WAR On Terror?

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Religious authorities have lashed out at the former US administration's recently-exposed manipulation of the Holy Scriptures to glorify their 'anti-terror' campaign.

The former officials have been revealed to have quoted biblical verses out of their context in the classified reports which would be submitted for high-level consideration, Los Angeles Times reported on Monday.

Last week, GQ reporter and credited chronicler of the former administration's adventures, Robert Draper exposed the 2003 reports which were directed to former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld before being sent to former president George W. Bush.

The documents were emblazoned with pictures of soldiers during their devotions and contained 'misused' passages of the Bible.

One such picture on the cover of one of the reports was captioned with "whom shall I send and who will go for us? Here I am, Lord. Send me" from the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament.

"As a Christian, I am deeply troubled that…a verse about a great prophet's call to indict his own people for their infidelity . . . is being presented as a divine call for the U.S. to invade Iraq," the daily quoted Scott Alexander, director of the Catholic-Muslim Studies Program at Chicago's Catholic Theological Union as saying.

"What is at issue is the possibility that the highest levels of the executive branch took biblical texts out of their proper context to cast the mission of the US military in explicitly religious terms," he added.

A verse on the cover of another document read "put on the full armor of God" - the demand in the New Testament that the believers strengthen themselves with "the virtues of truth, justice and peace."

"It is a misuse of the Bible to take passages out of context and employ them to support one side against another," Rev. John Buchanan, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago claimed.

"Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter," was another Isaiah verse so applied.

HN/MMN

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When US was about to start the so called war on terror the Dog of evil Bush stated time has come for crusade to start, and they call it war on terror?

US gave 65 years of imprisonment to leaders of charity organizations, stating that the money which they raised for charity was used in Palestine and MAY have been used by militants against israel. Gaza suffering from blockade there economy crumbled, people eating from dust bins and all aid halted when few muslims feeling sympathy towards gaza sent the aid, they are being prosecuted, this is the war on terror.

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US 'admits Afghan raid mistakes'
Rubble of destroyed village in Farah province
Afghan and US officials differ over how many civilians died(But Nuetral Sources confirm atleast 150 people died)

A US military inquiry has uncovered serious mistakes made when US forces bombed suspected Taliban positions in Afghanistan in May, US officials say.

Dozens of civilians were killed in the air strikes in western Farah province.

Some of the raids would have been called off, had the rules of engagement been followed strictly, unnamed officials were quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the general named as the next US commander in Afghanistan has said civilian deaths must be reduced.

Gen Stanley McChrystal said civilian casualties caused by US and Nato-led forces could alienate the Afghan people.

Civilian casualties are causing growing public outrage in Afghanistan and friction between the US and Afghan governments.

The publication of the US military report is expected later this week.

But some of the details have been leaked and the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says this is the closest the Pentagon has come to admitting that mistakes were made when US military planes carried out attacks last month.

Compound struck

The Afghan government(which is pro American) says 140 people were killed in the strikes in early May, while the Americans say 20-30 people died(Which is a white lie according to the pro American and of course anti American party's in Afghanistan).


Had the rules been followed, at least some of the strikes by American warplanes... would have been aborted
New York Times

Afghan anger at deadly US strikes

"American personnel made significant errors in carrying out some of the air strikes in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of Afghan civilians," a New York Times report said, citing an unnamed senior US military official.

"In several instances where there was a legitimate threat, the choice of how to deal with that threat did not comply with the standing rules of engagement," the official was quoted as saying.

"Errors were made," in the attack, the Associated Press also quoted an official as saying.

In one case, a compound of buildings where suspected militants were massing was struck, even though it was in a densely populated area and there was no imminent threat, the New York Times said.

"Had the rules been followed, at least some of the strikes by American warplanes against half a dozen targets over a seven-hour period would have been aborted," the article said.

BBC/TOI


A recent US probe confirms that Americans had been faulty in carrying out certain airstrikes in western Afghanistan in early May that killed 150 civilians.

Citing an unnamed senior US military official, the report said that the US air force and ground troops had made serious mistakes when US war planes bombed suspected Taliban positions.

"American personnel made significant errors in carrying out some of the air strikes in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of Afghan civilians," report quoted the official as saying.

Nearly 150 civilians, including 95 children, were killed last month when US warplanes dropped bombs on two villages in the Bala Baluk district of the western province of Farah.

This is while The New York Times has said the report represented "the clearest American acknowledgment of fault in connection with the attacks".

"In several instances where there was a legitimate threat, the choice of how to deal with that threat did not comply with the standing rules of engagement," the report added.

General Stanley McChrystal warned about the consequences of civilian deaths caused by US and NATO-led forces, saying "this may be the critical point."

The deadly strikes also sparked days of protests in Kabul and other major cities across the violence-wracked Afghanistan.

Medics told Press TV that some of those wounded in the attack have unusual burns which could have been caused by the flesh-eating chemical -- white phosphorus.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded a halt to Washington's airstrikes in his country following the deadly incident.

Washington says it will not stop airstrikes in Afghanistan which have frequently led to civilian casualties across the war-ravaged country.

Despite the rising anti-American sentiment across the conflict-torn country, US President Barack Obama has assigned 21,000 more soldiers to the Afghanistan-based contingents.

The killing of civilians by US-led forces continues seven and half years after the US invaded the country to allegedly destroy Taliban and al-Qaeda and bring stability to the volatile region.

Pentagon Chief Robert Gates said in mid May that his forces would press ahead with their controversial airstrikes across the violence-hit country.

Gates has also said that an influx of more than 21,000 US troops would not reduce the demand for airstrikes across the conflict-torn nation.

"We need to protect our troops," Gates said while explaining his review of air operations which have frequently led to civilians' causalities across Afghanistan

MVZ/JG/JR/MMN

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Confidential records of a meeting between the former US President George W. Bush and former British premier Tony Blair provides new clues about the Iraq war.

During the meeting the two leaders outlined their intention in a memo to go to war against Iraq without a second UN resolution against the country, the Guardian reported.

The former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix whose team was tasked to search for WMD in Iraq has declared that the Iraq war was illegal because no such weapons were found in Iraq and the US and Britain needed a second UN resolution against Iraq before taking any military action against the country.

The unveiled memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion, confirms that the two leaders were aware that the UN inspectors will fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the oil-rich country.

The five-page document reveals how Bush told Blair that he had decided on a start date for the war.

In 2006, Newscientist declared that around 655,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of the US-led coalition invasion. That is 2.5% of the country's entire population.

Today, the death toll in the country is believed to be far beyond that number, as the country is still plagued with unrest 6 years after the invasion.

The controversial war displaced more than 4 million Iraqis. While many have returned home, the UNHCR has said the country remains too fragile to absorb the 1.5 million refugees still living outside its borders.

MGH/DT

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MIRAMSHAH – Wrapped in white bandages and lying on a bed in the dust-bowed district hospital in Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan, Fazl-e-Rabbi is one of who lucky enough to survive a US deadly missile strike at a funeral ceremony in neighboring South Waziristan a day earlier. "We had just finished the funeral prayers and I was wearing my shoes when I felt that the sun had exploded on my head," Fazl-e-Rabbi, who received injuries in his arms, legs and lower abdomen, told IslamOnline on Wednesday, June 24.

"What I remember is that I was hit by something in my lower abdomen and then in no time I fell on the ground. I tried to control my senses but I could not."

Some 83 people, mostly civilians were reportedly killed and over 50 injured in three consecutive drone attacks in Lataka, an area located 50 kilometers north of Wana, the capital of South Waziristan, within 12 hours.

The first strike killed several suspected Taliban militants in Shubi Khel, about 65 kilometers north of Wana.

Intelligence officials say senior Afghan Taliban commander Khoj Wali, who was heading a meeting of local Taliban, was killed in the attack along with five others.

As mourners gathered for their funeral prayers later in the day in a nearby area, another drone fired three missiles into the crowd.

"The last feeling I had at that time was that I am going to die as people soaked in their own blood were running from here to there to take shelter," recalled Fazl-e-Rabbi, a father of three, fighting back his tears.

Since August 2008, about 43 US drone strikes have killed at least 410 people.

The US does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its troops in neighboring Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy unmanned drones in the region.

Publicly, the Pakistani government opposes attacks by pilotless US aircraft as a violation of its territorial sovereignty.

Innocents

Fazl-e-Rabbi, a farmer by profession, insisted that most of the victims were innocent civilians.

"Most of the deceased were civilians. I know almost all of them. They were from my area," he insisted.

The victims included two of his cousins.

"One of my cousins was standing next to me during the funeral prayers. I heard his deafening scream before falling on the ground," he remembered.

"I don’t remember what happened after that but his last scream has settled down in my mind."

Fazl-e-Rabbi was later informed that both his cousins breathed their last.

According to local sources, the deceased were buried in a mass grave.

"We have nothing to do with Taliban or Al-Qaeda," he fumed.

"It is a local tradition that whoever dies in your neighborhood, then it is a must for us to attend his funeral and burry him. We did the same."

His contention is backed by local journalists and a parliamentarian elected from the area.

"Around 50 civilians who had nothing to do with Taliban have been killed in the strikes," Irfan Khan, a local journalist, told IOL.

He refuted reports that Afghan or foreign Taliban were killed in the drone attacks.

"Most of them victims were civilians, while some local Taliban have also been killed."

Senator Saleh Shah, who belongs to South Waziristan, agrees.

"As far as my information is concerned, most of the deceased were ordinary tribesmen who gathered to offer funeral prayers of some suspected local Taliban," he told IOL.

"Taliban are not as doofus as gathering under open sky and become an easy target for US drones."

Radicalizing

Fazl-e-Rabbi, the wounded civilian, is furious at the treatment melted out to him and his fellow residents by the government and the media.

"We are stuck between Taliban and US attacks and when we are killed, not only no one cries for us, but also we are dubbed as militants," he fumed.

He laments that no official has visited them to check on their condition, or even verify whether they are Taliban or not.

"They won’t come because they know we are innocent. It seems as if we are aliens in our own country."

Fazl-e-Rabbi is equally critical of both Taliban and the Americans.

"If Taliban are bombing the mosques, then America is bombing the funerals. What is difference between them?"

Senator Shah warns that such attacks would further fan anti-government, anti-American sentiments in the already restive tribal area.

"If this kind of practice continues, then mark my words, this so-called war on terror can never be won.

"Taliban don’t need anything to coax the people. US drone attacks are enough to do that."

Fazl-e-Rabbi agrees.

"We don’t demand anything. We just want to be treated equally. Don’t force us to become Taliban, which we don’t want to."

Source: IslamOnline

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MIRAMSHAH ? Wrapped in white bandages and lying on a bed in the dust-bowed district hospital in Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan, Fazl-e-Rabbi is one of who lucky enough to survive a US deadly missile strike at a funeral ceremony in neighboring South Waziristan a day earlier. "We had just finished the funeral prayers and I was wearing my shoes when I felt that the sun had exploded on my head," Fazl-e-Rabbi, who received injuries in his arms, legs and lower abdomen, told IslamOnline on Wednesday, June 24.

"What I remember is that I was hit by something in my lower abdomen and then in no time I fell on the ground. I tried to control my senses but I could not."

Some 83 people, mostly civilians were reportedly killed and over 50 injured in three consecutive drone attacks in Lataka, an area located 50 kilometers north of Wana, the capital of South Waziristan, within 12 hours.

The first strike killed several suspected Taliban militants in Shubi Khel, about 65 kilometers north of Wana.

Intelligence officials say senior Afghan Taliban commander Khoj Wali, who was heading a meeting of local Taliban, was killed in the attack along with five others.

As mourners gathered for their funeral prayers later in the day in a nearby area, another drone fired three missiles into the crowd.

"The last feeling I had at that time was that I am going to die as people soaked in their own blood were running from here to there to take shelter," recalled Fazl-e-Rabbi, a father of three, fighting back his tears.

Since August 2008, about 43 US drone strikes have killed at least 410 people.

The US does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its troops in neighboring Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy unmanned drones in the region.

Publicly, the Pakistani government opposes attacks by pilotless US aircraft as a violation of its territorial sovereignty.

Innocents

Fazl-e-Rabbi, a farmer by profession, insisted that most of the victims were innocent civilians.

"Most of the deceased were civilians. I know almost all of them. They were from my area," he insisted.

The victims included two of his cousins.

"One of my cousins was standing next to me during the funeral prayers. I heard his deafening scream before falling on the ground," he remembered.

"I don?t remember what happened after that but his last scream has settled down in my mind."

Fazl-e-Rabbi was later informed that both his cousins breathed their last.

According to local sources, the deceased were buried in a mass grave.

"We have nothing to do with Taliban or Al-Qaeda," he fumed.

"It is a local tradition that whoever dies in your neighborhood, then it is a must for us to attend his funeral and burry him. We did the same."

His contention is backed by local journalists and a parliamentarian elected from the area.

"Around 50 civilians who had nothing to do with Taliban have been killed in the strikes," Irfan Khan, a local journalist, told IOL.

He refuted reports that Afghan or foreign Taliban were killed in the drone attacks.

"Most of them victims were civilians, while some local Taliban have also been killed."

Senator Saleh Shah, who belongs to South Waziristan, agrees.

"As far as my information is concerned, most of the deceased were ordinary tribesmen who gathered to offer funeral prayers of some suspected local Taliban," he told IOL.

"Taliban are not as doofus as gathering under open sky and become an easy target for US drones."

Radicalizing

Fazl-e-Rabbi, the wounded civilian, is furious at the treatment melted out to him and his fellow residents by the government and the media.

"We are stuck between Taliban and US attacks and when we are killed, not only no one cries for us, but also we are dubbed as militants," he fumed.

He laments that no official has visited them to check on their condition, or even verify whether they are Taliban or not.

"They won?t come because they know we are innocent. It seems as if we are aliens in our own country."

Fazl-e-Rabbi is equally critical of both Taliban and the Americans.

"If Taliban are bombing the mosques, then America is bombing the funerals. What is difference between them?"

Senator Shah warns that such attacks would further fan anti-government, anti-American sentiments in the already restive tribal area.

"If this kind of practice continues, then mark my words, this so-called war on terror can never be won.

"Taliban don?t need anything to coax the people. US drone attacks are enough to do that."

Fazl-e-Rabbi agrees.

"We don?t demand anything. We just want to be treated equally. Don?t force us to become Taliban, which we don?t want to."

Source: IslamOnline

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President Barack Obama has ordered his national security team to investigate reports that US-led troops suffocated 2,000 alleged Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan.

Obama told CNN in an interview on Sunday that if US forces have violated international norms, he wants to know about it.

"I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war," Obama said.

The president's remarks seem to reverse previous officials' statements. US authorities had said on Friday that there were no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war.

The allegations date back to November 2001 when the men had surrendered to the US forces during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Human rights groups accuse US troops and their local allies of placing the prisoners in cargo containers for two days without any ventilation.

Forces belonging to General Abdul Rashid Dostum have also said that they had opened fire on the containers and then buried the bodies in mass graves in an Afghan region called Dasht-e-Leili.

Rights activists say Obama's direction does not guarantee action.

JR/SME/MMN

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Nato promises Afghan raid inquiry

Kunduz was a relatively peaceful part of Afghanistan until recent months [AFP]
Nato has promised a full investigation into an air attack that killed and injured scores of civilians in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the organisation's secretary-general, pledged to conduct the inquiry, following a raid on Friday that destroyed two hijacked fuel tankers and killed civilians as well as suspected Taliban fighters.

''The people of Afghanistan must be aware that we clearly maintain the commitment of protecting them, and we will investigate thoroughly," Rasmussen said.

The UN mission in Afghanistan, headed by Peter Galbraith, has also dispatched its own investigation, emphasising that "the families of the victims must receive all the help they need''.

Prayers for the dead were heard Saturday in nearly a dozen villages in a charged atmosphere, witnesses said.

Civilian anger

The attack has raised serious questions over how Nato and US troops engage with their enemy, Aljazeera's correspondent James Bays said.

Reporting from the bomb site just 7km southwest of the northern city of Kunduz, he said it was impossible to count the dead - some bodies had completely disappeared while others were burnt beyond recognition.

He quoted a hospital source as putting the toll at 56 killed and 13 injured.
"But it is clear that many who died here were not fighters, some were children. The mood of many of the people here is sorrow and great anger," our correspondent said.

"People here say they are losing confidence in both the Afghan governmnent and the international forces, now the loss of so many lives will only increase that unease."

The Nato attack occurred at around 2am local time on Friday, 40 minutes after German and Afghan forces called in air support.

They reported the two tankers had been hijacked by fighters as they travelled from Tajikistan to supply Nato forces in Kabul.

The Taliban tried to transport the tankers across a river to villages in Angorbagh.

They managed to take one of the tankers over the river. The second got stuck, so the fighters apparently opened valves to lighten the load and called in villages to help themselves to fuel, according to witnesses.

At this point, the Nato bombs hit the tankers. Nato insists its commanders believed only fighters were present, but now accepts that this was not the case.

Brigadier-General Eric Tremblay, Isaf spokesman, told Aljazeera that the assistant force would "do whatever is needed to be done to investigate and provide as much support as is needed".

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

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World leaders call for a NATO probe into an air strike in Afghanistan, which resulted in 90 civilian causalities, as the incident could trigger a backlash against foreign troops.

"I am very concerned by the reports we have seen this morning of casualties among civilians from an air strike against stolen trucks in Aliabad district of Kunduz Province," deputy UN envoy in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, remarked.

The United Nation official went on to add, "As an immediate priority, everything possible must be done to ensure that people wounded by this attack are being properly cared for and that families of the deceased are getting all the help they need."

This is while the Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday described the loss of civilian lives in any form as 'unacceptable'. He underscored that representatives from the Interior Ministry and National Directorate of Security are commissioned to investigate how the incident took place.

Moreover, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also pledged to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into the lethal attack.

"The Afghan people should know that we are clearly committed to protecting them and that we will fully and immediately investigate this incident," Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels. ------{ A Serious Joke??? ( Blood thirsty massacrer's still say that they are the protectors ) }

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called for an 'urgent investigation' into the NATO air strike that killed as many as 90 people in Kunduz.

"It's important that we are very open and clear about what happened and make sure that it doesn't happen again," Miliband told reporters in Stockholm. (It happens so frequently that I am forced to believe that he wanted to say make sure it happens again )

If the civilian deaths are confirmed, the incident could reignite outrage against foreign troops in war-battered Afghanistan. Under new orders issued in July by the ISAF commander, US Army General Stanley McChrystal, aircraft can only open fire if they can confirm no civilians are in danger or that the lives of coalition forces are not at stake.

MP/HGH

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NATO commander tries to pacify Afghan anger
Mohammad Hamed | Reuters



WHAT’S MY CRIME? NATO officials visit a boy injured (lost his arm and leg) in Friday’s airstrike at a Kunduz hospital on Saturday. (Reuters)

YAQOUBI, Afghanistan: The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan flew on Saturday to the scene of a deadly airstrike by his forces, trying to cool anger that threatens his strategy of winning hearts and minds.

Afghan officials say scores of people were killed, many of them civilians, when a US F-15 fighter jet called in by German troops struck two hijacked fuel trucks before dawn on Friday.

The incident was the first in which Western forces are accused of killing large numbers of civilians since US Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal took command in June, announcing that protecting Afghans was the centerpiece of a new strategy.

In an unprecedented televised address to the Afghan people, the general said his forces had launched the airstrike against what they thought was a Taleban target. He promised to make the outcome of an investigation public.

“As commander of the International Security Assistance Force, nothing is more important than the safety and protection of the Afghan people,” he said in the taped address, released in versions dubbed into the two official languages, Dari and Pashto. “I take this possible loss of life or injury to innocent Afghans very seriously.” He later made a brief personal tour of the site in Kunduz, a once-safe northern province where fighters have stepped up attacks and seized control of remote areas, part of an insurgency that is now at its fiercest stage in the eight-year-old war.

A NATO team began an official investigation Saturday amid a clamor from European leaders for answers, with some calling the airstrike a “tragedy” and “a big mistake” that must be investigated.

“From what I have seen today and going to the hospital, it’s clear to me that there were some civilians that were harmed at the site,” McChrystal told reporters in Kunduz.

In the village of Yaqoubi, a scattering of mud-brick homes near the blast site, residents wept and prayed beside dozens of graves of victims on Saturday, while Taleban fighters with rifles looked on. The militants’ presence was proof of their increasing domination of an area recently under government control. “We will take revenge. A lot of innocent people were killed here,” one of the Taleban fighters, only his eyes left uncovered by a thick scarf, said at the funeral.

“Every family around here has victims,” said Sahar Gul, a 54-year-old village elder from Yaqoubi. “There are entire families that have been destroyed.”

Village elders said 50 people were buried in Yaqoubi and 70 more in nearby villages, although Afghan officials and the Red Cross say the precise death toll may never be known -------------- Arab News