WAR On Terror?

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Who is counting the bodies in Iraq?

By Natalia Antelava
BBC News, Baghdad

"We don't do body counts." These were the words of Gen Tommy Franks, the man in charge of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
But more than six-and-a-half years after the invasion, the body count has become a measure of success and failure in Iraq.
In November, officials announced that violent deaths were at their lowest since 2003. That was an important example of progress in Iraq, according to the Iraqi government.

Most of the big explosions since August occurred near official buildings
Eight days after the announcement, five massive explosions went off almost simultaneously in different parts of Baghdad, killing and wounding hundreds.
These well-co-ordinated, sophisticated attacks targeted symbols of the state - not only government buildings but also universities and state-run institutions.
The explosions were similar in scale to devastating bomb attacks in August and in October.
The country's commander-in-chief and Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is now under increased pressure to provide better security for the capital.
After all, that's what he is credited with doing best.
Serious questions
Mr Maliki's political reputation was built largely on his apparent success in bringing violence levels down following the US troop surge in 2007.

HISTORY OF BIG ATTACKS
Mar 2004: 171 killed in bombings in Baghdad and Karbala
Nov 2006: 202 killed in multiple blasts in Baghdad
Mar 2007: 152 killed in lorry bombing in Talafar
Apr 2007: 191 killed in car bombings in Baghdad
Aug 2007: More than 500 killed in attacks on villages near Sinjar
Aug 2009: 95 killed in lorry bombs in Baghdad
Oct 2009: 155 killed in twin lorry bomb attacks in Baghdad
Dec 2009: 127 killed in a series of car bombs in Baghdad

Source: News agencies, BBC
Now, this image of a man who could keep Baghdad safe has been tarnished.
Across the city, as dust settled over the bomb sites and grief took the place of the initial shock and panic, some serious questions began to emerge.
One of them is how many died in the explosions?
The number, according to the international and independent Iraqi media is more than one hundred, but the official toll is 77.
There are plenty of examples of similar discrepancies in numbers.
Round-up
Two days before the big bombings, explosives went off in a school in Sadr City, a Shia suburb of Baghdad.


We go to the bomb sites - we know how many people really die
Hindt al-Bedeiri, Iraqi journalist
Police sources told us that six children were killed, but Iraqi officials said one student had died.
There was a real difference in coverage of the event as well.
It grabbed international headlines, but Iraqi state TV led on political progress and the achievements of the government.
The school explosion was mentioned in a 40-second round-up at the very end of the news bulletin.
"The government is manipulating the figures," says journalist Hindt al-Bedeiri who writes for the pro-opposition al-Mashraq newspaper.
"Politicians are lying to us because they are worried about the election. They are looking after their own interests. We go to the bomb sites - we know how many people really die," she says.
Official numbers
But the government insists that its numbers are correct.

We are not lying... There is no justification to distorting this kind of information. It's disrespectful. Every death, every person matters
Saad al-Mutalibi
Government adviser
"The media are interested in blowing the situation out of proportion, and certain networks and channels are trying to boost the numbers," says Saad al-Mutalibi, an adviser to the Iraqi government.
"I believe these official numbers because they come from the Ministry of Health".
For their part, health authorities receive their figures from hospitals.
Shortly after Tuesday's bombings, the BBC visited one of Baghdad's hospitals.
The total number of injured given by administrative staff was significantly lower than the estimates provided by doctors who were receiving patients.
One of the doctors, surgeon Tara Barki, said she believed the government was trying to downplay violence.
"We have explosions every day, but most of them are small and scattered and so they either receive no media attention or are camouflaged by the government," Dr Barki said.
'Deaths matter'
But the government denies manipulating figures.
"We are not lying, and I can guarantee you that the office of Prime Minister Maliki would never lie about the figures," said Mr Moutalibi, the government adviser.

COUNTING THE DEAD
In October 2009, the Iraqi government reported that 85,000 Iraqis (civilians, military and police) died in violence between 2004 and 2008
Iraq Body Count: Campaign group counts from media reports and official figures. It says that 94,705 - 103,336 civilians have died since invasion
Lancet study in October 2006 estimated 655,000 people died in Iraq as a result of the invasion
"There is no justification to distorting this kind of information. It's disrespectful. Every death, every person matters."
The government says these explosions should not undermine the progress it has made.
In December, and after months of political wrangling, Iraqi politicians finally agreed to have an election on 7 March.
The deal was hailed as a big political achievement, crucial to the future of Iraq.
But violence, it seems, could still be dictating the rules of the game.
The outcome of the election, the timing of the US withdrawal and Iraq's ability to attract much-needed investment, could all depend on how safe this country is - or is perceived to be.
Statistics are irrelevant for mothers who are still losing their children in Iraq.
But whatever Gen Tommy Franks said nearly seven years ago, today Iraq's politicians are indeed doing a body count.





This is what US has achieved by waging war on terror according to USA ruled Iraqi government. If you want to know real figures multiply these figures by 8 or 10, or read the above article by BBC which itself is proof to the deception of USA led Iraqi Govt.

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Ten Afghan civilians killed in NATO airstrikes
Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:09:42 GMT

US soldiers on patrol in Kunar
Ten civilians including eight school children have been killed the latest episode of NATO's imprecise airstrikes in Afghanistan.

"Initial reports indicate that in a series of operations by international forces in Kunar province... 10 civilians, eight of them school students have been killed," Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said Monday.

Karzai has strongly condemned the killings in the airstrikes and appointed a delegation to investigate the event.

NATO forces in Kabul said they were looking into the incident, but declined to give further details.

Kunar representative in the parliament walked out of an important session debating appointments to Karzai's new cabinet in protest at the civilian casualties.

The border regions of Kunar have long been volatile as Taliban militants are said to cross the porous border from Pakistan to fight Western troops and Afghan government forces.

The imprecise operations carried out by the 100,000-plus foreign forces in Afghanistan have been criticized for their potential in claiming civilian casualties.

In one of the worst such cases, more than 140 people, including at least 30 civilians, were killed or wounded in Kunduz Province on September 4.

RZS/MMN

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US missiles mow down 13 in Pakistan
Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:30:29 GMT

US drone attacks continue to claim lives in the Pakistani border area of North Waziristan amid Washington's failure to push Islamabad into major offensives on the area.

The surveillance aircraft on Saturday attacked the Saidgi village in the tribal area reportedly killing 13 people, AFP reported. The raid marked the third of such attacks over the past ten days.

Quoting a local intelligence official, CNN said the projectiles had hit a militant hideout and that the mortalities had all been militants.

Local Pakistani news outlets, however, said the missiles struck the “residential compound of” a local tribesman, Asmatullah.

Islamabad has launched major offensives in the neighboring South Waziristan as well as the other northwestern areas of Khyber and Swat under pressure from the US, whose large-scale military presence in Afghanistan is blamed to have sent the militants across the border into Pakistan.

The ongoing military hostilities in South Waziristan have prompted 80,000 people to flee the area. The United Nations has warned that 170,000 others could be rendered homeless during the battle that started in mid-October.

North Waziristan, which is yet to see such government action, has witnessed a rise in the US missile raids as the entire tribal belt is being allowed less and less of a respite from the drone attacks.

Since August 2008, at least 69 such strikes have killed about 663 people. Pakistani media outlets say civilians comprise a large part of the mortalities.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi on Tuesday condemned the attacks as "counterproductive and unhelpful in our joint efforts towards winning hearts and minds, which is essential to succeed against violent extremism."

Reports, however, allege that US drones take off from airbases located inside Pakistan's territory, pointing to suspected compromises on the part of Islamabad.

HN/MMN

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US takes war on Islam into Yemen.

USA has again attacked a Muslim country under the pretext of Al Qaida, no wonder their were continuous news regarding Yemen and extremism coming out from US media outlets. Their is a growing suspicion of US helping hand towards the Hotuhi fighters waging a war on government of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Reports have confirmed the presence of CIA since 2008 in Yemen. The activities of CIA might also include funding the Houthis and Al Qaida to start implementing its plan in Middle East.

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US troops kill civilians, says Afghanistan
Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:23:06 GMT

Afghan men burn an effigy of US President Barack Obama in Jalalabad, south Afghanistan on December 30.
The Afghan government says foreign troops have dragged 10 civilians from their homes and shot them dead in the open over the weekend.

A Wednesday statement issued by the office of President Hamid Karzai said that international forces carried out the attack in the eastern province of Kunar on Saturday. Eight of the victims were schoolchildren.

Military offensives in Kunar, which borders Pakistan, are being led by US Special Forces.

The killings sparked a public outcry resulting in massive demonstrations.

In the eastern province of Nangarhar, hundreds of university students staged a protest, chanting "death to Obama" and "death to foreign forces." The demonstrators also torched a US flag and an effigy of US President Barack Obama.

Similar rallies took place in the capital, Kabul. The protesters called on the Afghan government to put an end to unilateral operations by western troops.

Figures released by the United Nations indicate a 10 percent rise in the civilian death toll from the US-led war in Afghanistan with a good share of fatalities caused by foreign forces.

JR/MMN

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Dutch probe declares Iraq war 'illegal'
Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:51:04 GMT

The chairman of the inquiry and former president of the Dutch Supreme Court, Willibrord Davids, presents the commission's findings before Dutch officials on January 12, 2010.

An independent probe investigating the Netherlands' support for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq says the US and Britain rushed to war without sufficient legal backing under international law.

The commission's 551-page report says UN resolutions prior to the outbreak of the war did not provide the mandate for the attack.

"There was insufficient legitimacy" for the invasion, commission chairman Willibrord Davids told journalists in The Hague on Tuesday.

The report further concludes that there was no legal basis for the Iraq war, while accusing the Dutch government of spicing up allegation that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — the main mantra on which arguments for war were erected.

The development comes amid deepening public concerns in the countries that joined the US-led war, prompting independent probes in other parts of Europe, including the United Kingdom, to settle the question of the ongoing war's legality.

The report also confirms that the Netherlands gave political support to war, but notes that the country was never militarily involved in the conflict.

ZHD/MD

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US drone attack kill 10 in Pakistan
Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:38:53 GMT

At least 10 people have been killed in the latest American drone attack in the volatile region of North Waziristan in Pakistan.

The attack targeted a compound in Pasalkot village on Thursday, according to Pakistan's security forces.

"At least 10 people were killed in the missile strike," a senior security official told AFP.

The United States has stepped up its drone strikes in Pakistan since seven CIA agents were killed in neighboring Afghanistan.

Hundreds of people, many of them civilians, have been killed since 2006 in CIA-operated drone strikes in Pakistan.

AGB/MB

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2009 deadliest year for Afghan civilians: UN
Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:58:05 GMT

A UN report says 2009 was the deadliest year for both Afghan civilians and foreign forces since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The UN Afghan mission said in its latest report that the number of casualties is 14 percent higher compared to the previous year.

The violence in the country left more than 2,400 Afghan civilians dead last year.

The report also says that the vast majority of the deaths were caused by militant-led violence.

The year 2009 was also the deadliest year for foreign forces in the country. Some 520 foreign troopers were killed in Afghanistan last year.

The figure is almost double that of 2008 in which 300 foreign soldiers were killed.

The US is deploying many thousands of additional troops to the country this year.

JR/HGH/MMN

Note these are the figures which are shown to UN by US reality is much more severe

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Occupiers kill several Afghans at demo, locals say
Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:12:49 GMT

Locals say troops of the US-led alliance have killed at least eight Afghan civilians at a demonstration organized to protest against the alliance forces' desecration of the Holy Quran.

The mortalities were caused by fire from the alliance forces during the demonstration, which about 2,000 people attended, in the southern province of Helmand, locals said on Tuesday, the German news agency DPA reported.

Residents said the troops had stormed a house and destroyed copies of the Muslim holy book in a local mosque in the province's Garmsir district on Sunday.

"We have proof that they destroyed our Holy Quran. We can show it to [President Hamid] Karzai's government or the foreign forces," said resident Habibullah Jan.

"The people came out of their homes today [Tuesday] to protest this action of foreign forces in a peaceful way, but the Afghan and international forces opened fire on us and killed eight people," Haji Abdul Manan, one of the organizers of the demonstration, was quoted as saying by DPA.

And over 20 people were injured, he added.

"In this demonstration, 13 people died and 25 were wounded. The situation is very bad and the protest is still going on. People are very angry with foreigners because they have desecrated our Holy Quran. Also, they fired on demonstrators. I repeat that many people died and were wounded during the protest," Reuters quoted Haji Jan Gul, who brought some of the wounded to the hospital, as saying.

However, US spokesman for the military alliance Lt. Nico Melendez claimed that no shots had been fired and added that the alliance's troops had not committed any sacrilegious acts, Associated Press reported.

"We take such allegations very seriously and would support a combined investigation with local Afghan authorities," he stated.

In response to a similar act of desecration in Wardak province in October, angry rallies were held.

Afghanistan is currently grappling with the highest level of violence in the over eight years of US-led military operations.

Thousands of civilians have been killed during exchanges of fire between the alliance forces and the Taliban and also in miscalculated attacks by alliance troops targeting alleged militant hideouts.

HN/HGL

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Terror: The facts US media ignore
Paul Craig Roberts | Creators Syndicate


THE “Underwear Bomber” case indicates that whoever is behind these bomb scares is laughing at our gullibility.

How realistic is it that Al-Qaeda, an organization that allegedly pulled off the most fantastic terror attack in world history, would in these days of heightened security choose for an attack on an airliner a person who is the most conspicuous of all? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had a one-way ticket, no luggage, no passport, and his father, reportedly a CIA and Mossad asset, had reported him to the CIA and Mossad. Does anyone really believe that Al-Qaeda would choose as an airliner bomber a person waving every red flag imaginable?

This obvious question has escaped the US media, a collection of salespersons marketing full body scanning machines for airports.

Would Al-Qaeda, with its extensive knowledge of explosives, have armed Umar with a “bomb” that experts say couldn’t have blown up his own seat?

It is difficult to imagine a more gullible population than America’s, but do even Americans believe this story?

Since 9/11 the FBI has been busy enticing people, who lack organizational skills, into “terrorist plots” that consist of FBI-initiated hot air talk. These ridiculous stings are then taken to trial, and the media fans the flames of fear of “home-grown terrorist plots against Americans.”

There is little doubt that those interested in leading the US deeper into a police state and deeper into a “war on terror” are active in adding orchestrated events to whatever real ones real terrorists manage to accomplish. The paucity of real terrorists has caused the US government and its Ministry of Truth to promote the Taleban to terrorist rnak. The problem is that these “terrorist acts” are taking place thousands of miles away in lands that the average American cannot find on a map and, thus, lack scare value. To keep the peril alive for Americans, we have the Underwear Bomb Plot.

What will be next? An elaborate head of hair laced with nano-thermite?

The “war on terror” is a far greater threat to Americans than all the terrorists in the world combined. This is so because the “war on terror” has destroyed the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. American citizens are now helpless in the event someone in government decides that some constitutionally protected behavior, such as free speech, or a contribution to a children’s hospital in Gaza, where Hamas, a US-declared “terrorist organization,” happens to be the elected government, constitutes aiding and abetting terrorism.

On Jan. 5 a ruling by the Federal Appeals Court in the District of Columbia gave away the most essential protection of liberty by declaring that the US government is not bound by law during war. The ruling absolves Washington from complying with America’s own laws and from complying with international laws, such as the Geneva Conventions. It makes a mockery of all war crime trials everywhere. By elevating the executive branch above the law, the court gave the government carte blanche.

The rationale offered by the court for refusing to uphold the law came from Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who said that America had been pushed by war past “the leading edge of a new and frightening paradigm, one that demands new rules be written. War is a challenge to law, and the law must adjust.” By “adjust” she means “be set aside” or “be thrown out.”

The US Supreme Court has refused to defend both the Constitution and the principle that government is not above the law. Last Dec.14 the Supreme Court refused to review a ruling by the Federal Appeals Court in theDistrict of Columbia , which dismissed a torture case with the argument that “torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants.” In other words, neither US nor international laws against torture can be enforced in US courts. The opinion was written by Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson.

The “war on terror,” which is enriching Halliburton, Blackwater (now operating under an alias), and the military/security complex, while denying Americans health care, is running up debt that is a threat to Americans’ purchasing power and living standards. The contrast between America’s sanctimonious rhetoric and the murder of civilians and torture of prisoners has destroyed America’s reputation and caused Europeans as well as Muslims to despise the United States.

The sacrifice of the Constitution and rule of law to a hyped “theorist threat” has destroyed the heart and soul of America herself.

As a poet wrote, “our world in stupor lies.”

— To find out more about Paul Craig Roberts, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page
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