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Editorial: War Crimes and Responsibility of the Bush Administration
August 7, 2006
by Rodrigue Tremblay
The New American Empire
"A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang."
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Father of the American Constitution
"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
"It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Can a democracy turn fascist and militaristic? It sure can, and that is the most severe threat a democracy can ever face. The 20th Century example was Germany in the 1930's. -The Nazi Party was elected in November 1932, with only 33.1 percent of the votes, but when its leader Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933, it immediately began subverting the German Weimar Constitution by concentrating political power in its own hands, while increasing military expenditures. The Nazi government then suspended a number of constitutional protections of civil liberties under the pretext of external and internal threats to its security. The following steps taken by Nazi Germany were to initiate a series of illegal wars of aggression against other countries. This culminated with World War II in which more than 50 million people died.
After the war, principles of international law were established in order to prevent future mischievous politicians from embarking upon wars of aggression.
In the first instance, the U.S. participated in establishing the Nuremberg standard of international criminal justice, which states that it is a war crime to launch a war of aggression. This was the charge that the chief U.S. prosecutor, Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), brought against German Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg trials. As Justice Jackson put it: "We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it."
The Nuremberg Charter is the most damning statute for leaders who engage in wars of aggression and mass murders, because it establishes the principle that leaders who initiate such wars and commit such crimes bear an individual criminal responsibility, not only for launching wars of aggression, but for the war crimes and murders which inevitably flow from their unprovoked aggression. This is well spelled out by the Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal: "To initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." Moreover, "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience...therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."
Let us recall that in early October 1945, at Nuremberg, 24 Nazi officials were indicted. Of those, 21 eventually were tried. They were charged not only with the systematic murder of millions of people, but also with planning and carrying out an illegal war in Europe. Twelve Nazi officials were sentenced to be hanged, three sentenced to life in prison, four were given prison sentences of 10-20 years, and the rest were acquitted. The Chancellor of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), had previously committed suicide, on April 30, 1945, and was not, therefore, indicted and judged. It is clear, however, that he would have been, had he lived. Therefore, it is not true that only lower ranked officials can be held accountable and accused of war crimes or crimes against humanity, while those who give the orders remain in the shadows. It is not true that the sadists, perverts and psychopaths in authority, even when they have been voted into power, are completely exempt from the law and from the rules of human decency. -Therefore, the precedent does exist and is very clear.
Secondly, the United Nations Charter of 1945 solemnly outlawed wars of aggression. Indeed, the U. N. Charter admits only two circumstances in which one country is allowed to use military force against another:
- when a country must defend itself against an attack from another country;
- when the Security Council authorizes the use of military force against a country that is in violation of the principles of the U. N. Charter.
Neither circumstance existed when George W. Bush decided on his own to attack Iraq, on March 20, 2003. Therefore, the Iraq War represents an illegal war of aggression and those who took that course of action risk being held accountable one day for any crime committed during this illegal endeavor. It can, indeed, be argued that President George W. Bush assumed the war criminal's mantle when he illegally invaded Iraq under false pretenses. In fact, if a war is illegal, then all the killings occurring during that war are murders.
There are now 3,000 civilian deaths per month in Iraq. On October 8, 2004, George W. Bush said that he accepts responsibility before history; "But history will look back, and I'm fully prepared to accept any mistakes that history judges to my administration, because the president makes the decisions, the president has to take the responsibility."-The real question is not whether history will judge him; it surely will, and most likely, very severely. It is rather whether he would accept or not to face an impartial international tribunal for his actions and decisions that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of unwarranted deaths. I doubt it.
On June 29, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in a 5-3 decision) that President Bush's effort to railroad Guantanamo Bay detainees in kangaroo courts "violates both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions."
Better late than never, but it took a long time for the U.S. constitutional checks and balances provisions to stop this illegal behavior on the part of the Executive branch. The Legal Times quotes David Remes, a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling, as saying: "At the broadest level, the Court has rejected the basic legal theory of the Bush administration since 9/11 - that the president has the inherent power to do whatever he wants in the name of fighting terrorism without accountability to Congress or the courts." Perhaps the U.S. Court's ruling has more far-reaching implications. Indeed, in finding that George W. Bush was violating the law by not following the Geneva Conventions, the ruling may have created a prima facie case for charges to be filed against him, later on, for war crimes.
President George W. Bush, as did many politicians before him, must think that he is exempt from the law, as long as he remains protected by his office (the U.S. Constitution grants the president immunity while in office) and as long as he has brute military force on his side. So did Adolf Hitler, ...for a long while. George W. Bush joked mockingly about international law on December 11, 2003, when he said to an European reporter "International law? I better call my lawyer; he didn't bring that up to me."
But circumstances may change, and the law, after having been kept in check and derided, ultimately succeeds. Especially after he leaves office, George W. Bush could be held criminally responsible for American-initiated war crimes in Iraq, either through an indictment in American courts (which is most unlikely), or through an indictment in some other country's courts which have jurisdiction to try any person who is suspected of having planned, directed or committed crimes against humanity under international customary law, as well as for planning and carrying out crimes against the peace. This is not an hypothetical situation since it is reported that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is quietly working with senior White House officials and friendly members of Congress to pass new laws to exempt members of the administration from future prosecution. For Americans, it should give food for thought to consider that their leaders, if they were defeated militarily, could be open to prosecution for war crimes.
For the time being, some temporary legal tricks have been used to protect American soldiers in Iraq from either Iraqi law or international law. A blanket immunity from prosecution to "coalition forces" on Iraqi soil was granted by former U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer. Because of Bremer's Order 17, indeed, Americans in Iraq are subject only to U.S. military law. In other words, soldiers are in a position to judge other soldiers, in case of war crimes or crimes against humanity. -Moreover, even though the invasion of Iraq was an illegal act in itself, the United Nations granted, after the fact, a U.S.-led coalition's mandate for Iraq, in June 2004, with its Resolution 1546. This resolution authorized the U.S.-led coalition to provide security and to support the country's transitional government. And, importantly, it contains an annex that extends Bremer's directive regarding immunity from Iraqi law for foreign personnel in Iraq. It is far from certain that this U.N. granting of immunity is not a breach of international law and could not itself be declared null in a court of law, since the U.S., as a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, was in conflict of interest in obtaining it.
It is this blanket immunity that the Iraqi government is presently attempting to have lifted or declared null and void, after some sordid crimes and massacres perpetrated by American soldiers against the Iraqi civilian population. Indeed, one of the most gruesome American atrocities in Iraq was connected with the planned rape and premeditated murder of a young Iraqi girl by a group of five U.S. soldiers, on March 12, 2006, near Mahmudiyah, Iraq. The hooligans were led by a Steven D. Green, stationed in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division and who has since been 'honorably' discharged from the military. Before leaving the scene of their crime, the American soldiers fatally shot in cold blood the four other members of the family, including a 5-year-old girl, and attempted to set the young girl's body on fire to cover their crime. -But thanks to the above mentioned immunity clause, those involved cannot be tried in an Iraqi court of law. -An army is truly the last refuge of the sadist.
Iraqi Justice Minister Hashim Abdul-Rahman al-Shebli has denounced this war crime as "monstrous and inhuman" and called on the U.N. Security Council "to stop these violations of human rights." However, the Bush administration is in a position to oppose its veto to any U.N. resolution that would lift American immunity in Iraq. -Iraq remains a conquered territory. The term "liberated country" is, therefore, a gross misnomer.
Nevertheless, as mentioned before, when soldiers commit war crimes in an illegal war, those who launched such an illegal "preventive" war may be held personally responsible for the crimes that ensue. Had they not ordered an illegal war of aggression, the military crimes and massacres that followed would not have occurred. The precedent has been solidly established by the Nuremberg Trials. The judges at Nuremberg laid down the ground rules of international law that describe an unprovoked, violent invasion of a defenseless country as "a crime against humanity, the paramount war crime."
More recently, the trial at The Hague of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity, and the creation of the International Criminal Court in 2002, have raised hopes that it would become easier to bring tyrants before a court of justice. Efforts to bring other known war criminals, however, have proved much more difficult, as the attempts at war crimes prosecutions of Chili's Augusto Pinochet and Israel's Ariel Sharon have demonstrated. There are insurmountable obstacles to bringing to justice former political leaders who have engaged in war crimes, but who receive the protection of their country against the reach of international justice.
In the case of the March 2003 Iraq War, launched by the Neocon Bush administration, it can be said that the very concept of "preventive war", used to justify this first war of aggression in the 21st Century, has already been judged and condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal. The conclusion of this court was that leaders who engage in so-called "preventive wars" must be held individually accountable for their crimes. -In particular, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg rejected the German leaders' argument that they had been compelled to attack Norway and Denmark in self-defense 'to prevent' a future Allied invasion. The Tribunal concluded that these attacks violated customary law limits on self-defense and instead constituted wars of aggression whose prohibition was demanded by the conscience of the world.
Moreover, the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act (U.S. Code Section 2441) also bans any American, including government officials, from committing war crimes, and punishments for violators include the death penalty. What's more, this American law has no statute of limitations in time.
In conclusion, it would seem reasonable to think that the blame for any war crime committed in Iraq by the occupying forces lies squarely on President George W. Bush's shoulders and on those of his principal acolytes. Therefore, it is fair to conclude that the legal history of this war has not yet completely unfolded.
Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@ yahoo.com.
He is the author of the book 'The New American Empire'.
Visit his blog site atwww.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1031
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Editorial: Summer of Goodbyes...
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Riverbend
Baghdad Burning
Residents of Baghdad are systematically being pushed out of the city. Some families are waking up to find a Klashnikov bullet and a letter in an envelope with the words "Leave your area or else." The culprits behind these attacks and threats are Sadr's followers- Mahdi Army. It's general knowledge, although no one dares say it out loud. In the last month we've had two different families staying with us in our house, after having to leave their neighborhoods due to death threats and attacks. It's not just Sunnis- it's Shia, Arabs, Kurds- most of the middle-class areas are being targeted by militias.
Other areas are being overrun by armed Islamists. The Americans have absolutely no control in these areas. Or maybe they simply don't want to control the areas because when there's a clash between Sadr's militia and another militia in a residential neighborhood, they surround the area and watch things happen.
Since the beginning of July, the men in our area have been patrolling the streets. Some of them patrol the rooftops and others sit quietly by the homemade road blocks we have on the major roads leading into the area. You cannot in any way rely on Americans or the government. You can only hope your family and friends will remain alive- not safe, not secure- just alive. That's good enough.
For me, June marked the first month I don't dare leave the house without a hijab, or headscarf. I don't wear a hijab usually, but it's no longer possible to drive around Baghdad without one. It's just not a good idea. (Take note that when I say 'drive' I actually mean 'sit in the back seat of the car'- I haven't driven for the longest time.) Going around bare-headed in a car or in the street also puts the family members with you in danger. You risk hearing something you don't want to hear and then the father or the brother or cousin or uncle can't just sit by and let it happen. I haven't driven for the longest time. If you're a female, you risk being attacked.
I look at my older clothes- the jeans and t-shirts and colorful skirts- and it's like I'm studying a wardrobe from another country, another lifetime. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when you could more or less wear what you wanted if you weren't going to a public place. If you were going to a friends or relatives house, you could wear trousers and a shirt, or jeans, something you wouldn't ordinarily wear. We don't do that anymore because there's always that risk of getting stopped in the car and checked by one militia or another.
There are no laws that say we have to wear a hijab (yet), but there are the men in head-to-toe black and the turbans, the extremists and fanatics who were liberated by the occupation, and at some point, you tire of the defiance. You no longer want to be seen. I feel like the black or white scarf I fling haphazardly on my head as I walk out the door makes me invisible to a certain degree- it's easier to blend in with the masses shrouded in black. If you're a female, you don't want the attention- you don't want it from Iraqi police, you don't want it from the black-clad militia man, you don't want it from the American soldier. You don't want to be noticed or seen.
I have nothing against the hijab, of course, as long as it is being worn by choice. Many of my relatives and friends wear a headscarf. Most of them began wearing it after the war. It started out as a way to avoid trouble and undue attention, and now they just keep it on because it makes no sense to take it off. What is happening to the country?
I realized how common it had become only in mid-July when M., a childhood friend, came to say goodbye before leaving the country. She walked into the house, complaining of the heat and the roads, her brother following closely behind. It took me to the end of the visit for the peculiarity of the situation to hit me. She was getting ready to leave before the sun set, and she picked up the beige headscarf folded neatly by her side. As she told me about one of her neighbors being shot, she opened up the scarf with a flourish, set it on her head like a pro, and pinned it snuggly under her chin with the precision of a seasoned hijab-wearer. All this without a mirror- like she had done it a hundred times over... Which would be fine, except that M. is Christian.
If M. can wear one quietly- so can I.
I've said goodbye this last month to more people than I can count. Some of the 'goodbyes' were hurried and furtive- the sort you say at night to the neighbor who got a death threat and is leaving at the break of dawn, quietly.
Some of the 'goodbyes' were emotional and long-drawn, to the relatives and friends who can no longer bear to live in a country coming apart at the seams.
Many of the 'goodbyes' were said stoically- almost casually- with a fake smile plastered on the face and the words, "See you soon"... Only to walk out the door and want to collapse with the burden of parting with yet another loved one.
During times like these I remember a speech Bush made in 2003: One of the big achievements he claimed was the return of jubilant 'exiled' Iraqis to their country after the fall of Saddam. I'd like to see some numbers about the Iraqis currently outside of the country you are occupying... Not to mention internally displaced Iraqis abandoning their homes and cities.
I sometimes wonder if we'll ever know just how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis left the country this bleak summer. I wonder how many of them will actually return. Where will they go? What will they do with themselves? Is it time to follow? Is it time to wash our hands of the country and try to find a stable life somewhere else?
Original
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Editorial: Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong
George Monbiot
Tuesday August 8, 2006
The Guardian
Whatever we think of Israel's assault on Lebanon, all of us seem to agree about one fact: that it was a response, however disproportionate, to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah. I repeated this "fact" in my last column, when I wrote that "Hizbullah fired the first shots". This being so, the Israeli government's supporters ask peaceniks like me, what would you have done? It's an important question. But its premise, I have now discovered, is flawed.
Since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, there have been hundreds of violations of the "blue line" between the two countries. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the line "on an almost daily basis" between 2001 and 2003, and "persistently" until 2006. These incursions "caused great concern to the civilian population, particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over populated areas". On some occasions, Hizbullah tried to shoot them down with anti-aircraft guns.
In October 2000, the Israel Defence Forces shot at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on the border, killing three and wounding 20. In response, Hizbullah crossed the line and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. On several occasions, Hizbullah fired missiles and mortar rounds at IDF positions, and the IDF responded with heavy artillery and sometimes aerial bombardment. Incidents like this killed three Israelis and three Lebanese in 2003; one Israeli soldier and two Hizbullah fighters in 2005; and two Lebanese people and three Israeli soldiers in February 2006. Rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel several times in 2004, 2005 and 2006, on some occasions by Hizbullah. But, the UN records, "none of the incidents resulted in a military escalation".
On May 26 this year, two officials of Islamic Jihad - Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub - were killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese city of Sidon. This was widely assumed in Lebanon and Israel to be the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. In June, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh confessed to the killings and admitted that he had been working for Mossad since 1994. Militants in southern Lebanon responded, on the day of the bombing, by launching eight rockets into Israel. One soldier was lightly wounded. There was a major bust-up on the border, during which one member of Hizbullah was killed and several wounded, and one Israeli soldier wounded. But while the border region "remained tense and volatile", Unifil says it was "generally quiet" until July 12.
There has been a heated debate on the internet about whether the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah that day were captured in Israel or in Lebanon, but it now seems pretty clear that they were seized in Israel. This is what the UN says, and even Hizbullah seems to have forgotten that they were supposed to have been found sneaking around the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab. Now it simply states that "the Islamic resistance captured two Israeli soldiers at the border with occupied Palestine". Three other Israeli soldiers were killed by the militants. There is also some dispute about when, on July 12, Hizbullah first fired its rockets; but Unifil makes it clear that the firing took place at the same time as the raid - 9am. Its purpose seems to have been to create a diversion. No one was hit.
But there is no serious debate about why the two soldiers were captured: Hizbullah was seeking to exchange them for the 15 prisoners of war taken by the Israelis during the occupation of Lebanon and (in breach of article 118 of the third Geneva convention) never released. It seems clear that if Israel had handed over the prisoners, it would - without the spillage of any more blood - have retrieved its men and reduced the likelihood of further kidnappings. But the Israeli government refused to negotiate. Instead - well, we all know what happened instead. Almost 1,000 Lebanese and 33 Israeli civilians have been killed so far, and a million Lebanese displaced from their homes.
On July 12, in other words, Hizbullah fired the first shots. But that act of aggression was simply one instance in a long sequence of small incursions and attacks over the past six years by both sides. So why was the Israeli response so different from all that preceded it? The answer is that it was not a reaction to the events of that day. The assault had been planned for months.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "more than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and thinktanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail". The attack, he said, would last for three weeks. It would begin with bombing and culminate in a ground invasion. Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the paper that "of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared ... By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board".
A "senior Israeli official" told the Washington Post that the raid by Hizbullah provided Israel with a "unique moment" for wiping out the organisation. The New Statesman's editor, John Kampfner, says he was told by more than one official source that the US government knew in advance of Israel's intention to take military action in Lebanon. The Bush administration told the British government.
Israel's assault, then, was premeditated: it was simply waiting for an appropriate excuse. It was also unnecessary. It is true that Hizbullah had been building up munitions close to the border, as its current rocket attacks show. But so had Israel. Just as Israel could assert that it was seeking to deter incursions by Hizbullah, Hizbullah could claim - also with justification - that it was trying to deter incursions by Israel. The Lebanese army is certainly incapable of doing so. Yes, Hizbullah should have been pulled back from the Israeli border by the Lebanese government and disarmed. Yes, the raid and the rocket attack on July 12 were unjustified, stupid and provocative, like just about everything that has taken place around the border for the past six years. But the suggestion that Hizbullah could launch an invasion of Israel or that it constitutes an existential threat to the state is preposterous. Since the occupation ended, all its acts of war have been minor ones, and nearly all of them reactive.
So it is not hard to answer the question of what we would have done. First, stop recruiting enemies, by withdrawing from the occupied territories in Palestine and Syria. Second, stop provoking the armed groups in Lebanon with violations of the blue line - in particular the persistent flights across the border. Third, release the prisoners of war who remain unlawfully incarcerated in Israel. Fourth, continue to defend the border, while maintaining the diplomatic pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hizbullah (as anyone can see, this would be much more feasible if the occupations were to end). Here then is my challenge to the supporters of the Israeli government: do you dare to contend that this programme would have caused more death and destruction than the current adventure has done?
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Editorial: Issa Nakhleh: the Fascist Character of the Israeli State
Monday August 07th 2006, 7:41 pm
Kurt Nimmo
Another Day in the Empire
Ehud Olmert's political party, Kadima, currently leading the murderous charge in Lebanon, was forged out of Likud, and Likud out of Herut, the political party of Zeev Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism, a movement at odds with socialist Zionism and taking its cues from Benito Mussolini and fascism.
In 1940, Avraham Stern, inspired by Jabotinsky, formed Irgun Zvai Leumi be-Yisrael, or simply Lehi, a terrorist group dedicated to killing not only officials and soldiers of British colonialism in Palestine, but anybody, regardless of race or religion (including Jews), who stood in the way of realizing a "homeland in the Land of Israel within the borders delineated in the Bible," as Stern declared in his 18 Principles of Rebirth (see David Ohana's Zarathustra in Jerusalem: Nietzsche and the "New Hebrews"). Stern and Lehi, also called the Stern Gang, attempted to team up with the Nazis during the Second World War, declaring a "common interests could exist between the establishment of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO (Lehi)."
"Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can negate the use of terror as a means of battle," an article published in a Lehi underground newspaper stated in 1943. "We are quite far from moral hesitations on the national battlefield. We see before us the command of the Torah, the most moral teaching in the world: Obliterate-until destruction. We are particularly far from this sort of hesitation in regard to an enemy whose moral perversion is admitted by all.... But primarily terror is part of our political battle under present conditions and its role is large and great." In other words, as commanded in the Old Testament (the reference to "obliteration" is taken from Exodus 17:14 and Numbers 14:45), enemies should be destroyed completely and their "remembrance" blotted out for all history. Such mass murder and brutality, uncoupled from any moral restraint, "shakes the Yishuv [settlers] from their complacency" (see the Wikipedia entry on Lehi and the justification for terrorism).
After assassinating Lord Moyne in Cairo in 1944, followed by the murder of the UN Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948 (Bernadotte was assassinated in part for revealing the depth of Zionist efforts to murder and ethnically cleanse Palestinians), Lehi was integrated into the Israeli Defense Forces on May 31, 1948, and a member was elected to the first Knesset. In short, terrorism became a military and state policy after the British decided to withdraw from the Palestine Mandate and the UN General Assembly approved a 1947 UN Partition Plan dividing the Palestine into two states (or rather one state, as the Israelis not only reneged on the promise to abide by the plan, but began ethnically cleansing Arabs in short order).
In the months prior to declaring a Zionist state (in fact, declared one day before the expiry of the Palestine Mandate), according to British Colonial Office and Foreign Office files, "the Irgun Z'vai Leumi and the Stern Gang, in coordination with the Hagana, committed the infamous massacre of Deir Yassin, where 250 men, women and children were butchered and many of their houses blown up over their heads," writes the Palestinian Christian Issa Nakhleh, a representative of the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine in New York City 1947-1948 (see Nakhleh's Encyclopedia of the Palestinian Problem, Chapter 7, Zionist Crimes and Terrorism in Palestine; at the end of this chapter there is a detailed description of numerous terrorist crimes committed by Irgun-Hagana).
The details of the crimes committed by Zionist terrorist organizations in 1948 are ... verbatim reports photocopied from the War Office, Colonial Office and Foreign Office files i d Public Record Office, Kew Gardens, Surrey, the United Kingdom. Following is a summary of the types of crimes committed by Zionist terrorists in 1948:
1. Sneak attacks on many Arab villages, resulting in the death of many men, women and children.
2. Blowing up of bridges in different parts of the country.
3. Blowing up of Arab houses and hotels.
4. Firing on Arab cars and killing many Arabs.
5. Robbery of Barclay's Bank.
6. Assaulting British officers walking alone.
7. Firing into cafes and streets and cars, killing many innocent civilians.
8. Blowing up Arab trucks and killing occupants.
9. Attacking Arab shepherds and stealing their flocks.
10. Throwing hand grenades into churches.
11. Robbery of arms, ammunition, trucks, provisions and equipment from British Army depots.
12. Throwing bombs into Arab markets, killing and injuring many men, women and children.
13. Blowing up of trains and killing many passengers; in one incident alone, 40 Arabs were killed.
As Nakhleh notes, it was the fascist orientation of the Jabotinsky Zionists that permitted and excused these terrorist crimes. "By reason of their very objectives, Nazis and Zionists are fascists, a fact confirmed by their methods of doing things, and their attitude toward human life. This is demonstrated in their attitude toward war," a method of war completely at odds with international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, a fact demonstrated once again with the invasion and ethnic cleansing of Lebanon. In essence, the bombardment and invasion of Lebanon is a repeat of the 1948 expulsion of the Palestinians:
In the first period of the Zionist war for the partition of Palestine, the Zionist forces bombarded indiscriminately every possible Arab village with mortar fire, killing innocent men, women and children. In some cases the villagers fled the murderous fire on their own; in other cases Arab authorities recommended flight to the villagers to escape the murderous fire raining down upon them for no apparent military reason.... In many cases the Zionists killed Palestinian villagers by bombardment from the air, the same type of war crime they continued for decades afterwards against Palestinians in refugee camps.... When bombing and shelling and the shooting of unarmed civilians to set an example of the fate awaiting those who would remain in their village was insufficient to force the Palestinians out, the Zionists would simply order the inhabitants to leave.... After expelling those Palestinian Arabs they had not murdered, the Zionists wantonly burned and destroyed the houses of the inhabitants they had expelled.... Many times Palestinian Arabs from villages on main roads fled temporarily for safety to nearby villages, expecting to return to their homes when the fighting died down. When they tried to return home, they found that the Zionists had wantonly destroyed their homes to make it impossible for the indigenous Arab populace to return. (Nakhleh, Chapter Nine, The Conspiracy to Expel and the Expulsion of Palestinian Arabs 1948-1950).
Although the pro-Israel (and some would contend Zionist controlled) corporate media engages in nothing short of a herculean effort to portray Israel's invasion and bombardment of Lebanon as a justified response to Hezbollah provocation, the fact is Israel is repeating what is now an established historical pattern. In a preface to Livia Rokach's Israel's Sacred Terrorism, Nasser H. Aruri writes:
The personal diary of Moshe Sharett [the second prime minister of Israel, 1954-1955] sheds light ... by amply documenting the rationale and mechanics of Israel's "Arab policy" in the late 1940s and the 1950s. The policy portrayed, in its most intimate particulars, is one of deliberate Israeli acts of provocation, intended to generate Arab hostility and thus to create pretexts for armed action and territorial expansion. Sharett's records document this policy of "sacred terrorism" and expose the myths of Israel's "security needs" and the "Arab threat" that have been treated like self-evident truths from the creation of Israel to the present, when Israeli terrorism against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and against Palestinians and Lebanese in South Lebanon, has reached an intolerable level. It is becoming increasingly evident that the exceptional demographic and geographic alterations in Israeli society within the present generation have been brought about, not as the accidental results of the endeavor to guard "Israel's security" against an "Arab threat," but by a drive for lebensraum.
In addition to the Nazi philosophy of Lebensraum (ethnically cleansing an area in the interest of colonial settlement), the Israeli scorched earth policy in Lebanon, as in Gaza and the West Bank, is designed to destroy the economic infrastructure of the Arabs (a process well along in the latter areas). "The exact parallel between Nazi Germany's willful destruction of the economies within Axis-occupied Europe, and Israel's willful destruction of the economy of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is of fundamental importance," notes Issa Nakhleh. "The destruction of the economies of Nazi-occupied Europe was not implemented solely for the purpose of exploiting the assets and labor of the occupied nations. It was not simply transitory wanton destruction in acts of war. It was for the purpose of expanding the Third Reich through the integration of the territories of occupied nations into Nazi Germany and utilizing the destruction of the economies of the indigent inhabitants as a prelude to their expulsion" (Chapter Nineteen, the Willful Destruction of the Palestinian Economy in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip).
In grotesque fashion, the corporate media papers over the repeat of these crimes by Olmert and the supposed "centrist" Kadima dominated government of Israel, refusing to note the obvious pattern of pathological and murderous Zionist behavior. Instead of noting or even hinting at the fascistic character of this behavior, we are told "some civilians are more innocent than others" (Dershowitz) and Hezbollah is responsible for Israel's extermination of hundreds, possibly thousands of Lebanese civilians. "The Zionist and Israeli leaders have followed in the footsteps of the Nazis. 3,000 Zionist and Israeli political and military leaders, during a period from 1939-1989, participated as organizers, instigators and accomplices in the commission of crimes of terrorism, crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinians and peoples of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt," writes Nakhleh in the preface to his online book.
All members of the Hagana, Palmach, Irgun Z'vai Leumi, the Stern Gang, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund are charged with these crimes. Many of them became Presidents, Cabinet Ministers, Generals, officers of the Armed Forces and continued to participate in the commission of the aforementioned crimes. Many of them occupy high positions in Israeli society. It seems that participating in the commission of these crimes was, and still is, an essential qualification for advancement in the Israeli government and charged with these crimes are still at large, enjoying the fruits of their crimes. They are referred to as heroes. Many of them are being honored and received as heads of State, Prime Ministers, cabinet ministers, high government officials and scholars of an allegedly democratic state. The Palestinians who have been victims of these crimes are until today condemned to a life of a nation in exile deprived of all their rights. Their homeland is occupied. Thousands of them were murdered, hundreds of thousands have been imprisoned and tortured, suffering until today under barbaric Israeli occupation.
The victims are called terrorists, murderers and criminals and the real terrorists and war criminals are being received as respectable representatives of a democratic society.
Original
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Yahweh's Death Squad
Olmert to American Jews: Israel needs you
JTA, August 8, 2006
Ehud Olmert asked North American Jews for help in fighting Hezbollah.
"I believe this is a war which is fought by all the Jews," the Israeli prime minister said in a conference call and webcast Monday.
The call was sponsored by the United Jewish Communities to launch its Israel Emergency Campaign.
"We have to win this war and we will win this war, but we have to rely on you" to rebuild cities and lives in Israel, Olmert said.
Olmert talked about the hundreds of thousands of Israelis the state has moved out of harm's way, and he named Israel's enemies.
"Let's face it," Olmert said. "The State of Israel is fighting against the Iranians and the Syrians."
At the end of the call, UJC's treasurer, Kathy Manning, asked listeners to give to "the very best of your ability" and to visit the Jewish state, noting a UJC solidarity mission later this month. The campaign aims to raise hundreds of millions of dollars
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This draft shows who is running America's policy... Israel
By Robert Fisk
The Independent
08/07/06
So the great and the good on the East River laboured at the United Nations Security Council - and brought forth a lemon. You could almost hear the Lebanese groan at this draft resolution, a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?"
And there it all was again, the warmed-up peace proposals of Israel's 1982 invasion, full of buffer zones and disarmament and "strict respect by all parties" - a rousing chortle here, no doubt, from Hizbollah members - and the need for Lebanese sovereignty. It didn't even demand the withdrawal of Israeli forces, a point that Walid Moallem, Syria's Foreign Minister - and the man the Americans will eventually have to negotiate with - seized upon with more than alacrity. It was a dead UN resolution without a total Israeli retreat, he said on a strategic trip to Beirut.
A close analysis of the American-French draft - the fingerprints of John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, were almost smudging the paragraphs - showed just who is running Washington's Middle East policy: Israel. And one wondered how even Tony Blair would want to associate himself with this nonsense. It made no reference to the obscenely disproportionate violence employed by Israel - just a sleek reference to "hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides" - and it made only passing reference to Hizbollah's demand that it would only release the two Israeli soldiers it captured on 12 July in return for Lebanese and other Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.
The Security Council said it was "mindful of the sensitivity of the issue of prisoners and encouraging the efforts aimed at settling the issue [sic] of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel". I bet Hizbollah were impressed by the "mindful" bit, not to mention the "sensitivity" and the soft, slippery word "settle" - an issue which can be "settled" in maybe 20 years' time. Then came the real coup de grâce. A demand for the "total cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks" and the "immediate cessation" by Israel of "all offensive military operations". Bit of a problem there, as Hizbollah spotted at once. They have to lay down their arms.
Had the council demanded an immediate resolution on the future of the Shebaa farms, the Israeli-occupied territory which once belonged to mandate Lebanon - and for whose "liberation" the Hizbollah have fought - the whole fandango might have stood a chance. After all, Shebaa is the only raison d'être that the Hizbollah can produce for continuing their reckless, ruthless, illegal war across the UN blue line in southern Lebanon. But the UN document wished only to see a delineation of Lebanon's borders "including in the Shebaa farms area". There was even a wonderful paragraph - Number 9 for aficionados of UN bumf - which "calls on all parties to co-operate ... with the Security Council". So the Hizbollah are to co-operate, are they, with the austere diplomats of this august and wise body? Isn't that exalting a guerrilla army a little bit more upmarket than it deserves?
No one was fooled and few disagreed with Syria's Walid Moallem when he said the UN's draft resolution was "a recipe for continuing the war". As both the Hizbollah and the Israelis did yesterday, the former killing 13 Israelis and the latter bombing houses in Ansar - once an Israeli POW camp - which destroyed five more Lebanese civilian lives. Mohamed Fneish, a Hizbollah government minister - who scarcely represents all Lebanese but talks as if he does - thundered away about how "we" [presumably the Hizbollah, rather than the Lebanese] will abide by it [the resolution] on condition that no Israeli soldiers remains inside Lebanese land."
There were more Israeli air attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs yesterday - though heaven knows what is left there to destroy - ensuring that even more Shia Muslim civilians will remain refugees. Fearful that the Israelis will bomb their trucks and claim they were carrying missiles, the garbage collectors of this city have abandoned their vehicles and the familiar 1982 stench of burning rubbish now drifts through the evening streets. Petrol is now so scarce that a tank-full yesterday cost £250.
About the only gift to Lebanon in the UN resolution was the expressed need to provide the UN with remaining Israeli maps of landmines in Lebanon. But Israel has again dropped lethal ordnance all over southern Lebanon. Oh yes, and as usual, the UN draft on these ambitious, hopelessly conceived ideas "decides to remain actively seized of the matter". You bet it does. And so, as they say, the war goes on.
What the UN wants...
* A full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations;
* Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:
* Strict respect by all parties for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Israel and Lebanon;
* Full respect for the Blue Line by both parties;
* Delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including in the Shebaa farms area;
* Security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Lebanese armed and security forces, and of UN-mandated international forces;
* Full implementation of the relevant provisions ... that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon;
* Deployment of an international force in Lebanon;
* The Secretary General to develop, in liaison with key international actors and the concerned parties, proposals to implement the relevant provisions ... and to present those proposals to the Security Council within 30 days;
* The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), upon cessation of hostilities, to monitor its implementation and extend assistance to ensure humanitarian access to civilians and the safe return of displaced persons;
* The government of Lebanon to ensure arms or related material are not imported into Lebanon without its consent and requests UNIFIL, conditions permitting, to assist the government of Lebanon at its request;
* The Secretary-General to report to the Council within one week on the implementation and provide any relevant information in light of the Council's intention to adopt a further resolution.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
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Israel shoots down Hizbollah drone
Reuters
Mon Aug 7, 2006
JERUSALEM - Israeli aircraft shot down an unmanned spy plane launched by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah as it entered Israeli territory on Monday, the Israeli army said.
The drone was spotted by the air force's monitoring unit and fighter planes were scrambled to intercept it, an Israeli military spokesman said.
The spokesman said a fighter plane shot the drone down some 10 km (6.2 miles) off Israel's coast, northwest of the city of Haifa.
"The current assessment is that it was headed further south we do not know exactly for what purpose," the spokesman said.
An Israeli military source added that it was an Iranian made drone with a range of around 150 km (93 miles).
The spokesman said it appeared that the drone was not armed, but added further checks were being made of its remains.
It was the third time in the past two years that Hizbollah had tried to fly a drone over Israel. The most recent incident was in April 2005, when an unmanned plane flew over the Western Galilee region before returning to Lebanon.
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Battles rage in southern Lebanon; UN struggles to keep peace effort alive
06:03:11 EDT Aug 8, 2006
Canadian Press: ZEINA KARAM
BEIRUT (AP) - Battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militia raged Tuesday across southern Lebanon as diplomats at the United Nations struggled to keep a peace plan from collapsing over Arab demands for an immediate Israeli withdrawal. But military planners in Jerusalem said they plan to push even deeper into Lebanon to target rocket sites.
Attempts to draw a ceasefire blueprint came down to a test between a step-by-step proposal backed by Washington and Lebanon's insistence - supported by Arab countries - that nothing can happen before Israeli soldiers leave the country. In New York, Arab envoys and UN Security Council members tried to hammer out a compromise.
Lebanon put its offer on the table: pledging up to 15,000 troops to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon after Israel pulls back. The plan had added significance since it was backed by the two Hezbollah members on Lebanon's cabinet - apparently showing a willingness for a pact by the Islamic militants and their main sponsors, Iran and Syria.
Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, called the proposed Lebanese troop deployment "interesting" and said Israel would favour leaving southern Lebanon once it considers that Hezbollah is no longer a direct threat.
But the rocky hills of southern Lebanon gave a different picture. Ground fighting continued to control key villages and strategic ridges near the Israeli border, including sites used by Hezbollah for rocket barrages that have reached deep into Israel during the heaviest Arab-Israeli battles in 24 years.
Fierce skirmishes broke out around the village of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold that Israeli has tried to control for weeks. An Israeli soldier and 15 Hezbollah guerrillas were killed in the fighting, the Israeli military said. The militant group was not immediately available for comment.
Hezbollah TV also reported pre-dawn attacks on Israeli forces near the Mediterranean city Naqoura, about four kilometres north of the border. The report claimed Israeli soldiers were killed and injured.
The Israeli army confirmed clashes and casualties in western Lebanon, but did not say whether it or Hezbollah had suffered losses. It also did it give the location of the fighting.
Israel, meanwhile, expanded air strikes around Lebanon, including the Hezbollah heartland in the Bekka Valley.
The clashes followed one of the bloodiest days of the four-week conflict. At least three Israeli soldiers and 49 Lebanese died Monday on both sides - including 10 in a rocket attack in a Beirut suburb just hours after Arab League foreign ministers wrapped up a crisis meeting that threw its full diplomatic weight behind Lebanon.
It set the baseline demand for the Security Council: a full Israeli withdrawal or no peace deal is possible. The message was given in a tearful address by Lebanon's prime minister, Fuad Saniora, and carried to the United Nations by Arab League envoys.
Saniora's government, which includes two Hezbollah ministers, voted unanimously to send 15,000 troops to stand between Israel and Hezbollah should a ceasefire take hold and Israeli forces withdraw.
The government said it was studying Lebanon's pledge to contribute troops to a potential peacekeeping force.
But just hours earlier, Defence Minister Amir Peretz outlined plans to drive deeper into Lebanon to try to destroy Hezbollah rocket batteries - which have kept up a near relentless barrage on northern Israel and forced people in some areas to only venture out of bomb shelters for supplies and fresh air.
A senior government official on Tuesday offered to pay for move up to 17,000 Israelis living in border towns.
Peretz said a new Israeli push - expected to be approved by Israel's Security Cabinet on Wednesday - would extend as far as the Litani River, about 30 kilometres north of the Israel-Lebanon border.
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Olmert: no limits on military action against Hezbollah
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-08 05:08:35
HAIFA, Israel, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will have no limitations in operations to stop Hezbollah rocket attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday.
"We cannot have a million residents living in shelters. On this matter, there will be no limitations on the army," Olmert said during a visit to the Northern Command, local newspaper Ha'aretz reported.
"This war has involved fatalities...but at the moment we have to cope with it, both on the battlefield and the home front," the prime minister said. "I will give you every strength and support, we are not stopping (the fight)."
Earlier in the day, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that he had instructed the army to expand offensives against Hezbollah rocket launching sites.
"We are at one of the most decisive stages of this war ... We will occupy Katyusha launching pads in order to quell the fire, "Peretz told the Knesset (parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
The decision was made after Hezbollah rocket attacks killed 15 Israelis including 12 reservist soldiers in northern Israel on Sunday, the deadliest day for Israel since the violence began on July 12.
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Israeli security cabinet meets on expanding operations in Lebanon
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-07 22:00:41
JERUSALEM, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz met Monday with defense officials to discuss expanding military operations in Lebanon, Haaretz daily reported.
During the security cabinet meeting, Peretz reportedly proposed to step up Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground offensive up to the Litani River, 20 km inside southern Lebanon. But Haaretz said no announcement was made after the meeting.
A senior source in the IDF General Staff disclosed that Israeli army is planning an escalation of action in Lebanon after Lebanese Hezbollah's rocket attacks killed 15 Israelis in northern Israel on Sunday, the deadliest day of rocket attacks since the violence between the two sides began on July 12.
"We will continue hitting everything that moves in Hezbollah, but we will also hit strategic civilian infrastructure," Haaretz quoted the source as saying.
Early on Monday, Israeli warplanes bombarded the eastern Bekaa Valley, including the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek, Lebanese security sources said.
Israeli warplanes also carried out air raids on the village of Hula in southern Lebanon, trapping 45 people under the rubble, said media reports.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora also denounced that more than 40 people were killed by an Israeli "deliberate massacre" in village Hula on Monday.
"One hour ago there was a horrible massacre in the village of Hula, a deliberate massacre, in which there were more than 40 martyrs," Siniora told the Arab ministers who met in Beirut on Monday over the escalating Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Arab countries should support an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, he urged.
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Bloody night in Beirut as Israel intensifies aerial bombardment
Clancy Chassay in Beirut, Conal Urquhart in Metulla and Jonathan Steele in Tyre
Tuesday August 8, 2006
The Guardian
Israel inflicted one of its deadliest attacks on Beirut last night when an air strike on a southern district killed at least 15 people, just hours after the departure of a delegation from the Arab League.
At least 30 were injured in the strike, which capped another day of violence in Lebanon in which more than 50 people died, including three Israeli soldiers.
As night fell, Israel declared a curfew in southern Lebanon, warning that all vehicles apart from humanitarian traffic would be at risk. Ground forces continued to run into fierce resistance in southern Lebanon. Hizbullah militants fired more than 100 rockets into northern Israel, wounding at least one.
But the Beirut attack was the day's bloodiest episode. Last night, local residents and rescue workers scrambled through the rubble and debris in the dark as the insides of an eight-storey building spilled out into a narrow street. Water from a burst pipe in a building opposite sprayed out a fine mist across the wreckage. Neighbouring residents, now stuck in teetering buildings, peered out of the back half of their sitting rooms as splintered furniture dangled out on the street below. A women in her nightdress on the sixth floor tried to retrieve something on what was left of her balcony as a chunk of her front room crashed down on to the street. An ambulance worker said he had counted 10 bodies so far. At least two were children.
Lebanese officials said there were many reports of other casualties throughout southern Lebanon but rescue workers were not able to reach the sites because of continued Israeli airstrikes. Israel also threatened to attack UN peacekeepers if they attempted to repair bomb-damaged bridges in southern Lebanon. UN officials contacted the Israeli army to inform them that a team of Chinese military engineers attached to the UN force in Lebanon intended to repair the bridge on the Beirut to Tyre road to enable the transport of humanitarian supplies.
According to the UN, Israeli officials said the engineers would become a target if they attempted to repair the bridge.
Senior UN officials reacted angrily to the destruction of a temporary causeway over the Litani river overnight. "We must be able to have movement throughout the country to deliver supplies. At this point we can't do that," said David Shearer, the humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon. "The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law."
International aid groups have blamed Israel for not providing security guarantees, thereby paralysing the delivery of aid to the south. Even when aid reaches Tyre, convoys have to apply on a case by case basis for permission to take it out to the villages. Most applications are refused.
A convoy run from Beirut to Tyre by Médecins sans Frontières yesterday was forced to stop at the ruins of the causeway. Boxes of medicine were carried over a footbridge by hand and loaded up into separate vehicles on the other side.
Car passengers had to do the same, driving to the footbridge and waiting for transport on the other side.
Israel's army warned residents in southern Lebanon to remain indoors after 10pm yesterday and said anyone moving after that would be at risk. "Anyone who does travel is taking a high risk. There is no end period," an Israeli military source said. "This will allow us to track anyone potentially trying to launch rockets."
The source said the restriction on movement applied anywhere south of the Litani river, which is roughly 13 miles from Israel's northern border. He did not specify how the warning had been delivered.
Israel also said it shot down a Hizbullah drone."We located it over Lebanon and tracked it over the Mediterranean where we shot it down. Naval vessels picked up the debris for investigation," an Israeli military spokesman said. The Israeli army said it could not immediately say if it was carrying explosives.
Tyre was rocked yesterday by fresh Israeli airstrikes. Four buildings on the northern outskirts were crushed in pinpoint strikes which left adjacent buildings standing. The four destroyed buildings included the flat where the Israeli commandos had killed the two alleged Hizbullah leaders on Saturday.
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Lebanon government joins forces with bid to have Blair tried in Scotland for war crimes
Neil Mackay
08/06/06
Sunday Herald
THE Lebanese government is working behind the scenes to bring Tony Blair before the Scottish courts, charged with war crimes for aiding and abetting the Israeli onslaught against Lebanon.
Ali Berro, the Lebanese government's special adviser on legal affairs, is assisting Lebanese nationals living in Scotland, and their legal team, in their attempt to take the Scottish Executive and the UK government to court for allowing US aircraft to fly "bunker-buster bombs" from America to Israel via Scottish airports.
Berro is providing the legal team, led by the Glasgow-based human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, with detailed information about alleged Israel war crimes, and also forwarding information on the casualty rates of Lebanese civilians and the type of weapons being deployed by the Israeli army. In total, some 30 lawyers, including QCs, in Scotland and England are helping prepare the case against the government.
Along with his briefing, Berro sent Anwar and his clients this message: "We are laying before you all these facts and we count on you to use all possible means of pressure to put an end to the destruction targeting civilians. We are counting on you and thank you."
The team is accusing Blair of assisting Israel in carrying out war crimes against civilians, citing various pieces of international legislation, including the Geneva Conventions, which say that it is a war crime to aid and abet a nation carrying out attacks targetted against civilians.
Berro has said he is "angry and astonished" that the UK is "assisting" Israel, claiming the UK can no longer be seen as an "honest broker" in the Middle East.
Anwar said: "The Lebanese government have made it clear that they want this conflict to stop. Both they and us are aware that every time more weapons are supplied to Israel, more Lebanese civilians will die. We wish to indict Tony Blair for war crimes as he is complicit in the war crimes of Israel by allowing the passage of arms through Scotland. This will take time, and that is why the Lebanese government is helping to catalogue information."
Berro has also supplied a legal briefing to Anwar and his clients outlining which pieces of international law have been violated. Berro said: "Since July 12, 2006, the Israeli army, which has the largest and most advanced military machinery in the region, has committed all kinds of crimes: crimes against humanity, war crimes and mass killings."
Some 750 Lebanese civilians have died in the attacks - many women and children. Berro said: "Human shreds are scattered amid the destruction." He also outlined Israeli attacks on petrol stations, warehouses, electricity companies, places of worship, bridges, hospitals and ambulances.
Berro said the Israelis were using phosphorous bombs, and "sending ultimatums to the inhabitants of villages, waiting for them to get out and then hunting them on their way to safety".
International legislation, which Berro said was breached by Israel, included The Hague Convention, The 1948 Convention Against Mass Killings and The Geneva Conventions.
Azam Mohamad, one of the Scottish-based Lebanese nationals taking the case against the Scottish Executive and the UK government, said: "We took this action as US aircraft are going through Prestwick airport with bombs bound for Israel that will be used to shell our families. We want to stop those bombs."
Mohamad, the director of Glasgow's Middle East Society, added: "We are shocked that Tony Blair has allowed aircraft carrying bombs bound for Israel to come through this country. These weapons are illegal as they are used to kill civilians. I cannot find words to explain my unhappiness at Blair's decision. If we get a chance to take Tony Blair to court, we will do so.
"The Lebanese government will help our cause by giving us as much information as they can. Even the prime minister of Lebanon will help us in our attempt to stop these bombs being sent through Britain to destroy Lebanon. The government in Lebanon appreciates what we are doing to help protect the freedom and democracy of Lebanon."
The Lebanese community in Scotland and England is now collectively raising the money needed to fund the legal challenge. Members of the 20-strong group of Lebanese, who have put their names to the suit against the government, have lost loved ones in the conflict, had property destroyed and seen their relatives and friends turned into refugees.
Another Lebanese national living in Scotland who is taking the case against the government, Mohamad Saadi, lost his aunt, 55-year-old Khadija, last Friday. She died of a heart attack when her area came under heavy Israeli bombing.
"It is very hard for us," Saadi said. "Every family is suffering. This is not just about my family - everyone in Lebanon is now my family. We are calling our relatives every hour. While I am talking now something could be happening to my family back in Lebanon. A humanitarian disaster is happening.
"Blair is helping terrorism because what Israel is doing to Lebanon is terrorism - they are attacking and killing civilians. He is utterly in the wrong."
Both Mohamad and Saadi have raised their children in Scotland and started thriving businesses in Glasgow. They say they have been overwhelmed by support from the people of Scotland towards the people of Lebanon, and on Friday launched a Scottish-Lebanese friendship society. They said that many in the large Christian community in Lebanon were now supporting Hezbollah as the Islamic militia were "the only ones fighting for us and the country".
Zouheir Swade, another member of Glasgow's Lebanese community backing the legal action, told how he lost nine members of his extended family just over a week ago when his brother-in-law's house was hit by an Israeli shell.
"This is just one of many massacres in Lebanon," Swade said. "A friend and his wife and two children were also killed in their car by an Israeli bomb. I sleep for no more than two hours before I get up and turn on the news. I'm phoning my family all the time. When I hear my mother's voice I cry."
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Lebanon says Israeli assault killed 925, 75 missing
Alternet
08/08/2006
Israel's 27-day-old attack against Lebanon has killed 925 people and left 75 missing and presumed dead, Lebanese Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh told Reuters on Monday.
A running toll kept by Reuters puts the death toll at 773 people, but it does not include the bodies recovered from air strikes sometimes days or even weeks later.
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If Hezbollah attacks Tel Aviv, Israel may attack Tehran
Mail and Guardian
08/08/2006
In the most explicit threat yet from Israel to Iran, Dan Gillerman, the ambassador to the UN, said in an interview with the BBC that an attack by Hezbollah on Tel Aviv would be tantamount to an "act of war" and Hezbollah would not make such an attack without an explicit order from Iran. The implication of his words was that Israel would retaliate by attacking Tehran.
Mark Regev, a spokesperson for Israel's foreign ministry, said: "No one wants to see an expansion of the conflict. But there is no doubt that Hezbollah is the long arm of Iran, that the missiles landing in Israel are not Lebanese missiles, that the fortifications we are dealing with in Lebanon were built with somebody else's money not Lebanese. The idea that Hezbollah is a tool of Iranian foreign policy is correct."
Asked what Israel's reaction would be to a rocket strike on Tel Aviv, he said: "There is nothing I can say about that."
Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's Foreign Minister, in an interview with The Guardian, described Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as "codefendants" in war crimes and claimed they had foreknowledge of Israeli plans to launch a "campaign of aggression" in Lebanon which he claimed was part of a "war on the whole Middle East". But Iran did not fear an American attack, he said.
Syria, which also backs Hezbollah, rejected the draft resolution. Its Foreign Minister, Walid Moallem, normally one of the more moderate voices in Damascus said on a visit to Beirut that he personally was prepared to volunteer to fight with Hezbollah and described the draft as a "recipe for continuation of the war".
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Dahr Jamail: Hezbollah Rides a New Popularity
By Dahr Jamail
Inter Press Service
07/08/2006
As the war in Lebanon approaches the one-month mark, and amid the destruction of much of Lebanon, Hezbollah appears to be gaining strength within the country and around the Arab world.
The Israeli aim of widespread bombing of the Lebanese infrastructure in order to create resentment against Hezbollah seems to have played into the strengths of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, known in many western countries as a "terrorist organisation", is widely seen in Lebanon as a legitimate political and social power.
One reason for this, according to an official representative of Hezbollah and member of the Lebanese Parliament, is that Hezbollah has never aimed to turn Lebanon into an Islamic state.
"Hezbollah is a democratic party whose principles are based on the Lebanese constitution," Tarad Hamade told IPS. "This means we have to respect the cultural and religious diversity in the country. We have never intended to establish an Islamic state."
Hamade, who is also labour minister, said: "Israel wants to terrorise the country and inflict as much damage as possible. They call us terrorists, at the same time as they are exercising state terrorism. Are they not terrorists?"
More and more Lebanese are beginning to hold this view.
Lebanese see the destruction by Israelis all around them. The damage to the civilian infrastructure will cost billions of dollars to fix.
All three of Lebanon's airports and all four of its ports have been bombed. Damage done to houses and businesses is estimated at above a billion dollars. At least 22 fuel and gas stations have been bombed. Scores of factories have been damaged or destroyed.
Red Cross ambulances, government emergency centres, UN peacekeeping forces and observers, media outlets and mobile phone towers have been bombed -- all in violation of international law.
Mosques and churches have been bombed, and illegal weapons such as cluster bombs and white phosphorous used. More than 90 percent of those killed, close to 1,000 according to official estimates, are civilians.
The result is that rather than pressuring Hezbollah by destroying Lebanon, Israel has increased popular support for the group, and brought the wishes of most Lebanese more in line with the stated goals of Hezbollah to keep Israel at bay.
With Hezbollah engaged in at least 60 percent of the relief efforts in Lebanon, the kind of work that gave it power in the first place is now only increasing its popularity.
Israel could also have fallen for the military strategy of Hezbollah. Hezbollah would like nothing more than to engage the Israeli military in a guerrilla war in southern Lebanon - and this has begun already now that Israeli troops are in the south, and suffering casualties.
Hamade says Hezbollah's stated demands for a ceasefire are simple and have remained unchanged since the beginning of the conflict.
"There can only be ceasefire if Israel stops firing as soon as possible, accepts an exchange of prisoners and leaves Lebanon." But more than 10,000 Israeli troops now occupy parts of southern Lebanon, widespread air strikes continue, and Israel refuses a prisoner exchange.
IPS recently interviewed a Hezbollah fighter who asked to be called "Ahmed". The Israeli aggression has only made him a more determined fighter.
"I care about my people, my country, and I'm defending them from the aggression," he said. "My home now in Dahaya (southern Beirut) is in ruins. Everything in my life is destroyed now, so I will fight them."
Like most followers of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Ahmed said: "We are all with him. He has given us belief and hope that we can push the Zionists out of Lebanon, and keep them out forever. He has given me purpose."
He added: "We are like the French resistance against the Nazis."
Mohamed Slaibi, a 21-year-old business student at the American University of Beirut (AUB), said that he has never supported Hezbollah, but he now feels it is their right to defend Lebanon.
"And now I feel betrayed by America," Slaibi said. "The U.S. supports Israel 100 percent in everything they do. Even though my dream was to go to the U.S., and I study at AUB, now I hate the Americans for supporting Israel."
This is just the kind of sentiment that Israel did not want to provoke. And it has been caused by the extent of the Israeli aggression. In the past Israeli attacks were aimed primarily at Hezbollah, but now all Lebanese people are suffering.
It is well known that Hezbollah enjoys strong political support from Syria and Iran, and likely receives arms and munitions from those countries, but more than ever it is enjoying the support of the Lebanese people.
And it certainly seems to have resources. "Some of it is donations from the Lebanese people," Hamade said. "Some of it is revenues from companies established by Hezbollah. In addition, Muslims pay 'Zaqaat' (a voluntary donation for the cause of religion). The arms we can buy on the market. There is an endless supply of arms."
Hezbollah can of course not match Israel in weaponry. "We might not be as powerful as the Israeli army but we will fight until we die," Hamade said.
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Death in Palestine
Noam Chomsky on Israel, Lebanon and Palestine
By Kaveh Afrasiabi of Global Interfaith Peace
Information Clearing House
08/07/06
Do you agree with the argument that Israel's military offensive in Lebanon is "legally and morally justified?"
Noam Chomsky: The invasion itself is a serious breach of international law, and major war crimes are being committed as it proceeds. There is no legal justification.
The "moral justification" is supposed to be that capturing soldiers in a cross-border raid, and killing others, is an outrageous crime. We know, for certain, that Israel, the United States and other Western governments, as well as the mainstream of articulate Western opinion, do not believe a word of that. Sufficient evidence is their tolerance for many years of US-backed Israeli crimes in Lebanon, including four invasions before this one, occupation in violation of Security Council orders for 22 years, and regular killings and abductions. To mention just one question that every journal should be answering: When did Nasrallah assume a leadership role? Answer: When the Rabin government escalated its crimes in Lebanon, murdering Sheikh Abbas Mussawi and his wife and child with missiles fired from a US helicopter. Nasrallah was chosen as his successor. Only one of innumerable cases. There is, after all, a good reason why last February, 70% of Lebanese called for the capture of Israeli soldiers for prisoner exchange.
The conclusion is underscored, dramatically, by the current upsurge of violence, which began after the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 25. Every published Western "timeline" takes that as the opening event. Yet the day before, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother, and sent them to the Israeli prison system where they can join innumerable other Palestinians, many held without charges -- hence kidnapped. Kidnapping of civilians is a far worse crime than capture of soldiers. The Western response was quite revealing: a few casual comments, otherwise silence. The major media did not even bother reporting it. That fact alone demonstrates, with brutal clarity, that there is no moral justification for the sharp escalation of attacks in Gaza or the destruction of Lebanon, and that the Western show of outrage about kidnapping is cynical fraud.
Much has been said about Israel's right to defend itself from its enemies who are taking advantage of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, thus causing the latest chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Do you agree?
NC: Israel certainly has a right to defend itself, but no state has the right to "defend" occupied territories. When the World Court condemned Israel's "separation wall," even a US Justice, Judge Buergenthal, declared that any part of it built to defend Israeli settlements is "ipso facto in violation of international humanitarian law," because the settlements themselves are illegal.
The withdrawal of a few thousand illegal settlers from Gaza was publicly announced as a West Bank expansion plan. It has now been formalized by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with the support of Washington, as a program of annexation of valuable occupied lands and major resources (particularly water) and cantonization of the remaining territories, virtually separated from one another and from whatever pitiful piece of Jerusalem will be granted to Palestinians. All are to be imprisoned, since Israel is to take over the Jordan valley. Gaza, too, remains imprisoned and Israel carries out attacks there at will.
Gaza and the West Bank are recognized to be a unit, by the United States and Israel as well. Therefore, Israel still occupies Gaza, and cannot claim self-defense in territories it occupies in either of the two parts of Palestine. It is Israel and the United States that are radically violating international law. They are now seeking to consummate long-standing plans to eliminate Palestinian national rights for good.
The United States has refused to call for an immediate cease-fire, arguing that this would mean a return to the status quo ante, yet we are witnessing a "back to the past" re-occupation of parts of Lebanon, and Lebanon's rapid decline to political chaos by the current conflict. Is the US policy correct?
NC: It is correct from the point of view of those who want to ensure that Israel, by now virtually an offshore US military base and high-tech center, dominates the region, without any challenge to its rule as it proceeds to destroy Palestine. And there are side advantages, such as eliminating any Lebanese-based deterrent if US-Israel decide to attack Iran.
They may also hope to set up a client regime in Lebanon of the kind that Ariel Sharon sought to create when he invaded Lebanon in 1982, destroying much of the country and killing some 15-20,000 people.
What will be the likely outcome of this "two-pronged" crisis in Lebanon and the occupied territories, in the near and long-term?
NC: We cannot predict much. There are too many uncertainties. One very likely consequence, as the United States and Israel surely anticipated, is a significant increase in jihadi-style terrorism as anger and hatred directed against the United States, Israel, and Britain sweep the Arab and Muslim worlds. Another is that Nasrallah, whether he survives or is killed, will become an even more important symbol of resistance to US-Israeli aggression. Hezbollah already has a phenomenal 87% support in Lebanon itself, and its resistance has energized popular opinion to such an extent that even the oldest and closest US allies have been compelled to say that "If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire." That's from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who knows better than to condemn the United States directly.
What steps do you recommend for the current hostilities to be brought to an end and a lasting peace established?
NC: The basic steps are well understood: a cease-fire and exchange of prisoners; withdrawal of occupying forces; continuation of the "national dialogue" within Lebanon; and acceptance of the very broad international consensus on a two-state settlement for Israel-Palestine, which has been unilaterally blocked by the United States and Israel for thirty years. There is, as always, much more to say, but those are the essentials.
Noam Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the author of numerous books, and his latest is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (2006).
Kaveh Afrasiabi is the founder and director of Global Interfaith Peace, and a former political science professor at Tehran University. He is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press).
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Hamas official detained by Israel taken to hospital
Reuters
Mon Aug 7, 2006
JERUSALEM - The speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Aziz Dweik, who was detained by Israel on Sunday, was taken to hospital on Monday with heart pains and breathing problems, Dweik's spokesman said.
The spokesman, Baha Youssef, said the health scare was the result of Dweik being beaten by his Israeli prison guards. The Israeli army, which is holding him, denied the allegations.
"He was not beaten up by prison guards," an army spokesman said. "We know he suffered from dizziness and heart pains and that is the reason he underwent medical treatment."
Dweik, a senior member of the Hamas militant group which heads the Palestinian government, was arrested in the
West Bank on Sunday and was taken to an Israeli military prison.
Israel said he was detained for being a member of Hamas, which Israel regards as a terrorist organization.
In June, Israel detained eight members of the Palestinian cabinet and 23 deputies after gunmen from Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier in a raid from the
Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army said Dweik had been transferred to a hospital in Jerusalem where he was receiving treatment and where he would remain until he recovered.
"He will return to prison after he is well," the spokesman said.
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Minister: Hezbollah stays in S. Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 8 (UPI)
As Lebanon prepared Tuesday to station 15,000 troops in southern Lebanon, a government minister said Hezbollah has every right to be there as well.
Information Minister Ghazi al-Aridi said as the country tried to stop fighting between Hezbollah militants and occupying Israeli forces, Hezbollah would remain in the area "as a (political) party that represents an entire segment of the population," Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reported.
Monday night, the Lebanese Cabinet announced the mobilization of 15,000 reservists, including all Lebanese soldiers who were discharged in the past five years, and said deployment will begin Thursday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora supports swiftly moving in Lebanese troops with the support of beefed-up U.N. forces along with a cease-fire and the withdrawal of thousands of Israeli soldiers, the report said.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert showed cautious support for the plan, but said it was only viable if accompanied by the disarming of Hezbollah militants.
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France condemns arrest of Palestinian speaker
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-08 05:04:29
PARIS, Aug 7 (Xinhua) -- France condemned Monday the arrest of the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Aziz Dweik, by Israel over the weekend, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Denis Simonneau said.
"This arrest, which added to previous arrest of deputies and members of the Palestinian government since June 29, is not likely to favor the appeasement of the current crisis. France reiterates its call for their release," said the spokesman.
Israeli troops stormed the residence of Dweik and arrested him late Saturday night from his home in Ramallah.
Dweik was elected speaker in February after the Hamas won parliamentary elections.
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Poisoned substance sent to Haneya's office in Ramallah: spokesman
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-08 19:23:56
GAZA, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- A Hamas-led cabinet spokesman said on Tuesday that foreign experts were cooperating with Palestinians in a bid to figure out the substance that was found in an envelop addressed to Prime Minister Ismail Haneya.
Ghazi Hamad said that the Interior Ministry also began to investigate how the envelope was sent to Ramallah from Tel Aviv.
"The efforts carried out with some experts from outside are aimed at finding out the sort of the poison which was in the envelope and limiting complications for the injured," he told the Voice of Palestine.
Hamad also considered the incident as an attempt to assassinate Haneya, who is based in the Gaza Strip.
"Since the envelope was addressed to the prime minister, it is deliberately targeting him, especially as Israel claimed repeatedly that Haneya was among the targeted," Hamad said. He said that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Haneya agreed to tell the United Nations and the European Union the matter.
Five Palestinians working in Haneya's Office in the West Bank city of Ramallah were taken to hospital on Monday after being exposed to suspected powder in an envelope.
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Israeli army detains 21 Palestinians in West Bank
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-08 19:18:42
RAMALLAH, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Israeli army forces arrested 21 Palestinians in several actions in West Bank towns on Tuesday after breaking into houses, Palestinian security sources said, adding that a senior militant leader was among the detainees.
The sources said that a senior leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah Movement, was arrested in one of the operations in northern West Bank. The sources identified him as Mohammed Hanaishe.
Meanwhile, Israeli Radio reported that 13 of the detainees were belonging to Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), while five others were members of Fatah movement and two Islamic Jihad (Holy War) activists. The arrested were from Bethlehem, Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron.
A wife of a Palestinian prisoner from Nablus city was also detained in the actions, according to the sources. Israel carries out daily arrestment campaigns and house-to-house search in West Bank cities, arresting a number of Palestinians in every raid. The Israeli operations in West Bank increase the number of prisoners held in Israel to more than 10,000.
Three Palestinian militant groups including Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement, snatched the Israeli soldier in a deadly cross-border raid on an Israeli army post on June 25.
The kidnappers conditioned returning of the captive soldier on the release of 1,000 Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, which was rejected by Israel.
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France walks diplomatic tightrope over Lebanon
PARIS, Aug 7, 2006 (AFP)
France, which casts itself as a key defender of Lebanese interests, was on a diplomatic tightrope Monday after Beirut rejected a Franco-American draft resolution aimed at ending almost a month of bloodshed.
"This draft resolution is a big disappointment for the Lebanese," warned Michel Bounajem, Paris correspondent of the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. "In Beirut people think France should have fought harder and stuck to its earlier demands."
Paris broke ranks with Washington in the early stages of the conflict by calling for restraint in the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah militias - and is now seen by Lebanon as having caved in to US pressure.
"France has been put in a delicate position by its change of direction over the Lebanese affair," said Barah Mikail of the Paris-based Institute of International and Strategic Relations.
"It is caught between its wish to stay aligned with the United States and its wish to be the one to persuade Lebanon of the way out of the crisis."
"France is able to talk to all sides, it acts as a bridge between people who do not communicate with each other," said François Géré, of the French Institute of Strategic Analysis.
But this pivotal position - used in order to carry weight in the conflict - risks leaving Paris "caught between a rock and hard place," he warned.
Submitted to the United Nations at the weekend, the French-US draft calls for "a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations."
Lebanon says the text falls well short of its demands: it does not call for an immediate ceasefire, for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops or for guarantees on the return of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa farms.
UN debate on the draft, to resume Monday, has been seriously complicated by the Lebanese government's objections.
Faced with Beirut's hostile reaction, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called on Lebanon to accept that any settlement had to be backed "by both sides", meaning it must be acceptable to Israel.
Douste-Blazy Sunday urged Lebanon to "accept its responsibilities" to end the conflict - a sharp contrast with comments he made last week speaking of a a "strong convergence of views" between Paris and Beirut.
France's foreign ministry said Monday it was "studying" Lebanon's proposals and "along with its partners in the Security Council was looking at ways of taking them into account", but that it hoped the resolution would be quickly adopted.
Seeking to shore up support from Arab leaders, Douste-Blazy held consultations at the weekend with his counterparts from Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as well as with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Though perceived as a U-turn, Mikail said France's alignment with Washington reflected its true strategic position, saying both countries shared the same goals in Lebanon, and that its earlier divergences were a "tactical move".
"Paris tried to carry weight in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict by setting itself apart from Washington, so as to be seen as a mediator in any settlement of the crisis," he argued.
"At root, ever since the adoption of UN resolution 1559 in September 2004, France and the United States have had the same strategy towards Lebanon".
Resolution 1559 and its follow-up 1680 call for the disarming of all armed groups in Lebanon including the Shiite militia Hezbollah, and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanese soil.
"France's problem right now is that it is going along with the Americans, who have taken a pro-Israeli stance. The French have been forced to stay in line with the pro-American policy shift they took two years ago," said Mikail.
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Lebanon to send 15,000 troops to south when Israel pulls out
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-08 04:52:31
BEIRUT, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's cabinet decided unanimously on Monday to deploy 15,000 troops in south Lebanon as soon as Israel withdrew its troops from the area, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said after a cabinet session on Monday.
"The government stresses its willingness to send a 15,000-strong Lebanese army force to south Lebanon as Israeli forces pullback behind the Blue Line (border)," the cabinet said in a statement read by Aridi.
The Lebanese army had called up reservists ahead of the planned deployment to the south, where thousands of Israeli troops are fighting Hezbollah guerrillas.
Aridi did not explicitly say whether Hezbollah would pull out of border areas it has been controlling since Israeli pullout from south Lebanon in 2000.
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has said there will be no ceasefire until international forces are deployed in south Lebanon and Hezbollah guerrillas removed from the border area.
"We need international intervention forces that have military capabilities and ability to respond and enforce, and not forces similar to UNIFIL," he said, referring to UN peacekeepers deployed in the area.
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Israel, Racism, and the Canadian Media
by Dan Freeman-Maloy
July 21, 2006
ZNet
In the Canadian media, Israel is provoked, and then responds. For the military attacks on the Gaza Strip in late June and early July, we are told that the provocation was the June 25 operation by Palestinian resistance fighters against a military outpost near Gaza, and specifically the capture of an Israeli tank gunner.
The Palestinian operation, according to most Canadian media, was unprovoked - it could not have been provoked by the Israeli attacks leading up to the operation, though in June alone these had already killed 49 Palestinians. Nor could it have been provoked by the imprisonment of 359 Palestinian children, 105 Palestinian female adults and another 9000+ Arab males (mostly Palestinians) in Israeli jails, or by the mass starvation of Gaza. As a June 30 editorial in the Globe and Mail put it, "the onus for resolving the confrontation lies with Hamas," and while Palestinians must quietly endure tank shelling, air strikes and starvation, "Israel is within its right to respond to terrorism and violence."
Without pause, Israel has since gone on to invade Lebanon, killing hundreds of Lebanese, while Gaza continues to starve. In the Canadian media, Israel was provoked to do so, in this case by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbollah.
Hizbollah has not been provoked in the same way the Palestinians have been. So what prompted their action? An obvious possibility is that they were moved to action by the Israeli assault on Gaza. By the time Hizbollah carried out its July 12 attack, the Israeli escalation following June 25 had already claimed another 67 Palestinian lives. More direct grievances with Israel include the continued Israeli imprisonment of many Lebanese, particularly Hizbollah supporters, and the Israeli live ammunition training on the Lebanese border which recently killed several Lebanese villagers. But one could barely begin to consider this on the basis of information provided by Canadian media. No attacks on Israel can have been provoked. All of Israel's attacks must be provoked and defensive.
On July 13, Prime Minister Stephen Harper revealed the extent to which this logic has come to dominate Canadian diplomacy. With the Israeli military intensifying its assault on the Lebanese population and on critical civilian infrastructure, Harper described the massive attack as a "measured" exercise of Israel's "right to defend itself." Mainstream media joined in the chorus: "Faced with such aggression, Israel had no choice but to strike back," a July 15 Globe and Mail editorial declared. The next day, several Canadians were added to the sky-rocketing death count from Israeli massacres.
Israel's massacres in Gaza and southern Lebanon coincide with a shift in Canadian foreign policy. Under the past two regimes (Martin's Liberals and now Harper's Conservatives), Canada has rapidly shed any pretense of having an independent foreign policy and has aligned itself completely with the United States, Israel's chief financial backer and arms dealer. Where past Canadian regimes would have settled for silent complicity in war crimes, Harper actively cheers and participates in them. This drastic realignment of Canadian policy happens at a time when the U.S. and Israel are embarking on aggressive, criminal wars involving major human rights violations.
For Canadians to accept this, they will have to consume an equally drastic dose of racism, dehumanization, and distorted understanding. Getting them to do so may be somewhat of a challenge. The Canadian media have taken up the task with gusto.
Aggression and defense
"No nation would stand by while its enemies bombarded its towns and cities."
-Globe and Mail Editorial, July 15
Of course, the Globe's editors were not talking about the Palestinian nation. The Palestinians are expected to stand by while Israel bombards its towns and cities, as it has been doing continuously for the past six years, with a sharp escalation in June - well before June 25, by which time of the month 49 Palestinians had already been killed. But when Palestinians resist through armed struggle, we read on the Globe and Mail's editorial pages that Israel's "right to respond to the latest Palestinian provocations is beyond question." We cannot expect "superhuman effort" from Israel, the editors explain, and this is what would be required "to resist retaliating."
Through most of June, the situation was quite different - but then it was only Palestinians who were being killed, only Palestinians who were starving. This was, in the words of the Toronto Star's Mitch Potter, a period of "relative calm." For disturbing this calm, Palestinians bear a double responsibility: for aggression against Israel, and for forcing Israel to attack Palestinians in response. As Potter insists on repeating, the ongoing Israeli assault was itself "sparked initially by the June 25 capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants."
In fact, if the notion of self-defense was applied with any consistency, the operation of June 25 would be beyond reproach. Following an economic siege and recurring air strikes on their communities, Palestinian fighters based in the Gaza Strip initiated an attack against the Israeli military. This is no small feat, since Gaza's airspace and borders are under tight Israeli control, and it is difficult for a lightly armed popular resistance to bring down F-16s. Nonetheless, the fighters managed to tunnel their way underground for hundreds of metres, deep beneath Israeli fortifications, to reach a military outpost for their raid. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting, as were two Palestinians, creating a very rare symmetry in the death count. Palestinian fighters also destroyed an Israeli tank, likely one of those that regularly shell Palestinian communities from such outposts. They captured the tank gunner and brought him back to Gaza as a prisoner of war.
The Palestinian resistance thus had one Israeli detainee, as against some 10,000 prisoners on the Israeli side. The resistance group offered a limited exchange. They would release the tank gunner if Israel freed Palestinian child prisoners, female prisoners, and approximately 1,000 "administrative detainees" currently in Israeli prisons without charge. A negotiated settlement reached through conditions of reciprocity and dignity could well have seen the soldier released. But Israel had a different plan.
As former Israeli intelligence director Shlomo Gazit explained, the situation served as a "pretext" for escalating military operations in Gaza. Israeli forces began a series of forceful incursions, destroying critical civilian infrastructure though air strikes, shelling Palestinian communities, and instituting a comprehensive siege on the territory. These escalations quickly revealed the Israeli goal as regime change. The Israeli military rounded up and detained 64 political leaders from the occupied West Bank and Gaza, including elected legislators and a third of the Palestinian Cabinet. It began aerial bombardment of central civilian structures housing the Palestinian Authority.
The Israeli regime responsible for these attacks enjoys thorough support from the Canadian government. Its Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, visited Canada little more than a year ago. During the visit, he received a pledge from the federal government that it would maintain preferential trade policies towards Israel. Olmert also visited Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty at Queen's Park, where he helped to set up a parallel provincial trade arrangement. Joking with reporters as he presented McGuinty with a gift, Olmert asked: "Do you want us to hug?"[http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=6122&s=1] Olmert and Canadian officials did everything but.
The Harper government strengthened links with Israel further, making Canada still more complicit in ongoing Israeli crimes. As Israeli attacks ravaged Gaza, journalists with concern for 'balance' ought to have paid attention to who was doing the killing and who the victims were.
Instead, Canadian media continued shifting focus to Palestinian culpability and encouraging the government's pro-Israel partisanship. The spin in news coverage was spelled out explicitly on editorial pages. The Toronto Star's editors called attention to "the folly of what [Palestinians] wrought by electing a Hamas government," while staking limited optimism on "the hope of a chastened Palestinian Authority."(June 29) The editors of the National Post and the Globe and Mail held Palestinians directly responsible for Israeli attacks. "That there is a humanitarian tragedy afflicting the Palestinian people there can be no doubt," a July 29 National Post editorial conceded, "but in the current context it is a tragedy entirely of their own making." On June 30, the Globe's editors hammered away at the same theme: "The main responsibility for the death and destruction that has followed [June 25] lies with Palestinian militants and leaders."
The capture of a tank gunner as a prisoner of war was translated into an act of aggression, a "kidnapping." Within a couple of weeks, the three leading Anglo Canadian dailies - the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the National Post - had published the name of the captured ("kidnapped") soldier more than 100 times, often alongside his age and other personal information. The Globe's Shira Herzog, reflecting a broad journalistic consensus, explained that strong Israeli retaliation was necessary: Israel "is a country that takes collective pride in the sanctity of every life, an ethos that comforts Israeli soldiers in combat who know that no human effort will be spared to rescue even a single one of them from enemy territory, dead or alive."
As for the apparent contradiction given Israel's approach to the lives of Palestinian prisoners, the issue could not be ignored entirely. On the thorny issue of child prisoners, the Globe referred readers to a front-page article on the topic it had published on June 19, titled "Getting locked up to get away from it all." The piece argued that Palestinian children view imprisonment in Israeli jails as "a dream vacation" and are getting themselves imprisoned willfully as part of a Palestinian cultural trend. Regarding female prisoners, the paper published a June 27 report titled "Palestinian female prisoners have 'blood on their hands.'" The title was based on a quote from the Israeli prison authority, and the article assured readers that those Palestinian women convicted in Israeli military courts were quite guilty and very bad. The Post, for its part, ran an editorial referring without distinction to all the Palestinians whom the resistance was demanding be released - children, women and "administrative detainees" alike - as "fanatics now justifiably languishing in Israeli prisons."
Canadian media thus followed the Israeli lead, prizing the sanctity of every Israeli life while holding Palestinian lives in utter contempt.
Dehumanizing Palestinians
"It is our duty to prevent any danger of losing a Jewish majority or creating an inseparable bi-national reality in the Land of Israel."
-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, June 20, 2006
(Speech to the 35th Zionist Congress in Jerusalem)
As disturbing as it is, contempt for Palestinian life on the part of Israel and its supporters is unsurprising. It is, in fact, a necessary cornerstone of the ideology of political Zionism, which guides the Israeli political establishment and determines the core of Israeli policy.
This policy is based on the determination to establish and maintain a state with a Jewish majority on lands that have long been home to a predominantly non-Jewish native population. Pursuit of this goal has involved expelling Palestinians from these lands, prohibiting their right to return to their homes, and encouraging large-scale Zionist settlement from abroad. This is a recipe for perpetual crisis and violence. Israeli forces effectively control all of historic (mandatory) Palestine, the territory stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And despite Israel's forced exile of millions of Palestinians from these lands, the present inhabitants of this territory are in the majority not Jewish.
For Canadians to support Israel, they must adopt the Israeli perspective regarding the native population of this land, the view that the Palestinian population is an ethnic imbalance to be corrected, a problem to be dealt with, a "demographic threat" to a state which must be made "Jewish" at all costs. This thoroughly racist position frames mainstream Canadian debate.
It is hardly worth quoting the National Post on this, given that the paper is operated by CanWest Global, a media conglomerate founded by two of Canada's leading Israel lobbyists (Israel Asper and Gerry Schwartz). But the position holds firm on the liberal wing of the Canadian mainstream.
Consider, for example, the work of Mitch Potter, the Toronto Star's leading Israel-Palestine pundit in recent weeks. Potter is aware that Gaza is not the planet's most densely-populated area by accident, but largely as a result of the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the 78% of historic Palestine occupied by Zionist forces in 1948 (when Zionists took their first real stab at achieving a Jewish majority). Some 700,000 Palestinians were then expelled from the territory claimed as the State of Israel, forced into either neighboring countries or the 22% of Palestine still outside of Zionist control (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). With respect to the southern Israeli settlement of Ashkelon, for example, Potter offers the following background: "The modern city was formed by Jewish immigrants to Israel in the site of the Arab town of Al-Majdal, whose 11,000 residents were mostly driven into Gaza after the 1948 war."
Potter does not even feel it necessary to explain why those driven out cannot return to their homes in accord with the basic, inalienable rights of refugees displaced during wartime. Instead, Potter automatically assumes the Israeli perspective. He correctly explains that the Israeli "disengagement" from Gaza was simply an outgrowth of Israel's agenda of ethnic and national discrimination. For obvious reasons, Israel has been finding it difficult to deny the indigenous presence on the land it has conquered. This difficulty, Potter explained, was addressed through an effort to permanently exclude the Palestinian refugees of Gaza from dominant settler society: "Analysts spoke of an emerging Israeli consensus that understood a bitter pill had to be swallowed once and for all in order for Israel to cure itself of the demographic realities of the burgeoning Palestinian birth rate."
This is unabashed racism: the native majority population is described as a disease to be treated by state policy, though even conceding Palestinians a stretch of land to starve on is a "bitter pill." None of the leading Canadian newspapers published a serious challenge to this racism.
Instead, they repeatedly published the flimsy argument that such a challenge would itself be racist. In a rhetorical sleight of hand that has become quite familiar, commentators repeatedly suggested that basic principles of human and national rights must be sacrificed on the altar of political Zionism, and that defending the rights of Palestinians (particularly those in exile) amounts to anti-Jewish racism. The point was put clearly in a July 3 column in the Globe and Mail: "it's anti-Semitic to call, as CUPE did [http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hanieh310506.html], for an unconditional right of return of all Palestinian refugees, since such a massive demographic change would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state."
The Globe thus tells us that Palestine's indigenous population is not only inferior and troublesome, but also oppressively racist by its very presence.
From this perspective, contempt for Palestinian life comes all too naturally. On June 29, the National Post, ever a mouthpiece for Israeli diplomacy, addressed the issue through an interview with Israeli foreign and deputy prime minister Tzipi Livni. For Livni, as reporter Douglas Davis uncritically relayed to readers, international contempt for Palestinian life is still insufficient: "She is particularly irritated by the equivalence given to the deaths of Palestinian and Israeli children ... 'Only when the world sends the right message to the terrorists will they understand that it's not the same.'" Canada's leading journalists have already gotten the message.
Consider, again, the work of Mitch Potter, who in his recent position as the Toronto Star's leading Israel-Palestine pundit is a canary in the mineshaft of liberal Canadian racism. On June 30, just one day after the publication of Livni's anti-"equivalency" plea, Potter made the following assertion: "Despite five days of international headlines there has been but a single death - that of kidnapped 18-year-old Israeli hitchhiker Eliyahu Asheri."
Apparently, it was not worth counting the two Palestinian children, aged 2 and 17, who were killed on June 28 by an unexploded Israeli shell in the Gaza community of Khan Yunis (though this had even been reported in the New York Times). Nor was it worth retracting or correcting Potter's statement in light of the Israeli military's killing of a Palestinian in nearby Rafah at 2am on the morning of the 30th, or of another in the West Bank city of Nablus a little more than 3 hours later (already by 6:13am, Agence France Press had reported the Nablus killing). There were reports of other deaths during this period, which Potter or his editors could easily have investigated if they took Palestinian life seriously.
Evidently, they do not. As the Palestinian death toll mounted in the following week, denying the fatalities outright became untenable. Instead, Potter reduced Palestinian resistance to stubborn stupidity and described the fallen fighters as animals: "Another batch of Palestinian militants drawn out lemming-like and falling by the dozen to higher-calibre Israeli fire, just like their predecessors." [For Potter to call Palestinians lemmings is certainly ironic].
Falling, he might have added, to U.S. weapons, with the support of Canadian foreign policy and its loyal pundits.
Whitewashing collective punishment
"Hezbollah and Hamas ... triggered the current crisis by staging guerrilla raids into Israel"
-Toronto Star, July 19 (reporter Less Whittington)
On July 12, Hizbollah, for decades the main southern Lebanese group in resistance to Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed two more on the Israel-Lebanon border. That day, Israel not only killed 23 Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but also began to bomb Beirut. Israeli military action against Lebanon swiftly escalated. On July 15, for example, Reuters reported that Israel used loudspeakers to order Lebanese civilians to leave the village of Marwaheen. 20 people, including 15 children, got in a van to leave. Israel then bombed the van, killing them all.
Of all of Israel's international allies, including the United States, the Harper government was widely regarded as the most outspoken diplomatic supporter of escalating Israeli attacks. For Canadian media, fully accustomed to whitewashing Israeli atrocities, this was only appropriate. Massacres and the war crime of collective punishment were sanitized and reduced to offhand euphemisms: "As in the Palestinian territories," the Globe's Orly Halpern reported, "Israel is ratcheting up the pressure on the civilian population in an effort to push the Lebanese to reject Hezbollah tactics."(July 14)
And as in Palestinian territory, the attacks were a matter of defense. On July 15, the Globe editorialized: "The kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers, in a small country that holds the life of every soldier dear, was a grievous provocation. Coming just weeks after the seizing of another soldier by militants at the other end of the country, it looks like a coordinated campaign of intimidation."
The imputed "coordinated campaign of intimidation," which Globe editors disapprove of, is not to be confused with Israel's "ratcheting up the pressure on the civilian population," with which the Globe raises only strategic objections.
As Israel continued to kill and starve Palestinians, and as the Lebanese death toll from Israeli massacres mounted into the hundreds (with several Canadians killed in the indiscriminate bombardment), Mitch Potter explained that Palestinians now shared blame for the violence - with Hizbollah: "The words Hamas and Hezbollah may sound equally foreboding to most Western ears. And the militant merger of the two has brought the Middle East to the brink of regional war." (July 16)
Even for the killing of Canadians, Israeli culpability was sidelined: "Lebanon terror hits home," read a Toronto Star headline on the topic for July 17; "Canadians were killed in crossfire of fight with Hezbollah," read another headline, this one from the July 18 issue of the Globe and Mail. In much of the coverage, it was as if Canadians were fleeing a natural disaster, not a campaign of collective punishment fully condoned by the Harper government.
The reliance on Israeli sources became almost comical. By July 19, the Lebanese death count from Israeli massacres had reached 312, with more than 100,000 civilians displaced. As Canadians scrambled to leave Lebanon amidst the Israeli assault, the public relations line of the chief Israeli diplomatic to Canada received the widest possible circulation through a story printed by the Canadian Press. Drawing entirely from unsubstantiated claims, the piece ran with the headline "Canadians fleeing Lebanon could be Hezbollah targets: Israeli ambassador."
Israel has since pledged to continue its invasion of Lebanon for weeks to come, and both the Canadian government and Canadian media are lining up in support. The Toronto Star's Mitch Potter continues to get front-page attention for his articles, led by prominent cover references to Lebanese "terror" (July 18) and the suggestion that Hizbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah could be the "next Osama bin Laden" (July 19). Potter's journalism is shallow public relations, most recently for Israeli assassination efforts against Nasrallah. Potter has described the leader as an eloquent, strategic figure with a mass base for regional resistance to Israel. From his vantage point in "the corridors of power" in Israel, Potter notes that "the strategies for Israeli victory are converging on Nasrallah's head."
Israel, while pledging a prolonged attack on Lebanon, has continued its atrocities in Gaza and escalated attacks on the West Bank, with incursions into the Palestinian towns of Nablus (where the Israeli military took over the municipality building, smashed cars and shot indiscriminately at residents' houses), Tulkarem, Bethlehem and Jenin.
The Harper government's nearly unconditional support for this Israeli aggression is scandalous, matched only by the media's support for Harper. On July 20, the Globe and Mail's editors reaffirmed this. The title of the editorial in 'Canada's national newspaper,' which praised Harper for his "refreshing" pro-Israel diplomacy, conveys the general tone of coverage: "Harper is right on the Mideast."
Mounting a challenge
There are indications that the Canadian population may be lagging behind the political establishment in its contempt for Palestinians. At the end of 2004, the Canada-Israel Committee (CIC) released polls which offer some hope in this regard. They found that prior to the recent intensification of support for Israel, official Canadian pro-Israel partisanship was opposed by majority public opinion. The polls found that the more Canadians learn about the Israel-Palestine conflict, the more they sympathize with the Palestinian cause.
In recent months, this sympathy has found increasingly organized expression. The past week's massive demonstrations in Montreal come on the heels of various important displays of regional solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. Prominent among these is the decision by the Ontario wing of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE-Ontario), Canada's largest union of public sector workers, to identify Israel's regime of systematic ethnic and national discrimination as apartheid, and to join the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until apartheid is dismantled. This movement is continuing to spread, and is picking up momentum within the United Church and elsewhere.
As the Canadian government opts instead for open rejection of the rights of Palestinians (and Lebanese), "Israel advocacy" groups like the Canada-Israel Committee take comfort in support from the mainstream press. When the Harper government became the first of Israel's allies to support renewed suffocation of the Palestinian economy (in March 2006), CIC communications director Paul Michaels commented happily that the "decision was greeted positively on the editorial pages of most Canadian newspapers." Again in late June, Canadian media indifference to attacks on Palestinians occasioned the expression of satisfaction on the part of the CIC: "While events on the ground included several Israeli air strikes in which civilians were injured or killed, this week's media coverage was fairly light."
With support from the government and the corporate press, Israel's allies pretend to near universal Canadian representation. They are in turn able to depict Palestine solidarity as a rejection of the popular consensus: "This week," a Globe article on July 8 declared, "public opinion was inflamed again when, contrary to the outrage [against CUPE for its Palestine work], the Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada commended CUPE Ontario for its stand, and echoed the union's call for a boycott of Israeli goods."
There is no denying the real strength of Canada's institutional base of support for Israel. However, there is good reason to believe that this does not flow from "popular opinion." Rather, it results from the eagerness of the Canadian government to harmonize its foreign policy with the U.S., the support of corporate Canada for this agenda, and the strength of Canadian "Israel advocacy" groups which draw support from corporate organization, the United States and Israel itself. Mainstream media are reflecting and shaping the pro-Israel consensus determined by these powerful interests. But they have yet to bring a real public consensus behind them.
In this context, opportunities for a successful challenge to Canadian support for Israel remain very real. But it is only outside of the political establishment that this challenge can be built, and only through alternative information systems that it can be sustained. In any event, it is clear that while genuine awareness of the Israel-Palestine conflict may translate into Palestine solidarity, the mainstream press, far from the solution, is quite near to the core of the problem.
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USA Today
15 States Expand Right to Shoot in Self-Defense
August 7, 2006
NY Times
In the last year, 15 states have enacted laws that expand the right of self-defense, allowing crime victims to use deadly force in situations that might formerly have subjected them to prosecution for murder.
Supporters call them "stand your ground" laws. Opponents call them "shoot first" laws.
Thanks to this sort of law, a prostitute in Port Richey, Fla., who killed her 72-year-old client with his own gun rather than flee was not charged last month. Similarly, the police in Clearwater, Fla., did not arrest a man who shot a neighbor in early June after a shouting match over putting out garbage, though the authorities say they are still reviewing the evidence.
The first of the new laws took effect in Florida in October, and cases under it are now reaching prosecutors and juries there. The other laws, mostly in Southern and Midwestern states, were enacted this year, according to the National Rifle Association, which has enthusiastically promoted them.
Florida does not keep comprehensive records on the impact of its new law, but prosecutors and defense lawyers there agree that fewer people who claim self-defense are being charged or convicted.
The Florida law, which served as a model for the others, gives people the right to use deadly force against intruders entering their homes. They no longer need to prove that they feared for their safety, only that the person they killed had intruded unlawfully and forcefully. The law also extends this principle to vehicles.
In addition, the law does away with an earlier requirement that a person attacked in a public place must retreat if possible. Now, that same person, in the law's words, "has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force." The law also forbids the arrest, detention or prosecution of the people covered by the law, and it prohibits civil suits against them.
The central innovation in the Florida law, said Anthony J. Sebok, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, is not its elimination of the duty to retreat, which has been eroding nationally through judicial decisions, but in expanding the right to shoot intruders who pose no threat to the occupant's safety.
"In effect," Professor Sebok said, "the law allows citizens to kill other citizens in defense of property."
This month, a jury in West Palm Beach, Fla., will hear the retrial of a murder case that illustrates the dividing line between the old law and the new one. In November 2004, before the new law was enacted, a cabdriver in West Palm Beach killed a drunken passenger in an altercation after dropping him off.
The first jury deadlocked 9-to-3 in favor of convicting the driver, Robert Lee Smiley Jr., said Henry Munnilal, the jury foreman.
"Mr. Smiley had a lot of chances to retreat and to avoid an escalation," said Mr. Munnilal, a 62-year-old accountant. "He could have just gotten in his cab and left. The thing could have been avoided, and a man's life would have been saved."
Mr. Smiley tried to invoke the new law, which does away with the duty to retreat and would almost certainly have meant his acquittal, but an appeals court refused to apply it retroactively. He has appealed that issue to the Florida Supreme Court.
Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the N.R.A., said the Florida law had sent a needed message to law-abiding citizens.
"If they make a decision to save their lives in the split second they are being attacked, the law is on their side," Mr. LaPierre said. "Good people make good decisions. That's why they're good people. If you're going to empower someone, empower the crime victim."
The N.R.A. said it would lobby for versions of the law in eight more states in 2007.
Sarah Brady, chairwoman of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said her group would fight those efforts. "In a way," Ms. Brady said of the new laws, "it's a license to kill."
Many prosecutors oppose the laws, saying they are unnecessary at best and pernicious at worst. "They're basically giving citizens more rights to use deadly force than we give police officers, and with less review," said Paul A. Logli, president of the National District Attorneys Association.
But some legal experts doubt the laws will make a practical difference. "It's inconceivable to me that one in a hundred Floridians could tell you how the law has changed," said Gary Kleck, who teaches criminology at Florida State University.
Even before the new laws, Professor Kleck added, claims of self-defense were often accepted. "In the South," he said, "they more or less give the benefit of the doubt to the alleged victim's account." [...]
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Equipment failure disrupts LA flights
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
Mon Aug 7, 2006
LOS ANGELES - A computerized system that guides arriving planes onto a runway at Los Angeles International Airport failed on Monday, delaying numerous flights around the country.
Two incoming flights were diverted, others were forced to circle the airport, and some planes were ordered to remain on the ground at other airports, officials said. Arriving flights were held up about 90 minutes. Departing flights were delayed about an hour, and several flights were canceled.
Airport authorities worked around the problem about an hour and a half hour later, and operations were expected to be back to normal by mid-afternoon.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the cause of the problem was unknown.
The malfunctioning piece of equipment, called a localizer, acts as a beacon to guide arriving planes onto runways. It is most crucial when it is foggy or hazy, and it was foggy at the airport Monday.
Because of a runway construction project, LAX, the world's fifth-busiest airport, has three working runways - one handles arrivals, one handles takeoffs, and one handles both. It was the shared runway that had the problem.
The equipment used on that runway failed at 9:17 a.m., the FAA said. Airport authorities responded by reversing the direction of the runways so that the faulty equipment was no longer needed.
Before the fix was made, the number of landings, usually about one a minute, was reduced by half, said FAA spokesman Mike Fergus.
Laney Fishera, 46, from Topsfield, Mass., said her flight from Boston circled above the ocean for about 30 minutes until a runway was available.
"We had to fly over the ocean, which was really weird," she said.
LAX was hit with a major power failure July 18 that backed up flights across parts of the western United States and Canada.
That outage happened when a vehicle crashed into a utility pole, causing a power fluctuation that prompted the air traffic control center's backup generator to turn on automatically. About an hour later, that generator failed.
The airport averages 1,800 daily flights and will serve an estimated 18.7 million passengers this summer, 200,000 more than last year.
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Judge rules for govt in CIA testimony
By ESTES THOMPSON
Associated Press
Mon Aug 7, 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. - Federal prosecutors won their battle Monday to keep former CIA Director George Tenet and several other agency employees from having to testify at the trial of a one-time CIA contractor accused of beating an Afghan detainee.
But U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle said he would allow defense attorneys for David Passaro to subpoena six witnesses whose identities are classified, and promised to rule on later on four others.
The judge heard the dispute behind closed doors before a jury was selected and opening statements began.
Passaro, a 40-year-old former Special Forces medic from Lillington, N.C., is the first civilian charged with mistreating a detainee during the U.S. wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Passaro's attorneys have said they want to call Tenet and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, formerly the White House counsel, as part of a "public authority defense" - namely, that Passaro was following orders. It was nit immediately clear if Gonzales was among those Boyle said could not be subpoenaed by the defense.
Before jury selection began, prosecutor Jim Candelmo told the judge that even the titles of some of the witnesses sought by defense attorneys are classified and cannot be discussed in open court.
But defense attorney Joe Gilbert disputed the government's claim of secrecy. At least one of the potential witnesses has appeared on national television and been interviewed in newspapers, Gilbert said.
"The government is using it in such a way to deny Mr. Passaro due process and they shouldn't be allowed to do this," Gilbert said.
Boyle has previously limited the defense's access to several classified documents and e-mails, including a memo from the Justice Department to the CIA that Passaro contends described the kind of interrogation techniques allowed by U.S. law.
The government contends paratroopers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division saw Passaro beat detainee Abdul Wali with his hands, his feet and a flashlight in June 2003 during two days of questioning about rocket attacks on a remote firebase housing U.S. and Afghan troops.
Wali later died in his cell, although Passaro - who was working under contract to the CIA - is not charged with his death. Instead, he faces assault charges that carry up to 40 years in prison.
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9 die while fleeing Ariz. Border Patrol
Yahoo.com
Associated press
08/07/06
A sport utility vehicle crammed with suspected illegal immigrants rolled over in an attempt to outrun Border Patrol agents, killing nine people and injuring at least 12 others, officials said.
Five of the injured, including a pregnant woman, were in critical condition, most with head trauma, hospital officials said.
The large SUV was carrying up to 22 people when the driver had tried to circumvent a checkpoint on the highway, Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd Frers said.
With Border Patrol agents in pursuit, the driver attempted to make a U-turn and rolled over, Frers said. He did not know how fast either vehicle was traveling.
"The suburban was grossly overloaded, and it's difficult to handle on that kind of (dirt) road," Frers said.
Sheriff's Maj. Leon Wilmot said the car had swerved to avoid a spike strip put out by Border Patrol agents. Border Patrol spokeswoman Agent Veronica Lozano said she didn't know whether agents put out the device.
Scores of illegal immigrants die each year while crossing the Mexican border into Arizona, many in car crashes. Smugglers often flee from authorities at high speeds or overload vehicles, which makes them difficult to control.
"They just pile in; they're like sardines," Frers said. "It's unfortunate."
Agents are generally required to follow a "non-pursuit" policy, meaning they must follow a suspect vehicle at a distance unless the driver commits a traffic violation, said T.J. Bonner, who heads a union representing Border Patrol agents. After a traffic violation, a supervisor can authorize pursuit.
"Now that you have so many more people making that journey through those godforsaken areas, it's only natural that you're going to have more fatalities," Bonner said.
Four of the injured were at Yuma Regional Medical Center, including one in serious condition, spokeswoman Machele Headington said. The conditions of the others were not known. Three others were treated and released to the custody of Border Patrol, she said.
The Yuma area, a sandy stretch of desert in southwestern Arizona, has become the nation's busiest immigrant-smuggling hotspot. President Bush visited the area in May as part of his push for a sweeping overhaul of immigration laws.
Last month, after a crackdown on illegal border crossing, the Border Patrol's Yuma Sector reported a 48 percent drop in migrant arrests - from 11,522 in June 2005 to 6,030 in June this year.
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Bedbug infestations on rise across U.S.
By KATE BRUMBACK
Associated Press
Mon Aug 7, 2006
ATLANTA - After waking up one night in sheets teeming with tiny bugs, Josh Benton couldn't sleep for months and kept a flashlight and can of Raid with him in bed.
"We were afraid to even tell people about it at first," Benton said of the bedbugs in his home. "It feels like maybe some way your living is encouraging this, that you're living in a bad neighborhood or have a dirty apartment."
Absent from the U.S. for so long that some thought they were a myth, bedbugs are back. Entomologists and pest control professionals are reporting a dramatic increase in infestations throughout the country, and no one knows exactly why.
"It's no secret that bedbugs are making a comeback," said Dan Suiter, an associate professor of entomology at the University of Georgia.
Before World War II, bedbug infestations were common in the U.S., but they were virtually eradicated through improvements in hygiene and the widespread use of DDT in the 1940s and 1950s.
Bedbugs are tiny brownish, flattened insects that feed exclusively on the blood of animals and humans. Their bites may cause itchy red welts or swelling.
Unlike mosquitoes, though, they are not known to transmit blood-borne diseases from one victim to another. They are extremely resilient and very difficult to exterminate. Experts say bedbugs are not necessarily an indicator of unsanitary conditions.
In the past four years, reports of bedbugs have significantly increased in U.S. cities, from New York to Honolulu, especially in hotels, hospitals and college dormitories - all places with high resident turnover.
The National Pest Management Association, which represents many of the country's pest control companies, says the number of bedbug reports have increased fivefold in four years.
The Atlanta branch of pest-control firm Terminix saw no cases of bedbugs in 2004 and only three or four last year. But in the first six months of this year, they've had 23 new cases, said Clint Briscoe, a spokesman.
Experts are not entirely sure what has caused the marked increase. Some speculate that increased international travel and immigration may be partially to blame.
The tiny bugs may be hitching a ride in the luggage or clothing of travelers. This could explain the high concentration of the pests in cities like Atlanta and New York, which attract a lot of international traffic.
Another factor is a change in pest control practices. Companies are spraying more responsibly now, Suiter said. Instead of indiscriminately saturating the perimeter of all rooms, they often use more conservative measures and do large-scale spray treatments only when there's an infestation. As a result of consumer demand, less toxic chemicals are also being used.
"The bottom line is it may be a convergence of all those factors, but none of that really explains the rapid increase in recent years," said Michael Potter, a professor and urban entomologist at the University of Kentucky.
Experts agree that the public needs to be educated about bedbugs - on the symptoms and how to prevent them.
"A lot of people, including some physicians, don't even think they're real," Potter said. As a result people may go months before realizing the source of their discomfort.
In Hawaii, where tourism is a major industry, state lawmakers passed a resolution for a prevention campaign after infestations at some hotels damaged their reputations and annoyed travelers. Similarly, legislation for a bedbug task force has been proposed by New York City Councilwoman Gail Brewer.
For Benton, a 31-year-old graduate student, the bedbugs sparked a seven-month battle that included bug bombs and the tossing out of his and his fiancee's bedroom furniture.
They gave up and moved out of their apartment in New York and eventually moved back to their native Memphis, Tenn. Benton said the bugs essentially drove them out of New York because they couldn't sleep knowing the bugs may be anywhere.
"The main part of it is psychological trauma that they create because of the idea that they are feeding on you at night," Benton said. "It's still hard to talk about if it's anywhere near bedtime."
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ABA: Women of color leaving big firms
By AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press
Sun Aug 6, 2006
HONOLULU - An American Indian attorney is asked where she keeps her tomahawk. White male partners look past a black lawyer, assuming she is clerical staff. An Asian attorney is called a "dragon lady" when she asserts herself.
A study by the American Bar Association that says those real-life experiences, along with more subtle forms of discrimination, are prompting growing numbers of minority women to abandon the nation's biggest law firms.
"We're not even talking about trying to get up through a glass ceiling; we're trying to stay above ground," said Paulette Brown, co-chairwoman of the group that produced the study, released Friday during the bar association's annual convention.
The report, "Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms," was conducted by the bar association with the help of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Questionnaires were sent to about 1,300 attorneys, both men and women, and responses came from 72 percent, or 920.
Law firms exclude minority women from golf outings, after-hours drinks and other networking events, the study says. Partners neglect the women of color they are supposed to help mentor.
In some cases, partners and senior lawyers disregard minority women less because of outright bigotry than because they have less in common with them and thus don't connect well with them, the study found.
Firms routinely hand minority women inferior assignments - such as reviewing documents or writing briefs - that provide little opportunity to meet clients, the study says. That means women of color aren't able to cultivate business relationships and develop the "billable hours" that are the basis of career advancement within a firm.
Among the statistics in the study:
- Forty-four percent of women of color said they were denied desirable assignments, versus 2 percent of white men.
- Forty-three percent of women of color said they had limited access to client development opportunities, compared with 3 percent of white men.
- Nearly two-thirds of women of color said they were excluded from informal and formal networking opportunities, compared with 4 percent of white men.
Such discrimination largely goes unchecked at law firms, forcing women to quit if they want to avoid it, Brown said.
The study cited 2005 data from the National Association of Law Placement showing 81 percent of minority female associates left their jobs within five years of being hired. That figure was up from the late 1990s, when it stood at 75 percent.
Elaine Johnson James, who is black and a partner at the firm Edwards, Angell, Palmer and Dodge, said she has seen such defections.
She recently called classmates from her Harvard law class in an effort to find black law partners to speak at an alumni panel. Of the 50 or so black women in her class and in the classes above and below hers, James said she found only one other than herself working at a firm.
"Harvard, now; you've got to figure if anybody's going to stick, it would be us," James said. "It's amazing that we have left the private practice of law in droves."
Michael Greco, the bar association president, said managing partners at law firms - mostly white men - need to dedicate themselves to reform.
"This is intolerable," Greco said at a news conference. "It stings the conscience of our profession."
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Dixie Chicks cancel 14 shows on tour
By JOHN GEROME
Associated Press
August 8, 2006
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Several concerts on the Dixie Chicks' "Accidents & Accusations" tour have been canceled after slow ticket sales, but the group says it has replaced them with other dates.
Kansas City, Houston, St. Louis, Memphis and Knoxville are among 14 cities no longer on the original schedule released in May, according to a revised itinerary posted Thursday on the Dixie Chick's Web site.
Other shows, including Nashville, Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix, have been pushed back to later dates.
The North American leg of the tour kicked off July 21 in Detroit. Billboard magazine and other trade publications have reported lackluster sales in some markets, particularly in the South and Midwest.
Group spokeswoman Kathy Allmand said Monday that the total number of North American dates remains the same, with several Canadian cities added in place of the U.S. shows.
The trio released a statement last week attributing the changes to attempts to "accommodate demand" and said more dates might be added next year.
The group also said the adjustments will allow them to promote the documentary "Dixie Chicks: Shut up and Sing," for the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
"We hope that our fans who were looking forward to a stop that is no longer on the tour will be able to join us at a nearby arena this fall, and we are sorry for any confusion or inconvenience these changes have caused," the Dixie Chicks said.
Many country fans criticized the band after lead singer
Natalie Maines told a London audience in 2003 on the eve of war in Iraq that the trio was "ashamed" President Bush was from their home state of Texas.
County radio stations dropped them from their playlists and have been slow to welcome them back, despite strong sales of their latest album, "Taking the Long Way."
The album, which has more of a rock edge than their previous releases, spent several weeks at the top of the country albums chart and has sold more than 1 million copies.
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Agency says another PC with veterans' data missing
Reuters
By Philipp Gollner
08/07/06
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said on Monday that a desktop computer with personal data on as many as 38,000 U.S. military veterans had disappeared from Unisys Corp., a subcontractor.
Disclosure of the breach comes three days after authorities arrested two teenagers in the theft of a laptop and hard drive containing sensitive data on as many as 26.5 million veterans and military personnel.
The equipment in that case, turned in to authorities on June 28, was stolen May 3 during a burglary of a VA employee's home, authorities said.
In the latest case, Unisys told the VA on August 3 that the computer was missing from the company's offices in Reston, Virginia, the VA said. The VA and Unisys said the data may include names, addresses, Social Security numbers and dates of birth.
The data do not contain personal financial information, Unisys said in a statement, but the VA said it may include patients' insurance carriers and billing information, dates of military service and claims information that may include some medical information.
The VA's inspector general, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement agencies "are conducting a thorough investigation of this matter," Secretary of Veterans Affairs R. James Nicholson said in a statement.
The agency said it believes the records concern about 5,000 patients treated at the VA medical center in Philadelphia and about 11,000 seen at a VA facility in Pittsburgh over the past four years, as well as about 2,000 deceased veterans.
The agency said it is also investigating whether the computer contained information on about another 20,000 people who were treated at the Pittsburgh medical center.
Unisys said it had launched a "comprehensive search and investigation" and was working with the VA and law enforcement agencies investigating the incident.
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Protesters 'boarded U.S. plane'
CNN.com
By Associated press
08/08/06
LONDON, England (AP) -- British authorities arrested seven anti-war protesters Monday after demonstrators said they boarded a plane at a Scottish airport to search for evidence of U.S. weapons being transported to Israel.
Local police said two men and a woman were arrested after getting on the plane at Prestwick Airport, near Glasgow. Four other people were arrested at the airport at around 3:30 a.m. (0230 GMT).
Anti-nuclear campaign group Trident Ploughshares said its activists had cut through a perimeter fence and boarded a U.S. plane to search for evidence of arms shipments to Israel.
Spokesman David Mackenzie said the group had not found any weapons aboard the cargo plane, whose destination was unknown.
The seven arrests follow those of four other members of the group, who ran onto a runway at the airport on Sunday.
Last month, a stopover at Prestwick of U.S. flights carrying missiles to Israel sparked intense criticism in Britain.
U.S. President George W. Bush apologized for the flights' stopping without declaring the cargo they were carrying to Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Tony Blair's office has said.
Blair has denied Britain has acted inappropriately and dismissed critics who have called for a ban on U.S. military aircraft landing on British airfields.
About 70 protesters, including members of Scotland's Lebanese community, chanted anti-war slogans outside the airport's entrance last week to coincide with the expected arrival of two more weapons flights to Israel.
Instead, two cargo flights bound for Israel landed for refueling at RAF Mildenhall, a U.S. operated base 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of London.
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Indianapolis sees 13 slayings in 1 week
Tue Aug 8, 2006
Yahoo News
INDIANAPOLIS - A fatal stabbing early Tuesday boosted the city's homicides to 13 in just one week in the midst of an upsurge of violence that has police working longer shifts and saturating high-crime areas.
On Monday, Mayor Bart Peterson called for an 11 percent increase in public safety and criminal justice spending in 2007, comparing the crime wave to a crisis such as a tornado.
He asked the City-County Council for an extra $54 million that could come out of the budgets for other city programs.
"We're going to have to do what it takes to restore our reputation as a safe city," Peterson said. "We must fight this war now, even as we work together on the funding."
Early Tuesday, Eric Taylor, 39, was found dead in an apartment on the city's east side with multiple stab wounds, Marion County sheriff's deputies said. Police said they wanted to talk to a 23-year-old man about the case.
Monday evening, a young man died in a shooting on the city's north side. Police patrols in that area already were so heavy that officers were on the scene within just 30 to 45 seconds of the report of shots being fired, said police Chief Michael Spears.
"Our police department is just fed up with the violence. We're just tired of it," Spears said.
With 91 homicides so far this year, Marion County is on track for its bloodiest year since 1998, when 162 people died. The number so far this year compares with 121 for all of 2005.
On June 1, seven people were killed in a house on the east side of Indianapolis, the city's worst mass killing in 25 years.
The Indianapolis Police and Marion County Sheriff's departments have assigned more officers to the streets and put them on longer shifts.
Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said Monday he would be adding six deputy prosecutors to the Homicide Unit, bringing the total to 12. Two other deputy prosecutors will be assigned to the Handgun Prosecution Unit, bringing the staffing there to five, Brizzi said.
"We need to allocate our resources to the areas where they are needed most," Brizzi said Monday.
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War is hell
Baghdad death toll reaches 23 after bomb blasts, armed robbery
Last Updated Tue, 08 Aug 2006 05:14:20 EDT
The Associated Press
A series of bomb blasts Tuesday in Baghdad killed at least 20 people and injured 58, while armed robbers shot dead three people during a raid on a bank, police said.
Two roadside bombs exploded in the main Shurja market in central Baghdad within minutes of each other, killing 10 civilians and injuring 50, said police Lieut. Mohammed Kheyoun.
Three bombs exploded earlier near the Interior Ministry building in central Baghdad, killing 10 people and injuring eight, police Lieut. Bilal Ali Majid said.
Both locations are in central Baghdad, which has been the focus of growing sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis that many fear could push the country into a civil war.
Also Tuesday, gunmen in two cars stormed a bank in the Azamiyah district of Baghdad and killed three people - two guards and one civilian. The gunmen drove away with an unknown amount of money, said police Sergeant Zakariya Hassan. Two civilians were also injured in the attack, he said.
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Soldiers 'hit golf balls before going out to kill family'
Ryan Lenz, Associated Press in Baghdad
Tuesday August 8, 2006
The Guardian
US soldiers, accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, drank alcohol and hit golf balls before the attack. One of them grilled chicken wings afterwards, a criminal investigator told a US military hearing yesterday.
Benjamin Bierce interviewed one of the accused, Specialist James Barker who made a written statement in which he recorded graphic and brutal sexual details of the alleged assault on March 12.
Mr Bierce was testifying on the second day of the hearing to determine whether five soldiers must stand trial for the rape and killing of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, her parents and five-year-old sister in the town of Mahmudiya.
It is among the worst in a series of cases of alleged misconduct. Specialist Barker's signed statement was submitted in evidence. He is accused, along with Sergeant Paul Cortez, Private Jesse Spielman and Private Bryan Howard of rape and murder. Another soldier, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is accused of failing to report the attack but is not alleged to have participated.
Former private, Steven Green, was discharged from the army for a "personality disorder" after the incident and was arrested in North Carolina in June on rape and murder charges. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
Yesterday, Private Justin Watt testified that Private Howard told him, before the incident, that Private Green, Sergeant Cortez and Specialist Barker had planned to rape a girl, and Private Howard was to be the lookout. Another investigator, Michael Hood, told the hearing that he interviewed Private Spielman, who denied shooting or having sex with anyone. He was given a lie-detector test and passed.
According to Specialist Barker's statement, Private Green not only raped the girl but also shot her and her family after telling his comrades repeatedly he wanted to kill some Iraqis. Mr Bierce said that on the day of the attack, Specialist Barker, Sergeant Cortez, Private Spielman and Private Green had been playing cards and drinking Iraqi whisky mixed with an energy drink. They practised hitting golf balls, Specialist Barker's statement said.
Specialist Barker made it clear Private Green was very persistent about killing some Iraqis. At some point they decided to go to the house of the girl they had seen passing by their checkpoint. Specialist Barker also said that when they arrived at the house, the father and the girl were outside. Private Spielman grabbed the girl while Private Green seized her father and took them into the house.
Private Green took the father, mother and the younger sister into the bedroom, while the girl remained in the living room. Specialist Barker wrote that Sergeant Cortez pushed the girl to the floor, and tore off her underwear. Sergeant Cortez appeared to rape her, according to the statement. Specialist Barker then tried to rape the girl, Mr Bierce said. Suddenly, the group heard gunshots. Private Green came out of the bedroom holding an AK-47 rifle and declared: "They're all dead. I just killed them," the statement said.
Private Green put the gun down, then raped the girl while Sergeant Cortez held her down. Specialist Barker claims Private Green picked up the AK-47 and shot the girl once, paused, then shot her several more times. Specialist Barker said he got a lamp and poured kerosene on the girl. She was set on fire, but he does not say who did it. He does not say if Private Howard or Private Spielman took part in the rape. The statement says he grilled chicken wings back at their checkpoint.
The case has increased demands for changes to an agreement that exempts US soldiers from prosecution in Iraqi courts. Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has demanded an independent investigation.
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Hiroshima anniversary sparks call to ban nuclear weapons
Last Updated Sun, 06 Aug 2006 18:13:57 EDT
The Associated Press
The mayor of Hiroshima on Sunday called for the elimination of all nuclear weapons as he marked the 61st anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack, which killed more than 140,000 people in the Japanese city.
Expressing concerns over the global proliferation of nuclear weapons, Tadatoshi Akiba urged the government of Japan - the only nation to suffer atomic bomb attacks - to take a leading role in the effort to eliminate nuclear arsenals.
"Sixty-one years have passed since radiation, heat rays and an atomic blast created hell on earth," Akiba said in a speech at Hiroshima Peace Park, near the bomb's epicentre.
"But the number of nations enamoured of evil and enslaved by nuclear arms has increased. The only role nuclear weapons have is to be demolished."
A bell rang at 8:15 a.m PT, marking the time when the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped its deadly payload on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. It was the first atomic bomb ever used in war.
Prayers for the victims
About 45,000 survivors, residents, visitors and officials from around the world prayed for the bombing victims by observing a minute of silence in Hiroshima, 692 kilometres southwest of Tokyo.
Hundreds of doves were released afterward.
An estimated 140,000 people were killed instantly or died within a few months after the Hiroshima bombing. Three days later, another U.S. warplane dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people.
This year's anniversary comes amid concerns over North Korea's recent missile tests, Iran's suspect nuclear program and intensified fighting in the Middle East.
Akiba urged Japan, a participant in the stalled six-nation talks on North Korea, to "forcefully insist that nuclear arms-possessing nations fulfill their obligation to sincerely carry out negotiations aimed at nuclear disarmament."
Pacifist constitution
He also urged the government to observe Japan's pacifist constitution, which bans the use of force in international disputes and prohibits Tokyo from keeping a military for warfare. It was drafted by U.S. occupation forces after the Second World War and has not been changed since 1947.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling party is proposing constitutional changes to make it easier for the Japanese military to fight if it comes under attack and to participate in international peacekeeping.
"We will observe the pacifist clause of the constitution, maintain the principle of nuclear nonproliferation and lead international efforts to achieve lasting global peace," Koizumi said Sunday in the memorial speech.
Ceremonies will also be held on Wednesday's anniversary of the Nagasaki attack.
Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, bringing the Second World War to an end.
Comment: The United States, that great bastion of freedom and democracy, has the dubious honour of being the only country to drop an atomic bomb on an enemy.
The rational we were given was that it "saved American lives". The first problem with this idea is that it was bogus. Japan was ready to surrender, but the US wanted to make a political point to the Soviet Union. The bomb was the first shot in the cold war.
But even if the "saving American lives" excuse had been the real reason, isn't your first reaction to say, "Well, that is normal for leaders to wish to protect the lives of their own citizens?" To agree? Now, step back and consider the trap, consider how far we have come from the voice of conscience. We take that first step when we allow nationality or citizenship or religion or any other difference -- with one important exception -- to come between ourselves and other human beings. If you agree with the above reason, then you have already been infected with pathological thought processes.
And isn't that the same excuse we hear from the leaders of the other great criminal state, Israel? How many Palestinians and Lebanese have to die under the phoney cover of "saving Israeli lives"?
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Testimony Tells of Rape, Killings in Iraq
Los Angeles Times
By Louise Roug, Times Staff Writer
08/08/06
BAGHDAD - An American soldier charged with the rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the slaying of her family told investigators that he and his comrades devised the attack while playing cards and drinking whiskey at a checkpoint, and that afterward he grilled chicken wings, a military investigator testified Monday.
The GI's admission was revealed on the second day of testimony in a military hearing to determine whether the soldiers would face a court-martial. Reports of the March 12 killings in the southern Baghdad suburb of Mahmoudiya have enraged Iraqis and shamed the U.S. military.
Spc. James P. Barker, 23, told investigators in sworn statements that he and Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 23, took turns sexually assaulting the 14-year-old, and that former Pfc. Steven D. Green, 21, also raped the girl after killing her mother, father and 5-year-old sister, military investigator Benjamin Bierce testified.
A fourth soldier, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, 21, was inside the house during the attack while another soldier, Pfc. Bryan L. Howard, 19, kept watch elsewhere, Barker told investigators, Bierce said.
The military tribunal, known as an Article 32 hearing, is similar to a civilian grand jury. After hearing from prosecutors and defense lawyers, an investigating officer will determine whether there is enough evidence for four of the soldiers to face a military trial on charges of rape and murder.
Another soldier from the same Army unit, Sgt. Anthony W. Yribe, is charged with failing to report the attack but is not suspected of taking part.
Green was discharged from the Army in May because of a "personality disorder," according to court documents. He was arrested in North Carolina in late June and will be tried separately in federal court.
Bierce testified that Barker wrote in his sworn statement that he, Cortez, Spielman and Green had been playing rummy and drinking Iraqi moonshine mixed with an energy drink on the day of the killings.
"While they were playing cards and drinking Iraqi whiskey, the idea came to go to the Iraqi house, rape a woman and murder her family," said Gary Griesmyer, another military investigator, who had interviewed Cortez.
The house was about 650 feet from the checkpoint, one soldier told investigators. The soldiers had seen the girl before during a visit to her house.
Cortez said in a sworn statement that Barker and Green raped the girl, Griesmyer testified. Cortez acknowledged holding the girl down when Barker began to rape her, Griesmyer said. The girl was crying and speaking in Arabic, and Barker told her to "shut up" after raping her, according to Cortez's statement, Griesmyer said.
Barker said the men had practiced hitting golf balls near the checkpoint after finishing their card game. Green repeatedly said he wanted to kill some Iraqis, and asked Barker if he thought Cortez would go along, according to Bierce's testimony. Green asked Cortez, who in turn asked Barker what he thought. Barker, in his statement, wrote that his answer was, "It's up to you," Bierce testified.
The men changed into black thermal underwear and black ski masks, Bierce testified. Cortez gave a radio to Howard, who was supposed to be on the lookout.
At the house, Cortez pushed the girl to the floor and raped her as she struggled, Bierce testified.
Barker told investigators that Green came into the living room, where the girl was pinned to the floor. Referring to her family, Green told his fellow soldiers: "They're all dead. I just killed them."
Green put down an AK-47 assault rifle that he had taken from the house and raped the girl while Cortez held her down, Bierce testified. Afterward, Green shot the girl several times before Barker took a lamp and poured kerosene on her body, the investigator said.
Barker told investigators that Green went into the kitchen and came back saying, "We need to get out of here," supposedly because Green had opened the propane tank and the house was going to blow up.
Investigators testified that the attack lasted between 20 and 30 minutes, and that the soldiers hid their identities, hoping to pin the slayings on insurgents.
After the men returned to the checkpoint, Barker said, he began to grill chicken wings.
Pfc. Justin Watt, whose allegations prompted the inquiry, testified earlier Monday that he became suspicious of his friends and, through conversations with Yribe and Howard, pieced together what had happened.
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GOP Leaders Are Hoping to Turn the War Into a Winner
Los Angeles times
By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
08/08/06
CRAWFORD, Texas - Some Republican candidates are distancing themselves from President Bush in fear of voter discontent with the war in Iraq. But a new GOP strategy memo argues that the war could prove to be an advantage for many Republican candidates, citing it as one of the most effective issues that will excite the party base in November.
The memo, based on a Republican National Committee poll of GOP voters and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, lists Bush's handling of "foreign threats" as the No. 1 motivator of the Republican base, specifically citing his leadership on Iraq.
"Large majorities report satisfaction with the president's commitment to defeat the terrorists in Iraq and his leadership in the war on terror, in general," according to the memo sent Wednesday to Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman from GOP pollster Fred Steeper.
The memo suggested that Republicans could motivate their base in the upcoming elections by talking about foreign threats and national security issues, including Iraq and the potential nuclear threat from Iran, and by drawing contrasts with Democrats in those areas. It said "a huge 87% of the base expresses extremely strong feelings" about national security issues.
The memo underscores the belief among top White House and GOP strategists that the war, despite the rising death toll and mounting public anxiety, could be the party's biggest advantage in the fight to retain control of Congress in the November elections.
Focusing on Iraq is risky at a time when candidates in both parties are struggling to deal with the politics of the war. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) is facing a stiff primary challenge today based on his support for the war, and Republicans from Minnesota to Maryland are casting themselves as independent thinkers who will not serve as rubber stamps for the White House.
Mehlman, in an interview Monday, said the GOP survey demonstrated that the base became motivated when it heard that Democrats supported policies of "isolationism and defeatism," words that the GOP had attached to Democratic proposals to withdraw troops in Iraq. He said the challenge to Lieberman by war critic Ned Lamont suggested Democrats were following a Vietnam War-era path of nominating antiwar activists like George S. McGovern who failed to win the general election.
"Sure, the history of the last generation is that when the Democrat Party became a doctrinaire, anti-use-of-American-force party as it did in 1972, it didn't do well," Mehlman said. "A lot of Americans may have disagreed with a lot of aspects of the Vietnam War, but in 1972 they were not willing to support a candidate for president who said: 'Come home, America' at a time that they knew there were serious challenges in the world.
"A party that becomes even more McGovernic than the original 1972 Democrat Party," Mehlman said, "is not one in my judgment that is likely to appeal to voters."
Recent polls, though, point to the challenge facing the GOP strategy. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll last week found that 49% of respondents strongly disapproved of Bush's handling of Iraq.
The politics grew more complicated last week when Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior U.S. commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that sectarian violence in Baghdad and other areas "is probably as bad as I've seen it." Even a loyal White House ally, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the committee, suggested another vote might be needed on whether to authorize the use of force if civil war erupts in Iraq.
Bush, speaking Monday at his Texas vacation home here, demonstrated that he had no intention of shying away from Iraq as the elections approach - pushing back against claims by some critics that cite the sectarian violence as a failure of U.S. policy.
"You know, I hear people say, well, civil war this, civil war that," said Bush, who will travel Thursday to Wisconsin, home of one of the Democratic Party's most fervent war critics, Sen. Russell D. Feingold.
"The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box. And a unity government is working to respond to the will of the people. And frankly, it's quite a remarkable achievement on the political front, and the security front is where there have been troubles."
Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, called the GOP survey "an effort to manufacture some data in order to rally the base and keep the Republican candidates on the same reservation as the White House."
"They're clearly nervous about losing more support," Singer said.
The survey polled 1,305 voters who identified themselves as either active , middle-of-the-road or swing Republicans.
The memo showed that the strategists hoped to stick to their post-2000 playbook of galvanizing the base using national security and other hot-button issues, asserting that 95% of base voters are either "almost certain" or "very likely" to vote this year.
The memo cited other national security issues as particularly important to the base, including the Patriot Act and Bush's anti-terrorist domestic spying program.
The survey cited strong enthusiasm in the party base for domestic issues such as tax cuts, abortion and arguments focused on the need to curtail frivolous lawsuits.
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Civilian Killings By US Troops In Vietnam Went Unpunished
08/06/06
Los Angeles Times
Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai.
The men of B Company were in a dangerous state of mind. They had lost five men in a firefight the day before. The morning of Feb. 8, 1968, brought unwelcome orders to resume their sweep of the countryside, a green patchwork of rice paddies along Vietnam's central coast.
They met no resistance as they entered a nondescript settlement in Quang Nam province. So Jamie Henry, a 20-year-old medic, set his rifle down in a hut, unfastened his bandoliers and lighted a cigarette.
Just then, the voice of a lieutenant crackled across the radio. He reported that he had rounded up 19 civilians, and wanted to know what to do with them. Henry later recalled the company commander's response:
Kill anything that moves.
Henry stepped outside the hut and saw a small crowd of women and children. Then the shooting began.
Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.
Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre.
Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth - about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.
The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.
The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators - not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.
Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam war crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to date. About 9,000 pages, it includes investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military brass.
The records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese - families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent minority who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity.
Abuses were not confined to a few rogue units, a Times review of the files found. They were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.
Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, says he once supported keeping the records secret but now believes they deserve wide attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
"We can't change current practices unless we acknowledge the past," says Johns, 78.
Among the substantiated cases in the archive:
- Seven massacres from 1967 through 1971 in which at least 137 civilians died.
- Seventy-eight other attacks on noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted.
- One hundred forty-one instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.
Investigators determined that evidence against 203 soldiers accused of harming Vietnamese civilians or prisoners was strong enough to warrant formal charges. These "founded" cases were referred to the soldiers' superiors for action.
Ultimately, 57 of them were court-martialed and just 23 convicted, the records show.
Fourteen received prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years, but most won significant reductions on appeal. The stiffest sentence went to a military intelligence interrogator convicted of committing indecent acts on a 13-year-old girl in an interrogation hut in 1967.
He served seven months of a 20-year term, the records show.
Many substantiated cases were closed with a letter of reprimand, a fine or, in more than half the cases, no action at all.
There was little interest in prosecuting Vietnam war crimes, says Steven Chucala, who in the early 1970s was legal advisor to the commanding officer of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. He says he disagreed with the attitude but understood it.
"Everyone wanted Vietnam to go away," says Chucala, now a civilian attorney for the Army at Ft. Belvoir in Virginia.
In many cases, suspects had left the service. The Army did not attempt to pursue them, despite a written opinion in 1969 by Robert E. Jordan III, then the Army's general counsel, that ex-soldiers could be prosecuted through courts-martial, military commissions or tribunals.
"I don't remember why it didn't go anywhere," says Jordan, now a lawyer in Washington.
Top Army brass should have demanded a tougher response, says retired Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard, who oversaw the task force as a brigadier general at the Pentagon in the early 1970s.
"We could have court-martialed them but didn't," Gard says of soldiers accused of war crimes. "The whole thing is terribly disturbing."
Early-Warning System
In March 1968, members of the 23rd Infantry Division slaughtered about 500 Vietnamese civilians in the hamlet of My Lai. Reporter Seymour Hersh exposed the massacre the following year.
By then, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam at the time of My Lai, had become Army chief of staff. A task force was assembled from members of his staff to monitor war crimes allegations and serve as an early-warning system.
Over the next few years, members of the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group reviewed Army investigations and wrote reports and summaries for military brass and the White House.
The records were declassified in 1994, after 20 years as required by law, and moved to the National Archives in College Park, Md., where they went largely unnoticed.
The Times examined most of the files and obtained copies of about 3,000 pages - about a third of the total - before government officials removed them from the public shelves, saying they contained personal information that was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
In addition to the 320 substantiated incidents, the records contain material related to more than 500 alleged atrocities that Army investigators could not prove or that they discounted.
Johns says many war crimes did not make it into the archive. Some were prosecuted without being identified as war crimes, as required by military regulations. Others were never reported.
In a letter to Westmoreland in 1970, an anonymous sergeant described widespread, unreported killings of civilians by members of the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta - and blamed pressure from superiors to generate high body counts.
"A batalion [sic] would kill maybe 15 to 20 [civilians] a day. With 4 batalions in the brigade that would be maybe 40 to 50 a day or 1200 to 1500 a month, easy," the unnamed sergeant wrote. "If I am only 10% right, and believe me it's lots more, then I am trying to tell you about 120-150 murders, or a My Lay [sic] each month for over a year."
A high-level Army review of the letter cited its "forcefulness," "sincerity" and "inescapable logic," and urged then-Secretary of the Army Stanley R. Resor to make sure the push for verifiable body counts did not "encourage the human tendency to inflate the count by violating established rules of engagement."
Investigators tried to find the letter writer and "prevent his complaints from reaching" then-Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Oakland), according to an August 1971 memo to Westmoreland.
The records do not say whether the writer was located, and there is no evidence in the files that his complaint was investigated further.
Pvt. Henry
James D. "Jamie" Henry was 19 in March 1967, when the Army shaved his hippie locks and packed him off to boot camp.
He had been living with his mother in Sonoma County, working as a hospital aide and moonlighting as a flower child in Haight-Ashbury, when he received a letter from his draft board. As thousands of hippies poured into San Francisco for the upcoming "Summer of Love," Henry headed for Ft. Polk, La.
Soon he was on his way to Vietnam, part of a 100,000-man influx that brought U.S. troop strength to 485,000 by the end of 1967. They entered a conflict growing ever bloodier for Americans - 9,378 U.S. troops would die in combat in 1967, 87% more than the year before.
Henry was a medic with B Company of the 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division. He described his experiences in a sworn statement to Army investigators several years later and in recent interviews with The Times.
In the fall of 1967, he was on his first patrol, marching along the edge of a rice paddy in Quang Nam province, when the soldiers encountered a teenage girl.
"The guy in the lead immediately stops her and puts his hand down her pants," Henry said. "I just thought, 'My God, what's going on?' "
A day or two later, he saw soldiers senselessly stabbing a pig.
"I talked to them about it, and they told me if I wanted to live very long, I should shut my mouth," he told Army investigators.
Henry may have kept his mouth shut, but he kept his eyes and ears open.
On Oct. 8, 1967, after a firefight near Chu Lai, members of his company spotted a 12-year-old boy out in a rainstorm. He was unarmed and clad only in shorts.
"Somebody caught him up on a hill, and they brought him down and the lieutenant asked who wanted to kill him," Henry told investigators.
Two volunteers stepped forward. One kicked the boy in the stomach. The other took him behind a rock and shot him, according to Henry's statement. They tossed his body in a river and reported him as an enemy combatant killed in action.
Three days later, B Company detained and beat an elderly man suspected of supporting the enemy. He had trouble keeping pace as the soldiers marched him up a steep hill.
"When I turned around, two men had him, one guy had his arms, one guy had his legs and they threw him off the hill onto a bunch of rocks," Henry's statement said.
On Oct. 15, some of the men took a break during a large-scale "search-and-destroy" operation. Henry said he overheard a lieutenant on the radio requesting permission to test-fire his weapon, and went to see what was happening.
He found two soldiers using a Vietnamese man for target practice, Henry said. They had discovered the victim sleeping in a hut and decided to kill him for sport.
"Everybody was taking pot shots at him, seeing how accurate they were," Henry said in his statement.
Back at base camp on Oct. 23, he said, members of the 1st Platoon told him they had ambushed five unarmed women and reported them as enemies killed in action. Later, members of another platoon told him they had seen the bodies.
Tet Offensive
Capt. Donald C. Reh, a 1964 graduate of West Point, took command of B Company in November 1967. Two months later, enemy forces launched a major offensive during Tet, the Vietnamese lunar New Year.
In the midst of the fighting, on Feb. 7, the commander of the 1st Battalion, Lt. Col. William W. Taylor Jr., ordered an assault on snipers hidden in a line of trees in a rural area of Quang Nam province. Five U.S. soldiers were killed. The troops complained bitterly about the order and the deaths, Henry said.
The next morning, the men packed up their gear and continued their sweep of the countryside. Soldiers discovered an unarmed man hiding in a hole and suspected that he had supported the enemy the previous day. A soldier pushed the man in front of an armored personnel carrier, Henry said in his statement.
"They drove over him forward which didn't kill him because he was squirming around, so the APC backed over him again," Henry's statement said.
Then B Company entered a hamlet to question residents and search for weapons. That's where Henry set down his weapon and lighted a cigarette in the shelter of a hut.
A radio operator sat down next to him, and Henry was listening to the chatter. He heard the leader of the 3rd Platoon ask Reh for instructions on what to do with 19 civilians.
"The lieutenant asked the captain what should be done with them. The captain asked the lieutenant if he remembered the op order (operation order) that came down that morning and he repeated the order which was 'kill anything that moves,' " Henry said in his statement. "I was a little shook ... because I thought the lieutenant might do it."
Henry said he left the hut and walked toward Reh. He saw the captain pick up the phone again, and thought he might rescind the order.
Then soldiers pulled a naked woman of about 19 from a dwelling and brought her to where the other civilians were huddled, Henry said.
"She was thrown to the ground," he said in his statement. "The men around the civilians opened fire and all on automatic or at least it seemed all on automatic. It was over in a few seconds. There was a lot of blood and flesh and stuff flying around....
"I looked around at some of my friends and they all just had blank looks on their faces.... The captain made an announcement to all the company, I forget exactly what it was, but it didn't concern the people who had just been killed. We picked up our stuff and moved on."
Henry didn't forget, however. "Thirty seconds after the shooting stopped," he said, "I knew that I was going to do something about it."
Homecoming
For his combat service, Henry earned a Bronze Star with a V for valor, and a Combat Medical Badge, among other awards. A fellow member of his unit said in a sworn statement that Henry regularly disregarded his own safety to save soldiers' lives, and showed "compassion and decency" toward enemy prisoners.
When Henry finished his tour and arrived at Ft. Hood, Texas, in September 1968, he went to see an Army legal officer to report the atrocities he'd witnessed.
The officer advised him to keep quiet until he got out of the Army, "because of the million and one charges you can be brought up on for blinking your eye," Henry says. Still, the legal officer sent him to see a Criminal Investigation Division agent.
The agent was not receptive, Henry recalls.
"He wanted to know what I was trying to pull, what I was trying to put over on people, and so I was just quiet. I told him I wouldn't tell him anything and I wouldn't say anything until I got out of the Army, and I left," Henry says.
Honorably discharged in March 1969, Henry moved to Canoga Park, enrolled in community college and helped organize a campus chapter of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Then he ended his silence: He published his account of the massacre in the debut issue of Scanlan's Monthly, a short-lived muckraking magazine, which hit the newsstands on Feb. 27, 1970. Henry held a news conference the same day at the Los Angeles Press Club.
Records show that an Army operative attended incognito, took notes and reported back to the Pentagon.
A faded copy of Henry's brief statement, retrieved from the Army's files, begins:
"On February 8, 1968, nineteen (19) women and children were murdered in Viet-Nam by members of 3rd Platoon, 'B' Company, 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry....
"Incidents similar to those I have described occur on a daily basis and differ one from the other only in terms of numbers killed," he told reporters. A brief article about his remarks appeared inside the Los Angeles Times the next day.
Army investigators interviewed Henry the day after the news conference. His sworn statement filled 10 single-spaced typed pages. Henry did not expect anything to come of it: "I never got the impression they were ever doing anything."
In 1971, Henry joined more than 100 other veterans at the Winter Soldier Investigation, a forum on war crimes sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
The FBI put the three-day gathering at a Detroit hotel under surveillance, records show, and Nixon administration officials worked behind the scenes to discredit the speakers as impostors and fabricators.
Although the administration never publicly identified any fakers, one of the organization's leaders admitted exaggerating his rank and role during the war, and a cloud descended on the entire gathering.
"We tried to get as much publicity as we could, and it just never went anywhere," Henry says. "Nothing ever happened."
After years of dwelling on the war, he says, he "finally put it in a closet and shut the door."
The Investigation
Unknown to Henry, Army investigators pursued his allegations, tracking down members of his old unit over the next 3 1/2 years.
Witnesses described the killing of the young boy, the old man tossed over the cliff, the man used for target practice, the five unarmed women, the man thrown beneath the armored personnel carrier and other atrocities.
Their statements also provided vivid corroboration of the Feb. 8, 1968, massacre from men who had observed the day's events from various vantage points.
Staff Sgt. Wilson Bullock told an investigator at Ft. Carson, Colo., that his platoon had captured 19 "women, children, babies and two or three very old men" during the Tet offensive.
"All of these people were lined up and killed," he said in a sworn statement. "When it, the shooting, stopped, I began to return to the site when I observed a naked Vietnamese female run from the house to the huddle of people, saw that her baby had been shot. She picked the baby up and was then shot and the baby shot again."
Gregory Newman, another veteran of B Company, told an investigator at Ft. Myer, Va., that Capt. Reh had issued an order "to search and destroy and kill anything in the village that moved."
Newman said he was carrying out orders to kill the villagers' livestock when he saw a naked girl head toward a group of civilians.
"I saw them begging before they were shot," he recalled in a sworn statement.
Donald R. Richardson said he was at a command post outside the hamlet when he heard a platoon leader on the radio ask what to do with 19 civilians.
"The cpt said something about kill anything that moves and the lt on the other end said 'Their [sic] moving,' " according to Richardson's sworn account. "Just then the gunfire was heard."
William J. Nieset, a rifle squad leader, told investigators that he was standing next to a radio operator and heard Reh say: "My instructions from higher are to kill everything that moves."
Robert D. Miller said he was the radio operator for Lt. Johnny Mack Carter, commander of the 3rd Platoon. Miller said that when Carter asked Reh what to do with the 19 civilians, the captain instructed him to follow the "operation order."
Carter immediately sought two volunteers to shoot the civilians, Miller said under oath.
"I believe everyone knew what was going to happen," he said, "so no one volunteered except one guy known only to me as 'Crazy.' "
"A few minutes later, while the Vietnamese were huddled around in a circle Lt Carter and 'Crazy' started shooting them with their M-16's on automatic," Miller's statement says.
Carter had just left active duty when an investigator questioned him under oath in Palmetto, Fla., in March 1970.
"I do not recall any civilians being picked up and categorically stated that I did not order the killing of any civilians, nor do I know of any being killed," his statement said.
An Army investigator called Reh at Ft. Myer. Reh's attorney called back. The investigator made notes of their conversation: "If the interview of Reh concerns atrocities in Vietnam ... then he had already advised Reh not to make any statement."
As for Lt. Col. Taylor, two soldiers described his actions that day.
Myran Ambeau, a rifleman, said he was standing five feet from the captain and heard him contact the battalion commander, who was in a helicopter overhead. (Ambeau did not identify Reh or Taylor by name.)
"The battalion commander told the captain, 'If they move, shoot them,' " according to a sworn statement that Ambeau gave an investigator in Little Rock, Ark. "The captain verified that he had heard the command, he then transmitted the instruction to Lt Carter.
"Approximately three minutes later, there was automatic weapons fire from the direction where the prisoners were being held."
Gary A. Bennett, one of Reh's radio operators, offered a somewhat different account. He said the captain asked what he should do with the detainees, and the battalion commander replied that it was a "search and destroy mission," according to an investigator's summary of an interview with Bennett.
Bennett said he did not believe the order authorized killing civilians and that, although he heard shooting, he knew nothing about a massacre, the summary says. Bennett refused to provide a sworn statement.
An Army investigator sat down with Taylor at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. Taylor said he had never issued an order to kill civilians and had heard nothing about a massacre on the date in question. But the investigator had asked Taylor about events occurring on Feb. 9, 1968 - a day after the incident.
Three and a half years later, an agent tracked Taylor down at Ft. Myer and asked him about Feb. 8. Taylor said he had no memory of the day and did not have time to provide a sworn statement. He said he had a "pressing engagement" with "an unidentified general officer," the agent wrote.
Investigators wrote they could not find Pvt. Frank Bonilla, the man known as "Crazy." The Times reached him at his home on Oahu in March.
Bonilla, now 58 and a hotel worker, says he recalls an order to kill the civilians, but says he does not remember who issued it. "Somebody had a radio, handed it to someone, maybe a lieutenant, said the man don't want to see nobody standing," he said.
Bonilla says he answered a call for volunteers but never pulled the trigger.
"I couldn't do it. There were women and kids," he says. "A lot of guys thought that I had something to do with it because they saw me going up there.... Nope ... I just turned the other way. It was like, 'This ain't happening.' "
Afterward, he says, "I remember sitting down with my head between my knees. Is that for real? Someone said, 'Keep your mouth shut or you're not going home.' "
He says he does not know who did the shooting.
The Outcome
The Criminal Investigation Division assigned Warrant Officer Jonathan P. Coulson in Los Angeles to complete the investigation and write a final report on the "Henry Allegation." He sent his findings to headquarters in Washington in January 1974.
Evidence showed that the massacre did occur, the report said. The investigation also confirmed all but one of the other killings that Henry had described. The one exception was the elderly man thrown off a cliff. Coulson said it could not be determined whether the victim was alive when soldiers tossed him.
The evidence supported murder charges in five incidents against nine "subjects," including Carter and Bonilla, Coulson wrote. Those two carried out the Feb. 8 massacre, along with "other unidentified members of their element," the report said.
Investigators determined that there was not enough evidence to charge Reh with murder, because of conflicting accounts "as to the actual language" he used.
But Reh could be charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the killings, the report said.
Coulson conferred with an Army legal advisor, Capt. Robert S. Briney, about whether the evidence supported charges against Taylor.
They decided it did not. Even if Taylor gave an order to kill the Vietnamese if they moved, the two concluded, "it does not constitute an order to kill the prisoners in the manner in which they were executed."
The War Crimes Working Group records give no indication that action was taken against any of the men named in the report.
Briney, now an attorney in Phoenix, says he has forgotten details of the case but recalls a reluctance within the Army to pursue such charges.
"They thought the war, if not over, was pretty much over. Why bring this stuff up again?" he says.
Years Later
Taylor retired in 1977 with the rank of colonel. In a recent interview outside his home in northern Virginia, he said, "I would not have given an order to kill civilians. It's not in my makeup. I've been in enough wars to know that it's not the right thing to do."
Reh, who left active duty in 1978 and now lives in Northern California, declined to be interviewed by The Times.
Carter, a retired postal worker living in Florida, says he has no memory of his combat experiences. "I guess I've wiped Vietnam and all that out of my mind. I don't remember shooting anyone or ordering anyone to shoot," he says.
He says he does not dispute that a massacre took place. "I don't doubt it, but I don't remember.... Sometimes people just snap."
Henry was re-interviewed by an Army investigator in 1972, and was never contacted again. He drifted away from the antiwar movement, moved north and became a logger in California's Sierra Nevada foothills. He says he had no idea he had been vindicated - until The Times contacted him in 2005.
Last fall, he read the case file over a pot of coffee at his dining room table in a comfortably worn house, where he lives with his wife, Patty.
"I was a wreck for a couple days," Henry, now 59, wrote later in an e-mail. "It was like a time warp that put me right back in the middle of that mess. Some things long forgotten came back to life. Some of them were good and some were not.
"Now that whole stinking war is back. After you left, I just sat in my chair and shook for a couple hours. A slight emotional stress fracture?? Don't know, but it soon passed and I decided to just keep going with this business. If it was right then, then it still is."
Times researcher Janet Lundblad contributed to this report.
About this report
Nick Turse is a freelance journalist living in New Jersey. Deborah Nelson is a staff writer in The Times' Washington bureau.
This report is based in part on records of the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group filed at the National Archives in College Park, Md. The collection includes 241 case summaries that chronicle more than 300 substantiated atrocities by U.S. forces and 500 unconfirmed allegations.
The archive includes reports of war crimes by the 101st Airborne Division's Tiger Force that the Army listed as unconfirmed. The Toledo Blade documented the atrocities in a 2003 newspaper series.
Turse came across the collection in 2002 while researching his doctoral dissertation for the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University.
Turse and Nelson also reviewed Army inspector general records in the National Archives; FBI and Army Criminal Investigation Division records; documents shared by military veterans; and case files and related records in the Col. Henry Tufts Archive at the University of Michigan.
A selection of documents used in preparing this report can be found at latimes.com/vietnam.
Comment: Interesting, is it not, that some things never change. Today, in Iraq, US troops have been given a similar order to "kill all male Iraqis" in a given area. Just who is giving these orders? And how can they be so inhuman? Are they human at all?
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Indonesian Muslim group claims to have sent fighters to Lebanon
Haaretz.com
By Associated Press
08/08/06
A hardline Islamic group in Indonesia claimed Tuesday that 20 of its members had traveled to Lebanon to join the fight against Israel.
It was not possible to independently verify the claim by the Islamic Defenders Front.
Similar claims by militant groups in Indonesia in recent years have proved to be false.
Front spokesman Soleh Mahmud said the 20 men left Indonesia five days ago and are now undergoing training in Lebanon under the supervision of Hezbollah guerillas.
"They are ready to die to defend Muslims," Mahmud told The Associated Press.
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"Kill All Military Age Men!"
Gary Leupp
August 5, 2006
America's "Heroes" on Trial
Col. Michael Steele is a hero to some for his role in the "Black Hawk Down" affair in Somalia back in 1993. Recall that the first President Bush had sent in U.S. troops on a "humanitarian" mission, maintained by his successor Bill Clinton. The duties of the men under Steele's command included capturing militia leaders considered unfriendly to the U.S. and its local favorites. In the course of performing such missions in Mogadishu, Steele's Rangers lost two Black Hawk helicopters and 18 men---while U.S. forces killed about 1000 Somali civilians in a "rescue operation." The 2001 film "Black Hawk Down" depicts the episode from the imperialist point of view, glorifying Steele (played by Jason Isaacs, best known to many as the evil Lucius Malfoy in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire").
Recently acquiring more glory in Iraq, Steele has boasted of his unit's death count. Last November he declared, "We are absolutely giving the enemy the maximum opportunity to die for his country." This piece of petty bravado indicates that the colonel at least recognizes that the Iraqis he faces are indeed men fighting for their country, against an invader. What to do with these patriots, but to kill them?
Recall that four U.S. soldiers have recently been charged with murdering three Iraqi civilians. It happens that they were all under the Col. Steele's command, and Steele has been reprimanded in connection with the incident. More than that, he is under investigation for issuing an order to his men during "Operation Iron Triangle" in Samarra on May 9 to "kill all military age males." His men, as part of their defense, are claiming he did.
The phrase "all military age males" surfaced earlier in official commentary on the rape of Fallujah. Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, who commanded the 5th Marine Battalion in Fallujah in 2004 told the London Guardian that "95% of those" killed by U.S. forces "were military age males that were killed in the fighting That's fine, because they'll get whipped up, come out fighting again and get mowed down ... Their only choices are to submit or die." (Submit to the invaders, kids. Or have your fucking jihadi heads blown off.)
In the Black Hawk Down episode, a certain Spc. John Stebbins helped rescue Ranger comrades from the righteous wrath of the Somalis. He was your all-American hero for a time, but his part got written out of the Hollywood "Black Hawk Down" script. (He'd been convicted of raping his preteen daughter and sentenced to 30 years in Leavenworth Prison.) Reportedly the Pentagon, intimately involved in the propaganda film project, urged that the Stebbins role be omitted. Just too embarrassing. Neither the Pentagon nor Hollywood wants to glorify soldiers who've been exposed as total scumbags.
Even in the current warmongering atmosphere---intensified by the U.S.-endorsed Israeli assault upon Lebanon---it can be difficult to urge public reverence for those linked to the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Not impossible, mind you; the currently comatose Ariel Sharon, found responsible by an Israeli court for the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla, was pronounced "a man of peace" by the current American president. But more difficult in the present quasi-democracy than under a thoroughly fascist regime. So let's hope that the investigations into these murders clarify for millions more the viciousness and rapacity of the whole so-called "War on Terrorism."
"Kill all military age men." Free-fire zone, any 13 year-old boy fair game. Mow the boys down! says the heroic colonel. Let them die for their country. Show them what happens when they hijack planes in the U.S. and kill Americans. There's evil in the Muslim Arab world, and it has attacked us. We (the good) respond with righteous wrath, with shock and awe and moral certitude. We are trying to give freedom to the Iraqi people, in order to stop terrorism. But a lot of them fight us because they hate freedom. In self-defense in certain areas where there are lots of insurgents, we have to kill all military age men.
No doubt this was the argument fed the four soldiers mentioned above, whose case is being heard by a military court in Tikrit. Polls show a staggering majority of the troops actually believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11 attacks. That suggests that their commanders have been telling them a lot that is simply wrong.
Steele among other Army officers has announced his intention not to testify at the hearing in Tikrit. So have the four, invoking their right not to incriminate themselves. One of them, a Sgt. Raymond Girouard, has been accused by Private First Class Bradley Mason of threatening him before he testified about the May 9 incident: "If you say anything, I'll kill you."
Here we have, I submit, a Hollywood movie so much richer than "Black Hawk Down." A courtroom film, with lots of legalistic eloquence and lots of battlefield flashbacks. I'd love to hear Jason Isaacs bark, "Kill all military age men!" Maybe that would arouse some moral indignation in the audience at the terrorist quality of the war in Iraq.
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Science Korner
Scientists discover region's largest meteor crater
Jordan Times - 08/08/2006
AMMAN - A group of local and international scientists have discovered a huge crater in the eastern part of the country caused by a gigantic meteorite, thought to be the largest such find in the region.
The impact site in Jabal Waqf es Swwan, some 200 kilometres east of the Karak Governorate close to the Saudi border, was discovered by University of Jordan geology professors Elias Salameh and Hani Khoury, along with German professor Werner Schneider.
According to Salameh, the meteorite struck the area around 7,500-10,000 years ago with an impact diameter of about 100 metres.
"The damage force of such an impact might equal 5,000 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb," according to Salameh, adding that it would have destroyed everything within a radius of hundreds of kilometres.
The crater consists of two concentric circles. The diameter of the outer ring measures around 5.5km, with the inner ring measuring 2.7km.
The impact size and velocity, according to Salameh, would have raised the atmospheric temperature within a radius of 10 kilometres to more than one thousand degrees centigrade, spewing millions of tonnes of rocks, vapour, dust and smoke into the atmosphere.
This in turn would have formed an atmospheric cloud so large as to plunge the entire earth into darkness, with continuous rain for months or even years, resulting in the widespread flooding of low lands, according to a statement by the University of Jordan.
The discovery is thought to be the largest such meteorite crater in the region.
Future research at the site, which has been well-preserved due to the area's dry climate, will be supported by the University of Jordan and the Higher Council for Science and Technology.
Highlighting the importance of the find, Salameh said the site is expected to explain many geologic and historic features and events such as calcinated rocks, molten rock, highly jointed and cracked rocks.
There are around 130 crater structures of impact origin in the world. One of the oldest and largest clearly visible sites is the Vredefort Dome, located in South Africa.
The original crater, now eroded, was probably 250 to 300 kilometres in diameter, larger than the Sudbury impact structure in Canada, about 200km in diameter.
At two billion years old, Vredefort is far older than the Chixculub structure in Mexico which, with an age of 65 million years, is the site of the impact that is said to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
All relevant institutions in Jordan have been informed about the discovery, including the Badia Project, the Department of Lands and Survey and the Natural Resources Authority, in order to take the necessary steps to conserve the site.
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Vanuatu hit by earthquake; no damage reports
Posted at 2:11pm on 08 Aug 2006
An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the open Richter scale struck 75 kilometres from the largest island of Vanuatu this morning.
The depth of the quake was nearly 150 kilometres.
There are no reports of damage.
William Worwor at Vanuatu's met service says there would have been very little time to warn of a possible tsunami.
"If a tsunami was generated - some of the islands that were very close to the epicentre would have already been struck by a tsunami."
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Amsterdam rocked by 'record' earthquake
Expatica.com
8 August 2006
AMSTERDAM - An earthquake shook the north of the Netherlands early on Tuesday morning. Measuring 3.5 on the Richter Scale, it was equal in strength to the strongest earthquake on record in the northern Netherlands. This took place in Alkmaar five years ago.
Tuesday's quake in Groningen at around 7am was registered by all seismic stations in the country. It was centred on the town of Middelstum which lies in the middle of the gas fields in the province.
The town has experienced several earthquake in recent years. Weather and seismic agency KNMI and local broadcaster RTV Noord were bombarded with telephone calls and emails from concerned residents after the latest
quake.
Hein Haak said the earthquake was the largest ever measured in Groningen and was felt across the entire province.
There have been 10 quakes roughly equivalent to this magnitude since the first earthquake caused by the gas drilling took place in 1986. There have been several dozen smaller shooks during this period too.
The earthquakes result from tension in the earth's crust caused by the extraction of gas. The tension increases in correlation to the amount of gas extraction. The first earthquake took place 27 years after drilling began in Groningen in 1959.
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Stressed-out plants warn their offspring
Nature.com
By Heidi Ledford
08/06/06
Increased tendency to mutate is handed down to next generation.
Plants under stress not only activate their own defences, but also manage to pass on a possible protective strategy to their descendants. That's the surprising conclusion of a study published online today by Nature1.
Stresses such as pathogen infection or ultraviolet radiation can trigger increased rates of genetic mutation in some plant cells, occasionally even scrambling regions of their DNA. Some scientists hypothesize that by augmenting their genomic flexibility, plants boost their ability to produce genetic changes that could allow them to adapt to stressful environments. Now it seems that plants can also pass this genetic pliability on to their offspring.
Researchers in Barbara Hohn's lab at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, study a process in which one piece of DNA within the genome replaces another fragment of similar sequence. This process, called 'homologous recombination', occurs more frequently in stressed plants. Plants grown near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear-reactor accident, for example, were found to have rates of homologous recombination that increased with the dose of radiation they received.
By chance, a student in Hohn's lab found that the rate of homologous recombination was curiously high in a particular batch of cress plant or Arabidopsis seeds. When he traced back the origin of the seeds, he discovered that the parent had been irradiated.
"Nobody set out to do this," says Hohn. "It was pure serendipity."
Stressful memories
After the accidental discovery, Hohn's group set out to examine what was going on. The team found that, as expected, giving a parental plant a burst of ultraviolet radiation or a simulated pathogen attack boosted the rate of homologous recombination in some of its cells. And when the change occurred in cells that are used to form the plants' offspring, all progeny carried the genetic change.
But, surprisingly, even if the cells used to create the progeny didn't carry the genetic change, the offspring of the stressed plants were still more likely to undergo homologous recombination in their own cells. They had inherited a tendency to mutate.
The memory of the initial stress lasted a long time; at least four generations had an increased level of homologous recombination.
Exactly how plants pass down this information is unknown. Hohn believes that the mechanism is 'epigenetic' - inheritance of a trait without a corresponding change in DNA sequence. Chemical modification of a plant's DNA that happens during its lifetime, for example, can be copied into the progeny's DNA. Or RNA, an intermediate that helps to convert DNA information into proteins, may be ferried from a parent's cells into its offspring's.
Hohn is quick to point out that her lab has not shown that the progeny of stressed parents are themselves more stress-tolerant, so it is unclear what advantage, if any, this inheritance gives the subsequent generations. "If the plants become UV-resistant or pathogen-resistant," she says, "that would be adaptive evolution." Hohn's lab hasn't yet tested whether this is so.
Staying put
It makes sense that plants would have elaborate strategies for coping with stress, says Christopher Cullis, a biologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. "Plants can't get up and find somewhere nicer," says Cullis. "So they've got to find a way of coping with that stress." But he finds it surprising that a single burst of stress seems sufficient to trigger such a long-lasting response.
Eric Richards, a biology professor at Washington University in St Louis, says that results from Hohn's lab are intriguing. One interesting follow-up, he adds, is to check whether recombination has increased throughout the plant's entire genome. Hohn's lab is set up to look at just one specific gene, so they haven't yet taken this broader approach.
"I think there's probably a lot more of these inherited epigenetic phenomena out there than people think," says Richards, who himself studies plant epigenetics. "I guess it's now come to the point at which people are starting to take these things seriously."
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The perfume that smells of cheese
By LIZ HANCOCK
Daily Mail
7th August 2006
The perfume industry has long followed conventions: nice-smelling ingredients, usually derived from flowers and plants, are blended into a harmony of aromas, creating fragrant concoctions to allure and delight.
But an emerging trend is seeing perfumers break with tradition, as they look to diversify in an over-flooded market. Cheese, cars and the smell of sweat are just some of the latest scents to be captured and bottled for a market eager to try unique and individual new perfumes.
"Savvy fragrance companies have realised that more discerning customers don't want to smell like everyone else," confirms Caroline Brien, beauty features editor at Marie Claire. "There's a small but significant trend for fragrances that don't conform to tradition, and it's a trend that's growing."
The most recent - and definitely most surprising - launch captures the smell of Stilton cheese. Said to be chasing Cat Deeley as its 'face', Eau de Stilton is a 'distinctive' olfactory blend of notes including clary sage, yarrow and angelica seed (www.stiltoncheese.com).
Elsewhere, aged rockers Kiss are to launch their own fragrance line this autumn, containing a heady whiff of sweat and pheromones, along with sinful accords of bare skin and patent leather.
One is only left to imagine what Marilyn Manson's hotly-awaited perfume is going to smell like.
Christopher Brosius, meanwhile, is the innovative perfumer who created Demeter - the influential American perfume house known for bottling such singular experiences as Fireplace, Dirt, and Sex On The Beach.
Now with his own range of fragrances, rather candidly called C.B. I Hate Perfume, Brosius's creations are closer to art than commerce, and provide truly conceptual olfactive experiences (www.cbihateperfume.com).
Fragrances such as At The Beach 1966, Winter 1972, and In The Library are sure to trigger an emotional experience far greater than any combination of rose, raspberry and vanilla. This trend is not so much about smelling 'nice' but making a statement of individuality.
While he may not necessarily endorse such outlandish concoctions, fragrance expert Roja Dove, whose Haute Parfumerie at Harrods (020 7893 8797) houses many of the world's most highly-coveted perfumes, does note the wider trend that such fragrances are part of.
Individuality
"Why has our perfumery been so successful? Without question, I think it's because so many people are fed up with everything smelling the same. There's no individuality any more."
Traditionally, perfumery used to depend on the discovery of natural ingredients but today - with few parts of the world left unexplored - the prevalence of undiscovered materials is rare. It is now falling to unconventional synthetic ingredients to push the industry forward.
Fashion house Comme des Garcons has pioneered this area, by creating scents based on dry cleaning, sherbet and tar, to name a few. Far from being a wacky experiment, its perfumes have gained a popular following.
This summer the label re-launched two of its most revolutionary fragrances at Harvey Nichols stores nationwide (020 7499 4420). Both described as 'anti-perfumes', Odeur 71, £55, captures inorganic smells of 'dust on a hot light-bulb', 'warm photocopier toner' and 'fresh pencil shavings'; while Odeur 53, £52, is a surprisingly fragrant blend of concept smells such as 'flaming rock', 'flash of metal' and nail polish.
"In terms of unusual notes, both the industry and consumers have evolved past accepting the quirky scents such as dirt or grass (both by Demeter) that had a hip following in the Nineties," says Marie Claire's Caroline Brien.
"Today, these kind of notes have to add depth to a perfume or have enough character to stand up alone, increasingly delivering the obscure scent they promise on the bottle."
Rather fittingly, then, one of the latest underground fragrance launches does just that. Possibly the most unconventional of all perfumes, Molecule 01 by Escentric Molecules isn't a fragrance (usually a blend of as many as 100 components) at all, but a solitary synthetic scent - the aroma chemical Iso E Super, which has a pheromone effect.
"It's certainly a new thing, the idea that you can wear a single molecule on its own," says Geza Schoen, the nose and creator behind Escentric Molecules. "Even I was surprised how popular it was, because it was meant to be for people who wanted a feeling more than an actual fragrance. But that's what they like, they like that it's different."
Molecule 01, which is more of an effect than an aroma, along with its counterpart fragrance Escentric 01, blended with pink pepper, lime and incense, (020 7235 5000), has become a phenomenon.
With worldwide waiting lists, and a bevy of fans including Madonna, Elton and David, Dita von Teese and Kate Moss - who ordered a case of the stuff - these highly-addictive, pheromonic concoctions, both £59, are proof of the growing popularity of rebel perfumes.
"It's incredible because we're a brand that nobody knows, but that doesn't seem to matter," says Geza Schoen.
"People just like the fragrance and they even ask other people wearing it on the street what it is. Ten years ago the industry was all about the big perfumery brands. Now things have become more individualistic and perfumers can start to make a statement."
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Drug 'treats depression in hours'
BBC News
08/07/06
An anaesthetic can treat depression within hours, US research suggests.
The study involving 17 patients found ketamine - used as an anaesthetic but also taken as a recreational drug - relieved symptoms of depression.
Most existing treatments for depression take weeks or even months to relieve people's symptoms.
But the team, writing in Archives of General Psychiatry, said ketamine would need to be altered so it lost its existing hallucinatory side-effects.
Scientists from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) injected 17 patients with either a very low dose of ketamine or a placebo of saline solution.
The participants were all depression sufferers who had tried an average of six treatments that had failed.
The researchers then measured their levels of depression minutes, hours and days after the dose was given.
Lead researcher Dr Carlos Zarate Junior, head of the mood and anxiety disorders programme at NIMH, said: "Within 110 minutes, half of the patients given ketamine showed a 50% decrease in symptoms."
By the end of day one, he added, 71% had responded to the drug. And at this point the team found 29% of these patients were nearly symptom free.
The researchers also discovered one dose lasted for at least a week in more than one-third of the participants.
Brain pathways
Dr Thomas Insel, director of NIMH, commented: "To my knowledge, this is the first report of any medication or other treatment that results in such a pronounced, rapid, prolonged response with a single dose.
"These were very treatment-resistant patients."
Many antidepressants target levels of brain chemicals, such as serotonin and dopamine, and, over time, the accumulation of these chemicals can affect a patient's mood. But this can take several weeks.
But the team believes ketamine is having a faster effect because it is targeting a different brain-protein, called the NMDA receptor, which is thought to play a critical role in learning and memory.
The team says ketamine, in its current form, would not be appropriate for medication because of side-effects at higher doses, which include hallucinations and euphoria.
Dr Zarate said: "This study is a tool to help us understand what part of ketamine is causing this effect so we can refine and develop better drugs.
"We are also looking at ways that we could use ketamine maybe in lower doses or with drugs that block its perceptual effects so we could perhaps use it clinically."
Professor John Henry, a clinical toxicologist at St Mary's Hospital in London, said: "This is a very interesting piece of work, very neatly done, with promising results.
"More studies need to be done to see if ketamine would work over a longer period given in repeated doses.
"The benefit of having a fast-working drug would mean people could return to work quickly, and it could reduce risk of self-harm or suicide that could happen during the time-lag that occurs with other drugs."
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Spider Invasion Creeping Out Austrians
The Associated Press
By Noura Maan
08/04/06
VIENNA, Austria -- An eight-legged invasion is giving some Austrians the creeps. The venomous yellow sack spider, whose painful bite can cause headache and nausea, has become the talk of the town since several people were bitten earlier this summer.
Reports of spider sightings have dominated local media, triggering hundreds of calls to a Vienna poison hotline and prompting the government to issue a plea for calm.
"The bites of a yellow sack spider are indeed painful but not deadly," Health Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat said in a statement. "If you are bitten, please don't panic and in case of discomfort immediately contact a doctor."
Underscoring the hysteria, 190 people who feared they might have been bitten went Wendesday to the main hospital in the northwestern city of Linz. Only eight of them turned out to have possible symptoms, doctors told Austrian state broadcaster ORF.
Eva Reiner, a Vienna business consultant, fished a dead yellow sack spider out of her pool this week _ and has not gone swimming since.
"It wasn't even alive, and it still looked evil to me," she said.
But experts are urging people to keep things in perspective.
The yellow and brown striped critter, whose Latin name is Cheiracanthium Punctorium and is known in German as a "Dornfingerspinne," is one of 1,000 similar species found in Austria and neighboring countries including Germany, Italy and Switzerland, said Christian Komposch of an animal ecology institute in the southern city of Graz.
There are sightings every year, said Komposch, who blames the media for spreading misleading information and fanning the frenzy.
Dr. Christian Baldinger, a physician in the province of Upper Austria, said he was bitten last week while working in his garden.
"It was like a stinging nettle, but not really painful," said Baldinger, 53. Within two days, the wound was red and infected, and a specialist told him the symptoms could take eight to 10 weeks to subside.
Komposch advises people who think they may have been bitten to treat the wound with hot water.
"The most important thing is: Don't panic!" he said.
For the not-so-faint at heart, the spider could bring in some cash.
Collectors are willing to fork over more than $255 for a single specimen, according to Kurier, an Austrian daily.
But some people, such as 26-year-old bank employee Robert Schneider, do not know what all the fuss is about.
"I think everyone is exaggerating," he said. "I'm not sure I would recognize a yellow sack spider if I saw one."
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Saying "No"
Judge seeks to indict Pinochet over missing priest
Reuters
Mon Aug 7, 2006
SANTIAGO, Chile - A judge petitioned one of Chile's top courts on Monday to strip ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet's immunity from prosecution so he can be investigated and possibly indicted for his suspected role in the 1974 disappearance of a Spanish priest.
The priest, Antonio Llido, who belonged to a religious group that supported socialism and opposed the dictatorship, was detained in September 1974 by the military government's secret police.
Witnesses say Llido was tortured and interrogated by the secret police. He is presumed dead because all traces of him vanished in October 1974, but his body has never been found.
Members of the secret police have been tried in the case but none were convicted, and a group of Chilean and Spanish priests decided to file a lawsuit against Pinochet. Judge Jorge Zepeda was assigned the case and asked the Santiago Appeals Court to decide the immunity issue.
Pinochet, now 90 years old, led a 1973 coup and subsequent 17-year military dictatorship in Chile, during which more than 3,000 people died in political violence and tens of thousands were detained and tortured.
Fabiola Letelier, the attorney representing the priests, said there was ample proof of Pinochet's responsibility in the case.
"There is multiple evidence against (him). One of them is the meeting of a group of Spanish priests with Pinochet, who said when shown a picture of Llido, "This isn't a priest, it's an extremist," Letelier said.
"This proves that Pinochet knew about the victim's situation," Letelier said.
Under Chilean law the courts may rule on Pinochet's immunity, a privilege of former presidents, on a case-by-case basis.
The former dictator has been stripped of immunity in several other human rights cases, but some previous indictments were thrown out of court after his defense argued that he was too ill to face trial.
Pinochet has also been indicted on tax evasion charges related to an estimated $27 million he held in offshore accounts. He is also being investigated on charges of embezzlement.
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Return of ailing Castro expected 'in a few weeks'
Last Updated Mon, 07 Aug 2006 21:51:08 EDT
The Associated Press
Cuba's vice president and Venezuela's leader gave optimistic assessments of Fidel Castro's health, saying the Cuban president was recovering quickly from intestinal surgery and could be expected back at work within a few weeks.
Castro, who turns 80 on Aug. 13, has been out of sight since July 31. His secretary announced that Castro had undergone surgery and was temporarily ceding power to his younger brother, Defence Minister Raul Castro.
"In a few weeks, he'll be recovered and he'll return to his duties," Vice President Carlos Lage said Sunday while speaking to reporters in Bolivia, where he was attending the Andean country's constitutional convention.
"The operation that he underwent was successful and he is recovering favourably. Fidel's going to be around for another 80 years."
Lage said Castro's return would expose a U.S. policy of "lies" behind speculation that he would not recover from the operation.
Cubans have been told most details of Castro's health would be kept a state secret to prevent the island's enemies from taking advantage of his condition. Officials have not said what precisely was ailing Castro or what surgical procedure he underwent.
Lage had earlier shot down reports that Castro had stomach cancer.
Castro up and talking, Chavez says
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Castro was out of bed and talking following his surgery.
"How are you, Fidel?" Chavez said during his weekly TV and radio program, suggesting he believed the Cuban leader was watching. "We have reliable information of your quick and notable recuperation.
"Fidel Castro, a hug for you, friend and comrade, and I know you are getting better," he added.
Speaking by phone with Bolivian President Evo Morales later during the program, Chavez said Castro was bouncing back quickly.
"This morning I learned that he's very well, that he is already getting out of bed, he's talking more than he should - because he talks a lot, you know. He has sent us greetings," Chavez said.
Morales, a leftist elected in December as Bolivia's first Indian president, said he was glad to learn of Castro's recovery and that "what's left is for him to be incorporated into the battle of his country" again. Morales said Castro was like an "older brother."
Leftist leaders send best wishes
Get-well wishes poured in from leftist leaders across the hemisphere.
Former Nicaraguan President and Sandinista revolution leader Daniel Ortega arrived in Havana late Saturday.
"I am sure that we will soon have Fidel resuming his functions and leading his people," Ortega said.
Colombia's largest rebel group also expressed its solidarity with the Cuban leader. "We hope you'll recover in the shortest time possible," the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia said in a statement.
U.S. won't invade Cuba, Rice says
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday the United States wanted to help Cubans prepare for democracy but was not contemplating an invasion of the island in the wake of Castro's illness.
"The notion that somehow the United States is going to invade Cuba, because there are troubles in Cuba, is simply far-fetched," Rice told NBC News.
"The United States wants to be a partner and a friend to the Cuban people as they move through this period of difficulty and as they move ahead. But what Cuba should not have is the replacement of one dictator by another."
Cuba boosts militias, street patrols
Cuban authorities have beefed up security by mobilizing citizen defence militias, increasing street patrols and ordering decommissioned military officers to check in daily.
Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the island's top clergyman, called on parishioners to pray for Castro's health, peace on the island and fraternity among all Cubans, both here and abroad.
"We pray for the fatherland, for Cuba, and those who are leading it," Ortega told reporters after Sunday Mass at the cathedral in Old Havana.
Outside another church, a group of political prisoners' wives known as the Ladies in White held their weekly silent march without interruption by authorities.
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US urged to stop threatening Cuba
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-08 12:53:37
HAVANA, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- More than 400 intellectuals from 50 countries called on the United States in a signed open letter to stop threatening Cuba and to respect the nation's sovereignty, some of the signatories told a press conference here on Monday.
"Faced with the growing threat to one nation's integrity, and to the peace and security of Latin America and the world, we the undersigned demand that the United States government respect Cuba's sovereignty," says the letter that was jointly presented by Belgian sociologist and theologian Francois Houtart, editor of themagazine Areito, Andres Gomez, and president of the Casa de las Americas, Roberto Fernandez Retamar.
The letter denounced statements made by U.S. government officials following the July 31 operation on Cuba's leader Fidel Castro to control an intestinal hemorrhage.
U.S. President George W. Bush threatened after Castro's illnessthat "we are working actively for a change in Cuba, not simply hoping it will happen," while U.S. trade secretary Carlos Gutierrez's said, "The moment has come for a transition to a real democracy."
Castro, who turns 80 on Aug. 13, has been out of sight since July 31, when his secretary went on state television to announce he had undergone surgery and was temporarily ceding power to Defense Minister Raul Castro.
The intellectuals also denounced a recent leaked plan by the Commission for a Free Cuba, which is run by Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state. The plan included anti-Castro measures that "must remain secret for reasons of national security and so they can be realized effectively."
The letter said it was not difficult to imagine what such measures might be, adding that "we must halt a new aggression at all costs."
Cuba has been under a U.S. financial embargo since 1960s. Castro, who took control of Cuba in 1959, has survived repeated U.S. attempts to topple him.
Fernandez, president of Casa de las Americas, called on intellectuals of the world to sign the letter on internet.
Signatories included Nobel Prize-winning writers Jose Saramago from Portugal, Wole Soyinka from Nigeria, Adolfo Perez Esquivel from Argentina and Dario Fo from Italy. Social activists Desmond Tutu and Nadine Gordimer from South Africa, and Rigoberta Menchu from Guatemala, also put their names to the letter.
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Venezuela to send 20 tons of humanitarian aid to Lebanon
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-08 10:45:29
CARACAS, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela will deliver to Lebanon more than 20 tons of humanitarian aid, coordinated by the country's Foreign Ministry and the Disasters and Civil Protection Administration (DCPA), the DCPA said on Monday.
The DCPA national director, Antonio Rivero, said food, drinking water and medicines would be sent using the same Boeing 707 and Conviasa 737-300 of the Air Force, which repatriated more than 500 Venezuelans fleeing Israel's bombardment of Lebanon.
Doctors and paramedics will travel with the aid.
"This is the aid that we have been requested due to the armed conflict in the Middle East," Rivero told reporters at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, just outside the capital Caracas.
More than 920 people have died since July 12, when Israel started a campaign of airstrikes after the Lebanon-based guerilla group, Hezbollah, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others.
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Israel recalls Caracas ambassador in Chavez protest
Reuters
08/07/06
Israel has recalled its ambassador to Caracas following comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez comparing Israel to Hitler, Israel's foreign ministry said on Monday.
"We have recalled our ambassador to Caracas for consultations," said ministry spokesman Mark Regev.
"We are concerned at the attitude of Venezuela... They have allied themselves with the most extreme elements in the region."
In an interview with Qatar-based Al Jazeera television last week, Chavez criticised Israel for its attacks on Lebanon and the Palestinians, comparing its operations to those of Hitler.
The day before the interview, Chavez ordered the withdrawal of Venezuela's ambassador to Israel in protest.
Regev said Israel did not appreciate Chavez's allying himself with views similar to those of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel.
"We have a Venezuelan president who embraces the Iranian leader who just a couple of days ago called for Israel to be wiped off the map," said Regev.
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Modern Times
U R Fired: British store worker fired by text message sent to her cellphone
15:38:03 EDT Aug 7, 2006
Canadian Press
LONDON (AP) - Katy Tanner's cellphone beeped with a startling message: you're fired.
Tanner, 21, had a migraine headache and took a sick day last week from her job at Blue Banana, a chain body-piercing studio in Cardiff, Wales, she said Monday. She turned on her cellphone the next day to discover she'd been terminated from her sales position.
"We've reviewed your sales figures and they're not really up to the level we need," shop manager Alex Barlett wrote in the message. "As a result, we will not require your services any more. Thank you for your time with us."
Ian Bisbie, a Blue Banana director said the company does not usually fire employees by text message, but had no other alternative after phoning Tanner five or six times and calling her boyfriend.
The company also defended the sacking-by-text message as a way to keep modern.
"We are a youth business and our staff are all part of the youth culture that uses (text) messaging as a major means of communication," Bisbie said in a statement e-mailed to the South Wales Echo newspaper. "Therefore as we wished to spare Miss Tanner the embarrassment and expense of coming into the store only to be sent straight home again, it was decided this was the best course of action to take."
Tanner said the text firing was unfair and it should have been done face to face.
"It was totally out of the blue," she said. "I don't think you can count it as official by text."
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French man finds dead babies in his freezer
SEOUL, Aug 7, 2006 (AFP)
South Korean police said Monday they wanted to interview a French woman following the discovery of two dead babies inside a freezer here.
The woman's 40-year-old French businessman husband found the bodies in a freezer at home on July 23, when he temporarily returned alone from a month-long family vacation in France, police said.
Police have sent personal belongings and other samples from the French man and several women, including his wife and a Filipina maid, to the National Institute of Scientific Investigation for DNA testing.
Based on the initial outcome of DNA tests, police said last week that the French man was the father of the babies. The man has reportedly refused to accept the test results.
On Monday, police said the wife should be investigated as a suspect.
"DNA tests indicate the wife is believed to be the mother of the dead babies," said Kim Gap-Sik, chief investigator at the police station in an area known as Little France, home to hundreds of French residents in South Korea.
"We want to investigate the wife as a suspect," he said, adding French authorities would be asked to cooperate.
The couple arrived in South Korea in August 2002. They left for France in June for summer vacation.
Kim did not say when the dead babies were put in the freezer but said: "We believe the babies have not been abandoned this year."
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U.S. Sanctions Related To Russia Arms Deals With Venezuela
By RIA Novosti
Aug 8, 2006
MOSCOW, August 5 -- Russia's Defense Ministry said Saturday U.S. sanctions against two Russian state-owned companies were linked with their contracts with Venezuela.
The U.S. State Department announced Friday the introduction of sanctions against Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport and state-owned aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi over their cooperation with Iran.
A high-ranking official in the Defense Ministry said, "Obviously, this decision is a reaction to recent successes of our companies in concluding beneficial contracts on arms supplies to Venezuela."
Russia signed $1-billion contracts on supplies of 30 Su-30 Flanker air-superiority fighters and 30 helicopters to Venezuela in July prior to the visit to Russia by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has moved to curb American influence in the region and consolidate ties with other South American nations since he came to power in 1998.
The Russian Foreign Ministry slammed the U.S. sanctions Friday saying, "Our companies stand accused of violating the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. We consider these actions by the U.S. State Department unacceptable."
"Russian companies cooperating with other countries in the military-technical sphere are acting in strict compliance with the rules of international law, as well as Russian law, including Russia's obligations on nuclear nonproliferation and export control," the ministry said.
The source in the Defense Ministry also said the U.S. accusations that the Russian companies were supplying technologies, which Iran could use to produce weapons of mass destruction, were groundless.
"They [the companies] have violated no international obligations and the U.S. is well aware of this," he said.
The source called the U.S. sanctions "dishonest competition on the arms market."
Some countries, led by the United States, suspect Tehran of pursuing a secret weapons program. Iran has consistently stated that it only wants nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Submitted by RIA Novosti via its New York Bureau
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Russia's Main Arms Exporter Says Unaffected by U.S. Sanctions
Created: 07.08.2006 15:50 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:24 MSK
MosNews
The newly imposed U.S. sanctions against Rosoboronexport will not affect the company's work, the general director of the Russian state arms exporter is quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying Monday.
The U.S. State Department announced Friday the introduction of two-year sanctions against Rosoboronexport and state-owned aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi over their cooperation with Iran.
"The sanctions will affect Rosoboronexport in no way as we have no contracts with the U.S. on arms supplies or purchases of any weapons by the United States," Sergei Chemezov said.
The Russian companies denied the U.S. accusations and the Foreign Ministry slammed the sanctions Friday saying, "Our companies stand accused of violating the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. We consider these actions by the U.S. State Department unacceptable."
Some countries, led by the United States, suspect Tehran of pursuing a secret weapons program. Iran has consistently stated that it only wants nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
"Russian companies cooperating with other countries in the military-technical sphere are acting in strict compliance with the rules of international law, as well as Russian law, including Russia's obligations on nuclear nonproliferation and export control," the ministry said.
A high-ranking source in the Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday called the sanctions "dishonest competition on the arms market."
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AOL apology for search data error
BBC News
08/08/06
Internet giant AOL has apologised for releasing the search queries of more than 650,000 of its US subscribers.
The company admitted the release to researchers was "a screw up" and had breached the privacy of its users.
AOL said it was an "innocent attempt to reach out to the academic community with research tools".
Although users' names were not associated with the search terms, fears were raised that the queries may contain personally identifiable data.
It is not clear which researchers were given the data and how they intended to use it.
The AOL search data was posted about 10 days ago but was not widely known outside the research community until blogs began pointing to AOL's research site on Sunday.
Copies circulating
AOL removed the file, but not before copies were already circulating on the internet.
The data file had information on 19 million queries and included information on what search terms were used, when the search was conducted and whether the user clicked on any of the results.
"We're angry and upset about it," AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said.
He said that AOL should have vetted the data before releasing it.
Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the technology watchdog group Center for Democracy and Technology, praised AOL for responding quickly.
"We're glad to hear that AOL is treating this as a serious incident because it is a serious incident," he told the Associated Press news agency.
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Paying the bills
Stocks fall as oil price soars
By Ellis Mnyandu
Reuters
Mon Aug 7, 2006
NEW YORK - U.S. stocks fell on Monday as a shutdown of a key oil pipeline by BP Plc drove up oil prices, fueling concerns about inflation and slower economic growth a day before the Fed's interest-rate meeting.
Energy shares rose but consumer-oriented stocks, including Altria Group Inc., and shares of transport companies, including package shipper FedEx Corp., took a hit.
Traders said the rise in crude could outweigh the positive impact of a much anticipated pause in the Fed's rate-hike campaign at the central bank's policy meeting on Tuesday.
"Higher crude oil prices have the potential to fuel more rate hikes because the spike is inflationary," said Evan Olsen, head of equity trading at Stephens Inc. in Little Rock. "The Fed is guarding against inflation, so the effect of a pause could be temporary, in terms of market sentiment."
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 20.97 points, or 0.19 percent, to end at 11,219.38. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined 3.59 points, or 0.28 percent, to finish at 1,275.77. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 12.55 points, or 0.60 percent, to close at 2,072.50.
Shares of Altria, parent of Marlboro cigarette maker Philip Morris USA and Oreo cookie maker Kraft, fell 1 percent, or 80 cents, to $79.10 on the New York Stock Exchange. Altria was the biggest drag on the blue-chip Dow average and the second-heaviest weight on the broad S&P 500.
The jump in oil prices, caused by the shutdown of an Alaskan oil field, added to worries about slowing economic growth after Friday's weaker-than-expected July jobs data.
Surging crude prices gave energy stocks a boost. But shares of diversified manufacturers, including General Electric Co, and other companies, whose fortunes are closely tied to economic cycles, came under pressure.
OIL NEAR $77 WHIPS TRANSPORTS
The Dow Jones Transportation Average dropped 1.42 percent, pulled lower by Union Pacific Corp., parent of the biggest U.S. railroad, and FedEx. Shares of Union Pacific fell 3.4 percent, or $2.86, to $80.99, while FedEx shares dropped 1.3 percent, or $1.35, to $103.16. Both trade on the NYSE.
U.S. crude oil for September delivery jumped $2.22 to settle at $76.98 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange following the shutdown of the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska. BP cited extensive corrosion in the pipeline, and said it will not commit to a date for restarting the oil field.
"The higher the oil price goes, the more concern there's going to be about the effect on economic growth," said Michael James, senior trader at regional investment bank Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles. "There's also uncertainty about what type of forward commentary you're likely to get from the Fed, taking into account factors like oil."
On Tuesday, the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policy-making arm, is expected to hold interest rates steady after a two-year monetary tightening cycle that has lifted the Fed's benchmark federal funds rate from 1 percent to 5.25 percent in 17 quarter-point increases.
In Monday's regular trading, shares of Dow component GE fell 0.3 percent, or 11 cents, to $32.69 on the NYSE, while those of 3M Co., another diversified manufacturer, dropped 0.7 percent, or 45 cents, to $69.
APPLE FALLS, PRICELINE.COM FLIES LATE
On the Nasdaq, shares of Apple Computer Inc., lost 1.6 percent, or $1.09, to $67.21, following disappointment about not enough new product announcements from the maker of the iPod digital music player.
But energy shares rose along with the higher oil prices. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, rose 0.8 percent, or 54 cents, to $69.23 on the NYSE.
Exxon, which hit a lifetime high of $69.62 during the session, was the biggest advancer in both the blue-chip Dow average and the S&P 500. Chevron Corp. was the S&P 500's second-biggest gainer. Its stock rose 1.8 percent, or $1.17, to $66.83.
After the bell, shares of Priceline.com Inc. jumped 9.2 percent to $28.84 on the Inet electronic brokerage system after the online travel company reported higher second-quarter profit. In regular trading,Priceline.com shares closed unchanged on Nasdaq at $26.41.
Volume was moderate on the NYSE, where about 1.35 billion shares changed hands, below last year's daily average of 1.61 billion. On the Nasdaq, about 1.48 billion shares traded, below last year's daily average of 1.80 billion.
Decliners outnumbered advancers by a ratio of about 7 to 4 on the NYSE, while about two stocks fell for every one that rose on the Nasdaq.
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Strike starts at world's largest copper mine
By Pav Jordan
Reuters
Mon Aug 7, 2006
SANTIAGO, Chile - Workers started a strike on Monday at Chile's Escondida copper mine, cutting 60 percent from daily production as they walked off the job to demand a wage and benefits hike from its foreign owners.
"Around 60 percent of output," is being affected by the strike, BHP Billiton spokesman Mauro Valdes told Reuters on Monday, hours after the widely anticipated walkout. Workers said the strike cut production by as much as 80 percent.
The mine, the world's largest copper mine, applied an immediate contingency plan to maintain basic output, but Valdes could not say what the effects of a prolonged strike might be.
"Minera Escondida reiterates it desire to maintain dialogue (with workers) and trusts the strike will be carried out in a responsible and legal form," the company said in a statement.
Workers at Escondida, which produces about 20 percent of Chile's copper and accounts for 2.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product, are demanding a new contract to replace a 2003 deal that was signed when copper prices were about a fifth of what they are now.
Local television showed union workers tossing rocks the size of basketballs onto the road leading to the mine in northern Chile to obstruct the potential entry of transports carrying replacement personnel.
Talks between the company and the union grew increasingly combative in recent weeks, with each accusing the other of not ceding ground in their demands.
Union President Luis Troncoso said there was no plan to halt the strike until the company improves its offer.
Workers say they have the support of other Chilean mining unions, and that their fight could influence the outcome of upcoming negotiations at Codelco, Chile's state copper miner and the world's largest producer of the red metal.
"I think we are fortifying the (national) union movement," Troncoso said.
BHP Billiton, the world's largest miner, owns 57.5 percent of the open-pit mine, while No. 2 Rio Tinto Ltd has a 30 percent stake.
While workers are demanding a large increase in salary and benefits that reflect soaring copper prices, the company seeks to protect itself from the next cyclical downturn in prices for the red metal.
Before the strike, Escondida was expected to produce close to 1.3 million tonnes of copper in 2006, about the same as it did in 2005. That is roughly 3,500 tonnes of copper a day.
Copper futures in New York opened lower Monday but prices received a slight boost as the Escondida strike started.
NOISY TACTICS
More than 2,000 union workers were to take part in the strike at Escondida after negotiations for a new wage contract failed even after government mediation.
Union Secretary Pedro Marin said the workers would also march in Antofagasta, the major city in the mining region, to press their demands for a better wage deal.
He expected to draw support from others who use the city as a base and work in other mines in the region.
Chile is the world's largest copper producer and host to many international miners.
Marin said the union planned to employ noisy tactics like the ones used by Chilean students in nationwide protests in June. Those strikes ended in sometimes violent clashes with police.
Nearly 1 million Chilean students took part in nationwide strikes in early June as they demanded more education funding in destructive marches in the capital Santiago.
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Consumer credit rose $10.27 billion in June
Reuters
Mon Aug 7, 2006
Washington - U.S. consumer credit rose by a bigger-than-expected $10.27 billion in June on a surge in credit card debt, a Federal Reserve Report on Monday showed.
Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting consumer credit to rise by just $4 billion after increasing by an upwardly revised $5.88 billion in May.
Consumer credit outstanding rose to $2.186 trillion in June, rising at a 5.66 percent annual rate from $2.176 trillion the prior month.
Revolving credit, which includes credit and charge cards, rose by an annual 9.80 percent rate in June to $820.65 billion after a 11.04 percent surge a month earlier.
Non-revolving credit -- closed-end loans for cars, boats, education expenses and holidays -- rose 3.19 percent to $1.366 trillion in June after slipping 1.35 percent the prior month.
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Odds 'n Ends
US plans bigger troop cut in South Korea
Reuters
Mon Aug 7, 2006
WASHINGTON - The United States will lower troop levels in South Korea beyond a previously agreed reduction to 25,000, but the cut will not be "substantial," a senior defense official said on Monday.
"As the adjustments (in capabilities) take place, there will be a reduction in the number of U.S. forces located in the Republic of Korea beyond the level of 25,000 that we've currently agreed to," the official said. "Will it be a substantial reduction? I do not believe so."
The United States has planned to reduce troop levels in South Korea, now standing at about 30,000, by 2008.
The official said the cut was possible due to South Korea's improved capabilities, and noted that judgments about the threat posed by North Korea were driving changes in the U.S.-South Korean military relationship.
U.S. and South Korean officials are hashing out details of a broader plan to change the countries' military relationship, giving South Korea the lead in operations during wartime.
Under the plan, which may be finalized by October, the United States would assume a supporting role in combat operations, the defense official said.
According to the official, the United States wants South Korea to assume the lead in military operations by 2009, but South Korea has pushed for a 2012 target date for the change.
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Old Lady Finds Diamond Ring in Candy Bar, Returns it to Owner
Created: 08.08.2006 15:09 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:09 MSK
MosNews
When an elderly Russian woman bit into her favorite candy bar, she found a surprise: a diamond ring. The good Samaritan then located and returned the ring to its owner, a distraught newlywed.
Elena Otpushchennikova, and old lady from Saratov, almost broke a tooth when she bit into her favorite candy, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reports.
"I brought home my favorite candies, and when I bit into one, my teeth knacked on something hard and I took out of my mouth a ring with a white gem," Elena says.
"I looked at it closely and saw it was gold."
The "white gem" turned out a diamond. The pensioner first thought she had won a prize from the local candy factory. But when she called on the phone to inquire, she learned there was no such promotion.
"I then thought the ring must have slipped from someone's finger when the candy was being produced," Elena says.
"Of course I was tempted to keep it. But then I thought maybe this ring meant the world to somebody. I would not want to make them unhappy. But again, I knew better then to make a public announcement, because the butter-fingers could get fired for breaking safety regulations."
Elena decided to find the woman. She went to the factory and found the team producing her favorite candy. She talked to women, and someone said it could have been one of the girls in the team who had recently got married.
When Elena saw the girl, called Tatiana, she had no more doubts - Tatiana's face was all misery. Elena approached her and asked, "Have you lost a ring?"
The girl was both thrilled and happy.
"I was shocked!" Tatiana says. "I had not expected to ever see the ring again, but luckily there are honest people like Elena."
Tatiana, who had been married only two weeks, took her wedding ring to the factory with her to show it to co-workers. She did not notice it slip off her finger into the sweet paste and get into a candy bar, where Elena later found it.
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3 Israelis evicted from paradise
Ynet
By Itamar Eichner
08/08/06
Three Israeli backpackers were evicted from Fiji after a Muslim immigration officer ruled that they had humiliated Palestinians during their military service in the territories.
The three - Amit Ronen, Eldar Avracohen, and Nimrod Lahav - left Israel in February for a tour in Australia.
In July they decided to spend a week in Fiji. On July 13 they arrived at Fiji airport where a surprise awaited them.
"We gave our passports to the officer, and when she saw we are Israelis she asked for ID cards. We told her we don't understand why we need ID cards and she responded shouting: 'You know very well how to ask Palestinians for IDs and humiliate them for three years."
That's what Avracohen wrote in a complaint letter he sent to Israel's Ambassador to Australia Nati Tamir.
The three were held at Fiji airport for six hours and officials rebuked their pleas to be allowed to make a phone call.
Armed policemen took them to a cell at the airport where they spent the night before being sent back to Australia.
"I don't look like a terrorist and there is no reason to point a gun at me," Nimrod Lahav wrote in a letter to ambassador Tamir.
Avracohen wrote that the incident was the most humiliating experience he had ever gone through.
The Foreign Ministry said the matter is being dealt with.
Comment: Seems like Israelis don't like it when they are trated like they treat others.
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UK set for hottest ever day?
Ananova.com
08/08/06
Weather forecasters say the heatwave could be about to deliver the hottest day ever recorded in Britain.
The Met Office says there is a 30% chance or record-breaking temperatures in south-east England on Wednesday.
Forecasters say global warming is partly responsible, reports the Guardian.
A Met Office spokesman said: "There is a significant human contribution to these heatwaves because of carbon dioxide emissions over recent decades.
"This is a sign of things to come, with the current temperatures becoming a normal event by the middle of the century."
The existing record of 38.5C (101F) was recorded in Faversham, Kent, in August 2003.
Temperatures of 37C are expected across the south-east, but one or two places could reach 39C.
The Met Office predicted that the record was likely to be set somewhere such as Cambridgeshire or Bedfordshire.
The Met has set its "heat health alert" at level two, which means the heat could be dangerous to the very young and very old.
Other regions could also see records, with temperatures predicted to reach 36C in the Midlands, 35C in the north-west and 31C in Scotland.
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20,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Found in Australia
National Geographic
By Sean Markey
08/03/06
About 20,000 years ago, five human hunters sprinted across the soft clay on the edge of a wetland in what is now New South Wales, Australia.
Others also wandered across the muddy landscape, including a family of five, a small child, and a one-legged man who hopped without a crutch.
These early Aboriginal ancestors have long since vanished. But a record of their passage can be seen today in Mungo National Park, about 195 miles (315 kilometers) from Broken Hill (Australia map).
Woven among the sand dunes of the now arid Willandra Lakes World Heritage area are some 700 fossil footprints, 400 of them grouped in a set of 23 tracks (related photos: 2006 World Heritage sites named).
First spotted in 2003 by a young Mhutti Mhutti Aboriginal woman named Mary Pappen, Jr., the tracks are the oldest fossil human footprints ever found in Australia and the largest collection of such prints in the world.
"Still Here"
Mary Pappen, Sr., a Mhutti Mhutti tribal elder and Pappen Jr.'s mother, says the age of the footprints highlights just how clever and adaptable Aboriginal ancestors were.
"We did not die 60,000 years ago. We didn't dry up and die away 26,000 years ago when the lakes were last full," she said.
"We are a people that nurtured and looked after our landscape and walked across it, and we are still here today."
(Read a travel column about seeing Australia through Aboriginal eyes.)
Steve Webb is a biological archaeologist with Bond University in Queensland. He has studied and partially excavated the tracks with help from other scientists and members of three area Aboriginal tribes.
Last December Webb published a study in the online edition of the Journal of Human Evolution describing eight of the tracks, and his work continues. Webb says the footprints reveal things that archaeological sites or skeletal remains couldn't.
For example, "these people were very active in this area, and we wouldn't have guessed that," he said.
One-Legged Man
The footprints also held puzzles, such as the tracks of what experts say was a one-legged man.
"All we could pick up was the right foot," Webb said, adding that each step left a very deep impression in the mud.
"It's a very good impression," he said. "It's one of the best foot impressions there is on the whole site. But there is no sign of the left foot at all."
The conundrum was solved with the help of five trackers from the Pintubi people of central Australia.
"They looked at the ... track and said, Yes, it's definitely a one-legged man," Webb said.
"Now, these people are able to tell you whether a woman's got a baby on her hip when she's walking along and whether she moves that baby from the right hip to the left hip."
"So they see nuances of tracks in a way we have no skill in doing whatsoever."
It helped that the Pintubi knew a living one-legged man from their own community.
"They knew what a one-legged man could do," Webb said. The trackers believe the ancient man probably threw his support stick away and hopped quite fast on one foot.
Olympic Sprinter
The trackers "gave us an amazing insight, just showing us small things which we hadn't even looked at," Webb said.
One such detail was a set of small, round holes where a man stood with a spear. Another was a squiggle in the mud, perhaps drawn by a child.
Webb's own track analysis has yielded some intriguing conclusions, particularly for the prints left by a group he calls the Five Hunters.
The archaeologist used data from 17,000-year-old human remains excavated nearby and details from the tracks themselves, such as foot size and stride length.
The bones suggest the people were tall, in good health, and very athletic.
What's more, Webb calculates that one hunter was running at 23 miles (37 kilometers) an hour, or as fast as an Olympic sprinter.
"If you weren't fit in those days, you didn't survive," Webb said.
To date, Webb and his colleagues have identified about 700 footprints.
He says ground-penetrating radar suggests thousands more prints may lie below the ground in at least eight layers of ancient mud stacked like trodden carpets.
For now the excavated tracks sit under protective layers of cloth and dirt to shelter them from erosion caused by wind, sand, and rain.
The footprints will stay there until scientists and Aboriginal community members devise a plan to protect the ancient tracks.
As part of the plan, tribespeople want to erect community and educational centers near the site and develop related ecotourism.
They also hope to build a "keeping place," or sacred shelter, to safeguard the footprints of their ancestral families.
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