Iraq snapshot - April 30, 2012

Iraq snapshot - April 30, 2012 The Common Ills

Monday, April 30, 2012.  Chaos and violence continue, the SIGIR releases a major report on Iraq, Tareq al-Hashemi's now being charged with the murder of six judges (among 300 charges against him), Saturday saw a big meet-up in Erbil that Nouri wasn't invited to, Bradley Manning's semi-secret trial gets some media attention, and more.   Starting in the US with Bradley Manning.  Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaksreleased US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December.  At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial.  Since then the court-martial has been scheduled to begin September 21st.  Recent weeks have seen a flurry of pre-court-martial hearings.   On this week's Law and Disorder Radio -- a weekly hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smithand Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights), topics explored include Bradley Manning.    Heidi Boghosian:   We continue our updates on the Bradley Manning trial.  Senior staff attorney Shane Kadidal from the Center for Constitutional Rights recently returned from one of the hearings in Fort Meade, Maryland.  Welcome, Shane to Law & Disorder.   Shane Kadidal: Thanks for having me, Michael.   Michael Smith:  You know, Heidi and I, were down at the Mumia demonstration in Washington, DC yesterday.   We took the train down from New York.  We're sitting on the train, passing the Fort Meade exit on the train, you were sitting in that courtroom, in that semi-secret trial of Bradley Manning.  And we thought about, 'Well we'll get to talk to you today about what's going on in that semi-secret trial? And what do you think's at stake?   Heidi Boghosian: [laughing]  Are you allowed to talk about this, Shane?   Shane Kadidal: [Laughing.]  We are. It was funny sitting there to contrast, for instance, to Guantanamo occasionally classified hearings and every word of what's said in there is presumed classified until you get told otherwise.  It wasn't like that, but it was odd in other ways.   Michael Smith: Well it's odd because it's not like you can't say what you want to say but because  you don't have access to the court pleadings, you don't have access to the off-the-record discussions with the judge, you don't have access to court orders so a lot of this trial is a secret trial which I always thought to be against the First Amendment of the Constitution.   Shane Kadidal:  Right. It's interesting to note two things about that.  You know, first of all, people think about this First Amendment right to access to judicial proceedings being about basic Democratic values.  It's good to have government in the sunshine just as a philosophical principle.  But that's not what the Supreme Court says about it.  What they said about that very clearly in a number of cases in the late seventies and the early eighties, you know, openness actually helps the truth finding function of trials.  It gives a disincentive to witnesses to commit perjury.  It lets new witnesses come out of the woodwork and so forth.  By having the factual basis for legal ruling sort of exposed to the light of day and having the legal arguments exposed as well, it means that the court is less likely to make mistakes.  And that makes a difference when it comes down to accuracy.  And you can imagine how this might play out in a case like Manning's where an awful lot is riding, for instance, on the testimony of a supposedly quite drugged out and unreliable informer whose name actually happens to be redacted from the few public documents that we do have.  So that's one point, that openness helps the accuracy of judicial proceedings -- and it's especially important in cases like this.  The other is sort of a meta-point about media coverage.  While I was down there, there were only about two or three reporters that came out of the media room  during the breaks and sort of milled about and talked to us which I think was a little bit shocking giving the significance of this case.  You know, supposedly the largest set of leaks in American history, a set of leaks where the documents dominated news coverage globally for a good year-and-a-half.  And yet there are only two or three reporters there.  And I think it shows that when the government manages to choke off the flow of interesting detail about a case by redacting it out of documents or not releasing documents or holding proceedings off the public record, that is almost more effective at diminishing press coverage of an issue than completely barring the press from the courtroom as happens in classified hearings.  Because completely barring the press piques the press interest but simply blacking out all the colorful detail or the stuff that kind of makes a story interesting just results in boring coverage and eventually people sort of give up.  And I think that might be what's happening here.   Heidi Boghosian:  Well, Shane, since the media wasn't there, can you give us a sort of nutshell version of what happened?     Shane Kadidal:  You know, at the Tuesday hearing which I was at, one of the first issues up actually was around our letter to the court -- CCR's letter demanding that the court release its own orders including the protective order that governs what can be sealed off from public access and what can be released and what should be redacted.  So the court's own orders, then all the government's motions and the government's responses to the defense's motions.  And then a third subject which is an awful lot of the argument happens in what are called 802 conferences where the parties can agree to discuss anything in chambers and the public never has any sense of the legal arguments that are made or the conclusions that happen which is kind of different from a lot of public access issues because it means both parties can collude to keep something out of the public sight.  A little different from the usual situation where it's usually the government trying to keep something out.   Michael Smith.  Especially in a shocking case like this with, for example, one of the things that Manning was allegedly accused of releasing was a 39 minute video called The Collateral Murder Video where you've got US soldiers in a helicopter murdering two Reuters journalists and then seriously injuring two children.  It's all on video.  It's a War Crime.  They're trying to cover this up in this semi-secret trial. It's really shocking.  I remember the famous Judge Damon Keith saying, "Democracy dies behind closed doors."  So what do you think your chances are of prying open those doors?   Shane Kadidal: Well I think maybe on appeal they'll be good.  But what we learned on Tuesday was that this judge [Col Denise Lind] doesn't really want to hear it.  So the first thing she said was, 'You know, the Center of Constitutional Rights has sent a lawyer down here and asked for permission to address the court and asked for all this release including making all of these documents public and that motion which is essentially a motion to intervene -- is denied.   Michael Smith:  Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press which I think is 45  press organizations did the same thing which is the same thing you guys did at the CCR   Shane Kadidal:  Right.  They wrote some letters as well.  And, you know, the letters kind of the court had disappeared into a black hole so we sent a second letter to the defense council so that he could kind of read it out in open court.  The judge revealed yesterday that she had, in fact, received both letters, which I guess was good news.  But the bottom line is this allows to go up the chain to the two courts of appeals in the military system  that stand above this judge and demand that we get immediate public access to these documents. And it was a First Amendment case so I was very clear that being deprived of public access to judicial proceedings even for a short period of time is irreparable injury and that kind of principle goes back to the Pentagon Papers case really.   Heidi Boghosian: What did Michael Ratner say in his piece last week in the Guardian?   Shane Kadidal:  A terrific piece which is worth reading.  But, you know, a couple of things. First that Manning's revelations including that the Collateral Murder video you know really were made in the face of military lies about what had actually happened.  You know, the military's initial response was that there was no question that that gunfight involved a hostile force when it turned out that two children and a bunch of journalists were among the people who were shot.  But I think that the bigger picture, I think it's ironic that the government's heavy handed approach -- as Michael said in his piece -- really only serves to emphasize the motivations for whistle blowing of the sort that Bradley Manning is now accused of. It's this kind of blanket approach on the part of the government to secrecy that forces people to reveal things by going outside the letter of the law.   Michael Smith: Shane Kadidal, who is the senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights has been down at Fort Meade, Maryland on behalf of the center at the Bradley Manning trial.  We'll keep checking in on you, Shane.  Good luck with your appeal.   Ann Wright spent most of her life in government service.  In the army, she rose to the rank of Colonel.  In 1987, she went to work for the US State Dept and she continued serving there until her March 19, 2003 resignation, the day before the Iraq War started and she resigned in protest of that war.  At The Daily Progress, Wright pens an article on Bradley:   I recently inadvertently and fortuitously ended up at a meeting with a U.S. State Department-sponsored group of young professionals from the Middle East who were brought to the United States to learn more about our country. I mentioned that I was attending the hearings for the alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning. The reaction of the group was stunning. Immediately hands for questions went up. The questions began with a comment: Without WikiLeaks, I would never have learned what my own governments was doing, its complicity in secret prisons and torture, in extraordinary rendition, in cooperation in the U.S. wars in the region. WikiLeaks exposed what our politicians and elected officials are doing. Without WikiLeaks, we would never have known! And that is what Bradley Manning's trial is all about and what the charges against six other government employees who face espionage allegations for providing information the government classified to protect its own wrongdoings -- to silence other potential government whistleblowers.     Today the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction released April 2012: Quarterly Report To Congress. From the introduction of the report, we'll note this:   As of April 3, 2012, DoS reported that 12,755 personnel supported the U.S. Mission in Iraq, down about 8% from the previous quarter.  Current staffing comprises 1,369 civilian government  employees and 11,386 contractors.  In February, Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides said that DoS will continue to reduce the number of contractors over the coming months in an attempt to "right size" Embassy operations. As currently constituted, the U.S. reconstruction programd evotes the preponderance of its financial resources to providing equipment, services, and advice to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).  The Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq (OSC-I) manages U.S. security assistance to the Government of Iraq (GOI), OSC-I is staffed by 145 U.S. military personnel, 9 Department of Defense (DoD) civilians, and 4,912 contractors.  DoS's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) administers the Police Development Program (PDP) whose 86 advisors mentor senior police officials at the Ministry of Interior (MOI).   Eli Lake (Daily Beast) notes, "A 2012 audit conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) and released to the public on Monday found that 76 percent of the battalion commanders surveyed believed at least some of the CERP funds had been lost to fraud and corruption." There's so much in the report.  We'll note more of it tomorrow.  Right now we'll note page 59 demonstrates how the US government repeatedly subsidizes the weapons industry.  The US government thinks Iraq needs weapons.  For some reason -- despite having billions in oil money -- the US government seems to feel they need to 'assist' -- provide US government welfare -- to weapon makers.  So $2.54 billion will be spent, by the US government, on weapons for the government of Iraq.  Some of the sales are pending and the US tab right now is 'only' $968.4 million.  It's really something to read the report and find that, among other US agencies, Homeland Security remains in Iraq.  Remember, there was a drawdown, there was no withdrawal.        G.W. Schulz (Center For Investigative Reporting) reports, "California continues to lead the nation in fatal sacrifices made to the conflicts, according to an analysis of the most recent Defense Department data available. The figures, which include both hostile and non-hostile casualties, cover three major operations across the two wars: Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn."   Turning to Iraq, Alsumaria reports a Baghdad roadside bombing has left 6 people dead and a Ministry of Health official's wife and 3 children were killed when unknown assailants slit their throats.  Al Rafidayn says the wife and children were killed by blunt objects. Over the weekend, a major meet-up took place in Erbil.  Before we get to that, let's recap the political crisis.  Only instead of me doing it, let's refer to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction released April 2012: Quarterly Report To Congress.  And, please note, the Erbil Agreement is in November 2010 -- not December.  It's implemented in November. It's briefly implemented.  (Refer to the November 11, 2010 snapshot about Parliament meeting finally and the agreement that allowed it to.)    Along with the serious threat posed by terrorism, an array of interlocking governance and economic issues endanger the health of the Iraqi state.  Foremost among them is the lack of reconciliation among the many political blocs, which stems from disputes over the March 2010 Council of Representatives (CoR) election and its unsettled aftermath.  The so-called "Erbil Agreement," reached in December 2010, ostensibly crafted a road map for resolving these disputes, though the map has not been followed.  Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki thus sits atop a fractious coalition government wracked by internecine rivalries.  Last December's events, including the Prime Minister's attempt to oust Deputy Prime Minister Salih al-Mutlaq and the Higher Judicial Council's (HJC) issuance of a warrant for the arrest of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, continued to cause turmoil this quarter.  Al-Mutlaq did not attend Council of Ministers (CoM) meetings (and called the Prime Minister a "dictoator"), while al-Hashimi remained outside the effective jurisdiction of the HJC, primarily in the Kurdistan Region.  Al-Mutlaq and and al-Hashimi are both Sunni members of the al-Iraqiya political bloc, a heterogeneous union of political parties dominated by Sunni interests.  In early April, efforts by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and CoR Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi to convene a national reconciliation conference to address the issues dividing the government foundered, and the April 5 meeting was abruptly canceled.  The disputing factions have yet to agree on a new date. Vice President al-Hashimi's decision to seek refuge in the Kurdistan Region aggravated an increasinly troubled relationship between the GOI and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).  This dispute was also worsened by ExxonMobil's decision to pursue contracts with the KRG, despite GOI threats to exclude the company from further operations under its contract for work in southern provinces.  The GOI appears to have sidestepped the issue for the moment, announcing that ExxonMboil had "frozen" its dealings with the KRG.  But the relationship between the centeral government in Baghdad and the KRG remains tense with the flames recently fanned by the KRG's April 1 shutdown of all oil exports leaving its territory in retaliation for the GOI allegedly withholding about $1.5 billion from the KRG. Iraq's political strife continued in mid-April with the arrest on the corruption charges of Faraj al-Haidari, the head of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).  Al-Haidari, who previously clashed with the Prime Minister after the 2010 CoR elections, stands accused of improperly using state funds.  Members of al-Iraqiya, the Kurdistan Alliance, and the Sadrist Trend immediately questioned the arrest.  The IHEC is responsible for administering Iraqi elections, including the upcoming provincial elections in 2013 and CoR elections in 2004.     Saturday, Al Mada reported on that day's big political meet-up in Erbil.  Among those attending were Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, KRG President Massoud Barzani, Ayad Allawi (head of Iraqiya) and Speaker of Parliamen Osama al-Najaifi.  Alsumaria reported on the meet-up and publishes a photo of the meet-up -- Moqtada al-Sadr is seated between Talabani and Allawi.  The consensus was that there must be a national partnership and that the Erbil Agreement must be implemented. This wasn't at all surprising.  They and others have been calling for the Erbil Agreement to be implemented for months and months. Nouri al-Maliki is the one who agreed to the agreement and then trashed it when he got what he wanted out of it. Lara Jakes (AP) called the meet-up a "mini summit" and feels that the participation of a wide range of groups -- including Shi'ites -- "underscored the growing impatience with the Shiite prime minister." Dar Addustour quotedfrom a press release noting the Erbil Agreement and the power-sharing and that the participants stress the need for things to be done logically (that may be "scientifically," I think it's logically), fairly and that the needs of the Iraqi people are paramount, they must be served and there should be no disruption of services. The paper also notes that Ammar al-Hakim (head of the Islamic Supreme Countil of Iraq) was not present.  And it notes various reasons for that.  One common trait is he was not invited.  Why he was not invited is in dispute.  One explanation is that al-Hakim is seen as too close to Nouri, another given is that his stand is known and that those present were calling for possible solutions and debating their potential.  Alsumaria noted that there's also a call to implement Moqtada's 18 points.  That's apparently on the same level of importance as returning to the Erbil Agreement.  Moqtada's 18 points were presented Thursday in Erbil.  There's been talk of them in the press; however, there's not any publication of the 18 points themselves.  They have been said to support the Erbil Agreement, they're supposed to guarantee judicial independence and be good for Iraqis but that's from statements made on Moqtada's behalf and not from anyone working with the 18 points.  Here's AP reporting on the 18 points on Thursday: On Thursday, Moqtada Al Sadr offered an 18-point plan to solve the Iraq crisis, mostly through dialogue and political inclusiveness. The plan calls for having good relations with neighbouring nations, but to not let them meddle in Iraq's affairs. That appeared to be a reference to Iran, which is close to Nouri Al Maliki's Shiite-dominated government.  In a nod to Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, Al Sadr said Iraq's oil must be used for the benefit of Iraq's people, "and no individual has the right to control it without participation from others". Al Rafidayn noted that the Saturday meeting was closed-door and took place at the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. That's the political party Talabani heads. They also note that the meeting lasted three hours.  Also Al Rafidayn notes that Ibrahim al-Jaafari (leader of the National Alliance) declared Friday that Iraq needs to hold a national conference and needs to do so next month, the first week.  The previous deadline Nouri was working with came from Massoud Barzani.  The KRG will hold provincial elections in September and Barzani's made clear that if the political crisis isn't solved by then the issue of what the KRG does next can go on the ballot.  al-Jaafari just moved the deadline up and moved it up signficantly. Like Ayad Allawi, Ibrahim al-Jaafari has held the post Nouri al-Maliki currently does, prime minister of Iraq.  In fact, Ibrahim was the choice of Iraqi MPs in 2005 and 2006.  The US refused to allow al-Jaafari to be named prime minister again and insisted that their pet Nouri be named.     Today's big news was  Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.  The political crisis was already well in effect when December 2011 rolled around.  The press rarely gets that fact correct.  When December 2011 rolls around you see Iraqiya announce a  boycott of the council and the Parliament, that's in theDecember 16th snapshot and again in a December 17th entry .  Tareq al-Hashemi is a member of Iraqiya but he's not in the news at that point.  Later, we'll learn that Nouri -- just returned from DC where he met with Barack Obama -- has ordered tanks to surround the homes of high ranking members of Iraqiya.  December 18th is when al-Hashemi and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq are pulled from a Baghdad flight to the KRG but then allowed to reboard the plane. December 19th is when the arrest warrant is issued for Tareq al-Hashemi by Nouri al-Maliki who claims the vice president is a 'terrorist.' . al-Hashemi was already in the KRG when the arrest warrant was issued.  He did not "flee" there.  He remained there with the approval of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and KRG President Massoud Barzani until April when he left the country on a diplomatic mission. Nouri and his flunkies insisted that Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey hand him over.  None did.  They also insisted that INTERPOL arrest him when he was in each of the three countries.  INTERPOL cannot take part in political arrests, it's against their charter.  They have to look impartial, per charter. Alsumaria notes that May 3rd is when the Baghdad court intends to officially try al-Hashemi.  "Officially"?  Baghdad judges held a press conference in Februrary insisting al-Hashemi was guilty of the charges.  Having insisted that publicly -- in violation of the Iraqi Constitution -- they now want to have a trial?  The Baghdad courts are controlled by Nouri and a joke.  Al Rafidaynnotes that al-Hashemi is still in Turkey and that the trial will take place in absentia.   Alsumaria reports that al-Hashemi and his bodyguards are now also charged with the murders of 6 judges.  Still having not learned what a joke they are on the national stage, the Baghdad judges sent their spokesperson Abdelsatter Bayraqdar out to make a statement about how "confessions were obtained on them, including the assassination of six judges, mostly from Baghdad."  The judicail system is corrupt and ignorant in Iraq.  They have confused the role of the judge with the prosecution and their actions betray their country's Constitution.  They should all be immediately removed from office.  They won't be, but they should be. Al Sabaah notes that there are 300 charges in all, according to the spokesperson, and that there will be 73 defendants on trial and, in addition to being accused of murdering judges, al-Hashemi and his bodyguards are also being accused of mudering military officers.   Dar Addustour reports rumors that al-Hashemi will be stripped of his office prior to the start of the trial.

The Empire Strikes Back: Attack of the Drones

The Empire Strikes Back: Attack of the Drones by John W. Whitehead

May 1, 2012 "The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."– James Madison Drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — come in all shapes and sizes, from nano-sized drones as small as a grain of sand that can do everything from conducting surveillance to detonating explosive charges, to massive "hunter/killer" Predator warships that unleash firepower from on high. Once used exclusively by the military to carry out aerial surveillance and attacks on enemy insurgents abroad, these remotely piloted, semi-autonomous robots have now been authorized by Congress and President Obama for widespread use in American airspace. The military empire is coming home to roost. While there are at least 63 active drone sites around the U.S., the Obama administration is calling for drone technology to be integrated into the national airspace by 2015. By 2020, just eight short years from now, it is estimated that at least 30,000 of these drones will be crisscrossing the nation’s skies, serving a wide range of functions, both public and private, governmental and corporate. The end result, however, will be the same: we will find ourselves operating under a new paradigm marked by round-the-clock surveillance and with little hope of real privacy, a paradigm foisted upon us and from which there will be no escape, short of living in a cave, far removed from the reach of modern technology. Caves, by the way, are rather scarce. While the legislative vehicle for this rapid transition into a surveillance state came in the guise of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill, passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama in February 2012, it was steamrollered into place after intense corporate lobbying by drone makers and potential customers hoping to capitalize on the $12 billion–$30 billion per year industry. As with every egregious government policy, there are politicians who stand to make money off the implementation of drones in America. Fifty-five members of the House of Representatives are part of the drone caucus, which works to expand the use of drones domestically. So far this election season, 15 members of the caucus have received a total of $68,500 from General Atomics PAC, the political action committee of the drone manufacturer General Atomics. There is also a lobbying group with 507 corporate members spread across 55 countries, the Association for Unmanned Vehicles International, which is responsible for the language in the FAA bill that mandates the accelerated implementation of drone technology. Thus, our so-called representatives and the corporations which support them will make a great deal of money off the decimation of Americans’ privacy rights. While the threat these drones pose to privacy is unprecedented, they are being unleashed on the American populace before any real protocols to protect our privacy rights have been put in place and in such a way as to completely alter the landscape of our lives and our freedoms. We are truly entering a new era. Once the realm of science fiction and dystopian literature, the all-seeing surveillance state, powered by the latest and greatest in robot technology, is the reality with which we must now contend. Drones are outfitted with infrared cameras and radar, which will pierce through the darkness, allowing the police to keep track of anyone walking around, regardless of the nature of their business. Police drones are equipped with thermal imaging devices to see through walls. There is absolutely nowhere to hide from these machines — even in your home. As Congressmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton pointed out in a recent letter to the FAA [.pdf]: [S]tate and local governments, businesses, and private individuals are increasingly using unmanned aircraft in the U.S., including deployments for law enforcement operations. As technology advances and cost decreases — drones are already orders of magnitude less expensive to purchase and operate than piloted aircraft — the market for federal, state, and local government and commercial drones rapidly grows. Many drones are designed to carry surveillance equipment, including video cameras, infrared thermal imagers, radar, and wireless network "sniffers." The surveillance power of drones is amplified when the information from onboard sensors is used in conjunction with facial recognition, behavior analysis, license-plate recognition, or any other system that can identify and track individuals as they go about their daily lives. While drones will undoubtedly be put to a host of legitimate uses, such as helping to spot wildfires, monitoring illegal border crossings, and carrying out search-and-rescue missions, their "beneficence" is a double-edged sword. Indeed, in the name of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, law enforcement agencies will find a whole host of clever and innovative ways to use drones to invade our daily lives, not the least of which will be traffic enforcement and crowd control. In fact, the drones will be outfitted with crowd-control weapons. Vanguard Defense Industries has confirmed that its Shadowhawk drone, which is already being sold to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, can be outfitted with lethal weapons, including a grenade launcher or a shotgun, and weapons of compliance, such as tear gas and rubber buckshot. Such aerial police weapons send a clear and chilling message to those attempting to exercise their First Amendment rights by taking to the streets and protesting government policies — the message: stay home. American scientists have created blueprints for nuclear-powered drones, which would increase air time from days to months. Potential problems are dire, such as a crashed drone becoming a dirty bomb or a source of nuclear propulsion for any terrorist groups that get their hands on it. However, while the lethal capabilities of these drones are troubling, especially when one factors in the possibility of them getting into the wrong hands or malfunctioning, the more pressing concern has to do with the drones’ surveillance capabilities. With the help of nanotechnology, scientists have been able to create ever-smaller drones that mimic the behavior of birds and insects and are almost undetectable. Despite their diminutive size, these drones are capable of capturing and relaying vast amounts of data and high-definition video footage. It’s inevitable that as more local police agencies acquire these spy flies, their surveillance efforts will expand to include not only those suspected of criminal activity but anyone within range of the cameras. In such a surveillance state, we shall all be treated as suspects. There are many constitutional concerns presented by drones recording Americans’ daily activities, with the most obvious being what it means for the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents. While it will certainly give rise to a whole new dialogue about where to draw the line when it comes to the government’s ability to monitor one’s public versus private lives, the courts have been notorious for their inability to keep pace with rapid advances in technology and its impact on our freedoms. Unfortunately, it is too late to do anything about drones coming home to roost. Indeed, as drone technology expert Peter W. Singer recognizes in remarks to The New York Times, "the debate over drones is like debating the merits of computers in 1979: They are here to stay, and the boom has barely begun. 'We are at the Wright Brothers Flier stage of this,’ he said." The point is that with 56 government agencies now authorized to use drones, including 22 law enforcement agencies and 24 universities, the drones are not going away. Included among the institutions authorized to fly drones are police departments in Arkansas, Utah, and Florida, as well as Virginia Tech and the University of North Dakota. The University of North Dakota even has a degree program in unmanned vehicle flight with 78 majors. As with just about every freedom-leeching, technology-driven government policy inflicted on us by Congress and the White House in recent years, from whole-body scanners in airports to RFID chips in our passports and drivers licenses, the mass introduction of drones into domestic airspace has one main goal: to empower the corporate state by controlling the populace and enriching the military-industrial complex. In the meantime, all you can do is keep your eyes on the skies. As Singer noted, "There’s no stopping this technology. Anybody who thinks they can put this genie back in the box — that’s silliness."

The Permanent Injustice of Guantánamo

The Permanent Injustice of Guantánamo Andy Worthington

May 2, 2012 Last summer, I wrote an article reviewing ten years of Guantánamo for the Future of Freedom Foundation, for whom I write a weekly column for their online Email Update. This article, however, was for their monthly magazine, Freedom Daily. It was published in the January 2012 issue, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo on January 11, 2012, and was published online on April 12, and I’m cross-posting it here in the hope that it will provide other readers with an understanding of the depth of the lawlessness that has prevailed at Guantánamo for the last ten years. The Permanent Injustice of Guantánamo By Andy Worthington,  Freedom Daily, January 2012 When the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba opened on January 11, 2002 as part of the Bush administration’s global "war on terror," in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it was not immediately apparent that it was a dangerous aberration from recognized laws and treaties that would tarnish America’s name forever. There had been hints that this was the case — primarily, the fact that a war had been declared when a crime had taken place, and the military order issued by the President in November 2001, "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism," in which he stated that members of al-Qaeda or those who harbored them could be held by the US military and, if required, subjected to military trials. Also worrying, when Guantánamo opened, were the photos of the first prisoners to arrive at the prison, shackled in orange jumpsuits, and subjected to sensory depravation, with their eyes and ears closed with blackout goggles and headphones. The photos shocked many of America’s supporters, if not Americans themselves, who were used to orange jumpsuits from their domestic prisons, and had been primed relentlessly since the 9/11 attacks to enthuse over Wild West-style vengeance, and not to ask too many questions. How discarding the Geneva Conventions led to the filing of Guantánamo with "Mickey Mouse detainees" In addition, for those paying particularly close attention, it was noticeable that there had been no word officially about the use of competent tribunals under Article 5 of the Geneva Conventions to make sure that those being sent to Guantánamo as "the worst of the worst" were not, in fact, civilians seized by mistake. Held close to the time and place of capture, competent tribunals were designed after the Second World War to separate combatants from civilians, and are intended specifically for circumstances in which those detained are not part of a recognizable military organisation. This was the case with al-Qaeda, although it was not, arguably, the same when it came to the Taliban, who were the government of Afghanistan, and often had recognizable headgear — their black turbans. The importance of competent tribunals lies in their ability to allow prisoners of disputed provence to call witnesses to defend them, and they had been a key component in America’s wars from Vietnam onwards. During the first Gulf War, for example, around 1,200 had been convened and in nearly three-quarters of those cases, it had been discovered that civilians had been seized in the fog of war, and the men were duly released [PDF, p.663 -- In Iraq, the US military held 1196 tribunals, and, in 886 cases (74 percent), found it had detained civilians instead of combatants, and released them]. The decision not to hold competent tribunals in Afghanistan, which was made at the highest levels of the Bush administration, shocked many in the military, who had been preparing to hold them until the order came that they were not to be used. For those watching closely, the decision was disastrous, leading to the filling of Guantánamo with largely insignificant Taliban foot soldiers or completely innocent men. This was revealed in December 2002, when, in the Los Angeles Times, Greg Miller reported that Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, the commander of Guantánamo until October 2002, had complained about the number of "Mickey Mouse detainees" being sent to Guantánamo from Afghanistan. Later revelations confirmed how chaotic the Bush administration’s detention policies were, adding to the volume of "Mickey Mouse detainees." In July 2004, for example, Chris Mackey, the pseudonym of a senior interrogator in the prisons at Kandahar and Bagram that were used to process prisoners for Guantánamo, revealed, in his book The Interrogators (written with Greg Miller), that the orders that had come from Camp Doha in Kuwait, where the military’s top brass were stationed, had stipulated that every Arab who came into US custody — with no exceptions allowed — had to be sent to Guantánamo. Mackey’s book also made it clear that Special Forces had further confused matters by dropping off prisoners without any explanatory information whatsoever. However, although these operations accounted for some of the prisoners,  an even bigger shock came in February 2006, when researchers at the Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey completed a statistical analysis of the Pentagon’s own allegations relating to 517 of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo, revealing that the majority of the prisoners were not even seized by the US military, but were seized by their Afghan or Pakistani allies [PDF]. The Seton Hall analysis ascertained that 86 percent of the 517 prisoners were captured by the Northern Alliance or Pakistani forces, that 55 percent were not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the US or its allies, and that only 8 percent were alleged to have had any kind of affiliation with al-Qaeda. These figures thoroughly undermined the Bush administration’s claims that the prisoners were "captured on the battlefield," and were, as defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed, "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth." The Bush administration’s case was undermined further when it also became apparent that bounty payments to America’s allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, averaging $5,000 a head, had been widespread, and had contributed to the chaos. While it took time for these truths about the shambolic basis of the "war on terror" to emerge, other damning information emerged in real time; specifically, the executive order issued by George W. Bush on February 7, 2002 [PDF], in which the President declared that Guantánamo was largely beyond the reach of the Geneva Conventions. Bush declared that the Geneva Conventions would apply to the Taliban prisoners, but not to those from al-Qaeda, adding that, "to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity," all the prisoners would be treated "in a manner consistent with the principles" of the Geneva Conventions. Bush’s position had been signaled a month earlier, on the day Guantánamo opened, when Donald Rumsfeld had stated unequivocally that he prisoners "will be handled not as prisoners of war, because they’re not, but as unlawful combatants. Technically, unlawful combatants do not have any rights under the Geneva Convention. We have indicated that we do plan to, for the most part, treat them in a manner that is reasonably consistent with the Geneva Conventions, to the extent they are appropriate." Both Rumsfeld and Bush were wrong, in the important sense that everyone seized in wartime has rights. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which applies to every prisoner, prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment," but it was not until 2004, when an internal memo surfaced that preceded Bush’s executive order about the Geneva Conventions, that it was known how far the administration had gone in its cynical attempts to justify depriving Guantánamo prisoners of basic rights. How discarding the Geneva Conventions led to America’s use of torture In a memo to the President dated January 25, 2002, which was signed by Alberto Gonzales, the President’s Chief Counsel, but written by David Addington, the legal counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, the legal contortions that resulted in this unprecedented move were spelled out. Following up on administration claims that the "war on terror" was a new kind of war, the memo claimed, "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions" [PDF]. What this meant, as later became apparent, was that one particularly "quaint" provision to be discarded was Common Article 3, the bulwark against torture. Again, it took time until the information was leaked, but after the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq broke in April 2004 (which ought to have demonstrated how torture and abuse had thoroughly infected the US military and America’s intelligence services) a secret memo was leaked, which is generally known asthe "torture memo." This demonstrated that lawyers in the Bush administration’s Justice Department (in the Office of Legal Counsel, which is supposed to provide the executive branch with impartial legal advice), working closely with Dick Cheney, had cynically attempted to redefine torture so that it could be used by the CIA. The torture program approved by John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee in the OLC involved the administration reverse-engineering torture techniques taught in US military schools to help US personnel to resist torture if they fell into enemy hands (the SERE program — Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape), and a version of the program was then introduced at Guantánamo by Donald Rumsfeld. As the Senate Armed Services Committee noted in its detailed and remarkably thorough "Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody" in 2008 [PDF], these programs involved techniques including "stripping detainees of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, disrupting their sleep, treating them like animals, subjecting them to loud music and flashing lights, and exposing them to extreme temperatures." In the CIA’s program, the techniques used also included waterboarding, a notorious torture technique which involves controlled drowning. However, while these programs were a key element in the administration’s policy of running intelligence gathering centers (of which Guantánamo was just one) in which coercion was a key component, these dark days were largely brought to an end in September 2006, when, after the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that Common Article 3 applied to all prisoners in US custody, the Bush administration reportedly closed its secret torture prisons, moved 14 "high-value detainees" to Guantánamo, and recognized that its experiments in torture, abuse and coercive interrogations would have to be brought to an end. The legacy of those dark days lives on in the US prison at Bagram airbase, in Afghanistan (and, more pointedly, at forward operating bases throughout Afghanistan), where the military and the intelligence services seem to be happy that the Geneva Conventions have not been thoroughly reinstated, and interrogation remains, arguably, more important than keeping people off the battlefield or determining whether they were even on a battlefield in the first place — with all the temptation to abuse prisoners that this approach entails. In Guantánamo, however, it is fair to say that the days of coercive interrogations, and of torture and abuse directed from the highest levels of government are over, although abuse still remains, for those punished by armored teams of thugs when they infringe the rules, and for those who have resorted to hunger strikes to protest their confinement, who are brutally force-fed for doing so. Why the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo confounds justice, and is a form of torture Crucially, however, Guantánamo remains a form of torture in and of itself, for reasons that are to do with the prisoners’ status as "enemy combatants," and the legislation used to justify their detention — the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). Passed by Congress the week after the 9/11 attacks, the AUMF authorises the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." In 2004, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court confirmed that the AUMF also authorizes the detention of those held as a result of the President’s activities, although, as law professor Curtis Bradley has noted, "Justice O’Connor’s plurality opinion in Hamdi made clear that the Court was deciding only the authority to detain in connection with traditional combat operations in the Afghanistan theater." Bradley also noted, "As for the proper length of detention, O’Connor largely avoided the question, although she did refer to the traditional ability under the international laws of war to detain individuals until the 'cessation of active hostilities.’" Despite these reservations, Hamdi confirmed that the AUMF had established a parallel world to the one ruled by the Geneva Conventions, and the lingering and permanent injustice of Guantánamo stems for that decision. The problem is that, when the Bush administration decided to hold both al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners as "enemy combatants," that failure to distinguish between the two (one a terrorist group, the other a government with a military) would have dreadful knock-on effects that have never been adequately addressed. For the terror suspects in Guantánamo, the criminal trials that should have taken place have, with one exception, been brushed aside as a legitimate option because they have been portrayed as "warriors." For the soldiers, however, the problem is that they are not prisoners of war as defined by theGeneva Conventions, and so face an uphill struggle to argue that the "war" in which they were seized was, or is finite, and is not the nebulous "war on terror" of the Bush administration. Obama dropped the use of the terms "enemy combatant" and "war on terror," but left the structure and rationale for Guantánamo fundamentally unchanged. As a result, the men held there are still essentially held without rights. Neither criminal suspects nor soldiers, they have discovered that, although the Supreme Court gave them constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights in June 2008 [in Boumediene v. Bush], which led to the release of a handful of prisoners between December 2008 and January 2011, they have hit a brick wall in the deeply Conservative court of appeals in Washington D.C. The court, which deals with challenges to the rulings made in the lower court, has realized that the basis for holding the prisoners — their involvement with al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban — is so vague that they have been able to completely shut down habeas as a way of being freed from Guantánamo for any of the men still held. Moreover, when Obama was advised by his own Guantánamo Review Task Force (consisting of over 60 career officials and lawyers in the various government departments and the intelligence agencies)not to release 48 of the men still held, even though there was no evidence in their cases that could be used in a court, he agreed, relying on the AUMF toissue an executive order in March 2011 declaring that they would be held indefinitely, although with periodic reviews to establish their status. Ten years after Guantánamo opened, it is time for this dangerous and damaging nonsense to be brought to an end. The AUMF should be repealed, criminal suspects (those allegedly involved in terrorist activities) should be tried in federal court, and soldiers should be allowed to begin the litigation involved in demolishing the notion that a "war on terror" or a "long war" is legitimate, and to seek their release, with the guarantee that, in future conflicts, the US will once more adhere to the Geneva Conventions. As it stands, Guantánamo is not just an aberration and a difficult legacy problem, but, as I mentioned above, a form of torture in and of itself. Because the AUMF does not concern itself with any end point to the detention of prisoners, and because no one has been able to open up a legal avenue to argue that this is unjust, they can be held forever without any functioning challenge, given that the D.C. Circuit Court has gutted habeas of all meaning. In criminal courts, this kind of delay is anathema, and for soldiers, the problem remains a war without end. Both are an abomination, but the most brutal aspect of this story is not just what it says about the chronic failures of US justice at every level — the executive branch, lawmakers and the judiciary — but what it means, uniquely for the prisoners. As Christophe Girod of the International Committee of the Red Cross told the New York Times in October 2003, breaking with protocol by speaking out publicly, "The open-endedness of the situation and its impact on the mental health of the population has become a major problem." That open-endedness remains a problem that the Guantánamo prisoners do not share with those in the domestic prison system who were sentenced in a courtroom, or those imprisoned in connection with a specific military conflict, and its impact on the prisoners’ mental health — never knowing when, if ever they will be released — can only have become a far, far graver problem than it was eight years ago. Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books:Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see mydefinitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, "The Complete Guantánamo Files," a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo" (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see mydefinitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new "Close Guantánamo campaign," and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Gaza - Occupied Lives: Fear at the Border

Gaza - Occupied Lives: Fear at the Border The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)

Nabeel Al-Najjer outside of his family's home, an Israeli watchtower visible in the distance May 2, 2012 For families living near the Gaza-Israeli border, fear is a part of daily life. For Nabeel Al-Najjar, his wife, and their 6 children, the sound of gunshots is as normal as the bleating of their sheep. The Al-Najjaris located close to the 300 meter "bufferzone," unilaterally imposed by the Israeli forces. Living only 500 meters from the Israeli border in the Khuza’a village, east of Khan Yunis, has placed their home and lives in continuous danger. Set against the backdrop of his wheat field, with two Israeli watchtowers in sight, Nabeel discusses his new specially designed home with concrete slab walls instead of brick, constructed in the hopes of preventing Israeli bullets from entering his home. He was forced to rebuild the house after 4 Israeli bulldozers destroyed all of the homes in the area at 7am on 13 January 2009. It has been rebuilt with an underground floor, to help protect the family from future attacks. After the last attack on 10 April 2012, Nabeel is considering putting iron sheets over the windows facing the border, and constructing a 3 foot concrete barrier around the house: "we are always at risk, but I do my best to minimize it for my family." As he shows one of the 7 heavy metal bullets that were shot from a jeep on the Israeli side of the border towards his home, and points out the holes in the top of his walls and shrapnel in the cupboard, he talks about how this room was where his children used to study. During the last offensive, the house came under attack: his son was standing in the doorway, while Nabeel was hiding on the floor with one of his daughters – it is a miracle that the three of them survived: "my children are programmed to run now when they hear gunshots and bullets. They run to the basement." His wife is also afraid that he will be hurt while tending their farm, which runs quite close to the border. Two weeks ago, a 34 year old women, a mother of 8 children, was shot in the head nearby while collecting grass.[1] This woman, Nabeel and their other neighbours are not fighters; they are simply people trying to live their lives under the constant threat of danger. Nabeel states that "we do not hear bullets every day, but consistently." The threat does not end with the setting of the sun. At night, everyone is forced to stay inside the house, as any movement in the yard would immediately result in an Israeli bullet: "at night, it is like a ghost town. We do not visit our families or friends." This constant threat has affected Nabeel’s livelihood as a farmer. Before the offensive, he had a 2,700 meter field and 90 trees (olive, mango and lemon), which he used to lovingly tend. It was all bulldozed by Israeli forces, and the family’s animals were killed. Only a few trees remain, and his field of wheat. He no longer has the will to tend to his trees, or to reinvest in their livestock. With Israeli watchtowers and patrols an ever present sight, it is easy to understand why Nabeel is wary to start over again, only to have it taken away. Even his house, which he has so carefully built to protect him and his family, remains unfinished. There is no paint on the walls and the kitchen was built in the basement by request of his wife, out of fear. There is no question, however of him moving somewhere else: "this was my father’s land; it is where I was born. Everyone I know is here; I cannot leave my home." Yet, despite the constant threat of injury or death, Nabeel has hope: "my children are clever. I want them to be able to be independent. They can get an education in Gaza, but there are no opportunities for them after that now. God willing, there is a future for them here." Nabeel also quietly stated that "the Palestinian people are good. If the Israelis really believed in God, they would never do this to other people." As he determinedly builds a life on the land of his father at the Israeli border, a quiet strength is evident. Under Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the destruction of private property is prohibited unless rendered absolutely necessary by military operations. Likewise, under Article 33, civilians cannot be punished for offences they have not committed. Nabeel and his family are civilians, the so-called 'protected persons’ of international humanitarian law. There is absolutely no military necessity justifying these attacks, which constitute war crimes, as codified in Articles 8(2)(b) (i) and (ii) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. [1] Noted in our Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (12 – 18 April 2012), published 19 April 2012.

U.S. Torturers are Still Awaiting Arrest

U.S. Torturers are Still Awaiting Arrest By William A. Collins

(Mario Piperni / Flickr) Prosecution is an effective cure for torture. May 2, 2012 Treat 'em harshly, Go to town! There's no court To bring us down. Torture isn't a good subject to fail on one's moral report card. If you're an individual, St. Peter is likely to take a dim view. If you're a nation, it can cost you plenty of international prestige, besides putting hot-headed zealots yearning for revenge on your trail. There is, of course, one effective cure for torture. It's called prosecution. For the past decade, there's even been a special tribunal in The Hague to try accused war crime suspects and to punish the guilty. The International Criminal Court has successfully jailed many villains, all from small countries. Big countries aren't part of this justice system because they claim, falsely, that they can dispense justice themselves. Take the United States. We make that claim, but somehow we've had trouble indicting any of our own officials. We'll occasionally get the goods on a 2nd lieutenant or a staff sergeant, but higher-ups seem immune. Top officials are in no danger at all. Consequently, the public is. Danger of private retribution lurks where justice fears to tread. Therefore, what America desperately needs today are some serious prosecutions to clear our moral record. With names changed to protect the suspects, in all good conscience we should investigate George W. Doe, Richard Doe, Donald Doe, Condoleezza Doe, and John Y. Doe. And from the Vietnam War days, Henry Doe. Plus, as the cover-up accomplice-in-chief in Afghanistan and the leading Libya culprit, Barack Doe. Indeed it was Barack Doe who intoned that the country needs to "look forward, not backward." As it turned out, the view forward wasn't all that great either. The political cooperation that the president counted on in recompense for letting the Republican torturers off the hook never materialized. So now he's reluctant to look back for fear of turning into a pillar of salt, and afraid to look forward for fear of seeing his place in history as a morally doomed figure. Luckily for tainted American leaders, they've got two powerful forces working in their favor. One is secrecy; the other is the media. Ever since the brilliant invention of classified documents, presidents and potentates have had a whole new crime they can level at whistleblowers — security violation. Any document that might prove embarrassing, such as evidence of torture — classify it! Then if someone reveals it, he or she can be accused of treason, and since the document is secret, officials needn't discuss it. Just now the "trial" of Bradley Manning is our paramount example of this scurrilous technique. The media, a president's other priceless asset, is eager to birddog failures of sexual integrity, but not moral crimes that would diminish the nation's stature. Thus, if a president chooses to ignore torture and other grave malefactions of state, the media isn't about to enter that thicket.

Whitewashing Mass Murder

Whitewashing Mass Murder by Stephen Lendman

May 2, 2012 Israel's 2008-09 Gaza war was one of history's great crimes. Missiles, bombs, shells, and illegal weapons were used against defenseless people. Mass slaughter and destruction followed. Brazen crimes of war and against humanity were committed. International protection wasn't afforded. Responsible officials remain unaccountable. Before his fall from grace, Richard Goldstone said: "(T)here is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity." Over 1,400 Gazans were killed. Around 80% or more were civilians. Thousands of others were injured, many seriously. Extensive civilian infrastructure and private property were destroyed or damaged, including homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and businesses. Killing 29 members of one family perhaps was Cast Lead's greatest crime. Bombing their home killed 21. The previous day, IDF soldiers gathered 100 members there. Surviving ones and human rights activists demanded justice. They still do. They were denied. On May 1, Israel said those responsible won't be prosecuted. The case was closed. Major Dorit Tuval, Deputy Military Advocate for Operational Matters, said civilians "who did not take part in the fighting" weren't killed "in a manner that would indicate criminal responsibility." He lied! They were willfully targeted and murdered. All Israeli investigations are whitewashed. Justice is denied. It never has a chance. International law prohibits targeting civilians. Doing so is official Israeli policy. B'Tselem attorney Yael Stein said: "It cannot be that in a well-managed system no person will be found guilty of the army operation that led to the killing of 21 people who were not involved in combat, and resided in a structure on the instructions of the army – even if the attack was not done purposefully." "The manner in which the army rids itself of responsibility in this case… again illustrates the need for an investigatory body outside of the army." On January 4, soldiers ordered Salah Samouni and those with him from their home. They took it for a command post. Those inside moved next door to family member Wael's house.  Concentrating unarmed men, women, children, infants, and the elderly in one building made them feel safe. So did having soldiers close by who knew they were there, even though war raged around them. On January 4, they used six or more Samouni compound houses as military posts. Earlier fighting killed family members. Some were shot in cold blood at close range. The atmosphere was trigger-happy. Israeli soldiers used Palestinian civilians for target practice.  They also fired at anyone who moved. They willfully targeted civilians. Wounded victims bled to death. Commanders kept ambulances away from target sites. Even unarmed civilians trying to walk away were shot. Bombing and shelling killed others.  On January 5, Salah thought family members still remained in another house. He wanted them safer with him. IDF shells and rockets struck the building. He said: "My daughter Azza, my only daughter, two and a half years old, was injured in the first hit on the house. She managed to say, 'Daddy, it hurts.' And then, in the second hit, she died."  "And I'm praying. Everything is dust and I can't see anything. I thought I was dead. I found myself getting up, all bloody, and I found my mother sitting by the hall with her head tilted downward."  "I moved her face a little, and I found that the right half of her face was gone. I looked at my father, whose eye was gone. He was still breathing a little, and then he stopped." Under dust and rubble in one large room, nine family members remained alive. They included the elderly matriarch, five grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The youngest was three. The previous day, nine-year old Amal saw soldiers burst into her home. They killed her father, Atiyeh. She took shelter in Uncle Tallal's home. Together with other family members, they moved to Wael's house. She didn't know her brother Ahmad was bleeding to death in his mother's arms in another neighborhood home. Surviving children found food scraps to eat. They went from corpse to corpse shaking them, hitting them, telling them to get up. Amal regained consciousness. Her head was bloody. Her eyes rolled in their sockets. She cried out for water. She wanted her mother and father. She beat her head on the floor. Doctors called removing shrapnel from her head too dangerous. No one's sure how events unfolded after Wael's house was struck. Survivors were dazed and injured. After Cast Lead ended, rescue teams returned to the neighborhood. Wael's house lay in ruins. IDF bulldozers demolished what remained. Corpses were still inside. Saleh wanted to know why soldiers attacked them. "Why did they take us out of the house one at a time, and the officer who spoke Hebrew with my father verified that we were all civilians. So why did they they shell us, kill us? This is what we want to know." He feels exiled on his own land in his own country. "We sit and envy the dead. They are the ones who are at rest." Masouda Samouni said: "I have no hope, no future, I lost everything in the offensive. I was in the corner with my children just watching. I was screaming and crying, I saw everything, the blood and the brains."  "There was smoke everywhere. I saw my brother-in-law falling down, and my mother-in-law. I realized that my three brothers-in-law and my mother-in-law were dead....I was injured in the chest and couldn't move....I was bleeding and five months pregnant." Soldiers stormed Ateya Samouni's home. He identified himself as the owner. Soldiers shot him while he was still holding his ID and an Israeli driver's license. They opened fire inside the room where 20 family members were sheltered. Deaths and injuries resulted. Other abuses followed. Mona Samouni saw her parents shot to death. Almaza Samouni lost her mother and six siblings. Survivors suffer from depression and nightmares. Like most Gazans, they manage as best they can. Trauma still affects many. Children are harmed most. How can any family recover from 29 members lost? They want answers but never got them. Brigade commander Colonel Ilan Malka ordered an air strike on their house. Militants were inside, he claimed. He ignored junior officers saying civilians were there or close by.  Twenty-one inside were killed, including women and children. Another 19 were wounded. When is a crime not one? When Israel says so. When is denied justice gotten? Maybe next time. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.