WWB: imprisoning journalists without charges

WHAT WAR BRINGS: imprisoning journalists without charges

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

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

US still holding Reuters journalist without charges in Iraq

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I told him we already tried everything."

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

Sami Haj

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

Bilal Hussein

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

Jawed Ahmad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They have a comprehensive report on Afghanistan too.

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

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

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

And the HYPOCRISY ensued:

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

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

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

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

WWB: bombs going off in civilian neighborhoods

WHAT WAR BRINGS: bombs going off in civilian neighborhoods

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More from that Washington Post article:

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

That last one is not included in this blog post.

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

Iraq Suicide Bomber Wounds 34 In Mosul Shopping Street

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

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

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

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

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

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

McClatchy goes on:

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

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

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

More:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Think about that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heal the world!

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

From Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)

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

WWB: deep sense of injustice

WHAT WAR BRINGS: A deep sense of injustice

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

This is true for Afghani people also.

And a recent article asks:

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

Here is a part of that article:

The victims of the past six years, it seems, have turned into meaningless numbers about which nobody cares. They have apparently turned into erased lines in Iraq’s book of darkness, or graves with erased epitaphs in the desert of death.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GO MILIA!!!

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

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

WWB: Children detained and tortured

WHAT WAR BRINGS: children detained without charges and tortured

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Omar Khadr: The Guantánamo Files

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

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

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

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

Another picture of Ali's loss

Ali Nasir Jabur, 10, sits on the back of a truck loaded with the bodies of his family members, outside Tikrit hospital, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005. Ali's parents, two brothers and sister were killed when unknown gunmen wearing Iraqi security forces uniforms raided their home the previous night, while he was hidden under a blanket. (AP Photo/Bassim Daham)

WWB: the destruction and murder of Ali's family

WHAT WAR BRINGS: the destruction and murder of Ali’s family

On Saturday evening, August 20, 2005, Ali’s entire family was murdered. He was the only survivor of the attack.

His full name is Ali Nasir Jabur and he was 10 years old. He lived in Tikrit with his mother, father, two brothers and a sister. They were at home that evening – or night – when gunman wearing Iraqi security forces uniforms showed up at their home and proceeded to kill all of them except Ali. He hid under a blanket while the massacre happened. He survived.

The world only knows about this incident because of a couple of pictures taken by Bassim Daham, who worked for the Associated Press at the time. One photo showed a pile of bodies wrapped in blankets in the back of a pick up truck.

Ali is there too sitting on his heels, with his head in his left hand, and a look of utter grief and forlorn hope on his face. Picture on the right.

In the other photo, Ali is burying his face in his hands, while sitting in the truck with his dead family. Picture above.

Here is the photo caption: Ali Nasir Jabur, 10, sits on the back of a truck loaded with the bodies of his family members, outside Tikrit hospital, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005. Ali's parents, two brothers and sister were killed when unknown gunmen wearing Iraqi security forces uniforms raided their home the previous night, while he was hidden under a blanket. (AP Photo/Bassim Daham)

His world was shattered. He lost everything that August night, and lost it forever.

There were NO stories or news reports on this hideous incident at the time it happened. (A few months later, the NYT ran an article and mentioned Ali, but they had a different age (12) and a different city (Samara) than the original photos. They did say he was living in Kut with relatives at that time. I don’t know how reliable their story is.)

Now, at this point in time we can be pretty sure that those gunmen were not just WEARING Iraqi security forces uniforms, they actually WERE IRAQI SECURITY FORCES.

We may never know what caused them to do this act of cold blooded murder, or what Ali’s family knew or had or were related too that might have inspired this hideous crime. Maybe it was because they belonged to a certain sect, maybe it was because of their father’s involvement with the resistance or maybe he was a criminal too.

Most likely, the father was innocent. Most likely, the mother was innocent too. The children were surely innocent.

We know that these death squads started running around Iraq in Iraqi security forces uniforms, or in Iraqi police uniforms, or in Iraqi army uniforms, shortly after NEGROPONTE showed up. Where NEGROPONTE goes, death squads follow.

In the overwhelming violence sweeping Iraq at this time in 2005, it is unlikely that much was done in the way of justice for Ali and his family. In the extreme violence that followed in 2006 and 2007, I imagine it was swept aside.

And Ali was left to survive as best he could, and hopefully his extended family is taking care of him. (The NYT article mentioned that this happened, but I don’t know for sure if that happened or not.) Someday, I hope to communicate with this child and find out what happened to him since this horrific act of violence against his family.

But I did take some action on Ali’s behalf. I took the single photo from the AP and put it on 100 letters addressed to US Senators. I added my own request that they help this child and that they take some action to stop the escalating sectarian violence going on in Iraq at the time….. to stop it before it spun out of control into a full-fledged civil war. I also did this for the 13 Representatives from North Carolina.

Then I went to DC in September 2005 and hand delivered all these letters.

I could tell from the responses of the staff in the various political offices that the vast majority of them did not give a shit about this child, his losses, or what pain the people of Iraq might be suffering. They just did not give a shit.

There were a few exceptions in the Democratic Senators offices. There was one except in the Republican offices. Rep. Walter Jones office seemed to care. Senator Lautenberg, Senator Sanders, Senator Kennedy and a few more seemed to care.

None of them responded to me. None of them took any action.

I came to the realization (over those two days of hand delivering this child’s story) that we are governed by a bunch of psychopaths.

I went back in May 2006 and handed each of them another appeal. New Congress – same results.

I was not saving photos of Iraqis at that time (but I am now). I have a paper copy of Ali, laminated, sitting on my desk.

How many Ali’s are there that we know nothing about?

Oh, I bet there are thousands in Iraq alone.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: the destruction and murder of Ali’s family.

what??

Iraqi children gather close to a US soldier on the outskirts of the southern city of Basra. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in northern Iraq, killing at least 34 people in the deadliest attack since US forces pulled out of towns and cities nationwide just over a week ago . (AFP/File/Essam -al-Sudani)

.

The photo is dated July 9, 2009.

If the US troops have been removed from Iraqi cities, where the flip did these kids come from?

WWB: the disappeared

WHAT WAR BRINGS: the disappeared

This edition of WHAT WAR BRINGS will focus on the disappeared from war zones and the unrelenting agony that causes the loved ones left behind.

Here is one story from the New York Times:

Fate of missing Iraqis haunts those left behind

During the worst of Iraq's sectarian violence three years ago, Anam Diham's 13-year-old son went out to buy vegetables one afternoon. He never returned. Since then, Ms. Diham has exhausted her family's life savings trying to find the boy, who spent his days with his father searching Baghdad's streets for dropped coins. She has traveled to big American prisons and small-town Iraqi cemeteries. And as have hundreds of other people, mostly women in black abayas, she often waits patiently in line outside government offices, waiting to meet with officials she hopes will have news. They never do. After all this time, no one can say whether her son is dead or alive.

"All I need is to find some clue about him," Ms. Diham, a mother of seven, said recently as she pored over hundreds of photographs of unidentified bodies at a morgue. "I'd like to build a grave to visit him. Nothing more than that." She made it through about a quarter of the photos before she left, too upset to continue.

Ms. Diham shares her fate with tens of thousands of other people in Iraq. There are ten thousand Iraqis listed as missing since the American invasion, per the same NYT article, and the Iraqi government says that this number is probably a small fraction of the total. I know that mass graves – from the Bush era in Iraq – are being found nearly every week. On top of that, in the summer of 2007, I read that there were 40,000 unidentified bodies placed in graves in Najaf since 2003. On top of that, these unidentified bodies would only be from a geographical area covering Basra to Baghdad. And, for the victims of violence buried in mass graves or randomly dumped in the country side, there is the problem of decomposition. This is compounded by the fact that the victims may have had their head or limbs removed, or been severely tortured.

And then there are bombings – particular US bombings – that are so huge that there really is not a lot of ‘body’ left to identify someone without DNA analysis. And DNA analysis is only available at one lab in Iraq. There is no central database for the missing, and no coordination between various agencies in war-torn Iraq.

Most of the disappeared are believed to be dead.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has this to say about the disappeared in Iraq:

"The problem of the missing is enormous," said Dibeh Fakhr, a spokeswoman for the Iraq office of the International Committee of the Red Cross. "Families have the right to know, and governments have an obligation to help find out what happened to their loved ones."

And the toll of not knowing has economic consequences when the missing person was the husband and bread winner for the family. The surviving wife cannot collect benefits, remarry, or gain access to the family’s bank account.

Here is one more story:

Ghaniah Ayed Mudhi, who lives in the industrial city of Baiji, in northern Iraq, has had a brother, two cousins and two brothers-in-law disappear since 2006. Her brother, Muhammad Ayed Mudhi, left behind 4 children and 11 other dependents. He disappeared after being pulled out of his truck at a checkpoint. Later, a stranger came to the family's house demanding the equivalent of $7,000 for his return. The family paid the ransom, but Mr. Ayed Mudhi, who would be 29 if alive, remains missing.

And another one:

In the Shuala neighborhood of Baghdad, Fadhilah Harfish has kept the room that belonged to her 25-year-old son, Muhammad, as he left it — just a little tidier. The bed is made. The curtains are drawn. His shirts hang neatly in a closet. Relatives removed photos of Muhammad from the house because Ms. Harfish sometimes spent hours crying over them. The family has visited morgues, prisons and graveyards, and has even communicated with members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Mahdi Army militia, to no avail. Muhammad, who trained as a teacher, had been working as a taxi driver, a common job for Iraqis who cannot find career-oriented work. Driving cabs was also among the most dangerous jobs during the height of the sectarian killings. He disappeared one morning in December 2007, early in his workday. "I can't sleep at night," said Ms. Harfish, sobbing. "I can't forget him. He's like my breath."

And those stories are just three stories out of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of disappeared people. I would have included more, if only someone was reporting on them.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: tens of thousands of disappeared and unending agony for their families.

WWB: brain drain

WHAT WAR BRINGS: brain drain

One of the sadder effects of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq is the massive “brain drain” that has resulted. Thousands, or tens of thousands, of scientists, academics, engineers, and doctors have fled Iraq for their own safety.

An al Jazeera report (You Tube video below) from June 2009 said that half of all Iraqi doctors have fled the country. The doctors and other professionals are scattered all over the Middle East, and many are living in poverty. They are afraid to return home because of fears of assassination. They have several Iraqis discussing how these concerns could be addressed, so that these professionals can return to Iraq to rebuild it. At this point in time, the focus is not on stopping the brain drain, but on reversing it.

In the article below, some statistics about Iraq are presented. They have some discrepancy with the Al Jazeera figures, but still paint a horrible picture.

Iraq War Facts, Results & Statistics at June 24, 2009

Percent of professionals who have left Iraq since 2003 - 40%

Iraqi Physicians Before 2003 Invasion - 34,000

Iraqi Physicians Who Have Left Iraq Since 2003 Invasion - 12,000

Iraqi Physicians Murdered Since 2003 Invasion - 2,000

Of course, reconstruction and rebuilding of the Iraqi society is going to much, much harder with this many professionals now refugees. The following article is from 2006:

Iraq: Brain Drain Poses Threat To Future

The lack of viable opportunities coupled with the devastating daily violence has caused many of Iraq's engineers, doctors, lawyers, and professors to flee the country while some of those who remain have been killed. The massive "brain drain" may eventually have a chilling effect on Iraq's future ability to rebuild itself.

The flight of its best and brightest professionals is nothing new in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, an estimated 4 million people fled into exile. After the fall of the Hussein regime, many emigres returned in the hopes that Iraq would become a center of learning, scientific research, and art in the Arab world. However, instability and violence have forced many professionals to flee the country, despite the government raising their salaries in an effort to keep them from leaving.

A more recent article (2008) said this:

Iraq's deadly brain drain

Iraq’s university professors claim they have been the victims of targeted assassinations since 2003. Many cases go uninvestigated, but the sheer scale of the attacks has driven thousands of academics out of Iraq.

….. “It is clear that academics are being specifically targeted,” says Brendan O’Malley, author of a 2007 UN report on higher education. But the exact scale of the killing is hard to arrive at. Isam al-Rawi, a geology professor and head of the Association of Iraqi Lecturers, compiled figures about the death of fellow professors until he himself was killed in 2006.

And, of course, all those assassinations lead to many more academics fleeing the country. The above cited article discusses who might be behind the assassinations, with the likely suspects being the US, Israel, Iran, and Iraqis (because of sectarian violence). The US did round up academics who were working in weapons related fields early on in the occupation. Some were imprisoned, some were killed in the violence of the home raids.

One local Iraqi paper in Iraq recently put the blame squarely on the US:

U.S. blamed for flight of Iraq’s brain drain

The U.S. is to blame for the exodus of Iraqi scientists and professionals which has lead to shortages in specialized staff in medicine, higher education and several other sectors, said a senior member of parliament.

Basem al-Hussain of the parliamentary commission on displacement and migration said the government still needed to have “the right laws and mechanism” on how to deal with the returning professionals.

Hussain said the flight of professionals was because of the chaos that accompanied the U.S. invasion “which bears the responsibility for the brain drain.”

This article also talks about the efforts to bring the professionals back to Iraq – but many do not want to return, due to the security situation.

If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: brain drain on a massive scale.

WWB: the silence of children

WHAT WAR BRINGS: the silence of children

Below is a re-post from March 25, 2007. It is all still true, as far as I know. This silencing of children is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, due to US occupation or bombing.

Here is an older post on the drone bombings of civilians in Pakistan. Of course, the number of dead has increased since then. Some of the dead were surely children.

And just today in Afghanistan, this sad event happened:

A truck filled with explosives that police believe may have been
destined for Kabul blew up on a highway Thursday, killing 25 people — more than half of them children walking to school.

(and) …..Three children were missing.

++++++++++++++++++++++++ Here is a repeat of my prior post:

In this post, I am at least going to acknowledge that the voices and songs of the Iraqi children are disappearing in the tsunami of violence that our invasion and occupation has unleashed upon them – the truly innocent among us.

This is a link to a short video of some of the appalling conditions some children in Baghdad are facing now. It starts by showing a young boy with beautiful hazel eyes singing a song that has this line in it: "I slipped from your hands as I said farewell". He explains that he was walking with his parents when he saw them explode. He is one of many children in this orphanage, and all of them know about death and loss, probably better than most readers of this post.

Some of them have also suffered horrible wounds from violent attacks. There is only one man running the orphanage now – the other man running the orphanage was killed by a death squad. Also, the orphanage is running out of funds and may soon close.

Another scene in this video is a young mother bringing her son to the doctor. She claims the boy has not acted normally since the car bomb. Both she and the doctor seem to think it is due to PTSD, although the child has obvious scars on his head. The video then discusses the threat of kidnapping that the children face. The final scene is a young girl crying as she listens to a singer sing of a better tomorrow. She is an orphan too.

The problems start before the child arrives in the world. This article tells of the problems of getting the expectant mother to the hospital under conditions of occupation, and it is called "Birth Amid the Bloodshed". Driving at night is not allowed under curfew, and driving anyway could get you killed. And it is possible to get killed by several different actors in Iraq – criminals, militias, Iraqi army, Iraqi police or US military. No matter which group you might encounter after curfew, you could easily end up dead before you are even born. It sounds like the parents are most afraid of US troops. And the expectant parents cannot just drive to the closest hospital – it may be run by another sect. And that can get you killed also.

Ammar's fears were the same as Ahmad's: that his wife would go nto labour during the curfew and be trapped at home or that they would be forced to risk driving through the dark streets dodging jumpy US patrols. "My real dread was that my wife, Alaa, would go into labour at night. Her family comes from Mosul so we decided it was better to go there to have the baby."

What does being a child under occupation look like? This is one view. This is an accurate photo of what occupation is like. It is living behind barbed wire, at the will of the occupying army or military - or, in this case, oftentimes the US –mercenaries- security contracters like Blackwater.

The children often see foreign troops from the front of their home, carrying guns that are almost as big as the children are.

Here’s another child with the US military.

All children aged four (now make that six – for 2009) and under were born under occupation. Having foreign troops in their country, with the attendant violence and chaos, is all they know. There were also several pictures of young boys and teenage boys in the news lately, who are talking to and interacting with, US troops. They are fascinated by the guns I believe.

These children often live under horrible conditions. This is an example of what often happens to internally displaced refugees, who have fled from the overwhelming violence:

Photo: Iraqi kids play at ruins of a former Iraqi Army air defense headquarters, where they live in their makeshift homes, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 18, 2007, ahead of Tuesday's fourth anniversary of the U.S. led invasion on Iraq. This army complex was destroyed in the initial bombing campaign in 2003. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban)

And when they say that hundreds were sickened by chlorine bombs, you can be sure that some of the victims are tiny indeed, as this photo shows.

Sometimes a child will get to see the only home they ever knew destroyed right of their eyes:

A boy watches Iraqi Army soldiers tear down his family's shop with a bulldozer on Feb. 15, in the mixed ethnic neighborhood of Gazaliyah in Baghdad. When asked if he was Sunni or Shiite the boy responded only with, "I am a Muslim." (Chris Hondros / Getty Images)

And the children get to experience house searches, often times in the middle of the night. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to them to have foreign troops who don’t speak your language, in your bedroom.

And these children get badly, badly hurt.

And, just like adults, they die when they get too close to US troops while riding in a car. Of course, the children have no say in this matter at all. Earlier this month, two girls were killed with their father, and their brother was wounded, by US troops in Baghdad. The US military claims that the driver ignored or missed signals for him to stop. The instant death penalty often ensues when an Iraqi driver makes that mistake..... or just fails to see the US troops in time. A statement from the surviving spouse from this incident:

"They just opened fire randomly on us," said Akhlas Abduljabbar, a Sunni housewife from Zafaraniyah, south of Baghdad, whose family was travelling through the war-torn city. "They killed my husband and two daughters and my three-year-old boy was wounded in the head. The Americans' translator told me 'Flee, don't stay, they're going to kill you'," she added.

Another article discusses the ongoing crisis with hunger and malnutrition in Iraqi children.

Caritas Internationalis and Caritas Iraq say that malnutrition rates have risen in Iraq from 19 percent before the US-led invasion to a national average of 28 percent four years later. Caritas says that rising hunger has been caused by high levels of insecurity, collapsed healthcare and other infrastructure, increased polarisation between different sects and tribes, and rising poverty. Over 11 percent of newborn babies are born underweight in Iraq today, compared with a figure of 4 percent in 2003. Before March 2003, Iraq already had significant infant mortality due to malnutrition because of the international sanctions regime. Caritas Iraq has been running a series of Well Baby Clinics throughout the country. Currently it provides supplementary food for 8000 children up to 8 years and new mothers. The Caritas clinics help the most vulnerable, and the health crisis they face is much worse than the national average.

How many children are we talking about? This article claims that there are 4.8 million children under age five in Iraq. There are an estimated 13.8 million children total in Iraq. This article claims that one in five children (under age five) are chronically malnourished, and one in ten are underweight.

And, all of this is impacting on their education also. A lot.

According to a report released last year by NGO Save the Children, 818,000 primary school-aged children, representing 22 percent of Iraq's student population, were not attending school. A joint study by the Iraqi Ministry of Education and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that of those who do not attend school, 74 percent are female. Aid agencies estimate that thousands of Iraqi parents do not send their daughters to school for cultural reasons and because of the general insecurity in the country. Mohammed Abdul-Aziz, a statistician at the Ministry of Education, told IRIN last week that at least 110 children had been killed and 95 injured since 2005 in attacks on schools. These numbers do not include children killed or injured on their way to or from school.

And all this violence is giving them nightmares:

Iraqi children are haunted by dreams of bad guys wielding knives or kidnapping relatives. For some, like 13-year-old Zaman, the nightmares become reality. She was abducted, beaten and threatened with rape. "Zaman suffers from shaking, nervousness, a stutter and sleep disorder," said Haider Abdul-Muhsin, a psychiatrist at Baghdad’s Ibn Rushd hospital who treats children suffering the consequences of war, four years after the U.S. invasion.

And read this and weep. And imagine trying to calm your own child in a situation like this one.

"My kids are always afraid," said Nora’s mother, who has four children, aged between four and 11. "Even when a door slams they start trembling and shouting 'A bomb, a bomb.' My children used to play outside when things were better two years ago but now they’re stuck to the TV, if we’re lucky enough to have electricity," she said. As she spoke, a pair of U.S. helicopters flew low overhead, the thud of the rotors shaking the house in what has become so common that most Baghdad residents barely flinch. Her 4-year-old son Murtadha burst into tears and put his hands up to his ears to block out the noise. "Mama, afraid, afraid," he managed to say, his voice faltering with tears.

And what will become of these children? One thing for certain, they will likely not get any mental health care, and perhaps no medical care either. Here is one Iraqi child’s statement on the murder of his loved ones by militas:

"They killed my father and uncle in front of my eyes," he says. He then breaks down sobbing. He can no longer speak. The anguish is unbearable. Such stories are not uncommon in Iraq four years after the U.S.-led invasion. Health officials say the daily hardships -- bomb blasts, gunfire, killings of family members and sectarian violence -- are taking an increasing toll on Iraq's children. Hundreds of thousands of children no longer attend school. Others have been forced from their homes to camps, while others have fled the nation with family.

(snip)

It is nearly impossible to quantify exactly how much the war and violence has impacted these children or just how many are affected. The humanitarian organization Save the Children, in a report last year about children in conflict zones, estimated that 818,000 Iraqi children, ranging in age from 6 to 11, were not in school. That's roughly one in every five children in that age group.

And what do the parents of these children want? Exactly what US parents want for their children:

If I could take Hussein and my other child abroad, away from the violence, I would not hesitate. But only those with money can afford to leave. All I want for my son is a stable life when he grows up. For now, life is tasting really bitter."

"Save the Children UK" used to be located in Iraq, but they felt they had to flee for their own safety.

"Save the Children UK" closed its offices in Erbil, northern Iraq. The charity said in a statement the ongoing insurgency had made its work increasingly difficult and the decision to leave was taken "with great regret." It will continue to support Iraqi groups that help the country's children, eight percent of whom are believed to suffer from acute malnutrition. Save the Children said "The decision is linked to the deteriorating security situation in significant areas of the country including the capital Baghdad, which makes it increasingly difficult for our work to make a significant impact on the lives of children." "Save the Children UK made the decision to withdraw from Iraq after much deliberation and with great regret."

How to Help

It is really sad that "Save the Children" is gone from Iraq. (I am not certain this is still true in 2009 – dancewater.) I can find no example of any group trying to help Iraqi children except this one.

Very few organizations are working on getting aid to Iraqi refugees, and of those that are, many are too small or too beleaguered to accept individual donations; the Iraqi Red Crescent, for example, has suffered bombings and mass kidnappings, yet its volunteers continue to deliver aid to displaced families inside Iraq. One of the larger relief organizations working with the refugees is the Catholic group Caritas, whose caseworkers I shadowed while in Amman. Bucking the image of the Land Rover-driving aid worker, they made their rounds in an aging gray Honda, its roof eaten through by rust. They visited Iraqi doctors, engineers, and executives desperate for food, heat, or blankets to fend off the desert winter; one family told the crew they had just sold their stove to buy food. Caritas helps a few thousand families a year, but "the demand far outstrips the money available to us," says Magy Mahrous, who oversees the project. You can make a contribution at: International Catholic Migration Commission, Citibank USA, 153 East 53rd Street, 16th floor, New York, NY 10043. To ensure that the money reaches the Iraqi program, write "Iraq-icmc" on your check.

I cannot vouch for the above aid organization, but they look legitimate. I wanted to include it in this post, in case you want to do something to help the Iraqi children.

This a song was written by Labi Siffre, in response to oppression to those who are gay or lesbian. I think some of the words fit what is happening to Iraqi children, or maybe they just fit my wishes for Iraqi children – that somewhere inside them will be a will and strength to survive this vicious assault on their childhood. The "walls of Jericho" can be compared to the walls around the green zone.

"The more you refuse to hear my voice
The louder I will sing
You hide behind walls of Jericho
Your lies will come tumbling.

Deny my place in time
You squander wealth that's mine [yet]
My light will shine so brightly
It will blind you..........
Cos there's...... Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh.........something inside so strong"

"whole lot of signing never gonna be heard, disappearing every day without so much as a word" - Patty Griffin, sung by the Dixie Chicks in "Top of the World".

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