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"Soldiers here now openly declare pessimism for the mission's chances, unofficially referring to their splinter of heavily fortified land as "the Alamo."
"'Sometimes," said Brendan Gallagher, the captain who oversees Williamson, "we like to comfort ourselves when we are taking a lot of IEDs and casualties by saying that the enemy is desperate, they are doing this because they are scared. But how many times can they actually be desperate? I sometimes worry that this period will end up going down here as their surge, not ours."
LA Times via Angry Arab Newservice
SIRATYST (Stuff I Read and Thought You Should Too) -- “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” (Calgacus, as quoted by Tacitus, Agricola 30-31)"
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Beiruti Blogger on Current Fighting--Anecdotes from a Banana Republic
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"Well it was about time. The events in Gaza were getting way too depressing. The rhetoric of "severe and harsh" responses, the "promise" of a painful escalation emanating from that profane hole in Olmert's face were just a tad too familiar. So it's time for something new and slightly more esoteric:
"Fatah al Islam-- a kooky Salafist group, which nobody had heard about until recently-- has set up shop in the Nahr el Bared Palestinian refugee camp and is battling it out with the Lebanese army. The group apparently also own prime real estate in an upscale neighborhood of nearby Tripoli -- worth a million dollars and upwards-- which they used as snipers' nests during the house to house gun battles yesterday.
"The fighting erupted early Sunday morning when soldiers raided an apartment inhabited by militants to arrest the suspected perpetrators of a bank robbery. Fatah al Islam subsequently stormed the army posts outside the camp, lining up and executing eleven soldiers. At least 47 dead in yesterday's clashes, without an updated casualty count from the besieged Nahr el Bared camp where 40,000 Palestinian refugees live. Fighting continued today.
"Nobody really knows who Fatah al Islam are or what they want. Their members reportedly hail from as far as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bangladesh. They stand accused of having ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq and of carrying out the Ain Alaq bus bombing, which the group denies ( very un-qaeda'esque not to claim responsibility.) According to a spokesman, they seek to "protect the Sunnis of Lebanon" and a sheikh associated with them recently complained that only the Shi'a are allowed to yield weapons. The militant equivalent of penis envy, perhaps. Either way, they need better PR.
There is more. Click on the link the first paragraph to see what she quotes from Seymour Hersh.
"It's summertime and Lebanon is making headline news again. "'Lebanon hit by worst violence since civil war'" the first headline on the Google News aggregator screeches (as if the last summer never happened.)
"Well it was about time. The events in Gaza were getting way too depressing. The rhetoric of "severe and harsh" responses, the "promise" of a painful escalation emanating from that profane hole in Olmert's face were just a tad too familiar. So it's time for something new and slightly more esoteric:
"Fatah al Islam-- a kooky Salafist group, which nobody had heard about until recently-- has set up shop in the Nahr el Bared Palestinian refugee camp and is battling it out with the Lebanese army. The group apparently also own prime real estate in an upscale neighborhood of nearby Tripoli -- worth a million dollars and upwards-- which they used as snipers' nests during the house to house gun battles yesterday.
"The fighting erupted early Sunday morning when soldiers raided an apartment inhabited by militants to arrest the suspected perpetrators of a bank robbery. Fatah al Islam subsequently stormed the army posts outside the camp, lining up and executing eleven soldiers. At least 47 dead in yesterday's clashes, without an updated casualty count from the besieged Nahr el Bared camp where 40,000 Palestinian refugees live. Fighting continued today.
"Nobody really knows who Fatah al Islam are or what they want. Their members reportedly hail from as far as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bangladesh. They stand accused of having ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq and of carrying out the Ain Alaq bus bombing, which the group denies ( very un-qaeda'esque not to claim responsibility.) According to a spokesman, they seek to "protect the Sunnis of Lebanon" and a sheikh associated with them recently complained that only the Shi'a are allowed to yield weapons. The militant equivalent of penis envy, perhaps. Either way, they need better PR.
There is more. Click on the link the first paragraph to see what she quotes from Seymour Hersh.
Monday, May 21, 2007
In the Israeli Shooting Gallery that Is Gaza
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AND NOW A FETUS--by Gideon Levy
"Last Wednesday was an ordinary day in the Katouni household. The father went to work, the kids went to school, and in the evening everyone went to bed - the parents in their bedroom and the three children in their room in the third-floor apartment. Shortly after two in the morning, Maha was startled awake by the loud sounds of gunfire from the street. She didn't even manage to turn on the light when she got up to run to the kids' room next door, to reassure her three little boys and keep them from getting scared. The gunfire was very heavy. The window of her room was open and her bed was close to the window.
"Maha got out of bed, took one step, and then the bullet struck her in the lower back. She fell onto the nightstand. Another bullet struck the nightstand. Soldiers from the Nahal patrol battalion were standing on the roofs of the surrounding buildings. "Wherever we are sent - to there we go," the poet Yaakov Orland once wrote in "The Nahal Anthem," sung by the Nahal entertainment troupe, which also sang "The Song of Peace."
"Rifat rushed to call an ambulance. The children, who had awakened, were hysterical, especially the youngest, 3-year-old Jad, at the sight of the blood trickling from the front and back of their pregnant mother, who lay wounded on the floor. The bullet had struck her from behind, passed through the fetus' head and the mother's intestines and exited through the abdomen.
"Family members say that about 45 minutes went by before the ambulance from the Medical Relief organization was permitted to approach. In the meantime, Maha's mother, Umm Ibrahim, tried to leave her home nearby to come to her daughter's aid. Umm Ibrahim says that when she tried to leave her house there was gunfire; she hurried back inside. "It's a miracle that I was saved," says the woman in the white headscarf. She could not reach her injured daughter and would not see her until two hours later, in the hospital.
"The pain is written all over Maha's face. One of her brothers somehow managed to cross the line of fire and get to her house; he tried to stanch the gaping wound in her stomach with a towel. Her husband, Rifat, was paralyzed with shock. Umm Ibrahim says that her son, who tended to Maha, could see through the hole in her abdomen that the fetus had been wounded in the head and was dead.
"The gunfire finally subsided at around three in the morning and they were able to take Maha out to the street, carried by her brother and the paramedic from the ambulance that had parked in the nearby alley. The brother says that on the way to the hospital they were stopped twice by soldiers, who wanted to check the wounded woman's identity and to make sure there were no wanted men hiding in the ambulance. Maha was barely conscious when she reached the hospital, but her mother says she understood right away that she had lost the baby.
"Last Wednesday was an ordinary day in the Katouni household. The father went to work, the kids went to school, and in the evening everyone went to bed - the parents in their bedroom and the three children in their room in the third-floor apartment. Shortly after two in the morning, Maha was startled awake by the loud sounds of gunfire from the street. She didn't even manage to turn on the light when she got up to run to the kids' room next door, to reassure her three little boys and keep them from getting scared. The gunfire was very heavy. The window of her room was open and her bed was close to the window.
"Maha got out of bed, took one step, and then the bullet struck her in the lower back. She fell onto the nightstand. Another bullet struck the nightstand. Soldiers from the Nahal patrol battalion were standing on the roofs of the surrounding buildings. "Wherever we are sent - to there we go," the poet Yaakov Orland once wrote in "The Nahal Anthem," sung by the Nahal entertainment troupe, which also sang "The Song of Peace."
"Rifat rushed to call an ambulance. The children, who had awakened, were hysterical, especially the youngest, 3-year-old Jad, at the sight of the blood trickling from the front and back of their pregnant mother, who lay wounded on the floor. The bullet had struck her from behind, passed through the fetus' head and the mother's intestines and exited through the abdomen.
"Family members say that about 45 minutes went by before the ambulance from the Medical Relief organization was permitted to approach. In the meantime, Maha's mother, Umm Ibrahim, tried to leave her home nearby to come to her daughter's aid. Umm Ibrahim says that when she tried to leave her house there was gunfire; she hurried back inside. "It's a miracle that I was saved," says the woman in the white headscarf. She could not reach her injured daughter and would not see her until two hours later, in the hospital.
"The pain is written all over Maha's face. One of her brothers somehow managed to cross the line of fire and get to her house; he tried to stanch the gaping wound in her stomach with a towel. Her husband, Rifat, was paralyzed with shock. Umm Ibrahim says that her son, who tended to Maha, could see through the hole in her abdomen that the fetus had been wounded in the head and was dead.
"The gunfire finally subsided at around three in the morning and they were able to take Maha out to the street, carried by her brother and the paramedic from the ambulance that had parked in the nearby alley. The brother says that on the way to the hospital they were stopped twice by soldiers, who wanted to check the wounded woman's identity and to make sure there were no wanted men hiding in the ambulance. Maha was barely conscious when she reached the hospital, but her mother says she understood right away that she had lost the baby.
Prof. Juan Cole's Informed Comment Has Explanation of Lebanon Events
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Link to original article is here: http://www.juancole.com/
Monday, May 21, 2007
Lebanon Crisis
Veteran reporter Nicholas Blanford explains what is happening in Lebanon
1. Fath al-Islam is a splinter guerrilla group established last December that has links to the international Salafi Jihadi movement (which some call "al-Qaeda" as shorthand). Its leader has ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It is tiny, with at most 300 fighters, and not all of them may be Palestinian. It is opposed by all the major Palestinian political groups, including Hamas and the PLO. It is, according to CNN, extremely well armed. It appears to have an international network. One of the Fath al-Islam guerrillas killed on Sunday had engaged in a terror attack on Germany. It is a little unlikely that this group has any significant relationship to the secular Alawi Baath government of Syria, despite what the Lebanese politicians allege.
2. The group, which robbed a bank and functions as a small local Mafia, has used the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp (pop. 30,000) in north Lebanon as a base. There are thousands of Palestinian refugees in the camp, displaced there from their homes in Galilee by Zionist forces in 1948. Once Israel was formed, these refugees from the fighting were locked out of their former home by Israeli PM David Ben Gurion. Because Lebanon has a Christian political elite, Beirut did not give the Palestinians citizenship, since they are 85% Sunni and it would have upset the demographic balance of the country. Also, the Palestinians of Lebanon generally insist that they will some day go home to Palestine (Israel) and fiercely reject "tawtin" or naturalization as "Lebanese." Their stateless condition has left the Palestinian population of Lebanon poverty-stricken and barred from certain occupations, including medicine! If you think about it a little bit, you see the analogy between their condition and that of 19th century Jews in some parts of Europe, confined to ghettoes and forbidden from certain occupations.A clickable map of the refugee camps in Lebanon with information about each can be found here. For an anthropologist's exploration of the culture of the camps, see Julie Peteet's article in the Journal of the International Institute at the U of Michigan. Here is her piece with some history of the situation. See also Professor Peteet's recent book. Also
3. A 1969 accord prevents Lebanese military forces from going into the camps. Anyway, hand to hand fighting in them would produce a high death toll. Firing on a camp full of civilians by the Lebanese government is deeply troubling. Note that the Tripoli Sunni Muslim townspeople appear, however, to approve of the attack on Fath al-Islam. The camps are locally seen as nests of criminality and breeding grounds of terror.
4. Although it is usually said that there are 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, a country of 3.8 million, Palestinian demographer Khalil Shikakli has argued that there are actually only a couple hundred thousand left there. Many have been given temporary visas of various sorts by Germany, Scandinavian countries, etc., and have emigrated to a precarious perch in Europe, where they seldom have a permit to work and so remain in limbo (the Palestinians have now become the symbol of vulnerable statelessness; in the contemporary world, not having a state is the closest thing to slavery.) Their statelessness makes the Palestinians in their camps open to exploitation by mafias and terrorists who thrive where states cannot operate with transparency. The camps are thus analogous to the wilderness of Sinai or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Until there is a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem, this sort of trouble will go on in the Middle East. And all that time, the Zionist Right will blame the Palestinians for being dispossessed.
posted by Juan @ 5/21/2007 12:23:00 PM 0 comments
Monday, May 21, 2007
Lebanon Crisis
Veteran reporter Nicholas Blanford explains what is happening in Lebanon
1. Fath al-Islam is a splinter guerrilla group established last December that has links to the international Salafi Jihadi movement (which some call "al-Qaeda" as shorthand). Its leader has ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It is tiny, with at most 300 fighters, and not all of them may be Palestinian. It is opposed by all the major Palestinian political groups, including Hamas and the PLO. It is, according to CNN, extremely well armed. It appears to have an international network. One of the Fath al-Islam guerrillas killed on Sunday had engaged in a terror attack on Germany. It is a little unlikely that this group has any significant relationship to the secular Alawi Baath government of Syria, despite what the Lebanese politicians allege.
2. The group, which robbed a bank and functions as a small local Mafia, has used the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp (pop. 30,000) in north Lebanon as a base. There are thousands of Palestinian refugees in the camp, displaced there from their homes in Galilee by Zionist forces in 1948. Once Israel was formed, these refugees from the fighting were locked out of their former home by Israeli PM David Ben Gurion. Because Lebanon has a Christian political elite, Beirut did not give the Palestinians citizenship, since they are 85% Sunni and it would have upset the demographic balance of the country. Also, the Palestinians of Lebanon generally insist that they will some day go home to Palestine (Israel) and fiercely reject "tawtin" or naturalization as "Lebanese." Their stateless condition has left the Palestinian population of Lebanon poverty-stricken and barred from certain occupations, including medicine! If you think about it a little bit, you see the analogy between their condition and that of 19th century Jews in some parts of Europe, confined to ghettoes and forbidden from certain occupations.A clickable map of the refugee camps in Lebanon with information about each can be found here. For an anthropologist's exploration of the culture of the camps, see Julie Peteet's article in the Journal of the International Institute at the U of Michigan. Here is her piece with some history of the situation. See also Professor Peteet's recent book. Also
3. A 1969 accord prevents Lebanese military forces from going into the camps. Anyway, hand to hand fighting in them would produce a high death toll. Firing on a camp full of civilians by the Lebanese government is deeply troubling. Note that the Tripoli Sunni Muslim townspeople appear, however, to approve of the attack on Fath al-Islam. The camps are locally seen as nests of criminality and breeding grounds of terror.
4. Although it is usually said that there are 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, a country of 3.8 million, Palestinian demographer Khalil Shikakli has argued that there are actually only a couple hundred thousand left there. Many have been given temporary visas of various sorts by Germany, Scandinavian countries, etc., and have emigrated to a precarious perch in Europe, where they seldom have a permit to work and so remain in limbo (the Palestinians have now become the symbol of vulnerable statelessness; in the contemporary world, not having a state is the closest thing to slavery.) Their statelessness makes the Palestinians in their camps open to exploitation by mafias and terrorists who thrive where states cannot operate with transparency. The camps are thus analogous to the wilderness of Sinai or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Until there is a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem, this sort of trouble will go on in the Middle East. And all that time, the Zionist Right will blame the Palestinians for being dispossessed.
posted by Juan @ 5/21/2007 12:23:00 PM 0 comments
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Time to Get Out of Afghanistan and Iraq--Middle East Online--Patrick Seale
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The governments of Afghanistan and Iraq have indicated quite clearly that they want the United States to leave their countries. In Afghanistan, NATO cannot defeat the Taliban, and only makes matters worse by the indiscriminate killing of civilians, says Patrick Seale.
"Afghanistan will be high on the agenda when NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visits President George W. Bush at his Texas ranch on May 20-21. The message de Hoop Scheffer has to convey is sombre: NATO is losing the war against the Taliban. A fundamental policy review is urgently needed.
"Afghanistan will be high on the agenda when NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visits President George W. Bush at his Texas ranch on May 20-21. The message de Hoop Scheffer has to convey is sombre: NATO is losing the war against the Taliban. A fundamental policy review is urgently needed.
"The most important new development is that the Afghans themselves, sickened by war and mounting civilian casualties, want the United States and other foreign troops to leave. As President Hamid Karzai himself admitted, Afghan patience with foreign troops is "wearing thin" five years after the U.S. invasion. "It is difficult for us to continue to tolerate civilian casualties," he said at a press conference earlier this month.
"On May 8, the Senate in Kabul approved a bill that called for negotiations with the Taliban, a ceasefire, and a date for the withdrawal of foreign troops. The proposed legislation demands that foreign forces should not engage the Taliban unless they are themselves attacked or have first consulted with the Afghan army, police and government.
"The bill reflects a growing popular rebellion against heavy-handed American army tactics and aerial bombardments, which have brought death and destruction to many parts of Afghanistan. The bill has to be approved by the lower house of Parliament and by President Karzai before becoming law.
"At much the same time in Baghdad, 144 members of Parliament -- out of a total of 275 -- signed a petition calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The petition is now being developed into a draft bill by the legal and foreign affairs committees of the Iraqi Parliament.
Israel Kills 8 Members of One Family with Bomb
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"Gaza – Ma'an – Eight Palestinians were killed including 7 members of Al-Hayyah family as a result of an Israeli air strike which targeted the family's meeting hall on Sunday evening. The raid came in an attempt to assassinate the Hamas leader, Khalil Al-Hayyah at Shuja'iyya neighborhood east of Gaza city.
"Palestinian medical sources stated that 8 people were killed and more than ten were injured. The corpses of the victims arrived at the Ash-Shifa hospital in Gaza city torn into pieces.
"The medical sources named the victims as: Nimir Isma'il Al-Hayyah 60, Bakir Al-Hayya, 26, Jihad Abdul Hamid Al-Hayyah, 17, Abdul Hamid Al-Hayya 35, Ala' Al-Hayya 22, Ibrahim Al-Hayya 23, Muhammad Khalid Al-Hayya 16 and Samih Farawna 27.
"Ma'an's correspondent reported that the Israeli raid came minutes after the Hamas and Fatah movements agreed to end the state of tension. The agreement was read by Khalil Al-Hayyah representing Hamas and Majid Abu Shamala representing Fatah.
"Sources in Hamas confirmed that Dr Khalil Al-Hayyah was safe.
"The Israeli attack was conducted hours after the Israeli security cabinet decided to intensify military action against the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders in an attempt to halt the heightened launching of Palestinian home made projectiles from Gaza Strip towards Israeli targets.
From Palestinian Pundit and Maan News via Voices of Palestine
"Palestinian medical sources stated that 8 people were killed and more than ten were injured. The corpses of the victims arrived at the Ash-Shifa hospital in Gaza city torn into pieces.
"The medical sources named the victims as: Nimir Isma'il Al-Hayyah 60, Bakir Al-Hayya, 26, Jihad Abdul Hamid Al-Hayyah, 17, Abdul Hamid Al-Hayya 35, Ala' Al-Hayya 22, Ibrahim Al-Hayya 23, Muhammad Khalid Al-Hayya 16 and Samih Farawna 27.
"Ma'an's correspondent reported that the Israeli raid came minutes after the Hamas and Fatah movements agreed to end the state of tension. The agreement was read by Khalil Al-Hayyah representing Hamas and Majid Abu Shamala representing Fatah.
"Sources in Hamas confirmed that Dr Khalil Al-Hayyah was safe.
"The Israeli attack was conducted hours after the Israeli security cabinet decided to intensify military action against the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders in an attempt to halt the heightened launching of Palestinian home made projectiles from Gaza Strip towards Israeli targets.
From Palestinian Pundit and Maan News via Voices of Palestine
Is It Really Just an Inter-Palestinian Fight?--Tony Sayegh
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"It has become fashionable for friends and foes of the Palestinians to decry what they refer to as the inter-Palestinian fighting. Some have gone as far as calling it a civil war. Hamas and Fatah are equally blamed in what passes as astute observation and wisdom in various commentaries.
"In this blessed age of the “new Middle East” brought to us courtesy of the American benevolence and zeal for democracy, we have been manipulated by the spin machines to believe that civil wars are breaking out spontaneously in Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and now Palestine. What more proof do we need that we are primitive, uncivilized savages who need the big stick of the kind, civilized Western occupiers to keep us from each other’s throat? Therefore the American occupation of Iraq can’t end, for fear of a “full blown civil war.” Now some Israelis are saying only re-occupying Gaza would restore “peace.”
"Focusing on the Palestinian arena, and notwithstanding my strong criticisms of Hamas, I have to state unequivocally that I can’t consider both Hamas and Fatah as equally culpable. Further, it should be stated that what is taking place is not only not a civil war, but also not a Palestinian fight between Fatah and Hamas. Rather, it is obvious by now that a faction within Fatah as represented by the notorious Dahlan and with the acquiescence of the stooge Abbas is leading a Contra-style effort to impose a reign of terror and a police “state” on the Palestinians in order to force a “settlement” favorable to Israel on them and to physically snuff out any opposition.
"It is no coincidence that the brain behind this plan is none other than Elliott Abrams with the Central American experience of toppling governments, arming and financing of death squads and Contra forces, and campaigns of assassinations and terror. Abrams has put together a similar plan for the Palestinians and the U.S. Congress has appropriated the funds for this plan. Unlike the Iran-Contra deal, this is not secret and we have read its details in the papers. We know that at least $84 millions have been allocated by the Congress. We also know that the U.S. is openly training, with the assistance of its two client regimes in Jordan and Egypt, the Palestinian Contras. We even know where they are being trained!
"The real surprise is that the various Palestinian groups were not up in arms after finding out these details. The Palestinian street was also complacent about all of this as if this plan does not concern it. Of course the blockade and the empty stomachs were intended to minimize opposition to the plan. Still not many Palestinian voices, even in the Diaspora, were raised. A certain fog seemed to surround what is being planned, even though none of it was secret. It was as if the Palestinians did not want to face up to the fact that among them, as with any other people, there are those who would work against the interests of their people and actually work for U.S. and Israeli interests.
"What is happening now is that the order has been given by Usrael for this Palestinian Contra faction to forcefully implement the plan. We read in Haaretz, for example, about Condoleezza’s plan with precise dates for implementation, which Abbas accepted within 24 hours. We also know that a part of the plan calls for Dahlan to submit and implement a plan on how to disarm the resistance and stop the launching of rockets from Gaza. The deadline for the implementation of this “security” plan is June 21; only a month away. Is it not clear now why the so-called “Presidential Guard” has been deployed in the north and the east of Gaza? Is it not clear now why about 500 of the Palestinian Badr Brigade, based and trained in Jordan were allowed through the Rafah crossing (which is closed for Palestinian civilians most of the time) from Egypt? Is it not clear why large arms shipments were sent through Jordan and Egypt to the Palestinian Contras?
"With all of my criticisms of Hamas, it is the only major force standing up to the Contras and their dark plans. That much we have to recognize. If the Contras succeed in crushing Hamas there will be no resistance left and Palestinian rights will be liquidated. This is what all the client Arab regimes are waiting for to normalize relations with Israel over the wreckage of the Palestinians using the “peace plan” fig leaf.
"Realizing all of these very ominous dimensions of what has been planned and is being executed, makes it unconscionable for any Palestinian to just blame both parties equally and to portray what is happening as a power struggle. The picture is clear and all Palestinians need to expose and to stand up to the Contras in their middle.
"In this blessed age of the “new Middle East” brought to us courtesy of the American benevolence and zeal for democracy, we have been manipulated by the spin machines to believe that civil wars are breaking out spontaneously in Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and now Palestine. What more proof do we need that we are primitive, uncivilized savages who need the big stick of the kind, civilized Western occupiers to keep us from each other’s throat? Therefore the American occupation of Iraq can’t end, for fear of a “full blown civil war.” Now some Israelis are saying only re-occupying Gaza would restore “peace.”
"Focusing on the Palestinian arena, and notwithstanding my strong criticisms of Hamas, I have to state unequivocally that I can’t consider both Hamas and Fatah as equally culpable. Further, it should be stated that what is taking place is not only not a civil war, but also not a Palestinian fight between Fatah and Hamas. Rather, it is obvious by now that a faction within Fatah as represented by the notorious Dahlan and with the acquiescence of the stooge Abbas is leading a Contra-style effort to impose a reign of terror and a police “state” on the Palestinians in order to force a “settlement” favorable to Israel on them and to physically snuff out any opposition.
"It is no coincidence that the brain behind this plan is none other than Elliott Abrams with the Central American experience of toppling governments, arming and financing of death squads and Contra forces, and campaigns of assassinations and terror. Abrams has put together a similar plan for the Palestinians and the U.S. Congress has appropriated the funds for this plan. Unlike the Iran-Contra deal, this is not secret and we have read its details in the papers. We know that at least $84 millions have been allocated by the Congress. We also know that the U.S. is openly training, with the assistance of its two client regimes in Jordan and Egypt, the Palestinian Contras. We even know where they are being trained!
"The real surprise is that the various Palestinian groups were not up in arms after finding out these details. The Palestinian street was also complacent about all of this as if this plan does not concern it. Of course the blockade and the empty stomachs were intended to minimize opposition to the plan. Still not many Palestinian voices, even in the Diaspora, were raised. A certain fog seemed to surround what is being planned, even though none of it was secret. It was as if the Palestinians did not want to face up to the fact that among them, as with any other people, there are those who would work against the interests of their people and actually work for U.S. and Israeli interests.
"What is happening now is that the order has been given by Usrael for this Palestinian Contra faction to forcefully implement the plan. We read in Haaretz, for example, about Condoleezza’s plan with precise dates for implementation, which Abbas accepted within 24 hours. We also know that a part of the plan calls for Dahlan to submit and implement a plan on how to disarm the resistance and stop the launching of rockets from Gaza. The deadline for the implementation of this “security” plan is June 21; only a month away. Is it not clear now why the so-called “Presidential Guard” has been deployed in the north and the east of Gaza? Is it not clear now why about 500 of the Palestinian Badr Brigade, based and trained in Jordan were allowed through the Rafah crossing (which is closed for Palestinian civilians most of the time) from Egypt? Is it not clear why large arms shipments were sent through Jordan and Egypt to the Palestinian Contras?
"With all of my criticisms of Hamas, it is the only major force standing up to the Contras and their dark plans. That much we have to recognize. If the Contras succeed in crushing Hamas there will be no resistance left and Palestinian rights will be liquidated. This is what all the client Arab regimes are waiting for to normalize relations with Israel over the wreckage of the Palestinians using the “peace plan” fig leaf.
"Realizing all of these very ominous dimensions of what has been planned and is being executed, makes it unconscionable for any Palestinian to just blame both parties equally and to portray what is happening as a power struggle. The picture is clear and all Palestinians need to expose and to stand up to the Contras in their middle.
Dems Are Playing with Fire--People Want An End to War
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WASHINGTON -- It's gloomy out there. Men and women, whites and minorities - all are feeling a war-weary pessimism about the country seldom shared by so many people.
Only 25 percent of those surveyed say things in the U.S. are going in the right direction, according to an AP-Ipsos poll this month. That is about the lowest level of satisfaction detected since the survey started in December 2003.
Rarely have longer-running polls found such a rate since the even gloomier days of 1992 ahead of the first President Bush's re-election loss to Democrat Bill Clinton.
The current glumness is widely blamed on public discontent with the war in Iraq and with President Bush. It is striking for how widespread the mood is among different groups of people.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Hallelujah Trail: Terror War "Regime Change" Comes to the Holy Land--Chris Floyd
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"The Bush Administration has now embarked on its fourth "regime change" operation in its global "Terror War." Following the more direct overthrows in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the aggression by paid-for proxies in Somalia, we now have the civil war in Palestine, with U.S. arms and money backing the armed overthrow of the democratically elected Hamas government. As in Somalia, where the American-trained army of the Ethiopian dictatorship joined up with Somali warlords in the pay of the CIA, the latest regime change is being carried out by a combination of foreign and native proxies: the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.
"The civil war in Palestine is of course a long-held dream of the American and Israeli Right. Israel first secretly supported the sectarian Hamas in order to undermine the secular nationalists of Arafat's PLO; now they openly take sides with Arafat's successors in the Palestinian Authority against Hamas, which -- as always happens -- escaped the control of the puppet-masters who sought to exploit the group for their own ends. But the long-term aim has been achieved: a violently divided Palestinian society, broken down, killing each other off, leaving Israel free to continue its colonization of Palestinian land. As others have pointed out, it's no wonder that the United States so staunchly supports this policy: after all, it's what we did to the Native Americans.
"The latter is actually an important point, if mostly overlooked. Critics of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians -- especially those well-disposed toward Israel, who write more in sorrow than in anger -- often hold out the idea that Israel will eventually come to its senses, that its leaders will finally have to acknowledge that they can't simply brutalize their way to victory and vanquish the Palestinian cause by force, take over all the land they want and build their own society on these ill-gotten gains. But of course history is filled with examples of this very process; in the grand sweep of time, it has actually succeeded more often than not.
"The civil war in Palestine is of course a long-held dream of the American and Israeli Right. Israel first secretly supported the sectarian Hamas in order to undermine the secular nationalists of Arafat's PLO; now they openly take sides with Arafat's successors in the Palestinian Authority against Hamas, which -- as always happens -- escaped the control of the puppet-masters who sought to exploit the group for their own ends. But the long-term aim has been achieved: a violently divided Palestinian society, broken down, killing each other off, leaving Israel free to continue its colonization of Palestinian land. As others have pointed out, it's no wonder that the United States so staunchly supports this policy: after all, it's what we did to the Native Americans.
"The latter is actually an important point, if mostly overlooked. Critics of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians -- especially those well-disposed toward Israel, who write more in sorrow than in anger -- often hold out the idea that Israel will eventually come to its senses, that its leaders will finally have to acknowledge that they can't simply brutalize their way to victory and vanquish the Palestinian cause by force, take over all the land they want and build their own society on these ill-gotten gains. But of course history is filled with examples of this very process; in the grand sweep of time, it has actually succeeded more often than not.
US Troops Need to Leave Iraq and Afghanistan Now
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Photo: Mohammed Ihssan, age 7, is treated for injuries inKirkuk , Iraq
Photo: Mohammed Ihssan, age 7, is treated for injuries in
Found on Iraq Today website
And another story on the same website about the orphans in Baghdad:
And another story on the same website about the orphans in Baghdad:
Quote
"There is no future for any Iraqi people. Not just for the orphan babies, for all the Iraqi people. We don’t have any future." Red Crescent worker, Quammer al-Janni
"Other than the orphanages, will anyone take these children?
"'No," says Quammer al-Janni, who coordinates orphan programs for the Red Crescent, the Arab Red Cross.
"The Iraqi government does little to help. In Iraqi culture, orphans are mostly scorned — and seldom adopted.
"They're scared. Many of them are angry — and more violent than other kids.
"'I think I am going to cry," Quammer says. "Because I have nothing to do for them. I have nothing to say for them."
"Adults who work with orphans here are scared for them — and for Iraq. They say, "Don't forget Saddam Hussein was raised as an orphan."
"The last time Fahad saw his parents, militiamen were taking them to their death. A Sunni Muslim, he won't play with Shia children.
"Another child Strassmann met, Ayaat, is a Shia, who says she can't live with Sunnis.
"This is how it begins.
"Other than the orphanages, will anyone take these children?
"'No," says Quammer al-Janni, who coordinates orphan programs for the Red Crescent, the Arab Red Cross.
"The Iraqi government does little to help. In Iraqi culture, orphans are mostly scorned — and seldom adopted.
"They're scared. Many of them are angry — and more violent than other kids.
"'I think I am going to cry," Quammer says. "Because I have nothing to do for them. I have nothing to say for them."
"Adults who work with orphans here are scared for them — and for Iraq. They say, "Don't forget Saddam Hussein was raised as an orphan."
"The last time Fahad saw his parents, militiamen were taking them to their death. A Sunni Muslim, he won't play with Shia children.
"Another child Strassmann met, Ayaat, is a Shia, who says she can't live with Sunnis.
"This is how it begins.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Friends Reunited: Back to Bipartisan Business on the Slaughter in Iraq--Chris Floyd--Empire Burlesque
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And here is what our senator Murray contributed to the blood-fest that is the funding bill: "The Senate’s placeholder bill, passed by voice vote, would provide no money. Rather, it incorporates a resolution (S Res 107) sponsored by Patty Murray, D-Wash., that the Senate adopted March 15 on a 96-2 vote. The language expresses the sense of the Senate that Congress should not undermine the safety of the armed forces.
"Before passing the bill, the Senate agreed by voice vote to amend it with the Murray language, after voting 94-1 to limit debate on the amendment. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., cast the lone “no” vote." Feingold criticized the Senate maneuver to get the bill to conference, saying, “We need full debate and votes, not backroom agreements. Ramming a symbolic bill through the Senate so that the actual bill can be written by a handful of people behind closed doors is unacceptable.”
No debate, voice votes. WHAT BLASTED COWARDS! Linda
Link to whole Chris Floyd Article (see a portion below):
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=32945&s2=18
"In fact, the bill in question, the Feingold Plan, would not have actually ended the illegal occupation of Iraq -- God forbid! However, it would have curtailed the extent of the war crime to some degree -- withdrawing "combat forces" but keeping troops in Iraq for "counterterrorism" (and aren't we constantly told that all the Iraqi insurgents are "terrorists"?) and "training Iraqi forces" and protecting the fortress embassy being constructed in the heart of Baghdad. But even this slight slackening of the garrotte would not have taken effect until April 2008 -- or after 10 more months of savage "surging" by Bush and his sectarian death-squadding allies. (Such as this kind of thing.)
Later in the article:
"It was a vain hope, of course. The Democrats (with a handful of honorable exceptions) had already displayed their preternatural spinelessness throughout the Bush imperium, culminating in their failure last fall to mount a proper, furious, public, frenzied -- if doomed -- resistance to the "Military Commissions Act," the anti-Magna Carta measure that transformed the United States into a banana republic run by a tyrannical "Unitary Executive" and his military junta. (The essence of the bill allows the unchallengeable Commander-in-Chief to declare anyone on earth an "enemy combatant" and keep them chained up indefinitely, with only one legal recourse allowed: a military tribunal, set up by the Commander, for those captives he decides to put to the question. As for the rest, they can rot forever at his pleasure.)
"The Democrats, afraid of looking "soft" on terrorism, put up only the most token, tepid defense of the Constitutional Republic and let the MCA sail through, all the while telling their supporters with a wink: "This is just tactical. Wait till we win back Congress in November, then we'll get rid of this law." Yet the mephitic measure remains on the books, in full force -- five months after the Democrats were sworn in.
"It was therefore the height of folly -- or the depths of desperation -- to believe that these Democrats would do anything substantial to upset the imperial apple-cart that Bush has set rolling through the Middle East and Central Asia. They are too cowardly, too co-opted, too corrupt and too comfortable to challenge the long-standing, bipartisan policies of loot and domination that have burdened us with a vast empire of more than 730 military bases on every continent, and endless, churning wars -- overt and covert, direct and proxy -- all over the world.
"After all, the Democratic leaders are among the elite who have profited most handsomely from the imperial arrogance that has bankrupted the national treasury, distorted the economy, perverted our society and left Americans more at threat than ever before. (Arthur Silber has much more on the bipartisan imperium in his "Dominion" series.) The Democratic Establishmentarians, like their Republican counterparts, are wealthy, well-fed, well-wadded and secure behind their phalanxes of state and private security. The actual effects of their policies -- the death, grief, ruin, hardship, suffering and fear they inflict on ordinary people, at home and abroad -- never touch the elite. They hear the cries as from a great distance, they see the destruction as through a glass, darkly. And so it will go on, and on, and on. The Democrats -- especially these Democrats -- are not going to stop it. ***
"Before passing the bill, the Senate agreed by voice vote to amend it with the Murray language, after voting 94-1 to limit debate on the amendment. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., cast the lone “no” vote." Feingold criticized the Senate maneuver to get the bill to conference, saying, “We need full debate and votes, not backroom agreements. Ramming a symbolic bill through the Senate so that the actual bill can be written by a handful of people behind closed doors is unacceptable.”
No debate, voice votes. WHAT BLASTED COWARDS! Linda
Link to whole Chris Floyd Article (see a portion below):
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=32945&s2=18
"In fact, the bill in question, the Feingold Plan, would not have actually ended the illegal occupation of Iraq -- God forbid! However, it would have curtailed the extent of the war crime to some degree -- withdrawing "combat forces" but keeping troops in Iraq for "counterterrorism" (and aren't we constantly told that all the Iraqi insurgents are "terrorists"?) and "training Iraqi forces" and protecting the fortress embassy being constructed in the heart of Baghdad. But even this slight slackening of the garrotte would not have taken effect until April 2008 -- or after 10 more months of savage "surging" by Bush and his sectarian death-squadding allies. (Such as this kind of thing.)
Later in the article:
"It was a vain hope, of course. The Democrats (with a handful of honorable exceptions) had already displayed their preternatural spinelessness throughout the Bush imperium, culminating in their failure last fall to mount a proper, furious, public, frenzied -- if doomed -- resistance to the "Military Commissions Act," the anti-Magna Carta measure that transformed the United States into a banana republic run by a tyrannical "Unitary Executive" and his military junta. (The essence of the bill allows the unchallengeable Commander-in-Chief to declare anyone on earth an "enemy combatant" and keep them chained up indefinitely, with only one legal recourse allowed: a military tribunal, set up by the Commander, for those captives he decides to put to the question. As for the rest, they can rot forever at his pleasure.)
"The Democrats, afraid of looking "soft" on terrorism, put up only the most token, tepid defense of the Constitutional Republic and let the MCA sail through, all the while telling their supporters with a wink: "This is just tactical. Wait till we win back Congress in November, then we'll get rid of this law." Yet the mephitic measure remains on the books, in full force -- five months after the Democrats were sworn in.
"It was therefore the height of folly -- or the depths of desperation -- to believe that these Democrats would do anything substantial to upset the imperial apple-cart that Bush has set rolling through the Middle East and Central Asia. They are too cowardly, too co-opted, too corrupt and too comfortable to challenge the long-standing, bipartisan policies of loot and domination that have burdened us with a vast empire of more than 730 military bases on every continent, and endless, churning wars -- overt and covert, direct and proxy -- all over the world.
"After all, the Democratic leaders are among the elite who have profited most handsomely from the imperial arrogance that has bankrupted the national treasury, distorted the economy, perverted our society and left Americans more at threat than ever before. (Arthur Silber has much more on the bipartisan imperium in his "Dominion" series.) The Democratic Establishmentarians, like their Republican counterparts, are wealthy, well-fed, well-wadded and secure behind their phalanxes of state and private security. The actual effects of their policies -- the death, grief, ruin, hardship, suffering and fear they inflict on ordinary people, at home and abroad -- never touch the elite. They hear the cries as from a great distance, they see the destruction as through a glass, darkly. And so it will go on, and on, and on. The Democrats -- especially these Democrats -- are not going to stop it. ***
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Chavez Instituting Real Direct Democracy
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"But both Baric and Naguanagua are eagerly participating in one of Chávez's most far-reaching experiments -- community councils that, with money, government consent and popular support, could redraw the way government works in this country. Thousands of councils have been founded nationwide, and they have made decisions on almost everything from trash collection to school construction.
"Though no one -- not even Chávez -- has said with certainty just how far community councils will go, many inside and outside government say the idea is to steer Venezuela away from municipal councils and mayors and hand funding and decision-making directly to the people. "If this works, community councils could bury city hall, but something better will be born," said Naguanagua, a teacher who, like Baric, belongs to the council of La Hacienda Maria, in Caracas, Venezuela's capital.
"The councils have been buoyed by success stories in some neighborhoods and tarnished by cases of corruption and incompetence in others. But overall, the process of grass-roots decision-making is providing a street-level view into how one of Latin America's more intriguing leaders is trying to bring what he calls "a revolution" to his country.
Found on Angry Arab Newservice
"Though no one -- not even Chávez -- has said with certainty just how far community councils will go, many inside and outside government say the idea is to steer Venezuela away from municipal councils and mayors and hand funding and decision-making directly to the people. "If this works, community councils could bury city hall, but something better will be born," said Naguanagua, a teacher who, like Baric, belongs to the council of La Hacienda Maria, in Caracas, Venezuela's capital.
"The councils have been buoyed by success stories in some neighborhoods and tarnished by cases of corruption and incompetence in others. But overall, the process of grass-roots decision-making is providing a street-level view into how one of Latin America's more intriguing leaders is trying to bring what he calls "a revolution" to his country.
Found on Angry Arab Newservice
Something We All Can Live With? No!
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''We'll work through something we can all live with,''
the president told reporters at the White House.
the president told reporters at the White House.
Not quite. We ALL will not live with anything that he and Congress put together. Linda
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate leaders met with President Bush's chief of staff in the Capitol on Thursday in search of a compromise bill to fund the Iraq war, eager to avoid a second veto showdown.
'''We'll work through something we can all live with,'' the president told reporters at the White House.
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that was his goal, adding that Democrats would not give the White House ''a blank check.'' Bush ''has to deal with us,'' he said.
"Bush vetoed an earlier measure, objecting to a proposed timetable for a troop withdrawal as well as several billion dollars Democrats inserted for their favored domestic programs.
"House Democrats failed to override his veto, then countered with a replacement bill to finance the war in two 60-day installments. Bush vowed to veto that bill, as well.
"The Senate sidetracked the House's confrontational approach, passing legislation that merely pledges to provide the troops the resources they need -- an action designed to pave the way for Bolten's mid-morning visit to the Capitol for renewed talks with Reid and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Operation Iraq Forever--Manuel Valenzuela
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When I first read Manuel Valenzuela's devastating explanation of reality (a portion below), his picture of what the tragic U.S. addiction to oil has done to the world saddened me. On reflection, the anger that followed that sadness made me realize that we need to join in real solidarity with the victims of U.S. imperial greed. We must support the freedom fighters trying to throw off the empire in Iraq, by fighting the empire here. Hint: "As such, no matter which member of the political duopoly is in the White House, no matter how loudly the citizenry demands a pullout, the United States will not leave Iraq in the foreseeable future. The two headed hydra is, after all, attached to the same body, obeying the same master. No amount of lies or spin or promises will alter this reality."
Please read the whole article (the link in the first paragraph below). Valenzuela has given us the gift of clarity here. Linda
"The future death of thousands of American soldiers, and the maiming of tens of thousands more, is a reality that will inevitably come in the years ahead, will be but the price of doing business, of maximizing profit and power, of controlling the black blood necessary for empire to rise and breathe. Thousands dead and tens of thousands maimed is of little consequence or importance to those whose vision of delusion includes an empire greeted by the world as liberator, with flowers and candy thrown at its feet. Sacrifices need to be made for the sake of consumerism and materialism, for gluttony and greed, after all. Just not for the elite that steer the American ship. The trillions of dollars that have already been spent, and those trillions that will invariably be needed in the future will of course be taken from the American people, their treasure pillaged, their wages raped in the pursuit of empire. It will be us, the common peasant, that will be forced to absorb the present and future costs of delusions of grandeur and self-aggrandizing hubris. It will be our children who will have to sacrifice freedom, rights and blood.
"The added benefit to the elite of this robbery of the American taxpayer is that for every dollar that goes to the Iraq War, to the military-industrial complex, to the bank accounts of the war profiteers and the energy corporatists, one less dollar is allocated for social services, education, healthcare, infrastructure and the general welfare of the American people. One more dollar taken out through taxes equals one less dollar in the pocket of the people, thereby eviscerating the middle class and shifting the burden of war from the wealthy to the middle and working classes. By gutting the middle class, by putting severe pressure on its ability to subsist on already diminishing wages, the elite further separate themselves from the rest of us, increasing the wealth gap, and by consequence, increasing their power and control over us as well. When the rich get richer and the poor poorer, only a nation of fools fails to see who wins and who loses.
"As such, the Iraq War is also a war against the American people, for it is designed to make us anemic creatures dependent on the decisions of the elite. It is engineered in part to increase injustice, inequality, exploitation and dominion over us, robbing us of our power to mobilize and seek change. By redistributing America’s treasure away from the people and to the few elite and the corporations, using war as pretext and fear as a conditioning element, government is being rewired to stop acting in the interest of the masses. Meanwhile, it is being made to serve the interests of the corporate world, which have been getting enormously powerful through the looting of our treasure, under the rubric of fighting the fictional war on terror and under the illusion of destroying a nation only to later rebuild it. The shifting of resources away from what helps the people to what empowers the corporate world is but one more sign that the age of American corporatism is upon us.
"The belief that the Iraq War will end once the Bush administration leaves office, and that American soldiers will return home, is an illusion and a mirage, a concoction of wishful thinking that has no basis in reality. America has cemented its presence, firmly planting the foundations for a long and prolonged occupation. Permanent military bases have been erected, as has the largest embassy the world has ever seen. It has manipulated elections so that its puppets are elevated to the highest echelons of Iraqi power. It has written oil laws favorable to its interests that it then demands be passed by so called sovereign Iraqi lawmakers, in essence writing the same laws it needs to make legal the exploitation and robbery of Iraq’s oil fields.
Found on Uruknet.info
Please read the whole article (the link in the first paragraph below). Valenzuela has given us the gift of clarity here. Linda
"The future death of thousands of American soldiers, and the maiming of tens of thousands more, is a reality that will inevitably come in the years ahead, will be but the price of doing business, of maximizing profit and power, of controlling the black blood necessary for empire to rise and breathe. Thousands dead and tens of thousands maimed is of little consequence or importance to those whose vision of delusion includes an empire greeted by the world as liberator, with flowers and candy thrown at its feet. Sacrifices need to be made for the sake of consumerism and materialism, for gluttony and greed, after all. Just not for the elite that steer the American ship. The trillions of dollars that have already been spent, and those trillions that will invariably be needed in the future will of course be taken from the American people, their treasure pillaged, their wages raped in the pursuit of empire. It will be us, the common peasant, that will be forced to absorb the present and future costs of delusions of grandeur and self-aggrandizing hubris. It will be our children who will have to sacrifice freedom, rights and blood.
"The added benefit to the elite of this robbery of the American taxpayer is that for every dollar that goes to the Iraq War, to the military-industrial complex, to the bank accounts of the war profiteers and the energy corporatists, one less dollar is allocated for social services, education, healthcare, infrastructure and the general welfare of the American people. One more dollar taken out through taxes equals one less dollar in the pocket of the people, thereby eviscerating the middle class and shifting the burden of war from the wealthy to the middle and working classes. By gutting the middle class, by putting severe pressure on its ability to subsist on already diminishing wages, the elite further separate themselves from the rest of us, increasing the wealth gap, and by consequence, increasing their power and control over us as well. When the rich get richer and the poor poorer, only a nation of fools fails to see who wins and who loses.
"As such, the Iraq War is also a war against the American people, for it is designed to make us anemic creatures dependent on the decisions of the elite. It is engineered in part to increase injustice, inequality, exploitation and dominion over us, robbing us of our power to mobilize and seek change. By redistributing America’s treasure away from the people and to the few elite and the corporations, using war as pretext and fear as a conditioning element, government is being rewired to stop acting in the interest of the masses. Meanwhile, it is being made to serve the interests of the corporate world, which have been getting enormously powerful through the looting of our treasure, under the rubric of fighting the fictional war on terror and under the illusion of destroying a nation only to later rebuild it. The shifting of resources away from what helps the people to what empowers the corporate world is but one more sign that the age of American corporatism is upon us.
"The belief that the Iraq War will end once the Bush administration leaves office, and that American soldiers will return home, is an illusion and a mirage, a concoction of wishful thinking that has no basis in reality. America has cemented its presence, firmly planting the foundations for a long and prolonged occupation. Permanent military bases have been erected, as has the largest embassy the world has ever seen. It has manipulated elections so that its puppets are elevated to the highest echelons of Iraqi power. It has written oil laws favorable to its interests that it then demands be passed by so called sovereign Iraqi lawmakers, in essence writing the same laws it needs to make legal the exploitation and robbery of Iraq’s oil fields.
Found on Uruknet.info
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Senate Rejects Iraq Funding Cut-off
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"Today’s vote was a stinging defeat for Democrats who are highly critical of President Bush’s Iraq war strategy."
Russ Feingold looks more tickled than stung. You can tell he has no "skin in the game." Linda
"Today’s vote was a stinging defeat for Democrats who are highly critical of President Bush’s Iraq war strategy."Russ Feingold looks more tickled than stung. You can tell he has no "skin in the game." Linda
New Jerseyians Evacuated After F-16 Bomb Causes Fire
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"Firefighters in New Jersey kept an anxious eye on the weather Wednesday as they battled a massive wildfire that had consumed more than 20 square miles of brush after a military jet dropped a flare on a bombing range.
"With the dry conditions, strong wind gusts quickly fanned the blaze through the Warren Grove Gunnery Range about 25 miles north of Atlantic City.
"No deaths or injuries had been attributed to the fire, but it forced the evacuation of about 2,500 homes along the border between Ocean and Burlington counties. Lt. Col. James Garcia, a spokesman for the New Jersey Air National Guard, said the fire was believed to have been started Tuesday afternoon with a flare dropped from an F-16 fighter jet.
"The same range had been involved in 2004 when a National Guard jet accidentally strafed an elementary school with large-caliber rounds during a training exercise.
Maybe these folks need to get some tips from the people in Vieques, Puerto Rico, who kicked the Navy off their island for similar, even more deadly, incidents:
"Vieques is best known internationally as the site of a series of protests against the US Navy's use of the island as a bombing range and weapons testing ground, which eventually led to the Navy's departure in 2003."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vieques,_Puerto_Rico
"With the dry conditions, strong wind gusts quickly fanned the blaze through the Warren Grove Gunnery Range about 25 miles north of Atlantic City.
"No deaths or injuries had been attributed to the fire, but it forced the evacuation of about 2,500 homes along the border between Ocean and Burlington counties. Lt. Col. James Garcia, a spokesman for the New Jersey Air National Guard, said the fire was believed to have been started Tuesday afternoon with a flare dropped from an F-16 fighter jet.
"The same range had been involved in 2004 when a National Guard jet accidentally strafed an elementary school with large-caliber rounds during a training exercise.
Maybe these folks need to get some tips from the people in Vieques, Puerto Rico, who kicked the Navy off their island for similar, even more deadly, incidents:
"Vieques is best known internationally as the site of a series of protests against the US Navy's use of the island as a bombing range and weapons testing ground, which eventually led to the Navy's departure in 2003."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vieques,_Puerto_Rico
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Ending the Empire--Chalmers Johnson
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Chalmers Johnson on TomDispatch diagnoses and prescribes the cure (it's a tough one) for our Empire Blues. Please go to the link and read this incisive article: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=194902
Tom Englehart writes the introduction.
(Portion of the article):
"Imperialism and militarism have thus begun to imperil both the financial and social well-being of our republic. What the country desperately needs is a popular movement to rebuild the Constitutional system and subject the government once again to the discipline of checks and balances. Neither the replacement of one political party by the other, nor protectionist economic policies aimed at rescuing what's left of our manufacturing economy will correct what has gone wrong. Both of these solutions fail to address the root cause of our national decline.
"I believe that there is only one solution to the crisis we face. The American people must make the decision to dismantle both the empire that has been created in their name and the huge (still growing) military establishment that undergirds it. It is a task at least comparable to that undertaken by the British government when, after World War II, it liquidated the British Empire. By doing so, Britain avoided the fate of the Roman Republic -- becoming a domestic tyranny and losing its democracy, as would have been required if it had continued to try to dominate much of the world by force.
Tom Englehart writes the introduction.
(Portion of the article):
"Imperialism and militarism have thus begun to imperil both the financial and social well-being of our republic. What the country desperately needs is a popular movement to rebuild the Constitutional system and subject the government once again to the discipline of checks and balances. Neither the replacement of one political party by the other, nor protectionist economic policies aimed at rescuing what's left of our manufacturing economy will correct what has gone wrong. Both of these solutions fail to address the root cause of our national decline.
"I believe that there is only one solution to the crisis we face. The American people must make the decision to dismantle both the empire that has been created in their name and the huge (still growing) military establishment that undergirds it. It is a task at least comparable to that undertaken by the British government when, after World War II, it liquidated the British Empire. By doing so, Britain avoided the fate of the Roman Republic -- becoming a domestic tyranny and losing its democracy, as would have been required if it had continued to try to dominate much of the world by force.
Charley Reese--Back the Nationalists and Get Out
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"In short, Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy is the same one we used in Vietnam, where it failed miserably. The only counterinsurgency campaign that I can recall being successful was one carried out by the British in Malaysia. That took about 10 years, and the British were aided by the fact that most of the insurgents were Chinese, who were not especially liked by the other citizens.
"The insurgents in Iraq are mainly Iraqis. We are viewed as a foreign occupational army. The Iraqis want us out. Every time our guys kick in a door, shoot somebody or arrest a "suspect," we simply create more enemies. Polls taken by the University of Maryland consistently show that regardless of what sectarian or ethnic group is polled, a majority wants us out.
Interestingly enough, 144 members of the Iraqi parliament signed a petition demanding that the U.S. set a timetable for withdrawal. For some reason, American news organizations paid little attention to it. The man who made the announcement said that it will be presented to the speaker and then will be put up for a vote.
"It also appears that conflict, at least within the parliament, is not between Shi'ites and Sunnis but between separatists, backed by the U.S., and nationalists, who want a strong central government in charge of Iraq's plentiful oil supply. The separatists want us to stay, of course, while the nationalists want us out.
"We should back the nationalists and get out.
From Antiwar.com via Cursor.org
"The insurgents in Iraq are mainly Iraqis. We are viewed as a foreign occupational army. The Iraqis want us out. Every time our guys kick in a door, shoot somebody or arrest a "suspect," we simply create more enemies. Polls taken by the University of Maryland consistently show that regardless of what sectarian or ethnic group is polled, a majority wants us out.
Interestingly enough, 144 members of the Iraqi parliament signed a petition demanding that the U.S. set a timetable for withdrawal. For some reason, American news organizations paid little attention to it. The man who made the announcement said that it will be presented to the speaker and then will be put up for a vote.
"It also appears that conflict, at least within the parliament, is not between Shi'ites and Sunnis but between separatists, backed by the U.S., and nationalists, who want a strong central government in charge of Iraq's plentiful oil supply. The separatists want us to stay, of course, while the nationalists want us out.
"We should back the nationalists and get out.
From Antiwar.com via Cursor.org
Through the Looking Glass--by Friend and Activist Tom Herring
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Through the Looking Glass
My computer’s a looking glass
With a switch to turn it off
Should I not like what’s there,
Much prefer what’s here
For what’s here is real, also nice
Garden, workshop, food and wine
Parties with friends, art to ponder
Grandchildren to delight and wonder
Through the glass live Blogs
Dwellers in an imagined world
Of illegal war, legal pillage
Murder and rape for profit
The Blogs see but cannot do
As carbon melts the poles
Cell phones call off bees
Deserts overcome trees
See the poor die first
A barrel of oil to quench thirst
Breathe the stench of dead cities
Dead Tigris and Euphrates
The switch! My passage back
From that ghastly looking glass
Check the evening news for crime,
War on drugs, no child left behind
My computer’s a looking glass
With a switch to turn it off
Should I not like what’s there,
Much prefer what’s here
For what’s here is real, also nice
Garden, workshop, food and wine
Parties with friends, art to ponder
Grandchildren to delight and wonder
Through the glass live Blogs
Dwellers in an imagined world
Of illegal war, legal pillage
Murder and rape for profit
The Blogs see but cannot do
As carbon melts the poles
Cell phones call off bees
Deserts overcome trees
See the poor die first
A barrel of oil to quench thirst
Breathe the stench of dead cities
Dead Tigris and Euphrates
The switch! My passage back
From that ghastly looking glass
Check the evening news for crime,
War on drugs, no child left behind
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