[DAWN] The first five presidents of the International Criminal Court's oversight body on Thursday called for a review of the institution's functioning, following its April 12 decision not to investigate possible war crimes committed during the 17-year Afghan war, allegedly by krazed killers, the US army, Central Intelligence Agency and Afghan armed forces.
According to the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... , at least 32,000 civilians have been killed and another 60,000 maimed in the last decade when the organization began compiling the data.
ICC prosecutors in 2006 opened a preliminary investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan since 2003. In 2017, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda asked judges to allow a full-blown probe not only into the Taliban ...Arabic for students... and Afghan soldiers, but also international forces, particularly US troops and members of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The court began collecting material for the case between Dec 2017 and Feb 2018, and has received over 1 million statements from Afghans who say they were victims.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2019 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11129 views]
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What the hell are we even doing there any more?
[DW] Afghan civilians were killed in greater numbers by NATO and pro-government security forces in the first three months of 2019 than by armed militants, according to UN figures.
It's the first time that fatalities caused by security forces in Afghanistan have exceeded those caused by the Taliban.
What you need to know:
In the first quarter of 2019, pro-government forces were responsible for the deaths of 305 civilians, while insurgents killed 227.
The leading causes of civilian deaths were air strikes (145 fatalities) and ground search operations primarily carried out by US-backed Afghan forces (72).
Women and children comprised half of civilian casualties from aerial operations, with international forces responsible for the vast majority of these.
Overall, 581 civilians were killed and 1,192 wounded, representing a 23 percent decrease in overall casualties on the same quarter last year.
Recall yesterday’s headline from the domestic Khaama Press: UN reports reduction in civilian casualties in Afghanistan in first quarter of 2019. Also, remember that according to the Geneva Conventions — to which the Taliban, et al are not signatories, but nonetheless — those who surround themselves with human shields are responsible for what happens to them. Not those who have to go through the shields to get to their military targets. Finally, it’s cute that the statistics are limited to the Taliban, when there are so many other bad guys killing people in Afghanistan, some of them directly employed (deployed?) by Pakistan’s ISI: the TTP, Haqqani Group, ISIS-Afghanistan, various local warlords, various Al Qaeda-linked jihadi groups, various drug lords... Here at Rantburg we’ve had reports of at least some of all that, most recently the feud between ISIS and the Taliban in Nangarhar.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/26/2019 00:00 ||
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[11134 views]
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#2
A funny old yiddishe fella
Liked listening to, well, Deutsche Welle.
"It's too frickin' gloomy...
I love it! So sue me."
He yelled as he slapped his patella.
What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan? We've been there for 17 years. When are we getting out?
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/26/2019 10:10 Comments ||
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#4
Deutsche Welle is Germany’s international broadcaster. We convey a comprehensive image of Germany, report events and developments, incorporate German and other perspectives in a journalistically independent manner.
Sounds like someone more than happy to try to explain away the Nazi excesses in WW2 with an ongoing barrage of contrived Tu quo que...
I can just hear Mom saying "If all the other kids carpet bombed Afghanistan, would you do it, too?"
Long wars may be good for the contracting business, but I prefer short and savage - the kind where you nuke 'em a couple times and then go home to have a beer and watch sportsball.
#8
That's pretty heartening. A good chunk of the difficulty under Obama was his insistence that human shield activity be rewarded, by not targeting known Taliban when there were civilians nearby. In many cases, these civilians are probably part of the Taliban support network. One aspect of defeating guerrilla movements involves disabusing their civilian supporters of the notion that they can protect these guerrillas by acting as human shields.
Civilians like to scream defiance when there are cameras nearby, but only against the power they are sure is unwilling or unable to target them specifically and have them turned into dog food. But what history shows us is that they have always caved in response to the most pitiless power in their midst.
[DAWN] An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Thursday turned down former senior superintendent of police (SSP) Rao Anwar's request seeking an exemption from personal appearances in a case pertaining to the murder of Wazoo native shopkeeper-turned-model Naqeebullah Mehsud in a police 'encounter'.
Anwar had ─ in his petition, which was taken up yesterday ─ insisted that he faced security threats from terrorist groups since he had conducted operations against them during his tenure as a police officer. He urged the court to exempt him from appearing in person, unless it was required by the court for hearing of the ongoing murder case in which he is the chief suspect.
The request was opposed by Salahuddin Panhwar, counsel of Naqeeb's father, who said that Anwar's claims of facing security threats did not stand as he was not a serving police officer anymore.
The former SSP's application was not maintainable under the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, he added. The ATC-III judge reserved his verdict after hearing the arguments presented by both sides.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/26/2019 00:00 ||
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[11130 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[AlAhram] Hundreds of Moslem refugees in western Sri Lanka have taken refuge in mosques and a cop shoppe after facing intimidation following the deadly Easter bombings, activists said Thursday.
At least 359 people died in Sunday's coordinated suicide kabooms, including more than 100 Christians attending mass at St Sebastian's church in Negombo on the island's west coast.
The attacks have been condemned by leaders of the country's Moslem minority who have said mosques will not bury the bombers, and the community has been left in fear of a backlash. "Fearing a backlash for next week's Islamist Terror Attack" Continued on Page 49
#1
World has many moslem majority countries with a rainbows variety of cultures beneath. Pick one and be safe. Because your co-religionists attacked hoping to start reprisals against you and sticking around for that is insane.
A better route is to turn on the jihadi among you but you won’t do that so nobody seriously asks any more. We just pretend you don’t agree with them.
If any Moslem organizations have condemned the attacks, I haven't heard of them. I'd love to be proved ignorant here by any examples of Moslem condemnation of these and other attacks.
Posted by: Tom ||
04/26/2019 11:20 Comments ||
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#4
it has always been between the Hidoos (Tamils) and the locals Sri lankans ( Buddhists), the Muzzies were never much of anything in Sri Lanka.
#5
Adherent of madman's compendium
Fears backlash for vicious millennium,
Attempts to keep calm,
But goes off like a balm
Due to too-tightly turban-wrapped cranium.
[IsraelTimes] Peacekeeping force requests ’urgent follow-up’ from Lebanese authorities after acknowledging another of the 6 tunnels Israel uncovered last year crossed Blue Line.
The Israeli army said the tunnel from the Lebanese town of Ramyeh ‐ just 800 meters (yards) from the border ‐ reached a few dozen meters into Israel, and descended 55 meters (180 feet) underground.
UNIFIL on Thursday said the tunnel was the third to have crossed the "Blue Line," a demarcation line drawn by the UN to mark Israel’s withdrawal from southern Leb in 2000.
"UNIFIL’s independent assessment confirms that this tunnel crosses the Blue Line in violation of Resolution 1701" which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, it said.
[Rudaw] Intensive US-led coalition bombardment on the Syrian city of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians over four months in 2017, according to a report released on Thursday.
The findings were compiled after months of field research and extensive data analysis, including via a project that saw 3,000 digital activists scan satellite imagery online.
In mid-2017, Raqqa had been the de facto Syria capital of the Islamic State
Continued on Page 49
#3
no one worries about civilian deaths unless the US is involved
Posted by: chris ||
04/26/2019 8:23 Comments ||
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#4
#2 given that the enemy refuses to wear uniforms to distinguish themselves from civilians (a violation of the Conventions for the reason to help avoid civilian casualties), its hardly surprising. It's their fault not the coalition forces.
#6
The fact that we're there in the first place is the problem.
What's the prize in Syria? What do we win if we win? Nobody can tell me. It's just "well you don't want to let TEH ROOSHINS win, do you?" To which the correct answer is, "who the hell cares?"
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/26/2019 10:12 Comments ||
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#7
Broken record, Satire Boy
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/26/2019 10:21 Comments ||
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#8
We don't want another free base of operation metastasising around the world and crashing more planes into buildings in civilisation...
#11
So, I'm curious: what's on the table in Syria? Let's say we win the war. What did we win? Except an open-ended troop commitment and billions in cost, none of it benefiting us.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/26/2019 15:18 Comments ||
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Why, Obama's thin red line. What else, other than Saddam's WMDs of course, and Turkey's gateway to the middle east. Was Syria the terminus to the new silk road of Biden's buddies? No, that rolled thru Turkey to Poland before branching into the rest of Europe, I think.
On the table? Basically the last 50 years of Democratic meddling coming to spoiled fruition.
"There are, more expensive, smaller impact-radius missiles, but the coalition often used... old MK-type bombs that take out entire buildings. Those are much cheaper," she said.
That's why we are always glad to take donations from right-thinking individuals like her to fund more expensive ordnance.
#16
What's the prize in Syria? What do we win if we win? Nobody can tell me. It's just "well you don't want to let TEH ROOSHINS win, do you?" To which the correct answer is, "who the hell cares?"
You've told yourself. You just don't like the answer.
#17
So, I'm curious: what's on the table in Syria? Let's say we win the war. What did we win? Except an open-ended troop commitment and billions in cost, none of it benefiting us.
We spend trillions on cops and we still get thousands of murders and literally tens of millions of cases of other crimes per year. Maybe we should stop enforcing the law and send the cops home.
[Rudaw] Leishmaniasis is a skin disease caused by a microscopic parasite spread by sandflies. The illness is endemic to Syria, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says, but has become more prevalent during the eight-year civil war.
The number of leishmaniasis cases in Syria doubled from 2010 to 2018 to more than 80,000 patients, WHO says. Many were in northern and northeastern areas rocked in recent years by festivities to expel the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group. Leishmaniasis is usually linked to poverty, poor sanitation, and malnutrition, WHO says, factors likely compounded by the war.
Across Karama, insects hover over piles of rubbish between rows of modest houses, some still bearing scars of battles that resulted in Kurdish-led forces kicking IS out in 2017.
Younes al-Naeemi, the manager of the Karama health centre, says the clinic has received 4,000 cases of leishmaniasis from the town and surrounding villages since April last year.
"Marshes, humidity, the house's proximity to farming land, as well as widespread rubbish" have fuelled the spread of the skin condition, he says.
‘NOBODY CARES'
After a peak of almost 6,800 cases in Raqqa province last year, WHO says there has been a decline in cases at the start of this year.
The international organization has distributed mosquito nets, provided medicine to treat the disease, and supports six health centres in Raqqa, including in Karama. But it warns the rates could again rise as the weather becomes warmer.
"Sandfly breeding usually peaks when the temperature starts to rise in spring and summer," WHO front man Yahya Bouzo said. "Unless prevention measures are taken, the number of cases is expected to" increase.
But Karama's residents say their rural town is neglected. They complain of a lack of services including regular trash pick-ups.
...and it never occurs to anyone there to charge his neighbours for picking up and burning their garbqge instead of waiting for “the government” to do it for them.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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Wazoo
