Tag: civilian casualties

Riots Grip East Jerusalem

SILWAN, Occupied East Jerusalem – Tension, the twisted carcasses of gutted vehicles, buses with smashed windows, smoldering dumpsters, streets riddled with rubber-coated steel bullets and empty cartridge cases, tear gas, and air thickened with black soot from burning tires marked the beginning of the fifth day of continuous rioting in East Jerusalem Monday. A Palestinian … Continue reading “Riots Grip East Jerusalem”

Do Americans Know What Happened in Iraq?

A Fox News poll released last week indicates the majority of Americans feel the Iraq war was a success. It also suggests they want to get past it and focus on other things. This is good and bad. It is good that average Americans can put our invasion of Iraq in 2003 out of their … Continue reading “Do Americans Know What Happened in Iraq?”

In Bed With the US Army

As the WikiLeaks document-dump week ends, perhaps the real significance of what happened lay not in the specific revelations in those 92,000 pieces of raw data from American frustration-ville in Afghanistan, 2004-2009 (much of which would have been no news to anyone reading TomDispatch all these years). It may simply be that, for the second … Continue reading “In Bed With the US Army”

McChrystal Probe of Afghan Killings Excluded Key Eyewitnesses

The follow-up investigation of a botched Special Operations Forces (SOF) raid in Gardez Feb. 12 that killed two government officials and three women, ordered by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal April 5, was ostensibly aimed at reconciling divergent Afghan and U.S. accounts of what happened during and after the raid. That implied that the U.S. investigators … Continue reading “McChrystal Probe of Afghan Killings Excluded Key Eyewitnesses”

Downplaying the Mess of War

“Honor those Who lives did give; But now who pays For those that live?” The best part of America’s wars is that, except for limited attacks during WWII, all our conflicts have been fought on somebody else’s soil since the battle of Appomattox. This represents good and careful planning. You certainly don’t want your own … Continue reading “Downplaying the Mess of War”

Drones and Democracy

ISLAMABAD – On May 12, the day after a U.S. drone strike killed 24 people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, two men from the area agreed to tell us their perspective as eyewitnesses of previous drone strikes. One is a journalist, Safdar Dawar, general secretary of the Tribal Union of Journalists. Journalists are operating under very … Continue reading “Drones and Democracy”

Momentum Builds to Ratify Land-Mine Treaty

More than two-thirds of U.S. senators have signed a letter calling on President Barack Obama to develop a plan to join a 17-year-old international treaty banning the production, transfer, and use of anti-personnel land mines.The letter, which was sent to the White House Tuesday by its two main sponsors, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and Republican … Continue reading “Momentum Builds to Ratify Land-Mine Treaty”

Gods and Monsters

The Greeks had it right. When you live on Mount Olympus, your view of humanity is qualitatively different. The Greek gods, after all, lied to, stole from, lusted for, and punished humanity without mercy, while taking the planet for a spin in a manner that we mortals would consider amoral, if not immoral. And it … Continue reading “Gods and Monsters”

Just Another Atrocity

The video released by Wikileaks showing US helicopters picking off civilians as our airmen chortle with glee is shocking everyone. Everyone but me, that is. Perhaps I’m suffering from some sort of moral exhaustion: I’ve just about gone numb after living through and constantly writing about the past decade of American war crimes. Abu Ghraib, … Continue reading “Just Another Atrocity”

How to Fight a Better War (Next Time)

Iraq remains a mess from which the U.S. military seems increasingly uninterested in withdrawing fully and Afghanistan a disaster area, but it’s never too soon to think about the next war. The subject is already on the minds of Pentagon planners. The question is: Are they focusing on how to manage future wars so that … Continue reading “How to Fight a Better War (Next Time)”