Author: Siun

US Special Forces night-time “commando raids” and “targeted airstrikes” have been a persistent cause of large numbers of civilian casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

While most attention recently has been focused on Afghanistan, there was news this week that while Obama’s plan calls for the withdrawal of “all combat troops,” US Special Forces will not be withdrawn.

U.S. Navy Adm. Eric Olson, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, that his forces would stay active in Iraq.

“The special operations forces are not experiencing a drawdown in Iraq,” he said. “Supporting them is a continuing mission of the rest of the force.”

… Olson said the 4,500 Special Forces personnel, however, would stay behind.

In Afghanistan, the recent reports about the coverup of the murder of three women and two men by Special Forces in February  has been followed quickly by the latest McChrystal spin that he is now “taking control” of Special Forces operating in Afghanistan.

But the story of command of those Special Forces is not so simple. Last year Gareth Porter,  pointing out that control of these forces seemed to be a “hot potato” given their responsibility for civilian casualties, traced the command of the Special Forces from 2004 on:

The U.S. command in Afghanistan has not always been so tolerant of killing of innocent civilians by Special Operations forces commando raids and airstrikes as it is now. The commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, Gen. David Barno, imposed day-to-day control over Special Forces raids and ended targeted airstrikes altogether.

In 2005, Gen. Karl Eikenberry replaced Barno and reinstituted the use of airstrikes. Eikenberry is now the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, appointed by Pres. Obama.

During both General’s command, US Special Forces were under the “day-to-day” command of these generals.

In 2006, when US forces came under NATO control, command of the special forces reverted JSOC at Centcom, under Gen. Petraeus.

From September 2003 until June 2008, Gen. Stanley McChrystal was Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Commander.

In March 2009, Petraeus placed the Special Forces under “tactical control” of then Afghan commander David McKiernan:

An order issued Tuesday at the direction of CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus gives McKiernan authority over all operations by Special Operations units stationed in the country, as Col. Gregory Julian, McKiernan’s spokesperson, confirmed in an e-mail to IPS. The order, which has not been made public, modifies previous command arrangements which had excluded U.S. Special Operations forces from McKiernan’s command authority.

Although the order follows a period of rising Afghan protests against Special Operations raids, there is no indication that Petraeus intends for the change in command arrangements to bring about any fundamental change in such raids.

Nevertheless, it appears that those raids have become a political hot potato, which Petraeus prefers to be in McKiernan’s hands rather than his own, particularly as Afghanistan heads into a politically charged period leading up to a presidential election in August.

When Gen. Stanley McChrystal replaced McKiernan we were told that McChrystal was bringing a new approach to Afghanistan, one that would be concerned with protecting civilians as part of his COIN strategy. This was always surprising to some of us given McChrystal’s command of JSOC during a period when they were known for extensive abuses and in particular his command of the unit running Camp Nama which was so far outside the pale that even other military intelligence units withdrew from cooperation with them.

After all, McChrystal’s reputation was not so promising:

McChrystal was known as Rumsfeld’s man and a favourite of Dick Cheney, Bush’s vice-president. Early in 2003 he had conducted nationally televised Pentagon press briefings on US operations in Iraq. One of his units, Task Force 6-26, became well known for its interrogation methods, notably at Camp Nama, where it was accused of abusing detainees. After the scandal over prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, 34 members of the taskforce were disciplined. In 2008 the affair threatened to stall his appointment as director of the joint staff, but after a private meeting in the Senate his promotion was confirmed.

We were told though that “McChrystal had recanted his earlier views” and since his appointment, we’ve heard over and over again about McChrystal’s directives to minimize civilian casualties (directives which seem to always follow yet another incident where civilians are killed – and the killings are covered up by McChrystal’s team until the real story comes out.)

So has Rumsfeld and Cheney’s man really changed? And have these horrific incidents been outside his control?

Recently, we’ve heard a lot about McChrystal’s directives to minimize civilian casualties and at least from available reports, the use of air strikes seems to have been more controlled  though another one killed “four civilians including two women and a child” just last week.  But for all his public pronouncements, the use of night raids – the other primary cause of civilian casualties – has increased under McChrystal, as Gareth Porter reported last week,

Since he took over as top commander in Afghanistan, McChrystal has not only refused to curb those raids but has increased them dramatically…

After becoming commander of NATO and U.S. forces last May, he approved a more than fourfold increase in those operations, from 20 in May to 90 in November, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times Dec. 16. One of McChrystal’s spokesmen, Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, acknowledged to IPS that the level of night raids during that period has reflected McChrystal’s guidance…

As a result of McChrystal’s decisions, civilian deaths from night raids have spiked, even as those from air strikes were being reduced. According to United Nations and Afghan government estimates, night raids caused more than half of the nearly 600 civilian deaths attributable to coalition forces in 2009…

In late January, a new directive was announced to the press addressing the night raids issue… Another night raid on Feb. 12, soon after the new directive had been issued, showed clearly that the directive had not changed anything.

This of course is the horrific night raid which we are now learning was covered up by SOF and McChrystal’s PR machine.

The reports of that raid led me to wonder what had happened to that “hot potato” of tactical control of SOC that Petreaus passed to McKiernan. Did it somehow vanish when McChrystal took over. After all, we’ve just recently heard a lot of talk about how McChrystal was finally getting control of all – or almost all – US forces in Afghanistan including SOC. Look for example at Spencer Ackerman’s report on this.  He first notes that:

Over the past several months, though, it appeared as if JSOC was still doing its own thing, as prominent incidents of civilian casualties implicating special forces accumulated, contradicting McChrystal’s most important strategic directives.

And then goes on to point to:

The New York Times reports today that McChrystal has finally consolidated control of Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan.

So I checked with Gareth Porter who confirmed, via email that in fact, McChrystal has always had tactical control of these very forces: (via email)

The 2009 directive gave McKiernan “tactical control”, meaning control over the manner in which they operate where they are operating.  The most more recent shift is to “operational control”, which means the commander can move the units wherever he wants them within the theater.  The significance of this in regard to night raids is that McChrystal already had the control he needed to tell them how many there could be and how they should be run when he took over.  Now he can move them wherever he likes.

So General McChrystal, it looks like that hot potato was in your hands all along.

 

There are times when I feel that all of the posts I write for FDL are just variations on one story: US forces kill civilians in occupied country. US spinmeisters claim civilians were really “insurgents.” Witnesses speak up or neighbors go to local government to complain. US military quietly backtrack on original story and some officer makes a visit to the scene of the killing, pockets full of condolence cash. Officer pledges that from now on, things will change, more care will be taken – and of course we deeply regret …

And then it happens all over again.

It’s very good to see new attention being paid to civilian casualties as the horrific murders of three Afghan women, two pregnant, comes to light – and the new Wikileaks videos are documenting incidents that passed virtually unnoticed at the time. But these incidents are not unique, not surprising, not news to the people of the countries we occupy. And neither are the “regrets” and promises of more careful behavior to come.

They have seen it all before:

Take the murders of 90 Afghan civilians in one airstrike – in September 2008. While local villagers reported the killings, the US military told the western press that only insurgents were killed – and assured everyone that they were certain of these “facts” because a journalist had been on the scene. It was only later, and not in the US press that we learned that that journalist was none other than Oliver North – and it was only after video taken by a doctor on the scene and a UN investigation that the US military admitted responsibility.

Or look at the 2005 Haditha massacre in Iraq:  “A Naval Criminal Investigative Service report found that the Marines then killed five unarmed civilians whom they ordered out of a car — one Marine alleged that another got down on one knee and shot them one by one — before storming several houses and killing women and children, some of them still in their pajamas and lying in bed…

A report by Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell on Haditha, leaked to the Washington Post noted:

“All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics … Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get ‘the job done’ no matter what it takes.”

And the Post’s Josh White reported that Bargewell’s analysis shows that the chain of command consistently misrepresented or refused to investigate the massacre:

Then, no one asked any further questions, Bargewell wrote, despite gruesome photographs circulating among junior Marines that showed that women and children had been killed in their beds.

The attitudes towards civilians which lead to such easy killing have been well known to our military leaders. In 2007, the Pentagon studied the mental health of US troops in Iraq and found:

• Only 47 percent of the soldiers and 38 percent of Marines said noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.

• About a third of troops said they had insulted or cursed at civilians in their presence.

• About 10 percent of soldiers and Marines reported mistreating civilians or damaging property when it was not necessary. Mistreatment includes hitting or kicking a civilian.

This report led Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine Corps commandant to say:

“I was a little bit disturbed by what I saw because, one, Marines were more likely to do those things than were soldiers,” he said. “I want to get after that because, again, those things are things that either incite the population or, conversely, help to win the fight if you do them right.” and then said that an Army commander in Afghanistan was wrong when he issued a public apology for an incident in March where Marines “killed and wounded innocent Afghan people.”

19 Afghans were killed and 50 injured in the incident the commandant referenced.

Then there’s this, from 10/19/2008:

On 1PM on Thursday General David McKiernan’s senior staff officers “were briefing reporters and Western aid groups in Kabul on the new measures McKiernan had ordered for the purpose of “protecting the civilian population” during combat operations.”

At the same time, a NATO air strike was killing “25 to 30 civilians” in the village of Nad Ali in the south of Afghanistan.

Local officials and residents of Nad Ali said Thursday that a bomb had hit three houses in a village in the Loy Bagh District where seven families were seeking refuge from fighting elsewhere. Mahboob Khan, the district chief, said in a telephone interview that 18 bodies had been retrieved, and that as many as 12 other bodies remained in the rubble.

Followed by this in November 2008:

People near Kandahar in Afghanistan were also celebrating last week, celebrating a wedding – and once again, US air strikes brought death and despair rather than joy to these innocents. 37 died, 35 more were wounded. Nine “insurgents” were also killed…

The U.S. military said Thursday that civilians attempted to leave during the battle in Shah Wali Kott, “but the insurgents forced them to remain as they continued to fire on the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) and Coalition forces along the highway.”

The Kandahar attack was followed on Thursday by another:

The latest incident happened Thursday morning in northwestern Afghanistan and left up to 30 civilians dead, according to officials in Badghis province.

There is one hopeful sign however:

“I’ve given direct guidance, and so has my boss to me, that if there’s any doubt at all that the enemy is firing from a house or building where there might be women and children, that we’ll just back off,” Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division, told CNN’s Barbara Starr.

“That potentially is something that we did not do before, but now because of this increased emphasis, we are doing,” he said…

Yet, a month later:

They came in the night and shot Saeed Alam in his bed. His three-year-old son was crying at his feet and his mother had leapt on top of him to try to block the bullets. Both of them were hurled out of the way and an American soldier opened fire…

Saeed Alam was shot four times in the chest in the raid last Saturday. His son landed in a fire pit, used for cooking. His mother died of shock the next day. The American soldiers left, taking 10 other Afghans with them. “We are not Taliban. We do not support al-Qa’ida but if these searches continue we will definitely join the anti-government elements,” said Mr. Janan, a senior member of the Gardeserai shura, or council…

“What laws allow them to kill him without an investigation?” Mr. Janan said. “There are no courts, there is no justice. We are Muslims. Maybe they are from another religion but there are international laws and customs. Who will tell me that killing this person was legal?”

Two months later:

Three recent U.S. Special Forces operations killed 50 people—the vast majority civilians…

Afghan officials say an overnight raid Jan. 7 in the village of Masmoot in Laghman killed 19 civilians. A raid in Kapisa on Jan. 19 killed 15 people, mostly civilians. And a second Laghman raid Jan. 23, in Guloch village, killed 16, they say.

In addition to the 50 listed above, three more civilians were killed by US forces Saturday, including two children in Helmand and a tribal elder in Paktia.

After each such incident, American military officials promise that more care will be taken—yet we still read accounts like these from Laghman:

An angry Afghan man with a thick black beard ranted wildly at the U.S. officials, shouting about how their overnight raid had killed 16 civilians in his village. An Afghan elder cried out in grief that his son and four grandsons were among the dead.

“One young boy said his whole family was killed, and now he wants to become a suicide bomber. This is a very negative message,” Mashal said. ”

These deaths occurred during nighttime raids by US Special Forces.

So many of these raids are tied to US Special Forces. Take the example of one SOF unit — the Fox Company of the Marine Special Operations Forces — “who have been responsible for all three of the largest civilian casualty events, two of which occurred after MSOC was removed from Afghanistan for acting like cowboys the first time around [but] the DOD is not worried: (h/t Cernig for link via email)”

The spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Greg Julian, denied reports that commanders had lost confidence in Marsoc and insisted the group was operating under the same rules as everyone else.

“They have the same rules of engagement that everyone has and there’s a tactical directive for all international forces,” he said. “Marsoc was involved in these incidents, but it’s not all the same guys. They get the lessons learned passed on from all of the rotations and experiences. Yet they are human.”

As Jerome Starkey reported a year ago about the same unit:

Troops from the US Marine Corps’ recently formed Special Operations Command, or Marsoc, were responsible for calling in air strikes in Bala Baluk, in Farah, last week which officials say left up to 147 people dead. The Red Cross confirmed that women and children – more than 90 – according to Afghan investigators, were among those killed.

In August last year a 20-man Marsoc unit, fighting alongside about 20 Afghan commandos, directed fire from unmanned drones, attack helicopters and a cannon-armed Spectre C-130 gunship into compounds in Azizabad, in Shindand district in Herat, leaving more than 90 dead – many of them children.

And in March 2007 a Marsoc convoy fired on civilians near Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan, as they sped away from a suicide bomb attack close to the Pakistan border. Eyewitnesses said the marines fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and civilian cars, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 50.

Their tour was cut short and they were flown out of Afghanistan on 3 April, but they were later spared criminal charges by marine General Samuel Helland, after a three-week “court of inquiry” in the United States.

It is worth remembering that Stanley McChrystal was commander of JSOC at the time of their 2007 removal.

This is just a sampling. These are the big events with many civilians killed but there are untold numbers of little events. Back in 2007, the ACLU released details they uncovered using FOIA of incidents in which civilians were killed by US forces. These accounts represented only those civilians killed in “non-combat” situations. And these are only the ones for which the military accepted some level of responsibility – or rather agreed to pay a condolence fee without accepting responsibility. At the time the New York Times reported that “the military has paid more than $32 million to Iraqi and Afghan civilians for noncombat-related killings, injuries and property damage, an Army spokeswoman said. That figure does not include condolence payments made at a unit commander’s discretion.” And given that the average payment for a dead adult civilian was $3,000, you begin to get some sense of the scale of devastation we have brought to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is good that we are taking notice – and that once again an attempted cover-up of a horrific crime has been revealed.  Someday we may also face up to what these incidents say about our military and their “leadership,” and someday we may actually demand a stop to these war crimes.

 

Fr Manuel Musallam, retired parish priest of the Holy Family Church in Gaza,  spoke this Easter of the sorrow of Palestinian Christians who have been blocked from attending the rituals of Holy Week in Jerusalem:

We lament Jerusalem, and miss its beautiful ceremonies. This year thousands of tourists will weep with us. They will not be able to march the “Way of the Cross” with Palestinians. There will be no national Palestinian folklore to discover or Arab religious crafts to take with them as gifts, and no local prayers, hymns and music to experience in the warm faith of believers in Palestine. They will be shocked entering the Holy Sepulchre to find Israeli police inside…

We are appalled by the continuous threats of more war. And we are distressed by the daily humiliation, hunger, thirst, unemployment and the absence of sustainable development in our country.

And the “threats of more war” are growing louder as Israeli leaders speak of  “another military operation” in Gaza after launching 13 air strikes on the territory which hit a cheese factory along with targets Israel claimed were military.  Similar to the situation in November 2008, tensions have jumped after Israeli forces crossed the border into Gaza in pursuit of several men they accused of planting explosives on the Gaza side of the border.  In retaliation, rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel – apparently against the wishes of Hamas who are asking for international intervention to prevent another Operation Cast Lead and also signaling that they want a halt to the rocket attacks.

Just this morning, more Israeli attacks took place:

Israeli helicopters opened fire on Sunday at Palestinian homes in Maghazi Camp, central Gaza, while bulldozers and tanks advanced into the eastern district of the village of Qarara, southern Gaza. Gaza radio stations reported that Israeli helicopters hovered over Maghazi Camp this morning and opened heavy fire at houses and farmland. No casualties were reported, but damage was sustained by some of the houses, it said.

In Qarara, Israeli troops executed an incursion into the eastern district of the village, supported by bulldozers and tanks. According to local radio reports, Apaches hovered overhead and also fired at Palestinian homes and orchards. Bulldozers destroyed agricultural land, but there were no casualties reported, it concluded.

Such attacks, launched at the same time Hamas is trying to rein in the rocket attacks, seem designed to increase the likelihood of more rockets and militant action which then become the “justification” for another Israeli Operation Cast Lead.

While the situation deteriorates again, Congressman Keith Ellison has been in Gaza meeting with local human rights and humanitarian groups – and calling for an end to the siege.

Yet the siege continues.  While Egypt rushes the construction of an underground wall to block the smuggling tunnels which provide the main source of supply to Gaza, Israel has announced two unusual shipments to Gaza. They will allow one shipment of cement which is desperately needed to repair houses and other buildings left in rubble by last years attack. This shipment however will only be enough for a UN wastewater treatment project.

The other shipment is ten trucks of clothes and shoes. These goods were purchased by Gazan merchants for sale in their shops but were blocked from delivery to them by Israel:

Gaza’s merchants, who imported the goods privately, said Sunday’s shipment was not enough to replenish their stocks and demanded Israel release more goods held at its ports since 2007.

“Some of it even smells bad. I can say half of the merchandise is still good, but the other half is damaged. I fear I may not be able to recoup my outlay,” importer Ziad Barbakh told Reuters while frantically inspecting his clothes shipment.

Merchants said they had to pay 2000 shekels (about $540) per month for storing their merchandise at the Israeli port of Ashdod for the last three years.

 

Last April, shortly after beginning his first term as president, Barak Obama promised that the war supplemental he requested from Congress would be the last one ever:

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that this will be the last supplemental spending request for the wars. The administration has already earmarked $130 billion for military operations next year, but officials have said they do not want that funding tagged “emergency.”

“The honest budgeting and appropriations process that the president has talked about falls somewhat victim to the fact that this is the way that wars have been funded previously,” Gibbs said. “So we can’t wait until the appropriations process is done in … August or September to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in June.”

And suddenly a lot of the members of Congress who had opposed war supplementals in the past and promised not to vote for another one, decided “just this one last time” to go along.

Well guess what, even though “the … Congress has approved [$128.3 billion] for war-related expenses in fiscal 2010,” there’s a new war supplemental being prepared. This time it’s for $33 billion and while originally proposed for passage around Memorial Day, Sec Def Gates is now pushing to move up approval of the latest blank check.

At the same time “congressional defense committees will continue to be enmeshed in hearings on the Pentagon’s request for a $548.9 billion base budget and $159.3 billion in war funding for FY ’11, which begins Oct. 1.”

The drumbeat for the added funds moved into high gear with the president’s surprise visit to Kabul this morning. Expect a lot more – from reports of “success” from the hyped up battle for Marjah to an upcoming big fight for Kandahar. With so much cash on the line, the sales pitch is sure to be quite loud – and irresistable to a congress who once again will break their promises to stop these off budget supplementals.

 

Apparently the big news of the week has been the Netanyahu government’s major diss of visiting Vice President Joe Biden and Washington’s unusual public critique of this “insult.”  While it’s good to see even this minor pushback to the continuing Israeli theft of Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem, it’s hard to believe this verbal rebuke with be taken very seriously by Bibi and his associates. It is not hard, however, to guess that Palestinians are not overly impressed.

After all we saw last year of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the persistent expansion of illegal Israeli settlements with nary a peep from DC, how impressive is a little tough talk.

While this “mistake” as Bibi called it may have been a step too far in public for the administration, the continuing suffering of the people of Gaza goes unmentioned.

On Saturday,Gazans marked the 1,000th day of the Israeli blockade of their territory, an anniversary made even more problematic by the devastation of the Israeli attacks last year.

The blockade continues to cause power outages with the resulting threats to health, as reported by Oxfam, but now Gazans face the added burden of trying to treat the wounded from Operation Cast Lead and face a situation the UN’s “top humanitarian official” described “de-developing.”

In the West Bank, Israel has not only continued its attacks on residents and journalists but has now placed the territory on a complete lockdown in an attempt to block Palestinians from reacting to both the new settlement news and the recent Israeli attempts to block worship by any men under the age of 50 at the Al Aqsa Mosque after protests of Israel’s attempts to claim Palestinian holy sites as part of it’s own historic district.

Just one example from the last week puts it all into perspective:

Amir al-Mohtaseb smiled tenderly when I asked him to tell me his favorite color. Sitting in his family’s living room last Thursday afternoon, 4 March, in the Old City of Hebron, the ten-year-old boy with freckles and long eyelashes softly replied, “green.” He then went on to describe in painful detail his arrest and detention — and the jailing of his 12-year-old brother Hasan by Israeli occupation soldiers on Sunday, 28 February.

Hours after our interview, at 2am, Israeli soldiers would break into the house, snatch Amir from his bed, threaten his parents with death by gunfire if they tried to protect him, and take him downstairs under the stairwell. They would 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….

At the end of our interview last Thursday, Amir sent a message to American children. “We are kids, just like you. We have the right to play, to move freely. I want to tell the world that there are so many kids inside the Israeli jails. We just want to have freedom of movement, the freedom to play.” Amir said that he wants to be a heart surgeon when he grows up.

It must be very hard for Palestinians to take seriously the wounded pride of Washington.

 

One has to wonder why VoteVets chose to use Dick Cheney-fabricated “intelllegence” in what is otherwise a good cause.

While Iraqi citizens went to the polls in an election that has been marred by US meddling and extensive violence which is already being used by Odierno to suggest a new rationale for staying in Iraq, VoteVets’ launched a new ad campaign that revives a false Iraq war claim from 2007 to get our attention.

VoteVets is running this ad as part of Operation Free which, according to the website,  is “paid for by the Truman National Security Project.”   Truman  describes itself as a “national security leadership institute… to to create an influential force of leaders across the country who advance strong progressive national security policy.” It’s led by such progressive (sic) luminaries as Madeleine K. Albright, Leslie H. Gelb and John D. Podesta. It’s unclear whether all the money for the campaign came from this source and VoteVets has not so far been willing to disclose their funding for this project which certainly sounds like some neocons had a hand in the planning.

The ad campaign, including a banner which has run on our site, claims that 
”Iranian bombs are killing Americans”. The TV version which is running in multiple states dramatically portrays the impact of an EFP and repeats the claim that these are Iranian supplied weapons. The ad goes on to encourage support of the current climate change bill. Certainly the linkage of American oil dependence to national security is an argument all of us who abhor “wars for oil” can support but in this case the good message is completely lost in “war porn” images and false accusations.

Let’s look at the accusation. The ad claims that Iran has supplied Iraqi insurgents with EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) – a high powered IED weapon capable of piercing the armor on US vehicles.  This claim was first made in February of 2007 by the Bush administration who portrayed EFPs as a new kind of weapon, unavailable to Iraqis without Iranian sources.

Yet this claim that EFPs were a “new weapon” and were supplied by Iran was disproved almost immediately by multiple reputable sources. For example, Gareth Porter in the Asia Times pointed to Michael Knight’s analysis in Jane’s Intelligence Review [subscription] which found that, counter to the DoD claims that Iraqis were unable to produce these weapons themselves:

Iraqi Shi’ites have indeed manufactured both the components for EFPs and the complete EFPs. He observes that the kind of tools required to fabricate EFPs “can easily be found in Iraqi metalworking shops and garages”.

He also notes that some of the EFPs found in Iraq had substituted steel plates for the copper lining found in the externally made lids. Knights calculates that the entire production of EFPs exploded thus far could have been manufactured in one or at most two simple workshops with one or two specialists in each – one in the Baghdad area and one in southern Iraq.

David Hambling, writing at the time in Defenselink:

But as has been observed here, anyone can make crude and simple EFP munitions in a basic workshop. All you need is a lump of plastic explosive and a piece of copper. Shape the copper into a saucer, put the explosive under it, and you’re there. Obviously this will be a lot less efficient, accurate and reliable than something like SLAM (optimal design of the the metal ‘lens’ is an art requiring a lot of computer power), but you can compensate by making it ten times bigger if you need to.

Maybe the insurgents should be given some credit for being able to build their own gear, or maybe there’s more intelligence we don’t know. But if EFP mines were being supplied by an outside source, you might expect to see somethng a lot slicker.

Hambling went on to link to a report that:

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace seemed to contradict this claim [that the Iranian government was supplying EFPs], saying that he has not seen evidence that the Iranian government “clearly knows or is complicit” in the weapons smuggling.

In a report about the technology of EFPs, the New York Times also noted the shakiness of the claim:

The most specialized part of the E.F.P.’s that were found is the concave copper disc, called a liner, that rolls into a deadly armor-piercing ball when the device explodes. Although American explosives experts say that the liner is deceptively difficult to make properly, the discs in Hilla look like a thick little alms plate or even a souvenir ashtray minus the indentations for holding cigarettes.

The electronics package is built around everyday items like the motion sensors used in garage-door openers and outdoor security systems; in fact, at the heart of some of the bombs found in Iraq is a type of infrared sensor commonly sold at electronic stores like RadioShack.

Noah Shachtman at Danger Room also highlighted the problems with the BushCo claim and in fact, just a few weeks after making the claim, even General Odierno and Major Weber, the expert used to brief the press on these charges, began to walk the story back with Weber saying the EFPs might be “copy cats.”

Gareth Porter also reported that even Bush administration figures like Condi Rice and Steven Hadley doubted the Iranian EFP stories that Cheney was pushing and tried to get them quashed ahead of time but Petraeus went ahead with the announcement to the press just days after his appointment to command in Iraq.

As Cernig summed up the situation at the time:

Secondly, the claim that EFP’s are exclusively the property of Iran is just stupid. These same weapons were first used by the IRA and spread to Columbia’s FARC and Spain’s ETA as well as Hizboullah and other terror groups worldwide years before the US-led invasion of Iraq. They are easy to make in any minimally equipped machine shop and at least three manufactories for EFP’s have been found inside Iraq itself. When the US tried to prove that Iran was responsible for these weapons, the whole world laughed. Not a single EFP has ever been intercepted crossing the Iran-Iraq border, even though one entire regiment of British troops spent months actively looking. And the Pentagon’s ever-evolving explanations of contrary evidence have descended to fairy tales that contravene the laws of physics. Even General Pace and Admiral Fallon refused to get onboard the neocon warmongering train – which later cost both their jobs.

The VoteVets ad is certainly shocking and meant to be – and designed to get viewers upset enough to call congress. But will those viewers even notice the climate change call to action amongst all the “Iran kills our boys” imagery and the Iranian bombs Kill Americans rhetoric. It would not be surprising if instead they call for an attack on Iran.

As the Columbia Journalism Review noted in 2007 about the original claims:

We remember a time a few years back when the press was sloppy with the facts on another Middle Eastern country’s military capabilities, and its ability and willingness to export those capabilities. The nation—and the world—can’t afford to have this particular bit of history repeat itself.

Tags: Bush, Dick Cheney, EFP, Iraq, Odierno, VoteVets

 

Last night I took a stroll up to a performance by my favorite theater company. Remy Bumppo was presenting Athol Fugard’s The Island and I was looking forward to a good production and one of Remy’s interesting post-play discussions. It was all of that but so much more – and it got me thinking about what we so often miss in our politics and activism. For Fugard – and this particular production – raises important political issues but he also reminds us of simple humanity. For all that is moving about this tale of Robben Island and oppression and apartheid – and the power of art in the face of that oppression,  at the core, The Island breaks through our intellectualized distance, our rhetorical sympathy and asks us to see the two men themselves, not only as symbol but as just simply real.

One of the actors, LeShawn Banks, said after the play that we in America often hold the world at arms length, at a distance, that we are able to do that, are protected by that and yet so many in this world have no such distance from suffering.

And so I walked home thinking about just that. And about the ways we distance ourselves even in the midst of our engagement with political issues and progressive movements.

We abstract, analyse, argue so well but how very hard it is, sitting in our land of privilege (even when times are “tough”) to really feel what so many of our brothers and sisters in humanity live – so often as the direct consequence of our country’s very inhuman drive for control or wealth or power.

So rather than pick apart yet another set of examples of our government’s wars, I hope we can take some time to pause and recognize the oh so human reality of those who live with the repercussions: Christian families being terrorized in Mosul, the mother of a child killed in Afghanistan or the Palestinian father whose child is arrested and tortured by Israeli troops.

If you are in Chicago, there’s still one more week to see The Island at Remy. If not, what reconnects you to the humanity behind the rhetoric?

Tags: Afghanistan, Athol Fugard, Chicago theater, Gaza, Remy Bumppo, The Island, theater, Torture

 

A week or so ago, we were hearing a lot about how decisive the current surge over Marja in Afghanistan would be. Of course, we were hearing all sorts of things – including a lot of happy talk about how well things were going. This week we learn that the fight is not so easy with US forces still facing “strong resistance” even though the US/NATO/Afghan force is 15,000+ while the reported “taliban” presence before the attack was estimated at 400. US officers are now saying that the military component of the campaign will take at least a month. They have also told the Guardian that Marja is just a “confidence building” action leading to the new “decisive” battle which they are beginning to plan for Kandahar.

Of course, for many local residents of Marja, the battle is decisive indeed. While US forces have only reported 12 civilian casualties, multiple sources report the total is now over 20:

Harun, who spoke to IWPR in the hospital in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, … said the incident began when the Taleban opened fire at the western forces from a location 100 metres away from their house. He said that his brothers were shot at and wounded as they ran from the house because they were afraid it would be shelled.

“My wounded brother Fazel Omar got married six months ago. When he was wounded, his wife came out of the house and ran towards her husband, but [they] shot at her from their tank and [killed] her,” he said.

He added angrily, “That moment was very difficult for me because I could not go out of the house; I could not take my wounded brothers to the hospital and could not bring my dead sister-in-law’s body home.”

In a second incident in Qari Sada village, a rocket reportedly fired by coalition forces hit a house. Relatives traveled to Bost Hospital in Lashkar Gah to accompany the bodies of two young women.

Most were too grief–stricken to speak to the media but Gula Jan told IWPR, “My two little sisters were martyred by the foreigners’ rocket and I will not reconcile with the infidels until I can avenge my sisters.”

There were reports of a fourth civilian fatality in Karwa Square. A driver living there is said to have been killed by fire from foreign forces when he left his home to buy food.

Ahmad, his son said, “The body of my father was left inside our home for two days because the foreigners did not let us out to bury the body in the cemetery. We were scared of being killed. They are cruel and the infidels have no sympathy for us.”

Radio Free Europe provides this account from a Maja farmer who fled before the fighting began:

“The civilians are trapped because although they had planned to leave after the fighting started in cars or anything they could find, all the roads are mined now and they cannot leave their homes,” said Rahman. “Their food supplies are running out and they face thirst and hunger. People are slaughtering and eating up their cattle. All the shops are closed even as most people stayed behind. Less than 10 percent of the residents left. We have information that civilians have also suffered deaths and injuries and they cannot bury their dead or help their wounded.”

In all the hype pre-battle, very little attention seems to have been paid to the effects on the local residents:

”We are seriously worried about the safety of civilians, especially in the Marja area,” Ajmal Samadi, the head of the independent group Afghan Rights Monitor, said.

”People who are ill cannot get to hospitals, and others cannot bring them medicines. They cannot get food, or even go outside to look after their farms.”

He said that food prices were rising and people with medical needs – from war wounds to pregnancy – were largely unable to get treatment…

Norine MacDonald, the president of the International Council for Security and Development, which has an office in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, said planners had paid little regard to civilian well-being.

”The forward planning we heard so much about did not include ensuring that the local population would be able to leave and live elsewhere in decent conditions, with access to food and medical care,” she said.

More than 2800 families – averaging about five members each – had been displaced before and during the fighting, said Abdul Rahman Hutaki, the head of the Human Rights and Environment Organisation, an independent Afghan group.

Back in Marja, those left behind cannot even get clear information on conditions around them:

One resident of Marja district, Zaher Jan, said on the phone, “They governor announces on the radio that bombardments will not take place, but [they are] going on as we speak. If these bombardments are not stopped, there will be many civilian casualties.”

Civilian casualties are not just an issue in the Marja offensive. A US airstrike this week also killed 7 Afghan policemen during a separate operation in Kunduz. We’ve announced we’re investigating but Afghan officials are reminding US forces that the Rules of Engagement call for coordination with Afghan forces.

Meanwhile in post-”surge” Iraq, there’s more trouble brewing. Steve Hynd over at Newshoggers shares my opinion that Gen Odierno, who has no desire to leave Iraq, is once again stirring the pot. With Chalabi overseeing the election and Odierno continuing to insert himself into the process, hopes for a fair election and end to US occupation there seem far away indeed.

 

[Ed. Note: Derrick Crowe has other details about the civilian deaths.]

If you’ve been following the news from the latest McChrystal “Victory-in-Afghanistan” maneuver, you may be confused. I know I am. Yesterday, day one, headlines reported everything from “Surprise tactic in Afghanistan offensive befuddles Taliban” and Key posts seized in Taliban stronghold to
Afghanistan war: Marjah battle as tough as Fallujah, say US troops along with the inevitable The mistaken killing of 12 Afghan civilians prompts U.S. apology. (Update: Five Afghan civilians were also killed by a NATO airstrike in neighboring Kandahar province today. )

As Joshua Foust of Registan writes: (h/t Steve Hynd)

In other words, even the reporters there, on the ground, directly interacting with and personally interviewing the military are getting contradictory reports of what’s going on. Chandrasekaran and Phillips, for example, both datelined their stories from Marjeh, and they couldn’t be more different: Chandrasekaran says it’s less than 4,000 troops encountering heavy and unexpected resistance, while Phillips says it’s almost 10,000 troops experiencing light and expected resistance. Making matters worse? They both quote the same Lieutenant Colonel, Calvin Worth. There’s not even the excuse that they’re reporting from different parts of Marjeh.

All of which means that on day two of the offensive we have no idea what’s going on. So many reporters have been given so many contradictory ISAF talking points that nothing makes sense.

Perhaps instead we should listen to Afghan hero Malalai Joya . . . who does make sense: (h/t Russ Wellen)

“It is ridiculous,” said Malalai Joya, an elected member of the Afghan parliament. “On the one hand they call on Mullah Omar to join the puppet regime. On another hand they launch this attack in which defenceless and poor people will be the prime victims. Like before, they will be killed in the Nato bombings and used as human shields by the Taliban. Helmand’s people have suffered for years and thousands of innocent people have been killed so far.” Her fears were confirmed when Nato reported yesterday that a rocket that missed its target had killed 12 civilians at a house in Marjah…

Joya, suggesting that local uranium deposits, notes that the claims that phase two of the McChrystal plan are ridiculous as well:

Operation Moshtarak is described as an inclusive offensive, depending for its longer-term success on involvement of Afghan forces. But Ms Joya said: “The Afghan police force is the most corrupt institution in Afghanistan. Bribery is common and if you have money, by bribing police from top to bottom you can do almost anything. In many parts of Afghanistan, people hate the police more than the Taliban.

 

While the airwaves are full of the latest faux victory-in-Afghanistan scheme (complete with the usual “regrets” that in some minds absolve US forces of responsibility for yet more civilian casualties), Iraq is off the American radar except for some self congratulatory claims that we are “responsibly ending the war in Iraq.”

How’s this for responsible?

Along with the reports of the recent raid mentioned in this Al Jazeera video:

At least 10 civilians have reportedly been killed and many more injured in a clash between joint Iraqi-US forces and anti-government fighters in Iraq’s Maysan province near the Iranian border, authorities say.

we also have the decision by General Ray Odierno last fall to include the Peshmerga in a joint US Iraqi force in Kirkuk, granting legitimacy to this irregular force widely believed to be deeply involved in the ethnic cleansing of Christians and other minorities in the region for more than a year. These joint patrols are being used more intensively now – without the approval of a number of local Arab and Turkmen leaders who insist on “participation with equal share of Kirkuk components … Arab, Kurds, Turkmen, Cheldeans and Assyrians.”  This preference by Odierno for a nonrepresentative force plays out as Kurdish leaders attempt to consolidate control of additional territory in opposition to a centralized national government.

These same Peshmerga have been involved in recent attempts to block the activities of politicians supportive of the central government rather than Kurdish autonomy:

Politicians on both sides on the line complain of restrictions when they campaign on the opposite side: harassment of candidates, pressure on parties, violence. When Mr. Nujaifi recently crossed the unofficial boundary on his way to Tall Kayf, his convoy was pelted with stones and tomatoes and briefly held up by Kurdish troops, the pesh merga. On Sunday evening a woman running with a secular coalition that includes Mr. Nujaifi and a former prime minister, Ayad al-Allawi, was shot to death outside her home in Mosul.

These attacks mirror the mass attacks on Christians in late 2008 and 2009 which

began shortly after the community lobbied the Iraqi parliament to pass a law that would set aside a greater number of seats for minorities in the January 2009 provincial elections.

according to Human Rights Watch, in a report published in November 2009:

The attacks that followed left 40 Christians dead and displaced more than 12,000 from their homes within a matter of weeks.[87] The killings were accompanied by the bombing of Christian dwellings in Mosul, as well as threatening graffiti in Christian neighborhoods with messages such as “get out or die,” and anti-Christian messages disseminated by loudspeakers mounted on cars, threatening Christians if they did not leave.[88]

And while HRW writes that responsibility for these actions is hard to pin down, it also reports local evidence:

Representatives from the various communities have traded accusations of responsibility and motives. Some Arab and Christian representatives have pointed the finger at KRG responsibility or at least complicity, pointing out that Kurdish-dominated security forces were in charge of security in the area the attacks took place, and suggesting that the murder campaign was designed to undermine confidence in the central government’s security forces.[89] …

As evidence of Kurdish involvement, proponents of this theory point to the fact that the attacks happened in the part of Mosul relatively free from insurgent activity and controlled by the Iraqi army, which was dominated by a high percentage of Kurdish officers in that area. Some of the killings happened in areas secured by Iraqi army checkpoints and, in some cases, in close proximity to them, leading some to believe that Kurdish officers or their proxies had a hand in the attacks.[91] Kurdish authorities have rejected these assertions and accused Sunni Arab groups of having carried out the attacks to sow intercommunal tensions.[92] In a rare disavowal, the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization comprising a number of insurgent groups including al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has denied responsibility for the killings.[93] …

Meanwhile the attacks continue. From January 19th:

At noon yesterday, an armed commando executed Abdullahad Amjad Hamid, a married Syriac Catholic, who owned a small grocery store in the neighbourhood of Alsiddiq, in northern Mosul. The man was killed outside his home in the suburb of Balladiyat, not far from his workplace.

Local witnesses reported that “the murder took place in front of the security forces, who saw all the phases of the attack, but did not intervene.” A Catholic in Mosul says that “the tactic is to murder Christians, because the media does not talk about it.” A strategy that aims to push Christians towards the plain of Nineveh, “in the silence and indifference of the government and the international community.”

A source for AsiaNews in Mosul, adds that “Christians are living in panic and have begun fleeing from the city”. He explains that “these are not normal criminals,” but behind them are “specific political plans” that the government is not countering. There is no information from Baghdad “about who is behind attacks on churches and Christians,” but the source is confident that the central executive, the governorship of Mosul and the Kurdish leadership “are aware” of the plan against the Christian community.

And just today GorillasGuides team members in Mosul report:

Today a Christian resident of Mosul has been kidnapped by gunmen who smashed their way into his house in al-Baladiyat. Gunmen killed another man nearby.

Not surprisingly, the “instability” in this region is already being mentioned as a rationale for a possible extension of the presence of US combat forces in Iraq.

 

For years, we’ve been following reports – first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan – of US forces, particularly JSOC teams, using night raids and air strikes to terrorize local citizens. All too often, these attacks not only terrify civilians, they kill them.

Following each such killing, we hear that US forces are going to be more careful and will change tactics. While there are reports of fewer air strikes, the extensive use of night raids continues.

Now we learn that US forces are once again proclaiming a new improved approach that includes more “sensitivity” to local concerns. Canadian Press reports that “NATO spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith,” referencing a new directive expected soon from Gen. McChrystal said:

“It addresses the issue that’s probably the most socially irritating thing that we do – and that is entering people’s homes at night,” Smith said Wednesday at his office in Kabul.

“Socially irritating” is an interesting way to describe what has been close to SOP. As Anand Gopal describes in his important report at TomDispatch:

It was the 19th of November 2009, at 3:15 am. A loud blast awoke the villagers of a leafy neighborhood outside Ghazni city, a town of ancient provenance in the country’s south. A team of U.S. soldiers burst through the front gate of the home of Majidullah Qarar, the spokesman for the Minister of Agriculture. Qarar was in Kabul at the time, but his relatives were home, four of whom were sleeping in the family’s one-room guesthouse. One of them, Hamidullah, who sold carrots at the local bazaar, ran towards the door of the guesthouse. He was immediately shot, but managed to crawl back inside, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Then Azim, a baker, darted towards his injured cousin. He, too, was shot and crumpled to the floor. The fallen men cried out to the two relatives remaining in the room, but they — both children — refused to move, glued to their beds in silent horror.

The foreign soldiers, most of them tattooed and bearded, then went on to the main compound. They threw clothes on the floor, smashed dinner plates, and forced open closets…

Gopal goes on the describe the detention of two men from the family, one later released, one still missing – presumably in the secret prisons Gopal describes and Jeff Kaye wrote about today.

These raids, a mainstay of US operations in Iraq as well, were called out to President Obama by Human Rights Watch back in March as a significant issue:

Afghans frequently complain about night raids that appear to use unnecessary or excessive force, insult local customs, and antagonize the civilian population. Human Rights Watch has learned of recent night raids by US forces where women and children have been killed. …

Human Rights Watch urges the United States to:

* Conduct a review of the use of night raids in conjunction with the government of Afghanistan to develop alternative arrest strategies that will not alienate the local population.
* Exercise precaution in the use of force during night raids to minimize harm to the civilian population.
* Where the circumstances surrounding the arrest reflect a policing rather than an armed conflict situation, exercise restraint in the use of force and act in proportion to the legitimate objective to be achieved.
* Improve transparency about the involvement of US personnel in raids and acknowledge responsibility where civilian harm has occurred.

Mullah Omar’s COIN guidance … Reiterated prohibitions on the following:
Mistreating population
Forcibly taking personal weapons
Taking children to conduct jihad
Punishment by maiming
Forcing people to pay donations
Searching homes
Kidnapping people for money
(page 6, ISAF December briefing)

While the DoD continues to ignore such sensible advice (and it’s own earlier promises to minimize night raids) the December 22, 2009 ISAF Briefing “State of the Insurgency:Trends, Intentions and Objectives” (h/t Col. Pat Lang) describes Mullah Omar’s directives to Taliban fighters in the July 2009 Taliban Code of Conduct, which the powerpoint describes as the Taliban’s “COIN guidance.” These guidelines are quite clear – and prohibit searches of houses.

Meanwhile, Afghan citizens are rightly frightened by the US surge and with news of the imminent NATO offensive in Helmand. “U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, said the success of the operation depends on convincing civilians that the government will improve services once the militants are gone” according to the Toronto Star but Afghans are piling up their belongings and fleeing:

Mohammad Hakim, a 55-year-old tribal leader in Marjah, said fear has risen over the past two weeks and he knows at least 20 families who had left. He himself planned to take his wife, nine sons, four daughters and grandchildren to live with relatives in Lashkar Gah…

Ghulan Nabi, a wheat and poppy farmer with seven children in Marjah, said his family planned to leave soon and wait out the offensive in a nearby district.

“We have a good house, a nice life, but now I will have to rent a home,” he said. “But we want peace and security. We don’t care who comes here. We just want peace in our village.

 

Back in December, before the underpants bomber, I had asked if Obama had launched his fourth war – in Yemen. Reports had appeared that just a few days before, he had apparently authorized drone attacks on reported Al Qaeda fighters.

Today we learn that Obama has done more than send in drones.

Dana Priest reports in the Washington Post:

U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people, among them six of 15 top leaders of a regional al-Qaeda affiliate, according to senior administration officials.

Priest goes on to report that the US military operation in Yemen involves attempts to assassinate US citizens considered “High Value Targets:”

The Obama administration has adopted the same stance [as the Bush administration]. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, “it doesn’t really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them,” a senior administration official said. “They are then part of the enemy.”

Both the CIA and the JSOC maintain lists of individuals, called “High Value Targets” and “High Value Individuals,” whom they seek to kill or capture. The JSOC list includes three Americans, including Aulaqi, whose name was added late last year. As of several months ago, the CIA list included three U.S. citizens, and an intelligence official said that Aulaqi’s name has now been added.

While the Yemen government apparently welcomes international aid — and today London will host a global summit to “galvanize international support for Yemen” — the BBC quotes “Yemen’s foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi” as saying “the idea of US military bases on Yemeni soil was ‘inconceivable.’”

But with Priest reporting that:

In a newly built joint operations center, the American advisers are acting as intermediaries between the Yemeni forces and hundreds of U.S. military and intelligence officers working in Washington, Virginia and Tampa and at Fort Meade, Md., to collect, analyze and route intelligence.

– those bases may not be so inconceivable after all.

(Video: Part one of the wonderful film about Yemen The English Sheik and the Yemeni Gentleman. It’s on Youube in 8 parts or available on DVD and very worth a view.)

 

Looking over the news this week, from Haiti to Iraq and Afghanistan to Guantanamo, there’s news of debts national and personal that show the costs of our misdirected relationship with the world.

Let’s start with Haiti. The fundraising for aid has been unprecedented and the need will continue for years to come. How Haiti is rebuilt will be a real test of how we engage with others – will we replay the earlier meddling which left Haiti so vulnerable to the earthquake or will we work with other international partners to finally support the wishes of the Haitian people? One area where we can make an important difference is in addressing the IMF debt which has undercut any chance of advancement.

In response to calls by activists like Jubilee USA to cancel Haiti’s debt:

Jubilee USA Network welcomed the statement today by IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (1)  about his intention to secure debt cancellation for Haiti, including cancellation of the IMF’s proposed $100 million loan for emergency assistance to the country.

“Since the IMF’s announcement last week of its intention to provide Haiti with a $100 million loan, Jubilee USA and our partners have been calling for grants and debt cancellation – not new loans — for Haiti.  We are pleased that Managing Director Strauss- Kahn has responded to that call,” said Neil Watkins, Executive Director of Jubilee USA.

Jubilee USA is asking everyone to help keep the IMF on this course by sending letters to the editors of their local papers – and they have set up a wonderful tool to make it easier for you to help.

Of course, Haiti is not the only country facing the repercussions of debt. Here are home, we have an immense deficit and it looks like the DoD will continue to drive the numbers ever higher. This week, the Project for Defense Alternatives released a report that shows just how high in the summary The President’s Dilemma: Debt, Deficits, and Defense Spending:

The Obama administration’s DoD budget plans lock into place the unprecedented rise in defense spending – 90% – that began in the late-1990s, consolidating a return to Reagan-era budget levels (when corrected for inflation).

Although the administration foresees a DoD budget that in 2017 will dip 3.8% below the highest of the GW Bush budgets, President Obama plans over eight years to allocate more money to the Pentagon in real terms than did his predecessor – perhaps much more.

The administration’s blueprint sets aside $4.8 trillion for DOD (in 2010 US dollars) during the period 2010-2017.  The GW Bush administration allocated $4.66 trillion (2010 USD).   But current plans use only a “place-keeper”figure for war funding after 2011: $50 billion annually (current dollar).  In light of developments in both Afghanistan and Iraq, this seems unrealistic. More realistically, the  Obama administration will have to allocate the Pentagon well over $5 trillion (2010 USD) during 2010-2017, assuming it stays its current course.  And, in real terms, this would significantly surpass not only George W. Bush, but also Ronald Reagan.

Indeed, by a substantial margin, it would represent the greatest amount allotted the Pentagon in any eight years since 1946 – a period encompassing the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold Wars.

While we spend, spend, spend in this manner, the costs are not just monetary. All those dollars for weapons leave a drastic cost behind for the people whose countries we fight in.

More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaminated with high levels or radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iraqi study has found.

Areas in and near Iraq’s largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and ­Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years. The joint study by the environment, health and science ministries found that scrap metal yards in and around Baghdad and Basra contain high levels of ionising radiation, which is thought to be a legacy of depleted uranium used in munitions during the first Gulf war and since the 2003 invasion.
h/t Tina from the Agonist

And some debts are intensely personal. In an amazing two part report, the BBC’s Gavin Lee introduces us to one former guard at Guananamo “Brandon Neely, and two of his former prisoners from Britain, after he contacted them on Facebook to express remorse for what he did.” If only our government would do half as much.