Australian Assange, meet American Margaret Chase Smith

“ … Freedom of speech is not what it used to be … The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.” [U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience,” June 1950]

Excerpting, editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett

In this new age, U.S. McCarthyism “High-Tech’ed” stomps the globe. Publisher meets politician: 21st century Assange meets 20th century Chase Smith

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (December 2010)
“WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the U.S. embassy cables. Other media outlets, including The Guardian in Britain, The New York Times in the U.S., El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.

“[But Australian] Prime Minister [Julia] Gillard and U.S. Secretary of State [former U.S. Senator] Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organizations … because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large; WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.”

U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (June 1950)
“The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as … Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America .… The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.”

 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (December 2010)
“We are the underdogs [and] as the co-coordinator of … other groups, WikiLeaks has [undergone] the most vicious attacks and accusations from the U.S. government and its acolytes.

“I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a U.S., citizen
There have been dozens of serious calls in the U.S. for me to be ‘taken out’ by U.S. special forces
Sarah Palin says I should be ‘hunted down like Osama bin Laden’
A Republican bill seeking to have me declared a ‘transnational threat’ and disposed of accordingly sits before the U.S. Senate
An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister’s office, speaking on national television, has called for me to be assassinated
An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.”

U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (June 1950)
“It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here on the Senate Floor. Surely, the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal. Surely, we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we ‘dish out’ to outsiders.…”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (December 2010)
“[In WikiLeaks’ four-year publishing history] … not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the Congress of the United States that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it could not find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defense said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.

“[However] the United States, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.”

U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (June 1950)
“I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as briefly as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (December 2010)
WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption….Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that [institution]. The [estate or institution of] media helps keep government honest.”

U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (June 1950)
“… It is high time we remembered that … the Constitution [of the United States], as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.

“Whether it be a criminal prosecution in court or a character prosecution in the Senate, there is little practical distinction when the life of a person has been ruined. Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism…”

Sources and notes
“Don’t shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths” (Julian Assange writing in The Australian), December 8, 2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332

“Declaration of Conscience” — Senator Margaret Chase Smith spoke June 1 1950, in the dark days of Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism, witch hunts of the mid 20th century, archives at American Rhetoric, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/margaretchasesmithconscience.html

Assange recapped in his December article in The Australian: “The U.S. diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts:

► The U.S. asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably, Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too
► King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the U.S. to attack Iran
► Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran’s nuclear program stopped by any means available
► Britain’s Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect ‘U.S. interests’
► Sweden is a covert member of NATO and U.S. intelligence sharing is kept from parliament
► The U.S. is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbor Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.

“In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the U.S. Supreme Court said, ‘only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.’ The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.”


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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]

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When entrenched press, government fail democracies —

Insiders must whistle
Excerpting, re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

We need more whistleblowers from within.

Their truth telling

to outside authorities and audiences

is essential

— 1969 Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg —

“Secret U.S. Embassy Cables” released

“Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into U.S. Government foreign activities.

“The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year (2010), contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the U.S State Department in Washington DC. Fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty-two (15,652) of the cables are classified Secret.

“The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice. The cables show the extent of U.S. —

Spying on its allies and the UN;
Turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states";
Backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries;
Lobbying for U.S. corporations; and
Measures U.S. diplomats take to advance those who have access to them

“This document release reveals the contradictions between the United States’ public persona and what it says behind closed doors — and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.

“Every American schoolchild is taught that George Washington — the country’s first President – could not tell a lie. If the administrations of his successors lived up to the same principle, today’s document flood would be a mere embarrassment. Instead, the U.S. Government has been warning governments — even the most corrupt — around the world about the coming leaks and is bracing itself for the exposures.

“The full set consists of 251,287 documents, comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of ‘The Iraq War Logs,’ the world’s previously largest classified information release).

“The cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.

“When the Leaders Are the Problem,” Daniel Ellsberg writes  —

“Above all, we need more whistleblowers from within. Their truth telling to outside authorities and audiences is essential. And the only way to get it—since dangers to their own careers in their organizations cannot be eliminated—is to somehow encourage them to accept those risks, for the benefit of others.

“Is that asking the impossible?
 “Difficult, unusual, unlikely, yes. Yet it is humanly possible and essential.

“Humans have the capability for great concern, altruism, and even self-sacrifice in the interest of others outside their immediate families and teams, and they very often show it; only not often enough, indeed quite rarely, in their official roles within organizations.

“Unfortunately, as human beings, we also all have the capability of being selective in our concern, and of being manipulated in our selectivity of concern by our leaders and colleagues in our groups.

“A major reason for the occurrence of disasters is that, as humans, we often choose keeping our job, protecting our reputation, getting promoted, maintaining our access to inside information, getting reelected, assuring college education for our children, preserving our marriage, and holding on to our house in a nice neighborhood—all considerations that are neither trivial nor discreditable for any of us— over actions, including truth telling to the public, that would risk some of these but which could potentially save vast numbers of other people’s lives.”

“… When I released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, former senator Wayne Morse told me that if I had given him those documents at the time of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1964 (when I had many of them in my office safe in the Pentagon), “The Resolution would never have gotten out of committee. And if it had been brought to a vote, it would never have passed.” That’s a heavy burden to bear. But scores of other officials, perhaps a hundred, could have given those documents to the Senate as well as I.

“…More recently, any one of a hundred people within the government could have averted the Iraq War by telling the public—with documents—what they knew about the lies the president was feeding the public. Yet no one did.

“When confronted with potential looming catastrophes, people within large organizations often think, ‘Somebody else will take care of this. Surely, the top people know more than I do. It is their job to take care of it, and surely they will.’ The truth is, there is no likelihood at all that the leaders will take care of it.

“In the years since the Iraq War first approached (and more recently, equally disastrous prospects of attack on Iran), I have been urging patriotic and conscientious insiders, who may be in the situation I once was in — holding secret, official knowledge of lies, crimes, and dangers of impending, wrongful, catastrophic wars or escalations — to do what I wish I had done in 1964 or early 1965, years earlier than I did: ‘Go to Congress and the press and reveal the truth, with documents.’ The personal risks are real, but a war’s-worth of lives might be saved.”

“… From my own experience in government, and in my study of national security policy catastrophes in the decades since, I have come to believe that the most dangerous practices in the national security realm reflect priorities, in general, that are set by top officials: getting reelected, avoiding condemnation for past actions, or other political or bureaucratic objectives. Those priorities generally take great precedence over safety or preventing public harm.

“… The behavior of the people down below in the hierarchy is generally responsive to those priorities, because the way for them to keep their jobs and get ahead is self-evidently to conform to the priorities of their superiors, and especially the top boss. … What those superiors often want is help in avoiding or concealing documentation of warnings or recommendations that might convict them, on later examination, of self-interest or recklessness in choosing or continuing policies that failed.…

“… We need more whistleblowers from within. Their truth telling to outside authorities and audiences is essential. And the only way to get it—since dangers to their own careers in their organizations cannot be eliminated—is to somehow encourage them to accept those risks, for the benefit of others.

Sources and notes

Cable gate, http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/

“When the Leaders Are the Problem,” (Michael Ellsberg) July 14, 2009, Daniel Ellsberg’s Afterword to Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents Are Rarely Accidental (Marc Gerstein with Michael Ellsberg), http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/when-the-leaders-are-the-problem

Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg was a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation in 1959 and consultant to the U.S. Defense Department and White House specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. In 1961, he drafted the guidance from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on operational plans for general nuclear war. He was a member of two of the three working groups reporting to the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOM) during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Ellsberg joined the U.S. Defense Department in 1964 as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) John McNaughton, working on the escalation of the war in Vietnam. He transferred to the State Department in 1965 to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, evaluating pacification in the field.

Returning to RAND in 1967, Ellsberg worked on the top-secret McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68, which later came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. In 1969, he photocopied the 7,000-page study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; in 1971, he gave it to the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers.

His trial, on twelve felony counts posing a possible sentence of 115 years, was dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him, which led to the convictions of several White House aides and figured in the impeachment proceedings against 327th U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.

Daniel Ellsberg is the author of Papers on the War (1971); Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2002); and Risk, Ambiguity and Decision (2001). In December 2006, he was awarded a Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm, Sweden, the citation “… for putting peace and truth first, at considerable personal risk, and dedicating his life to inspiring others to follow his example.”

Daniel Ellsberg was born in Chicago in 1931, graduated from Harvard (1952) with a B.A. in Economics and later studied at King’s College, Cambridge University. In the years 1954 -1957, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps. http://www.ellsberg.net/bio

See also

“U.S. Facing Global Diplomatic Crisis Following Massive WikiLeaks Release of Secret Diplomatic Cables,” November 29, 2010, Guests: Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower; Carne Ross, a British diplomat for 15 years who resigned before the Iraq war, founder and head of a non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat; Greg Mitchell, writer of the Media Fix blog for The Nation, longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine, author of 10 books including The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics; As’ad Abu Khalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and visiting professor at UC, Berkeley, author of The Battle for Saudi Arabia, and writer at the Angry Arab News Service blog, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/29/us_facing_global_diplomatic_crisis_following

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]

Allies hunt Assange, ignore millions of traffickers

Re-reporting and comment by Carolyn Bennett

“The other girls and I were arrested over and over for prostitution. Never did the police or prosecutors ask us if we were trafficked. Never did they offer us help and protection.”

Journalist and anti-trafficking activist Ruchira Gupta reports, “Trafficking in people has reached devastating dimensions worldwide. In the last 10 years the nature and scale of trafficking has undergone a dramatic change.”

Though “statistics are limited and contested, existing data highlight that the numbers of trafficked individuals have gone up and the ages of people trafficked have come down.”

Children make up about 20 percent of the trafficked victims worldwide. The majority of trafficked people are women and girls.

The number of enslaved people as a result of trafficking at any given time in the world today is estimated at 12.3 million. This is more than the number of people held in slavery in the 19th century.

“Human trafficking is a global scourge that generates billions of dollars profit at the expense of millions of victims. It is the fastest growing source of profit for organized criminal enterprises worldwide.

“Human trafficking affects every country in the world — whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims.


“Trafficking involves the acquisition of people by force, fraud, deception or other coercive means with the aim of exploiting them.


“Human trafficking involves practices prohibited in every country — including slavery, debt bondage, forced labor and sexual exploitation.


“The majority of trafficked victims are women and girls.

“The International Labor Organization estimates that there are at least 12.3 million adults and children in forced labor, bonded labor, and commercial sexual servitude at any given time.


But governments have time and dollars for a whistleblower hunt —
WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange last month published a record setting 400,000 classified U.S. documents on the Iraq war and in July posted 77,000 secret U.S. files on the Afghan conflict.

The WikiLeaks founder has suggested that subsequent allegations against him could be part of a ‘smear campaign’ aimed at discrediting his website, which is locked in a row with the Pentagon over the release of the secret U.S. documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Two days before allegations against Julian Assange were made public in August, Assange had applied for a work and residency permit in Sweden, where some of WikiLeaks’ servers are located.” On October 18, his application was denied. Today a Swedish prosecutor announced a “request for the arrest of Julian Assange, to face charges of rape and sexual molestation.”


Make what you will of this but the question raised in my mind is this —


How can powerful and affluent world governments launch a global hunt (based on questionable allegations) for someone who acts in the public interest, for democracies’ right to know, properly exposing grave human rights abuses by governments; yet they cannot launch an effort and put an end to grave human rights abuses  — global trafficking in human beings, mainly women and children?

I guess law and justice, like religious righteousness, are arbitrary notions, manmade, reserved for men wielding a corrupt form of power.


Sources and notes


“We were trafficked. Hear our voices — [United Nations, New York] As the General Assembly considers international collective action to end human trafficking, four survivors explain why the voices of victims must be heard,” October 19, 2009, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=9559&LangID=E


“Who are the victims of human trafficking?” November 5, 2009, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/VictimsOfHumanTrafficking.aspx


“Sweden seeks Wikileaks boss arrest over rape claim,” November 18, 2010, (AFP – STOCKHOLM), November 18, 2010, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20101118/twl-sweden-crime-internet-wikileaks-rape-6b0205e.html




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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]

Prosecuting selective “high crimes"

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

In prosecuting Bradley Manning, “‘[U.S. President] Barack Obama has now indicted as many people for whistle blowing or leaks as all previous presidents put together,’” said Nixon-era whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg. “‘[He] has now prosecuted three people two of whom are being prosecuted for acts carried out under [President] George W. Bush and for which Bush chose not to prosecute — Thomas Drake, who is under indictment, and Shamai Leibowitz, who pleaded guilty…


“‘Obama’s position of not looking backward seems to apply only to crimes like torture or illegal warrantless surveillance: he’s given absolute amnesty to the officials of the Bush administration.

“‘In the case of Thomas Drake, who told a reporter about a billion-and-half-dollar waste at the NSA; and in the case of Shamai Leibowitz, who says he exposed acts to a blogger that he regarded as illegal, [President Obama] was willing to look backward and prosecute. With Manning, he has shown more eagerness to [prosecute].’”

Bradley Manning is (or was) a top-secret credentialed U.S. Army intelligence analyst (PFC formerly SPC) accused of leaking classified documents. The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command in May 2010 arrested and detained Manning without charge for more than a month in a military jail at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. In early July, the U. S. government brought two misconduct charges against Manning for “‘transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system’ and ‘communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source.’”

A leaked film appeared to show a U.S. Apache helicopter crew killing civilians in Baghdad. Manning is also “suspected as being the source of the 90,000 sensitive documents about the war in Afghanistan also published by WikiLeaks. Edited by Australian Julian Assange, WikiLeaks has not confirmed Manning as the source but the Swedish site is said to be prepared to defend Manning. Computer hacker Adrian Lamo is believed to have informed on Manning.

Bradley Manning was reportedly born to English parents in the United States in 1987 then moved to Wales at the age of 13 and moved back to the States halfway through his sixth form [secondary school] studies and joined the U.S. army.


Sources
“Daniel Ellsberg: Obama tougher on leaks than any other U.S. president” (by News Source on August 2, 2010, “The Economist interviewed Daniel Ellsberg who pointed out President Obama’s hypocrisy”), War in context, http://warincontext.org/2010/08/02/daniel-ellsberg-obama-tougher-on-leaks-than-any-other-us-president/
Wikipedia
“WikiLeaks soldier grew up in Wales” (Simon Gaskell), July 29, 2010, Wales online, http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/07/29/wikileaks-soldier-grew-up-in-wales-91466-26954831/]

U.S.- Afghanistan leaks

WikiLeaks’ latest ─ “What the files reveal”
Excerpting and editing by Carolyn Bennett

UPDATE By Thursday, the U.S. Defense Secretary was “[asking] the FBI to help investigate the leak of more than 90,000 classified military documents.”  In a Pentagon news conference, a seemingly angry Robert Gates threatened retribution and called the WikiLeaks’ releases “‘potentially severe and dangerous.’” “Pentagon asks FBI to probe leaks,” Al Jazeera reported their time July 30, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/2010729192033991507.html

UPDATE Friday July 30: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange responds to Gates:

“[U.S. Defense] Secretary [Robert] Gates could have used his time, as other nations have done, to announce a broad inquiry into these killings. …

He could have announced specific criminal investigations into the deaths we have exposed.
He could have announced a panel to hear the heartfelt dissent of U.S. soldiers, who know this war from the ground.
He could have apologized to the Afghani people.…

“He did none of these things. He decided to treat these issues and the countries affected by them with contempt. Instead of explaining how he would address these issues, he decided to announce how he would suppress them.

“This behavior is unacceptable. We will not be suppressed. We will continue to expose abuses by this administration and others.” [Source and link: “Julian Assange Responds to Robert Gates Remarks,” Posted by admin on Jul 30th, 2010 and filed under North & South America, Morrison World Media Morning Post, http://morrisonworldnews.com/?p=20381; Also note: Letters to Washington program on KPFA, July 30, 2010, http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/62941]


The 90,000 secret U.S. military files released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks present a powerful indictment of the Pentagon, the Obama administration and the former Bush administration for failing to tell the truth about the war on Afghanistan. These files document U.S. and NATO troops’ killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands of civilians.

The files reveal that the Pentagon set up what amounts to a “death squad,” a secret commando unit called Task Force 373, made up of Army and Navy Special Operatives who seek to assassinate individuals from a list of 2,000 targets.

The released documents show a grim and repeating film of previously unknown incidents where U.S. and NATO troops have shot and murdered unarmed drivers and motorcyclists.

The documents reveal another incident from 2008 in which French troops used machine guns to strafe a busload of children. A military patrol machine-gunned another bus and wounded or killed 15 civilian passengers. In a revenge attack for an earlier insurgent assault, Polish troops in 2007 rained mortar fire on an Afghan village, killing members of a wedding party among them pregnant women.

WikiLeaks’ release confirms an obvious pattern of intensifying retaliatory bomb attacks against U.S. and NATO forces.

The decision by the Obama administration to send 60,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009 is exposed as nothing other than a decision to send more human beings to their death in an ongoing war … avoiding political responsibility for military setback. All U.S. policymakers use the tactic: No matter what, avoid the appearance of military defeat at the hands of an armed resistance.

The web of lies spun for months by the White House and Pentagon about the Afghan war has started to come undone.

Al Jazeera reports that the leaked U.S. military documents reveal “a worrying culture of ill-discipline and incompetence within Afghan ranks.”Afghan security forces have shot civilians, launched attacks on each other, held drug fuelled parties and stolen vehicles in mass desertions. The documents contain more than 70 records of so-called ‘Green on Green’ incidents in which Afghan security forces have not fought the Taliban but each other.

Dozens of reports in the leaked documents describe incidents suggesting the challenge in preparing Afghan forces to take the lead in the country’s security is larger than previously thought. Though Afghan president Hamid Karzai “wants his forces to take responsibility for his country’s security by 2014, the documents posted by WikiLeaks on Monday reveal a worrying culture of ill-discipline and incompetence within their ranks.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange:

“What we see is that the U.S. Army is an enormous boat that is extremely hard to turn around, and the cover-up of those sorts of crimes begins at the bottom and moves its way to the top so it is quite hard to enact a new policy and have it filtered down to a change in practice. A new policy by [President Barack] Obama does not mean a change of practice by the U.S. military any more than a new policy by [former U.S. Army General Stanley] McChrystal meant a change in practice by U.S. forces.…

“It’s important to understand, this material doesn’t just reveal abuses. This material describes the past six years of war, every major attack that resulted in someone being detained or someone being killed. That tells you how the war is going, where this happened, in what different parts of Afghanistan, what sort of weapon systems were used, which particular military units.

“Is there a killer—is there a killer unit in the United States military? Because there’s been histories of that. You can find out using this data. You can create a simple computer program. We haven’t done it yet, but any one of your technical staff can create a simple computer program to add up the kills by unit and get—and find a top kill unit so that’s an example of something that can be immediately extracted from this.

“You can really see how the war in Afghanistan is going and then compare that to government statements and government policy. This is the raw material that ends up on the big boards on the war room.…

“This is the raw ingredients that lead to Pentagon statistics about civilian casualties; that lead to graphs about how many insurgents are killed.

“We only ever normally see those figures in aggregate, but now we have all the events that are used to create those figures, and we can understand whether those aggregate figures are in fact accurate or are they distortions.

“We can see in many cases where we know what’s in this database and we have press sourcing or Afghan government investigation; we can see the disparity between these two so we can see, in fact, the aggregate figures are based on faulty data.”

Source
“What the WikiLeaks files TRULY reveal,” ANSWER Coalition interview on breaking Wikileaks story, July 26, 2010, http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9719&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=ANS_
“Afghan forces’ flaws exposed” (Andrew Wander, Al Jazeera English) July 26, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/201072613456286509.html

Today July 27, 2010 on Democracy Now highlights from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s Monday press conference in London at the Frontline Club.
“WikiLeaks Founder Says ‘Evidence of War Crimes’ in Afghan War Logs, White House Downplays Leak, Claiming ‘No Broad New Revelations,’” http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/27/wikileaks_founder_says_afghan_war_logs

Hard to forget

U.S. entrenched Near East regional wars, malfeasance
Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Casualties
April 18, 2010 (accurate totals unknown, usual reporting not updated)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003: Since January 20, 2009 inauguration: 163 dead; 31,775-100,000 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 95,888 – 104,595, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,391 U.S, 4,709 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,044 U.S., 1,731 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/

April 16, 2010
Afghanistan (Kandahar)
Three foreigners and three Afghan soldiers died and nine people suffered injuries Thursday in Kandahar after a suicide car bomb exploded. The bomb reportedly blew out windows of several buildings including in the home of President Hamid Karzai’s brother. Leading into a scheduled U.S. and NATO major offensive, this “was the second attack of the day in Kandahar, where numerous strikes have occurred in recent weeks.” An earlier explosion in the city’s center destroyed vehicles and shops and injured six people.

April 18, 2010
Afghanistan
Afghan authorities have released three Italian aid workers accused of plotting to kill the governor of an Afghan province. An investigation by Afghanistan’s intelligence agency found that the three men, who had been working as physicians, had no part in a Taliban plot to assassinate Helmand governor Gulab Mangal. Five of the Italian’s six Afghan colleagues who had been implicated in the incident also were released on Sunday.

April 19, 2010, Monday update
Afghanistan [children bombed]
Three children ages 11 to 15 died Monday in the Afghan city of Kandahar. Explosives planted in a donkey cart had been detonated. Police officers and other civilians were counted among the injured. “Children killed in Afghan blast,” April 19, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/2010419141252419585.html

[Another Earthquake destroys]
At least seven people have died and more than 34 suffered injuries when a 5.3 earthquake occurred today in Afghanistan’s highly mountainous Samangan province, northwest of the capital, Kabul. Reports said 40 houses collapsed and more than 300 homes were damaged. Neighboring Uzbekistan and Tajikstan also felt the impact. Casualties are expected to rise. “Deadly earthquake hits Afghanistan,” April 19, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/201041991224700369.html

April 18, 2010
Iran
“The region has no need for alien troops and they should return home and let the regional states take care of their own affairs.” Speaking at Iran’s annual Army Day assembly, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the United States “to withdraw its troops from the Gulf region and Afghanistan.” These comments followed the president’s earlier statements at the two-day summit on civilian nuclear energy in Tehran in which he urged formation of a new international body to oversee nuclear disarmament.

The Tehran summit continuing through Sunday “is seen as a counterpoint” to last week’s Washington conference, which excluded Iran. Iran has criticized the 47-nation nuclear security summit based on U.S. domination in nuclear weaponry. The U.S. allegedly “fears Iran’s nuclear program could be a cover for the production of atomic weapons.” Iran’s leaders counter that their country “is entitled to continue [working] on its uranium enrichment” program, the country is not “seeking nuclear weapons,” and its atomic program is “for meeting civilian energy needs”

April 18, 2010
Iraq
Remembering unforgettable malfeasance
On July 12, 2007, the U.S. military responded to reports of small arms fire in a Baghdad suburb. The military stated they were unable to positively identify gunmen and responded by dispatching Apache helicopters to the area. By mid morning that day, a dozen Iraqis had died, among them two Reuters News Agency staffers. The U.S. Apache helicopter had killed all of these people.

The official military inquiry that year cleared all U.S. military personnel involved of wrongdoing but Wikileaks shows a different light. The Sweden-based organization that publishes anonymous submissions and [whistleblower] leaks of sensitive documents from governments and other organizations, posted a video online, now widely in the public arena, that captures the moments leading up to the shootings, the aerial attacks and the audio of the pilots and ground forces communicating. Al Jazeera considers the question of “Collateral Murder” Thursday-Sunday, April 15-18, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2010/04/20104159123873370.html

April 17-18, 2010
Pakistan and India
Seven people died and 21 suffered wounds today when a suicide car bomb exploded in the northwestern Pakistani city of Kohat. Police sources said the attack targeted a police station in response to military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas.… The attack follows yesterday’s suicide bombings in a nearby camp. This explosion struck a crowd of internally displaced people ─ mostly, according to Al Jazeera reporters, from the Orakzai agency where the military has launched a new offensive ─ collecting aid. Forty-one people died and more than 60 suffered injuries.… This month’s UN reports has found a deteriorating security situation in Orakzai and neighboring Kurram district since last November causing 200,000 civilians to leave their homes.

April 17, 2010 (India)
Ten people suffered injuries and fears rose that the country’s most prestigious cricket league, the Indian Premier League, was the target of two bombs set off at a crowded stadium in southern India …The Saturday incident was the second bombing in India since the 2008 three-day assault in Mumbai where 166 people died. The explosion in February hit a restaurant in the western city of Pune. Seventeen people died.

April 19, 2010, Monday update
Pakistan [protesters bombed]
An estimated 25 people died, 30 suffered injuries when a bomb exploded during a protest in old city Peshawar known as Storytellers’ Bazaar. This attack in Pakistan came hours after an eight-year-old boy died and at least 10 people suffered wounds when another bomb exploded outside a high school in Peshawar. Students were ending their school day. Peshawar is close to the border with Afghanistan where hundreds of people have died over the past year. “Bomb blast hits Pakistan protests,” April 19, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/201041914959513554.html


Sources
“Many dead in Afghan blasts,” April 16, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/201041518611497590.html
“Afghans free Italian aid workers,” April 18, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/2010418154831591773.html
“Iran demands U.S. troop withdrawal,” April 18, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/201041854124873989.html
“Collateral Murder?” Thursday-Sunday, April 15-18, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2010/04/20104159123873370.html
“Deaths in Pakistan suicide attacks,” April 18, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/201041844327780903.html
“Bombs hit India cricket match,” April 17, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/201041714273045362.html

Washington at war heads into Nuclear Summit sans Israel

Re-reported, compiled, edited with comment by Carolyn Bennett
A nuclear-powered state imposing overwhelming intimidation, taking liberty to proliferate, bomb and slaughter at will, has the brazen audacity to summon other states to Washington for its own photo-op on nuclear nonproliferation.

April 9, 2010
Palestine
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled plans to attend this week’s Washington conference on nuclear security.

It is “an open secret that Israel has nuclear weapons” though the country refuses to talk about its nuclear capabilities, said Dr Rebecca Johnson, director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, speaking with Radio Netherlands. “For a long time,” she said, Israelis have been “free riders on the nuclear Non-Proliferation regime,” benefiting from the fact that all their Arab neighbor states and Iran joined the NPT and pledged not to acquire nuclear weapons. “But now the fact that they’re refusing to engage on this nuclear security summit that India and Pakistan are both engaging in demonstrates that Israel is not prepared to take even the first step. I think that’s going to leave them much more politically vulnerable than they’re calculating.” The Nuclear Security Summit opens on Monday in Washington D.C.

NUCLEAR-POWERED LEADS INTO WASHINGTON SUMMIT sans Israel

The five nuclear weapon States ─ thus defined under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since they all conducted nuclear tests before 1968 ─ are China, France, the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Beyond the five Nuclear Weapon States as defined by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there are three or four others: India (first tested in 1974); Pakistan (first tested in 1998), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (announced it had conducted a nuclear test in 2006); and Israel. Though Israel fails to report nuclear testing, it is assumed a nuclear-armed state as reported by research institutions such as the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

The United States was the first country to start testing in 1945. The second was the former Soviet Union in 1949; the third the United Kingdom in 1952; the fourth France in 1960; the fifth China in 1964.

The only time nuclear bombs have been used was when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan during World War II: one on August 6, 1945, on the city of Hiroshima and one on August 9, 1945, on the city of Nagasaki. These bombs killed an estimated 220,000 people in Japan by the end of 1945, roughly half that number on the days of the bombings themselves.

Of the five nuclear weapon States, all but two have ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. France and the United Kingdom both ratified the CTBT on April 6, 1998. The Russian Federation ratified it on June 30, 2000. Both China and the United States signed the CTBT on September 24, 1996, but neither has ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Nuclear weapons in arsenals of nuclear states as of 2007 reached an estimated 10,000 nuclear warheads held by the United States; 15,000 held by Russia; 350 by France; 200 by China; and fewer than 200 by the United Kingdom [figures by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)]. In estimated arsenals of other nuclear-armed states not parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty were India (50-60 nuclear warheads), Israel (100-200), and Pakistan (60). Total nuclear weapons arsenals amounted to more than 26,000 nuclear warheads for the five “nuclear weapon States” and the “other” nuclear-armed states.

April 5, 2010
Afghanistan
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan has admitted the killing five Afghan civilians among the dead three women. The killing occurred during a February 12 botched night raid on a home in the Gardez district of Paktia province.…

Two newspaper reports, the Times in Britain and the New York Times in the U.S., said the foreign troops involved in the shooting were members of U.S. special forces; and there had been signs of evidence tempering “including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women had died.” Moreover, “victims’ wounds had been washed with alcohol after the bullets were removed, presumably to erase forensic evidence.”

April 9, 2010
Afghanistan
Three U.S. soldiers and one civilian employee died Thursday when a U.S. helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan… The crash raises this year’s total of foreign troop deaths during the war in Afghanistan to 151. Also among last week’s reported dead in Afghanistan were three Taliban fighters; two were injured in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz. In the neighboring province of Takhar, two more fighters died and three Afghan police officers suffered injuries.

April 11, 2010
Afghanistan
Nine people, including three Italian medical workers, have been arrested in Afghanistan for allegedly plotting to kill a provincial official.… Suicide bomb vests, hand grenades, pistols and explosives were found in a hospital storeroom run by the Italian charity Emergency where the three worked. The head of Emergency, Cecilia Strada, speaking from Milan told Al Jazeera that the claim that medical workers had plotted to kill a Helmand official was “completely groundless.”

April 12, 2010 [update]
Afghanistan (Kandahar)
Four civilians (estimated) died and 18 suffered wounds before dawn today when NATO forces opened fire on a bus in the Zhari district of Kandahar province. Though NATO authorities failed to identify the attacking forces by nationality, several Afghans said the attackers were American. Angry anti-American protests ensued on the streets of Kandahar city. Afghans blocked the main highway out of the city with burning tires. They called for the downfall of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. They chanted ‘Death to America.’

Also from Afghanistan, the Taliban have renewed threats to kill two French journalist kidnapped at the end of last year near Kabul unless a prisoner exchange is organized.… The Taliban are calling on France to arrange an exchange of the journalists for prisoners held by U.S. and Afghan authorities.

April 7, 2010
Iraq
Twelve people died. Among them were two employees of the Reuters news agency. A whistleblower website publishing anonymously sourced documents has released a video showing the U.S. military firing at a group of civilians in Baghdad three years ago and families of Iraqi civilians seen being shot and killed by U.S. forces in the leaked video are seeking justice for the deaths. The website WikiLeaks said it obtained the video from a number of ‘military whistleblowers.’ International law expert, director at the FAFO Institute for International Studies (Norway) Mark Taylor tells Al Jazeera the evidence so far ‘indicates that there’s a case to be made that a war crime may have been committed.…

‘There are precedents of U.S. soldiers being prosecuted for crimes in Iraq, for crimes of murder, rape and manslaughter so it’s not unprecedented that this could go forward both in military courts as well as in civilian criminal courts in the U.S. The case also raises larger questions about the laws of war. …’

April 11, 2010
Pakistan
An estimated 100 people died Saturday when the Pakistani military conducted air raids in the country’s northwest tribal areas. The Orazkai and Khyber regions sit close to the border with Afghanistan… The security situation in Orakzai and Kurram, deteriorationg since November of last year, according to Friday reports from the United Nations, has forced the displacement of 200,000 civilians.

Casualty sites reporting
April 11, 2010 (accurate totals unknown, usual reporting not updated)
• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 162] Wounded 31,762-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day [April 10 update], http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures documented civilian deaths from violence: 95,822 – 104,529, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,390 U.S, 4,708 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,041 U.S., 1,721 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/

People and nations will not forever follow leaders who point where they themselves will not go nor will people in their hearts believe slick words of leaders whose brute force pounds them into the ground.

 Sources and notes
“Israel turns its back on nuclear talks,” April 9, 2010, Radio Netherlands-Worldwide, http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/israel-turns-its-back-nuclear-talks
http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/CTBT.shtml
http://www.ctbto.org/
http://www.ctbto.org/faqs/
“Italians arrested over Afghan plot,” April 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/201041171211170120.html
“U.S. troops killed in Afghan crash,” April 9, 2010 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/2010497356793401.html
“NATO admits Afghan civilian deaths,” April 5, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/2010453435608194.html
“Iraqi outrage over U.S. killing video,” April 7, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/20104782857326667.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/20104520036138869.html
“‘Scores dead’ in Pakistan air raid,” April 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/201041014445747250.html

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Status: countries that have signed, countries signed but not ratified
Total States 195
Total signed 182
Latest signatory: Trinidad & Tobago October 8, 2009
Total ratified 151
Not signed: 13
Latest ratified: Marshall Islands October 28, 2009
Not ratified 44
http://www.ctbto.org/the-treaty/status-of-signature-and-ratification/


State Party – Signed - Ratified
Afghanistan 24-SEP-2003 24-SEP-2003
Albania 27-SEP-1996 23-APR-2003
Algeria* 15-OCT-1996 11-JUL-2003
Andorra 24-SEP-1996 12-JUL-2006
Angola 27-SEP-1996
Antigua and Barbuda 16-APR-1997 11-JAN-2006
Argentina* 24-SEP-1996 04-DEC-1998
Armenia 01-OCT-1996 12-JUL-2006
Australia* 24-SEP-1996 09-JUL-1998
Austria* 24-SEP-1996 13-MAR-1998
Azerbaijan 28-JUL-1997 02-FEB-1999
Bahamas 04-FEB-2005 30-NOV-2007
Bahrain 24-SEP-1996 12-APR-2004
Bangladesh* 24-OCT-1996 08-MAR-2000
Barbados 14-JAN-2008 14-JAN-2008
Belarus 24-SEP-1996 13-SEP-2000
Belgium* 24-SEP-1996 29-JUN-1999
Belize 14-NOV-2001 26-MAR-2004
Benin 27-SEP-1996 06-MAR-2001
Bhutan
Bolivia 24-SEP-1996 04-OCT-1999
Bosnia and Herzegovina 24-SEP-1996 26-OCT-2006
Botswana 16-SEP-2002 28-OCT-2002
Brazil* 24-SEP-1996 24-JUL-1998
Brunei Darussalam 22-JAN-1997
Bulgaria* 24-SEP-1996 29-SEP-1999
Burkina Faso 27-SEP-1996 17-APR-2002
Burundi 24-SEP-1996 24-SEP-2008
Cambodia 26-SEP-1996 10-NOV-2000
Cameroon 16-NOV-2001 06-FEB-2006
Canada* 24-SEP-1996 18-DEC-1998
Cape Verde 01-OCT-1996 01-MAR-2006
Côte d'Ivoire 25-SEP-1996 11-MAR-2003
Central African Republic 19-DEC-2001
Chad 08-OCT-1996
Chile* 24-SEP-1996 12-JUL-2000
China* 24-SEP-1996
Colombia* 24-SEP-1996 29-JAN-2008
Comoros 12-DEC-1996
Congo 11-FEB-1997
Cook Islands 05-DEC-1997 06-SEP-2005
Costa Rica 24-SEP-1996 25-SEP-2001
Croatia 24-SEP-1996 02-MAR-2001
Cuba
Cyprus 24-SEP-1996 18-JUL-2003
Czech Republic 12-NOV-1996 11-SEP-1997
Democratic People`s Republic
of Korea*
Democratic Republic
of the Congo* 04-OCT-1996 28-SEP-2004
Denmark 24-SEP-1996 21-DEC-1998
Djibouti 21-OCT-1996 15-JUL-2005
Dominica
Dominican Republic 03-OCT-1996 04-SEP-2007
Ecuador 24-SEP-1996 12-NOV-2001
Egypt* 14-OCT-1996
El Salvador 24-SEP-1996 11-SEP-1998
Equatorial Guinea 09-OCT-1996
Eritrea 11-NOV-2003 11-NOV-2003
Estonia 20-NOV-1996 13-AUG-1999
Ethiopia 25-SEP-1996 08-AUG-2006
Fiji 24-SEP-1996 10-OCT-1996
Finland* 24-SEP-1996 15-JAN-1999
France* 24-SEP-1996 06-APR-1998
Gabon 07-OCT-1996 20-SEP-2000
Gambia 09-APR-2003
Georgia 24-SEP-1996 27-SEP-2002
Germany* 24-SEP-1996 20-AUG-1998
Ghana 03-OCT-1996
Greece 24-SEP-1996 21-APR-1999
Grenada 10-OCT-1996 19-AUG-1998
Guatemala 20-SEP-1999
Guinea 03-OCT-1996
Guinea-Bissau 11-APR-1997
Guyana 07-SEP-2000 07-MAR-2001
Haiti 24-SEP-1996 01-DEC-2005
Holy See 24-SEP-1996 18-JUL-2001
Honduras 25-SEP-1996 30-OCT-2003
Hungary* 25-SEP-1996 13-JUL-1999
Iceland 24-SEP-1996 26-JUN-2000
India*
Indonesia* 24-SEP-1996
Iran (Islamic Republic of)* 24-SEP-1996
Iraq 19-AUG-2008
Ireland 24-SEP-1996 15-JUL-1999
Israel* 25-SEP-1996
Italy* 24-SEP-1996 01-FEB-1999
Jamaica 11-NOV-1996 13-NOV-2001
Japan* 24-SEP-1996 08-JUL-1997
Jordan 26-SEP-1996 25-AUG-1998
Kazakhstan 30-SEP-1996 14-MAY-2002
Kenya 14-NOV-1996 30-NOV-2000
Kiribati 07-SEP-2000 07-SEP-2000
Kuwait 24-SEP-1996 06-MAY-2003
Kyrgyzstan 08-OCT-1996 02-OCT-2003
Lao People's
Democratic Republic 30-JUL-1997 05-OCT-2000
Latvia 24-SEP-1996 20-NOV-2001
Lebanon 16-SEP-2005 21-NOV-2008
Lesotho 30-SEP-1996 14-SEP-1999
Liberia 01-OCT-1996 17-AUG-2009
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 13-NOV-2001 06-JAN-2004
Liechtenstein 27-SEP-1996 21-SEP-2004
Lithuania 07-OCT-1996 07-FEB-2000
Luxembourg 24-SEP-1996 26-MAY-1999
Madagascar 09-OCT-1996 15-SEP-2005
Malawi 09-OCT-1996 21-NOV-2008
Malaysia 23-JUL-1998 17-JAN-2008
Maldives 01-OCT-1997 07-SEP-2000
Mali 18-FEB-1997 04-AUG-1999
Malta 24-SEP-1996 23-JUL-2001
Marshall Islands 24-SEP-1996 28-OCT-2009
Mauritania 24-SEP-1996 30-APR-2003
Mauritius
Mexico* 24-SEP-1996 05-OCT-1999
Micronesia,
Federated States of 24-SEP-1996 25-JUL-1997
Monaco 01-OCT-1996 18-DEC-1998
Mongolia 01-OCT-1996 08-AUG-1997
Montenegro 23-OCT-2006 23-OCT-2006
Morocco 24-SEP-1996 17-APR-2000
Mozambique 26-SEP-1996 04-NOV-2008
Myanmar 25-NOV-1996
Namibia 24-SEP-1996 29-JUN-2001
Nauru 08-SEP-2000 12-NOV-2001
Nepal 08-OCT-1996
Netherlands* 24-SEP-1996 23-MAR-1999
New Zealand 27-SEP-1996 19-MAR-1999
Nicaragua 24-SEP-1996 05-DEC-2000
Niger 03-OCT-1996 09-SEP-2002
Nigeria 08-SEP-2000 27-SEP-2001
Niue
Norway* 24-SEP-1996 15-JUL-1999
Oman 23-SEP-1999 13-JUN-2003
Pakistan*
Palau 12-AUG-2003 01-AUG-2007
Panama 24-SEP-1996 23-MAR-1999
Papua New Guinea 25-SEP-1996
Paraguay 25-SEP-1996 04-OCT-2001
Peru* 25-SEP-1996 12-NOV-1997
Philippines 24-SEP-1996 23-FEB-2001
Poland* 24-SEP-1996 25-MAY-1999
Portugal 24-SEP-1996 26-JUN-2000
Qatar 24-SEP-1996 03-MAR-1997
Republic of Korea* 24-SEP-1996 24-SEP-1999
Republic of Moldova 24-SEP-1997 16-JAN-2007
Romania* 24-SEP-1996 05-OCT-1999
Russian Federation* 24-SEP-1996 30-JUN-2000
Rwanda 30-NOV-2004 30-NOV-2004
Saint Kitts and Nevis 23-MAR-2004 27-APR-2005
Saint Lucia 04-OCT-1996 05-APR-2001
Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines 02-JUL-2009 23-SEP-2009
Samoa 09-OCT-1996 27-SEP-2002
San Marino 07-OCT-1996 12-MAR-2002
Sao Tome and Principe 26-SEP-1996
Saudi Arabia
Senegal 26-SEP-1996 09-JUN-1999
Serbia 08-JUN-2001 19-MAY-2004
Seychelles 24-SEP-1996 13-APR-2004
Sierra Leone 08-SEP-2000 17-SEP-2001
Singapore 14-JAN-1999 10-NOV-2001
Slovakia* 30-SEP-1996 03-MAR-1998
Slovenia 24-SEP-1996 31-AUG-1999
Solomon Islands 03-OCT-1996
Somalia
South Africa* 24-SEP-1996 30-MAR-1999
Spain* 24-SEP-1996 31-JUL-1998
Sri Lanka 24-OCT-1996
Sudan 10-JUN-2004 10-JUN-2004
Suriname 14-JAN-1997 07-FEB-2006
Swaziland 24-SEP-1996
Sweden* 24-SEP-1996 02-DEC-1998
Switzerland* 24-SEP-1996 01-OCT-1999
Syrian Arab Republic
Tajikistan 07-OCT-1996 10-JUN-1998
Thailand 12-NOV-1996
The former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia 29-OCT-1998 14-MAR-2000
Timor-Leste 26-SEP-2008
Togo 02-OCT-1996 02-JUL-2004
Tonga
Trinidad & Tobago 08-OCT-2009
Tunisia 16-OCT-1996 23-SEP-2004
Turkey* 24-SEP-1996 16-FEB-2000
Turkmenistan 24-SEP-1996 20-FEB-1998
Tuvalu
Uganda 07-NOV-1996 14-MAR-2001
Ukraine* 27-SEP-1996 23-FEB-2001
United Arab Emirates 25-SEP-1996 18-SEP-2000
United Kingdom of
Great Britain and
Northern Ireland* 24-SEP-1996 06-APR-1998
United Republic of Tanzania 30-SEP-2004 30-SEP-2004
United States of America* 24-SEP-1996
Uruguay 24-SEP-1996 21-SEP-2001
Uzbekistan 03-OCT-1996 29-MAY-1997
Vanuatu 24-SEP-1996 16-SEP-2005
Venezuela (Bolivarian
Republic of) 03-OCT-1996 13-MAY-2002
Viet Nam* 24-SEP-1996 10-MAR-2006
Yemen 30-SEP-1996
Zambia 03-DEC-1996 23-FEB-2006
Zimbabwe 13-OCT-1999
http://www.ctbto.org/the-treaty/status-of-signature-and-ratification/
“NATO killings spark Afghan protests,” April 12, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/20104121321185774.html