Archivo etiqueta «Daños colaterales»
By John Tirman, the executive director of the Center for International Studies at M.I.T. and the author of The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 04/01/12):
The end of the Iraq war occasioned few reflections on the scale of destruction we have wrought there. As is our habit, the discussion focused on the costs to America in blood and treasure, the false premises of the war and the continuing challenges of instability in the region. What happened to Iraqis was largely ignored. And in Libya, the recent investigation of civilian casualties … Seguir leyendo
By Clive Stafford Smith, an American lawyer and the director of Reprieve, an organization that advocates for prisoners’ rights (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 04/11/11):
Last Friday, I took part in an unusual meeting in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.
The meeting had been organized so that Pashtun tribal elders who lived along the Pakistani-Afghan frontier could meet with Westerners for the first time to offer their perspectives on the shadowy drone war being waged by the Central Intelligence Agency in their region. Twenty men came to air their views; some brought their young sons along to experience this rare interaction … Seguir leyendo
By Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect in New York (LOS ANGELES TIMES, 28/09/11):
The Palestinian bid for statehood and traffic congestion weren’t the only things going on in New York last week as the 66th U.N. General Assembly convened. One of the issues privately discussed by foreign ministers at the United Nations was the “responsibility to protect,” or R2P. This concept was central to the U.N. mandate to protect civilians in Libya, which led to NATO’s aerial involvement there. As the dust settles in Tripoli, it has become necessary to refute … Seguir leyendo
By Christopher M. Schnaubelt, who holds the Transformation Chair at the NATO Defense College in Rome (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 19/05/11):
As the third month of military operations begins, the NATO-led efforts to protect civilians in Libya are subject to a vast array of questions. The most important is whether political leaders are fully cognizant of the inherent limits of military force in achieving humanitarian goals. Whether it is called “kinetic military action” or “war,” all combat is subject to fog and friction in a contest of wills — even when the ultimate purpose is defending innocent bystanders.
One … Seguir leyendo
By Sarah Sewall, a former Pentagon official who teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and directs the Mass Atrocity Response Operations Project and Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, chairman of the global defense company BAE Systems Inc. and a former commander of U.S. Central Command (THE WASHINGTON POST, 21/04/11):
President Obama’s stated goal of saving innocent lives in Libya plays a lot better than “regime change.” It feels good to many Americans, despite their reluctance to enter another conflict abroad, and there is wide support internationally for stopping mass atrocities.
If the United States is serious about … Seguir leyendo
By Charles J. Dunlap Jr., a retired Air Force general, a visiting professor at Duke University Law School and a member of the board of advisers for the Center for a New American Security (THE WASHINGTON POST, 22/10/10):
Reports this month that airstrikes are being used to push Taliban leaders toward the negotiation table suggest that the controversial policy restricting airpower in the Afghan war may be ripe for review. Indeed, new data indicate that a reevaluation cannot come soon enough.
Since airstrikes were limited in June 2009, Afghan civilian deaths have skyrocketed — a staggering 31 percent increase… Seguir leyendo
By James Denselow, a writer on Middle East geopolitical and security issues based at Kings College London (THE GUARDIAN, 04/07/10):
June was a terrible month for the war in Afghanistan. The milestone of the 300th British death was compounded by the most deadly month for the Nato-led mission since the start of the conflict.
The precise compilation of western casualties contrasts with almost criminal neglect in tracking the numbers of Afghan civilians killed since 2001. If Afghanistan is the “good war” then why are we not demanding to be accurately told how many skeletons there are in the Afghan … Seguir leyendo
By Mary Kaldor, a professor of global governance and co-director of LSE Global Governance at the London School of Economics (THE GUARDIAN, 26/05/10):
Does the war in Afghanistan keep our streets safe? Both the current and the previous government claim that it does, but the real answer is probably not. Every attack directed at the Taliban and al-Qaida, even precise drone attacks, provides a justification for mobilising more recruits.
But would withdrawal from Afghanistan be any better? That is what critics of the war propose. And again, the answer is probably not. Many Afghans fear that it could mean … Seguir leyendo
By Peter Bergen, a senior fellow and Katherine Tiedemann, a policy analyst at the New America Foundation (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 26/04/10):
The highly classified C.I.A. program to kill militants in the tribal regions of Pakistan with missiles fired from drones is the world’s worst-kept secret.
The United States has long tried to maintain plausible deniability that it is behind drone warfare in Pakistan, a country that pollsters consistently find is one of the most anti-American in the world. For reasons of its own, the Pakistani government has also sought to hide the fact that it secretly agreed … Seguir leyendo
By Shannon P. Meehan, the author of Beyond Duty. This article can also be found online at nytimes.com/opinion, as part of the blog Home Fires, which chronicles the experiences of soldiers returning from war (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 23/02/10):
Since the two recent NATO-led military strikes that accidentally killed dozens of Afghan civilians, I have been thinking a great deal about the psychic toll that killing takes on soldiers.
In 2007, I was an Army lieutenant leading a group on a house-clearing mission in Baquba, Iraq, when I called in an artillery strike on a house. The … Seguir leyendo
By Patrick Hennessey, a former Army officer and author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club (THE TIMES, 11/09/09):
As the dramatic details of the rescue of the New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell emerged, there will have been both sympathy and anger among soldiers in Afghanistan.
Sympathy for the families of those killed in the operation — Mr Farrell’s interpreter and fellow journalist, Sultan Munadi, and a British soldier, one of his rescuers — but also anger that lives had been lost at all.
Hostage rescue missions are notoriously difficult. While soldiers fight and die, usually for each other, … Seguir leyendo
By Nader Nadery, a commissioner with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and Haseeb Humayoon, a student at Middlebury College who has worked as a consultant to nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 05/10/08):
As civilian casualties mount, American and NATO forces in Afghanistan are facing an erosion of their public legitimacy. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are exploiting this distrust, aiming to transform it into a popular rage against the Afghan government and its foreign allies. Unless the insurgents are denied propaganda tools — in particular, the growing number of images of dead women and … Seguir leyendo
By Eric A. Posner, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and co-author of “The Limits of International Law.” (THE WASHINGTON POST, 01/10/06):
More than 40,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the rate at which civilians die has been increasing in recent months. Many thousands of innocent Iraqis have been detained, and some have been abused by American troops. Many others have been tortured or killed by Iraqi police. Basic services have been lacking in large portions of the country for three years. Civil war looms, conjuring memories … Seguir leyendo
By David Bemstein, the Washington director of the American Jewish Committee (THE WASHINGTON POST, 10/08/06):
When much of the world initially supported Israel’s right to defend itself against the Hezbollah attacks, I wondered how long the international backing would last. Would Israel be given enough time to push Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon and cripple the terrorist organization before the world lost patience?
Alas, the international support lasted a mere two weeks. With the unfortunate but inevitable loss of life, calls for a cease-fire have reached a fevered pitch, threatening to end the operation before Israel’s basic military objectives … Seguir leyendo
By Shara Holewinski, the executive director of CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict), a Washington-based organization founded by Marla Ruzicka (THE WASHNGTON POST, 15/04/06):
A year ago tomorrow, in Baghdad, a young woman from California was killed by a suicide bomb. Marla Ruzicka was working to get aid to Iraqi civilians harmed by U.S. military operations when her car and that of her colleague Faiz Ali Salim was destroyed on the now-infamous airport road.
Marla’s legacy lives on in the countless people continuing her work and in the families she tried so hard to assist. Her help to … Seguir leyendo