Pakistan

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The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, says another supplemental spending vote for war money in the next few months will be in the range of $50 billion.

Will we be prepared to stop it?

BBC

The US has been warned that its use of drones to target suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan may violate international law.

UN human rights investigator Philip Alston said the US should explain the legal basis for attacking individuals with the remote-controlled aircraft.

He said the CIA had to show accountability to international laws which ban arbitrary executions.

Drones have killed about 600 people in north-west Pakistan since August 2008.

Mr Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, told the BBC: "My concern is that these drones, these Predators, are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

"The onus is really on the government of the United States to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary executions, extrajudicial executions, are not in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons."

Increased use

By Mike Ferner, After Downing Street

In a statement today directed to the U.S. House of Representatives, President Obama and its membership, Veterans For Peace urged its chapters to demonstrate opposition to the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan by doing two things:

1) Take the actions listed below within the next several days, before President Obama decides to escalate the war in Afghanistan, and

2) Plan acts of even greater resistance during the two days following any such decision.

· Continue writing and calling our representatives and demanding peace.
· If we’ve done that: take to the streets
· If we’ve done that: sit down in the streets
· If we’ve done that: sit down in Congressional offices
· If we’ve done that: sit down, clog up, incapacitate, call in sick, withdraw consent and generally bring the nation’s business to a halt, wherever and whenever we can, with any peaceful means available.

DAMADOLA, Pakistan, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- A U.S. drone reportedly killed 24 people in northern Pakistan, including Taliban members meeting in an underground hideout, witnesses and officials said.

Twelve people were reported wounded in Saturday's attack in Damadola, Bajaur, about 4 miles from the Afghan border.

"I heard two loud explosions when a meeting of the Taliban was in progress," Damadola resident Hazrat Gul told Sunday's edition of Dawn.

Two relatives of Maulvi Faquir Mohammad, a Taliban commander in Bajaur, were among the dead, Dawn reported. Mohammad had left the meeting just minutes before the attack, local officials said.

A Pakistan army spokesman Sunday denied the deaths and injuries were caused by a drone, or pilotless plane. At a news conference in Islamabad, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Saturday's devastation in Damadola was caused by explosive material that blew up while being loaded onto a vehicle.

Background. Here are the 32 who voted No on funding in June 2009.  Here's a way to reward them.  Here's a flyer on ending the war in Vietghanistan: PDF.  Here's how to step up your activism.  Here's what's needed instead of bombs and guns.  Here's a way to nonviolently resist. Here's a list of top targets and multiple ways to contact them.

Please phone your Representative and post below what they tell you.  Thanks!

By David Swanson

Why is it that every time we elect "peace" candidates we defund the peace movement, stop calling for an end to wars, and limit our demands exclusively to opposing war escalations?

In 2006 we voted into Congress the candidates who looked most likely to end the war in Iraq. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done. Then we mildly urged them not to escalate the war they'd been elected to end, and they escalated it anyway.

In 2008 we voted into Congress and the White House the candidates who looked most likely to end the war in Iraq. Candidate Obama promised to pull out two brigades per month for sixteen months. Here we are in month 10 and that withdrawal has yet to begin. And what in the name of all that is true, good, and free-of-hope are we doing about it? Not a god damned thing.

By Dan Pearson and Kathy Kelly

Five months ago, shortly after the Pakistani government had begun a military offensive against suspected Taliban fighters in the northernmost area of the country, we arrived in Islamabad, the capital, as part of a small delegation organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org). Our initial travel plans had focused on learning more about civilian suffering caused by U.S. drone attacks. But, over the course of our three-week visit, close to 3 million people had become uprooted by violence in the Swat Valley and neighboring districts. Visiting tent encampments and abandoned buildings to which people had fled, we spoke with people who identified themselves as poor people, with meager resources, who were anxious to return to their homes as soon as possible. They were also alarmed because they feared that their crops, animals, shops and stores were already destroyed.

Report: One-Third of People Killed in Pakistan Drone Strikes Are Civilians
By Spencer Ackerman | Washington Independent

The New America Foundation's Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann have a new report out tallying how many civilians have died in the Pakistani tribal areas thanks to the CIA’s drone strikes. Their conclusion: the strikes have killed, since 2006, between 750 and 1000 people; 20 of them have been "leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied groups"; and "the real total of civilian deaths since 2006 appears to be in the range of 250 to 320, or between 31 and 33 percent." That low?

Bergen and Tiedemann got their report by tallying up media reports on the drone strikes. They explain:

"Our analysis of the drone campaign is based only on accounts from reliable media organizations with substantial reporting capabilities in Pakistan. We restricted our analysis to reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, accounts by major news services and networks–the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, and the BBC–and reports in the leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan–The Daily Times, Dawn, and The News–as well as those from Geo TV, the largest independent Pakistani television network. (Links to all those individual reports can be found in Appendix 1 of this paper.)"

They don’t pretend their material is “accurate down to the last civilian death in every drone strike.” Read more.

AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, IRAN, IRAQ, VIETNAM: EXPOSING OFFICIAL LIES

Where: Ward Circle Building, Room 2, American University

When: Wednesday, October 21 at 8:10 pm

Who: Keynote Speaker:

Col. Larry Wilkerson (USA, ret.) Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell during the critical period from August 2002 until January 2005; Served as Army officer for 31 years;

Recipient of 2009 Award from Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence

Additional Speakers:

Daniel Ellsberg, Former Defense and State Department official who released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, for which he was put on trial facing a possible sentence of 115 years; Author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers; Subject of newly released documentary “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” which he was called at the time by Henry Kissinger

Coleen Rowley, Former Special agent and legal counselor, Minneapolis FBI, who called the FBI director's attention to serious flaws that might have prevented 9/11; Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2002; Sam Adams Award Recipient, 2002

Craig Murray, Former U.K. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who exposed the use of torture, declaring, "I would rather die than have someone tortured in attempt to give me more security." Sam Adams Award Recipient, 2005

Ray McGovern, Veteran CIA analyst, whose duties included preparing and briefing the President's Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford, and Reagan; Co-founder Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS); Colleague of Sam Adams

Peter Kuznick, Professor of History; Director, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute; Co-writer (with Oliver Stone) “Secret History of the United States” (forthcoming on Showtime)

Dear Mr. President,

On October 5, 2009, I witnessed my mother, a 55 year old grandmother be assaulted by your Secret Service right in front of your house. It was so frightening for me, and what your protectors did in your name destroyed any faith that I had left in your willingness to listen to your citizens to end the violence being committed by our country.

My mother, Joy First, is the most peaceful, loving person that I have ever met. She has always had a completely selfless altruism that has led her to take care of others, even when it puts her own personal comfort and safety in jeopardy. As a mother and grandmother, she has always given up much for her children and grandchildren, in an effort to see us not suffer. In the past several years, my mother, Joy has extended this mothering and altruism to all of the children of the world. She has put her comfort and safety on the line countless times in an effort to stop the killing of the world’s children and grandchildren. On October 5th, my mother, Joy, went to your front door to plead with you to stop bombing and shooting of innocent children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

My mother, Joy, was joined by a group of almost 2 dozen other peaceful civil resisters who were asking you to end the senseless killing in the Middle East. Instead of engaging in civil dialogue with these resisters, someone from the house where you live with your family sent out around two dozen armed secret service agents to assault these peaceful people. So, as I was watching what I believed to be a demonstration of our American democracy, I saw the scene descend into what frighteningly became much more like a scene from an Orwellian novel than from the America I had learned about in Social Studies. And then all of the sudden, people were being dragged, and then, there was my mother, being bounced around like a ping pong ball and being pushed violently by members of your Secret Service.

Pro-War Officials Play Up Taliban-al Qaeda Ties
Analysis by Gareth Porter | IPS News

U.S. national security officials, concerned that President Barack Obama might be abandoning the strategy of full-fledged counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, are claiming new intelligence assessments suggesting that al Qaeda would be allowed to return to Afghanistan in the event of a Taliban victory.

But two former senior intelligence analysts who have long followed the issue of al Qaeda's involvement in Afghanistan question the alleged new intelligence assessments. They say that the Taliban leadership still blames Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda for their loss of power after 9/11 and that the Taliban-al Qaeda cooperation is much narrower today than it was during the period of Taliban rule.

The nature of the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban has been a central issue in the White House discussions on Afghanistan strategy that began last month, according to both White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones.

One of the arguments for an alternative to the present counterinsurgency strategy by officials, including aides to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, is that the Taliban wouldn't allow al Qaeda to reestablish bases inside Afghanistan, The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 5. The reasoning behind the argument, according to the report, is that the Taliban realises that its previous alliance with al Qaeda had caused it to lose power after the Sep. 11 attacks.

Officials in national security organs that are committed to the counterinsurgency strategy have now pushed back against the officials who they see as undermining the war policy.

McClatchy newspapers reported Sunday that officials have cited what they call "recent U.S. intelligence assessments" that the Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups have "much closer ties to al Qaida now than they did before 9/11" and would allow al Qaeda to re-establish bases in Afghanistan if they were to prevail. Read more.

Afghanistan: West's 21st Century War Risks Regional Conflagration
By Rick Rozoff | Stop NATO | Blog site

If McChrystal gains the additional 60,000 American troops he's requested and NATO provides several thousand more, combined Western military forces in Afghanistan could number some 180,000. With control of former Soviet airbases in the nation in addition to air fields in Central Asia, Iraq, the South Caucasus, Turkey and the Black Sea nations of Bulgaria and Romania, Washington and its allies could be poised for military operations against Iran far more ambitious than any discussed or rumored before.

On October 7 the United States' and NATO's war in Afghanistan entered its ninth year. The escalating conflict has over the past year become indistinguishable from military operations in neighboring Pakistan where the U.S. and NATO have tripled deadly drone missile attacks and the Pakistani army has launched large-scale offensives that have displaced over 3 million civilians in the Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, with the province of Baluchistan the next battle zone.

On September 29 the U.S. conducted four drone attacks in Pakistan's North Waziristan Agency in twenty four hours and during the past year has fired over 60 missiles into the area causing more than 550 deaths.

Three days later the Pentagon announced 72 more American military deaths in the fifteen-nation Operation Enduring Freedom, Greater Afghan War theater - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, the Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen - bringing the official total to 774.

The U.S. Department of Defense and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) acknowledge that so far this year 406 foreign soldiers have been killed, the bulk of which, 240, are American.

On the eight anniversary of the beginning of the war, however, an authoritative Russian news source estimated that overall "The United States has...lost 1,500 servicemen, while its allies have lost several hundred." [1]

Obama's Nobel puzzles Pakistanis living close to war
While Obama is seen as an improvement over Bush, many Pakistanis feel the president hasn't done enough to merit the peace prize. They are still wary of Obama and his policies.
By Alex Rodriguez | LA Times

For Pakistanis, President Obama represents a marked improvement over his predecessor, George W. Bush. He believes in tackling world problems through consensus-building rather than unilateral action, they say.

But the way many Pakistanis see it, that doesn't mean he's done nearly enough to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Maybe if you compare him to Bush, you can say Obama is a bit better when it comes to dealing with Muslim countries," said Ajmal Khan, a 55-year-old mechanical engineer while taking a stroll through one of Islamabad's busy marketplaces. "Otherwise, I don't think he deserves the peace prize. Has he done anything special to bring peace in the world? Killing goes on in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in other countries."

Pakistanis still haven't fully made up their mind about Obama. When they compare him to Bush, they like that he has reached out to the Muslim community and appears genuinely interested in what other world players have to say.

But Pakistanis still are wary of Obama and his policies toward their part of the world. They worry Obama won't solve the conflict in Afghanistan, an eight-year war on Pakistan's doorstep. Read more.

Joanne Landy of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy wrote:

As you know, the President and Congress are reviewing U.S. policy on the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we are writing you at this critical moment to invite you to sign the Campaign for Peace and Democracy emergency statement below calling for an end to military intervention in both countries. Your support can make a real difference: it will add to the impact of the statement at a time when public opposition to these disastrous wars.

A list of the initial signers and the text of the statement are below. We aim to collect a large number of signatures very quickly, and then publish the statement and list of signers as widely as possible, both in this country and internationally. If you would like to add your name, see the emerging list of signers, or make a tax-deductible donation to publicize the statement, please go to http://www.cpdweb.org/stmts/1014/stmt.shtml

You do not have to donate in order to sign, but please give if you can, as generously as possible. If you have already signed the statement but not yet contributed to our publicity efforts, please go to our website now to make a donation.

If for any reason you have difficulty at the website, just send us an email at cpd@igc.org. Please circulate the statement to your colleagues and friends.
In peace and solidarity,
Joanne Landy Tom Harrison
Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

INITIAL SIGNERS:

By Dave Lindorff

It’s not as much of a travesty as when Henry Kissinger, a war criminal of the first order who was an architect of the latter stages of the Indochina War, and was personally responsible for the slaughter of well over a million innocent people, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, while that war was still raging, but the awarding of the latest Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama is travesty enough.

We’re talking about a man whose practically first act upon taking office early this year was to escalate the ugly and pointless war in Afghanistan with the addition of some 20,000 troops, and who, even as the Nobel committee was discussing his award, was meeting with his military and political advisors to consider expanding that war even further, both in Afghanistan and across the border into Pakistan.

Team Obama: Afghan Taliban Not a Threat to U.S.
By Robert Naiman | Just Foreign Policy

All hands on deck, Obama Nation. The ship of state is turning.

The New York Times reports:

President Obama's national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

This shift means that President Obama will not have to approve General McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops:

the shift in thinking, outlined by senior administration officials on Wednesday, suggests that the president has been presented with an approach that would not require all of the additional troops that his commanding general in the region has requested.

Finally, the Administration is going to distinguish between the Afghan Taliban, an indigenous Afghan movement with Afghan goals, and Al Qaeda, a global movement with a global agenda of attacking the United States: Read more.

CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans recently returned from an eye-opening trip to Afghanistan. Their experiences convinced them even further that sending 40,000 more US troops would be disastrous for Afghan women and children. On October 3, their last day in the country, a US bomb hit a farmer's house, killing two innocent women and six children. That same day, a fierce gun battle in mountainous Nuristan Province left eight U.S. Servicemen dead.

Sign petition here.

Tonight: NYC Event on Afghan War Anniversary

ENDING OBAMA’S WAR: SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

When: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 7:00pm
Where: Proshansky Auditorium, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Ave at 34th Street [BDFV & NQRW trains to 34th St, 6 train to 33]

October 7th marks the eighth anniversary of the launch of the US led “War on Terror” in Afghanistan. Defending it as a “war of necessity,” the Obama administration is on the precipice of an enormous troop surge in Afghanistan and an escalation in Pakistan, which has already begun with drone attacks. This strategic dialogue will explore a deeper historic analysis of the realities on the ground in order to inform our resistance in the U.S. and to develop a more effective solidarity with the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Speakers Include:

Jeremy Scahill: Independent journalist, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine and a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now! He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. He has appeared on ABC World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS’s The NewsHour, Bill Moyers Journal. Rebel Reports

Zoya: a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Like many RAWA members, Zoya has witnessed and endured more tragedy and terror than most people do in a lifetime. Zoya grew up during the wars that ravaged Afghanistan and was robbed of her mother and father when they were murdered by fundamentalists - Zoya was only fourteen. Devastated by so much death and destruction, she fled Kabul with her grandmother and started a new life in exile in Pakistan. After attending a school funded by RAWA, she joined the underground women’s organization and continues their work resisting fundamentalism and war today. RAWA

Bill Fletcher: the Executive Editor of The Black Commentator and founder of the Center for Labor Renewal. A longtime labor, racial justice and international activist, he is the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum. Black Commentator

Adaner Usmani: works with the Labor Party of Pakistan (LPP) and Action for a Progressive Pakistan (APP). With these and other groups, he has been involved in antiwar work, principally in Pakistan but also in the US, as well as assorted campaigns for peasant and worker rights. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Sociology from NYU. Blogspot

Sponsored by the South Asia Solidarity Initiative & Center for Place, Culture and Politics.