war crimes times vol. iv no. 2 spring 2012

8/2/2019 War Crimes Times Vol. IV No. 2 Spring 2012

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Vol. IV No. 2 Spring 2012 Donations W

The War Crimes TimesWarCrimesTimes.org

A publiAdvocating

Agitating

Educating

for PEACE

We will end war crimes when we end war which is a crime in itself!

Peace with Iran

Veterans & GIs say: 'No War on Iranby Mike Prysner

The millionaire politicians are at it again, prodded by thin Big Oil and the defense industry, beating the war drumcountry that refuses to bow down to Wall Street.

Its the same old story: Republicans and Democratstargeting yet another independent countrynot-so-coinsitting atop massive oil reservesand rambling on about WMass Destruction that everybody knows dont exist.

Weve just endured 10 years of Washingtons wars fosecurity, which only seem to benefit those who are maki

while on the other hand causing massive bloodshed overseaslack of money for peoples needs here at home.

Like with Iraq, the U.S. governments sanctions, assaand threats of war towards Iran have nothing to do with seor human rights, but what is best for big business in one o

profitable regions in the world.

Regardless of the fact that most people oppose a war wis painfully obvious that the U.S. government acts only in tof the 1%unless they are forced to do otherwise.

We cannot sit back while Wall Street drives another cwar that destroys the lives of millions in the name of proForward! is mobilizing to take action against war with Iraon all our members and supporters to join us.

No war on Iran is a requisite condition for peace, but peace is an ongoing process whose ownrequisites are empathy and understanding. The sages tell us that an enemy is one whose story we haventheard. Sadly, most Americans choose to ignore othersstories, while choosing to hearand believethestories, the tall tales, told by our government leaders and their media.

But the stories of the people of Iran are our stories. They are people like us. Parents in Iran want food,clothing, health care, education, security, and a future for their children; their children want stability andloveand peace.

The cultural story of Iran is ancient. The Persian ancestors of todays Iranians had law and literaturefor centuries while our Northern European predecessors were hunting and gathering their sustenance and,from time to time, clubbing one another. In recent history, for a couple hundred years anyway, Iran hasnot fought a war of aggression. They have attacked no one. Meanwhile, Western countries, led by the

bellicose U.S., have wantonly and repeatedlyattacked other nations at will.

Please take a moment to imagine a rolereversal. Suppose we were the country sufferingsanctions and praying that the worlds militarysuperpower would not attack us. Suppose thatsuperpower had an archipelago of military basesin Canada and in Mexico. Suppose that we were

being threatened for violating laws that, in fact,we were complying with. Suppose that we were

being told by the world powers wielding the biggest clubs that it was unacceptable for us toeven think of acquiring our own club to use as adeterrent to attack.

Once we, as a people, choose empathy andunderstanding over belligerence and arrogance andonce we choose to seek out and listen to othersstories, we will begin to engage in the process of

peace with Iran.

Peace Girl Tehran, Iran

Image by Icy & Sot icyandsot.com

Talking to Iran is the singlemost effective way to prevent war

and prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.Its time for the United States tonegotiate a grand bargain withIran, which would include reach-ing a comprehensive nuclearverification and safeguards agree-ment to ensure full transparencyof Irans nuclear program.

Hasnt diplomacy with Iran

already been tried? Hardly.U.S. and Iranian officials havereportedly spent a grand total of45 minutes in direct, one-on-one

talks in more than 30 years. Thatsingular reported incident of high-

level, U.S. and Iranian bilateraltalks took place during a lunch

break in Geneva, in October2009. After those talks collapsed,rather than pursue further talkswhich is what sustained diplo-macy requiresthe Obamaadministration abandoned itsefforts to engage in robust diplo-macy with Irangrievances

between both sides cannot beginto be resolved until U.S. policy-makers are willing to spend more

than 45 minutes in direct, bilateraltalks with Iran.

Dont Israelis supportattacking Iran? There is a widespectrum of the Israeli militaryand national security establish-ment, as well as the Israeli public,who are opposed to attackingIran. In fact, a February 2012 pollrevealed that only 19% of Israelissaid they would support an Israelimilitary attack on Iran if it is notapproved by the United States.Certainly, there is a broad diver-s i t y (See FCNL on page 17)

Quaker Lobby Calls for Bilateral U.S.-Iran Talks


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The War Crimes Times is produced anddistributed by volunteer members of VeteransFor Peace chapters 69 in San Francisco, CA;099 in Western North Carolina; and 119 in St.

Petersburg, FL.

The War Crimes Times provides information on war andcrimes that invariably accompany war, the need to hold war caccountable, the many costs of war, and the effects of our waron our national character and international reputation. Additionimportantly, we also report on the efforts of the many peopsacrifice their time, money, and comfort to work for peace.

Our contributors include journalists, legal experts, poets, artiveterans speaking from experience. While their views may no

be entirely consistent with ours, their topics address the concWar Crimes Times.

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Donate online at WarCrimesTimes.org;or send a check to VFP Chapter 099 (memo WCT) :

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We welcome submissions of original articles, poetry, artwork, cnews items, and letters to the editor.Please submit by the 1st of the month that the issue is printed:June, September, December.Contact: [email protected]

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Fact: Iran does not possess a nuclear weapon.

Fact: Iran has the right, according to international law,to develop nuclear energy for civilian use.

Fact: Irans nuclear energy program is regularlymonitored by the International Atomic EnergyAgency.

Fact: Iran has never started a war.*

Fact: The United States possesses 10,600 nuclearwarheads in its stockpile, 7,982 of which aredeployed and 2,700 of which are in a contingencystockpile. The total number of nuclear warheads thathave been built from 1951 to present is 67,500.

Fact: The United States is the only country to have everused nuclear weapons. It did so when it incineratedhundreds of thousands of Japanese people living inthe cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Neither cityhad any military significance.

Fact: The United States has spent $7 trillion on nuclearweapons. The U.S. military budget for 2012 aloneis about equal to Irans entire Gross National Product.

Fact: Israel, the largestrecipient of U.S.foreign aid (about $3

billion in 2011),unlike Iran, possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons.

Fact: Israel, unlike Iran, refuses to sign the NuclearNon-Proliferation Treaty, or allow the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into Israel tomonitor its nuclear program.

Fact: There is active discussion in the Israeli mediaabout whether Israel will carry out military strikesagainst Irans nuclear energy facilities. Israel

bombed similar nuclear civilian energy facilities inIraq in 1981 (Operation Babylon) and in Syria in2007 (Operation Orchard).

Fact: The United States and Britain used severeeconomic sanctions and CIA covert operatives tooverthrow the democratically elected governmentof Iran led by Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953.The Iranian government under Mosaddegh hadnationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company(AIOC), which [later] became known as BritishPetroleum (BP), in a campaign to use oil profits toeradicate widespread poverty within Iran. Thesuccessful CIA and British Intelligence coup dtat

put the Shah of Iran (King) back in power. TheShahs dictatorship denationalized Iranian oil andreturned it to the ownership of British and U.S. oil

companies. The Shah executed and tothousands during his 26-year bloody reign, ended in the 1979 revolution that created the IRepublic of Iran.

Fact: The United States broke diplomatic relationIran and has pursued a policy of economic sanagainst the country since the overthrow U.S.-backed Shah (King).

Fact: Irans oil reserves are the fourth largest worldit has 12.7 percent of the worlds knoreserves. That makes Irans oil reserves seconto Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, greatethose of Iraq.

Fact: The new economic sanctions against Iran ia ban on the import, sale and trade of Iraniwhich constitutes half of Irans Gross Na

Product. It forbids any company in the wordoes any business with Iran or its Central Banhaving any trade or economic transaction with

bank or corporation.

Fact: The economic sanctions are an effort to economic suffering in Iran and to depricountry of the goods and services to sustaAccording to international law, these ecosanctions constitute a blockade or an act against Iran even though Iran poses no threat

people of the United States or Europe.

Who is the real

threat to peace?

Afghan Massacre Demonstrates War has Failedby Matt Southworth

As is increasingly evidenced by developments in Afghanistan fromgloomy intelligence reports to the Quran burning to the recent massacreof 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, it is long past time forthe U.S. military to leave that country.

After weeks of tumultuous upheaval, the slaying allegedly by aU.S. Army Staff Sergeant is just the most recent incident underminingU.S. objectives to win hearts and minds. Frankly, that mission has long

been lost.

We are still learning about the Staff Sergeant, a married father oftwo. It appears he was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan a totalof four times. On one of those tours, he suffered a traumatic braininjury (TBI), but was declared fit for duty by the U.S. Army.Afghans would certainly beg to differ. This is also more evidence that

the U.S. military cannot be allowed to deploy troops with diagnosed psychological issuessuch as PostTraumatic Stress or TBIs, a message pushed by a project called Operation Recovery.

The media has tried hard to paint this incident as an isolated deranged U.S. soldier committingmurderthe bad apple theory. While the heinousness of the massacre is seemingly rare, the terror andrage it creates among ordinary Afghans is not. After ten years of this war and some 40 years of conflict,Afghans are endlessly affected by the suffering and violence in their country.

Yet this also alludes to something larger than just the bad apple theory. If I learned one lesson inIraq, it was that violencewhether by us or those resisting our presenceonly caused more violence.Moreover, the violence was accompanied by something worse: the dehumanization of the other. Thathappens on both sides. War doesnt just rob the occupied of their humanity; it robs the occupiers of theirstoo. And this is why humankind cannot continue to wage senseless wars that accomplish nothing butdeath and destruction.

(See WAR HAS FAILED on page 18)

* never in recent history, anyway. The last time wasthe 4th Russo-Persian War of 1826 to 1828. (ed.)


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The War Crimes Times WarCrimesTimes.org Spring 2012

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is testing somuch futuristic detect and destroy weaponrythat it can be called the most advancedall-seeing invasion in military history. From

blanket satellite surveillance to soldiersinfra-red vision to the remotely-guided pho-tographing killer drones to the latest fusedground-based imagery and electronic signalintercepts, the age of robotic land, sea, andair weaponry is at hand.

U.S. and NATO soldiers and contractorsgreatly outnumber the Taliban, whose sandalsand weapons are from the past century. Still,with the most sophisticated arsenals everdeployed, why are U.S. generals saying thatless than 30,000 Taliban fighters, for almosta decade, have fought the U.S. led forces toa draw?

Perhaps one answer can be drawn from aceremony that could be happening in various

places in that tormented country. That is, aJirga of elders awarding a young fighter theJirga medal of honor for courage on the

battlefield, which often happens to be theirvillage or valley.

The chief elder rose to address a wisecircle of villagers. Today we are presentingour beloved Mursi with the revered Jirgamedal of honor for courage beyond the callof duty in rescuing seven of his brotherdefenders from almost certain destruction.The invaders had surrounded our young

brothers at night in the great Helmand gully

with their snipers, gre-nade-launchers, and heli-copter gunships.

It looked like theend--until Mursi started avery smoky fire and

diverted the enemy with afirebomb that startledseveral donkeys into

braying loudly. In the fewseconds absorbed bydiverting the foreignerswho directed their fire-

power in that direction,Mursi led his brothers,two of them wounded,through a large rockcrevice and down anincline that was hiddenfrom view and into a cave covered with bush.For some reason, the occupiers night visionequipment was not working, thanks be toAllah.

The next morning, the enemy had goneaway, provably to start another deadly attack

elsewhere on our people.Before the Jirga awardsyou this ancient symbolof resistance, Mursi, inthe form of a sculpturedshield made of a rarewood, will you say a fewwords to your tribe?

Mursi, a thin-as-a-railtwenty-year-old youth,rose.

I accept this great

honor on behalf ofmy brothers who

escaped with theirlives that terriblenight in Helmand. I

was very scared.The enemy has everything and wehave nothing. They have planes,helicopters, artillery, many sol-diers with equipment that resists

bullets, sees in the dark and pro-vides them with food, water, andmedicine. We only have our oldrifles, some grenades and explo-

sives. They can see us all the way

from America on screens sitting incool rooms where they can pressbuttons and wipe us out withoutour seeing or hearing anything

coming at us. We are all so terri-fied. Especially the children.

We wonder why they are doing thisto us? We never threatened them.They threaten everyone with their

bases, ships, planes, and missiles.I hear that the foreign soldiers askthemselves why are they here, whatare they doing here and for what?

But they are paid well to be here,destroying our country year after

year, though they boast about

building some bridges and diggsome water wells. No thank yo

Go back to your families, you never win because we are figh

to repel you invaders from ancient tribal lands, our hom

Fighting to expel the invaderstronger and more righteous tyour weapons and all your mili

wealth. Even if many of us loselives, we will prevail one day. we will have heaven and they have hell.

A long knowing silence follrooster crowed in the distance. The cthen slowly handed the medal to thhero.

Can the most militarily-powerfuin the world --many of whose pesoldiers are opposed or have seriouabout why we are continuing to pursenseless undeclared wars of aggrecreate more hatred and enemies--lempathy at what those people, who

pummeling, are going through? Pentagon, which doesnt estimatecasualties, let its officials speak about the millions of such casualceased, injured and sickthat haveinnocent Iraqis, Afghanis and Pakis

Will our current crop of politicdates for Congress and the Presidereflect on the wise words of our paalsDwight Eisenhower, George and, earlier, Smedley Butlerabout

and gore, not the glory of war?The eighteenth century words of

tish poet, Robert Burns, rings so wrote:

And would some Power the small gifTo see ourselves as others see us!

It would from many a blunder free u

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate

and author. His most recent booknovelis, Only The Super-Rich Can

His most recent work of non-fictioSeventeen Traditions.

The Jirga Medal of Honor: The Colossal Folly of War in Afghanistanby Ralph Nader

They can see us all

the way from

America on screenssitting in cool rooms

where they can

press buttons and

wipe us out without

our seeing or

hearing anything

coming at us. We

are all so terrified.

Especially the

children.

We wonder why

they are doing this

to us? We never

threatened them.

They threaten

everyone with their

bases, ships,

planes and

missiles.

Jirga of elders from the village of Kalagu in the Zormat deastern Afghanistans Paktia province.

Photo: Andrya Hill, U.S. Army

Despite their sophisticated weaponry like this Predator drone andHellfire missile, the U.S.-led forces have fought to a draw with thesandal-clad Taliban.

One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam,

a sniper round went over my head.

The Vietnamese individual who fired that weaponwas not a insurgent, not a radical fundamentalist,

not a rebel, not a terrorist, or a so-called bad guy.

The person who tried to kill me was a regular

everyday citizen of Vietnam,

who did not want me in His country.

This truth escapes millions.Mike Hastie

U.S. Army MedicVietnam 1970-71


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Lisette Talate died the other day. I remember a wiry,fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with adetermination that was a presence. She was the embodi-ment of peoples resistance to the war on democracy. Ifirst glimpsed her in a 1950s Colonial Office film about

the Chagos islanders, a tiny creole nation living midwaybetween Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean. The camera panned across thriving villages, a church, a school, ahospital, set in a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace.Lisette remembers the producer saying to her and herteenage friends, Keep smiling girls!

Sitting in her kitchen in Mauritius many years later,she said, I didnt have to be told to smile. I was a happychild, because my roots were deep in the islands, my

paradise. My great-grandmother was born there; I madesix children there. Thats why they couldnt legally throwus out of our own homes; they had to terrify us into leavingor force us out. At first, they tried to starve us. The foodships stopped arriving [then] they spread rumors we would

be bombed, then they turned on our dogs.

In the early

1960s, the Laborgovernment ofHarold Wilsonsecretly agreed toa demand fromWashington thatthe Chagos archi-

pelago, a Britishcolony, beswept andsanitized of its2,500 inhabitantsso that a military

base could bebuilt on the prin-cipal island,Diego Garcia.

They knew wewere inseparablefrom our pets,said Lizette,When theAmerican sol-

diers arrived to build the base, they backed their big trucksagainst the brick shed where we prepared the coconuts;hundreds of our dogs had been rounded up and imprisonedthere. Then they gassed them through tubes from thetrucks exhausts. You could hear them crying.

Lisette and her family and hundreds of islanders wereforced on to a rusting steamer bound for Mauritius, adistance of 2,500 miles. They were made to sleep in thehold on a cargo of fertilizer: bird shit. The weather wasrough; everyone was ill; two women miscarried. Dumped

on the docks at Port Louis, Lizettes youngest children,Jollice and Regis, died within a week of each other. Theydied of sadness, she said. They had heard all the talk andseen the horror of what had happened to the dogs. Theyknew they were leaving their home forever. The doctor inMauritius said he could not treat sadness.

This act of mass kidnapping was carried out in highsecrecy. In one official file, under the heading, Maintain-ing the fiction, the Foreign Office legal adviser exhortshis colleagues to cover their actions by re-classifyingthe population as floating and to make up the rules aswe go along. Article 7 of the statute of the InternationalCriminal Court says the deportation or forcible transferof population is a crime against humanity. That Britain

had committed such acrimein exchange for a $14million discount off an Amer-ican Polaris nuclear subma-rinewas not on the agendaof a group of British

defense correspondents flown to the Chagos by theMinistry of Defense when the U.S. base was completed.There is nothing in our files, said a ministry official,about inhabitants or an evacuation.

Today, Diego Garcia is crucial to Americas and

Britains war on democracy. The heaviest bombing of Iraqand Afghanistan was launched from its vast airstrips,

beyond which the islanders abandoned cemetery andchurch stand like archaeological ruins. The terraced gardenwhere Lisette laughed for the camera is now a fortresshousing the bunker-busting bombs carried by bat-shapedB-2 aircraft to targets in two continents; an attack on Iranwill start here. As if to complete the emblem of rampant,criminal power, the CIA added a Guantanamo-style prisonfor its rendition victims and called it Camp Justice.

What was done to Lisettes paradise has an urgent anduniversal meaning, for it represents the violent, ruthlessnature of a whole system behind its democratic facade,and the scale of our own indoctrination to its messianicassumptions, described by Harold Pinter as a brilliant,even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. Longer and

bloodier than any war since 1945, waged with demonic

weapons and a gangsterism dressed as economic policy

and sometimes known as globalization, the war on democ-racy is unmentionable in western elite circles. As Pinterwrote, it never happened even while it was happening.Last July, American historian William Blum published hisupdated summary of the record of U.S. foreign policy.Since the Second World War, the U.S. has:

- Attempted to overthrow more than 50 govern-

ments, most of them democratically-elected;

- Attempted to suppress a populist or national

movement in 20 countries;

- Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at

least 30 countries;

- Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30

countries;

- Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign

leaders.In total, the United States has carried out one or more

of these actions in 69 countries. In almost all cases, Britainhas been a collaborator. The enemy changes in namefrom Communism to Islamismbut mostly it is the riseof democracy independent of western power or a societyoccupying strategically useful territory, deemed expend-able, like the Chagos Islands.

The sheer scale of suffering, let alone criminality, islittle known in the west, despite the presence of the worldsmost advanced communications, nominally freest journal-ism and most admired academy. That the most numerousvictims of terrorismwestern terrorismare Muslims isunsayable, if it is known. That half a million Iraqi infants

died in the 1990s as a result of the embargo imBritain and America is of no interest. Tha

jihadism, which led to 9/11, was nurtured as a western policy (Operation Cyclone) is knownists but otherwise suppressed.

While popular culture in Britain and Americathe Second World War in an ethical bath for tthe holocausts arising from Anglo-American dof resource-rich regions are consigned to oblivthe Indonesian tyrant Suharto, anointed OurThatcher, more than a million people were slDescribed by the CIA as the worst mass mursecond half of the 20th century, the estimatinclude a third of the population of East Timorstarved or murdered with western connivancfighter-bombers, and machine guns.

These true stories are told in declassified fPublic Record Office, yet represent an entire of politics and the exercise of power excluded fconsideration. This has been achieved by a un-coercive information control, from the emantra of consumer advertising to sound-bitenews and now the ephemera of social media.

It is as if writers as watchdogs are extinct, o

to a sociopathic zeitgeist, convinced they are tobe duped. Witness the stampede of sycophandeify Christopher Hitchens, a war lover who lo

allowed to justify the crimes of rapacious poalmost the first time in two centuries, wrEagleton, there is no eminent British poet, playnovelist prepared to question the foundatiowestern way of life. No Orwell warns that we dto live in a totalitarian society to be corrupted bianism. No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blaka vision, no Wilde reminds us that disobedieeyes of anyone who has read history, is man

The world war on democracyby John Pilger

Lisette Talate was swept and sanitizher island of natural beauty and peace way for a military base a crime against h

A Diego Garcian at the time of theU.S. encampment, 1971.

(Source: Geodesy Collection)

Location of Diego Garcia.

(source: CIA world factbook)

A B-1 bomber takes off from Diego Garcia on mission against Afghanistan in 2001 during Op

Enduring Freedom.

(USAF photo)


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virtue. And grievously, no Pinter rages at the warmachine, as in American Football:

Hallelujah.Praise the Lord for all good things...

We blew their balls into shards of dust,Into shards of fucking dust...

Into shards of fucking dust go all the lives blownthere by Barack Obama, the Hopey Changey ofwestern violence. Whenever one of Obamas droneswipes out an entire family in a faraway tribal region

of Pakistan, or Somalia, or Yemen, the Americancontrollers in front of their computer-game screenstype in Bugsplat. Obama likes drones and has

joked about them with journalists. One of his firstactions as president was to order a wave of Predatordrone attacks on Pakistan that killed 74 people. Hehas since killed thousands, mostly civilians; dronesfire Hellfire missiles that suck the air out of thelungs of children and leave body parts festoonedacross scrubland.

Remember the tear-stained headlines whenBrand Obama was elected: momentous, spine-tingling: the Guardian. The American future,wrote Simon Schama, is all vision, numinous,unformed, light-headed ... The San FranciscoChronicles columnist saw a spiritual lightworker[who can] usher in a new way of being on the

planet. Beyond the drivel, as the great whistle- blower Daniel Ellsberg had predicted, a militarycoup was taking place in Washington, and Obamawas their man.

Having seduced the anti-war movement intovirtual silence, he has given Americas corruptmilitary officer class unprecedented powers of state

and engagement. These include the prospect of warsin Africa and opportunities for provocations againstChina, Americas largest creditor and new enemyin Asia. Under Obama, the old source of official

paranoia Russia, has been encircled with ballisticmissiles and the Russian opposition infiltrated.Military and CIA assassination teams have beenassigned to 120 countries; long planned attacks onSyria and Iran beckon a world war. Israel, theexemplar of U.S. violence and lawlessness by proxy,has just received its annual pocket money of $3

billion together with Obamas permission to stealmore Palestinian land.

Obamas most historic achievement is to bringthe war on democracy home to America. On NewYears Eve, he signed the National Defense Autho-rization Act (NDAA), a law that grants the Pentagonthe legal right to kidnap both foreigners and U.S.citizens and indefinitely detain, interrogate andtorture, or even kill them. They need only associ-ate with those belligerent to the United States.There will be no protection of law, no trial, no legalrepresentation. This is the first explicit legislationto abolish habeus corpus (the right to due processof law) and effectively repeal the Bill of Rights of1789.

On January 5, in an extraordinary speech at thePentagon, Obama said the military would not only

be ready to secure territory and populationsoverseas but to fight in the homeland and provide

support to the civil authorities. In other words,U.S. troops will be deployed on the streets ofAmerican cities when the inevitable civil unresttakes hold.

America is now a land of epidemic poverty and barbaric prisons: the consequence of a marketextremism which, under Obama, has prompted thetransfer of $14 trillion in public money to criminalenterprises in Wall Street. The victims are mostlyyoung jobless, homeless, incarcerated African-

Americans, betrayed by the first black president.The historic corollary of a perpetual war state, thisis not fascism, not yet, but neither is it democracyin any recognizable form, regardless of the placebo

politics that will consume the news until November.The presidential campaign, says the WashingtonPost, will feature a clash of philosophies rooted indistinctly different views of the economy. This is

patently false. The circumscribed task of journalismon both sides of the Atlantic is to create the pretense

of political choice where there is none.

The same shadow is across Britain and much ofEurope where social democracy, an article of faithtwo generations ago, has fallen to the central bankdictators. In David Camerons big society, thetheft of 84 billion pounds in jobs and services evenexceeds the amount of tax legally avoided by

piratical corporations. Blame rests not with the farright, but a cowardly liberal political culture that hasallowed this to happen, which, wrote Hywel Wil-liams in the wake of the attacks on 9/11, can itself

be a form of self-righteous fanaticism. Tony Blairis one such fanatic. In its managerial indifference tothe freedoms that it claims to hold dear, bourgeois

Blair-ite Britain has created a surveillance state with3,000 new criminal offenses and laws: more thanfor the whole of the previous century. The policeclearly believe they have an impunity to kill. At thedemand of the CIA, cases like that of BinyamMohamed, an innocent British resident tortured andthen held for five years in Guantanamo Bay, will bedealt with in secret courts in Britain in order to

protect the intelligence agenciesthe torturers.

This invisible state allowed the Blair governmentto fight the Chagos islanders as they rose from theirdespair in exile and demanded justice in the streetsof Port Louis and London. Only when you takedirect action, face to face, even break laws, are youever noticed, said Lisette. And the smaller youare, the greater your example to others. Such aneloquent answer to those who still ask, What canI do?

I last saw Lisettes tiny figure standing in drivingrain alongside her comrades outside the Houses ofParliament. What struck me was the enduringcourage of their resistance. It is this refusal to giveup that rotten power fears, above all, knowing it isthe seed beneath the snow.

John Pilger is a journalist and an award-winningdocumentary film-maker. His latest film is TheWar You Don't See. This article was reprinted

from www.johnpilger.com with his permission.

You wonder where it is all leading to.You wonder how much longer thePolice State is going to get away with everythi

The innocence of youth in America isgetting more and more disillusionedwith the future of their lives.

Eventually, that innocent face will turnto hopeless resentments that will nolonger trust any generation that came before t

"The Road," is becoming more traveled.America has become the thousand-yard stare.The U.S. Propaganda State has become high oeverything.

The most profound realization I had whenI came back from Vietnam, was that I wasthe enemy in Vietnam.

I was still young then, but that innocent face I tVietnam was battered and beaten by the previogeneration of Americans who said they loved m

That political incest betrayal took me toa padded cell nine years after I got backfrom Vietnam.

When I went back to Vietnam in 1994 tomake amends to the Vietnamese people,I found my soul again.

I followed my path, and it led to the truth.I was born in America, but my heart isVietnamese.

The youth in America will have to find their

way back home, and that path will force themto become a citizen of the world.

It is the last thing the political elite in Americawant them to discover.

Betrayal is like having a lifelong mentor turn oand become your worst enemy.That enemy still lives inside of you, and in ordesurvive, you have to outgrow thelies that once defined your life.

Mike Hastie, Army Medic ViFebruary 10

Photograph by Mike Hastie Taken at a demonstration nThe White House in D.C. September 2005

The Face of Youth Being Arrested in

Obama said the military would not only be ready to secure territory

and populations overseas but to fight in the homeland and provide

support to the civil authorities. In other words, U.S. troops will be

deployed on the streets of American cities when the inevitable civil

unrest takes hold.


6/20


The CIAs drone campaign in Pakistanhas killed dozens of civilians who had goneto help rescue victims orwere attendingfunerals, an investigation by The Bureauof Investigative Journalism for theLondonSunday Times has revealed.

The findings were published just daysafter President Obama claimed that thedrone campaign in Pakistan was a tar-geted, focused effort that has not causeda huge number of civilian casualties.

Speaking publicly for the first time onthe controversial CIA drone strikes [duringan online town hall discussion in lateJanuary], Obama claimed they are usedstrictly to target terrorists, rejecting whathe called this perception were justsending in a whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly.

Drones have not caused a huge numberof civilian casualties, he told a questionerat an on-line forum. This is a targeted,focused effort at people who are on a list

of active terrorists trying to go in and harmAmericans.

Butresearch by the Bureau hasfoundthat since Obama took office in January,2009, between 282 and 535 civilians have

been credibly reported as killed, includingmore than 60 children. A three monthinvestigation including eye witness reportshas found evidence that at least 50 civilianswere killed in follow-up strikes when theyhad gone to help victims. More than 20civilians have also been attacked in delib-erate strikes on funerals and mourners. Thetactics have been condemned by leadinglegal experts.

Although the drone attacks were started

under the Bush administration in 2004, theyhave been stepped up enormously underObama.

There have been 260 attacks byunmanned Predators or Reapers in Pakistan

by Obamas administrationaveragingone every four days. Because the attacks

are carried out by the CIA, no informationis given on the numbers killed.

Administration officials insist that thesecovert attacks are legal. John Brennan, the

presidents top counter-terrorism adviser,argues that the U.S. has the right to unilat-erally strike terrorists anywhere in theworld, not just what he called hot battle-fields.

Because we are engaged in an armedconflict with al-Qaeda, the United Statestakes the legal position that, in accordancewith international law, we have the author-

ity to take action against al-Qaeda and itsassociated forces, he told a conference atHarvard Law School last year. The UnitedStates does not view our authority to usemilitary force against al-Qaeda as beingrestricted solely to hot battlefields likeAfghanistan.

State-sanctioned extra-judicial

executions

But some international law specialistsfiercely disagree, arguing that the strikesamount to little more than state-sanctionedextra-judicial executions and questioninghow the U.S. government would react if

another state such as China or Russiastarted taking such action against thosethey declare as enemies.

The first confirmed attack on rescuerstook place in North Waziristan on May 16,2009. According to Mushtaq Yusufzai, alocal journalist, Taliban militants had gath-

ered in the village of Khaisor. After prayingat the local mosque, they were preparing tocross the nearby border into Afghanistanto launch an attack on U.S. forces. But theU.S. struck first.

A CIA drone fired its missiles into theTaliban group, killing at least a dozen

people. Villagers joined surviving Talibanas they tried to retrieve the dead and injured.

But as rescuers clambered through thedemolished house the drones struck again.Two missiles slammed into the rubble,

killing many more. At least 29 people diedin total.

We lost very trained and sincerefriends, a local Taliban commander toldThe News, a Pakistani newspaper. Someof them were very senior Taliban com-manders and had taken part in successfulactions in Afghanistan. Bodies of most ofthem were beyond recognition.

For the Americans the attack was asuccess. A surprise tactic had resulted inthe deaths of many Taliban. But locals saythat six ordinary villagers also died thatday, identified by Bureau field researchersas Sabir, Ikram, Mohib, Zahid, Mashal andSyed Noor (most people in the area useonly one name).

Yusufzai, who reported on the attack,says those killed in the follow-up strikewere trying to pull out the bodies, to helpclear the rubble, and take people to hospi-tal. The impact of drone attacks onrescuers has been to scare people off, hesays: Theyve learnt that something willhappen. No one wants to go close to thesedamaged building anymore.

The legal view

Naz Modirzadeh, Associate Director ofthe Program on Humanitarian Policy andConflict Research (HPCR) at HarvardUniversity, said killing people at a rescuesite may have no legal justification.

Not to mince words here, if it is not ina situation of armed conflict, unless it fallsinto the very narrow area of imminentthreat then it is an extra-judicial execution,she said. We dont even need to get to thenuance of whos who, and are people therefor rescue or not. Because each death isillegal. Each death is a murder in that case.

The Khaisoor incident was not a one-off. Between May 2009 and June 2011, atleast fifteen attacks on rescuers werereported by credible news media, including

the New York Times, CNN, APress, ABC News and Al Jazeer

It is notoriously difficult forto operate safely in Pakistans trBoth militants and the militarythreaten journalists. Yet for threteam of local researchers has beindependent confirmation of the

Eyewitness accounts

The researchers have foundindependently-sourced evidencians killed in ten of the reportedrescuers. In five other reported aresearchers found no evidencrescuerscivilians or otherwise

The researchers were told bthat strikes on rescuers began aMarch 2008, although no medreports at the time. The Bureau testimony relating to nine additdents.

Often when the U.S. attack

in Pakistan, the Taliban seals oand retrieves the dead. But an exof thousands of credible reports CIA drone strikes also showsreferences to civilian rescuersoften exhort villagers to come fohelp, for exampleparticularlyattacks that mistakenly kill civil

Other tactics are also raisingOn June 23, 2009, the CIA killWali Mehsud, a mid-rankingTaliban commander. They planhis body as bait to hook a larBaitullah Mehsud, then the leader of the Pakistan Taliban.

A plan was quickly hatche

Baitullah Mehsud when he attmans funeral, according to WPost national security corresponWarrick, in his recent book TAgent. True, the commanderto be very much alive as the shape. But he would not be for l

The CIA duly killed KhMehsud in a drone strike that kilfive others. Speaking with thPulitzer Prize-winner Warrick what his U.S. intelligence sourcehim: The initial target was ntarget anyway, as it was describas someone that they were intAnd as they were planning thi

possible windfall from that is th

shake Mehsud himself out of place.

Up to 5,000 people attendWali Mehsuds funeral that including not only Taliban fimany civilians.U.S. drones strkilling up to 83 people. As many civilians, among them reportedldren and four tribal leaders. TaliBaitullah Mehsud escaped udying six weeks later along witin a fresh CIA attack.

Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funeralsby Chris Woods and Christina Lamb

Predator drone (indicated by arrow) keeps watch over Afghanistan

Photo by Todd Huffman

The U.S. claims the drones are a vital tool that has helped

them almost wipe out the leadership of al Qaeda in

Pakistan. But others point out they have stoked enormous

anti-American sentiment in a country with an arsenal of

200 nuclear weapons.


7/20


Clive Stafford-Smith, the lawyer whoheads the Anglo-U.S. legal charityReprieve, believes that such strikes arelike attacking the Red Cross on the battle-field. Its not legitimate to attack anyonewho is not a combatant.

Christof Heyns, a South African law professor who is United Nations SpecialRapporteur on Extra-judicial Executions,agrees. Allegations of repeat strikescoming back after half an hour whenmedical personnel are on the ground arevery worrying, he said. To target civil-ians would be crimes of war. Heyns iscalling for an investigation into theBureaus findings.

One of the most devastating attackstook place on March 17 last year, the dayafter Pakistan had released American CIAcontractor Raymond Davis, jailed forshooting dead two men in Lahore. Davis

had been held for two months and wasreleased after the payment of blood moneysaid to be around $2.3 million.

A case of retaliation?

The Agency was said to be furious atthe affair. The following day when amassive drone strike killed up to 42 peoplegathered at a meeting in North Waziristan,Pakistani officials believed it to be retalia-tion.

The commander of Pakistan forces inthe area at the time was Brigadier AbdullahDogar. He admits that in drone attacks ingeneral people invariably get reported asinnocent bystanders. But in that case hehas no doubt. I was sitting there where our

friends say they were targeting terroristsand I know they were innocent people, hesaid.

The mountains in the area containchromite mines and the ownership wasdisputed between two tribes, so a Jirga or

tribal meetinghad been calledto resolve theissue.

We in thePakistan militaryknew about themeeting, hesaid, wed gotthe request tendays earlier.

It was heldin broad day-light, peoplewere sitting outin Nomada busdepot when themissile strikescame. Maybethere were one ortwo Taliban atthat Jirgathey

have their people attendingbut does thatjustify a drone strike which kills 42 mostlyinnocent people?

Drones may make tactical gains but Idont see how theres any strategic advan-

tage, he added. When innocent people

die, then youre creating a whole lot morepeople with an issue.

Growing tension

Drone attacks have long been a sourceof tension between the U.S. and Pakistan

despite the fact that the Pakistan govern-ment gave tacit agreement, even allowingthem to fly from Shamsi airbase in thewestern province of Baluchistan, while

publicly denouncing the attacks. In returnthe U.S. made sure that some of the terror-ists killed were those targeting Pakistan.

However the relationship has beenstretched to breaking point, first with theraid to kill Osama bin Laden in May andsubsequent U.S. accusations of Pakistanicomplicity, then the NATO bombing of aPakistani post in November, killing 24soldiers. In December, Pakistan ordered theCIA to vacate the Shamsi base. For a whiledrone attacks stopped but they haveresumed.

The U.S. claims the drones are a vitaltool that has helped them almost wipe outthe leadership of al Qaeda in Pakistan. Butothers point out they have stoked enormousanti-American sentiment in a country withan arsenal of 200 nuclear weapons.

Peter Singer, director of the21st Century Initiative at the BrookingsInstitution, points out the operation hasnever been debated in Congress, which hasto approve sending U.S. forces to war.

So dramatic is the switch to unmannedwar that he says the U.S. now has 7,000drones operating and 12,000 more on theground, while not a single new mannedcombat aircraft is under research or devel-opment at any western aerospace company.

After a remarkable lack of debate, thereis starting to be unease in the U.S. at thelack of transparency and accountability inthe use of drones particularly as the cam-

paign has expanded to hit targets in Libya,Yemen, and Somalia and until recently to

patrol the skies in Iraq.

Three U.S. citizens were killed bymissiles fired from drones in Yemen lastSeptember. Anwar al Awlaqi, an alleged alQaeda operative, was deliberately targetedin what some have described as the U.S.governments first ever execution of oneof its own citizens without trial. His col-league and fellow citizen Samir Khan alsodied in the attack. Two weeks later,

Awlaqis 16-year-old son Abdulrahman

died in a strike on alleged al Qaeda mili-tants.

Such unmanned war is a politiciansdream, avoiding the inconvenience ofsending someones son or daughter,

mother, or father, into harms way.The fact that the operations are carried

out by the CIA rather than the U.S. militaryenables the administration to evade ques-tions. The Agency press office responds to

media inquiries on the subjeccomment and refusal to give those killed or who are on the ta

Until Obamas comments [inthe White House would not evethe program existed.

We dont discuss classifiedor comment on alleged strikesenior administration official into the findings presented by th

Times.Lawsuit

The ACLU filed a lawsuit [on1] demanding the Obama admrelease legal and intelligence recokilling of the three U.S. citizens

Privately some senior U.Sofficers say they are extremely uable at the way the administratioing out these operations usingwhich is not covered by laws of Geneva Convention.

The use of drones outside awar zone is seen by many legal setting a dangerous precedent. Aallies such as Israel, Britain, an

other countries have drone teincluding China, Russia, and Pakrecently captured a downed U.S

Heyns, the UN rapporteurinternational legal framework ineeded to govern their use.

Our concern is how far dowill the whole world be a theatrhe asked. Drones in principle lateral damage to be minimized bthey can be used without dacountrys own troops they tend more widely. One doesnt want term ticking bomb but its seductive.

The Bureau of Investigative J

(http://www.thebureauinvestigawhere this article first appear

independent, not-for-profit orgthat carries out research in tinterest.

After a remarkable lack of debate, there is starting to be

unease in the U.S. at the lack of transparency and

accountability in the use of drones particularly as the

campaign has expanded to hit targets in Libya, Yemen,

and Somalia and until recently to patrol the skies in Iraq.

"He pretty much said he can kill anyone he wants."member of the audience of Northwestern University Law students

after Attorney General Eric Holders recent speech justifying drone attacksas reported by Joe Scarry.

Sailors maneuver drone during training exercise

(US Navy photo)

HECUBA* IN VIET NAM

Hecuba: Greeks! Your strength is in your spears, not in the min--Euripides, The Trojan W

All your strength, America, is in your bombs!What were your eagles are now carriers of death.Strange loves twitch in your sermons.

What fear turns you to this terror?--to drive people into trenches and tunnels, to poison their land.

What fear makes you kill the children of Viet Nam so savagely?pounding them to bits with your bombs.What shame! To crush down the weak, to force them under the e(Little Astyanax could at least ascend to the tall walls of Troyand gaze at his City for a moment, nobly, before the terrible plun

The wail of Hecuba is rising against you, Americarising from the wounded throats of Viet Namese mothersLet the faces of underground children shine in the sun!

Thanasis Maskaleris

* Hecuba, queen of Troy, endured the pain of watching her citysacked and her children, including the hero Hector, slaughteredvictorious Greeks threw Hector's son, Astyanax, from the top of city wall to preempt future retribution of his part.


8/20


A discussion of nuclear weaponry canquickly become confusing, not because ofthe complexity of the technology, but

because of the absurdity of the strategic justification for stockpiling hoards ofatomic bombs. Take deterrence, forexample. Deterrence embodies the notionthat your enemy is so irrational that hewould seriously consider launching anattack that would effectively destroy anation and its people, yet is rational enoughto understand that in doing so he submitshis own nation to the same fate.

The current posturing and saber-rattlingover Irans nuclear intentions is absurd aswell. Heres a nation that hasnt attackedanother country in two hundred years being

badgered by belligerent nations, led by theU.S. and Israel, that already have vaststores of nukes and routinely make war onother non-nuclear nations. These belliger-ents demand that Iran not do what theyvealready done. President Obama, in his Stateof the Union address made it clear: Letthere be no doubt: America is determinedto prevent Iran from getting a nuclear

weapon, and I willtake no optionsoff the table to

achieve that goal.With allpossi-

ble options on thetable, heres whatId like to hear thePresident saynext: Well setthe example for asafe, secure,nuclear-weapons-free world by dis-arming Americafirst!

While its anoption not likelyto be exercised,

its the one thathas the bestchance of stop-

ping the prolifer-ation of nuclearweapons through-out the world. Thisis, in essence, thec o n c l u s i o nreached by Com-mander RobertGreen in SecurityWithout Nuclear

Deterrence. Thedifference is thathis more prag-matic approach

calls for GreatBritain to disarmfirst. Then, giventhe anti-nuclearattitude ofEurope, Francewould feel pres-sure to disarm.

Next Russia andthe U.S. wouldstand down theirnuclear forcesand that would

al lowf o r

negotia-

tions to begin ona Nuclear

W e a p o n sConvention

which wouldprovide the comprehensive, enforceable

plan for going to zero nuclear weapons.

Green is no idle dreamer. As a naviga-tor-bombardier in a nuclear strike jetsquadron in 1969, his assigned target wasa military airfield near St. Petersburg; forthree years his task was to be ready todeliver a ten kiloton free fall nuclear bombto detonate above the target. Later, he wasassigned to an aircraft-carrier-based heli-copter which was prepared to drop nuclear

depth-bombs on Soviet nuclear subma-rines. Due to the enormity of the blast andthe lack of speed of his aircraft, this was asuicide mission. About this time Greencame to realize not only that nuclearweapons were militarily useless, but thatthe full consequences of their use had not

been thought through.

Promoted to Commander and assignedto a staff position in London, he observedthe machinations of the nuclear lobby

promoting its agenda to the British govern-ment and military. Despite his experience,it was well after he left the military in1982, and well after he took up the cam-

paign against nuclear energy in 1986, that

Green began opposing nuclear weapons. Itwas the 1990-91 Gulf War that broke himout of the brainwashing that had sustainedhis belief in nuclear weapons. He realizedhow close Israel came to retaliating forIraqs Scud missile attacks with a nuclearstrike against Baghdadan event whichlikely would trigger a much broader con-flagration, and provide one more exampleof the failure of the nuclear deterrencerationale. Since then Commander Greenhas joined the legion of veterans, formermilitary insiders, who are outspoken intheir active opposition to destructiveforeign policies.

In Security Without Nuclear Deter-rence, Commander Green describes his

personal journey before launching into adetailed history of the progression of pro-liferation, as one nation after anotheracquired nuclear destructive capability.This is a story of pathos: an accountchronicling the struggles and intrigues thatoccurred within and among nations, strug-gles in which the worst qualities of human-itypride, fear, mistrust, arrogance, andlust for powerultimately overcame the

best.

For example, India, inspired by thenonviolent legacy of Gandhi, repeatedly

called for total elimination of aweapons. Then, slowly caving tceived need to keep up with Chstan, and the other nuclear nationinfluence in their region, thdeveloping nuclear explosive enfor peaceful purposes. Marchrival Pakistan was being prethe U.S. to not develop a nugramuntil the Soviets invadedstan and the U.S. needed P

cooperation to arm the MujahPakistan moved forward witweapons development, India, evits border adversary, did as welong, both had tested nuclear we

joined the unholy club.

But not all nations succumb machinations of keeping up nuclear Joneses. There are glihope and signs of sanity. Almossouthern hemisphere has establisar-weapons-free zones in whichcommit themselves not to maacquire, test, or possess nuclearWhats more, New Zealand sto1987 to become the first Wesstate to reject nuclear deterren

security. These are countries threcognize the heavy economic bthe opportunity costs of nuclear they realize that the weapons thare inherently immoral and illeg

Green writes: Nuclear dentails a fundamental moral dusing the most immoral means ito achieve what governments ostates claim are the most moral Cold War mindset required the cthe morally bogus concept of a rent by those who believed tsave themselves by threatening

potentially all civilization and ecosystem of the planet. Such a

was necessary in order to mask that nuclear weapons are thenegation of the principle of prop

between means and ends that acharacterize international politic

Proportionality is not justconcept; it is also a principle otional humanitarian law closelydistinction (between combatantsians).

International humanitarian lawthe provision that Parties to shall at all times distinguish becivilian population and comborder to spare civilian popul

property. Neither the civilian as such nor civilian persons shobject of attack. Attacks shall bsolely against military objective

Principle VI of the Nurembnal of 1950 defines crimes agaas Planning, preparation, initwaging of a war of aggression oviolation of international treatiments or assurances or Partica common plan or conspiracaccomplishment of any of the tioned [above].

(Continued

Nuclear Deterrence: Insane, Immoral, and Illegalby Kim Carlyle

INDEPENDENCE FROM NUCLEAR TERRORISM

Above: Judith Hallock (2nd from left) with Oak Ridge EnvironmentalPeace Alliance (OREPA) colleagues holding banner on July 5, 2010just before being arrested for blocking the entrance to the Y12 Nuclear

Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, TN; Below: With co-defendants andfull banner display outside the courthouse in Anderson County, TNfollowing her arrest. (Photos by Ralph Hutchinson)

Present

This book review was first assigned to Judith Hallock, whohad just joined the WCTteam and had visions of expandingour distribution. Shortly after she received the book, she wasdiagnosed with brain cancer and was unable to complete thetask. Judith was a co-founder of the Oak Ridge EnvironmentalPeace Alliance (OREPA) in 1988 and for 23 years set anexample that led many others to find their way to resist thescourge of nuclear weapons. She established the tradition ofcivil resistance in Oak Ridge, being among the first people everarrested in a nonviolent action for peace at the Y12 nuclearweapons plant. Judith died on Friday, January 13, 2012

we can be tranquil and thankful and proud,For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud.

And we know for certain that some lovely day,Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.

The Merry Minuet, Sheldon Harnick, 1958


9/20


J. Robert Oppenheimer, ScientificDirector of the Manhattan Project, saidon the dropping of the atomic bombonHiroshima. I remembered the linefrom the Hindu scripture, theBhagavad-Gita, Now I am become Death, thedestroyer of worlds.

Chilling ironies surely do not comemuch greater than this. The Nobel PeacePrize winning President of the UnitedStates, in an election year, has contrib-uted to global instability and the possi-

bility of nuclear conflict to such anextent that the Doomsday Clock wasmoved to five minutes tomidnight onJanuary 10, 2012.

The forward-creeping hands of the

symbolic clock, maintained since 1947by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistsat the University of Chicago, indicatewe are closer to global catastrophe thanwe have been at any time in the last 26years, with the exception of 2007, whenthe hands were similarly set under thegung-ho presidency of George W.Bush.

What a world away from ObamasJune 2009 speech at Egypts Al AzharUniversity, where he declared he was inCairo to seek a new beginning betweenthe United States and Muslims roundthe world (and to) share toleranceanddignity.

Obama asserted: There must be a

sustained effort to listen to each other,to learn from each other, to respect oneanother and to seek common ground the interests we share as human beingsare far more powerful then the forcesthat drive usapart.

Tell that to the bereaved, maimed,homeless Libyans, Iraqis, Afghans, theU.S.-menaced people of Syria, over onethird who are age fourteen or under. Tellit to the annihilation-threatened Iranian

population, of whom nearly a quarterare also children. This is the same Iranwhich, so demonized, generously hostsone of the largest refugee populationsin the world (at a cost of ten milliondollars a day, according to 1999UNHCR figures).

Tell it to the droned and blown(away) of Pakistan, Yemen,and Soma-lia.

A sustained effort to listen hasbeen largely denied the untried, incar-cerated, abused, and tortured in Bagramand Guantanamos gulags of ourtimes, as much during the Obama

presidency as the yearsbefore.

The Doomsday Clock is only threeminutes behind the two minutes to

midnight in1 9 5 3 t h emost apoca-lyptic yeareverwhen

both theU.S. andSoviet Union tested thermo-nucleardevices within nine months of eachother.

But back to the ticking atomic clock.Alarmingly, the furthest from mid-night it has ever been is seventeenminutes, on July 31, 1991, when theU.S., under George H. W. Bush, andthen Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gor-

bachev, signed the Strategic Arms

Reduction Treaty. This was a hearteningseven minute leap from the ten to mid-night of 1990, even in spite of the32-nation war on Iraq after the invasionof Kuwait. The Berlin Wall had, how-ever, fallen and the Cold War seemedto beending.

In 1963 and 1972, both years ofseemingly groundbreaking arms limita-

tion treaties between the U.S. and SovietUnion, the clock remained at tenminutes tomidnight.

Even when India tested a nucleardevice, and the U.S. and Soviet Union

both modernized their destructivepotential in 1974, the clock stood fourminutes further away from annihilationthan in Obamas age at nine minutestomidnight.

19,000 nuclear weapons

As the United States aircraft carriers,Carl Vinson andJohn C. Stennis, bris-tling with nuclear weapons and twitchytestosterone-fuelled troops, steam Iran-wards to either bomb nuclear installa-tions with the danger of a potentialnuclear winter or bomb to keep theStraits of Hormuz open for one-fifth ofthe worlds oil supplies, the clock is justtwo minutes back from when the SovietUnion tested its first atomic bomb in

1947, officially starting the nuarmsrace.

It is only three minutes btwo minutes to midnight apocalyptic ever of 1953, the U.S. and Soviet Union temonuclear devices within niof eachother.

There are about 19,00weapons in the world, accord

Science and Security Boardenough to blow up the Earth mover. We are really in a picKennette Benedict, Executivof the Bulletin of the Atomic of their latest clockchange.

Recognizing our commoity is only the beginning of said President Obama, in Casome believed his Yes we c

peace and a new dawn for andhumanity.

No system of governmeshould be imposed by one natother, he went on. Its easwars than to end them. It

see what is different about somto find the things we shareshould choose the right path, neasy path. Theres one rule the heart of every religionunto others as we would havuntous.

This truth transcends n peoples a belief that isntisnt black or white or brownChristian or Muslim or Jew. Ithat pulsed in the cradle of ciand that still beats in the

billions around the world. Itother people, and its what bhere today, heconcluded.

Indeed. Beware of bearing Nobel Peace Prizeta

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journ

special knowledge of Iraq, which she has visited thirty tthe 1991 Gulf war. She has bnated for a number of awarcoverage of Iraq and was also

ator at the 2003 World Weapons Conference. This aappeared on the New Interwebsite (www.newint.org) reprinted with her permission

Doomsday Clock: five

minutes tomidnightBy Felicity Arbuthnot

USS John C. Stennis, bristling withnuclear weapons.

(U.S. Navy photo)

It follows then, that even the preparation(through manufacture and stockpiling) for the useof nuclear weapons, which by their very nature areindiscriminate in destruction, is illegal since theycould only be used in a war in violation ofinternational treaties, agreements or assurances.

So, nuclear deterrence is insane, immoral, andillegal. But there is a way out. Despite the naysayersreasoning that we cant un-acquire the bomb,Green sees a precedent with the abolition of slavery.

He draws several parallels between the slave tradeand nuclear weapons and notes similar justifica-tions by their proponents: nuclear weapons are anecessary evil, cost-effective, not against thelaw, and anyway there is no alternative. Thesewere the slavers arguments condoned by the mainchurches.

Nonetheless, slavery was brought to its end bya small group of committed campaigners whofocused on the illegality of slavery.

Illegality, therefore, should be the focus of thefew, but dedicated, anti-nuke campaigners. To evenkeep nuclear weapons in storage is already a crimeagainst humanity.

Kim Carlyle is the War Crimes Times editor-in-chief.

From the pages ofSecurity Without Nuclear Deterrence:

Christchurch, NZ: Astron Media & Disarmament & Security Centre;2010; 272 pages

nuclear weapons are terror devices that combinethe poisoning horrors of chemical and biologicalweapons, plus inter-generational effects unique toradioactivity, with almost unimaginable explosiveviolence.

Nuclear deterrence is the ultimate expression of thephilosophy of terrorism: holding humanity hostageto the presumed security needs of a few.

Rajiv Gandhi,speaking at the UN Special Session

on Disarmament in 1988

Nuclear deterrence is neither reliable nor sta-ble, as claimed by proponents. It has not preventednon-nuclear states from invading countries alliedto nuclear weapons states.Nor have nucleararmed states been constrained from mobilizing forwar with each other

The entire world knows that Israel has a hugewarehouse of nuclear, biological, and chemicalweapons, and that it serves as the cornerstone for

the nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In Israel,there is frequent mention of the Iranian and Iraqidanger, while ignoring the fact that it was Israelthat introduced nuclear weapons to the Middle Eastin the first place, and created the legitimacy for

other states in the region to obtain nuclear weapons.

Issam Makhoul, Knesset member, 2000

The most formidable obstacle to starting negotia-tions for a Nuclear Weapons Convention is adeep-rooted U.S. preference for autonomy in inter-national affairs. Historically, U.S. support formultilateral institutions has been directly propor-tionate to their acquiescence in endorsing U.S.global interests and policies.


10/20

10 Spring 2012 The War Crimes Times WarCrimes

Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign ofstrength. H. H. Dalai Lama

It was a very powerful moment for me at the WarRemnants Museum in Saigon, says Vietnam combatveteran Peter Winnen, when you opened the Winter2012 War Crimes Times to the Vietnamese children's artlayout. Peter was one of a dozen veterans, their spouses,

war widows and activists on the 11th annual Healing andReconcil ia t ionJourney to Viet

Nam led by EdTick and KateDahlstedt of Sol-diers Heart.

The missionof the War Rem-nants Museum,according toMuseum DirectorMadame Van, isto spread andteach peace bydocumenting theterrible truthsabout war. We

stood in thegallery housing adisplay of Chil-drens Paintings on War and Peace that has been animportant educational project of the museum for a decade.Every year, the War Remnants Museum invites paintingson war and peace by Vietnamese children ages five tofifteen. Tens of thousands of paintings are submitted andthe museum displays them on a rotating basis. After the

painful exhibition on what the Vietnamese call the Amer-ican War, this exhibit soothes hearts and provides hopefor the future. Many paintings are about Agent Orangedisabilities in families and communities. But about 70%of the paintings are about peace. Some show Vietnameseand American soldiers and children dancing together.

Paintings from this exhibit are now on tour in theUnited States in a project

co-sponsored by the WarRemnants Museum, SoldiersHeart, and the Wick PoetryCenter and Art Department ofKent State University. Someof these were featured on thecover and centerfold of thewinter issue of the WarCrimes Times.

The bald truth featuredin that layout, Peter Winnencontinues, surrounded bydozens and dozens of hand-drawn, children's war-art onthe walls behind you, formeda vivid surrounding for

bearing witness to thedeformed bodies, but unbro-ken spirits, of the AgentOrange victims' band who

performed so beautifully forus. They were my first face-to-face acknowledgement ofour obscene atrocity, our warcrime, that persists geneti-cally into a fourth generation of Vietnamese and my fellowAmerican veterans and their families.

Soldiers Heart has been leading healing journeys toViet Nam since 2000. On these journeys, Americanveterans and activists meet with their Vietnamese counter-

parts. We hold veteran reconciliation groups in whichformer foes meet, forgive and hug. We visit poor commu-nities, orphanages, Agent Orange centers, and other sites

of ongoing war

wounding andgive philan-thropic service.We visit old AOvictims and doceremony aimedat healing warwounds for allvictims. And wenetwork withV i e t n a m e s eorganizations forreconcil ia t ionand mutualhealing of every-

bodys wounds.

Our last tripoccurred duringJanuary and Feb-ruary 2012. We

went during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, to share thissacred holiday with the Vietnamese and transform itsmeaning for American vets who had endured the TetOffensive.

Soldiers Heart has been networking and conferringwith Vietnamese organizations for years. On our journeyswe meet with everyone we can who was touched by thewar and bring both Vietnamese and American experiencesinto one. As our friend and Viet Cong veteran Tam Tien,who hosts us in the Mekong Delta, says, From now onVietnamese and American veterans must be the lips andtongue of the same mouth telling the world the same story.

The War Crimes Times helped to tell that story andmake it one. We carried a stack of 50 copies and distrib-uted it all over Viet Nam, especially to veterans, scholars,

officials and activists working for peace and recfrom the Vietnamese side. In addition to beindozens of veterans and influential individualsCrimes Times is now in the hands of:

Dai Nam University

National Youth Theater

University of Social Sciences and Humanit

Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent

Viet Nam U.S. Society

Viet Nam Union of Friendship OrganizationVeterans Association of Viet Nam

War Remnants Museum

In every case, Vietnamese from the ordinpowerful expressed great interest, respect, andtion to Veterans for Peace for publicizing the

plights from war wounds and efforts to heal and They proudly held up the display of their c

paintings. They declared their love of peacewith American veterans and mutual desire for hall. And they thanked Veterans for Peace for cto advocate for Agent Orange relief for their coour veterans.

Vietnamese and American veterans both founCrimes Times to be moving and relevant, not othe Vietnam War, but also about present anconflicts. Said American veteran Vela Giri: Iimpressed by this paper. The radical and true intof the defeat of the U.S.A. in Iraq was a very i

point of view.

Veteran Peter Winnen provides the mostestimony regarding this work. After the WaTimes was presented in the Museum, says Petedown on my knees in front of the Agent Orang

band to get closer and hug them for their cohopeful voices.Back at the hotel I wrote, I kand kissed the fruit of Agent Orange.And he

back."

Edward Tick is co-director of Soldi(www.soldiersheart.net/) and the author ofWSoul. Contact Ed for more information about tr

Nam. To bring the traveling exhibit of V

Childrens Art to your community, contaRobinson, Wick Poetry Center Outreach [email protected] or (330) 672-2101.

GOES TO VIET NAMby Edward Tick, Ph.D.

Peter Winnen in reconciliation with an NVA vet he fought against at Khe Sanh.

This is our group of American, Viet Cong, and ARVN vets in reconciliation after a ceremonyin the old AO on the rubber plantation in Tay Ninh.

Ed Tick presenting the War Crimes Times to Maddirector of the War Remnants Museum in Ho CCity, in the gallery featuring the permanent ex

Vietnamese Children's Art on War and Peace. Aof paintings from this collection are traveling thr

U.S. and were featured in Winter issue


11/20


by Conn Hallinan

A military that conducts stealthy night raids, secret assassinations, and death-dealing

drones is more likely to believe it has the right to control America's policy abroad.

For decades the U.S. military has waged clandestine war onvirtually every continent on the globe, but, for the first time,

high-ranking Special Operations Forces (SOF) officers are movingout of the shadows and into the command mainstream. Theiremergence suggests the U.S. is embarking on a military sea changethat will replace massive deployments, like Iraq and Afghanistan,with stealthy night raids, secret assassinations, and death-dealingdrones. Its implications for civilian control of foreign policy promisesto be profound.

In August, 2011, Vice Adm. RobertHarwarda former commander of theSEALsthe Navy's elite SOF thatrecently killed al-Qaeda leader Osma binLadenwas appointed deputy com-mander of Central Command, the military

region that embraces the Middle East andCentral Asia. Another SEAL commander,Vice Adm. Joseph Kernan, took over thenumber two spot in Southern Command,which covers Latin America and theCaribbean.

The Obama Administration has been particularly enamored of SOFs, and,according to reporters Karen DeYoungand Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post, isin the process of doubling the number ofcountries where suchunits are active from 60

to 120. U.S. SpecialOperations Commandspokesman Col. Tim

Nye told Nick Turse,research director of the

Nation InstitutesTomdispatch.com thatSOF forces would soon

be deployed in 60 percent of the world'snations: "We do a lot oftraveling."

Indeed they do. U.S.Special Operations Command (SOC) admits tohaving forces in virtually every country in theMiddle East, Central Asia, as well as many inAfrica, Southeast Asia and Latin America. But trueto its penchant for secrecy, SOC is reluctant to disclose every countryto which its forces are deployed. "We're obviously going to have some

places where it's not advantageous for us to list where were at," Nyetold Turse.

SOF forces have almost doubled in the past two decades, fromsome 37,000 to close to 60,000, and major increases are planned in

the future. Their budget has jumped from $2.3 billion to $9.over the last 10 years

These Special Forces include the Navy's SEALs, the Special Operations teams,the Army's Delta Force, theAir Force's Blue Light andAir Commandos, plusRangers and Green Berets.There is also the CIA, whichruns the clandestine dronewar in Pakistan, Yemen andSomalia.

It is increasingly difficultto distinguish civilian frommilitary operatives. LeonPanetta, former director ofthe CIA, is now DefenseSecretary, while Afghani-stan commander Gen. DavidPetraeusan expert oncounterinsurgency andcounter terror operationsis taking over the CIA. Both have worked closely with SO

particularly Petraeus, who vastly increased the number oraids" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The raids are aimed at decainsurgent leadership, but have caused widespread outrage countries.

The raids are based on intelligence that many times comlocal warlords trying to eliminate their enemies or competitisince the raids are carried out under a cloak of secrecy, it i

impossible to invthem when thi

wrong.A recent CIA an

civilian casualties organization's dronPakistan contenattacks since Mahave killed more tinsurgents and notcivilian. But a repoBureau of InvesJournalismat Citysity in London"credible evidence

least 45 non-comwere killed duri period. Pakistanare far higher.

Those higher numbers, according to Dennis C. Blairadmiral and director of national intelligence from 2009 to 20widely believed [in Pakistan] and, Blair points out, "our relhigh-tech strikes that pose no risk to our soldiers is bitterly re

Conn Hallinan is a columnist forForeign Policy In Focus and the BerkPlanet and a recipient of a Project Censored "Real News Award." This reprinted with his permission.

SOF forceshave almostdoubled in

the past twodecades,

from some37,000 toclose to

60,000, andmajor

increasesare planned

in the future.Their budgethas jumpedfrom $2.3billion to

$9.8 billionover the last

10 years.

Why Civilian Control of the US Military Is Deeply Threatened

An MH-6 Little Bird from 160th SOAR carrying Special Forces Soldiersfrom the 5th SFG(A) prepares to land during a SOF aerial infiltration

demonstration Sept. 28 at NASCAR's Kansas Speedway 400.

(Photo by Spc. Tony Hawkins, USASOC PAO).

US Army Special Forces MasSergeant gives instruction to two s

students in a five-week sniper co


12/20

12 Spring 2012 The War Crimes Times WarCrimes

Sorman, Libya

It was a warm early Mondaymorning along the Libyan coast

on June 20, 2011.At approximately 0200 Green-

wich mean time (GMT) the next dayin NATO Headquarters in Brussels,and 30 minutes later in its mediacenter in Naples, staffers finishedtabulating NATOs 92nd day ofaerial attacks on Libya and began to post the data on its website(www.nato.int).

Twenty-four hours earlier anAtlantic Alliance command unit,located approximately 30 milesoff the Libyan coast, in a directline with Malta, and NATOstargeting unit had signed off on 49

bombing missions for June 20, the

last day of spring and the last dayof NATOs original UN bombingmandate.

The authority for NATOs bombing, which far exceededearlier estimates, was claimedfrom the hastily adopted UN Secu-

rity Council Resolutions 1970 andUNSCR 1973.

UN resolutions 1970 & 1973gave NATO UN Chapter 7 author-ity to enforce a no-fly zone overLibyan airspace, initially for 90days which ironically ended theday before its bombing at Sorman.

The two UN Security CouncilResolutions were insisted upon bytheir main sponsors, France, theUK, Italy, and the U.S. who claimedthat a limited no-fly zone would

protect Libyas civilian populationfrom the wrath of the governmentof Libyas leader, Muammar Gadd-afi. NATO requested and wasgranted two additional 90-dayextensions to continue its Libyanmission which gave its air forceuntil the end of 2011 to continueOperation Unified Protector.

It was early Monday morning,June 20, 2011.

Sorman, Libya, is a quiet and

peaceful Libyan town located 45miles west of Tripoli, near theMediterranean coast, in theZawiya District of the Tripolitaniaregion in northwestern Libya.

Many of the towns childrengrew up exploring the 3rd Centurymagnificent Roman ruins atnearby Zabratha. Some archeolo-gists consider Zabratha, locatedalmost in direct line with Romeacross the Mediterranean, and

built on a high cliff above the sea,as the most complete extantRoman architecture, with only asmall part of this large Roman cityhaving been excavated. I had

visited Zabratha a few times sincethe mid-1980s and each visitelicits more awe. Families fromSorman and nearby villages regu-larly visit and picnic there.

In the early hours of June 20,2011 it was dark in Sorman except

for some muted half-moon light.A few dim street lights and some

partially illumined homes pro-vided some light as residents

began to rise and prepare for theAl Fajr(Dawn) prayers.

At the homestead of KhaledK. El-Hamedi, the thirty-seven-year- old President of the Inter-

national Organization for Peace,Care & Relief (IOPCR), one ofLibyas most active socialservice organizations, everyonewas asleep following a rambunc-tious birthday party for his three-year-old son, Khweldi. TheHamedi family members alsoincluded Khaleds five-year-olddaughter Khaleda, his pregnantwife Safa, his aunt Najia, and hissix-year-old niece Salam, amongothers.

At NATOs Control andCommand Center, the 49 bombingmissions planned for earlymorning of June 20, included atarget at Sorman, which would

push the number of NATO recon-naissance sorties over Libya to11,930. This number would

become 26,500 by midnight onOctober 31, when NATO wouldend its air campaign. The days

bombing sorties would also bringthe tally of rocket and bombingtargets to 4,521. This figure wouldincrease to more than 11,781 bylate fall, when NATO wasinstructed to end OUP (OperationUnified Protector).

NATO prepares to bomb

Dormans command and

control centerBefore the bombs were fired

at the Khaled K. al-Hamedi com- pound, NATO staff conducted asix-step process, the first of whichwas surveillance using the MQ-9Reaper UAV, which sometimes is

also used to fire missiles. Alsoabove Sorman was a Predatordrone with full-motion video.

During June 19 and the earlyhours of June 20, the droneslocked on the Hamedi homesteadtarget and relayed updated infor-mation to NATOs commandcenter.

The Hamedi home was notwhat NATO labels a time-criticaltarget, so there was plenty oftime for its staff to transmit infor-mation about the site fromunmanned reconnaissance aircraftto intelligence analysts. Almostcertainly, according to a source at

Janes Weekly, NATO UAVswatched the Hamedi compoundover a period of days and presum-ably observed part of the birthday

party the day before the order tobomb was issued.

NATO Rules of Engagementfor Operation United Protector,constitute a set of classified docu-ments which present specific anddetailed instructions about what isa legitimate target and who canapprove the target, whether pre-

planned or on the flywhen a

pilot happens upon a target ofopportunity. The Sorman attackon the Hamedi home was plannedas part of what NATO calls itsJoint Air Tasking Cycle (JATC). A target development team putthe Hamedi home on the June 20daily list of targets. The team useda report from NATO intelligenceanalysts who determined thatretired officer Khaled al Huweldi,Hamedi, one of the originalmembers of the Gaddafi-led 1969coup against King Idris in 1969,and a former member of the AlFatah Revolutions RevolutionaryCommand Council was living on

the property. His assassinationhad been ordered by NATO

because they hoped to weaken theregime in some way even thoughthe senior Hamedi was retired andhad no decision making role inLibya.

On June 19, the day before the bombing attack on the Hamedifamily at Sorman, NATO wasobliged by its own regulations and

by the international law of armedconflict to conduct a potential for

collateral damage reviemission.There is no evthis was ever done.

A requested U.S. Cnal NATO Liaison Offof the Sorman bombinrequested from Libya 2, was completed in ear

ber 2011 and found notary evidence or other that anyone in NATOSelection Unit, evalucussed, or even conssubject of potential civalties at the Hamedi Sorman.

Following the greebomb the Hamedi homedinates were fixed at 3123418E. Specific aon the Hamedi propchosen and eight bombsiles were readied and athe strike aircraft.

At Sorman, NATvariety of bombs andincluding the bunkerBLU-109 (Bomb Lwhich is designed to pefeet of concrete. NATOthe American MK serie(MK 81) 1000 lb, (Mthe 2000 lb (MK-84) used so widely duringinvasion of Lebanon.

Following the inSorman, NATO denied

bility, but the next d

Anatomy of a NATO War Crimeby Franklin Lamb

the scene was one of total devastation.Collapsed and blown apart concrete and tiledhomes, small body parts, and bits of family

belongings and memorabilia, trees, some

blown over, others bending and nearlydenuded of their foliage, dead, terrified anddying petting zoo animals

A montage of the Libyan civil war created from images availabWikimedia Commons. Clockwise from top-left: The Libyan NatTransitional Council flag is flown by anti-Gaddafi fighters in Br10 March 2011; protesters in Bayda; protesters and defectors Libyan soldiers in Bayda on 17 February 2011; a French rescuhelicopter lands on USS Mount Whitney, at the beginning of thintervention; remains of two Palmaria heavy howitzers of the LArmy, destroyed by French warplanes near Benghazi; USS Blaunches one of its Tomahawk missiles during Operation UnifProtector.


13/20


admitted carrying out an air strikesomewhere in Sorman but deniedthat there were civilian deathseven as its drones filmed thescene close up. NATOs mediaoffice in Naples issued a state-ment claiming A precision airstrike was launched against ahigh-level command and controlnode in the Sorman area withoutcollateral damage. NATOspokespersons also told AmnestyInternational and Human RightsWatch that the facility was alegitimate military target and thatall necessary precautions weretaken before conducting the strikewhich minimized any potentialrisk of causing unnecessary casu-alties.

The official NATO record ofits bombing of Libya for June 20,2011 reads as follows and remainsunchanged:

Allied Joint ForceCommand NAPLES,

SHAPE, NATO HQ.

Over the past 24 hours,

NATO has conducted the

following activities associ-

ated with Operation

UNIFIED PROTECTOR:

Air Operations Sortiesconducted 20 JUNE: 149

Strike sorties conducted 20JUNE: 52Key Hits 20 JUNE: In the vicinity of Tripoli:1 Command & Control

Node, 8 Surface-To-

AirMissile Launchers, 1Surface-To-Air MissileTransport Vehicle.

In the vicinity of Misratah:3 Truck-Mounted Guns, 2

Self-Propelled Anti-Air-craft Guns, 1 Tank.

In the vicinity of Tarhu-nah: 1 Military EquipmentStorage Facility.

In the vicinity of Al-Khums: 1 Military VehicleStorage Facility. In thevicinity of Zintan: 1 Rocket

Launcher.

Oddly, NATO records forJune 20 as well as subsequentreports of bombing attacks listed

for June 20th and June 21st in itsdaily logs have never included the

bombing attack on Sorman or theattack on the Al-Hamedi resi-dence which indisputably killed15 civilians.

Just before the bombs hit,eyewitnesses reported seeing redspecks in the sky and then flashesof intense light, immediately fol-lowed by thunderous, ear-split-ting blasts as eight American

bombs and rockets pulverizedtheir neighbors homestead.

In an instant Khaled El-Hame-dis family was dead. The chil-dren were crushed, blown apartor shredded into pieces, alongwith friends and extended familymembers who had slept overnight.

Khaled was working late,attending meetings with displaced

Libyans driven from their homesand urgently in need of IOPCRhelp. As he returned home,Khaled saw from his car windowthe sky light up and heard explod-ing bombs. He was frozen inhorror as he entered his propertyand observed rescue workers fran-tically digging and futilely tryingto move the thick concrete slabsof his home hoping against hopethat they would miraculously findsurvivors.

Libyan government spokes-man Mousa Ibrahim announcedthe death of 15 people, including

three children, killed at Sorman.He slammed the NATO bombingas a cowardly terrorist act whichcannot be justified. Investiga-tors, who visited Sabratha hospi-tal 10 kilometers from Sorman,saw nine bodies, including threeyoung children. They also saw

body parts including a childshead.

For those who visited the Al-Hamidi compoundfollowing the

NATO bombings, as I did less

than a week after the crime as partof an international delegation, thescene was one of total devasta-tion: collapsed and blown-apartconcrete and tiled homes, small

body parts, and bits of family belongings and memorabilia,treessome blown over, others

bending and nearly denuded oftheir foliage. There were dead,terrified, and dying petting zooanimals, including exotic birds,ostrich, deer, small animals, and

a large moose killed or left neardeath; most were in a blind stuporstaring blankly from whatremained of their shelters whiledying of wounds and from trauma.

Outside one of the bombedhouses I noticed crushed cartonsof spaghetti pasta and cans oftomato sauce, stockpiled for dis-tribution to the needy as part of

the work of IOPCR during thesummer and in preparation for thecoming holy month of Ramadanobservances, which includes per-forming charitable works andindividual humanitarian acts.

Under growing pressure fromthe international communityincluding NATO member states,

NATO HQ claimed equipmentmalfunction, missed target, poor

war crimes times vol. iv no. 2 spring 2012

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