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Editorial: Letter From The Palestinian Resistance, March 1988

Signs of the Times
11/08/2006

From a letter written by members of the Palestinian underground resistance in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to a rally in Paris, France, on March 3, 1988, organized by an ad-hoc committee of supporters of Palestinian human rights. Sadly, nothing has changed in the intervening 18 years.


Dear friends,

We send you this letter from inside our beloved land - Our land of honor, of dignity, courage and defiance - from our Palestine, from Jerusalem, the sacred city.

We send you this letter in the name of our people, a patient people who are today standing tall and are waging a struggle unparalleled in our entire history.

We want you to know that the Palestinian people have not been defeated. They are alive. They are struggling. They are saying that they will not accept humiliation and submission.

The confidence of our people in the legitimacy of their struggle is immense. And our people know that their victory is certain - whatever the sacrifices, whatever the price that must be paid.

Today, our people are suffering. They are shedding their blood to win their freedom, dignity, and honor; their right to determine their own destiny; their right to live in their homeland and to build a free, democratic, and sovereign state in all of Palestine.

To all free men and women, to all our comrades, we say the following:

The Palestinian people have been the victims for many decades of an international plot - of vicious attacks - aimed at exiling them and chasing them from the lands upon which they have lived for centuries.

We have been expelled from our lands - lands which have now been settled by foreigners in accordance with the aims of colonialism and imperialism. This settlement has been imposed by the laws of oppression promoted by the Western nations and the Eastern totalitarian regimes. These oppressive laws are also those of international Zionism.

We have been subject to terror, assassination and torture. Today, we are deprived of even our most elementary and legitimate rights. "They have wanted to make of us an exiled people, destined permanently to refugee camps. They have wanted to destroy us physically and eliminate us.

Through the wars of 1948 and 1967, they carried out the occupation of all of Palestine. But they forgot that by occupying all of Palestine they also unified the entire Palestinian people in their struggle against oppression.

That is what is happening today as the children, the elderly, the women and the youth have risen up as one single person, without arms, to face the military machine of Zionism and imperialism - to face the violence of the guns, the clubs, the kidnappings, and the assassinations.

Our weapons come from our homeland. They are the stones with which our people have built up a wall to defend their combatants and the Revolution.

Dear friends: You should know what is going on in our homeland. Two weeks ago, the forces of occupation buried eight young Palestinians alive after having beaten them savagely and broken their limbs. Four of them were saved by the people; the other four were never found.

Three days ago, Israeli military forces dropped three live Palestinian youths from a helicopter flying at a high altitude. One of the youths was only 13 years old.
This is what they are currently doing to our people.

Dear friends: We want you to know that we reject all so-called solutions and peace projects that some people would like to impose on us through international conferences.

We want you to know that we are committed to continuing our revolution until the total liberation of all of Palestine, until the establishment of a democratic and free state in which all free men and women, from wherever they may be, are welcome to live so long as they accept to live with us as equals on our land of Palestine.

We are no longer on our knees. We are standing tall. We will not yield. We feel that it is legitimate for us to demand aid and assistance from people throughout the world who are struggling for the freedom of all oppressed peoples.

We ask of you not only that you speak out in support of our struggle in your speeches and protests but that you demand that your governments take a clear position in opposition to the repressive and criminal methods of Zionism. We ask for your moral and material support for our Palestinian people, who are struggling to obtain their final victory.
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Editorial: Israel Must Be Held Accountable For Its International Law Violations

Stephen Lendman
11 August 2006

On June 25, the Palestinians responded to continued, unrelenting and unjustifiable Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attacks against them by striking at an Israeli military post near Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of Rafah, killing two IDF soldiers, injuring several others, and capturing (not "kidnapping) a third. It set off a swift and deadly IDF response of daily killings and mass destruction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)against defenseless Palestinians helpless in the face of the relentless IDF onslaught.

Events since escalated into a mass conflagration when Hezbollah resistance fighters captured (again, not "kidnapped") two IDF soldiers who apparently illegally crossed the UN-monitored "blue line" into Lebanon as they've routinely done almost daily after withdrawing from the country in May, 2000. Again the IDF responded with overwhelming force by air and with a ground invasion in the south causing vast destruction over a wide area throughout the country including in Beirut, Tyre and Sidon (Lebanon's three largest cities) and now extending to the north in Christian areas and up to the Syria-Lebanon border.

This scorched-earth blitzkrieg, primarily and willfully aimed at civilian targets of all types devastated Lebanon's major ports, the Beirut International Airport, much of the country's essential infrastructure including over 70 bridges, dozens of key roads, all the nation's radars, electrical power plants, 20 or more gas and fuel stations and the Jiyyeh power utility plant south of Beirut spilling about 14,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil (over one-third the size of the Exxon-Valdez spill) along over 90 miles of Lebanon's and Syria's Mediterranean Sea coast posing a serious threat to biodiversity as well as a heightened risk of cancer because this type fuel oil contains benzene which is categorized as a Class 1 carcinogen. Israel also imposed a land, sea and air siege on the country resulting in severe shortages of essential food, medical supplies, fuel and other necessities, and the IDF has bombed factories (including for food), warehouses, dams, civil defense centers, schools, radio and TV stations, mosques, churches, hospitals, ambulances, humanitarian aid conveys, the al-Hilwah Palestinian refugee camp at Sidon, an orphange and funeral on August 8, and thousands of civilian homes - in total causing damage exceeding $2 billion and rising daily. The outrageous stonewalling US-France proposed UN Security Council resolution on the conflict is nothing more than a mandate to "give war a chance" and let Israel finish the slaughter and mass destruction it's now inflicting in violation of international laws as will be explained below.

It remains to be seen what final UN Security Council action will actually occur as strong Lebanese government and Arab League opposition to the proposed resolution now has made France decide to back down and support an alternate plan requiring a full IDF withdrawal from south Lebanon. In reversing itself, France has now split with the US which still supports the original and unacceptable joint proposal supporting Israel's right to continue its assault.

That month-long assault also deliberately targeted and killed many hundreds of innocent Lebanese civilians (likely at least double the officially reported number that now exceeds 1,000), injured thousands more (many seriously), displaced as many as one million others (about one-fourth of the country's total four million population) including over 300,000 children fleeing north for their lives and being targeted and attacked in their cars as they do, and created a vast humanitarian crisis in the country as well as in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) still under attack and occupation since June 25. Both assaults are so ferocious, it's clear they're intended to destroy Lebanon as a nation to prevent it from ever functioning again as it once did as well as forever ending the Palestinians' dream of ever having a viable sovereign state of their own. As will be discussed below, they also are intended to destroy the democratically elected Hamas government in the OPT and legitimate Hezbollah resistance that now has the overwhelming support of over 85% of the Lebanese people including most Maronite and other Christians, the majority Sunni and Shia Muslims that together comprise about two-thirds of the population, and Lebanon's once pro-Western Prime Minister Fuad Sinora. They all are now united against their common enemies - Israel and their complicit US ally.

The Assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) Now Under the Radar

While world attention focuses on Lebanon, the daily killings and destruction go on unabated and now under the radar in the OPT. Since the unwarranted assault began against the defenseless Palestinians on June 25, Israel, against two countries, has deliberately and flagrantly violated international law stipulated in the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War including article 33 under it that prohibits reprisals against protected persons and property. Below is an account of what the IDF has done as of early August in the OPT in an undisguised act of illegal collective punishment:

--The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reports 200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including about 44 children and at least 10 women have been killed through August 9. The Israeli human rights monitoring group B'Tselem reports the number killed in July in Gaza alone to be 163, and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reports 210 Gaza and West Bank killings from July 1 through August 7. At least 6 of those killed were executed extra-judicially.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights on the ground in the OPT also reports:

--The IDF wounded nearly 800 Palestinian civilians (many seriously), including 218 children and 24 women through August 9.

--It fires hundreds of artillery shells and many dozens of air-to-surface missiles into the OPT daily against civilian and so-called military targets that are usually just ordinary buildings Israel without evidence claims are occupied by "militants."

--It conducts mock air raids, and its aircraft (US made and supplied advanced F-16 fighter jets) routinely break the sound barrier (often late at night) at low altitudes deliberately inflicting eardrum shattering and terrifying sonic booms against helpless people.

--It forced many families to leave or evacuate their homes in Rafah, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and elsewhere, some of them being warned in Gaza by phone their homes would be attacked.

--It made dozens of incursions into OPT areas killing civilians, destroying agricultural land, buildings, homes and infrastructure and expropriating land Israel intends to keep.

-- It imposed a tightened seige throughout the OPT including curfews, greatly restricting movement and the Palestinians' access to food, fuel, medical attention and other essential goods and services and thus created a humanitarian disaster that's becoming worse.

--It destroyed the electricity plant providing about 45% of the electricity needs of the Gaza Strip and also repeatedly attacks electricity networks and transmitters in Gaza.

--It destroyed the main pipe providing water for the Nusairat and al-Boreij refugee camps.

--It destroyed 6 important bridges linking Gaza City with central Gaza thus preventing transportation from moving normally to provide essential goods and other needs to the people.

--It destroyed a number of key roads in Gaza.

--It destroyed the buildings of the Palestinian Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, National economy and government compound in Nablus as well as the office of the Palestinian Prime Minister.

--It uprooted many hundreds of donums of vital agricultural land and destroyed many dozens of homes used only as residences.

--Israel continued building its annexation/separation wall throughout this period and razed and expropriated Palestinian land in al-Sawhra as-Gharbiya village, east of Jerusalem, to complete one section of it in that area. It also razed other agricultural land in Jourat al-Shama village, south of Bethlehem, to construct another section southeast of "Efrat" settlement.

--The IDF arrested hundreds of Palestinian civilians and is holding them without charge. It also arrested eight government ministers, 26 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and now on August 6 besieged the home of Dr. Aziz Dweik, PLC Speaker, forced him to surrender and placed him under detention without charge. All this is part of an illegal attempt to undermine and destroy the democratically elected Hamas government because Israel can't control and co-opt it to serve its interests - meaning act as its enforcer and not as a legitimate government. Also, on August 6, unknown masked assassins shot and killed Major Mohammed Mousa al-Mousah, chief of Palestinian Military Intelligence, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Israel's Assaults on Lebanon and the OPT Were Planned Long Before They Began

It's now known that both Israeli assaults were jointly planned many months earlier with their US allies that aided the Israelis with their support, funding, supply and replenishment of weapons as needed, and satellite tracking and intelligence information from National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts. Retired US General Wesley Clark also revealed in his book Winning Modern Wars that in late 2001 (after 9/11 and the attack on Afghanistan began) the Pentagon was planning to attack Lebanon as part of a five year campaign targeting seven countries beginning with Iraq, then going on to Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.

It's all part of the US imperial plan to redraw the map of the strategically important Middle East and its vast oil and scarce water reserves, establish client states throughout the region, remove independent leaders standing in the way, and replace them with more receptive ones willing to sacrifice their nations' sovereignty in service to the de facto ruler of the world. Israel is part of the scheme as well and has its own imperial aims. It's the only country in the world without declared borders because it's plan is to extend them beyond where they are now to wherever it's able to lay claim and get away with it.

Most important to the Israelis is their plan to include as part of Israel the ancient lands of "Judea" and "Summaria," the West Bank biblical parts of Israel comprising the OPT the Palestinians justifiably claim as their homeland. In addition, the most extreme Zionists in the country, who have great influence on policy, want all the land of "Eretz Israel," the total biblical Jewish homeland they believe God gave to the 12 tribes of Israel which includes all of present-day Israel and the OPT, Lebanon, most of Syria, part of Egypt and a large part of Jordon. Israel already controls the choicest parts of the West Bank including 50% of its fresh water resources and all of Gaza any time it chooses to enter and reoccupy it, the Syrian Golan Heights that supply it with one-third of its total water, and the 25 kilometer Shebaa Farms area of South Lebanon it never relinquished after seizing it as well in the 1967 war.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Likudnik right-wing spin-off allies in his Kadima party apparently want still more territory seized and under its control well within the timetable they set to declare permanent Israeli borders in 2007. South Lebanon has long been one such area Israel covets. It seized and occupied this land for 22 years but failed to keep it and was finally driven out by a determined Hezbollah resistance that was born out of the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the oppressive occupation that followed.

Why Israel Attacked Lebanon

Israel claims this area is important to it for so-called security reasons, but its greatest value is as a source of fresh water from the Litani River in South Lebanon and also the Wazzani springs that feed directly into the Hasbani River which is a tributary of the Jordan River. The Hisbani flows into Israel two miles downstream from the Wazzani and runs into the Sea of Galilee that's Israel's largest source of fresh water. Lebanon wants to pump about 350,000 cubic feet of water daily from the Wazzini to supply its villages in the south which it has every right to do, of course, but Israel opposes that plan and now effectively stopped it since invading the country.

The prime motive of Israel's assault on Lebanon and invasion in the south is to seize, occupy and then annex the 20 mile stretch of territory into the country up to the Litani to be able to use for its own needs what now supplies a major portion of Lebanon's fresh water. The Litani's annual flow is estimated at about 920 million cubic meters. If Israel can incorporate and control South Lebanon up to the Litani, it would augment its annual fresh water supply by up to 800 million cubic meters or nearly 40% of its annual consumption. That amount would be in addition to the one-third of its supply now gotten from the Golan Heights Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war, never returned for obvious reasons, and never intends to. And, as mentioned above, Israel also controls half the fresh water resources of the West Bank it uses for its own needs and denies them to the Palestinians for theirs.

There's no mystery about what the US interest is in the Middle East. In the words of its high-level officials in the 1940s, the energy resources there were seen as "a stupendous source of strategic power (and) one of the greatest material prizes in world history." But Israel also has an oil-related motive driving its current policy of aggression it and the US may extend next to Syria and Iran. Israel gets a large amount of its oil from the Caspian Basin which will be made all the easier by the opening of a new pipeline from that region to the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel needs the oil, and the US needs a strong military ally it can depend on in the Middle East to assure it maintains control of the oil there and from the Caspian and that US and European Big Oil giants are guaranteed handsome profits from it. It's all part of a new "Great Game" to dominate these two vital energy-rich regions that instead of pitting the old British Empire against Tsarist Russia that lasted nearly 100 years until the early 20th century (when the issue wasn't over oil) now finds the US with Israel's help challenging Russia and China.

As part of its plan to make it work, Israel (and the US) wants to depopulate South Lebanon to control it and likely eventually build permanent settlements there just as it did in Gaza and now continues to do illegally in the West Bank and the Golan. To do it, it's now warning the civilian population there to "ethnically cleanse" itself voluntarily or the IDF will terror-bomb it out forcibly which it's doing daily. It's all part of Israel's long-standing policy made clear by its leaders since its first prime minister David Ben-Gurion first stated it - that all means will be used including war to "redeem the land" occupied by the Palestinians and other Arabs in the way for "the chosen people." Current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made that position very clear when he addressed the US Congress joint session on May 24, 2006 saying "I believe and to this day still believe in our people's eternal and historic right to this entire land." Unstated by the prime minister was exactly what he claims that "entire land" to be. World leaders though understand Israel's aims well enough and thus know what its assault against Lebanon and Palestine is all about. It's why they haven't challenged it, aren't likely to beyond the meaningless and customary pro forma disingenuous calls for "restraint on both sides," and thus are aiding the Jewish state accomplish its land-grab in the short run. Over time, however, it's quite another matter.

Israel tried before and failed in 1978 and again in 1982 to seize and permanently occupy South Lebanon hoping eventually to annex the territory as it did the Golan and the parts of the OPT it wanted. Now it's trying again in Lebanon and wants to annex more land in the OPT. It's plan is to seize this land, destroy the resistance in it, crush both nations politically and succeed this time unlike before when Hezbollah forced it out of South Lebanon and the Palestinian resistance in part prevented its annexation of all areas of the OPT it wants for settler development.

It's using a new strategy in Lebanon this time calling for a robust international military force, likely a NATO one(under US control) to replace the ineffective United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) that's been there since 1978. It wants this force to serve as so-called "peacekeepers" once it's completed its land-grab, finished its assault on and destruction of the country, and it allows it to come in. Israel's earlier failed 22 year occupation cost it dearly in lives lost, shekels spent, and the reputation of its vaunted military machine with all its US supplied modern weapons tarnished by a determined Hezbelloh guerilla resistance that finally drove it it from the country.

Israel wants no repeat of that this time and thinks it can have the land it wants and avoid being expelled trying to hold on to it through a proxy force it can control - this time a NATO-led one it's allied with militarily and which it knows will serve its interests and not those of the Lebanese people. It wants NATO there to act as its enforcers, engage Hezbollah or other resistance that may challenge it, have it do its killing and dying for it, and relieve Israel of the burden of funding a long and costly operation or being humiliated again if it fails, which almost certainly will happen in time.

Israel's Aim in the OPT

So far in the OPT, Israel is going it alone handling the dirty job of crushing a defenseless people, so it hasn't asked for an international military force to come in as its enforcers there. Once it ends its assault, Israel ideally wants the Palestinians to be their own enforcers as was the arrangement agreed to by Yasser Arafat under the 1993 Oslo Accords and later related agreements. The Israelis know current Fatah party leader and Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas is willing to take on the job for them as he proved his Israel-friendly bona fides at Oslo and in the 1990s. Will the Palestinian people and its Hamas leadership submit to their subjugation any more this time than in the past when they eventually resisted it? And will Hezbollah and the Lebanese people be any less resistant? There's little chance of it in both countries and thus every chance the carnage now ongoing may ebb and flow but will continue unending until the people of both lands win the freedom they're unlikely never to stop fighting for.

Israel Must Finally Be Held to Account For Its Criminal Acts

Israel's crimes so far have gone unchallenged because most world leaders have supported them overtly or tacitly. In so doing, these leaders and other officials are guilty criminal accomplices under Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter that states: "Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the....crimes (listed in Articles 6b or 6c of the Charter) are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan." By this standard, the entire US Senate and all but eight members of the US House are also criminal accomplices by result of their votes during the week of July 17 to unconditionally support Israel's "supreme international crime" of illegal aggression against Lebanon and Palestine unjustifiably claiming Israel has the right of self-defense guaranteed it under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

It's long past time that Israel no longer be allowed to get away with its crimes and for its officials responsible for them to be held to account for them. Since world leaders on their own won't act (especially as they're guilty co-conspirators), mass worldwide public protest and action must do it for them and demand either the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague indict and prosecute Israeli officials responsible for what they've inflicted on Lebanon and the OPT or the UN General Assembly must act in its stead to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel. It has the authority to do it under Article 22 in the UN Charter and twice before used it for Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The ICC was established in 2002 in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998. It's authorized by its signatories to act as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined by the 1945 Numerberg Charter drafted by the US and its main WW II allies to try Nazi war criminals. The court was established to adjudicate in the kinds of cases Israeli officials should be brought to book for. However, while Israel signed the final act of the Rome conference creating the ICC, it voted against the statute to remain free of its authority. People demanding justice thus may have no other recourse than to have the UN General Assembly act to establish a special International Tribunal for Israel that will use its authority to prosecute culpable Israeli officials in the Hague if they can be brought there or in absentia if they're not.

Israel has a long history of criminal and abusive acts. Long before the June 25 incident near Kerem Shalom crossing that began the current conflict, the UN Human Rights Commission held that Israel had violated nearly all 149 articles under the Fourth Geneva Convention that governs the treatment of civilians in war and under occupation and in so doing is guilty of war crimes according to international law. The Commission also determined Israel as an occupier in the OPT has committed "crimes against humanity" as defined under the 1945 Nuremberg Charter. By its actions since June 25 against the Palestinians and especially after July 12 in Lebanon, Israel has compounded its crimes by committing many more of them.


It remains for an international court of law to name those individuals culpable for these crimes and to state the specific charges. But the one accusation above all others should be that Israel violated the most important of all binding international laws under the UN Charter to which Israel is a signatory. The Charter authorizes a nation to use force only under two conditions: when authorized to do it by the Security Council or under Article 51 that allows the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security." In other words, necessary self-defense is permitted.

Israel's extreme responses following the capture of three of its soldiers, known in both cases to have been planned well in advance awaiting only convenient pretext to initiate them, are no acts of self-defense. They're acts of premeditated illegal aggression and, as such, are what the Nuremberg Tribunal that tried the Nazis called "the supreme international crime." The Nazis found guilty of it were hanged and justice was served. Under Article 6b of the Nuremberg Charter, Israel also committed the flagrant war crimes of "plunder of public (and) private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, (and) devastation not justified by military necessity." Under Article 6c, it's guilty of the "crimes against humanity (of) murder..., deportation and other inhumane acts committed against (the Lebanese and Palestinian) civilian population(s), before (and) during the war."

The Nuremberg Tribunal set a high standard which it followed based on the principles of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact signed by 63 nations after WW I to renounce war as an instrument of foreign policy. The Pact didn't prevent WW II, but what it stipulated formed the basis for "crimes against peace." The Nuremberg Charter described those crimes as "the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a premeditated war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties." It prosecuted the Nazis for what they did including the ones charged with this supreme crime. The UN is surely authorized to act to establish an international criminal court just as the victorious US, UK and USSR allies acted on their joint authority during and after WWII to establish the Nuremberg Tribunal to try Nazi war criminals.

Israel also has a long and disturbing record of flagrantly violating or ignoring international laws and norms. In its past conflicts as well as the current ones, besides committing "the supreme international crime" of illegal aggression, it's using weapons banned under the Hague Convention of 1907, the 1925 Geneva Protocol and succeeding Geneva Weapons Conventions that outlaw the use in war of chemical, biological or any other "poison or poisoned weapons. In the 1973 war and currently, Israel is using depleted uranium (DU) weapons that are radioactive and chemically toxic and thus clearly fit the definition of poisonous weapons banned under the 1907 Hague Convention.

It's also suspected of using other illegal weapons including chemical agents, white phosphorous bombs and shells against civilian targets that burn flesh to the bone and can't be extinguished by water that only makes the burning worse when used, cluster bombs, and a terror weapon called "flashettes" which explode and shoot out 1000s of nails in all directions. In addition, the IDF is reportedly testing in real time some new terror weapons (using the helpless Lebanese and Palestinians as their lab rats) including a thermobaric solid fuel-air explosive bomb able to penetrate buildings, underground shelters and tunnels creating a blast pressure great enough to suck all the oxygen out of spaces struck and the lungs of all those in the vicinity. All these weapons are either questionable or illegal under Hague and/or Geneva international law.

All the above actions clearly warrant Israel's criminal prosecution by an international court. Yet there are still others to be added to them. Israel ignored the World Court in the Hague that ruled 14 - 1 in 2004 that the annexation/separation wall it's building is "contrary to international law" because it "destroyed and confiscated" property, greatly restricts Palestinian movement, and "severely impedes the exercise by the Palestinian people of (the) right to self-determination." As a result, the Court ordered construction to end at once, the existing portion of it built to be taken down, and Palestinians adversely affected by its construction to be compensated for their losses. Israel ignored the ruling, continues building the wall, and thus is violating international law. In addition, over the last half century, Israel has been a serial abuser of UN resolutions flagrantly and willfully ignoring over five dozen of them that condemned or censured it for its actions against the Palestinians or other Arab people, deplored it for committing them or demanded the Jewish state end them.

Like its US ally, Israel is also know to be a serial abuser of torture as a means of inflicting punishment or trying to elicit information from the 10,000 or more Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners it forcibly abducted and now holds in its prisons. According to Amnesty International, Israel is the only country in the world to effectively legalize torture (now, of course, the US has as well). Many of those Israel holds in custody are political prisoners held administratively without charge, and Israeli human rights monitoring group B'Tselem reports Israel's use of torture is flagrant, widespread and routinely used against them. Such practice is clearly a violation of international law that bans the use of torture or degrading treatment under any circumstances. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlawed it in 1948. The Fourth Geneva Convention then did it in 1949 banning any form of "physical or mental coercion" and affirming detainees must at all times be treated humanely. The European Convention followed in 1950. Then in 1984, the UN Convention Against Torture became the first binding international instrument dealing exclusively with the issue of banning torture in any form for any reason. Israel ignores these and all other international laws and norms but has never yet been held to account for its actions. It's way past time that injustice be addressed and corrected. World public opinion overwhelmingly demands it.

It now remains for an international court to place Israeli officials on trial, have them answer for their past and present crimes, and see to it they pay the price for them if found guilty. That must happen if those harmed by them are ever able to achieve the justice they seek and deserve. It's also crucial this action be taken soon to send a clear message to Israeli officials that world public opinion no longer will tolerate this behavior and that it forced the UN to act in its behalf to demand justice in a world court of law. Even if Israel doesn't accept the court's authority, as will likely happen, its establishment alone may send a message to the Jewish state strong enough to make it cease further aggression against its current victims. It may also deter it and the US from committing further acts of aggression against Syria and Iran now in their plans based on credible reports quoting high-level officials in both countries. If it happens, it's part of the US and Israeli grand plan to destroy Iran's legal commercial nuclear capability, redraw the map of the Middle East, remove the Iranian, Syrian and Hamas independent leaderships in it (as well as destroy the legitimate Hezbollah resistance), and replace them with new regimes henceforth acting as subservient and reliable client states. Neither the US nor Israel must any longer be allowed to get away with their current wars of aggression or have world leader's support their right to extend them further in the region as they likely have in mind to do.

Further Action Against Israel Is Also Needed

In addition to halting Israel's current aggression and prosecuting its officials responsible for it, it's time to go still further and begin a concerted campaign calling for divestment, economic and political sanctions and a boycott of Israeli-made products. Throughout its history, Israel has been unresponsive to all efforts aimed at getting it to abide by international laws and norms, live peacefully with its neighbors and respect the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian and Lebanese people whose lands it occupies and is now in conflict with. Having no interest in voluntarily engaging in serious negotiation to reach an equitable settlement, the only recourse is for mass people-action to demand it through punitive measures. In the 1980s, these actions proved successful in the struggle to abolish the repugnant apartheid system in South Africa that began in 1948 (ironically the year Israel became a state) and ended officially in 1994. During its later years, it became clear this was a failed system that had to end, and the world community could no longer tolerate its existence. Civil unrest and township violence began growing, and the P.W. Botha government declared a state of emergency in 1985 that remained in place until the F.W. de Klerk government lifted the 30 year ban on the anti-apartheid and now ruling African National Congress and two other opposition parties previously banned. In 1990 Nelson Mandela was freed from prison after 27 years of incarceration, and by 1991 the legal apparatus of apartheid ended.

People of conscience and mass civil society worldwide are a potent force in big numbers. It must now coalesce and denounce Israel as a pariah state and begin a non-violent campaign to demand governments, businesses, institutions and other organizations impose economic and political initiatives with teeth including divestment, sanctions, boycotts and embargoes. They should remain in place long enough to isolate Israel, and, if necessary, bring it to its knees economically and politically if that's what it takes to prove world public opinion no longer will tolerate its actions.

As part of the campaign, a clear set of demands must be made. They must include an immediate cessation of Israel's current hostilities against the Palestinians and people of Lebanon; Israel's full withdrawal from the OPT to the pre-1967 war borders and the dismantlement of all settlements therein; return of the Golan and all occupied land in South Lebanon; abiding by all UN resolutions so far ignored; dismantlement of its annexation/separation wall along with full restitution to the Palestinian people affected by it; agreeing to the Palestinians' right to a free, sovereign and independent state and allowing the right of return of all Palestinian refugees to their homeland as UN Resolution 194 affirmed and Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees to all displaced people; and agreeing to send its culpable officials to stand trial in an international tribunal in the Hague to be held to account to answer the charges levied against them. If Israel complies fully with these minimum demands and justice is served, the campaign of punitive action against it can end and the Jewish state can take its rightful place as a member of the world community of nations in good standing.

Might any of this happen? With today's headlines in mind, it looks doubtful, but at one time the South African apartheid government had the full support of the US and the West. Nonetheless, in the end it fell because enough pressure was brought to bear against it to make it happen. If it could happen to that ugly regime, it can happen to Israel as well but only if enough responsible people demand it and turn up the heat until it does.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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Editorial: Mothers wail, 'What human would ever do this?'

Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
Aug 9, 2006

[Editor's note: The answer is simple: the people doing this are not human in the terms we understand]

About 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University Hospital are 15 or younger, hospital records show.

"This is worse than during the Lebanese civil war," Bilal Masri, assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut's largest, told IPS.

Not only are most of the patients children, but many of the injured are in serious condition, he said. "Now we have a 30 percent fatality rate here in Beirut. That means that 30 percent of everyone hit by Israeli bombs are dying. It is a catastrophe."

The fatality rate was high, he said, "because the Israelis are using new kinds of bombs which can enter shelters. They are bombing the bomb shelters which are full of refugees."

Mr. Masri blamed the "widespread and indiscriminate nature of the bombings," noting that "children are least able to run away when the bombings commence."

The crisis forced the new 544-bed hospital to open its emergency room six months early. The hospital has handled "scores and scores" of casualties, according to the assistant director.

Mr. Masri said he had barely slept in the 13 days since the Israeli bombing of Lebanon began. His hospital, he said, was functioning with only 25 percent staff because "most are now unable to get here because so many roads and bridges are bombed. Those who are here are eating, sleeping and living here 24 hours a day because if they leave they fear they may be unable to return."

On July 23, Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief chief, toured the devastated areas of south Beirut. He described what he saw as "horrific" and said the destruction "makes it a violation of humanitarian law."

He said UN supplies of humanitarian aid would arrive within the next few days, but "we need access," and "so far Israel is not giving us access."

Aid is now a matter of life and death. Mr. Masri said his hospital would soon begin to run out of medicines and supplies.

"We are concerned about what is to come because we cannot continue at this rate," he said. "Already we've had to go to the Ministry of Health to get extra supplies. If the UN succeeds in opening safe passage from the south, we will be deluged with patients."

He said hospitals in Sidon and other southern cities are overwhelmed with patients, who are being treated in the corridors and lobbies. According to him, many of the injured there are suffering from the impact of incendiary white phosphorous. The Lebanese Ministry of the Interior has said the Israeli military has used this weapon.

"We don't know why we aren't getting help from the International Committee of the Red Cross," Mr. Masri said. "The Lebanese Red Cross is helping us the best they can, but no foreign agencies are helping us. Why not?"

As the IPS correspondent was speaking with the assistant director, an enraged man was led out by several security guards. His wounded son had just been discharged.

"I want my son to stay here because we have no place to go," the man was shouting. "Our home has been flattened. If we leave here, we must go to a refugee camp in a school, or sleep on the dirt in a park. I demand you allow us to stay here."

Mariam Mattar, a 50-year-old mother sitting on a mattress in a park in central Beirut along with hundreds of other refugees from southern Beirut, said no home there was safe.

"We left our house because they are bombing everything in the civilian neighborhoods," she told IPS. "They are killing all our children. What human would ever do this kind of thing?"

They had moved to central Beirut because it was safer. But living out in the open has meant another kind of hell. "We are without our shoes even. We are living in the dirt. Would Israel allow her children to live like this?" she asked, pointing at her bare feet.

She pulled a little boy toward her and said, "What have these children done? The other children who didn't escape are rotting under the destroyed buildings as we speak."

Israeli warplanes roared above as several refugees spoke with IPS.

"We are very afraid from all the bombings," said Ramadan, a 12-year-old boy in the park. "I hope they stop. This is all we want now."

Original
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Editorial: Days of darkness

by Gideon Levy
voltairenet.org
August 4, 2006

In war as in war: Israel is sinking into a strident, nationalistic atmosphere and darkness is beginning to cover everything. The brakes we still had are eroding, the insensitivity and blindness that characterized Israeli society in recent years is intensifying. The home front is cut in half: the north suffers and the center is serene. But both have been taken over by tones of jingoism, ruthlessness and vengeance, and the voices of extremism that previously characterized the camp's margins are now expressing its heart. The left has once again lost its way, wrapped in silence or "admitting mistakes." Israel is exposing a unified, nationalistic face.

The devastation we are sowing in Lebanon doesn't touch anyone here and most of it is not even shown to Israelis. Those who want to know what Tyre looks like now have to turn to foreign channels - the BBC reporter brings chilling images from there, the likes of which won't be seen here. How can one not be shocked by the suffering of the other, at our hands, even when our north suffers? The death we are sowing at the same time, right now in Gaza, with close to 120 dead since the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, 27 last Wednesday alone, touches us even less. The hospitals in Gaza are full of burned children, but who cares? The darkness of the war in the north covers them, too.

Since we've grown accustomed to thinking collective punishment a legitimate weapon, it is no wonder no debate has sparked here over the cruel punishment of Lebanon for Hezbollah's actions. If it was okay in Nablus, why not Beirut? The only criticism being heard about this war is over tactics. Everyone is a general now and they are mostly pushing the IDF to deepen its activities. Commentators, ex-generals and politicians compete at raising the stakes with extreme proposals.

Haim Ramon "doesn't understand" why there is still electricity in Baalbek; Eli Yishai proposes turning south Lebanon into a "sandbox"; Yoav Limor, a Channel 1 military correspondent, proposes an exhibition of Hezbollah corpses and the next day to conduct a parade of prisoners in their underwear, "to strengthen the home front's morale."

It's not difficult to guess what we would think about an Arab TV station whose commentators would say something like that, but another few casualties or failures by the IDF, and Limor's proposal will be implemented. Is there any better sign of how we have lost our senses and our humanity?

Chauvinism and an appetite for vengeance are raising their heads. If two weeks ago only lunatics such as Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu spoke about "wiping out every village where a Katyusha is fired," now a senior officer in the IDF speaks that way in Yedioth Aharonoth's main headlines. Lebanese villages may not have been wiped out yet, but we have long since wiped out our own red lines.

A bereaved father, Haim Avraham, whose son was kidnapped and killed by Hezbollah in October 2000, fires an artillery shell into Lebanon for the reporters. It's vengeance for his son. His image, embracing the decorated artillery shell is one of the most disgraceful images of this war. And it's only the first. A group of young girls also have their picture taken decorating IDF shells with slogans.

Maariv, which has turned into the Fox News of Israel, fills its pages with chauvinist slogans reminiscent of particularly inferior propaganda machines, such as "Israel is strong" - which is indicative of weakness, actually - while a TV commentator calls for the bombing of a TV station.

Lebanon, which has never fought Israel and has 40 daily newspapers, 42 colleges and universities and hundreds of different banks, is being destroyed by our planes and cannon and nobody is taking into account the amount of hatred we are sowing. In international public opinion, Israel has been turned into a monster, and that still hasn't been calculated into the debit column of this war. Israel is badly stained, a moral stain that can't be easily and quickly removed. And only we don't want to see it.

The people want victory, and nobody knows what that is and what its price will be.

The Zionist left has also been made irrelevant. As in every difficult test in the past - the two intifadas for example - this time too the left has failed just when its voice was so necessary as a counterweight to the stridency of the beating tom-toms of war. Why have a left if at every real test it joins the national chorus?

Peace Now stands silently, so does Meretz, except for brave Zehava Gal-On. A few days of a war of choice and already Yehoshua Sobol is admitting he was wrong all along. Peace Now is suddenly an "infantile slogan" for him. His colleagues are silent and their silence is no less resounding. Only the extreme left makes its voice heard, but it is a voice nobody listens to.

Long before this war is decided, it can already be stated that its spiraling cost will include the moral blackout that is surrounding and covering us all, threatening our existence and image no less than Hezbollah's Katyushas.

Gideon Levy is a journalist of the Israeli left wing newspaper Ha'aretz. Strong critic of the Israeli occupation, he writes for such newspaper a weekly report on violations against Palestinians under the title of "Twilight Zone". Over the years, he has become a symbol of the "pro Palestinian left wing" for the Israeli right wing and an alibi for the rest. "How could we not be a democracy? We let Gideon Levy write!", says the Minister of Defense Shaul Moffaz.

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Editorial: Learning from Its Mistakes

08.03.2006 | London Review of Books
Charles Glass

In his memoir, Not So Wild a Dream, the famous CBS correspondent Eric Sevareid recalled watching the execution of six Nazi collaborators in the newly liberated city of Grenoble in 1944.

When the police van arrived and the six who were to die stepped out, a tremendous and awful cry arose from the crowd. The six young men walked firmly to the iron posts, and as their hands were tied behind the shafts they held their bare heads upright, one or two with closed eyes, the others staring over the line of the buildings and the crowd into the lowering clouds . . . There was the jarring, metallic noise of rifle bolts and then the sharp report. The six young men slid slowly to their knees, their heads falling to one side. An officer ran with frantic haste from one to the other, giving the coup de grâce with a revolver, and one of the victims was seen to work his mouth as though trying to say something to the executioner. As the last shot was fired, the terrible, savage cry rose again from the crowd. Mothers with babies rushed forward to look on the bodies at close range, and small boys ran from one to the other spitting upon the bodies. The crowd dispersed, men and women laughing and shouting at one another. Barbarous?

Such events were part of what the French described as the épuration - the purification or purging of France after four years of German occupation. The number of French men and women killed by the Resistance or kangaroo courts is usually put at ten thousand. Camus called this 'human justice with all its defects'. The American forces that liberated France tolerated local vengeance against those who had worked for a brutal occupier. Thousands of French people, encouraged by a government in Vichy that they believed to be legitimate, had collaborated. Many, like the Milices, fascist gangs armed by Vichy, went further and killed Frenchmen. When Vichy's foreign sponsors withdrew and its government fell, the killing began. Accounts were settled with similar violence in other provinces of the former Third Reich - countries which, along with Britain and the United States, we now think of as the civilised world.

From 1978 to 2000 Israel occupied slices of Lebanon from their common border right up to Beirut and back again. To reduce the burden on its own forces, the Israelis created a species of Milice in the form of the locally recruited South Lebanon Army - first under Major Saad Haddad, who had broken from the Lebanese army in 1976 with a few hundred men, and later under General Antoine Lahad. Both were Christians, and their troops - armed, trained, fed and clothed by Israel - were mainly Shia Muslims from the south. About a third of the force, which grew to almost 10,000, were Christians. Some joined because they resented the Palestinians' armed presence in south Lebanon. Others enlisted because they needed the money: the region has always been Lebanon's poorest. The SLA had a reputation for cruelty, confirmed when its torture chambers at Khiam were opened after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, and for a high rate of desertions.

As Israel pulled back from Beirut, the high-water mark reached during its 1982 invasion, its share of Lebanon contracted further and further. Having seized 3560 square kilometres, about a third of the country, containing around 800 towns and villages, Israel found itself in 1985 with only 500 square kilometres and 61 villages, mostly deserted. Hizbullah, which led the resistance that had forced the Israelis to abandon most of their conquest, demanded the unconditional return of all Lebanese territory. Its attacks intensified, resulting in a loss of IDF soldiers that became unpalatable to most Israelis. The Israeli army placed the SLA between itself and Hizbullah so that it could pay the price that Israel had decided it could not afford. Hizbullah kidnapped SLA men, and the SLA and Israelis kidnapped Shias. The two sides killed each other, as well as many civilians, and blood feuds were born. On 17 May 1999, Israelis elected Ehud Barak on the strength of his promise to reverse Ariel Sharon's Lebanon adventure, which had by then cost around a thousand Israeli lives.

Barak announced that Israel would pull out in an orderly fashion in July 2000, provided that Lebanon agreed to certain conditions. The Lebanese government, urged by Hizbullah, rejected these conditions and demanded full Israeli withdrawal in accordance with UN Resolutions 425 and 426 of 1978. Barak abandoned Lebanon two months ahead of schedule, suddenly and without advance warning, on 23 May 2000. His SLA clients and other Lebanese who had worked for the occupation over the previous 22 years were caught off guard. A few escaped into Israel, but most remained. UN personnel made urgent appeals for help to avert a massacre by Hizbullah. Hizbullah went in, but nothing happened.

The deputy secretary-general and co-founder of Hizbullah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, wrote a fascinating if partisan account of the creation and rise of Hizbullah. His version of the events in 2000 is, however, borne out by eyewitnesses from other Lebanese sects - including some who stood to lose their lives - and the UN. 'It is no secret that some young combatants, as well as some of the region's citizens, had a desire for vengeance - especially those who were aware of what collaborators and their families had inflicted on the mujahedin and their next of kin across the occupied villages,' Qassem wrote in Hizbullah: The Story from Within. 'Resistance leadership issued a strict warning forbidding any such action and vowing to discipline those who took it whatever the justifications.' Hizbullah captured Israeli weapons, which it is now using against Israel, and turned over SLA militiamen to the government without murdering any of them. Barbarous?

Naim Qassem called the liberation of south Lebanon 'the grandest and most important victory over Israel since it commenced its occupation [of Palestine] fifty years before - a liberation that was achieved at the hands of the weakest of nations, of a resistance operating through the most modest of means, not at the hands of armies with powerful military arsenals.' But what impressed most Lebanese as much as Hizbullah's victory over Israel was its refusal to murder collaborators - a triumph over the tribalism that has plagued and divided Lebanese society since its founding. Christians I knew in the Lebanese army admitted that their own side would have committed atrocities. Hizbullah may have been playing politics in Lebanon, but it refused to play Lebanese politics. What it sought in south Lebanon was not revenge, but votes. In the interval between its founding in 1982 and the victory of 2000, Hizbullah had become - as well as an armed force - a sophisticated and successful political party. It jettisoned its early rhetoric about making Lebanon an Islamic republic, and spoke of Christians, Muslims and Druze living in harmony. When it put up candidates for parliament, some of those on its electoral list were Christians. It won 14 seats.

Like Israel's previous enemies, Hizbullah relies on the weapons of the weak: car bombs, ambushes, occasional flurries of small rockets and suicide bombers. The difference is that it uses them intelligently, in conjunction with an uncompromising political programme. Against Israel's thousand dead on the Lebanese field, Hizbullah gave up 1276 'martyrs'. That is the closest any Arab group has ever come to parity in casualties with Israel. The PLO usually lost hundreds of dead commandos to Israel's tens, and Hamas has seen most of its leaders assassinated and thousands of its cadres captured with little to show for it. Hizbullah's achievement, perhaps ironically for a religious party headed by men in turbans, is that it belongs to the modern age. It videotaped its ambushes of Israeli convoys for broadcast the same evening. It captured Israeli soldiers and made Israel give up hundreds of prisoners to get them back. It used stage-set cardboard boulders that blew up when Israeli patrols passed. It flew drones over Israel to take reconnaissance photographs - just as the Israelis did in Lebanon. It had a website that was short on traditional Arab bombast and long on facts. If Israelis had faced an enemy like Hizbullah in 1948, the outcome of its War of Independence might have been different. Israel, whose military respect Hizbullah, is well aware of this.

That is why, having failed to eliminate Hizbullah while it occupied Lebanon, Israel is trying to destroy it now. Hizbullah's unpardonable sin in Israel's view is its military success. Israel may portray Hizbullah as the cat's-paw of Syria and Iran, but its support base is Lebanese. Moreover, it does one thing that Syria and Iran do not: it fights for the Palestinians. On 12 July Hizbullah attacked an Israeli army unit, capturing two soldiers. It said it would negotiate indirectly to exchange them for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israel, as it has done in the past. It made clear that its attack was in support of the Palestinians under siege in Gaza after the capture of another Israeli soldier a week earlier. The whole Arab world had remained silent when Israel reoccupied the Gaza settlements and bombed the territory. Hizbullah's response humiliated the Arab regimes, most of which condemned its actions, as much as it humiliated Israel. No one need have been surprised. Hizbullah has a long history of supporting the Palestinians. Many of its original fighters were trained by the PLO in the 1970s when the Shias had no militias of their own. Hizbullah risked the anger of Syria in 1986 when it sided against another Shia group which was attacking Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. Hizbullah has never abandoned the Palestinian cause. Its capture last month of the two Israeli soldiers sent a message to Israel that it could not attack Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank without expecting a reaction.

On this occasion Israel, which regards its treatment of Palestinians under occupation as an internal affair in which neither the UN nor the Arab countries have any right to interfere, calibrated its response in such a way that it could not win. Instead of doing a quiet deal with Hizbullah to free its soldiers, it launched an all-out assault on Lebanon. Reports indicate that Israel has already dropped a greater tonnage of bombs on the country than it did during Sharon's invasion in 1982. The stated purpose was to force a significant portion of the Lebanese to demand that the government disarm Hizbullah once and for all. That failed to happen. Israel's massive destruction of Lebanon has had the effect of improving Hizbullah's standing in the country. Its popularity had been low since last year, when it alone refused to demand the evacuation of the Syrian army after the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Hizbullah sensed that Washington was orchestrating the anti-Syrian campaign for its own - rather than Lebanon's - benefit.

Syria had, after all, helped found Hizbullah after Israel's invasion - and encouraged it to face down and defeat the occupation, as well as to drive the Americans from Lebanon. Syria in turn allowed Iran, whose religious leaders gave direction to Hizbullah and whose Revolutionary Guards provided valuable tactical instruction, to send weapons through its territory to Lebanon. Hizbullah's leaders nevertheless have sufficiently strong support to assert their independence of both sponsors whenever their interests or philosophies clash. (I have first-hand, if minor, experience of this. When Hizbullah kidnapped me in full view of a Syrian army checkpoint in 1987, Syria insisted that I be released to show that Syrian control of Lebanon could not be flouted. Hizbullah, unfortunately, ignored the request.) Despite occasional Syrian pressure, Hizbullah has refused to go into combat against any other Lebanese militia. It remained aloof from the civil war and concentrated on defeating Israel and its SLA surrogates.

Hizbullah's unspectacular showing in the first post-Syrian parliamentary elections was largely due to changes in electoral law but may also be traced in part to its perceived pro-Syrian stance. Now, Israel has rescued Hizbullah and made its secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, not only the most popular man in Lebanon - but in the whole Arab world. An opinion poll commissioned by the Beirut Centre for Research and Information found that 80 per cent of Lebanese Christians supported Hizbullah; the figure for other communities was even higher. It was not insignificant that, when false reports came in that Hizbullah had sunk a second Israeli warship, the area that fired the loudest celebratory shots in the air was Ashrafieh, the heart of Christian East Beirut. Unlike in 1982, when it could rely on some of the Christian militias, Israel now has no friends in Lebanon.

Israel misjudged Lebanon's response to its assaults, just as Hizbullah misjudged Israeli opinion. Firing its rockets into Israel did not, as it may have planned, divide Israelis and make them call for an end to the war. Israelis, like the Lebanese, rallied to their fighters in a contest that is taking on life and death proportions for both countries. Unlike Israel, which has repeatedly played out the same failed scenario in Lebanon since its first attack on Beirut in 1968, Hizbullah has a history of learning from its mistakes. Seeing the Israeli response to his rocket bombardment of Haifa and Netanya in the north, Nasrallah has not carried out his threat to send rockets as far as Tel Aviv. He now says he will do this only if Israel targets the centre of Beirut.

If the UN had any power, or the United States exercised its power responsibly, there would have been an unconditional ceasefire weeks ago and an exchange of prisoners. The Middle East could then have awaited the next crisis. Crises will inevitably recur until the Palestine problem is solved. But Lebanon would not have been demolished, hundreds of people would not have died and the hatred between Lebanese and Israelis would not have become so bitter.

On 31 July, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said: 'This is a unique opportunity to change the rules in Lebanon.' Yet Israel itself is playing by the same old unsuccessful rules. It is ordering Lebanon to disarm Hizbullah or face destruction, just as in 1975 it demanded the dismantling of the PLO. Then, many Lebanese fought the PLO and destroyed the country from within. Now, they reason, better war than another civil war: better that the Israelis kill us than that we kill ourselves. What else can Israel do to them? It has bombed comprehensively, destroyed the country's expensively restored infrastructure, laid siege to it and sent its troops back in. Israel still insists that it will destroy Hizbullah in a few weeks, although it did not manage to do so between 1982 and 2000 when it had thousands of troops on the ground and a local proxy force to help it. What is its secret weapon this time?
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Zionism in Action


Israeli 9/11 Crook Flees with $57 Million to Israel

ChristopherBollyn
10 August 2006

Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, the Israeli founder of Comverse Technology, one of the leading Mossad companies involved in the terror attacks has fled justice in the United States and escaped to Israel with at least $57 million of ill-gotten gains.
As todays New York Times reports:

New York - Describing a brazen scheme to manipulate the granting of options, federal prosecutors have charged three former executives of Comverse Technology with mail fraud, securities fraud and wire fraud.

In charging the former executives on Tuesday, prosecutors said they had used fictitious employees to create a secret slush fund of options to be distributed to favored employees.

The former chief executive, Jacob Alexander, who had built Comverse into a $1 billion leader in the communications software market, did not appear in court and is believed to have fled to Germany or Israel, according to a person briefed on the investigation. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

Alexander is highly regarded in Israel, where he once owned a stake in a Tel Aviv professional basketball team and where Comverse has extensive business operations.

In late July, he wired $57 million to an account in Israel, according to court filings from the Justice Department. Millions more are believed to remain in his accounts in the United States, which prosecutors have asked to be frozen.


Kobi Alexander should be arrested and interrogated about his knowledge of the events of 9/11. His company acquired the other Mossad firm, Odigo, shortly after it was revealed that Odigo employees had been forewarned of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

This is the tip of the Israeli criminal mafia who is behind the terror attacks on 9/11.

Here is a relevant section from one of my articles about Mossad's involvement in 9/11, which I posted on RMN on April 7, 2005:

At least two Israel-based employees of Odigo received warnings of an imminent attack in New York City more than two hours before the first plane hit the WTC. Odigo had its U.S. headquarters two blocks from the WTC. The Odigo employees, however, did not pass the warning on to the authorities in New York City, a move that could have saved thousands of lives.

Odigo has a feature called People Finder that allows users to seek out and contact others based on certain demographics, such as Israeli nationality.

Two weeks after 9/11, Alex Diamandis, Odigo's vice president, reportedly said, "It was possible that the attack warning was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports of other recipients of the message."

The Internet address of the sender was given to the FBI, and two months later it was reported that the FBI was still investigating the matter. There have been no media reports since.

Odigo, like many Israeli software companies, is based and has its Research and Development (R&D) center in Herzliya, Israel, the small town north of Tel Aviv, which happens to be where Mossad's headquarters are located.

Shortly after 9/11, Odigo was taken over by Comverse Technology, another Israeli company. Within a year, five executives from Comverse were reported to have profited by more than $267 million from "insider trading."



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3 from Comverse facing fraud charges on options

By Julie Creswell
The New York Times
August 10, 2006

NEW YORK - Describing a brazen scheme to manipulate the granting of options, federal prosecutors have charged three former executives of Comverse Technology with mail fraud, securities fraud and wire fraud.

In charging the former executives on Tuesday, prosecutors said they had used fictitious employees to create a secret slush fund of options to be distributed to favored employees.

The former chief executive, Jacob Alexander, who had built Comverse into a $1 billion leader in the communications software market, did not appear in court and is believed to have fled to Germany or Israel, according to a person briefed on the investigation. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
Alexander is highly regarded in Israel, where he once owned a stake in a Tel Aviv professional basketball team and where Comverse has extensive business operations.

In late July, he wired $57 million to an account in Israel, according to court filings from the Justice Department. Millions more are believed to remain in his accounts in the United States, which prosecutors have asked to be frozen.

The other two defendants, David Kreinberg, former chief financial officer, and William Sorin, former general counsel, were arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, where they were released on $1 million bail each, secured by their homes. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil complaint against the three men.

Lawyers for Alexander and Kreinberg declined to comment on the charges. A call to a lawyer for Sorin was not returned.

The criminal case against the Comverse executives, who resigned in May, is the second involving the manipulation of stock options. Last month, federal prosecutors in San Francisco charged the former chief executive of Brocade Communications and its former head of human resources with securities fraud.

James Burrus Jr., acting assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said at a news conference in Washington that the FBI was investigating 45 cases involving the backdating of options. More than 80 companies nationwide are now under investigation over their options practices by the Securities and Exchange Commission or by the Justice Department.

Prosecutors contend the three men devised a complex scheme to backdate every company-wide grant of options from 1998 to 2001 to days when Comverse's stock was trading at lower prices.

Options give an employee the right to buy a stock at some point in the future at the price of the stock on the day it was granted, commonly referred to as the strike price. The lower the strike price, the more an option is worth to the recipient. By falsely dating the options at a time when the stock was trading at a lower price, the recipient receives even bigger profits.

From 1991 to 2005, Alexander made profits of $138 million on options he exercised and stock he sold, prosecutors said. About $6.4 million of that profit was a result of backdated options, prosecutors say.

Likewise, Kreinberg and Sorin exercised options and sold shares for profits of about $13 million and $14 million, respectively, according to court filings. Around $1 million of those profits for both of the men came from backdating, prosecutors said.

"Each of the former executives realized substantial personal gains from the exercise of the illegally backdated option grants and the subsequent sale of Comverse common stock," said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Collectively, they realized millions."

Comverse has said it will have to restate financial results back to 2001 and possibly even further.

Alexander is credited with turning Comverse - once a penny stock on the verge of failure - into a market leader in the voice-messaging software arena with global operations. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master's degree in finance from New York University.

Comment: Remember Comverse? From Ruppert and Hopsicker: Co-Opting the 9-11 Truth Movement -Or- Exposing the Big Con:
Lies and Disinformation At The End Of Civilisation As We Know It
:

There is the fact of the Israeli spy ring, as exposed, surprisingly, by Fox News' Carl Cameron. In the four part series aired on Fox News in December 2001 Cameron reports many interesting facts such as:

Two Israeli companies Amdocs and Comverse InfoSys, (now called Verint), manage just about every aspect of the US telephone system.

Amdocs is responsible for billing and records for almost all phone calls in the US. Cameron states: Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The White House and other secure government phone lines are protected, but it is virtually impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating an Amdocs record of it.

In recent years, the FBI and other government agencies have investigated Amdocs more than once. The firm has repeatedly and adamantly denied any security breaches or wrongdoing. But sources tell Fox News that in 1999, the super secret National Security Agency, headquartered in northern Maryland, issued what's called a Top Secret sensitive compartmentalized information report, TS/SCI, warning that records of calls in the United States were getting into foreign hands in Israel, in particular.

Investigators don't believe calls are being listened to, but the data about who is calling whom and when is plenty valuable in itself. An internal Amdocs memo to senior company executives suggests just how Amdocs generated call records could be used. "Widespread data mining techniques and algorithms.... combining both the properties of the customer (e.g., credit rating) and properties of the specific 'behavior….'" Specific behavior, such as who the customers are calling.

Note the comment that "the White House and other secure government phone lines are protected." Well, it just so happens that Comverse InfoSys provides the wiretapping equipment and software for US law enforcement agencies. Cameron tells us:

Every time you make a call, it passes through the nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators.

The manufacturers have continuing access to the computers so they can service them and keep them free of glitches. This process was authorized by the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Senior government officials have now told Fox News that while CALEA made wiretapping easier, it has led to a system that is seriously vulnerable to compromise, and may have undermined the whole wiretapping system.

Indeed, Fox News has learned that Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were both warned Oct. 18 in a hand-delivered letter from 15 local, state and federal law enforcement officials, who complained that "law enforcement's current electronic surveillance capabilities are less effective today than they were at the time CALEA was enacted."

Comverse insists the equipment it installs is secure. But the complaint about this system is that the wiretap computer programs made by Comverse have, in effect, a back door through which wiretaps themselves can be intercepted by unauthorized parties.

Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is considered career suicide.

To this last comment we have to ask: Just what level of power do Israeli interests wield in the halls of power in the US that any investigation into Israeli spying activities on US soil against US intelligence agencies can be so completely quashed? Would this constitute a level of power and control that would allow those interests to carry off a terrorist attack like 9-11 and have it blamed on "Arab terrorists"?

Most assuredly.

Cameron goes on to tell us that a group of 140 Israeli spies were arrested prior to September 11, 2001, in the US as part of a widespread investigation into a suspected espionage ring run by Israel inside the US.



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Food running out in south Lebanon

By Hussein Saad
Reuters
August 11, 2006

TYRE, Lebanon - Humanitarian agencies sought ways to get aid to an estimated 100,000 people trapped in southern Lebanon on Friday and the mayor of Tyre said the port city could run out of food in two days.

United Nations and other convoys have been unable to deliver supplies to the region since an Israeli air strike destroyed the last bridge across the Litani river on Monday.

"We have not received any aid since the last route was cut off. We have enough food supplies for no more than two days," Tyre's mayor, Abdel-Mohsen al Husseini, told a news conference.

"We contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross to try to set up a humanitarian crossing over the Litani river but we have yet to receive an answer," he said.
The ICRC said it had not been able to reach villages where it had hoped to take several hundred people, including wounded, to safety in the north. "Obviously we will continue to try to reach and supply these villages and evacuate the wounded and sick," said spokeswoman Antonella Notari.

The UNHCR refugee agency also condemned Israel's dropping of leaflets telling people in heavily populated areas in Beirut to flee on Thursday which prompted hundreds to evacuate.

"We once again strongly appeal to all parties in the conflict to protect civilians and infrastructure during this conflict in accordance with international law," it said.

Israel's month-old war with Hizbollah guerrillas has killed at least 1,023 people in Lebanon and destroyed an estimated $2.5 billion of infrastructure, while 123 Israelis have been killed.

Hizbollah has fired more than 3,400 rockets at Israel during the war. The rockets have paralyzed life across a region that is home to one million people, driving one third of them to flee while many others are holed up indoors or in bomb shelters.

AID INCHES SOUTH

The U.N. World Food Programme, overseeing logistics for U.N. agencies, said a 15-truck convoy proceeded to the eastern town of Baalbek after it halted due to shelling a day earlier.

It also received Israeli clearance for convoys to Sidon and Nabatiyeh, towns north of the Litani, but could not reach Tyre, the biggest city south of the river, or border villages.

"We have clearance for everything north of the Litani," said WFP spokesman Robin Lodge. "Below that it's still a no-go area."

The World Health Organization was receiving requests for fuel from at least 24 private hospitals and was looking into transporting a 10-day supply for those in most urgent need.

WFP emergency coordinator Zlatan Milisic said Lebanon's government had contracted a ship that could ferry fuel from two vessels docked in Cyprus which have refused to pass Israel's naval blockade for fear of attack.

"The earliest would be on (August) 13 for the ship to come and then go unload the fuel," he said.

The WFP said it had brought in 650 metric tonnes of aid, enough for 180,000 people in Lebanon and Syria, although that remained "far off the mark" from its goal of 300,000.



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Fuel supplies in Lebanon critical: UN

AFP
Thu Aug 10, 2006

GENEVA - UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland has warned that fuel supplies in Lebanon could run out within days or weeks, paralysing hospitals and shutting down electricity across the country.

"The fuel situation is the single most worrying humanitarian crisis at the moment," Egeland told a news conference Thursday.

"If there's one thing that will be the most critical -- even more critical than food -- over the next days and weeks, it's fuel," he said.

Fuel supplies have been stifled by a combination of Israeli raids that have destroyed roads and bridges -- halting convoys of urgently needed relief supplies too -- and the inability to import more fuel into Lebanon.
Four hospitals in the south of the country have already run out of fuel needed for generators that were crucial for surgery and stocking drugs, Egeland said.

But a broader problem was also developing after the owners of two oil tankers chartered by the UN stopped them docking in Beirut because conditions were regarded as too dangerous, he added.

"The national electricity grid will even halt if there is no fuel coming in soon, and the two UN-supported tankers will help in this," Egeland told a news conference.

Israeli forces have bombed major power stations, many of which are oil-fired.

The World Health Organisation said Thursday it had purchased enough fuel to keep hospitals in the south going for 10 days "and is ready to deliver it".

"However, the security situation continues to make delivery extremely difficult," it added in a statement.

The UN humanitarian coordinator slammed Israel and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah for their conduct in the conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel, condemning a "senseless cycle of violence".

"It's a disgrace really because the parties to the conflict, Israel and Hezbollah, could give access in a heart beat, and then we could help 120,000 people in southern Lebanon."

Ten requests for relief or reconnaissance convoys were made Thursday, and Israeli forces granted security clearance for eight of them, the humanitarian chief said.

But no requests were even attempted for the virtually isolated port of Tyre after days of refusals, Egeland said.

He also called into doubt the value of the notification system with Israeli forces following air strikes that came perilously close to relief convoys.

"This gives us the impression it is a very fragile system... It is a system which is not working," he said.

About one quarter to one third of Lebanon's population was fleeing, according to the UN.

Egeland cautioned that under any subsequent end to the fighting, the Lebanese must be able to return to their homes.

"The people have a right to return. If the right is not granted, they will be sources of perpetual bitterness, perpetual hatred, perpetual conflict," he added.



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Israeli bombs kill 12 Civilians in Lebanon

Reuters
Fri Aug 11, 2006

BEIRUT - Israeli air raids killed 12 people in north Lebanon on Friday as the United States and France strove to clinch a draft U.N. resolution to end the month-old war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

Intensive big-power diplomacy has done little to ease the violence in Lebanon, although Israel has put on hold plans for a deeper assault that its security cabinet approved on Wednesday.
The bombing of a bridge near the border with Syria wounded 18 people in addition to the 12 dead, hospital staff said. Witnesses said a second strike hit the bridge 15 minutes after the first had brought rescuers rushing to the scene.

An Israeli soldier was killed and one was badly wounded in fighting with Hizbollah guerrillas, Al Arabiya television reported. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

An Israeli strike on a car near the eastern city of Baalbek killed one civilian and wounded two, medical sources said.



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Israel Asks U.S. to Ship Rockets With Wide Blast

August 11, 2006
NY Times

Summary: Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range antipersonnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, two American officials said Thursday.

The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is likely to be approved shortly, along with other arms, a senior official said.

Human Rights Watch and other groups have campaigned for the elimination of cluster munitions, noting that even if civilians are not present when the weapons is used, some submunitions that do not detonate on impact can later injure or kill civilians.

The M-26 "is a particularly deadly weapon," Bonnie Docherty, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, who helped write a study of the United States' use of the weapons in the 2003 Iraq invasion. "They were used widely by U.S. forces in Iraq and caused hundreds of civilian casualties."

After the Reagan administration determined in 1982 that the cluster munitions had been used by Israel against civilian areas, the delivery of the artillery shells containing the munitions to Israel was suspended.

Israel was found to have violated a 1976 agreement with the United States in which it had agreed only to use cluster munitions against Arab armies and against clearly defined military targets. The moratorium on selling Israel cluster weapons was later lifted by the Reagan administration.

This week, State Department officials were studying records of what happened in 1982 as part of their internal deliberations into whether to grant approval for the sale to go forward.


WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range antipersonnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, two American officials said Thursday.

The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is likely to be approved shortly, along with other arms, a senior official said.

But some State Department officials have sought to delay the approval because of concerns over the likelihood of civilian casualties, and the diplomatic repercussions. The rockets, while they would be very effective against hidden missile launchers, officials say, are fired by the dozen and could be expected to cause civilian casualties if used against targets in populated areas.

Israel is asking for the rockets now because it has been unable to suppress Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks in the month-old conflict by using bombs dropped from aircraft and other types of artillery, the officials said. The Katyusha rockets have killed dozens of civilians in Israel.

The United States had approved the sale of M-26's to Israel some time ago, but the weapons had not yet been delivered when the crisis in Lebanon erupted. If the shipment is approved, Israel may be told that it must be especially careful about firing the rockets into populated areas, the senior official said.

Israel has long told American officials that it wanted M-26 rockets for use against conventional armies in case Israel was invaded, one of the American officials said. But after being pressed in recent days on what they intended to use the weapons for, Israeli officials disclosed that they planned to use them against rocket sites in Lebanon. It was this prospect that raised the intense concerns over civilian casualties.

During much of the 1980's, the United States maintained a moratorium on selling cluster munitions to Israel, following disclosures that civilians in Lebanon had been killed with the weapons during the 1982 Israeli invasion. But the moratorium was lifted late in the Reagan administration, and since then, the United States has sold Israel some types of cluster munitions, the senior official said.

Officials would discuss the issue only on the condition of anonymity, as the debate over what to do is not resolved and is freighted with implications for the difficult diplomacy that is under way.

State Department officials "are discussing whether or not there needs to be a block on this sale because of the past history and because of the current circumstances," said the senior official, adding that it was likely that Israel will get the rockets, but will be told to be "be careful."

David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, declined to comment on Israel's request. He said, though, that "as a rule, we obviously don't fire into populated areas, with the exception of the use of precision-guided munitions against terrorist targets." In such cases, Israel has dropped leaflets warning of impending attacks to avoid civilian casualties, he said.

In the case of cluster munitions, including the Multiple Launch Rocket System, which fires the M-26, the Israeli military only fires into open terrain where rocket launchers or other military targets are found, to avoid killing civilians, an Israeli official said.

The debate over whether to ship Israel the missiles, which include the cluster munitions and use launchers that Israel has already received, comes as the Bush administration has been trying to win support for a draft United Nations resolution that calls for immediate cessation of "all attacks" by Hezbollah and of "offensive military operations" by Israel.

Arab governments, under pressure to halt the rising number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, have criticized the measure for not calling for a withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

While Bush administration officials have criticized Israeli strikes that have caused civilian casualties, they have also backed the offensive against Hezbollah by rushing arms shipments to the region. Last month the administration approved a shipment of precision-guided munitions, which one senior official said this week included at least 25 of the 5,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs.

Israel has recently asked for another shipment of precision-guided munitions, which is likely to be approved, the senior official said.

Last month, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said its researchers had uncovered evidence that Israel had fired cluster munitions on July 19 at the Lebanese village of Bilda, which the group said had killed one civilian and wounded at least 12 others, including 7 children. The group said it had interviewed survivors of the attack, who described incoming artillery shells dispensing hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village.

Human Rights Watch also released photographs, taken recently by its researchers in northern Israel, of what it said were American-supplied artillery shells that had markings showing they carried cluster munitions.

Mr. Siegel, the Israeli Embassy spokesman, denied that cluster munitions had been used on the village.

The United States Army also employs the M-26 rocket and the Multiple Launch Rocket System in combat, and the Pentagon has sold the weapon to numerous other allies, in addition to Israel. The system is especially effective at attacking enemy artillery sites, military experts say, because the rockets can be quickly targeted against a defined geographic area. Each rocket contains 644 submunitions that kill enemy soldiers operating artillery in the area.

But Human Rights Watch and other groups have campaigned for the elimination of cluster munitions, noting that even if civilians are not present when the weapons is used, some submunitions that do not detonate on impact can later injure or kill civilians.

The M-26 "is a particularly deadly weapon," Bonnie Docherty, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, who helped write a study of the United States' use of the weapons in the 2003 Iraq invasion. "They were used widely by U.S. forces in Iraq and caused hundreds of civilian casualties."

After the Reagan administration determined in 1982 that the cluster munitions had been used by Israel against civilian areas, the delivery of the artillery shells containing the munitions to Israel was suspended.

Israel was found to have violated a 1976 agreement with the United States in which it had agreed only to use cluster munitions against Arab armies and against clearly defined military targets. The moratorium on selling Israel cluster weapons was later lifted by the Reagan administration.

This week, State Department officials were studying records of what happened in 1982 as part of their internal deliberations into whether to grant approval for the sale to go forward.



Comment:

France to UN: We need a cease-fire in Lebanon!


US to UN
: Yes! We agree, but we disagree with France simply because we can.

US to Israel: PSST! Hey! Have some more weapons. Just be careful when you commit more war crimes, okay?

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US neocons urged Israel to attack Syria

August 9, 2006
CS Monitor

The White House, and in particular White House advisors who belong to the neoconservative movement, allegedly encouraged Israel to attack Syria as an expansion of its action against Hizbullah, in Lebanon.
The White House, and in particular White House advisors who belong to the neoconservative movement, allegedly encouraged Israel to attack Syria as an expansion of its action against Hizbullah, in Lebanon. The progressive opinion and news site ConsortiumNews.com reported Monday that Israeli sources say Israel's "leadership balked at the scheme."

One Israeli source said [US President George] Bush's interest in spreading the war to Syria was considered "nuts" by some senior Israeli officials, although Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has generally shared Bush's hard-line strategy against Islamic militants.

After rebuffing Bush's suggestion about attacking Syria, the Israeli government settled on a strategy of mounting a major assault in southern Lebanon aimed at rooting out Hizbullah guerrillas who have been firing Katyusha rockets into northern Israel.

In a July 30 story about Israel being prepared for a possible attack by Syria in response to its attacks in Lebanon, The Jerusalem Post noted the White House interest.

The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] was also concerned about a possible Syrian attack in response to the ongoing IDF operations in Lebanon. It was also known that Syria had increased its alert out of fear in Damascus that Israel might attack.

Defense officials told the Post last week that they were receiving indications from the US that America would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria.

Neoconservatives, or 'neocons,' believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled military power to promote its values around the world. Several prominent neocon columnists have recently written about the need for Israel to take the current conflict beyond Lebanon to include the countries they consider to be Hizbullah's main backers - Iran and Syria.

In his blog for National Review, columnist Michael Ledeen wrote last month that "we have to [go] after [Syrian President Bashir] Assad."

The hard work on the ground belongs to the Israelis, and you are right to say we have done well to support them rhetorically. But we have to [go] after Assad, and we have not done that. Perhaps this is due to my own ignorance; it may be going on behind the scenes (not movie scenes, the real ones). I hope so. But I don't see it. I don't see or hear our leaders condemning the Syrians and the Iranians, aside from the original White House statement (in direct conflict with the statement from the State Dept, let's not forget) holding Syria and Iran responsible. Okay, so they're responsible. And then?

There has to be a "then." And it has to be aimed at the total destruction of Hizbullah and the downfall of the regime in Damascus. Otherwise, it will all rewind. There will be no semblance of a strong, free, and independent Lebanon, and the next time around things will be much worse. You will see more and more Iranian missiles, in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in Israel. It's a war, not a debate.

William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, also believes the US needs to go after Syria and Iran.

For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

The right response is renewed strength - in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions - and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

But Alon Ben-Meir, professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, argues the opposite side, that now is the time to engage, not attack Syria, and that the Bush administration "will forfeit another historic opportunity to bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, however remote that prospect may now seem."

The Syrian government knows only too well that the administration is fully committed to a regime change in Damascus. From the Syrian perspective, this, in itself, justifies any effort to thwart the American design. If the administration wishes to see a real change in Syria's behavior, it must first assure President Bashar al-Assad that the United States has no intention of undermining his government. It is absurd to think that any government will cooperate in its own downfall. That said, however justified American grievances against Syria may be, Damascus can also compile a long list of its own grievances. Neither side's complaints against the other can be adequately addressed by public pronouncements or recriminations. Only a direct dialogue provides the clarity to realistically assess each other's intentions.

In a recent piece entitled "Ending the neoconservative nightmare," Ha'aretz columnist Daniel Levy writes that the neoconservative agenda for Israel has actually hurt the country. Israel, he said, found "its diplomatic options narrowed by American weakness and marginalization in the region, and found itself ratcheting up aerial and ground operations in ways that largely worked to Hizbullah's advantage..." Mr. Levy wonders if, after the Israel-Hizbullah crisis is over, Israelis will understand the "tectonic shift that has taken place in US-Middle East policy?"

The key neocon protagonists, their think tanks and publications may be unfamiliar to many Israelis, but they are redefining the region we live in. This tight-knit group of "defense intellectuals" - centered around Bill Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Elliott Abrams, [Richard] Perle, [Douglas] Feith and others - were considered somewhat off-beat until they teamed up with hawkish well-connected Republicans like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Newt Gingrich, and with the emerging powerhouse of the Christian right. Their agenda was an aggressive unilateralist US global supremacy, a radical vision of transformative regime-change democratization, with a fixation on the Middle East, an obsession with Iraq and an affinity to "old Likud" politics in Israel. Their extended moment in the sun arrived after 9/11.

Finding themselves somewhat bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, the neoconservatives are reveling in the latest crisis, displaying their customary hubris in re-seizing the initiative. The US press and blogosphere is awash with neocon-inspired calls for indefinite shooting, no talking and extension of hostilities to Syria and Iran, with Gingrich calling this a third world war to "defend civilization."

Disentangling Israeli interests from the rubble of neocon "creative destruction" in the Middle East has become an urgent challenge for Israeli policy-makers. An America that seeks to reshape the region through an unsophisticated mixture of bombs and ballots, devoid of local contextual understanding, alliance-building or redressing of grievances, ultimately undermines both itself and Israel. The sight this week of Secretary of State Rice homeward bound, unable to touch down in any Arab capital, should have a sobering effect in Washington and Jerusalem.

Finally, Spencer Ackerman writes in The New Republic Online that a growing split between traditional conservatives (champions of 'realistic' foreign policy) and neoconservatives (champions of 'moralistic' foreign policy) will only become more pronounced over the next few months, as traditional conservatives increasingly rethink the Bush administration's actions in Iraq.

Conservative recriminations over Iraq are igniting all across Washington, with opponents of the war loudly assaulting its leading champions (see Francis Fukuyama v. Charles Krauthammer and George Will v. William Kristol.) But what the Hulsman incident [the dismissal of senior foreign policy analyst, John Hulsman, from the neoconservative bastion the Heritage Foundation last month] reveals is that the war's supporters aren't about to passively absorb criticism and issue public apologies. They are going to fight back against their critics - and an ugly debate will become much uglier.





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Anti-tank weapons inflict heavy losses on Israeli army

by Marius Schattner
AFP
Thu Aug 10, 2006

JERUSALEM - Powerful anti-tank missiles manufactured by Russia and Iran are being used with deadly effectiveness by Hezbollah against the Israeli army in southern Lebanon, military sources say.

A large proportion of the 68 Israeli soldiers who have died in south Lebanon since the start of the offensive a month ago were killed by such missiles.

Top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot reported Thursday that out of 25 anti-tank missiles fired, about one-quarter of them pierced the armour of targeted tanks and caused heavy losses.
"The terrorists know where the weak spots are, and we are being badly hit," the newspaper quotes a senior official as saying.

The attacks are a blow to the pride of Israel's army. Merkava III and IV tanks are considered among the most powerful in the world and have a reputation for extremely resistant armour and protective systems.

Merkavas boast 1,200 horsepower and are equipped with state-of-the-art electronic systems that should make them some of the safest and most mobile tanks in the world.

But Israel's tanks, crucial for any ground operation in southern Lebanon, have proved vulnerable to the attacks of Hezbollah and ill-adapted to the hilly and heavily wooded terrain.

Israeli military officials have also admitted surprise at the level of resistance they are meeting from Hezbollah fighters, who are well-trained and have been firing at tanks from very close range.

The bulk of the Shiite militia's anti-weapons are Russian-made models, although some were manufactured in Iran, said expert Yiftah Shapir from the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

"The most efficient missiles are the Metis-M and the Kornet manufactured by Russia and delivered to Syria in the nineties," he told AFP.

"They are very lethal because they have been designed to penetrate active armour on modern tanks such as those the Israelis were the first to introduce in the early eighties," Shapir said.

Hezbollah also has the latest Sagger missile, a Russian weapon manufactured in Iran, as well as the Russian Spigot, the expert.

These missiles have the ability to pierce armour as thick as one metre (39 inches) and have a range of 1.5 to five kilometres (one to three miles).

"The Israeli army knew that Hezbollah had a large arsenal of missiles, but maybe they didn't know they had the Metis-M and the Kornet," Shapir added.

Yediot Aharonot quoted a senior military official as saying the army's lack of preparedness for the threat of anti-tank missiles "is a bigger failure than that which preceded the Yom Kippur War."

The Israeli army has dramatically underestimated Egypt's ground forces ahead of the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict.

"The problem isn't technical," said Shapir. "They will always end up finding the answer to the new generation of missiles just like they did in the past."

"The most important thing is that the Israeli army finally understand that they are not up against a gang of terrorists but a real army."



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Robert Fisk: Hizbollah's iron discipline is match for military machine

Robert Fisk
The Independent
11 August 2006

Summary: Much bellowing and roaring comes from Israel about a mass military attack all the way to the Litani river. But today, much less bellowing and roaring about "rooting out" the "weed" of the Shia Muslim Hizbollah "terrorists" who are supposedly - in Israel's fantasies, at least - an ally of America's enemies in the War on Terror (a conflict which, of course, we all religiously support).

Israel's frustration - and its sense of loss since 15 of its soldiers were killed in just the fraction of the south Lebanese border area which it "controls" over the past 24 hours - was evident in a potentially criminal document which it dropped over Beirut yesterday. Signed "the State of Israel" - which at least makes its origins clear - the tracts announced that "the Israeli Defence Forces intend to expand their operations in Beirut".

And it should be said that the Israeli army are not winning their war in southern Lebanon. Within two kilometres of their own border, they lost their 15 soldiers on Wednesday. Many others were wounded. The furthest the Israelis could reach in an armoured column yesterday was the edge of Khiam, the site of their own notorious torture prison from 1978 to 2000. It is still only two miles from the border and they are fighting a far more determined and disciplined enemy than in 1982, when their "incursion" took them as far as Beirut.
Much bellowing and roaring comes from Israel about a mass military attack all the way to the Litani river. But today, much less bellowing and roaring about "rooting out" the "weed" of the Shia Muslim Hizbollah "terrorists" who are supposedly - in Israel's fantasies, at least - an ally of America's enemies in the War on Terror (a conflict which, of course, we all religiously support).

A column of Israeli armour, which crept into the Lebanese Christian town of Marjayoun - largely populated by the Lebanese collaborators of Israel's occupation from 1978 to 2000 - turned north yesterday towards Khiam, a village already largely depopulated, to find that the Hizbollah guerrillas there refused to surrender.

Israel's frustration - and its sense of loss since 15 of its soldiers were killed in just the fraction of the south Lebanese border area which it "controls" over the past 24 hours - was evident in a potentially criminal document which it dropped over Beirut yesterday. Signed "the State of Israel" - which at least makes its origins clear - the tracts announced that "the Israeli Defence Forces intend to expand their operations in Beirut".

Ouch, we all said when we read this, anticipating more civilian deaths. And we were not without proof. The Israeli decision, announced in this Israeli document - a square of paper that fluttered on to shoppers and office workers, and myself, in Riad Solh Square - had been taken because Hizbollah rockets had continued to fall on Israel and because of "their leader's statements" last night. On Tuesday evening, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chairman, had boasted of the 350 missiles he claimed his members had fired on Israel over the previous 48 hours, and urged Israeli Arabs to leave Haifa.

And it should be said that the Israeli army are not winning their war in southern Lebanon. Within two kilometres of their own border, they lost their 15 soldiers on Wednesday. Many others were wounded. The furthest the Israelis could reach in an armoured column yesterday was the edge of Khiam, the site of their own notorious torture prison from 1978 to 2000. It is still only two miles from the border and they are fighting a far more determined and disciplined enemy than in 1982, when their "incursion" took them as far as Beirut.

The Israelis have crossed the same border to find that their enemies, Hizbollah, are prepared to die in battle - indeed, seek to die in battle - unlike the secular PLO over whom they proclaimed an easy victory in 1982. Hizbollah is a different enemy, one which turns the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert's, claims that he is pursuing the same "war on terror" as George Bush into dust. The Hizbollah is officered by men who spent 18 years fighting Israeli occupiers, and who learned the hard way that improved weaponry and iron discipline are more important than nationalist rhetoric. Since the Israeli retreat in 2000, they have had six years to bury their arms caches underground amid extraordinary secrecy.

Amazingly, the Hizbollah television station, al-Manar, is still on air. Israel's anger at this amazing bit of technological initiative may have led to its preposterous attack on the old French mandate semaphore and radio station transmitter in west Beirut. The structure, built by the French in the 1930s, had been a repeater station for Radio France during and after the Vichy French regime but had lain derelict since 1946. Yet at 11.20am yesterday, the Israelis wasted two missiles on the tower, thus proving the "war on terror" - in which they insist they are "our" allies - goes back to an era before Israel existed.

Yesterday's air-dropped Israeli document ordered Shia MuslimsinBeirut's Hay al-Selloum, Bourj al-Barajneh and Shiyah districts to abandon their homes "immediately". In other words, the Israeli army wishes to "cleanse" every civilian out of the 12 square miles between Beirut airport and the old Christian civil war frontline at Galerie Semaan. This malicious document ends with a sinister threat - which breaks all the relevant rules of the Geneva Conventions - that "each expansion of Hizbollah terrorist operations will lead to a harsh and powerful response and its painful response will not be confined to Hassan's gang of criminals".

So what does "not be confined to" mean? That it is the civilians who will pay the price - this time in Beirut - as they have in the Israeli air force massacres of southern Lebanon over the past three weeks?

Well, stand by for more Hizbollah atrocities and more Israeli atrocities.



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False Flag Op


Dirty Neo-Fascist Slugs Slam-Dunk Another Terror Scam

Paul Joseph Watson
August 10 2006

Numerous questions need to be asked about this latest attempt by the dirty Neo-Fascist slugs to bully people into placating to being treated like slaves and updates on the frothing propaganda being spewed by the news networks need to be quantified.

For what it's worth, Drudge currently has this on his front page....

CNN: 'Don't use your cellphone within 50 feet of a suspicious object, you might detonate something'...

Absolute twilight zone irrational bullshit.


ABC News and FOX aren't done with this one yet. ABC says five deadly terror suspects on the loose - that's not enough for FOX who say ten are on the run.

Reports differ as to when the supposed plot was discovered - BBC says Bush spoke to Blair about it some days ago - other reports say its been known for weeks.

Known for weeks - and yet SNAP - all the ridiculous measures about hair gel, baby milk and water bottles are implemented on a whim. A decision had been made to introduce this latest fraud exactly on time this morning. If it was such a deadly imminent plot why did they wait to put these measures in AFTER the arrests has already taken place?

BBC: "Security chiefs said the group believed to be planning the attack had been under surveillance for some time."

The terrorists were caught engaging in a dry run before the attack. This translates as 'the patsies were making sure they got noticed' - actor James Woods tried to alert the authorities to a similar drill before 9/11 but was ignored.

Bush's comments are totally transparent.

"The American people need to know we live in a dangerous world, but our government will do everything we can to protect our people from those dangers."

The men pointing sub-machine guns at old ladies are here to help. Display the proper level of obedience to your government and we will protect you from the terrorists. Impinge on our ability to 'defend' America and something might go boom boom.

This latest PR scam will subside into implausible buffoonery within days - every other major terror alert that we have encountered is always exposed as a monumental fraud and we see no other eventuality.





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Terra! Terra! Terra!

Sploid
11/08/2006

There are no coincidences...only the illusion of coincidence.

The alleged U.K. terror plot has been investigated for months by British intelligence, and the idea that the airliner attacks were planned for today seems to be nothing more than political fabrication and media hysteria.

Tony Blair and George W. Bush even planned the terror freakout in a series of phone calls that began last Friday and continued through the weekend. Blair and Bush put the finishing touches on their diabolical operation in a phone call early Wednesday, the Associated Press revealed today.


That's right: While millions of travelers are going through absolute hell today because of the sudden terror "news," it was last week when the U.S. president and U.K. prime minister began their cold calculations on how to get the maximum political benefit from the months-old investigation.

"U.S. President George W. Bush seized on a foiled London airline bomb plot to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having all but forgotten the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks," AFP noted this afternoon.

"Weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, Bush and his aides have tried to shift the national political debate from that conflict to the broader and more popular global war on terrorism ahead of November 7 congressional elections."

But the American warmongers are hardly alone in needing a "terror boost" for their fading political fortunes. The timing of the hysteria was even more useful to Blair, who was on the verge of being thrown out of Downing Street last night.

"A Scottish MP last night quit the government in protest at Tony Blair's handling of the Middle East crisis, amid warnings from ministers that the Prime Minister's continuing support for American foreign policy could cost him his job," the Scotsman reported this morning.

"Jim Sheridan, Labour MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, became the first to resign from a government post over the war. He quit as parliamentary private secretary to the Ministry of Defense, saying he could no longer accept that Scottish airports were being used to refuel United States planes carrying arms to Israel."

The newspaper made it crystal clear that Blair had mere days left in power, with some 150 members of parliament demanding Blair's enemy Jack Straw call the politicians back to London, even though they're on summer break:

"His resignation came as ministers furious at Mr Blair's handling of the crisis said they would push for an emergency recall of parliament in a maneuver they hoped would trigger the Prime Minister's downfall."

Unlike the theoretical "massacre" of the theoretical terror plot that will soon be exposed in the courts as another make-believe scheme, actual massacres continue uninterrupted in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

At least 2,000 Iraqis were slaughtered in July alone, most in Sunni vs. Shiite violence that has exploded under the U.S. occupation. Baghdad continues to be the capital of death, but the bloodshed happens everywhere, every day, all the time. Today in Najaf, another religious shrine was blown up, leaving at least 35 dead and another 100 hurt.

Morons and Patsies

If the suspected terrorists are anything like the amateur morons arrested recently in Toronto, London and Florida, the "terror plot" will eventually be revealed to be nothing more than idiot fantasies encouraged by the usual intelligence agents.

While Muslim nations will continue be bombed by the United States and Britain, travelers are stranded all over the Western World and England's beleaguered Pakistanis can expect a new round of bogus terror raids, constant police harassment and attacks by neo-fascist skinheads, Bush and Blair can expect a solid boost for their bloodstained political parties.

The only other beneficiaries of today's insanity are the "homeland security" and private-army industries, the defense contractors and the personal-hygiene business -- having taken our corkscrews, pocket knives and fingernail clippers, airport goons are now seizing shampoo, deodorant, hair gel, toothpaste and pretty much everything else in your toiletries kit.

Not that you can even have a carry-on with your toothpaste and other essentials. As of today, British airports have banned all carry-ons.

Miserable passengers have been photographed standing around with nothing more than a clear plastic baggie holding their tickets and passports.

It's the world of the future, and it sucks.





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The British Terrorist Plot: Stage Two of the October Surprise

Hassan El-Najjar
Al-Jazeerah
August 11, 2006

The announcement yesterday of a British terrorist plot to destroy ten US aircraft using liquid bombs can be considered the second stage of an October surprise. It aims at keeping the US voters in tense conditions, making them feel that the world is not safe around them. This, purportedly, may push them back towards the War Party, which has the reputation of being "strong on security."
According to the leader of Hizbullah, Shaikh Hassan Nassrullah, the Israeli war on Lebanon was approved by the Bush administration to be launched on late September or early October. However, the war was launched prematurely in reaction to the Hizbullah capture of Israeli soldiers.

Apparently, the goal is driving American voters to the candidates of the War Party, after it had lost the confidence of American voters. I wrote about this issue in my article Nassrullah and Peres: The War Was Supposed to Be October Surprise, and to Weaken Iran.

The announcement yesterday of a British terrorist plot to destroy ten US aircraft using liquid bombs can be considered the second stage of an October surprise. It aims at keeping the US voters in tense conditions, making them feel that the world is not safe around them. This, purportedly, may push them back towards the War Party, which has the reputation of being "strong on security."

The timing of the announcement of such a terrorist plot should be received with skepticism and scrutiny, particularly because the pro-war corporate media have adopted the story and fully propagated it to death. The following are some points to be taken into consideration in scrutinizing the story.

First, the announcement came just one day after the earthquake of defeating the symbol of war in the Democratic Party, Joe Lieberman, representing a determination among American voters to fire proponents of war in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike. The announcement of the terrorist plot would serve as the Bush administration counterattack against the peace camp.

Second, it came after a month of a disaster Israeli war to subjugate Lebanon. The Israelis succeeded in destroying the country's infrastructure, forcing a million Lebanese out of their homes, but they couldn't defeat Hizbullah fighters. News about such a terrorist plot may aim at distracting the American people away from the Israeli atrocities in Lebanon, leaving it to pounded even more in the coming days by the crazy Israeli leaders.

Third, the US war in Iraq is worse than any time before. There is no end in sight for the US quagmire there. Just the day before the announcement about this terror plot, US military commanders and their boss testified in Congress about the coming Iraqi civil war. This is an acknowledgement of the Iraqi disaster by the Bush administration and it is not going to serve the War Party at the ballot box. The announcement about the terrorist plot may help to divert the attention of Americans and Britons away from the Iraq disaster.

Fourth, the war in Afghanistan has not ended and Taliban fighters have been fighting against the US-led NATO forces on daily basis. They have not gone away. The announcement about the British terrorist plot may help make Americans and Britons forget about Afghanistan a little bit.

Fifth, news reported mentioned that there was an under cover British government agent inside the terrorist group, for several months. This should spark a public debate about the role of government agents who penetrate suspected groups. What if the agent was playing a leading role? What if the whole thing was prompted, suggested, and orchestrated by the government agent and his superiors? Is this really a terrorist plot or a government-staged operation created for political reasons? We still remember the case of the six African American youngmen in Florida who were influenced by the under cover government agent, who posed to them as an Alqaeda operative. Did they want really to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago or it was the government agent's idea? We don't know. There should be more public scrutiny about this issue.

Finally, there has been a relentless attempt to link it to Alqaeda. Pundits, experts, and even officials did their best to convey this idea to the public. Among what they said was the travel of two members of the group to Pakistan then receiving money from Pakistan after they had returned to buy tickets to America. This should remind us with a similar story in the US about a Pakistani father and his son who were implicated first for traveling to Pakistan then they were released after that. With regard to the money received to buy tickets to the US, it is hard to believe that plotters with all this sophistication would not be able to buy tickets from London to New York, couple hundred dollars.

There's a lot to be skeptical about in the story. I hope that the American people stay the anti-war course and change the course of our country in November. By voting the pro-war candidates out of office and bringing anti-war candidates into office, we will be able to address the true cause of wars and reactions to them, resistance and terrorism.



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ABC News Exclusive: Three Alleged Ringleaders ID'd

Brian Ross
The Blotter, ABC News
August 10, 2006

Three of the alleged ringleaders of the foiled airplane bomb plot have been identified by Western intelligence agencies involved in unraveling the plot.

Two of them are believed to have recently traveled to Pakistan and were later in receipt of money wired to them from Pakistan, reportedly to purchase tickets for the suicide bombers.

Sources identify the three, who are now in custody, as:

--Rashid Rauf

--Mohammed al-Ghandra

--Ahmed al Khan
Comment: Every time one of there "terrorist" events happens, governments arrest all sorts of Arabs, and much ado is made about the whole affair. It is only months and often years later that we learn (through sites like Signs of the Times) that the vast majority of such suspects were released or imprisoned on charges that had nothing to do with terrorism - and the mainstream media will barely touch the story.



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Three of terror plot patsy suspects 'converted to Islam'

11/08/2006

At least three of the men arrested on suspicion of being involved in a terror plot to blow up a series of transatlantic planes had converted to Islam, it emerged today.

Ibrahim Savant, from Walthamstow, east London, changed his name from Oliver when he converted, according to neighbours.

The 25-year-old student, whose Muslim wife is reportedly pregnant, was arrested at his family home in Folkestone Road.

He is believed to have taken his Iranian father's name when he converted and immersed himself in religious books.

The second convert was called Don Stewart-Whyte until he changed his name to Adbul Waheed after converting to Islam.

The youngest of the suspects is 17-year-old Abdul Muneem Patel, who was seized in the Clapton area of London.
The third suspect believed to have converted to Islam is 28-year-old Umar Islam who was also arrested in High Wycombe.

Elsewhere in the Buckinghamshire town, 27-year-old Shazad Khuram Ali was arrested after anti-terror squads stormed his home in Micklefield Road.

Neighbours said the Victorian semi had been lived in by an Asian family for around 15 years and that they did not interact much with fellow residents.

At another High Wycombe address, a semi-detached house in Plomer Green Avenue, an Asian family was led outside by police but, according to onlookers, no-one was brought out under restraint.

Waseem Kayani, 29, was arrested and the property was sealed off by police ready to be searched.
Neighbour Brian Ashby, a 41-year-old business manager, said the family, who have a number of daughters, were "one of the quietest in the neighbourhood".

He added: "They were led out of the house and were carrying bags of clothes, not under arrest, and they left in their own cars.

"I heard one of the policemen say five or six times to the father: 'Thank you for your cooperation'."

Another of the suspects, Assad Sarwar, 26, was arrested at his family's three-bedroom, semi-detached ex-council house in Walton Drive, High Wycombe.

Locals said a family with three sons and two daughters had lived in the house for the past 15 years.
Sarwar, who was married, was thought to still live there with his wife, his brother and his sister-in-law. A third brother had moved out.

Former friends said the men used to be well known in the area, but had not been seen very much in recent years.

Philip Redfern said: "They are very quiet, they keep themselves to themselves, which is very strange because this is a very tight community."

One of the suspects worked at Heathrow Airport as a security man.

Amin Asmin Tariq, 23, was about to set off for work when he was arrested at his terraced home in Ravenswood Road, Walthamstow.

He had recently become a father and had worked at the airport for the past three years.

Waheed Zaman, 22, was arrested when officers burst into his family home in Queens Road, Walthamstow.

According to reports the biochemistry student had been watching television with his sister Safeena.
Zaman was known to be a devout and active Muslim who was head of the Islamic Society at the Metropolitan University in London.

A neighbour, who did not want to be named, described Zaman as a "good guy".

She said: "He's a good guy, he's a superman of Walthamstow. He has a good rapport with lots of people. I'm really upset to think this could have happened to him. He is studying biomedical science at university and loves to play football, he supports Liverpool. I don't think he would have been mixed up in anything."

The youngest of the suspects is 17-year-old Abdul Muneem Patel, who was seized in the Clapton area of London.

Muhammed Usman Saddique, 24, was at his family home in Albert Road, Walthamstow, when police raided the terraced home.



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UK bomb suspect a "normal, average guy"

Fri Aug 11, 2006
Reuters

Ibrahim Savant, named on Friday as a suspect in an alleged suicide bomb plot on U.S.-bound aircraft, had a regular job and loved soccer, just like many other young Britons, his neighbors said.

Neighbors and friends in the ethnically mixed eastern London suburb where the 25-year-old spent his youth said he was well-known.

"We grew up together. He was a normal, average guy," said Assad, who declined to give his surname. "Everyone around here will be amazed and dismayed" at his arrest,
he added.
Assad said Savant converted to Islam in 1997 or 1998, began wearing traditional Muslim dress and grew a beard. He attended a local mosque, one of several in the area of Walthamstow, which has a high Asian population.

Savant was one of 19 people named on Friday by the Bank of England in connection with the alleged plot to blow up numerous transatlantic flights. The bank, acting on instructions from the government, ordered their assets frozen.

U.S. authorities said all those arrested were British Muslims.

The neighbors' surprise at Savant's alleged involvement reflect growing fears about home-grown Islamist militancy in Britain and the difficulties faced by police to track it down.

The four British Muslim suicide bombers who killed 52 people on London's transport network in July last year had appeared to live similarly unremarkable lives. One loved cricket. Another was a classroom assistant.

Savant grew up with his brother Adam and his parents in a modest, white terraced house not far from Walthamstow's railway station and just across from a mosque.

"We called him Oliver when he was a little boy but he changed his name," said Paul Kleinman, a 66-year-old firefighter who lives next door to Savant's parents' house, raided by police on Thursday.

"He loved football and used to play the trumpet when he was small. All of a sudden he started to put these white robes on," he said, adding he had known Savant's parents for some 25 years.

Assad said Savant had worked at a central London department store: "He was always sleeping on trains," he joked.

The 19 named suspects are aged between 17 and 35. Police are holding 24 people after raids in other parts of London, Britain's southeast and Birmingham.



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Suspect 'met Galloway'

The Sun
August 11, 2006

TERROR suspect Waheed Zaman met controversial MP George Galloway many times, his sister said last night.

Safeena, 24, said of her 23-year-old brother: "He saw it as his duty to stand up for his community and that's what led him to know George Galloway. He has a lot of respect for him and has met him many times."

A spokesman for MP Galloway, above, said: "Waheed Zaman is not a name that George is familiar with. He is not known to him on a personal level."

There is no suggestion Galloway is an associate of Zaman.


Comment: Why didn't somebody tell us that Karl Rove works for Tony Blair now?!

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Who Benefits?


Bush seeks political gains from foiled plot

AFP
Thu Aug 10 2006

US President George W. Bush seized on a foiled London airline bomb plot to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having all but forgotten the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, Bush and his aides have tried to shift the national political debate from that conflict to the broader and more popular global war on terrorism ahead of November 7 congressional elections.

The London conspiracy is "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation," the president said on a day trip to Wisconsin.

"It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America," he said. "We've taken a lot of measures to protect the American people. But obviously we still aren't completely safe."

His remarks came a day after the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign to tar opposition Democrats as weak on terrorism, knowing what Democrats didn't: News of the plot could soon break.
Vice President Dick Cheney and White House spokesman Tony Snow had argued that Democrats wanted to raise what Snow called "a white flag in the war on terror," citing as evidence the defeat of a three-term Democratic senator who backed the Iraq war in his effort to win renomination.

But Bush aides on Thursday fought the notion that they had exploited their knowledge of the coming British raid to hit Democrats, saying the trigger had been the defeat of Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut by an anti-war political novice.

"The comments were purely and simply a reaction" to Democratic voters who "removed a pro-defense Senator and sent the message that the party would not tolerate candidates with such views," said Snow.

The public relations offensive "was not done in anticipation. It was not said with the knowledge that this was coming," the spokesman said.

Snow said Bush first learned in detail about the plot on Friday, and received two detailed briefings on it on Saturday and Sunday, as well as had two conversations about it with British Prime Minister
Tony Blair.

But a senior White House official said that the British government had not launched its raid until well after Cheney held a highly unusual conference call with reporters to attack the Democrats as weak against terrorism.

An aide to Lieberman, who would have been one of the first Democrats to hear of the plot because he is the top Democrat on the Senate
Homeland Security Committee, said the lawmaker first heard of it late Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Cheney had suggested that Democrats believe "that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won't, we can't, be," he said.

While some Democrats have opposed some steps in the war on terrorism, and more and more are calling for a withdrawal from Iraq, no major figures in the party have called for a wholesale retreat in the broader conflict.

But Bush's Republicans hoped the raid would yield political gains.

"I'd rather be talking about this than all of the other things that Congress hasn't done well," one Republican congressional aide told AFP on condition of anonymity because of possible reprisals.

"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances.



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Terror Arrests Play in Political Arena

By ADAM NAGOURNEY
The New York Times
August 11, 2006

Republicans seized on the arrests of terrorism suspects in Britain yesterday to bolster a White House campaign to turn national security issues to their advantage this fall, arguing that the nation needs tough Republican policies to protect Americans from threats from abroad.

Officials in both parties said they viewed the arrests as critical in determining how they would approach the fall campaign, with Republicans saying it could be a turning point in a year in which they have been on the defensive over the war in Iraq and other issues.

The developments played neatly into the White House-led effort, after Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, lost on Tuesday to an antiwar primary challenger, to remind voters of the threats facing the nation and to cast Democrats as timid on national defense.

The arrests were announced less than 24 hours after Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republican officials suggested that Mr. Lieberman's defeat reflected the world view of a Democratic Party that was not prepared to lead the nation in such dangerous times.
Mr. Cheney, who a spokesman said had been kept abreast of the investigation, suggested in his remarks Wednesday that the outcome of a Democratic primary in Connecticut could embolden "Al Qaeda types."

Republicans, facing tough midterm elections - and with a history, as Democrats noted, of spotlighting terrorist threats in election seasons - used the news from England to try to pound home their message that they were doing everything possible to keep the nation safe. Mr. Bush strode off Air Force One to television cameras to declare that the United States was safer from terrorist attacks than it was before Sept. 11, 2001, but remained in danger.

On Capitol Hill and in states where Republicans are facing tough re-election battles, party officials applauded the arrests by the British authorities as evidence of the administration's policies in fighting terrorism, and suggested that Americans might take a cue from the tougher antiterrorism statutes Britain has enacted. In line with their efforts to keep the election from being a referendum on Mr. Bush and instead make it a choice between two distinct approaches to national security and other issues, they used the arrests to portray Democrats as weak.

"Defeatocrats!" declared a statement issued by office of the House majority leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, capturing the tone of Republican rhetoric as the news unfolded.

The Ohio Republican chairman, Bill Bennett, attacked Representative Sherrod Brown, the Democratic challenger to Senator Mike DeWine, for voting against some intelligence bills, "the very types of programs that helped the British thwart these vicious attacks."

In a sign of how the terrorism issue was roiling American politics, Mr. Lieberman echoed Mr. Cheney as he attacked his primary opponent, Ned Lamont, for his opposition to the war. He said Mr. Lamont's desire to withdraw troops from Iraq would result in victory for Islamic extremists.

At the very least, the arrests in Britain were viewed by both parties as something of an August surprise, the kind of event that can change the story line of a campaign. The critical question now is the extent to which the fall campaign will be fought over the war in Iraq, something Republicans would like to avoid at all costs, or the overall campaign on terror, the only major issue where Republicans have consistently held an advantage over Democrats.

But in a sign of how this campaign might be different, Democrats struck a tone notably different from the elections of 2004 and 2002, when for the most part their strategy was to try to turn the subject away from national security. This time, Democrats attacked Republicans as failing to improve airline security and, most of all, argued that the decision to invade Iraq had been a distraction that depleted United States resources and allowed the world to become more dangerous.

"The war in Iraq had nothing to do with the war against international terrorism, or very little to do with the war on terrorism," said James Webb, a former Reagan administration official running as a Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia. "It has distracted our attention, it has pulled our forces in, and we are now in a situation where we have 135,000 on the ground, which affects our ability to do a lot of things that we would be able to do otherwise."

Mr. Webb said one of his main tasks in trying to unseat Senator George Allen, a Republican, was to try to disentangle Iraq from the war on terrorism. "They have tried to keep it together - they have to make it one in people's minds in order to cover the strategic error of Iraq," he said in an interview.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said, "This latest plot demonstrates the need for the Bush administration and the Congress to change course in Iraq and ensure that we are taking all the steps necessary to protect Americans at home and across the world."

Republicans have successfully portrayed Democrats as weak on terrorism for two national elections in a row. Still, before this threat, Democrats showed signs that they were viewing problems in Iraq and the unpopularity of the war as ways of undermining Republicans on their signature issue. And some Republicans were concerned that the party might not be able to go to the well on national security a third time.

Republicans have become increasingly alarmed that the war might drag down incumbents. A senior Republican consultant with ties to the White House, who was granted anonymity so he could describe internal research for a Republican member of Congress, said he had recently conducted a focus group in a highly contested Congressional district in the Philadelphia suburbs.

He was shocked, he said, at the degree of hostility among Republicans toward the war, even accounting for the fact that Northeast Republicans are more moderate than their counterparts in the rest of the country.

The importance of the struggle by both parties on whether this was an election season debate about terrorism or about the war in Iraq was demonstrated in a New York Times/CBS News poll late last month. Forty-two percent of Americans said they thought the Republicans were more likely than Democrats to make the right decision about the war on terror. The same percentage said they thought Democrats were more likely to make the right decisions about the war in Iraq.

The White House had been aware for weeks that Britain was moving to shut down this plot. White House officials said that Mr. Cheney was kept abreast of the plot and the investigation, but that his comments on Wednesday, in a rare teleconference with news service reporters, were simply in reaction to what they said was an extraordinary political event, the defeat of a sitting senator.

A senior White House official on Air Force One, speaking on the condition of anonymity, dismissed the notion that there was anything wrong with these kinds of issues being mixed up in a political campaign.

"The issue is going to be discussed in the fall," this official said. "Are you saying if the Democrats talk about the war, we shouldn't? We will talk about the war, and we will talk about the consequences of the policies advocated by the Democrats."



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Security in U.S. airports to intensify

By LESLIE MILLER
Associated Press
August 11, 2006

Summary: Since the Sept. 11 attacks, aviation security has been tightened in many areas - but not all.

On Friday, security was expected to intensify in U.S. airports with airline passengers facing a double-screening process, the head of the airline industry's largest trade group said. The extra screening was designed to keep passengers from carrying aboard any liquids that might be fashioned into explosives.
WASHINGTON - Since the Sept. 11 attacks, aviation security has been tightened in many areas - but not all.

Before they were foiled, terrorists apparently planned to exploit some of the remaining weaknesses in aviation security by assembling improvised bombs right inside airline passenger cabins.

The 2001 hijackings led to bulletproof cockpit doors. Machines that could detect explosives in checked baggage were installed in commercial airports. Sharp objects that could be used as weapons were banned, and better-trained airport screeners were hired to look for them.

So it may have been predictable that terrorists would try something else: smuggle aboard liquids that could be turned into explosives, put them together with other bomb parts and then detonate them.

"We've armored the flight deck doors, so they won't take planes and use them as weapons," said Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, a leading Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. "Bag screening is better. The easiest way to do it is on a person or carryon."

On Friday, security was expected to intensify in U.S. airports with airline passengers facing a double-screening process, the head of the airline industry's largest trade group said. The extra screening was designed to keep passengers from carrying aboard any liquids that might be fashioned into explosives.

Passengers and their carry-on luggage were to be examined not only at the main security checkpoint but also a second time at the boarding gate. The stepped-up screening began Thursday at 25 airports with flights bound for Britain, according to James May, president of the Air Transport Association.

Intelligence had indicated the terror plot unfolding in Britain involved using benign liquids that could be mixed inside an airplane cabin to make an explosive.

Noting that terrorists repeat their tactics, DeFazio pointed to the 1994-1995 attempt to blow up a dozen airliners simultaneously over the Pacific Ocean. The plot, code-named "Bojinka," involved liquid explosives smuggled onto planes in bottles of contact lens solution.

The response to the latest terrorist threat produced long lines at airports Thursday as security officials scrambled to put new measures in place and passengers adjusted to perplexing new restrictions.

With a dearth of security equipment that can detect explosives on passengers, U.S. security officials moved quickly to ban liquids from passenger cabins. By day's end British Airways had banned carry-on bags from all flights between the United States and Britain.

Earlier Thursday, carryons were barred from U.S.-bound flights to keep passengers from carrying liquids onto aircraft. Then the ban was extended to all flights between the United States and Britain.

British Airways carries by far the most passengers between the two countries. The airline runs 80 flights daily between Britain and 19 U.S. airports.

Pilots complained that they weren't told quickly enough about the threat.

"The pilots are the in-flight security coordinators," said Al Aitken, a retired pilot who is a member of the Passenger Cargo Security Group, which lobbies for better aviation security. "How can he be that without knowing the latest information on the imminent threat? How can he brief his crew on what to look for?"

Rafi Ron, former head of security at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport and now a security consultant in Washington, said terrorists always try to exploit new vulnerabilities.

"We've been investing 99.9 percent of our resources in technology with one single purpose: the detection of weapons," Ron said. "Terrorists will always be able to get around it."



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U.S. Issues Terror Warning in New Delhi

AP
Aug 11, 2006

NEW DELHI - The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi warned Friday that foreign militants, possibly al-Qaida members, may be planning to carry out bombings in India's two major cities in the coming days.

In an e-mail sent to American citizens living in India, the embassy said New Delhi, the capital, and Bombay, the country's financial and entertainment hub, were the likely targets, and the attacks were believed to be planned for either before or on India's Independence Day, August 15.

The embassy confirmed that it had sent the e-mail, although Indian officials refused to comment on the warning.

Word of the alleged plot came a day after British police said they had thwarted a terrorist plan, possibly just days away, to blow up U.S.- bound jetliners over the Atlantic. Investigators described a plan on the scale of 9/11 that would use common electronic devices to detonate liquid explosives to bring down as many as 10 planes.

The U.S. Embassy's warning for India said the "likely targets include major airports, key central Indian government offices, and major gathering places such as hotels and markets."

It urged American citizens to maintain a low profile and be especially alert and attentive to their surroundings between Aug. 11 and Aug. 16.




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Pakistan says arrests helped foil airline bomb plot

AFP
Friday August 11, 2006

Pakistani authorities said they had made several arrests, including at least three people linked to Al-Qaeda, which helped Britain uncover a plot to blow up planes flying to the United States.

Foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam would not say how many were held but said the arrests by key US ally Pakistan were coordinated with the detention of 24 suspects in Britain.
"Pakistan played a very important role in uncovering and breaking this international terrorist network. There were some arrests in Pakistan which were coordinated with arrests in the UK," Aslam told AFP.

The arrests in Britain "followed active international cooperation between Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States," she said, adding that "cooperation on this was spread over a period of time."

A senior Pakistani security official said at least three people were arrested "who are linked to Al-Qaeda", the terror network of Osama bin Laden blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The official had no further details of when or where they were seized.

Britain said early Thursday that it had thwarted a plot to wreak "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" by the simultaneous mid-air bombings of what reports said were up to nine planes.

Britain's domestic Press Association news agency said the 24 people arrested were mainly of Pakistani origin, while Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson, from the Metropolitan Police, strongly hinted they were Islamists.

Another security source said intelligence agencies in Islamabad had provided key leads to Britain's secret service that enabled them to bust the plot.

"The actions that have been taken in London were made possible only with the close cooperation between Pakistani and British intelligence," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Pakistani intelligence cooperated and provided vital information that led to these actions."

Al-Qaeda has already been fingered as a possible culprit behind the plot, with US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff saying the operation bore the hallmarks of the group.

Pakistan has arrested dozens of senior Al-Qaeda militants, including the capture three years ago of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks which used airliners as flying bombs.

Mohammed was also behind a foiled plan to blow up 12 US-bound passenger jets over the Pacific Ocean in 1995, called "Operation Bojinka".

Pakistan came under the spotlight after the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks on the London transport system when it emerged that some of the British-born bombers had attended Islamic religious schools, or madrassas, here.

Military ruler President Pervez Musharraf launched a crackdown on extremist groups after the London blasts, which killed 56 people including the bombers, and ordered foreign madrassa students to leave.

Comment: We're quite certain that Musharraf will get a gold star from his USUK masters.

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Passenger on Qatar plane held after 'trying to storm into cockpit'

AFP
Thu Aug 10, 2006

DUBAI - An Eritrean man was overpowered after trying to storm into the cockpit of a Qatar Airways plane flying from Amman to Doha, prompting the pilot to return to the Jordanian capital, the airline said.

Jordanian authorities were investigating the incident, which triggered reports that the aircraft had been the target of a hijack attempt. But the claim was denied by the Jordanian government.
The incident, in which no one was hurt, "happened shortly after takeoff from Queen Alia International Airport in Amman," Qatar Airways said in a statement.

"A passenger, an Eritrean national aged 22, tried to force his way into the cockpit of the Airbus A300-600 aircraft which was carrying 12 crew members and 267 passengers," the statement said.

"A Qatar Airways male cabin crew member overpowered him and with the assistance of three passengers restrained the man before the aircraft landed safely in Amman," where the man was handed over to Jordanian police, it said.

"Full security checks are being carried out by Qatar Airways, which is working closely with local police and airport authorities in Amman," the statement said, adding that the plane was expected to resume its journey to Doha later on Thursday.

Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television earlier reported the incident as an apparent hijack attempt.

Qatar Airways spokeswoman Salam al-Shawa told the news channel that the Eritrean passenger attempted to enter the cockpit carrying a box containing an unspecified substance.

He was prevented from entering by the crew and passengers. The captain declared a state of alert and flew the plane back to Amman, where the suspect was arrested by Jordanian authorities, she said.

Shawa subsequently told Al-Jazeera that the man had been carrying "a rope" and his motives were not yet known.

But Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Jawdeh told AFP that the Eritrean man had tried to enter the plane's toilet while the plane was taking off from Amman and a tussle ensued.

One passenger speaking to Al-Jazeera by telephone from Amman gave a similar account, saying the man, a resident of Doha, tried to enter the toilet during takeoff, triggering a squabble.

The incident occurred on the same day that Britain announced it had thwarted a plot to wreak "mass murder" by the simultaneous mid-air bombings of planes to the United States, causing jitters around the world.

Comment: With all the "terrorist events" in recent days, have you forgotten about Israel's invasion of Lebanon yet?

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Police commander in Menezes case seeks promotion

UK Telegraph
10/08/2006

A senior officer who ran the Scotland Yard operation in which an innocent Brazilian was shot dead by police has applied for promotion.

Commander Cressida Dick is one of a number of candidates for a post of deputy assistant commissioner, the next highest level and a rank that normally involves responsibility for running large departments within the Metropolitan Police.

The Crown Prosecution Service recently announced that no individual officers would face criminal charges over the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, but the force has been charged as a corporate entity with breaching health and safety legislation in failing to ensure his safety.

The question of disciplinary charges has yet to be resolved.

The news was greeted with anger by the family of Mr de Menezes, who was shot seven times at Stockwell Tube station, south London, in July last year. He had been mistakenly identified as a potential suicide bomber.


Comment: De Menezes could not possibly have been "mistaken for a suicide bomber". He was wearing a short summer jacket, was not running, did not challenge police, yet they pushed him to the floor of a tube train and shot him 7 times in the head. The British Metropolitan Police then lied that de Menezes had been wearing a large bulky coat (suggesting that it could have been reasonably suspected to be hiding a bomb) and that he ran when they challenged him.

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France boosts security in advance of holiday

AFP
Aug 11, 2006

PARIS - France said Friday it was tightening security across all airports, ports and rail stations ahead of a long holiday weekend, in response to an alleged plot to blow up US-bound planes from Britain.

Justice Minister Pascal Clement told regional authorities to "take all necessary measures to seek out any criminal offence related to a terrorist enterprise".
Some 1.6 million people were expected to pass through Paris' rail stations during the coming four-day holiday weekend.

Clement also asked prison directors to report any person suspected of preaching Islamic fundamentalism in French jails.

Meanwhile striking workers at a Paris airport security firm criticised plans for all hand luggage to be 100-percent searched on all flights to Britain, the United States and Israel, saying they were unworkable.

"Until now we were supposed to search 50 percent of all luggage and that was already impossible," said Danielle Hanryon, a union leader at the ICTS security firm, one of the largest at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

However ICTS management denied there would be any problem putting the new rules in place, despite protests from around 100 workers who went on strike to ask for more staff.

"All safety measures in place have been upheld, including the most recent ones announced for certain destinations," said the company's director of operations Pascal Kerouanthon.

The terror alert level in French airports was left unchanged at red, the third highest on a four-colour scale, following the discovery of the alleged plot, though security was stepped up at British airline check-in counters.



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Ponerized


Psychologists adopt anti-torture policy

By MARY FOSTER
Associated Press
Thu Aug 10, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - The American Psychological Association took a stand against torture Thursday but kept an existing policy saying that it's ethical for psychologists to assist in military interrogations.

Critics said the new policy, adopted at the group's convention, does not go far enough to keep its members from becoming embroiled in practices that could violate the principles of human rights.

"The ultimate question is, should psychologists participate in national security interrogations, and the answer is no," said Leonard Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights. "It's a question that other medical groups have addressed and the APA has not."

The APA adopted as policy long-standing international human rights standards for the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

"The Association unequivocally condemns any involvement by psychologists in torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This APA policy applies to all psychologists in all settings," a statement released by the organization said.

An APA policy issued last year said that while psychologists should not get involved in torture or other degrading treatment, it was ethical for them to act as consultants to interrogation and information-gathering for national security purposes.
That stand troubled some members of the organization in light of reported abuses at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq and elsewhere.

News reports have said that mental health specialists who are helping U.S. military interrogators have helped create coercive techniques, including sleep deprivation and playing on detainees' phobias, to extract information.

"There is no way for the APA to be involved in those interrogations without becoming complicit in torture," said Rubenstein, who was among the speakers at this week's convention.

The American Medical Association has adopted what many view as a stronger stand against physician involvement in prisoner interrogation, echoing a position held by the American Psychiatric Association, whose members are medical doctors. The U.S. military has indicated it will therefore favor using psychologists, who are not medical doctors and are not bound by the other groups' policies.

Comment: So, psychologists shouldn't get involved in torture, but it's "ethical" for them to act as consultants for the torturers to help improve their methods. In other words, it IS okay for psychologists to get involved in torture...

It seems the shrinks need to see a shrink.


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Gallup: Many Americans Harbor Strong Bias Against U.S. Muslims

By E&P Staff
August 10, 2006

NEW YORK A new Gallup poll finds that many Americans -- what it calls "substantial minorities" -- harbor "negative feelings or prejudices against people of the Muslim faith" in this country. Nearly one in four Americans, 22%, say they would not like to have a Muslim as a neighbor.
While Americans tend to disagree with the notion that Muslims living in the United States are sympathetic to al-Qaeda, a significant 34% believe they do back al-Qaeda. And fewer than half -- 49% -- believe U.S. Muslims are loyal to the United States.

Almost four in ten, 39%, advocate that Muslims here should carry special I.D. That same number admit that they do hold some "prejudice" against Muslims. Forty-four percent say their religious views are too "extreme."

In every case, Americans who actually know any Muslims are more sympathethic.

The poll was taken at the end of July and surveyed 1,007 adult Americans.

Comment: Hmmm..I wonder why?

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2 charged in Ohio with aiding terrorism

By SARAH KARUSH
Associated Press
Thu Aug 10, 2006

DEARBORN, Mich. - Attorneys for two Arab-American college students accused of supporting terrorism through the sale of mobile phones said their clients were victims of discrimination, while authorities charged them Thursday with an additional felony.

"These are all-American kids that unfortunately, in this day and age since 9-11, have names that call them into question," said defense attorney Rolf Baumgartel.

Authorities stopped Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, 20, and Ali Houssaiky, 20, both of Dearborn, Mich., on a traffic violation Tuesday in Ohio. Authorities said they found airplane passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints, along with $11,000 cash and 12 phones, in their car.
Prosecutors said investigators also found a map that showed locations of Wal-Mart stores from Ohio through Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

Prosecutor Susan Vessels said the prepaid mobile phones they bought can be used to make hard-to-track international calls and have been linked to use by terrorists,

Abulhassan and Houssaiky admitted buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in southeast Ohio and selling them to someone in Dearborn, the heart of southeastern Michigan's large Arab community.

Baumgartel said the government had no evidence the phones were being used illegally and the men planned to resell the phones simply to make money. Defense attorneys also said the airport and airplane information were old papers left in the car by a relative who worked at an airport.

Each defendant was charged Wednesday with money laundering in support of terrorism. On Thursday, prosecutors added soliciting or providing support for acts of terrorism. The two also were charged with a misdemeanor count of falsification.

A judge ordered them held on $200,000 bond each. Both also must surrender their passports.

FBI spokesman Mike Brooks in Cincinnati said the case had no link to the alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound planes that British authorities said they thwarted Thursday.

Abulhassan is a junior at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The school's directory lists him as a political science major. Houssaiky had been enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit as recently as May and was studying to be a physical therapist. He was not enrolled this fall, a university spokesman said.

At Dearborn's Fordson High School, the two friends were star football players. Both were born in the United States to parents who immigrated from Lebanon.

They face up to five years in prison and up to $25,000 in fines if convicted.



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More spy cameras pop up in public

Scripps Howard News Service
10/08/2006

More troubling to civil liberties advocates is absence of laws that govern surveillance.

In an unprecedented proliferation of public spying, government is casting its watchful eye on millions of ordinary Americans through largely unregulated surveillance cameras trained on public spaces throughout the nation.

A Scripps Howard News Service tally found that at least 200 towns and cities in 37 states now employ video cameras -- or are in the process of doing so -- to watch sidewalks, parks, schools, buses, buildings and similar locales.



More troubling to civil liberties and camera-use proponents alike is the even greater absence of local, state or federal laws that specifically govern police-video surveillance of Americans, suspected of no crime, as they go about their daily business.

To Philadelphia Police Staff Inspector Thomas Nestel III, who played a major role in his city's referendum vote last month on the installation of video cameras, the lack of oversight is an ill-advised invitation to trouble.

"Forging ahead with reckless abandon by providing no written direction, no supervision, no training and no regulating legislation creates a recipe for disaster," Nestel wrote in a March research thesis on the phenomenon.

While headlines and congressional and court hearings are examining the CIA and other agencies' eavesdropping and Internet snooping programs, the coast-to-coast spread of public spy cameras is occurring largely on the periphery of the nation's attention, even though it brings with it a catalog of "Big Brother" privacy concerns.

The American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of other watchdogs have occasionally sounded the alarm, but now are largely focused on other issues.

The lack of attention worries former Rep. Dick Armey, who, when he was the majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, was an outspoken opponent of law-enforcement-by-video camera.

"It seems like we need to be giving surveillance to the surveillance," said the Texas Republican, now chairman of the Washington-based political advocacy group Freedom Works.

Meanwhile, the presence of government-run cameras is growing by the month, thanks to technology advances that are cutting the cost of the systems and to a bountiful spigot of federal anti-terror funds available to pay for them.

Also expanding is the capability of the cameras and the increasing sweep of their focus.

Part of the reason for the lack of congressional or other government oversight is the public's general approval of the use of such cameras, and the lack of attention addressed to the technology's pitfalls, experts say.




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Washington, DC to set up crime cameras

By Amy Doolittle and Gary Emerling
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 10, 2006

D.C. police today will begin installing surveillance cameras in four high-crime neighborhoods, nearly 30 days after officials declared a citywide crime emergency.

The closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) will be installed at 14th and Girard streets Northwest, the 400 block of O Street Northwest, the 1200 block of Valley Avenue Southeast, and between the 1500 and 1700 blocks of Benning Road Northeast.

"The deployment of CCTV cameras in D.C. neighborhoods is not a panacea to the serious problems of crime and violence on our streets," Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said. "But the cameras do provide us with one additional crime-fighting tool that will help to deter criminal activity in the first place and, if crimes do occur, help us identify, apprehend and convict the offenders."
A fatal shooting occurred during broad daylight yesterday at one of the proposed camera sites.

A man in his early 20s was shot several times in front of an apartment building in the 1400 block of Girard Street about 12:30 p.m. yesterday. Police arrested a 15-year-old boy in connection with the slaying.

Police spokesman Kevin Morison said it has not been decided where or on what structure the camera would be mounted at the Benning Road site.

Installation of the cameras is expected to be completed by the end of this week.

Officials said the four cameras are temporary and will be replaced by permanent cameras later this month. They will operate 24 hours a day, but will only be reviewed by police when a crime is committed.

Chief Ramsey said it took awhile to determine where to install the cameras. He declared the crime emergency July 12.

"We choose the site, [but information-technology] people have to go out and figure out where we're going to mount the cameras," Chief Ramsey said. "What's the signal like? There are trees that need to be trimmed. It doesn't make sense to put a camera up if you can't see anything."

According to police, about two dozen cameras will be deployed by the end of this month and 23 more cameras in September.

A 30-day citywide crime emergency was declared after a British activist was killed in Georgetown on July 9, the District's 13th homicide in 11 days.

The law allowing the surveillance cameras was approved by the D.C. Council as part of 90-day emergency legislation introduced by D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams in response to the increase in crime.

The legislation allows Chief Ramsey to place cameras throughout the District at his discretion. He is required to notify only a D.C. Council member and an advisory neighborhood commissioner about plans to place a camera in their jurisdiction.

The first four camera locations were chosen based on crime rates and resident requests, officials said.

Chief Ramsey said officials have looked at 48 sites throughout the city as possible camera locations and have identified 10 other sites as backup locations.

Mr. Williams and Chief Ramsey have been criticized for delaying the deployment of the cameras, but both defended the city's methods yesterday.

"We want to do it right," Mr. Williams said. "Anyone can just slap some cameras up, but then we'd be getting in even more trouble."

The legislation also institutes a 10 p.m. weeknight curfew for city teenagers through the end of the month.

Mr. Williams said he plans to introduce a bill to the D.C. Council after it returns from its summer recess that would make the emergency legislation permanent.

The crime emergency, which was scheduled to end today, will be extended indefinitely, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday.


Chief Ramsey said he will decide when to end the emergency after reviewing crime numbers in the near future. The crime emergency also allows Chief Ramsey to change officer work and redeployment schedules without warning.

"Our officers have families, too. ... I don't want to extend it any longer than it has to be," Chief Ramsey said.

Mr. Williams said enforcement changes made during the crime emergency will continue after the emergency ends.

"The trend is going in the right direction, but there's still a lot of work to do," Mr. Williams said yesterday. "I look at what we've done here in the emergency as setting a foundation for what we have to do in the fall."

Crime has dropped 4.6 percent since the emergency was declared, officials said, despite a small increase in homicides and assaults in June and July.

Comment:
"The crime emergency, which was scheduled to end today, will be extended indefinitely, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday."
First DC, then the whole country...


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Quicksand


In Case We Forgot, Americans Are Still Dying in Iraq

By Jimmy Breslin
Newsday
August 11, 2006

By the way, there are many American soldiers fighting in the Middle East.

In case you haven't noticed, they get killed. A lot of them get killed.

I was watching the endless television coverage of Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon killing women and children, and then picking up the papers to read almost exclusively of the same thing. I found no picture on television and almost no mention in newspapers of Americans dying.

The dead babies of Lebanon and those dismembered by rockets in Israel are considered to be glorious distractions that allow our government to stroll the hallways that appear to have no blood on the floors.

I made a call to the Defense Department: "How are our soldiers doing lately?"

"We've had a bad month," the man responded.

"How bad?"

"Stay there and you'll see."

There now came faxes detailing American soldiers who died in Iraq since July 1. There have been 50 who died from then to August 6.




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Bodies of missing US soldiers found

Reuters
Fri Aug 11, 2006

BAGHDAD - The bodies of two missing U.S. servicemen have been discovered among the wreckage of their helicopter which crashed in Iraq's Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Friday.

"We have recovered the bodies of the two missing soldiers from the wreckage of the aircraft," the military said in a statement concerning Tuesday's crash.

The U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing crashed into water and divers were needed to find and recover the men's bodies, the military said. The cause of the crash was a malfunction, not enemy action, and was being investigated, the statement added.




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British forces in Afghanistan in worst fighting in 60 years: general

AFP
Friday August 11, 2006

British soldiers in Afghanistan are involved in some of the worst and most prolonged fighting since World War II, the British commander of NATO forces in the country said.

"This sort of thing hasn't really happened so consistently, I don't think, since the Korean War (in 1952) or the Second World War (in 1939)," Lieutenant General David Richards told the BBC World Service.

"It happened for periods in the Falklands (in 1982), obviously, and it happened for short periods in the Gulf on both occasions (1991 and 2003). But this is persistent, low-level, dirty fighting."
He said some British troops would be withdrawn from parts of the southern province of Helmand to be replaced by soldiers from the Afghan Army.

Richards's comments came after news on Wednesday that another British soldier, Private Leigh Reeves, 25, was killed in Afghanistan, the 18th since November 2001 when the country's troops were deployed there.

Some 4,000 British troops are in the restive southern province of Helmand, with the figure set to rise to around 4,500. A further 1,000 are in Kabul, while a few hundred are in the southern city of Kandahar.

There are around 30,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, from 30 countries.

But in a report from Afghanistan, Britain's domestic Press Association cited an unnamed senior British source as saying that between 40,000 and 50,000 NATO forces would be needed to control Taliban militants in Helmand alone.

Despite being toppled from power five years ago by a US-led coalition, remnants of the hardline Taliban regime have stepped up a deadly insurgency targeting foreign troops as well as the Afghan government.



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Bombing near Iraq shrine leaves 35 dead

Associated Press
08/10/06

A suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives Thursday near a highly revered Shiite shrine in southern Iraq, killing at least 35 people and injuring 122, an official said.

The bomber blew himself up while being patted down by police near the Imam Ali mosque in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said Dr. Munthir al-Ithari, the head of the city's health directorate.

Shiite religious leaders in Najaf accused Sunni loyalists of former dictator Saddam Hussein of carrying out the attack.
"We hold Takfiris (Sunni extremists) and Saddamists directly responsible for this horrible crime ... at the same time we hold those who embrace terrorism in Iraq and the countries supporting it as responsible," the statement said.

The Iraqi army said the death toll was 35, with 122 injured.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Mailiki, a Shiite, denounced the bombing as a "barbaric massacre conducted by Takfiris (Sunni extremists) and Saddamists who are seeking to inflame sectarian" passions. A statement by the collective Shiite leadership also issued a similar condemnation.

A Sunni insurgent group, Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba, or Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions, claimed responsibility for the bombing in an Internet posting. It warned Shiites to stop killing unarmed Sunnis, "otherwise wait for such operations that will shake your regions like earthquakes."

In other violence, 18 people were killed across the country, most of them in Baghdad, including four policemen who died in a gunfight with insurgents. Five bodies were also found Thursday.

The Najaf bombing occurred at about 10:30 a.m. in a market packed with pilgrims and shoppers in front of the Imam Ali mosque, which contains the tomb of Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, Ali. It is one of the world's most sacred shrines for Shiites, the minority sect of Islam.

Shakir Obeid Hassan, who was injured in the blast, said the suicide bomber was stopped at the last police checkpoint before the shrine, which was untouched, though all the stores facing the shrine were damaged, he said.

"Before I reached the checkpoint, only a few (feet) from the shrine, I heard a huge explosion. Something hit me on the head and I fell. I couldn't hear for a while but I saw bodies and human flesh everywhere," Hassan, 51, said from his hospital bed.

The Grand Market, directly in front of the shrine's entrance, is a wide road with shops lining both sides selling perfumes, jewelry, clothes and religious souvenirs, including rings with pictures of Ali and his son Hussein.

The aftermath of the bombing was a scene of carnage. Indistinguishable debris, boxes of perfume bottles, sandals and worry beads littered the bloodied street. Volunteers picked up human remains and washed away the thick pools of blood.

Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, is a major pilgrim destination for Shiites around the world, especially from neighboring Iran, which is predominantly Shiite like Iraq. Al-Ithari said one Iranian woman was among the 33 dead and nine Iranians among the 108 injured.

Najaf was the scene of heavy fighting in 2004 between U.S. forces and the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, until the Shiite clerical hierarchy convinced the militiamen to give up.

Since then the city - considered the world center of Shiite theology - had been tightly controlled by police and Shiite guards, including former militiamen. The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lived for years in exile in Najaf and Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, studied there.

Generations of tensions between Shiites and Sunnis turned into bloodshed after a Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra. Extremists among both communities have been embroiled in reprisal attacks since then, fueling fears that Iraq was on the verge of civil war.

A bombing near another Shiite shrine in Kufa, the twin city of Najaf, on July 18 killed 53 people. Thursday's explosion is the first attack near the Imam Ali shrine.

The Shiite Endowment urged people not to be incited by "this terrorist and criminal attack." The attack shows "blind hatred and insistence on blasphemy," the endowment said in a statement, and called on people "to remain united" to thwart sectarianism.

Sectarian clashes have largely occurred in the Baghdad area, where about 1,500 violent deaths were reported last month, a dramatic rise from about 1,000 in January. Most of the deaths were believed to be the result of sectarian feuding.

The bloodshed has dashed U.S. hopes for an early drawdown in the 127,000-member U.S. military force here. Instead, the U.S. military is rushing about 12,000 American and Iraqi soldiers to Baghdad.

Iraq's National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said police arrested 20 al-Qaida members and killed one around the country in recent few days.

Associated Press correspondents Vijay Joshi, Sinan Salaheddin and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

Comment: Another fake "suicide bombing" carried out by agents of the US government. What most people fail to realise is that the number of people in any given society who would be willing to carry out a suicide bombing is infinitesimally small. Why would any militant kill themselves in an attack on the enemy instead of simply mounting a standard attack with guns and thereby have a chance of surviving to fight another day??

The real perpetrators of these fake sucicide attacks do not want to reveal their identity, so they cannot risk a standard attack and possible capture and exposure, for this reason they have created the myth of the "suicide bombers" and have convinced the world, by the propogation of the myth of "Islamic fundamentalism", that every Muslim is willing to sacrifice him or herself at a moment's notice.


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Wallace out of retirement for interview with Iran's president

By Paul J. Gough
Hollywood Reporter
Aug. 10, 2006

NEW YORK -- "60 Minutes" veteran correspondent Mike Wallace may have retired last March but that didn't stop him from scoring an exclusive interview Tuesday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And that fact wasn't lost on the controversial Iranian president, who halfway through the interview asked Wallace: "I thought you had retired."
Wallace's interview will appear on the "CBS Evening News" on Thursday night and on Sunday's "60 Minutes."

The 88-year-old Wallace, who has interviewed almost every notable person in his nearly 40 years on "60 Minutes," said Wednesday that he wasn't going to let a little matter such as retirement stop him from doing a story about one of the biggest gets these days. After getting word two weeks ago from CBS's liason in Tehran, Sia Zand, that Ahmadinejad would be willing to talk, Wallace hopped a plane to Paris and then Tehran with producer Bob Anderson and associate producer Casey Morgan.

But when they got there they were told that the Iranian president was very busy and may not get to talk to them. The CBS crew cooled their heels, so to speak, in Tehran's 100-degree heat in a hotel without air conditioning.

"We waited, and they said, 'he's still busy, he doesn't know, he hasn't decided,'" Wallace said. "We were scheduled to return. If he hadn't talked to us by late Tuesday we were going to get on the plane. All of the sudden word came through he was going to talk."

The 3:30 p.m. interview didn't come off until 5 p.m., but Wallace said their talk stretched for an hour and a half. "We went on and on," Wallace said. "We were told we were going to get 30 minutes."

Wallace has spent a lot of time in Iran over the past four decades, interviewing the Shah, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and, most famously, the 1979 sitdown with the Ayatollah Khomeini who asked the Iranian leader what he thought of Anwar Sadat's desciption of him as a lunatic.

There wasn't any of that this time. Wallace dismissed the common perceptions of Ahmadinejad.

"He's actually, in a strange way, he's a rather attractive man, very smart, savvy, self-assured, good looking in a strange way," Wallace said. "He's very, very short but he's comfortable in his own skin."

Despite problems with translation -- there was only one translator for a time during the interview -- Wallace said Ahmadinejad was patient.

"He couldn't have been more accomodating. He had a good time doing the interview," Wallace said. And he believes that it was Ahmadinejad's idea to do the interview. He acknowledged that he had become a much-desired interview subject but told the veteran CBS journalist that he remembered a discussion the two had over a year ago when Ahmadinejad was in New York.

"I don't know if you remember this or not but you and I had a talk over breakfast at the United Nations," Ahmadinejad told Wallace. "Do you remember that you asked me at the time if I would sit down with you ... and I said by all means, let's do it." Wallace said he was surprised that Ahmadinejad had remembered.

As for retiring, Wallace said that he isn't having a happy retirement because he likes the job. He does acknowledge, particularly in this last voyage, that the airplane travel is "interminable" and the major reason why he wanted to retire in the first place. But he said there were other stories that he wanted to do.

"When you love what you do, it's not work," Wallace said.



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Money Matters


Study: Immigrants NOT hurting U.S. jobs

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
Associated Press
Thu Aug 10, 2006

WASHINGTON - Big increases in immigration since 1990 have not hurt employment prospects for American workers, says a study released Thursday.

The report comes as Congress and much of the nation are debating immigration policy, a big issue in this fall's midterm congressional elections.

The Pew Hispanic Center found no evidence that increases in immigration led to higher unemployment among Americans, said Rakesh Kochhar, who authored the study.

Kochhar said other factors, such as economic growth, played a larger role than immigration in setting the job market for Americans.
The study, however, did not look at whether wages were affected by immigration. Advocates for tighter immigration policies argue that immigrant workers depress wages for American workers, especially those with few skills and little education.

Immigration supporters argue that foreign workers often take jobs that Americans don't want and won't take.

The Pew Hispanic Center is a nonpartisan research organization that does not advocate policy positions. The center studied census data on the increase in immigrants from 1990 to 2000, and from 2000 to 2004, for each state. It matched those figures with state employment rates, unemployment rates and participation in the labor force among native-born Americans.

The U.S. had 28 million immigrants - legal and illegal - age 16 and older in 2000, an increase of 61 percent from 1990. By 2004, there were 32 million.

Among the study's findings:

- Twenty-two states had immigration levels above the national average from 1990 to 2000. Among them, 14 had employment rates for native-born workers above the national average in 2000, and eight had employment rates below the national average.

- Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia had immigration levels below the national average from 1990 to 2000. Among them, 16 had above average employment rates for native-born workers in 2000, and 13 had below average employment rates.

- Twenty-four states had immigration levels above the national average from 2000 to 2004. Among them, 13 states had employment rates for native-born Americans above the national average in 2004, and 11 had employment rates below the national average.

- Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia had immigration levels below the national average from 2000 to 2004. Among them, 12 had employment rates for native-born Americans above the national average, and 15 had employment rates below the national average.

Immigrants tend to be younger and have less education than American workers. The study, however, found "no apparent relationship between the growth of foreign workers with less education and the employment outcome of native workers with the same low level of education."

However, Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, said his research shows that many young workers with little education are hurt by competition from immigrants.

"Employment for less educated natives has declined, and their wages have declined," said Camarota, who advocates stricter immigration policies. "There is no shortage of less educated workers in the United States."



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US economic outlook unchanged in wake of bomb plot

By Jennifer Coogan
Reuters
Thu Aug 10, 2006

NEW YORK - News of a suspected bomb plot dominated news headlines and caused gridlock at airports, but it didn't send economists back to the drawing board to recalculate forecasts for U.S. economic growth.

Signs of a moderating economy were already clear enough to prompt the Federal Reserve to leave interest rates unchanged at its policy meeting on Tuesday. Second-quarter gross domestic product grew far short of expectations, job creation slowed last month and the housing market is cooling.

Analysts say the impact of previous security incidents show that the comparatively anemic economic indicators are much more important to the economic outlook than a reported plot to bomb multiple airplanes flying from Britain to the United States.
"I don't think it will be felt at all," said Jay Bryson, global economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Think back to last year -- the (London) Underground bombings had little impact. Unless it happens on our own soil, it will probably have no impact at all."

Stocks took the news in stride, with all three major U.S. indexes rising on the day.

"I talked to a lot of clients and traders about this and one thing I came away with was that this, believe it or not, is encouraging in that UK intelligence foiled this plot," said Anthony Chan, chief economist at JPMorgan Private Client Services in New York. "You have to come away with some optimism out of this craziness."

Declines were scattered in the travel and tourism industry with Continental Airlines ending more than 1 percent lower, while AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, scrapped its way back to even after being down as much as 4 percent. Shares of major hotel chains like Hilton and Starwood both fell around 2 percent, but Four Seasons Hotels Inc. shot up more than 3 percent.

"It does tend to chill the travel industry and tourism -- (but) it tends to be a short-term chill," said Brian Bethune, U.S. economist at Global Insight in Boston.

Economists can now rely on data from the months following September 11, 2001, as a benchmark for the broader economic effects of any attack -- thwarted or otherwise.

Wayne Wicker, chief investment officer for the Vantagepoint Funds in Washington D.C., said it could hurt the airline and hospitality sectors if tougher security measures cause people to cut back on discretionary travel. If that happens, it would be another factor in an economy where growth is already slowing, he said.

Since economists were already expecting consumer-driven growth to take a backseat to business spending in 2006, they anticipated industries such as travel, lodging, apparel and restaurants would begin to weaken anyway.

For many economists, the real wild card looming over the U.S. economy is a further spike in oil prices. In fact, news of the bomb plot actually drove oil prices lower, underpinning the positive tone on the stock market.

Still, the fact that crude fell more than 3 percent on Thursday shows oil traders weren't as sanguine about the news and the prospects for the economy. Front-month crude futures fell $2.35 to $74 a barrel on worries that heightened fear of air travel would hurt consumer confidence and damp growth.

"This is just one more reason for consumers to be nervous and to cocoon themselves," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. "But since most voluntary air travel, as opposed to business travel, is booked well in advance it will be a while before we see the impact."



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Oil bounces after $2 slump on aircraft bomb plot

By Cho Mee-young
Reuters
Fri Aug 11, 2006

SINGAPORE - Oil prices edged up on Friday as geopolitical unease and uncertainty over output from North America's biggest oilfield checked a 3 percent tumble triggered by a thwarted transatlantic aircraft bomb plot.

U.S. light, sweet crude oil drifted 39 cents higher to $74.39 by 0407 GMT, reversing a $2.35 slump a day ago as traders worried that travelers might shun air travel and oil consumption could fall due to the planned attacks, which officials said were stopped just days before being carried out.
London Brent crude climbed 30 cents to $75.58, about $3.00 below the record high touched on Tuesday.

The suspected plot raised the specter of strikes to rival the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,000 people and came 13 months after four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people on London's transport network.

U.S. unleaded gasoline futures settled at below $2.00 per gallon for the first time since June 21 on Thursday, before recovering 1.89 cents to $2.0439 on Friday.

Fears of a prolonged outage at Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oilfield continued to support prices. While the U.S. government on Thursday appeared to allow BP to keep oil flowing from the western half of the development, the major has said it will decide only next week whether to do so.

"The Alaskan situation is still not totally clear and then we have all of the other bullish geopolitical risks," Tony Nunan, Assistant Manager of Risk Management at Mitsubishi Corp, said, referring to the overnight fall factors in crude.

BP WESTERN LINE HOPES

BP began shutting the 400,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Prudhoe Bay oilfield, which accounts for 8 percent of U.S. production, on Sunday due to a corroded pipe, but has been working to keep some output flowing from the west, where damage is less severe.

The U.S. Transportation Department's Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) on Thursday laid out new requirements for restarting BP's halted eastern pipeline, but also suggested that the company -- which had voluntarily moved to halt production -- would be allowed to use its Western line.

"The order also directs BP to strip the insulation from its Western operating line, which may continue to move oil, and conduct an ultrasonic test... to obtain a complete picture of the line's conditions," it quoted PHMSA Administrator Admiral Thomas Barrett as saying in a statement.

The replacement of corroded pipelines at the oilfield is expected to cost around $100 million, a BP source said, although the total cost to BP will likely be several times this figure.

The market also lost ground on Thursday after Royal Dutch Shell said it had repaired a pipeline in Nigeria shut since last month, allowing 180,000 bpd of shut Bonny Light oil production to start to resume.

Oil traders are also watching for any progress toward ending the four-week fighting between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon after key U.N. Security Council members had failed to reach a resolution, prompting Russia to propose a 72-hour truce.

Diplomats said a deal was possible by the end of Friday.

Hizbollah guerrillas fought Israeli troops who seized a key town in southeast Lebanon on Thursday, while Israel said plans for a deeper ground assault into southern Lebanon were on hold to give diplomacy a chance.



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Three-quarters of US aid to Afghanistan going on security

AFP
Friday August 11, 2006

The United States said it will give Afghanistan 3.2 billion dollars in aid this year, with more than three-quarters earmarked for boosting the insurgency-racked country's army and police.

Congress recently approved 2.1 billion in assistance for Afghanistan, adding to a 1.1-billion US pledge announced at a donors' conference in London in January, a US Agency for International Development statement said.

"The majority... will be available for security assistance," it said.
Over 2.48 billion dollars will be used in strengthening the fledgling Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army, it said.

A total of 587 million dollars will be available for reconstruction, 73 million for democracy and governance and 120 million for humanitarian and other assistance, the statement added.

Washington has been the major backer of Afghanistan's fledgling government since a US-led coalition toppled the Taliban regime nearly five years ago following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But Kabul along with NATO and US-led forces is battling an escalating insurgency led by the fundamentalist Taliban, which has this year claimed more than 1,000 lives -- most of them militants.

US ambassador Ronald Neumann, said recently that American efforts would now focus on southern Afghanistan, saying that his country was more or less the only one able to work there.

Insurgents, drug traffickers and local warlords make the security situation in the south extremely precarious, with aid workers coming under intermittent attack.



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Oil imports put pressure on French trade deficit

AFP
Aug 10, 2006

PARIS - France's trade deficit widened again in June and during the entire first half of 2006 owing to a rise in crude oil imports, official data showed on Thursday

But the government expressed optimism.

The trade deficit fell to EUR 2.579 trillion in June from 1.681 trillion in May, according to revised figures released by the customs department. Analysts had expected the deficit to remain stable in June at EUR 1.8 trillion.
Exports rose 11.5 percent in the year to June, while imports increased 11.3 percent. In June French exports were worth EUR 32.9 trillion and its imports 35.5 trillion.

The most dynamic area, both for imports and exports, was the industrial sector. In addition to delivering two dozen Airbus planes in June, France sold a ship to Panama for EUR 420 million and two satellites - to Kazakhstan and the United States - for more than 200 million. It bought two Boeing aircraft and a satellite.

But a rise in energy imports due to strong domestic demand weighed heavily on the trade balance, due to the high price of oil. The bill for imports of crude - most of it from Iran - rose by EUR 400 million in June to EUR 4.2 trillion.

Junior Trade Minister Christine Lagarde insisted on RTL radio: "The trade deficit is narrowing". She said France was refocusing exports on "high-growth areas" and its foreign trade had been "distinctly better" in the first half of 2006 than in the first six months of 2005.

Nicolas Bouzou, economist with forecaster Asteres, said the latest trade figures were an indication of France's "lack of dynamism and dependence on the economic recovery in Germany and the euro zone".

He stressed that the difficulties facing the French vehicle manufacturing sector had become "structural".



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Mama Earth


Typhoon kills over 100 in China

By Ben Blanchard
Reuters
Fri Aug 11, 2006

CANGNAN, China - The strongest typhoon to hit China in half a century killed more than 100 people, dozens of whom had taken shelter in a house that collapsed, Xinhua news agency said on Friday, and the toll appeared likely to rise.

Typhoon Saomai tore into Cangnan county in the eastern province of Zhejiang on Thursday after authorities had moved hundreds of thousands in the densely populated commercial province to safety.

By Friday evening, 104 people were confirmed dead and 190 were missing in Zhejiang and neighboring Fujian province, Xinhua said. Some 54,000 houses were destroyed.

State television put the direct economic loss at 11.3 billion yuan ($1.42 billion).
At least 41 villagers, including eight children, were killed when a house collapsed in the town of Jinxiang, just an hour's drive from where the typhoon made landfall, Xinhua and a local official said.

Most of the victims were neighbors who thought the two-storey, concrete structure would be safer than their own wood-and-brick shelters, Xinhua said, adding that another two had died in a separate house collapse in the town.

"Many people here are taking shelter in schools and factories as their houses have been destroyed," the Jinxiang official said.

Damage to crops, power lines and infrastructure was evident in Cangnan county. Villagers were seen bringing out injured, and ice was being delivered by truck, presumably to preserve bodies.

"Lots of people were hurt here but my family are all okay," said Wu Yelian, an old woman doing a roaring trade selling instant noodles and canned drinks to drivers stuck in the heat in a jam on the narrow mountain road outside.

"I haven't seen a typhoon this strong in years. Last time we had a bad one, a dam collapsed and many people died."

Power was also cut in five Fujian towns close to where Saomai made landfall, Xinhua said.

Along a highway in Cangnan, trees were knocked flat, their branches and tops ripped off. Tiles and even bricks from flimsy farmhouses lay strewn about on the ground. Power and telephone lines were knocked down.

The typhoon crossed the coast with winds of 216 km (135 mph) per hour -- more powerful than a typhoon that hit Zhejiang in August 1956, killing more than 3,000 people.

Saomai was the eighth storm to hit China this year. Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com) had graded Saomai a maximum-category 5 "super" typhoon, but reduced that to category 4 as it made landfall, the same category as Hurricane Katrina which devastated the U.S. Gulf coast last year.

Much of south China has been battered by typhoons and tropical storms this summer. Nearly 1,000 have been killed by rainstorms, mudslides, house collapses and floods.



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Large Quake Rattles Mexico City

Reuters
Friday, August 11, 2006

MEXICO CITY, Mexico -- An earthquake rocked central and western Mexico on Friday, forcing office workers and residents to evacuate buildings in Mexico City.

The tremor, measuring 5.9 magnitude, was centered in western Michoacan state. It was not immediately known whether there were any casualties or serious damage to buildings.

The U.S. National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado gave a preliminary magnitude estimate of 5.9.

"It was very short, but it felt really strong," said 74-year-old Juana Ruiz in Mexico City's historic center, which was devastated by a massive earthquake in 1985




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Spanish minister says fires "strategically planned"

AFP
August 11, 2006

MADRID - A wave of forest fires sweeping through northwestern Spain appear to have been "strategically planned," Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba has said as he visited the region.

On a visit to the Galician regional capital of Santiago de Compostela Rubalcaba said Friday many fires seemed to be "strategically planned with very evil intentions."
Several leading politicians have denounced the apparent deliberate setting of fires, more than 120 of which were raging out of control across the Galicia region Friday as Rubalcaba arrived to assess the situation and consult with firefighters and troops straining to tackle the blazes.

Rubalcaba announced that 20 people had been arrested on suspicion of deliberately starting most of the blazes which have broken out in the past week, up from 14 on Thursday.

According to Rubalcaba, the arsonists "seem to be fully aware of what they are doing" as setting a fire "demands a degree of preparation."

He added the authorities were not ruling out that organised criminal groups were responsible.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero flew over the region Thursday to see the damage at first hand amid estimates of some 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) of land going up in smoke -- double the annual average for this region.



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Strange holes in the ground discovered in Krasnoyarsk region (with pic)

Pravda.ru
09.08.2006

Residents of Novoselovo district in the Krasnoyarsk region have come across a mysterious phenomenon in the field. They discovered several tunnels of unknown origin in an area located some 100 meters away from the highway connecting the cities of Krasnoyarsk and Abakan , in the vicinity of the village of Kurgany, Siberian News Agency reports.
There are about 10 holes in the field. Each hole has an entrance to a cave-like hollow place in the earth. Some of the tunnels are big enough for a person of medium height to stand up straight. According to one of the suppositions, all the underground passages are interconnected in a network. A few daredevils equipped with flashlights attempted walking across the tunnels.



Local residents have a number of theories to explain the origin of the tunnels. Some people believe the tunnels are the work of unidentified pranksters, others blame mysterious animals which reportedly dig holes in the ground. According to yet another theory, the tunnels may somehow be related to an earthquake that occurred in the area 3 years ago.

Krasnoyarsk scientists have not yet made any official statements as to the explanation of the phenomenon.



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Last But Not Least


Russian convicted spy colonel worked for Britain's MI6

August 9 2006
RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, - A Russian military intelligence colonel sentenced to 13 years in prison Wednesday spied for the United Kingdom, Russia's main security service said.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said retired officer Sergei Skripal, 55, who was convicted of "treason in the form of espionage", had been recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6.

"The investigation into the case ... established that during his service in the Russian Armed Forces in the mid-1990s, Skripal was recruited by British intelligence and shared state secrets with it," the FSB said in a news release.

The FSB also said that after he retired from military service in late 1999, Skripal continued to cooperate with MI6 and met with its representatives overseas.

"Skripal had received the secret information that he reported to the British services from former colleagues after leaving the military," the FSB said. "His actions caused serious damage to the national defense and security."
The FSB also said that MI6 officials had paid Skripal for the information in foreign currency, which was transferred monthly to his account in a Spanish bank.

"During the investigation, Skripal admitted his guilt and gave truthful testimony about his criminal activities, which the court had taken into consideration," the FSB said.

Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said he was satisfied with the verdict, adding that Skripal would serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony.

"Skripal was accused of spying for foreign intelligence services," the prosecutor said, adding that Russia's security services would definitely be able to repair the damage Skripal did to the state.

Fridinsky said he had asked the court to sentence Skripal to 15 years, but the court had taken into account mitigating circumstances such as the convict's admission of guilt, assistance to the investigation and poor health.



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Major cellphone outage reported in New York

Reuters
Thu Aug 10, 2006

NEW YORK - Sprint Nextel Corp. said an outage of its cellphone service in parts of the New York borough of Queens on Thursday was caused by water damage to network equipment due to a burst pipe.

The outage came amid intensified airport security after British police said they had foiled a plot to blow up several aircraft flying between Britain and the United States. Two major New York airports -- JFK and LaGuardia -- are in Queens.
The service interruption, reported earlier by the New York City police, was caused by damage to equipment in Verizon Communications Inc.'s wired network, Sprint spokesman Mark Elliott said.

Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile provider, said communications around up to 75 of its wireless towers in Flushing, Queens, were affected. Cellphone calls travel over wired networks between wireless towers.

A Verizon Communications spokeswoman confirmed that some network gear was damaged by a leak at its facilities in Queens. Its wireless venture with Vodafone Group Plc, Verizon Wireless, said it was not aware of any problems with its network in Queens.

Verizon expected the problem to be fixed by evening.

A New York police spokesman said the alert it sent out about the outage was "an FYI."

"It has nothing to do with anything else. It's not criminal," the spokesman said.

Cingular Wireless, a venture of AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp., said it was not aware of any network problems in Queens.



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