Middle East, Africa, U.S. reeling

Under U.S. Occupation, Threat, War

Compiled and Edited by Carolyn Bennett

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD

Casualty sites reporting June 26, 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2009: 237] Information out of date

•

Wounded 33,080-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: June 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

101,426 – 110,810

Full analysis of the WikiLeaks’ Iraq War Logs may add 15,000 civilian deaths.  http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

•

ICasualties figures:

AFGHANISTAN:

1,637 United States

2,552 Coalition

IRAQ:

4,463 United States

4,781 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/

OCCUPIED PALESTINE, U.S. Threatened

Following major delays in deliveries of medical supplies from the West Bank, a medical crisis is unfolding, health authorities in the Gaza Strip are warning. Medical shortages, says Al Jazeera’s Nadim Baba in Gaza, “have increased calls for an end to Israel’s blockade and Palestinian disunity.”

Freedom ships, Free press

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has branded freedom ships to Gaza a  ‘provoking act’— “‘We do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza.’”

Press TV reports, “Israel and the United States have threatened journalists and human rights campaigners against taking part in a Gaza Strip-bound aid mission.”

Reuters reported the director of Israel’s Government Press Office today saying that joining the Freedom Flotilla II convoy could “‘lead to participants being denied entry into…Israel for ten years, to the impounding of their equipment and to additional sanctions.’”

The Foreign Press Association responded, saying, “The government’s threat to punish journalists covering the Gaza flotilla sends a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press.”

Nevertheless, the second Freedom Flotilla — ten ships carrying 1,000 activists from 20 countries — readies sail for the besieged Gaza Strip; and, Israeli daily Haaretz, has “revealed that the Israeli military held a large drill for special commandos and snipers to prepare to intercept the flotilla.”

A statement issued by the Rumbo a Gaza [trans. Sailing to Gaza] Spanish civil society initiative says, “Israel has warned foreign diplomats in Tel Aviv to get ready to ‘face the consequences.’”

Thousands of personalities from around the world are supporting the second flotilla and calling on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to urge governments to take necessary measures to guarantee the safety of people taking part in the mission.

Among the prominent peace and human rights activists calling on the UN secretary general are Nobel Peace Prize-winners Rigoberta Menchú of Guatemala, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland, Jody Williams of the United States, and Shirin Ebadi of Iran.

U.S.-War, Occupied AFGHANISTAN

Six (est.) Afghan police died Wednesday in an assault at a checkpoint. Another four officers died when a roadside bomb exploded as the officers travelled to the scene in Ghazni province’s Qarabagh district, about 120km southwest of Kabul.

The deputy governor of Ghazni, Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, is reported to have said, “‘Probably one of the police officers at the checkpoint had a previous deal with the insurgents and cooperated with and facilitated the assault.’”

In a similar attack on their checkpoint in that district earlier this month, three more police officers died.

Around 130,000 international troops occupy Afghanistan under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Among them are an estimated 90,000 forces from the United States.

U.S.-War PAKISTAN

Displaced by conflict, war, occupation

More people have been displaced by recent operations in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. The route via Afghanistan [and the border region where foreign forces transport materiel into Afghanistan] has been closed, limiting the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to civilians.

Pakistan’s tribal northwest is said to be under siege. The only road connecting the Parachinar district bordering Afghanistan to the rest of Pakistan has been blocked by Taliban fighters since 2007.

In March, more than 40 people traveling on the Thal-Parachinar road were kidnapped. Women and children were freed, seven men died, 30 remained in captivity for nearly three months. After negotiations involving tribal elders, the Pakistani government, and varying Taliban factions, 22 of the captives were set free on June 21.

Of $6.6 billion in U.S. military aid to Pakistan during 2003-2009 for ‘counter-terrorism’ measures, “only $500 million had been used for that purpose,” this according to two Pakistani generals’ statements to the Associated Press in 2009. “The rest of the funds went to Pakistan’s ‘defense against India.’”

U.S. War LIBYA

A speaker for NATO again has denied civilian killings or that the alliance “[targeted] buildings in an abandoned area of Brega.” However, “Libyan state TV reported that at least 15 people were killed in strikes on civilian sites in this eastern city.”

Witnesses reportedly heard loud explosions in the Libyan capital Tripoli as jets flew over the city. On Saturday, a Reuters correspondent reportedly heard four explosions in Tripoli as jets flew overhead on two occasions. The blasts appeared to have come from the eastern suburb of Tajura. Libya’s state TV “referred to a NATO ‘war of extermination’ and ‘crimes against humanity.’”

U.S.-Occupied Iraq

More than a million Iraqis have died as a result of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business.

Currently about 50,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed in Iraq. This month has been the deadliest month for U.S. forces in this country since May 2009.

Today two U.S. soldiers reportedly died in northern Iraq. The soldiers were said to have been “conducting operations.”Since the start of June, approximately 11 U.S. soldiers have died. “Sunday’s casualties,” according to icasualties.org, “raise the death toll for U.S. forces in Iraq since March 2003 to 4,465.

Earlier in the day, there had been an attack on Kirkuk. No casualties or damage was reported but the report said unidentified gunmen had launched a mortar attack on a U.S. military airbase in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

Sources and notes

OCCUPIED PALESTINE, U.S. Threatened

“Blockaded Gaza Strip nears ‘medical crisis’— Territory running out of medical supplies due to major delays in West Bank deliveries,” June 24, 2011,  

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/06/20116248514672596.html

“Israel, U.S. declare war on flotilla,” June 26, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/186351.html

“Flotilla II prepares to sail for Gaza — Freedom Flotilla II, comprising ten ships carrying 1,000 activists from 20 countries prepares to sail to Gaza,” 24, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/2011623152134419503.html

U.S.-War, Occupied AFGHANISTAN

“Police killed at Afghanistan checkpoint — Taliban claims responsibility for attack killing six officers, as the US prepares for a troop withdrawal,” June 22, 2011,

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/06/201162216912642382.html

U.S.-War PAKISTAN

“A community under siege in tribal Pakistan — As U.S. prepares troop withdrawal, Taliban’s strong hold on border regions reveals Pakistan's vulnerability, June 25, 2011,

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/2011622182410260797.html

U.S. War LIBYA

“NATO denies killing civilians in Libya strike  — Capital Tripoli hit in fresh raid as state TV reports that 15 people were killed in Brega,” June 25, 2011,

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/06/201162513183844244.html

U.S.-Occupied Iraq

“Two U.S. soldiers killed in northern Iraq,” June 26, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/186379.html

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Iraq “re-missioned,” switched to State

Lies told to the people…Do the people care?
Re-reporting, compilation, editing by Carolyn Bennett

The only transition underway in Iraq is from U.S. Pentagon deployment to U.S. State Department deployment, says author and foreign affairs analyst Phyllis Bennis — not from United States control to Iraqi control. “Thousands of new military contractors, armored transport, planes, ‘rapid response’ forces and other military resources will all be shifted from Pentagon to State Department control, thus remaining within the terms of the U.S.-Iraqi Status of forces Agreement that calls for all U.S. troops and Pentagon-controlled mercenaries to leave by the end of 2011.…

“The U.S. occupation of Iraq continues on a somewhat smaller scale, with 50,000 troops. These are combat troops ‘re-missioned’ by the Pentagon with new tasks but even Secretary of Defense [Robert] Gates admits they will have continuing combat capability and will continue counter-terrorism operations. The 4,500 Special Forces among them will continue their ‘capture or kill’ raids while building up the Iraqi Special Operations Forces as an El Salvador-style death squad.”

Bennis restated news accounts: that in Iraq violence is up, sectarianism is rampant, government is paralyzed, corruption is high and rising, and oil contracts instead of creating national wealth are creating more violence.

News Sunday from IRAQ

Twelve people died Sunday. Twenty-nine people suffered wounds after being caught in rifle fire and five suicide and car-bomb explosions. Soldiers were among the dead. This attack comes less than a week after the Obama administration declared the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq [rewording of the same ole ‘Mission Accomplished’ lie]

The area in Sunday’s incident “became an al-Qaeda stronghold at the height of the sectarian warfare unleashed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and remained dangerous until mid-2009.”

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting

September 6, 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: 189]

Wounded 31,929-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides [estimated] 18 a day

Latest update on this site August 31

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

• Iraq Body Count figures

97,667 – 106,571

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties AFGHANISTAN: 1,275 U.S., 2,069 Coalition

IRAQ: 4,416 U.S., 4,734 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources and notes
Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of Transnational Institute (TNI) and the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. She directs IPS’s New Internationalism Project and specializes in U.S. foreign policy issues, particularly involving the Middle East and United Nations. Bennis worked as a journalist at the UN for ten years and currently serves as a special adviser to several top-level UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues. She is a frequent contributor to U.S. and global media. She has authored many articles and books— particularly on Palestine, Iraq, the UN, and U.S. foreign policy.


“‘The End of the War in Iraq’” (Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies), September 2010, http://www.tni.org/article/end-war-iraq; http://www.tni.org/featured-articles/rss.xml


On CounterSpin: “Phyllis Bennis on Obama Iraq policy, Dean Baker on Social Security” Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) (9/3/10-9/9/10), http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4151


“On August 31, 2010, President Obama announced the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq in a speech from the Oval office. While in a palace in Baghdad the commander of those combat operations, Gen. Ray Odierno, announced that his job was over, proclaiming that in Iraq, ‘hope has replaced despair.’ This was all noted with little challenge by corporate media.” [CounterSpin] spoke Friday with Phyllis Bennis about the changing U.S. role in Iraq.


The Transnational Institute (TNI) founded in 1974 as the international program of the Washington D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies has been for more than 30 years entwined with the history of global social movements and their struggle for economic, social and environmental justice. The Institute of Policy Studies carries out radical informed analysis on critical global issues; builds alliances with social movements; develops proposals for a more sustainable, just and democratic world. http://www.tni.org/abouttni


“Mini-bus packed with explosives targets former defense ministry building in Baghdad where security has been high,” September 5, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/201095125812914312.html

Southwest Asia U.S. wars’ war dead

Re-reported, compiled, edited by Carolyn Bennett

AFPAK

Northwest Pakistan
One hundred and two (estimated) people have died in double suicide bombings in northwest Pakistan. The death toll on Friday had stood at 62 people, but Saturday’s reports made the attack the deadliest since an October 2009 car bomb destroyed a market in the northwestern city of Peshawar that left 125 people dead. In recent months, “Pakistan has been hit by a wave of deadly attacks. Last week at least 42 people died in an attack on Pakistan’s most important Sufi shrine in the eastern city of Lahore.”

Afghanistan’s Kandahar
Seven (estimate) civilians and seven NATO forces died this week in the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and elsewhere in the country. Cars were blazing, windows shattered; seven people suffered wounds in Saturday’s blast from explosives strapped to a parked motorcycle in Kandahar’s commercial center. The five NATO forces’ deaths happened in three separate attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan. A sixth soldier reportedly died in an accidental explosion. All the reported dead were Americans.

NATO forces issued a statement on Saturday admitting its troops on Thursday had “‘accidently’ killed six [Afghan] civilians while battling Taliban fighters [in Paktia province south of Kabul] earlier in the week.” Saturday’s admission of killing civilians came the day after another NATO confession to “accidentally” killing “five Afghan soldiers in a botched airstrike” on the Andar district of Ghazni province “where the Afghan soldiers were launching a pre-dawn ambush against fighters.”

Hundreds of Afghan protesters took to the streets on Saturday chanting slogans against foreign forces and against Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai after U.S. troops killed two civilians and arrested three others during a Wednesday pre-dawn raid on the outskirts of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Corruption in war
Afghans paid nearly $1 billion in bribes last year. Since 2006, corruption has become far more widespread. Corruption appears to be worst in Afghanistan’s justice and security agencies. Ten percent of Afghans reported paying bribes to obtain court decisions or police protection. Many of those bribes were expensive and nearly half of them cost more than 2,500 Afghanis ($55).

Thirty-eight percent of Afghans reported effect of police corruption [AFP]. Forty-two per cent said the interior ministry was the most corrupt in Afghanistan, 32 per cent said the justice ministry was most corrupt. The findings come from a study conducted by Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), a Kabul-based NGO, based on interviews with 6,500 people in all but two (Paktika and Nuristan) of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

Integrity Watch Afghanistan’s similar survey in 2007 found the total cost of bribes was $466 million, less than half the level recorded in 2009. A January 2010 report released by the United Nations found that Afghans paid $2.5 billion in bribes in 2009 and that 59 per cent of Afghans think corruption is the biggest problem facing the country.

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting

July 11, 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: 184]

Wounded 31,874-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides 18 a day

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

• Iraq Body Count figures

96,933 – 105,688

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,412 U.S., 4,730 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,171 U.S., 1,920 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources and notes
“Pakistan death toll soars above 100,” July 10, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/20107954021715355.html
“Deadly blast rocks Kandahar city,” July 10, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/2010710103937406855.html
“Study says Afghan graft worsening” (Gregg Carlstrom), July 08, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/201078124118415689.html

Rough waters where America lives, wars, occupies

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
May 9, 2010
AFGHANISTAN
Sixty-six people have died and hundreds of houses and livestock destroyed by torrential rains and flash floods hitting northern and western Afghanistan. These casualties are added more than 200 lives lost earlier this year in heavy avalanches.

AF/PAK

May 9, 2010
PAKISTAN
Ten people (est.) have died in a “suspected U.S. drone attack” in northwest Pakistan. …“The U.S. stepped up drone attacks on suspected Pakistan Taliban sites after a Jordanian suicide bomber last December killed seven CIA employees at a U.S. base across the border in the eastern Afghan province of Khost.” When speaking publicly, Pakistani officials reject the CIA’s drone attacks maintaining that these attacks violate Pakistan’s sovereignty, fuel anti-U.S. feelings and complicate its efforts against Taliban fighters.

May 8, 2010
AFGHANISTAN
As the United States pours thousands more troops into Afghanistan leading into its surge in the southern province of Kandahar and Afghan president Hamid Karzai prepares his visit to the United States, the Taliban late last week announced its imminent cross-country launch of a new offensive, “‘operation Al Fatah (the Arabic word for victory).’” Since their administration was “overthrown” by a 2001 U.S.-led invasion, the Taliban has waged a nine-year war against the Afghan president’s “Western-backed government.”

GULF IN THE AMERICAS - oil

May 9, 2010
GULF OF MEXICO
Energy Company BP using a 100-ton steel-and-concrete box attempting to contain the oil spill from a broken well deep in the Gulf of Mexico has failed. “Ice-like crystals encrusted the walls of the box on Saturday forcing crews to repeal their attempts to stop the leak.”

Since the oilrig Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, blowing open the well and triggering a major environmental crisis and killing eleven workers, an estimated 800,000 liters (211, 338 gallons) of oil have been spewing into the Gulf daily. This disaster has been documented as the biggest oil spill in the United States since the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.

Height of stupidity
People from around the world ─ including French, English, Spaniards, Brazilians, Australians, Canadians and U.S. Americans ─ are reported giving their hair, their pets’ fur, and their tights “to make booms and mats to mop up the oily mess spewing out of the sunken BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil platform which is lying on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico.” There is of course a non-profit “charity” leading this public display of ridiculousness.

May 8, 2010
Dry JORDAN
A sewage treatment plant scheduled for completion in 2011 will use water previously flowing into the Jordan River and cause the river to dry up. In earlier times, 1.3 billion metric cubes (roughly 264 billion gallons) flowed annually through the Jordan River. Filled with edible fish, the Jordan was 25 meters (82 feet) wide and edged with willow trees and poplars.

Middle East WALLS

May 7, 2010
IRAQ
The Iraqi defense ministry plans to build a ‘security fence’ made of concrete, topped by security cameras and other monitoring devices around Baghdad to prevent anti-government fighters from entering the Iraqi capital. This wall said to be “necessitated by demographic rather than security concerns …would prevent Sunni Arabs from entering Baghdad. … Construction is expected to conclude in mid-2011. … American forces in 2008 built a massive concrete wall to seal off Sadr City, the largely Shia neighborhood in Baghdad dominated by Muqtada al-Sadr.”

May 9, 2010
PALESTINE: GAZA
An international aid convoy bound for the Gaza Strip is carrying tons of relief material. Six hundred activists are accompanying the convoy ‘Freedom Flotilla,’ the biggest internationally coordinated effort to challenge directly Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Israel reportedly has threatened to attack the convoy.

Casualty sites reporting
May 9, 2010 (accurate totals unknown, usual reporting not updated)

• Anti-war dot com casualties in Iraq starting March 19, 2003: Since January 20, 2009 inauguration: 169 dead; 31,790-100,000 wounded; 320,000 U.S. veterans with brain injuries; 18 suicides a day [May 8 update], http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count: documented civilian deaths from violence 96,098 – 104,826, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,397 U.S, 4,715 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,061 U.S., 1,752 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources
“Flash floods killed 66 I Afghanistan,” May 9, 2010, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100508/twl-afghanistan-floods-575b600.html
“Deaths in Pakistan ‘missile attack,’” May 9, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/05/20105951012381927.html
“Taliban threatens Afghan offensive.” May 8, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/05/201058134216275432.html
“BP attempt to stem oil spill frails,” May 9, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/05/20105933123168789.html
“Hair, fur, nylons join fight to hold back U.S. oil spill,” May 10, 2010, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100509/tts-us-blast-oil-energy-pollution-animal-972e412.html
“Jordan River ‘to run dry next year,’” May 9, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/05/20105510484475825.html
“Iraq mulls Baghdad ‘security fence,’” May 7, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/05/20105713839458573.html
“Israel threatens Gaza-bound aid convoy,” May 9, 20109, http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=125926§ionid=351020202

U.S. OCCUPATION knows no bounds

Excerpts, minor editing by Carolyn Bennett
Press TV and Euranet report France charging Washington with militarily occupying Haiti

France is demanding the United Nations investigate and clarify the dominant U.S. role in Haiti, after Washington deployed more than 10,000 troops to Haiti and U.S. 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers, having taken control of the main airport at Port-au-Prince on Friday, turned back a French aid plane carrying a field hospital from the main airport in the Haitian capital. Among those barred entry were Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders).

France’s Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet is reported saying, “This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti.” The United States has been accused in the past of interfering in Haiti’s internal affairs.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton under whose leadership the U.S. has been accused of  “not being quick enough to send aid" to Haiti has denied the charges of "occupation.”

Also in today’s news
U.S. drone attack kills six people in northwestern Pakistan
Two U.S. troops die in alleged roadside blast in south Afghanistan.
Malaysia summons U.S. ambassador over ‘misleading’ travel alert.
Iran’s president blames capitalism and the U.S. for global air pollution.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116503§ionid=351020706