Fred Branfman Dies at 72; Exposed U.S. Covert Bombing of Laos

The peace activist and author Fred Branfman has died of ALS at the age of 72. Branfman exposed the covert U.S. bombing of Laos. In the 1960s and 1970s, in what became the largest bombing campaign in history, the United States dropped more than two million tons of bombs on the small Southeast Asian country. Branfman interviewed refugees and helped illuminate their plight for other journalists and activists, including world-renowned linguist Noam Chomsky, who traveled to Laos in 1970. Speaking at Harvard University last year, Chomsky praised Branfman’s work.

Noam Chomsky: “He’s the person who worked for years, with enormous courage and effort, to try to expose what were called the ‘secret wars.’ The secret wars were perfectly public wars which the media were keeping secret, government. And Fred — this was in Laos — he finally did succeed in breaking through, and a tremendous exposure of huge wars that were going on.”

More at Democracy Now

Where ISIS Came From

In thinking about ISIS and their campaign of terror, I don’t have any better ideas about the best response than anyone else I’ve read recently.  I do notice however several things about their origins:

At the top the organization is the self-declared leader of all Muslims, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a radical chief executive officer of sorts, who 1) handpicked many of his deputies from among the men he met while a prisoner in American custody at the Camp Bucca detention center a decade ago.

He had a preference for military men, and so his leadership team 2) includes many officers from Saddam Hussein’s long-disbanded army. (Disbanded by the US invasion)

They include former Iraqi officers like Fadel al-Hayali, the top deputy for Iraq, who once served Mr. Hussein as a lieutenant colonel, and Adnan al-Sweidawi, a former lieutenant colonel who now heads the group’s military council.

The pedigree of its leadership, outlined by an Iraqi who has seen documents seized by the Iraqi military, as well as by American intelligence officials, helps explain its battlefield successes: Its leaders augmented traditional military skill with 3) terrorist techniques refined through years of fighting American troops, while also having deep local knowledge and contacts. ISIS is in effect a hybrid of terrorists and an army.

NY Times; Hubbard and Schmitt

These three points can be expanded by several others.  Not only 3) techniques but logistics of 4) supply and 5) delivery have been developed against American forces.  They know where to get guns, gas, food and water, and how to get all of it to blitzkrieging company sized units.  As any student of warfare can tell you, these are not incidental to taking and holding territory and killing the enemies, they are central.  Had the Americans not invaded Iraq, or carried out the war they way they did, it seems safe to say the practices honed thereby would not exist — at least to such a high degree. These points do not even mention the high-grade and heavy equipment and ammunition left, which have been scooped up and used with some degree of skill. So, 6 ways in which ISIS sprang from American actions.

I’m not of either of  the two camps currently giving ‘expert’ advice on what should be done about the carnage, neither those who claim that had Obama been tougher in Syria two years ago this would not have happened, and so the lesson is to Get Tough Now, nor with those who say a) this has nothing to do with American interests, or b) American intervention will only fuck it up more, therefore, from both at this end: do nothing.

I come from the ‘citizen of the world’ camp, which used to be a commonplace among many of my friends.  The threatened and the dead along the ISIS trail are not neighbors as near as those in California, but they are neighbors nonetheless.  What should, and what can, be done to stop the carnage?  What is available to those out of danger to help those deeply in it, which will not repeat the catastrophic errors enumerated at the top?  How can the guns, gas, water and food to the fighters be pinched and choked off until their threshing machine comes to a halt?  How can the fuel of war-is-wonderful, god approves, be diluted?

Dangerous Escalation in the Ukraine

It is not far from my mind how WW I began, 100 years ago: Austria marched its troops into Serbia in retaliation, the King said, for Serbia’s role in supporting the suicide-terrorists who had assassinated the soon-to-be king, Archduke Franz Joseph. With the “Teutons” marching on the “Slavs,” Russian felt obliged to mobilize; with the “Slavs” [“this unorganized Asiatic mass”] in motion the Germans, with militarism the guiding light of the Kaiser and his general Moltke, were happy to oblige — and marched into Russia, and of course France who was vowed to help the Russians.

Now again, troops are crossing borders.  After weeks of threats, bluffs and massing on the border, it seems that Russia has sent two columns into the Ukraine — against the express wishes of that government.

The Russian military has moved artillery units manned by Russian personnel inside Ukrainian territory in recent days and is using them to fire at Ukrainian forces, NATO officials said on Friday.

The West has long accused Russia of supporting the separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, but this is the first time it has said it had evidence of the direct involvement of the Russian military.

The Russian move represents a significant escalation of the Kremlin’s involvement in the fighting there and comes as a convoy of Russian trucks with humanitarian provisions has crossed into Ukrainian territory without Kiev’s permission.

Artillery into the Ukraine

And neither NATO nor the Europeans seem to have an idea how to respond.  Putin sees an advantage and not yet, enough downside to cease and desist.  What, short of armed resistance, will upend the equation to signal Russian/Putin loss instead of gain?

German Prime Minister Angela Merkel [Global Post] is to arrive in Kiev on Saturday, perhaps more persuaded than last time she was there, that serious economic measures have to be taken against Russia.

“We are in the process of a fundamental change in how we see Russia,” [Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations.] said in a telephone interview. “You have to understand the policy of the last 20-25 years has failed.”

That policy, marked by regular personal interactions between Merkel and Putin, was intended to nudge and cajole the former communist state to adopt democratic reforms through ever-greater economic ties.

But as the Ukraine crisis has escalated, especially after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Merkel has steadily taken an ever-stronger stance and now appears to have won support for broad economic sanctions from the once-reluctant German business community.

Arming The Rebels? Laughable Nonsense

Give Tom Friedman his due.  His response to the recent Hillary Clinton slam on President Obama’s decisions years ago to not arm Syrian rebels against Dictator Assad, not only has a great soundbite, it has 6 questions to be understood:

“The notion that the only reason that the Islamist militias emerged in Syria is because we created a vacuum by not adequately arming the secular rebels is laughable nonsense.”

and the questions, here.

Those hoping for an HRC presidency had better get her thinking about the real world and less about the campaign trail.

From Iraq: Backing Away from A Civil War Within A Civil War

Iran endorsed Iraq’s new prime minister-designate on Tuesday, dealing a devastating blow to Nouri al-Maliki as even the incumbent’s most loyal militia turned its back on him.

After eight years in office, Maliki has refused to step aside as Iraq’s prime minister, vowing to fight the nomination Monday of Haider al-Abadi to form a new government. But he was left with nowhere to turn for support Tuesday as he lost the backing of Tehran, which wields significant influence over Iraqi politics. Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a militia that has supported Maliki in the past, also said it supported the decision of Iraq’s Shiite politicians to nominate Abadi.

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, congratulated Abadi, Iraq’s religious leaders and political parties on the appointment, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

 

WaPo

War Itself is an Act of Terror

IN THIS war, both sides have the same aim: to put an end to the situation that existed before it started.Once And For All!

To put an end to the launching of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, Once And For All!

To put an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt, Once And For All!

So why don’t the two sides come together without foreign interference and agree on tit for tat?

They can’t because they don’t speak to each other. They can kill each other, but they cannot speak with each other. God forbid.

THIS IS NOT a war on terror. The war itself is an act of terror.

Uri Avnery

The Toll, day by day

West Bank Protest of Gaza Shelling

West Bank Protest of Gaza Shelling

Now, the West Bank joins in. As Avnery says, “History has shown time and again that terrorizing a population causes it to unite behind its leaders and hate the enemy even more,” and is so showing now.

What would a self-defense  look like that had as a strategic objective diminishing the motivation to attack? It wouldn’t start out with round ups, lock ups, shooting back regardless of the consequences.  If Gary Cooper in High Noon had gotten into the show-down while towns people stood in the path of fire, let’s say a tow-headed little boy got his face blown away, he would have been run out of town, not hailed a hero.

In this year of a terrible war starting, 100 years ago, we can see the slow drift again, of bad intelligence, wrong predictions, miscalculation,  contempt for them, blinding pride in us, though it’s worse now.  Then the Austrians didn’t like the Serbs nor the Serbs their Imperial occupiers; now Israelis loath the Palestinians and vice-versa.  Exterminist rhetoric is coming from both sides and any, small, good ideas are lost in the din.

I wonder sometimes, in my cynicism, if pictures of dead pets were shown instead of people, if the will to cease-fire would be found?

Laos: Still Clearing American Bombs

Un effing believable

“Women are on the frontline of the effort to find and destroy millions of unexploded cluster bombs which are still claiming lives decades after being dropped on Laos.

The US dropped up to 260 million cluster bombs on Laos during the Vietnam War – the equivalent of one bombing mission every eight minutes, for nine years.

It left Laos as the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the world.”

ABC News

Enemies of Enemies — To Become Friends?

“Military aircraft that conducted air strikes against ISIS military targets in western Iraq are believed to have been from Syria’s air force, a U.S. official told ABC News.

“There have [also] been reports of Iranian troops intervening on behalf of the beleaguered Iraqi government.

ABC

Cambodia, Misery Just below the Surface

With renewed understanding in the U.S. that one of the costs of war is enduring psychological damage not only to those who were in the theaters of war but to the families, first separated and then re-combined in combustible ways, one wonders about all those who have been so traumatized, not just Americans.

Cambodia Mental Illness

On a trip through Cambodia several years ago we were struck by the lack of everyday manifestation of war injuries.  It turns out, however, there is plenty — and as a poor country, not much help.

In 2012, in a first attempt to define the scope of Cambodia’s mental health crisis, the Royal University of Phnom Penh interviewed 2,600 people. More than 27 percent showed acute anxiety, and 16.7 percent suffered from depression.


The study estimated the suicide rate at 42.35 per 100,000 people. That would put Cambodia second only to Greenland in incidence of suicides.

Anxiety, depression, PTSD and suicide are estimated to be even higher among survivors of the Khmer Rouge — communist fanatics who took control over the country in 1975. More than 1.7 people, about one-fourth of the population, perished during their four-year rule.

The atrocities were appalling. Children saw their parents gutted, babies were smashed against trees and rice paddies became mass graves. Despite widespread hunger, simple suspicion of stealing food was punished by death.

While 2.7 percent of the overall population suffers from PTSD, the prevalence among survivors is 11.4 percent. Thirty percent of survivors suffer from depression and 36.8 from anxiety, according to a 2010 study by the Berlin Centre for the Treatment of Torture Victims. 

“When the participants were asked whether they seek help from professional mental health providers, 85.4 percent answered no,” the study found.

The country’s mental health burden also affects subsequent generations who did not have to live through the terror of the Khmer Rouge.



Studies found that children of mentally ill parents are more likely to develop syndromes as well.

Global Post and Asia Life

The New Pottery Barn Rule: You Break it, You Move On

Contrary to Colin Powell’s much quoted warning “You Break it, You Own It,” the policy and military elites of the United States who broke Iraq have just moved on in their always comfortable lives.  This week is the 11th anniversary of the Bush-Cheney invasion.  Last year, 2013, some 8,000 Iraqi’s died in the continuing sectarian violence triggered by that invasion.

Here are some reminders.

Greg Mitchell at The Nation:

As we approach the eleventh anniversary of the US attack on Iraq this week, we may face a bit more media coverage of that tragic conflict than usual. How much of it will focus on the media misconduct that helped make the war possible (and then continue for so long)? It’s certainly not something the media like to dwell on.

For now, let’s relive just some of the good, the bad and the ugly in war coverage from the run-up to the invasion through the five years of controversy that followed. In updating the first e-book version of my book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed on Iraq, which features a preface by Bruce Springsteen, I was surprised to come across once-prominent quotes and incidents that had faded a bit, even for me. Here is a list of fifteen episodes, in roughly chronological order.

1) In late March 2003, the day before the US invasion, Bill O’Reilly said, “If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it’s clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation; I will not trust the Bush administration again, all right?”

2) After the fall of Baghdad in April, Joe Scarborough, on MSNBC, said, “I’m waiting to hear the words ‘I was wrong’ from some of the world’s most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types.”

3) The same day, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews declared, “We’re all neocons now.”

4) Thomas Friedman, who had called this a “legitimate war of choice,” now wrote at The New York Times, “As far as I am concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war…. Mr. Bush doesn’t owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons.”

read all

Katrina vanden Heuvel at the Nation looks back at the warnings and predictions of some who opposed the invasion:

This Monday marks the eleventh anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq—a solemn punctuation mark to the steadily increasing violence that has gripped that country over the past two years. Sectarian violence claimed more than 8,000 Iraqis in 2013 alone, and this year’s toll has already surpassed 2,000. Iraq today is a broken and failing state: the war that many would prefer to believe ended in 2011 continues unabated, with Iraqis continuing to suffer, as much as ever, the fallout from this country’s callous lies and avoidable mistakes. Despite Colin Powell’s sanctimonious “Pottery Barn rule,” John Feffer wrote on his Foreign Policy in Focus blog at TheNation.com last month, the United States has made no effort to “own up to our responsibility for breaking the country.”

read all

Rachel Maddow put together a substantial investigation about the pre-planning to take over Iraq’s oil fields, much before the 9/11 attacks.  This is the first part of it, which you can find at MSNBC