Tag: afghanistan

US Paramilitaries* Ordered to Principal’s Office to Get Slap on Wrist

Originally posted 3/16/10 by Jefe Von Stanley on MediaElites.com.  *UPDATE 7/26/10:  When I first posted this, some took issue with my use of the word “paramilitary” to describe US Special Forces in Afghanistan.  Well, just 4 months later the infamous Afghanistan archive has been leaked by Wiki-leaks, and lo and behold, the summary of its contents according to the New York Times includes the fact that “the Central Intelligence

Originally posted 3/16/10 by Jefe Von Stanley on MediaElites.com.  *UPDATE 7/26/10:  When I first posted this, some took issue with my use of the word “paramilitary” to describe US Special Forces in Afghanistan.  Well, just 4 months later the infamous Afghanistan archive has been leaked by Wiki-leaks, and lo and behold, the summary of its contents according to the New York Times includes the fact that “the Central Intelligence Agency has expanded paramilitary operations inside Afghanistan.”  The AP also tells us this week that “some American military commando operations may have amounted to war crimes.”]  Happy now?  I rest my case.

 No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Except that one’s a “reign of terror” and the other’s just a li’l misunderstanding. But you know I would never make an incendiary remark, so you decide whether US Special Forces often operate an awful lot like Bosnian Serb paramilitaries* in the 1990s when it comes to their regard for the Muslim civilian populace.

New York Times, 3/16/10
Special Operations forces have been responsible for a large number of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and operate by their own rules…These special forces were not accountable to anyone in the country… Last year…there were 596 civilian deaths attributed to coalition forces, according to United Nations figures. Afghan and United Nations officials blame Special Operations troops for most of those deaths.

“In most of the cases of civilian casualties, special forces are involved,” said Mohammed Iqbal Safi, head of the defense committee in the Afghan Parliament.

“These forces often operate with little or no accountability and exacerbate the anger and resentment felt by communities,” the Human Rights Office of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan wrote in its report on protection of civilians for 2009. [No UN charges have been brought against any US military personnel because they apologized, and therefore they’re not guilty.]

UN News Centre, 7/23/07
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has decided that, in the interest of justice, two Bosnian Serb paramilitaries charged with multiple crimes…will be tried jointly [at the Hague].

Continued at http://mediaelites.com/2010/03/16/muslims-screwed-again-us-paramilitaries-ordered-to-stand-in-corner .

 

Obama Voters: Stand By Your Man

I sang that then and I’ll sing it again. I was saying it in 2007 when directing a small revival of Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell, a 2004 anti-Bush play yes, but as I told the cast then, it’s a play about big government gone out of control and extends beyond Bush. I told them electing a Democrat

I sang that then and I’ll sing it again. I was saying it in 2007 when directing a small revival of Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell, a 2004 anti-Bush play yes, but as I told the cast then, it’s a play about big government gone out of control and extends beyond Bush. I told them electing a Democrat isn’t gonna get us out of the Middle East, and that therefore this diabolical little play will remain relevant for years to come. At least Obama was up front in his platform from the outset.

I guarantee you someone out there’s printing up bumper stickers right now that read Nobomba, and they’ll sell like hotcakes to the same disillusioned liberals who put him in office. I am one of those people who put him in office and I’m proud of it. I still proudly display my Obama-Biden ’08 bumper sticker on my front door, but I’m no fool, and I never supported all he stood for. One delusion lots of his supporters seem to suddenly suffer from is that he claimed to be some sort of peace bringer, the antithesis of warmonger Bush, when this was never the case. Do you all, my fellow Obama voters, have amnesia? You’re intelligent people, I know you are. So why have you forgotten that going into Afghanistan was part of his platform all along? Don’t you remember his constant stumping that under Bush we “took our eye off the ball” in Afghanistan?

These past months of his “deliberation” about whether to send more troops and the right’s attacking his military “indecisiveness” have all been rhetoric and theatre. He knew, the right knew, and I for one knew (and come on, be honest, Obama fans, you knew, too), what his decision would be all along. At least credit him on this point for delivering the change he promised, whether you agree with that change or not: we’re getting out of Iraq and going into Afghanistan. The times they are a’changin’. And a’stayin’ the same. And deep down you knowed they would.

He is also working to stop torture, to close Guantanamo, and has been pushing relentlessly on health care reform, no? Give him a break and don’t burn your Obama t-shirts just yet.