Peace, policy progress in alternatives

Disastrous U.S. foreign and domestic policies and priorities await powerful progressive, global alternatives.
Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

In Bonn, Germany, for the thirtieth anniversary of the Right Livelihood Awards, Pacifica program Democracy Now today interviewed peace and conflict studies founder Johan Galtung. Galtung observed a disgraceful dissembling — start to midterm.

“Practically speaking,” he said, [U.S. President Barack Obama has gone back on] everything he promised [or appeared to promise] —

Guantánamo is still there.
Rendition is still there.
There is the saying that says ‘no torture should take place’  —
I ‘haven't seen the mechanism ensuring that’s the case.’ 
Withdrawal from Iraq retains 50,000 forces
Stepping up, war escalates in Afghanistan. …
[W]hatever withdraws from Iraq goes to Afghanistan.


A ‘nuclear-free’ world promise gets rid of old-fashioned weapons with the Russians, then argues for $180 billion to modernize the nuclear material: $100 billion for the weapons carriers, $80 billion for new warheads.

The Right Livelihood Foundation from which Democracy Now was broadcasting its 30-year anniversary this week awards an alternative to the Nobel Prize. The prize gives moral weight and financial support to those combating environmental damage, underdevelopment or human rights violations worldwide.

In contrast to Nobel’s favoring of the West, the Right Livelihood is awarded to people from Asia or Africa about 40 percent of the time. Many of the recipients of the Right Livelihood Award are completely unknown on the international stage until they receive the award. Unusual among award winners is Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathei who won the Right Livelihood Award in 1984 and the Nobel Prize in 2004. Maathei’s case though unique to the 30-year history of the Right Livelihood Award is a testament to the weight carried by the prize.

The Right Livelihood Award’s 137 winners so far have been spread over 58 countries. Not only do these award winners more frequently than Nobel hail from developing countries; they are also younger on average and more likely to be female.


Fruits of entrenched, disastrous foreign and domestic policies and priorities

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting

September 16, 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: 191]

Wounded 31,934-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides [estimated] 18 a day

Latest update on this site September 16, 2010

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

• Iraq Body Count figures

97,994 – 106,954

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,419 U.S., 4,737 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,278 U.S., 2,073 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

September 12 Pakistan — “Deaths in Pakistan ‘drone’ attack”
Four people [“fighters”] died in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border when a “suspected U.S. drone” attacked. The frequency of civilian deaths is highly disputed but statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities reveal, “more than 90 per cent of the more than 700 people killed in attacks targeting the tribal areas in 2009 were civilians.”

September 16 West Bank — “‘Our situation worsens every day’” Nora Barrows-Friedman reports Palestinians in the West Bank’s Dheisheh refugee camp “have little faith in [three-way peace] talks”

—“Jewish settlements deadlock remains”
— “Hamas has got to be involved before peace can be concluded”

“No indication of progress after second day of direct Netanyahu-Abbas talks” says U.S. peace envoy. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter among others has said “any future permanent Israeli-Palestinian agreement has to include Hamas”

September 15— “Israeli jets hit Gaza tunnels”
“Israeli missile kills one Palestinian after rocket and mortar fire from Gaza”

One Palestinian died and two others suffered wounds [medics’ estimates] “after Israeli fighter jets bombed three smuggling tunnels running between the Gaza Strip and Egypt … The violence follows clashes between Israel and Hamas, which began on September 1. Hamas won elections in Gaza in 2006 and then seized full control of the enclave the following year.” Hamas controls Gaza but is not a participant in the three-way Israeli-Palestinian-U.S. ‘peace’ talks.


U.S. homeland — providing for its common defense, promoting its general welfare

September 16 — “U.S. poverty rate ‘hits 15-year high’”

The rise in U.S. poverty is the highest since 1994. One in seven people of the United States live in “economic hardship.”

The U.S. Census Bureau report released today shows that “one in seven Americans lived in poverty last year, while the overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent (43.6 million people) from 13.2 percent (39.8 million people).

The government began its reports of poverty estimates in 1959 and this latest report’s findings show —cold comfort — that the poverty rate in 2009 was “8.1 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959.”

Taken together, this amounts to deep regression, a demonstration of entrenched, disastrous foreign and domestic policies and priorities out of Washington awaiting powerful progressive, global alternatives.

Sources and notes
“Johan Galtung on the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mideast Peace Talks, and Why Obama Is Losing His Base,” September 16, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/16/johan_galtung_on_the_wars_in


“‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ gains moral traction,” September 16, 2010,
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6003399,00.html


A Norwegian mathematician and sociologist and a principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies, Johan Galtung (born in Oslo, October 24, 1930) is Professor of Peace Studies, founder of TRANSCEND, A Peace and Development Network; founder of TRANSCEND Peace University, TRANSCEND Media Service, TRANSCEND University Press, TRANSCEND Peace Service, TRANSCEND Research Institute.


Since its founding in 1993, most of TRANSCEND’s work “has been on conflict mediation and violence conciliation, using Diagnosis-Prognosis-Therapy, on often very difficult and complex conflicts.” Peace journalism, peace education and peace business have played important roles in this process.


TRANSCEND is organized in a dozen regions around the world: Northern Europe, German-speaking Europe, Eastern Europe, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), Europa Latina, Africa, the Arab World, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, (North-)East Asia, North America, Latin America. Each region has a convener. The Board of Conveners is TRANSCEND’s highest authority [http://www.transcend.org/].


There are traditionally four traditional but unsatisfactory ways of handling conflicts between two parties. Johan Galtung tries to break with four unsatisfactory [A wins, B loses-B wins A loses-solution postponed because neither A nor B feels ready to end the conflict-confused compromise results in which neither A nor B is happy] ways of handling a conflict by finding a ‘fifth way.’ In the fifth way “both A and B feel that they win. The method insists on maintaining respect for basic human survival, physical well-being, liberty, and identity needs. Galtung views his role as that of helping the parties clarify their objectives and working to come up with solutions that meet the objectives of all parties. He has employed the ‘Transcend’ Method while serving as a negotiator in a number of international conflicts [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Galtung].


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/09/201091233614720302.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/09/2010914122645134498.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/201091520229665176.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/20109151393302881.html http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/09/2010916182855740657.html

_____________________________________________
Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Present Tense books and gifts: presenttensebooks.com [Batavia, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]

Dead in U.S.-occupied Persia, Middle East

Edited from Al Jazeera English by Carolyn Bennett

July 14
AFGHANISTAN
Twelve NATO troops in 48 hours have died in southern Afghanistan.

July 15
IRAN
Twenty people died and more than 100 suffered wounds today when two suicide bombs exploded at a mosque in southeastern Iran.

IRAQ
Six people died and 17 suffered wounds today when a car bomb exploded on a busy commercial street in the Iraqi city of Tikrit. Reports said the explosive was meant for police. Hundreds of people have lost their lives in Iraq since the March 7 parliamentary election whose inconclusive results have not yet seated a new government.

Sources
“Five US soldiers die in Afghanistan,” July 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/2010714123346449802.html
“Deaths in Iran mosque attack,” July 15, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/201071518824599686.html
“Blast kills several in Iraqi city,” July 15, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/201071510468813972.html

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting

July 15, 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

Latest update on this site July 2

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

• Iraq Body Count figures

97,077 – 105,850

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

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

AFGHANISTAN: 1,184 U.S., 1,936 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Old Soldiers, old wounds, endless-war dead

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

PERSISTENT FOREIGN PRESENCE IN
AFGHANISTAN
Anti-war activists in a congressional hearing hall wave signs saying ‘No More War,’ ‘New General, Old Graveyard.’

U.S. and NATO casualties are soaring and undercutting U.S. and Europe’s public support for eight years of an overt war against Afghanistan. U.S. allies Canada, the Netherlands and Poland have announced plans to withdraw combat forces.

Entrenched General David Petraeus takes over U.S. forces in Afghanistan and in congressional hearings [echoing U.S.-led Iraq invasion-occupation-speak] engages in doublespeak. “Any drawdown would be based on security conditions on the ground, gradual and limited to the 30,000 ‘surge’ troops… It is going to be a number of years before Afghan forces can truly handle the security tasks in Afghanistan on their own.” By the way, the U.S. House of Representatives is headed toward a vote “within 72 hours on [another] $33 billion emergency war funding” bill.

June 30 update Afghanistan
A suicide bomber detonated an explosive in a vehicle at the gate of a NATO base occupying Afghanistan. Other fighters armed with AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the airport.

The Taliban said the attack was a message to the head of U.S. Central Command, David Petraeus, put forward by the U.S. president to takeover leadership of NATO and U.S. operations in Afghanistan that they can strike at will. The Taliban attack was in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.

“Violence in Afghanistan is reported to be “at an all time high,” this month being “the deadliest month for international forces ... since the war began nine years ago.” [“Taliban attacks NATO base,” June 30, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/201063053238108506.html]

JULY 1 UPDATE AFPAK
Eighteen people (est.) died today and more than 70 suffered wounds when suicide bombs exploded in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore. Doctors said Lahore’s main hospital has declared a state of emergency and they expect the death toll to rise. Lahore has experienced a string of attacks against minority communities in recent months. In May of this year, more than 80 people died when twin attacks hit mosques of the Ahmadi minority sect.

IRAQ
Twelve people died and 18 suffered wounds Tuesday when bombs went off in the town of Baiji in northern Iraq and in the capital city, Baghdad. Recent attacks have targeted Iraq’s economic institutions.

SAUDI ON
PALESTINE
Saudi Arabia’s 86-year-old King Abdullah is scheduled to meet today with the U.S. president at the White House. The discussion is expected to cover Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, the nuclear standoff with Iran, the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, mutual national security efforts, and economic co-operation. Next week President Obama is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.… “The Saudis have linked achieving a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal to alleviating other regional tensions, including the perceived threat from Iran.”

IRAN, TURKEY, ISRAEL
Despite concerns and objections of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, “Israeli municipal authorities moved ahead with plans to demolish 20 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem” and establish more Israeli settlements in the area. The secretary general said again that the planned moves were “contrary to international law and against the wishes of Palestinian residents.”

“Israeli commandos shot at activists on the Mavi Marmara [part of the six-ship ‘Freedom Flotilla’] from their helicopters.” The Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER) stated during a press conference on Monday referencing autopsy reports.

Stepping back into international negotiations despite the new wave of sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear work, Iran said today it will soon resume nuclear talks with Turkey and Brazil but under certain conditions and not before the end of August.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has postponed talks between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany over his country’s nuclear program. The Iranian president has called for new negotiating partners, saying that more countries should be involved.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a television interview on Monday, “Israel has atomic bombs and it refuses to comply [with] the NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] but no one is imposing sanctions on it. How do you explain that? [A fair world would] scrutinize Israel as much as one does North Korea.”

Israel [estimated to retain an arsenal of 100-200 nuclear warheads, often threatening attack on the Islamic republic] recently has refused U.S. and international calls to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to open its facilities for IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] perusal. Iran has vowed to meet certain conditions of the nuclear swap deal crafted by Turkey and Brazil, Erdogan said, and in signing the Tehran agreement Iran promised “to enrich uranium only for peaceful purposes … If Tehran fails to comply with the ten articles of the agreement, we will impose sanctions ourselves.” As it stands, Erdogan concluded, “Iran was being punished over a mere possibility that it could make nuclear weapons in the future.”

HOW MANY (estimated) two-theater U.S.-led WAR DEAD?
Casualty sites reporting

June 29, 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: 181]

Wounded 31,865-100,000;

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000;

Suicides 18 a day

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

• Iraq Body Count figures:

96,813 – 105,563,

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,408 U.S., 4,726 Coalition;

AFGHANISTAN: 1,144 U.S., 1,889 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources
“Top U.S. general plays down Afghan expectations,” June 30, 2010,
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20100630/twl-oukwd-uk-afghanistan-usa-d4a870c.html
“Twelve die in Iraq unrest, suicide bombing ,” June 30, 2010, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100629/twl-iraq-unrest-575b600.html
“Saudis urge U.S. on Middle East peace,” June 29, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/06/201062951518293452.html
“UN blasts razing of Jerusalem homes,” June 24, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201062411715429597.html
“Turkish autopsy: Israeli soldiers shot activists from choppers,” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60670
“Iran postpones nuclear talks,” June 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/2010628124311454616.html
“Turkey slams ‘blindness’ on Israel atomic bombs (charges international concerted action with ‘blindness’ on Israel’s nuclear arsenal over Iran’s nuclear program),” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60654
“Iran to resume nuclear talks with Turkey, Brazil before powers,” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60669

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

Weekend U.S. sphere, resistance, protests abroad

Aljazeera, wire reports from
America, Middle East
Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

April 25, 2010
U.S. - OCCUPIED PACIFIC
Demonstrators are afoot in Okinawa, Japan, in protest to the United States’ 47,000-troop military occupation on the island nation. Many on the island have for years complained of noise, pollution and conflicts with U.S. soldiers. Japan is unhappy with the heavy American military presence. Al Jazeera reports that today’s rally is expected to include Okinawa’s governor Hirokazu Nakaima and more than 30 town mayors. The Kadena air base close to where the rally is taking place is the largest U.S. military facility in the Asia-Pacific region.

April 23, 2010
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Israel accuses Syria of supplying missiles to Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Syria denies Israel’s charges. Interviewed from the Syrian embassy in Washington, spokesperson Ahmed Salkini told Al Jazeera the reports of alleged missile transfers are part of Israel’s disinformation campaign to divert the world’s attention from Israel’s actions on the ground. The representative said Israel’s charge “showed how it was evading any responsibility for building peace in the region, by pressing ahead with its occupation of Arab land. ‘Syria is calling for a comprehensive and just peace in the region whereby Israel withdraws from all occupied territories the UN and the international community have declared illegally occupied.’”

Leading on from Israel’s charge, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Middle East Jeffrey Feltman reacted, “‘If these reports turn out to be true, we’re going to have to review the full range of tools that are available for us in order to make Syria reverse what would be an incendiary, provocative action.’” In a 34-day Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006, 1,200 mostly civilian Lebanese died and more than 160 mainly Israeli soldiers died.

April 22, 2010
Israel has deported two Palestinians to the Gaza Strip raising fears that more expulsions could follow under a controversial new Israeli military order. The action “fits into a pattern of Israel’s strategy to treat Gaza and the West Bank as separate geopolitical entities,” Al Jazeera’s Jackie Rowland reported from Jerusalem. An estimated 70,000 Palestinians could be at risk of deportation under an Israeli military order condemned by Arab politicians.

April 25, 2010
Jewish settlers marched in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinian protesters and Israeli police clashed. Israeli settlers living in illegal housing units on occupied Palestinian land want Arabs’ homes demolished and Arabs removed from the area to make way for Israeli construction projects.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that if the Obama administration believes in and is committed to Israel’s security together with a peace settlement that gives a state to Palestinians, the American administration has a “duty to call for steps to reach the solution, impose the solution. [But] don’t tell me it’s a vital national strategic American interest, then not do anything.”

Having pulled out of talks with the Israelis during Israel’s 22-day [December 2008-January 2009] offensive in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians have refused to return until all settlement activity stops.

April 24, 2010
IRAQ
Iraqis are burying their dead. An estimated 69 people died Friday when a series bombs exploded in Baghdad and Sadr City. Funeral processions set off on Saturday from Sadr City, site of the deadliest attacks, for the holy city of Najaf. Since the start of 2010, April has been the bloodiest month in the country.

April 22, 2010
JORDAN
Rockets on Wednesday landed in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba one damaging an empty storage space, the other splashing into the Red Sea. Police found remains of a Katyusha rocket. They were trying to determine the source of the attack. Five years ago, three Katyusha rockets, missing two U.S. warships docked in the port, had been fired in Aqaba. In that incident, rockets hit a warehouse and crossed a border with Jerusalem. A Jordanian soldier died.

April 24, 2010
PAKISTAN
Four police officers died when gunmen opened fire torching twelve NATO oil tankers in Talagang, a town in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The gunmen escaped after police returned fire. Fighters routinely attack routes and supplies supporting the war in Afghanistan in an effort to halt resources available to NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

April 24-25, 2010
MISSISSIPPI
As estimated 10 people including children died when tornadoes hit several southeastern/Gulf states of the United States ─ Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama among them.

Crews off the coast of Louisiana delayed cleaning up an oil spill that had followed an offshore oilrig explosion causing the platform to sink earlier in the week. Storms damaged a chemical plant tank in Tallulah, Louisiana, causing a nitrogen leak. The Mississippi governor declared a state of emergency in 17 counties.

Casualty sites reporting
April 25, 2010 (accurate totals unknown, usual reporting not updated)

• Anti-war dot com casualties in Iraq starting March 19, 2003: Since January 20, 2009 inauguration: 165 dead; 31,785-100,000 wounded; 320,000 U.S. veterans with brain injuries; 18 suicides a day [April 17 update], http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count: documented civilian deaths from violence 95,965 – 104,682, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,393 U.S, 4,711 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,050 U.S., 1,736 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/

CASUALTIES UPDATE
Monday April 26, 2010 update
Occupied Territories
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces destroyed a house owned by a Hamas commander’s relatives and assassinated the commander. Though an Israeli high court order has deemed the killing of Palestinian suspects not engaged in a firefight illegal, media reports indicate that the Israeli military pursues a policy of assassinating prominent Palestinian fighters. A previous alleged assassination carried out by Israeli forces was last December in Nablus in the West Bank; four members of Fatah’s military wing died. “Monday’s killing appeared likely to aggravate an already tense situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories” [“Israeli troops kill Hamas fighter,: April 26, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/201042610119512795.html].

Monday April 26, 2010 update
Gulf of Mexico – Louisiana USA
Off Louisiana’s coast 1,525 meters (5,003.2 feet or 0.9 miles) into the ocean, an oil well is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico an estimated 1,000 barrels of oil a day. Eleven workers involved in last Tuesday’s “worst oil rig disaster in almost a decade” are missing and presumed dead. In the past nine years, 69 people have died, 1,349 have sustained injuries, 858 fires and explosions have occurred in oil-rig operations off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf off Mexico [“Engineers in race to seal oil leak,” April 26, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/201042653915904166.html].

Monday April 26, 2010 update
Yemen
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world and confronts serious political and administrative problems. The country today sustained its first suicide attack in a year. The attack by a suicide bomber occurred in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa near the British ambassador’s convoy. No one died or sustained injuries. In March 2009, a South Korean delegation sustained an attack while investigating a bombing that had occurred a few days earlier; four South Korean tourists died. In 2008, two suicide bombers set off a series of blasts outside the heavily fortified U.S. embassy in Sanaa. Sixteen people died [“UK diplomat escapes Yemen attack,” April 26, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/201042655759873579.html].


Sources
”Japanese rally against U.S. air base,” April 25, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/04/201042554723575134.html
“U.S. tightens pressure on Syria,” April 23, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/20104223206497761.html
“Palestinians deported to Gaza,” April 22, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/2010422124915701529.html
“Clashes as Israeli settlers match,” April 25, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/20104258757856525.html
“Baghdad mourns bombing victims,” April 24, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/20104247396232723.html
“Rockets land in Jordanian port city,” April 22, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/201042210215107533.html
“NATO tankers attack Pakistan,” April 24, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/2010424191518201134.html
“Tornadoes hit southeastern U.S.,” April 25, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/201042545832872872.html

U.S. Footprints in Afghanistan ─ WAR

Re-reported, compiled, edited by Carolyn Bennett

Casualty sites reporting
February 23, 2010 casualty sites reporting (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 150] Wounded 31,669-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures: 95,412-104,103, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,378 U.S., 4,696 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,003 U.S., 1,659 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: [not current] 1,366,350 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

Bloodletting
News from U.S. Middle East/Central/South Asia WAR

February 23
AFGHANISTAN
Amid the NATO/Afghan military surge continuing today, at least eight people (among them one woman) died after a bomb exploded in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province. All of the dead as reported by local authorities were civilians. Thirteen people suffered wounds.

Al Jazeera reports in special programming a man (Hamidullah) claiming to be “a member of the Taliban fighting against ‘Operation Moshtarak’ says since [foreign forces] often kill civilians instead of Taliban fighters, the foreign troops’ offensive is not succeeding.” These civilian deaths have prompted “the Afghan people to support the Taliban more than before.” The man’s “statements come after Sunday’s NATO air strike on what was assumed to be a bus carrying Taliban fighters.” Thirty-three civilians died.

In an interview today with Pacifica’s Democracy Now, Phyllis Bennis said, contrary to prevailing propaganda, “The notion that it’s the Taliban’s fault because they are among civilians, well, the problem is the Taliban come from those communities; they are those civilians. Many of the Taliban fighters, in the words of many U.S. and strategy officials … who have faded away with this new offensive in Marjah, faded away because they live there. They’ve gone back to their families, back to their farms; and they will rise to fight again, presumably, if their interests are at stake, whether those interests are economic or they are issues of loyalty and connection to their communities.

“This is inevitable in this kind of a war, the escalation that we have seen during President Obama’s first year; and there is no question that this is President Obama’s war. He claimed it as his own, even during the campaign. The fact that we have now reached a thousand U.S. casualties, and we don’t know … significantly accurate totals of the vast number of Afghan civilians who have died in this war. We know that it has been escalating. By the time that President Obama’s most recent escalation is finished, which is supposed to be in the next several months, there will be over 100,000 U.S. and allied troops occupying Afghanistan. There are already more than 104,000 U.S. paid mercenaries in this war in Afghanistan…

“The exit strategy has to start by ending the killing. There has to be a unilateral ceasefire that can set the stage hopefully for a reciprocal ceasefire from all the various parties that are at war here.”

The ANSWER Coalition wrote this week as it plans its march on Washington, “The Pentagon has been bragging about new rules of engagement designed to ‘protect civilian lives,’ yet more than 50 Afghan civilians have died” at the hands of U.S./NATO forces during the past two weeks; and as long as Afghanistan is under occupation, the bloodshed will continue. The march is still on schedule for March 20. “People across the United States will converge on Washington, D.C. and joint demonstrations will be held in San Francisco and Los Angeles [all demanding] ‘No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti!’

“We will march together to say, ‘No War against Iran!’ We will demand money for jobs, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.”

February 23
IRAN
Israel’s air force has unveiled a fleet of unmanned aircraft that it says are able to reach the Gulf, putting Iran within range.… Accusing Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, Israel has been putting pressure on UN Security Council [China, France, Russian Federation, United States, United Kingdom permanent] members to support U.S. moves for fresh sanctions against Tehran.

February 22
IRAQ
At least three people died Monday and four were wounded after a car bombing at an interior ministry detention centre. Among the dead were two police officers, a six-year-old boy and his father. The incident occurred near Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province. The latest violence comes as campaigning approaches Iraq’s March 7 elections. The country is mired in conflict over a ban on scores of candidates. Since October, Ramadi has seen a rise in attacks including three bombings of the provincial governor’s offices.

February 22
PAKISTAN
At least six people died Monday in a car bomb attack on a security forces convoy in northwest Pakistan. A suspected suicide bomber crashed his vehicle into a convoy as it passed through a market in Mingora, the main town in North West Frontier Province’s Swat Valley. Since July 2007, more than 3,000 people have died in suicide attacks and other bombings across Pakistan.

February 20
PALESTINE
Israel’s separation wall has generated anger and protests all over the Palestinian territories. The Al-Nu'man village was cut off from Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank in 2003. Illegally constructed beyond the Green Line drawn after the 1949 Arab-Israeli war ─ the West Bank separation wall walls in Al-Nu'man on three sides. A permanent checkpoint today provides the only entrance to and from this village on the outskirts of Bethlehem. “The wall has effectively imprisoned its Palestinian residents.”


Sources
“Deadly bombings rock Afghan towns,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/20102237950809185.html
“NATO losing Afghan support” (Al Jazeera spoke to Hamidullah in an exclusive interview in Lashkar Gar, Helmand's capital city), http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/2010222131354638461.html
“Phyllis Bennis on Ending the US War in Afghanistan,” February 23, 2010 (Democracy Now interview with Amy Goodman, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/23/phyllis_bennis_on_ending_the_us
Phyllis Bennis’s latest book, with David Wildman, is Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer.
Another high-tech massacre, All out on March 20, http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=9371&news_iv_ctrl=1621
“Israel’s drones could target Iran,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/2010221181347325634.html
“Suicide bomber targets Iraqi police,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/201022215942107239.html
“Suicide bomber targets Iraqi police,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/201022215942107239.html
“Barrier imprisons West Bank village” (Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh reports). http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/20102208759184330.html

U.S. Footprints in Central/South Asia ─ WAR

Re-reported, compiled, by Carolyn Bennett
Casualty sites reporting
February 19, 2010 casualty sites reporting (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 148] Wounded 31,648-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures: 95,412-104,103, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,376 U.S., 4,694 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 998 U.S., 1,655 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: [not current] 1,366,350 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

Bloodletting
News from Middle East/Central/South Asia WAR

February 19
AFGHANISTAN
Six NATO soldiers have died on the sixth day of a military offensive to gain control of a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. The deaths on Thursday bring the total to 12 one of whom is an Afghan soldier. These latest deaths come a day after a NATO air strike ‘mistakenly’ killed at least seven Afghan police officers and wounded two others in Imam Sahib District of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan.

February 19
PAKISTAN
The brother of a senior pro-Taliban commander died following a suspected U.S. missile strike in northwestern Pakistan. Mohammed Haqqani and a number of other associates of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the so-called Haqqani network, were said to have died today in a compound in North Waziristan.

At least 29 people died and dozens were wounded in an explosion at a mosque in northwestern Pakistan. This attack on in the Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border came hours after the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, arrived for a meeting with Pakistan’s prime minister in the capital Islamabad.

February 19
IRAQ
─ The U.S. government has changed the name of the Iraq invasion/occupation from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” to “Operation New Dawn,” shamelessly taking the same name as used by U.S. forces in their November 2004 U.S. attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah. That attack left hundreds of Iraqi civilians dead and thousands more displaced.

February 18
In the Iraqi city of Ramadi eleven people died on Thursday, among them four police officers and a young girl; the deaths followed a suicide bombing. Fifteen people suffered wounds.


Sources
“NATO troops killed in Afghan push,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201021925143887757.html
“U.S. drone kills Taliban supporters,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/2010219122853435538.html
“Blast as Holbrooke visits Pakistan,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/2010218232824418823.html
“U.S. Changes Name of Iraq War,” February 19, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/19/headlines
“Bomber hits checkpoint,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/201021810496996936.html

U.S. Footprints in Central/South Asia ─ WAR

Re-reported, compiled, by Carolyn Bennett
Casualty sites reporting

February 17, 2010 casualty sites reporting (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 148] Wounded 31,648-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures: 95,409-104,100, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties [not current] IRAQ: 4,375 U.S., 4,693 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 984 U.S., 1,624 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: [not current] 1,366,350 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

Bloodletting
News from Middle East/Central/South Asia WAR

February 17
AFGHANISTAN
Two errant U.S. missiles on Sunday struck a house on the outskirts of Marjah. Twelve people died. Half of them were children.

On Tuesday, an Afghan human rights group said they had counted 19 civilian deaths since the start of the latest U.S. killing spree. Four of the dead had been “caught in the crossfire” as they left their homes. The director of Afghanistan Rights Monitor told Al Jazeera “neighbors reported bodies left outside” waiting to be removed. Survivors on this slaughter said they were “scared if they go outside they too will be shot dead.”

At least 1,240 families are said to have fled the massive US/UK onslaught against the Taliban. Many people are seeking shelter with friends and relatives as no camps have been set up for the displaced.

February 11
Afghanistan
An estimated 185 people have died in avalanches that blocked a mountain pass north of the Afghan capital … More than 200 lorries [trucks], buses and cars were trapped inside the tunnel at 3,400 meters (11,154.85 feet) above sea level.

February 14
PAKISTAN
A deadly explosion has hit the Indian city of Pune leaving nine people dead and 57 wounded. The incident throws the India/Pakistan peace talks into jeopardy. Saturday’s bomb attack was India’s first big assault since the Mumbai attack that left 166 people dead.

February 14
IRAQ
Elections are due March 7 in Iraq. Leading up to that event, candidate expulsions and bomb attacks rooted in U.S. invasion 2003 have rocked Baghdad. Bans on candidates ─ a ban that blacklisted more than 500 Sunni and Shia candidates, severely affecting the Iraqiya list ─ have resulted in suspensions of election campaigns and bombings of political offices across Baghdad. A blast struck the political offices of Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni politician and co-founder of the barred Iraqiya list. Another bomb that wounded two guards was thrown into the garden of a building used by Sunni scholars including poll candidates in Mansour in west Baghdad. A third blast damaged the headquarters of the United Iraq list in east Baghdad. Another blast hit the headquarters of the Moderate Movement list in Karrada in east Baghdad wounding two people. A fifth bomb struck a building used by an election list led by Nehru Abdulkarim al-Keznazani and wounded another person. The election turmoil in Iraq seems to find roots in the ban on candidates accused of ties with the outlawed Baath party of Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president whom the U.S.-led invasion and administration ousted and executed.

Sources
“Afghan civilians killed in fighting, February 17, 2010
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201021614344722197.html
“Afghan avalanches death toll soars,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201021083946138428.html
“Blast clouds ‘India-Pakistan talks,’”
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201021474951328248.html
“Iraq coalition halts poll campaign,” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/201021463242489398.html

“WHY” query on anti-Muslim WARs …

… Raised by veteran U.S. journalist  and Sarajevo survivor
Transcription, excerpts, editing by Carolyn Bennett for Today’s Insight News
Silence encountered in a dream is no longer an option. Though memories are “too painful” to voice, Sarajevo survivor Amela Marin Simic says, “My duty is to speak.”

“For those of us who were in the city when it was under siege the whole thing is chilling. Who was the target of the sniper: my 5-year-old son waiting in a breadline; my 9-year-old daughter awaiting a UN HCR package; me, waiting for water? All of us were dangerous ‘Turks’ in the mind of Karadzic—whether we were Muslim or not.

“Serb paramilitaries … saw my 2-year-old nephew as one of Karadzic’s ‘Turks.’ They shot him while he was sitting on his potty. They were using the deadly sniper bullets that explode as soon as they enter the body. We could only see the tiny hole above his ear where the bullet went in. Despite hearing my sister’s cries for help, these same Serb soldiers rained fire on the entrance to my sister’s building for two hours preventing the child from being taken to the hospital. He survived, somehow; and despite the shrapnel that is still in his body, he became a talented musician, one with excruciating headaches, but still, alive. Thousands of children weren’t so lucky.

For months and months after my nephew was wounded, I wanted to avenge my sister’s nightmares and my nephew’s uncertain future as well as the lives of my family and friends blown up and screwed up forever.

Then, one night, I dreamt I was inside a waiting room – maybe of the war tribunal, I can’t recall now. There they were sitting beside each other: Karadzic, whom I had actually met a few times through the writer’s union in Sarajevo; and others, including an old Shakespeare professor, whose classes I had taken at university – all those who had gone to the mountains to start their blood-soaked war; or even worse, had incited it through their words.

“In my dream, I just stopped and stood there, looking at them, wanting to ask them one simple question – Why. But I didn’t say anything, yet; believing my gaze would somehow pierce through the horror they had created and find some sign of humanity. They just stared back at me. I looked at them once again and then I asked them – Why?

“They didn’t respond. 

“… There is much about that time I can never forget -- That’s why I rarely mention the war years in conversations with people: It’s too painful, too sad, too horrific. I realize that the child, like my dream, won’t answer the question -- Why ordinary people do monstrous things. But the silence I encountered in my dream isn’t really an option right now that Karadzic is on trial. I am not after vengeance. I am after justice. My duty is to speak.”

“Anti-Muslim” wars persist. Ray McGovern leads with the Why query posed by veteran U.S. journalist Helen Thomas.

No one in “the U.S. political/media hierarchy” has explained Why.
“… Why [do] so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks?”
Washington PR punts 
“We must communicate clearly to Muslims around the world that al-Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death … while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress. … That’s the vision that is far more powerful than the hatred of these violent extremists.”
But WHY?
“… Why it is so hard for Muslims to ‘get’ that message? Why can’t they end their preoccupation with dodging U.S. missiles in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Gaza long enough to reflect on how we are only trying to save them from terrorists while simultaneously demonstrating our commitment to ‘justice and progress’? Does [the Administration] believe that all we need to do is ‘communicate clearly to Muslims’ that it is al-Qaeda, not the U.S. and its allies, that brings ‘misery and death’? Does any informed person not know that the unprovoked, U.S.-led invasion of Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and displaced 4.5 million from their homes? 

“… Many Muslims have watched Washington’s behavior closely for many years and view U.S. declarations about peace, justice, democracy, and human rights as infuriating examples of hypocrisy and double talk … Washington’s sanitized discussion about motives for terrorism seems more intended for the U.S. domestic audience than the Muslim world. … 
 “People in the Middle East have known for decades how [the West and western-leaning countries and allied interests have mistreated] Palestinians. They have known how one after another administration in Federal Washington has propped up Arab dictatorships and how the U.S. Government has imprisoned at Guantanamo hundreds of Muslims without bringing charges against them and how the U.S. military has killed civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They have known how U.S. mercenaries have slaughtered innocents and escaped punishment for these crimes.

“The purpose of U.S. ‘public diplomacy,’ seems designed to offer feel-good palliatives about beneficence in U.S. actions more than to shine the light of truth for Americans on unpleasant realities. American journalists and politicians, fearing [McCarthyism] smears of un-patriotism or ‘sympathizing with the enemy’ join the charade.”

Amela Marin Simic says it for me: the silence encountered in a dream is no longer an option. “I am not after vengeance. I am after justice. My duty is to speak.”

Sources and notes
From a Commentary given on Radio Netherlands Worldwide; Karadzic is now on trial for war crimes before the war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands; Among 11 charges against him are two counts of genocide – one for the massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica, the other for the siege of Sarajevo
Amela Marin Simic, a writer living in Toronto, Canada, lived through the Siege of Sarajevo.
Britannica notes
Sarajevo is the “capital and cultural centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies in the narrow valley of the Miljacka River at the foot of Mount Trebević. The city retains a strong Muslim character, having many mosques, wooden houses with ornate interiors, and the ancient Turkish marketplace (the Baščaršija); much of the population is Muslim.”…
Radovan Karadžić
In the 1980s the rapid decline of the Yugoslav economy led to widespread public dissatisfaction with the political system. This attitude, together with the manipulation of nationalist feelings by politicians, destabilized Yugoslav politics. Independent political parties appeared in 1988. In early 1990 multiparty elections were held in Slovenia and Croatia; when elections were held in Bosnia in December, new parties representing the three national communities gained seats in rough proportion to their populations. A tripartite coalition government was formed, with the Bosniac politician Alija Izetbegović leading a joint presidency. Growing tensions both inside and outside Bosnia, however, made cooperation with the Serbian Democratic Party, led by Radovan Karadžić, increasingly difficult.
In 1991, several self-styled “Serb Autonomous Regions” were declared in areas of Bosnia with large Serb populations. Evidence emerged that the Yugoslav People's Army was being used to send secret arms deliveries to the Bosnian Serbs from Belgrade. In August the Serbian Democratic Party began boycotting the Bosnian presidency meetings; in October it removed its deputies from the Bosnian assembly and set up a “Serb National Assembly” in Banja Luka. By then full-scale war had broken out in Croatia, and the breakup of Yugoslavia was under way. Bosnia's position became highly vulnerable. The possibility of partitioning Bosnia had been discussed during talks between the Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman, and the Serbian president, Slobodan Milošević, earlier in the year, and two Croat “communities” in northern and southwestern Bosnia, similar in some ways to the “Serb Autonomous Regions,” were proclaimed in November 1991. When the European Community (EC; now European Union) recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia in December, it invited Bosnia to apply for recognition also. A referendum on independence was held February 29–March 1, 1992, although Karadžić's party obstructed voting in many Serb-populated areas. Nearly two-thirds of the electorate cast a vote; almost all voted for independence, which was officially proclaimed on March 3 by President Izetbegović.
In May 1995, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces launched air strikes on Serbian targets after the Serbian military refused to comply with a UN ultimatum. Further air strikes led to U.S.-sponsored peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, in November. The agreement that resulted from those talks called for a federalized Bosnia in which 51 percent of the land would constitute a Croat-Bosniac federation and 49 percent a Serb republic. To enforce the agreement, signed in December, a 60,000-member international force was deployed. An election in September 1996 produced a tripartite national presidency chaired by Izetbegović but including Croat and Serbian representatives. Karadžić had been indicted for war crimes and was prohibited from being a candidate, though he continued to elude capture and retained some support among Bosnian Serbs into the 21st century. The federal legislature, with seats apportioned to each ethnic group, was dominated by nationalist parties.
“Helen Asks Why” (Ray McGovern), posted January 11, 2010, at Antiwar.com; reprinted from ConsortiumNews.com; responses at http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2010/01/10/helen-asks-why/Helen+Asks+Why2010-01-11+06%3A00%3A35Ray+McGovern
WAR DEAD
AMERICA
Avoidable yet
“Up to 200,000 feared dead” in Haiti
Up to 200,000 people are feared dead following the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that has destroyed much of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince … Lorries piled with corpses have been trying to collect the bodies that have been visible on the streets across Port-au-Prince for burial in mass graves outside the city, [Al Jazeera, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/20101167102172106.html
 U.S. Foreign Affairs BLOODLETTING Continues
WAR DEAD, CASUALTIES OF WAR
Update January 16, 2010

Al Jazeera reports

“War without end
“As asymmetrical warfare takes up the fight from conventional wars, battles are replaced by bombings and massacres, military bases by hideouts and remote control rooms, population control and policing by propaganda and terror, and national borders are surpassed by new fault lines passing through every minor Middle Eastern state and every major Western city… All of which begs for a change in the whole paradigm of the ongoing 'global war on terror' that holds entire populations hostage to fear and war” by Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst The US as a great warrior tribe, January 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/imperium/2010/01/201011110202267810.html
Is the U.S. militarizing aid? [Riz Khan]
In an effort to win … local ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the U.S. militarizing its foreign aid? That is the claim of aid groups working on the ground. They say that development projects are increasingly being implemented by the military and/or civilian military contractors and that this new strategy dangerously blurs the line between projects undertaken to achieve a political goal and those undertaken to advance long-term development, January 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/rizkhan/2010/01/2010110103653946180.html
AFGHANISTAN
U.S. releases Bagram prisoner names
“The United States has published the names of 645 prisoners [some under the age of 16] held at a controversial U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan following a freedom of information lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)… U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration is appealing against the decision. Bagram, north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, has been used as a detention facility by the US-led coalition in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban government in December 2001.” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/201011614114260799.html
AfPak
“Pakistan drone attack ‘kills many’”
Suspected U.S. drone attack kills at least 18 people and injures 14 others in Pakistan’s northwest tribal belt near the Afghan border…The attack was the seventh suspected U.S. missile assault in the tribal district this month.… The U.S. has increased drone attacks since a suicide bomber crossed over Pakistan’s border and killed seven CIA employees in an attack in eastern Afghanistan on December 30, 2009, January 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/201011453930817749.html
AFGHANISTAN
UK reporter killed in Afghanistan
A second journalist [Sunday Mirror defense correspondent Rupert Hamer] has been killed in Afghanistan in 10 days after an explosion killed a UK newspaper reporter on patrol with U.S. Marines… Canadian reporter Michelle Lang of the Calgary Herald newspaper, was killed alongside four soldiers in Kandahar province on December 30 when a roadside bomb exploded beneath their armored vehicle…Three journalists, including Lang, died in Afghanistan last year, according to a tally by the International News Safety Institute, January 10, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/20101101638390164.html

AFGHANISTAN
Deadly blast hits Afghan market
At least 16 civilians and 1 police officer have been killed and 13 others injured after a suicide bomber targeted a crowded market in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, January 15, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/201011414347825891.html
Deadliest year for Afghan civilians
The number of civilians killed in war-related violence in Afghanistan touched 2,412 last year, the highest number since the 2001 US-led invasion …Recent incidents, such as the deaths of 10 civilians, including eight teenagers in eastern Kunar province, in an authorized but non-military U.S. operation, have seen Afghans take to the streets to protest against the presence of foreign troops, January 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/20101131135845111.html.
IRAQ
Civilians killed in Iraq bombing
At least seven people, including five policemen, have been killed and six others wounded in a suicide lorry bombing in Iraq's western Anbar province… Anbar province was the heart of Iraq’s Sunni uprising following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraqi in 2003 but it became relatively secure after local tribal fighters accepted U.S.-backing in 2006, January 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/201011385712327495.html.
PAKISTAN
“‘Suspects’ die in Karachi explosion”
At least seven people have been killed after an explosion destroyed a house in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.… Attacks across Pakistan have intensified in recent months in an apparent response to a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, January 8, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/2010184733944362.html
YEMEN
“Yemeni al-Qaeda suspects ‘killed’”
At least six suspected al-Qaeda fighters have been killed in a military air raid in the north of the country…Yemen has intensified operations against the so-called ‘Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group’ claimed it was behind a failed December 25 attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner, January 16, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/2010115141954305381.html.
 From Casualty sites
Iraq, Afghanistan (exact figures and costs of war are unobtainable)
Latest update January 7, 2010
American Military Casualties in Iraq – “Human cost of occupation”: since the war began March 19, 2003: 4,373
Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 145;
Wounded 31,613-over 100,000;
U.S. veterans with brain injuries: 320,000;
Suicides 18 a day [January 1 update at Anti-war dot com: “Casualties in Iraq, The Human Cost of Occupation” (Edited by Margaret Griffis) http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
Iraq Body Count figures: 95,002-103,65, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Iraq Coalition Casualty (war dead) figures:
IRAQ: U.S. Coalition total: 4,691; U.S.: 4,373 - AFGHANISTAN: Coalition total: 1,593; U.S.: 961, http://icasualties.org/oif/
Just Foreign Policy lists violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003”: 1,366,350