Bin Laden murder wah wah wah

I had this steaming pile brought to my attention yesterday, and while I'm aware there is absolutely no point in trying to convince the conspiratorially inclined to reconsider, using such weak weapons as reason and evidence, I succumbed to the temptation to give it a more-than-cursory-dismissal (1). I suppose it can stand for all the other crap out there, as it is much of a muchness.

Well, I got as far as "Obama murdered Osama bin Laden," before I started to entertain doubts as to the piece's credibility. Unfortunately, that's the very first line. To advance such a claim, the author must have some remarkable evidence to back it up, showing that Bin laden was killed without provocation and the SEALS had no goal other than his death. Astute legal argument as to the legality or otherwise of his death could be expected. Yet, I note, not a single footnote citing a source for this.

In the second paragraph, we're assured, "there's no attempt to arrest him or bring him to justice," another remarkable claim given no substantiation. Yes, I know. He was shot. He wasn't carrying a gun. But he had after being challenged. He was the head of a terrorist network which glorifies martyrdom. He could easily have been wearing a suicide vest, or grabbing a grenade, or seeking some means to take a few of the infidels with him. The SEALS were justified in killing him. It's an unfortunate reality of military operations that people sometimes die. Just as people perceived as dangerous may be shot if they the resist police.

After that it turns into a standard whine about how everything would have been different under Bush - the left would have "protested Bush's violations of international law and basic human rights. They would have complained about killing the Al Qaeda leader before questioning him about possible terrorist plots. They would have demanded investigations."

Really? Plenty of things were done by Bush that the (sane) left accepted. It was only his egregious offenses that provoked protests. Of course, the insane left protested everything - just like they are doing now over the killing of Bin Laden. To justify the claim of hypocritical silence by the left, Rall would have to demonstrate that killing a legitimate target resisting capture was on a par with, oh, I dunno, illegally invading a country based on blatantly trumped up evidence. But Rall, as pointed out earlier, completely fails to make that case. It must be, because he says so, is what his argument amounts to.

Then we get more wailing about Manning's "torture" - though again, unsubstantiated. Not one authoritative source is identified as describing Manning's treatment as torture. PJ Crowley didn't, for example, didn't describe it in those terms, even though he saw fit to resign over it (2).

Then, towards the end, there's a logical howler. Rall states Bin Laden never claimed responsibility for 9-11, and even denied responsibility in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity. Rall dismisses various alleged admissions as CIA framing, or "trying to keep himself relevant for his Islamist audience." Sorry, but that sort of special pleading can be deployed to account for later admissions, it can also be used to account for earlier denials. Perhaps Bin Laden denied (direct) responsibility to avoid being handed over by the Taliban, or to buy time, or who knows?

But Rall isn't playing fair, or even playing unfairly but with-in the rules. He's just writing shit.

1 - "What If Right Made Might: Reimagining the Assassination of Bin Laden," by Ted Rall. Posted on Information Clearing House, 11th of May, 2011. (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28073.htm)
2 - "PJ Crowley: 'No regrets' over Bradley Manning remarks," unattributed BBC article. Published by the BBC, 28th of March, 2011. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12886702)

Lefties, stop pissing your pants

So, Osama Bin laden wasn't holding a gun when he was shot (1). This doesn't make it a 'revenge killing' as Idiot/Savant makes out (2). Not on currently available information.

Think about it reasonably, for a minute, chaps. Bin Laden was a fanatical terrorist. The SEALS may have been anticipating him triggering a suicide vest, intending on taking a few of the infidels with him.

That was a very real possibility, and in that case, any movement other than putting his hands up might have been enough to justify shooting him.

1 - "Osama bin Laden's final moments: America changes its story," by Ewan MacAskill. Published in The Guardian, 3rd of May, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/03/osama-bin-laden-final-moments)
2 - "A Revenge Killing," posted by Idiot/Savant on No Right Turn, 4th of May, 2011. (http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2011/05/revenge-killing.html)

Unspeakable

Following the the Granai air strikes last year, I posted some angry comments about the US Marines MarSOC unit, which had been involved in the operation, along with others which had featured large numbers of civilian deaths in Afghanistan (1).

I described their actions as "savages" who were "killing innocent people for sport." That wasn't entirely fair, but I was sickened by the high death tolls, and the reckless, counter-productive strategy employed.

Now, however, it looks like there really are US soldiers in Afghanistan doing just that - killing civilians simply because it amuses them, with no military goal at all, however ill conceived:

Morlock and another soldier, Andrew Holmes, were on guard at the edge of a poppy field when Mudin emerged and stopped on the other side of a wall from the soldiers. Gibbs allegedly handed Morlock a grenade who armed it and dropped it over the wall next to the Afghan and dived for cover. Holmes, 19, then allegedly fired over the wall.

Later in the day, Morlock is alleged to have told Holmes that the killing was for fun and threatened him if he told anyone.

The second victim, Marach Agha, was shot and killed the following month. Gibbs is alleged to have shot him and placed a Kalashnikov next to the body to justify the killing. In May Mullah Adadhdad was killed after being shot and attacked with a grenade.

The Army Times reported that a least one of the soldiers collected the fingers of the victims as souvenirs and that some of them posed for photographs with the bodies.

Five soldiers – Gibbs, Morlock, Holmes, Michael Wagnon and Adam Winfield – are accused of murder and aggravated assault among other charges. All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted. (2)

While they may have be facing justice, it does beg questions about how much of this sort of stuff is going on. It's barbaric, the sort of savagery that we were meant to be saving the Afghans from.

1 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/05/marsoc-murders-in-afghanistan.html
2 - "US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies'," by Chris McGreal. Published in The Guardian, 9th of September, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers)

Marital rape legalised in Afghanistan

Thank goodness we drove out the brutal, misogynist Taliban, and replaced them with a regime that shows far more concern for the rights of women:

An amended version of the Shi'ite Personal Status Law was submitted last month and published in the official gazette on July 27, bringing it into effect weeks ahead of the Aug. 20 presidential poll, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

"Karzai has made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election," said Brad Adams, Asia director for HRW.

"So much for any credentials he claimed as a moderate on women's issues," he said in a statement.

The legislation is meant to govern family law for minority Muslim Shi'ites, who make up about 15 percent of Afghanistan's roughly 30 million people, and is different to that for the majority Sunni population.

It requires women to satisfy their husband's sexual appetites, an article which critics have said could be used to justify marital rape and which provoked an outcry from Afghanistan's Western allies and rights groups around the world.

-snip-

The amended law gives a husband the right to withdraw basic maintenance from his wife, including food, if she refuses to obey his sexual demands and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work, according to HRW.

The law also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers and effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying "blood money" to a girl who was injured when he raped her, HRW said. (1)

Coincidentally, I'm re-reading Baghdad Burning in book form, and just reached the point where Riverbend rails against similar moves in post-Invasion Iraq:

On Wednesday our darling Iraqi Puppet Council decided that secular Iraqi family law would no longer be secular- it is now going to be according to Islamic Shari'a. Shari'a is Islamic law, whether from the Quran or quotes of the Prophet or interpretations of modern Islamic law by clerics and people who have dedicated their lives to studying Islam.

The news has barely been covered by Western or even Arab media and Iraqi media certainly aren't covering it. It is too much to ask of Al-Iraqiya to debate or cover a topic like this one- it would obviously conflict with the Egyptian soap operas and songs. This latest decision is going to be catastrophic for females- we're going backwards.

Don't get me wrong- pure Islamic law according to the Quran and the Prophet gives women certain unalterable, nonnegotiable rights. The problem arises when certain clerics decide to do their own interpretations of these laws (and just about *anyone* can make themselves a cleric these days). The bigger problem is that Shari'a may be drastically different from one cleric to another. There are actually fundamental differences in Shari'a between the different Islamic factions or 'methahib'. Even in the same methahib, there are dozens of different clerics who may have opposing opinions. This is going to mean more chaos than we already have to deal with. We've come to expect chaos in the streets… but chaos in the courts and judicial system too?!

This is completely unfair to women specifically. Under the Iraqi constitution, men and women are equal. Under our past secular family law (which has been in practice since the '50s) women had unalterable divorce, marriage, inheritance, custody, and alimony rights. All of this is going to change. (2)

Reports like these leave me wondering why we bothered.

Then I remember, neither Iraq or Afghanistan was ever about improving the plight of its long sufferring population, was it? Afghanistan was attacked to divert attention from the monumental failure of the USA's intelligence services and government to protect its citizens and infrastructure from terrorist attack. Iraq was a final round in the Bush-Hussein family vendetta, and a bonus economic opportunity to secure massive contracts for American companies.

Improving human rights was a bottom-of-the-barrel issue dragged out after everything else had been used - and failed. Osama Bin Laden remains uncaught, so it can't have been about bringing him to justice. Terrorist attacks are still being planned and sometimes executed - so forget the making the world safe from terror justification. Weapons of mass destruction and Iraq links to Al Quaeda remain undiscovered. So that can be used. Now its about building democracy and improving human rights - only, as the reports abocve show, that isn't going to wash, either.

What's the next excuse goingt to be? Ending the recession by stimulating the arms trade?

1 - "Karzai sells out Afghan women over law-rights group," by Jonathon Burch, published by Reuters, 14th of August, 2009. (http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSISL328188._CH_.2400)
2 - See the posts "Shari'a and Family Law..." and "Still Brooding ...," Posted by Riverbend on Baghdad Burning, 15th and 20th of January, 2004.

Speculating with New Zealander's lives

John Key is lying through his teeth when he claims it was "a difficult decision" to send the SAS back to Afghanistan (1). The truth is the decision took Key - who said New Zealand should have taken part in the Iraq invasion in 2003 - no trouble at all (2).

His motives for returning the SAS to the disaster of Afghanistan - while winding up the rather successful peace keeping mission - is obvious, as obvious as it was when Clark sent them in. They want the USA to back up its nice words about New Zealand being "a very, very, very close friend" with some actions you'd expect of very, very, very close friends - like a free trade deal (3).

It is blood for butter all over again.

Which doesn't make Phil Goff's condemnation of the redeployment any less opportunistic, pusillanimous and hypocritical. But what do you expect from Free Trade Phil (4)?

1 - "Five more years in Afghanistan," by Colin Espiner in The Press. Reproduced on stuff.co.nz, 11th of August, 2009. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2738287/Five-more-years-in-Afghanistan)
2 - "Labour in all-out assault on Key," unattributed artilce in The Press, publsihed 7th of August, 2007. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/politics/26298/Labour-in-all-out-assault-on-Key)
3 - "NZ a 'very very very close friend,'" unattributed ONE News story, 27th of March, 2002. (http://tvnz.co.nz/content/90126)
4 - As described previosuly on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-zealand-secures-infamous-first-fta.html

Uncharacteristic

Usually, the Independent is can be relied on to be accurate in its reporting, and resist hyperbole, but Kim Sengupta and Nigel Morris succumbed to a fit of the Daily Mails reporting on the current difficulties experience by the British army in Afghanistan:

Plans to reinforce the beleaguered British force have been drawn up after Downing Street consulted senior military commanders. (1)

Beleaguered? Really? I thought we were taking part in a massive assault on a Taliban stronghold, not beseiged.

Even more depressingly, it appears that accuracy is abandoned altogether later on, when they claim:

... Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, also delivered a rebuke to the Prime Minister by contradicting his insistence that no British soldier had died because of the helicopter shortage. (2)

Note the use of indirect quoatation. For something as significant as the Air Chief Marshall calling the Prime Minister a liar, you would expect a direct quotation to be used to verify the claim. This does not happen. Later on in the article, Stirrup is quoted, but his words do not say what Sengupta and Morris have claimed he said, though the interpretation they placed on them might mislead the reader into thinking otherwise:

Sir Jock said ... "In this situation where you have lots of improvised explosive devices, the more you can increase your tactical flexibility by moving people by helicopters then the more unpredictable your movements become to the enemy. Therefore it is quite patently the case that you could save casualties by doing that." (3)

Which is very different from what Sengupta and Morris represent him as saying. Without reference to a specific incident, the claim that he is refuting Gordon Brown's claim that "no British soldier had died because of the helicopter shortage" is at best an error, at worst a deliberate misrepresentation.

Given the degree of difference between what was actually said, and what was reported to have been said, I am inclined to think the latter is most likely. The Independent doesn't often make silly mistakes like that. The newspaper has had a long-standing - and honourable - editorial policy of opposing the hare-brained adventurism of the Afghan and Iraq incursions. Perhaps maintaining that line has lead to battle fatigue setting in, and the principles of accuracy and honesty being ... neglected.

1 - "Brown snubs Dannatt in talks on reinforcements for Afghanistan," by Kim Sengupta and Nigel Morris, published in The Independent, 18th of July, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brown-snubs-dannatt-in-talks-on-reinforcements-for-afghanistan-1751556.html)
2 - ibid.
3 - ibid.

MarSOC murders in Afghanistan

Three years ago, Donald Rumsfeld created a special Marine formation, the Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC, to conduct special operations in Aghanistan. It doesn't seem to be answerable to within the traditional military structure and has been involved in some of the bloodiest, violent and unjustifiable instances where Afghan civilians have been slaughtered.

The Independent's Jerome Starkey writes:

Troops from the US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC, were responsible for calling in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week – believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children – as well as two other incidents in 2007 and 2008. News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. His surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban.

MarSOC was created three years ago on the express orders of Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary at the time, despite opposition from within the Marine Corps and the wider Special Forces community. An article in the Marine Corps Times described the MarSOC troops as "cowboys" who brought shame on the corps.

The first controversial incident involving the unit happened just three weeks into its first deployment to Afghanistan on 4 March 2007. Speeding away from a suicide bomb attack close to the Pakistan border, around 120 men from Fox Company opened fire on civilians near Jalalabad, in Nangahar province. The Marines said they were shot at after the explosion; eyewitnesses said the Americans fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and civilian cars, killing at least 19 people.

The US Army commander in Nangahar at the time, Colonel John Nicholson, said he was "deeply ashamed" and described the incident as "a stain on our honour". The Marines' tour was cut short after a second incident on 9 March in which they allegedly rolled a car and fired on traffic again, and they were flown out of Afghanistan a few weeks later.

The top Special Operations officer at US Central Command, Army Major General Frank Kearney, refuted MarSOC's claims that they had been shot at. "We found no brass that we can confirm that small-arms fire came at them," he said, referring to ammunition casings. "We have testimony from Marines that is in conflict with unanimous testimony from civilians."

At the military hearings on the incident, which were held back in the US, soldiers said the MarSOC troops, who called themselves Taskforce Violence, were gung-ho and hungry to prove themselves in battle. The inquiry also heard testimony suggesting there were tensions between the Marine unit and its US Army counterparts in Nangahar province.

Col Nicholson told the court the unit would routinely stray into areas under his control without telling him, ignoring usual military courtesies. "There had been potentially 25 operations in my area of operations that I, as a commander, was not aware of," he said. Asked about the moment he was told of the March shootout, he added: "My initial reaction was, 'What are they doing out there?' " The three-week military inquiry ultimately spared the Marine unit from criminal charges.

[snip]

In August last year, a 20-man MarSOC unit, fighting alongside Afghan commandos, directed fire from unmanned drones, attack helicopters and a cannon-armed Spectre gunship into compounds in Azizabad, in Herat province, leaving more than 90 people dead – many of them children.

And just last week, MarSOC troops called in the Bala Baluk air strikes to rescue an Afghan police patrol that had been ambushed in countryside in Farah province. US officials said two F18 fighter jets and a B1 bomber had swooped because men on the ground were overwhelmed. But villagers said the most devastating bombs were dropped on compounds some distance from the fighting, long after the battle was over, and when Taliban forces were retreating. Afghan officials said up to 147 people were killed, including more than 90 women and children. (1)

The inevitable effect of letting gung-ho thugs with guns rampage is indicated by the priceless Patrick Cockburn, also in The Indie:

It is astonishing to discover that the same small American unit, the US Marine Corps' Special Operations or MarSOC, has been responsible for all three of the worst incidents in Afghanistan in which civilians have been killed. Its members refer to themselves as "Taskforce Violence" and the Marines' own newspaper scathingly refers to the unit as "cowboys".

[Snip]

Survivors from Gerani, Gangabad and Khoujaha villages say that there had been fighting nearby but the Taliban had long withdrawn when US aircraft attacked. This was not a few errant sticks of bombs but a prolonged bombardment. It had a devastating effect on the mud-brick houses and photographs of the dead show that their bodies were quite literally torn apart by the blasts. This makes it difficult to be precise about the exact number killed, but the Afghan Rights Monitor, after extensive interviewing, says that at least 117 civilians were killed, including 26 women and 61 children.

The US military has now fallen back on the tired old justification that the enemy was using civilians as human shields. This certainly is not satisfying infuriated Afghans from demonstrating students at Kabul university all the way to President Hamid Karzai. Whatever MarSOC troops thought they were doing in Bala Boluk, the killing of so many civilians will do nothing but strengthen the Taliban. (2)

Not doubt we'll be told, once these killings are investigated, that there may have been 'instances' where troops - possibly 'stressed' or 'angry' deviated from 'correct proceedure.' That does not exculpate the murderers in MarSOC, it merely makes their commanders guilty as well.

It is a bullshit defence, anyway, because these thugs have been at least allowed, at worst encouraged, to do this sort of thing. They don't seem to be responsible to the official military authorities, so who does command them now? It might have been Rumsfeld that set it up and created the monster, but it's existence is being tolerated by the new adminsitration. If Obama wants to salvage some sort of victory - moral, not military - from the disaster in Afghanistan, he has to act to stop these savages from killing innocent people for sport.

1 - "Rumsfeld's renegade unit blamed for Afghan deaths" by Jerome Starkey, published in The Independent, 16th of May, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rumsfelds-renegade-unit-blamed-for-afghan-deaths-1685704.html)
2 - "" by Patrick Cockburn, in The Independent, 16th of May, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-these-killings-will-only-strengthen-the-taliban-1685705.html)

Stupid. Bloody stupid.

From Reuters, courtesy of The Independent:

US-led air strikes killed dozens of Afghans including women and children, the Red Cross said today, confirming an incident that could overshadow a meeting between the US and Afghan leaders.

Rohul Amin, governor of Western Farah province, where the bombing took place during a battle on Monday and Tuesday, said he feared 100 civilians had been killed. Provincial police chief Abdul Ghafar Watandar said the death toll could be even higher.

If confirmed, those figures could make the incident the single deadliest for Afghan civilians since the campaign to topple the Taliban in 2001.

Jessica Barry, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the Geneva-based group had dispatched a team which reached the scene of the air strikes yesterday afternoon.

"There were women and there were children who were killed. It seemed they were trying to shelter in houses when they were hit," she said.

The team saw houses destroyed and dozens of dead bodies, providing the first international confirmation of the incident. (1)

We can't win this war fighting it like this. We're just dragging it out and making the enemy stronger.

1 - "Dozens die" in Afghan airstrikes, says Red Cross," by Sharafuddin Sharafyar of Reuters, reproduced by The Independent, 6th of May, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/dozens-die-in-afghan-air-strikes-says-red-cross-1679930.html)

Torture doesn't work, says someone who would know

Courtesy of Patrick Cockburn at the Indie:

"The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq. It was the team led by Major Alexander [a named assumed for security reasons] that obtained the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Zarqawi was then killed by bombs dropped by two US aircraft on the farm where he was hiding outside Baghdad on 7 June 2006. Major Alexander said that he learnt where Zarqawi was during a six-hour interrogation of a prisoner with whom he established relations of trust.

Major Alexander's attitude to torture by the US is a combination of moral outrage and professional contempt. "It plays into the hands of al-Qa'ida in Iraq because it shows us up as hypocrites when we talk about human rights," he says. An eloquent and highly intelligent man with experience as a criminal investigator within the US military, he says that torture is ineffective, as well as counter-productive. "People will only tell you the minimum to make the pain stop," he says. "They might tell you the location of a house used by insurgents but not that it is booby-trapped."

In his compelling book How to Break a Terrorist, Major Alexander explains that prisoners subjected to abuse usually clam up, say nothing, or provide misleading information. In an interview he was particularly dismissive of the "ticking bomb" argument often used in the justification of torture. This supposes that there is a bomb timed to explode on a bus or in the street which will kill many civilians. The authorities hold a prisoner who knows where the bomb is. Should they not torture him to find out in time where the bomb is before it explodes?

Major Alexander says he faced the "ticking time bomb" every day in Iraq because "we held people who knew about future suicide bombings". Leaving aside the moral arguments, he says torture simply does not work. "It hardens their resolve. They shut up." He points out that the FBI uses normal methods of interrogation to build up trust even when they are investigating a kidnapping and time is of the essence. He would do the same, he says, "even if my mother was on a bus" with a hypothetical ticking bomb on board. It is quite untrue to imagine that torture is the fastest way of obtaining information, he says. (1)

So there. Morally repugnant, ineffective and likely to create more problems than it would solve. Which is pretty much what the namby-pamby, human right obssessed, limp-wristed left said, back when Bush was having prisoners of war reclassified as 'unlawful combatants' so they weren't protected by conventions against torture.

This part is also interesting:

He refused to take part in torture and abuse, and forbade the team he commanded to use such methods. Instead, he says, he used normal US police interrogation techniques which are "based on relationship building and a degree of deception". He adds that the deception was often of a simple kind such as saying untruthfully that another prisoner has already told all.

Before he started interrogating insurgent prisoners in Iraq, he had been told that they were highly ideological and committed to establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq, Major Alexander says. In the course of the hundreds of interrogations carried out by himself, as well as more than 1,000 that he supervised, he found that the motives of both foreign fighters joining al-Qa'ida in Iraq and Iraqi-born members were very different from the official stereotype.

In the case of foreign fighters – recruited mostly from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and North Africa – the reason cited by the great majority for coming to Iraq was what they had heard of the torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. These abuses, not fundamentalist Islam, had provoked so many of the foreign fighters volunteering to become suicide bombers. (2)

This tallies with somethings I remember reading in Robert Fisk's book, The Great War for Civilisation - the 11th of September murderers weren't fanatics. Mohammed Atta was a drunkard, many of the others were westernised, maintained girlfriends - non-Muslim - and none of them were Koran thumping roll-eyed ideologues. Ditto the London tube bombers - none of them attended Islamic schools, and the impression I've gathered of them is that they were not particularly devout. I'd suspect they were recruited because they were suggestable and easily led, rather than because they were hardline fanatics hungry for martyrdom.

1 - "Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11" by Patrick Cockburn, published in The Independent, 26th of April, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/torture-it-probably-killed-more-americans-than-911-1674396.html)
2- ibid.

Unbelieveable II

Suicide bombings and roadside bombs are indiscriminate and bloody, slaughtering the innocent, right? And, in contrast, our 'surgical' methods minimize civilian deaths, right?

Wrong, apparently:

Air strikes and artillery barrages have taken a heavy toll among the most vulnerable of the Iraqi people, with children and women forming a disproportionate number of the dead.

Analysis carried out for the research group Iraq Body Count (IBC) found that 39 per cent of those killed in air raids by the US-led coalition were children and 46 per cent were women. Fatalities caused by mortars, used by American and Iraqi government forces as well as insurgents, were 42 per cent children and 44 per cent women.

Twelve per cent of those killed by suicide bombings, mainly the tool of militant Sunni groups, were children and 16 per cent were females. One in five (21 per cent) of those killed by car bombs, used by both Shia and Sunni fighters, was a child; one in four (28 per cent) was a woman. (1)

This is not about excusing the brutal tactics employed by terrorists in Iraq or elsewhere - it is about shredding the comforting myths put out that we're, somehow, better. It is an interesting concept - "Let's fight extremism and hatred by blowing up women and children. That'll surely reduce extremism and hatred." I think we really need to admit that there's no military solution to these problems and the war agaisnt terror has to be carried on by other means.

And consider this:

From 2004 to 2007, the overall tonnage of munition dropped from planes in the Afghan conflict rose from 163 tonnes a year to 1,956 tonnes, an increase of 1,100 per cent. Since 2001 the US air force has dropped 14,049 tonnes of bombs in Afghanistan and 18,858 in Iraq. (2)

That's an awful lot of slaughtered and maimed women and children.

I suppose the explanation is that the suicide bombers are targeting military or quasi-military sites, and civilians are less likely to be hurt in the process - whereas the military are pursuing insurgents/terrorists/whatever into civilian areas and fighting them there. I accept that argument, but the figures are still jaw dropping. It underlines the urgency of finding different ways to combat extremists and fanatics, because slaying women and children isn't going to solve that problem, only make it worse.

No wonder they hate us.

1 - " Iraq air raids hit mostly women and children," by Kim Sengupta, published in The Independent, 16th of April, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-air-raids-hit-mostly-women-and-children-1669282.html)
2 - ibid.

We have ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia ...

First it was Afghanistan because we were told that terrorists were there. Then it was Iraq because we were told that terrorists were there. Is it now Pakistan because terrorists are there?

We have ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia.

1 - "Sri Lanka cricketers attack: Pakistan 'greater threat than Afghanistan'," by Ben Farmer, published in The Telegraph, 5th of March, 2009. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/4941262/Sri-Lanka-cricketers-attack-Pakistan-greater-threat-than-Afghanistan.html)

Obama's Guantanamo

Inspite of campaigning on a slogan of 'Change we need,' it doesn't look like barak Obama is really interested in changing very much.

Four detainees at the Bagram Military base in Afghanistan have been trying to get the same access to the US legal system as was finally granted to the Guantanamo Bayt detainees. The Bush administration, naturally, resisted.

Then Bush was booted and Obama became the Commander-in-Chief. Result? As far as Bagram went, nothing changed:

Two days into his presidency, Mr Obama promised to shut Guantanamo within a year ... the judge in the Bagram case said that the order “indicated significant changes to the government’s approach to the detention, and review of detention, of individuals currently held at Guantanamo Bay” and that “a different approach could impact the court’s analysis of certain issues central to the resolution” of the Bagram cases as well. Judge John Bates asked the new administration if it wanted to “refine” its stance.

The response, filed by the Department of Justice late on Friday, came as a crushing blow to human rights campaigners. “Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its previously articulated position,” it said. (1)

As Binyam Mohamed's lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith pointed out,

“Guantanamo Bay was a diversionary tactic in the ‘War on Terror’ ... Totting up the prisoners around the world – held by the US in Iraq, Afghanistan, Djibouti, the prison ships and Diego Garcia, or held by US proxies in Jordan, Egypt and Morocco – the numbers dwarf Guantanamo. There are still perhaps as many as 18,000 people in legal black holes. Mr Obama should perhaps be offered more than a month to get the American house in order. However, this early sally from the administration underlines another message: it is far too early for human rights advocates to stand on the USS Abraham Lincoln and announce, ‘Mission Accomplished’.” (2)

Obama won the election by promising to change things. Stafford Smith might suggest be too early for him to have done much more than he has. I disagree. Stafford SMith is in a position where he has to be diplomatic. I don't, so I'll say what I feel. People have been abused, tortured and lost years of their lives. I don't think it is wrong to regard any delay as what it is - cowardly vacillation.

1 - " Obama denies terror suspects right to trial," by Stephen Foley, published in The Independent, 22nd of February, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/obama-denies-terror-suspects-right-to-trial-1628958.html)
2 - ibid.

Two hearts, but just one mind?

Doing some google blasting on Hamas, I happened upon this article by John Pilger, dated the 28th of May, 2007, called "Children of the Dust." Considering the western media's coverage of the Lisrael-Palestinian conflict, he wrote:

A censorship by omission runs deep in western journalism on Israel, especially in the US. Hamas is dismissed as a "terrorist group sworn to Israel's destruction" and one that "refuses to recognise Israel and wants to fight not talk". This theme suppresses the truth: that Israel is bent on Palestine's destruction. Moreover, Hamas's long-standing proposals for a ten-year ceasefire are ignored, along with a recent, hopeful ideological shift within Hamas itself that amounts to a historic acceptance of the sovereignty of Israel. "The [Hamas] charter is not the Quran," said a senior Hamas official, Mohammed Ghazal. "Historically, we believe all Palestine belongs to Palestinians, but we're talking now about reality, about political solutions . . . If Israel reached a stage where it was able to talk to Hamas, I don't think there would be a problem of negotiating with the Israelis [for a solution]." (1)

My googling also uncovered an article penned by Yvonne Ridley, and published in The Tehran Times (2). A very similar article, with a few changes and a new title, was also published (here and here (3)). It was also put up on a blog she contributes to (4).

What caught my attention was that a key passage from the Ridley article matched the earlier Pilger article, almost word for word. This is what Ridley wrote - or claimed to have written - in late 2007:

As a journalist, I am deeply saddened by the censorship by omission which runs deep in Western media coverage of Israel, especially in the U.S.

Hamas is dismissed as a “terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction” and one that “refuses to recognize Israel and wants to fight not talk”.

The truth is that Israel is bent on Palestine’s destruction. Moreover, Hamas’s longstanding proposals for a ten-year ceasefire are loudly ignored, along with a recent, ideological shift within Hamas itself.

“The (Hamas) charter is not the Quran,” said a senior Hamas official, Mohammed Ghazal. “Historically, we believe all Palestine belongs to Palestinians, but we’re talking now about reality, about political solutions… If Israel reached a stage where it was able to talk to Hamas, I don’t think there would be a problem of negotiating with the Israelis (for a solution).”

The resemblance, as they say, is striking.

So who is Yvonne Ridley? The name was familiar to me, and Google soon told me why - she was very much in the news in 2001. Reporting for the Sunday Express, she entered Afghanistan illegally and was captured by the Taliban and held for eleven days. I remember the fuss at the time. Since her release, she has converted to Islam, worked briefly for Al Jazeera and other Islamic TV channels, and stood for election in Britain for George Galloway's Respect party (5).

Like him or loathe him, Pilger is a honorable journalist with an reputation for scrupulousness. He is also, on the evidence available to me, the most most likely original author of the words that subsequently reappeared, unattributed, in Ridley's work.

1 - "Children of the Dust," by John Pilger, published in The New Statesman, 28th of May, 2007. (http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2007/05/pilger-israel-children)
2 - "Real Talks or Real Trouble," by Yvonne Ridley, published in the Tehran Times, 16th of December, 2007. (http://tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=159267)
3 - "Why Israel should start negotiating with Hamas," by Yvonne Ridley, published in Future Islam, January/March 2008 edition (http://www.futureislam.com/200801/leaders/louay_safi/End_Guantanamo_Disgrace.asp) and also in The Islamic Times, dated 12th of November 2007 [pdf] (http://www.islamictimes.co.uk/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=774)
4 - "Talking to Hamas," posted by Yvonne Ridley on Open Minds blog, 6th of December, 2008.(http://www.openmindsblogspot.com/ContributorPageList/YvonneRidley/tabid/60/EntryID/82/language/en-US/Default.aspx)
5 - As per her biography on Wikipedia, viewed 12th of January, 2009. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Ridley#Subsequent_career)

Afghan history: first as tragedy, then as tragedy

Robert Fisk's latest column (1) describes how, in defiance of Marx's claim that "Hegel remarks ... all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce" (2), Afghanistan continues to be unspeakably tragic.

Perhaps if you look at it in geo-political terms, it is most amusing to watch the USA make the same mistake that the USSR - and Britain in the 19th century - made. But the reality is always that it comes back to dead people who don't deserve to suffer for the mistakes of their idiot leaders:

... Two of the American soldiers seized when the Taliban stormed into their mountain base on 13 July this year were executed by their captors.

And now it turns out that four of the 10 French troops killed in Afghanistan on 18 August surrendered to the Taliban, and were almost immediately executed.
...

... the Americans probably killed 90 people in Azizabad, most of them women and children. We – let us be frank and own up to our role in the hapless Nato alliance in Afghanistan – have now slaughtered more than 500 Afghan civilians this year alone. These include a Nato missile attack on a wedding party in July when we splattered 47 of the guests all over the village of Deh Bala. (3)

As Fisk pointed out in the column (4) he wrote about the assault he sufferred in Killa Abdullah, in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, it isn't at all surprising that the Afghans lashed out at him, after sufferring the 'shock and awe' of the invasion.

Nor is it suprising that the Afghans are tolerating the return of the Taliban. It is an ancient, atavistic response, but homegrown oppressors will always be preferred to foreign oppressors. Since we've failed to make ourselves liked, we've defaulted to the latter role.

1 - "Why does the US think it can win in Afghanistan?" by Robert Fisk in the Independent, 20th of September, 2008. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisks-world-why-does-the-us-think-it-can-win-in-afghanistan-936185.html)
2 - "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, " by Karl Marx, 1852. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm)
3 - Fisk, op. cit.
4 - "My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this Filthy War," by Robert Fisk in the Independent, 10th of December, 2001. Reproduced on findarticles. com. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20011210/ai_n14426800)

Why we will never win the War on Terror

Yet another horror story from Afghanistan, where coalition airstrikes killed 76 people - most of them children - in the province of Herat:

US-led coalition forces killed 76 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan yesterday, most of them children, the country's Interior Ministry said.

The coalition denied killing civilians. Civilian deaths in military operations have become an emotive issue among Afghans, many of whom feel international forces take too little care when launching air strikes, undermining support for their presence.

"Seventy-six civilians, most of them women and children, were martyred today in a coalition forces operation in Herat province," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Coalition forces bombarded the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province on Friday afternoon, the ministry said. Nineteen of the victims were women, seven of them men and the rest children under the age of 15, it said. (1)

Years after Robert Fisk described his first hand experience (2) of the hatred and violence that the coalitions shoot-first-deny-everything-afterwards attitude had created we still have not learned anything. Remarkably, the tolerant - or perhaps innured - population of Afghanistan still have not turned on us. Pwerhaps their fear of a return to all out civil war compels them to practice restraint in the face of the coalitions bloody antics.

Every dead civilian in Afghanistan will come back to haunt us, one way or another. They will become the faces that rally young muslims to the terrorist cause - not becuase the young men or women support the terrorists ends, but because they will be convinced that the West either does not care if it obliterates innocent Muslim lives - the best interpretation - or is actively seeking to do so.

This naive view was espoused by Muhammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, who blew themselves - and 52 innocent people - to pieces in the London bombings on the 7th of July, 2005. Tanweer cited the sufferring of "our mothers, children, brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya" and Khan made a direct link between the the actions of Western governemnets and the culpability of the British people (3). Every story like this one - whether or not is is finally verified - or an Abu Grahib, or any act of stinking hypocrisy carried out by the governments we vote in and suffer to act in our name - adds to the culpability of the West as a whole and the price that may one day be exacted.

This is not to say we shouldn't stand up to terrorism. But we should be alert to when it is being committed in our name by our leaders, because - ultimately - it isn't our leaders who suffer the consequences. George Bush wasn't incinerated in the World Trade Centre on September the 11th. TOny Blair was not killed in the London underground. We have to stop taking what our imbecillic leaders say on trust, just as the deluded fools like Khan and Tanweer have to stop listening to the poison being spewed by their leaders. And we have to find ways to combat terrorism that will not spread more hatred and rage against us, or there will be more Khans and Tanweers.

1 - "Afghanistan: 76 civilians die in airstrike, ministry claims," by Sharafuddin Sharafyar, published in The Guardian, 23rd of August, 2008. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/22/afghanistan.usa)
2 - "My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this filthy war," by Robert Fisk, published in The Independent, 10th of December, 2001. Reproduced on findarticles.com. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20011210/ai_n14426800)
3 - "Video of London suicide bomber released," by Adam Fresco, Daniel McGrory and Andrew Norfolk, published in The Times, 6th of July, 2006. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article683824.ece)

This is why we are hated and this is why we deserve to be hated

From The Guardian:

MI5 participated in the unlawful interrogation of a British resident now held in Guantánamo Bay, the high court found yesterday in a judgment raising serious questions about the conduct of Britain's security and intelligence agencies.
...
One MI5 officer was so concerned about incriminating himself that he initially declined to answer questions from the judges even in private, the judgment reveals. Though the judges say "no adverse conclusions" should be drawn by the MI5 officer's plea against self-incrimination, they disclose that the officer, Witness B, was questioned about alleged war crimes under the international criminal court act, including torture. (1)

Binyam Mohamed was kidnapped and tortured - his genitals allegedly mutilated with a razor blade - and then he was transferred to Guantanamo in 2004, where he still is (2).

Having being tortured into confessing, he is now to stand trial based on that confession, a document no genuine court would accept. He faces the death penalty if convicted by the show trial military commision and can not defend himself because the evicence that would show his confessions were extracted under torture is held by the British government and is not available to him. (3)

This has all been done in the name of defending our civilisation against barbarism.

Britain has been complicit in the wickedness of the so-called War on Terror which has only suceeded in creating more hatred and contempt for the West. Unlike the people in Afghanistan under the Taliban and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, we get to choose our leaders, and don't have to worry about being shot for not approving of their actions. So we can be held culpable for the deeds carried out by our leaders and their minions.

At best, we can only plead ingorance, confusion or apathy in our defence. At worst, we are licensing these acts. So how can we complain when wicked things are done to us in return?

1 - "MI5 criticised for role in case of torture, rendition and secrecy," by Richard Norton-Taylor, in The Guardian, 22nd of August, 2008. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/22/uksecurity.guantanamo)
2 - ibid.
3 - ibid.

Charities: Afghanistan is a nightmare

According to ACBAR, an umbrella organisation representing several charities operating in Afghanistan, the situation there is deteriorating, with attacks up and casualties soaring, particularly among civilians. What's particularly sickening is that many othe casualties are so-called 'collateral-damage' resulting from Western action:

The report blames the Taliban insurgents for roughly two-thirds of the civilian casualties, but adds: "The increased number of air strikes by international military forces, which are up by approximately 40 per cent on last year, has also contributed to the rising civilian death toll."

Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, has repeatedly warned international troops that killing innocent civilians risks eroding their fragile popular mandate. Last summer he branded the number of civilian casualties and arbitrary house searches "unacceptable". Last month he ordered an investigation after reports that 15 civilians died in a US airstrike.

Claims have since surfaced of 23 wedding guests dying under American bombs. This week, two children were shot dead when their car got too close to a military convoy. (1)

We havent' captured Osama Bin Laden. We haven't defeated the Taliban. We haven't made Afghanistan safe for Afghans. But we have killed a lot of them, disappeared some into mysterious and sinister interrogation centres run by savages who delight in torture and made such a hash of things even the puppet president of Afghanistan is desperately trying to disassociate himself from us.

1 - "Afghanistan spiralling back to days of Taliban, say charities," by Jerome Starkey in The Independent, 1st of August, 2008. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghanistan-spiralling-back-to-days-of-taliban-say-charities-882626.html)

There is no happy ending for Afghanistan

Conor Foley argues that, with the military situation a virtual stalemate, perhaps it is time to reverse Clausewitz's dictum, and pursue military goals by other means:

It was the culmination of one of Afghanistan's bloodiest weeks which, according to the Red Cross, saw 250 people killed or injured. Last month also saw a new record for the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan, 42, which surpassed that of Iraq for the first time. Clearly the repeated claims of western politicians - and credulous journalists - that we are "winning the war" in Afghanistan bear almost no relation to reality. The US suffered one of its heaviest blows on Sunday when nine troops were killed in a Taliban attack in the eastern region. Another 24 people were killed in a suicide bombing. To view this conflict solely in terms of statistics and military clashes, however, is to miss the point about what is actually happening here at the moment.

The international military presence has been expanding rapidly in Afghanistan, doubling from 10,000 to 20,000 in 2006 and trebling to almost 60,000 this year. More troops mean more targets and so, crudely put, the spike in the soldiers' death rate is not surprising. What is more significant is that this massive increase in firepower has not decisively changed the terms of the military engagement. The Taliban still effectively controls a vast swath of the south of the country where government and international forces can only venture out of their heavily reinforced bases with air support. However, the Taliban's attempts to spread the insurgency to non-Pashtu areas have largely failed. There is a stalemate which cannot be broken by military means. (1)

A quick look back over history leads to a pessimistic conclusion - the taliban were supported by the people of Afghanistan not becausre of any deep religious sympathy for their fanatical creed, but because they brough some form of stability to the country after decades of fighting. Anger at the coalition is going to grow, persistently, with every blunder. They haven't managed to obliterate the Taliban and they haven't - as Foley points out - made the parts of Afghanistan they do control safe or prosperous. Support for the Taliban will grow as bitterness towards the coalition increases.

The sorry adventure might not end with the desperation of the evacuation of Saigon, but it looks very like it will end badly for the world's unluckiest country.

1 - "Afghans want a peace deal, and force cannot provide it," by Conor Foley in The Guardian, 15th of July, 2007. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/15/afghanistan)