8. THE SURGE and TORTURE
No reductions instead an increase in Iraqis and other foreign nationals in American custody. And while some Americans might yet believe Bush Administration claims, that American forces do not torture. They remain, uncharged, and held beyond international law, with no contact or help of any kind.
[Amid all the talk about the U.S. military "surge" in Iraq, little has been said about the accompanying "surge" of Iraqi prisoners, whose numbers rose to nearly 51,000 at the end of 2007. Four years after the Abu Ghraib scandal, occupation forces are holding far more Iraqis than ever before and thousands more languish in horrendous Iraqi-run prisons. ...
U.S. forces are holding nearly all of these persons indefinitely, without an arrest warrant, without charge, and with no opportunity for those held to defend themselves in a trial. While the United States has put in place a formal review procedure that supposedly evaluates all detainees for release on a regular basis, detainees cannot attend these reviews, cannot confront evidence against them, and cannot be represented properly by an attorney. Families are only irregularly notified of the detentions, and visits are rarely possible.
These conditions are in direct violation of international human rights law, though Washington claims that such legal constraints do not apply, because the United States considers its forces to be engaged in an "international armed conflict." The human rights community, however, firmly disagrees arguing that the conflict is not international in the traditional legal sense. Furthermore, international human rights law applies at all times, in war as well as in peace.
The detention facilities are closed to human rights monitors like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, or the International Federation of Human Rights. Even the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, mandated by the Security Council to provide human rights reporting, is denied access by the U.S. command. Lack of such monitors greatly increases the likelihood that detainees will suffer from abuse and bad conditions, as human rights organizations have often pointed out. Prisoners at Bucca have rioted to protest maltreatment, poor conditions and religious insults by guards. Most troubling, the military regularly confirms deaths of detainees in the facility, suggesting that excessive force is commonly used. - Foreign Policy in Focus]
9. Surge... the COSTS
Oh, did we notice there was some, collateral damage... but the military learned at least one lesson from Viet Nam, they don't count collateral damage. And it seems they don't want America's delicate sensibilities (RAMBO/CLINT EASTWOOD/TARENTINO not withstanding) no pictures of coffins or dead American soldiers.
[Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is
approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s. - Project Censored]
Fiscal Example #1
[Here is one striking example. One of these firms, made up of a pair of ex-Army officers and bottom-rank Republicans, Scott Custer and Mike Battles. Battles had run for Congress in Rhode Island and had been a Fox News commentator, points out the Rolling Stone article.
The men threw together a security company in the hopes of grabbing a profitable contract to assure civilian security at the Baghdad airport.
Their bid looked "like something that you and I would write over a bottle of vodka, complete with all the spelling and syntax errors and annexes to be filled in later," said Col. Richard Ballard, then the inspector general of the Army. “The two simply presented it the next day and then got awarded about a $15 million contract."
“They were also given scads of money to buy expensive X-ray equipment and set up an advanced canine bomb-sniffing system, but they never bought the equipment. […] According to testimony by officials and former employees, the partners also charged the government millions by making out phony invoices to shell companies they controlled.” Digital Journal ]
Fiscal Example #2
Running a WAR, off the BOOKS??? - If its off the Books, fiscal republicans... does it have less fiscal impact? And breaking the Army, abusing the troops, and equipment, under-funding the veterans medical care.
Making room for the Iranians and Iraqis to improve their relations. Bribing the Mahdhi's Army to stop shooting our troops - That's what the surge is really about. And it's not a surge if the troops levels stay up.
Liberties Example #3 - Surge in warfare on our Constitutional Liberties
[As the recent "overhaul" of the 30-year-old FISA law illustrated -- preceded by the endless expansion of surveillance state powers, justified first by the War on Drugs and then the War on Terror -- we've essentially decided that we want our Government to spy on us without limits.
There is literally no police power that the state can exercise that will cause much protest from the political and media class and, therefore, from the citizenry. - Chris Floyd - Monster Mash in a dead Republic]
The crime of planning to protest? What about the Constitutional Guarantee of the right to petition the government for redress of grievances? There is no right of the government to collect computers and cameras
to prevent protestors from planning a protest. Thinking is NOT A CRIME!
REPRESSION Example #4 - State of the Art-Murder & Repression
[The harsh repression surrounding the “surge” has drawn far less U.S. press attention. The grim reality, however, is that an increasingly desperate American military has stepped up its indiscriminate killing and jailing of Iraqis, especially “military-age males” or MAMS.
A conservative counterinsurgency expert recently sent me a video, spliced together by the U.S. military in Iraq. It showed night-vision aerial surveillance of suspected “terrorists” as they moved about at night with what was described as a truck-mounted anti-aircraft gun, the muzzle still warm from firing.
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