[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 10 Aug 2006]

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Israel must be held accountable for its international law violations Stephen Lendman 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 Territorie! s (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... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25643 Hizbullah, Zionism and the Ideology of late Imperial America Awakening the Resistance JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN ...Are we really surprised by the vast, Hizbullah-led resistance? By the linkage it makes with people across the boundaries of national insult, defeat and humiliation? Are we really surprised that 40 years after Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights and 6 years into its continued occupation of the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon that people are have had! enough? Are we really surprised that 3 and a half years into the US occupation and devastation of Iraq, 5 years after the US invasion and destruction of Afghanistan and decades of killings, intrusions, violations, abductions, assassinations, meddling, economic sanctions, pilfering and exploitation of the people, lands and resources of the Middle East that the reckless, racist, power-drunk mercenaries of empire should finally be met with a legitimate popular resistance? –not an outgrowth of displaced fanaticism, not an al-Qaeda gang of killers, but the beginnings of a grassroots pan-Arab and pan-Islamic movement seeking to heal the wounds of perpetual subjugation?... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25640 The U.N. disgraces itself even further Eli Stephens, Left I on the News The U.N. Security Council, the only body with real power, is little more than a tool for imperialism to impose its will on the people of the world. It's inability to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon after a month would be laughable were it not for the fact that more than a thousand people are dead, thousands more wounded, and large swaths of a country destroyed. But with all that, the other agencies of the U.N. have at least maintained a certai! n independence and been worthy of a certain respect. Until now: The UN's top humanitarian official has criticised Israel and Hezbollah for hindering access to southern Lebanon, calling the situation a "disgrace". Jan Egeland said both sides could give aid agencies access in a "heartbeat". Hospitals in south Lebanon are also said to be low on food and fuel(...) The disgrace is Mr. Egeland. Like all the readers of this blog, he knows very well exactly what Israel has been doing to prevent relief workers from providing aid to southern Lebanon, even going so far as to bomb makeshift bridges that were erected precisely for the purpose of bringing in that aid. I won't bore you with the rest, you all know it Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25638 Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 10 August 2006 Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. In a dispatch posted at 9:44am Makkah time Thursday morning, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US occupation forces have completely taken over ar-Ramadi General Hospital and turned it into a US military camp for American troops, throwing the hospital patients out of the building. The ar-Ramadi correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that ambulances had to! evacuate the patients from the hospital to al-Fallujah General Hospital because the Americans had ordered them all thrown out. Ambulance drivers told Mafkarat al-Islam that US troops in armored vehicles and armor-plated Humvees stormed into ar-Ramadi General Hospital in the northern part of the city and cleared all the patients, despite their illnesses and injuries, out of the hospital and on to the yard in front of the facility. The Americans ordered ambulance drivers and relatives in the hospital to take all the patients outside to the front yard. From there the ambulance drivers transported them to al-Fallujah... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25650 Aid blockade Lenin's Tomb So, let's get this absolutely straight: Israel has been bombing the canals, thus renewing suspicions "that it covets water from the Litani." Israel bombs the roads, the ports, the airports, all systems of transport, blocks aid as a specific matter of policy, has threatened UNIFIL workers if they attempt to rebuild a vital aid route - and Egeland comes out with this creepy 'even-handed' denunciation of "both Hezbollah and Israel" for not allowing aid access. Aside from the fact that Hezbo! llah is providing aid abundantly in Lebanon, in line with its usual social services and welfare roles, there is documented evidence of Israel, the stronger power, specifically blocking aid, but I defy anyone to find a single documented instance of Hezbollah doing this... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25648 Diplomacy under duress Firas Al-Atraqchi The Israel-Lebanon conflict, analysts say, has far-reaching geopolitical implications for the future of the Middle East and the nature of (US) involvement in the region's politics. Hizbullah has been strengthened, some say, while others have pointed to the weakness of Arab leadership and their failure to resolve the conflict that continues to demand a terrible civilian price. However, while the above forecasts may be true and eventually vindicate their authors, the Lebanon! crisis may also have far more devastating consequences for the scope of international diplomacy and convention. Future history students of the 21st century will contemplate how international protocols established over several centuries between nations to avoid conflict or bring about speedy resolutions have been restructured and redefined not to prevent warfare, but to cover for it... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25634 Self-fulfilling prophecy Azmi Bishara Journalist: How will the deaths of Israeli soldiers today affect your plans? Israeli Army Spokesman: You saw that massacre of 12 Israelis .. it will ... Journalist: Massacre you said? But those were soldiers and this is war. Spokesman: No, it was a massacre because the people who fired the missiles weren't targeting soldiers. They were targeting Israeli civilians but killed the soldiers by accident. Journalist: But you also committed massacr! es in Qana and elsewhere. Spokesman: No, there was no massacre in Qana. Hizbullah fighters were the targets of the bombardment but civilians were hit by accident... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25637 Israel's new advanced weapons Memories Documented Rami is wondering about new weapons being used against civilians. I saw a documentary about such a weapon, here's how it works. There are these new types of mini-bomb-lets that are similar to cluster bombs, but the difference lies in that they way they operate is by exploding and converting a mas off copper into molten copper that jets towards the victims at over 2800 feet/second. These weapons can shred cars and limbs. Without leaving shrapnel and at the s! ame time they are armour piercing. With such a lethal momentum, even the air around the trajectory of the molten copper is so hot that it would damage living tissue in such deep burns and wounds in the flesh that the doctors are describing... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25635 Army Uses Israeli Arabs as Shield: MK Mohammad Gamal Arafa, IOL Staff An Israeli Arab Member of Knesset has accused the Israeli army of using villages and towns predominantly populated by Israeli Arabs as "shields" to escape the barrages of rockets fired by the Lebanese Hizbullah resistance group. "During a short visit to offer condolences to the families of victims killed in Hizbullah's rocket attacks, I saw Israeli tanks shelling (south) Lebanon from the two towns of Arab Al-Aramisha and Tarshiha, which are pre! dominantly populated Arabs," MK Sheikh Abbas Zako said in a statement, a copy of which was received by IslamOnline.net. Zako stressed that the Israeli tanks are positioned just next to the houses of citizens... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25647 *** NOT SATIRE *** SWC: Investigate Lebanon for war crimes JERUSALEM POST STAFF The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Thursday called on the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the negligence and complicity of Lebanon in the commission of war crimes against Israel by deliberately failing to stop the transfer of Katyusha rockets to Hizbullah and in failing to alert the Security Council about the amassing of such weapons - a direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559. "There never would have been! a war in Lebanon had Beirut done its due diligence under Resolution 1559," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center. "Therefore, Lebanon is guilty of complicity with Hizbullah in the commission of war crimes against the people of Israel because of its failure to disarm Hizbullah or to even alert the UN of such violations... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25646 Lebanon Sunnis Fight Alongside Hizbullah Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent ...Respected Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has said that support of the Lebanese resistance was a Muslim duty. "When the enemy enters a country all the people there should unite to resist, be they Sunnis or Shiites, Muslims or Christians ... Such divisions hurt the resistance, which requires everyone to close ranks and speak in one voice," Qaradawi said. "One is not allowed to instigate religious fanaticism which divides the people,! " he told the Doha-base Aljazeera television. The International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) also warned against calls fueling sectarian division between Sunnis and Shiites... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25645 Plain genocide Erica Silverman ...The past week of violence is the latest onslaught in a seven-week long Israeli incursion into Gaza, purportedly aimed at halting the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel and to recover a soldier captured by Hamas resistance fighters. Yet Israel's offensive on Gaza has been overshadowed in the media by its offensive on Lebanon, leaving Gaza's population even more isolated and vulnerable to Israeli massacres. So far, Israeli forces have destroyed three major bridges, along with ! roads, crops, and infrastructural piping crushed by Israeli tanks (...) "The Israeli aggression is relentless, and Israel benefits from Lebanon, in that the world is not paying attention to Gaza," said Interior Minister Said Syiam in Gaza City. "I appeal to the world to pay attention"... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25632 The occupation of Lebanon continues apace. Lenin's Tomb The Israelis claim to have siezed the Christian town of Marjayoun according to the BBC. As with previous siezures, this is probably not as final as it seems. They apparently had pretty heavy fire from resistance fighters who presumably have made a tactical retreat. This town is very close to the Litani in the south-east (good detailed map of Lebanon here), but one assumes that they have in fact helicoptered troops in after bombing the area to shreds. Especia! lly since they are also said to have advanced on the small town of Khiam, only 7 kilometres past the border, reaching the outskirts in the inevitable "bed to quell Hezbollah rocket-fire". Khiam is of symbolic value to the Israelis, as it has been their favourite little torture centre during the earlier occupation of Lebanon. According to Lebanon Updates, it has been announced by an Israeli official that military operations will be suspended for two days, which presumably means that they will not attack anything except when they do, kill no one except who they kill, bomb nowhere except where they bomb. If it means anything at all, that is... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25644 The tipping point is here Larry Chin, Online Journal Associate Editor When all the factions of the New World Order unify behind a major geopolitical event, it usually signals disaster. These significant moments usually come when there is unanimous elite support for violent, large-scale criminal activity. September 11 and the birth of the "war on terrorism" was one such moment, as was the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan that followed. In these moments, the true criminal nature of the world’s elite is readil! y apparent. So is the ignorance of the duped and manipulated mass populaces. We are in the midst of another such moment as you read this, perhaps the most dangerous single collective moment since 9/11... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25642 How Indiscriminate is Hezbollah’s Shelling? Jonathan Cook ... First, we cannot easily know what Hizbullah is trying to hit because Israel has located most of its army camps, weapons factories and military installations near or inside civilian communities. If a Hizbullah rocket slams into an Israeli town with a weapons factory, should we count that as an attack on civilians or on a military site? The claim being made against Hizbullah in Lebanon -- that it is "cowardly blending" with civilians, according to the UN! ’s Jan Egeland -- can, in truth, be made far more convincingly of the Israeli army. While there has been little convincing evidence that Hizbullah is firing its rocket from towns and villages in south Lebanon, or that its fighters are hiding there among civilians, it can be known beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israeli army camps and military installations are based in northern Israeli communities... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25641 A 'Pretext' War in Lebanon Robert Parry Three days after the May 23 summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and U.S. President George W. Bush, a car bomb killed two officials of Islamic Jihad in the Lebanese city of Sidon. Immediately, Lebanese officials, including Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, denounced the murder of brothers Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub and pointed the finger at Israel as the prime suspect. On June 10, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh was arrested for the car bombing and, according to the Leban! ese army, confessed that he was a Mossad agent. Rafeh, a 59-year-old retired police officer, belonged to a "terror network working for the Israeli Mossad," which had smuggled a booby-trapped door into Lebanon from Israel for use in the assassination, the Lebanese army said. In retrospect, the Majzoub assassination looks to have been part of a larger U.S.-Israeli strategy – following the Olmert-Bush summit – to encourage a tit-for-tat escalation of violence that would ratchet up pressure on Palestinian and Lebanese militants – and through them their allies in Syria and Iran... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25639 Retroactive War Crime Protection Proposed Pete Yost, AP The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal. The move by the administration is the latest effort to deal with treatment of those taken into custody in the war on terror. At issue are interrogations carried out by the CIA, and the degree to which ! harsh tactics such as water-boarding were authorized by administration officials. A separate law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, applies to the military... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25636 Fake Terror Obfuscates Lebanon and Iraq Failures Kurt Nimmo Unable to window dress the obvious failure to eradicate growing resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan—even with the mighty propaganda power of a complaisant media—the neocon intelligence apparatus has staged yet another terrorist event, or would be terrorist event. "The 21 terrorist suspects arrested in the U.K. overnight had a 'well-advanced plan’ to detonate electronic devices or liquid explosives disguised as beverages or onboard U.S.-bound air! craft, a sophisticated plot suggestive of al-Qaeda, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said," reports Bloomberg. "The attacks were aimed at U.S.-bound planes of United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines at London’s Heathrow Airport, the Associated Press reported, citing unidentified [undoubtedly neocon] U.S. counter-terrorism officials in Washington."... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25631 DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, August 10, 2006 Today in Iraq A suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives near a revered Shiite shrine in southern Iraq, killing at least 35 people and injuring 122: 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 (...) Four people were killed and five wounded when fighting broke out late Wednesday between gunmen and residents of a Shiite co! mmunity in north Baghdad, police Lt. Salim Ali said. Sporadic clashes were continuing, he said. Six people were killed by a bomb in a restaurant in southern Baghdad. Seven police commandos including a senior officer were killed in a rebel ambush in Baghdad. Five people were found murdered in Baghdad... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25630 Weekly Report on Human Rights Violations: 26 Palestinians killed, including 6 children Report, PCHR, 10 August 2006 ...As the international community has remained silent, IOF have continued to wage a full scale offensive on the Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip. During the reported period, IOF have waged a media war against Palestinian civilians. They have dropped leaflets in streets and on roofs of houses, phoned civilians threatening to destroy their houses if they helped Palestinian resistance a! ctivist, and ordered a number of Palestinian resistance activists through phone calls on their mobile phones to evacuate their houses, which would be destroyed. IOF have further continued their Operation Grasshopper, under which they move in a certain area, commit crimes there and then redeploy outside it. They then move into another area and do the same. PCHR, monitoring with utmost concern the developments of this offensive, calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and United Nations, to immediately intervene to force IOF to stop this offensive and allow the passage of foodstuffs, medical supplies and fuels into the Gaza Strip... Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25627 GI Special 4H10: War Reports - August 10, 2006 Thomas F. Barton Three U.S. Soldiers Killed In Anbar Two U.S. Servicemen Missing After Anbar Chopper Crash; Four Injured Marine Fought For Place In History; Frederick County Native Was Due Home This Month Haven Marine Dies In Combat Roadside Bomb That Kills Guardsman Also Injured Another New Zealand Mercenary Dies In Iraq Blast THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE REASON TO BE IN THIS EXTREMELY HIGH RISK LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT A CROOKED POLITICIAN WHO LIVES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU THERE, SO HE WILL LOOK GOOD. That is not a good enough reason. Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25626 www.uruknet.info: a site gathering daily information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts of iraqi resistance available in Italian and English.   You receive this newsletter because you subscribed it. If you think it was an abuse, or simply if you don't want to receive it any more, click here to unsubscribe from the newsletter.