What War Brings: vicious, horrific injuries to civilians
All wars and occupations bring injuries, and this post is going to focus on the horrific physical injuries suffered by the civilians caught up in America’s wars and occupations. Of course, we have no earthly idea how many people have been injured and still survived in our wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.We don’t even know how many people died, much less how many were injured and how badly. We don’t know how many civilians get caught in the crossfire, or how many are injured when we drop a bomb.And that is simply because the corporate media and vast majority of Americans on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t give a shit.They don’t even care enough to make a record or report it.And American people, for the most part, do not care enough to seek out the information.
And even when we do find out, nothing much is done to help the victims, except in rare occasions (and then it is aid groups that help out, not the US military or US government).
The Red Cross reported from Baghdad that during its heaviest fighting the city's hospitals were so overwhelmed by admissions that no one could any longer keep an accurate count, but that one major hospital alone had been admitting the war-wounded at a rate of about 100 patients an hour. And in one of the most heart-rending of statistics, another aid organization reported just a month into the war that a hospital, situated in one of the poorest parts of Baghdad, "had amputated more than 100 limbs of children in that one month."
Since I cannot present any definitive statistics on the nature and the number of injuries, I will present some individual stories.This is just a very small sampling of the total number of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan who have suffered vicious injuries.
Many people did not live to tell of their injuries, but among those that survived, even with limited medical treatment, the injuries are beyond belief.
Here is one story of an Iraqi.Hayder Abdulwahab woke up after a car bombing in Baghdad in the morgue.He had shrapnel all over his body, including in his eyes.He was injured so badly they thought he was dead.
Paralyzed, blinded, unable to scream, Hayder lay in a jumble of bodies. Knobby bones poked him from underneath, a still-warm arm lay across his side. The smell of rot was overwhelming."I'm going to die here," he thought.Then he heard the voice of his brother fighting to get inside, followed by the yell of a doctor who saw a pulse thumping in the open wound of his throat.
Moustafa is another Iraqi who was injured by a US bomb that threw him off the roof of his home in Baghdad.The bomb was not directed at him, but the concussion of the bomb did throw him off his roof.He broke his back in the fall, and he is now trying to relearn how to walk.
We visited Moustafa at a friend’s home. And the first thing that Moustafa did after greeting everyone, was to show us how he can lift himself out of his wheelchair, using a walker for balance. And how he can stand, balancing himself with almost no support from the walker. He radiated pride and satisfaction and joy. And we were delighted to share in it. It was extraordinary to be with Moustafa, knowing what he has come through.
“Children of Iraq Association Charity”, a UK charity, is working to help Iraqi children.I don’t know if this is a good charity or not (they look good), but they do have pictures of Iraqi children on their website.They show some of the horrific injuries the children received from the war and occupation.I have been posting pictures of Iraqis on my blog Faces of Grief, and I am sure the pictures on the Children of Iraq Association Charity are legitimate.Look at them and weep.
And here are a couple more.
Photo:A man suffering from burns is wheeled into the emergency room of the local hospital following a suicide attack in the northern city of Kirkuk, 255kms from Baghdad May 12, 2009. A suicide bomber in a pick-up truck detonated himself at a police patrol killing six people, three of them police officers and wounding 14 other civilians and police. AFP PHOTO / MARWAN IBRAHIM (Photo credit should read MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/Getty Images)
Photo:A wounded boy receives treatment at a hospital after a bomb attack in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district April 24, 2009. In a second day of major bloodshed, two suicide bombers wearing explosive vests blew themselves up at the gates of a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Baghdad on Friday, killing 60 people, Iraqi police said.REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani (IRAQ CONFLICT)
And this website did a whole series of photos of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.Some suffer burns all over their bodies, and the children wonder what future they might find with such disfiguring wounds.Women find their spouses leave them due to the disfiguring wounds.
“Enduring hardship for what else shall we do?”(This photo essay is part of an ongoing project I started in July 2008 photographing and documenting the lives of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.)Kidnap, murder, soldier, explosion, army, militia, ambush car; these words are the pattern of vernacular of Iraqi children and their parents in the mayhem of Iraq.Iraqis kidnapped and tortured, or wounded by car bombs, missiles and mortars, often exacerbated by improper medical care and severe infections, bear their wounds of war with determination and a patient shrug; for today in Baghdad, Sadr City, Anbar, Basra, Karbala, Kirkurt, Najaf, Diyala Sulaymaniyah, Qadisiyah, Babil, Dahuk, Arbil, Tam’mim, Salah ad Din; sufferance is the badge of all their tribe. In other words who are you going to complain to when everyone is facing the same situation.
I personally know about two Iraqi girls who suffered horrific injuries due to a US missile strike.Salee and Rusul were playing outside their home in November 2006 when a missile struck them, killing their brother and a neighborhood friend.(Blew them all to pieces would be the correct way of saying it, actually.)Salee had her legs taken off above the knees, Rusul lost her right foot.Both girls had shrapnel over a large part of their bodies.There were brought to the USA by No More Victims for surgery and prosthetics.That is how I got to know them, since they came to Greenville, SC, which is close to my home town.
Like the other Iraqis mentioned above, Salee and Rusul got no compensation from the US government or US military for their injuries.
Iraqis who have disfiguration from vicious injuries do state that they are shunned because of their appearance.Some of that is being addressed by plastic surgery.
Anbar, a conservative, largely Sunni Arab tribal province in western Iraq, is recovering from years of war between insurgent groups and United States troops.Since the guns were silenced, demand for reconstructive surgery has emerged in Anbar’s two main cities, Fallujah and Ramadi.
Scarred victims of Anbar’s recent violent history say they are shunned because of their appearance, but the province’s plastic surgeons provide a new lease on life.According to a report released in July by Anbar’s health directorate, an estimated 100 people with war-related injuries undergo reconstructive surgery in the province each month. Between 130,000 and 250,000 US dollars is being spent on the procedures in Anbar monthly, the report said. Most of the patients are women.
Walid al-Ani, who has been a plastic surgeon for 12 years, nearly gave up his practice due to lack of demand some years ago. Today, he advertises on the radio and his clinic – in a bullet-pocked building in Fallujah - is teeming with patients.Saad Nasir, a 44-year-old bank employee, recently took his wife to see Ani for skin grafts. In March 2006, she suffered severe burns on her back when the US military dropped flares during clashes with insurgents. One of the flares set their house alight.At a cost of 3,000 dollars, the grafts “are not risky, but they are expensive”, Nasir said.
Disfigurements and deformities are also present in high numbers in Iraq from birth defects.There are no records from the years under Saddam’s rule to compare to current reports, but all medical personnel claim that the number of babies with serious birth defects has gone up significantly in the last few years.This claim is impossible to verify or dispute.The local people are calling for an independent investigation.
An Iraqi doctor has told Sky News the number of babies born with deformities in the heavily-bombed area of Fallujah is still on the increase.…. Concerns were that the rise in deformities may have been linked to the use of chemical weapons by US forces.We recently returned to find out the current situation and what has happened to some of the children we featured.
In May last year we told the story of a three-year-old girl called Fatima Ahmed who was born with two heads.When we filmed her she seemed like a listless bundle - she lay there barely able to breathe and unable to move.Even now and having seen the pictures many times since I still feel shocked and saddened when I look at her.But the prognosis for Fatima never looked good and, as feared, she never made it to her fourth birthday.
And then there is AFGHANISTAN.
RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) have complied some photos of injured civilians that clearly shows the horrific injuries.
And here is a story of a seven year old girl who lost her arm in a bombing by US forces.Her name is Guljumma.She lives in a refugee camp, since her home was destroyed last year in the bombing.
Guljumma talked about what happened one morning last year when she was sleeping at home in southern Afghanistan's HelmandValley. At about 5 AM, bombs exploded. Some people in her family died. She lost an arm.With a soft, matter-of-fact voice, Guljumma described those events. Her father, Wakil Tawos Khan, sat next to her.
…… The destructiveness of this war is reality for Guljumma and her father. And for hundreds of families at Helmand Refugee Camp District 5. And, in fact, for millions of Afghan people. The violence of this war - military, economic and social - keeps destroying the future. Every day and night.
Not a damn thing has been done to help her. Her photo is above.
Photo:Guljumma, seven years old, with her father Wakil Tawos Khan, at the Helmand Refugee Camp District 5 in Kabul on August 31, 2009. Last year, an air attack by the US military struck their home in Afghanistan's HelmandProvince. She lost an arm in the bombing. (Photo copyright Reese Erlich 2009)
I will be writing to Obama, my two Senators, and my Representative about this child, just like I have written about countless others.I send 100 photos a year to those four clowns, and have been for years.Prior to Obama, I sent them to Bush.Same address, same results.By the way, I know I send 100 a year because in early January, I buy a roll of 100 postcard stamps.The photos go on the postcards, and then are covered with clear tape.Sometimes, I send more than 100 a year.
At least I know I am speaking out on these atrocities done in my name with my tax dollars.
And, of course, these horrific, vicious injuries are still occurring on a regular basis.McChrystal went to talk to a ten year old boy in the hospital last week.The child had been badly burned by a NATO air strike.Supposedly, the US is against this stuff now.I say the proof will be in the pudding.
And of course this is happening in Pakistan too, from US drone bombings.We just don’t have any information, beyond the fact that the number of dead and injured keeps going up.
If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS:vicious, horrific injuries to civilians.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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?”
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.
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 are being traumatized every day," said Dr. Said al-Hashimi, 54, a psychiatrist who runs a private clinic and teaches at MustansiriyaMedicalSchool 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' mentalhealth, 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 MedicalCityhealth 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.
“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.
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.
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:
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.
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 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.
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.
"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 SadrCity 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The explosives-packed car detonated as Iraqi security forces were gathered outside Mahmoudiya GeneralHospital 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.
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!
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 20th 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.
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.
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.
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.
"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 SadrCity. "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 EuphratesRiver 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.
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.
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?!!
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 SadrCity 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 HelmandProvince.
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.
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.
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 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.
What War Brings: vicious, horrific injuries to civilians
