Afghanistan admits civilians killed in Kunduz airstrike
Press TV – April 4, 2018
Afghan officials have admitted that an earlier airstrike on a gathering of Taliban militants in the northern province of Kunduz has also killed civilians, including children.
The Afghan military launched the airstrike against a Taliban religious school (madrasa) in Dasht-i Archi district outside Kunduz City on Monday while top Taliban commanders were gathered inside to plan “bloodshed and atrocities,” according to the Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish.
Security forces said the attack killed a total of 57 to 70 people, but local officials believe the number to be higher.
For much of Monday, the Afghan government asserted that the bombing had killed only Taliban leaders and had caused no civilian fatalities.
However, the office of President Ashraf Ghani acknowledged late Tuesday that civilians had been among the dead, too, and that the bombing would be investigated.
Abdul Matin Atefi, the provincial health director of Kunduz, said 26 bodies had arrived in hospitals and clinics, adding that officials “don’t know how many of those are civilians or Taliban, but the Taliban usually do not allow their dead or wounded to be registered in clinics.”
Naeem Mangal, the director of the regional hospital in Kunduz also said they “have received 57 wounded so far, their ages ranging from 7 to 60.” He explained that the wounds were “mostly from explosives or bombs.”
Radmanish, the Defense Ministry spokesman, meanwhile, claimed that “the wounded brought to the hospitals were hit by bullets and small-arms fire,” suggesting that the Taliban had opened fire on civilians. He said the previous day that no civilians had been in the area of the attack.
According to the United Nations figures released earlier this year, more than 10,000 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the Afghan conflict last year. While the main cause of civilian deaths was said to be militant bombings, the report said US airstrikes as well as government forces inflicted a rising toll.
A Special Relationship Born in Hell
The United States should cut all ties with war criminal Israel
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • April 3, 2018
If you want to understand what the “special relationship” between Israel and the United States really means consider the fact that Israeli Army snipers shot dead seventeen unarmed and largely peaceful Gazan demonstrators on Good Friday without a squeak coming out of the White House or State Department. Some of the protesters were shot in the back while running away, while another 1,000 Palestinians were wounded, an estimated 750 by gunfire, the remainder injured by rubber bullets and tear gas.
The offense committed by the Gazan protesters that has earned them a death sentence was coming too close to the Israeli containment fence that has turned the Gaza strip into the world’s largest outdoor prison. President Donald Trump’s chief Middle East negotiator David Greenblatt described the protest as “a hostile march on the Israel-Gaza border… inciting violence against Israel.” And Nikki Haley at the U.N. has also used the U.S. veto to block any independent inquiry into the violence, demonstrating once again that the White House team is little more than Israel’s echo chamber. America’s enabling of the brutal reality that is today’s Israel makes it fully complicit in the war crimes carried out against the helpless and hapless Palestinian people.
So where was the outrage in the American media about the massacre of civilians? Characteristically, Israel portrays itself as somehow a victim and the U.S. media, when it bothers to report about dead Palestinians at all, picks up on that line. The Jewish State is portrayed as always endangered and struggling to survive even though it is the nuclear armed regional superpower that is only threatened because of its own criminal behavior. And even when it commits what are indisputable war crimes like the use of lethal force against an unarmed civilian population, the Jewish Lobby and its media accomplices are quick to take up the victimhood refrain.
Last week, the Israeli government described the protests an “an organized terrorist operation” while Gazans are dehumanized by claims that they act under the direction of evil Hamas to dig tunnels and rain down bottle rockets on hapless Israeli civilians. The reality is, however, quite different. It is the Gazans who have been subjected to murderous periodic incursions by the Israeli army, a procedure that Israel refers to as “mowing the grass,” a brutal exercise intended to keep the Palestinians terrified and docile.
The story of what happened in Gaza on Friday had largely disappeared from the U.S. media by Sunday. On Saturday, the New York Times reported the most recent violence this way: “… some began hurling stones, tossing Molotov cocktails and rolling burning tires at the fence, the Israelis responded with tear gas and gunfire.” Get it? The Palestinians started it all, according to Israeli sources, by throwing things at the fence and forcing the poor victimized Israeli soldiers to respond with gunfire, presumably as self-defense. The Times also repeated Israel’s uncorroborated claims that there were gunmen active on the Gazan side, but given the disparity in numbers killed and injured – zero on the Israeli side of the fence – the Palestinian shooters must have been using blanks. Or they never existed at all.
The Israelis reportedly also responded to “suspicious figures” on the Gazan side with rounds from tanks, killing, among others, a farmer far from the demonstrations who was working his field. Israeli warplanes and helicopters also joined in the fun, attacking targets on the Palestinian side. Drones flew over the demonstrators, spraying tear gas down on them. One recalls that the major Israeli assault on Gaza in 2014 included vignettes of Israeli families picnicking on the high ground overlooking the assault, enjoying the spectacle while observing the light-and-sound show that accompanied the carnage. At that time, more than 2,000 Gazans were killed and nearly 11,000 were wounded, including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were permanently disabled. If the current slaughter in Gaza continues, it would be a shame to forego the entertainment value of a good massacre right on one’s doorstep.
The reliably neocon Washington Post also framed the conflict as if Israel were behaving in a restrained fashion, leading off in its coverage with “Israel’s military warned Saturday it will step up its response to violence on the Gaza border if it continues…” You see, it’s the unarmed Palestinians who are creating the “violence.” Israel is the victim acting in self-defense.
The newspaper coverage was supplemented by television accounts of what had taken place. ABC News described “violent clashes,” implying that two somewhat equal sides were engaged in the fighting, even though the lethal force was only employed by Israel against an unarmed civilian population.
The backstory to the killing is what should disturb every American citizen. When it comes to disregard for US national sovereignty and interests, the Israelis and their amen chorus in Washington have dug a deep, dark hole and the U.S. Congress and White House have obligingly jumped right in. Since June 8, 1967, when the Israelis massacred the crew of the U.S.S. Liberty, Israel has realized it could do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, wherever it wants, any time it wants, to anybody… including American servicemen, and the U.S. would do nothing.
Let me speak plainly. The existence of many good Israelis who oppose their own government’s policies notwithstanding, the current Israel is an evil place that Americans should be condemning, not praising. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not be receiving 29 standing ovations from Congress. He should be rotting in jail. Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy and dehumanization of the Palestinian people is nothing to be proud of. That the United States is giving this band of racist war criminals billions of dollars every year is a travesty. That the reputation of American has been besmirched worldwide because of its reflexive support of anything and everything that this rogue regime does is a national disgrace.
Gazans are demonstrating in part because they are starving. They have no clean drinking water because Israel has destroyed the purification plants as part of a deliberate policy to make life in the Strip so miserable that everyone will leave or die in place. And even leaving is problematical as Israel controls the border and will not let Palestinians enter or depart. It also controls the Mediterranean Sea access to Gaza. Fisherman go out a short distance from the shore to bring in a meager catch. If they go any farther they are shot dead by the Israeli Navy.
Hospitals, schools and power stations in Gaza are routinely bombed in Israel’s frequent reprisal actions against what Netanyahu chooses to describe as aggressive moves by Hamas. Such claims are bogus as Israel enjoys a monopoly of force and is never hesitant to use it.
Over in the other Palestinian enclave the West Bank, or what remains of it, the story is the same. Brutal heavily armed Israeli settlers rampage, poisoning Palestinian water, maiming and killing their livestock and even murdering local residents. Children throw stones or slap a soldier and wind up in Israeli prisons. The settlers are backed up by the army and paramilitary police who also shoot first. The Israeli military courts, who have jurisdiction over the occupied West Bank, rarely convict a Jew when an Arab is killed or beaten.
And here in America a bought-and-paid-for Congress continues to do its bit. Last week President Trump signed the so-called Taylor Force Act, part of the marathon spending bill, which will cut aid going to the Palestinian Authority while also increasing the money going to Israel. Back in January, Congress had also cut the funding going to support Palestinians who are still living in U.N. run refugee camps in spite of resolutions demanding that they should be allowed to return to their homes, now occupied by Israeli Jews. During the perfunctory debate on the measure, Congressmen were lied to by pro-Israel lobbyists who claimed that Arabs are terrorism supporters and use the money to attack Israelis.
I could go on and on, but the message should be clear to every American. There is no net gain for the United States in continuing the lopsided and essentially immoral relationship with the self-styled Jewish State. There is no enhancement of American national security, quite the contrary, and there remains only the sad realization that the blood of many innocent people is, to a considerable extent, on our hands. This horror must end.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Open Letter to Mr Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the UK
By John Andrews | Dissident Voice | March 31, 2018
Dear Mr Yakovenko,
I would just like to express my sincere dismay at the way my government reacted to the alleged recent poisoning of two people in Salisbury.
I recall very well the events that occurred fifteen years ago, when the British parliament was lied to about alleged weapons of mass destruction, supposedly held by Iraq, and which supposedly could strike at Britain within forty minutes. These allegations went almost completely unchallenged by the mainstream media, and our country was subsequently tricked into supporting an illegal war in Iraq. Although many people never believed the propaganda – as evidenced by the million or so protesters who marched through the streets of London at the time resisting the drive to war – the lie prevailed.
At this moment in time we have seen no verifiable evidence for the events that allegedly took place in Salisbury a couple of weeks ago. Until that evidence is forthcoming, and remembering well the deceit my own government has used in the past for its own very questionable ends, I refuse to believe that Russia had anything to do with it, and want to assure you that in this, as in many other areas of government policy, my government does not speak for me.
Neither am I impressed by the unbelievable actions of so many other countries in their expulsion of Russian diplomats from their embassies. Given the fact that there appears to be no verifiable evidence for the Salisbury incident, these actions by other countries defy logic, and strongly suggest some dark conspiracy that’s unfolding. The total abdication of responsibility of the mainstream media in their supposedly first duty of “holding government to account”, by refusing to question and challenge their actions, is yet further proof of the media’s culpability in these events – just as they were similarly culpable for the Iraq debacle of 2003.
I find the behaviour of my government in this matter completely inexcusable, and the public statements of certain of its representatives highly offensive and shameful. At this moment in time, none of them speak for me, and I do not trust a single word our mainstream media has to say on the matter.
Yours sincerely,
John Andrews
March 31, 2018
John Andrews is a writer and political activist based in England. His latest booklet is entitled EnMo Economics. Other Non Fiction books by John are: The School of Kindness; The People’s Constitution; and his fiction novel: The Road to Emily Bay.
On eve of rally, Israel threatens to kill Hamas leaders
MEMO | March 29, 2018
Israel on Thursday threatened to assassinate top Hamas leaders in the event of any major “escalations” during mass demonstrations planned for Friday in the blockaded Gaza Strip.
“We will not allow Hamas leaders to continue to hide in Gaza while women and children are sent to the border fence,” Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adaree tweeted.
Adaree’s warning comes only one day before planned demonstrations during which Palestinian protesters plan to converge en masse on the Gaza Strip’s roughly 45-kilometer eastern border with Israel.
“If necessary, we will respond — near the fence and inside the Gaza Strip — against those promoting violent demonstrations: the military wing of Hamas,” Adaree said.
All major Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, have endorsed the planned rally, in which thousands of Gazans are expected to participate.
According to organizers, the demonstration — dubbed the “Great Return March” — is to be entirely peaceful in nature.
Israeli Housing Minister Yoav Galant, however, said: “If the situation on the Gaza border escalates, the assassination of Hamas leaders is an option that remains on the table.”
Speaking to Israel’s Walla news website, he added: “In times of conflict, everything is allowed.”
The planned rallies are intended to pressure Israel to lift its decade-long siege of the Gaza Strip and reaffirm the Palestinians’ right to return to their ancestral homes in historical Palestine.
Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has suffered a crippling Israeli/Egyptian blockade that has gutted its economy and deprived its more than two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.
The UN disregard for Palestinians’ right of return colludes with Israeli violence

Thousands of internally displaced Palestinians take part in the March of Return [File photo]
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | March 29, 2018
The Palestinian “Great March of Return” has exposed the frailty of Israel’s fabricated narratives, yet once again the international community prefers to speak about “sides” in the conflict. As the planned march draws nearer, the Jerusalem Post reported that UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, has urged “all sides to exercise restraint and to take the necessary steps to avoid a violent escalation.”
Palestinians have already insisted repeatedly that the march is a form of non-violent protest stemming from a legitimate right to go back to the land from which the nascent Israeli state drove them out at gunpoint. Nevertheless, the Times of Israel reported yesterday that more than 100 snipers have been deployed along the border with the Gaza Strip “to deal with a Palestinian march expected to begin on Friday…” Officers will “authorise them to open fire if… Israeli lives are in danger.” Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot clarified this further: “The orders are to use a lot of force.”
Israeli media outlets have supported the state’s premeditated violence by framing the Palestinian protest as a violent act even before it has taken place, and thus justified in advance what they deem to be a necessarily violent response. However, they are not alone in promoting narratives of denial with regard to Israel’s colonial violence. The UN’s absence of any assertiveness when it comes to holding Israel accountable for its crimes is becoming a core component of the colonial entity’s ability to act with total impunity. Nowhere is this more evident than in its patronising attitude towards the Palestinian right of return.
Israel National News published an op-ed earlier this week which described the planned protest as the “latest innovation” with the immediate objective of Palestinians participating in the march “to get killed themselves”, simply in order to “delegitimise Israel”. The op-ed provides the most dissociated overviews of the Nakba, which the author describes as “the date in 1948 on which Ben Gurion declared the state of Israel and five Arab states invaded it.” Needless to say, the article also seeks to disavow the displacement, dispossession and ethnic cleansing which transformed Palestinians into perpetual refugees.
Israel’s widespread denial of the Palestinian right of return necessitates this manipulation of the indigenous population’s history. It also allows Eizenkot to justify targeting Palestinians with sniper fire for “marching into our territory.” Yet the international community’s refusal to support the perfectly legitimate right of return speaks volumes about the UN’s collusion with Israel. It is also proof that the UN never intended that the right should ever be implemented, even though it was made a condition of Israel’s membership of the international organisation. The only possibility lies in the hands of the Palestinian people, who have the power to move away, at least intellectually, from the impositions disguised as UN resolutions.
The Palestinian Great March of Return should thus prompt some thinking. Despite seeking to abide by UN resolutions, Palestinians have found themselves tethered to cycles of dispossession, which shows that the international agenda is deeply flawed and corrupted. The international response to this non-violent protest has not singled out Israeli plans to murder Palestinians at the border of their own land for condemnation; rather, the UN has chosen a discourse which insists on equivalence between the protagonists when it is clear to all and sundry that there is none. A colonial power with one of the best-equipped armed forces in the world — including nuclear weapons — is imposing its will on a colonised population which seeks to return to its own land and reverse the permanent refugee status which has become synonymous with the Palestinians.
Since Israel and the UN have already chosen their violent narratives, we are justified in asking why the latter’s intent is to maintain the political coercion that created the Palestinian refugee problem in the first place and face its own accountability for the transformation of the legitimate right to return into a dangerous game with limited options. The Palestinians, meanwhile, can either submit and stay permanently displaced, or stand up for their rights and be killed by acts of premeditated violence by Israel, with which the UN is colluding.
‘UK makes light sabers, Russia makes Novichok,’ Johnson brags – but what about Saudi weapons sales?
RT | March 29, 2018
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson bragged about the UK’s cultural influence, claiming its “arsenals” carried the “power of imagination.” The bold statement came from a principle facilitator of civilian deaths in Yemen.
Speaking at the Lord Mayor’s Easter Banquet in London, Johnson had a message to deliver: despite withdrawing from the EU, Britain remains a global team player and a stalwart defender of the ideals-based rule of law. Unlike Russia, which he described as a bad actor in all too many regards, Britain is apparently a bastion of commerce, science and culture.
“We have the most vibrant and dynamic cultural scene, with one venue – the British Museum – attracting more visitors than 10 whole European countries that it would not be tactful to name tonight,” Johnson said.
The jibe’s targets were quite apparent, since earlier in his speech Johnson had named every nation that backed the UK in its drive to expel Russian diplomats over the Skripal poisoning affair – “the full roll of honor,” he called it. He didn’t mention that the absentees in the list probably didn’t have the opportunities to plunder their foreign colonies for decades to fill their museums, unlike Britain.
The poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia is seen by the UK government as a closed case, with Russia the undisputed culprit – despite the police probe being in the early stages. London pushed for an unprecedentedly large expulsion of Russian diplomats, with the US accounting for the biggest chunk of people kicked out.
Johnson’s cultural superiority bragging continued, when he cited “an astonishing fact that both of the two highest grossing movies in the world last year was either shot or produced in this country: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Star Wars.’”
“And that tells you all you need to know about the difference between modern Britain and the government of Vladimir Putin. They make Novichok, we make light sabers,” the foreign secretary said, referring to the nerve agent reportedly used in the poisoning.
“I tell you that the arsenals of this country and of our friends are not stocked with poison but with something vastly more powerful: the power of imagination and creativity and innovation that comes with living in a free society, of a kind you see all around you today,” Johnson added.
There are many countries that have experienced firsthand the power of British “imagination and creativity,” including Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen in this century alone. But not the kind Johnson spoke about. Just last month, the foreign secretary and the cabinet he is part of were welcoming Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman as he visited the country.
READ MORE: 3 years of Yemen bloodbath marked by US & UK arms deals with Saudis
Riyadh is among the biggest buyers of British arms, including bombs, which it uses to hit all sorts of targets in Yemen. The strikes include civilian factories, marketplaces and funeral ceremonies, which has been harschly condemned by rights groups. While brushing off responsibility for some of the cases entirely, the Saudis tend to write off others as errors or unavoidable collateral damage, so the British government doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered that UK weapons kill civilians in Yemen.
Johnson praised the UK-manufactured light sabers, which make a “mysterious buzz” to inspire children and help the country stand against Russia in a company of “admirers and friends.” Somehow the arsenals it sells to Saudi Arabia, fueling the kingdom’s three-year bloodbath in Yemen, didn’t make their way into the speech.
Israel army to use live ammo to disperse border rallies
MEMO | March 28, 2018
The Israeli army will use live ammunition to disperse planned Friday rallies in the Gaza Strip, according to Israel’s army chief-of-staff.
“We are reinforcing the barriers [along the Gaza-Israel border] while large numbers of [Israeli] soldiers will be stationed in the area to prevent infiltration attempts,” Israeli Army Chief-of-Staff Gadi Eizenkot said Wednesday.
Soldiers have received permission to open fire on protesters “if Israeli security infrastructure comes under threat,” Eizenkot told Israeli daily Maariv.
“Last year, hundreds were injured after they tried to destroy parts of the [border] fence,” he said. “We will not stand for this.”
Speaking to Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Eizenkot said the Israeli army had deployed more than 100 sharpshooters in advance of Friday’s planned rallies.
“If lives are in jeopardy, [soldiers will have] permission to open fire,” he said.
Eizenkot made the remarks only two days before planned demonstrations during which Gazan protesters hope to converge en masse on the Gaza Strip’s 45-kilometer eastern border with Israel.
Dubbed the “Great Return March”, the event is intended to pressure Israel to lift its decade-long siege of the Gaza Strip and reaffirm the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes in historical Palestine.
Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has groaned under a crippling Israeli/Egyptian blockade that has gutted its economy and deprived its more than two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.


