Walks with Dogs

Courtesy About.com

(Above snapshot of former Veep in his Undisclosed Location courtesy of About.com )

Amid all the well-justified excitement about the release of the Torture Memos, my thoughts turn to the underlings who actually performed the tortures. We have Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld and the rest of the gang Mike Malloy calls the Bush Crime Family atop the dungheap. Then come their minions: Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales, Steven Bradbury and any other contemptible, cynical, psychopathic, sociopathic, inhuman zombie who took part in justifying the inexcusable. All these have filthy minds but clean hands meaning they do not have to see the humans they are destroying. They do not have to smell the smells or hear the screams. Then we come to the hands who have to do the deeds: fling people against walls, shackle people in stress positions, waterboard and on and on.

I so far cannot find who, exactly, those people were. Of course there were military police at Abu Ghraib and these were identified by name. But identities of CIA “operatives” and “interrogators” and those ever-present “contractors” as well as “medical personnel” are hidden in vapors. Who, exactly, had to fasten the shackles, do the wall-slamming, turn thermostats and miserable noise up and down? Did they get extra duty pay?

If it came to a choice, of course I’d rather see the top junkyard dogs prosecuted. But why does it have to be a choice? Why can’t every single person who in any way participated be appropriately punished?

Reasons:

1. CIA “operatives” or whatever the job title may be: “Chief wall-head-banger” perhaps, are civilians. Therefore they do NOT have to obey orders. They are not subject to court martial. Therefore I have more sympathy for military personnel caught up in this miasma than I do for civilian employees.

2. Some had the courage of their convictions. Witness the story of Alyssa Peterson. Why didn’t more personnel stand up? Here is an excerpt:
Editor and Publisher Online

April 23, 2009

U.S. Soldier Who Killed Herself–After Refusing to Take Part in Torture
By Greg Mitchell

(April 23, 2009) — With each new revelation on U.S. torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo (and who, knows, probably elsewhere), I am reminded of the chilling story of Alyssa Peterson, who I have written about numerous times in the past three years but now with especially sad relevance. Appalled when ordered to take part in interrogations that, no doubt, involved what we would call torture, she refused, then killed herself a few days later, in September 2003.

3. Common sense. Nobody in their right mind would follow orders to commit these grotesqueries. I once quit a job because the boss asked me to make coffee. I would damn well walk out on the spot if some fanatical sadistic geek, no matter his title, ordered me to enclose a prisoner in a box with insects. Were the “interrogators” threatened with torture themselves if they did not obey? That would excuse them in my eyes. But if they did it just to keep their jobs, or to suck up to their superiors in hopes of advancement, or because they are incurably sick sadiests, I say shackle them now and let’s see them in court.

4. The FBI wouldn’t torture nor condone its personnel doing so. Could the CIA have decided likewise?

My Tortured Decision by Ali Soufan
NYT Op-Ed Online
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?_r=1
April 22, 2009
“…My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue.” (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)…
…”One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. …”

Were there other Alyssa Petersons? Have other bottom-level employees quit? Developed PTSD? Died or disappeared?Monsters like Cheney always seem to get away with their crimes. Their ability to self-justify is boundless. Where are the stories about the common man or woman, the working stiff, caught up in this insanity?

Courtesy of Afghan-web

Today’s post is a photo essay in format of .pdf file. Click here for “In Memory Of” by Dr. Marc Herold, which eloquently says what needs to be said about our policy in Afghanistan and the real results for innocent families. Do not miss Dr. Herold’s website which features his online Afghan Victim Memorial Project: “An Online Memorial to the civilians killed by the U.S. Bombing, Invasion and Occupation of Afghanistan after September 11th.”

I am fortunate to come in contact with Dr.  Herold through my research into the civilian cost of our Afghanistan and Pakistan policy. Dr. Herold readily gave permission to post his work. He is further distinguished because he helped create Iraq Body Count .

Iraq Body Count “is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s largest public database of violent civilian deaths during and since the 2003 invasion. The count encompasses non-combatants killed by military or paramilitary action and the breakdown in civil security following the invasion.”

Dr. Herold can be reached at :

Professor of Economic Development
Dept. of Economics
Whittemore School of Business & Economics
University of New Hampshire
Durham, N.H. 03824
E-mail: Marc. Herold@unh.edu

I can add nothing to this moving and powerful photoessay. I urge anyone with a heart to visit Dr. Herold’s site.

Courtesy British Battles.com War: First Afghan War Date: January 1842. Place: Central Afghanistan. Combatants: British and Indians of the Bengal Army and the army of Shah Shuja against Afghans and Ghilzai tribesmen..

Greetings to all. I’ve decided to write in green; it’s the right thing to do. Quotes will be in black.

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Report on Afghan/Pakistan Civilian Deaths from 12/22/08 to 1/21/09

From Dec, 22, 2008 through January 21, 2009, I received daily Google Alerts on the keywords: “Afghanistan,” “civilian deaths”. There were such deaths every week in that time frame. Overall, journalists agreed 2008 was the worst year yet for civilian deaths at American hands. Estimates are as high as 2,000 dead, thereby almost reaching the number of US innocents who perished in the 9-11 tragedy.  

For this report, I combined reported innocents’ deaths due to exclusive US or NATO actions into one category. Victims of US actions outnumber other those of other NATO forces, but in many reports, they are impossible to separate out. Some data are included for deaths attributed to Canada exclusively and Australia exclusively. I did not include deaths due to “insurgents,” suspected Taliban, suicide bombers or any other form of domestic mayhem in that agonized nation. I wanted to list injuries, but that information was sparse. I included what I did get. It will be obvious if you look at the report that much of the data are estimates, and these vary, and are disputed by different factions.

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Among those who think military actions such as bombing and night raids on civilian households are a tragic mistake, are those who protested over the 2009 Easter holiday. Peace activists from around the country were arrested while protesting unmanned drone raids here in Nevada, at Creech Air Force Base. Evidently the drone aircraft are controlled, like arcade video games, by military personnel sitting for 12 hour shifts in little booths  at Creech.

Nevada Desert Experience is the go-to website chronicling  long-standing protests of  nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. Probably the best-known regular  is Martin Sheen, who has had his share of experience and handcuffs in the Nevada desert. Many of these same protesters object to the drone raids as well.

Below is link and text from Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now“  April 14, 2009 report on the arrests, and interview with Father Louis Vitale, long-term peace activist, who was among those arrested, and with Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist.

Peace Activists Arrested After Protesting US Drones in Nevada

US drone bombings have reportedly killed 687 Pakistani civilians since 2006. During that time, US Predator drones carried out sixty strikes inside Pakistan, but hit just ten of their actual targets. Last week, a group of peace activists last week staged the first major act of civil disobedience against the drone attacks in the United States. Fourteen people were arrested outside the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where Air Force personnel pilot the unmanned drones used in Pakistan. We speak with longtime California peace activist Father Louis Vitale, who was among those arrested, and with Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist. [includes rush transcript]

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Another voice of protest is Professor Marc W. Herold who was involved in the Iraq Body Count and now maintains the website: http://cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm “A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States’ Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan:A Comprehensive Accounting [revised]”

Besides providing data, Dr. Herold honors the fallen with pictures, names and histories.

From 12/22/08 to 1/21/09, I had Google Alerts sent to my email inbox. I was trying to get a handle on numbers of Afghan civilians killed or wounded by the USA.

I was so overwhelmed with information, that I shut off the pipeline after a month.

Now attempting to sort it out, I am finding varying estimates, but overwhelming agreement from many sources that:

1. US and other NATO forces are responsible for hundreds, possibly thousands of civilian deaths.

2. Many of these deaths result from unmanned drone bombings.

3. US usually claims either the victims were “insurgents” or “Taliban” or “Al-Quaida” or “enemies” or “terrorists.” Frequently, unnamed US “officials” claim to know nothing about the killings.

4. Local villagers, neighbors, relatives, officials will say those murdered were not terrorists.

5. Karzai’s protests are incredibly mild.

6. Obama has never acknowledged these atrocities nor apologized nor stopped them. In fact, he will escalate the invasion.

I am beyond outraged by these awful circumstances. I write the Obama administration constantly about it.

All the Obamaniacs say “hold his feet to the fire.” Yeah? HOW?????

Watch this blog. I am organizing the mass of data I received and will post it soon.