war crimes

"This is a major problem," Suraya Dalil, Afghanistan's acting public health minister told a ceremony in Kabul to mark World Mental Health Day.

"More than 60 percent of Afghans are suffering from stress disorders and mental problems," she said...

"Extreme poverty, insecurity, violence and gender disparities are the major factors contributing to worsening mental health in Afghanistan," Dalil said.

Women and children are at particular risk from stress disorders and mental problems in a country which has suffered more than three decades of war and has an illiteracy rate of over 70 percent.

the Obama administration has decided to exempt Yemen and three other countries that use child soldiers from U.S. penalties under the 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act.

In a memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama said he had determined that "it is in the national interest of the United States" to waive application of the law to Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen. He instructed Clinton to submit the decision to the Congress with a written justification for the move...

Jo Becker, children's rights director at Human Rights Watch, said Obama had supported the legislation when he was in the Senate.

"This is a ground breaking law," she said. "This is the first year it has taken effect and he's undercutting it."

Richard Holbrooke1: We are not trying to win this war militarily, … but some kind of political element to this is essential and we are looking at every aspect of this. We are talking to all our other nations about it.

Fareed Zakaria (CNN): What do mean when you say you don’t want to win this militarily?

Holbrooke: I didn’t say we don’t want to win this militarily. I said we can’t win it militarily because a pure military victory is not possible, as Gen. [David] Petraeus and his colleagues have repeatedly said... Everybody understands that the Taliban is part of the fabric of recent Afghan political life... They were a government that controlled the country until 9/11.

• 1. U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan

“The United States is strongly committed to the promotion of human rights around the world, including in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the White House said in an accompanying news release. “As the President noted in his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, human rights are a matter of moral and pragmatic necessity for the United States.”

... Yet, President Obama has taken no action against US officials who under the direction of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld imprisoned without charge “war on terror” detainees at secret black sites and at Guantanamo Bay.

These prisoners also were subjected to beatings, solitary confinement and a denial of due process. They, too, were coerced into making false confessions under unbearable interrogations, which included torture, abuse, blackmail, and the threatening of family members.

President Obama has excused his failure to exact any accountability on complicit US officials by saying that he preferred “to look forward, not backwards.” It is apparently easier to look backwards in Iran and demand accountability than it is in Washington.

Nahoko: The Ramadi Maternity Hospital is big, with about 270 beds. In 2003, the hospital was very crowded with many doctors and nurses. But last year, there were few doctors and nurses. I could see that much of the equipment was gone… The director explained that in 2006, Ramadi city was occupied by the American army. The Ramadi Hospital and Ramadi University became American military bases. The American soldiers threw all of the equipment—blood pressure monitors, desks, medical tools, refrigerators…away. You can find the remains as garbage around the hospital…you can find wheelchairs, beds, and medical equipment. It's all completely damaged.

They completely changed the buildings... They changed classrooms into bedrooms. They changed a hospital room into an internet communication station for the soldiers. Even the schools were occupied. When the Sahwa soldiers took control in 2007, the Americans left the occupied buildings, but there was already so much damage. The situation did get better—dramatically—after the Sahwa movement started. At that time, many doctors came back.

NCCI: But when you went to the Ramadi Hospital last year, in 2009, you saw less doctors than you had seen in 2003?

Nahoko: Much less, yes. Many of them have been assassinated, detained, or have taken refuge.

Drones in Pakistan

drones in pakistan