The “Drone Bomber” Arrives To A Warm Welcome From Our Glorious Leaders

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Hamid Mir, Editor with Geo News in Islamabad (Pakistan) recorded that there were 34 drone attacks in the Pakistan region between 2004 -2008.  Between 2008 and March 2009 the  number rose dramatically and there were 46 drone attacks alone in that 15 month period.  [Note, as confirmed in reports below, the number of drone attacks has risen further and sharply under Obama's first office term.  See in particular this Google Map of the attacks]

Mir points out that there 80 drone attacks during the entire period referred to above.  In all of these attacks 513 people were killed.  Having checked all the records Mir has ascertained that of all these casualties only 14 were actually of alleged terrorists (names confirmed by US Defense Dept Press Releases). The remainder, 499 people, were all civilians.

Hamid Mir investigated 11 individual incidents of drone bombings.  In two of these, he found that two ‘low-level’ Taliban activists had been killed.  In the remaining 9 attacks only civilians were killed.  As he states in the second of the two you tube clips below this is violation Article 3 of the UN Human Rights Charter – among many other violations contrary to the conduct of war.

Today, our glorious leaders, will warmly welcome the Commander In Chief of the US armed forced responsible for these atrocities.

And Hamid Mir on Drone attacks in Pakistan.

Related articles

• WikiLeaks Cables: Pakistan Urged Drone Strikes (newser.com)
• Obama Increase Drone Bombings
• You: Six killed in US drone attack in NWaziristan (nation.com.pk)
• “Drone strike kills six in N Waziristan” and related posts (thefrontierpost.com)
• Eight Killed In Latest Drone Bombing

Bradley Manning …Stop, spread the word!

The video below, from German TV,  tells the story of one of the infamous war crimes committed by the US military machine in Iraq.  The brave individual who stood up and exposed this dreadful crime – Bradley Manning – has been targeted by those same authorities that gave the green light to this atrocity. Currently Bradley is under a 23 hour lockdown imprisonment in a high security military prison in the Quantico, Virgina in the United States.  His conditions of incarceration are harsh:

• He is held 23 hours in each day in solidarity confinement.
• His cell has no window and he is not allowed to see daylight at any time.
• He is not allowed exercise.
• He is allowed for one hour each day to walk in chains in an empty room.

The documentary explains that Bradley Manning is being punished severely for speaking out.  His situation is grave.  Recently, however, it worsened with the news that the US army had filed 22 additional charges against Bradley.  These include a new charges of “aiding the enemy” – a capital offense under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

There are a few things that you can do.  Most of all, inform others about Bradley’s story and encourage them to do the same.  You can do this easily by sharing this video below and/ or by directing people to the web site for Bradley Manning.   There is further information here as well as an extensive What You Can Do section.

Related Articles

• Bradley Manning
• You: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks’ alleged source, faces 22 new charges (washingtonpost.com)

Bloodshed and ‘Togetherness’ in Afghanistan

Commander Fire Now and Apologise Later Growing Up

A brief post: the war in Afghanistan.  Only last week (Feb 14th) NATO slaughtered a slew of civilians in a mis-aimed missile attack.  Children, men and women were blown to bits as they traveled along a road going about their business.  On the RTE news I heard the atrocity reported as a ‘set back’.   This Orwellian description was rejoined by a brief sound-bite interview with the US commander there – whose name I can’t recall but let’s for the purpose of this post call him Commander Fire Now and Apologise Later.  Commander Fire Now and Apologise Later informed us that the NATO campaign was still on track despite the murderous mistake that had been made.

All just spin – let’s face it.  Because it has now emerged that in the past week at least 60 (yes, 60!) more civilians have been slaughtered in various mistakes made by NATO troops.   When these atrocities happen it often takes quite a while for the details to filter out – so it may well be in a number of months from now that we get the full facts on these war crimes.   But as an example of the sort of thing that is now happening as a routine, check out this news article on a murderous NATO attack in December.

Anyway the point I want to get to is this.  We are not hearing much about this brutal war that is being conducted in Afghanistan.  It has grown bigger and bigger and more and more Afghanis are suffering (in order to ‘free’ them, of course.)

But for an interesting look into what is going on and why, and how the media side of ‘spinning’ this war is being conducted, see the current, excellent article from Media Lens entitled “War As PR – Operation Moshtarak, Meaning “Together”.  Media Lens is a small dedicated media analysis organisation who have done sterling work over the last number of years examining and reporting on the bias of the corporate media.  At the end of the Media Lens article there are various suggestions on what you can do with regard to the way in which the Afghanistan war is being reported.  None of these actions in their own right are going to change a whole lot but nevertheless it is vital that we make ourselves aware of the lies and slant that are being used to justify and brush over these crimes.  Read the article – inoculate yourself.