20 Dec
United States Wars, News and Casualties
United States Wars, News and Casualties
Damn The War Criminals,
Bush,Cheney,Rice,Rumsfeld,Wolfowitz, Powell and Blair from England.
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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.
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 McGlynn
War News
Photo
Flow of Refugees, mostly women and children from the Khuzestan area during the Iraq War.
Fouman Gallery
AP: Children as young as 10 fight, kill and die in Yemen’s war
Kahlan, a 12-year-old former child soldier, demonstrates how to use a weapon, at a camp for displaced persons where he took shelter with his family, in Marib, Yemen in this July 27, 2018 photo. Houthi rebels took Kahlan and his classmates, promising to give them new school bags, but instead they were enlisted and trained as fighters tasked with carrying supplies to the front lines. There, he had to elude explosions and airstrikes that left mangled casualties on the battlefield. “The sight of the bodies was scary,” he said. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
MARIB, Yemen (AP) — The number etched on the bracelet around Mohammed’s wrist gave the 13-year-old soldier comfort as missiles fired from enemy warplanes shook the earth beneath him.
For two years Mohammed fought with Yemen’s Houthi rebels against a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States. He says he tortured and killed people and didn’t care whether he lived or died.
But if he died, the bracelet would guarantee his body made it home.
“When I become a martyr, they enter my number in the computer, retrieve my picture and my name, then print them with the name ‘Martyr’ underneath,” Mohammed said. It would be pasted to the lid of his coffin for return to his family.
Mohammed was among 18 former child soldiers interviewed by The Associated Press who described the Houthis’ unrelenting efficiency when it comes to the recruitment, deployment and even battlefield deaths of boys as young as 10.
While both sides in the four-year civil war have sent children into combat in violation of international human rights conventions, the Houthis are believed to have recruited many more than the coalition — often forcibly.
An AP investigation has found that thousands of children have been recruited by Yemen’s Houthi rebels to fight in the country’s civil war. Boys describe being thrown into the heat of battle, amid bombardment and airstrikes, watching friends die. Video
The Houthis have inducted 18,000 child soldiers into their rebel army since the beginning of the war in 2014, a senior Houthi military official acknowledged to the AP. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.
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REU: Explosions rock Yemen’s main port for second day after truce
ADEN (Reuters) – Explosions rocked Yemen’s Red Sea city of Hodeidah for a second day on Wednesday despite a U.N.-mediated ceasefire meant to pave the way for peace negotiations to end nearly four-years of war.
Residents said six missiles blasts near the 7 July eastern suburb broke the calm, but it was not clear who was responsible.
The Iranian-aligned Houthi movement and the Saudi-led government had traded blame for violations on the first day of the truce on Tuesday, when residents reported shelling on the eastern and southern outskirts of the Houthi-held city at night.
The United Nations brokered the truce deal as part of confidence-building measures at peace talks last week in Sweden to avert a full-scale assault on the port that is vital for urgent aid supplies for millions facing starvation.
A source in the Saudi-led coalition arrayed against the Houthis told Reuters that if international monitors were not deployed in Hodeidah soon, the deal could falter.
“If the U.N. takes too long to get into (the) theater, they will lose the opportunity altogether and the Stockholm agreement will be a dead duck,” said the coalition source, who declined to be named.
A U.N.-chaired committee formed to oversee the truce and troop withdrawal from Hodeidah city and three ports held its first meeting on Wednesday using video link and phone with representatives from both sides.
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GUARD: US Syria pullout draws praise from Putin and Kurdish condemnation
‘Donald is right,’ says Russian president, as US-backed Kurdish-led force warns fight against Islamic State not over
The surprise White House decision to withdraw US forces from Syria has drawn praise from Russian president Vladimir Putin and condemnation from the Kurdish-led force that has done most of the ground fighting against Islamic State in its Syrian strongholds.
“If the USA made that decision, then it’s the right one,” Putin said during a nationally-televised press conference on Thursday.
The Russian president repeated complaints that US troop deployments in Syria were “illegal” because they hadn’t been agreed upon with the Assad government. Putin added that he agreed with Donald Trump that a “serious blow” had been struck against Isis, saying: “Donald is right, I agree with him.”
Russia is a key ally of Assad, and its military intervention beginning in 2015 turned the tide of the war in his favour.
The response from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces struck the opposite tone. Any US withdrawal would allow an Isis revival and threaten the battle in eastern Syria, with “dangerous implications for international stability”, the SDF said.
The SDF, the US-led coalition’s main military partner on the ground, are being threatened with a cross-border offensive from Turkey, which sees them as indistinguishable from Kurdish Workers’ party militants inside Turkey. US support for the SDF has strained ties between the two allies.
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REU: Israel to escalate fight against Iran in Syria after U.S. exit: Netanyahu
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel will escalate its fight against Iranian-aligned forces in Syria after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
Some Israeli officials have said U.S. President Donald Trump’s move, announced on Wednesday, could help Iran by removing a U.S. garrison that stems the movement of Iranian forces and weaponry into Syria from Iraq.
Israel also worries that its main ally’s exit could reduce its diplomatic leverage with Russia, the Syrian government’s big-power backer.
“We will continue to act very aggressively against Iran’s efforts to entrench in Syria,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks, referring to an Israeli air campaign in Syria against Iranian deployments and arms transfers to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, carried out with Moscow often turning a blind eye.
“We do not intend to reduce our efforts. We will intensify them, and I know that we do so with the full support and backing of the United States.”
Trump cited what he described as victory over Islamic State militants in Syria as warranting the U.S. withdrawal. Israel has long tried to persuade Washington that Iran and its Shi’ite Muslim militias, sent to reinforce Damascus, pose the greater threat.
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REU: France says Islamic State not wiped from map, troops to remain in Syria
PARIS (Reuters) – France will keep its troops in northern Syria for now because Islamic State militants have not been wiped out and continue to pose a threat to French interests, officials said.
France is a leading member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting militants in Syria and Iraq and has around 1,000 troops including special forces based in the north of the country, deployed alongside local Kurdish and Arab forces.
French diplomats told Reuters on Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw all its 2,000 troops from the region had taken Paris by surprise. U.S. officials justified the decision by saying Islamic State had been entirely defeated.
“It shows that we can have different priorities and that we must count on ourselves first,” Europe Minister Nathalie Loiseau told C-News television. “For now, of course we are staying in Syria because the fight against Islamic State is essential.”
France is especially sensitive to the Islamic State threat after several major attacks on its soil in recent years. Hundreds of French nationals have joined the group in Syria.
Defence Minister Florence Parly acknowledged on Twitter that the militant group had been weakened and lost some 90 percent of its territory, but said the battle was not over.
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NYT: Blackwater Security Contractor Found Guilty, Again, in Deadly 2007 Iraq Shooting
Nicholas A. Slatten, a former Blackwater security contractor, was convicted of first-degree murder — a charge that carries a mandatory life sentence.CreditCreditCliff Owen/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A federal jury on Wednesday found a former Blackwater security contractor, Nicholas A. Slatten, guilty in the deadly 2007 shooting of dozens of unarmed Iraqis in Nisour Square in Baghdad, long considered one of the lowest points of the Iraq war and an indelible symbol of America’s protracted and unpopular involvement.
The verdict was the second time a federal jury had found Mr. Slatten, a former sniper, guilty in the high-profile episode that outraged Americans over what many saw as a military mission with no clear strategy.
For a decade, the case against Mr. Slatten and several other contractors has been winding its way through the federal justice system, drawn out across three administrations as American officials sought to make good on their promise to Iraqis that they would bring the men responsible for the killings to justice.
After the shooting, the United States implored its Iraqi allies to trust the American justice system, which, over 10 years, has delivered guilty verdicts, retracted them — and on Wednesday delivered one again.
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Casualties, Exclusive of Civilians
Recent Casualties
Color Denotes Today’s Confirmation
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.
Sgt. Jason Mitchell McClary, 24, from Export, Pennsylvania, died Dec. 2, 2018, in Landstuhl, Germany, as a result of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device on Nov. 27, 2018, in Andar District, Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. The incident is under investigation.
McClary was assigned to 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado.
The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers and one airman who were supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.
The service members died Nov. 27, 2018, from injuries sustained when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Andar, Ghazni Province, Afghanistan.
The soldiers were assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The airman was assigned to the 26th Special Tactics Squadron at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico.
The incident is under investigation.
The deceased are:
Army Capt. Andrew Patrick Ross, 29, of Lexington, Virginia.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Eric Michael Emond, 39, of Brush Prairie, Washington.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Dylan J. Elchin, 25, of Hookstown, Pennsylvania.
