Category: Government
The REAL Dirty Bomb Plot
I really don’t know where to go with this, the story has such potential. There was a plot to explode a dirty bomb, bomb making material was found along with literature that explained how to assemble it and the person responsible was a member of a known subversive group. His name was James G. Cummings, of Belfast, Maine and the group he belonged to was the National Socialist Movement. Before the plot could go anywhere, Mr. Cummings was shot and killed, by of all people……….his wife, who just got fed up with the domestic abuse she endured during their married life.
Jose Padilla should now be released from jail and every member of the National Socialist Movement should be rounded up and herded to some remote island prison camp, shackled, put under sensory deprivation and forced to listen toMarvin Gaye, James Brown or the Average White Band blaring through loudspeakers continuously for months at a time because they constitute a threat to the United States and one of their own was caught red handed in an act of terrorism. And for that matter, too, perhaps we should round up every white male who looks like Mr. Cummings because they hate the president of the United States and his values and therefore by extension, us.
This would be the rhetoric applied to Muslims, yet the story of Cummings hasn’t spiked the front pages of most newspapers, let alone the muliti-colored Homeland Security fear index whose needle pegged whenever terror and Islam were mentioned in the main stream media. Just as with most of what’s “good” about America, self expunging took place with regards to Cummings and there wasn’t the need for another level of government bureaucracy to protect us from him. All it took was a law abiding citizen who had the nerve, or strength and steady hand, to shoot him and rid us of the evil he intended for the “homeland”. In fact, his wife did more to combat terrorism than George Bush did in all the 8 years of his presidency.
We know that will not be the approach of people in government. Their goal is to make us more dependent on them and fearful of them as well, even if it means pitting one group of people against another. Don’t fall for it. The laws we have absent those enacted during the Bush administration, are enough to protect us, as long as we have the courage and strength of Cummings’ wife keep a steady hand and act. Are you feeling me, President Obama?
Islam is here to stay, so let’s move on
Americans, and those who live within its borders, come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and while some of the American dream and the meaning of the words, ‘send me your tired and your poor; your huddled masses yearning to be free’ has not always turned out the way those huddled masses wanted at the time, America has been a largely successful experiment.
It is however, a work in progress, continually defined, reshaped, molded in a way that meets the needs of most of the 300 million plus who live within its borders. America has seen all sorts of people come and go. Many have blended and integrated themselves into the social fabric, indistinguishable from the whole, while others have chosen to retain their identities. The common thread has always been the rule of law that’s kept the entire cloth from unravelling.
Sure there are times in the Nation’s history we can point to when the administration of the law has not been equitable, but social agitation (something sorely missed in today’s citizenry) always corrected that inequity which resulted in a better mix of brown, whites, reds, and yellows. We discovered along the way that it wasn’t necessary to lose those colors or attitudes in the elixir of America; that sometimes it was healthy to keep them distinguished not seperated, visible, not homogenized, ‘in order to form a more perfect union.’
So it is that now we have black, white, Jew, Gentile, Muslim unbeliever living, perhaps askew, but in relative peace and with the knowledge they can take their grievance to the Law should the need arise. This is what happened to Amal Hersi a Somali American Muslim woman who was told service at a credit union was only possible if she blended and forsake her Muslim identity.
For Amal this was not an option, so she took her case to a higher authority, in this instance the people in charge of the credit union. No doubt the employee of the bank forgot their roots, forgot that despite the finely coiffed hair and contemporary styled clothes they wore that day, they most likely had an acestor, perhaps not too far in their past who looked like Amal and chose to stay that way…….or not. Most likely that distant relative decided when he/she ran into an obdurate public servant bent on defining their place in the American fabric they weren’t going to bend and that act of resistance made it possible for Amal to refuse today, which made the quilt that much more pretty and pliable for the common good.
Muslim women in the West have defined their role as one of modesty wrapped in clothes they’ve chosen to express their identity. In most cases, if not all, it is their conscious choice to wear hijab just as they also choose to obey the law and just as there is no penalty for embracing the latter, neither should there be for the former. The officials of the credit union, more in touch with the spirit of the Law than the wayward employee who started this all, recognized that instantly and issued a statement which said in part:
Navy Federal values and respects all its members. Working with the law enforcement community, we have recently implemented a policy to make sure we can positively identify everyone we serve in our many branches.
Navy Federal weighed very carefully the need to accommodate religious and cultural customs, as well as medical conditions. Our policy does not prohibit nor discourage the use of headscarves, and will make sure it’s thoroughly understood to all employees.
I salute them and nothing further needs to be addressed to them. To the employee who lost her way I would encourage a quick visual primer on American history. Perhaps they will see someone they know or someone who looks like them. While they’re at it they’ll most likely see someone who looks like Amal Hersi too.
Israel and human shields
“Israel had a policy in the past called the ‘neighbor policy,’ where soldiers would ask neighbors to persuade terrorists to come out of their houses,” he said. “The Supreme Court reviewed this procedure and ruled that this was unlawful. The answer is very clear: It is illegal.
As abominable as the idea is human shields are used to protect one group of combatants from another. The accusation is usually hurled from defenders of western ideologies towards their enemies, i.e. Saddam, Hamas, et.al. so before this gets lost in the memory hole I thought I’d post this article. It’s one of several that have been printed since the Gaza genocide.
The Israeli soldiers outside Majdi Abed Rabbo’s home were after the three Hamas fighters holed up next door, and they wanted Abed Rabbo to be their point man.
For the next 24 hours, Abed Rabbo said, the soldiers repeatedly forced him to walk through the battle zone to see whether the militants were dead or alive.
Abed Rabbo wasn’t alone. Eight other residents in this northern Gaza Strip neighborhood told McClatchy in separate interviews that Israeli soldiers had conscripted them to check homes for booby traps, to smash holes in the walls of houses so that soldiers could use them as escape routes or to try to pull dead Palestinian militants from the rubble.
The Israeli military told McClatchy that it’s investigating a variety of allegations about its Gaza operation but it categorically rejected suggestions that soldiers forced any Palestinians to work for them.
“Of course we don’t use human shields,” Israeli military spokesman Capt. Elie Isaacson said. “Just the opposite. We do everything in our power to avoid harm to civilians, bearing in mind that we know Hamas purposely puts them in harm’s way.”
U.S. and Israeli human-rights groups dispute that.
“There is powerful evidence that Israel used the tactic that they are accusing Hamas of using,” said Fred Abrahams, a Human Rights Watch senior researcher who’s investigating what happened in Gaza during the recent Israeli military offensive, which killed more than 1,200 Palestinians.
“The testimony seems pretty extensive and presents grave suspicions that Israeli soldiers forced Palestinians to perform dangerous tasks,” said B’Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli. “And the fact that we’re seeing these allegations on such a wide scale leads us to suspect that this was policy and not the decisions of one or two random soldiers.”
Not much will come of this revelation; Israel is rarely rebuked for its human rights abuses and this will be no different, however, the next time you hear the Israelis comment on human shields being used by their opponents you can reply they, the Israelis, probably taught them the technique.
Take that!
The Palestinian doctor who reported from Gaza for Israeli television was told the death of three of his daughters was “reasonable“. If you remember the story, he was on the air reporting about the fighting in Gaza when he received a phone call that his daughters and a niece, ages 22, 15, 14 and 14 were killed by the IDF. This doctor was trained in Israel and spoke Hebrew and had been enlisted by the Israelis to report on what was going on during the Gazan conflict when he was informed of the death of his family members. Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, is also a peace activist Palestinian who was known for treating Israelis as well as Palestinians, but that wasn’t good enough to save him from the wrath of the Israeli government who after investigating why his family was killed decided it was reasonable to have killed the four civilian females. That wasn’t all that would befell Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish. Check out this youtube video where at a press conference in which he pleaded for peace he was met with a chilly and hostile reception by Israelis, who as I’ve said before, are not interested in peace with their Palestinian neighbors, even those who treat and offer them comfort.
Giving aid and comfort to the enemy
Dick Cheney has gone off the deep end of things in ways that are really unfathomable. In an interview on “friendly” territory where hard questions don’t exist and he can get away with the most inflammatory language that only Dick Cheney can spew he said, ‘that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed.’ That’s pretty strong language coming from a member of the Republican party that spent the last eight years challenging anyone and everyone’s patriotism who questioned the direction of the Bush Administration. You can go here to see a very long list of such accusations of treason against Bush policy, but here are some of the juicier remarks.
“while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats’ manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.” Zell Miller, D. Ga.
“[T]he liberal leadership have put politics ahead of sound fiscal and national security policy. And what they have done is cooperated with our enemies and are emboldening our enemies.” – Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY)
“divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country.”- Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA)
What Cheney has done is far more egregious than give aid to an enemy, he’s practically incite it to violence towards the US by implying it should happen because of Obama’s policies.
“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry…”
This is Cheney at his best, using the politics of fear from afar, he almost seems to challenge terrorists to strike an America that is preoccupied with ‘reading them their rights’ rather than with killing them. Those are the only two choices to Dick Cheney and his collection of backyard warriors who watched others fight wars they managed to miss, and who enlisted still more to fight wars built upon lies and misleading information. He lives in his testosterone induced haze where everything is do or die, you are either with us or against us, “us” being he and his circle of friends that languish in think tanks scattered around Washington who alone can determine who the real enemy is, and you’d better damn well fight them their death or else you are guilty of treason.
I think the very same language used against Bush/Cheney detractors the last eight years should be used against Cheney himself. He is inciting the enemy to acts of violence against America and thereby giving aid and comfort to those who seek to do us harm….in the over inflated language of W. Bush and everyone should take the opportunity to say that. Mr. Cheney, you are a traitor.
American academics stand up to be counted
Joining a growing list of people who are protesting the Israeli genocide in Gaza, American members of academe have come out to call for a cultural boycott of Israel, with five goals it wants to achieve.
“Refraining from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions that do not vocally oppose Israeli state policies against Palestine,” “promoting divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions,” and “supporting Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.”
The group’s press release continues,
“We believe that non-violent external pressure on Israel, in the form of an academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel, can help bring an end to the ongoing massacres of civilians and an end [to] the occupation of Gaza and Palestine” — with “Palestine” referring to the West Bank land occupied by Israel since the 1967 war
explained David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University of Southern California. I am glad to see Americans joining in the initiative and I note that they very clearly say they are interested ina non-violent form of protestation, not something that is designed literally to exterminate the Jewish state. What this boycott is asking for is a modification of Israeli behavior that will ensure its existence as well as that of its neighbors, the Palestinians. It is NOT a zero sum game but you can expect the Israelis will portray it that way.
My heroes of the day
I want to congratulate two men who took a principled stand at the risk of their careers and even their lives when you look at who they are and what they represent, to categorically denounce positions taken that were detrimental to the people suffering in Gaza.
Tayyip Erdogan, whose country Turkey is trying to get admitted into the European Union as well as NATO probably jeopardized those chances when he made an impassioned plea at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland against the Israeli aggression and genocide in Gaza. He criticised the audience of international officials and corporate chiefs for applauding Peres’s emotional defence of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead. Not sparing any measure, Erdogan said what needs to be said to an Israel that seems to think it is above reproach. You can view his comments, translated into English, here
Imagine all the things in store for Turkey now that he, its prime minister, did what he did? Threats will be made against the country’s application to the world bodies it wants to enter, as well as against Erdogan himself and the usual cries of anti-semitism will come from every corner of the world, but the substance of his remarks, that Israel engaged in wholesale slaughter of a population, much like that which occured between Turkey and Armenia which will be thrown in Erdogan’s face, will be ignored. Nevertheless, kudos for Tayyip Erdogan for being principled.
My other hero is Mohammad Baredei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who said a BBC decision not to air an aid appeal for victims in Gaza violates the rules of basic human decency which are there to help vulnerable people, irrespective of who is right or wrong. The BBC said it wasn’t airing the appeal because, now hold on to your seats, it would get in the way of their objectivity in covering the events in Gaza. Several other channels in England aired the appeal, but the BBC and SkyNews, owned by James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, *ahem* refused to do so. As a result Baradei has cancelled planned interviews with the BBC, without mentioning how long such a boycott would last. Kudos to him as well. He too chose principle over political expediency, taking a position in light of today’s news which is necessary to stem the Israeli juggernaut that refuses to accept any criticism or consequences of and for its actions. Here is the highly milquetoast ad the BBC refused to air.
We are not talking about the destruction of Israel
and with that simple declaration by Ghazi Hamad, peace between Israelis and Palestinians should be close at hand, right? Wait, there’s more.
Senior officials in the Islamic group Hamas are indicating a willingness to negotiate a long-term truce with Israel as long as the borders of Gaza are opened to the rest of the world.
“We want to be part of the international community,” Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad told The Associated Press at the Gaza-Egypt border, where he was coordinating Arab aid shipments. “I think Hamas has no interest now to increase the number of crises in Gaza or to challenge the world.”
*snip*
“A dialogue with Hamas as a terror organization would be a strategic mistake, because Israel advocates dialogue with the moderates and displaying toughness against the extremists,” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Maariv daily this week.
Israel’s position is based on the fact that Hamas refuses to recognize its right to exist. However, the three Hamas leaders interviewed said they would accept statehood in just the West Bank and Gaza and would give up their “resistance” against Israel if that were achieved.
“We accept a state in the ’67 borders,” said Hamad. “We are not talking about the destruction of Israel.”
How long will it take to derail this show of goodwill from Hamas? What kind of conditions will be placed on them that would not be worthy of consideration by any nationalist movement, forcing them to reject the idea of peace with their implacable opponent, Israel? At first glance this should signal the end of all hostilities between the two parties, but in reality, this is only the beginning.
America’s Iran jones
What is it with US policy makers that they have to go off and antagonize Iran at every chance they get, even when it’s not necessary? Two threads have appeared in news stories today centered around Iran with this trend as if to anticipate and undermine what Obama is going to say in a letter he’s putting together to send to that country’s leaders.
Before getting onto those two themes, let me say I’ve always been distressed at how government has this seamy undercurrent that works to under cut what official Washington is doing, and both the official and unofficial seem to like the give and take in this relationship of setting, revising, ignoring, cancelling policy. It would seem to me once you get your marching orders from the CiC you take them and run with them, not go off and rub his nose in them with your own pronouncements, but that’s what it seems Robert Gates, Defense Secretary has done.
When U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates accused Iran of “subversive activity” in Latin America Tuesday, it raised the question whether he is trying to discourage President Barack Obama from abandoning the hard-line policy of coercive diplomacy toward Iran he has favored for nearly three decades.
In his Senate armed services committee testimony Tuesday, Gates said Iran was “opening a lot of offices and a lot of fronts behind which they interfere in what is going on.” Gates offered no further explanation for what sounded like a Cold War-era propaganda charge against the Soviet Union.
Gates has made no secret of his skepticism about any softening of U.S. policy toward Iran. In response to a question at the National Defense University last September on how he would advise the next president to improve relations with Iran, Gates implicitly rejected what he called “outreach” to Iran as useless.
Gates’ 1992 sabotage of the Bush plan for reciprocating Iran goodwill relied in part on making public charges against Iran that created a more unfavorable political climate in Washington for such a policy.
It will be interesting to see what Obama’s reaction to all this political posturing Gates is making so early in the Administration’s efforts towards rapprochement with Iran. We will be able to take measure of Obama depending on his response; if he lets Gates continue with his “subversive” activity he can be viewed as a weak President undeserving of a second term, the nation’s trust, or respect of his “underlings”. If he kicks Gates out so soon after asking him to stay on as Defense Secretary he’ll find himself facing criticism for not being a stable administrator or able to hold his people in check, preferring to give in to his impetuous side and getting rid of them whimsically. The perfect damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
The second salvo against Obama comes from of all places the Likud party’s boisterous and wrong Benjamin Netanyahu who says the Iranian nuclear weapons are more a problem than the global economy. Netanyahu is great for hyperbole, probably something he picked up as a result of his public school education in Cheltenham, Pa. back in the day. This we expect from Bibi who likes to somehow challenge the masculinity of America’s leaders by questioning their ability to take on his enemies for his benefit. Using his typical adroit slight of foot maneuvers he turns everything that has to deal with anything into Iranian nukes.
Asked about achieving peace in Gaza, Netanyahu swiftly turned his answer to Iran, which he said is in a “100-yard dash” to get nuclear weapons.
*snip*
“We have had two wars with two Iranian proxies in two years and Persia has now two bases on the eastern Mediterranean,” said Netanyahu, referring to this month’s brutal fighting in Gaza against Hamas and Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“I think we are going to have to deal with neutralizing the power of the mother regime,” he said. “The Hamas stronghold would be about as important, if Iranian power was neutralized, as Cuba was when the Soviet Union became irrelevant.”
What Netanyahu doesn’t tell you about his metaphor is while the Soviet Union became irrelevant because American ideas triumphed a military dictatorship without the US having to fire a single shot at the Soviet Union, Iran’s leadership and in fact all of that country has to be laid to waste militarily, according to the Netanyahu school of thought in order for his enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to become irrelevant. Typical. In any event, this kind of bluster is to be expected from this quarter, and Obama would do well to ignore it and press on with his agenda, not that of an intractable and petulant “ally”. Unfortunately, he can’t so easily dismiss Netanyahu, and if Gates continues with his own agenda as well, it might be even more difficult. Bush may be gone, but the neocons are still lurking and haven’t given up hope of re-establishing themselves in policy making positions or of somehow influencing policy.
Like shooting fish in a barrell and other analogies
The Israelis are continuing to pound the defenseless population of Gaza and there’s little hope that will stop short of any international intervention. The reasons for the continued attacks are the operation that left one Israeli soldier dead earlier this week, when a mine or IED went off killing him and wounding others. It’s significant to point out that Hamas did NOT claim responsibility for this breach of the truce, but that wasn’t enough to stop the Israelis from keeping the borders closed and bombing southern Gaza for this latest breach. Moreover another added benefit of this return to hostilities is Israel gets to implore the mantra of being a victim and or self righteous indignation at those who question their retaliation in order to keep headlines such as these off the main pages of newspapers.
The Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. The rescue team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses.
However, all that is not enough to obscure the reality of what Israel has done and is now doing. In a very well written essay by Norman Finkelstein entitled, Foiling Another Palestinian “Peace Initiative”, the reasons and motivations for the continuing violence against the Palestinians is laid out in rather stark detail with quite alot of foresight into what is driving the Israelis.
The fundamental motives behind the latest Israeli attack on Gaza lie elsewhere: (1) in the need to restore Israel’s “deterrence capacity,” and (2) in the threat posed by a new Palestinian “peace offensive.”
Israel’s “larger concern” in the current offensive, New York Times Middle East correspondent Ethan Bronner reported, quoting Israeli sources, was to “re-establish Israeli deterrence,” because “its enemies are less afraid of it than they once were, or should be.”
As Israel targeted schools, mosques, hospitals, ambulances, and U.N. sanctuaries, as it slaughtered and incinerated Gaza’s defenseless civilian population (one-third of the 1,200 reported casualties were children), Israeli commentators gloated that “Gaza is to Lebanon as the second sitting for an exam is to the first—a second chance to get it right,” and that this time around Israel had “hurled [Gaza] back,” not 20 years as it promised to do in Lebanon, but “into the 1940s.
Electricity is available only for a few hours a day”; that “Israel regained its deterrence capabilities” because “the war in Gaza has compensated for the shortcomings of the [2006] Second Lebanon War”; and that “There is no doubt that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is upset these days….There will no longer be anyone in the Arab world who can claim that Israel is weak.”
The justification put forth… in the pages of the Times for targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure amounted to apologetics for state terrorism. It might be recalled that although Hitler had stripped Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher of all his political power by 1940, and his newspaper Der St?rmer had a circulation of only some 15,000 during the war, the International Tribunal at Nuremberg nonetheless sentenced him to death for his murderous incitement.
Beyond restoring its deterrence capacity, Israel’s main goal in the Gaza slaughter was to fend off the latest threat posed by Palestinian moderation. For the past three decades the international community has consistently supported a settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict that calls for two states based on a full Israeli withdrawal to its June 1967 border, and a “just resolution” of the refugee question based on the right of return and compensation. The vote on the annual U.N. General Assembly resolution, “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” supporting these terms for resolving the conflict in 2008 was 164 in favor, 7 against (Israel, United States, Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau), and 3 abstentions. At the regional level the Arab League in March 2002 unanimously put forth a peace initiative on this basis, which it has subsequently reaffirmed.
Hamas was “careful to maintain the ceasefire” it entered into with Israel in June 2008, according to an official Israeli publication, despite Israel’s reneging on the crucial component of the truce that it ease the economic siege of Gaza. “The lull was sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire, carried out by rogue terrorist organizations,” the source continues. “At the same time, the [Hamas] movement tried to enforce the terms of the arrangement on the other terrorist organizations and to prevent them from violating it.” Moreover, Hamas was “interested in renewing the relative calm with Israel” (Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin).
The Islamic movement could thus be trusted to stand by its word, making it a credible negotiating partner, while its apparent ability to extract concessions from Israel, unlike the hapless Palestinian Authority doing Israel’s bidding but getting no returns, enhanced Hamas’s stature among Palestinians. For Israel these developments constituted a veritable disaster. It could no longer justify shunning Hamas, and it would be only a matter of time before international pressure in particular from the Europeans would be exerted on it to negotiate. The prospect of an incoming U.S. administration negotiating with Iran and Hamas, and moving closer to the international consensus for settling the Israel-Palestine conflict, which some U.S. policymakers now advocate, would have further highlighted Israel’s intransigence. In an alternative scenario, speculated on by Nasrallah, the incoming American administration plans to convene an international peace conference of “Americans, Israelis, Europeans and so-called Arab moderates” to impose a settlement. The one obstacle is “Palestinian resistance and the Hamas government in Gaza,” and “getting rid of this stumbling block is…the true goal of the war.”
In either case, Israel needed to provoke Hamas into breaking the truce, and then radicalize or destroy it, thereby eliminating it as a legitimate negotiating partner. It is not the first time Israel confronted such a diabolical threat—an Arab League peace initiative, Palestinian support for a two-state settlement and a Palestinian ceasefire—and not the first time it embarked on provocation and war to overcome it.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni stated in early December 2008 that although Israel wanted to create a temporary period of calm with Hamas, an extended truce “harms the Israeli strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel recognizes the movement.” Translation: a protracted ceasefire that enhanced Hamas’s credibility would have undermined Israel’s strategic goal of retaining control of the West Bank. As far back as March 2007 Israel had decided on attacking Hamas, and only negotiated the June truce because “the Israeli army needed time to prepare.” Once all the pieces were in place, Israel only lacked a pretext. On 4 November, while the American media were riveted on election day, Israel broke the ceasefire by killing seven Palestinian militants, on the flimsy excuse that Hamas was digging a tunnel to abduct Israeli soldiers, and knowing full well that its operation would provoke Hamas into hitting back. “Last week’s ‘ticking tunnel,’ dug ostensibly to facilitate the abduction of Israeli soldiers,” Haaretz reported in mid-November was not a clear and present danger: Its existence was always known and its use could have been prevented on the Israeli side, or at least the soldiers stationed beside it removed from harm’s way. It is impossible to claim that those who decided to blow up the tunnel were simply being thoughtless. The military establishment was aware of the immediate implications of the measure, as well as of the fact that the policy of “controlled entry” into a narrow area of the Strip leads to the same place: an end to the lull. That is policy—not a tactical decision by a commander on the ground.
After Hamas predictably resumed its rocket attacks “[i]n retaliation” (Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center), Israel could embark on yet another murderous invasion in order to foil yet another Palestinian peace offensive.
The historical context of this conflict is illuminating; that Israel repeatedly has foiled every attempt at peace with its neighbors the Palestinians is clear today, despite the elaborate claims and provocations to the contrary. It’s for this reason I have chided the present Obama administration by saying this handwriting is on the wall; unless a strong Western government says to the Israelis it won’t fall for or accept their spin in the face of repeated attempts by the Palestinians towards peace Israel must face being outed for the pariah it really is…if such an unequivocal statement isn’t made, Israeli genocide and atrocities against the Palestinians will continue and even escalate. The present escalation of the conflict is a clear example.
Quote of the day
We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force.
Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.
Martin van Creveld – professor of military history – Hebrew University in Jerusalem
Nothing more indicates the suicidal nature of the Israeli zionist government and their complete disregard for international law and opinion than this obscure quote by a rather mainstream Israeli historian. It also explains both the reason for Israeli actions in the occupied territories and the silence of the world community towards them. It lays to rest the notion that Israel is a client state of the US and instead confidently asserts the premise that America, along with most other western powers is a client state of Israel and can be threatened to pursue the Israeli program with military force or retaliation at the slightest hesitation on their part. It’s an indication of the brazeness of that supposition that von Creveld make this statement to a western audience without any reservation or reluctance.
Four people died here, all women, shot!
Bush made the UN irrelevant
It’s easy to see why.
“Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation” to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said, in remarks to be broadcast on Germany’s ZDF television Tuesday evening.
He noted Washington had ratified the UN convention on torture which required “all means, particularly penal law” to be used to bring proceedings against those violating it.
“We have all these documents that are now publicly available that prove that these methods of interrogation were intentionally ordered by Rumsfeld,” against detainees at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nowak said.
“But obviously the highest authorities in the United States were aware of this,” added Nowak, who authored a UN investigation report on the Guantanamo prison.
The irony in this is it’s being exposed on German television, the very same country whose leaders we expunged with public show trials and executions for their war crimes, who are now asking, begging, suggesting, we do the same. Not a word of these allegations on American media, however, and that is as chilling for us as it was for Germany in the 30s and 40s. Bush ushered in the era of American fascism; Obama’s biggest challenge will be in undoing it.
Jews don’t want fairness they want preference!
This is from the ‘I don’t believe he just said that’ department. Abe Foxman of the ADL doesn’t think being fair is in Israel’s best interests because that would mean Israel would have to give back everything it has illegally seized over the last 40 years.
Sen. Mitchell is fair. He’s been meticulously even-handed,but the fact is, American policy in the Middle East hasn’t been ‘even handed’ — it has been supportive of Israel when it felt Israel needed critical U.S. support. So I’m concerned, I’m not sure the situation requires that kind of approach(even handedness) in the Middle East.
Huh? Say what? Fairness is not something needed in the Middle East? Then what is? Complete and total preference to the Israeli policy of expansionism and the subjugation of Palestinians in the occupied territories, which includes even their acceptance of their own genocide? The answer is that’s precisely what the Israeli’s want. In their own words
George Mitchell worries them because he was so successful in Northern Ireland, a success that was built on his persistence and his utterly impartiality … and a deal means Israeli concessions which they have never favored. The stronger the candidate for envoy or mediator — the more of an honest broker he or she would be — the more uncomfortable they are.
This is the problem I have with the idea that a state formed on the basis of religion is exclusively for members of that religion only. While I am happy the Israeli Supreme Court over turned the Central Elections Committee (CEC) government decision to ban Arab parties from the elections next month, such a ban in a democratic state should have never been instituted or even dreamed of. However, if religion is the rule of law and not justice, there’s nothing inconsistent with banning, limiting the speech of, restricting the movements of people not of the state’s religion. Yisrael Beitenu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman, a member of parliament believes the very participation of Arabs in Israeli government is a threat to Israel’s existence!
The court threw away this declaration and in fact gave the Arab parties license to kill the state of Israel as a Jewish democratic state….In the next Knesset, we will pass a citizenship law that will prevent the disloyalty of some of Israel’s Arabs.
Such attitudes beg the question if participation in Israeli government is enough to make one an enemy of the state, what does their conventional wisdom say about Arabs outside the borders of the state? Naturally, they are terrorists who deserve the fate of the Gazans.
Give a brother a break? I don’t think so!
There is more than enough proof that crimes were committed by Bush officials over the last 8 years….some of those were of the same magnitude as ones we prosecuted the war on terror over
I really wanted to wait before jumping on Obama’s case, but there’s very little he’s done to let himself off the hook with me. This latest bit of news really has my hackles up because there is a legitimate ground swell of opinion that has now become focused that says some officials in the Bush administration should be held accountable for their illegality on behalf of the US government while they were in office. There is more than enough proof that crimes were committed by Bush officials over the last 8 years….some of those were of the same magnitude as ones we prosecuted the war on terror over, yet Obama doesn’t seem inclined to pursue the matter?!?! What’s going on?
The debate as to whether Bush administration officials have broken international and federal torture laws has played out over the past month in a series of interviews with major media in which Vice President Dick Cheney admitted that he “signed off” on requests by CIA interrogators to waterboard three alleged high-level terrorist detainees. Cheney has staunchly defended the decision and maintained that it was not illegal.
*snip*
Obama has been under intense pressure, as a result Cheney’s public statements, by numerous human rights and civil liberties organizations since he was elected president last November to aggressively probe the Bush administration’s torture and domestic surveillance policies and to prosecute officials who may have violated anti-torture and civil liberties laws. Obama has selected some outspoken critics of the Bush administration’s torture policies for positions at the Department of Justice and the CIA.
On Friday, in officially announcing retired admiral Dennis Blair as his director of national intelligence and former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency, Obama vowed to break with past practices that took place under Bush.
“I was clear throughout this campaign, and have been clear throughout this transition that under my administration, the United States does not torture, we will abide by the Geneva conventions, that we will uphold our highest values and ideals,” Obama said.
But that’s as far as Obama intends to go.
Perhaps, Obama’s handlers think the image make-over he is responsible for will not be tarnished by this bit of news and that there are other things they deem more important to the US’ image than torture prosecutions. Perhaps, but if the US is to regain its stature as a democracy that’s pursuing a moral tract, it should start with its own housecleaning, which should mean getting rid of those who’ve tarnished our image.
Lies, damn lies and statistics
There is plenty of documentation to make a case for the illegal nature of the Israeli government towards Palestinian Arabs both inside Israel and in the occupied territories. The longer it takes for America and the rest of the world to act and deny this voracious killer its meal of foreign aide and military hardware, the more likely we are to have these kinds of incursions onto foreign soil by the Israeli government.
The Israeli war machine has killed over 800 Palestinians and claims are their genocidal blood lust will be escalated, but finally there are cries, albeit faint, that Israel has committed war crimes. It’s about time! All one need do is look at the volume of work on the internet, indisputable pictures and videos which show the use of white phosphorous, the shooting of medical aid workers who were out attending to the wounded as well as hospitals and their facilities, the indiscriminate bombing of shelters for the homeless, and most notably the UN sponsored school where scores of people were killed, all civilians, by the murderous IDF to know that Israel has committed war crimes and should be censured by the international community.
The United Nations has accused Israel of evacuating scores of Palestinians into a house in the suburbs of Gaza City, only to shell the property 24 hours later, killing some 30 people.
In a report published today on what it called “one of the gravest incidents” of the 14-day conflict, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) complained that the Israeli Defence Force then prevented medical teams from entering the area to evacuate the wounded, including young children.
All of these actions come amidst the incontrovertible fact that Israel is the aggressor in this latest war on Palestinians.
Thus the latest ceasefire ended when Israel first killed Palestinians, and Palestinians then fired rockets into Israel. However, before attempting to glean lessons from this event, we need to know if this case is atypical, or if it reflects a systematic pattern.We defined “conflict pauses” as periods of one or more days when no one is killed on either side, and we asked which side kills first after conflict pauses of different durations. As shown in Figure 2, this analysis shows that it is overwhelmingly Israel that kills first after a pause in the conflict: 79% of all conflict pauses were interrupted when Israel killed a Palestinian, while only 8% were interrupted by Palestinian attacks (the remaining 13% were interrupted by both sides on the same day). In addition, we found that this pattern — in which Israel is more likely than Palestine to kill first after a conflict pause — becomes more pronounced for longer conflict pauses. Indeed, of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%, and it unilaterally interrupted 100% of the 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days.
Thus, a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.
The lessons from these data are clear:
First, Hamas can indeed control the rockets, when it is in their interest. The data shows that ceasefires can work, reducing the violence to nearly zero for months at a time.
Second, if Israel wants to reduce rocket fire from Gaza, it should cherish and preserve the peace when it starts to break out, not be the first to kill.
One can conclude that Israel is not interested in peace with its neighbors and that this information alone should be the impetus on which the world community denies Israel the blind eye it has lent the Israeli government for so long and impose the type of punishment reserved and codified for “evil doers” or breakers of international law.
The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, calls what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza “a crime against humanity.” Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as “a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” He has asked for “the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.”
“It is macabre,” Falk said. “I don’t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.”
“There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances,” the rapporteur added. “The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.”
The above stated view should gain more traction as time goes on. There is plenty of documentation to make a case for the illegal nature of the Israeli government towards Palestinian Arabs both inside Israel and in the occupied territories. The longer it takes for America and the rest of the world to act and deny this voracious killer its meal of foreign aide and military hardware, the more likely we are to have these kinds of incursions onto foreign soil by the Israeli government.
Infant shroud
Their parents probably suspected when they dressed them in the morning of their last day on earth they would be dressing them in their burial shrouds.
Killing as a political statement
Once and for all, the recent attacks on Gaza have nothing to do with Israeli security folks. Rather they are a continuation of Israeli policy that has been in place since the inception of the state and are designed to remove the intractable Palestinian population and garner as much of the natural resources of the area as they can. Some of those resources include the land which cover or protect them.
The Gaza invasion was planned even before the latest truce between Hamas and Israel began in the summer of last year.
Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas……Barak gave orders to carry out a comprehensive intelligence-gathering drive which sought to map out Hamas’ security infrastructure, along with that of other militant organizations operating in the Strip.
As we mentioned in a previous post, Israel considers any and all Palestinians within Gaza strip terrorists or militants even the American International School of Gaza which was destroyed in the early phases of the ground invasion.
Rather, this latest attack was politically motivated by the Labor party to solidify its base in time for the elections that will come up shortly and has nothing at all to do with Israeli security!!
The Israeli decision to launch the attacks on Gaza was a political, not security, decision. Just a day or two before the airstrikes, it was Israel that rejected Hamas’s diplomatic initiative aimed at extending the six-month-long ceasefire that had frayed but largely stayed together since June, and that expired 26 December. Hamas officials, working through Egyptian mediators, had urged Israel to lift the siege of Gaza as the basis for continuing an extended ceasefire. Israel, including Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni, of the “centrist” (in the Israeli context) Kadima Party, rejected the proposal. Livni, who went to Egypt but refused to seriously consider the Hamas offer, is running in a tight race for prime minister; her top opponent is the further-right Benyamin Netanyahu of the officially hawkish Likud party, who has campaigned against Livni and the Kadima government for their alleged “soft” approach to the Palestinians. With elections looming in February, no candidate can afford to appear anything but super-militaristic.
For Israeli politicians it is perfectly legitimate to kill people in order to get votes, as a way of showing their constituents they are tough against a defenseless and essentially unarmed population, the Palestinians. This is a no brainer; the Israeli government is the terrorist in this action in Gaza and their continued censorship of the media, and blockade, keeping international observers out allows them to perpetuate the myth of their vulnerability where there really is none!
Fish in a barrel
With the approximately 1.5 million residents of Gaza confined within a 139 square mile area the article entitled, Israel running out of aerial targets, kind of makes sense.
Six days in, Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza shows little sign of abating. Israeli warplanes have flown more than 500 sorties, killing over 400 Palestinians and wounding hundreds. Israeli bombs have rained down on Gaza’s 1.5 million people from air and sea.
But with fewer targets left to strike – yesterday Israel bombed a mosque, the education ministry, the transportation ministry as well as the parliament building – a ground invasion would now appear imminent.
The ground invasion will only serve to finish the targetted assassinations the IAF could not complete, a sort of bomb damage assessment operation. The Palestinians are surrounded on all sides; even the southern route is blocked by Egyptians, who it was reported, were eager to shoot at fleeing Palestinians. What the Israelis are trying to do is provoke the Iranians and others, primarily Hezbollah, into a response which will allow them to widen their war with the help of the US, claiming a multi-war front, and settle old scores, and solidify political party alliances and seats. All spell misery for Palestinians while the world watches a repeat performance of 1939-1945.
My favorite politician, besides Jimmy Carter, Ralph Nader who has been around for ages has weighed in on what’s happening in Gaza with a strong letter to GW Bush. You can read it at Suzy Q’s blog. Hat tip to ya’. Let me say in closing Nader is scathing in calling Bush to task.
Confirmed visual reports show that Israeli warplanes and warships have destroyed or severely damaged police stations, homes, hospitals, pharmacies, mosques, fishing boats, and a range of public facilities providing electricity and other necessities.
Why should this trouble you at all? It violates international law, including the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter. You too have repeatedly violated international law and committed serious constitutional transgressions.
Ouch!
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