In a 2008 interview Patrick Cockburn, a veteran Iraq war correspondent, describes an incident in which he was one step away of being shot by insurgents. He was traveling from Baghdad to Najaf where Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia was resisting the U.S. Marines. Believing that a serious threat would come from the Sunni Arabs, he chose to wear a red and white kufia in order to be perceived as an Arab from the distance and not be shot at while on the road. However, he had the misfortune of running directly into a militia-controlled checkpoint. Once he was spotted, the heavily armed men dragged him out of the car, ripped of his kufia and started shouting “American spy!”

“They dragged me and two Iraqis out of the car. I and the Iraqis thought: That’s it. They’re going to kill us. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in this way.” Fortunately, at the last moment one gunman suggested that the captives should be taken to the Sheikh at the Mosque and let him decide their fate.

“They took us there and then things gradually became better,” Patrick Cockburn said when interviewed by James Zogby on After Words.

Next time, he might not be so lucky.

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Tags: afghanistan, blackwater, cia, iraq, journalists, patrick cockburn

“The U.S. response, engaging in two wars, was a 20th-century reaction to 21st-century realities.”

- wrote Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, in an article for The Washington Post.

Tags: 21st century conflict, afghanistan, irak

Part II – Part III – Part IV – Part V

I came across this great documentary which shows a few dark pages of Hungarian history. I was born in Zalau, about 8 miles from Treznea, where Hungarian troops slaughtered hundreds of civilians, and I’ve had relatives who witnessed the tragedy.

My grand-grandfather told my mother that people were impaled that day. Pregnant women were cut open, children killed with the bayonette, entire families murdered, all sorts of almost unimaginable acts of brutality. I say unimaginable because in Zalau the inter-ethnic relation between Romanians and Hungarians almost 70 years after the atrocity is excellent.

Anyway, the documentary stresses that most Hungarians felt that the Threaty of Paris was unjust. Well, if I’d loose my empire, I’d be pretty pissed too. But all their frustration was turned against the Romanians, for they were the majority in Ardeal (and in Transylvania in general) and used their self determination right to join Romania. They have forgotten the Romanian military initiative that saved Hungary from communism. In September 1919, the Romanian Royal Army took Budapest, and in consequence Bela Kun’s Hungarian Soviet Republic seized to exist. This was not a war of conquest, but one of liberation.

After the Romanian army pushed back the Horthyst and German troops in World War II, the Meses Mountain (where Treznea is located) became the front line. It is perhaps interesting to point out that there were no atrocities once the Romanian army retook lost ground and entered Hungary.

We must remember the tragedies of Ip and Treznea. I am glad that sombody has made this documentary to honor the memory of those who were murdered there. For far too long these dark episodes of history have been kept silent or ignored. But the stories of Ip and Treznea will continue, their memory will not fade, grandfathers tell the stories to their children, just like I learned this from my grand-grandfather through my mother.

Tags: ardeal, horthyst army, hungarian troops, ip, massacre, transylvania, treznea, treznea massacre, world war 2, zalau

The notorious private military firm Blackwater was hired by the CIA to transfer prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to secret prisons in Asia for interrogation, informs the German newspaper Der Spiegel.

The newspaper says it has obtained a memo from two ex-Blackwater employees which writes that the CIA employed “Blackwater and its subsidiaries” to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to “secret detention camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for interrogation.”

Tags: afghanistan, blackwater, cia, guantanamo bay, interrogation, pakistan, secret prisons, uzbekistan

An Afghan journalist working for a series of international media outlets was killed in northwest Pakistan. The region is one of the most dangerous spots in the world for the media as journalists are targeted directly.

Reports inform that the 40-year-old Janullah Hashimzada was returning from Afghanistan when militants attacked his vehicle near Jamrud, a town located in the Khybar tribal district known to host many Taliban militants.

Rehan Gul Khatok, assistant administrative agent in Jamrud said that the gunmen stopped the vehicle and shot the journalist dead. He also mentions that Hashimzada was very critical of the Taliban and had valuable information regarding the militans. Even more, “his reporting was unacceptable both to Pakistani and Afghan governments and intelligence agencies,” he told the Vienna based International Press Institute.

Tags: jamrud, journalist killed, northwestern pakistan, taliban stronghold

The Aegis Weapon System destined for Australia’s first Air Warfare Destroyer began a four month testing program today at Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Production Test Center.

When testing concludes, the full Aegis Weapon System will be ready for installation in HMAS Hobart, the first of three Australian Air Warfare Destroyers under contract.

Lockheed Martin’s Production Test Center replicates a ship’s superstructure and allows for the first integration of all the subsystems of the Aegis Weapon System, including the SPY-1D(V) radar, illuminators, all computing hardware, and the cabling that will be used in the final ship installation. In its Production Test Center, Lockheed Martin conducts testing concurrently with each subsystem’s installation, as well as with the entire completed Aegis Weapon System, in order to ensure the system is ready for the rigors of sea before it ever leaves land.

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Tags: aegis missile system, Aegis Weapon System, air warfare destroyer, australia, lockheed martin

When the book is about robotics and advanced military technology, the reader might expect a more technical writing style – the author offering the full list of specs without too much thought on the art of writing. This is certainly not the case for Wired for War. P. W. Singer actually tells the fascinating story of unmanned machines, their evolution from the time when Nikola Testla demonstrated at the Madison Square Garden that he can control a boat by using radio frequencies to the unmanned vehicle remotely steered using a PlayStation-like controller.

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Tags: afghanistan, conflict in the 21st century, drones, gulf war, iraq, land robots, military robots, modern warfare, p.w. singer, peter warren singer, robots, the great war, the robotics revolution, uavs, ulvs, unmanned aerial vehicles, vietnam war, wired for war, ww2

The United States have failed to see the evolution of warfare and the political reality of Iraq and Afghanistan before troops moved in. Every war brings changes to society and these particular armed conflicts facilitated the rise of the private military industry. Once the private military firms deployed armed personnel, a series of legal and ethical issues appear: is the employee to be regarded as a soldier or as a civilian? Can private military firms use lethal force? Under what circumstances? If abuses are committed, is the company to be held responsible since it provided weapons and ammunition?

The government failed to provide quick and concise solutions to these problems leading to serious human rights abuses.

In a two-week visit to the United States, the UN Working Group focused on the impact that private security contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq have on human rights. The Group expressed concern about the lack of public information on the contracts as well as poor investigations into human rights abuses committed by the firms.

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Tags: afghanistan, blackwater, bosnia, dyncorp, erik prince, human rights abuses, iraq, private military firms, un working group, united nations, xe

Romania exported infantry arms and antitank weapons to Georgia at the end of 2008 worth over 3.6 million euro, according to local Romania newspaper Cotidianul.

Russian ambassador to Romania, Aleksandr Ciurilin was quoted by the newspaper saying that “some countries are willing to contribute to the rise of the military potential of Georgia even after the Tzhinvali pogrom.”

Asked by the same publication if the ambassador has any information on the arms export, he is quoted saying that “I have no information regarding any help from Romania in arming Georgia.”

Tags: antitank weapons, arms export, Arms Trade, georgia, infantry, romania

Patrick Cockburn is a journalist and a veteran war correspondent. He began his carrier as a Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times and the Independent in 1979 and he concentrated on Iraq ever since.

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Tags: middle east, patrick cockburn, the occupation, war and resistance in iraq, war correspondent