Chicago, IL - A press conference was held here today, March 15, to announce a change of plans for anti NATO/G8 marchers.
Photo: Nerissa Allegretti
Joe Iosbaker of the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8) stated, “We have always said we would march on the opening day of the summits. Last week it was announced that the G8 wouldn’t meet in Chicago because of the threat of mass protest. However, NATO will still meet in Chicago, and therefore, we are moving our protest to Sunday, May 20, the opening day of the NATO summit.”
The press conference included Mary Dean of Voices for Creative Non Violence, recently returned from Afghanistan. A solemn mood fell over the crowd as Dean recalled the massacre this week of 16 family members by a U.S. soldier. She called on everyone to march for an immediate end to the U.S. and NATO occupation.
In an article published on June 7, 2011, in Foreign Policy, “Don’t Fear the Reaper, four misconceptions about how we think about drones,” Charli Carpenter and Lina Shaikhouni warn that “the debate over drones is misleading the public about the nature of the weaponry and the law.” To remedy this confusion they “offer some sensible ways for the anti-drone lobby to reframe the debate.”
Washington often acts as if Pakistan were its client state, with no other possible patron but the United States. It assumes that Pakistani leaders, having made all the usual declarations about upholding the “sacred sovereignty” of their country, will end up yielding to periodic American demands, including those for a free hand in staging drone attacks in its tribal lands bordering Afghanistan. This is a flawed assessment of Washington’s long, tortuous relationship with Islamabad.
A recurring feature of the Obama administration’s foreign policy has been its failure to properly measure the strengths (as well as weaknesses) of its challengers, major or minor, as well as its friends, steadfast or fickle. To earlier examples of this phenomenon, one may now add Pakistan.
May 18, 2011 Interview with Kathy Kelly Conducted by Scott Harris
The May 1st U.S. Navy Seal Commando raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin-Laden set off an angry backlash among Pakistani government and military officials who were kept in the dark by the White House and Pentagon about the impending assault on the al-Qaeda leader’s secret compound. While many Americans have watched and read accounts of this famous incursion into Pakistan, most are unaware that the U.S. and NATO regularly launch hundreds of unmanned predator drones with guided missiles to attack suspected Taliban guerillas and terrorist groups in the tribal regions of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, there were 111 U.S /NATO Predator drone attacks inside Pakistan during 2010 resulting in 957 civilian deaths. The United Nations reports that from 2006 to 2011, an estimated 1,245 civilians have died in U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan. Recent U.N. reports suggest that the Taliban are responsible for a larger share of civilian deaths in the Afghan war now than in previous years.
Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, whose cousin was killed in a U.S. night raid in March, has repeatedly condemned U.S. and NATO drone and other airstrikes that have resulted in the deaths of civilians. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She was among 37 protesters arrested at Hancock Air Force Base in Syracuse, N.Y. on April 22, where the military houses drones and trains operators for missions abroad. Kelly explains why she opposes the use of Predator drones in targeted assassinations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other nations.
My heart is filled with sorrow. The killing of Osama bin Laden has given birth to an apparently bottomless well of dark, narcissistic delight. Though media manipulation contributes to the basic prejudices that drive that joy, it’s clear that America’s celebration is both deep and genuine. I’m stunned at how happy, how proud the killing of this man has made our nation.
When he announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a Navy Seal team in Pakistan, President Barack Obama said, “Justice has been done.” Mr. Obama misused the word “justice” when he made that statement. He should have said, “Retaliation has been accomplished.” A former professor of constitutional law should know the difference between those two concepts. The word “justice” implies an act of applying or upholding the law.
Targeted assassinations violate well-established principles of international law. Also called political assassinations, they are extrajudicial executions. These are unlawful and deliberate killings carried out by order of, or with the acquiescence of, a government, outside any judicial framework.
The US-led coalition in Afghanistan has denied reports that it is pushing to extend its special operations into neighboring Pakistan.
The New York Times quoted unnamed American officials as saying that special forces should start targeting militants across the border, where they often seek shelter.
Veterans for Peace president Mike Ferner says that the situation is extremely serious and it reminds him of President Nixon’s era.
“If these reports are actually true, it’s very disturbing. We’ve heard bits and pieces of reports earlier suggesting that special forces operations may have been going on in Pakistan but this is the first time a media outlet like the New York Times has said so,” Mike Ferner says. “And this is extremely serious. I hope the American public sees it as that. And we should remember that when Richard Nixon was president, he secretly invaded and bombed Cambodia without any knowledge on the part of the Congress and that was one of the charges brought up to impeach him. That was extremely serious then and it’s exactly the same situation now – secret bombings with drones and a secret invasion.”
The U.S. has increasingly used unmanned drones in the war in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. These attacks have killed an estimated 50 civilians for every targeted al-Qaeda or Taliban leader.
Written July 22, 2010. Re-posted from the Oct/Nov edition of the NY Catholic Worker Newspaper.
A rosary hangs from the mirror of Yusef Amir’s (1)taxi cab. In Islamabad, the capital city of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, openly displaying Christian iconography is not unheard of, but it is still a bold identification with a minority that has been the target of significant discrimination and persecution within the past several years. Attacks on Christians are not frequent in Islamabad itself, but according to a recent report put out by the Human Right Commission of Pakistan, at least 117 Christian houses were burned to the ground by Islamic fundamentalists in the residential areas of Gorja, Korianwala and other parts of Pakistan. Christians in Pakistan also suffered hardships last year, such as being threatened to convert to Islam, prosecution under blasphemy laws and social ostracization.
Photo: Nerissa Allegretti
