Nick Barrickman

A report released by Amnesty International, Left in the dark: Failures of accountability for civilian casualties caused by international military operations in Afghanistan, investigates widespread civilian killings that have been carried out in recent years under the US-led occupation in Afghanistan.

Amnesty investigated nearly a dozen instances of mass killings by NATO and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) that took place between 2009 and 2013. The report focuses on the role played by US official occupying forces due to their numerical preponderance in the ISAF, the main international occupying force in Afghanistan.

“None of the cases that we looked into--involving more than 140 civilian deaths--were prosecuted by the US military,” the report concludes. “Evidence of possible war crimes and unlawful killings has seemingly been ignored.” Witnesses recall being interviewed by numerous local groups, including human rights organizations, Afghan police and UN investigators. However, only two of the witnesses interviewed reported ever having been spoken to by military investigators, i.e. those with the “power to bring a criminal prosecution against the alleged perpetrators.”

This is largely due, the report states, to a military justice system which is “commander-driven” and based upon “self-policing.” In other words, war crimes are generally carried out with impunity.

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Nick Barrickman

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden highlight the extensive collaboration between the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Israel’s SIGINT National Unit (ISNU). The documents were published in The Intercept by journalist Glenn Greenwald.

One document, dated April 13, 2013, shows that the NSA works with ISNU to collect and analyze raw data, including data acquired from US citizens. According to the document, the NSA “maintains a far-reaching technical and analytic relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit, sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting.”

“This SIGINT relationship has increasingly been the catalyst for a broader intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel.” “The Israeli side enjoys the benefits of expanded geographic access to world-class NSA crypto analytic and SIGINT engineering expertise, and also gains controlled access to advanced US technology and equipment via accommodation buys and foreign military sales.”

The same document shows that the NSA and the ISNU work together to acquire intelligence on targets in North Africa, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, South Asia and the former Soviet Union, sharing “a dedicated communications line” for the “exchange of raw material, as well as daily analytic and technical correspondence.”

“The single largest exchange between NSA and ISNU is on targets in the Middle East which constitute strategic threats to US and Israeli interests…Within that set of countries, cooperation covers the exploitation of internal governmental, military, civil and diplomatic Communications.”

Documents leaked by Snowden also expose the substantial support enjoyed by Israel from Western intelligence as it coordinates war crimes against the Palestinians.

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