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US-Trained Afghan Army Behind Deadly Attack on Wedding Party

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New Year’s Eve incident that killed as many as 26 sparks protest, investigation

U.S. military conducting training for Afghan National Army Soldiers in 2010. (Photo: isafmedia/flickr/cc)

U.S. military conducting training for Afghan National Army Soldiers in 2010. (Photo: isafmedia/flickr/cc)

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

The U.S.-trained Afghan army was responsible for a New Year’s Eve attack on a wedding party that killed as many as two dozen people including women and children, local officials have said.

The incident took place in Sagin district in the southern province of Helmand, and was first reported on by the Associated Press.

Witnesses said the house where the wedding was taking place was hit after guests fired celebratory shots into the air.

The incident sparked hundreds of people to travel from Sagin to the home of the governor in the provincial capital to demand justice, AP reports.

“What we know so far is that our soldiers fired mortar rounds from three outposts but we do not know whether it was intentional,” General Mahmoud, the deputy Commander of the Afghan 215 corps in Helmand province, toldReuters.

“We have launched our investigation and will punish those who did this,” he said.

The exact toll from the attack is still unclear; Agence-France Presse‘s latest reporting indicates that 17 people, all women and children were killed, and that 49 others were wounded in the shelling. Reuters reported Thursday that 26 people were killed and 41 others wounded.

According to reporting by AP on Friday, two soldiers have already been arrested, and eight more are under investigation.  Mahmoud told AP that there was “still a possibility of more arrests.”

In a statement issued Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and urged the Afghan government to conduct a full investigation of the incident.

The deadly fire came at the end of what was the deadliest year for Afghan civilians, and just hours before Afghanistan formally took over security operations for the country, even as the U.S. is continuing its military role there for at least another year.

“I want to congratulate my people today that Afghan forces are now able to take full security responsibility in protecting their country’s soil and sovereignty,” Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani said in a speech Thursday marking the transition.

US sanctions North Korea over Sony hacking

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Korean government officials among those blacklisted for cyber attack on Sony Pictures firm blamed on Pyongyang.

Hackers began to issue threats against Sony over the release of the comedy film 'The Interview' [EPA]

Hackers began to issue threats against Sony over the release of the comedy film ‘The Interview’ [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

The United States has imposed fresh sanctions on North Korea in retribution for a cyber attack on Hollywood studio Sony Pictures blamed on Pyongyang.

In an executive order on Friday, US President Barack Obama authorised the US Treasury to place on its blacklist three top North Korean intelligence and arms operations, as well as 10 government officials, most of them involved in Pyongyang’s arms exports.

Obama said he ordered the sanctions because of “the provocative, destabilising, and repressive actions and policies of the government of North Korea, including its destructive, coercive cyber-related actions during November and December 2014”.

The activities “constitute a continuing threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” he added, in a letter to inform congressional leaders.

“The order is not targeted at the people of North Korea, but rather is aimed at the government of North Korea and its activities that threaten the United States and others,” Obama added.

The sanctions came after hackers penetrated Sony’s computers in late November, stealing and releasing over the internet employee information, unreleased films and an embarrassing trove of emails between top company executives.

The hackers, a group calling itself Guardians of Peace, then began to issue threats against the company over the looming Christmas release of the comedy film “The Interview”, which depicts a fictional CIA plot to kill North Korea’s leader.

The threats led first to worried movie theater owners dropping the film and then Sony cancelling the public debut altogether, beforereleasing it online.

After the hackers invoked the 9/11 attacks in their threats, the White House branded it a national security threat, and an investigation by the FBI said North Korea was behind the Sony intrusion.

Pyongyang repeatedly denied involvement, but has applauded the actions of the shadowy Guardians of Peace group.

‘Proportional’ response

The White House stressed Friday that its response will be “proportional”, but also that the sanction actions were only “the first aspect of our response”.

“We take seriously North Korea’s attack that aimed to create destructive financial effects on a US company and to threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of restricting their right to free expression,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

In parallel with the White House announcement, the US Treasury named the first targets of sanctions in the Sony case.

They included the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the government’s main intelligence organisation, and two top North Korean arms exporters: Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) and Korea Tangun Trading Corporation.

The individuals named included agents of KOMID in Namibia, Russia, Iran and Syria, and other representatives of the government and the sanctioned organisations.

An administration official, briefing reporters, said that they remain “very confident” in their assessment that Pyongyang is behind the attack on Sony, amid doubts raised by security experts.

The official said the three organisations had “no direct involvement” with the hacking. “They are being designated to put pressure on the North Korean government,” the official said.

It was the first time US sanctions had been invoked due to a threat to a private company, the official acknowledged.

The sanctions forbid US individuals and companies from doing business with those blacklist, and freezes any assets those blacklisted might have on US territory.

A particular aim of such sanctions is to limit their access to international financial services by locking them out of the US financial system.

All three of the organisations blacklisted in the Sony case are already under US sanctions for the country’s persistence with its nuclear weapons program, its alleged provocations on the Korean peninsula, and other “continued actions that threaten the United States and others,” as Obama said in his letter.

The Afghan war that didn't really end yesterday ended in defeat

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None of the claimed long term objectives for the war in Afghanistan, either from the Bush or Obama administrations, have been achieved.

Afghan and international soldiers stand at attention during a ceremony at the headquarters of the US-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2014. Massoud Hossaini/AP

Afghan and international soldiers stand at attention during a ceremony at the headquarters of the US-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2014. Massoud Hossaini/AP

by Dan Murphy, CS Monitor

News websites and broadcasts – and US and NATO press releases – were filled with discussion about the “formal” end of the Afghan war yesterday. But any close reading of the facts will find that they were wrong.

Call it semi-formal, or business casual, whatever you like. The reality remains the same: For American soldiers and for the Afghan people the war that began on Oct. 7, 2001 will go on.

While most of America’s NATO allies that hadn’t already washed their hands of combat will now do so, American fighting and dying will continue, with 11,000 US troops remaining in the country. There will be talk of “advising,” and “training” and “non-combat” presence. But for the most part that can be safely ignored.

Afghanistan is a dangerous place. The US-installed government there is on shaky ground, and just advising Afghan troops is a dangerous job, given thata high-percentage of US military deaths in recent years have been caused by Afghan soldiers and police. In August, Maj. Gen. Harold Greene was murdered by an Afghan soldier, becoming the highest ranking US officer killed overseas since Vietnam.

US casualties compared to Afghan ones have been negligible. Over 4,000 Afghan soldiers and cops were killed fighting in 2014 alone, compared to 2,224 US soldiers killed fighting there since 2001. Civilian deaths had soared to 3,188 by the end of November, making this year the bloodiest for civilians since at least 2009, when the UN began tracking civilian deaths. The civilian death toll is at least a 20 percent increase over last year.

If Afghan history is anything to go by, it’s due to get worse as America’s longest war war winds down to its inevitable conclusion. For the Afghans, who have been embroiled in a civil war with heavy foreign meddling since 1979, the prospect of peace seems slim.

The Soviet Union failed to impose its will on the Afghans after its invasion in 1979. In the decades since, other foreign powers haven’t done the country much long term good. Some haven’t cared much. Pakistan has supported the Taliban who have sought to destroy the US imposed order there – never mind the vast subsidies the US taxpayer ships to Pakistan’s military every year.

During the Soviet occupation, the US supported the so-called mujahideen (“holy warriors”), and often seemed more interested in giving what Ronald Reagan branded the Evil Empire a black eye, than in caring about the long term stability of the country.

What came next was a bloodier chapter of the civil war. After the Russian pull-out in 1989 and subsequent end of funding for Kabul following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the former mujahideen began a bloody fight for the spoils, with torture, rape, and pillage the methods of war employed by all sides.

The Taliban emerged and seized Kabul in 1996, but the fighting continued along largely ethnic-lines, with America’s former mujahideen friends, now fighting the Taliban as the United National Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, often equaling the Taliban for brutality. The front came to be called in Western circles the “Northern Alliance” particularly as the US military began working with its militias to topple the Taliban following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks organized by Al Qaeda, whose leaders were being harbored by the Taliban at the time.

Those warlords and their allies are largely the people running the show in Kabul today, with the Taliban a potent presence in many provinces and looking forward to taking on their old enemies with less American interference.

What has the war bought for the US, at a cost of $1 trillion?

President Obama claimed yesterday that “we are safer, and our nation is more secure” thanks to the sacrifices of the Afghan war. There’s no evidence to support that claim, and plenty to suggest the war has been a long, self-inflicted wound on the country. The job of scattering old Al Qaeda was accomplished by 2003. By the time Bin Laden was killed in a daring US raid in 2011, he was living comfortably in the Pakistani military garrison town of Abbottabad. Mullah Omar, the titular head of the Taliban, has likewise lived in Pakistan for years.

Afghanistan is a poor, far away country. While Al Qaeda was based there ahead of 9/11, what is less often repeated is that much of the operational planning for the attacks were conducted in Hamburg, Germany.

Meanwhile, opium production in Afghanistan has soared despite $7 billion flushed down the tubes by the US on opium eradication. Afghanistan can not by any stretch be called a democracy – vote buying and thuggery at the polls dominate elections. The country’s government is entirely dependent on foreign aid, and has been gifted or burdened, depending on your perspective, with assets it cannot afford.

Consider the military, which has about 200,000 soldiers on the books. (How many soldiers actually show up to work is another matter; so-called ghost soldiers are as much a problem in Afghanistan as they are in Iraq). The US has spent about $11 billion annually on Afghan forces in recent years – equivalent to more than half of the country’s GDP. That means that if and when foreign funding stops or is reduced, Afghanistan won’t be able to pay for the army fighting the Taliban.

None of the claimed long term objectives for the war, either from the Bush or Obama administrations, have been achieved. That’s a defeat by any measure.

US funding for Kabul is likely to go on for quite some time. But it is unlikely to be better and more wisely spent with less foreign oversight and involvement. The rampant corruption that has bled billions over the past decade was never contained and the Afghan government is largely paralyzed. The presidential election earlier this year almost led to civil war among the opponents of the Taliban, with heavy US pressure ending up in the inauguration of President Ashraf Ghani. Yet three months since that crisis was averted, the country still doesn’t have a cabinet. Why?

The US insisted that a special, yet ill-defined, job of “chief executive” be created for the runner-up in the presidential election, Abdullah Abdullah. Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah have been squabbling over who will control choice positions in the government ever since, even as the population has grown frightened at the departure of foreign troops, the economy has teetered, and the Taliban have enjoyed a good year.

In honor of the end of a war that wasn’t really the end of the war, the foreign involvement in the war was renamed yesterday. No longer the International Security Assistance Force but:

Resolute? Perhaps. But Afghanistan’s problems are manifold.

Ukraine Massacre has CIA Fingerprints Says Oliver Stone

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The director drew comparisons between the Ukrainian and Venezuelan coups, which, he argued, both involved third-party agitators.

More than 50 people were killed in the Ukrainian coup in February 2014 | Photo: Reuters

More than 50 people were killed in the Ukrainian coup in February 2014 | Photo: Reuters

by teleSUR

Revered film maker Oliver Stone revealed that the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in February 2014, in which more than 50 people were killed, has the hallmarks of the techniques used by the CIA to remove undesirable leaders in Venezuela, Chile and Iran.

After a four-hour interview with the ousted, legitimately elected president Viktor Yanukovych, Stone concluded that a “third party” played a part in the massacre, and that the resulting shooting had “CIA fingerprints on it.”

“It seems clear that the so-called ‘shooters’ who killed 14 police men, wounded some 85, and killed 45 protesting civilians, were outside third party agitators. Many witnesses, including Yanukovych and police officials, believe these foreign elements were introduced by pro-Western factions — with CIA fingerprints on it,” the director wrote on his Facebook page.

Stone went on to point out the “similar technique” used against former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s elected government in 2002, when he was briefly driven out, which also used “mysterious shooters in office buildings.” Just like in the Maiden Massacre, the mainstream media portrayed the latter event as the work of a brutal, authoritarian government.

“Create enough chaos, as the CIA did in Iran ‘53, Chile ‘73, and countless other coups, and the legitimate government can be toppled. It’s America’s soft power technique called ‘Regime Change 101,’” Stone said.

The documentary-maker, who spoke to Yanukovych for a new film, said that the United States would not be able to hide its crimes for much longer.

“The truth is not being aired in the West. It’s a surreal perversion of history that’s going on once again, as in Bush pre-Iraq ‘WMD’ campaign. But I believe the truth will finally come out in the West, I hope, in time to stop further insanity,” Stone concluded.

UNSC rejects resolution on Palestinian state

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Bid to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by 2017 garners eight votes, one short of total needed to pass.

The Palestinian leadership has once again demonstrated its capacity to blow lots of smoke with no fire [AFP]

The Palestinian leadership has once again demonstrated its capacity to blow lots of smoke with no fire [AFP]

by Al Jazeera

The UN Security Council has rejected a Palestinian resolution calling for peace with Israel within a year and an end to Israel’s occupation by 2017.

The resolution failed to muster the minimum nine “yes” votes required in the council for adoption.

The motion received eight “yes” votes, including from Russia and France, two “no” votes from the United States and Australia, and five abstentions.

Riyad Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the UN, criticised the world body for the failure of the vote.

“The Security Council has once again failed to uphold its charter duties to address this crises and to meaningfully contribute to a lasting solution in accordance with its own resolutions,” Mansour said.

“This year, our people under Israeli occupation endured the further theft and colonisation of their land, the demolition of their homes, daily military raids, arrests and detention of thousands of civilians including children, rampant settler terrorism, constant affronts to their human dignity and repeated incursions at our holiest sites.”

Following the vote, the US, Israel’s closest ally, reiterated its opposition to the draft resolution.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, said the resolution undermined efforts to “achieve two states for two people”.

“It is deeply imbalanced and contains many elements that are not conducive to negotiations between the parties including unconstructive deadlines that take no account for Israelis legitimate security concerns,” she said.

Palestinian statehood

The resolution, which was submitted by Jordan – currently the only Arab member of the security council -had called for occupied East Jerusalem to be the capital of Palestine, an end to Israeli settlement building and settling the issue of Palestinian prisoner releases.

The resolution also called for negotiations to be based on territorial lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in 1967.

Israel had said the Security Council vote, following the collapse in April of US-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood, would deepen the conflict.

Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, derided the resolution, telling Al Jazeera it undermined Palestinian rights, including the rights of refugees and the future of Jerusalem.

“This was a terrible resolution which was unaninimously opposed by every major Palestinian faction, it contained so many compromises in an attempt to avoid a US veto that it was weaker than existing UN resolutions,” he said.

The Palestinians, frustrated by the lack of progress on peace talks, have sought to internationalise the issue by seeking UN membership and recognition of statehood via membership in international organisations.

Several European parliaments have adopted non-binding motions calling for recognition of Palestine.

The Palestinians had warned that if the UN resolution failed they were prepared to join the International Criminal Court to file suits against Israel.

UN Security Council vote on Palestinian draft resolution

YES: Jordan, China, France, Russia, Luxembourg, Chad, Chile, Argentina.

NO: United States, Australia.

ABSTAINED: United Kingdom, Lithuania, Nigeria, South Korea, Rwanda.

Afghanistan conflict: Taliban declares 'defeat' of Nato

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The US and its allies insist that Afghan security forces are strong enough to defeat Taliban insurgents

The US and its allies insist that Afghan security forces are strong enough to defeat Taliban insurgents

by BBC

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have declared the “defeat” of the US and its allies, a day after the coalition officially ended its combat mission.

A Taliban statement said the US-led force had “rolled up its flag” without having achieved “anything substantial”.

Nato formally ended its 13-year mission on Sunday, but about 13,000 troops will stay to train the Afghan army.

Meanwhile, officials said four Afghan soldiers were killed in a Taliban attack in Helmand province on Monday.

Three other soldiers were injured during the attack on an army checkpoint in Sangin district. Eight insurgents were said to have been killed.

The US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) marked the end of its mission by lowering its flag at a ceremony in Kabul on Sunday.

Mission commander Gen John Campbell said the Nato force had “lifted the Afghan people out of the darkness of despair and given them hope for the future”.

‘Demoralised’

But in a statement on Monday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Nato ceremony was “a clear indication of their defeat and disappointment”.

He said the Taliban would establish “a pure Islamic system by expelling the remaining invading forces,” adding that Western troops were “demoralised”.

Nato’s Afghan deployment began after the 9/11 attacks against the US.

At its peak, the US-led Isaf deployment involved more than 130,000 personnel from 50 countries.

But from 1 January, the force will consist of about 13,000 mostly-American troops and will shift to a training and support mission for the Afghan army.

The US will also have an additional force of a few thousand troops whose focus will be counter-terrorism operations.

While the US and its allies say the Afghan security forces have been able to prevent a Taliban offensive, violence has increased in recent months.

This year has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since 2001, with at least 4,600 members of the Afghan security forces having been killed.

Nearly 3,500 foreign troops have been killed since the beginning of the Nato mission in 2001, including about 2,200 American troops.

Nato ends its war in Afghanistan as Taliban continues to grow

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Event carried out in secret due to threat of Taliban strikes in Afghan capital, which has been hit by repeated bombings.

Photo: EPA/CPL JANINE FABRE / ISAF

Photo: EPA/CPL JANINE FABRE / ISAF

by Al Jazeera

NATO has held a ceremony in Kabul formally ending its war in Afghanistan, officials said, after 13 years of conflict and gradual troop withdrawals that have left the country in the grip of worsening conflicts with armed groups.

The event was carried out on Sunday in secret due to the threat of Taliban strikes in the Afghan capital, which has been hit by repeated suicide bombings and gun attacks over recent years.

On January 1, the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) combat mission will be replaced by a NATO “training and support” mission.

“Resolute Support will serve as the bedrock of an enduring partnership” between NATO and Afghanistan, US Army General John F Campbell told an audience of Afghan and international military officers and officials, as well as diplomats and journalists.

He paid tribute to the international and Afghan troops who have died fighting in the conflict saying: “The road before us remains challenging but we will triumph”.

The closing of NATO’s combat mission comes at the end of the country’s deadliest year during the war, which saw at least 4,600 Afghan soldiers and police killed and many other civilian deaths.

About 12,500 foreign troops staying in Afghanistan will not be involved in direct fighting, but will assist the Afghan army and police in the battle against the Taliban, who ruled from 1996 until 2001.

When numbers peaked in 2011, about 130,000 troops from 50 nations were part of the NATO military alliance.

‘Milestone for US’

Obama called the ceremony “a milestone for our country.”

“Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion,” he said in a statement.

Obama thanked the troops and intelligence workers who served in Afghanistan, crediting them with “devastating the core al-Qaeda leadership, delivering justice to Osama bin Laden, disrupting terrorist plots and saving countless American lives”.

“We are safer, and our nation is more secure, because of their service.”

But, Obama warned, “Afghanistan remains a dangerous place, and the Afghan people and their security forces continue to make tremendous sacrifices in defence of their country.”

Sunday’s ceremony completes the gradual handover of responsibility to the 350,000-strong Afghan forces, who have been in charge of nationwide security since the middle of last year.

Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said that Afghans were very concerned with the complete pullout, citing a security vacuum and political instability as the main threats as heavy fighting rages across the country.

“The government has also failed to name a cabinet, so it is not just the lack of security that is a concern, but also political instability”.

Notes from the field: Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse reports from Kabul

There was a lot of mingling before the ceremony among Afghan officials, military officers, ambassadors, and diplomats from more than a dozen countries. It was a gathering befitting NATO’s largest and longest ever coalition.

In the blue and white gymnasium on ISAF’s main headquarters, a small brass military band played in the corner as US General Joseph Campbell rolled up the green flag emblazoned with ISAF for the International Security Assistance Force, he has commanded since August.

He unfurled a green flag with RS on it – the new colours as the military call them, of the NATO Resolute Support force that takes over on January 1.

The changeover marks the end of the 13-year long NATO combat mission. But about 5,500 US forces will remain in Afghanistan outside the NATO mission, carrying out counterterrorism operations.

In total, that puts about 17,000 international troops in Afghanistan in 2015.

The head of the Afghan Army, General Sher Mohammad Karimi says his forces will miss ISAF, and all the resources NATO offered. “ISAF had everything,” he told me. “We are limited. We do not have enough equipment to get rid of the IEDs [improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs] or equipment to give us early warning, but still we are doing better.”

But Afghan forces continue to take punishing losses with more than 4,600 killed this year, and thousands more wounded.

The speeches acknowledged the sacrifices made. Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar said, “We will never forget your sons and daughters who have died on our soil. They are now our sons and daughters. Afghan and Coalition personnel have spilled their blood to ensure a brighter future for our country and to bring peace to the world.”

No one here thinks peace will be easy. After 13 years and more than a trillion dollars spent in military and humanitarian support, Afghanistan is still in a perilous position.

It’s heavily dependent on foreign aid, and the Taliban and other groups that oppose the government continue to battle Afghan forces on a number of fronts.

The mood at the transition ceremony was one of deep camaraderie between allies who have come a long way, but recognise there is still a long way to go. Not necessarily a mission accomplished – more a mission continued.

U.S female military veterans battling PTSD from sexual trauma fight for redress

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Army veteran Kate Weber is a survivor of military sexual trauma who now spends most of her time doing MST advocacy. (Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat)

Army veteran Kate Weber is a survivor of military sexual trauma who now spends most of her time doing MST advocacy. (Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat)

by Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, The Washington Post

Thousands of female veterans are struggling to get health-care treatment and compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs on the grounds that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by sexual trauma in the military. The veterans and their advocates call it “the second battle” — with a bureaucracy they say is stuck in the past.

Judy Atwood-Bell was just a 19-year-old Army private when she says she was locked inside a barracks room at Fort Devens in Massachusetts, forced to the cold floor and raped by a fellow solider.

For more than two decades, Atwood-Bell fought for an apology and financial compensation from VA for PTSD, with panic attacks, insomnia and severe depression that she recalls started soon after that winter day in 1981. She filled out stacks of forms in triplicate and then filled them out again, pressing over and over for recognition of the harm that was done.

The department labels it “military sexual trauma” (MST), covering any unwanted contact, including sexual innuendo, groping and rape.

A recent VA survey found that 1 in 4 women said they experienced sexual harassment or assault. And the problem is growing more pressing because female veterans represent the military’s fastest-growing population, with an estimated 2.2 million, or 10 percent, of the country’s veterans. More than 280,000 female veterans have returned home from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

About two weeks ago, when Atwood-Bell checked the department’s Web site, as she does every day, she was stunned to discover that the agency had accepted her claim for compensation.

“It’s taken over 20 years, and that should’ve never happened,” said Atwood-Bell, who retired as a sergeant first class and lives in New Hampshire, her voice cracking with emotion. “My fight is not over. It’s not done for so many other women out there. I want to help them to get what we are entitled to.”

The Pentagon has been conducting a high-profile campaign to prevent sexual attacks and punish offenders amid concerns that defense officials neglected these assaults for years.

But advocacy groups say VA has been slow to adjust to the rising number of women in the military.

Some health centers, for instance, only recently opened female restrooms. Women who go to VA centers for treatment say they are routinely asked whether they are waiting for their husbands or are lost. And while there are a few showcase centers for female veterans, a third of VA medical centers lack a gynecologist on staff, according to a report by Disabled American Veterans, or DAV. Thirty-one percent of VA clinics lack staff to provide adequate treatment for sexual assault, according to a recent report by the Institute of Medicine.

Female veterans, in part, are pressing for more VA centers that specifically treat military sexual trauma, with separate waiting rooms for women and child care.

VA Secretary Robert McDonald says the department is taking steps to improve health services to address sexual trauma, such as asking all veterans during intake whether they suffered such an assault or trauma and hiring more doctors, therapists and social workers with experience in issues of sexual assault in the military. The agency also says it is increasing the staff responsible for promoting VA benefits to women veterans and helping them with claims, especially those involving sexual abuse.

This month, the department announced it would expand mental health services to reservists and National Guard members who were sexually assaulted while on inactive duty.

“VA simply must be an organization that provides comprehensive care for all veterans dealing with the effects of military sexual trauma,” McDonald said. “Our range of services for MST-related experiences are constantly being reexamined to best meet the needs of our veterans.”

This year, it became easier for survivors of sexual trauma to get treatment because the government ended the requirement that military members produce proof that they were assaulted or harassed before they get health care.

But advocates say thousands of female veterans confront an even larger problem: They are unable to get disability compensation benefits for sexual trauma because they do not have enough paperwork to support their claims. Advocacy groups and VA officials blame a culture of secrecy and denial inside the military that heavily discourages women from reporting sexual assault.

VA officials said that they are encouraging female veterans to reapply for benefits for PTSD caused by sexual abuse and that they are re-reviewing cases.

Elena M. Giordano says she was raped about 10 years ago by two men on separate occasions while serving aboard a Navy aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean as an airman apprentice. When she reported the attacks, she says, Giordano was discharged with “pre-existing personality disorder,” a label that advocates say is often applied by military officers to women who report rape.

Giordano, now 29, said she had never wanted to go public with her complaint. She had originally asked to be assigned to the carrier and didn’t want to leave it. But after the second attack, she said, “I just had to leave. I couldn’t be around men without having a panic attack.”

When she returned home to Arizona, VA agreed to provide counseling and medical treatment. But the department denied her disability benefits, citing the “totality of the evidence.”

Veterans with service-connected disabilities — whether it’s a back injury or PTSD, and including sexual trauma and assault — are entitled to compensation if they are causing lasting pain or make the individuals unable to work. The benefits can run from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand a month, depending on the injuries and their impact, according to federal law.

But in cases of sexual trauma, veterans often lack medical records and other documentation required for compensation through VA because the women do not report the incidents. Also, until recently, the Defense Department allowed the destruction of rape kits after one year and of sexual harassment and sexual assault reports after as little as two years.

Atwood-Bell, for instance, said sexual assault was something female troops did not dare talk about for fear that they would face retaliation and be discharged with a “mental health diagnosis.” She said her application for benefits was rejected twice due to lack of evidence.

The Pentagon released new data on Dec. 4 that showed that 62 percent of those who reported being sexually assaulted had experienced retaliation or ostracism afterward, whether from superiors or peers in the service.

Since many survivors of sexual trauma lack a traditional paper trail, VA officials who evaluate claims have to search for what they call “markers,” such as a change in a performance review, e-mails or letters with friends or clergy about an attack, reports of depression and anxiety, weight loss or gain, requests for a pregnancy test or a test for a sexually transmitted disease.

“These are not easy claims. But I am very passionate about this issue,” said Diana Williard, the quality assurance officer with the Veterans Benefits Administration.“And you do almost have to be like a little detective putting it together. But if there is even one bit of circumstantial evidence, we send them to a mental health counselor to see if they have PTSD.”

Anu Bhagwati, executive director of Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), calls the marker system “unfair and absurd.”

Her organization, along with the Vietnam Veterans of America, filed a federal lawsuit against VA in July, alleging that the department’s policies are discriminatory and that claims experts consistently impose a higher burden of proof on military-rape survivors than on other veterans when it comes to verifying reports of PTSD.

The plaintiffs argue that veterans seeking disability benefits for combat-related PTSD do not have to provide evidence other than their own statements and a mental health professional’s review linking their illness to military service.

“It’s just a broken policy. So veterans experience betrayal from the sexual assault, from the way they are treated by their units after the assault, and then by the VA when they file claims,” said Bhagwati, a former captain in the Marine Corps. “The VA became the last place, after a long line of places, where any hope they had left of getting help just dies.”

VA officials would not comment on the pending ligation.

Former Army private first class Katie Weber said she was raped by another soldier when she was 18 while posted in Nuremberg, Germany. She tried to report the attack but was told, “in the same breath,” that it didn’t really happen and that she was not to tell anyone about it, Weber said. “When I told another official,” she recalled, “they said I was ‘jumping the chain of command’ and that I was probably ‘just really confused and a little slut.’ ”

When she went home, she discovered that there was a severe lack of suitable medical and mental health services at the department and little understanding of how sexual trauma can cause PTSD. So Weber started a Facebook group called “Women Veterans for Equality in our VA System” to advocate for the interests of those who suffered sexual trauma in the military.

“We were really isolated,” said Weber, now 40 and living in California. “So enter Facebook.”

It was her encouragement and the Facebook group that ultimately persuaded a weary Giordano to resume her fight for benefits.

Giordano said she got “the letter” in late November, saying she would, indeed, be getting compensation benefits.

“I may never understand why they changed their mind and finally believed me,” she said. “But I am glad they did. That’s my hope for justice and dignity for all of the other women who have suffered this. ”

U.S. to send more private contractors to Iraq

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USA private contractors Iraq

Washington/Kazinform: The U.S. government is preparing to boost the number of private contractors in Iraq as part of President Barack Obama’s growing effort to beat back Islamic State militants threatening the Baghdad government, a senior U.S. official said, AKI Press reports.

How many contractors will deploy to Iraq – beyond the roughly 1,800 now working there for the U.S. State Department – will depend in part, the official said, on how widely dispersed U.S. troops advising Iraqi security forces are, and how far they are from U.S. diplomatic facilities.

Still, the preparations to increase the number of contractors – who can be responsible for everything from security to vehicle repair and food service – underscores Obama’s growing commitment in Iraq. When U.S. troops and diplomats venture into war zones, contractors tend to follow, doing jobs once handled by the military itself.

“It is certain that there will have to be some number of contractors brought in for additional support,” said the senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After Islamic State seized large swaths of Iraqi territory and the major city of Mosul in June, Obama ordered U.S. troops back to Iraq. Last month, he authorized roughly doubling the number of troops, who will be in non-combat roles, to 3,100, but is keen not to let the troop commitment grow too much.

There are now about 1,750 U.S. troops in Iraq, and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week ordered deployment of an additional 1,300.

The U.S. military’s reliance on civilians was on display during Hagel’s trip to Baghdad this month, when he and his delegation were flown over the Iraqi capital in helicopters operated by State Department contractors.

The problem, the senior U.S. official said, is that as U.S. troops continue flowing into Iraq, the State Department’s contractor ranks will no longer be able to support the needs of both diplomats and troops.

After declining since late 2011, State Department contractor numbers in Iraq have risen slightly, by less than 5 percent, since June, a State Department spokesman said.

U.S to accept thousands of Syrian refugees for resettlement

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Anne C. Richard (L), assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, and Nancy Lindborg (front, 2nd R), USAID assistant administrator for democracy, conflict, and humanitarian assistance, visit the Zaatari Syrian refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, Jan. 28, 2013. (Photo by REUTERS/Ali Jarekji)

Anne C. Richard (L), assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, and Nancy Lindborg (front, 2nd R), USAID assistant administrator for democracy, conflict, and humanitarian assistance, visit the Zaatari Syrian refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, Jan. 28, 2013. (Photo by REUTERS/Ali Jarekji)

by Barbara Slavin, Al-Monitor

US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne Richard says the United States will dramatically increase the number of Syrian refugees allowed to resettle permanently in the United States from about 350 this year to close to 10,000 annually as the crisis grinds on into its fifth year.

While the number is minuscule given a total Syrian refugee population of 3.3 million, it reflects US recognition that the civil war in Syria is not about to end anytime soon and that, even when it does, Syria will need years for reconstruction and reconciliation.

In an interview with Al-Monitor Dec. 22, Richard said, “People are surprised we haven’t taken more.” She said the initial low numbers reflect the reality that “resettling refugees is never the first thing you do when people are fleeing an emerging crisis” and that other countries — in particular Germany and Sweden — have “stepped forward and offered to take a lot” of Syrian refugees.

According to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Germany has pledged to absorb 30,000 Syrians just since 2013 — nearly half of those processed for resettlement.

“We thought that was a great offer and unusually generous so we encouraged UNHCR to take advantage of that,” Richard said.

After initial vetting by UNHCR, Syrian refugees who want to resettle in the United States must be interviewed by officers of the Department of Homeland Security at US diplomatic facilities in Amman, Jordan or Istanbul, Turkey. That leaves out a million Syrians who have fled to Lebanon and large populations in Iraq and Egypt. Richard said lack of space and security concerns have kept the United States from interviewing Syrian refugees at the US Embassy in Beirut but that US officials are looking at the possibility of setting up a refugee vetting operation in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

UNHCR seeks to identify the most vulnerable candidates, Richard said. “By Dec. 15, we had 10,000 referrals from UNHCR and they are coming in at 1,000 to 1,500 a month.”

Asked how many of those referred would be accepted, Richard said, “I think most” because they are likely to meet the United State’s definition of a refugee as someone fleeing persecution or threats because of race, ethnicity, religion, political beliefs or membership to a particular social group.

Refugees must also pass medical and security checks. “The last part has been tricky in the past,” Richard said, but added that it is not likely to be a major problem with the Syrians referred by UNHCR. She said she expected them to comprise mostly widows with children, the elderly and people with medical conditions. “It will be fairly clear that they are not terrorists bent on harming Americans,” she said.

No preference is given to those with relatives already in the United States but if they do have family among the estimated half million Syrian Americans, “we try to reunite them because that can improve their chances of doing well in the US,” Richard said.

There are large populations of Arab Americans outside Detroit and in San Diego, but the Syrian refugees who have arrived in the United States recently have been settled all around the country.

According to the latest State Department statistics, 33 Syrian refugees were sent to North Carolina so far this year, 30 to Texas, 24 to both California and Illinois, and only five to Michigan.

Richard said her office works with nine networks in the United States, six of them faith-based, to identify communities willing to help refugees find new homes. “They sign up to take certain numbers based on what their organizations can handle,” she said.

This past year has been extremely challenging for her office, and not just because of Syria. The year started with humanitarian crises in two other countries — South Sudan and the Central African Republic — followed over the summer by Ukraine, a new Gaza war, a flood of unaccompanied children from Central America crossing the US border, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the sudden advance of the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.

“It’s been a tough year,” Richard, who is also a former executive with the International Rescue Committee, said with some understatement.

But on the positive side, she said, “We’ve kept millions and millions of people alive” who otherwise would have succumbed to hunger and disease.

While the United States remains the world’s leader in providing humanitarian relief — allocating about $6 billion for refugee assistance, disaster assistance and food aid in the past year and $3 billion for Syria since 2011 — other countries such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are beginning to make regular contributions to the UN agencies that provide most humanitarian aid.

Even Saudi Arabia, which has been reluctant to participate in such UN programs in the past, gave half a million dollars to help Iraqis cope with the crisis caused by IS this summer, Richard said.

“We would like to see more governments contributing and those new to doing so to do it routinely in a dependable way … so that organizations like UNHCR and the World Food Program can plan ahead,” she said.

The United States takes in about 70,000 refugees a year, of whom Iraqis accounted for the largest number in the last fiscal year — nearly 20,000. They were followed by more than 16,000 Burmese, more than 9,000 Bhutanese, more than 7,000 Somalis and more than 4,000 Cubans. The number of Bhutanese is dwindling, however, opening up room for more Syrians.

Richard said it was her impression that the number of Syrians fleeing their country has “leveled off a little bit” but that the problem of those internally displaced and in need of aid is more acute than ever.

“A lot of people are trying to stay and make it inside Syria,” she said, noting that the number of internally displaced had grown from 6 million six months ago to 7.6 million now, with more than 200,000 in areas that cannot be reached by outsiders because of the fighting. “It’s hard for me to understand how they are managing,” she said.

The UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has floated a proposal to “freeze” the fighting, starting in Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, to ease the humanitarian crisis there.

However, Richard expressed skepticism about the plan.

“After Staffan de Mistura came through [Washington recently], everyone wanted to give it a chance but I don’t think we have much evidence of a change,” she said. “There has been modest cooperation from the Assad regime but the thinking is that they haven’t suddenly adopted a whole new pro-humanitarian approach. It’s more that they are trying to distinguish themselves from [IS],” she said..

Others who work on the Syria crisis also expressed pessimism about a near-term solution to the conflict.

“I can’t believe that I’m still doing this after almost four years,” Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, president and co-founder of an aid group called People Demand Change, told Al-Monitor. “When I left Syria in 2011, we all thought the regime would decide to save itself and make reforms, crumble quickly or that the international community would step in. Unfortunately none of that has come to pass.”

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