Essential Information

A compendium of articles, reports, essays and investigations into the effects of militarism on the environment and human society. Send additional documents to editor@envirosagainstwar.org.

HUMAN IMPACTS

In Sour US Job Market, Military Recruitment Thriving
(Scott Farwell / The Dallas Morning News )

With unemployment hovering around 9.5%,the Pentagon has never had an easier time finding young recruits to fill its ranks. For the first time, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are far exceeding their recruiting goals. About 99 percent of enlistees have a high school diploma, and scores on the military entrance exam are the highest in the history of the all-volunteer force.
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US Soldiers 'Killed Afghan Civilians for Sport and Collected Fingers as Trophies'
(Chris McGreal / The Guardian)

Andrew Holmes, Michael Wagnon, Jeremy Morlock and Adam Winfield are four of five Stryker soldiers who face murder charges. A dozen US soldiers face charges over participating in a secret 'kill team' that allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of war.
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UN Chief Says Peacekeepers Failed Congo Rape Victims
(James Reinl / The National (United Arab Emirates))

The UN Assistant Secretary General for Peacekeeping has told the Security Council that UN peacekeepers failed to stop an epidemic of rape of as many as 500 Congolese (including girls as young as seven) by rebel forces in July and August. Members of the UN's $1.37 billion-a-year "peacekeeping" operation have been accused of sexual abuse, corruption and trading in gold and other precious minerals.
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The Non-Reporting of Fallujah's Cancer Catastrophe
(Media Lens)

Noam Chomsky has called the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health study, 'Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009.' "vastly more significant" than the Wikileaks Afghan 'War Diary' leaks, yet the Western Media has failed to address the story. The study showed a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer and a 38-fold increase in leukaemia -- worse than experienced after the bombing of Hiroshima.
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Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009
(International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)

In 2004, there was heavy fighting between US-led occupation troops and Iraqi elements in Fallujah. Little is known about the types of weapons deployed, but reports began to emerge after 2005 of a sudden increase in cancer and leukaemia rates. (Depleted uranium weapons were reportedly used.) A new study reveals a legacy of cancers in children and adults.
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ACTION ALERT: EAW's Letter to Michelle Obama and the White House Response
(Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War)

On August 1, EAW published text and videos detailing an unprecedented increase in cancers and deformed babies following the US attack on Fallujah. We sent copies of these postings, with a letter requesting action, to First Lady Michelle Obama, Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and Congressmembers Pelosi and Lee. Today, we received a letter from the White House. Please copy and send the video to your representatives.
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EAW's Letter to Michelle Obama and the White House Response
(Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War)

On August 1, EAW published text and video postings detailing the unprecedented increase in childhood cancers and deformed babies following the US attack on Fallujah, Iraq's "City of Mosques." We sent copies of these postings, with a letter requesting action, to First Lady Michelle Obama, Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and Congressmembers Pelosi and Lee. Today, we received a letter from the White House.
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NATO 'Precision Air Strike' Kills 10 Afghan Election Workers
(BBC News)

Ten Afghan election workers were killed in an air strike by NATO-led forces. NATO initially claimed a "precision air strike" killed a "Taliban commander... after careful planning to ensure no civilians were present." The Afghan war has triggered a 31% rise in civilian casualties with,women and children bearing the brunt, with a 155% rise in the numbers of young people dying in insurgent bomb blasts.
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Pentagon Declined to Investigate Hundreds of Purchases of Child Pornography
(John Cook / The Upshot)

A Defense Department investigation discovered that more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department -- including some with the highest available security clearance -- had used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But a Freedom of Information request reveals the Pentagon has investigated only a handful of these cases.
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US Dodges Obligation to Help Iraqi Women Trafficked into Sexual Slavery
(Sebastian Swett and Cameron Webster / The Nation)

Two months ago, the State Department released its "2010 Trafficking in Persons Report," laying out a picture of human trafficking across the globe. In it, the US reaffirmed its commitment to ending this scourge. Our duties, however, do not end at our borders. Currently, more than 50,000 Iraqi women. forced to flee to Jordan and Syria, are trapped in sexual servitude and have no possibility of escape. The burgeoning sex industries in Syria and Jordan are thriving because of instability produced by the Iraq War -- laying responsibility directly at the feet of the United States.
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Carnage in Quetta: 50 Civilians Killed by 'Friendly Fire'
(Kamal Hyder / Al Jazeera Blogs )

A suicide bomber blew himself up, killing between 6-8 people. What happened after that was something people will not forget. The procession, according to witnesses, had guards brandishing guns, who then started to fire indiscriminately, apparently killing people at random. When it was all over, 50 people lay dead in the bazaar and over 100 were badly wounded.
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Afghan Security Contractors Undermine the US Counterinsurgency Strategy
(Kevin Sites / Global Post & The Associated Press)

Civilian deaths threaten support for the US-led war both in Afghanistan and in the United States -- and they are on the rise. A UN report released Tuesday said civilian casualties had increased by 31 percent in the last six months. And a major offensive in the southern province of Kandahar that is just beginning is almost certain to lead to more civilian casualties.
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ACTION ALERT: Protest Government's Mass Killings in Sri Lanka
(Muthamizh Vendhan / Change.org)

People from across the globe are condemning the Human rights violations of Srilankan government. And civilized society is fighting hard to establish the justice to the Tamils. Killing of nearly 140,000 innocents, war crimes, ongoing slaughter on the journalists, moderates, reformists, artists and having opposition leader behind the bars make the Srilanka as a criminal and a failed state.
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US Contractors Kill Afghan Children; US Planes Kill Afghan Kids: Coalition Forces Kill US Contractors; Coalition Forces Kill Civilians; US Fires on 2000 Afghan Protesters
(PressTV & CNN News Wire & Morning Star)

Riots in Ghazni after two civilians are killed by foreign contractors. US-led warplanes are blamed for killing six Afghan children. Two private security contractors are killed by coalition forces who mistook them for insurgents. US troops fire on thousands of civilians protesting outside the US base at Bagram. Foreign troops kill eight civilians and injure 12 in a 2am raid on a private home.
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Iraq's Troubled Young Hearts
(Victoria Fine / Al Jazeera)

After 7 years of US occupation and "nation-building," Iraq's decimated healthcare system cannot meet the need for pediatric heart surgery. In all, the waiting list is above 20,000.
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Torture. Corruption. Civil War. America Has Certainly Left its Mark

 in Iraq
(Robert Fisk

/ The Independent)

We should not be taken in by the tomfoolery on the Kuwaiti border -- the departure of the last "combat" troops from Iraq. Nor by the infantile cries of "We won" from teenage soldiers. They are leaving behind 50,000 men and women -- a third of the entire US occupation force -- who will be attacked and who will still have to fight against the insurgency.
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Scared Women Are Packing Pistols in Iraq
(Nizar Latif, Foreign Correspondent / The National)

Each night before she goes to sleep, Umm Shekar checks to make sure her pistol is loaded and tucks it beneath her mattress. Increasingly worried about being robbed by criminal gangs or insurgents, the mother of six bought the weapon so she could defend herself and her family.
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War and the American Identity
(David Swanson / David Swanson.org)

"Prior to World War II, Americans by and large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism, if not outright hostility. In the wake of World War II, that changed. An affinity for military might emerged as central to the American identity. The methods devised by Allen Dulles and... Curtis LeMay ... [have] allowed presidents to assert and exercise quasi-imperial prerogatives."
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Torture. Corruption. Civil War. America Has Certainly Left its Mark

 in Iraq
(Robert Fisk

/ The Independent)
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An Exciting New Muslim Country to Drone Attack
(Glenn Greenwald / Salon)

After the US attacked suspected Al-Qaida targets in Yemen with three Cruise missile strikes the Pentagon claimed it needed to increase use of drone aircraft because "Yemen poses a threat to the US." But a US Cruise missile attack on June 7, 2010, killed 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children. It appears that it is the US that is a threat to Yemen.
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Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents
(Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Robert F. North / The New York Times)

The Obama administration's shadow war against Al Qaeda and its allies has been quietly expanded to a dozen countries. From the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics, the US has increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.
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Another US-Inflicted "Ground Zero" in Pakistan
(William N. Grigg / Libertarian Standard)

If opinion polls are reliable at all, most Americans are too enthralled by the manufactured outrage over the so-called Ground Zero Mosque to notice that the government claiming to represent them just massacred, via remote-controlled drone, at least twenty innocent people in Pakistan.
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'Gas Poisoning' Hits Afghan Girls
(Al Jazeera)

Dozens of students and teachers at a girls' school in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, have been sickened by an unknown gas that spread through classrooms. Wednesday's incident raised fears that the Taliban and other allied groups who oppose female education are using a new method to scare them away from classes.
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What You Will Not Hear About Iraq
(Prof. Adil E. Shamoo / Foreign Policy In Focus & Global Research)

Iraq has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life. What a havoc the United States has wreaked in Iraq.
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ACTION ALERT: Use Pakistan's Military Funding to Flood Recovery
(The Campaign for Peace and Democracy & Labour Party Pakistan)

The recent floods represent the worst disaster in Pakistan's history. The country has been devastated. The State, stripped of its capacity to meet peoples' needs by neoliberalism and militarism alike, has been found wanting. In addition to donating funds, people are invited to sign a petition calling for priorities that value people's over the demands of Pakistan's military.
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Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops
(Civilian-Soldier & Iraq Veterans Against War)

Army Reserve members facing imminent deployment to Afghanistan are publicly charging that their company is not properly trained or mentally fit for battle. Several members of the Indiana-based 656th Transportation Company, which is due to activate August 22nd, are requesting a Congressional inquiry into the unit's lack of readiness.
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Back to the Heart of Darkness in America's Unended War in Iraq
(Chris Floyd / Chris Floyd.com)

"Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent Into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death," details how a team of US soldiers carried out the premeditated rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family. Just one crime of many in a war that killed a million innocent civilians. So did the war accomplish anything. Yes. This just in: "Halliburton gets letter of intent for Iraq oil."
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(Juan Gonzales & Amy Goodman / Democracy Now!)

Is this the end of the Iraq war or just a rebranding of the US occupation? More than 50,000 troops remain in Iraq as well as 4,500 special operations forces and tens of thousands of private contractors. The US embassy in Baghdad is the largest in the world -- the size of eighty football fields. Two Iraqi activists give a harrowing, personal account of life in the ruins of "post-combat" Iraq.
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United Nations Report Criticizes Gaza Restrictions
(Ethan Bronner / The New York Times)

A UN report says 12 percent of the population of Gaza -- 178,000 people out of 1.5 million -- have lost livelihoods or have otherwise been severely affected by Israeli security policies. The report estimates that the restricted land comprises 17 percent of Gaza's total land and 35 percent of its agricultural land. Israel also restricts Gazan fishing to three nautical miles offshore.
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Between the Fence and a Hard Place: The Impact of Israel-Imposed Restrictions in Gaza
(United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs )

Over the past ten years, the Israeli military has expanded restrictions on access to farmland on the Gaza side of the 1949 "Green Line." An estimated 178,000 people -- 12 percent of the Palestinians population -- is being prevented from enjoying full access to ancestral lands located 1,000-1,500 meters from the Green Line. Access restrictions are enforced by opening live fire on people trying to enter the areas.
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New York Times Spins UN Report on Gaza Suffering
(Jeremy R. Hammond / Foreign Policy Journal)

The Times article gives weight to the Israeli claim that its activities in the Gaza Strip are matters of self-defense against Palestinian aggression and terrorism. The UN report, however, notes that much of the "aggression" is in response to Israel's incursions and destruction of Palestinian land and property. The loss of potential agricultural income in Gaza is estimated at over $50 million annually.
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Court: Israel Responsible for Arab Girl's Death
(Diaa Hadid / Associated Press)

A Jerusalem court has ruled that the Israeli state was responsible for the death of Abir Aramin, a 10-year-old Palestinian girl killed by gunfire more than three years ago as she stood some distance from a demonstration. The case gained wide attention because the girl's father, Basam Aramin, was a Palestinian militant turned advocate for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence.
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Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops
(Clare Bayard / CounterPunch & Civilian Soldier.or)

Army Reserve members facing imminent deployment to Afghanistan are publicly charging that their company is not properly trained or mentally fit for battle. Several members of the Indiana-based 656th Transportation Company, which is due to activate August 22nd, are requesting a Congressional inquiry into the unit's lack of readiness.
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Pentagon's 'Toxic Legacy' in Iraq: Fallujah's Poisoned Children
(Rawya Rageh / Al Jazeera & AlterNet)

The US military has been accused of leaving behind a legacy of toxic waste, left at abandoned bases as troops prepare to withdraw from Iraq. Meanwhile the children of Fallujah (site of a major US assualt) suffer from birth defects and strange mutations -- including a baby born with three heads. Alarmed officials in Fallujah have warned women that they should not have children.
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An Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People
(Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord / Civilian-Soldier Alliance)

Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks "Collateral Murder" incident have written an open letter of "Reconciliation and Responsibility" to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which US forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees.
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New Afghan Protests as US Accused of Killing More Civilians
(Al Jazeera)

Hundreds of villagers shouted "Death to the United States" after NATO forces killed three people in a raid. 
The UN said this week that the number of civilian casualties was up one-third in the first half of 2010 -- 386 civilians were killed by NATO or Afghan government forces, including 41 during search-and-seizure operations such as this latest night raid.
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Behind The Colombia/Venezuela Tension
(Conn Hallinan / Dispatches from the Edge)

The Colombian high command, claims a mass grave outside the La Macarena army base contains the bodies of thousands of guerilla fighters killed between 2002 and 2009. But the army is accused of committing "false positive" murders of civilians who are then dressed them up in insurgent uniforms in order to show the success of the army's counterinsurgency strategy, thus winning more military aid from the US.
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A War on Drugs? No, This Is a War on the Mexican People
(Luis Hernandez Navarro / La Jornada & The Guardian)

Mexican President Calderón followed much the same script used by George Bush after 9/11. But, instead of sending troops to Iraq or Afghanistan, the Mexican president ordered them into the streets of their own country. 29,000 dead, human rights leaders murdered, the constitution violated -- This is the price of President Calderón's popularity bid.
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UN Secretary-General's Remarks at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony
(Ban Ki-moon / United Nations News Center)

"We are here, on hallowed ground, to see, to feel, to absorb and reflect. I am honored to be the first UN Secretary-General to take part in this Peace Memorial Ceremony on the 65th anniversary of this tragic day. And I am deeply moved. When the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was one year old. Only later in life, could I begin to understand the full dimension of all that happened here."
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The Nuclear Danger 65 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki
(Daryl G. Kimball / Arms Control Association & Stanley Kutler / Truthdig)

Commentary: "The first nuclear bomb detonation in July 1945 and the surprise attacks on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of that year ignited a global debate about the role, the morality, and the control of nuclear weapons that continues to this day."
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Nagasaki Remembers Atomic Victims: No US Representative Attends
(Wayne Hay / Al Jazeera & Hurriet Daily News & Economic Review & Agence France-Press)

Thousands of people gathered in Nagasaki on Monday to mark 65 years since the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city during the Second World War. While representatives from Britain and France attended for the first time, the absence of a US representative at the ceremony irritated some Nagasaki A-bomb survivors. Last week, Washington had sent an envoy for the first time to attend the commemoration of Washington's nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
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Video Evidence of Mass Killing by US/NATO
(Derrick Crowe, Robert Greenwald / The Brave New Foundation)

US and allied forces in Afghanistan have denied they killed several dozen civilians in Sangin District of Helmand Province on July 23. But our new video exposes the truth about one of the worst civilian casualty incidents of the war. Watch our exclusive interviews with survivors and demand that your elected officials act to prevent future catastrophes like this.
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Parents Distressed over White House Policy: No Recognition for Soldier Suicides
(Amy Goodman / Democracy Now! & Adam Levine / CNN)

The suicide rate for Army soldiers has risen above the civilian rate for the first time since Vietnam. At the same time, following long-established practice, parents of young men and women driven to suicide by their wartime experiences receive no condolence from the White House. In November 2009, a spokesperson says the White House was reviewing this "inherited" policy. That was nearly a year ago.
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Whose Hands? Whose Blood? Killing Civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq
(Tom Engelhardt / Tom Dispatch)

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has suggested that the whistleblowers who leaked classified war document "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." A strange accusation given that the one of the revelations of the leaked documents was how much blood from innocent Afghan civilians was already on American hands.
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WikiLeaks in Baghdad: Soldiers Reveal the Training behind the Barbarity
(Sarah Lazare and Ryan Harvey / The Nation)

Former soldiers who served as members of Bravo Company 2-16 (2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment), the ground unit involved in the infamous "Collateral Murder" video, have started to come forward to tell their side of the story. And to explain how callous military training lead to this and other tragic instances of US military terror targeted at Iraqi civilians.
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Hiroshima Updates: US Ambassador's Attendance at A-bomb Service an Historic First
(Arn Specter / The Nuclear Review)

For the first time, a representative of the United States has attended the peace memorial ceremony held each year in Hiroshima to commemorate the atomic bomb attack on the city, which occurred 65 years ago Friday. Survivors of the US atomic bombing welcomed the historic presence at the ceremony of US Ambassador to Japan John Roos, who offered a silent prayer for the victims of the bombing.
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Israeli Settlers Attack Peace Activists: Rabbi Calls for Killing of Non-Jews
(PressTV & Jonathan Cook / Counterpunch)

Masked Israeli settlers have violently attacked international peace activists near al-Khalil. Two pascifists were hospitalized after being beaten with metal poles. Meanwhile, a rabbi from a settlement in the West Bank was questioned on suspicion of incitement as Israeli police stepped up their investigation into a book in which he sanctions the killing of non-Jews -- including children and babies.
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Hiroshima Day Bombing Remembered. US Delegation Attends for First Time in 65 Years
(Associated Press & CBS & Al Jazeera & Sherwood Ross)

This day marks the 65th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Events to commemorate the day will take place all over the world. The US and its allies have avoided ceremonies commemorating the terror-bombing of two large populated cities. However, this year Britain, France, the US and UN secretary-general Ban-Ki moon will be attending the ceremony in Hiroshima for the first time.
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Report Suggests 'Correlation' between US Aid and Army Killings
(Helda Martínez / Inter Press Service)

A new report, "Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, US Accountability, and Global Implications," has concluded there are "alarming links between increased reports of extrajudicial executions of civilians by the Colombian army and units that receive US military financing."
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Secret CIA Paramilitaries' Role in Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan
(David Leigh / The Guardian)

The "war logs" released by WikiLeaks are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called "blue on white" events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties. They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes.
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US Casualties in Afghanistan Soar to Record Highs
(Robert H. Reid / Associated Press )

In a summer of suffering, America's military death toll in Afghanistan is rising, with back-to-back record months for US losses in the grinding conflict. All signs point to more bloodshed in the months ahead, straining the already shaky international support for the war.
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Soldier Suicides at Record High
(avid Gura, All Things Considered / NPR)

In a recent report, the Pentagon admits it has not paid enough attention to mental health issues, which can lead to violence, drug abuse and suicide. In an interview with NPR's Robert Siegel, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, said that, while multiple deployments certainly contribute to those issues, there are many other causes.
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Task Force Report Says Suicides Linked to Lack of Leadership, Discipline
(Megan McCloskey / Stars and Stripes & Seth Robson / Stars and Stripes)

"Atrophied" leadership has led to more high-risk behavior among soldiers and ultimately more soldiers committing suicide, according to a blunt Pentagon report. In response, this summer, researchers plan to survey up to 400,000 soldiers as part of the largest study to date of suicide and mental health among military personnel.
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Suicides, Drugs, Crime Claiming More Soldiers Than Combat
(Martha Raddatz & Kirit Radia / ABC News)

After nine years of war, the US Army is showing signs of stress because of repeated deployments and inadequate support for soldiers when they return. The number of soldiers committing suicide has increased since 2004. Use of prescription drugs has tripled in the past five years. Crime is rising every year with soldiers expected to commit around 55,000 crimes in 2010. Domestic abuse is up 177 percent.
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Document Reveals Military Was Concerned About Gulf War Vets' Exposure to Depleted Uranium
( Mike Ludwig / Truthout)

For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium, a radioactive waste added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans. But a little-known 1993 Pentagon document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, shows that the Pentagon was so concerned about DU contamination that it ordered testing for all personnel exposed to the toxic substance.
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ACTION ALERT: The Human Impact of Conflict in Pakistan
(Christoph Koettl / Amnesty International USA)

Northwest Pakistan, including the Swat valley -- once known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan" for its scenic and natural beauty -- is now the center of a deadly triangle between the Taliban, Pakistani army forces and US drone attacks. Fighting has left millions homeless. The innocent men, women and children trapped in this violence are not acceptable casualties of war. We must draw a line now.
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How US Marines Sanitized Record of Bloodbath
(Declan Walsh / The Guardian)

Leaked war logs posted on Wikileaks reveal how US marines gave cleaned up accounts of incident in which they massacred 19 innocent civilians on March 4, 2007.
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Helmand Residents Accuse NATO of Deliberate Attack on Civilians
(Jon Boone and Ali Safi / The Guardian)

Survivors of an alleged NATO rocket attack on a small town in Helmand, which the Afghan government says killed 52 civilians, spoke today of their anger at what they claim was a deliberate air strike, despite coalition denials.
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The Blackest Hearts: War Crimes in Iraq
(Jim Frederick / The Guardian )

In March 2006, four US soldiers, strung out after months in the deadly battleground south of Baghdad, hatched a plan: to carry out one of the worst war crimes ever committed in Iraq.
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Wikileaks Reveals Hidden US Killing oc Afghan Civilians as New US Attack Kills 45 More Civilians
(BBC News & Press TV)

More than 90,000 leaked US military records have been published on the website Wikileaks, reportedly revealing hidden details of the Afghanistan war. Three major news publications which have been shown the documents say they include unreported killings of Afghan civilians. Meanwhile, on July 23, as many as 45 civilians were reportedly killed during a US-led helicopter strike in Helmand province.
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Vietnam's Forgotten War Victims
(Chris Arsenault / Al Jazeera)

The Vietnam War ended 35 years ago, but children are still being born with birth defects from chemical poisoning allegedly caused by defoliants sprayed by the US military. Like their American counterparts, Vietnamese victims have tried to gain justice in US courts, but after a series of cases, the US Supreme Court refused to hear their case in 2009.
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Iraqi City Has Higher Cancer Rates than Hiroshima
(SBS TV News & BBC World News)

Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukemias
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Huge Rise in Birth Defects in Falluja
(Martin Chulov / The Guardian)

Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants, compared to a year ago, and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting. A report from November 2009.
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"Our American Heroes": Why It's Wrong to Equate Military Service With Heroism
(William J. Astore / TomDispatch.com & TruthOut)

Commentary: Certainly, military service (especially the life-and-death struggles of combat) provides an occasion for the exercise of heroism, but even then I instinctively knew that it didn't constitute heroism. "Hero," sadly, is now used far too cavalierly. Sportscasters, for example, routinely refer to highly paid jocks who hit walk-off home runs or score game-winning touchdowns as heroes.
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Pentagon Numbers Hide Toll of American War Wounded
(Tom Hayden / The Peace and Justice Resource Center)

The Pentagon deliberately excludes hundreds of thousands of wounded American soldiers, or 95 percent of the total, from its official US casualty rates. The reason for the cover up of numbers of wounded soldiers appears to be to keep the lid on public reaction.
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Srebrenica 15 Years After: The Politicization of "Genocide"
(Edward S. Herman / Monthly Review)

Analysis: It has become an annual ritual each July to commemorate the 'Srebrenica massacre' of 1995. The now institutionalized characterization is that '8,000 [Bosnian Muslim] men and boys' were executed by the Serbs in 'the worst mass killing in Europe' since WWII. There is no such annual memorial in the West for the several thousand Palestinians killed in Sabra-Shatila in September 1982.
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Apocalypse in Central Africa: Ongoing Repression, War Crimes, and US Involvement
(keith harmon snow / Z Magazine)

US tax dollars are supporting brutal regimes committing the atrocities. The media don't report the massacres, decapitations, dismemberments, and routine disappearances in Congo. If they do, the violence is attributed to African savagery, rather than terrorism as military counter-insurgency and psychological operations -- as taught at the School of the Americas at Fort Bragg and Fort Leavenworth.
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ACTION ALERT: The Human Cost of Moving Fuel in a War Zone
(Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson, US Army (Retired) / VoteVets.org)

Moving fuel in a warzone. It's probably the most dangerous job in the world, costing over 1000 American lives. I should know. I was the Chief Logistics Officer under General David Petraeus in Iraq. The Senate is considering a clean energy climate plan, that will cut our dependence on foreign oil in half. Renewable technologies will help us here at home and save American lives abroad. Please sign our petition.
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America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer
(Clancy Sigal / The Guardian)

With record foreclosures and child poverty at a shameful level, can we really afford to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for 10 years?
/know/read.php?itemid=9668

American War Versus Real War
(Tom Englehardt & Nick Turse / TomDispatch)

In Sebastian Junger's new film "Restrepo," the Afghan War is now generally being recorded in real time, largely without images of Afghan suffering. Not surprisingly, Americans now pay remarkably little attention to the civilians whose lives have been destroyed in our invasions and prolonged occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
/know/read.php?itemid=9663

Record Number of Army Suicides
(Luis Martinez / ABC News)

June was the worst month ever for Army suicides, according to figures that include suicides among active duty soldiers as well as inactive Guardsmen and Reservists. There were 21 active duty Army suicides in June and 11 on the inactive Guard and Reserve side, totaling 32 for the month. The 21 active duty suicides ties the monthly record set in January of 2009.
/know/read.php?itemid=9652

A Lesson for another Path to Ending the 'War on Terror'?: At Guantanamo, Prisoners Freer, Assaulting Less
(Ben Fox / Associated Press )

More prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are sharing meals and recreation time with fellow inmates -- an easing of conditions that has led to fewer assaults against guards. Apparently, treating people with respect and dignity -- rather than harrassing and oppressing them -- results in a decrease of hatred and an improvement in behavior.
/know/read.php?itemid=9602

What Are Just "Rules of Engagement"?
(David E. DeCosse / Commentary – San Francisco Chroncile)

Who should bear the greater risk of death or injury in the Afghan war: American frontline soldiers in the heat of combat or Afghan civilians caught up in the conflict? Gen. David Petraeus and Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain have encouraged a rule change that would allow soldiers more easily to call on air or artillery support -- even if such support may increase the risk borne by civilians.
/know/read.php?itemid=9589

US Fails to Complete, or Cuts Back, Iraqi Projects
(Timothy Williams / The New York Times)

After two devastating battles between American forces and Sunni insurgents in 2004, Fallujah needed almost everything -- new roads, clean water, electricity, health care. Now, with an approaching draw-down of US troops, US construction firms are rushing to finish up costly infrastructure projects by resorting to shortcuts, shoddy work or leaving projects only partly finished, infuriating residents.
/know/read.php?itemid=9577

Petraeus Urged to Change Rules of Engagement for US Troops in Afghanistan
(Fox News)

Sen. Joe Lieberman has urged Gen. David Petraeus to change the rules of engagement for US troops in Afghanistan "as soon as possible," saying the policy rules put in place by outgoing Gen. Stanley McChrystal have "hurt morale" among US troops. Those rules aim to limit civilian casualties by prohibiting troops from firing unless they're shot at or from bombing attacks when civilians are near.
/know/read.php?itemid=9597

Petraeus May Alter Battle Rules
(Laura King / The Los Angeles Times)

Across Afghanistan, the Pentagon's "rules of engagement" serve as the marching orders that govern Western troops' daily encounters with Taliban fighters -- and color dealings with Afghan civilians. Gen. Petraeus has told his troops that while civilian safety is a critical consideration, "as you and our Afghan partners on the ground get into tough situations, we must employ all assets to ensure your safety."
/know/read.php?itemid=9598

Pakistanis Blame US after Shrine Attack Kills 42
(Nahal Toosi / The Associated Press )

A twin suicide attack that killed 42 at Pakistan's most popular Sufi shrine has angered and frustrated Pakistanis, with some saying Friday that the solution to the country's terror threat is a US exit from Afghanistan. Most of some two dozen Pakistanis interviewed said that even if Islamist extremists were behind the slaughter, the root cause of the violence was America's war in Afghanistan.
/know/read.php?itemid=9601

A Lesson for another Path to Ending the 'War on Terror'?: At Guantanamo, Prisoners Freer, Assaulting Less
(Ben Fox / Associated Press )

More prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are sharing meals and recreation time with fellow inmates -- an easing of conditions that has led to fewer assaults against guards. Apparently, treating people with respect and dignity -- rather than harrassing and oppressing them -- results in a decrease of hatred and an improvement in behavior.
/know/read.php?itemid=9603

Blasts of $3 Grenades Rock Burundi's Fragile Peace
(Max Delany / Associated Press)

Grenades cost as little as $3 each in this tiny East African country, and they have become the preferred method of settling political scores. Burundi has seen more than 60 grenade attacks over the last month, sparking fears the violence could plunge the country back into civil war.
/know/read.php?itemid=9600

Masked Men Attack Gaza Kids' Summer Camp
(MSNBC)

with rival day camps by the United Nations and Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers competing for the hearts of 700,000 children inside the occupied Gaza Strip, masked men have trashed a UN summer camp Monday, tying up guards and slashing tents and an inflatable pool in the second such attack blamed on suspected extremists in just over a month -- a sign of how, in Gaza, youth camp is not just about crafts and volleyball.
/know/read.php?itemid=9613

UN Blasts Israel's Plan to Destroy Homes
(Al Jazeerah)

A UN human rights expert says that Israel's plan to destroy several Palestinian homes in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) would violate the international law. "International law does not allow Israel to bulldoze Palestinians homes to make space for the Mayor's project to build a garden, or anything else," UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Richard Falk said in a statement.
/know/read.php?itemid=9575

Israel's Defense Minister Criticises Plan to Demolish Palestinian Homes
(Aron Heller / Associated Press)

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak criticized a plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes to make room for an Israeli tourist center in disputed east Jerusalem as "the kind of action that undermines trust and potentially incites emotions and adds to the risk of violence." Barak added that Jerusalem officials were "not displaying common sense or good timing, and not for the first time."
/know/read.php?itemid=9622

Mass Grave in Mexico: Another Legacy of US Backed "War on Drugs"
(William Booth / Washington Post)

For months, maybe for years, feuding drug mafias have unloaded their bound-and-gagged victims from pickup trucks and car trunks and thrown them down a deep, dark hole. It is one of the most macabre spectacles in a drug war that each week brings news of greater barbarities.
/know/read.php?itemid=9618

The Gaza Siege Is Illegal: Israel and International Law
(Curtis F.J.Doebbler / Brussells Tribunal)

International law is important to states because it reflects agreed upon rules. In fact, the rules of international law are some of the only things that have been widely agreed upon among states. The siege on Gaza is a violation of norms of international humanitarian law. No state can justify the use of force to perpetuate an illegal situation, writes Curtis Doebbler.
/know/read.php?itemid=9559

Waiting in Gaza
(Safa Joudeh / Al Jazeera)

Gaza under siege is a forgotten place where time and change are irrelevant aside from degradation, both of physical surroundings and the quality inside us that makes human beings yearn for life. What keeps it afloat is outside humanitarian aid, but what infuses it with that faint semblance to normalcy are the tunnels running between Gaza and Egypt. Tunnel trade increased as the blockade continued.
/know/read.php?itemid=9556

Wikileaks Soldier Reveals Orders for "360 Rotational Fire" Against Civilians in Iraq
(Ralph Lopez / OpEdNews & Military Times)

Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers seen in the now-famous Wikileaks video in which two American Apache helicopters fire upon a relaxed, unhurried gaggle of men in Baghdad, has stepped forward with open opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and written a letter of apology for his part in the incident to the mother of the children, who has accepted his apology.
/know/read.php?itemid=9546

Gaza Blockade Ruled Illegal
(International Committee of the Red Cross & Al-Jazeera)

The International Committee of the Red Cross has described Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip as a violation of the Geneva Conventions and called on the Israeli government to lift it. The ICRC called the four-year-old blockade "collective punishment," a crime under international law, that has left the territory plagued by frequent power cuts, a ruined economy, and a collapsed health care system.
/know/read.php?itemid=9540

ICC Makes Waging War a Crime
(Sam Sasan Shoamanesh / Al Jazeerah)

History was made in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 12, 2010 in Kampala, Uganda, the site of the Review Conference of the International Criminal Court. For the first time in the war stricken story of mankind, waging aggressive wars has become a prosecutable crime in international law and given precise meaning and teeth before the ICC.
/know/read.php?itemid=9536

Who Is Afraid of a Real Inquiry?
(Uri Avnery / Ma'an News Agency)

Commentary: A former three-term member of Israel's Knesset responds to the Israeli government's offer to investigate itself for the deadly assault on a humanitarian convoy peace activists: "If a real commission of inquiry had been set up (instead of the pathetic excuse for a commission), here are some of the questions it should have addressed."
/know/read.php?itemid=9531

Kyrgyzstan Faces Humanitarian Crisis as Uzbeks Flee Slaughter
(Luke Harding /Guardian & Associated Press)

Hundreds of minority Uzbeks are feared killed as up to 100,000 escape to border with Uzbekistan. Much of the city of Osh is burning as Kyrgyz mobs continue to riot. The official toll was put at 124 killed and more than 1,600 injured. But according to Associated Press at least 200 Uzbeks had already been buried.
/know/read.php?itemid=9532

Israeli Report Finds Abuse of Palestinians 'Widespread'; Children Starving
(B'Tselem & Al Jazeera)

The death toll in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories was "much lower" in 2009 than previous years, but human rights abuses against Palestinians remain widespread, according to a new report from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. UN aid workers inside Gaza report that about 14 percent of children suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition.
/know/read.php?itemid=9527

Israeli Navy Officers Condemn Government Handling of Commando Raid
(Anshel Pfeffer / Haaretz.com)

A group of top Israel Navy reserves officers have called on Israel to allow an external probe into its commando raid of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla that left nine dead. In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the officers denounced the raid as having "ended in tragedy both at the military and diplomatic levels."
/know/read.php?itemid=9503

US Missile, Clusterbombs Killed Yemen Civilians
(Agence France-Presse & Amnesty International & Associated Press)

A US cruise missile carrying cluster bombs was behind a December attack in Yemen that killed 55 people, most of them civilians. Amnesty International released photographs that show the remains of a US-made Tomahawk missile and unexploded cluster bombs. Amnesty Int. stated it was "gravely concerned by evidence that cluster munitions appear to have been used in Yemen," which would violate international law.
/know/read.php?itemid=9498

Turkish Survivors of Gaza Aid Attack Recount Horror
(Anita McNaught / Al Jazeera & Lamis Andoni / Al Jazeera)

Nine Turkish activists killed in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship were shot a total of 30 times and five died of bullet wounds to the head. Interviews with some of the injured activists, who are recovering in an Ankara hospital. And a Commentary by Lamis Andoni on "The Myth of Israeli Morality."
/know/read.php?itemid=9500

Israel's Bogus Excuses for Piracy
(Sadaka / The Ireland Palestine Alliance)

Commentary: "Israel claims it had compelling reasons for hijacking the Free Gaza ships in international waters and kidnapping their passengers. All of them are bogus."
/know/read.php?itemid=9495

Turkey Honors Slain Activists, including US Teenager
(Selcan Hacaoglu & David Rising / Associated Press)

Thousands of mourners hailed activists killed in an Israeli commando mission as martyrs. The father of the youngest of the nine activists killed -- 19-year-old high school student Furkan Dogan, who had dual US-Turkish citizenship -- praised his son for dying in a just cause.
/know/read.php?itemid=9484

Turkey Delivers Ultimatum: Israel Rejects International Calls for Probe
(Donald Macintyre / The Independent & Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com)

Israel bowed to heavy diplomatic pressure to deport hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists yesterday, after what Turkey said was an ultimatum that threatened Jerusalem with severe political consequences if it kept its citizens in custody. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has rejected a UN Security Council resolution calling for an international investigation of their attack on a civilian aid ship.
/know/read.php?itemid=9485

Journalist Relieves Attack; Malaysia Pleas with Israel Not to Attack New Relief Ship
(Jamal Elshayyal / Al Jazeera )

Released from an Israeli jail, a TV journalist give an eyewitness account of the attack that killed 9 humanitarian activists. Meanwhile, Malaysia's government has urged Israel not to take any action that could harm people aboard a Malaysian-funded Irish aid ship, the MV Rachel Corrie, now heading to Gaza carrying 11 activists, including Mairead Corrigan, a Nobel Peace laureate.
/know/read.php?itemid=9486

Behind the Freedom Flotilla: The 4-Year-Long Siege of Gaza
(Ismail Patel / Al Jazeera & Janine Zacharia / Washington Post)

"Being part of the 700-strong civilian 'crew' was an easy decision to make. Individuals such as myself have been forced to take bold steps to challenge Israel. In order to bring about justice, we are forced to face this danger. Even as we make our plans, the Israeli navy, headed by none other than Ehud Barak, the defence minister, plans to block our efforts."
/know/read.php?itemid=9482

Doctors without Borders: Bringing Care to Regions of Conflict
(Film Review: Gar Smith / The Berkeley Daily Planet)

Filmed over the course of two years in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Niger, Kenya, Canada, the US and the MSF headquarters in Paris, the film was intended, in the director's words, to "explore the limits of idealism" by "immersing people in the Doctors Without Borders experience."
/know/read.php?itemid=9483

Israel's 'Gunboat Diplomacy' Provokes Global Outrage
(Donald Macintyre / The Independent)

Israel was struggling to contain a rapidly mounting diplomatic crisis after naval commandos killed at least nine pro-Palestinian activists in international waters. Amid international calls for a full investigation, Ankara's accusations of "state terrorism" and angry protests at embassies worldwide, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled out of a planned meeting with US President Barack Obama
/know/read.php?itemid=9477

At Least 10 Are Killed as Israel Halts Flotilla With Gaza Aid
(Alex Rozkovsky/Reuters )

Israeli naval commandos raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning, killing at least 10 people, according to the Israeli military and activists traveling with the flotilla. Some Israeli news reports put the death toll higher.
/know/read.php?itemid=9472

Israel: Mass Murder Followed by Censorship and a Cover-up
(Bradley Burston / Ha'aretz & Jonathan Cook / CounterPunch)

Commentary: "A war tells a people terrible truths about itself. That is why it is so difficult to listen. We were determined to avoid an honest look at the first Gaza war. Now, in international waters and having opened fire on an international group of humanitarian aid workers." "Israel has been able to create over the past 12 hours a news blackout, just as it did with its attack on Gaza 18 months ago."
/know/read.php?itemid=9474

Israeli Forces Attacks Gaza-Bound Aid Ships, 10 Killed
(Voice of America & The Telegraph & Al Jazeera)

Israel's military says navy forces have intercepted an aid convoy carrying pro-Palestinian activists to the Gaza Strip, killing more than 10 of the activists. Israeli forces intercepted the flotilla of six ships early Monday, opening fire on at least one of the vessels. Some reports put the death toll as high as 16. Activists say at least 30 people were wounded.
/know/read.php?itemid=9469

Report from onboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla
(Paul McGeouge / Sydney Morning Herald)

The protest business requires patience -- especially with a plan as audacious as crashing a fleet of ships through Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. Inevitably, the slowest boat sets the pace for all. Days at sea can be lost to mechanical failure or efforts to pressure governments into making it difficult for celebrity activists and supporters to get on board.
/know/read.php?itemid=9470

Civilians Under Attack by Israel
(The Free Gaza Movement & Al Jazeera)

The Free Gaza Movement, European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza, Insani Yardim Vakfi, the Perdana Global Peace Organisation, Ship to Gaza Greece, Ship to Gaza Sweden, and the International Committee to Lift the Siege on Gaza appeal to the international community to demand that Israel stop their brutal attack on civilians delivering vitally needed aid to the imprisoned Palestinians of Gaza.
/know/read.php?itemid=9471

Flotilla Set for Final Leg of Gaza Blockade-busting Bid
(Agence France-Presse /Free Gaza Movement & George Psyllides / Cyprus Mail)

An aid flotilla that had been due to sail for Gaza on Friday in defiance of an Israeli embargo was delayed by a day because of technical snags and fears Israel might seize one of the ships. Meanwhile, Cypriot authorities have prevented pro-Palestinian activists, including 30 MPs from nine European countries, from joining the flotilla.
/know/read.php?itemid=9463

US Accused of Using WMDs in Terror Attacks on Civilians
(Associated Press)

In a scathing report, US military investigators found that "inaccurate and unprofessional" reporting by US operators of a Predator drone was responsible for a missile strike that killed 23 Afghan civilians in February. Twelve other civilians including a woman and three children were wounded in the missile strike, the report said.
/know/read.php?itemid=9464

UN Official to Ask US to End UN Drone Strikes
(Charlie Savage / The New York Times )

A senior United Nations official is expected to call on the United States next week to stop Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes against people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, complicating the Obama administration’s growing reliance on that tactic in Pakistan.
/know/read.php?itemid=9459

It’s Called 'War Porn'
(Tanya Cariina Hsu / Global Research)

War has always been a turn-on, its thrill as old as mankind itself. And many who cannot participate want to watch. In Iraq and Afghanistan, US soldiers routinely swap their footage of enemy kills with sexual pornography sites, in exchange for X-rated videos. Military personnel regularly submit thousands of these "snuff videos" enhanced with heavy metal rock music. It's called "war porn."
/know/read.php?itemid=9460

Jamaican Army Accused of Murdering Civilians in Tivoli Gardens
(Chris McGreal / The Guardian)

Residents of flashpoint neighbourhood speak out against fact that official death toll is 73, but only four weapons seized. Residents of the blighted Kingston neighborhood at the heart of this week's intense fighting between the man who is allegedly Jamaica's top drug lord and the army have accused the military of summarily executing unarmed men and indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population.
/know/read.php?itemid=9457

Eyewitness to the Police Crackdown in Thailand
(Pipob Udomittipong / Special to EAW)

The following is an unedited eyewitness account of the demonstrations in downtown Bangkok. In the wake of lost lives and massive damage done to infrastructure and buildings in the area, the government has claimed success in "taking back the area" from the Red Shirts demonstrators. Much attention has been diverted to the property damage, often overshadowing the human cost of the clearing operation.
/know/read.php?itemid=9447

UN Chief Urges Action on Child Soldiers
(Edith M.Lederer / Associated Press)

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged the UN Security Council to consider tough measures against countries and insurgent groups that persist in recruiting child soldiers, naming the worst offenders -- Somalia's transitional government, Congo's armed forces, Myanmar's army, and rebel groups in Congo, Myanmar, the Philippines, Colombia, Sudan and Uganda.
/know/read.php?itemid=9444

ACTION ALERT: Shell Drilling Threatens Arctic and Eskimo Communities
(Greenpeace & Amnesty International & Defenders of Wildlife)

Just like BP dismissed the risk of a blowout with its Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf, Shell is saying the same thing about their proposed Alaskan Arctic rig. The truth is that Shell's plans in Alaska are even riskier than BP's. A spill in the Chukchi Sea could spell disaster for the people, polar bears, whales and other wildlife that rely on the Chukchi to survive.
/know/read.php?itemid=9446

Gaza Children's Camp Destroyed; Cameras Capture Teenagers' Hope
(Nicole Johston / Al Jazeera)

Dozens of masked men have broken into a UN-run Gaza summer camp for children and set it on fire, after beating up the guard and destroying the plastic tents. In other news, a new film called "Shooting Hope" follows a project that uses photography to bring Palestinian and Lebanese teenagers together.
/know/read.php?itemid=9442

US Data Show Surprisingly High Numbers of Soldiers Have Died
(Peter Tremblay / Libertyforlife.com )

Commentary: According to little-publicized government records, many tens of thousands of US soldiers who served in Iraq have apparently been killed as a result of being exposed to radiation poisoning from the indiscriminate use of depleted uranium Weapons of Mass Destruction that were "Made in America."
/know/read.php?itemid=9438

War Crimes Charges Raised in Sri Lanka
(Andrew Wander & M.R. Narayan Swamy / Al Jazeera)

A year after the guns fell silent in northern Sri Lanka, human rights groups have issued their strongest call yet for a full and independent inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the final months of the conflict.
/know/read.php?itemid=9429

ACTION ALERT: End the Occupation of Iraq; Help the Iraqi Victims of DU Poisoning
(Peace Action)

In the seven years since George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, one million Iraqis have been killed and another five million displaced. President Obama has promised to end this occupation. Meanwhile, millions of Iraqis are being harmed by exposure to depleted uranium (DU) used by the US military in ammunition. The US continues to insist the high cancer rates have nothing to do with exposure to DU.
/know/read.php?itemid=9421

US Drone Wars Fuel War Crimes
(Tom Burghardt / Pacific Free Press)

With Predators clocking more than 30,000 hours of flight time per month, and more than 40 UAVs aloft "every second of every day" -- and with the Air Force and the CIA seeking the capability to fly anywhere from 50-75 daily "missions" above Afghanistan, Pakistan and who knows where else -- American taxpayers will continue to underwrite a new kind of killing -- remote-controlled murder-at-a-distance.
/know/read.php?itemid=9416

US Troops Suffer More Stress Than Britons, Study Says
(Benedict Carey / The New York Times)

British troops who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer far lower rates of post-traumatic stress than Americans do. While estimated rates of the condition in troops returning to the United States range from 10 to 15 percent, the new study found a rate of just 4 percent among Britons -- even though they and the Americans have seen equal amounts of combat in recent years.
/know/read.php?itemid=9417

Urban Warfare in Bangkok: Clashes Continue in Thai Capital
(Al Jazeera & BBC News)

Soldiers remain locked in a tense confrontation with anti-government protesters in the capital of Thailand. At least 24 people have been killed and almost 200 others wounded in two days of violent unrest in Bangkok.
/know/read.php?itemid=9404

Palestinians Mark Nakba / A Baby Dies in Gaza
(Nour Odeh / Al Jazeera)

Palestinians across the world are marking on Saturday the 62nd anniversary of Nakba, which means catastrophe. In 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced and many became refugees due to the formation of the state of Israel. Meanwhile, a baby named Firas Mazloom, has become the latest victim of the Occupation. The boy, who needed emergency surgery to correct a life-threatening heart condition, died after repeated attempts to enter Israel for specialized surgery.
/know/read.php?itemid=9405

NATO Attack Kills Afghan Civilians, Protesters Burn US Flag
(Bakht Buland Jan / IndiaVision News & Amir Shah / Ledger-Enquirer)

Several 100 people came on the streets in the Surkh Rod district of Nangahar province to protest the raid by international forces that they claim killed at least eleven civilians. A father and his four sons and four members of another family were killed in the NATO operation.
/know/read.php?itemid=9398

A Massacre of Arabs Masked by a State of National Amnesia
(Catrina Stewart / The Independent)

Sixty years on, the true story of the slaughter of Palestinians at Deir Yassin may finally come out. Deir Yassin was an Arab village that was cleared out in 1948 by Jewish forces in a brutal battle just weeks before Israel was formed. Deir Yassin has come to symbolize -- perhaps more than anywhere else -- the Palestinian sense of dispossession.
/know/read.php?itemid=9394

Evidence Reveals US Drone Attacks behind Attempted Times Square Bombing
(Al Jazeera)

US drone attacks have angered Pakistan as they often result in civilian casualties. Last year, 90 percent of the 708 people killed by US drones were civilians. Times Square bomber Faisal Shazad confessed he was motivated by anger over the deaths resulting from US drone attacks. Following Shazad's arrest, the US responded by threatening Pakistan and launching a massive drone strike that killed 14 people.
/know/read.php?itemid=9388

War Epics on Screen Skip Mass Slaughter of Civilians
(Charles Burress / Special to The Japan Times)

Does the history diet fed to Americans by Hollywood promote an unhealthy national memory? The widely reported premier of "The Pacific" came but four days after the little noticed anniversary of one of the darkest events in American war history -- the March 10, 1945, firebombing of Tokyo. This savage US bombing killed an estimated 100,000 civiliants in an act of "deliberate, indiscriminate mass murder."
/know/read.php?itemid=9375

The US Military’s Role in Spreading Cancer
(US Department of Health and Human Services & National Institutes of Health & National Cancer Institute)

The military is a major source of toxic occupational and environmental exposures that can increase cancer risk. Nearly 900 Superfund sites are abandoned military facilities or facilities that produced materials and products for or otherwise supported military needs.
/know/read.php?itemid=9369

A War on Drugs Or a War on Juárez?
(Judith Torrea / The Washington Spectator)

Like most wars, Mexico's "War on Drugs" has been a failure. While drug us has continued to grow, homicides have soared. In 2007 there were 317 reported killings. Since Mexican President Calderón announced the "War on Drugs" in and deployed the army in January of 2008, the body count in Juárez has soared. In 2008, 1,623 were killed in the violence. In 2009, the number reached 2,754.
/know/read.php?itemid=9370

ACTION ALERT: Stop the Killing in Iraq and Afghanistan
(A Just Foreign Policy.org)

The number of Iraqis slain since the US invasion of March 2003 is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the US-led invasion and occupation. ACTION ALERT: Sign the petition demanding a timetable for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
/know/read.php?itemid=9361

Army To Be Sued for War Crimes over its Role in Fallujah Attacks
(Robert Verkaik, Law Editor / The London Independent )

Allegations that Britain was complicit in the use of chemical weapons linked to an upsurge in deformed Iraqi children, are being investigated. The case raises serious questions about the UK's role in the American-led offensive against the city of Fallujah in 2004 where it is alleged that a range of illegal weaponry was used resulting in large numbers of children being born with severe birth defects.
/know/read.php?itemid=9362

Why Men Love War
(Evan Thomas | NEWSWEEK )

In his new book, "The War Lovers," Evan Thomas| tells a story about Teddy Roosevelt and of how the US became involved in the Spanish-American War "as a way of understanding the ancient pull of the battlefield. I was, in part, trying to understand my own attitude on the Iraq War."
/know/read.php?itemid=9356

Combat High: The Challenge Is Surviving Peacetime
(Sebastian Junger | NEWSWEEK)

Few other parts of Afghanistan have rivaled the remote Korengal Valley in terms of the cost in American lives per square mile. US forces finally pulled out this April, after five bloody years and more than 40 American deaths.
/know/read.php?itemid=9357

Kent State: Remembering US Campus Killings
(Nick Spicer / Al Jazeera)

Video: Forty years ago National Guard troops in the US state of Ohio fired on students who were protesting against the Vietnam war at Kent State university. Four students were killed that day, piercing the conscience of people across the country. It became a defining moment for the US anti-war movement.
/know/read.php?itemid=9355

Samuel Maoz: My Life at War and My Hopes for Peace
(Rachel Cooke / The Observer)

Samuel Maoz’s 2009 film 'Lebanon' won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival. The former Israeli tank gunner turned award-winning director spoke about his controversial film and why he's still in the line of fire. "You couldn't leave the tank," he says. "But this is the thing: you didn't want to. You hate the tank, but you love it, too. To be inside it is hell. But it will save you."
/know/read.php?itemid=9346

BAE's 'Green Filling Fields'
(Jon Ungoed / London Sunday Times )

UK arms manufacturer BAE Systems is bringing us ‘Green Killing’ with a new generation of what it laughingly calls ‘environmentally-friendly weapons’. Apparently, it wants to reduce the dangerous compounds emitted by its jets, fighting vehicles and weapons, like depleted uranium (DU) dust, which it warns “can harm the environment and pose a risk to people.�
/know/read.php?itemid=9335

PTSD, Infertility and other Consequences of War
(Bob Nichols / OpEdNews)

Iraq and virtually all the rest of the Middle East and Central Asia have been continually dosed for almost 20 years with thousands of tons of weaponized ceramic uranium oxide gas, also known as "depleted uranium." The poison uranium oxide gas aerosols last for billions of years and never stop indiscriminately maiming and killing, which is a war crime in itself.
/know/read.php?itemid=9338

US Legacy in Iraq: Violence, Devastation, Corruption, Desperation
(Stephen Lendman / OpEdNews)

The Gulf War was an environmental disaster. It destroyed power and chemical plants; factories; dams; water purification facilities; sewage treatment systems; oil wells, pipelines and refineries. Twenty years of war, sanctions, and occupation left vast parts of the country's land, water and air poisoned by pollutants, including depleted uranium, chemicals, toxic metals, oil, bacteria, and other contaminants.
/know/read.php?itemid=9331

Memo to America: Stop Murdering My People
(Malalai Joya / The Daily Beast)

Almost every day, the NATO occupation of our country continues to kill innocent people. Each time, it seems, military officials try to claim that only insurgents are killed, or they completely deny and cover up their crimes. The work of a few courageous journalists is the only thing that brings some of these atrocities to light.
/know/read.php?itemid=9332

Is the CIA behind Mexico's Bloody Drug War?
(Mike Whitney / Global Research)

Experts disagree about the origins of the violence in Juarez, but no one disputes that 23,000 people have been killed since 2006 in a largely futile military operation initiated by Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The militarization of the war on drugs has been a colossal disaster. Mexico is becoming a failed state and Washington's $1.4 billion in military aid to Mexico is largely to blame.
/know/read.php?itemid=9323

They Fled from Our War
(Alisa Roth, Hugh Eakin / New York Review of Books)

As late as 2006, a year in which the country approached civil war and thousands poured across the border each day, the US admitted only 202 Iraqis for resettlement. Britain took in hardly any. By the end of that year, the UNHCR had registered only 17,000 Iraqis in Jordan -- "fraction" of the hundreds of thousands who had fled there from "persecution, war, and generalized violence in Iraq."
/know/read.php?itemid=9326

Disposable Soldiers: How the VA Abandons Our Vets
(Joshua Kors / The Nation)

The Pentagon is saving billions by diagnosing wounded soldiers with “personality disorder.� Because PD is listed as a pre-existing condition, wounded vets are denied traditional lifetime disability benefits. Soldiers with PD discharges must return part of their re-enlistment bonus-- which can amount to several thousand dollars -- more than the cost of their final paychecks.
/know/read.php?itemid=9319

US to Run Seven Military Bases in Colombia
(Diane Lefer and Hector Aristizábal / School of the Americas Watch )

US and Colombian officials have signed an agreement granting the US military access to seven Colombian bases for ten years. The US has thereby increased its ties to the military known for the worst human rights abuses in the Western Hemisphere. SOAW takes a look at the history of each of these bases as well as conditions in the surrounding communities and the nation as a whole.
/know/read.php?itemid=9321

Chagos Island Restoration Campaign Overlooks Islanders Expelled by Pentagon
(RickB / Ten Percent & The Independent)

The indigenous residents of the Chagos islands were forcibly removed to turn the islands into a US military base used to bomb the Middle East. A marine conservation proposal by the Chagos Environment Network has been accused of "greenwashing" ethnic cleansing because it argues that resettling of the island's indigenous human population would be "counter-productive" to the aim of environmental protection.
/know/read.php?itemid=9310

Is It American Policy to Shoot the Wounded and Commit War Crimes?
(Thomas R. Eddlem / The New American)

Commentary: Defense Secretary Robert Gates defended the actions of US soldiers who are shown in a video shooting civilians. Gates criticized the video as 'looking at the war through a soda straw.' Gates called the release pf the video 'unfortunate' and 'clearly not helpful.'While he conceded that killing unarmed civilians was 'unfortunate,' Gates saod je did not think 'it should not have any lasting consequences.'
/know/read.php?itemid=9286

More Cause and Effect in the War against Terrorists
(Glenn Greenwald / Salon.com)

The extreme paradox of our actions in the Muslim world is now well-documented: namely, the very policies justified in the name of fighting Terrorism (invasions, occupations, bombings, lawless detentions, etc.) are the precise ones that most inflame and exacerbate that threat.
/know/read.php?itemid=9285

'As I Watch the Footage, Anger Calcifies in My Heart'
(Haifa Zangana / The London Guardian)

Commentary: A novelist and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime gives her reaction to the Wikileaks Iraq video: "I know the area where this massacre was committed. It is near where my two aunts and their extended families lived, where I played as a child with my cousins Ali, Khalid, Ferial and Mohammed. As I watch, I feel the anger calcify in my heart alongside the rage I still feel over other Anglo-American massacres."
/know/read.php?itemid=9270

Witnesses Describe US Killings of Iraqi Civilian
(Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman, Rick Rowley / Democracy Now!)

As the US Central Command says it has no plans to reopen an investigation into the July 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, Democracy Now played never-before-seen eyewitness interviews filmed by reporter Rick Rowley, the day after the attack.
/know/read.php?itemid=9271

Civilians Killed as US Troops Fire on Afghan Bus
(Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Taimoor Shah / The New York Times)

American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near Kandahar on Monday morning, killing and wounding civilians, and igniting angry anti-American demonstrations in a city where winning over Afghan support is pivotal to the war effort.
/know/read.php?itemid=9266

'Civilians Die' in Pakistan Raid
(BBC News)

At least 73 civilians were killed when an army jet bombed a remote village in Pakistan's tribal region of Khyber. Many people have died in air strikes in the area over the past 18 months. The military insists most of them are militants, but independent sources say many civilians have also been killed. Villagers say another strike -- by a US drone missile -- killed 13 people on Monday.
/know/read.php?itemid=9267

Iraq Outrage over US Killing Video
(Al Jazeera)

Families of Iraqi civilians, seen being shot and killed by US forces in a leaked video, are seeking justice for their deaths. The shooting left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency. International legal observers have suggested that the killings constitute "war crimes" and should be investigated.
/know/read.php?itemid=9268

Hapchon Journal: Korean A-bomb Victims Seek Hiroshima Compensation
(Al Jazeera & The New York Times & Yomiuri Shimbun/Daily Yomiuri)

During the Japanese occupation of Korea in WW II, tens of thousands of Koreans were sent to Japanese cities to work in munitions factories. For the unlucky people of Hapcheon, the destination was the city of Hiroshima – one of two Japanese cities struck by US atomic bombs in August 1945. Today the Korean survivors from the bombing struggle with the trauma of that day, and they are now demanding compensation.
/know/read.php?itemid=9269

Reuters Families Demand US Troops Be Tried over Shooting
(Mehdi Lebouachera Mehdi Lebouachera / Agence France-Presse)

The families of two Reuters news agency employees killed in a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad are demanding justice and asking that the Americans responsible should stand trial.
/know/read.php?itemid=9250

Now We Wee What War Does to Those who Wage It
(Joan Smith / The Independent)

For the crew of an Apache helicopter gunship hovering over Baghdad in 2007, the whole thing sounds like a game. "Nice... good shooting," exclaims a voice from the cockpit as a group of men in civilian clothes lies on the ground in a cloud of dust. "Yeah, look at those dead bastards," calls out another.
/know/read.php?itemid=9253

Popular Uprising Overthrows US Ally, Imperils US Military Bases
(BBC World News & Reuters & The New York Times)

The opposition in Kyrgyzstan says it is setting up a "people's government" after deadly clashes left dozens dead. Protests at rising prices, corruption and the arrest of opposition leaders had erupted in three cities. The detention of opposition leaders on Tuesday night backfired as protests become uncontrollable. Former Foreign Minister Rosa Otunbayeva announced: "Power is now in the hands of the people's government." The future of US bases in the country is in doubt.
/know/read.php?itemid=9246

US Military Covering Up Civilian Killings in Iraq and Afghanistan
( Stephen Soldz / Op Ed News)

Recent news stories have exposed two incidents in two countries where US troops killed civilians and then lied to cover up the evidence. These horrific reports (one based on the release of a suppressed US combat video) are but the latest of a steady stream of lies from military and Pentagon sources about the killing of civilians.
/know/read.php?itemid=9241

US Special Forces 'Tried to Cover-up' Botched Khataba Raid in Afghanistan
(Jerome Starkey / The Times of London)

US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims' bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times. US forces attempted to cover-up the fact that they had shot and killed two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother.
/know/read.php?itemid=9237

How the Military and the Media Orchestrated a Cover-up of US Killings
(Glenn Greenwald / Salon)

On February 12, US forces entered a village in the Paktia Province and surrounded a home where they shot dead two male civilians (government officials), then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager). The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were "insurgents."
/know/read.php?itemid=9238

Collateral Murder: Video of US Attack
(WikiLeaks.com & Rachel Maddow)

Wikileaks has just released what it describes as classified video from US Apache helicopters in a July 12, 2007 attack on the suburb of New Baghdad, Iraq. The US military has said that the dozen or so casualties were "anti-Iraqi forces" or "insurgents."
/know/read.php?itemid=9239

The Anti-War Movement Seven Years After Shock and Awe
(Dennis O'Neil & Eric See / Freedom Road )

The war in Iraq is still on. It's already the second most expensive war in US history -- only WWII cost more. The war in Afghanistan is heating up. It's now the second longest war in US history -- only Vietnam lasted longer. So what the hell happened to the anti-war movement?
/know/read.php?itemid=9235

Depleted Uranium Radiation resulting from NATO Bombings in Serbia : High Incidence of Cancer
(Ljubica Vujadinovic / Global Research & All Voices )

A leading Serbian expert in the field says the NATO's use of depleted uranium ammunition in it's aggression on Serbia has caused enormous increase in cancer rates and number of newborns with genetic malformations. Four studies conducted so far, on both civilians and those who worked on the spots' decontamination, have shown that the DU exposure causes typical and specific changes on genetic material.
/know/read.php?itemid=9232

After Civilian Massacre, NATO Tries to Silence Journalist
(Derrick Crowe / Rethink Afghanistan)

Over the past few months, Afghanistan-based journalist Jerome Starkey exposed two incidents where NATO initially claimed to have engaged and killed insurgents, when they’d in fact killed civilians, including school children and pregnant women. In both cases, when confronted with eye-witness accounts obtained by Starkey that clearly rebutted NATO’s initial claims, NATO resisted publicly recanting.
/know/read.php?itemid=9208

DR Congo Massacre Unveiled
(Al Jazeera)

The Lord's Resistance Army killed about 300 people and kidnapped 250 more in a rampage in the Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2009, according to an international rights group and the UN. The previously undocumented massacre, undertaken over four-days in the remote Makombo area of the northeastern Haute Uele district, was highlighted in reports by Human Rights Watch and the UN.
/know/read.php?itemid=9204

The 1,000 Day Siege of Gaza
(Ann Wright / After Downing Street)

This week marked 1,000 days of an Israeli and international siege on Gaza -- 1,000 days of an open air prison where “inmates�, the civilian Palestinian population of 1.5 million, cannot leave or enter at will -- by land, sea or air, the tiny area known as the Gaza Strip.
/know/read.php?itemid=9198

Trivializing War: The Impersonal Business of Dispensing Death by Drone
(Cesar Chelala / Information Clearing House)

Sitting at his computer, Captain Ferguson was directing unmanned aerial vehicles carrying powerful bombs to land in distant countries. He presumes, but he is not totally sure, that he has hit the right target. After the bombs exploded four suspected terrorists were killed. A later investigation will later reveal that they were not terrorists but rather they were parents and children at a birthday party.
/know/read.php?itemid=9200

The Criminal Invasion of Mesopotamia
(Felicity Arbuthnot / Global Research)

A reporter recalls the warmth and openness of the Iraqi people prior to the US invasion. Returning after the invasion, she was met with smiles and embraces from old friends. But on her most recent visit, the smiles were gone. On the seventh anniversary of the US occupation, Arbuthnot reports, she has been “warned by sound sources, that if I return to democratic, liberated, free Iraq, I will be killed.�
/know/read.php?itemid=9181

Poetry from the Combat Zone
(Doug Soderstrom / OpEdNews & Brian Turner / Los Angeles Times)

I am Home. No more officers ordering to kill, No more bombs "bursting in air," Not even an enemy with whom to shed my blood. What Every Soldier Should Know: If you hear gunfire on a Thursday afternoon, It could be for a wedding, or it could be for you.
/know/read.php?itemid=9183

Israeli Fire Kills Palestinian Teen
(Al Jazeera)

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian teenager during violent clashes in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli army claims the Palestinian boys were hurt by riot-control weapons rather than live fire. Palestinian hospital officials said the 16-year-old was struck in the heart by a bullet fired by Israeli forces.
/know/read.php?itemid=9175

Bloodbath in Mexico: Drug Prohibition Is to Blame for Thousands of Mexican and Now American Deaths
(Tony Newman / AlterNet)

When we think about wars happening in the world right now, Iraq and Afghanistan jump to mind. But there is war in our backyard that can match the violence anywhere in the world, and that is the Drug War in Mexico. More than twice the number of Mexicans have died in the last three years -- 15,000 -- than have Americans in both Iraq and Afghanistan combined after more than seven years.
/know/read.php?itemid=9176

Old Accusations Surgace that US Used Germ Warfare against Korea
(Diarmuid Jeffreys / Al Jazeera -- People and Power)

On the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, reporters take a new look at accusations the US attacked Korea with biological weapons, including "germ" bombs containing insects, shellfish and feathers infected with anthrax, typhoid and bubonic plague on villages across the country. The US has denied the charges. By the time a truce was agreed in 1953, two million soldiers and two million civilians had been killed or wounded.
/know/read.php?itemid=9164

US Government Backs Honduran Oligarchy
(Michael Kramer/ Workers World)

The Obama administration continues to support the ruthless Honduran oligarchy in its war against a nonviolent political and social movement that has united peasants, workers, trade unionists and students; the Garifuna, Afro-Honduran and Indigenous communities. The Honduran military has close Pentagon ties. Two of the coup leaders who ousted the democratically elected president were trained by the Pentagon.
/know/read.php?itemid=9158

How Food and Water are Driving a 21st-century African Land Grab
(John Vidal / The Observer)

Rich countries faced by a global food shortage have bought up stretches of African land twice the size of Britain. The foreign companies are swarming the continent, seizing lands the local residents have used for centuries. There is no consultation. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands.
/know/read.php?itemid=9154

Women Veterans Four Times as Likely as Men to Wind Up Homeless
(Lisa Fletcher & Felicia Biberica / ABC World News)

There are an estimated 6,500 homeless female veterans on America's streets, double the number of a decade ago, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Women veterans are four times more likely than their male counterparts to wind up homeless.
/know/read.php?itemid=9151

Granny D Leaves Us at 100: She Walked the Talk
(WMUR-TV & William Rivers Pitt/ Truthout)

Former US Senate candidate and longtime political activist Doris "Granny D" Haddock has died. She was 100. Haddock gained national recognition when she walked across the country to call attention to the issue of campaign finance reform. The trip started in 1999 and ended in 2000. Granny D explained her epic feat in simple terms: "At 90 years old, I walked across the country -- 3,200 miles. I walked every step."
/know/read.php?itemid=9144

The Rwanda Hit List: Revisionism, Denial, and the Genocide Conspiracy
(keith harmon snow / Conscious Being Alliance)

For the last 15 years I have been investigating militias and criminal rackets and propaganda about Central Africa. I investigated massacres, assassinations, torture, rape as a weapon of war, individuals and groups, multinationals, state and non-state actors, Africans and non-Africans. The established narrative remains overly simplified and the truth has been hijacked and suppressed by the mass media.
/know/read.php?itemid=9146

Palestinians Should Now Declare their Independence
(Johann Hari / The Independent)

Commentary: "This week the Obama administration -- which give Israel $3 billion a year, more than they dole out to any other nation on earth -- made a meek and craven request for Israelis to simply have a pause in seizing even more land, and to sit down with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with a big concrete slap: the announcement of 1,600 more homes to be built on occupied Palestinian land."
/know/read.php?itemid=9147

Amir, Ten Years Old, Abducted by Israeli Soldiers from His Bed
(Nora Barrows-Friedman / Electronic Intifada & CommonDreams)

At 2am, Israeli soldiers broke into Amir's house, snatched Amir from his bed and threatened his parents with death by gunfire if they tried to protect him. They took him downstairs under the stairwell. They beat him so badly that he would bleed internally into his abdomen, necessitating overnight hospitalization. In complete shock and distress, Amir would not open his mouth to speak for another day and a half.
/know/read.php?itemid=9139

Secret US "Robo-Assassinations" Kill 12 More in Pakistan
(Agence France-Presse & BBC News)

Six missiles were fired by suspected US drones in Pakistan, leaving 15 people dead. More than 700 people have been killed in nearly 80 drone strikes since August 2008. These illegal "targeted assassinations" have frequently killed civilians. The US refuses to take responsibility for the use of remotely piloted aircraft to murder people from the air.
/know/read.php?itemid=9134

Troops in Afghanistan Face New Rules for 'Night Raids'
( Lynne O'Donnell /Agence France-Presse)

Foreign troops in Afghanistan have been ordered to carry out night-time raids on people's homes only when absolutely necessary and only in the company of Afghan soldiers. The raids, mainly on people's homes, are now to be conducted with Afghan forces in the lead, women are to be searched by women, any property seized is to be recorded and any property damaged is to be compensated for.
/know/read.php?itemid=9113

Tha Cost of War in Afghanistan
(Afghan Civil Society Forum, et al )

The past three decades of war and disorder have had a devastating impact on the Afghan people. Millions have been killed, millions more have been forced to flee their homes and the country’s infrastructure and forests have all but been destroyed. The social fabric of the country is fractured and state institutions are fragile and weak.
/know/read.php?itemid=9114

The War Movie You Don't Want to See
(Michael Jernigan / New YOrk Times Online)

"Home Fires" is a New York Times online commentary post that features the writing of men and women who have returned from wartime service in the United States military. This is the second in a five-part series, “Retelling the War,� in which veterans discuss how books, movies and other tales of combat shaped their perceptions of themselves and of war.
/know/read.php?itemid=9102

The New Name “Operation New Dawn�
(Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman)

Comentary: "No one exactly knows which 'dawn' the Americans are talking about as they pack and leave a country they have imploded and humiliated for seven years. Instead of the “dawn� they are talking about, Iraqis have borne witness to rivers of blood, deprivation, hunger, displacement, a surge in number of prisons and new laws and regulation that allow any force with or without uniform to storm houses at night."
/know/read.php?itemid=9092

America's Secret Afghan Prisons
(Anand Gopal / The Nation)

In the past few years Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan's rugged heartland have begun to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of night. These night raids (which frequently are followed by detentions and disappearances) have become even more feared and hated in Afghanistan than coalition airstrikes.
/know/read.php?itemid=9081

Fear in Baghdad; Fury in Missan over US Killings
(Anwar Jumaa & Ali Mawsaiw & Talib al-Zamili / Azzaman.com)

Last Sunday 67 corpses were brought to Baghdad morgue all shot with silencer guns. The latest victim was a university professor shot dead as he drove home. Iraqi security forces might have succeeded in slashing the number of massive bomb attacks but have failed to contain violent crime. Meanwhile, the Governor of Missan has formally asked US troops for an apology and compensation for the killing of 10 Iraqis in his province.
/know/read.php?itemid=9083

Behind Taliban Line
(Frontline / Public Broadcasting System)

The story of an Afghan journalist's extraordinary 10 days living and filming with an insurgent cell allied with Al Qaeda to sabotage a key US/NATO supply route. And an interview with the filmmaker, Najibullah Quraishi.
/know/read.php?itemid=9069

McChrystal's Nightmare
(James Bays / Al Jazeera)

Once again, a NATO attack has left civilians dead. Operation Moshtarak, the largest military offensive in Afghanistan since 2001, was supposed to be NATO's chance to retake the initiative. I remember similar incidents when, for days, the military claimed the dead were Taliban fighters, despite TV pictures showing the bodies of dead civilians. General McChrystal hoped a new start. This is a serious set-back.
/know/read.php?itemid=9070

Troop Deployments Hit Vermont Hard
(Al Jazeera Video & Vermont Public Radio)

The military offensive in Marjah in southern Afghanistan is a crucial test of the US president's new strategy in the country. It is also the first major ground operation since Barack Obama ordered 30,000 additional troops to the country. The state of Vermont, which has been hit hard by continued troop deployments, for a war already into its eighth year.
/know/read.php?itemid=9071

US Vows Probe into 27 Afghan Civilian Deaths as NATO Asssaults Trigger a "Humanitarian Crisis"
(Reuters & Al Jazeera & Washington Post)

Sunday's airstrike was the second time in nine days that NATO has apologized for killing civilians. More than a week into the NATO-Afghan offensive against the Taliban in the town of Marjah, warnings of a humanitarian crisis are growing. Members of a fleeing family say they fled the fighting because they could stop neither the Taliban nor US soldiers from entering their homes.
/know/read.php?itemid=9065

ACTION ALERT: NYC Peace Grannies to Hold Memorial for 1,000 GI Deaths In Afghanistan
(Peace Grannies / New York City)

According to www.icasualties.com, the number of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan has reached 1,000 as of today, Feb. 22.Therefore, Grandmothers Against the War will go ahead with its commemorative vigil Tuesday, Feb. 23, at 5:30 p.m. at its regular weekly Rockefeller Center vigil site — the west side of 5th Ave. between 49th and 50th Sts.
/know/read.php?itemid=9068

The Battle for Marjah. Why the US Has Already Lost
(Dave Lindorff / Counter Punch & Deborah Sweet / World Can't Wait)

The fighting is still underway in the town of Marjah, in what is being described as the first battle in Obama's War in Afghanistan, or alternatively as the biggest battle of the US War in Afghanistan. But already, the US has lost that battle. It lost it from day one, when troops fired missiles in to a Marjah house, killing 12 civilian occupants -- half of them children.
/know/read.php?itemid=9057

NATO Commanders on Afghan Civilian Deaths: Rockets
(Craig Considine / World Can't Wait)

Two NATO HIMARS rockets hit a home in Marjah and killed 12 civilians -- 10 of which were of one family, 6 of which were children. NATO commanders said the rockets 'misfired' by up to 300 meters. The whole operation was deemed a regrettable and "unfortunate consequences of war." But Major General Nick Carter of Great Britain subsequently admitted the rockets did not malfunction, that they did indeed hit their intended target.
/know/read.php?itemid=9053

Cancer: A Deadly Legacy of the Invasion of Iraq
(Jalal Ghazi / Al Jazeera English & New America Media)

Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment.
/know/read.php?itemid=9046

Army to Discharge Single Mom, Rather Than Court-Martial Her
(Dahr Jamail / t r u t h o u t | Report)

Last fall, Army Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, was ordered to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan but after her childcare plans fell through, Hutchinson was faced with a dilemma. If she refused to abandon her young son, she faced imprisonment by the Army. On February 11, Army Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, was informed she would be granted an administrative discharge from the Army.
/know/read.php?itemid=9037

Civilian Death Toll Climbs in Afghan Offensive
(Alfred de Montesquiou / Associated Press)

Three more Afghan civilians have been killed in the assault on a southern Taliban stronghold, NATO forces said Tuesday, highlighting the toll on the population from an offensive aimed at making them safer.
/know/read.php?itemid=9038

ACTION ALERT: US Poised to Commit War Crimes in Marjah
(Robert Naiman / t r u t h o u t | News Analysis)

If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the US is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off. Under international law, every US citizen is legally obligated to work to bring about the compliance of the United States with international law.
/know/read.php?itemid=9039

Did NBC's Broadcast Ignore a War Crime?
(Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War)

The broadcast version of the NBC Nightly News for February 15, contained a report on the US incursion into the Marjah region that described how the villagers voluntarily came forth to offer information on the location of hidden weapons. However, the unedited Web-only version of the story suggests that the US Marines may have committed actions that violate the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of civilians.
/know/read.php?itemid=9040

Civilians Die in Afghan Offensive
(BBC News & Al Jazeera)

NATO has confirmed that two rockets fired at militants during its offensive in Helmand, south Afghanistan, missed their target and killed 12 civilians. Two rockets from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System missed its intended target by approximately 300 metres — nearly one-fifth of a mile. The rockets struck a house in Marjah as thousands of NATO troops continued their operations to oust the Taliban.
/know/read.php?itemid=9032

The Deadly Debris Of War
(Dorothy Bryant / The Daily )

Year after year, innocent civilians (many of them children) are injured and killed -- in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Georgia/Abkhazia, Kosovo, Mozambique, Nagorno Karabakh, Somaliland, and Sri Lanka -- by the debris of past wars: landmines; large caliber ordnance; ammunition, from shells to bullets; and weapons, from assault rifles to heavy weapons systems.The 21-year-old HALO Trust is working to reduce these dangers.
/know/read.php?itemid=9033

Global Rise in 'School Terror Attacks'
(Sean Coughlan / BBC News)

"Brutal attacks" on teachers and pupils are being used as a tactic of terror and political violence, says an international report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
/know/read.php?itemid=9011

Rising Violence Targets Pakistan's Women: 2,188 Murdered in 2009
(Middle East Media Research Institute)

One of the reasons given for the US invasion of Afghanistan was that intervention was needed to easy the burden of Afghan women who were suffering under the harsh religious rule of the Taliban. Will the plight of Pakistan's women engender the same level of concern in Washington?
/know/read.php?itemid=9013

Obama's Afghan Surge Driving Thousands From Their Homes
(Chris Floyd /Empire Burlesque)

Commentary: "Barack Obama's Bush-like "surge" in Afghanistan has not even reached its full strength yet, but it is already driving tens of thousands of Afghan civilians from their homes, as they flee an upcoming massive attack in Helmand province."
/know/read.php?itemid=9007

Thousands of Civilians Flee Afghan Region as NATO Plans Onslaught
(Jon Boone / The Guardian)

Ten of thousands of Afghan civilians are abandoning an area of central Helmland where UK and US forces are set to launch one of the biggest operations of the year.
/know/read.php?itemid=9000

Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure, Committee Says
(Jonathan Tirone /Bloomberg)

In a secret report, the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety warns that air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning.
/know/read.php?itemid=9001

'Justice Denied' in CIA Shootdown of US Missionary Family
(Matthew Cole & Brian Ross / ABC News & CIA)

On February 3, 2010, Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee, accused the CIA todof lying to Congress and covering up its role in the deaths of two innocent Americans, a mother and her infant daughter, at the hands of the CIA and the Peruvian Air Force nine years ago. The CIA has issued a dening the accusation.
/know/read.php?itemid=8994

Iraq to File Nuclear Warfare Lawsuit against US and Britain
(The Siasat Daily)

Iraq's Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the US over the use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq. According to the reports, during the first year of the US and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium. Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq, including Basra.
/know/read.php?itemid=8981

Global Warming Also Triggers Military Conflict
(Madeleine Bair / East Bay Express)

If the legislators stalling a climate agreement in Copenhagen aren't sympathetic to photos of ice caps and polar bears, perhaps the prospect of more Darfurs will catch their attention. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences links global warming to human warfare and warns that over the next 20 years, if nothing is done, projected temperature increases in sub-Saharan Africa could lead to the slaughter of an additional 400,000 Africans.
/know/read.php?itemid=8967

Afghanistan Massacre on Eve of Obama's Surge
(Bill Van Auken / Global Research)

With the first elements of 30,000 additional US troops set to arrive in Afghanistan next week, the massacre of as many as 15 civilians in a US raid has heightened fears that the Obama administration’s so-called surge will spell a dramatic rise in bloodletting.
/know/read.php?itemid=8959

Human Rights Day, December 10, 2009

December 10, Human Rights Day, serves as an important benchmark by which to measure and evaluate U.S. efforts to rebuild the domestic economy and improve the lives of every man, woman and child.
/know/read.php?itemid=8951

Iraq Sees Alarming Rise in Cancers, Deformed Babies
(Suadad al-Salhy / Reuters )

Incidences of cancer, deformed babies and other health problems have risen sharply, Iraqi officials say, and many suspect contamination from weapons used in years of war and accompanying unchecked pollution as a cause. In the city of Falluja, scene of two of the fiercest battles between US troops and insurgents after the 2003 US invasion, a spike in the number of births of stillborn, deformed and paralyzed babies has alarmed doctors.
/know/read.php?itemid=8950

Deformed babies in Fallujah: Letter to the United Nations
(Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai, Former Iraq Minister of Women's Affairs/ UN Observer)

Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukaemias. These deformities are now well documented.
/know/read.php?itemid=8932

Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan
(Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)

US Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, is being threatened with a military court-martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas. Hutchinson has been threatened with a court martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan on Sunday, Nov. 15.
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Video: Atrocities Haunt DRC Child Soldiers
(BBC World News)

The abduction of children by militias which then force them to work as soldiers, porters and sex slaves has been a long-term and widespread problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But in the past few months, fighting between the DRC army and Rwandan Hutu rebels and other militias has intensified, deepening the crisis for the country's youth.
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ACTION ALERT: Defend Independence of Honduras' Garifuna Community Hospital
(Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC) & Willie Thompson / San Francisco Bay View)

The Garifuna built their hospital brick by brick after President Manuel Zelaya gave the go-ahead. All 10 Garifuna doctors who staff it were trained in Cuba. The Honduran de facto coup government under Roberto Micheletti plans to eliminate the Honduran Garifuna people and culture. Micheletti has rescinded the Manuel Zelaya authorization to teach in the Garifuna language in school and to teach the language itself. All scholarships to Garifuna students have been eliminated.
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Rape Used as Weapon in DR Congo War
(Mohammed Adow / Al Jazeera )

The Democratic Republic of Congo is grappling with rampant rape, which has become an every day practice and is used as a weapon of war, the UN has said. It said almost 5,400 cases of rape against women were reported in the South Kivu province during the first six months of the year.
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Do Candy-Eating Kids Become Criminal Adults?
(Alice Park/ Time Magazine)

According to a new study, kids who eat too many treats at a young age risk becoming violent in adulthood. The research was led by Simon Moore, a senior lecturer in Violence and Society Research at Cardiff University. He discovered that "kids with the worst problems tend to be impulsive risk takers, and that these kids had terrible diets — breakfast was a Coke and a bag of chips."
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Goldstone Dares US on Gaza Report
(Al Jazeera)

Richard Goldstone, the jurist who authored a UN report accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity during its war on Gaza, has challenged the US to justify its claims that his findings are flawed and biased. Goldstone has stated: "I have yet to hear from the Obama administration what the flaws in the report that they have identified are. I would be happy to respond to them, if and when I know what they are." VIDEO Interview.
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Demining: One of Modern War’s Deadliest Legacies
(United Nations )

Every year, landmines kill 15,000 to 20,000 people — most of them children, women and the elderly — and severely maim countless more. Scattered in some 78 countries, they are an ongoing reminder of conflicts which have been over for years or even decades. Yet despite this random carnage, they continue to used as weapons of war.
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Military Children in Crisis
(Stacy Bannerman / t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed)

A seven-year-old second-grader attempted suicide while his father was serving yet another tour in Iraq. Seven years old. Seven. His mother was one of half a dozen military spouses I have spoken with about soldiers' kids who have attempted suicide during their fathers' deployments.
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Confessions of a Military Mom
(Debra Nussbaum Cohen / The Sisterhood)

The Sisterhood spoke with Air Force Captain Sarah Schechter, 41, who is a chaplain and a Reform rabbi, as well as the mother of 3-year-old-daughter Yael Emunah. She works at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, mostly with new recruits who are in basic training. In the past two years she was deployed to an undisclosed location in the Persian Gulf and recently returned home from a four month deployment in Balad, Iraq.
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White House "Ordered" Lawmakers to Amend FOIA in Order to Conceal Torture Photos
(Jason Leopold / t r u t h o u t | Report )

On January 21, Obama signed an executive order instructing all federal agencies and departments to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act requests, and promised to make the federal government more transparent. Obama's recent decision to conceal torture photos (and to order Congress to weaken the Freedom of Information Act) marks an about-face on the open-government policies that he proclaimed during his first days in office.
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Sexual Assault in the Military: A DoD Cover-Up?
(Colonel Ann Wright / TruthDig )

In August 2008, yhe Department of Defense refused to allow the senior civilian in charge of its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office to testify at a House Subcommittee hearing on sexual assault in the military. One of the questions that would have been asked was why DoD had taken three years to name a 15-person civilian task force to look into allegations of sexual assault of military personnel.
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Horrific Depravity: Leaked Photos Show US Troops Raping Imprisoned Iraqi Women
(Daya Gamage / Asian Tribune)

The Asian Tribune newspaper has published three of the notorious "Rape photographs" that have brought criticism that the US forces in Iraq have used rape as a weapon of war. At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
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Factors Associated With Women’s Risk of Rape in the Military Environment
(Anne G. Sadler, Brenda M. Booth, Brian L. Cook, and Bradley N. Doebbeling / American Journal of Industrial Medicine)

A national cross-sectional survey of 558 women veterans serving in Vietnam or in subsequent eras was obtained through structured telephone interviews. Results: Rape was reported by 30% of the participants. Conclusions: Violence towards military women has identifiable risk factors. Officer leadership played an important role in the military environment and safety of women. Assailant alcohol and/or drug abuse at time of rape was notable.
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Around 90,000 Flee South Waziristan Fearing Operation
(The Dawn & Agence France-Presse & Strafor.com)

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region fearing an imminent army offensive against Taliban militants, officials said yesterday. ‘Again people have started coming out of the area because of the fear of an army operation,’ Amir Latif, chief administrative official in Tank district, told AFP.
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Climate Change Is Killing Kenya's Wildlife and People: Water Wars Have already Begun
(Lindsey Hilsum / BBC Channel 4 News)

Kenya faces its worst drought for more than a decade, with crops and livestock destroyed. Will people in the north of the country become among the first victims of climate change? Samburu warriors in their beads and finery now have mobile phones, and more of them carry AK 47s to supplement their spears and traditional knives, so raiding over water, cattle and pasture is more deadly.
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Columbus Day, Genocide and the Myth of
(Dahr Jamail and Jason Coppola / T r u t h o u t )

To mark Columbus Day in 2004, the Medieval and Renaissance Center in UCLA published the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents. Its general editor, Geoffrey Symcox, observed: "While giving the brilliant mariner his due, the collection portrays Columbus as an unrelenting social climber and self-promoter who stopped at nothing — not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting biblical scripture — to advance his ambitions.... "
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Civilian Contractor Toll in Iraq and Afghanistan Ignored by Defense Dept.
(T. Christian Miller / ProPublica )

As the war in Afghanistan entered its ninth year, the Labor Department recently released new figures [1] for the number of civilian contract workers who have died in war zones since 9/11. Although acknowledged as incomplete, the figures show that at least 1,688 civilians have died and more than 37,000 have reported injuries while working for US contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Contractors in Iraq Are Hidden Casualties of War
(T. Christian Miller / Los Angeles Times & ProPublica )

In April 2004, Reggie Lane was driving a fuel truck in Iraq for a defense contractor when insurgents attacked his convoy with rocket-propelled grenades, causing him numerous injuries. For most of the five years since, Lane, now 60, has spent his days in silence, cared for at the Country Gardens Adult Foster Care in Central Point, Or. The insurance program for civilian contractors is roughly equivalent to the workers' compensation programs in which U.S. companies buy insurance to cover workplace injuries.
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UN Extends NATO's Afghan Mandate as Civilians Suffer
(Al Jazeera)

The UN Security Council has extended NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mandate in Afghanistan for another year. The council resolution, in extending the mandate of the 65,000-strong force, on Thursday, emphasised the importance of training and improving the capabilities of Afghan security forces. It also called on member states to "contribute personnel, equipment and other resources to ISAF" in the eight-year-old war against the Taliban.
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American Troops in Afghanistan Losing Heart, Say Army Chaplains
(Martin Fletcher/ The London Times )

Politicians who want to see more troops sent to Afghanistan are telling the president to "listen to your commanders and the ground." But are the generals listening to the troops? "Winning" a war without the support of the American people is difficult enough but how can the Pentagon hope to achieve "victory" without the support of its own troops?
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Pittsburgh Woman Attacked for Helping Students Escape Police Brutality
(InfoWars.com)

Eyewitness Account: "When the police rushed the patio, I wasn’t afraid until I realized – after seeing an officer seize and arrest a student who literally had one foot over the threshold – that unlike the police on the Forbes side, these guys didn’t want to herd students into the lobby. They wanted to arrest people. A split-second later, I was thrown to the ground and handcuffed.
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Repercussions from Goldstone Report Leave Israeli and Palestinian Leaders Shaken
(Al Jazeera)

Israel's vice-prime minister recently cancelled a planned trip to London over fears that he could be arrested for alleged war crimes. Meantime, there are calls for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resign for supporting the postponement of a UN vote on prosecution of Israel for war crimes during its campaign in Gaza. Abbas was reportedly "pressured" by the US to take the unpopular stand "not to accept the findings of [the] UN report."
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Why Not Crippling Sanctions for Israel and the US?
(Paul Craig Roberts / Infowars)

Commentary: "Why does Israel want to initiate a war between the United States and Iran? Is Iran attacking other countries, bombing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure? No. These are crimes committed by Israel and the US. The hypocrisy is extreme. Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and developed its nuclear weapons illegally on the sly, with, as far as we know, US help."
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After Years of Secrecy, a Glimpse Into the Numbers of Civilians Dead in Iraq
(James Glanz / New York Times & Hannah Fischer, Information Research Specialist / Congressional Research Service)

As sectarian violence drove the number of civilian deaths in Iraq to thousands per month in 2006 and 2007, many Iraqi ministries, morgues and hospitals were under government order not to release the embarrassing figures, and the prime minister’s office generally disputed the ones that did leak out.
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US Threatens Pakistan with Escalation of Hellfire Drone Attacks
(Ben Farmer and Javed Siddiq / The Telegraph & Jed Bickman / CounterPunch)

The US has told Pakistan that it may start launching drone attacks against the Taliban in the city of Quetta in a major escalation of its operations. The war in the tribal areas, in the Northwest Provinces and Waziristan is primarily fought with unmanned drones, which routinely fire Hellfire missiles into homes, schools, and caves, killing scores of civilians. They’ve been going on for over two years, they are barely reported upon in the American media.
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US Seeing More Female Homeless Veterans
(Thom Patterson / CNN)

The rate of female homeless vets is increasing in the United States, according to the federal government and groups that advocate for homeless people. Many of these veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a type of anxiety that affects people who've experienced a particularly traumatic event that creates intense fear, helplessness or horror.
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Chemical and Sonic Weapons Used by Honduran Military
(Fraternal Organization of Black Hondurans & )

The use of chemical, electromagnetic and sonic weapons by the security forces of the de facto regime, specifically those used in the Brazilian Embassy, are prohibited by the Geneva Convention of 1997. The parabolic dish the coup “security” forces directed against the resistance has been used by the US Army in Iraq and the Israeli Zionist army in the Gaza Strip. It was used in the US for the first time last week against peaceful protesters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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UN Investigator Defends Gaza Report
(Al Jazeera)

A United Nations investigator has defended a report published earlier this month that accuses Israel and Palestinian fighters of war crimes following the Israeli offensive in Gaza earlier this year. Addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Richard Goldstone said a lack of accountability for war crimes committed in the Middle East had reached "crisis point", undermining any hope for peace in the region.
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Fuel-Starved Gazans Build Electric Cars as Hospitals Lose Electricity
(Nidal al-Mughrabi / Reuters & Motasem Dalloul / IslamOnline)

Palestinian-designed electric car drew admiring stares from Gazans forced to use cooking oil to power their cars because of a fuel shortage. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation has reduce fuel supplies into the Gaza strip, which put the lives of many Gazans in danger. Fuel affects generating electricity which supplies most big hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
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This Is What A Police State Looks Like
(M. Burton Brown / IndyMedia)

The 2009 G20 Summit is over. Yet, reports and videos of police brutality continue to come in. Activists who traveled to Pittsburgh to assert their First Amendment right to hold public gatherings encountered what they describe as overly aggressive police tactics. Yet, in law enforcement's so-called "War on Drugs", many who live in Pittsburgh are subjected daily to similar tactics.
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Cops Run Wild in Pittsburgh
(National Lawyers Guild Press Release)

National Lawyers Guild members witnessed first-hand the unwarranted display and use of force by police in residential neighborhoods, often far from any protest activity. olice deployed chemical irritants, including CS gas, and long-range acoustic devices in residential neighborhoods on narrow streets where families and small children were exposed. In Shadyside, police deployed smoke bombs in the absence of protest activity, forcing bystanders and hotel residents to flee the area.
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Good War vs. Great Society
(John Feffer / Foreign Policy in Focus (Vol. 4, No. 38))

The Vietnam War ruined everything. It not only destroyed Vietnam and killed a huge number of its inhabitants. It not only killed so many American soldiers and destroyed the futures of so many veterans. It not only spread into Cambodia and Laos and wrecked those countries for generations. The Vietnam War also killed the Great Society.
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US Hero Pat Tillman Thought Iraq war Was 'Imperial Folly'
(The Telegraph & San Francisco Chronicle)

The soldier and former American football player Pat Tillman who was killed in Afghanistan thought George W. Bush was a 'cowboy' and the Iraq an 'imperial folly'. The US military and the White House propaganda machine of George W. Bush portrayed Tillman as a hero shot dead by evil enemy forces who want to destroy the American way of life. It is also well known today that the White House/military portrayal was a lie.
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UN Report: War Crimes Were Committed During Israel’s Attack on Gaza
(Terence Burke / CNN & BBC News)

After months of interviews and investigation, a detailed 574-page United Nations report on the conflict in Gaza has faulted both the Israeli government and Palestinian militants for committing “war crimes” but the overwhelming majority of the criticism targets Israel. The report recommends the UN Security Council undertake appropriate investigations and recommends an independent investigation by the International War Crimes Tribunal.
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Israel Rejects Gaza War Allegations
(Al Jazeera & Xinhua & AP & The Jerusalem Post )

Israel has rejected a United Nations report which accused it of committing human rights violations during its three-week war against Hamas in Gaza more than eight months ago that killed more than 1,400 Gazan civilians, including 300 children.
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Israeli War Film "Lebanon" Wins Top Prize in Venice
(Mike Collett-White & Silvia Aloisi / Reuters)

A hard-hitting Israeli war movie called "Lebanon" has won the Golden Lion for best picture at the Venice film festival. Director Samuel Maoz shot almost the entire drama, featuring graphic and disturbing scenes of violence, from inside a tank to communicate the claustrophobia and fear he experienced as a young Israeli conscript during the 1982 war. He was so traumatized by his memories that it took him 25 years to gather the strength to make the movie.
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Coalition Forces Attack Hospital in Afghanistan
(Swedish Committee for Afghanistan & World Can't Wait)

During the evening of September 2, Coalition forces in Afghanistan stormed into a hospital in Wardak Province. Upon entering the hospital, they tied up four employees and two family members of patients at the hospital. SCA staffs as well as patients (even those in beds) were forced out of rooms/wards throughout the search. SCA, the Swedish NGO that operates the hospital, condemned the invasion, noting that "such intrusions have previously been recorded by both sides in the conflict."
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Healthcare for 9/11 Heroes
(Progressive Democrats of America)

What the media is ignoring is what has happened to the heroes of 9/11 who answered the call to action at the World Trade Center to aid in recovery efforts. These 50,000 9/11 responders feel betrayed as more of them die from 9/11-related injuries and illnesses. They lack needed health coverage and care, and their financial security is ruined. More than 800 World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers have died since 9/11, with cancer as a leading cause.
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How 9/11 Should Be Remembered
(Rebecca Solnit / Tom Dispatch)

The al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers did not defeat New Yorkers. It destroyed the buildings, contaminated the region, killed thousands, and disrupted the global economy, but it most assuredly did not conquer the citizenry. They were only defeated when their resilience was stolen from them by clichés, by the invisibility of what they accomplished that extraordinary morning, and by the very word "terrorism," which suggests that they, or we, were all terrified.
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Twenty Gandhis: Reclaiming 9/11 through Satyagraha
(Robert C. Koehler / CommonWonders.com)

As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, many of the nation's values — tolerance, forgiveness, personal freedom, perhaps even courage itself — remain trapped in the wreckage. It may take another anniversary, another 9/11 — September 11, 1906, to be precise — simply to remind us of what lies buried beneath the fear and cynicism, the ignorance and politics; and, even more importantly, to wake us up to the urgency of reclaiming those values and healing as a nation.
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Veterans Open Antiwar Cafes at Fort Lewis, Fort Hood
(Elicia Preston / Socialist Alternative & Jeremy Schwartz / American-Statesman)

Fueled by their anger against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, recently discharged veterans Alex Bacon and Seth Manzel of Iraq Veterans Against the War felt a need for a coffee shop at Fort Lewis, Washington, where active duty soldiers could learn the full story behind the war, get counseling for military abuses, PTSD, and deployment issues. Off-post, soldiers can let down their guard and open up about the war at Under the Hood cafe.
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NATO’s Afghan Holocaust
(Ameen Salarzai and Angor Bagh / Mail & Guardian)

Helping yourself to the spoils of hijacked military convoys is nothing new in Afghanistan and the payload of two fuel tankers destined for NATO-led forces seemed as good as any. But the overnight bonanza soon turned to horror. Tragically, this is only the latest in a growing resume of NATO atrocities that have killed hundreds of civilians over the past ten years, first in Yugoslavia and now in Afghanistan. The record shows that NATO has long history of committing war crimes.
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Taliban Demand Air Strike Inquiry
(BBC News)

In a change from its usual policy of opposing all foreign involvement, Afghanistan's Taliban have called for a UN and human rights investigation into an air strike in Afghanistan killed scores of noncombatants. The independent Afghanistan Rights Monitor group says up to 70 civilians died in the Kunduz province raid. Sameer Ahmad Tahseen, a Kabul university student, provides an eyewitness account of the "Anger in Kunduz" over the NATO attack.
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America's Medicated Army
(Mark Thompson / TIME Magazine)

For the first time in history, a sizable number of US combat troops are taking daily doses of antidepressants to calm nerves strained by repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The medicines are intended not only to help troops keep their cool but also to enable the already strapped Army to keep the soldiers on the front lines. About 12% of combat troops in Iraq and 17% of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope.
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Weaponizing Psychology
(Peter Chamberlin / Information ClearingHouse)

Behind the Pentagon's notorious torture practices lies the work Prof. Martin Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania who conducted experiments on caged dogs, in which they used electric charges to shock them randomly. Seligman discovered that the random mistreatment destroyed the dogs emotionally to the point where they no longer had the will to escape, even when offered a way out.
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Will We Heed the Wake-Up Call in Africa's Resource Conflicts?
(Alex Thurston / Huffington Post & Agence France-Presse & Argaw Ashine / All Africa News)

Oxfam's recent pronouncement that refugee camps in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia are "barely fit for humans" has drawn needed attention to the suffering of millions in the Horn of Africa. But westerners must do more than sympathize with Africans. We must seek to understand the causes of their predicaments: a deadly intersection of climate change, war, and displacement.
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Remembering Cartoonist Naji Al-Ali: Palestine's Storyteller
(Al Jazeera)

Naji al-Ali's cartoons have come to symbolise the plight of Palestinian refugees. On August 29, 1987, Naji al-Ali, one of the Arab World's most renown political cartoonists, was shot dead in London by unknown assailants. The murder case has never been solved. Al Jazeera's Awad Joumaa interviewed his son, Khalid al-Ali, on the artist's legacy. The following are excerpts from the interview.
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New NATO Air Strike Kills Scores of Afghan Civilians
(Al-Jazeera & James Sturcke, David Batty / The Guardian & Julian Borger and Jon Boone / The Guardian)

KABUL (September 5, 2009) — At least 70 people have been killed in northern Afghanistan after a NATO aerial raid on two hijacked petrol lorries. The assault was carried out in Kunduz province, with some witnesses putting the number of dead and injured as high as 130. NATO has admitted that Friday's attack had possibly killed civilians. This latest killing of civilians has added to growing popular anger over foreign military forces in the country.
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Living in a Culture of Cruelty: Democracy as Spectacle
(Henry A. Giroux / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

Under the Bush administration, a seeping, sometimes galloping, authoritarianism began to reach into every vestige of the culture, giving free rein to those anti-democratic forces in which religious, market, military and political fundamentalism thrived, casting an ominous shadow over the fate of United States democracy. During the Bush-Cheney regime, power became an instrument of retribution and punishment was connected to and fueled by a repressive state.
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Many Women Stayed Away From the Polls In Afghanistan Fear, Tradition, Apathy Reversed Hopeful Trend
(Pamela Constable / Washington Post )

Five years ago, with the country at peace. millions of Afghan women eagerly registered and voted for a presidential candidate. In a few districts, female turnout was higher than male turnout. But on August 20, when Afghans again went to the polls, that heady season of political emancipation seemed long gone. This time, a combination of fear, tradition, apathy and poor planning conspired to deprive many Afghan women of rights they had only recently begun to exercise.
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Israeli Navy Attacks Gaza Fishing Boats
(Al Jazeera & IMEMC & Maan New)

At least one person has been hurt in an Israeli navy attack on fishing boats off the coast of Gaza. The navy opened fire on the fishermen off the coast at Beit Lahiya, setting one boat on fire. In January 2009 Israel imposed tight regulations on the Palestinian fishing sector declaring waters more than 3 kilometers off the shore a no-fishing zone. Ever since Israel imposed its blockade on the Gaza Strip in June 2007, fishing has been one of the few remaining sources of income.
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Afghanistan's Hidden Toll: Troops Invalided Out Triple in Three Years
(Brian Brady and Nina Lakhani / The Independent)

Unpublished figures from Britain show thousands of ex-soldiers who fought in Afghanistan subsequently have sought financial help — many suffering with stress disorders. Soldiers work on the basis that every time they patrol there is a one in four chance one of them will die. Privately, senior British officers say they currently work on the assumption at least a "limb a day" will be lost.
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Pakistan Anger Rises as CIA Hires Mercenaries to Arm Killer Drones
(The Irish Sun & The New York Times)

“You should know that we hate all Americans,” Pakistani journalist Ansar Abbasi, told Judith A. McHale, the new US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, “From the bottom of our souls, we hate you.” From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington’s most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones that have killed scores of civilians on the ground in Pakistan.
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How Palestinian Children Suffer under Israel's Occupation
(Saed Bannoura / IMEMC & )

For the first time in its 42-year occupation of Palestine, Israeli authorities have created a special court to deal with underaged children detained in Israel's jails. Defense For Children International does not believe the changes will end the mistreatment of these children. Meanwhile, even very young children in Gaza have been forced to work in the streets, selling chewing gum and mint leaves from dawn to dusk to help their families survive the economic siege imposed by Israel.
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Video Sparks Calls for Sri Lankan War-Crimes Inquiry
(Robert Mackey / The Lede.blog: New York Times)

Britain’s Channel 4 News broadcast amateur video that exiled Sri Lankan journalists say documents the execution of Tamil prisoners by government soldiers in January during an offensive against separatist rebels in northern Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government immediately denied that its soldiers had committed any atrocities and told Channel 4 that the graphic, disturbing images in its report might have been fabricated.
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On the Deaths of 2000 American Soldiers: War and Health Care
(Hon. Edward Kennedy / Floor of the US Senate)

On October 25, 2005, Sen. Ted Kennedy walked to the podium in the US Senate Chambers are declared: "Reality is hard medicine to swallow. Facts are stubborn things. As the Valerie Plame case makes increasingly clear, the administration stopped at nothing to cover up its misguided and dishonest decision to go to war, and our servicemen and women, their families, and friends are paying an unacceptable price."
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US Releases ‘Preteen’ Captive while Obama Vows to Continue Bush-era ‘Kidnappings’
(Al Jazeera)

Mohammed Jawad was only 12 years old when he was taken captive by US forces. One of the youngest people to be held at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Jawad has been released and taken back to his native Afghanistan. Charges were dismissed after it was determined that the only evidence was a "confession" obtained by torture. Meanwhile, the White House has announced it will continue the Bush-Cheney policy of political kidnapping known by the euphemism, "renditions."
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The Dilemma of Palestinian Settlement Builders
(Heather Sharp / BBC News)

Work is hard to come by for Palestinians trapped in the Occupied Territories. Much of the paying jobs involve working for Israel and one of the major sources of employment for Palestinians is helping build Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. As one anguished worker noted: "Everything, all the settlements — even most of the Wall — was built by Palestinians."
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CIA Reportedly Kills Six Children, Two Women in Pakistan
(Al-Jazeera & Xinhua / Peoples Daily News)

he death toll from a suspected US air raid in Pakistan has risen after nine more bodies were pulled from the rubble. Government officials report that 21 people were killed in the attack in the village of Dande Darpa Khel in North Waziristan a day earlier. A local tribal elder said six children were among the dead.
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Four US Soldiers Accused in Mistreatment, Suicide of 19=year-old American
(CNN & MSNBC)

A Pentagon suicide probe uncovers alleged wrongdoing in Iraq involving a special team of soldiers sent to the country to train Iraqi troops to become “better soldiers.” US military says four of these soldiers are now charged with cruelty, verbal abuse, and physical maltreatment of four subordinates, once of whom — a 19-year-old American soldier committed suicide after prolonged humiliation
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Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World
(James Denver / Rense.com )

American use of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time. "US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die." According to British radiation expert Dr. Chris Busby, "the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain."
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Deadly 'US Drone Raid' in Pakistan
(Al Jazeera)

At least 10 people have been killed after a suspected US drone fired missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan region, Pakistani intelligence agency officials have said. The raid on Friday on Darpa Kheil village was the third such attack this month in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal areas by what are believed to be CIA-operated pilotless aircraft.
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The Tragedy of Our 'Disappeared' Veterans
(Penny Coleman / AlterNet)

According a VA psychiatrist, hypervigilance in soldiers and vets is expressed as the persistent mobilization of both body and mind to protect against lethal danger — they act as though they were still in combat, even when the danger is no longer present. That preoccupation leads to a cluster of symptoms, including sleeplessness, exaggerated startle responses, violent outbursts and a reliance on combat skills that are inappropriate, and very often illegal, in the civilian world.
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'Skittish' Afghans Wary of Both Sides
(Ann Scott Tyson /Washington Post )

US Marines pushing into Afghanistan's southern Helmand province are running up against a skeptical Afghan population heavily influenced by Taliban insurgents, signaling a long campaign ahead. Afghan villagers, many of whom fled the Marines' advance, say they feel caught in a tug of war between US forces and the Taliban, and are fearful of both.
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Gaza White Flag Deaths Probe Call
(BBC News)

Human Rights Watch says Israel must investigate the "unlawful" killing of 11 civilians carrying white flags during its Gaza operation earlier in 2009, Five women and four children were among those killed in seven incidents detailed by the US-based rights group. The BBC's Christian Fraser has been following the plight of four-year-old Samar Abed Rabbu who was paralyzed by Israeli gunfire and lost her two sisters during Israel's offensive in Gaza.
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Deadly Contractor Incident Sours Afghans
(David Zucchino / Los Angeles Times)

Four men with the US firm once known as Blackwater are said to be under investigation in the deaths of two Afghans. A US report found serious fault with private security firms in Afghanistan. The shooting deaths of Raheb Dost, 24, and another Afghan civilian by four gunmen with the company once known as Blackwater have turned an entire neighborhood against the US presence in the country.
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US Faults Iraq Raid that Left Iran Dissidents Dead
(The Los Angeles Times)

After saying little about last month's incident at Camp Ashraf, home to the Mujahedin Khalq, U.S. officials are calling it 'an avoidable tragedy' that killed at least eight refugees. Several other of the Iranians were seriously injured and 36 have been reported by humanitarian organizations to be in Iraqi custody and at risk of being forcibly returned to Iran, where they are considered likely to be mistreated.
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Total US Iraq Casualties rise to 72,420
(Compiled by Michael Munk / www.MichaelMunk.com)

The US military in Iraq under Commander-in-Chief Obama suffered three combat casualties in the week ending August 11, 2009 as the official total since the 2003 invasion rose to at least 72,420. The total includes 34,928 dead and wounded from what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes and more than 37,492 dead and medically evacuated from "non-hostile" causes. The actual total is over 100,000.
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Endless War: The Suicide of the United States
(Dahr Jamail / Truthout Perspective)

Soldiers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed mentally, spiritually, and psychologically, to face a Department of Veterans Affairs that is either unwilling or unable to help them with their physical and psychological wounds. They are left to fend for themselves. It is a perfect storm of denial, neglect, violence, rage, suffering, and death.
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War Hero Tackles US Over Degrading Prison Conditions
(Rupert Cornwell / The Independent)

When it comes to sending people to jail, America is the undisputed world champ. In 1970, 200,000 people were behind bars. Last year, 2.3 million were held in federal, state and county jails, more than 1 percent of all adults in the US and five times the international average. Blacks, predictably, bear the brunt, accounting for 40 percent of the prison population. This punishment industry employs more than two million, more than the 1.7 million employed in higher education.
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Militarizing the Homeland: From Videogames to 'GI Joe'
(Dahr Jamail and Jason Coppola / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

"My very first recruiting officer was G.I. Joe," says Iraq war veteran Michael Prysner, an Iraq war veteran who was an aerial intelligence specialist in the US Army Reserve. G.I. Joe's manufacturer, Hasbro, is firmly enmeshed with the military. In 2003, when the Department of Defense shared the specifications for their Future Force Warrior concept with the toy company, even before awarding the contract to General Dynamics.
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More US Drone Attacks Alleged to Kill More Civilians in Pakistan
(Al Jazeera)

At least 10 suspected Taliban fighters have been killed in a US drone raid in Pakistan's South Waziristan region. A Taliban spokesman confirmed the US missile strike but denied there were casualties among Taliban fighters. "An American missile hit a home in South Waziristan," he said. "Only innocent civilians were living there, and six of them died."
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Sadako Peace Day Remarks: New Hope for Nuclear Disarmament
(David Krieger / Nuclear Age Peace Foundation)

David Krieger’s remarks at theannual Sadako Peace Day ceremony, remembering Hiroshima, Nagasaki and innocent victims such as Sadako.
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Hiroshima Mourns Atomic Bomb Anniversary
(China View / Xinhua)

ome 50,000 people gathered Thursday, August 6, at the peace park in Hiroshima to mourn the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city by U.S. forces during the World War II. Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba delivered a peace declaration, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020.
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The Great Hiroshima Cover-Up
(Greg Mitchell / Huffington Post )

In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan 64 years ago, and for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included footage shot by US military crews and Japanese newsreel teams. For many years, all but a handful of newspaper photographs were seized or prohibited. The public did not see any of the newsreel footage for 25 years, and the US military film remained hidden for nearly four decades.
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Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Our World
(Frida Berrigan / TomDispatch)

As the child of anti-nuclear activists, I was raised to pay attention to two significant dates in American history—the day when the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress bomber named after the pilot's mother, dropped Little Boy, a five-ton uranium explosion bomb, on Hiroshima; and the moment, three days later, when another plane, jokingly named Bock's Car (after the plane's original pilot), dropped Fat Man, a more complex plutonium implosion bomb, on Nagasaki.
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Hiroshima Day: America Has Been Asleep at the Wheel for 64 Years
(Daniel Ellsberg / TruthDig)

It was a hot August day. I was standing on a street corner, looking at the front page of The Detroit News in a news rack: A single American bomb had destroyed a Japanese city. I had a sense of dread, a feeling that something very ominous for humanity had just happened. A feeling, new to me as an American, at 14, that my country might have made a terrible mistake.
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Growing Up with the Bomb
(Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch)

In 1960, the Pentagon's first Single Integrated Operational Plan for nuclear strategy laid out a plan for delivering more than 3,200 nuclear weapons to 1,060 targets in the Communist world, including at least 130 cities which would cease to exist. Classified estimates of possible casualties ran to 285 million dead and 40 million injured (and this probably underestimated radiation effects).
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Eyewitness to Hiroshima
(Taniguchi Sumiteru / Hiroshima Committee)

In 1945, I was 16 years old. On the morning of August 9 that year, I was riding my bicycle 1.8 kilometres north of what was to become the hyper-centre of the explosion of the atomic bomb. When it struck, I was burned on my back with the heat ray of the fireball, as high as 3000 to 4000 degrees Celsius at its centre, melting rocks and iron, and also with the invisible radiation. The next moment I was blown off together with the bike about four metres and smashed to the ground.
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Hiroshima Never Again
(The Hiroshima Committee)

The people of the world are calling with renewed determination for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. The US, France, Britain, Russia, China, Israel, Pakistan and India together still have more than 28,000 nuclear weapons.
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US Drone Kills Wife of Taliban Leader as NATO Vows to Reduce Civilian Deaths
(BBC News & )

New NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he is determined to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan to an absolute minimum. Meanwhile, two missiles suspected to have been fired by a US drone struck a home occupied by 40 relatives of a leading Pakistani militant, killing his wife and injuring many others.
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US Drone Attacks Destabilizing Pakistan
(Sheharyar Khan / IslamOnli)

More than 800 Pakistanis have been killed in more than 65 drone attacks so far. According to American official figures, less than 20 of Al-Qaeda operatives have been killed in these attacks while the rest are what they call "collateral damage". According to the Pakistani government, most of the dead are innocent civilians, including women and children.
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UN: Sharp Rise in Afghan Deaths
(Al-Jazeera)

A UN report says the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan has jumped by 24 per cent compared to last year. It says while car and roadside bombs used by the Taliban and other anti-government fighters are the biggest killers of civilians, airs raids by coalition forces have also killed scores.
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US Pledge to Reduce Afghan Deaths
(BBC News)

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan must be reduced, the newly appointed commander of US and NATO-led troops Gen Stanley McChrystal has told the BBC. He said both preventing and investigating incidents where civilians were hit would be a priority. UN report said the number of civilians killed so far this year had risen 24% on the same period last year. The UN said insurgent bombings and air strikes by international forces were the biggest killers.
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US Troops Killed in Deadliest Month of Afghan War
(Paul Tait / Reuters)

A US service member was killed as the deadliest month for foreign troops in the Afghanistan war drew to a close, the US military said on Friday, with commanders vowing to continue the fight despite the toll. The death in southern Afghanistan brought to 40 the number of US troops killed in July, by far the heaviest monthly toll in the 8-year-old war.
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The Hell of War Comes Home: Newspaper Series Documents Murder, Suicide, Kidnappings by Iraq Vets
(Amy Goodman / Democracy Now!)

A startling two-part newspaper series titled “Casualties of War” examines a part of war seldom discussed by the media or government officials: the difficulty of returning to civilian life after being trained to be a killer. Soldiers from the "Lethal Warriors" brigade have been involved in brawls, beatings, rapes, drunk driving, drug deals, domestic violence, shootings, stabbings, kidnapping and suicides. The Army unit’s murder rate is 114 times the rate for Colorado Springs.
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Casualties of War, Part I: The Hell of War Comes Home
(Dave Phillipps / The Gazette)

For as long as wars have been waged, soldiers have been sent to kill or be killed. The lucky ones survive. Some return home unscathed; others are shell-shocked and scarred for life. But something changed in Iraq. Thanks to modern medicine, transportation and gear, soldiers survived injuries that would have killed yesterday’s troops. Most found a way to cope. But in one Fort Carson unit, men began to break. Some recall war crimes. Some came home, and kept killing.
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Casualties of War, Part II: Warning Signs
(Dave Philipps / The Gazette)

For as long as wars have been waged, soldiers have been sent to kill or be killed. The lucky ones survive. Some return home unscathed; others are shell-shocked and scarred for life. But something changed in Iraq. Thanks to modern medicine, transportation and gear, soldiers survived injuries that would have killed yesterday’s troops. Most found a way to cope. But in one Fort Carson unit, men began to break. Some recall war crimes. Some came home, and kept killing.
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A Poet Encounters “The Horror” in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel
(Alice Walker / Alice Walker's Blog)

Commentary: "Three years ago I visited Rwanda and Eastern Congo. In Kigali I paid my respects to the hundreds of thousands ... who had been hacked into sometimes quite small pieces by armed strangers, or by neighbors.... No matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world.... And so I have been, once again, struggling to speak about an atrocity: This time in Gaza, this time against the Palestinian people.
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Microwave Weapon Will Rain Pain from the Sky
(David Hambling / New Scientist)

The Pentagon's enthusiasm for non-lethal crowd-control weapons appears to have stepped up a gear with its decision to develop a microwave pain-infliction system that can be fired from an aircraft. The device is an extension of its controversial Active Denial System, which uses microwaves to heat the surface of the skin, creating a painful sensation without burning that strongly motivates the target to flee. ADS has not been deployed owing to legal issues and safety fears.
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The Ecocide of Palestine
(Jewbonics)

Commentary: "In 2005, 25 dunums of Palestinian land in Qaffin were confiscated by Israeli settlers under the aegis of the Israeli Defense Forces. Since 2005, Jewish settlers have set thousands of acres of orange, almond, and olive trees aflame. It is a long-standing Israeli practice to destroy Palestinian agriculture."
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52 percent of US soldiers wounded in Iraq, Afghanistan diagnosed with TBI
(The Mainichi Daily News)

Some 52 percent of soldiers severely injured in Iraq and Afghanistan who have come to the US Army's largest hospital for treatment have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), an internal study has found. The study, carried out by Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, also showed a steep increase — from 33 percent — in TBI cases since the end of 2008.
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Israel’s Wall Must Come Down
(David Morrison / David Morrison.com)

Five years ago, on 7 July 2004, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s construction of the Wall in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) to be “contrary to international law. The Court went on to order Israel to “cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall” and “dismantle forthwith the structure” already built. Israel thumbed its nose at this ruling and continued to build the Wall, despite a near unanimous demand by the international community that it should comply.
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President Carter: Many Children Were Tortured Under Bush
(Ralph Lopez / dailykos.com)

The US has been hunting and killing Al Qaeda leaders outside of official war zones since 2004, when the New York Times reported that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had signed an order authorizing Special Forces to kill Al Qaeda where they found them. President Jimmy Carter wrote that the Red Cross, Amnesty International and the Pentagon "have gathered substantial testimony of torture of children, confirmed by soldiers who witnessed or participated in the abuse."
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Bomb Kills 4 US Troops in Afghanistan
(Laura King / Associated Press)

A roadside bomb killed four American troops in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, driving the July death toll for US forces to the highest monthly level of the war. The latest deaths brought to at least 30 the number of American service members who have died in Afghanistan this month — two more than the figure for all of June 2008, which had been the deadliest month for the US since the 2001 US-led invasion drove the Taliban from power.
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North Fort Myers Sergeant Was a Week from End of his Final Tour
(Dave Breitenstein / Fort Myers News-Press)

A 25-year-old Marine, a week short of his third and final combat deployment, was killed Wednesday by a sniper in Afghanistan, joining more than 5,000 soldiers who have died in the Middle East since 2001. US Marine Sgt. Michael C. Roy, of North Ft. Myers, Florida, leaves behind his widow, Amy, and three children — Olivia, 4, Mikey, 2, and Landon, 11 weeks.
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US Funded Army Unit that it Knew Worked with Death Squads
(John Lindsay-Poland / ForColombia.org)

In the next few days, a retired Colombian colonel and School of the Americas graduate, Víctor Hugo Matamoros, will be tried for his role in facilitating the bloody takeover of the northeastern Catatumbo region of Colombia by paramilitary death squads in 1999. The takeover resulted immediately in a series of massacres, the displacement of more than 20,000 people, and paramilitary control of drug trafficking and other economic activities in the area.
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Iraq: What We Leave As We Withdraw
(Jodie Evans / Common Dreams)

We first visited Iraq not long after the statue of Saddam fell in Firdos Square. We fell in love with Iraq and felt totally safe there, taking cabs in the wee hours of the morning, walking at 2 a.m. on the Tigress and driving to many parts of the country. Returning a few months later, however, we found the country devastated. Bustling markets were empty, the streets were those of a ghost town. Electricity was rare if at all and gas lines were miles long.
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Barack Obama or Cynthia McKinney – Who Represents Black America Toward Palestine and Israel?
(Bruce A. Dixon / Black Agenda Report)

Former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has just returned from an Israeli jail where she was imprisoned, along with human rights activists from several nations, for attempting to bring coloring books, food and medical supplies to some of the 1.5 million citizens of Gaza. How does McKinney's stand match up against that of our first black president, who calls Gaza a "humantarian crisis" but will do nothing about it? And how do they both stack up against the legacy of Dr. King?
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Pakistan Desperately Needs Money to Resettle Swat Residents
(Saeed Shah / McClatchy Newspapers)

Major Western countries, after applauding Pakistan's military crackdown on Islamic extremists in the Swat valley in the country's northwest, haven't pledged the money needed to resettle the population now that the fighting is mostly over, and humanitarian organizations fear that 2 million people will be sent back home before it's safe to go.
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Pakistan: More than Two Million People Living Outside Displacement Camps Face Appalling Conditions
(Amnesty International)

Pakistan’s central and regional governments must urgently do more to assist the more than two million people who have fled escalating fighting in northwestern Pakistan but do not have access to aid distributed in official displacement camps, Amnesty International said today. In particular, the Pakistani government must ensure that ethnic Pashtuns fleeing the fighting do not face discrimination in receiving assistance
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New US Drone Attack Kills 25: Pakistanis Live in Fear of Drone Assaults
(BBC News)

At least 10 militants have died after missiles were fired by a suspected US drone aircraft at a Taliban target in Pakistan. There have been more than 35 US strikes since last August, killing over 340 people. Pakistan has been publicly critical of drone attacks, arguing that they kill civilians and fuel support for the militants.
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The Lingering Effects of Torture
(Devin Powell / Inside Science News Service & ABC News )

Newly emerging research on large numbers of torture survivors suggests that "psychological" forms of torture — often thought to be milder than the direct infliction of physical pain — can in fact have serious long-term mental health consequences.
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Rights Group: Israeli Drones Killed Gaza Civilians
(Joseph Marks / Associated Press)

Human Rights Watch charged Tuesday that Israeli pilots failed to verify targets of drone aircraft at least six times during the Gaza war, firing missiles that killed at least 29 civilians. A HRW expert called drones the most precise weapons available and noted "We should not find so many civilian casualties from these incidents." An Israeli military spokesperson accused HRW of being taken in by the "Gazan propaganda system."
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How 6 Million People Were Killed In CIA Secret Wars Against Third World Countries
(John Stockwell / The Secret Wars of the CIA)

John Stockwell, former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. He spent 13 years in the agency. He gives a short history of CIA covert operations. He is a very compelling speaker and the highest level CIA officer to testify to the Congress about his actions. He estimates that over 6 million people have died in CIA covert actions, and this was in the late 1980's.
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The Secret Wars of the CIA: Part 2
(John Stockwell / The Secret Wars of the CIA)

I just got my latest book back from the CIA censors. If I had not submitted it to them, I would have gone to jail, without trial — for having violated our censorship laws....The United States CIA is running 50 covert actions, destabilizing almost one third of the countries in the world today.... I urge you not to take my word for anything. I'm going to stand here and tell you and give you examples of how our leaders lie.
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The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans
(Making Contact / National Radio Project & Luis Carlos Montalván / Huffington Post)

Nearly two million Americans have fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On this edition, reporter Aaron Glantz takes us inside the war as it comes home to our communities, with a focus on the special role our educational institutions can play in helping former soldiers adjust to civilian life.
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Shadow Wars
(Conn Hallinan / Foreign Policy in Focus)

The “privatization” of war, with its use of armed mercenaries, has come under heavy scrutiny, but the “covertization” of war has remained largely in the shadows. According to a 2004 classified document, the US now claims the right to attack “terrorists” in some 15 to 20 nations. The Israeli military has long used “targeted assassinations” to eliminate Tel Aviv’s enemies. US and NATO “assassination teams” and unmanned drone aircraft have killed scores of peoplein Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Scientist, Environmentalist and Eco-Prophet James Lovelock Warns of ‘The Vanishing Face of Gaia’
(James Murry-White / Green Prophet)

As the 90-year-old author prepares to take up Richard Branson’s offer of a place upon a Virgin Galactic flight in space, he is at his simplest and most direct in this book. Highly critical of European green politics and environmentalism, he offers what he believes are the only solutions for partial human survival through the onslaught of climate change. “Our gravest dangers are not from climate change itself, but indirectly from starvation, competition for space and resources, and tribal war.”
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Gold and Depleted Uranium: Destroying Indigenous Populations from the US to the Middle East
(Dahr Jamail / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

"We call gold the metal which makes men crazy," says Charmaine White Face. "Knowing they could not conquer us like they wanted to ... because when you are fighting for your life, or the life of your family, you will do anything you can ... so they had to put us in prisoner of war camps. I come from POW camp 344, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. We want our treaties upheld, we want our land back."
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US Failures 'Caused Afghan Deaths'
(Al Jazeera)

eadly air strikes by a US bomber in Afghanistan last month did not follow strict rules and probably caused civilian casualties, a US military report has said. The report said 26 Afghan civilians and 78 Taliban fighters probably died in the May 4 incident, most likely during three bombing runs by the air craft, although it did not "discount the possibility" that more were killed.
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Colombian Army 'Killed Civilians'
(Al Jazeera)

Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, has accused Colombian soldiers of killing hundreds of civilians during the past six years and falsely identifying the dead as guerrilla fighters. Alston said it was "unsustainable" for officials in Uribe's government to argue that the killings by troops seeking bonuses were carried out on a small scale.
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Heed Voices Calling for Justice for Palestinians
(Huwaida Arraf / Special to The Seattle Times)

e Palestinians are often asked where the Palestinian Gandhi is and urged to adopt nonviolent methods in our struggle for freedom from Israeli military rule. On April 17, an Israeli soldier killed my good friend Bassem Abu Rahme at a nonviolent demonstration against Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land. Bassem was one of many Palestinian Gandhis.
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Carter Grieves for Gaza as Lieberman Vows No Keep Building Settlements
(Al Jazeera)

Jimmy Carter has spoken of his "grief and despair" at seeing the destruction in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel's 22-day offensive on the territory six months ago.Meanwhile, Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, has said his country could not accept a "complete" freeze on settlement building in the West Bank, despite US calls to do so.
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Buchenwald, D-Day, Communists, Hitler's Backers, Capitalism And Media
( Jay Janson / Countercurrents.org)

World War II, the Holocaust and incomprehensible extermination of six million Jewish Europeans and the non-Jewish victims of the death camps, which, while never denied, are certainly less often mentioned — all three of these connected events should be studied in the context of the many eminent American and European industrialists and bankers who made fortunes backing German rearmament under Hitler.
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15 Months after Bloodbath in Iraq, Young Veteran Takes his Life
(The Sacramento Bee)

On March 7, 2007, Army Spc. Trevor Hogue was inside his barracks in Baghdad, describing his morning on the battlefield. That day the young soldier saw his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. "I saw things today that I think will mess me up for life," Hogue typed to his mother. Last week, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home. He was 24 years old.
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Agent Orange Continues to Poison Vietnam
(Marjorie Cohn / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

From 1961 to 1971, the US military sprayed Vietnam with Agent Orange, which contained large quantities of Dioxin, in order to defoliate the trees for military objectives. Between 2.5 and 4.8 million people were exposed to Agent Orange. Several treaties the United States has ratified require an effective remedy for violations of human rights. It is time to make good on Nixon's promise and remedy the terrible wrong the US government perpetrated on the people of Vietnam.
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CIA Secrecy on Pakistan Drone Attacks Data Hides Abuses
(Gareth Porter / Inter Press Service)

The US Central Intelligence Agency’s refusal to share with other agencies even the most basic data on the bombing attacks by remote-controlled unmanned predator drones in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region, combined with recent revelations that CIA operatives have been paying Pakistanis to identify the targets, suggests that managers of the drone attacks programmes have been using the total secrecy surrounding the programme to hide abuses and high civilian casualties.
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After More Civilian Deaths, US Agrees to 'Review' Afghan Tactics

he newly appointed commander of US forces in Afghanistan is to review military tactics in the region in response to widespread anger about the high number of civilian casualties. General Stanley McChrystal says his focus will be on balancing the "short-term tactical impact" of operations with the "long-term strategic effect".
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Officials: US Made Mistakes in Afghan Attack
(Karen DeYoung / Washington Post)

US military personnel in western Afghanistan failed to follow established procedures in a battle with the Taliban last month that killed dozens of Afghan civilians. Among the rules violated or poorly followed were poor initial planning for combat in a populated area and the dropping of a 2,000-pound bomb from a B-1 bomber on a building without proper visual and ground confirmation of the target. The attack killed between 97 and 140 civilians.
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Justice for Pakistan's 'Disappeared' Delayed
(James Palmer / San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Service)

Hundreds of Pakistanis have vanished during the rule of former president Pervez Musharraf (1999-2008), according to Defense of Human Rights, a national organization based in this northern city. Since its formation in 2005, Defense of Human Rights has registered 640 disappearances. Since then, 150 have been released and 70 have been located and are still in custody. The group also estimates that as many as 10,000 people disappeared during Musharraf's rule.
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The Militarization of Public Health
(William Engdahl / Global Research)

The French Government is developing secret plans to impose mandatory vaccination of the entire French population, allegedly against possible Swine Flu disease according to reports leaked in a French newspaper. The plan is without precedent and defies recommended public health advice. Pharmaceutical giants benefit from the move, as the Swine Flu increases the trend towards the militarization of public health and use of needless population panic to advance the agenda.
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ACTION ALERT: Stop Rape as a Weapon of War
(Raymond C. Offenheiser / Oxfam America & Marcel Stoessel / Oxfam International)

Sifa is a 23-year old woman living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where mass rape is routinely being used as weapon of war to destroy women, families, and communities. The brutality she faced was one of more than 15,000 reported sexual violations against women and girls, even babies as young as 10 months and women as old as 80.
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The Health Risks of Nuclear Radiation: Toxic Link: the WHO and the IAEA
(Oliver Tickell / The Guardian )

A 50-year-old agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency has effectively gagged the World Health Organization from telling the truth about the health risks of radiation. The effect of this agreement has been to give the IAEA an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power — and so prevent the WHO from playing its proper role in investigating and warning of the dangers of nuclear radiation on human health.
/know/read.php?itemid=8362

US Apologies for Killing Afghan Civilians
(Reuters & Agence France-Presse)

The deadly US air attack in May 2009 resulted in the mass-killing of civilians and stoked Afghan anger with some Afghans angrily denouncing America as “the world’s biggest terrorist.” After initially denying the deaths, the US has now apologized.
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UN Human Rights Council Blasts US for Killing Civilians, Drone Attacks and Using Mercenaries
(Jeremy Scahill / Rebel Reports)

he UN Human Rights Council has issued a report blasting the US for killing civilians, violating human rights and creating a “zone of impunity” for unaccountable private contractors to fight its wars. The UN group also criticized the US use of drones to attack Pakistan. The report, released this week was authored by Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
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Here Comes Summer, and Iraqis Brace for an Ordeal: Power Shortage Looms
(Nizar Latif, / The National — Arab Emirates)

Another summer is on its way and for Iraqis that means the grim and inevitable prospect of temperatures so high that days and nights become a kind of physical endurance test. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in investment by the Iraqi government aimed at getting the national grid fully operational, most neighbourhoods still rely heavily on small diesel generators run by local businessmen.
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Three GI Resisters Tell their Stories
(Dee Knight / Workers World)

In real life Travis Bishop is best known for his acoustic country music CD, “So Here We Go.” He is also known as Sgt. Bishop, currently AWOL from Fort Hood after refusing to deploy with the 57th Elite Service Battalion to Afghanistan.
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Pakistan City Centre 'Destroyed'
(BBC World News)

Taliban rebels were driven out of Mingora on Saturday by Pakistan government troops. The scale of the war damage to the main city in the Swat valley has become clear. A BBC correspondent who went to Mingora has reported widespread damage — all the buildings and shops in the town square had been completely destroyed. With water, food, electricity and fuel unavailable, the International Red Cross said it was "gravely concerned" by the humanitarian situation in Swat.
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ACTION ALERT: June is Torture Awareness Mont
(National Religious Campaign Against Torture)

The fight to end US-sponsored torture is not over. At noon on June 11, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture will sponsor a major religious public event in front of the White House asking President Obama to create a Commission of Inquiry. A broad community of religious organizations have made Torture Awareness Month resources available online. See below.
/know/read.php?itemid=8345

Sri Lanka Toll 'May Never Be Known'
(Al Jazeera)

Rejecting a newspaper report claiming that 20,000 civilians had died in the final days of the conflict, John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, on Friday said the death toll was "unclear.". "I fear we may [never know], because I don't know that the government would be prepared to co-operate with any inquiry," Holmes said.
/know/read.php?itemid=8340

US Army Base Shuts Down after Rise in Suicides
(Dan De Luce / Agence France-Presse)

The commander of Fort Campbell army base in Kentucky has ordered a three-day suspension of regular duties to focus on a spike in suicides among his troops amid concern over a wider trend across the armed services. Last year 128 soldiers took their lives, up from 115 in 2007, as tours of duty since 2001 have come ever more frequently and last longer. With 64 confirmed or suspected suicides so far this year, the army looks likely to surpass last year's record numbers.
/know/read.php?itemid=8336

Colonizing Culture
(Dahr Jamail / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

he geo-strategic expansion of the American empire is an accepted fact of contemporary history. I have been writing in these columns about the impact of the US occupation on the people of Iraq in the wake of the "hard" colonization via F-16s, tanks, 2,000-pound bombs, white phosphorous and cluster bombs. But there also is a less obvious but far more insidious phenomenon — "soft" colonization.
/know/read.php?itemid=8330

Memorial Day in Iraq: Who Will Do Justice to Victims of US Invasion?
(Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman)

Commentary: "Iraqis killed, maimed, turned into refugees, and made homeless as a direct or indirect result of the 2003-US invasion are in millions. Who will do justice to them? The victims of the past six years, it seems, have turned into meaningless numbers about which nobody cares. They have apparently turned into erased lines in Iraq’s book of darkness, or graves with erased epitaphs in the desert of death."
/know/read.php?itemid=8331

Generals Find Suicide a Frustrating Enemy
(Ann Scott Tyson and Greg Jaffe / Washington Post)

In 2008, 140 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, continuing a trend in which the number of suicides has increased more than 60 percent since 2003, surpassing the rate for the general U.S. population. To deal with the problem, the Army has added to the ranks of mental health and substance abuse counselors. The service also required all units to cease operations for two to four hours to talk about suicide prevention in February and March.
/know/read.php?itemid=8319

Crash Landings: Is the New Wave of War Veterans Getting the Help it Needs?
(Sarah Phelan / Bay Guardian)

As the US military wrestles with President Barack Obama's plan to expand the war in Afghanistan while reducing its presence in Iraq, there's a mounting cost on the home front for the 1.9 million soldiers who have been deployed to those conflicts and are now beginning the often difficult transition back to civilian life.
/know/read.php?itemid=8313

Blowback: A Canadian History of Agent Orange and the War at Home
(Chris Arsenault / Rabble.ca)

Book Excerpt: "The reason for this spraying was to kill trees and other brush to make room for training areas, shooting ranges, and roads. It should not be surprising that contractors and the government itself tried to save money on labor costs at the expense of human health and the natural environment. In a market-driven economic system, this, sadly, is just the cost of doing business."
/know/read.php?itemid=8306

ACTION ALERT: Help Monitor Violence in Sri Lanka; Help Support Refugees
(Amnesty International & Mercy Corps)

An estimated 265,000 Tamil civilians have fled the final battleground between government forces and the Tamil Tigers. Powerful satellite monitoring technologies can make the difference when lives hang in the balance and world leaders aren't moving quickly or decisively enough to stem bloody violence. Help AI uncover evidence of the tremendous human toll in Sri Lanka and help Mercy Corp support housing, water and hygiene to the civilian refugees of the conflict.
/know/read.php?itemid=8294

Afghanistan: US Should Act to End Bombing Tragedies
(Human Rights Watch)

"Afghans have heard promises from the US before that they would take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "But if the US is to have any credibility, this latest outrage needs to be the last of its kind. The Petraeus review should result in measures that genuinely minimize civilian loss of life."
/know/read.php?itemid=8281

Afghanistan & Guernica
(Workers World)

The US Air Force bombed and strafed villages with heavy machine guns in the Farah province of Afghanistan on the evening and night of May 4. Survivors buried 113 bodies, including many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died. “The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred.”
/know/read.php?itemid=8274

When PTSD Comes Marching Home
(William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Columnist)

The soldier who shot five fellow troops in Iraq did so in a base clinic catering to service members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He had served three tours in Iraq. As with the other soldiers who committed the above-described crimes, he suffered from PTSD, and in the end, his disorder became the catalyst for savagery.
/know/read.php?itemid=8270

Some US Soldiers Forced to Steal Water in Iraq
(Jeremy Rogalski / KHOU-TV)

Imagine a miserable summer day and add 40 degrees, making temperatures 130 or more. Next, add an extra 100 pounds of life-protecting gear to your body: bulletproof vests, guns and ammunition. And then imagine not having enough water around to drink. "We were rationed two bottles of water a day," said Army Staff Sgt. Dustin Robey, referring to 1 to 1.5 liter bottles. And he said that wasn't nearly enough. "You'll see guys throw up, you'll see them pass out," he said.
/know/read.php?itemid=8272

Britain "Appalled" by Civilian Deaths in Sri Lanka
(Louis Charbonneau / Reuters)

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Monday he was appalled by reports that hundreds of Sri Lankan civilians were killed during the weekend in what the United Nations has described as a "bloodbath."
/know/read.php?itemid=8266

U.N. Tells of ‘Bloodbath’ in Sri Lanka
(Mark McDonald & Thomas Fuller / The New York Times)

As the UN warned a “bloodbath” was taking place in Sri Lanka, leading aid agencies said that both the government and the Tamil rebels it is fighting had shown a “wanton disregard for human life.” Food, water and shelter are in short supply inside the battle zone. An official with a Catholic relief group said that only one field hospital remained in operation, with doctors and other medical staff fearful of leaving their bunkers because of periodic shelling by the army.
/know/read.php?itemid=8267

Doctors Raise Phosphorus Concerns After US Strikes in Afghanistan
(Jon Boon / The Guardian)

Afghanistan's leading human rights organisation is investigating claims that white phosphorus was used during a deadly battle between US forces and the Taliban last week in which scores of civilians may have died. US forces in Afghanistan denied they had used the chemical but members of the UN mission in Afghanistan have been appalled by witness testimony from people in the village.
/know/read.php?itemid=8261

UN 'Appalled' at Sri Lanka Deaths
(Al jazeera)

The United Nations secretary-general has said that he is "appalled" by reports of the recent killing of hundreds of civilians in Sri Lanka's offensive against the separatist Tamil Tigers. UN officials in Sri Lanka described the shelling as a "bloodbath".
/know/read.php?itemid=8264

Desperation in Pakistani Hospitals, Refugee Camps
(The Guardian)

The Pakistan army's assault on northwestern Swat Valley, has prompted the flight of hundreds of thousands of terrified residents, adding a humanitarian emergency to the nuclear-armed nation's security, economic and political problems. Desperate refugees looted UN supplies in one camp, taking blankets and cooking oil.
/know/read.php?itemid=8257

Half a Million Flee Swat Valley
(Andrew Buncombe / The Guardian)

Up to 500,000 terrified residents of Pakistan's Swat valley have fled or else are desperately trying to leave as the military steps up an operation using fighter jets and helicopter gunships to "eliminate" Taliban fighters. The UN said 200,000 people had already arrived in safe areas in the past few days while another 300,000 were on the move or were poised to leave.
/know/read.php?itemid=8258

Sri Lankan Armey Accused of Shelling Civilians
(BBC News)

At least 378 people have been killed by fierce shelling from the Sri Lankan army in the past 24 hours, a health official has told the BBC. The doctor, working in the northern conflict zone, said 1,122 others had been injured - and more bodies were on beaches and by the sides of roads.
/know/read.php?itemid=8253

Pakistan War Refugees Reluctant to Move into Camps
(IRIN)

housands of people displaced by fighting between government forces and militants in Swat Valley, North West Frontier Province (NWFP), have been pouring into the capital, Islamabad, but many are reluctant to move into camps for "cultural reasons."
/know/read.php?itemid=8254

US Admits Air Raids ‘Partly to Blame’ in Deaths
(Elisabeth Bumiller, Carlotta Gall,Taimoor Shah / New York Times)

US officials acknowledged Thursday for the first time that at least some of what may be 100 civilian deaths in western Afghanistan were caused by American bombs, as Afghan residents angrily protested the casualties and demanded that US forces leave the country.
/know/read.php?itemid=8249

Former US Soldier Convicted in Iraqi Family Deaths
(Brett Barrouquere / Associated Press)

A jury convicted a former soldier of raping and fatally shooting a 14-year-old girl after killing her parents and younger sister while serving in Iraq. Pfc. Steven Dale Green faces a possible death sentence when the penalty phase of his trial begins Monday. Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, was tried in civilian court because he was discharged from the Army for a personality disorder before he was charged with the Iraq crimes.
/know/read.php?itemid=8250

Stopping Pakistan Drone Strikes Suddenly Plausible
(Robert Naiman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

Counterinsurgency guru David Kilcullen has told Congress that US drone strikes in Pakistan are backfiring and should be stopped. Until now, Congress has been reluctant to challenge the drone strikes, as they are reluctant in general to challenge "military strategy," even when it appears to be causing terrible harm. Since 2006, we've killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians
/know/read.php?itemid=8251

UN Accuses Israel of Gaza 'Negligence or Recklessness'
(Rory McCarthy and Ed Pilkington / The Guardian & Al Jazeera)

A United Nations inquiry today accused the Israeli military of "negligence or recklessness" in its conduct of the January war in Gaza and said the organisation should press claims for reparations for deaths and damage. In response, Israel's President Shimon Peres, condemned a UN investigation into the use of devastating WMD phosphorous for an attack on UN facilities in Gaza as "outrageous" and "one-sided."
/know/read.php?itemid=8246

Civilians Flee as Pakistani Forces Hit Resistance
(Sheikh Jana / The New York Times)

The Pakistani forces air-dropped commandos into the main town in Buner on Wednesday and quickly retook control of it from Taliban militants who flooded into the area last week. Villagers who fled the fighting and made it to this village on the plains said the military was bombing in Buner with fighter jets and firing rockets from helicopter gunships. Despite a curfew imposed by both the Taliban and the army, a cowherd in his 20s, said everyone was trying to get out of the district.
/know/read.php?itemid=8247

US Bombs Kill More Than 100 Afghan Civilians: US Apologizes
(Rahim Faiez / Associated Press)

The international Red Cross says its officials have seen dozens of bodies in each of two villages in western Afghanistan following a US bombing run that villagers killed as many as 120 civilians — including many women and children — in two Afghan villages. The US has apologized for the loss of life.
/know/read.php?itemid=8241

Environment Emerges as a Major Casualty in Gaza
(Erin Cunningham / Inter Press Service)

An already deepening environmental crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has been further compounded by the recent war. hroughout the three-week Operation Cast Lead, Israel targeted almost every aspect of the coastal territory's infrastructure. Homes, businesses, factories, power grids, sewage systems and water treatment plants were reduced to piles of rubble across the Gaza Strip.
/know/read.php?itemid=8237

A Historic Day For Iraq
(Robert Fisk / The Independent)

Commentary: "One hundred and seventy-nine dead soldiers. For what? 179,000 dead Iraqis? Or is the real figure closer to a million? We don't know. And we don't care. We never cared about the Iraqis. That's why we don't know the figure. That's why we left Basra yesterday. I remember going to the famous Basra air base to ask how a poor Iraqi boy, called Bahr Moussa, had died. He was kicked to death in British military custody. Yesterday, his country was set free from his murderer. At last."
/know/read.php?itemid=8234

The World's Largest Refugee Camp: Human Tide of Misery Flees the Anarchy of Somalia
(Daniel Howden / The Independent)

Recent refugees from the fighting in Somalia have joined a population of 267,000 and counting, in a facility built to shelter just 45,000. While the world has been captivated by the high seas drama of Somalia's pirates, this human tide has swollen the ranks of Dadaab, turning it into the world's largest refugee camp.
/know/read.php?itemid=8208

‘Terror’ Attacks Killed 7,473 Iraqis in 2008
(Zayna Sami / Azzaman)

Violence claimed 7,473 lives in 2008 in Iraq, the year which the government and US occupation forces say was relatively quiet. The figure, announced by Human Rights Minister Wajdan Salem, does not include Iraqi casualties resulting from US attacks or Iraqi government forces’ operations.
/know/read.php?itemid=8199

AP Iraqi Deaths Top 110,000 since 2003
(Kim Gamel / Associated Press)

Iraq's government has recorded 87,215 of its citizens killed since 2005 in violence ranging from catastrophic bombings to execution-style slayings, according to government statistics obtained by the Associated Press that break open one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war.
/know/read.php?itemid=8192

UN Report Discloses 6,500 Civilians Killed in Sri Lanka War
(A; Jazeera)

Nearly 6,500 civilians have been killed and 13,000 wounded in fighting in Sri Lanka over the past three months, accord to a UN report. The UN estimates 50,000 are still trapped in the war zone.
/know/read.php?itemid=8193

Global Assistance Could Boost Protection, Security in Somalia – UN Expert
(United Nations News Centre)

On the heels of donors pledging over $200 million for Somalia yesterday, a United Nations human rights expert stressed that these funds could greatly help protect civilians in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation and bolster its security forces.
/know/read.php?itemid=8194

Weapons That Kill Civilians — Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq
(New England Journal of Medicine)

Armed violence, such as that in the ongoing conflict in Iraq, is a threat to global health.1 It causes serious injuries and deaths of civilians, makes orphans of children, traumatizes populations, and undermines the ability of communities to provide adequate medical care even as it dramatically increases health care needs.
/know/read.php?itemid=8172

Human Body Parts
(Dahr Jamail / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

In Iraq, time leaves bloody marks upon each day of the ongoing US occupation. The policies of the Obama administration, adopted from the Bush administration, continue to wreak their havoc on the Iraqi people. The US-created a Sunni militia comprised mostly of former resistance fighters and even some members of al-Qaeda, that now threatens to resume anti-occupation resistance operations against the US military and Iraqi government security forces.
/know/read.php?itemid=8167

Book Tells of Female US Soldiers Raped by Comrades
(Christine Kearney / Reuters)

"The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq," a book based on 40 in-depth interviews, recounts the stories of female veterans who served in combat zones and tells of rape, sexual assault and harassment by male counterparts. A 2003 survey of more than 550 female vets who served in wars from Vietnam to the first Gulf war found that 30 percent said they suffered from rape or attempted rape and 79 percent reported being sexually harassed.
/know/read.php?itemid=8168

Iraq in Fragments
(Dahr Jamail / Foreign Policy In Focus)

US Major General David Perkins' comments that "Attacks are at their lowest since August 2003" in Baghdad, made headlines in the US media. But this was little consolation for the families of 28 Iraqis killed in attacks across Iraq the following day. Nor did it bring solace to the relatives of the 27 Iraqis slain in a March 23 suicide attack, or those who survived a bomb attack at a bus terminal in Baghdad on the same day that killed nine Iraqis.
/know/read.php?itemid=8162

Investigating Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
( Stephen Lendman / After Downing Street)

Independent investigations and convincing testimonies, on both sides, provide compelling evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. It's time to hold the guilty accountable. In February, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights showed conclusively how Israel violated international law principles by indiscriminately attacking civilians in spite of IDF claims such instances were justified. Amnesty International has called on the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo.
/know/read.php?itemid=8158

What Do Rocket Fuel and Baby Formula Have in Common?
(Adrine Akopyan / Centers for Disease Control & Joaquin Sapien / ProPublica)

A recent study by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control has found potentially dangerous levels of perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel, in powered infant formula. Exposure to perchlorate damages the thyroid and might potentially impair brain development in infants. Widespread perchlorate contamination is due in large part to rocket and missile tests during the Cold War Era.
/know/read.php?itemid=8138

Killings and Concentration Camps: A Colossal Humanitarian Tragedy is Underway in Sri Lanka and No One is Saying a Word
(Arundhati Roy /Comment Is Free)

The horror that is unfolding in Sri Lanka becomes possible because of the silence that surrounds it. There is almost no reporting in the mainstream Indian media — or indeed in the international press — about what is happening there. Why this should be so is a matter of serious concern.
/know/read.php?itemid=8124

Israel Accused of Indiscriminate Phosphorus Use in Gaza
(Rory McCarthy / The Guardian)

In a 71-page report, Human Rights Watch has accused Israel's military of firing white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas of Gaza repeatedly and indiscriminately during its three-week war. Appalling photos and videos of the attack and the injuries make it clear that Israel chose to use a horrific weapon against targets in Gaza, killing and injuring civilians and committing war crimes. Videos and slideshow links below.
/know/read.php?itemid=8097

Three Mile Island 30 Years Later: A Reminder that Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy Are Fundamentally Linked
(Harvey Wasserman / Free Press & Peter A. Bradford / US Senate Testimony)

People DID die as a result of the partial meltdown of the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island. Officials covered up the truth with a string of lies that continue to put the public at risk. Harvey Wasserman investigated the accident and its human health aftermath; Peter Bradford, a Commissioner with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the TMI accident, recently warned a Senate Committee that the call for a "nuclear renaissance" ignores the deadly lessons of Three Mile Island.
/know/read.php?itemid=8089

UN, Human Rights Watch Accuse Israeli Army of War Crimes, Rights Violations
(James Hider / The Times)

A leading human rights group accused Israel’s army yesterday of committing war crimes by using white phosphorus shells in the recent war in Gaza. A United Nations report accused Israeli troops yesterday of using a Palestinian child as a human shield during fighting in Gaza, shooting Palestinian children, bulldozing a house with a woman and child inside and shelling a building they had ordered civilians to enter a day earlier.
/know/read.php?itemid=8083

Brain-injured GIs Could Number 360,000. While Billions Go to Wall Street, Only $242 Million Goes to Treat Brain-injured Soldiers
(Associated Press, Military.com & Mary MacElveen)

The number of US troops who have suffered wartime brain injuries may be as high as 360,000. The vast majority of them suffering concussions — represents 20 percent of the roughly 1.8 million men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where blast injuries are common.
/know/read.php?itemid=8078

Israeli Military Condemns Bloodthirsty T-shirts
(Matti Friedman / Associated Press)

Israel's military condemned soldiers for wearing T-shirts of a pregnant woman in a rifle's cross-hairs with the slogan "1 Shot 2 Kills," and another of a gun-toting child with the words, "The smaller they are, the harder it is." The T-shirts were worn by some Israeli Defense Force soldiers to mark the end of basic training and other military courses.
/know/read.php?itemid=8080

UN Says Gaza Assault Was 'Inhumane'
(Al Jazeera)

The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories has said Israel's military offensive on Gaza "would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law." Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers tell the press that killing Palestinian civilians and destroying their homes "was allowed in Israel’s rules of engagement during the war."
/know/read.php?itemid=8066

Envoy Damns US Afghan Drug Effort
(BBC News)

US efforts to eradicate opium poppy crops in Afghanistan have been "wasteful and ineffective", the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan says. Richard Holbrooke said the $800m (£550m) a year the US was spending on counter-narcotics would be better used in supporting Afghan farmers.
/know/read.php?itemid=8068

War and the Environment
(Peace Pledge Union)

Twentieth century weapons technology has ensured a lethal harvest. Landmines: planted in millions in war-torn countries, kill and maim long after wars are over, and deny agricultural use of the land in which they lurk. A Khmer Rouge general called them ‘the perfect soldier’: cheap, efficient, expendable, never hungry, never needing sleep. But eighty percent of landmine victims are civilians, not soldiers; and nearly a quarter of those are children.
/know/read.php?itemid=8055

Women in Congo Speak Out About Rape Despite Taboo
(Associated Press & The New York Times)

Rape has been used as a brutal weapon of war in Congo, where conflicts based on tribal lines have spawned dozens of armed groups amid back-to-back civil wars that drew in several African nations. More than 5 million people have died since 1994. Women have become even more vulnerable since a rebel advance at the end of last year drove a quarter-million people from their homes and fighting this year left another 100,000 others homeless, according to aid workers.
/know/read.php?itemid=8051

The Ongoing Occupation of Iraqi Artists
(Dahr Jamail / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

For centuries, artists, writers, and intellectuals have been meeting in Baghdad's teahouses over tulip-shaped glasses of sweet lemon tea, cigarettes, and shisha pipes. A year-and-a-half ago, a car bomb detonated near one of the oldest teahouses causing massive destruction around the area. When it reopened recently, Mohammed Al-Mumain, a 59-year-old biology teacher resumed his visits there.
/know/read.php?itemid=8052

Gaza as Seen through the Eyes of YouTube
(Multiple Contributors / YouTube.com)

A random compendium of video clips from Gaza goes beyond words to show children singing, soldiers firing on unarmed farmers, rocket attacks on Israeli towns, bombing attacks on Gaza dwellings, suicide bombers, songs of sadness and songs of peace.
/know/read.php?itemid=8044

Israelis 'Firing Live Rounds' at West Bank Protesters
(Peter Beaumont / The Observer)

Israeli armed forces and border police used the cover of the war against Hamas in Gaza to reintroduce the firing of .22 rifle bullets — as well as the extensive use of a new model of tear-gas canister — against unarmed demonstrators in the Occupied West Bank protesting at the building of Israel's "separation wall."
/know/read.php?itemid=8037

UN Fears Sri Lanka 'War Crimes'
(BBC News)

Actions by Sri Lanka's government and the Tamil Tiger rebels may amount to war crimes, the United Nations says. UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Navi Pillay called on the two warring sides to suspend hostilities immediately in the island's northeast.
/know/read.php?itemid=8028

The Cost of War: Where the Money Goes
(Norman Solomon / San Francisco Chronicle)

Every day, the US Treasury spends close to $2 billion on the military. Such big numbers are hard to fathom, but it's worth doing the math. More than 40 percent of federal tax dollars go to military spending. The outlays buy a mighty war machine while depleting our own communities. In San Francisco, taxpayers have already sent the US government $2.2 billion for the Iraq war — enough to provide health care to 828,378 children for a year. I
/know/read.php?itemid=8023

Israel Plans to Double West Bank Settlers - Study
(Agence France Presse)

Israel's Housing Ministry has plans for West Bank construction that would nearly double the number of settlers there, the group Peace Now says. The presence of the so-called Israeli "settlers" in the Occupied Territories is illegal under international law.
/know/read.php?itemid=8007

The Real Israel-Palestine Story is in the West Bank
(Ben White / The London Guardian)

It is quite likely that you have not heard of the most important developments this week in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the West Bank, while it has been "occupation as normal," there have been a large number of Israeli raids on Palestinian villages, with dozens of Palestinians abducted. Soldiers have occupied homes, detained residents, blocked roads, vandalised property, beat protestors, and raised the Israeli flag at the top of several buildings.
/know/read.php?itemid=8009

Ethnic Cleansing and Israel
(Conn Hallinan / Dispatches From The Edge: The Berkeley Daily Plaanet)

One of the more disturbing developments in the Middle East is a growing consensus among Israelis that it would be acceptable to expel—in the words of advocates, “transfer”—its Arab citizens to either an as-yet-unformed Palestinian state or the neighboring countries of Jordan and Egypt. Such sentiment is hardly new among Israeli extremists: “Transfer” is no longer the exclusive policy of extremists, as it has increasingly become a part of mainstream political dialogue.
/know/read.php?itemid=8003

Gaza Homes Destruction 'Wanton'
(BBC News)

Human rights investigators say Israeli forces engaged in "wanton destruction" of Palestinian homes during the recent conflict in Gaza. Many buildings were demolished either by bulldozers or explosives after the area was under Israeli control. Amnesty International has told the BBC News website the methods used raised concerns about war crimes. Israel's military said buildings were destroyed because of military "operational needs".
/know/read.php?itemid=7999

Top UN Official Accuses US of Inhuman Atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan
(Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann / President, UN General Assembly)

The President of the UN General Assembly has called for the world body to address "the massive violations human rights in Iraq. Even as the world absorbs the inhumanity of the recent invasion of Gaza, we see Iraq as a contemporary and ongoing example of how the illegal use of force leads inexorably to human suffering and disregard for human rights. The illegality of the use of force against Iraq... runs contrary to the prohibition of the use of force in article 2(4) of the UN Charter."
/know/read.php?itemid=8002

US Press Missed a Lot in Gaza, Producer Says
(Joe Garofoli / San Francisco Chronicle)

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visits Israel and the West Bank this week, giving the US media another opportunity to tell the story of the 22-day war between the Israeli military and Hamas in Gaza in December and January. To San Francisco-based Middle Eastern media watcher Jalal Ghazi and other analysts, few Americans saw as many of the devastating images from Gaza as the rest of the world did.
/know/read.php?itemid=7995

UN Reports Israel's Gaza Attack Has Spurred Anger and Harmed Women
(United Nations Department of Public Information)

Combating violence against women was a particularly complex task in Palestine. Israel’s recent invasion of Gaza has worsened the situation while causing the deaths of 114 women and injury to more than 800 others. The construction of the separation wall has increased that lack of access and in some cases women were delivering babies at Israeli-controlled checkpoints. Meanwhile, the UN reports, the mood in Gaza has “moved from a pervasive sense of grief to a pervasive sense of anger.”
/know/read.php?itemid=7997

Iraqi Refugees Suffer Hardships in Syria, Sweden and Iraq, Itself
(Mundher Shawi / Azzaman & Mundher al-Shawfi / Azzaman)

Syria says the presence of more than a million Iraqi refugees is stretching its strapped economic resources to the limit and has asked other Arab countries for help. The Swedish government is tightening rules under which Iraqi refugees seeking asylum could stay in the country and is using force to have them deported.
/know/read.php?itemid=7988

ACTION ALERT: End the Recruitment of Child Soldiers
(Larry Cox / Amnesty International USA)

Around the world today, children are not only war's victims, but also its combatants. Help us expose and bring to justice those who recruit and use child soldiers.
/know/read.php?itemid=7972

Can Gaza Be Rebuilt Through Tunnels?
(Ann Wright, t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

"How do you rebuild 5,000 homes, businesses and government buildings when the only way supplies come into the prison called Gaza is through tunnels? Will the steel I-beams for roofs bend 90 degrees to go through the tunnels from Egypt? Will the tons of cement, lumber, roofing materials, nails, dry wall and paint be hauled by hand, load after load, 70 feet underground, through a tunnel 500 to 900 feet long and then be pulled up a 70-foot hole and put into a waiting truck in Gaza?"
/know/read.php?itemid=7973

Investigating Gaza's 'War Crimes': ‘White Flag’ Killing and Israel Prepares to Demolish More Palestinian Homes
(Al Jazeera)

Rawhiyya al Najar, a mother and a Gaza native was killed on January 13, aged 37, by what was estimated to be a single shot to the head. Eyewitnesses, friends, neighbors and human rights experts have expressed outrage that a woman carrying a baby and white flag was shot in broad daylight by an Israeli soldier. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, 1500 Palestinians face the demolition of their homes, which Israeli authorities have declared “illegal.”
/know/read.php?itemid=7963

Ex-Detainee Charges 'Medieval' Torture by US
(Kevin Sullivan / Washington Post)

Binyam Mohamed, 30, a former British resident released after seven years in detention, more than four of them at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, arrived back in London on Monday, saying the U.S. government subjected him to years of "medieval" torture.
/know/read.php?itemid=7966

ACTION ALERT: Ask Sec. of State Clinton to Investigate Potential War Crimes in Gaza.
(Amnesty International)

An Amnesty International research team recently found evidence of US-made weapons were used in Israel’s attack on the civilian residents of Gaza, including the misuse of white phosphorus munitions. Amnesty is urging concerned Americans to contract Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to demand that she immediately call for an investigation into Israel’s use of US weapons of mass destruction in Gaza.
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Marine Regiment Returns to Bay Area Intact
(Demian Bulwa / San Francisco Chronicle)

or the last three months, Cpl. Vandoan Ngo slept in a fuel truck, which he parked in a series of fields in Iraq. He lay on the floor, face to the pedals. He was cold and dirty, taking just three showers in 93 days. And the fear of enemy attack was always there. Then, on Sunday, Ngo resumed his life.
/know/read.php?itemid=7961

US Apologizes for Killing 13 Afghan Civilians; Kills 14 More
(Xinhua & Associated Press &)

An operation the American military at first described as a "precision strike" instead killed 13 Afghan civilians and only three militants, the US military said Saturday, three days after sending a general to the site to investigate. The US military originally said 15 militants were killed Tuesday in a coalition operation in the Gozara district of Herat province, but Afghan officials said six women and two children were among the dead, casting doubt on the US claim.
/know/read.php?itemid=7955

Marine Regiment Returns to Bay Area Intact
(Demian Bulwa / San Francisco Chronicle)

or the last three months, Cpl. Vandoan Ngo slept in a fuel truck, which he parked in a series of fields in Iraq. He lay on the floor, face to the pedals. He was cold and dirty, taking just three showers in 93 days. And the fear of enemy attack was always there. Then, on Sunday, Ngo resumed his life.
/know/read.php?itemid=7960

Gaza: Inside the World's Biggest Prison
(Lara Marlowe / The Irish Times & Taghreed El-Khodary / New York Times)

Evidence is mounting that the Israeli defence forces used the Gaza assault as a testing ground for new, horrific weapons — including new WMDs designed and manufactured in the US —that have confounded doctors’ attempts to save the wounded. Three congressional Democrats, including Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, visited Gaza on Thursday, saying they wanted to see for themselves the destruction caused by the war with Israel last month and to assess the area's needs.
/know/read.php?itemid=7946

Israel’s Rationale for Murder: No One is Innocent
(Junaid Levesque-Alam / Dissident Voice)

Commentary: The Israeli military has admitted shelling the home of a Palestinian doctor during its Gaza offensive and killing three of his daughters, but said its soldiers' actions were "reasonable." "Israel’s official excuses for extinguishing over 1,300 Palestinian lives—half of them civilian and one-third of them children— are oft-repeated [but] are they smokescreens, designed to disguise troublesome facts about both Israel’s strategy and its very origins?
/know/read.php?itemid=7947

US Probes Reports of 8 Afghan Civilian Deaths
(Jason Straziuso / Associated Press)

Responding quickly to another allegation of civilian casualties, a US general traveled to western Afghanistan on Wednesday to investigate reports that six women and two children were killed in a US air strike. Photos of the site showed at least one dead boy, bloodied and dirty from the attack.
/know/read.php?itemid=7948

Iraq's Young Jobless Threaten Stability, Report Says
(Tina Susman / The Los Angeles Times)

More than a fourth of young men are out of work, a U.N. report says. Unemployment statistics illustrate the difficulty of attracting investment to a country still viewed as a risky environment. Among its findings: 28% of males ages 15 to 29 are unemployed, 17% of women have jobs, and most of the 450,000 Iraqis entering the job market this year won't find work "without a concerted effort to boost the private sector."
/know/read.php?itemid=7930

Afghan Kids Killed as Aussies Battle Taliban
(Richard A. Oppel Jr.,Taimoor Shah / New York Times)

Five children were killed in predawn fighting Thursday between Australian special operations troops and Taliban guerrillas in south central Afghanistan, the Australian military said, the latest episode of civilian casualties that have hurt support for U.S. and NATO troops here.
/know/read.php?itemid=7925

Our Troops Need More Time between Deployments
(Ellen Tauscher / San Francisco Chronicle)

Having fought two wars on two fronts for more than seven years, our troops are tired and our military's equipment is worn out. The demands of multiple deployments in quick succession have taken a toll on our troops, who suffer on a personal level, experiencing higher rates of suicide, divorce and post-traumatic stress disorder.
/know/read.php?itemid=7926

UN Moves to Charge Israel with War Crimes
(Global Research)

Ethical and moral questions linger even among Israeli peace activists over the destruction and civilian deaths wrought by the immense Tel Aviv firepower employed in Gaza.The United Nations moves to set up a commission to look into Israeli war crimes and respond to its human rights violations in Gaza.
/know/read.php?itemid=7922

US Navy to Test “Pain-Ray” and Laser Weapons on Somali Pirates
(Ecoterra International)

According to recently leaked information the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden are to be used as a cover-up for the live testing of recently developed "non-lethal" and "sub-lethal" weapons systems including chemical and biological gasses to sicken and confuse targeted individuals, sonic blasters that can render victims deaf, laser dazzlers that temporarily blind, and a "pain-ray" that causes an unbearable burning sensation when trained on people at a great distance.
/know/read.php?itemid=7919

Financial Crisis Could Trigger Global Unrest, Beginning in China
(Agence France-Presse & Carol Divjak / Global Research)

The global economic crisis could trigger political unrest equal to that seen during the 1930s, the head of the World Trade Organization told a German newspaper on Saturday. At the same time, the Chinese government is facing a massive unemployment crisis, far worse than in the late 1990s, when lay-offs of more than 30 million workers from state enterprises led to a wave of militant protests.
/know/read.php?itemid=7909

Financial Crisis Could Trigger Global Unrest, Beginning in China
(Agence France-Presse & Carol Divjak / Global Research)

The global economic crisis could trigger political unrest equal to that seen during the 1930s, the head of the World Trade Organization told a German newspaper on Saturday. At the same time, the Chinese government is facing a massive unemployment crisis, far worse than in the late 1990s, when lay-offs of more than 30 million workers from state enterprises led to a wave of militant protests.
/know/read.php?itemid=7908

War News for Friday, February 06, 2009
(War News Today)

A local round-up of violence in Iraq for the past week begins "A civilian man was killed and two others injured when an improvised explosive device went off south of the district of Mandili, Diala province, on Thursday, a security source said. “An IED went off near a civilian vehicle in Ballour area, (10 km south of Mandili) killing a man and wounding two others,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency."
/know/read.php?itemid=7887

Soldier Suicides at New High
(Pauline Jelinek / Associated Press)

Suicides among U.S. soldiers rose last year to the highest level in decades, the Army said last week. At least 128 soldiers killed themselves in 2008. But the final count is likely to be considerably higher because 15 more suspicious deaths are being investigated and could turn out to be self-inflicted, the Army said.
/know/read.php?itemid=7886

Civilian in Sri Lanka Killed in Hospitals; Murdered in their Sleep
(The Economist & War Victims Monitor)

he individual stories are dreadful: of families killed together in their sleep by exploding artillery shells, of thousands forced from their homes. Civilians in northern Sri Lanka are caught between advancing government soldiers and the crumbling forces of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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Photos Show Growing Toll on Civilians in Sri Lanka
(Ravi Nessman / Associated Press)

Journalists and most aid groups have been barred from the area of the fighting, but independent observers shot video footage and photographs over the past week and provided them to the Associated Press. The observers provided the images on condition they not be identified because they feared government reprisal.
/know/read.php?itemid=7870

Reporter's Diary: Obstacles in Gaza
(Zeina Awad / Al Jazeera)

Israel's war on Gaza caused billions of dollars in damage and left the local economy on the verge of collapse. Some of the world's richest countries — including the US, which has promised a $20-million aid package — have pledged funds to rebuild the Gaza Strip. But, as Al Jazeera's Zeina Awad reports, the rivalry between Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and other Palestinian factions threatens to scuttle efforts to rebuild Gaza and rehabilitate its people.
/know/read.php?itemid=7872

Bombing Civilians: A 20th Century History
(Bill Moyers Journal / PBS)

In 1921, Italian tactician Giulio Douhet advanced a theory of air power that remains influential to this day: air power can win a war without ground forces by bombing an enemy's heartland. By bringing the war to civilians, reasoned Douhet, they will cease to support the war effort. Without the support of the heartland, their army will be forced to surrender. Bombing civilians may be distasteful, proponents allow, but it saves more lives in the long run by shortening wars.
/know/read.php?itemid=7862

US, UN Call for Investigation of Israel's Gaza War Crimes
(Reuters & Aluf Benn / Ha’aretz & Amos Harel / Ha’aretz)

US UN Ambassador Susan Rice said in her debut speech before the UN Security Council said Israel must investigate allegations that its army violated international law during its three-week war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Israel is preparing for a wave of lawsuits claiming they were responsible for war crimes due to the harsh results stemming from the IDF's actions against Palestinian civilians and their property.
/know/read.php?itemid=7865

Palestinian Men Bear Trauma of War
(Zeina Awad / Al Jazeera)

The mental health of Gazans has been badly affected by Israel's war on the coastal territory. Palestinian men have been hit especially hard as they struggle to find work under Israel's blockade and the horrors of the war have made work difficult and life more traumatic. Al Jazeera's Zeina Awad reports from a mental health clinic in Gaza City.
/know/read.php?itemid=7859

Fears over Sri Lanka War Children & Witness 'Trained Child Soldiers'
(BBC News)

A growing number of children have been killed or injured in Sri Lankan fighting over the last 10 days, the UN children's agency (Unicef) says. It has called on the government and Tamil Tiger rebels to give "absolute priority" to the safety of children and the wider civilian population. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has heard from a man who says he trained children to use Kalashnikovs for DR Congo warlord Thomas Lubanga.
/know/read.php?itemid=7854

US Army Suicides Hit Record High
(BBC News)

The rate of suicides among US Army soldiers has risen to a record level for the second year in a row. The army said there were 128 confirmed suicides in 2008, with a further 15 deaths still under investigation. Military officials said they did not know why the number has kept increasing. The problem is not confined to the US. In 2007, "almost an entire battalion of Russian soldiers committed suicide" —A total of 341 military personnel killed themselves.
/know/read.php?itemid=7852

'I Waited for My Fate,' Says Gaza Father
(Yasser Ahmad and Ashraf Khalil / The Los Angeles Times)

A farmer's attempt to flee to safety with his two sons fails when Israeli soldiers fire on their car. It takes 20 hours for an ambulance to get to them.
/know/read.php?itemid=7839

AU Troops 'Shell Somali Civilians'
(Al Jazeera)

frican Union troops in Somalia have been accused of indiscriminately shelling a Mogadishu neighbourhood after an attempted suicide bomb attack on their base. At least 22 people were killed in the car bomb blast and an ensuing firefight on Saturday, witnesses and medics said.
/know/read.php?itemid=7841

Agricultural Sector Losses as a Result of the Israeli Aggression against Gaza Strip
(The Palestinian Farmers Union (PFU) via Via Campesina the International Peasant Farmers Movement)

The fierce Israeli attack against Gaza Strip has lead to the complete destruction of the agriculture sector — starting from land bulldozing to destruction of irrigation networks to uprooting of trees uprooting and crops damage, the demolition of greenhouses, the slaughter of variety of livestock shelter and the deaths of 30 farmers killed while working in their fields.
/know/read.php?itemid=7834

Israel Accused of War Crimes Over 12-hour Assault on Gaza Village
(Fida Qishta in Khuza'a and Peter Beaumont / The Observer & PressTV)

Israel stands accused of perpetrating a series of war crimes during a sustained 12-hour assault on a village in southern Gaza last week in which 14 people died. Residents of the village of Khuza claim the advancing army killed unarmed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags and bulldozed homes with families still inside. Meanwhile, A Palestinian infant exposed to phosphorous gases has died, becoming the youngest casualty of Israel's illegal weapon
/know/read.php?itemid=7835

Evidence Mounts that Israel Used Horrific New Explosive in Gaza
(Al Jazeera & The Guardian & Noah Shachtman.com)

One doctor described the injuries as 'new' and 'much more dramatic' than landmine wounds. In addition to using white phosphorus, evidence suggests Israel has also used DIME explosives and micro-penetrating projectiles that are surgically impossible to remove. Deaths caused by burning and internal wounds were first reported when Israel attacked Gaza in June 2006. Then, as now, Jerusalem denies using the experimental weapon.
/know/read.php?itemid=7830

Sri Lankan Dam Targeted as Civilians Remain Trapped in Tiger Battle
(Al Jazeera)

Hundreds pf civilians have been killed as Sri Lankan government troops push further into rebel Tamil Tiger territory. Scored were killed when government shells hit a school doubling as a hospital. The attack as so severe that health workers had difficulty establishing a death count because so many of the bodies were dismembered. An estimated 230,000 civilians are reported to be trapped in the conflict zone
/know/read.php?itemid=7831

Stun-Guns Responsible for 600% Increase in Police-related Homicides
(San Francisco Chronicle & American Journal of Cardiology)

The number of reported sudden deaths among individuals taken into custody by police, rose six-fold during the first year California law enforcement agencies began using stun guns, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco. "Tasers are not as safe as thought," said Dr. Byron Lee, one of the cardiologists involved in studying the death rate related to Tasers, the most widely used stun gun. "And if they are used, they should be used with caution."
/know/read.php?itemid=7832

Unexploded Munitions Threaten Gaza
(The Mideast Times & UPI & The International Committee of the Red Cross)

The International Committee of the Red Cross is warning that despite a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, unexploded munitions in Gaza remain a threat. With the cease-fire in place, a number of people, especially children, are leaving their homes for the first time, running the risk of being killed or maimed by unexploded munitions scattered in civilian area. On 20 January, two children were killed by unexploded ordnance in the Shaaf area, near Jabaliya, east of Gaza City.
/know/read.php?itemid=7827

4,229 Soldiers Dead in Iraq: Many Have Died from Electrocution
(Associated Press)

At least 4,229 members of the US military have died in the Iraq since March 2003. At least 18 US service members and contractors may have died as the result of electrocution. A lawsuit over the January 2008 electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth triggered an Army investigation that concluded Maseth’s death was the result of "negligent homicide" on the part of the military contractor KBR Inc., formerly a subdivision of Halliburton, the company once headed by Dick Cheney.
/know/read.php?itemid=7829

Georgia, Russia ‘Violated’ Laws of War in S. Ossetia
(Human Rights Watch & Georgian Daily)

Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian forces committed numerous violations of the laws of war in the conflict in August 2008 over South Ossetia and its aftermath, causing many civilian deaths and injuries and widespread destruction of civilian property, according to a comprehensive 200-page report released by Human Rights Watch.
/know/read.php?itemid=7822

UN 'shocked' by Gaza destruction
(BBC News)

UN workers have been given access to Gaza after Israel lifted a nearly three-month-long ban on international aid agencies entering the Palestinian territory. The UN's humanitarian chief, Sir John Holmes, told the BBC the situation in Gaza after a three-week Israeli offensive against Hamas was worse than he anticipated. Holmes stated he was shocked by "the systematic nature of the destruction" an estimated that the territory's economic activity had been set back by years.
/know/read.php?itemid=7823

Israel TV News Broadcasts a Gaza Father's Heartbreak
(Jeffrey Fleishman & Batsheva Sobelman / Los Angeles Times)

Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members. Dr. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who gave frequent interviews to the Israeli media, was minutes away from giving another when he called newscaster Shlomi Eldar, screaming and weeping with grief.
/know/read.php?itemid=7821

Ban 'Appalled' by Gaza's Damage; Demands Israel Be Held Accountable
(BBC News & Al Jazeera & The London Telegraph)

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he is appalled by Israeli attacks on a UN compound and food storage warehouse in Gaza and has demanded that Israeli troops are held 'accountable' for an attack on a UN compound. Ban called on Israel to end its blockade of Gaza, saying the embargo only strengthens Hamas by fuelling desperation in the impoverished enclave.
/know/read.php?itemid=7814

UN Demands Flow of Goods to Gaza's Devastated Populace
(BBC News & Al Jazeera & The London Telegraph)

The UN humanitarian chief has urged Israel to fully open all crossings with Gaza to allow a free flow of goods. John Holmes said unless Israel allowed building materials into Gaza, no reconstruction could begin there. For beleaguered civilians here there is no kind of victory in the waste laid to entire city blocks in Gaza. "I don't know who won or lost," said Mazen Hamada, a chemistry professor at Al Azhar University.
/know/read.php?itemid=7815

UN Appalled by Ugandan Rebel Militia''s Trail of Devastation in DR Congo
(UN News Centre)

The Ugandan rebel militia terrorizing villagers in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has killed over 500 people and forced some 115,000 to flee their homes since September, the United Nations refugee agency reported today, adding it was “shocked” by the state of survivors remaining in the area.
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In Defense of Humanity: Let Gaza Live
(Cynthia McKinney / Global Research)

Commentary: "We don't see the images. They are neatly censored from our view in this country. But everywhere else around the world the carnage that is Gaza is being seen and the people are revolted by what they see. They see exploding white phosphorus shells, cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions."
/know/read.php?itemid=7812

Israel Shells UN School in Gaza as Children Bear the Brunt of Israel's Assault
(Al Jazeera)

Two Palestinian boys have been killed after Israeli tank shells hit a UN-run school in Gaza - hours before Israel's security cabinet is expected to vote on a proposal for a unilateral ceasefire. The UN has called for a war crimes investigation over the shelling of its school. Children are bearing the brunt of Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, with more than 300 children have been killed and hundreds more wounded.
/know/read.php?itemid=7800

Naming the Deceased: The Child Victims of Gaza
(Al Jazeera)

During the three weeks of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Hamas rockets killed four Israeli citizens. The Associated Press reports that during this same period “almost 1,200 Palestinians have … been killed, about half of them civilians.” Half of those were children. Gazan authorities have provided the following list of children who died as a result of Israel’s attacks.
/know/read.php?itemid=7801

Still Breathing, A Report from Gaza
(Caoimhe Butterly / Free Gaza.org)

The morgues of Gaza's hospitals are over-flowing. The bodies in their blood-soaked white shrouds cover the entire floor space of the Shifa hospital morgue. Some are intact, most horribly deformed, limbs twisted into unnatural positions, chest cavities exposed, heads blown off, skulls crushed in. Family members wait outside to identify and claim a brother, husband, father, mother, wife, child. Many of those who wait their turn have lost numerous family members and loved ones.
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Latest Victim of Israel's War Crimes: The United Nations
(International Herald Tribune & Atul Aneja / The Hindu & Hon. Dennis Kucinich)

Israeli forces shelled the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency on Thursday, attacking the UN compound with at least three phosphorus explosives despite the nearby presence of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The blast destroyed thousands of tons of food, medical stores and emergency supplies. US Representative Dennis Kucinich called the attacks on Gaza as "collective punishment" and condemned the US for supplying the weapons used to terrorized the city.
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Israel Denies Using Banned Phosphorus Bombs
(Matthew Kalman / San Francisco Chronicle)

As Abu Halimah lay in a bed at Gaza's Shifa Hospital on Tuesday, she described how a "ball of fire" engulfed her house in the northern Gaza village of Beit Lahiya. Abu Halimah said her extended family of 18 people were cowering in the living room when rockets fell. "When I woke up and looked across the room, I saw the blackened bodies of my husband and my teenage son like pieces of charcoal. Both their heads were severed completely from their bodies. My baby was dead."
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Gaza Is Sinking in a River of Blood: A Message from Gaza
(Mohammed Fares Al Majdalawi / Commondreams)

I want to write about the suffering of my people and my family in these days of siege against the people of Gaza. 888 people have been killed and more than 3700 injured. The Red Cross has accused the Israeli military of repeatedly refusing to allow ambulances to go to Zeitoun area, so those who are injured become those who die; a premeditated and purposeful violation of human rights.
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In Defense of Humanity: Let Gaza Live
(Cynthia McKinney / Global Research)

A former US Congresswoman and Green Party Presidential Candidate reports from the Middle East: "We don't see the images. They are neatly censored from our view in this country. But everywhere else around the world the carnage that is Gaza is being seen and the people are revolted by what they see."
/know/read.php?itemid=7784

Israel’s Blockade “Inhuman.” Civilian Victims Crowd Hospitals
(CNN)

Cassandra Nelson, a humanitarian aid worker with Mercy Corps, spends most of her time deployed in hotspots and hostile areas. She has worked in Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Liberia, North Korea, Sri Lanka, Banda Aceh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. Here she describes her experiences trying to provide relief in Gaza. A second article reports on the desperate state of civilian wounded arriving in Gaza's war-ravaged hospitals.
/know/read.php?itemid=7785

America’s Shame
(Paul Craig Roberts / Information Clearinghouse)

Commentary: "Driving people off their land is strictly illegal under international law, but Israel has been getting away with it for decades. Gaza is a concentration camp of 1.5 million Palestinians who were driven from their homes and villages and collected in the Gaza Ghetto. The US Senate endorsed Israel’s massacre of Palestinians with a vote of 100-0. The US House of Representatives voted 430-5 to endorse Israel’s massacre of Palestinians."
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The US Promotes Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinians
(Prof. Francis A. Boyle / Global Research)

Commentary: "As long ago as October 19, 2000, the then-United Nations Human Rights Commission (now Council) condemned Israel for inflicting “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” upon the Palestinian people....I anticipate no fundamental change in America’s support for the Israeli campaign of genocide against the Palestinians during the tenure of the Obama/Clinton administration."
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"Limbs And Meat" In The Street & Children of Gaza, Run to the Angels
(Ewa Jasiewicz / The Sunday Herald & Suzanne Baroud / Global Research)

Paramedics at the Fakhoura UN school where 42 people died, 20 of them children, when Israeli tanks opened fire on a busy intersection, reported seeing nothing but "limbs and meat" in the street at the time. One eyewitness said: 'A boy next to me, he went crazy, he was overwhelmed, he saw the massacre, the street was full of blood, the nails from the shells were as long as your hand.'
/know/read.php?itemid=7777

What Humanitarian Crisis? Livni's Big Lie & Criticism of Israel's War Crimes Mounts
(Rannie Amiri / Counterpunch.org & Jonathan Cook / Global Research)

“There is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Stri,.” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, declared on January 1, 2009. But facts always run contrary to The Big Lie. According to the agencies of the United Nations and multiple international relief organizations:ighty percent of Gazans were dependent on humanitarian assistance during the crippling 18-month siege of Gaza but before the outbreak of hostilities. .
/know/read.php?itemid=7773

Witness Diary: 'Gaza Has Been Zeroed'
(Sami Abdel Shafi / Al Jazeera)

A resident of Gaza writes about life in a city under siege — without power, without food, without safety. "When the munitions actually impact, not only do you have a huge explosion but a huge vacuum is generated that sends shockwaves through the surrounding structures. We have to keep all of the windows open to prevent the glass from shattering and flying across the room. That’s the only precaution we can take."
/know/read.php?itemid=7768

Death Toll in Gaza Exceeds 800
(Al Jazeera)

The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 821 people and more than 3,300 injured as the Israeli offensive enters its third week. The attacks continued on Saturday with aerial bombardments across the strip and Israeli forces advancing further into the outskirts of Gaza City. Eight members of one family were among the latest fatalities, killed by an Israeli tank shell in Jabalya.
/know/read.php?itemid=7769

The Demolition of Rafah & Israel Targets Medics
(Adam Taylor / International Solidarity Movement & PalSolidarity.org)

Eyewitness in Gaza: "People are told to leave their homes but even if they leave they are attacked. Nowhere is safe in the Gaza strip. Where will these families go? They are afraid to seek sanctuary in local UNRWA schools following yesterday’s massacres in Jabaliya. They are afraid to drive somewhere and be shot down on the road like the Sinwar family was." Meanwhile, the ISM reports "at least six Palestinian medical personnel have been killed by Israeli attacks in the eight past days."
/know/read.php?itemid=7760

An Open Letter to the President Elect Regarding Gaza
(Laila Halaby / The Beacon Post)

Commentary: "Last night I forced myself to look at coverage of Gaza. I started with CNN or Reuters, and though at that point over 200 Palestinians had been killed, the footage I saw was of the funeral for the one Israeli who died. I watched several men carry a coffin. I saw attractive women crying. It was both public and private and one felt their grief. The message was clear: one Israeli death is one too many whereas more than 200 Palestinian deaths are in a different category."
/know/read.php?itemid=7756

Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe
(Richard Falk / Huffington Post)

Commentary:Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, recalls that, prior to the mid-December end of the six-month cease-fire, "For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life."
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‘Sound Bombs' Hurt Gaza Civilians, Trigger Miscarriages in Women
(The Guardian & Sorcha Faal & Mike Whitney / Information Clearing House & John Pilger / Information Clearing House & Rory McCarthy, David Batty and agencies / The Guardian)

The tactic of jets creating sonic booms low over the homes of Palestinians has been attacked by doctors and UN officials as terrifying and indiscriminate. These terrifying sonic blasts have reportedly caused spontaneous abortions and miscarriages. The horrible impacts of these weapons have been known since at least 2005, yet Israel persists in using against the civilian population of Gaza. Almost half the population under attack in Gaza is under the age of 15.
/know/read.php?itemid=7751

War Crimes Charged as Depleted Uranium Used to Attack Gaza
(Press TV & Matthew Weaver and agencies / The Guardian)

Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies. Palestinian medical officials said that an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza mosque had killed 10 people and wounded dozens more. At least 200 people were reportedly praying inside the Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque in northern Gaza when the Israeli missile struck.
/know/read.php?itemid=7752

Gaza City Residents Hunker Down
(Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf / The Los Angeles Times)

As Israeli forces closed in on Gaza City, residents scrambled to stock up dwindling supplies of food they would need while hunkering down at home. Soon, Israeli shells rained down and five civilians died when tank shells hit a market. Most residents stayed indoors to avoid Israeli shelling. 'Anyone who survives this wave, it will be like they were born again,' said one man.
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Former US Congresswoman Recounts Attack by Israeli Navy
(Cynthia McKinney / OpEd Nedws)

We've been told that the sturdy, wood construction of our boat, Dignity, is the reason we are still alive. Fiberglass would probably not have withstood the impact of the Israeli attack and under different circumstances, we might not be here to tell the story.
/know/read.php?itemid=7754

Gross Human Rights Violations and War Crimes in the Gaza Strip
(Palestinian Human Rights Community / Global Research)

Dear Member State of the UN Human Rights Council, we write to you with an urgent request for intervention by the UN Human Rights Council to put an end to the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. At least 310 persons, including 37 children, have been killed and over 1000 Palestinians have been injured. The civilian population will inevitably continue to suffer heavy losses without external intervention.
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Top UN Official Accuses Israel of Committing War Crimes
(Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, President, United Nations General Assembly)

The President of the UN General Assembly has declared that "the behavior by Israel in bombarding Gaza is simply the commission of wanton aggression by a very powerful state against a territory that it illegally occupies. The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
/know/read.php?itemid=7739

Gazans Fight Cold and Hunger as Supplies Run Dry
(Azmi Keshawi in Bureij / The Times)

heir windows smashed in the dead of winter by bomb blasts, Jihad Hamed, his wife and seven children huddle together every night in one bedroom of their freezing house, trying to keep warm and as far away as possible from the next explosion, wherever it might come from.
/know/read.php?itemid=7740

Dear Mr. Obama: Please Say SOMETHING about Gaza
(The BAR Staff & Brian O’Leary)

Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has called upon President-Elect Barack Obama to "please, say something about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced by the people of Gaza." And a former astronaut and presidential advisor warns: "by supporting some of the most criminal actions in human history, the powerful elite have created an atmosphere of mass obedience by a fearful and helpless populace to wanton genocide and ecocide. "
/know/read.php?itemid=7742

Can There Be Any Doubt Who The Real Terrorists Are?
(Stuart Littlewood / Global Research & Middle East Online)

Commentary: "Today’s slaughter of innocents in Gaza, with at least 230 reported killed in raids on 'Hamas terror operatives' (as the Israeli military put it), amounted to 'a mass execution,' said Hamas. The killing spree couldn’t have happened without the tacit approval of America, Britain and the EU."
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The Holocaust
(Dahlia Wasfi / Information Clearinghouse)

Commentary: "I’m not talking about World War II, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, or Ashkenazi Jews. I’m referring to the holocaust we are all witnessing in Gaza today and in Palestine over the last 60 years. By definition, a holocaust is a mass slaughter of people, especially through fire. There isn’t a more accurate description of the hell that US-armed and –funded Israeli Occupation Forces are unleashing on the people of Gaza at this moment. "
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Bosnia Lacks Cash to Clear Away Killer Mines
(William J. Kole / Associated Press)

Thirteen years after Bosnia's 1992-95 war ended, mines are still claiming scores of victims. A closer look by the Associated Press shows the problem is not that officials don't know where most of the explosives are buried. It's that they just can't seem to scrape together enough cash to get them out of the ground.
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Ex-Colombia Hostage Tells Her Tale
(Santiago Fourcade with Mark Walsh / Chronicle Foreign Service)

In a nondescript hotel lobby, Clara Rojas stares into the distance before speaking in a hesitant voice. The former vice presidential candidate, who spent nearly six years held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
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UN Wants More Protection for Afghan Civilians
( Heidi Vogt / Associated Press & Fisnik Abrashi / Huffington Post)

The UN chief in Afghanistan called Wednesday for international military forces to revise their agreement with the Afghan government to include practices that will better safeguard civilians. The United Nations has repeatedly criticized international forces for not doing enough to protect Afghan civilians during air strikes, house searches and when detaining suspects.
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At Gaza Strip, Escape Comes via Drug Tramadol
(Ben Hubbard / Associated Press)

The new drug overtaking the Gaza Strip doesn't cause hallucinations or increase endurance at the dance club. It merely chills you out, which is exactly what many Gazans say they need. Thus the boom in the popularity of tramadol, a painkiller known here by a common brand name, "Tramal" as growing numbers of Gazans have begun using the drug to take the edge off life in the impoverished seaside strip.
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Iraqi Victims and Families Meet US Prosecutors
(Katherine Zoepf & Anwar J. Ali / The New York Times)

American prosecutors met Saturday with victims’ families and survivors of the September 2007 shootings of Iraqi civilians by private security guards employed by Blackwater Worldwide. The meeting was the first time the victims had been brought together so that prosecutors could inform them about the investigation and their rights under American law.
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One Soldier’s Story
(Matt McCue / Farms Not Arms)

Rather than thinking of Iraq as the place where my heart was broken and my mind was controlled, I prefer to think of Iraq as the place where I discovered the key to my freedom. I prefer to remember the trucks full of watermelons and pomegranates that would pass through our checkpoints. I felt strangely human as I waved cars by with pomegranate seeds stuck to my Kevlar vest.
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US Rural Soldiers Account for a Disproportionately High Share of Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan
(William O’Hare & Bill Bishop / The Carsey Institute)

n time of war, all Americans are expected to sacrifice and rural Americans have always stepped forward to do their part in past wars and national emergencies. However, as the data presented here attests, today rural Americans are paying the ultimate sacrifice in disproportionately high numbers.
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US Soldiers Kill4 Civilians on Bus; US Troops Kill 6 Afghan Police; Eight-year-old Boy Kills 8 UK Troops
(Rahim Faiez & Heidi Vogt / Associated Press & Kavkaz Center & Candace Rondeaux / Washington Post)

US troops opened fire on a bus carrying civilians Friday in central Afghanistan, killing four passengers after their driver refused to stop, On December 10, US Special Forces in southeastern Afghanistan killed six Afghan police officers and injured 13 Wednesday in an incident that Afghan and US officials said was a case of mistaken identity.
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Injured Vets Still Wait for Appeals to Be Heard
(Kevin Maurer / Associated Press)

Veterans advocates are protestng that the military is manipulating disability ratings to save money. Last year, Congress ordered the Pentagon to accept appeals from wounded and injured troops. So far, officials have yet to examine a single case.
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Answers Sought over Nerve Gas Plan: US Planned to Bombard Australian Troops with Sarin
(Cameron Stewart and Nicola Berkovic | / The Australian)

Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has asked for an "urgent and full briefing" from his department about US plans to drop deadly nerve gas bombs in Queensland in the 1960s. The secret US plan to test the effectiveness of nerve gas agents, including sarin gas, in jungle warfare called for the Menzies government to lie to Australians about the tests. The revelations, which were contained in recently declassified top secret documents held by the National Archives
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Blackwater guards 'Used Grenades'
(BBC World News)

US guards indicted over the 2007 fatal shooting of 17 Iraqis used machine guns and grenade launchers against unarmed civilians, prosecutors have said. The guards, from the US security firm Blackwater, were contracted to defend US diplomats. The firm says its guards acted in self-defence.
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‘Culture of Dishonesty' at Department of Veterans Affairs
(Jason Leopold / Online Journal Contributing Writer)

The economic meltdown that has dominated media coverage over the past several months has overshadowed a crisis at the Department of Veterans Affairs, an agency in dire need of new leadership, veterans groups and Democratic lawmakers say. The VA is now treating more than 350,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and with the war in Iraq guaranteed to continue for at least another three years, and with the possibility of more troops being sent to fight in Afghanistan.
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US Soldiers Re-enlisting because of Poor Economy
(John Milburn & Stephen Manning / Associated Press)

In 2008, as the stock market cratered and the housing market collapsed, more young members of the Army, Air Force and Navy decided to re-up. While several factors might explain the rise in re-enlistments, including a decline in violence in Iraq, Pentagon officials acknowledge that bad news for the economy is usually good news for the military.
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92 Nations Sign Cluster-bomb Ban; US, Russia Don't
(Doug Mellgren / Associated Press Writer)

An Afghan teenager who lost both legs in a cluster bomb explosion helped persuade his country to change its stance and join nearly 100 nations in signing a treaty Wednesday banning the disputed weapons. Afghanistan was initially reluctant to join the pact — which the United States and Russia have refused to support — but agreed to after lobbying by victims maimed by cluster munitions.
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Children 'Executed' in 1950 South Korean Killings: US Covered Up Political Purge
(Charles J. Hanley & Jae-soon Chang / Associated Press)

South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigators, digging into the grim hidden history of mass political executions, have confirmed that dozens of children were among at least 100,000 people shot by their own government early in the Korean War. Details of the killings, buried in classified US files for 50 years, were intended to keep leftists from aiding the invaders when the rightist, US-allied government was in danger of being overrun.
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Soldiers Behaving Badly: From Blackwater to the 101st
(Associated Press & The Leaf Chronicle / Associated Press)

Five Blackwater Worldwide security guards have been indicted for a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead and became an anti-American rallying cry for insurgents. Meanwhile, two 101st Airborne soldiers will be arraigned next week on charges of premeditated murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi detainee and a third member of the 101st has been sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the death of his infant stepson.
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Israel Criticized at Top UN Human Rights Meeting
(Stephanie Nebehay / Reuters)

Israel’s neighbors accused it of committing systematic violations against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank during a meeing of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Delegations from Syria, Egypt and Iran raised concerns about Israel's security wall, its detentions of young Palestinians, and "illegal" Jewish settlements. Western countries (with the exception of the US) urged Israel to lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, which they said had led to a worsening humanitarian situation.
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War-caused Brain Injuries' Long-term Effects
(Jia-Rui Chong / Los Angeles Times & Michael D. Lemonick / Time Magazine)

Traumatic brain injuries, one of the signature injuries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, can be linked to such long-term problems as seizures, aggression and dementia reminiscent of Alzheimer's disease. Army researchers have found that one-sixth of soldiers surveyed had suffered at least one concussion during their yearlong deployment — typically during combat or from a blast — and has as much as a three-times higher risk for PTSD than those who hadn't had a concussion.
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Prisoners Occupy Iraqis’ Minds as Eid Approaches
(Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman &)

raqis will soon mark the Eid –al-Adha, or feast of the sacrifice, with a long holiday, starting Monday. But there will be very little for them to celebrate. As the Eid comes, the best present an Iraqi family can hope for is the release of a loved one from the scores of prisons the US and the Iraqi government have constructed across the country.
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Report from Mumbai: Feeling Lost in a City Under Siege
(Sritanu Chakrabarti ? Berkeley Daily Planet)

First-person account: It’s been a long day at work and you just need to unwind by having a couple of beers with your friend from college who is in town. He wants to go to Leopold’s, the popular pub at Colaba. You think about the beef chili out there for a moment, then refuse to yield to temptation. For some reason you don’t want to travel today. You meet him at a sports bar close to the office and have a great time talking about old times and catching up with each other’s lives.
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US Soldiers Sue over Chemical Exposure in Iraq
(ENews)

Sixteen US soldiers have filed a federal lawsuit against KBR Inc. (a defense contractor linked to Dick Cheney's former company Halliburton). The the Indiana National Guardsmen claim they were sickened after being exposed to a carcinogen while protecting an Iraqi water pumping plant shortly after the US invasion in 2003.
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Israeli Industrial Zones Using West Bank as Chemical Dump
(Window into Palestine.blogspot)

The Israeli administration has buried more than 50 percent, or three million tons, of its nuclear and chemical waste in the occupied West Bank. Most of the waste comes from the Israeli industrial zones and is buried secretly causing slow death and disease as it seeps from the soil, PNN partner station Radio Dream reports.
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Divorce Rate Increases in Marine Corps, Army
(Pauline Jelinek / Associated Press)

The divorce rate among soldiers and Marines increased last year as military marriages suffered continuing stress from America's two ongoing wars. There were an estimated 10,200 failed marriages in the active duty Army and 3,077 among Marines. This divorce rate of 3.5 percent among more than 287,000 married troops in the Army is up from 3.3 percent in the previous fiscal year
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Terrorism That’s Personal: Targeting Women in Pakistan
(Nicholas D. Kristof / New York Times Op-Ed)

Terrorism usually means bombs exploding or hotels burning, yet alongside the brutal public terrorism, there is an equally cruel form of terrorism that gets almost no attention and thrives as a result: flinging acid on a woman’s face to leave her hideously deformed. I’ve been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid).
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Gulf War Syndrome Linked to DoD's Pills and Pesticides
(Julie Robotham / Sydney Morning Herald & Alan Silverleib / CNN & Thomas H. Maugh II and Mary Engel / Los Angeles Times & Kim Sengupta / The London Independent)

An officer who investigated illness states: "This is real, and it has devastated families." One in four Gulf War veterans suffer from Gulf War illness, report says Pesticides, drug used to thwart effects of nerve gas called most likely to blame. Illness termed "a real condition with real causes and serious consequences"
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Ex-child Soldiers Launch UN Network to Help Kids
(John Heilprin / Associated Press & Human Rights Watch & United Nations)

The UN says the number of child soldiers around the world is estimated at 250,000. Three former child soldiers from Africa announced the launch of a new UN-backed advocacy group Thursday to help other kids escape and heal from war. In 2004, UNICEF and the UN mission to Afghanistan set a target of demobilizing 5,000 child soldiers as part of the first year of their joint campaign to reintegrate war-affected youngsters in the country.
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Poverty and Despair: The Failed Policies & Human Rights Violations Directed against Native Americans
(Stephen Lendman / Global Research)

Before US military forces invaded Iraq, the US Calvary invaded the sovereign territory of the continent’s Native Americans. As in Iraq, the attempt to occupy and pacify the local populace — and seize control of their lands and resources — resulted in mass killings of civilians, the destruction of indigenous infrastructure and the forced relocation of millions.
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EU Nations May Host 10,000 Vulnerable Iraq Refugees
(uk.news.yahoo.com)

European Union nations agreed Thursday to try and accept 10,000 of the most vulnerable refugees from war-torn Iraq, with Germany ready to take a quarter of them. They would include "refugees in a particularly vulnerable situation such as those with particular medical needs, trauma or torture victims, members of religious minorities or women on their own with family responsibilities."
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Rape's Vast Toll in Iraq War Remains Largely Ignored
(Anna Badkhen / The Christian Science Monitor)

Sexual assault is heavily stigmatized in the Middle East, and victims are often afraid to talk about it to anyone, fearing that their families will abandon them. Many Iraqi rape victims now live in Jordan illegally and without protection. Their shaky status in Jordan leaves them afraid to seek help and vulnerable to new assaults and abuse. They fear persecution by Jordanian immigration authorities almost as much as they fear returning to Iraq.
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Despite Army's Assurances, Violence Erupts at Home
(izette Alvarez / The New York Times)

The Army says that the measures it has taken have been effective in curbing domestic violence. But advocates of victims of domestic violence say that among combat troops the violence has spiked in the past two years and that women are often disinclined to report violence for fear of angering their partners and hurting their careers.
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Inside Baghdad's Rusafa Prison
(Andrew North / BBC News)

A jailer at Baghdad's Rusafa prison had just swung open the heavy metal-barred door. Inside a small dimly lit room, the first sight was the iron-framed double bunks, packed together and hung with plastic bags, clothes and towels. It was astonishing to see so many people packed into one space. It's the first time the foreign media have had such access to an Iraqi jail since the US invasion in 2003.
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Karzai Urges Withdrawal 'Timeline': Hunger Threatens Afghanistan
(Al Jazeera and agencies)

Nearly 70,000 mainly Western troops have been sent to Afghanistan since 2001. Now, President Hamid Karzai is demanding the US set a timetable to leave his country. If the international community fails to promise an end to Bush’s “war on terrorism,” Afghan officials have suggested their next course of action will be ‘to talk to Taliban and those opposing the government” about seeking a “political solution” to end the conflict. Plus: Video report on Food Emergency in Afghanistan.
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Israel Keeps Gaza Siege & Deprivation and Desperation in Gaza
(Global Research & Prensa Latina & Information Clearinghouse)

Israel kept its iron blockade on Gaza Strip for the 19th consecutive day, despite the precarious humanitarian situation here, while skirmishes continued between Hebrew military and Islamic Hamas militants. As conditions in the Gaza strip approach a catastrophic level of deprivation, the world media — and in particular the U.S. media — remain largely silent. This, despite the fact that more than 50% of the population in Gaza is comprised of children under the age of 15.
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Pakistan's War on Taliban Swells Refugee Camps
(Jason Motlagh / Chronicle Foreign Service)

Some 200,000 Pashtun tribal members have fled their homes in the past three months during an army offensive to expel Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in a largely lawless area bordering Afghanistan. Droves of displaced people are flocking to relief camps seeking food, shelter and safety. The Kacha Gari camp on the edge of Peshawar, looks like the aftermath of a bad earthquake: Row after crumbling row of adobe hovels fill a dusty plain, ringed by an expanse of green plastic tents.
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A My Lai a Month
(Nick Turse / The Nation)

In late 1969, Seymour Hersh broke the story of the 1968 My Lai massacre. In May 1970, a self-described "grunt" wrote a confidential letter to Gen. William Westmoreland, saying that the Ninth Division's atrocities amounted to "a My Lay each month for over a year." Vietnamese civilians still recall the horrors of the countless civilians killed to drive up body count. Army records indicate that no Division troops, let alone commanders, were ever court-martialed for the killings.
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Israel Continues Starvation of Gazans Despite UN Pleas
(The Irish Sun)

In what the UN has described as collective punishment, the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip continues. Notwithstanding 56% of the 1.5 million Gazan population consists of children, Israel has shut down access to the region refusing to allow desperately needed food trucks to reach their destination. UN food agencies in Gaza that have had their food supply cut by the Israeli blockade say they are facing a "humanitarian catastrophe."
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Afghanistan: The Wrong War at Any Time
(G. Dunkel / Workers World & The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan)

Afghanistan has become deadlier for US troops than Iraq, even though there are 32,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq. This year many of the 900 civilian deaths, were caused by US/NATO attacks — including strikes on wedding parties and funerals. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has decried the presence of foreign armies from 38 countries, noting: "The brutality and barbarism being perpetrated by the invading army is trampling on our atmosphere, land and villages."
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Anxiety in East Congo as Rebels Approach
(Todd Pitman / Associated Press)

On one side of this mountaintop ghost town, a line of black-booted rebels approaches on foot with rockets and tin boxes of ammunition, seizing new territory with each footstep despite promises of a cease-fire. On the other side, government soldiers in flip-flops balancing portable generators and luggage on their heads have begun to flee. n between, the vast Central African nation's deepening humanitarian crisis is laid bare.
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Israeli Tanks Enter Gaza, Level Some Land
(Ibrahim Barzak / Associated Press)

Backed by a bulldozer and military jeep, Israeli Army tanks rumbled about a quarter-mile into the tiny seaside strip. Gaza residents and security officials said they leveled lands along the border east of the city of Rafah. Israel's military described the activity as "a routine operation to uncover explosive devices." As violence has escalated, Israel has clamped down on already-tight border crossings, drastically restricting vital supplies to the territory, which is home to 1.4 million people.
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Study Finds ex-Guantanamo Prisoners Broken
(Bob Egelko / San Francisco Chronicle)

The first extensive study of prisoners released from the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, finds that many of them are physically and psychologically traumatized, debt-ridden and shunned in their communities as terrorist suspects.
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Toxic Chemicals Blamed for Gulf War Illness
(Steven Reinberg / HealthDay News & Washington Post)

Gulf War illness, dismissed by some as a psychosomatic disorder, is a very real illness that affects at least 25 percent of the 700,000 U.S. veterans who took part in the 1991 Gulf War. It's likely cause was exposure to toxic chemicals that included pesticides that were often overused during the war, as well as a drug given to U.S. troops to protect them from nerve gas.
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Smoking Poses Health Threat on All Fronts for Soldiers
(urt Constable / The Daily Herald)

In a world where improvised exploding devices, suicide bombers and snipers are trying to kill you, it's easy to see how soldiers can overlook what might be the biggest threat to their lives and health: he collateral damage of tobacco.
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US Role in Indonesia Holocaust
(Anthony Deutsch / Associated Press)

Up to half a million Indonesians were massacred in 1965-66 in a purge backed by the US government. The CIA refuses to talk about the operation even today. But documents released by the National Security Archives, show that the US Embassy passed the names of Communist Party leaders to the Indonesian army, along with some of their locations. US Embassy iofficials n Indonesia passed on information to Washington about the killings of 50 to 100 people every night.
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Honor Vets by Learning About Depleted Uranium
(Barbara Bellows-TerraNova / OpEdNews)

As Europe mourns in Verdun today for those lost in "The War to End All Wars", World War I, we could look to another moment in European history to shed light on the most aggressively silenced story of the Bush administration. In January 2001, reports were exploding across Europe about the rise in cancer amongst NATO soldiers who had served in the "peacekeeping missions" in Bosnia and Kosovo. The effects of the depleted uranium in the US and UK weapons
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Veterans, DU, Dioxin, and Deception
(John Jonik / Fauxbacco.blogspot)

Veterans Day, 2008. Few say "Happy Veterans' Day". Time to look up some things about US vets, cancer, and Depleted Uranium. Search of NIH with the term, "Depleted Uranium Iraq"; 8 hits, most from long ago, early 90s, late 80s...some lengthy laws where anything about DU is well buried, if it's there. No indictments of the Pentagon or military contractors or etc.
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Report for President-Elect Obama
(Paul Sullivan / Veterans for Common Sense)

Commentary: "Congratulations on your election. As our next President of the United States of America, you face a serious challenge in fixing a badly broken Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and improving the delivery of health care and other services to our nation’s veterans and their families. As a leading national veterans’ organization, Veterans for Common Sense respectfully submits to you our recommendations on how to fix VA and help our veterans and their families. "
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Girl of 13 becomes Youngest Suicide Bomber in Day of Carnage
(James Hider, Middle East Correspondent / Times Online)

A 13-year-old girl became the youngest suicide bomber to wreak havoc in Iraq yesterday, killing five Iraqi guards in a town that has become notorious for deadly attacks by women bombers. The girl blew herself up in Baquba, on the same day that a car bomb exploded in Baghdad, killing about 30 people and shattering a fragile sense of calm in the capital. The carnage was compounded by a male suicide bomber who joined the crowd of rescue workers.
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2000 Homeless Vets on the Streets of San Francisco
(C.W. Nevius / San Francisco Chronicle)

It is not a surprise to hear that we are failing our veterans. After years of pouring millions of dollars into housing and social service programs, the system is still overtaxed and painfully slow. And given the last seven years of war, there are more homeless vets on the way. An estimated 2,000 homeless veterans live on the streets of San Francisco -- a number representing between a quarter and a third of the city's total homeless population.
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Afghan Ire with West Builds over Killing of 14
(M. Karim Faiez & Laura King / Los Angeles Times)

Tensions between Western forces and the government of President Hamid Karzai flared anew Monday when the Afghan leader and a provincial governor accused the US-led coalition of killing 14 Afghans who were guarding a road-construction project. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari warned that the increase in US and NATO missile attacks since August is hurting Pakistan's own fight against the militants.
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Reflections and Hope on Veterans Day
(Iraq Veterans Against the War)

In the four short years of World War I, roughly 40 million people had been killed, wounded, or gone missing. Wholesale slaughter of this magnitude had never been seen before and the social trauma that resulted can still be felt today. To commemorate the end of that war, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as Armistice Day, not only to recognize those who died in the war, but also for “America to show her sympathy with peace and justice…”
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Veteran Suicides on the Rise & Officers Get PTSD, Too
(Betty Ann Bowser / PBS New Hour & Pauline Jelinek / Associated Press)

The Army says that suicides among active duty personnel have doubled in recent years, and multiple deployments might contribute to that increase. Still, it takes a brave soldier to do what Army Maj. Gen. David Blackledge did when he got home. Blackledge got psychiatric counseling to deal with wartime trauma, and now he is defying the military's culture of silence on the subject of mental health problems and treatment.
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Spanish Soldiers Killed in ‘Retaliation’ for US Terrorism that Killed 90 Civilians
(BBC News & International Herald Tribune & EuroNews & The Frontier Post)

The BBC report on the deaths of Spanish soldiers in Afghanistan omits the critical information that the Taliban attack was called “in retaliation” for a US bombing in August that killed 90 civilians. Even under the banner of a "War on Terrorism," attacks on unarmed civilians constitute acts of terrorism. Around 256 international soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan this year.
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Sad Story of Former Military Officers Now on the Street
(Chinta Puxley / The Canadian Press)

As former soldiers gather at cenotaphs across the country this November 11 to pay tribute to fallen comrades and soak up the adulation of a grateful public, few Canadians will give a thought to the veterans who are filling lines at soup kitchens and crowding beds at homeless shelters — those who ended their military service so psychologically scarred that it was impossible to fit back into life at home.
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Civilians, Insurgents Killed in NATO Air Strike inside Pakistan
(Zee News.com)

Seven civilians and 15 insurgents were killed in northwest Afghanistan in the second air attack this week by international forces. Jets and artillery targeted militant positions following an exchange of fire between rebels and security forces. US drones operating from Afghanistan have carried out a series of missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt in the past few months, killing top Al Qaida and Taliban militants and many civilians, including women and children.
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US Acknowledges Missile Strike Killed 37 Afghan Civilians
(M. Karim Faiez and Laura King / The Los Angeles Times & Al Jazeera)

The US military, while not directly admitting that it killed scores of women and children, when it bombed a wedding party near Kandahar, has quietly paid compensation to the families of the dead and injured. The response came three days after the US attack. Afghans were infuriated when the Americans took weeks to investigate claims by the Afghan government and the UN that 90 people, most of them women and children, were killed in an August 22 airstrike in the western province of Herat.
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Congo Rebels Accused of War Crimes
(Emmanuel Braun / Reuters & The United Nations)

Congolese Tutsi rebels went from door to door killing men in an eastern town overnight, residents said. Rebel commanders said they had targeted only pro-government militia fighters. Alan Doss, the UN Secretary-General''s Special Representative in the DRC, called the killings “serious violations of human rights.” When journalists asked the UN peacekeepers, who have a base nearby, why they had not intervened, “They did not reply.”
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Afghan Leader Appeals to Obama to Stop US Bombing of Civilians: New US Air Raid Kills Afghan Civilians
(Noor Khan & Jason Straziuso / The Star & Associated Press & Kuwait News Agency)

The Afghan president Hamid Karzai congratulated Barack Obama and called on him today to halt civilian casualties as villagers said US warplanes bombed a wedding party, killing 37 people — most of them children. President Hamid Karzai said airstrikes cannot win the fight against terrorism. A day after Karzai's appeal, US-led troops killed at least seven civilians in an air strike in northwestern Afghanistan.
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Colombia Killings Cast Doubt on War Against Insurgents
(Simon Romero / The New York Times & Kathleen T. Rhem / American Forces Press Service)

In recent weeks, Colombia's government — the Bush administration's top ally in Latin America — has been buffeted by the killings of dozens of other young, impoverished men and women. Some were vagrants, others street vendors and manual laborers. But their fates were often the same: being catalogued as insurgents or criminal gang members and killed by Colombian armed forces trained and financed by Washington.
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Flood of Wounded GIs Swamps Care Units & Returning Vets Denied Old Jobs
(Lolita C. Baldor / Associated Press & Leslie Stahl / 60 Minutes)

In a rush to correct reports of substandard care for wounded soldiers, the Army flung open the doors of new specialized treatment centers so wide that up to half the soldiers currently enrolled do not have injuries serious enough to justify being there.
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Flood of Wounded GIs Swamps Care Units & Returning Vets Denied Old Jobs
(Lolita C. Baldor / Associated Press & Leslie Stahl / 60 Minutes)

In a rush to correct reports of substandard care for wounded soldiers, the Army flung open the doors of new specialized treatment centers so wide that up to half the soldiers currently enrolled do not have injuries serious enough to justify being there.
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UN’s Flawed Congo Crusade
(Michelle Faul / The Independent & Michelle Faul / Associated Press)

The refugees watched in anger as the UN tanks headed away from the battlefield and the Tutsi rebels they were supposed to be stopping. "Where are they going? They're supposed to protect us!" shouted a 31-year-old nurse. Nearby, young men hurled rocks at the UN troops. The quick unraveling of the world's largest UN peacekeeping effort has come as no surprise to the mission's critics, who complain the force was unprepared for its main task — protecting civilians.
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The War of the Olive Groves
(Wafa Amr / Reuters)

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad joined West Bank farmers to pick olives on Wednesday and slammed assaults by Jewish settlers on the harvesters as "terrorism." ayyad rolled up his shirt sleeves and climbed up a ladder to help an old woman pluck olives from her tree in Mazra al-Gharbiyeh, a village north of the West Bank city of Ramallah which is surrounded by Jewish settlements.
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Reports from Inside Iraq: Mosul Siege, Baghdad Security Falters; Mass Graves Reappear
(areer Mohammed / Azzaman & Ahmad Arhimiya / Azzaman)

Thousands of armed troops have been deployed inside the city of Mosul in preparation for the third massive military offensive on the city this year. Meanwhile, the security situation in Baghdad has faltered amid a rise in car bombings and attacks directed at government troops. And 22 bodies were found in a mass grave near Karbala. Mass graves under the regime of Saddam Hussein and they were among the excuses the US used to justify its invasion of the country.
/know/read.php?itemid=7534

Syria Condemns US 'Terrorism'; US Officials Claim Al Qaeda Member Killed
(BBC News & New York Times & Los Angeles Times)

Syria's foreign minister has accused the US of an act of "criminal and terrorist aggression" over a helicopter raid on its territory.US officials said the raid was conducted by US Special Operations forces who killed an Iraqi militant responsible for smuggling weapons, money and foreign fighters into Iraq. US officials claim that Senior Al Qaeda member named Abu Ghadiyah was killed in the US raid that also killed and injured unarmed civilians and left four children dead.
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Pakistan Blasts US Drone Attacks
(Ishtiaq Mahsud / Associated Press)

Hours after suspected US missiles killed several people at the house of a Taliban commander near the Afghanistan border, Pakistani lawmakers condemned American drone attacks, saying they cause "immense" loss of life and are undermining that nation's efforts to defuse militancy through dialogue. The condemnation of the US attacks came in a resolution adopted Monday by Pakistani senators.
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US Helicopters, Troops Invade Syria; Civilians, including Four Children Reported Killed
(Albert Aji / AP & Alex Spillius / The Telegraph & Al Jazeera.net)

Four US military helicopters launched an attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as "serious aggression." One of the invading helicopters reportedly landed eight US Special Forces troops on Syrian territory. The US troops reportedly opened fire for 15-minutes. Civilians, children and construction workers were among those reported killed and injured.
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The Cluster Bomb Tour
(Friends Committee on National Legislation)

The United States is the world's largest producer, exporter, and stockpiler of cluster bombs. The path to banning cluster bombs leads through Lansing, Columbus, and Indianapolis. If senators from Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana support a cluster bomb ban, the next administration and Congress are more likely to join the rest of the world in banning these bombs that keep on killing, years after they are dropped.
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Doctor Laments Brush-off of Iraqi War Dead
(Tom Paulson / Hearst Newspapers)

Dr. Les Roberts, a physician and prominent public health scientist at Columbia University, believes there is solid evidence that something like half a million people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Iraq war. His statistics are about 10 times higher than the estimates put forth by the Bush administration and Pentagon. But a much bigger problem than the numerical disparity, Roberts said, is the simple fact that so few even ask.
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US Hospital Shifts to Saving Injured Iraqis
(Anna Johnson / Associated Press)

The US military's main combat hospital in Iraq has increasingly switched to helping Iraqis. As the numbers of wounded American soldiers have fallen, the hospital is now saving the lives of a remarkable 93 percent of Iraqis who come with devastating injuries. Unlike US soldiers, most Iraqi patients at the Air Force Theater Hospital don't wear body armor and helmets or drive in vehicles designed to withstand roadside bombs.
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US Air Raid Kills Afghan Soldiers
(Al Jazeera.net)

Nine Afghan soldiers have been killed and three others wounded in an air raid by US-led forces in eastern Afghanistan. The attack came early on Wednesday in Khost, a province near the Pakistan border, in what a US military spokesperson told Al Jazeera was a misidentification. The Afghan government has complained that US-led forces do not co-ordinate their operations.
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Vietnamese Women on US Agent Orange Tour
(Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign)

Thousands of US soldiers and an estimated three million Vietnamese were poisoned by Agent Orange during the U.S. war on Vietnam. Now, a group of female victims of the toxic herbicide have embarked on a ten-city U.S. tour to demand that Monsanto, Dow and 35 other complicit companies compensate Agent Orange victims and clean up the toxic residues that still contaminate their homeland.
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Army To Probe 5 Slayings Linked To Colorado Brigade
(P. Solomon Banda / Associated Press)

Fort Carson soldiers returning from deployment in Iraq are suspects in at least five slayings, and officials want to know why. Commander Maj. Gen. Mark Graham announced Friday a task force will examine any commonalities in the five killings, all allegedly committed by soldiers from the post's 4th Brigade Combat Team in the past 14 months. A sixth BCT soldier faces an attempted murder charge.
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Military Town Newspaper Challenges US Military on Murder of Military Women
(Ann Wright, / t r u t h o u t | Report)

The October 14, 2008 editorial in the Fayetteville, NC Observer "Our View: Military Domestic Violence Needs More Aggressive Prevention," focused on the murder of four military women in North Carolina and contained a startling comment: "In a way, it's surprising that there aren't more bodies piling up at military bases all over this nation." The Observer is the newspaper that serves Fort Bragg, one of the military's largest bases.
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Civilian Dead Are a Trade-off in NATO's War of Barbarity
(eumas Milne / The Guardian)

While the eyes of the western world have been fixed on the global financial crisis, the military campaign that launched the war on terror has been spinning out of control. The killing of innocent Afghans by US bombs is the result of a calculation, not just a mistake. And it is fuelling resistance.
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Iraq's Missing Generation
(Navtej Dhillon and Elizabeth Ferris / Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement)

outh, not oil, is Iraq's most precious asset in building a stable and prosperous future. In 2002, before the US invasion, around 60% of Iraq's population was under the age of 30 – many with high school and university education. Today, too many of those young people are among the 2.2 million Iraqi refugees living in countries such as Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
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US Soldiers in Iraq Can Find Stress Deadlier than Enemy
(Emmanuel Duparcq / Agence France-Presse)

On September 14, Sergeant Joseph Bozicevich allegedly dr shot to death two of his superiors on a military base south of the Iraqi capital. According to media reports, Bozicevich, allegedly killed the men because he could not bear being berated by them. Trauma, stress, fatigue, depression and tensions linked to family problems are taking their toll on US soldiers deployed in Iraq and are often more threatening than the Islamist insurgents they are expected to fight.
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'We Were Told We Were Fighting Terrorists; the Real Terrorist Was Me'
(Book Review — Aaron Glantz, Haymarket Books)

In March, a courageous group of veterans brought the war home at a historic event held in Silver Spring, Md., inspired by Vietnam veterans a generation before. "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan" convened more than 200 soldiers who served in the so-called "War on Terror;" The hearings lasted four days. Now, the testimony has been compiled in a book: Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupation."
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Widow Sues US over Iraq Vet-Husband's Suicide
(MaryClaire Dale / Associated Press)

The 26-year-old widow of an Iraq war veteran who committed suicide while in outpatient care for depression at a Veterans Administration hospital is suing the federal government for alleged negligence. Tiera Woodward claims her late husband sought treatment at a VA hospital in Lebanon, Pa., after three suicide attempts but wasn't seen by a psychiatrist for more than two months. Donald Woodward killed himself in March 2006 at age 23.
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Inquiry Finds 30 Afghan Civilians Killed in US Air Raid
(Eric Schmitt / The New York Times)

An investigation by the military has concluded that American airstrikes on Aug. 22 in a village in western Afghanistan killed far more civilians than American commanders there have acknowledged, according to two American military officials.
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One Soldier's Wounds
(Liam Farrell / The (Annapolis) Capital & Associated Press)

The bomb went off on April 21, 2008, two days before Sgt. Luis Rosa-Valentin turned 25. Both of his legs and his left arm are gone. He needs a hearing aid for his left ear and a cochlear implant for his right. The concussion of the bomb broke every bone in his face. Luis' right arm, his only remaining limb, is also a symbol of loss. A tattoo of a dead soldier's empty boots, helmet and rifle adorns the inside of his forearm, set against the American flag.
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US War Deserter Wins Stay of Deportation
(Linda Nguyen / The Star & Canwest News Service & Democracy Now!)

The Federal Court of Canada has granted a stay of deportation to US war deserter Jeremy Hinzman to allow time for the court to decide whether to hear his appeal on humanitarian grounds. Hinzman, 29, along with his wife and two young children, will be able to stay in Canada while the court decides on the case. Plus: Amy Goodman interviews Hinzman on Democracy Now!
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Iraq: The Biggest Hospitals Become Sick
(Arkan Hamed and Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)

At Baghdad Medical City, the largest medical complex in Iraq, it is not even safe to drink tap water any more. Sometimes doctors cannot find water even to wash their hands. Equipment is often not sterilised. Not even the elevators work now at Baghdad Medical City, once the centre for some of the best medical care in the Middle East. Doctors, patients and students at the four specialised teaching hospitals within the building complex, just take the stairs, sometimes to the 18th floor.
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Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
(Project Censored’s TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES FOR 2009)

Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study by Opinion Research Business. These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.
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Pakistan Protests US/CIA Attacks inside Country
(ANI & CNN)

Pakistani demonstrators, enraged over US invasions of their country and deadly attacks of fellow citizens, burned an effigy of George W. Bush in Multan on Friday. Meanwhile, it was reported that several senior CIA officers were the target of the blast at the Marriott Hotel. On Saturday, Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari declared he will not allow foreign powers to violate the country's sovereignty to pursue terrorists.
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Vet's Family Still Seeks Compensation for iIlness that Killed Him
(Sam Stanton / Sacramento Bee (sacbee.com))

Matt Bumpus. a 31-year-old California resident and veteran of the US invasion of Iraq, died a month ago after a series of battles with his disease. Bumpus and his family believes he became ill because he was exposed to depleted uranium at a chemical weapons site while serving with the Army in Iraq. The Department of Veterans Affairs rejected Bumpus' initial claim seeking compensation for his illness. Now that Bumpus, the father of two, has died, the VA says it will "revisit" the claim.
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US Apologizes for Killing Civilians in Afghanistan as US Strike Kills Civilians in Pakistan
(Los Angeles Times & Associated Press & Pamela Constable and Shaiq Hussain / Washington Post)

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has expressed regret over the deaths of Afghan civilians in US air raids that have killed 119 Afghanis so far this year. Meanwhile, air-fired missiles launched by US forces based in Afghanistan hit a militant compound in Pakistan near the Afghan border killing at least six people. The attack came soon after a senior American officer had met with government leaders to discuss the furor over US attacks inside Pakistan and assure they would not happen in the future.
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Another Iraqi Casualty of War: Their Waistlines
(Tina Susman / Los Angeles Times)

Sectarian violence has drastically altered Iraqis' lifestyles. Most retreated to the safety of their homes and became increasingly sedentary. To go out was to risk being kidnapped, killed by a bomb or caught up in the other violence plaguing Iraq. Curfews hindered people who tried to remain active. A World Health Organization survey in 2006 found that 26% of men and 38% of women ages 25 to 65 were obese, with a body mass index of 30 or higher.
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Family in Dark on Soldiers' Non-Hostile Death & Female Soldiers Twice as likely to Die from NHD
(Cal Perry / CNN & Gar Smith . Environmentalists Against War)

Army Staff Sgt. Darris J. Dawson, and Sgt. Wesley Durbin, 26, are said to have been shot and killed by another US soldier on Sunday at a base south of Baghdad. the military has told them nothing about the incident: no details on his death, no information at all. Meanwhile, a cursory investigation of military records suggests that female solders serving in Iraq are more than twice as likely to become victimes of "non-hostile deaths."
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Iraq: "We Blew Her to Pieces"
(Book Review by Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)

Aside from the Iraqi people, nobody knows what the US military is doing in Iraq better than the soldiers themselves. A new book gives readers vivid and detailed accounts of the devastation the US occupation has brought to Iraq, in the soldiers' own words. Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupation," published by Haymarket Books Tuesday, is a gut-wrenching, historic chronicle of what the US military has done to Iraq, as well as its own soldiers.
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Rate of Afghan Civilian Deaths Skyrocketing: UN
(Jason Straziuso / Globe and Mail)

The UN reports the number of Afghan civilians killed in insurgent attacks and air strikes by foreign troops has risen 40 percent in the past year, and more died in August than in any month since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. 800 of the 1,445 Afghan deaths between January and the end of August — or 55 percent — were caused by Taliban and other insurgents. US or NATO air strikes caused 395 deaths — two-thirds of the total casualties inflicted by pro-government forces
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Video Shows US Carnage In Afghanistan
(Tom Coghlan / The Times)

As the doctor walks between rows of bodies, people lift shrouds to reveal the faces of children and babies, some with severe head injuries. The grainy eight-minute video is the most compelling evidence to emerge of what may be the biggest loss of civilian life in the Afghanistan war. These images forced the Pentagon into a rare U-turn. Until yesterday the US had insisted that only seven civilians were killed on the night of August 21. WARNING: Contains graphic video images.
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Missiles fired by US drones destroyed a house and a religious school in Pakistan, killing 23 people, mostly relatives of a Taliban commander close to Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, increasing US air strikes are causing "unacceptably high" civilian deaths and undermining the entire international mission in the country. In 2006, at least 116 Afghan civilians were killed. In 2007, at least 321 civilians were killed by US air strikes.
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Military Analyst Warns of Coming 'Climate Wars' Unless Global Warming is Reversed
(The World Today / ABC News Australia)

The prospect of global wars driven by climate change is not something often discussed publicly by our political leaders. But according to one of America's top military analysts, governments in the US and UK are already being briefed by their own military strategists about how to prepare for a world of mass famine, floods of refugees and even nuclear conflicts over resources.
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Haitian Activist Asks Brazil to Halt UN Killings
(Alan Benjamin / Forum Haiti)

On Saturday, August 24, Haitian human rights activist David Josue, a member of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), completed a trip to Brazil where he called for the withdrawal of all UN troops — which are under Brazilian command. Josue quoted one UN "after-action report," which documented that soldiers spent seven hours shooting at an unarmed population, expending more than 22,000 rounds of ammunition, knowing they were striking unintended targets.
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Rival Afghan Clan Blamed for Deadly US Raid
(Fisnik Abrashi,Jason Straziuso / Associated Press)

Afghan officials said Thursday that a deadly U.S.-led special forces raid on a remote western village last week was based on misleading information provided by a rival clan. UN officials say the raid killed up to 90 civilians, most of them children. Karzai has castigated Western commanders over civilian deaths from military operations, saying they create anger among Afghans that the Taliban and other insurgents use as leverage to turn Afghans away from the government.
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Afghans, UN Press US over Civilian Casualties
(Fisnik Abrashi / Associated Press)

In a stark warning to US forces, the Afghan government said Tuesday that it will try to regulate the presence of US troops and their use of air strikes, and the United Nations announced there is "convincing evidence" that an American-led operation killed 90 civilians.
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Casualties of US Occupation: Iraqi Children and Drinkable Water
(Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman & Kareem Abed Zair / Azzaman)

Commentary: "Concern over the fate of Iraqi children is perhaps the biggest lie the U.S. has tried to spread after the notorious fallacy of weapons of mass destruction.Iraqi politicians and leaders of the ruling factions, who owe their existence and survival to the presence of U.S. occupation troops, are the biggest hypocrites when expressing concern over the fate of Iraqi children." Meanwhile, "more than three million people in Baghdad have no access to running water."
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Afghans, UN Press US over Civilian Casualties
(Fisnik Abrashi / Associated Press)

In a stark warning to US forces, the Afghan government said Tuesday that it will try to regulate the presence of US troops and their use of air strikes, and the United Nations announced there is "convincing evidence" that an American-led operation killed 90 civilians.
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War With Russia Is On The Agenda
(Paul Craig Roberts / Information Cleariinghouse)

Commentary: "Thinking about the massive failure of the US media to report truthfully is sobering. The power of the Israel Lobby is an important component of keeping Americans in the dark. Most Americans know of the 2000 attack by Muslim terrorists on the USS Cole in Aden harbor that resulted in 17 dead and 39 wounded American sailors. But few have heard of Israel's 1967 attack on the 'USS Liberty' that left 34 American sailors dead and 174 wounded."
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Afghans, UN Press US over Civilian Casualties
(Fisnik Abrashi / Associated Press)

In a stark warning to US forces, the Afghan government said Tuesday that it will try to regulate the presence of US troops and their use of air strikes, and the United Nations announced there is "convincing evidence" that an American-led operation killed 90 civilians.
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Al Qaeda Suspect with MIT Degree
(Larry Neumeister / Associated Press)

Aafia Siddiqui is a devout Muslim with degrees from MIT and Brandeis. She fled to Pakistan after 9/11 because of anti-Muslim sentiment. Five years ago, the US secretly seized Siddiqui and her three children. All have apparently been held captive at a US facility in Afghanistan. Last month, during her detention, Siddiqui was shot and seriously injured. She is now in a US jail in Brooklyn charged with attempting to shoot her captors.
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A Short History: Humans Used as Guinea Pigs by US Government and Military
(Fred Burks / WantToKnow.info team)

A comprehensive list of the use of humans as guinea pigs in biological experiments — from 1931 to 1997. A number of these experiments specifically targeted minorities and those in poor areas.
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What's So Heroic about Bombing Civilians? & Playing the POW Card
(Liliana Segura / AlterNet & The Huffington Post)

Commentary: John McCain flew 23 bombing missions over North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder, a campaign that dropped 643,000 tons of bombs for nearly four years. The stated targets were factories, bridges, and power plants, but bombs fell on homes, schools, and hospitals. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara estimated that we were killing 1,000 civilians a week — more than one 9/11 every single month — for 44 months.
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Civilian Deaths Anger Afghans: US/NATO Bombing Condemned
(Al Jazeera)

Hundreds of Afghans have protested in the Shindand district in western Afghanistan after at least 76 civilians — most of them women and children — were reportedly killed in an raid by US-led forces. The UN says that 255 of the almost 700 civilians deaths in Afghanistan this year attributed to US-led international troops. Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the "uncoordinated air strike" and vowed to take necessary measures" to prevent further civilian casualties.
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US Says 30 Militants Killed; Afghans Say US Killed 76 Civilians, 'Most of them Children'
(Fisnik Abrashi & ,Jason Straziuso / Associated Press & Sharafuddin Sharafyar / The Guardian)

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan said Thursday it had killed more than 30 insurgents in a battle in eastern Afghanistan, fighters an Afghan governor said were responsible for an attack that killed 10 French troops this week. Meanwhile, the Afghanistan Interior Ministry announced that US-led coalition forces killed 76 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan yesterday, most of them children.The coalition denied killing civilians.
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Colombia Military Atrocities Alleged
(Chris Kraul / Los Angeles Times)

Human rights groups say extrajudicial killings by the army and police have risen, with at least 329 last year. Officials acknowledge problems and point to efforts to train troops. here were 329 so-called extrajudicial killings by the Colombian military and police last year, a coalition of Colombian rights groups asserts in a report, a 48% increase from the 223 reported in 2006.
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Civilian Deaths Anger Afghans

Hundreds of Afghans have protested in the Shindand district in western Afghanistan after at least 76 civilians — most of them women and children — were reportedly killed in an raid by US-led forces. The UN says that 255 of the almost 700 civilians deaths in Afghanistan this year attributed to US-led international troops. Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the "uncoordinated air strike" and vowed to take necessary measures" to prevent further civilian casualties.
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NATO-led Soldiers 'Accidentally' Kill Four Afghan Civilians
(Agence France-Presses)

NATO-led soldiers operating in southern Afghanistan "accidentally" killed four civilians and wounded three others in a rocket attack intended for insurgents, the alliance force said Sunday. British NATO troops were involved in the deaths. Two of the wounded, both children, were in a serious condition and being treated at an ISAF medical facility, the statement said.
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Dept. of Homeland Security Has Deported over 90,000 Children without a Parent
(Latina Lista & IndyBay.org)

According to a report released in Mexico City by the Population, Border and Migrant Affairs Commission, for every three adults deported from the US, there is one child abandoned and left behind. In the first 7 months of the year the US deported 90,000 children to Mexico — children without their parents. As many as 15 percent or 13,500 of these children, of all ages under 17, find themselves "parked" at the border. With no family and no way to take care of them.
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For South Ossetians, Bitterness After Attack by Georgia
(Peter Finn / Washington Post Foreign Service)

Here in Tskhinvali, there was no doubt that Georgia started the war with Russia and much bitterness about the rain of artillery and rockets that the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili used in its efforts to capture the city. Residents of Separatist Zone describe the Georgian assault that destroyed a swath of their capital as "Unforgivable" and "inhumane."
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Why Soldiers Rape & The Private War of Women Soldiers
(Helen Benedict / In These Times & Salon.com)

An alarming number of women soldiers are being sexually abused by their comrades-in-arms, both at war and at home. Many female soldiers say they are sexually assaulted by their male comrades and can't trust the military to protect them. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," says one woman. "It was for the guys on my own side."
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Two Eye-witness Reports on the Battle in S. Ossetia
(Alan Fisher / Al Jazeera & Tom Parfitt / The Guardian)

Alan Fisher reports from Gori: "Russian planes drop their bombs. In the distance , a family with no transport desperately try to hitch a lift away from danger." Guardian reporter Tom Parfitt (who travelled to Tskhinvali, in a trip organised by the Kremlin, to witness first-hand the destruction caused by the battle for South Ossetia) writes: "It was clear that claims the city had been leveled by artillery were exaggerated. However, it was evident that there were patches of terrible destruction."
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US Training Gives Georgia Military Advantage
(Allan Mallinson, Defence Historian / Reuters &)

The Georgian army has been US-trained, and increasingly American-equipped, for the past 10 years. The Russians will no doubt justify their use of air power as defensive action in depth and draw comparisons with the United Nations' use of ground-attack aircraft in Bosnia during the peacekeeping mandate; but it will also be in some measure an attempt to overwhelm the Georgians psychologically, and with the only means to hand.
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In Korea's ‘Crying' Cave, 100s Died in US Attack
(Jae-Soon Chang / Associated Press News)

After a two-year investigation, a South Korean Truth Commission finds that US forces committed a war crime in January 1951 when they used bombs and napalm to attack and kill more than 300 civilians seeking refuge in Gokgyegul, in an incident remembered today as Korea's “Crying Cave.” The South Korean government is under pressure to seek victims' compensation from Washington.
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US Chipmaker Builds Massive Plant atop Former Palestinian Villages
(Henry Norr / International Solidarity Movement - Northern California)

The US computer company Intel is putting the finishing touches on Israel's biggest construction project this side of the Apartheid Wall, and Kiryat Gat has become one of the crown jewels of the country's booming high-tech economy. The massive plant is being constructed on land that once belonged to two Palestinian villages, al-Faluja and 'Iraq al-Manshiya.
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Heal the Warrior, Heal the Country
(Edward Tick / Yes Magazine)

Our troops do not enlist because they want to destroy or kill. No matter the political climate, most troops seek to serve traditional warrior values: to protect the country they love, its ideals, and especially their families, communities, and each other. If they must kill or be killed, they need transcendent reasons to do so. war is inherently a moral enterprise and veterans in search of healing are on a profound moral journey. Healers and communities must walk with them.
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Military Women Get Ready to Rock the Boat
(Jennifer Hogg / Women's Media Center)

When political candidates talk of foreign aggressors, they miss the largest threat military women face. By May 2004 there were 112 reports of sexual assault and rape in Iraq and Afghanistan. Specialist Kamisha Block was reported killed in Iraq by a "non-combat related injury" when the truth was she was murdered by a male soldier. The occupation of Iraq has left 97 women dead. Forty percent of those are attributed to “non-combat related injuries.”
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Iraqis who Worked for Army Denied US Entry
(Laura Kasinof / San Francisco Chronicle & Walter Pincus / The Washington Post)

The Bush administration has come under criticism from lawmakers and advocacy groups over how it has dealt with Iraqi employees who have been targeted by insurgents seeking to derail US efforts to stabilize Iraq. The nonprofit List Project seeks to bring to the US hundreds of Iraqis whose lives are in danger because they worked for the US government or military. Despite its efforts, it has succeeded in only a small number of cases.
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How Britain Wages War
(John Pilger / The New Statesman)

The military has created a wall of silence around its frequent resort to barbaric practices, including torture, and goes out of its way to avoid legal scrutiny. The true scope and horror of Britain's crimes are captured in five photographs.
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US Perpetuates Mass Killings In Iraq
(Peter Phillips / After Downing Street.org)

The US is directly responsible for over one million Iraqi deaths since the invasion five and half years ago. In a January 2008 report, a British polling group Opinion Research Business (ORB) reports that, “survey work confirms our earlier estimate that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000.
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How Cheap Is Iraqi Blood! One of Five Iraqis Is a Refugee
(Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman & Jawad Ghanim / Azzaman)

Five years ago, international media weighed Iraqi blood drop by drop. Every drop that was shed was newsworthy and occupied their highlights. Iraqis are being killed, injured and maimed in droves on a daily basis. But still that is not enough reason for the media to care. An international conference on the plight of Iraqis displaced since the US invasion estimates that about five million Iraqis are now refugees out of a population of more than 25 million.
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"Neglecting Democracy Is More Dangerous Than Nuclear Weapons"
(Omid Memarian / Iran Press Service)

While the United States and Britain are talking about tougher sanctions on Iran, including sanctions on its gas and oil industry — Tehran's major source of revenue — Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Noble Peace Prize laureate and international human rights defender, argues that this tactic has not weakened the government, but it has harmed the Iranian people.
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Gitmo Video Offers Glimpse of Interrogations
(Charmaine Noronha / Associated Press)

In a video released Tuesday, a 16-year-old captured in Afghanistan cries out for his mother and says he needs treatment for his battle wounds during questioning by Canadian officials at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. "Oh Mommy," he cries in despair in Arabic when he is alone in the room, watched only by hidden cameras.
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Afghan Survivors Tell of Wedding Bombing
(Alastair Leithead / BBC World News & James Sturcke / The Guardian)

The BBC's Alastair Leithead was the first Western journalist to reach the scene of a US air raid which Afghan authorities say killed about 50 civilians in the east of the country on 6 July. He reports on what he found.
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US 'Killed 47 Afghan Civilians'

A US air strike in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday killed 47 civilians, 39 of them women and children, an Afghan government investigating team says. The US military said they were militants. But local people said the dead were wedding party guests.
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US Iraq War Hero Joseph Dwyer Dies of Apparent Drugs Overdose
(Tom Leonard /The Daily Telegraph)

Joseph Dwyer, a US army medic who became a symbol of American heroism and integrity in the Iraq war has died of an apparent dru overdose. Dwyer’s premature death at the age of 31 has highlighted the neglect many American veterans believe they face once they return home. (A Google search finds no evidence that Dwyer’s tragic decline and death merited coverage in the mainstream US media.)
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Wounded Iraqi Forces Say They've Been Abandoned
(Michael Kamber / The New York Times)

In the United States, the issue of war injuries has revolved almost entirely around the care received by the 30,000 wounded American veterans. But Iraqi soldiers and police officers have been wounded in greater numbers, health workers say, and have been treated far worse by their government. A number of the half-dozen badly wounded Iraqis interviewed for this article said they had been effectively drummed out of the Iraqi security forces without pensions
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All Quiet on the Gaza Front
(Uri Avnery / Gush-Shalom)

Suddenly: quiet. No Qassams. No mortar shells. The tanks are not rolling. The aircraft are not bombing. In Sderot, children venture out. Inhabitants who have exiled themselves return home. And the reaction? An outburst of jubilation? Dancing in the streets? Applause for the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense, who at long last have come to their senses? Not at all. The expression on the nation's face is a grimace of disgust. Where is our victorious army?
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Shebeks, Yazidis and Mandeans worst hit in US-occupied Iraq
(Azzaman.com)

Irag's Human Rights Ministry reports that Iraqi minorities — namely Yazidis, Shebeks and Mandeans — have paid dearly in blood in the violence that engulfed Iraq in the aftermath of US occupation of the country. Because many of these minorities live apart from major population centers, their plight has gone largely unnoticed, attracting little attention from the outside world.
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Crushing Blow for FARC & Rumors of Secret Payoff
(Will Stebbins, Americas Bureau Chief/ Al Jazeera & Times Online)

Al Jazeera examines the implications of the freeing of 15 Farc hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, for Colombia, its president, and the Farc rebel group. Meanwhile, reports have surfaced that the apparently brilliant operation was partly stage-managed and included a US-financed ransom. A senior French expert said some of Ms Betancourt’s captors had “probably been bought” but official sources in Washington were deeply sceptical.
/know/read.php?itemid=7045

US Blamed for Second Afghan Raid
(Al Jazeera & Agencies)

Members of an Afghan wedding party have been killed in a second air strike over three days, local officials say. Witnesses said at least 20 civilians, travelling to the wedding in Nangarhar on Sunday, were killed. Women and children were among the dead and injured.
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Iraqi Refugees, America’s Shame
(Medea Benjamin / Common Dreams)

The US invasion of Iraq and the ensuing spiral of violence has led to the most massive displacement in the Middle East since the creation of the state Israel in 1948. Some 1.2 million Iraqis fled to Syria before the government — its schools and hospitals overwhelmed and local people reeling from soaring rents and food prices — closed its doors in October 2007. The Jordanian government allowed some 500,000 Iraqis to enter the country but has also closed its borders.
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‘Anything Not to Go Back’
(Tony Dokoupi / NEWSWEEK)

Cases of self-harm are a "rising trend" that military doctors are watching closely. Faced with long, repeated combat tours, many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are choosing to injure themselves to avoid being sent back into combat.
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Somalia: Our Government’s Dirty Little Secrets
(George Galloway /British House of Commons)

The tragedy in Somalia, which so many people are now becoming aware of, is another of our Government's dirty little secrets. in Ethiopia, where 4 million people are facing starvation and 120,000 Ethiopian children have just one month to live. Somalia, under Ethiopian occupation, is the grimmest prison state in Africa — worse than Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Who has done the arming, the training, the financing and the facilitating? The US and British governments.
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Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens Requiring Immediate Action By President Bush, Prime Minister Brown, and Prime Minister Olmert
(Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD., / Depleted Uranium Project)

When the emirate of Kuwait required the US to remove more than 6,700 tons of soil and sand contaminated with depleted uranium, the Pentagon had the deadly waste shipped back to the US for burial by American Ecology in Boise, Idaho. Unfortunaely, investigative reporters revealed, American Ecology "had never heard of US Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for dealing with mixed — hazardous waste such as radioactive materials and conventional explosives byproducts."
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Depleted Uranium is Contaminating Everyone
(Mary Rose / Discussion Forum for Global Justice & Ruth D. Bundy, Ralph C. Whitley, Sr. / APFN)

America developed a Depleted Uranium Munition which had well over 1 million rounds fired in Iraq, Today well over 450,000 are contaminated with many studies confirming that entire Nations and the genetic or chromosome changes may indeed cause the human DNA of over one billion humans and animals to be changed forever.
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Special Weapons' Fallout on Babies
(Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)

Babies born in Fallujah are showing deformities on a scale never seen before. The new cases have risen after "special weaponry" was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004. After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used. In addition, depleted uranium munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah.
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The War in Iraq Is Pure Murder
(Chris Hedges / Tomdispatch.com & AlterNet)

Press coverage of the war in Iraq rarely exposes the twisted pathology of this war. We see the war from the perspective of the troops or from the equally skewed perspective of the foreign reporters, holed up in hotels, hemmed in by translators and military escorts. There are moments when war's face appears to these voyeurs, perhaps from the back seat of a car where a small child, her brains oozing out of her head, lies dying, but mostly it remains hidden.
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List of Iraqi Academics Assassinated in Iraq During the US-led Occupation
(Spanish Campaign against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq)

In an appalling indication of the state of collapse brought upon Iraq by the US-led occupation, Iraqi university sources report that at least 284 academics have been assassinated since the US invaded the country in April 2003.
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Re-engineering Soldiers to Be More like Machines
(Antifascist-calling.blogspot.)

According to a newly disclosed report by The MITRE Corporation's defense science advisory panel know as JASON, the United States must continue investigating the potential by America's adversaries "to exploit advances in Human Performance Modification, and thus create a threat to national security." The goal: Soldiers who never sleep.
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Blast Takes UK Afghan Toll to 100
(BBC News)

Three British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, bringing the number of UK troops killed there to 100 since 2001, the Ministry of Defence said. The men, from 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, were on foot patrol near their Helmand Province base when they were killed in a suicide attack.
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Horrors We Have No Choice but to Forget
(Robert Fisk / The Independent)

Commentary: "I have a clear memory of a terrible crime that was committed in southern Lebanon in 1978. Israeli soldiers, landing at night on the beach near Sarafand — the city of Sarepta in antiquity — were looking for "terrorists" and opened fire on a carload of female Palestinian refugees."
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Collateral Damage: What It Really Means When America Goes to War
(Chris Hedges / TomDispatch)

Troops, when they battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam, are placed in "atrocity producing situations." Being surrounded by a hostile population makes simple acts, such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke, dangerous. The fear and stress push troops to view everyone around them as the enemy.
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Disneyland by the Tigris: A Modern Nation Destroyed
(Felicity Arbuthnot / Global Research)

Before it was targeted to be "liberated" by George W. Bush, Iraq was a highly developed country. Having nationalised its oil, revenues were utilised for modernising infrastructure, health, education (the latter two of high standard and free.) All now lie in ruins, the might of the two ‘most professional armies in the world’, apparently able only to blow up bridges, not build them, orphan not heal, bereave, destroy and devastate, poison and pollute.
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President Jimmy Carter & Bishop Desmond Tutu Condemn Israel over Gaza
(Jimmy Carter / Times of India & Agence France-Presse & Donald Macintyre / The Independent)

Jimmy Carter writes: “The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air or land. An entire population is being brutally punished.” Bishop Tutu “has denounced the international community for its "silence and complicity" on what he called Israel's "abominable" 11-month blockade of Gaza.
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Homeless In Hawaii:More Land For The Military Than For Hawaiians
(Winona LaDuke / Indian Country Today & Rense.com)

"They bombed the houses in the l940s and took over the entire valley," explained Sparky Rodrigues, one of many Makua residents still waiting to move home. "The government moved all of the residents out and said after the war, you can move back - and then they used the houses for target practice. The families tell stories that the military came with guns and said, 'Here's $300, thank you,' and 'You've got to move.'"
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Report Details Child Abuse: Group Cites Aid Workers, UN Troops
(Colum Lynch / Washington Post)

UN peacekeepers and international aid workers from 23 organizations have engaged in sexual exploitation of children, including some as young as 6, in Haiti, Ivory Coast and South Sudan, according to a report by Save the Children, a British-based aid agency.
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Mosul a "City of Ghosts" as US Bombs Hospital in Hilla and Kills Family in Nineveh
(Middle East News & Anwar Jumaa / Azzaman & Slaem Areef / Azzaman)

In Nineveh, police sources told the Voices of Iraq that members of a US patrol opened fire on civilians, killing two and wounding a child. Health authorities say US troops are paying “peanuts” to cover for the extensive damage they inflicted on the main hospital in the city of Hilla. The northern city of Mosul, home to nearly three million people, is now a city of ghosts. Severe shortages of clean water, health services and essential foods have already emerged.
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Stop 'Gender Cleansing' in Iraq
(Women's Bureau of Iraq Freedom Congress & Opening for Peace, Equality and Nexus (Japan) & Middle East Online)

The Head of the Iraq Freedom Congress Women's Bureau reports: "As many as 650 Iraqi women were killed within the first two months of 2008. In Diyala, as many as 280 female bodies were found in a graveyard. Every month, in Basra, more than 100 women are found dead. In Kirkuk, no less than 300 women have been killed by violence or abuse in the last eight months. Meanwhile, medics in Iraq's Kurdish north say 14 women died in first 10 days of May alone.
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US Military 'Regrets' Killing 2 Children in Iraq Operation
(CNN)

The US military "sincerely regrets" that it killed two children in a helicopter attack on militants linked to a suspected al Qaeda in Iraq leader. Police say eight people were killed in the chopper attack on vehicles near Baiji. US military says children riding with militants who "exhibited hostile intent." Afaq TV says one of its cameraman killed by "spiteful US sniper." U.S. military says it hasn't confirmed civilians killed in fighting; says 11 militants died.
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Thousands Killed by US's Korean Ally
(Charles J. Hanley & Jae-Soon Chang / Associated Press)

Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's US-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.
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Famine Looms as Wars Rend Horn of Africa
(Jeffrey Gettleman / The New York Times)

In Somalia, even before commodity prices started shooting up around the globe, civil war, displacement and imperiled aid operations had pushed many people here to the brink of famine. Across the border in Ethiopia, in the war-racked Ogaden region, the situation sounds just as dire. In Darfur, the United Nations has had to cut food rations because of a rise in banditry that endangers aid deliveries. Kenya is looking vulnerable, too.
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The List: A Mission To Save Iraqi Lives
(CBS)

The refugee crisis in Iraq is among the biggest humanitarian emergencies in the world. Millions of Iraqis have fled the war, many marked for death because they worked for the United States. When that happened in Vietnam, the US brought more than 100,000 refugees to the states. But today, the US government, which was so desperate for Iraqi workers, is not so eager to help them now.
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Protests at UC Law School Ceremonies over "Torture Professor" John Yoo
(Carolyn Jones / San Francisco Chronicle & Robert Gammon / East Bay Express)

Some 50 protesters, clad in orange jumpsuits and black hoods to emulate the infamous photos of prisoners in Iraq, picketed UC Berkeley's law school graduation ceremony Saturday, demanding that the university fire Professor John Yoo for his authorship of the Bush administration's policies on torture. Reporter Robert Gammon analyzes why UC Berkeley should fire John Yoo, the legal scholar whose work led to Abu Ghraib and secret spying on Americans.
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"Me, I'm a Camera": African Women Work for Change amidst War
( Ann Jones / TomDispatch)

The author of "Kabul in Winter," reports from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a place where war between men of an especially brutal sort remains an ongoing reality, highlights quite a different aspect of women's lives in Africa — the way in which some women are moving from victims to actors in their own life dramas.
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Battle Against al Qaeda in Iraq Has Turned Mosul into a Ghost Town
(Patrick Cockburn / Independent)

Mosul looks like a city of the dead. American and Iraqi troops have launched an attack aimed at crushing the last bastion of al Qaeda in Iraq and have turned the country's northern capital into a ghost town. Mosul is inhabited by 1.4 million people but has been sealed off from the outside world. Soldiers shoot at any civilian vehicle on the streets in defiance of a strict curfew. Two men, a woman and child in one car which failed to stop were shot dead yesterday by US troops.
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Walls and War Crimes
(Felicity Arbuthnot / Global Research)

n Washington's unique interpretation of 'liberation', Baghdad's Sadr City is being walled in, so residents have no escape — and the trapped bombed. This is the neighborhood-wide equivalent of the homicidal maniac with arsonist tendencies, who locks in the family, pours gasoline over the surrounds and through the letter box, following up with a few lighted matches.
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Families Ask: Where Are the Iranian Diplomats ‘Disappeared’ by the US?
(Iran Negah.com & Khody Akhavi / Inter Press Service & Scott Horton / Harpers)

The families of the "Arbil Five," Iranian officials who were kidnapped by American forces in a US raid on an Iranian consular office in Arbil, Iraq are speaking about their capture. On November 9, 2007 the United States released two of the detainees after 305 days. The others remain “disappeared.” Their detention violates international law and common human decency. Critics contrast the US treatment with Iran's treatment of British sailors detained after violating Iran's territorial waters.
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ACTION ALERT: Stopping Rape as a Weapons of War
(Irene Khan / Amnesty International)

Rape is a weapon of war in so many countries around the world, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and Sudan. And one thing is clear — the problem of violence against women vastly exceeds the resources currently devoted to stopping it. Amnesty International's Stop Violence Against Women campaign is leading an effort to end this systematic violation of women's basic human rights. Support the International Violence Against Women Act.
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Somalis Protest against US Missile Strike
(BBC World News)

At least 1,000 residents of the central Somali town of Dusamareb have held a protest against a deadly US attack. The missile strike on Thursday killed the leader of a group which the US links to al-Qaeda. At least 10 others died when a house in the town was hit. Protest organisers said people feared further strikes by US forces on the town.
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The Historic Wronging of Palestine
(David Morrison / The Village Magazine)

The state of Israel came into existence 60 years ago on 14 May 1948. In the months before and after this declaration, Jewish forces drove around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. Over 500 villages were emptied of their Palestinian population and most of them were destroyed so that those expelled had no homes to return to. Anybody who doubts that ethnic cleansing took place on this scale should read "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" by Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe.
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Iraq: Corruption Eats Into Food Rations
(Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)

Amidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now face a cutting down of their monthly food ration — much of it already eaten away by official corruption. "When the Americans came to occupy Iraq, they promised us a better life," Ina'm Majeed, a teacher at a girls school told IPS in Fallujah. "After killing our sons and husbands, they are killing us by hunger now."
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Hundreds Killed by US Strikes in Sadr City
(Pepe Escobar / The Real News.com)

Eyewitness Commentary: "Take a very good look at these images. Yes, they are disturbing. You won’t see them on Western TV networks. These are innocent civilians — poor Shi’ite Arabs living in the three million-strong Sadr City in Baghdad, one of the largest slums in the world. 1745 Iraqi civilians were killed in April — against 159 policemen and 104 soldiers. Over 400 people were killed in Sadr City alone. Only 10% were 'guerrillas.'"
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Baghdad Hospital Damaged by US Missile, Dozens Injured
(Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers)

A major hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City slum was damaged Saturday when an American military strike targeted a militia command center just a few yards away, the US military said. The rocket strike near Sadr Hospital injured 30 people, shattered the windows of ambulances and sent doctors and hospital staff fleeing the scene.
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Shadowing Slaughter in Sadr City
(Hala Jaber / The Times)

As the first UK journalist to be embedded with the rebel Mahdi Army, Hala Jaber reports on its terrifying battle: “On Wednesday afternoon, Zaydan was still waiting for seven family members to be disinterred from the rubble. The other three were in the morgue, among them a nephew, aged three, lying on a trolley in a puddle of blood. The child was another helpless victim of a clash between titanic powers which has killed 935 people and wounded 2,605.”
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Empty Promises — The Lure of the GI Bill
(Patrick Campbell / San Francisco Chronicle)

Commentary: The GI Bill isn't what it used to be. The education benefits for troops are so low that they either never enrolled, or dropped out of school because they couldn't handle working two part-time jobs or living back home on Mama's couch to afford to attend school.Service members are forced to take out loans just to start classes, and then wait months to get any reimbursement. Even then, the benefit only covers 60 to 70 percent of the cost of a four-year public university.
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Consider the Consequences of Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Power Plants, and Pray
(Floyd Rudmin / Global Research,)

If the USA or Israel deliberately bomb Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, radioactive elements would be released into the environment. There would be horrific deaths for families in the immediate vicinity. An estimated 3 million deaths would result in 3 weeks from bombing the enrichment facilities near Esfahan. The fallout would cover Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India and the contamination would last 700 million years. McCain, Clinton and the media seem to think that's not a bad idea.
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The Real Matrix: The Pentagon Invades Your Life
(Nick Turse / TomDispatch.com)

Most Americans mistakenly believe the military-industrial complex is a discrete entity far removed from everyday life but a new book reveals the disturbing truth — the military and its corporate cronies now control or produce our means of communication, our appliances, our toys, education, entertainment choices, video games, cosmetics. our children's toys, our food. The truth is that, at every turn, in countless, not-so-visible ways our life is wrapped up with the military.
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Iraq War News for Friday, May 02, 2008
(War News Today.blogspot.com)

#1: Twelve people were wounded in overnight clashes in Sadr City, police and health officials said. Seven people were killed and nine others were wounded in clashes overnight between US forces and Mehdi army fighters in Sadr City. #2: US forces said they killed two gunmen in separate air strikes in Sadr City in eastern Baghdad. #3: Clashes erupted overnight between US forces and Mehdi army militants in al-Amil district in southwestern Baghdad. And the list goes on....
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Iraqi Leaders: "US Repeats Halabja Massacre in Baghdad’s Sadr City"
(Alaa al-Tameemi / Azzaman & CNN)

In 1988, former leader Saddam Hussein gassed his own people in the city of Halabja. Today, the power that helped Saddam build the same chemical weapons he dropped on Halabja is reported to be carrying out a repeat of his crimes in Baghdad's Sadr City. Iraqi member of parliament Falah Hassan declared the "operations the US is carrying out in Sadr city are similar to what happened in Halabja.” CNN report provides graphic video evidence of shattered homes and dying children.
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Is There an Army Cover-Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers
(Col Ann Wright (US Army, Ret.) / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

The Department of Defense statistics are alarming — one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military. But, now, even more alarming, are deaths of women soldiers in Iraq and in the United States following rape. The military has characterized each death of women who were first sexually assaulted as deaths from "noncombat related injuries," and then added "suicide."
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US Kills 800 in Sadr City, Leaves 500 Children Disabled in Fallujah
(Laith Jawad, Haqi Ismael, Omer al-Mansouri & Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman)

Sheikh Salaman al-fariji said the US troops have killed more than 800 and injured more than 1,800 people in three weeks of fighting, causing large-scale destruction of private property and the city’s infrastructure. Alaa Hamed of the Society for the Welfare of Children said the US-led military operations in the city have left behind “massive destruction and at least 500 mentally or physically handicapped children.”
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Widows Endure Hardships as War Claims their Men
(Ernesto Londono / Washington Post)

Thousands of Iraqi women have in recent years embraced new roles as violence has claimed their men. Nearly 1 million women in Iraq are widows or divorcees, or their husbands are missing, according to Samira al-Mosawi, a Shiite member of parliament who heads the women's affairs committee.
/know/read.php?itemid=6806

UN Humanitarian Lawyer, Karen Parker, On the Violation of Human Rights in California
(Cathy Garger / Axis of Logic.com)

A raging human rights battle brewing between the federal Department of Energy and the people of California will soon be coming to a head. Citizen activists and environmental rights groups are up in arms over the right of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) — previously called the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, and before that, Lawrence Radiation Laboratory — to explode toxic and radioactive materials into California’s air.
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VA Goes on Trial for Mistreating War Vets
(Lyanne Melendez / KGO TV & Paul Elias / Monterey County Herald)

One of the most important trials ever involving America's veterans began today in San Francisco federal court. Two veterans groups are suing the government to improve the treatment of vets suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Veteran’s Administration Hid Suicide Risk, Internal E-Mails Show
(Armen Keteyian / CBS Evening News)

The VA is facing a lawsuit by veterans rights groups accusing the agency of not doing enough to stem a looming mental health crisis among veterans. VA chief Dr. Ira Katz has publicly declared there is “no epidemic in suicide” among vets but CBS obtained emails from Katz, including one titled "Not for the CBS News Interview Request," that begins with the word "Shh!" — as in keep it quiet — and asks: "Is this something we should (carefully) address … before someone stumbles on it?"
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Winter Soldier Testimony Now Online
(World Can't Wait & WBAI & Iraq Veterans Against War)

Despite a nearly universal black-out by the corporate media, some of us have seen, heard, or read portions of the testimony provided by soldiers attending the Winter Soldier hearings in March. Now, the full testimony is available online. Audios at WBAI; Videos at World Can’t Wait.
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Doctors Report Dozens of Civilians Wounded Following US Military Air Strike on Baghdad Neighbourhood
(Doctors for Iraq / Baghdad)

Doctors for Iraq has received reports from the Imam Ali hospital in Sadar City, of dozens of civilian casualties following US military air strikes on the densely populated neighborhood. According to doctors. 30 people were killed in the attacks and dozens injured in fighting between the Iraqi and US military and the Mehdi army militia. A US missile killed 13 civilians, ncluding a number of children, according to hospital sources.
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Sadr Threatens Open War as US Attacks

The siege of Baghdad's Sadr City district has been called a 'large humanitarian crisis.' An Iraqi Parliament Member stated: "The hospitals are jammed with dead bodies... The occupation forces open fire at any convoy trying to deliver humanitarian aid. The occupation forces have burnt the city's markets." Meanwhile, followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denounced the American military's construction of a concrete wall through their Sadr City stronghold in Baghdad.
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Gender in the Ranks
(Maya Schenwar / t r u t h o u t | Report)

Unlike many of the other panels at Winter Soldier, the one devoted to gender and sexuality in the military featured no gory videos. The testimonies included many secondhand accounts, especially when the subject came around to rape and sexual assault. And though it was the only panel in which none of the speakers divulged personal acts of violence, it was one that, at times, betrayed a raw sense of shame.
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Body of War: The Powerful Film that Salutes a War Survivor
(Phil Donahue / Body of War.com)

On April 4, on his first mission to Sadr City, Tomas Young was was shot just above his left collarbone. He was instantly paralyzed. In his very brief tour of duty, he had not fired a single shot. Paralyzed and unconscious, Tomas was first evacuated to Kuwait, then Germany and finally moved to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As he slowly came back to consciousness and a new life paralyzed from the chest down, he began to question the entire premise of the Iraq war.
/know/read.php?itemid=6773

Body of War: Phil Donahue's Anti-War Documentary
(Body of War.com)

Body of War, a powerful new documentary by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, is an intimate and transformational feature about the true face of war. Tomas Young, 25 years old, paralyzed after a bullet pierced his spine on his fifth day in Iraq, has become an eloquent voice against war and a galvanizing advocate for veterans' rights. "Body of War" has been acclaimed as "The Best Documentary of the Year." It opens across the nation this week.
/know/read.php?itemid=6770

Two Days in Iraq
(Iraq War News Today.blogspot)

It's hard to get a "close-up" feel for the war in Iraq but Iraq Today offers a daily compilation of attacks that provides a glimpse of the scale and grinding devastation of life and strife under foreign occupation.
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Five Years On, Fallujah in Tatters
(Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)

More than two years after the November 2004 US-led assault, Fallujah remains a crippled city.The city suffered two devastating US military attacks during 2004. Many of the buildings were destroyed, or heavily damaged. Several collapsed under the heavy bombing, and were never rebuilt. The heaps of concrete slabs and piles of rubble remain where they were.
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Angola Crowns Miss Landmine Survivor
(Saeed Ahmed / CNN)

A 31-year-old woman who lost part of her leg when she stepped on a land mine has won the unusual title of Miss Landmine Angola 2008. Organizers say they want the pageant to restore the women's pride and raise awareness about the prevalence of landmines left over from Angola's three decade-long civil war. Undetonated mines still maim 300 to 400 people a year according to the United Nations.
/know/read.php?itemid=6721

Students Respond to Five Years of War
(Peace Action)

March 19 marked the 5th anniversary of the US occupation of Iraq. Young activists came together that day to resist the institutions that profit from war with coordinated acts of nonviolent resistance. Students living in marginalized communities are targeted by military recruiters through a school system that has suffered drastic budget cuts to pay for the occupation of Iraq, resulting in fewer supplies, crowded classrooms, and underpaid teachers.
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Peru's Legacy of Conflict
(Mariana Sanchez / Al Jazeera & Agencies)

Peruvian villagers are demanding justice for the massacres that took place in the 1980's and 90's when the Peruvian army battled against Shining Path rebels. On the morning of August 14, 1995, the Peruvian army descended on the village of Accomarca, marched the residents down a mountain trail and killed 69 villagers — among them the elderly, pregnant women and 26 children.
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Fight Violence with Nonviolence: Unarmed Civilian Peacekeepers Are Saving Lives Today
(Rolf Carriere & Michael Nagler / The Christian Science Monitor Online)

Can ordinary people armed only with wisdom and courage check the impulse to fight wars over oil, water, or identity? Mahatma Gandhi thought so when he created his civilian Shanti Sena or "Army of Peace." Over the past 25 years, nonviolent, unarmed peacekeepers have entered into zones of intense conflict with the aim of bringing a measure of peace, protection, and sanity — and they have won dramatic, small-scale, quiet, and unglamorous successes in many a tense community.
/know/read.php?itemid=6690

US Death Toll in Iraq War Hits 4,000
(Robert H. Reid / Associated Press & Al Jazeera)

A roadside bomb killed four US soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000.
/know/read.php?itemid=6676

Life After Saddam - Five Years On
(Ali Marzook / Information Clearning House)

Violence may have waned, but people’s lives continue to be plagued by fear and suspicion. It’s been five years since the so-called occupation, liberation, invasion — and we’re not witnessing progress. Our infrastructure is damaged, as is the spirit of the people. There is little optimism for the future. Instead, we are surrounded by fear, depression and violence.
/know/read.php?itemid=6666

Iraq Lives: A Schoolgirl in Baghdad
(Noor Salman / BBC World News)

Noor Salman, a 16-year-old Iraqi girl living in Baghdad, writes about her experiences of life in the five years since the US-led invasion. "Up until two years ago we had a big house and had plenty of money and my father looked after us. Now we live in a small rented two-bedroom house with my mother, my brother and his wife and my seven sisters. But my dad is no longer with us....Many other teenagers like me have also lost their fathers in Baghdad, killed for no apparent reason."
/know/read.php?itemid=6667

Ordinary Life in a Broken Country
(Oliver Poole / BBC World News)

Oliver Poole, one of the few Western journalists who stuck it out in Baghdad for most of the five years since the US-led invasion, leaving only in November 2006, reflects on the impact of the war on Iraqi families.
/know/read.php?itemid=6668

US Voices against the War
(Rob Winder / Al Jazeera)

Hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets of Washington DC on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq to demand that the US withdraw its troops. Al Jazeera spoke to them about why they were there, their messages for the Iraqi people, and their hopes for the forthcoming US election.
/know/read.php?itemid=6663

Winter Soldier Hearings: Stop the Next My Lai
(Laura Flanders / The Nations)

The New York Times saw fit to mark the fifth anniversary of the US invasion by inviting nine "experts" including not one soldier to reflect on the conduct of the war and occupation of Iraq. The Times chose to listen to Richard Perle and Robert Bremer III but not one soldier. The Times has no time for troops like Camilo Mejia or Kelly Dougherty. But the public must take the time.
/know/read.php?itemid=6664

The War in Iraq at Five Years: The View from Travis Air Force Base
(Carl Nolte / San Francisco Chronicle)

The war in Iraq has gone on for five years now, but there is almost no sign of it in the Bay Area, a region where 7 million people live. People are worried about a recession, or gasoline prices. It is springtime and the hills are green. The war is far away and out of sight. Michael Myatt, a retired Marine Corps general, remembers a sign he saw just outside the Camp Pendleton Marine base not long ago: "The Marines are at war. America is at the mall."
/know/read.php?itemid=6651

Survivors Reflect 40 Years After My Lai
(Ben Stocking / Associated Press)

Forty years after rampaging American soldiers slaughtered her family, Do Thi Tuyet returned to the place where her childhood was shattered. "Everyone in my family was killed in the My Lai massacre — my mother, my father, my brother and three sisters," said Tuyet, who was 8 years old at the time. "They threw me into a ditch full of dead bodies. I was covered with blood and brains."
/know/read.php?itemid=6645

Beyond My Lai: America's 320 Hidden Massacres Exposed
(Los Angeles Times & The Nation & InterPress Service)

For decades, it has been generally accepted that the My Lai massacre of as many as 400 Vietnamese civilians by US Army troops on Mar. 16, 1968 was a violation of official policy directives on the treatment of civilians in South Vietnam. Once-secret documents detail 320 alleged incidents of war crimes that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious US atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.
/know/read.php?itemid=6646

Five Years of Occupation
(WWP Editorial on Iraq)

The US has now occupied Iraq for five years. This has been an unrelenting nightmare for the Iraqi people. It has killed 1 million Iraqis and destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of US youth. It has drained the living standards of the working class in the United States. It has made some US corporate owners very rich.
/know/read.php?itemid=6634

Through the Forest, a Clearer View of the Needs of a People
(Christie Aschwanden / The New York Times)

In Vietnam’s Luoi Valley, an invisible poison clings to the soil. During a short stretch of the Vietnam War this patch of ground served as an American Special Forces air base, and while the soldiers departed long ago, a potent dioxin from the Agent Orange that they stored and sprayed here lingers still.
/know/read.php?itemid=6623

New Treatments for Soldiers' Traumatic Eye Injuries
(Elizabeth Fernandez / San Franciscso Chronicle)

In a sign of the changing nature of warfare, ocular wounds have become among the most common — and devastating — form of battlefield injury. An estimated 10 to 13 percent of wounded Iraq war veterans have sustained direct, penetrating eye damage, typically as a result of modern weaponry that unleashes an explosive cascade of fragments. Proportionately, more eye injuries are occurring in the Iraq war than in all previous wars.
/know/read.php?itemid=6618

Return from Iraq: Life’s Not the Same for the 1.7 million who Served
(Kimberly Hefling / Associated Press)

Nearly 1.7 million U.S. soldiers have fought in George W. Bush’s wars, leaving nearly 4,000 dead and more than 29,000 wounded in action. Hundreds of the thousands of contractors who rushed in to serve and to make a buck also paid the ultimate price or survived with disabling injuries that will last a lifetime.
/know/read.php?itemid=6619

Battle Company Is Out There
(Elizabeth Rubin / The New York Times Magazine)

Yaka China, a notorious village in northeast Afghanistan, was a known safe haven for insurgents. American troops have tended to avoid the place since a nasty fight a year or so earlier. And as Halloween approached, the soldiers I was with, under the command of 26-year-old Capt. Dan Kearney, were predicting their own Yaka China doom.
/know/read.php?itemid=6612

Palestinians' Bloodiest Day, Israel Kills 61 in Gaza
(Nidal al-Mughrabi / Reuters)

sraeli forces killed 61 people in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the bloodiest day for Palestinians since an uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000. Almost half the dead were civilians, including children.
/know/read.php?itemid=6594

Israel: Time for Worldwide Boycott
(Omar Barghouti / Global Research)

Commentary: On Friday, 29 February 2008, Israel's deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai threatened Palestinians in Gaza with a "holocaust." This date will go down in history as the beginning of a new phase in the colonial conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, whereby a senior Israeli leader has publicly revealed the genocidal plans Israel is considering to implement against Palestinians under its military occupation,
/know/read.php?itemid=6595

Four Children Die in Gaza Strike
(BBC World News)

Four Palestinian children have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip, local medics say. they were playing near the Jabaliya refugee camp. Israel said it had targeted a rocket-launching cell.
/know/read.php?itemid=6579

New York Court Rejects Agent Orange Claims
(Larry Neumeister / Associated Press)

A federal appeals court has rejected an effort by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange to reinstate claims that US companies committed war crimes by making the toxic chemical defoliant used in the Vietnam War. The judge in the case ruled that Agent Orange was used to protect US troops against ambush and not as a weapon of war against human populations.
/know/read.php?itemid=6569

The Myth of the Surge
(Nir Rosen / Rolling Stone Magazine)

Hoping to turn enemies into allies, US forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents. But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq
/know/read.php?itemid=6563

The Myth of the Surge
(Nir Rosen / Rolling Stone Magazine)

Hoping to turn enemies into allies, US forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents. But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq.
/know/read.php?itemid=6564

Bush Turns US Soldiers into Murderers
(Robert Parry / consortiumnews.com)

By forcing repeat combat assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan — and by winking at torture and indiscriminate killings — George W. Bush is degrading the reputation of the US military, turning enlisted soldiers and intelligence officers into murderers and sadists.
/know/read.php?itemid=6527

Iraq's Tidal Wave of Misery
(Michael Schwartz / Tomgram)

tidal wave of misery is engulfing Iraq — and it isn't the usual violence that Americans are accustomed to hearing about and tuning out. t dislodges people from their jobs, sweeps them from their homes, tears them from their material possessions, and carries them off from families and communities. It leaves them stranded in hostile towns or foreign countries, with no anchor to resist the moment when the next wave of displacement sweeps over them.
/know/read.php?itemid=6520

Afghans' Hopes for Progress Battered by War, Weather, Economy and Regional Tension
(Pamela Constable / Washington Post Foreign Service)

lastic and burlap tents are clustered on the icy terrain, each colony housing dozens of families who have fled different crises: laborers deported from Iran, longtime refugees forced out of Pakistan by camp closings, farmers from southern Helmand province whose villages were caught in fighting between Taliban insurgents and international troops
/know/read.php?itemid=6514

Top US Lawyer and UNICEF Data Reveal Afghan Genocide
(Dr Gideon Polya / Countercurrents.org)

Analysis: In the light of as many as 6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan as of February 2008, it is apparent that the Afghan Holocaust is also an Afghan Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention. Occupied Afghanistan is the New Auschwitz of the US and its complicit allies (including former Axis countries Germany and Japan who have on US instigation joined the US-NATO Afghan Genocide.
/know/read.php?itemid=6507

18 Percent of Recent Veterans Unemployed
(Aaron Glantz / OpEdNews.com)

A Department of Veterans Affairs study leaked to the Associated Press shows recently discharged veterans are having a harder time finding civilian jobs and are more likely to earn lower wages for years than those who never served in the military.
/know/read.php?itemid=6491

US Troops in Iraq "Rules of Engagement" Leaked
(Wikileaks.org)

Wikileaks has obtained the long kept secret Rules of Engagement (ROE) for US troops in Iraq. This document sets out the rules guiding authorized US troop actions in that occupation. The ROE, it provides indications that US attacks likely to result in civilian deaths required authorization at the top of the Pentagon.
/know/read.php?itemid=6483

US Military Says It Accidentally Killed 9 Iraqi Civilians in Raid
(Lauren Frayer / Canadian Press / AP)

The US military said Monday it accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting "al-Qaida in Iraq" — the deadliest known case of mistaken identity in recent months. The Iraqi civilians were killed Saturday near Iskandariyah, 50 kilometres south of the Iraqi capital as US forces pursued suspected "al-Qaida in Iraq" militants.
/know/read.php?itemid=6484

Trauma's impact on US troops & Iraqis
(Imani Henry / Workers World)

Commentary: At least 1.6 million US troops have been deployed around the world since 2001. As a direct result of the US invasion and occupation of their country, more than 1 million Iraqi civilians have died violently since 2003, according to estimates based on a Johns Hopkins study
/know/read.php?itemid=6467

Winograd Commission Report Disregards Israeli War Crimes, Says Amnesty International
(PRNewswire-USNewswire)

Amnesty International called a report published yesterday by the Winograd Commission on Israel's conduct in the war with Hizbullah in July-August 2006 "deeply flawed" because it failed to investigate a crucial aspect of the war — the government policies and military strategies that failed to discriminate between the Lebanese civilian population and Hizbullah combatants and between civilian property and infrastructure and military targets.
/know/read.php?itemid=6470

Iraq Conflict Has Killed a Million, Says Survey
(Reuters North American News Service)

More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the US-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by Opinion Research Business, one of Britain's leading polling groups.
/know/read.php?itemid=6463

Missing Voices in the Iraq Debate
(Dahr Jamail / Truthout.org)

Amid the flurries of words, accusations, and "debates" that add up to the primary-season presidential campaign, there has been a near-thunderous silence on Iraq lately — and especially on Iraqis. Except when GOP presidential candidate John McCain says he's comfortable with the US remaining in Iraq for 100 years "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed." He said nothing about Iraqis "injured or harmed or wounded or killed."
/know/read.php?itemid=6452

'US the Biggest Producer of Terror'
(Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail* / Inter Press Service)

The International Committee of the Red Cross reports that some 60,000 people are jailed in Iraq. "The Americans occupied our country and put our men in prisons," says Dhafir al-Rubaiee. "Every one of these prisoners has a family, and these families now have reason to hate Americans." Abu Tariq says: "The Americans destroyed the electricity, water pumping stations, factories, bridges, highways, hospitals, schools, buildings.”
/know/read.php?itemid=6450

The Israeli Recipe For 2008: Genocide in Gaza, Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank
(Ilan Pappé / The Indypendent)

sraeli historian and author Dr. Ilan Pappé was initially hesitant to use the word "genocide" to describe the situation in occupied Palestine but, after listening to the concerns of readers responding to his use of the term, Pappé has concluded "with even stronger conviction: it is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip."
/know/read.php?itemid=6441

'Ancient Civilization . . . Broken to Pieces'
(Alexandra Zavis / Los Angeles Times)

Images of Baghdad's ransacked National Museum, custodian of a collection dating back to the beginning of civilization, provoked an international outcry in the early days of the war but experts say a tragedy on an even greater scale continues to unfold at more than 12,000 largely unguarded sites where illegal diggers are chipping away at Iraq's heritage. The artifacts may never be returned.
/know/read.php?itemid=6435

Iran Hosts Annual Environmental Art Show in a War Zone

Iran's 15th festival of environmental art focusing on campaign against war and militarization of the Persian Gulf will be held on Hormuz island. Forty foreign and Iranian artists will head to Hormuz island to help 30 regional artists hold the festival. Ahmad Nadalian known as the "environmental artist of the year" said "during the last three decades, the war imposed to Iran in 1981, and finally the US invasion on Iraq, millions of innocent people lost their lives in this region."
/know/read.php?itemid=6437

Crisis Leaves 5.4 Million Dead in Congo, Report Says
(CBC News)

A report released by the International Rescue Committee estimates that 5.4 million people were killed by conflict and its fallout in Congo from 1998 until April 2007. Most of the deaths were due to the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, which badly eroded health-care services and caused famine.
/know/read.php?itemid=6432

The Lessons of Violence: The Collective Strangulation of Gaza
(Chris Hedges / CommonDreams.org)

The Gaza Strip is rapidly becoming one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. Israel has cordoned off the entire area, home to some 1.4 million Palestinians, blocking commercial goods, food, fuel and even humanitarian aid. This is not another typical spat between Israelis and Palestinians. This is the final, collective strangulation of the Palestinians in Gaza
/know/read.php?itemid=6429

Right-Wingers Can't Cover Up Iraq's Death Toll Catastrophe
(John Tirman / AlterNet)

Commentary: "Now I know what Hillary Clinton meant, first hand, by that "vast right-wing conspiracy." When the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Sunday Times in London are going after you — along with about 100 right-wing bloggers — rest assured, you've hit a nerve." Why all the attention? "More than two years ago, I commissioned a household survey of Iraq to learn how many people had died in the war."
/know/read.php?itemid=6430

Darkness over Gaza: World Condemns 'Collective Punishment'
(Al Jazeera and Agencies)

Hamas claimed Sunday night that five patients died because of the cutoff of electricity in hospitals resulting from the Israeli blockade. The Hamas leadership pleaded with Arab leaders and the rival Palestinian Authority, asking them to forget their differences and help the beleaguered Gazans. Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa said that what was happening in Gaza was a "war crime" and urged the West to bring pressure on Israel.
/know/read.php?itemid=6423

Bad Reviews for Bush in the Mideast & Welcome, Mr President, to the Misery You've Created
(cott MacLeod/ Time Magazine & Jonathan Steele / The Guardian)

Commentary: "The disparaging of President Bush's eight-day tour of the Middle East by America's staunchest opponents in the region was hardly unexpected. But Bush was also harshly criticized — albeit in more circumspect language — in countries with close ties to Washington." "In eight years Palestinians have seen the bald eagle of enlightened US power degenerate into a phoney, biased, cynical lame duck."
/know/read.php?itemid=6422

1 in 5 Troops May Exit War with Mild Trauma to Brain
(Associated Press)

Concussion is a common term for mild traumatic brain injury, or TBI. As many as 20 percent of U.S. combat troops leave war with signs they may have had a concussion, and some do not realize they need treatment. While the Army has a handle on treating more severe brain injuries, it is "challenged to understand, diagnose and treat military personnel who suffer with mild TBI,"
/know/read.php?itemid=6413

151,000 Civilians Killed since Iraq Invasion
(Sarah Boseley, health editor / Guardian)

According to figures up to June 2006, based on household surveys, an estimated 151,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the violence that has engulfed the country from the time of the US-led invasion until June 2006, according to the latest and largest study of deaths officially accepted by the Iraqi government.
/know/read.php?itemid=6374

Workers Sickened at US Livermore Nuclear Lab May Finally Receive Compensation and Care
(Marylia Kelley / Tri-Valley CARES)

The national Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health voted unanimously to recommend adding a class of sick workers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. "Sick workers or their survivors, many of whom have been waiting for over 6 years, will finally be compensated for their illnesses."
/know/read.php?itemid=6372

Afghanistan Appeals for Food Aid
(Pam O'Toole / BBC News)

Afghanistan is appealing to the international community to provide extra supplies of wheat to alleviate a shortage, an Afghan minister has said. Commerce Minister Mohammad Amin Farhang said the shortage could lead to serious problems during the winter. His call came amid rising discontent inside Afghanistan at the spiralling cost of wheat and other basic food.
/know/read.php?itemid=6355

New Munitions Compounds Detected at Badger
(Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger)

Following the discovery of newly detected groundwater contaminants at Badger Army Ammunition Plant in Wisconsin, a local environmental watchdog group has asked that residents living near potentially contaminated wells be tested for the presence of toxic, munitions-related compounds.
/know/read.php?itemid=6349

The Mutiny of Charlie 1-26
(Kelly Kennedy / Army Times)

After reading this extraordinary two-part series, you may wish to email it to every member of Congress and to every member of the Bush administration — from the White House on down.
/know/read.php?itemid=6337

Picking Up the Pieces: Charlie 1-26 Comes Home from War
(Kelly Kennedy / Army Times)

After reading this extraordinary two-part series, you may wish to email it to every member of Congress and to every member of the Bush administration — from the White House on down.
/know/read.php?itemid=6338

Strangling Gaza
(César Chelala / Middle East Online.com)

The people of Gaza, 1.4 million of them, are slowly and purposely being deprived of basic foods and medicines by the so called civilized countries in the West and there is hardly a protest. Both the Palestinian children who are killed and the Israeli soldiers who killed them are victims of the Occupation. And all this happens because the people in Gaza want to be free and independent.
/know/read.php?itemid=6334

Depleted Uranium Epidemic Reported by Muslim/Christian Peacemaker Teams
(Cathy Garger & Cliff Kindy / Christian Peacemaker Team)

Starting in 2004 when the political situation and devastation of the health care infrastructure were at their worst, there were 251 reported cases of cancer. By 2006, when the numbers more accurately reflected the real situation, that figure had risen to 688. Already in 2007, 801 cancer cases have been reported.
/know/read.php?itemid=6328

Israel's Palestinians Speak Out
(Nadim Rouhana / Information Clearing House)

The Annapolis peace talks regard me as an interloper in my own land. Israel's deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, argues that I should "take [my] bundles and get lost." Henry Kissinger thinks I ought to be summarily swapped from inside Israel to the would-be Palestinian state. am a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship — one of 1.4 million.
/know/read.php?itemid=6331

Turkey Attacks Iraq with Washington's Support: Civilians Die
(Ewen MacAskill / The Guardian & The Herald Sun)

Turkey yesterday launched the biggest attack on Iraq since the US invasion in 2003. Several Iraqi civilians were killed and hundres were driven from their homes when more than 50 Turkish warplanes attacked in the middle of the niht. Turkey’s Army Chief has said that the US backed the Turkish air raids.
/know/read.php?itemid=6321

Internal Pentagon Document Lists 73,000 US Troops Killed, 1.6 Million Disabled Since Gulf War 1
(Rense.com & US Department of Veteran Affairs)

On the heels of the National Intelligence Estimate, comes the news that the Department of Veteran's Affairs, in conjunction with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has released internal studies documenting the true scale of the deaths and disabilities suffered by US service personnel. Apparently, disgruntled members of the intelligence and defense communities are leaking information to counter the mismanagement and lies of the Bush administration.
/know/read.php?itemid=6300

Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans
(CBS News)

Curious about soldier suicides, CBS News’ investigative unit submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Pentagon. Four months later, they received a document, showing that between 1995 and 2007, there were almost 2,200 suicides. But these were only “active duty” soldiers. CBS decided to do its own investigation and discovered In 2005, in just 45 states, there were at least 6,256 soldier suicides. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.
/know/read.php?itemid=6301

IRAQ: Returning to Destroyed, Looted or Occupied Homes
(IRIN News)

US media has reported the "positive" news that Iraqis who fled to avoid violence are returning to their homes. But what do they find when they return? In recent weeks, tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees living in Syria have been coming back to Baghdad after a sharp decline in violence in the Iraqi capital. Many of the returnees have been shocked to find their homes destroyed, looted or occupied.
/know/read.php?itemid=6290

‘Big Lie’ and Breakup of Yugoslavia
(Leslie Feinberg / Workers World)

Commentary: It would take a 'Big Lie' propaganda campaign to cover up the imperialist dismemberment of the multinational Yugoslavia federation. Washington was not above using charge of ‘mass rape’ to sell the war.
/know/read.php?itemid=6291

Israel Plans New Homes in East Jerusalem & Jewish Settlements on Sale in London
(Mark Lavie / Associated Press & David Morrison / Labour & Trade Union Review)

Israel has announced plans to build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east Jerusalem neighborhood, drawing quick Palestinian condemnation. Meanwhile, in Britain, the Anglo-Saxon Real Estate was offering properties for sale in the West Bank settlements during an expo in November. David Morrison makes the case that this kind of real estate trading is tantamont to the commission of a "war crime."
/know/read.php?itemid=6273

Failure Now Approaches in Afghanistan
(Marie Cocco / The Washington Post)

Winter approaches, and as many as 400,000 Afghans face starvation. There is no way to get food to those who need it. By now, six years after the US and its Western allies launched military operations to free Afghanistan from the grip of the Taliban, humanitarian workers surely should not be forced to give up on feeding the desperate. But this is only one measure of our catastrophic failure. Nothing exposes a hollow promise like the prospect of mass starvation.
/know/read.php?itemid=6261

ACTION ALERT: Oil Money for Refugees
(Iraqi International Initiative on Refugees)

More than 4.5 million Iraqis — a fifth of the population — have been displaced inside and outside their country due to the sectarian policies of the occupation and the governments it has installed since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. The international community has the moral obligation to act now. UNSC Resolution 986 of 1995 established that Iraqi oil revenue is for all Iraqis. As Iraqi citizens, Iraqi refugees have equal rights to share in the wealth of Iraq. Act to support this campaign.
/know/read.php?itemid=6246

120 War Vets Commit Suicide Each Week
(Penny Coleman / AlterNet)

The widow of a Vietnam vet who killed himself after coming home (and the author of a book featuring interviews with other women who have lost husbands, sons or fathers to suicide in the aftermath of the war in Vietnam) accuses the Pentagon and the Bush administration of "systematically concealing statistics about soldier suicides."
/know/read.php?itemid=6241

One Million Homeless in Somalia War
(BBC News)

One million people are now living without homes in Somalia, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Somalis describe their lives in and around the capital, Mogadishu, amidst violence between insurgents and government troops backed by Ethiopian forces.
/know/read.php?itemid=6235

Holocaust Denial, American Style
(Mark Weisbrot / AlterNet)

Another holocaust denial is taking place with little notice: the holocaust in Iraq. The average American believes that 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invasion in March 2003. The most commonly cited figure in the media is 70,000. But the actual number of people who have been killed is most likely more than one million.
/know/read.php?itemid=6227

A New Hiroshima in Baghdad: US Radioactive Weapons Causisng Death and Deformaties among Iraqi Children
(Sherwood Ross / OpEd News.com)

By firing radioactive ammunition, the US, UK, and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East. Nuclear authority Leuren Moret warns that so much ammunition containing depleted uranium has been fired, that “the genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is destroyed.”
/know/read.php?itemid=6228

Back from Iraq, Veterans Raise their Voices against the War
(Nick Coleman / Minneapolis Star Tribune)

On Vetereans' Day, the Minnesota chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War — a group established here in September — join Veterans For Peace for an anti-war rally near the State Capitol where they took turnsreading the names of Minnesotans who have died in Iraq. IVAW complains that many veterans returning from Iraq are suffering from undiagnosed or untreated physical and mental problems. They are angered by the attitude they encounter when they get back: "You volunteered. Shut up and die."
/know/read.php?itemid=6215

The Devalued Currency of Truth
(Robert C. Koehler, Tribune Media Services)

A psychotherapist asked a veteran recently returned from the Iraq Occupation about his hopes for the future. He replied that he "has no future.” This is the cost of our wars, and sooner or later we need to begin paying down the debt. But it is only payable in the devalued currency of the truth. For now, Soldier, we’re still in denial and you’re under arrest.
/know/read.php?itemid=6216

Pentagon Cover-up: 15,000 or more US Casualties in Iraq War
(Mike Whitney / Information Clearing House)

The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it. After 4 months they received a document which showed — that between 1995 and 200— there were 2,200 suicides among “active duty” soldiers.
/know/read.php?itemid=6211

Senator: US Has Become Haven for War Criminals
(Renee Schoof / McClatchy Newspapers)

More than 1,000 people from 85 countries who are accused of such crimes as rape, killings, torture and genocide are living in the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security figures.
/know/read.php?itemid=6214

Iraq Fatigue: UK Troops ‘Devalued, Angry’: Nearly 4700 US Desertions in 2007
(BBC News & International Herald Tribune)

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, has expressed concern about poor morale among troops. Sir Richard claims that the strain placed on human resources by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has left British troops feeling “devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue." Meanwhile, in the US, army desertions are at an all-time high. Nearly 8,000 soldiers have deserted in the past two years.
/know/read.php?itemid=6198

232 Child Soldiers Freed by Congo Rebels: Thousands Remain Captured
(BBC News)

UNICEF reports that 232 child soldiers have been freed by the Mayi Mayi rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Estimates put the number of boys and girls (many as young as 10) abducted and forced to serve as soldiers, servants and sex slaves could range as high as 30,000.
/know/read.php?itemid=6193

Iraq Fatigue: UK Troops ‘Devalued, Angry’: Nearly 4700 US Desertions in 2007
(BBC News & International Herald Tribune)

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, has expressed concern about poor morale among troops. Sir Richard claims that the strain placed on human resources by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has left British troops feeling “devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue." Meanwhile, in the US, army desertions are at an all-time high. Nearly 8,000 soldiers have deserted in the past two years.
/know/read.php?itemid=6197

US Troop Suicides: Ignored for Years; Growing Worse
(CBS News.com)

A five-month CBS News investigation discovered data that shows a startling rate of suicide, what some call a "hidden epidemic." The Pentagon admits to almost 2,200 suicides between 1995 and 2007 (188 last year alone) but these numbers included only “active duty” soldiers. A CBS investigation uncovered at least 6,256 suicides among returned veterans in 2005 — 120 suicides each and every week. But this is hardly a new problem. In 2004, CBS reported: "The Army's suicide rate in Iraq has been about a third higher for troops during peacetime. Also, the military still has about 2,500 troops waiting for medical care after returning from overseas."
/know/read.php?itemid=6181

On Veterans Day: Waiting for Equity for WWII Filipino Soldiers
(Rick Rocamora / San Francisco Chronicle)

Commentary: The 200,000 thousand Filipinos who fought side by side with the US soldiers as part of the US armed forces in World War II were promised citizenship, and with it recognition of their service and veterans' benefits. Sixty-two years later, those Filipino soldiers who decided to live in the US continue to wait for the veterans' benefits that they thought would come easily.
/know/read.php?itemid=6184

Deadleist Year for US in Iraq Is Lethal for Iraqis, too
(BBC World News)

The death of six US troops this week has made 2007 the most deadly year for US forces in Iraq. Five US soldiers and one sailor were killed in three separate incidents, bringing the number of deaths in 2007 to over 850. With almost two months to go, US losses have already surpassed those of 2004 — previously the worst year.
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Israel Admits Phosphorus Bombing
(BBC World News)

Israel has for the first time admitted it used controversial phosphorus shells during fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July and August. Cabinet minister Jacob Edery confirmed the bombs were dropped "against military targets in open ground". Israel had previously said the weapons were used only to mark targets. See link for a photograph of Mahmoud Surour, an 8-year-old child burned by one of Israel's phosphorus weapons.
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Number of People Fleeing Inside Iraq Could Rise to Nearly 5 Million
(United Nations)

Monitoring developments on the Iraq-Turkey border, the United Nations Refugee Agency today warned that the number of Iraqis displaced by conflict could rise beyond the already staggering 4.7 million who have fled either within the country or across borders.
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Number of People Fleeing Inside Iraq Could Rise
(United Nations High Commission for Refugees)

Monitoring developments on the Iraq-Turkey border, the United Nations refugee agency today warned that the number of Iraqis displaced by conflict could rise beyond the already staggering 4.7 million who have fled either within the country or across borders.
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DR Congo: Voices of Violence
(BBC NEWS)

Residents of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo tell the BBC News website how the recent violence between rebels loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda and government soldiers in the region has affected them.
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In Myanmar, Fear Is Ever Present
(Choe Sang-Hun / New York Times)

An ominous calm has settled here, less than a month after the military junta crushed an uprising for democracy led by the nation's revered monks. People have quietly returned to the squalor and inflation that brought them to the streets in protest. But beneath the surface, anger, uncertainty, hopelessness — and above all, fear of the junta — prevail.
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Displaced Iraqis Contend with a Grim Existence
(James Palmer / SF Chronicle Foreign Service)

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 4.2 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the U.S. invasion in 2003, with 1.9 million in the first eight months of 2007. About 2 million Iraqis already have fled the country as refugees, mostly to neighboring Syria and Jordan. The situation is particularly harsh for women and children under 12.
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'Radioactive Genocide' in Iraq
(Abel Bult-Ito / Global Research)

America's use of "depleted" uranium weapons in Iraq constitutes an act of "radioactive genocide" that particularly targets the children of Iraq. Children are especially vulnerable because they tend to play in areas that are heavily polluted by depleted uranium. More than 50 percent of Iraqi cancer patients are children under the age of 5.
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Iraq Strike 'Kills 15 Civilians'
(BBC News)

The US military in Iraq says 15 women and children were killed in an operation north of Baghdad in which 19 suspected insurgents also died. The air and ground assault was aimed at senior leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
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Depleted Uranium Health Hazards Downplayed
(Mark Anderson / American Free Press)

Research on the health effects of the highly toxic weapons substance known as depleted uranium, or DU, is not high on the list of priorities of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses.
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US: Iraq Convoy Was Sent out Despite Threat
(T. Christian Miller / LA Times)

Americans died unnecessarily when they were assigned to protect a convoy of KBR supply trucks. (KBR's parent company is Halliburton, a firm formerly headed by VP Dick Cheney.) The company faces a lawsuit from the survivors of the slain workers. When the Los Angeles Times uncovered incriminating e-mails exposing the internal split inside KBG over the mission, KBR warned the Times not to publish the story. The Times refused to be silenced.
/know/read.php?itemid=5971

Soldier Health Scare Back in News
(Audrey Parente / News-Journal)

Dustin Brim, a 22-year-old Army specialist had collapsed three years ago in Iraq from a very aggressive cancer that attacked his kidney, caused a mass to grow over his esophagus and collapsed a lung. Back at Walter Reed Army Hospital, his mother watch, helpless, as an unexplainable illness consuming her son. And what she has learned since her son's death is that his was not an isolated case.
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More than 1,000,000 Iraqis Murdered
(Opinion Business Research / Global Research)

A new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003. The extensive poll was conducted by O.R.B., a British polling agency that has been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005 in conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency.
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US Nuke Work Has Afflicted 36,500 Americans
(Ann Imse / Rocky Mountain News)

The US nuclear weapons program has sickened 36,500 Americans and killed more than 4,000, the Rocky Mountain News has determined from government figures. Those numbers reflect only people who have been approved for government compensation. They include people who mined uranium, built bombs and breathed dust from bomb tests.
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Thousands of GIs Cope With Brain Damage
(Marilynn Marcvjopme / AP & Paula J. Caplan / Tikkun.org)

he war in Iraq is not over, but one legacy is already here in this city and others across America: an epidemic of brain-damaged soldiers.
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Iraq Progress: By the Numbers
(Tom Engelhardt / The Nation & TomDispatch)

Numbers in Iraq are a slippery matter at best. In the midst of such chaos, mayhem, and pure tragedy, of course, who exactly is counting? Here, on the eve of the testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, is one reporter's best attempt at judging the Bush team's "progress" strictly by the numbers.
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Are We 'Good Germans'?
(Ed Ciaccio / Information ClearingHouse)

Commentary: "If you consider the one million Iraqis who died as a result of the 1991-2003 sanctions and the one million who have died since the 2003 invasion, the word genocide comes to mind. If you consider the four million Iraqi refugees resulting from our invasion and occupation, and the resulting sectarian violence causing the creation of unprecedented sectarian enclaves in Iraq, the term ethnic cleansing comes to mind."
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Agent Orange: A View From Vietnam
(CBS2.com)

During the eight years of the Vietnam War that the U.S. Military dusted forests and crops with two herbicides – 2,4D and 2,4,5T – mixed together into the most potent plant killer ever made. Years after the war ended, 3 to 5 million acres of land may be permanently damaged by the poison, US veterans and their children have suffered the same fate as the Vietnamese — cancers, birth defects, stillbirth, mutations.
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Cholera Outbreak in Northern Iraq Overwhelms Hospitals
(Asso Ahmed,Tina Susman / Los Angeles Times)

A cholera outbreak in northern Iraq, where thousands of people have sought refuge from sectarian violence, is overwhelming hospitals and has killed up to 10 people in the cities of Sulaymaniya and Kirkuk. This is the latest example of the deterioration of living conditions and displacement caused by the ongoing conflict.
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Afghan Refugees' Camp 'Extended'
(BBC News)

Afghan refugees in Pakistan's largest camp have been given another six months to relocate, after the UN refugee agency warned that "tens of thousands" of Afghans were being pressured to leave. Till a few months ago, there were 109,000 refugees in Jalozai. Of these, 20,000 have left for Afghanistan and some have moved to other camps.
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Soldier Suicides Continue at Home: Fraggings in Iraq; Rumors of US Hit-Squads Targeting Dissident Troops
(Seele / Green Zone Follie & Greg Mitchell / Editor and Publisher)

You'd never know that at least 3% of all American deaths in Iraq are due to self-inflicted wounds. And that doesn't include the many vets who have killed themselves after returning home. Meanwhile, military bloggers report. "Whenever you see ‘The death is currently under investigation’ .you know it was probably either a murder by the military or a suicide."
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Urban Warfare: America's Shell-shocked Children
(Jill Tucker / San Francisco Chronicle)

At her school, the principal and staff see the signs and symptoms of trauma-related stress in many of their students - the hostile outbursts, the sliding grades, the poor test scores or the inability to pay attention. They are among the countless children in San Francisco's toughest neighborhoods who experience murder, violence and trauma - an often unavoidable consequence of living in an urban war zone.
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Meet an Iraqi Refugee:
(Human Rights First)

As part of Human Rights First’s project to extend a lifeline to Iraqi Refugees we’re helping people, like Mirah, who have been forced to flee to tell their stories to raise awareness about the crisis. By passing S.1651, the bipartisan "Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act," the US can begin to fulfill its moral obligation to protect Iraqi refugees.
/know/read.php?itemid=5848

Army Admits to Citizens' Charges: DU Was Used in Hawai'i
(Jason Armstrong / Tribune-Herald & Erin Miller / Stephens Media)

Radioactive depleted uranium has been found at the US Army's Pohakuloa Training Area, the Army announced Monday. A formerly classified weapon capable of firing DU rounds was used at the Big Island military base, the Army said in a two-page news release. Citizens who persisted in asking the Army to test for depleted uranium at Pohakuloa Training Area say their efforts led to confirmation of the presence of the radioactive material.
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Army Too Stretched if Iraq Buildup Lasts
(olita C. Baldor / AP News)

Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.
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Fatigue Cripples US Army in Iraq
(Peter Beaumont / The Observer)

Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis.
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The Few, The Proud, The Shattered
(Kristen Hinman / The RiverFrontTimes.com)

“Mom. I’ve got a gun in my mouth and I’m gonna pull the trigger. “ No mother should get such a phone call in the middle of the night. Tina Richards' son returned, suicidal, from Iraq battlefields. Now, the Missouri woman is waging her own war in Congress.
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Baghdad Runs Short of Water
(Democracy Rising & Steven R. Hurst / Associated Press)

(August 9): "For the past 24 hours, Baghdad has had virtually no running water. Major parts of the city of six million people have lacked running water for six days, while daily high temperatures have ranged from 115 to 120 degrees. The tiny amount of water dripping through the pipes is causing many of those who must drink it to suffer acute intestinal illness."
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Do US, Iraqi Officials Undercount Detainees?
(Christina Davidson / Iraq Slogger)

An Iraqi official who heads the government committee tasked with inspecting detention facilities announced shocking figures this weekend, estimating the number of detainees held in US and Iraqi-run prisons at 67,000.
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Soldier Suicides: The Toll Just Keeps Growing
(Pauline Jelinek / AP & Reuters & Matt Kelly / AP & Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY & BBC)

Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report. In every year since the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the government has bemoaned the problem of soldier suicides — but the numbers just keep growing.
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Plan to Ban Navy's Blue Angels Shot Down in San Francisco
(Wyatt Buchanan / The Chronicle & Bonnie Eslinger / The Examiner<)

A Board of Supervisors committee has rejected a measure that would permanently ban the Blue Angels — Navy's aerobatic jets — from performing high-speed, low-flying stunts over the bity's high-rises during the traditional Fleet Week. Sup. Chirs Daly vowed to renew his campaign, noting that Blue Angels 26 crew members have died in performace crashes since 1946.
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War Vets Are Home and Homeless
(Anna Badkhen / Boston Globe & Jonathan Curiel / SF Chronicle)

No one keeps track of how many of the 750,000 troops who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 are homeless. The approximately 70,000 veterans of the Vietnam war would up on the streets. On any given night, 100 to 300 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom live in transient conditions, according to organizations that help homeless ex-GIs.
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Congress Demands More Rest for Troops
(Noam N. Levey / Los Angeles Times & Erica Werner / Associated Press)

House Democrats have passed a measure by Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) to mandate more rest at home for troops serving in Iraq. The legislation, which passed 229-194 with six Republicans joining to support it, stands little chance of becoming law. In the Senate, similar legislation by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., won a majority vote of 56-41 in July but fell four short of the 60 votes needed to advance.
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Asia By DU, Africa By AIDS
(Hamid Golpira / Tehran Times & Counter Currents)

Today is Nagasaki Day, a time for reflection on weapons of mass destruction, genocide, and man's inhumanity to man. The voices of the hibakusha (Japan's A-bomb survivors) have prevented a third use of nuclear weapons. However, another type of radiological weapon, depleted uranium, has been used by the U.S. military in Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. There is also some evidence that Israel used depleted uranium munitions in Lebanon during the 2006 war.
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Well-Off Fleeing Iraq Find Poverty and Pain in Jordan
(Sabrina Tavernize / New York Times)

The Australian authorities twice rejected Hassan Jabr, a Spanish teacher who left his elegant home and garden in Baghdad after his 12-year-old son was kidnapped and killed last year. Now, with his savings gone, badly dented before he left by a $10,000 ransom that he paid to try to get his son back, he is living off his family's food ration cards that his mother sells in Baghdad.
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Warlords’ Deadly Battle in Congo
(Keith Harmon Snow / Toward Freedom.com)

The "four-day war" that rocked Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo from March 22-26, 2007 was called a "cleaning" by insiders. Everyone knew it was going to happen, the United Nations Observers Mission in Congo (MONUC) did nothing to stop it and the death count was significantly under-reported. The realities behind the scenes remain cloaked by the international media and world institutions, and the big losers, yet again, are the Congolese people. This is the inside story.
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British Troops 'Are Stressed Out' by Long Tours in Iraq
(BBC World News)

Prolonged periods of service in Iraq and Afghanistan are putting the armed forces at risk of psychological problems, UK research has suggested. A study of 5,500 regular troops found that around 20% were on tour for longer than recommended. And long deployments were found to be associated with an increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the British Medical Journal reported.
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Rorschach and Awe: Psuchologist, Torture & Interrogation
(Democracy Now)

Vanity Fair reporter Katherine Eban unravels the central role of two CIA-contracted psychologists, James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, in designing torture tactics for use on detainees held in secret CIA prisons around the world. Both worked in a classified military training program known as sere—for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape—which trains soldiers to endure captivity in enemy hands.
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Eight Million Iraqis in Need of Urgent Aid
(Oxfam America.org & BBC News)

While horrific violence dominates the lives of millions of ordinary people inside Iraq, another kind of crisis, also due to the impact of war, has been slowly unfolding. The violence in Iraq is overshadowing a humanitarian crisis, with eight million Iraqis — nearly one in three — in need of emergency aid, says a report released today by international agency Oxfam and NCCI, a network of aid organizations working in Iraq.
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Air Power and the 'Accidents' of War
(Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch.com)

American (and NATO) officials regularly make the point that the enemy's barbarism -- and from car-bombs to a six year-old boy sent to attack Afghan soldiers wearing a suicide vest, their acts have indeed been barbarous -- is always intentional; the killing of noncombatants by American planes is always an "inadvertent" incident, an "accident," and so, of course, the regrettable "collateral damage" of modern warfare.
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Air Power and the "Accidents" of War: Part 2
(Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch.com)

bombs are already being dropped in Iraq in 2007 at almost twice the rate of the previous year. In this sense, the Afghan model is available as an example of things to come, as is the historical model of the Vietnam War in the period in which President Richard Nixon was employing what might now be called the "Gates Plan."
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The Other War: Iraq Veterans Speak Out on Shocking Accounts of Attacks on Iraqi Civilians
(Amy Goodman / Democracy Now!)

The Nation magazine has published a startling new expose of fifty American combat veterans of the Iraq War who give vivid on-the-record accounts of the US military occupation in Iraq and describe a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts. Democracy Now interviews some of the soldiers who agreed to tell the public the truth about the US invasion as they saw it first-hand.
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US, NATO Have Killed more Afghan Civilians than Taliban
(Laura King / The Los Angeles Times)

After more than five years of increasingly intense warfare, the conflict in Afghanistan reached a grim milestone in the first half of this year: U.S. troops and their NATO allies killed more civilians than insurgents did, according to several independent tallies.
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America's War Wounded Batle Traumatic Brain Injury\ies
(The Associated Press & ABC News & KCBS Radio)

More than 800 of them have lost an arm, a leg, fingers or toes. More than 100 are blind. Dozens need tubes and machines to keep them alive. Hundreds are disfigured by burns, and thousands have brain injuries and mangled minds. These are America's war wounded, a toll that has received less attention than the 3,500 troops killed in Iraq. Depending on how you count them, they number between 35,000 and 53,000.
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US Occupation Brings Sex Slavery to Iraq
(Sahar al-Haideri / Middle East Online)

Sex slavery appeared in post 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Sex slaves recount ordeals in Iraq. Women looking for work are being tricked into sexual slavery, with some trafficked abroad.
/know/read.php?itemid=5707

Slouching Toward a Palestinian Holocaust
(Richard Falk / Zaman & Z Magazine)

A respected international lawyer, now a Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton, writes: "it is especially painful for me, as an American Jew, to feel compelled to portray the ongoing and intensifying abuse of the Palestinian people by Israel through a reliance on such an inflammatory metaphor as ‘holocaust.’"
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Boy: Taliban Recruited Me to Bomb Troops
(Jason Straziiuso / Associated Press)

The story of a 6-year-old Afghan boy who says he thwarted an effort by Taliban militants to trick him into being a suicide bomber has provoked tears and anger at a meeting of tribal leaders. The Taliban dismissed the story as propaganda, at a time when US and NATO forces are under increasing criticism over civilian casualties. Afghan tribal elders and US military officers say they were convinced by his dramatic account.
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US, NATO Kill More Afghan Civilians than Taliban
(Aliza Tang / Canadian Press & Associated Press)

While militants killed 178 civilians in attacks through June 23, western forces killed 203, according to an Associated Press count. Meanwhile, US-led airstrike kills 7 Afghan children; attacks follow Kabul suicide blast. Some preliminary estimates of the death toll exceeded 200 people, but precise numbers were not immediately available.
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Grandchildren of Vietnam War Generation Exposed to Agent Orange
(Willem Malten / truthout & Petronella Ytsma / truthout)

When former US President Bill Clinton visited Hanoi five years ago, Vietnamese President Tran Duc Long made an appeal to the US "to acknowledge its responsibility to de-mine and detoxify former military bases and provide assistance to Agent Orange victims." But the US has ignored calls to help Vietnamese victims, despite a lawsuit targeting Monsanto, Dow, Union Carbide, the comapies that produced Agent Orange.
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US Veterans 'High Suicide Risk'
(BBC News)

US war veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide than ordinary vivilians, a study has found.
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The US Exports Bombs while Cuba Exports Doctors
(Sarah van Gelder / Yes! Magazine)

Cubans live longer than almost anyone in Latin America. Far fewer babies die. Almost everyone has been vaccinated, and such scourges of the poor as parasites, TB, malaria, even HIV/AIDS are rare or non-existent. Anyone can see a doctor, at low cost, right in the neighborhood. Not only has Cuba found a solution to the US "health care crisis," the country has also shown that a foreign policy based on providing health services creates more stability than a foreign policy based on force.
/know/read.php?itemid=5613

The Lucifer Effect: TEvil of Inaction: Passive Bystanders
(Philip Zimbardo / Common Ground Magazine)

In his new book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Stanford social psychology professor Philip Zimbardo looks at behavioral studies across the globe that were inspired by his famous 1971 “Stanford Prison Experiment” and analyzes them to find the all-important “why” and “how” behind man’s ancient and ongoing inhumanity to man and capacity for evil.
/know/read.php?itemid=5581

Most Palestinians Killed in Israeli Raids Were Civilians: Amnesty Int.
(Donald Macintyre / The Independent)

More than 320 civilians were among a threefold increase in the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces last year, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group's 2007 report says that over half of the more than 650 Palestinians killed in 2006 were civilians, 120 of them children and young people under 18.
/know/read.php?itemid=5575

A Scale for the Price of Life — In the US, Iraq and Afghanistan
(Tom Engelhardt / San Francisco Chronicle)

In Manhattan, a human life is worth $1.8 millionIraq; in Iraq, a human life is worth $2,500. The value of a civilian slaughtered at Haditha, Iraq, by US Marines: $2,500. The value of a civilian slaughtered by US Marines near Jalalabad, Afghanistan: $2,000.
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One-Third of Troops in Iraq Support Torture, Majority Condone Mistreating Innocent Civilians
(Winslow Wheeler / AlterNet)

A study conducted by the Office of the Surgeon General of the US Army Medical Command has raised the specter of widespread mistreatment of Iraqi civilians by US troops. Researchers found that 10 percent of the Soldiers and Marines interviewed reported "mistreating noncombatants (damaged/destroyed Iraqi property when not necessary or hit/kicked a noncombatant when not necessary)."
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Iraqi Refugees Serve Sex Trade in Syria & Iraqi Women the Worse for War
(Katerine Zoeff / The New York Times & Kasia Anderson / Truthdig)

"We Iraqis used to be a proud people," says a woman refugee whose daughter has been forced into the sex trade in Syria. "During the war we lost everything," she said. "We even lost our honor." Meanwhile, inside Iraq,i women's rights activist Yanar Mohammed argues that the situation for women in her country has significantly worsened since the American invasion in 2003.
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As Allies Turn Foe, Disillusion Rises in Some GI’s
(Michael Kamber / The New York Times & USA Today)

Most soldiers in one 83-man unit fighting in Iraq have said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces, and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop. In February 2006, 72% of the US military personnel serving in Iraq told a LeMoyne University/Zogby poll that they felt the US should pull out of Iraq "within the next year."
/know/read.php?itemid=5548

Study: Sarin at Root of Gulf War Syndrome
(Kelly Kennedy / Army Times)

Duke University researchers say they have no doubts that they’ve found the root of the problem — Sarin gas. And they have advice for as many as 300,000 troops exposed to small doses of sarin in 1991: Don’t use bug spray, don’t smoke and don’t drink alcohol. Research released in early May showed that soldiers exposed to small amounts of sarin gas in the 1991 Gulf War had 5 percent less white brain matter than soldiers who had not been exposed.
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Saving Sgt. Ryan: A Father's Sacrifice
(Jaime O'Neill / SF Gate.com)

Putting a human face on the need to end the Iraq war, Tim Kahlor protests the war while carrying a picture of his son who has survived four direct assaults on tanks he'd been riding in.
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Medicare Rule Could Cost M.D. Plenty on Third War Tour
(Edward Epstein / San Francisco Chronicle)

Dr. Bradley Clair, an Army Reserve cardiologist in Lake County about to begin his third deployment during the Iraq war, is willing to serve his country and endure repeated separations from his wife and four children, but he wants to draw the line at seeing his thriving medical practice destroyed.
/know/read.php?itemid=5523

Thousands Flee Diyala Violence : Plus, "Hometown Baghdad" Videos
(IRIN Report / United Nations)

In less than a week, more than 900 families, about 5,000 individuals, have fled Diyala governorate. Some of them were forced out by militants and others were frightened off by the armed clashes. and threats of soaring violence. Also: A link to the video dispatches from "Hometown Baghdad."
/know/read.php?itemid=5519

Pentagon Misinformation Campaign Hides Infection Problem in US Military Hospitals
(Marcie Hascall Clark / GI Special & CNN)

This past week was apparently the beginning of a misinformation campaign by the Pentagon regarding the infection problems in the military medical system. The military has already proven to themselves that they are origin and the cause of the spread of Acinetobacter Baummanni. Their failure to contain it, has lead to the spread of this superbug to hospitals all over our country.
/know/read.php?itemid=5501

Homeless Heroes: America's Abandoned Vets
(Jonathan Curiel, / San Francisco Chronicle)

On any given night, an estimated 100 to 300 vets who were part of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom (the government's name for its Afghanistan campaign) live in transient conditions. Homeless advocates worry that these wars will eventually produce tens of thousands of homeless vets, as the Vietnam War did.
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Military Deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq from May 1 - 7, 2007
(Pentagon & Brian Harring / Domestic Intelligence Reporter)

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Apr. 29 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near their unit during combat operations....
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“More Than 40% Of Soldiers Reported Low Morale In Their Units”
( Thomas Barton/ GI Special & Julian E. Barnes / Los Angeles Times)

The authors of a recently released Army document have argued that the strains placed on troops in Iraq are in some ways more severe than those borne by the combat forces of World War II. The Pentagon finds that misconduct increases when stress does. Last month the Army extended duty by 90 days.
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Increased US Military Spending Slows Economy
(Center for Economic and Policy Research)

It is often believed that wars and military spending is good for the economy,but most economic models show the opposite is true. A recent simulation shows the increased level of military spending leads to fewer jobs and slower economic growth. After 10 years of higher defense spending, there would be 464,000 fewer jobs; after 5 years, annual car and truck sales are projected to go down by 192,200
/know/read.php?itemid=5439

Political Loyalties Being Rebuilt in Lebanon
( Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)

People in this southern Lebanese village are rebuilding their destroyed houses with renewed vigour. And, with renewed loyalties to a combination of Hezbollah, Qatar and Iran. Rather than turn people away from Hezbollah, the attacks seem to have made residents fierce supporters of the political group, now providing some of the only reconstruction assistance.
/know/read.php?itemid=5431

Australian Gulf War Veterans Contaminated with Uranium
(Stop Uranium Wars.Blogspot)

The Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) in Canada, working in conjunction with DUSK Australia (Depleted Uranium Silent Killer) has tested Australian service personnel who served in the Gulf during 1991 and determined that they have been exposed to health-endangering levels of uranium contamination, presumably from exposure to Depleted Uranium weapons.
/know/read.php?itemid=5402

US Troop Deaths Up 21 Percent in Iraq
(Robert H. Reid / Associated Press)

Iraqi civilian deaths have fallen in Baghdad in the two months since the Feb. 14 start of the US-led offensive, according to an Associated Press tally. Outside the capital, civilian deaths are up as Sunni and Shiite extremists shift their operations to avoid the crackdown.
/know/read.php?itemid=5373

The Jewish Partisans: Untold Stories of the Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust
(Rachel Howard / Special to The San Francisco Chronicle)

Sonia Orbuch of Corte Madera, California, tells her story about how she fled her Polish village to join the partisans in the forest at the borders of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. An estimated 20,000-30,000 Jews became armed resistance fighters who fought the Nazi war machine by staging daring acts of sabotage.
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Red Cross: Civilian Life in Iraq 'Ever-worsening'
(CBC News)

Iraqi civilians are forced to endure "unbearable and unacceptable" suffering in daily life in an "ever-worsening" humanitarian crisis, a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
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And These Refugees Are Lucky
(Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)

Yarmouk refugee camp, on the outskirts of Damascus, has for long been home to more than 100,000 Palestinian refugees. It is a set of tall apartment buildings separated by small alleys stuffed with shops. Now tens of thousands of Iraqis have flooded into Yarmouk. The exact number is unknown.
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‘Strangely Quiet’ Scene As Bush Visits Base Where Medically-Unfit Troops Were Deployed
(Think Progress)

George W. Bush visited Fort Irwin, California, the main desert training camp where most U.S. soldiers are sent before deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Journalists on the scene described the troops as “strangely quiet” during Bush's attempt at a pep tally. Many badly wounded soldiers, still recuperating from wounds sustained during previous combat deployments, told reporters that they had no business being sent to Fort Irwin given their physical condition.
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Conflict Rape Victims: Abandoned And Forgotten
(Syed Junaid Hashmi / CounterCurrents)

eserted by their families, abandoned by society, forgotten by both separatists and mainstream political parties, rape victims during the last seventeen years of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir live an appalling life.
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Conflict Rape Victims: Abandoned And Forgotten
(Syed Junaid Hashmi / CounterCurrents)

both separatists and mainstream political parties, rape victims during the last seventeen years of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir live an appalling life.
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Dismal Conditions for Wounded US Soldiers Stir Fresh Debate about Iraq War
(Beth Gorham / Canadian Press)

The dismal outpatient care and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded US soldiers are stirring fresh debate about a war most Americans oppose. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq vet who lost both her legs and was treated at Walter Reed says the deplorable situation at the Pentagon's "premiere hospital" is a direct reflection of the Bush administration's fumbled strategy for the entire war, said .
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The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez
(Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War)

The first Latino soldier to die in Iraq was not even an American. Jose Antonio Gutierrez was a "Green-Card Soldier," one of the 32,000 foreign-born fighters who enlisted in the "War on Terror" in hopes of winning US citizenship. A powerful new documentary from a Swiss-born filmmaker tells the hidden story of the homeless boy who dreamed of becoming an architect. His dream died along the Kuwait-Iraq border when he was cut down by "friendly fire."
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A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan
(Cursor.org)

"What causes the documented high level of civilian casualties — 3,000 - 3,400 [October 7, 2001 through March 2002] civilian deaths — in the US air war upon Afghanistan? The explanation is the apparent willingness of US military strategists to fire missiles into and drop bombs upon, heavily populated areas of Afghanistan."
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US Prison Torture Is Driving Detainees Insane
(Naomi Klein / The Guardian & Curt Anderson / AP & The Christian Science Monitor)

Lawyers for US citizen, Jose Padilla, held without charge or trial by the order of Geroge W. Bush, has been so traumatized by the psychological torture he has endured during his years of isolation that his lawyers believe he is no longer mentally competent to stand trial. Naimi Klein argues that "America has deliberately driven hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners insane," but because of the Padilla case, "Now it is being held to account in a Miami court."
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THE RAPE OF SABRINE...
(Riverbend / Baghdad Burning)

"Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her.... Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing her tell her story physically makes my heart ache."
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Small Towns' War Burden Paid by Poor Families
(NBC 11 News)

Nearly half of the more than 3,100 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq have come from towns where fewer than 25,000 people live. One in five hailed from hometowns of less than 5,000. Nearly three quarters of those killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average. More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.
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Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
(Dana Priest and Anne Hull / Washington Post)

The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely, Some buildings, constructed between the world wars, often smell like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
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Defense Spending Overshadowing Health Care
(Deborah Burger, RN / San Bernardino County Sun)

With President Bush now proposing to push the price tag for the war on Iraq up to nearly $600 billion - more than was spent on the Vietnam War - while seeking new cuts in our health-care safety net, it would appear the debate over guns and butter is over. The guns have won.
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With Iraqi Refugees in Jordan
(Anna Husarska / Slate.com)

One-eighth of Iraq’s population has fled the country. This would be the equivalent of 40 million Americans being driven from their homes. The presence of millions of refugees is destabilizing the Middle Eastern nations. America led the intervention, now we should take a lead on resettlement. How many Iraqis has the US granted sanctuary? Around 500.
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Iraq's Death Toll Is Far Worse than our Leaders Admit
(Les Robert)

The military invasion and occupation of Iraq by US and British forces has triggered an episode of bloodshed that is proving more deadly than the Rwandan genocide. The government in Iraq has claimed that 40,000 and 50,000 violent deaths have occurred since the US invasion. There are three ways we know it is a gross underestimate.
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The 'Surge' — Personal Accounts of the Hell of Occupied Iraq
(Felicity Arbuthnot / Global Research & McClatchy Baghdad Bureau)

Commentary: "With streets blocked by check points and American troops 'advising' Iraqi forces, on consecutive days, the Bab Sharqi market was attacked, body parts strewn amongst stalls, goods — and bodies and injured hauled away on the wooden carts used to bring goods to sell. The 'surge' is going well." Attacks on the national power grid leave Baggdad blacked out and Iraqi bloggers provide personal tales of the horrors of the US occupation.
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Citizen-soldiers Answering the Call & Living with the Scars of War
(C.W. Nevius / San Francisco Chronicle & John Koopman / SF Chronicle)

It's no cakewalk for any soldier sent to Iraq. But for reservists, abruptly jerked out of everyday life and shipped to war for months at a time, it is an undeniable shock. Meanwhile, thousands of soldiers have returned home from Iraq injured, sometimes severely. Here are the stories of three Marines and their continuing struggle to heal.
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Doubt Cast on Dire Exit Scenarios & Pentagon Hides Full Impact of the War Toll
(Carolyn Lochhead / San Francisco Chronicle & Stephen Koff / Cleveland Plain Dealer)

The case for adding troops in Iraq rests on the assumption that: As bad as things are now, they would become catastrophic if the US were to leave. But there is no reason to automatically assume, many experts said, that the situation will improve if US troops stay. Meanwhile, the Pentagon's claims that no more than 23,000 US troops have been wounded in combat in Iraq. But adding the total of soldiers injured in "nonhostile" actions, crashes and skirmishes, brings the total to nearly 50,000 injured.
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Violence Claims 34,000 in 2006: 2 Million Iraqis become Refugees
(The New York Times & The San Francisco Chronicle)

The United Nations reports that more than 34,000 Iraqis were killed in violence last year. At the same time, 40% of Iraq’s middle class are believed to have fled the crumbling nation. A tide of 2 million Iraqis refugees — the largest refugee flood since Israel expeled the Palestinians — could destabilize neighboring states.
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Uranium 'Killing Italian Troops'
(Christian Fraser / BBC News)

Italian soldiers are still dying following exposure to depleted uranium from weapons used by the US in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, their relatives say.
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Soldier 3,000: His Name is Dustin Donica. His Number Haunts the US
(Raymond Whitaker / The Independent)

illed by small-arms fire in Baghdad three days after Christmas, the 22-year-old is a grim statistic in America's ill-fated war. But will that stop George Bush sending up to 20,000 more troops to fight?
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The Horror of Iraq, in Poetry
(Edward Guthmann / San Francisco Chronicle)

Sgt. Brian Turner's book of combat poems, "Here, Bullet," has been praised as "a dispatch from a place arguably more incomprehensible than the moon — the war in Iraq," a collection of personal memories filled with powerful images of death and dyin, reflections on roadside bombings, prison torture. Turner, who was opposed to the Iraq war, nonetheless served in the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
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NATO Is Killing "Too Many" Afghan Civilians
(CBC News & Bill Graveland / Canadian Press)

Brig. Richard Nugee, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, has admitted that NATO's forces killed too many civilians in Afghanistan in 2006 but he vowed that the alliance is hoping to reduce the number in 2007.
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Iraq: Abduction of Women on the Rise
(Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily / InterPress Service)

Women in Occupied Iraq face increased risk of abduction by militias and criminal gangs as lawlessness takes over the country. Thousands of women have been threatened, executed, assaulted, or released only after their families paid considerable ransom money.
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Baghdad's Firefighters Brave the Forces of Anarchy
(James Palmer / San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Service)

The soaring anarchy throughout Baghdad has thrust the city's 3,500 firefighters onto the front lines of the war, further complicating already hazardous work. This year alone, at least 30 Baghdad firemen have died in the line of duty, and another 55 have been wounded, according to Iraq's Interior Ministry, which oversees the country's fire departments.
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Karsai Weeps for Slain Children as Nation Veers towards 'Tipping Point'
(ason Strazuiso / Canadian Press & Laura King and David Holley / Los Angeles Times)

With his lips quivering and voice breaking, a tearful President Hamid Karzai lamented Sunday that Afghan children were being killed by NATO and US bombs and by terrorists from Pakistan - a portrait of helplessness in the face of spiralling chaos.
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Civil Violence Mushrooms inside Iraq
(Reuters & Today in Iraq)

A string of bombings in the district, a stronghold of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al Sadr, that killed 160 people and wounded 257 in the space of a few minutes and brought a country ravaged by violence ever closer to civil war. Meanwhile, the daily survey of violence in Iraq compiled by local correspondents adds to the despair that plagues a nation set afire by a misguided and unjustified US invasion.
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The Effects of Agent Orange in Viet Nam and Its Consequences
(André Boun / International Committee for Supporting the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange)
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Civilian Workers in Iraq Suffering Combat Trauma
(Anna Badkhen / San Francisco Chronicle)

Tens of thousands of private contractors have been hired to go to Iraq for fundamental support missions. Their jobs are often as dangerous as those of combat troops. But because they are civilians, contractors are not eligible for the network of support that the Pentagon has designed to assist US troops suffering from psychological trauma.
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US Soldiers Jailed for Rape, Murder of Iraqis
(BBC World News)

Specialist James Barker, US soldier who raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and helped to kill her family has been sentenced to life in prison (with possible parole). Meanwhile, Lance Cpl Tyler Jackson has become the third serviceman to be sentenced for his part in killing a 52-year-old man in Iraq.
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Back from Iraq: Part 1 — Bringing Back the Wounded With Heart, Soul and Surgery
(David Zucchino / Los AngelesTimes)

Injured troops are swept up in a lifesaving process unmatched in past wars -- reaching hospitals in minutes and the U.S. in days. But their agony doesn't end on the battlefield.
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Back from Iraq: Part 2 — The Journey Through Trauma
(David Zucchino / Los AngelesTimes)

US troops who survive the critical 'golden hour' after being seriously wounded in Iraq owe their lives to a fast-acting team of battlefield medics, pilots, nurses and surgeons.
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Back from Iraq: Part 3 — New Battle on the Home Front
(David Zucchino / Los Angeles Times)

When wounded US troops return from Iraq, nearly everything has changed. Except, for many, the drive to keep on fighting.
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Soldiers Tell True Stories of their War
(Trish Wood / San Francisco Chronicle / Little, Brown and Co., New York)

From the 2006 book, "What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It." “The first thing I saw was the severed leg of a Marine lying on the ramp, so I picked that up, and I handed it to Doc. I said, ‘Lay this off to the side because we're going to find who that belongs to.’ I thought that if the Marine is still alive, the leg could be reattached.”
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Israel Kills Civilians, Unites Fatah & Hamas, Endangers US Security
(Los Angeles Times & The Daily Star)

The US largely finances Israel's military force and supplies much of the weaponry that has been used against civilian populations in Gaza, Palestine and Lebanon. The murder of 18 members of a revered Palestian family has enraged the region, recruited new militants and brought threats against the US. Israel's leader vows he "won't stop."
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Depleted Uranium Risk 'Ignored'
(BBC News)

UK and US forces have continued to use depleted uranium weapons despite warnings they pose a cancer risk. The UK Ministry of Defence has said that there was no evidence linking DU use to ill health but the BBC has learned that researach by a senior UN scientist showing how DU could cause cancer was withheld.
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Battle Scars: Global Conflicts and Environmental Health
(Valerie J. Brown / Environmental Health Perspectives)

Age-old problems still follow war — lack of food, shelter, water, and sanitation, risk of infectious disease, and psychological trauma. But modern war also saddles populations with new threats from industrial and military chemicals, pesticides, and radiation, and humanitarian aid systems designed to help people after natural disasters cannot function properly in combat environments.
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Aid Effort Buckling before Flood of Iraqi Refugees

Between 500,000 and 700,000 Iraqi refugee now live in or around Amman. Some 800,000 Iraqis are in Syria. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have absorbed about 100,000 displaced people. A UNHCR representative warns that it is "impossible" to cope with the exodus from Iraq, and cautioned that the situation is likely to get worse.
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655,000: The Toll Of War In Iraq
(Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Ben Russell / The Independent)

A new survey says more than 650,000 Iraqis have lost their lives as a consequence of the invasion by the United States and Britain, with an estimated 200,000 violent deaths directly attributable to Allied forces.
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Weeping With the Enemy
(Bernice Yeung / Village Voice)

Phyllis Rodriguez lost her son at the World Trade Center. And then she found the mother of Zacarias Moussaoui.
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Gaza's Darkness
(Gideon Levy / Haaretz)

Since the abduction of soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israel Defense Forces has been rampaging through Gaza, killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately. Nobody thinks about setting up a commission of inquiry; the issue isn't even on the agenda. Nobody asks why it is being done and who decided to do it.
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Marine Battalion Heads to Iraq for Fourth Time
(John Koopman / San Francisco Chronicle)

As the war in Iraq winds through its fourth year, more and more soldiers and Marines are cycling in and out of that country. It's difficult to find a Marine at Twentynine Palms who has not been there at least once. Many have been there twice — or more. The battalion is among the first to go back for a fourth tour. During its first three tours, it lost 11 men.
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UN Condemns Israel's Use of WMDs against Civilians; Calls for Investigation
(CBC News & United Nations)

A three-person UN team will investigate allegations of "systematic targeting and killings of civilians" by Israel during its month-long conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tens of thousands of Lebanese cannot return to their homes because of unexploded munitions. A UN official said it was "completely immoral" that Israel dropped 90 percent of the cluster bombs in the last 72 hours preceeding the cease-fire.
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Depleted Uranium Dust — Part 1
(Douglas Westerman / Uruknet.orgDouglas Westerman / Uruknet.org)

Imagine terrorists releasing a million pounds of radioactive dust in cities throughout the US. Hundreds of children suffer early and painful deaths from cancer and leukemia. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields and parks are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom — the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Depleted Uranium Dust — Part 2
(Douglas Westerman / Uruknet.org)

The Japanese began s