Michael Hastings - 'The Legend of David Petraeus' (Rolling Stone)

SOURCE http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-legend-of-david-petraeus-20120131 The Legend of David Petraeus America's most famous soldier has always been a skilled media manipulator. But after reading a fawning new biography, you have to wonder if he’s losing his touch. By Michael Hastings January 31, 2012 The genius of David Petraeus has always been his masterful manipulation of the media. But after reading the new biography about him – All In: The Education of David Petraeus, by former Army officer Paula Broadwell – I’ve started to wonder if he’s losing his touch. The best spinsters never make their handiwork too obvious; they allow all parties to retain a semblance of dignity. Yet the Petraeus-approved All In is such blatant, unabashed propaganda, it’s as if the general has given up pretending there’s a difference between the press and his own public relations team. As Gen. John Galvin, an early mentor, explains to a young David in one of the book’s few revealing moments, "Through your mythology people create you…. You become part of the legend." All In is best understood as the latest – and least artful – contribution to the Petraeus legend. For P4, as Petraeus is known in military circles, this is about the fourth high-profile book he has collaborated on. He debuted on the literary scene as a young general "coming of age" during the 2003 invasion of Iraq in Rick Atkinson’s In The Company of Soldiers. ("Petraeus kept me at his elbow virtually all day, every day," writes Atkinson.) He reappeared as a brilliant strategist in a 2008 snoozer called Tell Me How This Ends by Linda Robinson. (Soon after publishing the book, Robinson, a reporter for U.S. News and World Report, went on to take a job working for Petraeus as an analyst at the U.S. Central Command.) Then, retired journalist turned military blogger Tom Ricks thoroughly lionized him in the highly readable and on-the-knees-admiring The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, which credits the general's "surge" strategy with turning that war around. Three for three. Broadwell’s contribution to the genre started brewing after she met Petraeus at the Harvard Kennedy School of government in 2006, while getting her master's degree. As she recalls in her book’s preface, the two hit it off, the general viewing Broadwell as "an aspiring soldier-scholar."  Both were West Point grads, sharing interests in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. They soon started emailing. "I took full advantage of his open-door policy to seek insight and share perspectives," she writes. In 2008, Broadwell began her doctoral dissertation, "a case study of General Petraeus’s leadership." After President Obama picked Petraeus, in June 2010, to take over the war in Afghanistan, she decided to turn the dissertation into a book. Petraeus invited her to Kabul, where she would spend several months "observing Petraeus and his team" and conducting "numerous interviews and email exchanges with Petraeus and his inner circle." The result is a work of fan fiction so fawning that not even Max Boot – a Petraeus buddy and Pentagon sock puppet – could bring himself to rave about it, grouching in The Wall Street Journal about All In’s "lack of independent perspective" and the authors' tendency to skirt conflict. (Boot, the hackiest of the neocon hacks, is now an advisor to Mitt Romney.) You don’t have to read far into the book to see what Boot means. All In opens with Petraeus sitting "deep in thought" on the way to the White House, where President Obama is about to offer him the Afghanistan job. It’s one of the most dramatic moments in recent military history – the president handing the poisoned chalice of the war back to the man who designed the doomed strategy to win it. What were the general’s thoughts? How’d the meeting go? We learn only that Petraeus "pledged fealty to the civil military hierarchy." By Chapter 2 we're in Afghanistan, with Petraeus gazing out of a plane window on the "barren, brown mountains of the Hindu Kush" with a "twinge of anticipation." Explains Broadwell: "He knew the challenges below…. Those challenges were now his to master." The troops we're full of admiration. "It was clear to me he was a commander’s commander," she quotes one subordinate saying of Petraeus, on the record. Lt. Colonel David Fivecoat, a Petraeus acolyte who once did a stint as a public affairs officer, puts in, "Petraeus, in his relentlessly positive way, would say, you know, keep pushing it, every day, trying to do as much as you can." And in case the reader is in any doubt as to where she's coming from, Broadwell helpfully explains – and this is a typical sentence – "I will note in the pages that follow that [Petraeus] is driven and goal-oriented, but his energy, optimism and will to win stand out more for me than the qualities seized on by his critics. Serving, in his mind, is winning." Well, Petraeus didn’t win in Afghanistan – unless one defines winning the Charlie Sheen sense of the word. Rather, he proposed and followed a counterinsurgency strategy that was expensive, bloody, and inconclusive. One could argue – many have, myself included – that Afghanistan is unwinnable in any meaningful sense, a colossal and futile waste of blood and treasure with only a tenuous connection to America’s national security interests. But that's an idea that doesn’t seem to occur to Broadwell.  "History has yet to fully judge Petraeus’s service in Iraq and Afghanistan," she claims. Well, let me be the first to render a full judgment: Petraeus’s Afghan war was an epic fail. All In has a very different message to convey, a message straight from Team Petraeus – that Afghanistan, if it doesn't work out, is not the general's fault. Rather, it’s Obama’s fault, for not listening to Petraeus – for refusing him all the tens of thousands of more troops he wanted. As Petraeus confidante retired Army colonel Keith Nightingale is heard to muse upon P4’s assignment to Afghanistan: "If Petraeus could pull a rabbit out of the hat ..., so much the better. If he couldn’t, Obama would be able to say he’d done all that he could by appointing America’s best general to command – and blame Petraeus." Meanwhile, Iraq – the scene, supposedly, of Petraeus’s greatest triumph – remains mired in brutal civil strife. Broadwell writes twice that Petraeus went to Iraq in 2007 to "pull the country back from the brink of civil war." But there was no "brink"; Iraq had been in a full-scale civil war for at least two years by that point, and Petraeus’s real success was in fully backing the Shiite side over the Sunni side, hardly a recipe for mending Iraq’s murderous ethnic divisions in the long run. Time and again Broadwell takes Petraeus's public statements at face value. So, for example, she quotes a  speech he gave at a Fourth of July celebration in Kabul. "'Cooperation is not optional,' he stated firmly. 'Civilian military, Afghan and international, we are part of one team with one mission …. And I know you all share the unshakeable commitment to teamwork that Ambassador Eikenberry [America’s chief diplomat in Kabul] and I share.'" Broadwell’s own reporting tells a different story. On page 42 – and this is actual news – we learn that "Petraeus stopped including Eikenberry in most of his personal meetings with Karzai because of the unhelpful atmosphere generated by his presence, according to Petraeus’s aides." Later, on page 177, we find out that Petraeus became the "gatekeeper" for access to Karzai, usurping the role of the civilian diplomat. "'You won’t get access through Karzai through that group,' he said. 'You’ll get it through me.'" After Petraeus met Karzai for the first time as the commanding general we discover that it "did not go particularly well." How so? Broadwell doesn’t elaborate. I’ve reported on the tensions between Petraeus and Eikenberry and Karzai (tensions they of course have denied), but the fact that the top military commander booted the top diplomat out of meetings with President Karzai tells you all you need to know about the much vaunted "civ-mil" relations that Petraeus holds so dear. If Broadwell finds this somewhat problematic, she doesn't say. There’s plenty of potential in All In – the 150 interviews and incredible access to Petraeus’s command could have yielded something valuable, or, at the very least, something competent. Instead, we’re left to read between the lines and pan for what stray nuggets the book contains. And what do those nuggets tell us? Not nearly enough. Broadwell gives us the first detailed account of a December 2010 meeting between Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates to discuss Petraeus’s going over to the CIA. Gates tells him the post of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's top job, is "out the question" – a potentially amazing scene. Why not give the nation's most successful general the job he most wants? Is it because the White House is sick of him? Is Obama worried about giving him a platform for a future political career? Or is it that General Martin E. Dempsey, who replaced Admiral Mike Mullen at the JCS, outmaneuvered him? Or did Mullen – no Petraeus fan, according to my sources – stab him in the back? Astonishingly, Broadwell, if she knows, doesn’t tell us. Nor, equally amazing, is she inclined to speculate (or, you know, report). Instead we get this: "Petraeus’s mind whirled, even though, as he told a close friend, he’d had distinctly mixed feelings about the position…. Being told it was out of the question stung." Nevertheless, for all her exertions on Petraeus's behalf, Broadwell ends up inadvertently confirming much of what his harshest critics have said about him – namely, that’s he not just an ambitious aw-shucks fellow, but can really be a sneaky and ruthless bastard, too.  For instance, he throws his predecessor in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal, under the bus in the same way he does Eikenberry. Though Broadwell notes what great friends Petraeus and McChrystal are, she allows P4 to take his shots, as here: "Unspoken was Petraeus’s sense that McChrystal’s command had overpromised in Marjah [site of his largest military operation in southern Afghanistan] and paid a price publically…." (Well, not "unspoken" any more!); and here: Petraeus sought "more clarity," [on rules of engagement established by McChrystal] and found "the fault lay not so much with McChrystal’s directive but with subordinate commanders who added conditions that made it more difficult for U.S. and NATO forces to fight." So it’s no longer the commander’s fault when folks under his command don’t follow orders properly, or that the orders are so confused his soldiers can’t make sense of them? She also notes in passing that Petraeus had to make  "considerable modification[s]" to one of McChrystal’s campaign plans.  Broadwell also lets Petraeus take a jab at his former superior, Gen. John Abizaid, contrasting Abizaid’s implied laziness to P4’s hard-driving ethos: "While Abizaid was happy to relax over beer with his men after a maneuver, Petraeus wanted to conduct an after action review – and then challenge everyone to a run – and then have a beer." If you think such sniping is beneath America’s most illustrious soldier, I'd refer you to my own reporting. As Gen. John Vines, a contemporary of Petraeus's throughout his career, confided to colleagues: "Petraeus leaves the dead dog at your door step…. Every time." Or, as another military official put it: "He has the ability to make anyone who comes before him look like a total fuck up." (Those perspectives aren’t in Broadwell’s book but in mine, The Operators, where you'll find a more skeptical take on the general.) I probably should mention that my Rolling Stone profile on Gen. McChrystal – which, after President Obama read it, contributed to his decision to remove McChrystal from his post as commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan – makes a number of appearances in the book, including one where a Petraeus advisor warns him of potentially "Rolling Stone-esque moments" in the portrayal of him in Bob Woodward’s book Obama's Wars. Alas, Broadwell could have used a few of those in this account – no doubt she has them. To judge this book as a book, though, misses the point. This is a biography written by a semi-official spokesperson. It does contain a few interesting bits that more rigorous journalists will be keen to follow up on, but it's chief interest is as a rough draft of the latest myth Petraeus is selling the American public: We won Iraq and we’re on the verge of a great victory in Afghanistan – and Petraeus is the main reason why. Are you buying it? Michael Hastings is a contributing editor to Rolling Stone and the author of The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan. SOURCE http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-legend-of-david-petraeus-20120131 ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- COMMENT I never tire of:            Hey, girl  ... ... lol Reading the text highlighted in pink, knowing Broadwell was the mistress, is also hilarious.  It's also interesting from a psychological perspective.  Amazing how revealing writing is. The military sounds very intriguing and maybe even nasty- competitive? Don't know what the big deal is about missing out on top command after having done it all, when CIA sounds heaps more exciting. I thought it was Patraeus that got pulled from the Middle East, but it turns out it was McChrystal. I like Obama's cunning plan:  give Petraeus a crack and if he fails, blame the golden boy.  lol Kind of interesting that Gates and Patraeus met in December 2010. Wonder if WikiLeaks got a mention?  lol ꕤ

Sweden Prosecutor - Misleading Statements

[Assange Lawyer Statement] SOURCE http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sn9rus 20th Aug 2015 - Melinda Taylor on 13 August statement by prosecutor Marianne Ny. "The Swedish prosecutor's statement today is acutely misleading. She falsely states that 'Julian Assange, on his own accord, has evaded prosecution by seeking refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador'. Assange sought and was granted political asylum from persecution under a US 'espionage' investigation, not from any Swedish prosecutor as Ecuador's asylum declaration makes clear. He has not 'evaded prosecution' in Sweden. There is at present no prosecution. The prosecutor admitted in a submission to a Swedish district court on the 16th of July 2014 that she has not even decided whether to charge Julian Assange. He has not been charged. She claims she sought to interview Assange in the embassy and implies that he refused. In fact, Assange has been demanding that the prosecutor take his statement for five years. It was Assange who initiated the request to hold an interview, and he placed no reservations on the desired interview, because it was his wish that it would happen as soon as possible. This is made clear by this diplomatic cable between Ecuador and Sweden: http://is.gd/tYSgEU She also claims that she asked Ecuador for permission to interview Assange but that she has not been given permission. In fact, Ecuador has been asking the prosecutor to interview Assange for three years, and for three years she has refused. For months, she has refused to enter into a dialogue with Ecuador on the mutual assistance parameters of the interview, a dialogue that is necessary before an interview can take place. In her statement, the prosecutor says that she hopes to conduct a further hearing, since 'there is an ongoing dialogue on the issue between Sweden and Ecuador'. She neglects to mention that Sweden only agreed to Ecuador's repeated requests to enter dialogue two days ago, after refusing Ecuador's invitations for the last three years. Both the Swedish Court of Appeals and the Swedish Supreme Court have rebuked the prosecutor for failing to advance her preliminary investigation. Responsibility for today's outcome fully belongs to the Swedish prosecutor." - Melinda Taylor SOURCE http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sn9rus COMMENT / SUMMARY Sweden prosecution: falsely states that Assange has evaded prosecution by seeking refuge. Political Asylum | Espionage Investigation. has no prosecution at present. has not even decided whether to charge Assange. Assange has not been charged. has refused to interview Assange / but implies Assange refused. Assange demanded prosecution take his statement for 5 years. agrees at the last moment to Ecuador repeated requests to enter into dialogue. That would be on bang on deadline - for statute of limitations.  has been rebuked by the Swedish Court of Appeals & Swedish Supreme court for long-term inaction on the 'preliminary investigation'. About 4.5 years inaction ... and then some. ꕤ

'Holed Up' Is Press-Speak for: Undemocratically Bailed Up

hole up 1. To hibernate in or as if in a hole. thefreedictionary 2. Informal To take refuge in or as if in a hideout. thefreedictionary

Lazy (or indifferent) writers are forever repeating the misleading and offensive phrase, 'holed up,' in articles regarding Julian Assange. Assange is an award-winning Australian journalist, who has published material that has exposed US and allied war crimes. Assange is the subject of an unprecedented investigation conducted by a number of US justice and security agencies. Assange is also the subject of a US Grand Jury secret probe, which remains sealed. The US has undoubtedly sought extradition of Assange, given that Britain refuses to release relevant documents (sought pursuant to Freedom of Information request), on the stated grounds that it would impact on Britain's  diplomatic relations with other states. Assange is clearly the subject of political persecution and has been granted political asylum by Ecuador, in accordance with international law. Every time this inaccurate, belittling, and insulting phrase is repeated by the press, Assange is cast as fugitive/gangster 'hiding out.' The press do both Assange and the public a disservice, by writing mindlessly and failing to make it clear to the public Julian Assange is the target of calculated political persecution. The undemocratic POLITICAL persecution of Julian Assange has been waged by legal manoeuvre, media propaganda, and by British government backed and authorised police siege that has cost MILLIONS of pounds. While imposing harsh austerity measures on pensioners, the disabled and the economically underprivileged, Britain rationalises this waste of public funds on what is clearly a  politically motivated siege of Julian Assange, on the basis of reliance upon nothing but flimsy and suspect Sweden police allegations that were tossed out by a senior prosecutor in Stockholm five years ago, before subsequently being revived in Sweden:  for political expediency. Corruption & Hypocrisy The British government is a party to war crimes exposed by Assange; the British government has released Chile dictator, Pinochet, wanted for crimes against humanity; and the British government shelters Israel's Tzipi Livni from a war crimes arrest warrant. British hypocrite authorities cast slurs on Ecuador and Assange in the guise of a demand for 'justice,' when these same hypocrites have a long history of contempt for law and justice (including commission of war crimes and sheltering alleged war criminals from arrest), and the corporate media lets corrupt, undemocratic, authorities get away with shameless lies in support of this travesty of justice. The detractors who attack Assange and WikiLeaks (and attack supporters by dismissively labelling supporters 'cultists'), do so cravenly - while hiding behind extraneous twin issues of 'female victimhood' and feminism.  These detractors are either misguided fools or wilfully ignorant -  hidden agenda serving - trolls, seeking to manipulate public perception and discourse, in favour of a corrupt government agenda that has proven contemptuous of human life, justice, and the law. Writers who resort to using the trite 'holed up' are generally the same writers that follow up by regurgitating the full-of-holes government narrative, without challenge. The negative spin cycle is then repeated like this on almost a daily basis, that has spanned years now. The authorities that have detained Julian Assange for close to 5 years for political reasons and without charge, must be delighted that the press permits them to commit this offence against a truth-telling journalist ... and that this press even obliges by making acts of political persecution easier to carry out. Please support journalist Julian Assange Under Siege Ecuador embassy, London (3 Years) Detained 5 Years No Charge FAQ & Support https://justice4assange.com/ ꕤ

International Criminal Court - Justice Denied - WikiLeaks: Afghan War Logs

SOURCE http://news.sudanvisiondaily.com/details.html?rsnpid=253698 Justice Denied:The Reality of the International Criminal Court (34) “Imagine if there were a criminal court in Britain which only ever tried black people, which ignored crimes committed by whites and Asians and only took an interest in crimes committed by blacks. We would consider that racist, right? And yet there is an International Criminal Court which only ever tries black people, African black people to be  precise, and it is treated as perfectly normal. In fact the court is lauded by many radical  activists as a good and decent institution, despite the fact that no non-black person has ever  been brought before it to answer for his crimes. It is remarkable that in an era when liberal  observers see racism everywhere, in every thoughtless aside or crude joke, they fail to see it  in an institution which focuses exclusively on the criminal antics of dark-skinned people from  the ‘Dark Continent’…. Liberal sensitivity towards issues of racism completely evaporates when it comes to the ICC, which they will defend tooth and nail, despite the fact that it is quite clearly, by any objective measurement, racist, in the sense that it treats one race of people differently to all others. Chapter Thirteen An Afghan Case Study “Several events have taken place under Mr. Obama’s watch that could bring charges for war crimes.” The Washington Times “War crimes are not investigated in Afghanistan.” Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission Afghanistan provides a further example of a developing world nation invaded and occupied by Western states. It also provides another clear example of the ICC’s disinclination, for political reasons, to deal with blatant war crimes allegedly committed and unaccounted for by Western military forces, including prominent European States Parties to the Rome Statute, in the territory of another State Party. The occupation of Afghanistan and the military operations that have been conducted and continue to be carried out in that country fall under the control of two international missions. The first international mission is Operation Enduring Freedom, a joint USA, UK and Afghan military operation. The operation began in 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist outrages in the USA. By the winter of 2001, the USA had unseated the Taliban government. The operation continues against a subsequent insurgency being fought against both the occupation forces and the new Afghan government the USA installed in Kabul, with military direction mostly coming from United States Central Command. The second mission is the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a NATO-led mission in Afghanistan that was established by the UNSC in December 2001 by Resolution 1386, as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement. ISAF was set up as a UN-mandated international force to assist the new Afghan interim authority to provide security in and around the capital, Kabul, and to support the reconstruction of Afghanistan. On 11 August 2003, NATO assumed leadership of the ISAF operation, and from January 2006 onwards ISAF also assumed some combat duties from the ongoing Anglo-American mission, Operation Enduring Freedom. NATO became responsible for the command, coordination and planning of the force, including the provision of a force commander and headquarters on the ground in Afghanistan. ISAF is made up of military forces from the USA, UK and other NATO member states. ISAF falls under the command of NATO’s Joint Force Command in the Dutch town of Brunssum. The two missions run in parallel. Their personnel are generally known as the coalition forces. Afghanistan is a member of the ICC. William Schabas has confirmed that the court is able to initiate prosecutions of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan: “[The Prosecutor] may…proceed with respect to war crimes committed by American troops in Afghanistan, which is a State Party to the Rome Statute, because there is jurisdiction over all crimes committed on Afghan territory.”873 Philippe Sands QC has confirmed this jurisdiction exists and has outlined the broad extent of the behaviour that could trigger ICC action: “A CIA officer who conducted an abusive interrogation at Bhagram air base could be tried before the court.” If this applies to non-lethal human rights abuses by a citizen of a non-State Party to the ICC in an ICC State Party, how much stronger is the court’s jurisdiction in the case of murder/attempted murder by a citizen of an ICC member state on the territory of an ICC member state? Even The Washington Times has stated that “[s]everal events have taken place under Mr. Obama’s watch that could bring charges for war crimes”, actions that come under the ICC’s remit. There have been numerous incidents amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes since Afghanistan was invaded in 2001, and since the court acquired jurisdiction in 2002. These grave abuses of human rights have implications for both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and for several ICC States Parties who have acted in coalition with US forces in ISAF/NATO operations. Professor Mark Herold has pointed to one incident among many that qualifies as a war crime but that has never been taken up by the ICC. On the evening of 29 June 2007, American warplanes killed between 50 and 130 innocent Afghan civilians in a night-time aerial assault upon the village of Haydarabad, about fifteen kilometres northeast of the town of Gereshk. The village was bombed for at least two hours, killing men, women and children. Another major incident occurred on 4 May 2009, in what may be the single deadliest US attack in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, when American bombers killed as many as 147 Afghan civilians, 93 of them children, in an airstrike in western Afghanistan that locals call the Farah Massacre. With regard to this incident, US Central Command officials stated that US airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Farah Province had killed only “20 to 30” civilians. A member of Farah’s Provincial Council, Abdul Basir Khan, said he collected the names of the 147 individuals who died in the attack. Relatives of the victims showed mass graves to investigators, along with the remains of bombed-out buildings and homes. The International Red Cross reported that women and children were among the dozens of dead. The UN reported that in 2008, US, NATO and Afghan forces were responsible for over 828 civilian deaths.  Most of these deaths were the result of US and NATO airstrikes. In November 2008, for example, US troops bombed a wedding party in the Shah Wali Kot area in southern Afghanistan, killing about forty civilians – mainly women and children. NATO rejected the UN figure of 828 deaths, saying its forces were responsible for only 237 civilian deaths in 2008. In his study of war crimes in Afghanistan, Afghanistan War Crimes: Government, ICC and NGOs, Akbar Nasir Khan has written of the “culture of impunity ingrained in the country’s legal system”. Khan pointed out that there are several indications that the Afghan government has no interest in addressing crimes against humanity and war crimes in Afghanistan: “The Government of Afghanistan has made no concrete efforts to deal with the issue of war crimes…” Khan has pointed to evidence that the government “is not interested in fulfilling its international obligations and participating against impunity”. These include the fact that suggested draft legislation to make domestic laws conform to Article 68 of the Rome Statute has been ignored by the government; Afghanistan’s seat is still vacant in the ASP of the ICC, and nobody has been appointed to the body yet; and that Afghanistan has never invited the ICC to conduct any investigations of past crimes. In March 2009, the government let an action plan to implement a national “Action Plan for Peace, Reconciliation and Justice”, prepared by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in 2005, lapse. In January 2007, both the lower and upper houses of the Afghan parliament passed a national stability and reconciliation resolution, which granted blanket amnesty to “[a]ll the political wings and hostile parties who had been in conflict before the formation of the interim administration”. This was enacted as legislation in early 2010, in the Amnesty, National Reconciliation and Stability Law in the Official Gazette (No. 965). Section 3, Clause 2, of the amnesty law extends immunity from prosecution by the government to “armed people who are against the government of Afghanistan, after the passing of this law, if they cease from their objections, join the national reconciliation process, and respect constitutional law and other regulations of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, they will have all the perquisites of this law”. Khan notes: “Legally, this law contradicts Afghanistan’s ‘duty to prosecute’ norm which has been established under different instruments of international laws including Genocide Convention, Convention against Torture, and all four Geneva Conventions.” Khan noted further that “[h]uman rights abusers continued to enjoy almost complete impunity”. He observed: “The Afghan parliament is made up largely of lawmakers who once belonged to armed groups, some of which have been accused of war crimes by human rights groups and the general public.” Afghanistan Human Rights Organization researcher Maghferat Samimi stated that the warlords and their militia commanders continue to commit crimes with impunity, protected by their alliances with foreign nations and comfortable positions within the Afghan government. Impunity, amnesty, warlords, militias and alleged war crimes in Africa are at the top of the ICC’s agenda. In Afghanistan they barely rate a footnote in ICC reports, let alone a full investigation, despite the hundreds of thousands of victims of human rights abuse and forced displacement. It is not as if the Chief Prosecutor does not have documentary evidence with which to work regarding war crimes in Afghanistan.  Much of the investigative work has already been done for the ICC. The Report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions in 2009, for example, stated that: [T]here have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practices and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings – including possible war crimes – during the United States’ international operations. The Government has failed to effectively investigate and punish lower-ranking soldiers for such deaths, and has not held senior officers responsible under the doctrine of command responsibility. Worse, it has effectively created a zone of impunity for private contractors and civilian intelligence agents by failing to investigate and prosecute them.” In addition, in July 2010 WikiLeaks released a set of documents called the “Afghan War Diary”, a compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. Christopher Hall, a legal adviser for Amnesty International, said the WikiLeaks material, together with data collected previously, contained enough evidence of atrocities for the ICC prosecutor to seek permission to launch a full probe on Afghanistan: It is not an issue at this stage whether the leaked information, whose authenticity has not been denied, is admissible evidence in a trial in the ICC. Coupled with all the other reliable information that the office of the prosecutor has been compiling since 2007, concerning all parties to the conflict, the office has more than sufficient information to determine whether to seek authorisation from the ICC pre-trial chamber to open a formal criminal investigation designed to obtain sufficient admissible evidence for the trial of individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Harold Koh, the US State Department’s legal adviser, said the ICC prosecutor should investigate “more immediate” concerns than acts by US forces in Afghanistan. Koh, predictably, said that the WikiLeaks data dump was unreliable as evidence. He added, “frankly I don’t think a prosecutor conducts his business as a serious prosecutor by not first doing investigations in which he gathers evidence, as opposed to things on the web, and determine whether there is basis for a case”. (Interestingly, it emerged in July 2011 that while the ICC prosecutor was not interested in using the huge WikiLeaks material release regarding Afghanistan, he would be relying on one or two leaked American cables released by WikiLeaks as part of his evidence in Kenyan cases before the court. The 4 September 2009 Kunduz massacre A particularly infamous and well-documented incident occurred on 4 September 2009 when a German officer serving with the NATO-led ISAF in Afghanistan, Colonel Georg Klein, called in an airstrike by two US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bombers on two immobilised fuel tankers, seven kilometres southwest of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, near the hamlet of Omar Kheil on the border of the Char Dara and Aliabad districts. It was the bloodiest German military action since the end of the Second World War. It was also the largest airstrike that had ever been launched in northern Afghanistan. The German Bundestag lower house of parliament would come to describe the Kunduz massacre as “one of the most serious incidents involving the German army since the Second World War”. A political advisor to the German Army, Timo Noetzel, stated that “It was, by far, the most aggressive and in its consequences most deadly operational decision for which a German soldier had been responsible since the end of the Second World War.” The fuel tankers, each carrying some 50,000 litres of petrol, had been hijacked and were stuck on a small island in the middle of the Kunduz River, then a dry river bed. Der Spiegel noted that “the trucks were obviously going nowhere, and had been stuck for four hours”. The US warplanes dropped two GBU-38 bombs, each weighing approximately 250 kilograms (500 pounds), and reported “weapons impact”. The GBU-38 is a highly accurate weapon system, thanks to a GPS guidance system. On the ground, the fuel tankers exploded in a gigantic fireball. The attack killed as many as 140 civilians, many of them burned alive. Many of the victims were women and children trying to siphon fuel. Der Spiegel stated: “It was an unnecessary air strike, that much is certain.” The then Bundeswehr Chief of Staff Wolfgang Schneiderhan, stated: “Now we have lost our innocence.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai was fiercely critical of the attack: “Targeting civilian men and women is not acceptable.” He went on to observe: “What a miscalculation! More than 90 dead for a simple fuel tanker that was stuck in a river bed. Why didn’t they send ground troops to get the tankers back?” Karzai also revealed that in a telephone call to apologise for the tragedy, General McChrystal had distanced himself from the incident, stating that he had not ordered the attack. Der Spiegel reported that Germany: “[C]ame under strong international pressure because of the attack. An informal meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Stockholm on the weekend of Sept. 5–6 turned into an indictment of the German deployment. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that the bombing was “a big mistake” and it needed to be thoroughly investigated. His British counterpart David Miliband called for an “urgent investigation” and said it was important to “make sure that it doesn’t happen again”. The German government and ISAF initially said that all those killed in the bombing were Taliban fighters. Defence Ministry spokesperson Captain Christian Dienst told journalists in Berlin on the day of the attack that “According to our knowledge at present, no civilian was injured” and that the attack was ordered because the military was in possession of data “which allowed the conclusion that no uninvolved civilians would be harmed in the attack”. Dienst claimed that German soldiers were “completely in the know” about “what they are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do”. Dienst also stated: “Had civilians been present, the air strikes could not have been called in.” These claims were all false. In the days that followed the attack, the German government continued to claim that no civilians had died and that only insurgents had been killed. The Defence Ministry then went on to lie about the circumstances of the attack, claiming German use of  reconnaissance drones and reconnaissance vehicles during the night to gather information about the situation in the riverbed before the attack. When questions were asked about the questionable circumstances of the attack, the ministry then claimed on 7 September that there was a “further intelligence source that we are not discussing publicly”. The following day, at a special meeting of the Bundestag’s defence committee, this “third source” was revealed to be nonexistent. The German Defence Minister at the time, Franz Josef Jung, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on 6 September that “the air strike was absolutely necessary” and that no civilians were killed. In the interview with Bild am Sonntag – two days after the airstrike – Jung said: “According to all the information I currently have, only Taliban terrorists were killed in the operation carried out by US aircraft.” On 8 September, in comments to the Bundestag, Jung stated that Klein “had clear intelligence indicating that those involved were exclusively enemies of the state”. These were blatant lies. On the evening of 4 September, the German Regional Military Command in Masar-i-Sharif sent clear reports back to Berlin that there had been civilian casualties, something confirmed in a subsequent German military police report. By David Hoile The Africa Research Centre, 14 hours 48 minutes ago  SOURCE http://news.sudanvisiondaily.com/details.html?rsnpid=253698 ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Occupation of Afghanistan & Military Ops Two International Missions = running parallel Mission #1 'Operation Enduring Freedom' Under:  US Central Command joint USA, UK and Afghan military op est. 2001 current at 2015 versus insurgency Insurgency against: 1) USA-installed Afghan govt 2) Occupation forces United States Central Command (USCENTCOM / CENTCOM) Engagements Persian Gulf War Iraq War War in Afghanistan Area of Responsibility (AOR) AOR - extends to 27 countries = Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia = Most notably Afghanistan and Iraq deployed primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat roles support roles | bases Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Pakistan, + central Asia Deployed in Jordan, Saudi Arabia (a small presence remaining as of 2002) Main HQ - MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Florida Forward HQ - 2002 / Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar Forward HQ - 2009 transition / Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar COMMANDERS GEN Tommy Franks 2000-2003 GEN John Abizaid 2003-2007 William J. Fallon -  here 2007-2008  |   March 2007 to March 2008  See:  Gereshk Killings 29 June 2007 USA warplanes killed 50 to 130 (incl women & children) night-time aerial assault | 2-hr bombing Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum   Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 LTG Martin E. Dempsey 2008-2008 (?) See:  US-NATO Airstrike Killings  |  2008 US, NATO & Afghan forces Killed over 828 civilians (UN figure) Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum   Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 GEN David H. Petraeus 2008-2010 (?) See:  Farah Massacre 4 May 2009 US bombers killed up to 147 civilians, 93 children Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum   Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 ----- (?) See:  Kunduz Massacre 4 September 2009 German officer:  Colonel Georg Klein NATO-led ISAF called airstrike by two US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bombers x2 GBU-38 bombs, ea. @ approx. 250kg (500 pounds) abt 140 civilians, many burned alive  | women & children Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum   Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 LtGen John R. Allen 2010-2010    Gen James Mattis 2010-2013 GEN Lloyd Austin 2013 - Incumbent NOTE -  attempt to match up critical events (from above article) with persons in command (*not* double-checked). source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Central_Command Mission #2 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) NATO-led 2003, NATO leadership assumed est. by UNSC Resolution 1386 (2001) thus UN-mandated, international force to: 1) assist US-installed:  Afghan interim authority 2) support reconstruction of Afghanistan 2006 onwards, ISAF assumes combat duties from 'Operation Enduring Freedom' (ongoing Anglo-American mission) *But: NATO = command, coordination & planning - incl. force commander & HQ, Afghanistan / comprised of USA, UK & NATO military forces ISAF = under command of JOINT FORCES COMMAND,     NATO - Brunssum, Netherlands Joint Forces Command NATO command  Brunssum, the Netherlands History: 1950 Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) Dwight D. Eisenhower considered appointing: Commander-in-Chief (CINC) for the Central Region Major powers:  USA, UK & France different views:  air & ground power Decision:  overall control for Eisenhower (no CINC appointed)  Instead:  x3 separate CINC: Allied Forces Centeral Europe Allied Land Forces Central Europe Flag Officer Central Europe (FLAGCENT) reporting to:  SACEUR (Supreme Allied Command of Europe). Headquarters, Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT) activated in August 1953 in Fontainebleau, outside Paris, France. 1953 Eisenhower's successor General Ridgeway established a single Commander-in-Chief (CINCENT) subordinate commanders:  land   - COMLANDCEN air     - COMAIRCENT naval - COMNAVCENT Commander of JFC-B =  'Commander, Joint Force Command Brunssum' Sir Jack Deverell (GB) Mar 2001 - Jan 2004 Gerhard W. Back (GER) Jan 2004 -26 Jan 2007 Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 Wolf-Dieter Langheld (GER) Sep 2010 - Dec 2012 Hans-Lothar Domröse (GER) Dec 2012 - encumbent NOTE initially French commanders 1953 - 1966 All German (bar one) thereafter 1967 - current [source  | wikipedia] AFGHANISTAN Gereshk Killings 29 June 2007 Afghanistan civilians USA warplanes killed 50 to 130 (incl women & children) night-time aerial assault village of Haydarabad, (abt 15km north-east of town of Gereshk) village was bombed for at least 2 hrs US-NATO Airstrike Killings 2008 US, NATO & Afghan forces Killed over 828 civilians (UN figure) most deaths = result of US & NATO airstrikes NATO rejects UN figure Farah Massacre 4 May 2009 US bombers killed up to 147 Afghan civilians, 93 of them children * US claims:  only 20-30 civilians killed * Farah Provincial Council, Abdul Basir Khan - disputes Kunduz Massacre 4 September 2009 German officer:  Colonel Georg Klein NATO-led ISAF called airstrike by two US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bombers  on two immobilised hijacked fuel tankers each carrying abt 50,000 litres of petrol tankers stuck on a small island -  Kunduz River, then dry river bed  x2 GBU-38 bombs, ea. @ approx. 250kg (500 pounds) GBU-38 =  highly accurate weapon / GPS guidance system fuel tankers exploded in gigantic fireball abt 140 civilians, many of them burned alive many victims women and children trying to siphon fuel Lies ensue EVENTS MATCHED TO COMMANDERS [ *not* confirmed ]           William J. Fallon -  here             2007-2008  |   March 2007 to March 2008                See:  Gereshk Killings 29 June 2007 USA  warplanes killed 50 to 130 (incl women & children) night-time aerial assault | 2-hr bombing             Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum              Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010          LTG Martin E. Dempsey             2008-2008 (?) See:  US-NATO Airstrike Killings  |  2008 US, NATO & Afghan forces Killed over 828 civilians (UN figure) Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum  Egon Ramms (GER) -   Jan 2007 - Jan 2010             GEN David H. Petraeus 2008-2010                 (?) See:  Farah Massacre 4 May 2009 US bombers killed up to 147 civilians, 93 children Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum  Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010                 -----              (?) See:  Kunduz Massacre                 4 September 2009                 German officer:  Colonel Georg Klein                 NATO-led ISAF                 called airstrike by two US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bombers                 x2 GBU-38 bombs, ea. @ approx. 250kg (500 pounds)                 abt 140 civilians, many burned alive  | women & children           Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum              Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 NOTE -  attempt to match up critical events (from above article) with persons in command (*not* double-checked).  COMMENT Broke text up into more paragraphs than necessary, but it's easier to read like that (for me). Tried to match the command personnel to the events.  NOTE:  have not double-checked. If I have the dates straight, it looks like: Petraeus has two civilian massacres on his watch.  Fallon & Dempsey have one each.  German, Egon Ramms, JFC Brunssum counterpart was in command of the ISAF end of the business, in all instances. The only commander I know is Petraeus.  And I don't remember much about him.  Shared classified information with mistress, I think.  Got caught out through e-mail surveillance, I think.  It was some big, scandalous thing.  I think he was critical of the suits back home, which got him shovelled off from the Middle Eastern post (think that might have been a Michael Hastings expose, Rolling Stone expose - Yes, but it was regarding Gen Stanley A McChrystal).  Head of CIA, I think.  The mistress thing might put an end to that.  lol  UPDATE:  "On November 9, 2012, General Petraeus resigned from his position as Director of the CIA, citing his extramarital affair which was reportedly discovered in the course of an FBI investigation" [wikipedia] UPDATE:  It wasn't Patraeus; it was Gen Stanley A. McChrystal: Following unflattering (and unprofessional) remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials attributed to McChrystal and his aides in a Rolling Stone article, McChrystal was recalled to Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama accepted his resignation as commander in Afghanistan. [wikipedia] I can just hear everyone yawning, as I do my catching up ... which I'll promptly forget.  lol This is just from vague recollection and I could be completely wrong.  Might have to read up about Petraeus to see if I've got that straight. Fallon & Dempsy will probably be positively boring after Petraeus.  lol Egon Ramms could be interesting.  Long time command. ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Don't expect to remember much of this. Having particular trouble remembering:  International Security Assistance Force.  What I got out of this: People in power lie and cover up. The ICC is selective. The Germans are the same as the Americans. The Afghan US-friendly government is composed of former militants & is in no hurry to seek remedy for atrocities. The WikiLeaks data is used selectively - ie Kenya prosecution. Rome Statute gets a mention. But I'm pretty sure that USA and Israel have not ratified and are not party to the Rome statute. US (I think) backed out after ratifying.  Or something like that.  Would need to do look-up again. Rome Statute  Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC)  | Non-Party | Not Ratified  | here 2002, the United States and Israel "unsigned" the Rome Statute, indicating that they no longer intend to become states parties and, as such, they have no legal obligations arising from their signature of the statute. Sweden's right in the thick of things, with that foreign ministers of the EU meeting. From recollection, William Schabas was given a hard time for heading up an ICC enquiry Human Rights Council Commission regarding Israel war crimes. Yep, that's him: William Schabas ...  stepped down Monday as chairman of a UN Human Rights Council commission investigating [2014] war / jpost Interview with William Schabas, former Chair, UN Commission of Inquiry for 2014 Israeli Attack on Gaza ꕤ