Decency and Strength

Jeff Leys — Fri, 5 Feb 2010 15:10:46 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly reflects on the interconnections between homelessness and militarism

Excerpt

February 2, 2010

Here in Colorado Springs, student and community organizers recently invited me to try and help promote their campaign against a proposed “No Camping” ordinance, a law to ban the homeless from sleeping on sidewalks or public lands within the city limits. The organizers insist it’s wrongful to criminalize the most desperate and endangered among us, that it instead seems quite criminal to persecute people already in need of far more care and compassion than we’ve been willing to offer, especially during these bitterly cold winter months. But others in the area are intent on eliminating the tent encampments near the Monument Creek and Shooks Run trails, complaining that the encampments mar natural beauty, deter tourists, create fire hazards, and degrade the environment by strewing heaps of trash and debris near the creek and even in it.

Body

February 2, 2010

It seems important for both sides of the argument to acknowledge other local encampments that Colorado Springs is home to: Fort Carson Army base, both Peterson and Schriever (formerly Falcon) Air Force Bases, Norad and Cheyenne Air Force Stations, and the U.S. Air Force Academy. It’s not lost on opponents of the “No Camping” ordinance that stop-loss policies prevent many of the young men and women at these institutions from returning to their homes, where many of them long to be after repeated tours of military duty outside the United States. For every soldier intent on strengthening his or her country’s military option, how many more are taking a last-ditch option, signing up for the famed “poverty draft,” to sustain themselves and their families through an economic crisis felt throughout the country and the world? Many, though not all, of these young people have been driven by poverty into their encampments as surely as the Monument Creek campers have been driven into theirs.

And these bases, whatever the intentions of their residents, can certainly be scrutinized for creating waste, destruction, fear, fires, massive casualties and environmental degradation. Whatever the soldiers’ intentions, these bases are here, when called upon, to supply “shock and awe” wherever needed around the world. But, it’s highly unlikely that a No-Camping ordinance will appear before the City Council of Colorado Springs, or any other city in the United States, returning these young men and women to viable and secure lives back in their home communities.

President Obama, while freezing spending on nonmilitary programs in this desperate economic moment, just submitted a new budget asking an additional 708 billion dollars for the Department of Defense. Keeping one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, for one year, costs one million dollars. All this to prevent Al Qaeda strongholds in the country even though mainstream news sources have noted that less than 100 militants of the Al Qaeda organization even live in Afghanistan. (Fox News, December 2nd, 2009). With our additional attacks against our supposed ally Pakistan, and our insistence that its government attack its own villages along the Afghan border, we have displaced at least 3 million more people, one million of whom still wait in tent encampments and inadequate shelters for their indefinitely postponed return to security and normal life, filling massive refugee camps that military observers repeatedly warn create ideal recruitment conditions for jihadist groups.

“In this new decade,” said President Obama, in his State of the Union address, “it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength.”

But where, with this addiction to war, this perverse use of resources that could house and feed our neighbors to instead destroy homes and villages abroad, —where can we find decency? Where can we find real strength? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King famously insisted that “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” When asked, U.S. people are overwhelmingly in favor of reductions, not increases, of the military budget, and increases of aid to the needy, not reductions or freezes. Why does it seem so impossible to find a government that matches this decency and this strength?

Strength, in the sense of real security, comes from communities pulling together in compassion and cooperation. Strength comes from decency. We are made insecure by our criminal assaults on international security and our criminal neglect of the poor at home. Who will educate us to better understand that being seen as a menacing, frightful and destructive culture, internationally, jeopardizes our security? International law establishes that initiating war, as we did in Iraq and indeed in Afghanistan, is a crime; and in a fundamental sense, for those who wish to live in security, crime does not pay.

Our strength will not come from diversions of desperately needed resources into meaningless destruction and division. Individual Americans, without waiting for help from above, must act to correct these pathologies of American social and political life. We can support and learn from decent and kindly organizers, in Colorado Springs and other communities, who extend a hand of friendship to those all too often viewed, domestically, as expendables. We can donate from our own resources to fight poverty at home and thereby deny these resources as taxable income that our government can employ in causing more despair, poverty, and displacement abroad. And we can build bonds of community and shared purpose, organizing in our neighborhoods, our cities, our schools, churches, and workplaces, to build a world wherein no one is left out in the cold.

Kathy Kelly () co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence www.vcnv.org

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

Blackwater's Youngest Victim

Jeff Leys — Mon, 1 Feb 2010 13:35:04 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Blackwater employees killings.

Excerpt

February 1st, 2010

By Jeremy Scahill
The Nation.

Read the Full Article

Mohammed Kinani

Blackwater’s Youngest Victim

Every detail of September 16, 2007, is burned in Mohammed Kinani’s memory. Shortly after 9 am he was preparing to leave his house for work at his family’s auto parts business in Baghdad when he got a call from his sister, Jenan, who asked him to pick her and her children up across town and bring them back to his home for a visit. The Kinanis are a tightknit Shiite family, and Mohammed often served as a chauffeur through Baghdad’s dangerous streets to make such family gatherings possible.

Mohammed had just pulled away from his family’s home in the Khadamiya neighborhood in his SUV. His youngest son, 9-year-old Ali, came tearing down the road after him, asking his father if he could accompany him. Mohammed told him to run along and play with his brothers and sister. But Ali, an energetic and determined kid, insisted. Mohammed gave in, and off the father and son went.

Read the Full Article

Body

Mohammed Kinani

February 1st, 2010

By Jeremy Scahill
The Nation.

Read the Full Article

As Mohammed and Ali drove through Baghdad that hot and sunny Sunday, they passed a newly rebuilt park downtown. Ali gazed at the park and then turned to his father and asked, “Daddy, when are you gonna bring us here?”

“Next week,” Mohammed replied. “If God wills it, son.”

Ali would never visit that park. Within a few hours, he would be dead from a gunshot wound to the head. While you may have never heard his name, you probably know something about how Ali Mohammed Hafedh Kinani died. He was the youngest person killed by Blackwater forces in the infamous Nisour Square massacre.

In May 2008 Mohammed flew to Washington to testify in front of a grand jury investigating the shooting. It was his first time out of Iraq. The US Attorney, Jeffrey Taylor, praised Mohammed for his “commendable courage.” A year after the shooting, in December 2008, five Blackwater guards were indicted on manslaughter charges, while a sixth guard pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed Iraqi. American justice, it seemed to Mohammed, was working. “I’m a true believer in the justness and fairness of American law,” Mohammed said.

But this past New Year’s Eve, federal Judge Ricardo Urbina threw out all the criminal charges against the five Blackwater guards. At least seventeen Iraqis died that day, and prosecutors believed they could prove fourteen of the killings were unjustified. The manslaughter charges were dismissed not because of a lack of evidence but because of what Urbina called serious misconduct on the part of the prosecutors.

Then, a few days after the dismissal of the criminal case, Blackwater reached a civil settlement with many of the Nisour Square victims, reportedly paying about $100,000 per death.

Blackwater released a statement declaring it was “pleased” with the outcome, which enabled the company to move forward “free of the costs and distraction of ongoing litigation.” But Mohammed Kinani would not move on. He refused to take the deal Blackwater offered. As a result, he may well be the one man standing between Blackwater and total impunity for the killings in Nisour Square.

On September 15, 2009, the night before the second anniversary of his son’s death, Mohammed Kinani sued Blackwater in its home state of North Carolina, along with company owner Erik Prince and the six men Mohammed believes are responsible for his son’s death. In an exclusive interview providing the most detailed eyewitness account of the massacre that has yet been published, Mohammed told his story to The Nation.

Mohammed Kinani, 38, is a gentle man, deeply religious and soft-spoken. When we meet, he takes off his hat as he greets me with a slight bow. He then presents me with a gift—a box of baklava—and insists that we try some right away. Before we sit down to discuss the events that led to the death of his son, Mohammed goes out of his way to assure me that no question is off limits and that he wants Americans to know what happened that day. It was as though he was telling me it was OK to ask him to relive the horror. “Those few minutes in Nisour Square, I will never forget; so whatever you ask me, I will answer with absolute clarity,” he said.

Before we talk about Nisour Square, Mohammed tells me about his life. He was born in Baghdad in 1971 and grew up in a large home with his siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents. His father, Hafedh Abdulrazzaq Sadeq Kinani, was a merchant who traded cars and auto parts. After high school, Mohammed enrolled at a technical institute in Baghdad but ultimately dropped out to take over the family business with his brothers. He avoided mandatory military service in Saddam’s forces by paying his way out. He married a relative from his mother’s side of the family and bought a home in Baghdad’s al Adel neighborhood, and they had three sons and a daughter. Mohammed said his family despised Saddam, “a dictator who stole people’s freedom.”

Mohammed welcomed the arrival of US forces in Baghdad in April 2003. “On the first day the US Army entered Baghdad I was personally giving away free juice and candy in the street,” Mohammed remembers. He and Ali would give out water and take photos with the troops when when Humvees passed by their house. “One of the soldiers even carried Ali on board one of the Humvees and took a photo with my son,” Mohammed remembers. “My son loved the American Army.”

In November 2006, as sectarian violence spread across Baghdad, Mohammed and his family were driven from their home by a prominent Sunni militia leader, and they moved into Mohammed’s parents’ home. Mohammed was devastated, but he also saw it as part of the price of freedom. “We cannot question God’s plans,” he says.

Before September 16, 2007, Mohammed had never heard of Blackwater. When he would stop at a US checkpoint, he would smile at the soldiers and thank them for being there. Ali enjoyed sticking his head out the window at checkpoints and telling Iraqi police, “I’m in the Special Forces.” The police would laugh, Mohammed recalls, and wave him through, saying, “You’re one of us.” So when Mohammed found himself in a traffic jam that he thought was the result of a US military checkpoint at Nisour Square, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him.

To pick up his sister, Mohammed would have to pass Nisour Square twice. The first time he passed, he noticed it was extremely congested. There was a construction project nearby and Iraqi police lingering on the roadside directing traffic. Eventually, he and Ali picked up Jenan and her three children and began the return journey.

A few blocks from the square, they encountered two Iraqi checkpoints and were waved through. As they approached the square, they saw one armored vehicle and then another, with men brandishing machine guns atop each one, Mohammed recalls. The armored cars swiftly blocked off traffic. One of the gunners held both fists in the air, which Mohammed took as a gesture to stop. “Myself and all the cars before and behind me stopped,” Mohammed says. “We followed their orders. I thought they were some sort of unit belonging to the American military, or maybe just a military police unit. Any authority giving you an order to stop, you follow the order.” It turns out the men in the armored cars were neither US military nor MPs. They were members of a Blackwater team code-named Raven 23.

As the family waited in traffic, two more Blackwater vehicles became visible. Mohammed noticed a family in a car next to his—a man, woman and child. The man was staring at Mohammed’s car, and Mohammed thought the man was eyeing Jenan. “I thought he was checking my sister out,” Mohammed remembers. “So I yelled at him and said, ‘What are you looking at?’” Mohammed noticed that the man looked frightened. “I think they shot the driver in the car in front of you,” the man told him.

Mohammed scanned the area and noticed that the back windshield of the white Kia sedan in front of him was shattered. The man in the car next to Mohammed began to panic and tried to turn his car around. He ended up bumping into a taxi, and an argument ensued. The taxi driver exited his car and began yelling. Mohammed tried to break up the argument, telling the taxi driver that a man had been shot and that he should back up so the other car could exit. The taxi driver refused and got back into his vehicle.

At that point, an Iraqi police officer, Ali Khalaf Salman, approached the Kia sedan, and it started to slowly drift. The driver had been shot, and the car was gliding in neutral toward a Blackwater armored car. Salman, in an interview, described how he tried to stop it by pushing backward. He saw a panicked woman inside the car; she was clutching a young man covered in blood who had been shot in the head. She was shrieking, “My son! My son! Help me, help me!” Salman remembered looking toward the Blackwater shooters. “I raised my left arm high in the air to try to signal to the convoy to stop the shooting.” He said he thought the men would cease fire, given that he was a clearly identified police officer.

“As the officer was waving, the men on the armored cars started shooting at that car,” Mohammed says. “And it wasn’t warning shots; they were shooting as in a battle. It was as though they were in a fighting field. I thought the police officer was killed. It was insane.” Officer Salman managed to dive out of the way as the bullets rained down. “I saw parts of the woman’s head flying in front of me,” recalled his colleague, Officer Sarhan Thiab. “They immediately opened heavy fire at us.”

That’s how the Nisour Square massacre began.

“What can I tell you?” Mohammed says, closing his eyes. “It was like the end of days.”

Mohammed would later learn that the first victims that day, in the white Kia, were a young Iraqi medical student, Ahmed Haithem Al Rubia’y, and his mother, Mahassin, a physician. Mohammed is crystal clear that the car posed no threat. “There was absolutely no shooting at the Blackwater men,” he says. “All of a sudden, they started shooting in all directions, and they shot at everyone in front of them. There was nothing left in that street that wasn’t shot: the ground, cars, poles, sidewalks; they shot everything in front of them.” As the Blackwater gunners shot up the Rubia’ys’ vehicle, Mohammed said, it soon looked like a sieve “due to how many bullet holes it had.” A Blackwater shooter later admitted that they also fired a grenade at the car, causing the car to explode. Mohammed says the Blackwater men then started firing across the square. “They were shooting in all directions,” he remembers. He describes the shooting as “random yet still concentrated. It was concentrated and focused on what they aimed at and still random as they shot in all directions.”

One of the Blackwater shooters was on top of an armored vehicle firing an automatic weapon, he says. “Every time he would finish his clip, he would throw it on the ground and would load another one in and would start shooting again, and finish the new one and replace it with another.” One young Iraqi man got out of his car to run, and as he fled, the Blackwater shooter gunned him down and continued firing into his body as it lay on the pavement, Mohammed says. “He was on the ground bleeding, and they’re shooting nonstop, and it wasn’t single bullets.” The Blackwater shooter, he says, would fire at other Iraqis and cars and then return to pump more bullets into the dead man on the ground. “He sank in his own blood, and every minute the [Blackwater shooter] would shoot left and right and then go back to shoot the dead man, and I could see that his body would shake with every bullet. He was already dead, but his body was still reacting to the bullets. [The shooter] would fire at someone else and then go back to shoot at this dead man.” Shaking his head slowly, Mohammed says somberly, “The guy is dead in a pool of blood. Why would you continue shooting him?”

In his vehicle, as the shooting intensified, Mohammed yelled for the kids to get down. He and his sister did the same. “My car was hit many times in different places. All I could hear from my car was the gun shots and the sound of glass shattering,” he remembers. Jenan was frantic. “Why are they shooting at us?” she asked him. Just then, a bullet pierced the windshield, hitting Jenan’s headrest. Mohammed shows me a photo of the bullet hole.

As gunfire rained on the SUV, Jenan grabbed Mohammed’s hair, yanked his head down and covered him with her body. “My young sister was trying to protect me by covering me with her body, so I forced myself out of her grip and covered her with my body to protect her. It was so horrific that my little sister, whom I’m supposed to protect, was trying to protect me.” Mohammed managed to slip his cellphone from his pocket and was going to call his father. “It’s customary that when in agony before death, you ask those close to you to look after your loved ones,” he says. Jenan demanded that Mohammed put down the phone, reminding him that their father had had two strokes already. “If he hears what’s happening, he’ll die immediately,” she said. “Maybe he’ll die before us.”

At that moment, bullets pierced the SUV through the front windshield. A bullet hit the rearview mirror, causing it to whack Mohammed in the face. “We imagined that in a few seconds everyone was going to die—everyone in the car, my sister and I and our children. We thought that every second that passed meant one of us dying.” He adds, “We remained still, my sister and I. I had her rest her head on my lap, and my body was on top of her. We’d sneak a peek from under the dashboard, and they continued shooting here and there, killing this one and that one.”

And then the shooting stopped.

Ali and his father were inseparable. Ali’s older brothers called him “Daddy’s favorite,” and the family affectionately called him by his kid nickname, Allawi. “He was the closest of my sons to me. He was my youngest and was always indulged,” recalls Mohammed. “He would sleep on my arm. He’s 9 and half years old but still sleeps on my arm. He has his own room, but he never slept alone.” When the boy turned 9, Ali’s father thought, “This can’t go on—him sleeping on my arm as his pillow. So I said, ‘Son, you’re older now; go sleep like your brothers, in your bed in your room. It doesn’t work anymore; you’re getting older. You’re gonna be a man soon.’”

“As you wish, father,” Ali said. “He always said that,” Mohammed recalls. “As you wish, father.” Ali left the room, but Mohammed looked over and saw the shadow of Ali’s feet under the door. “So I called him in, and Ali opened the door and said, ‘Daddy, I’m Allawi, not Ali,’” Mohammed remembers. “He was telling me that he’s still young.” Mohammed gave in, and Ali slept in his arms again. “He never had a pillow besides my arm,” says Mohammed.

As he sat in his severely damaged SUV, Mohammed thought that, in the midst of horror, a miracle had blessed his car. We are alive, he thought. As the Blackwater forces retreated, Mohammed told Jenan he was going to go check on the man who had been repeatedly shot by Blackwater. “I was deeply impacted by that man they continued shooting at,” Mohammed recalls. As he exited his car, Mohammed’s nephew yelled, “Uncle, Ali is dead. Ali is dead!” Jenan began to scream.

Mohammed rushed around to Ali’s door and saw that the window was broken. He looked inside and saw his son’s head resting against the door. He opened it, and Ali slumped toward him. “I was standing in shock looking at him as the door opened, and his brain fell on the ground between my feet,” Mohammed recalls. “I looked and his brain was on the ground.” He remembers people yelling at him, telling him to get out while he could. “But I was in another world,” he says. Then Mohammed snapped back to consciousness. He put Ali back in the car and placed his hand over his son’s heart. It was still beating. He got in the driver’s seat of his car, tires blown out, radiator damaged, full of bullets, liquids leaking everywhere, hoping still that he could save Allawi’s life. Somehow he managed to get the car near Yarmouk Hospital, right near the square. He picked up Ali and ran toward the hospital. He nearly collapsed on the road, and an Iraqi police officer took Ali from his arms and ran him into the hospital.

Mohammed checked that the other children were safe and then dashed to the hospital. “I entered the emergency room, and blood was everywhere, dead people, injured people everywhere,” he remembers. “My son was in the last bed; the doctor was with him and had already hooked him with an IV line.” As Mohammed stood by Ali’s bed, the doctor told him that Ali was brain dead. “His heart is beating,” the doctor said, “and it will continue to beat until he bleeds out and dies.” The doctor told him that if there were any hope to be found, it would require taking Ali in an ambulance to a neurological hospital across town. The fastest route meant that they had to pass through Nisour Square. Iraqi police stopped them and told them they could not pass. “The US Army is here and won’t let you through,” the officer told them. The driver took an alternate route and was going so fast the ambulance almost crashed twice. When they got to the hospital, Mohammed offered to pay the driver—at least for the gas, which is customary. The driver refused. “No, I would like to donate blood to your son if he needs it,” he told Mohammed. A few moments later, Mohammed stood with a doctor who told him there was nothing they could do. Ali was dead.

Mohammed wanted to take his son’s body home with him, but the hospital regulations required that he get papers from the police. So Mohammed had to leave. He spent hours tracking down the right authority to sign off. Finally he was able to take Ali’s body to prepare him for a Muslim burial. That night there was no electricity in Baghdad, so they had to run a generator to keep air-conditioning going to protect Ali’s body from the sweltering heat. The next morning they took Ali to the southern holy city of Najaf to be buried at the family plot. “As Muslims, we believe that Ali died innocent with no obligation,” says Mohammed. “My son died at an age where there were no strings attached. My son was young and innocent, so he flew up [to heaven] like a white dove. This is what’s making it easier on me. I always tell my wife that your son is a bird in heaven, he’s with God and when we die we will be united eternally.” Mohammed looks down and then up. “I still thank God for everything. I thank him because we were six in that car, and he’s the only one to go. Although that one is piece of my heart, it happened and I can’t change it. I have my other kids that I will raise, and hopefully I’ll be able to keep them safe.”

After Ali’s death, some of Mohammed’s friends came to him and asked him if the death had changed his attitude toward the Americans. It hadn’t, he told them. “I honestly separate distinctly between Blackwater and the American people and the American government,” he says. “I honestly love America and the American people. What happened to my family is totally isolated from the American people and government.”

Mohammed carries with him a letter to his family signed by Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of US forces in Iraq, dated June 25, 2009. The letter is the result of an extraordinary gesture made by the Kinanis after Ali’s death. The US Embassy offered to provide a $10,000 condolence payment to the families of the victims of Nisour Square, making clear it was not a remedy for what happened and not a substitute for any potential legal action against the shooters. Initially Mohammed refused the money, but the embassy pursued his family, urging them to take it. They eventually did, but with one condition: that the US military accept a $5000 donation from the Kinanis to the family of a US soldier killed in Iraq. Mohammed’s wife, Fatimah, delivered the gift to the US Embassy. “My wife labeled it as a gift from a mother who sacrificed a son on the path to freedom, a gift from Ali’s family to whichever US military family the embassy chose, to any soldier’s family that was killed here in Iraq, who lost his life in Iraq for the sake of Iraq.” Soon thereafter, Fatimah received the letter from General Odierno. “Your substantial generosity on behalf of the families of fallen American soldiers has touched me deeply,” Odierno wrote.

After Ali’s death, the thought of suing Blackwater didn’t cross Mohammed’s mind. He readily cooperated with the US military and federal investigators, and he believed that justice would be done in America. But when he would go to the US Embassy, Mohammed recalls, he would get “hammered there. They all wanted me to shut up so they could defend Blackwater.” He says an embassy official tried to convince him that there had been a firefight that day, not a massacre. Mohammed was unfazed by what he considered a grand lie and continued to cooperate with the US investigation. Then, he says, Blackwater stepped in.

In a letter to ABC News threatening a defamation lawsuit for a story the network had done about Nisour Square, a Blackwater attorney denied that Blackwater had killed Ali, claiming instead that he was killed by “a stray bullet” possibly fired by the US military “an hour after Blackwater personnel had departed the scene.” The letter claimed Ali was killed by a “warning shot” that “ricocheted and killed the nine-year-old boy.” It said it was not “even possible” Blackwater “was responsible.”

Then an Iraqi attorney working with Blackwater approached Mohammed. But he wasn’t just any lawyer. Ja’afar al Moussawy was the chief prosecutor of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, which prosecuted Saddam Hussein and other leading officials. He was the Iraqi lawyer.

Mohammed agreed to meet with Moussawy and Blackwater’s regional manager. When Mohammed arrived at the Blackwater headquarters in the Green Zone, there was a lunch spread laid out on the table. Moussawy asked Mohammed if he wanted to eat, and Mohammed said he would, “to show you that I have nothing against you personally.” Mohammed says he told them, “My problem is not with any of you, rather with the guys who killed my son.” After lunch, the manager asked Mohammed to tell him what happened in the square that day. Mohammed did. The manager then said he had an offer for him.

“We want to give you $20,000,” Mohammed recalls the Blackwater manager saying.

“I’m not taking a penny from you,” Mohammed told him. “I want no money.”

Mohammed asked for a blank piece of paper and a pen. “Look I have the paper and I can sign and waive all my [legal] rights. All my rights, I will sign away now, but under one condition: I want the owner of Blackwater to apologize to me publicly in America and say, ‘We killed your son, and we’re sorry.’ That’s all I want.”

The Blackwater manager asked Mohammed why it was so important to have an apology. Mohammed reminded him of Blackwater owner Erik Prince’s Congressional testimony two weeks after the Nisour Square shootings. In his testimony, Prince said his men “acted appropriately at all times” at Nisour Square and that the company had never killed innocent civilians, except perhaps by “ricochets” and “traffic accidents.” At that hearing, on October 2, 2007, a document was produced showing that before Nisour Square the State Department, Blackwater’s employer, had coordinated with Blackwater to set a low payout for Iraqi shooting victims because, in the words of a Department security official, if it was too high Iraqis may try “to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.”

Mohammed said he wanted Prince to publicly reject this characterization of “Iraqis as mercenaries.” The Blackwater manager, he says, told him Blackwater does not apologize. “You killed my son!” Mohammed exclaimed. “What do you want, then? Why did you bring me here?”

Mohammed then confronted the Blackwater manager about the letter to ABC News. “I told him that Blackwater was trying to stain the reputation of the American Army” by blaming Ali’s death on US soldiers. Mohammed recalls asking, “Aren’t you an American company, and this is your national army? Why would you do this to your own?” Mohammed says he threw the pen and paper at the Blackwater manager and left. In a statement to The Nation, a Blackwater spokesperson confirmed that the company had offered Mohammed a “condolence payment” and that he declined it.

It was then that Mohammed decided that his best recourse would be to cooperate with the US criminal investigation of the incident and to sue Blackwater in civil court the United States. “I want Blackwater, who refused to apologize, to get what they deserve according to the rule of law,” Mohammed says. “I had no other option but to go down the legal path, to have justice applied—something that will be comforting to victims’ families and something that might deter other criminals from committing the same act.”

Mohammed’s American lawyers contend, as did federal prosecutors, that the Blackwater men disobeyed orders from superiors not to leave the Green Zone, which ultimately led to the shooting at Nisour Square, and that they did not follow proper State Department guidelines for the use of force, instead shooting unprovoked at Mohammed’s car and the other civilians in the square. They also allege that Blackwater was not guarding any US official at the time of the shooting and that the Nisour Square killings amounted to an offensive operation against unarmed civilians. “Blackwater was where it shouldn’t have been, doing something it was not supposed to do,” says Mohammed’s lawyer Gary Mauney. They “weren’t even supposed to be in Nisour Square, and if they hadn’t have been, no shootings would have occurred.”

Unlike the other civil suits against Blackwater, which were settled in federal court in January, Mohammed’s case was filed in state court in North Carolina. It is also different because Mohammed is directly suing the six Blackwater men he believes were responsible for the shooting that day. The suit also argues that Prince and his network of Blackwater companies and affiliates are ultimately responsible for the conduct of the men at Nisour Square. The Blackwater shooters “weren’t doing anything related to their work for the government,” Mauney says. “After the events happened, Blackwater came out and said, ‘We support what they did. We think it was justified.’ They ratified the conduct of their employees.”

Moreover, Mohammed’s lawyers contend that the evidence that was ruled inadmissible in the criminal Nisour Square case because it was obtained in exchange for a promise of immunity and reportedly under threat of termination is valid evidence in their civil case. Several statements by Blackwater guards who were at the square that day directly bolster Mohammed and other Iraqis’ claim that it was an unprovoked shooting.

Perhaps the most potent piece of evidence in Mohammed’s case comes from one of the men he is suing. Jeremy Ridgeway, a turret gunner on the Raven 23 team that day, pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian. In his sworn proffer that accompanied his guilty plea, Ridgeway admitted that he and the other five defendants “opened fire with automatic weapons and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians…killing at least fourteen people” and wounding at least twenty others. “None of these victims was an insurgent, and many were shot while inside of civilian vehicles that were attempting to flee” the Blackwater forces. Ridgeway also admitted that Raven 23 had “not been authorized” to leave the Green Zone and that after they departed, they “had been specifically ordered” by US Embassy officials to return. “In contravention of that order,” they proceeded to Nisour Square. Ridgeway admitted to shooting and killing Dr. Al Rubia’y in the Kia sedan, adding that another Blackwater shooter launched an M-203 grenade, “causing the vehicle to erupt in flames.” He acknowledged that “there had been no attempt to provide reasonable warnings to the driver.” As the Raven 23 convoy exited the square against the flow of traffic, Ridgeway admitted, Blackwater forces “continued to fire their machine guns at civilian vehicles that posed no threat to the convoy.”

Evidence in the criminal case also reveals that three other men on the Raven 23 convoy—Adam Frost, Mark Mealy, Matthew Murphy—were “horrified” at what their colleagues had done in the square that day. In a journal entry he wrote after the shooting, Frost recounted returning to the Green Zone, where he and Murphy confronted the men who did the killings at Nisour Square. “We started to curse at them and tell each other how fucked up they were,” he wrote. “We could not believe what we had just seen.” Murphy told the grand jury his colleagues were shooting “for nothing and for no reason.” Mealy described two of the defendants, Evan Liberty and Paul Slough, giving each other high-fives, “patting each other on the back and bragging about what a great job they had done.” In his testimony, Murphy described what he had seen that day as “pretty heinous shit.”

Frost, who prosecutors say did not fire his weapon at Nisour Square, wrote in his journal that he “prayed for comfort to be given to those families that we had broken.” When the FBI launched its investigation of the shooting, Frost said he was “strongly encouraged,” though not ordered, by Blackwater management not to answer its questions. He said a Blackwater manager had told him that the company was already fully cooperating with the State Department and had been honest in detailing the shooting. “I thought to myself, you fuckers have been anything but honest with the State Department and their investigation,” Frost wrote.

Mauney and his partner, Paul Dickinson, believe that these statements and others like them, along with the accounts of scores of Iraqi witnesses and forensic evidence, paint a case of overwhelming guilt on the part of the Blackwater shooters who killed Ali Kinani and the other Iraqis that day. “I think it’s important for folks to know that Blackwater has not won,” says Mauney. In addition to Mohammed, Mauney and Dickinson represent five other families impacted by Nisour Square, including those of two others killed by Blackwater. “They’ve come here with a heart full of belief in the US justice system,” says Dickinson. In late January on a visit to Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden announced that the United States would appeal the dismissal of the criminal cases, saying the judge’s ruling was “not an acquittal.” Blackwater’s lawyers have said they believe the appeal will fail.

As we wrap up the interview, Mohammed Kinani gathers up all the photos he has brought to show me: pictures of Ali and his other children, pictures of his wife and of his severely damaged car. He stops and stares at a school portrait of Ali. We look at a video on his laptop of his home—the one currently occupied by the Sunni militia leader—and then he pauses and clicks on another video file. The screen pops up, and there is Ali, hopping around a swimming pool with his cousins and siblings. With a wide smile, Ali approaches Mohammed’s cellphone camera and says, “I am Allawi!”

Mohammed tells me, “I wish the US Congress would ask [Erik Prince] why they killed my innocent son, who called himself Allawi. Do you think that this child was a threat to your company? This giant company that has the biggest weapons, the heaviest weapons, the planes, and this boy was a threat to them?” he says. “I want Americans to know that this was a child that died for nothing.”

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Brian Terrell and Joshua Brollier Sentenced to 14 days for trespass at Ft. McCoy in 2008

Dan Pearson — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:03:39 -0600

Excerpt

by Eileen Hanson

Today’s hearing before Judge Magistrate Stephen Crocker in US District Court was a re-sentencing motion filed by the government against the two for failure to pay the $75 fine imposed by the court in a bench trial last January. Judge Crocker began by hearing from Terrell on his motion opposing the re-sentencing. Terrell argued that it would be improper to impose a jail sentence at this stage since jail was not a sentence that could have been imposed at the time of the original sentencing under the Monroe County trespassing ordinance. (In the bench trial before Judge Crocker in January 2009, for instance, defendants were not offered representation by public counsel, specifically because jail time was not a potential consequence for the alleged crime.)

Body

by Eileen Hanson

Further, Brollier and Terrell contested the government’s contention that “alternatives to jail are not sufficient deterrence”. Terrell spoke eloquently about the example of friends and mentors like Dorothy Day, Daniel and Phillip Berrigan and Daniel Ellsberg. He noted that “putting these people in chains and locking them in cages” served not as a deterrent to him and others, but rather as an inspiration to act with similar courage.

Brollier noted that their actions of August 8, 2008 did not take place in a vacuum and that the state of the world must be considered along with their actions. It is not permitted to yell fire in a crowded theater if there is no fire. But if there is a fire, we are duty bound to alert people to the danger.

Both defendants agreed that they were not seeking to go to jail, but were willing to do so, in part, to stand in solidarity with those who have no such choice. Speaking from recent experience in Washington DC city jail where Terrell met inmates who were unable to pay even a small fine to get out, he said “in a world where jails exist and some can pay and walk away while others cannot pay and their lives are ruined, I would rather go to jail”.

After Judge Crocker declared the sentence of 14 days, both defendants stated a preference to begin serving that time immediately. Brollier said he would “rather get this done and get back to the important work of resisting these wars and also to alleviating the suffering” that is so often the result. The two were escorted out by federal marshals to begin serving their sentence in Dane County jail.

Project

WITNESS AGAINST WAR 2008: From Chicago to St. Paul

Update on the 13 arrested January 26th in DC with the Peaceable Assembly Campaiign

Gerald — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:50:44 -0600

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Four of the activists will return to Washington, D.C. for a court date. Nine of the group were given the option to pay a $150 fine and did so.

Excerpt

Body

Kathy Kelly

January 27, 2010

At 2:00 this afternoon, 13 peace activists charged with unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and failure to obey an officer appeared before a D.C. judge after spending the night in each of three lockups. Because all of them lived outside of Washington, D.C., the government held them overnight rather than release them on their own recognizance. The activists, nine of whom are from Minnesota, were arrested after laying down on the sidewalk in front of the White House, while their companions sang softly, in remembrance of people, including 77 Minnesotans, who were killed during U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All involved were participating in the Voices for Creative Nonviolence campaign, launched three months ago, calling for Peaceable Assembly in the nation’s capitol and in grassroots communities, to insist that lawmakers stop funding war. Four of the activists will return to Washington, D.C. for a court date. Nine of the group were given the option to pay a $150 fine and did so.

The severity of the charges and the harsh conditions of the D.C. jails may have been designed to deter activists from traveling to Washington, D.C. to exercise their right to free speech and participate in nonviolent direct action. But, as President Obama prepares to seek a freeze on all discretionary spending other than that which is spent for defense and Homeland Security departments, organizers are confident that opponents of these policies will continue to assemble peaceably for redress of grievance. To learn more about civil disobedience/resistance actions which have developed in Washington, D.C. over the past several weeks, please visit www.vcnv.org and www.witnesstorture.org

Minnesotan's for Peace Participate in the Peaceable Assembly Campaign: 13 Arrested at White House

Jeff Leys — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:43:44 -0600

Short Information Teaser

13 people arrested after staging "die-in" to resist war in front of the White House

Excerpt

January 26, 2010

Washington D.C. – The Twin Cities Peace Campaign and other Minnesota peace groups, aligned with the Peaceable Assembly Campaign, organized a civil disobedience action today, in Washington, D.C. 13 nonviolent activists were arrested in front of the White House protesting US militarism. Beginning at 10:30 a.m., over thirty participants read names of 77 Minnesotans killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the names of Iraqis and Afghans killed in the U.S. wars. After each name was read, a bell was rung and the participants said “We Remember You.” A banner that read, “Occupation” was pelted with shoes inscribed with anti war slogans. Finally, the 13 walked onto the sidewalk and laid down in remembrance of the war dead. Father William Pickard anointed the “dead” with olive oil.

The Washington D.C. Park Police arrested all 13 lying on the pavement. Vickie Andrews, John Braun, Marie Braun, Lori Blanding, Ward Brennan, Stephen Clemens, Diane Haugesag, Maxine McNamara, Ceylon Mooney, Joe Palen, Mary Percich, Father William Pickard and Cornelia Sullivan were first taken to the Anacostia Police station. Then they were transported to Washington D.C. District 1 police station only to be taken later to the Washington D.C. lock up. They have been told they will remain there until they appear before a judge on January 27, 2010.

VIDEOS OF THE ACTION

“Obama is the Arms-Exporter-In-Chief!”

Minnesotan’s for Peace Participate in the Peaceable Assembly Campaign

Body

January 26, 2010

VIDEOS OF THE ACTION

“Obama is the Arms-Exporter-In-Chief!”

Minnesotan’s for Peace Participate in the Peaceable Assembly Campaign

Project

Peaceable Assembly Campaign

Afghanistan Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2009

Jeff Leys — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:53:43 -0600

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The United Nations report about the implications of conflict on Afghani civilians

Excerpt

January 26th, 2010
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The intensification and spread of the armed conflict in Afghanistan continued to take a heavy toll on civilians throughout 2009. At least 5,978 civilians were killed and injured in 2009, the highest number of civilian casualties recorded since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. Afghans in the southern part of the country, where the conflict is the most intense, were the most severely affected. Nearly half of all civilian casualties, namely 45%, occurred in the southern region. High casualty figures have also been reported in the southeastern (15%), eastern (10%), central (12%) and western (8%) regions. Previously stable areas, such as the northeast, have also witnessed increasing insecurity, such as in Kunduz Province. In addition to a growing number of civilian casualties, conflict-affected populations have also experienced loss of livelihood, displacement, and destruction of property and personal assets.

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January 26th, 2010
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UNAMA Human Rights (HR) recorded a total of 2,412 civilian deaths between 01 January and 31 December 2009. This figure represents an increase of 14% on the 2118 civilian deaths recorded in 2008. Of the 2,412 deaths reported in 2009, 1,630 (67%) were attributed to anti-Government elements (AGEs) and 596 (25%) to pro- Government forces (PGF). The remaining 186 deaths (8%) could not be attributed to any of the conflicting parties given as some civilians died as a result of cross-fire or were killed by unexploded ordinance.

AGEs remain responsible for the largest proportion of civilian deaths. Civilian deaths reportedly caused by the armed opposition increased by 41% between 2008 and 2009, from 1,160 to 1,630. Deaths resulting from insurgent-related activities in 2009 were a ratio of approximately three to one as compared to casualties caused by PGF. 1,054 civilians were victims of suicide and other improvised explosive device (IED) attacks by AGEs and 225 were victims of targeted assassinations and executions. These make up the majority of casualties caused by AGE activities and is 53% of the total number of civilian deaths in 2009. Together, these tactics accounted for 78% of the noncombatant deaths attributed to the actions of the armed opposition. The remainder of casualties caused by AGE actions resulted primarily from rocket attacks and ground engagements in which civilian bystanders were directly affected.

Suicide and IED attacks caused more civilian casualties than any other tactic, killing 1,054 civilians, or 44% of the total civilian casualties in 2009. Although such attacks have primarily targeted government or international military forces, they are often carried out in areas frequented by civilians. Civilians are also deliberately targeted with assassinations, abductions, and executions if they are perceived to be supportive of, or associated with, the Government or the international community. A broad range of civilians — including community elders, former military personnel, doctors, teachers and construction workers — have been targeted. Other actors, such as the UN and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also been targeted, often receiving threats, and in some cases becoming victims of violence. Through these actions, the armed opposition has demonstrated a significant disregard for the suffering inflicted on civilians. Intermingling with the civilian population and the frequent use of residential homes as bases puts civilians at risk of attack by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and international military (IM) forces.

Pro-Government forces - Afghan National Security Forces and International Military (IM) forces - were responsible for 596 recorded deaths; this is 25% of the total civilian casualties recorded in 2009. This is a reduction of 28% from the total number of deaths attributed to pro-Government forces in 2008. This decrease reflects measures taken by international military forces to conduct operations in a manner that reduces the risk posed to civilians.

Notwithstanding some positive trends, actions by PGF continued to take an adverse toll on civilians. UNAMA HR recorded 359 civilians killed due to aerial attacks, which constitutes 61% of the number of civilian deaths attributed to pro-Government forces. This is 15% of the total number of civilians killed in the armed conflict during 2009. IM forces and ANSF also conducted a number of ground operations that caused civilian casualties, including a large number of search and seizure operations. These often involved excessive use of force, destruction to property and cultural insensitivity, particularly towards women.

UNAMA HR remains concerned at the location of military bases, especially those that are situated within, or close to, areas where civilians are concentrated. The location and proximity of such bases to civilians runs the risk of increasing the dangers faced by civilians, as such military installations are often targeted by the armed opposition. Civilians have been killed and injured as a result of their proximity to military bases, homes and property have been damaged or destroyed; this can lead to loss of livelihood and income. The location of military facilities in or near residential neighborhoods has also had the effect of generating fear and mistrust within communities and antipathy towards IM forces given their experience of being caught in the crossfire or being the victims of AGE attacks on Government or pro- Government military installations.

International military forces did take strategic and specific steps to minimize civilian casualties in 2009. The change in ISAF command, clearer command structures, and a new tactical directive have all contributed to the efforts by ISAF to reduce the impact of the armed conflict on civilians. However, a Civilian Casualty Tracking Cell, that was established in 2008 in ISAF (with a similar tracking mechanism in USFOR-A) has not proved very effective in addressing UNAMA concerns in a timely manner. Measures need to be taken to improve the Tracking Cell so that it can be more responsive and helpful in relation to civilian casualty incidents.

This report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict in Afghanistan in 2009 is compiled in pursuance of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) mandate under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1868 (2009). UNAMA Human Rights undertakes a range of activities aimed at minimizing the impact of the conflict on civilians; this includes independent and impartial monitoring of incidents involving loss of life or injury to civilians and analysis of trends to identify the circumstances in which loss of life occurs. UNAMA Human Rights officers (national and international), deployed around Afghanistan, utilize a broad range of techniques to gather information on specific cases irrespective of location or who may be responsible. Such information is cross-checked and analyzed, with a range of diverse sources, for credibility and reliability to the satisfaction of the Human Rights officer conducting the investigation, before details are recorded in a dedicated database. An electronic database was established in January 2009. The database is designed to facilitate the collection and analysis of information, including disaggregation by age and gender. However, due to limitations arising from the operating environment, such as the joint nature of some operations and the inability of primary sources in most instances to precisely identify or distinguish between diverse military actors insurgents, UNAMA HR does not break down responsibility for particular incidents other than attributing them to “pro-Government forces” or “anti- Government elements.” UNAMA HR does not claim that the statistics presented in this report are complete; it may be the case that, given the limitations in the operating environment, UNAMA HR is under-reporting civilian casualties.

UNAMA HR information on civilian casualties is, routinely, made available, internally and externally, to the Security Council through the UN Secretary General, the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) UNAMA, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and other UN mechanisms as appropriate. UNAMA Human Rights advocates with a range of actors, including Afghan authorities, international military forces, and others with a view to strengthening compliance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law. It also undertakes a range of activities on issues relating to the armed conflict, and protection of civilians with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), the humanitarian community, and members of civil society.

2009 was the worst year in recent times for civilians affected by the armed conflict. UNAMA HR recorded the highest number of civilian casualties since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. The conflict has intensified and spread into areas that previously were considered relatively secure. This has resulted in increasing numbers of civilian dead and injured and with corresponding devastation and destruction of property and civilian infrastructure, often leading to loss of income and livelihoods. The use of asymmetric tactics by the armed opposition is a significant factor in the growing number of civilians who are killed and injured. The use of air strikes and the placement of military facilities in civilian areas greatly increase the risk of civilians being killed and injured. The United Nations calls upon all parties to the conflict to respect and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law in order to minimize the impact of the conflict upon civilians.

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Remembering “Suicides” in the Rotunda

Jeff Leys — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:24:51 -0600

Short Information Teaser

VOICES member Jerica Arents writes about the impact of torture on families

Excerpt

By Jerica Arents
January 24, 2010

In the absence of an intact corpse, families often gather for memorial services rather than funerals.

The families of Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani – three Guantánamo prisoners whose earlier purported suicides were declared “asymmetrical warfare” by the Bush Justice Administration – received Salah’s, Mani’s and Yasser’s broken and lifeless bodies. Previously the families had gathered to wake their loved ones, after authorities in their countries informed them that their sons had died in Guantánamo.

Body

By Jerica Arents
January 24, 2010

In the absence of an intact corpse, families often gather for memorial services rather than funerals.

Following three grueling years of unanswered questions and heartache, Scott Horton’s recent article in Harper’s Magazine has revealed that the deaths of these three detainees may not, in fact, have been due to suicide, but to having been tortured to death in U.S. custody.

Compelled to act by this tragic news, fourteen members of the Witness Against Torture fast were arrested in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday, January 21st for holding a memorial service in remembrance of the three men. The activists paid respect to the families of the dead in the very room where U.S. presidents are historically waked, adorning a makeshift burial shroud with handfuls of rose petals and filling the enormous Rotunda with story and song.

The Yemeni and two Saudis have stories much like many of the other men who were (and still are) indefinitely detained at Guantánamo; snatched and handed over to the United States for bounty money, 16-year-old Al-Zahrani spent the last five years of his short life in custody. Al-Utaybi, orphaned in his youth and described as “a peaceful person who would harm no one”, was intercepted after traveling to a conflict zone that straddles Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to do humanitarian work. The U.S. Justice Department has no evidence linking Al-Salami to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Two of them had already been cleared for release by the U.S. government; it was determined that they could not be held any longer, and they were flagged, finally, for return to their home countries.

All three were on hunger strike to challenge their illegal detention.

Although I had never met Salah, Mani, or Yasser, I could imagine the three Muslim men hauled out of their tiny cells on that dreadful night in June 2006. I could see their eyes fill with terror as their head, arms and legs were strapped to their chairs, writhing in pain as military personnel gouged at their eyes and bent back their fingers. Struggling for air as rags were forced down their throats, and then gasping, panicked, hooded and silenced, they finally left this world.

The bodies of the three men were returned to their families mangled and beaten, and, interestingly enough, in pieces. The U.S. government has refused to provide the families with their loved ones’ throats.

We entered the Capitol last Thursday – the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration - with hopes that this small act of remembrance would commemorate the lives of those we had never met. In the very spot every U.S. President has been laid before burial, we shared the lives and mourned the untimely deaths of our three Muslim brothers, tortured and killed on behalf of our “freedom” and in accordance with our country’s “justice”.

As I moved to lay our banner over the spot that marked the middle of the Rotunda, twenty-eight other activists, clad in orange jumpsuits and black hoods, were refusing to move from the steps outside the Capitol building. Our group inside formed a semicircle, and each of us adopted the name of an imprisoned detainee.

If someone had told me a year ago that I would find myself in Washington D.C.’s Central Cell Block, providing the police with only the name of a Guantánamo detainee and not my own, I would have been struck with disbelief. This courage was found through the experience of a twelve-day fast in the midst of a deeply connected and inclusive community. I have wondered how the prisoners who endure torture, indefinite detention and the loss of beloved friends at Guantánamo, Bagram, or any of the other U.S. secret prisons around our world find the courage and will to continue living. From what I’ve read and heard, they turn to community, faith and an abiding hope to be reunited with loved ones.

Remembering the victims and their families requires that we look in the mirror and see ourselves as we are seen by them. When we see what we have become, we may be prompted to ask ourselves, “If not us, who? And if not now, when?”

Jerica Arents () is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She is a graduate student at Loyola University Chicago and a member of Kairos Chicago.