Furious Afghan president says US drones have struck a home in Helmand, killing a small child and wounding two women.
President Hamid Karzai has condemned the drone strike as yet another example of US disregard for civilian life. The strike comes in the midst of a standoff between the Afghan government and the US over a security deal.
Benjamin Griffin (born 1977) is a former British SAS soldier who refused to return to Iraq and left the Army, citing not only the “illegal” tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces but also that the invasion itself was contrary to international law
We came, we saw, we stayed. Forever. That’s the essence of the so-called Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) to be struck between the Obama administration and Afghanistan – over 12 years after the start of the never-ending War on Terror. What’s certain is that both Russia and China – not to mention Iran – all see this Operation Occupy Afghanistan Forever for what it is; yet another (military) chapter of the American ‘pivoting to Asia’.
What does it say about the discipline of UK / US troops when their continued presence in a theatre of war is contingent on the occupied country granting immunity for crimes yet to be committed? Try to imagine a foreign occupying army demanding such legal concessions from our own government following an invasion of our homeland.
On November 10, hundreds of people took part in a demonstration in Kabul organized by a group calling itself the Front for National Unity and Opposition to US Military Bases. A spokesman for the movement, Wahid Mozhda, told IWPR that Afghans were being led unawares into a wholly one-sided arrangement.
US drones murder Afghan civilian men, women and children. American grounds forces do it up close and personal.
US inflicted death, torture and other atrocities reflect daily life. Ordinary Afghans suffer most. They struggle to survive. American aggression is one of history’s greatest crimes.
War criminals remain unpunished. Accountability is denied. Conflict persists. It’s Washington’s longest war. It’s longer than WW I and II combined. It shows no signs of ending.
Trillions of dollars go mass slaughter and destruction. They’re spent for unchallenged global dominance.
“An execution of a man who was entitled to be treated with dignity and respect and entitled to be treated as any British serviceman or servicewoman would be entitled to be treated in a similar situation.”
The fact is that on several important occasions in the last 30 years or so, the US has wrecked peace efforts and used its power to provoke or prolong conflicts which could have been avoided or solved without further bloodshed.
Cheney was a “big supporter” of waterboarding and other unlawful interrogation techniques during his vice presidency, in which thousands of people were tortured, kidnapped and assasinated based on his instruction.
Last year, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal convicted Cheney, as well as former U.S. President George W. Bush and six other Bush administration officials in absentia of war crimes including torture and cruelty.
On Halloween this year, Toronto will host the man who operated from the “dark side” of U.S. policy. As vice-president of the United States, Dick Cheney was a key architect of a post-9/11 response that featured waterboarding and other acts of torture, a global secret detention program where people were held for years without charge, and “extraordinary rendition,” by which innocent men such as Maher Arar were sent to countries like Syria to be tortured. His legacy of “endless war” continues today.
Human rights organization, Amnesty International, has released a report that presents two case studies on victims of United States drone strikes in Pakistan and also details the practice of signature strikes, which has led to rescuers being killed in follow-up attacks while they are trying to help wounded individuals.
The US and British forces are preparing to leave Afghanistan for good (officially, by the end of 2014), and my time in the country over the last six years has convinced me that our legacy will be the exact opposite of what Allen posits—not a stable Afghanistan, but one at war with itself yet again. Here are a few encapsulated snapshots of what I’ve seen and what we’re leaving behind.
