17 Jun
United States Wars, News and Casualties
United States Wars, News and Casualties
The War Criminals
The war criminals, Bush,Cheney,Rice,Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Powell who sold us the war still go on doing what they do.
How many Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion 15 years ago? Some credible estimates put the number at more than one million. You can read that sentence again.
The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in our country as a “blunder,” or even a “colossal mistake.” It was a crime.
Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of a mostly amnesiac citizenry. (A year ago Mr. Bush was on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” dancing and talking about his paintings.)
We condemned children to death, some after many days of writhing in pain on bloodstained mats, without pain relievers. Some died quickly, wasted by missing arms and legs, crushed heads. As the fluids ran out of their bodies, they appeared like withered, spoiled fruits. They could have lived, certainly should have lived – and laughed and danced, and run and played- but instead they were brutally murdered. Yes, murdered!
The war ended for those children, but it has never ended for survivors who carry memories of them. Likewise, the effects of the U.S. bombings continue, immeasurably and indefensibly.
The McGlynn
War News
BBC: Yemen conflict explained in 400 words
For a little more than three years, Yemen has been locked in a seemingly intractable civil war that has killed nearly 10,000 people and pushed millions to the brink of starvation.
A man carries a wounded child after a Saudi-led airstrike that killed eight members of her family in Sanaa, August 2017
The conflict has its roots in the Arab Spring of 2011, when an uprising forced the country’s long-time authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to hand over power to his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
The political transition was supposed to bring stability to Yemen, one of the Middle East’s poorest nations, but President Hadi struggled to deal with various problems including militant attacks, corruption, food insecurity, and continuing loyalty of many military officers to Saleh.
Fighting began in 2014 when the Houthi Shia Muslim rebel movement took advantage of the new president’s weakness and seized control of northern Saada province and neighbouring areas. The Houthis went on to take the capital Sanaa, forcing Mr Hadi into exile abroad.
The conflict escalated dramatically in March 2015, when Saudi Arabia and eight other mostly Sunni Arab states – backed by the US, UK, and France – began air strikes against the Houthis, with the declared aim of restoring Mr Hadi’s government.
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NYT: Battles Rage Around International Airport in Strategic Yemeni City
AL HUDAYDAH, Yemen — Fighting raged Saturday around the international airport outside the Yemeni port of Al Hudaydah as fighters with a Saudi-led Arab coalition pressed their four-day-old offensive to seize the rebel-held city that is the gateway for food supplies to the famine-stricken country.
Officials loyal to Yemen’s exiled government claimed their forces backed by the coalition had seized the airport, which lies just south of the city, and deployed engineers to clear explosives. But Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a counteroffensive amid reports of heavy fighting at the airport gates and inside the sprawling compound, which has been closed since 2014.
By Saturday afternoon, warplanes had struck Houthi targets on the edge of the city and fighting spread to a major road leading to the Houthi-held capital, Sana, blocking a key exit from the city. Hundreds of thousands of residents trapped in the city huddled in their homes, many wondering nervously if the fight will reach them.
The battle for Al Hudaydah is shaping up to be the biggest and possibly most consequential of a war that started in 2015 when the Saudi-led coalition attacked the Houthis, who had seized the Yemeni capital a year earlier.
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REU: UNHCR special envoy Jolie visits Mosul, urges support for rebuilding
ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – U.N. refugee agency special envoy Angelina Jolie visited Mosul in northern Iraq on Saturday and urged the international community not to forget residents trying to rebuild their city.
UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie meets Falak, 8, during a visit to West Mosul, Iraq June 16, 2018. UNHCR/Andrew McConnell/Handout via REUTERS
Iraqi forces seized Mosul in July 2017 from Islamic State militants, who had occupied the city three years earlier and turned it into a stronghold of a “caliphate,” in a military campaign that saw 900,000 residents flee.
The Hollywood actress met families from western Mosul and walked through bombed out streets, according to video footage and photos provided by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Iraqi forces seized Mosul in July 2017 from Islamic State militants, who had occupied the city three years earlier and turned it into a stronghold of a “caliphate,” in a military campaign that saw 900,000 residents flee.
The Hollywood actress met families from western Mosul and walked through bombed out streets, according to video footage and photos provided by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Normality has returned to many parts of Mosul, with displaced residents leaving camps nearby and going back home.
But the old city in West Mosul was largely destroyed during a campaign by a 100,000-strong alliance of Iraqi government units, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shi’ite militias backed by air support from a U.S.-led coalition.
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REU: Afghan peace council to hold news conference amid Eid ceasefire
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s High Peace Council will hold a news conference on Sunday amid an unprecedented Taliban ceasefire and a day after President Ashraf Ghani said he would extend a government ceasefire but set no timeframe.
Dozens of Taliban militants entered the Afghan capital and other cities on Saturday to celebrate the end of the Ramadan fasting month. Soldiers and militants exchanged hugs and took selfies on their smartphones.
The peace council was set up to oversee the peace process. The news conference is scheduled for 10 a.m. (0530 GMT).
The Taliban announced a surprise three-day ceasefire over the Eid holiday, which began on Friday, except against foreign forces. It overlaps with an Afghan government ceasefire announced to run until Wednesday.
President Ashraf Ghani said in an address to the nation that he would extend the ceasefire. He also asked the Taliban to extend theirs and begin peace talks. He said he wanted to discuss “issues of mutual concern with neighboring countries and the presence of foreign forces”.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed Ghani’s remarks, saying peace talks would have to include a discussion on the role of “international actors and forces”.
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NYT: Deadly Blast Punctures Afghanistan’s Brief Moment of Peace
One of the wounded in Saturday’s attack. Twenty-six people were killed in the blast in the eastern province of Nangarhar.CreditParwiz/Reuters
JALALABAD, Afghanistan — A remarkable thing happened in Afghanistan’s war. There were nearly two days of peace.
As cease-fires by the government and the Taliban took hold, security forces and insurgents celebrated and took pictures together for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
But at one of those celebrations in the eastern province of Nangarhar, an explosion went off Saturday afternoon, killing at least 36 people and wounding more than 65, among them civilians and members of both the Taliban and the Afghan security forces. Officials said it was either a suicide bomber or a car bomb.
Dozens of Afghan troops were being killed every day in the run-up to the cease-fires, raising doubts about whether a sudden cessation of fighting would take hold. But for much of Friday and Saturday, Afghans were happily surprised, stunned even, by how widely the truces had been embraced.
The blast that took casualties from both sides was a reminder of how complex the Afghan war remains. Even the smallest steps to build trust for peace negotiations are vulnerable to spoilers.
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NYT: Their Road to Turkey Was Long and Grueling, but the Short Flight Home Was Crueler
