Free Iraq

Map of Greater Israeli as submitted by the Word Zionist Organization soon after the end of WWI
 

Kurt Nimmo, Israel in Lebanon: Pushing Out Arabs - In 1948, Irgun Zwei Leumi and other Zionist terrorist groups conducted the Deir Yassin massacre and other atrocities in an effort to push Palestinians off the land. More than 300,000 inhabitants were evicted from their homes and the emerging state of Israel snapped up the land, declaring no right of return for Palestinians.

Now, in Lebanon, Israel is attempting to repeat this brutal process, bombing southern Lebanon to push the residents out so they can set up a “security zone,” or water and natural resource thievery zone.

Only Hezbollah stands in the way.
 

Paul Craig Roberts, The Shame of Being an American: Gentle reader, do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon? Israel has ordered all the villagers to clear out. Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers. That way there is no one to come back and nothing to which to return, making it easier for Israel to grab the territory, just as Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians. [ . . . ]

Muslim genocide in one form or another is the professed goal of the neoconservatives who have total control over the Bush administration. Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz has called for World War IV (in neocon thinking WW III was the Cold War) to overthrow Islam in the Middle East, deracinate the Islamic religion and turn it into a formalized, secular ritual.

Rumsfeld's neocon Pentagon has drafted new US war doctrine that permits pre-emptive nuclear attack on non-nuclear states.

Neocon David Horowitz says that by slaughtering Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, "Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world," thus equating war criminals with civilized men.

Neocon Larry Kudlow says that "Israel is doing the Lord's work" by murdering Lebanese, a claim that should give pause to Israel's Christian evangelical supporters. Where does the Lord Jesus say, "go forth and murder your neighbors so that you may steal their lands"?

The complicity of the American public in these heinous crimes will damn America for all time in history.
 

Cartoon, NAZIS
 

Wayne Madsen Report, July 28, 2006 -- Countering the spin: Hezbollah sources have an entirely different story about the incident that triggered the Israeli attack on Lebanon. The counter-story lends credence to the pre-meditated nature of a plan that was hatched in a three-way meeting between Dick Cheney, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Natan Sharansky at an American Enterprise Institute conference in Colorado last month.

Hezbollah reports that on July 12, two Israeli Defense Force (IDF) troops were captured by Hezbollah after they entered Lebanese territory. Hezbollah put out feelers that they would entertain a prisoner swap, something that had occurred many times in the past. However, already looking for an incident on the Israeli-Lebanese border, the Israeli government dispatched a Merkava-2 tank into Lebanon to retrieve its two captured troops. The tank hit a land mine, killing four Israeli soldiers. Haaretz confirmed that the tank was destroyed by a mine and not in a Hezbollah attack.

The neo-con spin machine, including George W. Bush, claims that Hezbollah entered Israel in an unprovoked attack and kidnapped the two Israelis.

Israeli-Lebanese border incident pre-planned by Cheney and his Israeli friends at AEI conference in Colorado. The "Clean Break" road leads from Lebanon through Syria to Iran.
 

For what it's worth . . .
Rice to return to Mideast to work on truce
 

Meanwhile . . .
Palestinians brace for more Gaza raids
 

Hezbollah fires new rockets into Israel: In Washington, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said they want an international force dispatched quickly to southern Lebanon. But they said any plan to end the fighting must address the long-term issue of disarming Hezbollah.

"This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East," Bush said. "Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region."
 

Wayne Madsen, July 26, 2006 -- Our intelligence sources report that the Israeli Defense Force attack on Lebanon is being carried out as a joint Israeli-U.S. military operation. Moreover, there are joint Israeli and U.S. war rooms coordinating the U.S.-supported Israeli attacks on Lebanon. The ultimate aim of Washington and Jerusalem is not only to eliminate Hezbollah as a political force in Lebanon but also to remake Lebanon as an American and Israeli client state. [ . . . ]

... The deliberate Israeli attack on a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) outpost in southern Lebanon was the result of that post gaining information of Israeli atrocities committed against the civilian Lebanese population. ...

(And Madame Secretary C. Rice shall present herself as an honest broker? Advice to Hezbollah: [censored].)
 

Wayne Madsen, July 25, 2006 -- On July 22, WMR first reported that white phosphorous, a substance that burns through the skin of its victims, was being used against Lebanese civilians, including children, by Israeli forces. [ . . . ]
 

Wayne Madsen, July 24, 2006 -- The U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) is a legal instrument that can be used by U.S. and foreign citizens, including Lebanese, to bring suit against Israel for its destructive attack and invasion of Lebanon. A judgment against Israel in a U.S. Court could result in Israeli assets in America being attached and monetary damages being paid to the plaintiffs. [ . . . ]

A judgment against Israel under ATCA in a U.S. court could see the seizure and forfeiture of Israeli assets in the United States and the transfer of liquidated assets to U.S., Lebanese, and other plaintiffs. These could include Israeli government accounts held in U.S. branches of Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, and the Israel Discount Bank, Israeli parastatal defense companies with assets in the United States, such as Israel Military Industries (IMI), and even El Al aircraft on runways in the United States.

Syria, the subject of scorn by the neo-cons in Washington and Jerusalem, deserves much credit and ultimate compensation by the Israeli and American perpetrators, for waving visa requirements for fleeing refugees, including Americans, from the fighting in Lebanon. It opened its airports and seaports to hundreds of foreign evacuation aircraft and ships. Syria could seek direct compensation from Israel through the World Court.
 

Wayne Madsen, July 22/23, 2006 -- U.S. military intelligence sources have told WMR that the artillery shell shown below being used by an Israel Defense Force member in Lebanon, is a type of dual and multi-use weapon the neocons falsely accused Saddam Hussein of possessing. [ . . . ]
 

Wayne Madsen, July 21/22/23, 2006 -- UPDATED -- Informed sources have told WMR that arch-neocon Michael Ledeen, who acts as an unofficial foreign policy adviser to Karl Rove, was at the White House yesterday with a group of Iranian opposition figures. Among the topics discussed was a promised $25 million grant by the Bush administration to the Iranian insurgents. The deal is said to involve the Iran interlocutor from the Iran-Contra scandal, Manucher Ghorbanifar. The money is to be used to plant Desert Storm-vintage biological and chemical weapons shells, confiscated by U.S. forces in Iraq, on the Iranian side of the Iraqi border. The weapons will be used as "proof" of Iran's plan to "attack" U.S. troops in Iraq. That will be used to justify, ex post facto, the coming U.S. attack on Iran. ...
 

Dahr Jamail, 'Everything In My Life Is Destroyed, So I Will Fight Them': "I am in Hezbollah because I care," the fighter, who agreed to the interview on condition of anonymity, told me. "I care about my people, my country, and defending them from the Zionist aggression." I jotted furiously in my note pad while sitting in the back seat of his car. We were parked not far from Dahaya, the district in southern Beirut which is being bombed by Israeli warplanes as we talk.

The member of Hezbollah I was interviewing-let's call him Ahmed-has been shot three times during previous battles against Israeli forces on the southern Lebanese border. His brother was killed in one of these battles. It's been several years since his father was killed by an air strike in a refugee camp.

"My home now in Dahaya is pulverized, so Hezbollah gave me a place to stay while this war is happening," he said, "When this war ends, where am I to go? What am I to do? Everything in my life is destroyed now, so I will fight them."
 

Khaled Farhan, Iraq's Valley of Peace helps overflowing morgues: "Most of the bodies were bound by chains so we always have to keep a cutter nearby to cut them. Most bodies were beheaded and they have a lot of holes in the head and face," ...
 

Israeli Justice Minister: IDF Entitled to Kill Everyone in South Lebanon (What say you, Condi?)
 

UK peers call for Blair to be stripped of power to go to war without vote (Suggestion: Strip Bush. Period.)
 

Paul Joseph Watson, C-Span Airing Of L.A. Conference Shows Mainstreaming Of 9/11 Truth: The program will air on C-SPAN 1 at 8PM EST (7PM CST) on Saturday, July 29th and then air again for the West Coast at 11pm EST (10pm CST). You can watch the program online at the times stated above by clicking here.
 

Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil: Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more than a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets?

Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline, which links the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon. [ . . . [

[Section Headings]
- Militarization of the Eastern Mediterranean
- Water for Israel
- The Re-routing of Central Asian Oil
- War and Oil Pipelines
- "The Long War"
 

Dahr Jamail, Death Toll in Lebanon Could Be Twice the Official Figure
 

Patrick Martin, Israel prepares major escalation of Lebanon aggression
 

Picture Album, Lebanon's 9/11 or Why Do They Hate Us?
 

Jonathan Cook, Five myths that sanction Israel’s war crimes: This week I had the pleasure to appear on American radio, on the Laura Ingraham show, pitted against David Horowitz, a “Semite supremacist” who most recently made his name under the banner of Campus Watch, leading McCarthyite witch-hunts against American professors who have the impertinence to suggest that maybe, just maybe, Arabs have minds and feelings like the rest of us.

It was a revealing experience, at least for a British journalist rarely exposed to the depths of ignorance and prejudice in the United States on Middle East matters ...

[Myths extracted]

The first myth is that Israel was forced to pound Lebanon with its military hardware because Hizbullah began “raining down” rockets on the Galilee. Anyone with a short memory can probably recall that was not the first justification we were offered: that had to do with the two soldiers captured by Hizbullah on a border post on July 12.

The second myth is that Hizbullah’s stockpile of 12,000 rockets -- the Israeli army’s estimate -- poses an existential threat to Israel. According to Horowitz and others, Hizbullah collected its armoury with the sole intent of destroying the Jewish state.

The third myth is that, while Israel is trying to fight a clean war by targeting only terrorists, Hizbullah prefers to bring death and destruction on innocents by firing rockets at Israeli civilians.

The fourth myth is a continuation of the third: Hizbullah has been endangering the lives of ordinary Lebanese by hiding among non-combatants.

And finally, there is a fifth myth I almost forgot to mention. That people like David Horowitz only want to tell us the truth… (All emphasis added)
 

Ramzy Baroud, More to Lebanon War than Meets the Eye: Israel's Strategic Objective is to break up the Syria-Lebanon Front
 

Kurt Nimmo, Israel Plans Torture Center for Abducted Lebanese
 

Saddam to know trial verdict on October 16
 

xymphora, Suicide mission to fill swimming pools: The captured Israeli soldiers were captured inside Lebanon (summarized here; see also here and here and here). That means the self-defense pretext is a lie, and the concept that Israel has a right to defend itself, spouted by all its apologists, is irrelevant (the Hezbollah missiles were only sent after the Israeli attack was well under way). In fact, Hezbollah only poses a military threat inside Lebanon defending it from Israel, and is absolutely no military ‘existential’ threat to Israel itself, meaning that all the discussions by the disgusting apologists for war crimes, fine considerations of when you can murder citizens under the pretext of ‘self-defense’, is immoral bullshit.

The only logical conclusion is that the Israeli generals sent a group of Israeli soldiers into Lebanon on a suicide mission, intending that they be killed and/or captured by Hezbollah. It would not surprise me if they let Hezbollah know the soldiers were coming by broadcasting the information over signals they knew Hezbollah was monitoring. The soldiers, of course, wouldn’t know what was planned for them, and would have assumed that this was just another of the many illegal Israeli incursions onto Lebanese territory. In other words, the Israeli generals sent their young conscripts over the Lebanese border with the intention that they be captured or die, all in order to create the excuse for the pre-planned attack on Lebanon.
 

xymphora, Reassessing the Hariri assassination in the light of recent events: [ . . . ]

4. Hariri was one of the main architects of the reconstruction of Lebanon, and would not have stood for its re-destruction. He had a lot of powerful friends around the world, and would probably have been able to prevent the current Israeli attacks. Even if the attacks had done damage, he would have been able to lead the re-reconstruction, thwarting Israeli long-term plans. It was thus necessary to remove him as a precondition of the current Israeli attacks.

6. Israel has a number of goals in its current attacks, the ultimate one being fooling the Americans into another war for Israel, this time against Syria. The most feasible goal, however, is water. With the connivance of the Americans, Israel is resisting calls for any kind of ceasefire or negotiated settlement, as that would prevent Israel from achieving its real goal of seizing southern Lebanon, including control over the water in the Litani river (some of which is already being stolen by the Israelis). UN peacekeepers would make such a goal impossible, and so UN involvement must be resisted. The plan is to take over southern Lebanon under the guise of creating a Hezbollah-free buffer zone to protect Israel from Hezbollah rocket attacks. Of course, we’re supposed to forget the fact that the dangerous rocket attacks – the ones that haven’t been faked by the IDF – only occurred after the Israeli attack on Lebanon, and the fact that a buffer zone will have no effect on Hezbollah’s ability to send rockets into Israel. The real goal of the buffer zone will be to allow Israel to begin to siphon off greater quantities of Lebanese water.

... Hariri died so that water could be stolen.
 

Hezbollah politicians back peace package: Hezbollah politicians, while expressing reservations, have joined their critics in the government in agreeing to a peace package that includes strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming the guerrillas, the government said.

The agreement — reached after a heated six-hour Cabinet meeting — was the first time that Hezbollah has signed onto a proposal for ending the crisis that includes the deploying of international forces.

The package falls short of American and Israeli demands in that it calls for an immediate cease-fire before working out details of a force and includes other conditions.

But European Union officials said Friday the proposals form a basis for an agreement, increasing the pressure on the United States to call for a cease-fire.

It starts out with an immediate cease-fire. Following that would come:

• the release of Lebanese and Israeli prisoners; Israeli withdrawal behind the border; the return of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.

• moves to resolve the status of Chebaa Farms, a small piece of land held by Israel and claimed by Lebanon. The proposal calls for the
U.N. Security Council to commit to putting the area under U.N. control until a final demarcation of the border.

• the provision by Israel of maps of minefields laid during its 18-year occupation of the south.

• "the spreading of Lebanese government authority over the entire country," meaning the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, with the strengthening and increasing of the small, lightly armed U.N. peacekeeping force currently there.
 

(Special Offering for JJ & IK !!)
Wayne Madsen, July 28, 2006 -- Tony Blair visiting George W. Bush while Laura remains far away in Alaska. ...
 

Mike Whitney, “Bull’s-eye”: 4 U.N. Peacekeepers killed in Israel’s Targeted Assassination
 

Israel's secret war: the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Palestine: A 12-year-old boy dead on a stretcher. A mother in shock and disbelief after her son was shot dead for standing on their roof. A phone rings and a voice in broken Arabic orders residents to abandon their home on pain of death.

Those are snapshots of a day in Gaza where Israel is waging a hidden war, as the world looks the other way, focusing on Lebanon.

It is a war of containment and control that has turned the besieged Strip into a prison with no way in or out, and no protection from an fearsome battery of drones, precision missiles, tank shells and artillery rounds.

The situation has become unbearable for Gazans, says Nabil Shaath, a veteran Fatah official who is a former foreign and planning minister. Through the window, small fishing boats are anchored uselessly in the harbour, penned in by Israeli sea patrols.

All mechanisms for coping are being exhausted.
 

Video (4 min), Prisoners' Massacre (How does it feel to dig your "own" grave? When will justice prevail?)
 

Israeli planes pound targets in Lebanon


Israeli Tanks Move Back Into Gaza Strip
 

(Watch it. All of it.)
Video (5:23), MORE TIME TO BOMB - Blair and Bush: Killing To Go On Until We Find A Plan
 

Robert Fisk, On a Red Cross mission of mercy when Israeli air force came calling: It was supposed to be a routine trip across the Lebanese killing fields for the brave men and women of the International Red Cross. Sylvie Thoral was the "team leader" of our two vehicles, a 38-year-old Frenchwoman with dark brown hair and eyes like steel. The Israelis had been informed and had given what the ICRC likes to call its "green light" to the route. And, of course, we almost died.
 

Israel rejects U.N. request for cease-fire in Lebanon to deliver humanitarian supplies and allow civilians to leave the war zone
 

Dave Lindorff, Is Bush Trying To Dodge the Gallows? Could George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and maybe Alberto Gonzales all end up sucking poison gas?

(Any special requests, folks?)
 

Oren Ben-Dorh, Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East?: What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.

The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.
 

MSNBC poll: 87% believe Bush should be impeached (And that's just for starters.)
 

Chavez finalises $3 billion Russian arms deal
 

"Hi, my name is Danny. I'm an officer in Israeli military intelligence. In one hour we will blow up your house."
 

On the lighter side . . .
U.S. patients are too fat for X-rays
 

Dahr Jamail, Israelis Accused of Using Illegal Weapons: U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said this week that Israel had used cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon, in clear violation of international law.

Lebanese doctors, aid workers and refugees are reporting that the Israeli military has used the incendiary weapon white phosphorous in civilian areas, also in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The doctor also told IPS that the Israelis are again using suction bombs, which they used heavily during the Lebanese civil war.

"They are using suction bombs that implode our buildings," he added, "With implosive bombs...instead of the glass blasted out, it is inside the building. These kill everyone inside the building. There are rarely survivors when they use these bombs."
 

The United States, again, as a more than willing accessory / participant - -
Wayne Madsen, July 29/30, 2006 -- -- First, it was a series of CIA prisoner rendition flights that used Glasgow, Scotland's Prestwick Airport as a stopover point. Now, the United States has been caught using Prestwick to ship GBU28 "bunker buster" bombs, laser-guided bombs, and other weapons to Israel for its military attacks on Lebanon and Gaza. The arms have been transported by two chartered A310 cargo planes from the United States via Prestwick to Tel Aviv. ...

Members of the Scottish Parliament, particularly Scottish National Party members, are calling on the Scottish government to ban the U.S. flights from Scotland, a move that could result in a constitutional crisis between London and Edinburgh. Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish Nationalists, said, "called on the Labour-LibDem [Liberal Democratic] Scottish Executive to step back from its role as an accessory to the escalation of violence in the Middle East by using its own transport powers to prevent such flights and get behind the overwhelming calls from the rest of the world for an immediate ceasefire to the conflict."
 

Kurt Nimmo, Men, Women, Children: All of S. Lebanon is Hezbollah: Recall Haim Ramon, Israeli “Minister of Justice,” telling the world: “Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah,” in other words hundreds of thousands of people—women, children, babies, old people—will be subjected to brutal conditions for the crime of either resisting invasion and occupation or living near somebody who does.

If you believe only Shi’a Muslims are doomed to suffer at the hands of the Israelis, take a look at this BBC video—the IOF is attacking all Lebanese villages in southern Lebanon, Christian villages included.

Here is a video showing more Hizbollah symps, both Muslim and Christian, mostly woman and children, a few days away from starvation.

Finally, take a look at this BBC video of Hizbollah symp refugees, including an old paralyzed woman, reduced to drinking dirty water while awaiting humanitarian assistance, certain not to arrive now that Israel has refused the pleas of the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, to implement a ceasefire in order to deliver relief to civilians.

Near the end of this last video the Israelis shell a convoy, including journalists, who are wounded. For some reason the correspondent is unable to admit it was the Israelis who lobbed the shell at them.
 

Al-Hayat, Condoleezza's Doomed Diplomacy: Her first - and most important -- mistake was not to insist on an immediate ceasefire. ...

Her second mistake was her failure to invite Hizballah, Syria and Iran to the Rome meeting. How could she hope to strike a deal if the parties on one side of the conflict were absent? (Israel was also absent, but her interests were amply represented by the United States.) The answer is that Dr Rice has no interest in striking a deal or mediating a settlement. She wants to impose terms on Israel's enemies -- or allow Israel to do so.

Someone should explain to Dr Rice that Hizbullah is not a terrorist organization. It is a resistance movement which managed to liberate Lebanese territory from Israeli occupation and which is dedicated to protecting the Shia population of south Lebanon from Israeli aggression.
 

Al Jazeera, Lebanon to Israel: Return Shebaa Farms: Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has said that if Israel wants secure borders it must withdraw from the disputed Shebaa Farms area that it has occupied since 1967.
 

Al Jazeera, Ghettoisation creeping into Iraq: Shia and Sunnis in Iraq are swapping homes, creating segregated communities to avoid the sectarian violence that is engulfing the country.
 

Robert Fisk, The truth of Blair's 'urgent diplomacy': Blair and his masters regard ceasefires as a weapon, a means to a political end.

Blair and his ignorant Foreign Secretary have played along with Israel's savagery with blind trust in our own loss of memory. It is perfectly acceptable, it seems, after the Hizbollah staged its reckless and lethal 12 July assault, to destroy the infrastructure of Lebanon and the lives of more than 400 of its innocents. But hold on a moment. When the IRA used to cross the Irish border to kill British soldiers - which it did - did Blair and his cronies blame the Irish Republic's government in Dublin? Did Blair order the RAF to bomb Dublin power stations and factories? Did he send British troops crashing over the border in tanks to fire at will into the hill villages of Louth, Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal? Did Blair then demand an international, Nato-led force to take over a buffer zone - on the Irish, not the Northern Ireland side, of the border?

Of course not. But Israel has special privileges afforded to no other civilised nation. It can do exactly what Blair would never have done - and still receive the British Government's approbation. It can trash the Geneva Conventions - because the Americans have done that in Iraq - and it can commit war crimes and murder UN soldiers like the four unarmed observers who refused to leave their post under fire.
 

IRAQ: Car bomb rocks protected enclave housing US and British consulates in Kirkuk
 

Lebanon: 34 youths among 56 dead in Israeli attack: ... Security officials said the toll rose dramatically after 18 people from two families were found in a single room of the building, where dozens of people had been taking refuge from the fighting.

Infuriated Lebanese officials said they had asked Rice to postpone [her] visit ...
 

Mike Whitney, The “Honest Broker’s” Plan for occupying Southern Lebanon: “The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually ever talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised quite a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It is a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.” Harold Pinter; Nobel Prize acceptance speech 12-7-05

The United States participation in the conflict precludes it from participating in any settlement of the dispute. The administration cannot be trusted as an “honest broker”.

President Bush and Tony Blair have come up with a plan for sending a UN multinational force into southern Lebanon to provide a buffer-zone for Israel.

The real motive behind the initiative is to “militarize” the area south of the Litani River and “ethnically cleanse” the predominantly Muslim population. This is how Bush intends to stealthily annex more Lebanese land and create a new de-facto northern border for Israel.

Hezbollah should reject this offer outright as a violation of its national sovereignty and an obvious attempt occupy its southern flank.

If Bush and Blair believe that this is a reasonable offer, then they should not object to “militarizing” the ’67 borders between Israel and Palestine. That would force Israel to accept the “unanimous ruling of the international body” in resolution 242 demanding that Israel withdraw to the pre-war borders. Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah would undoubtedly give greater consideration to the present plan if the UN demonstrated that it was as willing to provide the same security guarantees for the Palestinians as it is for the Israelis.

Let the multinational force protect the Palestinians first; then, we’ll see.
 

Meanwhile, the effects of war on the poor filthy rich . . .
Steve Watson, Global Oil Scam: War, Disaster, Lower Living Standards Mean Mega Profits
 

Blair to attend Bohemian Grove This Weekend?: The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The tony, private event, a five-day management retreat for 250 executives of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is set to bring together a VIP guest list for the ages to chat about issues like volunteerism, technology and politics. Among them: Blair, Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers and even U2 lead singer and international do-gooder Bono.

Introducing Blair to the crowd on Sunday evening will be California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. ...

COMMENT re above:
Check out
- the photo
- the guest list
Assess the importance of "volunteerism" to the attending luminaries.
 

Israelis Bomb Another UN Base, Two Wounded
 

US military rules of engagement on trial in Iraqi killing case... [T]he soldiers involved claim they were operating under orders to "kill all military age males."
 

Truth-About-Iraqis, Lebanon's mass graves: Kudos to Lebanon's President and Prime Minister who told the whore Condi Rice to refrain from coming to Lebanon. They both directly blamed her for scuttling any hopes of a ceasefire resolution weeks ago.
 

xymphora, Offence dressed as defense
 

Al-Jazeera.info, Statement by Workers in the Public Cultural Sphere in Lebanon - We the undersigned declare:

1) Our conscious support for the Lebanese national resistance as it wages a war in defense of our sovereignty and independence, a war to release Lebanese imprisoned in Israel, a war to safeguard the dignity of the Lebanese and Arab people.

2) Our unambiguous refutation of the logic that accuses HizbAllah of having provided the "pretext" for the Israeli invasion. ...

3) Our staunch condemnation of official American support for, and contribution to, the Israeli aggression. ...

4) Our utter rejection of the Lebanese government’s decision to "not adopt" the Lebanese Resistance operation, thereby stripping the Resistance of political credibility before the adversarial international powers, when it behooved that government to deem the said operation as consistent with its Ministerial Proclamation in support of the liberation of the Lebanese prisoners in Israel, of Shebaa Farms, and of Kfar Shuba.

We the undersigned, in declaring our intentions, also therefore, call upon:

1) The Lebanese government, which we want to see leading a sovereign, democratic state for all Lebanese, to realize its full responsibilities, especially in terms of embracing the Lebanese Resistance in diverse ways, and particularly after the clarification of Israel’s plan to destroy the infrastructure, institutions, and political entity of Lebanon.

2) Arab intellectuals to stand beside the Lebanese Resistance, to expose the Zionist racist, supremacist impetus, and to document Israel’s crimes against Arabs since its founding. ...
[ . . . ]

Resistance is an intellectual act par excellence. That is because the goal of intellectual activity, like resistance, is to defend the values of justice and equality of all people. For this reason we, the undersigned, consider, regardless of our varying intellectual inclinations, cultural and critical activity an integral part of Lebanese national resistance, indeed of resistance to injustice anywhere in the world.
 

Lebanese Communist Party, Appeal for resisting the Zionist occupier and defending our land, and people
 

Pepe Escobar, The spirit of resistance: ... The Israeli army could not put down a Shi'ite guerrilla outfit in southern Lebanon - nor a bunch of stone-throwing Palestinian kids, for that matter. The US Army could not cope with a bunch of scruffy Sunni Arabs armed with fake Kalashnikovs. Sunnis or Shi'ites, stateless or in failed states, freedom fighters or "terrorists", they simply will not go away.

Pursuing their own logic, equally impatient Washington neo-cons and Israeli Likudniks would cherish nothing better than the wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, and then in Syria and Iran.

What happened in Iraq, and is still happening in Gaza and now in Lebanon, spells that the world will have to get used to a new reality. But against this, the asymmetricals will not only be lurking in the shadows; they will retaliate.
 

Al-Jazeera, BEIRUT: UN stormed amid fury over Qana bombing
 

Bravo -
UK anger over US bomb flights: Human rights activists are preparing to protest at a British airport against the refuelling of a US plane believed to be carrying bombs to Israel.
 

TWO POINTS of more than passing interest -

- Donald Neff, An Updated List of Vetoes Cast by the United States to Shield Israel from Criticism by the U.N. Security Council: Prior to the Nixon administration, the United States had never employed its veto power in the U.N. Security Council. It was first used March 17, 1970 over Southern Rhodesia. The second U.S. veto came two years later, when Washington sought to protect Israel from a resolution condemning Israel for one of its attacks on its neighbors. Since then, the United States has cast its veto a total of 39 times to shield Israel from Security Council draft resolutions that condemned, deplored, denounced, demanded, affirmed, endorsed, called on and urged Israel to obey the world body. (All 39 listed.)

- Jeffrey Blankfort, Partial List of Pro-Israeli Jews who Control the American Media (Staggering. Criminal. Cabal.)
 

A List of UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS against Israel, 1955-1992

[65 UN Resolutions listed]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Return to Resolution 425
[Linked Resolution 425, as follows]

Text: The Security Council, Taking note of the letters of the Permanent Representative of Lebanon (S/12600 and S/12606) and the Permanent Representative of Israel (S/12607), and having heard the statements of the Permanent Representatives of Lebanon and Israel. The Security Council is gravely concerned at the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East, and its consequences to the maintenance of international peace, convinced that the present situation impedes the achievement of a just peace in the Middle East.

The Security Council,
1.Calls for strict respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized boundaries;

2. Calls upon Israel immediately to cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory;

3. Decides, in the light of the request of the Government of Lebanon, to establish immediately under its authority a United Nations interim force for southern Lebanon for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area, the force to be composed of personnel drawn from States Members of the United Nations.

4. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Council within twenty-four hours on the implementation of this resolution.

United Nations Security Council - 03/19/1978

Update: 21 years later, Israel is still occupying part of South Lebanon "Shebaa Farms" and defying the Laws of the International Community by not withdrawing its forces from Lebanon.
Action Requested: Contact the United Nations and voice your outrage against this double standard policy the UN is adopting, ask them to order Israel out of Lebanon by force if necessary.
 

U.S. airstrike kills 2 militants in Iraq . . . the U.S. military said.
 

Peter Dale Scott, Review of 'The One Percent Doctrine': An honest analysis of U.S. strategy in Iraq must acknowledge [the] long-standing design for gaining control of Iraqi oil reserves, and the decade-long abuse of the false WMD issue as a means to this end. ... Suskind’s book, valuable as it is in detail and anecdote, obscures and indeed falsifies these fundamental issues.
 

Nat Parry, Biblical Pacifism to the Crusades: What the Crusades dramatically demonstrate though is the power of exploiting religion in order to advance political goals.

Michael Walzer, author of Just and Unjust Wars, argues that once a military conflict exceeds certain constraints and assumes a sweeping, all-encompassing mission – such as “spreading democracy” around the world – the conflict becomes a crusade, and therefore is an unjust war.
 

Brent Budowsky, War in the Age of 'Poodle-ism': Who ever thought that a Prime Minister of Britain would be nicknamed after a French dog? ...

Let's understand the strategy of the gentleman who is called by his country "Bush's poodle". The Blair vision is that Britain, having lost its Empire, will now be the intermediary between the United States and continental Europe, not the voice of conscience or experience.

With Blairism, it is immaterial who the American President is; Tony Blair views Britain's role as a supplicant more than a true partner, ...

If neoconservatism is the deadly danger to our security, the spread of "poodle-ism" is an equally deadly danger to our democracy. The checks and balances essential to our freedom were not only demeaned by the partisans; they were surrendered by Blair and by countless others who failed to do their duty.

Far too often, Democratic leaders embodied the politics of poodle-ism and at the decisive moment were indistinguishable from the neoconservatives pursuing their decade-long obsession of war in Iraq.

The answer to neoconservatism is not the way of the poodle, but the way of Jefferson, who valued the decent opinion of mankind; of Eisenhower, who understood the danger of the military industrial complex; of Kennedy, who spoke out against colonialism by the French and challenged us to combine the power of our force, with the force of our ideas; of Walesa, Havel, Mandela, and John Paul II who knew that the history of our times is not a matter of which empire dominates the world, but which spirit liberates the energies of people, in a world that hungers for freedom, and self-determination, without the arrogance of empire ... . (emphasis added)
 

Wayne Madsen, July 30, 2006 -- The Israeli propaganda machine, backed by its corporate media adjuncts in the United States, is once again spinning the generality that Hezbollah forces are hiding among the civilian population in Lebanon, thus justifying the massacres of women and children stuck in the war zone without any means of escape. Israel's ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman said today on Meet the Press that Hezbollah were using the 51 Lebanese, mostly women and children (including disabled children), killed by Israel today in the village of Qana were "human shields" taken by Hezbollah. Just as with the deliberate Israeli attack on a UN outpost in Khiyam that killed four UN blue helmet peacekeepers, Israel is blaming Hezbollah fighters as justification for Israel's policy of inflicting "collective punishment" on Lebanon. Collective punishment carried out by the Nazi leadership in occupied nations like France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia was considered a war crime by the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremburg, Germany and earned a number of war criminals an appointment with the gallows.

Gillerman, who is a close friend and collaborator of US envoy to the UN John Bolton in trashing the UN system, pushed the story, as have other Israeli and Bush neo-con officials, that one of the Canadian peacekeepers killed by the Israelis, Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, sent emails complaining about Hezbollah using the Khiyam outpost as a shield from Israeli attack. ...

On July 18, Major Hess-von Kruedener sent a single email to CTV in Canada describing the situation in Lebanon. Nowhere did he state that Hezbollah was using the UN outpost for cover -- in fact the officer states, "I cannot give you any info on Hezbollah position": (See Madsen for full text of Hess-von Kruedener email.)
 

Robert Fisk, Under fire in Beirut: I find that my handwriting briefly collapsed after the air attack on Thursday. I was so frightened that I could hardly write.
 

Pictures From Qana: "We want this to stop," shouted villager Mohammed Ismail. "May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting. They are hitting children to bring the fighters to their knees."
 

Officials: There 'aren't enough troops' to fix problems in Iraq: Military says 3,700 more troops are headed to Baghdad
 

Damian Lataan, WHY WAR WITH SYRIA IS INEVITABLE: The Israeli strategy of hitting Lebanese infrastructure and calling it ‘Hizbollah infrastructure’ in the hope that Hizbollah will crumble does not work because Hizbollah are not buildings or bridges or roads or airports but people. So far the Israelis have succeeded in killing well over 400 people; very few of them, however, are actually Hizbollah fighters. Rather than hit Hizbollah where it hurts, Israel in fact has done a very good job of demolishing what little goodwill the Lebanese people did have toward the Israelis. The Israelis can kiss that goodbye for many years to come. Israel has also succeeded in creating a new generation of Hizbollah fighters and volunteers. If Israel continues its occupation of southern Lebanon as it did before, then these new recruits will be the ones they will need to face in the future as they avenge the loss of parents, homes, land, jobs and ‘infrastructure’.

Meanwhile, Hizbollah will continue its battle against the Israelis as the Israelis attempt to create their buffer zone and to consolidate their position inside of southern Lebanon. ...

The only ‘sustainable peace’ that will be acceptable to the Israelis and their US allies is one where Israel continues to occupy and annex the Gaza and the West Bank on a permanent basis without interference from the Palestinians, the Lebanese or any of the surrounding Arab states – particularly Syria.

The aim of the Israeli attack on Hizbollah and the Lebanese people was to drag the Syrians into the war and get the US to attack Iran.

This is still yet to come. The Israelis had not expected Hizbollah to resist as long as they have in the face of such terrible bombardment and invasion without asking Syrian forces to help directly defend Lebanon. The Israelis, unable to accept their own surprise losses in their limited invasion of southern Lebanon, have faltered and reverted to aerial and artillery bombardment. They are losing in Lebanon despite the massive damage and loss of life. They now either need to pull back entirely and sue for peace or attack Syria and hope that the US will attack Iran.
 

Slide Show, Qana Massacre - SEE FOR YOURSELF. Those who cannot view the slide show, see images HERE.
 

Major General Smedley Butler, War Is A Racket (Indeed)
 

Cabinet in open revolt over Blair's Israel policy: The timing of the revolt is awkward for Blair, forcing him to choose whom to upset: his colleagues back home or his two main hosts on the five-day trip to the US. President Bush and Rupert Murdoch both back the Israeli military action. The Prime Minister is due to make a major speech in California today at a conference hosted by Murdoch. (Hard choice, Tony.)
 

Jordan's king accuses Israel of 'criminal aggression' in Qana attack
 

Iraqi Resistance Report (Excerpt), US Bulldozes Iraqi Historic District: US troops bulldoze 1,000-year old historic district in al-Qa'im, turn it into soccer [football] field.
 

Olmert to Rice: We need 10 more days of military operations
 

Wow... I don’t quite know what to make of this (Things to come, U.S.A.?)
 

TAREK EL-TABLAWY, Killing the Messenger: Israeli Air Force Targets and Kills Journalists in Southern Lebanon: The strikes in question were directed at television crews, especially those of the independent satellite channels Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya and the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar channel, said Ghassan Benjeddou, Al-Jazeera's Lebanon bureau chief.

While Israel-based journalists have generally been able to cover Israeli operations, live footage of the operations along the border on the Lebanese side are now virtually impossible, journalists have told the CPJ.
 

Prof. Tanya Reinhart, Israel's "New Middle East" - Israel's plan is to annex southern Lebanon and establish a puppet regime in Beirut
 

Andre Damon, Declassified archives document ties between CIA and Nazis
 

Aseem Shrivastava, The Iraq War is a Huge Success; The Economics of Creative Destruction (Indeed. Just set aside that handy 'Life Is Sacred' smokescreen. )
 

"Killing people is like squashing an ant:" former US soldier (Just one 'Bad Apple'?)
 

Rice's mission marred by Israeli attack: "I think it's time to get a cease-fire."
 

Israel OKs 48-Hour Suspension of Aerial Activity: Images of children's bodies tangled in the building's ruins and being carried away on blankets or wrapped in plastic sheeting were aired on Arab news networks.
 

Condoleezza Rice: Midwife from Hell
 

Video animation, An Unfair War - Escape to where?
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" - Mahatma Gandhi

[Text]
My family just left.
They begged me to go with them. “We have to escape,” they said.
Escape to where? The entire country is on fire. There’s nowhere to escape to.
I understand though. They don’t want to die. They don’t want me to die.
They want to go back to the day before the bombs dropped.
When they didn’t spend every moment thinking about death.
Grey clouds cover the sky. I haven’t seen the sun for a week.
I hope it doesn’t rain. Rain would turn the ground to mud. It would slow my family’s movement.
If they stop moving, they’ll be killed. I hope they’ll be safe.
My family understood why I needed to stay.
I’m not afraid to die, for I am a writer.
My only fear is not being able to finish my story.
I need to tell the world what is happening here.
I need to tell you all that our buildings are destroyed, our land is barren, our lives ruined.
That whoever wins this war will claim a once-beautiful country which has been reduced to nothing.
To the foreign soldiers I ask: Why do you come and burn our land? Destroy our homes? Kill us?
Why do you wait until dark to drop your bombs onto our schools and hospitals?
Why do you hide your faces beyond masks, your bodies behind walls, and shoot us from a distance?
What did we do to you?
I am so angry.
It’s unfair that innocent people are dragged into a war that they didn’t start, didn’t want.
I don’t care who wins. I don’t care if I’m “defended” or “liberated”. I just want my life back.
When I could walk down the street without the sound of gunfire in the distance.
When I could sleep at night without being awoken by air-sirens.
It’s unfair that my life is being taken away from me on a whim by foreigners who pretend they are God.
God wouldn’t let innocent people die.
They expect me to sacrifice my livelihood, my home, my life for their vision.
I don’t care about your vision.
That may be selfish, but it’s no more selfish than your desire to wage this war.
When you read this, know that too many people have died for no reason.
People who have never fought in a war, never fired a gun, never trained to kill.
Know that if they had a chance, they would have begged for their country, their home, their lives.
But you brought this war upon us. We never had a chance.
We never had a choice.
The guns are getting louder. I hope my family have escaped.
The explosions are coming from the east.
I’m… I’m sure they went west.
Please, don’t let it rain.
I have so much to say. I have to tell you about myself.
My experience. My dreams.
My childhood, where I went to school, why I became a writer and where . . . [explosion]


I have to write faster.
I have to prove my existence with my words.
I have to prove that I’m a person, just like you, with hopes and fears and the . . . [final explosion]
 

Bodies Pulled From Wreckage in Lebanon: Abu Shadi Jradi pulled bodies out of wreckage for hours - two toddler girls wearing tiny gold earrings, a small boy whose pale blue pacifier still hung from his neck. Somewhere in the middle, Jradi slumped beneath a tree and wept.

"There are so many children, so many children."
 

G-d damn the Israeli war mongers.
G-d damn the American war mongers.
G-d damn all the war mongers.
 

Video (3 min.) Report From Qana Massacre: Witnesses said the early-morning strike hit the three-storey building where families had been sheltering in the basement, crushing it sideways into an enormous crater.

One survivor said the "bombing was so intense that no-one could move".

Elderly, women and children were among those killed in the raid, which wrought destruction over a wide area.
 

Mike Whitney, More “Birth Pangs” in Rice's “New Middle East”: “A woman in a red-patterned dress lay crumpled and lifeless in the broken masonry. A leg poked out from the shattered concrete nearby. A medic carried a dead child in his arms from the rubble. Other children lay dead in the streets.” Reuters; scenes form the Israeli attack at Qana

“We are a moral government. We are a moral people.” Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, speaking on ABC “This Week” 7-30-06

Already the nascent public relations campaign is in full swing. Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burns appeared on the Sunday talk shows defending Israeli aggression as the necessary path to achieving a “durable peace”. In the Orwellian-world of Bush doublespeak, a “sustainable cease-fire” is a tacit endorsement of perennial war. Washington’s “green light” to Israel has already turned Lebanon into a basket case; its pristine coastline is awash in oil, its main industries are hobbled or ruined outright, and its civilian infrastructure is in tatters. Now, we can add war crimes to the list of triumphs in the “Bush-Olmert Lebanon policy”.

The attack on Qana was motivated by revenge. After the IDF was rebuffed by Hezbollah guerillas at Bint Jubail last week, Olmert and his cast of blundering military advisors decided to “exact their pound of flesh” by recreating the massacre they staged 10 years ago at the same location. Just like today, the attack was purposely directed at people who sought refuge at a “clearly marked” United Nations shelter. In the April 18, 1996 attack 106 Lebanese civilians were killed. As Global Reaserch.ca reports, “The July 2006 attack on the Qana UN shelter replicates with meticulous accuracy the April 1996 IAF operation, entitled ‘The Grapes of Wrath’”.

We are now, perhaps, just one crisis away from the whole, rickety scaffolding of American imperialism crashing to the ground in a heap. Imagine if riots were to spontaneously break out in Riyadh or Cairo tomorrow? The puppet regimes in the Gulf States would fall like dominos leaving the American oil giants with the dismal prospect of buying their oil on the open market rather than extracting it at gunpoint.

Hezbollah has become the de-facto Lebanese National Army; the only force ready to engage the Israeli invasion from the south and defend Lebanon’s sovereignty.
 

Issa Khalaf, The Pathology Of Israeli Power: The Zionist state of Israel seems to be in moral, political, and psychiatric free fall. Unfortunately, its self-imploding, overweening arrogance and terrifyingly dangerous actions are supported by an equally militant government in Washington and a Western world intent on accommodating its violent delusions, not to mention the growing extremism among the organized American Jewish community in support of Israel. ...

Israel is an ethnic state, with an ethno-religious-nationalist-messianic ideology, based on group identity, not individual rights, whose institutionalized preference is for Jewish superiority, disallowing the possibility of equality for a systematically and sophisticatedly excluded and discriminated against Arab minority. ...

Michel Warschawski suggests that these contradictions are dealt with through, one, "denial" leading to schizophrenia . . . manifested by the racism and violence and ethnic cleansing and torture and collective punishment of Palestinians and by their general invisibility within Israeli society itself; and two, through "personalized legislation," that is, the malleability, in the absence of a constitution, of easily changeable electoral and other laws in the "absence of the concept of rights" in Israel.

The pathological tension between absolute, unconstrained power, aggressiveness, defiance and victimhood, existential fear, and insecurity, produce the violence inherent in the Israeli state. On one level, the stubborn presence of the Palestinians challenges the denial mechanisms and leads to the drive to extirpate the cultural, political, and physical presence of the Other so as not to be reminded of oneself, one's humanity. Israelis are conscious of the fact that their state was created at the original and continuing expense of the Palestinians, through force, but react to this psychosis by denial and violence. ...

Regardless of how one sees it, the end result is, as Israeli observers themselves have commented, a barbarization, moral decline or debasement, of Israeli society. How could it be otherwise, what with a Zionist ideology that, from its origin, treated the Palestinians with cruelty, disdain, violence, and loathing, traits common to all colonial-settler societies. And with the state since 1948 having so thoroughly indoctrinated Israeli society, through wars and manipulation of existential fears, occupation and relentlessly violent oppression. ...
 

Uri Avnery, A nice little war: As has been said before: it is much easier to start a war than to finish one. The cabinet believes that it controls the war, but in reality it is the war that controls them. They have mounted a tiger, and can't be sure of getting off without being torn to pieces.
 

Mohamed Khodr, Qana 1996, Qana 2006 and The Arab Dis-League: While America supports all of Israel's military massacres, the Arab world runs and begs America for help and protection from Israel. The very same Judeo-Christian world that massacres and occupies Muslim land is the same world the Arab and Muslim world go to beg for mercy. What an embarrassing, self disrespecting and humiliating spectacle. But despite our oil wealth, our enlightened courageous leaders, our submissive masses, and our collusion with America for protection; what can we expect? Qana I in 1996 and Qana II in 2006 happened under the cover of the "Peace Process", "The Road Map", the "Saudi Arab League Surrender Plan", and Arab condemnation of Hezbollah. After all who cares about the Lebanese and Palestinians; they've been an Arab nuisance to Israel for decades.
 

Pentagon Plans To Sell $4.6 Billion In Arms To Friendly Arab Nations: The Pentagon said in a required notice to Congress, "The proposed sale and upgrade will allow Saudi Arabia to operate and exercise a more lethal and survivable M1A2S tank for the protection of critical infrastructure."
 

New maximum-security jail to open at Guantanamo Bay
 

Transcript, Meet the Press (July 30, '06) -
MR. RUSSERT: ... We are joined by the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations; Dan Gillerman is joining us.

You’ve just heard these reports. The prime minister of Lebanon has called for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire. Will Israel agree to that?

MR. GILLERMAN: ... If Hezbollah wasn’t there, this would never have happened.

And I wouldn’t put it beyond that vicious, brutal, cynical terrorist organization to have held those people there against their will after we’d repeatedly asked them to leave, so that they would actually be used as human shields, and maybe even, as farfetched as this may sound, for this to happen, because this serves nobody’s purpose, except Hezbollah and Iran.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Ambassador, you heard Richard Engel say that in his view, many of the people there in Qana could not leave because they had no automobiles, they did not have any money, they were forced to stay there. And what has happened around the world, as you know, you heard the Lebanese prime minister say this is Israeli massacre, Israeli are war criminals. The European Union said today nothing can justify this attack. The Arab League said this is Israeli aggression. King Abdullah of Jordan said it’s an ugly crime. Mubarak of Egypt said it’s irresponsible; the French said unjustified; the British said dreadful and appalling. Are you losing world opinion against Israel in a rather dramatic fashion this morning?

MR. GILLERMAN: ...

I must remind you that today alone 115 Katyusha rockets were fired at Israel. The difference is that they fire them specifically to target civilians. We fire in order to destroy Hezbollah strongholds. That is the difference between us. For us, every dead Lebanese child is a horrible mistake and a tragedy. ...

This is part of the war against terror. We are fighting this, not just for ourselves, but for the rest of the world. And when we have brutal and cynical enemies who use children and women as human shields, who use homes in order to fire missiles from, there will not be peace. There will not be peace until the terrorists learn to love their children more than they hate us.

MR. RUSSERT: You said on--12 days ago, “The Hezbollah needs to be totally eliminated.” Is that still the policy of Israel, the total elimination of Hezbollah?

MR. GILLERMAN: When I said eliminated, I really meant totally disarmed. ...

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Ambassador, as you well know, there’s been a lot of criticism about Israel attacking the Beirut airport, a Lebanese Air Force base. The Lebanese government, not Hezbollah, the Lebanese government, has put out this map which indicates that they say where the Israelis have bombed throughout Lebanon, and all those red dots indicate there’s bombing been, not just in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah strongholds, but throughout the entire country. Do you dispute that?

MR. GILLERMAN: No, I don’t dispute that. ... Hezbollah is not just in the south, Hezbollah is everywhere, including in Beirut, including in southern Beirut. It is controlling most of Lebanon. It has headquarters and logistics centers and arms caches all over Lebanon.

That is why it is so difficult to distinguish, and that is why we had to go for Hezbollah strongholds and headquarters in places far beyond southern Lebanon, because we had to try and cut off the arms supply. ... We may be doing the dirty work and paying a very high price, but we’re doing it for the rest of the world, to rid it of this danger directed from Tehran and from Damascus, not just at the hearts of our children and our citizens, but at the heart of civilization as we know it.

MR. RUSSERT: Noah Feldman in today’s New York Times Magazine—he’s a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations—talked about what the catch for Israel is, and he writes this, “The catch for Israel is that, taken too far, the strategy of making all Palestinians and all Lebanese pay for the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah may well backfire. Destroying the economic prosperity that had begun to return to Lebanon is likely to generate fresh hatred of Israel, and Palestinians under the gun have in recent years tended to become more radicalized, not less. ... Hamas and Hezbollah may have sparked this round of fighting, but the bombs raining down on their cities and the soldiers in their bases still come from Israel, and no one likes to be bombed.”

Have, in fact, the actions of the Israelis, despite, as you would describe, your intentions to try to clean out Hezbollah, backfired and radicalized not only people who dispose for Hezbollah, but Christians and Sunni Muslims in Lebanon who now hate Israel more than they hate Hezbollah?

MR. GILLERMAN: ...

And, quite frankly, I’m not sure that the Palestinians or the Hezbollah need any incentive to hate us. When you look at their curriculum, when look—when you look at the books their children read at school, when you look at the horrible incitement which is in there, you realize that these people are taught and born and raised and educated to hate us. ...

We have nothing against them. We have no fight with the Palestinian people; we have no quarrel with the Lebanese people. We want a prosperous, vibrant, entrepreneurial, prosperous Lebanon next to us. But in order for that to happen, they have to rid themself of that horrible monster which has grown within them and which, at the end of the day, has caused them so much pain and suffering over the years. ...

MR. RUSSERT: This, as you know, this is day 19. Has this been a much more difficult, tougher military exercise than you had expected?

MR. GILLERMAN: ...

And the reason that it’s taking so long, Tim—and that has to be very made, made very clear—is because we’re being very cautious. ... We could’ve sent in and totally erased those villages. We’re paying the price of our soldiers for the sensitivity, for the caution, and for the care which we are showing in order not to hurt civilians. ...
-----------------

Also interviewed:
The Lebanese special envoy, Ambassador Nouhad Mahmoud, and Thomas Friedman. Recommended: Ambassador Mahmoud.
Admitted: Thos. Friedman I skipped, both in word and in print.
 

Arab News, For A New Mideast Where There Is No Resistance to Occupation: America will agree to a cease-fire only when Hezbollah is ready to surrender. The conditions of this cease-fire will form the basis of a unilateral disengagement plan with Lebanon and Syria. Israel wants to eliminate the need for negotiated solutions with the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. The new game plan is to have its security guaranteed by United Nations resolutions.

All of a sudden Israel has become so keen on implementing the will of the international community as stated in Resolution 1559. What happened to all the other resolutions like 242, 338 and so many others that called on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories and to allow all refugees to return to their homes? How about deploying an international force in Gaza and the West Bank?

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has the right idea. He called for declaring all peace initiatives in the Middle East as dead. He wants all the Arab countries to go back to the United Nations and simply ask for the implementation of the resolutions UN had passed on the Middle East conflict.
 

MALAYSIA: Former PM Tells World To Use Dollar Weapon To Pressure Washington
 

Video (3:55), The Qana Massacre - Please note: the video contains disturbing images of dead children.
 

U.N. council: 'Shock' over Lebanon deaths: The U.N. Security Council called Sunday for an end to violence in Lebanon and expressed "extreme shock and distress" over Israel's bombing of civilians in the village of Qana which killed 56 people, almost all of them women and children.

But the presidential statement, adopted unanimously by the 15-member council in an emergency session, stopped short of condemning the Israeli airstrike Sunday.
 

Dahr Jamail, "If You Haven't Left, You're Hezbollah"
 

Iran forces urged to prepare to hit Israel
 

Hamas vows attacks after Qana raids
 

Bush, speaking before the start of a children’s baseball game, urges Mideast peace “for the sake of children”
 

Who's Arming Israel? Israel receives about $3 billion in US military and economic aid per annum.

Given the billions of dollars of aid it provides to Israel every year and the central role of U.S.-supplied weaponry in the Israeli arsenal, the United States has considerable leverage that it could use to promote a cease fire in the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah before more Israeli and Lebanese civilians are killed and displaced.
 

Wayne Madsen, July 30, 2006 -- LATE EDITION -- WMR's sources in Lebanon report that civilian deaths in Lebanon from incessant Israeli attacks are far more than what is being reported by the corporate media. Over 850 civilians, forty percent of them children, have been killed by the Israelis. Many more are unaccounted for because Israeli forces attack any heavy equipment and rescue teams sent south to clear away rubble from destroyed buildings.

We have also been told by Lebanese intelligence sources that U.S. and Israeli agents are attempting to foment strife among displaced internal Lebanese refugees against the central Lebanese government in an attempt to further destabilize Lebanese society. Much of this U.S. and Israeli-sponsored provocation among the internal refugees is being carried out by ex-Lebanese Forces militias loyal to convicted right-wing Phalangist war criminal Samir Geagea, a follower of pro-Israeli Gen. Michel Aoun. Geagea was freed from prison last year after a general amnesty and he moved to the Lebanese mountains, where he reportedly is now receiving direct CIA and Mossad support in his efforts to stir up violence among refugees. Among other crimes, Geagea was jailed for his role in the assassinations of Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami; Tony Franjieh, the son of Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh; and former President Camille Chamoun's son Danny, his wife, and two young sons. The destabilization of Lebanon is designed to spill violence across the border into Syria, thus justifying an Israeli-U.S. strike on that country.
 

(I watched this superlative program yesterday. HIGHLY recommended.)
Call the Neocons, Mention 9/11 Panel: A grand slam — a surprise fourth broadcast of the landmark Alex Jones Los Angeles 9/11 panel will take place on Tuesday, August 1 at 6:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time (Washington-New York time).

This telecast can be seen worldwide over the internet as a video stream over the internet at
http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp [ . . . ]

It would appear that a faction of the ruling class may actually desire to turn back from the catastrophic abyss of thermonculear World War III — let us exploit this opportunity with all our energy. The official 9/11 Big Lie is collapsing around the ears of Bush, Cheney, the necons, and the invisibles who run them.

The worldwide 9/11 truth movement is in the ascendant — now let us drive the neocon fascist madmen from public life once and for all. The impeachment of Bush-Cheney & Co. for their 9/11 crimes has never been closer.

Webster G. Tarpley
 

BARCODES beginning with

729

= GOODS MADE IN ISRAEL.


B O Y C O T T