900,000 widows — hardly “well meaning”

U.S. in Iraq

Beyond “credibility deficit”

Compiled, edited, re-reported with comment by Carolyn Bennett

The U.S. military’s version of ‘creative destruction,’ driven directly into the oil heartlands of the planet … have unified the region in misery and visceral dislike, Tom Engelhardt writes in an article published today at Middle East online.

U.S. in Afghanistan

“‘Mistakes,’ ‘incidents’ ‘collateral damage,’ slaughtered wedding parties and bombed funerals, ‘mishaps’ and ‘miscommunications’ continue to pile up — as do dead Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, and Americans, so many from places you’ve never heard of if you weren’t born there.”

IRAQ

Washington remains — as it has been since September 12, 2001 — engaged in a fierce and costly losing battle with ghosts in which … perfectly real people die and perfectly real women are widowed.

In this country an estimated 900,000 wives have lost their husbands since the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. According to reports, many of these widows are in states of desperation and receiving next to no help from governments of Iraq or United States, Engelhardt writes.

Their 900,000 husbands undoubtedly died in various ways — warlike, civil-war-like, and peaceable — but the figure offers a crude indicator of the levels of carnage the U.S. invasion loosed on Iraq during the last eight and a half years.

Afghans protest

After almost nine years of war and occupation, the United States is reportedly shutting down its multi-billion-dollar mega [military]-bases in Iraq, withdrawing U.S. troops. However, the USA is leaving behind a monster State Department mission guarded by a 5,000-person army of mercenaries, a militarized budget of $6.5 billion for 2012, and more than 700 mostly hire-a-gun trainers.

Vatican-size residual occupation 

U.S. anti occupation
anti war actions

Peter Van Buren, a  U.S. State Department official suspended for publishing We meant well,  said this week on Democracy Now that in countries of Iraq’s size, the U.S. State Department typically has a mission of 100 to 150 people. Before the 1991 Gulf War, he said, the U.S. embassy in Iraq was relatively small, about the size of a college mathematics building, with about 100 people working in it. 

Around the world, it is typical for the U.S. to have a medium-sized embassy in a country of the size and complexity of Iraq; but “the State Department has created the world’s largest embassy in Baghdad — literally the size of the Vatican, something seen from space.” 

For this residual occupation, the U.S. Department of State “has hired over five thousand mercenaries, contract security people similar to Blackwater under some different names; as well as its own armed Air Force, its own blood system to supply people who are injured, and a whole lot of other militarized functions that have no place in diplomacy.

Iraqis protest U.S.-built
WALL
separating Iraqis

“In many people’s minds, the sixteen thousand personnel who are going to occupy the State Department facilities are nothing more than an extension of the occupation of Iraq, albeit, under civilian control rather than military control.”

On this week’s U.S. vice presidential photo op in Baghdad, Van Buren said he (Van Buren) “would like to propose that no VIP be allowed to go to Iraq — certainly not to announce anything using the words ‘victory’ or ‘success’ — until he or she is willing to do that on an announced visit with the airplane landing in the day time.

“As long as the visits have to be kept secret and the planes have to land at night, I would like to suggest we not use the words ‘victory,’ ‘success,’ ‘completion’ or anything equivalent.”

The author of The American Way of War (How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s) concludes a segment of his Middle East article with the inevitable: “Iraq is visibly a loss for Washington.”

News this week from IRAQ

Explosion in Iraq

Iraqi political and community leaders, according to Press TV, routinely cite the United States and U.S. close ally Saudi Arabia “as the States sponsoring the terror campaign in Iraq.”

On Wednesday this week, thousands of Iraqis including clerics, lawmakers and city councilors took to the streets of Baghdad and the southern cities of Najaf and Basra … “to condemn an unannounced visit to the oil-rich country by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.”

Believing this high level visit was aimed at convincing Iraqi leaders to extend the occupation of U.S. military forces in their country, the demonstrators chanted, “‘Biden, get out of Iraq’ and ‘No to America.’”

U.S. war helicopter

Yesterday in Iraq, ten people died and 25 others were injured when a bomb exploded in the Iraqi town of Khalis, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad.

On Monday outside a prison near the capital, 19 people died and 22 others were injured when another car bomb exploded.

PAKISTAN

U.S. drone

Meanwhile in Afghanistan’s neighbor, Tom Engelhardt writes, “the U.S. drone war combined with the latest ‘incident’ on the Pakistani border, evidently involving U.S. Special Forces operatives, has further destabilized Pakistan and the U.S. alliance there.”

A major Pakistani presidential candidate is calling for the end of the U.S.-Pakistan alliance and anti-Americanism is growing fast and far.

Pakistanis'
anti-U.S. actions

News this week from PAKISTAN

Violence and militancy have displaced thousands of people across this country. 

More than 35,000 Pakistanis have died in bombings and other militant attacks since 2007 [Press TV attributing AP]. Since late 2009, militant attacks in Pakistan have increased.

Lahore, Pakistan
protests

On the United States’ Thanksgiving weekend, NATO helicopters and fighter jets had attacked two Pakistani military border posts in the country’s northwest. Twenty-four Pakistani troops died and Pakistanis were angered.

Pakistan’s government then closed border crossings that the Western military alliance uses to transport fuel and other supplies to foreign forces in Afghanistan. The government also called on the United States to vacate Shamsi Air Base in Balochistan Province.

Yesterday demonstrators took to streets in the cities of Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Rawalpindi and Sheikhupura to strongly condemn the NATO attack in the tribal Mohmand Agency of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

Pakistanis' anti-U.S. actions

In Karachi, protesters shouted slogans and set fire to portraits of U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In Lahore, 170 miles (275 kilometers) southeast of the capital Islamabad, lawyers dressed in black suits staged a rally and chanted anti-U.S. slogans.

Since the Thanksgiving incident that left two dozen Pakistani soldiers dead, thousands of people in Pakistan have held protest rallies. Protesters also are calling for the immediate end of the Pakistan’s alliance with the United States “in the so-called war on terrorism.”

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, reportedly told a Senate committee on foreign affairs, “‘Enough is enough — the government will not tolerate any incident of spilling even a single drop of any civilian or soldier’s blood.’”

Pakistan’s Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said on Thursday that Pakistani troops would counter with full force any attack on the country’s soil.

Not only against Pakistanis

U.S. drone

HORN OF AFRICA’s Somalis

A people on their knees suffering poverty, drought, disease, want of necessities

The United States has used drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen. “Somalia is the sixth country where the United States has used drones to launch deadly missile strikes. On October 28, the United States admitted to flying the terror aircraft from a base in Ethiopia to carry out attacks in Somalia.”

Displaced Somalis

This morning near the border with Kenya, 24 people died and dozens suffered injuries when “U.S. assassination drones launched aerial attacks on southern Somalia.”

Somali military officer Abdi Hirsi told Press TV the remote-controlled aerial vehicles fired several missiles at Buzar village, which is located close to El Wak city in Somalia's southwestern region of Gedo.  

The aerial attacks came a day after U.S. drones struck Bilis Qooqaani town 278 miles (448 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Mogadishu. Eleven people died and 50 others suffered wounds.

U.S. in Afghanistan

News from [Pakistan’s] Neighboring AFGHANISTAN

Despite thousands of foreign troops, insecurity rises daily across Afghanistan. Civilian casualties already at record levels rose 5 percent in the period June to August 2011. According to the United Nation’s September report, the monthly average in the number of security incidents recorded for the year through the end of August has risen nearly 40 percent. Hundreds of thousands (est. 130,000) of people have been displaced by the conflict in the first seven months of the year, up nearly two-thirds from the same period a year earlier.

Today 19 miles (30 kilometers) south of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, near the entrance to a NATO military base in the eastern province of Logar, at least 70 civilians suffered injuries, one person died, three government buildings were destroyed when a truck bomb exploded.

Yesterday in Balablok district of Afghanistan’s western province of Farah, “two soldiers serving with the U.S. military” were injured when a roadside bomb exploded. The report said a “vehicle carrying American troops stumbled on the explosive device along a road. … The vehicle was completely destroyed in the attack.”

OURSELVES

U.S. Values

U.S.
Neglect

“Our wars and national security spending,” Engelhardt recounts, “have drained the U.S. of trillions of dollars in national treasure, leaving behind a country in political gridlock, its economy in a condition “close to ‘shock-and-awe,’ its infrastructure crumbling, and vast majorities of angry citizens convinced that their land is not only ‘on the wrong track,’ but [also] ‘in decline.’”

Related to U.S. foreign relations overall in the region of the Middle East, Engelhardt concludes, “the sole lesson Washington seems capable of absorbing is that its failed policy is the only possible policy.”

This means, among other things, “more ‘incidents,’ more ‘mistakes,’ more ‘accidents,’ more dead, more embittered people vowing vengeance, more investigations, more pleas of self-defense, more condolences, more money draining out of the U.S. treasury, and more destabilization.” Indeed. 

Whether Biden in Iraq in the dead of night or broad daylight or Hillary Clinton in Burma, the words do not match reality or any essence or grain of truth. They strain belief. U.S. citizens may well be blissfully oblivious to the sham and show but ancient countries know better. 

Even without gadgets — people bombed, brutalized, intimidated, their “dictators” leveraged against them, weapons sold to them are trained on them — they break through the rhetoric. They are desperately aware of the United States’ unpardonable failing.

U.S. hegemony 
Arabia to the Horn of Africa

Credibility deficit

Writing in 2006, American University professor and Middle East analyst R.S. Zaharna said, what U.S. officials fail to register “is that no amount of information pumped out by U.S. public diplomacy will be enough to improve the U.S. image.

“The problem, ultimately, is not lack of information but lack of credibility. … Without credibility, no amount of information holds persuasive weight.…

“The region [of the Middle East] and its people have suffered greatly by the U.S. reluctance to engage diplomatically on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. … Without the active involvement of U.S. traditional diplomacy, U.S. public diplomacy will remain paralyzed by the weight of this conflict, and America’s credibility deficit will only deepen.”

STRETCH OF MIDDLE EAST

The Middle or Near East consists of the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. These lands extend from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran, sometimes beyond. 

STRETCH OF U.S. AGGRESSION

Arming and bankrolling to create domestic and regional pressure • assassination with impunity •    direct aggression • direct/indirect threat/intimidation • displacement/destabilization • economic/financial sanctions • failing nations • failure to negotiate with words or nonviolent diplomacy • provocation/incitement to protracted violence • occupation • unlawful search and detention • torture…

The United States is at WAR with the world’s peoples and their countries —

1.     Afghanistan	2.     Bahrain
3.     Cuba	4.     Djibouti
5.     Eritrea	6.     Ethiopia
7.     Haiti	8.     Honduras
9.     Iran	10.  Iraq
11.  Japan (Okinawa)	12.  Kenya
13.  Libya	14.  Mexico
15.  Nigeria	16.  North Korea
17.  Pakistan	18.  Palestine
19.  Russia	20.  Saudi Arabia
21.  Somalia	22.  South Korea
Syria	24.  Turkey
25.  Uganda [dominoes The Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)]	26.  Yemen

Sources and notes

Middle East Online: “He was 22... She was 12...  Lessons From the Dead in a No-Learning-Curve World” December 2, 2011, http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49328

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s as well as The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books), has just been published. Copyright © 2011 Tom Engelhardt

“State Dept. Veteran Peter Van Buren Defies U.S. Censors to Recount Failed Reconstruction in Iraq,” November 30, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/30/state_dept_veteran_peter_van_buren

Author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Peter Van Buren is currently on administrative leave from the U.S. Department of State, where he has worked for 23 years.

IRAQ

“10 killed, 25 injured in Iraq bombing,” December 1, 2011,  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/213159.html

PAKISTAN

“Gunmen kill 4 policemen in Pakistan,” December 2, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510204.html

“Pakistanis slam NATO cross-border raid,” December 2, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/213338.html

Press TV Pakistan protest caption: Sunni Tehreek activists set fire to the portraits of US President Barack Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as they shout slogans during a demonstration in Karachi, Pakistan, on December 1, 2011.

“Pakistan to retaliate future NATO raids,” December 2, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/213352.html

Not only Pakistan - SOMALIA

“U.S. terror drones kill 24 in Somalia,” December 2, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/213360.html

AFGHANISTAN

“70 Afghans injured in NATO base blast,” December 2, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/213346.html

“Two U.S. soldiers injured in Afghanistan,” December 1, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/213234.html

Press TV caption Afghanistan

A U.S. military vehicle burns after it was hit by a blast in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. (file photo)

Press TV caption soldiers killed

At least 259 US-led soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.

CREDIBILITY DEFICIT

“The U.S. Credibility Deficit” (R.S. Zaharna was writing as an American University professor in public communication and Foreign Policy In Focus Middle East analyst; edited by John Feffer), December 13, 2006, http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_us_credibility_deficit

Author of Battles to Bridges: U.S. Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy after 9/11 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010), Dr. Rhonda Zaharna specializes in intercultural and international strategic communication, with an emphasis on culture and communication in the Arab and Islamic regions; and is an American University professor of Public Communication in the School of Communication.

She has taught strategic communication for nearly 20 years and has advised on communication projects for multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, diplomatic missions, and international organizations, including the United Nations, World Bank, and USAID.  She has also testified before the U.S. Congress and has addressed diplomatic audiences and military personnel in the United States and Europe on cross-cultural communication and public diplomacy.

Her credentials are from Georgetown University (B.S. Foreign Service) and Columbia University (M.Ed. Communication and Ed.D. Communication), http://www.american.edu/soc/faculty/zaharna.cfm

__________________________

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U.S. enters Thanksgiving month — shopping while shedding blood

Compiled and edited, re-reporting, comment by Carolyn Bennett

Fatally flawed people in power, their politics, policies, consequences

The United States at perpetual WAR against the world’s peoples, their countries, their cultures, structures and traditions —

1.     Afghanistan	2.     Bahrain
3.     Cuba	4.     Djibouti
5.     Eritrea	6.     Ethiopia
7.     Haiti	8.     Honduras
9.     Iran	10.  Iraq
11.  Japan (Okinawa)	12.  Kenya
13.  Libya	14.  Mexico
15.  Nigeria	16.  North Korea
17.  Pakistan	18.  Palestine
19.  Russia	20.  Saudi Arabia
21.  Somalia	22.  South Korea
Syria	24.  Uganda [dominoes The Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)]
25.  Yemen	26.

U.S. against Iraq 2003

WAR … By arming and bankrolling to create domestic and regional pressure, conflict • bullying direct/indirect threat/intimidation • assassination with impunity • direct aggression • displacement/destabilization • economic/financial sanctions • failing nations • failure to negotiate with words or in nonviolent diplomacy • provocation/incitement to protracted violence • occupation • unlawful search and detention • torture…

“Over the past half-century the U.S. has been directly or indirectly involved in military interventions in tens of countries,” Press TV today quotes statements by Tehran’s Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami.

Referencing calls rising from members of the U.S. Congress to assassinate Iranian officials, the cleric said, “Washington, who claims to be the flag bearer of the war against terrorism and has used this as a pretext to attack and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, is now implicitly issuing assassination orders.”

The world will not forget the U.S. history of committing crimes against humanity, the nuclear bombing of Japan, Ayatollah Khatami said.  “‘Siding with the Zionist regime [of Israel] against Palestinians, giving the green light for atrocities to be committed in Bahrain are all among the U.S. crimes against humanity.’”

As U.S. bloodletting continued and Libya continued breaking down in the wake of the U.S. North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s destruction there, Phyllis Bennis spoke with Democracy Now this week about protracted U.S. and NATO violence in Africa.

ARAB SPRING morphed into WESTERN INVASION

“Bringing in the U.S. and NATO forces into Libya, Bennis said, “transformed what had begun in the context of the Arab Spring popping up all over the region and turned that into a Western invasion — a Western assault on another North African, Middle Eastern, Arab country.

NATO emerged as the air force of the self-appointed leadership of the uprising (the National Transitional Council or NTC). Militias who fought Qaddafi now deem the NTC an illegitimate creation to which they owe no accounting. What U.S. NATO belligerence leaves to Libyans is more brokenness and more violence:  “a country glutted with weapons” but no clear leadership structure or accountability, and feeling a deepening dependency on their invader, “U.S./NATO military presence and military action.”

Furthermore, the carnage Libyans experienced is but a piece of the pattern of U.S. NATO malevolence across this continent.

COLD WAR NATO rises with AFRICOM

“It is an example, potentially, of the look of NATO expanding its own self-defined mandate”  — from a creation of the Cold War initially designed to defend its own members, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to now rise with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) on a continent that “provides more oil to the United States than the entire Middle East.”

Pretext to invade and occupy — KILLER ‘HUMANITARIANS’

Bennis cites the Western-fueled conflict within and between African nations suffering severely not only from internal conflict but also from natural disasters and nonexistent or sorely inadequate infrastructures. People are dying needlessly from lack of running water and proper sanitation, exposure to the elements and starvation or severe undernourishment and Western nations are bombing them and arming other nations to bomb them.

Sub-Saharan Africa

U.S.-allied “Kenyan troops claiming to be going after the [al-Shabab, an Islamist youth movement] militia,” she reports, “[are] moving massively into Somalia … bombing a refugee camp, leaving a number of people dead and dozens injured.” These troops were “going after the refugees, and internally displaced Somalis were fleeing the violence.”

In this manufactured chaos, governments of Kenya and Somalia are “asking [as are Libya and Syria for deepening dependency] the U.S. and Europe with NATO to engage militarily.” However, Bennis says, more NATO engagement, “bringing in outside forces, bringing in more military forces, more combatants with guns leads inevitably to more — not fewer — civilian casualties. The prospect of further escalating the war in Somalia by bringing in NATO is a very bad example.”

War with AFRICA

SOMALIA [U.S. allied against]

Horn of Africa

Somalia is the sixth country where the United States has used remote-controlled drone aircraft to launch deadly missile strikes.

Horn of Africa - Somalia

Today in Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu, at least 11 Somali soldiers died in fighting between al-Shabab and transitional government troops.

Yesterday, at least 41 people died and 33 people suffered wounds “in a U.S. assassination drone attack near Somalia’s border with Kenya.” Thursday 28 people died and dozens suffered injuries when a U.S. assassination drone strike hit a town in Somalia’s southern Jubbada Hoose region.

Wednesday in Somalia’s central region of Galguduud, the U.S. remote-controlled assassination drones launched aerial attacks on Qeydar and Marodile villages situated between Guriceel and Balanbale districts.

The country’s elders reported at least 38 people died and more than 74 people were injured in the strikes. The same day, 20 people were left dead and 60 were wounded after a U.S. assassination drone launched a strike on the outskirts of Kismayo, a strategically important port city on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast located some 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

On October 28, United States officials admitted flying unmanned aerial vehicles from Ethiopia.

Over the past two days, at least 127 people have died in separate U.S. assassination drone strikes in Somalia and Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan’s northwestern region of North Waziristan on Thursday, at least three people died in a non-UN-sanctioned U.S. assassination drone attack. The attack took place in Darpa Khel village, which is located about four kilometers (two miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in the district of North Waziristan. Local security officials said a drone fired two missiles on a compound in the attack.

NIGERIA [U.S. occupied]

In a world of vast inequalities amidst oil wealth and corporate taking, pirates raid ships. Attacks happening in or near Nigeria are characterized as “threatening to an emerging trade hub, which is an increasingly important source of oil, metals, and agricultural products like cocoa for world markets.”

Reported this week is an incident that allegedly happened on October 30. An official of the International Maritime Bureau told the press an oil tanker with a 25-member crew was captured off the coast of Nigeria. Another Nigerian oil tanker, whereabouts known, was attacked off the Niger Delta region on Wednesday.

  

War with ASIA

PAKISTAN [U.S. allied against]

Drone strikes are one of the major reasons behind growing anti-U.S. sentiments in Pakistan.

Independent organizations have compiled figures showing that, since 2004, more than 2000 people — most of them civilians — have died in the U.S. assassination drone attacks.

Activists have held an exhibition in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, “to bring to light the truth of U.S. assassination drone strikes.” On display at the exhibition organized in collaboration with the British charity organization Reprieve are close to a dozen exploded and twisted U.S. missiles, accompanied by photographs of their victims.

The exhibits reportedly show the kind of sophisticated heavy weaponry used by the U.S. in its drone attacks in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), located on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Reprieve founder Clive Stafford Smith told the press “‘The exhibition shows that when the CIA says there have been no innocent victims of drone missiles in the last 15 months, that is simply not true. What we have are parts of missiles that actually killed children … That is very solid, concrete proof that the CIA is not telling the truth.”

Hey, Hey LBJObama, how many kids did you kill today?

PAKISTAN

Pirates in Africa,  Retaliation explosives in Pakistan

Militants frequently target trucks carrying supplies for US-led foreign soldiers in Afghanistan.

Wednesday, Taliban-linked militants in Pakistan attacked a NATO supply convoy carrying supplies for U.S.-led foreign troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Officials told Press TV that gunmen riding on motorcycles opened fire at a NATO container at Bypass area of Chaman in southwestern Balochistan province. In the attack, the NATO container sustained damage and the driver was injured.

Pro-Taliban militants claiming responsibility for attacks often say the assaults are in retaliation for non-UN-sanctioned airstrikes by U.S. assassination drones on Pakistan’s tribal regions.

AFGHANISTAN [U.S. allied against, occupied]

Violence remains rampant throughout Afghanistan despite [or because of] nearly 150,000 U.S.-led foreign troops invading and occupying their land. The monthly average of security incidents recorded for the year through the end of August has climbed nearly 40 percent, says a September 28 UN report. The report says civilian casualties — already at record levels in the first six months of this year— rose five percent between June and August 2011, compared with the identical period in 2010.

Yesterday in Western Afghanistan, a bomb attack hit a NATO logistics base in the city of Herat near Herat airport. Seven people died, three others were wounded.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Cambodia [U.S. occupied]

A court in Cambodia has sentenced New York City physician James D’Agostino (age 56) to four years in prison. He was found guilty of sexual abuse of a 15-year-old boy. D’Agostino had travelled to Cambodia two years ago to volunteer at a children’s hospital. The incident happened in February.

Today judges at Phnom Penh Municipal Court ordered the man, a U.S. doctor, who had previously worked as a pediatric emergency doctor in New York, to be deported after serving his jail term.

ASIA CENTRAL

U.S.-allied INDIA

KASHMIR

Protesters have taken to the streets and are being arrested in Indian-administered Kashmir amid allegations accusing New Delhi’s forces of torturing minors while in custody.

Hundreds of youngsters remain in detention after being rounded up in almost daily street protests against the Indian rule over the disputed valley of Kashmir. Police in the Muslim-majority region have recently launched a campaign to crack down on the minors participating in the rallies.

ASIA MIDDLE EAST

IRAQ [U.S. occupied]

As attacks targeting army and police rise in Iraq, its prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, blames foreign countries for fueling trouble. Maliki says some nations are “‘spending money and [making] efforts’ to destabilize Iraq.

“The Iraqis do not want to build an aggressive country that will replace others,’” he said. “They want a country that will help in achieving local and regional stability.”

The prime minister has apparently accused foreign countries before of meddling in his country. Leaked U.S. State Department cables apparently have shown that the prime minister has long criticized foreigners, particularly U.S-ally Saudi Arabia, for conspiring against Baghdad.

YEMEN [U.S. allied with entrenched regime]

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis continue to hold anti-government demonstrations demanding an end to the rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh whom they accuse of nepotism and corruption. Hundreds of protesters have died and many more have been injured in government crackdowns.

A day after nineteen people were killed by regime loyalists and despite deadly crackdowns, Yemenis today held massive anti-regime demonstrations in the capital, Sana’a, and the southern city of Taizz. “The Yemenis’ voice is one,” they chanted. “We will bring corrupt Saleh to justice.” Friday’s slogan was “Remaining Peaceful is Our Choice.”

PALESTINE [U.S. allied against]

Occupied Territories

Israel has again used force against a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters, killing nine Turkish activists and injuring dozens of others.

Today, according to a Press TV correspondent on board one of the ships, “the two vessels were shadowed by Israeli warplanes and naval vessels in international waters as they approached the besieged Gaza Strip.

Saoirse 

“Eight Israeli warships made radio contact with the ships, calling on them to change course towards Egypt or to turn around. Israeli marines boarded the vessels about 50 nautical miles from Gaza after pro-Palestinian activists refused to turn back. There were no reports of violence.

“The mini aid flotilla called Freedom Waves to Gaza left the Turkish port city of Fethiye on Wednesday and was scheduled to reach the Gaza Strip today. The Canadian ship, Tahrir (Freedom), and the Irish ship, Saoirse (Freedom) are carrying 27 activists, including journalists and the crew, along with $30,000 worth of medicine. Activists on the Freedom Waves to Gaza are from Canada, Ireland, Egypt, United States, and Australia. They have said their international humanitarian mission is ‘to challenge Israel’s ongoing criminal blockade of the territory.’”

PALESTINIANS IMPRISONED by U.S.-allied Israel

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Detainees has reported nearly 200 Palestinian inmates have died in Israeli confinement, either under torture or due to medical negligence. Currently, the estimate of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons is 6,530.

Today, human rights groups are charging Israeli doctors with neglect in documenting cases of torture and mistreatment of Palestinians detained in Israel.

In a 61-page report compiled by the Public Committee against Torture in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights, scheduled for release later this month, are cases of 100 detainees held by Israel since 2007.

This report is said to present evidence that many doctors allowed “‘… security service interrogators to use torture; approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total immunity for the tortures.’”

JORDAN [U.S. allied with entrenched regime]

Since January, Jordanians have been holding street protests demanding the election of a prime minister by popular vote and an end to corruption. There were no calls for the king’s removal. King Abdullah II, since the start of the protests, has fired two prime ministers reportedly in an attempt to avoid more protests. Awn al-Khasawneh, a judge at [UN] International Court of Justice, is Jordan’s third premier this year.

Today, hundreds of Jordanians demonstrated in the capital, Amman [with similar protests in Karak, Maan and Tafileh] urging the new government to carry out promised reforms and to fight corruption.

“No Reform with the Security Fist” was Jordanian demonstrators’ slogan on the streets of Amman following the Friday Prayers to press Prime Minister Awn al-Khasawneh to give political reforms top priority. There were no calls for the king’s removal.

BAHRAIN [U.S. allied with entrenched regime]

Since mid February, Bahrain has been the scene of protests against the Saudi- and U.S.-backed Al Khalifa dynasty. In mid-March, at the request from Manama, the Bahraini capital, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed military equipment and troops to quash the anti-regime protests in Bahrain. Scores of anti-government protesters have been killed and hundreds jailed and tortured by forces loyal to Bahrain’s ruling regime.

Today, Saudi-backed Bahraini forces fired tear gas and used armored vehicles in an attempt to disperse hundreds of anti-regime protesters marching in Manama. Protest organizers had called for a huge turnout and a massive funeral procession for Friday morning following the announced death of 70-year-old Ali al-Dayhee, killed by regime forces.

Sources and notes

“Liberal Democracy nearing end: Iran,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208390.html

“As NATO Ends Libyan Bombing Campaign, Is the U.S. Seeking Greater Military Control of Africa?” November 1, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/1/as_nato_ends_libyan_bombing_campaign

PHYLLIS BENNIS

Phyllis Bennis specializes in U.S. foreign policy issues, particularly involving the Middle East and United Nations. She 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.

Works by Bennis include: Understanding the U.S.-Iran crisis (2008); Ending the Iraq War: A Primer (2008); Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer (2007); Challenging Empire: People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power (2005); Before And After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis (2002); Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer (2003); Calling the Shots. How Washington Dominates Today’s UN (2000); Altered States. A Reader in the New World Orde r (1993); Beyond the Storm. A Gulf Crisis Reader (1991); From Stones to Statehood: The Palestinian Uprising (1990)

She is a fellow at the Transnational Institute (a worldwide fellowship of scholar activists) and at the Institute for Policy Studies (Washington D.C.). At the latter, Bennis is director the New Internationalism Project.

http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/bio_long/Nick%20Buxton/phyllis%20long%20bio_0.pdf; http://www.tni.org/bio/phyllis-bennis

Under U.S./NATO hegemony

1.     Afghanistan	2.     Bahrain
3.     Cuba	4.     Djibouti
5.     Eritrea	6.     Ethiopia
7.     Haiti	8.     Honduras
9.     Iran	10.  Iraq
11.  Japan (Okinawa)	12.  Kenya
13.  Libya	14.  Mexico
15.  Nigeria	16.  North Korea
17.  Pakistan	18.  Palestine
19.  Russia	20.  Saudi Arabia
21.  Somalia	22.  South Korea
Syria	24.  Uganda [dominoes The Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)]
25.  Yemen	26.

AFRICA	ASIA
Djibouti	Afghanistan
Eritrea	Bahrain
Ethiopia	Iran
Kenya	Iraq
Libya	Japan (Okinawa)
Nigeria	North Korea
Somalia	Pakistan
Uganda [dominoes South Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)]	Palestine
	Saudi Arabia
AMERICAs	South Korea
Cuba	Syria
Haiti	Yemen
Honduras
	EUROPE/ASIA
	Russian Federation

Russia [Russian Federation] notes

Russia stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia.

It extends across the whole of northern Asia and the eastern third of Europe, spanning 11 time zones and incorporating a great range of environments and landforms, from deserts to semiarid steppes to deep forests and Arctic tundra. Russia contains Europe’s longest river, the Volga, and its largest lake, Ladoga. Russia also is home to the world’s deepest lake, Baikal, and the country recorded the world’s lowest temperature outside the North and South poles.

North and east—Russia is bounded to the north and east by the Arctic and Pacific oceans, and it has small frontages in the northwest on the Baltic Sea at St. Petersburg and at the detached Russian oblast (region) of Kaliningrad (a part of what was once East Prussia annexed in 1945), which also abuts Poland and Lithuania.

South—To the south Russia borders North Korea, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

Southwest, west—To the southwest and west it borders Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as Finland and Norway.

Northern Hemisphere, Europe, Asia—Extending nearly halfway around the Northern Hemisphere and covering much of eastern and northeastern Europe and all of northern Asia,

Russia has a maximum east-west extent of some 5,600 miles (9,000 km) and a north-south width of 1,500 to 2,500 miles (2,500 to 4,000 km). By far the world’s largest country, Russia covers nearly twice the territory of Canada, the second largest.

Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Kazakhstan [also spelled Kazakstan; officially Republic of Kazakhstan], a country of Central Asia

Kazakhstan is bounded on the northwest and north by Russia, on the east by China, and on the south by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and the Aral Sea

The Caspian Sea bounds Kazakhstan to the southwest. Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia and the ninth largest in the world. Between its most distant points, Kazakhstan measures about 1,820 miles (2,930 kilometers) east to west and 960 miles north to south. While Kazakhstan was not considered by authorities in the former Soviet Union to be a part of Central Asia, it does have physical and cultural geographic characteristics similar to those of the other Central Asian countries. The capital is Astana (formerly Tselinograd) in the north-central part of the country.

Formerly a constituent (union) republic of the U.S.S.R., Kazakhstan declared independence on December 16, 1991.

CENTRAL AFRICA notes

CONGO

Republic of the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Central African Republic

Republic of the Congo — a country situated astride the Equator in west-central Africa, officially known as the Republic of the Congo. This country is often called Congo (Brazzaville), with its capital added parenthetically to distinguish it from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (often referred to by its acronym the DRC or called Congo (Kinshasa).

Congo as a whole is sparsely inhabited, with more than half of its population living in the cities. The most populous city is the capital, Brazzaville, which is located in the southeastern corner of the country and is a major inland port on the Congo River.

Democratic Republic of the Congo— often referred to by its acronym the DRC or called Congo (Kinshasa), with the capital added parenthetically, to distinguish it from the other Congo republic (the Republic of the Congo, often referred to as Congo (Brazzaville).

Located in central Africa, the third largest country on the continent (only the Sudan and Algeria are larger), the DRC has a 25-mile (40-km) coastline on the Atlantic Ocean but is otherwise landlocked.  Located on the Congo River about 320 miles (515 km) from its mouth, the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, is the largest city in central Africa and serves as the country’s official administrative, economic, and cultural center.

Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960. From 1971 to 1997, the country was officially the Republic of Zaire, a change made by then ruler Gen. Mobutu Sese Seko to give the country what he thought was a more authentic African name.

Democratic Republic of the Congo Update 2009

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)’s North and South Kivu, internecine fighting in the first half of 2009 had left 800,000 civilians displaced by. The UN estimated that the number of internal refugees had reached two million. By 2009, the use of rape as a war tactic against women, children, and men by all armed forces had doubled or tripled in nine eastern conflict zones. As part of an African tour in August, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the DRC, urged the government to do more to protect civilians and to bring military offenders to justice, and announced a $17 million plan to help achieve these efforts.

Despite vast mineral wealth, mining production severely declined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) because of “mismanagement, corruption, endemic civil unrest, the global recession, and a lack of new investment.”

Central African Republic — The Central African Republic, roughly the size of France, is bordered by Chad to the north, The Sudan to the north and east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) to the south, and Cameroon to the west. The capital, Bangui, is situated on the southern boundary, formed by the Ubangi River, a tributary of the Congo River.

The area that is now the Central African Republic has been settled for at least 8,000 years its earliest inhabitants the probable ancestors of today’s Aka (Pygmy) peoples, who live in the western and southern forested regions of the country.

The slave state of Dar al-Kuti occupied the northern reaches until the various regions of the Central African Republic were brought under French colonial rule late in the 19th century.

Colonial administrators favored some ethnic groups over others, resulting in political rivalries that persisted after independence in 1960. Following periods of civil strife and dictatorial government, including the infamous regime of the self-styled Emperor Bokassa I (who renamed the country the Central African Empire), the country embarked on a course of democracy that, at the end of the 20th century, was threatened by interethnic civil war in neighboring countries as well as by attempted coups d'état.

BY DIRECT ACTION — WAR

AFRICA

“U.S. terror drones kill 41 more in Somalia,” November 3, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208225.html

“U.S. drone raids kill over 120 in 2 days,” November 3, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208198.html

“In 11 Somali soldiers killed,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510205.html

“‘Oil tanker hijacked off Nigeria coast.’” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208279.html

ASIA

PAKISTAN

“Pakistan holds exhibit of drone attacks.” November 1, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207812.html

“U.S. terror drone kills 3 in Pakistan” — at least three people died in a U.S. assassination drone campaign in northwest Pakistan, November 3, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208176.html

“NATO supply truck attacked in Pakistan, November 3, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208130.html

Press TV caption

NATO under attack Pakistan

NATO's supply line has come under repeated attacks by militants opposing the US-led terror drone strikes inside Pakistan's tribal belt.

AFGHANISTAN

“Bomb hits Afghan NATO logistics base,” November 3, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208152.html

SOUTHEAST ASIA

“U.S. doctor jailed for abusing Cambodian boy,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208385.html

Note on Cambodia: a country on the Indochinese mainland of Southeast Asia. Largely a land of plains and great rivers, Cambodia lies amid important overland and river trade routes linking China to India and Southeast Asia.

About one-third the size of France and somewhat larger than the U.S. state of Missouri, Cambodia is bordered to the west and northwest by Thailand, to the northeast by Laos, to the east and southeast by Vietnam, and to the southwest by the Gulf of Thailand.

Indochina comprises three states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia formerly associated with France, first within its empire and later within the French Union. The term Indochina refers to the intermingling of Indian and Chinese influences in the culture of the region.

ASIA CENTRAL

“Police arrest more minors in Kashmir,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208417.html

ASIA MIDDLE EAST

“Foreigners stir trouble in Iraq: Maliki,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208404.html

“Yemenis hold huge anti-regime rallies,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208376.html

“Israel intercepts Gaza-bound aid flotilla,” November 4, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208336.html

CAPTION PRESS TV

Greek coastguards stand in front of Canadian boat ‘Tahrir’ after forcing the Gaza-bound ship to return to the port of Agios Nikolaos, July 4, 2011.

“‘Israeli doctors complicit in torture,’” November 4, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208305.html

“Jordanians press new PM over reforms,” November 4, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208429.html

“Police clash with Bahraini protesters,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208329.html

________________________________

Bennett's books are 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]; 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] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire
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