Personal Loans

Archive for the ‘Featured Articles’ Category

“Remember only that I was innocent and just like you, mortal on that day, I too, had had face marked by rage, by pity and joy, quite simple, a human face.. “

That Benjamin Fondone’s testimony was read in a corner of Holocaust Yad Vashem Meseum at Jerusalem.   He is one from about 6 million of Europe Jewish people, including 1.5 million children who died at the Auschwitz camp massacre, Germany in 1944.

The Holocaust Museum which is opened in 2005 is a museum in a form of building that was built to commemorate the victims of massive and systematic murder of Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler in 1940-1945.  The shape of Museum is like a prism triangular structured that was built as through the mountain, and both of ends is look up to the sky.  Its area is about 45 hectare.  Each side was made like a ‘book chapter’ that tells the chronology of Holocaust tragedy – the villainy which expert said as the turning point of Jewish history and humanism history in general.

The sophisticated data collection system record about 3.6 million of victim’s name.  The data center also save about 125 million of documentation,  370,000 photos,  more than 100,000 video, audio and testimony,  more than 117,000 books and thousands of journal.

The whole process of slaughter retold by the survivor and accompanied by a large amount of evidence like the rest of shoes, rest of last clothes used, rest of thousands books were burned, children’s toy and milk bottle.

The Europe Jewish people were the greatest victims than non-Europe Jewish people that become target of hatred, such as Poles ethnic (Ukrainians and Belarusians minority ethnic in Poland), adherents of the Roman Catholic, Nazi political opponents, people with the physical and mental disabilities, homosexuals and others. The number of victims is estimated more than 11 million people. ..!!

Before were entered in to the room with poisonous gas or being led to electric chair, the victims were bathed, given a good clothes and then entertained accompanied by best classical music.  This story was retold by the survivor such as Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel.  There were some of Science and Philosophy landmark creator which is slip off like Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin dan Herbert Mercuse.

The purpose of museum development is to celebration of a live, not death, to promote a peace, not hatred…  Enough only once the Holocaust happened …  and not anymore… !!!

source : kompas 2010

Despite having one of the largest war victim populations in Asia, Afghanistan does not have a law on how to deal with hundreds of thousands of war widows, orphans and disabled

Ahmad Wali died in a bomb blast in Kandahar city on 25 August and Samim was killed in a suicide attack in Kabul on 15 September. Both men left grieving families with little capacity to cope on their own.

We could not afford to pay the rent so we left our old home and have moved into a small room outside the city, said Samims eldest son, Arif.

My children cannot go to school any more because we cannot afford their education, said Walis widow, Pashtana.

Both families have found it increasingly difficult to meet their food needs: We eat whatever we can find but wait for Gods mercy when there is no food, said Pashtana.

We dont receive a single dollar from the government to help war victims and their families, Suraya Paikan, deputy minister for Labour, Social Affairs and Martyrs & Disabled, told IRIN, adding that tens of thousands of victim households were registered with her department.

The office of the president told IRIN that in the last 18 months over 2,800 condolence payments (US$2,000 each) had been made to families that had lost a family member in the war, and 1,700 sympathy payments ($1,000) had been distributed to people wounded in the conflict.

However, the presidents condolence payments are ad hoc and authorized only for specific families – mostly those affected by military operations by pro-government forces, officials said.

Wali and Samims families said they had received no support from the government or aid agencies apparently because both men were killed in explosions allegedly perpetrated by anti-government forces.

No laws

Despite having one of the largest war victim populations in Asia, Afghanistan does not have a law on how to deal with hundreds of thousands of war widows, orphans and disabled.

There is a lack of almost everything – from budget, to capacity, to political commitment and to laws and rules, Paikan said.

Noor-ul-Haq Ulomi, a member of the National Assembly who served the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s, accused the international community and the current Afghan government of failing to heed the plight of war victims.

In the past the [Soviet-backed] government distributed free land and apartments, [making available] education facilities for orphans, and employment for widows and disabled people, but the existing government has done nothing compared to what had been done in the past, he said.

Tiny welfare payments

The families of about 100,000 government employees, police officers, soldiers and Mujahedin fighters killed in fighting between 1979 and 2001 have been registered at the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Martyrs & Disabled (MoLSAMD), but assistance is minimal: With funds from the World Bank the government pays up to $12 monthly (40 US cents a day) to each family.

Government officials acknowledge that the real number of victim families is much higher but say they cannot help all of them.

Some beneficiaries said the monthly payments they received could not meet their needs for a single day, and also criticized the payment process as corrupt and bureaucratic.

The main weaknesses of the current social protection programmes include lack of well-designed targeting instruments, poor coordination across programmes, poor budgeting, and weak institutional and administrative capacity, the World Bank said in a statement on 15 October. The statement also said the Bank would spend $7.5 million in the next four years to strengthen the capacity of MoLSAMD and help develop its welfare programmes.

More war victims

Meanwhile, more families are becoming victims of the fighting: The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) recorded 2,118 civilian deaths in 2008, compared to 1523 in 2007.

In 2009 UNAMA recorded 1,500 civilian casualties between January and August, with August being the deadliest month since the beginning of 2009. These figures reflect an increasing trend in insecurity over recent months and in elections-related violence, said a recent report to the Security Council by the UN Secretary-General.

Almost three times as many civilian deaths (68 percent) were attributed to anti-government elements activities than to pro-government forces (23 percent). The most deadly tactics used and which accounted for the largest number of civilian casualties in the conflict to date were attributable to planted improvised explosive devices; suicide attacks carried out by anti-government elements accounted for 39.5 percent of fatalities. Air strikes by pro-government forces accounted for 20 percent of fatalities, the report said.

( _http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/rawanews.php?id=1279 )

by Michel Chossudovsky

The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages.

Coalition partners, which include the US, Israel and Turkey are in “an advanced stage of readiness”.

Various military exercises have been conducted, starting in early 2005. In turn, the Iranian Armed Forces have also conducted large scale military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf in December in anticipation of a US sponsored attack.

Since early 2005, there has been intense shuttle diplomacy between Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara and NATO headquarters in Brussels.

In recent developments, CIA Director Porter Goss on a mission to Ankara, requested Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets.” Goss reportedly asked ” for special cooperation from Turkish intelligence to help prepare and monitor the operation.” (DDP, 30 December 2005).

In turn, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has given the green light to the Israeli Armed Forces to launch the attacks by the end of March:

All top Israeli officials have pronounced the end of March, 2006, as the deadline for launching a military assault on Iran…. The end of March date also coincides with the IAEA report to the UN on Iran’s nuclear energy program. Israeli policymakers believe that their threats may influence the report, or at least force the kind of ambiguities, which can be exploited by its overseas supporters to promote Security Council sanctions or justify Israeli military action.

(James Petras, Israel’s War Deadline: Iran in the Crosshairs, Global Research, December 2005)

The US sponsored military plan has been endorsed by NATO, although it is unclear, at this stage, as to the nature of NATO’s involvement in the planned aerial attacks.

“Shock and Awe”

The various components of the military operation are firmly under US Command, coordinated by the Pentagon and US Strategic Command Headquarters (USSTRATCOM) at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska.

The actions announced by Israel would be carried out in close coordination with the Pentagon. The command structure of the operation is centralized and ultimately Washington will decide when to launch the military operation.

US military sources have confirmed that an aerial attack on Iran would involve a large scale deployment comparable to the US “shock and awe” bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:

American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq. Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying direct from the United States, possibly supplemented by F-117 stealth fighters staging from al Udeid in Qatar or some other location in theater, the two-dozen suspect nuclear sites would be targeted.

Military planners could tailor their target list to reflect the preferences of the Administration by having limited air strikes that would target only the most crucial facilities … or the United States could opt for a far more comprehensive set of strikes against a comprehensive range of WMD related targets, as well as conventional and unconventional forces that might be used to counterattack against US forces in Iraq

(See Globalsecurity.org at _http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iran-strikes.htm

In November, US Strategic Command conducted a major exercise of a “global strike plan” entitled “Global Lightening”. The latter involved a simulated attack using both conventional and nuclear weapons against a “fictitious enemy”.

Following the “Global Lightening” exercise, US Strategic Command declared an advanced state of readiness (See our analysis below)

While Asian press reports stated that the “fictitious enemy” in the Global Lightening exercise was North Korea, the timing of the exercises, suggests that they were conducted in anticipation of a planned attack on Iran.

Consensus for Nuclear War

No dissenting political voices have emerged from within the European Union.

There are ongoing consultations between Washington, Paris and Berlin. Contrary to the invasion of Iraq, which was opposed at the diplomatic level by France and Germany, Washington has been building “a consensus” both within the Atlantic Alliance and the UN Security Council. This consensus pertains to the conduct of a nuclear war, which could potentially affect a large part of the Middle East Central Asian region.

Moreover, a number of frontline Arab states are now tacit partners in the US/ Israeli military project. A year ago in November 2004, Israel’s top military brass met at NATO headquarters in Brussels with their counterparts from six members of the Mediterranean basin nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. A NATO-Israel protocol was signed. Following these meetings, joint military exercises were held off the coast of Syria involving the US, Israel and Turkey. and in February 2005, Israel participated in military exercises and “anti-terror maneuvers” together with several Arab countries.

The media in chorus has unequivocally pointed to Iran as a “threat to World Peace”.

The antiwar movement has swallowed the media lies. The fact that the US and Israel are planning a Middle East nuclear holocaust is not part of the antiwar/ anti- globalization agenda.

The “surgical strikes” are presented to world public opinion as a means to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

We are told that this is not a war but a military peace-keeping operation, in the form of aerial attacks directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The press reports, while revealing certain features of the military agenda, largely serve to distort the broader nature of the military operation, which contemplates the preemptive use of tactical nuclear weapons.

The war agenda is based on the Bush administration’s doctrine of “preemptive” nuclear war under the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review.

Media disinformation has been used extensively to conceal the devastating consequences of military action involving nuclear warheads against Iran. The fact that these surgical strikes would be carried out using both conventional and nuclear weapons is not an object of debate.

According to a 2003 Senate decision, the new generation of tactical nuclear weapons or “low yield” “mini-nukes”, with an explosive capacity of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb, are now considered “safe for civilians” because the explosion is underground.

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of “authoritative” nuclear scientists, the mini-nukes are being presented as an instrument of peace rather than war. The low-yield nukes have now been cleared for “battlefield use”, they are slated to be used in the next stage of America’s “war on Terrorism” alongside conventional weapons:

Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states.[Iran, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent. ( Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004)

In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing “collateral damage”. The Pentagon has intimated, in this regard, that the mini-nukes (with a yield of less than 5000 tons) are harmless to civilians because the explosions take place under ground. Each of these mini-nukes, nonetheless, constitutes in terms of explosion and potential radioactive fallout a significant fraction of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Estimates of yield for Nagasaki and Hiroshima indicate that they were respectively of 21000 and 15000 tons ( _http://www.warbirdforum.com/hiroshim.htm)

In other words, the low yielding mini-nukes have an explosive capacity of one third of a Hiroshima bomb.

The new definition of a nuclear warhead has blurred the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons:

‘It’s a package (of nuclear and conventional weapons). The implication of this obviously is that nuclear weapons are being brought down from a special category of being a last resort, or sort of the ultimate weapon, to being just another tool in the toolbox,’ said Kristensen. (Japan Economic News Wire, op cit)

We are a dangerous crossroads: military planners believe their own propaganda.

The military manuals state that this new generation of nuclear weapons are “safe” for use in the battlefield. They are no longer a weapon of last resort. There are no impediments or political obstacles to their use. In this context, Senator Edward Kennedy has accused the Bush Administration for having developed “a generation of more useable nuclear weapons.”

The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of World Peace.

“Making the World safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

But nuclear holocausts are not front page news! In the words of Mordechai Vanunu,

The Israeli government is preparing to use nuclear weapons in its next war with the Islamic world. Here where I live, people often talk of the Holocaust. But each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples. (See interview with Mordechai Vanunu, December 2005).

Space and Earth Attack Command Unit

A preemptive nuclear attack using tactical nuclear weapons would be coordinated out of US Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, in liaison with US and coalition command units in the Persian Gulf, the Diego Garcia military base, Israel and Turkey.

Under its new mandate, USSTRATCOM has a responsibility for “overseeing a global strike plan” consisting of both conventional and nuclear weapons. In military jargon, it is slated to play the role of “a global integrator charged with the missions of Space Operations; Information Operations; Integrated Missile Defense; Global Command & Control; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Global Strike; and Strategic Deterrence…. “

In January 2005, at the outset of the military build-up directed against Iran, USSTRATCOM was identified as “the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction.”

To implement this mandate, a brand new command unit entitled Joint Functional Component Command Space and Global Strike, or JFCCSGS was created.

JFCCSGS has the mandate to oversee the launching of a nuclear attack in accordance with the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, approved by the US Congress in 2002. The NPR underscores the pre-emptive use of nuclear warheads not only against “rogue states” but also against China and Russia.

Since November, JFCCSGS is said to be in “an advance state of readiness” following the conduct of relevant military exercises. The announcement was made in early December by U.S. Strategic Command to the effect that the command unit had achieved “an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons.” The exercises conducted in November used “a fictional country believed to represent North Korea” (see David Ruppe, 2 December 2005):

“The new unit [JFCCSGS] has ‘met requirements necessary to declare an initial operational capability’ as of Nov. 18. A week before this announcement, the unit finished a command-post exercise, dubbed Global Lightening, which was linked with another exercise, called Vigilant Shield, conducted by the North American Aerospace Defend Command, or NORAD, in charge of missile defense for North America.

‘After assuming several new missions in 2002, U.S. Strategic Command was reorganized to create better cooperation and cross-functional awareness,’ said Navy Capt. James Graybeal, a chief spokesperson for STRATCOM. ‘By May of this year, the JFCCSGS has published a concept of operations and began to develop its day-to-day operational requirements and integrated planning process.’

‘The command’s performance during Global Lightning demonstrated its preparedness to execute its mission of proving integrated space and global strike capabilities to deter and dissuade aggressors and when directed, defeat adversaries through decisive joint global effects in support of STRATCOM,’ he added without elaborating about ‘new missions’ of the new command unit that has around 250 personnel.

Nuclear specialists and governmental sources pointed out that one of its main missions would be to implement the 2001 nuclear strategy that includes an option of preemptive nuclear attacks on ‘rogue states’ with WMDs. (Japanese Economic Newswire, 30 December 2005)

CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022

JFCCSGS is in an advanced state of readiness to trigger nuclear attacks directed against Iran or North Korea.

The operational implementation of the Global Strike is called CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022. The latter is described as “an actual plan that the Navy and the Air Force translate into strike package for their submarines and bombers,’ (Ibid).

CONPLAN 8022 is ‘the overall umbrella plan for sort of the pre-planned strategic scenarios involving nuclear weapons.’

‘It’s specifically focused on these new types of threats — Iran, North Korea — proliferators and potentially terrorists too,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing that says that they can’t use CONPLAN 8022 in limited scenarios against Russian and Chinese targets.’(According to Hans Kristensen, of the Nuclear Information Project, quoted in Japanese economic News Wire, op cit)

The mission of JFCCSGS is to implement CONPLAN 8022, in other words to trigger a nuclear war with Iran.

The Commander in Chief, namely George W. Bush would instruct the Secretary of Defense, who would then instruct the Joint Chiefs of staff to activate CONPLAN 8022.

CONPLAN is distinct from other military operations. it does not contemplate the deployment of ground troops.

CONPLAN 8022 is different from other war plans in that it posits a small-scale operation and no “boots on the ground.” The typical war plan encompasses an amalgam of forces — air, ground, sea — and takes into account the logistics and political dimensions needed to sustain those forces in protracted operations…. The global strike plan is offensive, triggered by the perception of an imminent threat and carried out by presidential order.) (William Arkin, Washington Post, May 2005)

The Role of Israel

Since late 2004, Israel has been stockpiling US made conventional and nuclear weapons systems in anticipation of an attack on Iran. This stockpiling which is financed by US military aid was largely completed in June 2005. Israel has taken delivery from the US of several thousand “smart air launched weapons” including some 500 ‘bunker-buster bombs, which can also be used to deliver tactical nuclear bombs.

The B61-11 is the “nuclear version” of the “conventional” BLU 113, can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO112C.html , see also
http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf03norris ) .

Moreover, reported in late 2003, Israeli Dolphin-class submarines equipped with US Harpoon missiles armed with nuclear warheads are now aimed at Iran. (See Gordon Thomas, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/THO311A.html

TEXT BOX

Late April 2005. Sale of deadly military hardware to Israel. GBU-28 Buster Bunker Bombs:

Coinciding with Putin’s visit to Israel, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (Department of Defense) announced the sale of an additional 100 bunker-buster bombs produced by Lockheed Martin to Israel. This decision was viewed by the US media as “a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions.”

The sale pertains to the larger and more sophisticated “Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) BLU-113 Penetrator” (including the WGU-36A/B guidance control unit and support equipment). The GBU-28 is described as “a special weapon for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground. The fact of the matter is that the GBU-28 is among the World’s most deadly “conventional” weapons used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, capable of causing thousands of civilian deaths through massive explosions.

The Israeli Air Force are slated to use the GBU-28s on their F-15 aircraft.

(See text of DSCA news release at http://www.dsca.osd.mil/PressReleases/36-b/2005/Israel_05-10_corrected.pdf

Extension of the War

Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel (CNN, 8 Feb 2005). These attacks, could also target US military facilities in Iraq and Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation and all out war.

At present there are three distinct war theaters: Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. The air strikes against Iran could contribute to unleashing a war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region.

Moreover, the planned attack on Iran should also be understood in relation to the timely withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which has opened up a new space, for the deployment of Israeli forces. The participation of Turkey in the US-Israeli military operation is also a factor, following last year’s agreement reached between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

More recently, Tehran has beefed up its air defenses through the acquisition of Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems. In October, with Moscow`s collaboration, “a Russian rocket lifted an Iranian spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit.” (see Chris Floyd)

The Sinah-1 is just the first of several Iranian satellites set for Russian launches in the coming months.

Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack, although it will still be a pale echo of the far more powerful Israeli and American space spies that can track the slightest movement of a Tehran mullahs beard. Whats more, late last month Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs, the Sunday Times reports. This too will be ready in the next few months. (op.cit.)

Ground War

While a ground war is not envisaged under CONPLAN, the aerial bombings could lead through the process of escalation into a ground war.

Iranian troops could cross the Iran-Iraq border and confront coalition forces inside Iraq. Israeli troops and/or Special Forces could enter into Lebanon and Syria.

In recent developments, Israel plans to conduct military exercises as well as deploy Special Forces in the mountainous areas of Turkey bordering Iran and Syria with the collaboration of the Ankara government:

Ankara and Tel Aviv have come to an agreement on allowing the Israeli army to carry out military exercises in the mountainous areas [in Turkey] that border Iran.

[According to] … a UAE newspaper …, according to the agreement reached by the Joint Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Dan Halutz, and Turkish officials, Israel is to carry out various military manoeuvres in the areas that border Iran and Syria. [Punctuation as published here and throughout.] [Dan Halutz] had gone to Turkey a few days earlier.

Citing certain sources without naming them, the UAE daily goes on to stress: The Israeli side made the request to carry out the manoeuvres because of the difficulty of passage in the mountain terrains close to Iran’s borders in winter.

The two Hakari [phonetic; not traced] and Bulo [phonetic; not traced] units are to take part in the manoeuvres that have not been scheduled yet. The units are the most important of Israel’s special military units and are charged with fighting terrorism and carrying out guerrilla warfare.

Earlier Turkey had agreed to Israeli pilots being trained in the area bordering Iran. The news [of the agreement] is released at a time when Turkish officials are trying to evade the accusation of cooperating with America in espionage operations against its neighbouring countries Syria and Iran. Since last week the Arab press has been publishing various reports about Ankara’s readiness or, at least, agreement in principle to carry out negotiations about its soil and air space being used for action against Iran.

(E’temad website, Tehran, in Persian 28 Dec 05, BBC Monitoring Services Translation)

Concluding remarks

The implications are overwhelming.

The so-called international community has accepted the eventuality of a nuclear holocaust.

Those who decide have swallowed their own war propaganda.

A political consensus has developed in Western Europe and North America regarding the aerial attacks using tactical nuclear weapons, without considering their devastating implications.

This profit driven military adventure ultimately threatens the future of humanity.

What is needed in the months ahead is a major thrust, nationally and internationally which breaks the conspiracy of silence, which acknowledges the dangers, which brings this war project to the forefront of political debate and media attentiion, at all levels, which confronts and requires political and military leaders to take a firm stance against the US sponsored nuclear war.

Ultimately what is required are extensive international sanctions directed against the United States of America and Israel.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• us war with iran 2010
• iran war 2010
• NUCLEAR WAR WITH IRAN
• iran israel war 2010
• iran us war 2010
• location vacances a
• nuclear war 2010
• War with Iran 2010

By Fred Kaplan

Imagine it’s early 2003, and President George W. Bush presents the following case for invading Iraq:

We’re about to go to war against Saddam Hussein. Victory on the battlefield will be swift and fairly clean. But then 100,000 U.S. troops will have to occupy Iraq for about 10 years. On average, nearly 1,000 of them will be killed and another 10,000 injured in each of the first 5 years. We’ll spend at least $1 trillion on the war and occupation, and possibly trillions more. Toppling Saddam will finish off a ghastly tyranny, but it will also uncork age-old sectarian tensions. More than 100,000 Iraqis will die, a few million will be displaced, and the best we can hope for will be a loosely federated Islamic republic that isn’t completely in Iran’s pocket. Finally, it will turn out that Saddam had neither weapons of mass destruction nor ties to the planners of 9/11. Our intervention and occupation will serve as the rallying cry for a new crop of terrorists.

It is extremely doubtful that Congress would have authorized such a war or that the American people would have shouted, “Bring it on!”

Some will protest that this counter-scenario is unfair. Nobody at the time predicted all of these outcomes (though several predicted some of them); Bush can’t be blamed for the unforeseen consequences of (let us stipulate) a well-intentioned action.

However, toting up the war’s extravagant costs against its meager (and still-speculative) gains is a valid way to gauge the larger question: Was the invasion worth launching? Was it a good idea? And the war must be appraised not as some abstract vision of an ideally waged war but rather as the actual, existing war that the Bush administration planned and executed.

The disastrous consequences that have been unfolding plainly over the past five years are not “side effects” of this war but rather the direct, head-on results. For example, it’s an evasion to lament that, had then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld listened to the Joint Chiefs and sent twice as many troops, the war would have gone differently. Maybe so, but Rumsfeld wasn’t interested in waging that kind of war. He saw the war not so much as a fight about Iraq as a demonstration of a new style of warfareknown as “military transformation” or “the revolution in military affairs”that signaled how America would project power in the post-Cold War era. He saw, not incorrectly, a turbulent world of emerging threats, some in remote areas inaccessible from U.S. bases. The large, lumbering armies of old were not so suitable for such conflicts. Hence his emphasis on small, lightweight units of ground forcesfast to mobilize, easy to sustainand superaccurate bombs and missiles to hit targets that only heavy artillery could destroy in decades past. With the Iraq war (and the Afghanistan conflict before it), he wanted to send rogue regimes and other foes a message: Look what we can do with one hand tied behind our back. If we can overthrow Saddam (and the Taliban) so easily, we can overthrow you, too.

It is no surprise, then, that Rumsfeld rejected the argument, made by several Army and Marine generals, that whatever happens on the battlefield, we’ll need a few hundred thousand troops to impose order and help form a new Iraq. A large, lengthy occupation would have nullified his whole concept of new-style warfare and its vision of 21st-century geopolitics.

In other words, it is not the case, as many critics charge, that Rumsfeld “miscalculated” how many troops would be needed for the mission of stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq. Rather, he wasn’t interested in that mission. In a National Security Council meeting shortly before the invasion, he insisted that the Pentagon, not the State Department, should take charge of planning for postwar Iraqbecause he wanted to ensure that there would be no such planning (and, indeed, there wasn’t).

A stronger case could be made that the occupation would have gone better had L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, not issued (on whose orders, we still don’t know) the directives that barred all Baathists from government jobs and disbanded the Iraqi armythus alienating all Sunnis at a moment when reconciliation was vital and putting tens of thousands of armed young men out on the streets, angry and unemployed.

Still, it is unlikely that, even without the directives, a foreign occupier could have staved off sectarian violence for long. The majority Shiites would have naturally taken over the Baghdad government. The Sunnis, a minority accustomed to running things, would have rebelled. Holding early elections in the provincial districtsforming a federal republic from the bottom upmight have eased the factions into power more gradually, enabled them to make adjustments at each stage. We will never know. But again, this was not the way that Bush chose to go.

There is yet another way to assess the war: What if Saddam Hussein had not been toppled? Would Iraq be better or worse off? Would the Middle East be more or less stable, the United States safer or in greater danger?

(_http://www . slate . com / id / 2186850/)

by Max Easterman

Dead at 17.

Geoff Gray was found dead on guard duty at the British Deepcut Army Barracks in Surrey. In the past 20 years, children younger than 16 have fought in at least 16 wars in 25 countries. AP/Wide World Photo

Training Begins at Age 16

At the Army Foundation College outside Harrogate, in Northern England, more than a thousand 16- and 17-year-old recruits are trained every year. More than two platoons of junior soldiers recently put through their paces in the gym gave up civilian life only 14 weeks ago. Some 860 recruits have signed up for a variety of reasons: the chance to travel, earn better pay than their friends working civilian jobs, and the opportunity to get a military education as well as a civilian one.

“It’s better than working in McDonald’s,” said one recruit.

There’s little evidence that the youngsters are joining up just to fight for Queen and Country, but you won’t find that in most British kids today. So the Army can’t afford to be too choosy if it hopes to pull in the 4,000 or so junior soldiers it needs every year. They can sign up as early as 15 3/4 and then begin training on their 16th birthday. Seventeen-year-olds fought in the Falklands War and Kosovo, but they’re no longer deployed on active duty until they’re 18.

“If we don’t start recruiting at this early age…they’ll be lost to us.”
map of united kingdom
“…you get very naive teenagers getting hold of dangerous drugs and swallowing them in large quantities, just so they’ll be detected, it’s very, very dangerous.”
Related Web Links

‘It Gets Us a Better Army’

Major Dickie Hamzat, the company commander of these young recruits, said the Army couldn’t survive without them.

“I think it gets us a better army,” he said. “They can be molded, even though the decisions they have to make are quite daunting for them, initially…. If we don’t start recruiting at this early age, these people will get into long-term relationships, will look at other aspects of their life in a settled job…. They won’t look to the Army for a career, and they’ll be lost to us.”

The British Army has for years taken advantage of the fact that young working-class men and women prefer to get a job rather than an education. Critics say there is little difference in motive between what Britain and some Third World governments do: recruit teens because they’re easier to shape into fighters.

The Army rejects that argument, noting that parents must approve the child’s decision to sign up.

Colonel Mike von Bertele, the Army’s head of employment, said the British Army offers young people a way out of poverty and social deprivation. He argued that it would be irresponsible to leave willing 16-year-olds in the streets, where they’re more likely to cause trouble.

“I think it really stems from the switch to being an all-volunteer army and getting away from conscription … and so traditionally we’ve taken a large number of people into the Army, who are low educational achievers at school, who are effectively thrown out of school at the age of 16or even 15with very few employment prospects ahead of them,” von Bertele said. “We know that if we can get them young enough before they settle into low-paid work, for example, we can do a lot with them.”

Recruits include “low achievers” who have significant educational or social problems, von Bertele said.
“It’s one of the great things about the Army, it does take those people and it does an awful lot with them,” he said. “It gives them an education, it gives them a skill, it gives them a trade, and gives them a huge sense of self-worth.”

Tragedy in the Barracks

Critics say the Army promises junior soldiers education and job skills, but often doesn’t mention they may have to serve as long as 12 years if they take skills training courses. When the junior soldiers realize this, the consequences can be disastrous, according to Gwyn Gwyntopher, a counsellor with the soldiers’ advice center “At Ease.”

“I’ve had clients who’ve broken their own right arm … others have attempted suicide,” she said. “One quite common thing is, when they’re on leave, they get hold of drugs. They plant them in their own bed space. They’ve then gone out to a phone box and made an anonymous call to the Army, saying that they’ve got drugs, in the hope that the Army will kick them out. A lot of youngsters try to get hold of drugs just before they’re having a medical, knowing that it’ll be detected. And this is quite frightening, because where you get very naive teenagers getting hold of dangerous drugs and swallowing them in large quantities, just so they’ll be detected, it’s very, very dangerous.”

The crisis some junior soldiers find themselves in has been tragically highlighted at the Deepcut Barracks in Surrey, near London.

While sexual harassment is a problem throughout the Army, the junior soldiers have been particularly vulnerable at Deepcut. And no fewer than four juniors have been found shot dead there. The Army claims they’re all suicides, but their parents don’t think so. They attribute the deaths to a culture of bullying by fellow soldiers.
Geoff Gray was 17 when he was found dead on guard duty, a week after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. He was shot twice through the head. In spite of that, the Army still claims it was suicide. His father, also called Geoff, lives in Hackney, East London, and believes his son would never have taken his own life.
Geoff and Diane Gray hold a picture of their son Geoff.

Suicide?

Geoff and Diane Gray of London hold a picture of their son Geoff, one of four soldiers to have died at the British Deepcut Army Barracks in Surrey. The Army says the recruitsincluding Gray who was shot twice in the headcommitted suicide. AP/Wide World Photo

“There’s Bullying and Sexual Harassment”
“We’ve got a situation where I think Deepcut is run on a two-tier level,” Gray said. “We’ve got the officers living in their own little world, and then we’ve got the noncommissioned officers who are actually running the camp. Some are out of control, and we’ve got a situation where there’s bullying and sexual harassment, and it isn’t being picked up by commissioned officers.

“If an officer had told Geoff to do something that wasn’t of the norm, he would say something. He would probably say ‘no sir, I can’t do that because of “A” or because of “B.” My real worry is that Geoff paid the ultimate price of bullying … that he didn’t accept what he was being told to do and he’s paid the price for it.”

The parents are demanding a full public inquiry into what happened at the Deepcut Barracks; the Army and the government have refused. They have, however, conceded that bullying and sexual harassment are rife in the British Army, and have now drawn up an action plan to monitor noncommissioned officers and stamp out these activities.
But the wider point is undeniable: junior soldiers in Britain face some of the same kinds of problems as child soldiers everywhere. If you give young people guns and live ammunition, sooner or later, they use them.

( _http://www . warchildren . org / young_guns.html )

Incoming search terms for the article:

• army men drawing