Hey NATO: Do not burn Korans or make others think you’re burning them

Advice of the Day: Disposing of Korans should be done with the utmost care. Especially if you’re NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and you’re in Afghanistan. And apologize quickly if you do not follow these common sense standards, like so: “ISAF personnel at Bagram Air Base improperly disposed of a large number of Islamic religious materials which included Korans,” said Gen. John R. Allen. “When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities.” There are photos of burned/damaged Korans floating around the wires. There are some here, but note we’re only linking this. (photo by Massoud Hossaini/AFP/Getty Images)

[via:shortformblog]

(via randomactsofchaos)

In an absolutely vile miscarriage of justice, Frank Wuterich, the Marine sergeant who instructed his soldiers to massacre civilian Iraqis, could receive the maximum sentence of three months of “confinement” for the 24 he and henchmen slaughtered.

Is this really how this country treats war crimes? But then again, look at how the Obama administration failed to prosecute members of the Bush administration for their war crimes…

More on this war criminal here.

Bradley Manning could face death: For what?

The implications of any attempt to convict Bradley Manning (above) of the 22 additional charges filed by the Army could not only send the Private to an unjust grave, but also undermine all whistle-blowing to any media outlet. Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald reports on this and updates us on the dehumanizing treatment of Manning here

Curtis M. Wong at HuffPo reports on the alleged crimes against humanity by five United States soldiers part of a secret “kill team.” He details:

The most serious accusations involve five soldiers — Calvin Gibbs, Adam Winfield, Jeremy Mortlock, Andrew Holmes and Michael Wagnon II — who are said to have slain three Afghans earlier this year. According to reports, those men would likely be charged with premeditated murder, but may face additional charges relating to obstructing justice, possessing human body parts and retaining mortar rounds for personal use.

Authorities allege that Gibbs kept finger bones, leg bones and a tooth from the Afghan corpses, while Wagnon is said to have kept a skull. The remaining seven soldiers are charged with participating in the cover-up, which included smoking hashish stolen from the civilians, taking photos of the corpses and lying to investigators about their deaths.

Understanding less and less how this war is in any way “just” or why Obama still received a Nobel Peace Price while escalating our presence there.

In Reporters Without Borders’ open letter to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the organization challenges WikiLeaks to act responsibly on how and what information they disclose, and thus be accountable for possibly fatal repercussions as result of their leaks.

Are they rightfully admonishing WikiLeaks for reckless disclosure and the “precedent” that they set that could expose sources to harsh reprisal? 

We’d love to hear your thoughts on Reporters Without Borders letter.

Julian Assange

Founder

Wikileaks

Dear Mr. Assange,

Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom organisation, regrets the incredible irresponsibility you showed when posting your article “Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010” on the Wikileaks website on 25 July together with 92,000 leaked documents disclosing the names of Afghans who have provided information to the international military coalition that has been in Afghanistan since 2001.

Wikileaks has in the past played a useful role by making information available to the US and international public that exposed serious violations of human rights and civil liberties which the Bush administration committed in the name of its war against terror. Last April’s publication of a video of the killing of two employees of the Reuters news agency and other civilians by US military personnel in Baghdad in July 2007 was clearly in the public interest and we supported this initiative. It was a response to the Obama administration’s U-turn on implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. The White House broke its word in May 2009, when it defied a court order and refused to release photos of the mistreatment of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But revealing the identity of hundreds of people who collaborated with the coalition in Afghanistan is highly dangerous. It would not be hard for the Taliban and other armed groups to use these documents to draw up a list of people for targeting in deadly revenge attacks.

Defending yourself, you said that it was about “ending the war in Afghanistan.” You also argued that: “Principled leaking has changed the course of history for the better; it can alter the course of history in the present; it can lead us to a better future.” However, the US government has been under significant pressure for some time as regards the advisability of its military presence in Afghanistan, not just since your article’s publication. We are not convinced that your wish to “end the war in Afghanistan” will be so easily granted and meanwhile, you have unintentionally provided supposedly democratic governments with good grounds for putting the Internet under closer surveillance.

It is true that you said that “a further 15,000 potentially sensitive reports” were excluded from the 25 July mass posting, that they were being “reviewed further” and that some of them would be released “once it was deemed safe to do so.”

Nonetheless, indiscriminately publishing 92,000 classified reports reflects a real problem of methodology and, therefore, of credibility. Journalistic work involves the selection of information. The argument with which you defend yourself, namely that Wikileaks is not made up of journalists, is not convincing. Wikileaks is an information outlet and, as such, is subject to the same rules of publishing responsibility as any other media.

Reporters Without Borders has for years been campaigning for a federal “shield law” protecting sources, one that would apply not only to the traditional media but also to the new Internet media without exception. This is why we condemn all forms of harassment of Wikileaks contributors or informants – such as the recent arrest of Wikileaks researcher Jacob Appelbaum – by government agencies and immigration officials. We also condemn the charges brought against US army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who is suspected of leaking the video of the Baghdad killings. However, you cannot claim to enjoy the protection of sources while at the same time, when it suits you, denying that you are a news media.

The precedent you have set leaves all those people throughout the world who risk their freedom and sometimes their lives for the sake of online information even more exposed to reprisals. Such imprudence endangers your own sources and, beyond that, the future of the Internet as an information medium. A total of 116 netizens are currently in prison in a dozen countries because of the comments they posted online. Can you image the same situation in the country of the First Amendment?

Wikileaks must provide a more detailed explanation of its actions and must not repeat the same mistake. This will mean a new departure and new methods.

We look forward to your reply,

Sincerely,

Jean-François Julliard

Reporters Without Borders secretary-general

Clothilde Le Coz

Reporters Without Borders representative in Washington DC

[source]

As someone who abhors war and armed-conflict in general, and coming from a Chinese culture that doesn’t glorify the military and doesn’t have a strong tradition of valorizing it either (Sun Tzu said in The Art of War, “To win a hundred victories is a hundred battles is not the highest excellence; the highest excellence is to subdue the enemy’s army without fighting at all.” ), the very idea of Chinese Americans joining in the military in droves makes me cringe.

Moreover, this backwards notion that one needs “to prove their loyalty to this country and [that] they’re as American as anybody else” as Ken Mochizuki, co-editor of A Different Battle: Stories of Asian Pacific American Veterans put it, already buys into the notion of our “innate” foreignness. Anyway, haven’t we resoundedly rejected assimilationism for multiculturalism? 

+ here

(Above, Portrait of Hong Neok Woo, a Chinese American who served as a Union soldier in the Civil War)

Children Taunted In Iraq: U.S. Soldier Under Investigation

Watch this expose of Spc. Robert A. Rodriguez who posted a vile video on Facebook where he mocks two Iraqi children, suggesting they will become gay terrorists. The other soldiers mention boredom as if it were some kind of reasonable justification for hate.

[via:HuffPo]