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Is Emergency Evacuation from Seabrook Reactor Even Possible? Public Hearings Demanded

By John LaForge

Ever wonder if the nuclear reactor near you has an evacuation plan that would work in an emergency? Have you ever been stuck in barely moving traffic on an interstate highway even when there was no crisis, no sirens, and no panic?

People driving Interstate-95 near the Seabrook reactor in New Hampshire have, and they have reason to worry, especially after the nonprofit group We the People and its founder Stephen Comley produced “No Evacuation Possible,” a public service video of routine summertime traffic jams on I-95 — Seabrook’s disaster escape route, and warning of the impossibility of an evacuation in the event of an accident at Seabrook.

One wonders how many other nuclear reactors have a single evacuation route that is frequently, even routinely, rendered nonfunctional. Commercial reactors are required by law to have a workable escape plan.

In January 2018, the town of Merrimac, Mass. joined half a dozen other communities calling on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to hold a hearing on whether Seabrook’s evacuation plan can be effectively implemented.

Reactor owner NextEra Energy Resources issued a Jan. 20, 2018 response/nonresponse in which it failed to address evacuation issues: “We have extensive emergency response systems in place,” the firm said, “including numerous back-up safety systems that provide our plants with layer upon layer of both automated and manual protection….”

Right. And—as with other catastrophic commercial nuclear power accidents, what if those back-ups fail and emergency evacuation is required?

NextEra’s dismissive position has helped We the People’s public warnings gain traction. Major state politicians and municipalities that are within what Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has called — in a Feb. 26, 2019 letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — “the 50-mile Ingestion Exposure Pathway Emergency Planning Zone” have begun raising their own alarms.

Massachusetts State Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and State Representative Brad Hill wrote to State Attorney General Maura Healey October 10, 2018, complaining of “constituent inquiries” about Seabrook’s evacuation plan. The lawmakers reported that the public “has become increasingly concerned about effectively evacuating the area in the event [of] a nuclear emergency,” and noted that “drone-recorded video of the Hampton Beach during the summer tourist season … shows the heavy traffic congestion on the seacoast.”

We the People has also won resolutions from half a dozen local towns and city councils in Massachusetts and New Hampshire calling on state and federal agencies to convene a public hearing where emergency first responders could try and explain the Seabrook emergency evacuation plan.

Last September 25, New Hampshire State Representative Peter Schmidt wrote to AG Healey about the “urgency” of having first responders “testify as to the plans and possibilities for safely, effectively and expeditiously evacuating the seacoast in the event of a nuclear emergency.” Several municipalities within the evacuation zone have “strongly endorsed We the People’s call for this first responder hearing,” Schmidt wrote.

Representative Schmidt’s letter raised two additional issues that We The People has brought to light. What Schmidt called “some sort of gag order” has allegedly been imposed on Massachusetts State Police officers and the New Hampshire National Guard members, forbidding them from speaking about evacuation issues.

Mr. Comley personally made a formal, recorded presentation regarding the question of the alleged gag order to the Massachusetts State Police on September 2, 2016. Then, according to a February 14, 2018 letter by Christina Lucin of the State Patrol’s Fraud Identification Unit, the record of the proceedings were “lost.” Consequently, Representative Schmidt complained to AG Healey: “[T]he disappearance of the record is very troubling.”

Seabrook is 13 miles south of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and 40 miles north of Boston, large cities within the “ingestion exposure” zone. In March 2011, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recommended the evacuation of all US residents from within 50 miles of the three Fukushima reactor meltdowns in Japan.

The Seabrook reactor is set between the towns of Seabrook and Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, a mere 1.2 miles east of Interstate 95. Hampton Beach and its popular state park are only 1.6 miles to the east.

So far, AG Healey has still not agreed to schedule a public hearing for first responders to speak about their concerns over the plausibility of emergency evacuation. We the People and seven local municipalities in the Emergency Planning Zone are still waiting to hear from the Attorney General’s office.

There are 98 commercial nuclear power reactors in the US. How many would effectively become weapons of mass destruction if an accident or a terrorist bomb made emergency evacuation both necessary and impossible?

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Superior Refinery Blast and Fire Raise Persistent Questions

Beyond the Berm: liquid asphalt gushed from a tank that was punctured by shrapnel from an explosion at the Husky Energy oil refinery in Superior, Wis., last April 26. The oil and other chemicals then burned for 9 hours. (Robert King/Duluth News Tribune/Reuters)

Following last April’s Husky Energy oil refinery explosion, fire, and resulting evacuations, it took a year for Husky to officially declare its intention to continue the use of hydrogen fluoride (HF) at its Superior, Wis. operations. In its Apr. 3rd announcement, the Canadian company said it would keep using the deadly chemical and upgrade some safety features.

HF is a contact poison capable of causing blindness, cardiac arrest and even death from fluid buildup in the lungs. Swallowing only a bit may be fatal. HF burns through skin, eyes, lungs and the GI tract, and seeks the bones. HF even interferes with nerve function, so symptoms of exposure may not be immediate, and HF burns may not initially be painful.

The April 26, 2018 explosion “was felt for miles” according to the Mpls StarTribune. The blast was so violent that shrapnel from the explosion was blown 200 feet, according to an August 2, 2018 Factual Update by the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, “puncturing the side of [a] steel tank and spilling over 15,000 barrels of hot asphalt into the refinery.” How much “over 15,000” the update didn’t say. This liquid asphalt caught fire around 12:15 p.m. and burned for nine hours.

An evacuation order covering a 3-mile radius around the refinery, and a 10-mile down wind rectangle to the south, was imposed to get people away from the fire’s plume of toxic smoke and from a possible leak of the HF. Luckily, no HF was dispersed by the explosion and fire, and the evacuation order was lifted at 6 a.m. the next day.

The evacuation order extended for a 3-mile radius around the refinery and a 10-mile rectangle downwind.
Fire Fighters Used Toxic Chemicals Too

To extinguish the asphalt blaze, fire retardant containing dangerous compounds was used in large quantities. Consequently, “Water has shown trace amounts of perfluoralkyl sulfonate, a chemical found in firefighting foam…,” the Duluth News Tribune reported on May 7, 2018. Exactly what water, the paper didn’t say. Was it in St. Louis Bay, firefighting runoff, the sewer system, nearby Newton Creek, all of the above?

Perfluoralkyl sulfonate is one of some 3,000 infamous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. PFAS are a kind of poison known as “forever” or “persistent” chemicals because they don’t break down in the environment. Under the title, “Risk Management for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)”, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it is “particularly concerned” about PFAS chemicals because they “are persistent in the environment, bio-accumulative in wildlife and humans, and are toxic to laboratory animals and wildlife, producing reproductive, developmental, and systemic effects in laboratory tests.”

Nevertheless, EPA still allows widespread use of PFAS contaminants even though Harvard scientists say in a 2015 study that an infinitesimal amount — “one part-per-trillion (ppt)” — is likely to be harmful to human health. The study reported that “existing drinking water limits … may be more than 100-fold too high.” Researcher Pat Elder with CivilianExposure.org, told Nukewatch on April 23, “Trace amounts of PFAS can cause miscarriages, testicular cancer, and have been linked to liver and kidney cancers.”

Last October, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Superior Refining Company LLC for eight serious violations of OSHA’s process safety management procedures including failing to control the use and release of highly hazardous chemicals. The company was fined $83,150. The fine adds to a long record of bad faith by the refinery: in 2008, then owner Murphy Oil paid a $179,000 fine for safety violations including the switching off of hazard alarms; in 2015 new owners Calumet was fined $16,500 for breaking rules regarding flammable liquids, hazardous waste and emergency response.

That Was Then: Officials Once Demanded Alternatives to Hydrogen Fluoride

Not much attention has been paid to PFAS since it was found in the water. The focus of EPA, OSHA, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, and the cities of Superior and Duluth has been Husky’s hydrogen fluoride danger. On May 1 last year, Superior Mayor Jim Paine and Duluth Mayor Emily Larson both called on Husky Energy to stop using the HF. US Rep. Betty McCollum, D-MN, chimed in last May 9, calling on Marathon Petroleum in St. Paul Park to stop using HF. Husky waited until this month to say it’s sticking with HF.

After initially noting some disappointment, Mayor Paine told Nukewatch over the phone that he was now satisfied with assurances made by Husky that planned improvements will make its use of HF safer. Mayor Larson issued a statement around April 3 saying she was frustrated and angered by the decision. “I recognize that alternatives to [HF] may be more complicated, and more expensive, but those reasons pale in comparison to the potential devastation this choice can cause” which, Larson wrote, “unacceptably elevates danger to our environment and our people.”

Local activists with the group Twin Ports Action Alliance have planned several events this weekend marking the shocking event’s first anniversary. Many questions still demand answers: How many wells were tested? To what depth were the wells tested (600 feet may be clear, while 150 feet may not). Where were the testing wells? What amounts of PFAS were found? Did the equipment detect 1 ppt, or does not find less than 100 ppt? Were individual homeowners’ wells tested? Has a plume of PFAS extended from the source? How Far? What is the direction of groundwater flow? Is the municipal water supply system tested for PFAS?  Was the sewer system contaminated? Is the sludge being tested for PFAS? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Chernobyl’s Deadly Effects Estimates Vary

By John LaForge

April 26 marks the 33rd anniversary of the 1986 radiation disaster at Chernobyl reactor Number 4 in Ukraine, just north of Kiev the capital. It is still nearly impossible to get scientific consensus on the vast extent of the impacts. The explosions and two-week long fire at Chernobyl spewed around the world something between one billion and nine billion curies of radiation — depending on whose estimates you choose to believe. The accident is classified by the UN as the worst environmental catastrophe in human history.

Chernobyl’s radioactive fallout has been blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) acknowledges only 56 deaths among firefighters who suffered and died agonizing deaths in the disaster’s immediate aftermath. However, the IAEA’s officially chartered mission is “to accelerate and enlarge the contributions of nuclear power worldwide.” Because of its institutional bias, one can dispute nearly everything the IAEA says about radiation risk.

Also on the low-end of fatality estimates is the World Health Organization which has to have its radiation studies approved by the IAEA! In 2006, the WHO’s “Expert Group concluded that there may be up to 4,000 additional cancer deaths among the three highest exposed groups over their lifetime (240,000 liquidators; 116,000 evacuees, and the 270,000 residents of the Strictly Controlled Zones).” The WHO added to this 4,000 the estimate that “among the five million residents of areas with high levels of radioactive cesium deposition” in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine” predictions suggest “up to 5,000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure…”

Alternately, Ukraine’s Minister of Health Andrei Serkyuk estimated in 1995 that 125,000 people had already died from the direct effects of Chernobyl’s radiation. Serkyuk said a disproportionate share of casualties were among children, pregnant women and rescue workers or “liquidators.” Liquidators were soldiers ordered to participate in the removal and burial of radioactive topsoil, heavy equipment, trees, and debris, wearing no protective clothing, respirators or radiation monitors.

On January 10, 2010 The Guardian reported that “reputable scientists researching the most radiation-contaminated areas of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine” dispute the IAEA estimates that only 56 firefighters died “and that about 4,000 will die from it eventually.” The paper noted for example, that, “The International Agency for Research on Cancer, another UN agency, predicts 16,000 deaths from Chernobyl; an assessment by the Russian academy of sciences says there have been 60,000 deaths so far in Russia, and an estimated 140,000 in Ukraine and Belarus.”

The Guardian further noted that, “Meanwhile, the Belarus national academy of sciences estimates 93,000 deaths so far and 270,000 cancers, and the Ukrainian national commission for radiation protection calculates 500,000 deaths so far.”

The Los Angeles Times reported in 1998 that, “Russian officials estimated 10,000 Russian ‘liquidators’ died.” The article quoted health officials who said “close to 3,600 Ukrainians who took part in the cleanup effort have died of radiation exposure.” In 2001, the BBC upped the estimate and reported, “More than 30,000 Russians have died from radiation, half of whom were involved in dealing with the immediate aftermath….”

An August 4, 2003 New Yorker magazine article noted vaguely that, “Thousands of people died of cancers and other diseases in the years after the Chernobyl disaster,” while The New York Times said April 23, 2003, “Thyroid cancer, leukemia and other cancers have skyrocketed in the area around the reactor.” Around the 10th anniversary, under the headline, “Genetics: Chernobyl’s burst in mutations,” The Washington Post reported that, “Studies indicated that people … living near Chernobyl are giving birth to offspring with a higher number of genetic mutations.” In her April 27, 1996 dispatch for the Associated Press, journalist Angela Charlton noted “a hundred-fold increase in the incidence of childhood thyroid cancers in the affected region.”

Chernobyl’s health effects were felt much further away than the area around the reactor. The Los Angeles Times reported July 25, 1996, that radiation from Chernobyl was “linked to leukemia cases in Greece.” Epidemiologic Reviews in Oxford Journals for March 30, 2005 reported, “The releases of radioactive materials were such that contamination of the ground was found to some extent in every country in the Northern Hemisphere.” In its 1988 Report to the General Assembly, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation found, “The accident at the Chernobyl … resulted in radioactive material becoming widely dispersed and deposited … throughout the northern hemisphere.”

In 2001, Alex Kuzma, executive director of the Children of Chernobyl Relief Fund, documented an 80-fold increase in cancers in Belarus and Ukraine, and reported that 50 million people, including 1.26 million children, are affected. Eugene Cahill of the Dublin-based Chernobyl Children’s Project reported in the Irish Times in 2005 that, “Nine million people in Belarus, the Ukraine and Western Russian have been directly affected by the fallout.”

Thirty-six hundred deaths, or 125,000? Nine million people affected, or 50 million? The health effects of exposing everyone in the hemisphere to Chernobyl’s radiation (and Windscale’s, and Santa Susana’s, and Fukushima’s) — effects that are often delayed for decades — are quite incalculable. Got cancer?

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Courts Hide Facts from Juries to Protect the Bomb

US Appeals Court Circuits
By John LaForge

Seven nuclear weapons protesters are facing up to 25 years in prison for a nonviolent protest at the nuclear submarine base Georgia. The “Kings Bay Plowshares 7” snuck into the base April 4, 2018, recalling the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Three of the 7 have spent a year in jail, and four are out on house arrest, awaiting trial. Considering the suppressive legal history of US anti-nuclear cases puts the courage of these seven into stark relief. They have a long row to hoe.

Between 1980 and 2005 at least seven US Circuit Courts of Appeal have ruled that trial judges may prevent juries from hearing a legitimate defense in political protest cases — even if nuclear weapons are illegal. The Appeals Courts have declared for example that defendants, “should not be excused from the criminal consequences of acts of civil disobedience simply because the acts were allegedly directed at international law violations” (US v. Allen, 1985), and, “Even if it were contrary to international law for a nation to possess nuclear weapons, domestic law could properly and does make it a crime ‘to correct a violation of international law by destroying government property’” (US v. Urfer & Sprong, 2002).

After their October 6, 2002 disarmament action at a Minuteman missile launch site in Colorado, Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson were convicted of “sabotage” and of “depredation against government property.” (jonahhouse.org/archive/space_plowshares.htm)

Before trial, their convictions were guaranteed inevitable by court an order that prohibited them from presenting trial evidence, or jury selection questions, or jury instructions, or opening or closing statements regarding the outlaw status of nuclear weapons. The trial judge mined every previous weapons protest case for any and all available defenses, in order to quash them. In an order that was later upheld by the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the trial judge used this all-encompassing exclusion of such evidence, so the jury wouldn’t hear:

any defense based on necessity or violation of international law or that impugns the … legality … of the Minuteman III missile system, including” [the defenses of] “necessity; duress; choice of evils; privilege; justification; ‘Nuremberg’; mistake of law; international law violations; US Army Field Manual violations; International Court of Justice judgment violations; Treaty violations; UN Charter violations; Vienna Convention violations; … Geneva Convention violations; and/or Tokyo Judgment violations.

There have been objections to such orders. In “Towards a Recognition of the Necessity Defense for Political Protesters,” in the Washington and Lee Law Review, Prof. Matthew Lippman wrote that, “Civil resisters typically … claim that their criminal act was a justified attempt to halt an ongoing governmental illegality.” The government is, they assert, “intentionally engaging in illegitimate criminal conduct” — nonchalantly called “deterrence” — which is the public, open-ended terroristic threat to commit massacres the world over.

Most of the court rulings forbidding necessity rely on the US v. Allen case which found, “Although their purpose may have been to uphold international law, their action disobeyed the wholly independent federal law protecting government property.” Independent it may be, but it is not superior or controlling. This blatant error or subterfuge is obvious, in view of five Supreme Court cases where US treaties are declared the “supreme law of the land” — controlling all other law.

Prof. Lippman says, “By denying protesters the use of the necessity defense, courts merely are…abdicating their constitutional duty to permit criminal defendants to introduce a defense.” Nowadays, most federal juries are prohibited from learning objective facts about nuclear weapons: either about their uncontrollable, long-term, and indiscriminate effects, or about what treaty law says about individual responsibility for planning and preparing massacres. Federal juries only hear what military officers and weapons contractors testify to about the Bomb. Their biased, self-interested testimony, from the perpetrators of the weapons crimes being protested, becomes the only “evidence” the jury is allowed to consider.

Easy to prove nuclear weapons are unlawful

Because of these court orders, federal juries never hear any expert testimony that rebut or refute the military’s or contractors’ claims about their weapons. The reason for the exclusion of these facts is obvious. Defense testimony can easily disprove the presumption and assertion that nuclear weapons are legal. The courts know this. Judges know how easy it is to show that H-bombs are outlawed.

Binding international Treaties in general — and Air Force, Navy and Army Field Manuals in particular — all “impugn the legality” of nuclear weapons. In view of nuclear weapons’ poisonous, indiscriminate and long-term effects, US military manuals and Treaty Law place them in a class along with cocaine, land mines, cluster munitions, biological weapons, and poison gas. For some reason federal courts can’t tolerate this. These prevailing laws can’t be explained to juries. It’s as if the judges believe the courts to exist in a vacuum, where even the tiniest bit of fresh air would smash their bubble.

The court system is so frightened of such a puff of air, that in one fantastic case, where a federal judge in Arizona agreed to hear a necessity defense (in a 1985 nuclear weapons protest case), the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rushed in before trial to prevent it. In US v. the Hon. Richard M. Bilby, Arizona’s US Attorney acted against the judge, are warned that allowing the defense of necessity would, “divert the focus of the trial”, “transforming routine criminal prosecutions [in]to broad-ranging and time-consuming inquiries concerning the wisdom of nuclear … policies…”  Indeed, “If left uncorrected, the … order will … possibly result in the defendants’ acquittal…” A frightening prospect indeed. The 9th Circuit ruled against judge Bilby, forbid the use of the defense, and got its conviction.

Prof. Lippman notes that, “The judiciary, in ruling on necessity, must concede that the harm created by nonviolent protesters is minor when compared to the potential consequences of a nuclear…war…”  But the judiciary absurdly pretends otherwise, and listens to federal prosecutors instead, one of whom even claimed that if a necessity defense were allowed, “the harm to the government … would be substantial.”

Dozens of lower courts have permitted necessity defenses by political resisters, and juries have often returned acquittals, as Prof. Lippman points out. “In my rather extensive experience,” he wrote, “in civil resistance cases in which defendants have been permitted to rely upon the necessity defense, a significant percentage have been acquitted by a jury of their peers.”

“It is time,” says Prof. Lippman, “to tear down the ‘Berlin Wall’ that prevents civil resisters from pleading the necessity defense…” Unfortunately for the seven Kings Bay Plowshares defendants, that wall of silence is still high and mighty.

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What’s NATO Ever Done?

Nuclear-Armed Terrorist Organization creates enemies

In April 2019, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will celebrate its 70th anniversary in Washington, D.C.* In view of the alliance’s war zone atrocities, attacks on civilians, civilian objects, and abuse of prisoners, anti-war demonstrations will greet what critics have dubbed this “Nuclear-Armed Terrorist Organization.”

NATO’s crimes, including the desecration and mutilation of corpses,   bombing of allied troops, torture of prisoners, and drone strikes on civilians, have fueled the recruitment of militants and even terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.

On March 20, 2012, Pakistani lawmakers demanded an end to all NATO/CIA drone strikes against their territory. Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Jalil Jilani said on April 26, 2012, “We consider drones illegal, counter-productive and accordingly, unacceptable.”

On May 31, 2011, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave what he called his “last” warning against NATO’s bombing of Afghani homes saying, “If they continue their attacks on our houses … history shows what Afghans do with trespassers and with occupiers.”

While bombing Libya in March 2011, NATO refused to aid a group of 72 migrants adrift in the Mediterranean. Only nine people on board survived. The refusal was condemned as “criminal” by the Council of Europe.

In a Feb. 12, 2010 atrocity kept secret until March 13, U.S. Special Forces commandos killed a teenage girl, a pregnant mother of 10, a pregnant mother of six, a police officer and his brother, and are accused of trying to cover-up the killings by digging bullets out of the victims’ bodies, washing the wounds with alcohol and lying to superior officers.

NATO jets bombed and rocketed an allied Pakistani military base for two hours Nov. 26, 2011, killing 26 Pakistani soldiers and wounding dozens more. NATO has refused to apologize.

On April 12, 1999 during NATO’s Operation Allied Force, a U.S.-piloted F-15E attacked the railway bridge over the Juzna Morava River with two precision laser-guided AGM-130 missiles, both of which hit a five-car civilian passenger train that was crossing the bridge killing between 20 and 60 people. Amnesty International said the attack should have been stopped when the train was hit, and that the second bombing was a war crime.

On April 23, 1999, again during the unlawful war on Yugoslavia, NATO bombed the headquarters of Radio Televisija Srbije, the state-owned broadcasting system in Belgrade, destroying the building. Sixteen civilian employees were killed and 16 wounded. Amnesty International said the NATO bombing  was a war crime, and Noam Chomsky called it an act of terrorism.

Headlines Record NATO Crimes

NATO’s crimes the world over have made these headlines:

  1. “U.S. Airstrike Said to Kill at Least 10 Afghan Civilians,” New York Times, Feb. 11, 2019
  2. “American Airstrikes Kill Civilians, Including Children, Afghans Charge,” New York Times, Jan. 26, 2019
  3. “Did Airstrike Kill Taliban Mastermind or Civilians,” New York Times, Jan. 24, 2019
  4. “C.I.A.-Led Afghan Forces Leave Grim Trail of Abuse: Brutal Acts Stoke Residents’ Anger and Inspire Accusations of War Crimes,” New York Times, Dec. 31, 2018
  5. “At Least a Dozen Civilians Killed in Afghan and U.S. Operation,” New York Times, Nov. 28, 2018
  6. “Navy SEAL is Accused of Bloodthirsty Killings,” New York Times, Nov. 16, 2018
  7. “Report: 3,301 civilians killed in U.S.-led strikes in Syria since 2014,” Duluth News Tribune, Sept. 24, 2018
  8. “Study: U.S. killed 500 civilians,” Minneapolis (Mpls.) StarTribune, June 3, 2018
  9. “‘Killed, Shovel in Hand’: Afghan Farmers are the Latest Victims of a Chaotic War,” New York Times, March 19, 2018
  10. “More Afghan Civilians are Victims of Targeted Attacks, UN Says,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 2018
  11. “American Airstrikes in Afghanistan Stir Debate Over Who Was Killed,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 2017
  12. “U.S. Airstrikes kill at least 13 civilians,” Mpls. StarTribune, Nov. 5, 2017
  13. “Airstrike Kills at Least 25 at Street Market in Yemen,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 2017
  14. “11 Afghans Killed in U.S. Airstrike,” New York Times, Aug. 31, 2017
  15. “3 Children Among Dead in a Raid In Somalia,” New York Times, Aug. 26, 2017
  16. “Afghans Say U.S. Strike Hit Civilians,” New York Times, Aug. 12, 2017
  17. “Civilian deaths from U.S.-led strikes on ISIS surge under Trump administration” [to an estimated 3,800], Guardian, June 6, 2017
  18. “Civilian deaths a windfall for militants’ propaganda,” Mpls. StarTribune, April 2, 2017
  19. “U.S. Airstrike ‘Probably Had a Role’ in Mosul Civilian Deaths, Commander Concedes,” New York Times, March 29, 2017
  20. “U.S. strike reportedly killed 30 Syrians,” New York Times/Mpls. StarTribune, Mar. 23, 2017
  21. “U.S. military says fight with Taliban killed 33 civilians,” Mpls. StarTribune, Jan. 13, 2017
  22. “U.S.-led strikes in Iraq, Syria have killed at least 188 civilians, military says,” Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 3, 2017
  23. “U.S. admits its airstrikes likely killed Afghan civilians,” Washington Post/Mpls. StarTribune, Nov. 6, 2016
  24. “U.S. Drones Hit Civilians, U.N. Says,” New York Times, Sept. 30, 2016
  25. “Residents Say U.S. Strike Killed Civilians,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 29, 2016
  26. “Pentagon: Errors led to hospital strike,” New York Times, & Mpls. StarTribune, May 1, 2016
  27. “A Moral Debt for Bombing a Hospital,” editorial, New York Times, April 30, 2016
  28. “Airstrike on Afghan hospital stirs fury,” New York Times/Mpls. StarTribune; and “19 die in apparent U.S. airstrike on Afghan hospital,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 4, 2015
  29. “U.S. soldier pleads guilty to killing 16 Afghan civilians during raids” (“Staff Sgt Robert Bales pleaded guilty to 16 counts of premeditated murder”), Guardian, June 5, 2013
  30. “U.S. marine pleads guilty to urinating on corpse of Taliban fighter in Afghanistan,” Guardian, Jan. 16, 2013
  31. “U.S. troops posed with body parts of Afghan bombers,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2012
  32. “Drones At Issue… Raids Disrupt Militants, but Civilian Deaths Stir Outrage,” New York Times, March 18, 2012
  33. “G.I. Kills 16 Afghans, Including 9 Children in Attacks on Homes,” New York Times, March 12, 2012
  34. “NATO Admits Airstrike Killed 8 Young Afghans, but Contends They Were Armed,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 2012
  35. “Informer Misled NATO in Airstrike That Killed 8 Civilians, Afghans Say,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 2012
  36. “Video [of Marines urinating on dead fighters] Inflames a Delicate Moment for U.S. in Afghanistan,” New York Times, Jan. 12, 2012
  37. “Commission alleges U.S. detainee abuse,” Mpls. StarTribune, Jan. 8, 2012
  38. “Six Children Are Killed by NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan,” New York Times, Nov. 25, 2011
  39. “American Soldier Is Convicted of Killing Afghan Civilians for Sport,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 2011
  40. “U.S. Drone Strike Kills Brother of a Taliban Commander,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 2011
  41. “Afghanistan officials ‘systematically tortured’ detainees, UN report says,” Guardian, & BBC, Oct. 10; Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2011
  42. “G.I. Killed Afghan Journalist, NATO Says,” New York Times, Sept. 9, 2011
  43. “Cable Implicates Americans in Deaths of Iraqi Civilians,” New York Times, Sept. 2, 2011
  44. “Civilians Die in a Raid by Americans and Iraqis,” New York Times, Aug. 7, 2011
  45. “NATO Strikes Libyan State TV Transmitters,” New York Times, July 31, 2011
  46. “U.S. Expands Its Drone War to Take On Somali Militants,” New York Times, July 2, 2011
  47. “NATO admits raid probably killed nine in Tripoli,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 20, 2011
  48. “NATO airstrike blamed in 14 civilian deaths,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 30, 2011
  49. “Libya Effort Is Called Violation of War Act,” New York Times, May 26, 2011
  50. “Raid on Wrong House Kills Afghan Girl, 12,” New York Times, May 12, 2011
  51. “Yemen: 2 Killed in Missile Strike,” Associated Press, May 5, 2011
  52. “NATO Accused of Going Too Far With Libya Strikes,” New York Times, May 2, 2011
  53. “Disposal of Bin Laden’s remains violated Islamic principles, clerics say,” Associated Press, May 2, 2011
  54. “Photos of atrocities seen as threat to Afghan relations,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 22, 2011
  55. “Missiles Kill 26 in Pakistan,” New York Times, March 18, 2011
  56. “Afghans Say NATO Troops Killed 8 Civilians in Raid,” New York Times, Aug. 24, 2010
  57. “A dozen or more” Afghan civilians were killed during a nighttime raid Aug. 5, 2010 in eastern Afghanistan, NATO officers said. Chicago Tribune, Aug. 6, 2010
  58. “Afghans Say Attack Killed 52 Civilians; NATO Differs,” New York Times, July 27, 2010
  59. “Afghans Die in Bombing, As Toll Rises for Civilians,” New York Times, May 3, 2010
  60. “New inquiry ordered in killing of Afghan civilians during raid,” CNN, April 5, 2010
  61. “Pakistan Angry as Strike by U.S. Kills 11 Soldiers,” New York Times, June 12, 2008
  62. “Marines Used ‘Excessive Force’ in Afghan Civilian Deaths,” Washington Post, April 14, 2007

For “No To NATO” events in Wash. D.C. see:

<no2nato2019.org>

<no-to-nato.org/en/>

<worldbeyondwar.org/notonato/>

Fact sheet by John LaForge for

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