Bush promises $2b for climate fight

The United States will commit $US2 billion ($2.25 billion) to promote clean energy technologies and fight climate change, President George W Bush said in his final State of the Union speech today.

Mr Bush said the US was "committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change" but warned that all countries had to share the burden.

"Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources," he said.

The money will be committed to a new international fund over the next three years.

-----------------

Gus: 2 billions over three years.... China and India? The Chinese are doing more than the US to stem their emission problems at the moment, although China is starting from a dismal EPA set up... But to show a seriousness worthy of a leading nation, the US has to commit at least 15 billion dollars a year on the subject of global warming. No less. And make sure emissions are brought down by 50 per cent by 2015.

That 2 billion dollars won't even cover the cost of the warming emissions brought by Dubya and his small silly wars... with stuff blowing up here and there, and the Pentagon burning fuel as if there was no tomorrow... Do they know something?

C'mon, Peter you can do better than that....

America's choice, our future
Peter Hartcher
February 8, 2008

Consider this thought. One of the wise old men of American foreign policy, Brent Scowcroft, the
national security adviser to Gerald Ford and George Bush snr, believes that the US might not have
gone ahead with the invasion of Iraq if not for the decisions of Britain and Australia to join in.
"I don't think the President would have done it absolutely alone," he told me. "He needed some
cover, and you and the British gave it to him.
"If you and the Brits had said, 'Sorry, Mr President, we can't go along with you on that,' it wouldn't
have happened."

-------------------

Gus: Nothing knew here. We knew that, back in 2002 when Bushit was sharpening his pocket knife. Bushit needed partners in crime to justify his porkies. Our Johnny obliged. Blair deluded himself deliberately. Much grief came along of course... But to claim the surge in Iraq has been successful in reducing and containing deaths is premature, despite "senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Bush staff member, Michael Gerson, argued in yesterday's Washington Post that the turnaround in Iraq is "the largest political story of the year".

The US still copped 40 dead soldiers last month, the Iraqi troops lost nearly 70 soldiers and the general population lost about 600 (officially), all violently due to the "war". Despite this 'relative" success at halving the death toll from similar periods, a few analysts know that the "enemy" whoever it is, has recoiled and is waiting. The divisions in Iraq between the main factions have never been so great than now, even worse than under Saddam. The number of Iraqi deaths are beyond the pale, far worse than under Saddam and in a much shorter time too. The number of refugees topped 2.5 million people. Christians in Iraq have virtually been chased away... The number of unemployed is hovering about 50 per cent. Services have gone down the drain... Concrete barriers are separating entire neighbourhoods. Checkpoints have never been so numerous. And the occupation by US troops will be extended for another 25 years, say 50 years...

Sure the destiny of our country is linked to the US... But it can be done more smartly.

_______

First, America is a country that is comfortable with war. In the 230 years since the Declaration of
Independence, the US has invaded other countries on more than 200 occasions, according to the
Congressional Research Service. That is an average of one foreign incursion every 14 months in the
nation's history.

Yes Peter we know that... There is a complete list somewhere on this site... But that's good you mentioning it, but why don't you get irate about this? Apparently you accept it like a bowl of porridge for breakfast...? Defenders of "democracy"? Or clever looters?

---------------

From Noam Chomsky

Nor has the current leadership [UK] explained when, or why, they abandoned their 1991 view that "the best of all worlds" would be "an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein" that would rule as Saddam did but not make the error of judgment [invasion of Kuwait] in August 1990 that ruined Saddam's record.

At the time, the incumbents' British allies were in the opposition and therefore more free than the Thatcherites to speak out against Saddam's British-backed crimes. Their names are noteworthy by their absence from the parliamentary record of protests against these crimes, including Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon, and other leading figures of New Labour.

In December 2002, Jack Straw, then foreign minister, released a dossier of Saddam's crimes. It was drawn almost entirely from the period of firm US-UK support, a fact overlooked with the usual display of moral integrity. The timing and quality of the dossier raised many questions, but those aside, Straw failed to provide an explanation for his very recent conversion to skepticism about Saddam Hussein's good character and behavior.

....

Outside the two full members of the coalition, problems were more serious. In the two major European countries, Germany and France, the official government stands corresponded to the views of the large majority of their populations, which unequivocally opposed the war. That led to bitter condemnation by Washington and many commentators.

Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the offending nations as just the "Old Europe," of no concern because of their reluctance to toe Washington's line. The "New Europe" is symbolized by Italy, whose prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was visiting the White House. It was, evidently, unproblematic that public opinion in Italy was overwhelmingly opposed to the war.

In fact, Poll results available from Gallup International, as well as local sources for most of Europe, West and East, showed that support for a war carried out "unilaterally by America and its allies" did not rise above 11 percent in any country [Europe].

Strangely so far, the most successful country on earth is the one that lied the most about its construct — the USA.

That's the way they elect their president too... I forgot where the link is but eventually whoever wins the booby prize has to toe the line with the "Establishment"...

We're in for a wild ride... unless we become more astute.

As my German friend said once in front of a war memorial in the back of Bourke: "You Aussies are weird, you leave more blank space on your monuments to glorify more wars to come..."

Even Obama, against the war in Iraq, is prepared to bomb Iran "pre-emptively...".

New Weight in Army Manual on Stabilization
....

It is also an illustration of how far the Pentagon has moved beyond the Bush administration’s initial reluctance to use the military to support “nation-building” efforts when it came into office.

But some influential officers are already arguing that the Army still needs to put actions behind its new words, and they have raised searching questions about whether the Army’s military structure, personnel policies and weapons programs are consistent with its doctrine.

The manual describes the United States as facing an era of “persistent conflict” in which the American military will often operate among civilians in countries where local institutions are fragile and efforts to win over a wary population are vital.

Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the commander of the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, began briefing lawmakers on the document on Thursday. In an interview, he called it a “blueprint to operate over the next 10 to 15 years.”

“Army doctrine now equally weights tasks dealing with the population — stability or civil support — with those related to offensive and defensive operations,” the manual states. “Winning battles and engagements is important but alone is not sufficient. Shaping the civil situation is just as important to success.”

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the military is enmeshed in rebuilding local institutions, helping to restore essential services and safeguarding a vulnerable population. The new manual is an attempt to put these endeavors — along with counterinsurgency warfare — at the core of military training, planning and operations. That would require some important changes. “There is going to be some resistance,” General Caldwell said. “There will be people who will hear and understand what we are saying, but it is going to take some time to inculcate that into our culture.”

Even as they welcomed it, other Army officers said there were inconsistencies between the newly minted doctrine on how to wage war and current practice. Army brigades in Iraq have too few combat engineers to support civil programs, they said. Also, they added, the Army does not promote officers who advise the Iraqi and Afghan security forces as readily as battalion staff officers and needs to improve their training.

Gates Says Anger Over Iraq Hurts Afghan Effort

By THOM SHANKER
Published: February 9, 2008

MUNICH — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that many Europeans were confused about NATO’s security mission in Afghanistan, and that they did not support the alliance effort because they opposed the American-led invasion of Iraq.

“I worry that for many Europeans the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are confused,” Mr. Gates said as he flew here to deliver an address at an international security conference.

“I think that they combine the two,” he added. “Many of them, I think, have a problem with our involvement in Iraq and project that to Afghanistan, and do not understand the very different — for them — the very different kind of threat.”

The comments were the first in which Mr. Gates had explicitly linked European antipathy to American policy in Iraq with the reason large segments of the public here do not support the NATO operation in Afghanistan.

-------------------

Gus: yes, Mr Gates, and so it should. The fact is the US has complicated the whole dynamics of fighting "enemies" by lying about some of them and compromised itself by a historical support for the Taliban when they were fighting the "Russians". In fact the US was supporting these Muslim extremists (the Taliban and other warlords) — these segregating of women's, these awful religious freaks, these terrorists in their own countries, these supporters of Al Qaeda — in a country that was trying to bring, via its own communist government, a sense of equality for all, including women. This obviously was not the US cup of tea... Communism to the U.S. is like a rag to a demented bull. The fledgling communist government in Kabul asked the Russians for help. The Russians obliged reluctantly and got bogged down in a war against the Taliban — terrorists supported by the U.S..

Thus, all in all, there is never a clear cut of who's responsible for what, especially in Iraq where all the damage done is exclusively due to U.S. porkies. Thus the NATO partners are a bit weary they are not given the full picture about the why and therefor of fighting over-there, in both "theaters" of war, even under the guise of "humanitarian" purpose. If the "official" fighting was not in Afghanistan, it would be say in The Philippines or why not Yemen... Africa too is a good fertile ground for this kind of capers, once the Afghan excursion is exhausted. But it might take a bit more time to sort out. Say another fifty years... So the NATO partners are a bit suspicious and as they see the U.S. flaunting international money market to line their pockets with massive armament, the NATO partners are going broke.... Hum.

Meanwhile, Russia's President Vladimir Putin says the world is engaged in a new arms race and Nato is failing to accommodate Russia's concerns.

In a nationally-televised speech, he condemned Nato's expansion and the US plan to include Poland and the Czech Republic in a missile defence shield.

"It is already clear that a new phase in the arms race is unfolding in the world," Mr Putin said.

"It is not our fault, because we did not start it," he said.

Yes Poland, under U.S. pressure is "happy" to host U.S. missle defense systems "aimed at Iran" and the U.S. have been flaunting Arms Treaties for a while now, especially since Bushitorama came to the fore...

Putin is not a fool.

As mentioned above, "[while] the U.S. [is] flaunting international money market to line their pockets with massive armament, the NATO partners are going broke".

From Al Jazeera: 

Many in Europe privately expressed concern over the US Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate-cutting stance, after it slashed 1.25 percentage points off of the federal funds rate in less than 10 days in January.
 
On Thursday, the US congress passed a major stimulus package aimed at reviving the economy.
 
But Washington's calls for other major economies to take similar action have met resistance.
 
"The actions that the US Federal Reserve and president [George] Bush have taken are appropriate to the US," Darling said separately in Tokyo.
 
"Other countries are not in that position and will take appropriate action for their own economies."
 
One analyst told Al Jazeera that there was no "single fix" that was applicable to every economy.
 
"There's no such thing as a single fix today, simply because the conditions on the ground for the different economic regions in the world are very different," Yuwa Hendrick-Wong, an economic adviser to Mastercard Worldwide, said.
 
"Different authorities will have to take different types of action."

-------------- 

Is this the pseudo-end of the WTO glory days of unifying the world market?... Or new horizons where the C7 (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US) partners are protecting their own butts before paying attention to the group? Or are they thick as thieves behind the facade of discord that they portray to pander to angry public opinion? Are the leaders actually followers of the gravy train and pussyfoot as not to frighten the banks and the "money" market?

In the end they blame the "Chinese" for the world money troubles rather than the US shonks...

Be prepared for more "discoveries" of "lead paint" on toys coming from China...

Fair trial pledge to 9/11 accused

US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has promised a fair trial for Guantanamo prisoners accused of organising the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

He was speaking to the BBC after six men, including alleged plot mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were charged.

They could face the death penalty if convicted of murder and conspiracy.

BAGHDAD — Six members of an Awakening Council, groups composed mostly of Sunni Muslims who have turned against the insurgency, were killed early Thursday after they mistakenly fired on American soldiers in the north, the Iraqi police said.

From the Independent

In the coming weeks, we will see the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by American and British forces on 19 March, and the fall of Saddam Hussein on 9 April. There will be much rancorous debate in the Western media about the success or failure of the "surge" and the US war effort here.

But for millions of Iraqis like Bassim, the war has robbed them of their homes, their jobs and often their lives. It has brought them nothing but misery and ended their hopes of happiness. It has destroyed Iraq.

Defining Victory Downward
No, the surge was not a success.

By Michael Kinsley
Thursday, February 21, 2008; 2:30 PM

Why was President Bush's decision more than a year ago to send another 30,000 troops to Iraq called "the surge"? I don't know who invented this label, but the word "surge" evokes images of the sea: a wave that sweeps in, and then sweeps back out again. The second part was crucial. What made the surge different from your ordinary troop deployment was that it was temporary. In fact, the surge was presented as part of a larger plan for troop withdrawal.

It was also, implicitly, part of a deal between Bush and the majority of Americans, who want out. The deal was: just let me have a few more soldiers to get Baghdad under control, and then everybody, or almost everybody, can pack up and come home.

In other words: you have to increase the troops in order to reduce them. This is so perverse on its face that it begins to sound zen-like and brilliant, like something out of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War." And in General David Petraeus, the administration conjured up its own Sun Tzu, a brilliant military strategist.

Trying Some Disney Attitude to Help Cure Walter Reed

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 25, 2008; B01

Fifty medical workers -- doctors, nurses, therapists and administrators among them -- sat in a room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center gazing at a slide of Donald Duck on a screen.

The oft-cranky Disney cartoon character, wearing his blue sailor jacket and cap, was in a palpable rage. His webbed feet had lifted off the ground, his beak was gaping, and his white-gloved hands were tightly clutching an old-fashioned two-piece telephone.

"We can clearly see he's frustrated," said Kris Lafferty, a trainer for the Disney Institute who was leading workers at the Northwest Washington hospital last week in a four-hour seminar on customer service. "Why do we think he's frustrated?"

A year after a scandal erupted over the long-term treatment of soldiers at the hospital, the Army has turned to Disney for help. "Service, Disney Style" is newly required for all military and other government employees at Walter Reed.

Lafferty and her fellow Disney trainer, Mike Donnelly, handed out little plastic Goofy and Mickey Mouse figurines as they led Wednesday afternoon's discussion with the workers -- some in uniform, some in scrubs, some in civilian clothes.

Various theories were offered for Donald Duck's ire: He was getting the run-around. He could not get a question answered. He was flummoxed by his antique phone.

The lesson: Poor service equals frustration.

At the tables, heads nodded in agreement. It's a familiar story at Walter Reed, where wounded soldiers and their families often confront a numbing bureaucracy.

The Army is paying Disney $800,000 to help revamp attitudes at the hospital.

The true cost of war

In 2005, a Nobel prize-winning economist began the painstaking process of calculating the true cost of the Iraq war. In his new book, he reveals how short-sighted budget decisions, cover-ups and a war fought in bad faith will affect us all for decades to come.

Aida Edemariam meets Joseph Stiglitz [The Guardian]

Fitful spring sunshine is warming the neo-gothic limestone of the Houses of Parliament, and the knots of tourists wandering round them, but in a basement cafe on Millbank it is dark, and quiet, and Joseph Stiglitz is looking as though he hasn't had quite enough sleep. For two days non-stop he has been talking - at the LSE, at Chatham House, to television crews - and then he is flying to Washington to testify before Congress on the subject of his new book. Whatever their reservations - and there will be a few - representatives will have to listen, because not many authors with the authority of Stiglitz, a Nobel prize-winner in economics, an academic tempered by four years on Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and another three as chief economist at the World Bank (during which time he developed an influential critique of globalisation), will have written a book that so urgently redefines the terms in which to view an ongoing conflict. The Three Trillion Dollar War reveals the extent to which its effects have been, and will be, felt by everyone, from Wall Street to the British high street, from Iraqi civilians to African small traders, for years to come.
---------
Gus:
The cost of war? Sure, the administration has fudged a bit (or a lot) on this score but what about the spoils of war? On this level, anyone in the US — and around the globe — driving a car or buying some plastic goods is "benefiting" from this stupid little war... Sure the price of petrol has gone through the roof but is it unreasonable to think that had the Iraq war not occurred, the price of petrol might be around 200 US dollaroos per barrel at the present... Say US$175 a barrel to be on the safe side...?

As Mr Greenspan — a respected economist — now retired but still spruiking sticks in the spokes of the new greenhorn's wheels, Bernanke — pointed out a while back now, the war in Iraq was ABOUT THE OIL...

As I have also pointed out on this site before — I've forgotten no matter where — the spoils of war outweigh the cost of the war... even if the costs went ten fold overnight...

The value of the oil in Iraq for the US (they pinched the "Iraqi" oil from the Russians, the French and the Germans) will soar in the thousand trillion dollars in today's moneys over twenty-five years. No kidding. Oil is not just petrol, oil is not just fuel for aeroplanes... Oil is an array of products, from plastics to medicines to paints and many others, that we've learned not to go without... Bugger...

And there is wind in the air that Saudi oil has already "peaked", despite many denials. And we consume about 9 times more oil than we are "discovering"...

In my first assessment I claimed that the oil in Iraq was valued at about 5 thousand trillion dollars to the US economy... Make that ten thousand trillion dollars to be on the conservative side.

The cost of war? To the Iraqi, the destruction of their country, one million dead or so, plus about 3 million people displaced. 4000 US soldiers dead, 30,000 maimed for life. And a few billion dollars for armament fireworks... Sure, blowing up stuff cost a bit but imagine all the US enterprises working on making bombs, bullets and flak-jackets... Without them the US would be in the economic doldrums of the Bermuda triangle, like a ghost ship... The world should be grateful, the US overtly lied about Saddamus' weapons of mass destruction to make us swallow the bitter pill of useless wars, otherwise we might be travelling on foot by now — or using row boats for naval warfare. Not on...

And on top of that the Iraqis are "getting a lesson in democracy" for a discounted price, considering they might get their diploma in that subject in about 75 years... Meanwhile it's pump & pump for the pleasures of SUV drivers and consumers around the world. Cost of war? my foot... See toon at top...

"The men and women who crossed into Iraq five years ago removed a tyrant, liberated a country, and rescued millions from unspeakable horrors," Mr Bush said.

And he signalled there would be no swift end to his policy of keeping troops in Iraq for the time being, with about 158,000 US forces fighting a bloody insurgency in what has become America's second longest war after Vietnam.

"We have learned through hard experience what happens when we pull our forces back too fast. The terrorists and extremists step in," the President warned.

"They fill vacuums, establish safe havens, and use them to spread chaos and carnage," he said.

The US commander-in-chief now leaves office in January, bequeathing to his successor an intractable military and political stalemate.

By the most conservative tally, the war in Iraq has already cost the United States more than $US400 billion ($436 billion) and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has argued the total bill could surpass $US3 trillion.

---------------

Gus: apparent miscalculations by the little Bush have been staggering, unless it was all too deliberate — which I think it was. In his speech on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by US troops, the little bushit is selective in blaming all else but his own plans for the devastation brought down in Iraq, including many displaced, countless dead and injured. The sectarian divide in Iraq has never been greater than now. Concrete walls now separate ghettos of hatred and of extreme fanaticism. But as Bushminus talks of troops reduction (maintain the surge in reality), the intention of staying in Iraq for "as long as it takes" (more than 25 years is looming, likely to be 50 years) is still underlying the swindle. The intent from the start was to colonise — not Iraq — but its primary resource: the oil. This goal is worth the pain — although the midget president does not suffer much in all that, the pain being that of others, including families of 4000 soldiers dead et al — when your name is George Dubya Bush.

As a committed Christian, George Bush makes a terrible one, devilish at times. As a reformed drunk, he is the worse example of sobriety... His antics drive me to drink.

May 4, 2008 Missiles Strike Sadr City, Damaging Hospital By ALISSA J. RUBIN

BAGHDAD — The ugly daily fight for ground in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City unfolded Saturday at a small mosque next door to a hospital, damaging the hospital and a number of its ambulances, and near a group of children who were wounded as they gathered tin cans to sell for salvage.

The missiles that hit close to the Sadr General Hospital were American. After a night of clashes in the neighborhood, the Americans fired at least three “precision-guided munitions” at the small building next door to the hospital. Neighbors said the building was used as a place of prayer for pilgrims, hospital employees and neighborhood residents, but the military identified it as a command center for the Shiite militias that it is battling.

Twenty-eight people were wounded in the strikes on the building and surrounding area, said Abdul Hussain Qassim, a hospital official.

Responsibility for the other strike is in dispute. The Americans said claims that they had attacked the children were “preposterous.” The area where the hit occurred is near heavily contested ground. Shiite militias trying to hit nearby Iraqi Army and American forces have sometimes misfired, hitting areas near there in recent fighting.

Both instances underline sad truths about urban warfare. The daily horror for families and children living near the front line area of Sadr City is that who is a friend and who a foe is no longer a meaningful question. Heavy weapons do not discriminate. The militias use rocket-propelled grenades, sniper rifles and mounted machine guns as well as AK-47 rifles while the Americans shoot Hellfire missiles, tank rounds, satellite-guided missiles and rounds from machine guns.

Sometimes it feels as if nothing is what it seems. Iraqi ambulances have been used to ferry weapons, and homes are used as safe houses for militia fighters. Men in the vests of municipal road workers sometimes toil at burying improvised explosive devices while Iraqi and American forces have holed up in schools and Education Ministry buildings.

Cartoons from other countries...

Iraq death toll drops nearly 10 per cent

The number of Iraqis killed in political violence in June fell to 509, a nearly 10 per cent fall compared to the previous month, security officials said.

Insurgent and militia attacks killed at least 448 civilians, 40 policemen and 21 soldiers, the officials said quoting figures collected from the interior, health and defence ministries.

In May, violence claimed the lives of 504 civilians, 32 policemen and 27 soldiers.

By contrast US military losses rose to 29 in June compared with 19 in May, which marked the military's lowest monthly death toll since the March 2003 invasion, according to the independent website http://www.icasualties.org.

----------------

Gus: meanwhile in the US according to June peeled statistics:

# around 4,000 people died on the roads, many others injured

# about 1,800 people killed themselves, some 2,000 missed by that much...

# about 1,200 people got killed by gunmen (small guns stats only)

# possibly 1,500 people died of an unecessary death in health care

---------------

Take care of yourself. 

July 26, 2008

4,000 U.S. Combat Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images

 

By MICHAEL KAMBER and TIM ARANGO

 

BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war.

Zoriah Miller, the photographer who took images of marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack and posted them on his Web site, was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country. Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the Marine commander in Iraq, is now seeking to have Mr. Miller barred from all United States military facilities throughout the world. Mr. Miller has since left Iraq.

If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.

It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.

While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield: Local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead as well as an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades. Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.

But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans. Journalists say it is now harder, or harder than in the earlier years, to accompany troops in Iraq on combat missions. Even memorial services for killed soldiers, once routinely open, are increasingly off limits. And while publishing photos of American dead is not barred under the “embed” rules in which journalists travel with military units, the Miller case underscores what is apparently one reality of the Iraq war: that doing so, even under the rules, results in expulsion from covering the war.

read more at the New York Times.

-------------------

Gus: presently the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq stands at 4124, with July 2008 proving to be the lowest casualty month since the war started: so far this month only 11 US troops got killed. Thus things are seemingly improving, although there are still civilians being killed in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In Iraq, bomb attack by insurgents are terrorists acts to be decried, while in Afghanistan, bombing of civilians by "NATO" forces are "incidents"...

These events are not pretty:

Civilian Airstrike Deaths Probed
78 Have Died in Three Incidents This Month Alone, Afghan Officials Say

By Candace Rondeaux
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 25, 2008; A12

KABUL -- U.S. and NATO military officials in Afghanistan have launched investigations into three separate U.S.-led airstrikes that Afghan officials say killed at least 78 civilians this month.

The investigations come during what U.N. and Afghan officials say is one of the deadliest years for civilians since the war began. In the first six months of this year, the number of civilians killed in fighting has increased by nearly 40 percent over the same period last year, according to U.N. data.

"We have seen a number of occurrences lately where a large number of civilians have been killed. It would be fair to say that this year so far there has been an increase in the number of civilians killed by all sides," said Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

More than half of those killed in the three recent U.S.-led airstrikes -- which occurred in a three-week span in three provinces in eastern and western Afghanistan -- were women and children, according to Afghan and Western officials. In one case, about 47 women and children in a wedding party were killed.

September 8, 2008
Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid
By CARLOTTA GALL

AZIZABAD, Afghanistan — To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.

The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a United Nations investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.

Cellphone images seen by this reporter show at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries, among some 30 to 40 bodies laid out in the village mosque. Ten days after the airstrikes, villagers dug up the last victim from the rubble, a baby just a few months old. Their shock and grief is still palpable.

For two weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5 to 7 civilians, and 30 to 35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban: a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support. But on Sunday, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, requested that a general be sent from Central Command to review the American military investigation in light of “emerging evidence.”

“The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth,” he said in a statement.

The military investigation drew on what military officials called convincing technical evidence documenting a far smaller number of graves than the villagers had reported, as well as a thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the airstrikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred.

-------------------

Gus: When tallied, which of course won't happen since we"do not do body counts", the death of civilians in countries that have been blamed for 9/11 has reached more than 30,000 per cent of who was killed in the collapse of the twin towers. And counting. Sure one could argue that these are women and children of terrorists, most likely to become terrorists themselves but we could say that those who died on 9/11 were also in the same boat. Building number 7 hosted an office of the CIA for heaven's sake. Thus it is perfectly regrettable to bomb civilians who could be up to some bad deed in the future, anyway...It's called collateral damage and that's that. Our moral standing is shot to pieces but who cares we're top dog. And there is more, every day. We're only winning hearts and mind by attrition of the population. Not because we winning hearts and mind but because there are less hearts about to hate us... 

The Taliban is not a benevolent society. Its views on women are worse than dark age material.

The Taliban needs to be defeated. But they, the Taliban people, are the legitimate owners of their space, we are the invaders... Thus only a "curse" on their beliefs can make them stop their dreadful actions. Armies equipped the hilt won't... Fighting will only harden their resolve to fight , dying optional...

---------------

September 9, 2008
U.S. Attack Kills Several in Pakistan
By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Five missiles fired from an American pilotless drone aircraft Monday hit a large compound in North Waziristan belonging to one of Pakistan’s most prominent Taliban leaders, a Pakistani intelligence official and a local resident said.

The missile attack at about 10:20 Monday morning killed nine people, including two children, and injured up to 18, according to the account from the intelligence official. A spokesman for the Pakistani army, Maj. Murad Khan, said the military knew of explosions near the compound, and was investigating further.

The strike targeted the compound run by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, who the United States has accused of organizing some of the most serious recent attacks in Afghanistan against American and NATO forces and of masterminding a failed assassination attempt against the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.

The two Haqqanis protect Al Qaeda forces in their enclaves in North and South Waziristan, provide logistics and intelligence for Al Qaeda operatives, and act as a bridge between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban who share the common mission to drive American and NATO troops from Afghanistan, according to American officials.

A spokesman at the United States embassy in Islamabad, Lou Fintor, said the embassy had no comment on the strike.

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Dying in fighting is glory for the fighter but unfortunate pain for the families when kids and women die... 300 times more dead there and in Iraq than on 9/11. Our vengeance is ruthless, with apologies to massage our morality. 

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US air raid kills Iraq civilians

The US military says seven people, including three women civilians, have been killed in an air strike in Iraq.

The US said it was targeting insurgents in the village of al-Dawr, near Tikrit north of Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein was captured in 2003.

Witnesses are quoted as saying the attack happened after US troops had surrounded a compound in the village.

The village is home of a former leader of the Baath party, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who is still a fugitive.

A military statement said those killed included four suspected insurgents and three women. A child was pulled from the rubble of the building and was treated at a nearby US base.

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Gus: the tactic used by the US to catch their fare is to "fish with dynamite"... The fish you want may be amongst the dead collateral species floating upside down... See toon at top...