Senseless

The situation in the middle east seems set to spiral out of control with reports coming in that the Israeli Air Force Will Likely Make a Pre-emptive Strike Against Syria. It appears that the slaughter and chaos raining down on Gaza and Lebanon is not enough.



To realise the death and destruction that is already being created by the Israeli air force, we need do no more than turn to Robert Fisk, whose article From my home, I saw what the 'war on terror' meant , certainly brings the reality back down to earth, regardless of the altitude that bombs in question were dropped from.

Israeli planes dropped a bomb on to the home of a Shia Muslim cleric. He was killed. So was his wife. So were eight of his children. One was decapitated. All they could find of a baby was its head and torso which a young villager brandished in fury in front of the cameras. Then the planes visited another home in Dweir and disposed of a family of seven.

I again find myself wondering about the differential in the value of human life . Of course every decent human being on planet earth understands the desire of Israel to protect its soldiers . Its need to have safe and secure borders and the right for its citizens to live in peace inside the 1967 internationally agreed boundaries. But the deaths of at least 63 Lebanese civilians seems to have less value to the worlds media than the fate of the missing soldiers. Violence breeds violence and Israel is already mourning the deaths of more of its soldiers than the operation was designed to save after an Hezbollah attack on an Israeli Navel vessel.

The escalation intensified when Israel Bombed the Beirut office of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, He wasn't there and very quickly made that point clear by broadcasting and address where he called for 'open war' against Israel.

Of course as we have already seen, when politicians overreact it is always the innocent civilians that receive the pain . It has not just been the Lebanese that are suffering due to this unnecessary tragedy. At least two Israelis , a woman and her 5-year-old grandson were killed, and four others were injured, when a Katyusha rocket fired by Hezbollah slammed into a home in Moshav Meron on Friday evening. It seems that the middle east is spinning into a roller coaster of destruction that will lead to nothing but more misery and hell in the Holy Land.

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Bolton vs. Ha'aretz and the Observer

From his bully pulpit, U.S. ambassoador to the UN, John Bolton, had this to say yesterday regarding the recent events involving Israel:

"The United States worked hard with other delegations to achieve a more balanced text. One which acknowledged that Israeli military actions were in direct response to repeated rocket attacks into southern Israel from Gaza and the June 25th abduction of Israeli defense force corporal Gilad Shalit by Hamas. Regrettably we were not able to reach agreement."

There we have it: the "they started it" arguement. Did they start it? Let's turn to the Israeli media on the matter. Let's see what Ha'aretz had to say on that very topic:

"We left Gaza and they are firing Qassams" - there is no more precise a formulation of the prevailing view about the current round of the conflict. "They started," will be the routine response to anyone who tries to argue [Israeli actions]...

...

So, who really did start? And have we "left Gaza?"

Israel left Gaza only partially, and in a distorted manner. The disengagement plan, which was labeled with fancy titles like "partition" and "an end to the occupation," did result in the dismantling of settlements and the Israel Defense Forces' departure from Gaza, but it did almost nothing to change the living conditions for the residents of the Strip. Gaza is still a prison and its inhabitants are still doomed to live in poverty and oppression. Israel closes them off from the sea, the air and land, except for a limited safety valve at the Rafah crossing. They cannot visit their relatives in the West Bank or look for work in Israel, upon which the Gazan economy has been dependent for some 40 years. Sometimes goods can be transported, sometimes not. Gaza has no chance of escaping its poverty under these conditions. Nobody will invest in it, nobody can develop it, nobody can feel free in it. Israel left the cage, threw away the keys and left the residents to their bitter fate. Now, less than a year after the disengagement, it is going back, with violence and force.

What could otherwise have been expected? That Israel would unilaterally withdraw, brutally and outrageously ignoring the Palestinians and their needs, and that they would silently bear their bitter fate and would not continue to fight for their liberty, livelihood and dignity? We promised a safe passage to the West Bank and didn't keep the promise. We promised to free prisoners and didn't keep the promise. We supported democratic elections and then boycotted the legally elected leadership, confiscating funds that belong to it, and declaring war on it. We could have withdrawn from Gaza through negotiations and coordination, while strengthening the existing Palestinian leadership, but we refused to do so. And now, we complain about "a lack of leadership?" We did everything we could to undermine their society and leadership, making sure as much as possible that the disengagement would not be a new chapter in our relationship with the neighboring nation, and now we are amazed by the violence and hatred that we sowed with our own hands.

What would have happened if the Palestinians had not fired Qassams? Would Israel have lifted the economic siege that it imposed on Gaza? Would it open the border to Palestinian laborers? Free prisoners? Meet with the elected leadership and conduct negotiations? Encourage investment in Gaza? Nonsense. If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as Israel expects them to do, their case would disappear from the agenda - here and around the world. Israel would continue with the convergence, which is solely meant to serve its goals, ignoring their needs. Nobody would have given any thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they did not behave violently. That is a very bitter truth, but the first 20 years of the occupation passed quietly and we did not lift a finger to end it.

Instead, under cover of the quiet, we built the enormous, criminal settlement enterprise. With our own hands, we are now once again pushing the Palestinians into using the petty arms they have; and in response, we employ nearly the entire enormous arsenal at our disposal, and continue to complain that "they started."

We started. We started with the occupation, and we are duty-bound to end it, a real and complete ending. We started with the violence. There is no violence worse than the violence of the occupier, using force on an entire nation, so the question about who fired first is therefore an evasion meant to distort the picture. After Oslo, too, there were those who claimed that "we left the territories," in a similar mixture of blindness and lies.

Gaza is in serious trouble, ruled by death, horror and daily difficulties, far from the eyes and hearts of Israelis. We are only shown the Qassams. We only see the Qassams. The West Bank is still under the boot of occupation, the settlements are flourishing, and every limply extended hand for an agreement, including that of Ismail Haniyeh, is immediately rejected. And after all this, if someone still has second thoughts, the winning answer is promptly delivered: "They started." They started and justice is on our side, while the fact is that they did not start and justice is not with us. [Source]

Alright, that's all well and good, but what about the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 25th? June 25th. Why did I type that twice? Let's turn to the Observer and find out why:

Few readers of a British newspaper would have noticed the story. In the Observer of 25 June, it merited a mere paragraph hidden in the “World in brief” section, revealing that the previous day a team of Israeli commandos had entered the Gaza Strip to “detain” two Palestinians Israel claims are members of Hamas.

The significance of the mission was alluded to in a final phrase describing this as “the first arrest raid in the territory since Israel pulled out of the area a year ago”. More precisely, it was the first time the Israeli army had re-entered the Gaza Strip, directly violating Palestinian control of the territory, since it supposedly left in August last year.

As the Observer landed on doorsteps around the UK, however, another daring mission was being launched in Gaza that would attract far more attention from the British media – and prompt far more concern. [Source]

We hear plenty about the June 25th abduction, but barely a peep about the June 24th abduction. Why is that?



A reminder: to avoid typing into the void read the comment policy.

Bush defends Israel, EU, Russia condemn attacks

RUSSIA and the European Union condemned Israel's strikes in Lebanon as a dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict but the United States said Israel had the right to self defence.



US President George W. Bush spoke up for Israel's attack on Beirut airport, but warned the Israelis they should be careful not to weaken the fragile Lebanese Government.

"Israel has the right to defend herself," Mr Bush said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. His comments contrasted with comments from Russia and the European Union, which said there could be no justification for Israel's air and sea blockade on Lebanon.

"Actions, which are contrary to international humanitarian law, can only aggravate the vicious circle of violence and retribution," the EU presidency said in a statement. The comments came as a three-strong United Nations team headed to the Middle East to seek to defuse the crisis.

Mr Bush and Ms Merkel made clear at a joint news conference they felt Israel's actions in seeking kidnapped soldiers and responding to Hezbollah rocket attacks were justified.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced both Israel's attack on Lebanon and its operations against the Palestinian territories.

"This is a disproportionate response to what has happened and if both sides are going to drive each other into a tight corner then I think that all this will develop in a very dramatic and tragic way," he said.

Israel struck three airports including Beirut's and began enforcing a naval blockade of Lebanon, intensifying reprisals after Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in cross-border attacks yesterday. The Israeli attacks have killed 52 Lebanese civilians.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called Israel's bombardment of Beirut airport "a disproportionate act of war", saying there was a real risk of a regional war.

Mr Douste-Blazy also condemned Hezbollah's firing of rockets into northern Israel and the seizure of the soldiers, telling Europe 1 radio these were "irresponsible acts".

"The only solution is a return to reason by both sides," he said. "We are calling for a lowering of tensions."

Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into towns across northern Israel, killing one civilian and wounding 29 others in their heaviest bombardment in a decade. The violence is the worst between Israel and Lebanon since 1996 when Israeli troops still occupied part of the south.

Mr Bush said there was concern that any activities by Israel to protect herself would weaken the Lebanese Government.

Source

U.S. Arrests known terrorist - for fraud

Emmanuel Constant, former Haitian death squad leader, has been arrested in New York for mortgage fraud. Constant was convicted in absentia by a Haitian court for his crimes during the Raboteau Massacre of 1994. Constant had fled to America and ironically at the time the U.S. was demanding the extradition of Osama bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks despite a lack of evidence against him, the U.S. was ignoring Haitian requests for the extradition of Constant, who was already convicted for his terrorist acts. The Haitians, of course, did not bomb the United States in response.

For more, please go to Democracy Now!

Israeli use of poisonous material alleged

The Palestinian health ministry accused Israel of using a new type of banned explosives containing poisonous material.





A ministry report released Monday said testimonies from surgeons in Palestinian hospitals indicated that "all 249 casualties inflicted by the Israeli war machine during the operation on Gaza which started on June 27 resulted from shrapnel of new and developed shells and explosives which cause amputation of limbs and burning of all the injured parts."

The ministry called on the international community and human rights organization "to send medical committees to examine the wounded and verify the existence of poisonous material in their bodies caused by Israeli weapons."

It also urged international organization to put pressure on Israel to stop using internationally banned arms against inoffensive and unarmed civilians.

The report indicated that "most casualties who were submitted to surgeries were caused by strong explosions that led to the amputation and carbonization of limbs while shrapnel caused small openings in the body through which internal parts, including intestines and spleen, are burned."

In a related development, the foreign ministry warned Monday that Israel's military operations and threats to expand its incursion in Gaza will not contribute to finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis of the Israeli soldier abducted by three Palestinian factions, including Hamas which leads the Palestinian government.

The ministry said in a statement that "international idleness and silence over Israel's crimes do not contribute to boosting the rule of the law but encourages the law of the jungle and Israel's ignoring of all international norms."

Israel launched operation "Summer Rains" in Gaza two weeks ago in an attempt to free Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was abducted in an attack on the crossing of Keer Shalom between Gaza and Israel by militants from Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Islamic Army.

Source

Further reading on the latest events in Israel/Palestine and lebanon....

Israel kills 23 in Gaza:
Nine Palestinians, including seven children, killed in Israeli airstrike :
UN impotence laid bare as Gaza suffers:
Report: Abbas threatens to resign:
End this punishment of the Palestinians :
The Influence of Israel and its American Lobby over US Middle East Policy:
Hezbollah Captures 2 Israeli Soldiers:
8 soldiers killed, 2 snatched in Hezbollah border attacks :
Israel hits Beirut targets :
U.S. blames Syria, Iran for kidnappings: (war pimp alert)
Brian Whitaker: Borderline beneficiaries:
Yesha rabbis call for 'extermination of the enemy': (Hmmm)

Atrocities

Read the latest tragic happenings in Baghdad first hand from the award winning Iraqi girl blog...







It's like Baghdad is no longer one city, it's a dozen different smaller cities each infected with its own form of violence. It's gotten so that I dread sleeping because the morning always brings so much bad news. The television shows the images and the radio stations broadcast it. The newspapers show images of corpses and angry words jump out at you from their pages, "civil war… death… killing… bombing… rape…"

So sad...

US detainees to get Geneva rights

All US military detainees, including those at Guantanamo Bay, are to be treated in line with the minimum standards of the Geneva Conventions. The White House announced the shift in policy almost two weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled that the conventions applied to detainees.



President Bush had long fought the idea that US detainees were prisoners of war entitled to Geneva Convention rights. The Pentagon outlined the new standards to the military in a 7 July memo.

The directive says all military detainees are entitled to humane treatment and to certain basic legal standards when they come to trial, as required by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

The Bush administration has come under intense and sustained international criticism for its treatment of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The military has been using the site to house hundreds of detainees, many believed to have been picked up off battlefields in Afghanistan.

At the end of June, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that the Bush administration did not by itself have the authority to order that the detainees be tried by military commission. It said its decision was based on both US military law and the Geneva Conventions - asserting for the first time in US law that the detainees were entitled to Geneva protections.

Source

India : 140 dead in rush hour terrorist attack on surburban trains

At least 140 people were killed and 257 injured in a string of seven terror blasts that tore through first class compartments of suburban trains around 6 p.m during the evening peak hour traffic here today.




As the blasts ripped apart train compartments, mangled bodies of passengers fell on the tracks and survivors, many of them bleeding profusely, jostled to come out leading to chaotic scenes.

The blasts occured between 6 p.m and 6.30 p.m at Mahim, Bandra, Matunga, Borivili, Mira Road, Jogeshwari and Khar when people from offices were returning home. Maharashtra Chief Secretary, D K Shankaran, put the number of death at 138 and the injured 257.

Hospital authorities in the city have confirmed arrival of over 100 bodies by 8:30 pm. A large number of injured, including commuters of the blasts-hit trains, were admitted to various government and private hospitals in various parts of the city.

Mumbai Police Chief, A N Roy, said "we are busy with rescue operations. Our first priority is to rescue the injured,'' he said. However, heavy monsoon downpours were hampering the effort.

AP Reports: Police were also reportedly carrying out raids across the country following the explosions, presumably in search of suspects. A television report said a suspect was in custody.

A senior Mumbai police official, P S Pasricha, said the explosions were part of a well-coordinated attack. The country's Home Minister said over television that authorities had information that an attack was coming, but did not know the time or place.

Witnesses reported seeing body parts strewn about stations, and television news channels broadcast footage of bystanders carrying victims to ambulances and searching through the wreckage for survivors and bodies. Some of the injured were seen frantically dialing their cell phones.

Continue reading Here

War Is Not A Game

This video is rapidly becoming a "defining" song for the peace movement. War Is Not A Game is written by combat veteran, emergency room physician, and congressional candidate Dr. Bill Durston.

Runtime 4 Minutes

Iraq to ask UN to end U.S. immunity after rape case

Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the human rights minister said on Monday, as the military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.



In an interview a week after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded a review of foreign troops' immunity, Wigdan Michael said work on it was now under way and a request could be ready by next month to go to the U.N. Security Council, under whose mandate U.S.-led forces are in control of Iraq.

"We're very serious about this," she said, blaming a lack of enforcement of U.S. military law in the past for encouraging soldiers to commit crimes against Iraqi civilians, such as the alleged rape and murder of a teenager and killing of her family. "We formed a committee last week to prepare reports and put it before the cabinet in three weeks. After that, Maliki will present it to the Security Council. We will ask them to lift the immunity," Michael said. "If we don't get that, then we'll ask for an effective role in the investigations that are going on. "The Iraqi government must have a role."

Analysts say it is improbable the United States would ever make its troops answerable to Iraq's chaotic judicial system. The day before handing formal sovereignty back to Iraqis in June 2004, the U.S. occupation authority issued a decree giving its troops immunity from Iraqi law. That remains in force and is confirmed in an annexe to Resolution 1546, the Security Council document that established the U.S.-led force's mandate in Iraq.

Many Iraqis have complained for the past three years about hundreds of civilians killed by U.S. troops and abuses such as those highlighted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal of 2004. But a handful of new U.S. investigations into incidents including the killing of 24 people at Haditha and the quadruple murder and rape at Mahmudiya have caused an outcry that prompted the newly formed national unity government to speak out.

Some government supporters have also added their voices to calls for U.S.-led forces to start withdrawing from Iraq soon. Michael said a failure by U.S. commanders to hold soldiers to account had fostered a climate of impunity among troops: "One of the reasons for this is the U.N. resolution, which gives the multinational force soldiers immunity. Without punishment, you get violations. This happens when there is no punishment."

U.S. commanders insist troops are not immune from justice and must answer to U.S. military law. But officials concede that a flurry of cases reflect a crackdown aimed at restoring their credibility with Iraqis. Sixteen troops were charged with murder in Iraq in recent weeks, as many as in the previous three years.

Four soldiers were charged on Saturday with rape and murder in the Mahmudiya case, dating from March. A military official named them on Monday as Privates First Class Jesse Spielman and Bryan Howard, Sergeant James Barker and Specialist Paul Cortez. All are accused of conspiring with Steven Green, then a private in the 502nd Infantry Regiment, who was charged as a civilian with rape and murder in a U.S. court last week.

Civilian prosecutors say four soldiers went to the home after drinking, intending to rape 14-year-old Abeer al-Janabi and left a fifth manning their nearby checkpoint. They say Green shot Janabi's parents and 6-year-old sister, before he and one other raped the teenager and Green also then shot her dead. Sergeant Anthony Yribe was charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report what he knew of the case.

Source

Further reading...

U.S. officials had said the girl was aged over 20. However, documents obtained by Reuters on Sunday showed she was 14.

Big Brother calls for backdoors

When I was a boy growing up in the 70s, I would often see or hear proclamations of America's greatness (I lived withing range of their broadcast towers) with various freedoms cited as evidence for that greatness. Though freedoms are nearly always under attack from those holding power, there seems to be attempts to formalize the the restriction of freedoms.





From CNET News:

The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned.

FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting last Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.

...

Breaking the legislation down
The 27-page proposed CALEA amendments seen by CNET News.com would:

• Require any manufacturer of "routing" and "addressing" hardware to offer upgrades or other "modifications" that are needed to support Internet wiretapping. Current law does require that of telephone switch manufacturers--but not makers of routers and network address translation hardware like Cisco Systems and 2Wire.

• Authorize the expansion of wiretapping requirements to "commercial" Internet services including instant messaging if the FCC deems it to be in the "public interest." That would likely sweep in services such as in-game chats offered by Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming system as well.

• Force Internet service providers to sift through their customers' communications to identify, for instance, only VoIP calls. (The language requires companies to adhere to "processing or filtering methods or procedures applied by a law enforcement agency.") That means police could simply ask broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast or Verizon for wiretap info--instead of having to figure out what VoIP service was being used.

• Eliminate the current legal requirement saying the Justice Department must publish a public "notice of the actual number of communications interceptions" every year. That notice currently also must disclose the "maximum capacity" required to accommodate all of the legally authorized taps that government agencies will "conduct and use simultaneously."

According to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America,

...No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States....

According to the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights,

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

If history provides us with any usable pattern, it is that the proposed law would be used to aid in violating the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. This news ought to be as alarming to non-Americans as to Americans. What has been described as the "slow creep towards fascism" is a phenomenon that is occuring globally.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

+Watch this interesting documentary on the failed Venezuelan coup.

Sunday bloody Sunday

Gunmen in the Iraqi capital Baghdad have killed at least 40 people at a fake police checkpoint, in an apparent sectarian attack against Sunni Muslims. Police say Shia militants stopped cars in the western Jihad district, separated Sunnis and shot them.





Later, at least 25 people died when two car bombs exploded near a Shia mosque in the capital, police said. There has been an upsurge in sectarian violence in Iraq in recent months, raising fears of a civil war. Sunni Arabs say government-backed Shia militias are behind many of the attacks. But officials have denied any involvement.

The BBC's Jonny Dymond in Baghdad says the style and scale of Sunday morning's incident was breathtaking. Witnesses said Shia militiamen entered Jihad and set up roadblocks. Drivers were reportedly pulled from their cars and their identity cards inspected. Any Sunni Muslims identified were then separated from the rest and killed.

"They also went into certain Sunni houses and killed everyone inside," said a witness quoted by AFP news agency. Another told the Associated Press news agency: "They came and started shooting. One of my relatives tried to help but was also shot while doing so. What crime have my people committed, I ask?"

Officials say they are getting reports of drive-by shootings in the area, and the number of deaths is expected to rise. Security forces have sealed off the area and imposed a curfew, in an effort to prevent revenge attacks. Officials said the shooting could be in retaliation for a car bomb that killed at least two people at a nearby Shia mosque on Saturday.

Radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr appealed for calm following the shootings. Mr Sadr calls on Sunnis and Shias to "put our hands together for the sake of Iraq's independence and stability", AP quoted him as saying.Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army militia was suspected of involvement in the attacks, but Mr Sadr's office denied any responsibility.

In more bloodshed hours after the shootings, Baghdad's northern Kasra district was rocked by the double car bomb attack.

Police said the vehicles exploded in a market place near the local Shia mosque, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens of others.Our correspondent says it may have been revenge for Sunday morning's attack or it may have been planned beforehand.

But he says whatever the motive, the impact is the same: Iraq's capital is tearing itself apart.A wave of sectarian killings has engulfed many parts of Iraq - especially Baghdad - since the bombing in February of a revered Shia shrine in Samarra.

In other violence on Sunday, an Iraqi army intelligence officer was shot dead in Karbala, south of Baghdad.Several policemen and civilians were also killed in separate attacks around the country.

Source

The Top 10 Power Brokers of the Religious Right

Who they are, what they want, and why these American ayatollahs must be stopped.







The United States is home to dozens of Religious Right groups. Many have small budgets and focus on state and local issues; the most powerful organizations conduct nationwide operations, command multi-million-dollar bank accounts and attract millions of followers. They have disproportionate clout in the halls of Congress, the White House and the courts, and they wield enormous influence within the political system.

What follows is a list of the nation’s Top Ten Religious Right groups, as determined by publicly available financial data and political prominence. Additional information describes the organizations’ leaders, funding and activities.


Here