Obama admin: No grounds to probe Afghan war crimes

July 12, 2009

No legal rights to investigate Taliban deaths – or Bush admin. refusal to do so, officials say

LARA JAKES
AP News,

Antiwar Newswire, Jul 11, 2009 06:48 EST

Obama administration officials said Friday they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces.

The mass deaths were brought up anew Friday in a report by The New York Times on its Web site. It quoted government and human rights officials accusing the Bush administration of failing to investigate the executions of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of prisoners.

U.S. officials said Friday they did not have legal grounds to investigate the deaths because only foreigners were involved and the alleged killings occurred in a foreign country.

The Times cited U.S. military and CIA ties to Afghan Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, whom human rights groups accuse of ordering the killings. The newspaper said the Defense Department and FBI never fully investigated the incident.

Asked about the report, Marine Corps Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that since U.S. military forces were not involved in the killings, there is nothing the Defense Department could investigate.

“There is no indication that U.S. military forces were there, or involved, or had any knowledge of this,” Lapan said. “So there was not a full investigation conducted because there was no evidence that there was anything from a DoD (Department of Defense) perspective to investigate.”

A Justice Department official said the FBI had no jurisdiction to investigate. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Separately, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to comment.

A spokesman for former President George W. Bush did not have an immediate comment Friday night.

Reacting to the Times’ report, human rights group Physicians for Human Rights called for the Justice Department to begin a criminal investigation into whether the Bush administration blocked inquiries into the Taliban deaths.

“For U.S. government officials to claim that there is no legal basis to investigate this well-documented mass atrocity is absurd,” said the groups deputy director, Susannah Sirkin.

The allegations date back to November 2001, when as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners died in transit after surrendering during one of the regime’s last stands, according to a State Department report from 2002.

Witnesses have claimed that forces with the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance placed the prisoners in sealed cargo containers over the two-day voyage to Sheberghan Prison, suffocating them and then burying them en masse using bulldozers to move the bodies, according to the State Department report. Some Northern Alliance soldiers have said that some of their troops opened fire on the containers, killing those within.

Dostum, the Northern Alliance general who is accused of overseeing the atrocities, has previously denied the allegations.

A former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, Pierre Prosper, told the Times that the Bush administration was reluctant to investigate the deaths, even though Dostum was on the payroll of the CIA and his soldiers worked with U.S. special forces in 2001.

Dostum was suspended from his military post last year on suspicion of threatening a political rival, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently rehired him, the Times reported.

Source: AP News

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Afghanistan, crime, Human rights, torture, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war crimes, warmongers | Leave a Comment »

Prince Charles: Facing the Future

July 12, 2009

BBC, July 9, 2009

HRH The Prince of Wales gave BBC One’s annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture at St James’s Palace, London.

Prince Charles’ lecture, the 33rd held in honour of the broadcaster who died in 1965, was entitled Facing the Future and was broadcast on BBC One last night.

The Prince of Wales’ website has the text of the lecture.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Jimmy Carter: The words of God do not justify cruelty to women

July 12, 2009

Discrimination and abuse wrongly backed by doctrine are damaging society, argues the former US president

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status …” (Article 2, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when th e convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief – confirmed in the holy scriptures – that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

Continued >>

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

A war of colonial conquest in Afghanistan

July 11, 2009

James Cogan | wsws.org, 10 July 2009

The largest military operation since the Obama administration took office is now underway in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Some 4,000 marines, along with hundreds of British troops, are attempting to impose control over an ethnic Pashtun population that has opposed the US-led occupation ever since the 2001 invasion overthrew the Taliban government and installed a puppet regime.

At the same time, the Pakistani government, primarily because of financial and political coercion by Washington, has ordered its military into a brutal offensive against the Pashtun people of northwest Pakistan. Their crime is that they share a common history, language and culture with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and provide support to the Taliban insurgency over the ill-defined border between the two countries.

Full article >>

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Afghanistan, Commentary, imperialism, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »

US bulldozed Babylon site

July 11, 2009

Morning Star Online, July 10,  2009

UNESCO have released a report which confirmed that the US-led invaders of Iraq inflicted serious damage on one of the world’s greatest archaeological sites.

Heavy machinery was driven over sacred paths, hilltops were bulldozed and trenches destroyed potential areas of interest on the site of the ancient city of Babylon.

The UN cultural agency noted: “The use of Babylon as a military base was a grave encroachment on this internationally known archaeological site.”

The report did not single out any nationalities of forces on the base, except to mention “contractors employed by them, mainly Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR),” a US corporation that was then a Halliburton subsidiary.

The report said that soldiers and KBR contractors had “caused major damage to the city by digging, cutting, scraping and levelling.”

Steel stakes were driven into ancient walls, which included fragments with inscriptions from the time of King Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled two-and-a-half millennia ago and is credited with building the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

A helicopter pad, roads and car parks were built and heavy vehicles devastated ancient brick roads, the report said.

KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne said that the firm would not comment before seeing the report.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in crime, imperialism, Iraq, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »

Latest US Drone Strike in South Waziristan Brings Weeklong Toll Over 100

July 11, 2009

Two Missiles Kill Eight Suspected Militants

by Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com, July 10, 2009

A US drone fired two missiles at a suspected militant compound in South Waziristan today, killing at least eight and wounding an unknown number of others. The attack was the latest in a string of US strikes on the restive Pakistani agency which have killed over 100 in the past seven days.

US attacks into Pakistani territory had temporarily stalled after an attack on a funeral procession in late June killed 80, including dozens of innocent civilians. The attack was roundly condemned by the Pakistani government, which feared the massive toll would undercut support for the Pakistani military’s offensive in the tribal area.

The two-week calm ended last Friday when a drone killed 17. On Tuesday another attack killed 16 more, and then on Wednesday multiple attacks killed at least 60 others. The eight killed today bring the confirmed toll up to 101.

The Pakistani government is reported to have significant influence over the targets selected by the US in the strikes, though Pakistan’s civilian government has fervently denied that it has anything to do with the unpopular attacks. The Obama Administration has dramatically increased the rate and severity of attacks since taking office.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »

CIA: We Lied to Congress

July 11, 2009

John Nichols | The Nation, July 9, 2009

In May, at a point when congressional Republicans and their amen corner in the media were attempting to defend the Bush-Cheney administration’s torture regime, their primary defense was: Pelosi knew.

The spin held that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had in 2002 been secretly briefed about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects.

Pelosi said the Central Intelligence Agency had failed to inform her about the character and extent of the harsh interrogations.

Pelosi accused the CIA of “misleading the Congress of the United States.”

Republican senators screamed.

“It’s outrageous that a member of Congress should call a terror-fighter a liar,” howled Missouri Senator Kit Bond, the vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee. “It seems the playbook is, blame terror-fighters. We ought to be supporting them.”

CIA officials denied lying to Congress and the American people, and that seemed to be that. “Let me be clear: It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress,” said CIA Director Leon Panetta. That is against our laws and values.”

But, now, we learn that, in late June, Panetta admitted in secret testimony to Congress that the agency had concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001.

Some of the details of Panetta’s testimony are contained in a letter from seven House Democrats to Panetta that was released Wednesday morning.

In the letter, the members (Anna Eshoo of California, Alcee Hastings of Florida, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Adam Smith of Washington, Mike Thompson of California and John Tierney of Massachusetts) wrote: “Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week.”

The letter continued: “In light of your testimony, we ask that you publicly correct your statement of May 15, 2009.”

Pelosi’s critics are claiming that Panetta’s admission does not resolve the debate about whether the speaker was lied to in briefings about harsh interrogations.

What does the CIA say?

That’s where things seem to get confusing — but, as we’ll see, not too confusing.

Panetta “stands by his May 15 statement,” CIA spokesman George Little claimed after the letter from the House members was released.

The problem is that Little also said: “This agency and this director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta’s actions back that up. As the letter from these … representatives notes, it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees.”

So, officially, CIA director Panetta stands by his statement that: “It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress.”

But…

Panetta’s spokesman is seemingly rather proud that “it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees” that the agency had in the words of the House members “misled members for a number of years from 2001.”

Can we reconcile these statements?

Yes.

Panetta, who has only headed the CIA since February of this year says that “it is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress.”

But he tells Congress that it was in fact the consistent practice of the CIA to lie to Congress during the Bush-Cheney years.

So what are we left with?

Perhaps a measure of vindication for Pelosi, but the speaker’s wrangling with the Republicans is a distraction from the fundamental revelation.

Far more important is Panetta’s reported admission that his agency has “concealed significant actions” and “misled members of Congress.”

No matter what anyone thinks of Pelosi or waterboarding, there is a clear case for dramatically expanding congressional oversight of the CIA. Of course, more House and Senate members should have access to briefings — and should have the authority to hold CIA officials (and their White House overseers) to account for deliberate deceptions. But that ought not be the first response to the latest news.

Step one must be to get to the bottom of exactly what the CIA was lying about.

Did it have anything to do with the case for invading and occupying Iraq? Afghanistan? Torture?

CIA defenders will claim that some secrets must be kept. Perhaps. But the Congress and the American people have a right to know the broad outlines of the deception — and the extent to which it may have warped, and may continue to warp, U.S. policy.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in torture, Uncategorized, US policy, USA | Leave a Comment »

Why Obama doesn’t say a word about Deaths in China?

July 11, 2009
by Mohamed Elmasry | Media Monitors Network, Saturday, July 11, 2009

“Repression of the Uighurs has been widely documented for decades. Amnesty International has accused the Chinese government repeatedly of arbitrarily detaining thousands of Uighurs who were at serious risk of torture or ill treatment. It also condemned China for what it called “an assault on Uighur culture as a whole”- closing mosques, restricting the use of the Uighur language, and burning Uighur books and journals.”

“The total of all the Muslims killed in the 17th to the 19th centuries was about 12,000,000. This was the greatest racial genocide in Chinese history.”

“History reveals that the Han hatred of the Muslims, the short-sightedness of the Ch’ing rulers in their anti-Muslim policy and the narrow-mindedness of the Ch’ing Muslims in building their own kingdoms within China were responsible for the death of 12,000,000 Muslims and of an equal or larger number of Han Chinese. In addition, millions of acres of farmland became scorched earth and the Ch’ing treasury was depleted in financing wars. It ultimately led to the humiliation of the corrupt Ch’ing government by the Western powers and eventually to its downfall in 1911.”

— H. Y. Chang [1]

…

Last week, China’s president cut short his G8 summit trip to rush home after ethnic tensions in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang left at least 156 dead. A group of Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, were holding a peaceful demonstration to demand a government inquiry into an earlier violent conflict with members of the country’s dominant Han ethnic group.

The deaths took place as government security forces clamped down on the Uighurs who make up the region’s largest ethnic group.

China has more than 50 ethnic minorities, totaling about 100 million, or eight per cent of China’s 1.3 billion people. There are 2.3 million Uighurs in Xinjiang (also called East Turkistan).

When state repression of minorities occurs, Tibet immediately comes to mind, but China’s measures taken against the Uighurs have been far more severe. Unlike the Tibetans, nobody seems to notice or care.

U.S. President Barack Obama has not say a word about the right of the Uighurs to demonstrate or demanded that the Chinese government respect that right.

Repression of the Uighurs has been widely documented for decades. Amnesty International has accused the Chinese government repeatedly of arbitrarily detaining thousands of Uighurs who were at serious risk of torture or ill treatment. It also condemned China for what it called “an assault on Uighur culture as a whole”- closing mosques, restricting the use of the Uighur language, and burning Uighur books and journals.

“Very appalling forms of torture have been recorded in Xinjiang, which as far as we know have never been occurring elsewhere in China,” reported Amnesty International.

The Chinese government has also been conducting cultural cleansing by moving a huge number of Han to Xinjiang. Uighurs complain that these Chinese immigrants enjoy the benefits of the economical development in their oil-rich province.

After 9/11, the Chinese government linked religion and separatism to terrorism and described the Uighur separatists as terrorists. It succeeded in getting one Uighur organization, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, placed on the United Nations’ list of international terrorist organizations. Four Uighurs captured in Afghanistan were incarcerated at Guantánamo for years before being dumped in Albania because no other country would provide them asylum.

Uighurs who have relatives abroad are being put under pressure to stop them from getting involved in any kind of political activity.

The Chinese government has blamed the recent unrest on Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Uigur American Association. She says that the Uighur Muslims have no freedom to practice their religion. The government has accused her of working to “split” China. (China claims control of Xinjiang, and Tibet, based on the fact these regions were once controlled by Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, who ruled most of China in the 13th century.)

Uighurs, like Tibetans, face open discrimination in the booming cities of China’s east and south, an issue highlighted by the beating to death of at least two Uighurs at a toy factory last month in the southern city of Shaoguan.

A mob of hundreds of Han Chinese attacked the workers following rumors that Uighurs raped two local women. “This incident could have been avoided if the Chinese authorities had properly investigated the Shaoguan killings,” said Kadeer.

She sees strong parallels between the unrest in Xinjiang and Tibet, including China’s demonization of minority groups advocating greater autonomy or independence.

She expressed her disappointment at the lack of condemnation of China’s recent crackdown. “For the most part, we are on our own,” she said.

Note:

[1]. The Hui (Muslim) minority in China: an historical overview
by H. Y. Chang, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 1469-9591, Volume 8, Issue 1, 1987, Pages 62 – 78
http://www.informaworld.com/index/773448519.pdf

Further Reading:

Looking East: The Challenges and Opportunities of Chinese Islam
by Ridwan Khan, Haider Shamsi Award for Islamic Studies (HSAIS)
http://www.hsais.org/pdfs/2004_Ridwan_khan.pdf

Jewel of Chinese Muslim’s Heritage
by Mohammed Khamouch, Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation (FSTC)
http://www.muslimheritage.com/uploads/China%201.pdf

Zheng He – the Chinese Muslim Admiral
by Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation (FSTC)
http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=218

The plight of the Uighurs: China’s Muslims suffering as much as the Tibetans
by Fahad Ansari
http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/53449/

Religion and Ethics – Islam in China (650-present)
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/china_1.shtml

China’s Fearful Muslim Minority
by Ash Lucy, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1748801.stm

Bibliography:

Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Far Northwest – by Michael Dillon

Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China – by Jonathan N. Lipman

China’s Muslim Hui Community – by Michael Dillon

Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: Volume 2: The Rise of the West and Coming Genocide – by Mark Levene

The Chinese Sultanate: Islam, Ethnicity, and the Panthay Rebellion in Southwest China, 1856-1873 – by David Atwill

Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic – by Dru Gladney

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century – by Ross E. Dunn

Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier – by S. C. M. Paine

Muslim History: 570-1950 C.E. – by Akram Zahoor

Related / External Link (s):

http://www.imma.org.uk/

http://www.1001inventions.com/

http://www.muslimheritage.com

http://www.cyberistan.org/

http://www.uyghurcongress.org/

http://www.uyghuramerican.org/

Source:

by courtesy & © 2009 Mohamed Elmasry

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in China, Human rights, imperialism, Muslims, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Uighurs claim 400 killed in unrest in western China

July 10, 2009

Correspondents in Urumqi and Beijing | The Australian, July 9, 2009

POLICE killed 400 Uighurs in the capital of China’s Xinjiang region during ethnic unrest there, exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer claimed yesterday.

Ms Kadeer said Uighur sources within “East Turkestan”, the separatist name for the northwest region, had told her 400 Uighurs had died “as a result of police shootings and beatings” in Urumqi since violence erupted there on Sunday.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal Asia, the president of the World Uighur Congress said unrest was spreading across the region and unconfirmed reports indicated more than 100 Uighurs had been killed in Kashgar, another major city in Xinjiang.

Continued >>

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

The Two-state Solution, Israeli-style

July 10, 2009

Charity, checkpoints and client rulers

By Jonathan Cook in Ramallah | Information Clearing House, July 9, 2009

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has been much criticised in Israel, as well as abroad, for failing to present his own diplomatic initiative on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to forestall US intervention.

Mr Netanyahu may have huffed and puffed before giving voice to the phrase “two states for two peoples” at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, but the contours of just such a Palestinian state — or states — have been emerging undisturbed for some time.

In fact, Mr Netanyahu appears every bit as committed as his predecessors to creating the facts of an Israeli-imposed two-state solution, one he and others in Israel’s leadership doubtless hope will eventually be adopted by the White House as the “pragmatic” — if far from ideal — option.

Continued >>

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Gaza, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »