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Published on Friday, February 12, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
U.S. Poised to Commit War Crimes in Marjah
The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the
Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan
civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama
and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance
with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?
Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault, raising the risk of civilian casualties, McClatchy News reports.
Under the laws of war, the US and NATO -- who have told civilians not to flee -- bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians, Human Rights Watch notes. "I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians," said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. "I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power. Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises," he said. "It is very much their responsibility."
"If [NATO forces] don't avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure," said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
A report in the Wall Street Journal cast fresh doubt on the ability -- and even on the interest -- of U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. "Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," the Journal says. The commander of the U.S. unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, "frustration is boiling over" over more restrictive rules of engagement than in Iraq, the Journal says -- a dangerous harbinger of potential war crimes when the U.S. is about to engage in a major assault in an area densely populated with civilians.
Today, AFP reports, military helicopters dropped leaflets over Marjah as radio broadcasts "warned residents not to shelter Taliban ahead of a massive assault." Doesn't this suggest that the invading U.S. forces may regard any civilian alleged to be "sheltering Taliban" as a legitimate target, including women and children?
If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime. If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the U.S. is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off. Under international law, every U.S. citizen is legally obligated to work to bring about the compliance of the United States with international law. Raise your voice now, before it is too late.
Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault, raising the risk of civilian casualties, McClatchy News reports.
Under the laws of war, the US and NATO -- who have told civilians not to flee -- bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians, Human Rights Watch notes. "I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians," said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. "I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power. Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises," he said. "It is very much their responsibility."
"If [NATO forces] don't avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure," said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
A report in the Wall Street Journal cast fresh doubt on the ability -- and even on the interest -- of U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. "Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," the Journal says. The commander of the U.S. unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, "frustration is boiling over" over more restrictive rules of engagement than in Iraq, the Journal says -- a dangerous harbinger of potential war crimes when the U.S. is about to engage in a major assault in an area densely populated with civilians.
Today, AFP reports, military helicopters dropped leaflets over Marjah as radio broadcasts "warned residents not to shelter Taliban ahead of a massive assault." Doesn't this suggest that the invading U.S. forces may regard any civilian alleged to be "sheltering Taliban" as a legitimate target, including women and children?
If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime. If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the U.S. is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off. Under international law, every U.S. citizen is legally obligated to work to bring about the compliance of the United States with international law. Raise your voice now, before it is too late.
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48 Comments so far
Show AllOur Whole DEMiserepubilkan Bush Wars are domestically and Internationally CRIMINAL. We're a warcrimination!
To Robert Naiman:
The issue isn't one of civilian casualties, whether few or many. The central issue is that the U.S. and its allies have no business being in Af-Pak in the first place.
The Obomber don't have to show no stinking badges.. Since when did the usa abide by the rules of war..
Support the empire send your neighbors kids!!
That's right! - make a personal sacrifice:
Send your neighbor's and servants' offspring to war!
Be a blood donor - join the US army!
Uncle Sam wants YOU for Arlington national graveyard!
Denounce this latest war crime by the United Corporatist-Militarist States of Arrogance!
Contact the White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Contact your two Senators and Representative: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
Demand that no more war crimes be committed in our names and with our tax money.
If you are part of a religious congregation, inform your clergyperson and respectfully demand that she/he speak out against this new war crime.
I guess maybe the Pentagon have these neat new electronic goggles that puts an icon on the display that identifies militants from innocent civilians. Right?
If not, what the f*ck are they doing!?
Good thing I don't pay taxes for this sh!t.
Wish more did the same.
Gary
“It is innocence that is full and experience that is empty. It is innocence that wins and experience that loses.”
-- Charles Peguy
The Afghan attack and occupation is a war crime.
I saw an MSM article, "Afghans ask USA to be quick and careful", what the heck is this like deflowering a virgin?
The Warsaw Ghetto really did set a bad precedent.
And we followed up with My Lai and Fallujah.
Let's see Marjah has around 100,000 people. Let's say 25,000 have managed to get out leaving 75,000. How many "terrorist" casualties vs "civilian" ones??? According to the USA probably 15-1, according to Afghanis probably 1-150.
Total dead, my guess 5-6000 with another 15,000 wounded.
So, so tragic. To quote the Rev Wright "God damn America" and I'm not religious.
So far left I'm right!
OYE
With the USMC involved, civilian casualties are a given.
The jarheads used Falluja to hone their tactics.
We are advertising war crimes in advance now.
The continuing "Chronicles of a mass-death foretold".
Hell yeah, that's how the Empire rolls baby. What a difference an election makes. Hail Caesar!
The United States is a disgusting war monger and has been since 1845.
During WWII, when Germans and Japanese were doing in Poland and China what the US is doing in Afghanistan, we prayed for the extermination of those German and Japanese military invaders.
What is the difference here? Are we praying for the lives of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and the deaths of the invading US troops? Hard to pray for the deaths of Americans, but what else is right? I would rather see Americans die than one more innocent civilian at the hands of our reckless military.
We can pray for peace, but the only peace America knows comes from the examination of US soldiers body bags.
If there is a God, what the heck is he doing? Yeh, I know, evolution. He is up there thinking, "Well, the hell with this world, I'm going to see what the 'earths' in the other solar systems are doing."
Never assume that if there must be a God, that that God is good. Perhaps God is indeed created in the image of His most devoted followers, or vice-versa.
As a nonbeliever, I don't have to face what I'd have to regard as a devastating truth.
Just since 1845? Try since its inception--both: 1607 and 1776.
The US Military targets civilians intentionally, but you'll rarely ever hear this mentioned. The idea has always been if you kill enough of everybody in some 'strategically' important area, you'll get the enemy to stop shooting. White phosphorous is very effective in horrifying an entire population, expect it's use to be hidden. Any unembedded journalists also risk being killed by US Forces, as they routinely were in Iraq.
BABY KILLERS!!
Try defining "civilian."
Were anyone some day to fight a neat little war on a clearly defined field somewhere apart from lines of supply, supporting populations, and geographic and economic interests, someone might kill an obvious non-civilian.
All killing done by occupying forces is killing of civilians. Some of the civilians are up in arms. Some supply those in arms. Some hide those in arms. Some sell out and collaborate with the occupiers.
But there is either a deep ignorance or a deep hypocrisy in imagining that soldiers hired to occupy a country and eliminate or intimidate the native population has much opportunity to distinguish between the civilian population and the resistance. These are mostly identical.
These observations pertain not only to contemporary Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq; post-WWII Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia; but also to Mao's Long March, the Green Mountain Boys and Marion's Raiders in the American Colonies, and the Britons who resisted Caesar.
To quit killing civilians, we have to pull the soldiers out of occupied territory.
Gee thanks for keeping us safe from those Afghan civilians.
Ha-ha - great point!
What it boils down to is this: Obama is continuing many, if not most of the same stupid, vicious policies of the G. W. Bush Administration, including Iraq and Afghanistan, so why the hell should I give him my support? I can't, and I won't.
Another Fallujah in the making?
USA is in a death dive.
I was a kid in parochial school when the Roman Catholic Church had one brief, shining moment of enlightenment-- a sort of "Woodstock" event called Vatican Council II.
Of all the modernizing reforms it produced, as a meat-and-potatoes glutton I couldn't have been more pleased that meatless "abstinence day" Fridays were abolished. I haven't had a fishstick since.
This reminiscence is prompted by the "War Crimes" reference in the headline. I don't doubt it for a moment; I assume it's true because the US has redoubled its penchant for committing war crimes in this century.
I use "redoubled" arbitrarily, because I'm not sure that "retrebled" is a word.
See, whatever happened on 9/11/2001 functioned like a secular "Vatican II"-- except the reforms here are in the direction of consolidating an authoritarian, imperialist, hollow security state.
The good news for blood-and-guts gluttons is that "war crimes" are like "abstinence days" of yore. They both used to be a big deal! Now, they simply aren't... observed... any more.
Apart from the risk of domestic detection, interdiction, and summary punishment, eating meat on a Friday or fast day was a sin that demanded confession and penance. THOSE were the days, eh?
Nowadays, "war crime" is just another quaint anachronism, a meme used solely for rhetorical purposes. For the purposes of our monarchical unitary executive, for instance, "war crime" is what those Other Guys Who Hate Our Freedoms do. And We won't stand for it!
Tragically, for all the outrage it incites in the average Amerikan, this article might as well be "U.S. Poised to Serve Friday Hamburgers, Hot Dogs in Marjah".
· Yr Obd't Servant
Thanks for the brillian 'down home' analogy servant, you got it exactly right.
But they dropped leaflets!!! As with the IDF that means they can do as they please now and if any Afghani children killed it the childs fault.
The child just has to hold up they leaflet and be saved!
This is a war crime. There no Military need to go into the City. There no Military need to be in Afghanistan at all. Afghanistan was never a threat to NATO or to the USA. Soldiers from NATO have no business there.
We will have the usual defenders of this war crime claim the USA acts with restraint, is there to help and means well and that any death of Innocents while tragic is merely the consequence of war and can not be helped.
Invading this city is a CHOICE meaning any Civilians killed will be BY DESIGN and by Choice. If they do not MEAN to kill the Civilians then they should not attack the city.
War, from its origins, is the murders of the sons by the fathers; as in: so few fathers murdering so many sons. ("Son, go over to that village and kill that man's son. Otherwise, don't come back alive."
How many years will it be before we have a clear and concise account of the collateral damage? Will there be hearings with a lot of "I don't remember exactly what happened, I don't have the exact numbers here in front of me, I will have to get back to you on that." and after the hearings the incident will be swept into the dustbin of history. This is War, a real War, with a capital W with a thousands-to-one ratio of troops to terrorists and as Rumsfeld said, "Stuff happensn." With all of the advance hoopdedoo why would any enemy combatant bother to stay behind for the fireworks?
All of the comments below are valid, but none addresses the international nature of 'international war crimes'. Where in the hell are those tribunals? To answer this question, one need only ask where they've been for the past 50+ years. They're a ruse, a facade, a farce and a sick, sick joke. Yes, the USA and it's psychologically disturbed offspring- Israel- have led the pack in terms of committing such crimes- for many decades. But who to call them on those crimes? The entire Western block is not only culpable, but an accessory to those crimes by allowing them to be committed without any formal consequences. Why don't France and Germany call for economic embargoes until and unless those crimes are brought to an international court? Again, the answer is simple. To use an analogy: it's like the bullies on the school playground. How often will their friends call them on their perverse torture of their victims? Never. If they did then they'd be viewed with the same disdain that the bullies view the other victims with. What these post-colonial imperialist a-holes don't get is that those victims-to-be in Afghanistan and so many other countries more and more view them as major accomplices. And that view will definitely come home to haunt them- as it should! How utterly comic (in a black way) that the USA and it progeny- Israel- can garner vocal support for its cries to sanction Iran, to invade Iraq, to destroy Afghanistan, while no voice is heard- not even a whisper- when they continue to kill more innocent civilians than some of the worst dictators of the past century. And people in Western countries wonder why the West is viewed as Satan? I personally can come up with a better definition of that term.
The fascist amerikan war machine at work...where is the outrage in the msm...there isn't any !
The operation is dubbed Moshtrarak (NY Times) which means together in Dari.
Unfortunately the war is in a Pashtu region. 75% of Afghans are Pashtu speakers, the national anthem is in Pashu and Pashtu is the language of education and government.
We, once again, are backing the wrong Afghans - the corrupt war lords in unison with Karzai.
So... Why are we so concerned about an area that is all Pashtu ?
This will once agian bite the US in the ass.
What is the difference between a "major war crime" and a "minor war crime"? A murder is a murder, yes? Is there "major murder" and "minor murder"? "Major Terrorism" and "Minor Terrorism"? Is there "Major Totalitarianism" and "Minor Totalitarianism"?
This article reports on upcoming acts of Terrorism delivered by the #1 Terrorist nation on the planet. It's still performing the same crimes it perpetrated during Vietnam!!!! Since it performs these acts without any direct consent of the governed, that renders the US federal government Totalitarian. The last time a Totalitarian government carried out the types of Terrorism the US Empire does, the vast majority of nations on the planet gathered together to defeat and render impotent forevermore the monsters in their midst.
So another question is, What is wrong with the rest of the world's nations that they grovel at the feet of the current monster and allow it to visit Holocaust after Holocaust on innocents????? Furthermore, where is the White Rose movement within the US Empire? Is Code Pink and Ragin' Grannies all we have? Is there no armed resistence to Fascist Terrorism as in France, Russia, Netherlands, Italy, etc., during WW2? It's very painful to write these words; what's it like to read them? Has Big Brother won?
Painful truth?
it is more than Likely that a LARGE part of the US population SECRETLY agrees with these things - in order to "preserve" what they think is "america".
the more americans see that the country is now , like a desperate beast, flailing about to maintain or "regain" its "dominance" , and that more nations, in increments , are "rebelling" and finding their footing against over one hundred years of US bullying...
the more a large segment of americans JOIN in the PARANOIA of acting like being the ONE that is "under assault" when in fact it is the USA that is the one committing the assault.
Many americans have INTERNALIZED empire..without openly or honestly admitting it to themselves.
Hey teddy--So, you're saying Big Brother won. Well, at least you had the guts to post a reply. Do Teabaggers represent Proles engaging in the Two Minutes of Hate ritual? Surely the Propaganda and Indoctrination Systems see Teabaggers fulfilling some useful function, which is why they get so much "reportage." I guess it's fortunate then that we're quickly approaching our own version of a Seldon Crisis.
Amen Robert ! I wrote my reps and Obama and so have 16 others in my community. It's up to the people to counter pressure the right winger forces. 70 million people voted for Obama vs 60 million for Mccain. The more people join, the better our chances at progressive victories.
The US government HAS BEEN committing war crimes for several years running.
For so long that even George W. Obama has fresh blood on his hands.
Why is the OLYMPIC TRUCE not being honored, one wonders?
Patrick Cockburn makes a lot of sense of this assault in an article published yesterday which I think everyone should read. http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick02112010.html
Patrick's analysis just removes from the table any discussion about impending operations in Marjah representing "war crimes" (which they are, but that makes no difference to those planning them).
The thing is that here, as in so many areas of the Obama administration, their is a desperate need for a "victory," any victory. Never mind it forfeits any chance of winning the "hearts and minds" of Afghans, its real target of concern is the hearts and minds of the press whose reporting of this "turning point" will sell to a gullible public that this demonstrably unwinnable "war" has actually turned the corner toward ultimate success: if we just "keep it up" and build on the success that the media will faithfully define it to be, no matter the reality of what happens on the ground. It's a propaganda operation, purely and simply, and we should learn a valuable lesson: never, never under-estimate the ability and willingness of those in power to execute any atrocities the perpetration of which will augment their power and promote their political agendas. Propaganda is written all over the hyperbole of the press in setting up this as the "biggest" battle of the 8 year war, the aforesaid "turning point" of moving from despair to hope, the "end of the beginning" as master propagandist Churchill described an early battle success in Africa.
Please read and urge others to read Cockburn's piece. It will help inoculate you against any lingering temptation to succumb to the disease of wishful thinking about a hopeless situation.
Oh cheer up. The Taliban (e.g. every Afghan) have had plenty of time to prepare. They have been turning US soldiers into piles of steaming cat food along the side of the road for 8 years so I'm sure we are going to give them a nice target rich environment. These guys have been kicking out occupation armies like ours this way for 5,000 years. Blowing up and crippling a few stupid Americans is just another day at the office for them. We do what we always do, blow up a few houses killing innocent people and shoot a few chickens and then leave. What ever tiny portion of the population that doesn't support the Taliban will be radicalized by the attack and join them. Attacks like this are the best possible recruitment tools for the Taliban. They must be laughing their asses off.
"piles of steaming cat food..." yes, well, it isn't the piles of steaming meat that bothers me. That gets scooped up and buried back home with grieving parents and spouses. It's the kid next to the kid that got blown up, the one who got the blast but not the impact. That kid has suffered traumatic brain injury to some part of his brain. That means he or she will have memory problems for the rest of their lives. They will have mood disorders, maybe seizures, and throughout it all the doctors will tell them they look okay and maybe they're just depressed, take a pill. But the torn synapses and neurons heal very slowly and the problems happen all the time, every day. We are not equipped to deal with the 12,000 or so TBI injuries from Iraq and now we're adding a few thousand more from Afghanistan. My son didn't go to war to get his TBI, but for 10 years I have been fighting the medical system to get him the help he needs and I can imagine the trauma of a family getting their loved one back from war only to discover just how deep those injuries can be. Roadside bombs injure forever.
Bush invented a false story about Afghanistan and Obama is repeating it. We were told that we were after bin Laden (even though Bush repeatedly let him escape); that General Musharraf and President Zardari are our "essential allies" in the "long war" (even though they shelter bin Laden and arm the Taliban and Gulbuddin); that Afghanistan is dirt poor(even though the US Geological Survey has known for decades that Afghanistan is rich in minerals); that we are rebuilding Afghanistan (even as we allow KBR and Dyncorp to pay themselves billions for doing nothing); that we are defending women and bringing democracy (even while we support the same warlords that made Afghanistan a living hell for women and children before the Taliban); that we care about the people of Afghanistan (even as we surround them in a city of 85,000 and threaten to kill them.)
Everything our military does is counterproductive to its publicly stated goals in Afghanistan. So the goal must be something else- theft, perhaps? Please don't blame the grunts. Most of them can't figure out that they are being used. It's hard to give up your childish fantasy of glory and admit that you were actually stupid enough to be manipulated into fighting a war for Dick Cheney and his parasitic friends. I had the same experience in Vietnam- a lethal immaturity followed by a lifelong shock at what I'd done. But we have no choice but to try to recover our honor as a people and do what we can to educate our neighbors about the nature of the injustice that's done to our soldiers and a thousand times worse to the victims of the attack.
General McChrystal needs to be fully disrespected and discredited. He is the architect of the coming slaughter and he is old enough to know better. He is building his career on using the Afghans as laboratory animals so he can become the new king of counterinsurgency. Maybe General McChrystal could benefit from reading what Generals Smedley Butler and David Shoup thought at the end of their careers. It might help him rediscover his humanity.
Even though our Senators and Representatives and the White House may be totally corrupt, let's contact them anyway so they'll know that we're not corrupt and we don't accept their definitions of right and wrong. If there are really 1,000 Taliban surrounded in Marjah, it's an opportunity to see how negotiating a cease fire and a peace settlement might work on a larger scale in the future. But any peace must include participation of women (RAWA and other groups) and guarantees of human rights.
And what is the reason for this?
I won't support more war unless its to defend our own land- and I'm getting increasingly worried that will happen due to all the play war activity that we exaggerate and escalate. Seem they are always wee little countries too. Sickening. On us.
So concerned about civilian casualties---but equally determined to use the most withering firepower possible. And the next stage follows where we apparently win hearts and mind only to have that disappear when we leave. Same cycle over and over again. I guess it shows how stuborn and unforgiving these native peasant people are. They never really forgive you just because you took out half their nieces and nephews and a couple of their brothers and sisters. They just never learn what wonderful advantages the American way of life would have for them if they would just get with the program. I don't know why we try so hard.
We have not just now become a police state.
We never were and never will be the democracy our teachers in jr. High told us we were.
We have always committed murder, theft, and oppression; our leaders always felt the low road, being the easiest, was the best.
Nothing has changed since Obama became President for the wealthy minority.
I thought we were fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Didn't the Taliban say they will not allow al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and will report them to the U.S.? What about Osama bin Laden? This so-called war on terror is actually U.S. Global police-persons fighting crime in foreign countries and making private contractors rich. Every city in America has criminals within its borders.The attack on 9-11 was a criminal act. Our government does not send the military into the streets of U.S. cities and kill every suspect and person who is suspected of giving the criminals shelter. That would be considered uncivilized. But here is the U.S. using the military to go into Afghanistan areas to kill every suspect and every person who is suspected of giving a suspect shelter. It does not matter if the person helping the criminal is doing so voluntarily or if they are being forced at the end of a gun. America does not care, innocent or guilty, America does not care. We do raise our voices and nobody listens and when we are attacked again by foreign criminals the government lies about the motivation of the criminals and increases the cycle of death and destruction with more support from the American people only to endanger us more. End the police-action and pull the soldiers out of occupied territory.
It more or less guarantees that war crimes will be committed when, in advance of an "operation," authorities declare that "95%" of those remaining are either Taliban or supporters. Who will hold off when the chance of a "mistake" is only 5%?
So what else is new? Hasn't the US been rampaging all over the globe for decades? The 'ugly American' through and through...and armed to the teeth.