Category: politics

It is now taken for granted that great military power licenses large-scale political and social change, whatever damage that may entail. And the fact that one’s own side will not suffer many casualties seems only to stimulate more fantasies about surgical strikes, clean war, high technology battlefields, changing the entire map, creating democracy and so on, all of this giving rise to dreams of omnipotence. (Edward Said)

After weeks of lying about the incident, U.S. and allied forces under General McChrystal’s command have finally admitted that Special Operations units killed three innocent Afghan women, two of them pregnant, in a raid on a civilian household in February. Now it appears that Special Ops personnel may have dug bullets from bodies to cover their tracks and prevent the truth from being revealed. And yet, the forces under McChrystal’s command propose to investigate themselves.

This is unacceptable. We demand an independent, United-Nations-led investigation of the Pentagon’s cover-up of the night raid killings in Gardez and real accountability for those involved. Sign petition on FB page.

It is now taken for granted that great military power licenses large-scale political and social change, whatever damage that may entail. And the fact that one’s own side will not suffer many casualties seems only to stimulate more fantasies about surgical strikes, clean war, high technology battlefields, changing the entire map, creating democracy and so on, all of this giving rise to dreams of omnipotence. (Edward Said)

A small window of opportunity just opened this week that could finally break the cycle of weapons freely flowing in to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and conflict minerals irresponsibly being mined out.
Right now, the House of Representatives is weighing a piece of legislation that would make it easier to identify imports into the United States that contain minerals such as coltan, cassiterite, wolframite – commonly found in cell phones, laptops and other electronic devices – used to fund the activities of armed groups operating in the DRC. If Congress required companies to disclose the origins of the minerals used in their products, then we, as consumers, could be assured that the electronics and products we purchase do not directly finance conflict or fuel human rights abuses. Send an email to your Representatives right now and urge them to co-sponsor the Conflict Minerals Trade Act. Sign petition.

AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE
A newly released Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” video has made international headlines showing a July 2007 shooting incident outside of Baghdad in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees. Two soldiers from Bravo Company 2-16, the company depicted in the video, have written an open letter of apology to the Iraqis who were injured or lost loved ones during the attack that, these former soldiers say, is a regular occurrence in this war. Read and sign letter.

“I have been actively involved for the past two decades in movements for justice involving sexism, racism, economic inequality, and the barbarism of war. There isn’t a day that I don’t feel a sense of profound grief about the pain that these systems cause. The luck of the draw left me in a position of relative privilege, which means I escape virtually all of the suffering imposed by those systems. What satisfaction I find in this world comes from trying to be part of movements that struggle for something better. In those efforts, things inevitably get stirred up. I take no particular pleasure in that and wish it could be otherwise. But none of us get to choose the world into which we are born. All we get to choose is how we respond to it.” (Robert Jensen) Full article.

brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

“What is the calculus of grief that makes some lives more valuable and grievable and others just “collateral damage” and not even worthy of counting? Why are some issues of sartorial choice or even the lack thereof more worthy of spilling tears, ink, or blood than issues of life, justice, and the freedom from wars, occupation, and torture? Why is it so easily, so liberally assumed that struggles of gender and sexual justice are completely distinct and separable from struggles against racism, Islamophobia, class exploitation, and imminent or current wars? The insistence on the separation of these entwined and intersecting struggles is not innocent but entirely complicit in manipulating the former struggles against the equally vital latter ones. Don’t we all remember the proliferation of Afghani burqas on the hallowed pages of the New York Times in the days leading up to the war to “rescue” the Muslim women? “What about the abominable flogging video purportedly from Swat that went viral in the days leading up to the US-directed Pakistani military action there, and which was later exposed to be a fake?” (Huma Dar) Full article.

In our peculiar post-9/11 world, it is apparently less controversial to kill a suspect in cold blood than to hold him in preventive detention. The Post reported on February 14 that the Obama administration has killed many more suspected terrorists than it has captured. According to National Journal, Obama ordered more drone attacks in his first year than President Bush did in two full presidential terms. The Post article suggested that the two developments may not be unrelated. A dead suspect, after all, has no right to habeas corpus; and with a dead suspect, one need not agonize over the choice between civilian criminal court and a military commission. Full article.

Written in 1954 by one of the coup’s chief planners, the history details how United States and British officials plotted the military coup that returned the shah of Iran to power and toppled Iran’s elected prime minister, an ardent nationalist. Full article.

While visiting her at Walter Reed, I witnessed many soldiers returning from Iraq with cancer, unknown to the public and unacknowledged by the military. Walter Reed had two floors dedicated solely to the soldiers arriving daily with cancer. Their lives were spared on the battlefield, but the cancer was ravaging their bodies from within. I began to do research, and was alarmed to discover how the military uses depleted uranium, especially in Iraq. Soldiers I talked to at Walter Reed began to say the same thing: Cancer is not a “war wound,” so the military denies responsibility. Since soldiers are uninformed about depleted uranium, they don’t wear protective gear and unknowingly inhale the toxic, pollen-like, yellow dust. The toxins develop into different forms of rare cancers within four to 36 months. Full article.

The 27-year-old Dayton man had entered the center’s emergency room about 1 a.m. Friday and requested some sort of treatment. But Huff did not get that treatment, police said, and about 5:45 a.m. he reappeared at the center’s entrance, put a military-style rifle to his head and twice pulled the trigger. Huff fell near the foot of a Civil War statue, his blood covering portions of the front steps. Full article.

It was dark when Mohammed Taleb Abdul Ajan woke to the sound of dogs barking. Then he heard boots crunching on gravel and men’s voices outside his bedroom. “Their guns killed without a sound,” he said. By dawn three of Taleb’s sons, two of his brothers, three nephews, a shepherd boy staying with them and a neighbour were dead. All the victims were aged 12 to 18. Eight of them were enrolled in the local school. Most were shot at close range where they slept but one was dragged from the bed that he shared with his wife and killed with his nephews in a different room, Taleb said. Full article.

Arizona lawmakers have approved what’s being described as the harshest anti-immigrant measure in the country, forcing police officers to determine the immigration status of someone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant. Meanwhile, over fifty people were arrested Thursday in a federal immigration sweep targeting van operators allegedly involved in smuggling in undocumented migrants from Mexico. We speak to Isabel Garcia, co-chair of the Tuscon-based Coalition for Human Rights and legal defender of Pima County, Arizona. Watch interview.

The United States and Britain have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis and their own troops, but the entire world. In the first invasion, at least 320 tons of Depleted Uranium were exploded into Iraq, at least 1500 tons were blasted in the second illegal invasion. DU kills people at genetic level. (Questionitnow.com)

“Garzón is being politically targeted because he is an international symbol in the fight against impunity,” said ICTJ president emeritus Juan Méndez. “His ground-breaking work in investigating serious crimes has opened the door for long-awaited redress for victims in Argentina, Guatemala, Chile and now Spain.” Garzón has been charged with abuse of process for knowingly exceeding his jurisdiction by investigating crimes committed during the Franco regime. Full article.