Media Workers Against the War

This highly disturbing nine-minute US airforce video is alluded to – but without an explicit link – in a recent dispatch by Declan Walsh, the Guardian’s correspondent embedded with troops in Afghanistan. It shows people coming out of a mosque and a C-130 gunship hunting them down.

Walsh writes: “For a chilling display of the awesome power of American air strikes, look no further than the internet.

“A nine-minute clip on YouTube offers a terrifying glimpse of the way the war is being won and lost in southern Afghanistan. The video, filmed from the belly of a Spectre AC-130 gunship, shows an attack on an alleged insurgent camp, rendered through a quivering black and white screen and the pilot’s mechanical monotone.

“The crosshairs wander across a cluster of buildings, seeking out targets and shredding them to pieces. The bombs blitz mud dwellings, turn vehicles into fireballs, and mow down dozens of small white figures - people - as they sprint hopeless for their lives. ‘You are clear to level the building,’ says the voice. The only sop to local sensitivities is that the Americans avoid hitting a mosque.

“This is the death-dealing air power that has allowed Nato and US troops to spread deep into Afghanistan’s most remote and hostile territory.”

Walsh also notes that “Human rights groups estimate that 230 civilians were killed in combat in southern Afghanistan last year; another 300 have died in Helmand this year, according to one estimate. The majority perished in air strikes. Last December Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, wept as he spoke of his frustration to stop coalition forces ‘killing our children’.”

As Iraq spirals into the abyss, Bush is whipping up a storm against Iran, helped by Murdoch’s Fox news. Here’s his full speech from last night – plus edited “highlights” on Iran below. And here is Robert Greenwald’s frightening, must-watch video on Fox’s campaign for war on Iran.

Bush on Iran, Aug 28 2007: Iran has long been a source of trouble in the region. It is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. … Iran funds terrorist groups like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which murder the innocent… Iran is sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, which could be used to attack American and NATO troops. …

Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. … Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. …

Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people. Members of the Qods Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are supplying extremist groups with funding and weapons, including sophisticated IEDs. And with the assistance of Hezbollah, they’ve provided training for these violent forces inside of Iraq. Recently, coalition forces seized 240-millimeter rockets that had been manufactured in Iran this year and that had been provided to Iraqi extremist groups by Iranian agents. The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the last few months — despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq. …

I want our fellow citizens to consider what would happen if these forces of radicalism and extremism are allowed to drive us out of the Middle East. The region would be dramatically transformed in a way that could imperil the civilized world. Extremists of all strains would be emboldened by the knowledge that they forced America to retreat. Terrorists could have more safe havens to conduct attacks on Americans and our friends and allies. Iran could conclude that we were weak — and could not stop them from gaining nuclear weapons. And once Iran had nuclear weapons, it would set off a nuclear arms race in the region. …

The most important and immediate way to counter the ambitions of al Qaeda and Iran and other forces of instability and terror is to win the fight in Iraq.

Michael Wood made this documentary in 1993. It is highly instructive for us today to recall what happened in March 1991, when the Shia decided to rise up against Saddam Hussein.