07/18/2006

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

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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

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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.

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