Satellite Images of man made attrocites

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

You can see three images right here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/magazine/features/2007/documenting-atrocity-061107/gallery.html

Story here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/05/AR2007060501701.html?hpid=topnews

Here is the start of the story

Before December 2005, the Chadian village of Bir Kedouas was a tidy collection of huts in walled compounds and cultivated fields. A later satellite image shows what is left: The former homesites (marked with red circles) and fields are now a charred scar in the earth. The entire population was either killed or fled. Such images may be providing a powerful new weapon in the struggle to stop genocide.

ON THE CORNEROF JEREMY NELSON'S L-SHAPED DESK AT AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S WASHINGTON OFFICE SIT TWO 17-INCH MONITORS. Both have an extra-tall base, and even then they rest on phone books to get them close to eye level for the 6-foot-3 researcher. At 7 on a Thursday night in April, an exhausted but upbeat Nelson is staring at two satellite images of the same area in South Darfur, Sudan, one on each screen. One was taken in December 2004 and the other in February 2007. They show a region that was targeted by what Sudan's government called a "road-clearing offensive." Amnesty reports indicate that last November, while officials were engaged in peace talks in Nigeria, military ground and air forces and Janjaweed militias burned dozens of villages.

This is just one incident in a violent conflict that has killed between 200,000 and 450,000 people in the Darfur region since 2003. A major obstacle to international intervention has been the Sudanese government's refusal to acknowledge the level of violence and its own complicity. In late March, for example, Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir said in a TV interview that the U.S. State Department map showing 1,000 Darfurian villages as burned was a fabrication. The Sudanese government also holds that only 9,000 people have died in the bloodshed, and that local Janjaweed militias -- the same Janjaweed that gained notoriety for atrocities in Sudan's recent civil war -- are independent actors, despite the fact that they've been seen attacking with military support, raping women and girls, pillaging and sometimes burning entire villages to the ground. Amnesty had been documenting the violence, but last year, the government stopped letting Amnesty's researchers into the country. Then last month, Sudan cited lack of evidence in refusing to comply with the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for the minister of state for humanitarian affairs and a Janjaweed militia leader.

Which is where Nelson comes in. The 31-year-old researcher is an associate with Amnesty's Crisis Prevention and Response Center. Normally, he tracks hot spots and brewing crises, handles logistics and develops graphics for postcard and poster campaigns. Now he's also learning to analyze satellite images. The catalyst is a partnership between Amnesty and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that's pioneering a new kind of human rights observation: the use of high-resolution satellite imagery -- commercially available only since 2001 -- to document atrocities in areas made inaccessible to watchdog groups. The unusual collaboration started about a year ago, with test projects looking at Zimbabwe and Lebanon. The Darfur effort is by far their biggest yet, and the most politically significant.

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you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[warpedskydiver 0]

Hardly news to me...

Chad Airforce planes have been targeted with Russian built SAM radar many times in the last two years.

[JohnRich 4]

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This is just one incident in a violent conflict that has killed between 200,000 and 450,000 people in the Darfur region since 2003.

But look at the bright side: at least America isn't there trying to stop the genocide. That would only make things worse.

[vortexring 0]

I'm sure you're being sarcastic here John, but I wonder how many people who've yet to come across your posts will believe your serious. A lot?

Still, at least the blokes on the ground would be able to believe in what they're fighting for.

At least they'd be able to believe what they're doing is morally right.

Wish I felt the same way about Iraq and Afghanistan......

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[Gawain 0]

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I'm sure you're being sarcastic here John, but I wonder how many people who've yet to come across your posts will believe your serious. A lot?

Still, at least the blokes on the ground would be able to believe in what they're fighting for.

At least they'd be able to believe what they're doing is morally right.

Wish I felt the same way about Iraq and Afghanistan......

Both scenarios can be true you know. How many deaths could be attributed to Iraq pre-invasion? It's more than 450,000.

I'm not assigning a minimum value here. I don't know how many were killed in the Balkans before we stepped in there.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[vortexring 0]

I agree to an extent. I'd agree even more if the justification had been for Iraqi humanitarian issues to begin with.

Such as with the Balkan humanitarian issue justifying intervention.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[Gawain 0]

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I agree to an extent. I'd agree even more if the justification had been for Iraqi humanitarian issues to begin with.

Such as with the Balkan humanitarian issue justifying intervention.

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March 19, 2003"My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

It doesn't fit your desire to a "T", but it has been a stated objective from the beginning.

Edit to add: Not to hijack the thread, so I'll refocus on the subject. I believe that the US and others should consider intervening. There are certainly other African states that may be better suited to it though. If direct action is needed, then I would say take it. But I believe the US could play a very valuable "materiel" role.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[vortexring 0]

Sorry - the primary and stated aim of GW II wasn't regime change to free Iraqi people.

Because that would have been illegal.

From the British Sunday times:

June 12, 2005

Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’
Michael Smith

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

“US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”.

Related Links
Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action
The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times.

The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.

“It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed.

The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.

The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it.

There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.

The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true — as Dearlove told the July meeting — that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” in Washington.

The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that “the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all”.

John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they agreed to “manufacture” the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war.

He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the American former ambassador who went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons programme.

Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their letter, the congressmen have set up a website — www.downingstreetmemo.com — to collect signatures on a petition demanding the same answers.

Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush once it reached 250,000 signatures. By Friday morning it already had more than 500,000 with as many as 1m expected to have been obtained when he delivers it to the White House on Thursday.

AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether Bush’s actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for impeachment.

It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have attracted more than 1m hits a day.

Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000 (about £550) to any journalist who quizzed Bush about the memo’s contents, although the Reuters reporter who asked the question last Tuesday was not aware of the reward and has no intention of claiming it.

The complaints of media self-censorship have been backed up by the ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention the minutes have received from their organisations.


Again, same paper:



Michael Smith
INSIDE Downing Street Tony Blair had gathered some of his senior ministers and advisers for a pivotal meeting in the build-up to the Iraq war. It was 9am on July 23, 2002, eight months before the invasion began and long before the public was told war was inevitable.
The discussion that morning was highly confidential. As minutes of the proceedings, headed “Secret and strictly personal — UK eyes only”, state: “This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.”

In the room were the prime minister, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, and military and intelligence chiefs. Also listed on the minutes are Alastair Campbell, then Blair’s director of strategy, Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and Sally Morgan, director of government relations.

What they were about to discuss would dominate the political agenda for years to come and indelibly stain Blair’s reputation; and last week the issue exploded again on the political scene as Blair campaigned in the hope of winning a third term as prime minister.

For the secret documents — seen by The Sunday Times — reveal that on that Tuesday in 2002:

The attorney-general was already warning of grave doubts about its legality.
Straw even said the case for war was “thin”. So Blair and his inner circle set about devising a plan to justify invasion.

“If the political context were right,” said Blair, “people would support regime change.” Straightforward regime change, though, was illegal. They needed another reason.

By the end of the meeting, a possible path to invasion was agreed and it was noted that Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defence staff, “would send the prime minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week”.

Outside Downing Street, the rest of Britain, including most cabinet ministers, knew nothing of this. True, tensions were running high, and fears of terrorism were widespread. But Blair’s constant refrain was that “no decisions” had been taken about what to do with Iraq.

The following day in the House of Commons, Blair told MPs: “We have not got to the stage of military action . . . we have not yet reached the point of decision.”

It was typical lawyer’s cleverness, if not dissembling: while no actual order had been given to invade, Blair already knew Saddam Hussein was going to be removed, sooner or later. Plans were in motion. The justification would come later.

AS a civil service briefing paper specifically prepared for the July meeting reveals, Blair had made his fundamental decision on Saddam when he met President George W Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002.

“When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April,” states the paper, “he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change.”

Blair set certain conditions: that efforts were first made to try to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) through weapons inspectors and to form a coalition and “shape” public opinion. But the bottom line was that he was signed up to ousting Saddam by force if other methods failed. The Americans just wanted to get rid of the brutal dictator, whether or not he posed an immediate threat.

This presented a problem because, as the secret briefing paper made clear, there were no clear legal grounds for war.

“US views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community,” says the briefing paper. “Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law.”

To compound matters, the US was not a party to the International Criminal Court, while Britain was. The ICC, which came into force on 1 July, 2002, was set up to try international offences such as war crimes.

Military plans were forging ahead in America but the British, despite Blair’s commitment, played down talk of war.

In April, Straw told MPs that no decisions about military action “are likely to be made for some time”.

That month Blair said in the Commons: “We will ensure the house is properly consulted.” On July 17 he told MPs: “As I say constantly, no decisions have yet been taken.”

Six days later in Downing Street the man who opened the secret discussion of Blair’s war meeting was John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee. A former MI6 officer, Scarlett had become a key member of Blair’s “sofa cabinet”. He came straight to the point — “Saddam’s regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action”.

Saddam was expecting an attack, said Scarlett, but was not convinced it would be “immediate or overwhelming”.

His assessment reveals that the primary impetus to action over Iraq was not the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction — as Blair later told the country — but the desire to overthrow Saddam. There was little talk of WMD at all.

The next contributor to the meeting, according to the minutes, was “C”, as the chief of MI6 is traditionally known.

Sir Richard Dearlove added nothing to what Scarlett had said about Iraq: his intelligence concerned his recent visit to Washington where he had held talks with George Tenet, director of the CIA.

“Military action was now seen as inevitable,” said Dearlove. “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.”

The Americans had been trying to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks; but the British knew the evidence was flimsy or non-existent. Dearlove warned the meeting that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.

It was clear from Dearlove’s brief visit that the US administration’s attitude would compound the legal difficulties for Britain. The US had no patience with the United Nations and little inclination to ensure an invasion was backed by the security council, he said.

Nor did the Americans seem very interested in what might happen in the aftermath of military action. Yet, as Boyce then reported, events were already moving swiftly.

“CDS (chief of the defence staff) said that military planners would brief (Donald) Rumsfeld (US defence secretary) on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.”

The US invasion plans centred around two options. One was a full-blown reprise of the 1991 Gulf war, a steady and obvious build-up of troops over several months, followed by a large-scale invasion.

The other was a “running start”. Seizing on an Iraqi casus belli, US and RAF patrols over the southern no-fly zone would knock out the Iraqi air defences. Allied special forces would then carry out a series of small-scale operations in tandem with the Iraqi opposition, with more forces joining the battle as they arrived, eventually toppling Saddam’s regime.

The “running start” was, said Boyce, “a hazardous option”.

In either case the US saw three options for British involvement. The first allowed the use of the bases in Diego Garcia and Cyprus and three squadrons of special forces; the second added RAF aircraft and Royal Navy ships; the third threw in 40,000 ground troops “perhaps with a discrete role in northern Iraq entering from Turkey”.

At the least the US saw the use of British bases as “critical”, which posed immediate legal problems. And Hoon said the US had already begun “spikes of activity” to put pressure on the regime.

AMID all this talk of military might and invasion plans, one awkward voice spoke up. Straw warned that, though Bush had made up his mind on military action, the case for it was “thin”. He was not thinking in purely legal terms.

A few weeks later the government would paint Saddam as an imminent threat to the Middle East and the world. But that morning in private Straw said: “Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.”

It was a key point. If Saddam was not an immediate threat, could war be justified legally? The attorney-general made his position clear, telling the meeting that “the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action”.

Right from the outset, the minutes reveal, the government’s legal adviser had grave doubts about Blair’s plans; he would only finally conclude unequivocally that war was legal three days before the invasion, by which time tens of thousands of troops were already on the borders of Iraq.

There were three possible legal bases for military action, said Goldsmith. Self-defence, intervention to end an humanitarian crisis and a resolution from the UN Security Council.

Neither of the first two options was a possibility with Iraq; it had to be a UN resolution. But relying, as some hoped they could, on an existing UN resolution, would be “difficult”.

Despite voicing concerns, Straw was not standing in the way of war. It was he who suggested a solution: they should force Saddam into a corner where he would give them a clear reason for war.

“We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors,” he said.

If he refused, or the weapons inspectors found WMD, there would be good cause for war. “This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force,” said Straw.

From the minutes, it seems as if Blair seized on the idea as a way of reconciling the US drive towards invasion and Britain’s need for a legal excuse.

“The prime minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors,” record the minutes. “Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD . . . If the political context were right, people would support regime change.”

Blair would subsequently portray the key issue to parliament and the people as the threat of WMD; and weeks later he would produce the now notorious “sexed up” dossier detailing Iraq’s suspected nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes.

But in the meeting Blair said: “The two key issues are whether the military plan works and whether we have the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.”

Hoon said that if the prime minister wanted to send in the troops, he would have to decide early. The defence chiefs were pressing to be allowed to buy large amounts of equipment as “urgent operational requirements”. They had been prevented from preparing for war, partly by Blair’s insistence that there could be no publicly visible preparations that might inflame splits in his party, partly by the fact there was no authorisation to spend any money.

The meeting concluded that they should plan for the UK taking part in any military action. Boyce would send Blair full details; Blair would come back with a decision about money; and Straw would send Blair the background on the UN inspectors and “discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam”.

The final note of the minutes, says: “We must not ignore the legal issues: the attorney-general would consider legal advice with (Foreign Office/Ministry of Defence) legal advisers.”

It was a prophetic warning.

Also seen by The Sunday Times is the Foreign Office opinion on the possible legal bases for war. Marked “Confidential”, it runs to eight pages and casts doubt on the possibility of reviving the authority to use force from earlier UN resolutions. “Reliance on it now would be unlikely to receive any support,” it says.

Foreign Office lawyers were consistently doubtful of the legality of war and one deputy legal director, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, ultimately resigned because she believed the conflict was a “crime of aggression”.

The Foreign Office briefing on the legal aspects was made available for the Downing Street meeting on July 23. Ten days ago, when Blair was interviewed by the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman, the prime minister was asked repeatedly whether he had seen that advice.

“No,” said Blair. “I had the attorney-general’s advice to guide me.”

But as the July 23 documents show, the attorney-general’s view was, until the last minute, also riven with doubts.

Three years on, it and the questionable legality of the war are still hanging round Blair’s neck like an albatross.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[JohnRich 4]

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I wonder how many people who've yet to come across your posts will believe your serious. A lot?

Of course I'm serious.

Just think of the mayhem that would result:

- More Muslim terrorists would come to hate America for foiling their will.

- Prisoners would be taken and kept for long periods without trial.

- A few bad-apple prison guards would make a few prisoners wear panties on their heads.

- Haliburton would get more support contracts.

- Someone would flush a Koran down the toilet.

- Journalists would be captured and killed.

- A few innocents might die in crossfire.

I'm telling you, the genocide is nothing compared to what would happen if America got involved. The world is getting off easy with the deaths of a couple hundred thousand black Africans in this genocide. Don't tempt the U.S. to step in and make things worse.

There's nothing going on here that few good ol' U.N. Resolutions, and some threats from France, can't solve.

[SkyChimp 0]

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This is just one incident in a violent conflict that has killed between 200,000 and 450,000 people in the Darfur region since 2003.

But look at the bright side: at least America isn't there trying to stop the genocide. That would only make things worse.

Was that cynicism I smell John?

Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?!

[JohnRich 4]

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This is just one incident in a violent conflict that has killed between 200,000 and 450,000 people in the Darfur region since 2003.

But look at the bright side: at least America isn't there trying to stop the genocide. That would only make things worse.

Was that cynicism I smell John?

But of course.

Isn't it ironic how the liberals claim to be so concerned about the poor, the down-trodden and the oppressed. But none of them want to lift so much as a finger to help stop the genocide in the Sudan. And if America was to go in and help, all the liberals would manage to do is whine about how horrible America is for every little thing that didn't go perfect.

Liberals are really the most selfish bunch of people on the face of the earth.

[vortexring 0]

Nah, thats bollocks John. Liberals aside, I seriously doubt an honest and sincerely motivated humanitarian intervention into Darfur (instead of GWII) would result in anything similiar to the Iraq situation we have today, and the general opinion the global population also has today on the matter.

Doesn't take much thought to figure out why does it?

Still, considering global opinion, perhaps the Albanians might approve as a majority. They might even get the chance to steal Georgies watch again too.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'