| Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 24 July 2007. Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice.
Tuesday, 24 July 2007.
· US soldier reported killed in early morning Resistance attack in al-Qa’im.
· Resistance unleashes heaviest mortar barrage in months on US ‘Ayn al-Asad Air Base near al-Baghdadi in western Iraq.
· US, Iran announce agreement to join forces against Iraqi Resistance.
· Shi‘i sectarian torture, murder spree continues: 24 more bodies found dumped aroung Baghdad Tuesday.
· US admits death of four more American occupation troops.
· Puppet official reports that 80 percent of Iraq’s health workers have left hospitals since US occupation.
Al-Anbar Province. Al-Qa’im.
US soldier reported killed in early morning Resistance attack in al-Qa’im.
In a dispatch posted at 5:34pm Makkah time Tuesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that an early morning Iraqi Resistance attack on American troops in a neighborhood of al-Qa’im near the Syrian border in western Iraq had heavily damaged a US military vehicle and left one American soldier dead and three more wounded.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported a captain in the puppet police as saying that the attack took place in the ash-Shayshan popular neighborhood at the entrance to al-Qa’im early Tuesday morning.
The puppet captain said that after the attack, the Americans surrounded the scene of the attack and imposed a curfew on the neighborhood. They also managed to disarm a second bomb that they found at the same location/ The US troops also arrested one local man and his daughter, taking them in for “interrogation.”
Al-Baghdadi.
Resistance unleashes heaviest mortar barrage in months on US ‘Ayn al-Asad Air Base near al-Baghdadi.
In a dispatch posted at 5:26pm Makkah time Tuesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the Iraqi Resistance blasted the US-occupied ‘Ayn al-Asad Air Base with a violent barrage of heavy 120mm mortar rounds at 2am local time Tuesday morning.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported eyewitnesses as saying that 11 heavy mortar shells slammed into the US-occupied base, the largest such US facility, located near al-Baghdadi, about 180km west of Baghdad.
The witnesses said that the barrage ignited fires and set off secondary explosions as US materiel began exploding inside the base. Sirens wailed inside the American compound and US helicopters could be seen flying at low altitude over the area, one of them emblazoned with the red cross – implying that there had been casualties, though in keeping with the standard US policy of concealing facts regarding American losses in Iraq, no information on the nature or extent of casualties was made available.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported that this was the first such attack on the US base since a number of tribes agreed to collaborate in the so-called “al-Anbar Salvation Council” with the US occupation authorities, ostensibly against al-Qa‘idah (although in practice against all the Iraqi Resistance).
Baghdad.
US, Iran announce agreement to join forces against Iraqi Resistance.
In a dispatch posted at 7:45pm Makkah time Tuesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that representatives of Iran and the United States had concluded talks in Baghdad on Tuesday with an agreement to join forces to fight the Iraqi Resistance.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported that talks between Iran and the United States, together with the puppet “Iraqi regime” ended in Baghdad on Tuesday with an agreement to form a tripartite committee on “Security” to coordinate the war against the Iraqi Resistance in the country.
A spokesman for the American-installed puppet regime in Baghdad told the press that the three countries agreed to form a tripartite “Security Committee” with the aim of bolstering their common effort to “impose security” in the country and stamp out the Iraqi Reistance.
A communiqué issued at the end of the meeting by the office of Nuri al-Maliki, the American-installed puppet “Prime Minister” of Iraq reported that the US and Iranian sides had agreed to support what they called “the political process in Iraq” – meaning the US sponsored puppet regime and its security organs, most of whose members have been drawn from Iranian-trained Shi‘i sectarian militias.
US Ambassador Ryan Crocker announced that Iran and the United States had agreed to set up a committee to “improve security” in Iraq. Crocker said that the talks between the two hegemonic powers had taken place in a “positive and frank” atmosphere.
The negotiations were conducted by Ryan Crocker, US Ambassador to occupied Iraq; and Hasan Kazimi Qummi, the Iranian Ambassador to occupied Iraq. The US installed Iraqi puppet regime was represented in the meetings by the puppet “Foreign Minister” Hushyar Zibari.
Shi‘i sectarian torture, murder spree continues: 24 more bodies found dumped aroung Baghdad Tuesday.
In a dispatch posted on its website Tuesday, Quds Press reported that the Iraqi puppet police had retrieved the bodies of 24 more victims of the Shi‘i sectarian torture, murder spree in various parts of Baghdad on Tuesday.
Sources with the puppet police disclosed to Quds Press that most of the bodies were found in al-Karakh, an area where the Shi‘i sectarian militias are highly active. The bodies were bond and blindfolded and showed signs of intense torture – a trademark of the Shi‘i sectarian militias and the US-backed security forces most of whose members are drawn from those sectarian militias.
Quds Press reported that according to the officially announced statistics of the US-installed puppet regime, the latest batch of murder victims brings the toll for the month of July to 425 people killed by the sectarian death squads.
The Shi‘i sectarian militias are engaged in a massive campaign to drive Sunnis out of vast swaths of Baghdad and central and southern Iraq in preparation for the implementation of US and Zionist plans to partition Iraq on sectarian lines.
Efforts to split Iraq along religious and ethnic lines are part of the plans that US and Zionist politicians have long been cultivating with a view to fragmenting the Arab region.
The idea of “the dissolution of Iraq into a Shi‘ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part” was voiced by veteran Zionist military correspondent Ze’ev Schiff in Ha'aretz on 2 June 1982 and was a part of the divide-and-rule strategy laid out by Zionist writer Oded Yinon in his “Strategy for Israel in the 1980s,” published in Kivunim (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism, published by the World Zionist Organization in occupied Jerusalem in February 1982. (It was translated by the late anti-Zionist writer and activist Israel Shahak and is widely available.)
The idea of splitting the Shi‘ah in Iraq from the rest of the country was a cornerstone of the neo-Conservative strategy laid out in “A Clean Break” a paper drawn up by American Zionist government officials Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and Paul Wolfowitz in 1996 for the then Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Then in 2000 the neo-Conservative Project for a New American Century wrote Rebuilding America’s Defenses on the basis of the “Clean Break.”
The American version of the strategy for a partition of Iraq appeared in the article “The Three-State Solution” published in The New York Times on 25 November 2003 by Leslie Gelb (President Emeritus of the US Council on Foreign Relations). The same idea was reiterated, this time with “bi-partisan support” in the article by Gelb and US Democratic Senator Joseph Biden in “Unity through Autonomy in Iraq,” in The New York Times on 1 May 2006.
Then on 8 October 2006 the London Sunday Times reported that the partition of Iraq along religious and ethnic lines was one of the suggestions that the Baker-Hamilton commission was advancing.
Resistance bomb wound puppet troops Tuesday morning.
In a dispatch posted at 3:19pm Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that a bomb went off by a patrol of the puppet “Iraqi Army” on Qahtan Square in Baghdad’s al-Yarmuk district.
The AMSI reported that two puppet soldiers were wounded in the blast that also damaged one of the vehicles in the detail.
Resistance bomb targets puppet police patrol Tuesday morning.
In a dispatch posted at 3:19pm Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that an Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a puppet police patrol in the Zuyunah district of Baghdad on Tuesday morning.
The AMSI reported a source in the puppet police as claiming that the blast wounded one of the patrolmen and one civilian in addition to damaging patrol cars.
US admits death of four more American occupation troops.
In a dispatch posted at 9:10am Baghdad time Tuesday morning, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that the US admitted that four more of its occupation troops had been killed in Iraq – one each in al-Anbar Province and the city of Samarra’, and two in Baghdad, on Saturday and Sunday.
The AMSI reported that one American communiqué reported that one US soldier was killed on Saturday 21 July while on a mission somewhere in al-Anbar Province.
A second American statement acknowledged that another American had been killed when an Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US military vehicle that was on a combat mission to the south of Samarra’, 120km north of Baghdad, also on Saturday, 21 July.
The third US communiqué announced that a bomb exploded in Baghdad on Sunday, 22 July, killing an American Marine.
Another communiqué issued at dawn on Tuesday reported that yet one other American had died in Baghdad on Saturday.
Puppet official reports that 80 percent of Iraq’s health workers have left hospitals since US occupation.
In a dispatch posted at 4:08pm Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that a deputy to the US-installed puppet “Iraqi Parliament” had delivered an official report on health and the environment in which he disclosed that 80 percent of Iraqi physicians had completely left work in the hospitals of the country.
The AMSI reported the puppet official as appearing at a press conference with other members of the puppet “Parliament” on Tuesday where they announced that the figure of 80 percent applied to all health care professionals, including dentists, pharmacists, and other health workers. He added that “the main reason for that is the deterioration of security that Iraqis are living through.”
The official said: “the reports issued by the [puppet] “Iraqi Ministry of Health” indicated that 132 medical personnel had been killed, in addition to 223 health workers, 186 non-nursing health workers, and 78 institutional guards.”
Salah ad-Din Province. Samarra’.
US imposes 24-hour curfew on Samarra’.
In a dispatch posted at 3:53pm Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that US forces imposed a 24-hour curfew on the city of Samarra’, 120km north of Baghdad, at 12 noon Tuesday.
The AMSI reported that the curfew was to remain in force until 12 noon Wednesday, but no explanation for the restrictive measure was provided.
Diyala Province. Al-Mada’in.
Resistance bomb kills three puppet policemen in al-Mada’in.
In a dispatch posted at 3:53pm Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that an Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded near the al-Mada’in fuel station in al-Mada’in, 25km southeast of Baghdad, on Tuesday.
The AMSI reported eyewitnesses as saying that a bomb that had been planted near the fuel station went off as a puppet police patrol approached, killing three of the puppet policemen and wounding still more of them.
US forces carry out mass arrests in al-Mada’in Tuesday.
In a dispatch posted at 3:53pm Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that US forces made raids and arrests in the al-Bawi area and the neighborhood of al-Wahdah of al-Mada’in, 25km southeast of Baghdad, on Tuesday.
The AMSI reported that the number of people abducted by the Americans was unknown.
Babil Province. Al-Hillah.
Unexplained car bomb kills 22 in al-Hillah.
In a dispatch posted at 3:19pm Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that a car bomber blew up in the city of al-Hillah, 100km south of Baghdad on Tuesday.
The AMSI reported the puppet police as announcing that the blast killed 22 people and wounded 66 more. AMSI noted that al-Hillah has been the scene of several bombings in recent days despite the heavy deployment of US and puppet regime troops in the city. |
Friday, July 27, 2007
US soldier reported killed in early morning Resistance attack in al-Qa’im.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Illegalities of the Iraq War
By Robert Fantina
07/14/07 "Counterpunch" -- -- In the four years since the United States and its so-called 'Coalition of the Willing' invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq, only one stated goal has been accomplished: the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Peace and democracy are simply pipe dreams, the continued fantasies of a deluded U.S. president and his gaggle of yes-men who all choose to remain oblivious to Iraq's bloody civil war.
In its perpetration of unspeakable terror upon the people of Iraq, the United States and its willing and/or coerced cohorts have violated international law at almost every turn. A few shocking examples are instructive.
In March of 2003, British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith responded to then Prime Minister Tony Blair's request for input on the legality of the 'coalition's' pending invasion. The U.S. had said that Iraq was in violation of Security Council Resolution 687, passed in 1991. The United Kingdom, Mr. Goldsmith said, believed that this determination could only be made by the U.N Security Council. He commented: "The US have a rather different view: they maintain that the fact of whether Iraq is in breach is a matter of objective fact which may therefore be assessed by individual Member States. I am not aware of any other state which supports this view."
One can readily deduce from this brief statement that Mr. Blair joined President Bush in his frenzied rush to war despite serious reservations that Mr. Goldsmith had about its legality, and which were made known to Mr. Blair prior to the invasion. Yet the then British Prime Minister, not called the Yankee Poodle for nothing, was willing to ignore the counsel of his own Attorney General and put his reputation, and the lives of thousands of young Britons, on the line as he happily jumped through the hoops Mr. Bush held for him.
Slowly, as the war dragged on, the name Abu Ghraib became familiar to the world. In this city's prison, once a center for torture of Iraqis by Saddam Hussein, American soldiers continued this disgraceful tradition. The world was horrified as photographs were released of the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers. But as has been the case throughout U.S. military history, only low-ranking military personnel have been held accountable.
That torture is part of U.S. military procedures cannot be surprising when one recalls the words of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in reference to 'questioning' techniques used on prisoners: "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." With the U.S.'s top law enforcement officer deciding arbitrarily that any provisions of the Geneva Conventions are 'quaint' (archaic, outdated), the use of savagely-cruel, inhumane treatment of civilians and soldiers cannot be surprising.
America's unending arrogance is once again manifest in Mr. Gonzales' statement. The Geneva Conventions, developed over a period of more than one hundred years and ratified by one hundred and ninety-four countries, clearly cover the topics of treatment of prisoners of war and of aggressive war, and mandate serious consequences for nations in violation. Yet the U.S. Attorney General is able to dismiss them with a wave of his bloody hand, with hardly a ripple of protest from the mainstream press. That such negligence makes the press complicit in Mr. Gonzales' crimes is only obvious.
For many years the United States was quite cozy with Mr. Hussein and his nation. The U.S. provided him with weapons and other aid when it was convenient for it to do so. This may cause one to wonder about the commonalities between the two nations, or at least the most recent leaders of both. One cannot legitimately refer to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as the leader of Iraq, since a nation in the midst of a catastrophic civil war cannot be thought of as having a leader. The words of Benjamin Ferencz, a chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, are worth noting. Now in his eighty-seventh year he said: "Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime." Knowing what he does about aggressive war, Mr. Ferencz compared Mr. Bush to Mr. Hussein and said that both should be tried for their aggressive wars: Mr. Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and Mr. Bush's invasion of Iraq thirteen years later.
The evidence against Mr. Bush is overwhelming; casual students of U.S. politics will scratch their heads in wonder that Congress overlooks these crimes without even a cursory investigation. When Iraq, in 1990, invaded Kuwait, Mr. Bush's father did not hesitate to summon the U.N and take aggressive action. Whether this was due to his righteous indignation at this clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, or because he had a close eye on Kuwait's oil riches and his own future (present?) finger in that particularly lucrative pie, cannot be known. But the world saw that one nation could not with impunity arbitrarily invade another sovereign nation. In the decade and a half that have since passed, the U.S. Congress has apparently turned a blind eye to such flagrant violations of the Geneva Conventions as 'pre-emptive' war and torture of prisoners.
Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, millions of people the world over protested the possibility of this obscene 'pre-emptive' strike; Mr. Bush compared them to a task force. Members of Congress from both parties seemed to fall all over each other to grab the microphone and utter jingoistic phrases that could have been considered nonsensical if their consequences were no so dire. Some of those, whether due to a genuine study of the situation in Iraq or to accommodate the prevailing winds of daily polls, have now changed their view and ostensibly oppose the war. Yet when placed in a position of following through on their spoken convictions, many of them fell back onto the old, over-used, totally false and completely bizarre cliché of continuing the war to support the troops.
Millions of people marching in the U.S. and European streets cannot end the Iraq war. American soldiers fighting in the streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities cannot end the war. The Iraqi Parliament cannot end the war. This civil war will only end once the Iraqi people are left to determine their own course of action. At present they are united only in their hatred of the United States; removing U.S. participation in the war will eliminate one major roadblock to peace.
The U.S. Congress can bring the end of the war closer; in November of 2006 its members were elected to do just that. That they have failed to uphold their duties to the Constitution, the nation, the citizens that elected them and the world that looks to them to end the war cannot be disputed. Although in ever-decreasing numbers, they look upon the situation in Iraq with rose-colored glasses, unaware that the reddish hue they see is the blood of Americans and Iraqis that they have caused to be spilled. Until the members of Congress fully recognize both the futility and tragedy of the Iraq war, and show the backbone necessary to end it, the unspeakable horror will continue.
Robert Fantina is author of 'Desertion and the American Soldier: 1776--2006.'
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
The Mind of the Returning Iraq War Veteran
They Don't Come Back the Same
By Helen Redmond
"They fly the flag when you attack: when you come home they turn their backs." - Iraq Veterans Against the War cadence
07/03/07 "Counterpunch" -- -- One hears it all the time from soldiers who fight in wars: "You don't come back the same." It's a simple truism with enormous consequences for the men and women who are on their way back to the United States from Afghanistan and Iraq. Many thousands of soldiers will be forever changed from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To be diagnosed with PTSD is an affirmation that a soldier is human. It is the mammalian brain functioning at its highest level and acknowledging that--despite all the training and brainwashing in boot camp (KILL, KILL, KILL)--it is in no way normal or natural to kill other human beings, to torture and commit atrocities (Haditha, Abu GHraib), to humiliate, subjugate and occupy a people and their country.
The negative psychological impact of war is well known by the Pentagon brass that sends soldiers into theaters of war where daily, death and dismemberment are facts of life. They understand when soldiers see their comrades-in-arms blown to bits, missing limbs, bloodied and burned bodies and grey matter strewn on walls, bridges, and highways that a psychological price is paid. The media in the United States does not show us these grisly images, but they are seared in the brains of countless soldiers.
Combat trauma has been studied since WW1. Over 8 million soldiers died in 4 years in that war. The death toll banished the notion that soldiers glory in battle and "real men" are impervious to the horrors of war. Under conditions of unrelenting exposure to the barbarity of trench warfare, soldiers began to have mental break downs in massive numbers. The British psychologist Charles Myers called the resulting nervous disorder "shell shock." He believed it was the concussive effects of exploding shells that caused symptoms like screaming, crying uncontrollably, loss of memory and the inability to feel. But in fact, it was the emotional stress of prolonged exposure to violent death and destruction that produced what was later called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD.) Military authorities refused to believe it. When the existence of a combat neurosis could not longer be denied, military psychiatrists and other personnel--instead of treating soldiers humanely and with compassion--did the opposite. These soldiers were called "moral invalids," cowards, malingerers, and unpatriotic. Some argued they should be court-martialed or dishonorably discharged rather than offered psychological care. Progressive medical authorities disagreed and advocated humane treatment.
Siegfried Sassoon, a soldier in WW1, was treated for shell shock. He became famous when, while still in uniform, he publicly joined the pacifist movement and denounced the war. The text of his Soldier's Declaration written in 1917 is remarkably relevant for the imperialist wars of the 21st century, and most presciently, the occupation of Iraq. He wrote:
I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong the sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.
A few years after the war was over, medical interest in the subject of combat neurosis ended.
The Vietnam War opened the wound up again, but this time the impetus to understand the psychological impact of war was organized by soldiers themselves. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) started "rap groups." These meetings were peer led and allowed soldiers to talk about the traumatic experiences of war. They were also political meetings that raised consciousness around the causes of war, imperialism, class, and racism. These vets refused to be stigmatized and insisted that the war itself was to blame for their psychological problems.
The power of the antiwar movement was also crucial and gave strength to veterans, and veterans who spoke out against the war and threw their medals away gave power and legitimacy to the antiwar movement.
After the war ended Vietnam vets forced the Veterans Administration to address the mental health issues of returning soldiers. In 1980, post-traumatic stress disorder finally became a "real" diagnosis and was included in the American Psychiatric Association's official manual of mental disorders. Without the organizing of soldiers, together with the anti-war movement, the psychological trauma of war (PTSD) would have been conveniently forgotten once again.
Those who run the war machine have always sought to ignore, downplay or deny the irrefutable fact that war profoundly damages the human psyche. How could they continue to recruit fresh troops if it were widely known, discussed, and taken seriously that almost every soldier will experience PTSD to some degree? That for some, they will be psychiatrically disabled for life, or become addicted to drugs to cope with the flashbacks and fear, perhaps unable to work and unable to enjoy the freedom they supposedly fought for. But the good news is with treatment PTSD is treatable and can be cured. That's the other thing about the mammalian brain--with the love, support, and understanding of other human beings, trauma can be overcome.
The problem is getting that treatment and the need is overwhelming. According to Paul Rieckhoff, director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, one in three veterans is now returning with some form of PTSD. The number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans getting treatment for PTSD at VA hospitals and counseling centers increased by 87 percent from September 2005 to June 2006. But there are many more that never get treatment because there is still a stigma attached to admitting to psychological problems. Soldiers report being made fun of, punished, demoted, and threatened with dishonorable discharge.
One of the main reasons for the increase in numbers is the Pentagon's stop-loss policy. More troops are serving two, three and occasionally four tours-of-duty in Iraq which puts them at greater risk for PTSD.
The VA hospital and clinic system are in deep crisis as the recent revelations at Walter Reed showed. VA's all over the country are underfunded and understaffed. How can this be when billions of dollars a month are spent on the war? There is a backlog of 600,000 cases and vets can wait up to 170 days for mental health treatment. For some it is already too late. A report by the Defense Manpower Data Center stated that suicide accounted for over 25 percent of all non-combat Army deaths in Iraq in 2006. And Pentagon statistics reveal that the suicide rate for U.S. troops who have served in Iraq is double what it was in peacetime.
One thing is clear: President Bush and the other war criminals in the Whitehouse and Pentagon don't give a shit about the lives of soldiers. They are canon fodder and nothing else.
Now a new generation of veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have to continue the struggle for mental health care that they and their families will need.
Helen Redmond, LCSW CADC, redmondmadrid@yahoo.com
Thursday, June 21, 2007
The CIA and Fatah; Spies, Quislings and the Palestinian Authority
By Mike Whitney
06/20/07 " ICH" -- - When Hamas gunmen stormed the Fatah security compounds in Gaza last week they found huge supplies of American-made weaponry including 7,400 M-16 assault rifles, dozens of mounted machine guns, rocket launchers, 7 armored military jeeps, 800,000 rounds of bullets and 18 US-made armored personnel carriers. They also discovered something far more valuable--- CIA files which purportedly contain "information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza." (Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily.com)
If the documents prove to be authentic, they will confirm what many critics of Fatah believed from the beginning; that US-Israeli intelligence agencies have been collaborating with high-ranking members of the PA to help crush the Palestinian national liberation movement. The information could be disastrous for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his newly-appointed “emergency government”. It could destroy their credibility before they even take office.
The extent of Fatah’s cooperation with the CIA is still unknown, but an article in The New York Sun, (“Hamas Takes over Gaza Security Services” 6-15-07) suggests that the two groups may have been working together closely. Former Middle East CIA operations officer Robert Baer, who was interviewed in the article, said that the discovery of the documents was “a major blow to Fatah” and will show “a record of training, spying on Hamas”.
Baer added ironically, “Fatah equals CIA is not a good selling point.”
Baer is right. The uncovering of the documents is “big trouble” for Abbas who is already facing a loss of public confidence from his closeness to Israel and for his appointment of Salam Fayyad, the ex-World bank official who the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz calls “everyone’s favorite Palestinian.”
Perhaps more significant is the fact that members of Hamas who spoke with WorldNetDaily claimed that “the files contain, among other information, details of CIA networks in the Middle East” and that Hamas plans to “use these documents and make portions public to prove the collaboration between America and traitor Arab countries.” Imagine what a headache it will be for the Bush administration if Hamas exposes the broader network of US spies and Arab quislings operating throughout region.
Bush Support for “Regime Change” in the PA
It’s no secret that the Bush administration has been funneling money to Palestinian militias that are preparing to overthrow Hamas. On Monday, Condoleezza Rice announced that the US would resume “full assistance to the Palestinian government” and end the year long boycott to the people in the West Bank. The new aid—which could amount to as much as $86 million---will be used to shore up the PA security apparatus and pay the salaries of officials in the “emergency government.” The uncovering of the CIA documents in Gaza will cast a cloud over the administration’s largesse and make Abbas look like a Palestinian Karzai who gets financial treats from Washington to follow their diktats.
Yesterday, Condoleezza Rice was given the task of outlining the administration’s new policy vis-à-vis the Abbas’ “emergency government”. The Bush team had already decided the night before that they would throw their full support behind Abbas and his “unelected” clatter of pro-western stooges. Rice could hardly contain her glee the next day when she ascended the podium and began wagging her finger reproachfully at Hamas:
"Hamas has made its choice,” Condi growled. “It has sought to attempt to extinguish democratic debate with violence and to impose its extremist’s agenda on the Palestinian people in Gaza, now responsible Palestinians are making their choice and it is the duty of the international community to support those Palestinians who wish to build a better life and a future of peace."
This typically Orwellian statement was intended to justify the deposing of the legally-elected government of Palestine. No matter; Rice’s pronouncements are always reiterated verbatim in the media without challenge regardless of how incongruous they may be.
The Bush administration had plenty of time to observe developments on the ground and make an informed decision about what to do next. There was no need to hurry. Instead, they decided to blunder ahead and launch their “West Bank First” policy which commits US support to Abbas without any consideration of the public mood. The frantic pace of the decision-making, makes it look like Bush and Olmert are elevating Abbas to promote their own political agendas. Naturally, the Palestinians can be expected to resent this conspicuous outside meddling.
Former President Jimmy Carter was the first to blast Bush’s new plan. He said that “the United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements…. Carter said that Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government and that the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was ‘criminal.’”
Carter’s comments appeared in just one newspaper--the Jerusalem Post. The ex-president has been increasingly marginalized since he dared to imply that Israel is an apartheid state. But Carter's analysis is dead-on---Bush is just aggravating an already tense situation. He’d be better off trying to bring the two sides together and reconciling their differences rather than igniting a potentially explosive confrontation. Besides, Abbas’ close ties to Washington and Tel Aviv doesn’t bode well for his government’s long-term prospects. The US and Israel are widely reviled in the occupied territories and, as author Khalid Amayreh says, “Palestinians won’t accept a Vichy Government.
Three days ago Abbas disbanded the Hamas-dominated parliament and sacked Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Abbas had no legal justification for this action. In fact, the "Basic Law" which applies to this case stipulates that “The President cannot suspend the legislative Council during a state of emergency” and there is “no provision whatsoever for an emergency government”. The president does not even have the authority to “call for new elections”---let alone, replace the elected representatives of the people. Abbas only support comes from political leaders in Tel Aviv and Washington and their reluctant accomplices in the EU.
The key issue here is whether democratic elections have any real meaning or if they can simply be rescinded by executive decree?
This question should be as relevant to Americans as it is to Palestinians. After all, both people now face a similar predicament; the flagrant abuse of executive authority to enhance the powers of the president. In both cases, the president must be forced to conform to the law. Democracy cannot be decided by fiat.
Free elections are not a crime---that is, unless one lives in the Occupied Territories. Then voting for the candidate of one’s choice provides the justification for cutting off food, water, medicine, and financial resources—as well a stepping up a campaign of illegal detentions, destruction of personal property and targeted assassinations.
This is what the “Bush Doctrine” looks like in the Gaza Strip today. The occupants of the “most densely populated place on earth” participated in the balloting at insistence of the Bush administration and they’ve been rewarded for their cooperation with a savage boycott and daily brutality.
If Bush didn’t want democracy, then why did he force it on the Palestinians?
Political powerbrokers in the US and Israel immediately rejected the election results and initiated a plan to scuttle Hamas through economic strangulation, persistent harassment and covert warfare. For the last year, the newly “elected” government has shown remarkable restraint under constant assault. Hamas has kept its word and refrained from suicide bombings in Israel even though hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed or injured during that same time. In fact, there has NOT BEEN ONE HAMAS-BACKED SUICIDE BOMBING SINCE THE PARTY TOOK OFFICE. (This fact is invariably ignored by the media which is far-more sympathetic to the Israeli position) We should remember that suicide bombing has been used for years as the excuse for putting off “final settlement” negotiations. Now that the bombing has stopped, Israel has invented an entirely new excuse to avoid dialogue, that is, that Hamas “refuses to recognize the state of Israel”.
Actually, it is Israel that refuses to accept Palestinian statehood---a fact that is further underlined by its relentless efforts to topple the Hamas government.
Hamas has done nothing illegal since they were elected. The Qassam rockets which are fired into Israel are the unavoidable corollary of the 40-year long occupation. How is Hamas supposed to stop these sporadic attacks? If Israel seriously believed that Hamas was responsible for the rockets, they wouldn’t hesitate to arrest or kill every leader in the current parliament. The fact is, Israel knows that Hamas is not instigating these attacks. It’s just another red herring.
Regardless of what one may think about Hamas, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has shown that he is a man who can be trusted to keep his word. In an interview in the Washington Post with Lally Weymouth, Haniyeh and asked him if Hamas sought the “obliteration of the Jewish people”? (another myth propagated in the western press)
Haniyeh answered, “We do not have any feelings of animosity toward Jews. We do not wish to throw them into the sea. All we seek is to be given our land back, not to harm anybody.”
This, of course, is not the response that neocon extremists in the US-Israeli political establishment want to hear. It undermines the rationale for the ongoing military occupation and expansion of illegal settlements. They would rather promote the image of Palestinians as vicious radicals bent on the Israel’s complete annihilation. But how accurate is that image?
In a particularly affecting editorial in the Washington Post, Prime Minister Haniyeh stated his case in simple terms. He said:
“As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure---all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and American-made missiles -- my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans. What do they think of this?
They think of the pluck and "toughness" of Israel, "standing up" to "terrorists." Yet a nuclear Israel possesses the 13th-largest military force on the planet, one that is used to rule an area about the size of New Jersey and whose adversaries there have no conventional armed forces. Who is the underdog, supposedly America's traditional favorite, in this case?
I hope that Americans will give careful thought to root causes and historical realities, (of) why a supposedly "legitimate" state such as Israel has had to conduct decades of war against a subject refugee population without ever achieving its goals.
Israel's nearly complete control over the lives of Palestinians is never in doubt, as confirmed by the humanitarian and economic suffering of the Palestinians since the January elections. Israel's ongoing policies of expansion, military control and assassination mock any notion of sovereignty or bilateralism. Its "separation barrier," running across our land, is hardly a good-faith gesture toward future coexistence.
But there is a remedy, and while it is not easy it is consistent with our long-held beliefs. Palestinian priorities include recognition of the core dispute over the land of historical Palestine and the rights of all its people; resolution of the refugee issue from 1948; reclaiming all lands occupied in 1967; and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and military expansion. Contrary to popular depictions of the crisis in the American media, the dispute is not only about Gaza and the West Bank; it is a wider national conflict that can be resolved only by addressing the full dimensions of Palestinian national rights in an integrated manner.
This means statehood for the West Bank and Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the basis of international legitimacy and established law. Meaningful negotiations with a non-expansionist, law-abiding Israel can proceed only after this tremendous labor has begun”.
Haniyeh’s appeal to the American people helps us understand that what Hamas really wants is for Israel to conform to “unanimously approved” UN resolutions “predicated on historical truth, equity and justice.”
Does that sound unreasonable? Wasn't the same demanded of Saddam?
Haniyeh is not a madman nor is he an “Islamofascist.” In fact, it may be that Haniyeh’s dreams are not that different from the average Israeli citizen.
Consider the polls that were conducted just days after the election of Mahmoud Abbas. One survey showed that nearly 80% of Israelis supported immediate peace talks with the new Palestinian president. The Israeli leadership, of course, stubbornly refused even though Yasir Arafat had died a month earlier. The Israeli political establishment is resolutely against peace talks or negotiations. Unlike the vast majority of Israeli citizens--Israel's ruling elite reject the principle of "land for peace!”
Perhaps, Arafat wasn’t the “obstacle to peace” after all. Perhaps it was just a PR swindle to avoid real dialogue?
Israeli leaders have no intention of negotiating with the Palestinians, regardless of what the Israeli public wants or who’s sitting in Ramallah. The Zionist “grand plan” will not be compromised by conferences or bartering. The military occupation and settlement activity will continue until US support dries up and Israel is forced to the bargaining table. Until then the onslaught will continue.
Another Siege of Gaza?
Ha’aretz reports that Israel is planning to launch a military operation in Gaza aimed at crushing Hamas.( “Barak planning military operation in Gaza within weeks” 6-17-07) The invasion will involve 20,000 troops, armored vehicles, tanks, and air support.
But what is the justification? Is it because the US-Israeli plan to overthrow Hamas with Palestinian militias failed? Or is it because the duly-elected government has reclaimed the power it was given at the ballot box?
According to an Israeli official, the invasion will be in response to the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel or another suicide bombing.
In other words, Israel is devising a pretext for “regime change” EVEN BEFORE THEY ARE ATTACKED. Until then, the border crossings will remain closed, the blockade will be tightened, and the economic asphyxiation will continue.
In the face of US-Israeli plotting, consider the comments of Prime Minister Haniyeh, who articulates as well as anyone, the aspirations of the Palestinians people:
“We do not want to live on international welfare and American handouts. We want what Americans enjoy -- democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world's largest prison camps.
We present this clear message: If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the truth, possibility might become reality”.
Hamas history of violence is problematic, but it should not be an insurmountable obstacle to peace. The IRA had a similar history and, yet, those issues were ultimately resolved through the Good Friday peace accords. Now, the warring factions have joined together in a power-sharing agreement and there’s reason to believe that the armed struggle phase of the conflict is over. A similar remedy is possible between Israel and Palestine.
Hamas entry into the political system should be seen for what it is--- a step in the right direction. It is an indication that they are tired of the armed struggle and want to pursue a political solution. Israel and the US should be receptive to this. They should reward Hamas’ efforts to stop the suicide bombing and agree to backchannel negotiations. That will determine whether common ground can be reached on any of the main issues. If the violence resumes, Israel can always return to its present strategy but, it’s certainly worth a try.
At the very least, Bush and Olmert should respect the will of the Palestinian people and allow Hamas to perform its duties without further hectoring, sanctions, violence or sabotage. The US and Israel have no right to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign government. If Hamas perpetrates violence against Israel, then Israel has every right to respond. But until then, they should show restraint and try to play a constructive role in strengthening the emergent Palestinian democracy.
Monday, June 18, 2007
The Battle of Gaza
06/16/07 "ICH" ----- In less than 24 hours of fierce street-fighting, Bush’s proxy-army in Gaza was routed by armed units of Hamas. It was a stunning defeat for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and for US-Israeli policymakers who have done everything in their power to overturn the “free and fair” election of the Hamas government. For now, Hamas has reestablished its authority in Gaza although Abbas is still working frantically with Bush and Olmert to consolidate his power in the West Bank. So far, Abbas has carried out the demands of his paymasters by replacing Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh with ex-World Bank official, Salam Fayyad---a Palestinian Karzai who will take his orders from Tel Aviv or Washington. Abbas does not have the constitutional authority to replace Prime Minister Haniyeh or to disband the Hamas-dominated government, but this point is typically overlooked in the western media.
The Bush administration has abandoned any pretense of neutrality and is openly supporting the ongoing violation of UN resolution 242. Bush helped to engineer the savage boycott which has withheld food, water, medical aid and financial resources from Palestinian civilians. He has also funneled millions of dollars and weapons to the Palestinian “Preventive Security Force” headed by US-ally Mohammad Dahlan. According to the UK Guardian, “Washington has launched a controversial $60 million program to bolster Mr Abbas's presidential guard and Israel has quietly allowed Arab states to send in arms and ammunition”. Dahlan’s militia was organized to challenge Hamas, but the plan failed spectacularly. As soon as the fighting broke out in Gaza, Dahlan’s men panicked and fled across the border to Egypt. Those who remained were disarmed, stripped and taken into custody by Hamas. One prominent Fatah gunman, Samih Madhoun, who had boasted of “executing several Hamas fighters and torching the homes of others”, was shot execution style.
The defeat in Gaza is just the latest of Washington’s debacles in the Middle East. US-Israeli failures in the territories are the result of a misguided policy which is backfiring everywhere. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh summed up the present policy like this: "We're in the business of creating ... sectarian violence."
Hersh is right. Bush and Olmert are using the familiar “divide and conquer” strategy to provoke “Arab on Arab” violence. The policy is an extension of Henry Kissinger’s dictum during the Iran-Iraq war: “I hope they all kill each other”. The goal is the same today as it was then.
Hersh says that the Bush administration supported the group of Sunni extremists, Fatah al-Islam, who are still battling the Lebanese Army in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. He said that it is "a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shiite world".
In Lebanon, as in Gaza Strip, the “divide and conquer” strategy has produced appalling results---forcing 30,000 poor Palestinians to flee their homes and search for shelter.
This week’s bombing of the minarets at the Golden Dome Mosque is another example of the Bush Doctrine at work. Bush and his generals assure us that Al Qaeda was responsible, but reports from the New York Times tell a different story.
Here’s an excerpt from an article by Graham Bowley “Minarets on Shiites Shrine in Iraq Destroyed in Attack” (NY Times) which gives us a good idea of what really happened in Samarra. Bowley says:
“Since the attack in 2006, the shrine had been under the protection of local — predominantly Sunni — guards. But American military and Iraqi security officials had recently become concerned that the local unit had been infiltrated by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq. A move by the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad over the last few days to bring in a new guard unit — predominantly Shiite — may have been linked to the attack today.”
No reference is made to the sudden and unexplained changing of the guards at the mosque in future accounts in the mainstream press. And, yet, that is the most important point. The minarets were blown up just days after the new guards took charge. They cordoned off the area, placed snipers on the surrounding rooftops, and then blew up the minarets in broad daylight.
The first explosion took place at 9:30 AM. Ten minutes later the second bomb was detonated.
Al Qaeda?
Not likely.
The Golden Dome mosque has been heavily guarded ever since it was blown up in 2006. The four main doors have been bolted shut and not a tile has been moved in over a year. The reason for this is that the Shiites consider it a “crime scene” which they intend to investigate more thoroughly when the violence subsides.
The Shiites never accepted the official US-version of events that “al Qaeda did it”. Many believe that US Special Forces were directly involved and that it was a planned demolition carried out by experts. There is considerable proof to support this theory including eye witness accounts from the scene of the crime as well as holes that were drilled in the floor of the mosque to maximize destruction. This was not a simple al Qaeda-type car-bombing but a technically-demanding demolition operation.
The damning information in the New York Times article has been corroborated in many other publications including an official statement from the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI). According to the AMSI, Prime Minister Nouri al Mailiki replaced the Sunnis who had been guarding the site for over a year with Shiite government forces from the Interior Ministry. Their statement reads:
“Security forces arrived yesterday afternoon from Baghdad Tuesday for the receipt of the task of protecting two tombs instead of the existing force there. Somehow they obtained a scuffle followed by gunfire lasted two hours over control of security forces coming from Baghdad."
So, the Sunni guards were replaced (after a scuffle) with goons from the Interior Ministry. The next day the minarets blow up.
Coincidence?
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki immediately issued statement where he claimed that the al Qaeda was responsible for the attack. At the same time, however, he arrested all 12 of the guards he sent from the Interior Ministry.
Why? Was he afraid they would talk to the media?
The Association of Muslim Scholars said that “last year’s explosion happened after a severe political crisis between blocs involved in the political process to the occupation. After the elections, the establishment of the government was blocked at that time. It is quite similar to the political crisis faced by the government and parliament today”.
The AMSI is right. The destruction of the Golden Dome Mosque took place soon after the Iraqi parliament rejected the US-plan for dividing Iraq. (“Federalism”) This time, the parliament has voted-down the US-plan to transfer control of Iraq’s vast petroleum reserves to the American oil giants via the “oil laws”.
The AMSI sees the bombing as a desperate attempt by the US occupation to break the logjam in Parliament over the oil laws and to conceal the failures of the “surge” by inciting sectarian violence. The only difference this time is that the Shiite militias have been less responsive to US manipulation. In fact, Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr has tried to stop his Mahdi Army from attacking Sunni areas and he has decried the bombing as another plot by US-Israeli intelligence agents operating in Iraq. He said that the incident reveals “the hidden hand of the occupier.”
He added, “This is what the occupiers brought to Iraq: a disintegration plot and fanning the flames of sectarian violence. Destroying the Askariya shrine goes exactly with the insurgents' beliefs.”
Among Shiites, there’s nearly unanimous agreement that the US was behind the bombing. Middle East expert Juan Cole reports on his blog-site “Informed Comment, that protests have broken out in India, Pakistan, the Caucasus, Bahrain, Iran and other locations where there are high concentrations of Shiites. The consensus view is that the minarets were blown up as part of a larger US-Israeli strategy for controlling the Middle East.
But why would the Bush administration want to unleash a fresh wave of sectarian violence when they can’t even establish security in Baghdad?
Here’s what the AMSI says:
“Sectarian violence is an effective means to enable the militias to fully impose their control on (Sunni) neighborhoods and cities as it did after the bombings of Samarra….The government is also trying to control the capital of Baghdad; seeking to extend its power over other cities that reject the occupation, especially the cities of Baquba and Samarra”.
This is what is gained by the bombings—further ethnic cleansing of the Sunni neighborhoods and greater control over the public through a campaign of terror. It’s all part of a broader neocon strategy that centers on “creative destruction” rather than the traditional US policy of “regional stability”.
Al Sadr’s comments (as well as those of the AMSI) show that fewer and fewer Iraqis are taken in by US counterinsurgency activities. In fact, US-Israeli aggression is now seen as the main source of violence in the region. This has turned Muslims around the world against the West. For these people, the victories by Hamas and Hezbollah must come as a welcome relief. They are small indication that the imperial grip is beginning to loosen and that, perhaps change will be achievable sometime in the “not so distant” future.
The perception of US invincibility has been shattered. America’s moral authority is in ruins. We are neither feared nor respected; that is the unfortunate legacy of Abu Ghraib and Falluja. But what is bad news for us may be good news for the people in the Middle East. It’s now possible to imagine a New Middle East where fundamental change is possible. As resistance continues to swell from a trickle to a stream---we can envision “regime change” sweeping through the region from Riyadh, to Amman to Cairo---an entirely new world shaking off its colonial past.
The forces that Bush has put in motion will inexorably lead to the decline of “superpower rule” and the dismantling of the US imperium. The transition is already visible. The battle of Gaza is just a macrocosm of a much larger phenomenon which now extends from Mogadishu to Kabul.
Change is coming, but it might not be to Bush’s liking. That’s the real lesson of what happened in Gaza
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Don't Trust Government
06/08/07 "Lew Rockwell" -- -- In reading an excellent book, Satanic Purses: Money, Myth and Misinformation, by R.T. Naylor (publisher is McGill-Queen's University Press), I suddenly realized why Adolf Hitler was so popular during the first years of his administration.
The funny thing is that the book is not about Hitler or Germany, but about the U.S. and the bogus war on terror. It is an outstanding book, carefully researched and footnoted, and written in a reasonable manner, though with delicious dollops of sarcasm.
It's the carefully detailed accounts of injustices committed by the U.S. government against American Muslims that gave me the insight about Hitler. In the early days of the Third Reich, if you weren't a criminal, a communist or a Jew, you never saw the dark side of the Nazi government. You saw an economy being revitalized, superhighways being built, Germans being put back to work, the disgraceful Versailles Treaty being scrapped. It must have looked a lot like morning in Germany to the people who had suffered through runaway inflation, economic depression and street riots.
Similarly, if you are not a Muslim or an Arab-American who has been a victim of the Patriot Act and other laws carelessly passed in the hysteria following the attacks in 2001, then the Bush administration probably looks perfectly normal. You probably even believe that it is really protecting you from terrorists, just as many Germans believed Hitler was protecting them from the "bad guys."
What Taylor's book demonstrates is how often this is pure nonsense, and at the same time what terrible damage is being done to the rule of law and America's traditional respect for human rights.
Typically, the government will swoop down and seize an organization's records and computers, while making public accusations of the people being "involved" with terrorists. The important point is that this is done before any determination of guilt or innocence has even begun. By the time a defendant gets to court, if he ever does, he's ruined. Quite often then, the fearless feds will say, "Well, never mind about this terrorist business, just plead guilty to a minor immigration violation." Often defendants are bullied into admitting guilt they don't deserve by threats of being declared an enemy combatant, which means indefinite imprisonment, probably for life.
You can see the process going on with the four men charged with planning to blow up the fuel lines to JFK International Airport in New York. In the first place, it is common knowledge that if you blow up a fuel line, you will get an explosion and fire at one point. The claim that the whole pipeline would blow up for miles is nonsense, and the government knows that, but it threw that out to claim the plot endangered "thousands" of lives.
The real question is, Did these guys actually plan it, or were they set up by the government's federal informant? The federal government has a terrible record of using informants to entrap people. The whole tragedy of Ruby Ridge, which cost the lives of Randy Weaver's wife and son, resulted from a federal informant who nagged Weaver into sawing off the barrels of a shotgun, something any kid can do with a vice and a hacksaw. The feds then arrested Weaver with the intention of forcing him to become an informant, and the tragic farce ensued.
So even though you haven't felt the arbitrary and unjust power of the government, you should read this book and find out just how much deception is involved in this war on terror. You'll discover how often oil, diamonds and big business play behind-the-scenes roles in this current so-called war.
As the German people discovered, once a government has unlimited power, it will eventually use that power against everyone.
Charley Rees has been a journalist for 49 years.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Pack Up and Leave or Stay Home and Die
Bush's New Middle East
By MIKE WHITNEY
" ... under the sky
without hope
the self inside me dies ...I will always be from nowhere
Without a face, without a history
from nowhere.""Traveler without Luggage" by Abdul-Wahab Al-Bayyati
It's hard to know what Bush hopes to accomplish by backing the bloody siege of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, but one thing is certain; things are never as they seem. In an interview on Democracy Now last week, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh stated that, Fatah al-Islam---the group of Sunni extremists inside the camp--were getting material support from the Saudis, the Bush administration and members of the Lebanese political establishment.
So, the Bush administration is supporting terrorism?
That's right. Sy Hersh put it like this:
"The idea was to provide them (Fatah al-Islam) with some arms and some money and some basic equipment so -- these are small units, a couple hundred people. There were three or four around the country given the same help covertly, the goal being they would be potential enemies of Hezbollah in case of warfare".
But if Fatah-al-Islam is an American-Saudi creation than why is the Bush administration shipping weapons to Lebanon to help kill them? Is this is another example of "blowback"---the unintended consequences of a misguided foreign policy?
Yes and no.
While it is true that the US uses terrorist organizations to further its policy objectives (The US supported Bin Laden in Afghanistan, the KLA in Kosovo, the Mujahedin Klaq in Iran) the situation in Lebanon is a bit more complex.
Fatah al-Islam is comprised of Sunni radicals who were recruited from the other Gulf States to counterbalance Hezbollah. Now, it appears, they have outlived their usefulness and the Lebanese warlords have decided to eliminate them.
According to independent journalist Franklin Lamb, who is reporting from the battered Bedawi refugee camp, the charges against the group are purely fabricated. "There was no bank robbery" and "no heads were cut off". The allegations in the western press were merely a pretext for restarting the fighting. The siege of Nahr al-Bared is probably just Phase 2 of Israel's 34 Day War--- a conflict in which "Israel's air force, armed with U.S.-manufactured and -fueled F-16s, went on a rampage with more than 14 combat missions every single hour of the war, destroying, among other things, 73 bridges, 400 miles of roads, 25 gas stations, 900 commercial structures, two hospitals, 350 schools and 15,000 Lebanese homes." (Dahr Jamail)
The US-Israeli goals in Lebanon have never really changed. Israel wants a reliable client to its North and access to Lebanon's water supplies. They also want to crush their main enemy, Hezbollah, the Shiite resistance organization which has routed the IDF twice in the last 15 years.
Bush, on the other hand, is trying to destabilize the entire region using the madcap neocon strategy of "creative destruction". He thinks that if he can erase the traditional borders and create a fragmented Middle East, the transnational corporations will be able to control the region's vast resources.
Washington's allies in Beirut like the idea, too. Walid Jumblat, Sa'ad Hariri and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora"all believe that the outbreak of violence will only strengthen them politically.
Siniora "The Lionhearted"
It's interesting to watch how eager Siniora is to bomb of a defenseless refugee camp, when just months ago he was too afraid to deploy troops to the south of Lebanon to fight the invading Israeli army. Why is that?
Siniora showed his true colors during the 34 Day War. At one point he was photographed sipping tea with Condi Rice while Lebanese civilians in the south were being pelted with American-made bombs dropped from American-made F-16s. The Prime Minister has proved that he is every bit as worthy of Washington's praise as Karzai in Afghanistan or Abbas in Palestine.
But there's another reason for the present siege of Nahr al-Bared besides Siniora's newfound courage, that is, NATO wants to clear the area for another military airbase.
According to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Diyar:
"NATO has decided to join the Lebanese territories to North-African & African coast military region, to establish Military airbases". ... .
"American-German-Turkish military delegation toured and surveyed Akkar region, reported to the NATO headquarter in Brussels, mentioning that the military bases will contribute to the development and the economic recovery in the region, advising the government to focus on the financial aspect and positive reflection on the population of the region, giving the bases a name "Lebanese Army and Security training centre".
So, it looks like northern Lebanon has been chosen as the site for further NATO expansion in the Middle East. That means that NATO-planners must have agreed on a credible justification for evacuating the people who presently occupy the land. That's where Fatah al Islam comes in. The hobgoblin of terrorism always provides the perfect excuse for state sanctioned violence---in this case the group is being used to conceal a massive ethnic cleansing operation.
Iraqi poet and blogger Layla Anwar made these comments about the situation in Iraq, but they can be easily applied to Nahr al-Bared as well. She says:
"If you want to reconstruct a country, you need to eliminate its people and start anew right?
Like restoring the virginity to the land so you can build better and stronger fortresses. A brand new Iraq with a brand new population. A total Babel makeover.
You know, like the ones you see on these American TV reality shows. Revamped, relooked, redone...beyond recognition".
(Layla Anwar, "Aliens in Babel" An Arab Woman's Blues)
Anwar is right. The siege of Nahr al-Bared is an attempt "to eliminate people and start anew" by pushing 30 or 40 thousand Palestinians out of their homes and onto the streets so their foreign overlords can "build a stronger fortress".
It is a tragedy and the Bush administration has only added to the crime by providing arms and equipment to the Lebanese Army.
According to the U.K. Guardian:
"The United States has sent planeloads of arms and ammunition for the Lebanese army, as tension grows around the besieged refugee camp in the north of the country. The weapons were welcomed by members of the Lebanese government, who said they wanted the army equipped "to the teeth" in the face of threats of renewed violence."
The siege of Nahr al-Bared follows a familiar pattern that we have seen in Gaza, Falluja, Tel Afar and Samarra. The camp has been surrounded and cut off, snipers have been positioned on the rooftops, civilian areas have been shelled with impunity, and the bodies of the dead have been left to rot on the streets.
Sound familiar? It should. These are the basic contours of the Bush Doctrine as it is applied to the (remaining) independent states in the Middle East. The options for the victims are always the same: One can either pack up and find shelter in another filthy refugee-hovel or stay home and die. There's no other choice.
It's easy to see why the number of refugees in the region has swollen to more than 4 million people in just a few years. Most of them are the victims of US aggression in Iraq, but the trend is now spreading to Lebanon. Is this what Condi Rice meant when she announced the "birth pangs" of a "New Middle East"---a humanitarian crisis extending from the Mediterranean to the Caucuses?
Many people are wondering why the United Nations has remained silent while Bush ships more weapons to the frontlines and the Lebanese Army continues to pound away at the most densely populated area in the Middle East. Is it because the UN has become a rubber stamp for US-Israeli colonial ambitions in the region?
Face it; the UN's role is to feign concern for human rights while the US and its allies pursue their imperial goals. It's only gotten worse under the newly-appointed Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon. Moon has shown that he's incapable of being evenhanded and that he's little more than an American stooge. With less than a year in office, his credibility is already shot.
The only bright spot in this latest American-made catastrophe is the courage demonstrated by the victims. As Franklin Lamb says in his latest article "Inside Nahr el-Bared: Another Waco in the making":
"Amazing examples of humanity are happening here. There are many family connections between the two camps. Kids distribute and water bread when it arrives in cars from Beirut and elsewhere. Young girls picking up and caring for babies of people they don't know, helping old people find a place to sit and listen to them when they tell of what happened. I could be wrong but I have rarely witnessed the solidarity among people as I see here with the Palestinians. Clean, smart, patient, charming, funny, and caring toward one another-determined to return to Palestine."
Even though they've lost their homes, the Palestinians have raised themselves above the squalor and cruelty of their predicament and shown selflessness and bravery. That's a powerful statement about the affects of culture and national identity.
As the Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish says in his poem "Passport":
"My nationality resides in the hearts of all the people,
so go ahead and remove my passport!"
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
Friday, June 01, 2007
If The Shoe Fits...
By SPC Freeman, Milo; US Army, Iraq
Posted 06/31/07 "ICH " -- --
Memorandum for Record: Military Spending Concerns
FROM: SPC Freeman, Milo; US Army, Iraq
TO: Senate Democrats, Republicans, and "American Idol" viewers across the nation.
1. You. Punk. Ass. Pantywaisted. Bitches.
2. You had a chance. You could have put your money where your mouth is--could have put some ass behind all those claims of "favoring an end to war."
3. And you fucking choked.
4. Let me explain something to you. Your children; your spouses; your lovers and friends and parents and CONSTITUENTS are hostages to this war. They're dying for a conflict with no concrete objective. They're losing marriages and childhood moments to a never-ending cycle of extended tours. Their equipment, their morale, is stretched thin. And some of them--those of us smart enough not to buy the fucking hype--were counting on you to find your fucking testicles and put an end to this shit. We were counting on you to save us from ourselves; to find a way to put us to use serving our country in ways perhaps more effective in rebuilding our nation.
5. And you. Fucking. Choked.
6. I haven't gotten a current edition of the paper in months. It's always a day behind. I don't get to check the news--I barely have the time. So what am I to think when I read yesterday's Stars and Stripes, and hear about this shit? Is that supposed to tell me that my leaders, my countrymen give a flying FUCK about what happens to me or my wife? Is that the message I'm supposed to glean from this STUNNING lack of cojones? Because I gotta tell you, America, I'm not seeing it.
7. I'm so sick of hearing this wretched war talked about in terms of Victory or Defeat. "If we leave, the terrorists will win."
8. Fuck that.
9. Today it's Terrorists. Yesterday it was Blacks/Gays/Jews/Hippies. Before that it was Communists. Before that, it was Uppity Colonials with Secondhand Muskets and Pitchforks. It's always fucking something with you people, isn't it?
10.You just need your little wars to feel good about yourselves, don't you? Something to make you feel threatened; something to make you feel heroic; ANYTHING to make you feel like your pathetic lives are more than just you against the Big, Black, Scary Infinite. Well, obviously, it's working.
11. You don't magically "win" an occupation. It's an inevitable bleed-out. We're stuck in a situation beyond our powers to fix, in a country that WE voted to destroy, whose history and people we neither understand nor care to try. We bought the hype, hook-line-and-sinker.
12. Fuck Victory. Fuck Defeat. Any way you slice it, This. War. Is. Wrong.
13.You don't keep trying to win the game after it turns out you bribed the refs. You fire the coaches and/or players responsible, and you hand over the Title. You take your lumps like a fucking man and try to rebuild. Accept it.
13. Hope you're happy, America. Clutch your pearls about all those dirty liberals who voted against the proposal ("They didn't Support The Troops!"). Whine about all the evil elderly schoolteachers and librarians protesting the war on a Saturday morning outside your courthouse.
14. But when your son or daughter or spouse or first lay comes home airfreight, mangled into a closed-casket service by a daisy-chain of 155s buried under Route Tampa, remember this:
15. It won't be the dirty liberals who put them there.
16. Hoo-ah.
//
ORIGINAL SIGNED
Milo Freeman, SPC
United States Army, Iraq
Credit: Thanks to Nolan K. Anderson for bringing this letter to my attention. Mr. Anderson attached the following comment to the original letter
"This came to me via an old-time – World War II - military man who is trying to care for his World War War II Army nurse wife on a pension that has been cut and cut and cut by our War Makers over the years to the point where trying to live longer than his meager pension is more frightening than the snow and mud and cold and blood and “technologically advanced death” of the Big War's Winter(s)."
Nolan K. Anderson is a retired engineer and a veteran of Korea who was once a “conservative” until he found there was nothing left to conserve and as a veteran hates to see a tour in Korea go to waste. (He may be reached at nkanders@bellsouth.net).
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