What Makes a Just Assassination?

How do we measure evil? And how do we celebrate it?

Soldiers are brave and demand respect, especially those that have been run around the middles east for the past 10 years making oil cheaper for the rest of the world, and making jobs and contracts for weapons and construction industries. These soldiers deserve to celebrate a victory. They were told from the start that this the Afghanistan war was about Osama Bin Laden and weapons of mass destruction were, this was the cause that made many join the fight, whether this is right or wrong is a separate question. These soldiers have been endanger and away from their families over essentially a gigantic lie. The killing of Osama Bin Lade is a moment where these soldiers can claim a victory in the reasons that they joined to fight in the first place, and in the context of their experience we should not detract from this victory, not a victory of violence or a victory over any meaningful or worthwhile military or political goal but a victory psychologically over all of the lies told to soldiers over the course of this war.

Not everything should be made into a political statement. People's identify with conflict and their subsequent measure of victory is a hard thing to challenge, especially in the context of a real experience and a perspective. However, it is important also to consider as a separate issue the ethical and political consequence of actions, especially the military ones that have occurred. As soldiers and citizen this need to happen in the realm of thought not in the realm of statements. There is a serious ethical and political reality to the killing of Osama but, there is also a reality to the individuals who have been their and have lived the lie and the struggle that has been these last couple of wars.  There is little denying that targeted assassinations are unethical. Anyone arguing otherwise and claims that assassination (murder) is justifiable when the person in question is killer of innocent civilians should be ready to assassinate the current and past president of the USA (for explanation see charts).

There is away of respecting both the personal and political contexts of the Osama Bin Laden assassination, some  the both require empathy, reason and a heterodox political understanding that is non-dogmatic nor hypocritical. One group can celebrate something psychological and personal, while another can critique and remand something political.

Osama Bin Laden- 9.11.2001 ---- Civilian Death Toll:  2,752 

President Bush --Iraq War- 0319.2003:

Year	Civilian deaths
2003	12,079
2004	10,834
2005	15,034
2006	27,850
2007	24,677
2008	9,245
2009	4,681
2010	3,576

Afghanistan War Civilian Casualities -- Presient Obama

More: Guardian Afghanistan civilian causalities and who did it

Afghan Civilian Killings at Record Level

Afghanistan is facing what is being described as its deadliest period for civilians since the U.S.-led invasion began more than nine years ago. According to Afghan officials, more than 200 Afghans have been killed in attacks and military operations of the past two weeks. An Afghan government panel is still investigating claims some 65 people were killed in a U.S.-led attack last week. On Saturday, a government adviser and investigator said that 40 of the dead were children.

What's Going on In Afghanistan: What are the "success" indicators of war?

Red Cross Warns of Deteriorating Conditions in Afghanistan

While the Obama administration touted the Afghan war in Washington, the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a rare public statement warning of a dire situation on the ground. The Red Cross says conditions for delivering aid in Afghanistan are at their lowest point in the 30 years since the group first entered the country under Soviet occupation. Red Cross spokesperson Bijan Farnoudi said he expects the suffering of Afghan civilians to increase next year.

Bijan Farnoudi: "Our assessment is that we’re worried. We’re worried about more displacement, we’re worried about more civilian casualties, we’re worried about more difficulties with people to access healthcare, and we’re worried about more armed groups being around. If you say that we’re expecting more of the same for 2011, that would be putting it mildly.

War Review Claims U.S. Progress in Afghanistan

The new guidelines come as President Obama unveiled a military strategy review claiming the United States is achieving its main war aims in Afghanistan.

President Obama: "I want to be clear: this continues to be a very difficult endeavor, but I can report that, thanks to the extraordinary service of our troops and civilians on the ground, we are on track to achieve our goals. It’s important to remember why we remain in Afghanistan. It was Afghanistan where al-Qaeda plotted the 9/11 attacks that murdered 3,000 innocent people. It is the tribal regions along the Afghan-Pakistan border from which terrorists have launched more attacks against our homeland and our allies. And if an even wider insurgency were to engulf Afghanistan, that would give al-Qaeda even more space to plan these attacks."

Appearing with Obama, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates addressed this week’s disclosure that the most recent National Intelligence Estimates on Afghanistan and Pakistan differ sharply from the Pentagon’s conclusions. The estimates conclude the United States cannot achieve its goals in Afghanistan unless Pakistan wipes out militants on its side of the border and ends covert support for the Afghan Taliban.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: "Pakistan has committed over 140,000 troops to operations in extremist safe havens along the border in coordination with Afghan and coalition forces on the Afghan side. Though we believe the Pakistanis can and must do more to shut down the flow of insurgents across the border, it is important to remember that these kinds of military operations in the tribal areas would have been considered unthinkable just two years ago." 

Expanding the War or Saving Lives from Cholera in Haiti? CBA

US Unveils $500M Embassy Expansion in Afghanistan

The US has unveiled plans for a $500 million expansion of its embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul. US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry says the project will be completed in June 2014.

VERSUS:

Haiti’s Cholera Outbreak Spreads Ahead of Major Storm

A cholera outbreak is worsening in Haiti just as an approaching storm threatens to displace hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors. New figures show that 105 people have died from cholera since Saturday, bringing the death toll so far to 442. The United Nations is warning the outbreak could spread drastically when Tropical Storm Tomas makes landfall on Friday. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, Nigel Fisher, said aid agencies are overstretched.

Nigel Fisher: "I think that the hurricane is so huge that all of the country is hit severely. I think if two, three, four, five departments are hit, we’ll be able to cope to some extent. More than that, we will really be stretched, and we’re going to have to make difficult choices about where to put scarce assets."

Some 1.5 million people are said to be at risk if rainfall from the storm causes massive flooding. The Haitian government has ordered the voluntary evacuation of camps for earthquake survivors in low-lying areas, but many have nowhere to go. A resident of a camp in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince said aid groups have offered little help.

Carlo D’Charles: "The organizations we have in this country, they don’t come here to help us, you know? They once helped us, you know, two months after the earthquake. But after that, you know, you can’t talk to anybody you want to, any park, you know? We never receive help after two months after the earthquake, you know? That’s really bad. We’re living in bad condition, you know? That’s what I know. And last time we had a big storm pass, you know, many people just died. In this park, we have two people die, you know? Why, now we hear about this storm will come, we not prepare ahead? "

Rethink Afghanistan - Veterans of the War

A history of tragedy and farce

It was Karl Marx who said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

I have never really been sure what he meant. But as the recent history of US-Pakistan relations churns onward through multiple repetitive cycles, the results, while perhaps verging at times on black farce, have been clearly and consistently tragic. More tragic still, history seems poised to deliver yet more of the same.

Your not Alone: Solidarity and Commonality in war torn regions Afghanistan and Gaza

A week ago, at the small guest house where friends and I stayed while visiting Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV) in Bamiyan, eight of us huddled around one cell phone to participate in a conference call organized by Fellowship of Reconciliation members in the United States.  The call was part of an ongoing effort to foster a connection between the AYPV and volunteers at the Rachel Corrie Center in Gaza.  The Gazan center was started by Cindy and Craig Corrie, whose daughter, Rachel, had tried to stop an Israeli bulldozer driver from destroying the home of a Gazan family that had befriended her.  The bulldozer driver crushed her to death.

I had asked the call planners to notify a close friend of mine who volunteers at the Center, hoping he might be included in the call.  My friend -- I’ll call him Firas – had extended courageous hospitality to Audrey Stewart and me when we crossed into Gaza during the last four days of the Israeli Operation Cast Lead assault which was waged against Gazans for 22 days, beginning in December 2009.

Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Upcoming Iraq War Wikileaks Docs

Search for Accountability

As Wikileaks prepares to release more documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, will greater accountability follow?

A string of shootings by British troops in a non-combat zone resulting in scores of dead civilians; a highway rampage by US troops; a deaf boy shot at when orders barked at him did not illicit a response; a previously unknown US special forces unit reporting directly to the White House, as well as a 'capture kill' list with which they operated, and their botched up missions that resulted in scores of casualties, including the deaths of children at an Islamic school.

The largest leak of classified military documents in US history revealed these incidents and many more. Nevertheless, the Afghan war logs published by Wikileaks on July 25 prompted no official apology or investigation into their contents.

Instead, they were swiftly downplayed by the White House and Pentagon, with Barack Obama, the US president, telling a press conference that "these documents do not reveal any issues that have not already informed our public debate on Afghanistan".

With several other leaks - including one with some 15,000 more documents on Afghanistan reported to include even more extensive and damming revelations – due to soon be released, the human rights community is hoping that a cue will be taken from their reactions to the first release and that increased accountability will follow.

Afghanistan: Does anyone in the US still care?

The invasion of Afghanistan’s ninth anniversary passed in DC this week with hardly a notice. 

Media desperate to illustrate the story flocked to a small demonstration of less than two dozen veterans of the so-called global wars on terror.  A rag-tag group of angry, disillusioned and, most of all, disappointed vets gathered in front of Walter Reed Army Medical Center where thousands upon thousands of service members have returned from war to treat their wounds.

The veterans there for the demonstration held a ceremony at the gates of the iconic hospital and placed nine yellow roses - one for each year of the war in Afghanistan - with almost military precision, the occasional salute replaced with a peace sign, before setting off on a six-mile march to Capitol Hill. 

Iraq and Afghanistan

At Least 56 Killed in Iraq Violence

In Iraq, at least fifty-six people were killed Sunday in a string of attacks. Six car bombings were carried out in Baghdad, and a suicide bomber struck in Fallujah. More than 100 people were wounded. It was Iraq’s worst day of violence since the US declared the nominal end of combat operations earlier this month. 

NATO Bombing Kills 7 in Afghan Village

In other Afghan news, at least seven people were killed in a NATO bombing hours after the polls closed. The US-led NATO force says the victims were Taliban militants, but local residents said at least some, if not all, of the dead were civilians. One man said he had just helped an elderly victim cast his vote in the elections earlier that day.

Villager: "The government asked us to come and vote to put a candidate in parliament, but why are they bombing us? Yesterday I carried this old man to cast his vote, and this is the result: they dropped a bomb on him."

US Grants itself Global Assassination Permit

Obama Administration Sued over Plan to Assassinate US Citizens

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights have sued the Obama administration over its claim to have the authority to assassinate US citizens accused of terrorism links abroad. Earlier this year, the Obama administration added the US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki to a CIA list of targets for capture or killing. Al-Awlaki is currently living in Yemen.

Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU: "One of the dangers with this kind of program, a targeted killing program, is that we will end up killing the wrong people. Dozens of times we’ve detained people as terrorists only to find out later that the evidence was weak, nonexistent or wrong. At least with detention there’s the possibility of a court challenge or the possibility of appeal, but there’s no appeal from a drone. There’s no appeal from a death sentence after it’s imposed."

Vince Warren is executive director at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Vince Warren: "If we were to set the precedent of going around the world and killing people that the United States thinks are suspects, that would be setting probably one of the most dangerous precedents out there, because there would be nothing to stop, for example, China from targeting its citizens in the United States.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and the Future of War

Obama to Declare End to Combat Operations in Iraq

President Obama is preparing to officially declare the end of US combat operations in Iraq seven-and-a-half years after the US invasion. Obama will make the announcement in a nationally televised speech tonight from the Oval Office. He gave a preview of his speech in his weekly radio address over the weekend.

President Obama: "On Tuesday, after more than seven years, the United States of America will end its combat mission in Iraq and take an important step forward in responsibly ending the Iraq war. As a candid ate for this office, I pledged I would end this war. As president, that’s what I’m doing." (bull shit)

1,325 Afghan Civilians Killed So Far This Year

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission is reporting at least 1,325 Afghan civilians have been killed so far this year. That’s a six percent increase over the same period last year. The commission blamed the Taliban and its allies for roughly two-thirds of the killings. US and international forces were blamed for just under a quarter of the civilian deaths.

WikiLeaks Interview: 'We Will Keep Publishing Documents'

BERLIN — The online whistle-blower WikiLeaks said it will continue to publish more secret files from governments around the world despite U.S. demands to cancel plans to release classified military documents.

"I can assure you that we will keep publishing documents – that's what we do," a WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday.

Schmitt said he could not comment on any specific documents but asserted that the publication of classified documents about the Afghanistan war directly contributed to the public's understanding of the conflict.

"Knowledge about ongoing issues like the war in Afghanistan is the only way to help create something like safety," Schmitt said. "Hopefully with this understanding, public scrutiny will then influence governments to develop better politics."

News?

Oil Seep Discovered Near Ruptured Well
At Least 45 Killed in Iraq Suicide Bombing
Report: Karzai to Unveil 2014 Withdrawal Deadline
Amidst Clinton Visit, Pakistani Military Accused of Extrajudicial Killings
AIG Agrees to $725M Settlement in Fraud Suit
Couple Sentenced on Cuba Spying Conviction
NY Limits "Stop and Frisk" Database
Southwest Workers Union Member Critically Injured in Shooting Attack
Mandela Honored on 92nd Birthday
US Citizen Remains on No-Fly List After Returning Home
Appeals Court Upholds Sentence for Gitmo Whistleblower

US government lifts lid on alleged leak to WikiLeaks

The US state department has told the BBC it believes an alleged whistle-blower obtained secret diplomatic data despite being at a field base in Iraq.

Serviceman Bradley Manning, 22, faces two charges related to the illegal transfer and transmission of classified information from a US military network.
The US said he was suspected of downloading from SIPR Net.
He reportedly then passed on the data, including army videos and diplomatic messages, to the WikiLeaks website.

news?

1. Judge with Energy Ties Strikes Down Deepwater Drilling Ban
2. British Envoy to Afghanistan Resigns
3. Evidentiary Hearing Begins in Troy Anthony Davis Case
4. Both Sides Claim Victory in Supreme Court Ruling on Monsanto Crop
5. UN Probes Alleged Abuses in Sri Lanka Fighting
6. Israel Advances East Jerusalem Demolitions, Orders Expulsion of 4 Palestinian Politicians
7. Road Shipments Begin Entering Gaza (but limited)

Pakistan, Afghanistan begin talks about dealing with insurgents

By Karin Brulliard and Karen DeYoung
Saturday, June 19, 2010; A01


ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Afghanistan and Pakistan are talking about how to make peace with insurgents fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including one faction considered the coalition forces' most lethal foe, according to Pakistani and U.S. officials.

Don't Forget: We Are Still Killing People.

33 Afghan Civilian Killed in NATO Air Strike

The Afghan government says at least thirty-three civilians have died in a NATO air strike in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan. The Afghanistan Council of Ministers strongly condemned the air strike, saying it was “unjustifiable.” The dead included four women and one child. The incident was not part of Operation Moshtarak, the major offensive to combat the Taliban near the town of Marjah. Over the past ten days, another nineteen Afghan civilians have been killed in Marjah. Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said that Marjah was the opening salvo in a campaign to turn back the Taliban.

Gen. David Petraeus: “This is just the initial operation of what will be a twelve- to eighteen-month campaign, as General McChrystal and his team have mapped it out.

Dutch Troops to Leave Afghanistan After Gov’t Collapses

The Dutch government collapsed on Saturday when the country’s two largest political parties failed to agree on whether to withdraw Dutch troops from Afghanistan this year as planned. The fall of the government all but guarantees that the 2,000 Dutch troops will be brought home this year. The development is seen as a major blow to the US-led NATO alliance against the Taliban. Canada has already said it will withdraw its 2,800 soldiers by the end of 2011.

German Activists Protest Against Afghan War

In Germany, over a thousand antiwar protesters rallied in Berlin on Saturday to demonstrate against Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan. Germany is planning to beef up its presence in Afghanistan, where its 4,300 troops make up the third-largest contingent after the United States and Britain. Many protesters said they did not understand why Germany was in Afghanistan in the first place.

German protester: “It’s almost too late, but we hope to convey the message that not one soldier has to be sent to Afghanistan. That’s why we are protesting here. The German people have paid enough taxes, and there are more and more taxes being squeezed out of us just to finance the American wars. We have in Germany a constitution that is still valid, that states that from German ground we will not instigate a war, but only defend ourselves. The Afghans never attacked us. So what are our soldiers doing in Afghanistan?”