Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett
She says she exposes “to justice-loving great people of the U.S. the wrong policy of the U.S. government” and informs them of “the wrongdoing of their government [engaged in] “killing innocent people under the name of the so-called war on terror.”
Afghan MP and human rights activist Malalai Joya appearing today on the Democracy Now program said, “I tell justice-loving people of the U.S. that their taxpayer money— billions of dollars that their government pays—goes into pockets of warlords, drug lords and criminals…”
U.S. Foreign Relations Path and Pathos
U.S.’s AFGHANISTAN
Twenty-two year old U.S. soldier Jeremy Morlock stands accused of “killing innocent civilians out of pure bloodlust,” Spiegel reports over this past weekend. The soldier is one of a group of five soldiers in the 5th Stryker Brigade around Kandahar who committed the crimes between January and May 2010. They reportedly “used guns and grenades to make it appear they were under attack in order to justify killing civilians. They then took photos of themselves grinning while standing over their victims as if posing with hunting trophies.”
They took “gruesome mementos including bones and severed fingers. SPIEGEL has obtained a significant number of photos and videos taken by the troops.”
They took “gruesome mementos including bones and severed fingers. SPIEGEL has obtained a significant number of photos and videos taken by the troops.”
Additionally these U.S. soldiers stand accused of “taking drugs while on duty and beating up a fellow soldier who complained to superior officers.”
MARCH 26
The attack occurred on Friday. A number of civilians died and suffered wounds when NATO conducted an air raid targeting two vehicles that coalition forces believed to be carrying Taliban fighters. The attack happened in southern Afghanistan, the Naw Zad district of Helmand province.
Civilian casualties in military operations in Afghanistan are rampant. Earlier in the month, Al Jazeera reports, “nine civilians Afghan officials said were children collecting firewood” died in a NATO air raid in eastern Kunar province, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
In 2010 in Afghanistan an estimated 2,777 civilians have died in the fighting of foreign and internal combatants, according to the most recent UN report.
MARCH 28
Engineers, construction workers, security guards were among the dead following an explosion at a construction company in an eastern province on the border with Pakistan. Twenty people are estimated to have died and 50 suffered wounds Sunday in the Bermel district of Paktika province.
Civilian deaths continue rising as people are “caught up in the violence that has blighted Afghanistan since a US-led invasion in 2001 ousted the Taliban, triggering an insurgency whose intensity has increased in recent years.”
U.S.’s PAKISTAN
PAKISTANIS WON’T FORGET MERCENARY-CIA-U.S. GOVERNMENT OPERATIVE RAYMOND DAVIS
“Money talks,” Chris Arsenault posts at Al Jazeera, but the footprint of Raymond Davis “will last, as anti-American protests spread across Pakistan, with people demanding more accountability from foreign forces operating on Pakistani territory.”
Notwithstanding denials by the U.S. State Department, blood money of $2.3 million, much greater than what the U.S. usually pays family members when U.S. forces kill innocents in Iraq or Afghanistan, journalists Jeremy Scahill said, illustrates the importance of this case of mercenary-CIA-US involvement in cold-blooded murder. And the whole truth may never come to light.
U.S.’s LIBYA
COMPOUNDING REFUGEES CAUGHT IN DERANGED FOREIGN INVASION
The first wave of a massive migration arrived Saturday on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa. These people had already been displaced by conflict, ended up in Libya and were in limbo, shuttled about by Europe and North Africa.
The European Voice reports local authorities saying an estimated “2,000 African migrants fleeing violence in Libya” arrived this weekend on Lampedusa. Italy’s interior minister said last week that the government expected as many as 50,000 refugees from Libya.
Before the weekend’s refugees, Lampedusa had already received an estimated “5,000 Tunisians, part of a wave of nearly 20,000 who have arrived since mid-January.” However, “unlike most of the Tunisians who have made it to Italy, the Africans from Libya are thought to be refugees from persecution in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan. …
“Under a bilateral 2009 deal with Libya, Italy deported Africans intercepted at sea to Libya without checking their protection needs. It is unclear whether the arrivals this weekend include such cases. Aid agencies had been warning since 2009 that the refugees lived in perilous conditions in Libya. Black Africans have been attacked by Libyan insurgents on suspicion of being mercenaries.”
U.S.'s BAHRAIN
Two hundred and fifty (250) people reportedly have been detained in this home of the U.S. fifth fleet. Forty-four (44) are reported missing since the government’s security crackdown on protests. The crackdown banned all public gatherings and spread masked security forces across the city to operate checkpoints.
In separate incidents reported today, “military prosecutors banned media from reporting about suspects and cases linked to the martial law.” Bahrain’s 60 percent Shiites are calling for a constitutional monarchy.
U.S.'s KUWAIT
Pirates have hijacked a Kuwaiti oil tanker, the MV Zirku, en route from Sudan to Singapore. The pirates were reportedly in two skiffs armed with rocket-propelled grenades and guns.
Among the 29-member crew were 17 Pakistanis as well as Egyptians, Jordanians, Ukrainians, an Indian, a Filipino, an Iraqi and a Croatian. Kuwait’s state oil company, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, denies the hijacking.
Among the 29-member crew were 17 Pakistanis as well as Egyptians, Jordanians, Ukrainians, an Indian, a Filipino, an Iraqi and a Croatian. Kuwait’s state oil company, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, denies the hijacking.
U.S.’s SAUDI
Three Idaho members of the United States House and Senate who had opposed the building of an Islamic cultural center two blocks from the fallen World Trade Center “have come out in favor of hosting hundreds of Saudi military personnel and their families at a U.S. air force base in Idaho.”
At the U.S. site, the Saudis “will be trained by U.S. air force personnel to fly advanced fighter aircraft and learn the fundamentals of aerial combat.”
U.S.’s YEMEN
More than 100 people died Sunday and scores suffered wounds, among them women and children, many burned bodies unrecognizable, after a munitions factory they had entered exploded and ignited raging fires. The dead will be buried in mass graves. The incident happened in the southern Yemeni town of Jaar, a site of pro and anti government forces.
The government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh (U.S. allied), Reuters reports, has been “alternately conciliatory and defiant, [vowing] in public to make no more concessions to opponents who are demanding he step down after 32 years of authoritarian rule.”
U.S.’s ISRAEL
Primitive rockets — often fired by groups including Hamas, which controls Gaza— have evaded Israel’s high-tech weaponry, in part because their short flight path, just a few seconds, makes them hard to track.
Now Israel is reported to have “deployed a cutting-edge rocket defiance system" — the Iron Dome system just north of Beersheba, a southern city twice hit by rockets during this month’s flare-up of cross-border violence— to try to halt a recent surge in attacks from the neighboring Gaza Strip.
The Iron Dome, which uses sophisticated cameras and radar to track incoming rockets, determine where they will land, and intercept and destroy them far from their targets, was approved in 2007 by Israel’s government.
U.S.-led
WAR DEAD
Casualty sites reporting March 28, 2011
(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: 213] Information out of date
•
Wounded 32,992-100,000
U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000
Suicides estimated: 18 a day
Latest update on this site: January 26, 2011
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
•
Iraq Body Count
The worldwide update on civilians killed in the Iraq war and occupation
Documented civilian deaths from violence
100,149 – 109,422
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
•
ICasualties figures:
AFGHANISTAN: 1514 U.S.; 2381 coalition
IRAQ: 4441 U.S.; 4759 Coalition
Sources and notes
MALALAI JOYA in interview, March 28, 2011,
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/28/obama_administration_relents_and_grants_visa
“Murder in Afghanistan— Court Sentences ‘Kill Team’ Soldier to 24 Years in Prison: An American soldier has been sentenced to 24 years in prison by a military tribunal after pleading guilty to murdering innocent civilians in Afghanistan. Jeremy Morlock admitted to being part of a gruesome ‘kill team,’ and is testifying against his fellow soldiers as part of a plea bargain.” March 24, 2011, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752918,00.html
“NATO air raid kills Afghan civilians — Coalition pledges investigation after attack targeting two vehicles leaves several people dead and wounded,” March 26, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/03/2011326123719286979.html#
“Deaths in Afghan suicide blast — At least 20 people killed and some 50 wounded after attack in country's eastern Paktika province.” March 28, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/03/20113285349638581.html#
“Spy game: The CIA, Pakistan and ‘blood money’— CIA contractor and former Blackwater employee Raymond Davis flees Pakistan after killing two men” (Chris Arsenault), March 17, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011317131348571552.html#
“Libya refugees arrive in Lampedusa (Toby Vogel, European Voice), March 28, 2011, http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2011/march/libya-refugees-arrive-in-lampedusa/70669.aspx
“Bahrain opposition says 250 detained, 44 missing” (Erika Solomon | Reuters).March 28, 2011, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/bahrain-opposition-says-250-detained-44-missing-20110328-113201-475.html
“Kuwaiti oil tanker ‘hijacked’ in Gulf of Aden — EU naval force says MV Zirku and 29 crew were seized off coast of Oman, but Kuwaiti oil company denies the claim,” March 28, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/2011328173342841503.html#
“A plan to train Saudi air force pilots in Idaho is turning former allies into bitter enemies” (Nick Turse), March 19, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011316131230188238.html#
“Yemen handover talks stall but deal ‘within reach’” (Cynthia Johnston and Mohammed Ghobari, Reuters), March 28, 2011, http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE72R1UJ20110328
“Israel deploys ‘Iron Dome’ rocket shield — Long-anticipated rocket defense system deployed early in bid to counter recent surge in attacks from Gaza Strip,” March 27, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/201132718224159699.html#
“Israel deploys ‘Iron Dome’ rocket shield — Long-anticipated rocket defense system deployed early in bid to counter recent surge in attacks from Gaza Strip,” March 27, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/201132718224159699.html#
Lampedusa Island
In the Mediterranean Sea between Malta and Tunis, 105 miles (170 km) southwest of Licata, Sicily, Lampedusa Island — (Italian Isola di Lampedusa, Latin Lopadussa largest island) — is 8 square miles or 21 square kilometers of the Isole (islands) Pelagie (which include Linosa and Lampione islets)
Administratively the group is part of Agrigento province, Sicily, Italy. Lampedusa’s greatest length is about 7 miles (11 km), its greatest width about 2 miles; it rises to 436 feet (133 meters) above sea level [Lampedusa Island. (2008). Encyclopædia Britannica. Deluxe Edition. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica].
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