07/28/2006

He would be the one to know, and now you do.

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)

07/20/2006

The Last time Isreal invaded lebenon

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....

07/18/2006

Picture CNN or fox, what the diffence, news wont show you, but I will

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

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

Warmongerers, will america be fooled again.

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

For the fools the War mongers have decieved, again.

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.

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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.

And these are the people the elite side with!!!

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.”

A line has been crossed...

Wake the fuck up and smell the coffee, stop believing your cnn and msnbc and fox news and other corporate media.  This time the excuse of "well I didnt know" wont work.  Play monkey no see, no hear, no speak will not work either.  And for you supposed intellectuals and evangelicals, I hope you reap what you sow!!! 

 We're Being Set Up for Wider War in the Middle East

by Paul Craig Roberts
The old adage, "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" does not apply to Americans, who have shown that they can be endlessly fooled.

Neoconservatives deceived Americans into an illegal attack and debilitating war in Iraq. American neoconservatives are closely allied with Israel's Likud Party. In the past, some neocons lost their security clearances because of "mishandling" of classified information. According to Insight magazine, "the Pentagon has banned security clearance to Americans with relatives in Israel. Government sources and attorneys said the Pentagon has sought and succeeded in removing security clearance from dozens of Americans, mostly Jews, who either lived, worked, or have relatives in Israel."

Despite questions of dual loyalties, neocons hold high positions in the Bush regime. Ten years ago these architects of American foreign and military policy spelled out how they would use deception to achieve "important Israeli strategic objectives" in the Middle East. First, they would focus "on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." This would open the door for Israel to provoke attacks from Hezbollah. The attacks would let Israel gain American sympathy and permit Israel to seize the strategic initiative by "engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon."

Today, this neoconservative plan is unfolding before our eyes. Israel has used the capture of two of its soldiers in Lebanon as an excuse for an all-out air and naval bombardment against Lebanese civilian targets. However, a number of commentators have pointed out that such a massive attack requires weeks if not months of preparation that could not be done overnight in response to the capture of the soldiers.

Regardless, in the first two days of the Israeli military attack on Lebanon more than a hundred civilians, including Canadians, have been killed by Israeli bombs (gifts from U.S. taxpayers). The Beirut International Airport has been repeatedly bombed, as have residential neighborhoods, roads, bridges, ports, and power stations.

Soldiers are a legitimate military target. Civilians, civilian neighborhoods, tourists, and international airports are not. Under the Nuremberg standard used to sentence Nazi war criminals to death, the Israeli government is clearly guilty of war crimes.

Meanwhile, the Israelis are committing identical war crimes in Gaza. Again Israel's excuse is the capture of an Israeli soldier. However, the distinguished Israeli professor Ran HaCohen said that the Israeli army "had been demanding a massive attack on Gaza long before the Israeli soldier was kidnapped."

By blocking UN Security Council action against Israel for its massacre of civilians in Gaza, the Bush regime has made itself complicit in these monstrous war crimes. Just as Germans who supported Hitler were deemed to be complicit in his war crimes, Americans who support Bush are complicit in Bush's war crimes.

Hezbollah is not the Lebanese government. It does not rule Lebanon. Hezbollah is the militia organization founded in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah defeated the Israeli army and drove out the Israeli invaders six years ago.

According to the BBC, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that the two Israeli soldiers "were captured to pressure Israel to release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in its jails," especially the women and children.

The BBC also notes that although Hezbollah operates "from Lebanese territory and the militant group has two ministers in the Lebanese government, the central government is almost powerless to influence the militant group." (Note that the BBC applies the loaded word "militant" to Hezbollah but not to Israel.) Hezbollah, reports the BBC, "is also very popular in Lebanon and highly respected for its political activities, social services, and its military record against Israel."

The prime minister of Lebanon, who was installed with President Bush's approval when Syria, under Bush's pressure, recently withdrew its troops from Lebanon, has twice appealed to Bush to pressure Israel to stop its criminal attacks. Our great moral, democratic, Christian leader has twice rebuffed the appeal from the legal representative of the Lebanese people. Instead, Bush is willingly going along with the 1996 neocon script. Bush is laying the blame on Syria and Iran, exactly as the neocon script calls for him to do.

When Bush demands that Syria "stop Hezbollah attacks," he forgets that he was the one who forced Syria out of Lebanon (to enable Israel to attack Lebanon). If Americans were attentive, they would be ashamed to witness "their" president acting as an Israeli propagandist.

Fox "News," CNN, and the rest of the Bush propaganda ministry are echoing the lie that innocent Israel is under attack from the "terrorist states" of Syria and Iran through their surrogate, Hezbollah. Americans, who are sick of the Iraq occupation and want the troops home, are being fooled again and set up for wider war in the Middle East.

Evangelical "Christians" are part of the propaganda show. Three thousand of them, under the lead of the Rev. John C. Hagee, are heading to Washington for a "Washington/Israel summit" to demand, needlessly, that the neocon Bush regime show "stronger support for Israel."

It is difficult to see how Bush could show any stronger support without using the U.S. military to assist Israel in its attacks, which is, of course, what the "Christian" Rev. Hagee intends when he declares: "There's a new Hitler in the Middle East [he doesn't mean Bush or Olmert]. The only way he will be stopped will be by a preemptive military strike in Iran."

Present at Rev. Hagee's "Washington/Israel Summit" will be Israel's former Minister of Defense, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, Republican Senators Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and Gary Bauer.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful lobby in Washington, expressed its thanks to Rev. Hagee for demonstrating "the depth and breadth of American support" for Israel. Recently, AIPAC has been under investigation as a suspected nest for Israeli spies.

David Brog, former chief of staff for Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, has gone to work for Rev. Hagee. Brog, who is Jewish, says he works for Hagee's evangelical enterprise because "we're bringing into a pro-Israel camp millions of Christians who love Israel and giving them a political voice. Israel's enemies are our enemies, and this group instinctively understands that." Brog goes on to say that Hagee's evangelicals understand that they are not supposed to talk about Jesus, only about saving Israel: "Christians who work with Jews in supporting Israel realize how sensitive we are in talking about Jesus. They realize it will interfere with what they are trying to do."

Gentle reader, is this an admission that evangelicals have set aside Jesus for war? Do these bloody-minded evangelicals really believe they will be wafted to Heaven for helping Israel involve the U.S. in more war? Have evangelicals forgotten that "an eye for an eye" is Old Testament? "Turn the other cheek" is New Testament.

On July 14, Reuters reported that alone among Christians, the "Vatican condemns Israel for attacks on Lebanon."

Whose delusion is the greatest – the evangelical "rapture" delusion, the neocon delusion about American power, or the Zionist delusion? The three together mean disaster for America, Israel, and the world.

One of the great evangelical/Zionist/neocon myths is that "tiny Israel" armed with 200 nuclear weapons is threatened by Muslim Middle Eastern countries. In actual fact, Egypt and Pakistan, which have the bulk of the Middle Eastern Muslim population, are ruled by American puppets. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the oil emirates are totally dependent on U.S. protection and, thereby, are also under the American thumb. Iran is Persian, not Arab, and has no common borders with Israel. Hezbollah was created when Israel tried to seize Lebanon in 1982. Hamas is a Palestinian response to the atrocities Palestinians have suffered for a half century at Israel's hands.

Israel's land-stealing policy is the source of Middle Eastern instability. America is hated because American money and weapons are what enable Israel to steal Palestine from Palestinians.

As numerous Middle East experts have pointed out, what is decried as "Arab terrorism against Israel" is, in fact, the only tactic Muslims have for calling the world's attention to the plight of the Palestinians, about which Americans are generally ignorant.

It is absurd for Bush to condemn Syria for not behaving as an American puppet and for not fighting Israel's battles by taking on Hezbollah. Syria and Iran (and Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion) are the only Middle Eastern countries independent of American control. It is far beyond the boundaries of reason and morality to expect these two remaining independent countries to give up their independence in order to enable Israel to steal Palestine and southern Lebanon.

It is the refusal of Syria and Iran (and Saddam Hussein's Iraq) to stand with Israel against Palestine that has made them targets for American attack. Neocons have total control of U.S. foreign policy in the Bush regime, and they have morphed our strategic interests into Israel's.

As the neoconservative architects of Bush's wars revealed in 1996, their concern lies with Israeli strategic objectives.

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