Autumn thoughts in election season

Excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

“The implosion of neoliberal ‘turbo-capitalism’ in the autumn of 2008 should have been the moment for social democratic parties to come in from the cold but more than two years on social democracy is in retreat— electorally weak — intellectually incoherent.” — Mehdi Hasan and Jonathan Derbyshire

“What has been missing from center-left parties is any substantive philosophy of the public good.” The center-left needs “a much richer conception of the ‘aspirations’ of ordinary citizens”

Center-left governments have a fetish of ever-increasing ‘growth’ — improved productivity, technological innovation…[but] not as ‘instruments’ for enhancing people’s ‘liberty.’ Set against ‘consumerism’s promise of happiness’ [Ernst Hillebrand] must be ‘a vision of an alternative society.’

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has its limits not only as ‘an indicator of economic performance [Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz]; but also as an indicator of ‘social progress.’

“Economic growth is not an end in itself.… ‘GDP measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.’” [Robert Kennedy]

“Measuring economic performance and production is one thing. Measuring citizens’ quality of life is quite another.”

“[Center-left] politicians must be ‘moral’ reformers, rather than ‘mechanical’ reformers focused on ends, not means.” Center-left politicians “need to see that their task consists as much in moral persuasion and argument in favor of the fundamental values of equality, social solidarity and genuine liberty as it does in pulling on the levers of power.”

The center-left can no longer afford to masquerade as “centrist technocrats.” They must begin their own reform by “radically rethinking and expanding their understanding of progress and prosperity.”

Sources and notes
“After Growth: The Future of Social Democracy” (Mehdi Hasan and Jonathan Derbyshire in Social Europe Journal) October 25, 2010, http://www.social-europe.eu/2010/10/after-growth-the-future-of-social-democracy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+goodsociety+%28Social+Europe+Journal+%C2%BB+Good+Society+Debate%29

“The implosion of neoliberal ‘turbo-capitalism’ in the autumn of 2008 should have been the moment for social democratic parties to come in from the cold. More than two years on, however, social democracy is in retreat across the Continent, electorally weak and intellectually incoherent.”— Mehdi Hasan and Jonathan Derbyshire

Mehdi Hasan studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Christ Church, Oxford University, and is senior politics editor at the New Statesman and a former news and current affairs editor at Channel 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehdi_Hasan

Jonathan Derbyshire is a literary journalist whose work has been published in the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the Financial Times; he is culture editor of the New Statesman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Derbyshire

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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY] Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY] Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]

U.S., Israel stand against 187 UN votes for ending Cold War embargo

Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

U.S. v. UN again. When will it end?

“For the 19th straight year, the General Assembly today adopted a resolution calling for the lifting of decades-old economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba in the aftermath of the Cold War.

“The 192-member United Nations body voiced concern about the ‘adverse effects’ of such measures on the Cuban people and on Cuban nationals living in other countries in the non-binding resolution.

“The text received 187 votes for lifting sanctions and two, the United States and Israel, against. There were three abstentions: Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau.”

Sources

“In annual vote, General Assembly calls for lifting United States embargo against Cuba — U.S., Israel stand against 187 UN vote,” October 26, 2010, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36567&Cr=Cuba&Cr1=


The UN General Assembly’s call last year and in previous years for countries “‘to refrain from promulgating and applying laws and measures’ that do not conform to their obligations to reaffirm freedom of trade and navigation” resulted in the same opposing votes and abstentions. “General Assembly again calls for lifting of United States embargo against Cuba,” October 29, 2009, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32772&Cr=cuba&Cr1=
 
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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY] Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY] Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]

Iraq Body Count analyzes War Logs

Excerpting, minor editing by Carolyn Bennett

“‘It is totally unacceptable that for so many years the U.S. Government has withheld from the public these essential details about civilian casualties in Iraq. There is a vital public interest and an inalienable public right to know who died in this war and how they died, whether Iraqi or any other nationality. Every recoverable detail about the human death toll in Iraq, and in all other conflicts around the world, must be brought to light. Only such detailed and specific knowledge makes the full human consequences of war impossible to deny.’” — Iraq Body Count spokesperson

 United Kingdom-based independent NGO Iraq Body Count records violent civilian deaths resulting from the 2003 military intervention. This is some of what the NGO had to say about the WikiLeaks War Logs.

IBC’s preliminary analysis of the Iraq War Logs released by WikiLeaks concludes that:

Most of the newly revealed deaths in the logs occurred in previously unreported violent incidents involving the deaths of one or two people. They include targeted assassinations, drive-by-shootings, torture, executions, and checkpoint killings. (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/warlogs)

64,000 civilian deaths recorded in these Logs are already represented in the IBC database. These were mainly gathered from press and media reports, as well as some NGO and official figures.

Even when the bare fact of a death is already known, the Logs frequently add important new detail including, for instance, the precise time and place of particular deaths which were only previously represented in numerical totals from morgues

Most significantly of all, the Logs contain many thousands of previously unreleased names of civilian victims. IBC has already been able to add over one hundred such names brought into the public domain for the first time (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/qa/warlogs/)

Sources and IBC notes

“Early analysis by the independent NGO, Iraq Body Count (IBC), of the Iraq War Logs released by WikiLeaks suggests the logs contain 15,000 civilian deaths that have not been previously reported. Additionally, IBC calculates that over 150,000 violent deaths related to conflict have been recorded in Iraq since March 2003, with more than 122,000 (80%) of them civilian.

“IBC has fully analyzed all 360 of the Logs which report more than 20 people killed, and which account in total for over 17,000 deaths. It has also analyzed random samples totaling 500 Logs reporting incidents in which 19 or fewer people died. It then carefully crosschecked this information against its own extensive data set, and now publishes its preliminary findings simultaneously with the public release of the Logs.

“IBC plans to inspect all of the 390,000 Iraq War Logs for any casualty data they may contain, and then integrate them into the IBC database, a massive task that will take a dedicated team many months of effort.
Merely sampling the Logs would not do justice to all the other deaths that are contained therein.”
Three articles published on the IBC web site describe and discuss what may be drawn from WikiLeaks’ release: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

“What the Numbers Reveal: IBC’s early assessment of what the logs released by WikiLeaks add to the known Iraqi death toll,” http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/warlogs/

“The Truth is In the Detail: An analysis of the type of victim and incident details found in the logs, and why those details matter,” http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/warlogs/

“Iraq War Logs: Context: What makes the logs different and important, what IBC’s approach to them has been, and will be in future,” http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/qa/warlogs//

IBC’s NOTE FOR EDITORS: Iraq Body Count (IBC) is a UK-based independent NGO dedicated to recording the violent civilian deaths that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention in Iraq. Its public database includes deaths caused by U.S.-led coalition forces and paramilitary or criminal attacks by others. IBC’s documentary evidence is drawn from crosschecked media reports of violent events leading to the death of civilians, or of bodies being found, and is supplemented by the careful review and integration of hospital, morgue, NGO and official figures.

IBC figures are widely quoted as an authoritative source of information by governments, inter-governmental agencies and the worldwide media. IBC has been coordinating the publication of its own careful preliminary analyses with WikiLeaks and those press and media organizations listed at http://www.iraqwarlogs.com/

Iraq Body Count:
The worldwide update on civilians killed in the Iraq war and occupation
Today’s posted count: 98,585 - 107,594

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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY] Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY] Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]

Journalist corroborates evidence: war log, war lies

Excerpting and editing by Carolyn Bennett

Crimes, lies, leaks, recollections from Iraq USA will not go away.

Former Washington Post bureau chief in Baghdad and Cairo, former West Africa bureau chief for The Associated Press, graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government Ellen Knickmeyer in a Monday article in The Daily Beast.

“In the dark morning hours of February 22, 2006, a group of unknown attackers detonated bombs in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra, bringing down the golden dome of a revered Shia Muslim shrine.

“A few hours later, I drove through Baghdad and watched the country descend into civil war. Then the Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post, I drove with Iraqi and American colleagues to Sadr City, the sprawling slum on the outskirts of the city. We watched hundreds of black-clad religious militiamen, waving their AK 47s in the air and calling for revenge, in what would be the start to a campaign of sectarian killing and torture.

“During visits to Baghdad’s morgue over the next two days, I saw Sunni families thronging to find the bodies of loved ones killed by the militias. The morgue’s computer registrar told the grim-faced families and me that we would have to be patient; since the Samarra bombing, the morgue had received more than 1,000 bodies and it was way behind on processing corpses.…

“Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a news conference at the Pentagon to say that U.S. press reports of killings—such as mine that estimated 1,300 dead in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, based on what I had seen at the morgue, interviews with Sunni survivors, U.N. and Iraq health officials—were calculated ‘exaggerated reporting.’

“Iraqi security forces, he said, ‘were taking the lead in controlling the situation,’ everything, he assured his listeners, was ‘calming.’

“American journalists in Baghdad were under attack not just from Iraqi insurgents but — at least verbally — from our own country’s civilian and military commanders as well.

“Thanks to WikiLeaks, though, I now know the extent to which top American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world, as the Iraq mission exploded.

“The American troops, who were risking their lives on the ground, witnessed and documented it themselves.

“The WikiLeaks documents show that the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, and U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld must have known that all along, owing to the accounts from their forces.

“Despite statements of top U.S. commanders at the time, it wasn’t the journalists in Baghdad who were lying.”

Source

“WikiLeaks Exposes Rumsfeld's Lies,” Ellen Knickmeyer in The Daily Beast, October 25, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20101025/ts_dailybeast/10609_wikileaksshowsrumsfeldandcaseyliedabouttheiraqwar

Also today on Democracy Now a conversation with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, October 26, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/
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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY] Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]

High Crimes Logs

Edited news on WikiLeaks’ releases from Democracy Now by Carolyn Bennett

“In our release of these 400,000 documents about the Iraq war, the intimate detail of that war from the U.S. perspective, we hope to correct some of that attack on the truth.

“We have seen that there are approximately 15,000 never previously documented or known cases of civilians who have been killed by violence in Iraq. Iraq, as we can see, was a bloodbath on every corner of their country. The stated aims for going into that war, of improving the human rights situation, improving the rule of law, did not eventuate; and in terms of raw numbers of people arbitrarily killed, [the U.S. war] worsened the situation in Iraq.” — Online whistleblower WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

“These war logs are day-by-day and, in many cases, hour-by-hour field reports from information radioed in by small units out in the field. They really chart incidents, every single incident. And sometimes you’ll see like twenty or thirty or fifty in a single day. They have all been collated into an electronic archive, I think probably for the first time. This is probably the first—this and Afghanistan have been the first American military adventures in which this kind of archive has been collated and made available to other people in the US military, which is, of course, how it’s come to be leaked.

What it contains of significance is three different types of material, in the sense that we didn’t really know these things before. First of all, that at least 15,000 more civilians have been identifiably killed and are recorded in these logs. There are many other civilians who’ve been killed who aren’t recorded there, of course. But that increases the figures. And bodies, independent bodies like the Iraq Body Count, the London-based private group, have pinned down those 15,000 extra by wading through all these documents.

The second thing it documents is really brutal events in which the laws of war, as we commonly understood them, seem to have been overtaken by technology, air power and asymmetric warfare. The classic case in here was of a helicopter, the Apache helicopter, which later went on to shoot and kill Reuters employees. It describes how men on the ground were trying to surrender. It radioed back to base for advice, and extraordinarily, the base lawyer said, ‘You cannot surrender to an aircraft. Go ahead and kill them.’ So it went ahead and killed them.

“… The helicopter crew don’t seem to have been trigger-happy at all. They were pretty concerned. They radioed back to base: ‘These men are trying to surrender. What do we do?’ … They’re told more than once, ‘They can’t surrender. You should go ahead and kill them.’ …

“What we see is orders coming from a high level.

“… That plays into the third new aspect in these documents: they detail literally hundreds of times—I think there is more 900 incidents of what they class as detainee abuse of people being tortured.

“They are largely tortured by Iraqi security forces but with the United States forces standing by or, in some cases, turning detainees over to people they know are going to torture them. Those orders seem to come from a high level. You are not looking at individual rogue sadists in the U.S. military. You are looking at orders.” — Investigations editor at The Guardian newspaper, David Leigh, spoke today with Amy Goodman on the Democracy Now program. The Guardian was one of the media outlets given advanced copies of the ‘Iraq war logs.’ On Guardian’s website is a news feature on the documents.

Source and notes


Online whistleblower WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange whose website “released close to 400,000 classified U.S. documents on the Iraq war, the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history and the largest internal account of any war on public record, a disclosure providing a trove of new evidence on the violence, torture and suffering that’s befallen Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion.” Democracy Now, October 25, 2010,
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/25/wikileaks_iraq_war_logs_expose_us


IRAQ: The War Logs, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraq-war-logs




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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY] Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]

Restrain State aggression — Why Geneva Conventions

Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

“The importance of the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols was reflected in the establishment of war-crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia (1993) and Rwanda (1994) and by the Rome Statute (1998) creating an International Criminal Court.”

Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
Convention (IV)
Geneva, August 12, 1949

This Convention IV establishes an international provision for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Signing plenipotentiaries [persons, especially diplomatic agents invested with full power to transact business] of the Governments represented at the Diplomatic Conference held at Geneva, Switzerland, April 21 to August 12, 1949, agreed [excerpt] …

That the High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.…

Article 2
In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace-time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.

Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

(1)
Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat [out of combat: disabled] by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

The Parties to the conflict should further endeavor to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.

Protocol II [excerpt]

Article 3 Non-intervention
1. Nothing in this Protocol shall be invoked for the purpose of affecting the sovereignty of a State or the responsibility of the government, by all legitimate means, to maintain or re-establish law and order in the State or to defend the national unity and territorial integrity of the State.

2. Nothing in this Protocol shall be invoked as a justification for intervening, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the armed conflict or in the internal or external affairs of the High Contracting Party in the territory of which that conflict occurs.

Article 13 Protection of the civilian population
1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules shall be observed in all circumstances.

2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.

3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Part, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.

Article 17 Prohibition of forced movement of civilians
1. The displacement of the civilian population shall not be ordered for reasons related to the conflict unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand. Should such displacements have to be carried out, all possible measures shall be taken in order that the civilian population may be received under satisfactory conditions of shelter, hygiene, health, safety and nutrition.

2. Civilians shall not be compelled to leave their own territory for reasons connected with the conflict.

Geneva Conventions are a series of international treaties concluded in Geneva between 1864 and 1949 for the purpose of ameliorating the effects of war on soldiers and civilians. Two additional protocols to the 1949 agreement were approved in 1977.

The development of the Geneva Conventions was closely associated with the Red Cross, whose founder, Henri Dunant, initiated international negotiations that produced the Convention for the Amelioration of the Wounded in Time of War in 1864....

The 1864 convention was ratified within three years by all the major European powers as well as by many other states. It was amended and extended by the second Geneva Convention in 1906, and its provisions were applied to maritime warfare through the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907. The third Geneva Convention, the Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1929), required that belligerents treat prisoners of war humanely, furnish information about them, and permit official visits to prison camps by representatives of neutral states.

Because some belligerents in World War II had abused the principles contained in earlier conventions, an International Red Cross conference in Stockholm in 1948 extended and codified the existing provisions.

The conference developed four conventions approved in Geneva, August 12, 1949:

(1) Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field
(2) Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded, Sick, and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea
(3) Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
(4) Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War

More than 180 states have become parties to the 1949 conventions. Approximately 150 states are party to Protocol I. More than 145 states are party to Protocol II, though the United States is not. In addition, more than 50 states have made declarations accepting the competence of international fact-finding commissions to investigate allegations of grave breaches or other serious violations of the conventions or of Protocol I.

Protocol I supplementary to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949

Proclaims to the High Contracting Parties’ earnest wish to see peace prevail among peoples

Recalling that every State has the duty, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations, to refrain in its international relations from the threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations

Believing it necessary nevertheless to reaffirm and develop the provisions protecting the victims of armed conflicts and to supplement measures intended to reinforce their application,

Expressing their conviction that nothing in this Protocol or in the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 can be construed as legitimizing or authorizing any act of aggression or any other use of force inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations,

Reaffirming further that the provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and of this Protocol must be fully applied in all circumstances to all persons who are protected by those instruments, without any adverse distinction based on the nature or origin of the armed conflict or on the causes espoused by or attributed to the Parties to the conflict …

High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for this Protocol in all circumstances.

In cases not covered by this Protocol or by other international agreements, civilians and combatants remain under the protection and authority of the principles of international law derived from established custom, from the principles of humanity and from dictates of public conscience.

This Protocol, which supplements the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 for the protection of war victims, shall apply in the situations referred to in Article 2 common to thoseConventions.


Sources and notes

Final Act of the Diplomatic Conference of Geneva, August 12, 1949


Conference convened by the Swiss Federal Council for the purpose of revising the Geneva Convention of July 27, 1929, for the Relief of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field; the tenth Hague Convention of October 18,1907, for the Adaptation to Maritime Warfare of the Principles of the Geneva Convention of July 6, 1906; the Geneva Convention of July 27, 1929, relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War; and for establishing a Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War—


On the basis of the four Draft Conventions examined and approved by the 17th international Red Cross Conference held at Stockholm, deliberated from April 21 to August 12, 1949, at Geneva


The Conference established the texts of the following Four Conventions

Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field
Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of WarProtocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), June 8, 1977, http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/475-760002?OpenDocumentProtocol

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), June 8, 1977
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/f6c8b9fee14a77fdc125641e0052b079


State Parties to Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949
State Parties Signature Ratification / Accession 1) Reservation / Declaration 2)
Unedited (style of date: day-month-year)

Afghanistan 08.12.1949 26.09.1956
Albania 12.12.1949 27.05.1957 27.05.1957 (text)
Algeria 20.06.1960
Andorra 17.09.1993
Angola 20.09.1984 20.09.1984 (text)
Antigua and Barbuda 06.10.1986
Argentina 08.12.1949 18.09.1956
Armenia 07.06.1993
Australia 04.01.1950. 14.10.1958 14.10.1958 (text)
Austria 12.08.1949 27.08.1953
Azerbaijan 01.06.1993
Bahamas 11.07.1975
Bahrain 30.11.1971
Bangladesh 04.04.1972 20.12.1988 (text)
Barbados 10.09.1968 10.09.1968 (text)
Belarus 12.12.1949 03.08.1954
Belgium 08.12.1949 03.09.1952
Belize 29.06.1984
Benin 14.12.1961
Bhutan 10.01.1991
Bolivia 08.12.1949 10.12.1976
Bosnia-Herzegovina 31.12.1992
Botswana 29.03.1968
Brazil 08.12.1949 29.06.1957
Brunei Darussalam 14.10.1991
Bulgaria 28.12.1949 22.07.1954
Burkina Faso 07.11.1961
Burundi 27.12.1971
Cambodia 08.12.1958
Cameroon 16.09.1963
Canada 08.12.1949 14.05.1965
Cape Verde 11.05.1984
Central African Republic 01.08.1966
Chad 05.08.1970
Chile 12.08.1949 12.10.1950
China 10.12.1949 28.12.1956 28.12.1956 (text)
Colombia 12.08.1949 08.11.1961
Comoros 21.11.1985
Congo (Dem. Rep.) 24.02.1961
Congo 04.02.1967
Cook Islands 07.05.2002
Costa Rica 15.10.1969
Côte d'Ivoire 28.12.1961
Croatia 11.05.1992
Cuba 12.08.1949 15.04.1954
Cyprus 23.05.1962
Czech Republic 05.02.1993
Denmark 12.08.1949 27.06.1951
Djibouti 06.03.1978
Dominican Republic 22.01.1958
Dominica 28.09.1981
Ecuador 12.08.1949 11.08.1954
Egypt 08.12.1949 10.11.1952
El Salvador 08.12.1949 17.06.1953
Equatorial Guinea 24.07.1986
Eritrea 14.08.2000
Estonia 18.01.1993
Ethiopia 08.12.1949 02.10.1969
Fiji 09.08.1971
Finland 08.12.1949 22.02.1955
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 01.09.1993 18.10.1996. (text)
France 08.12.1949 28.06.1951
Gabon 26.02.1965
Gambia 20.10.1966
Georgia 14.09.1993
Germany 03.09.1954 03.12.1954. (text)
Ghana 02.08.1958
Greece 22.12.1949 05.06.1956
Grenada 13.04.1981
Guatemala 12.08.1949 14.05.1952
Guinea-Bissau 21.02.1974 21.02.1974. (text)
Guinea 11.07.1984
Guyana 22.07.1968
Haiti 11.04.1957
Holy See 08.12.1949 22.02.1951
Honduras 31.12.1965
Hungary 08.12.1949 03.08.1954
Iceland 10.08.1965
India 16.12.1949 09.11.1950
Indonesia 30.09.1958
Iran (Islamic Rep.of) 08.12.1949 20.02.1957 20.02.1957 (text)
Iraq 14.02.1956
Ireland 19.12.1949 27.09.1962
Israel 08.12.1949 06.07.1951 08.12.1949 (text)
Italy 08.12.1949 17.12.1951
Jamaica 20.07.1964
Japan 21.04.1953
Jordan 29.05.1951
Kazakhstan 05.05.1992
Kenya 20.09.1966
Kiribati 05.01.1989
Korea (Dem.People's Rep.) 27.08.1957 27.08.1957. (text)
Korea (Republic of) 16.08.1966 16.08.1966. (text)
Kuwait 02.09.1967 02.09.1967. (text)
Kyrgyzstan 18.09.1992
Lao People's Dem.Rep. 29.10.1956
Latvia 24.12.1991
Lebanon 08.12.1949 10.04.1951
Lesotho 20.05.1968
Liberia 29.03.1954
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 22.05.1956
Liechtenstein 12.08.1949 21.09.1950
Lithuania 03.10.1996
Luxembourg 08.12.1949 01.07.1953
Madagascar 18.07.1963
Malawi 05.01.1968
Malaysia 24.08.1962
Maldives 18.06.1991
Mali 24.05.1965
Malta 22.08.1968
Marshall Islands 01.06.2004
Mauritania 30.10.1962
Mauritius 18.08.1970
Mexico 08.12.1949 29.10.1952
Micronesia 19.09.1995
Moldova (Republic of) 24.05.1993
Monaco 12.08.1949 05.07.1950
Mongolia 20.12.1958
Montenegro (Republic of) 02.08.2006
Morocco 26.07.1956
Mozambique 14.03.1983
Myanmar 25.08.1992
Namibia 22.08.1991
Nauru 27.06.2006
Nepal 07.02.1964
Netherlands 08.12.1949 03.08.1954
New Zealand 11.02.1950. 02.05.1959
Nicaragua 12.08.1949 17.12.1953
Nigeria 20.06.1961
Niger 21.04.1964
Norway 12.08.1949 03.08.1951
Oman 31.01.1974
Pakistan 12.08.1949 12.06.1951 12.06.1951. (text)
Palau 25.06.1996
Panama 10.02.1956
Papua New Guinea 26.05.1976
Paraguay 10.12.1949 23.10.1961
Peru 12.08.1949 15.02.1956
Philippines 08.12.1949 06.10.1952
Poland 08.12.1949 26.11.1954
Portugal 11.02.1950. 14.03.1961 14.03.1961. (text)
Qatar 15.10.1975
Romania 10.02.1950. 01.06.1954
Russian Federation 12.12.1949 10.05.1954 12.12.1949 (text)
Rwanda 05.05.1964
Saint Kitts and Nevis 14.02.1986
Saint Lucia 18.09.1981
Saint Vincent Grenadines 01.04.1981
Samoa 23.08.1984
San Marino 29.08.1953
Sao Tome and Principe 21.05.1976
Saudi Arabia 18.05.1963
Senegal 18.05.1963
Serbia (Republic of) 16.10.2001
Seychelles 08.11.1984
Sierra Leone 10.06.1965
Singapore 27.04.1973
Slovakia 02.04.1993
Slovenia 26.03.1992
Solomon Islands 06.07.1981
Somalia 12.07.1962
South Africa 31.03.1952
Spain 08.12.1949 04.08.1952
Sri Lanka 08.12.1949 28.02.1959
Sudan 23.09.1957
Suriname 13.10.1976 13.10.1976. (text)
Swaziland 28.06.1973
Sweden 08.12.1949 28.12.1953
Switzerland 12.08.1949 31.03.1950
Syrian Arab Republic 12.08.1949 02.11.1953
Tajikistan 13.01.1993
Tanzania (United Rep.of) 12.12.1962
Thailand 29.12.1954
Timor-Leste 08.05.2003
Togo 06.01.1962
Tonga 13.04.1978
Trinidad and Tobago 24.09.1963
Tunisia 04.05.1957
Turkey 12.08.1949 10.02.1954
Turkmenistan 10.04.1992
Tuvalu 19.02.1981
Uganda 18.05.1964
Ukraine 12.12.1949 03.08.1954
United Arab Emirates 10.05.1972
United Kingdom 08.12.1949 23.09.1957 23.09.1957. (text)
United States of America 12.08.1949 02.08.1955 02.08.1955. (text)
Uruguay 12.08.1949 05.03.1969 05.03.1969. (text)
Uzbekistan 08.10.1993
Vanuatu 27.10.1982
Venezuela 10.02.1950. 13.02.1956
Viet Nam 28.06.1957 28.06.1957. (text)
Yemen 16.07.1970 25.05.1977. (text)
Zambia 19.10.1966
Zimbabwe 07.03.1983


Ratification
A treaty is generally open for signature for a certain time following the conference which has adopted it. However, a signature is not binding on a State unless it has been endorsed by ratification. The time limits having elapsed, the Conventions and the Protocols are no longer open for signature. The States which have not signed them may at any time accede or, in the appropriate circumstances, succeed to them.


Accession
Instead of signing and then ratifying a treaty, a State may become party to it by the single act called accession.

Reservation / Declaration
Unilateral statement, however phrased or named, made by a State when ratifying, acceding or succeeding to a treaty, whereby it purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application to that State (provided that such reservations are not incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty).

“ Palestine — June 21, 1989:
The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs received a letter from the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations Office at Geneva informing the Swiss Federal Council ‘that the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, entrusted with the functions of the Government of the State of Palestine by decision of the Palestine National Council, decided, on May 4,1989, to adhere to the Four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 and the two Protocols additional thereto.’

September 13, 1989, the Swiss Federal Council informed the States that it was not in a position to decide whether the letter constituted an instrument of accession, ‘due to the uncertainty within the international community as to the existence or non-existence of a State of Palestine.’” Copyright © 2005 International Committee of the Red Cross, International Humanitarian Law - Treaties and Documents, http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/360-560001?OpenDocumentBritannica notes




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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY] Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]

Ghosts rise from U.S. - Iraq war — secrets unveiled in public interest

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

More documents released this weekend by Al Jazeera from whistleblower WikiLeaks show that from 2004 to 2009, U.S. soldiers in Iraq were under domestic orders, so called “Fragmentary order” or FRAGO, to let torture proceed without check. In doing so, U.S. officials have broken laws agreed to by the United States and world nations.

UN resolution 1546 does not require the U. S. under international law to investigate allegations of Iraqi-on-Iraqi detainee abuse. Apparently, Iraqis reported more than a thousand cases of abuse after June 30, 2004, when Iraq had “resumed its sovereignty.” However, the United Nations Convention against Torture (to which the U.S. is signatory) “forbids signatories from transferring detainees to countries where there are substantial grounds for believing they will be tortured.”

There were more than a thousand allegations of torture in Iraqi jails, Al Jazeera reports from the leaked documents, “many of them substantiated by medical evidence clearly seeming to constitute ‘substantial grounds’ to believe that prisoners transferred to Iraqi custody could be tortured. Yet, in recent years — including nearly 2,000 handed over to Iraqis in July of this year — “the U.S. has transferred thousands of prisoners to Iraqi custody.”

The U.S. military’s secret “significant action reports” (SIGACTs), according to Al Jazeera, “reveal how torture was rampant and how ordinary civilians bore the brunt of the conflict. The files record horrifying tales: of pregnant women being shot dead at checkpoints, of priests kidnapped and murdered, of Iraqi prison guards using electric drills to force their prisoners to confess.” Moreover, U.S. soldiers engaged in “excessive use of force that was routinely not investigated and the guilty were rarely brought to book.”

In the period January 1, 2004 - December 31, 2009, 109,000 people died of whom two thirds or 66,081 were civilians.

These latest 400,000 secret U.S. files released by WikiLeaks and obtained by Al Jazeera expose “a graphic narrative of the war — every aspect of the war in Iraq — reaching far beyond any information about the conflict ever released into the public domain.”

Al Jazeera says that before releasing the documents its staff worked for ten weeks with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London and “analyzed tens of thousands of documents, finding facts the United States has kept hidden from public scrutiny.” The finding, says the news organization, “often contradicts the official narrative of the conflict [in Iraq]. Leaked data reveal, for example, that the U.S. has been keeping records of Iraqi deaths and injuries throughout the war — despite public statements to the contrary.”

Sources


“WikiLeaks releases secret Iraq file Al Jazeera accesses 400,000 secret US military documents, which reveal the inside story of the Iraq war” (Gregg Carlstrom), October 22, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/secretiraqfiles/2010/10/2010102217631317837.html


“U.S. turned blind eye to torture — Leaked documents on Iraq war contain thousands of allegations of abuse, but a Pentagon order told troops to ignore them” (Gregg Carlstrom), October 22, 2010 23:16 http://english.aljazeera.net/secretiraqfiles/2010/10/20101022161828428516.html

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting October 23, 2010

(accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 198]

Wounded 32,899-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: October 18, 2010

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count (civilian deaths from violence) figures:

98,585 – 107,594

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties figures:

IRAQ: 4,426 U.S., 4,744 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,348 U.S., 2,168 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY] Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]

U.S. fuels Middle East flames

Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

In an area rife with conflict and misery, the U.S. pours weapons of mass destruction.

The United States, according to Free Speech Radio News, is moving ahead with a sixty-billion dollar ($60 billion) decades-long arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

The Defense Department of the Obama administration  has given notice to the U.S. Congress that it plans to push forward with an arms orgy of satellite-guided bombs, fighter jets, helicopters to this conflict-torn area of the world.

Mainstream news sources are touting this pouring on of fuel into the flaming Middle East/Persian Gulf/Southwest Asia region “the biggest arms deal in U.S. history.”

Among the cash-rich profit takers in this latest windfall moral offense to humanity are military industrial complex big-shot Washington political funders and mass media owners Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Electric.
.
Combine warmongering and greed, cold cash and kickbacks and oil resources in Saudi Arabia and the greater Middle Eastern region and what you get is U.S. foreign policy at its worst. Saudi Arabia occupies roughly four-fifths of the Arabian Peninsula.

Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait border Saudi Arabia to the north
Persian Gulf, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman border to the east
Oman (part of) to the southeast
Yemen to the south and southwest
Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba to the west

East, along the Persian Gulf, are Saudi Arabia’s abundant oil fields. Since the 1960s, these oil fields “have made Saudi Arabia synonymous with petroleum wealth.”

There have been long-running border disputes with Yemen and Qatar (nearly resolved in 2000 and 2001). The border with the United Arab Emirates remains undefined. A territory of 2,200 square miles (5,700 square km) along the gulf coast was shared by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as a neutral zone until 1969, when a political boundary was agreed upon. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia each administer one-half of the territory and equally share oil production in the entire area. Though a partition in 1981 legally settled the controversy over the Saudi-Iraqi Neutral Zone, conflict between the Iraq and Saudi Arabia persists and prevents final demarcation on the ground.

The Middle East region consists of the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran and sometimes beyond.

The central part of this general area used to be called the Near East (and is today in some government contexts). This name (Near East) was given to the region by some of the first modern Western geographers and historians, who tended to divide the Orient into three regions:

Near East: the region nearest Europe extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf
Middle East: the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia
Far East: regions facing the Pacific Ocean

The “Middle East” construct drawn after World War II is the region made up of the states or territories of Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestine (now Israel), Jordan, Egypt, The Sudan, Libya, and the various states of Arabia proper (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, or Trucial Oman [now United Arab Emirates].

Subsequent events have tended, in loose usage, to enlarge the number of lands included in the definition. The three North African countries of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are closely connected in sentiment and foreign policy with the Arab states.

In addition, geographic factors often require political leaders and others to take account of Afghanistan and Pakistan in connection with the affairs of the Middle East.

Greece is sometimes included in the compass of the Middle East because the Middle Eastern (then Near Eastern) question in its modern form first became apparent when the Greeks rose in rebellion to assert their independence of the Ottoman Empire in 1821.

Oil

Military industrial complex

Political finance

Media ownership

Endless war and conflict

Sources and notes
Free Speech Radio News, October 21, 2010, http://fsrn.org/audio/saudi-us-weapons-deal/7699
Britannica notes on Saudi Arabia

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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY] Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]

Mister, can you spare a care—impact of war

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

By the time his brother opened the e-mail, the returned 27-year-old soldier was dead.

After military service, their deaths rise disproportionately. The Bay Citizen published over the weekend Aaron Glantz’s articles on young veterans’ trauma and suicide. Glantz appeared today on Pacifica Network’s Democracy Now program.

Not unlike their treatment of foreigners’ deaths, the U.S. Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs “do not count the number of veterans who have died after leaving [military service].”

Reuben Paul “Chip” Santos was born April 27, 1982 and died October 16, 2009. He was a decorated Army veteran 2000-2008 [with] NATO medals for service in Kosovo, Kuwait, Jordan; a National Defense Medal for service in Iraq. Santos was a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, a creative writing major at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, published writer, screenwriter of ‘Game of Champions’ 2008, actor in other IAIA films.

On his first return from Iraq in October 2003, “his family thought he was fine” but slowly over a six-year period, he “lost his spark,” enrolled in and dropped out of college classes, “stayed home, played violent video games” day and night. In his poetry, “Santos described the games as a way of “‘holding on to denial that is burning cancer into hope.’”

Santos’s girlfriend reflected on his behavior in the two years after he returned from combat in Iraq. He woke screaming in the middle of the night and held her “so tight she felt like she was being strangled.” Behind the wheel of a car, he drove “erratically, sometimes at more than 120 miles [193 kilometers] an hour.” When traffic was heavy, he broke out in a heavy sweat , his breathing shallow; he became “‘completely stone face,’” his girlfriend told the press, “‘and I’d get scared and just be quiet.’”

Six months before committing suicide Santos enrolled in the U.S. Veterans Administration’s cognitive behavioral therapy, a procedure whereby the patient “relives traumatic experiences in an effort to overcome them” [This sounds a lot like compounding trauma]. Santos left the program after nine weeks. Three months after that, he hanged himself.

“I'm tired of fighting this. I feel like I've tried everything but electro shock therapy,” Santos is reported saying in a final email to his brother and girlfriend.

“[Santos] lived with dignity and integrity,” one obituary ends; “struggled to survive war and sadly succumbed to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Syndrome.”

Aaron Glantz’s news articles on veterans were based on reporting conducted by New America Media, a non-partisan news organization, in partnership with The [California] Bay Citizen. The researchers looked at the most recent death certificates filed by coroners, medical examiners, physicians and funeral homes from California’s 58 counties and found that in the period 2005-2008, “veteran fatalities exceeded the number of combat deaths involving service members from almost every county.

“In the Bay Area, 114 young veterans died after returning home, nearly three times the number of Bay Area service members who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts over the same period.

“Suicides represented approximately one in five deaths of young veterans. Many other deaths resulted from risky behaviors psychologists say are common symptoms of post-traumatic stress.”

A retired brigadier general, Stephen Xenakis, who had served as Commanding General of Southeast Army Regional Medical Command told reporters that the stateside death toll will continue to rise because psychological wounds associated with combat may not emerge immediately.

“‘What you’re seeing is young men and women who saw combat in their early 20s, as well as everything else that went on in the theater [of war]; and in their late 20s they get symptomatic.’”


Sources and notes


“After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge: Suicides, vehicle accidents and drug overdoses take lives” (Aaron Glantz), October 16, 2010, http://www.baycitizen.org/veterans/story/after-service-veteran-deaths-surge/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/us/17bcvets.html?_r=1

Reporter with the Bay Citizen, Aaron Glantz’s article “After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge” appears also in the New York Times. Glantz is author of three books including The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle against America’s Veterans.

Aaron Glantz came to the Bay Citizen from New America Media where he covered the economy. Before that, he spent seven years covering the war in Iraq and the treatment veterans receive when they come home.

Obituary at Tributes, http://www.tributes.com/show/Reuben-Santos-87001582

“War’s Hidden Death Toll: After Service, Veteran Deaths and Suicides Surge,” October 18, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/18/wars_hidden_death_toll_after_service

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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY] Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]