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News Release Archive - War: Info, Analysis, Policy Options

Torturer at Royal Wedding as Monarchies “Hijack” Uprisings

April 29, 2011

Dr. SAEED AL SHEHABI, mrsam13 at hotmail.com
General secretary of the Bahrain Freedom Movement, Al Shehabi said today: “We were able to prevent the crown prince from attending the royal wedding by stating that his attendance would be considered backing of human rights violations that are taking place in Bahrain. Now the attendance of the Bahraini ambassador who committed torture in Bahrain is even worse.

“Throughout the Mideast, the monarchies, especially the Gulf Sheikdoms, led by Saudi Arabia and in cooperation with the Western powers, are hijacking the Arab uprisings to leave the monarchies in place.”

Background: The Guardian reports: “The former head of an agency accused of torture and human rights abuses is expected to be a guest at Friday’s royal wedding, the Guardian has learned.

“Sheikh Khalifa Bin Ali al-Khalifa is a former head of Bahrain’s National Security Agency and will attend the wedding in his role as the current Bahraini ambassador to London. …

“Khalifa was head of the agency from 2005 to 2008. The pressure group Human Rights Watch alleges that in 2007 detainees in Bahrain suffered torture including electric shocks and beatings.”

The Christian Science Monitor reports: “Bahrain sentences four protesters to death, deepening anger among Shiites.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

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WikiLeaks and Torture

April 25, 2011

Numerous media outlets — including McClatchy, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times and NPR — are now releasing information from classified files originally obtained via WikiLeaks on more than 700 past and present Guantanamo detainees.

LOGAN PRICE, logan — at — bradleymanning.org, @kstrel, bradleymanning.org
Late last week, Price questioned President Obama at a fundraiser about the detention of Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, including the documents on Guantanamo now being released. See Glenn Greenwald: “President Obama speaks on Manning and the rule of law”

Obama told Price: “We’re a nation of laws. We don’t let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. He [Manning] broke the law.” Wrote Greenwald: “How can Manning possibly expect to receive a fair hearing from military officers when their Commander-in-Chief has already decreed his guilt? … But even more fascinating is Obama’s invocation of America’s status as a ‘nation of laws’ to justify why Manning must be punished. That would be a very moving homage to the sanctity of the rule of law — if not for the fact that the person invoking it is the same one who has repeatedly engaged in the most extraordinary efforts to shield Bush officials from judicial scrutiny, investigation, and prosecution of every kind for their war crimes and surveillance felonies.” Price asked if what Manning did wasn’t comparable to what Daniel Ellsberg did in leaking the Pentagon Papers. Greenwald added: “Obama’s claim that ‘Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way’ is true — what Ellsberg released was TOP SECRET [while the WikiLeaks material is merely secret].”

ANDY WORTHINGTON, andy — at — andyworthington.co.uk
Worthington is author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. He is co-director of the film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo.” youtube.com

Worthington was on Democracy Now this morning about the most recent revelations.

PRATAP CHATTERJEE, pchatterjee — at — igc.org
Chatterjee is a regular columnist for the British Guardian, and just wrote the piece “How Guantanamo Bay became Kafkas’s trial.”

MATTHEW DALOISIO, daloisio — at — riseup.net
Daloisio is with Witness Against Torture. He said today: “What we have suspected for a long time now has been confirmed by the latest WikLleaks documents released today. Guantanamo represents a full systems failure that spans two administrations, and indicts every branch of government. If there is any hope, it must be found in a time-tested system of law instead of fear-fueled politics that has led the Congress, the White House and the Judiciary to imprison innocent men, justify cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and fail at holding anyone accountable.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

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Drone Use in Libya, Pakistan Condemned

April 22, 2011

KATHY KELLY, kathy at vcnv.org
JOSHUA BROLLIER, joshua at vcnv.org
Kelly and Brollier are with Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Kelly was recently in Afghanistan and today will be participating in a demonstration at a drone command base in New York. VCRN just put out a statement condemning “the hypocrisy and immorality of the United States in approving the use of missile-armed Predator drones and other aerial weaponry in Libya for a supposedly humanitarian purpose. While at the same time, the U.S. is carrying out continued drone and aerial attacks [in] Pakistan and Afghanistan, including civilians.

“In the most recent drone attack in N. Waziristan, Pakistan ‘killed three civilian women and four children in addition to 18 suspected militants’ [LA Times]. This killing came only two days after Pakistani army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, reiterated an appeal to the United States to stop the CIA drone program because the strikes ‘not only undermine our national effort against terrorism but turn public support against our efforts.’

“It is unclear just who is being targeted and how many civilian casualties occur in strikes like this one and the March 17th strike killed more than 40 people in the North Waziristan village of Datta Khel. Almost no follow up is done and there is no measure of accountability for these extra-judicial killings being carried out by the CIA.

“Furthermore, the United States and ISAF forces are consistently murdering civilians through aerial attacks in Afghanistan. On April 20, 2011 [Wednesday], NATO warplanes killed three civilians in the Dangam District of Afghanistan’s Kunar Province. The United States confirmed the attack occurred and said it was ‘still investigating who exactly was killed.’ In instances like these where ‘suspected militants’ are involved, it is unclear how these terms are being defined. Furthermore, we should be mindful of the illegitimacy of U.S./NATO/ISAF presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the first place.

“In resistance to these atrocities, anti-war activists have been participating in a five day peace/anti-drone march from Ithaca, New York, which will culminate today in a demonstration at Hancock Air Field in Syracuse, a site of drone operations.” For information about the march, visit VCNR Drone Warfare Resources page: vcnv.org/project/drone-warfare-awareness or contact Kelly who is participating in the march.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

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Escalating Iraq Protests: U.S. “Playing with Fire”

April 20, 2011

AFP is reporting today: “Moqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday blasted a ban on public rallies in the Iraqi capital, saying it was ‘undemocratic’ and based on fear of rising protests.

“Iraq’s government announced last week demonstrations would be allowed only at three football stadiums, ostensibly because shopkeepers in the city’s main Tahrir Square complained of losing trade during weekly protests.”

MICHELE NAAR-OBED, cptiraq — at — cpt.org
Michele Naar-Obed is in the northern Iraqi city of Suleimaniya and recently wrote a piece titled “The Least Reported Unarmed Revolution in the Middle East.”

She wrote yesterday: “Following 62 days of continuous protest in Suleimaniya against corruption and tribal rule within the Kurdistan Regional Government, legal permission for the protest has been revoked and a source within the armed Peshmerga forces [Kurdish militias] said the forces were given orders to shoot to kill any demonstrators today….”

Today, she told IPA: “We are living in a military siege. Ten thousand troops are here occupying the city. … Arrests are ongoing. People are being beaten, gassed, and shot at. Now the troops have official permission to shoot in the legs. Yesterday, we heard that they could shoot to kill. This is for anyone that even remotely tries to form a demonstration anywhere. Last night there were official meetings with the U.S., PUK [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, has been headed by Jalal Talabani, who is president of Iraq] and [an] opposition party.”

Michele Naar-Obed works with the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a human rights organization and has been based in Suleimaniya since 2006.

RAED JARRAR, jarrar.raed — at — gmail.com
An Iraqi-American blogger and political analyst based in Washington, D.C., Jarrar recently wrote the piece “Playing with Fire in Iraq.”

He said today: “Although Iraqis have been demonstrating in the streets since late February, most of the demands were focused on improving services and fighting corruption. Protests have been intensifying since U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Baghdad earlier this month in what was seen as an attempt to extend the December 31 deadline that requires all the U.S. armed forces to leave Iraq. The deadline was agreed upon in the binding bilateral Security Agreement, and it requires both combat and non-combat forces affiliated with the DoD to leave the country before the end of this year bringing down the number of U.S. armed forces to zero.

“Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets on April 9, which marks the day of the fall of Baghdad under the U.S.-led military occupation, demanding a complete U.S. withdrawal before the end of the year. Tens of thousands of have been staging a sit-in protest in Mosul since, and some Iraqi soldiers and police are joining the protesters in the last few days.

“Considering the recent wave of protests in Iraq and the region, the U.S. government is playing with fire in Iraq. Any attempts to delay or cancel the United States’ complete departure will most likely spark a nationwide revolt against the very unpopular U.S. military presence there.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , Tagged With: Iraq,

Breaking: Arab Democracy Protests in D.C.

April 15, 2011

Several hundred people are now protesting at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. and plan to march to the White House. Organizers expect between one and two thousand people to take part today. The rallies protest the Bahrain regime’s crackdown against the pro-democracy movement there as well as Saudi and U.S. government backing of the regime in Bahrain. Saudi troops moved into Bahrain at the request of the regime on March 14 (just days after the earthquake in Japan). For more information on rallies, see: bahrainrallydc.wordpress.com and #bahrainrally.

Among the groups participating:

HUSAIN ABDULLA
Abdulla is director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain. He said today: “The European parliament has been condemning the violent repression of peaceful protesters in Bahrain to no avail while the U.S. government has been silent. Then, yesterday, the U.S. finally said something about the Bahrain regime eliminating opposition parties and the regime immediately backed off. This shows the U.S. government has real influence. Unfortunately, instead of getting the regime to stop its violence, it has backed it.”

MOHAMMAD ALI NAQUVI
Naquvi is with the American Council for Freedom in Bahrain, which said in a statement: “[We] demand an end to the intimidation, torture and killing of peaceful protesters, human rights activists and health and medical personnel in Bahrain at the hands of the Bahraini military and security forces provided by Saudi Arabia and other states. Political institutions have been trying to stoke the fire of Shia-Sunni sectarianism instead of resolving the real issues — the barbaric actions and unfair political and economic policies of the ruling family in Bahrain [and] a state of forceful repression. …

“The U.S. has an obligation to immediately suspend the transfer of weapons, munitions and related equipment to Bahrain that could be used to commit further human rights violations, and to urgently review all arms supplies and training support to Bahrain’s military, security and police forces. American interests will only be enhanced if we work to increase stability in the region by furthering human rights without discrimination.”

Background: “CNN arrests expose crackdown in Bahrain”

“Bahrain questions three journalists after crackdown”

“U.S. Keeps Quiet over Repression”

Zainab Alkhawaja’s (who is on a hunger strike following the beating and detention of her father, a human rights activist) letter to President Obama: angryarabiya.blogspot.com

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , Tagged With: Bahrain,

Cost of War “Elephant in Room”

April 14, 2011

President Obama said yesterday: “This larger debate we’re having, about the size and role of government, has been with us since our founding days. And during moments of great challenge and change, like the one we’re living through now, the debate gets sharper and more vigorous. That’s a good thing. As a country that prizes both our individual freedom and our obligations to one another, this is one of the most important debates we can have.”

JO COMERFORD, CostofWar.com
Comerford is executive director of the National Priorities Project, which features the chart “Tax Day 2011: Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go? Breakdown of One Dollar.” It gives the following breakdown: “27.4¢ on Military, 21.5¢ on Health, 13.8¢ on Interest on Debt, 10.9¢ on Income Security & Labor, 4.9¢ on Housing & Community, 4.2¢ on Food, 3.9¢ on Veterans’ Benefits, 3.5¢ on Education, 3.3¢ on Government & Commerce, 3¢ on Environment, Energy & Science, 2.2¢ on Transportation, 1.2¢ on International Affairs.”

The group’s blog includes an analysis of the recent budget agreements and proposals: nationalpriorities.org/en/blog

BRUCE FEIN
Fein is author of American Empire: Before the Fall. He said today: “We have failed to have a vigorous debate on the $1.2 trillion per year national security budget that makes us less safe. It’s the elephant in the room. Both Republic and Democratic administrations are guilty.”

Fein is speaking this afternoon at an event along with members of Congress including Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) on the costs of the war in Afghanistan. The event is being organized by rethinkafghanistan.com/iou — the webpage gives you an estimate of the amount of your tax bill that goes to war in Afghanistan.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

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Japan Disaster to Level Seven: “The Explosion of Nukespeak”

April 12, 2011

The Japanese government has raised the emergency at the Fukushima nuclear plant to level seven, from a level five. This puts it at the highest level, as was Chernobyl.

KARL GROSSMAN
Grossman and others have been advocating raising the emergency level as a first step for weeks. Professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, Grossman is author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and Power Crazy.

He said today: “Finally, the Japanese government is acknowledging a little reality. But the sad fact is that the Fukushima disaster is beyond a level seven disaster, it’s off the books. You have multiple reactors and cooling pools.

Grossman just wrote the piece “Fukushima Nuclear Disaster at One Month: The Explosion of Nukespeak,’” which states: “The classic book on disinformation on nuclear technology is Nukespeak, published in 1982. It is dedicated to George Orwell, author of 1984, and written by Stephen Hilgarten, Richard C. Bell and Rory O’Connor.

“It opens by declaring that ‘the history of nuclear development has been profoundly shaped by the manipulation through official secrecy and extensive public-relations campaigns. Nukespeak and the use of information-management techniques have consistently distorted the debate over nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Time and time again, nuclear developers have confused their hopes with reality, publicly presented their expectations and assumptions as facts, covered up damaging information, harassed and fired scientists who disagreed with established policy, refused to recognize the existence of problems … claimed that there was no choice but to follow their policies.’”

See: IPA news release “Chernobyl Experts: Fukushima Could be Worse” from March 23.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , , Tagged With: enviornment, nuclear,

$1.6 Trillion Spent on Military; Global Day of Action

April 11, 2011

JOHN FEFFER
Feffer is a fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies. He said today: “Just-released figures for global military expenditures by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that the world spent more than $1.6 trillion on the military. Even in the middle of a global economic crisis, military spending has increased, with the United States responsible for nearly half of all expenditures. With the U.S. government in a budget crisis, it’s urgent that we move from military deeds to human needs. Meanwhile, other crises have put a great strain on the world’s resources: climate change, earthquakes, global poverty, nuclear proliferation, and the threat of health pandemics. Ever greater funds are necessary to repair the societies that have been damaged by war and conflict, including the latest war in Libya.”

The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. and the International Peace Bureau in Geneva, Switzerland are organizing the first Global Day of Action on Military Spending on Tuesday. Organizers say that people in more than 35 countries, as well as Columbus, Dallas, Kansas City and dozens of other cities throughout the United States, will participate. Organizers state: “Actions will include a protest in front of the White House at noon. Other U.S. cities include San Francisco, New York, Boston, Fairbanks, San Juan, and Honolulu. There will be actions at the United Nations offices in Geneva, a march in Kampala, a demonstration in Dhaka, a women’s peace gathering in Seoul, and much more. More than 100 organizations, including Religions for Peace, Scientists for Global Responsibility, the American Friends Service Committee, Win Without War, and Fellowship of Reconciliation have endorsed it.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , Tagged With: military spending,

“Exposed: The U.S.-Saudi Libya Deal”

April 1, 2011

PEPE ESCOBAR, [in Brazil] Skype: pepeasia
Escobar just wrote the piece “Exposed: The U.S.-Saudi Libya Deal,” which states: “You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement of their neighbor in exchange for a ‘yes’ vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya — the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973. …

“A full Arab League endorsement of a no-fly zone is a myth. Of the 22 full members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six of them were GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] members, the U.S.-supported club of Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and Algeria were against it. Saudi Arabia only had to ‘seduce’ three other members to get the vote.

“Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the no-fly zone. The vote was essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his CV with Washington with an eye to becoming the next Egyptian President.

“Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab revolt. Then, inexorably, came the U.S.-Saudi counter-revolution.” [Brazil is one of a few non-Arab countries granted observer status at the Arab League.] Escobar’s books include “Obama Does Globalistan.” His recent writings for the Asia Times are at: http://atimes.com/atimes/others/Pepe2011.html .

The AP is reporting this morning: “Bahrain Wages Unrelenting Crackdown on Shiites.”

Also available to assess these developments and revelations:

HUSAIN ABDULLA
Abdulla is director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain. He said today: “Despite the total regime crackdown, Saudi invasion, lack of attention or outside support, the protests in Bahrain are continuing.”

VIJAY PRASHAD, @vijayprashad
Author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. He recently wrote the piece “Intervening in Libya.”

SAM HUSSEINI, @samhuseini
Communications director for the Institute for Public Accuracy, Husseini recently wrote the piece “U.S. Not Guilty of Double Standards.”

Background:

The British Telegraph reported this week: “Saudi officials say they gave their backing to Western air strikes on Libya in exchange for the United States muting its criticism of the authorities in Bahrain, a close ally of the desert kingdom.”

Former British ambassador Craig Murray wrote on March 14: “A senior diplomat in a western mission to the UN in New York, who I have known over ten years and trust, has told me for sure that Hillary Clinton agreed to the cross-border use of troops to crush democracy in the Gulf, as a quid pro quo for the Arab League calling for Western intervention in Libya.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , Tagged With: Libya, Saudi,

Libya: * Who Are the Rebels? * WikiLeaks

March 30, 2011

VIJAY PRASHAD
Author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, Prashad said today: “We should be very careful when we think of the rebels. We should not confuse all the rebellions across the Arab world and consider them all to be the same. There are some important differences. Also, the United States and NATO have their own agendas here. When one supports an intervention, one should be very careful to see whose intervention we are supporting. Is this on behalf of those young people, the workers and others? Or is it on behalf of NATO and the Libyans it may be attempting to install?

“So, for instance, when we talk about the rebel leadership in Benghazi, one should keep in mind that the two principal military leaders, one of whom was a former interior minister in the Gadafi regime, Abdel Fatah Younis. And the second, Khalifah Hifler, was a general who led Libyan troops in Chad in the 1980s and was then taken up with the Libyan National Salvation Front, went off to live in Vienna, Virginia, for 30 years, about a ten minute drive from Langley [where the CIA is headquartered], and returned to Benghazi to, in a sense, I think, hijack the rebellion on behalf of the forces of reaction. In addition to NATO members, it’s fundamentally Qatar and the UAE, the Saudis and the Gulf Cooperation Council that is behind this. That’s the principal Arab support for the Libyan intervention and is the same force putting down the uprising in Bahrain. You had the Saudi Prince Faisal Al Turki talking about the GCC becoming perhaps a NATO of the Gulf region. So part of this intervention is precisely to clamp down on the ‘Arab Spring,’ to take attention away, as well, from Bahrain and other places, rather than a part of the Arab Spring — exactly the opposite of what the U.S. administration is claiming.”

Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. He recently wrote the piece “Intervening in Libya.”

W. RANDY SHORT
Short is an independent researcher who holds a doctorate in African studies from Howard University and a masters of divinity from Harvard University. He said today: “As part of my research on Libya, I came across a WikiLeaks document that seems to have been largely overlooked with all the fuss about personalities surrounding the WikiLeaks disclosures. The document shows extreme U.S. interest in the prospect of a rebellion in the eastern part of Libya. … In terms of sources of information, possibly the most dangerous aspect of what we are currently seeing has been the role of al-Jazeera. It played a very positive role in Egypt, but when things came to Libya it did a complete 180. The sheikdom of Qatar — which funds al-Jazeera — is the only nation in the Arab League that is actually participating in the military attacks. Also, it has signed an oil deal with the Libyan rebels. So if Gadafi wins, an oil deal for Qatar goes bad.” Short is able to address other issues surrounding the war with Libya, including water, refugees and relations with other African countries.

Excerpts from the WikiLeaks document Short is referring to: “Frustration at the inability of eastern Libyans to effectively challenge Qadhafi’s regime, together with a concerted ideological campaign by returned Libyan fighters from earlier conflicts, have played important roles in Derna’s [town in eastern Libya] development as a wellspring of Libyan foreign fighters in Iraq. Other factors include a dearth of social outlets for young people, local pride in Derna’s history as a locus of fierce opposition to occupation, economic disenfranchisement among the town’s young men. Depictions on satellite television of events in Iraq and Palestine fuel the widespread view that resistance to coalition forces is justified and necessary. One Libyan interlocutor likened young men in Derna to Bruce Willis’ character in the action picture ‘Die Hard,’ who stubbornly refused to die quietly. For them, resistance against coalition forces in Iraq is an important act of ‘jihad’ and a last act of defiance against the Qadhafi regime. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: , Tagged With: Libya,
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