The Great IRAQ!

Rules of the Western Media in dealing with the Middle East :

Rule 1: In the Middle East, it is always the Arabs that attack first, and it's always Israel who defends itself. This is called "retaliation".

Rule 2: The Arabs, whether Palestinians or Lebanese, are not allowed to kill Israelis. This is called "terrorism".

Rule 3: Israel has the right to kill Arab civilians; this is called "self-defense", or these days "collateral damage".

Rule 4: When Israel kills too many civilians. The Western world calls for restraint. This is called the "reaction of the international community".

Rule 5: Palestinians and Lebanese do not have the right to capture Israeli military, not even a limited number, not even 1 or 2.

Rule 6: Israel has the right to capture as many Palestinians as they want (Palestinians: around 10000 to date, 300 of which are children, Lebanese: 1000s to date, being held without trial). There is no limit; there is no need for proof of guilt or trial. All that is needed is the magic word: "terrorism"

Rule 7: When you say "Hezbollah", always be sure to add "supported by Syria and Iran"

Rule 8: When you say "Israel", never say "supported by the USA, the UK and other European countries", for people (God forbid) might believe this is not an equal conflict.

Rule 9: When it comes to Israel, don't mention the words "occupied territories", "UN resolutions", "Geneva conventions". This could distress the audience of Fox.

Rule 10: Israelis speak better English than Arabs. This is why we let them
Speak out as much as possible, so that they can explain rules 1 through 9. This is called "neutral journalism".

Rule 11: If you don't agree with these rules or if you favor the Arab side over the Israeli side, you must be a very dangerous anti-Semite. You may even have to make a public apology if you express your honest opinion (isn't democracy wonderful ?).

Source : http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/assawra/

Previous Page

¶ 4:27 AM

Send the Bush Crimes Commission
to Texas and Camp Casey!

With your help, we will be taking the Bush Crimes Commission right to George Bushâ€™s front door.

On Sunday, August 20, the panel below will speak at the First Unitarian-Universalist Church in Austin, Texas. Then, the next day, the panel will drive up to Camp Casey, Cindy Sheehanâ€™s encampment outside the Summer White House, in Crawford, Texas, to make another presentation to antiwar activists gathered there.

See and Hear:

Ray McGovern, is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years and presented the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many years. With 15 other VIPS, McGovern participated in a protest of torture and returned his Intelligence Commendation Award medallion. He argued that he did "not wish to be associated, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture." In May, McGovern challenged Donald Rumsfeld at a public forum.

Ann Wright, was in the U.S. Army for 29 years and retired as a colonel. Then she spent 16 years in the U.S. diplomatic corps; served in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan and reopened the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001. She was one of the three diplomats who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war in Iraq. She now counts herself in the rank of the peacemakers, not the war makers.

Larry Everest, author of Oil, Power and Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda. Everest has covered the Middle East and Central Asia for over 20 years for Revolution newspaper and other publications. "There is no 'war on terror. ' The invasion and occupation of Iraq are not part of a 'war on terror' . . . What does exist is a horrific and criminal U.S. war OF terror against the people of the world for greater empire. "

To send this amazing team to Texas, we need $1,100 right away. Please help make this possible with your contribution on line at www.nion.us/NSOC/sign.htm or make your check payable to Not In Our Name and mail to Not In Our Name, 305 West Broadway #199, New York, NY 10013.

Your on-going support will make possible the final verdict of the Commission to the nation in September and fostering increasing public debate over whether this government has in fact committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

For more information see Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Regime. The Bush Crimes Commission is a project of the Not In Our Name statements of conscience.

¶ 4:26 AM

Monday, August 14, 2006

THE WAR ON IRAQ: GOALS AND IMPLICATIONS

By Ziad Abdel Samad 1

In a historic moment, ten million people expressed their rejection of the war against Iraq. The protests that took place in more than 620 cities around the world were not in solidarity with Saddam Hussein, the despot and the dictator, but in support of the Iraqi people and in protest against a world order that carries within it war and tensions. It is an world order that increases poverty and that deepens the gap between the rich and the poor where social illness breed terrorist and violent movements. The world is going through the most critical period of its modern age where the American position clings to war as a solution to the Iraqi crisis despite of the widespread popular opposition reflected in the positions of main countries like France, Germany, Russia and China in the context of an Arab official inability to take a unified stand. This was reflected in the failure of the Arab League in facing the consequences of war in the light of an Arab popular congestion that is banned from expressing their standpoint. The drums of the war are beating at a time when the spokespersons of the American Administration and their allies are confirming that the military strike against Iraq is imminent and unavoidable whatever the decision of the Security Council's and the Iraqi regime and despite the results of the United Nations experts' search.

This paper will try to show that quite the opposite, it is clear that a plan is being set in order to establish a direct guardianship system over Iraq, even if the president would decide to step down peacefully. This implies that American military presence would last as long as the United States and its allies are certain that arms of mass destruction have been neutralised. It is from the direct guardianship system over Afghanistan that the current American administration has drawn its inspiration for Iraq2.

Indeed, a plan proposed by the American administration to the conference3 held by the Iraqi opposition in London last year, clearly describes the steps to be undertaken during the transition period. The plan was adopted by the conference with slight modifications4 where American interests in Iraqi oil were not out of the council's agenda5.

I. AMERICAN PRETEXTS

The reports presented by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the general council and by the American Secretary of Foreign Affairs Collin Powell to the UN Security Council tried to convince the world of the necessity of bombing Iraq. The British General Assembly and the Security Council who were not persuaded by the justifications did not accept the reports especially that the experts’ reports do not confirm the existence of Iraqi arms of mass destruction. This resistance drives the United States to look for convincing pretexts to justify its war in Iraq by claiming that it has presented quantities of chemical arms during its war against Iran, which the US claims that they remain intact. The American administration equally relies on voice recordings of Iraqi military leaders and Bin laden to attest its standpoint and to justify the war. In an interview with the Swedish television, Robert Fisk asserts that the war against arms of mass destruction should be waged against North Korea and not Iraq. He adds that the use of mass destruction arms by Iraq has always been welcome by the States as Iraq was using it against Iran and the Kurdish population (In Halabja) with American prior approval. It is clear therefore that the war against Iraq is not to remove mass destruction arms and is not in defence of human rights but for the sole reason that does not exist in North Korea: Oil.

II. THE GOALS OF THE ATTACK AGAINST IRAQ:

Through waging war against Iraq, the United States aims at concealing its failure in its declared war against terrorism. Indeed, the leaderships of Taliban and Al Qaeda are still on the loose and their capacity of hitting American targets of operating wide-scale military operations remains intact. This is paralleled by the restriction of the elected Afghani president Kardai of controlling Afghani provinces other than Kabul. In an interview with the correspondent of the British 'Independent', the senior foreign reporters in Beirut Robert Fisk argues that the Allied Forces have failed in tracking down the Qaeda system and that their operations have been subject to daily undeclared losses. The German "Der Spiegel" asserts the United States has terminated the tracking operation of Ben Laden who figures on their most wanted list since the September 11 operations. This is paralleled by the American failure in eliminating tension that governs its relation with Iran that stands against American schemes in the region. American policies have equally failed to win over Iraq despite the siege imposed on its people for more than 12. On the opposite, the Iraqi regime seized the chance to restore its relations with some Arab and European countries that are increasingly opposing the current siege. The second goal6 is to exercise full control over the Gulf oil resources in the shadow of an American administration whose policies are widely affected by the American oil lobby7. The President, the Vice President, and the Chief of National Security had always been active in their national oil industry and are impressed by the Iraqi oil production potential having the second oil reserves8 in the world with billions of unexploited barrels. The third goal is to defeat the Iraqi regime, which is regarded as a potential ally to the Qaeda organisation. Despite the ideological differences between the two regimes that are clear in the acts of the Qaeda and its allies like the 'Supporters of Islam' and the Kurds, the possibility of cooperation between them in order to launch terrorist activities against American interests remains high. This was further confirmed in the latest Ben Laden video. Although the US pretends to prove the close coordination between Al Waeda and the Iraqi regime before and after September 11.

Some of the direct goals are the direct military control over a strategically vital region, economically and politically due to its reserves of natural resources and of vital, yet unstable investment interests. This is because the United States perceives in the winning of the Islamist opposition in the Turkish elections and the possibility of Turkey joining the EU a direct threats to its strategic interests in the region. The United States is also concerned about the weakness of its main ally in the region due to the impasse that Israel has reached in the recent years in sustaining the peace process and its failure to contain and suppress the Intifiada of the Palestinians who hand on to their entire civil and human rights. These events are paralleled by a strong objection to the American military presence in the Gulf area.

III. AMERICAN INTERESTS IN OIL9

The oil reserves of the Gulf and of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and Iran in particular constitute around70% of the world’s reserves10 . The reports of geologists confirm that oil fields in the Northern Sea and in the United States will dry out in the next ten to twenty years. In addition to that, the cost of extracting an oil barrel per day in Iraq is less than a dollar and is around $2.5 in Saudi Arabia whereas its cost reaches 4$ in the Northern Sea and in the United States, besides the fact that the Iraqi oil is know for its superior quality11 . The reports maintain that the American need for oil will increase in the next twenty years leading to its dependence on imported. Whereas the US imported 52% of oil for general consumption in 2001, it will import 66% by in 2020, which will force it to increase the import of 60% of the rates that it currently imports. This implies an increasing of more than 6 million barrels per day, which means an increase from 10.4 million barrels per day to 16.7 million barrels per day by the end of202012. It is known that the Saudi and Iraqi oil reserves can meet the needs of the entire world’s consumption. And because of the circumstances that Iraq has been going through since the discovery of oil until the recent times in terms of consecutive tensions and military coups followed by the Gulf War and the siege imposed by the United Nations, the Iraqi oil reserves is still considerable and is estimated to cover more than 300 billion barrels a day.

IV. THE AMERICAN WAR AGAINST IRAQ AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE WORLD SYSTEM

The League of Nations was established following the First World War in order to stop the breaking of a new war. The clear defeat and the division of one nation led to the breaking

of a Second World War. It is worth mentioning that the League of Nations undermined its

own power when it disregarded Mussolini’s occupation of Abyssinia and Hitler’s occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. By the fall of Warsaw in Poland, it was too late to the League to react and thus, the Second World War took place. The United Nations was established after the Second World War to prevent the breaking of a Third World War. Soon enough, the Council was severely shaken by the events of the Cold War when the World became increasingly bipolar. This period showed a minimum of equilibrium until the collapse of the Communist pole, which cause a severe imbalance cause by the American interests in exercising control over the world. The UN subsequently suffered from crises especially in the Middle East due to the double standards it adopted in applying international conventions. Whereas Israel was clearly violating all international laws and a resolution with American political coverage, the World system was unable to apply international resolutions that protect civilians and that prevent Israel from abusing human rights. The World system used however, all possible measures on Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and even Europe (ex-Yugoslavia) in order to implement international resolutions. One of the biggest defeats of the United Nations surfaced when it was incapable of sending an Investigation Committee to enquire about the massacres of Jenin in the Palestinian West Bank last year. The decision of sending an Investigation Committee changed to a decision of sending a Truth Inspection committee with the participation of Israeli officers. The action of the Committee was held back when the Israeli Prime Minister refused to let it operate in the West Bank unless it complies to pre-set conditions. The committee was dissolved and the Secretary General renounced sending it and the decision was cancelled. The United Nations' silence about the recurrent Israeli violations and its unlimited American support on one hand, and the insistence of the American administration to initiate exclusively a war on Iraq without the UN's approval on the other hand, can lead to the collapse of the international order and consequently the entire world system. The consequences of such events are unconceivable. It is also worth mentioning that the absence of consensus about the war will have critical impact on organizations like the NATO and the EU whose unity and operation are being tested. This was expressed by the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield who labeled Western Europe as the Old Europe who is still struggling to preserve its ancient colonies. The hope, as perceived by Rumsfield, lies in the future of the Eastern Europe. The Arab league will also suffer of serious consequences due to its inability to take a clear anti-war position in harmony with its people’s political stand.

V. COST OF WAR ESTIMATES13

The research published in several sources indicate that the costs of the United States war against Iraq will vary between 99 billion dollars in events of quick military success and 1.9 thousand billion dollars spread on ten years. The war would also have impact on the oil markets, which in turn will affect the economic interests of other Arab and European

countries. - The military costs will vary between 50 and140 billion dollars. - The costs of occupation and peace preservation will vary between 75 and 500 billion dollars. - The cost of rebuilding the Iraqi nation will vary between 30 and 105 billion dollars. - In addition, the cost of humanitarian aid will vary between 1 to 10 billion dollars.

VI. THE ISRAELI INTERESTS AND THE CALL FOR WAR

The event of the war will present to Israel an excellent opportunity to strengthen its control over the region after the destruction of the Iraqi system that has always constituted a danger on its existence14.

Israeli leadership underline the need to launch he war against Iraq and call the US to dismantle all Arab regimes who support terrorism and has confirmed that a war is going to take place despite the widespread protests and despite the inability of the Security Council to take a clear stand regarding this issue. The Israelis have constantly expressed their desire that the war should be intensive, quick, and destructive insisting that Israel will take defensive measures. The failure of the consecutive Israeli governments of putting an end to the Palestinian people's Intifada and to impose a settlement that would have preserved Israeli occupation of major parts of Gaza and the West Bank, will affect their very existence. The confrontation of a people that is leading a national liberation struggle will not be successful as expected. Sharon launched his first electoral campaign with clear slogans of beating the Intifada in a hundred day and of establishing a Palestinian State that complies with his own rules and conditions. Facing the obvious impasse it has reached, Israeli finds is increasingly important to alter the nature of its war with the Palestinians, rendering it a war between religions, thus using the events of September 11 as a pretext. The American Administration tried to find solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. The American President sent one envoy after the other starting with George Mitchell, George Tennet (Director of CIA) and Anthony Zenni, the army general who equally failed to reach a settlement.

President Bush finally attempted to present "the Map of the Road", a project that failed terribly as it could only offer a Palestinian states scattered and torn between checkpoints and security zones with no guarantees to the Palestinian people about any of their legitimate rights to end the occupation and establish have their own independent state and the return of the refugees and displaced. Israel is also interested in solving for good the problem of Syria and Lebanon who still refuse any settlement. In the context of the current threats on the region, Syria and Lebanon are subject to increased military threats by the unstable Israeli government that is expected to expand the scope of its attacks at a time when the world is distracted with the events in Iraq. The United States has included Hezbollah in the list of terrorist organizations, which increased the diplomatic pressure on Lebanon and Syria for harboring a terrorist organization. The contradiction is such that the US had previously acknowledged the legitimacy of Hezbollah’s defensive actions in the occupied Lebanese territories in the April Understanding of 1996 that was reached after the debacle of Israeli occupation policies and the Qana massacres. Hezbollah was consequently invited to participate in the Committee supervising the application of the Agreement. This confirms the unfounded American and Israeli claims that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. Indeed, it is a legitimate form of resistance against foreign occupation with previous American consent. Israel is therefore facing a real dilemma because of the current Intifada and its consequences on Israel since its creation in 1947 where the budgetary deficit reached in January 2003 around 8 billion Shekel (or 2.7 billion dollars). Israel is equally witnessing the increase of reversed immigration. While the Israeli government has been exerting considerable efforts in collecting the world's Jewry to the Promised Land15 (recently from the USSR and Ethiopia), opinion polls indicate that a great number of youth feel that they have no future in Israel where 50% of them do not believe that they will remain citizens of Israel in 10 years. The prestigious and symbolic Israeli military institution is also suffering from setbacks where 2 500 soldiers refused military service in the West Bank and Gaza.

In addition, financial figures indicate that 20.6% of bank deposits or about 25 billion$ have left Israel, since a couple of years ago, which drove the Israeli government to ask for a 12 billion dollar assistance from the American Government to avoid the unavoidable collapse. Whereas the American administration demands the creation of a united national coalition as a condition for assistance, the leader of the Labor Party Haim Metznaa refuses to join a Sharon-led government in order to avoid the historical error on which the party was founded in recent years. Previous coalition with the Likud became, according to Metznaa, a political cover-up to the activities of the Likud and the fundamentalist Jewish parties. In this context, the Palestinians and the Arabs are concerned by the possible actions of the Israeli government and its hard-line members in committing massacres and displacing more Palestinians. The displacement of Palestinians has always been the Israeli agenda in order to face the Palestinian demographic danger. In the even of the transfer of Palestinians, the military status quo on the Syrian and Lebanese borders will be disturbed, which fill further complicate the sensitive balance of the region.

VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS

In a paper delivered at the World Social Forum, Noam Chomslky argues that during presidential elections, Republicans had always been used to distracting he American public opinion from essential issues like social security, health, and education whole opposing raising taxes to meet these services. Because of these policies, Republicans have always driven economic deficit to the highest rates, waging each time a war against terror. This is what Roland Reagan attempted to do in 1981 when he waged a war against Libya, Nicaragua, and Granada. The same policy was practiced by Bush senior when he waged a war against terror in the Desert Storm and this is exactly what Bush Junior is doing besides his first war "against drugs" that has proven disastrous, especially regarding constant undeclared military interventions in Central America, especially in Colombia. The attacks of September 11 presented a pretext to realize the historical dream that the American Foreign Secretary conceived after the Second World War and that is to control the Persian Gulf's black gold, which it considers "the source of strategic power and one of the most valuable resources of the world". In conclusion, I would like to refer to the Canadian opinion polls discusses in the Chomsky's paper indicating that a third of the Canadians believe that the US constitute the biggest threat to the World, which is twice the rate of those who believe that Iraq or the Qaeda constitute the same threat. The other poll conducted by he Time Magazine indicate that 80% of Europeans believe that the US constitute the biggest threat to the world, where 10% believed hat Iraq and North Korea present the same danger. The British Labor MP Alice Mahone states that the international oligarchy has no right to plan an attack against Iraq, forcing the vast majority to join a war they strongly oppose and to accept an adventure of unconceivable consequences. Will our joint appeal be heard?

___________________________________________________________

1 Ziad Abdel Samad is the Executive Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), based in Beirut, since 1999. ANND brings together 30 NGOs and nine national networks from 12 Arab countries, which are active in the fields of social development, human rights, gender, and the environment. The Network, established in 1997, focuses on developing the capacity of Arab civil society organizations and promoting democracy, human rights, participation, and good governance in civil society and among governments. It has been an active participant in a number of United Nations conferences, WTO negotiations, and the World Social Forums.

2 A former military strategist, retired Col. Scott Feil, stressed the need for the United States to reinforce its commitment to the stability and security of the region. In a post-Saddam Iraq, Feil recommended that the Iraqi security apparatus be removed. During the transitional period, Feil recommended that a U.S. security force of 75,000 personnel be placed in Iraq to patrol and protect large cities, borders with Iran and Syria, the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and the oil fields. In addition, 4,000 international police monitors should join these forces. Feil estimated the total cost of this security proposal could reach $16 billion.

Feil also stressed that post-conflict reconstruction requires international cooperation and involvement. "The international community should begin now in planning and assigning roles and key tasks," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Program of the Association of the United States Army. (By Ghada Al Najjar, " Senate Holds Hearings on Reconstruction of Post-Saddam Iraq", August 2nd, 2002)

3 The Iraqi opposition conference which was held in London on December 15- 16 declared the names of 75 figures who were assigned to perform tasks relating to the provisional period after the collapse of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and before founding the new regime which is agreed to be federal democratic. The council which had a big share in the follow up committee rejected 3however an American proposal to train and arm the Iraqi opposition. Participants in the conference said that the special US delegate Zalmai Khalil Zada threatened that the US will resort to other alternatives, including the

option of appointing a military ruler in Iraq (after toppling the current regime ) if this conference will not end into an agreement. (From Arab News, " On the London's Iraqi opposition conference", December 18, 2002).

4 For example, the Bush administration wanted the opposition to agree to play “a prominent” role in regime change. But the agreed

text speaks of the opposition’s role being “dominant”. Also, while the US had wanted Islam described in the context of the identity of the people of Iraq, the conference voted for the phrase: “The Islamic religion is one of the pillars of the state and the shari'a is a major source of legislation.” The conference also stressed the role of Islam in Iraq’s culture and education system (The Middle East Economic Survey, VOL. XLV No 51/52 23/30-December-2002).

5 In fact, oil company executives have been quietly meeting with U.S.-backed Iraqi opposition leaders. According to Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, “The future democratic government in Iraq will be grateful to the United States for helping the Iraqi people liberate themselves and getting rid of Saddam.” And he added that “American companies, we expect, will play an important and leading role in the future oil situation in Iraq.” (in"Iraq: Linchpin of a New Oil Order by Micheal Renner, World Watch Institute").

6 "Lesvrais desseins de M.George Bush" in Le Monde Diplomatique, November 2002.

7 7 In 1999, General Anthony C. Zinni, then the head of the U.S. Central Command, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Persian Gulf region is of “vital interest” to the U.S. and that the country “must have free access to the region’s resources (in Iraq: Linchpin of a New Oil Order by Micheal Renner, World Watch Institute).

8 The Guardian, January 23rd, 2003.

9 The American administration is currently represented by people who are closely linked to the Oil industry that has the biggest lobbying power in the US(the Jewish and the Arms Lobby being as strong). President George Bush, the owner of “Arbusto”, sold his almost bankrupt company to “Spectrum” who assigned him in its board of directors due to its close links with the Bush family. Before taking office, Vice President Cheney was general manager of “Haliburton” that offers services to oil companies. The Chief of National Security, Condoleesa Rice was member of the “Chevron’s” board of directors. The current Secretary of Trade, Don Evans was president of “Tom Brown Corporation” that produces 1.2 million oil barrels daily. Gal Norton works as a lawyer at “Delta Petroleum” and heads an environmental organisation called the “Coalition of Republican Environmentalists” that is funded by “B.P. Amoco”.

10 The oil reserves in Islamic countries like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, and Indonesia is about 95% of the world’s reserves. - Robert Fisk.

11The Guardian, February 2nd, 2003

12 In reference to the Vice President report of 2001, issued when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Energy in the Clinton administration, The Guardian, January23rd, 2003.

13Siobhan McDonough: Associated Press (AP), December 6

14 Plan of attack: Author: Bob Woodward On Sep 19, bush met with 11 house members in the cabinet room'' the biggest threat is sadam and his WMD. He can blow up Israel and that would trigger an international conflict" Page 186: Bush had 18 more house members to the cabinet room on sep 26.' sadam' is a terrible guy who is teaming up with alqaeda . He tortures his own people and hates Israel'. Page 188

15The Israeli election results indicated a negative BALANCE of 550 000 Israelis since 1999.

¶ 12:21 PM

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Camp Casey III and Iraq
Cindy Sheehan

, t r u t h o u t Perspective
Monday 31 July 2006

After BushCo's stooge, Nouri al-Maliki, was in America last week thanking soldiers for their sacrifices in helping the USA kill and oppress his very own people and thanking Congress for giving George a blank check to spend as he sees fit to kill and oppress the Iraqi people, almost 4,000 of our soldiers in Alaska's 172nd Stryker Brigade were shown how much they are appreciated by having their enlistments extended another 120 days.
I saw the Angel of Death in the skin of Donald Rumsfeld say, while he was busy rushing in or out of the Pentagon (it doesn't really matter), that it is "unfortunate" that the soldiers have to remain in Iraq. I think it is unfortunate for our troops and for the innocent people of Iraq and Afghanistan that Donald Rumsfeld has to remain as the Secretary of War.
I can't imagine how disappointed the families and the soldiers must feel. The 172nd has been in the violent Anbar Province for almost a year and I am sure they and their families were starting to really look forward to their homecoming. I can imagine that there are more than a few mothers out there who were allowing themselves to start breathing again. I am sure mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, children, aunts and uncles, and extended family and friends were already planning coming-home parties and anticipating the enormous hugs and overwhelming sense of relief that would accompany their soldiers home, too. Now the 172nd will be redeployed to Baghdad to be right smack dab in the middle of sectarian violence and back in the thick of things. Four more months of heat, spiders the size of puppies, MRE's, anxiety and peril; as their Secretary of War and Commander in Chief drive around DC in cushy air-conditioned and up-armored SUVs and also get to sleep in comfy beds, cozy in the fact that the sacrifices of our children and their families are guaranteeing Exxon and other war bandits billions of dollars in profits.
Right-wing people who support the killing of innocent men, women, and children, are trying to stir up crap about my land purchase in Crawford, Texas to run Camp Casey. The worst thing that I have heard a Crawford resident say is that I am a "dumb Democrat." The crap that NEEDS to be stirred up in Crawford is that George & Co. have the nerve to go on vacation when our soldiers can't get home after serving in the vile mess that BushCo created. Instead of working for peace and stability in the region, our continued presence there is encouraging and causing the violence. Our troops need to be removed - not increased.
Recent polls showed that 72% or our troops wanted to start coming home by the end of this year and 83% of the Iraqi people want the occupation to end. Those numbers are significant if only for the fact that they are probably low - soldiers and occupied peoples have never felt at liberty, or even secure to share their feelings with the oppressors.
To this end of creating a peace plan that the Iraqi people want and can feel comfortable and secure with (it is, after all, their country), a contingent of peace activists, including myself, will travel to Amman, Jordan, to meet with Iraqi parliamentarians who don't parrot what BushCo wants them to say and would actually like coalition forces to be removed from their country. It is a historic and significant step in this abominable and shameful episode of our history. The meeting is also highly significant since our State Department has been transformed into an adjunct of the War Department and is headed by the Deputy Secretary of War, Condi Rice. We have no diplomats in our country: just warmongers who can clear brush, shop for shoes, and laugh at gullible Americans all the way to the bank while they are depositing their war profits.
We will be meeting with the Iraqi representatives in Amman on August 4th, and many of us will return to Camp Casey in Crawford on August 6th to outline the plan and present a way that Americans and Iraqis can work together to end the killing on both sides of the conflict. August 6th is also a very meaningful date for me because it is the same day, one year ago, that I originally sat in the ditch with other peacemongers and we were eventually joined by thousands of peacemongers from all over the world.
On that day, we will ask to meet with George again to brief him on our meeting with real Iraqis who live, work, and raise their families outside of the Green Zone and outside of the influence of DC. Judging by past performance, I don't think he will meet with us (not very neighborly), but I am sure he will know that we are there and we have an Iraqi-driven plan when his only plan is to kill more people because so many have already been killed - which is what "stay the course" and "honor the sacrifices of the fallen" really mean. George is so comfortable cutting and running from Crawford when he feels threatened by the truth, I wish he would cut our soldiers loose from the nightmare of occupation and allow Iraqis to run their own country.
Please come to Camp Casey this year, or donate to help promote peace for our time and our world. Since George has rescheduled his summer to avoid us, we will reschedule our summer to not allow him the leisure of having a leisurely vacation while the Middle East is burning because of his policies.
If we can't count on our leaders to solve conflicts non-violently, then we must count on ourselves.
We need to get busy putting peace into practice. This is the time to do it, and Camp Casey is the place where it will get done.
The Camp Casey dates have been changed to accomodate George's schedule and will be August 6th to September 2nd. Please go to the Gold Star Families for Peace web site to stay posted on future exciting developments for Camp Casey III this summer.
-------

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and currently on Day 27 of the Troops Home Fast.
The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=25309
The incoming address of this article is : www.truthout.org/docs_2006/073106L.shtml

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¶ 2:32 PM

Robert Fisk: 'How can we stand by and allow this to go on?'
Published: 31 July 2006

They wrote the names of the dead children on their plastic shrouds. " Mehdi Hashem, aged seven ¬ Qana," was written in felt pen on the bag in which the little boy's body lay. "Hussein al-Mohamed, aged 12 ¬ Qana", "Abbas al-Shalhoub, aged one ¬ Qana.'' And when the Lebanese soldier went to pick up Abbas's little body, it bounced on his shoulder as the boy might have done on his father's shoulder on Saturday. In all, there were 56 corpses brought to the Tyre government hospital and other surgeries, and 34 of them were children. When they ran out of plastic bags, they wrapped the small corpses in carpets. Their hair was matted with dust, most had blood running from their noses.
You must have a heart of stone not to feel the outrage that those of us watching this experienced yesterday. This slaughter was an obscenity, an atrocity ¬ yes, if the Israeli air force truly bombs with the " pinpoint accuracy'' it claims, this was also a war crime. Israel claimed that missiles had been fired by Hizbollah gunmen from the south Lebanese town of Qana ¬ as if that justified this massacre. Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, talked about "Muslim terror" threatening " western civilisation" ¬ as if the Hizbollah had killed all these poor people.
And in Qana, of all places. For only 10 years ago, this was the scene of another Israeli massacre, the slaughter of 106 Lebanese refugees by an Israeli artillery battery as they sheltered in a UN base in the town. More than half of those 106 were children. Israel later said it had no live-time pilotless photo-reconnaissance aircraft over the scene of that killing ¬ a statement that turned out to be untrue when The Independent discovered videotape showing just such an aircraft over the burning camp. It is as if Qana ¬ whose inhabitants claim that this was the village in which Jesus turned water into wine ¬ has been damned by the world, doomed forever to receive tragedy.
And there was no doubt of the missile which killed all those children yesterday. It came from the United States, and upon a fragment of it was written: "For use on MK-84 Guided Bomb BSU-37-B". No doubt the manufacturers can call it "combat-proven" because it destroyed the entire three-storey house in which the Shalhoub and Hashim families lived. They had taken refuge in the basement from an enormous Israeli bombardment, and that is where most of them died.
I found Nejwah Shalhoub lying in the government hospital in Tyre, her jaw and face bandaged like Robespierre's before his execution. She did not weep, nor did she scream, although the pain was written on her face. Her brother Taisir, who was 46, had been killed. So had her sister Najla. So had her little niece Zeinab, who was just six. "We were in the basement hiding when the bomb exploded at one o'clock in the morning,'' she said. "What in the name of God have we done to deserve this? So many of the dead are children, the old, women. Some of the children were still awake and playing. Why does the world do this to us?"
Yesterday's deaths brought to more than 500 the total civilian dead in Lebanon since Israel's air, sea and land bombardment of the country began on 12 July after Hizbollah members crossed the frontier wire, killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others. But yesterday's slaughter ended more than a year of mutual antagonism within the Lebanese government as pro-American and pro-Syrian politicians denounced what they described as " an ugly crime".
Thousands of protesters attacked the largest United Nations building in Beirut, screaming: "Destroy Tel Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv," and Lebanon's Prime Minister, the normally unflappable Fouad Siniora, called US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and ordered her to cancel her imminent peace-making trip to Beirut.
No one in this country can forget how President George Bush, Ms Rice, and Tony Blair have repeatedly refused to call for an immediate ceasefire ¬ a truce that would have saved all those lives yesterday. Ms Rice would say only: "We want a ceasefire as soon as possible,'' a remark followed by an Israeli announcement that it intended to maintain its bombardment of Lebanon for at least another two weeks.
Throughout the day, Qana villagers and civil defence workers dug through the ruins of the building with spades and with their hands, tearing at the muck until they found one body after another still dressed in colourful clothes. In one section of the rubble, they found what was left of a single room with 18 bodies inside. Twelve of the dead were women. All across southern Lebanon now, you find scenes like this, not so grotesque in scale, perhaps, but just as terrible, for the people of these villages are terrified to leave and terrified to stay. The Israelis had dropped leaflets over Qana, ordering its people to leave their homes. Yet twice now since Israel's onslaught began, the Israelis have ordered villagers to leave their houses and then attacked them with aircraft as they obeyed the Israeli instructions and fled. There are at least 3,000 Shia Muslims trapped in villages between Qlaya and Aiteroun ¬ close to the scene of Israel's last military incursion at Bint Jbeil ¬ and yet none of them can leave without fear of dying on the roads.
And Mr Olmert's reaction? After expressing his "great sorrow", he announced that: "We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents [sic] this morning. We will continue the activity, and if necessary it will be broadened without hesitation." But how much further can it be broadened? Lebanon's infrastructure is being steadily torn to pieces, its villages razed, its people more and more terrorised ¬ and terror is the word they used ¬ by Israel's American-made fighter bombers. Hizbollah's missiles are Iranian-made, and it was Hizbollah that started this war with its illegal and provocative raid across the border. But Israel's savagery against the civilian population has deeply shocked not only the Western diplomats who have remained in Beirut, but hundreds of humanitarian workers from the Red Cross and major aid agencies.
Incredibly, Israel yesterday denied safe passage to a UN World Food Programme aid convoy en route to the south, a six-truck mission that should have taken relief supplies to the south-eastern town of Marjayoun. More than three quarters of a million Lebanese have now fled their homes, but there is still no accurate figure for the total number still trapped in the south. Khalil Shalhoub, who survived amid the wreckage in Qana yesterday, said that his family and the Hashims were just too "terrified" to take the road out of the village, which has been attacked by aircraft for more than two weeks. The seven-mile highway between Qana and Tyre is littered with civilian homes in ruins and burnt-out family cars. On Thursday, the Israeli Army's Al-Mashriq radio, which broadcasts into southern Lebanon, told residents that their villages would be "totally destroyed" if missiles were fired from them. But anyone who has watched Israel's bombing these past two weeks knows that, in many cases, the Israelis do not know the location in which the Hizbollah are firing missiles, and ¬ when they do ¬ they frequently miss their targets. How can a villager prevent the Hizbollah from firing rockets from his street? The Hizbollah do take cover beside civilian houses ¬ just as Israeli troops entering Bint Jbeil last week also used civilian homes for cover. But can this be the excuse for slaughter on such a scale?
Mr Siniora addressed foreign diplomats in Beirut yesterday, telling them that the government in Beirut was now only demanding an immediate ceasefire and was not interested any longer in a political package to go with it. Needless to say, Mr Jeffrey Feltman, whose country made the bomb which killed the innocents of Qana yesterday, chose not to attend.

Source: http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/10776513.html

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