Recent revelations regarding the excesses of the NSA and its gratuitous spying on our own allies, such as tapping German chancellor Angela Merkel's personal cell phone, proves Snowden was right! (What could we have learned about global terrorists from that phone tap? ) The NSA under Gen. Alexander ( the man who began his career hoovering up war data in US-occupied Iraq, who carried those very same procedures and polices home to the USA , and one who it has been recently revealed spent tens of millions of tax dollars creating a goldfinger-like Star Wars fantasy "spy command center" at NSA headquarters in Washington) is obviously out of control. Let's bring that young man Snowden back from Russia and award him with a whistleblower's medal.
We are a great nation, which on one level leads the world because of our immense wealth, and military power. But on another, our world stature comes from our moral authority and the trust other nations have in our system of justice and the adherence of our leaders to legal standards. That trust is also derived from our our past behaviors in which we worked to foster a world in which all nations including the USA exists within a frame work of mutually acceptable laws. We are at our core a nation of laws...our own and those we have help foster internationally. Too often in recent decades, since 9-11 and the Bush-Cheney debacle, we have become the world's law breaker, engaging in illegal invasions, occupations, wars, torture, renditions, extrajudicial assassinations, and setting up off-shore gulags, like Guantanamo....in short a "do what we say and not what we do" nation---all to our own detriment and to the detriment of our businesses and to that of the world as a whole.
It's time for President Obama, who is down deep a decent, intelligent man and a leader who respects the law, to rise up and assert his authority. Firing General Alexander might be a good first bold step. That should be followed by retreating from the undeserved attempts at arresting and punishing Mr. Snowden, without whom all of this mess would still be festering under the national carpet.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
CIA DOUBLE TAP DRONE STRIKES ARE WAR CRIMES
CIA "Double Tap" Drone Strikes Indicate President Obama Misleads American Public On His Drone Strategy.
In his May 23 2013 address at the Defense University on drone warfare the President assured the American public that his use of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) was legal and that his government has taken scrupulous care to avoid civilians casualties. But past studies by Stamford and New York Universities and more recently a study by Amnesty International (See my previous blog) indicate he mislead the public. The tactics used by the CIA, and apparently supported by Mr. Obama, are designed not to simply kill insurgents "allied with Al Qaeda" as he claims, but to terrorize entire civilian populations which may harbor these extremists. That is a war crime and one reason why he can not come clean with the American public.
The earlier studies and more recent ones document that about one-third of all casualties are innocent civilians. That does not seem to square with the President's description of "precision, surgical strikes". So there is more here than meets the casual eye. What that "more" is has been touched upon by both the Stamford study and the recent Amnesty International report which document the prevalence of what are termed "double tap" strikes which intentionally target first responders and civilians. Such a tactic is a war crime....no question.
The use of "double tap" strikes suggest that the actual purpose and intent of the drone campaign is not simply "neutralizing" bad guys but to cow and terrorize the civilians who may tend to support the militant insurgency. Apparently that is OK with the President as long as it remains a secret....but if it comes out in the open ( as at present) he and all those who are complicit in this campaign are potentially subject to war crimes charges. In these attacks, a first strike by a drone hellfire missile is followed a few minutes later by a second ( or even a third missile) which kills near by residents, or relatives who had responded to help the wounded, or find elderly or children buried in the rubble. Often police, doctors and other first responders are killed in this manner. The "double tap" strike is of course a heinous war crime, designed not to surgically kill the bad guys..but to sow terror and are no different than the car or truck bomb used by the other side. (see: "Outrage at CIA's deadly double tap drone attacks", in "The Independent", by Jerome Taylor, 25 September, 2012)
The attempt to use terror by invading armies, and others to quell insurgency is as old as the hills. From Julius Caesar in Gaul , the Nazis in occupied France, to Lt Calley in Mai Lai, Vietnam, and now Obama in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, when fighting a native insurgency the military (and sometimes their civilian leaders) believe they are in a battle for "the minds and hearts" of the natives. To win that battle they seek to terrorize the locals and so deny the insurgents (Gauls, Free French partisans, Viet Cong, Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc. ) sustenance and safe harbor. Obama's drone strikes in Pakistan are DESIGNED to kill indiscriminately so as to elicit terror. It explains why the civilian deaths are so high...one third of the total. Drones are a form of terrorism as brutal and inhumane as the car bombs the other side uses. The President's claim that the strikes are "surgical" and designed to "neutralize" our enemies with limited civilian casualties is a perversion of the truth. The revelation about "double tap" drone strikes is a shattering revelation which exposes the drone warfare strategy as a terrorist attacks similar to those used by less sophisticated car and satchel bombers. The second series of bombs from the drone takes out women and children, and innocent bystanders who in any normal society rush to the aid of the stricken. That is what our CIA is doing on a regular basis in Pakistan---killing, maiming and terrorizing whole villages all civilians---grandmothers! parents! children! Think about it...and oppose this horror and perversion of American values-- or become one with with the jack booted perpetrators of Oradour-sur-Glane.
Get the picture?
rjk
In his May 23 2013 address at the Defense University on drone warfare the President assured the American public that his use of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) was legal and that his government has taken scrupulous care to avoid civilians casualties. But past studies by Stamford and New York Universities and more recently a study by Amnesty International (See my previous blog) indicate he mislead the public. The tactics used by the CIA, and apparently supported by Mr. Obama, are designed not to simply kill insurgents "allied with Al Qaeda" as he claims, but to terrorize entire civilian populations which may harbor these extremists. That is a war crime and one reason why he can not come clean with the American public.
The earlier studies and more recent ones document that about one-third of all casualties are innocent civilians. That does not seem to square with the President's description of "precision, surgical strikes". So there is more here than meets the casual eye. What that "more" is has been touched upon by both the Stamford study and the recent Amnesty International report which document the prevalence of what are termed "double tap" strikes which intentionally target first responders and civilians. Such a tactic is a war crime....no question.
The use of "double tap" strikes suggest that the actual purpose and intent of the drone campaign is not simply "neutralizing" bad guys but to cow and terrorize the civilians who may tend to support the militant insurgency. Apparently that is OK with the President as long as it remains a secret....but if it comes out in the open ( as at present) he and all those who are complicit in this campaign are potentially subject to war crimes charges. In these attacks, a first strike by a drone hellfire missile is followed a few minutes later by a second ( or even a third missile) which kills near by residents, or relatives who had responded to help the wounded, or find elderly or children buried in the rubble. Often police, doctors and other first responders are killed in this manner. The "double tap" strike is of course a heinous war crime, designed not to surgically kill the bad guys..but to sow terror and are no different than the car or truck bomb used by the other side. (see: "Outrage at CIA's deadly double tap drone attacks", in "The Independent", by Jerome Taylor, 25 September, 2012)
The attempt to use terror by invading armies, and others to quell insurgency is as old as the hills. From Julius Caesar in Gaul , the Nazis in occupied France, to Lt Calley in Mai Lai, Vietnam, and now Obama in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, when fighting a native insurgency the military (and sometimes their civilian leaders) believe they are in a battle for "the minds and hearts" of the natives. To win that battle they seek to terrorize the locals and so deny the insurgents (Gauls, Free French partisans, Viet Cong, Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc. ) sustenance and safe harbor. Obama's drone strikes in Pakistan are DESIGNED to kill indiscriminately so as to elicit terror. It explains why the civilian deaths are so high...one third of the total. Drones are a form of terrorism as brutal and inhumane as the car bombs the other side uses. The President's claim that the strikes are "surgical" and designed to "neutralize" our enemies with limited civilian casualties is a perversion of the truth. The revelation about "double tap" drone strikes is a shattering revelation which exposes the drone warfare strategy as a terrorist attacks similar to those used by less sophisticated car and satchel bombers. The second series of bombs from the drone takes out women and children, and innocent bystanders who in any normal society rush to the aid of the stricken. That is what our CIA is doing on a regular basis in Pakistan---killing, maiming and terrorizing whole villages all civilians---grandmothers! parents! children! Think about it...and oppose this horror and perversion of American values-- or become one with with the jack booted perpetrators of Oradour-sur-Glane.
Get the picture?
rjk
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
CIA TARGETS AFGHAN GRANDMOTHER AND 18 CIVILIAN LABORERS--INSISTS THEY ARE TERRORISTS
CIA drone kills Afghan grandmother and 18 civilian laborers in drone attacks--yet claims they target only terrorists and kill no civilians.
“In his May 23, 2013 speech on drone policy delivered at the National Defense University, in Washington the Presidentried to assure the American public about his drone warfare by stating that outside of Afghanistan, which is a legitimate theater of war, the US targets "only al Qaeda and its associated forces”. At that time he also claimed he is “bound by state sovereignty" and also must "act (only) against terrorists who pose an imminent threat to the American people”. Furthermore, he stated, before any strike there must be “near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured." The President's press secretary recently stated (October 22), flatly that “targeted lethal action (drone strikes) are necessary, are legal, and only kill terrorists.” Though he did not elaborate how he defined a terrorist.
Some ugly facts about OBAMA's drone warfare campaign the president does not know or did not acknowledge:
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism based in London states that the US, under President Obama’s direction, has carried out 376 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. The estimated death toll from media reports indicate more than 3,000 fatalities, of which approximately one-third, or approximately one-thousand (1000) were innocent civilians. Thus, under Obama, approximately one-in-three victims of drone attacks are non-combatants mostly the elderly, women, young boys and small children. How can the President be so wrong?
Several times before, (see my previous blogs) I have railed against the America’s use of drones and drone warfare. This secret method of killing our so called enemies is mostly carried out in those distant parts of the world where few reporters can go, where the terrain is daunting, natives are poor, and speak incomprehensible dialects, and where custom dictates that they bury their dead within a few hours of an attack, leaving no evidence. Since these drone attacks are covert acts over which our own government has drawn a heavy veil of secrecy, the attacks are well-hidden and ignored by Congress and to a large degree our citizenry. In those previous blogs I was often reporting simply on what I read in the press, knowing full well the difficulties of sorting out the facts from these remote places. I weighed accounts from US government representatives: “We didn't do it!, or "The deceased were all heavily armed militant males ready to kill American troops.” Only to find out later that these accounts were untenable based on the known circumstances,ages of the victims, or conditions of the attack. But I persisted in comparing US accounts with those from Reuters, NY Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, Al Jazzeera or other main-line sources which often presented a different view. Frequently, the accounts conflicted wildly. (Well they did in the beginning, but all too often new evidences emerged which undermined the account of the US government.) The shroud of secrecy of our government, the remote and impenetrable nature of the terrain and lack of reporting from the actual site made it difficult to pin down facts. But a recent piece by Katherine Houreld in Reuters (Islamabad, October 22, 2013) makes clear in some cases who the culprits are.
t Katharine Houreld's piece in Reuters is not based on hear-say or second-hand reporting, but on a formal investigative study by Amnesty International using creditable researchers who visited the actual attack sites. The investigators focused on two specific drone attacks in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's remote, native territories situated along the border with Afghanistan and one of the most frequently hit by drone-attacks in the world.
Amnesty International (AI) a London-based, non-profit, human rights organization founded in 1966, conducted more than sixty interviews of the Waziristan native population using teams of researchers, translators and others, working independently of each other. They recovered physical data, photographs and other facts-on-the ground to support their findings concerning the nature of the strikes, those killed, and the ages, sex and occupations of the victims, as well as the circumstances of the attack, such as the time of day and weather.
The teams focused on only two of many attacks which had taken place in that area. Ms. Houreld's piece states:
”London-based Amnesty said a drone strike in the village of Ghundi Kala in October 2012 killed Mamana Bibi, 68, the wife of a retired school principal, as she was gathering vegetables. Her five grandchildren were wounded, including Safdar, 3, who fell off a roof and broke bones in his chest and shoulders. It was unclear why Bibi was hit. The weather was clear, providing good visibility to drone operators, the report said. In the second incident, 18 men were killed in the village of Zowi Sidgi in July 2012. Residents described the dead as a woodcutter, vegetable seller and miners who had gathered in the shade at dusk to talk after a day's work. The youngest was 14. The first drone strike killed at least eight people in all, the report said. The second one killed more locals as they were trying to rescue the wounded. "Everyone in the hut was cut to pieces," Amnesty quoted one witness as saying. "We started to panic and each person was trying to run in a different direction." According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drones often also target rescuers coming to help those injured in an initial strike." Their findings clearly indicate that the US government spokesmen, the President, and his spokesmen and others are not telling the truth. Perhaps now, as with the NSA revelations, the President and the nation will have to face the ugly truth concerning how we conduct our secret, inhumane, costly, counter productive and wildly expensive wars.
“In his May 23, 2013 speech on drone policy delivered at the National Defense University, in Washington the Presidentried to assure the American public about his drone warfare by stating that outside of Afghanistan, which is a legitimate theater of war, the US targets "only al Qaeda and its associated forces”. At that time he also claimed he is “bound by state sovereignty" and also must "act (only) against terrorists who pose an imminent threat to the American people”. Furthermore, he stated, before any strike there must be “near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured." The President's press secretary recently stated (October 22), flatly that “targeted lethal action (drone strikes) are necessary, are legal, and only kill terrorists.” Though he did not elaborate how he defined a terrorist.
Some ugly facts about OBAMA's drone warfare campaign the president does not know or did not acknowledge:
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism based in London states that the US, under President Obama’s direction, has carried out 376 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. The estimated death toll from media reports indicate more than 3,000 fatalities, of which approximately one-third, or approximately one-thousand (1000) were innocent civilians. Thus, under Obama, approximately one-in-three victims of drone attacks are non-combatants mostly the elderly, women, young boys and small children. How can the President be so wrong?
Several times before, (see my previous blogs) I have railed against the America’s use of drones and drone warfare. This secret method of killing our so called enemies is mostly carried out in those distant parts of the world where few reporters can go, where the terrain is daunting, natives are poor, and speak incomprehensible dialects, and where custom dictates that they bury their dead within a few hours of an attack, leaving no evidence. Since these drone attacks are covert acts over which our own government has drawn a heavy veil of secrecy, the attacks are well-hidden and ignored by Congress and to a large degree our citizenry. In those previous blogs I was often reporting simply on what I read in the press, knowing full well the difficulties of sorting out the facts from these remote places. I weighed accounts from US government representatives: “We didn't do it!, or "The deceased were all heavily armed militant males ready to kill American troops.” Only to find out later that these accounts were untenable based on the known circumstances,ages of the victims, or conditions of the attack. But I persisted in comparing US accounts with those from Reuters, NY Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, Al Jazzeera or other main-line sources which often presented a different view. Frequently, the accounts conflicted wildly. (Well they did in the beginning, but all too often new evidences emerged which undermined the account of the US government.) The shroud of secrecy of our government, the remote and impenetrable nature of the terrain and lack of reporting from the actual site made it difficult to pin down facts. But a recent piece by Katherine Houreld in Reuters (Islamabad, October 22, 2013) makes clear in some cases who the culprits are.
t Katharine Houreld's piece in Reuters is not based on hear-say or second-hand reporting, but on a formal investigative study by Amnesty International using creditable researchers who visited the actual attack sites. The investigators focused on two specific drone attacks in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's remote, native territories situated along the border with Afghanistan and one of the most frequently hit by drone-attacks in the world.
Amnesty International (AI) a London-based, non-profit, human rights organization founded in 1966, conducted more than sixty interviews of the Waziristan native population using teams of researchers, translators and others, working independently of each other. They recovered physical data, photographs and other facts-on-the ground to support their findings concerning the nature of the strikes, those killed, and the ages, sex and occupations of the victims, as well as the circumstances of the attack, such as the time of day and weather.
The teams focused on only two of many attacks which had taken place in that area. Ms. Houreld's piece states:
”London-based Amnesty said a drone strike in the village of Ghundi Kala in October 2012 killed Mamana Bibi, 68, the wife of a retired school principal, as she was gathering vegetables. Her five grandchildren were wounded, including Safdar, 3, who fell off a roof and broke bones in his chest and shoulders. It was unclear why Bibi was hit. The weather was clear, providing good visibility to drone operators, the report said. In the second incident, 18 men were killed in the village of Zowi Sidgi in July 2012. Residents described the dead as a woodcutter, vegetable seller and miners who had gathered in the shade at dusk to talk after a day's work. The youngest was 14. The first drone strike killed at least eight people in all, the report said. The second one killed more locals as they were trying to rescue the wounded. "Everyone in the hut was cut to pieces," Amnesty quoted one witness as saying. "We started to panic and each person was trying to run in a different direction." According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drones often also target rescuers coming to help those injured in an initial strike." Their findings clearly indicate that the US government spokesmen, the President, and his spokesmen and others are not telling the truth. Perhaps now, as with the NSA revelations, the President and the nation will have to face the ugly truth concerning how we conduct our secret, inhumane, costly, counter productive and wildly expensive wars.
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