Canadian Election Watch - Day 4

Elizabeth May - 1
Old boys club - 0

Jack Layton caved and the rest of the dominoes fell over. Elizabeth May will be in the leaders' debates after all.

Kory Teneycke, Harper's director of communications, confirmed Harper had also changed his mind, telling reporters that while the Conservatives still objected to May's participation on principle, he would no longer oppose May's inclusion.

"We don't think she should be there, but if the NDP have decided they're changing their position, we will not stand alone," he said.

In an interview with CBC News, Tory campaign co-chairman David Emerson said the reversal was a case of the prime minister "reacting to changing circumstances."

Shorter Emerson: Steve didn't want to look like the only ass.

The quote du jour though goes to the ever feisty PC premier Danny Williams who, after calling Steve a "fraud" as part of his "ABC" (Anybody But Conservatives) campaign said:

"If [he] is prepared to slash program spending when he has large surpluses and break his written word as the leader of a minority government, the future of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians — and indeed all Canadians — will be very bleak under a Conservative majority," Williams said.

Exactly.

But wait, there's more...

Williams called on Harper to stop using the puffin — the provincial bird of Newfoundland and Labrador — in attack ads.

"Leave our provincial bird out of [your] nasty, disgusting, personal attack ads," said Williams.

"The people of this province didn't appreciate being used by you for our votes the last time and our birds don't particularly like being used by you, either," he said.

Take that, Steve! Leave the puffins alone!!

Meanwhile, is Steve trying to go for the sympathy vote now? Check out this headline: Harper says he hates attention he gets. Gee. Pass the tissues. Is that why he's practically cloistered himself in his office - refusing to talk to the press since he was elected? Because he's shy? Pfffft... It would be so much easier if you were a dictator, right Steve?

In the meantime, Steve tried to score political points amid the news that Canadian support for the war is slipping and on a day one of our fallen soldiers was being returned home by suddenly declaring that he wants Canada's military commitment in Afghanistan to end in 2011.

The Tories have been attempting to soften Harper image for weeks with ads showing the personal side of Stephen Harper.

In his breakfast with reporters - a first as prime minister - he revealed that he cried the first few times he had to break the news of a Canadian soldier's death in Afghanistan to his parents. [No one suffers more than you, right? -catnip]

The moves also appear designed to change the channel on a campaign dominated by distractions, from the pooping puffin ad to the withdrawal from the race of the Conservative candidate in Halifax after it was learned she had a criminal record.

If you want to score some real points, Steve, bring the troops home now and say something about the endless civilian deaths over there - not to mention the fact that US troops are flagrantly violating Pakistan's sovereignty by using ground troops on Pakistan's side of the border. Why is Canada still a part of this charade?

In the first seven months of 2008, at least 540 Afghan civilians were killed in fighting related to the conflict.

Civilians used as shields

Of that number, at least 367 died during attacks by the various insurgent forces, and 173 died during U.S. or NATO attacks. At least 119 were killed by U.S. or NATO air strikes.

Steve said that he thought 10 years of war (by 2011) in Afghanistan would be enough. 10 years. That just leaves me speechless.

And, believe me, the Liberal party doesn't get a free ride from me for its part in pushing this failed mission either.

That's all I have for now...
 

Quote du Jour: War is just so 'romantic'...

At least that's what Commander Codpiece thinks:

President Bush spoke of his dream to work on the frontline in Afghanistan during a video conference with US military and civilian personnel in the war-torn country.

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said.

"If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," President Bush said.

I wonder if "romance" was on the minds of the Conservatives and Liberals when they voted to send more Canadian soldiers to their deaths in Afghanistan on Thursday. And to think they actually applauded when that motion passed. Disgusting.

Meanwhile, this vote was held before NATO announced its 5 year plan for that country. Surely that has been in the works for a while and it would have been useful information to have when it came to considering how to vote on this 2 year extension. Instead, the 2 major war parties (one just tremendously afraid of sparking an election - who cares about the life and death issues involved?) decided to carry on the Canadian mission until 2011, regardless of the fact that they have no idea how much it will cost in terms of dollars or Canadian lives. Peter MacKay even went as far as to say the troops would be "delighted" when they heard what they'd just been committed to. Delighted? I guess that's about as close as MacKay can come to saying it's nothing short of "romantic" to know that you could be killed at any moment, as his buddy Bush did.

If war is so romantic and delightful, why aren't those two warmongering mouthpieces over there enjoying the war up close and personal - with guns - on the frontline?

Update: March 14, 2008 - Welcome cursor.org readers! Just a reminder that the new winter soldier hearings are happening right now. Those veterans and related speakers deserve your support. Check out the link to find out how you can listen live. Archives and a blog that's open for comments are also available at Pacifica's site.
 

The New Winter Soldier Hearings Start Today

Iraq Veterans Against the War, following in the footsteps of Vietnam veterans in 1971, are holding new winter soldier hearings about the Iraq & Afghanistan wars beginning today through March 16, 2008 in Washington. IVAW's membership includes veterans from the US & Canada.

Details on how to watch and listen to those hearings are listed here. If the site is down, as it was earlier today, you can also access the hearings at this site.

Via Salon:

Will American war crimes be revealed?

Like Vietnam vets did decades ago, a group of soldiers are poised to speak out about atrocities they say the U.S. committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It has often been remarked but seldom remembered that war itself is a crime. Yet a war crime is more and other than war ... It is an act beyond the pale of acceptable actions even in war. Deliberate killing or torturing of prisoners of war is a war crime. Deliberate destruction without military purpose of civilian communities is a war crime."
-- Former infantry platoon leader William Crandell opening the "Winter Soldier Investigation" in Detroit, Jan. 31, 1971

More than 100 veterans gathered in a Detroit hotel in early 1971 to talk about things they had seen and done in the Vietnam War. Called the Winter Soldier Investigation, the group spoke about a horrifying array of allegations: convoys driving over civilians; burning of villages; bodies thrown out of helicopters; torture, mutilation and infamous "free-fire zones," where anyone not wearing a U.S. uniform could be killed.

Thirty-seven years later, more than 100 veterans will gather over the next several days for "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan." The event is designed to be another purging of the horrors of war, and another effort to put American military policy on trial in the public eye. The gathering this time, at the National Labor College outside Washington, D.C., is sponsored by the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "Soldiers will certainly be testifying about their experience and observation of actions which are absolutely in violation of international law," says IVAW spokesperson Perry O"Brien, who served as an Army medic in Afghanistan in 2003.

In interviews with Salon, several veterans from the group described incidents in Iraq that they believed constituted wrongdoing by the U.S. military, including disproportionate use of air power resulting in civilian deaths. The soldiers were unable to provide Salon with any conclusive evidence of war crimes. But as the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq approaches, the allegations they and other Winter Soldier members will publicize in Washington this week add to a long-term set of questions about the damage and destruction wrought by U.S. military operations over years of war.

These veterans deserve to be heard and it's quite telling that the author of that article who, after using the quote that "war itself is a crime", asserts that "the soldiers were unable to provide Salon with any conclusive evidence of war crimes" especially in the face of proven allegations of torture, collective punishment and murder.

Will anyone in the MSM listen? That remains to be seen. It should be the duty of citizens in both of our countries to hear what they have to say about the conduct of both of these wars, especially to counter the unending militaristic war propaganda that we are fed daily to attempt to boost support for these missions.
 

Kandahar's Governor Blasts the Canadian Military After Suicide Bombing

On the heels of the second suicide bombing in Afghanistan in two days, the death tolls from both attacks currently standing at 136, the notorious governor of Kandahar accused the Canadian military of ignoring 6 warnings that such an attack might happen in the area, concluding it had put Afghan civilians in danger.

The military's response was this:

...a military spokesman said the Canadian Forces make the decisions on where its soldiers will patrol.

"We regularly receive threat warnings and obviously we go where we want to, when we want to in our area of operation," said Lt.-Cmdr. Pierre Babinsky.

"We obviously take notice of these warnings but our aim is to operate freely within our area of operation despite those."

Shorter Babinsky: you're not the boss of me.

Fine. But at what cost?

NATO troops have repeatedly been slammed by Karzai over civilian deaths and in a country where our soldiers are supposed to be winning hearts and minds as part of the counter-insurgency tactics, that arrogant statement by Babinsky certainly won't help the mission. There's a difference between being in charge of military maneuvers and writing off Afghan intel efforts that another suicide bombing is being planned. 4 of our soldiers were also wounded as a result. Was it absolutely necessary that Canadian troops be in Spin Boldak on Monday to the point where the commanders decided to move through despite the warnings?

Meanwhile, our utterly clueless defence minister, Peter MacKay, said these bombings don't signal an "escalation" in violence. Well, when 136 people are killed in 2 days, I certainly don't know what else you can call it. Just how many more people have to die in record numbers before MacKay acknowledges reality?

Update: The death toll from today's bombing has reached 38, with 30 Afghans critically wounded.
 

The Nation Exposes 'The Other War': Civilian Killings by the US Military in Iraq

Via The Nation, this one is a must read. Be prepared. It's lengthy. Here's the intro:

The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness

Chris Hedges & Laila Al-Arian

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.

Their stories, recorded and typed into thousands of pages of transcripts, reveal disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq. Dozens of those interviewed witnessed Iraqi civilians, including children, dying from American firepower. Some participated in such killings; others treated or investigated civilian casualties after the fact. Many also heard such stories, in detail, from members of their unit. The soldiers, sailors and marines emphasized that not all troops took part in indiscriminate killings. Many said that these acts were perpetrated by a minority. But they nevertheless described such acts as common and said they often go unreported--and almost always go unpunished.

Court cases, such as the ones surrounding the massacre in Haditha and the rape and murder of a 14-year-old in Mah­mudiya, and news stories in the Washington Post, Time, the London Independent and elsewhere based on Iraqi accounts have begun to hint at the wide extent of the attacks on civilians. Human rights groups have issued reports, such as Human Rights Watch's Hearts and Minds: Post-war Civilian Deaths in Baghdad Caused by U.S. Forces, packed with detailed incidents that suggest that the killing of Iraqi civilians by occupation forces is more common than has been acknowledged by military authorities.

This Nation investigation marks the first time so many on-the-record, named eyewitnesses from within the US military have been assembled in one place to openly corroborate these assertions.

I've done a lot of writing about civilian deaths in the wars that have raged on the last few years - always wondering what we didn't know about. Now, finally, at least some of this will be brought to light by the efforts of these courageous journalists and veterans. I think we all have a responsibility to closely examine what our countries' militaries are doing in our names and to hold those responsible accountable.

Excerpt:

"I'll tell you the point where I really turned," said Spc. Michael Harmon, 24, a medic from Brooklyn. He served a thirteen-month tour beginning in April 2003 with the 167th Armor Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division, in Al-Rashidiya, a small town near Baghdad. "I go out to the scene and [there was] this little, you know, pudgy little 2-year-old child with the cute little pudgy legs, and I look and she has a bullet through her leg.... An IED [improvised explosive device] went off, the gun-happy soldiers just started shooting anywhere and the baby got hit. And this baby looked at me, wasn't crying, wasn't anything, it just looked at me like--I know she couldn't speak. It might sound crazy, but she was like asking me why. You know, Why do I have a bullet in my leg?... I was just like, This is--this is it. This is ridiculous."

Civilian Deaths in Kandahar: A Globe & Mail Reporter Gets it Wrong

This is what the Globe and Mail's reporter Graeme Smith wrote in his piece "How Taliban exploit civilian casualties" on Monday:

The number of civilian deaths inflicted by NATO and U.S. operations in Afghanistan has risen dramatically, with roughly 300 killed so far this year.

One of the major exceptions to this trend has been in Kandahar province, where Canadian commanders say they haven't heard any complaints of civilian casualties in 2007.

So, who's lying? The "Canadian commanders" or Smith?

Via wiki:

* February 17, 2007 An unarmed man acting in a suspicious manner was shot and killed by Canadian troops near the village of Senjaray 12 km west of Kandahar[21]

* February 17, 2007 NATO troops shot and killed a civilian who was running through convoy near Kandahar[22]

* February 18, 2007 Canadian troops mistakenly gunned down an Afghan National Police officer and a homeless beggar after their convoy was ambushed in Kandahar City late Sunday[23]

* February 27, 2007 Canadian troops fire at a Toyota car that failed to stop at a security cordon around a broken down Canadian vehicle in the Kandahar area. One occupant is killed, the other is wounded. No weapons or bombs were found.[24]

Maybe that article should get a new headline: How Graeme Smith Denies Civilian Casualties
 

They're Just More Dead Civilians

The stories about the unending deaths of Afghan civilians, mainly as the result of "air strikes" (which is just a PC way of saying bombings), eat away at me.

Note the latest news:

More than 100 people, nearly half of them Afghan civilians, were killed in Nato air strikes against the Taliban this weekend, an investigation by local officials in Helmand province has concluded.

This, on the heels of repeated outcries for NATO to be more damn responsible while NATO spokespuppets issue the standard, meaningless apologies. It's just insulting. And although Karzai is trying to wrest control of the situation, he is virtually powerless to do anything to stop the killings while NATO's chief just wants to pay off the families and move on. (And what's the big topic of the day at that conference about Afghanistan? How much judges get paid. Get real.)

He [Karzai] has repeatedly called on US, Nato and Taliban forces to do more to prevent civilian casualties, warning that "Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such". And he has ordered foreign forces to co-ordinate military operations with the Afghan government. "From now on, they have to work the way we ask them to work in here."

Good luck with that. It's not going to happen.

And the military always uses the same excuse:

Major John Thomas, an Isaf spokesman told the Associated Press: "We don't mean to trivialise any of those who died but we want to make it clear that we believe the numbers are a dozen or less."

He blamed the Taliban for the civilian deaths, saying: "It's the enemy fighters who willingly fire when civilians are right next to them."

Now tell me, if London had decided to launch "air strikes" on Belfast to root out IRA terrorists, does anyone think this "human shield" line would have passed muster? Are you kidding me?

We are taught that "civilian casualties" are acceptable during war time but, while some may be absolutely unavoidable, when you have a situation like the one in Afghanistan where more ordinary people are being killed by the allied forces than by insurgents, isn't it time to rethink the military strategy - a strategy, by the way, which everyone has agreed will not even end the war there? Britain's government officials expect to be there for decades.

The US military is now also expanding attacks into Pakistan. How many more civilians will they kill there while their military pretends that fewer are dead than the real counts show?

Now, read this carefully:

Operations inside Pakistan might be carried out independently by the United States, probably with air power, by Pakistani forces acting alone or as joint offensives. In all cases, though, the US will pull the strings, for instance by providing the Pakistanis with information on targets to hit.

Musharraf has apparently already told his military commanders, the National Security Council and decision-makers in government of the development.

Officially, both NATO and Pakistan deny any agreement on hot-pursuit activities. Major John Thomas, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, told Asia Times Online, "The ISAF would not strike any targets across the border. That is not part of our mission. We work with the Pakistani government closely on cross-border issues. The ISAF does not have a counter-terrorism mission that I know of."

NATO is supposed to be in charge of military operations in Afghanistan, yet US forces are still free to do whatever they want to? Is it any wonder the place is still such a mess? And if the ISAF's mission does not include counter-terrorism, what is it still doing in Afghanistan?

This statement is from NATO's web site:

NATO is contributing to the fight against terrorism through military operations in Afghanistan, the Balkans and the Mediterranean and by taking steps to protect its populations and territory against terrorist attacks.

And this:

ISAF’s key military tasks include assisting the Afghan government in extending its authority across the country, conducting stability and security operations in co-ordination with the Afghan national security forces; mentoring and supporting the Afghan national army; and supporting Afghan government programmes to disarm illegally armed groups.

No counter-terrorism mission for ISAF? You're kidding, right?

In addition to that, as far as NATO involvement in attacks inside Pakistan go:

Islamabad on June 25 urged NATO-led forces to exercise “restraint” while conducting operations against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan along its border, days after scores of civilians were killed in air strikes by coalition planes and helicopter gunships inside Pakistan.

NATO forces reportedly fired several missiles on June 22 at two villages, leaving at least 33 people dead and more than 70 wounded in North and South Waziristan.

“This incident underscores the need for better coordination, care and restraint by NATO forces, especially when they are operating close to the border,” foreign office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam told reporters in Islamabad. “We have protested against this incident and we condemn the killing of civilians,” she added.

And I have to mention that the NATO leadership looked incredibly stupid after that:

NATO-led forces admitted June 25 that during an anti-insurgent operation near the shared border, their forces had mistakenly tracked rebels into Pakistani territory and killed up to 10 civilians.

“We regret two things: one that we mistakenly operated inside the Pakistani border, and secondly we regret the loss of civilians in our operation,” an International Security Assistance Force spokesman, Major John Thomas, said in Kabul.

Trained military personnel who don't know how to read maps or use a freaking compass or GPS system? Who are they trying to kid?

And meanwhile, on the Pakistan front, guess who's running the show for those operations?

Senior US officials, including John Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state, recently visited Pakistan to spell out to opposition leaders that the US is still behind Musharraf, although it will support the participation of secular, democratic political parties in government.

This development occurred even as Washington voiced its dissatisfaction over Musharraf's performance with regard to the Taliban: it pointed to Pakistan's clear involvement in supporting the insurgency in Helmand province since last year.

Indeed, the US was even prepared to withdraw its support of Musharraf, who seized power in 1999, but after a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney to Pakistan, the general remains in favor. Cheney's office is believed to run the United States' Pakistan policy.

What Dick wants, Dick gets. I'll bet he's even counting on flowers and candy.

The reasons are probably twofold: the US needs Pakistan's support should it attack Iran (covert operations into Iran are reportedly already taking place from Pakistan), and the US is concerned over the revival of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan

I think we all know that reason number #1 is the prime motivator for Bushco's continued support of Musharraf - to the tune of $1 billion per year. And Pakistan does have nukes, after all. The US administration knows that Musharraf is between a rock and a hard place politically, so he needs to be propped up in order to survive. Yes, another one of those flourishing "democracies" where Bushco actually runs the place. They're like franchises.

And because Dick just hasn't been able to come up with enough credible evidence to launch his war on Iran now, the newest meme is that there are Iranian weapons in Afghanistan. Karzai denies that charge.

Karzai has said there is no proof the Iranian-marked weapons are provided by Tehran.

"Iran and Afghanistan have never been as friendly as they are today," he said earlier this month.

But a defence ministry general said the government had "evidence", including documents, to prove the weapons were coming into the country for the Taliban, with Tehran's knowledge.

The official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, would not give further details.

Of course he wouldn't. It's spin.

Ratchet up that rhetoric, boys:

"Iran is giving the option to the US that if it does not give Iran a green light on the nuclear issue and its role in the region, Iran can turn Afghanistan into a second Iraq or Vietnam for them," the general said.

Another military general who asked not to be named agreed, saying, "Iran is baring its teeth to the US at this stage" -- but is also capable of destabilising Afghanistan.

I guess since the "hey, there are Iranian-made weapons in Iraq" thing didn't quite cut it, Buscho now has to figure out other ways to convince the world that bombing Iran is an absolute, imminent necessity.

So meanwhile, as these warmongering fools try to stir up even more trouble, they are doing absolutely nothing to make sure that they stop killing innocent people who are obviously just getting in the way of the glorious day when they will win the war on terror - which, by definition, is impossible.

It's a geopolitical game played on the backs of innocents. War for war's sake. War for profiteering. War for oil. Why should they care about dead men, women and children?

It's infuriating and it needs to end. What the hell is my country doing over there?

Related: Wiki's count of civilian deaths in Afghanistan since 2001
 

Justifying Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan

It never ceases to amaze me that military spokespeople can spew talking points full of denial and actually believe that others are too dense to see right through them.

How else can you interpret a statement like this - knowing that 90 Afghan civilians were killed last week in botched air strikes and ground combat?

We think the procedures that we have in place are good -- they work," he [U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel, NATO's deputy commander in eastern Afghanistan] told reporters at the Pentagon by videolink from Bagram Air Base near Kabul.

No - they don't, obviously.

And he added that "NATO forces had intentionally fired into Pakistan in one recent incident said to have resulted in the killing of civilians."

Now, think of all of the times the US has scolded other countries militaries or insurgent groups for crossing a national border. Think of Israel's response to Hezbollah soldiers crossing over from Lebanon last year and the revenge war that sparked. Yet, the US military has absolutely no qualms about killing Pakistani civilians while insisting that their methods to avoid civilian casualties "work".

Pakistani officials say 10 civilians were killed in the strikes in North Waziristan, opposite Afghanistan's Paktika province. Pakistan publicly urges foreign forces not to carry out operations on its territory or using its airspace.

And note:

Pakistan has said that NATO has apologized for the strike and told Pakistani officials the firing was inadvertent.

Inadvertent? Bullshit.

Addressing an incident last week in the border area with Pakistan, Votel said the local NATO commander had taken action after identifying a sizable group of insurgents that had come across the frontier into Afghanistan.

"The commander on the ground determined that he needed to continue to address that threat until it was eliminated, and that included firing into areas that were in Pakistan," he said.

Every time they open their mouths, they lie.
 

More Children Killed by a US Airstrike in Aghanistan

If there's one phrase that should immediately be removed from the military vernacular when it comes to describing dead civilians in a war zone, it is the completely depersonalizing term "collateral damage". Hit an empty building by mistake? Fine. That's "collateral damage". Kill innocent civilians? Sorry. You don't get to diminish their lives by referring to them as "collateral" or "damage". And, to add further insult to fatal injuries, you don't get to pay off the families with a measly few thousand dollars and walk away with a clear conscience - if you even had one to begin with.

For too long now, the use of military bombings by the US forces in Afghanistan have cost so many lives that one wonders if they've ever heard of the cliche "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results." Insanity seems to be the modus operandi of the US military strategy in Afghanistan. Just how many civilians will they kill before they figure out that their tactics are failing?

The lastest headline reads: 7 Children Killed in Airstrike in Afghanistan, but read the fine print:

More than 130 civilians have been killed in airstrikes and shootings in the past six months, according to Afghan authorities.

That toll may soon inflate dismally. Afghan officials said late Monday that more than 50 civilians may have died during fierce fighting over the past three days between NATO forces and the Taliban in the Chora district of the southern province of Uruzgan.

That's NATO - the coalition our Canadian forces are a part of. While Peter Mackay was busy throwing out the same worn out talking points in parliament on Monday about how schools and hospitals are being built, I don't recall him mentioning one word about civilian deaths. Of course he wouldn't and when and if this government does, it comes in the form of an appropriately quiet and sheepish statement of "regret" which is always followed by a "but" to explain just how our presence in Afghanistan is supposedly doing wonders. It's a completely unbalanced lie.

I'd like to see Mackay sit face to face with this man and try to spout off his happy stories, just to see what would happen:

“I have seen with my own eyes that women and children were badly hit by bombing,” said Mullah Ahmidullah Khan, head of Uruzgan’s provincial council. “The fighting is inside the villages, so that’s why the civilians are suffering casualties. I have met some families who have lost almost everyone.”

The US military meanwhile just blames al Qaeda for the children it killed.

Here's the deal people: if you're not 100% sure that there aren't any children or other civilians in your sights, you don't shoot and you sure as hell don't drop a bomb. According to the US spokesperson, they netted 7 "militants" in that air raid that killed those 7 children. Was the trade off worth it guys? You apparently seem to think so or you'd stop this madness. And if your government didn't send you enough damn troops to fight this war on the ground face to face, instead of from airplanes which you prefer to do now, maybe you should be talking to your bosses about that. Not that they fucking care. That's been obvious since the beginning of this so-called war.

So, you keep doing exactly what you're doing: creating generations of enemies while you're at it -- because that's all the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are accomplishing: dead and maimed people and new enemies. And, in case you haven't figured out what that means yet, let me spell it out for you: you're losing the "war on terror". You are terror.
 

NATO Chief Meets With Bush

It was a nice photo op anyway and it's the thought that counts, I suppose.

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush and
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Monday pledged to try to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan but blamed the Taliban for using human shields.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has protested the rising civilian death toll from U.S. and NATO operations trying to defeat a spring offensive by the Taliban.

Afghan officials say dozens of civilians have been killed in recent weeks. The growing death toll has triggered protests by Afghans demanding Karzai's resignation and the expulsion of American troops from Afghanistan.

"The Taliban likes to surround themselves with innocent civilians," Bush said. "They don't mind using human shields because they devalue human life."

Karzai has said Afghanistan could no longer accept civilian casualties, and a U.S. military commander apologized for the killing of 19 civilians by U.S. soldiers during an attack in March.

But, the US military has a history of justifying civilian casualties and then thinking that a weak apology and a few bucks handed out to survivors' relatives makes up for their incompetence.

Over the past month, Afghan officials reported 50 civilians killed in US air strikes in fighting in the western province in Herat, and another 21 in south central Helmand province. They followed a string of similar incidents last year as fighting intensified between NATO and Taliban forces, many of them involving air strikes called in by troops in the heat of battle. “Every time that happens someone walks away .. with a bad feeling either to NATO or the United States or its coalition members. That’s what we don’t want to happen,” General Bantz Craddock, NATO’s supreme allied commander, told reporters Friday.

The deaths have sparked public outrage at a time when NATO is facing a major challenge from the Taliban, creating a dilemma for commanders over whether the gains offered by air strikes are worth the loss in public support. Some analysts say too few troops on the ground, coupled with allied sensitivities about using ground forces and taking casualties, have made air power an irresistible option. “The problem is when you don’t have enough forces on the ground, and when those forces - especially with the variety of NATO countries - are restricted and there are deep concerns about casualties, air power is all you have left,” said Seth Jones, an analyst at the Rand Corporation, a think tank with ties to the US Air Force.

This is what happens when you fight a war on the cheap after you've decided that Iraq is where you're really supposed to be:

US special forces called in unusually heavy aerial support in fighting April 27 through April 30 in the remote Zerkoh Valley of Afghanistan’s western Herat province.

Air force B-1B bombers and F-15E fighters dropped 2,000 pound and 500 pound satellite-guided bombs on Taliban positions and on at least one compound that had been used as a firing position, according to air force summaries. A US military press release said an AC-130 gunship also was used to kill a large number of fighters. It put the total Taliban dead in two days of fighting at 136. Later, though, Afghan and UN officials said the bodies of 50 civilians were recovered, and differing accounts have emerged over whether US forces engaged Taliban fighters or armed villagers fighting off foreign intruders.

The US military has provided no explanation of what happened, or acknowledged any civilians were killed in the fighting. Officials said the commander on the scene used “appropriate level of force” to protect his unit. The rules under which a commander is required to operate are classified, so it is not known what restrictions are placed on them. Military officials say they go to great lengths, using surveillance aircraft and “eyes on the ground” to positively identify their targets, and hold back if they cannot.

Obviously, that's not working.
 

Afghanistan: 21 Civilians Killed by Airstrike

Via Reuters:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An air strike by Western forces killed 21 civilians, including women and children, in Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Wednesday, the latest in a string of civilian casualties that has riled Afghans.

The incident, which brings to nearly 90 the number of civilian deaths blamed by Afghan officials on Western troops in the past two weeks, comes as President Hamid Karzai faces rising pressure to halt the bloodshed and find a way to start peace talks with Taliban insurgents.

90 dead.

Saying your sorry and dishing out a few thousand dollars to family members is not enough: "The U.S. commander for eastern Afghanistan, Army Colonel John Nicholson, apologized on Tuesday for the killing of 19 civilians by U.S. troops just over a month ago."

Johnson added:

"I stand before you today, deeply, deeply ashamed and terribly sorry that Americans have killed and wounded innocent Afghan people," US army spokesman Col John Nicholson told reporters in Washington by video conference from Afghanistan.

"The deaths and wounding of innocent Afghans at the hands of Americans is a stain on our honour and on the memory of the many Americans who have died defending Afghanistan and the Afghan people.

The US military's so-called "honour" was stained a long time ago and feeling ashamed does nothing to bring back those who died needlessly. As nice as it is that he is actually expressing some humanity and responsibility, the thousands of Afghanis who protested these civilian killings would appreciate some assurances that these types of miscalculations will not happen again.

This latest incident shows that they have yet to learn from their mistakes and, in fact, the military again immediately denied reports of dead civilians and claimed they were all members of the Taliban - women and children included.

The bloodshed has returned to levels not seen since the fall of the Taleban in 2001, and a quarter of more than 4,000 people killed last year were believed to have been civilians.

Correspondents say fewer civilians are killed by international forces than in suicide and other attacks by the Taleban.

Well, that's comforting, isn't it? Right.

The way to win those "hearts and minds" is to start by making damn sure you're not killing innocent people. The survivors tend to have very long memories.
 

Bloody Saturday Indeed

Via antiwar.com: 168 Iraqis Killed, 180 Injured, 26 Kidnapped

Via Reuters:

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed at least 40 people and wounded scores at a crowded bus station near a Shi'ite shrine in the Iraqi holy city of Kerbala on Saturday, police and hospital sources said.

In Baghdad, police said a suicide car bomber detonated his device near a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing 10 people and setting fire to cars in the second major attack on a bridge in the capital in the past three days.

Television footage of the aftermath of the Kerbala explosion showed a distraught man cradling the charred body of a small child, and witnesses said the blast sent body parts flying into the air. Ambulances rushed to the scene.

"I suddenly heard a horrifying explosion. I had never expected that Kerbala would see an explosion of that size because it is a safe city," said Ali Mussawi, 30, a store owner who was 50 meters (yards) from the blast.

Not anymore.

Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney continue their whinefest because no one's letting them get their way, although they may certainly get their demands met when it comes to Iran - thanks to the Democrats.

Back to Iraq though...

And, while Bush keeps insisting that he is guided by the commanders on the ground, it seems more than a bit odd that General Petraeus, according to the Army Times, was "surprised" by the announcement of troop extensions by Gates this past week.

The Pentagon was forced to announce the shift, which includes extending the deployment of every active Army unit already in Iraq to 15 months, “a couple of days” earlier than planned because the information had been leaked to the news media, the senior military official said.

The Pentagon had planned to send news of the pending announcement down through official channels so that military personnel and their families would have advance notice, the official said. “Somebody in the Pentagon leaked it, [and] that forced [the Office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates] to go early,” the official said.

Right. Like we're supposed to believe what some unnamed military official says. The MSM has been more than willing to sit on stories much more important than this one when they've been asked to by the government in the past.

Saber-rattling Turkey is still threatening to cross the Iraq border to attack the Kurds and since al Maliki has obviously failed to gain control of his country, it remains to be seen how he can possibly handle another incursion. The EU Commission is the intermediary in that dispute. Where's Condi?

And I have some good news...and some bad news...:

BAGHDAD - Iraqi civilian deaths have fallen in Baghdad in the two months since the Feb. 14 start of the U.S.-led offensive, according to an Associated Press tally.

Outside the capital, however, civilian deaths are up as Sunni and Shiite extremists shift their operations to avoid the crackdown.

And the sweeps have taken a heavy toll on U.S. forces: Deaths among American soldiers climbed 21 percent in Baghdad compared with the previous two months. [ed. the US death toll is inching close to 3,300].
[...]
Figures compiled by the AP from Iraqi police reports show that 1,586 civilians were killed in Baghdad between the start of the offensive and Thursday.

That represents a sharp drop from the 2,871 civilians who died violently in the capital during the two months that preceded the security crackdown.

Outside the capital, 1,504 civilians were killed between Feb. 14 and Thursday, April 12 compared with 1,009 deaths during the two previous months, the AP figures show.

The insurgents have adjusted and the so-called coalition of the surging has yet to catch up.

As Joseph Galloway writes:

It will be costly and painful to prolong the war in Iraq for another 21 months so that those who started it can hand off the harder decision of how to end it to the next occupant of the White House.

President Bush isn't extending and expanding the war in a search for victory. His dream of victory in Iraq cannot be achieved. Not by sending 30,000 more American troops. Not by making parts of Baghdad temporarily safer by billeting American troops in violent neighborhoods and pushing the slaughter into the northern and southern suburbs - or into the Green Zone where U.S. and Iraqi officials live and work.

Not by letting American soldiers bear the brunt of combat, targeted not only by our enemies, the Sunni Muslim insurgents but also by our supposed allies, the Shiite majority and the murderous militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. In March, more American troops died in Iraq than Iraqi soldiers.

This is a search for a fig leaf to cover the emperor’s nakedness - a way for Bush to go home to Texas with a ringing but hollow declaration that "Iraq wasn't lost on my watch."

And there's no guarantee that whoever occupies the White House next will end the Iraq war anytime soon either.
 

Bolton to be Investigated?

Last week, John Bolton told the BBC that he was "damned proud" of the fact that the US refused to work for an early ceasefire in the Israel/Lebanon war. "He said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel's campaign wasn't working." In other words, the Bush administration's failure to seek a ceasefire cost hundreds of people their lives. You'll recall the last minute blitz by the IDF against Lebanon when the Israeli government knew UN resolution 1701 was going to be passed by the UN security council. It was a final act of desperation in a war they had already lost.

Now, the the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is calling for a congressional investigation into Bolton's revelations.

In January, the US Department of State issued a preliminary report to Congress indicating that the State Department might have found evidence that Israel violated bilateral weapons agreements when it dropped US-made cluster bombs on civilian populations in Lebanon last summer. According to reports from international human rights organizations, it was determined that Israeli Defense Forces dropped more than 130,000 cluster bombs containing 1.2 million cluster bomblets in 498 locations in villages throughout southern Lebanon. These cluster bombs are in addition to those already present in southern Lebanon from previous Israeli operations.
[...]
It should be noted, Israel dropped the majority of unexploded ordinances in Lebanon during the last 72 hours of the conflict before an impending cease fire deadline. Bolton's remarks to BBC indicate that the delay in implementing this ceasefire was a result of deliberate actions by the United States. The 2006 war in Lebanon resulted in well over 1,000 Lebanese civilian deaths, 43 Israeli civilian deaths, approximately 4,500 Lebanese civilian injuries, and approximately 4,000 Israeli civilian injuries. The war displaced over one million Lebanese civilians from their homes and resulted in an environmental tragedy creating the largest ever oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea with over four million gallons of oil leaking into the Mediterranean as a result of Israeli bombing of Lebanese power plants. According to reports, the damage to Lebanon's infrastructure and economy is estimated to surpass four billion dollars.

We also recently learned through leaked testimony that Olmert had been planning the war against Lebanon for months before the generally accepted reason (one of a few justifications) - the seizure of IDF soldiers (which became the cause celebre) - was used as an excuse to spur on a plan that had already been set in motion. It was just a matter of waiting for the right timing.

Further:

And second, we have an interview in the Israeli media with Meyrav Wurmser, the wife of one of the highest officials in the Bush Administration, David Wurmser, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s adviser on the Middle East. Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli citizen, is herself closely associated with MEMRI, a group translating (and mistranslating) speeches by Arab leaders and officials that is known for its ties to the Israeli secret services.

She told the website of Israel's leading newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, that the US stalled over imposing a ceasefire during Israel's assault on Lebanon because the Bush Administration was expecting the war to be expanded to Syria.

"The anger [in the White House] is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the Syrians. The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space. They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its [Iran's] strategic and important ally [Syria] should be hit."

In other words, the picture that emerges is of a long-standing plan by the Israeli army, approved by senior US officials, for a rapid war against Lebanon -- followed by possible intimidatory strikes against Syria -- using the pretext of a cross-border incident involving Hizbullah. The real purpose, we can surmise, was to weaken what are seen by Israel and the US to be Tehran's allies before an attack on Iran itself.

That was why neither the Americans nor Israel wanted, or appear still to want, to negotiate with Assad over the Golan and seek a peace agreement that could -- for once -- change the map of the Middle East for the better.

Many, of course, posited that the Israel/Lebanon war was just a proxy war against Iran and Syria and while the Israeli government was failing, the pressure for sanctions against Iran was racheted up via UN resolution 1696 (which was followed up again this weekend with yet another resolution. This time, however, the Bush administration didn't get everything it was asking for.)

Justin Raimondo was certainly prescient back in December, 2005 when he wrote this:

Syria is now girding for the imposition of economic sanctions and trying to head off the campaign to destabilize the country on two fronts: by restarting talks with Israel, and by cooperating with the request to permit Syrian officials to be questioned in the Hariri investigation. I have the funny feeling, however, that this is not going to do them a lot of good, as far as their enemies in the West are concerned. As we have seen in the case of Iraq, when the U.S. wants to manufacture a case for war, it can be done pretty easily: Congress is not likely to ask inconvenient questions until it's too late, and the American people can hardly be expected to keep up with arcane doings in faraway Lebanon, the scene of the intrigue and obscure religious-ethnic rivalries that could spark another Mideast war. Acting pretty much without either congressional or public scrutiny, this administration thinks it can get away with anything when it comes to Syria – and in that, they are probably right.

If things had gone differently in the Israel/Lebanon war, it definitely is possible that Syria would have been brought into the armed conflict as well.

I imagine John Bolton was severely disappointed by the IDF's failure - that is, if he actually feels anything at all - about anything. Only a sociopath would be "damned proud" that he engineered a strategy that cost more people their lives based on a failed neocon ideology that places military might above all else.

Will the Democratic congress, most of which supported Israel's war, agree to investigate Bolton? I guess we'll have to wait and see...
 

Two Very Disturbing War Stories

One from Afghanistan. The other from Iraq.

Afghanistan:

Thousands of angry demonstrators took to the streets in Afghanistan yesterday after US forces were involved in a panicked shooting which left 16 civilians dead and 23 injured.

Local people as well as a number of Afghan officials accused the American marines of opening fire indiscriminately following a suicide bomb attack on their convoy in Nangarhar province.

With protests continuing to grow, and the police coming under attack from stone- throwing crowds, the US military maintained that the casualties were the victims of a "complex ambush" in which gunmen had carried out a synchronised attack following the blast in which a marine was injured.

But Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar district, where the deaths took place, insisted that they "treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker" as they attempted to speed away from the scene of the explosion.

Abdul Ghafour and Noor Agha Zwak, speaking on behalf of the Nangarhar police and government, and Zemeri Bashary, the Interior Ministry spokesman in Kabul, also claimed the deaths and injuries were due to American fire.

Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Monday, March 5 — Iraqi special forces and British troops stormed the offices of an Iraqi government intelligence agency in the southern city of Basra on Sunday, and British officials said they discovered about 30 prisoners, some showing signs of torture.
[...]
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite, condemned the raid in Basra. He publicly said nothing about the evidence of torture.

“The prime minister has ordered an immediate investigation into the incident of breaking into the security compound in Basra and stressed the need to punish those who have carried out this illegal and irresponsible act,” said the full text of a statement issued late Sunday by his office.

It remained unclear why he sought to pursue the raiding force aggressively rather than the accusations of prisoner abuse. Efforts to reach officials in his office were unsuccessful.

The civilian deaths in Afghanistan will obviously be the subject of an investigation resulting in the usual conflicting reports.

The raid in Basra and al-Maliki's response to it however ought to be raising some serious red flags for those who have gushed about how cooperative and compliant he's been. This situation, coupled with his terse dismissal of an alleged rape perpetrated by Iraqi security officials in February, shows a man who is far too devoted to sectarian interests to be an effective leader of a country in grave turmoil at a time when bridges need to be built between the warring religious factions.

The discovery of prisoners in the Basra offices, which the British described as the headquarters of Iraq’s government intelligence agency, echoed other recent cases in which American or British forces stumbled onto a government-run detention center that held people showing signs of torture.

As recently as December, a combined force of British and Iraqi troops assaulted a police station in Basra and rescued 127 prisoners from fetid conditions. Some of the prisoners had been tortured.

The most significant recent case involved a secret Baghdad prison run by the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry, known as Site 4 and discovered by American and Iraqi troops last year, where more than 1,400 prisoners were discovered and where some had been subjected to systematic abuse.

al-Maliki has promised a cabinet shuffle within the next couple of weeks in an attempt, he says, to root out corruption. That certainly remains to be seen, especially if he continues to come to the defence of forces that are torturing and raping people. I have a feeling he won't be around much longer - nor should he be - unless the US decides to continue to prop him up so they can get their oil deals sealed.

Related: Media Censorship by the US Military in Afghanistan following the suicide bombing.
 

It's simple: Ban Cluster Bombs

The New York Times reports that the US government might be prepared to give Israel a slap on the wrist over its use of American-supplied cluster bombs during the Israel/Lebanon war last year.

98% of recorded cluster munitions casualties that are registered with Handicap International are civilians. Cluster munitions are hotly opposed by many individuals and hundreds of groups, such as the Red Cross,[1] the Cluster Munition Coalition and the United Nations, because of the high proportion of civilians that have fallen victim to the weapon. Since February 2005, Handicap International called for cluster munitions to be prohibited and collected hundreds of thousands signatures to support its call.

And remember this from Afghanistan?

In addition, some cluster bomblets, such as the CBU-87, are brightly colored in order to increase their visibility and warn off civilians. However, the color, coupled with their small and nonthreatening appearance has caused children to interpret them as toys. This problem was exacerbated in the United States military action against Afghanistan, when US forces dropped humanitarian rations from airplanes with the same yellow colored packaging as the BLU97. The rations packaging was later changed first to blue and then to clear packaging in the hopes of avoiding such hazardous confusion.

As Human Rights Watch reported last summer:

Human Rights Watch conducted detailed analyses of the U.S. military's use of cluster bombs in the 1999 Yugoslavia war, the 2001-2002 Afghanistan war, and the 2003 Iraq war. Human Rights Watch research established that the use of cluster munitions in populated areas in Iraq caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the U.S.-led coalition's conduct of major military operations in March and April 2003, killing and wounding more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians. Roughly a quarter of the 500 civilian deaths caused by NATO bombing in the 1999 Yugoslavia war were also due to cluster munitions.

This is what happens when cluster bombs are dropped on innocent civilians:

According to eyewitnesses and survivors of the [Blida] attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Israel fired several artillery-fired cluster munitions at Blida around 3 p.m. on July 19. The witnesses described how the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village. They clearly described the submunitions as smaller projectiles that emerged from their larger shells.

The cluster attack killed 60-year-old Maryam Ibrahim inside her home. At least two submunitions from the attack entered the basement that the Ali family was using as a shelter, wounding 12 persons, including seven children. Ahmed Ali, a 45-year-old taxi driver and head of the family, lost both legs from injuries caused by the cluster munitions. Five of his children were wounded: Mira, 16; Fatima, 12; ?Ali, 10; Aya, 3; and `Ola, 1. His wife Akram Ibrahim, 35, and his mother-in-law `Ola Musa, 80, were also wounded. Four relatives, all German-Lebanese dual nationals sheltering with the family, were wounded as well: Mohammed Ibrahim, 45; his wife Fatima, 40; and their children Ali, 16, and Rula, 13.

30 August 2006 The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.

UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.

Israel has repeated its previous insistence that munitions it uses in conflict comply with international law.
[...]
UN efforts to rid Lebanon of cluster bombs have been under way since the conflict ended. Earlier estimates from UN experts had suggested a total of about 100 cluster bomb sites.

Mr Egeland described the fresh statistics as "shocking new information".

"What's shocking and completely immoral is: 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," he said.

So, stories about how the Bush administration might suddenly get tough with the Israel government over its use of cluster bombs that his government gave to them are not even worth the paper they're printed on.

The Khan Defection

Liberal MP Wajid Khan has crossed the floor to officially join the tories - a move not wholly unexpected considering his recent and controversial history in the Liberal party.

From August 2006:

OTTAWA — Liberal leaders were put on the defensive Wednesday by MPs in their own party for allowing Wajid Khan to take on the role of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's special adviser on the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Some Liberal MPs also called on Mr. Khan to either quit the post or the party.
[...]
Mr. Harper's parliamentary secretary, Jason Kenney, said Tuesday that Mr. Khan has had discussions with the government since May, when he expressed concern that the government was not explaining Canada's role in Afghanistan well enough.But some Liberals believe Mr. Harper is hoping to use the appointment of a Muslim-Canadian Liberal MP to deflect criticisms of his early strong defence of Israel's actions in Lebanon — a position he has recently sought to soften.

Khan's comments today:

“I must say that I did not come to this decision lightly,” Mr. Kahn said. “But quite frankly, the Liberal Party has moved away from people like me.

“People who believe in free enterprise, support for families and a stronger, more assertive Canada on the world stage.”

Mr. Khan also cited party leadership as an important factor in his decision, describing Mr. Harper as “the best leader for Canada.”

There's a difference between an 'assertive' Canada and an 'aggressive' Canada, Mr Khan. And it's also quite interesting that you seriously criticized this tory government back in July 2006, whose foreign policy you have now come to see as being 'assertive':

Stumbling on the world stage-Harper and the Middle East

The events of the past week in Lebanon have been troubling for some Canadians and tragic for others. The deaths of eight Canadian citizens in the Israeli bombardment have caused widespread consternation, especially given that in Harper’s view, Israel is simply taking a “measured response”. Let’s be clear, the taking of civilian lives, whether by Hezbollah terrorism or by Israeli military action, whether by design, or as part of what today’s politicians euphemistically call “collateral damage”, can never be justified.

I strongly believe that in the current period of global instability, especially in the context of the Middle East, Canada has a unique opportunity to assert itself as a moderate and engaging voice on global and regional issues and to solidify and expand its influence on the world stage. With that influence however, Canada also has a responsibility to be the voice that stresses diplomacy and opens lines of communications with world leaders.

We should be taking it upon ourselves to open up lines of dialogue with nations such as Iran, Israel and Syria, whatever their past or future intentions, in order to follow a path of constructive engagement and to look for positive ways of resolving conflict.

From the machinations of the past week however, it has become obvious that Canada’s attempts to create its own strong and independent voice in the global arena, and the chance to act as the honest broker, are in danger of being squandered by the foreign policy manoeuvres of the Conservative government. At the G-8 leaders meeting, Mr. Harper unequivocally wrapped himself around the US policy of unqualified support for Israel’s military actions. While it has always been important to maintain good relations and where appropriate, support the actions of the United States, the Conservative government’s inability to articulate its own policy in the Middle East and attempts to curry favour with the Bush administration cannot and should not supplant Canada’s existing foreign relations capital, nor our potential to be a sober and moderate voice of reason in the world.

How did you arrive at this new found support for the Conservative government now after having written such a stinging attack just 6 months ago?

Enjoy your brief stint in the ruling tories with the so-called bestest leader while it lasts Mr Khan because you and he will be gone when the elections are held later this year and any influence you may have hoped to have regarding Canada's foreign policy will have been squandered.

This move, of course, now gives more power to the NDP who have the numbers to act in concert with the tories to get their regressive legislation passed and if Jack Layton continues pandering to Steve, he won't last long on the national stage either.

It promises to be an interesting year.

Quote du Jour: On Killing Afghan Civilians

Speaking in the capital, Kabul, Nato spokesman Brigadier Richard Nugee said the alliance was working to change its tactics in 2007 - and civilian casualties were the number one issue to be addressed.

"I believe the single thing that we have done wrong and we are striving extremely hard to improve on is killing innocent civilians," he said.

So, is he saying that NATO is going to improve on how they kill innocent civilians or that it will try not to?

(kidding)

There is no doubt that winning the whole 'hearts and minds' thing involves admitting your mistakes and then trying to do better. NATO could improve that situation by being honest when its troops do kill civilians instead of issuing standard denials that are the stock in trade of military aggressors who believe they somehow maintain the moral high ground by dismissing accounts of civilian deaths from area residents. There have been too many such instances where Afghans (and Iraqis) have been made to look like liars when they decry these deaths and are struck by the almighty hand of the military in an insulting and degrading way for simply trying to get the truth out.

Karzai has repeatedly warned the forces in his country to use extreme caution as he has publicly excoriated the coalition for being careless to the point of callousness at times when civilians have been killed. But, there is nothing he can do to change what's happening.

The war being waged in Afghanistan still follows Rumsfeld's rule of using a stealth force to tackle a hugely complicated situation. Everyone has paid for that and will continue to do so now that the NATO allies are not only overstretched but also weary of that war. History has shown how difficult it is to deal with a country like Afghanistan and that is being borne out to this day. NATO won't be able to kill its way out of this one. It's time for a sharper focus on political solutions involving all of the players in the region - most particularly Pakistan.

Wanker of the Day

Because some people just don't get it:

While neither the media nor the Left will pause to take note, there are a few other numbers we can justifiably project for ourselves on this New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2006.

An estimated 16,692 persons were murdered nationwide in 2005, an increase of 3.4 percent from the 2004 figure.

Murder comprised 1.2 percent of the overall estimated number of violent crimes in 2005. (Based on Table 1.)

There were an estimated 5.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

Based upon the 2005 figures, approximately 46 Americans are killed within our borders every day. The Iraq War officially began on March 20, 2003 - approximately 1,375 days ago. Consequently, one can project that well over 63,000 Americans have died at the hands of other Americans since the beginning of the war.

It might do a person some good to think that our media and our Left cared just that much more about the 3,000 military deaths over the same period because they were proud members of our military ... serving our country with courage, dignity and honor. Unfortunately, given that both the media and the Left seem so quick to ignore the more than 63,000 civilian deaths which have occurred during the same time period, I don't know that I will take much comfort from what will likely be their over-coverage of this particular milestone in the Iraq War.

Watch the Riehl World View site for announcements of sympathy for every single one of those murder victims during 2007.

Not.

That bit of astute political analysis was brought to you by the same man who also penned this:

All they can do, day in and day out, is bash the administration and complain about the war. In some twisted way, even Saddam almost looks more noble compared to the faceless editors of the NY Times. At least he is going to take responsibility and ultimately die for his crimes.
[...]
it's unclear if executing Saddam will help Iraq move forward, though a good case can be made that it will. Alas, it will have to do, I suppose. Unfortunately, we can't just up and execute an editor for the Times, instead ... even if eliminating such a profane source of enemy propaganda might actually help Iraq.

Heh! Watch that last bit set the Liberals off! ; )

Set us off? No. Sorry. Making oneself look absolutely pathetic by writing mindless garbage like that doesn't set me off. It just makes me shake my head over the fact that you have fans who actually think what you write is in any way valuable.

Are there any other journalists you'd like to kill, Mr Riehl?

Iraq Death Toll Reaches New High

The death toll in Iraq continues to rise at an alarming rate as hundreds of thousands flee to safety in neighbouring countries, a UN report revealed on Wednesday:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi deaths hit a new high in October and 100,000 people are fleeing abroad every month to escape worsening violence that is segregating the country on sectarian lines, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.

Painting a grim picture of a population caught in the cross-fire between insurgents, militias, criminal gangs and security forces, the bimonthly report put civilian deaths in October at 3,709 -- 120 a day and up from 3,345 in September.

Under growing pressure from an impatient Bush administration to do more to curb the violence, the Iraqi government accused the United Nations of exaggerating the death toll to "mislead the world". U.N. officials said they stood by their figures.

The Health Minister asserts that the death toll is only 1/4 of the UN number. al-Maliki actually banned the ministry from releasing any figures last month so, while it disputes the UN toll, it hasn't offered any real, documented figures of its own.

A month ago, it [the UN] said Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office had banned the Health Ministry and morgue from giving it data, saying this would be controlled by the premier's office.

An official in the Maliki's media office declined to give any figures on Wednesday and referred inquiries to Shimeri.

The minister is a supporter of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia is blamed by Sunnis for death squad violence. It is a charge Sadr, a key ally of Maliki, insistently denies.

Shimeri's apparent estimate of less than 1,000 violent deaths in October is at odds with a figure given to Reuters by a source at the morgue, who said last week it alone received about 1,600 bodies in October, about 1,350 of whom died violently.

Playing politics with the number of people who have died in Iraq in order to claim that the situation is not as bad as it seems, despite daily reports like this which revealed that 101 Iraqis died today, is certainly not conducive to coming up with any kind of coherent strategy to end the violence.

Iraqis and the rest of the world have the right to know how many have perished as a result of this illegal war and despite the Iraqi and US governments efforts to hide the truth, some day we will know. You can't hide that truth forever. The people who have died have family and friends whose grief cannot be ignored and who deserve to have the fate of their loved ones acknowledged. It's cruel that the death of every single coalition soldier is noted and recorded while Iraqis who suffer the same end are treated like non-humans whose lives don't count - literally.

Photo credit: AP

The Cluster Bomb Legacy

As if there weren't enough destructive weapons in a standard army's arsenal, the use of cluster bombs as so-called legitimate munitions can only be seen as an act of cowardly desperation and inhumanity.

There will now be an investigation into the use of these bombs during the Israel/Lebanon war this past summer:

The top echelons of the Israel Defense Forces ordered cluster bombs be used during the war in Lebanon and authorized every target north of the Litani River, including those in densely populated areas, a commander in the IDF's Multiple Launch Rocket System unit said on Monday.

The commander said that his unit, which was responsible for all cluster bombs fired at the Litani, had fired numerous rockets north of the river. He said all targets were authorized by the IDF's general staff.
[...]
IDF artillery, MLRS and aircraft are thought to have delivered thousands of cluster bombs, containing a total of some 4 million bomblets, during the war.
[...]
Each rocket or shell can contain as many as several hundred bomblets, which are meant to disperse over an area of hundreds of square meters, exploding as they hit the ground.

Since the cease-fire went into effect on August 14, at least 22 civilians, including many children, have been killed and 134 others injured by unexploded bomblets.

To date, roughly 58,000 unexploded bomblets have been discovered at about 800 different sites in southern Lebanon. Most are near populated areas.

The United Nations demining unit believes that as much as 30 to 40 percent of bomblets may be duds. This translates into hundreds of thousands of unexploded bomblets throughout southern Lebanon, which endanger the lives of residents and block farmers from working their land.

According to testimony of an MLRS battery commander published in Haaretz, MLRS rockets were heavily used, even though they are known to be very inaccurate - the rockets may deviate up to 1,200 meters from their target - and a substantial percentage of the bomblets are known not to explode, thus becoming mines. In light of this, most experts view cluster ammunitions to be "non-discerning" weapons prohibited for use in a civilian environment.

According to the officer, in order to compensate for the rockets' lack of precision, they were told to "flood" the area with them. "We have no option of striking an isolated target, and the commanders know this very well," he said.

Wars don't end when the sides stop shooting at each other. These cluster bombs promise to kill and maim as long as they remain on the ground. There is no international treaty banning cluster bombs and that ought to be a global issue of concern.

You'll recall the fiasco that ensued when the used cluster bombs in Afghanistan and then dropped food packages that were the same colour.

They have also been used in Iraq with the expected, dark consequences.

According to information received by Human Rights Watch, the U.S. inventory alone contains more than one billion individual submunitions. The United States has more than forty different types of air and surface-delivered cluster bombs and submunitions. It is thought that at least eighteen nations produce cluster munitions and more than four dozen have stockpiles of the weapons.

You would think that the fact that these bombs indiscriminately kill civilians and those charged with cleaning them up would finally prompt governments to ban their use. But, the fact that the US won't even sign the treaty that banned landmines speaks volumes. They simply don't care who is really injured or killed no matter how much they apologize or assert that 'mistakes' have been made when civilians die needlessly. After all, there's big money to be made by military contractors who produce these weapons of mass destruction. That is the legacy of this military-industrial complex that Eisenhower expressed caution about in 1961.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

How prescient he was. Unfortunately.

All is not fair in love and war, contrary to the popular cliche. Wars will continue as long as those in power have their way and there is no such thing as a humane war but is it to much to ask that civilians are protected as much as possible in conflicts perpetrated by major military behemoths like the US and Israel? Apparently so. Their indifference to civilian deaths weakens their assertions that they hold the moral high ground - a place they should never have been exalted to in the first place.