13 Sep
United States Wars, News and Casualties
United States Wars, News and Casualties
NYT: War Without End, Read Article>>
In the Vietnam era, stories like this and television reporting on the war contributed to the end of the Vietnam War in a time frame of much less than 17 years.
As deployment of the last 17 years only came to a sub set of young people, and TV and news rarely covered the searing violence of war, eschewing such content for minor content (Kardashians, Tweets, outrageous behavior), the daily violence and futility went “off stage”.
One is invited to read the daily post, “United States Wars, News and Casualties” and then watch the daily news on the U.S. TV Media.
The absence of U.S. War News is atrocious.
We need this daily report of our wars in our face………..Daily.
The McGlynn
Damn The War Criminals,Bush,Cheney,Rice,Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell and Blair from England.
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.
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
AP: US says Saudi Arabia, UAE protecting civilians in Yemen war
The McGlynn: This is pure BULLSHIT!
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday he has told Congress that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are doing enough to protect civilians in Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition is battling Iran-aligned rebels in a civil war. Thousands have died in the fighting and millions are in dire need of aid.
Pompeo said in a statement that he had certified that the Saudi and Emirati governments “are undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.” Ending the war is “a national security priority” for the Trump administration, he said……………..Saudi Arabia announced in 2015 that it would lead a coalition of countries against the Houthis.
In the years since then, the United Nations says, the conflict has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22 million people in desperate need in what is already the Arab world’s poorest country. Human rights experts documented 6,475 deaths from March 2015 until last June but said the real figure is likely to be significantly higher.
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AP: Spain walks back on decision to halt bomb sales to Saudis
The McGlynn: DAMN IT!
MADRID (AP) — Spain says it will go ahead with a shipment of precision bombs to Saudi Arabia after consultations with Riyadh, reversing a previous decision and angering rights groups who claim the weapons could harm civilians in Yemen.
Foreign Minister Josep Borrell told Onda Cero radio Thursday that the government has found no irregularities after reviewing a 2015 deal for 400 laser-guided bombs signed under a previous administration.
Shipbuilders in southern Spain have protested in recent days over fears that Saudi Arabia could scrap a separate $2.1 billion purchase of five navy corvettes in retaliation for the bomb shipment’s cancellation.
Borrell said: “We have been discussing and analyzing for a week and finally we reached the conclusion that we had to fulfill the contract.”
Saudi diplomats in Madrid offered no comment.
GUARD: US-led raid of Somali ex-president’s home possibly based on ‘bad intelligence’
Joint forces looking for Islamic militants broke into the family home of a revered leader and detained three teenagers
US and Somali forces who raided the family home of a former president and detained three teenagers may have been acting on misleading intelligence, according to officials in the unstable east African country.
Somali soldiers accompanied by at least one foreigner broke into the house of Aden Abdullah Osman Daar, a revered nationalist leader and former president who died in 2007, in the town of Janale, around 100km southwest of Mogadishu late on Friday.
Members of Daar’s family told the Guardian they were deeply shocked by the raid, which targeted Islamic militants from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab organisation.
The incident will raise further concerns about the use of special forces troops to fight extremism in Africa. Last year the deaths of four American soldiers in an ambush in Niger prompted anger and led to questions over the costs of such deployments…………..There have been frequent claims that raids, sometimes involving US forces, have caused civilian casualties.
According to Dhaqan Osman, a family member, the joint forces were led by a tall white man who spoke American English.
“They broke into the front gate and then broke the inside gate with huge iron bar. They had torch lights and small guns with them. They first entered the room where the boys slept. They arrested two boys – my son and his brother-in-law. They then entered the next room and detained the third boy,” she said.
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REU: Saudi-led coalition seizes main road linking Yemen’s Hodeidah to Sanaa
ADEN (Reuters) – Yemeni forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition seized the main road linking the port city of Hodeidah to the capital Sanaa, blocking a key supply route for the Houthi group that controls both cities, military sources and residents said on Thursday.
The Western-backed military alliance resumed its offensive on the Red Sea city after the collapse of peace talks on Saturday which the United Nations had hoped would avert an assault on the main port city, a lifeline for millions of Yemenis, and start a process to end the three-year conflict.
The coalition of Sunni Muslim states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has repeatedly said that by taking control of Hodeidah they would be able to force the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement to the negotiating table by cutting off their main supply line.
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REU: Protests dash Iraqi PM’s chances of new term, hit U.S. hopes of shaping government
SULAIMANIYA/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Violent protests in the Iraqi city of Basra have all but ended U.S.-backed Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s chances of winning a second term and shattered Washington’s hopes of shaping the next government.
Fifteen people have been killed protesting against power cuts, polluted water, poor services and perceived corruption in Iraq’s second city, many of them in clashes with security forces.
Political allies and leaders of the religious establishment blame Abadi for the turmoil, putting an alliance he has formed with populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr under threat.
The alliance with Sadr, whose Saeroon bloc finished first in an election in May but has been unable to form a government, offered Abadi his best chance of remaining prime minister.
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AP: Q&A: Idlib battle a climactic end to Syria rebellion?
BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian army, backed by allies Iran and Russia, is preparing for a military offensive to retake the country’s last major rebel stronghold —the province of Idlib.
The battle could bring an end to a seven-year-old uprising-turned-civil war, but at the cost of a humanitarian disaster on a scale yet unseen in the bloody conflict. Some 3 million civilians are trapped in Idlib, along with tens of thousands of opposition fighters, including hard-core militants.
In recent days, Syrian and Russian warplanes stepped up bombings, targeting the southern edge of the province and signaling a slow start to the campaign.
WHY IS IT A POTENTIAL CATASTROPHE?
An estimated 3 million people live in Idlib, nearly half of them having arrived there after being displaced by fighting elsewhere in Syria. Among the civilians are close to 1 million children, according to rights groups.
The province saw its population swell drastically as rebels and civilians were being sent there from other opposition strongholds after they capitulated to government forces.
A full-scale air and ground offensive is likely to send waves of refugees surging toward the sealed Turkey border, coinciding with the onset of winter. A top U.N. official has warned that an attack on Idlib could lead to this century’s worst loss of life.
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REU: Turkey reinforces military in Syria’s Idlib after ceasefire call fails
ANKARA/AMMAN (Reuters) – Turkey is reinforcing its military posts inside Syria’s rebel-held province of Idlib, Turkish and Syrian rebels sources say, seeking to deter a government offensive which it says would unleash a humanitarian disaster on its border.
President Tayyip Erdogan has warned that an assault by the army and its Russian and Iran-backed allies on Idlib, home to around 3 million people, will uproot hundreds of thousands in one of Syria’s last rebel strongholds.
Already hosting 3.5 million Syrians – the world’s biggest refugee population – Turkey says it cannot absorb more victims of the war and has accused the West of abandoning it to face the consequences of President Bashar al-Assad’s reconquest of Syria.
At a meeting in Tehran on Friday with the presidents of Russia and Iran, seen as the last realistic chance to avert all-out conflict in the insurgent-held region, Erdogan failed to win a pledge of ceasefire from Assad’s two main backers.
But his Defence Minister Hulusi Akar says Turkey remains determined to halt the weeks-long air strikes on Idlib and forestall a ground offensive, while officials warn that Turkey would respond if its forces inside Idlib come under fire.
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NYT: U.S. Aid Program Vowed to Help 75,000 Afghan Women. Watchdog Says It’s a Flop.
KABUL, Afghanistan — An American aid project in Afghanistan that was billed as the world’s biggest program ever designed purely for female empowerment has been a failure and a waste of taxpayers’ money, the head of a government watchdog agency has charged.
The project by the United States Agency for International Development, which was named Promote, was originally budgeted at $280 million and was supposed to help 75,000 Afghan women get jobs, promotions, apprenticeships and internships.
Three years later, one of the few concrete results cited in a study of the project released on Thursday by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction was the promotion of 55 women to better jobs. But the report said it was unclear whether the program could even be credited for those promotions.
“We can’t find any good data that they’re helping any women,” said John L. Sopko, the head of the watchdog agency, which was established by Congress to monitor American spending in Afghanistan………………..The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction has repeatedly criticized American aid projects in Afghanistan as wasteful and poorly conceived.
The new report expressed concern that three contractors’ security and overhead costs accounted for 18 percent of the $89 million disbursed so far, five years after USAID announced it was introducing Promote.
“This is a classic example of hubris and mendacity,” said Mr. Sopko, a former prosecutor who was appointed as the special inspector general by President Barack Obama in 2012 and has remained under the Trump administration.
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Video: U.S. airstrikes leave at least 30 Taliban dead in Ghazni province
By Khaama Press on 13 Sep 2018 9:33am .
The coalition forces in Afghanistan have released a new video of airstrikes on Taliban militants in southeastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan.
According to a short statement released by the coalition forces, the airstrikes were carried out on 10th September in the vicinity of Nawa district, leaving at least 30 militants dead.
“U.S. Forces in Afghanistan conducted two kinetic strikes against Taliban leaders and fighters assembled at adjacent compounds in Nawah district, Ghazni province, Afghanistan, September 10, 2018. The double-structure strike resulted in 30 Taliban killed,” the statement said.
Ghazni is among the relatively volatile provinces in southeastern parts of the country where the Taliban militants are actively operating in some of its districts.
The group launched a coordinated attack on the provincial capital of Ghazni province earlier last month that lasted for several days.
According to reports, the attack on Ghazni city inflicted heavy casualties on civilians besides the Taliban militants and security personnel also sustained heavy casualties during the clashes.
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