Pakistan

By John Grant

The battle over the meaning of a traumatic experience is fought in the arena of political discourse, popular culture and scholarly debate. The outcome of this battle shapes the rhetoric of the dominant culture and influences future political action.

--Kali Tal, Worlds Of Hurt: Reading the Literature of Trauma

There’s a major struggle for meaning going on in America now that centers on war trauma among returning soldiers and veterans of our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and, now, Libya.

By Gareth Porter, IPS

WASHINGTON, Apr 13, 2011 (IPS) - The Pakistani military's recent demands on the United States to curb drone strikes and reduce the number of U.S. spies operating in Pakistan, which have raised tensions between the two countries to a new high, were a response to U.S. military and intelligence programmes that had gone well beyond what the Pakistanis had agreed to in past years.

The military leadership had reached private agreements in the past on both the drone strikes and on U.S. intelligence activities in Pakistan, but both had changed dramatically in ways that threatened the interests of Pakistan.

The Pakistani military, which holds real power over matters of national security in Pakistan, is now insisting for the first time that Washington must observe strict limits on both the use of drone strikes and on the number of U.S. military and intelligence personnel and contractors in the country.

By Dave Lindorff

There was a truly bizarre and telling paragraph at the end of a Wall Street Journal news report today on Pakistan’s demand that the US bring home hundreds of CIA and Special Forces personnel operating undercover in that country, and that it halt the drone strikes in the border regions abutting Afghanistan, which have been killing countless civilian men, women and children.

Reporters Adam Entous and Matthew Rosenberg, with no sense of irony, wrote:

The US hasn’t committed to adjusting the drone program in response to Pakistan’s request. The CIA operates covertly, meaning the program doesn’t require Islamabad’s support, under US law. Some officials say the CIA operates with relative autonomy in the tribal areas. They played down the level of support they now receive from Pakistan.

Omar Khadr's Canadian Lawyer Speaks at U of O

April 1, 2011 - Dennis Edney, the Canadian lawyer for Omar Khadr, gave a powerful talk on Mar. 21 at the University of Ottawa, where he presented the case that Khadr has been pushed through a sham legal system devoid of any real justice.

The event was sponsored by Amnesty International UO and a number of other campus groups, including the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa.

Adrian Hamilton: Don't let Libya distract us from what {bush} Blair did

2 April 2011 - A terrible thought has struck me. Could the excitement over the war in Libya serve to make Tony Blair look less awful and deprive the Chilcot inquiry of what little sting it may have when it finally publishes later this year?

Of course the Government, and the many MPs who supported military intervention, argue that this time is different, that they have learnt the lessons of Iraq, sought proper UN sanction and eschewed action on the ground.

April 1st, 2011 - This week on War News Radio, Foreign Affairs, we learn about the role of Chinese investment in Afghanistan. Then, we hear from a freelance journalist about his time in the Middle East. Finally, we look at the changing status of foreign correspondants. Our program begins with a round up of this week's news.

 

War's a farce in Afghan truce village

KAPISA PROVINCE - Mar 31, 2011 - Alasay district in this province northeast of the Afghan capital Kabul, is the scene of an unusual arrangement where local government officials and the Taliban turn a blind eye to one another.

Recognizing that neither side can defeat the other, the two have effectively decided to coexist as peaceably as conditions will allow.

Taliban guerrillas and government policemen, both armed, wander around the open-air market in the district center without bothering one another. They have even been known to attend each other's weddings and funerals.

To ease relations further and remove any embarrassment, a decision was taken recently to have the insurgents do their shopping in the morning and the security forces theirs in the afternoon.

And people talk about the Taliban or al Qaeda video's while condemning them and any who are of the religious ideology they profess to be while the supporters of these wars call us a christian Nation as we say "God Bless America"!

This Rolling Stone updated report has more of the very graphic photo's then Der Spiegal first posted along with two Very Graphic Video's you may or may not want to view!

How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them

March 27, 2011 - Early last year, after six hard months soldiering in Afghanistan, a group of American infantrymen reached a momentous decision: It was finally time to kill a haji.

March 23, 2011 - The number of people around the world uprooted by conflict or violence and displaced within their country has increased to 27.5 million, the highest figure in the last decade, according to a new report released Wednesday.

The report by the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, established by the Norwegian Refugee Council in 1998 at the U.N.'s request, said close to three million people in 20 countries were newly displaced by conflict or violence in 2010 including 1.2 million in Africa.

 

March 25th, 2011 - This week on War News Radio, "Phoning Home." In an exclusive two-part interview, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter David Rohde and his wife Kristin Mulvihill came to War News Radio to tell the story of his 2008 kidnapping at the hands of the Taliban, and to talk about the new book they wrote together: "A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides." WNR's Elliana Bisgarrd-Church reports. Our program begins with this week's headline.

 

"lived in fear of being killed by them every day."

By their actions, not only in killing civilians but the mistreatment of the bodies of those killed, they raised the bar of more retaliation and blowback, you can't hide atrocities and war crimes in a conflict theater, not only towards them but all the soldiers serving in the occupation as well as a rise in international criminal terrorism, it only takes a few!

JBLM Soldier Morlock Sentenced To 24 Years For Killing Afghan Civilians

March 23, 2011 - Spc. Jeremy Morlock, one of five 5th Stryker Brigade soldiers out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord facing military charges of premeditated murder while deployed in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty in a general court-martial Wednesday and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

The experts{?} may eventually find a way to negotiate the foreign occupations way out of Afghanistan but they certainly won't be able to negotiate away the extreme rise in the hatreds created by the decade plus long quagmire of that country, especially those by the children who survived and grew up in the carnage of or in Iraq and the rest of that region, leaving it to become that quagmire of insurgent warfare by leaving to invade, destroy and occupy Iraq. Iraq itself is still ongoing after eight years, as the invaders and occupiers, in Afghanistan, didn't fulfill the initial so called goals related to 9/11 attach on the U.S., rid the country of the Taliban, capture bin Laden and others and minimize or destroy the so called al Qaeda and help the Afghans rebuild after decades of War, destruction and Occupation. Afghanistan stopped being about anything related to 9/11 as the first drumbeat of War was pointed at Iraq.

And I'm goin to hazard a guess probably not the only one. Who in the hell does the screening for these so called 'private contractors' that are then sent into these occupation theaters?

I just caught this, and an update to the 'kill team' of U.S. soldiers.

This goes Way Beyond Disgusting!!

Especially what's written about this, and people wonder why the world is turning it's collective backs on us!!

This a**wipe can and should ask himself how many soldiers his actions have gotten killed while he parades around thinking he's superior, scumbag!!

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, nothing like winning hearts and minds of the occupied while on ours or their dime!!

Victorian neo-Nazi used as medic in Afghanistan

By John Grant

A contingent of 20 right-wing veterans with flags and signs declaring their devotion to “our troops,” marched up to the blocked-off Pennsylvania Avenue area in front of the White House. One of the men wore a blue shirt with Army Security Agency printed on it.

“I was in the ASA,” I said to the man, attempting some kind of cordial dialogue. At nineteen, I had been an Army Security Agency radio direction finder in the mountains west of Pleiku.

The heavy-set man glowered at me and said: “I’m sorry to hear that.” It was as if he were somehow the arbiter of who was, and who wasn’t, a good American, as if he alone gave a damn about "our troops."
I shot back at him: “So, what the hell does that mean?” He turned away, and I moved on. So much for dialogue.

If the past decade plus didn't answer that question, after 9/11, as well as the one about our 'freedoms', because you didn't pay attention to what's done in your names over the decades, maybe these very recent news reports will jog that overwhelming arrogance and total apathy embedded in the minds of this country.

A friend of american christianity is back in the news.

Adding to the recruitment by more then just the actions within the occupations and wars of choice, the ongoing hateful actions and rhetoric. The fear from within under the guise of 'religious?' ideology followed by the hateful and intolerant. But this 'preacher?', and those like him, the rehadists (R), aren't 'fighting them over there' nor anywhere, those we send over and over are!!

U.S. and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq including a “decapitation attack” aimed at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of the country’s leadership.

There were nearly 300,000 American, British and other troops at the border.
President George W. Bush warned Americans that the conflict "could be longer and more difficult than some predict." He assured the nation that “this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory.”

Read about the cost of this war

Timeline

This Week in Peace History

March 18th, 2011 - This week on War News Radio, we hear about a new documentary, "Shepards of Helmand." Then, we talk to veterans coping with traumatic brain injury. This, and the week's news

 

By Dave Lindorff

Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor indicted for the murder of two young Pakistani motorcyclists, whom he gunned down in the back in broad daylight through his car windshield in a busy section of Lahore, Pakistan, has been freed, after the payment of $2.34 million in “blood money,” called diyya, to relatives of the two slain men.

The surprise “deal,” which Pakistani news reports are saying appears to have been forced on the relatives of the two men, who up to March 15 had insisted they wanted no blood money, but only justice, was announced in a court session March 16 in Lahore, at which the prosecution’s case of murder was to have been presented.

eighth anniversary of America's invasion of Iraq.

Yep, and it seems now that the U.S. media is trying to spin their own rovian revisionist history as to why they didn't do their jobs, eight years later!

And after all this time, questions still remain as to why the United States launched the war in the first place.

Really Simon, questions? Seems hundreds of thousands here with added millions, us 'focus groups', around this planet were questioning before, on the day the invasion started and all these years later, as well as paying attention to the better late then never Inquiries held as well as all the proof then and through these eight years. Where have all of you been?

March 11th, 2011 - This week on War News Radio: Best of Spring 2011. We will hear about the Basetrack program and the controversy surrounding its sudden closure. Then, we will learn about training the Afghan National Army. Finally, we talk to a Swarthmore alumnus who returned home to Afghanistan following graduation.

 

March 10th, 2011 - It started with a Facebook status update. Upset at the media's coverage of Charlie Sheen, someone took up for American soldiers dying in Afghanistan.

"Charlie Sheen is all over the news because he's a celebrity drug addict," it said, "while Andrew Wilfahrt 31, Brian Tabada 21, Rudolph Hizon 22, Chauncy Mays 25, are soldiers who gave their lives this week with no media mention. Please honor them by posting this as your status for a little while."

The status update has since gone viral, shared by tens of thousands on Facebook. An abbreviated version is on Twitter.

This is how we treat a lower rank soldier suspect, as the leaders walk free with no worries, apparently, as to accountability of what they did In Our Names!!

Statement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Resumption of Military Commission Charges

We will never have any type of full accountability of the deaths of the civilians in Iraq as to the invasion and long occupation, still ongoing, what we do know is the possibility of tens of thousands killed, tens of thousands maimed, unknown numbers of physiological damaged Iraqi's living in the death and destruction of almost daily 9/11's especially in the cities destroyed, millions made into refugee's both inside the country and to neighboring countries and beyond, a country totally destroyed and changed forever! Done In Our Names!

This week on War News Radio, "Under Pressure." We speak with a blogger and a filmmaker about recent protests in the Iraqi province of Sulaimaniyah. Then, we hear about the February 25th "Day of Rage" in Iraq. Finally, we explore media coverage of the controversy surrounding the arrest of a CIA contractor in Pakistan. But first, a round up of this week's news.

 

This photo of inmates from the Communications Management Unit in Terre Haute was taken in 2007. Among those pictured are (left to right, bottom row) Ibrahim al-Hamdi, Avon Twitty, Enaam Arnaout.

March 3, 2011 - Part 1 of a two-part series

Reports about what life is like inside the military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay are not uncommon. But very little is reported about two secretive units for convicted terrorists and other inmates who get 24-hour surveillance, right here in the U.S.