When will we decide TOO MANY HAVE DIED?

Civilian deaths NATO bombing Libya
Daily Mail UK

Under colors of State killing with impunity
Excerpt, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

“Too Many Have Died. ”  Ten-term U.S. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey said this in 2009 when speaking before a session of the U.S. House of Representatives. She continued this way.

“In America we have seen 35,000 of our finest and bravest men and women killed or wounded in battle, and 140,000 of our troops remain in harm’s way today; and the death toll itself does not measure the full human cost of the conflict. ”  She continued.

Hon. Lynn Woolsey
Member of U.S. Congress (Calif.)

It does not include the injured.

It doesn’t include the children who have been orphaned.

It doesn’t include the families devastated by the loss of loved ones and their breadwinners.

It doesn’t include the suffering of the 4 million refugees.

It doesn’t include the countless deaths from indirect causes, including the lack of health care because hospitals were closed and so many doctors were forced to flee.

It doesn’t include the people who have seen their futures taken away from them because of their schools and colleges being closed by the fighting.

WAR is no video game, Woolsey said. 

Real people die or are horribly wounded and scarred, and they are scarred and wounded for life.

Real families suffer.

We need to remember that when we make momentous decisions about war and peace in this House [the U.S. House of Representatives], we have to consider those statistics.

Congresswoman Woolsey was talking about Afghanistan and Iraq. And three years later, as the U.S. war on Afghanistan continues and violence spikes in Iraq, though foreign combat troops are supposedly out of that country though leaving and sizable occupation, the historian, essayist, and Al Jazeera investigative journalist, Nick Turse, reports on the continuing and accelerated U.S. violence against on the peoples of Africa and closer to home.

Under U.S. President Barack Obama, Turse wrote last week, operations on the continent of Africa “have accelerated far beyond the limited interventions of the [George W] Bush years.” This carnage, chaos and provocation in the latter years include (but are not limited to)—

Last year’s war in Libya;

Regional drone campaigns with missions run out of airports and bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia and the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Seychelles;

A flotilla of 30 ships in the Indian Ocean supporting regional operations;

A multi-pronged military and CIA campaign against militants in Somalia, including intelligence operations, training for Somali agents, secret prisons, helicopter attacks, and U.S. commando raids;

A massive influx of cash for counterterrorism operations across East Africa;

A possible old-fashioned air war, carried out on the sly in the region using manned aircraft;

Tens of millions of dollars in arms for allied mercenaries and African troops;

A special ops expeditionary force (bolstered by State Department experts) dispatched to help capture or kill Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and his senior commanders, operating in Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central

African Republic (where US Special Forces now have a new base);

A mission by elite Force Recon Marines from the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12 (SPMAGTF-12) to train soldiers from the Uganda People’s Defense Force. This supplies the majority of troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia, and its documentation only scratches the surface of Washington’s fast-expanding activities in the region.

U.S. wars closer to home

War on drugs

 “The Obama administration has been ramping up operations south of the border using its new formula,” Turse writes.

Mexico

“Pentagon drone missions burrow deep inside Mexico in its “battle against drug cartels” and Department of Defense CIA agents and civilian operatives attach to Mexican military bases and participate in Mexico’s drug war, he reports.

Honduras

“In 2012, the Pentagon ramped up anti-drug operations in Honduras with U.S. forces seen participating in joint operations with Honduran troops as part of a training mission dubbed ‘Beyond the Horizon 2012.’

Leaving innocent civilian dead in their path, “Green Berets,” Turse says, “have been assisting Honduran Special Operations forces in anti-smuggling operations. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team —originally created to disrupt Afghan poppy trade — has joined forces with Honduras’s “most elite counternarcotics unit,” the Honduran Tactical Response Team in these operations.

London demonstration

The litany of war begs an old question, which seems whispered in Lynn Woolsey’s concerns.

How many times must a man look up/before he can see the sky? 

How many ears … / before he can hear people cry? 

How many deaths will it take until [WE know]/… too many people have died?

Is it not past time to stop the wars? 

Sources and notes

“Too Many Have Died,” May 5, 2009, http://woolsey.house.gov/smart-security-video-text/too-many-have-died-310/

Hon. Lynn Woolsey: Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey is in her 10th term as the representative from California’s 6th District, just north of San Francisco. Her district includes all of Marin and most of Sonoma County. Biography updated January 2011, http://woolsey.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=31&sectiontree=2,31

“The Obama formula for America's next decade of global war” (Nick Turse,Al Jazeera, July 2, 2012: USA and the War on Terror), July 6, 2012,

Starting or fanning brushfire wars on several continents could lead to raging wildfires that spread unpredictably and prove difficult, if not impossible, to quench, http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/the-obama-formula-for-americas-next-decade-of-global-war

Nick Turse is a historian, essayist, and investigative journalist,
www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/profile/nick-turse.html

“Blowin’ in the Wind,” BOB DYLAN LYRICS, http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobdylan/blowininthewind.html

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Bombing: Nato has been urged by Russia to investigate civilian deaths in Libya from its bombing campaign
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076689/Russia-asks-Nato-investigate-civilian-deaths-Libya-bombing-campaign.html#ixzz20AJ9xsKE
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076689/Russia-asks-Nato-investigate-civilian-deaths-Libya-bombing-campaign.html
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Stop the Hemorrhage, Bring $Billions home

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
Some Members of Congress took a stand against more billions for war

Obey of WISCONSIN
To date “we have appropriated over $1 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than $700 billion to Iraq and $300 billion for Afghanistan.” Borrowed money has paid for these wars.

“What’s happened with this bill [2010 supplemental appropriations, war funding bill] is a good indication of the tensions and the false choices that we face. The bill started in March as a domestic disaster relief and youth summer jobs bill. The Senate added war funding. Then, we tried to do something about other emergencies this year:

The loss of more than 100,000 teachers’ jobs because of devastating state and local budget cuts
Border security vulnerabilities
A shortfall in Pell grant funding because more students qualify for aid due to the economic recession

“The House tried to fund those emergencies – which were largely paid for with offsets to other programs. Now, true to form, virtually everything we have attempted to do this year to address the economic crisis and emergencies on the domestic side of the ledger has fallen by the wayside.

“On the current course, we will face the same situation again next year and the year following as well.

“Military experts tell us that it will take us at least 10 more years to achieve any acceptable outcome in Afghanistan. We have already been there 9 years ─ I believe it is too high a price to pay.

“To those who say we must pay it because we’re going after Al Qaeda, I would note that Afghanistan is where Al Qaeda USED to be.

“Today, there are fewer than 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which was publicly confirmed last month by CIA chief Panetta. Al Qaeda has relocated to other countries and regions.

“I have the highest respect and appreciation for our troops who have done everything asked of them. They are being let down by the inability of the governments of Afghanistan and in some instances Pakistan to do their parts.

“I would be willing to support additional war funding – provided that Congress would vote – up or down – explicitly on whether or not to continue this policy after a new National Intelligence Estimate is produced.

“But absent that discipline, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and say that this operation will hurt our enemies more than us.…”

U.S. Representative Dave Obey [7th Congressional District Wisconsin, July 27, 2010, on his decision to vote no on the 2010 supplemental appropriations bill, http://appropriations.house.gov/images/stories/pdf/Obey_Statement_on_the_Sen_Amendment_to_2010_Supplemental_-_7_27_10_2.pdf

Clarke of NEW YORK
“Unfortunately the Senate has decided to short change our school children, teachers and youth while continuing to pay for the fruitless war in Afghanistan. Senators stripped critical House-passed funding provisions from the legislation that would have provided for teacher jobs, summer youth employment, and college Pell grants.

Specifically, the Senate version of the War Supplemental bill stripped from the House-passed investments:

$10 billion for teacher jobs

$1 billion for summer youth employment

$5 billion for Pell grants

$701 million for border security

The bill also excludes critical funding to maintain first responder, police/firefighter positions despite the fundamental need for those jobs not only in Brooklyn but in every community in America.

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke's Statement on the FY 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act,
July 27, 2010 7:13 PM Washington, DC- Today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4899, the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010 with a vote of 308 to 114; Congresswoman Clarke released the statement on her decision to vote against the legislation, http://clarke.house.gov/2010/07/congresswoman-yvette-d-clarkes-statement-on-the-fy-2010-supplemental-appropriations-act.shtml

 Kucinich of OHIO
“Wake Up America.

“How can we solve the world’s problems if we cannot solve our own problems here at home?”

“Don’t we know enough now to begin to demand an end to these wars? Can we ignore the budgetary impact of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan ─ especially when there are so many pressing needs for jobs, housing, education, health care and retirement security here at home?

“Vote for H. Con. Res 301: The Kucinich-Paul Resolution to Withdraw from Pakistan. Vote Against the $33 Billion Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan War Supplemental.” Dennis J. Kucinich, 10th District Ohio, http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=200735

House Congressional Resolution 301: “Directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Pakistan” was introduced by Representative Dennis J. Kucinich [OH-10], July 22, 2010. Cosponsors are Representatives Bob Filner [CA-51] and Paul, Ron [TX-14].

Related bill House Resolution 1556: “Providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 301) directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Pakistan” [Sets forth the rule for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 301) directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Pakistan] introduced by Representative James P. McGovern [MA-3] July 26, 2010.

Woolsey, Lee of CALIFORNIA
“We are running up record deficits with two wars,” California Representative Lynn Woolsey said, costing “the United States in blood and treasure.”

“Let’s not spend another dollar to escalate America’s longest war,” another California Congresswoman pleaded on the House floor. “The costs of this war are too enormous,” Representative Barbara Lee said.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved $58 billion for wars, despite Afghan leaks (Mark Matthews), July 27, 2010, http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/politics&id=7578874