USSA not SAARC
USSA
United States of South Asia
Not SAARC
Not South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
SAARC is a regional civil service bureaucrat's attempt to manage, contain and restrict the yearnings of the South Asian PEOPLE.
SAARC as geopolitical concept is not sustainable in view of momentous, geopolitical events sweeping South Asia. SAARC, formally established in 1985, has accomplished practically nothing.
Why USSA?
It is abundantly clear that Pakistan and Afghanistan, acting alone, frequently acting against each other, cannot sustain their people against USCIA and USNATO acting at will, that overrun their sovereign territories, in the so-called AfPak.
AfPak is a geopolitical construct intended to dislocate South Asia peoples by inventing neo-imperial identities and neo-imperial territories that do NOT exist on the ground. Nobody in Lahore or Kandahar, Swat or Kabul(or even Abbottabad!) walks around saying "I'm male, 6ft 2 and i'm AfPak."
AfPak is not a South Asian identity on any level -- personal, national, regional or geopolitical.
AfPak is a convenient, self-serving ad hoc invention of the Pentagon, The US Department of State, USCIA and The White House under President Obama. The US Congress didn't come up with AfPak, AfPak is not even in the interests of the American People (yes and millions of others I voted Obama to prevent a Mccain-Palin debacle), AfPak prevents the American People from escaping the stranglehold of a $trillion plus debt from unnecessary war in South Asia. AfPak is against
The bottom line is AfPak a self-serving geopolitical construct of US neo-imperialism, colluding with South Asia's postcolonial post-feudal militaristic landed elites, using religion as a convenient ploy to divide peoples and land, to dislocate people from land.
Want to be reminded of an earlier self-agrandising geopolitical construct now in wide, ethically unsupportable use? The "Middle East".
The term Middle East invented by the colonizing, resource-extracting Brits circa 1900 implies a similar attempt by Empire to dislocate and dispossess the Peoples of West Asia and North Africa. Middel East? Middle of What? East of Where? No folks, its West Asia. It's North Africa. It's PLACE, not SPACE.
USSA is the way forward for ALL South Asians striving for peace through prosperity. For a borderless seamless stability through Social Justice and through economic opportunity. Peacde without scoial and economic justice is a non-starter, a no-brainer, a no-go, a no-show.
The move towards USSA is pragmatic idealism. The move towards USSA is pragmatic ethical geopolitics. It's an embracing, pervasive South Asia Idea.
USSA NOT SAARC
USSA NOT AfPak
Welcome!
--------------
http://www.medical-answers.org/hd/index.php?t=SAARC&retry=yes
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Showing posts with label AfPak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AfPak. Show all posts
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Suicide du jour: Discontent, Death & Democracy
Pick a day any day.
Today not far from Kabul a suicider killed himself and 9 others.
That makes 10. All were equally valuable humans with potential.
All were men.
All were clothed in some variation of uniform.
All were clothed to convey a 'message', perform some act of 'service' which included murder.
Death was the intended objective of all who died and death was the result.
Like the rest of US and NATO media, the Reuters story and headline (see below) is constructed to convey a sense that some of the dead were more valued than others. Valuable to whom? The 'foreign' (quote from story) white, male even though they are the invaders and occupiers, while also being soldiers born of mothers and possibly having sisters.
The 4 Afghan soldiers are presented and implied as less valuable, male, brown, the 'locals' the ones in need of being led by the 'foreign' white, now also as dead as the ones they led. The suicide 'attacker' is constructed as faceless, nameless and perhaps he deserves to be (perhaps not), for his act of death, an act he shared with all the others he killed.
The Taliban, created by the USCIA during the US-invented Cold War with the USSR, claimed responsibility for the deaths.
I'll keep working on this blog entry for a while
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reuters copyright
Suicide attack kills 5 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan
Reuters
Email
Print
Afghan blast kills nine troops AFP – Map locating Jalalabad in Afghanistan.A Taliban suicide bomber wearing an army uniform killed five foreign …
Afghanistan Slideshow:Afghanistan
Raw Video: Blast kills 5 NATO, 4 Afghan troops Play Video Afghanistan Video:Raw Video: Blast kills 5 NATO, 4 Afghan troops AP
AP Exclusive: Obama on Libya, Afghanistan, Gitmo Play Video Afghanistan Video:AP Exclusive: Obama on Libya, Afghanistan, Gitmo AP
By Rafiq Sherzad – 1 hr 49 mins ago
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber in an Afghan army uniform killed five foreign and four Afghan soldiers on Saturday at a sprawling desert base in the east of the country, the highest toll on NATO-led troops in a single attack for several months.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense said it was investigating whether the attacker was an insurgent disguised in a fake uniform, or the latest in a string of "rogue" members of the Afghan security forces who have turned on their colleagues and mentors.
On Friday, a suicide bomber in police uniform evaded tight security in police Headquarters in Kandahar city and killed Khan Mohammad Mujahid, provincial police chief of Kandahar.
The latest attack was inside one of the biggest military installations in increasingly volatile east Afghanistan, home to the 201st Corps of the Afghan army, Afghan officials say.
The NATO-led coalition said it happened on a neighboring foreign base, during a meeting. The two are located close together in the Gamberi desert, a remote area that stretches between Laghman and Nangarhar provinces.
"Our reporting indicates there was a meeting taking place and that is when the attack happened," said Major Tim James, spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
The attack highlights the pressure the U.S. and NATO troops face as they rapidly train Afghan security forces to pave the way for critical security handover which begins later this year, in the face of a spiraling insurgency.
Over 120 foreign soldiers have died this year in Afghanistan, but this is the deadliest single incident since December last year, when a suicide car bomber killed six NATO and two Afghan troops in Kandahar province.
ROGUE ATTACKERS?
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in an email statement, saying 12 foreign troops and 14 Afghan soldiers were killed. The group frequently exaggerates casualty figures.
He said the bomber was from central Daikondi province, had enlisted with the Afghan army a month ago and detonated his explosives at a meeting between Afghan and foreign troops.
The Defense Ministry declined immediate comment on whether the attacker was a real soldier, saying it was investigating.
The uniform does not prove conclusively that he was a soldier because Afghan security force outfits are readily available in markets across the country -- although their sale is technically illegal.
Despite tighter vetting began by Afghan authorities for recruits, there are worries about the Taliban's ability to infiltrate the Afghan security forces.
Western forces in Afghanistan have begun to train counter-intelligence agents to help root them out.
U.S. Lieutenant General William Caldwell, head of the U.S. and NATO training mission in Afghanistan, said earlier this week 222 agents had been trained since the program began last summer, and there was a target of 445 agents by the end of the year.
(Writing by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Today not far from Kabul a suicider killed himself and 9 others.
That makes 10. All were equally valuable humans with potential.
All were men.
All were clothed in some variation of uniform.
All were clothed to convey a 'message', perform some act of 'service' which included murder.
Death was the intended objective of all who died and death was the result.
Like the rest of US and NATO media, the Reuters story and headline (see below) is constructed to convey a sense that some of the dead were more valued than others. Valuable to whom? The 'foreign' (quote from story) white, male even though they are the invaders and occupiers, while also being soldiers born of mothers and possibly having sisters.
The 4 Afghan soldiers are presented and implied as less valuable, male, brown, the 'locals' the ones in need of being led by the 'foreign' white, now also as dead as the ones they led. The suicide 'attacker' is constructed as faceless, nameless and perhaps he deserves to be (perhaps not), for his act of death, an act he shared with all the others he killed.
The Taliban, created by the USCIA during the US-invented Cold War with the USSR, claimed responsibility for the deaths.
I'll keep working on this blog entry for a while
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reuters copyright
Suicide attack kills 5 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan
Reuters
Afghan blast kills nine troops AFP – Map locating Jalalabad in Afghanistan.A Taliban suicide bomber wearing an army uniform killed five foreign …
Afghanistan Slideshow:Afghanistan
Raw Video: Blast kills 5 NATO, 4 Afghan troops Play Video Afghanistan Video:Raw Video: Blast kills 5 NATO, 4 Afghan troops AP
AP Exclusive: Obama on Libya, Afghanistan, Gitmo Play Video Afghanistan Video:AP Exclusive: Obama on Libya, Afghanistan, Gitmo AP
By Rafiq Sherzad – 1 hr 49 mins ago
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber in an Afghan army uniform killed five foreign and four Afghan soldiers on Saturday at a sprawling desert base in the east of the country, the highest toll on NATO-led troops in a single attack for several months.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense said it was investigating whether the attacker was an insurgent disguised in a fake uniform, or the latest in a string of "rogue" members of the Afghan security forces who have turned on their colleagues and mentors.
On Friday, a suicide bomber in police uniform evaded tight security in police Headquarters in Kandahar city and killed Khan Mohammad Mujahid, provincial police chief of Kandahar.
The latest attack was inside one of the biggest military installations in increasingly volatile east Afghanistan, home to the 201st Corps of the Afghan army, Afghan officials say.
The NATO-led coalition said it happened on a neighboring foreign base, during a meeting. The two are located close together in the Gamberi desert, a remote area that stretches between Laghman and Nangarhar provinces.
"Our reporting indicates there was a meeting taking place and that is when the attack happened," said Major Tim James, spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
The attack highlights the pressure the U.S. and NATO troops face as they rapidly train Afghan security forces to pave the way for critical security handover which begins later this year, in the face of a spiraling insurgency.
Over 120 foreign soldiers have died this year in Afghanistan, but this is the deadliest single incident since December last year, when a suicide car bomber killed six NATO and two Afghan troops in Kandahar province.
ROGUE ATTACKERS?
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in an email statement, saying 12 foreign troops and 14 Afghan soldiers were killed. The group frequently exaggerates casualty figures.
He said the bomber was from central Daikondi province, had enlisted with the Afghan army a month ago and detonated his explosives at a meeting between Afghan and foreign troops.
The Defense Ministry declined immediate comment on whether the attacker was a real soldier, saying it was investigating.
The uniform does not prove conclusively that he was a soldier because Afghan security force outfits are readily available in markets across the country -- although their sale is technically illegal.
Despite tighter vetting began by Afghan authorities for recruits, there are worries about the Taliban's ability to infiltrate the Afghan security forces.
Western forces in Afghanistan have begun to train counter-intelligence agents to help root them out.
U.S. Lieutenant General William Caldwell, head of the U.S. and NATO training mission in Afghanistan, said earlier this week 222 agents had been trained since the program began last summer, and there was a target of 445 agents by the end of the year.
(Writing by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thursday, October 8, 2009
INTELLIGENT US Generals -- Oxymoron Or Just Plain Moron?
My NYTimes Comment #123.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
October 8th, 2009
9:20 am
--
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
October 8th, 2009
8:50 am
Is an intelligent US General an oxymoron -- or just a Moron?
"President Obama’s national security team is arguing that the Afghan Taliban don’t pose a direct threat to the U.S." says this NYTimes article.
Can these generals, or anyone else, tell the difference between The Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Taliban, Al Queda and various other discontented and violent mainstream and fringe groups? Do they swipe their IDs at The Pentagon?
It defies reason for US generals to argue that the Taliban do not target US and US-led NATO. Have you seen NATO supply convoy trucks burning (and their artillery supplies probably confiscated) in the media pics?
Let me try to use logical reasoning here:
The US is targeting the Taliban.
The US is droning the heck out of Afghan civilians, killing an occasional unproven \"militant.\" who before the 1980's was just a resident of a locality in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
So esteemed generals with blood dripping from your hands, who would the Afghan Taliban target in retaliation? Afghan goats?
Now let us use the evidence to reason further:
Every Terror Attack in West Asia or South Asia Leads Back To the criminal US, sometimes in tandem with client states or extra-state actors, with the US exercising control over these alliances.
The US is actually responsible for all the terror attacks against its simultaneous occupations of parts of West Asia and South Asia.
Don't blame ISI, Taliban or Al AlQaeda. Did they exist before the US began to meddle, infiltrate West Asia and South Asia?
Pakistan was subjugated by the US Department of State beginning in the early 50's.
The US trained the Mujahideen during the Cold War that the US INVENTED to bring down the USSR. Today, those Mujahideen that Ronald Reagan praised are the Taliban. I don't think Obama is capable of learning any lessons from his predecessors, except to emulate their policy. He is as white as they are. And oh yes, i did vote for Obama becoz I thought he was a lesser evil than the McCain-Palin team. Wrong!
Yes, each terror entity named above should be brought to Justice -- at the same time the US govt. stands accused before the International Criminal Court.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/world/asia/08prexy.html
Afghan War Debate Now Leans to Focus on Al QaedaBack to Article »
By PETER BAKER and ERIC SCHMITT
President Obama’s national security team is arguing that the Afghan Taliban don’t pose a direct threat to the U.S.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
October 8th, 2009
9:20 am
--
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
October 8th, 2009
8:50 am
Is an intelligent US General an oxymoron -- or just a Moron?
"President Obama’s national security team is arguing that the Afghan Taliban don’t pose a direct threat to the U.S." says this NYTimes article.
Can these generals, or anyone else, tell the difference between The Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Taliban, Al Queda and various other discontented and violent mainstream and fringe groups? Do they swipe their IDs at The Pentagon?
It defies reason for US generals to argue that the Taliban do not target US and US-led NATO. Have you seen NATO supply convoy trucks burning (and their artillery supplies probably confiscated) in the media pics?
Let me try to use logical reasoning here:
The US is targeting the Taliban.
The US is droning the heck out of Afghan civilians, killing an occasional unproven \"militant.\" who before the 1980's was just a resident of a locality in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
So esteemed generals with blood dripping from your hands, who would the Afghan Taliban target in retaliation? Afghan goats?
Now let us use the evidence to reason further:
Every Terror Attack in West Asia or South Asia Leads Back To the criminal US, sometimes in tandem with client states or extra-state actors, with the US exercising control over these alliances.
The US is actually responsible for all the terror attacks against its simultaneous occupations of parts of West Asia and South Asia.
Don't blame ISI, Taliban or Al AlQaeda. Did they exist before the US began to meddle, infiltrate West Asia and South Asia?
Pakistan was subjugated by the US Department of State beginning in the early 50's.
The US trained the Mujahideen during the Cold War that the US INVENTED to bring down the USSR. Today, those Mujahideen that Ronald Reagan praised are the Taliban. I don't think Obama is capable of learning any lessons from his predecessors, except to emulate their policy. He is as white as they are. And oh yes, i did vote for Obama becoz I thought he was a lesser evil than the McCain-Palin team. Wrong!
Yes, each terror entity named above should be brought to Justice -- at the same time the US govt. stands accused before the International Criminal Court.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/world/asia/08prexy.html
Afghan War Debate Now Leans to Focus on Al QaedaBack to Article »
By PETER BAKER and ERIC SCHMITT
President Obama’s national security team is arguing that the Afghan Taliban don’t pose a direct threat to the U.S.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
US, US-led NATO Presence in South Asia is the CORE Problem
NYTimes Comment #247.
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 6th, 2009
12:22 pm
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 6th, 2009
10:16 am
US Presence is the Core Problem
Quoting from the NYT article:
“Our policy makers do not understand that the very presence of our forces in the Pashtun areas is the problem,”
That's the crux of the problem. The US and US-led NATO are not welcome in Afghanistan. You strike us and you strike out. (see Also AP story below of US and NATO storming a hospital run by a Swedish charity)
I'm sitting 2000 miles away in the deep south of India and guess what -- I and tens of thousands of Indians feel the same way as your quote above. So do my friends in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
South Asian nation-states are perfectly capable of working together to solve their local, national and regional problems.
US and NATO have no right or excuse to be in South Asia. Being here is a neo-imperial lose-lose strategy, a defeat the size of Vietnam for Obama.
The US has long been a state sponsor of Terror in our region. The US runs a highly profitable Weapons & Terror Complex in our South Asia region, reaping billions from armaments and drugs, while sowing death, destruction -- and inviting justified retaliation.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthcialDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06kristof.html
The Afghanistan Abyss
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Sending more American troops into ethnic Pashtun areas in the Afghan south may only galvanize local people to back the Taliban.
------------------
Associated Press copyright
Charity: US troops stormed through Afghan hospital
09/07/2009 3:24:32 AM
By KAY JOHNSON Associated Press Writer
A Swedish charity accused American troops Monday of storming through a hospital in central Afghanistan, breaking down doors and tying up staff in a search for militants. The U.S. military said it was investigating.
The allegation that soldiers violated the neutrality of a medical facility follows the reported deaths of Afghan civilians in a U.S. airstrike in the country's north last week. An Afghan human rights group said Monday the strike on two hijacked fuel tankers may have killed as many as 70 civilians in Kunduz province.
Civilian deaths and intrusive searches have bred resentment among the Afghan population nearly eight years after the U.S.-led coalition invaded to oust the Taliban's hard-line Islamist regime for sheltering al-Qaida terrorist leaders.
Foreign forces are working to persuade the population to support the Afghan government after last month's presidential election, which has yet to be decided amid allegations of vote-rigging.
On Monday, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan said the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division entered the charity's hospital without permission to look for insurgents in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul.
"This is simply not acceptable," said Anders Fange, the charity's country director.
The U.S. troops came to the hospital looking for Taliban insurgents late at night last Wednesday. Fange said they kicked in doors, tied up four hospital employees and two family members of patients, and forced patients out of beds during their search.
When they left two hours later, the unit ordered hospital staff to inform coalition forces if any wounded militants were admitted, and the military would decide if they could be treated, Fange said.
The staff refused, he said. "That would put our staff at risk and make the hospital a target."
The charity said on its Web site that the troops' actions were not only a violation of humanitarian principles but also went against an agreement between NATO forces and charities working in the area.
"We demand guarantees ... that such violations will not be repeated and that this is made clear to commanders in the field," a statement said.
U.S. military spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker confirmed that the hospital was searched last week but had no other details. She said the military was looking into the incident.
"We are investigating and we take allegations like this seriously," she said. "Complaints like this are rare."
Violence has surged across much of Afghanistan since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 more U.S. troops to the country this year. Two foreign troops were killed Sunday when their patrol hit a roadside bomb in the country's south, NATO said without giving their nationalities.
NATO was also investigating last week's U.S. airstrike. The strike came despite new rules for foreign forces limiting use of airpower to avoid civilian casualties.
The provincial government said most of the dead were militants, but on Monday, the Afghan Rights Monitor said interviews with 15 villagers indicate that only a dozen gunmen died and 60-70 villagers were killed. The group called for further investigations.
"Even if all the victims were supporters of the Taliban, the fact that most of them were unarmed and were not engaged in any combat activity does not warrant their mass killing," said Ajmal Samadi, the rights group's director.
A spokesman for the provincial government, Ahmad Sami Yawar, said Monday that only five of the estimated 70 killed were civilians.
The increasingly violent insurgents have killed more civilians in bombings and other attacks. On Monday, the government said three militant rockets landed overnight in the capital, Kabul, hitting a house and killing three people. In central Uruzgan province, a remote-controlled bomb targeting a police vehicle exploded in a busy market, killing two children and wounding 16 other people, according to local police official Gulab Khan.
A United Nations report in July said the number of civilians killed in conflict in Afghanistan has jumped 24 percent this year, with bombings by insurgents and airstrikes by international forces the biggest killers. The report said 1,013 civilians were killed in the first half of 2009, 59 percent in insurgent attacks and 30.5 percent by foreign and Afghan government forces. The rest were undetermined.
___
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/asia/08kabul.html?ref=global-home
Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 6th, 2009
12:22 pm
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 6th, 2009
10:16 am
US Presence is the Core Problem
Quoting from the NYT article:
“Our policy makers do not understand that the very presence of our forces in the Pashtun areas is the problem,”
That's the crux of the problem. The US and US-led NATO are not welcome in Afghanistan. You strike us and you strike out. (see Also AP story below of US and NATO storming a hospital run by a Swedish charity)
I'm sitting 2000 miles away in the deep south of India and guess what -- I and tens of thousands of Indians feel the same way as your quote above. So do my friends in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
South Asian nation-states are perfectly capable of working together to solve their local, national and regional problems.
US and NATO have no right or excuse to be in South Asia. Being here is a neo-imperial lose-lose strategy, a defeat the size of Vietnam for Obama.
The US has long been a state sponsor of Terror in our region. The US runs a highly profitable Weapons & Terror Complex in our South Asia region, reaping billions from armaments and drugs, while sowing death, destruction -- and inviting justified retaliation.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthcialDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06kristof.html
The Afghanistan Abyss
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Sending more American troops into ethnic Pashtun areas in the Afghan south may only galvanize local people to back the Taliban.
------------------
Associated Press copyright
Charity: US troops stormed through Afghan hospital
09/07/2009 3:24:32 AM
By KAY JOHNSON Associated Press Writer
A Swedish charity accused American troops Monday of storming through a hospital in central Afghanistan, breaking down doors and tying up staff in a search for militants. The U.S. military said it was investigating.
The allegation that soldiers violated the neutrality of a medical facility follows the reported deaths of Afghan civilians in a U.S. airstrike in the country's north last week. An Afghan human rights group said Monday the strike on two hijacked fuel tankers may have killed as many as 70 civilians in Kunduz province.
Civilian deaths and intrusive searches have bred resentment among the Afghan population nearly eight years after the U.S.-led coalition invaded to oust the Taliban's hard-line Islamist regime for sheltering al-Qaida terrorist leaders.
Foreign forces are working to persuade the population to support the Afghan government after last month's presidential election, which has yet to be decided amid allegations of vote-rigging.
On Monday, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan said the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division entered the charity's hospital without permission to look for insurgents in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul.
"This is simply not acceptable," said Anders Fange, the charity's country director.
The U.S. troops came to the hospital looking for Taliban insurgents late at night last Wednesday. Fange said they kicked in doors, tied up four hospital employees and two family members of patients, and forced patients out of beds during their search.
When they left two hours later, the unit ordered hospital staff to inform coalition forces if any wounded militants were admitted, and the military would decide if they could be treated, Fange said.
The staff refused, he said. "That would put our staff at risk and make the hospital a target."
The charity said on its Web site that the troops' actions were not only a violation of humanitarian principles but also went against an agreement between NATO forces and charities working in the area.
"We demand guarantees ... that such violations will not be repeated and that this is made clear to commanders in the field," a statement said.
U.S. military spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker confirmed that the hospital was searched last week but had no other details. She said the military was looking into the incident.
"We are investigating and we take allegations like this seriously," she said. "Complaints like this are rare."
Violence has surged across much of Afghanistan since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 more U.S. troops to the country this year. Two foreign troops were killed Sunday when their patrol hit a roadside bomb in the country's south, NATO said without giving their nationalities.
NATO was also investigating last week's U.S. airstrike. The strike came despite new rules for foreign forces limiting use of airpower to avoid civilian casualties.
The provincial government said most of the dead were militants, but on Monday, the Afghan Rights Monitor said interviews with 15 villagers indicate that only a dozen gunmen died and 60-70 villagers were killed. The group called for further investigations.
"Even if all the victims were supporters of the Taliban, the fact that most of them were unarmed and were not engaged in any combat activity does not warrant their mass killing," said Ajmal Samadi, the rights group's director.
A spokesman for the provincial government, Ahmad Sami Yawar, said Monday that only five of the estimated 70 killed were civilians.
The increasingly violent insurgents have killed more civilians in bombings and other attacks. On Monday, the government said three militant rockets landed overnight in the capital, Kabul, hitting a house and killing three people. In central Uruzgan province, a remote-controlled bomb targeting a police vehicle exploded in a busy market, killing two children and wounding 16 other people, according to local police official Gulab Khan.
A United Nations report in July said the number of civilians killed in conflict in Afghanistan has jumped 24 percent this year, with bombings by insurgents and airstrikes by international forces the biggest killers. The report said 1,013 civilians were killed in the first half of 2009, 59 percent in insurgent attacks and 30.5 percent by foreign and Afghan government forces. The rest were undetermined.
___
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/asia/08kabul.html?ref=global-home
Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Aid Pakistan's Civil Society, Not Pak Military
My published NYT Comment #1
May 01, 2009 8:30 am
Link
May 1st, 2009 8:13 am
Aid Pakistan's Civil Society, Not Pak Military
So now, it's not AfPak or PakAf but AllPak.
Hope the aid (through UN agencies and NGO) is all humanitarian, example development of infrastructure for schools and hospitals and a complete halt to drone strikes, which fuel Taliban and civilian recruitment and aggression.
The fewer foreign forces on the ground, the better.
However, the US still doesn't get it. The US must abandon its arbitrary, profit-oriented, self-appointed GlobalCop interventions.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Pratice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------
NYTimes Copyright
News Analysis: Now, U.S. Sees Pakistan as a Cause Distinct From Afghanistan
By MARK LANDLER and ELISABETH BUMILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/world/asia/01policy.html
=================================================================================
May 01, 2009 8:30 am
Link
May 1st, 2009 8:13 am
Aid Pakistan's Civil Society, Not Pak Military
So now, it's not AfPak or PakAf but AllPak.
Hope the aid (through UN agencies and NGO) is all humanitarian, example development of infrastructure for schools and hospitals and a complete halt to drone strikes, which fuel Taliban and civilian recruitment and aggression.
The fewer foreign forces on the ground, the better.
However, the US still doesn't get it. The US must abandon its arbitrary, profit-oriented, self-appointed GlobalCop interventions.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Pratice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------
NYTimes Copyright
News Analysis: Now, U.S. Sees Pakistan as a Cause Distinct From Afghanistan
By MARK LANDLER and ELISABETH BUMILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/world/asia/01policy.html
=================================================================================
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)