valenzuelaclan

In recent days, human rights violations perpetrated by the USA throughout the "war on terror" have in effect been given the congressional stamp of approval. With the passing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 by the US House of Representatives on 27 September and the Senate on 28 September, Congress has turned bad executive policy into bad law. This document looks back on the evolution of the executive’s "war on terror" detention policies, in order to illustrate the sort of violations in which Congress, through inaction and now legislation, has become complicit. Amnesty International will continue to campaign for the USA’s "war on terror" detention policies and practices to be brought into full compliance with international law, and for repeal of any law that fails to meet this test.

On 21 September 2001, Amnesty International faxed a letter to President George W. Bush. The organization urged the President to put respect for human rights and the rule of law at the heart of his country’s response to the crime against humanity that was perpetrated on 11 September 2001. "In the wake of a crime of such magnitude", the letter said, "principled leadership becomes crucial… We urge you to lead your government to take every necessary human rights precaution in the pursuit of justice."

Amnesty International deeply regrets that its appeal fell on deaf ears. The past five years have seen the USA engage in systematic violations of international law, with a distressing impact on thousands of detainees and their families. Human rights violations have included: Yet at the same time, US officials have continued to characterize the USA as a "nation of laws" and one that in the "war on terror" is committed to what it calls the "non-negotiable demands of human dignity", including the "rule of law".

It is tempting to resort to accusations of hypocrisy, particularly when the USA itself condemns the very same practices if carried out by other countries. But in seeking to challenge US conduct, perhaps it is more useful to consider how vulnerable the law is to elastic interpretation, manipulation or selective application by the state. And that, for better or worse, a government can use policy to drive the law rather than vice versa. In the USA’s case, a long-held resistance to applying international law to its own conduct compounds the problem.

Under the US administration’s selective application of the laws of war and outright dismissal of international human rights law, for example, the Guantánamo detention camp is the "most transparent facility in the history of warfare" according to the Pentagon, rather than the icon of lawlessness that many outside the USA perceive it to be.

In similar vein, with elastic interpretation of the law, secret detention becomes "legal". In his speech on 6 September 2006 confirming and defending the Central Intelligence Agency’s program of secret detentions, President Bush emphasised that "this program has been subject to multiple legal reviews by the Department of Justice and CIA lawyers; they’ve determined it complied with our laws".

Again, there is a stark "disconnect" between the USA and the international community. After all, President Bush’s speech came only weeks after two expert United Nations bodies – the Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee – told the US government that secret detentions violated the USA’s international treaty obligations. In effect, the President was rejecting the conclusions of these UN bodies, as well as admitting that the USA had resorted to enforced disappearance, a crime under international law.

The US administration’s interpretation of the law has been driven by its policy choices rather than a credible postulation of its legal obligations. One core policy choice was to frame its response to the 11 September attacks in terms of a global "war" rather than as a criminal law enforcement effort. The law would have to be made to fit this "new paradigm", as President Bush characterized the situation in a 7 February 2002 memorandum on detentions.

At a press conference in June 2004, with the administration seeking to quell the criticism of its policies following the Abu Ghraib torture revelations, then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales recalled the administration’s post-9/11 discussions thus: From these questions flowed a number of memorandums written in late 2001 and early 2002 by administration lawyers concocting legal positions on a variety of issues. These issues included the limits of the prohibition on torture or other ill-treatment, whether the choice of Guantánamo as a location for detentions would keep detainees out of the reach of the US courts, and the use of military commissions, to quote a November 2001 Justice Department memorandum, as "entirely creatures of the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief". The White House Counsel himself drafted advice to the President suggesting that a benefit of not applying the Geneva Conventions to detainees picked up in the Afghanistan conflict would be that prosecutions of US personnel under the US War Crimes Act would become more difficult.

Sure enough, almost five years and numerous alleged war crimes later, there have been no prosecutions under the Act. Similarly there have been no prosecutions under the USA’s extraterritorial anti-torture statute despite the widespread allegations of torture. With the USA’s rejection in 2002 of the International Criminal Court, and its subsequent campaign to have other countries agree never to surrender US nationals to the ICC, a pattern of US impunity had been established even before the Military Commissions Act exacerbated the situation.

The legal advice in these early administration memorandums thus seemed tailored to fit desired policy outcomes. Precedents that suited the policy were emphasised, laws that did not were ignored or downplayed. The indefinite detention regime in Guantánamo and the denial of habeas corpus was one result. A less than absolute ban on torture or other ill-treatment was another. Secret detention was a third. And unfair trial by military commissions still threatens to be a fourth.

The government’s policy of indefinite detention without charge, as practiced in Guantánamo and elsewhere, is thus a direct consequence of the war paradigm. Instead of treating these detainees as criminal suspects, the US authorities have branded them as loosely-defined "enemy combatants" in a global conflict. That the USA sees the world as the "battlefield" is illustrated by the fact that those currently held in Guantánamo include individuals picked up in Gambia, Bosnia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand, and United Arab Emirates, as well as Afghanistan.

Under the administration’s conceptualization, such detainees are both a potential source of intelligence and a potential threat to national security. Access to lawyers is perceived as detrimental to the interrogation process. Access to the courts is seen as disruptive of military operations. In the version of the Military Commissions Act which President Bush sent to Congress on 6 September 2006, the administration argued that trials with lower standards of justice than apply in existing US courts were necessary because "the terrorists with whom the United States is engaged in armed conflict have demonstrated a commitment…to the abuse of American legal processes". In this argument, the administration seemed to be putting the US lawyers who have litigated on behalf of the Guantánamo detainees on the wrong side of President Bush’s "with us or with the terrorists" divide. In this nation of laws, it seemed, you were either with the administration’s lawyers or you were with the terrorists.

Although branded as "terrorists" and "killers" by the Commander-in-Chief, and as "evil" by Vice President Cheney, the Guantánamo detainees are not necessarily considered as individuals bearing responsibility for specific criminal conduct. Indeed, the question of trials of "alien unlawful enemy combatants" is viewed by the administration as an entirely separate issue, one that does not affect the detention regime itself. According to the administration, detentions may last until the end of the conflict, the definition and timing of which – like the detentions themselves – is a matter of executive discretion, and potentially indefinite. Even if acquitted by a military commission, a detainee could still be returned to indefinite detention as an "enemy combatant".

The vast majority of those held by the USA in the "war on terror" are unlikely ever to face US judicial proceedings. As noted above, that is not why they are detained. Even the small number of detainees who have been charged have not come to trial. Part of the reason is that the administration’s policy-driven interpretation of the law has inevitably collided with that of much of the legal community, including judicial authorities such as the US Supreme Court in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling of 29 June 2006. But relatively narrowly-framed judicial decisions interpreted narrowly and in self-serving fashion by the executive make for slow progress towards full respect for human rights. Thus, more than two years after the Supreme Court ruled in Rasul v. Bush that the US courts had jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus appeals from the Guantánamo detainees, not a single one of them currently held there has had the lawfulness of his detention judicially reviewed.

The response of the US administration to the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling has perhaps been even more shocking, although apparently not shocking enough to nudge Congress finally into calling the executive to account for "war on terror" abuses. Indeed, President Bush’s defence of the CIA’s program of secret detention and "alternative" interrogation techniques policy, which he said had been called into question by the Hamdan ruling and therefore needed congressional approval, showed an administration in assertively unapologetic mood.

Again, one can begin to trace the administration’s manipulation of the law to fit its policy. According to a document recently issued by the Director of National Intelligence, after "high-value" detainee Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and handed over to the USA, he stopped "cooperation" with his US interrogators. In order to overcome this lack of cooperation, "over the ensuing months, the CIA designed a new interrogation program" and "sought and obtained legal guidance from the Department of Justice that none of the new procedures violated the US statutes prohibiting torture."

Any such claim of legality rings hollow. For until the Detainee Treatment Act was passed in December 2005 (in the face of executive opposition), Department of Justice lawyers took the position that because of the reservation attached to the USA’s ratification of the Convention against Torture in 1994, the USA had no treaty obligation on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to foreign nationals held in US custody overseas. In addition, in August 2002, the Justice Department provided legal advice in a memorandum which only came to light in mid-2004 after the Abu Ghraib torture revelations. It was reportedly written in response to a CIA request for legal protections for its interrogators. The memorandum stated among other things that interrogators could cause a great deal of pain before crossing the threshold to torture, that there were a "significant range of acts" that might constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment but would not rise to the level of torture and be prosecutable under the US torture statute, and that the President could override international or national prohibitions on torture.(1)

The administration has not elaborated upon what the CIA "alternative" interrogation techniques have entailed, simply relaying the politically expedient claim that the resistance of Abu Zubaydah and the other detainees had been broken. Sued in court, the CIA has so far been successful in its ploy of refusing to confirm or deny the existence of an alleged presidential directive and an alleged Justice Department memorandum authorizing and outlining the secret detention program and its interrogation methods. However, the methods are widely reported to have included techniques that would clearly violate international law.(2)

Even now, more than two years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, the USA’s protections against torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are less than adequate. Among other things, the USA’s treaty reservations mean that the USA considers itself, including under the Detainee Treatment Act, bound by the prohibition on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment only to the extent that it matches existing US law. Under US Supreme Court jurisprudence, conduct is banned that "shocks the conscience". Justice Department lawyers reportedly view this as allowing consideration of the context in which abuse of detainees occurs. Under such consideration, if a detainee is believed to have information considered by the government to be important to national security, the "shocks the conscience" test could be interpreted by the government as permitting conduct that would be otherwise be unlawful. As Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Peter King, said: "If we capture bin Laden tomorrow and we have to hold his head under water to find out when the next attack is going to happen, we ought to be able to do that".(3) Or as Senator John Thune from South Dakota said in an earlier hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, "when you talk about humiliating or degrading or those types of terms and applying them to terrorists… I think that’s not something that people in my state would be real concerned [about]".

Thus the USA adheres to a less than absolute ban on torture and other ill-treatment. It is clearly a long way from leading the world in fighting torture, as President Bush claimed in 2003.(4)

Indeed it would appear that the President himself remains at square one, namely the position articulated in his 7 February 2002 memorandum on detention policy. This memorandum indicated that for some detainees at least, the administration viewed humane treatment as a policy choice rather than a legal obligation, and one that did not apply to the CIA.(5) Four and a half years later, on 6 September 2006, President Bush justified the past use and continued existence of the secret CIA detention and interrogation program for use against certain "high-value" detainees on the grounds of necessity. He said that "it has been "necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held secretly [and] questioned by experts" using unspecified "alternative" techniques to extract information from detainees allegedly resistant to interrogation. "Military necessity" has also been used to justify torture or ill-treatment at Guantánamo under at least one of two "special interrogation plans" authorized by Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld.(6)

In the lead-up to the 2002 congressional elections, President Bush requested authorization for use of force against Iraq. On 10 October 2002 Congress passed a broadly-framed and controversial resolution to this end.(7) The full ramifications of this resolution and the ensuing invasion of Iraq remain to be seen, but four years later, with congressional elections again looming, President Bush presented Congress with the Military Commissions Act. He stated in his 6 September speech that as soon as Congress authorized military commissions acceptable to the administration, Abu Zubaydah and the 13 other men newly transferred to Guantánamo from years in secret CIA custody could "face justice", including the possibility of execution. It seems clear that the administration set out to use these high-profile detainees to apply pressure on legislators – in the context of mid-term elections and in the charged atmosphere of the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks – to adopt legislation authorizing a revised version of the military commissions struck down by the Hamdan ruling, and to endorse other aspects of the administration’s detention policy. The resulting Military Commissions Act of 2006 is bad for the USA and bad for human rights.

The US system of government enshrines three separate branches of government – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. In an opinion written eight decades ago, US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis explained that: "The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the convention of 1787 not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy."(8)

Friction or no friction, viewed from an international perspective, the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government all have roles to play in ensuring the USA’s adherence to its international legal obligations. The executive has singularly failed to meet its obligations in this regard. The judiciary, headed by the Supreme Court, has moved to rein in executive excess but as already noted, its rulings on the relatively narrow questions brought before it are vulnerable to narrow and self-serving interpretations by the executive.

Three days after the 11 September 2001 attacks, Congress had the opportunity to put down a marker against executive excess in the "war on terror". It failed to do so when it passed the broadly framed Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which has since been used by the administration to justify violations of international law. Amnesty International believes that Congress should repeal or substantially amend the AUMF. Congress has failed to establish a commission of inquiry into the USA’s "war on terror" detention policies and practices, despite a compelling need for such an inquiry. In December 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, but included in it an impunity clause (§1004) and a severe curtailment of habeas corpus (§1005). Amnesty International has called for these sections of the Act to be repealed or substantially amended.

Now Congress has passed the Military Commissions Act. Amnesty International will work for the repeal of this legislation which violates human rights principles. Among other things, the Military Commissions Act will: Meanwhile the human rights violations continue. The CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program retains the full support of President Bush. During the debates on the Military Commissions Act, members of Congress expressed their support for the program, despite the fact that it violates international law. Thousands of detainees remain in indefinite detention without charge or trial in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo. In passing the Military Commissions Act, Congress has failed these detainees and their families.

Those defending human rights should be prepared for a long struggle.

********

(1) "That memo represented the position of the executive branch at the time it was issued"; and: "It
represented the administrative branch position". "I accepted the August 1, 2002, memo". Alberto
Gonzales, White House Counsel, in response to oral questions from Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator
Edward Kennedy and written questions from Senator Richard Durbin during the US Attorney General
nomination hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, January 2005.

(2) CIA’s harsh interrogation techniques described, ABC News, 18 November 2005, available at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866. (listing techniques grabbing, slapping, and: "Long Time Standing: …Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions… The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water… Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt."

(3) An unexpected collision over detainees, New York Times, 15 September 2006.

(4) "The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment." Statement by the President, 26 June 2003 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030626-....

(5) "Our values…call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those that are not legally entitled to such treatment… As a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely".

(6) See USA: Rendition – torture – trial? The case of Guantánamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi, http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR511492006. In the case of Mohamed al-Qahtani (see end of above report), the interrogation plan "outlines the military necessity for doing this [harsh interrogation]". Department of Defense Deputy General Counsel. Press briefing, White House, 22 June 2004. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040622-....

(7) See, for example, chapter 5 of Neal Devins and Louis Fisher, The Democratic Constitution. Oxford University Press, 2004 ("…Congress chose to vote under partisan pressure with inadequate information, to pass an authorizing resolution. As with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (in 1970, expanding intervention in Vietnam), Congress acted hurriedly in the middle of an election without the information it needed. The Iraq Resolution did not decide either for or against military action; it left that decision solely with the President…").

(8) Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), Justice Brandeis dissenting.

 

AI Index: AMR 51/154/2006

29 September 2006

The Bush regime is in a desperate attempt to rush laws that legalize illegal activities related to the "war on terror", which include torture, illegal wire tapping (domestic and foriegn), secret detention camps all over the world, suspension of civil liberties, warrantless searches, use of ban weapons (phosphorus incendiary bombs), etc..etc...  Now they want to pass laws which protect them from the laws they broke in previous years...why?  because they broke the law and want to protect themselves!!!.  It looks as if democrates will win the house back from the republicans.  This means after november it will be much more difficult for bush and his cronies to pass draconian measures.  They need these protection now, before the elections.  We have seen this before in Germany and other countries around the world......and unfortunately in chile too it happened...Those who vote for these laws will not be forgotten.  Just as people have not forgotten what really happened in Chile....The truth always surfaces, its a matter of time.


Pinochet Also Thought He Could "Legalize" Torture
Friday, 29 September 2006, 10:24 am
Opinion: Mark G. Levy

Pinochet Also Thought He Could "Legalize" Torture And Immunize Himself

By Mark G. LeveyOn September 11, 1973, Gen. Augusto Pinochet headed a military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Salvador Allende. Chile at that time was one of the world's oldest constitutional democracies.

In the months that followed, in a round up of "terrorists", Chilean military and intelligence officers arrested 30,000 Chileans and some foreign nationals. Virtually all were tortured, and 3,000 "disappeared", many dumped alive from military aircraft into the Pacific Ocean. The Junta's secret police also sought out its critics abroad, a few weeks later blowing up the former Ambassador, Orlando Letelier, in his car as he drove through downtown Washington, DC.

In the years that followed, "President" Pinochet ruled through emergency "anti-terrorism" decrees, before he retired as a Senator for life. Before he left the presidential palace, however, the General assured himself that he would never be brought to trial for his crimes. While the country was still effectively controlled by the military Junta he headed, the runner-stamp legislature passed laws granting amnesty to those officials who had committed torture and murder during the "state of exception" to constitutional rule. The amnesty laws also granted lifetime "legislative immunity" to members of Parliament, including, of course, Senator Pincochet.

Even though Spain, France and several other countries had issued warrants for Pinochet's role in commanding the murder of their citizens in Chile following the coup, Pinochet travelled the world in luxury and, he thought, security from arrest. As former "head of state", most countries would not touch him. But, that changed in 1998, when during a visit to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other Right-wing friends in Britain, he was detained on an extradition request from Spain.

After a long court battle, a three-member Court of the House of Lords, the highest appellate tribunal in the UK, found that Pinochet's claims to immunity as former head of state and to legislative immunity were invalid in the face of charges of violation of international laws against genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. The Blair Government ended up sending him back to Chile, where the new democratic government and courts stripped his immunity, and placed Pinochet, now 87 years old, under indefinite house arrest.

There should be a lesson here for Bush and the GOP Congress. While you might believe today that you can legalize torture and other crimes against humanity, some day they will come for you. Power does not trump the law forever. You are naked before the world, and it's only a matter of time.

A list of UN Resolutions against "Israel"

Here is a list of UN resolutions that Israel has not complied. As far as I know they have ignored every single resolution. But the situation is far worse than would at first appear, it involves the serious distortion of the official Security Council record by the profligate use by the United States of its veto power. (See Table)

Israel’s, defiance goes back to its very beginnings. This collection of resolutions criticizing Israel is unmatched by the record of any other nation.

A list of UN Resolutions against "Israel"

Britain, U.S. Using Radioactive ‘Dirty Bombs’

World’s foremost expert on the U.S. military’s use of depleted uranium speaks out

By Dr. Doug Rokke

While U.S. and British military personnel continue using illegal uranium munitions—America’s and England’s own “dirty bombs”—Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Defense (DOD) officials deny that there are any adverse health and environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing and use of uranium munitions. The reason for the doubletalk is obviously to avoid criminal liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive and toxic material—depleted uranium (DU).

How do I know this? Fourteen years ago, I was asked by the U.S. military to clean up the initial DU mess from Gulf War I.

Following that, I headed the Depleted Uranium Project for the DOD, which created a series of manuals and training videos to teach soldiers about the hazards associated with handling DU munitions.

Still, DOD officials and others attempt to justify uranium munitions use while ignoring mandatory requirements that are already in place to deal with the contamination.

I am dismayed that DOD and DOE officials and their representatives continue personal attacks aimed to silence or discredit those of us who are demanding that medical care be provided to all DU casualties and that environmental remediation be completed in compliance with government regulations.

The Pentagon arrogantly refuses to comply with its own orders and directives that require the DOD to provide prompt and effective medical care to all exposed individuals, as cited in military reports.

They also refuse to clean up dispersed radioactive contamination as required by Army Regulation AR 700-48, titled Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities, and U.S. Army Technical Bulletin TB 9-1300-278, which notes the “Guidelines For Safe Response To Handling, Storage, And Transportation Accidents
Involving Army Tank Munitions Or Armor Which Contain Depleted Uranium.”

Specifically, section 2-4 of Army Regulation AR 700-48, dated Sept. 16, 2002, requires that:

• “Military personnel “identify, segregate, isolate, secure, and label all RCE” (radiologically contaminated equipment).

• “Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible.”

• “Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment”; and

• “All equipment, to include captured or combat RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded, decontaminated and released. . . .”

In addition, medical care must be provided by DOD to all individuals affected by the manufacturing, testing and use of uranium munitions. A thorough environmental cleanup must also be completed without further delay.

The use of uranium weapons, the release of radioactive components in destroyed U.S. and foreign military equipment and releases of industrial, medical and research facility radioactive materials have resulted in unacceptable exposures.

Therefore, decontamination must be completed, as required by Army regulation, and should include releases of all radioactive materials resulting from military operations.

Americans should realize that adverse health and environmental effects of uranium weapons contamination are not limited solely to combat zones. Any facility and site where uranium weapons have been manufactured or tested should be checked, also. These include Vieques, Puerto Rico; Colonie, N.Y.; Concord, Mass.; Jefferson Proving Grounds in Indiana; and the Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

The willful dispersal of tons of solid radioactive and chemically toxic waste in the form of uranium munitions is illegal. Beyond that, it does not even pass the common sense test.

Even the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notes that DU is a dirty bomb. DHS issued “dirty bomb” response guidelines on Jan. 3, 2006, for incidents within the United States.

They specifically state: “A radiological incident is defined as an event or series of events, deliberate or accidental, leading to the release, or potential release, into the environment of radioactive material in sufficient quantity to warrant consideration of protective actions.”

The first step in putting this terrible situation right should be for Bush and Blair to set up medical care for all casualties.

They should then demand a thorough environmental assessment of the level of DU contamination around testing facilities, munitions plants and battlegrounds. They should also call for an immediate cessation of retaliation against all of us who demand compliance with medical care provisions. And, finally, the two leaders should order an immediate stop to the already illegal use of DU munitions.


Doug Rokke, Ph.D. (ret.) is a veteran of the first Gulf War and is the former director of the U.S. Army’s Depleted Uranium Project, which developed a series of training videos and manuals about DU munitions for the military. The materials were intended to teach servicemen and women about the use of and hazards associated with DU munitions. However, the military never instituted the program. Today, Dr. Rokke has become one of the leading critics of the U.S. government’s continued use of DU.

(Issue #31, July 31st, 2006)

This is why Areil Sharon, then Isreali Defence Secretary (minister), is call the Butcher of Sabra and Shatila.  The last time Isreal invaded, they with the help of the phalangist slaughtered some 2000 residents of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in lebanon.   If you look at the pictures take note of the terrorist children, they are a super threat to the survival of isreal!!!!!  Wake up... you have slumbered to long in silence and denial, been confused with omission distortions, spins, and outright lies...  Unless ignorance is chosen, maybe you would rather not know..  Fine, but at least keep your nuetrality, and dont support the nazi's that push these atrocities in the world.  

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dummies....

Can You Believe that all these civilians in lebanon are terrorist!!!!  Wake up dummies..

What I am watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage By Robert Fisk in Mdeirej, Central Lebanon 07/15/06 "The Independent" -- - - The beautiful viaduct that soars over the mountainside here has become a "terrorist" target. The Israelis attacked the international highway from Beirut to Damascus just after dawn yesterday and dropped a bomb clean through the central span of the Italian-built bridge a symbol of Lebanon's co-operation with the European Union sending concrete crashing hundreds of feet down into the valley beneath. It was the pride of the murdered ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri, the face of a new, emergent Lebanon. And now it is a "terrorist" target. So I drove gingerly along the old mountain road towards the Bekaa yesterday - the Israeli jets were hissing through the sky above me - turned the corner once I rejoined the highway, and found a 50ft crater with an old woman climbing wearily down the side on her hands and knees, trying to reach her home in the valley that glimmered to the east. This too had become a "terrorist" target. It is now the same all over Lebanon. In the southern suburbs - where the Hizbollah, captors of the two missing Israeli soldiers, have their headquarters - a massive bomb had blasted off the sides of apartment blocks next to a church, splintering windows and crashing balconies down to parked cars. This too had become a "terrorist target. One man was brought out shrieking with pain, covered in blood. Another "terrorist" target. All the way to the airport were broken bridges, holed roads. All these were "terrorist" targets. At the airport, tongues of fire blossomed into the sky from aircraft fuel storage tanks, darkening west Beirut. These too were now "terrorist" targets. At Jiyeh, the Israelis attacked the power station. This too was a "terrorist" target. Yet when I drove to the actual headquarters of Hizbollah, a tall building in Haret Hreik, it was totally undamaged. Only last night did the Israelis manage to hit it. So can the Lebanese be forgiven - can anyone here be forgiven - for believing that the Israelis have a greater interest in destroying Lebanon than they do in their two soldiers? No wonder Middle East Airlines, the national Lebanese airline, put crews into its four stranded Airbuses at Beirut airport early yesterday and sneaked them out of the country for Amman before the Israelis realised they were under power and leaving. European politicians have talked about Israel's "disproportionate" response to Wednesday's capture of its soldiers. They are wrong. What I am now watching in Lebanon is an outrage. How can there be any excuse for the 73 dead Lebanese blown these past three days? The same applies, of course, to the four Israeli civilians killed by Hizbollah rockets. But - please note the exchange rate of Israeli civilian lives to Lebanese civilian lives now stands at 1 to more than 15. This does not include the two children who were atomised in their home in Dweir on Thursday and whose bodies cannot be found. Their six brothers and sisters were buried yesterday, along with their mother and father. Another "terrorist" target. So was a neighbouring family with five children who were also buried yesterday. Another "terrorist" target. Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist. There is something perverse about all this, the slaughter and massive destruction and the self-righteous, constant, cancerous use of the word "terrorist". No, let us not forget that the Hizbollah broke international law, crossed the Israeli border, killed three Israeli soldiers, captured two others and dragged them back through the border fence. It was an act of calculated ruthlessness that should never allow Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to grin so broadly ay his press conference. It has brought unparalleled tragedy to countless innocents in Lebanon. And of course, it has led Hizbollah to fire at least 170 Katyusha rockets into Israel. But what would happen if the powerless Lebanese government had actually unleashed air attacks across Israel the last time Israel's troops crossed into Lebanon? What if the Lebanese air force then killed 73 Israeli civilians in bombing raids in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Israeli West Jerusalem? What if a Lebanese fighter aircraft bombed Ben Gurion airport? What if a Lebanese plane destroyed 26 road bridges across Israel? Would it not be called "terrorism"? I rather think it would. But if Israel was the victim, it would also probably be Word War Three. Of course, Lebanon cannot attack Tel Aviv. Its air force comprises three ancient Hawker Hunters and an equally ancient fleet of Vietnam-era Huey helicopters. Syria, however, has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. So Syria - which Israel rightly believes to be behind Wednesday's Hizbollah attack is not going to be bombed. It is Lebanon which must be punished. The Israeli leadership intends to "break" the Hizbollah and destroy its "terrorist cancer". Really? Do the Israelis really believe they can "break" one of the toughest guerrilla armies in the world? And how? There are real issues here. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1559 - the same resolution that got the Syrian army out of Lebanon - the Shia Muslim Hizbollah should have been disarmed. They were not because, if the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, had tried to do so, the Lebanese army would have had to fight them and the army would almost certainly broken apart because most Lebanese soldiers are Shia Muslims. We could see the restarting of the civil war in Lebanon - a fact which Nasrallah is cynically aware of - but attempts by Siniora and his cabinet colleagues to find a new role for Hizbollah, which has a minister in the government (he is Minister of Labour) foundered. And the greatest now is that the Lebanese government will collapse and be replaced by a pro-Syrian government which could re-invite the Syrians back into the country. So there's a real conundrum to be solved. But it's not going to succeed with the mass bombing of the country by Israel. Not the obsession with terrorists, terrorists, terrorists. © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

I would advise people to stay clear of these lunatics, or go down in history as nazis to the world.  Do you really want WW3, are you that stupid, cause its your kids who will fight, not the ones pushing the war.  The Elite never do the fighting, thats for the ignorant.  And dont forget who controls the corporate media, the elite!!  And they sure have kept the americans ignorant... 

 Right-wing media divided: Is U.S. now in World War III, IV, or V?

Summary:

With the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East and a terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, the right-wing media have declared a new "world war" but have not agreed upon which world war the United States now faces: World War III, IV, or V.

World War III?
Most recently, on the July 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly said "World War III ... I think we're in it." Similarly, on the July 13 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, a graphic read: "On the verge of World War III?" As Media Matters for America has noted, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck began his program on July 12 with a discussion with former CIA officer Robert Baer by saying "we've got World War III to fight," while also warning of "the impending apocalypse." Beck and Baer had a similar discussion on July 13, in which Beck said: "I absolutely know that we need to prepare ourselves for World War III. It is here."

World War IV?
On the July 10 edition of Fox News' The Big Story, host John Gibson interviewed Michael Ledeen, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and said "some are calling the global war on terror something else, something more like World War III." But Ledeen responded that "it's more like World War IV because there was a Cold War, which was certainly a world war." Ledeen added that "probably the start of it [World War IV] was the Iranian revolution of 1979." Similarly, on the May 24 edition of CNBC's Kudlow and Company, host Lawrence Kudlow, discussing a book by former deputy undersecretary of defense Jed Babbin, said "World War IV is the terror war, and war with China would be World War V."

Other conservatives have previously suggested the "war on terror" as "World War IV." In a September 2004 article, Commentary editor-at-large Norman Podhoretz noted "World War III (that is, the cold war)" and that "the great struggle into which the United States was plunged by 9/11 can only be understood if we think of it as World War IV." And in January 2005, FrontPageMag.com hosted a symposium called "Ukraine and World War IV."

World War V?
On the July 13 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Fox News host Sean Hannity declared: "we are loaded up today, as the Middle East on the brink of World War V, here." Hannity did not explain what he regarded as World Wars III and IV. But earlier in the show, Hannity suggested the current conflict is World War III, stating: "[I]s World War III breaking out in the Middle [East]? It may very well be."



From the July 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thanks for watching us tonight. Why should you care about the violence in Israel and Lebanon? That is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo."

The answer to that question is because it affects your life. Every time stuff like this happens, the price of oil goes up and the worldwide economy totters.

It's exactly what Iran wants. And Iran is behind the terror attacks on Israeli forces. The whole thing is part of World War III, ladies and gentlemen. Islamic fascism against the West. That global conflict, unfortunately, is here for the foreseeable future.

[...]

O'REILLY: Yeah. Last question, Mr. Cook. Military action, you know, look, here's what Iran's going to do. It's going to push us as far as it can. It's going to do as much damage to the world as it can. And then it'll draw back, if it thinks military action is coming its way, correct?

STEVEN COOK (fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations): I think that's precisely the case. And there won't be much upside for the United States to take military action directly against Iran. They have too many cards that they can play against us. They have cards to play against us in Afghanistan, cards to play -- continue to make our lives miserable in Iraq. And obviously as we've seen, they've continued -- they've heated up the border between Israel and Lebanon.

O'REILLY: All right, World War III, right?

COOK: Possibly.

O'REILLY: I think we're in it. I absolutely think we're in it.

From the July 10 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson:

GIBSON: From Kim Jong Il's missile testing to the Iranian president ranting that he'll wipe Israel off the map, and the fight to weed terrorists out of Iraq, some are calling the global war on terror something else, something more like World War III. Here now, Michael Ledeen, a columnist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a public-policy research institute. Michael, it was a columnist in the New York Daily News today saying this is World War III, and it's on. Do you agree with him?

LEDEEN: Well, it's certainly on. It's more like World War IV, because there was a Cold War, which was certainly a world war. But sure, it's global, and it's on.

GIBSON: Where do we count the start of it?

LEDEEN: Well, that's always difficult to do. Probably the start of it was the Iranian revolution of 1979, when you had the first fanatical Islamic regime declare war on us, and that was explicit in the fall of 1979.

GIBSON: What would be the hallmarks of this? I mean, we know there's a war on terror. But the proposition put forward is that if you look at all of this stuff, what the Iranians are threatening to do, what the North Koreans are threatening to do, what the Japanese are threatening to do, what we are prepared to do and have done, that there really is one large world war under way. Does that concept hold together?

LEDEEN: Yeah, I think so. I think the president had it right at the beginning, and he seems to have forgotten about it, when he said that we're not going to distinguish between terrorist organizations and countries that support and feed and house and train and arm them. And so if you help terrorists, we're going to treat you as if you are a terrorist yourself. Well, there are many terrorist regimes around the world right now, and we're going to have to try to cope with them.

GIBSON: Michael, if the -- there is World War IV and it's under way, if that's a correct assumption --

LEDEEN: It is.

GIBSON: -- what should we be doing right now that we're not doing?

LEDEEN: We should be doing what we did most effectively in World War III. The way we won World War III was not by invading and bombing primarily, it was by bringing down regimes that were palpably failures, like the Soviet Union and the Soviet empire in general. If you look at the terrorist sponsors, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and so forth, all of whom work very closely together and so forth, these are all failed regimes. Their people hate them. They're not even feeding their people, even though some of them are drowning in oil revenues. So we should be supporting revolution in those countries against them, exactly as we did in Poland and Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union itself. It worked in World War III, I don't see why it shouldn't work in World War IV.

GIBSON: Well, what if you throw into the mix the obvious, that we're not operating against states, we're not operating against governments in all cases, but what we call terrorists?

LEDEEN: It's exactly the same case. We are operating against states like Iran and Syria and North Korea. And in World War III, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union certainly supported terrorism around the world, as did allies of theirs like the Cubans and the Chinese and the North Koreans.

GIBSON: All right, Michael Ledeen, columnist, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Michael, thanks.

From the July 13 edition ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:

HANNITY: Welcome aboard, glad you're with us. Well, is World War III breaking out in the Middle? It may very well be. And we're gonna go for full, complete, comprehensive analysis that you're not going to get in the mainstream media.

[...]

We are loaded up today, as the Middle East on the brink of World War V, here.

From the May 24 edition of CNBC's Kudlow & Company:

KUDLOW: Now, all right. Jed Babbin is talking about some kind of World War IV, I guess. Actually, World War V. We have World War I and II and the Cold War as World War III, according to Norman Podhoretz. World War IV is the terror war, and war with China would be World War V. How likely, John? What would trigger such a thing?

From the July 12 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: Hey, everybody. Hurry up; we've got World War III to fight. Yes, it is the end of days, isn't it?

[...]

Here's what I do know about World War III and the impending apocalypse. One, we can't coexist with people who want to blow up trains and subways and bring down buildings. If somebody has a death wish, not really the best negotiating partner.

I also know that whether you like it or not, this is a religious war. Radical Muslims want to wipe everybody else off the face of the earth. And let me tell you something: Hollywood, clean the ears out and listen up. You are the first in line for the gas chambers if they ever win. You're the one who are producing a lot of the trash that's spilling out into their cave that's hacking them off.

Also, I know that people don't want to believe the worst. That's why more people aren't on the bandwagon. People are in denial. They don't want to think that we're facing something horrible. They want it to go away so we can all get back to our lives.

But listen to me, it is bad. And it's not just us. It's the whole Western way of life that is in trouble. That's why we need to get on that World War III bandwagon.

Now, here's what I don't know. I don't know if there are enough world leaders out there that actually have a spine anymore. Where are the real leaders? Not a lot of people are leading. That's not a real good place to be. Where's Churchill? Where's -- where's FDR?

You know -- I know we have, I know we have George Bush. He's doing it by himself. I mean, Tony Blair is doing good, too, but is that enough?

I also don't know what it's going to take to get people to wake up. My gosh, we were wide awake after 9-11. We've all gone back to sleep. We almost lost World War II because of apathy and denial. Please, let's not let it happen again.

[...]

BECK: Would you agree with me that World War III -- that we're here?

BAER: Oh, we've already, we've already started it.

BECK: Yeah, well I think we're 1938, World War II. It hasn't, it hasn't really hit yet where people are like, "Oh, I get it, we've got to fight." Would you agree?

BAER: This is like Hitler taking over Czechoslovakia. That's the stage we're at right now.

BECK: Right, right. OK. Do you believe -- please say yes -- do you believe it can be avoided?

BAER: No, we're going into a war. We have to brace ourself. It's coming.

From the July 13 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: I absolutely know that we need to prepare ourselves for World War III. It is here.

— R.D.

Posted to the web on Friday July 14, 2006 at 7:07 PM EST

Read the bold italicized print of this isreali newspaper and you will see more proof the operations in gaza and lebanon were plan in advance.  You really think hundred of sorties by IDF planes was quicklly drawn up in days.  The destruction of major infrastructure, roads, bridges, ecomic industry, power plants, sewage treatment plants, water plants, etc... was planned for months!!!!  Wake up sleepy heads, I know you dont want to believe you have been fooled, but you have.  Stand up, and stop being nice and compliant with your silence...  IDF forces arrest Palestinian cabinet ministers, lawmakers

AG refuses to ok use of Hamas officials as 'bargaining chips'

By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents and News Agencies

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz refused a request by the Shin Bet security service and the government to place dozens of senior Hamas officials under administrative detention or hold them as "bargaining chips" under the Unlawful Combatants Law. Mazuz insisted that the arrests be carried out under ordinary criminal warrants that would require legal proceedings against the Hamas officials under the Prevention of Terror Ordinance. They will probably be charged with membership in or leadership of a terrorist organization. The detainees will be brought before a judge for a remand hearing within the next 96 hours, and legal proceedings against them will be carried out in military courts in the territories.

Advertisement Israel intends to arrest more senior Hamas figures in addition to the dozens of Palestinian lawmakers and ministers arrested in a predawn raid Thursday, the Justice Ministry said Thursday. The detention of Hamas parliamentarians in the early hours of Thursday morning had been planned several weeks ago and received approval from Mazuz on Wednesday. The same day, Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with the list of Hamas officials slated for detention. The Group of Eight industrialized countries said Thursday that the Hamas arrests raised "particular concerns." A Justice Ministry spokesperson said that the change in policy towards ministers and parliamentarians who are members of Hamas was carried out with the approval of and in coordination with the judiciary, and that Israel intends on arresting more Hamas officials. "We are talking about people suspected of criminal violations such as membership in terror organizations, affiliation with terrorist leadership, and other violations," the spokesperson said. "The criminal proceedings will follow accepted legal standards. The suspects will be entitled to legal defense, and the arrest and investigation will be subject to judicial oversight. If a charge against a suspect is found to be baseless, he will be released," the spokesperson added. Israel Defense Forces troops launched a major arrest operation overnight, detaining 64 members of the Hamas political wing, including cabinet members and parliamentarians, as well as 23 militants. The move is part of Israel's expanded military operation against the Hamas-led government in the Palestinian Authority. The arrests took place in Ramallah, Qalqilyah, Hebron, Jenin and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian reports. Soldiers carried arrest warrants signed by judges that were issued following cooperative preparatory work by the state prosecution and police. "The detention of elected members of the Palestinian government and legislature raises particular concerns," said a joint statement by the G8, which also called on Israel to exercise "utmost restraint." "[This]... is a pre-planned plot to destroy the [Palestinian] Authority, the government and the parliament and to bring the Palestinian people to their knees," Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri said Thursday. There appeared to be some confusion Thursday as to whether Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nasser a-Shaer, had been one of those detainees or whether he had evaded capture and gone into hiding in the West Bank. The Hamas ministers had apparently expected the arrests. A-Shaer's wife said Thursday that he had avoided the military arrest operation as he had not been sleeping at home when the sweep took place. He reportedly had disconnected all his cellular telephones for fear Israeli security services would again attempt to track him down and arrest him. A-Shaer's wife said she had been in contact with him, and that he was not arrested. Employees at the Ministry of Education offices in Ramallah reported seeing him in the building in the late morning. But GOC Southern Command Major General Yair Navbeh confirmed at a news conference Thursday that a-Shaer was among those who had been detained. Warning to Haniyeh On Thursday morning, National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer hinted that Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is not exempt from arrest or harm. "No one is immune... This is not a government. It is a murderous organization," Ben-Eliezer said. A Hamas official called the arrests an "open war against the Palestinian government and people," and said that Israel must be prepared to pay their consequences. "We have no government, we have nothing. They have all been taken," Saeb Erekat, an ally of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, said of the arrests. "This is absolutely unacceptable and we demand their release immediately." Israel Radio quoted Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin as having told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the day of the kidnapping: "If the soldier is not returned in 24 hours, Israel will not allow the Palestinian government to survive." The Foreign Ministry released a statement Thursday saying the recent security-related events, particularly the Qassam rocket fire and the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, were realizations of the Palestinian government's policies of terror. The acceptance of responsibility for the kidnapping and the Hamas-led government's demand to exchange prisoners prove that Hamas' primary objective is not concern for the Palestinian people but determination to implement its policies of terror, the statement said. "As a result of this, and out of a basic obligation to its citizens, Israel decided to implement orders to prevent terrorism," it went on. Included among the detainees were Finance Minister Omar Abdel Razek; Minister Samir Abu Aysha; Khaled Abu Arfeh; and Jerusalem Affairs Ministers Naef Rajoub, the brother of senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub. Five of the cabinet ministers were arrested at the same Ramallah hotel. Ahmed al-Najjar, a receptionist at the hotel, said he was asleep when troops arrived after midnight, demanded a list of guests, and took the men from their rooms at gunpoint. Palestinian attorneys representing security detainees at the IDF military court in Salem said Thursday morning they refuse to represent the Hamas members arrested overnight because they maintain the arrests themselves are illegitimate. In Ramallah, troops arrested at least two cabinet ministers and four lawmakers, all from Hamas, in a raid on a complex of buildings, Palestinian security officials said. Labor Minister Mohammed Barghouti was stopped on his way to his village, Kabur, just north of Ramallah. Military jeeps stopped his car, ordered him out of the vehicle and took him away, the officials said. In East Jerusalem, lawmakers Mohammed Abu Tir, Wael al-Husseini and Ahmed a-Tun were arrested. Also, the Hamas mayor of the West Bank town of Qalqilyah and his deputy were detained, security officials said. An IDF spokeswoman said the arrests were part of an operation against suspected terrorists, and were not "bargaining chips" for the release of abducted IDF soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit. "They are not bargaining chips for the return of the soldier. It was simply an operation against a terrorist organization," she said. "They will be investigated, brought before a judge to extend their detention and charge sheets will be prepared." The arrests are part of several moves designed to increase pressure on the militant group to free a captive soldier. Israel blames Hamas for the abduction of Shalit, kidnapped Sunday by militants who attacked an IDF post near the border with Gaza. Army Radio speculated that the lawmakers might be used to trade for the captured soldier, but the IDF refused to comment on the matter. The operation Thursday night came amidst IDF operations in the southern Gaza Strip aimed at securing Shalit's release.

Im sure our intellectuals will spin comments like this into, "hamas made me say it!!  See they are terrorist!" ,  Terrorist terrorist, the word means nothing anymore. 

 

Israeli Diplomat: All Arabs are Terrorists

Kurt Nimmo | July 17th 2006

Imagine a member of the KKK going on the Bill O’Reilly show and declaring all African-Americans are shiftless crackheads. Imagine the outrage and calls for Fox News to be investigated for promoting racism and hatred. Now imagine an Israeli diplomat going on Bill O’Reilly’s show and declaring all Muslims are terrorists. In fact, this happened, and nobody is calling the diplomat, Dan Gillerman, Israeli Ambassador to the UN, a racist or are there demands Fox News be investigated for promoting racism and hatred. In Bushzarro world, it is fine and dandy to characterize all Muslims as terrorists.

“While it is politically incorrect to say that all Muslims are terrorists, unfortunately, it’s true that all terrorists are Muslim,” Gillerman said on O’Reilly’s show yesterday, July 16.

I picked up this quote from a blog. It was not mentioned in the corporate media. A Google News search returned no results. Either the people who post at the Truth Will Set You Free blog made the quote up or Israelis spewing racist hatred is so common and acceptable nobody bothered to mention it.

Of course, when Iran’s Ahmadinejad says anything about Israel, it is front page news. In fact, so eager is the corporate media to demonize Ahmadinejad, it reprints distortions of his comments (Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be “wiped off the map,” as widely reported), which are then used to further rationalize “all Muslims are terrorists” comments.

As FAIR noted late last month, the starting point of all discussion in the corporate media about events in the Middle East begins with the assumption Arabs and Muslims are terrorists. For instance, in regard to the Palestinians:

If anything, what “hardly ever varies” is mainstream media’s adherence to an attack-retaliation formula that overwhelmingly places the blame on the Palestinian side, though in the ongoing cycle of attacks both sides usually describe their actions as retaliatory…. From the start of the Intifada in September 2000 through March 17, 2002, the three major networks’ nightly news shows used some variation of the word “retaliation” (”retaliated,” “will retaliate,” etc.) 150 times to describe attacks in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. About 79 percent of those references were to Israeli “retaliation” against Palestinians. Only 9 percent referred to Palestinian “retaliation” against Israelis. (Approximately 12 percent were ambiguous or referred to both sides simultaneously.)

A 2002 Glasgow University Media Group report revealed “that television news on the Israel/Palestinian conflict [in Britain] confuses viewers and substantially features Israeli government views…. There is a preponderance of official ‘Israeli perspectives’, particularly on BBC 1, where Israelis were interviewed or reported over twice as much as Palestinians. On top of this, US politicians who support Israel were very strongly featured…. TV news says almost nothing about the history or origins of the conflict.” In America, this bias even more pronounced.

Few television news viewers (or zombies) realize Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 and 1982, or that Israel occupied southern Lebanon for more than twenty years and this brutal occupation (as documented by human rights organizations) resulted in the formation of Hezbollah.

Few understand Israel has stolen Arab land, including the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms, and common Israeli border provocations result in Hezbollah attacking Israel.

Few understand the magnitude of Israel’s abduction of Lebanese, accused of resisting Israel’s illegal occupation, or the fact many of them were tortured in the Khiam torture dungeon. “Lebanese detainees held without trial or after expiry of their sentences in Israeli prisons and in Khiam are Israel’s forgotten hostages,” notes Amnesty International. “Amnesty International knows of 21 Lebanese nationals who have been captured in Lebanon and transferred to Israeli prisons either without ever having been sentenced or held beyond the expiry of their sentences. These are just some of the detainees whom Amnesty International believes Israel to be holding as hostages. Most of them were captured by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) or by one of the pro-Israeli Christian militias in Lebanon, the Lebanese Forces or the SLA. Many of them were held in detention centers in Lebanon under Lebanese Forces’ or SLA control before being transferred, usually secretly, to Israel.” No mention of this in the corporate media. Instead, we are told, without additional comment, all Muslims are terrorists.

No mention in the corporate media of Israel’s continual and repeated violations of Lebanese airspace. “Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Personal Representative for Southern Lebanon today called on Israel to cease its air violations over Lebanese territory,” the UN News Center reported on November 4, 2004. “Staffan de Mistura issued his statement in Beirut in response to eight flights involving 11 aircraft and three drones across the Blue Line, as the line of withdrawal is known.” Israel has violated Lebanese sovereignty dozens of time, buzzing Beirut, Tripoli, Tyre, and other cities, often using sonic booms to intimidate the population. Earlier this year Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN envoy to Middle East, complained of “constant Israel violations against Lebanon,” but such stories seem to be of interest only to the Arab media.

No mention of Israel’s violence around the illegally occupied Shebaa Farms. In response to Hezbollah attacking occupation forces at Shebaa Farms, Israel attacks civilians as a matter of course. “News reports in Beirut said that the Israeli forces started artillery bombardment of Kafer Shouba village and the neighboring villages after Hizbullah fighters fired one missile at a site for the Israeli occupation army in Shebaa farms,” the Arabic News reported in February. “The Israeli bombardment resulted in injuring one Lebanese woman and damages to several houses in al-Habareyah and al-Kheyam and in al-Habareyah elementary school. One house in Kafer Shouba was directly hit.” In November, 2005, “police explained that one Israeli military tank and artilleries bombarded for 45 minutes several Lebanese villages…. [and Hezbollah] retaliated the Israeli bombardment and fired mortars shelling at three Israeli positions in Shabaa Farms.” In October of the same year, the IOF attacked Burket al-Nakkar and Jabal Saddaneh with attack helicopters. Of course, all of this occurred on Lebanese soil, and yet Lebanon did not invade Israel or incinerate school kids on Israeli roads.

Instead, Fox News welcomes comments that all Muslims are terrorists and this feeds into the perception that killing innocent Lebanese civilians is justified because they allowed Hezbollah to capture Israeli prisoners of war. If we are to use such a yardstick, then Hezbollah attacks on Israel are completely justified, as Israel has taken Lebanese prisoners by the dozens, not because they have done anything but rather because they are considered “bargaining chips.”