WWB: Corruption

WHAT WAR BRINGS: corruption

Where war and occupation goes, corruption follows, like night follows day. This is not to say everyone involved with the wars and occupations are corrupt. I suspect those that engage in corruption are in the minority…… it’s just that they have a situation where they can REALLY get away with the corruption, because corruption can REALLY flourish under these conditions.

And those who are corrupt come from all national, racial, gender, and ideological groups. If fact, anyone can easily join in the corruption, and are quite likely to get away with it, although not all of them do.

“Iraq is deemed the third most corrupt country in the world after Burma and Somalia, out of 180 countries, according to the corruption index compiled by Transparency International.”

So, let’s start with an Iraqi paper asking “Who is not corrupt in Iraq?” this past May.

It is not wise and fair to single out the Ministry of Trade as an example of how corruptive Iraqi m ministries and government have become.

…….. The newly built interests that have emerged since the U.S. invasion and the division of the country and government along sectarian, ethnic and factional lines stall any serious effort to fight corruption.

They point out that the long delay in looking for corruption (due to the security situation) has allowed corruption to ‘spread like an infectious disease” in Iraq. This article points out that the bad-apple excuse will not cut it, since it is not just low-ranking officials who engage in corruption. They call for an independent judicial investigation of all institutions that are suspected of corruption. In short, they call for the rule of law (much as we have done here in the US in response to our corruption and torture claims).

The NPR show ‘All Things Considered’ discussed the endemic corruption in Iraq this past May. They mention the Ministry of Trade, but also mention other forms of corruption now common in Iraq.

At every level of society, from the lowest to the highest, bribes and baksheesh are how things get done. While the big numbers at the top get the headlines, like this week's scheduled vote of no-confidence in the Iraqi Trade Minister who is accused of stealing millions, the everyday corruption that ordinary Iraqis must go through is constant. From ID papers and license plates and the traffic police, to doctors in the hospital, just to get basic service, if you want to visit a relative in jail, Iraqis have to pay extra money for just about everything.

The Independent (UK) told more of the story of corruption in the Ministry of Trade. They said the political crisis really came to the attention of the press when a video of officials drinking alcohol and partying with prostitutes came out. It was passed around Baghdad on cell phones and the chairman of the “Commission for Public Integrity” said the Trade Minister was unethical.

Iraq faces the mother of all corruption scandals

Iraq plans to arrest 1,000 officials for corruption after a scandal which has forced the resignation of the Trade Minister and is threatening the food supply of millions of Iraqis. Corruption at the Trade Ministry is an important issue in Iraq because the ministry is in charge of the food rationing system on which 60 per cent of Iraqis depend. Officials at the ministry, which spends billions of dollars buying rice, sugar, flour and other items, are notorious among Iraqis for importing food that is unfit for human consumption, for which they charge the state the full international price.

The scandal first erupted in April when police, entering the Trade Ministry in Baghdad to arrest 10 senior officials accused of corruption and embezzlement, were greeted with gunfire by the ministry's own guards. The shoot-out allowed several officials, including two brothers of the Trade Minister, Abdul Falah al-Sudany, time to escape out the back gate.

The two brothers were later caught, but this dramatic episode does show some of the lengths that people will go to in order to facilitate corruption. The article goes on to state that the Commission for Public Integrity has issued hundreds of arrest warrants, including warrants for 51 officials. They claim there are hundreds more warrants that are not yet issued.

The Independent (UK) article goes on to state:

Iraqis will be sceptical about the anti-corruption campaign until they see senior officials convicted and punished. It is not only the Trade Ministry which is corrupt but the entire government system. Officials have often purchased their jobs, which they see as a way of making money through bribery or payment for awarding jobs and contracts. The last anti-corruption boss in Iraq was forced to flee the country.

And supply of tainted goods is not confined to the Trade Ministry. Refugees living in Sadr City, the great Shia slum with a population of two million in east Baghdad, were expecting food and clothing from the Ministry of Displacement and Migration but when the shipment arrived, the refugees were enraged to discover that it consisted of scratchy thin grey woollen blankets smelling of mould which were useless in the torrid heat of the Iraqi summer. There were also an assortment of children's shoes and 25 boxes of canned tuna. Locals suspect that officials had pocketed most of the money intended to help them.

Over here in the US, a defense contractor pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and corruption. She had placed false bids to supply bulletproof vests to the Iraqi army (thereby greatly inflating her profit margin), and admitted to paying a bribe of at least $60,000 to influence the bidding process. This took place back in 2004 and 2005.

Defense Contractor Pleads Guilty To Fraud

Diana Bakir Demilta pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The plea was filed in December 2007, but unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington as part of an ongoing investigation by multiple federal agencies. Demilta is cooperating with the investigation in hopes of getting a reduced sentence. She is a U.S. citizen and president of Global-Link Distribution LLC, a defense contracting company.

Small potatoes in the overall scheme of corruption in occupied Iraq. As we all know, Halliburton and KBR was leading the way for corruption – and shoddy, dangerous workmanship. And it adds up to a lot of money:

Reporting for TomDispatch.com, Pratap Chatterjee, author of the book "Halliburton's Army," writes, "In early May, at a hearing on Capitol Hill, DCAA [Defense Contract Audit Agency] director April G. Stephenson told the independent, bipartisan, congressionally mandated Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan that, since 2004, her staff had sent 32 cases of suspected overbilling, bribery and other possible violations of the law to the Pentagon inspector general. The 'vast majority' of these cases, she testified, were linked to KBR, which accounts for a staggering 43 percent of the dollars the Pentagon has spent in Iraq."

The more profit that can be wrung from war making means the higher the likelihood that those who are benefiting will advocate for more war. As Jeremy Scahill said (about using foreign nationals as mercenaries in the wars and occupations): “You intricately link corporate profits to an escalation of warfare and make it profitable for companies to participate in your wars.” In other words, as long as someone can make money off of war, we will keep getting wars. I guess there are too many people in the world with no morals.

There have also been inquiries into corruption by members of the US military.

Inquiry on Graft in Iraq Focuses on US officers

Court records show that last month investigators subpoenaed the personal bank records of Col. Anthony B. Bell, who is now retired from the Army but who was in charge of reconstruction contracting in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 when the small operation grew into a frenzied attempt to remake the country’s broken infrastructure. In addition, investigators are examining the activities of Lt. Col. Ronald W. Hirtle of the Air Force, who was a senior contracting officer in Baghdad in 2004, according to two federal officials involved in the inquiry.

And then there is the corruption in Afghanistan, which is in a whole league of it’s own, even though it is not rated as corrupt as Iraq. A report from NPR called “Corruption Undermines Afghan Self-Governance” says this:

In Afghanistan, corruption is a daily plague. It comes in many forms: a piece of land for a warlord with connections to the national government, a bribe to a customs agent to look the other way as a shipment of heroin passes through.

Corruption takes other forms, too, such as kidnappings, ransom demands and bodies left out in the hills — all with the help of Afghan officials.

The NPR story goes on to describe a ‘shura’ which is a meeting with Afghan officials and a Green Beret team. A local man had been kidnapped by group of criminals that includes the subgovernor of Heart province. The Afghan official who should be helping to stop this is part of the problem. Even worse, this group will murder their victims if the ransom money is not paid. (This type of situation was common in Iraq for years, although for the most part the identity of the kidnappers was not known. Oftentimes, the victim would be murdered even after the ransom is paid.)

Another story out of Afghanistan also shows the extraordinary level of corruption. This is a story about Crooked Afghan Police:

Afghan villagers had complained to the U.S. Marines for days: The police are the problem, not the Taliban. They steal from villagers and beat them.

When the US Marines showed up at a local police station in the town of Aynak, they had gunshots fired at them. Once the Marines were inside, they found some of the police smoking pot. (I thought that smoking pot made you more mellow, but not in this case. The police were acting threatening. I guess it did make them stupid, since threatening 150 Marines is none too bright.)

This report goes on to say that the local police will pad their salaries by demanding bribes at checkpoints, stealing, and turning a blind eye to the poppy fields. The Marines responded by replacing the police force and sending the old police force for more training in another part of Iraq.

In another part of Helmand province, the British forces also ran into corrupt police. This story I find gruesome indeed.

Afghans turn to Taliban in fear of own police

As British troops moved into the village newly freed from Taliban control, they heard one message from the anxious locals: for God's sake do not bring back the Afghan police.

Yes, the local police force was so corrupt and so brutal, that the locals welcomed the Taliban. An elder in the village had this to say:

He pointed to two compounds of neighbors where pre-teen children had been abducted by police to be used for the local practice of "bachabazi," or sex with pre-pubescent boys.

"If the boys were out in the fields, the police would come and rape them," he said. "You can go to any police base and you will see these boys. They hold them until they are finished with them and then let the child go."

….."The people here trust the Taliban," he said. "If the police come back and behave the same way, we will support the Taliban to drive them out."

I guess it is not that big of step to go from kidnapping to rape, with the occasional murder thrown in. Another local elder said this:

"We were happy (after the Taliban arrived). The Taliban never bothered us," he said.

So, in wars and occupations, you have corruption by the locals, corruptions by foreign nationals, and corruption by the invading and occupying troops. It’s like a huge pot of corruption soup. It is disgusting beyond mere words.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: corruption.

WAR- what is it good for?

WWB: the killing of journalists

WHAT WAR BRINGS: the killing of journalists

Iraq is one of the deadliest places for journalists. The killing of journalists started when the US forces reached Baghdad in 2003.

Reporters Without Borders outraged at bombing of Al-Jazeera office in Baghdad

Reporters Without Borders expressed outrage at today’s US bombing of the Baghdad office of the pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera that killed one of its journalists, cameraman Tarek Ayoub, and wounded another. The nearby premises of Abu Dhabi TV were also damaged.

"We strongly condemn this attack on an neighbourhood known to include the offices of several TV stations," said secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of US military operations in Iraq.

"To ensure the safety of its journalists, Al-Jazeera’s management has been careful to inform the Americans of the exact location of its crews right from the start of the war. The US army cannot therefore claim it did not know where the Baghdad offices were.

…… On the 20th day of the war, the media toll is seven journalists and a media assistant killed while covering the conflict. At least five journalists have been wounded and two - Frédéric Nerac and Hussein Osman - both of the British TV network ITN - are still missing.

Those killed were: Paul Moran (ABC, Australia), Terry Lloyd (ITN), Kaveh Golestan (BBC), Michael Kelly (Washington Post), Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed (BBC), Christian Liebig (Focus), Julio Anguita Parrado (El Mundo) and Tarek Ayoub (Al-Jazeera).

The al Jazeera offices in Kabul were bombed by US forces in Afghanistan in November 2001. Of course, it is not just US bombings that are killing journalists in Iraq.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, there have been 139 journalists killed in Iraq since 1992. Afghanistan comes in at 18 killed. These figures were current to the beginning of 2009.

Haidar Hashim Suhail, Al-Baghdadia TV, and Suhaib Adnan, Al-Baghdadia TV, were killed on March 10, 2009 in Abu Ghraib. They were killed by a suicide bomber.

Alaa Abdul-Wahab, a 37-year-old reporter for the Cairo-based independent Baghdadiya TV station, was killed and two other journalists wounded Sunday when the bomb exploded as he got into his Opel car in the northern city of Mosul, according to police. This happened on May 31, 2009.

Jawad Ahmad was killed on March 11, 2009 in Kandahar. He was shot while driving on the main street. Another car had pulled up along side him and opened fire.

Carsten Thomassen, Daghbladet, was killed on January 15, 2008 in Kabul from a suicide attack. He was from Norway.

Abdul Samad Rohani, BBC and Pajhwok Afghan News, was killed on June 7 or June 8, 2008 in Lashkar Gah. His body was found with multiple bullet wounds.

A roadside bomb killed a cameraman for Al Forat and his driver on January 29, 2008 in Balad. Two more media workers were injured. A targeted shooting took out the head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate on February 27, 2008 in Baghdad. On April 25, 2008, a correspondent at Al Nakhil TV and Radio was shot by four masked gunmen in a town north of Basra.

On May 4, 2008 a freelance journalist was shot and killed while resisting abduction in Mosul. He had been threatened. On May 21, a cameraman for Al Afaq TV was shot in Baghdad. Locals claimed this shooting was done by an American military sniper. The military disputes this.

On May 22, an Iraqi journalist was found dead in Buhrez in Diyala province. He had been kidnapped three days earlier. A journalist who worked for Al Iraqiya TV was killed in a drive by shooting north of Mosul on June 17, 2008.

There are more listings for 2008, and more information about the journalist listed directly above, at the website for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In the year 2007, there were 2 journalists killed in Afghanistan, and 32 killed in Iraq, and 5 in Pakistan.

In the year 2006, there were 3 journalists killed in Afghanistan, and 32 in Iraq, and 2 in Pakistan.

In the year 2005, there were 23 journalists killed in Iraq, none in Afghanistan, and 2 in Pakistan.

In the year 2004, there were 24 journalists killed in Iraq, none in Afghanistan, and 1 in Pakistan.

One particularly harrowing incident occurred on September 12, 2004 in Baghdad. Mazen al-Tumeizi, who was a cameraman for Al Arabiya TV, was live on air covering an attack on a US Bradley vehicle (that had been abandoned and was on fire) when US helicopters returned and fired on him and dozens of others. No one on the video at the scene was firing at the US forces at the time. Two other journalists were wounded in the attack. Mazen al-Tumeizi died on air, and after watching the video, I wrote this poem in response to that attack:

Violence on Haifa Street

They had several excuses:
to retrieve injured comrades- except there were no comrades there.
to return ground fire- the film shows no arms, no fire.
to destroy sensitive equipment left behind- they hit civilians instead.

Blood on the camera lens.

Thirteen dead at the end of the day.
Scores injured. Their crimes: reporting, curiosity,

celebration of knocked down Americans, or just walking down the street.
All recorded on film this time-both moving and still-
all recorded by stories, straight from those on the scene.

Three more would die of injuries in the days to follow, all unnamed,

Except for one- a TV reporter, whose last report was "I'm dying! I'm dying!"
Broadcast live.
His final act as a journalist.
His final act as a human being.

Just sixteen more civilian casualties

among the unreported tens of thousands.
The cameras know what happened.
The soldiers know what happened.
The people on Haifa Street know what happened.

Blood on the camera lens. Blood on the street.

Earlier, US troops were injured there.

Anger and a thirst for revenge pulled the trigger.
Our troops are in a country where the people are not our enemy.
We are growing our own enemies.

We are sowing seeds of prejudice with our failures of intelligence.
We are sowing seeds of hatred with our failures of compassion.
We are sowing seeds of rage with our failures of decency.
We are sowing seeds of revenge with our failures of integrity.

Blood on the camera lens. Blood on the street. Blood on our hands.

In the year 2003, there were 14 journalists killed in Iraq, none in Afghanistan, and 1 in Pakistan.

As the tread indicates, things are calming down in Iraq and getting worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Still, Iraq is the most dangerous nation for the press for the sixth year in a row.

In all, 225 media personnel (journalists and their assistants) have been killed since the start of the invasion by the coalition forces in March 2003. This has been the deadliest war of all times for the press. Almost four times as many journalists have been killed in the past six years in Iraq as in the 20 years of the Vietnam war.

Yes, we really did a number on that poor country.

The listings above are for the confirmed cases; there are more that are unconfirmed.

We also did a number on Al Jazeera.

The United States bombed its offices in Afghanistan in 2001, shelled the Basra hotel where Al Jazeera journalists were the only guests in April 2003, killed Iraq correspondent Tareq Ayoub a few days later in Baghdad and imprisoned several Al Jazeera reporters (including at Guantánamo), some of whom say they were tortured. In addition to the military attacks, the US-backed Iraqi government banned the network from reporting in Iraq.

From Fallujah in April 2004:

Just a few days before Bush allegedly proposed bombing the network, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Falluja, Ahmed Mansour, reported live on the air, "Last night we were targeted by some tanks, twice...but we escaped. The US wants us out of Falluja, but we will stay." On April 9 Washington demanded that Al Jazeera leave the city as a condition for a cease-fire. The network refused. Mansour wrote that the next day "American fighter jets fired around our new location, and they bombed the house where we had spent the night before, causing the death of the house owner Mr. Hussein Samir. Due to the serious threats we had to stop broadcasting for few days because every time we tried to broadcast the fighter jets spotted us we became under their fire."

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: the killing of journalists.

WWB: kidnapping of journalists

WHAT WAR BRINGS: kidnapping of journalists

Yesterday I covered the imprisonment of journalists by US forces without charges. I called that ‘kidnapping’. Today, I am going to cover what most people consider kidnapping – when non-state actors abduct people against their will and detain them against their will.

Sometimes it is done for ransom, sometimes for political reasons, and sometimes no clear reason can be detected.

The Committee to Protect Journalists follows this closely. They have a list of journalists abducted in Iraq, and separate it out by year, nationality, gender, location, and outcome. About 2/3 are released and about 1/3 are murdered.

Result:

• Released: 35
• Murdered: 17
• Still held: 5
  

There were six journalists kidnapped in 2008 in Iraq. Four of them happened in one incident, and the very sad outcome was that they were murdered:

Musab Mahmood al-Ezawi, Al-Sharquiya TV
Ahmed Salim, Al-Sharqiya TV
Ihab Mu’d, Al-Sharqiya TV
Qaydar Sulaiman, Al-Sharqiya TV
September 13, Mosul

Authorities said Al-Sharqiya correspondent Musab Mahmood al-Ezawi, camera operators Ahmed Salim and Ihab Mu’d, and driver Qaydar Sulaiman were slain after being abducted as they filmed a story about breaking the Ramadan fast.

While five crew members were in the house filming, the three journalists and their driver were kidnapped by armed men, a local journalist told CPJ. Their bodies were later found in Al-Borsa district, a short distance from the kidnapping, the journalist said. All the victims were in their 20s.

Here is another one with a very sad outcome:

Haidar Hashim al-Hussein, Al-Sharq
May 21, Buhrez, Diyala

Al-Hussein, a 37-year-old journalist who worked for the Baghdad-based daily Al-Sharq, was abducted on May 20 in the al-Tahrir district of Baqouba while on his way to work at around 8 a.m.

He was found dead in Buhrez, in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.

And one with a better outcome:

Richard Butler, CBS News' 60 Minutes
February 10, 2008, Basra

Butler, a producer and photographer on assignment for CBS News magazine 60 Minutes and his Iraqi interpreter were seized by gunmen at the Sultan Palace Hotel in Basra on the morning of February 10, 2008, CBS News reported. The translator was freed days later, but Butler, a British national, remained in captivity for two months.

On April 14, he was freed unharmed during a raid by Iraqi forces on the house where he was being held captive in Basra's Jibiliya section.

Further information on prior year kidnappings in Iraq is available at the Committee to Protect Journalists website.

And, sadly, kidnapping of journalists is occurring in Afghanistan too. Committee to Protect Journalists had this to say:

The security situation deteriorated as reporters came under increasing threats, both political and criminal in nature. At least three foreign correspondents and two local reporters were kidnapped across the country, not only in the provincial areas that became exceedingly dangerous after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, but in the area surrounding the capital, Kabul, that had once been considered safer.

Here is some information on the kidnapped journalists:

Freelance documentarian Sean Langan was working for Britain’s Channel 4 program “Dispatches” when he was abducted near the border with Pakistan on March 28 by a Taliban group. He was released three months later. Dutch journalist Joanie de Rijke, who wrote for the Belgian magazine P, was released November 7 after being held captive for six days near Kabul. She had been working in an area near the city. On November 8, CBC reporter Mellissa Fung was freed after a month in captivity. She had been grabbed while conducting interviews at a refugee camp near Kabul, which had been considered a safe area for foreigners.

And on November 30, Taliban militants freed two Afghan journalists—Dawa Khan Menapal of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and local television reporter Aziz Popal—after holding them captive for three days, The Associated Press reported. Kidnappers seized the two as they were driving on the Kabul-Kandahar highway in Ghazni province.

This is just a partial listing of journalists who have been kidnapped in Afghanistan. As things are heating up there, the situation is getting worse…. Although it is no where near as bad as the situation in Iraq has been.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: kidnapping of journalists.

WWB: imprisoning journalists without charges

WHAT WAR BRINGS: imprisoning journalists without charges

This blog post will cover some of the journalists who were detained by US authorities, that is, the US military. I am not sure that the word ‘detained’ is the best word. Since they are not charged, or granted the right to face those charges in a court of law, I think of them as “kidnapped”.

Right now, the US is still holding a Reuters journalist without charges in Iraq. He was at his home in Mahmoudiya, Iraq, when the US troops showed up and broke down the front door. They came with dogs, and frightened the hell out of the little children in the family.

US still holding Reuters journalist without charges in Iraq

Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for the Reuters news agency, stepped forward, one of this brothers recalled. "Take me if you want me, but please leave my brothers." The soldiers rifled through the house, confiscating his computer hard drive and cameras. And then they led him away, handcuffed and blindfolded. That was Sept. 2. [in 2008 – dancewater] Jassam, 31, has been in U.S. custody ever since. His case is the latest of a dozen detentions the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has documented since 2001.

No formal accusations have been made against Jassam, and an Iraqi court ordered in November that he be released for lack of evidence. But the U.S. military continues to hold him, saying it has intelligence that he is "a high security threat," said Maj. Neal Fisher, spokesman for detainee affairs.

Mr. Jassam is still in prison in Iraq, even though the Iraqi government has asked for his release. So much for sovereignty.

This, from the same article, is what Committee to Protect Journalists has to say:

Yet the U.S. has routinely used the arbitrary powers it assumed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks to hold journalists without charge in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

None of the detained journalists has been convicted of any charge, undermining the United States' reputation when it comes to criticizing other countries on issues of press freedom, committee executive director Joel Simon said.

And here is how his brother says Mr. Jassam is doing in prison:

Jassam's brother, Walid, visited him recently in Camp Bucca, the desolate, tented U.S. prison camp in the desert in southern Iraq, and found him close to the breaking point.

"He used to be handsome, but now he's pale and he's tired," said Walid, who says his brother had no ties to insurgents. "Every now and then while we were talking, he would start crying. He was begging me: 'Please do something to get me out of here. I don't know what is the charge against me.'

"I told him we already tried everything."

Here are some more examples of journalists who were imprisoned without charges for long periods of time by the US military.

Sami Haj

Sami Haj, a cameraman for the TV network Al Jazeera, was detained by Pakistani authorities as he tried to cross into Afghanistan in 2001 to cover the offensive against the Taliban. He was turned over to the U.S. military, which held him for six years at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was accused him of being a courier for militant Islamic organizations, but was never charged. He was released a year ago.

Bilal Hussein

In Iraq, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was held for two years without trial before being released in April 2008 on the orders of an Iraqi judge under the terms of an amnesty law. The U.S. military maintained that Hussein had links to insurgents, but the AP said the allegations were based on nothing more than the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs of insurgents that he had taken on the streets of Ramadi, in western Iraq.

Jawed Ahmad

Jawed Ahmad (Jojo) was an Afghan reporter working for Canadian media outlet CTV who was arrested by American troops and declared an unlawful enemy combatant, while working with NATO at Kandahar Airport on October 26, 2007.

Ahmad was then held in military custody at the detention facility at the United States Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan for 11 months without access to a lawyer. While imprisoned, Ahmad was tortured and suffered broken ribs and other injuries. He was never charged with any crime nor given any opportunity to present evidence of his innocence. As a result of advocacy by his friends and family, and a habeas corpus petition filed by the International Justice Network, Jojo was released on September 21, 2008 after almost a year of being held in U.S. custody.

Here is what Committee to Protect Journalists had to say about his imprisonment and the situation in Afghanistan:

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which included more than 47,000 foreign troops, resorted to increasingly heavy-handed tactics, leading to civilian casualties and eroding the government’s popularity and political control. The case of a local journalist who was jailed for 11 months by the U.S. military reflected the sort of tactics that sowed discontent. Afghan journalists told CPJ that they were angered by the military’s handling of the case.

Mr. Ahmad was later killed in a drive by shooting in Kandahar. That happened in March 2009.

The above is just a sampling. The Committee to Protect Journalists put this in their 2008 report on Iraq and journalism:

Over the last five years, dozens of journalists--mostly Iraqis--have been detained by U.S. troops without charge, according to CPJ research. In at least 12 cases, journalists were held for prolonged periods in Iraq. No charges have been substantiated in any of the cases.

So, is it ‘detaining’ or ‘kidnapping’ if there are no charges? It seems to me that if the authorities are not going to follow the law and consistently abuse human rights, then they are no longer detaining people. They are just criminal kidnappers.

They have a comprehensive report on Afghanistan too.

And according to one Human Rights lawyer, the US is building a jail in Afghanistan to hold local journalists. This charge was made in 2008.

But, OH BOY, that does not stop the US Government under the Bush administration and the Obama administration, from being total and complete hypocrites about the detaining of journalists. Just recently, an American-Iranian journalist named Roxana Saberi was arrested, tried, and convicted of espionage in Iran. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.

So, we have an arrest, charges, trial – and prison sentence. And in the trial there was evidence presented (she had official papers found on her) that at least indicated that the charges were legitimate.

And the HYPOCRISY ensued:

The Obama administration harshly criticized Iran for its imprisonment of Roxana Saberi, the U.S.-Iranian journalist who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years in prison before being freed two weeks ago. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Iran's treatment of Saberi as "non-transparent, unpredictable and arbitrary."

Of course, the same thing is repeating itself in North Korea, although I don’t think the North Korean government actually has any evidence of spying. But those two American journalists did go into North Korea without permission and got caught. I hope they are released soon, just like I hope Ibrahim Jassam is released soon. Or at least given a trial.

But we surely don’t have any moral ground to tell other countries what to do.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: imprisoning journalists without charges.

WWB: bombs going off in civilian neighborhoods

WHAT WAR BRINGS: bombs going off in civilian neighborhoods

Photo: An Iraqi soldier checks a wounded man at the hospital after a bomb attack in Sadr City, northeastern Baghdad July 15, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer

This post is going to cover bombs going off in regular neighborhoods in Iraq. Now imagine this is YOUR neighborhood.

From Iraq Today blog on May 18, 2009, the bombing incidents (there were other incidents of violence that day that are not listed here):

Baghdad:
#1: Two civilians on Monday were wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off in central Baghdad, according to an official security source.

#2: Meanwhile, three civilians were killed and 10 others were wounded when an IED exploded last night near a café in Abu Tasheer area, southern Baghdad.

#3: Around 9:10 p.m. a roadside bomb detonated near a coffee shop in Karrada neighborhood in downtown Baghdad on Sunday. Five people were wounded.

#4: Around 9:30 p.m. two roadside bombs detonated in sequence in Ghadeer of the New Baghdad neighborhood in eastern Baghdad on Sunday. No casualties reported.

#5: A roadside bomb wounded two people in central Baghdad, police said.

Basra:
#1: A police officer on Monday was killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast near his house in central Basra city, according to a local security source. “A lieutenant colonel was killed when an explosive device detonated near his house on 14 Tammuz St., downtown Basra,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “The explosion wounded the officer’s son and one of his companions,” the source added.

#2: Sunday A roadside bomb wounded an Iraqi soldier near an Iraqi base in northern Basra, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.

Mosul:
#1: An Iraqi policeman was killed and three civilians were wounded when a suicide bomber targeted the home of the governor of a northern Iraqi province, according to news reports Monday. Citing local police, it said a man detonated explosives packed into his car 150 metres away from the home of Athil al-Najifi, governor of Iraq's northern Nineveh province, in downtown Mosul.

#4: Also Sunday evening, a car bomb targeting an Iraqi military patrol east of Mosul injured two Iraqi soldiers and four civilians bystanders.

#5: That attack followed an attack on an Iraqi police patrol in the western Mosul district of Den-Den, police said. Four people, including one policeman, were killed in that car-bomb attack.

And the Washington Post had this report on May 21, 2009:

At least 23 Iraqis and 3 US soldiers were killed Thursday in attacks in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk, shattering a brief calm here and illustrating still precarious security as U.S. forces begin withdrawing from Iraqi cities.

[in one attack] …..a suicide bomber set off an explosion about 11 a.m. near an office for a detachment of an American-backed paramilitary group, tearing through a market teeming with shoppers, Iraqi officials and residents said. Twelve Iraqis and the three Americans were killed.

……"Blood was all over the ground," said Raed Nizar, a street vendor. "The wounded were pleading with motorists who happened to drive by to take them to the hospital." At least 25 people, including nine U.S. soldiers, were wounded.

So what is an “American-backed paramilitary group”? And how many of those 25 wounded Iraqis died later on? How many now have life-long injuries? We might never know. No one should have to beg someone to take them to a hospital.

More from that Washington Post article:

Earlier in the day, a suicide bomber killed at least eight members of the American-backed militia in Kirkuk as they waited outside an army station to get paid. It was the second time in the past few weeks that the group's members have been attacked as they were collecting their salaries. A bomb also exploded next to a police station in western Baghdad, killing three policemen and wounding 19 others, police said. The attacks came as the death toll from a car bombing Wednesday in a Shiite neighborhood of northern Baghdad rose to 40.

That last one is not included in this blog post.

And here is example of bombs directed at US troops, but hurting mainly civilians, on May 24, 2009:

Iraq Suicide Bomber Wounds 34 In Mosul Shopping Street

A suicide car bombing which targeted a U.S. military patrol in a busy shopping street of Iraq's troubled northern city of Mosul Sunday wounded 34 people, some of them critically, officials said. "A suicide bombing aimed at a U.S. army patrol in Al-Dawasa district resulted in 34 wounded," a local police official told AFP. There were no immediate reports of Iraqi or U.S. military casualties in the powerful blast which struck a busy downtown city street full of shops.

Some of the injured were in critical condition, and of course, we don’t know if they survived or not. But the people living in Mosul know, as they know full well WHAT WAR BRINGS.

The next date is May 25, 2009. McClatchy reports these bomb incidents:

Around 10 a.m. an IED targeting the U.S. military detonated in the Adil neighborhood of west Baghdad. The US military confirmed the incident saying there were no casualties associated with the event.

Around 4 p.m. a roadside bomb targeted an American patrol in New Baghdad neighborhood in eastern Baghdad on Monday. No casualties reported.

Notice something about the above two incidents? The violence was directed towards the occupying troops, not the general population. In these two cases, there were no casualties reported, but that is often not the case. Oftentimes, civilians are hurt or killed.

McClatchy goes on:

Diyala: Four policemen were injured by a roadside bomb north of Baquba city around 9 a.m.

Nineveh: A bomb targeted an American patrol in tal Al-Ruman in western Mosul in the afternoon. One Iraqi civilian was wounded with no casualties on the American side.

Again, the last one was targeted at the occupation troops. This time a civilian was wounded.

More:

Anbar: A two month old infant was killed, and his while his parents and older brother were wounded, in the Julan neighborhood of Falluja on Saturday night. A grenade was thrown on the roof of that family’s house. The family was sleeping on the roof at the time.

Anbar: Around 4 p.m. a roadside bomb targeted a convoy for one of the foreign security companies near the police commando’s headquarters on the high of southern Falluja on Monday. One vehicle was totally damaged, but no further information released of the number of casualties as the area was blocked by police and the American forces in the area.

And yet again, the target of the last one was foreigners, not locals. Obviously not true of the first incident.

And there was another car bombing in a crowded market in Al Bathaa, a town in the southern part of Iraq. That one killed at least 33 people and over 70 wounded. This happened on June 10, 2009. Here is one local person’s response to this bombing:

High school teacher Hussein Salim said the market was supposed to be guarded by the police. He said he rushed to the scene and helped gather body parts, some of which had been blown onto the roof of nearby homes.

"How could the car enter the market? It was crowded with people ... The police neglected their job," he said. "I saw five children and six women among the dead."

And that was followed by a massive truck bombing in Kirkuk on June 20, 2009. That killed at least 64 people and injured over 160 people. A dozen homes were flattened. A few details:

It happened as worshippers were leaving the packed Al-Rasoul mosque, run by the minority Turkmen community in the town of Taza, just to the south of Kirkuk, after midday prayers.

Here is a more recent, and very deadly example of bombs going off in civilian neighborhood in Iraq on July 9, 2009.

A pair of suicide bombers struck near a judge’s house in Tal Afar this morning. At least 38 were killed and as many as 84 were wounded in the attack. The attack follows a pair of significant bombings only 40 miles away near the provincial capital of Mosul yesterday. The first bomber was dressed in a policeman’s uniform. When the judge, who is also an anti-terrorism investigator, opened the door, the bomber detonated his explosives. A second bomber struck amidst a crowd that had gathered at the site of the first blast.

Later reports said at least 60 were killed and 160 injured.

But that was not the only bomb going off in a civilian neighborhood that day.

In Baghdad, a pair of blasts in the evening left nine dead and 35 wounded, but the toll is expected to rise. The first bomb was left in a cart in the Adhamiya/Kisra area; a roadside bomb exploded immediately afterwards. Separately, a bomb killed one person and wounded five in the Karrada neighborhood; the victims were part of a bank convoy. Two separate blasts in Saidiya/Mawasalat left six wounded. Later, a bomb in Amil left one dead and five wounded.

A pair of bomb blasts at a market killed eight Iraqis and wounded as many as 30 more in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least one more bomb was discovered and defused.

In total, at least 77 Iraqis died on July 9, 2009. That would be equivalent to having at least 847 Americans die in one day from terrorist bombings.

Think about that.

So, there you have it- partial reports of bombs going off in ordinary neighborhoods, in a period when the violence is actually less than it had been (by a long shot) and over six years after the US invaded Iraq.

That is what we brought to Iraq: bombs going off on a regular basis. That is WHAT WAR BRINGS.

Oh, and it happens in Afghanistan too – bombs directed at US forces mainly killing civilians. Here is one example from June 2, 2009:

A suicide bomber destroyed a civilian vehicle about five kilometres (three miles) from the country's largest US military base at the small town of Bagram, 50 kilometres north of Kabul, the interior ministry said.

Six people from the same family were killed, including two children, it said in a statement. Another child was wounded, it said.

"Two men, two women and two children are killed," ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP separately.

Here’s one from today in Iraq – suicide bomber in Ramadi kills at least six.

It is a near daily occurrence in Iraq and at least a bi-weekly occurrence in Afghanistan.

It would take years and years to make a comprehensive list of all the sticky bombs, car bombs, motorcycle bombs, truck bombs, suicide bombs, IEDs, and other bombs that have gone off in Iraq and Afghanistan since the US invaded. The above listing is very partial. It only covers a few of the bombings from May, June and July 2009. And these incidents of bombing are reduced from what we were seeing in 2005-2007.

There is a blog that lists these on a daily basis – Iraq Today. This blog follows a prior blog that listed what was happening in Iraq on a daily basis – Today In Iraq.

And here is a blog that has pictures of the aftermath of the bombing. Graphic photos indeed..... And reality for the majority of Iraqi people.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: bombs going off in civilian neighborhoods.

Heal the world!

A very nice rendition (at Michael Jackson's Memorial Service) of the song "Heal the World". How I wish we could.

From Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)

This is Where We Take Our Stand - Trailer from Displaced Films on Vimeo.

WWB: deep sense of injustice

WHAT WAR BRINGS: A deep sense of injustice

In Iraq, the country and culture has been destroyed. No Iraqi has been untouched by violence and chaos from the US invasion and occupation. Millions are homeless, injured, traumatized or dead. And there has been little acknowledgement, and certainly no sustained efforts at reparations for the harm that was done. There has been the occasional payment from US forces for damages, but nothing on the scale that really addresses the injustices visited on the Iraqi people.

This is true for Afghani people also.

And a recent article asks:

Who will do justice to victims of U.S. invasion of Iraq?

Here is a part of that article:

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.

Iraqi lives are as valuable as those of U.S. marines whose numbers, names and graves are very well marked and commemorated. In one way or another, their families and beloved ones are being taken care of.

That is unfortunately not the case with Iraqis who, directly or indirectly, have become the victims of these marauding marines.

...... Justice is far from being administered.

Iraqis who lost their lives, whether those buried properly, or those whose bodies were left to rotten, or devoured by stray dogs, cannot be resurrected.

Will justice come to those who have suffered so vastly from actions of another country, over which they had no control?

Justice cannot come to those who are dead, but it is possible that some measure of justice could come to those Iraqis who are orphaned, refugees, widowed, or now in dire poverty because of the occupation.

But that is not happening, and there is no sign that it will happen – either from the US occupiers or from the current Iraqi government.

And that leaves a great number of Iraqis with a deep sense of injustice – that some of them may (unfortunately) one day act upon in a manner that is violent and vengeful.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: a deep sense of injustice among the people who live there.

GO MILIA!!!

I just had to post this, since I LOVE the message she is sending!

And like nearly all young people, she is beautiful. I would be very proud of her if she was my niece!

WWB: Children detained and tortured

WHAT WAR BRINGS: children detained without charges and tortured

An Afghan child, Mohammed Jawad, spent over six years at Guantanamo. He was originally picked up by the Afghan police, then handed over to the US military. It was reported that he was tortured and abused both by Afghani police and by the US military at Guantanamo.

He was detained because of a grenade attack in Kabul in which US soldiers and Afghan interpreter were wounded. It was originally thought that he was 16 or 17 when picked up, but interviews with his family by an Afghan rights group indicated that he was probably only 12 when he was detained in 2002.

He was sent to Guantanamo in early 2003. He is still there.

According to this Reuters report (and note that the journalist calls him “Mr. Jawad” leading one to believe that he is an adult):

Commissioner Nader Nadery said Mr. Jawad was tortured and abused by the Afghan police and at Guantánamo. The commission is seeking his release and repatriation.

The ACLU is working on his case. They are claiming that our government used false confessions. Here’s what the WaPo said:

The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation.

"The government's continued reliance on evidence gained by torture and other abuse violates centuries of U.S. law and suggests the current administration is not really serious about breaking with the past," said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is representing Jawad in a lawsuit challenging his detention.

And here’s another one, although I am not sure about the claim that he is the youngest:

Mohammed El-Gharani, Guantánamo’s youngest prisoner, speaks to al-Jazeera:

Speaking for the first time since his release from Guantánamo after seven years’ imprisonment without charge or trial, following a successful habeas corpus appeal in January, Mohammed El-Gharani, now a free man in Chad, told Mohamed Vall of al-Jazeera, in an exclusive interview, how he felt about being imprisoned from the age of 14 to the age of 21.

The video of his interview with Al Jazeera is posted below.

There is also a Canadian minor, Omar Khadr, who was also sent to Guantanamo. He is still there. There was a very disturbing video of him from 2003 where he begged the Canadian authorities to help him. Instead, they tormented him. In the video, Omar is showing his wounds, weeping uncontrollably, and pulling at his hair in despair. Left alone in the room, he rocks back and forth and says ‘help me’. The link is here. I recommend watching it, to see how torture impacts a teen age mind.

Omar Khadr: The Guantánamo Files

Shamefully, the United States is not the only country to turn its back on the Optional Protocol in the case of Omar Khadr. As his lawyers never tire of pointing out, Omar is the only citizen of a Western country still held at Guantánamo, in part because the Canadian government has persistently failed to exert sufficient pressure on the US authorities to secure his return to Canada. This is particularly shocking, because, as well as also being a signatory to the Optional Protocol, the Canadian government has been a pioneer when it comes to the rehabilitation of child soldiers from other countries (Sierra Leone, for example).

God only knows how many Afghani children and Iraqi children were detained in the US run prisons in those countries. Only thing we know for sure is that the number is not zero.

It is sickening beyond sickening that not only does the US torture and detain people without charges, it does this with some regularity to CHILDREN.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: the detention and torture of children.