Military - new material (66)
01 January 2009
Human Rights Situation in Palestine and other Occupied Arab Territories. Report of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk. United Nations Human Rights Council (A/HRC/10/20) 17.3.09, pp. 26. This report is the advanced unedited version of the UN’s Special Rapporteur’s report on Israel’s contribution to the “war on terror”, its invasion of the occupied Palestinian Territories. He concludes: “A total of 1,434 Palestinians were killed. Of these, 235 were combatants. 960 civilians reportedly lost their lives, including 288 children and 121 women. 239 police officers were also killed; the majority (235) in air strikes carried out the first day. 5,303 Palestinians were injured, including 1,606 children and 828 women (namely 1 in every 225 Gazans was killed or injured, not counting mental injury, which must be assumed to be extensive).” Falk observes: ”There is no way to reconcile the general purposes and specific prescriptions of international humanitarian law with the scale and nature of the Israeli military attacks commenced on 27 December 2008. The Israeli attacks with F-16 fighter bombers, Apache helicopters, long-range artillery from the ground and sea were directed at an essentially defenceless society of 1.5 million”. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/10session/A.HR C.10.20.pdf
Panel urges keeping US nuclear arms in Europe, Walter Pincus. Washington Post 9.1.09. A high level task force, appointed by US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, has advised that the US should keep tactical nuclear bombs in Europe and even consider modernising older warheads on Cruise missiles to maintain credibility with allies who depend on the US weapons for security. The panel, called the Secretary of Defense Task Force on Defense Department Nuclear Weapons Management and chaired by former defence secretary James Schlesinger, said in the report that as long as NATO members rely on US nuclear weapons for deterrence and maintain their own dual-capable aircraft no action should be taken to remove them without consultation. The task force was set up after two nuclear incidents last year involving a nuclear weapon loaded B-52 flying across the US and shipping nuclear missile parts to Taiwan. Report available as free download from www.defenselink.mil/pubs/phase_i_report_sept_10.pdf
Satellite evidence reveals the secret history of CIA airbase, Jeremy Page. The Times 19.2.09, pp. 40-41. Images from Google Earth show that the US has been secretly launching pilotless attack drones from the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan since 2006. The drones’ attacks on Pakistan’s Federally Administered Areas have caused high numbers of civilian deaths (the precise number is unknown as the US does not do body counts in Pakistan any more than it did in Iraq), as well as taking-out targets in assassinations. This is done with the tacit support of the Pakistan government and army, despite the country’s officials repeatedly condemning this violation of its sovereign territory. The US is expected to extend its strikes to the densely populated capital of Baluchistan province, Quetta, in the near future with an inevitiable increase in “collateral damage”.
“I’m not Proud of What I Did: Breaking the silence”, Brandon Neely interviewed by Almerindo Ojeda. Independent Life, 18.2.09, pp. 1-6. Brendan Neely is a former Military policeman and Guantanamo guard and this interview gives a taste of Donald Rumsfeld’s concept of “justice”. Neely describes his lack of training, a process by which he realised that he was “no longer a civilian: I was property of the United States army”. He describes the casual beatings and abuse meted out to the “underweight and malnourished” prisoners, or “sand niggers” as the guards liked to address them. He concludes: “I think everyone can agree that, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, there are some really bad people. And there are a lot of good people there as well. But – innocent, guilty, black, white, Muslim or Jew, no matter what you are – there is no excuse to treat people in the manner that I and other people did. It’s wrong and downright criminal, and it goes against everything the United States of America stands for,”
Conclusions of the Brussels European Council on ESDP available at: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/ esdp/104699.pdf
“I shot him in the head – 11 times”, Donald Macintyre. Independent on Sunday 1.3.09, pp. 5-7. Macintyre interviews a former member of an Israeli assassination squad who expands on the testimony he provided to Breaking the Silence (an Israeli ex-soldiers organisation) casting new light on the “targeted assassination” tactic used by the Israeli Defence Force and the collateral damage that comes with it. One operation, in which two civilians were massacred alongside two “targets”, is said to have “succeeded perfectly” and the anonymous assassin was congratulated by the prime minister and the chief of staff.
Report on the implementation of the European Security Strategy: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/ esdp/104631.pdf
“Energy and climate change shape EU security strategy”, Valentina Pop. EUobserver.com, 10.12.08
“Summit boosts EU security and defence”, Valentina Pop. EUobserver.com 12.12.08
60 Jarhe Nato (NATO 60 years). Wisenschaft und Frieden (Bonn, Germany) 2009/1.: http://www.wissenschaft-und-frieden.de