‘Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week: Story #1: ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ slips silently through US Congress; Story #2: Kerry, Karzai Bury Hatchet in Kabul Meeting; Story #3: BRICS nations fail to launch new bank (27 March 2013)’.
‘It has been 10 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq, which marked a turning point in the West’s so-called war on terror. The pretext of the Iraq war was security and freedom, but the bombastic and openly pronounced objective was no less than remaking the greater Middle East region. For the US, Iraq became a quagmire and a humiliation – a strategic and moral failure that the country has spent the last four years trying to forget. But how much has America’s calculus of war really changed? And as Africa becomes the new frontline in the ‘war on terror’, have the Europeans learnt from America’s mistakes? Empire explores the merits, objectives, costs and morality of these wars with our guests: John Nagl, a retired Lieutenant Colonel who co-authored the US army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual; Jean Marie Guehenno, the director of the Center of International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, and former United Nations under secretary general for Peacekeeping Operations; Barbara Bodine, a professor at Princeton University and a former US Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen who also served with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq; and Christopher Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, former New York Times Middle East bureau chief, and author of several books, including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning and Empire of Illusion’ .
“For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn’t be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world.
The container is filled with the humming of computers. It’s the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren’t flying through the air. They’re just sitting at the controls.”
Innocent women and children were killed by drone strikes in the al-Majala region of Yemen. The United States is responsible for a very high number of innocent civilian deaths from drone strikes; a soldier wracked with guilt told his story of dehumanizing rationalization after killing a child. The senseless deaths of innocent children in Newtown, Connecticut devastated the nation, causing President Obama to cry openly for them. Why are children in places like Yemen or Pakistan not mourned? Cenk Uygur discusses the disparity (19 Dec 2012).
The report Living under Drones, quoted by Cenk Uygur, was earlier this year the subject of another post of mine: “Since 2004, up to 884 innocent civilians, including at least 176 children, have died from US drone strikes in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. A new report from the Stanford and New YorkUniversity law schools finds drone use has caused widespread post-tramatic stress disorder and an overall breakdown of functional society in North Waziristan. In addition, the report finds the use of a “double tap” procedure, in which a drone strikes once and strikes again not long after, has led to deaths of rescuers and medical professionals”.[1]
‘The Pakistani Taliban gained significant leverage as popular anger against US drone strikes has risen. But according to LinkAsia contributor Wajahat Khan, the shooting of 14-year-old women’s rights activist Malala Yousufzai has swayed public opinion against them (10 Oct 2012)’.
‘Since 2004, up to 884 innocent civilians, including at least 176 children, have died from US drone strikes in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. A new report from the Stanford and New YorkUniversity law schools finds drone use has caused widespread post-tramatic stress disorder and an overall breakdown of functional society in North Waziristan. In addition, the report finds the use of a “double tap” procedure, in which a drone strikes once and strikes again not long after, has led to deaths of rescuers and medical professionals. Many interviewees told the researchers they didn’t know what America was before drones. Now what they know of America is drones, death and terror (24 September 2012)’.
The report, called “Living Under Drones,” describes the conditions of daily life in communities in northwest Pakistan where drones hover 24 hours a day, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning. Their presence terrorizes men, women and children, driving many to stay away from school, funerals, and routine economic, social, and communal activities.
“We heard horrendous stories from people who lost loved ones, who witnessed drone strikes, or had been injured themselves,” said Professor James Cavallaro, Director of the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at StanfordLawSchool and an author of the report. “And perhaps most shocking are the psychological and social ramifications for whole families and communities. People are scared to go to the market, to school, to socialize because of the terror that a drone could strike anywhere at any moment.”
The Stanford-NYU research team conducted nine months of research, including two investigations in Pakistan. Researchers interviewed over 130 individuals, including civilians who traveled out of the largely inaccessible region of North Waziristan to meet with the research team. They also interviewed medical doctors who treated strike victims, humanitarian professionals, and journalists who worked in drone-impacted areas.
One small business owner from North Waziristan described the devastation caused by drones. Strikes “destroy human beings,” he said. Afterwards, “there is nobody left and small pieces left behind. Pieces. Whatever is left is just little pieces of bodies and cloth.” The everyday effect of drone strikes was underscored by the president of the local journalists union. “If I am walking in the market, I have this fear that maybe the person walking next to me is going to be a target of a drone…[or]…Maybe they will target the car in front of me or behind me.”
“The voices of the people who live where drones fly constantly – and who bear the primary costs of U.S. drone attacks – are largely absent in the U.S. public debates and in the U.S. media,” said another report author Professor Sarah Knuckey, a human rights lawyer at NYU, and former advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. “This report is a step towards bringing their accounts to a U.S. audience. Policy-makers and the American public cannot continue to ignore evidence of harm and counter-productive impacts of U.S. drone strikes. A significant rethinking of current policies, in light of all relevant short and long-term costs and benefits, is long overdue”.[1]
On 16 September 2012, Dennis Kucinich posted this message on his Facebook page:
I cannot begin to describe what a nightmare of epic proportions the situation in Afghanistan has become. Our troops are sitting ducks while they try to defend Afghanistan. They are being murdered, shot dead at close range by Afghan police (or insurgents wearing fake or stolen police uniforms). US bases are under attack by well equipped, well-trained insurgents wearing (stolen or fake) US uniforms. We still have 77,000 US troops in Afghanistan and each one is at risk.
Stand up for our troops! Bring them home!
Innocent civilians are being slaughtered by “precision” NATO airstrikes. The latest in an endless list of appalling NATO actions: Last night, a small group of women and girls were out gathering firewood for their families in a remote Afghan province. NATO mistakenly identified them as insurgents and launched an air attack with “precision munitions” which killed eight and injured seven\, putting the lie to the sanitized war.
NATO, in the name of liberating countries, has been responsible for a horrific toll of innocent civilian deaths by airstrikes, creating deep hatred toward the US, which is NATO’s largest funding source, making our troops even more vulnerable. Should NATO leaders be held accountable for their air strikes which kill innocent civilians? Don’t you think the US should get out of Afghanistan?[1]
The worldwide protests in connection with the atrocious video clip posted on YouTube have also managed to bury the brutal revenge killing of the American Ambassador in Libya. In The Independent Kim Sengupta reveals that the “killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal. American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential”.[1]
Rather than the accidental outcome of popular outrage over an admittedly atrocious video clip, the brutal murder of Stevens seems to have been a pre-planned revenge killing. Turns out that Stevens had been more than just pleased with the murder of Colonel Gadhafi, instead giving an emphatic thumbs up looking at the erstwhile Libyan strongman’s abused dead body. And now, the Ambassador has suffered a similar fate. Coincidence or poetic justice or simply revenge eventually executed??? Sengupta continues that the “US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”. Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts. According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and “lockdown”, under which movement is severely restricted. Mr Stevens had been on a visit to Germany, Austria and Sweden and had just returned to Libya when the Benghazi trip took place with the US embassy’s security staff deciding that the trip could be undertaken safely”.[2] This sounds eerily like what happened in 2001, when the White House had been warned of an imminent attack involving hijacked planes but nothing was done and no precautions were taken. Does this point to a certain amount of hybris on the part of U.S. officials or is this just another case of opportunities missed???
Sengupta then reveals the kicker: “There is growing belief that the attack was in revenge for the killing in a drone strike in Pakistan of Mohammed Hassan Qaed, an al-Qa’ida operative who was, as his nom-de-guerre Abu Yahya al-Libi suggests, from Libya, and timed for the anniversary of the 11 September attacks”.[3] And the anti-Muslim video protests just happened to take place at the same time.
Drone warfare has increased dramatically since 2008 and there are over 60 bases across the globe engaging in a US drone missions. US drones are currently deployed in the skies of over 14 different countries, some for surveillance and others for attacking ground targets. The area of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, known as Waziristan is the locus of much of the drone operations. But are these weapons keeping us safe, or do they just incite further terrorist attacks? And is their use a violation of the Geneva Conventions?
THE DRONE LANDSCAPE
THE DRONE ECONOMY
THE DRONE MORALITY
As a bonus, here is Al Jazeera’s People & Power talking about the Attack of the Drones: The US government’s growing reliance on aerial drones to pursue its war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere is proving controversial. As governments are increasingly relying on drones, what are the consequences for civil liberties and the future of war? (18 July 2012).
Interview with Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange and author of “Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control” recorded July 28, 2012 in the KEXP studios (28 July 2012).
This happened some time ago, but would appear to deserve some commentary, as I am a big fan of the singer and his songs: ‘President Barack Obama awarded the great Bob Dylan the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award at a ceremony at the White House’.
On the White House website this explanation can be read: ‘The Medal of Freedom is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors’.[i] And this year, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barrack Obama awarded these prestigious tokens of appreciation to many outstanding individuals, including the protest singer of protest singers, Bob Dylan or Mister Robert Zimmermann. In addition, ‘President Obama honored . . . former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Israeli President Shimon Peres, author Toni Morrison, civil rights campaigner and National Farm Workers Association co-founder Dolores Huerta and astronaut John Glenn’.[2]
President Obama said that “There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music”, [and that Dylan with the] “unique gravel-y power” of his voice helped redefine “not just what music sounded like, but the message it carried and how it made people feel”.[3] Never a truer word was spoken . . .
Corbett Report 27 March 2013
‘Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week: Story #1: ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ slips silently through US Congress; Story #2: Kerry, Karzai Bury Hatchet in Kabul Meeting; Story #3: BRICS nations fail to launch new bank (27 March 2013)’.
Category:
Af-Pak Theatre, Afghanistan, Americana, BRIC, BRICS, Current Affairs, Current History, Democracy, GMO, New Cold War, Obama, Political Commentary