tagged w/ END THIS WAR
-
Stand for freedom, stand with Anonymous for the downtrodden have no names...
Take A Stand
Free Bradley ManninStand for freedom, stand with Anonymous for the downtrodden have no names...
Take A... more
-
-
Shootings of Afghan civilians by American and NATO convoys and at military checkpoints have spiked sharply this year, becoming the leading cause of combined civilian deaths and injuries at the hands of Western forces, American officials say.
The steep rise in these convoy and checkpoint attacks — which the military calls “escalation of force incidents” — has prompted military commanders to issue new troop guidelines in recent weeks that include soliciting local Afghan village and tribal elders and other leaders for help preventing convoy and checkpoint shootings.
These shootings are a major reason civilian casualties in Afghanistan are soaring after a much-publicized period of decline.
Such episodes “have taken the lead” in civilian casualties caused by Western forces, said Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, the day-to-day operational commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. “We’ve really got to figure out how to solve that problem, and it’s really a challenge to the leadership. It’s a challenge to discipline.”
Civilian deaths from aerial bombings have declined, General Rodriguez said. But in convoys and at checkpoints, “you’re faced with a different challenge of snap decisions” by troops “much closer to not only the people but the enemy.”
At least 28 Afghans have been killed and 43 wounded in convoy and checkpoint shootings this year — 42 percent of total civilian deaths and injuries and the largest overall source of casualties at the hands of American and NATO troops, according to statistics kept by the military.
In the same period last year, 8 Afghans were killed and 29 wounded in similar episodes. For all of 2009, 36 Afghan civilians were killed in the so-called escalation of force incidents by Western and Afghan troops, according to the United Nations. Over all, the Taliban and other militants account for a much larger number of civilian casualties than Western forces do, the United Nations found.
Since last summer, none of the Afghans killed or wounded in convoy and checkpoint shootings had weapons that would have posed a danger for troops who killed them, commanders said.
continued:Shootings of Afghan civilians by American and NATO convoys and at military checkpoints... more
-
-
President Obama has decided to send more than 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, at a cost of more than $1 million per soldier/year. But America cannot afford a war that does not make us safer, and Congress has the power to stop the escalation.
This is why a group of Afghanistan veterans will deliver a petition to be read on the Congressional floor by Rep. Alan Grayson urging his fellow congress members to Vote NO on any spending bill that would send more troops to Afghanistan. From the front lines of battle to the halls of Congress, these courageous men and women know the perils of the conflict and are ready to demand a new course of action
You stand with more than 60,000 people who have already signed. We need to reach 100,000 signatures - a number that Congress, mainstream media and the American public must recognize.President Obama has decided to send more than 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, at a... more
-
-
Since I myself see absolutely no way Afghanistan could stand on its feet by 2011, I think Karzai may have slipped the truth. Just what is being kept from the American people about the duration of this?Since I myself see absolutely no way Afghanistan could stand on its feet by 2011, I... more
-
-
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is objecting “in the strongest terms” to an Associated Press decision to transmit a photograph showing a mortally wounded 21-year-old Marine in his final moments of life, calling the decision “appalling” and a breach of “common decency.”
The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published.
The AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.”
The photo shows Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Maine, who was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush Aug. 14 in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, according to The AP.
Gates wrote to Thomas Curley, AP’s president and chief executive officer. “Out of respect for his family’s wishes, I ask you in the strongest of terms to reconsider your decision. I do not make this request lightly. In one of my first public statements as Secretary of Defense, I stated that the media should not be treated as the enemy, and made it a point to thank journalists for revealing problems that need to be fixed – as was the case with Walter Reed."
“I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”
The four-paragraph letter concluded, “Sincerely,” then had Gates’ signature.
The photo, first transmitted Thursday morning and repeated Friday morning, carries the warning, “EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT.”
The caption says: “In this photo taken Friday, Aug. 14, 2009, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard is tended to by fellow U.S. Marines after being hit by a rocket propelled grenade during a firefight against the Taliban in the village of Dahaneh in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. Bernard was transported by helicopter to Camp Leatherneck where he later died of his wounds.”
Gates’ letter was sent Thursday, after he talked to Curley by phone at about 3:30 p.m. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates told Curley: “I am asking you to reconsider your decision to publish this graphic photograph of Lance Corporal Bernard. I am begging you to defer to the wishes of the family. This will cause them great pain.”
Curley was “very polite and willing to listen,” and send he would reconvene his editorial team and reconsider, Morrell said. Within the hour, Curley called Morrell and said the editors had reconvened but had ultimately come to the same conclusion.
Gates “was greatly disappointed they had not done the right thing,” Morrell said.
The Buffalo News ran the photo on page 4, and the The (Wheeling, W.Va.) Intelligencer ran an editorial defending its decision to run the photo. Some newspapers – including the Arizona Republic, The Washington Times and the Orlando Sentinel – ran other photos from the series. Several newspaper websites – including the Akron Beacon-Journal and the St. Petersburg Times – used the photo online.
Morrell said Gates wanted the information about his conversations released “so everyone would know how strongly he felt about the issue.”
The Associated Press reported in a story about deliberations about that photo that “after a period of reflection,” the news service decided “to make public an image that conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.
end of excerpt
_________
So what do you think? Did AP go over the line?Defense Secretary Robert Gates is objecting “in the strongest terms” to an... more
-
-
Since 2001, the US Air Force has dropped nearly 31 million pounds (14,049 metric tons) of bombs on Afghanistan. The UN estimates that US airstrikes alone accounted for 64 percent of the 828 Afghan civilians killed last year. Those numbers practically scream the need to abandon conventional warfare tactics in Afghanistan and dramatically shift US foreign policy to incorporate a more humanitarian approach. Instead, we're seeing the horrific images from IDP camps: refugees who have lost loved ones; parents so desperate they would rather sell their children than watch them starve; children scarred both physically and psychologically. These are the survivors, forced to endure the bleak aftermath of airstrikes as the US escalates this war.
The front page story in the LA Times today examines the US military's seemingly impossible task of reducing the number of civilian casualties in airstrikes like the one that killed up to 140 people in Farah province on May 4. The civilians casualties from that attack, we know from a preliminary investigative report, died because a series of military errors. Had the Afghan forces being trained by the US military not ignored warnings about entering a Farah village, they wouldn't have been ambushed by insurgents, prompting the Marines to call for a strike. And had the pilot of an aircraft not lost site of his target, or had those commanders rethought the need to send in a B-1 bomber strike at a point when those Afghan forces weren't under direct attack, the high number of civilian casualties could have been avoided. Yet as our highly skilled military revisits protocols for conducting air strikes to minimize mistakes like these in the future, these casualties are the inevitable consequences of conventional warfare.
We've heard Gen. McChrystal tell Congress that reducing civilian casualties is "essential to our credibility." We've heard Adm. Mullen claim we need to do "absolutely everything to make sure civilian casualties are eliminated, if possible, or certainly minimized in every situation." But such rhetoric is appallingly disingenuous while Congress simultaneously approves $106 billion in wartime spending with relatively little in the way of economic aid, or when we learn that over a month after the Farah attacks, US commanders have not specified how exactly they plan to reduce the civilian casualties of this war.
Instead of thinking of alternatives to a dangerously flawed military strategy, US commanders are trying to control the narrative about civilian casualties.
end of excerptSince 2001, the US Air Force has dropped nearly 31 million pounds (14,049 metric tons)... more
-
-
Things have changed a lot since this movie came out. But we should not forget what happened in Iraq, under Bush's ruling, and against every rational word of advice.
Fortunately, I believe THERE IS AN END IN SIGHT, and we can make it happen.Things have changed a lot since this movie came out. But we should not forget what... more
-
-
House Democratic leaders are putting together the largest Iraq war spending bill yet, a measure that is expected to fund the war through the end of the Bush presidency and for nearly six months into the next president’s term.
The bill, which could be unveiled as early as this week, signals that Democrats are resigned to the fact they can’t change course in Iraq in the final months of President Bush’s term. Instead, the party is pinning its hopes of ending the war on winning the White House in November.
Bay Area lawmakers, who represent perhaps the most anti-war part of the country, acknowledge the bill will anger many voters back home.
“It’s going to be a tough sell to convince people in my district that funding the war for six months into the new president’s term is the way to end the war,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, a leader of the Out of Iraq Caucus who plans to oppose the funding. “It sounds like we are paying for something we don’t want.”
The bill is expected to provide $108 billion that the White House has requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lawmakers who are drafting it say it also will include a so-called bridge fund of $70 billion to give the new president several months of breathing room before having to ask Congress for more money.
The debate is shaping up as a key test for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The San Francisco Democrat, who opposed the war from the start, faces fierce criticism from the anti-war left for refusing to cut off funding for the war. She’s trying to hold together a caucus split between anti-war lawmakers, who’d prefer a showdown with the White House, and conservative Democrats, who believe cutting off the war funding would make the party look weak on national security and put its majority at risk.
House Democratic leaders are putting together the largest Iraq war spending bill yet,... more
-
-
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who has called for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, said on Sunday he will vote to confirm the top commander there for a new job as head of the military's Central Command.
President George W. Bush has nominated Gen. David Petraeus, who led the buildup of troops in Iraq, to be in charge of operations across the Middle East and Central Asia.
If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus will still be in that job when the next president replaces Bush at the White House in January 2009. Obama hopes that person is him.
"Yes," Obama told "Fox News Sunday" when asked if, as a senator from Illinois, he would approve Petraeus. "I think Petraeus has done a good tactical job in Iraq."
Obama has said he would start pulling out more troops as soon as he became president.
"My hope is that Petraeus would reflect that wider view of our strategic interest," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who has called for withdrawing U.S.... more
-
-
I knew the day of my primary I did the right thing by voting for John Edwards. I am so glad he was on the ballot and truly miss him in this campaign now because he was a voice of sincerity and true change and made me want to be involved in it. However, seeing him and his wife joining in this effort regarding holding politician's feet to the fire about this war and the economic havoc it has caused shows he will be a true voice for the people. We must STOP funding this war now. And THAT is what we should be hearing from "candidates" in this. Not that they will just take troops out of Iraq without finishing that sentence so we don't know if that means they will send them elsewhere. We need to hear that they will DEFUND THIS WAR and bring our troops HOME. War=poverty. End the war. NO more nukes.I knew the day of my primary I did the right thing by voting for John Edwards. I am so... more
-
