United States Wars, News and Casualties

The War Criminals

The war criminals, Bush,Cheney,Rice,Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Powell who sold us the war still go on doing what they do.

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.)

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

Photo

Children sit in a classroom of a school to which they have been evacuated from a village near Hodeidah airport amid fighting between government forces and Houthi fighters in Hodeidah, Yemen June 17, 2018. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

GUARD: The Guardian view on Yemen: our complicity lies bare

Even if the UK warned against attacking the vital port of Hodeidah, we bear responsibility for the horrors of this war 

‘The war has already claimed tens of thousands of lives … Many more stand in peril.’ Photograph: Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters

The fig leaves covered little to start with, and withered long ago. Now the excuses for our role in Yemen’s misery have fallen away entirely. The assault on Hodeidah by the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition can only deepen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis; 70% of the country’s imports pass through the port. Britain and France urged Saudi Arabia not to launch the attack, but the UK has now “said its piece”. The US rejected a UAE request for a minesweeper for the operation, but as an Emirati official observed: “Not giving us military assistance is not the same as telling us not to do it.”

So they are doing it. They are conducting this war with British-, American- and French-made arms. They are conducting it with western military training and advice; British and US officers have been in the command room for airstrikes, and this weekend Le Figaro alleged that there are French special forces on the ground in Yemen. They are conducting it with diplomatic shelter from the west. On Friday, the UK and US blocked a Swedish drive for a UN security council statement demanding a ceasefire: “Britain, as the ‘penholder’ on Yemen at the UN security council, nevertheless takes a nakedly pro-Saudi approach to the conflict,” the former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell notes. Arms sales and security interests dictate.

The war has already claimed tens of thousands of lives, the oft-cited toll of 10,000 being highly conservative when reached and now hopelessly out of date. Many more stand in peril. International law obliges the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid, but both the coalition and the Houthi rebels have an atrocious record on observing the rules of war. Relief groups have had to flee Hodeidah. Twenty-two million Yemenis need aid. Eight million are at risk of starvation.

The assault appears to be an attempt to pre-empt the presentation of a peace plan by the UN envoy Martin Griffiths, who had previously warned that an attack on Hodeidah could “take peace off the table in a single stroke”. He is due to brief the security council on Monday, following emergency talks, and the UN’s humanitarian coordinator, Lise Grande, has said that talks on the UN taking over the port’s administration are at an advanced stage. But even if Mr Griffiths can manage an agreement against the odds, the chances of it sticking are poor, given both sides’ record of acting in bad faith. The complexities of a handover are immense.

The coalition backs the internationally recognised president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, driven out by the Iran-backed Houthis. But the campaign appears largely driven by two forces. First, rivalry with Iran, and other strategic interests. Second, the prestige of its leaders – notably Mohammed bin Salman, who led the charge to war and is now Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader. The coalition has calculated that after a lengthy stalemate it may be in its best position since the war began more than three years ago; it hopes to change the facts on the ground and appears to have convinced itself that Hodeidah will be a relatively easy win, if far from painless for civilians. This is familiar stuff, as an International Crisis Group report pointed out this week: “The warring factions are overconfident in their military prospects, almost always press for military advantage when there is an opportunity for negotiation, and are all too often starkly indifferent to the humanitarian impact of their actions and the plight of ordinary citizens.”

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi may be of one mind in their loathing for Tehran, but the crowded and increasingly complex field is exposing divergence in their interests. A few months ago, Emirati-backed forces were fighting and killing Saudi-backed forces in Aden. The south is moving towards outright autonomy. But which Saudi and Emirati officials will dare to tell their superiors that Tehran enmeshed them in a costly, apparently endless war at relatively little cost to itself? The entrenchment of a war economy is another significant obstacle to peace.

So it goes on, the suffering mounting, further unsettling this unstable region and breeding cynicism and rage towards the west and its talk of human rights and international law. If the complicity ever looked deniable, events of recent days have laid it bare.

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AP: US-led coalition hits Syrian army post, causing casualties

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian state TV is reporting that the U.S.-led coalition has struck a military position in the country’s east, leaving several troops dead and wounded.

The report early Monday says the airstrike occurred around midnight in the village of al-Hari near the town of Boukamal. It gave no breakdown of the casualties.

Syrian troops and their allies have been conducting operations against the Islamic State group east of the Euphrates river while the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are on the offensive against IS on the east banks.

The U.S.-led coalition has struck in the past pro-government forces when they tried to cross to the Euphrates’ east bank but it was not immediately clear if they did this time.

IS still holds small areas in eastern Syria close to the Iraqi border

REU: Exhausted peace marchers arrive in Afghan capital saying ‘everyone’s tired of war‘

KABUL (Reuters) – Hundreds of Afghan peace marchers arrived exhausted in the capital, Kabul, on Monday after spending the fasting month of Ramadan crossing the sun-baked, war-torn country, much of it under Taliban control.

The marchers, all men, including teachers, students and war victims on crutches and one in a wheelchair, were welcomed along the way by village women carrying the holy Koran, men singing and dancing or offering bread and yoghurt, some in tears.

“I saw and learnt things that I had never thought of before,” said Iqbal Khayber, 27, a medical student from Helmand.

“We met people in areas controlled by the Taliban and in areas under government control – everyone is really tired of war.”

The march was triggered by a car bomb in Helmand on March 23 that killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens. No group claimed responsibility.

Khayber said the marchers, varying in number from day to day, would take main roads and some times turn into villages, choosing dangerous areas on purpose to try to confront people’s fear.

“We saw people suffering huge pain from the war … Honestly, my conscience doesn’t let me calm down. It hurts me and I ask myself: why we did not start working for peace earlier?”

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REU: Eid ceasefire proved ‘wide support’ for Afghan Taliban, they say

KABUL (Reuters) – The Afghan Taliban said their three-day Eid ceasefire, which ends on Sunday, proved the unity of their movement and its “wide national support” as the presidential palace extended its own ceasefire with the militants by 10 days.

Afghans hug the Taliban amid Eid ceasefire

Taliban fighters headed into cities across Afghanistan over the weekend as they celebrated their Eid cessation of hostilities with feasts, hugs and selfies, raising questions about what happens when their ceasefire ends at midnight (1930 GMT) on Sunday.

“Mujahideen throughout the country are ordered to continue their operations against the foreign invaders and their internal puppets as before,” they said in a statement.

“The announcement (of the ceasefire), implementation and the wide national support and welcome of the Mujahideen by the people proves that the demands of the Islamic Emirate and the nation are identical – all want the withdrawal of foreign invaders and establishment of an Islamic government,” they said.

“…Our enemies used to propagate that 20 different groups operate against them in Afghanistan or that the Islamic Emirate is not cohesive and unified. But it has now become abundantly clear to everyone that this assertion is baseless…”

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AP: Afghan Sikh leader holds out hope for dwindling minority

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Avtar Singh Khalsa will represent Afghanistan’s tiny Sikh and Hindu minority in the next parliament, where he says he hopes to serve the entire country.

Few Afghans are as invested in the government’s quest for peace and stability as the dwindling Sikh and Hindu minorities, which have been decimated by decades of conflict. The community numbered more than 80,000 in the 1970s, but today only around 1,000 remain.

Khalsa, a Sikh and longtime leader of the community, will run unopposed for a seat in the lower house of parliament that was apportioned to the minority by presidential decree in 2016. After the October election, he will be a solitary voice among 259 legislators, but hopes his 10 years of service in the Afghan army can help him secure a seat on the defense and security committee.

“I don’t only want to serve my Sikh and Hindu brothers. I have to be able to serve all the Afghan people, no matter which ethnicity or group they belong to. Our services must reach everyone,” he told The Associated Press during an interview inside a colorfully decorated temple in Kabul.

The 52-year-old father of four, originally from the eastern Paktia province, has lived most of his life in Kabul. He also served as a senator representing the minority, which has long had a seat in the upper house of parliament.

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NYT: As Afghan Cease-Fire Ends, Temporary Friends Hug, Then Return to War