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Dr. Jai Maharaj
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U.S. Secret Air War Pulverizes Afghanistan and Iraq
Forwarded message
U.S. Secret Air War Pulverizes Afghanistan & Iraq
By Conn Hallinan
Foreign Policy in Focus
Sunday, September 16, 2007
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4511
According to the residents of Datta Khel, a town in
Pakistan's North Waziristan, three missiles streaked out of
Afghanistan's Pakitka Province and slammed into a Madrassa,
or Islamic school, this past June. When the smoke cleared,
the Asia Times reported, 30 people were dead.
The killers were robots, General Atomics MQ-1 Predators.
The AGM-114 Hellfire missiles they used in the attack were
directed from a base deep in the southern Nevada desert.
It was not the first time Predators had struck. The
previous year a CIA Predator took a shot at al-Qaeda's
number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, but missed. The missile,
however, killed 18 people. According to the Asia Times
piece, at least one other suspected al-Qaeda member was
assassinated by a Predator in Pakistan's northern frontier
area, and in 2002 a Predator killed six "suspected al-
Qaeda" members in Yemen.
These assaults are part of what may be the best kept secret
of the Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts: an enormous
intensification of US bombardments in these and other
countries in the region, the increasing number of civilian
casualties such a strategy entails, and the growing role of
pilot-less killers in the conflict.
According to Associated Press, there has been a five-fold
increase in the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the
first six months of 2007 over the same period in 2006. More
than 30 tons of those have been cluster weapons, which take
an especially heavy toll on civilians.
The U.S. Navy has added an aircraft carrier to its Persian
Gulf force, and the Air Force has moved F-16s into Balad
air base north of Baghdad.
Balad, which currently conducts 10,000 air operations a
week, is strengthening runways to handle the increase in
air activity. Col. David Reynolds told the AP, "We would
like to get to be a field like Langley, if you will." The
Langley field in Virginia is one of the Air Force's biggest
and most sophisticated airfields.
The Air Force certainly appears to be settling in for a
long war. "Until we can determine that the Iraqis have got
their air force to significant capability," says Lt Gen.
Gary North, the regional air commander, "I think the
coalition will be here to support that effort."
The Iraqi air force is virtually non-existent. It has no
combat aircraft and only a handful of transports.
Improving the runways has allowed the Air Force to move B1-
B bombers from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to Balad,
where the big aircraft have been carrying out daily
strikes. A B1-B can carry up to 24 tons of bombs.
The step-up in air attacks is partly a reflection of how
beaten up and overextended U.S. ground troops are. While
Army units put in 15-month tours, Air Force deployments are
only four months, with some only half that. And Iraqi and
Afghani insurgents have virtually no ability to inflict
casualties on aircraft flying at 20,000 feet and using
laser and satellite-guided weapons, in contrast to the
serious damage they are doing to US ground troops.
Besides increasing the number of F-16s, B1-Bs, and A-10
attack planes, Predator flight hours over both countries
have doubled from 2005. "The Predator is coming into its
own as a no-kidding weapon verses a reconnaissance-only
platform," brags Maj. Jon Dagley, commander of the 46th
Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron.
The Air Force is also deploying a bigger, faster and more
muscular version of the Predator, the MQ-9 "Reaper" -- as
in grim -- a robot capable of carrying four Hellfire
missiles, plus two 500 lb. bombs.
The Predators and the Reapers have several advantages, the
most obvious being they don't need pilots. "With more
Reapers I could send manned airplanes home," says North.
At $8.5 million an aircraft -- the smaller Predator comes
in at $4.5 million apiece -- they are also considerably
cheaper than the F-16 ($19 million) the B1-B ($200+
million) and even the A-10 ($9.8 million).
The Air Force plans to deploy 170 Predators and 70 Reapers
over the next three years. "It is possible that in our
lifetime we will be able to run a war without ever leaving
the US," Lt Col David Branham told the New York Times.
The result of the stepped up air war, according to the
London-based organization Iraq Body Count, is an increase
in civilian casualties. A Lancet study of "excess deaths"
caused by the Iraq war found that air attacks were
responsible for 13% of the deaths --76,000 as of June 2006
-- and that 50% of the deaths of children under 15 were
caused by air strikes.
The number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan from air
strikes has created a rift between the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and the United States.
"A senior British commander," according to the New York
Times, has pressed U.S. Special Forces (SF) to leave
southern Afghanistan because their use of air power was
alienating the local people. SFs work in small teams and
are dependent on air power for support.
SFs called in an air strike last November near Kandahar
that killed 31 nomads. This past April, a similar air
strike in Western Afghanistan killed 57 villagers, half of
them women and children. Coalition forces are now killing
more Afghan civilians than the Taliban are. The escalating
death toll has thrown the government of Hamid Karzai into a
crisis and the NATO governments into turmoil. "We need to
understand that preventing civilian casualties is crucially
important in sustaining the support of the population,"
British Defense Minister Des Browne told the Financial
Times.
It has also opened up the allies to the charge of war
crimes. In a recent air attack in southern Afghanistan that
killed 25 civilians, NATO spokesman Lt. Col Mike Smith said
the Taliban were responsible because they were hiding among
the civilian population.
But Article 48 of the Geneva Conventions clearly states:
"The Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish
between the civilian population and combatants." Article
50 dictates that "The presence within the civilian
population of individuals who do not come within the
definition of civilian does not deprive the population of
its civilian character."
The stepped-up air war in both countries has less to do
with a strategic military decision than the reality that
the occupations are coming apart at the seams.
For all intents and purposes, the U.S. Army in Iraq is
broken, the victim of multiple tours, inadequate forces,
and the kind of war Iraq has become: a conflict of shadows,
low-tech but highly effective roadside bombs, and a
population which is either hostile to the occupation or at
least sympathetic to the resistance.
It is much the same in Afghanistan. Lord Inge, the former
British chief of staff, recently said, "The situation in
Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognize...it
is much more serious that people want to recognize." A
well-placed military source told the Observer, "If you talk
privately to the generals, they are very worried." Faced
with defeat or bloody stalemate on the ground, the allies
have turned to air power, much as the U.S. did in Vietnam.
But, as in Vietnam, the terrible toll bombing inflicts on
civilians all but guarantees long-term failure.
"Far from bringing about the intended softening up of the
opposition," Phillip Gordon, a Brookings Institute Fellow,
told the Asia Times, "bombing tends to rally people behind
their leaders and cause them to dig in against outsiders
who, whatever the justification, are destroying their
homeland." _____
Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist.
End of forwarded message
Facts about terrorist Islam and Muslims:
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/24fq83
http://www.mantra.com/jai
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
Forwarded message
U.S. Secret Air War Pulverizes Afghanistan & Iraq
By Conn Hallinan
Foreign Policy in Focus
Sunday, September 16, 2007
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4511
According to the residents of Datta Khel, a town in
Pakistan's North Waziristan, three missiles streaked out of
Afghanistan's Pakitka Province and slammed into a Madrassa,
or Islamic school, this past June. When the smoke cleared,
the Asia Times reported, 30 people were dead.
The killers were robots, General Atomics MQ-1 Predators.
The AGM-114 Hellfire missiles they used in the attack were
directed from a base deep in the southern Nevada desert.
It was not the first time Predators had struck. The
previous year a CIA Predator took a shot at al-Qaeda's
number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, but missed. The missile,
however, killed 18 people. According to the Asia Times
piece, at least one other suspected al-Qaeda member was
assassinated by a Predator in Pakistan's northern frontier
area, and in 2002 a Predator killed six "suspected al-
Qaeda" members in Yemen.
These assaults are part of what may be the best kept secret
of the Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts: an enormous
intensification of US bombardments in these and other
countries in the region, the increasing number of civilian
casualties such a strategy entails, and the growing role of
pilot-less killers in the conflict.
According to Associated Press, there has been a five-fold
increase in the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the
first six months of 2007 over the same period in 2006. More
than 30 tons of those have been cluster weapons, which take
an especially heavy toll on civilians.
The U.S. Navy has added an aircraft carrier to its Persian
Gulf force, and the Air Force has moved F-16s into Balad
air base north of Baghdad.
Balad, which currently conducts 10,000 air operations a
week, is strengthening runways to handle the increase in
air activity. Col. David Reynolds told the AP, "We would
like to get to be a field like Langley, if you will." The
Langley field in Virginia is one of the Air Force's biggest
and most sophisticated airfields.
The Air Force certainly appears to be settling in for a
long war. "Until we can determine that the Iraqis have got
their air force to significant capability," says Lt Gen.
Gary North, the regional air commander, "I think the
coalition will be here to support that effort."
The Iraqi air force is virtually non-existent. It has no
combat aircraft and only a handful of transports.
Improving the runways has allowed the Air Force to move B1-
B bombers from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to Balad,
where the big aircraft have been carrying out daily
strikes. A B1-B can carry up to 24 tons of bombs.
The step-up in air attacks is partly a reflection of how
beaten up and overextended U.S. ground troops are. While
Army units put in 15-month tours, Air Force deployments are
only four months, with some only half that. And Iraqi and
Afghani insurgents have virtually no ability to inflict
casualties on aircraft flying at 20,000 feet and using
laser and satellite-guided weapons, in contrast to the
serious damage they are doing to US ground troops.
Besides increasing the number of F-16s, B1-Bs, and A-10
attack planes, Predator flight hours over both countries
have doubled from 2005. "The Predator is coming into its
own as a no-kidding weapon verses a reconnaissance-only
platform," brags Maj. Jon Dagley, commander of the 46th
Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron.
The Air Force is also deploying a bigger, faster and more
muscular version of the Predator, the MQ-9 "Reaper" -- as
in grim -- a robot capable of carrying four Hellfire
missiles, plus two 500 lb. bombs.
The Predators and the Reapers have several advantages, the
most obvious being they don't need pilots. "With more
Reapers I could send manned airplanes home," says North.
At $8.5 million an aircraft -- the smaller Predator comes
in at $4.5 million apiece -- they are also considerably
cheaper than the F-16 ($19 million) the B1-B ($200+
million) and even the A-10 ($9.8 million).
The Air Force plans to deploy 170 Predators and 70 Reapers
over the next three years. "It is possible that in our
lifetime we will be able to run a war without ever leaving
the US," Lt Col David Branham told the New York Times.
The result of the stepped up air war, according to the
London-based organization Iraq Body Count, is an increase
in civilian casualties. A Lancet study of "excess deaths"
caused by the Iraq war found that air attacks were
responsible for 13% of the deaths --76,000 as of June 2006
-- and that 50% of the deaths of children under 15 were
caused by air strikes.
The number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan from air
strikes has created a rift between the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and the United States.
"A senior British commander," according to the New York
Times, has pressed U.S. Special Forces (SF) to leave
southern Afghanistan because their use of air power was
alienating the local people. SFs work in small teams and
are dependent on air power for support.
SFs called in an air strike last November near Kandahar
that killed 31 nomads. This past April, a similar air
strike in Western Afghanistan killed 57 villagers, half of
them women and children. Coalition forces are now killing
more Afghan civilians than the Taliban are. The escalating
death toll has thrown the government of Hamid Karzai into a
crisis and the NATO governments into turmoil. "We need to
understand that preventing civilian casualties is crucially
important in sustaining the support of the population,"
British Defense Minister Des Browne told the Financial
Times.
It has also opened up the allies to the charge of war
crimes. In a recent air attack in southern Afghanistan that
killed 25 civilians, NATO spokesman Lt. Col Mike Smith said
the Taliban were responsible because they were hiding among
the civilian population.
But Article 48 of the Geneva Conventions clearly states:
"The Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish
between the civilian population and combatants." Article
50 dictates that "The presence within the civilian
population of individuals who do not come within the
definition of civilian does not deprive the population of
its civilian character."
The stepped-up air war in both countries has less to do
with a strategic military decision than the reality that
the occupations are coming apart at the seams.
For all intents and purposes, the U.S. Army in Iraq is
broken, the victim of multiple tours, inadequate forces,
and the kind of war Iraq has become: a conflict of shadows,
low-tech but highly effective roadside bombs, and a
population which is either hostile to the occupation or at
least sympathetic to the resistance.
It is much the same in Afghanistan. Lord Inge, the former
British chief of staff, recently said, "The situation in
Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognize...it
is much more serious that people want to recognize." A
well-placed military source told the Observer, "If you talk
privately to the generals, they are very worried." Faced
with defeat or bloody stalemate on the ground, the allies
have turned to air power, much as the U.S. did in Vietnam.
But, as in Vietnam, the terrible toll bombing inflicts on
civilians all but guarantees long-term failure.
"Far from bringing about the intended softening up of the
opposition," Phillip Gordon, a Brookings Institute Fellow,
told the Asia Times, "bombing tends to rally people behind
their leaders and cause them to dig in against outsiders
who, whatever the justification, are destroying their
homeland." _____
Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist.
End of forwarded message
Facts about terrorist Islam and Muslims:
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/24fq83
http://www.mantra.com/jai
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
