No one escapes casualty or consequences.
War leaves no innocents.
Nothing exists unscathed.
U.S. v.Afghan civilians September 28
Thirteen civilians died and eight suffered wounds last Sunday when NATO forces bombed Afghanistan's northeastern Laghman province. NATO disputed the numbers.
U.S./NATO v.Afghan children September 29
Four children died and three adults suffered wounds when NATO on Wednesday conducted raids into Afghanistan’s eastern Ghazni province.
The chief of Andar district, Sher Khan Yousafzai, reportedly told the local Pajhwok Afghan News that helicopter-borne NATO forces fired on local people in an orchard near one of the district’s towns, also named Andar.
U.S. v. Afghanistan/Pakistan October 1
Unidentified assailants in the Pakistani town of Shikarpur in Sindh province set fire to tankers carrying supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The incident came a day after Pakistani authorities blocked a supply route for NATO troops. Anger had risen among Pakistanis following the Thursday killings of three Pakistani soldiers in two cross-border strikes as NATO troops were chasing anti-government fighters in Pakistan’s northwestern Kurram region. Most supplies to troops in Afghanistan travel through Pakistan.
U.S. partnering w/ mercenaries October 2
Though the now-U.S. State Department Secretary promised in her bid for the White House to stop awarding military contracts to Blackwater (the felonious private security contractor), Mrs. Clinton’s State Department “has recently awarded the company another lucrative contract.”
On a list of eight firms bundled into the government-contracted Worldwide Protective Services is said to be one of Xe’s [Blackwater became Xe after a string of legal cases had been brought against the company in the U.S. and Iraq] fronts, International Development Solutions LLC (IDS). The total government outlay for the group of eight companies rises to $10 billion.
Blackwater’s U.S. Training Center (formerly known as Blackwater Lodge and Training Center) is part of IDS. Two former Blackwater employees are currently on trial in the U.S. on charges of murdering Afghan civilians and keeping human remains as trophies. The charges stem from a 2009 incident in Kabul. In 2008, five Blackwater guards were charged [though charges were ultimately dismissed] in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians, who were shot in Baghdad’s al-Nisoor Square in 2007. Another employee of Triple Canopy (another contractor in the new Worldwide Protective Services contract) was charged with killing at least one Iraqi after he fired into a civilian vehicle for ‘sport.’ Blackwater agreed in August of this year to pay $42 million in fines for weapons export violations.
Afghanis v. mercenaries October 3
Private security companies are reportedly being terminated in Afghanistan based on a plan drawn up by that country in August. Government officials report they are shutting down eight firms and seizing more than 400 weapons. The move is part of a larger plan by President Hamid Karzai to assume all Afghan security responsibilities by 2014.
Forty thousand Afghans, according to Kabul estimates, are employed by private security companies — a common sight on Afghan streets, their heavily armed guards forcing a route through traffic — maintaining parallel security operations and operating beyond government control. Though these private firms have been accused of killings, crimes and scandals, they are rarely punished and many Afghans see them “as operating with impunity.”
U.S. v. Pakistan October 2
Sixteen people died when missiles suspected to have been fired by U.S. drones landed on Pakistan’s North Waziristan province.
The first raid on Saturday reportedly killed nine people after missiles hit a house in the Datta Khel area, close to the Afghan border. Seven other people died in another raid in the same region later on Saturday.
Datta Khel has been the scene of several U.S. raids on Taliban, al-Qaeda fighters, and local supporters accused of targeting NATO and US forces in Afghanistan.
The United States is believed to have launched in the past five weeks at least 22 missile attacks in Pakistani territory. Western officials have said some of the drone attacks have been aimed at disrupting a ‘terror plot’ against European cities.
Public outrage has also risen over recent NATO incursions from across the Afghan border. It hit a peak on Thursday, when two NATO helicopters crossed into Kurram tribal region and killed three Pakistani paramilitary soldiers they believed were firing at them from the ground.
In apparent retaliation for the killings, Pakistan has cut off a key U.S. and NATO supply line on its soil. About 150 trucks on Saturday were waiting for Pakistan to reopen the border crossing at Torkham so they could deliver their supplies to Western troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. v. U. S. civil liberties October 3
Activists from U.S. cities of Minneapolis and Chicago received judicial subpoenas to appear this month before a grand jury investigation. The actions follow September 24 coordinated U.S. police raids.
Though authorities searched and seized activists’ computers, check books, mobile phones, documents and photographs, they laid no charges of crimes against the activists.
U. S. “White Power” v. U.S. September 29-October 4
“Racially motivated threats against [U. S. President Barack] Obama rose to new heights in the first months of his presidency, Al Jazeera reports. “The United States saw nine high-profile race killings in 2009. Meanwhile white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups claim their membership is growing and that visits to their websites are increasing.”
Al Jazeera’s People and Power program looked at an earlier report that investigated “whether the racial undercurrent that has long structured U.S. politics was reasserting itself.” In the process, reporters “uncovered links between white nationalists and a conservative movement that has since become a force within more mainstream politics.”
How many (est.) in two-theater
U.S.-led
WAR DEAD?
Casualty sites reporting
October 3, 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: 196]
Wounded 31,951-100,000
U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000
Suicides [estimated] 18 a day
Latest update on this site September 27, 2010
• Iraq Body Count figures
98,171 – 107,153
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,424 U.S., 4,742 Coalition
AFGHANISTAN: 1,311 U.S., 2,124 Coalition
Sources and notes
“NATO raid kills ‘Afghan civilians’— Residents fleeing village in Laghman province tell Al Jazeera that Sundays raid killed13,” September 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia/2010/09/2010928123526920458.html
“‘Afghan children’ die in NATO raid — Local official contradicts NATO claim of insurgents being killed, saying four children have died in Ghazni attack,” September 29, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/09/2010929114014622446.html
“NATO lorries set ablaze in Pakistan—Attack on tankers carrying supplies to troops in Afghanistan follows deaths of Pakistani soldiers in NATO strikes,” October 1, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/10/20101014133433742.html
“‘Blackwater’gets new U.S. contract — Private security firm now known as Xe has a slice of a new $10bn state department contract despite repeated violations,” October 2, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/10/201010117237790858.html
“Afghanistan begins disbanding private security firms” (Sayed Salahuddin, Reuters), October 3, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6920N820101003
“Deaths in Pakistan ‘drone’ attacks — Sixteen people reportedly killed by missiles fired by suspected U.S. drones in North Waziristan,” October 2, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/10/201010274744564994.html
“FBI targets U.S. Palestine activists — Searches, subpoenas, but no charges for anti-war activists ‘providing support to terrorists’ in Colombia and Palestine,” October 3, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/09/201092993840748931.html
“White Power USA — Is the US heading toward a future of racial tolerance or racially-motivated violence?”(Filmmakers Rick Rowley and Jacquie Soohen went inside the white nationalist movement to investigate), People & Power episode airing Wednesday, September 29- Monday October 4, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/01/201015124739316797.html
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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]; 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]
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