Posts tagged US military
IRAQ’S LIBERATION LEGACY. 10:53 am / 26 December 2011 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.
http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/depleted_uranium_iraq_afghanistan_balkans.html
Molly’sBlog 2010-12-14 17:44:00 5:44 pm / 14 December 2010 by mollymew, at Molly'sBlog
Molly’sBlog 2010-11-07 22:47:00 10:47 pm / 07 November 2010 by mollymew, at Molly'sBlog
Molly’sBlog 2010-09-30 17:55:00 5:55 pm / 30 September 2010 by mollymew, at Molly'sBlog
U.S. Troops ‘Killing for Sport’ in Afghanistan (Video) 7:00 am / 28 September 2010 by Sayyid, at Little Alex in Wonderland
Taped interrogations of four soldiers charged in theatrically slaying numerous Afghan civilians were obtained by CNN and ABC. CNN’s report includes the soldiers’ rampant drug abuse and a before unreported case of staging the murder of an Afghan civilian (5:52):
Monday, U.S. Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 22, “one of five American soldiers accused by Army investigators of taking part in the murders of three Afghan civilians this year, appeared at a hearing to determine the formal charges against him”, Robert Mackey reported at his New York Times (NYT) blog, “The Lede”.
The 11 other soldiers “invoked their constitutional right not to testify in the case”, Reuters reported (via the NYT). Nine of them are among the 12 charged from the 5th Stryker Brigade, out of Washington state, charged with crimes relating to their activities while deployed to the Kandahar province of Afghanistan. Nicholas Riccardi of the Los Angeles Times reported from the base, “Of the 18 witnesses listed for Monday’s hearing, 14 invoked their 5th amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying, including the lieutenant of the platoon.”
The CNN report as well as Mr. Mackey’s—and another at the NYT by William Yardley—point toward abuse of prescription drugs and hash as influencing the staged brutal murders and trophy-collecting. Mr. Yardley’s report adds of another story where the soldiers staged a murder by planting a grenade near a defenseless civilian:
Some of the soldiers have said in court documents that they were forced to participate in the killings by a supervisor, Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, who is also accused in the killings. All five defendants have said they are not guilty.
In one incident, Specialist Morlock recounted in the video, he described Sergeant Gibbs identifying for no apparent reason an Afghan civilian in a village, then directing Specialist Morlock and another soldier to fire on the man after Sergeant Gibbs lobbed a grenade in his direction.
“He kind of placed me and Winfield off over here so we had a clean line of sight for this guy and, you know, he pulled out one of his grenades, an American grenade, popped it, throws the grenade, and tells me and Winfield: ‘All right, wax this guy. Kill this guy, kill this guy,’ ” Specialist Morlock said in the video.
Referring to the Afghan, the investigator asked: “Did you see him present any weapons? Was he aggressive toward you at all?”
Specialist Morlock replied: “No, not at all. Nothing. He wasn’t a threat.”
As Monday’s hearing was getting under way, CNN and ABC News broadcast the video. In the CNN clip and the ABC clip, Specialist Morlock, speaking in a near monotone, looks like a teenager recounting a story to his parents.
Spc. Morlock’s attorney, Michael Waddington, is attempting to refute the confession because of his client’s drug use, Mr. Mackey added, citing Hal Berton at The Seattle Times.
Questioning Army investigators in Afghanistan, Mr. Yardley reported, “Mr. Waddington repeatedly asked whether they found Specialist Morlock to be under the influence of medication in the interviews.”
The taped interrogations were not intended to be publicized and access to the seized photographs are limited to the soldiers’ lawyers, his report added:
A memo circulated by a military defense lawyer the previous week described an inadvertent release of photographs, including three that show American soldiers holding up the heads of dead Afghans. It was unclear whether all of the pictures showed soldiers in the cases, though military prosecutors said Monday that Specialist Morlock was in at least one image, apparently with a dead Afghan.
Photographic evidence could play an important role in the Army’s case, as will statements from soldiers. No bodies have been recovered, and a military investigator testified on Monday that the nature of the areas where the crimes occurred, including religious views of residents and potential danger to American soldiers, prevented them from conducting crime scene investigations.
The dozen soldiers are charged with crimes relating to incidents in January, February, and May of this year.
Lawyers attributed the tragedies to Washington’s “failed policy” in the Afghan region.
Filed under: Political Science Tagged: Af-Pak War, Afghanistan, Calvin Gibbs, civilian casualties, Jeremy Morlock, Kandahar Province, Michael Waddington, military tribunals, Obama Administration, Robert Mackey, US Army, US military, war crimes, William Yardley
Molly’sBlog 2010-09-18 18:27:00 6:27 pm / 18 September 2010 by mollymew, at Molly'sBlog
Evening Briefing—7th Sept 2010 4:45 pm / 07 September 2010 by Editors, at Little Alex in Wonderland
News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:
- US bailouts failing to help most Americans | RT 8 September 2010
- Another Death From A ‘Non-Lethal’ Taser – Charles Davis | Change.org 8 September 2010
- Policeman jailed after attack caught on film | AFP 7 September 2010
- Tube workers start 24-hour strike | AFP 7 September 2010
- Sri Lanka is still denying civilian deaths | Human Rights Watch 7 September 2010
- South Africa: Public Workers Strike Ends After Keeping the Nation On Hold 3 Weeks | allAfrica.com 7 September 2010
- Mozambique unrest shows the power of text messaging | AFP 7 September 2010
- Mozambique: Renamo Members Arrested in Nampula | allAfrica.com 7 September 2010
- ‘Magic mushrooms’ ingredient beneficial to cancer patients, report says | LA Times 7 September 2010
- Troops Popping Anxiety, Depression Meds Like Never Before – Danger Room | Wired.com 7 September 2010
- Court OKs Warrantless Cell-Site Tracking – Threat Level | Wired.com 7 September 2010
- ACLU Sues Over Laptop Border Searches – Threat Level | Wired.com 7 September 2010
- Cuba to expand use of employee-run cooperatives | Reuters 7 September 2010
- The White House Attempts To Refute The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever | Business Insider 7 September 2010
- Ten million without shelter in Pakistan floods: UN | AFP 7 September 2010
- French Unions Strike as Sarkozy Pension Debate Starts | Bloomberg 7 September 2010
- Obama Says Infrastructure Programs Won’t Widen U.S. Deficit | Bloomberg 7 September 2010
- Ex-CIA Officer Accused Of Electric-Drill Torture Now Training CIA Operatives As A Contractor | AP 7 September 2010
- Blast Strikes Pakistani Police Area | NY Times 7 September 2010
- Iraq’s Looted Treasures in a Revolving Door | NY Times 7 September 2010
- Obama to Propose Tax Write-Off for Business | NY Times 7 September 2010
- Defense Department spends $500 million to strike up the bands – Walter Pincus | WaPo 7 September 2010
- Police Taser Man Trying to Save Pets in Fire | JONATHAN TURLEY 7 September 2010
- Dollar-Yen Falls To 15 Year Low As Stocks Relatively Overpriced Beyond Recognition | zero hedge 7 September 2010
- Judge Denies Habeas Petition of Afghan Shopkeeper at Guantánamo | Andy Worthington 7 September 2010
- 35 Killed in Two Days of Bombings in Pakistan’s Northwest | Antiwar.com 7 September 2010
- FM: Russia Seeks Return to Afghanistan | Antiwar.com 7 September 2010
- New IAEA Report on Iran Says Little, Sparks Flurry of New Speculation | Antiwar.com 7 September 2010
- Petraeus Seeks More Troops for Afghanistan | Antiwar.com 7 September 2010
- U.S. issues upbeat report on human rights at home | WaPo 6 September 2010
- The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig Disaster – Walter Block | LRC 6 September 2010
Filed under: Daily Briefing Tagged: ACLU, Af-Pak War, Afghanistan, Andy Worthington, anti-depressants, bailouts, banking, BP, cancer, Charles Davis, CIA, cooperatives, Cuba, David Petraeus, Deepwater Horizon, Fannie Mae, FOREX, Fourth Amendment, France, Freddie Mac, general strike, Guantanamo Bay, Gulf oil spill, habeas corpus, healthcare, human rights, IAEA, infrastructure, Iran, Iraq, Jonathan Turley, London Underground, mortgage crisis, Mozambique, mushrooms, NATO, Obama Administration, Pakistan, police brutality, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, tasers, torture, unemployment, US military, USDJPY, Walter Block, Walter Pincus, Warfare and Conflict
Molly’sBlog 2010-08-29 12:09:00 12:09 pm / 29 August 2010 by mollymew, at Molly'sBlog
Molly’sBlog 2010-08-17 19:32:00 7:32 pm / 17 August 2010 by mollymew, at Molly'sBlog
WORLD NEWS AND POLITICS:
PAKISTAN FLOODS IN PERSPECTIVE:
The slow moving disaster in Pakistan changes its numbers every day. As I write today there are an estimated 20 million people affected. The reported death rate of 1,600 seems to have its meter stuck. The reason is that calculating those effected is simple. Simply take the pre-flood population of areas now underwater if you want a measure of the affected. Death rates are much harder to estimate in a country where the means of communication have basically been cut off in the flooded areas and huge numbers of people are on the move. The figure of 1,600 is undoubtedly far lower than the actual toll by at least an order of magnitude ie 16,000 is probably a low estimate while 160,000 is probably too high. While this is not of the same magnitude as the 1938, 1931, and 1887 floods in the Huang He (Yellow) river basin in China even the probable lower number easily earns this flood a place amongst the worst floods in history. For more info on the largest floods in history see here, here and here.
Still, this is certainly the largest recorded flood in the country of Pakistan. Members of Winnipeg's Pakistani community have been fund raising for disaster relief since the beginning. This has mostly been done through the Association of Pakistani Canadians, 348 Ross Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3E 0L4. Phone # 204-943-6928. Get in touch with them if you would like to donate. The funds raised will go via the Red Cross (forwarded to the Pakistani Red Crescent), and Human Concern International. You might also donate via these organizations. The latter is particularly interesting as they claim that 95% of funds donated go directly to relief work, something that might give some pause in the case of other charities.
All that being said there is something quite disturbing about the response or lack thereof of the international community to the Pakistani floods. Molly reproduces below one anarchist comment on this from the website of the Irish Workers' Solidarity Movement. In actial fact the glaring contrasts between the response of international governments and their spending on what they consider important is far more glaring than the following suggests. I'll speak more about this at the end of this post.
PAPAPAPAPA
Response to Pakistan floods shows barbarism of system
Date: Tue, 2010-08-17 14:31
Radio, television and newspaper reports of the recent devastating floods in Pakistan are at last beginning to refer to the sheer scale of the problems faced by the victims. Figures for the number of people affected vary widely. According to the Irish Minister of State for Overseas Development Peter Power, reported in today’s (Tuesday) Irish Times, “the United Nations estimated that 40 million people had been left homeless; that eight million of those were in urgent need of immediate food and shelter; and that the combination of rising water and humidity had made a cholera epidemic a real danger”. RTE’s website says “Aid agencies are saying that the world does not fully understand the scale of the flooding disaster ….. One fifth of the country has been hit by severe flooding, with more than 20m people affected…..The UN believes up to 3.5m children are now at risk of contracting water-borne diseases….”.
Whatever the numbers, it is clear that the devastation caused is unprecedented. Apart from the immediate short-term needs in terms of shelter, food and clean water, the Pakistani poor and working class are facing food shortages, higher food prices and increased poverty and deprivation for considerable time to come. Already the price of vegetables has increased by about 100%, sugar has gone up by over 20%, and the price of other staple foodstuffs has rocketed. Transport prices too have soared as operators exploit the desperation of those trying to flee the devastated areas.
Caught between the authoritarianism of a corrupt government which spends huge amounts annually on its military - the defence budget for 2010/11 increased by 17% to 442.2billion rupees (over 4billion Euros) – and the authoritarianism of the Taliban ‘rebels’, the ordinary people of Pakistan face a seemingly hopeless situation. Protests have broken out across the country demanding much-needed aid and support for the victims.
The United Nations Secretary General has announced its biggest ever relief effort and made an appeal for $460million (€358million). The response of the world’s governments has been pathetically slow with less than a quarter of this amount pledged.
It’s worth stopping for a moment and considering a couple of figures – Pakistani government military spending this year at €4billion will be over 10 times the total flood relief pledged by the United Nations. The Irish government meanwhile will throw €24billion (do the maths – that’s over 60 times the total flood relief pledged by the United Nations!) down the Anglo Irish Bank black hole and into the pockets of wealthy speculators.
And they tell us that capitalism works!
PAPAPAPAPA
Here are some facts that put what is happening in Pakistan and the world's response to it in perspective:
>>The article above mentions the yearly military budget for Pakistan. Right next door to this country the US military is waging what may turn out to be its longest war ever. In 2009 the USA spent $3.6 billion a month on this war. According to an article in USA Today the cost by February of this year had climbed to $6.7 billion a month, and by the end of 2010 the Afghan war will be costing $8.9 billion a month. The estimated cost in 2011 will be $9.75 billion a month. So far the USA has pledged (not delivered yet) $70 million. Take out your handy dandy calculators. That 70 million amounts to a little less than 4/5ths of one percent of what the US is presently spending per month on their operations in Pakistan's neighbour. I think this shows just how "seriously" the US takes the welfare of people in Pakistan.
>>To add injury to insult the USA has not even called at least a temporary halt to its remote controlled terrorism in Pakistan. Just last Saturday US missiles fired from a drone killed 12 people in the village of Issori in North Waziristan.
>>Meanwhile each and every US military helicopter that arrives in Pakistan is sure to get its own golden glowing press release. At the same time as its missiles were raining down on Issori last Saturday a "wonderful" total of 2 came to flood aid. On Monday this was doubled to an "astounding" total of four. I wonder how many US helicopters are in Afghanistan. Surely the US military could at least slow down on its attacks on wedding parties and other such things to divert a few more of them to Pakistan. There'll still be crowds of Afghans left over to attack later after all.
>>Finally, in perhaps the starkest light, the pledged US aid to Pakistan is almost exactly the same as another sum that was recently in the news. The 70 or 76 million dollars is about the same sum that Madonna recently paid in a divorce settlement to be able to ditch her latest husband. That says it all.