- Signs of the Times for Wed, 02 Aug 2006 -



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Editorial: Third of Americans suspect 9-11 government conspiracy

Scripps Howard News Service
02/08/2006

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger against the federal government is at record levels, with 54 percent saying they "personally are more angry" at the government than they used to be.

Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appears to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were "an inside job" - the common phrase used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet - quickly have become nearly as popular as decades-old conspiracy theories that the federal government was responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination and that it has covered up proof of space aliens.

Seventy percent of people who give credence to these theories also say they've become angrier with the federal government than they used to be.

Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."

"One out of three sounds high, but that may very well be right," said Lee Hamilton, former vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also called the 9/11 commission.) His congressionally appointed investigation concluded that federal officials bungled their attempts to prevent, but did not participate in, the attacks by al Qaeda five years ago.

"A lot of people I've encountered believe the U.S. government was involved," Hamilton said. "Many say the government planned the whole thing. Of course, we don't think the evidence leads that way at all."

The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans speculate that secretly planted explosives, not burning passenger jets, were the real reason the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.

Conspiracy groups for at least two years have also questioned why the World Trade Center collapsed when fires that heavily damaged similar skyscrapers around the world did not cause such destruction. Sixteen percent said it's "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that "the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings." [...]

Original
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Editorial: The Olives Have Not Departed

Lebanese poet, Ghassan Matar
Translation by As'ad AbuKhalil

Lebanese poet, Ghassan Matar, wrote this poem (The Olives Have Not Departed) yesterday on the massacre of Qana (my translation):

"The Monster is hiding
And Qana, the dark-skinned girl
is sleeping by her grandmother
dreaming of pretty butterflies
and toys
and flying in a field of olives
she sits under a water wheel
to lift up her hair,
and she sees lighted grapes
like tablets of gold,
and she sees her father
embedded in the rock
embracing his rifle,
and in his eyes are
flags of dignity and rage,
she gets scared, and wakes up,
she seeks protection in her
grandmother's arm,
she tries to sleep,
and before she falls asleep
the planes raid,
and the flesh sink in a sea
of flames and fire
only her shoe remains,
she kissed it,
and dipped it in her blood,
and I threw it in the face of Arab rulers.
They cut the bridges to you,
did words arrive
or did they prevent words
from crossing
I did not use to cry,
but I bowed down before your wounds
to pick up what splattered from incense
and you whispered to me:
"bullets did not make me bleed
they cross from my veins to my homeland,
what made me bleed are betrayal and debauchery"
I don't own what can bandage,
o you who are spotted on the forehead,
I own the flames of love,
will that suffice
will it make you forget your wound?
Or shall I also add the love of refugees
who refuse the humiliation of those
who loved the graves?
Extend your hand to mine
Between us are roads, valleys, and rivers
and a land of wounds and light
extend your hand
and look how the processions are
crossing toward your glory,
the wounds are the bridges,
olives have not gone,
They extended their shade over the South
and slept standing
and said to those who asked:
"This sand is my father,
I was born at his hands
and lived in it
and my father stays here
and he has not departed
and has not abandoned his kids
And I am here staying
Maybe tomorrow a child
who survived the wound of Qana
will come.
Who but me will direct him
if he asks about his father"

Original
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Editorial: The refugees' fury will be felt for generations to come

Karma Nabulsi
Wednesday August 2, 2006
The Guardian

Israel is seeking to cast itself as the victim even as it expels the people of Lebanon and Gaza from their homes

People walk the dusty, broken roads in scorching summer heat, taking shelter in the basements of empty buildings. In Gaza and Lebanon, in the refugee camps of Khan Younis, Rafah and Jabaliya, in Tyre and Beirut, in Nabatiyeh and Sidon, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children seek refuge. As they flee, they risk the indiscriminate wrath of an enemy driven by an existential mania that can not be assuaged, only stopped. Ambulances are struck, humanitarian relief convoys are struck, UN observers are struck. Warning leaflets are dropped from the sky urging people to abandon their homes, just as they were in 1996, 1982, 1978, 1967 and 1948. The ultimately impossible decision in Gaza and Lebanon today is: where does a refugee go?

In Beirut in July 1982, after surviving a bomb that destroyed a seven-floor apartment block next door to me, burying alive more than 40 people taking refuge in its cellar, some of us began to sleep on the roof; there is no refuge from this terror, there is only resistance. Fifteen of the 37 children killed in Qana on Sunday were disabled; their families could take them no further north, according to the Lebanese MP Bahia Hariri.

From June to August 1982, Israeli aircraft flying over Lebanon dropped "smart bombs" on children's hospitals in Shatila camp, Gaza hospital, Acre hospital and 11 of the country's orphanages, killing dozens of disabled children. They had nowhere else to shelter. The roofs had been painted with huge white crosses visible from the sky.

That war did not give Israel the security it claims to seek, and nor will this one. In 1948 Palestinians fled after hearing news of the massacres in villages by Haganah forces and receiving leaflets dropped from the sky telling them to run for their lives. This week their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are being killed with impunity in the refugee camps of Gaza, where they are trapped. Last Friday alone more than 30 Palestinians were killed, with no international condemnation and barely a mention in the press. In Qana they were also trapped. "We couldn't get out of our neighbourhood because there are only two roads leading out and the Israelis bombed them both several days ago," said Mohammad Shalhoub, a disabled 41-year-old survivor.

The US and Britain are claiming that no ceasefire is possible until there is an international force that will implement United Nations resolution 1559. Yet the Lebanese prime minister issued a seven-point plan in Rome last week, consistent with international law and agreed by all elected parties in Lebanon (including Hizbullah), that had as its first requirement an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. It is implementation of the dozens of UN resolutions that Israel has flouted for more than 50 years with protection from the US - and now from Britain - that will stop this conflict.

The capture of a soldier from an occupying army in Gaza, and of two soldiers on the Lebanese border by local resistance, in an attempt to force the release of thousands of illegally detained Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, should have been dealt with by Israel in the framework of the laws of war and with a proportional response. Instead, by launching this massive attack, Israel has destroyed the social and economic infrastructure of a sovereign nation, Lebanon, just as it is destroying the infrastructure of a democratically elected administration in occupied Palestine.

It is producing generations of refugees who will also resist. Power stations, bridges, key manufacturing and food factories in Lebanon are ruined, the entire industrial estate of Gaza pulverised. The ancient city centre of Nablus has been demolished. Whole villages in south Lebanon and sections of refugee camps in Gaza have been obliterated. These too are war crimes. If Britain will not stop Israel, nor condemn it, then under the Geneva conventions it is complicit in those crimes.

Before seeking the implementation of UN resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of Hizbullah, Britain must seek with more sincerity the implementation of UN security council resolutions 242 and 338, which demand the immediate withdrawal of Israel from lands illegally occupied in the 1967 war, including the Golan Heights, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. There is hardly a statesman or citizen in the world today who cannot see that it will take outside intervention to stop Israel inflicting this terror. Calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, and working towards the implementation of all UN resolutions addressing this conflict, will restore to the international community - and Britain in particular - the legitimacy it has squandered by allowing months of war crimes to go by, witnessed but uncondemned and unconstrained.

Israel has failed to understand that it cannot expel a people and call itself the victim; that it cannot conquer its neighbours and treat any and all resistance to that conquest as terrorism; that it cannot arm itself as a regional superpower and annihilate the institutional fabric of two peoples without incurring the fury of their children in the years that follow.

- Karma Nabulsi teaches politics and international relations at Oxford University. She is the author of Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance and the Law karmanabulsi@hotmail.com
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Editorial: End game between Israel and Hezbollah

By Gwynne Dyer
08/02/06 "Metro West Daily News"

The kill ratio is becoming a problem: Israel has been killing about 40 Lebanese civilians for every Israel civilian who is killed. They are all being killed by accident, of course, but such a long chain of accidents begins to look like carelessness, and even in Israel and the United States many people are getting uneasy about the slaughter. Elsewhere, the revulsion at what is happening is almost universal, and the death of so many women and children at Qana has greatly intensified the pressure on Israel and its de facto allies, the United States and Britain, to stop the war.

They are already making tactical concessions to lessen the pressure. Israel "partially suspended" its bombardment of Lebanon for 48 hours, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised to let the United Nations Security Council consider a resolution calling for a cease-fire this week. But Israel's generals still want another 10 days to two weeks of war to batter Hezbollah into submission, and neither Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or his loyal allies in Washington and London are really willing to override them yet.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz told parliament on Monday that Israel cannot accept a cease-fire now, since if it did so then "the extremists (Hezbollah) will rear their heads again." The U.S. and British governments have to dodge and weave a bit as doubts grow at home about the morality and feasibility of Israel's actions, but they can certainly arrange for the Security Council resolution to fail this week.

The real trick, in terms of keeping American and British public opinion on side, is to blur the sequence of events that led to the war and present it as a desperate Israeli struggle against an unprovoked onslaught by thousands of terrorist rockets. As Prime Minister Tony Blair told the BBC, "It cannot be that Israel stops taking the action it's taking but Hezbollah continue to kill, kidnap, and launch rockets into the north of Israel at the civilian population there."

The Web site of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs goes further, claiming that the operation in which Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others and the rain of Hezbollah rockets on Israeli cities were "simultaneous." Obviously, these are mad terrorists who must be removed from Israel's border at once by any means possible. But unless "simultaneous" means "on the following day" in Hebrew, the Web site is deliberately distorting what happened.

There WAS an unprovoked Hezbollah attack on the Israeli army on July 12, seeking to kidnap soldiers who could be held as hostages and eventually exchanged for Lebanese prisoners who have been illegally held in Israel since the latter ended its 18-year military occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000. And no doubt the reason Israel held onto those prisoners in the first place was to have them as hostages in some future prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. That's how the game is played locally.

In the course of grabbing the Israeli hostages on July 12, Hezbollah fired rockets and mortars at the northern Israeli town of Shlomi as a diversion, but nobody was hurt there. And apart from that, NO Hezbollah missiles struck Israel that day. Indeed, none had been fired at Israel for at least four years, although there were regular skirmishes between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters along the frontier. Hezbollah had the rockets, but they were not mad terrorists.

During the following 24 hours, however, Israel launched massive air strikes and artillery bombardments the length and breadth of Lebanon, striking Beirut airport, Lebanese air force bases, the Beirut-Damascus highway, a power station, and all sorts of other non-Hezbollah targets and killing many civilians. And it was only on July 13 that Hezbollah rockets begin to hit cities all across northern Israel.

Nobody has clean hands here. Israel seized on the kidnap operation as the pre for a massive onslaught aimed at destroying Hezbollah's resources and removing it from southern Lebanon -- a perfectly legitimate goal, in line with United Nations resolution 1559, but not one that the UN had envisaged as being accomplished by Israeli bombs. Hezbollah may just have been trying to raise its profile in Lebanon and the wider Arab world with a small but successful operation that humiliated the Israelis -- or it may have foreseen the likelihood of a massive Israeli over-reaction, and calculated that it could ride it out and win from it.

Whether that was its intention or not, it probably will ride it out and win. Having fired at least 90 missiles at Israeli cities every day but two since the war began -- though they only kill an average of one Israeli a day -- Hezbollah launched only two rockets on Monday (probably a crew that didn't get the message to stop in time). If there should be a cease-fire in the next week, it will emerge the victor, since no international peacekeeping force is going to fight the kind of campaign that would be required to dig it and its weapons out of south Lebanon's hills and villages.

And if there is no cease-fire, then the Israeli Defense Force will be granted a further opportunity to demonstrate that it cannot do so either. At least, not at a cost in Israeli soldiers' lives that would be remotely acceptable to the Israeli public.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
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Editorial: Qana Massacre...

Sunday, July 30, 2006
Riverbend
Baghdad Burning

Although the sun is blinding this time of year in our part of the world, the Middle East is seeing some of its darkest days...

I woke up this morning to scenes of carnage and destruction on the television and for the briefest of moments, I thought it was footage of Iraq. It took me a few seconds to realize it was actually Qana in Lebanon. The latest village to see Israeli air strikes. The images were beyond gruesome- body parts and corpses being hauled out from under tons of debris. Wailing relatives and friends, searching for loved ones... So far, according to humanitarian organizations, 34 were children. They killed them while they were sleeping inside their bomb shelters- much like the Amriya Shelter massacre in 1991.

We saw the corpses of the children on television, lifeless and twisted grotesquely, what remained of their faces frozen in expressions of pain and shock. I just sat there and cried in front of the television. I didn't know I could still feel that sort of sorrow towards what has become a daily reality for Iraqis. It's not Iraq but it might as well be: It's civilians under lethal attack; it's a country fighting occupation.

I'm so frustrated I can't think straight. I'm full of rage against Israel, the US, Britain, Iran and most of Europe. The world is going to go to hell for standing by and allowing the massacre of innocents. For God's sake, 34 children??? The UN is beyond useless. They've gone from a union of nations working for the good of the world (if they ever were even that), to a bunch of gravediggers. They're only good for digging mangled bodies out of the ruins of buildings and helping to identify and put them into mass graves. They won't stop a massacre- they won't even speak out against it- they'll just come by and help clean up the mess. Are the lives of Arabs worth so little? If this had happened in the US or UK or France or China, somebody would already have dropped a nuclear bomb... How is this happening?

Where is the Security Council??? Why haven't they stopped Israel? Ehud Olmert recently told Condi that he needs 10 to 14 more days of bloodshed- and nothing is being done about it! Where are the useless Arab leaders? Can't the pro-American, spineless emirs crawl out of their gold palaces long enough to condemn this taking of lives? Our presidents/leaders are only as influential as their oil barrels are deep.

And the world wonders how 'terrorists' are created! A 15-year-old Lebanese girl lost five of her siblings and her parents and home in the Qana bombing... Ehud Olmert might as well kill her now because if he thinks she's going to grow up with anything but hate in her heart towards him and everything he represents, then he's delusional.

Is this whole debacle the fine line between terrorism and protecting ones nation? If it's a militia, insurgent or military resistance- then it's terrorism (unless of course the militia, insurgent(s) and/or resistance are being funded exclusively by the CIA). If it's the Israeli, American or British army, then it's a pre-emptive strike, or a 'war on terror'. No matter the loss of hundreds of innocent lives. No matter the children who died last night- they're only Arabs, after all, right?

Right?
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Editorial: Israeli Propaganda: It's Everywhere

Signs of the Times
2 August 2006

CNN Font page showing Israeli biased headline
Click to enlarge


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Editorial: Spot The Difference - IDF Rocket, Hizb'allah Rocket

Rumourmill News
02/08/2006


In the eyes of the Israeli and American media these images appear to be identical. But looks can be deceiving sometimes.

There are actually some differences between the images.

Can you spot them all?



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Editorial: Israel Admits No Hizb'allah Rockets Fired From Qana

Haaretz
02/08/2006

The deaths of dozens of civilians in an Israel Air Force attack on the southern Lebanese village of Qana marked a significant diplomatic turning point against Israel, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Tuesday.

The foreign minister said that following the events in Qana, Israel's scope for political maneuvering had been reduced, as was the amount of European support Israel is receiving for its operation in Lebanese soil.

Livni said this change was exemplified in the "problematic" Russian and French stance towards Israel.

She said that despite the pictures of civilian casualties coming from Qana of it was important not to stray from implementing UN decision 1559.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to establish a state commission of inquiry into the killings at Qana.

As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident.

It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time.

The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday. Original
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Editorial: Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon

By Anders Strindberg
08/01/06 "Christian Science Monitor"

NEW YORK - As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism.

Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.

In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?

Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians.

Since June 25, when Palestinian fighters captured one Israeli soldier and demanded a prisoner exchange, Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinians. Like the Lebanese situation, that flare-up was detached from its wider context and was said to be "manufactured" by the enemies of Israel; more nonsense proffered in order to distract from the apparently unthinkable reality that it is the manner in which Israel was created, and the ideological premises that have sustained it for almost 60 years, that are the core of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict.

Once the Arabs had rejected the UN's right to give away their land and to force them to pay the price for European pogroms and the Holocaust, the creation of Israel in 1948 was made possible only by ethnic cleansing and annexation. This is historical fact and has been documented by Israeli historians, such as Benny Morris. Yet Israel continues to contend that it had nothing to do with the Palestinian exodus, and consequently has no moral duty to offer redress.

For six decades the Palestinian refugees have been refused their right to return home because they are of the wrong race. "Israel must remain a Jewish state," is an almost sacral mantra across the Western political spectrum. It means, in practice, that Israel is accorded the right to be an ethnocracy at the expense of the refugees and their descendants, now close to 5 million.

Is it not understandable that Israel's ethnic preoccupation profoundly offends not only Palestinians, but many of their Arab brethren? Yet rather than demanding that Israel acknowledge its foundational wrongs as a first step toward equality and coexistence, the Western world blithely insists that each and all must recognize Israel's right to exist at the Palestinians' expense.

Western discourse seems unable to accommodate a serious, as opposed to cosmetic concern for Palestinians' rights and liberties: The Palestinians are the Indians who refuse to live on the reservation; the Negroes who refuse to sit in the back of the bus.

By what moral right does anyone tell them to be realistic and get over themselves? That it is too much of a hassle to right the wrongs committed against them? That the front of the bus must remain ethnically pure? When they refuse to recognize their occupier and embrace their racial inferiority, when desperation and frustration causes them to turn to violence, and when neighbors and allies come to their aid - some for reasons of power politics, others out of idealism - we are astonished that they are all such fanatics and extremists.

The fundamental obstacle to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is that we have given up on asking what is right and wrong, instead asking what is "practical" and "realistic." Yet reality is that Israel is a profoundly racist state, the existence of which is buttressed by a seemingly endless succession of punitive measures, assassinations, and wars against its victims and their allies.

A realistic understanding of the conflict, therefore, is one that recognizes that the crux is not in this or that incident or policy, but in Israel's foundational and per- sistent refusal to recognize the humanity of its Palestinian victims. Neither Hizbullah nor Hamas are driven by a desire to "wipe out Jews," as is so often claimed, but by a fundamental sense of injustice that they will not allow to be forgotten.

These groups will continue to enjoy popular legitimacy because they fulfill the need for someone - anyone - to stand up for Arab rights. Israel cannot destroy this need by bombing power grids or rocket ramps. If Israel, like its former political ally South Africa, has the capacity to come to terms with principles of democracy and human rights and accept egalitarian multiracial coexistence within a single state for Jews and Arabs, then the foundation for resentment and resistance will have been removed. If Israel cannot bring itself to do so, then it will continue to be the vortex of regional violence.

Anders Strindberg, formerly a visiting professor at Damascus University, Syria, is a consultant on Middle East politics working with European government and law-enforcement agencies. He has also covered Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories as a journalist since the late 1990s, primarily for European publications.
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The Big Lie


A war of self-defense against mothers and children

Luciana Bohne
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Aug 1, 2006, 01:06

Israel's official justification for attacking Lebanon relies on the capture by Hizballah of two Israeli soldiers in disputed border territories. The massive military retaliation on Lebanon and the refusal to concede to international calls for a cease-fire show that Israel has no interest in minimizing the effects of war on civilians -- Lebanese or Israelis -- and on life-sustaining infrastructures, which it targets with planned precision and some considerable "collateral damage."


Furthermore, its "disproportionate" use of force (I use the term "disproportionate," bean-counting obnoxious and paternalistic as it may be, in its legalistic, Geneva-Conventions sense) it must be recognized for what it is: an act of state terrorism. Terrorism, as we know by now, is defined in various US codes as the use of force against civilians to obtain political objectives. It was not Hizballah that launched the first round of this terror: they targeted military personnel to obtain the release of their prisoners in Israel -- a common military tactic between hostile forces.

Israel's all-out attack on a sovereign country, which had nothing to do with Hizballah's action nor had any power to control it, sets a record -- topping the already egregious example of Iraq -- for unprovoked imperial aggression and ratchets up the threshold of terror to which defenseless and blameless victims can be subjected by nations protected by the imperial umbrella of US power.

Too, the Lebanese people should draw conclusions in the interest of their future self-preservation from the consequences of US false democracy-building projects like the expulsion of Syria and the installation of a US-friendly regime in Lebanon, which left them unprotected against the latest attack. They should weigh the gifting of any alleged US democracy export against the relentless reality of the US onslaught for hegemony in the region.

The US is not an honest broker -- the Lebanese war proves it. Bunker-busters for Israel. No ceasefire for Lebanon. If anything, the US is Israel's dishonest broker for war and occupation, furnishing the funds and the weapons. As someone (most probably Gandhi) once noted of a previous empire, so it should be noted of the current one: "The sun never sets on the British Empire. Who would trust them in the dark?"

The US's conscious lies, proferred as democracy offerings, are calculated to open up the deceived countries to either military or economic aggression. In fact, the people of Lebanon, including 74 percent of Lebanese Christians, are already coming to the conclusion that Hizballah -- not the UN, the western democracies, the Arab states, the EU -- is their only defense against the unscrupulous might of the triple entente of the US, Britain, and Israel.

The world is aghast -- and rightly so -- at this inhuman scandal and triumphalist celebration in Lebanon of naked force by a state claiming to be defending itself against the existential threat of UN peacekeepers, ambulances, fleeing families, airports, bridges, ports, electrical grids, and water purifying plants. The threat seems to be Lebanese life itself and the object seems to be terrorizing the life out of the Lebanese people.

Imagine if Britain in the 1970s had found that two of its soldiers in Northern Ireland had been captured by the IRA and decided to "negotiate" their release by bombing Dublin and Ireland to smithereens in retaliation, claiming it was defending itself. Who would have believed that the objective of Britain was defensive? Britain could have argued, too, that the US was complicit with, perhaps even a sponsor of IRA terror, since a sizeable portion of IRA funds came from supporters in the US. Who could have blamed us if we assumed that the real target of Britain's assault was the US, that by killing Irish civilians it was sending a message to the US?

Such a scenario was unthinkable then and is unthinkable now.

For one thing, the Irish were Catholic -- though, from a Protestant point of view, unfortunately so. The IRA, though designated a "terrorist" group, were not pegged by official propaganda as enemies of western civilization. No one was calling Catholicism an irrational religion of war, intolerant of democracy -- though the claim might have easily found some solid evidence in a long history of Vatican opposition to democracy and freedom from autocratic rule. For another thing, the Irish as a Catholic people were not stigmatized as "untermenschen" quite to the degree that Arab-Muslims have been stigmatized by the Israeli-Anglo-American campaign to subjugate the Middle East.

Absent the complete demonization of the Irish people (and the smashing of British imperialism on all fronts), such an attack by Britain on Ireland was and remained unthinkable in modern times, though it had empowered Irish massacres in the past by the British in their thousand-year brutal domination and repression of Ireland.

Jonathan Swift, the eighteenth century writer and intellectual, advisor to Queen Anne of England, well understood that British policy toward Ireland was rooted in an internalized conception of the Irish as "sub-human." He wrote the infamously famous essay "A Modest Proposal" in which he served up to English readers the formula that, since they consumed Ireland's life to the point where life for the Irish was unsustainable, they should consider a proposal to buy, roast and eat Irish babies, like suckling pigs at their tenderest. In this way, the Irish problem would go away, while the modest fee of buying an infant to sup on would make, for a time, the Irish dependency self-paying.

Swift was deemed mad -- what, for holding up the mirror to England of the implications of its virtually cannibalistic policy toward Ireland? Why not make it literal -- as it, indeed, appeared to be.

Empires are finicky. Many videos depicting the reality of war in Lebanon made available on the Internet by progressive sites are preceded by a warning that the graphic content may be "disturbing" to some viewers. What an infinitely depraved and hypocritical society we live in! The killings our governments carry out in our name are indeed "disturbing," but, unlike our victims by proxy, we can choose not to see them. That was Swift's point -- and one we would do well to heed, if we want to prevent our descent into protective moral callousness, enabling the murder of innocents while we close our eyes to images of bloody dying and our ears to agonized cries for help. To force oneself to view the violence of our government and its protegees is the duty we owe to the prevention of violence. It is to bear witness to violence, the last comfort and ultimate right we owe to the slain.

Every war has its picture. Mine, in this cruelest, most heartless, and least excusable of all recent inexcusable wars is an image of a mother and a son -- a reversed "Pieta." You may have seen it. It is all over the Internet.

A woman, a mother, is dying, her eyes turned in the last, lingering sweetness of her now helpless love toward her young son, her white arm raised to touch his blood-streaked face, to calm his wildly sobbing and inconsolable grief, to soothe his desperate entreaties attempting to convince her not to die, while himself gripped by the dawning certainty that she is beyond recall. In the moment before her death, she is already far from the war, calm in the intimacy of her departure, her large, liquid eyes softened by the tender softness of a love that no war can kill, her sadness not for her fate but for his own.

This killing of mothers in Lebanon is not in any "self-defense." How could it be? I see no gun in the dying victim's hand nor in the hand of the orphan she leaves behind.

Luciana Bohne teaches film and literature at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at lbohne@edinboro.edu.




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Latest developments - Day 21 Of Israeli War Crimes in Labanon

Reuters News Agency
2 August 2006

Here are developments on Day 21 of the crisis in the Middle East:

# Israeli forces thrust into Lebanon in escalation of war and land troops by helicopter in Hezbollah heartland near Baalbek.
# Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has rejected international calls for immediate halt to hostilities, says he sees signs of movement toward ceasefire.
Here are developments on Day 21 of the crisis in the Middle East:
# Israeli forces thrust into Lebanon in escalation of war and land troops by helicopter in Hezbollah heartland near Baalbek.
# Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has rejected international calls for immediate halt to hostilities, says he sees signs of movement toward ceasefire.
# Olmert's deputy, Shimon Peres, says campaign could end in weeks.
# Israeli army says three Israeli soldiers die in fighting and five are wounded in cross-border fire. Hezbollah says it fired rockets at Matzuva in northern Israel.
# Israel's security cabinet agrees to step up offensive, entailing ground sweep seven kilometres into Lebanon, political source says.
# Israel says it will resume full air strikes in Lebanon early today at end of partial, 48-hour suspension.
# U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says ceasefire could be reached in Lebanon within days.
# UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reschedules for tomorrow a meeting of potential contributors for an international force. It had been postponed on Monday.
# EU calls for immediate halt to hostilities to be followed by sustainable ceasefire, watering down demands for an immediate ceasefire at insistence of Britain, other U.S. allies.
# Israel's army says it warned residents living north of Lebanon's Litani River to leave the area, suggesting air raids could target areas farther north than most previous strikes.
# Israeli infrastructure minister says army needs up to two weeks to complete its objectives.
# UN and Red Cross say they were forced to delay dispatch of aid to southern Lebanon because of failure to get security guarantees.
# Israel's tourism minister claims about 400 Hezbollah guerrillas have been killed. Hezbollah says 46 fighters have died.
# At least 532 people have been killed in Lebanon, although the health minister puts toll at 750 including bodies still buried under rubble. Fifty-four Israelis have been killed.

Reuters News Agency



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19 killed as Israel raids hospital

Agencies
Wednesday August 2, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

The Israeli army said today it had seized Hizbullah fighters in a jet and helicopter raid that killed 19 people, including four children, around a hospital in eastern Lebanon.

Military sources said Israeli troops attacked guerrillas at the Dar al-Hikma hospital near Baalbek - an ancient city 80 miles north of the Israeli border - and took several of them to Israel.

Meanwhile, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said the three-week-old offensive in Lebanon would stop only once a robust international peacekeeping force was in place.
Israel refused to identify the guerrillas it captured at the hospital, but the target of the raid was thought to be Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek, a member of the Hizbullah high council and a representative of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Residents of the area claimed the hospital was financed by an Iranian charity, the Imam Khomeini Charitable Society, which is close to Hizbullah.

Hizbullah confirmed some people had been seized, but claimed they were civilians.

"It will not be long before the enemy will discover that they are ordinary citizens," Hizbullah said in a statement broadcast on its al-Manar television channel.

Hizbullah's chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal told Associated Press that fierce fighting raged for more than one hour at the hospital, which witnesses said was partially destroyed.

"A group of Israeli commandos were brought to the hospital by a helicopter," Mr Rahal said. He added that Israeli jets were attacking the surrounding guerrilla force with missiles.

At least 12 people were killed in an air strike on the village of Jammaliyeh near Baalbek. A missile hit the house of the village's mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, instantly killing his son Ali, the mayor's brother Awad, and five other relatives, witnesses said.

The witnesses said the mayor - who survived the raid - and his relatives were political opponents of Hizbullah, and had apparently been hit randomly.

A family of five were also killed in a strike on the village of Saath. Later Mr Olmert gave a defiant interview to Reuters. He said: "If indeed, as we hope, the international force will be an effective force made of combat units, then we will be able to stop fire when the international force will be on the ground in the south part of Lebanon."

Asked if that meant Israel would carry on fighting until then, Mr Olmert said: "Yes."

Earlier today, Israeli warplanes raided an army base in south Lebanon, killing three soldiers, a Lebanese security official said. The jets fired at least one missile at the base in the village of Sarba, in a hilly region where Hizbullah is also believed to have offices and bases.

Air strikes also targeted a bridge, an overpass and a road in the northern province of Akkar, officials said.

Hizbullah said in a statement that it had attacked an Israeli army armoured unit that crossed into Lebanon this morning, destroying two tanks and leaving their crews dead or wounded.

The statement said the fighting began when the unit attempted to advance on the Rub Thalatheen hill at Adaisseh, a border village in the central section of the frontier. The Israeli army denied the allegation.

Israeli troops are operating in their thousands all along the Israel-Lebanon border, with additional soldiers crossing into Lebanon yesterday. They entered through four different points along the border and advanced at least four miles inside Lebanon.

Thousands of reservists, called up over the weekend, are also gathering at staging areas on the Israeli side of the border, ready to join the battles and extend the range of the offensive.

Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani river, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force came ashore.

The Israelis say they want to keep Hizbullah away from the border so their patrols and civilians along the frontier are not in danger of attack, such as the July 12 raid in which guerrillas killed eight soldiers and seized two others.



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Israeli raids kill 828, injure 3,200 in Lebanon in three weeks - official

08.01.2006, 11:54 AM

BEIRUT (AFX) - Israeli attacks on Lebanon have left 828 people killed and 3,200 wounded over the last three weeks, the state High Relief Committee said.
'At the 21st day of the Israeli offensive on Lebanon, the health ministry has counted 828 dead, more than 3,200 wounded,' an HRC spokesman who did not wish to be identified said.

'These are identified bodies, and the toll does not count the people still believed to be under the rubble,' he said.



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Many civilians killed in Israeli attacks

Wednesday 02 August 2006, 13:36 Makka Time, 10:36 GMT

Israeli has claimed to have captured at least five Hezbollah fighters in a commando operation in the Lebanese town of Baalbek while 19 civilians were killed in airstrikes on nearby areas.

Lebanese police and Hezbollah claimed the captured men are civilians.
The five captives have been named as Bilal Nasrallah, his father Hasan Nasrallah, Muhammad Shukr, Ahmad al-Ghouta and Hasan al-Bourji.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the men were brought to Israel.

She said none of the soldiers who took part in the operation were injured.

They had landed by helicopter near the al-Hikmah hospital in Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa valley.

Israel has continued airstrikes across South Lebanon, including the city of Tyre, the towns of al-Sultaniye, Froun and Jibbin and the border villages of Qabrikha, Qantara and Tallousa.

Civilians killed

At least 19 civilians, including a Syrian national, were killed and more than 20 wounded in airstrikes near where the operation took place.

Security sources said jets bombarded the village of Jammaliyeh during clashes nearby between the commandos and Hezbollah, destroying several houses.

They said the seven members of a family were found dead in one house.

The toll was expected to rise when rescuers finish lifting the rubble of other houses.

Baalbek is about 100km north of the Litani River, which the Israelis have set as the northern boundary for their expanded ground operation announced on Tuesday.

Israel hit

Lebanese security officials have reported that more than 300 rockets have been fired towards Israel by Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday.

Israeli police said more than 80 had landed in the north of the country, wounding 14 people.

Israel Radio reported that one rocket hit the town of Beit Shean almost 70km from the border - the furthest inside Israel a rocket has struck. The army and police are checking the report.

The heavy bombardment marked a step up in attacks after a two-day lull in activity by the Lebanese group.

Rockets fell on the tourist town of Tiberias, near the Sea of Galilee, as well as Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya and Safed.

Sirens also sounded in Haifa, Israel's third largest city, which lies about 35km from the Lebanese border, in anticipation of rocket strikes.

Lebanese soldiers killed

In a separate development, Israeli aircraft attacked a Lebanese army base in south Lebanon, killing three soldiers.

The jets fired at least one missile at the base in the village of Sarba, in the Iqlim al Tuffah province, a highland region where Hezbollah is also believed to have offices and bases.

An official said the three soldiers were killed instantly.

It was not clear what prompted Wednesday's airstrike on the base.

The casualties bring to 28 the number of Lebanese army soldiers killed in Israeli airstrikes since the start of the Israeli offensive against Lebanon on July 12.



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What Exactly is an "Existential" Threat, Mr. Olmert?

Am Johal
The Electronic Intifada
29 July 2006

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, by declaring the attack on Lebanon as an "existential" one, set forth a dangerous series of events which will only serve to do long-term damage to Israel. It was an overstep and overreaction which will have profound and deep consequences in the years to come.

It will also bolster the case of churches, labour unions and human rights organizations which are calling for a divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel in an attempt to force the state to change its policies related to the occupation.

"Existential" threats do not absolve Israel of the responsibility to comply with international law. Carrying out these kinds of policies is clearly an 'existential' threat to innocent civilians.
Israel has normalized its behaviour patterns and has created a mainstream public which passively supports these policies in the name of security. This disconnection between citizens and state is one of the reasons Israel can justify violations of human rights and international law to a domestic audience. The Israeli public, by not speaking out against the state's policies, are passively sanctioning the actions of the state's institutions including the military.

There are myriad examples of the misuses of state power. According to Reporters Without Borders, "Israel has for years pursued a policy of assassinating its political opponents. Because extrajudicial executions are universally condemned, most governments who practice assassinations surround such actions in secrecy and deny carrying out the killings they may have ordered. Although the Israeli government prefers to talk about 'targeted killings' and 'preventive actions' (or 'pinpointed preventive actions') rather than 'extrajudicial executions', members of the Israeli government have confirmed that such killings are a deliberate government policy carried out under government orders.(...)."

Reporters Without Borders has added that "the extrajudicial killings carried out by Israel constitute 'wilful killings' which constitute a 'grave breach' of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 147) to which Israel is a High Contracting Party. The comprehensive list of war crimes set out in article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions." Additionally, through the process of carrying out assassinations, Israel has also killed innocent civilians.

Only a few months ago, Israeli political leaders were openly talking about killing Ismail Haniyeh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, in the mainstream Israeli press without any criticism by established political leaders. Where else in the world is this normal public discourse?

Certainly, Hamas should also be investigated for war crimes for its role in violence which crossed the line of resistance activities and resulted in the loss of life of innocent civilians since the nineties related to suicide bombings. In short, people deserve the rule of law to be established even within the context of a conflict environment.

Israeli political messaging and public relations which justify such actions as the bombardment of Lebanon is an act of violence. "Existential" threats do not absolve Israel of the responsibility they must bear for their actions. Israeli citizens who don't hold their government to account for such violations of international law are inadvertently supporting collaboration with illegitimate forms of violence which are clearly documented.

The European Union, by not utilizing the human rights components of their trading relationship with Israel, is passively endorsing Israeli policy. The US, by funding and resourcing Israel's military, is partially responsible for the actions of the state and the harm it does to innocent civilians.

Israel is a rogue, Frankenstein state supported and maintained by the US and Europe. By supporting Israeli policies for the purposes of achieving regional objectives, the US and the European Union support the war crimes of its Israeli ally. It is in the Western orbit, and as such, needs to be reined in by its supporters. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be a destabilizing force in the Middle East, but denying the horrible effects of the Israeli state is highly disengenuous.

The Israeli government has also consistently followed the principles of collective punishment not only during the present conflict, but throughout the occupation. Under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, it reads, "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited (...). Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

The principle of proportionality in international law is complex. Determining excessive injury and damage in relation to the 'military advantage anticipated' is something that needs to be investigated by the UN.

Public statements from Louise Arbour are good, but not good enough. The hypocrisy and complicity of the UN since the signing of the Oslo Accords and its failure to respond effectively to violations of human rights is a profoundly embarrassing example of the ineffectiveness, arbitrariness and bias of the present configuration of the international system.

International law also has language distinguishing between legitimate targets and civilians who are not participating in the battlefield. Dropping leaflets is not sufficient warning to justify the use of force in civilian areas. This too must be investigated as quickly as possible.

The failure to call and implement a ceasefire for the purposes of giving Israel strategic and tactical advantages in the current conflict was also emblematic of the racist lens by which Western countries view international relations. They essentially gave Israel the green light to continue bombardment in Lebanon knowing full well that innocent civilians would inordinately pay the highest price.

The use of official language, how things are said, how they are interpreted, has the power to kill, maim, destroy and illegitimately sanction immoral acts - every day in Israel is a grave act of distortion.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in article 6(1) states, "Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life."

Unfortunately, government spokespeople and mainstream media create a language which justifies actions of militaries and militia groups and assigns the principles of proportionality for us. By broadcasting this view of the conflict, they dehumanize the victims and render the principles of international law illegitimate. War becomes a game. We all become barbarians.

It is important to note, however, that the law of armed conflict does not override other aspects of international law.

Israel has in the past and is still currently utilizing interrogation techniques including the use of sleep deprivation, prolonged tying, shackling to a chair in painful positions, the use of beating, slapping and kicking during an interrogation, forcing detainees in to a the 'qambaz' position, exposure to articial light and by not allowing communication with family members.

The Palestinian Authority and groups connected with it, have also utilized similar means and methods to execute collaborators. The Public Committee Against Torture estimates that dozens of Palestinians are mistreated every month by Israeli security officials.

Socio-economic discrimination and differential treatment of Arab citizens of Israel is also well-documented.

The chill which has entered Israeli life has also now even immersed deeper in to domestic dissent. The past few weeks have seen dozens of non-violent protestors arrested, aggressively pushed and detained for simply questioning Israeli policy in Lebanon. Security officials have attacked protestors without provocation. Israel is the clearest example of a state where security matters precede the importance of human rights.

The Israeli state is letting its critics know that they will pay a high price for raising important questions and attempting to exercise their basic, democratic rights. Criminalizing legitimate dissent is a dangerous road for any state to put in to practise.

It induces a kind of trauma where people spend their whole lives getting even.



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A Nato-led force would be in Israel's interests, but not Lebanon's

By Robert Fisk
08/01/06 "The Independent"

So, how come George Bush and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara - after their inevitable disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq - believe that a Nato-led force is going to survive on the south Lebanese border? The Israelis would obviously enjoy watching its deployment - it will be time for the West to take the casualties - but Hizbollah is likely to view its arrival as a proxy Israeli army. It is, after all, supposed to be a "buffer" force to protect Israel - not, as the Lebanese have quickly noted, to protect Lebanon - and the last Nato army that came to this country was literally blasted out of its mission by suicide bombers.
How blithely the US and British governments have erased the narrative of the old Multinational Force - the MNF - which arrived in Beirut to escort Palestinian guerrillas out of Lebanon in August of 1982 and then, after the massacre of up to 1,700 Palestinian guerrillas at the Sabra and Chatila camps by Israel's proxy Lebanese militia, returned to protect the survivors and extend the sovereignty of the Lebanese government.

Does that sound familiar? And they also came to train the Lebanese army - one of the missions being foisted on the new Bush-Blair army - and they failed. Blown up by suicide bombers at their Beirut headquarters with the loss of 241 American lives, the US Marines retreated into the ground, digging earthworks beneath Beirut airport.

And there they lived until the newly-trained Lebanese army broke apart in February 1984 - at which point, President Ronald Reagan decided to "redeploy" his troops offshore. Like other famous historical redeployments - Napoleon's redeployment from Moscow, for example, or Custer's last redeployment - it represented a national disaster, a colossal blow to US prestige in the region and a warning that such Lebanese adventures always end in tears. The French left shortly afterwards. So did the Italians. A company of British troops had been the first to scuttle out.

So, how come anyone believes that the next foreign army to arrive in the Lebanese meat-grinder is going to be any more successful? True, the MNF was not backed by a UN Security Council resolution. But since when were Hizbollah susceptible to the UN? They have already failed to disarm - as they were required to under UN resolution 1559 - and one of the world's toughest guerrilla armies is not going to hand over its guns to Nato generals. But most of the force will be Muslim, we are told. This may be true, and the Turks are already unwisely agreeing to participate. But are the Lebanese going to accept the descendants of the hated Ottoman empire? Will the the Shia south of Lebanon accept Sunni Muslim soldiers?

Indeed, how come the people of southern Lebanon have not been consulted about the army which is supposed to live in their lands? Because, of course, it is not coming for them. It will come because the Israelis and the Americans want it there to help reshape the Middle East. This no doubt makes sense in Washington - where self-delusion rules diplomacy almost as much as it does in Israel - but America's dreams usually become the Middle East's nightmares.

And this time, we will watch a Nato-led army's disintegration at close quarters. South-west Afghan-istan and Iraq are now so dangerous that no reporters can witness the carnage being perpetrated as a result of our hopeless projects. But, in Lebanon, it's going to be live-time coverage of a disaster that can only be avoided by the one diplomatic step Messrs Bush and Blair refuse to take: by talking to Damascus.

So when this latest foreign army arrives, count the days - or hours - to the first attack upon it. Then we'll hear all over again that we are fighting evil, that "they" - Hizbollah or Palestinian guerrillas, or anyone else planning to destroy "our" army - hate our values; and then, of course, we'll be told that this is all part of the "War on Terror" - the nonsense which Israel has been peddling. And then perhaps we'll remember what George Bush senior said after Hizbollah's allies suicide-bombed the Marines in 1982, that American policy would not be swayed by a bunch of "insidious terrorist cowards".

And we all know what happened then. Or have we forgotten?

Day 20

* Lebanese dead - at least 577 confirmed, could be up to 750. Israeli dead - 51.

* Israel bombs and shells southern Lebanon despite announced halt in air raids.

* Rescue workers find 28 bodies buried for days in destroyed buildings in three Lebanese villages.

* UN postpones a meeting on Lebanon peacekeeping force indefinitely.

* Bush says he will seek UN action this week to end the fighting.

* Clashes near Aita Al-Shaab leave four Hizbollah fighters dead and three Israelis wounded.

Every foreign army - including the Israelis - comes to grief in Lebanon.



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Bush admin. claims progress on Lebanon

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer Tue Aug 1, 8:43 PM ET


WASHINGTON - The Bush administration claimed progress Tuesday toward establishing an international peacekeeping force for Lebanon but said no quick cease-fire seemed likely in the three-week-old war between Israel and Hezbollah.
In New York,
United Nations officials announced that nations willing to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force would meet on Thursday. An earlier meeting scheduled for Monday was scrapped after France said there was no point talking about peacekeepers with the war continuing.

The Bush administration provided little detail about what progress might be occurring. The White House said an immediate halt to the bloody fighting "doesn't seem to be in the cards."

"Neither side is headed that way," said presidential spokesman Tony Snow. "What the president is working on and what our allies are working on are providing those conditions for a sustainable cease-fire."

Shimon Peres, Israel's deputy prime minister, said Israel was nearing a decisive point in battling Hezbollah. Asked how long the fighting might go on, Peres said, "I don't want to say but it's a matter of weeks. Maybe even less."

He said it took awhile for Israel's army to understand what it faced but "now they feel they're in control." Peres met at the White House with
President Bush's national security adviser,
Stephen Hadley.

The administration credited France, Britain, the Lebanese government and other allies for cooperating with the United States at the
U.N. Security Council and through diplomatic channels to make the new security force a reality.

Upbeat on prospects for a "stable and enduring" cease-fire, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said "the diplomacy is moving ahead" and an agreement on how to end the fighting was possible within days, not weeks. "I think we are making progress," Rice said on PBS' "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We believe that we are going to be able to have some action in the Security Council in the coming days, and hopefully this week."

U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, after meeting with the U.S., British, French, Chinese and Russian ambassadors, urged governments debating Lebanon's future to put aside their differences to help solve the conflict.

Annan then announced the Thursday meeting of governments contributing peacekeeping troops, but late Tuesday a spokesman for France's U.N. mission said France still believes it is too early to talk about troops and will not attend.

The French spokesman, who refused to be identified by name because an official announcement was still forthcoming, said France's view remained unchanged from Monday. That day, France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said, "France is in favor of setting up an international force to implement a political settlement. It is important to have this political settlement before having the force deployed. So it is premature to have such a meeting."

Annan wants nations to lay the groundwork for a force, apparently so it can be deployed as quickly as possible once a political framework to end the fighting is settled.

"He did ask them to set those differences aside and move along quickly on the question of a mandate for the force and the formation of the force, and who's going to be able to give what and which countries will be able to contribute," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said.

Despite the meeting, diplomats acknowledge that sharp differences remain.

The United States objects to French proposals calling for creation of a multinational peacekeeping force and a new buffer zone empty of either Israeli troops or Hezbollah militants - but only after a halt in fighting. The U.S. wants any force to help the Lebanese army extend its authority throughout southern Lebanon, which is now under Hezbollah's control, and disarm the powerful militia.

While there is wide disagreement over whether to try to compel Israel to accept an immediate cease-fire - the United States supports Israel in taking more time to pummel Hezbollah arsenals - there is consensus building around a peacekeeping force that would be more potent than the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) created in 1978 with a weak mandate.

The Bush administration views a new force as useful in helping Lebanon gain control of its southern region, from which Hezbollah has fought a cross-border war with Israel.

President Bush is pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East, despite rising international pressure for a simple no-strings-attached halt to the fighting.

State Department spokesman McCormack said the administration wants the resolution to call urgently for an end to the fighting, a lasting solution and an international peace force.

In a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Peres gave qualified endorsement to an international security force. "If the international community thinks the force will help, OK," Peres said.

But, in any event, "we will not permit Hezbollah to return to southern Lebanon and fire at us," he added.

Later, Peres met with Secretary of State Rice and told reporters afterward: "We didn't ask for time, we didn't ask for soldiers and we didn't ask for money. ... We shall do our job."

As for the war, Peres said, "We feel a turning point" in Israel's favor. At the White House, Peres said Israel had destroyed 70-80 percent of Hezbollah's long-range missiles and rockets, although he conceded that Hezbollah still had short-range weapons. He said Israel had killed 250-300 of Hezbollah's 2,500 fighters.



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Hezbollah


How Israel's bombing turned Hizbollah leader into a symbol of Muslim pride

By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 02 August 2006

A year ago he seemed a rebel without a cause. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, was an important figure in Lebanon but seemed destined to remain on the sidelines of Middle East politics. He was the most important leader of the 1.4 million-strong Shia community in Lebanon and nobody doubted the efficiency of Hizbollah as a paramilitary organisation. He was intelligent, charismatic and experienced but he seemed to have reached the peak of his influence.


Nasrallah's great moment had apparently come and gone in May 2000 when Israel had unilaterally withdrawn its troops from southern Lebanon after years of harassment by Hizbollah guerrillas. He returned in triumph to reconquered Lebanese territory and, if the military victory over Israel was small in scale, it was still an accomplishment not enjoyed by many Arab leaders over the past half century. But the departure of the Israelis from Lebanon also robbed Hizbollah of its raison d'être and excuse for forming a state within a state. No doubt its leader, Nasrallah, would remain a power within Lebanon but it seemed increasingly unlikely that he would be anything more.

It was Israel that decided otherwise. By launching a massive military campaign in retaliation for the kidnapping of two of its soldiers on 12 July it made Nasrallah into a symbol of resistance to Israel in the Muslim world. Arabs conscious of their own leaders' inertia, corruption and incompetence hailed the resolution of Hizbollah's fighters. Nasrallah's blend of nationalism and religion was shown to be as potent in Lebanon as it had been against the Americans in Iraq.

His spokesmen admitted that Hizbollah had miscalculated the ferocity of the Israeli response to the kidnapping, but then few in the world forecast that Israel would play so directly to Hizbollah's strengths as a guerrilla organisation capable of surviving an Israeli military attack. Nor had it seemed likely that Israel, after extricating with such difficulty from the Lebanese morass after 18 years, would plunge back into it with such enthusiasm.

Nasrallah's entire career has been shaped by Israel's repeated interventions in Lebanon from the civil war in the mid-1970s up to the present time. If an Israeli helicopter had not assassinated Nasrallah's mentor and predecessor, Abbas Mussawi, as head of Hizbollah in 1992, he would not have led the organisation over the past 14 years. The Israeli air force has made every effort to kill him by bombing his home and office - but all he has to do now is survive to become a hero across the Arab world.

Nasrallah was born on 31 August 1960 in east Beirut's Bourj Hamoud district. His father was a vegetable seller originally from south Lebanon. He was the eldest of nine children and aspired to be a cleric from an early age but it was war which shaped his upbringing. The outbreak of the civil war sent his family back to their ancestral village of Bassouriyeh, not far from Tyre. It was from here that the local clergy sent him to the great Shia theological centre in Najaf in Iraq where he studied for two years and met Moussawi, of whom he was an early follower.

Saddam Hussein was suspicious of Shia religious enthusiasts and in 1978 he expelled foreign religious students from Najaf. The next important event in Nasrallah's career was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which he vigorously opposed, becoming a guerrilla commander. He was also known to oppose an increase in Syrian influence in Lebanon and to have advocated fighting the Israelis in the south of the country. He was only 31 years old when the killing of Moussawi by the Israelis made him leader of Hizbollah.

Nasrallah has well-honed political skills. He was able to extend Hizbollah's influence within the Shia community and played down its differences with other communities and leaders in Lebanon. His son Hadi was killed at the age of 18 fighting the Israelis in southern Lebanon in 1997.

Hizbollah, financed by Iran in the 1990s, was increasingly able to raise its own funds after 2000. It also had an extensive network of schools and medical centres. As with Hamas in Gaza, the ineffectiveness of Middle East governments in providing for their poor makes even moderate social achievements of a movement such as Hizbollah stand out.

There are limits to what any communal party can achieve in Lebanon because of the difficulty of winning support outside one's own religious community.

But Nasrallah and Hizbollah enjoyed high prestige after 2000.

The party won more seats in the 2005 election following the departure of Syrian troops 29 years after they first arrived.

But not everything was going Hizbollah's way. It might have two cabinet posts but the US was backing the new Lebanese government as a foil to Syria and Iran, Hizbollah's old supporters.

There is no doubt that Nasrallah thought this summer was an opportune moment to heat up the border with Israel. But he can hardly have expected Israel and the US to forget their own grim experiences in Lebanon after the invasion of 1982 and play so completely into his hands.



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BEIRUT DISPATCH: Sheik Up

by Annia Ciezadlo
Post date: 07.28.06
Issue date: 08.07.06

In the early hours of September 13, 1997, the Israeli army killed one 45-year-old woman, two Hezbollah fighters, and six Lebanese soldiers in the mountains of southern Lebanon. Later that day, Hezbollah officials viewed video footage of the bodies and confirmed that one of the slain was a precious kill indeed: 18-year-old Hadi Nasrallah, son of Hezbollah's leader, Secretary-General Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.
That evening, Nasrallah was scheduled to give a speech in Haret Hreik, the southern Beirut suburb where Hezbollah's offices are located. His second-in-command, Sheik Naim Qassem, offered to speak in his place. But, when the Lebanese turned on their televisions that evening, they saw the bearded, boyish face--at 37, looking hardly more than a youth himself--of Hassan Nasrallah.

Though the entire nation knew by then that he had lost his son, Nasrallah didn't mention it. He commemorated the anniversary of the September 13 massacre, a 1993 incident in which the Lebanese army opened fire on Hezbollah supporters. As he spoke, the audience began to clamor: Why wasn't he talking about his son?

To this day, people in Lebanon still talk about what happened next. Breaking off from his speech, Nasrallah noted that the country had given many martyrs the previous night. He recited the names of the soldiers and added, almost as an afterthought, that his son and another Hezbollah fighter were also killed. He thanked God for choosing a martyr from his family, saying that, while he used to feel ashamed in front of families whose sons had died for their country, now he could look them in the eye. Hadi's killing was a victory for Hezbollah, not for Israel, he pointed out: Instead of fighting each other, as in 1993, Lebanon's army and its guerrillas were united. "We are now fighting together and falling as martyrs together," said Nasrallah, as the audience cheered and chanted Hadi's name. "This is a great victory for us, of which we are proud." And then he went on with his speech.

Timur Goksel, then a senior adviser to the United Nations in Lebanon, watched the speech with a pro-Israel Christian family. "This Christian family, who hated everything Hezbollah stood for, they started crying," Goksel recalls.

In the Middle East, political leaders are often old, corrupt, and repressive; just as often, they are the pampered, Western-educated sons of aging dictators. There are also guerrilla leaders, who, if they survive, often end up as petty old despots themselves.

And then there is Nasrallah. Revered by the Shia, respected by his enemies, he has already earned the distinction of being the only Arab leader to evict Israel from Arab land without having to sign a peace treaty. But he is also a religious warrior. Today, as he fights a lopsided military battle against the Jewish state, he is becoming an icon--not just in the Arab world, where he was already a hero, but in the umma, the world of Islam. Nasrallah's war is not just a war between Lebanon and Israel, or even between Iran and America's allies; it's a war of myths and images, a battle to transform the Arab and Islamic worlds. Whatever battlefield setbacks Hezbollah may suffer in Lebanon, on this larger stage, Nasrallah has already won.

By Friday, July 14, everyone in Lebanon knew it was war. It was clear that Hezbollah had miscalculated the Israeli response when it kidnapped two Israeli soldiers two days earlier. Israel had bombed the airport and bridges, blockaded the ports, and killed dozens of people, most of them civilians. The Lebanese were succumbing to collective panic, cleaning out grocery store shelves, buying up gasoline, and frantically withdrawing U.S. dollars. After a defiant press conference on the day of the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, Nasrallah had disappeared from sight. Rumors circulated that he had been struck by an Israeli missile; people were beginning to wonder if he might be dead.

Friday evening, at about 8:30, Nasrallah called in to Al Manar, Hezbollah's TV station. He sounded tired and sleep-deprived, like a man living underground. But his voice was firm, and the photograph that accompanied his speech showed, somewhat surreally, his trademark sunny, open smile. He began by offering condolences to the families of the martyrs, who had given their lives "in the noblest confrontation and battle that the modern age has known, or rather that all history has known." He taunted the Arab regimes that had abandoned him and reminded the Lebanese of the victory they had won on May 25, 2000, when Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon.

Then he did something no one from Hezbollah had ever done before. Reminding his audience that he had promised them "surprises," he announced that they would begin momentarily. "Now, in the middle of the sea, facing Beirut, the Israeli warship that has attacked the infrastructure, people's homes, and civilians--look at it burning," he said calmly, almost matter-of-factly. As he spoke, out at sea, an Iranian-made C802 missile crashed into the warship. We could see an orange glow, like flares, shooting up from the sea to the sky.

Everyone tuned in to Nasrallah that night. I live in a mixed Beirut neighborhood, not heavily Shia or even exclusively Muslim. But, when he spoke these words, from the buildings around me, I heard a surround-sound rustle of cheers and applause. Outside, caravans of cars rolled through the abandoned streets, and the drivers honked their horns.

It was classic Nasrallah, charismatic and pointed, as if to underscore his difference from other Arab leaders. "In the Arab world, you have two kinds of rhetoricians: the very fiery, passionate kind, who make a lot of false promises, à la Yasir Arafat--the typical Arab rambling and passion that gets you nowhere," says Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor of political science at Lebanese American University and author of Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion. "And you have others who are populist leaders, who are more plainspoken and practical. And Nasrallah is in between both."

With his dramatic attack on the Israeli ship, Nasrallah upped the stakes, and not just for Lebanon. This was the first time any Arab leader had staged an attack on an Israeli target and announced it simultaneously, live on television. It was as though he had heeded the words of Osama bin Laden's closest adviser, Ayman Al Zawahiri, who wrote in a letter to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, that "more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media."

"Nasrallah, he's becoming like bin Laden--a star," says Lebanese journalist Paula Khoury. "Because now he has this ability to address the world. This is a new thing, and it's dangerous."

Hezbollah's pioneering tactic of massive suicide bombings once inspired bin Laden, becoming a classic in the Al Qaeda playbook. With his current war, Nasrallah is innovating once more, this time in the world of images, creating a new template for speaking to the Muslim world. Unlike the Sunni jihadists, he attacks the enemy's armies, not just its civilians. Unlike Zarqawi, Nasrallah has style. He can match rhetoric to action, as he proved on July 14. And, unlike the lugubrious bin Laden, he can appear practical and pragmatic, down-to-earth--even fun. As Saad-Ghorayeb points out, "What other Arab leader threatens Israel and grins?"

Unlike bin Laden, and in a country where most political leaders inherit their positions, Nasrallah was born into a poor family. It was 1960, a time when Shia were moving to Beirut in droves, up from the south of Lebanon--much as American blacks had made the great migration, and for similar reasons. The son of a greengrocer, Nasrallah grew up in both southern Lebanon and Karantina, a hardscrabble Beirut suburb.

After the civil war broke out, the teenage Nasrallah joined Amal, a Shia empowerment movement created by the charismatic cleric Musa Al Sadr. When Nasrallah decided to study Islam, an Amal cleric wrote him a letter of introduction to Muhammad Baqir Al Sadr, the revolutionary Iraqi cleric who was one of the leading lights of Najaf (and a relative of current Iraqi militia leader Moqtada Al Sadr). In Najaf, he studied with Sayyid Abbas Musawi, who would later become the leader of Hezbollah.

After Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Iraq became inhospitable to young Shia clerics, and Nasrallah returned to Lebanon, where he eventually joined the new, Iranian-backed militia. He rose to become a commander, serving as ambassador to Iran and leading battles against Israel in the south. When Israel killed Musawi in 1992, Hezbollah's central command replaced him with his protegé, Nasrallah, then only 31.

Nasrallah surprised the nation--and angered Hezbollah hardliners--when he decided to bring the party into electoral politics, a move that some saw as tantamount to laying down Hezbollah's arms and giving up its guerrilla status. But, in 2000, when Israel pulled out its last troops from the south of Lebanon, Nasrallah became unassailable. And having members in parliament actually protected Hezbollah's arms by giving it legitimacy and power in Lebanon's political sphere. Today, with charity organizations that span the country, 14 of 128 parliamentary seats, and two cabinet ministers, the party is so strong that people describe it as a "state within a state."

But, even more than this savvy political maneuvering, it was his son's death, and his stoic reaction to it, that elevated Nasrallah from a sectarian guerrilla leader to something altogether more potent. In the days after Hadi was killed, Lebanese leaders from across the political spectrum--even Christian warlord and bitter enemy Elie Hobeika--paid their respects to Nasrallah and his wife. Nasrallah capitalized on this moment of popularity, opening the ranks of Hezbollah to Lebanese from all sects and forming the Lebanese Brigades, a unit with several thousand non-Shia recruits. A quintessentially Shia leader--a cleric, even--had transcended his sect to become a national hero. The more Israel pounds Hezbollah and Lebanon's Shia, the more it burnishes Nasrallah's image as defender of the umma.

There are others who have been vying for that title. In 2004, a London-based Salafi named Abu Basir Al Tartusi wrote a document called "The Lebanese Hezbollah and the Exportation of the Shi'ite Rafidite Ideology." In the document, Tartusi claimed that Hezbollah is a front group concocted by Iran, the United States, and "its foster daughter, the state of the sons of Zion." Its sole purpose is to spread Shia Islam throughout the world and prevent authentic--i.e., Sunni Salafi--jihad. In June, just a week before he was killed by a U.S. airstrike, Zarqawi echoed Tartusi's claims. In an audio message posted on the Internet, he accused Hezbollah of serving as Israel's security wall against Sunni militants, and, even more bizarrely, he parroted U.S. demands that Hezbollah be disarmed.

On July 21, nine days after his forces captured the two Israeli soldiers, Nasrallah answered Zarqawi and Tartusi. Looking relaxed and reasonable, in a carefully staged interview with Al Jazeera, he mentioned Zarqawi's statement. "Today, we are Shia fighting Israel," he pointed out, in a peroration not unlike the one he made the day his son died. "Our fighting and steadfastness is a victory to our brothers in Palestine, who are Sunnis, not Shia. So, we, Shia and Sunnis, are fighting together against Israel, which is supported, backed, and made powerful by America." In a brilliant inversion of Tartusi's logic, Nasrallah even suggested that "some Arabs" were collaborating with Israel to smash the resistance in Lebanon.

Hardcore Sunni jihadists, especially those who congregate online, will probably continue to distrust Nasrallah and all Shia. But, closer to the Islamist mainstream, powerful and popular Islamist groups like the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood have come out strongly in support of Hezbollah. On Al Jazeera, the Brotherhood's leader, Mahdi Akef, hailed Nasrallah, saying that "the Lebanese who captured the Zionist soldiers are true nationalists, led by a great man."

What do the Shia, his main constituency, really think of Nasrallah and his war? Among the religious majority, especially the moderates, Nasrallah is adored and respected, an emblem of Islam and Arab pride. According to the independent Lebanese pollster Abdo Saad, people have begun referring to him as the "shadow of God."

Not all Shia are happy. Lebanon's Shia merchant class, like all the country's bourgeoisie, has been devastated by the current conflict. But, in the end, Hezbollah may not care that much about local public opinion. What matters far more than Nasrallah's eventual victory or defeat is the iconography he has created: that of an Arab leader who, unlike all the others, isn't afraid to defend the umma. "This is the decisive battle for the region. ... If he succeeds, then it will reverberate throughout the region." And, if he loses, it may reverberate just the same--and just as violently.

Annia Ciezadlo is a Beirut-based writer.

Annia Ciezadlo PO Box 113-5498 Beirut, Lebanon +961 1 750 982 (land) +961 3 274 360 (mobile) annia ciezadlo


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Hizballah: A Primer

Lara Deeb
July 31, 2006

Hizballah, the Lebanese Shi'i movement whose militia is fighting the Israeli army in south Lebanon, has been cast misleadingly in much media coverage of the ongoing war. Much more than a militia, the movement is also a political party that is a powerful actor in Lebanese politics and a provider of important social services. Not a creature of Iranian and Syrian sponsorship, Hizballah arose to battle Israel's occupation of south Lebanon from 1982-2000 and, more broadly, to advocate for Lebanon's historically disenfranchised Shi'i Muslim community. While it has many political opponents in Lebanon, Hizballah is very much of Lebanon -- a fact that Israel's military campaign is highlighting.
THE LEBANESE SHI'A AND THE LEBANESE STATE

In Lebanon, the state-society relationship is "confessional" and government power and positions are allocated on the basis of religious background. There are 18 officially recognized ethno-confessional communities in the country today. The original allocations, determined in 1943 in an unwritten National Pact between Maronite Christians and Sunni Muslims at the end of the French mandate, gave the most power to a Maronite Christian president and a Sunni Muslim prime minister, with the relatively powerless position of speaker of Parliament going to a Shi'i Muslim. Other government positions and seats in Parliament were divided up using a 6:5 ratio of Christians to Muslims. These arrangements purportedly followed the population ratios in the 1932 census, the last census ever undertaken in the country.

This confessional system was stagnant, failing to take into consideration demographic changes. As the Shi'i population grew at a rapid pace in comparison to other groups, the inflexibility of the system exacerbated Shi'i under-representation in government. Meanwhile, sect became a means of gaining access to state resources, as the government shelled out money to establish sect-based welfare networks and institutions like schools and hospitals. Because the Shi'a were under-represented in government, they could channel fewer resources to their community, contributing to disproportionate poverty among Shi'i Lebanese. This effect was aggravated by the fact that Shi'i seats in Parliament were usually filled by feudal landowners and other insulated elites.

Until the 1960s, most of the Shi'i population in Lebanon lived in rural areas, mainly in the south and in the Bekaa Valley, where living conditions did not approach the standards of the rest of the nation. Following a modernization program that established road networks and introduced cash-crop policies in the countryside, many Shi'i Muslims migrated to Beirut, settling in a ring of impoverished suburbs around the capital. The rapid urbanization that came with incorporation into the capitalist world economy further widened economic disparities within Lebanon.

ORIGINS

Initially, this growing urban population of mostly Shi'i poor in Lebanon was not mobilized along sectarian lines. In the 1960s and early 1970s, they made up much of the rank and file of the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party. Later, in the 1970s, Sayyid Musa al-Sadr, a charismatic cleric who had studied in the Iraqi shrine city of Najaf, began to challenge the leftist parties for the loyalty of Shi'i youth. Al-Sadr offered instead the "Movement of the Deprived," dedicated to attaining political rights for the dispossessed within the Lebanese polity. A militia branch of this movement, Amal, was founded at the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975. Alongside al-Sadr, there were also other activist Lebanese Shi'i religious leaders, most of whom had also studied in Najaf, who worked to establish grassroots social and religious networks in the Shi'i neighborhoods of Beirut. Among them were Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, today one of the most respected "sources of emulation" among Shi'i Muslims in Lebanon and beyond, and Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah. A "source of emulation" (marja' al-taqlid) is a religious scholar of such widely recognized erudition that individual Shi'i Muslims seek and follow his advice on religious matters. Among the Shi'a, the title of sayyid denotes a claim of descent from Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.

Between 1978 and 1982 a number of events propelled the nascent Shi'i mobilization forward and further divorced it from the leftist parties: two Israeli invasions of Lebanon, the unexplained disappearance of Musa al-Sadr and the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In 1978, while on a visit to Libya, al-Sadr mysteriously vanished, and his popularity surged thereafter. That same year, to push back PLO fighters then based in Lebanon, Israel invaded the south, displacing 250,000 people. The initial consequence of these two events was Amal's revitalization, as Amal militiamen fought PLO guerrillas in south Lebanon. There were increasing Shi'i perceptions that the Lebanese left had failed, both in securing greater rights for the poor and in protecting the south from the fighting between the PLO and Israel. The following year, the Islamic Revolution in Iran set a new sort of example for Shi'i Muslims around the world, and provided an alternative worldview to Western liberal capitalism different from that espoused by the left.

The final, and doubtless the most important, ingredient in this cauldron of events was the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. This time Israeli troops, aiming to expel the PLO from Lebanon entirely, marched north and laid siege to West Beirut. Tens of thousands of Lebanese were killed and injured during the invasion, and another 450,000 people were displaced. Between September 16-18, 1982, under the protection and direction of the Israeli military and then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, a Lebanese Phalangist militia unit entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, and raped, killed and maimed thousands of civilian refugees. Approximately one quarter of those refugees were Shi'i Lebanese who had fled the violence in the south. The importance of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the formation of Hizballah cannot be underestimated.

Following the events of 1982, many prominent members of Amal left the party, which had become increasingly involved in patronage politics and detached from the larger struggles against poverty and Israeli occupation. In these years, a number of small, armed groups of young men organized under the banner of Islam emerged in the south, the Bekaa Valley and the suburbs of Beirut. These groups were dedicated to fighting the Israeli occupation troops, and also participated in the Lebanese civil war, which by this time had engaged over 15 militias and armies. Initial military training and equipment for the Shi'i militias was provided by Iran. Over time, these groups coalesced into Hizballah, though the formal existence of the "Party of God" and its armed wing, the Islamic Resistance, were not announced until February 16, 1985, in an "Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World."

STRUCTURE AND LEADERSHIP

Since 1985, Hizballah has developed a complex internal structure. In the 1980s, a religious council of prominent leaders called the majlis al-shura was formed. This seven-member council included branches for various aspects of the group's functioning, including financial, judicial, social, political and military committees. There were also local regional councils in Beirut, the Bekaa and the south. Toward the end of the Lebanese civil war, as Hizballah began to enter Lebanese state politics, two other decision-making bodies were established, an executive council and a politburo.

Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah is often described as "the spiritual leader" of Hizballah. Both Fadlallah and the party have always denied that relationship, however, and in fact, for a time there was a rift between them over the nature of the Shi'i Islamic institution of the marja'iyya. The marja'iyya refers to the practice and institution of following or emulating a marja' al-taqlid. Fadlallah believes that religious scholars should work through multiple institutions, and should not affiliate with a single political party or be involved in affairs of worldly government. In these beliefs, he is close to traditional Shi'i jurisprudence, and distant from the concept of velayat-e faqih (rule of the clerics) promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran.

Hizballah and its majlis al-shura officially follow Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the successor to Khomeini as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but individual supporters or party members are free to choose which marja' to follow, and many emulate Fadlallah instead. The point is that political allegiance and religious emulation are two separate issues that may or may not overlap for any single person.

Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah is the current political leader of Hizballah. While he is also a religious scholar, and also studied at Najaf, he does not rank highly enough to be a marja' al-taqlid and instead is a religious follower of Khamenei. Nasrallah became Hizballah's Secretary-General in 1992, after Israel assassinated his predecessor, Sayyid 'Abbas al-Musawi, along with his wife and 5 year-old son. Nasrallah is widely viewed in Lebanon as a leader who "tells it like it is" -- even by those who disagree with the party's ideology and actions. It was under his leadership that Hizballah committed itself to working within the state and began participating in elections, a decision that alienated some of the more revolution-oriented clerics in the leadership.

HIZBALLAH AND THE UNITED STATES

In the United States, Hizballah is generally associated with the 1983 bombings of the US embassy, the Marine barracks and the French-led multinational force headquarters in Beirut. The second bombing led directly to the US military's departure from Lebanon. The movement is also cited by the State Department in connection with the kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon and the hostage crisis that led to the Iran-contra affair, the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight and bombings of the Israeli embassy and cultural center in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s. These associations are the stated reasons for the presence of Hizballah's name on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. In 2002, then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage famously described Hizballah as the "A-Team of terrorists," possessing a "global reach," and suggested that "maybe al-Qaeda is actually the B-Team." Hizballah's involvement in these attacks remains a matter of contention, however. Even if their involvement is accepted, it is both inaccurate and unwise to dismiss Hizballah as "terrorists."

There are several major reasons for this. First, Hizballah's military activity has generally been committed to the goal of ending the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Since the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal, they have largely operated within tacit, but mutually understood "rules of the game" for ongoing, low-level border skirmishes with Israel that avoid civilian casualties. In addition, Hizballah has grown and changed significantly since its inception, and has developed into both a legitimate Lebanese political party and an umbrella organization for myriad social welfare institutions.

Another aspect of the US listing of Hizballah on the terrorist list is related to the group's reputation as undertaking numerous "suicide attacks" or "martyrdom operations." In fact, of the hundreds of military operations undertaken by the group during the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon, only 12 involved the intentional death of a Hizballah fighter. At least half of the "suicide attacks" against Israeli occupying forces in Lebanon were carried out by members of secular and leftist parties.

A third element in the US insistence on labeling Hizballah a terrorist group is related to the notion that Hizballah's raison d'etre is the destruction of Israel, or "occupied Palestine," as per the party's rhetoric. This perspective is supported by the 1985 Open Letter, which includes statements such as, "Israel's final departure from Lebanon is a prelude to its final obliteration from existence and the liberation of venerable Jerusalem from the talons of occupation." One might question the feasibility of such a project, particularly given the great asymmetry in military might and destructive power that is now on display. The Hizballah rocket attacks of July 2006, which commenced after Israeli bombardment of Lebanon had begun, have thus far killed 19 civilians and damaged numerous buildings -- nothing like the devastation and death wrought by Israeli aircraft in Lebanon. There is also reason to question Hizballah's intent, despite frequent repetition of the Open Letter rhetoric. Prior to May 2000, almost all of Hizballah's military activity was focused on freeing Lebanese territory of Israeli occupation. The cross-border attacks from May 2000 to July 2006 were small operations with tactical aims (Israel did not even respond militarily to all of them).

Hizballah's founding document also says: "We recognize no treaty with [Israel], no ceasefire and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated." This language was drafted at the time when the Israeli invasion of Lebanon had just given rise to the Hizballah militia. Augustus R. Norton, author of several books and articles on Hizballah, notes that, "While Hizballah's enmity for Israel is not to be dismissed, the simple fact is that it has been tacitly negotiating with Israel for years." Hizballah's indirect talks with Israel in 1996 and 2004 and their stated willingness to arrange a prisoner exchange today all indicate realism on the part of party leadership.

RESISTANCE, POLITICS AND RULES OF THE GAME

In 1985, Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon, but continued to occupy the southern zone of the country, controlling approximately ten percent of Lebanon using both Israeli soldiers and a proxy Lebanese militia, the Southern Lebanese Army (SLA). Hizballah's Islamic Resistance took the lead, though there were other contingents, in fighting that occupation. The party also worked to represent the interests of the Shi'a in Lebanese politics.

The Lebanese civil war came to an end in 1990, after the signing of the Ta'if Agreement in 1989. The Ta'if Agreement reasserted a variation of the National Pact, allotting greater power to the prime minister and increasing the number of Muslim seats in government. Yet while the actual numerical strength of confessional groups in Lebanon is sharply contested, conservative estimates note that by the end of the civil war, Shi'i Muslims made up at least one third of the population, making them the largest confessional community. Other estimates are much higher.

When the first post-war elections were held in Lebanon in 1992, many of the various militia groups (which had often grown out of political parties) reverted to their political party status and participated. Hizballah also chose to participate, declaring its intention to work within the existing Lebanese political system, while keeping its weapons to continue its guerrilla campaign against the Israeli occupation in the south, as allowed by the Ta'if accord. In that first election, the party won eight seats, giving them the largest single bloc in the 128-member parliament, and its allies won an additional four seats. From that point on, Hizballah developed a reputation -- even among those who disagree vehemently with their ideologies -- for being a "clean" and capable political party on both the national and local levels. This reputation is especially important in Lebanon, where government corruption is assumed, clientelism is the norm and political positions are often inherited. As a group, Lebanese parliamentarians are the wealthiest legislature in the world.

While the party's parliamentary politics were generally respected, levels of national support for the activities of the Islamic Resistance in the south fluctuated over the years. Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure -- including the destruction of power plants in Beirut in 1996, 1999 and 2000 -- generally contributed to increases in national support for the Resistance. This was especially true after Israel bombed a UN bunker where civilians had taken refuge in Qana on April 18, 1996, killing 106 people.

The occupation of south Lebanon was costly for Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made withdrawal a campaign promise in 1999, and later announced that it would take place by July 2000. A month and a half before this deadline, after SLA desertions and the collapse of potential talks with Syria, Barak ordered a chaotic withdrawal from Lebanon, taking many by surprise. At 3 am on May 24, 2000, the last Israeli soldier stepped off Lebanese soil and locked the gate at the Fatima border crossing behind him. Many predicted that lawlessness, sectarian violence and chaos would fill the void left by the Israeli occupation forces and the SLA, which rapidly collapsed in Israel's wake. Those predictions proved false as Hizballah maintained order in the border region.

Despite withdrawal, a territorial dispute continues over a 15-square mile border region called the Shebaa Farms that remains under Israeli occupation. Lebanon and Syria assert that the mountainside is Lebanese land, while Israel and the UN have declared it part of the Golan Heights and, therefore, Syrian territory (though occupied by Israel). Since 2000, Lebanon has also been awaiting the delivery from Israel of the map for the locations of over 300,000 landmines the Israeli army planted in south Lebanon. Unstated "rules of the game," building on an agreement not to target civilians written after the Qana attack in 1996, have governed the Israeli-Lebanese border dispute since 2000. Hizballah attacks on Israeli army posts in the occupied Shebaa Farms, for example, would be answered by limited Israeli shelling of Hizballah outposts and sonic booms over Lebanon.

Both sides, on occasion, have broken the "rules of the game," though UN observer reports of the numbers of border violations find that Israel has violated the Blue Line between the countries ten times more frequently than Hizballah has. Israeli forces have kidnapped Lebanese shepherds and fishermen. Hizballah abducted an Israeli businessman in Lebanon in October 2000, claiming that he was a spy. In January 2004, through German mediators, Hizballah and Israel concluded a deal whereby Israel released hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. At the last minute, Israeli officials defied the Supreme Court's ruling and refused to hand over the last three Lebanese prisoners, including the longest-held detainee, Samir al-Qantar, who has been in jail for 27 years for killing three Israelis after infiltrating the border. At that time, Hizballah vowed to open new negotiations at some point in the future.

HIZBALLAH'S NATIONALISM

As noted, Hizballah officially follows Khamenei as the party's marja', and has maintained a warm relationship with Iran dating to the 1980s, when Iran helped to train and arm the militia. Hizballah consults with Iranian leaders, and receives an indeterminate amount of economic aid. Iran has also continued military aid to the Islamic Resistance, including some of the rockets in the militia's arsenal. This relationship does not, however, mean that Iran dictates Hizballah's policies or decision-making, or can necessarily control the actions of the party. Meanwhile, Iranian efforts to infuse the Lebanese Shi'a with a pan-Shi'i identity centered on Iran have run up against the Arab identity and increasing Lebanese nationalism of Hizballah itself.

A similar conclusion can be reached about Syria, often viewed as so close to Hizballah that the party's militia is dubbed Syria's "Lebanese card" in its efforts to regain the Golan Heights from Israel. While the party keeps good relations with the Syrian government, Syria does not control or dictate Hizballah decisions or actions. Party decisions are made independently, in accordance with Hizballah's view of Lebanon's interests and the party's own interests within Lebanese politics. After the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in February 2005, and the subsequent Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, Hizballah's position was often inaccurately described as "pro-Syrian." In fact, the party's rhetoric was carefully chosen not to oppose Syrian withdrawal, but to recast it as a withdrawal that would not sever all ties with Lebanon, and that would take place under an umbrella of "gratitude."

There is no doubt that Hizballah is a nationalist party. Its view of nationalism differs from that of many Lebanese, especially from the Phoenician-origins nationalism espoused by the Maronite Christian right, and from the neo-liberal, US-backed nationalism of Hariri's party. Hizballah offers a nationalism that views Lebanon as an Arab state that cannot distance itself from causes like the Palestine question. Its political ideology maintains an Islamic outlook. The 1985 Open Letter notes the party's desire to establish an Islamic state, but only through the will of the people. "We don't want Islam to reign in Lebanon by force," the letter reads. The party's decision to participate in elections in 1992 underscored its commitment to working through the existing structure of the Lebanese state, and also shifted the party's focus from a pan-Islamic resistance to Israel toward internal Lebanese politics. Furthermore, since 1992, Hizballah leaders have frequently acknowledged the contingencies of Lebanon's multi-confessional society and the importance of sectarian coexistence and pluralism within the country. It should also be noted that many of Hizballah's constituents do not want to live in an Islamic state; rather, they want the party to represent their interests within a pluralist Lebanon.

The nationalist outlook of the party has grown throughout Hizballah's transition from resistance militia to political party and more. After the Syrian withdrawal, it became evident that the party would play a larger role in the Lebanese government. Indeed, in the 2005 elections, Hizballah increased their parliamentary seats to 14, in a voting bloc with other parties that took 35. Also in 2005, for the first time, the party chose to participate in the cabinet, and currently holds the Ministry of Energy.

Hizballah does not regard its participation in government as contradicting its maintenance of a non-state militia. In fact, the first item on Hizballah's 2005 electoral platform pledged to "safeguard Lebanon's independence and protect it from the Israeli menace by safeguarding the Resistance, Hizballah's military wing and its weapons, in order to achieve total liberation of Lebanese occupied land." This stance places the party at odds with UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which called for the "disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias" in September 2004, and with those political forces in Lebanon that seek to implement the resolution. Prior to the July events, Nasrallah and other party leaders attended a series of "national dialogue" meetings aimed at setting the terms for Hizballah's disarmament. The dialogue had not come to any conclusions by the beginning of the current violence, in part because of Hizballah's insistence that its arms were still needed to defend Lebanon.

But the party has a social platform as well, and views itself as representing not only Shi'i Lebanese, but also the poor more generally. The Amal militia formed by Sayyid Musa al-Sadr developed into a political party as well, and has been Hizballah's main political rival among Shi'i Lebanese, though they are now working in tandem. The longtime speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, Amal's leader, is the intermediary between Hizballah and diplomats inquiring about ceasefire terms and a prisoner exchange. The party also plays the usual political game in Lebanon, where candidates run on multi-confessional district slates rather than as individuals, and it allies (however temporarily) with politicians who do not back its program. In the 2005 parliamentary contests, the Sunni on Hizballah's slate in Sidon was Bahiyya al-Hariri, sister of the assassinated ex-premier. Since the elections, the strongest ally of the Shi'i movement has been the former general, Michel Aoun, the quintessentially "anti-Syrian" figure in Lebanese politics. Aoun's movement, along with Hizballah, was an important component of enormous demonstrations on May 10 in Beirut against the government's privatization plans, which would cost jobs in Lebanon's public sector.

SOCIAL WELFARE

Among the consequences of the Lebanese civil war were economic stagnation, government corruption and a widening gap between the ever shrinking middle class and the ever expanding ranks of the poor. Shi'i areas of Beirut also had to cope with massive displacement from the south and the Bekaa. In this economic climate, sectarian clientelism became a necessary survival tool.

A Shi'i Muslim social welfare network developed in the 1970s and 1980s, with key actors including al-Sadr, Fadlallah and Hizballah. Today, Hizballah functions as an umbrella organization under which many social welfare institutions are run. Some of these institutions provide monthly support and supplemental nutritional, educational, housing and health assistance for the poor; others focus on supporting orphans; still others are devoted to reconstruction of war-damaged areas. There are also Hizballah-affiliated schools, clinics and low-cost hospitals, including a school for children with Down's syndrome.

These social welfare institutions are located around Lebanon and serve the local people regardless of sect, though they are concentrated in the mainly Shi'i Muslim areas of the country. They are run almost entirely through volunteer labor, mostly that of women, and much of their funding stems from individual donations, orphan sponsorships and religious taxes. Shi'i Muslims pay an annual tithe called the khums, one fifth of the income they do not need for their own family's upkeep. Half of this tithe is given to the care of the marja' they recognize. Since 1995, when Khamenei appointed Nasrallah and another Hizballah leader as his religious deputies in Lebanon, the khums revenues of Lebanese Shi'a who follow Khamenei have gone directly into Hizballah's coffers. These Shi'a also give their zakat, the alms required of all Muslims able to pay, to Hizballah's vast network of social welfare institutions. Much of this financial support comes from Lebanese Shi'a living abroad.

WHO SUPPORTS HIZBALLAH?

As one of Israel's stated goals in the current war is the "removal" of Hizballah from the south, it is critical to note that the party has a broad base of support throughout the south and the country -- a base of support that is not necessarily dependent on sect. Being born to a Shi'i Muslim family, or even being a practicing and pious Shi'i Muslim, does not determine one's political affiliation.

Nor does one's socio-economic status. It is sometimes assumed that Hizballah is using its social organizations to bribe supporters, or that these organizations exist solely to prop up "terrorist activities." These views both betray a simplistic view of the party. A more accurate reading would suggest that the party's popularity is based in part on its dedication to the poor, but also on its political platforms and record in Lebanon, its Islamist ideologies, and its resistance to Israeli occupation and violations of Lebanese sovereignty.

Hizballah's popularity is based on a combination of ideology, resistance and an approach to political-economic development. For some, Hizballah's ideologies are viewed as providing a viable alternative to a US-supported government and its neo-liberal economic project in Lebanon and as an active opposition to the role of the US in the Middle East. Its constituents are not only the poor, but increasingly come from the middle classes and include many upwardly mobile, highly educated Lebanese. Many of its supporters are Shi'i Muslim, but there are also many Lebanese of other religious backgrounds who support the party and/or the Islamic Resistance.

"Hizballah supporter" is itself a vague phrase. There are official members of the party and/or the Islamic Resistance; there are volunteers in party-affiliated social welfare organizations; there are those who voted for the party in the last election; there are those who support the Resistance in the current conflict, whether or not they agree with its ideology. To claim ridding south Lebanon of Hizballah as a goal risks aiming for the complete depopulation of the south, tantamount to ethnic cleansing of the area.

In terms of the current conflict, while Lebanese public opinion seems to be divided as to whether blame should be placed on Hizballah or Israel for the devastation befalling the country, this division does not necessarily fall along sectarian lines. More importantly, there are many Lebanese who disagree with Hizballah's Islamist ideologies or political platforms, and who believe that their July 12 operation was a mistake, but who are supportive of the Islamic Resistance and view Israel as their enemy. These are not mutually exclusive positions. One of the effects of the Israeli attacks on selected areas of Beirut has been to widen the class divides in the Lebanon, which may serve to further increase Hizballah's popularity among those who already felt alienated from Hariri-style reconstruction and development.

THE CURRENT VIOLENCE

On July 12, 2006, Hizballah fighters attacked an Israeli army convoy and captured two soldiers. The party stated that they had captured these soldiers for use as bargaining chips in indirect negotiations for the release of the three Lebanese detained without due process and in defiance of the Supreme Court in Israel. As noted, there is precedent for such negotiations. The raid had been planned for months, and the party made at least one earlier attempt to capture soldiers. Nasrallah had stated earlier that 2006 would be the year when negotiations would take place for the release of the three remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. In a July 20 interview on al-Jazeera, he also stated that other leaders in Lebanon were aware of his intention to order a capture attempt, though not of the details of this particular operation.

After the capture of the soldiers, Israel unleashed an aerial assault on Lebanon's cities and infrastructure on a scale unseen since the 1982 invasion. This attack was accompanied by a naval blockade, and more recently, a ground invasion. The ground invasion is being strongly opposed by Hizballah fighters along with fighters from other parties. Both the Lebanese Communist Party and Amal have announced the deaths of fighters in battle. At least 516 Lebanese have been killed, mostly civilians; the Lebanese government's tally of the dead stands at 750 or more. A UN count says one third of the dead are children. In several cases, villagers who were warned by Israeli leaflets or automated telephone messages to leave their homes were killed when their vehicles were targeted shortly thereafter. On July 30, Israeli planes bombed a three-story house being used as a shelter in Qana, killing at least 57 civilians and reawakening memories of the 1996 Qana massacre. The Lebanese government estimates that 2,000 people have been wounded since July 12, while as many as 750,000 people have been displaced from their homes. Hizballah has responded, since early on in the Israeli bombing campaign, by firing hundreds of rockets into Israel, killing 19 civilians thus far. An additional 33 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat.

In Lebanon, entire villages in the south have been flattened, as have whole neighborhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Runways and fuel tanks at Beirut International Airport, roads, ports, power plants, bridges, gas stations, TV transmitters, cell phone towers, a dairy and other factories, and wheat silos have been targeted and destroyed, as well as trucks carrying medical supplies, ambulances, and minivans full of civilians. The UN is warning of a humanitarian crisis, and has indicated that war crimes investigations are in order for the targeting of civilians in both Lebanon and Israel. Human Rights Watch has documented Israel's use of artillery-fired cluster munitions, which it believes "may violate the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law" because the "bomblets" spread widely and often fail to explode on impact, in effect becoming land mines. Eyewitnesses in Beirut report that the pattern of destruction in hard-hit neighborhoods resembles that caused by thermobaric weapons, or "vacuum bombs," whose blast effects are innately indiscriminate. Lebanese doctors receiving dead and wounded have alleged that Israeli bombs contain white phosphorus, a substance that, if used in offensive operations, is considered an illegal chemical weapon.

Israel's initially stated goal of securing the release of the two captured soldiers has faded from Israeli discourse and given way to two additional stated goals: the disarmament or at least "degrading" of Hizballah's militia, as well as its removal from south Lebanon. According to an article in the July 21 San Francisco Chronicle, "a senior Israeli army officer" had presented plans for an offensive with these goals to US and other diplomats over a year before Hizballah's capture of the two soldiers. Though Israel is not in compliance with several UN resolutions, the Israeli army appears to be attempting singlehandedly -- though with US approval -- to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1559.

It is unclear how the aerial bombardment of infrastructure and the killing of Lebanese civilians can lead to any of these goals, especially as support for Hizballah and the Islamic Resistance appears to be increasing. Outrage at Israel's actions trumps ideological disagreement with Hizballah for many Lebanese at this point, and as such, it is likely that support for the party will continue to grow.

Lara Deeb, a cultural anthropologist, is assistant professor of women's studies at the University of California-Irvine. She is author of An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon.



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Glimpse Into Hezbollah Secretive World

Palestine Chronicle
02/08/2006

SRIFA, Lebanon - When duty calls many Hezbollah members, including school teachers, give up every thing, don their military uniforms and pick up their Kalashnikovs to defend their country.

"We don't love killing
," Haj Rabia Abu Hussein - known to his soldiers simply as "103" - told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in an interview wired on Tuesday, August 1.

"We look at all people as brothers. We deal with people as people, regardless of religion, but we will defend our land, our honor and our dignity."

As he talks, Hussein fingers his Motorola radio, his means of communication with his soldiers farther afield.

"This is the battle we have long expected and long prepared for," he said, wearing trainers, a blue denim butt-on-down shirt and a baseball cap.

The 40-year-old field commander, who oversees military activities in one sector, generally comprising three villages, joined the resistance group back in 1982.

It took Hezbollah fighters 18 years of uphill struggle and sporadic attacks to force the Israelis to finally withdraw from almost all of Lebanon save the tiny Shebaa farms in the south.

Camouflage

Hussein sat beside Abu Mohammad, 44, a longtime friend in Reeboks, a loose fitting T-shirt and cargo pants.

They explained how they continue to dodge Israel's wrath and live to fight another day.

"We use local knowledge," said Hussein. "On the radio, we talk about a certain tree or a certain cliff. How will the Israelis understand that?"

In their current struggle, this shared history of fellow soldiers is a powerful weapon that helps them evade Israeli intelligence, they say.

"For example Haj used to love someone about 20 years ago," said Abu Mohammad.

"So I'll tell him, 'Haj, go and meet me at the house of the girl you used to love, who melted your heart'."

Hussein pulls a laminated card from his pocket. On it are the names of his fighters and their positions, along with corresponding code numbers and code names.

"Don't think that we use only primitive means of communication," he said.

"Guarantee of Victory"

The Israeli withdrawal from the two strategic towns of Bent Jbeil and Maroon Al-Ras left Hussein and Abu Mohammad brimming with confidence.

"Israelis said their priority is to destroy Hezbollah and then they changed and said it is to destroy Hezbollah's weapons," Hussein said.

"Then they said they would occupy Lebanon up to the Littani River. Then they said just six kilometers, and now they're saying two kilometers.

"Israel has admitted that they have failed and can't achieve their objectives."

Hezbollah has inflicted heavy losses on the powerful Israeli army and proved in no way an easy meat.

The resistance group has downed at least two Apache helicopters and damaged two warships.

Abu Mohammad has no doubt they would emerge victorious.

"It's like we have a holy guarantee of victory," he said.

"If I am martyred, I am victorious and if we are victorious then we are victorious."

Lay People

Hussein and Abu Mohammad also spoke about the more routine aspects of their struggle as well: their daily diet.

"We eat mostly canned food, tuna, and some chocolate," said Hussein. "But yesterday we had fried potatoes and sometimes we make eggs."

The pair are lay people: middle school history teachers who have taken up arms to resist the occupiers.

In their fashion choices, mild manners, and neatly trimmed beards, Abu Mohammad and Hussein shift seamlessly from civilian garb to soldiers' wear just like other fighters.

"Our people are outfitted as soldiers, but when we are among civilians then we dress normally. When we are in the field, we dress as soldiers," says Hussein.

"It's not reasonable to walk around in military uniforms and carry rifles when, for example, the Red Cross comes into town."

Commenting, the AFP correspondent said: "These fighters don't speak like fanatics who behead foreigners in the name of Al-Qaeda."

Hussein tried to reinforce the understanding.

"Just as we love martyrdom we also have love for life; we don't want to die just to die."



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"Supporters of Hezbollah"

By Dahr Jamail
07/31/06 "t r u t h o u t"

Today, Sunday, I write this from Beirut, which is being circled by Israeli unmanned military surveillance drones, the same kind I saw so often in Fallujah. I suppose they were spying on the raging demonstrators who clogged the streets in Beirut and assaulted the UN building in a rage of vengeance after the fresh massacre of civilians by Israeli warplanes in the small town of Qana in the south.
Hundreds of the protesters ran through the building's corridors smashing offices, walls and glass while rescue teams extracted the bodies of at least 34 children and scores of other civilians from the bowels of the refugee shelter they were hiding in.

"Fuck the UN! Fuck those bastards for not stopping this Israeli slaughtering of the innocents," screamed a young protestor waving a Lebanese flag outside the UN building, which by now had smoke billowing out of portions of it. "What good are they if they cannot do what they were designed to do - to stop the killing of innocents?"
This man, 22 years old, was but a baby when the first Israeli military massacre at Qana took place. Yet the parallels of this sordid history repeating itself were not missed by most in the seething crowd.

On April 11, 1996, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, under pressure to respond to a wave of suicide bombings in Israel, launched Operation Grapes of Wrath. One week later, on April 18, while 800 civilians sought shelter from the fighting at a UN peacekeeping base in Qana, the base was shelled heavily - killing 102 and wounding 120.

After the first Qana massacre, the Israeli military rejected responsibility for the deaths, instead blaming Hezbollah because they thought fighters had entered the UN base. A similar Israeli justification, albeit the very definition of collective punishment, was given today - that they suspected Hezbollah militants had fired rockets from Qana. After the 1996 massacre, a UN investigation found no evidence to support the claim made by the Israeli military, and I suspect a similar investigation will find a similar verdict this time - that the Israeli military had no reason to bomb innocent civilians.

Astounding as this level of blood thirst is, it really cannot come as much of a surprise. Why not? Because just last Thursday, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon announced on Israeli army radio, "All those in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah."

Using rhetoric that set the stage for justifying the collective punishment of the Lebanese people in southern Lebanon, Ramon added, "In order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops move in."

He rationalized his statements by saying that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to leave the area; thus, anyone who remained could be considered a supporter of Hezbollah.

So of course by his definition, everyone in southern Lebanon supports Hezbollah.

I met some of these "supporters of Hezbollah" yesterday in the hospitals of Sidon.

I met five-year-old Hussein Jawad as his stiff little body lay prone on a hospital bed, one of his tiny legs in a cast. His eight-year-old sister Zayneb, also a "supporter of Hezbollah," lay next to him in the same bed. See, there were so many Hezbollah supporters in the southern hospitals that the small ones had to share beds.

They, along with their mother Yusah in a nearby bed, covered in the kind of shrapnel wounds received from cluster bombs, had stayed in their tiny village near the border during the first three days of the bombing because they were too scared to leave. The bombing got so close; they took their chances and managed to move to another village, where they stayed for another eight days.

They ran out of food, so Yusah and the two little "supporters of Hezbollah," compelled by fear and hunger, along with another car containing Yusah's two sisters, followed an ambulance to Kafra village. When they arrived there, the car carrying the two sisters was bombed by an American-made F-16.

Then there was Khuder Gazali, an ambulance driver, whose left arm was blown off by a rocket fired by an American-made Apache war helicopter while he was rescuing civilians whose home had been bombed. The ambulance then sent to rescue the rescuer was bombed, everyone in it killed. Miraculously, the third ambulance was able to retrieve him, only because the Apache had left.

16-year-old Ibrahim Al-Hama was surely supporting Hezbollah as he played in a river with a dozen of his friends before they were bombed by a warplane. He lay in the hospital bed, his lacerated chest oozing blood, his left ankle shattered and held together by gauze and medical tape. Two of his friends are dead, along with a woman who was near the bomb's impact zone. Perhaps she too was plotting a rocket attack against Israel?

It's wonderful to see the thoroughness of the Israeli military, their effectiveness at eradicating "supporters of Hezbollah." Like 51-year-old Sumi Marden Ruwiri. On July 14th his home in Bint Jbail was bombed while most of his family members were inside, killing his mother and sister while they surely were strategizing the next rocket launches for Hezbollah. When he and several others began to sift through the rubble for their loved ones, the warplanes returned to bomb the rescuers. He lay in bed, his back shredded by shrapnel, countless patches of gauze stuck to his wounds. His sheets were stained red by blood and yellow by pus that oozed from the wounds.

Alia Abbas, a 52-year-old, fled her village with five other family members after Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets instructing them to leave their village. She lay in bed shredded by shrapnel wounds, one of her eyes missing. 10 days ago when they tried to flee, hanging white flags out the windows of their car, they were bombed by warplanes. She's the only survivor. "Why did they bomb as after we did what they told us to do," she asked me. All I could do was clench my jaw to stave off the tears.

Apparently Alia didn't know she was a "supporter of Hezbollah," since her family was wiped out after Haim Ramon's preposterous remarks about half a million inhabitants of southern Lebanon.

I met dozens of other Hezbollah supporters, most of them women, children and elderly - the kind most ill-equipped to flee their homes on a moment's notice. They lay in their beds, many of them moaning, some crying, and others comatose and kept alive only by machines. The man comatose in this picture was fleeing his village on a motorcycle after receiving the leaflets of instruction to do so, according to his mother - the only one left alive from their family of 10.

Then I met Durish Zhair, a 43-year-old man whose home near the southern border was bombed by warplanes. Half of his face was burned his back horribly burned, and the rest of his body pocked by shrapnel. He sat with a stern look on his face, distraught and confused by what happened. I asked him where his 11 family members were and he told me, "They are all wounded, scattered in hospitals in the south, or in Beirut."

I thanked him for his time, and we walked out of his room. The nurse who accompanied me softly closed the door. She then said to me quietly, "All of his family is dead. We cannot tell him yet because he is so injured. He thinks they are still alive."

Surely, they too, along with his wife and young children were "supporters of Hezbollah."

My head spun. My head still spins and I feel sick inside. I wonder how much is enough? How many more will die? Over 600 Lebanese, mostly civilians, are dead. At least 51 Israelis, the majority civilians, are dead from this.

If we look back a few years, we find the answer. Speaking before the Conference on America's Challenges in a Changed World at the US Institute of Peace (yes, "Institute of Peace") in Washington DC on September 5, 2002, the Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had the following exchange during a Q&A session:

Q: In this war on terrorism, a group that isn't mentioned very often is one that you're very familiar with, Hezbollah. It has killed more Americans than any other terrorist group before September 11th. I just would like to hear whether they are on the agenda sometime in the future.

Mr. Armitage: Well, let me, for those who don't know you, Buck, "Buck" Revell, formerly of the FBI, was one of the leading voices for anti-terrorism activities during the second Reagan administration and was absolutely key in some of the takedowns we had at the time. And I appreciate the question.

Hezbollah may be the "A team" of terrorists, and maybe al Qaeda is actually the "B team." And they're on the list and their time will come, there is no question about it. They have a blood debt to us, which you spoke to, and we're not going to forget it. And it's all in good time. And we're going to go after these problems just like a high school wrestler goes after a match. We're going to take 'em down one at a time.


And taking 'em down one at a time, or in the case of Qana today, scores at a time, is what they are doing in southern Lebanon. While Israel and their stalwart US backers continue to refuse pleas for a cease-fire, bombs and rockets rain down on women, children and other innocents as they huddle in their homes, in refugee shelters, or while they flee in their cars while holding white surrender flags.

Meanwhile, Israeli defense sources told Israel's Haaretz newspaper Sunday that the Israeli army's general staff had received orders to accelerate its offensive on Hezbollah before the declaration of any cease-fire.

Yet as War Criminal Rice and her cronies back in DC drag their feet, postponing any real cease-fire, Israel's military needn't hasten itself too much as they go about their daily slaughtering of the "supporters of Hezbollah."



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'No Hezbollah Rockets Fired from Qana'

08/01/06
IPS

ANA, Aug 1 (IPS) - Red Cross workers and residents of Qana, where Israeli bombing killed at least 60 civilians, have told IPS that no Hezbollah rockets were launched from the city before the Israeli air strike.

The Israeli military has said it bombed the building in which several people had taken shelter, more than half of them children, because the Army had faced rocket fire from Qana. The Israeli military has said that Hezbollah was therefore responsible for the deaths.

"There were no Hezbollah rockets fired from here," 32-year-old Ali Abdel told IPS. "Anyone in this village will tell you this, because it is the truth."
Abdel had taken shelter in a nearby house when the shelter was bombed at 1 am. When the bombings finally let up in the morning, he went back to the bombed shelter to search for relatives.

He found his 70-year-old father and 64-year-old mother both dead inside.

"They bombed it, and afterwards I heard the screams of women, children, and a few men -- they were crying for help. But then one minute after the first bomb, another bomb struck, and after this there was nothing but silence, and the sound of more bombs around the village."


Masen Hashen, a 30-year-old construction worker from Qana who lost several family members in the air strike on the shelter, said there were no Hezbollah rockets fired from his village. "Because if they had done that now, or in the past, all of us would have left. Because we know we would be bombed."


Qana had been a shelter because no rockets were being fired from there, survivors said. "When Hezbollah fires their rockets, everyone runs away because they know an Israeli bombardment will come soon," Abdel said. "That is why everyone stayed in the shelter and nearby homes, because we all thought we'd be all right since there were no Hezbollah fighters in Qana."

Lebanese Red Cross workers in the nearby coastal city of Tyre told IPS that there was no basis for Israeli claims that Hezbollah had launched rockets from Qana.


"We found no evidence of Hezbollah fighters in Qana," Kassem Shaulan, a 28-year-old medic and training manager for the Red Cross in Tyre told IPS at their headquarters. "When we rescue people or recover bodies from villages, we usually see rocket launchers or Hezbollah fighters if they are there, but in Qana I can say that the village was 100 percent clear of either of those."

Another Red Cross worker, 32-year-old Mohammad Zatar, told IPS that "we can tell when Hezbollah has been firing rockets from certain areas, because all of the people run away, on foot if they have to."

While IPS was interviewing people in Qana at the site of the shelter Monday, Israeli warplanes roared overhead. Vibrations from nearby bombing rattled many buildings. At least three villages in southern Lebanon were attacked in Israeli air strikes Monday.

Following the international outcry over the air strike, Israel declared a 48-hour cessation of air strikes in order to carry out a military probe into the Qana killings.

Despite the false Israeli statement that it was halting its air strikes, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Army Radio that the stoppage "does not signify in any way the end to the war."

Israel has rejected mounting international pressure to end the 20-day-old war against Hezbollah. The United Nations has indefinitely postponed a meeting on a new peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon.

While defending the Israeli air strike on the civilians in Qana, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman told the UN Security Council that Qana was "a hub for Hezbollah", and said that Israel had urged villagers to leave.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said in reply to questions in New York Monday that the bombing was "totally, totally its (Hezbollah's) fault."



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Israeli commandos clash with Hezbollah in northeastern Lebanon

02/08/2006

Israel launched its deepest ground strike into Lebanon today, claiming it had killed 10 Hezbollah guerrillas and captured five in the northeastern city of Baalbek, while nearby air strikes killed at least 15 civilians.

Israeli warplanes also attacked a Lebanese army base in south Lebanon, killing three soldiers, a security official said.

In the raid on Baalbek, near the eastern border with Syria, Israeli commandos flew in by helicopter. Israel’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said troops captured five Hezbollah guerrillas and killed at least 10.

Though Israel has not yet released the identity of those captured, when asked whether any were “big fish,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: “They are tasty fishes.”
Hezbollah guerrillas hit back, firing at least 150 rockets at towns across northern Israel, wounding at least 17 people and killing one, Israeli police said.

Israel medics said one of the rockets hit near the town of Beit Shean, the deepest rocket strike into Israel so far. Witnesses in Israel also reported that a Hezbollah rocket hit the West Bank for the first time, striking between the villages of Fakua and Jalboun, near Beit Shean.

The ferocity of the battles in Baalbek and across southern Lebanon, coupled with the determination of the Israelis to keep fighting and the minimal diplomatic progress toward a ceasefire so far, all indicated the three-week-old war is likely to escalate further.

In the most recent blow to diplomatic efforts, France said it will not participate in a meeting tomorrow at the UN that could send troops to help monitor a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, even though it may join - and possibly even lead - such a force.

France does not want to talk about sending peacekeepers until fighting halts and the UN Security Council agrees to a wider framework for lasting peace.

Comment: "Tasty fishes" eh? See our picture of the day for an analysis.

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Amerika to the Rescue


US dismisses idea of immediate cease-fire in Lebanon

www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-02 07:46:29

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- The White House said Tuesday that an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah is not on the agenda right now.

"An immediate cease-fire is something that at this point doesn't seem to be in the cards. Neither side is headed that way," White House spokesman Tony Snow said at a briefing.
However, the UN Security Council is expected to reach an agreement on Lebanon crisis "in a matter of days," Snow said.

The Bush administration has supported Israel's military action in Lebanon by claiming that Israel is defending itself against Lebanese Hezbollah, a group termed by the United States as terrorist.

However, Israeli military strikes in Lebanon have caused a humanitarian crisis in the country.



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FOX News Uses Unsubstantiated Speculation to Exonerate Israel in Qana Deaths

News Hounds
August 01, 2006

I really, truly do wonder about the people on FOX News. How do they get up every morning and trot off to work knowing that they'll spend most of their time telling lies and distorting reality? I guess either they are "true believers" or the exact opposite - people with no ideals or principles who'd sell their grandmother for a six-figure paycheck and a chance at the limelight.


Yesterday morning's FOX & Friends was just another in a long series of pro-Israel, pro-war spin-fests delivered with twisted lips and sour expressions, snide innuendo, overdone patriotic chest-thumping and some really sad attempts at humor. The toxic trio of Doocy, Hill and Kilmeade outdid themselves trying to convince the FOX viewers that Israel was and is justified in its total annihilation of the economy, culture, politics and people of Lebanon.

At 6:10 AM EDT, Greg Palkot reported in stark terms about the utter devastation of the town of Bint Jbail, comparing it to Dresden.

PALKOT: "...This town is an absolutely incredible place to see, absolutely flattened by more than two weeks of Israeli bombardment from the air, also from artillery. We've been walking around this town. ... I mean we haven't seen really much of a sign of remains of the Hezbollah militia which were using this place as a node of activity, which is why Israel used this as a place to pound and pound and pound again but we are using this 48-hour break in the Israeli bombardment to get a feel for what is here."

Three women and a child walked into the scene, picking their way through the smashed ruins of buildings.

PALKOT: "Incredibly, ... there are people still trapped in the rubble, people still living underneath the rubble of this town. We have seen at least a half a dozen bodies being (tape freeze) ... seen people who have walked three, four hours from this town to the nearest area of civilization. They say that it was an incredible bombardment, night after night and day after day of Israeli activity here and, again, if there was any Hezbollah here, if there is any Hezbollah here, they are safely tucked away underneath some basement, in some shelters, in some bunkers in the activities but the center of this town, absolutely (sic) devastation. We're watching a family come down here. Looks like a mother, and a child and a grandmother, another woman who is coming here. ... They got the word to evacuate this place over the past week or ten days by the Israeli Defense Force but some have been sheltered, have been protected against this place. But, again, as we drove down from our location in Tyre, Lebanon, the destruction got more and more and more and more. What we hear now overhead - some bombardment by artillery ... and we've been hearing the consistent sound of surveillance drones looking, looking at the scene here.

"We also drove by the town of Qana, which I know you've been talking about, where we were yesterday, where the 50 plus women and children were killed that really, perhaps, to a large degree triggered this cease fire."

Two Lebanese women walked through the frame.

PALKOT: "We're watching these two women here, presumably (tape freeze) ... entire time, and I tell ya' if they were here for this whole time and are alive, it's a testimony to the will of these people to survive because this place is absolutely Dresden."

Back at FOX News Central in NYC, once Palkot had finished his report, the F&F crew launched into Monday's "talking points" straight from the world of the right wing blogs, talking points that consisted of blaming the victims for being too poor to get out of town and absolving Israel of any complicity in the deaths at Qana.

E. D. "EDITH ANN" HILL: It also makes you question why people continue to stay there despite the leaflets.

BRIAN KILMEADE: Well, you know the explanation. That they say that they had no money and no where to go. I mean, and that - and that - and that ...

STEVE DOOCY: A taxi ride would be four, five, six, seven hundred dollars to get out and it's interesting, though, with the momentary suspension of the air strikes, though ....

HILL: Right. Not a cease-fire

DOOCY: Right. It's not a cease-fire. But with the suspension for forty-eight hours, the Israelis have also said "Anybody who wants to get out, get out now because somethin' else could be comin'."

HILL: Also, one thing that he didn't get the chance to talk about and that was - he mentioned coming past Qana. The Israelis are reporting, and it hasn't been disputed yet (my emphasis), that the - that that house that was struck by Israel was struck eight hours before it collapsed.

DOOCY: Midnight.

HILL: Which which - and it collapsed around 8 AM. And so it raises the question of why, after the building was struck, there would be women and children using that for shelter. Perhaps it was just slightly damaged but it also brings up why did it come down then. And some have speculated that it is because of secondary explosions, because we know, from what we have seen on video and from what our reporters have experienced, that frequently Hezbollah has been using houses and the basements to store their own munitions.

DOOCY: Human shields.

Comment

Doocy, Kilmeade and Hill got their "facts" from a bunch of right wing bloggers who - in their desperate search for anything to explain away the images of babies on stretchers - latched onto an early report made on the website ynet.com in which IDF Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of Air Force Headquarters, played clever word games in a campaign of disinformation aimed at putting the blame on Hezbollah for the civilian deaths in Qana.

The ynet.com "report" was a masterpiece of ambiguity in which General Eshel is quoted as saying "The attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear."

In other words, the General basically said he didn't know when the building collapsed.

The ynet.com article went on to say

The IDF believes that Hizbullah explosives in the building were behind the explosion that caused the collapse.

Another possibility is that the rickety building remained standing for a few hours, but eventually collapsed. "It could be that inside the building, things that could eventually cause an explosion were being housed, things that we could not blow up in the attack, and maybe remained there, Brigadier General Eshel said.

"I'm saying this very carefully, because at this time I don't have a clue as to what the explanation could be for this gap," he added.

In that last sentence the General literally admits he hasn't the foggiest idea whether any of his suppositions are true.

Despite this, on FOX News - and all across the conservative blogosphere - this report was picked up and spun as "fact" much the same way the unsubstantiated and undocumented claims made by Canada's Major General (ret) Lewis Mackenzie were taken as "fact" last weekend.

Mackenzie claimed to have received e-mails from one of the UNIFIL soldiers in which the soldier was supposed to have claimed that Hezbollah was using the UN compound as a shield. Despite the fact that the UN consistently denied this and knowing the Mackenzie has never produced a shred of real proof that he received such an e-mail, the right wingers on FOX have consistently used it as a proven "fact".

The blogs that "covered" the "important" but "deliberately overlooked" story about Qana were Michelle Malkin and Free Republic, two of the high-profile RW noise machines. Naturally, all the "little fishies" picked it up as gospel. In an interesting twist, PowerLine, which is run by attorneys, did NOT pick up the ynet.com story. Apparently, they smelled the same rat that I did.

Without exception, both Malkin and Free Republic linked back to the ynet.com article I quoted above. Each one of them accepted supposition and speculation as "fact".

And good old FOX News jumped right in with both feet!

With regard to the attack on Qana, it would seem that IDF Brigadier General Eshel's "speculations" were not provable.

Today, Tuesday, August 1st, Haaretz, a prominent Israeli newspaper, described the attack and their report contained no claims that hidden caches of Hezbollah weapons exploded eight hours after the building was hit.

(August 1, 2006) It remains unclear at this stage why that specific house, which was located at the northern edge of Qana, was targeted in the IAF strike on Sunday.

The Israel Defense Forces' inquiry has yet to establish a connection between residents of the building and Hezbollah operatives who were launching rockets at Israel from the area of the village. The IDF believed the building to be empty, and therefore bombed it.

IDF sources said Monday, however, that the investigation into the incident was still ongoing. The sources added that a large number of Katyusha rockets had been fired at Israel from the area of Qana.

According to survivors of the strike, two extended families had taken shelter in the building. The survivors said that the Shalhoub and Hashem families remained in the building because they were unable to afford the

cost of traveling north. The families also assumed that the Israeli drones that were patrolling the skies above the village had seen that the building was occupied by numerous children.

The survivors spoke of two bombings - one at 1 A.M., and the second some 10 minutes later. However, what appeared to the survivors as a second bombing may have been the sound of the building coming down. None of the survivors said that the building only collapsed several hours later (my emphasis).

Ibrahim Shalhoub described how he and his cousin had left to find help following the strike on the building. "It was dark and there was lots of smoke," he said. "No one could do anything until morning. I could not stop crying; I couldn't help them."

The fact that the Red Cross in Tyre was informed of the incident only in the morning is another reason why assistance was late in arriving. The director of the Red Cross office in the city, Sami Yazbek, said that he received word of the incident only at 7 A.M. The ambulances dispatched to the area were further delayed by the damaged roads, Yazbek said. (Haaretz, 8-1-06)

In a piece of terrible irony, the name Shalhoub is well-known to many in America.

The incredibly talented, Lebanese-American actor, Tony Shalhoub, whom I most fondly remember as Fred Kwan in Galaxy Quest but whom most of our readers will recall as the obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk in the hit TV series Monk. Shalhoub is a winner of a SAG ward, an Emmy and the Golden Globe.

Additionally, Omar Sharif's birth name is Michael Shalhoub, something I only just found out.

Lebanese Americans have risen to the highest levels in American life. They include Spencer Abraham, Danny Thomas, Marlo Thomas, Paul Anka, Jamie Farr, Sammy Haggar, Salma Hayek, Casey Kasem, Kathy Najimy, Harold Ramis, Shakira, Helen Thomas, Amy Yasbeck and Frank Zappa, among others.

And, oh, yes, here's a name familiar to all of us: General John Abizaid, the man who told Donald Rumsfeld he'd need a lot more troops to win in Iraq than the Secretary of Defense planned on. Abizaid was told "Don't let the door hit you on your way out!" Rumsfeld should have listened.

You can view an impressive list of other prominent Lebanese Americans at downtownbeirut.com.

One wonders how they feel about FOX News' less-than-fair-and-balanced coverage of the destruction of their ancestral homeland?





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Qana Revisited

By Robert Thompson*
Jul 31, 2006, 11:10

Qana is back in the international news just over ten years after the terrible massacre in 1996. The Zionists have once again bombed and killed a large number of defenceless civilians, mainly children. On the previous occasion the casualties numbered over one hundred and this time they were over fifty.

This is clear evidence that the "clinical pin-point-accuracy" of Zionist "carefully targeted" attacks on supposed "terrorists" in the Lebanon is a totally false claim.
What normal people cannot accept is the sheer lack of concern and/or conscience shown by such international criminals as Mr Bush, Mr Olmert, Mr Blair and Dr Rice. Mr Blair's latest Foreign Secretary, Mrs Margaret Beckett (she who was described as "not so much a safe pair of hands, more of a glove-puppet"), refused fully to answer questions put to her on BBC Radio this morning regarding the carefree lack of haste in the policies of the USA and the United Kingdom. I have to admit that I fully understand that she cannot give any justification for the deliberately long drawn-out discussions resulting in continuing delays which increase the loss of innocent lives.

Obviously, if the Bushist régime said "stop", the aggressors would obey, because they rely on the Bushists for their most effective arms as well as for unfailing protection within the United Nations. The ephemeral and artificial "state of Israel" has yet to obey a whole range of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, especially those requiring it to act in accordance with international law in general and that to withdraw behind the frontiers of the lands occupied prior to 1967.

The argument that this rogue state (if this entity can be considered to be a state) has "the right to defend itself" is a total red-herring, since the existence of the "state of Israel" is based upon the crudest form of ethnic cleansing in complete contradiction with the United Nations Charter. This started before the ending of the British (League of Nations and subsequently United Nations) Mandate, and involved murder and threats against ordinary inhabitants, as well as against members of the British administration. It is also still continuing, particularly in the Naqab and in Galilee.

Although Dr Rice has shed a few crocodile tears over the victims at Qana, she has so far done nothing to stop the carnage in the Lebanon, and her Fuehrer has been shown on newsreel footage smilingly babbling about finding a "final solution" (an expression which reminds those of my generation of the late unlamented Adolf Hitler and his followers).

The only valid final solution possible is the ending of Zionist apartheid, and the reversion of the whole of Palestine to being a country where all inhabitants have equal rights of citizenship, regardless of their religious affiliation or lack of it. It also requires the return of land and other property to the rightful owners, or perhaps proper compensation in difficult cases.

As a lawyer, I have to repeat once again that there can be no peace without justice, and that those who refuse justice risk building up further resentment and hatred, thus fueling further terrorism.

© Copyright 2006 by AxisofLogic.com



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'You Reach A Place Where You Look At Life Like It's Nothing'

Dahr Jamail
August 2, 2006

Walking into the scene of the massacre yesterday in Qana felt like entering a bottomless pit of despair. A black whole of sadness, regardless of the fact that the bodies of the women, 37 young children, the elderly, and what few men were there had been removed.

Mohammad Zatar, the 32-year-old Lebanese Red Cross volunteer I spoke with down in Tyre, after we'd been to Qana, described the scene and the feelings better than I can.

"I worked to rescue people after the first Qana massacre in 1996," he told me as we stood in front of the Red Cross headquarters. "But this one was so much worse. It was the ages. So many baby kids, unlike last time. Four months to 12 years. Only six adult bodies! Only 8 injured survivors. The rest -- all kids. There were no scratches on the bodies because they were all buried in the rubble. It was a bad scene."
He told me he used to be gung-ho. That he'd always worked to be the first on the scene, take the big risks. But yesterday he shook his head often while we talked.

"This makes you feel so pessimistic," he continued, "You reach a place where you look at life like it's nothing. I've cried and cried and cried, all because of the babies. This is the worst."

Israeli jets roared overhead in the afternoon heat, the thumps of their distant bombs audible during the lulls of the crystal blue waves that crashed upon the nearby beach.

"We entered the place, and we could only use our fingertips," he said, holding up his hands to underscore his point. "Your fingers. You had to use all your senses. When I found a tip of a finger poking up through the rubble, I would start to shake like I was shocked by electricity, because I knew it was another child. I'm still shocked."

He told me of his three year-old girl. "I can't sleep, I keep checking her in her bed to make sure she's still alive. I go in and just hold her. I pick her up and hug her. Just to touch her and hold her and feel her breathing. And now while I must keep working, every 20 minutes I'm calling her. This has shattered me. I was never scared before, but now I am."

He saw me looking inside the headquarters at several of the other volunteers as they stood around. All of them seemed to move in slow motion, tired, lost.

"If you look in the eyes of all the rescue workers here, you see the sadness, the badness of war," he said, then held my eyes for a very long time. We just stared at each other.

I gave him a firm handshake and put my left hand on his shoulder. I wanted to give him a hug, but didn't want to embarrass him. Instead I told him, "Thank you for what you do. Please take care of yourself Mohammad."

I traveled to Qana and Tyre with my friend Urban, a Swedish-Iraqi journalist. He and I were unable to work today. We had plans to interview refugees in Beirut who've been arriving by the thousands from the south, and just agreed after lunch to wait until tomorrow. We're both shattered.

My photographer friend from Holland, Raoul, also went to Tyre yesterday. He sits downstairs at his computer. "I'm so tired, I feel like I can't continue here so I'll leave tomorrow," he told me. "How do you say it, in English, when there is no more room for any more feelings?"

Yesterday's trip was difficult, driving through so many empty villages atop the rolling, rocky hills of southern Lebanon. Like small ghost towns, inhabited by unattended dogs, cats, and the odd wandering herd of goats. One blasted building, shop, house after another. We followed small paths swept through the rubble of the streets, around the larger chunks of concrete, to make our way through and out, then on to the next village to repeat the process.

In Qana I spoke with two men, residents there who'd dug through the rubble of the shelter to look for their loved ones, only to find them dead. One of the men lost his parents. His mother was 64, his father 70. The second man, Masen, lost his 75-year-old uncle, and his aunt, who was 70.

"They bombed it twice," he said, "After the first bomb we heard the screams of the women and children. And moaning. Then a minute later they bombed it again. After that we heard no more screams. Only more bombs around the area."

Down at the Red Cross afterwards, I also interviewed Kassem Shaulan. He was in an ambulance hit by an air strike. He pointed out the hole from the rocket--an inverted flower of blooming metal, straight down the cross-section of the cross painted in red atop the white ambulance. He still couldn't hear well, his vision was blurred, and he had several scars and stitches.

"We had an old man in the back on a stretcher whose leg was blown off," he told me, "And a young child who is now in a coma."

The ambulance near them was hit by an air strike as well--severely injuring everyone in it. Kassam told me that it took them three times to reach Qana after the shelter was bombed. "We got the call at 5 a.m. and had to turn back because three bombs barely missed our ambulance," he said, "Then, the second time, we were bombed and they missed again. So that is why we weren't able to reach there until 9 a.m. So most likely people died because the Israelis kept us away."

Driving home we had one of our few moments of levity of the day. A frazzled looking young British man, covered in dust and sweat and wearing shorts and ruffled shirt, drove up to our car on a motor scooter.

We were heading back towards Sidon from Tyre through plantations of banana trees. "Hi," he said. After we replied, "hello" he smiled and continued, "Oh great--you speak English. Can you tell me, which way is it to Tyre?"

We pointed behind us and drove on as he revved his little engine and continued south. Urban and I looked at each other, he smiled, and I said, "What in the hell was that?" We both laughed.

"Maybe he's a tourist who rented his scooter in Beirut," I suggested. Urban replied, "He may as well ask, 'Hey guys, can you tell me which way the war is?'"

Most of the drive we were quiet. Just driving, and watching the magnificent changing of colors just before sunset. The nearby hills to the east bathed in orange. The green palm fronts seemed to glow, thanking the sun for the light. The turquoise waters of the Mediterranean shimmered as the afternoon breeze began to pick up.

Just driving.

And trying to take deep breaths.



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"Peacekeepers" to the Rescue

By Tom Mysiewicz
Shamireaders
August 1, 2006

The calculated madness of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon, the attacks on ambulances, columns of civilians, bridges, power plants, Shiites, Sunnis, Druze, Christians and just about everything that moves-and now the horrendous "bunker buster" attack on a building in Qana filled mostly with child refugees--may simply be a gambit to create a humanitarian crisis of such a degree in Lebanon that the world will rush to allow a strong UN, NATO or other "peacekeeping" force to enter the country. Such an eventuality, while in the interest of Israeli planners and of great benefit in a future war against Iran and Syria, would be a serious error for the participants as well as the victims. For a "peacekeeping" force is no substitute for strict international sanctions on Israel (including an embargo on WMDs and weapons capable of being used on civilian populations).
For starters, the UN (and Israel's proxy, the U.S., through John Bolton) has demonstrated that the UN cannot and will not be a force for peace in the region, rather, it will be a cynical partisan force masquerading as "peacekeepers"--sent into the region only to take the heat off the Israelis and disarm Hezbollah. It will merely embroil the participants--who will in no way be able to fight the Israelis--in the Mid East conflict. (No more than the current lightly-armed UN border guards!)

After the deliberate targeting of a UN observer outpost, in which four (4) unarmed UN observers were essentially murdered, the UN could not even generate a Security Council resolution critical of Israel. As with Qana, the UN will allow Israel to "investigate itself" on this matter. Ignoring Qana, at the same time, the UN Security Council had no problem generating a resolution demanding Iran abandon its nuclear program under threat of sanctions. (And, watching the current Israeli and U.S. actions, would YOU abandon your nuclear program under these conditions?)

Why a "peacekeeping" force? Stationing a "peacekeeping" force in Lebanon would be an effective buffer against an Iranian/Syrian counterattack in the probable event of an Israeli air/missile/nuclear strike on Iran. An infantry counterattack by Iran would be blocked by the "peacekeepers" who, in the meantime, would "mop up" Hezbollah-another threat to Israel in the event it attacks Iran. Remember that this idea was first floated after the VERY suspicious assassination of Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri, and the expulsion of the Syrians (who were real peacekeepers) from Lebanon by the contrived "Cedar Revolution". As I pointed out in my article at the time, "La Brea in Lebanon" (Media Monitors, March 11, 2005) such forces would be for the participants the equivalent of the tar pits of La Brea for prehistoric animals.

From the "get go" a UN force would not be backed up should it interfere in Israel in any meaningful way. And if it got into trouble, John Bolton would block any resolution by the UN Security Council. (Predicted more than a year ago by me in "A Time for Bolton?" Media Monitors, June 7th, 2005). If, through some miracle, any resolution was forced on the U.S., President Bush could simply cut off payment of U.S. dues to the UN, effectively shutting down that world body.

Thus, a NATO, UN or any other force would ONLY be there to disarm Hezbollah and buffer against a potential Iranian/Syrian land attack. They would be perceived as occupiers, NOT "peacekeepers", for this very reason, just as U.S. Marines were in Lebanon in 1983. Initially, the Marines were well received and protected Lebanese from Israeli soldiers on numerous occasions (reportedly earning them taunts from IDF soldiers). On orders from Washington, however, U.S. Naval gunfire was directed on Hezbollah positions to assist the Israeli-backed paramilitary forces in a skirmish. Once the Marines were no longer seen as neutral, their aura of protection seemed to vanish and the inevitable happened. They were blown to "kingdom come".

It has been said that exactly repeating the same action but expecting a different result is the classic definition of insanity. Following the insane Bush-Blair-Olmert course of "peacekeeping" can only lead to attacks on "peacekeepers"-both from Lebanese partisans and Mossad agent provocateurs-that will draw the participants and the world community deeper into the Mid East morass, reluctantly, but on the side of the Israelis.

The Israeli attack on Lebanon has served to unify the people of that country. Given a chance to rebuild, incorporate Hezbollah military units as part of the regular Lebanese army, and get on with their lives, I think the Lebanese will do so.



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Lebanon: We will sue Israel in Hague

01 Aug 2006
Ynet News

Lebanon is planning to file a lawsuit against Israel in the International Criminal Court. The Lebanese minister of justice states that Israel's attacks constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity. In addition, Minister Rizk expressed his regret that the "Qana massacre did not horrify the conscience and did not bring about a UN decision for a ceasefire.


Lebanon is planning to file a lawsuit against Israel in the International Criminal Court. Tuesday, Lebanese Minister of Justice Charles Rizk made a written petition to the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, asking him to bring up the issue in the next meeting of the Lebanese cabinet, so that the prime minister will be able to collect witnesses in preparation before filing of the complaint.

The minister wrote to the prime minister: "The repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon, on its infrastructure, its citizens, women and children, since July 12 are a grave breech of international law and international agreements. As such, they clearly constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity."

"In preparation for the pursuit of the Israeli enemy in the relevant international courts, and in a bid to punish these crimes and to bring them to justice, the Lebanese government must prepare a comprehensive case that will include and detail all the attacks and crimes committed. This is with the intent that Israel pay restitution on all the physical and moral damages that she caused Lebanon and her citizens," he wrote.

"Accordingly, I request of you to present the issue in the cabinet meeting so that the decision can be made to assign the mission of performing a comprehensive survey of damage caused and of gathering proof of crimes committed to the Defense Ministry or the Ministry of the Interior. This will be done with legal oversight so that it may be passed on at the right moment in order to go after the perpetrators of these crimes," he added.

In addition, Minister Rizk expressed his regret that the "Qana massacre did not horrify the conscience and did not bring about a UN decision for a ceasefire.



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Israeli troops push deeper into Lebanon

Last Updated Tue, 01 Aug 2006 10:38:21 EDT
CBC News

The Israeli military pushed deeper into Lebanon late Tuesday while fierce fighting continued in the southern part of the country.
Lebanese army and security officials said troops landed by helicopter and launched strikes in Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon. The town, located about 80 kilometres north of Israel between two mountain ranges in the Bekaa Valley, is a Hezbollah stronghold.

It was reported that a raid took place at a nearby hospital. The Israeli military would only confirm that it had captured several guerrilas in the Baalbek operation.

It was Israel's deepest ground attack in Lebanon since fighting began after a July 12 cross-border raid in which two soldiers were captured by Hezbollah fighters.

The Israeli army had promised earlier in the day to push further into the country to clear out Hezbollah fighters and hold the territory until a multinational force is deployed there.

Meanwhile, Israeli planes hit Shia villages in south Lebanon and attacked Hezbollah positions elsewhere in the country. There were also reports of gun battles in several south Lebanon villages.

Israel also announced that it would resume full air strikes Wednesday, following its self-imposed 48-hour suspension.

Israel had said early Monday that it would suspend air attacks over southern Lebanon for 48 hours.

Less than 12 hours later, limited air strikes resumed when Israel said it was supporting its operations on the ground and responding to new attacks by Hezbollah.

The heaviest fighting Tuesday centred on the Lebanese border village of Aita al-Shaab, the town from which Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border on July 12 and captured two Israeli soldiers, sparking the crisis.

Three Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Hezbollah near Aita al-Shaab, Al Arabiya television said.

Olmert resists calls for ceasefire

Despite international pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resisted calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying every day of fighting weakens Hezbollah.

"Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy. Every extra day is a day in which the [army] reduces their capability, contains their firing ability and their ability to hit in the future," he said.

Olmert has said the fighting will end only when the threat of rocket attacks from Hezbollah militants is removed and the two captured soldiers are returned.

"We are at the start of a diplomatic process that I believe will lead in the end to a ceasefire under totally different conditions from those which existed previously on our northern border... which will provide a real buffer between us and those who would take our lives, with international support such as there has never been before," he said.

In other developments:

* The United Nations postponed discussion on mobilizing an international force for Lebanon until at least Thursday.
* European Union foreign ministers held an emergency meeting in Brussels, and called on Israel and Hezbollah to agree to an "immediate cessation of hostilities."
* The Organization of the Islamic Conference said it will press for an unconditional ceasefire at an emergency meeting in Malaysia on Thursday.

Olmert on Monday apologized for the civilian casualties Sunday at Qana. The Israeli air strike on the four-storey building that killed at least 56 people has provoked worldwide anger and intensified calls for an immediate end to the fighting.



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Israeli paratroops land in eastern Lebanon

www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-02 05:31:25

BEIRUT, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Israeli aircraft Tuesday night dropped a large number of paratroopers near eastern Lebanese town of Baalbek, a stronghold of Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, Lebanese security officials said.

They said that many Israeli aircraft carrying paratroopers to the region could be obviously seen above Baalbek because of the strong light of the parachute flares.
Israeli army started the airborne operation on Tuesday night following a series of airstrikes in the region, they added. Meanwhile, Hezbollah's television channel al-Manar confirmed that the Israeli paratroops occurred above Baalbek, but said that they were frustrated amid heavy Hezbollah fire.

Israeli paratroopers with air force and tank brigade backup have been operating in southern Lebanon since pre-dawn Tuesday after Israeli security cabinet decided to widen ground offensives in Lebanon, according to Israeli army.

Three Israeli paratroopers were confirmed dead in their ground action in southern Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab on Tuesday. Israeli army forces were also deployed in a number of areas within Lebanon on Tuesday, deep in the central and western fronts.



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More Madness


I don't know about you motherfletchers,

Dependable Renegade
Friday, July 28, 2006

but I already am home.

halle_fucking_lujah

[This sign is currently at the Assemblies of God church in Forts Lake, Mississippi, a non-incorporated rural settlement near the Alabama state line at the Gulf Coast.]




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Israel as Future of the Globe?

Satya Sagar, Mathaba
July 30, 2006

Not only are the Israeli state and its ruthless methods here to stay they could also be, very frighteningly, a prototype of our collective global future

For all those who think that Israel is run by the most despicable, racist and repressive regime in the world here is some very bad news indeed.

Not only are the Israeli state and its ruthless methods here to stay they could also be, very frighteningly, a prototype of our collective global future.

Watching the unbelievable destruction wrought by the Israelis in Gaza and Lebanon a simple question very high on many minds must be ' How in hell does this artificially concocted child of European guilt and American ambition get away with all this again and again and again?'

The answer is that instead of being a strange historical aberration Israel may well be a model state that global elites want to establish to control the world in the days to come.

A world where the ruling classes live off the stolen resources and labour of those they contemptuously deem 'lesser human beings' in a system of institutionalized apartheid.

A world where the forces of the militarized State can routinely shoot anybody, even entire populations and call them 'terrorists' with complete impunity.

A world where the process of nation building automatically involves smashing the sovereignty of every other nation reducing their people to a faceless, nameless, helpless mass.

The question of why Israel's brazen crimes against humanity have been tolerated by the so called 'international community' is not new at all, being one asked from the very day this nation was violently forged six decades ago. The legacy of Zionist terrorism, the numerous pogroms against the Palestinians, the systematic usurpation of their land, the routine bombing of civilians, the murder of peace activists--- any other fledgling nation even contemplating crimes on this scale would have been ostracized out of existence by now.

Many have attempted to answer this conundrum in many different ways. Israel is the bulldog of the US in the Middle-East - there to keep an eye on the region's oil wealth, promote the sales of Western arms and intimidate Arab regimes into meek submission. And in all its actions Israel merely imitates its mentors in the United States, whose own list of crimes against humanity make that of its protégé pale into nothing.

For some others it is Israel, run by Jewish supremacists, that is manipulating the West for its own devious purposes. They are abetted in all this by Christian fundamentalists in the US who believe in some complicated bull about the role of Zionists in bringing about rapture, the return of Jesus Christ and Armageddon. (An end of the world hastened and brought about by these strange bed fellows themselves)

In yet another version the formation of Israel, aided and encouraged by Western powers, was a historical fobbing off of Europe's abused Jewish masses onto the heads of the hapless Palestinian people- fulfilling the Nazi dream of getting Europe rid of the Jews. A cynical pitting of the victims of European racism against the victims of their colonialism.

There is no doubt of course that the history of Europe and post-Second World War geopolitics of the United States have a lot to do with the creation of Israel.

In many ways the State of Israel carries over into our era all the baggage of Europe from the turn of the 19th century with its simplistic understanding of race and biology, the crude equation of national interest with conquest of territory, the brutal trappings of the colonial state and worst of all the tryst with fascism that deeply shaped the worldview of Zionism. In the past six decades Israel's behaviour, within its own region, has also mirrored the relentless American need for control over the world's natural resources.

But all this focus on historical trends obscures the fact that in contemporary Israel today has become the template of a terrible global future. Here is where the accumulated burdens of the past, stoked to the right temperatures in the crucible of the present, are shaping the contours of a world yet to come.

Already, the aggressive Israeli 'whatever the cost' pursuit of self-interest - unfettered by any principles of civilized behaviour and contemptuous of all international law- has become the role model for governments in many other parts of the world. Every indicator points to this sad trend. The way the leaders of the world have openly acquiesced in the Israeli assault on the Palestinians and Lebanese in recent days is testimony to the fact that elites everywhere find this violence a useful exercise, not just in the context of the Middle-East itself but on their own home turf too.

Just take your eyes off for a minute from Israel and look around the globe and you can see what I mean. Look at the mini-Israels that governments everywhere are operating within their own national boundaries against the poor, the ethnic minorities, the historically marginalized or any population that can be enslaved at low cost. For the votaries of the hard state and the preservers of privilege everywhere Israel is the pioneering trendsetter in newer and more brazen ways of exercising illegitimate power.

That is why even as many governments condemn Israel in public, they are also slyly figuring out how best to incorporate elements of similar repression within the apparatus of their own states.

At one level is the exhortation to emulate Israel internationally. In India, after the mysterious Mumbai bomb blasts in early July that killed over 200 people there has been a clamour from the right wing to 'do it like the Israelis' and bomb whoever is responsible for the blasts wherever. That's a call for bombing nothing less than four countries, given the officially aired suspicion that the mastermind behind the blasts is somewhere in Kenya, was trained in Pakistan, hatched the plot in Nepal and infiltrated into the country through Bangladesh.

Going by this logic, now that the Israeli bombing of Lebanon has already killed two Indians and injured several more that makes a strong case for India bombing Tel Aviv too. (That would be truly ironic as India is today the largest customer for Israeli weapons!) Imitating Israel, in anything it does, is a recipe for perpetual World War- something that suits the designs of some countries and their rulers perhaps but not of a majority of this planet's residents.

At another level governments around the globe are using the excuse of the Israeli example to terrorise their own populations. While Israel certainly did not invent the concept of kidnapping, torture and assassination of its opponents it has done more than any other regime in the world to legitimize such behaviour internationally. (This has been possible of course because of its special hold over Western governments- particularly the US - who define what is 'legitimate' and what is not.)

Given the discontent produced by the forces of globalization throughout the world and the need of the elites for controlling the 'rebellious masses' Israel's approach to law and order are a 'valuable' contribution towards maintenance of the unjust status quo everywhere. All you need to do is to close your eyes, shut your conscience out, pretend to be the Israeli government and imagine all your opponents - workers, farmers, students anyone- as Palestinians.

In that sense it is not just nation states but also corporations- which are the main shareholders of the Empire - that seek guidance from Israel for ideas on how to put down dissent and continue ruling the world. After all at the core of global capitalism lies a fierce authoritarian urge that seeks to monopolise everything that exists but is unable to do so because the little people of the world have fought and established, over the centuries, some basic norms and laws of human and social behaviour. If Israel keeps demolishing these 'barriers' and advances the forces of barbarism - it makes complete world domination by the moneyed that much easier.

What emerges then is that, given the importance of Israel to global elites, a solution to the Palestinian question can never really be achieved through a struggle that focuses exclusively on the politics of the Middle-East itself. Contrary to what Condoleezza Rice believes a lasting resolution of the issue will not come from eliminating the Hezbollah. Instead a just peace is possible only by promoting more organizations that are willing to take on the various global interests that are bent on making our entire world look like one large State of Israel.

Satya Sagar is a journalist, writer, video maker based in New Delhi. He is also a Mathaba author. He can be reached at:



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UN powers split on Mideast crisis; France to shun troop meeting

by Herve Couturier
AFP
August 2, 2006

UNITED NATIONS - The major UN powers struggled to reconcile differences on ending the Middle East conflict and France said it would boycott a meeting on an international force for Lebanon.

The boycott was announced hours after ambassadors from the five UN Security Council permanent members and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan held what were described as "frank discussions" on the Middle East crisis.

There was no sign that the five -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- had yet united behind one resolution on the conflict.
Annan "asked them to set their differences aside," Ahmad Fawzi, a top UN information department official, told a briefing. "We all know there are differences".

The meeting at the UN headquarters on an international force was originally planned for Monday but it was postponed at the last minute. The UN announced that it has been reorganised for Thursday.

A French official said, however, "France will not take part in a meeting that it considers premature," in a comment which reflects the divisions over how to end the
Israel-Hezbollah war.

The major powers also want to call a meeting of foreign ministers on Lebanon, but Britain's UN ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters: "I don't see at the moment prospects for an early ministerial meeting here."

France has drafted a resolution calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities but for no international force to be sent to the southern Lebanon battleground until a political settlement is agreed.

The United States is refusing to call for an immediate end to the fighting, but wants an international force sent in quickly after any resolution is passed, according to US officials.

The ambassadors "discussed the cessation of hostilities, a ceasefire and political framework for a settlement, the composition and deployment of a stabilisation force for Lebanon and the humanitarian situation," said a UN statement.

"The secretary general is satisfied with the outcome of the discussions, which permitted clarification of the critical issues and discussions of timelines."

"We are still discussing how to proceed," US ambassador John Bolton told AFP as he left the meeting at Annan's residence in New York.

French ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said: "It is important that we can exchange views sometimes in a small committee, and that is why we met with the secretary general."

He added: "There is a French draft on the table. There are other ideas as well. The aim is to make sure that the council can make an effective contribution that is a stable solution."

No formal Security Council time has been set aside for consultations Wednesday on the crisis.

"There's a gap, so they are trying to bridge that gap, and so for the moment it is not worth having full council consultations," said Ghana's ambassador, Nana Effah-Apenteng, the council president for August.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that she would "push very hard" for a ceasefire agreement by the weekend.

France also wants a resolution passed as quickly as possible. It should be "a question of days", French foreign ministry spokesman Denis Simonneau said in Paris.

The French spokesman acknowledged, however, that there were differences with the United States over the "sequence" of events. France believes that an international force cannot be sent unless there is a political settlement between Israel and Hezbollah to enforce.

Comment: Well, that makes perfect sense. Obviously, it would be great for the Zionists if an international force was pulled into the conflict without any kind of political settlement. International troops die, many more countries are pulled into the conflict, and suddenly it isn't just Israel invading Lebanon, but a World War.


International calls for a ceasefire have mounted, particularly after the killing of more than 50 people, including many children, in an Israeli strike on the Lebanese town of Qana on Sunday.

The United States insisted on Tuesday that progress was being made in negotiations on a UN resolution, despite the lack of public signs of agreement.

"I think you are beginning to see some real progress on the diplomatic front behind the scenes," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

He said there was "widespread agreement" that a resolution to halt the fighting needed to "encompass" three elements, including having the Lebanese government assert effective control over Hezbollah strongholds in the south of the country.



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UN tells Blair to take a back seat over Lebanon

Matthew Tempest and agencies
Wednesday August 2, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Tony Blair's stance on resolving the Lebanon crisis was under attack on two fronts today, as the UN told him to take a back seat, and the chair of the parliamentary party said the "vast majority" of his Labour backbenchers want a ceasefire.

Meanwhile, human rights lawyers have outlined moves to challenge the US use of Scottish airports for transporting arms to Israel.

This morning Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations delivered a blunt put-down to the PM - who outlined his fears of an "arc of extremism" in the Middle East in a speech in Los Angeles last night.
The UN's deputy secretary general, Mark Malloch Brown, said the current crisis should be dealt with by France, the US, Egypt and Jordan - with the UK "following not leading" on Lebanon.

In an interview with the Financial Times Mr Malloch Brown said the crisis between Israel and Lebanon could not be resolved by "the team that led on Iraq".

"This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel," he added.

Mr Malloch Brown said the UK and US were poorly placed to broker a deal over Lebanon because of their role in bringing about war in Iraq. "One of my first bosses taught me it's important to know not just when to lead, but when to follow. For the UK, this is one to follow.

"We need [the French president, Jacques] Chirac and [the US president, George] Bush, or Chirac, Bush and [the Egyptian president, Hosni] Mubarak and [Jordanian King] Abdullah on a podium, not President Bush and Mr Blair."

Ann Clwyd, chair of the parliamentary Labour party, said the "vast majority" of Labour MPs were "very critical" of Israeli policy and wanted a ceasefire to get humanitarian aid to the Lebanese civilians.

Ms Clwyd defended Mr Blair from accusations of "taking his eye off the ball" of the plight of the Palestinians, but said it was "nonsense" to think Hizbullah could be eradicated.

"It's like veins running through the body of the Lebanon," she told the BBC's Good Morning Wales radio programme.

"Before the recess, in the run-up to the end of our session, a lot of people were very angry.

"I think the vast majority of [Labour backbenchers] felt that there should be a ceasefire and the vast majority of them are very critical of Israeli policy.

"That I know is a fact because that is a view that has been expressed very strongly in the House of Commons." She did not criticise the PM, saying: "He has not taken his mind off the ball I can tell you that. I know the amount of time he has spent phoning individuals up, attempting to get some movement on what is a very difficult issue.

"He wants conflict to end. His argument is there's no point in having a pretend ceasefire.

"We have seen that of course in the last 48 hours where Israel was supposed to cease its air bombardment, but certainly that didn't happen. It continued on and off.

"He wants a ceasefire that's going to be meaningful."

But she added that "some of us would like a ceasefire at any price" in order to get humanitarian aid to the Lebanese.

In another interview, with the BBC, former foreign office minister Tony Lloyd bemoaned the UK's loss of influence with allies such as Egypt and Jordan, and expressed the hope Mr Blair's speech represented a "rowing away" from Washington's stance.

He said: "Any sensible observer would have said that these last weeks and days have meant that Britain's influence on the people worth influencing - our friends like Egypt, our friends like Jordan - is smaller now than it would have been at the start of this present conflict.

"If the Foreign Office were advising a much more cautious approach, a much more sensible approach, an approach that said that values do consist of not bombing the life out of the civilian population of the Lebanon, then the Foreign Office would, of course, be right in that."

"I hope it's a rowing away from Washington. I do hope, very fervently, that what we can see, for example, is a recognition that most of the issues in the Middle East that we've got to resolve - the settlement, for example, of the question of Iran's nuclear ambition - have been probably made more difficult by the last three weeks, not easier.

"An independent Palestine is more likely to see a democratically-elected Hamas element in any government and a democratic Lebanon would almost certainly see a stronger Hizbullah.

"That's the price we all pay for the last three weeks.

"I think people this morning waking up in the slums of the now broken cities and towns of the Lebanon might wonder about the values being stronger and better and more just, and would look at America as being part of the problem, frankly, not part of the solution," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"US-inspired policies sees Iraq engulfed in problems, Afghanistan not finished and Israel tearing apart both the Lebanon and Gaza."

In Glasgow today, human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, backed by the Stop the War coalition and the Muslim Association of Britain, which is outlining possible legal action to stop flights carrying weapons from the US to Israel via Britain.

Acting on behalf of Lebanese clients, Mr Anwar argues that the UK's continued permission for the flights is a breach of international law.

The landing at Prestwick airport near Glasgow last week of two US aircraft believed to be carrying bombs to Israel sparked major protests.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said yesterday that US military planes en route to the Middle East can land at UK airfields "as long as the proper procedures are followed".

It would not confirm reports that only military, rather than civilian, airfields would be used for the flights.



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Iran's Khamenei calls on Muslims to fight back Israel, US

www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-02 15:17:14

TEHRAN, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Muslims on Wednesday to resist Israel and the United States, vowing Iran would support Lebanon in the confrontation of the Israeli attacks.

"Muslims in the world must understand the only method to fight back the savage wolf of Zionism and Great Satan's aggression is resistance," Khamenei said in a speech broadcast by the state television.
"The behavior and the aggressive essentiality of Israel and the United States will arouse the spirit of resistance more than before in the Islamic world and will further prove the value of Jihad (holy war)," he continued.

Khamenei also vowed to support Lebanese and the Palestinians in the face of Israeli attack.

"Iran will stand with all oppressed peoples, particularly the Lebanese people and the Palestinian people," said the top leader.

"Regional nations and Islamic juntas and followers of other religions in Lebanon and all Islamic countries should give a hand and unite, and they should not allow divisions which can enhance our enemy," he said.

Iran's top officials recently have reiterated strong indignation at Israel and the U.S. role in the Israeli offensive in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, calling on international community to be more active in an effort to stop the conflicts.

Israel kept up a massive offensive against Lebanon's Shiite group Hezbollah, which was launched on July 12 following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerillas.

On another front, Israel continued an over-one-month-old large-scale air and ground operation in the Palestinian territory of Gaza in a bid to bring home a kidnapped soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.



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Iran's president rejects UN call to suspend uranium program

Last Updated Tue, 01 Aug 2006 13:29:05 EDT
CBC News

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday rejected a UN Security Council resolution demanding that his country suspend its uranium enrichment program by Aug. 31 or face economic sanctions.

"My words are the words of the Iranian nation. Throughout Iran, there is one slogan: 'The Iranian nation considers the peaceful use of nuclear fuel production technology its right,"' Ahmadinejad said.


On Thursday, the Security Council passed a draft that demands Iran "suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development" by the end of August. If Iran doesn't comply, the council will consider adopting "appropriate measures" under Chapter 7 of the United Nations' charter. Those measures relate to economic sanctions.

"If some think they can still speak with threatening language to the Iranian nation, they must know that they are badly mistaken," Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state-run television.

The United States and other countries accuse Iran of seeking to produce highly enriched uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed only at generating electricity.

The resolution would call on the UN's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to report back by Aug. 31 on Iran's compliance with the resolution.



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Fighting deepens in Sri Lanka

By Simon Gardner
Reuters
August 2, 2006

COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's civil war appeared to have resumed in all but name on Wednesday as Tamil Tiger rebels attacked three army camps and pushed into government territory and the military said dozens of rebels were killed.

A 2002 ceasefire between the two sides still exists on paper, but a battle last week over water supply for about 50,000 people in a government-controlled area has spread to the port city of Trincomalee and surrounding areas with both sides exchanging artillery and mortar fire.

The air force also resumed bombing raids on Tiger positions for an eighth day.
The military said more than 40 Tigers were killed on Wednesday, but that the rebels had left the bodies of only a few behind.

Officials said five military personnel and two civilians were killed. Truce monitors say military tolls of rebel deaths are often wildly overdone, while the Tigers often deny suffering losses at all.

But one diplomat said: "This certainly looks like a war. Neither side has shown any sign of wanting to de-escalate this situation and seek peace."

Police said rebels had infiltrated government-held parts of Mutur town near Trincomalee, had overrun a police post and were firing at troops from buildings in the town. The military said the Tigers had tried to capture a navy jetty checkpoint but had been repulsed.

"There are Tigers in Mutur town. They are firing from buildings in the government-held part," said Eastern Range Deputy Inspector-General of Police Rohan Abeywardene. "We had to pull men back from a police checkpoint, but the Tigers are not in control of the town."

Two Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) mortar bombs fell near a civilian hospital in Mutur, causing some damage to the building, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

On Tuesday, suicide bombers tried to sink a ship with 850 troops aboard.

The Colombo stock market was sharply lower as fighting escalated, trading two percent lower in afternoon trade.

Petroleum Resources Minister A.H.M. Fowzie said there was no reported damage to storage tanks in Trincomalee used by fuel retailer Lanka IOC. State-run Ceylon Petroleum Corp. sources fuel from the island's only refinery near Colombo, he added.

VIOLENCE SPIRALS

The ceasefire halted a two-decade civil war that has killed more than 65,000 people since 1983. But tensions between the Tigers and the government have risen markedly since last November, peace talks have been called off, and mine attacks and ambushes have killed over 800 people this year.

But last week's clash over water supplies south of Trincomalee was the first time the two sides had fought in a ground battle since the ceasefire.

Elsewhere, there was sporadic violence in the northwestern district of Mannar. where the military said a Claymore fragmentation mine blast killed one soldier while another was shot and injured by suspected Tigers.

On Monday, a senior rebel in the east said an army offensive near the water tank meant the ceasefire was over and that war had restarted. But the government says it remains committed to the ceasefire and the Tigers say they are only acting defensively.

The government accuses the Tigers of attempted ethnic cleansing through cutting off the water supply to around 50,000 mostly Sinhalese and Muslims in army-held territory.

"Denying civilians water is a war crime," said Dr. Palitha Kohona, head of the government's peace secretariat. "Wars have started over less. Look at Lebanon."



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One Nation, Under "God"


Bush seeks to extend Guantánamo procedures to American citizens

By Patrick Martin
World Socialist Web Site
1 August 2006

In draft legislation prepared in response to last month's Supreme Court decision against the use of military tribunals for US prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, the Bush administration proposes to extend the practice of indefinite detention and summary trial by military commissions to include American citizens.

According to press accounts Friday, based on leaks from those with access to the draft, the bill would essentially legalize the military tribunals in the form decreed by Bush in 2001, with only minor changes, while for the first time making US citizens as well as foreign nationals subject to such summary proceedings.

The tribunals, commissions of active-duty military personnel under orders of the president as commander-in-chief, would have the power to impose death sentences based on secret evidence and in proceedings from which the defendants could be excluded whenever military judges decided this was "necessary to protect national security."
The Washington Post reported that the draft legislation had initially reaffirmed the 2001 Bush order that limited the jurisdiction of the military commissions to "alien enemy combatants." This language was crossed out, the newspaper said, and replaced by language giving the commissions authority to try anyone "engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," regardless of nationality.

When American John Walker Lindh was captured in Afghanistan in 2001, where he served as a member of the Taliban-controlled armed forces, he was not taken to Guantánamo because he was a US citizen. His case was tried in federal court, which provided him greater legal protections, ultimately making it necessary for the Bush administration to accept a plea bargain and a 20-year prison term rather than seek a death sentence. If the proposed draft legislation had been in effect, Lindh could have faced a military tribunal.

Other provisions in the draft legislation would permit the use of hearsay evidence, eliminate the right to a speedy trial (essentially sanctioning indefinite detention without a trial), and permit the use of classified evidence that would be provided to defendants only in summary form. Defendants and their civilian attorneys could be excluded from the proceedings at the discretion of the judge, with the prisoner represented only by a military attorney who, as a serving officer, must obey presidential authority.

Instead of a unanimous jury verdict, a two-thirds majority would suffice for conviction, and unanimity for the death penalty, which would have to be confirmed as well by the president. As in the current system, outlawed by the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision, prisoners could be detained, even if acquitted, until "the cessation of hostilities." Given the Bush administration's expansive definition of the "war on terror," this means indefinitely.

According to language in the draft legislation quoted by the New York Times, the measure rejects a system based on courts martial as "not practicable in trying enemy combatants," in part because such proceedings would exclude "hearsay evidence determined to be probative and reliable."

Evidence obtained through torture would not be admissible, but this prohibition is largely gutted by a provision that military judges may accept testimony obtained through "coercive interrogation," a label which the Bush administration uses to describe methods, such as water-boarding, that the rest of the world regards as torture.

The bill was drafted without consulting with lawyers from the Judge Advocate-General (JAG) corps, because these career military prosecutors and judges have insisted on using the court martial system as a basis for trying prisoners, and on upholding the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to all prisoners captured by the US military. The JAGs, as well as the military defense lawyers who fought and won the Hamdan case, have warned that by carving out an exception to the Geneva Conventions, the US government would endanger American soldiers captured in current and future wars.

In addition to overturning Bush's 2001 order for military commissions, the Hamdan decision upheld the applicability of Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions to all prisoners captured by the US government, whether they are recognized as POWs or treated as "illegal combatants." Common Article Three bans "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" of detainees, a description that would apply to nearly every prisoner held at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and secret CIA-run prisons elsewhere.

The legislation drafted by the White House would effectively override that element of the high court decision, by declaring that the Geneva Conventions "are not a source of judicially enforceable individual rights." This means that individual prisoners would lose the right to file lawsuits against the violation of their rights, limiting such standing to governments. There are few governments that would risk a conflict with the Bush administration by filing a US court challenge on behalf of prisoners labeled as "terrorists."

Congressional approval of the bill in the specific form drafted by acting assistant attorney general Steven G. Bradbury is uncertain, but one key senator, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, called it "a good start." Graham, himself a member of JAG corps in the reserves, said he supported the use of hearsay evidence and the exclusion of prisoners from their trials, so long as these actions were subject to appeal.

The draft legislation also seeks to forestall another anticipated consequence of the Hamdan decision: that US officials could face legal liability for war crimes charges because they authorized the violation of the Geneva Accords. Under the 1996 War Crimes Act, violations of the Geneva Conventions are crimes against the United States and the perpetrators can be subject to the death penalty if prisoners die as a result of their actions.

The 1996 law was drafted by a right-wing Republican and passed by the Republican-controlled Congress to pander to the POW-MIA (prisoner of war-missing in action) lobby in the US. It initially targeted Vietnamese government officials deemed responsible for the torture and death of American prisoners during the Vietnam War. By an irony of history, this law could now subject high Bush administration officials-Bush himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and others-to criminal sanctions for the deaths of prisoners held by the US government in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

As the Washington Post summed up the matter in a front-page analysis published July 28, "An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in US courts." The newspaper reported that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has spoken privately to congressional leaders about the need for "protections" against such an eventuality.

The bill seeks to solve the problem by declaring that a law passed last year on humane treatment of US detainees-drafted by Senator John McCain and added to a military appropriations bill over White House opposition-would "fully satisfy" the requirements of Common Article Three.

The bill would also provide that the 1996 War Crimes Act applies only to violations of the Geneva Conventions as interpreted by the US government, not the international community, effectively gutting the conventions as an instrument of international law.

Given that the decision to prosecute rests with the US Department of Justice, headed by Bush crony Gonzales, there is no possibility that any Bush administration official will soon face charges for violation of the War Crimes Act. But the concern over their legal vulnerability is nonetheless real. The war criminals in the White House and Pentagon are well aware of the mass opposition to the war in Iraq, both internationally and increasingly in the United States, and they are looking nervously over their shoulders.



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New maximum-security jail to open at Guantanamo Bay

30 July 2006
UK Independent

Far from winding down, the controversial US detention centre is expanding.

The controversy over the US-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay is to erupt anew with confirmation by the Pentagon that a new, permanent prison will open in the Cuban enclave in the next few weeks.
Camp 6, a state-of-the-art maximum-security jail built by a Halliburton subsidiary, will be able to hold 200 prisoners. Commander Robert Durand, a spokesman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said the $30m, two-storey block was due to open at the end of September. He added: "Camp 6 is designed to improve the quality of life for the detainees and provide greater protection for the people working in the facility."

This development will refuel the controversy about the jail, which still holds 450 prisoners from President George Bush's "war on terror". Campaigners pointed to Mr Bush's claim earlier this summer that he would "like to close" Guantanamo. Just weeks after he made his comments in June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration's system for trying prisoners using military tribunals breached United States and international law.

At the time, some campaigners predicted the decision marked the beginning of the end of Guantanamo Bay. Since then, however, the Bush administration has signalled its intention to introduce new legislation that would circumvent the court's ruling. The revelation that Camp 6 is poised to open is proof that it intends to keep using the prison.

Amnesty International's UK campaigns director, Tim Hancock, said: "This appears to make a mockery of President Bush's statements about the need to close down Guantanamo Bay.
In addition to strongly urging the President to step in to prevent any extension to this already notorious prison camp, we call on him to speed up the process of closing Guantanamo and of ensuring that all detainees are allowed fair trials or released to safe countries."

Zachary KatzNelson, senior counsel with the group Reprieve, which represents 36 Guantanamo prisoners, argued that public opinion and the courts would ultimately force the US to close the camp down. "If Bush had the choice, he would not shut it, and the men [held there] would never see the light of day, and neither would their stories come out," he said. "The reality is that the world knows too much. He has to shut it down."

The new facility is reported to be modelled on a jail in Lenawee County, Michigan. Commander Durand said Camp 6 will have better recreation and exercise amenities for detainees and integrated medical care. Other facilities at the US naval base on Cuba include Camps 1, 2, 3 and 5, which are maximum-security, single-cell blocks; Camp 4, which is a medium-security, communal living prison; and Camp Iguana, also medium security, which houses detainees cleared for release and awaiting transfer.

Of all the prisoners ever held at Guatanamo since it was established in January 2002, only 10 have been formally charged. An investigation earlier this year by New Jersey's Seton Hall University showed that, based on the military's own documents, 55 per cent of prisoners are not alleged to have committed any hostile acts against the US, and 40 per cent are not accused of affiliation with al-Qa'ida.

The same documents suggested only 8 per cent of prisoners are accused of fighting for a terrorist group, and that 86 per cent were captured by the Northern Alliance or Pakistani authorities "at a time when the US offered large bounties for the capture of suspected terrorists".


Speaking in the Rose Garden in June following the suicide of three prisoners, Mr Bush said: "I'd like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognise that we're holding some people that are darn dangerous, and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts."



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Journalist jailed over protest footage

By DAVID KRAVETS
Associated Press
Tue Aug 1, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO - A freelance video journalist was jailed Tuesday for refusing to give a grand jury his unsold footage from a 2005 protest in which anarchists were suspected of vandalizing a police car.

Joshua Wolf, 24, could remain behind bars until next summer, when the grand jury investigating the incident is due to expire.

Wolf had sold footage of the protest to San Francisco television stations and posted it on his Web site. Investigators are seeking portions of his videotape that haven't been broadcast.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said there is no federal law shielding journalists from participating in grand jury investigations. The judge sided with prosecutors who suspect the footage may reveal who was behind the melee, part of an anarchist-led protest over the G-8 international economic conference last year in Scotland. A San Francisco police officer also was injured.

"This is direct evidence of what happened," Alsup said.

Alsup said he wasn't jailing Wolf to punish him. "The purpose of this is to get you to change your mind," the judge said as U.S. marshals removed Wolf from the courtroom.

Wolf's lawyer, Jose Luis Fuentes, said that relinquishing the footage to a grand jury would be tantamount to his client becoming "an arm of the government." Because of the subpoena, Fuentes said, the underground groups Wolf chronicles are denying him access.

The American Civil Liberties Union said federal authorities are disregarding California's shield law, which generally allows journalists to decline to divulge unpublished material to state authorities. That shield, however, does not attach to federal investigations.

Although the incident involved the San Francisco police, federal authorities are investigating because it involves the destruction of federally funded property.

"We're taking the position that the government hasn't shown it has a connection to a legitimate federal interest here," ACLU attorney Alan Schlosser said after the two-hour hearing.



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9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 2, 2006; Page A03

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.
Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.

In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.

"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

Although the commission's landmark report made it clear that the Defense Department's early versions of events on the day of the attacks were inaccurate, the revelation that it considered criminal referrals reveals how skeptically those reports were viewed by the panel and provides a glimpse of the tension between it and the Bush administration.

A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that the inspector general's office will soon release a report addressing whether testimony delivered to the commission was "knowingly false." A separate report, delivered secretly to Congress in May 2005, blamed inaccuracies in part on problems with the way the Defense Department kept its records, according to a summary released yesterday.

A spokesman for the Transportation Department's inspector general's office said its investigation is complete and that a final report is being drafted. Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she could not comment on the inspector general's inquiry.

In an article scheduled to be on newsstands today, Vanity Fair magazine reports aspects of the commission debate -- though it does not mention the possible criminal referrals -- and publishes lengthy excerpts from military audiotapes recorded on Sept. 11. ABC News aired excerpts last night.

For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD and the FAA provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in testimony and media appearances. Authorities suggested that U.S. air defenses had reacted quickly, that jets had been scrambled in response to the last two hijackings and that fighters were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 if it threatened Washington.

In fact, the commission reported a year later, audiotapes from NORAD's Northeast headquarters and other evidence showed clearly that the military never had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and at one point chased a phantom aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold and Col. Alan Scott told the commission that NORAD had begun tracking United 93 at 9:16 a.m., but the commission determined that the airliner was not hijacked until 12 minutes later. The military was not aware of the flight until after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.

These and other discrepancies did not become clear until the commission, forced to use subpoenas, obtained audiotapes from the FAA and NORAD, officials said. The agencies' reluctance to release the tapes -- along with e-mails, erroneous public statements and other evidence -- led some of the panel's staff members and commissioners to believe that authorities sought to mislead the commission and the public about what happened on Sept. 11.

"I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described," John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general who led the staff inquiry into events on Sept. 11, said in a recent interview. "The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. . . . This is not spin. This is not true."

Arnold, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, told the commission in 2004 that he did not have all the information unearthed by the panel when he testified earlier. Other military officials also denied any intent to mislead the panel.

John F. Lehman, a Republican commission member and former Navy secretary, said in a recent interview that he believed the panel may have been lied to but that he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to support a criminal referral.

"My view of that was that whether it was willful or just the fog of stupid bureaucracy, I don't know," Lehman said. "But in the order of magnitude of things, going after bureaucrats because they misled the commission didn't seem to make sense to me."



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Reporters Without Borders and Washington's Coups

By DIANA BARAHONA and JEB SPRAGUE
August 1, 2006
CounterPunch

British press baron Lord Northcliff said, "News is something that someone, somewhere wants to keep secret, everything else is advertising." If this is true, then U.S. government funding of Reporters Without Borders must be news, because the organization and its friends in Washington have gone to extraordinary lengths to cover it up. In spite of 14 months of stonewalling by the National Endowment for Democracy over a Freedom of Information Act request and a flat denial from RSF executive director Lucie Morillon, the NED has revealed that Reporters Without Borders received grants over at least three years from the International Republican Institute.
The NED still refuses to provide the requested documents or even reveal the grant amounts, but they are identified by these numbers: IRI 2002-022/7270, IRI 2003-027/7470 and IRI 2004-035/7473. Investigative reporter Jeremy Bigwood asked Morillon on April 25 if her group was getting any money from the I.R.I., and she denied it, but the existence of the grants was confirmed by NED assistant to the president, Patrick Thomas.

The discovery of the grants reveals a major deception by the group, which for years denied it was getting any Washington dollars until some relatively small grants from the NED and the Center for a Free Cuba were revealed (see Counterpunch: "Reporters Without Borders Unmasked"). When asked to account for its large income RSF has claimed the money came from the sale of books of photographs. But researcher Salim Lamrani has pointed out the improbability of this claim. Even taking into account that the books are published for free, it would have had to sell 170 200 books in 2004 and 188 400 books in 2005 to earn the more than $2 million the organization claims to make each year ­ 516 books per day in 2005. The money clearly had to come from other sources, as it turns out it did.

The I.R.I., an arm of the Republican Party, specializes in meddling in elections in foreign countries, as a look at NED annual reports and the I.R.I. website shows. It is one of the four core grantees of the NED, the organization founded by Congress under the Reagan administration in 1983 to replace the CIA's civil society covert action programs, which had been devastated by exposure by the Church committee in the mid-1970s (Ignatius, 1991). The other three pillars of the NED are the National Democratic Institute (the Democratic Party), the Solidarity Center (AFL-CIO) and the Center for International Private Enterprise (U.S. Chamber of Commerce). But of all the groups the I.R.I. is closest to the Bush administration, according to a recent piece in The New York Times exposing its role in the overthrow of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide:

"President Bush picked its president, Lorne W. Craner, to run his administration's democracy-building efforts. The institute, which works in more than 60 countries, has seen its federal financing nearly triple in three years, from $26 million in 2003 to $75 million in 2005. Last spring, at an I.R.I. fund-raiser, Mr. Bush called democracy-building 'a growth industry.'" (Bogdanich and Nordberg, 2006)

Funding from the I.R.I. presents a major problem for RSF's credibility as a "press freedom" organization because the group manufactured propaganda against the popular democratic governments of Venezuela and Haiti at the same time that its patron, the I.R.I., was deeply involved in efforts to overthrow them. The I.R.I. funded the Venezuelan opposition to President Hugo Chavez (Barry, 2005) and actively organized Haitian opposition to Aristide in conjunction with the CIA (Bogdanich and Nordberg, 2006).

The man who links RSF to these activities is Otto Reich, who worked on the coups first as assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, and, after Nov. 2002, as a special envoy to Latin America on the National Security Council. Besides being a trustee of the government-funded Center for a Free Cuba, which gives RSF $50,000 a year, Reich has worked since the early 1980's with the I.R.I.'s senior vice president, Georges Fauriol, another member of the Center for a Free Cuba. But it is Reich's experience in propaganda that is especially relevant. In the 1980's he was caught up in investigations into the Reagan administration's illegal war on the Sandinistas. The comptroller general determined in 1987 that Reich's Office of Public Diplomacy had "engaged in prohibited covert propaganda activities." (Bogdanich and Nordberg, 2006). In early 2002, once George Bush had given him a recess appointment to the State Department, "Reich was soon tasked to orchestrate a massive international media defamation campaign against Chávez that has continued until this day" (Conkling and Goble, 2004).

Did Reich introduce RSF to the I.R.I. grants and coach the group in its propaganda efforts against Aristide, Chavez and Cuba? A look at the group's methods indicates this may be the case; the propaganda against Aristide, a former priest, was as crude as any of Reich's trademark slanders of Latin American leaders. RSF branded the Haitian president a "predator of press freedom" after linking him, without any evidence whatsoever, to the murders of journalists Jean Dominique and Brignol Lindor. It prominently featured photographs of the journalists' bodies on its web site, turning them into poster victims of Aristide's alleged repression against the press.

In 2002 RSF wrote, "A journalist was beaten to death in the town of Petit-Goâve on 3 December 2001 by a gang of killers with ties to local politicians and President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas ("Avalanche") movement. The murder happened at a time when press freedom in Haiti was steadily deteriorating in the wake of the killing of Jean Dominique, head of the radio station Haiti-Inter, on 3 April the previous year" (Lionet and Avila, 2002). Note the intentional mistranslation of Lavalas (which means flood, not avalanche), and the way RSF tied the gang of killers to "Aristide's Lavalas movement," implying that the president himself was in charge of the gang.

The article is riddled with this kind of innuendo and outright falsehoods: "In this atmosphere, the killing of Lindor was seen by the entire media as a new warning." Here RSF has already tried and convicted Aristide by implying that he ordered the murders of the journalists to send a warning to the opposition media not to be critical of him. But Jean Dominique was murdered in April of 2000, many months before Aristide was even elected, and there is likewise no evidence the president had knowledge of the Lindor murder.

In the same piece RSF called the Aristide government an "authoritarian regime," accused him of calling for lynchings by the "necklace" method (see origin of this slander below), described Aristide supporters as "street thugs" and concluded that all of these alleged actions the group imputed to the government were "part of a wider strategy by the authorities to make use of para-legal militias to intimidate the media."

The propaganda would have been bad enough if RSF hadn't taken additional steps to help strangle the desperately poor, aid-dependent country ­ a tactic it has also tried to employ against Cuba (Barahona, 2005). AP quotes Secretary General Robert Menard, referring to the government's alleged failure to bring Dominique's killer to justice, "President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is responsible for this obstruction, and we will list him among the Predators of Press Freedom, if no progress is made in coming months" (Norton, 2001).

The article continued,"Menard said he hoped the list, which would be sent to world governments and financial institutions, would help influence the European Union to prolong the suspension of some $100 million in foreign assistance." The economic sanctions imposed by the United States caused inflation to soar and deprived the government of the money it needed to operate or defend itself. To illustrate RSF's double standards, Colombia has a dismal record when it comes to prosecuting the killers of journalists, but Menard has never lobbied the United States or the EU to cut off aid to the Uribe government.

But Reporters Without Borders wasn't content with a mere cutoff in aid; by January 2002 Menard was calling on the U.S. Congress and the EU to take "individual sanctions" against Aristide and Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, including "the refusal of entry and transit visas" and "the freezing of any foreign bank accounts they have" (Norton, 2002).

Following the Feb. 29, 2004 ouster of Aristide, RSF ignored nearly all of the violence and persecution against journalists critical of the foreign-imposed Latortue government, instead claiming that press freedom had increased. RSF's 2005 and 2006 reports failed to condemn the extrajudicial execution of community journalist and radio reporter Abdias Jean, whom witnesses say was killed by police after he had snapped shots of three youngsters the police had killed. It also ignored the arrests of journalists Kevin Pina (Pacifica Radio) and Jean Ristil, and failed to properly investigate several attacks on pro-Lavalas radio stations.

Asked for his response to news of the grants, Pina had the following to say: "It was clear early on that RSF and Robert Menard were not acting as objective guardians of freedom of the press in Haiti but rather as central actors in what can only be described as a disinformation campaign against Aristide's government. Their attempts to link Aristide to the murder of Jean Dominique and their subsequent silence when the alleged hit man, Lavalas Senator Dany Toussaint, joined the anti-Aristide camp and ran for president in 2006 is just one of many examples that expose the real nature and role of organizations like RSF. They provide false information and skewed reports to build internal opposition to governments seen as uncontrollable and unpalatable to Washington while softening the ground for their eventual removal by providing justification under the pretext of attacks on the freedom of the press."

We asked the group's Haiti expert based in Paris why RSF had ignored the murder of Abdias Jean, and he said, "We asked the police about the killings of Abdias Jean and we were told by the police that it was an attack made by the police but that they didn't know he was a journalist. He was taking pictures." He admitted that none of the witnesses to the murder had been interviewed, while all the unpublished information he had on the case was based on the testimony of the police, known for their widespread killings and abuses. Regarding the arrest of Pina and Ristil he said, "Generally when somebody is put in jail, we wait to see how long they will stay.They were released so we did not take up that case." Considering RSF never took up the case of Abdias Jean, the likelihood it would stick its neck out for Pina, a critic of both the interim government and of RSF, is negligible.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. Taking its cues from the State Department, RSF has been guilty of demonizing governments that the U.S. wanted to overthrow, such as Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti, while downplaying the human rights abuses of strategic allies such as Mexico and Colombia. Because it was able to hide I.R.I. grants which would have alerted people to its ulterior motives, RSF has been an effective tool in the Bush administration's covert attacks on recalcitrant Latin American leaders. The organization has also leveraged its image as an independent human rights organization to get its message into the U.S. media and university textbooks. This would be an impressive feat for a small group of individuals with no apparent journalistic credentials were it not for the fact that they have the richest, most powerful patrons in the world.

Diana Barahona is an independent journalist with an interest in Latin American politics. She can be reached at dlbarahona@cs.com

Jeb Sprague is a graduate student, freelance journalist, and a correspondent for Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints. Visit his blog at http://www.freehaiti.net

Special thanks to Jeremy Bigwood and attorney Michael D. Steger.

Barahona, D. (2005, May 17). Reporters Without Borders Unmasked: It's Secret Deal With Otto Reich to Wreak Cuba's Economy. Counterpunch.org.

David Ignatius (Sept. 22, 1991). Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups. The Washington Post. Retrieved from ProQuest database. "'A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,' agrees [Allen] Weinstein."

Bogdanich, Walt and Nordberg, Jenny (2006, Jan. 29). Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Towards Chaos. The New York Times. Retrieved from ProQuest database.

Barry, Tom (2005, Aug. 4). Profile: International Republican Institute. International Relations Center. Retrieved July 4, 2006, from

Conkling, Will and Goble, Sam (2004, July 13). Otto Reich: A Career In Disservice. Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Lionet, Christian and Avila, Calixto (2002, Sept. 10). Zero tolerance for the media : an enquiry into the murder of journalist Brignol Lindor. Reporters Without Borders. Retrieved on 7 July 2006 from www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=3755

Necklace slander: The "necklace" allegations, as explained by Erwin Stotzky in his book Silencing the guns of Haiti , refered to a 1991 speech given by Aristide at the UN in which he vowed to "turn the streets red" employing the well-known kreyol protest mechanism of burning tires, with no explicit reference to "necklacing" or any method of violence. Soon after the speech, the Haiti Observateur, a right-wing opposition paper, twisted the kreyol metaphor into the allegation of support for "necklacing," which was recycled tenfold over the years by foreign media, CIA reports, and conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.

Norton, Michael (2001, Nov. 24). International press freedom group blasts Haitian government for stalling progress in Jean Dominique murder investigation. Associated Press. Retrieved 7 July 2006 from Lexis-Nexis database.

Obstruction slander: Three suspects (Ti Lou, Guimy and Markington) were arrested in connection with Dominique's murder under the Aristide government but they mysteriously escaped in a "prison mutiny" under Latortue's watch in February of 2005 and were never apprehended.

Norton, Michael (2002, Jan. 10). Journalists Group Urges Sanctions for Haiti's President. Associated Press. Retrieved 7 July 2006 from Lexis-Nexis database. "Aristide is personally responsible for the deterioration of press freedom in Haiti and sanctions should be taken against him personally," Menard said.



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Why Bush's Stupidity Is a Threat

By Matthew Yglesias
The American Prospect
August 2, 2006

The president's ignorance, on display for the world to see, would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous.
"We discussed a lot of issues. The Prime Minister has laid out a comprehensive plan. That's what leaders do. They see problems, they address problems, and they lay out a plan to solve the problems. The Prime Minister understands he's got challenges and he's identified priorities."
-- President George W. Bush, joint press availability with Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, July 25, 2006
The truly shocking thing about that bizarre statement is that it wasn't even in response to a question. Those were Bush's opening remarks. He did, one assumes, actually meet with Maliki. And they must have talked about something. But Bush doesn't seem to have been listening. Instead, he sounds like a college kid bullshitting in section because he didn't do the assigned reading. "We talked about security in Baghdad," Bush observed, delving into specifics. "No question the terrorists and extremists are brutal."
No question.

This sort of display would be embarrassing were it not so frightening.

Two days later, with Tony Blair standing at the adjacent podium, things went from bad to worse. One is used to hearing Bush say things that aren't true. He appears, however, from the look on his face and from the baffling nature of the untruths he uttered, to have lapsed from dishonesty into confusion. (Sheer boredom may have sent him tumbling to new depths of ignorance.) "There's a lot of suffering in the Palestinian territory," Bush mused, "because militant Hamas is trying to stop the advance of democracy."

It is? Has Bush forgotten that Hamas came to power as a result of elections that he insisted the Palestinian Authority hold? I happen to think the White House made the right call on the question of Palestinian elections -- even in retrospect, even knowing that Hamas won -- though many observers think his policy has merely backfired. Rather than defend the policy, however, Bush seems to have forgotten all about it. He returned to the theme later in the press conference: "One reason why the Palestinians still suffer is because there are militants who refuse to accept a Palestinian state based upon democratic principles."

That's absurd. The president appears to be totally unfamiliar with what is perhaps the single most-discussed topic in international politics. Nothing gets people disagreeing quite like the subject of how to apportion blame for the Palestinian peoples' considerable suffering. But absolutely nobody blames Arab militants opposed to democratic principles. Terrorists opposed to Israel's very existence? Sure. Israeli intransigence? Why not. But only someone paying no attention whatsoever would subscribe to Bush's theory.

We have, meanwhile, policies that match the intellectual cesspool of the president's rhetoric. In its statements, the White House has consistently adhered to the view that the root cause of the troubles between Israel and Lebanon is Syrian and Iranian support for Hezbollah. Thanks to the dinner roll incident at the G-8 meeting, we know this is Bush's sincere view. "You see," Bush famously explained to Blair, "the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's all over." He further elaborated: "I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen."

There's something of a cliché going around about Bush talking loudly while failing to brandish a stick, but in truth he's mumbling indistinctly while Israeli bombs pummel Lebanon.

If Syria is the real problem here, then, not to put too fine a point on it, someone needs to take some action of some kind related to Syria. After all, why would Syria tell Hezbollah to stop doing this shit? What combination of threats and inducements is Syria supposed to offer Hezbollah to get it to stop? And why would Syria offer them anyway? What's Kofi Annan supposed to do about this? If Bush wants to make Syria do something, he needs to do something to make it happen. Either offer Syria something, or threaten Syria somehow, or some combination of the two. The same goes for Iran. In case Bush hasn't noticed, the regimes in Damascus and Tehran aren't run by kind people looking to help the world out of the goodness of their hearts. Nor has the administration's habit of vaguely suggesting we'd like to overthrow their governments rendered either nation more likely to help us or our Israeli friends out of a jam.

There's a temptation to call this combination of inflammatory tough-guy rhetoric and feckless inaction "the worst of both worlds," but in truth the war policy being advocated by the right's more fevered voices would actually be worse than Bush's embarrassing, illogical paralysis. The real problem is that the risk of a wider regional war involving the United States remains. And if that risk becomes a reality, our country will be led into it by a president who doesn't seem to grasp what's happening.

This article is available on The American Prospect. Copyright 2006, The American Prospect.

Matthew Yglesias is a staff writer at The American Prospect.




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Border agents let fake IDs go through

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press
August 2, 2006


WASHINGTON - Undercover investigators entered the United States using fake documents repeatedly this year - including some cases in which Homeland Security Department agents didn't ask for identification.

At nine border crossings on the Mexico and Canadian borders, agents "never questioned the authenticity of the counterfeit documents," according to Government Accountability Office testimony to be released Wednesday.

"This vulnerability potentially allows terrorists or others involved in criminal activity to pass freely into the United States from Canada or Mexico with little or no chance of being detected," concluded the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, in testimony obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
The findings, to be presented to the Senate Finance Committee, come as Congress considers delaying a 2007 deadline requiring passports or a small number of previously approved tamperproof ID cards from all who enter the United States.

Homeland Security spokesman Jarrod Agen said agents are trained to identify false birth certificates, driver's licenses and other documents. But he conceded that agents sometimes cannot verify more than 8,000 different kinds of currently acceptable IDs without significantly slowing border traffic.

"This creates a security vulnerability we were hoping to close" with the deadline at the end of next year, Agen said.

The GAO probe follows a similar inquiry in 2003 and 2004 when undercover investigators crossed unhindered into the United States at least 14 times using counterfeit drivers' licenses and, in one case, an expired, altered U.S. diplomatic passport. During that investigation, however, border agents in New York and Florida stopped three undercover officials who were using expired and forged passports, drivers' licenses or birth certificates.

By comparison, between February and June 2006, 18 GAO investigators breezed by border agents at checkpoints in California, Texas, Michigan, Idaho, Washington state, and twice each in Arizona and New York. In two cases - in Arizona and California - border agents did not ask the undercover investigators for any identification.

In a third case, in Texas, investigators offered to show identification - a counterfeit Virginia drivers' license. The border agent replied, "OK, that would be good," but released the investigators before inspecting it, according to the prepared testimony by GAO investigator Gregory D. Kutz.

Two of the 9/11 hijackers used fake Virginia residency certificates to get valid state ID cards needed to board the planes that flew into the World Trade Center. Neither GAO probe specified the location of any border checkpoints investigators went through.

The 9/11 Commission called for tougher ID card rules at borders to help prevent terrorists from entering the country. Responding, Congress in 2004 approved requirements for all travelers - including Americans - to show passports or a small number of other approved secure documents before entering the U.S.

Those requirements are supposed to take effect Dec. 31, 2007. But lawmakers from states that border Canada have since rebelled, contending the rules could hamper commercial and tourist travel. They are pushing to delay the rules by 17 months to ensure Homeland Security has proper technology to speed legitimate travel though border checkpoints.

Agen said Homeland Security agents intercepted 75,000 fraudulent documents from border travelers last year. The department last month arrested a Mexican fugitive suspected of running a counterfeit document operation whose fake ID cards have turned up in all 50 states.



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Road rage causes US love affair with cars to skid

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
Associated Press
Tue Aug 1, 2006

WASHINGTON - Americans love their automobiles, but not as much as they used to. Nearly seven in 10 drivers enjoy getting behind the wheel, while the rest think it's a chore. In 1991, nearly eight in 10 said they liked driving.

The biggest reasons for dreading the road: traffic and the behavior of other drivers. Only 3 percent point to high gas prices.

"Other drivers get on my nerves," said Steve Heavisides, a 45-year-old teacher from Vernon, Conn., who had just returned home from a short drive. "There was a women who could have gone right on red and she was just sitting there talking on her cell phone. People don't pay attention and that gets on your nerves."
About one in four drivers thinks of his or her car as "something special" instead of just a "means of transportation," according to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. Nearly one in three thinks it has "a personality of its own."

Americans have been loving their cars for about a century, buying increasingly bigger, faster and more expensive cars while the rest of the world moves toward economy and efficiency. But the new poll suggests that driving is becoming more of a burden for many.

The souring attitudes evolved as many Americans moved farther from central cities, generating longer commutes and more congestion. By 2001, the U.S. had more personal vehicles (204 million) than licensed drivers (191 million).

Urban drivers endured an average of 47 hours of rush hour traffic delays in 2003, a threefold increase from two decades earlier. The worst problems were in Los Angeles, where the average driver suffered almost 100 hours of traffic delays. That's about four full days of waiting for the car in front of you to move.

"I sit there in traffic when it should take half an hour, now it's taking an hour and 15 minutes," said Stacy Baglio, 36, who drives 28 miles to her sales job in northern New Jersey. "People are weaving in and out of traffic. There is no common courtesy whatsoever."

Pew conducted the survey of 1,048 drivers from June 20 to July 16. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The results were compared with a Gallup poll done in 1991.

The new poll's results were consistent among drivers of cars, pickups and SUVs. There were few regional differences among drivers, although northeasterners were more likely than drivers in the rest of the country to have "shouted, cursed or made gestures to other drivers" in the past year.

The key to rediscovering automotive bliss: Zen out. Too many people think of driving as competition, says Leon James, co-author of the book, "Road Rage and Aggressive Driving." Happy drivers think of traffic simply as part of the process of getting from one place to another, kind of like the process of taking a shower to get clean, he said.

"Americans are nice people," said James, a psychology professor at the University of Hawaii. "But there are certain areas that have to do with games and competition, where we become less nice to each other."

Jennifer Geisinger seems to have it figured out. The 31-year-old Realtor from suburban Minneapolis said she loves to drive her 1999 Honda CRV.

"It's something about being in control and getting out on the road," Geisinger said. "I don't have a sports car and I don't speed. But I love my car."

Geisinger also has something in common with 68 percent of all drivers: "Oh I sing, of course," she said, adding that her stereo plays country, opera and Broadway show tunes.



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Another Big Mess


Dentist claims Mossad is behind Iraqi scientist killings

Gulf News
02/08/2006

Baghdad: A large number of professors at Baghdad universities are fleeing the country, fearing abduction and assassination by anonymous armed groups.

M. S, a professor at the University of Baghdad, who spoke on condition of unanimity for security reasons, told Gulf News that more than 25 professors have already left Iraq for Jordan.

"Between 70 and 82 university professors have left to Amman or Damascus fleeing potential assassination attempts, while other professors are getting ready to leave for good," he added.

According to official figures released by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, 289 university professors were killed in the last three years, from all sects and ethnic groups.

This indicated that the killings were carried out on the ground of scientific identity.

A report on brain drain by the investigation committee, which was set up by former minister of education Sami Al Mudhaffar, showed a high rise in the number of assassinated professors after the explosion of the Shiite Shrine in Samara.

The Shiite shrines, which were bombed in Samaraa last February, brought the number of assassinations to 450 people, including university professors and physicians, because militia men and parties resorted to kill highly educated people and academicians and holders of high scientific certificates.

The report also indicates that more than 900 Iraqi professors left Iraq to work in the neighbouring Jordanian universities, while 200 others are working currently in the universities of Yemen.

Fakhri Al Qaisi, assistant dean of the College of Dentistry, told Gulf News: "Professors in all medical departments are panic-stricken, while many others, have fled to neighbouring and other countries."

"It is noted that most dentistry section professors have received letters of threat. The assassinations are linked to Israeli Mossad," Al Qaisi said.

He claimed that that the Iraqi National Congress Party began abducting physicians and university professors after the US occupation, a time when assassinations increased dramatically and that the party was backed by the Mossad.

Members in the National Congress Party refuted these allegations, saying that this is a Baathist, Arab Sunni campaign to distort the role of Ahmad Chalabi in liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussain's regime.

But the questions now being asked by common Iraqis in the street and by politicians are whether Mossad really exists in Iraq and, if so, where its operations centres are and which Iraqi parties are supporting it?

Omar Al Hajj, a professor at the University of Technology said: "Death squads accused of killing Iraqi professionals and scientists are the same forces that invaded Iraq, looted its museums and stole its banks."

"They are also the same parties, which, abduct businessmen and foreigners for high ransoms."



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US soldiers smiled before killings in Iraq: witness

Wed Aug 2, 2006 06:18 AM ET

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers charged with murdering three detainees in Iraq smiled before carrying out the shootings and threatened to kill another soldier if he informed on them, a military court heard on Wednesday.

Prosecution witness Private First Class Bradley Mason said one of those charged, Staff Sergeant Raymond Girouard, told him if he were arrested he would try to get out of it on medical grounds because he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
"They just smiled," said Mason.

"I told him (Girouard) that I am not down with it. It's murder."

The soldiers -- Private First Class Corey Clagett, Specialist William Hunsaker, Girouard and Specialist Juston Graber -- are from the 101st Airborne Division and are based in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

They have said the three men who were killed were trying to escape during the shootings.

The defendants have been charged with premeditated murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, communicating a threat, and obstructing justice in the killings in or around May 9 north of Baghdad.

A premeditated murder conviction can bring the death penalty under U.S. military law.

The Article 32 hearing to determine if they will face court martials is being held at Contingency Operating Base Speicher in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of the capital.

It comes at a sensitive time when the military is investigating other cases of alleged abuses -- including the killings of up to 24 unarmed civilians in the town of Haditha last year by U.S. Marines -- which have infuriated Iraqis.



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Iraqis to assume security duties by year's end

Aug. 2, 2006. 09:26 AM

BAGHDAD (AP) - President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday that Iraqi forces will take over security of all provinces in the country by the end of the year, which at present is largely in the hand of U.S. forces.
Iraqi leaders have said previously that their goal is to be fully in control of the country's security by the end of 2006, but Talabani's statement is the most direct on the subject.

Talabani did not elaborate, and it was not clear if he meant whether the U.S. would retain an advisory type of role in security or take a fully hands-off approach.

U.S. forces are currently responsible for the security of 17 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Only Samawah province is totally under Iraqi forces at present.



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Bombings, shootings kill 61 in Iraq

Wed Aug 2, 2006 05:12 AM ET
By Ahmed Rasheed and Aseel Kami

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombings and shootings killed up to 61 people in Iraq on Tuesday, including at least 26 soldiers, undermining the government's attempts to show it can suppress unremitting violence.

A roadside bomb attack on a bus filled with Iraqi troops on a road between Tikrit and Baiji, north of Baghdad, killed at least 23, the army said.

In the northwestern town of Tal Afar, a car bomb killed three more Iraqi soldiers and wounded four, police said.
A British soldier was killed in a mortar attack on an army base in the southern city of Basra, a British military spokesman said.

In Baghdad, a suicide bomber in a car targeted soldiers collecting their salaries from a bank, killing at least 10 people, including an elderly woman, police said. State television put the toll at 14.

The blast was in the same spot in Karrada district where a car bomb and mortars killed at least 27 people last week.

"We should carry guns to protect ourselves. If we expect Iraqi security forces to protect us we will burn, just like those innocent people," said kiosk owner Abu Fadhil, surveying charred bodies.

"The government is useless. Only days ago we suffered from a huge blast here. The interior minister has to admit they lost the war against the terrorists."

A boy, about 12-years old, stood in the street sobbing and tearing his shirt after seeing his dead mother.

"My mother, my mother, my mother," he screamed.

Two months after being sworn in, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has yet to prove he can end such carnage and sectarian bloodshed which has raised fears of civil war.

He has presented a 24-point reconciliation plan that is long on promises and short on details, and imposed a security crackdown in Baghdad that has proven ineffective.

The army casualties served as a reminder that U.S.-trained Iraqi forces have a long way to go before they can handle security on their own and allow Washington to bring home troops.

Gunmen kidnapped 45 Shi'ites from the Iraqi city of Najaf as they traveled home past the Sunni rebel stronghold of Ramadi on Monday, the governor of Najaf said on Tuesday.

They were abducted along highway 160, one of Iraq's most dangerous roads, said the governor, Asa'ad Sultan. Police could not immediately confirm the kidnappings.

Gunmen opened fire on a bus in Yusufiya, south of Baghdad, killing at least three people in a failed kidnapping, police said.

The United States plans to boost its troop levels in Baghdad and National Security Advisor Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said extra Iraqi brigades would also be brought to the capital.

A few hours after he spoke several mortar bombs landed at the fortified Green Zone government compound, police said.

The body of Adel al-Mansouri, a correspondent for al-Alam television station, was found dumped with bullet holes on a street, police and the station said.

Iraqi security forces were also targeted in the town of Muqdadiya, 90 km (50 miles) northeast of the capital.

A car bomb exploded as a police patrol passed in front of a hospital, killing at least seven people, police said.

In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb killed two police and wounded a third as they conducted a patrol.



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Britain vows to stay course in Iraq, Afghanistan

by Lachlan Carmichael
AFP
August 2, 2006

LONDON - Britain will stay the course in Afghanistan and Iraq despite the deaths of four British soldiers in insurgent attacks in the two countries, Defense Secretary Des Browne vowed.

The deaths of three soldiers in southern Afghanistan in particular stirred unease in London about whether Britain was clear about its aims after sharply increasing its military presence there in the last few months.

The death of a soldier in Iraq would likely underscore longstanding popular and political opposition to Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to send troops in support of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
"This morning's news from Afghanistan and Iraq is very sad," Browne said.

Three British soldiers in the NATO force in Afghanistan's Helmand province were killed and another was seriously hurt when insurgents fired on their patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, Browne's ministry said.

Corporal Matthew Cornish from Britain's 1st Battalion Light Infantry was fatally wounded during a mortar attack on the multinational base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, it added.

"Those responsible for the attacks on our soldiers in northern Helmand do not want to see security and prosperity brought to the local people," the minister said.

"We cannot allow them to succeed, and we remain committed to seeing through our part in this vital international effort," Browne said.

Nine British troops have now been killed in combat this year in southern Afghanistan, where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is embarking on what it calls its most challenging mission yet to defeat a resurgent Taliban.

The bulk of a new British deployment of around 4,000 troops to Afghanistan is based in Helmand. Britain announced earlier this month that it would boost its initial deployment due to the unexpectedly fierce resistance.

The attack came a day after the US-led coalition that overthrew the Taliban in 2001 transferred command of foreign forces in southern Afghanistan to a NATO contingent.

Only half a dozen British troops were killed in Afghanistan prior to the new deployment this year.

Nick Harvey, the spokesman on defense matters for the opposition Liberal Democrat party, said the deaths in Afghanistan "underline the need for a clear military strategy, with achievable objectives. ... The government must be clear about the challenges ahead."

Browne also said the death of the soldier in Basra would not "deflect our support to the elected government in Iraq."

Cornish's death in Basra brought to 115 the number of British troops killed in Iraq since 2003 when they helped US forces overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein. Some 7,200 British troops are deployed in southern Iraq.

The withdrawal of US, British and other foreign troops depends on the ability of foreign-trained Iraqi forces to assume the burden of stabilizing the country.

However, the country is caught in the throes of sectarian violence, with security forces themselves allegedly participating in insurgent bombings and other attacks.



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Natural Disasters


Drought affects 5 mln people across China

www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-01 22:38:53

BEIJING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- As provinces in eastern and southern China recover from floods brought by typhoons, drought is affecting the lives of more than five million people across the country.

Drought had caused temporary drinking water supply disruption for 1.3 million people in the southwestern province of Guizhou, said the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.
More than 270,000 hectares of crops and 900,000 domestic animals were also affected.

In mid-July, rainfall in northern, northeastern and southeastern parts of the province was about 50 to 70 percent less than the average, it said.

Forty-seven counties in these areas had less than 10 millimeters of rain. Reservoirs were 25 percent down on normal levels.

More than 20 days of drought and high temperatures since early July have hit southwestern Chongqing Municipality, affecting the lives of 3.5 million people and three million livestock.

Eighty-three reservoirs in Chongqing have suffered water deficiencies, with stored water in some 60 to 70 percent less than average, according to the municipal flood control and drought relief authorities.

Statistics show average rainfall in north China's Shanxi Province was only 65 millimeters in July, about half of the average of previous years.

About 730,000 people and more than 600,000 hectares of farmland were affected by the drought, said the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.

In northwest China's Gansu Province, about 450,000 people have difficulties in getting drinking water as high temperatures and low rainfall this summer have plagued most of the province.

People in some counties had to travel 50 kilometers for drinking water, according to the provincial flood control and drought relief sources.

Governments of these drought-hit provinces have allocated funds to help residents fight the drought by tapping ground water and improving water conservation facilities.



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Eastern US swelters through heat wave

Wed Aug 2, 2006 12:33 AM ETBy Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Parts of the eastern United States began sweltering through a forecast three-day heat wave on Tuesday with the mercury topping 100 F (38 C) in some areas and New York City electricity demand setting a new record.

The heat wave moved across the country from California, which suffered more than two weeks of triple-digit temperatures that killed at least 136 people and caused power failures.
Temperatures hit or hovered near 100 degrees Fahrenheit in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, with hotter weather forecast for Wednesday. Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago were sweating it out in equally stifling temperatures.

"It is miserably hot outside and hard on everyone," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters. "This is a very dangerous heatwave. It's really more than just uncomfortable, it can seriously threaten your lives."

The National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings and said the heat index -- how hot it feels when the humidity is combined with the air temperature -- was due to hit 115 F (46 C) in New York on Wednesday.

"If people do not take precautions, we could be looking at a significant number of fatalities," said Gary Conte, the weather service's warning coordinator meteorologist, adding that New York City had not suffered such a string of high temperatures since July 1999.

"The forecasted temperatures and heat indices (in 1999) were pretty close to what we're looking at now. The impact from that event resulted in 43 deaths in New York City and New Jersey with rolling blackouts, buckled roads and so forth."

RECORDS BROKEN

The National Weather Service said more than 50 temperature records had been set in the central and western United States in the past two weeks.

"The persistence of the unusually hot temperatures has made the past month one of the warmest since records began in 1895 for the contiguous U.S.," it said.

Meteorologists are analyzing data to determine if July 2006 has surpassed July 1936 to become the hottest on record.
New York City has opened hundreds of air-conditioned "cooling centers" and extended hours at public swimming pools, while urging the public not to open fire hydrants.

"It's too hot. It's hard to work, but we have to suffer to make a living," said Tajdar Sayed, who has been selling fruit from a street stand near New York's Times Square for 15 years.

Electricity grid operators did not expect to have to impose rolling blackouts, aimed at preventing uncontrolled outages, due to any lack of generating capacity.

However, in some regions, power distribution cables could fail, like those that recently left 25,000 Con Edison customers in New York without power for up to a week.

ConEd said late on Tuesday it had set a new record for peak electricity usage, reaching 13,103 megawatts at 5 p.m., which topped the previous record of 13,059 MW set on July 27, 2005.

In 2003, the worst blackout in North American history left up to 50 million people in Ontario, Canada, and eight U.S. states in the dark.

Commonwealth Edison reported about 10,000 scattered outages on Tuesday across its Illinois territory, including 2,700 customers on the south side of Chicago, who lost power Monday when an underground cable failed, spokesman Tom Stevens said.

In El Paso, Texas, heavy rains temporarily broke the region's drought and turned streets into raging rivers that uprooted trees and carried away cars.




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Chris may become hurricane

Reuters
August 2, 2006

MIAMI - The third tropical storm of the Atlantic season skirted the Caribbean's northern Leeward Islands on Wednesday and could become the year's first hurricane headed for the Gulf of Mexico later this week, U.S. forecasters said.
At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), tropical storm warnings remained up for some of the small northeastern Caribbean islands and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, as Tropical Storm Chris' maximum sustained winds remained near 60 miles per hour (97 kph), the U.S.
National Hurricane Center said.

The Miami-based hurricane center said Chris was expected to strengthen and could become a hurricane later on Wednesday as it traveled on a path that could take it into the Gulf of Mexico, where it could damage U.S. oil and gas facilities.

Chris was 65 miles northeast of St. Martin and moving west-northwest near 10 mph (17 kph). On that track, forecasters said, Chris' center would be north of the northernmost Leeward Islands later on Wednesday morning and remain north of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Wednesday afternoon and evening.

The waters of the Gulf are particularly warm, as they were last year when they helped Hurricanes Katrina and Rita grow into monster storms that eventually slammed into the Louisiana and Texas coastlines. Warm water fuels hurricanes.

A tropical storm warning, telling residents to expect storm conditions within 24 hours, was up for Anguilla, St. Barthelemy, St. Martin and St. Maarten, Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.

It had been lifted for Antigua and Barbuda and St. Kitts and Nevis.

Chris was expected to bring up to 5 inches of rain over the northern Leeward Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands and parts of Puerto Rico, with up to 8 inches in some areas.

Forecasters have predicted up to 17 tropical storms and hurricanes this year. Last year saw a record 28, including Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. It devastated New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast and killed more than 1,300 people.



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Widespread flooding hits El Paso, Texas

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Associated Press
August 2, 2006

EL PASO, Texas - A third day of heavy rain caused widespread flooding around El Paso on Tuesday, swamping mountainside homes, forcing evacuations and closing major roads.

Emergency crews juggled an onslaught of distress calls, but there were no immediate reports of any serious injuries.

"We're doing OK at the moment," said police spokesman Javier Sambrano.

Authorities said at least 60 people had been rescued, some standing on roofs, others atop cars.

Fire officials said they were worried about mudslides, boulders and other debris falling from rocky cliffs around several El Paso neighborhoods.
Rosa Reyes was given five minutes to evacuate with her 6-year-old daughter and a neighboring family after a rock wall behind her home collapsed. The tumbling wall punched a hole in the side of a house.

"The material things can be replaced," she said. "It sure didn't feel like five minutes."

A small apartment complex on a hill above Reyes' home was in danger of collapsing and had to be evacuated, said fire Capt. Keith Burch.

The rain threatened to push the Rio Grande over its banks and more than doubled the normal speed of the river's current, authorities said. The river started to recede Tuesday night.

The parched region had less than an inch of rain in the first six months of the year. But it may have gotten as much as 6 inches since Sunday, the National Weather Service said. Forecasters expect the rain to continue through at least Wednesday morning.

Volunteer fire departments around the county helped residents sandbag their homes.

In the city of Socorro southeast of El Paso, 60 National Guard troops were deployed to help residents, said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh. The troops were borrowed from Operation Jumpstart, President Bush's initiative to use troops to combat illegal immigration.

The situation in Mexico was equally bad Tuesday, prompting Mayor Hector Murguia Lardizabal to declare a state of emergency in Juarez.

Fearing that the Rio Grande would overflow, authorities started evacuating more than 1,000 families from low-lying areas of the city.



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Up to 10,000 casualties in North Korea flooding: aid group

AFP
August 2, 2006

SEOUL - Up to 10,000 North Koreans are believed dead or missing in what Pyongyang's official media is describing as the worst flooding in a century, a respected South Korean humanitarian group said.

"About 4,000 people are now listed as missing, and we expect the final toll of dead and missing to reach 10,000," said the independent aid group Good Friends.

North Korea's official media has so far admitted that hundreds of people were dead or missing after the country was battered by heavy rainfall for nearly two weeks from July 10.

Seoul-based Good Friends said the media was now terming the flooding as the worst to hit the impoverished country in a century.




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Earthquake hits New Zealand's Sea bed

Bahrain News Agency
August 2, 2006

Wellington, August. 2, (BNA) An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter that hit the sea bed north of New Zealand's coastal areas.

However, the earthquake did not cause any damages or waves "Tsunami" due to its strike deep down in the ocean bed. The earthquake media studies centre indicated that the earthquake that hit was 320 kilometers underwater.




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Dollars and Nonsense


Army Guard units said not combat ready; Need $21 billion

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press
August 2, 2006

WASHINGTON - More than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready, mostly because of equipment shortages that will cost up to $21 billion to correct, the top National Guard general said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum spoke to a group defense reporters after Army officials, analysts and members of Congress disclosed that two-thirds of the active Army's brigades are not ready for war.

The budget won't allow the military to complete the personnel training and equipment repairs and replacement that must be done when units return home after deploying to
Iraq or Afghanistan, they say.

"I am further behind or in an even more dire situation than the active Army, but we both have the same symptoms, I just have a higher fever," Blum said.
One Army official acknowledged Tuesday that while all active Army units serving in the war zone are "100 percent" ready, the situation is not the same for those at home.

"In the continental United States, there are plenty of units that are rated at significantly less than a C-1 rating," said Lt. Col. Carl S. Ey. "Backlogs at the depots, budget issues and the timeliness of receiving funds to conduct training are all critical to the Army's ability keep their force trained, ready and at the highest readiness level possible."

Once a taboo subject for the military, often buried deep in classified documents, readiness levels - generally ranked from C-1 (the best) to C-4 (the worst) are now being used as weapons themselves to force money out of Congress and the administration.

And while Army officials still won't specify how many units are at which levels, they are being more open about the overall declining state of readiness.

A key element of the problem is that Army units returning from the war have either left tanks, trucks or other equipment behind or are bringing them home damaged. Once back, many soldiers either leave the Army or move to other posts, forcing leaders to train others to replace them. As a result, the unit's ratings drop, said Ey, an Army spokesman.

Last week, several House Democrats said publicly that two-thirds of the Army brigades are rated not ready for combat, and Army officials have not disputed that figure. On Tuesday, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., also declined to be specific, but said the Army is "very much worse off" than it was in late 1999 when the military said two of the 10 Army divisions were ranked at the lowest readiness level, C-4. At the time, two divisions equaled six brigades.

The issue gained political momentum when then-candidate
George Bush, during his nominating convention, said the Clinton administration let the U.S. military might erode. Now, as the 2006 elections approach, Democrats are saying the Bush administration is shortchanging the military.

The Senate late Tuesday agreed to an amendment, offered by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, to add $7.8 billion for the Army and $5.3 billion for the Marine Corps to the defense spending bill for 2007. The added funding would bring the bill to a total of $467 billion, including $63.1 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stevens said the new $13.1 billion is for equipment repair and replacement, and to meet the requirements for continued combat operations, primarily in Iraq. The Senate planned to continue debate on the bill Wednesday.

Stevens said earlier that lawmakers were talking with the
Pentagon "to see if they really need that money." Congress members, including Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., discussed the issue at a breakfast meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in the Pentagon late last week.

In addition to the National Guard's needs, the Army has said it needs $17 billion this year to meet its equipment and combat needs. Dodd said Tuesday he wants to see the Army's full request met, and he plans to offer an amendment to do that later this week.

The Army's readiness score is based on four factors: whether a unit has all the equipment needed; whether the equipment is working; whether it has the number and types of personnel needed; and whether they are properly trained.



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US Senate backs opening protected US coastline to oil, gas drilling

AFP
Tue Aug 1, 2006

WASHINGTON - The US Senate approved legislation that would make 8.3 million acres (3.4 million hectares) of Gulf of Mexico coastline available for oil and natural gas drilling.

The bill, which passed by a vote of 71 to 25, would end a quarter-century ban against tapping the coastal waters for energy, and comes as Americans face ever-spiraling prices at the gas pump and to heat and cool their homes.

Proponents said the bill allows the United States to tap rich domestic supplies of energy, at a time of increasing instability in other oil-producing parts of the world.
"Now more than ever, America needs American energy," Senate majority leader Bill Frist said Tuesday just before the vote.

The bill's boosters say that if signed into law, the bill would make available enough natural gas to heat and cool about six million homes for 15 years.

The Gulf of Mexico acreage has been protected by a drilling moratorium for the last 25 years, which Congress has renewed annually, to protect the sensitive coastal environment.

Environmental groups have raised concerns about lifting the long-standing drilling prohibition, saying doing so only feeds the insatiable US demand for fossil fuel, while calling for the development of alternative energy sources.

The bill now goes to a conference committee to reconcile House of Representatives and Senate versions, but substantial differences between the two versions may mean trouble in creating a single piece of legislation that can be submitted for US President George W. Bush's signature.



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Oil rises amid hurricanes, falling inventories

By Yaw Yan Chong
Reuters
Wed Aug 2, 2006

SINGAPORE - Oil edged higher on Wednesday as a storm was forecast to head for the cluster of oil production rigs in the Gulf of Mexico this week and gasoline stocks in the United States were expected to fall.

Continued fighting between Israel and Hizbollah, a bomb blast on Iraq's oil infrastructure in Turkey and Iran's nuclear stand-off with the West added to the bullish sentiment.
U.S. light, sweet crude for September delivery rose 35 cents to $75.26 a barrel by 0715 GMT, rising for a third session and extending Tuesday's 51-cent gain. London ICE Brent crude rose 39 cents to $76.28 a barrel.

Analysts said prices would be driven more by fundamentals that could trigger supply disruptions such as the looming hurricane season and falling U.S. inventory levels than political tensions in the next one to two months.

"There are many bullish factors now. But I believe the hurricanes and U.S. stock levels will have more impact than the issues going on in the Middle East," said Tetsu Emori, chief commodities strategist with Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo.

"The impact of the political situation is more psychological. For example, I don't think Iran will stop exporting oil, simply because they need the money. They are not crazy, I hope."

Tropical Storm Chris, the third named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, brushed the Caribbean's northern Leeward Islands on Wednesday and could become the year's first hurricane bound for the Gulf of Mexico this week, U.S. forecasters said.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said Chris was set to strengthen and could become a hurricane later on Wednesday as it moved on a track that could take it into the Gulf of Mexico, where it could damage U.S. oil and gas facilities.

U.S. STOCKDRAW SEEN

U.S. gasoline stocks are forecast to have fallen by 1.6 million barrels to 211 million barrels for the week ended July 28, having consistently fallen over the past three weeks, a Reuters survey showed.

Crude stocks are expected to have dropped by 700,000 barrels but distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, are set to show another build, by about 700,000 barrels. The U.S. oil stock data are due at 1430 GMT.

In the Middle East, Israeli commandos snatched five suspected Hizbollah militants deep inside Lebanon on Wednesday, in a raid Lebanese security sources said killed at least 19 civilians as Israel sought to maximize the damage to Hizbollah before diplomatic efforts can bring about an end to the war.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a ceasefire could be reached within days and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also saw movement toward a ceasefire now that Hizbollah had suffered what he said were heavy losses.

"We are at the beginning of a political process that in the end will bring a ceasefire under entirely different conditions than before," said Olmert, without giving any immediate time-frame.

Adding to worries over supplies, an Iraqi pipeline carrying crude from the country's northern oilfields to Turkey's Ceyhan port was bombed, pushing back the planned restart of exports along the route.

Concerns over Iran persisted as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on the country's right to produce nuclear fuel, despite a United Nations resolution demanding that Tehran suspend its nuclear activities by August 31 or face the threat of sanctions.

And in Russia, daily oil production inched down in July to 9.68 million barrels after reaching a post-Soviet high of 9.69 million barrels in June, Energy Ministry data showed.



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GM restates second-quarter loss

Reuters
Wed Aug 2, 2006

DETROIT - General Motors Corp. said on Tuesday it was restating its net loss for the just-reported second quarter, increasing the loss by $200 million to reflect a tax provision related to the sale of its finance arm, GMAC.

GM also said the closing of the $14-billion deal to sell a 51-percent stake in GMAC to an investor consortium led by hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management could be delayed beyond the fourth quarter because of difficulty in obtaining needed regulatory approval.
"GM and GMAC are now working with the consortium to consider ways to try to avoid delaying the targeted closing date until 2007," GM said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that came after the close of trade.

Shares in GM slipped 1.5 percent to $30.80 in after-hours trade from a New York Stock Exchange close of $31.30.

That disclosure marked a reversal from last Wednesday when GM chief financial officer Fritz Henderson said that the deal was on track to close in the fourth quarter.

GM said prospects for the GMAC closing had been complicated by a move Friday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which announced a six-month moratorium on approving the change in control of industrial loan companies.

Obtaining FDIC clearance had been a condition for closing of the GMAC sale, GM said.

GM's deeper quarterly reported net loss marked the second consecutive quarter that the world's largest automaker has had to revise results because of changes in its accounting treatment of charges.

In Tuesday's SEC filing, GM said its revised net loss for the second quarter was $3.4 billion, or $5.97 per share, compared with the loss of $3.2 billion, or $5.62 per share reported last week with its quarterly results.

The Detroit-based automaker said it had increased its after-tax charge to $690 million from $490 million to reflect a difference between the book value and taxable value of several, unspecified GMAC subsidiaries.

On Wednesday, when GM reported its second-quarter results Henderson had told financial analysts that the GMAC deal was on track.

"We do expect to close the sale of our 51-percent controlling interest to the Cerberus-led consortium in the fourth quarter of this year. We have done a lot of work. There is a lot of work underway within GMAC and by the corporation to facilitate this, along with Cerberus and the consortium," Henderson said then.

GM shares, which have gained over 60 percent since the start of the year, rose sharply on Wednesday, as traders reacted to evidence that the automaker's cost-cutting efforts were showing results in adjusted earnings.

GM said its operating earnings, which exclude one-time charges, were not affected by its revision to its net loss for the second quarter.

GM and chief executive Rick Wagoner both came under tough investor scrutiny over accounting practices in March, when GM delayed filing its 2005 annual report and disclosed accounting errors going back to 2000.

At the time, those accounting errors were seen adding to the pressure on Wagoner, who had risen through the ranks of the automaker's financial operations.

In April, GM's board issued a statement announcing the GMAC sale and offering an endorsement for Wagoner's leadership. In May, GM said it would restructure its corporate controller's office and hire an outside advisory firm to help with its accounting and financial reporting.

More recently, GM's largest individual investor, Kirk Kerkorian, proposed that the automaker ally itself with Nissan-Renault, a move widely seen as keeping pressure on Wagoner for a faster turnaround.

Many analysts, however, read GM's improved operating results for the second quarter as vindication of Wagoner's cost-cutting plans for the automaker, which is closing 12 plants and has cut over 34,000 factory positions through buyouts and early retirement offers.



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Last but not least


Evidence of Election Fraud Grows in México

By Chuck Collins and Joshua Holland
AlterNet
August 2, 2006

A month after more than 41 million Mexicans went to the polls to elect their next president, the country is still awaiting a result. A preliminary count of polling station tally sheets put conservative Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party (PAN) ahead with a slight lead over left-populist Andres Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). Both candidates have claimed victory, with López Obrador and his supporters holding vigils and protests across the country and calling for a vote-by-vote recount.
That hasn't kept a consensus from emerging in the commercial media that Calderón won by a small margin in a squeaky-clean election. In a hyperbolic editorial on July 30 -- one that bordered on the ridiculous -- the Washington Post accused López Obrador, known as AMLO to his supporters, of taking "a lesson from Joseph Stalin" and launching an "anti-democracy campaign" by demanding a manual recount and urging his supporters to take to the streets in peaceful protests. Calling the vote "a success story and a model for other nations," the editors concluded that it's "difficult to overstate the irresponsibility of Mr. López Obrador's actions."

Days after the election, the New York Times irresponsibly declared candidate Calderón the winner, even though no victor had been declared under Mexican law, and just this week, in an article about López Obrador's protests, the Times reported that López Obrador had "escalated his campaign to undo official results."

But there are no "official" results and probably won't be until after Sept. 1. Under Mexican law, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) is charged with running the elections and counting the vote. But only the country's Election Tribunal, known by its Mexican nickname as the "TRIFE," has the power to declare a victor (See here for background on the TRIFE). They have until Sept. 6 to rule on the election.

It appears that the U.S. media has become so enamored with the construct of the "anti-democratic" left in Latin America -- the ubiquitous "fiery populists" (a term that has described everyone from the centrist Lula da Silva to Hugo Chávez) -- that they are incapable of fulfilling their basic mandate to inform their readers when it comes to the political landscape south of the border. It's nothing short of journalistic malpractice.

But back in the real world, a growing body of credible evidence from mainstream Mexican journalists, independent election observers and respected scholars indicates that an attempt was made to deliver the presidency to Calderón. It includes a pattern of irregularities at the polls, interference by the ruling party and some very suspicious statistical patterns in the "official" results.

The TRIFE is now sifting through 900 pages of formal complaints lodged by López Obrador. Their ruling on those challenges will indicate how well México's electoral process holds up in a closely fought and highly polarized race.

Growing evidence of irregularities and fraud

México has a history of the party in power's using its clout to tip the election in its favor, and strict laws prohibiting ruling party interference were enacted in the 1990s. Election law prevented Vicente Fox, the outgoing PAN president, from making public statements of a partisan or political nature. But he overstepped this line many times in the 2006 campaign, including dozens of speeches reinforcing candidate Felipe Calderón's basic message that López Obrador was a "danger to México." In a well-publicized speech, candidate López Obrador responded, "With all respect, Mr. President, shut up. You sound like a chattering bird." Fox continued with these speeches until election authorities and public commentators warned Fox he was violating election laws.

The Fox administration also ran public service announcements touting government programs and services and promoting the vote. PAN saturated the television airwaves with "swift-boat" style attack ads against López Obrador, comparing him to Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and calling him a "danger to México." Election authorities eventually ordered these commercials off the air on the grounds that they were untrue and maligned the candidate's character, but critics believe they moved too slowly.

Under Mexican law, ruling party interference is a serious charge and grounds for annulling an election. In the last ten years, the same Electoral Tribunal judges that are reviewing AMLO's complaints annulled governors' races in Tabasco and Colima, based on ruling party interference. The Institutional Revolution Party (PRI), which ruled México for seven decades before the system was reformed in the 1990s, made vote buying and voter coercion into a high art form, and there is strong evidence that they were up to their old tricks in the 2006 election. With PRI governors in 17 of México's 31 states, election observers documented a significant number of examples of voters being offered money or receiving food or building materials in exchange for their PRI vote. In a country where half the citizens live in poverty and rely on different forms of government assistance, voters are often told that their public assistance is dependent on voting for the party in power. There are examples of PAN using similar practices, especially a well-documented case of funds diverted from a San Luis Potosi building program into PAN electoral races.

The Mexican electoral system has come a long way in two decades in implementing anti-fraud systems. But there are still several ways that results can be tampered with on election day. López Obrador's campaign and hundreds of independent election observers documented several hundred cases of "old fashioned" election-day fraud in making their case for a recount.

Here's how the system was supposed to work. On July 2, Mexicans voted at over 130,000 different polling stations, casting separate ballots for president, senator and federal deputy. Each political party was encouraged to have registered poll watchers at every polling station to observe the voting process and count at the end of the day. As international and Mexican election observers noted, however, problems emerged when there weren't enough independent and party observers to go around. In regions where one party was dominant, this created opportunities for vote shaving, ballot stuffing, lost ballots and other forms of fraud.

The PRD's strongest case for a recount comes from the fact that ballots in almost one-third of the country were not counted in the presence of independent observers. One analysis of IFE results found that there were 2,366 polling places where only a PAN observer was present. In these districts, Calderón beat López Obrador by a whopping 71-21 margin.

Other elements of PRD's legal challenge include documentation of several ballot boxes found in dumps in the PRD stronghold of México City. They also point to evidence such as the nonpartisan Civic Alliance's report documenting 17 polling sites in PAN-dominated Nuevo León, Michoacan and Querétaro, where the number of votes cast vastly exceeded the number of registered voters at a site.

Reports by international and domestic election observers affiliated with the Civic Alliance and Global Exchange stop short of claiming fraud in the elections. They laud the dedication of most poll workers they monitored and the preparations for the vote in most of the polling places, as well as the orderly and peaceful process overall. But the cumulative evidence is damning in such a closely contested race.

In the weeks after the election, PRD observers again sounded the alarm as sealed ballot packets were being illegally opened at IFE district offices in several PAN-dominated regions. PRD officials accused IFE officials of possibly tampering with ballots or attempting to cover up fraud in the event of a recount. The TRIFE ordered these offices to stop opening vote packets.

While the López Obrador campaign has not made major charges of "cyber fraud," there is an emerging controversy over the IFE's role in reporting who was ahead in the vote count. For the 2006 election, the IFE had developed a sophisticated system to provide preliminary results called the PREP. Relying on results being phoned in from a sample of precincts, the IFE could compile a credible picture of the vote. If the PREP showed one candidate with a clear majority, the system would have allowed Mexicans to go to sleep on election night knowing who their next president would be. But because of the razor close results, the PREP proved to be an inadequate measure.

Now research is emerging to suggest that the PREP results were cooked to create the appearance of a Calderón victory. Physicist Jorge López at the University of Texas, El Paso, conducted a statistical analysis of the PREP results and found that, as the results came in, the differential between the candidates' totals remained almost constant. One would expect that, as results from each party's geographic strongholds were counted, the gap between their totals would rise and would fall. In such a tight election, one would even expect the lead to change back and forth as the count progressed. None of that happened. The results of a third candidate, Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), fluctuated as expected.

He also noted that there was very little deviation between the actual results as they came in and the average results; in a normal, natural distribution, one would expect significant differences between the two (it should look something like a squashed bell-shaped curve). Dr. López concluded the pattern was "a clear indication that the data was manufactured by an algorithm and does not stand a chance at passing as data originated at the actual voting."

Luis Mochan, a physicist at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, did similar work. He noted that the PREP data was posted after the first 10,000 reports had been processed, and looked at whether those first 10,000 reports were consistent with the statistical trends for the rest of the day. When he plotted the data backwards, Calderón's vote total originated at zero, as is normal, but López Obrador began the day 126,000 votes in the hole.

Mochan and López both point out that the Calderón began the day building a large percentage lead -- seven points -- that decreased steadily throughout the day. The large early lead would have been handy from a psychological and political perspective, allowing Calderón to claim that he led all day long, but the results had to end in a close result given that polls conducted a week before the tally showed a statistical dead heat.

Mochan also notes gross discrepancies in the number of votes processed late in the evening: "At the end of the plot, we find intervals with more than 1,200 votes per [voting] booth. I understand that no booth was to receive more than 750 votes. Even more worrisome, some data points indicate a negative number of votes per booth."

Mochan notes that these statistical anomalies aren't definitive proof of anything. But economist James Galbraith, reviewing Mochan's data, speculated about a likely scenario that would fit the discrepancies seen that night:
Felipe Calderón started the night with an advantage in total votes, a gift from the authorities.

As the count progressed, this advantage was maintained by misreporting of the actual results. This enabled Calderón to claim that he had led through the entire process -- an argument greatly repeated but spurious in any case because it is only the final count that matters.

Toward the end of the count, further adjustments were made to support the appearance of a victory by Calderón.
Critics suggest that the IFE may have aggressively pushed to swiftly declare Calderón a victor, obviating the need for a poll-by-poll vote recount.

The U.S. media was also confused on the Wednesday after the vote when the IFE ordered all 300 district offices to review the tally sheets. It was widely reported as a "recount," when in fact very few ballots were actually counted. In some cases, such as when a tally sheet was illegible, the sealed ballot packets where opened and recounted. Almost every time that occurred, observers encountered significant errors in the vote count. In the state of México, one tally sheet recorded 88 votes for López Obrador when the recount of ballots found 188 votes. Whether it was human error or intentional vote shaving, in a tight election race, these examples gain heightened significance.

None of these reports in and of themselves constitute a smoking gun. But the questions they raise need to be answered. There is far more evidence pointing to fraud in the Mexican elections in 2006 than was made publicly available about Ukraine's contested vote in 2004. Comparing the media and political establishment's reactions to the two reveals the transparent dishonesty in backing Calderón's claim of victory; in 2004 many of the same voices that are now calling López Obrador "undemocratic" were screaming that the Ukrainian tally had to be annulled and only a new election would assure democracy in the former Soviet satellite. In both instances, the candidate who declared victory was friendly towards a powerful neighboring state; in 2004 that state was Russia, and two years later it's the United States. Forget about threatening México's fragile democratic institutions -- that makes all the difference to the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post.

According to the Mexican daily La Journada, over two million supporters of López Obrador gathered in México City on Sunday, July 30, the largest public demonstration in México's history. Millions of voices chanted "vote by vote, poll by poll," calling on the Electoral Tribunal to order a recount. A poll released this week found that Mexicans, by a 20-point margin (48-28), want a vote-by-vote count. López Obrador has said he will call off protests when the Tribunal agrees to a recount and will honor its final decision.

As for the charge in the U.S. media that López Obrador is undermining democracy and the rule of law by calling on his supporters to protest, we believe that the rights of peaceful assembly and free speech are important democratic tenets. Public protests have played a historic part in México's three decade-long transition to democracy.

President and PAN leader Vicente Fox called for direct action when he believed he was victimized by electoral fraud in his race for the governorship of Guanajuato in 1991. Fox called on thousands of supporters to take to the streets and block highways, and the results were eventually overturned. Asked before the 2000 presidential election if he would do the same thing if he suspected fraud, he didn't hesitate to say "we will be very alert to any irregularities, and we will submit the appropriate legal accusations that are necessary. If there is any instability [as a result of those accusations], it will be due to whatever they have done fraudulently to avoid recognizing our victory."

While Calderón has opposed a ballot-by-ballot recount, even some of his staunchest supporters have argued that the process would assure Mexicans' faith in their electoral authorities and strengthen the country's young democracy. In a race where over 64 percent of Mexicans voted against him, Calderón, if he should prove victorious, will need all the legitimacy he can muster.

As México awaits the rulings of the electoral tribunal, tensions are high. The campaign -- often dirty -- and the close results have polarized the country. Given the context, the U.S. media's water-carrying for Calderón's campaign is anything but helpful. The fact that there have been no "official" results is not open to dispute, and until AMLO's allegations have been investigated, there is no way that anyone can say who will come out ahead.

Chuck Collins is the co-author of "Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity" (New Press). He is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and lives in Oaxaca, México. Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.



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Thai woman admits feeding her British husband to tigers

By Geneviève Roberts
Published: 02 August 2006

A wealthy British farmer was battered to death and then barbecued over charcoal by relatives of his former Thai wife. The body parts of Toby Charnaud, age 41, from Chippenham in Wiltshire, were then scattered in a Thai national park, one of the last areas in the country where tigers roam, a court has heard.
He was killed on a trip to pick up the couple's five-year-old son, Daniel, whom he had gained custody of after the couple divorced, Petchaburi court in northern Thailand was told yesterday.

The Marlborough-educated former land agent and farmer met and married Pannada Laoruang, known in the family as Som, in 1997 and they initially returned to Wiltshire. He gave up his farming business and the couple bought a bar in Hua Hin resort in Thailand. But when Ms Laoruang, now aged 38, ran up heavy gambling debts in 2004, the couple divorced.

Ms Laoruang and five of her male relatives and friends stand trial for murder. Mr Charnaud's mother, Sarah, said she understood her son had gone to a property he rented for his former wife on 27 March last year, after receiving a call to pick up Daniel. But a group of men were there, some related to Ms Laoruang. They first tried to shoot him but the gun had backfired, Mrs Charnaud said. Her son was later battered to death and his body disposed of on the edge of a national park near the Burmese border, she added.

Mrs Charnaud said she understood that three men had admitted murder while her son's ex-wife had admitted involvement in helping to dispose of the evidence. Ms Laoruang was "seriously in debt", Mrs Charnaud said. "He had to pay off a lot of her debts. We had money in this country for Daniel's education and that had to be transferred to pay off her debts." She said Ms Laoruang's "motive was clearly to use Daniel as a meal ticket".

Describing her former daughter-in-law, Mrs Charnaud said: "We welcomed her to the family, as one does. It was fine, she appeared to fit in. She was involved in all family activities. But I became aware their marriage was getting into difficulty due to Pannada living her own life. She was using money from the bar without his knowledge."

Mrs Charnaud, 70, and her husband Jeremy, 69, received a phonecall from Ms Laoruang on 29 March last year, two days after Mr Charnaud's death. The couple hired a private investigator. "After we were told he was missing, we were determined to pull out all the stops to find out what had happened. What else could we do?" Mrs Charnaud said.

Yesterday, Hannah Allan, Mr Charnaud's sister, said: "This was a disgusting, pre-meditated murder which has ruined our family's lives forever. That includes the life of Toby's six-year-old son, who has been torn apart by what's happened to his daddy." Daniel is being cared for in Britain.

Shortly before Mr Charnaud's death, he won a writing competition for a short story published in a Bangkok magazine. The story, named "Rainfall", is about a British tourist named Guy who falls in love with an unfaithful Thai woman who builds up gambling debts. The book ends with Guy being murdered by one of her lovers. Ms Allen, described the story as "eerie". The case was adjourned until 6 September.



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Calif. Mom Saves Son's Life After Hunch

Posted on: Tuesday, 1 August 2006, 18:00 CDT

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - A woman saved her 13-year-old son's life after following a hunch that the 4-foot deep trench he was digging collapsed on him, officials said.

Dylan Scott was recovering at home Monday from the scrapes and bruises he sustained when the sand fell in on him.
"It's creepy," he said. "I just remember something really heavy fell on me."

Wendy Scott, 41, said she didn't see Dylan when she retuned to the beach after briefly joining her 10-year old in the water Sunday.

Other beach visitors told her Dylan had gone swimming, but she sensed he was buried in the sand, she said.

Onlookers began helping her dig when she clawed through the sand and touched Dylan's head, she said.

The boy wasn't breathing and had turned blue by the time rescuers arrived, she said. He was revived at a hospital.



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