Month: April 2011

On Thursday, US ambassador Susan Rice announced that Libyan government troops were being issued Viagra and told to rape as a terror weapon. She made the comment as part of a debate with another envoy to highlight that “the coalition is confronting an adversary doing reprehensible things.” Several diplomats said Rice provided no evidence for the Viagra allegation, which they said was made in an attempt to persuade doubters the conflict in Libya was not just a standard civil war but a much nastier fight in which Gadhafi is not afraid to order his troops to commit heinous acts.

However, today, MSNBC was told by US military and intelligence officials that there is no basis for Rice’s claims. While rape has been reported as a “weapon” in many conflicts, the US officials say they’ve seen no such reports out of Libya.

This sort of tactic is nothing new. It is reminiscent of the incubator babies story. In the run-up to the first gulf war in 1990, a tearful Kuwaiti girl testified before a congressional committee that she had witnessed Iraqi troops removing premature babies from incubators and stealing the incubators, levaing the babies to die. The story was used to promote the attack on Iraq, and continues to be cited as a reason for going to war in 1991.

However, the story has been widely debunked. The girl who made the allegations turned out to the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador the US, a resident of Washington, DC. Investigations by human rights groups and others found no evidence that the event ever occurred, or that the ambassdor’s daughter was even in Kuwait at the time.

My guess is that the Viagra story will still be repeated years from now as a reason we attacked Libya.

Truth is the first casualty of war.

Its never really been clear to me why comic book storylines have such an ability to rile up political factions, but after the bizarre row over the French Muslim ally of Batman it should have come as no surprise when Action Comics #900 included a story about Superman, of all people, renouncing his American citizenship, that a huge furor erupted. Incredibly, Superman’s American citizenship survived Lex Luthor’s term as President, but not the Arab Spring.

The story is a short one, and just one of several in the issue. The (fictional) US National Security Adviser dresses down Superman for his attendance at a major public protest in Tehran, complaining that since Superman is a US citizen it was causing a diplomatic incident. Superman tells the story of what happened at the protest – 1,000,000 attendees at Azadi Square and no shots fired.

Superman then makes his announcement, declaring “I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments of US policy. Truth, Justice and the American Way — It’s not enough anymore.”

Of course within the context of the DC Universe, Superman often WAS being used as an instrument of US policy. He’s worked for the US State Department regularly in the modern era, and that’s not counting his military role in WW2.

It seems odd that the administration would care if Superman attended a protest in Iran, of all places, but the National Security Advisor is clearly angry, and even makes a show of having snipers prepared to assassinate him with Kryptonite bullets during the meeting if things go poorly. Because apparently the administration didn’t realize that Superman is notoriously difficult to kill.

In his comments, however, Superman makes reference to “civil disobedience” and “nonviolent resistance,” which shows a level of nuance that the usually jingoistic Man of Steel has seldom exhibited. This story is far afield from the Superman who, following a terrorist attack on Metropolis, single-handedly invaded the fictional nation of Qurac and destroyed virtually their entire military.

Which brings up what seems the most awkward aspect of the story to me: the use of Iran as the site of the protests when the nation isn’t having major protests at the moment. Printed comics have some lead time, surely, but the message would’ve made a lot more sense if Superman was in Yemen or Bahrain. The identical story could have been told with a conceivable reason for the administration being so mad at Superman’s interference (which was more attendance than interference).

DC Comics has tended to use real locations sparingly when overseas since the Cold War, and fictional nation-states like Qurac (which played the role of surrogate Iraq in the early 1990s) and Modora have usually been used instead of real “enemy” nations.

Interestingly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is mentioned by name by Superman, who refers to the government as “Ahmadinejad’s regime” (suggesting Clark Kent is no more aware of internal Iranian politics than most reporters). Nothing really happens at the protest however, and it ends on a hopeful note, with a protester handing a single rose to a Revolutionary Guard soldier.

Which is in stark contrast to the last time Iran came up in the DC Universe. In that case (December 1988), Ayatollah Khomeini makes a brief (and odd) appearance, appointing the Joker as the Ambassador of Iran to the United Nations as a reward for the Joker’s help in arming an unnamed Arab militant faction in Lebanon (presumably Hezbollah) to attack Israel. The move granted the Joker diplomatic immunity (which he needed because he’d just beaten Robin to death with a crowbar), but was short-lived because he attempted to kill the entire UN General Assembly during his first speech with Joker toxin. After being foiled the Joker went underground (and presumably gave up the position, which was never mentioned again).

From Veterans for Peace:

Obama Declares Manning Guilty Before Trial
Can Military Officers Judge Him Impartially and Contradict Their Commander-In-Chief?

President Barack Obama said on April 21 that PFC Bradley Manning “broke the law.” This statement casts serious doubt on whether Manning can receive a fair trial from officers subordinate to Obama, their Commander-in-Chief.

“Members of the military are trained to follow orders. President Obama is the commander of all armed forces,” said Elliott Adams, president of Veterans For Peace. “Any officer who wants to advance in his military career would be wise not to contradict their commander-in-chief, especially after the military’s brutal treatment of Manning this past year. The President seems to have forgotten what he taught his constitutional law classes about being innocent until proven guilty.”

The government has already violated Bradley Manning’s due process rights by keeping him in pretrial solitary confinement for nearly a year and the President bears ultimate responsibility for the abusive treatment Manning has endured since July 2010 at Quantico Marine Base, and possibly before that in Kuwait. He has been confined to a 6-by-12-foot cell for 23 hours a day, prevented from sleeping during the day, denied exercise, woken up constantly, given limited access to books and writing materials, stripped at night and forced to endure inspection naked, and deprived of his eyeglasses. Many mental health professionals characterize this as psychological torture. President Obama could have stopped this mistreatment at any time with one phone call.

The President made another critical misstatement in his comments. He claimed that Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, was less culpable because the documents he leaked were “not classified in the same way.” In fact, the Pentagon Papers were classified at the highest level of secrecy while the WikiLeaks documents were at the lowest level.

“It’s time to free Bradley Manning and pin a medal on the man. He has already been punished beyond constitutional limits and now President Obama has made a fair trial impossible,” said Leah Bolger, vice-president of Veterans For Peace. “If indeed he’s the one who released those documents, he is a hero for blowing the whistle on war crimes and other misbehavior by U.S. officials.”

TRANSCRIPT AND LINK TO VIDEO:

Obama: “So people can have philosophical views [about Bradley Manning] but I can’t conduct diplomacy on an open source [basis]… That’s not how the world works. And if you’re in the military… And I have to abide by certain rules of classified information. If I were to release material I weren’t allowed to, I’d be breaking the law. We’re a nation of laws! We don’t let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. He broke the law.” [Emphasis added]

Q: “Didn’t he release evidence of war crimes?”

Obama: “What he did was he dumped…”

Q: “Isn’t that just the same thing as what Daniel Ellsberg did?”

Obama: “No it wasn’t the same thing. Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way.”

The video can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/IfmtUpd4id0

Ambassador Gene Cretz’s estimate for a death toll in Libya today was 30,000 which, if I’m remembering correctly, is about as much as the US was willing to cop to for the entire Iraq War until the WikiLeaks documents showed that to be a deliberate (and dramatic) undercount.

The real story wasn’t so much the surprisingly high death count, however, but Cretz’s admission that the toll was likely inaccurate, and his subsequent admission that an accurate figure wasn’t possible “until we really get more hands-on experience on the ground.”

Note he didn’t say “if” US troops end up on the ground, he says “until,” suggesting it is carved in stone that it will happen at some future date. Something the administration has repeatedly been insisting won’t happen.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates even went so far as to rule this out “as long as I’m in this job,” an assurance that is far less meaningful with officials saying he will be gone by the end of June.

Yesterday, consistent with the long U.S. tradition of mission creeps, the Obama Administration authorized the use of killer Predator drones in Libya.

Forget the collateral damage, we can’t even solve a closed room crime like the Jonbenet Ramsey murder.  And, after the most rigorous process the American “Justice” System can muster, people here are regularly exonerated from death row because DNA evidence proves they couldn’t possibly have committed the crime that put them there.

So now you’re going to tell me when these military institutions target and kill folks half-a-world away with this and other operations — when they often can’t even speak the language — they’re going to get it right?

Just in case you thought they would:

In Pakistan, U.S. drones have killed 25 people in North Waziristan. The dead reportedly included five children and four women. –U.S. Drone Strike Kills 25 in Pakistan

The US military has faulted a group of officers for a February drone attack that killed twenty-three Afghan civilians [including children] and wounded a dozen more. The drone operators launched the attack from the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where the drones are controlled. –US Faults Officers for Drone Attack Killings of 23 Afghan Civilians

A U.S. Predator drone missile strike killed up to 40 innocent civilians in Pakistan’s tribal area on Thursday, outraging Pakistani government and military officials. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the “irrational” attack and said it will “only strengthen [the] hands of radical and extremist elements…. –CIA drone kills 40 civilians in Pakistan, March 18th, 2011 2:54 am ET, Michael Hughes, Examiner

KATHY KELLY: We vigiled and protested at Creech because we believed it was very important to call attention to the fact that the United States is, at an alarming rate, moving into robotic warfare… There’s so little accountability…. children are among those who are being killed. And this is happening with such regularity in Pakistan and Afghanistan. …under international law, It’s clear that targeted assassinations, these arbitrary killings, extrajudicial killings, are not allowed and that citizens have a duty, a responsibility, to prevent it. –Activists Go on Trial in Nevada for Protesting Obama Admin Drone Program

I don’t know about you, but if my family, friends, neighbors and/or my countrymen — especially children — were blown away by a predator drone from a foreign country, I’d take up clandestine arms and do the most possible damage — perpetual war until I saw justice done to those responsible. And you better keep me away from the nukes. –April 22, 2011, 13:29:11

Released today by Veterans for Peace:

VFP Statement on Military Intervention in Libya
April 21, 2011

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
~ Senator Barack Obama, 2007

On March 19, 2011, the President, without Congressional approval, ordered the attack on multiple targets in Libya. Under the guise of enforcing a “no-fly zone” the United States launched over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles and flew over 113 sorties. At a cost of $1,066,465 per missile that amounts to $117,311,150 for just the munitions, not to mention the fuel and operating costs for the ships and planes used in the attacks. A USAF F-15E Strike Eagle was also lost in the conflict at a cost of $31.1 million. There was also the unseen cost of the aircraft used in the rescue mission and an unknown number of civilians injured.

From 1979 to 1989, the United States Central Intelligence Agency conducted Operation Cyclone, the largest and most expensive CIA operation in its history. Hailed as a great success, Operation Cyclone successfully led to the unseating of the USSR supported People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Operation Cyclone exploited fundamentalist Islam to motivate a group which became known as the Mujahedeen, funding and arming them to push the PDPA and the Soviet Union out militarily. Members of the Mujahedeen included Osama Bin Laden, and many other global figures in the group we now refer to as Al Qaeda.

Operation Cyclone, aside from being almost entirely covert, bears a striking resemblance to the current US operation wherein a sectarian and rather brutal totalitarian regime is being overthrown with US support by exploiting Islamic fundamentalists. While we know little about the rebels the US is aiding, we do know that many have fought against the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US has a long history of fomenting the overthrow of governments not supporting our financial interest. That history also shows repeated violent backlash against the US both by those supported, and those who have been overthrown.

Oil prices have also climbed to their highest levels since 2008, another unseen cost of war. As unemployment continues at 9.2%, many Americans will be unable to keep up with rising fuel costs. This problem may lead to increased unemployment if people can’t afford to get to their jobs, leading to a further downward spiral of the economy. In Yemen and Bahrain uprisings seen as part of the “Arab Spring” have been violently suppressed without significant action from the US; it is worth noting that both governments have been extremely compliant with US corporate interests in reference to our energy interests, and both nations allow US bases to be housed on their soil.

While Gadhafi’s actions against the Libyan people are reprehensible, the air strikes have not prevented his ground forces from being able to attack rebels and civilians. There are many atrocities occurring around the globe, but the United States government does not have the capability to fix them all. Additionally, bombing military targets and imposing a no-fly zone does very little to assist starving people and prevent human rights violations. Turkey has proposed diplomatic solutions to this crisis, yet the UN and NATO have continued military strikes. With no clear goal in mind, when is the end of the mission? Is the ousting of Gadhafi the only goal? Is it the role of the UN, NATO, and US to set up a new government by use of force? Is collateral damage and enormous costs from air strikes worthwhile without an endgame in site? Has the US government not learned from interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan that going to war without a plan leads to exorbitant and never-ending costs? History shows us that this type of intervention rarely goes without blowback and unintended consequences, perhaps with a $1.4 trillion deficit and a domestic budget in crisis our best outcome would be to support peaceful alternatives and not add to the violence of a Libyan civil war at all.

Todd Arkava, MD
VFP Member
Chapter 89

Will Hopkins
Director
NH Peace Action/ NH Peace Action Education fund
National Board of Directors
Veterans for Peace