Justifying Murder on the High Seas

Once again the ugly specter of Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza strip has been brought to the forefront of the world's attention and, this time, it wasn't just the actions of activists (who have largely been ignored) that has drawn the laser-like focus and condemnations of nations far and wide. This time, it was the IDF's commandeering of a humanitarian aid flotilla ship in international waters - causing the deaths of 9 activists (that we know of so far) and the wounding of dozens of others - justified as "self-defence" by the Israeli government that has quite rightly been met with scorn by the UN security council (although the wording of the specific condemnation has yet to be agreed on. Typical.)

As Amnesty International noted this past January, "Israel's [Illegal] Gaza Blockade Continues to Suffocate Daily Life". There is no legal or moral justification for this blockade to continue.

Israeli government propagandists and apologists are out in full force spreading their version of the ship boarding - even going so far as to claim that the activists tried to "lynch" their soldiers. Before this display of disproportionate violence, Israeli foreign minister Lieberman made the ludicrous assertion that "there is no humanitarian crisis in Strip" and called the flotilla "an attempt at violent propaganda against Israel". Ships peacefully headed for Gaza with humanitarian aid are "violent propaganda"? Extreme Zionist hard-liners like Lieberman will stop at nothing to excuse the Israeli government's continued crimes against humanity.

The Palestinians can't count on the Canadian or US governments to do anything but support Israel's ongoing inhumanity, as they've done for decades. And while there are reports that Turkey's government has stated it will send navy ships along with the next Gaza aid convoy - a move that could potentially set off a larger conflict - the toothless UN which has issued decades of resolutions condemning Israel's actions cannot be expected to do anything but let this opportunity for real action pass once again. Collectively, and because the US has veto power on the security council, they prefer the status quo to any challenge to Israel's power-mongering.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian people continue to suffer.

Netanyahu, who cut short his visit to Canada to return to Israel to deal with what's happened, has asserted that the only path to "peace" is to 1) have the Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist and 2) agree to the demilitarization of Palestine. The second condition is unthinkable considering Israel's propensity for using military force at the slightest provocation (or what it perceives to be provocative.) As it has just shown, if it feels threatened by ships in international waters and feels justified launching a thuggish pre-emptive attack as it did this weekend, how can the Palestinian people ever feel secure living in a demilitarized zone? That would be madness.

Those aboard the ships are currently detained in Israel and have not been allowed to speak freely, giving the Israeli government ample time to try to win over public opinion. As far as I'm concerned, they've failed. They can claim alleged ties to "terrorist groups" or "Iran" or say that the activists had no right to defend themselves against IDF soldiers armed with guns (one Israeli mouthpiece actually said the soldiers were at first armed with "paint ball guns") but there's no escaping the fact that they forced themselves onto ships in international waters and there's no justification for that. None.

What, exactly, has to happen before there are actual consequences for these crimes? How many more people have to die?

Related:

Free Gaza
Robert Fisk: Western leaders are too cowardly to help save lives
UN Security Council members urge Israel to lift Gaza siege
Several Israeli Arab protesters arrested in mass rallies over Gaza flotilla deaths
US activist loses eye after being shot in face with tear gas canister
 

Quote du Jour: It's the Palestinians' Fault

Obama in Germany:

The Palestinians have to get serious about creating the security environment that is required for Israel to feel confident.

The oppressed must make the oppressors feel at ease.

Isn’t that kind of like saying if those slaves hadn’t been so uppity, things would have been a lot easier for everybody? Or if only black South Africans hadn't been so aggressive, they wouldn't have suffered so much under apartheid?

Think I'm being too tough on Obama? Check back here in a couple of years when we'll see exactly how much "progress" has been made in the so-called Middle East peace process, especially regarding the human rights violations the Palestinians will still be dealing with, and then we'll talk.

Related:

The Angry Arab - Obama Speech: Part Vapid and Part Sinister

UN hearings to be held on Gaza war crimes

Alexander Cockburn - Obama in Cairo: High Words, Low Truths

Robert Fisk - Words that could heal wounds of centuries
 

Hell in Gaza

It wasn't enough that the Israeli government had blocked humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territories again - just the latest in a long string of collective punishments that the phrase "crimes against humanity" can barely be uttered about out loud lest they are met with accusations of anti-Semitism from those who continue to support this ruthless behaviour despite years of mounting evidence proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the US-enabled Israeli hawks have absolutely no interest in anything resembling "peace".

No. That wasn't enough.

And, because there are Israeli elections coming up in February, what better way for a hawk to strut his or her stuff than by supporting a massacre of Palestinians (200+ dead and 700 reportedly injured at the time of this writing)?

Any reasonable person would condemn both sides - Israel and Hamas - for continuing the cycle of violence however we learned quite clearly when the Israeli government attacked Lebanon in 2006 that it is prone to massively disproportionate responses to threats and that it has the willingness and ability to create human suffering on a grand scale in one fell swoop. And these players - Olmert, Barak, Livni et al, the architects of that failed war - appear to believe that they can get away with it all again. And why not? It's not like the Winograd Commission report had any impact on the type of arrogant thinking that decimated Lebanon and that now destroys Gaza and the lives of an already tremendously oppressed people who were systematically weakened by a lack of food and other life essentials.

Those who followed the Israel/Lebanon war will recall that that attack had been planned months in advance, contrary to claims by the Israeli government that it was just a spur of the moment response to the kidnapping of some of its soldiers. So, it should be no surprise that, as Ha'aretz reports today, the attacks on Gaza are not about retaliating against Hamas for its recent shelling of Israeli territory.

Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning.

The disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.

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. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well.

And, once again, we are seeing just exactly how a warmongering Israeli administration views those it has already cast aside as less than as it continues to violate international laws while it pushes the ME to the brink of untold disaster.

Meanwhile,

In Damascus, Syria, Hamas' top leader, Khaled Mashaal, called on Palestinians to rekindle their fight against Israel. "This is the time for a third Intifada," he said.

Related:

IN PICTURES / The Gaza Strip under attack
Obama 'monitoring' Gaza strikes: spokesman
UN Ambassador Shalev defends IDF Gaza op in letter to Ban, UNSC head

To be in Gaza is to be trapped

What Israel hopes to achieve with the present military offensive – beyond influencing the coming Israeli elections – is not clear. For if a long-anticipated ground operation, leading to a partial reoccupation on the ground, is to follow these air strikes – as it did in the war in Lebanon in 2006 – it will have to achieve what neither Hamas nor its rival Fatah can: unifying Palestinian society once more against a common enemy, as Gaza was once united against Israeli settlements inside its boundaries.

If that is not the intention, it is hard to see what Israel's actions are meant to achieve in a community that cherishes its martyrs; where violent death is intended to reinforce social cohesion and unity.

For in the end what has happened in the past few hours is simply an expression of what has been going on for days and months and years: the death and fear that Gaza's gunmen and rocket teams and bombers have inflicted upon Israel have been returned 10, 20, 30 times over once again. And nothing will change in the arithmetic of it.

Not in Gaza. But perhaps in a wider Arab world, becoming more uncomfortable by the day about what is happening inside Gaza, something is changing. And Israel has supplied a rallying point. Something tangible and brutal that gives the critics of its actions in Gaza – who say it has a policy of collective punishment backed by disproportionate and excessive force – something to focus on.

Something to be ranked with Deir Yassin. With the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Something, at last, that Israel's foes can say looks like an atrocity.

Attack in Syria: A Late October Surprise?

Lest we forget, as much as we may want to, Bush, Cheney and Gates are still busy plotting and carrying out various random attacks on sovereign countries while most of America is focused on the election and the accompanying financial crisis. I have to add though that, even if nothing else was happening, I suspect the majority of Americans wouldn't even blink at the fact that the US military has continually invaded Pakistan's territory in recent months and has now completed an air raid in Syria's boundaries. USA! USA! and all of that... The desire to win something, somewhere is overwhelming.

Depending on who you believe, the attack on Sunday either "killed a major smuggler of foreign fighters into Iraq" according to some anonymous "US official" and/or resulted in the deaths of 8 civilians.

Killing innocent people is a nasty habit the US military has yet to shake as it continually happens in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq - to list the countries that we know of where such "mistakes" involving "collateral damage" take place. We have no idea what other covert operations around the world might be "accomplishing" in this failed war on terror.

I don't think it's a stretch to see this latest US show of militarism in Syria as perhaps a signal favouring the election of Netanyahu over Livni after she admitted this week that she had failed to form a coalition government in Israel and was forced to call an election. Netanyahu has flatly stated that he has no interest in compromising to further the Israeli/Palestinian peace process (such as it is) and if Livni manages to win, media reports characterize the situation as having now delayed that process for at least a year.

While this certainly isn't a good outcome for Bush, who had expressed that he wanted to find some finality on the I/P issue - but who, in reality, along with Condi had stalled progress repeatedly for years - aggression towards Syria could serve as a favour to McCain. We'll have to see how or if he plans to handle this news if his campaign can manage to get the focus off of Palin's wardrobe (an issue she can't seem to let go of).

As Marc J. Sirois writing in Lebanon's Daily Star explains, after analyzing the futility of attacking Iran:

Then came another kind of "surprise." The global financial crisis that broke out earlier this month did not just damage McCain's campaign by exposing his fundamental (and openly acknowledged) ignorance on economic matters ahead of an era in which such abilities are likely to be at a premium. It also forced the US government to take on trillions of dollars in new liabilities in a bid to restore confidence in the markets. Given the gargantuan deficits and debt already amassed by Bush's profligate spending on wars against Muslims, tax breaks for the rich, and subsidies for large corporations, a costly war with Iran is simply no longer a viable option.

For all of these reasons, Syria must look like a more attractive target, especially if Washington can maintain a level of hostilities that is sufficient to pique the average American's "patriotism" but not so intense that it incurs significant costs. There is no guarantee, however, that the Syrians would cooperate with such an approach, even though any form of response in kind on their part would only invite the Americans to escalate disproportionately, especially with their overwhelming advantage in air power.

The ball seems to have gotten rolling in a Syrian village near the Iraqi border shortly before dusk on Sunday. According to Damascus, US troops arrived in helicopters and assaulted a building under construction at a farmstead, killing eight civilians - half of them children.

The Bush administration's official reaction has been painfully slow in coming, but according to an Associated Press report, a US military officer has confirmed that an attack was carried out by special forces. "We are taking matters into our own hands," AP quoted the officer as saying on condition of anonymity because of what the reporter described as the "political sensitivity" - no mention of patent illegality - "of cross-border raids." Pointedly, the comments came in Washington, not from an officer on the ground in Iraq, where the US military professed to be in the dark about the attack in Syria.
[...]
So why now? The timing has got to be instilling a sense of deja vu among senior members of the Syrian regime. They recall with consternation that even after US diplomats publicly acknowledged the value of Syrian intelligence assistance in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Bush and other senior figures kept up their menacing rhetoric about Damascus. [even though they used Syria as a dumping ground for suspects they wanted tortured, like Canada's Maher Arar -catnip]

This looks to be different. Even if Damascus were still a target in Bush's so-called "war on terror," the timing is so vulnerable to accusations of an attempt to influence the election that only a dire threat could possibly justify taking the risk. Even if it turns out that what the Americans hit was indeed tied to the insurgency, therefore, hitting it now makes no sense - unless the real objective is to capture the hearts and minds of undecided voters in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

While Sirois "hope[s] that Obama wins the White House and then makes good on his promise as a conciliatory figure", Obama's fealty to AIPAC may supersede any possible progress with Syria's government on the I/P and Iraq war fronts. The Bush administration's decision to launch this latest attack has only complicated matters but hasn't that been its legacy around the world since day one?

No matter who wins the US election, the dangerously shifting sands in the Middle East will no doubt see the US government involved in extremely complex deliberations for years to come - especially once the Pentagon finally admits that military might is not the answer and that might not happen unless the US finally goes completely bankrupt. A new Great Depression might provide exactly the amount of humility needed to finally reach that point.

But who am I kidding?

Update:

Baghdad condemns 'US Syria raid'

Speaking after a Baghdad cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh also explicitly criticised the US over the unconfirmed helicopter strike.

"The Iraqi government rejects the US helicopter strike on Syrian territory, considering that Iraq's constitution does not allow its land to be a base for launching attacks on neighbouring countries," he said.

 

Quote du Jour: Netanyahu - Israel Benifiting From 9/11

Via Ha'aretz:

The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."

I'm sorry but, when was it again that American public opinion didn't favour Israel?

What a gruesome quote.
 

Gazans Break Free

This is truly remarkable:

It took explosives to do what diplomacy couldn't: allow Palestinians to go on a shopping spree. The siege of Gaza, imposed by Israel and the international community after Hamas seized control of the Palestinian territory last July, ended abruptly before dawn on Wednesday when militants blew as many as 15 holes in the border wall separating the territory from Egypt. In the hours that followed, over 350,000 Palestinians swarmed across the frontier, nearly one fifth of Gaza's entire population.

Some Palestinians craved medicine and food — goats appeared to be a hot item — because Israel had cut off most supplies from entering Gaza as punishment for militants' firing rockets into southern Israel. Students and businessmen joined the throng heading for Egypt. There were scores of brides-to-be, stuck on the Egyptian side, who scurried across to be united with their future bridegrooms in Gaza. And some, like teacher Abu Bakr, stepped through a blast hole into Egypt simply "to enjoy the air of freedom."

The previous day, President Housni Mubarak faced the wrath of the Arab world when his riot police used clubs and water hoses to attack Palestinian women pleading for Egypt to open the Rafah crossing in Gaza. And despite pressure from Israel and the United States, Mubarak wasn't about to order his men to use force to restrain Palestinians rendered desperate by Israel's siege. The Egyptian President said he ordered his troops to "let them come to eat and buy food and go back, as long as they are not carrying weapons."
[...]
Many carried heavy suitcases and said that they were never coming back to captivity in Gaza.

But most Gazans were in a mad scramble to go shopping, and they returned with everything from goats to tires to jerricans full of gasoline. One stout woman in a veil threaded nimbly through barbed wire with a tray of canned fruit balanced on her head. The Palestinians cleaned out every shop on the Egyptian side: By afternoon, there was nothing to buy within a six-mile distance of the border; and even the Sinai town of El-Arish, three hours drive away, had been sucked dry of gasoline. One taxi driver who brought back cartons of cigarettes and gallons of gas to resell for a profit in Gaza said, "This should help feed my family for several months."

I can't even remember the last time I felt anything resembling a sigh of relief for the plight of the Palestinians.

The reactions:

Olmert continues his warmongering while the US expresses 'concern'. Hamas wants the Egyptian/Gaza border to be controlled by the Egyptians and the Palestinians. Egypt's president Mubarak said Gazans were allowed to cross the border because they were starving. The EU had accused Israel earlier in the week of collective punishment when it cut off fuel and supplies to Gaza while the UN security council stalled while considering a resolution condemning Israel because the US and France were concerned that it didn't include a fair and balanced view of the situation ie. it didn't address the rocket fire from Gaza. Same shit, different resolution. Israel has been in violation of UN security resolutions for years without consequence.

And here's one presidential candidate's response:

Barack Obama wants a U.N. Security Council resolution on the Gaza Strip to mention rocket attacks on Israel.

The Democratic presidential candidate in a letter sent Tuesday to Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, urged the United States not to allow the resolution to pass unless it notes the rocket salvos.

The Security Council is in emergency session this week considering Israel's blockade of Gaza.

"All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families," wrote Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, in his letter to Khalilzad. "However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this. Gaza is governed by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction, and Israeli civilians are being bombarded on an almost daily basis."

Reality to Obama: it doesn't matter what the wording is. Israel will not comply. And, for all of your talk about "change", maybe you should explain why you're supporting the Bush administration's foreign policy stance.

In the meantime, Gazans are experiencing some much-needed freedom and it's about damn time.

Related:

Gaza's Last Gasp

Israel might find that giving the Palestinians their freedom and allowing them the dignity of self-determination in their own land might be far more effective in bringing about a peaceful solution than all this bloodshed and misery. Fifty years have passed since Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan said, "How can we complain about Gaza's hatred towards us? For eight years, they have been sitting in refugee camps while right in front of them, we are turning the land and villages of their forefathers into our home." How much deeper must the hatred be after decades of oppression that has reduced their existence to a mere specter of life? Without a political solution that includes Gaza in negotiations to settle the wrongs done to the Palestinians, a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis is as remote as ever.

The Palestinians need candles desperately and they need your voice to speak for them. There are many ways that you can do this. Organize demonstrations or vigils, or take part in ones that are already being organized. Take the time and write to newspapers and politicians urging them to take action and bring an end to this humanitarian disaster. Also, a deluge of letters to the Israeli Embassy would allow the Israelis to see that the world does not support a siege on the people of Gaza. The power is in your hands to spread the word through your churches, work groups, clubs, neighborhood networks, and simply by talking to everyone you know. We cannot stand by and allow this slow agonizing death of a whole people to continue whatever justification Israel gives for its actions. There has to be another way that gives succor to the people of Gaza and hope for a better future than the ominous one being forced on them right at this moment.

Israeli Ministers Want Nasrallah Assassinated

Peace in the Middle East? Not bloody likely.

Via Ha'aretz:

After Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Saturday that his organization is holding the remains of Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed in the Second Lebanon War, several government ministers on Sunday called for the militant chief's assassination.

"Nasrallah is a cruel and crazy man," said Minister Yitzhak Cohen (Shas), during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. "I don't understand why he is still breathing. We should have liquidated him a long time ago. I recommend the cabinet assassinate the man.

Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) echoed the sentiment, saying, "Nasrallah is a person who has crossed all lines of inhumanity. We don't need to negotiate with him, we need to destroy him."

Absorption Minister Ze'ev Boim called Nasrallah a "sewer rat," adding, "we must make sure he does not see the light of day."

That's what happens when the oppressed becomes the oppressors; when those who have been terrorized become merchants of terror.

"sewer rat"?

From The History Place:

The devastating Nazi propaganda film 'The Eternal Jew' went so far as to compared [sic] Jews to plague carrying rats, a foreshadow of things to come.

Do they really have such short memories?

And does the idea of Nasrallah negotiating with body parts disturb you?

Well, read this:

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops are collecting bodies of Hezbollah fighters killed in Lebanon and storing them in refrigerated containers in Israel, the army said Wednesday.

Israel used the bodies of Hezbollah fighters as a bargaining chip in a previous prisoner swap with the Lebanese guerrilla group, and security officials said bodies were being collected for the same reason this time.

Absolutely gruesome.

So, when Israel does it, it's okay but If Hezbollah uses the same tactic (which has been successful in the past), Nazrallah should be assassinated and cabinet ministers who voice that are just told to simmer down by Ehud Barak (probably because he's got his hands full trying to kill more people in Gaza by denying them fuel)?

What kind of insanity is this?

Related:

More from Gaza: People are dying, Help us!

Update:

Barak: Gaza to get one-time fuel, medicine delivery

Lebanese Army Fires on Israeli Warplanes Over Southern City
 

Canada Places the US and Israel on Torture Watch List

Yes, I'm talking about Canada's Conservative government.

Via Reuters:

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's foreign ministry has put the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured and also classifies some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, according to a document obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The revelation is likely to embarrass the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel. Both nations denied they allowed torture in their jails.

The document -- part of a training course on torture awareness given to diplomats -- mentions the U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man [Omar Khadr] is being held.
[...]
"The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect the views or policies of this government," he [Foreign Affairs minister Bernier] said.

The government mistakenly provided the document to Amnesty International Canada as part of a court case the rights organization has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.

Well, this is bound to be interesting...
 

Random News & Views Roundup

- The US house of representatives has been busy passing resolutions about other countries' behaviour this week. On Tuesday, it approved a resolution calling for Japan to apologize for its use of female sex slaves during WW2. And on Monday, it unanimously passed another resolution demanding that Canada end the seal hunt. Apparently this hectic agenda - wagging their collective fingers at other countries - is the reason Pelosi has determined that the Democrats are just too darn busy to take care of urgent American business like impeaching Gonzales, Cheney and Bush and ending the Iraq war.

- The UN security council has decided to send 26,000 African peacekeeping troops to Darfur.

The Bush administration welcomed the council's decision to adopt the resolution, but it declined to co-sponsor the resolution on the grounds that it was not tough enough, a U.S. official said. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called for an expedited transition from the African Union to the United Nations.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Ban in recent days to press him to take over the mission by October [instead of December]. Ban refused on the grounds that his military planners would not be ready.

And we all know what a fine military planner Condi is. If Bush wanted "tough", he could have addressed the crisis in Darfur years ago. All hat, no cowboy - as usual.

- Uri Avnery: A Warning to Tony Blair

As an expert on the global economy, with a worldwide perspective, Wolfensohn could also point out that the importance of the U.S. in the world economy is gradually declining, with new giants like China and India rising.

We, the Israelis, like to think that we are the center of the world. Wolfensohn, a person with a worldwide outreach, sticks a pin into this egocentric balloon. Already now, he says, only the West considers the Israeli-Palestinian issue so important. Most of the world is indifferent. "I have visited more than 140 countries: you are not such a big deal there."

Even this limited interest will also evaporate. Wolfensohn rubs salt into the wound: "A moment will come when the Israelis and the Palestinians will be compelled to understand that they are a secondary performance. … The Israelis and the Palestinians must get rid of the idea that they are a Broadway performance. They are only a play in the Village. Off-off-off-off-off Broadway." Knowing that this is the worst one can tell an Israeli, he adds: "I hope that I am not getting into trouble by saying this, but, what the hell, that's what I believe, and I am already 73 years old."

I do believe him – and I, what the hell, am already 83.

- Chris Floyd: Why the Bush Administration Buries Accounts of Extremist Recantations; Good News is No News.

Last week, the Guardian's Ian Black reported on "a remarkable recantation" by one of the founding figures of the modern jihadist movement, Sayid Imam al-Sharif. A former comrade-in-arms of Ayman al-Zawahiri -- al Qaeda's own Dick Cheney, the "deputy" who actually runs the gang -- Sharif was the mastermind behind the Islamists' first great "spectacular": the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Now Sharif, imprisoned in Egypt, is finishing a new book "that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent jihad" and is already creating fissures throughout the Islamist movement, the Guardian reports.
[...]
The fact that some major figures in one of these factions are now renouncing the use of "killing operations" to advance their odious ideas is surely a welcome development. If it saves only one innocent life from destruction, that is cause enough for rejoicing.

Yet this process -- which began in some quarters years before 9/11, and now involves hundreds of jihadist leaders and activists -- is being ignored by the very people who, ostensibly, have the greatest reason to trumpet it. But of course, such a development is actually bad news for the fanatical militarists of the Bushist faction. They ignore, reject or twist anything that undercuts their cartoonish myth of a vast, monolithic "Islamofascism" bent on world conquest at any cost -- and capable of carrying it out, unless stopped by multitrillion-dollar American war machine ranging over every continent.

- Via Dahr Jamail's Dispatches: Ali al-Fadhily's A Little Easier to Occupy from the Air

BAGHDAD, Jul 31 (IPS) - Many Iraqis believe the dramatic escalation in U.S. military use of air power is a sign of defeat for the occupation forces on the ground.

U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of this year as over the first half of 2006, according to official information.

They dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq in the first half of 2007, compared to 86 in the first half of 2006. This is also three times more than in the second half of 2006, according to Air Force data.

The Air Force has also been expanding its air bases in Iraq and adding entire squadrons. It is now preparing to use a new robotic fighter known as the Reaper. The Reaper is a hunter-killer drone that can be operated by remote control from thousands of miles away.

"We find it strange that the big strategists of the U.S. military have actually failed in finding solutions on the ground and are now back to air raids that kill more civilians than militants," former Iraqi army brigadier-general Ahmed Issa told IPS.

That's the same strategy they're using in Afghanistan and look how well that's turned out.
 

The New Cold War

Two newspaper articles from different continents on Sunday analyzed the new "cold war". In Haaretz, Aluf Benn follows on the news of US arms sales to the Saudis and the increase in military aid (which also consists of $150 million for a ballistic missile defence system) to Israel.

The massive sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and its neighbors in the Gulf and the increase in military aid to Israel are the U.S. response to the Iranian threat, and the flow of arms from Russia to Iran and Syria. Each arms-supplying power has its own interests: the Russians want to deter the U.S. and Israel from bombing the Iranian nuclear facility - therefore, they have supplied the Iranians with advanced air defense. Such systems will also be supplied to Syria in the coming year. The Americans like to talk about democracy in the Arab world, but they believe that strengthening armies is the most efficient way to protect stability and maintain pro-Western regimes in the face of extremist Islam.

That is definitely the crux of the matter and it's also the reason why, in the midst of these crises, all Condi Rice is doing is talking about some sort of vague upcoming meeting to address the ME peace process. The Bush administration firmly believes in the use of force, not diplomacy or democracy, as was most recently evident in its funneling of money to Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to get rid of Hamas and its military aid to Israel during the failed 2006 Israel/Lebanon war.

The ME road map died a long time ago, and while Tony Blair is the latest in a string of envoys who is supposed to make sense of the situation, it seems he may have to start by addressing the problem of stray cats in Jerusalem first before he moves on to the bigger picture. (No, I'm not kidding.)

Meanwhile, back at the cold war ranch, some members of the US congress have said they'll try to block the arms sale to Saudi Arabia but they will obviously need to walk a fine line since the sales are included in the bill that increases aid to Israel as well. The majority of Republicans and Democrats would not risk alienating the Israel lobby or its supporters and if the bill is amended, Bush will probably veto it or create yet another signing statement to get what he ultimately wants anyway. In other words, Saudi Arabia will get the arms. It's basically a done deal.

Robin Wright, writing for the Washington Post in, U.S. vs. Iran: Cold War, Too, suggests a "Green Curtain" in the ME as opposed to the old Soviet-style "Iron Curtain", but the implications are the same.

When the first Cold War began, in 1946, Winston Churchill famously spoke of an Iron Curtain that had divided Europe. As Cold War II begins half a century later, the Bush administration is trying to drape a kind of Green Curtain dividing the Middle East between Iran's friends and foes. The new showdown may well prove to be the most enduring legacy of the Iraq conflict. The outcome will certainly shape the future of the Middle East -- not least because the administration's strategy seems so unlikely to work.

And this analyst's points simplify the current situation: the Bush administration has created a monster:

"The difference now is that Iran is feeling its oats because of the increase in oil prices, Iraq's weakness since the fall of Saddam, and the successes of Hezbollah and Hamas," noted Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who ran the State Department's policy planning shop during Bush's first term. "In contrast, the U.S. is feeling stretched by the very same high oil prices and its difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The roots of Cold War II lie in the Bush administration's decision to remove regimes it considered enemies after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The first two targets were the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq -- coincidentally, both foes of Iran that had served as important checks on Tehran's power. The United States has now taken on the role traditionally played by Iraq as the regional counterweight to Iran.

And by doing so it has also weakened Israel's tenuous position in the ME, thus the need to ride in and pour even more arms into that country.

The neocon philosophy seems to be just arm everybody and let them sort it out. That attitude was also reflected in the recent US nuclear deal with India meant to be a buffer against China and a weakened Pakistani political position where Musharraf's (nuclear-armed) government has been the target of numerous attacks and protests - not to mention its ongoing failure to deal with the Taliban in the northern provinces, where the US military has threatened to intervene.

Keep in mind that behind of all this Iran has been cooperating with the IAEA and, more importantly, does not have nuclear weapons - unlike Israel, Pakistan and India. Mohamed ElBaradei must be banging his head against the wall as he watches the US follow the same strategy it did in the run up to the Iraq war - blustering, lies and fearmongering to justify a future military "intervention". Will we witness yet another Colin Powell-like moment at the UN? Time will tell. But this time, the world is that much wiser - or so we hope.

No matter what happens, one thing is certain: Smedley Butler must be rolling over in his grave because the modern day war profiteers - arms dealers, oil men, military-industrial complex businesses - will all walk away that much wealthier for Bush and Cheney having been in control of the American Empire.

And the wars will go on. And people will continue to die.

Related:
Putin threatens to target Europe
Israel declines to criticize U.S. weapons sales to Gulf Arab states
Armageddon - Bring It On
 

Random News & Views Roundup

- If you're Alberto Gonzales, you know you're in trouble when the FBI director contradicts your sworn testimony.

- Pat Tillman's mother has long thought he may have been murdered. New details published by the AP may help boost that claim. After all, you really have to wonder why the White House would use executive privilege to block the release of the relevant documents it has in this case which has been repeatedly spun by Bush's operatives.

- Karl Rove subpoenaed. I'd rather see the headline, "Karl Rove Convicted", but that will do for now.

- Remember Weibo Ludwig? He's ba-ack. Most retirees take up golfing or gardening. I'm just sayin'.

- Is that bottled water you're buying just expensive tap water? In some cases, yes.

- Reefer madness. It's real. But the movie was still hilariously bad.

- John Pilger: How Truth Slips Down the Memory Hole.

- Nucking Futs, or Crazy Like a Fox? (Hey, it's not my headline, but it is apropos especially when they're hailing losers like DeLay, Lieberman and Santorum). Much more on Hagee here.

- And, speaking of Israel, a US house subcommittee voted in favour of handing over $150 million dollars for its ballistic defence system. Armageddon, here we come.

- Another neocon wet dream: Bush Speechwriter Calls for Attack on Syria. I imagine they'd just choose to nuke the entire middle east if it weren't for Israel being there (and if they could find some way to recover the oil after the bombings.)

- Iraqi oil patch workers continue to protest the proposed US-driven Iraq oil law. Meanwhile, back at the al-Maliki ranch, Sunni lawmakers have walked out and:

...immediately suspended all participation with the government and gave al-Maliki one week to meet package of demands or it would completely pull out of the government.

Among the bloc's demands were a government pardon for all security detainees not charged with crimes, disbanding all Shi'ite militias, an opportunity for the front to have real participation in the decision-making process and the strict adherence to the International Declaration of Human Rights.
[...]
...more than one-quarter of the places in al-Maliki's 38-member cabinet are vacant due to protests.

And freedom still isn't on the march.
 

Quote du Jour: Lieberman's Denial

In the midst of this warmongering editorial about scary Iran, AIPAC shill Joe Lieberman (who's not ruling out backing a Republican for president in '08) writes:

Iran's actions in Iraq fit a larger pattern of expansionist, extremist behavior across the Middle East today.

Memo to Joe: you misspelled the United States'.

The United States' actions in Iraq fit a larger pattern of expansionist, extremist behavior across the Middle East today.

And did someone ask for a side order of fearmongering? Coming right up:

Our objective here is deterrence. The fanatical regime in Tehran has concluded that it can use proxies to strike at us and our friends in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine without fear of retaliation. It is time to restore that fear, and to inject greater doubt into the decision-making of Iranian leaders about the risks they are now running.
[...]
The threat posed by Iran to our soldiers' lives, our security as a nation and our allies in the Middle East is a truth that cannot be wished or waved away.

And just how are you going to "restore that fear", Joe? By bomb, bomb, bombing Iran? Also, perhaps you could explain to me in 25 words or less how Iran is a threat to your "security as a nation"? I assume you're talking about the US there, right? Sometimes I get confused because you seem to advocate on behalf on your adopted country of Israel more than your actual country of birth (not unlike the neocons, I'd add).

You see Joe, Iran is not a threat to the security of the United States any more than Saddam was. Then again, you were a big cheerleader for that war too (and still are, obviously), so I guess your delusions are too firmly entrenched to change at this point. Fearmonger away. Just don't expect it to work this time.
 

Quote du Jour: IDF Forces Kill a 12 Year Old Palestinian Boy

Via Reuters:

A 12-year-old lay in the street, his arms twisted at odd angles, near a house in a Gaza City neighborhood where residents and medical workers said a shell fired by an Israeli tank exploded.

He was pronounced dead in a hospital along with two men, their bodies shredded by shrapnel. Residents said the men were civilians.

A military spokesman in Tel Aviv said a tank shell fired in Gaza City's Shejaia neighborhood was aimed at a gunman, and he had no information about a house being hit. [Oh, they just never do, do they? -catnip] Residents said tanks in the area later withdrew towards the Israeli frontier.

Two Israeli soldiers were wounded by an anti-tank missile during operations that Israel's deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, described as "preventive measures" [pre-emptive strike, anyone? -catnip] to foil rocket attacks from Gaza.

And Abbas, who is now being funded by not only the US and Egypt, but by the Israeli government as well, released this canned statement:

Commenting on the raid, Abbas told reporters: "We strongly condemn these criminal acts, either in Gaza or the West Bank. We are against violence in all its forms and also we are against launching rockets (at Israel)."

And what about the fact that the IDF just killed 12 of your people, Abbas, including a 12 year old boy? Or is that just too sensitive for you to comment about now?
 

More Than Just Numbers

50,000 - The number of Iraqi women and children who have fled their country and are now prostitutes in places like Syria.

Less than 800 - The number of Iraq refugees accepted by the United States since 2003.

36 - The number of Afghans killed by the latest US airstrike in that country, bringing the total of civilians killed this year from 177-230, depending on who you ask.

60 - The number of Canadian troops who've died since the Afghanistan war began.

2 - The number of congresspeople (Kucinich and Ron Paul) who voted against condemning President Ahmadinejad in the US house for his alleged statement that "Israel should be wiped off the map".

0 - The number of US congresspeople who condemned Shimon Peres when he did say (no mistranslation here) that "Iran can also be wiped off the map."

4 - The number of countries that blocked a UN Security Council bid to suppport Abbas' emergency government. "The South African ambassador argued that the international community, especially the U.S., Israel and the Quartet, are to blame for the situation in the Gaza Strip."

$2.5 million - The amount of US aid given to Saudi Arabia in 2005 and 2006 which US lawmakers voted to cut off on Friday. (As if Saudi Arabia needs "aid".)

$2 billion - The amount of money allegedly funneled to Saudi's Prince Bandar through a British arms contractor. "Last week British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged that his government shut down an investigation into the payments, in part because it could have led to the "complete wreckage" of Britain's "vital strategic relationship" with Saudi Arabia." (No wonder Bush wants Blair to head the World Bank.)

0 - The amount of credibility Star columnist Rosie DiManno has in her article about the antiwar movement, on a scale of 1-10.

400,000 - The number of dead in Sudan "by direct violence [genocide], disease and starvation"... "for Fiscal Year 2008, there is a projected $186 million shortfall for Darfur peacekeeping, and a $6 billion shortfall for America's core humanitarian assistance."

28 - The number of US soldiers killed in Iraq during the past week.

558 - The number of Gitmo detainees who appeared before Combatant Status Review Tribunals that whistleblower Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham (who took part in the hearings) now says "relied on vague and incomplete intelligence".

575 - The number of days left until George W Bush is history.

0 - The amount of patience I have left for violent warmongering, diplomacy-hating hawks.
 

Quote du Jour: Uri Avnery

Crocodile Tears
by Uri Avnery

What happens when one and a half million human beings are imprisoned in a tiny, arid territory, cut off from their compatriots and from any contact with the outside world, starved by an economic blockade and unable to feed their families?

Some months ago, I described this situation as a sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United States, and the European Union. The population of the Gaza Strip as guinea pigs.

This week, the experiment showed results. They proved that human beings react exactly like other animals: when too many of them are crowded into a small area in miserable conditions, they become aggressive, and even murderous. The organizers of the experiment in Jerusalem, Washington, Berlin, Oslo, Ottawa, and other capitals could rub their hands in satisfaction. The subjects of the experiment reacted as foreseen. Many of them even died in the interests of science.

But the experiment is not yet over. The scientists want to know what happens if the blockade is tightened still further.

read on...

As Canadians, we owe it to the Palestinian people to come up with a workable foreign policy that places humanitarian interests first. Our Conservative and Liberal parties hardly differ from the pro-Israeli government stances that their counterparts in the US, the Republicans and Democrats, choose to pursue. On Sunday, Peter Mackay was boasting about supporting Abbas - as if any aid would be forthcoming to the people in the Gaza strip (where the real crisis is, with Israel's government now cutting off fuel and other supplies) via Mackay's so-called grand gesture. We can't be satisfied with propping up only those Palestinians who are either supporting Abbas or who are protected by his forces.

For the sake of everyone involved, this imbalance of power must be rectified and truly open minds (not beholden to Israeli government lobbyists) need to come to the table. Canada cannot officially contribute someone who's willing to be brutally honest about what's happening in the occupied territories as long as we have a foreign minister who chooses to willfully ignore the realities on the ground there.

It's long past time for this "experiment" to end.

Related: The people of Palestine must finally be allowed to determine their own fate
 
 

"Rambo" Barak Reportedly Plans to Attack Gaza

"Rambo", you ask?

Via the Jerusalem Post:

Peretz accuses Barak of playing 'Rambo'

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wasted no time in replacing Defense Minister Amir Peretz with new Labor chairman Ehud Barak, passing Barak's appointment in a telephone vote of Labor ministers on Friday afternoon.
[...]
Peretz was outraged that Olmert and Barak were so quick to replace him. He told Olmert in a conversation on Friday that the telephone vote took him by surprise and that Barak violated a promise to him that the handover in the Defense Ministry would be coordinated in a respectful manner by the two of them.

"Why is Barak burning to join the government while the prime minister is away?" Peretz told Olmert, according to a source close to him. "It's not as if Barak is Rambo coming to save us. So why is [his appointment] being handled so hastily and disrespectfully?"

And here's a possible answer to that question:

ISRAEL’s new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there.

According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas’s military capability in days.

The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings.

Barak, who is expected to become defence minister tomorrow, has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets, against Hamas.

You see, Peretz, Olmert actually does think that Barak is "Rambo coming to save us".

Meanwhile, Olmert and Bush are scheduled to meet on Tuesday - because they've both done such a bang up job (literally) of finding ways to advance the so-called "peace process", haven't they? The Palestinian people are still just pawns in their geopolitical war games and neither one of these hawkish leaders has any chance of configuring something resembling anything like "peace" as long as they're in each others' pockets.

It's ironic that they're now both talking about boosting Fatah - a corrupt, former enemy they refused to deal with when Arafat was in power. A party that was rejected by the Palestinian people in a democratically held election. You see, democracy only counts when Bush gets what he wants. The will of the actual people who vote means nothing if it does not conform to America's imperialistic interests.

Abbas swore in his emergency government on Sunday.

But in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas Islamists routed Abbas's secular Fatah forces last week, 1.5 million people faced the prospect of greater hardship and isolation, with Israel cutting back fuel supplies and local suppliers saying the coastal enclave may run out of fuel for cars and stoves within two days.

Read more about the humanitarian crisis here.

As I wrote here before, this whole coup was planned by the Bush administration. Don't just take my word for it though:

Hamas denounced the naming of the new cabinet as a "coup".

Analysts and officials said Hamas had some reason to argue that Abbas was implementing a long prepared, U.S.-backed plan to strip it of power, albeit that the loss of Gaza was a shock.

Abbas adviser and former U.S. consul Edward Abington said Washington had encouraged the president to "kick out" Hamas for a year, urging him to form an emergency government.

That's why neither Bush nor Condi did anything to promote their so-called road map. They were counting on a violent solution and made sure Abbas was well-funded in advance.

"He did not want to get into a confrontation," said Abington. But in the end, he said, "it was forced on him."

And this message is being buried in this mess:

Hamas has made conciliatory overtures, however. It still refers to Abbas as president, and says it does not want a Hamas mini-state in its 40 km (25 miles) strip of coast.

Conveniently for Olmert and the new Rambo now, they can now justify random attacks in Gaza in the coming weeks, while issuing their well-known, half-hearted apologies for the civilians they'll no doubt kill - as if more violence is the answer. When has it ever solved anything? For either side?

Meanwhile, I'm sure the Rapture Ready folks are quite excited at the news that the conflict may be expanding again - a sure sign of armageddon to them - with rockets reportedly being fired into northern Israel from Lebanon again. If Rambo has any sense whatsoever, he won't decide to produce Israel/Lebanon War: The Sequel.

There are no winners in this situation and all parties involved are corrupt and out to protect their own interests in any way they can - hardly a foundation for peace talks. This is what happens when the US keeps meddling in the ME, Israel's hawkish leaders refuse to budge, aid is cut off to people in need and violence becomes what seems to some to be the only viable solution.

The bottom line is that it's inhumane to manufacture wars. Period.

Related: Johann Hari: Israel must negotiate with Hamas
 

The Engineered Crisis in Gaza

Make no mistake. This was planned by the Bush administration. Via Chris Floyd's blog:

...from Conflicts Forum last January:

Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams — who Newsweek recently described as “the last neocon standing” — has had it about for some months now that the U.S. is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas elections, last January [2006], Abrams greeted a group of Palestinian businessmen in his White House office with talk of a “hard coup” against the newly-elected Hamas government — the violent overthrow of their leadership with arms supplied by the United States. While the businessmen were shocked, Abrams was adamant — the U.S. had to support Fatah with guns, ammunition and training, so that they could fight Hamas for control of the Palestinian government...

The Abrams program was initially conceived in February of 2006 by a group of White House officials who wanted to shape a coherent and tough response to the Hamas electoral victory of January...Since at least August [2006], Rice, Abrams and U.S. envoy David Welch have been its primary advocates and the program has been subsumed as a “part of the State Department’s Middle East initiative.”

The stalled Bush road map for ME peace was not just a matter of neglect. It was part of a grand scheme to cause more chaos in the Palestinian territories. Although financial support had been suspended to the Palestinian government following the last democratic election - the results of which the Bush administration refused to accept - the state department, following approval from the Democratically-controlled congress (full of Israel-supporting hawks), funneled $59 million to Abbas this past April and encouraged Israel to stop withholding aid and tax monies owed to the Palestinians as well. That US money (and along with money from Egypt), which was reportedly supposed to fund "non-lethal training and equipment for Abbas' security forces and $16 million for upgrades at the Karni crossing into northern Gaza" has obviously come in quite handy now that the territories have been plunged into civil war. Undoubtedly, Bushco, as it often does, did not anticipate that those they and Abbas wanted to strip power from - Hamas - would actually emerge victorious in Gaza as it did this week. Subsequently, Abbas dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency and chose a new prime minister to replace the former Hamas politician who held that post laying the groundwork for another proxy war against Iran:

Washington, Europe and Israel prepared to throw open the taps on financial aid to Abbas that was cut off a year ago when Iranian-backed Hamas used its popularity in impoverished Gaza to defeat Abbas's more secular Fatah in a parliamentary election.

Meanwhile on Friday, Hamas' political leader held a news conference in which he said that Hamas does not want to seize power from Abbas:

Addressing media in the Syrian capital, Meshal said that Hamas had not wanted to take over the Gaza Strip.

"Hamas does not want to seize power ... We are faithful to the Palestinian people," Meshal said, promising to help rebuild Palestinian homes damaged in the months of bloody infighting.

"What happened in Gaza was a necessary step. The people were suffering from chaos and lack of security and this treatment was needed," Meshal continued. "The lack of security drove the crisis toward explosion."

"Abbas has legitimacy," Meshal said, "There's no one who would question or doubt that, he is an elected president, and we will cooperate with him for the sake of national interest."

But he also warned Fatah followers not to move this conflict to the West Bank where the moderate movement is dominant.

Meshal called for the Arab League foreign ministers, who are holding an emergency meeting in Cairo to discuss the situation in Gaza, to help mediate talks between Hamas and Abbas.

"I hope [that] ... the Arab ministerial meeting in Cairo presents a strong responsible Arab stance, as an umbrella to hold the national Palestinian dialogue to approach a Palestinian accord," Meshal said.

Meshal said Abbas' dissolution of the unity government "will not remedy the situation ... and will not solve the problem. There will be no two governments and no division of the homeland."

Abbas rebuffed him casting the entire Hamas movement as terrorists:

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, an Abbas adviser, rejected Meshaal's gesture. "There will be no dialogue with coup seekers, masked men and murderers," he said.

The Israeli government has also dismissed the idea of an international peacekeeping force, stressing continued violent aggression while "mulling" over aid to the Palestinian people:

A proposed multinational force deployed along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt must be willing to fight the Islamic militant group Hamas to stop weapons smuggling in the area, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Friday.

At a news conference during an official visit to Portugal, Livni said Israel was not interested in any proposal involving a monitoring force for the Philadelphi corridor where Hamas uses tunnels to bring in weapons. Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip on Thursday after days of heavy fighting with Fatah forces.

"Those who are talking in terms of international forces have to understand that the meaning is not monitoring forces but forces that are willing to fight, to confront Hamas on the ground," Livni said.
[...]
"At this stage, there is not even the beginning of the conditions under which a possible peacekeeping force could operate," said Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht. "At this point, a proposal would stand no chance."

And here's how at least one Israeli official describes Gaza:

Israel has been careful not to become involved in the fighting, and Housing and Construction Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) said Friday that despite calls from the right for Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, from which it withdrew in 2005, Israel would not move in to confront Hamas, which is sworn to destroy it.

"There is no intention to re-enter that swamp, Gaza, in this situation," Sheetrit told Israel Radio. "At this point, Israel has no reason to intervene."

That term speaks volumes. Nothing like dehumanizing the Palestinians by declaring that they live in a swamp.

Olmert is set to meet with Bush next Tuesday. And, in case you missed it, one former UN official had harsh words for everyone involved in the so-called I/P peace process this week.

De Soto also accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior U.S. officials of having "hijacked" efforts by former Quartet envoy James D. Wolfensohn to negotiate an agreement to provide greater freedom of movement for civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

It was obviously "hijacked" for a reason: the Bush administration has absolutely no use for diplomacy, preferring instead to try to solve problems using military might and continued violence. None of their violent "solutions" have worked. Not in Afghanistan, Iraq or the Palestinian territories. Yet, they continue on their failed path because it's the only way they seem to know how to operate - even when the results continually and literally blow up in their neocon faces - leaving hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, terrorized and displaced civilians in their wake. Crimes they will never be held accountable for.

It's madness.
 

Bolton to be Investigated?

Last week, John Bolton told the BBC that he was "damned proud" of the fact that the US refused to work for an early ceasefire in the Israel/Lebanon war. "He said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel's campaign wasn't working." In other words, the Bush administration's failure to seek a ceasefire cost hundreds of people their lives. You'll recall the last minute blitz by the IDF against Lebanon when the Israeli government knew UN resolution 1701 was going to be passed by the UN security council. It was a final act of desperation in a war they had already lost.

Now, the the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is calling for a congressional investigation into Bolton's revelations.

In January, the US Department of State issued a preliminary report to Congress indicating that the State Department might have found evidence that Israel violated bilateral weapons agreements when it dropped US-made cluster bombs on civilian populations in Lebanon last summer. According to reports from international human rights organizations, it was determined that Israeli Defense Forces dropped more than 130,000 cluster bombs containing 1.2 million cluster bomblets in 498 locations in villages throughout southern Lebanon. These cluster bombs are in addition to those already present in southern Lebanon from previous Israeli operations.
[...]
It should be noted, Israel dropped the majority of unexploded ordinances in Lebanon during the last 72 hours of the conflict before an impending cease fire deadline. Bolton's remarks to BBC indicate that the delay in implementing this ceasefire was a result of deliberate actions by the United States. The 2006 war in Lebanon resulted in well over 1,000 Lebanese civilian deaths, 43 Israeli civilian deaths, approximately 4,500 Lebanese civilian injuries, and approximately 4,000 Israeli civilian injuries. The war displaced over one million Lebanese civilians from their homes and resulted in an environmental tragedy creating the largest ever oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea with over four million gallons of oil leaking into the Mediterranean as a result of Israeli bombing of Lebanese power plants. According to reports, the damage to Lebanon's infrastructure and economy is estimated to surpass four billion dollars.

We also recently learned through leaked testimony that Olmert had been planning the war against Lebanon for months before the generally accepted reason (one of a few justifications) - the seizure of IDF soldiers (which became the cause celebre) - was used as an excuse to spur on a plan that had already been set in motion. It was just a matter of waiting for the right timing.

Further:

And second, we have an interview in the Israeli media with Meyrav Wurmser, the wife of one of the highest officials in the Bush Administration, David Wurmser, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s adviser on the Middle East. Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli citizen, is herself closely associated with MEMRI, a group translating (and mistranslating) speeches by Arab leaders and officials that is known for its ties to the Israeli secret services.

She told the website of Israel's leading newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, that the US stalled over imposing a ceasefire during Israel's assault on Lebanon because the Bush Administration was expecting the war to be expanded to Syria.

"The anger [in the White House] is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the Syrians. The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space. They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its [Iran's] strategic and important ally [Syria] should be hit."

In other words, the picture that emerges is of a long-standing plan by the Israeli army, approved by senior US officials, for a rapid war against Lebanon -- followed by possible intimidatory strikes against Syria -- using the pretext of a cross-border incident involving Hizbullah. The real purpose, we can surmise, was to weaken what are seen by Israel and the US to be Tehran's allies before an attack on Iran itself.

That was why neither the Americans nor Israel wanted, or appear still to want, to negotiate with Assad over the Golan and seek a peace agreement that could -- for once -- change the map of the Middle East for the better.

Many, of course, posited that the Israel/Lebanon war was just a proxy war against Iran and Syria and while the Israeli government was failing, the pressure for sanctions against Iran was racheted up via UN resolution 1696 (which was followed up again this weekend with yet another resolution. This time, however, the Bush administration didn't get everything it was asking for.)

Justin Raimondo was certainly prescient back in December, 2005 when he wrote this:

Syria is now girding for the imposition of economic sanctions and trying to head off the campaign to destabilize the country on two fronts: by restarting talks with Israel, and by cooperating with the request to permit Syrian officials to be questioned in the Hariri investigation. I have the funny feeling, however, that this is not going to do them a lot of good, as far as their enemies in the West are concerned. As we have seen in the case of Iraq, when the U.S. wants to manufacture a case for war, it can be done pretty easily: Congress is not likely to ask inconvenient questions until it's too late, and the American people can hardly be expected to keep up with arcane doings in faraway Lebanon, the scene of the intrigue and obscure religious-ethnic rivalries that could spark another Mideast war. Acting pretty much without either congressional or public scrutiny, this administration thinks it can get away with anything when it comes to Syria – and in that, they are probably right.

If things had gone differently in the Israel/Lebanon war, it definitely is possible that Syria would have been brought into the armed conflict as well.

I imagine John Bolton was severely disappointed by the IDF's failure - that is, if he actually feels anything at all - about anything. Only a sociopath would be "damned proud" that he engineered a strategy that cost more people their lives based on a failed neocon ideology that places military might above all else.

Will the Democratic congress, most of which supported Israel's war, agree to investigate Bolton? I guess we'll have to wait and see...
 

Rice's Latest ME Shoe-shopping Trip

I don't know why Condi Rice even bothers going to the Middle East anymore. I suppose she's expected too since it is in her job description but the more she visits, the more well-deserved flak she gets. That's what happens when the administration you work for gave up on any kind of peace process a la "road map" long ago. She might as well just pop into Israel to play the piano and buy some shoes and be done with it. This masquerading as a Secretary of State over there has worn pretty damn thin.

As one critic puts it:

"She has 18 months to become a consequential secretary of state," said Aaron David Miller, a former adviser on Middle East issues to both Republican and Democratic administrations. "The way to become a consequential secretary of state is to take a problem that normal human beings know is hard and make it better."

She's obviously failed. 18 more months isn't going to make one bit of difference.

While she's gallavanting over there this weekend, the Egyptian government has basically told her to take a flying leap:

On Sunday morning Rice will have talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at a meeting expected to touch on Egyptian domestic politics and constitutional changes which will go to a national referendum on Monday.

Rice said on Friday the United States was concerned and disappointed by the constitutional changes, which human rights and Egyptian opposition groups have called a step away from freedom and democracy.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit dismissed her criticism as unwarranted interference in Egyptian affairs. "Only the Egyptian people have the right to say their views on that referendum... If you are not (Egyptian), then thank you very much. It's our own development, our own country," he said.

But, she's dreaming about one day in the future when (it sure won't be while she's around) "the U.S. might one day propose its own solutions to the most vexing problems dividing Israel and the Palestinians, such as the borders of an eventual independent Palestinian state." And that isn't happening now because...?

And she isn't even taking the peace process seriously anymore, reducing her role to some quasi Ann Landers advice column status:

In the meantime, Rice said, she wants to use meetings like those she will attend in coming days in Jerusalem and the West Bank to draft a common set of questions and concerns on both sides. She gave no timetable for either effort but made clear that the United States would be at the center of them.

"I don't rule out that at some point that might be a useful thing to do," Rice said when asked about presenting a set of U.S. proposals to settle enduring problems that have scuttled past negotiations for peace.

That's about as firm as Jello™.

Meanwhile, at the UN:

Israel: Lebanon Cease-Fire in Jeopardy

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel's defense minister told the head of the United Nations on Saturday that the U.N.-brokered cease-fire in southern Lebanon is endangered by Hezbollah militants, who continue to hold two captured Israeli soldiers and receive arms shipments from Syria.

Luckily, Ban Ki-moon isn't quite as one-sided as Israel's government would like him to be:

Ban has criticized both Israel and Lebanon for violating the resolution, noting an increase of Israeli military overflights of its northern neighbor in February and early March. He has suggested an independent mission examine the monitoring of their border amid the Israeli allegations of Syrian arms smuggling.

Well, almost not quite as one-sided:

In Cairo, Ban said he welcomed the formation of the week-old Palestinian coalition government, which adds moderates and independents to an administration formerly made up entirely of members of the hard-line Islamist group Hamas. He urged the coalition to live up to the international community's demands that it recognize Israel and work toward peace.
[...]
Ban said he would not meet Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, citing a busy schedule. He said he would, however, meet with Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr, an independent.

So, the Palestinian people will continue to suffer under financial boycotts by the west due to the presence of a coalition government they democratically elected while Israel's government is saber-rattling against Lebanon - again - acting as if it has no responsibilty in the tensions with that country.

And what's Condi doing about all of this? Nothing besides standing by and watching the suffering continue on all sides as she pretends she's actually making a difference. I mean, really, when she gets a weak headline like this: Rice: U.S. may offer ideas for Mideast, is there anything left to say about her ineffectiveness?
 

Random News & Views Roundup

- Money, money, who's got the missing Iraq billions? Well, how about the former Iraqi minister of defence who's now living the cushy life in Britain? (h/t New Fake Name)

- Janet of Peace Gone Wild has drawn my attention to the recent protests in Tacoma, Washington. Portland Indymedia has ongoing coverage and here are links to two videos showing the riot squad treatment the protesters have received from the police there: here and here. Flashbacks of Kent State. You won't see that on CNN.

- Think it's a coincidence that the Pentagon released a transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed supposedly confessing to over two dozen terrorist attacks at a military tribunal hearing (hearing transcript, pdf file) in the midst of the Alberto Gonzales meltdown? Think again. (Ironically, I'm watching the movie Midnight Express again as I write this. Torture: it's not just for Turkish prisons anymore.)

- The Democrats (and many Republicans) actually did something useful in congress on Wednesday:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brushing aside a veto threat, the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to overturn a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep their papers secret indefinitely.

The measure, which drew bipartisan support and passed by a veto-busting 333-93 margin, was among White House-opposed bills the House passed that would widen access to government information and protect government whistleblowers.

The presidential papers bill nullifies a November 2001 order, criticized by historians, in which Bush allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president's papers and put the onus on researchers to show a "specific need" for many types of records.

Among beneficiaries of the Bush order was Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, a former vice president and president.

What's daddy Bush hiding?

- It looks like the Bush administration is going to get its wish for tougher sanctions on Iran.

The modest package of new measures agreed to by the ambassadors of the six countries includes an embargo on Iranian arms exports and an asset freeze on more individuals and companies associated with Tehran's nuclear and missile programs, council diplomats said.

The new resolution would also call on all U.N. member states to exercise "vigilance and restraint" on arms imports and on the entry or transit through their territory of Iranians subject to the asset freeze, a council diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the text has not been circulated.

It would also call on governments to make no new commitments "of grants, financial assistance, or concesssional loans to the government of Iran," the diplomat said.

The United States and the Europeans would certainly favor tougher sanctions, but knew they had to settle for less to ensure that Russia and China, which have close commercial ties with Iran, will not use their veto power to block a resolution.

- On the same day that delusional Joe Lieberman said, "What's happening in Iraq today does not look like failure to me", comes the news that attacks in Iraq have hit an all-time high. How does Joe sleep at nite? Quite well, apparently.

- Interested in the power of the Israel lobby in the United States? Read this piece in The American Conservative, Bloggers vs. the Lobby and stop being afraid to talk about it. Related: Holy Warriors Set Sights on Iran.

- Why didn't the US give Israel's government up to the minute drafts on the UN resolution to end the Lebanon war last year? A story in Ha'aretz reports:

The U.S. government failed to give Israel all the drafts of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 ending last summer's Lebanon war in real time, so Israel had to obtain some of the documents from other sources, Israeli government sources said.

The sources, however, said senior government officials ultimately did get all the drafts in time, and there were no delays or information gaps that impeded decision-making during the war.

According to some sources, Israel obtained the drafts not supplied by the Americans from intelligence sources.

This is the most troubling part:

In particular, the second-to-last draft, which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert received on the morning of August 11, seemed to him much less favorable than the version on which he and Washington had agreed the previous night.

He later said this draft convinced him to launch a major ground operation during the war's final days in an effort to influence the Security Council. During these three days of fighting, 33 soldiers were killed.

So, Olmert didn't like what he saw coming and decided to up the military might? And to what end? More deaths. I'm sure the families of the dead will be comforted to know that they were used as political pawns.

- Horrid:

U.S. allies in Africa may have engaged in secret prisoner renditions

NAIROBI, Kenya - A network of U.S. allies in East Africa secretly have transferred to prisons in Somalia and Ethiopia at least 80 people who were captured in Kenya while fleeing the recent war in Somalia, according to human rights advocates here.

Kenyan authorities made the arrests as part of a U.S.-backed, four-nation military campaign in December and January against Somalia's Islamist militias, which Bush administration officials have linked to al-Qaida.

At least 150 prisoners, who included men and women of 17 nationalities and children as young as 7 months, were held in Kenya for several weeks before most of them were transferred covertly to Somalia and Ethiopia, where they're being held incommunicado, the groups charge.

The transfers, which authorities reportedly carried out in the middle of the night and made public only after a recent court order in Kenya, violated international law, according to the rights groups. They charge that the program is being driven by the United States, which has built a close relationship with Kenya and Ethiopia in the war on terrorism.