The US and dirty wars

They say if you put a frog in water and slowly warm up the pot, the frog will not notice the increasing temperature and boil to death. A metaphor showing how often we get used to situations, as they gradually get worse and run out of control...

I watched the documentary movie "Dirty Wars" by Jeremy Scahill, an American investigative journalist who also exposed the "frog in boiling water" role of Blackwater in US wars and homeland security.

"Dirty Wars" exposes the increasing role of US covert operations to capture or (mostly) kill anyone, anywhere, without any due juridicial process or proper public oversight. "Dirty wars" takes the specific examples of the killing of civilians in Gardez (Afghanistan), women and children in Al Ma'jalah (Yemen) and of two US civilians in Yemen (cleric Anwar Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki). It focuses on the role of JSOC, the notorious US para-military branch which reports directly to the US President, bypassing the "normal" military chain of command.

I think this is a typical example of "a frog in boiling water"... We all sympathized with the US, and the victims of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. There was a significant global consent of the US invasion of Afghanistan to eradicate the Taliban and kill Bin Laden. But as of then things have just turned for the worse and the US took the global sympathy of 9/11 to move on to abolish proper human rights, juridicial process, international law and public oversight. Be it the invasion of Iraq -now internationally recognized as based on fake evidence and subversive economic motives-, the capture and detention of civilians -Guantanamo-, to random drone attacks on the soil of sovereign countries -just about anywhere in the world-, to the use of private militia and obscure security firms to execute its own "private" wars, and intrusion of the privacy of citizens -the revelations of Edward Snowden on NSA practices-,....

As time went by, from 9/11 to now, I think it is time to jump out of the boiling water, and question the foreign politics of the US, with all of its related issues. How is it that a single country, which prouds itself to stand up for worldwide democracy, can get away with worldwide unilateral military action without being questioned?

The issue is not just the accountability, oversight, human rights, states' sovereignty, etc.. But the issue is also that it is getting worse. "Dirty wars" claims that the unilateral covert operations increased over time -more now under Obama than under Bush JR, for God's sake-. It gradually shaped the world's perception of the US, and how it turns the world more polarized "extremist" action against the US and its foreign policy. The issue is not just the foreign policy actions themselves, but how they clearly don't work. Proof in case is that the initial feeling of sympathy for the US in Afghanistan and even Iraq, turned completely against the US, and how they polarized the world so much "with us or against us". With a growing sense of "against us".

No matter how cynical it might be, but somewhere it is comforting to see how Russia bluntly and publicly put the US foreign policy with its back against the wall: in Syria - where Putin took the wind out of Obama's sails for an imminent assault on Syria through shrewd foreign diplomacy, and did so again in the Ukraine -by invading the country before the US could say "1-2-3"-. While the latter - the invasion of a sovereign country- can not be justified, it is reassuring that somewhere the world powers might be slightly more balanced than in 2001-2003, even it were by matching the US through employing the same foreign tactics.

It is time for us, frogs, the leap out of the boiling water, and call the US to justice. It would not only serve international political balance, but most of all serve the rights of us, the citizens of the world.

Photo courtesy J.Ronald Lee

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Civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan and 9/11

Putting the amount of innocent victims into perspective...

This also means by invading Iraq and being unable to guarantee civil stability (a responsibility enforced by the Fourth Geneva Convention), the US has directly or indirectly killed more Iraqi civilians than Sadam ever did (989,788 versus about 600,000).


Graph courtesy Prose Before Hos

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Is the US already at war with Iran?

Support to fractions at war in a country where a third country has a political, or economical interest is not new. We have seen it throughout the Cold War, we witnessed it in Afghanistan and Iraq throughout the past decennia. We have seen it in South and Central America. We still see it in Africa every day: support coming from Europe, China and more often than not, from the US makes its way through different channels and ends up with "proxies", military opposition fractions as if those were "fighting a war on behalf of"...

This video questions in how far the US is already engaging in a war with Iran, through its proxies, operating out of Iraq's Kurdish region, at the Iran/Iraq/Turkey border.



Video courtesy current.com

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The story of Iran - Part III

In view of the recent happenings in Iran, here is the third series of BBC videos on the history of Iran's political relationship with the West.

This series of videos is a BBC documentary the marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Inside stories are told by two ex-presidents of Iran, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, by two founders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, and by leading westerners including Secretaries of State George Shultz, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright..

Iran and the West - Part I:



Here is the rest of the documentary:
Iran and the West - Part II
Iran and the West - Part III
Iran and the West - Part IV
Iran and the West - Part V
Iran and the West - Part VI

The war in Afghanistan, the invastion of Iraq and the mixture of the Western press and politics. Enjoy...

Videos posted by Ali Sanaei

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Tourists in Iraq? Maybe not just yet...

An Italian tourist was caught on a bus from Baghdad to the notorious city of Falluja in Iraq.

“I am a tourist,” were his first words. The telephone line from Falluja was bad, but there could be no mistake. Falluja’s first Western leisure visitor was in town.
Not for long, though. An Iraqi checkpoint guard spotted the traveler, Luca Marchio, among Iraqi passengers in a public minibus. (..)

“I am a tourist. I want to see the most important cities in the country. That is the reason why I am here now,” he said in heavily accented English. “I want to see and understand the reality because I have never been here before, and I think every country in the world must be seen.” (..)

The Italian Embassy in Baghdad established that Mr. Marchio had traveled from Italy to Egypt, then to Turkey, and from there to northern Iraq over land. A photocopy of his passport shows that he obtained a 10-day visa and crossed the border from Turkey to Kurdistan. (Full)

Courageous or nuts?

Discovered via Paul from Humanitarian Info.
Picture courtesy Michael Kamber (The New York Times)

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MSF's Top Ten Humanitarian Crisis

At the end of the year, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) used to publish their "top 10 under-reported crisis". Now, their hit list is called plainly "Top 10 Humanitarian Crisis".

No "under-reporting" this year. Guess there were sufficient press spotlights turned to the humanitarian aspect of any crisis:

Myanmar's cyclone emergency was an excellent opportunity for the West to wedge some cracks in the Generals' totalitarian regime and the press was present.

Zimbabwe got its fair share due to the West's tendency to collectively sideline 'no-longer-wanted' leaders from African countries. And the press was present.

Somalia got floodlights due to the piracy plague. Sexy subject, and the press was present.

I still think a full blown crisis was avoided in DRC when the media jumped onto the plane direction Goma real fast. Fast enough for the different warring parties to sit around the table and go chest-thumping. A million people affected by the crisis.

So no "under-reporting" this year. MSF still wanted their top 10. And no surprises as to who got listed. Some of them have been in there for years: Somalia, Ethiopia, DRC, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Iraq. With a special emphasis for TBC/HIV co-infection and malnutrition. (Full)

Picture courtesy Sven Torfinn (MSF)

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Rumble: The horrors of war - Iraq and Afghanistan

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Battlespace is a photo exhibition produced by November Eleven, an American charity supporting independent media, research, and humanitarian aid efforts.

The exhibition focuses on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their site features an online slideshow of the key pictures.

Be warned, some pictures are very graphic, and just as the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, thoroughly shocking.


More posts on The Road about Iraq, Afghanistan and war.

Picture courtesy Luke Wolagiewicz and November Eleven

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News: US interrogator in Iraq blows the whistle

Matthew Alexander led an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq in 2006. He is the author of "How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq." He is writing under a pseudonym for security reasons.

The Washington Post published a summary under the title "I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq":

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today. (Full)

Picture courtesy Imagination Manifesto

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News: UN compound attacked in Baghdad

FLASH: A rocket struck near a UN compound in the heavily fortified Green Zone on Saturday, killing three foreigners and wounding 14, according to UN and military officials.

The victims were working for a catering company that provides services for the United Nations.

The UN presence in Iraq has been limited since the organisation's Baghdad headquarters was bombed on August 19, 2003, killing 22 people. (Full)

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News: NSA illegal wiretapping targets journalists and aid workers

A top secret NSA wiretapping facility in Georgia accused of spying on Americans illegally was hastily staffed with inexperienced reservists in the months following September 11, where they worked under conflicting orders and with little supervision, according to three former workers at the spy complex.

Former Army Reserve linguist Adrienne Kinne, who worked at the facility at Fort Gordon, claimed she and her group intercepted and transcribed satellite phone calls of American civilians in the Middle East for the National Security Agency. The senate intelligence committee opened a probe into the alleged abuses after a ABC News report this week.

Aid workers and journalists were specifically targeted in the program, and their phone numbers were added to a "priority list", Kinne said (video). Among those under surveillance were workers from nongovernmental organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the United Nations, as well as journalists staying in Baghdad at the time of the Iraq invasion.

If the allegations are true, it would seem to indicate that warrantless spying of Americans approved by President Bush following 9/11 expanded rapidly beyond U.S. borders to citizens overseas, notwithstanding United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18, or USSID 18 -- an NSA rule that bars overseas surveillance of Americans without authorization and probable cause. (Full)

A spokesman for Doctors Without Borders, Michael Goldfarb, said: "The abuse of humanitarian action through intelligence gathering for military or political objectives, threatens the ability to assist populations and undermines the safety of humanitarian aid workers."


More posts on The Road about press freedom and privacy.

Picture courtesy the U.S. Army and Wired.

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News: The Forgotten Wars...

Most people in the UK are unaware of major conflict zones around the world, according to a new survey by the British Red Cross.

The survey was carried out to discover how much the British public knows about armed conflicts ahead of the Red Cross’ Civilians and Conflict Month, which launched this week.

Respondents were able to name Afghanistan and Iraq as war zones, most probably because that's where British military are stations.

However less than one per cent identified the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an estimated 5.4 million people have died as a result of the country’s long-running conflict.

Less than one per cent of respondents were able to identify countries such as Sudan, Somalia, and Central African Republic.

Almost one in five (18 per cent) could not name five countries experiencing conflict. (Full)

I would add that in the case of Chad and DRC, the media is partially to blame as the crisis in those countries hardly ever gets the spotlights. Which is not the case for Somalia, and certainly not for Sudan.

If you look at all the campaigning which has been done around Sudan and Darfur, one would then ask, what it really takes to ensure the forgotten wars are brought back into the spotlight? Reuters Alertnet runs a survey on this topic.

Via The Other World News

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Rumble: Blackwater or How War Profiteering Works - Part III

Blackwater Worldwide has played a substantial role during the Iraq War as a contractor for the United States government. In 2003, Blackwater attained its first high-profile contract when it received a $21 million no-bid contract for guarding the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer. Since June 2004, Blackwater has been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion, five-year State Department budget for the Worldwide Personal Protective Service, which protects U.S. officials and some foreign officials in conflict zones. In 2006, Blackwater won the renumerative contract to protect the U.S. embassy in Iraq, the largest American embassy in the world.

Blackwater is a privately held company and does not publish much information about internal affairs. Who are the key people?

Blackwater's owner and founder Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL, attended the Naval Academy, graduated from Hillsdale College, and was an intern in George H.W. Bush's White House. Prince is a major financial supporter of Republican Party causes and candidates.
Cofer Black, the company's current vice chairman, was director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC) at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was the United States Department of State coordinator for counterterrorism with the rank of ambassador at large from December 2002 to November 2004. After leaving public service, Black became chairman of the privately owned intelligence gathering company Total Intelligence Solutions, Inc., as well as vice chairman for Blackwater.
Joseph E. Schmitz holds an executive position in Blackwater's holding company, Prince Group. He was previously inspector general of the Department of Defense, an appointment of George W. Bush.
Robert Richer was vice president of intelligence until January 2007, when he formed Total Intelligence Solutions. He was formerly the head of the CIA's Near East Division.

Are you surprised Blackwater opened the door to lucrative government contracts through a no-bid contract? Are you surprised they received immunity from prosecution after killing 17 Iraqi civilians a year ago?


More interesting reading on Blackwater: The Whores of War

Source: Wikipedia and others
Cartoon courtesy News Sophisticate

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News: KBR or How War Profiteering Works - Part 2: Human Trafficking

KBR, one of America's biggest military contractors is being sued by a Nepali labourer and the families of a dozen other employees who say they were taken against their will to work in Iraq. All but one of the Nepalese workers were subsequently kidnapped and murdered.

According to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, the Nepalese workers were recruited in 2004 in their home country by KBR and its Jordanian contractors, Daoud & Partners, to work as kitchen staff in a luxury hotel in Amman. Once they reached the Jordanian capital, however, their passports were taken from them and they were sent to Iraq. While travelling in an unprotected convoy, the Nepalis were kidnapped and later executed.

KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root) is a former subsidiary of Halliburton, the company of which the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, was once the chairman. (Full)

Cartoon courtesy Radio Left

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News: Halliburton or How War Profiteering Works - Part 1: The Secret Deal for Iraq's Oil

Four months before the United States invaded Iraq, the Department of Defense was secretly working with Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton Corp., on a deal that would give the world's second largest oil services company total control over Iraq's oil fields, according to interviews with Halliburton's most senior executives.

Previously undisclosed Halliburton documents obtained by The Public Record confirm that controlling the world's second largest oil reserves was a top priority for the Bush administration. Additionally, the deal between the Department of Defense and Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR - see this post) to operate Iraq's oil industry saved Halliburton from imminent bankruptcy.

In October of 2002, Halliburton was saddled with a multibillion-dollar asbestos liability as well as a serious slowdown in domestic oil production. The company’s stock plummeted on the news falling to a low of $12.62 in October 2002 from a high of $22 the year before.

A month later, in November 2002, Halliburton’s financial troubles seemingly disappeared. At the urging of unnamed officials in the Office of the Vice President, according to the documents, the Department of Defense recommended The Army Corps of Engineers award a contract to Kellogg, Brown & Root to extinguish Iraqi oil well fires in addition to "assessing the condition of oil-related infrastructure; cleaning up oil spills or other environmental damage at oil facilities; engineering design and repair or reconstruction of damaged infrastructure; assisting in making facilities operational; distribution of petroleum products; and assisting the Iraqis in resuming Iraqi oil company operations."

That was a deal hatched five months before the start of the Iraq war, when the Bush administration said publicly that it had not been working on war plans, and at the time when the UN weapons inspectors had just re-entered Iraq. (Full)

Cartoon courtesy bizzybeeze.com

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News: US soldiers executed handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqis

In March or April 2007, three noncommissioned United States Army officers, including a first sergeant, a platoon sergeant and a senior medic, killed four Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots to the head as the men stood handcuffed and blindfolded beside a Baghdad canal, two of the soldiers said in sworn statements obtained by The New York Times.

After the killings, they removed the men’s bloody blindfolds and plastic handcuffs, shoved the four bodies into the canal, rejoined other members of their unit waiting in nearby vehicles and drove back to their combat outpost in southwest Baghdad. (Full)

Picture courtesy Martin Adler (Panos Pictures)

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News: Let us not forget - August 19th 2003

Today, five years ago,
the UN headquarters -Canal Hotel- in Baghdad was viciously bombed.

Today, five years ago,
we lost 22 of our colleagues. Over a hundred were wounded.

Today, five years ago.
Let us not forget.

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News: Iraq no longer news-worthy...

Here is some news: Iraq is no longer news-worthy for US media.

News about the 1 million killed, and the 5 million displaced Iraqis, are not worth more than two minutes per week on US television....


More articles on the Road about Iraq.

Video via The Real News

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News: In case you still doubt the Iraq war was pre-planned

The full 2004 CBS "60 Minutes" interview of Paul O'Neil (the former Secretary Of Treasury) and reporter Ron Suskind discussing Bush's politics.

Specifically interesting is the mention of "the Commander in Chief" asking his National Security Council to "find a way" to invade Iraq during their first meeting in January 2001. That is 8 months before 9/11.


More articles on the Road about Iraq.

Video via belowgroundsurface.org

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News: Iraq: Largest war profiteering ever (BBC)

A BBC investigation estimates around US$23bn may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.

A US gagging order applying to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies, prevents any discussion of the allegations.

Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious. "It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."

As an example, in the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president. Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.

The BBC aired the programme on Panorama. The video was posted on Google Video, but later removed. (Full)


More articles on the Road about Iraq.

Cartoon courtesy People's Geography

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News: No WMD in Iraq? No problem, the US will use its own...

Babies born in Fallujah (Iraq) are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say. The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after "special weaponry" was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.

After denying at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah. In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah.
The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tonnes of DU in Iraq thus far. Many doctors believe "DU" to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation. (More)

Pictures of babies deformed after the parents' exposure to ammunition using Depleted Uranium can be found here. WARNING: the pictures are very graphic.

The use of White Phosphorus in Iraq is the second part of this hot debate. White Phosporus is not listed in the schedules of the Chemical Weapons Convention, as it can be "legally" used as a flare to illuminate the battlefield, or to produce smoke to hide troop movements from the enemy. But it becomes a chemical weapon as soon as it is used directly against people. A chemical weapon can be "any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm". (More)


More articles on the Road about Iraq.
Why I feel that strongly about the US invasion in Iraq? Read the short story "M"- Requiem for Baghdad.

Picture courtesy APTN, Pool (AP)

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