United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

"Four U.S. soldiers were killed in roadside bombings Tuesday and Wednesday, the U.S. military said, bringing to 10 the number of Americans killed in Iraq since Monday," the Washington Post reported Thursday.[1] -- In a separate incident, Iraqi officials said four members of a family, including two small children, were killed when a U.S. military patrol called in an airstrike on a farmhouse in response to gunfire that was, it turned out, warning shots from a farmer who thought he was responding to thieves. -- The Los Angeles Times gave additional details on another incident mentioned in the Post report in which civilians died, identifying as "a manager and two female employees from a bank at the airport" three civilians killed when U.S. soldiers who were part of "a convoy stopped near the Baghdad international airport to recover a stalled vehicle" shot and caused "a fiery crash."[2] -- The two incidents are examples of how U.S. rules of engagement are prioritizing force protection. -- This problem, which alienates the very groups the military is supposedly present to protect, has for years plagued U.S. forces, both military and mercenary, in Afghanistan and Iraq. -- It was the subject of an article a year ago published by IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks, associated with the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA]) reporting on a statement from an NGO umbrella group that said: "We strongly condemn the operations and force protection measures carried out by international military forces in which disproportionate or indiscriminate use of force has resulted in civilian casualties" and described how "civilians have been killed for simply driving or walking too close to international military personnel or vehicles."[3] -- COMMENT: Philip Bobbitt, who believes that what we are in the midst of an historic transition from the nation-state to what he calls "the market state," argues that a shift in emphasis to force protection is one of many changes in warfare that are part of that transition: "Third, the shift to a market state has largely replaced conscription with an all-volunteer, which is to say market-based, force. Traditional tasks like peeling potatoes are outsourced to McDonald's because it is cheaper to do so. Conscription, 'the human production line' as [Rupert] Smith terms it [in The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London, Allen Lane, 2005)] — in another industrial, nation state metaphor — is being phased out in many countries, and there is no longer a seemingly infinite number of persons whose cost to the State is confined to their maintenance. This has led to much greater professionalization of the force, but also to greater emphasis on force protection. 'We fight,' Smith writes, 'so as not to lose the force, rather than fighting by using the force at any cost to achieve the aim.' For many reasons, the citizens of a market state are more sensitive to the value of individual life and less tolerant of sacrifice. Accordingly, there is 'a greater emphasis on force protection including body armor, heavily armored vehicles, and well protected bases.' The implications of this change for the Wars of Terror are considerable if not widely appreciated, for these measures 'distance the force from the people amongst whom they operate and who may conceal the adversary, who are the primary audience and the source of information . . . [Indeed] most armed forces deploy with very large administrative structures designed for wars of maneuvering large mass. They require guarding and fortifying [but in a war against terror the] more they are secured, the more isolated and the more of a target they become" (Philip Bobbitt, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008], pp. 149-50). -- NOTE: UFPPC's Monday evening book discussion group, Digging Deeper, will begin a two-week examination of Bobbitt's Terror and Consent at 7:00 p.m. on Mon. Jun. 30, at Tacoma's Mandolin Cafe....

BAGHDAD -- Four U.S. soldiers died in roadside bombings Tuesday and Wednesday, the U.S. military said, bringing to 10 the number of Americans killed in Iraq since Monday.

Three U.S. soldiers and an interpreter were killed in a roadside bombing late Tuesday in Nineveh province, a military statement said. In recent weeks, U.S. and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations against Sunni insurgents in the area.

An American soldier was killed in eastern Baghdad on Wednesday morning by an armor-piercing roadside bomb, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials said a U.S. airstrike killed four members of a family north of Baghdad early Wednesday. Iraqi and U.S. officials provided conflicting accounts of the incident.

Capt. Ahmed al-Azwawi, a police official in Samra, a village about seven miles south of Tikrit, said U.S. troops were conducting an operation in the area when a man fired shots in the air with an AK-47.

Azwawi said the man, who sold propane gas for a living, was afraid thieves were in the vicinity.

U.S. soldiers then retreated and called in an airstrike, Azwawi said, killing the man, his wife, and two of their children.

The U.S. military said in a statement that soldiers carried out the airstrike after ground troops were shot at during an operation targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group.

An armed man was seen walking toward a "group of buildings," the military said. They cordoned off the area and asked him to come out, the statement said.

When he "refused to comply," the military said, soldiers "perceived hostile intent from the armed man and called for supporting aircraft to engage the building."

The man, whom the military described as a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed, the military said. The statement did not address the reported deaths of the woman and children but said four women inside the damaged building "sustained minor injuries."

Azwawi identified the dead man as Afar Ahmed Zeidan. The police official said Zeidan's wife, Khawlah Talab, and two of their children, Noor Afar Ahmed, 8, and Alaa Afar Ahmed, 6, were also killed. Another child in the house was taken to a hospital in critical condition, the police officials said.

A man who said he was a cousin of Zeidan confirmed Azwawi's account, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he said he was afraid of retaliation.

Later Wednesday morning, U.S. troops in Baghdad killed three men who shot at them near Baghdad International Airport, the military said in a statement. The soldiers were in a parked armored car when men in a moving vehicle shot at them. U.S. soldiers returned fire, the military said. The car slammed into a wall and burst into flames, the military said, killing its three occupants. U.S. soldiers recovered a weapon from the vehicle.

In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a minibus killed at least two people Wednesday night in the old part of the city, Iraqi security and health officials in the province said.

--Special correspondents Aziz Alwan, Saad al-Izzi and K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.

** The military says the Americans were fired upon first in clashes in Baghdad and near Tikrit. **

BAGHDAD -- Nine Iraqi civilians were killed Wednesday in two armed clashes involving U.S. soldiers, local authorities reported. The military said U.S. soldiers were fired upon first in both incidents.

In the capital, three people were killed in a fiery crash after gunfire erupted as their vehicle passed U.S. soldiers with a convoy stopped near the Baghdad international airport to recover a stalled vehicle.

Officials at Yarmouk Hospital identified the dead as a manager and two female employees from a bank at the airport. Iraqi police also reported that two bodyguards were injured.

A statement from the U.S. military characterized the three as criminals who opened fire on the military convoy about 9 a.m. The statement said that the assault left bullet holes in the U.S. vehicles and that a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.

The conflicting information in the two reports could not be immediately reconciled.

In east Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed one American soldier Wednesday, the U.S. military announced today. At least 4,110 U.S. service members have died since the war began in 2003, according to icasualties.org.

Earlier Wednesday outside Tikrit, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, six people were killed and three injured in and near a farmhouse that was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike, police said. A U.S. ground patrol called in the strike after coming under fire.

Police said the farmer, Affar Ahmed Zidan, heard the patrol outside about 2:30 a.m. and fired three warning shots in the air, thinking the soldiers were thieves.

Zidan then phoned police for help while hiding under a tree, saying he feared the Americans would bomb him, police said.

A neighbor, Tariq Azzawi, said Zidan was killed beside the tree and his wife and three children were killed in the house. The hospital raised the toll to six.

A statement from the U.S. military said the patrol was fired upon and surveillance teams observed an armed man moving into a nearby group of buildings. The airstrike was ordered when he refused to come out.

The man was killed and four women were slightly injured, but a thorough search did not reveal any other deaths, the statement said.

Civilian deaths at the hands of the U.S. military and private security contractors are a nagging cause of resentment with the Iraqi public and have become a sticking point in negotiations on an agreement to allow U.S.-led forces to remain in Iraq after the United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.

The Iraqi government is seeking legal jurisdiction in all cases involving injury or death to Iraqis. U.S. negotiators are willing to allow private security contractors to come under Iraqi law, but not the military.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Wednesday, a Mosul City Council member and his driver were fatally shot in an ambush. A car bomb went off near an ice cream shop in east Baghdad, killing three and injuring seven, police said. And two people were killed and four people were injured in Karbala when a bomb detonated in a microbus.

In Washington, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani met with President Bush in the White House.

Talabani's office released a statement saying he praised Bush as "a great friend of the Iraqi people" and pledged to work toward a security agreement between the two countries.

--Special correspondents in Baghdad, Najaf and Samarra contributed to this report.

KABUL -- A network of Afghan and international non-government organizations (NGOs) has called on international forces in Afghanistan to do more to protect civilians in their combat operations.

The call comes amid increasing criticism of the international troops fighting Taliban insurgents, with scores of civilians, including women and children, perishing as a result of their operations.

“We strongly condemn the operations and force protection measures carried out by international military forces in which disproportionate or indiscriminate use of force has resulted in civilian casualties,” read a statement released by the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella of more than 90 humanitarian and development NGOs.

The statement holds Afghan and international forces responsible for at least 230 civilian deaths, including 60 women and children, in their military engagements in 2007 alone.

“Fourteen civilians have been killed for simply driving or walking too close to international military personnel or vehicles,” the statement said.

On 17 June, U.S. warplanes bombed a religious school in Zarghun Shah District of western Paktika Province, killing seven children aged 8 to 15, a U.S. military press release said. U.S. forces have blamed Taliban and al-Qaeda for the unfortunate incident.

“This is another example of al-Qaeda using the protective status of a mosque, as well as innocent civilians, to shield themselves,” read a press release, issued on 18 June from the U.S. military base at Baghram airfield.

The NGOs urged the international forces to comply with international and Afghan laws, and respect local culture while conducting house searches and arrests.

The NGO association, which includes many Western humanitarian organisations, said Afghan support for international military forces had “substantially diminished.”

“Excessive and disproportionate use of force is not only illegal and wrong but is also counter-productive,” the NGOs said.

NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. troops operating under Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) command in Afghanistan rejected the criticism.

“We have always respected international law in our military engagements and have worked alongside Afghan forces,” said Maj. Chris Belchera, a U.S. military spokesman at Baghram airfield to the north of the capital, Kabul.

A spokesman for ISAF in Kabul, Maj John Thomas, gave a similar account, adding NATO would do its best to reduce civilian casualties in its operations.

“Sometimes we even call off air strikes to avoid unnecessary harm to noncombatants,” Thomas said.

However, Matt Waldman from a British charity organisation, Oxfam GB, called on the U.S. military to do more for the safety of civilians in Afghanistan.

Hundreds of civilians have died in numerous suicide and roadside explosions carried out by the Taliban and their allies.

On 15 June, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Tarinkot, the provincial capital of southern Urozgan Province, killing one soldier and 11 children, according to the U.N.

Sources associated with Taliban rebels claimed responsibility for the attack but blamed soldiers for choosing to patrol where children were playing.

Members of ACBAR have, furthermore, asked Afghan and international forces, including all American armed units in Afghanistan, to establish a permanent body for better coordination and common standards of operation.

NGOs have indicated that many incidents in which unarmed Afghans have been affected by military operations are caused by inaccurate or false information.

Afghan, OEF, and NATO forces, however, say their efforts are already well coordinated.

Thomas said ISAF maintained good coordination with Afghan and OEF forces on a daily basis: “We work together on tactical and operational levels.”

Waldman calls the current level of coordination between NATO, OEF, and Afghan forces “insufficient” and, according to him, in need of urgent improvement.

Based on a strategic partnership signed by Bush and his Afghan counterpart Karzai in May 2005, U.S. troops have freedom of action in all military operations in Afghanistan.

The ACBAR network of NGOs has called on the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the country’s human rights commission (AIHRC) to investigate every incident in which armed conflicts affect non-combatants -- with the aim of verifying conflicting pieces of information.