What War Brings: environmental destruction

Photo: Soldier deposits trash into a fire pit on a military base in Iraq.

WHAT WAR BRINGS: severe destruction of the environment

We have here on Daily Kos a series of almost daily diaries on the environment, called Green Diary Rescue or DK GreenRoots. I have not heard them mention the US military and its impact on the environment – maybe I missed it? Wars and occupations are surely one of the most environmentally destructive actions that humans have ever participated in. And if the US military does not care about the water that the troops drink while at home at Camp Lejuene, you can bet your last dollar that they don’t give a rat’s ass about how they damage our environment.

For starters, the US military is the largest single consumer of energy in the world. Even without dropping a single bomb, or running a single burn pit, or dumping their garbage somewhere, they are already the biggest single consumer of energy in the world.

Index Research: The Pentagon and Oil

Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) sold $13 billion of energy to DoD services in FY2006. More than half of it was to Air Force. Oil accounts for more than three-fourths of DoD's total site delivered energy consumption. In terms of fuel types, jet fuel(JP-8) accounts for more than 50% of total DoD energy consumption, and nearly 60% of its mobility fuel. In 2006 Air Force consumed around 2.6 billion gallons of jet-fuel, which is the same amount of fuel U.S. airplanes consumed during WWII (between December 1941 and August 1945).

Most of the energy is used by vehicles, and about one quarter is used for buildings. Here is the overall consumption just for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The DLA supplied more than 2.8 billion gallons of fuel to Operation Iraqi Freedom and more than 2.2 billion gallons of fuel support to Operation Enduring Freedom as of March 2006. This makes more than 5 billion gallons, or more than 119 million barrels of oil. Today 56 000 barrels of oil per day, with a cost of at least $3 million, is consumed by military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Of course, not all of it is put into vehicles or used to power buildings. Recently, the Taliban has regularly been blowing up those tankers full of oil before they even reach their destinations.

So, right there, we have a hell of an environmental impact.

This does NOT include the energy needed to PRODUCE all the armaments and hardware that the US military makes, uses and destroys on a regular basis. Nor does it take into account the amount of energy used by the thousands and thousands of contractors, both for their operations, travel and supplies. I did not find any articles on that, but we are surely spending a lot of money, a lot of environment resources, and a lot of energy to produce all the bullets, bombs, protective clothing, hummers, tanks, airplanes, bombers, grenades, drones, night vision goggles, helmets, boots, guns, and god only knows what else, that the US military and it’s contractors use up.

I suppose the above amounts of oil quoted do reflect what it takes to get food and water to our 700 bases around the world. Somehow, I don’t think they are ‘buying local’.

The negative environmental impact starts before any of that equipment, or one soldier or Marine, even leaves the country.

And then there is the damage done to the environment from bombs and other munitions. The total cost is not calculable in a single blog post. I figure it would not fit in a book either. It would take an entire library – a large one – to document the total impact of the vicious fighting that goes on during a war or occupation. Think of all the bombs dropped, the car bombs that exploded, the cluster bombs, the heavy duty bullets, the drone bombings, and all the other armaments that were used in the fighting. Even if they never hit a single human (but they did), it would leave a hell of mess in its wake. Buildings, vehicles, anything and everything just trashed, and certainly not trashed in an environmentally safe way. All vegetation in the vicinity destroyed and contaminated. Unknown amounts of toxic materials just spread all over the place in tiny little pieces.

Here is an example, from June 2009.

Turkish bombs burn large tracts of Iraqi forest

More than 125 hectares (300 acres) of forest in northern Iraq have been burnt in the past month due to Turkish bombardment, a senior official in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan said on Sunday. The official told AFP that an emergency team of firemen and border and forest guards had been formed to extinguish the fires in the Kurdish province of Dohuk.

This is just one example of one area of bombing. Nearly the whole of the country has been bombed at one point or another. For the most part, they did not start forest fires; they started fires in buildings, probably mostly homes.

And off course, bombs and munitions kill off wildlife along with people. Here is a link to a Daily Kos diary about the snow leopards from Afghanistan.

And, both the US administration and Iraq administration intends to keep on damaging the environment with bombs and munitions. This report is from August 2008.

US surges $11 billion in arms sales to Iraq

The sale not only carries implications for the balance of power in the region, but also raises important questions about oversight, accountability, and transparency in a country riddled with internal violence.

I guess it did not raise questions about the impact on the environment. No one seems to think of that. But it is not just Iraq that we sell weapons and military supplies to. From the same article:

The United States is already the unparalleled leader in arms sales agreements to the Middle East. As a March 2008 analysis by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation detailed, the United States was responsible for 56% of all arms sales agreements with Middle Eastern countries from 1999 to 2006. This was nearly five times greater than Russia's share, the second highest supplier, and over eighteen times greater than China's. Blocking Russia and China's influence in Middle Eastern arms markets is considered an important foreign policy goal by many U.S. defense officials.

I guess it is more sporting to arm our current and future enemies, but I fail to understand why the American people want to pay for this.

The impacts of occupation are far-reaching in regards to environmental impact. The report below is from July 2009.

Iraq now a farming basket case

Iraq's agriculture faces the same problems as farmers everywhere: drought (in its fifth year), bugs, disease, salty water, red tape. Those problems are exacerbated, however, by location and history. Eight years of war with Iran, defeat in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, then 12 years of sanctions and, most recently, six years of war and U.S.-led occupation have left the country's agricultural sector in shambles.

Again from July 2009.

Iraq in throes of environmental catastrophe, experts say

Now-frequent dust storms are just one sign of the man-made damage that has taken the country from Middle East breadbasket to dust bowl, they say.

……….Iraq is in the throes of what some officials are calling an environmental catastrophe, and the increased frequency of dust storms is only the most visible manifestation. Decades of war and mismanagement, compounded by two years of drought, are wreaking havoc on Iraq's ecosystem, drying up riverbeds and marshes, turning arable land into desert, killing trees and plants, and generally transforming what was once the region's most fertile area into a wasteland. Falling agricultural production means that Iraq, once a food exporter, will this year have to import nearly 80% of its food.

They claim that even the slightest wind whips up a pall of dust that lingers for days. The Iraqi Agriculture Ministry estimates that 90% of the land is either desert or has severe desertification. And what usable land that is left is being eroded. One thing that has been blamed for this helping cause this condition is US tank movements. That fact has not been established, but the following facts have contributed to the desertification of Iraq:

- farmers till marginal lands, at the encouragement of the Iraqi government, and then abandon them

- people chop down trees for firewood, since they don’t have electricity for heat

- lack of power also means that water is not pumped to formerly irrigated fields

- power stations have been forced to shut down due to low water levels in the rivers

- drought is in it’s fifth year – this cause can not be blamed on war or occupation or corruption

- Turkey, Syria, and Iran have built dams that curtail the river’s flow – and they have gotten away with it, due to the chaos and corruption, due to the occupation

One commentator at this report wondered how much of that dust is contaminated with DU. One thing we do know: there is radioactive waste all over the place in Iraq. This report is from August 2009.

Radioactive wreckage, landmines blight Iraq

RADIOACTIVE wreckage and tens of millions of landmines still blight Iraq after decades of war and the deadly violence that engulfed the nation after the 2003 invasion, the environment minister says. Narmin Othman Hasan said a lack of funding and Iraq's fragile security situation was hampering efforts to clean up contaminated sites across the country. She said that only a fraction of tanks and other wartime vehicles contaminated with depleted uranium have been successfully treated and disposed of by the Iraqi authorities. "We have only found 80 per cent (of the contaminated sites)... because of the (lack of) security there are still some areas we can't reach," she estimated.

Of course, they have poisons still lying around from prior wars also in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. The above article goes on to discuss the possible health effects of depleted uranium, but says that the impact is still disputed. It also says that reports of negative health effects of DU are causing panic in the Iraqi population. DU was not only on bullets and bombs, but is also on tanks. The report also talks about landmines – how civilian contractors were paid to clean these up, but were suspected of selling the munitions to the insurgents. There are an estimated 25 million landmines in Iraq. This is a problem in Afghanistan too.

There was a recent report on the extreme rise in cancer rates in Iraq.

Iraqi cancer figures soar

Doctors in Iraq are recording a sharp rise in the number of cancer victims south of Baghdad. Sufferers in the province of Babil have risen almost tenfold in just three years. Locals blame depleted uranium from US military equipment used in the 2003 invasion. Some 500 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2004 alone. That figure rose to almost 1,000 two years later. In 2008, the number of cases increased sevenfold to 7,000 diagnoses. This year, there have so far been more than 9,000 new cases, and the number is rising. Mosab Jasim reports that Iraqi researchers believe radiation is responsible for the increase in cancer and birth defects in the country, but he says the US and British militaries have sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium.

There is a video report from Al Jazeera below under the first comment. And here is another report from October 2009.

IRAQ: War remnants, pollution behind rise in cancer deaths?

Remnants from Iraq's three recent wars - the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the Gulf War in 1991 and the US-led invasion in 2003 - coupled with the absence of adequate government controls on emissions and industrial effluent, have turned Iraq into one of the world's most contaminated countries, say officials.

…… She said her ministry had identified military vehicles and tanks contaminated with radioactive materials dating back to the wars of 1991 and 2003, but no action had been taken to get rid of them.

…..DU is a heavy metal and a by-product of the uranium enrichment process. It can enter the human body by inhalation, eating contaminated food, eating with contaminated hands or by exposing an open wound to contaminated dust or debris, according to Rahim Hani Nasih, a doctor in Mosul. It can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust. Wind and sandstorms spread the contamination, leading to diseases, including cancer, Nasih said.

So, we don’t know (for sure) how much depleted uranium will impact the health of current and future residents of the area, but we do know something about Agent Orange and it’s history.

Agent Orange continues to poison Vietnam

From 1961 to 1971, the US military sprayed Vietnam with Agent Orange, which contained large quantities of Dioxin, in order to defoliate the trees for military objectives. Dioxin is one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man. It has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a carcinogen (causes cancer) and by the American Academy of Medicine as a teratogen (causes birth defects). Between 2.5 and 4.8 million people were exposed to Agent Orange. The spraying covered 1.4 billion hectares of land and forest - approximately 12 percent of the land area of Vietnam.

Yes, we really did a number on the environment there – and along the way, did huge evil to the people who lived on the land.

A plea was made in a Daily Kos diary to help the people impacted by this massive destruction of the environment.

Well, let’s see – we covered the hugely negative environmental impact of all the energy used just to start up a war and occupation, and then we covered the environmental impact of all the munitions on the environment – both in blowing shit up and the possible after effects of the munitions, like DU. Is that all?

Oh, not by a long shot.

Our little contractors out there in the middle of our occupations not only did shoddy wiring that electrocuted our troops, they also exposed them to lots of toxic substances. This clearly impacted on them – but also surely had an impact on the environment, and on the local people living in the area. This is a report from October 2009.

20 WV Guard members sue KBR over exposure

Two subsidiaries of KBR Inc. are being sued by 30 members of the West Virginia National Guard who claim they were exposed to a toxic chemical while guarding a water plant in Iraq. The members of the Moundsville-based 1092nd Engineer Battalion filed the lawsuit Monday in Marshall County Circuit Court against Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc., and KBR Technical Services, Inc. According to the lawsuit, the guardsmen guarded the water plant while KBR contractors repaired the facility in 2003. The lawsuit claims the guardsmen weren't told that they were being exposed to sodium dichromate, a chemical linked to cancer and other illnesses.

And then there are the burn pits. This is where the military gets rid of its garbage, and does not pay any attention to whether it is toxic garbage or not. They just burn it. This environmental assault is impacting our troops. It is clearly also impacting on the environment and the local people who live around the burn pits.

NH congresswomen: snuff burn pits

According to a statement from Shea-Porter and Bishop, the Department of Defense has dismissed any long-term health risks posed by the pits, but the representatives believe that hundreds of tons of war-zone waste -- including dioxin, benzene and other carcinogens -- are leading to serious health problems among veterans. They cited a waste pit at the 15-square-mile Joint Base Balad in Iraq has burned unexploded ordnance, petroleum products, plastics, rubber, paint and solvents, and medical waste, including amputated limbs, according to a 2006 memo from a top U.S. military official. This wouldn't be the first time that something the defense department thought safe proved harmful -- a la Agent Orange.

I’m not buying the idea that the US Department of Defense thought burning this stuff was “safe”. I think the reasonable explanation is they didn’t give a shit.

What I presented above is just a small sampling of the environmental impact of wars and occupation. The vast destruction of the munitions and the energy used to produce them, the chaos leading to wasteful and environmental destructive practices, the corruption of puppet governments, the lack of any enforcement of environmental regulations, the waste, the waste, the waste….. the list of the contributors to the environmental destruction is enormous.

Fight climate change by ending war

War devastates ecosystems with radiation, wasteful burning of oil and destructive use of resources that are needed for positive social purposes. Saunders explains: “Here’s the awful truth: even if every person, every automobile, and every factory suddenly emitted zero emissions, the Earth would still be headed head first and full speed towards total disaster for one major reason. The military…produces enough greenhouse gases, by itself, to place the entire globe, with all of it’s inhabitants large and small, in the most imminent danger of extinction.”

Is it really that bad? Are we in danger of extinction? I don’t know. But I do know it is bad.

Here is a quote that sums it all up:

“We hear war called murder. It is not: it is suicide.” - Ramsay MacDonald, British prime minister 1931-1935

Yes, it is suicide to our home, our planet, to allow this to continue. And I didn’t even mention what the use of nuclear weapons might do, if we were to use them in a future war. Maybe nuclear winter will overcome the effects of global warming? Well, probably not.

Given the immensity of pollution caused by war, peace may be the only solution to global warming. – Andrea Peloso

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

Iraqi cancer figures soar – October 2009

You can bomb the world to pieces……

What War Brings: deterioration of women's rights

Photo: Nadia's husband, to avenge a dispute he had with her father, cut off her nose and ear while she was sleeping. She has undergone six operations and needs more. "I don't know anything about happiness," 17-year-old Nadia said. (Photo: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)

WHAT WAR BRINGS: deterioration of women’s rights

One of the many proposed reasons for going into Afghanistan was to restore women’s rights to the Afghan women, who were not allowed to attend school, hold a job, or walk around unescorted by a man, under the Taliban. For a lot of Americans (who are uninformed) this somehow translated into the situation in Iraq. In Iraq prior to the US invasion, women’s rights were good. They attended school, held professional jobs, retained their names when they got married, and generally had the same rights as the men had – which, of course, were restricted by the Saddam regime.

Today, the situation in Iraq for women’s rights has deteriorated due to the US invasion and occupation. And the Iraqi women who are refugees are facing an extreme deterioration of their rights. In Afghanistan, things are not looking good either.

IRAQ

Women who end up refugees from conflict face a host of problems. Education is lacking, poverty is rampant, and security is poor. The families are under extreme stress, and this results in more domestic violence. Refugee International reported on the situation for Iraqi women who are refugees this past July.

Displaced Iraqi women increasingly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse

Iraqi women who have been uprooted by violence in their country are increasingly susceptible to exploitation and abuse because of extreme financial pressures, a new field report from Refugees International (RI) described today. The report states that domestic violence among Iraqi refugees is increasing in Syria, and that reports of domestic violence are higher among the displaced population in northern Iraq. Displaced women are also more vulnerable to forced early marriages, "temporary marriages," prostitution, trafficking, and domestic violence.

The government of Kurdistan has passed laws against violence directed at women. There have been problems getting these laws effectively implemented. The Iraqi government, in contrast, has not reformed their laws. In particular, “honor killings” are not pursued and punished as they should be. Refugees International would like to see these laws reformed, and see the Iraqi government publicly indicate its support for women’s rights.

In March of 2009, the UN called for more action on women’s rights in Iraq. They report that one in ten Iraqi households are headed by women, and more than 80 percent of these are widows. Here are some more statistics on the status of women in Iraq in 2009:

Greater efforts needed to boost women’s rights in Iraq, says UN

Women comprise 17 per cent of the country’s labour force, compared to 81 percent of men, with the low participation rate of women partially attributed to illiteracy. Nearly one-quarter of women and girls – many of whom were afraid to attend school due to the violence – above the age of 10 are illiterate, compared with just 11 per cent of boys.

The UN also expressed concern over women’s health indicators, with maternal mortality rates reaching 84 per 100,000 live births compared to 41 and 65 in neighbouring Jordan and Syria respectively. “Most of children and women mortalities in Iraq can be prevented through simple interventions – from antenatal and emergency obstetric care to breastfeeding and safe hygiene at home,” said Sikander Khan, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Representative in the country. He stressed the importance of cooperation with Iraq’s health system to prevent further deaths. Mr. Shearer also said the high rates of violence against women, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day which was observed yesterday, are still worrying.

It is clear that women’s rights, along with education of girls, have deteriorated significantly since 2003. The Iraqi constitution, under the Saddam regime, referred to Iraqis as “citizens” and there was no distinction made between women and men in the rights granted by that constitution. Violence against women has risen significantly since 2003, due to the war and occupation. The next report is from 2005, well before the violence really got out of hand.

How the US erase women’s rights in Iraq

Prior to the arrival of U.S. forces, Iraqi women were free to go wherever they wish and wear whatever they like. The 1970 Iraqi constitution, gave Iraqi women equity and liberty unmatched in the Muslim World. Since the U.S. invasion, Iraqi women’s rights have fallen to the lowest level in Iraq’s history.

…. Immediately after the invasion, the U.S. embarked on cultivating friendships with religious groups and clerics. The aim was the complete destruction of nationalist movements, including women’s rights movements, and replacing them with expatriate religious fanatics and criminals piggybacked from Iran, the U.S. and Britain. In the mean time the U.S. moved to liquidate any Iraqi opposition or dissent to the Occupation.

That article has an interesting review of Karen Hughes, the Undersecretary of State in the Bush administration. She is not portrayed positively! They see the entire war and occupation as a bringer of misery and injustice, and having nothing to do with freedom or democracy.

A report by the San Francisco Chronicle in May 2009 lists some of the more recent examples of the set-back for women’s rights in Iraq.

Women’s rights threatened in Iraq, Afghanistan

In Iraq, women suffer many of the same injustices - honor killings, acid attacks, summary executions. In Basra last year, while extremist Shiite militias controlled the city, reporters and human rights workers described grisly scenes of women strangled, tortured, disfigured and beheaded for purported violations of that particular sect's interpretation of Islamic law.

……….. Women do sit in the parliament, but they wield little influence. Meantime, Nawal al-Samarraie, Iraq's minister for women's affairs, quit her job when the central government cut her budget - to $1,500 a month for the entire Ministry of Women's Affairs.

In December 2008, a women’s rights activist who lived in Kirkuk was murdered in her home. She was the leader of the Women’s league of the Kurdish Communist Party. There is no report on who was responsible or what the motivation for the murder might be.

Yes, Iraq has a long way to go, just to return to the level of rights they had back in 2002.

AFGHANISTAN

Before the US/NATO invasion in 2001, women in Afghanistan lived under Taliban theocracy that did not allow girls to attain an education, or for women to work or even leave the house without a male escort. And, I am sure a lot of us had hopes that this would change with such direct US/NATO involvement there – a hope that was not realized. There are claims that things are getting worse. Women in burkas are still a common sight, but that is probably the least of their problems.

UN report on Afghanistan, January 16, 2009

The rape of women and children remains widespread though its true extent is concealed by underreporting. Most perpetrators continue to go unpunished.... Female victims of violence continue to have limited access to justice and effective redress mechanisms. Customary justice systems are only accessed by women accompanied by a male relative.... Threats and intimidation against women in public life or who work outside the home have seen a dramatic increase....

‘Worse than the Taliban’ - new law rolls back rights for Afghan women

Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission. The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions.

Women’s rights threatened in Iraq, Afghanistan

…. Women’s rights are facing setbacks. Perhaps the best known of them, in Afghanistan, was President Hamid Karzai's recent decision to sign a law requiring Shiite women to put on fancy clothes and makeup if their husbands request it - and then to have sex whenever their husband demands it. Karzai, relatively unpopular now, did this at the behest of Shiite clergy whose support he needs in the elections this summer.

Afghanistan passes ‘barbaric’ law diminishing women’s rights

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review. The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work. "It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

This law was passed to assist Karzai in the August elections – he gained support from the fundamentalists. I have not heard anything about the law being repealed. Cultural customs around marriage are also very abusive to young girls.

Afghan women fight on for rights

A staggering 60% of women are still forced into marriage as children - often as young as nine or ten. That has not changed since the West intervened, despite Afghan law stating that girls under 16 should not be married. In practice, the government and families ignore the law. In the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, I found 17-year-old Saida who was on the run from her husband. Her father had died when she was little and her brothers had claimed her as their property. They sold her off, at the age of 9, to a 60-year-old man. "If he saw a shoe or a stick, anything - he would beat me with it," Saida said, "I had four miscarriages because of the beating and the stress". Then her husband took his child bride on the road to places where they were not known and sold her to other men, forcing her to have sex with them.

The article above also reports on the Afghan women who attempt suicide by setting themselves on fire. Only a few survive.

Afghanistan: “Differentiate rape from adultery”

Human rights groups are calling on the Afghan government to adopt a new law which would more clearly differentiate rape, a criminal offence, from consensual adultery, considered a serious crime in the country. Rape and adultery are two different issues and should be separate in law. Rape is an act of violence and coercion and the inflicting of suffering on a victim, and is not consensual, whereas adultery is consensual, freely chosen," Sonya Merkova, a researcher at London-based Amnesty International, told IRIN.

….. "Women in Afghanistan, victims of rape, are often at risk of being convicted of `zina' [fornication outside marriage] under Article 427 of the Afghan Penal Code, and are denied justice. Indeed, the crime of rape committed against them, through no fault of their own, is compounded by further victimization in being prosecuted by the state for `zina'," said Amnesty's Merkova.

Judicial officials and the Afghan police are not convinced that rape is a serious crime, and they often see rape as sexual intercourse outside of marriage….. and that rape cannot occur inside of marriage.

Another article says that illiteracy is at 80% among Afghan women.

The First Lady of Afghanistan does nothing to improve the situation, even though she is a medical doctor. She is invisible, and does not leave her home without Karzai.

There is one Afghan politician who is working for women’s health, wellbeing and rights. That is Malalai Joya. She returned to Afghanistan in 1998, after spending most of her life in camps in Iran and Pakistan. She returned to educate girls.

“The killing of women is like killing a bird today in Afghanistan”

She came to the world’s attention in 2003 when, at a constitutional convention attended by Afghanistan’s leaders, she publicly accused many of those present of being war criminals, drug lords and supporters of the Taliban. Joya continued to speak out against fellow parliamentarians following her election to the national assembly in 2005. While her outspoken views have gained much support both inside Afghanistan and internationally, Joya has also created powerful enemies. She remains suspended from parliament for being openly critical of fellow MPs and has survived several assassination attempts.

So, has the presence of US/NATO troops in Afghanistan improved the situation there for women? One organization that has been working for women’s rights and education in Afghanistan is the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). They have a long history, going back to the 1980’s, and they have suffered greatly for their efforts to educate girls and promote human rights for Afghan women. Here is a report from one of the members of RAWA from August 2009.

Interview with Afghan activist Shazia Shekib

There are some people who care about women’s rights in Afghanistan and believe that the US military needs to stay to protect women and make sure the Taliban doesn’t come into power. What do you say to people who make that argument?

People who are living in Afghanistan like I am living inside Afghanistan, I can tell you the real situation, what’s going on. From 2001 up until now there is no positive change for women. There are crimes against women, as it was during the Taliban. The rapes of women of 75 years old, children of 3 years old and 4 years old. Self-immolation among women has increased and acid attacks, kidnaps, shooting and poisoning of teachers and girls on the way because there is no security, has increased. There is danger from Taliban side, they are increased in different areas, and the warlords who are in power, they have commanders, they have the support of the US and Karzai with them and they are committing crimes. Eight years is enough for a country, for a superpower to prove you can do something or you can’t, with the power that you have, with the money that you have, and with the military that you have. But after almost eight years we still have a catastrophic situation.

The women of RAWA have held my highest respect ever since I first heard of them, back in the 1990’s while the Taliban still ruled in Afghanistan. If they say that the presence of US/NATO troops is not helping women or women’s rights in Afghanistan, I believe them.

The overall conclusion to be drawn here is that women’s rights deteriorate in war situation, or in a situation of foreign occupation by military troops. Sonali Kolhatkar said this recently: “Waging war does not lead to the liberation of women anywhere. Women always disproportionately suffer the effects of war, and to think that women's rights can be won with bullets and bloodshed is a position dangerous in its naïveté.”

The US military and NATO troops have removed the Taliban (who are making a comeback, but that’s another story) and installed warlords who are as anti-women and as anti-human rights as the Taliban were. Corruption is rampant, and the misogynistic society is still firmly in place. There has been some gains in education for girls – see my prior post on that topic – but those gains are fragile and piecemeal across Afghanistan.

Final words from Sonali Kolhatkar:

In our conversations arguing this point, we are told that the U.S. cannot leave Afghanistan because of what will happen to women if they go. Let us be clear: Women are being gang raped, brutalized and killed in Afghanistan. Forced marriages continue, and more women than ever are being forced into prostitution -- often to meet the demand of foreign troops. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan is doing nothing to protect Afghan women.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: deterioration of women’s rights.

McChrystal’s measure of success in Afghanistan

What War Brings: drone bombings

WHAT WAR BRINGS: drone bombings that kill civilians

I was not going to include this in my series originally, because drone bombs have not been a part of most prior wars and occupations – they have only been around since the US-led NATO war in the former Yugoslavia. But they are a big part of today’s wars and occupations since about 2006, and I believe they always will be from now on. So, I am going to try to cover what these drones and their bombings do to ordinary civilians.

It is a very ugly picture. When we think of drone bombings, it is Pakistan that first comes to mind.

This past April, I did a post on the civilians killed by drone attacks in Pakistan.

Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent.

Figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities show that a total of 701 people, including 14 al-Qaeda leaders, have been killed since January 2006 in 60 American predator attacks targeting the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Of course, not much has changed since April 2009. They are still sending drone to bomb in Pakistan. There have not been any further reports from inside Pakistan on how many were militants and how many were civilians – that I am aware of. So, in the following reports, the dead will be called militants by the US and international press, just like they were in the bombings prior to April 2009. And their claims are, most likely, just as wrong. Most likely, the majority of the dead people are unarmed civilians.

The AP reported in July that 45 militants were killed in a drone bombing in Pakistan.

The first strike took place before dawn. A suspected U.S. drone fired six missiles at a mountaintop training camp in the Karwan Manza area of South Waziristan, killing 10 militants, the intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. The nationalities and the identities of the slain men were not immediately known. Hours later, 12 miles (20 kilometers) to the east, missiles believed fired from a U.S. drone hit four vehicles carrying Taliban militants, killing at least 35, including a key Taliban commander, one intelligence official said. He did not disclose the commander's identity. Other intelligence officials put the death toll as high as 50.

This next report from June 2009 does indicate that there were non-combatant killed.

At least 80 killed as US drones attack funeral procession

On Thursday, US drones launched an attack on a compound in South Waziristan, and when locals rushed to the scene to rescue survivors, they launched more missiles at them, leaving a total of 13 dead. The timing and target of the attack were controversial, as was the tactic of luring locals in with a first strike to maximize the kill count. Today, locals were involved in a funeral procession when the US struck again.

Pakistan: US drone strike kills at least five

A missile allegedly fired by a United States drone hit a village in Pakistan's troubled northwest border region on Friday killing at least five suspected militants and injuring others. The missile reportedly hit a house in the town of Razmak in North Waziristan tribal area, 30 km south of the district's main city, Miranshah. Including Friday's attack, 48 suspected drone air strikes have been carried out by the US since last September in the militant hotbed of northwest Pakistan. District government officials and Pakistani intelligence agencies have recorded the deaths of around 465 people as a result of the attacks.

Yeah, we’re really ‘winning those hearts and minds’ with are repeated bombings that kill hundreds and injure hundreds more. And here are a couple of reports from August, 2009:

US drone attack in South Waziristan.

Ten persons have been killed in US missile attack in South Waziristan. According to sources, US drone fired missile at militants in Kani Karam area killing ten persons. Several reportedly wounded in the attack.

Toll from Pakistan missile strike rises to 21

Nine more bodies were pulled from the rubble of houses hit by a suspected U.S. missile strike targeting a Taliban commander in northwestern Pakistan, bringing the total number of dead to 21 on Saturday. The airstrike in North Waziristan on Friday near the Afghan border was aimed at Siraj Haqqani, a Taliban commander with suspected close ties to al-Qaida who is blamed for masterminding ambushes on American troops in Afghanistan. It was unclear whether he was among the dead, intelligence officials said. Local tribal elder Safdar Khan said those killed included six children.

Too bad for the dead kids.

The number of strikes, and therefore the number of dead people (mostly civilians) has been going up under the Obama administration. Usually, there is no western reporter on the ground to document what has happened, because the area is too unsafe. The Pakistani people have been taking note, and you can bet the images have shown up on their TVs and in their newspapers. And that is why they are so adamant against these bombings and growing to hate the US more and more.

And here are some more recent reports of drone attacks in Pakistan.

This was the fourth drone attack during the last 24 hours in Waziristan. The US drone attacked in Danda Darpakhel near Miranshah – NWA’s headquarters. An earlier report had said that at least three people were killed and several others injured in an attack by US surveillance plane in North Waziristan Agency (NWA) area of Danda Darpakhel. Earlier, the US plane attacked in South Waziristan Agency’s area of Srarogha, in which five people were killed.

The overall civilian-to-militant kill ratio is estimated to be 10 to 1 or 15 to 1. Of course, this would be improved if we had better intelligence, but we never do have that, it seems.

Here is what the Pakistani Interior Minister had to say about the drone attacks:

“They’re getting mid-level people not big fish,” he said. “And they are counterproductive because they are killing civilians and turning locals against our government. We try to win people’s hearts, then one drone attack drives them away. One attack alone last week killed 50 people.”

He also claims that OBL is not in Pakistan, but in Afghanistan. The article says that 40 drone attacks have been carried out in the last 10 months, and have killed hundreds of people. And a Chief Minister in Balochistan says that drone attacks there will ‘jeopardize US interests’. This part of Pakistan is not considered part of the tribal areas, so drone bombs are going to face even more objections than they had in the tribal areas.

Drone attacks in Balochistan will jeopardise US interests’

Drone attacks in Balochistan will hamper the flow of goods and logistics to NATO troops in Afghanistan, Balochistan Chief Minister Aslam Raisani said, adding they will also jeopardise US interests in the region, a private TV channel reported on Wednesday. Talking to the channel, Raisani said there was no “Taliban shura” in Quetta and reports in the US media were “baseless and devoid of truth”. He said attacks in the area would jeopardise American interests.

And another warning:

Pakistan warns US against drone attacks

Lieutenant-General Talat Masood, a retired senior Army officer and influential strategic analyst, said drone attacks in Balochistan would be a serious breach of Pakistan's sovereignty and a threat to the alliance between the two countries.

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

And while drone attacks are routine in Pakistan these days, there has not been reports of drone bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan recently. That does not mean the drones are not there. The report below tells us that the CIA is setting up a drone base in Afghanistan, and it also indicates that the highest level of the Pakistan government is condoning the drone attacks that have happened so far – in spite of what they say publicly. I don’t think this can be good for the stability of the Pakistan government, to condemn actions by foreign agents that kill their own citizens while allowing the bombings to continue.

CIA sets up another drone base in Afghanistan

"Officials said the CIA now conducted most of its Predator missile and bomb strikes on targets in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region from the Jalalabad base, with drones landing or taking off almost hourly," The New York Times reported. The base in Pakistan is still in use. But officials said that the United States decided to open the Afghanistan operation in part because of the possibility that the Pakistani government, facing growing anti-American sentiment at home, might force the CIA to close the one in Pakistan," it said.

It is reportedly Blackwater who is putting the bombs on the drones in Pakistan. All part of their agenda to kill for fun and profit.

But, hey, we are going to give the Pakistani people some more ‘aid’ in the hopes that this will buy them off.

Drone targets militant stronghold

The US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said the aid commitment approved by the Senate could help redress anti-American sentiment. "We recognize that Pakistani public opinion on the United States is surprisingly low given the tremendous effort the United States is making to lead in the international coalition in support of Pakistan," Mr Holbrooke said.

I wonder if the ‘aid’ will be non-military at least. It generally is not.

And over in Iraq, drone bombings were once common, but now seem to have stopped. But recently a drone crashed in Iraq, into the building of the Iraqi Islamic Party – the country’s largest Sunni political party. This is reported as coincidental, and that the drone was not shot down. This happened in Mosul last week.

The overall list of countries that the US has bombed over the years is quite extensive.

And our US Senate even holds discussions on how many civilian deaths are acceptable in our bombing runs. Of course, they don’t bother to actually COUNT how many they have killed on any kind of regular basis. But the number touted for the Iraq invasion was “50” and we don’t know if that has increased or decreased under the Obama administration.

Meanwhile, they are building a new drone called the Avenger. This article claims that there are 35 drones in the air at any one time.

More dead kids.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: drone bombings that kill civilians.

GRIT TV on murdering drones

Anti-US feeling still high in Afghanistan