Afghanistan

The Bomb and the Drone: Hiroshima/Nagasaki and Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan

Even though August 6th and 9th are past, the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki belong always before us. The agony of those two cities must remain our dark beacon.

Hiroshima/Nagasaki wasn’t so much about targets as about audiences. We sacrificed a couple hundred thousand harmless, unarmed, undefended human beings to make a point. That spectacle wasn’t so much for Japan as for the Soviet Union and the world at large.

Thanks to the U.S. head start on nuclear technology – vividly showcased at Hiroshima/Nagasaki – for 65 years the U.S. has been able to hold the planet hostage. It’s been able to deploy nuclear blackmail to further its hegemonic design.

By Voices co-coordinators

Since April of 2010, Voices activists have maintained a partial listing of unarmed civilians killed by U.S. led ISAF/NATO troops in Afghanistan. All of the information we’ve assembled is available in the mainstream news. We realized that we ourselves were not paying close enough attention, - we weren’t pausing to ask questions and absorb the details, and so we’ve tried in the past several months to carefully update the “Afghan Atrocities” timetable. We invite others to join us in considering ways to express remorse and condolence to the people whose loved ones have been killed.

It’s important to note that President Obama has set “a clear and achievable mission-to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies and prevent their return to either country.” Yet, the U.S. director of the National Security Agency, Jim Jones, has acknowledged that there are only 50 – 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and 300 to 400 members of the group in Pakistan.

by G. Simon Harak, S.J.
July 15, 2010

“In other countries, the country has a military. In Pakistan, the military has a country.”

I arrived in Pakistan on May 4th, traveling with Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier from Voices for Creative Nonviolence, based in Chicago. After traveling through Pakistan for about two weeks, I surely can’t claim to fully understand the country, but these words from I.A Rehman, Secretary General of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, seemed to summarize what I learned.

I learned that most of the combat troops in the pre-1948 Indian Army were Muslims. So the army “got a country” when East and West Pakistan were formed in 1947 from the former British colony of India.

One difficulty is that democracy and the military don’t mix well: the military is not a democratic institution. When it comes to running a country, this mis-fit becomes even more problematic. Kathy and Josh had been to Pakistan last year, and this year, as we went from place to place and interviewed person after person, we kept hearing about how the government was not representative of the people. Instead, we learned that a small ruling elite runs the country for its own benefit.

Worldview 7/16/2010

July 15, 2010

During Afghanistan’s 2009 presidential election, Hamid Karzai promised to call a jirga to encourage peace and political settlement for Afghanistan’s future. Jirga is a Pashto term for a tribal assembly of elders which makes decisions by consensus. For centuries, Afghans have used jirgas to resolve differences and tribal conflicts. In the past, Afghans organized jirgas for their own affairs that were free of foreign interference and demands. This time, the National Consultative Peace Jirga (NCPJ) that Hamid Karzai convened on June 2nd to June 4th, 2010, has been criticized as a waste of time for not following normal tribal structure and, more importantly, because the central government was influenced by foreign support.

Peace protesters arrested at drone warfare center now face trespass charges

by JASON WHITED : JWHITED@LVCITYLIFE.COM
LasVegas City Life

An upcoming trial for activists who illegally entered Creech Air Force Base to protest the government’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles has caught the attention of United Nations officials and could have serious implications for the future of remote-controlled warfare.

In April 2009, 14 activists who had gathered here from across the country illegally entered the base’s gates and refused to leave in protest of Creech’s role as the little-known headquarters for U.S. military operations involving unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, over Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

By Kathy Kelly and Dan Pearson

June 24, 2010

In accepting General McChrystal’s resignation, President Obama said that McChrystal’s departure represented a change in personnel, not a change in policy. “Americans don’t flinch in the face of difficult truths or difficult tasks.” he stated, “We persist and we persevere.” Yet, President Obama and the U.S. people don’t face up to the ugly truth that, in Afghanistan, the U.S. has routinely committed atrocities against innocent civilians. By ducking that truth, the U.S. reinforces a sense of exceptionalism, which, in other parts of the world, causes resentment and antagonism.

By Kathy Kelly and Dan Pearson

June 24, 2010

Discussions of a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan should include willingness to examine disturbing patterns of misinformation regarding U.S./NATO attacks against Afghan civilians.

The list below describes, in part, the suffering and agony that people in Afghanistan have endured since April, 2009. To focus on this list doesn’t excuse atrocities committed by Taliban fighters. It does indicate our own responsibility to urgently educate others and ourselves about a deeply disturbing pattern: U.S./NATO officials first distribute misleading information about victims of an attack and later acknowledge that the victims were unarmed civilians.

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Date: June 19, 2010
Place: Khost Province Circumstances: According to the New York Times, NATO airstrikes killed ten civilians, including at least five women and children.
Initial U.S./NATO response: June 19, 2010, coalition forces issue a statement saying that “Precision airstrikes were used in self defense against a large number of armed insurgents.” And that “We are aware of conflicting reports of civilian casualties made by local officials and are therefore reviewing the operational details of the engagement.”
U.S. /NATO acknowledgement that the people killed were unarmed civilians: The June 19th NATO statement also says, “Our mission is to protect the population, and we will accept full responsibility if civilians were unintentionally harmed in this intense fight against insurgents.”