An online game “Darfur is Dying” provides a taste of what life is like for the people who live in the Darfur region of Sudan.

From the game’s official description: “Darfur is Dying is a viral video game for change that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. Players must keep their refugee camp functioning in the face of possible attack by Janjaweed militias. Players can also learn more about the genocide in Darfur that has taken the lives of 400,000 people, and find ways to get involved to help stop this human rights and humanitarian crisis.“

The game has two sections: life in a refuge camp, and foraging for water.

The life in a refuge camp section is a simulation: you move your character around the camp, performing various duties to increase the supply of food, build mud-brick buildings, and get medical care. (Hint: the central water fountain is important.) This section of the game is slow-paced and not easy to learn, but ultimately engaging once you figure out what to do. The main feelings it induced in me, which are probably intentional, were: a) life in a refugee camp is monotonous, b) you can’t rest, you must keep working to keep the camp going, and c) much of what happens is out of your control.

An important activity for keeping the camp going is foraging for water. This puts you into a different part of the game, where your character runs through the desert, looking for the well, hiding from Janjaweed militia, who will capture or kill you if they catch you. This section is more of an action game. It takes several attempts (and losing a few of the dozen available characters to the Jangaweed) before you learn where the well is and how to get there and back to the camp safely. The main feeling this section of the game induced in me is sheer terror.

In addition to raising consciousness about what the people of Darfur have to endure, “Darfur is Dying” also offers several ways to take action outside of the game: write the U.S. government to urge sanctions against the Sudanese government, donating funds to efforts to help Darfurians, etc.

Try the Game

Below are three recent reports about Congressional deliberations on Iraq war funding. The bottom line is that they are continuing to fund it.

Truthout, 23 May 2008

Senate Resurrects War Funding Bill

Maya Shemwar, Truthout

As expected based on precedent, the Senate passed a bill … to pump $165.4 billion into the pipeline for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As expected, the Senate rejected a provision that would have established a June 2009 goal for the partial redeployment of troops from Iraq. This move has pushed the withdrawal debate off the table until after Bush leaves office, …

View Entire Article

Los Angeles Times, 6 June 2008

Senate Panel Rejects Case for War

Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times

In a long-delayed report, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday rebuked President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for making prewar claims — particularly that Iraq had close ties to Al Qaeda — that were not supported by available intelligence. …

View Entire Article

Truthout, 20 June 2008

Congress Funds Another Year of War

Maya Shemwar, Truthout

In a step that sealed the fate of Iraq war funding until next June, the House of Representatives voted on Thursday to approve $162 billion for the occupation, with no strings attached. The vote follows a series of compromises and revisions over the past two months, ultimately resulting in major concessions from Democrats…

View Entire Article

Related Previous PeacePundit Posts

• House Dems Assembling Biggest Iraq Spending Bill
• Democrats Defy Bush… NOT!

Previous PeacePundit posts (see list below) have discussed civilian casualties caused by deployment of land mines, unmanned drones, and other “lingering” weapons. The principle for determining responsibility for civilian deaths is simple:

If you put weapons out and they kill innocent people, you are responsible.

Like land mines, cluster bombs are a weapon that continues to kill and maim — mostly innocent civilians — long after hostilities have ended. Each cluster bomb, when dropped or fired into a battle zone, splits into dozens or even hundreds of small “bomblets” that rain down upon the targeted area. Thus, more enemy fighters and equipment can be targeted by fewer bombs, artillery shells, or missiles.

However, many of the bomblets fail to detonate initially, and lay scattered around the battlefield for weeks, months, even years, until some unsuspecting civilian happens by and either accidentally kicks them or picks them up. Boom! The unfortunate people who find them lose feet, hands, eyes, or lives. Many bomblets are brightly colored and so entice children who find them to pick them up.

International agencies have often tried to ban or limit the use of cluster bombs, similarly to efforts to ban and limit biological weapons, chemical weapons, land mines, and nuclear weapons. A recent AP article, excerpted below, describes the latest effort: a treaty signed by a large number of nations. Unfortunately, the main countries that make and use cluster bombs, including the U.S., won’t sign the treaty. They argue that cluster weapons are too effective to give up, and claim the right to continue to use the most effective weapons available to defeat their enemies.

That argument is of course completely bogus, because those same nations have previously signed treaties banning or limiting the use of even more effective weapons: biological, chemical, and nuclear. Are they saying that they want to be able to use those as well?

Please write your congressional representatives and ask them to push for a ban on cluster weapons, or at least a requirement that cluster bomblets that don’t explode initially must then deactivate themselves reliably and permanently.

Associate Press, 31 May 2008

111 Nations, But Not US, Adopt Cluster Bomb Treaty

…

[A] treaty formally adopted Friday by 111 nations … would outlaw all current designs of cluster munitions and require destruction of stockpiles within eight years. It also opens the possibility that European allies could order U.S. bases located in their countries to remove cluster bombs from their stocks.

The United States and other leading cluster bomb makers — Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan — boycotted the talks, … All defended the overriding military value of cluster bombs, which carpet a battlefield with dozens to hundreds of explosions.

But treaty backers — who long have sought a ban because cluster bombs leave behind “duds” that later maim or kill civilians — insisted they had made it too politically painful for any country to use the weapons again.

“The country that thinks of using cluster munitions next week should think twice, because it would look very bad,” said Espen Barth Eide, Deputy Defense Minister of Norway, which began the negotiations last year and will host a treaty-signing ceremony Dec. 3.

…

However, the treaty … suggests that a treaty member could call in support from U.S. air power or artillery using cluster munitions, so long as the caller does not “expressly request the use of cluster munitions.”

The treaty also contains promises to mobilize international aid to cluster bomb-scarred lands such as southern Lebanon, where a 2006 war between the militant group Hezbollah and Israel left behind an estimated 1 million unexploded “bomblets.” The pact requires treaty members to aid explosives-clearance work and provide medical, training and other support to blast victims, their families and communities.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the treaty would not change U.S. policy and cluster munitions remain “absolutely critical and essential” to U.S. military operations.

…

U.S. defense analysts … doubted that the treaty would force any American retreat on the matter, noting that a majority of U.S. artillery shells use cluster technology. “This is a treaty drafted largely by countries which do not fight wars,” said John Pike, a defense analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org.

…

Ivan Oelrich, vice president for strategic security programs at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said he expected U.S. forces to keep using shells, rockets and bombs that break apart into smaller explosive objects because they have 10 times or more killing power than traditional munitions, particularly against troops in exposed terrain or in foxholes.

Government and military spokesmen in other cluster bomb-defending nations were similarly dismissive of the treaty.

“Russia will not ban cluster bombs and land mines,” Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky said earlier this week in Moscow. “We stand for evolutionary development of these weapons. Russia’s Defense Ministry objects to radical and prohibitive measures of this kind.”

The treaty spells out future requirements for legal cluster weapons. … But U.S. analysts derided the conditions as illogical.

Both Oelrich and Pike said it would be technically possible to design new cluster munitions that meet all of the treaty’s criteria …

Oelrich said the treaty’s insistence on electronic fail-safes ignored the possibility of producing submunitions encased in metals that rapidly deteriorate when exposed to sun or moisture …

…

Pike said if other countries insist on shells, rockets and bombs that contain no more than nine submunitions each, the military logic would be inescapable. “It would just mean I’m going to have to shoot more of them!” he said with a laugh.

[Read full article]

Resources on Cluster Bombs

• Wikipedia Article on Cluster Bombs
• Federation of American Scientists Article on Cluster Bombs
• Human Rights Watch Video on Cluster Bombs
• Cluster Bomb Victims: Real-Life Stories

Related Previous PeacePundit Posts

• CIA Drone-airstrike in Pakistan Kills 17 Civilians
• Child Casualties Are Not Acceptable
• Tall Afghan farmer killed by remote missile

PeacePundit has followed the investigation of an incident in 2007 in which Blackwater security guards protecting U.S. State Department officials allegedly shot without provocation at civilian cars in Nisoor Square (Baghdad) as the U.S. caravan entered the square, killing 17 civilians, including children.

The investigation continues, as described in the first of two recent Blackwater-related reports (excerpted below). Apparently, the FBI is helping prosecute the case against Blackwater, bringing Iraqi witnesses who saw and/or were victims of the shooting.

The second excerpted story (see below) is from Jeremy Scahill, the author of a recent book about Blackwater. According to Scahill, Blackwater is expanding in both size and purview. It plans to build a big training facility in San Diego, CA. It also created a new division, Total Intelligence Solutions, offering CIA-like services to private companies. In doing this, Blackwater seems on track to realize Neal Stephenson’s vision (from his 1992 novel Snow Crash), in which all security and intelligence is provided by private companies rather than government agencies.

Scahill and the California Courage Campaign are hosting a Blackwater briefing (as a conference call) on Thursday, June 12. [Register to Participate]

Let’s hope that the Courage Campaign and the FBI’s investigation can cut Blackwater down a bit.

Blackwater Grand Jury Hears Iraqi Witnesses

Brian Ross, Aadel Faiq, Len Tepper
ABC News, 27 May 2008

The FBI has brought four Iraqi witnesses … to testify before a federal grand jury investigating Blackwater security guards accused of killing 17 innocent civilians last year at a Baghdad traffic square.

The men were brought in … and seen … at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., where the Blackwater grand jury has been sitting since last November.

In interviews with ABC News before leaving Baghdad, the men all said the Blackwater shootings were unprovoked.

“It was a true massacre, a slaughter,” said Mohammed Abdul Razak, whose son Ali was killed in the shootings. Razak said he saw the guards first fire at one car and then open fire on other cars, including his. When the shooting stopped he saw his son in the back seat. “He looked asleep, but after I opened the door, his brain fell right between my feet,” he said. “I started shouting, ‘They killed my son,’ but who is listening?”

Blackwater guards initially told U.S. investigators they opened fire because they felt they were under attack.

But two traffic policemen assigned to the Nisour square were among the witnesses brought before the grand jury. They told ABC News they will contradict Blackwater’s version of events. … “They just started to shoot; nobody shot at them,” officer Serhan Dhiab told ABC News. …

The father of the dead boy, Razak, said he had been pressured and threatened by Blackwater not to testify and that he has turned down an offer of $20,000 to settle the issue. Blackwater says the money was not a settlement offer but a condolence payment. … Blackwater … denied bringing any pressure on the families.

…

[Read Entire Article]

Bad News About Blackwater

Jeremy Scahill
Courage Campaign
9 June 2008

Last Thursday, after a federal judge cleared the way, Blackwater opened a large training facility in San Diego, just three blocks from the border that separates California and Mexico.

… Blackwater is setting its sights on the so-called “war on drugs” and recently opened its own private CIA, called “Total Intelligence Solutions,” marketing “CIA-type services” to Fortune 500 companies.

Blackwater is aggressively building up a parallel infrastructure to the U.S. national security apparatus as its owner, Erik Prince, promotes Blackwater as the “Federal Express” of the military industrial complex.

… But this battle with Blackwater is not over. Grassroots activists in San Diego … are ramping up their campaign to shut down Blackwater’s base of operations on the border.

This Wednesday, June 11, from 3-5 p.m., these local groups are organizing a major protest outside the Blackwater facility at 7685 Siempre Viva Road in Otay Mesa. …

The Courage Campaign [is hosting] a statewide conference call this at 4 p.m. this Thursday, June 12. On this “Courage Campaign Conversation”, you can talk with me directly about the San Diego situation, Blackwater’s ominous contract renewal in Iraq, and how the outsourcing of our security to these mercenaries threatens our democracy.

Register to participate

…

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellen, in his new book, accuses the Bush Administration of selling the Iraq war to the American people with carefully crafted propaganda, much of it delivered to the press by McClellan himself. This aspect of the book is summarized in a recent Washington Post article (excerpted below).

Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled US on Iraq

Michael D. Shear
Washington Post, 28 May 2008

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated “political propaganda campaign” led by President Bush and aimed at “manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major reason for going to war.”

McClellan includes the charges in a 341-page book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade.

…

McClellan stops short of saying that Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, writing that he and his subordinates were not “employing out-and-out deception” to make their case for war in 2002.

But in a chapter titled “Selling the War,” he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush “managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.”

“Over that summer of 2002,” he writes, “top Bush aides had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the war…. In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage.”

McClellan, once a staunch defender of the war from the podium, comes to a stark conclusion, writing, “What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

…

[View Entire Article]

A few months ago, after stories began to surface about Iraqi civilian deaths caused by Blackwater security contractors, I wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who happens to represent my district. I wrote in support of legislation to terminate or limit the use of private security contractors (aka “mercenaries”) in Iraq. The letter she or her staff sent me in response is excerpted below.

Excerpts from Pelosi letter dated May 21, 2008

…

HR 4102, introduced by Representative Jan Shakowsky (D-IL), would ensure that only federal government personnel execute tasks in any United States diplomatic or consular missions in Iraq. On November 7, 2007, HR 4102 was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, and Intelligence. No further action has been taken.

Congress is committed to protecting the safety and security of our troops in Iraq. The Government Accountability Office reported that there are many deficiencies regarding the Army’s oversight of contractors in Iraq. These deficiencies include the limited visibility over contractors, the lack of adequate contractor oversight personnel, and little or no training on the use of contractors.

The lack of accountability for private contractor employees, particularly Blackwater empoloyees, coupled with their divergent set of regulations has resulted in the decreased safety of United States troops. This is unacceptable. Please be assured that I will keep your comments under consideration should the full House of Representatives consider HR 4102.

…

Sincerely,
Nancy Pelosi
Member of Congress

Several previous PeacePundit posts discussed Blackwater Worldwide’s alleged unprovoked killing of 17 Iraqi civilians on on September 16, 2007 (see list below). The two most recent of those posts indicated that Blackwater would not be hurt by the tragedy/crime. The latest Associated Press report, excerpted below, supports that by indicating that the chances of charges being filed against Blackwater are low to nil.

San Francisco Chronicle, 10 May 2008

Criminal charges not likely for Blackwater in killings of Iraqis

Matt Apuzzo & Lara Jakes Jordan
Associated Press

Blackwater Worldwide, the security contractor blamed by an angry Iraqi government for the shooting deaths of 17 civilians last year, is not expected to face criminal charges — all but ensuring the company will keep its multimillion-dollar contract to protect U.S. diplomats.

Instead, the 7-month-old Justice Department investigation is focused on as few as three or four Blackwater guards who could be indicted in the Sept. 16 shootings, according to interviews with a half-dozen people close to the investigation.

The final decision on any charges will not be made until late summer at the earliest, a law enforcement official said. …

…

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said, “If it is determined that there are any individuals who need to be held accountable, we support that.”

The shootings began when a Blackwater convoy, responding to a Baghdad car bombing, entered the Nisoor Square traffic circle. Blackwater says the convoy was ambushed by insurgents, touching off a firefight. Iraqi witnesses described an unprovoked attack in which security guards fired indiscriminately, killing motorists, bystanders and children in the square.

The shooting enraged the Iraqi government, which originally sought to expel the company from the country, and strained diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad.

…

[Read Entire Article]

Related Previous PeacePundit Posts

• Blackwater Not Hurt, but Rather Thriving
• Evidence Mounts that Blackwater Shot First in Nisoor Square
• Blackwater Mercenaries Have Killed Many in Iraq
• Blackwater Busted for Killing Iraqi Civilians

Today the NY Times ran a story asserting that the Democrats plan to “defy” the Bush Administration by attaching restrictions on torture, veterans’ benefits, and domestic unemployment funding to a war-funding bill Bush requested. The claim is that if Bush wants his war money, he will have to accept the attached measures as well. [Read NYT Story]

This is a lame attempt by the Democrats to make it seem that they are standing up to Bush, when in fact they are giving Bush all the war-funding he wants through the end of his term, and even several months into the next President’s administration.

Truly standing up to Bush would mean ending all funding for his occupation of Iraq (let’s not call it a war). The Democrats claim that they cannot simply stop all war funding because:

• it would put the troops at risk,
• it would make them look weak on defense in an election year, and
• they don’t have enough of a majority to override a presidential veto.

These are false excuses.

Cutting off funding would not put the troops at risk. The troops are already at risk in Iraq: 4075 have died and about 35 die every month they remain in Iraq. Cutting off funding would require bringing the troops home, away from risk. If Bush, as Commander in Chief, left the troops in Iraq without funding, he — not the Democrats — would be the one putting the troops at risk. Congress cutting off funds is how the Vietnam debacle ended, and is how the Iraq debacle should be ended.

Second, cutting off funding would not make the Democrats look weak in an election year. On the contrary; it would finally make them look strong! It would show that they have a spine. It would also express the will of the U.S. electorate: over seventy five percent of voters — of all political persuasions — want the U.S. out of Iraq. Yes, a few right-wing militarists, fundamentalist anti-Muslim wing-nuts, and oil-grabbing neo-cons want the U.S. to occupy Iraq forever, but they are such a tiny minority that they should simply be ignored, just as the U.S. ignored right-wingers who wanted the U.S. to side with Hitler against Stalin in WWII.

Third, the lack of a veto-proof majority is no excuse for continuing to fund the war. To exercise his veto, Bush must have something to veto. Congress should simply not send Bush any more war-funding bills, giving Bush nothing to veto.

Please, call your Democratic Representative today and ask — no, tell — her or him to stop funding the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq. No more war funding! Bring our troops home!

Find your representative’s phone number using this directory or the official directory of congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s phone numbers are: SF Office: 415/556-4862; DC Office: (202) 225-4965

Then We Have the Clueless Repubs

The Republicans deserve even more scorn than the Democrats. They attack the extra appropriations the Democrats have attached to the war-funding bill as “unnecessary”. They, like Bush, want the Democrats to pass the war-funding by itself and then separately request the other funding… which Bush would of course veto. In their twisted view, $70 billion in veterans’ education and domestic spending is wasteful, whereas $108 billion in war-funding is prudent and necessary.

Republicans need to learn the difference between an investment and an expense. When I blow $100 on a fancy dinner, that’s an expense. When I put $100 into my child’s education or double-pane windows on my house, that’s an investment that will yield a return.

Money for veterans’ education is an investment. The return is a more productive workforce and a higher living standard.

In contrast, almost all money spent on war is an expense. There is very little, if any, return on it. Aircraft, vehicles, and weapons costing millions of dollars are destroyed on a daily basis (ironically, they are called “durable goods” by economists).

The Iraq occupation is a particularly strong example of money thrown down a rat-hole: not only is Iraq in worse shape than it was before the U.S. invaded, the U.S. and the world are in worse shape too. Tens of thousands of our troops have been killed or wounded physically and psychically, reducing our nation’s productivity. Millions of Iraqis have been killed or wounded, and Iraq’s infrastructure is destroyed, creating lasting simmering hostility and destroying any chance of economic and political stability.

The Republicans want to throw more good money — and lives — down that stinking rat-hole?

Republicans accuse the Democrats of being “tax and spend liberals”. A good label for the Republicans is “borrow and blow”: they spend money we don’t have on expenses that have no return value, putting us in hock as a nation, depressing the dollar in world markets, and driving down our domestic economy.

The Republicans need to admit that Bush, even though he is from their party, is the worst President in U.S. history, and that almost nothing he has initiated deserves to be continued. John McCain, take note.

Related Previous PeacePundit Posts

• House Dems Assembling Biggest Iraq Spending Bill
• Sanders: Why the Democrats Aren’t Stopping the Iraq War
• Cuomo: Bush Doesn’t Have Authority to Declare War
• Cheney on Why Invading Iraq Would Be a Bad Idea
• Delusional or Liars? You Be The Judge
• One Day of Iraq War = $720 million

Just after uploading a blog-post summarizing an economist’s recent analysis of the costs of the Iraq War (see previous post, below), I read an extremely disappointing story on the front page of today’s SF Chronicle. Below are excerpts and a link to the story, followed by my letter to the Chronicle, which they printed on May 1 (Mayday).

SF Chronicle, 28 April 2008

House Dems Assembling Biggest Iraq Spending Bill

Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Washington DC — House Democratic leaders are putting together the largest Iraq war spending bill yet, a measure … expected to fund the war through the end of the Bush presidency and for nearly six months into the next president’s term.

The bill … signals that Democrats are resigned to the fact they can’t change course in Iraq in the final months of President Bush’s term. Instead, the party is pinning its hopes of ending the war on winning the White House in November.

…

The bill is expected to provide $108 billion that the White House has requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lawmakers … drafting it say it … will include a … bridge fund of $70 billion to give the new president several months of breathing room …

…

View Entire Article

Printed in San Francisco Chronicle, May 1, 2008

Editor,

It is almost unbelievable that House Democrats are preparing to give President Bush the war funding he seeks for the remainder of his term ["House Dems Assembling Biggest Iraq Spending Bill", April 28].

In the last congressional election, the Democrats asked progressives to work to help them retake Congress. They promised they would end the Iraq war once in the majority. We walked precincts, registered voters, staffed get-out-the-vote phone banks, raised funds. The Democrats won the majority.

What have they done with that majority? Kowtowed to the Bush regime. Behaved as if they were still the minority party. Caved in to conservative members of their own party who wrongly claim that cutting off war funding would make them look “weak on security”.

Apparently, helping elect Democrats isn’t working as a strategy to end the war.

Yo, Speaker Pelosi, listen up: end this war pronto or you’ll lose our support. We won’t be fooled again.

Jeff Johnson
PeacePundit.com

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-laureate economist and former World Bank President, has analyzed the cost of the Iraq War. His analysis makes several points that war critics have been making since before the war was launched:

• The war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted.
• The Bush administration continues to grossly underestimate the cost of the war.
• The Bush administration cost-estimates exclude the cost of rehabilitation and health care for veterans injured, who constitute a higher proportion of casualties than in any prior U.S. war.
• The Iraq War is the second most expensive in U.S. history (after WWII) and the second longest (after Vietnam).
• The cost of the war helped cause the sub-prime banking crisis, which threatens the whole world’s economy.
• The war is primarily responsible for a dramatic rise in oil prices since the war began.
• The war will cost another half trillion between 2008 and 2010 if not ended.
• The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world. Just a few days’ funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered.

An article published recently in “The Australian” summarizes Stiglitz’s analysis. A quote from the article:

“When the Bush administration went to war in Iraq it obviously didn’t focus very much on the cost. Larry Lindsey, the chief economic adviser, said the cost was going to be between $US100billion and $US200 billion - and for that slight moment of quasi-honesty he was fired.

“(Then Defence Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld responded and said ‘baloney’, and the number the administration came up with was $US50 to $US60 billion.

“We have calculated that the cost was more like $US3 trillion. Three trillion is a very conservative number, the true costs are likely to be much larger than that.” View Entire Article

Stiglitz’s mind-boggling cost-estimates are put into perspective by a recent video produced by the American Friends Service Committee: “One Day of Iraq War”. It shows the many productive uses to which one day’s Iraq War cost could be put. View video.