Ideas for a parade

I got these photos from an email from FCNL. I think this would be great for a parade!

Ani Defranco -- Self Evident

International People's Declaration of Peace

International People's Declaration of Peace

PREAMBLE

We the undersigned, as responsible citizens of this planet, hereby recognize the immediate universal need for sustained "security through peace" for present and future generations of the human family.

In order that we all may live and prosper in dignity, we recognize the need for a genuine worldwide grassroots commitment by all humans to break the dehumanizing chains of the inherent savagery of militarism, of economic exploitation, of slaveries, of torture, of killing, and of all aspects of the culture of war and brutality that threatens survival of civilization on this planet.

We recognize that the present geo-political paradigm is systemically incapable of delivering us from the merchants of war and exploitation; and void of offering positive, alternative solutions. Thus we come together, as responsible citizens of this planet, to declare peace and work together as brothers and sisters for our collective freedom now.

May this Declaration of Peace be the spark for this manifest of commitment as initially discussed amongst citizens of this planet upon the sailing vessel, the Mass Transit, in Martha's Vineyard, on August 27th, 2009.

DECLARATION

We the undersigned responsible citizens of this planet declare:

We will recognize, first and foremost, the intrinsic value of each and every human being;

We will recognize that even though we are individuals with both unique talents and needs, we are also one in the community of humanity;

We will vigorously proclaim that no person is better than any other person irrespective of: race, religion, occupation, income level, gender, marital status, age, or national origin;

We will not allow ourselves, or our children, to enlist in, or be forcibly conscripted into our nation's armed services recognizing this is never an option whether it is for economic reasons or false patriotic fervor.

We will remove ourselves as far as ideologically possible from our governments when war is proposed, or promulgated;

We will actively protest against wars, violence or economic oppression no matter who, or what, governs our nations;

We will not allow the fruits of our labor to be used by our governments to finance wars;

We will boycott news sources that promote war and not buy into the culture of violence that is promoted by certain movies, video games and other popular culture;

We will boycott products and/or services from companies that profit from war and to the greatest extent as possible, we will not work for companies that profit from war;

We will proclaim to our nations, families, friends, co-workers, neighbors and strangers that using violence to solve problems is infantile and barbaric and we will not use violence in our own lives and we will teach our children peaceful conflict resolution.

CONCLUSION

War is the unspeakably evil pursuit of the worlds' ruling class. Wars of aggression are inherently war crimes and crimes against humanity and we the people of the world suffer while the ruling class grows wealthy off of the flesh and blood of our loved ones.

We firmly declare that peace is the natural law and we reject violence in all forms: from state sanctioned violence to personal violence.

Recognizing that most wars are the will of governments, and not the will of the people, we will firmly and with the highest conviction, state, that WE are not enemies to each other and we will stand in solidarity to Declare Peace with all the world.

Recognizing that the United States of America is still, as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" and the biggest arms dealer and war profiteer; citizens of the USA should acknowledge the special role that must be played and the sacrifices that must be made to help lead this planet on the path to peace and worldwide reconciliation, as the USA has allowed its leaders to lead this planet in aggressive behavior.

This declaration is firmly binding on all who sign it and the human dignity that is proffered on each signatory is its own reward.

++++++++++++++++

Above was sent by Cindy Sheehan, peace mom.

WWB: neighbors and friends turning on each other

WHAT WAR BRINGS: neighbors and friends turning on each other in violence.

In a lot of occupations by a foreign power, the indigenous population will dissolve into a civil war. This has happened in Iraq, but has not happened (yet) in Afghanistan. The people of Iraq called it the “divide and conquer” strategy. Whatever it is called, and whatever was the cause of it, it is devastating for the people who live there. The fabric of their community is ripped to shreds.

In Iraq, neighbors slaughtered neighbors, friends slaughtered friends, and probably family members killed other family members. And it definitely was an ‘equal opportunity’ form of group insanity…… with Shia militias, Sunni insurgents, ordinary criminals, insane people, and al Qaeda supporters all joining in. Oftentimes, the victims were targeted because they were seen as working or supporting the occupiers. Sometimes, the victims were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And a lot of this violence is very vicious indeed.

Inside Iraq: Living with the enemy

I first met Abu Wissam at the foot of his son's shallow grave. Never will he be able to erase the last image he has of his son's body. "He was cut to pieces," he said. "His hands and feet were chopped off. And he was decapitated." For a long time, Iraqis would say that it was "outsiders" that were carrying out such atrocities. The truth that is so hard to accept for many is that that often was not the case. Iraqis turned on each other, neighbors slaughtered neighbors, friends betrayed one another. It was the sheer degradation of society on a shocking and utterly petrifying scale.

.... The militia behind the kidnapping was the self proclaimed Mehdi Army, a Shia militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. And the militiamen were once friends and neighbors.

Many of the victims of this sectarian strife or general lawlessness and insanity were ‘disappeared’ and have not been found to this day. The CNN report continues:

Clutching photographs of their loved ones still missing. Desperate to grasp on to any thread that might lead them to those who vanished. They tell us about how they used to hear the victims' screams, how that sound still haunts them. They tell us the killers are still out there. The pain is palpable. So much sorrow and anguish, choking emotions, sheer helplessness, in just one location, one mosque in Baghdad with dried blood still streaking the walls.

The article goes on to question how, exactly, does this happen that neighbors and friends – who have know each other for years or decades – turn on one another. There really is no good answer for that, but I suspect mental illness plays a huge role in this. The diary I posted on September 8, 2009 covered suicides and mental illness from WHAT WAR BRINGS. I really think this may be a large part of why all this happened. The CNN article goes on to report what some of the victims families have to say about the murders and torture:

The families of the victims often gather at Abu Wissam's house. They don't talk of reconciliation or forgiveness. They talk of wanting justice -- and that means the killers' detention and execution. "The government has done nothing for us," one of the mothers gathered there says, her voice filled with anger and frustration. "We will take our own revenge. I say that as a woman, I don't have a man who can stand up for me, I will take revenge with my own hands. I will booby-trap myself and head towards them, towards their families."

That certainly explains were some of the suicide bombers come from….. put people in so much pain that they go crazy in their thirst for revenge. The killers are now just regular members of Iraqi society, and have not faced any justice.

How does a country heal from such extreme violence? I sure don’t know. But the ethnic cleansing has been deep in the city of Baghdad, and appears to be permanent.

UCLA Study of Satellite Imagery Casts Doubt on Surge’s Success in Baghdad

Night light in neighborhoods populated primarily by embattled Sunni residents declined dramatically just before the February 2007 surge and never returned, suggesting that ethnic cleansing by rival Shiites may have been largely responsible for the decrease in violence for which the U.S. military has claimed credit.

.... "Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said lead author John Agnew, a UCLA professor of geography and authority on ethnic conflict. "By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left."

In a lot of occupations, some of the local residents will support the occupier, and some will not. Add to that the fact that some of the Iraqis suffered greatly from the US invasion, in death and injuries from military action, and from the destruction of their economy. This fact (in and of itself) would have been enough to start off the sectarian strife.

But on top of that, the US authorities in Iraq in 2003 deliberately set up conditions that took note of who was a Sunni and who was a Shi’a. This was a new reality in Iraq, where they pretty much ignored these differences under the Saddam regime (for example, 40% of the names in the “Deck of Cards” from the Bush administration were Shi’a).

Last month, there were multiple bombings of the Foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry in Iraq, with scores dead and thousands injured. This article mentions how that reflected the reality of sectarian separation imposed by the US occupiers:

The three ministries targeted were each known to fall more thoroughly under the sway of Iraq's big ethnosectarian factions than under Maliki's direct control. (That was one result of the system of "apportionment" of state positions and patronage among Iraq's sects and ethnicities that was introduced by the U.S. occupation.)

AND, on top of that, various governments in the Middle East did their best to “support” the group that was best aligned with their country. This “support” often took the form of weapons and fighters. And then there was the al Qaeda knock-offs who did their very best to stir up sectarian strife in Iraq.

It is actually pretty amazing that it all took almost three years post invasion to really get going.

So far, this has not happened in Afghanistan. Neighbors have not turned on neighbors, although there is a history of the Northern warlords fighting the Pashtun people who made up the Taliban. In some parts of the country, people do support the Taliban, in other parts they most certainly do not. A recent example of that is found in this story about an ambush on US forces and the Afghans who are fighting with them. In this story, the locals did support the Taliban, and the Taliban were believed to have been tipped off by local Afghans.

We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.

.... A possible clue to what was to come occurred when the lights in Ganjgal suddenly blinked out while our vehicles were still several miles away, crashing slowly through the semi-dark along a rutted track toward the village.

.... Several U.S. officers said they suspected that the insurgents had been tipped off by sympathizers in the local Afghan security forces or by the village elders, who announced over the weekend that they were accepting the authority of the local government.

Sounds like the perfect set up to get a civil war going, where neighbors and friends turn on each other.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: neighbors and friends turning on each other in violence.

Tell me why – child singing song asking why there is violence and pain in the world

“Every day, I ask myself
what will I have to do to be a man
Do I have, to stand and fight
To prove to everybody who I am
Is that what my life is for?
To waste in a world full of war?”

WWB: suicides

What War Brings: suicides

We have heard of the increase in suicide rates among Iraq war veterans and Afghanistan war veterans, but I am focusing on what war brings to civilians in this series. For that same reason, I am not going to cover suicide bombers – in my eyes; they are combatants – although some of them have been forced into being suicide bombers. And there are children recruited into being suicide bombers also, but I am not clear that they are true suicides or child abuse victims or both.

I am going to focus on suicides among the civilian population that is a direct result of war coming to their country. And, frankly, there is not a lot of information available.

In Iraq, I have only heard of one story from a friend of mine. A woman had lost her husband to a US shooting at a checkpoint, and a few months later, she committed suicide. She left behind two small children.

In Afghanistan, there are reports of women who have set themselves on fire in suicide attempts, but it is not clear if that is the direct (or even indirect) result of war.

There is a bit more evidence of prisoners in US-run overseas prison committing suicide, with the most recent report from Guantanamo in June 2009.

Officials Report Suicide of Guantánamo Detainee

A Yemeni detainee at Guantánamo Bay who had been on a long hunger strike apparently committed suicide late Monday, military officials said Tuesday. The death was the first at the prison since President Obama took office, and detainees’ lawyers said it would focus new attention on conditions at the detention camp. The detainee, 31, was identified as Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh al Hanashi, who has been imprisoned since 2002 at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Pentagon officials said he was a Taliban fighter who claimed at the camp that he had never killed anyone.

The article goes on to describe the conditions Mr. Hanashi was kept under – force fed, held in restraint chair, kept under sedation, weight had dropped to 87 pounds at one point, and possible solitary confinement. This was the fifth suicide at Guantanamo, and the first under the Obama administration. From that same article:

Mr. Remes, the lawyer with other Yemeni clients, said many prisoners are desperate. “They harbored some hope,” he said, “that President Obama would move swiftly to resolve the situation, but they can’t see any progress so far or any light at the end of the tunnel.”

I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel either. I just see more tunnels. But my real point for this post is to take a minute to reflect on the reality that people in war-savaged countries have to face, and to reflect on the certainty that some of them – it is unknown how many – will totally fall apart under the strain. Many more of them will become depressed from the losses and strife that comes from war, and from seeing loved ones who suffered or sustained horrific injuries or died.

A number of them will end their lives because of the pain and vastly changed conditions of their lives. I think this is particularly true for the people who have serious injuries, or saw violence (nearly everyone) or who lost a loved one. Not everyone in Iraq lost a loved one, but everyone in Iraq knows someone who was killed. The overall numbers are lower for Afghanistan at this point, but they certainly have their own mental health challenges.

There have been a few reports on mental health problems among Iraqis (none on Afghans that I could find). I found one report from a couple of years back, which discussed the increase in mental health problems and the decrease in mental health services, due to the war.

Iraqis exhibit more mental health problems

"Iraqis are being traumatized every day," said Dr. Said al-Hashimi, 54, a psychiatrist who runs a private clinic and teaches at Mustansiriya Medical School in Baghdad. "No one knows what will result from living through this continuous trauma on a daily basis."

…… In a sparsely furnished office inside the hospital, Iraqis file in to describe their ailments to Dr. Haider Adel Ali, a somber 40-year-old psychiatrist. Fanzia Jaafer, a 65-year-old housewife, has suffered from severe depression and suicidal thoughts since viewing the corpse of her son, whose head was nearly torn off by gunfire late in 2003.

……. Though no reliable research exists on the state of Iraqis' mental health, the preliminary results of a survey of 10,000 primary school students in the Shaab section of north Baghdad, conducted by the Iraqi Society of Psychiatrists and the World Health Organization, reveals widespread problems.

.......... "I look into the eyes of children whose parents have been killed or are imprisoned every day," said Dr. Nadal al-Shamri, a pediatrician at the Medical City health complex in Baghdad. "The psychological trauma is so deeply ingrained in some children that they may never lead a normal life." Al-Shamri said his 7-year-old son suffered an apparent nervous breakdown last year and stopped eating after the slaying of a close friend's father.

There was only one psychiatric hospital in Baghdad in 2007 when the above article was written. Many mental health professionals, like other health workers, were targeted in the sectarian violence. They fled the country in large numbers. I did a prior post in this series on the breakdown of the health care system in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is a report on Iraqi refugees in Syria, written by the UN Refugee Agency. They say that Iraqi refugees are suffering from extreme levels of trauma, extremely high levels of depression and anxiety and PTSD.

UN research indicates high levels of trauma among Iraqi refugees

“We are shocked by the statistics, but at the same time we are not surprised because every hour of the day there is somebody who reports torture, there is someone who reports the devastating effects of the violence,” said Sybella Wilkes, spokesperson for the UNHCR in Syria. Compared to similar studies conducted during and after conflicts in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the figures demonstrate the depth of emotional despair felt by Iraqi refugees in Syria.

….. According to the figures, 77 percent of respondents had been affected by air bombardments, shelling or rocket attacks, 80 percent had witnessed a shooting, 68 percent had undergone interrogation or harassment by militias, and 75 percent knew someone close to them who had been killed. In the UNHCR registration centre in Damascus Iraqi refugees do not hide their anguish: One family of 10 sat weeping uncontrollably as they recounted their story to a UNHCR registration clerk. Amongst them they had suffered rape and gunshot wounds and now they said they could no longer afford life in Syria. “Of course we’re depressed,” said Ahmed Tariq. “We have been since 2003 when it all began.”

The mental health challenges that come with everything that war brings would likely be more than I could stand. Just reading about it and writing about it is difficult – living it must be a waking nightmare. And the effects will be felt for a generation or more.

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

TIMZ raps on Iraq

WWB: combatants storm hospitals

WHAT WAR BRINGS: combatants storming and bombing hospitals

One would think that hospitals would be seen as a “no-go” zone for combatants, but one would be wrong. There is no respect for hospitals in war zones from any of the combatants.

And this is certainly true for Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been repeated events where US troops or NATO troops have bombed or invaded hospitals – in the later case, to disrupt the running of the hospitals and to destroy. And the other side of the conflict – insurgents in Iraq, those spreading terror, and the Taliban – have also violated hospitals and turned them into combat zones. It is hard to say which side is worse, although the evidence seems to point to the US and NATO forces doing more damage.

Recently, NATO forces (US forces, really) entered a Swedish-run hospital in Afghanistan. NATO claims they had permission, the folks running the hospital claim they did not.

Anger over Afghan hospital raid

The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan rejects Nato's version of events. It says hospital workers were tied up by troops who searched wards for hours.

….The Swedish charity said the search was a violation of international principles and the forces' local agreements. It says the troops forced their way into the hospital and tied up staff and patients' relatives and ejected patients from their beds during the search operation. The charity says that US forces then ordered hospital staff to report any wounded militants who turned up for treatment. "If they [coalition forces] continue to act like this then our hospitals will become targets in the conflict," Anders Fange, country director of the charity, told the BBC.

I would say that the US forces have already turned this hospital into a combat zone. This happened in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul. Another AP report said the US forces busted down doors. They also had this funny comment:

But civilian deaths and intrusive searches of homes have bred resentment.

Oh gee, who would’ve thunk? Those sensitive Afghans! Just like the Iraqis! I’m certain Americans, under the same circumstances, would be totally understanding.

And a CNN report says that the US troops entered women’s wards, thereby a violation of local customs.

I think they should try this in Dallas, Texas and see if it is a violation of local customs there. And if they search all the visitors, who knows, they might catch some bad guys!

BUT THIS IS NOTHING NEW ….. OH NO, NOT AT ALL.

It is just that we have moved on from the ‘destroy Iraq’ part of our recent history to the ‘destroy Afghanistan’ phase. In November 2004, the US forces not only bombed and invaded hospitals, they did their very best to destroy access to health care for all Iraqis who lived in Fallujah.

In Fallujah, US declares war on hospitals, ambulances

In a series of actions over the weekend, the United States military and Iraqi government destroyed a civilian hospital in a massive air raid, captured the main hospital and prohibited the use of ambulances in the besieged city of Fallujah. Saturday morning, witnesses in Fallujah reported that an overnight air strike by US fighter crews had completely razed a trauma clinic, which was recently constructed using Saudi donations. Also destroyed were two adjacent facilities used by health care providers.

Can you say WAR CRIMES? Yes, I knew you could. Here’s some more from that article:

On Sunday, Marines said they would use the curfew to their tactical advantage, effectively designating any and all moving civilian vehicles to be free-fire targets. Normally, US troops are expected to establish that a target is hostile before engaging. But Colonel Mike Ramos told National Public Radio that US Marines have been relieved of meeting that requirement. Saying invasion forces will order all vehicles off the streets of Fallujah for the duration of their offensive, Col. Ramos added, "If a Marine feels that it is necessary, to protect the lives of his fellow Marines, he is empowered to engage a moving vehicle; he’s empowered to destroy whatever needs to be destroyed."

Well, we can’t let anything get in the way of bringing them freedom and democracy. In April 2004 in Fallujah, they fired on ambulances on several occasions.

And in December 2006, they did it again! To the same hospital even.

US troops raid Fallujah Hospital Again

Eyewitnesses at the hospital said U.S. soldiers raided the hospital "as if it were a military target."

"We panicked at the way they entered, kicking open doors and blasting locked ones," a nurse told IPS. "A doctor tried to tell them he had keys for the locked doors, but they pointed their guns to his face. Then they told us to go out of the building and they kept us under guard in the garden until the early hours of next morning." The nurse said the soldiers "would not even allow us to get some blankets to keep us warm; the temperature was below five degrees centigrade." Doctors and medical staff were arrested and insulted, and some were called terrorists, witnesses said. The hospital was then closed, and could no longer offer even minimal treatment.

And, it is the civilians, not combatants, that pay the price. In this report from Knight Ridder, an assistant manager of a hospital in Baghdad states the obvious, at least for the Iraqi situation:

"People who participate in the conflict don't come to the hospital. Their families are afraid they will be punished," said Dr. Yasin Mustaf, the assistant manager of al Kimdi Hospital near Baghdad's poor Sadr City neighborhood. "Usually, the innocent people come to the hospital. That is what the numbers show."

In the early days of the war on Iraq, the US did a bombing of a maternity hospital in Baghdad. It is unknown how many died in this bombing, but it was not the only bombing of hospitals by US forces in Iraq. All hospitals in Iraq are well marked as hospitals, or so I have been told.

Witness say US bombs hit Iraqi hospital

Residents said U.S. planes raided the Mansour area, firing at least three missiles. They hit the hospital, the nearby Baghdad trade center complex and buildings housing the Pharmacist and Teachers' Unions. The blast caused extensive damage in the hospital. "There were air raids. Some 25 people who work and live in the area were wounded. Three of our Red Crescent staff were also wounded. We brought all the wounded in our ambulances to two hospitals," Red Crescent official Abdel-Hameed Salim told Reuters at Baghdad's al-Iskan hospital.

And they bombed a hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan in October 2001.

US jets today bombed and badly damaged a hospital near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, witnesses said. A doctor, speaking in the presence of Taliban officials, said 15 people were killed and 25 others severely injured in the attack on the hospital, about one mile from the city centre. Foreign journalists were taken by the Taliban to the hospital, operated by the Afghan Red Crescent, the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross. They saw some of the injured but no bodies.

Two ambulances and two pickup trucks were destroyed in the attack, and damage to the building was extensive. The doctor, Obeidallah Hadid, suffered a slight head injury. The concrete building was a mass of protruding steel bars and chunks of masonry. Part of the structure had slipped into what appeared to be a bomb crater. Red Crescent flags were fluttering on a post outside, and stretchers lay against one wall.

The Geneva Convention states:

Art. 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the public Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.

Art. 57. The Occupying Power may requisition civilian hospitals of hospitals only temporarily and only in cases of urgent necessity for the care of military wounded and sick, and then on condition that suitable arrangements are made in due time for the care and treatment of the patients and for the needs of the civilian population for hospital accommodation. The material and stores of civilian hospitals cannot be requisitioned so long as they are necessary for the needs of the civilian population.

But I don’t want to leave you with the impression that it is only US and NATO forces that are invading, bombing and destroying hospitals and health clinics and ambulances in Iraq and Afghanistan. THAT would be false! The insurgents, terrorists, criminals, freedom fighters, whatever you call them, also are doing these evil deeds.

Even before the invasion of NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban were raiding an ICRC hospital and arresting the staff. And it was their second raid in less than a month.

Soldiers from the Islamic militia's religious police raided the hospital in the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar late Sunday night or early Monday morning, they said. The ICRC's deputy head of delegation in neighbouring Pakistan, Anton Bieler, told AFP the reasons for the arrests were unclear and he did not know exactly how many staff had been detained or whether they were still in custody. He said hospital workers were "frightened" and went on strike the following day to protest against the arrests.

And I am certain that this is not the only time the Taliban entered a hospital, or used it for a base for attacking NATO troops. But I could not find any reliable links to confirm this.

And over in Iraq, suicide car bombers have attacked hospitals and other civilian locations on a regular basis. Here is one story, and this is probably a case of cross fire – where the insurgent was trying to get US troops, who happened to be at the hospital. This happened in November 2005.

Car bomb outside Iraq hospital kills 34

The explosives-packed car detonated as Iraqi security forces were gathered outside Mahmoudiya General Hospital and as US civil affairs soldiers were visiting the facility to look at ways to improve it, the US army and witnesses said. Four US troops were wounded in the blast, but most of those killed and injured were civilians, including Hoda Ali Mahmoud, a 30-year-old woman who had just visited the hospital with her young son, who needed treatment for a cold. "The glass flew at us. His nose was hit and he couldn't breathe," she said as she sat up in hospital. The body of her son, less than two years old, lay on the morgue floor at Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, where many of the wounded were brought.

There are many, many more stories of all the combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan violating hospitals and health care clinics, turning them into battle zones or just bombing them for whatever reason. It happens in EVERY war and occupation.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: combatants storming and bombing hospitals.

Report on anti-American feelings in Afghanistan

Salee is in California!

I got this note about a week ago, so Salee and Abu Ali would have arrived in LA on August 29, 2009 (I think!). That means there are there to experience the massive fires going on in LA right now. I have not heard anything more, but here is the note from Ann Cothran Miller (who is with No More Victims).

Just a quick note to let you know that Salee and Abu Ali arrived in LA on Saturday! Salee is growing up, but still her sweet and spunky Salee self. She does walk without crutches now but it's with difficulty. She doesn't complain but she struggles so it's definitely time for the new legs! We also found out that she'd recently had surgery in Iraq to remove a piece of shrapnel that was migrating through her remaining limb and causing severe pain. Abu Ali gave us the piece of shrapnel and it was heartbreaking; about a 2 in long rectangle by 1/2 inch wide with razor sharp corners. So, the new surgery could be affecting her movement as well, but it's absolutely AMAZING to see her walking without crutches! And, when she's just standing, you'd never know she was on prosthetics!

Anyway, they both miss everyone in South Carolina and wanted to make sure everyone knew they were here in LA! If anyone's out this way, please come see us! They're staying at the local Ronald McDonald House, a beautiful facility, and if all goes well today, should be on their way home in a month.

I'm attaching a couple of photos, one of Salee and one of Salee and me on the ferris wheel at Santa Monica pier, which she loved. Off to Shriners now; I’ll try to send a walking photo soon!

Thank you all for your compassion and love,

Ann

No More Victims is operating on a shoestring, if you can make a donation, please go here.

WWB: lack of electricity and clean water

WHAT WAR BRINGS: lack of electricity and clean water

No one can say that a lack of electricity is a part of all wars and occupations, since we didn’t even have electricity for most folks until the 20^th century. But it certainly is a part of the US occupation of Iraq, and to some extent Afghanistan too. As to clean water – this is also not available six years after invasion (for Iraq) and eight years after invasion (for many parts of Afghanistan). I really have no idea if earlier wars and occupations had a lack of clean water available, but I suspect they did.

Summer heat, power crisis turn Iraqis’ lives into hell in Ramadan

As Ramadan began, Iraqis agreed that the high temperature and non-stop power cutoff, let alone security problem and crazy price hikes, are the most serious problems facing them during the holy Muslim fasting month. “Frankly, I don’t have a clue as to how we should be fasting during this month under this torrid hot weather and constant cutoffs of electricity supply. May God help us,” Qassem Mohammed, an employee who lives in al-Bayaa neighborhood, central Baghdad, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

This article goes on to claim that the lack of water in Iraq (they are in a severe drought) has more than doubled the price of fruits and vegetables. They also claim that the security situation has contributed to the increase in prices of all food.

Most Baghdad residents have electricity for less than eight hours a day, and their summer temperatures regularly get higher than 110 degrees. On top of that, there are sands storms which affect the health of people with asthma or respiratory diseases, and not being able to run the air conditioner means that they have to breathe the sand.

Six years after invasion, electricity still scarce in Baghdad

This summer has come with its own setbacks. Seven power lines have been sabotaged, and sandstorms caused malfunctions in natural gas-burning generating plants. Power shortfalls also occurred when Kuwait held up fuel deliveries and Iranian power lines that feed Iraq went down. Little relief is on the immediate horizon. The best hope comes in the form of two major contracts — one with General Electric and one with Siemens — that promise to double Iraq's electric generating capacity by sometime in 2011. Together, the contracts are expected to cost Iraq more than $5 billion.

Iraqis obtain electricity by running small generators that they own, and by paying for large neighborhood generators run by private residents. This is often an experience they cannot bear. Fuel costs are high.

Lack of electricity has been an ongoing problem since the US invasion. Promises were made to provide more electricity, but that has not happened. In this regard, the Iraqi people were better off under Saddam. This is due to US incompetence, the bombing of infrastructure by both US forces and insurgents, and corruption… lots of corruption. Billions of dollars have been lost to corruption. The power supply coming from Iran was recently disrupted (not sure why), and Kuwait has not always provided needed fuel this summer. All these factors contribute to the lack of electrical power.

And even as recently as this summer, there are still bombs planted under power lines, which destroy them.

Here is another report on the state of electricity in Iraq.

Sand Storms and Electricity

Among all the kinds of public services that Iraqis need, the electricity power supply is the most important ones. Except for Kurdistan region which has almost 20 to 22 hours of power supply a day, all the rest 15 Iraqi provinces have it for less than five hours a day and even these five hours are not full five hours. Two days ago, I called a friend in Basra in south Iraq and he told me that even within the one hours they have each four or five hours, they have a power failure. I don't know what the Iraqi ministry of electricity was doing during six years since the invasion but definitely it did not implement any project because the power supply did not improve, on the contrary, it became worse.

Iraqis often spend the nights sleeping on their roofs, since it is cooler up there. Here’s one story:

Yesterday night, I decided to return back in time and sleep my current summer nights as my ancestors used to. I started again sleeping on the roof of my house again to guarantee a full night sleep instead of getting us every two hours because of the cut of electricity. For the first time since the start of summer, I could sleep for full seven hours without the need to wake up to turn on the small generator of the family.

There are promises to improve the situation, at least in Baghdad. The Iraqi government and UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) are going to work to improve service delivery of water, sewer, and electricity.

Welcome move to upgrade Baghdad slums

"This is really good news; we hope it will put an end to our chronic suffering," said Dhia Hameed Mansour, 46, who works at a grocery in the slums of Baghdad's Sadr City. "Our potable water is often mixed with sewage, our houses are flooded when it rains and we have less than 10 hours of electricity a day. "For years, we've not breathed fresh air, [but only] smelled sewage and [rubbish] has piled up in our neighbourhood. Even the parks have been turned into garbage dumps where sometimes we burn it when government garbage cleaners do not show up," he said.

Mansour is among some 2.5 million people living in this eastern suburb of Baghdad, about 21 sqkm accommodating the largest concentration of Shias in Iraq, mostly in cramped houses packed along narrow alleyways. Mounds of festering rubbish grow higher. Small canals are clogged with sewage, producing an overwhelming stench. Power outages are common and much of the area lacks clean drinking water.

…..Only half of Iraq's 25 million people have access to regular safe water supplies and 9 percent of the urban population outside Baghdad have access to sewage collection and treatment services, the report states.

Due to the years of drought, the supply of electricity in southern Iraq has decreased significantly, because electricity is generated through hydro-power. If the level of the Euphrates River goes down any more, then the city of Nasiriyah will have a total blackout. Small towns along the river are being voluntarily evacuated because they cannot drink the water. It has become infested with ocean water, and salinity levels are too high.

Water shortage threatens two million people in southern Iraq

A water shortage described as the most critical since the earliest days of Iraq's civilisation is threatening to leave up to 2 million people in the south of the country without electricity and almost as many without drinking water. An already meagre supply of electricity to Iraq's fourth-largest city of Nasiriyah has fallen by 50% during the last three weeks because of the rapidly falling levels of the Euphrates river, which has only two of four power-generating turbines left working.

….."Not even during Saddam's time did we face the prospect of something so grave," said Nasiriyah's governor, Qusey al-Ebadi. Just east of the city, the Marsh Arabs are also on the edge of a crisis – unprecedented even during the three decades of reprisals they faced under the former dictator. "The current level of the Euphrates cannot feed the small tributaries that give water to the marshlands," he continued. "The people there have started to dig wells for their own survival. There is no water to use for washing, because it is stagnant and contaminated.

Drought is not part of What War Brings, but the overall poor security and poor services make handling the drought more difficult.

In spite of all the hardships due to a lack of electricity (or maybe because of it), the Iraqi people can still make jokes about the situation.

Here’s one:

An Iraqi man found a Genie’s lamp quickly he rubbed it and a Genie appears: Master, all your wishes will come true. The Iraqi man quickly asked for only one wish not three: Make us a bridge from Baghdad to Sweden so all of us can leave. The Genie responded: ask for something reasonable!!! The Iraqi man responded: Oh you are right then I wish that the electricity in Iraq will be fixed. The Genie quickly responded: hmmmmmm lets go back to the bridge to Sweden. Do you want it one or two lanes bridge?!!

And here are a couple more:

Dark humor flips on when the lights go out in a city that still suffers from crippling power outages despite the billions of dollars that have been invested in its grid. “Electricity is dead. Pray for its soul," reads graffiti scrawled along a wall in central Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood.

"I miss electricity so much I want to feel an electric shock, just so I know we have it," said Falah Hasan Ali , 23, a resident of Baghdad's Sadr City district who sleeps on his roof to escape the nighttime heat.

And, over in Afghanistan, there are also severe problems with electricity and clean water – at least for the common folk. It is claimed that (for most of the country) the situation is worse than pre-invasion levels. But that was hard to confirm, since Afghanistan basically didn’t have electricity when the US troops invaded. That has not changed much, even with the millions of dollars thrown at the problem. This next article is talking about Jalalabad, a city in Helmand Province.

Residents seek power supply from Kajaki Dam

Abdul Malik, dweller of Tor Tank locality of this provincial capital, told Pajhwok Afghan News the city had been distributed into four sections. Areas housing parliamentarians, senior government officials and wealthy people had no power outages, but places like Kala-e-Kohna, Safiyan, Kart-e-Lagan etc get power supply for only half an hour electricity or even less than that in 24 hours, said Malik.

It also depends on where you live – apparently in Kabul, electricity is functioning and available most of the time for most of the city. But only about 7% of the rest of the country has electricity, per a report from 2007.

Electricity Supply in Afghanistan

For most people in the Afghan capital Kabul, electricity used to be something of a luxury, but thanks to neighbouring Uzbekistan many homes now enjoy almost uninterrupted power from January 2009. Afghanistan is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Three decades of war have destroyed what little infrastructure existed and, despite millions of dollars of aid, progress has been slow.

A report from 2008 said that said that only 13% of Afghans have access to safe drinking water, 12% to adequate sanitation, and just 6% to electricity. And this report also states that a large part of the reasons for these figures (in spite of millions of dollars of aid) is corruption. Afghanistan is rated one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

That is another thing war brings – corruption. I wrote a post on that.

And the water supply in Afghanistan is also a mixed bag – some areas have clean water, some do not. Afghanistan (like Iraq) is suffering from drought. According to the report below, only about 20% of Afghans has access to safe drinking water.

Water a serious problem nationwide

Water is a major problem in rural and urban areas due to water scarcity, mismanagement and damaged water systems," Pekka Haavisto, the chairman of the UNEP Afghanistan Task Force, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul. According to the UNEP Post-Conflict Environment Assessment report on Afghanistan, whereas the country as a whole uses less than one-third of its potential 75,000 million cubic metres of water resources, regional differences in supply, inefficient use and wastage mean that a major part of the country experiences scarcity. "Water quality, quantity, and its guaranteed availability to all people regardless of income or social status is one of the most pressing challenges facing not only Afghanistan but also the world community today," Haavisto remarked.

Clean water is needed for survival.

The lack of electricity has impacts on people’s health, security, education and economic opportunities. Electricity is very important.

There is an aid group called CONCERN WORLDWIDE who are working on micro-hydro power projects in some villages in northern Afghanistan. This is greatly changing the lives of those residents in the villages, and it is a positive change. It is a positive change for the environment too, since trees are not chopped down and kerosene is not burned. You can donate at this link.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: lack of electricity and clean water.

Scenes from Baghdad Market

These are some scenes of a Baghdad market, sent to me by Faiza.

She gathered and donated some money to get four young men in Sadr city started in the market. They had to buy a street booth, and then the children’s clothing to sell at the market. As Faiza said, it is better that they can make their own income than to join up with a militia. Jobs are very limited in Iraq, and high unemployment leads to many problems. Young men will often turn to the military or militias for employment only because there are no other options.

WWB: rape and sexual torture

WHAT WAR BRINGS: rape and sexual torture

One of the uglier aspects of wars and occupations is the rape of men, women and children. It is always a part of wars and occupations, and it is mainly the civilians who are the victims. The rapists might be the invading/occupying military, the authorities put in power by the occupation forces, the militias or military of the invaded country, or just the thug down the street. When security leaves an area, all sorts of evil things happen. The act of rape can happen anywhere, and anyone could end up the victim, although women and children are particularly vulnerable. The point of rape and sexual torture is to both harm the victim physically and to harm them emotionally. Generally this means to harm them to the point where they can no longer function.

Rape is an instrument of war. Sexual torture and sexual humiliation are instruments of war.

Of course, the vast majority of rape incidents go unreported in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And of what is reported, I have only included a few samples.

We have all heard about Steve Green and the rape of a young Iraqi girl, after her parents and sister were murdered. The rape victim was also murdered and they attempted to burn her body. That is an act of a group of men who have abandoned morality and inflicted their sadistic wishes on someone else. While I am certain this act was not the only one of its nature, that is not what I am covering here. I am covering the use of rape as an act of war, or the increase in rape because of a war.

The most striking example was Abu Ghraib. The photos that we have seen show forced nudity, forced masturbation, and forced sexual acts on another prisoner. We have seen the photos of the naked man on the end of a dog chain, and the piles of naked men. We have heard the reports of sodomizing these prisoners. But that is just the start of the use of rape, sexual torture and sexual humiliation, as a weapon of war. Even before Abu Ghraib, there was clear evidence of sexual torture and rape going on by the British forces in Iraq.

Sexual Terrorism

Surprising to many, nearly a year before Abu Ghraib was exposed, in May 2003, British private Gary Bartlam, previously stationed in Basra and the port of Umm Qasr, was arrested in his hometown of Tamworth, Staffordshire. He had brought in a roll of pictures he shot in Iraq to his local photo-developer for processing. A shocked clerk, after reviewing the shots, called the police. Among his photos were:

* a picture showing an Iraqi man being forced to perform oral sex on a (white) man;

* a picture showing two Iraqis apparently being forced to perform anal sex;

* a picture showing two naked Iraqis cowering on the ground.

A flabbergasted Bartlam told the police that he took the shots to show his mom what was going on in Iraq.

One has to wonder what kind of home life those folks have. Ministry of Truth did a diary on this subject – the rape of children in Iraq.

Children tortured before parents, raped, all covered up by Bush/Cheney and our media

A couple more reports, this time from Taguba.

Rape Photos not at issue in lawsuit – but they do exist

The charge that President Obama, in the ACLU lawsuit, is blocking the release of photos that depict such horrific acts, appears to be untrue. But on the more important, underlying issue, Taguba seems to have confirmed that he's seen photos showing US soldiers raping and sexually abusing Iraqi detainees, both male and female -- and therefore that such things occurred.

Taguba Saw "Video of Male Soldier Sodomizing Female Detainee"

In 2007, shortly after he was forced into retirement, Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba made a startling admission. During the course of his investigation into the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Taguba said he saw "a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee." Taguba told New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh that he saw other graphic photos and videos as well, including one depicting the "sexual humiliation of a father with his son, who were both detainees."

And it happened in Guantanamo Bay.

Sexual Terrorism

Such interrogation practices were not limited to Iraq. According to a report in the “Sydney Morning Hearld”: “Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account.”

And the US mercenaries got in on the action too. In this example, Blackwater actually recruited young girls to act as prostitutes. Since these are underage girls, that is statutory rape, or worse.

Ex-employees claim Blackwater pimped out young Iraqi girls

The declarations describe Blackwater as “having young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the ‘Blackwater Man Camp’ in exchange for one American dollar.” They add even though Prince frequently visited this camp, he “failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men.”

In Iraq, we have lots of examples of sexual torture and rape done by US forces or US mercenaries. I did not find any recent reports of rapes done by Iraqis themselves, but I did find several older reports.

Rape’s vast toll in Iraq war remains largely ignored

As though recoiling from her own memories, Khalida shrank deeper into her faded armchair with each sentence she told: of how gunmen apparently working for Iraq's Interior Ministry kidnapped her, beat and raped her; of how they discarded her on a Baghdad sidewalk.

…. Rape is a common weapon of any war; no one knows how many Iraqi women have been raped since the war began in 2003. Most crimes against women "are not reported because of stigma, fear of retaliation, or lack of confidence in the police," MADRE, an international women's rights group, wrote in its 2007 report about violence against women in Iraq. Some women, like Khalida, are raped by Iraqi security forces. A 2005 report published by the Iraqi National Association for Human Rights found that women held in Interior Ministry detention centers endure "systematic rape by the investigators."

In Iraq, a story of rape, shame and honor killing

A young woman imprisoned in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, sent a letter to her brother last summer, appealing for help. The woman, named Dalal, wrote that she was pregnant after being raped by prison guards. The brother asked to visit her. Guards obliged. The brother walked into her cell, drew a gun and shot his visibly pregnant sister dead.

…… At the employee's insistence, lab workers using freshly acquired DNA-testing equipment drew a sample from the fetus. The prison guards were ordered to submit DNA samples and did so, apparently unaware of the sophistication of the morgue equipment and the people trained to use it. "They thought we were incapable of figuring it out," said the morgue employee. The DNA results showed that the father of the unborn baby was a police lieutenant colonel who reportedly supervised guards at the prison.

The rapist was (apparently) not punished.

And beyond rape, there is sexual torture. And forced diapering and forced enemas were part of the sexual torture done by the CIA, at least that is Digby’s assessment (and I completely agree):

Diapers

This stuff is actually one of many sick, psychosexual techniques that were used on prisoners under the assumption that "teh ayrabs" were especially a-scared of the dirty dirty. The manly men of the Vice President's sadism corps knew exactly what to do (and anyway, the torturers probably needed to blow off some steam --- it's a stressful job.)

And then there is Afghanistan.

I have not found any reports of US mercenaries or US forces engaging in rape or sexual torture in Afghanistan (but I am sure it exists to some degree). But there are plenty of examples of Afghan authorities CURRENTLY engaging in the rape of women, young girls and young boys.

AFGHANISTAN: Call for tougher laws on rape

“In some areas, alleged or convicted rapists are, or have links to, powerful commanders, members of illegal armed groups, or criminal gangs, as well as powerful individuals whose influence protects them from arrest and prosecution,” said the report entitled Silence is Violence, launched in Kabul on 8 July. “Women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes, their communities and in detention facilities,” it said.

Sometimes in Afghanistan, the rape issue is settled by forcing the rapist to marry his victim. In other cases, a girl is handed off to the victim’s family for one of the sons of that family, and thereby a rape victim is ‘appeased’ by another rape victim. This makes no flipping sense to me. But that is hardly the worst of it. In Afghanistan, the Afghan police are known (and hated) for their policies of raping young boys. They would kidnap them and bring them to their stations, and keep them there until they tired of them.

Child rapist police return behind US, UK troops

The police in the province, who are linked to the local warlord, have committed systematic abuses against the population, including the abduction and rape of pre-teen boys, according to village elders who met with British officers.

Here is a photo of one rape victim in Afghanistan. This was found on RAWA’s website (see above).

Caption: Anisa, twelve, sits weeping next to her crying father. Anisa was gang-raped by five men some months back. “I want the criminals to be hung,” she says weeping. Child rapes have risen sharply in recent years, according to Afghanistan’s Human Rights Organisation (AHRO), which claims most of the sexual assaults are carried out by government officials and other powerful men.

Rape – the most vulnerable victims of corruption

The rich and powerful in Afghanistan are known to rape women and young girls with impunity. The government's inability to stop these horrors have only encouraged those in positions of authority to continue abusing Afghanistan's most vulnerable. Last year, the son of a member of the Afghan National Assembly raped an eight-year-old girl. On the basis of Afghan law, he should have been severely punished. But the victim's family claims that the rapist had connections with local authorities. Rather than submitting to punishment, he was able to have his tazkira (ID card) illegally altered, making him younger than he actually was and ineligible for a rape charge. This change allowed him to avoid being punished for the crime the girl's family says he committed. Mooneseh Rahimi of the Law Institute of Kabul, says this happens all the time.

AND WHAT IS REALLY SAD – WHAT IS REALLY, REALLY SICKENING –

is that while rape itself was not ‘authorized’ by the US authorities, the threat of rape and forced long term nudity were US policy. And when someone took it too far, no one was punished, no one was reprimanded, and it was just ignored or overlooked. We will never, ever know the full extend of it.

What is acknowledged and what remains unknown

“Removal of clothing was authorized by the Secretary of Defense [Rumsfeld] for use at GTMO [Guantánamo] on December 2, 2002,” acknowledges the recently released U.S. Senate Armed Service Committee report on the use of harsh interrogation techniques. It also reports that the use of prolonged nudity proved so effective that, in January 2003, it was approved for use in Afghanistan and, in the fall of 2003, was adopted for use in Iraq.

“Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody”

….. Scotland’s “Sunday Herald” reported that a former Iraqi prisoner claimed that there is a photo of a civilian translator raping a male juvenile prisoner; he stated, “They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming, … and the female soldier was taking pictures.”

London’s “Independent” reported on the experience of Hayder Sabbar Abd, immortalized as the man in the hood in infamous Abu Ghraib photo of Lynndie England. Abd alleges that he was ordered to masturbate as Ms. England “put her hands on her breasts," which he couldn’t; and to simulate fellatio with another prisoner, which he appears to have done.

The “Sydney Morning Herald” noted: “Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account.”

CIA threats to detainees' families exposed

An internal CIA report published yesterday reveals a host of incidents in which its interrogators went far beyond acceptable bounds, including threatening an al-Qaida leader that his children would be killed and hinting to another suspect that his mother would be raped in front of him.

Is The USA A Sick Country Or What?

Remember this when you hear about torture tactics that we are learning were used by our side--things that make waterboarding sound like a walk in the park. We're now getting confirmation of things that we journalists were hearing rumors of earlier: faked executions using blanks, faked executions in neighboring rooms, followed by threats of the same to a person who had just heard the screams and a shot in the cell next to him, threats with an electric drill, and now perhaps the worst yet--the threat to kill a captive's children. And of course there is the already disclosed case of a captive who had his genitals cut with a razor, and generous use of tasers in places on the body designed to cause maximum pain. That, and of course there are a lot raped captives (including young boys), and a lot of bodies yet to be dug up of captives who were simply killed during torture.

And, so far, no one has been brought to justice for the vast majorities of these rapes and incidents of sexual torture. I doubt that we could bring Iraqis or Afghans to justice, but it sure seems to me that we could bring AMERICANS and EMPLOYEES OF AMERICAN COMPANIES to justice for these evil crimes.

I don’t see that happening, even with the appointment of a special prosecutor. They might prosecute some of the lower level “bad apples” like they did with Abu Ghraib, but clearly that is but a small part of the problem.

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

Prayers for the victims……and may the criminals be brought to justice.