How many (est.) in two-theater
U.S.-led
WAR DEAD?
Casualty sites reporting December 19, 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: 201]
Wounded 32,937-100,000
U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000
Suicides estimated: 18 a day
Latest update on this site: November 22, 2010
• Iraq Body Count (civilian deaths from violence) figures:
99,152 – 108,235
• ICasualties figures:
IRAQ: 4,430 U.S., 4,748 Coalition
AFGHANISTAN: 1,438 U.S., 2,269 Coalition
• Just Foreign Policy Iraqi deaths due to U.S. invasion —
“The number is … at least 10 times greater than
most estimates cited in U.S. media yet it is
based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths
caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003” [no recent updates]:
1,421,933 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq
AL JAZEERA REPORTS FROM
U.S. aggression, occupation
Middle East, Southwest Asia
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES — East Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza
[internationalist, human rights activist’s opinion]
“… [A] habitual armed robber was being asked to stop robbing a few banks for three months in exchange for a huge financial payoff,” international law professor and author Richard Falk writes in an opinion piece in Al Jazeera. “Such an arrangement qualifies as a transparently shameless embrace of Israeli lawlessness on behalf of a peace process that has no prospect of producing peace, much less justice. Justice here is conceived in relation to the satisfaction of Palestinian rights, especially the right of self–determination that has through the years been whittled down.…
“The shamelessness continues.
“Instead of castigating Israel for its refusal to show even a pretense of pragmatic flexibility that would make the Obama approach seem slightly less fatuous and regressively wimpy, the U.S. government simply announced its abandonment of efforts to persuade Israel to extend the moratorium. And embarked on a resumption of the negotiations between the parties without any preconditions, that is, settlement expansion and ethnic cleansing could now continue uncontested.…
“While this mindless diplomatic spinning goes forth, other clocks are ticking madly. Settlements expanding at accelerating rates, new segments of the wall are being constructed, ethnic cleansing intensifies in East Jerusalem, the apartheid practices and structures in the West Bank are being steadily strengthened, the entrapped and imprisoned population of Gaza lives continuously on the brink of a survival crisis, the refugees in their camps endure their dreary and unacceptable confinement. …
“Is it not better at this time to rely on the growing Palestine Solidarity Movement, peace from below, and the related success being experienced in waging the Legitimacy War against Israel, what Israel itself nervously calls ‘the de-legitimacy project’ that is viewed by its leaders and think tanks as a far greater threat to its illicit ambitions than armed resistance?”
In April of this year, Falk described the Legitimacy War as “a second war that is essentially based on the reliance on a variety of non-violent tactics of resistance.” Though Palestinian armed resistance has not been renounced, he wrote, “It has been displaced by this emphasis on non-violent tactics.…
“The essence of this legitimacy war is to cast doubt on several dimensions of Israeli legitimacy: its status as a moral and law abiding actor, as an occupying power in relation to the Palestinian people, and with respect to its willingness to respect the United Nations and abide by international law. Those that wage such a legitimacy war seek to seize the high moral ground in relation to the underlying conflict, and on this basis, gain support for a variety of coercive, but non-violent initiatives designed to put pressure on Israel, on governments throughout the world and on the United Nations to deny normal participatory rights to Israel as a member of international society.”
GAZA December 19
Five Palestinians fighters died today when Israel conducted an air raid on the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials. Israeli aircraft had targeted the area of Dier el-Balah on Saturday.
Southwest/Central Asia — Afghanistan/Pakistan
AFGHANISTAN December 19
Ten people (est.) died today (among the dead police officers and soldiers) when Taliban fighters launched attacks in Kabul and in the Afghan northern province of Kunduz. “Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Kabul said the incidents “‘took place almost simultaneously’ [and] as the death toll for foreign troops in Afghanistan hit 700 in 2010 — by far the deadliest year of the near decade-long war.” Five hundred and twenty-one “(521) foreign troops died 2009, previously the worst year of the war, but operations against the Taliban-led campaign have intensified over the past 18 months.”
PAKISTAN December 17
Twenty-four people (est.) died Friday when a barrage of missiles (three suspected U.S. drone missiles) struck two villages in Khyber’s Tirah valley along the Pakistan-Afghan border.… The frequency of these attacks has more than doubled this year compared to 2009.”
IRAQ December 17
“The U.S. government, not Xe Services (formerly known as Blackwater), “should be held accountable for a 2007 shooting by the security company’s contractors that killed 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square in Baghdad.”
Lawyers for Xe or Blackwater argued Thursday before a U.S. federal judge that “Blackwater contractors were essentially acting as employees of the U.S. government because they were providing security to State Department personnel.…
“The North Carolina-based company and several of its contractors are seeking dismissal of a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of three people killed in the shooting: Ali Kinani, Abrahem Abed Al Mafraje and Mahde Sahab Naser Shamake. The lawsuit accuses the parties of wrongful death and negligence, and seeks punitive damages. In 2009, Blackwater was barred from Iraq for ‘excessive force.’
“U.S. government documents released in October by the WikiLeaks website reveal another 14 incidents, in addition to the Nisour Square shooting, in which Blackwater shot at civilians in Iraq.” However, despite this company’s record, the U.S. government in recent months has awarded “another lucrative contract to a front company for Xe.”
Sources and notes
“The delusions of the peace process — The politics of the peace process have emphatically ensured that the mere prospect for producing peace is nonexistent” (Opinion, Richard Falk), December 18, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2010/12/201012188187905194.html
Richard Falk
Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Richard Falk was Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University. He is a prolific writer, speaker and activist of world affairs and author or co-author of more than 20 books, among them Crimes of War, Revolutionaries and Functionaries, The War System, A Study of Future Worlds, The End of World Order, Revitalizing International Law, Nuclear Weapons and International Law, and On Human Governance; and is currently serving his third year of a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. http://www.transnational.org/SAJT/tff/people/r_falk.html
“The Palestinians are winning the legitimacy war: will it matter? (Richard Falk), April 5, 2010,
http://www.redress.cc/palestine/rfalk20100405
“Legitimacy war” — “In recent years, especially beginning with the brutal experience of the Lebanon war of 2006 and even more dramatically in the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2008-09 (December 27, 2008-January 18, 2009), there has been a notable change of emphasis in Palestinian strategy. The new strategy has been to initiate what might be described as a second war, ‘a legitimacy war’ that is essentially based on the reliance on a variety of non-violent tactics of resistance. Armed resistance has not been renounced by the Palestinians, but it has been displaced by this emphasis on non-violent tactics…. “
“Israeli attack kills Gaza fighters — Five members of the Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees are killed in the strike,” December 19, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/12/2010121823546201234.html
“Many killed in Afghan city attacks — Police and soldiers are among those dead after army recruitment centre in Kunduz was attacked,” December 19, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/12/2010121944648778319.html
“Missiles strike northwest Pakistan — At least 24 killed in suspected US drone attack on two villages in northwest Khyber region, in second day of strikes,” December 17, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/12/2010121781529735681.html
“Blackwater killings: ‘U.S. at fault’ — Private security company, now known as Xe Services, says responsibility for 2007 Iraq killings lies with U.S. government,” December 17, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/12/2010121710658402557.html
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