Category: military

Al-Qaeda pulling for John McCain


Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

That’s not the kind of news John McCain wants to hear so close to the elections, but it’s what intelligence agencies are reporting in their monitoring of the airwaves.  We’ve been told how important it is to have super secret sensitive monitoring of all forms of communications and the best money can buy is saying that Al-Qaeda wants John McCain to win the presidential elections.  That’s not news however, for the same can be said for the 2004 elections when bin laden himself used the old disinformation ploy to claim support for John Kerry’s race against Bush while secretly hoping for Bush to win.

Why would terrorists want their ardent enemies to win elections in order to continue the fight against them? Quite simply the US is paying a greater price fighting terrorism than they are in securing American interests against terrorism, and especially in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. As for the former, it was never a threat against American interests nor those of its allies, and America knew that going into the war.  What that war has done is destabilize an oil producing country and its neighbors, caused a refugee problem that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, if not more, and presented America with the specter of war with another country, Iran.  Afghanistan, a perpetually poor country which had the misfortune of once hosting bin laden now looms large as a staging ground for incursions and another possible war in another Muslim country, Pakistan.  In both conflicts we are no closer to getting bin laden, if you think that was ever our goal, and yet we’ve alienated millions of Muslims telling them in the words of Thomas Friedman to ‘suck on this’.  It would appear to me therefore that Thomas Friedman and bin laden have much more in common than bin laden and the Muslim masses he purports to represent; neither one of them is interested in seeing the peaceful coexistence of Muslims with the West because in post cold war international relations there would be no one to justify the tremendous defense spending currently taking place in world governments, and especially ours. The current budget for defense is twice what it was in 2000 when Bush took office and with fighting taking place on two fronts, the US military will need to be rebuilt at a tremendous expense, no matter who wins the November elections.

The idea that bin laden is an instrument for US foreign policy has traction when one considers the large amounts of money spent to “fight” him and the members of his group, but what is happening on an even larger scale is the fight the US is waging with Muslim societies world wide.  Under the leadership of the neoconservative cabal wing of the Republican Party, Islamofascism has taken expression and become the enemy of our Nation.  It is defined as any body of Muslims who are not ok with the notion that the US can go anywhere, break any law and do anything to fight its perceived enemies and in the process make more and new enemies.  It is a policy of perpetual confrontation which only benefits a large military complex that needs conflict on which to survive, which gets us back again to Osama bin laden who can only survive as a “hero” for Muslims if there is conflict between them and who “he” defines as their enemy, the US. What’s interesting to me is we have more than enough people who are willing to whet the appetite of both parties, the neocons of Washington, and al-Qaeda of some cave in the Hindu-Kush mountain range somewhere.  Perhaps it’s time to break this cycle.

This is not good..


At first glance, the headline ‘When Settlers Strike, Palestinians Point and Shoot back’ had a hopeful ring about it, but this is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we are talking about here and for the moment there’s nothing hopeful about that.

Video cameras like hers have emerged as a new nonviolent weapon for West Bank Palestinians – who face a rising number of attacks at the hands of settlers anxious over their fate in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But the Palestinian video footage often ends up on Israeli TV, thus becoming a tool for both deterrence and justice.

“We’re trying to use the cameras to reduce the level of violence as a whole. When settlers see the camera, we hope that they will behave less violently,” says Sarit Michaeli, the spokeswoman for Btselem.

“We also want to use the footage to provide to the Israeli media to raise awareness of the problems and to pressure the law enforcement bodies to do their job.”

Btselem has given out 150 cameras as part of its Shooting Back program that started slowly last year and is beginning to show results. Already, footage shot by Palestinians has been used in at least 20 cases involving settler violence.

In any other society I would think that non-violent resistance could make a dent in the morality of the greater society, but that doesn’t seem to work in this conflagration, because all too often camera men and women are shot and their images so clouded in claim and counter claim minutae the impact of the captured images is lost.  Fadel Shana’s death was caught by his own camera and there was no mistaking who murdered him, but of course Shana’s offense was he was carrying a “camera” the IDF confused for some sort of weapon that he should not have been pointing at a tank that could more clearly see him through its “camera”  than he it through his, and so deserved to die.  Of course the people responsible for his murder were let off without even a reprimand because his execution was “sound“.

Amnesty remains extremely concerned that Israeli military personnel continue to operate unaccountably in Gaza. In April this year, for example, a Reuters cameraman – Fadel Shana – was killed by an Israeli tank shell in Gaza despite clearly displaying ‘TV-Press’ on his flak jacket and nearby vehicle.

Two Palestinian children – Ahmad Farajallah and Ghassan Khaled Abu ‘Ataiwi – were also killed in the attack that killed Shana and several other people were also injured. Shana and the two children were killed by a ‘flechette’ shell containing up to 5,000 5cm-long steel darts (or flechettes) that spread over an area as big as a football pitch when fired. These munitions are notoriously imprecise and should never be used in areas populated with civilians. In this case the Israeli army later wrote to Reuters saying it had investigated the incident saying the decision to attack the journalist was ‘sound’.

So far this year more than 420 Palestinians (including some 80 children) have been killed by Israeli forces, and 30 Israelis killed by Palestinian groups. Most of these deaths (some 385) occurred in Gaza. Amnesty International remains concerned at a widespread failure to bring people to justice for unlawful killings.

So, with this as background, the introduction of more video “vigilantes” as they most probably will be called, or worse, “video terrorists” is being heralded as a non-violent response to settler aggression?

“We’re trying to use the cameras to reduce the level of violence as a whole. When settlers see the camera, we hope that they will behave less violently,” says Sarit Michaeli, the spokeswoman for Btselem.

When has that happened in the history of this conflict?? Is that a duh moment or what? For perspective one only need to ask Salam Amira whose story we highlighted earlier this year.

“Since my video was shown, the soldiers shoot at our house all the time,” she said. The shattered and cracked windows at the front of the building confirm her story. “When we leave the windows open, they fire tear gas inside too.”

Doesn’t seem like her possessing a camera and filming the shooting of a neighbor’s ‘big toe’ did either the neighbor or her any good.  You can see what she filmed here.

I’m sure the folks passing out the cameras are aware of all this, so why do they insist on this form of protest?  I can only think they might be saying to themselves if enough images of Israeli oppression are shown to enough people it will have a positive influence on the “peace process”, but in fact, Israelis are not like Americans of the 50s and sixties.  They are much more steeped in the dehumanization of their opponent, the Palestinian, and far more willing to accept the inhumane treatment he receives at their hand wihtout any conscious about it more so than his American counterpart. It’s that difference which makes both countries so special; no doubt the organizers of this “event” want to influence Israeli as well as American public opinion, but American opinion is controlled by a corporate media which is beholden to American politicians heavily lobbied by special interests which have reduced the atrocities of the aggressor and turned them into the aggression of the victim.  It’s gonna’ take more than cameras to change that.

US supported Iraqi government responsible for Christian oppression


Politics do make strange bedfellows and especially in Iraq. Try to keep up.  Christians in Iraq are blaming the Iraqi government and in particular their inability to protect them from continued violence in Iraq for the exodus of Christians from Mosul. I thought the surge was working, but evidently not for Iraqi Christians. What I found very interesting was that Shi’ite Muslims are coming to the aid of their fellow Iraqi Christians.

Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, sent some of his most senior aides from the holy Shiite city of Najaf to Baghdad to meet with church leaders in an expression of solidarity…..

One of Mr. Sadr’s representatives at the meeting, Sheik Muhanned al-Gharrawi, said that he had just spoken to Mr. Sadr by telephone and that he was instructed to convey a message from his leader: “We will not hesitate to turn into human shields for our Christian brothers if need be.”

Another Shiite cleric, Hazem al-Araji, said that some of the families that had fled Mosul to predominantly Christian villages in the Nineveh Plain, northeast of the city, sought the protection of his movement.

“We told them that we cannot provide military help but that we will exert pressure on the government,” Mr. Araji said.

He added that his movement would send trucks with food, mattresses and blankets to aid displaced families.

The Christian military might of the US isn’t helping Iraqi Christians, but Shiite Iraqi muslims are?

Onward Christian soldiers!


Some don’t want to say it but the invasion of Iraq is about getting back at Islam and Muslims for their transgression of not accepting Christian ideology which we’ve managed to cloak in terms like “democracy” and “freedom”, etc. That’s not to say ours is not a “Christian” nation, but it’s also a “Jewish”, “Islamic”, “Buddhist” and “pagan” nation as well because our beloved Constitution says government is not a tool for religion, although it can allow for the safe and unfettered expression of any and all religion. However, the Bush administration and some inside the military don’t necessarily see it that way and instead allowed their representation of goverment to be an expression of Christian intent. That’ll get you in a lot of hot water constitutionally, and so it has with General Petraeus, leader of American forces in Iraq, who has “endorsed” a book entitled, Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel . Christian evangelism has been going on in the US military for sometime, but collectively it’s been demoralizing to those not Christian and is against military policy. A very diligent group, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has been keeping an eye on this phenomenon for some time and much of what they discovered can be seen here. I hope to write more about what they’ve found in the months ahead. In the meantime that group, MRFF is calling for the immediate dismissal of General Petraeus because of his endorsement and nothing less than that should happen, the offense he committed is just that serious!