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Allauddin Khan/Associated Press
The bodies of several men and a child who witnesses said were killed
by a United States Army sergeant in southern Afghanistan. More Photos
»
By TAIMOOR SHAH and GRAHAM BOWLEY
PANJWAI, Afghanistan — American officials scrambled Monday to
understand why a veteran Army staff sergeant, a married father of two
only recently deployed here, left his base a day earlier to massacre
at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of
southern Afghanistan. The devastating, unexplained attack deepened the
sense of siege for Western personnel in this country, as denunciations
brought a moment of unity to three major Afghan factions: civilians,
insurgents and government officials.
Residents of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar
Province described a terrifying string of attacks in which the
soldier, who had walked more than a mile from his base, tried door
after door, eventually breaking in to kill within three separate
houses. The man gathered 11 bodies, including those of 4 girls younger
than 6, and set fire to them, villagers said. At least 5 people were
injured.
While some Afghans had speculated that helicopter-borne troops were
involved, a senior American diplomat told a meeting of diplomats from
allied countries on Monday morning that the gunman had acted alone,
walking first to a village and then to a cluster of houses some 500
yards away. He returned to the base and is in custody. He is to face
charges under the military justice system, officials said. Helicopters
and other troops arrived only after the shooting, the diplomat said,
and the helicopters evacuated the wounded.
A senior American military official said the sergeant was attached to
a unit based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a major Army and Air Force
installation near Tacoma, Wash., and that he had been part of what is
called a village stabilization operation. In those operations, teams
of Green Berets, supported by other soldiers, try to develop close
ties with village elders, organize local police units and track down
Taliban leaders. The official said the sergeant was not a Green Beret
himself.
Panjwai, a rural district near the city of Kandahar, was traditionally
a Taliban stronghold. It was a focus of the United States military
offensive in 2010 and was the scene of heavy fighting. Two American
soldiers were killed by small-arms fire in Panjwai on March 1, and
three died in a roadside bomb attack in February.
Another senior military official said the sergeant was 38 and married
with two children. He had served three tours of duty in Iraq, this
official said, and had been deployed to Afghanistan for the first time
in December. Yet another military official said he has served in the
Army for 11 years.
Furious comments mounted on social networking sites like Afghan blogs
and Facebook, some of them accompanied by graphic photographs of what
appeared to be children slain in the attack. "This is a clear crime
and will only add to the people who hate American in Afghanistan,"
said one. "You can't give their lives back to them with apologies."
Following the attacks, the Taliban threatened vengeance, as the
insurgents often do after Western actions they depict as atrocities. A
Taliban statement posted online Monday denounced the killings, saying
they were the latest in a series of humiliations against the Afghan
people and denying that any Taliban fighters had been in the area.
The Afghan Parliament said it condemned "this inhumane and uncivilized act."
"We urge the United States government to punish the culprits and put
them on trial in an open court so that the rest of those who want to
shed our innocent people's blood take a lesson from it," it said in a
statement.
One member of Parliament from Kandahar, Mohammed Naim Lalai Hamidzai,
lashed out at the Afghan leader over the killings, suggesting that "if
President Karzai cannot fix the situation, we urge him and his vice
presidents to resign."
In a measure of the mounting mistrust between Afghans and the
coalition, however, many Afghans, including lawmakers and other
officials, said they believed the attacks had been planned, and were
incredulous that one American soldier could have carried out such
attacks without help.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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On Mar 12, 9:20 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> New York's Irish parade grapples with march of time, excludes gays
>
> With its controversial history, Manhattan's St Patrick's Day parade
> has become an event where ideas of Irishness collide, writes FRIEDA
> KLOTZ
>
> ON A WEDNESDAY evening in the middle of January, about 150 men and
> women gathered in the president's room of the New York Athletic Club,
> just by Central Park. Many Irish-American associations were
> represented: the United Irish Counties, the Gaelic Societies, the
> various Emerald Guilds and Holy Name Societies, the Ancient Order of
> Hibernians and its women's counterpart the Ladies Ancient Order of
> Hibernians, and others.
> Everyone in the room stood up and said an Our Father and then a Hail
> Mary. John Dunleavy, originally from Coole, Co Westmeath, and now from
> Riverdale in the Bronx, said a prayer for the 251st St Patrick's Day
> parade, and then it was time for business.
>
> This was the delegates' meeting of the New York City St Patrick's Day
> Parade. It is the biggest Irish parade in the world, drawing up to
> three million spectators and watched by millions more on television.
> For a day it shuts down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in a spectacle of
> green and gold and military display. It is a huge logistical
> operation, requiring months of planning, fundraising and liaising with
> city authorities.
>
> The committee's 25 men and two women, all volunteers, have decades of
> experience. Dunleavy counts 41 years, the past 19 as chairman; Hilary
> Beirne, an officer, has helped for 24. Beirne jokes that committee
> members' spouses become parade widows from January to March.
>
> During the 1970s and early 1980s the event was plagued by riotous
> behaviour, until the police and the parade organisers cracked down.
> The committee is still haunted by the cliche of Irish drinking. Strict
> rules now ordain how marchers should behave: business attire is
> required; no green hats, sneakers or oddball dress; no animals or
> mascots; no eating, drinking or smoking.
>
> Dunleavy says there is no desire to return to the unruliness of those
> decades. "Alcohol consumption back then was absolutely horrendous," he
> says. "They were drunk as skunks along on Fifth Avenue. And then up
> along on Central Park, the debauchery that was going on with men and
> women – forget about it."
>
> The Fifth Avenue parade is not the only one in New York. Throughout
> March, St Patrick's celebrations flower across the city. They have
> already taken place in Staten Island and Sunnyside, in Queens, and
> will soon be on in the Bronx (tomorrow) and Brooklyn (March 18th).
>
> These events are not so much about Ireland as about being Irish in the
> US. "It's a people reinterpreting their identity and reasserting their
> understanding of it in another country," says Peter Quinn, a writer
> whose ancestors came over to the US in 1847. He is a co-grand marshal
> of the parade in Queens. "The minute the Irish got off the boat in New
> York they were no longer Irish – they were still Irish, but they were
> becoming something else."
>
> But as the largest St Patrick's celebration in the city, the Fifth
> Avenue event has become the most fraught – a hub where different
> ideals of Irishness meet and often collide. Until the 1990s, it was
> sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, self-described as "a
> Catholic, fraternal organisation", and many on the parade committee
> are still Hibernian members.
>
> As some parts of the Irish community have grown more liberal,
> divisions have opened up, and gay and lesbian groups have protested
> vociferously at their exclusion.
>
> Organisers point out that gay individuals are free to march, just not
> to publicise their sexuality. But activists such as Brendan Fay say
> this is an attempt to push them back into the closet.
>
> "Ordinary decent people roll their eyes and wonder what it's all
> about," says Fay, who was arrested multiple times for attempting to
> participate in the Fifth Avenue parade. He eventually founded the St
> Pat's for All parade, a smaller festival going through Sunnyside and
> Woodside that espouses a deliberately inclusive ethos.
>
> Last month the Consul General of Ireland, Noel Kilkenny, held a party
> for the St Pat's for All parade at his residence, at which its grand
> marshals were announced. It was the first time this had happened (and
> another first: the Government sent Minister of State Kathleen Lynch to
> St Pat's for All as its representative). Several politicians attended,
> including the 84-year-old former mayor of New York David Dinkins.
>
> Dinkins's presence was symbolic. Back in 1991 Dinkins, who was New
> York's first African-American mayor, marched with the Irish Lesbian
> and Gay Organisation, whose participation was extremely controversial,
> instead of at the head of the parade. A report from the time in the
> New York Times describes how the mayor was forced to duck to avoid
> beer cans that hurtled through the air in his direction.
>
> Tensions also flared among the Hibernians themselves. The parade of
> 1993 was almost cancelled, as a split occurred between those in favour
> of and those against gay inclusion. Two years later the US supreme
> court came to a decision on the Boston parade, which also held for New
> York: under the first amendment, parade sponsors had a right to
> exclude marchers whose message they reject.
>
> The Fifth Avenue parade has swum in complex political waters
> throughout its history. In 1983, an 81-year-old named Michael Flannery
> was chosen as grand marshal. He had been a founder of Noraid, a
> fundraising organisation set up after the start of the Troubles, and
> was an open supporter of the IRA. In a gesture that made headlines,
> Cardinal Terence Cooke declined to shake Flannery's hand. Today the
> parade's website still states: "The only banners allowed are ones
> identifying the unit or 'England Get Out of Ireland'." Only a handful
> of groups choose that message, but Dunleavy says that for now it will
> remain. "My policy is that until there's a united Ireland it should
> stay there."
>
> At a reception for the grand marshal and aides of the Fifth Avenue
> parade at Antun's, a restaurant, late last month, there was little
> hint of this fractious past. Irish America was on display in its most
> familiar and traditional forms: green tablecloths and orange napkins
> on the tables, girls in green dresses and boys sporting green ties.
> Noel Kilkenny was there, as was the New York senator Chuck Schumer,
> who sponsored the E3 visa Bill on immigration earlier this year. After
> dinner, a band played 1960s hits interspersed with jigs. Eddie Fee, a
> dark-haired 48-year-old from Woodside, did a skilful reel.
>
> After his dance Fee suggested that "people in Ireland are trying to
> get away from there and people in New York are trying to go back."
> It's an apt definition of the Irish-American paradox.
>
> Yet values have changed and are still changing, both in Ireland and in
> New York. Donal O'Conghaile, a 23-year-old from Boyle, in Co
> Roscommon, arrived in New York on March 17th last year and now works
> in online marketing. "Being Irish is seen very favourably, and people
> automatically like you when they hear that you're Irish," he says.
>
> As a young gay man, however, he finds the parade committee's refusal
> to allow homosexual groups to march disturbing. "I guess they see the
> parade as a family thing and somehow gay groups aren't family
> friendly. But it is ridiculous, and I cannot imagine it going on for
> much longer."
>
> To Donal Foreman, a 26-year-old film-maker, critic and teacher, the
> issue is "ridiculous and offensive. It's supposed to be a parade
> representing Ireland. Any community or group from Ireland should be
> allowed to participate."
>
> Foreman is not keen to engage with the Fifth Avenue parade's brand of
> Irishness. "Some people when they come out like to surround themselves
> with Irish people and be part of that culture, but one of the reasons
> I came was to engage with everything else," he says. "There is so much
> going on that I couldn't get in Ireland. I don't find myself pining
> for that kind of stuff."
>
> Complex route The parade's divided history
>
> During the 19th century the Ancient Order of Hibernians became the
> official sponsor of the New York City St Patrick's Day Parade.
>
> The parade has a storied history, but the past 20 years have generated
> a wealth of controversy, as tensions flared within the Irish
> community, with New York city officials, and within the order itself.
>
> In 1991 rifts began to appear that would lead to what the Irish Echo
> called a "battle over the shape and future of the parade". The county
> board of the Hibernians sued the state board of the Hibernians and, as
> part of the subsequent agreement, the parade chairman resigned. In
> 1992, the New York City Commission on Human Rights and the Irish
> Lesbian and Gay Organisation (Ilgo) also brought a case against the
> Hibernians for excluding gay groups, but the federal judge declined to
> intervene.
>
> A year later, an Irish Echo headline ran "Parade War Getting Nasty".
> When some Hibernians who favoured gay participation obtained the
> parade permit from the city, the Hibernians' national president called
> for a boycott. The gay-friendly faction withdrew. Celebrations went
> ahead without a grand marshal, and 230 members and supporters of Ilgo
> were arrested in protests – a pattern that would continue, to a lesser
> extent, throughout that decade.
>
> Today an independent committee is responsible for the parade. John
> Dunleavy, the committee chairman, was at one point a member of the
> Hibernians, but he says he "kind of dropped out".
>
> Dunleavy says the Hibernians "participate in the parade but, as
> regards running the parade, they don't have any say". The parade is
> run by St Patrick's Day Parade Inc.
>
> More:http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0310/1224313099212.html
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a ...
>
> read more »
--
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