont mean the rich ones, but I mean the educated ones from all classes, lower, middle and upper, the doctors, the intellectuals, the teachers, the young men and women from well known respected families, the social clubs, the restaurants, the stores...etc ITS NOT THERE ANYMORE!


They all left, the beautiful streets of Baghdad that match the perfect night life of Baghdad are all destroyed, the restaurants, stores and people are no longer there. These streets are being used as stores to store merchandise. The owners of the restaurants, clubs and stores all left and established a new business in other countries...what will bring them back? only an Iraq like before will bring them back...


The doctors are no longer there that this puppet Iraqi government imported Indian doctors...in the 80s we had Irish, British and American doctors working for us. The doctors that hold a PHD and a Professors degree are no longer there...fresh graduates began teaching at Universities...Fresh graduates with no experience, not even a masters degree. The doctors that hold PHD and Professors and even Masters whether from Iraq or from England they all left...or were assassinated. Here is an incomplete list of the doctors, professors, engineers and intellectuals assassinated by the Iranian Militia in Iraq...HERE!


This list is incomplete, and God knows how many others were assassinated from that day...till today.


So tell me...how can you repair such a country? The first step to repair it...the resistance must triumph...and then for every accident there is a talk...as we say in Iraqi.


The music below...every time I listen to it...Iraq comes to my mind...and all the dead with it like a video tape inside my mind.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D02I_A9cVmQ&feature=player_embedded






 
528  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: AFGHANISTAN: Daily stuff here please.... on: July 26, 2010, 01:24:33 pm
Nato probes reports raid killed 45 Afghan civilians

By David Loyn, BBC News

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68255&hd=&size=1&l=e
 

July 25, 2010


International forces in Afghanistan say they are urgently investigating reports as many as 45 civilians died in an air strike in Helmand province on Friday.

Nato's initial investigation found no evidence, but a BBC journalist visiting Regey village spoke to several people who said they had seen the incident.

At the time, dozens were sheltering in the village from nearby fighting.

A significant civilian loss of life would be rare this year as a new policy of restraint has reduced casualties.

'Lying asleep'

Witnesses said the attack had come in daylight as dozens sheltered from fighting in nearby Joshani.

Mohammed Khan, a boy aged about 16, said helicopters had circled over the village before the incident. He said that he had warned other children to take cover.

But his mother told him not to worry them. He went further away and was shielded by a wall that saved his life when the attack started.

"I heard the sound of the rocket land on our house. I rushed in screaming with my father and saw bodies lying in the dust… I found I was even standing on a dead body."

One of the bodies was his brother.

"He had been lying asleep in the afternoon when they were killed," Mohammed said.

After the attack relatives and neighbours came to assist in digging out the dead and taking the injured to hospital.

Sher Mohammed said that the owner of the house had been his cousin. He said it had taken until late into the night to dig out the bodies. Rescuers buried 39 and believed six were left under the rubble, he added.

The bodies were buried at daylight. Haji Rahim could not contain his tears. He said that after a sleepless night, he and other villagers had gone to talk to a Nato patrol.


Rescuers said they had buried 39 victims from the attack



He said: "They can see something as small as an insect just four inches on the ground, so how were they not able to see all of those women and children when they bombed them?"

For several months there has been a significant reduction in civilian casualties and very few air strikes under a new policy of restraint ordered by Gen Stanley McChrystal.

He was forced from his post recently after talking too frankly to journalists.

A spokesman for the international forces, Lt Col Chris Hughes, said: "A preliminary investigation by [Nato's] Isaf forces and the provincial governor, which included a meeting with local elders, gives no indication of a mass casualty incident caused by coalition forces in Sangin."

But he added: "We take allegations of civilian casualties very seriously. We go to great measures to avoid civilian casualties in the course of operations. The safety of the Afghan people is very important to the International Security Assistance Forces."



 
529  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / WIKILEAKS : Latest........ on: July 26, 2010, 01:20:56 pm
What the WikiLeaks Documents Really Reveal

by Leslie H. Gelb

July 26, 2010 | 1:45am
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-26/wikileaks-what-the-documents-reveal/?om_rid=NVTZHe&om_mid=_BMTX-XB8PxUPtu&


 Spencer Platt / Getty Images


The extensive release of thousands of secret files shows basic and unsustainable contradictions in U.S. policy, says Leslie H. Gelb—and underscores why the administration needs to reconsider its Af-Pak policy. Plus, Tunku Varadarajan on Pakistan’s double-dealing.

What do the secret documents released by WikiLeaks tell us about U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan? It has to be said right off that they don’t tell us anything important we didn’t already know. There have been “informed” stories for years detailing how Pakistani military intelligence has been providing arms, money, and intelligence to the Afghan Taliban, who in turn have been killing American soldiers.

So, why are these leaked military and intelligence documents now threatening to shake the very foundations of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan? Because it’s now much more difficult to deny or dodge the truths that we’ve all been well aware of.

No amount of rhetorical tap dancing will allow the White House to escape the fundamental contradictions that underlie U.S. policy toward Af-Pak.

_breakAd_

Government officials can always deflect news stories simply by crossing their fingers and waiting for the story to sink in a haze of oil spills and Lindsay Lohan extravaganzas. Now, however, “proof” is there in the black-and-white of secret U.S. documents, compliments of anti-war WikiLeaks. Even if one does not believe that the information contained in every one of these reports is accurate (some do sound rather bizarre), and even if little in the reports can be corroborated independently, the very volume of the “secret” material is overwhelming and plausible—and yes, seductively “secret.”

This leaves the Obama administration with three tales it can tell, most of which it is already shoveling.

First, officials can say that the documents represented leaked material that reveal “only one side of the story.” It’s the story in some cases of rather hysterical soldiers with limited experience and access to wider secrets. We, the government, have other documents that tell another story—one that gives a mixed picture of the behavior of our complicated and loyal Pakistani friends. (I’d hate to be the official assigned to deliver this pile of manure.)

Second, the administration could say that yes, some rogue Pakistani intelligence officers have been carrying out operations in support of the Taliban, that President Obama and his top aides have already remonstrated with the Pakistani government about this, and the Pakistanis are now trying to do better. (That tends to contradict the first story that the leaks are misleading.)

• Philip Shenon: Did Bradley Manning Act Alone?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-25/wikileaks-afghan-files-did-accused-leaker-bradley-manning-act-alone/

• Tunku Varadarajan: Pakistan's Shameful Double Dealing
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-25/wikileaks-documents-expose-pakistans-shameful-double-dealing/

• The 7 Most Shocking Secrets from the WikiLeaks Files
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-25/wikileaks-secret-files-on-the-afghanistan-war-whats-inside/


Or third, officials could button their jackets, clear their throats, and say the war is the main thing and these difficult and complicated circumstances have to be put in the larger perspective. What counts is winning this war. Victory in Af-Pak, as it is fondly known, is a U.S. vital national interest; the officials could and probably will say.

But no amount of rhetorical tap dancing will allow the White House to escape the fundamental contradictions that underlie U.S. policy toward Af-Pak. In the first contradiction, the administration claims it’s fighting in Afghanistan to prevent al Qaeda from returning, and once again using Afghan soil to attack America. But now that al Qaeda can attack the United States, its friends and allies from Yemen or Somalia or Pakistan or London or New Jersey, it’s hard to claim any uniqueness for Afghanistan. So, why does the United States have to fight the war there with 100,000 troops?

In the second contradiction, the administration says that, deep down, the reason we’re fighting in Afghanistan is to help prevent an extremist takeover of Pakistan, an unstable Muslim country with nuclear weapons. And administration officials point to the fact that Pakistani officials tell us publicly and privately that the U.S. must stay the course in Afghanistan and stabilize the situation there—otherwise its ill effects will spill over into Pakistan and strengthen extremism there. And yet—and here’s where the new trough of secret WikiLeaks comes in—Pakistani military intelligence, known as Inter-Services Intelligence, is indeed helping the Taliban against Americans in Afghanistan. To boot, the Pakistani government is providing safe haven to the Taliban in Northwest Pakistan, thus making it militarily impossible for U.S. forces to smash them.

To put the issue somewhat melodramatically: The United States is giving “moderate” Pakistanis and the Pakistani military billions of dollars yearly in military and economic aid, which allows  Pakistani military intelligence to “secretly” help the Taliban kill Americans in Afghanistan, which will drive America out of Afghanistan and undermine U.S. help for Pakistan.

All this flies in the face of the administration’s new line about an improving Af-Pak relationship. Yes, indeed, we’ve worked out a new trade agreement between these traditional adversaries. Yes, indeed, the Pakistanis are giving us the secret wink for our drone attacks against Taliban safe havens (even as they publicly condemn us for these drone attacks). Yes, indeed, Pakistanis are helping President Hamid Karzai talk with his fellow Pashtun Taliban. (Heaven knows what will come of this).

But let’s face it: Pakistan’s overriding interests in Afghanistan don’t have much to do with the United States. Their fixation is India, plain and simple. They don’t want India to gain any sort of foothold in Afghanistan and somehow encircle them. They’re pressing Washington for sophisticated American arms to fight India, not the Taliban. Some Pakistani leaders even worry of secret plotting between India and the United States against them, especially in Afghanistan.

Pakistani interests are not the same as America’s in Afghanistan, far from it. As it tries to explain away what these secret documents mean, the Obama administration should take time out to reconsider its basic policy toward Af-Pak.

A policy based on fundamental contradictions cannot stand.

Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Get a head start with the Morning Scoop email. It's your Cheat Sheet with must reads from across the Web. Get it.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
 
URL: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-26/wikileaks-what-the-documents-reveal/p/
530  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / AFGHANISTAN: Daily stuff here please.... on: July 26, 2010, 01:11:15 pm
Taliban seize key district in Afghan east

Reuters

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68254&hd=&size=1&l=e

July 25, 2010

KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban guerrillas have captured a strategic district from the Afghan government after days of clashes in eastern Nuristan province, officials said on Sunday.

Separately, the Afghan government said it was checking reports by locals saying some 40 Afghan civilians were killed in a raid by foreign forces in Sangin district of southern Helmand province on Friday.

In Nuristan's Barg-e Matal, dozens of Taliban fighters and up to six Afghan police were killed during days of clashes before the district fell to the Taliban overnight.

Barg-e Matal is important for the government and militants because of its location and has regularly changed hands.

Lying near the border with Pakistan, the rugged district has been used as a supply route for arms and fighters for the Taliban in three provinces, most importantly for Badakhshan where the Taliban have mounted a series of deadly attacks recently.

Afghan police forces withdrew from Barg-e Matal to avoid high casualties and in the face of sustained Taliban pressure after days of skirmishes, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told reporters.

"Right now the police forces in Nuristan are working to recapture it," he said.

The Taliban have yet to comment about the fall of the district and the reported losses in their ranks.

In Helmand province, where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, Bashary said provincial authorities were checking reports by residents that dozens of civilians were killed in a raid by foreign forces on Friday.

Further details were not immediately available.

(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Sugita Katyal)



 
531  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: IRAQ : daily stuff here please on: July 26, 2010, 01:08:15 pm
The Donkey Party


by Layla Anwar




July 25, 2010
http://uruknet.info/?p=m68252&hd=&size=1&l=e



This is serious stuff...not satire at all.

While some have been converting to Paul the Octopus sect, in the wake of his World cup football predictions, am happy to announce that am converting or more aptly joining the Donkey party of Iraq - called in Arabic Jamiat Al Hameer Al Iraqiya. The Iraqi Donkey's Association also known as the Abu Saber Party.

The headquarters of this party which has been approved by the Kurdish Regional Government - probably the only intelligent thing this latter has done - are in Suleimaniya.

But this is no chauvinistic party and is not limited to "Kurdistan". The founder Omar Glul, secretary general of the Party is nicknamed Abu Saber. Abu Saber is also a name given to Donkeys in Iraq. Saber comes from Sabr and Sabr means Patience...Abu Saber means the Father of Patience and who better represents that than a Donkey ?!

The HQ are located in a 5 stars hotel in Suleimaniya. And this party has found much support and mobilization amongst the Iraqi population, in particular its intellectuals who pride themselves to be "original donkeys". And am happy to be one of them.

The Donkey Party branches are called stables and its manifesto is very simple.

The founder affirms that we should all live like donkeys - zmal in Iraqi, because at least Donkeys don't kill one another for power, money or politics...and Donkeys don't lie.

I've said before on this blog that I have never been a member of any party quoting G. Marx - I will never join any club that will accept me as a member...but I am making an exception, and am hoping that the Iraqi Donkey party will honor me and accept me as a loyal lifelong member...

Abu Saber - the Donkey - is running for office on the next round of elections in "Free and Democratic" Iraq - Please show full solidarity and vote for him.

Long live the Donkey Party of Iraq - Long Live Abu Saber.




P.S : Thank you Firas for guiding me to the Iraqi Donkey party...hope you will join us too.

 

532  The War Room / Genocide / Torture / War Crimes / ter Bombs and Civilian Lives: Efficient Killing, Profits and Human Rights on: July 26, 2010, 01:03:44 pm
Cluster Bombs and Civilian Lives: Efficient Killing, Profits and Human Rights



by Ramzy Baroud

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68250&hd=&size=1&l=e

July 24, 2010

Cluster bombs are in the news again, thanks to a recent report from Amnesty International.

The human rights agency has confirmed that 35 women and children were killed following the latest US attacks on an alleged al-Qaeda hideout in Yemen. Initially, there were attempts to bury the story, and Yemen officially denied that civilians were killed as a result of the December 17 attack on al-Majala in southern Yemen. However, it has been simply impossible to conceal what is now considered the largest loss of life in one single US attack in the country.

If the civilian casualties were indeed a miscalculation on the part of the US military, there should no longer be any doubt about the fact that cluster munitions are far too dangerous a weapon to be utilized in war. And they certainly have no place whatsoever in civilian areas. The human casualties are too large to justify.

Yemen is not alone. Gaza, Lebanon and Afghanistan are also stark examples of the untold loss and suffering caused by cluster bombs. Meanwhile, the unrepentant Israeli army will not consider dropping the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas altogether. Instead it is pondering ways to make them 'safer'. The Jerusalem Post reported on July 2 that the army "has recently carried out a series of tests with a bomblet that has a specially designed self-destruct mechanism which dramatically reduces the amount of unexploded ordnance." During the Israeli onslaught in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, Israel fired millions of bomblets, mostly into South Lebanon. Aside from the immediate devastation and causalities, unexploded ordnance continues to victimize Lebanon's civilians, most of whom are children. Dozens of lives have been lost since the end of this war.

In Gaza, the same terrible scenario was repeated between 2008 and 2009. Unlike Lebanon, however, trapped Palestinians in Gaza had nowhere to go.

Now Israel is anticipating another war with the Lebanese resistance. In preparation for this, an Israeli PR campaign is already underway. It seeks to convince public opinion that Israel is doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties. "As a result of the collateral damage and international condemnation, and ahead of a potential new conflict with Hizbullah, the IDF has decided to evaluate the M85 bomblet manufactured by the government-owned Israeli Military Industries (IMI)," the Jerusalem Post reported.

Of course, Israel's friends, especially those who are yet to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, will be pleased by the initial successes of the Israeli army's testing. Under pressure to ratify the agreement, these countries are only too eager to offer a 'safer' version of current cluster bomb models. This would help not only to maintain the huge profits generated from this morally abhorrent business, it would also hopefully quell growing criticism by civil society and other world governments.

In December 2008, the United States, Russia and China, among others, sent a terrible message to the rest of the world. They refused to take part in the historic signing of the treaty that banned the production and use of cluster bombs. In a world that is plagued by war, military occupation and terrorism, the involvement of the great military powers in signing and ratifying the agreement would have signaled - if only symbolically - the willingness of these countries to spare civilians' unjustifiable deaths and the lasting scars of war.

Fortunately, the refusal didn't completely impede an international agreement. The incessant activism of many conscientious individuals and organizations came to fruition on December 3rd and 4th in Oslo, Norway, when ninety-three countries signed a treaty banning the weapon.

Unfortunately, albeit unsurprisingly, the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - a group that includes the biggest makers and users of the weapon - neither attended the Ireland negotiations of May 2008, nor did they show any interest in signing the agreement in Oslo.

Most countries that have signed the accords are not involved in any active military conflict. They are also not in any way benefiting from the lucrative cluster munition industry.

The treaty was the outcome of intensive campaigning by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), a group of non-governmental organizations. CMC is determined to carry on with its campaign to bring more signatories into the fold.

Without the involvement of the major producers and active users of the weapon, the Oslo ceremony remained largely symbolic. However, there is nothing symbolic about the pain and bitter losses experienced by the many victims of cluster bombs. According to the group Handicap International, a third of cluster-bomb victims are children. Equally alarming, 98 percent of the weapon's overall victims are civilians. The group estimates that about 100,000 people have been maimed or killed by cluster bombs around the world since 1965. Unlike conventional weapons, cluster bomblets survive for many years, luring little children with their attractive appearance. Children often mistake the bomblets for candy or toys.

Recently, some encouraging news emerged from the Netherlands. Maxime Verhagen, Minister of Foreign Affairs, urged his country's House of Representatives to ratify the Convention, which bans the production, possessions and use of such munitions. The ban leaves no room for any misguided interpretations and does not care for the Israeli army's experimentations.

In his speech, Verhagen claimed, "Cluster munitions are unreliable and imprecise, and their use poses a grave danger to the civilian population...Years after a conflict has ended, people - especially children - can fall victim to unexploded submunition from cluster bombs."

To date, the agreement has been signed by 106 countries and ratified by 36 - and will enter into force on August 1, despite the fact that the big players refuse to take part.

The Netherlands' push is certainly a step in the right direction, but much more remains to be done. The onus is also on civil societies in countries that are yet to ratify the agreement or sign it in the first place. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing," said Edmund Burke. This holds as true in the issue of cluster bombs, as in any other where human rights are violated and ignored.




 
533  The War Room / WWIII / U.S.-backed War in Somalia Comes to Uganda, Threatens to Set Whole Region Aflame on: July 26, 2010, 01:01:42 pm
U.S.-backed War in Somalia Comes to Uganda, Threatens to Set Whole Region Aflame


A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
http://uruknet.info/?p=m68245&hd=&size=1&l=e



July 24, 2010

The U.S. war against Somalia expands outwards and "has now blown back to Uganda," the U.S. ally that, "along with the minority Tutsi dictatorship in Rwanda, is America's most reliable mercenary force in Black Africa." Ethiopia and Kenya prepare to join Uganda in an offensive against the Somali resistance, to save America’s puppet mini-state in Mogadishu.

 

U.S.-backed War in Somalia Comes to Uganda, Threatens to Set Whole Region Aflame

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

"The bombing in Kampala must be understood in the context of the planned expansion of the war in Somalia."

The bombs that exploded in Kampala earlier this month, killing 76 people and unleashing a wave of arrests and deportations by the Ugandan regime, are chickens coming home to roost from the U.S.-sponsored war in Somalia. U.S. corporate media routinely fail to note that the Ugandan military and other U.S. African allies are all that prevent the farcical U.S.-backed mini-government in Somalia from being evicted from the few neighborhoods it still controls in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The rest of south and central Somalia belongs to the Shabab and another Islamist group, that earned their nationalist credentials in fighting Ethiopian troops that invaded Somalia with full U.S. backing in late 2006. The invasion interrupted a brief period of relative peace in Somalia and plunged the country into what United Nations officials called the "worst humanitarian crisis in Africa – worse than Darfur."

The Shabab justified the Uganda bomb attacks on the grounds that Ugandan troops have been killing Somali civilians for years. Under the guise of African Union peacekeepers, the Ugandan and Burundian soldiers have been able keep open the road to Mogadishu's airport, the Somali regime’s lifeline to U.S. arms and supplies. But the puppet state is a government in name only, without the popular support to field an army capable of defending itself. The rump faction has been reduced to recruiting child soldiers as young as 12, causing the United Nations Security Council to threaten sanctions. Of all the world’s governments, only the United States and Somalia have failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which outlaws the use of child soldiers.

"Washington’s African allies propose to send 15,000 more troops to Somalia to engage in offensive operations."

Frustrated at the failure of massive U.S. arms and money in Somalia, Washington has encouraged its Ugandan, Kenyan, Ethiopian and other U.S. client states to launch their own offensive against the Somali resistance, in violation of United Nations resolutions. Washington’s African allies propose to send 15,000 more troops to Somalia to engage in offensive operations. This would include the formal re-entrance of Ethiopian soldiers, some of whom never left Somalia, and thousands of troops from Kenya’s large Somali minority and others from Somali refugee camps – a violation of international law.

The bombing in Kampala must be understood in the context of this planned expansion of the war in Somalia. The conflict has now blown back to Uganda, whose strongman, Yoweri Museveni, now uses the bombings to justify the already-planned Somali offensive. Along with the minority Tutsi dictatorship in Rwanda, Uganda is America's most reliable mercenary force in Black Africa. Both countries bear much of the responsibility for the death of millions in eastern Congo, following their invasions with the backing of the United States.

Kenya will certainly be further destabilized, as well, in the course of the Somalia offensive.

This is what passes for "soft power" in the Obama administration: arming and instigating Africans to fight each other. It will backfire on the United States, sooner rather than later – but not before many thousands more Africans have died. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



 

534  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: IRAQ : daily stuff here please on: July 26, 2010, 12:58:25 pm
British deputy prime minister admits Iraq war was illegal


by Julie Hyland
http://uruknet.info/?p=m68244&hd=&size=1&l=e



WSWS, July 24, 2010

The statement by British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg that the Iraq war was "illegal" leads to only one conclusion—that former Prime Minister Tony Blair and many others must immediately be arraigned on war crimes charges.

Clegg was standing in for Prime Minister David Cameron in parliament on Tuesday when he made his statement—one of the few truthful remarks to have been heard from the government dispatch box.

Responding to questions from Labour’s Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the invasion of Iraq, Clegg said of Straw, "We may have to wait for his memoirs, but perhaps one day he will account for his role in the most disastrous decision of all: the illegal invasion of Iraq."

His charge was immediately attacked by Labour ministers and leading Army chiefs—and for good reason. As Philippe Sands, professor of law at University College London, pointed out, such a "public statement by a government minister in parliament as to the legal situation" could be grounds for the prosecution of British officials in an international court.

That was far from Clegg’s intent. Almost immediately he retreated from his remarks, issuing a statement that they had been made in a "personal capacity". A spokesman said, "The coalition government has not expressed a view on the legality or otherwise of the Iraq conflict. But that does not mean that individual members of the government should not express their individual views. These are long-held views of the deputy prime minister.

"The Iraq inquiry is currently examining many issues surrounding the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the legal basis of the war. The government looks forward to receiving the inquiry’s conclusions."

The reference to the Iraq inquiry, currently being conducted by Sir John Chilcot, is a red herring. Its term of reference specifically excludes ruling on the legality of the war. The inquiry issued its own statement repeating, "The inquiry is not a court of law, and no one is on trial."

The Liberal Democrats have long made political capital out of their criticisms of the Iraq invasion. They had initially opposed the US-led war on the grounds of upholding the authority of the United Nations, but swung to supporting "our boys" once the invasion began. They had demanded a full and open inquiry into the war, which Clegg had described as the "biggest foreign policy mistake this country has made… since Suez" (the British-French invasion of Egypt in 1956).

Such public pronouncements were a significant factor in the vote the Liberal Democrats received in the general election earlier this year.

Clegg’s latest actions underscore the fraudulent character of his party’s "anti-war" stance. The deputy prime minister undoubtedly thought he could continue his political posturing against Labour without his statements having any real consequence. But the Liberal Democrats are now in a government that still maintains 400 troops in Iraq and plays a key role in the suppression of Afghanistan. Its coalition partners in the Conservative Party voted in support of the Iraq invasion and have defended it to the hilt.

The Tories backed up Clegg’s claim that his verdict on the Iraq war was solely a matter of personal opinion. Foreign Secretary William Hague, who voted for the war, said, "The deputy prime minister has a different history from mine" on the subject.

More fundamentally, the legality of the Iraq war is not a matter of "personal" opinion or individual historical interpretations. Under the precedent laid down by the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, the leaders of the United States and Britain are guilty under international law of the same criminal charge that was brought against the Nazis: the waging of aggressive war.

As the Nuremberg verdict stated, "War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

There is no question that the United States and the UK launched a war of aggression against Iraq so as to advance their own strategic geo-political interests in the Middle East.

It is a matter of record that on January 30, 2003 Britain’s then-Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, informed Prime Minister Tony Blair that the use of military force against Iraq was illegal without sanction by the United Nations Security Council. Despite the continued absence of such a sanction, just two months later, following a visit to Washington, Goldsmith changed his mind and ruled an invasion legal.

Amongst those giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry in the last week was Carne Ross, former First Secretary for the UK at the UN between 1997-2002 and responsible for liaison with UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. His statement made clear that Iraq did not pose a threat to Washington and London, had no "weapons of mass destruction" and no links with Al Qaeda, and that the "exaggeration" and "misleading statements" made about Iraq’s supposed threat "were, in their totality, lies".

Ross stated, "In just war theory and international law, any country must exhaust all non-violent alternatives before resorting to force. It’s clear in this case that the UK government did not adequately consider let alone pursue non-military alternatives to the 2003 invasion".

The Iraq invasion destroyed an entire country and cost the lives of more than a million people. Through a pre-emptive assault, Washington and London overthrew a regime considered an obstacle to their interests, executed its leader and imprisoned and killed anyone who got in their way. The ongoing occupation continues to devastate lives, as seen in the record levels of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and birth defects that have been recorded in the city of Fallujah.

In addition, the Iraq war was accompanied by an array of measures abrogating democratic rights in the US and the UK under the guise of the "war on terror". Extraordinary rendition, the jailing of "suspected" terrorists without trial, a clampdown on freedom of speech and, in Britain, the cold-blooded murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, are just some of the outcomes.

As Clegg is well aware, Blair and his leading ministers have blood on their hands. They could never have achieved their criminal objective, however, without the active support of the intelligence services, the Conservative opposition, the media and a host of compliant civil servants.

That is why Clegg beat an immediate retreat. As the World Socialist Web Site has insisted, the necessary redressing of the terrible catastrophe visited on the people of Iraq—including the prosecution of the architects of the invasion and the payment of billions in compensation—can only be achieved through the independent mobilisation of the working class against imperialist war and the capitalist profit system that causes it.

Julie Hyland




 
535  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / IRAQ : Human Cost......... on: July 26, 2010, 12:56:22 pm
Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009 (Full Report)

by Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi



July 24, 2010
http://uruknet.info/?p=m68241&hd=&size=1&l=e


Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009

Report here :

http://www.scribd.com/doc/34158205/Cancer-Infant-Mortality-and-Birth-Sex-Ratio-in-Fallujah-Iraq-2005–2009



 
536  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / IRAQ : daily stuff here please on: July 26, 2010, 12:52:27 pm
Iraq: Continued violence, continued stalemate

The Common Ills

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68240&hd=&size=1&l=e

July 24, 2010

In Iraq's third-largest city, buildings are bombed out and scarred by thousands of bullet holes. But unlike in many parts of Iraq that have calmed significantly in recent years, much of the damage is recent.
Mosul and the surrounding province of Nineveh are a microcosm of Iraq's most explosive and unresolved conflicts as the United States prepares to draw down to 50,000 troops by Sept. 1. Kurdish and Sunni Arab leaders battle over disputed lands, provincial and central government officials wrestle for control, and Sunni insurgents continue to slip back and forth across the porous borders with Turkey and Syria.
"We will remain a thorn in the chest of the Americans," reads a graffiti tag on one Mosul building.

The above is from Leila Fadel's "Mosul struggles with ethnic divides, insurgency" (Washington Post). And that as Reuters notes 2 police officers shot dead today in Mosul and a Mosul grenade attack which injured 18 people, plus a Basra roadside bombing which claimed 1 life and wounded four people (and may or may not have injured "foreign contractors") and 2 people kidnapped in Daquq -- including the son of the city's mayor. Meanwhile CNN notes that the US military is stating that Iraqi forces have killed "a suspected al Qaeda in Iraq leader".

And the political stalemate continues in Iraq. March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. Three months and two days later, still no government. 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government. It's four months and five days and, in 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. Today makes it four months and seventeen days without any government being established.

Today Andrew Lee Butters (Time magazine) weighs in:

Instead, Maliki and Allawi are playing factional politics, negotiating with avowedly sectarian or ethnically oriented groups in search of a majority coalition. Maliki has united with the conservative Islamist Shi'ite parties that favor more autonomy for Shi'ite majority southern Iraq, though he still doesn't have enough votes to form a government because radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr, who controls the largest faction within the Shi'ite coalition, refuses to accept Maliki staying on as prime minister. For his part, Allawi is flirting not only with Sadr (on Monday, the two men met in Damascus and called for Maliki to step aside) but also the Kurds. This is surprising because Allawi and the Kurds were major rivals during the election and remain ideological opposites. (Allawi favors centralization in Baghdad, while the Kurds want more autonomy for Kurdish northern Iraq.)


The stalemate continues and what Time and Butters forget/don't know, is that private concerns over Nouri became public concerns in an open Congressional hearing this week. But, hey, let's all pretend that didn't happen, right? Let's all pretend the Congress isn't concerned that Nouri's attempting to stall the process until US forces are down to 50,000 at which point he announces he's a strong-man.




The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

 

537  The War Room / Genocide / Torture / War Crimes / THE CIA: BEYOND REDEMPTION AND SHOULD BE TERMINATED on: July 26, 2010, 12:47:02 pm
THE CIA: BEYOND REDEMPTION AND SHOULD BE TERMINATED


By Sherwood Ross
http://uruknet.info/?p=m68239&hd=&size=1&l=e



July 24, 2010

The Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) has confirmed the worst fears of its creator President Harry Truman that it might degenerate into "an American Gestapo." It has been just that for so long it is beyond redemption. It represents 60 years of failure and fascism utterly at odds with the spirit of a democracy and needs to be closed, permanently.

Over the years "the Agency" as it is known, has given U.S. presidents so much wrong information on so many critical issues, broken so many laws, subverted so many elections, overthrown so many governments, funded so many dictators, and killed and tortured so many innocent human beings that the pages of its official history could be written in blood, not ink. People the world over regard it as infamous, and that evaluation, sadly for the reputation of America, is largely accurate. Besides, since President Obama has half a dozen other major intelligence agencies to rely on for guidance, why does he need the CIA? In one swoop he could lop an estimated 27,000 employees off the Federal payroll, save taxpayers umpteen billions, and wipe the CIA stain from the American flag.

If you think this is a "radical" idea, think again. What is "radical" is to empower a mob of covert operatives to roam the planet, wreaking havoc as they go with not a care for morality or, for that matter, the tenets of mercy implicit in any of the great faiths. The idea of not prosecuting CIA interrogators (i.e., torturers), as President Obama has said, is chilling. These crimes have to be stopped somewhere, sometime, or they will occur again.

"The CIA had run secret interrogation centers before—beginning in 1950, in Germany, Japan, and Panama," writes New York Times reporter Tim Weiner in his book "Legacy of Ashes, The History of The CIA"(Random House). Weiner has won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the intelligence community. "It had participated in the torture of captured enemy combatants before—beginning in 1967, under the Phoenix program in Vietnam. It had kidnapped suspected terrorists and assassins before…"

In Iran in 1953, for example, a CIA-directed coup restored the Shah (king) to absolute power, initiating what journalist William Blum in "Rogue State" (Common Courage Press) called "a period of 25 years of repression and torture; while the oil industry was restored to foreign ownership, with the US and Britain each getting 40 percent." About the same time in Guatemala, Blum adds, a CIA-organized coup "overthrew the democratically-elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of military government death squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, and unimaginable cruelty, totaling more than 200,000 victims—indisputably one of the most inhuman chapters of the 20th century." The massive slaughter compares, at least in terms of sheer numbers, with Hitler’s massacre of Romanian and Ukranian Jews during the holocaust. Yet few Americans know of it.

Blum provides yet other examples of CIA criminality. In Indonesia, it attempted in 1957-58 to overthrow neutralist president Sukarno. It plotted Sukarno’s assassination, tried to blackmail him with a phony sex film, and joined forces with dissident military officers to wage a full-scale war against the government, including bombing runs by American pilots, Blum reported This particular attempt, like one in Costa Rica about the same time, failed. So did the CIA attempt in Iraq in 1960 to assassinate President Abdul Kassem. Other ventures proved more "successful".

In Laos, the CIA was involved in coup attempts in 1958, 1959, and 1960, creating a clandestine army of 30,000 to overthrow the government. In Ecuador, the CIA ousted President Jose Velasco for recognizing the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The CIA also arranged the murder of elected Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961 and installation of Mobutu Seko who ruled "with a level of corruption and cruelty that shocked even his CIA handlers," Blum recalls.

In Ghana, in 1966, the CIA sponsored a military coup against leader Kwame Nkrumah in 1966; in Chile, it financed the overthrow of elected President Salvador Allende in 1973 and brought to power the murderous regime of General Augusto Pinochet who executed 3,000 political opponents and tortured thousands more. In Greece in 1967, the CIA helped subvert the elections and backed a military coup that killed 8,000 Greeks in its first month of operation. "Torture, inflicted in the most gruesome of ways, often with equipment supplied by the United States, became routine," Blum writes.

In South Africa, the CIA gave the apartheid government information that led to the arrest of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, who subsequently spent years in prison. In Bolivia, in 1964, the CIA overthrew President Victor Paz; in Australia from 1972-75, the CIA slipped millions of dollars to political opponents of the Labor Party; ditto, Brazil in 1962; in Laos in 1960, the CIA stuffed ballot boxes to help a strongman into power; in Portugal in the Seventies the candidates it financed triumphed over a pro-labor government; in the Philippines, the CIA backed governments in the 1970-90 period that employed torture and summary execution against its own people; in El Salvador, the CIA in the Nineties backed the wealthy in a civil war in which 75,000 civilians were killed; and the list goes on and on.

Of course, the hatred that the CIA engenders for the American people and American business interests is enormous. Because the Agency operates largely in secret, most Americans are unaware of the crimes it perpetrates in their names. As Chalmers Johnson writes in "Blowback"(Henry Holt), former long-time CIA director Robert Gates, now Obama’s defense secretary, admitted U.S. intelligence services began to aid the mujahideen guerrillas in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet invasion in December, 1979.

As has often been the case, the CIA responded to a criminal order from one of the succession of imperial presidents that have occupied the White House, in this instance one dated July 3, 1979, from President Jimmy Carter. The Agency was ordered to aid the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul—aid that might sucker the Kremlin into invading. "The CIA supported Osama bin Laden, like so many other extreme fundamentalists among the mujahideen in Afghanistan, from at least 1984 on," Johnson writes, helping bin Laden train many of the 35,000 Arab Afghans.

Thus Carter, like his successors in the George H.W. Bush government — Gates, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, and Colin Powell, "all bear some responsibility for the 1.8 million Afghan casualties, 2.6 million refugees, and 10 million unexploded land mines that followed from their decisions, as well as the 'collateral damage’ that befell New York City in September 2001 from an organization they helped create during the years of anti-Soviet Afghan resistance," Johnson added. Worse, the Bush-Cheney regime after 9/11 "set no limits on what the agency could do. It was the foundation for a system of secret prisons where CIA officer and contractors used techniques that included torture," Weiner has written. By some estimates, the CIA in 2006 held 14,000 souls in 11 secret prisons, a vast crime against humanity.

That the CIA has zero interest in justice and engages in gratuitous cruelty may be seen from the indiscriminate dragnet arrests it has perpetrated: "CIA officers snatched and grabbed more than three thousand people in more than one hundred countries in the year after 9/11," Weiner writes, adding that only 14 men of all those seized "were high-ranking authority figures within al Qaeda and its affiliates. Along with them, the agency jailed hundreds of nobodies…(who) became ghost prisoners in the war on terror."

As for providing the White House with accurate intelligence, the record of the CIA has been a fiasco. The Agency was telling President Carter the Shah of Iran was beloved by his people and was firmly entrenched in power in 1979 when any reader of Harper’s magazine, available on newsstands for a buck, could read that his overthrow was imminent—and it was. Over the years, the Agency has been wrong far more often than it has been right.

According to an Associated Press report, when confirmed by the Senate as the new CIA director, Leon Panetta said the Obama administration would not prosecute CIA officers that "participated in harsh interrogations even if they constituted torture as long as they did not go beyond their instructions." This will allow interrogators to evade prosecution for following the clearly criminal orders they would have been justified to disobey.

"Panetta also said that the Obama administration would continue to transfer foreign detainees to other countries for questioning but only if U.S. officials are confident that the prisoners will not be tortured," the AP story continued. If past is prologue, how confident can Panetta be the CIA’s fellow goons in Egypt and Morocco will stop torturing prisoners? Why did the CIA kidnap men off the streets of Milan and New York and fly them to those countries in the first place if not for torture? They certainly weren’t treating them to a Mediterranean vacation. By its long and nearly perfect record of reckless disregard for international law, the CIA has deprived itself of the right to exist.

It will be worse than unfortunate if President Obama continues the inhumane (and illegal) CIA renditions that President Bill Clinton began and President Bush vastly expanded. If the White House thinks its operatives can roam the world and arrest and torture any person it chooses without a court order, without due process, and without answering for their crimes, this signifies Americans believe themselves to be a Master Race better than others and above international law. That’s not much different from the philosophy that motivated Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich. It would be the supreme irony if the American electorate that repudiated racism last November has voted into its highest office a constitutional lawyer who reaffirms his predecessor’s illegal views on this activity. Renditions must be stopped. The CIA must be abolished.

(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations consultant and columnist who formerly reported for the Chicago Daily News, the New York Herald-Tribune, and wire services. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com)





 
538  The War Room / BP Oil Rig Explosion / Most oil industry lobbyists in US worked for government on: July 26, 2010, 12:43:07 pm
Most oil industry lobbyists in US worked for government

By Josué Olmos

http://uruknet.info/?p=m68238&hd=&size=1&l=e

WSWS, July 24, 2010

A Washington Post story published Wednesday highlighted data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) that further demonstrates the incestuous relationship between the US government and the oil industry. Of the more than 600 lobbyists employed by the oil and gas industry in Washington, the article reveals, 430 once had jobs in the legislative or executive branch of government.

The Post notes that among the 430 oil and gas industry lobbyists who once worked in government are 18 former members of Congress (15 of whom are from oil-producing states), dozens of former presidential appointees, 2 former directors of Minerals Management Service (MMS), several top officials from the Bush White House, former federal inspectors, and aides and staffers to numerous congressmen and women.

The CRP numbers show that the oil and gas industry’s 600 lobbyists are one of the largest lobbying groups, and that its nearly $175 million spent on lobbying in 2009 was the third highest of all industries represented in Washington.

BP, responsible for the oil spill that is poisoning the Gulf of Mexico, is a particularly powerful player on Capitol Hill, what the CRP categorizes as a "heavy hitter." The CRP’s website, OpenSecrets.org, details the multitude of ways the company attempts to influence government.

In 2009, BP spent nearly $16 million on lobbying and has spent $3.5 million this year, as of April 25, second only to ConocoPhillips in the oil industry. Of BP’s 37 lobbyists, 27 are shown to have worked within government in some capacity. BP-paid lobbyists have exerted influence on 13 different congressional bills just this year.

During the 2008 election cycle, BP gave more money to the Obama campaign, over $71,000, than to any other politician. Also listed among the top recipients of BP money are John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Mary Landrieu, Ted Stevens and Ron Paul.

The lobbying firm Podesta Group, run by Tony Podesta, also received BP money. Tony is the brother of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton and co-chair of the Obama transition team. Employed by the Podesta Group and paid by BP is Hewitt Strange, a former field assistant to Democratic senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana. Strange is one of at least three current lobbyists who formerly worked for Landrieu.

CRP also shows Landrieu’s campaign committee to have received $17,000 from BP during the 2008 election cycle. She has shown her loyalty to the industry by vigorously opposing President Obama’s largely symbolic deepwater oil drilling moratorium. According to the Post:

"During a June hearing, Landrieu warned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that a prolonged halt to deep-water drilling 'could potentially wreak economic havoc on this region that exceeds the havoc wreaked’ by the spill itself. Later that evening, Landrieu held her annual 'Crawfish Fest’ fundraiser, and its hosts included seven oil industry lobbyists—six of whom previously worked on Capitol Hill, the invitation shows."

BP and the oil industry’s generosity towards the Obama administration has also been rewarded. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, who has longstanding ties to the oil industry, hired as his deputy assistant secretary Sylvia Baca, a former executive for BP.

Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu headed a research institute at the University of California, Berkeley, which was funded by BP with a $500 million grant. On becoming energy secretary, Chu selected BP’s chief scientist, Steven Koonin, to be the Department of Energy undersecretary for science. (See: "Behind the Gulf oil crisis: Big Oil extends its political influence")

Another big spender on lobbyists in Washington is the leading trade group for the oil and gas industry, the American Petroleum Institute (API). CRP numbers show that the API spent $7.32 million in 2009, and employs 48 lobbyists who formerly worked in government in some capacity. Among these 48 is former Democratic senator J. Bennett Johnston, who, the Post notes, helped deregulate the natural gas industry.

The Post report singles out the MMS (now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEMRE) as being a prime recruiting ground for oil and gas industry lobbying firms. Over a dozen former MMS employees are currently employed in the oil industry.

Former employees and lobbyists in the oil and gas industry also frequently find their way into government agencies, such as BOEMRE. New BOEMRE director Michael Bromwich told the Post that he "acknowledged conflicts in the inspecting ranks...and said new procedures aim to prevent employees from conducting inspections of former employers."

There is no clear line of division between the government and the oil industry—the Post story and the CRP data contribute to the ever-mounting evidence of this fact. Under this arrangement, the oil industry has been left to regulate itself. Combined with the blind drive for profit, the result has been catastrophic.


 
539  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / 'US-led attack killed 45 Afghan Muslims on: July 26, 2010, 11:52:24 am
'US-led attack killed 45 Afghan Muslims

As many as 45 civilians have reportedly been killed during a US-led helicopter strike in Helmand province, forcing NATO to launch a probe into the incident.
 
http://www.abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=196948

Ahlul Bayt News Agency (ABNA.ir), As many as 45 civilians have reportedly been killed during a US-led helicopter strike in Helmand province, forcing NATO to launch a probe into the incident.

On Friday, an air strike claimed dozens of lives including children in the Regey village in southern Helmand province, witnesses say.

A BBC journalist visiting Regey village spoke to several people who said they had seen the incident. At the time, dozens were sheltering in the village from nearby fighting.

The report comes amid public outcry over a significant increase in the number of civilian casualties as the result of attacks by the US-led forces in the war-ravaged country of Afghanistan.

International forces in Afghanistan say they are urgently investigating report.

According to several witnesses, clashes in nearby Joshani had forced many civilians to take shelter in the Regey village, while helicopters buzzed over the sky and pounded the village with rockets.

"I heard the sound of the rocket land on our house. I rushed in screaming with my father and saw bodies lying in the dust… I found I was even standing on a dead body," according to a witness who spoke to the BBC journalist.

The incident comes despite earlier promises by the new commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, that protecting civilian lives would top his agenda concerning his war strategies in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the NATO, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Hughes said on Sunday that the international forces will probe into the deadly attack.

He said that preliminary investigation by ISAF and the provincial governor "gives no indication of a mass casualty incident cause by the coalition forces in Sangin" in Helmand province.

End item/ 129
540  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Re: Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation on: July 26, 2010, 11:48:39 am
US Condemns Massive Leak of Afghan War Files

By AFP

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26020.htm

July 25, 2010 "AFP" -- The White House denounced a massive leak of secret military files that allegedly describe how Pakistan's spy service aids the Afghan insurgency, but said the information was no surprise.

In all, some 92,000 documents were released by the web whistleblower Wikileaks, containing previously untold details of the Afghan war through Pentagon files and field reports spanning from 2004 to 2010.

According to the New York Times, one of the first three media outlets to review and report on the leaks, they "suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban."

Britain's Guardian newspaper said the files, many of which detail growing numbers of civilians dying at the hands of international forces as well as the Taliban, painted "a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan."

The White House issued its condemnation shortly before the leaks were posted online, saying the information could endanger US lives but also pointing to the administration's long-held doubts about links between Pakistan intelligence agents and Afghan insurgents.

"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security," said White House National Security Advisor James Jones.

"These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people."

The White House also released a series of remarks made in the past by top officials expressing their concern about links between Pakistan spy services and militants in Afghanistan.

Among them was one from Defense Secretary Robert Gates dated March 31, 2009: "The ISI's contacts with [extremist groups] are a real concern to us, and we have made these concerns known directly to the Pakistanis," referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency.

The New York Times said it, along with the Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel, had received the leaked material several weeks ago from Wikileaks, a secretive web organization that often publishes classified material.

The source of leak was unknown.

The last person suspected of providing classified material to the outlet is an American soldier who has been charged with two counts of misconduct for allegedly providing video footage of a US Apache helicopter strike in Iraq in which around a dozen people were gunned down in broad daylight.

Describing "secret strategy sessions," the Times said Pakistan spy services "organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders."

The Times added that "much of the information -- raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan -- cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants."

In one of the documents, Pakistan's former ISI spy chief Hamid Gul is described at a January 2009 meeting with a group of insurgents following the death by CIA drone attack of a leader of Al-Qaeda operations in Pakistan named Zamarai, also known as Osama al-Kini.

"The meeting attendees were saddened by the news of Zamarai's death and discussed plans to complete Zamarai's last mission by facilitating the movement of a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device from Pakistan to Afghanistan through the Khan Pass," it said.

The Times noted that it was unclear whether the attack ever took place, and said that despite the official end of Gul's tenure at the ISI in 1989, "General Gul is mentioned so many times in the reports, if they are to be believed, that it seems unlikely that Pakistan?s current military and intelligence officials could not know of at least some of his wide-ranging activities."

Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, denounced the leaks saying they consisted of "unprocessed" reports from the field that "do not reflect the current onground realities."

Jones, who did not address the veracity of the information contained in the leaks, said that the documents mainly cover the time period of January 2004 to December 2009, when former president George W. Bush was in office.

He pointed out that President Barack Obama on December 1, 2009 announced a new strategy that boosted resources for Afghanistan, and put increased focus on Al-Qaeda and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan.

"This shift in strategy addressed challenges in Afghanistan that were the subject of an exhaustive policy review last fall," Jones said.

A US official who asked not to be named added: "I don't think anyone who follows this issue will find it surprising that there are concerns about ISI and safe havens in Pakistan.

"Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the president ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy," the official said, adding: "Wikileaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes US policy in Afghanistan."

541  The War Room / Pakistan / India / White House attacks Pakistan over Taliban aid on: July 26, 2010, 11:45:46 am
White House attacks Pakistan over Taliban aid

More than 180 files detail accusations that the ISI spy agency has supplied, armed and trained insurgents since 2004

• Clandestine aid for Taliban bears Pakistan's fingerprints

By Declan Walsh

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26017.htm

July 25, 2010 "The Guardian" --  Allegations in the war logs that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has been covertly supporting the Taliban kicked off a political storm tonight as the White House said the situation was "unacceptable" and described militant safe havens in Pakistan as "intolerable".

More than 180 intelligence files in the war logs, most of which cannot be confirmed, detail accusations that Pakistan's premier spy agency has been supplying, arming and training the insurgency since at least 2004.

The Obama administration, which gives $1bn a year in military aid to Pakistan, did not challenge the veracity of the files, but said that while Islamabad was making progress against extremism, "the status quo is not acceptable".

"The safe havens for violent extremist groups within Pakistan continue to pose an intolerable threat to the United States, to Afghanistan, and to the Pakistani people," a spokesman said in response to questions about the ISI files.

He urged Pakistan's military and intelligence services to "continue their strategic shift against violent extremists groups within their borders, and stay on the offensive against them".

An ISI spokesman said the agency could not comment in detail until it had examined the files, but described the general allegations as "far-fetched and unsubstantiated".

The accusations against the ISI in the war logs range from spectacular to lurid. Reports describe covert ISI plots to train legions of suicide bombers, smuggle surface-to-air missiles into Afghanistan, assassinate President Hamid Karzai and poison western beer supplies.

But despite the startling allegations the files yield little convincing evidence behind Afghan accusations that the ISI is the hidden hand behind the Taliban.

Much of the intelligence is unverifiable, inconsistent or obviously fabricated, and the most shocking allegations, such as the Karzai plot, are sourced to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan's premier spy agency, which has a history of hostility towards the ISI.

"The vast majority of this is useless," a retired US officer with long experience in the region told the Guardian."There's an Afghan prejudice that wants to see an ISI agent under every rock."

But he said the allegations chime with other US reporting, collected by other agencies and at a higher classification, that pointed to ISI complicity with the Taliban. "People wouldn't be making up these stories if there wasn't something to it. There's always a nugget of truth to every conspiracy theory," he said.

The storm over the ISI files comes at a sensitive time. In recent months Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, and the ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha, have drawn closer to Karzai, their former rival, with a view to negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban.

The ISI has rejected suggestions that it is playing a "double game", pointing to the arrest of the deputy Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi last February as proof of its good intent. In issuing such a strongly worded statement with implicit criticism of the ISI, the White House may be trying to keep ahead of a tide of US opinion that is hostile towards Pakistan. But the Obama administration has little choice but to stick with its Pakistani allies, whose co-operation they need in hunting al-Qaida fugitives along the Afghan border. The ISI and the CIA are co-operating closely on drone strikes that have hit 47 targets and killed up to 440 people this year.

The war logs are likely to stoke passions in Pakistan where the rightwing press has long accused the US of seeking an excuse to invade and seize the country's nuclear weapons.

A hint of this reaction came from the ISI official. "It's very strange such a huge cache of information can be leaked to the media so conveniently," he said. "Is it something deliberate? What is its purpose? We'll be looking into that."

542  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Task Force 373 – Special Forces Hunting Top Taliban on: July 26, 2010, 11:42:54 am
Task Force 373 – Special Forces Hunting Top Taliban

Previously hidden details of US-led unit sent to kill top insurgent targets are revealed for the first time

By Nick Davies

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26018.htm

July 25, 2010 "The Guardian" --  The Nato coalition in Afghanistan has been using an undisclosed "black" unit of special forces, Task Force 373, to hunt down targets for death or detention without trial. Details of more than 2,000 senior figures from the Taliban and al-Qaida are held on a "kill or capture" list, known as Jpel, the joint prioritised effects list.

In many cases, the unit has set out to seize a target for internment, but in others it has simply killed them without attempting to capture. The logs reveal that TF 373 has also killed civilian men, women and children and even Afghan police officers who have strayed into its path.

The United Nations' special rapporteur for human rights, Professor Philip Alston, went to Afghanistan in May 2008 to investigate rumours of extrajudicial killings. He warned that international forces were neither transparent nor accountable and that Afghans who attempted to find out who had killed their loved ones "often come away empty-handed, frustrated and bitter".

Now, for the first time, the leaked war logs reveal details of deadly missions by TF 373 and other units hunting down Jpel targets that were previously hidden behind a screen of misinformation. They raise fundamental questions about the legality of the killings and of the long-term imprisonment without trial, and also pragmatically about the impact of a tactic which is inherently likely to kill, injure and alienate the innocent bystanders whose support the coalition craves.

On the night of Monday 11 June 2007, the leaked logs reveal, the taskforce set out with Afghan special forces to capture or kill a Taliban commander named Qarl Ur-Rahman in a valley near Jalalabad. As they approached the target in the darkness, somebody shone a torch on them. A firefight developed, and the taskforce called in an AC-130 gunship, which strafed the area with cannon fire: "The original mission was aborted and TF 373 broke contact and returned to base. Follow-up Report: 7 x ANP KIA, 4 x WIA." In plain language: they discovered that the people they had been shooting in the dark were Afghan police officers, seven of whom were now dead and four wounded.

The coalition put out a press release which referred to the firefight and the air support and then failed entirely to record that they had just killed or wounded 11 police officers. But, evidently fearing that the truth might leak, it added: "There was nothing during the firefight to indicate the opposing force was friendly. The individuals who fired on coalition forces were not in uniform." The involvement of TF 373 was not mentioned, and the story didn't get out.

However, the incident immediately rebounded into the fragile links which other elements of the coalition had been trying to build with local communities. An internal report shows that the next day Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Phillips, commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, took senior officers to meet the provincial governor, Gul Agha Sherzai, who accepted that this was "an unfortunate incident that occurred among friends". They agreed to pay compensation to the bereaved families, and Phillips "reiterated our support to prevent these types of events from occurring again".

Yet, later that week, on Sunday 17 June, as Sherzai hosted a "shura" council at which he attempted to reassure tribal leaders about the safety of coalition operations, TF 373 launched another mission, hundreds of miles south in Paktika province. The target was a notorious Libyan fighter, Abu Laith al-Libi. The unit was armed with a new weapon, known as Himars – High Mobility Artillery Rocket System – a pod of six missiles on the back of a small truck.

The plan was to launch five rockets at targets in the village of Nangar Khel where TF 373 believed Libi was hiding and then to send in ground troops. The result was that they failed to find Libi but killed six Taliban fighters and then, when they approached the rubble of a madrasa, they found "initial assessment of 7 x NC KIA" which translates as seven non-combatants killed in action. All of them were children. One of them was still alive in the rubble: "The Med TM immediately cleared debris from the mouth and performed CPR." After 20 minutes, the child died.

Children

The coalition made a press statement which owned up to the death of the children and claimed that troops "had surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside the building". That claim is consistent with the leaked log. A press release also claimed that Taliban fighters, who undoubtedly were in the compound, had used the children as a shield.

The log refers to an unnamed "elder" who is said to have "stated that the children were held against their will" but, against that, there is no suggestion that there were any Taliban in the madrasa where the children died.

The rest of the press release was certainly misleading. It suggested that coalition forces had attacked the compound because of "nefarious activity" there, when the reality was that they had gone there to kill or capture Libi.

It made no mention at all of Libi, nor of the failure of the mission (although that was revealed later by NBC News in the United States). Crucially, it failed to record that TF 373 had fired five rockets, destroying the madrasa and other buildings and killing seven children, before anybody had fired on them – that this looked like a mission to kill and not to capture. Indeed, this was clearly deliberately suppressed.

The internal report was marked not only "secret" but also "Noforn", ie not to be shared with the foreign elements of the coalition. And the source of this anxiety is explicit: "The knowledge that TF 373 conducted a HIMARS strike must be protected." And it was. This crucial fact remained secret, as did TF 373's involvement.

Again, the lethal attack caused political problems. The provincial governor arranged compensation and held a shura with local leaders when, according to an internal US report, "he pressed the Talking Points given to him and added a few of his own that followed in line with our current story". Libi remained targeted for death and was killed in Pakistan seven months later by a missile from an unmanned CIA Predator.

In spite of this tension between political and military operations, TF 373 continued to engage in highly destructive attacks. Four months later, on 4 October, they confronted Taliban fighters in a village called Laswanday, only 6 miles from the village where they had killed the seven children. The Taliban appear to have retreated by the time TF 373 called in air support to drop 500lb bombs on the house from which the fighters had been firing.

The final outcome, listed tersely at the end of the leaked log: 12 US wounded, two teenage girls and a 10-year-old boy wounded, one girl killed, one woman killed, four civilian men killed, one donkey killed, one dog killed, several chickens killed, no enemy killed, no enemy wounded, no enemy detained.

The coalition put out a statement claiming falsely to have killed several militants and making no mention of any dead civilians; and later added that "several non-combatants were found dead and several others wounded" without giving any numbers or details.

This time, the political teams tried a far less conciliatory approach with local people. In spite of discovering that the dead civilians came from one family, one of whom had been found with his hands tied behind his back, suggesting that the Taliban were unwelcome intruders in their home, senior officials travelled to the stricken village where they "stressed that the fault of the deaths of the innocent lies on the villagers who did not resist the insurgents and their anti-government activities … [and] chastised a villager who condemned the compound shooting". Nevertheless, an internal report concluded that there was "little or no protest" over the incident.

Concealment

The concealment of TF 373's role is a constant theme. There was global publicity in October 2009 when US helicopters were involved in two separate crashes in one day, but even then it was concealed that the four soldiers who died in one of the incidents were from TF 373.

The pursuit of these "high value targets" is evidently embedded deep in coalition tactics. The Jpel list assigns an individual serial number to each of those targeted for kill or capture and by October 2009 this had reached 2,058.

The process of choosing targets reaches high into the military command. According to their published US Field Manual on Counter Insurgency, No FM3-24, it is policy to choose targets "to engage as potential counter-insurgency supporters, targets to isolate from the population and targets to eliminate".

A joint targeting working group meets each week to consider Target Nomination Packets and has direct input from the Combined Forces Command and its divisional HQ, as well as from lawyers, operational command and intelligence units including the CIA.

Among those who are listed as being located and killed by TF 373 are Shah Agha, described as an intelligence officer for an IED cell, who was killed with four other men on 1 June 2009; Amir Jan Mutaki, described as a Taliban sub-commander who had organised ambushes on coalition forces, who was shot dead from the air in a TF 373 mission on 24 June 2009; and a target codenamed Ballentine, who was killed on 16 November 2009 during an attack in the village of Lewani, in which a local woman also died.

The logs include references to the tracing and killing of other targets on the Jpel list, which do not identify TF 373 as the unit responsible. It is possible that some of the other taskforce names and numbers which show up in this context are cover names for 373, or for British special forces, 500 of whom are based in southern Afghanistan and are reported to have been involved in kill/capture missions, including the shooting in July 2008 of Mullah Bismullah.

Some of these "non 373" operations involve the use of unmanned drones to fire missiles to kill the target: one codenamed Beethoven, on 20 October 2008; one named Janan on 6 November 2008; and an unnamed Jpel target who was hit with a hellfire missile near Khan Neshin on 21 August 2009 while travelling in a car with other passengers (the log records "no squirters [bodies moving about] recorded").

Other Jpel targets were traced and then bombed from the air. One, codenamed Newcastle, was located with four other men on 26 November 2007. The house they were in was then hit with 500lb bombs. "No identifiable features recovered," the log records.

Two other Jpel targets, identified only by serial numbers, were killed on 16 February 2009 when two F-15 bombers dropped four 500lb bombs on a Jpel target: "There are various and conflicting reports from multiple sources alleging civilian casualties … A large number of local nationals were on site during the investigation displaying a hostile attitude so the investigation team did not continue sorting through the site."

One of the leaked logs contains a summary of a conference call on 8 March 2008 when the then head of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, Amrullah Saleh, tells senior American officers that three named Taliban commanders in Kapisa province are "not reconcilable and must be taken out". The senior coalition officer "noted that there would be a meeting with the Kapisa NDS to determine how to approach this issue."

It is not clear whether "taken out" meant "killed" and the logs do not record any of their deaths. But one of them, Qari Baryal, who was ranked seventh in the Jpel list, had already been targeted for killing two months earlier.

On 12 January 2008, after tracking his movements for 24 hours, the coalition established that he was holding a large meeting with other men in a compound in Pashkari and sent planes which dropped six 500lb bombs and followed up with five strafing runs to shoot those fleeing the scene.

The report records that some 70 people ran to the compound and started digging into the rubble, on which there were "pools of blood", but subsequent reports suggest that Baryal survived and continued to plan rocket attacks and suicide bombings.

Numerous logs show Jpel targets being captured and transferred to a special prison, known as Btif, the Bagram Theatre Internment Facility. There is no indication of prisoners being charged or tried, and previous press reports have suggested that men have been detained there for years without any legal process in communal cages inside vast old air hangars. As each target is captured, he is assigned a serial number. By December 2009, this showed that a total of 4,288 prisoners, some aged as young as 16, had been held at Btif, with 757 still in custody.

Who are TF373?
The leaked war logs show that Task Force 373 uses at least three bases in Afghanistan, in Kabul, Kandahar and Khost. Although it works alongside special forces from Afghanistan and other coalition nations, it appears to be drawing its own troops from the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and to travel on missions in Chinook and Cobra helicopters flown by 160th special operations aviation regiment, based at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia.

 

543  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Afghanistan: Secret CIA Paramilitaries' Role in Civilian Deaths on: July 26, 2010, 11:40:21 am
   
 

Secret CIA Paramilitaries' Role in Civilian Deaths

Innocent Afghan men, women and children have paid the price of the Americans' rules of engagement
By David Leigh

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26019.htm

July 25, 2010 "The Guardian" -- Shum Khan was a deaf and dumb man who lived in the remote border hamlet of Malekshay, 7,000ft up in the mountains. When a heavily armed squad from the CIA barrelled into his village in March 2007, the war logs record that he "ran at the sight of the approaching coalition forces … out of fear and confusion".

The secret CIA paramilitaries, (the euphemism here is OGA, for "other government agency") shouted at him to stop. Khan could not hear them. He carried on running. So they shot him, saying they were entitled to do so under the carefully graded "escalation of force" provisions of the US rules of engagement.

Khan was wounded but survived. The Americans' error was explained to them by village elders, so they fetched out what they term "solatia", or compensation. The classified intelligence report ends briskly: "Solatia was made in the form of supplies and the Element mission progressed".

Behind the military jargon, the war logs are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called "blue on white" events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties.

They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes, which eventually led President Hamid Karzai to protest publicly that the US was treating Afghan lives as "cheap". When civilian family members are actually killed in Afghanistan, their relatives do, in fairness, get greater solatia payments than cans of beans and Hershey bars. The logs refer to sums paid of 100,000 Afghani per corpse, equivalent to about £1,500.

US and allied commanders frequently deny allegations of mass civilian casualties, claiming they are Taliban propaganda or ploys to get compensation, which are contradicted by facts known to the military.

But the logs demonstrate how much of the contemporaneous US internal reporting of air strikes is simply false.

Last September there was a major scandal at Kunduz in the north of Afghanistan when a German commander ordered the bombing of a crowd looting two hijacked fuel tankers. The contemporaneous archive circulated to Nato allies records him authorising the airstrike by a US F-15 jet "after ensuring that no civilians were in the vicinity". The "battle damage assessment" confirmed, it claims, that 56 purely "enemy insurgents" had died.

Media reports followed by official inquiries, however, established something closer to the real death toll. It included 30 to 70 civilians.

In another case the logs show that on the night of 30 August 2008, a US special forces squad called Scorpion 26 blasted Helmand positions with multiple rockets, and called in an airstrike to drop a 500lb bomb. All that was officially logged was that 24 Taliban had been killed.

But writer Patrick Bishop was embedded in the valley nearby with British paratroops at their Sangin bases. He recorded independently: "Overnight, the question of civilian casualties took on an extra urgency. An American team had been inserted on to Black Mountain … From there, they launched a series of offensive operations. On 30 August, wounded civilians, some of them badly injured, turned up at Sangin and FOB Inkerman saying they had been attacked by foreign troops. Such incidents gave a hollow ring to ISAF claims that their presence would bring security to the local population."

Some of the more notorious civilian calamities did become public at the time. The logs confirm that an entirely truthful official announcement was made regretting the guidance system failure of one "smart bomb". On 9 September 2008 it unintentionally landed on a village causing 26 civilian casualties.

The US also realised very quickly that a Polish squad had committed what appeared to have been a possible war crime. On 16 August 2007 the Poles mortared a wedding party in the village of Nangar Khel in an apparent revenge attack shortly after experiencing an IED explosion.

It is recorded under the heading: "Any incident that may cause negative media". The report disclosed that three women victims had "numerous shrapnel wounds … One was pregnant and an emergency C-section was performed but the baby died". In all, six were killed. The Polish troops were shipped home and some eventually put on trial for the atrocity. After protests in their support from a Polish general, the trial has apparently so far failed to reach a conclusion.

But most of the assaults on civilians recorded here, do not appear to have been investigated. French troops "opened fire on a bus that came too close to convoy" near the village of Tangi Kalay outside Kabul on 2 October 2008, according to the logs. They wounded eight children who were in the bus.

Two months later, US troops gunned down a group of bus passengers even more peremptorily, as the logs record.

Patrolling on foot, a Kentucky-based squad from 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, known as "Red Currahee", decided to flag down the approaching bus, so their patrol could cross the road. Before sunrise, a soldier stepped out on to Afghanistan's main highway and raised both hands in the air.

When the bus failed to slow – travellers are often wary of being flagged down in Afghanistan's bandit lands – a trooper raked it with machine-gun fire. They killed four passengers and wounded 11 others.

Some of the civilian deaths in the list stem from violent actions by US special forces attempting to hunt down Taliban leaders or al-Qaida incomers. In a typical case, last November, the army files record a demonstration by 80 angry villagers who broke an armoured car window in the village of Lewani. A woman from the village had been killed in an assault by the shadowy Task Force 373.

The influence of the then new commander, General Stanley McChrystal, can be seen, however. Brought in last year with a mission to try to cut the number of civilian casualties, he clearly demanded more detailed reporting of such incidents.

The Lewani file is marked with a new "information requirement" to record each "credible allegation of Isaf [the occupying forces] … causing non-combatant injury/death".

McChrystal was replaced last month, however, by General David Petraeus, amid reports that restraints aimed at cutting civilian deaths would be loosened once again.

The bulk of the "blue-white" file consists of a relentless catalogue of civilian shootings on nearly 100 occasions by jumpy troops at checkpoints, near bases or on convoys. Unco-operative drivers and motorcyclists are frequent targets.

Each incident almost without exception is described as a meticulous "escalation of force" conducted strictly by the book, against a threatening vehicle.

US and UK rules require shouts, waves, flares, warning shots and shots into the engine block, before using lethal force. Each time it is claimed that this procedure is followed. Yet "warning shots" often seem to cause death or injury, generally ascribed to ricochets.

Sometimes, it seems as though civilian drivers merely failed to get off the road fast enough. On 9 July 2006 mechanic Mohamad Baluch was test-driving a car in Ghazni, when the Americans rolled into town on an anti-IED "route clearance patrol".

The log records: "LN [local national] vehicle did not yield to US convoy … Gunner on lead truck shot into the vehicle and convoy kept going out of the area." The townspeople threw rocks at the eight departing armoured Humvees. Baluch ended up in hospital with machine-gun bullets in his shoulder.
 
 
544  The War Room / Afghanistan / Iraq / Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation on: July 26, 2010, 11:37:04 am
Afghanistan war logs:

Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation


• Hundreds of civilians killed by coalition troops
• Covert unit hunts leaders for 'kill or capture'
• Steep rise in Taliban bomb attacks on Nato
• Read the Guardian's full war logs investigation

By Nick Davies and David Leigh

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26016.htm

July 25, 2010 "The Guardian" -- A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US naval personnel captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of "under-resourcing" under Obama's predecessor, saying: "It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009."

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents.

Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers.

At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, but this is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.

Questionable shootings of civilians by UK troops also figure. The US compilers detail an unusual cluster of four British shootings in Kabul in the space of barely a month, in October/November 2007, culminating in the death of the son of an Afghan general. Of one shooting, they wrote: "Investigation controlled by the British. We are not able to get [sic] complete story."

A second cluster of similar shootings, all involving Royal Marine commandos in Helmand province, took place in a six-month period at the end of 2008, according to the log entries. Asked by the Guardian about these allegations, the Ministry of Defence said: "We have been unable to corroborate these claims in the short time available and it would be inappropriate to speculate on specific cases without further verification of the alleged actions."

 

Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: "These files bring to light what's been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I've investigated in recent months where this is still not happening.

Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians." The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

Most of the material, though classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers.

Wikileaks published in April this year a previously suppressed classified video of US Apache helicopters killing two Reuters cameramen on the streets of Baghdad, which gained international attention. A 22-year-old intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in Iraq and charged with leaking the video, but not with leaking the latest material. The Pentagon's criminal investigations department continues to try to trace the leaks and recently unsuccessfully asked Assange, he says, to meet them outside the US to help them. Assange allowed the Guardian to examine the logs at our request. No fee was involved and Wikileaks was not involved in the preparation of the Guardian's articles.

   
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