Peace and Justice Post

By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com, August 5, 2010

Consider the following statement offered by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a news conference last week.  He was discussing Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks as well as the person who has taken responsibility for the vast, still ongoing Afghan War document dump at that site. “Mr. Assange,” Mullen commented, “can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”

Now, if you were the proverbial fair-minded visitor from Mars (who in school civics texts of my childhood always seemed to land on Main Street, U.S.A., to survey the wonders of our American system), you might be a bit taken aback by Mullen’s statement.  After all, one of the revelations in the trove of leaked documents Assange put online had to do with how much blood from innocent Afghan civilians was already on American hands.

The British Guardian was one of three publications given early access to the leaked archive, and it began its main article this way: “A huge cache of secret U.S. military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents. They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes…”  Or as the paper added in a piece headlined “Secret CIA paramilitaries’ role in civilian deaths”: “Behind the military jargon, the war logs are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called ‘blue on white’ events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties.”  Or as it also reported, when exploring documents related to Task Force 373, an “undisclosed ‘black’ unit” of U.S. special operations forces focused on assassinating Taliban and al-Qaeda “senior officials”: “The logs reveal that TF 373 has also killed civilian men, women, and children and even Afghan police officers who have strayed into its path.”

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John Pilger, New Statesman, August 4, 2010

Having helped destroy other nations far away, our former prime minister — “peace envoy” to the Middle East — is now free to profit from the useful contacts he made while working as a “servant of the people”.

Obama says withdrawal is on schedule, but renaming or outsourcing combat troops won’t give Iraqis back their country

Seumas Milne, The Guardian/UK, August 5, 2010

by Waseem Shehzad, Media Monitors Network, August  4, 2010

“Since 2002, India has purchased $5 billion worth of Israeli weapons. On the flip side of the coin, the Kashmiris have adopted the Palestinian youth’s tactics of confronting the heavily armed Indian troops with stones. Resistance tactics recognize no borders.”

Protests and the now-routine killing of Kashmiris by Indian occupation forces have resumed in Srinagar and other parts of the violence-plagued state of Kashmir. The latest round of protests erupted after the June 11 killing by Indian police of a 17-year-old youth, Tufail Ahmed Mattoo, who was hit by a tear gas shell on his head blowing his brains out. People were so enraged by this horrible act that they immediately held a protest rally. Other deaths followed. Since then, the cycle of violence has escalated. The June 11 rally was organized to protest the cold-blooded murder of three Kashmiri youth — Mohammed Shafi, Shahzad Ahmad Khan and Riyaz Ahmad — kidnapped by the India army in April. The gruesome murders were carried out on the direct orders of an Indian army colonel; a major was also involved.

Each killing brings out more protesters onto the streets. The situation has now deteriorated to the point where the Indian army has been called out to enforce curfew that the people appear determined to defy.

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From Israel to India, Taiwan and Chile … far-right groups are spreading

Jason Rodrigues, The Guardian/UK, August 2, 2010

A young Israeli neo-Nazi points at a religious Jewish man, as if to shoot him at a shopping mall. Israeli police later broke up a neo-Nazi group amd arrested members Photograph: Israeli police/EPA

Israel In 2008, four suspects were charged with neo-Nazi activities. They were members of a gang called Patrol 35 which targeted other minorities and desecrated synagogues. Some of the gang were Soviet immigrants who refused to accept their Jewish ancestry.

Chile Patria Nueva Sociedad (New Fatherland Society) is a well-organised neo-Nazi group in Chile. Its leaders claim to adhere to Nazi economic and labour principles but say the group is against xenophobia, racism and discrimination.

Russia Neo-Nazi gangs such as the White Wolves have resorted to lethal violence to get across their message of white supremacy. Gang members were jailed this year after several central Asian migrants were attacked and killed in Moscow’s back streets.

Taiwan In 2007 university students formed the National Socialism Association. The group claimed to have 800 members and a spokesperson said: “We want to study Hitler’s good points, not study his massacres.”

India A growing trend for Hitler memorabilia in India has caused shock. One publisher claims to have sold more than 100,000 copies of Mein Kampf (left) to Indians in the last 10 years. Some Indians have claimed to be inspired by Hitler’s “discipline and patriotism”.

Pakistan criticism has shifted focus away from deaths in Kashmir

Murtaza Shibli, The Guardian/UK, August 3, 2010