War Criminals Watch's blog

Tuesday's highly secretive, midnight meeting between US President Obama and Afghan President Karzai was spun by the administration as somehow being about the end of US occupation of Afghanistan. The furtive, hurried, vague agreement signed by a deeply unpopular puppet government isolated inside multi-billion dollar US protection makes both sides look only more desperate for legitimacy.

We've recounted since 2009 the story of the NATO/US "surge" of troops and cash which Obama threw at the people of Afghanistan, leading to a surge in civilian deaths, further assaults on women's rights, more night raids and anger among the people at the occupiers. This agreement extends all that until 2024!

33 people were grabbed by county sheriffs on April 22, a few blocks from the main gate of Hancock Air Force Base near Syracuse NY.  Faster than you can say “parading without a permit,” people at the front of a single file, silent march along a mostly deserted suburban road, were cuffed and stuffed into police cruisers.  Others were arrested standing near the gate of the base, where people do a protest vigil every two weeks, because pilots based at Hancock control drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) over the skies of Afghanistan, and perhaps over other countries in the region.

Protest the Chicago NATO meetings May 12-21,2012- sign up now! Visible Protest Needed! The US-led NATO military machine is carrying out illegitimate, unjust, and immoral wars on six countries. When we visibly protest in Chicago at the NATO meeting, we will show the world that people here do not accept the crimes carried out in our names by the principal NATO countries. International media must see thousands of us demanding that our governments stop committing these war crimes. Humanity and the planet come first.

by Stephanie Tang

Friday, March 30, Fremont CA:  Outraged by the March 11 massacre of 17 villagers in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province, people took to the streets of Fremont, California in a bold anti-war march and direct action that shut down the local Armed Forces Career Center (recruitment office) for the afternoon.

View more photos

NO to NATO & U.S. Wars!

May 20-21 the NATO military alliance will meet in Chicago.  Is this a sign of international cooperation and diplomacy at work in Obama's hometown, as NATO claims?

No. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance through which the U.S. and its European allies dominate through military aggression, keeping the globe safe for Western imperialism. The greatest crimes of the US "war on terror," the massive death of civilians, the network of secret prisons and rendition, and the "humanitarian" interventions have all been done with NATO's forces and sometime, with its hand-wringing for appearance' sake.  Bill Ayers writes in We Say NO to NATO:

Please join with us from April 12-14 in Brooklyn to speak to our neighbors while a model drone is displayed and informational materials are distributed.  This is being done in the Congressional district of Edolphus Towns, who is on the Drone Caucus.  For more information, visit KnowDrones. An informative panal on Drones is happening on April 14.

Title:

Protest When John Yoo Speaks on "Taming Globalization"

When:

04.06.2012 - 04.06.2012 11.30 - 14.00

Where:

Gulliver's Restaurant - Irvine

April & May 2012 War Criminal Appearances
George Bush
4/19/12 - Las Vegas NV
4/21/12 - McKinney TX
5/3/12 - Lexington KY
5/11/12 - Billings MT

Dick Cheney
4/3/12 - San Antonio TX
4/14/12 - Cheyenne WY

Protest When John Yoo Speaks on "Taming Globalization"  3/28 - 5:30-8pm

The New York Athletic Club  180 Central Park South, New York, NY

"Speakers:  

John Yoo, Professor of Law, Boalt Hall Law School, University of California-Berkeley and Former Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, United States Department of Justice

Under the US global war of terror, 40% of the US budget goes to preserve and expand the US empire, killing people in the Middle East to protect a global system of exploitation. As an integral part of the terror program, drones are a weapon of choice. The Obama administration is coordinating drone strikes in at least six countries: Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan. In fact, these drones are being used eight times more by the Obama administration than by the Bush regime, in programs run by the military and the C.I.A. Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel argues that such strikes are legally justified under international law, basing its argument on the Bush doctrine of borderless, endless “war on terror.” On an almost daily basis, drones circle miles above Earth, following targets. The pilots may live and work out of Colorado or on a base in upstate NY or even in some other part of the world.

On Thursday, March 15th, about 15 stalwarts protested George Bush's appearance at a meeting of the Drug, Chemical, and Associated Technologies Assn. to a host of NYPD and mixed reviews by those attending and those passing by.  The demand to prosecute Bush for war crimes received lots of thumbs up as well as thumbs down and some analysis -- both cogent and not.

 by Sharon Pavlovich, War Criminals Watch

Forum: U.S.-Israeli Assault on Iran: The Growing Danger of War, the Urgency of Resistance, and the Need to Bring Forward Another Way

March 22, Thursday, 7pm Revolution Books 146 W. 26th Street New York City
Leila Zand is the Director of Fellowship of Reconciliation's Task Force on the Middle East. She is an Iranian-American who lived in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and the reform years of the late 1990s.

We've been out on the streets over the last week talking to people about the wars begun under the Bush regime, which are now fully Obama's wars, and how they remain illegitimate, unjust, immoral.  And how the only force authoritative force to stop them is us, forming ourselves into a much larger, louder, more determined movement.

MIDDLETOWN, CT: At Wesleyan University March 9, 2012  students and Occupy Connecticut members protested an appearance by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. “Scalia and Wesleyan’s President Roth were watching banners and condoms drop from the balcony, and there was nothing they could do. Even when the guard escorted us out for wearing Guantanamo jumpsuits, we got our point across,” said Cesar A. Chavez, first-year Wesleyan student.

Before Scalia’s speech, about forty Connecticut residents calling themselves Occupy Citizens United joined with Wesleyan students, chanting “Legacy of blood and war, what’d you make Bush president for?” and “Sexist, racist, anti-gay! Justice Scalia, go away!”

War Criminals Watch will be presenting two great panels at Left Forum, Pace University, NYC. 3/17-3/18,2012

•  What War?  US Turns from War on Iraq to Permanent Occupation - Saturday, March 17th at 12:00 noon. Room W602.
• Stopping the US Drone War: A Chilling Feature of the US War of Terror, Expanded by Obama Administration to Include Targeted Assassinations - Sunday, March 18th at 12:00 noon in Room W606.
  

In addition to the above panels, we will be displaying a Reaper drone, and the shoes & boots of those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq outside Pace University, We also have a table in the exhibit hall and look forward to meeting you.

The repeated statements from President Obama this week about the killing of 16 civilians near Kandahar on Sunday have been widely reported, the incident was "shocking... tragic... outrageous... heart-breaking."  All true.

But as Obama's expressions of grief have escalated, his expressed determination not to leave Afghanistan before 2014 have increased, joined yesterday by David Cameron, Prime Minister of the U.K.  NATO is ordering unmanned drones from the US to use in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region.

We demand: U.S. forces out of this illegitimate, immoral, unjust war on Afghanistan NOW, and pay reparations.

Demonstrate against John Yoo  - March 15, 5:30 - 7pm

Commonwealth Club - 595 Market St,  San Franciso, CA

11 March 2012 - Reporting on its website tonight, The New York Times stated: “Stalking from home to home, a United States Army sergeant methodically killed at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Afghanistan [in Kandahar Province] early on Sunday [March 11, 2012].”

After murdering these innocents one by one, this U.S. soldier - many Afghan witnesses, including one whose father was killed, saw several U.S. soldiers involved in the attack - then covered his/their victims with a blanket and set them afire.

“This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said in a statement.

World Can't Wait and others are responding to the killings yesterday in Afghanistan that at least one US Army staff sergeant is alleged to have carried out. 16 Afghan civilians including children were killed inside homes, in 2 villages, in completely unprovoked aggression, according to witnesses.

War Criminals Watch is participating in Left Forum at Pace University, 3/16-18.

We will be presenting two great panels:

I've been hearing, since Obama's remarks this week that, "The one thing we have not done is we have not launched a war" on Iran, that Barack Obama doesn't "want" a war. That could be true.

But every speech he has given on about Iran shows the one thing he won't give up on: domination of Iran, and the whole region.  If that takes war, then, Obama says, he will wage it. He said to the AIPAC meeting a few days ago,

"Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I have made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests."

In the 3 years Barack Obama has been commander in chief of the US empire, a lot of people have been impressed with Obama's way with words; partly because of the noticeable contrast with with George Bush's practiced malapropisms and deliberate mispronunciations (i.e. "NUKE u lar").

But look closer at Obama's words, and, even more importantly, his actions, to determine how people who care about humanity assess this president.

The Manning prosecution is a tragic miscarriage of justice.  US officials are highly embarrassed by what Manning exposed and are shooting the messenger.  As Glen Greenwald, the terrific Salon writer, has observed, President Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers for espionage than all other presidents combined.

Drop All Charges Against Bradley Manning! from Veterans for Peace

“Where is the justice?” asks Gerry Condon, a Board member of Veterans For Peace. “The Army is shirking its duty to punish soldiers who have committed rape and murder. Yet they are trying to destroy the life of Bradley Manning, who has not harmed a hair on a person's head.”

With multiple media partners, including Rolling Stone, Wikileaks is releasing 5 million emails from the private security company Stratfor. Michael Hastings (whose article led to the firing of General McChrystal from commanding in Afghanistan), writes in Homeland Security Kept Tabs on Occupy Wall Street:

Aggressive war, against a country that has not attacked the aggressor country, is the supreme war crime.  We said it on February 4 across the nation.  I talked about it outside the US Mission to the UN (see video).

We won't stop saying it.  Here's another chance:

Sunday March 4 in Washington, D.C., when President Obama speaks at the 2012 Convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, we'll be there, with a visible anti-war protest, along with Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and the Occupy movement.