Tag Archives: murder

The Army that owns a state: Protest!

Karachi based activists have organized a protest against the recent attacks of the Pakistani Army on Pakistani which resulted in numerous civilian deaths.

  • April 16, 2010
  • 4-6pm
  • Karachi Press Club

This is their press statement:

Protest Military Action! 73 Civilians Killed In Raid By Pakistani Army Jet

More than 73 civilians have been killed in an air strike by a Pakistani Army jet on a remote village in the country’s troubled North-West, media reports said Tuesday.

A unnamed military official disclosed that the bombing in the tribal Khyber region took place on Saturday, but news of the operation emerged only now.

The same jet was also used for bombing Taliban positions in neighboring Orakzai tribal region where the militants fled to in the wake of the Pakistani Army’s major push to snuff out Taliban strongholds in the Swat region.

Reports of those killed in air strikes in the area vary greatly with the Army terming them militants while locals say there were several civilian casualties as well.

According to the official, initial reports indicated that the military jet strayed from its course and mistook a village for a Taliban camp resulting in the deaths of civilians.

The injured are being treated under heavy guard at the Hayatabad medical complex in Peshawar and reporters have been barred from speaking to the survivors.

Moreover, in a bid to contain the fallout, the Pakistani Army establishment has imposed a “gag clause” preventing military personnel from divulging operational details including deaths of civilians to media.

It is said the Army is under severe pressure from the U.S. to go after Taliban militants in the restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and the ongoing offensive against insurgents has displaced close to one million residents of the region.

PROTEST ARBITRARY KILLINGS OF CIVILIANS
WE DO NOT CONDONE SUCH INHUMANITY ON THE PART OF OUR MILITARY

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TPM reports Iraq murders badly

From the Left. What’s up at TPM? The usually spot-on blog already appears to have buried the story of the leaked Iraq video. Instead, the RNC’s strip ‘n spend scandal takes top spot on the site I’m sure, much to the delight of gleeful liberals for whom the RNC debaucheries, the Iraq war and other crimes often seem to be little more than sticks with which to beat the right-wing.

TPMEven when the site did run the Wikileaks story, the headline–in a classic pseudo-objective tactic of mainstream media–used quotations around the term murder: “Wikileaks: Video Shows ‘Murder’ of Iraqis by U.S. Helicopters“. I mean hello, what does it take to scream bloody murder? And by what logic does the murder of several people including two journalists–the details and video of which the military refused to reveal–become a less important story than the “sexy hotspots” that the Republican white male young things are attending?

I do think TPM generally does solid work, whether I agree with it or not, but I can’t help but associate the absence of the Iraq story from the front page by late today with the relatively relaxed attitude of liberals over Iraq’s occupation now that it has become Obama’s project. It was they who swelled the numbers of the anti-war movement in the first years of the Iraq war: the war was bad; that Bush II was the man leading it was, for many liberals, worse. And those of us who argued in those days that the anti-war movement must make the case against the war on ethical grounds rather than tactical concerns about how to accrue the numerically largest protests were told that we were being too idealistic. The numbers game failed because those demonstrations were never backed by commitment. The American state knew that.

In the name of pragmatism which is always an ideology masquerading as technique, real fault-lines between a liberal view and an anti-imperialist leftist vision were papered over with slogans that said too little and agreements that compromised the movement too much. And here we are: the occupations rage on and multiply, the anti-war movement is leaderless and scattered and white men enjoy lap dances at the expense of the RNC whilst the liberals cheerily rattle on about the depravity of the Republicans all the while ignoring their own MAAF Obama’s shockingly pathetic record (even by my rather low standards) on his campaign promises and his ratcheting up of the global war in Afghanistan and Pakistan –the only one he’s kept whole-heartedly. [1]

A pox on both your bloody houses.

1. Another note on “MAAF”: Cerise L. Glenn and Landra J. Cunningham. “The Power of Black Magic: The Magical Negro and White SalvationJournal of Black Studies 2009; 40; 135 originally published online Oct 8, 2007.

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‘Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards.’

A release by that awesome website, Wikileaks showing American troops targeting civilians in Iraq:

The full set of documents along with a transcript of this video can be seen here. Glenn Greenwald and others debate the video on MSNBC:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

screengrab from Wikileaks "Collateral Murder"

screengrab from Wikileaks "Collateral Murder"

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