WAR DEAD, violence 2011

Killing Fields — U.S. occupation, invasion, blood flow at home and abroad
Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

HOMELAND USA

Three-term U.S. Member of Congress Gabrielle Giffords died today in Tucson, Arizona, “after being shot in the head at point-blank range outside a supermarket.” In the state she represents, Giffords was holding a public event when she was gunned down in cold blood.

Six other people died. During her tenure in office, Congresswoman Giffords focused on immigration reform, military issues, stem cell research and alternative energy.

CORRECTION AND UPDATE Sunday January 9

Daily Mail UK January 9: Congresswoman Giffords “survived, despite the shooters’s bullet passing through her brain.” She is still in a critical condition. “Federal judge John Roll, 63, and Christina Green, a nine-year-old schoolchild, are among the dead. Others who died were Giffords’ aide Gabe Zimmerman, Dorothy Murray, 76, Dorwin Stoddard, 76, and Phyllis Scheck, 79.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345413/Arizona-shooting-Gabrielle-Giffords-fights-life-judge-schoolgirl-dead.html?ITO=1490

A 22-year-old white male American, Jared Loughner, with an arrest history, is being reported as alleged Tucson shooter. http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20110108/pl_dailycaller/allegedarizgunmanjaredloughnerhadpriorruninswithpolice

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

West Bank
A 67-year-old Palestinian civilian died Friday when Israeli troops in the southern West Bank city of Hebron opened fire on while he was sleeping at home. The dead man’s son, Rajaeh Kawasme, told Agence France Press, “Troops entered the house while his mother was praying and his father was asleep. They had locked her in another room then opened fire on his father in his bed. ‘They murdered him in cold blood with 13 bullets in the head without even checking his identity. After they killed him, they asked for his identity card.’” An AFP correspondent at the scene said “the shooting took place in a bedroom on the building’s first floor [and] the bed was drenched in blood.”

West Bank
The Electronic Intifada reports that although a 2005 Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions urges a complete economic, academic and cultural boycott of Israel — modeled on the one that helped end apartheid in South Africa — until Israel respects and recognizes Palestinian rights and complies with international law, a Palestinian is pushing continued development.

“Bashar Masri, a Palestinian and CEO of the company that is developing the Rawabi luxury real estate project in the occupied West Bank, appears to be actively helping Israel deepen its hold on the Palestinian economy despite his earlier claims that he is trying to help end this relationship.”

Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, says, “Masri as well as other Palestinian business men who promote normalization with Israel seem to be doing all they can to undermine the [boycott, divestment and sanctions] campaign, while making handsome profits along the way.”

West Bank Bil'in — Abu Rahmah Family: three dead and wounded in as many years
Israel’s army in late 2004 ordered construction of the “separation wall.” The wall would annex almost 60 percent of Bil'in's land — mostly agricultural land essential to the villagers and the village’s economy.

The Bil'in Committee of Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements (Bil'in Popular Committee) was formed in February 2005 and the group carried out weekly non-violent demonstrations.

Despite harsh reactions from Israeli military personnel who, among other things, “raided the homes of and arrested protest organizers in the middle of the night, the demonstrations continued.”

The Abu Rahmah siblings, non-violent activists in Bil'in’s Popular Committee, began taking fatal hits from the military.

• Ashraf Abu Rahmah in July 2008 was detained by Israeli soldiers in the nearby village of Ni'lin. The soldiers tied him up, blindfolded him and, as their commander watched, shot him in the foot at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet. The rubber coating of these weapons “is paper-thin and encases a marble-sized steel ball that can break bones or even kill.” The shooting was videotaped “making it impossible for the Israeli military to deny responsibility.” The Israeli Supreme Court handed down a strong indictment against the commander. The soldier who committed the deed was investigated. Two weeks after the investigation, the charges against him were dropped and he resumed Israeli military duty.
• Bassem Abu Rahmah in April 2009 was participating in the weekly protests. An Israeli soldier shot “a high-velocity teargas canister directly at [Bassem’s] chest from a distance of about 40 meters [44 yards]. Many protesters and media had been driven away by the billowing teargas but those still present heard a desperate call for an ambulance. There was no ambulance in the village that day. After a few drawn out minutes, a small beat-up car sped down the road to the spot where Bassem lay. As it approached, the soldiers shot at it with teargas canisters. Bassem’s limp body, his chest covered with blood, was carried to the car and driven 30 minutes to the nearest hospital.
• Jawaher Abu Rahmah died on the eve of 2011 after inhaling teargas that had targeted the Bil'in Committee of Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements’ weekly protest.

CENTRAL SOUTH ASIA and MIDDLE EAST

AFGHANISTAN — Pakistan border
Sixteen (estimated) civilians and a police commander died yesterday and 20 others suffered wounds when a suicide bomb exploded in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province on the border with Pakistan. In separate incidents, three NATO service members died in roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan.

The United Nations reports that 2,412 civilians died and 3,803 suffered wounds between January and October of 2010. These casualties amount to a 20 percent increase over 2009. Seven hundred and eleven (711) foreign troops reportedly died in 2010 compared with 521 in 2009. A total of 1,292 (estimated) Afghan police and 821 Afghan soldiers died in 2010.

PAKISTAN — capital Islamabad
In a popular market district in Islamabad, a place popular with wealthy Pakistanis and expatriates, close to the governor’s home, populated by embassies, frequented by foreigners and considered “fairly safe” — Pakistan’s Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, died. Police said on Tuesday a member of the governor’s security detail had assassinated him. Salman Taseer was a high-profile member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

PAKISTAN — children on a bus
Fifteen children ages eight to 12 suffered wounds Tuesday in southwest Pakistan when a “remote-controlled bomb ripped through a bus carrying children of paramilitary soldiers.” Of the 30 children traveling in a van attacked near Ata Shad Degree College, five suffered critical wounds.

IRAQ — resistance to foreign occupation
The Iraqi Shia Muslim religious leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, “has called on his followers to resist the ‘occupiers’ in Iraq. In his first public address since returning [to Iraq] from self-imposed exile, [Al-Sadr] called on the newly formed government to make sure all U.S. forces leave Iraq by the end of the year as planned.”

Al-Sadr is reported telling a crowd of thousands outside his ancestral home in Najaf on Saturday, “‘We are still resisting the occupation through armed, cultural and all kinds of resistance, so repeat after me: no, no to occupiers.’”


HORN OF AFRICA

SOMALIA — Mercenaries
“Western officials have acknowledged that a number of other private security contractors have begun operating in Somalia.” Somalis are resisting.

Somalia’s interim parliament on Thursday “called on the prime minister to explain a series of contracts given [without consultation] to foreign security firms operating in the country. They also called on Mohamad Abdullah Mohamad to suspend the deals until they can get more information as to what exactly they involve. Somali politicians have accused the prime minister and the president of making secret deals.

UN officials in separate actions have raised questions about whether some of the [mercenary] contractors might be helping organize and arm new pro-government militias, possibly in violation of the UN arms embargo on the country.

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting January 8, 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: 204]

Wounded 32,943-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: January 2, 2011

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

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

99,341 – 108,457

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties figures:

IRAQ: 4,432 U.S., 4,750 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,449 U.S., 2,290 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources and notes

“U.S. politician killed in Arizona — Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been shot dead, along with six others, while at a community event in Tucson,” January 8, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/01/20111818478375413.html
“Israel army shoots dead elderly Palestinian in bed,” Saturday, January 8, 2011, HEBRON, Palestinian Territories (AFP), http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20110108/twl-israel-palestinians-conflict-westban-4bdc673.html
“Rawabi developer Masri helps deepen Israel's grip on West Bank” (Ali Abunimah), The Electronic Intifada, January 6, 2011, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11717.shtml
Bil'in: A village in mourning, January 7, 2011,
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/20111513358119488.html
“Civilians killed in Afghan blast — Taliban claim attack targeting a police commander inside a public bathhouse in a town close to the Pakistan border,” January 7, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/2011178365522845.html
“Pakistan’s Punjab governor killed — Police say Salman Taseer, an outspoken member of ruling party, was assassinated by an elite guard in capital Islamabad,” January 4 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/201114115730846269.html
“Pakistan bus bomb targets children — More than a dozen children of paramilitary soldiers injured as a remote controlled device hits their school bus,” January 1, 2011,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/2011148381326449.html
“Al-Sadr calls on Iraqis ‘to resist’ — Shia leader urges peaceful resistance and a rejection of violence in his first address since returning from exile,” January 8, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/20111872647305497.html
“Somali MPs seek contract inquiry — Prime minister urged to explain deals with security contractors in strife-torn nation,” January 1, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/201111145350763809.html
_____________________________________

Bennett's books available in New York State 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]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
___________________________________________________

U.S. war dead, U.S. mercenaries

Compiled and edited, re-reported by Carolyn Bennett

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

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

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

99,152 – 108,235

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties figures:

IRAQ: 4,430 U.S., 4,748 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,438 U.S., 2,269 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

• 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


______________________________________________

Bennett's books available in New York State 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]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
______________________________________________

Consequences of war — protracted domestic, global suffering

Re-reporting, excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

The wars went hot in October of 2001. Their consequences were brutally evident in traumatized U.S. (Afghanistan and Iraq) veterans’ growing problems with substance abuse, depression, domestic violence, suicide, homelessness and violent crime. A depressed economy fueling layoffs, hiring freezes, high unemployment compounded anxieties among people generally, among veterans poignantly.

Over here

“Deep in America’s heartland is a small town a world away from the heat of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan,” Nick Carey leads a Reuters article in early November. In Forest City, Iowa, as with communities across the United States, families battle the legacy of both conflicts.

Twenty-seven-year old Steven Jordal served two tours in Iraq and returned to the States suffering “post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by multiple blast waves from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), rockets and mortars.” He sees spots, hears with a hearing device, and is currently incapable of supporting himself.

His younger brother, David Jordal, served in Afghanistan and returned with “anger issues” and has “trouble holding down a job.” His wife left. His five-year-old daughter lives with grandparents and is unclear about who her “parents” are.

Rhonda Jordal says of the son who lives with her, she can deal with most of the fallout of her son’s two tours in Iraq — his daily headaches and his irritability, 635 days to get him out of jail in Oklahoma City, the mountain of debt faced by the family because of legal fees. What breaks her heart is her son’s refusal to let her hug him as he did before going to war. “‘I know now,’ she said, ‘he’s never really coming back.’”

Endless consequences

“More than nine years of war in Afghanistan, seven in Iraq have cost the United States nearly 5,800 lives lost in combat,” Carey writes in the Reuters article. Close to 40,000 soldiers are suffering wounds from this war. The nation together with its loss of people and their potential has lost more than a trillion dollars. Moreover, even if the U.S. government starts withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July 2011 (the stated goal of the current president who embraced conflicts begun by the previous president) — “the human cost is huge … the impact of the wars will last generations.”

Over there and back again, Ann Jones writes,
“War Is Not Over When It’s Over” —

“In 2007, running out of money, Ahmad [who had been jailed and suffered torture] went to Lebanon. He had been told that he might find highly paid work in Beirut, but he didn’t. Penniless and lonely in November [of that year], he sent for his wife and son. The family registered with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and asked to be resettled in another country. Referred to the United States, they were interviewed by U.S. embassy officials. They wait for a decision in a windowless one-room apartment that reminds Ahmad of prison. Fear of being detained and deported by the authorities keeps him confined to that room.

“He suffers depression, anxiety, flashbacks; and he beats his wife as he was beaten. He was tortured. He tortures her. (‘Domestic violence’ is the euphemism we use to name torture that takes place in the home, but a comparison of standard techniques — from stripping and sleep deprivation to beating, burning, bondage, asphyxiation, and sexual assault — shows that torture by another name is still torture.) Slowly, with the help of psychotherapists at Restart, a [UN High Commissioner for Refugees]-funded program for survivors of torture, Ahmad is learning to stop abusing [his wife] Azhar…

“In the violence of war, children are orphaned, maimed, mutilated, sexually assaulted, kidnapped, forced to be soldiers or servants or sex slaves, tortured, and murdered. Children who survive the violence of war may be deeply wounded, robbed of childhood, and poised to enter adult life already crippled beyond repair. Even children who know war only at secondhand — the children of soldiers returning from far-off lands — may be bent.

“Any of these damaged children may inflict the harm done to them upon others, even when it breaks their hearts.

“Think of wars of recent memory and those still going on in the world today. Think of Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Burma. Think of Darfur, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone. Think of Sri Lanka, Kashmir, East Timor, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea. Think of Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Georgia, Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia.

“Think especially of the United States, which has been at war, overtly or covertly, some place (or many places) in the world almost continuously since 1941… Even when a conflict officially ends, violence against women continues and often grows worse.

“Murderous aggression is not turned off overnight. When men stop attacking one another, women continue to be convenient targets. Opposing factions of men sit down together to negotiate a peace settlement — without ever letting up on rape, abduction, mutilation, and murder of women and girls.

“Whenever soldiers rape during war, rape becomes a habit taken up by civilian men and carried seamlessly from wartime into the troubled ‘post-conflict’ time beyond, which is labeled ‘peace.’…

“I’m trying to suggest,”  Ann Jones writes, “that war is not what we think it is, when we hear all these reports about soldiers and generals and strategies. War includes the whole population. War is fought on civilian ground and in all modern wars civilians are the primary casualties of war, much more so than soldiers are. If you look at [today’s demographics worldwide], we are short 60 million women who have been killed and lost in war. We ignore this completely.…”



Sources and notes 
“Special report: For U.S. veterans, the war after the wars,” November 9, 2010,
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A82L620101109

“Introduction ‘War Is Not Healthy’ to Ann Jones’ War Is Not Over When It’s Over: Women and the Unseen Consequences of Conflict, http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/2484/59/

Also “Ann Jones on ‘War Is Not Over When It’s Over: Women and the Unseen Consequences of Conflict’, Democracy Now interview, October 1, 2010, at Truth-out, http://www.truth-out.org/ann-jones-war-is-not-over-when-its-over-women-and-unseen-consequences-conflict63775

Ann Jones is a writer and photographer and author of seven other books including Kabul in Winter, Women Who Kill, and Next Time She’ll Be Dead. Jones has participated in congressional committees on the status of women in Afghanistan and briefed the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations on the subject. Her work has appeared in numerous periodical publications.

In 2007, the International Rescue Committee, which brings emergency relief to countries in the wake of war, sought to understand what women in post-conflict zones really needed, wanted, and feared. Answers came through the point and click of a digital camera. On behalf of the IRC, Ann Jones spent a year traveling through Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East, giving cameras to women who had no other means of telling the world what war had done to their lives.
_________________________________________

Bennett's books available in New York State 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]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]