Lebanese Die as Condi Plays Piano in Malaysia

By Kurt Nimmo

07/29/06 "ADITE" -- -- It is certainly a myth that Nero played a fiddle while Rome burned—since the violin was not invented for a full fifteen centuries after his rule—but it is true Condi Rice, Bush’s Secretary of State, played the piano in Kuala Lumpur as Lebanese continue to die under a hard rain of Israeli bombs and apparently chemical weapons, a situation allowed to continue after Condi nixed the “false promise” of a cease-fire and thumbed her nose at the Syrians and Hezbollah.

“In keeping with her ’serious’ mood the Secretary of State performed two pieces from the brooding repertoire of Johannes Brahms—a solo Intermezzo number two, and Brahms Sonata for violin and piano, opus 108, with a Malaysian guest soloist,” reports the Gulf Times. “She arrived at the Istana hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur for the annual gala dinner wearing a glamorous red dress and red jacket made of traditional Malaysian batik material…. Regional ministers swooned over the performance as they left the dinner. ‘Oh, beautiful, beautiful. She’s a great pianist. She’s a concert pianist,’ said Philippines Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo, who insisted that despite the geopolitical realities a good time was had by all.”

How utterly disgusting.

Of course, the Lebanese, facing “the geopolitical realities” of Israeli aggression and indiscriminate murder, are not having a good time, but then they hardly matter, as became obvious the moment Rice’s plane touched down and she engaged in “discussions” with the Israelis, talks designed to do little more than provide the Israelis with more time to kill Lebanese civilians.

Once upon a time, U.S. officials at least put on a somber face when engaging in peace talks during international crises, but Condi simply could not be bothered—she smiled and joked at every turn, even yucked it up during photo ops with Kofi Annan.

Meanwhile, over at the New York Times, the terror transformation is in full swing. According to Neil MacFarquhar, so-called analysts believe “by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda,” in other words, the two groups—or one legitimate resistance group, since “al-Qaeda” is a black op designed to scare the pants of weak-kneed and half-witted Americans—are in a race of sorts to see who is the baddest terrorist.

Over at Fox, they are involved in race of their own—to blur the lines between Hezbollah and “al-Qaeda,” the terrorist group nobody can demonstrate actually exists.

“The latest dispatch from the Al Qaeda killers urges all Islamic fascists to travel to the Middle East and kill Jews. Bin Laden’s second in command, Zawahiri, issued that order on videotape yesterday,” avers Fox News loudmouth Bill O’Reilly, who has “been telling you all along that these jihadists are joined together by hatred of Jews and Americans. The World War III concept is that Islamic fascism has to be confronted in all its forms.”

Problem is, though, most Americans are not onboard with this “Islam as fascism” paradigm—more accurately a crude and absurd propaganda device—trotted out like a gaudy frat house float during a homecoming parade now that Hezbollah is kicking IOF tail.

“But many Americans do not yet get that, as the CBS poll demonstrated,” continues the arrogant one, puffed up grotesquely with poisonous neocon hubris. “If anybody thinks we can sit out the jihad, they’re wrong. Right now, Israel is doing us a favor by attacking Hezbollah. We Americans are fortunate we have an ocean between us and the Islamic killers. If we didn’t, we’d be facing this in the good old USA…. So bottom line, whoever is fighting the terrorists is our friend. Whoever is helping them is our enemy.”

Need he say more?

Copyright Kurt Nimmo - Visit his website www.kurtnimmo.com

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Bal-la al Mouss--Americans in Iraq

July 16, 2006

Bal-la al Mouss--Americans in Iraq

BAL-LA AL MOUSS

Malcom Lagauche

"Let's look at this from an Arab point of view. A couple of hours ago, an Iraqi-American friend visited me. He called the occupation and resistance, 'bal-la al mouss.' Then he explained, 'This means someone who has a razor in his throat. He can not spit it out and he can not swallow it.'"

July 16, 2006

A few weeks ago, a jubilant George Bush announced the killing of al-Zarqawi in Iraq. He maintained that the Iraqi resistance suffered a great blow with the assassination. Then, the U.S. administration quickly proclaimed al-Zarqawi?s successor to be Abu al-Muhajir and put a $5 million price tag on his head.

There are a couple of things that don?t add up in the U.S. assessments. First, attacks in Iraq have increased dramatically since the announcement of al-Zarqawi?s death. So much for the administration?s illogic.

Second, al-Muhajir may be in an Egyptian prison; a venue he has occupied for the past seven years. According to Al-Jazeera News of July 6, 2006:

Egyptian newspaper Al-Masri al-Yawm has quoted Mamduh Ismail as saying he met al-Muhajir, also known as Sharif Hazaa, or Abu Ayub al-Masri, in Tura prison in Cairo, where he has been held for seven years.

"Sharif Hazaa [al-Muhajir] is in Tura prison, and I met him two days ago while I was visiting some of my clients," Ismail, a lawyer known for defending Islamist groups, told the newspaper.

Al-Muhajir is on the "most wanted" list issued by the Iraqi government last week. The US military in Iraq has put a $5million price on his head.

The US army media centre in Iraq said: "We cannot comment on the news that ... al-Masri is in an Egyptian prison and not in Iraq, we have to clarify that from the Egyptian government."

I am curious to know if Ismail is eligible to collect the reward money.

The topic of the Iraqi resistance is now beginning to be heard more and more in the U.S. Not loudly, but enough to gain attention in certain areas.

For those who have followed this era in history, it is nothing new. But, the so-called "average" citizen is now asking questions. A growing number of U.S. citizens are questioning the administration?s version of the resistance as "dead-enders" or a bunch of "disgruntled" people, or foreign Arab terrorists who belong to al-Qaida, who are fighting democracy.

It?s about time.

Just the other night, while talking to a friend about the resistance, he said, "Now I know what Saddam meant by 'the Mother of all Battles.?" In other words, the statement that Saddam Hussein made on January 17, 1991 did not apply solely to the battle that had just begun.

The current phase of the Mother of all Battles is more than a population attempting to kick out unwanted invaders. It is a definitive battle in the history of the world against imperialism, ethnocentrism, and deceit.

Look around and you will see there is support for the resistance all over the world. In Brazil, Iraqi resistance clubs have sprung up. There is even an Iraqi resistance comic book series. Go to google and input "Iraqi resistance" in the image portion of the search engine and you will see U.S. citizens in Detroit, or in Pittsburgh, or in New York, holding pro-Iraqi resistance signs. This battle has worldwide implications.

But, the U.S. keeps saying that things are going well. Dick (appropriately-named) Cheney stated that it was in its death throes. Since then, the numbers of casualties have escalated. What?s going on?

U.S. commanders in the field are sounding negative. They are speaking about the resilience and the ingenuity of the freedom fighters. A year ago, we never heard such words come out of the mouths of U.S. military personnel.

There is a great problem for the U.S. Increasing numbers of U.S. citizens are calling for the U.S. to leave Iraq, yet the administration says it will not "cut and run." This is Bush?s new ploy of maintaining the violence: if one states that the U.S. should pull out of Iraq, he/she is deemed "unpatriotic." You will hear more and more of this kind of talk as the 2006 mid-term elections in the U.S. get closer.

The problem is that the resistance is getting stronger. More U.S. (military and civilian) deaths are occurring. More stooge Iraqi personnel (police, national guards, etc.) are being destroyed.

In the U.S., more and more of the work of the resistance is being kept from the public. For instance, last week, it was announced in Iraq that two U.S. helicopters were shot down within 15 minutes in the same area. Not one word has been written. In the past, the shooting down of one helicopter made headlines. The recent destruction of two has eluded the headlines because it would admit a sophistication of military strength of the resistance that the U.S. wants to keep quiet. By the way, the shooting down of the helicopters has been documented on videotape, so this is not merely a rumor. A few days ago, several websites posted the video.

In addition, various U.S. military bases in Iraq are under siege. They are being bombarded by mortars frequently and many hit their targets.

A couple of weeks ago, two retired U.S. generals who were not a part of the military during or after the March 2003 invasion, visited Iraq and came back with some poignant remarks. They said it was only a matter of time until the Green Zone would be the venue of all-out war with the resistance penetrating the area. They also said it may only be a matter of time until the resistance destroys an entire U.S. base in Iraq.

The term "quagmire" was often used to describe Vietnam. When it was hinted that Iraq may turn into a quagmire, the hair on the backs of the necks of administration officials bristled. "You can?t compare Vietnam to Iraq," they often shrieked. Today, the term quagmire is precise.

Let?s look at this from an Arab point of view. A couple of hours ago, an Iraqi-American friend visited me. He called the occupation and resistance, "bal-la al mouss." Then he explained, "This means someone who has a razor in his throat. He can not spit it out and he can not swallow it." A great analogy. I would say, "fucked if he does and fucked if he doesn?t." Which ever of the terms one chooses, it is apparent that the U.S. is cornered in Iraq and will be for some time.

The resistance has led many people to write about its origins. I have stated many times my assessment that it was planned well before March 2003 by the Ba'ath leadership. However, some armchair leftists have said that it had nothing to do with the Ba?athists and was an impromptu uprising. They do not take into account, however, that it is well-funded, well-organized and well-armed. These factors are not present in any resistance that springs up out of nowhere.

On July 26, 2005, uruknet.info, a leading website for highlighting "information from occupied Iraq," ran an interview with Salah al Mukhtar, Iraq?s last ambassador to Vietnam. In it, he goes into detail about the organizing of, the actions of, and the future of the resistance. It is by far the most astute look I have seen about the resistance.

On April 8, 2003, Mohamed Sahaff, the Iraqi Information Minister, was holding a press conference in Baghdad. A reporter pointed out that U.S. troops were already in Baghdad. Sahaff looked and spotted a U.S. tank and stated, "We've got them right where we want them." Then he walked away. Despite universal ridicule about his statement, Sahaff stuck to his proclamation. Nobody is laughing today about the Iraqi Information Minister?s declaration.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In case you forgot, the American press referred to Sahaff as "Baghdad Bob"

http://hannah.smith-family.com/mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&id=381&blog_id=2

War on Lebanon Planned for at least a Year

The Bush Administration's Grand Strategy and the Birth Pangs of Terror

By Juan Cole

07/23/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Israeli war planes hit the cities of Sidon, south Beirut and Baalbak on Saturday and Israeli ground troops fought a hard battle to take over the village of Maroun al-Ras, said to be a Hizbullah rocket-launching site. The Israeli bombing of Sidon hit a religious complex linked to Hizbullah. The BBC reports that 'The UN's Jan Egeland said half a million people needed assistance - and the number was likely to increase. One-third of the recent Lebanese casualties, he said, appeared to be children. '

Matthew Kalman reveals that Israel's wideranging assault on Lebanon has been planned in a general way for years, and a specific plan has been in the works for over a year. The "Three Week War" was shown to Washington think tanks and officials last year on powerpoint by a senior Israeli army officer:

"More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail."

The Israelis tend to launch their wars of choice in the summer, in part because they know that European and American universities will be the primary nodes of popular opposition, and the universities are out in the summer. This war has nothing to do with captured Israeli soldiers. It is a long-planned war to increase Israel's ascendency over Hizbullah and its patrons.

But since Hizbullah's short-range katyushas can only hit targets 3-4 miles away, and were mainly being fired at the occupied Shebaa Farms, why worry about it so much?

1. If Hizbullah forced Israel out of the Shebaa Farms, it might increase pressure for it to give back the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and all of the West Bank-- the other territories stolen by Israel in 1967. The Israelis have their own Domino Theory, which haunts them the way the original haunted Lyndon Johnson-- and just as foolishly.

2. Some of Hizbullah's missiles might have been able to hit sensitive Israeli chemical or nuclear sites, or just cause panic by hitting Israeli cities. There was zero likelihood of Hezbollah launching such a strike unprovoked. But this capacity formed at least a slight drag on the Israeli ability to strike Iran and the Palestinians with impunity. The destruction of the Hizbullah arsenal may be the precursor of even more drastic action against the Palestinians and perhaps a bombing raid on Iran's nuclear research facilities near Isfahan.

Israel is a regional superpower, the only nuclear power in the Middle East proper, and possessing the most technologically advanced military capability and the most professional military. Since Egypt opted out of the military struggle for economic reasons and since the US invasion broke Iraq's legs, there is no conventional military threat to Israel. Israel seeks complete military superiority, for several reasons. One impetus is defensive, on the theory that it has to win every contest and can never afford to lose even one, given its lack of strategic depth (it is a geographically small country with a small population, caught between the Mediterranean and potentially hostile neighboring populations). But the defensive reasons are only one dimension.

There are also offensive considerations. The Right in Israel is determined to permanently subjugate the Palestinians and forestall the emergence of a Palestinian state. This course of action requires the constant exercise of main force against the Palestinians, who resist it, as well as threats against Arab or Muslim neighbors who might be tempted to help the Palestinians. Thus, Iraq and Iran both had to be punished and weakened. Likewise, the Israeli Right has never given up an expansionist ideology. For instance, the Israelis have a big interest in the Litani River in south Lebanon. If and when the Israeli military and political elite felt they needed to add territory by taking it from neighbors, they wished to retain that capability.

The remaining challenges to complete Israeli military superiority and freedom of movement are 1) asymmetrical forces such as Hamas and Hizbullah guerrilla cells wielding rockets and 2) the menace of future unconventional challenges such as an Iranian nuclear weapon (circa 2016 if in fact the Iranians are working on it, which is not proved). Given the alliance of Shiite Hizbullah with Shiite Iran, one capability shielded the other.

That this war was pre-planned was obvious to me from the moment it began. The Israeli military proceeded methodically and systematically to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure, and clearly had been casing targets for some time. The vast majority of these targets were unrelated to Hizbullah. But since the northern Sunni port of Tripoli could theoretically be used by Syria or Iran to offload replacement rockets that could be transported by truck down south to Hizbullah, the Israelis hit it. And then they hit some trucks to let truck drivers know to stay home for a while.

That is why I was so shaken by George W. Bush's overheard conversation with Tony Blair about the war. He clearly thought that it broke out because Syria used Hizbullah to create a provocation. The President of the United States did not know that this war was a long-planned Israeli war of choice.

Why is that scary? Because the Israeli planning had to have been done in conjunction with Donald Rumsfeld at the US Department of Defense. The US Department of Defense is committed to rapidly re-arming Israel and providing it precision laser-guided weaponry, and to giving it time to substantially degrade Hizbullah's missile capabilities. The two are partners in the war effort.

For the Bush administration, Iran and Hizbullah are not existential threats. They are proximate threats. Iran is hostile to US corporate investment in the oil-rich Gulf,, and so is a big obstacle to American profit-making in the region. Rumsfeld is worried about Iran's admission as an observer to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is to say, that he is worried about a budding Chinese-Islamic axis that might lock up petroleum reserves and block US investments. If Chinese economic and military growth make it the most significant potential challenger to the Sole Superpower in the coming century, a Chinese alliance with the oil-rich Muslim regions, including Iran, would be even more formidable. The Shanghai group has already pulled off one coup against Rumsfeld, successfully convincing Uzbekistan to end US basing rights in that country.

Rumsfeld also believes, contrary to all available evidence, that Iran is actively destabilizing Iraq and is conniving with Syria and Hezbollah to do so.
(In fact, the Iraqis had shaped charges in their depots and did not need to learn about them from Iran or Hizbollah). At some points, the Pentagon has even tried to blame Iran for the radical Sunni Arab violence in Iraq, which makes no sense at all (and thus that propaganda campaign has been put on the back burner).

Rumsfeld is so eager to stop what he believes is an Iranian nuclear weapons program that he reportedly has considered using tactical nuclear weapons against it preemptively. After all, a nuclear-armed Iran would forestall American gunboat diplomacy in the oil-rich Gulf.

Iran also supports Syria, and Rumsfeld believes that Syria is helping destabilize Iraq, and is also a patron for Hizbullah.

Clearly, if one could get rid of Iran and Hezbollah, in Rumsfeld World, Iraq is much more likely to turn out a delayed success than an absolute disaster. And then the stalled-out rush to Bush's vision of "democracy" (i.e. Big Private Property) in the region could proceed. In fact, the instability in Iraq mainly comes from Sunni Arab guerrillas, who hate Iran and it is mutual.

The Bush administration's perceived economic and geopolitical interests thus overlap strongly with Israel's perceived security interests, with both benefitting from an Israeli destruction of Hizbullah. It is not impossible that the US Pentagon urged the Israelis on in this endeavor. They certainly knew about and approved of the plan.

What is scary is that Cheney and Rumsfeld don't appear to have let W. in on the whole thing. They told him that Bashar al-Asad of Syria stirred up a little trouble because he was afraid that Iraq the Model and the Lebanese Cedar Revolution might be such huge successes that they would topple him by example (just as, after Poland and the Czech Velvet Revolution, other Eastern European strongmen fell). (Don't fall down laughing at the idea of Iraq and Lebanon as Republican Party success stories; people in Washington, DC, coccoon a lot and have odd ideas about the way the world is.) So, Bush thought, if that is all that is going on, then someone just needs to call al-Asad and reassure him that we're not going to take him out, and get him to rein in Hizbullah. And then the war would suddenly stop. No one told Bush that this war was actually an Israeli war of choice and that al-Asad had nothing to do with it, that, indeed, it could only happen because al-Asad is already irrelevant.

That is why Administration hopes of using the Israeli attempt to destroy Hezbollah as a wedge to convince Syria to give up rejectionism and detach itself from Iran are crazy.

Syria is not going to give up its stance toward Israel unless it at the very least gets back the occupied Golan Heights. That is non-negotiable for Damascus. Since the Israeli Right is diehard opposed to making that deal, Israel will go on occupying part of Syrian soil. Syria cannot accept that outcome. Likewise, the Alawi regime in Syria faces a powerful challenge from the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. The high Baath officials would be afraid that if they made peace with Israel and got nothing out of it for Syria, there would be a mass popular Islamist uprising. A separate peace that leaves the Palestinians to the Israelis' tender mercies would also stick in the craw of the Syrian public. The administration plan will fail.

Because of their fetish for states, the Neoconservatives of the Bush administration are unable to see that the Levant and points east are now the province of militia-parties that dominate localities and wield asymmetrical paramilitary force in such a way as to stymie states, whether local host states, local adversaries, or imperial Powers. Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas and other groups in Gaza and the West Bank, al-Qaeda/ radical Bedouins in the Sinai, the Muslim Brotherhood in some Sunni areas of Syria, the tribes and gangs of Maan in Jordan, the Peshmerga of the Kurds, the guerrilla groups of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, Badr Corps and Marsh Arabs of the Iraqi Shiites, the Basij and Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iran, the party-tribes of Afghanistan--whether the Tajik Jami'at-i Islami or the Pushtun Taliban--and the biradaris and ethnic mafias of Pakistan, are all arguably as significant actors as states, and often more significant.

By its assault on Middle Eastern states, whether it takes the form of military confrontation or of "pressure" to "democratize, Neoconservatism in Washington and Tel Aviv has increased the power and saliency of militia rule throughout the region. The transition under American auspices of Iraq from a strong if odious central state to equally odious militia rule and chaotic violence is only the most obvious example of this process. More people have been killed in terror attacks in Iraq every month since February than were killed on September 11, 2001 in the US, and since Iraq is 11 times less populous than the US, the 6,000 killed in May and June are equivalent to 66,000 killed in civil war violence in the US. Condi Rice echoes the old Neocon theory of "creative chaos" when she confuses the Lebanon war with "the birth pangs" of a "new" Middle East. The chief outcome of the "war on terror" has been the proliferation of asymmetrical challengers. Israel's assault on the very fabric of the Lebanese state seems likely to weaken or collapse it and further that proliferation. Since asymmetrical challengers often turn to terrorism as a tactic, the "war on terror" has been, at the level of political society below that of high politics and the state, the most efficient engine for the production of terrorism in history.

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute - Visit his blog www.juancole.com

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'Blow up my city and I'll blow up yours'

By Robert Fisk in Kfar Chim Lebanon:

07/18/06 "The Independent" -- - It streaked out of the heavens like a fiery meteor, crashing onto a truck and a car, spewing fuel on to the road. An Israeli helicopter shot down by a Hizbollah missile? Or - as the Israelis claimed - a container which fell from a military aircraft with nothing more lethal inside than propaganda papers addressed to the Lebanese? By the time I got there, the roadway, the bushes, the very trees were on fire and the car upon which this thing had crashed still contained its partly decapitated driver, bleeding his life away all down his shirt and trousers as he sat in the front seat.

Large pieces of metal were on the road, part of what might have been a cluster bomb on the verge and what looked suspiciously like a rotor blade on a pile of sand. But there were no tracts, no papers, no instructions to the people of Lebanon from the army which has been bombarding this country for the past six days. Then came the sound of Israeli jets and a huge explosion in an abandoned army base and, reader, we fled.

We are always fleeing these days. We drive fast through the southern suburbs of Beirut, a haunted place of rubble and fear, we speed past bomb craters, terrified that the planes will come back. We sprint away from Raouche when the ground shakes under our feet. Then - for this is a reporter's life in Beirut - we pant like dogs as we run for the vast palace in which the Lebanese Prime Minister holds court and where the men from the United Nations have arrived to bring us Peace in Our Time.

Well, maybe. It turned out that Kofi Annan's special adviser was Vijay Nambiar, brother of the former Indian commander to the doomed Unprofor in Bosnia, a man who used to turn up to press conferences wearing more medals than Dwight D Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Second World War. Vijay, it seems, is a little more humble, though yesterday we suspected he had much to be humble about. He had held talks with Fouad Siniora, the Prime Minister, and his even more ineffective speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri.

There were to be no questions - a bad sign - and a parsing of the immensely dull Nambiar statement did not hold out much hope of an immediate end to air raids, killer missiles, piles of innocent dead and the vast packs of lies that have characterised this filthy war ever since Hizbollah crossed into Israel, killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two more last Wednesday. "Some promising first efforts ... first step ... much diplomatic work to be done before we have any grounds for optimism ... consequences of failure will be grave ... creative solution ... time is of the essence." Ouch. "Time is of the essence" was the UN's favourite cliché when they were trying to set up an Afghan authority in 2002. And we all know what a success story Afghanistan has turned out to be.

Mr Nambiar was accompanied by all the usual suspects; Alvaro de Soto, the "special" Middle East co-ordinator who has the plummiest accent in the UN, and Terje Rod-Larsen, who would like one day - yes, one day - to be the UN's secretary general. They left for Israel, Mr Nambiar adding that "as developments warrant, it may become necessary for us to return to Lebanon ..."

Oh indeed it will, and most of us have a pretty gruesome idea of what those developments might be: more Hizbollah missiles on to Haifa, more Israeli bombs on to the apartment blocks of Beirut and more - much more - death. George Bush's wonderful remark to Tony Blair in St Petersburg - "see the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit" - was spot on for once, especially the "shit" bit, but "getting" Syria to stop Hizbollah will cost a pretty price. Which George W may not realise.

So what else was new yesterday? Well, the Israeli army trotted over the border again - for about 30 metres - and then retreated behind their vulnerable south Lebanon frontier wire. Israeli jets killed another 17 Lebanese and wounded 53 more, taking the total death toll here to 196 against Israel's rising total of 24. The obscene exchange rate of death thus now stands at more than eight Lebanese for every Israeli.

An Israeli plane - though some said it was a shell from a gunboat - was fired into Beirut port, setting part of it afire and killing two workers, and another attack near Tripoli killed nine Lebanese soldiers. For every Katyusha barrage on Haifa there is now a renewed onslaught on Lebanon. And for every onslaught on Lebanon there is a renewed flurry of missiles heading for Haifa - as indeed there was yet again yesterday. So the war is now "blow up my city and I'll blow up one of yours". But wasn't that happening on a slightly larger scale in a different part of the world between 1939 and 1945? And did it work?

Foreigners continued to evacuate - not least because several of those killed by the Israelis have turned out to be Canadians and Brazilians of Lebanese ancestry. A small fleet of ships has started to arrive in Beirut from Cyprus now that the roads to Syria have almost all been bombed. Iran's foreign minister said a ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners might be possible and the Lebanese government hinted that Italian mediators had already passed on messages to Beirut from Israel.

It all sounded too good to be true, especially when the Israelis had just ordered the entire population of southern Lebanon to leave their homes. Lebanon received Mr Blair's suggestion of an intervention force with something approaching surprise. After all, isn't there already just such a force in the south right now, called the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon? No doubt there would have to be a British component to such a force to repeat the British Army's magnificent performance in Afghanistan and Iraq. Heaven spare Lebanon that kind of success.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Hizbollah's response reveals months of planning

Robert Fisk: Hizbollah's response reveals months of planning

If Lebanese dislike Hizbollah, they hate Israelis

By Robert Fisk

07/16/06 "The Independent" -- -It will be called the massacre of Marwaheen. All the civilians killed by the Israelis had been ordered to abandon their homes in the border village by the Israelis themselves a few hours earlier. Leave, they were told by loudspeaker; and leave they did, 20 of them in a convoy of civilian cars. That's when the Israeli jets arrived to bomb them, killing 20 Lebanese, at least nine of them children. The local fire brigade could not put out the fires as they all burned alive in the inferno. Another "terrorist" target had been eliminated.

Yesterday, the Israelis even produced more "terrorist" targets - petrol stations in the Bekaa Valley all the way up to the frontier city of Hermel in northern Lebanon and another series of bridges on one of the few escape routes to Damascus, this time between Chtaura and the border village of Masnaa. Lebanon, as usual, was paying the price for the Hizbollah-Israeli conflict - as Hizbollah no doubt calculated they would when they crossed the Israeli frontier on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers close to Marwaheen.

But who is really winning the war? Not Lebanon, you may say, with its more than 90 civilian dead and its infrastructure steadily destroyed in hundreds of Israeli air raids. But is Israel winning? Friday night's missile attack on an Israeli warship off the coast of Lebanon suggests otherwise. Four Israeli sailors were killed, two of them hurled into the sea when a tele-guided Iranian-made missile smashed into their Hetz-class gunboat just off Beirut at dusk. Those Lebanese who had endured the fire of Israeli gunboats on the coastal highway over many years were elated. They may not have liked Hizbollah - but they hated the Israelis.

Only now, however, is a truer picture emerging of the battle for southern Lebanon and it is a fascinating, frightening tale. The original border crossing, the capture of the two soldiers and the killing of three others was planned, according to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader who escaped assassination by the Israelis on Friday evening, more than five months ago. And Friday's missile attack on the Israeli gunboat was not the last-minute inspiration of a Hizbollah member who just happened to see the warship.

It now appears clear that the Hizbollah leadership - Nasrallah used to be the organisation's military commander in southern Lebanon - thought carefully through the effects of their border crossing, relying on the cruelty of Israel's response to quell any criticism of their action within Lebanon. They were right in their planning. The Israeli retaliation was even crueller than some Hizbollah leaders imagined, and the Lebanese quickly silenced all criticism of the guerrilla movement.

Hizbollah had presumed the Israelis would cross into Lebanon after the capture of the two soldiers and they blew up the first Israeli Merkava tank when it was only 35 feet inside the country. All four Israeli crewmen were killed and the Israeli army moved no further forward. The long-range Iranian-made missiles which later exploded on Haifa had been preceded only a few weeks ago by a pilotless Hizbollah drone aircraft which surveyed northern Israel and then returned to land in eastern Lebanon after taking photographs during its flight. These pictures not only suggested a flight path for Hizbollah's rockets to Haifa; they also identified Israel's top-secret military air traffic control centre in Miron.

The next attack - concealed by Israel's censors - was directed at this facility. Codenamed "Apollo", Israeli military scientists work deep inside mountain caves and bunkers at Miron, guarded by watchtowers, guard-dogs and barbed wire, watching all air traffic moving in and out of Beirut, Damascus, Amman and other Arab cities. The mountain is surmounted by clusters of antennae which Hizbollah quickly identified as a military tracking centre. Before they fired rockets at Haifa, they therefore sent a cluster of missiles towards Miron. The caves are untouchable but the targeting of such a secret location by Hizbollah deeply shocked Israel's military planners. The "centre of world terror" - or whatever they imagine Lebanon to be - could not only breach their frontier and capture their soldiers but attack the nerve-centre of the Israeli northern military command.

Then came the Haifa missiles and the attack on the gunboat. It is now clear that this successful military operation - so contemptuous of their enemy were the Israelis that although their warship was equipped with cannon and a Vulcan machine gun, they didn't even provide the vessel with an anti-missile capability - was also planned months ago. Once the Hetz-class boats appeared, Hizbollah positioned a missile crew on the coast of west Beirut not far from Jnah, a crew trained over many weeks for just such an attack. It took less than 30 seconds for the Iranian-made missile to leave Beirut and hit the vessel square amidships, setting it on fire and killing the sailors.

Ironically, the Israelis themselves had invited journalists on an "embedded" trip with their navy only hours earlier - they were allowed to film the ships' guns firing on Lebanon - and the moment Hizbollah hit the warship on Friday, Hizbollah's television station, Al-Manar, began showing the "embedded" film. It was a slick piece of propaganda.

The Israelis were yesterday trumpeting the fact that the missile was made in Iran as proof of Iran's involvement in the Lebanon war. This was odd reasoning. Since almost all the missiles used to kill the civilians of Lebanon over the past four days were made in Seattle, Duluth and Miami in the United States, their use already suggests to millions of Lebanese that America is behind the bombardment of their country.

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Soldiers

By Cindy Sheehan

07/11/06 "t r u t h o u t" -- -- As of today, the War Department lists 2544 as the number of unjustly murdered troops in Iraq. Dozens of innocent Iraqis are being killed due to the war crime every day. Over 80 Iraqis were killed in Baghdad alone on July 9th: dozens of people just in one city on one day who would be alive if not for BushCo.

I don't know what number Casey was. Nor do I care. I have seen people say 614, I have seen people say 714. It doesn't matter, because Casey and the other 2543 were not numbers. They were living, breathing, loving, worthwhile and contributing members of society. They could pass drug tests (unlike their "commander in chief" at their ages) and they honorably volunteered to serve their country to defend America and our freedoms. What George Bush and the rest of the careless war profiteers have committed in Iraq is abuse and misuse and had nothing to do with defending America or protecting our freedoms. The lies are well documented and proven. The lies are written on my heart forever.

Between WWI and WWII, a highly decorated Marine, Major General Smedley Butler, wrote a short dissertation called War is a Racket. I wish to God I had read this before Casey enlisted, because I believe that he would be alive today if only I had. The first two paragraphs succinctly define the entire booklet and the reason not to allow your child to fall into the hands of the military-industrial war complex:

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In his treatise the General goes on to define the "damned" war profiteers of his day: the DuPont family, the steel companies, the leather companies, the t-shirt manufacturers, etc. The profits for these companies increased at a minimum tenfold in the WWI years and in retrospect even seem like healthy profits in 2006 dollars. He also complains about the 6000 buckboards for the colonels, thousands of saddles for the Cavalry, and hundreds of airplane engines that were never used in the war. The waste of money and the waste of life in war are horrendous and inherently immoral - always!

The criminal tradition of the enormous profiteering that went on in WWI and all the other wars is going on today in the war crime of Iraq. The Halliburtons, Bechtels, Blackwater Securities, KBRs, Standard Oils are raking in the billions at a clip that would make Barbary Coast pirate ship captains' heads spin. The no-bid profiteers are cronies and/or former companies of the vice president and most of the Bush regime. I don't know how the blood-monied devils can look at their own children or grandchildren and not be ashamed and appalled that their insatiable greed killed someone else's flesh and blood!

Napoleon once said: "All men are enamored of decorations ... they are positively enamored of them."

Casey was in the paramilitary Boy Scouts founded by Lord Baden-Powell, who was a militarist. I am not knocking the Boy Scouts, because Casey was an Eagle Scout and he gained a lot of positive skills in the Scouts. But he was also taught how to be a good soldier: To pledge to do his duty to God and Country. Does that include marching reluctantly off to a war which one knows is wrong? Does that include putting "the mission" first, above even one's own family and life, no matter how disordered and corrupt the mission is? Boy Scouts earn decorations for their paramilitary uniforms and I know I sewed dozens on Casey's sash (I always complained that sewing should be their first mandatory badge earned so the Scout could do it himself). Then Casey "graduated" to soldier and started earning his "Man Scout" badges. I was handed his Bronze Star and Purple Heart at his funeral like I should be a proud mom being pinned with his Eagle Scout badge. The Man Scout Badges, General Butler explains, were instituted so the military wouldn't have to pay the soldiers more money. How many Man Scout badges can make up for the needless, senseless and avoidable murder of your oldest child? There are not enough in the entire world.

In war correspondent Christopher Hedges' book, War Is the Force That Gives Us Meaning, he writes:

The disillusionment comes later. Each generation again responds to war as innocents. Each generation discovers its own disillusionment - often at a terrible price. The terrible price is that, once again, we forget that the war machine loves to greedily consume our children for the terrible profits that they so willingly and cheerfully reap. Hence the phrase: "Laughing all the way to the bank." How does it feel that the vultures are laughing at how gullible we are to so naively cough up our young? Previous generations of mothers have watched presidents and other cheerleaders for war and mayhem drag us into war after war and we mothers are unwilling and unknowing accomplices in our children's murders. War will finally have to stop when we mothers (and fathers and spouses, etc.) stop allowing our leaders to march our children off to wars that are to feed the ravenous war monster: This hideous war monster counts on us families forgetting that the last war for revenue was fought against phantom enemies that can't be confined within borders. Whether the wars are covert or overt they are always being waged with our babies' blood.

Tragically, I don't know anyone, war supporter or not, who raised his or her children to be a war criminal. I would hope that there are few people in our country who have hoped against hope that one day that their son would grow up to rape Iraqi girls and kill innocent Iraqis in cold blood. The Mahmoudiya and Haditha incidents are horrible atrocities but, unfortunately, are not isolated incidents in the Iraq war crime. War breeds atrocities. I wish to God, and everything that anybody holds holy, that The Mahmoudiya and Haditha were isolated incidents, but we know that they are not. When the neo-cons despicably spit out the blather that we need to "stay the course," I wonder what that means? Rape and murder? That is a horrible course. I think we should change it now.

To be honest with ourselves and our children, instead of the flags and Man Scout badges that our soldiers decorate their uniforms with, they should have their suits covered with corporate logos like NASCAR drivers. A Halliburton patch here and an Exxon patch there. I also believe, like General Butler said: during times of war, CEOs of war profiteers should only be allowed to earn as much as a common soldier.

Sounds fair to me, and I believe war would end if the war profiteers, politicians and generals were required to send their own children to fight for their ill-gotten gains before they sent ours.

Our nation forgot the lessons of Vietnam, where not one person over the rank of Lieutenant was even tried for war crimes. It is incumbent upon this generation of war victims to make sure that this unspeakable episode does not repeat itself. The people responsible for sending our children to this war crime should not get off scot-free. BushCo should be the ones sent to federal prison for crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.

Holding our leaders accountable for unnecessary war and killing innocent people? It's a new concept, but I think one that just might work. Let's try it this time.

But more important, don't let your babies grow up to be soldiers.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan, KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is also the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and author of two books, Not One More Mother's Child and Dear President Bush. Cindy is currently on the 8th day of the Troops Home Fast and writing from Italy, where she will be awarded the highest honor that the government of Tuscany can award a civilian, the Gold Pegasus, for her international work for peace.

FBI and Western Union helped Israel With targeted assassinations

Information from U.S. companies helped Israel locate terror cells

By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent

06/30/06 "Haaretz" -- -- WASHINGTON - From the spring of 2003 until autumn 2004, the Shin Bet security service tracked down Palestinian terror cells in the West Bank thanks to information from the Western Union money transfer service, which was passed on by the FBI.

This fact was disclosed in a book published this week about America's war on terror after September 11, 2001. In "The One Percent Doctrine," author Ron Suskind connects the transfer of intelligence from the FBI to the Shin Bet with several targeted assassinations carried out by Israel during this period.

Suskind, who is considered a reliable journalist, describes how major private companies cooperated with government agencies such as the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Treasury to monitor communications and financial transfers after September 11, in operations of questionable legality.

The FBI's most important connection during this period was with First Data, an Omaha-based electronic fund transfer company with a global reach. The company offered to assist the U.S. government in the war against terror.

FBI Financial Crimes Section chief Dennis Lormel and his colleagues at other intelligence agencies eventually realized that the information supplied by the company could be used not only to locate and freeze the assets of terror groups, but also to track them in real time - in other words, to follow the money trail directly to the sources and destinations of the funds.

First Data subsidiary Western Union, with branches throughout the Arab world and a high volume of money transfers, was in a perfect position to help. American intelligence agents and company officials cooperated in tracking the data trail and in monitoring security cameras installed in Western Union branches in order to see who was picking up the funds.

According to the book, then Shin Bet head Avi Dichter, whom Suskind calls an agent of change in the U.S. war against terror, was briefed by Lormel on the new monitoring capabilities during one of his frequent visits to Washington.

In April 2003, Dichter called Lormel to ask for the FBI's help in this regard. Dichter told officials that the Shin Bet had information about a courier who was expected to be bringing money to Israel from Lebanon shortly. The source of the money was known, but not the identity of the person for whom its was destined.

In early April, 2003, an Islamic Jihad activist went to a Western Union office in Lebanon and ordered a money transfer to Hebron. The Justice Department authorized Western Union to release this information to the FBI and the CIA, and eventually to the Shin Bet. According to Suskind, all this took just minutes, enabling Israeli intelligence to track the person who collected the transfer in Hebron and to uncover the terror cell.

According to the book, this method was used successfully many times over the next year and a half, until autumn 2004, when Palestinian operatives realized that their Western Union transfers were being used to trap them.

Dichter told Haaretz on Wednesday that he has never spoken with Suskind.

Intelligence cooperation between the U.S. and Israel has increased over the past several years, but until now, Israel's use of information from American companies had been kept secret.

The Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill last week aimed at further increasing intelligence ties with Israel and other countries by establishing a new office for international cooperation programs within the Department of Homeland Security.

This atmosphere of cooperation, Suskind states in his book, has reinforced the sense that President George Bush wants to assist Israel and was not disturbed by the military operations that Ariel Sharon's government authorized in the territories. Suskind quotes Bush as saying during his first National Security Council meeting that the U.S. must refrain from active mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

To then secretary of state Colin Powell's argument that such behavior could be interpreted by Sharon's government as a green light to apply force, Bush responded that sometimes a show of force can clarify the issue at hand.

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