...The only way to win the "War on Terror" is to rise above it and reclaim our leadership role by recognizing international law and not creating policy based on fear. Until we as a nation once again hold ourselves to the standards we demand of others, we will continue to lose friends and create enemies.
From : The War on Terror: Beyond the Military by Lt. Col. Barry Wingard (attorney, Judge Advocate, U.S. Airforce) at Huffington Post , July 28, 2010
Wikileaks leader Julian Assange compared the release of “The Afghan War Diaries” to Daniel Ellsberg’s release in 1971 of the Pentagon Papers. Those classified documents revealed the duplicitous arguments used to justify the Vietnam War and played an important role in eventually getting Congress to cut off funding.
Ellsberg’s courageous act was the subject of a recent Oscar-nominated documentary, entitled “The Most Dangerous Man in America," named after one of the less profane sobriquets thrown Ellsberg’s way by then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger.
...Assange noted that the classified material includes many heart-rending incidents that fit into the mosaic of a larger human catastrophe. These include one depicted in Der Spiegel’s reportage of accidental killings on June 17, 2007, when U.S. Special Forces fired five rockets at a Koran school in which a prominent al-Qaeda functionary was believed to be hiding.
When the smoke cleared, the Special Forces found no terrorist, but rather six dead children in the rubble of the school and another who died shortly after.
Above quote from:WikiLeaks Bombshell Docs Paint Afghan War as Utter Disaster -- Will We Finally Stop Throwing Money and Lives at This Catastrophe?
There's clear proof the war in Afghanistan is a complete failure -- we must demand an immediate exit. By Ray McGovern
Via Consortium News & AlterNet.org, July 26, 2010
Report from BBC on Wikileaks Docs Dump-Bad news for USA and Nato-Media and governments under reporting civilian deaths and sugar-coating progress of war in Aghanistan.
Largest Leak In U.S. Military History!
CBC blaming the messenger. CBC defends status quo and the US war on terror unconditionally
CBC and Canadian Media downplay wikileaks docs dump of US military files.
Of course the CBC is not going to bother investigating the reports because the CBC and Canadian Media like the US Media are an Echo chamber for the Pro-war factions and they believe we must support the War on Terror and any criticism of our policies or of America's motives and actions is to be discredited. This is especially true since the Harper government is made up primarily of Neocons and uberconservatives who are trying to bring about radical change in Canadian policies both foreign and domestic.
Here's a conundrum: Obama says there is nothing new in these leaked files and yet he is angry about their release. So which is it???
And what happened to Obama's promise of transparency???
And why is Obama desperately defending the US military and the former Bush Regime???
If he admits that War Crimes were committed than he might have to do something about it while he wants to forget about the past even if its three years ago or three days ago.
It is Obama who is to be held responsible for the callous disregard for Civilian casualties who were wounded or killed under his watch ie by the deadly Reaper Drones or dropping Big 2,000 pound bombs on villages & and Weddings , funerals and family gatherings!!!
When documents were released last year revealing the extent of deception war crimes, abuse and torture of detainees, of using White Phosphorus /Napalm on civilian targets by the US and Nato forces and the use of hit squads or deatrh squads Obama pretended those docs were also unimportant .
What he has said is just an Echo of Bush and Cheney that whatever America, its military, the CIA, special forces and its mercenaries do is by definition above reproach because America is the standard barrer of Western Democracy and Civilization and Christian morality.
Wikileaks: Canadian soldiers 'killed' in friendly fire
Of course families of killed Canadian soldiers are going to insist that their family members were killed by Taliban rather than by friendly fire.
AlJazeeraEnglish | July 28, 2010
As the US government assesses the impact of the wiki leaks revelations on military operations in Afghanistan, the posting of the material online has unveiled another previously unknown incident.
The documents suggests that four Canadian soldiers who died in 2006 were actually killed when a US jet dropped a bomb on a building they were occupying.
Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab reports from Toronto.
July 29, 2010
WikiLeaks Reveals Unknown Friendly Fire Incident! Americans Killed Canadians!
RT WikiLeaks reveals civilians are fair game in US war tactics
and see:
The War on Terror: Beyond the Military by Lt. Col. Barry Wingard (attorney, Judge Advocate, U.S. Airforce at Huffinton Post , july 28, 2010
In America, the "War on Terror" has become a subjective "us" versus "them" battle that serves to advance stereotypes based upon who we believe we are as Americans and who, or what, we perceive "them" to be. In a real sense, significant effort has gone toward convincing Americans with little worldly experience that a billion Muslim "them" think a certain way and hate us for our free and democratic way of life.and so it goes,
The "War on Terror" should be about taking the moral high ground and protecting law-abiding people of all races, ethnicity and religious faiths. But in the past eight years, it has wrongly been used to sell the idea that the arbitrary "them" are sub-human because they are not like "us." Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are perfect examples of what happens as a result. These military prisons are already touchstones for the "War on Terror" in history books and nothing we do will ever change that. But, certainly we can do more than continue the mistakes of current and past presidential administrations.
While prosecuting cases in Iraqi courts, I personally witnessed the consequences of misguided U.S. policies. The defendants I was prosecuting were much more likely to be unemployed Iraqis trying to make money, rather than extremists driven by religion or philosophy. Often, when it came to offering justifications for opposing U.S. forces, defendants would cite Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay or the United States' invasion of Iraq. Very few cited historic or religious animosity as the basis for their actions.
...The only way to win the "War on Terror" is to rise above it and reclaim our leadership role by recognizing international law and not creating policy based on fear. Until we as a nation once again hold ourselves to the standards we demand of others, we will continue to lose friends and create enemies.
Our nation has survived dark times in the past and we can do so again -- not by hiding our mistakes, but by publicly rejecting them and changing course. In the present instance, a fair and public trial in a real court for every detainee at Guantanamo Bay is essential. We must put an end to the approach of placing human beings in legal black holes and allowing fear to dictate a policy that contradicts what we have defined as our American way of life.
GORD.
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