12 Jun

United States Wars, News and Casualties 6/12/18

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.

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

REU: U.N. shuttle diplomacy aims to avert assault on vital Yemen port

UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United Nations is engaged in “intense” shuttle diplomacy between the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in a bid to avert an attack on Yemen’s Hodeidah port city, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said on Monday.

Guards walk on the wreckage of a building destroyed by air strikes in Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

A Saudi-led coalition military attack or siege on the Houthi-held western city, long a target in the war, could cost up to 250,000 lives in a worst-case scenario, the United Nations has warned. The Red Sea port is a lifeline for millions of people, handling most of the country’s commercial imports and humanitarian aid supplies.

The U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors on Monday at the request of Britain to be briefed on the situation after heavy fighting erupted near Hodeidah on Friday and Saturday.

“We are, at the present moment, in intense consultation,” Guterres told reporters on Monday. “I hope that it will be possible to avoid a battle for Hodeidah.”

Correspondence sent from European donor governments to aid groups in Yemen on Saturday warned that “a military assault now looks imminent,” according to the text of the correspondence seen by Reuters.

“The Emiratis have informed us today that they will now give a 3-day grace period for the UN (and their partners) to leave the city,” it said.

A Western diplomat confirmed a “72 hour grace period where they (Emiratis) can guarantee they won’t move,” which began on Saturday.

GUARD: UN seeks urgent ceasefire to stop UAE assault on Yemeni port

Saudi-led coalition says capturing Hodeidah will close off arms shipments to Houthis

Yemeni government forces take position at an area in the western province of Hodeidah in late May. Photograph: Stringer/EPA

The United Arab Emirates has given the UN less than 48 hours to try to negotiate a Houthi ceasefire at the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah before it mounts an attack on the port through which the bulk of food, medicine and gas to the rest of Yemen is distributed.

Urgent British-led efforts at the UN were under way to dissuade the United Arab Emirates and the Saudis from pressing ahead with the attack – or at least to give undertakings that it will not seek to starve Hodeidah into submission. Aid agencies have warned that an attack would have catastrophic consequences.

The UN security council met behind closed doors on Monday at the request of Britain to be briefed on the situation after heavy fighting erupted near the city on Friday and Saturday. The UAE has vowed it will take the port saying it is being used by Houthi rebels to smuggle in arms including missiles used to attack Saudi Arabia itself.“We are, at the present moment, in intense consultation,” the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, told reporters. “I hope that it will be possible to avoid a battle for Hodeidah.”

REU: U.S.-led coalition denies state TV report on Syria strike deaths

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian state television said on Monday an airstrike by a U.S.-led coalition had killed 18 Iraqi refugees at a school in eastern Syria, but the coalition denied it.

The state television report said the strike took place in a village in Hasaka province between the Euphrates river and the Iraqi border, an area where a U.S.-led coalition is supporting local fighters against Islamic State.

A spokesman for the coalition, Col. Sean Ryan, said the report was false, adding “we are not tracking any coalition strikes today in Hasaka injuring or killing civilians”.

A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the U.S.-backed fighters had captured the village in fighting, but did not know if civilians had been killed by a strike there.

BBC: Syria war: UN seeks inquiry into ‘Russian’ Idlib air strikes

The UN’s secretary general has called for an investigation into deadly air strikes in Syria last week that were allegedly conducted by Russian jets.

The attack on Zardana was one of the deadliest in rebel-held Idlib province this year

António Guterres expressed deep concern about Thursday’s attack on the rebel-held town of Zardana, which activists said killed at least 47 civilians.

The dead included a rescuer who was allegedly targeted.

Russia, which backs Syria’s government in the civil war, has said the reports have “nothing to do with reality”.

The attack on Zardana was one of the deadliest in the mainly rebel-held northern province of Idlib so far this year.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said it killed at least 51 civilians, including nine children and 11 women.

REU: After ballot box fire, Iraqi cleric Sadr warns of civil war

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr urged Iraqis on Monday to unite rather than squabble over a possible rerun of the election his bloc won last month, a message apparently meant to defuse political tension after a ballot box storage depot caught fire.

FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from a storage site in Baghdad, housing ballot boxes from Iraq’s May parliamentary election, Iraq June 10, 2018. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily /File Photo

Certain parties are trying to drag Iraq into civil war, Sadr said, adding that he would not participate in one.

Parliament has mandated a manual recount of the election in which a number of parties alleged fraud. A storage site holding half of Baghdad’s ballot boxes went up in flames on Sunday in what Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi denounced as a “plot to harm the nation and its democracy”.

An Iraqi court ordered the arrest of four people accused of setting fire to the storage site, state television reported. Three of them were policemen and one an employee of the Independent High Elections Commission.

NYT: Turkish Military Says Destroys 12 Targets in Northern Iraq

ISTANBUL — The Turkish military destroyed 12 targets in northern Iraq belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in overnight air strikes, it said on Tuesday, as the army steps up operations against militant targets in the Qandil region.

The targets, in northern Iraq’s Qandil, Hakurk and Avasin-Basyan regions, included shelters and ammunition depots, it said. Turkey’s army has recently ramped up strikes against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, which has bases in the Qandil mountains.

The army also said that 34 militants had been “neutralized” in operations in northern Iraq between June 1 and June 8. The military uses the term “neutralized” to refer to operations in which opposition forces have been killed, wounded or captured.

President Tayyip Erdogan, who faces presidential elections on June 24, on Monday said Turkey would drain the “terror swamp” in Qandil.

AP: Suicide bomber kills 12 in Afghan capital

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber struck outside a government ministry in the Afghan capital on Monday, killing 12 people and wounding 31 days before the start of a holiday cease-fire with the Taliban.

Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai says a suicide bomber on foot struck outside the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry as employees were leaving work. Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh confirmed the toll

No one immediately claimed the attack, but the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate regularly strike government targets in the capital and elsewhere.

The Taliban have agreed to a cease-fire coinciding with the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The holiday is set to begin later this week. The IS affiliate is not included in the cease-fire.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a roadside bomb struck a microbus in eastern the eastern Ghazni province on Monday, killing six people. Arif Noori, a spokesman for the governor of the Ghazni province, said women and children were among those killed in the blast, which also wounded three people.

He said the bomb was planted by the Taliban. The insurgents mostly target security forces and government officials, but their roadside bombs often kill civilians.

Elsewhere in Ghazni, at least three local police and 10 Taliban fighters were killed in clashes, Noori said.

In the northern Kunduz province, the Taliban attacked a joint army and police checkpoint, killing at least 15 Afghan security forces, said Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the provincial council.

AP: Official says suicide bomber kills 5 police in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — At least five policemen were killed by a suicide bomber using a military Humvee in Afghanistan’s eastern Ghazni province, an official said Tuesday.

Arif Noori, governor’s spokesman in Ghazni, said 26 others, including a district governor and 18 police, were wounded in the attack in Muqar district.

The Humvee was taken earlier from Afghan forces by Taliban fighters in a separate attack, said Noori.

Also on Tuesday, the Islamic State group in a statement claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack outside the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry as employees were leaving work, killing 12 people.

According to Afghan officials, more than 30 others were wounded in the attack that took place in the capital Kabul.

The Taliban have agreed to a cease-fire coinciding with the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The holiday is set to begin later this week. The IS affiliate is not included in the cease-fire.

A provincial official said Taliban insurgents took control of a district headquarters in northern Faryab province late Monday.

Javed Bedar, spokesman for the provincial governor, said Abdul Rahman Falah, Kohistan district governor, was killed in the attack.

Bedar said there were casualties among Afghan security forces, but couldn’t provide an exact number because the gun battle was still going on.

NYT: In Advance of Cease-Fires, Bombings in Afghanistan Kill at Least 18

KABUL, Afghanistan — Suicide bombers struck a government building in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Monday, killing at least 17 people, Afghan officials said.

Another government office, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, was also a bombing target on Monday, but no one was killed. A bomb detonated prematurely in a third location, killing one person.

Men carry a woman into a Kabul hospital after a suicide bomb attack in the Afghan capital.CreditMohammad Ismail/Reuters

The deaths came on the eve of separate but overlapping cease-fires, one declared by the Afghan government and the other by the Taliban insurgency, to mark the end of Ramadan, the holy month of daytime fasting………………In eastern Nangarhar Province, three suicide attackers struck at the Education Ministry’s offices in the provincial capital, Jalalabad, but the police had been warned they were coming. Two attackers who wore suicide vests were shot and killed before they could do significant damage; the third was driving a car loaded with explosives that failed to detonate. No one else was killed, but 15 people were wounded, according to Ghulam Sanai Stanikzai, the Nangarhar police chief.

Taliban launch coordinated attack on Moqor district on first day of ceasefire

By Khaama Press on 12 Jun 2018 10:10am .

The Taliban militants have launched a coordinated attack on Moqor district in southeastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan on the first day of the cesaefire announced by the Afghan government. Provincial governor’s spokesman Arif Noori confirmed that the militants launched a coordinated attack on Moqor districts in the early hours of Tuesday morning. In the meantime,

Current Casualties, Exclusive of Civilians

Color denotes today’s confirmation

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Octave Shield.

Staff Sgt. Alexander W. Conrad, 26, of Chandler, Arizona, died June 8, in Somalia of injuries sustained from enemy indirect fire. The incident is under investigation.

Conrad was assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

War Casualties By Name – Search by Name:

Total Dollar Cost of Wars Since 2001>>

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.

Spc. Gabriel D. Conde, 22, of Loveland, Colorado, was killed in action April 30 as a result of enemy small arms fire in Tagab District, Afghanistan. The incident is under investign.
Conde was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Army Alaska, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.

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 Program Locator 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.

Call the 24/7 Veteran Combat Call Center1-877-WAR-VETS (1-877-927-8387) to talk to another combat Veteran.DoD’s Defense Centers of Excellence (DCoE) 24/7 Outreach Center for Psychological Health & Traumatic Brain Injury provides information and helps locate resources.

Call 1-866-966-1020 or email resources@dcoeoutreach.org Military OneSourceCall 24/7 for counseling and many resources 1-800-342-9647.Need further assistance? Get Help with VA PTSD Care

Iraq A Deadly Deception – War Documentary 2018

WAR DOCUMENTARY: IRAQ A DEADLY DECEPTION ALJAZEERA DOCUMENTARIES 2018 On the evening of 9/11, George W Bush made a vow to the American public – that he would defeat terrorism.
Unknown to those listening in shock to the presidential address, the president and his advisers had already begun planning their trajectory into an invasion of Iraq. It was packaged as “holding responsible the states who support terrorism” by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser between 2001 and 2003.
“I believe it represented a recognition that we would never succeed against the terrorists if we went after them one at a time and as long as governments were facilitating the organisation, training, equipping of, financing of terrorist organisations, we were never going to get it under control,” says Perle.
After 100 days spent fighting those who had become publicly accepted as the culprits – Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan – the US set the ball rolling for war against Iraq.
On the evening of 9/11 the president is saying: well, maybe we’ll be going after Iraq now and somebody said, well, that would be against international law. The president responded: I don’t care, we’re going to kick some ass

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2018 at 4:50 am and is filed under United States Wars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed.

Pages

Quote

Free Palestine!

Blogroll

Blogs Against The War

Menu

Save the Smith River

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archive

Categories

Administration

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.

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

REU: U.N. shuttle diplomacy aims to avert assault on vital Yemen port

UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United Nations is engaged in “intense” shuttle diplomacy between the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in a bid to avert an attack on Yemen’s Hodeidah port city, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said on Monday.

Guards walk on the wreckage of a building destroyed by air strikes in Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

The U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors on Monday at the request of Britain to be briefed on the situation after heavy fighting erupted near Hodeidah on Friday and Saturday.

“We are, at the present moment, in intense consultation,” Guterres told reporters on Monday. “I hope that it will be possible to avoid a battle for Hodeidah.”

Correspondence sent from European donor governments to aid groups in Yemen on Saturday warned that “a military assault now looks imminent,” according to the text of the correspondence seen by Reuters.

“The Emiratis have informed us today that they will now give a 3-day grace period for the UN (and their partners) to leave the city,” it said.

A Western diplomat confirmed a “72 hour grace period where they (Emiratis) can guarantee they won’t move,” which began on Saturday.

GUARD: UN seeks urgent ceasefire to stop UAE assault on Yemeni port

Saudi-led coalition says capturing Hodeidah will close off arms shipments to Houthis

Yemeni government forces take position at an area in the western province of Hodeidah in late May. Photograph: Stringer/EPA

The United Arab Emirates has given the UN less than 48 hours to try to negotiate a Houthi ceasefire at the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah before it mounts an attack on the port through which the bulk of food, medicine and gas to the rest of Yemen is distributed.

REU: U.S.-led coalition denies state TV report on Syria strike deaths

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian state television said on Monday an airstrike by a U.S.-led coalition had killed 18 Iraqi refugees at a school in eastern Syria, but the coalition denied it.

The state television report said the strike took place in a village in Hasaka province between the Euphrates river and the Iraqi border, an area where a U.S.-led coalition is supporting local fighters against Islamic State.

A spokesman for the coalition, Col. Sean Ryan, said the report was false, adding “we are not tracking any coalition strikes today in Hasaka injuring or killing civilians”.

A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the U.S.-backed fighters had captured the village in fighting, but did not know if civilians had been killed by a strike there.

BBC: Syria war: UN seeks inquiry into ‘Russian’ Idlib air strikes

The UN’s secretary general has called for an investigation into deadly air strikes in Syria last week that were allegedly conducted by Russian jets.

The attack on Zardana was one of the deadliest in rebel-held Idlib province this year

António Guterres expressed deep concern about Thursday’s attack on the rebel-held town of Zardana, which activists said killed at least 47 civilians.

The dead included a rescuer who was allegedly targeted.

Russia, which backs Syria’s government in the civil war, has said the reports have “nothing to do with reality”.

The attack on Zardana was one of the deadliest in the mainly rebel-held northern province of Idlib so far this year.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said it killed at least 51 civilians, including nine children and 11 women.

REU: After ballot box fire, Iraqi cleric Sadr warns of civil war

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr urged Iraqis on Monday to unite rather than squabble over a possible rerun of the election his bloc won last month, a message apparently meant to defuse political tension after a ballot box storage depot caught fire.

FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from a storage site in Baghdad, housing ballot boxes from Iraq’s May parliamentary election, Iraq June 10, 2018. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily /File Photo

Certain parties are trying to drag Iraq into civil war, Sadr said, adding that he would not participate in one.

Parliament has mandated a manual recount of the election in which a number of parties alleged fraud. A storage site holding half of Baghdad’s ballot boxes went up in flames on Sunday in what Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi denounced as a “plot to harm the nation and its democracy”.

An Iraqi court ordered the arrest of four people accused of setting fire to the storage site, state television reported. Three of them were policemen and one an employee of the Independent High Elections Commission.

NYT: Turkish Military Says Destroys 12 Targets in Northern Iraq

ISTANBUL — The Turkish military destroyed 12 targets in northern Iraq belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in overnight air strikes, it said on Tuesday, as the army steps up operations against militant targets in the Qandil region.

The targets, in northern Iraq’s Qandil, Hakurk and Avasin-Basyan regions, included shelters and ammunition depots, it said. Turkey’s army has recently ramped up strikes against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, which has bases in the Qandil mountains.

The army also said that 34 militants had been “neutralized” in operations in northern Iraq between June 1 and June 8. The military uses the term “neutralized” to refer to operations in which opposition forces have been killed, wounded or captured.

President Tayyip Erdogan, who faces presidential elections on June 24, on Monday said Turkey would drain the “terror swamp” in Qandil.

AP: Suicide bomber kills 12 in Afghan capital

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber struck outside a government ministry in the Afghan capital on Monday, killing 12 people and wounding 31 days before the start of a holiday cease-fire with the Taliban.

Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai says a suicide bomber on foot struck outside the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry as employees were leaving work. Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh confirmed the toll

No one immediately claimed the attack, but the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate regularly strike government targets in the capital and elsewhere.

The Taliban have agreed to a cease-fire coinciding with the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The holiday is set to begin later this week. The IS affiliate is not included in the cease-fire.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a roadside bomb struck a microbus in eastern the eastern Ghazni province on Monday, killing six people. Arif Noori, a spokesman for the governor of the Ghazni province, said women and children were among those killed in the blast, which also wounded three people.

He said the bomb was planted by the Taliban. The insurgents mostly target security forces and government officials, but their roadside bombs often kill civilians.

Elsewhere in Ghazni, at least three local police and 10 Taliban fighters were killed in clashes, Noori said.

In the northern Kunduz province, the Taliban attacked a joint army and police checkpoint, killing at least 15 Afghan security forces, said Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the provincial council.

AP: Official says suicide bomber kills 5 police in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — At least five policemen were killed by a suicide bomber using a military Humvee in Afghanistan’s eastern Ghazni province, an official said Tuesday.

Arif Noori, governor’s spokesman in Ghazni, said 26 others, including a district governor and 18 police, were wounded in the attack in Muqar district.

The Humvee was taken earlier from Afghan forces by Taliban fighters in a separate attack, said Noori.

Also on Tuesday, the Islamic State group in a statement claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack outside the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry as employees were leaving work, killing 12 people.

According to Afghan officials, more than 30 others were wounded in the attack that took place in the capital Kabul.

The Taliban have agreed to a cease-fire coinciding with the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The holiday is set to begin later this week. The IS affiliate is not included in the cease-fire.

A provincial official said Taliban insurgents took control of a district headquarters in northern Faryab province late Monday.

Javed Bedar, spokesman for the provincial governor, said Abdul Rahman Falah, Kohistan district governor, was killed in the attack.

Bedar said there were casualties among Afghan security forces, but couldn’t provide an exact number because the gun battle was still going on.

NYT: In Advance of Cease-Fires, Bombings in Afghanistan Kill at Least 18

KABUL, Afghanistan — Suicide bombers struck a government building in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Monday, killing at least 17 people, Afghan officials said.

Another government office, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, was also a bombing target on Monday, but no one was killed. A bomb detonated prematurely in a third location, killing one person.

Men carry a woman into a Kabul hospital after a suicide bomb attack in the Afghan capital.CreditMohammad Ismail/Reuters

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 Program Locator 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.

Call 1-866-966-1020 or email resources@dcoeoutreach.org Military OneSourceCall 24/7 for counseling and many resources 1-800-342-9647.Need further assistance? Get Help with VA PTSD Care