BUSH/CHENEY IRAQ WAR ALLOWED RISE OF TALIBAN INSURGENCY
"The Afghanistan War is now responsible for the deaths of 1,000 US troops. It has now also gone on longer than the Revolutionary War. You have to wonder how many of those troops would be alive if the Bush-Cheney administration had not taken its eye off the ball and deprived them of resources, sending the resources instead to Iraq. Efforts to develop and build governmental capacity in 2002 and 2003 might have averted the rise of a neo-Taliban insurgency. Once an insurgency gets going, it is almost impossible to stop it militarily (only 20 percent of insurgencies are defeated on the battleground)..."
http://www.juancole.com/2010/02/bombing-in-lashkar-gah-kills-7-karzai.html
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
DEBATE OVER DEFINITION OF TERRORISM
"... confusion and doubt arose (after Joseph Stack's airplane attack on an IRS building) over whether a person who perpetrated a classic act of Terrorism should, in fact, be called a Terrorist: he's not a Muslim and isn't acting on behalf of standard Muslim grievances against the U.S. or Israel, and thus does not fit the "definition." It has really come to mean: "a Muslim who fights against or even expresses hostility towards the United States, Israel and their allies."
If an American Muslim argues that violence against the U.S. (particularly when aimed at military targets) is justified due to American violence aimed at the Muslim world, that person is a Terrorist who deserves assassination... if the U.S. military invades a Muslim country, Muslims who live in the invaded and occupied country and who fight back against the invading American army -- by attacking nothing but military targets -- are also Terrorists.... (And) large numbers of detainees at Guantanamo were accused of being Terrorists for nothing more than attacking members of an invading foreign army in their country..."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/19/terrorism/index.html
"... Stratfor, an Austin-based global intelligence firm specializing in international risk management, said the rhetoric in Stack's rant clearly matches the USA Patriot Act's definition of terrorism: a criminal act that is intended to "intimidate or coerce a civilian population to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping..."
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/nation-world-news/plane-attack-prompts-debate-over-terrorism-label-558975.html
"... confusion and doubt arose (after Joseph Stack's airplane attack on an IRS building) over whether a person who perpetrated a classic act of Terrorism should, in fact, be called a Terrorist: he's not a Muslim and isn't acting on behalf of standard Muslim grievances against the U.S. or Israel, and thus does not fit the "definition." It has really come to mean: "a Muslim who fights against or even expresses hostility towards the United States, Israel and their allies."
If an American Muslim argues that violence against the U.S. (particularly when aimed at military targets) is justified due to American violence aimed at the Muslim world, that person is a Terrorist who deserves assassination... if the U.S. military invades a Muslim country, Muslims who live in the invaded and occupied country and who fight back against the invading American army -- by attacking nothing but military targets -- are also Terrorists.... (And) large numbers of detainees at Guantanamo were accused of being Terrorists for nothing more than attacking members of an invading foreign army in their country..."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/19/terrorism/index.html
"... Stratfor, an Austin-based global intelligence firm specializing in international risk management, said the rhetoric in Stack's rant clearly matches the USA Patriot Act's definition of terrorism: a criminal act that is intended to "intimidate or coerce a civilian population to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping..."
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/nation-world-news/plane-attack-prompts-debate-over-terrorism-label-558975.html
Friday, February 12, 2010
CIVILIANS IN MARJA GIVEN SIMILAR ADVICE AS THOSE IN FALLUJAH
Marja, Afghanistan, Feb 2010
"... Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault... about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants... military helicopters dropped leaflets over Marjah as radio broadcasts "warned residents not to shelter Taliban ahead of a massive assault." Doesn't this suggest that the invading U.S. forces may regard any civilian alleged to be "sheltering Taliban" as a legitimate target, including women and children? If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/12-6
Fallujah, Iraq, Nov 2004
"... a shattered landscape of gutted buildings, crushed cars and charred bodies.... utter destruction, with concrete houses flattened, mosques in ruins, telegraph poles down, power and phone lines hanging slack and rubble and human remains littering the empty streets... rotting corpses being piled up and thousands still trapped inside their homes, many of them wounded and without access to food, water or medical aid... The US Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed last week that Iraqi civilians had been warned how to avoid injury. "Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble. There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by US forces...”
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=582915
"... a high-ranking official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS that ”at least 800 civilians” have been killed in Fallujah so far... His estimate is based on reports from Red Crescent aid workers stationed around the embattled city, from residents within the city and from refugees... The official estimated that at least 50,000 residents remain trapped within the city. They were too poor to leave, lacked friends or family outside the city and therefore had nowhere to go, or they simply had not had enough time to escape before the siege began."
>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1116-04.htm
Marja, Afghanistan, Feb 2010
"... Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault... about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants... military helicopters dropped leaflets over Marjah as radio broadcasts "warned residents not to shelter Taliban ahead of a massive assault." Doesn't this suggest that the invading U.S. forces may regard any civilian alleged to be "sheltering Taliban" as a legitimate target, including women and children? If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/12-6
Fallujah, Iraq, Nov 2004
"... a shattered landscape of gutted buildings, crushed cars and charred bodies.... utter destruction, with concrete houses flattened, mosques in ruins, telegraph poles down, power and phone lines hanging slack and rubble and human remains littering the empty streets... rotting corpses being piled up and thousands still trapped inside their homes, many of them wounded and without access to food, water or medical aid... The US Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed last week that Iraqi civilians had been warned how to avoid injury. "Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble. There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by US forces...”
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=582915
"... a high-ranking official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS that ”at least 800 civilians” have been killed in Fallujah so far... His estimate is based on reports from Red Crescent aid workers stationed around the embattled city, from residents within the city and from refugees... The official estimated that at least 50,000 residents remain trapped within the city. They were too poor to leave, lacked friends or family outside the city and therefore had nowhere to go, or they simply had not had enough time to escape before the siege began."
>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1116-04.htm
EXECUTIONS BY DRONE KILL 50 CIVILIANS PER MILITANT
"... Obama is the new killer on the block, authorising more drone attacks in the first year of his term in office than Bush did in his entire presidency... for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war... counter-insurgency experts... decried the toll. Citing a civilian figure of 700, they extrapolated a civilian loss of 98 per cent of deaths or 50 civilians for each militant eliminated.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/americas-deadly-robots-rewrite-the-rules-20100212-nxjk.html
"... Obama is the new killer on the block, authorising more drone attacks in the first year of his term in office than Bush did in his entire presidency... for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war... counter-insurgency experts... decried the toll. Citing a civilian figure of 700, they extrapolated a civilian loss of 98 per cent of deaths or 50 civilians for each militant eliminated.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/americas-deadly-robots-rewrite-the-rules-20100212-nxjk.html
700 MILITARY BASES IN AFGHANISTAN
"... approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside... are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year... this base-building program is staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive... Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers... (said) “You have to bring in the lumber, you have to bring in the steel, you have to bring in the containers and all that. Transport isn’t easy in this country -- number one, the roads themselves, number two, coming through other countries to get here -- there are just huge challenges in getting the materials here...”
"It... raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/10-0#
"... approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside... are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year... this base-building program is staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive... Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers... (said) “You have to bring in the lumber, you have to bring in the steel, you have to bring in the containers and all that. Transport isn’t easy in this country -- number one, the roads themselves, number two, coming through other countries to get here -- there are just huge challenges in getting the materials here...”
"It... raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/10-0#
Friday, February 5, 2010
U.S. TO TRIPLE DRONES
"The U.S. military plans to more than triple its inventory of high-altitude, armed and unarmed drones... The long-range aviation plan... calls for 800 high-altitude drones, up from 220 currently... The U.S. military currently flies about 39 combat-air patrols for 24 hours each over Iraq and Afghanistan... The Pentagon has said it would increase the patrols to 50 a day in the next two years and 65 by 2013... We can’t get enough drones,” (said) General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, which includes the Afghanistan and Iraq war theaters..."
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-05/pentagon-to-increase-stock-of-high-altitude-drones-update1-.html
"The U.S. military plans to more than triple its inventory of high-altitude, armed and unarmed drones... The long-range aviation plan... calls for 800 high-altitude drones, up from 220 currently... The U.S. military currently flies about 39 combat-air patrols for 24 hours each over Iraq and Afghanistan... The Pentagon has said it would increase the patrols to 50 a day in the next two years and 65 by 2013... We can’t get enough drones,” (said) General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, which includes the Afghanistan and Iraq war theaters..."
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-05/pentagon-to-increase-stock-of-high-altitude-drones-update1-.html
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