29 Mar
United States Wars, News and Casualties
The War Criminals
How many Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion 15 years ago? Some credible estimates put the number at more than one million. You can read that sentence again.
The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in our country as a “blunder,” or even a “colossal mistake.” It was a crime.
Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of a mostly amnesiac citizenry. (A year ago Mr. Bush was on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” dancing and talking about his paintings.) The war criminals, Bush,Cheney,Rice,Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Powell who sold us the war still go on doing what they do.
Iraq is now far worse than it was during Saddam’s reign. And that is what America’s war achieved and bequeathed to Iraqis.
We condemned children to death, some after many days of writhing in pain on bloodstained mats, without pain relievers. Some died quickly, wasted by missing arms and legs, crushed heads. As the fluids ran out of their bodies, they appeared like withered, spoiled fruits. They could have lived, certainly should have lived – and laughed and danced, and run and played- but instead they were brutally murdered. Yes, murdered!
The war ended for those children, but it has never ended for survivors who carry memories of them. Likewise, the effects of the U.S. bombings continue, immeasurably and indefensibly.
The McGlynn
War News
This month marks 15 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq. With all the talk of ‘totalitarianism’ in the Trump era, let’s not forget what came before
‘This was not the failure of the rule-of-law: this is the rule-of-law.’ Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
People talk a lot about “totalitarianism” in the Trump era. I’ve never really loved the category: it seems to paper over some pretty deep differences between the entities one might call totalitarian. But if there was a “totalitarian” moment in my lifetime, it is unquestionably the period between 9/11 and the Iraq war.
It’s not simply that war criminals enlisted the aid of the press and every other ideological apparatus in our country to launch a massively destructive, destabilizing, and completely unwarranted war of aggression (the principle crime against humanity), although they did.
It’s not simply that after 9/11 thousands of people were rounded up and preventively detained, despite not having any ties to terrorism, although they were (and with nary a word, except for a few brave souls, of protest). It’s that there was a palpable shift in what were now unutterable but real conditions for everyday life.
Suddenly, there were soldiers on the streets, and also little American flags everywhere, even in places where they would never have been before. Unanimity in the press and – with very, very few exceptions – unanimity from all political elites. But strangest of all, a bizarre performance from some that this was the way things had always been. When you could literally point to a flag or an obsequious gesture to loving the military and know that, say just a week or two before, it hadn’t been there and yet the conversant would insist no, it always had been that way.
There are dozens, hundreds, who would be facing tribunals if they were not American
The Iraq war was not the result of “inexperience”. Indeed, its architects were adults in the room of the highest order. The Iraq war and its calamitous outcomes were not “unknowable”; outside of what passes for “expertise” and “experience” in Washington and the op-ed pages of leading newspapers there was near-unanimity among incredibly disparate analysts predicting nearly every horrific outcome that came to pass.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has returned to Pakistan for the first time since being shot by Taliban militants.
Ms Yousafzai, now studying at Oxford University, was targeted on her way to school at 15
Ms Yousafzai, now aged 20 and a vocal human rights activist, was shot in the head by a gunman for campaigning for female education in 2012.
In an emotional speech at the prime minister’s office, she said it had been her dream to return “without any fear”.
Details of the surprise trip are being kept secret for security reasons.
Pakistani television broadcast video showing her arriving with her parents at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport under tight security.
“Always it has been my dream that I should go to Pakistan and there, in peace and without any fear, I can move on streets, I can meet people, I can talk to people,” Ms Yousafzai said in a televised address from the PM’s house in Islamabad.
“And I think that it’s my old home again… so it is actually happening, and I am grateful to all of you.”
ISLAMABAD (AP) — He is crisscrossing Pakistan championing a fatwa, or Islamic religious decree, forbidding militant violence inside the country. But the mere fact that Fazlur Rehman Khalil, veteran leader of an organization designated as a terror group by the U.S., is free has experts questioning Pakistan’s willingness to fight extremism.
Khalil, once a close friend of the late al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, co-founded Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, a group accused by India of attacking its forces in the Kashmir region and by the U.S. of training militants and carrying out attacks in Afghanistan. The group has undergone several name changes over time and is now known as Ansar-ul Ummah.
But authorities have left him alone. At his home on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad, the gates are protected by a burly, bushy bearded guard whose automatic rifle is always at his side. Khalil’s madrassa, or religious school, named for Khalid bin Al-Waleed, one of the most prominent early Muslim commanders leading the conquest of Iraq and Syria in the 7th century, occupies a sprawling compound next door in the middle of a crowded market.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Khalil denied the accusations against his group and he applauded the fatwa, which he joined other Sunni and Shiite religious scholars in writing, denouncing militant violence in Pakistan as against Islam. The fatwa, issued in January, is the first such decree issued by such a broad range of scholars in Pakistan.
“Terrorism, suicide attacks, blasts, and killing of innocent people are forbidden in Pakistan, in accordance with Sharia (Islamic law),” Khalil said, dressed in a starched white traditional shalwar kameez and looking relaxed on the manicured lush green lawn of his compound.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected Saudi Arabia’s bid to dismiss lawsuits claiming that it helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and should pay billions of dollars in damages to victims.
U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said the plaintiffs’ allegations “narrowly articulate a reasonable basis” for him to assert jurisdiction over Saudi Arabia under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), a 2016 federal law.
The Saudi government has long denied involvement in the attacks in which hijacked airplanes crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field. Nearly 3,000 people died.
Lawyers for Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the decision. At a Saudi stock market event in New York, asked whether the court decision would have a negative impact on Saudi investment in the United States, Capital Market Authority Chairman Mohammed A. ElKuwaiz declined to comment, saying he had not seen the news.
Daniels’ decision covers claims by the families of those killed, roughly 25,000 people who suffered injuries, and many businesses and insurers……………The case is In re: Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 03-md-01570.
BEIRUT (AP) — A journey that before the war in Syria was just a 15-minute drive from Damascus now took well over an hour, clambering over giant ramparts of dirt and rubble. Visiting his house in the town of Harasta for the first time in six years, Danny Makki couldn’t recognize it.
“I didn’t even know it was my street till I recognized the supermarket opposite the house … no placards, no signs, just destruction,” he said.
The visit this week by Makki, a British-born Syrian journalist, provided a first look into the devastation wreaked in Harasta, where opposition fighters surrendered after a ferocious, Russian-backed air and ground offensive by government forces aiming to retake the region of eastern Ghouta on the edge of the Syrian capital.
The rebels agreed to lay down their arms in return for safe passage to opposition-held northwestern Syria. As thousands of fighters were bused out, Harasta’s civilians have been transported to government centers in and around Damascus, leaving the town, once home to a population of around 35,000, an empty, shattered husk.
Harasta, on Damascus’ northeastern edge, was among the first to rise up against President Bashar Assad’s rule in 2011 and soon fell into the hands of the armed opposition along with other towns of eastern Ghouta. For six years, the army has been trying to uproot the rebels in grueling warfare with no decisive victory, until the assault that began last month. Harasta was declared officially under Syrian army control on Friday.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey will take action if militants do not withdraw immediately from Syria’s Manbij region and areas in the country east of the Euphrates, Turkey’s National Security Council said on Wednesday.
Turkey, which stormed the northern Syrian town of Afrin last week after a two-month offensive against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, has repeatedly threatened to push its operations further east to Manbij where U.S. troops are stationed.
Expanding Turkey’s military campaign into the much larger Kurdish-held territory further east, which President Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to do, would risk confrontation between the NATO allies who have been at loggerheads over the U.S. policy in Syria and other issues.
“In the meeting, it is stated that the terrorists in Manbij should be removed from the area, otherwise Turkey will not hesitate to take initiative by itself as it did in other regions,” the statement from the security council, chaired by Erdogan, said.
It said the same approach also applied to the militants on Syrian soil at the east of Euphrates, without elaborating where that would specifically apply to, or who it might target.
Erbil (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi Kurdistan Region will not allow its soil to be used for attacking neighbors, the region’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, said in a press conference on Wednesday as Turkey eyes offensives against Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq.
“Prior to asking why Turkey has come inside Kurdistan Region, we have to ask what is the reason? The reason is PKK,” Kurdish network Rudaw quoted Barzani Saying, referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party, the group that has engaged in decades of armed confrontations against Turkey.
“The KRG’s principle is that the soil of Kurdistan Region should not be used to attack neighbouring countries, such as Iran, Turkey, Syria and elsewhere,” Barzani added.
Kurdish authorities have recently called upon PKK fighters to keep their deployments away from civilian areas in the region as Turkey continues to carry out airstrikes against the group’s members there.
PKK recently announced it was pulling out from Iraq’s northern region of Sinjar, having become assured that Islamic State extremists were no longer a threat to the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority there.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com)Two civilians were wounded as a bomb exploded under the rubble of one of the houses, in central Ramadi, west Anbar, a security source from Anbar police was quoted saying on Wednesday.
Speaking to BasNews, the source said, “a bomb from the remnants of IS went off while a family was trying to lift the debris of their destroyed house in al-Andalus district, central Ramadi, which two people injured.”
Moreover, the source said four people were arrested, while huge amounts of weapons were seized in security operation.
“Security forces carried out a wide-scale operation in al-Karma and al-Saqlawiya regions, leaving four people involved in terrorist operations and amounts of weapons confiscated,” the source added.
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — Dozens of peace activists, including women, have set up tents in the Afghan province of Helmand, after a car bomb killed more than a dozen people outside a sports stadium last week.
In a rare development, women from the ethnic Pashtun-dominated region began protesting alongside men in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah on Tuesday, saying that they would later march to a Taliban-controlled district to demand an end to the war.
“I lost my son in one of these explosions and his family are without any support. I am asking the Taliban to accept our demand for peace,” said Khial Bibi, one of the participants at the women’s tent.
The protest did not involve government officials or politicians and was a “pure people’s movement”, said Qais Hashemi, a male protester.
The car bomb exploded on Friday as a wrestling match ended in Lashkar Gah, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 47. No group has claimed responsibility.
The attack underlined the continued threat of violence across much of Afghanistan with the approach of spring, when fighting tends to pick up.
By Khaama Press on 29 Mar 2018 2:20pm
A Pakistani militant leader and founder of Harakat-ul-Mujahideen Fazlur Rehman Khalil has vowed to support President Ghani in issuing a Fatwa against the militant attacks including suicide bombings in Afghanistan. In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press and in response to the criticisms of the Afghan leaders, Khalil said President Ashraf Ghani should call
By Khaama Press on 29 Mar 2018 2:00pm –
The US Military has released a new video which shows a joint raid conducted by the Afghan and US military that resulted into the killing of a ISIS commander in northern Jawzjan province of Afghanistan. Afghan Special Security Forces and U.S. Special Operators killed an ISIS-K commander and another terrorist fighter during a partnered nighttime
War Casualties By Name – Search by Name
Recent Casualties
Color Denotes Today’s Confirmation
The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of seven airmen who were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. They died March 15 when an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter crashed in western Iraq. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Captain Mark K. Weber, 29, of Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was assigned to the 38th Rescue Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.
Captain Andreas B. O’Keeffe, 37, of Center Moriches, New York.
Captain Christopher T. Zanetis, 37, of Long Island City, New York.
Master Sergeant Christopher J. Raguso, 39, of Commack, New York.
Staff Sergeant Dashan J. Briggs, 30, of Port Jefferson Station, New York.
Master Sergeant William R. Posch, 36, of Indialantic, Florida.
Staff Sergeant Carl P. Enis, 31, of Tallahassee, Florida.
Both were assigned to the 308th Rescue Squadron, Air Force Reserve, at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. For more information, media may contact the 920th Rescue Wing public affairs office at 321-615-0329.
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.
Sgt. 1st Class Maitland Deweever Wilson, 38, of Brooklyn, New York, died March 7 in Landstuhl, Germany from a non-combat related incident. The incident is under investigation.
Wilson was assigned to the 831st Transportation Battalion, 595th Transportation Brigade, Manama, Bahrain.
Care for Veterans:
PTSD: National Center for PTSDPTSD Care for Veterans, Military, and FamiliesSee Help for Veterans with PTSD to learn how to enroll for VA health care and get an assessment.
All VA Medical Centers provide PTSD care, as well as many VA clinics.Some VA’s have programs
specializing in PTSD treatment. Use the VA PTSD ProgramLocator to find a PTSD program.If you are a war Veteran, find a Vet Center to help with the transition from military to civilian life.
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