Free Iraq

As we go about the business of killing people, one truth (of many) that the MSM doesn't mention: US 'could be going bankrupt'. The world must be hoping.


Israeli Aircraft Attack Central Beirut


UK Navy ships head for Lebanon
 

Paul Craig Roberts, Attention Deficit Americans Are Being Misled to War: The US and Israel haven’t the troops needed to defeat and occupy Syria, Hizbollah and Iran with conventional forces. Pentagon documents have described two ways in which the Middle East can be secured for Israel. One is the use of nuclear weapons. The other is the destruction of all infrastructure – power plants, water and sewage systems, hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, ports, and a reduction of much housing to rubble by powerful conventional bombs. In other words, an air war that never ends.

Muslims have many reasons to hate us for generations of oppression and interference in their internal affairs. As Iraq has proven, it is not easy to break their spirit. Out-gunned and out-manned, they still resist, motivated by anger and pride.
 

Arabs rally against Israeli attacks
 

Wayne Madsen, July 15/16, 2006 -- EXCLUSIVE TO WMR: Our U.S. intelligence sources in Lebanon have exclusively reported to us the extent of Israel's Blitzkrieg attack on Lebanon, which has destroyed most of the country's critical infrastructures. Beirut International Airport's newly-restored terminal, where many passengers, including Americans, were stranded after the Israelis carpet bombed the runway during flight operations, was bombed in the latest Israeli attack. Israel has turned Lebanon into another Iraq -- there is no electricity and airports, roads, and bridges have been knocked out across the country. Israel has even bombed small ports preventing civilians from escaping to Cyprus. CNN and other Israeli lobby-influenced broadcasters are understating the number of civilian casualties in the repeated Israeli attacks. CNN's Washington bureau is editorially controlled by Wolf Blitzer, a one time employee of the Jerusalem Post and American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). According to our U.S. intelligence sources, the numbers of dead are in the hundreds. In south Lebanon, Israeli planes bombed three vans carrying families after they were turned away from a UN outpost while seeking protection. A total of 23 people were killed, including nine small children. The Israeli attacks have been described by various sources in Lebanon as "sub-human," "monstrous," and "animalistic." Our intelligence sources phoned us before what they believe will be the targets of the next wave of Israeli attacks against the nation's telecommunications networks, including cell phone towers and exchanges.

The Israel regime is acting with the full approval of the Bush administration, both regimes that are totally beholden to neo-con interests intent on throwing the entire Middle East into a firestorm of destruction and death.
 

Angry Arab News Service: PHOTOS
 

Kurt Nimmo, Ahmadinejad: Israeli State on Par with Nazis: Iran’s Ahmadinejad has it right: Israel’s military strikes on Gaza and Lebanon are no different from tactics used by Adolph Hitler during World War II. “Their methods resemble Hitler’s. When Hitler wanted to launch an attack, he came up with a pretext,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech, reports the Tehran Times. “Zionists say they are Hitler’s victims, but they have the same nature as Hitler,” or at least the Zionists in control of Israel are no different than Hitler.

“It is a new Nazism that made a kidnapped Israeli soldier worth killing Palestinians on a daily basis since June 25. It is a new Nazism that makes Israel practice the same savagery in Lebanon. This reminds us of the Nazis’ insistence on killing 10 or 20 Jews for the killing of a single Nazi soldier,” writes Jihad el-Khazen for al-Hayat. “Those who support Israel today are partners in its Nazi crimes against the Lebanese and the Palestinians. They share the responsibility for triggering counter terrorism, which we had not known before the brutality of occupation. The US bears the biggest share of this responsibility because, by its blind support for Israel, it has created a new Nazi regime.”
 

Baghdad starts to collapse as its people flee a life of death: In one of the few comprehensive surveys of how many Iraqis have fled their country since the US invasion, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants said last month that there were 644,500 refugees in Syria and Jordan in 2005 — about 2.5 per cent of Iraq’s population. In total, 889,000 Iraqis had moved abroad, creating “the biggest new flow of refugees in the world”, according to Lavinia Limon, the committee’s president.
 

Dahr Jamail, Refugees Speak of Catastrophic Bombing: Refugees fleeing Beirut in the face of Israeli air attacks are speaking of "haphazard bombings" and a crisis situation developing in the city.
 

Israel Steps Up Assault on Beirut Suburbs
 

Kurt Nimmo, False Flag Terrorism on U.S Tourists in Lebanon?: In the first hour of his RBN radio show, Webster G. Tarpley puts forward an interesting speculation: some of the 25,000 U.S. tourists currently stranded in Lebanon, thanks to the Israeli blockade of the country, may be murdered and the atrocity blamed on Iran as a pretext to drag Iran and the United States into the conflict. MP3 file here.
 

Highly recommended:
The program found at the above mentioned MP3 file.
 

Muslims have many reasons to hate us for generations of oppression and interference in their internal affairs.

??????

Excuse me for wondering, but are you sure this is an objective and fair view of the world?

Many Arab countries are staunch friends of the US; Jordan and Saudi for example have many close ties for many many reasons. At one time, Saddam also had close ties. Throughout history, they have courted each other.

It is a mutual thing, a two way relationship. One did not force itself on the other.

Another thing is this >> if many Muslim governments treated their own people better, and stopped interfering with other Muslim countries, instead of the oppression and torture we have seen in place like Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria etc, then there would be less unrest and more contentment which would actually stabilize the middle east a bit.

Unfortunately, Muslim countries have created unrest in each other >

Didn't millions of Lebanese protest and fight to get rid of Syria's horrendous influence?

Didn't the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait cause mass suffering and unrest?

Didn't Iran and Iraq fight until 8 million were injured or dead?

If Muslim countries and the Arab league cooperated to help their people and create more harmony and contentment, the middle east would be a much better place
 

Robert Fisk, Hizbollah's response reveals months of planning: 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. ...

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.
 

Statement from the General Secretary of Hizballah: To the Nation, the Lebanese people, the resistance fighters, the Zionists, and the Arab leaders.
 

Assad pledges Syrian help for Lebanon
 

Israel kills 3 Palestinians in occupied Gaza
 

Robert Fisk, What I am watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage: European politicians have talked about Israel's "disproportionate" response to Wednesday's capture of its soldiers. They are wrong. What I am now watching in Lebanon is an outrage. How can there be any excuse for the 73 dead Lebanese blown these past three days?

The same applies, of course, to the four Israeli civilians killed by Hizbollah rockets. But - please note the exchange rate of Israeli civilian lives to Lebanese civilian lives now stands at 1 to more than 15. This does not include the two children who were atomised in their home in Dweir on Thursday and whose bodies cannot be found. Their six brothers and sisters were buried yesterday, along with their mother and father. Another "terrorist" target. So was a neighbouring family with five children who were also buried yesterday. Another "terrorist" target.

Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist. There is something perverse about all this, the slaughter and massive destruction and the self-righteous, constant, cancerous use of the word "terrorist". No, let us not forget that the Hizbollah broke international law, crossed the Israeli border, killed three Israeli soldiers, captured two others and dragged them back through the border fence. It was an act of calculated ruthlessness that should never allow Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to grin so broadly ay his press conference. It has brought unparalleled tragedy to countless innocents in Lebanon. And of course, it has led Hizbollah to fire at least 170 Katyusha rockets into Israel.

But what would happen if the powerless Lebanese government had actually unleashed air attacks across Israel the last time Israel's troops crossed into Lebanon? What if the Lebanese air force then killed 73 Israeli civilians in bombing raids in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Israeli West Jerusalem? What if a Lebanese fighter aircraft bombed Ben Gurion airport? What if a Lebanese plane destroyed 26 road bridges across Israel? Would it not be called "terrorism"? I rather think it would. But if Israel was the victim, it would also probably be Word War Three.

... [T]here's a real conundrum to be solved. But it's not going to succeed with the mass bombing of the country by Israel. Not the obsession with terrorists, terrorists, terrorists.
 

Uri Avnery, The Real Aim: THE REAL aim is to change the regime in Lebanon and to install a puppet government.
 

Harper - Canadian Prime minister
 

Harper: "A Friend in Need . . . "
 

Saddam's WMD's have been found. They are in Israel . . .
Wayne Madsen, July 16, 2006 -- EXCLUSIVE TO WMR: Our intelligence sources in Lebanon have reported to us exclusively that Israel is now using poison gas and depleted uranium shells on towns in the south of Lebanon. Residents of the small village of Kasarshoba became violently ill, experiencing severe vomiting, after the Israelis hit the village with poison gas. In other cases, underground shelters in southern Lebanon were hit by Israeli depleted uranium shells. Our sources also report that the entire southern suburbs of southern Beirut, with a population of 800,000, have been totally depopulated. Israel has targeted thousands of civilian homes for destruction.

Meanwhile, Israeli government spokespersons and Bush administration officials took to the Sunday morning talking head programs in Washington to defend Israel's barbarous actions. The networks failed to present the views of Lebanese government spokespersons. Israel's and the Bush administration's line is that Israeli attacks are "precision targeted." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointedly refused to criticize Israel on ABC's This Week.

American media is failing to report that the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, like the U.S. attacks in Iraq, are violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Additional Protocols governing military attacks on civilians by governments that are parties to the conventions:

- Civilians are not to be subject to attack. This includes direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks against areas in which civilians are present.
- There is to be no destruction of property unless justified by military necessity.
- Warring parties must not use or develop biological or chemical weapons.
 

One Lebanese voice: For the last half hour or so, I have been watching the skyline outside my balcony. It is on fire. It's 4:14am.

At 3:28am this morning, I woke up to the sound of Israeli jets flying low over our skies in Beirut. I was just beginning to finally fall asleep, had racing thoughts in my mind all night, cramps in my stomach, fear... Just as I thought I was going to fall asleep, I heard the sound of jets, followed by one explosion after another.

Up until now, Israel has done the following:

- blown up our international airport, run ways, gas reserves for planes. No one can leave or enter the country.
- blown up small military domestic airports (both in the north and south)
- blown up all bridges and roads linking beirut to the south
- blown up areas/villages of the south, everything from the deep south to saida
- blown up ... As I type this now, another jet is flying by, it is so loud
Continue... Blown up the suburbs (Dahiye).. Three missiles
- blown up the beirut-damascus road at several points
we are surrounded at sea as well, there are military ships launching attacks

Ladies and gentlemen, I did not want to burden you with the troubles of war, but I think it is really important that the world knows what is going on. We are under attack by Israel. It is unjust and unfair.

I wonder what the media coverage is like out there. All this must end. Israel must be stopped. This is so unjust and unfair.

Everything we've worked on for the past 10 years is gone now. so, so so, unjust and unfair. We had so many cultural events planned for the summer... Exhibits... Concerts... Plays.. Etc. all gone.

Israel can not keep going into where ever they choose to go to and blow it up!
Lebanon can not be occupied again by Israel.

Dear friends, pray for us. For this madness to end. Pray for the Lebanese people to stick through this together and not lose their cool.

With love,
Zena el-Khalil
5:02am [7/13/06]
 

Thank Israel

When all the fighting in Lebanon is done
and all the children are killed,
their flesh and their blood ground straight to the bone
and their graves jam-packed and filled
understand that it could be no other way
and Thank Israel

* * *
When Gaza and Lebanon no longer exist
because no one is left alive to resist
When the West Bank, Syria and Iran follow suit
with American men in Iraq to boot
understand that there could be no other way
and Thank Israel

* * *
When everyone's hopes and dreams are dashed
at the moment of impact and light flash
When nothing is left to do or to save
and the world is nothing but a shallow grave
Rejoice and reflect on the Greatest of Gifts
and Thank Israel -
because they will not be blamed
 

South African Council of Churches/COSATU/PSC push for sanctions against Israel:
We, delegates of organisations and movements that represent and have the support of the majority of South Africans, oppose and condemn the Israeli atrocities in Palestine and we make the following call:

· We call on the South African government to immediately recall the South African ambassador from Tel Aviv and to begin the process of ending diplomatic relations with Israel;

· We call on all South Africans to establish a strong, forceful and determined boycott and sanctions campaign against the Israeli apartheid state until the end of the occupation.

· We call on South Africans to identify a national day of action in solidarity with the Palestinian people and to observe it with rolling mass action around the country.

· We call on the South African government to ensure that no South African serves ­ in any capacity ­ in the Israeli Occupation Forces and that any South African citizen doing so will be prosecuted under the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act;

· We demand that Israel immediately withdraws all Israeli Occupation Forces from Gaza and ends the occupation of Palestinian lands;

· We demand that Israel abides by the provisions of international humanitarian law and human rights law, and refrains from imposing collective punishment on Palestinian civilians (as per the UN Human Rights Council declaration issued on 6 July 2006);

· Call on Israel to release all detained Palestinian ministers and legislators and to release all political prisoners ­ including hundreds of women and children;

· We call on the EU to stop the severe sanctions imposed by Europe on the Palestinian Authority as a penalty for exercising their democratic right and electing a government of their choice. This by itself is a brutal intervention on behalf of the occupation

· We call on the United Nations to implement the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on Israel¹s Apartheid wall;

· We call on the United Nations to ensure that Israel fulfils its obligations in terms of international law.

[ . . . ]

Media present included SABC TV, ETV, Al Jazeera, SABC Radio, Kaya FM, Citizen, Indymedia, ITV, SA Press Association, Jacaranda FM, Business Day, The Star, Sunday Times, Sunday Independent, Sowetan, Independent Newspapers.
 

Larry Chin, US, Israel push world to brink of world war: In unleashing an all-out Middle East war with the bombing and blockade of Lebanon, and mounting escalations involving all surrounding countries in the region (Iran, Syria), Israel has committed an act of naked aggression and open fascism that easily rivals the worst acts of Hitler’s Third Reich.

In the space of mere hours, the world has been collectively incited, provoked, and dragged into an all-out war that is on course towards potential nuclear super power conflict. (Analysis from independent sources such as Electronic Intifada, Dahr Jamail, and Angry Arab News provide bloody detail on unfolding conditions, as well as historic context.)

What must be underscored and grasped at this historic moment are not simply the atrocities on the part of Israel, but the Bush administration’s pathologically sinister actions fanning the flames of this mushrooming war.

* The insane Condoleezza Rice condoned the bombing of Lebanon, and then condemned Syria and Iran, and launched into the “terrorists” talking point mantra, repeatedly. Quoting the sick bitch (and I use the two words studiously and without hyperbole; they are accurately descriptive), “I am not going to try to judge every single act.” The fact that this monster is the US Secretary of State is beyond words.

* The insane George W. Bush repeated the same “terrorists” talking point mantra, the same “get Iran and Syria at the same time” memo: “Every nation must defend herself against terrorist attacks and the killing of innocent life.”

* The Bush administration and its insane UN Ambassador John Bolton cast the lone vote (1-10) against a UN resolution condemning the Israeli aggression, killing the resolution.

The entire world knows that only the US can stop it. The Bush administration won’t. It has only not even bothered to script words that sound like diplomacy, it has purposely congratulated Israel, which has spectacularly executed the shared 9/11-created policy of presumptive unilateral war against “terrorists” (all political opponents are “terrorists”). [ . . . ]

Could the Israeli aggression be the Bush administration pretext for the bigger Middle East war that the neocons have long dreamed about, with the US and Israel destroying Iran and Syria simultaneously, daring Russia and China to stop them?

Is this the next stage of World War Three (begun on 9/11), or World War Four, a new and truly planetary holocaust?
 

Samar Assad, Political Prisoners and Arbitrary Arrests; A History of Israeli-Palestinian Prisoner Exchanges: Arrangements for prisoner exchanges between Arab governments and Israel date back to 1948. During the early 1980s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel exchanged prisoners, the most famous of which is known as the "Jibril Deal" in May 1985. Through third-party negotiations, Israel and Hizballah carried out three prisoner exchanges starting in 1996. Attempts to secure the release of Palestinian political prisoners through negotiations often failed because Israel regularly suspended talks over prisoners or renegotiated established criteria for their release. When negotiations resulted in an agreement, Israel ignored deadlines for the releases, released nonpolitical prisoners and claimed it had fulfilled its obligations, or simply dismissed agreements.

[Section headings]
- Israeli-Hizballah Prisoner Exchanges
- Israeli-PLO Prisoner Exchanges
- Jordanian and U.S. Intervention
- Israel and Hamas
- Palestinian Political Prisoners
According to the Ramallah-based Mandela Institute for Human Rights, there are 9,600 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and detention centers, among them 130 Palestinian women. Defense for Children International puts the number of Palestinian children in Israeli custody at 388.

According to a recent poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC), 69 percent of Palestinians insist on an exchange for Shalit's release. The high support for a prisoner exchange stems from the sensitivity of the prisoner issue within Palestinian society. The vast majority of Palestinians have been directly or indirectly affected by Israel's policy of arbitrary or blanket arrests and hold deep resentment for political violations of their leaders' authority and autonomy.

Israel's imprisonment and detention of Palestinians is an example of its failure to abide by international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Administrative detentions, imprisonment without due process and imprisonment inside Israel are both illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Furthermore, Palestinian prisoners are routinely tortured by Israel and held in detention centers and prisons that do not meet the minimum international standards and are routinely denied visitation rights by their legal representation and family members. The vast majority of Palestinian prisoners are held without trial. According to Amnesty International, the trials that do take place often fall short of international fair trial standards.

Israel's failure to release Palestinian political prisoners and its continued arbitrary arrest of Palestinian civilians serves only to highlight Israel's belief that it is above the law and that the Palestinians are beneath it.
 

Jerusalem Post, 'Lebanon can be shut down for years'
 

Photos, New Massacre in Lebanon by Israeli Terrorists
 

P E T I T I O N, Save the Lebanese Civilians - Please sign -
 

Webster G. Tarpley, BEWARE OF FALSE FLAG WAR PROVOCATIONS PLANNED WITH CONNIVANCE OF CHENEY: The escalating Israeli assault on Lebanon clearly represents a conscious bid to provoke a general war in the Middle East. ...

In an ominous sign, CNN broadcasts have featured first-person interviews with Caroline Shamoun, supposedly an American stuck in Lebanon. This reference recalls Camille Chamoun, the CIA puppet president of Lebanon who called in US forces in 1958. The goal of the current campaign is manifestly to call US forces to intervene into a Lebanon-centered crisis once again.

All peace-loving governments and all Americans of good will should make it clear that they hold the Israeli Mossad, Shin Beth, and Israeli Defense Forces directly responsible for the safety and welfare of the Americans trapped in Lebanon by the present aggression. Any atrocities against these Americans cannot be attributed to Hezbollah, Syria, or Iran, none of whom has any conceivable interest in provoking the US into an attack. It is Israel and Cheney who have such an interest, as is likely to have been discussed during Olmert's visit to the US in May and Netanyahu's visit here in June.

It is imperative that the US and world population be inoculated against the provocation scenarios now being propagandized by CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the controlled media.
 

Akh Imad,

I think this photo you like it for GWB drunk and looking lost his direction.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4008/1111/320/bush%20is%20stoned.jpg
 

VIDEO SLIDESHOW put together by Kurt Nimmo (5 min), Reality in Lebanon - "Please link widely. Note: there are disturbing images of war and dead civilians in the video."
 

Robert Fisk, 'If our Prime Minister is crying, what are we to do?': You could see the Israeli missiles coming through the clouds of smoke, hurtling like thunderbolts into the apartment blocks of Ghobeiri, the crack of the explosions so loud that my ears are still singing hours later as I write this report.

The few who were not lying in their basements ran shrieking through the streets - not gunmen, but women with screaming children, families holding suitcases, desperate to leave the heaps of broken buildings, entire apartment blocks smashed to bits, the roadways covered in smashed balconies and torn electrical wires. ...

I watched ... from my sea-front balcony at dusk on Saturday, an American-made Apache helicopter turning three times over the Mediterranean before firing a single missile - perfectly visible, with smoke pouring from the tail - that smacked into Beirut's brand new lighthouse on the Corniche in a cloud of brown muck. So what was this for? Another "terrorist" target, I suppose. Like the gas stations bombed in the Bekaa Valley. Like the convoy of 20 civilians incinerated in an Israeli air-raid on Saturday after being ordered - by the Israelis themselves - to leave their home village on the border.
 

Nicholas Blanford, Shia crescent pierces heart of Arab world: Sunni governments are nervously eyeing a militant alliance capable of taking on Israel

By attacking Haifa, Hezbollah has transferred the conflict to Israeli territory, undermining the latter’s longstanding military doctrine of defeating its enemies on foreign soil. ...
 

Eric Margolis, The Final Say: Israel and its enemies will eventually talk. It's only a question of how many civilians on both sides will die before this happens.
 

To Kelley F, y

I think what you are really saying is that people will see only what they want to see. I agree also that the US has been blamed for problems in the middle east that have actually been caused bu inter-Muslim conflict.
They have to take responsibility for themselves if the situation in the middle east is going to get better. Finger pointing at scapegoats, or in the wrong direction, will only serve to miss out on great opportunities
 

Say,
Direction? You mean he had one?
(Notice how cleverly Putin has had the bottle placed on the Bush side of the table!)
 

William Bowles, Israel – just testing the waters?: We can be sure that the decision to attack Lebanon didn’t come out of the blue, nor was it simply some kind of ‘gut’ reaction to the alleged Hizbollah attacks on the IDF.

There would seem to be two possible explanations:

1. The attack on Lebanon is a prelude to a wider war, possibly with Syria being the next target
2. The attack on Lebanon is a horrendous diversion from the failure of the Gaza bloodbath to achieve its stated objective, the complete destruction of what was left of the Palestinian administration, enabling it to complete its total annexation of the West Bank.

Obviously there is a great deal of overlap between the two and there is no doubt that the ‘Greater Israel’ objective, the total incorporation of the Occupied Territories, that includes parts of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon into Israel, is still the major concern of the Zionist state.

(What seems to have escaped peoples’ attention is the fact that Israel still occupies a chunk of Lebanon precisely where the fight between Hizbollah and Israel took place.)

If nothing else, the events of the past few days reveals the true nature of ‘social democracy’ as nothing more than brute force disguised as ‘civilisation’. Where are the ‘left’ Labour MPs I ask? Once again, I contend that the real role of racism as a corrosive and divisive weapon of imperialism is central to the lack of any real opposition emerging. For as long as we regard Arabs as non-people, the bulk of the Israelis, Americans and Europeans will continue to ignore the slaughter.
 

(Still struggling to properly contextualize Hezbollah/Lebanon/Israel, I found this a particularly valuable post.)
Kurt Nimmo, Israeli Diplomat: All Arabs are Terrorists
 

Photos of War taken by Lebanese People
 

Jean Shaoul, Sharon’s war crimes in Lebanon: the record: Below we publish the second article in a three-part series examining Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s role in the war crimes committed during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, culminating in the massacre of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatilla.
 

Mideast attacks in fourth day: Twenty-one Lebanese civilians were burnt alive Saturday when an Israeli helicopter gunship hit a minibus carrying fleeing families in southern Lebanon, as Israel kept up its concerted attack against its northern neighbour, attacking areas and infrastructure.
 

Kathleen Christison, "The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel": Words fail; ordinary terms are inadequate to describe the horrors Israel daily perpetrates, and has perpetrated for years, against the Palestinians. The tragedy of Gaza has been described a hundred times over, as have the tragedies of 1948, of Qibya, of Sabra and Shatila, of Jenin -- 60 years of atrocity perpetrated in the name of Judaism. But the horror generally falls on deaf ears in most of Israel, in the U.S. political arena, in the mainstream U.S. media. Those who are horrified -- and there are many -- cannot penetrate the shield of impassivity that protects the political and media elite in Israel, even more so in the U.S., and increasingly now in Canada and Europe, from seeing, from caring.

But it needs to be said now, loudly: those who devise and carry out Israeli policies have made Israel into a monster, and it has come time for all of us -- all Israelis, all Jews who allow Israel to speak for them, all Americans who do nothing to end U.S. support for Israel and its murderous policies -- to recognize that we stain ourselves morally by continuing to sit by while Israel carries out its atrocities against the Palestinians.
 

Mike Whitney, One Giant Gaza Strip: The history of the present conflict did not begin with the capture of the 2 soldiers as the media would have us believe, nor is it simply aimed at dismantling Hezbollah. Israel is planning to occupy the territory between its northern border and the Litani River in Southern Lebanon. This will provide access to an important water source for Israel and create a buffer-zone between itself and Arab militants. The demonstration of overwhelming force is intended to send a message to Syria and Iran that they’d better "shape up" or expect similar treatment in the near future.

Israel’s present battle-plan originated with a policy paper that was written by former Defense Policy Board chief Richard Perle and (Bush administration officials) David Wurmser and Douglas Feith. The document, which was titled "A Clean Break; Strategy for Securing the (Israeli) Realm" provides the details of Israel’s plan to topple potential rivals in the region and redraw the map of the Middle East.

Perle’s document outlines exactly what is presently taking place even though it was written back in 1996. (It was composed for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.)

This shows that Israel is not acting irrationally or spontaneously, but executing a carefully-considered master-plan for crushing potential enemies and reconfiguring the Middle East to accommodate the modern Israeli kingdom. ...

Prime Minister Olmert has not deviated one millimeter from the original scheme.

We should review Lebanon’s recent history if we want to fully appreciate the effort that has gone into preparing it for invasion. The assassination of Rafik Hariri gave Israel and America the perfect pretext for intervening in Lebanese affairs via the United Nations. ...

As Israel steps-up its bombing raids on southern Beirut for the 6th straight day, the UN has never looked more ineffective or fragmented. The institution has been blocked from even providing its normally toothless resolutions condemning the violence. The UN has become a rubber stamp for American-Israeli policy ...

Curious onlookers should note that Israel’s attacks have not been aimed at Hezbollah, but mainly at Lebanese infrastructure. In fact, there have been no reports of Hezbollah casualties so far. This is no coincidence. Israel’s plan is to reduce Lebanon to rubble and create a humanitarian crisis similar to the one in the occupied territories. Throughout the Arab world the same theory of "pacification" is being applied as Bush and Olmert continue their wanton assault on the basic platforms for human survival leaving millions of Muslims in abject poverty without food, medicine, clean drinking water, or sufficient heat or light. They have created tens of thousands of refugees who have been driven from their homes or left in the ruins to slowly die in the dark. From the Caspian to the Red Sea, from the Mediterranean to the western tip of Afghanistan, Israel and America are spreading their devastation across the Middle East transforming the entire region into one massive Gaza Strip.
 

Paul Craig Roberts, We're Being Set Up for Wider War in the Middle East: One of the great evangelical/Zionist/neocon myths is that "tiny Israel" armed with 200 nuclear weapons is threatened by Muslim Middle Eastern countries. In actual fact, Egypt and Pakistan, which have the bulk of the Middle Eastern Muslim population, are ruled by American puppets. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the oil emirates are totally dependent on U.S. protection and, thereby, are also under the American thumb. Iran is Persian, not Arab, and has no common borders with Israel. Hezbollah was created when Israel tried to seize Lebanon in 1982. Hamas is a Palestinian response to the atrocities Palestinians have suffered for a half century at Israel's hands.

Israel's land-stealing policy is the source of Middle Eastern instability. America is hated because American money and weapons are what enable Israel to steal Palestine from Palestinians.

As numerous Middle East experts have pointed out, what is decried as "Arab terrorism against Israel" is, in fact, the only tactic Muslims have for calling the world's attention to the plight of the Palestinians, about which Americans are generally ignorant.
 

Jonathan Cook, Israelis are dying: it must be an escalation: The reporting we are seeing from the BBC and the other broadcasters is racist; there is no other word to describe it. The journalists’ working assumption is that Israeli lives are more precious, more valuable than Lebanese lives. A few dead Israelis justify massive retaliation; many Lebanese dead barely merit a mention. The subtext seems to be that all the Lebanese, even the tiny bleeding children I see on Arab TV, are terrorists. It is just the way Arabs are.
 

Dahr Jamail, Fleeing Lebanese Speak of Indiscriminate Bombing
 

Gunmen kill 50 in Iraqi market attack
 

Dick argues against Iraq timetable: "Either we are serious about fighting this war or we are not."
 

And from Dick's puppet, the following -
"What they need to do it to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit."