War in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is famous for its violent conflicts. The region has been fought over for hundreds of years.

The US war in Afghanistan has been taken for granted. The war started only a few days after the 9/11/2001 WTC attacks. People by and large did not question the Bush Administration's decision to launch an invasion and campaign of sustained occupation of Afghanistan.

But the premise and concept of the occupation of Afghanistan is worthy of taking a closer look. For example, terrorists, from a group which is supposedly headquarted in Afghanistan, attacked the World Trade Center in New York City. Does this give the USA the right to invade and occupy the whole of Afghanistan? The answer is no. The terrorist attacks do not give the USA the right to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign national government, except to the point of seeking, and rooting out, suspected terrorists.

The events of 9/11/2001, and the war in Afghanistan, give us the opportunity to explore the foreign policies of our nation in terms of blowback.

Many people around the world, including myself, are critical of the imperialism of the USA. Terrorists are motivated by the harmfulness of economic exploitation and oppression, which stems from the policies and practices of the USA.

The way to truly make the USA safe and secure, is to operate in the world in ways that are respectful, tolerant of personal differences between peoples and nations, and fair and just.

Bullying and belligerence, economic exploitation and oppression, will only serve to provoke anti-American sentiment, and possibly even terrorist attacks.

New FBI Rules would Draw Ire of Civil Rights Advocates, and Instill Fear

The Bush Administration reaches for further authoritarian controls:

Proposed new FBI rules draw civil liberties worries
Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:17pm EDT
By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department unveiled proposed new rules on Friday for FBI investigations, changes a civil liberties group criticized for giving agents powers to investigate Americans without proper suspicion.

In its first major change in years, the Justice Department proposed a consolidated set of guidelines for domestic FBI operations, seeking to apply the same rules for criminal and terrorism cases, and for collecting foreign intelligence.

The guidelines were first adopted in the 1970s following disclosures that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had run a widespread domestic surveillance program that spied on civil rights activists and political opponents.

Officials said the new guidelines, which total 45 pages, were still being revised after consultations with Congress and civil liberties groups. The new rules are expected to take effect on October 1.

Justice Department and FBI officials told a news briefing the changes would allow agents in some terrorism cases to use informants, do physical surveillance and conduct interviews without identifying themselves or their true purpose.

They said such techniques currently could be used in ordinary criminal cases, but not for those involving national security, before an investigation has begun.

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern the rewritten rules had been drafted in a way to allow the FBI to begin surveillance without factual evidence to back it up.

It said that under the new guidelines, a person's race or ethnic background could be used as a factor in opening an investigation, a move the ACLU believes will institute racial profiling as a matter of policy.

ACLU Washington legislative director Caroline Fredrickson said, "Agents will be given unparalleled leeway to investigate Americans without proper suspicion, and that will inevitably result in constitutional violations."

Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director, said, "Issuing guidelines that permit racial profiling the day after the 9/11 anniversary and in the midst of a historic presidential campaign is typical Bush administration stagecraft designed to exploit legitimate security concerns for partisan political purposes."

Department officials said the guidelines would not allow an investigation based solely on a person's race or religion. "We are not changing our basic approach when race, religion or ethnicity may be taken into consideration," said one official who declined to be identified.

"The Department of Justice has long been concerned about the use of race or ethnicity in investigations. But it is simply not responsible to say that race may never be taken into account when conducting an investigation," spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said in a statement after the briefing.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Defining the Discourse

I recently signed up to receive email updates from Jewish Peace News. JPN is a spin-off of Jewish Voice for Peace. I like the letters that I have received so far. They are thoughtful, and well composed. The following is no exception:

This article by Noam Chomsky raises the important but extremely difficult problem of comparing “intentional” and “unintentional” civilian casualties. Can we equate American troops who accidentally kill Iraqi civilians with foreign terrorists who intentionally kill American civilians? Can we compare the deaths of Palestinian children caught in the line of Israeli fire with the deaths of Israeli child victims of suicide bombers?

The occasion for Chomsky addressing these questions is the assassination of Imad Moughniyeh, a senior figure in Hizbollah who was linked to several terrorist attacks on Americans and Israelis. Chomsky notes the hypocrisy apparent in the US media and government, which condemned Moughniyeh’s crimes on the one hand while remaining silent about much more serious crimes committed by the US or Israel, although these crimes were often what prompted Hizbollah’s retaliatory actions.

But is it really hypocrisy? Apologists for the US and Israel explain that unlike Hizbollah, the US and Israel do not intentionally kill the civilians who die as a result of their actions (for instance, the Palestinians who die as a result of Israel bombing Gaza’s power supply).

No, says Chomsky: the US and Israel (generally) do not intend the deaths of these civilians. Rather, the civilians die because the US and Israel often barely notice, much less care, that our actions will kill people. We hold the lives of these victims too cheaply to even register them. As Chomsky writes: “We are aware that it is likely to happen (if we bother to think about it), but we do not intend to kill them because they are not worthy of such consideration.”

This aggressively and viciously dehumanizing attitude might be distinguishable from a specific intention to kill, but is it really any better?

Judith Norman [of Jewish Peace News]

Noam Chomsky: The Most Wanted List
February 28, 2008
Source: TomDispatch

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16669

On February 13, Imad Moughniyeh, a senior commander of Hizbollah, was assassinated in Damascus. "The world is a better place without this man in it," State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said: "one way or the other he was brought to justice." Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell added that Moughniyeh has been "responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden."

Joy was unconstrained in Israel too, as "one of the U.S. and Israel's most wanted men" was brought to justice, the London Financial Times reported. Under the heading, "A militant wanted the world over," an accompanying story reported that he was "superseded on the most-wanted list by Osama bin Laden" after 9/11 and so ranked only second among "the most wanted militants in the world."

The terminology is accurate enough, according to the rules of Anglo-American discourse, which defines "the world" as the political class in Washington and London (and whoever happens to agree with them on specific matters). It is common, for example, to read that "the world" fully supported George Bush when he ordered the bombing of Afghanistan. That may be true of "the world," but hardly of the world, as revealed in an international Gallup Poll after the bombing was announced. Global support was slight. In Latin America, which has some experience with U.S. behavior, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama, and that support was conditional upon the culprits being identified (they still weren't eight months later, the FBI reported), and civilian targets being spared (they were attacked at once). There was an overwhelming preference in the world for diplomatic/judicial measures, rejected out of hand by "the world."

[... read more]

Horror in Baghdad

To think that this violence was caused by an unnecessary and unjustified, illegal and immoral "preemptive" invasion by the USA. The USA was driven to war based on false pretenses. Members of the Bush Administration made false statements over a period of years in order to create an environment where they could launch their invasion. As such the invasion can be rightly understood as aggression.

It is sickening.


...what terror, what horror...

I wish there was a simple and quick solution, and maybe there is, but then maybe there is not.

There definitely are solutions however, though they might not be simple or quick. First order of business must be to hold those who perpetrated this unlawful, unnecessary, unjustified invasion to account. The USA was driven to war based on false pretenses (Center for Public Integrity). Members of the Bush Administration have been making false statements about the threat from Iraq for years. It is time to hold them accountable. Here are three articles on impeachment:

• Elizabeth Holtzman, Impeachment: the Case in Favor
• Scott Horton, The Case for Impeachment
• Lewis Lapham, Uncle Sam

Secondly, the mission priority in Iraq must be reconstruction. Some 70% of Iraqis go without adequate access to clean, safe, potable water (http://www.oxfam.org/...).

Economic stability is necessary for civil society and basic infrastructural remedies will be necessary for economic stability - like fixing the water and sewage systems.

There is a humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

Blowback...

Chalmers Johnson writes about Charlie Wilson's war in Afghanistan as portrayed in George Crile's book, and Tom Hanks's new movie:

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...he never once mentions that the 'tens of thousands of fanatical Muslim fundamentalists' the CIA armed are the same people who in 1996 killed nineteen American airmen at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, blew a hole in the side of the U.S.S. Cole in Aden Harbor in 2000, and on September 11, 2001, flew hijacked airliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon."
...

[edit: here's more from Kenneth Turan of the LA Times:]

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By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 21, 2007
"CHARLIE Wilson's War" is an anachronism, the wrong movie at the wrong time. Not only does it tell its tale in a style that feels dated and artificial, the story itself focuses on events that history has overtaken. The moving finger has written and moved on, and not even the combined star power of Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, writer Aaron Sorkin and director Mike Nichols can do anything about it.

Based on the bestselling book by George Crile, "Charlie Wilson's War" does tell a most unusual 1980s true story. It relates how Wilson, a pleasure-loving congressman from Texas (Hanks), joined forces with a wealthy and reactionary socialite (Roberts) and a grumpy CIA operative (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to use billions of dollars in U.S. and Saudi aid to arm Afghan mujahedin, or "freedom fighters," and oust the invading Soviet Union.

[edit]...


Though "Charlie Wilson's War" makes a few attempts near the conclusion to reference the chaos that is to come, they are too little and too late. Harder to deal with is the fact that, because Muslims around the world, as Crile notes, thought the victory in Afghanistan was the work of Allah, "we set in motion the spirit of jihad and the belief in our surrogate soldiers that, having brought down one superpower, they could just as easily take on another." The rest, as they say, is history.

The US at Fault in Iraq

9/11 Anniversary post: Check out videos of some great speeches from a demonstration to call on WA State US third district Congressional Representative Brian Baird for sanity in regard to Iraq. Here's a link.

How to Avoid War with Iran

The news that Bush Administration officials are considering the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (a 125,000 strong force that is also well connected inside and outside of the Iranian political and business communities) as "terrorist" is disturbing news. Will Iranians see this as a standard diplomatic move? Or will it be interpreted as an act of provocation? If it was me, I might be inclined to interpret it as an aggressive maneuver.

Under this type of thinking couldn't certain branches (for example the CIA or Navy Seals) of the US government and military be designated as terrorist in terms of the historical (and current) funding and provision of material support to various criminal regimes?

So, the Bush Administration considers might to be right.

But they are wrong. And the way to fight terrorism is not through escalation or provocation or threats.

The way to fight terrorism is by adhering to the Golden Rule. The way to fight terrorism is to make justice and equity priorities. The way to peace is to protect the innocent.

The Bush Administration needs to get its concepts of appropriate means washed out in a truly public and honest forum. It is not okay to selectively and arbitrarily label political opponents as terrorists and target them militarily.

[edit: photo credit Alex Fonseca]

True American Terrorism

Robert Scheer has a reminder that the United States government itself is guilty of what can easily be considered one of the most extreme single (double really) acts of terrorism yet known to man.

When US military strategists targeted Japanese Civilians (twice) for assault with a nuclear weapon, they committed what was then amongst the very grossest of violations against humanity.

Worst of all, historical analysis suggests that the bombs were dropped because of an American (Governmental and Corporate) desire for global military and economic hegemony. The bombs most likely did not substantially promote an expedited surrender - because the Japanese were virtually exhausted militarily prior to the bombing. It seems that it was an American quest for dominance and conquest which led to the nuclear annihilation of such a large number of people.

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By Robert Scheer

During a week of mayhem in Iraq, in which terrorists have rightly been condemned for targeting schoolchildren, it is sobering to recall that this week is also the 62nd anniversary of a U.S. attack that deliberately took the lives of thousands of children on their way to school in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As noted in the Strategic Bombing Survey conducted at President Harry Truman’s request, when the bomb hit Hiroshima on April 6, 1945, “nearly all the school children ... were at work in the open,” to be exploded, irradiated or incinerated in the perfect firestorm that the planners back at the University of California-run Los Alamos lab had envisioned for the bomb’s maximum psychological impact.

The terror plot worked all too well, as Hiroshima’s Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba recalled this week: “That fateful summer, 8:15 a.m. The roar of a B-29 breaks the morning calm. A parachute opens in the blue sky. Then suddenly, a flash, an enormous blast—silence—hell on Earth. The eyes of young girls watching the parachute were melted. Their faces became giant charred blisters. The skin of people seeking help dangled from their fingernails. ... Others died when their eyeballs and internal organs burst from their bodies—Hiroshima was a hell where those who somehow survived envied the dead.”

Like most of the others killed by the two American bombs, neither the children nor the adults had any role in Japan’s decision to go to war, but they were picked as the target instead of an isolated but fortified military base whose antiaircraft fire posed a higher risk. The target preferred by U.S. atomic scientists—a patch in the ocean or unpopulated terrain—was rejected, because the effect of hundreds of thousands of civilians dying would be all the more dramatic.
...
Just exactly what distinguishes the United States’ use of the ever-so-cutely-named “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” atomic bombs on cities in Japan from the car bombs of Baghdad or the planes that smashed into the World Trade Center? To even raise the question, as was found in one recent university case, can be a career-ending move.

Of course, we had our justifications, as terrorists always do. Truman defended his decision to drop the atomic bombs on civilians over the objection of leading atomic scientists on the grounds that it was a necessary military action to save lives by forcing a quick Japanese surrender. He insisted on that imperative despite the objections of top military figures, including Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who contended that the war would end quickly without dropping the bomb.

The subsequent release of formerly secret documents makes a hash of Truman’s rationalization. His White House was fully informed that the Japanese were on the verge of collapse, and their surrender was made all the more likely by the Soviets’ imminent entry into the fight.
...

The Death of Pat Tillman

Alan Bock has an interesting article about an ongoing investigation into the unusual circumstances surrounding ex-NFL star Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan.

Reports have it that Tillman had become disillusioned about the reality of the war - that the US military was unwelcome and far from pursuing the altruistic goal of bringing democracy and a better way of life. He had allegedly talked about his plans to go public upon his return from deployment.

The circumstances of his death are suspicious. Was there enemy fire in the vicinity at the time? Some say yes, some no.

But it is certainly worthy of investigation, if someone in the Army decided that it would be better not to have a high-profile and highly credible witness testify to the reality of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.

To learn more about Tillman's death, here is a good place to start: http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=11401

NATO Kills More Civilians than Taliban

From DemocracyNow!:

UN: NATO Strikes Kill More Civilians Than Taliban
Independent tallies have confirmed the claim of an Afghan human rights group that the U.S.-led NATO force has killed more civilians than the Taliban in the first half of this year. UN figures show at least three hundred fourteen civilians died in NATO bombings this year. Two-hundred seventy-nine were killed by the Taliban. The NATO figure does not include anywhere from forty-five to eighty-civilians reportedly killed in a NATO bombing in Helman province last week. The Los Angeles Times reports Afghan police recently barred journalists from the scene of a suicide attack on a US military convoy. The police officers explained: “Don’t go close. The Americans might shoot you.”

link

Responding to President Bush

From the BBC: US President George W Bush has shared intelligence that Osama Bin Laden was seeking in 2005 to set up an al-Qaeda cell in Iraq to strike US targets.

These allegations from President Bush have no credibility. He also said that there was WMD in Iraq. He said that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to US targets maybe even in the form of mushroom clouds from nuclear explosions.

President Bush is known to have been involved in a scheme wherein the "facts were being fixed around the policy" of invading Iraq.

I would advise taking the President's assessment of threat with a grain of salt.

God forbid against more terrorist attacks in the USA. But it seems that Bush's unjustified and unnecessary invasion of Iraq has opened the window to the increased possibility of such attacks. The invasion and occupation have inflamed anti-US sentiments. The occupation leaves the USA open to retaliation.

It's time to begin the healing process by implementing a systematic and complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

Anti-oil-exploition Nationalist MP's Attacked in Green Zone, Baghdad

From Raed in the Middle [go to original]:

The attack on the Iraqi parliament was very strange. I don't think it was a suicide bomber. Take a look at this video and note that the explosion is way bigger than what an explosive belt would do. Besides, why would anyone blow himself up to kill the only anti-occupation group in the greenzone?

The official spokesman of a secular group that lost an MP in the explosion announced that the attack was aimed at silencing "nationalist MPs who are against splitting
iraq and against the oil law".Looking at who was killed and injured in the attack, it seems like they were ALL nationalists. Also, considering that the parliament was just about to begin debating the oil law this week, the timing of the attack was very convenient for the bush/imf/separatists.
...
The only way to stop the growing violence in Iraq is to end all the foriegn intervention and give Iraq back to the Iraqis.

This attack was convenient and it stinks to hell. I wonder if anyone at the CIA knows what happened. I also agree that the best way to stop the violence is to end US maneuvers to dominate and exploit the Iraqi economy.

Terrorism and Iraq

The connection between Iraq and Terrorism is one that is a figment of the war hawk's propaganda machine. It is a cleverly and insidiously conceived fabrication - that the reason for the US military occupation of Iraq is due to the threat of terrorism.

We have to remember, and keep it in the forefront, that it has been (and is) the actions of the USA that have turned Iraq into a hotbed of "terrorism" (in quotes because it is arguable that the situation in Iraq involves freedom fighters who oppose occupation by a foreign invading force.)

*Important: Iraq posed no credible or immediate threat of terrorism or terroristic actions prior to the March 2003 unilateral decision by the USA (i.e. Bush Administration) to invade.

Also Important: the invasion contravened explicit demands in the UN charter that require security council authorization - or the credible and immediate threat to national security. Neither of these conditions were met prior to the invasion.

Iraq posed no threat to national security. Therefore the invasion was illegal. Therefore the occupation is illegal.

The American Empire and "Blowback"

I love America: the diversity of people and ideas, the geography, the natural beauty, the opportunity, among many other aspects, make this a great place to live; and a great place to fight for the future of - a better future without the threat of global economic hegemonists barking for more bloodletting. I love America, but not Empire. I have a vision for a future America that is free of imperial pursuits. That's why I am posting this:

Chalmers Johnson
Empire v. Democracy
...
I had set out to explain how exactly our government came to be so hated around the world. As a CIA term of tradecraft, "blowback" does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to, and in, foreign countries. It refers specifically to retaliation for illegal operations carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. These operations have included the clandestine overthrow of governments various administrations did not like, the training of foreign militaries in the techniques of state terrorism, the rigging of elections in foreign countries, interference with the economic viability of countries that seemed to threaten the interests of influential American corporations, as well as the torture or assassination of selected foreigners. The fact that these actions were, at least originally, secret meant that when retaliation does come -- as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 -- the American public is incapable of putting the events in context. Not surprisingly, then, Americans tend to support speedy acts of revenge intended to punish the actual, or alleged, perpetrators. These moments of lashing out, of course, only prepare the ground for yet another cycle of blowback.
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Terrible Tempest of Imperialism

I foresee this imperial effort culminating in:
© Martin Rowson 2008

Poverty: Root Cause of Terrorism

Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Muhammad Yunus:

...
We must address the root cause of terrorism to end terrorism for all time to come. I believe that putting resources into improving the lives of the poor is a better strategy than spending it on guns.

Peace should be understood in a human way, in a broad social, political and economic way. Peace is threatened by unjust economic, social and political order, absence of democracy, environmental degradation and absence of human rights.

Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society. For building stable peace, we must find ways to provide opportunities for people to live decent lives. The creation of opportunities for the majority of the people -- the poor -- is at the heart of the work that we have dedicated ourselves during the past 30 years.
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linked: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/13/1451222