Casualty sites reporting
February 23, 2010 casualty sites reporting (accurate totals unknown)
• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 150] Wounded 31,669-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/Bloodletting
• Iraq Body Count figures: 95,412-104,103, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,378 U.S., 4,696 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,003 U.S., 1,659 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: [not current] 1,366,350 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq
News from U.S. Middle East/Central/South Asia WAR
February 23
AFGHANISTAN
Amid the NATO/Afghan military surge continuing today, at least eight people (among them one woman) died after a bomb exploded in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province. All of the dead as reported by local authorities were civilians. Thirteen people suffered wounds.
Al Jazeera reports in special programming a man (Hamidullah) claiming to be “a member of the Taliban fighting against ‘Operation Moshtarak’ says since [foreign forces] often kill civilians instead of Taliban fighters, the foreign troops’ offensive is not succeeding.” These civilian deaths have prompted “the Afghan people to support the Taliban more than before.” The man’s “statements come after Sunday’s NATO air strike on what was assumed to be a bus carrying Taliban fighters.” Thirty-three civilians died.
In an interview today with Pacifica’s Democracy Now, Phyllis Bennis said, contrary to prevailing propaganda, “The notion that it’s the Taliban’s fault because they are among civilians, well, the problem is the Taliban come from those communities; they are those civilians. Many of the Taliban fighters, in the words of many U.S. and strategy officials … who have faded away with this new offensive in Marjah, faded away because they live there. They’ve gone back to their families, back to their farms; and they will rise to fight again, presumably, if their interests are at stake, whether those interests are economic or they are issues of loyalty and connection to their communities.
“This is inevitable in this kind of a war, the escalation that we have seen during President Obama’s first year; and there is no question that this is President Obama’s war. He claimed it as his own, even during the campaign. The fact that we have now reached a thousand U.S. casualties, and we don’t know … significantly accurate totals of the vast number of Afghan civilians who have died in this war. We know that it has been escalating. By the time that President Obama’s most recent escalation is finished, which is supposed to be in the next several months, there will be over 100,000 U.S. and allied troops occupying Afghanistan. There are already more than 104,000 U.S. paid mercenaries in this war in Afghanistan…
“The exit strategy has to start by ending the killing. There has to be a unilateral ceasefire that can set the stage hopefully for a reciprocal ceasefire from all the various parties that are at war here.”
The ANSWER Coalition wrote this week as it plans its march on Washington, “The Pentagon has been bragging about new rules of engagement designed to ‘protect civilian lives,’ yet more than 50 Afghan civilians have died” at the hands of U.S./NATO forces during the past two weeks; and as long as Afghanistan is under occupation, the bloodshed will continue. The march is still on schedule for March 20. “People across the United States will converge on Washington, D.C. and joint demonstrations will be held in San Francisco and Los Angeles [all demanding] ‘No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti!’
“We will march together to say, ‘No War against Iran!’ We will demand money for jobs, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.”
February 23
IRAN
Israel’s air force has unveiled a fleet of unmanned aircraft that it says are able to reach the Gulf, putting Iran within range.… Accusing Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, Israel has been putting pressure on UN Security Council [China, France, Russian Federation, United States, United Kingdom permanent] members to support U.S. moves for fresh sanctions against Tehran.
February 22
IRAQ
At least three people died Monday and four were wounded after a car bombing at an interior ministry detention centre. Among the dead were two police officers, a six-year-old boy and his father. The incident occurred near Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province. The latest violence comes as campaigning approaches Iraq’s March 7 elections. The country is mired in conflict over a ban on scores of candidates. Since October, Ramadi has seen a rise in attacks including three bombings of the provincial governor’s offices.
February 22
PAKISTAN
At least six people died Monday in a car bomb attack on a security forces convoy in northwest Pakistan. A suspected suicide bomber crashed his vehicle into a convoy as it passed through a market in Mingora, the main town in North West Frontier Province’s Swat Valley. Since July 2007, more than 3,000 people have died in suicide attacks and other bombings across Pakistan.
February 20
PALESTINE
Israel’s separation wall has generated anger and protests all over the Palestinian territories. The Al-Nu'man village was cut off from Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank in 2003. Illegally constructed beyond the Green Line drawn after the 1949 Arab-Israeli war ─ the West Bank separation wall walls in Al-Nu'man on three sides. A permanent checkpoint today provides the only entrance to and from this village on the outskirts of Bethlehem. “The wall has effectively imprisoned its Palestinian residents.”
Sources
“Deadly bombings rock Afghan towns,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/20102237950809185.html
“NATO losing Afghan support” (Al Jazeera spoke to Hamidullah in an exclusive interview in Lashkar Gar, Helmand's capital city), http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/2010222131354638461.html
“Phyllis Bennis on Ending the US War in Afghanistan,” February 23, 2010 (Democracy Now interview with Amy Goodman, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/23/phyllis_bennis_on_ending_the_us
Phyllis Bennis’s latest book, with David Wildman, is Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer.
Another high-tech massacre, All out on March 20, http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=9371&news_iv_ctrl=1621
“Israel’s drones could target Iran,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/2010221181347325634.html
“Suicide bomber targets Iraqi police,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/201022215942107239.html
“Suicide bomber targets Iraqi police,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/201022215942107239.html
“Barrier imprisons West Bank village” (Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh reports). http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/20102208759184330.html
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