‘US drone strikes in Pakistan illegal’

Posted on March 16, 2013 by petrel41

This video says about itself:

The majority of people killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are not militants, according to the country’s Interior Minister. Rehman Malik said 80 per cent of more than two thousand people who have died as a result of strikes were civilians.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

UN: Pakistan strikes violate sovereignty

Saturday 16 March 2013

by Our Foreign Desk

A UN official declared today that US drone strikes in Pakistan violate the country’s sovereignty.

Ben Emmerson, who is leading a UN team investigating casualties from US drone strikes in Pakistan, said the country’s government made clear that it does not consent to the strikes – a position that has long been publicly disputed by US officials.

US President Barack Obama has stepped up covert CIA drone strikes targeting Taliban militants along the Afghan border since he took office in 2009.

The strikes have caused growing controversy because of significant civilian casualties.

The Pakistani government told Mr Emmerson that it had confirmed at least 400 civilian deaths by US drones on its territory.

The UN investigation into civilian casualties from drone strikes and other targeted killings is expected to deliver its conclusions in October.

The US rarely discusses the strikes in public but officials have claimed privately that they have caused very few civilian casualties.

Documents released by WikiLeaks in 2010 showed that senior Pakistani officials consented to the strikes in private to US diplomats, while at the same time condemning them in public.

But co-operation has waned as the relationship between Pakistan and the US has deteriorated.

US officials insist privately that co-operation has not ended and key Pakistani army officers and politicians continue to consent to the strikes.

However Mr Emmerson differed. “The position of Pakistan is quite clear,” he said.

“Pakistan does not consent to the use of drones by the US on its territory and considers this to be a violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The drone campaign “involves the use of force on the territory of another state without its consent and is therefore a violation of Pakistani sovereignty,” he said.

“It is time for the international community to heed the concerns of Pakistan and give the next democratically elected government the space support and assistance it needs to deliver a lasting peace on its own territory without forcible military interference by other states.”

United States war in Africa

Posted on February 26, 2013 by petrel41

This video is called Africom: The New American Empire in Africa.

By Bill van Auken in the USA:

US troops to Niger: A new stage in the scramble for Africa

26 February 2013

President Barack Obama’s terse notification to Congress last week that American troops are being deployed to the northwest African nation of Niger confirms that a whole new stage in the imperialist recolonization of Africa is now in progress.

The dispatch of the first 100 troops—with hundreds more reportedly to follow—is bound up with a deal signed last month between Washington and the Niger government allowing the US military to set up a drone base on the country’s territory, creating the conditions for spreading the Obama administration’s remote-control killing spree throughout the region.

The buildup of US forces in Niger comes in the immediate wake of last month’s French intervention in neighboring Mali, carried out with critical US logistical and intelligence support, and aimed, in the words of French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, at the “total reconquest” of the former colony.

Both Paris and Washington have justified their military incursions into the African continent in the name of defeating Al Qaeda and associated organizations in Africa. British Prime Minister David Cameron chimed in last month, warning that the prosecution of this war in Africa could span “decades.”

The glaring contradiction between this pretext for war in Africa’s Sahel region and the line-up of these imperialist powers behind Al Qaeda-linked militias in the sectarian-based war to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria is passed over in silence by the media and the political establishments in all three countries.

No one in the US press, for example, bothered noting that Obama’s announcement of the deployment of US troops in a supposed war against Al Qaeda in Africa came on the same day that Washington blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning an Al Qaeda terror bombing that massacred scores of civilians in Damascus.

Behind the incoherence of the pretexts for imperialist intervention, the real forces driving it are clear. Washington finds itself being economically eclipsed in Africa by China, which has emerged as the continent’s leading trade partner. Increasingly in competition over strategic resources—West Africa is soon expected to account for 25 percent of US petroleum imports—US imperialism is relying on its residual military superiority to combat this economic challenge.

In the prosecution of this predatory strategy, Al Qaeda serves a dual purpose—providing shock troops for the toppling of regimes seen as obstacles to US hegemony, and serving as a pretext for other interventions carried out in the name of combating “terrorism” and “extremism.”

Setting up the new base in Niger places US drones just across the border from Nigeria, which until recently has supplied 10 percent of US foreign oil imports and where the Pentagon has grown increasingly involved in an internal conflict involving Boko Haram, an indigenous Islamic sect that appears to have no ties to Al Qaeda nor any ambitions outside of Nigeria.

In light of these developments, the significance of the US-NATO intervention to bring down the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011 emerges with ever greater clarity. Claiming the lives of some 80,000 Libyans and leaving an entire society in rubble, this was the first war to be commanded by AFRICOM, the regional command set up under the Bush administration in 2007. It was waged to pave the way for new and more far-reaching military interventions.

The Gaddafi regime served as the linchpin of security and economic relations that maintained a semblance of stability in the Sahel region, providing economic aid, for example, that served to cushion the longstanding conflicts between the Tuareg people and the regimes in Mali and Niger.

The toppling and murder of Gaddafi had the altogether foreseeable consequence of destabilizing the region, sending Tuaregs fleeing Libya into Mali, followed by the very Islamist elements that Washington had backed in the war for regime-change in Libya, and thus providing the pretext for both US and French imperialism to intervene again, putting troops on the ground in the region.

Plans for these interventions were well advanced before the first bomb was dropped on Tripoli. The region has been a focus of US strategic calculations for the past decade, beginning with Washington’s Pan Sahel Initiative in 2003, followed by its Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership in 2005.

In this context, the role played by a whole layer of pseudo-lefts internationally in justifying and promoting the war against Libya, touting it as a humanitarian intervention, a crusade for democracy, and even a “revolution,” also becomes clearer than ever.

The academic scoundrel Juan Cole of the University of Michigan used his inflated reputation as a critic of the Iraq war to sell the war in Libya. Gilbert Achcar, a member of the international Pabloite United Secretariat and a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, condemned NATO for not dropping more bombs on the country.

War in Mali and German militarism (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
New Drone Base in Niger Builds U.S. Presence in Africa (3quarksdaily.com)
The West’s War Against African Development Continues (counterpunch.org)
Obama Spreads U.S. Troops To Niger, Africa To “Support Tax Payer Predator Drone Base” ~ From Libya To Niger The Killing Goes On. (politicalvelcraft.org)
Imperial Jockeying in Africa: U.S. Intervention Sets to Deepen (globalresearch.ca)

United States governmental assassinations of citizens

Posted on February 9, 2013 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

8 February 2013

DemocracyNow.org – President Obama’s nominee to run the CIA, John Brennan, forcefully defended Obama’s counterterrorism policies, including the increase use of armed drones and the targeted killings of American citizens during his confirmation hearing Thursday. “None of the central questions that should have been asked of John Brennan were asked in an effective way,” says Jeremy Scahill, author of the forthcoming book “Dirty Wars.” “In the cases where people like Sen. Angus King or Sen. Ron Wyden would ask a real question, for instance, about whether or not the CIA has the right to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. The questions were very good — Brennan would then offer up a non-answer. Then there would be almost a no follow-up.” Scahill went on to say, “[Brennan has] served for more than four years as the assassination czar, and it basically looked like they’re discussing purchasing a used car on Capitol hill. And it was total kabuki oversight. And that’s a devastating commentary on where things stand.

USA: A Google report released Monday shows a marked increase in government requests for private communications of Internet users: here.

Brennan’s CIA Confirmation Hearing as ‘Kabuki Oversight’ & Anwar al-Awlaki’s Posthumous Trial (dissenter.firedoglake.com)
Brennan CIA Hearing Interrupted by Protests (abcnews.go.com)
CIA nominee pressed on U.S. drone policy, waterboarding (reuters.com)
Brennan denies civilian toll by drones (rinf.com)
5 Crucial Questions Senators Failed to Ask During Brennan Hearings (alternet.org)
Brennan and Kiriakou, Drones and Torture (truthdig.com)
Anti-drone, torture protest during Brennan CIA hearing / PHOTO (worldbulletin.net)

German money for drones, not for people

Posted on January 30, 2013 by petrel41

This video is called Euro Hawk Drone Will Be Used For Domestic Spying In Germany.

The German government wants to procure armed drones for missions abroad and use re-engineered military reconnaissance drones domestically: here.

Meanwhile, this:

Youth poverty rises in Germany’s Ruhr region

By Elisabeth Zimmermann

30 January 2013

A number of recent studies show that despite the relatively low unemployment rate in Germany compared with other parts of Europe, poverty rates have increased sharply.

According to a study from the Bremen Institute for Workplace Research and Career Support, 223,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 live in households dependent on Hartz IV state welfare payments. This equates to 10.7 percent of this age group, higher than the nationwide average of 8.6 percent.

In many towns in the Ruhr region of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW), this figure is considerably higher. Gelsenkirchen, with 22 percent, has the highest percentage nationally. Essen, Duisburg, Wuppertal and Dortmund also rank among the top 25 urban areas in Germany for poverty rates among young people.

A study from the Hans-Böckler Foundation last December placed the number of young people under 18 who are in poverty at 18.9 percent across Germany. This means that more than 2.5 million children and young people are poor.

With a poverty rate of almost one third of the population, the city state of Bremen has the highest poverty rate in Germany among young people under 18. Among children and young people from immigrant families, the poverty rate is 44.1 percent, the highest in western Germany.

Data from the federal agency for employment shows that, alongside Gelsenkirchen, Bremerhaven is the city with the highest percentage of families who depend on Hartz IV. In some areas of the town such as Gröpellingen and Tenever, every second child or young person is affected by poverty.

Of all of the states of western Germany, NRW is where children and young people are most at risk of poverty. NRW is also the state with the largest increase in poverty among children and young people.

While in 2005, 24.1 percent of young people in NRW were at risk of poverty, this figure now stands at 27.6 percent. With 678,000 children and young people living in poverty in NRW, there are more poor young people in this one state than in the states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hessen combined.

The current rate of poverty among young people 18 and younger in NRW is 6 percent higher than the average for the population as a whole. Young immigrants face a poverty rate of 36.4 percent, considerably more than the average.

The states in eastern Germany all have rates of poverty for children and young people above the national average. Mecklenburg-Verpommern, with a figure of 30.1 percent, is second only to Bremen. The number of young children under the age of 3 affected by poverty is even higher.

More than a quarter of children and young people in Sachsen and Sachsen-Anhalt are poor, and this rate has sharply increased. Since 2005, it has risen by 3.3 percent to the current rate of 31.4 percent.

Alongside the Ruhr region, Berlin leads the way in a number of poverty statistics. Some 27 percent of children and young people in Berlin live at risk of poverty, and the rate of immigrants living in poverty is again higher. Almost half of all children between 15 and 18 years of age live in poverty.

Merkel makes German workers poor (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Growing Poverty in Germany “Politically Desired” by Dietmar Henning (zcommunications.org)
‘Hartz reforms’: how a benefits shakeup changed Germany | Ben Knight (guardian.co.uk)
Child poverty rate 2nd highest in Manitoba (cbc.ca)
Censored: Poverty Report in Germany (zerohedge.com)
1 in 3 Illinois residents live in poverty (miamiherald.com)
Manhattan Block By Block Poverty Rate [INFOGRAPH] (valuewalk.com)
Poor Kiwis left behind, says Salvation Army (stuff.co.nz)

French Mali war escalates

Posted on January 18, 2013 by petrel41

This video is called US drones join the war in Mali.

By Kumaran Ira in France:

France escalates Mali war amid Algerian hostage crisis

18 January 2013

France has increased its troop deployment in Mali to 1,400, amid escalating fighting with Islamist-led rebels who control northern Mali and a hostage crisis at an Algerian natural gas complex that was seized in retaliation for the French war in Mali.

Yesterday, the Algerian military attacked the strategic gas complex in In Amenas, near the Libyan border, with tanks and helicopters. Armed militants of the Al Qaeda-linked Battalion of Blood brigade claimed to have taken 41 foreigners hostage. Some 30 hostages and 11 Islamist militants were killed in the strike, according to the Algerian government. The In Amenas facility’s output is valued at $4 billion per year and amounts to 12 percent of Algeria’s production of natural gas, and fully 18 percent of its critical natural gas exports. As Italy reported a 17 percent shortfall in its gas imports from Algeria, energy industry analysts said the fighting would prompt Europe to rely more on Russian natural gas exports.

Washington reportedly flew a reconnaissance drone over the site to monitor the fighting.

Paris seized on the attack as a pretext to defend its decision to invade Mali, which it claims is part of a war on Islamist terrorism. French President François Hollande said, “What’s happening in Algeria justifies even more the decision I took in the name of France to go to Mali’s aid.”

France launched the war in Mali last Friday to defend the unpopular military junta of Captain Amadou Sanogo, which still controls southern Mali, after rebels captured the strategic town of Konna. They are struggling, however, to halt the rebels’ southward advance. France plans to ultimately deploy 2,500 troops and continue aerial bombardment of its former West African colony.

Fighting between French and Malian troops and rebel forces continued Thursday in Diabaly, only 220 miles north of the capital, Bamako, as the French air force continued to bomb the town.

Despite French air strikes and ground assaults, however, the village remained under rebel control. The Associated Press quoted a resident of Niono: “There were bombardments last night in Diabaly and civilians have continued to come here to Niono, this morning I saw people who came from Diabaly and the Islamists still occupy the city.”

As forces have been deployed north, Islamist forces were spotted in the town of Banamba, only 72 miles from Bamako, highlighting the Malian army’s inability to halt the rebel advance. Troops from nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has pledged to send 3,300 troops to assist France’s war, are slated to reinforce in those areas.

Reuters cited a senior Malian military source: “Banamba is in a state of alert. Reinforcements have been sent. Nigerian troops expected to arrive in Bamako today could be deployed there to secure the zone.”

There were no reports of civilian casualties due to the latest French air strikes, though the bombings will obviously lead to a sharp spike in deaths. Initial reports of French air strikes against Gao and Konna earlier this week estimated there were between 60 and 100 people killed, respectively, in those two cities, including civilians torn to pieces by bombs and children who drowned in a river trying to escape the explosions.

French officials cynically claimed that they would try to avoid harming civilians. Admiral Edouard Guillaud told RTL radio, “France would do its utmost to avoid civilian casualties. When in doubt, we will not fire.”

European Foreign ministers held a meeting in Brussels to discuss the Malian crisis yesterday, endorsing the French war and authorizing a military training mission to help the Malian army.

The French war in Mali aims neither to fight terrorism nor to establish democracy. Hollande is waging a reactionary war to prop up a Bamako regime dominated by the Sanogo junta and to enforce its authority in northern Mali against Islamist forces and northern Malian separatist groups. Its ultimate goal is to defend French imperialism’s substantial corporate and military interests in Mali and in its other former West African colonies.

In so doing, Paris is intervening in defiance of the northern Malian population’s well-known sectional hostility to the corrupt Bamako regime. This policy of presenting this war as a war for democracy and against terrorism is deeply cynical, as Paris and other NATO powers are simultaneously collaborating with Al Qaeda-linked forces in their war in Syria.

A desert and mountainous region, Northern Mali has long been a quasi-autonomous area, dominated by Tuaregs and ethnic Arabs hostile to the central government in Bamako formed after the 1960 decolonization of French West Africa. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were repeated uprisings and protests in northern Mali against Bamako, particularly by the Tuaregs.

After a Tuareg rebellion in early 1990s, the Gaddafi regime offered Tuaregs high-ranking posts in the Libyan army. In a 2012 interview with the French magazine L’Express, Touré said: “On the local Arabo-Tuareg rebellions, Gaddafi engaged in negotiations, disarmament, and finding positions for the rebels. … Very early on, we alerted NATO to the collateral damage the Libyan crisis would have. We were not listened to.”

The Libyan regime also helped the Malian government financially after its devastating privatization and austerity policies of the 1980s, which allowed French capital to take major stakes in Mali. As Touré told L’Express, “Libya made substantial investments in hotels, tourism, agriculture, and banking, thus contributing to our development.”

The Malian crisis exploded after the NATO war in Libya. Tuaregs, who had fought alongside Gaddafi’s troops and were persecuted under conditions in which the NATO-backed “rebels” were hunting down people with black skins, returned to Mali in early 2012, many of them heavily armed. They helped Northern Malian rebel groups defeat the Malian army. Islamist militant groups—including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Jihad and Unity in West Africa (MUJAO), Ansar Dine, and the Nigerian group Boko Haram—also played an important role, imposing Sharia law on an increasingly hostile population.

Sanogo deposed President Touré ahead of the April presidential elections, as military officers accused Touré of failing to deal effectively with the Tuareg rebellion. After initially trying to organize an economic blockade to bring down the Sanogo junta, France, ECOWAS, and the imperialist powers ultimately decided to back it against the rebels in northern Mali.

French imperialism fears that a collapse of the Bamako regime would undermine its influence with regimes in the region. France has significant corporate interests in West Africa, varying from energy and mining resources to cheap labor for French industry. It is relying on military force to protect its interests against rivals in the region, in particular China. It will use these forces above all to suppress working class opposition to French imperialist domination of the region.

Will Mali War End Up Like Afghan Conflict? Here.

Algerian bomb squads scouring the Ain Amenas gas plant for booby traps said today that they had found “numerous” dead bodies: here.

Peace activists poured scorn on David Cameron today as he vowed that British workers’ deaths in Algeria demanded “years, even decades” of war: here. And here.

The Algerian government said yesterday that the death toll from the four-day siege at the Ain Amenas natural gas plant had risen to 38: here.

Bloodshed in Algeria, Mali (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
First Nigerian troops due in Mali (bbc.co.uk)
Mali town ‘still in rebel hands’ (bbc.co.uk)
Mali Islamists tougher than France anticipated – envoys – Reuters UK (uk.reuters.com)
Islamists claim two more villages as French forces mass in central Mali (miamiherald.com)
How the French got to airstrikes in Mali: A briefing from Bamako (csmonitor.com)
Mali: a guide to the conflict (guardian.co.uk)

Torture mercenaries L3′s drone strikes

Posted on January 10, 2013 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

Outsourcing FOIA – Contracts Given To Firm Linked To Abu Ghraib Torture

Oct 16, 2012

The Matthew Filipowicz Show discusses Kade Crockford of the ACLU-MA‘s post on the fact that Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA requests are now being outsourced to private, for-profit companies, including CACI International, a firm linked to torture at Abu Ghraib.

This video says about itself:

Jan 10, 2013

Abby Martin calls out the corporate media for their obsession with supermodel Katherine Webb, and instead highlights a successful lawsuit against defense contractor L-3 Services for torture at Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib Prison.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Reprieve: Disgraced firm L3 supporting drone strikes

Thursday 10 January 2013

by Our Foreign Desk

The defence contractor forced to shell out more than £3 million to alleged torture victims is also a key player in illegal US drone strikes, legal charity Reprieve revealed today.

It emerged this week that Engility Corporation – a subsidiary of L3 Communications until last year – has paid out around $5m (£3.1m) to 71 people it held at Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail.

And Reprieve said L3 is one of the main subcontractors involved in producing Predator drones, used by the CIA to kill “suspected militants” in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The “targeted” strikes by unmanned aircraft have killed up to 3,457 people in Pakistan alone since 2004 and as many as 891 were civilians, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The latest attack today killed five people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region.

Security officials said that all the dead were militants, though their identities could not be immediately ascertained and such reports often turn out to be false.

The use of weaponised drones in non-war zones is widely considered to be illegal.

Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith wrote to L3 in September, warning the company that it was complicit in the deaths and trauma caused by providing the satellite data links for Predators.

Reprieve’s Catherine Gilfedder said L3 was the “go-to company” for the US’s war on terror.

She said: “Far from being disgraced by allegations of horrific torture and abuse, L3 continues to provide support to the US drone programme, which terrorises hundreds of thousands of civilians around the world.”

Abu Ghraib torture contractor is key drone component manufacturer (yubanet.com)
Abu Ghraib torture by mercenary corporations (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Latest drone strike kills 8 in northwestern Pakistan (arabtimesonline.com)
5 terrifying facts about John Brennan (salon.com)
5 Ways President Obama Has Doubled Down on Bush’s Most Tragic Mistakes (alternet.org)
Peace Prize President Prepares For All-Out Drone Assaults (personalliberty.com)

More civilians killed, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Posted on January 4, 2013 by petrel41

This video is called Inside Story Americas – Who controls Afghanistan‘s Bagram prison?

By Patrick O’Connor:

New US drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen

4 January 2013

Marking the first US drone attacks of 2013, the Obama administration ordered two separate missile bombardments in Pakistan and Yemen on Wednesday and Thursday.

The latest attacks demonstrate that the drawdown of US-led occupying forces in Afghanistan will be accompanied by an expansion of illegal drone operations across the Middle East. At least 16 people were reported killed, all alleged Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, though details of each incident are still emerging and Washington routinely covers up the killing of civilians in drone strikes.

By Oliver Campbell:

Afghanistan: Sharp rise in civilian deaths

4 January 2013

While the US and its allies claim that the situation in Afghanistan “stabilised” in 2012, in preparation for a security handover to Afghan forces in 2014, increasing civilian casualties, daily drone strikes and a mounting social crisis reveal the real situation after more than a decade of US occupation.

According to a report released by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on December 14, at least 967 civilians were killed, and another 1,590 were injured in the third quarter of 2012. The figures indicate a 28 percent rise in civilian deaths between August 1 and October 31, compared to the corresponding period in 2011.

Statistics released by the US in early November showed that the US military had carried out 333 drone strikes in Afghanistan in the first 10 months of 2012. The average of 33 drone strikes per month was reportedly far higher than at any time in the 11-year US occupation. The monthly average in 2011 was 24.5.

The drone strikes are surging alongside a decrease in the number of US troops, with 34,000 soldiers fewer than early 2011, during Obama’s troop surge. In other words, a central component of the US “transition” in Afghanistan is a deadly drone campaign, which has resulted in an unknown number of civilian casualties. Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution described the drone strikes as a “regularised air war”.

As of early December, 301 US troops had died in Afghanistan during 2012. The number of casualties declined from 413 in 2011, and a high of 500 in 2010, largely as a result of the declining number of ground troops. Even so, in September, the total number of US casualties since the 2001 invasion reached 2,000. Deaths among Afghan police and military personnel are much higher. According to the Afghan Defence Ministry, around 300 are dying each month.

Throughout 2012, so-called “green-on-blue” incidents—attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on their American counterparts—highlighted the broad opposition in Afghanistan to the US occupation. By late November, 60 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops had been killed in such attacks in 2012, according to official calculations, representing 16 percent of total ISAF casualties.

Most recently, an Afghan policewoman shot and killed an American trainer on December 24. A Reuters report revealed that the woman lived in dire poverty, with raw sewage and stagnant water in the lanes around her damp and cold two-room concrete home. Her 16-year-old son Sayid said his mother, who may also have suffered from mental illness, “was usually complaining about poverty. She was complaining to my father about our conditions.”

While statistics are scanty, the number of newly displaced people indicates that the social crisis continues to worsen. According to the UN, 481,877 people are classified as internally displaced. Almost 200,000 of them were first recorded in 2012, with 91,095 of them actually displaced during the year. The statistics for November point to an escalating trend, with almost 33,000 people recorded as newly displaced that month, and more than 8,000 actually displaced in that month. Some 78 percent of those newly displaced in November were from the central region, which has been a focal point of fighting.

Aid organisations have raised concerns that this winter will produce a humanitarian disaster, with more than 2 million people estimated to be at risk from cold, malnutrition and disease. Last winter saw the lowest temperatures and the highest snowfall in 15 years, resulting in scores of children dying in the shanty settlements around Kabul. Millions of people were affected nationally.

Yet more evidence of US abuses came in a report from the US State Department to the UN in early December. It revealed that the American military had detained about 200 teenagers at a prison next to Bagram Air Base since 2008. The teenagers, mostly detained for over a year, were designated “enemy combatants” and denied the most basic legal rights. The report outlined a pseudo-legal rationale for abrogating the legal and democratic rights of minors, claiming that “the purpose of detention is not punitive but preventative: to prevent a combatant from returning to the battlefield.”

According to the report, the teenagers’ average age was 16. Civil liberties advocates noted that the low average age indicated that much younger children were detained.

Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network, an organisation that represents detainees at Bagram, told the Guardian: “I’ve represented children as young as 11 or 12 who have been at Bagram.” She also questioned the number of 200, “because there are thousands of detainees at Parwan.” She added: “There are other children whose parents have said these children are under 18 at the time of their capture, and the US doesn’t allow the detainees or their families to contest their age.”

Are the Wars in the Middle East and North Africa Really About Oil? Here.

US drone strikes go down in Pakistan, up in Yemen (dawn.com)
Drone Denial Syndrome (counterpunch.org)
447 US drone strikes in Afghanistan in 2012 (realisticbird.wordpress.com)

‘War incompatible with Christianity’

Posted on December 25, 2012 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

Chuck Fager is an American activist and author, he is a prominent member of the Society of Friends. He is well known for his involvement in the civil rights movement and peace movement.

He comments on the Campaign for the Right to a Nonviolent Education in the context of the International Salon for Peace Initiatives 2008.

From the blog of John Dear in the USA:

Christmas ‘Peace on Earth’ Means ‘No More War’

Posted: 12/24/2012 3:59 pm

When the nonviolent Jesus was born two thousand years ago into abject poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire, the story goes that angels appeared in the sky to impoverished shepherds singing, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth!”

Peace was coming to the world! They were so excited, they couldn’t contain themselves.

That’s what Christmas is about — the coming of “peace on earth.”

That child grew up to become, in Gandhi’s words, “the greatest nonviolent resister in the history of the world.” Jesus taught peace, lived peace and blessed peacemakers. “My peace is my gift to you,” he said. When we refused to learn “the things that make for peace,” he broke down and wept. He took action to end systemic injustice, and he did it in a nonviolent way and, for his civil disobedience, he was brutally executed by the Roman Empire and died forgiving his killers. When he rose from the dead, he came back not seeking vengeance or retaliation, but once again, offering his gift of peace. “Peace be with you,” he said over and over again. Now you practice nonviolence and go forth as a peacemaker into the world of war. That was his message.

Two thousand years later, the world continues to reject “the things that make for peace.” It remains stuck in the old cycle of war, militarism, empire, poverty and injustice.

This time, however, the empire’s weapons have the power to destroy the entire planet. The money spent funding our wars and weapons bankrupts us and leaves millions in hunger. On top of that, our greed and systemic violence destroys the environment. Catastrophic climate change is upon us, and looks to bring unprecedented new levels of violence and destruction in its wake.

Once again, we categorically reject that Christmas gift of “peace on earth” and pursue the tired-old paradigm of “war on earth.”

Last week, I returned from a peace mission to Afghanistan, where I saw for myself the epitome of poverty, warfare, imperial occupation and environmental destruction. In the last few decades, two million people have been killed there in war. Our current war on the children of Afghanistan is the longest in our own nation’s history, but you don’t hear much about it and folks don’t seem that concerned. War is normal, permanent, institutionalized, taken for granted. This year, the U.S. launched over 330 drone attacks in Afghanistan, and over 1700 Afghan children have been killed or harmed in the conflict — 85 times the number of the horrific Sandy Hook School massacre. We deliberately, systematically, intentionally wage war, kill children, and pursue “war on earth.”

But that’s not the way of Jesus, the meaning of Christmas, or the call of the Gospel. Indeed, support for war, weapons or killing in any form is a complete betrayal of the nonviolent Jesus. It mocks his life, Christmas and the God of peace.

That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that no one can claim to be an authentic Christian any more if they support warfare and weapons. You cannot seriously call yourself a follower of the nonviolent, peacemaking Jesus, whom we celebrate and honor at Christmas, if you own guns, support our wars, defend our nuclear weapons arsenal, tolerate executions and catastrophic climate change, and participate in violence in any form. Anyone who supports warfare, weapons or killing, even if they be a priest, minister or bishop, goes against the nonviolent Jesus. To be a Christian is to be a practitioner of creative nonviolence. To follow the peacemaking Jesus means becoming a peacemaker.

If the birth of the nonviolent Jesus heralds the coming of “peace on earth,” then those who honor or follow him must try to welcome that great Christmas gift of peace. We join to renounce violence, join the global peace movement, work for disarmament and spend our lives making peace with everyone.

Christmas invites us to reclaim our common imagination for peace, to herald a new future of peace, and so to resist the old paradigm of global war-making.

That vision of peace, announced by the nonviolent Jesus as God’s “reign of peace,” is breath-taking. It upholds a world without borders, one human family where everyone sees everyone else as a beloved sister or brother. When we pray for the coming of that reign, we welcome God’s gift of peace with all its challenging global, social, economic and political implications.

To state the obvious: “Peace on earth” means “No More War.” From now on, nonviolent Christians, resist war, call for the immediate end of our war in Afghanistan and our nuclear arsenal, and work for a world beyond our wildest imagination — a new world without war, weapons, drones, killings, nuclear weapons, poverty, starvation, corporate greed, violence or environmental destruction.

Christmas invites a beautiful opportunity to renew our own personal nonviolence and commit ourselves once again to ending war and killing, to building a stronger global peace movement, and to lifting up that glorious vision of a nonviolent world.

As we celebrate the birth of the nonviolent Jesus, I hope we will honor his way of nonviolence and commit ourselves again to becoming people of nonviolence. That’s what the spiritual life is about — turning from our addiction to violence and war, and becoming sober people of nonviolence and peace. As we do, we become, like Jesus, peacemakers, and we will be blessed.

John Dear is a Christian peace activist, author of ‘Lazarus, Come Forth!‘ and ‘A Persistent Peace.’

John Dear: Why I’m Going to Afghanistan (huffingtonpost.com)
Pope abuses Christmas for homophobia (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Seasonal reminder: Cherish genuine peace of Christmas (omaha.com)
Doing Time for Peace (counterpunch.org)
When war took a pause for the peace of Christmas (outerbanksvoice.com)
The Interruption. Christmas Midnight sermon 2012 (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
Syrian Christians Pray For Peace On Christmas Eve (eurasiareview.com)

Iraqi receptionist tortured to death by British soldiers

Posted on December 24, 2012 by petrel41

The body of Baha Mousa showing some of the 93 injuries that doctor Keilloh ‘did not notice’ after being beaten by British troops

From daily News Line in Britain:

Monday, 24 December 2012

‘I WANT THE DOCTOR BANNED FOR LIFE’ says Colonel Mousa – the father of Baha Mousa

THE Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service (MPTS) investigating the fitness to practice of the doctor who was responsible for the welfare of Baha Mousa at the time of his death in British custody in Iraq, has announced that Dr Derek Keilloh is not fit to practice and has had his membership of the General Medical Council (GMC) erased.

He will not be allowed to practice as a Doctor for at least five years and, even then, will be required to prove to the MPTS that he is fit to resume practice before being restored.

Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) represent the father of Baha Mousa, Colonel Daoud Mousa.

PIL lodged a complaint with the GMC in 2007 on Col. Mousa’s behalf. The complaint alleged that Dr Keilloh had failed in his professional capacity to offer adequate levels of care and protection to Baha Mousa and other Iraqi civilians detained at Battle Group Main, the main base of the 1st Queen’s Lancashire Regiment (1QLR) during the UK’s occupation of South East Iraq.

Baha Mousa died after three days of vicious abuse at Battle Group Main. Dr Keilloh was the Medical Officer overseeing detainee care at the base and attempted over 20 minutes or so to resuscitate Baha Mousa.

At the public inquiry into Baha Mousa’s death, Dr Keilloh insisted that he had not noticed extensive injuries on Baha Mousa’s body whilst seeking to resuscitate him.

He claimed to have only noticed an area of dried blood at his nostrils. By contrast, the final report of the chair of the Inquiry, Sir William Gage, recorded that Baha Mousa had sustained 93 different external injuries prior to his death.

The MPTS has undertaken a lengthy investigation into Dr Keilloh’s fitness to practice. On 16 December 2012, the Panel announced which of the allegations of misconduct made against Dr Keilloh were found to be proven.

Of 51 allegations, 30 were admitted by Dr Keilloh and 17 were not admitted but were found proven by the Panel. Of those allegations proven, the following were key:

i.) That Dr Keilloh failed to conduct any, or any adequate, examination of Baha Mousa’s body after his death.

ii.) That Dr Keilloh failed to ensure that the physical condition of the other civilian detainees then held at Battlegroup Main was assessed.

iii.) That Dr Keilloh failed to take any, or any adequate, action to safeguard the well being of the civilian detainees held at Battlegroup Main.

iv.) That Dr Keilloh’s account to the Court Martial of 11 December 2006 and the Baha Mousa Public Inquiry with regards the extent of the injuries he had observed on Baha Mousa and two other injured detainees was untrue and his conduct in this regard was misleading, and these findings led the Panel to conclude that Dr Keilloh’s fitness to practice was impaired.

They announced that he would be struck from the GMC register and would not be permitted to practice as a Doctor for at least five years.

Speaking following confirmation of the Panel’s findings, Colonel Mousa stated: ‘I wanted the Doctor to be banned for life. He did not have humanity in his heart when he was supposed to be caring for my son.

‘He did not do his job properly.’

PIL welcome the Panel’s determination on sanction. It marks a welcome acknowledgment that professional, legal and moral obligations are borne by all of those in positions of power and responsibility working in conflict zones.

PIL commend the GMC for taking a strong stance on the crucial issues of professional responsibility and integrity.

With 15 months having passed since the conclusion of the Baha Mousa Inquiry, it is remarkable that only one soldier and now one doctor have faced disciplinary or criminal proceedings for what is recognised to have been the unlawful killing of a man held in British custody.

PIL hope that this case marks a new chapter in the British authorities acknowledging, and accepting responsibility for, the many crimes committed in Iraq against Iraqi civilians.

PIL notes that all of its hundreds of other Iraqi cases involving torture and ill-treatment in UK detention also involve doctors failing in basic medical standards.

Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers said: ‘Baha Mousa died with appalling injuries to his face and body.

‘Dr Keilloh saw these injuries and failed to take any action to safeguard the other detainees or report what he had seen.

‘The medical profession is well rid of such a man. All those UK doctors in Iraq who also saw signs of ill-treatment of Iraqi detainees but took no action had best start to instruct lawyers.’

Meanwhile, lawyers for a Pakistani man, whose father was killed by a US drone strike, have confirmed that he is to appeal a High Court judgement, handed down on 21 December which denies him permission to continue his legal action which seeks to determine the legality of intelligence sharing in relation to GCHQ assistance in CIA drone strikes.

Noor Khan – whose father was killed in a CIA strike on a peaceful meeting in March 2011 – issued legal proceedings in March of this year against the Foreign Secretary in order to clarify the British Government’s reported policy of supporting the CIA’s covert campaign of attacks on his home region of Waziristan, using remotely-controlled robotic aircraft.

Supported by legal action charity Reprieve and solicitors Leigh Day, Mr Khan’s legal challenge asserts that this practice may be illegal.

British law suggests that in these circumstances UK intelligence staff and those who direct their actions could be committing various criminal offences, including conspiracy to murder.

Mr Khan was today denied permission to progress his case to a full hearing, but intends to appeal his case immediately.

The issue of CIA drones killing innocent civilians is also being pursued before the Peshawar High Court in Pakistan, where Chief Justice Dost Muhammad has already instructed the Pakistan government to share details of strikes, including that of March 2011, with the parties in order to determine the extent of the casualties.

The suit in the Peshawar High Court is also asking the Pakistani government to disclose their involvement – if any – in the drone strikes. The next hearing in this case is expected early next year when the Pakistani government will have to disclose the identities of those killed in the strikes.

Rosa Curling from law firm Leigh Day, who represents Mr Khan, said: ‘We are disappointed that the court has decided not to engage in this very important issue, leaving our client no option but to appeal the decision.

‘This claim raises very serious questions and issues about the UK’s involvement in the CIA drone attacks in Pakistan.

‘This case seeks to determine the legality of intelligence sharing in relation to GCHQ assistance in CIA drone strikes.

‘Those providing such information could be committing serious criminal offences, including conspiracy to murder.’

Baha Mousa doc loses licence (morningstaronline.co.uk)
Baha Mousa doctor Derek Keilloh struck off after ‘repeated dishonesty’ (guardian.co.uk)
Baha Mousa army doctor found guilty of dishonest conduct (guardian.co.uk)
Baha Mousa: guilty verdict on doctor should force an inquiry into Iraq abuse | Andrew Williams (guardian.co.uk)
Army doctor struck off over death of Iraqi detainee Baha Mousa who was beaten by soldiers in 2003 (dailymail.co.uk)
Former Army doctor found guilty of a ‘series of failures’ over death of Iraqi prisoner Baha Mousa (scotsman.com)
Yorkshire GP is struck off over death of Iraqi prisoner (yorkshirepost.co.uk)
Doctor guilty of lying in Iraqi prisoner death case – Herald Scotland (heraldscotland.com)
Baha Mousa doctor Derek Keilloh struck off after ‘repeated dishonesty’ (altahrir.wordpress.com)
British doctor banned over Iraqi death (abc.net.au)

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Iraqi receptionist tortured to death by British soldiers

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