Thanks to everyone who has been by here...this blog is now on hold...see you around.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Chinese airlines are recruiting airline attendants 'with martial arts skills' in their attempt to make planes more secure...
Ernesto is heading to the Gulf Coast...
It's really hot in this country..
========Enjoy Kibbeh, kufta, lamb shanks and any other sheep meat dish? Live in Kuwait?
PETA wants your attention...you've seen the ads right?
Though PETA often shoot themselves in the foot with the melodrama..it is important to realise that the inhumane transport conditions that sheep endure are not only ethically unnacceptable but are pretty unhealthy for anyone eating the meat..not only is it swimming in filth but the torture endured under these conditions releases carcinogenic chemicals into the meat which are then transferred to us...just a thought to take with us to the dining table...
after watching this video, I for one am finally saying no to the only meat I still eat...
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Iran, Iran, Iran...Can't you just hear the Darth Vader theme playing everytime you read the news? I don't even feel like linking to any of the scare-mongering, the drama and the obsession preparing us for the next front of the War On Whateverism...you know it already..
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And in news that I like to hear...the Buffy goes to yet another interesting show...The first year the prize for most underappreciated tv show went to The Wire (get out and get it if you haven't seen it, now)...and the next year it went to the great Veronica Mars and this year the Buffy goes to....Battlestar Galactica...Yup it's a good show...it ain't perfect, but it is bittersweet and haunting at times and just good ol' sci fi adventure at others...
Monday, August 14, 2006
Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker about Washington's joint planning with Israel and it's hope that Isreal's attack on Hizbullah will "serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations"
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"It may well be that a war neurosis stirred up by propaganda of fear and hatred is the prelude to destruction."
John B. Orr
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The Israeli writer Yitzhak Laor writes in the LRB about "The power of the army to produce meanings, values, desire". Of "the cheapness of Arab blood" he says "Our usual way of looking at them is borrowed from our intelligence corps, who ‘translate’ them and interpret them, but cannot recognise them as human beings"
An important moment should be taken here to think how we all are guilty of dehumanising 'the enemy'...And how we can come to terms with our own worship of stereotypes and ingrained beliefs about Israelis...Or else we are just playing games...and the time for games is long past.
Laor goes further to say "We must remember the crimes of Olmert, and of our minister of justice, Haim Ramon, who championed the destruction of Lebanese villages after the ambush at Bint Jbeil, and of the army chief of staff, Dan Halutz. Their names should be submitted to The Hague so they can be held accountable." Who else should join them?
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A creepy opinion from a creepy man...With people like this in positions of power, there will never be peace...
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Gideon Levy writes in Ha'aretz that "there is the danger the IDF will want to restore its lost honor on the backs of the helpless Palestinians. It didn't work in Bint Jbail, so we'll show them in Nablus." He does however hope that because of the difficulties faced in Lebanon that "Seared by failure, maybe the IDF will be less enthusiastic to rush into battle." and that maybe they will finally (and we keep saying finally) come to understand the true power of negotiation and a just peace. But we will believe it when we see it, the Masters of War on all sides have gotten too used to their treats.
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Rami Khouri says: "On the two occasions that it has made resolutions on the basis of law and equal rights - the peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt - Israel has found calm, official acceptance and some normal contacts with citizens in those Arab lands. But in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, where Israel has acted unilaterally and in a predatory and violent way, it has reaped only resistance, ever more fierce and proficient with the years."
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Norway disinvests from Walmart for it's involvement in human and labour rights abuses, and does the same to Freeport because of it's terrible environmental record...not only that...here are all the Companies excluded from the investment universe :) They can use all the super-hero language they want, they earned it..anyone else Got Ethics?
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South Africa has an obesity epidemic because people don't want to look like they are HIV+...
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The Huffington Post says Bush Administration Knew About Liquid Explosive Threat, Yet Bush Still Calls It "New"
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Updates
Heathrow on Red Alert
Incoming Flights stoped, but outgoing flights are still on though extreme delays are expected. The tv news is saying don't bother to turn up at Heathrow unless your trip is extremely important to you.
Passengers will not be allowed hand luggage and mothers with babies will be required to drink the milk they bring on the plane to prove it is in fact, milk.
Wallets and purses, money, credit cards, baby milk, keys that are not electrical, sanitary items.All will be placed in a plastic bag.
No liquids will be allowed.
Every Passenger will be hand searched.
All other airports in the UK are on High alert.
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6 Planes were targetted, 20 people have been arrested so far-9:30am GMT
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John Reid:
Incoming Flights stoped, but outgoing flights are still on though extreme delays are expected. The tv news is saying don't bother to turn up at Heathrow unless your trip is extremely important to you.
Passengers will not be allowed hand luggage and mothers with babies will be required to drink the milk they bring on the plane to prove it is in fact, milk.
Wallets and purses, money, credit cards, baby milk, keys that are not electrical, sanitary items.All will be placed in a plastic bag.
No liquids will be allowed.
Every Passenger will be hand searched.
All other airports in the UK are on High alert.
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6 Planes were targetted, 20 people have been arrested so far-9:30am GMT
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John Reid:
"The police, acting with the Security Service MI5, are investigating an alleged plot to bring down a number of aircraft through mid-flight explosions, causing a considerable loss of life. "
"This will mean major disruption at all UK airports from today. But as far as is possible we want people to go about their business as normal."Independent
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Threats on Liberties again voiced :
"The home secretary yesterday gave the thinktank Demos his strongest hint yet that a new round of anti-terror legislation is on the way this autumn ...
"Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world," Guardian
"Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world," Guardian
When we give up our freedoms in the short term, we can forget that we had them at all...And how short is short-term?? The short-term could be someone's entire lifetime...What's the difference between someone blowing your freedom away (if indeed it's your freedom they give a damn about, and that has yet to be convincingly argued) and between you giving your freedom up?
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Apparently PM Blair was aware of his threat for some time and even spoke to Prez. Bush about it on the last trip...and yet he is currently on vacation in the Caribbean...or maybe just somewhere he knows is not under threat..
Blair to work on tan and Lebanon solution
Blair takes leave of reality Gulf News
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The metopolitan police describe it as a plan to cause 'mass murder on an unimaginable scale'
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So that this news does not divert all attention away from crimes committed elsewhere:
Israel plans further invasion
So that this news does not divert all attention away from crimes committed elsewhere:
Israel plans further invasion
"Lebanon campaign expanded, as general is replaced by commander with more aggressive reputation"
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The Franco-US resolution is an absurdity: it would give Israel immunity while denying Lebanon the right to defend itself
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"A member of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party quit his defense post Wednesday to protest the government's handling of the Mideast crisis and its close alignment with the United States." Guardian
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"More than 150 MPs, including a fifth of Labour's parliamentary party, yesterday joined forces with 17 charities, including Oxfam and Amnesty International, to urge the recall of parliament to discuss the crisis in Lebanon" Guardian
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"There is an urgent need for a recall of parliament, but not to debate the crisis in Lebanon, desperately serious as that is. Even more serious is the escalating emergency in Iraq"
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Then and now: Requiem for Baghdad Independent
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The Iraq Body Count so far- At least 40,069 civilians /probably 44,596 civilians
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This week was the 61st Anniversary of the murderous Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings...Those killed 200,000 people in a flash...mass murder on a grand scale indeed.
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
"More than 900 lives ago, we asked for an immediate ceasefire. More than 3,000 injured civilians ago, we asked for an immediate ceasefire.
"We asked for a ceasefire when the 1 million Lebanese now sleeping on the floors of our schools and public buildings and welcoming homes were still sleeping in their own homes - homes that for many no longer exist."
"We asked for a ceasefire when the 1 million Lebanese now sleeping on the floors of our schools and public buildings and welcoming homes were still sleeping in their own homes - homes that for many no longer exist."
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The head of Médecins Sans Frontières' (MSF) mission in Lebanon, Chris topher Stokes, described Israeli assurances of protected aid corridors as delusional. "For many days, the concept of humanitarian corridors has been used to mask the reality," The Independent
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Doctors Without Borders have details of what it takes to get aid through:
"Four tonnes of supplies were carried by hand on a distance of 500 metres thanks to a huge human chain. A tree trunk spanning across the river was used as a makeshift bridge..."
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"Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over Tyre yesterday morning, warning people not to use vehicles south of the Litani river....The travel ban had no time limit and mentioned no exceptions, even for ambulances and humanitarian convoys"...
.."it said: "Read this carefully and follow its instructions. The Israeli Defence Forces will escalate their operations and will strike with force against terrorist elements who are using you as human shields and firing rockets from inside your homes against Israel..." All vehicles would be bombed the letter said. It was signed "State of Israel". Guardian
Imagine that letter fell from the sky in London, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Sydney, Paris, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Salmiya, Tel Aviv...or anywhere else you call home...How would it feel? How terrorized would you feel picking that up and reading it?
Let alone how you would feel about the bombs and missiles that come with it...Monsters of fire that dwarf the katyushas that we know are also condemnable murderous weapons.
How must it feel to be told that the enemy they are aiming for is 'inside your home', and so your home is fair game...despite the fact that you look around and see your children, your pictures your glass of water, your bed and your breakfast table...the everyday things that make up your life inside your home...The people you love...but someone is convinced, against any protestation, that your home is a viable target, as is any escape from your home. Despite the fact that they have no problem understanding that when Israeli homes are hit, it is a war crime, it is a tragedy, people are lost, lives are damaged, belongings and sacred objects are extinguished forever...
From Y. Amichai again there are simple words that might reach across this abyss we form between our suffering and our enemy's..
הגאולה תבוא רק אם יגידו להם
"Redemption will only come if they tell them"
You see that house of your enemy? You see the rubble, the loss the hatred?
"Next to that, a little to the left and below it, sits
A man who has bought fruits and vegetables for his family"
לידה, קצת שמאלה ולמטה ממנה,יושב
אדם שקנה פֵּרות וירקות לבית
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...but who now must bury his dead...
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Monday, August 7, 2006
Took a few days off to get over an attack of hopelessness...
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Smokers should not expect to be protected by anti-discrimination laws in employment. The Financial Times had a piece that quoted an employer who said 'smokers need not apply' explaining that smokers 'stink', they take more sick leave and suggested that if they were ignoring all the health warnings and facts about smoking then they "haven't got the level of intelligence" needed for the job..
Which is another excuse for me to link you to a piece by Stephen Colbert
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The 'Condi Rice Show' is doing very badly...
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"In addition to regular deadly raids on Gaza, where 1.4 million Palestinians are trapped by an economic blockade, the Israelis have arrested a third of the Hamas government and 36 members of the Palestinian parliament since 26 June." By Anne Penketh
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Lebanon has rejected the UN draft proposal because as Nabih Berri says: " the draft resolution legitimised Israel's occupation, adding that it would "open the door to never-ending war"
Syria and Iran made fun of the US pretending to be mediator while being the biggest backer, arms dealer and apologist for Israel all these years..It's like asking Iran or Syria to be mediators in a Hezbullah dispute..
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Israel also has problems with the draft..
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"a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?"
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How do some Israelis and victims of Hizbullah attacks feel about the debate between using military might or Diplomacy?
Kibbutz mourners call for diplomacy
By Eli Ashkenazi
"Based on the conclusion that the military operations of the past 31 years have not brought quiet to the north, but only more and more bereaved families and graves, what will you do, from today, to stop the chain of wars and victims within the borders of the state where our kibbutz lies?" Baumel asked. "Will you find the diplomatic path, which exists and which we all know what it is, or will you continue to stick, with blind faith, to the gods of killing and bereavement?"
Kol HaKavod to voices like this...we are all tired of this insatiable thirst for blood.
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The Kibbutz can add its voice to that of the father of hostage soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been calling for negotiations to free his son from the begining...They can also add their names to the over 100 Israeli intellectuals who signed a petition accusing the Israeli government of war crimes...also there are the refuseniks and 5,000 protesters in Tel Aviv...yet PeaceNow is silent...In the New York Times, Tikkun put in an ad for "an end to the slaughter in Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Territories" ...and yet, Peace Now is silent... Gush Shalom is protesting....And yet Aviv Gefen the poster boy for peace...says this war is justified..the tide is all over the place..
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Yitzhak Laor (The writer who initiated the petition mentioned above) writes in Ha'aretz:
"That is the great trap of military thinking, the Israelis' only way of thought regarding the conflict: not only belief in the need to be superior, right or wrong, able or not able, but especially the inability to think in terms of the other side, not as an object translated and interpreted by the Intelligence Corps, but as human beings."
Many Arabs need to think about how they also fall into this type of thinking...
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Ha'aretz's Danny Rubenstein writes:
"Those in power in Israel are portrayed now, more than ever, like foreign agents striving to serve American interests. They are striking Hezbollah in order to hurt the Iranian "patron."
"The Palestinian media highlighted an item in which lawyers in Morocco are suing Amir Peretz - who, according to them, holds a Moroccan passport - for war crimes."
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"Shulamit Aloni, a human rights activist and former minister of education, said, “This is a reckless war… The army introduced its ready-made plan while the government didn’t have any plans. In our country, the army is a sacred cow, [people] believe in it blindly, on the pretext that it understands security issues better than anyone else does." Asharq Al-Awsat
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Enough...Kafa...yesh gvul, lo?
Saturday, August 5, 2006
"Of the 615 people so far confirmed dead, Save The Children says that almost half are children. They make up one third of the 3,225 injured, and about 45 per cent of the nearly one million Lebanese refugees are under the age of 18, according to Unicef." The Independent
Donate by visiting www.savethechildren.org.uk/independent
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"The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy."
"Iraq will remain "messy and difficult" for the next five to 10 years"
Lucky Iraq...
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The headline in Haaretz is this:
Iranian President: Solution to Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel- and it's a headline because it is an appalling statement to make (ok not shocking for Ahmadinejad, but in general)...
The fact that Israel is not saying but doing the very same thing to Lebanon doesn't seem so appalling to the 90% of Israelis that support this campaign. Go figure, in death and destruction some are 'more equal than others'..
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After 30 years of testing, it's finally out...
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Against the advice, against the facts
"Tony Blair's unthinking oversimplifications about the Middle East belong in an army recruitment pamphlet - not an adult conversation." Oliver Miles
"Tony Blair's unthinking oversimplifications about the Middle East belong in an army recruitment pamphlet - not an adult conversation." Oliver Miles
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Thursday, August 3, 2006
International Medical Corps is helping out in Lebanon and Iraq...as well as in many other worthy places in the world...
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Donate here, every penny counts..
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Positions they anticipate will open for those who want to help/work/volunteer:
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Roundup
- The Atlantic has an interesting piece on the strange investigation of The Monster of Florence
- Sri Lanka is back into civil war
- Halliburton's legacy in Iraq
- Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
And that's it..
Monday, July 31, 2006
A 48 hour pause in aerial bombardment...it's that easy, isn't it...just to stop...one wonders why we can't do it more often...
Hope eveyone gave as much as they could, just for an opportunity like this where the supplies can actually get to those suffering...
The buttons on the right need pressing..
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Some headlines make it a victory for Condi, maybe so that everyone that has been highlighting her talent for being a criminally incompetent excuse for a diplomat, might also put a pause on the critiques...though I wouldn't let that stop me, she got a pause and lost the ceasefire...as planned.
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As usual, it isn't Israel's fault that they target civilian communities with 'smart bombs'...because Hezbollah either fires from there or if that tale doesn't pass the test of truth, then it's because it's a hotbed of Hezbollah supporters (we all know how much children are known for that)...the same laws of illogic don't apply to Hezbollah strikes though...everytime their rockets land in Israel officials can't hurry fast enough to say the Hizb are targetting civilians on purpose, despite the fact that Hezbullah bombs are not as 'smart' as Israeli bombs, and have been murdering less civilians than the Israelis have...and despite the fact that Hezbullah could use the equally idiotic excuse that the civilian areas were a hotbed of support for the Israeli military invasion and bloodbaths in Lebanon and Gaza (with over 90% support by the civilian population that would be a hotbed indeed) But we are capable of seeing the vicious cynicism of that argumant only if one side uses it.
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A magazine that is always interesting is Salon, and it gives you Watching Beirut die as well as :
"The "hiding among civilians" myth Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible" By Mitch Prothero
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"It was supposed to be a routine trip across the Lebanese killing fields for the brave men and women of the International Red Cross. Sylvie Thoral was the "team leader" of our two vehicles, a 38-year-old Frenchwoman with dark brown hair and eyes like steel. The Israelis had been informed and had given what the ICRC likes to call its "green light" to the route. And, of course, we almost died. " Fisk
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There should be a safety warning when reading this...your sanity might not survive the onslaught of criminal and fanatic conservative fantasies..
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Here is an article you will need a strong drink and some time to get through...
It's a NYRB article that reviews 4 books about Iraq, and like any NYRB article it's a feast of information.
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And in tales of other wars that continue to claim victims long after they are 'over'...
Vanity Fair has a photo essay and an article about the victims of America's use of Agent Orange in Vietnam...
"In the 1960s, the United States blanketed the Mekong River delta with Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant more devastating than napalm. Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the poisoned legacy lives on in the children whose deformities it is said to have caused"
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
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And more from news of how this world is a better place since freedom and liberty became fightin' words:
Friday, July 28, 2006
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"Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I don't think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation," Gillerman said. By NICK WADHAMS
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Of course, Israel is blocking an investigation into events that took place on Lebanese soil and if Lebanon doesn't mind that the UN investigate the deaths of the UN's own people, then....
Amazing what the arrogance of power can do..
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"The US has blocked the UN Security Council from issuing a statement condemning Israel's bombing of a UN post on the Lebanon border, in which four military observers were killed" The Australian
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"The UN is useless, the UN is useless" cry the only two countries making it useless, the one who keeps ignoring all it's resolutions and the one who keeps vetoing them...
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China expressed anger that the United States "watered down" a United Nations Security Council statement on the deadly Israeli strike on a UN observer mission.- Can West News
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The watered down statement goes a little like this:" shocked and distressed"...
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All the UN can do within the chains the US has clamped on it is say " shiver me timbers"...
What's that you hear running through your head now?:
"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
Hollow Men indeed...
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So Israel gets what it wants:
The last witnesses to it's actions in South Lebanon are withdrawing...
Now that Aid agencies can't make it in:
"In effect there is no real humanitarian access in the south, the international community is deluding itself with talk of humanitarian corridors," said Christopher Stokes of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors Without Borders). Daily Star
And reporters can't make it in:
"Israeli bombardments, Flynn continues, have restricted photographers movements, and within the safe areas, "there's a limited amount to shoot." pdnonline
The south will soon become invisible.
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"The United States, for its part, is egging on the bombing, apparently on the same theory that led to the mess in Iraq--that somehow a civilian population under bombardment will not blame the bombers, but understand the political necessity of displacing them, wrecking their homes, and killing their loved ones. It's an amazingly myopic view." Ruth Conniff
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We all know that it was savagery like this that gave birth to Hezbollah, and all the other bogey-men...but the lies and barbarism of politicians and military commanders can only last for so long, before the tables are turned...and when they turn, it is just as ugly...after all, the world knows only ugliness now...
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...and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll look down and whisper 'No.'
Rorschach , Watchmen
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Rolling Stone has an exclusive worth reading...It starts like something out of a spy film and ends like Revelations...
You might need something strong to sip on while you read it.
If you want to round off the story: Mother Jones' "Three Days in Rome" is an article to look at.
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Is it possible to be this stupid? For Rummy to uncork some stale insipid philosophical tripe when faced with a question as grave as whether a bloody civil war is raging as a result of his decisions and under his drenched-in-blood watch, is unbelieveble.
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Regarding the UN observers that were killed by the Israeli forces when they fired on their base 21 times, let me say that again, 21 Times:
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One of the UN peacekeepers was Canadian...the other from Finland..another from China and the fourth from Austria...What do those countries think of this?
"BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- The U.N. observers killed when an Israeli bomb hit their bunker in Lebanon Tuesday called an Israeli military liaison about 10 times in the six hours before they died to warn that aerial attacks were getting close to their position, a U.N. officer said."
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Take a look at Martin Rowson's cartoon in the Guardian
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
'Highway Bloggers' or 'Freeway Bloggers' are in the news again, this time in the Boston Globe
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Israelis, Lebanese Blog To Each Other
MTV
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That Dennis Kucinich is at it again, asking to put peace on the agenda...Little dreamer...
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Sanayeh Relief Center has developed a map of Israeli strikes on Lebanon...Have a look, it is staggering..
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Please give to UNICEF Lebanon
And to Sanayeh
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"both Democrats and Republicans are now on record that, in the name of “fighting terrorism,” U.S. allies – and, by extension, the United States as well – can essentially ignore international law and inflict unlimited damage on the civilian infrastructure of a small and largely defenseless country, even a pro-Western democracy like Lebanon." continue reading about resolutions in the House and Senate that approve of Israel's behaviour..
and in related news:
"tacit support for Israeli military strikes on Lebanon may have increased the danger of militant retaliation against the United States"Wash. post
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According to Human Rights Watch:
“the targeting and capture of enemy soldiers is allowed under international humanitarian law.”
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And we all know what isn't allowed, but let's just go over it:
Targeting civilian infrastrusture, like airports, roads, homes, villages, towns, bridges and ports...targeting civilians of course goes without saying, and no amount of calling it retaliation or self-defence will wipe the blood off anyone's hands...targeting ambulances ..not to mention the unethical use cluster munitions in populated areas, as well as the suspected use of chemical weapons...and to top it off, why not add killing UN observers...
But yeah, keep saying Hezbollah started it..it will help you sleep better at night.
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From the Israeli Human Rights group, B'Tselem
Israeli Soldiers Used Palestinians as Human Shields in Gaza
Killing of 9 family members in Gaza bombing: Grave suspicion of a war crime
New B’Tselem Report: Take No Prisoners - Grave suspicion of assassinations under the guise of arrests
One Big Prison: New Report Warns Against Continued Strangulation of Gaza Strip after Disengagement
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Statistics from B'Tselem:
Fatalities-Demolition of Houses as Punishment-Water Crisis
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From The ICJ (Int. Court of Justice)
143. The Court having concluded that, by the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and by adopting its associated régime, Israel has violated various international obligations incumbent upon it
and lets not forget:
Suicide bombing: Wrong and illegal
...but we've heard that enough times to know it for sure..
And the use of captured combatants as hostages...War crime.
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Jon Stewart, again...
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
For commentary out of Beirut that comes with a satisfying blend of lucid prose and biting humour pay a visit to Anecdotes from a Banana Republic
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مركز الإغاثة – الصنائع
SAMIDOUN Relief Center – Sanayeh
CLIENT NAME: GREENLINE ASSOCIATION
ACCOUNT NMBR: 6189003
BANK: BANK OF KUWAIT AND THE ARAB WORLD
SWIFT: BKAWLBBE
For more information, please contact: +961 3 647 605, +961 3 670 783, sanayeh.center@gmail.com
They are helping refugees, many of whome are children and babies...look at their site to learn more.
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63% of the British public agree that Blair has been poodle too long..
The same poll showed that "only 22% of voters believe Israel has reacted proportionately"..
It seems that democracy means that the rulers side with the minority views in their country..
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Here is Jon Stewart on whether or not Israel's actions were disproportionate..
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"The ambulance headlamps were on, the blue light overhead was flashing, and another light illuminated the Red Cross flag when the first Israeli missile hit, shearing off the right leg of the man on the stretcher inside. As he lay screaming beneath fire and smoke, patients and ambulance workers scrambled for safety, crawling over glass in the dark. Then another missile hit the second ambulance." Suzanne Goldenberg in Tyre
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Scale of the human crisis emerges
Brian Whitaker in Beirut
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UNICEF's Aid appeal for children in Lebanon
Click and give..it's the least any of us can do..
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Guardian Photos
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And more news of how the world is a better place since the Empire Struck Back in the name of freedom and democracy:
Pakistan launches huge nuclear arms drive
Violence In Afghanistan Spreads
Women back under wraps with Taliban vice squad
Civilian Death Toll Mounts in Iraq
Iraq's civilian toll: Over 100 a day
and
North Korea calls the US "the worst gangsters in the world" and calls Condoleeza Rice "a political imbecile."
Monday, July 24, 2006
"Lebanon carpenters are running out of wood for coffins. Bodies are stacked 3 or 4 feet high at the hospital morgue. The stench is spreading in the rubble.…
On Thursday, the wild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family bombed as they were trying to escape the village."
Hassan Fattah, New York Times
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Lebanon's Refugees
Guardian Photos
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While all this is happening
Blair's government is competeing with his best buddy Bush's administration for title of 'most scandal-ridden administration' ...
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Since neither of these two governments and their third musketeer Israel can stop saying "Iran, Iran, Iran, Syria", like they have some incurable tic...are we all going to be surprised when they finally bait a response from either Syria or Iran with the savage attacks on Lebanon?..Or are they the ones being baited? Either way, the Israel/US alliance, that knows nothing but military options, has been planning an attack on Iran and Syria for too long for any of us to bat an eye if, and when, it finally happens...and Iran is really enjoying the role of local mafia Don with it's Syrian sidekick...while it lasts..
But what a price? A wildfire of hatred racing across the world, Lebanese , Palestinian, Israeli civilians shredded to pieces... Lebanon burning, Haifa burning, Gaza burning (as always)... Israelis no safer now and not going to be any safer when the dust has settled, despite their current fantasy that slaughtering people in front of the whole world is somehow a logical solution.
And what is buried beneath the rubble and arrogance of these ugly and savage muscles being flexed all across the region is the fact that all victims are united by their suffering, united by their desire to end the suffering and always forced to forget what unites them in the name of some illusionary greater cause...the Palestinians, who have been existing in a state of continuous loss and terror for the past 60 years (pawns in the Arab game of distracting their populations and pawns beneath the Israeli military boot, that distracts its own population) are being told that they are the heroic front line, while they are born and die as refugees, as strangers in everyone else's land including their own...the Israeli civilians have to live in the terrorizing knowledge that the grudges of the dispossessed will always haunt their cafes and streets and homes as long as the criminal leaders of each side refuse to reach out with an honorable peace..and, the Lebanese are constantly been dragged back to death and destruction by the power games of those around them...
Each side is told they are fighting the good fight..Whether it's paradise or the promised land, it means the same thing...suffer now for the reward you'll never get...Children on each side born into a world of hatred and fear and distrust...Each side convinced that the other is the one planning, conspiring, hating without cause, driving into the sea, or planning to take over the whole world...while the people on each side are just trying to survive.
And the military machine, being fed on both ends by the big guys who are far enough away to still be laughing...Iran and Syria arm the Hizb and they are guilty of punishable crimes in everyone's eyes, but the US and its little shop of horrors feeding frenzy of weapons to Israel is not? Even though it violates US law to supply weapons to a country that uses it to attack civilians and to subjugate another occupied people..but wait, all we have to do is call it self defense, no matter how savage and no matter how cynical, and suddenly it's ok.
Every time someone says the word Lebanon now, I can actually feel something in my chest begin to tear..but I also have to feel it for Gaza, and for Haifa, and for all the people caught in the jaws of the reckless war machine.
Death is supposed to be the great equalizer, but we know that saying wasn't meant for the Middle East...Or for any war...because it seems that my enemy's life is always cheap..and mine is always sacred...A dead Israeli civilian will probably not be mourned in Lebanon...A Palestinian child's life is worth a fine of 12 to 25 Pounds Sterling for the Israeli soldier who aimed, shot and killed him...A Lebanese woman cowering in her shelled village while missiles play Russian roulette with her house is not quite as tragic as the Israelis in bomb shelters...and an Israeli saying he is afraid to go out for fear of being killed in the street is ridiculed by Palestinians who say thay are living in constant fear for their own lives...what savage irony, that we have constructed minefields and barbed wire even around the words we use to describe similar events...
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter goes one idiotic saying..and one man's dead child is another man's collateral damage..etc...etc...But what does this mangling of meaning really provide us with besides new ways to keep from giving a damn about each other?
I have forgotten how to laugh, these past two weeks, and have been feeling guilty that I didn't forget earlier...when Gaza was blasted and when Iraqi bodies piled up by the hundreds every day..and when Darfur wept and wailed and when people on a train in Mumbai ceased to exist and when we killed our oceans and our sky and our earth and when...and when...and when...
How many things do we have to screw up before we decide to do the right thing?
'Enough' is the word being splashed all across the Lebanese television channels..aren't they right? Isn't it time? Or was Yehuda Amichai right when he said:
אני, שהבאתי גוויות מן הגבעות,
יודע לספר שהעולם ריק מרחמים
"I, who have brought the corpses down from the hills,
Know to tell you that the world is empty of mercy."
-
This is the song in my head today.
On Thursday, the wild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family bombed as they were trying to escape the village."
Hassan Fattah, New York Times
-
Lebanon's Refugees
Guardian Photos
-
While all this is happening
Blair's government is competeing with his best buddy Bush's administration for title of 'most scandal-ridden administration' ...
-
Since neither of these two governments and their third musketeer Israel can stop saying "Iran, Iran, Iran, Syria", like they have some incurable tic...are we all going to be surprised when they finally bait a response from either Syria or Iran with the savage attacks on Lebanon?..Or are they the ones being baited? Either way, the Israel/US alliance, that knows nothing but military options, has been planning an attack on Iran and Syria for too long for any of us to bat an eye if, and when, it finally happens...and Iran is really enjoying the role of local mafia Don with it's Syrian sidekick...while it lasts..
But what a price? A wildfire of hatred racing across the world, Lebanese , Palestinian, Israeli civilians shredded to pieces... Lebanon burning, Haifa burning, Gaza burning (as always)... Israelis no safer now and not going to be any safer when the dust has settled, despite their current fantasy that slaughtering people in front of the whole world is somehow a logical solution.
And what is buried beneath the rubble and arrogance of these ugly and savage muscles being flexed all across the region is the fact that all victims are united by their suffering, united by their desire to end the suffering and always forced to forget what unites them in the name of some illusionary greater cause...the Palestinians, who have been existing in a state of continuous loss and terror for the past 60 years (pawns in the Arab game of distracting their populations and pawns beneath the Israeli military boot, that distracts its own population) are being told that they are the heroic front line, while they are born and die as refugees, as strangers in everyone else's land including their own...the Israeli civilians have to live in the terrorizing knowledge that the grudges of the dispossessed will always haunt their cafes and streets and homes as long as the criminal leaders of each side refuse to reach out with an honorable peace..and, the Lebanese are constantly been dragged back to death and destruction by the power games of those around them...
Each side is told they are fighting the good fight..Whether it's paradise or the promised land, it means the same thing...suffer now for the reward you'll never get...Children on each side born into a world of hatred and fear and distrust...Each side convinced that the other is the one planning, conspiring, hating without cause, driving into the sea, or planning to take over the whole world...while the people on each side are just trying to survive.
And the military machine, being fed on both ends by the big guys who are far enough away to still be laughing...Iran and Syria arm the Hizb and they are guilty of punishable crimes in everyone's eyes, but the US and its little shop of horrors feeding frenzy of weapons to Israel is not? Even though it violates US law to supply weapons to a country that uses it to attack civilians and to subjugate another occupied people..but wait, all we have to do is call it self defense, no matter how savage and no matter how cynical, and suddenly it's ok.
Every time someone says the word Lebanon now, I can actually feel something in my chest begin to tear..but I also have to feel it for Gaza, and for Haifa, and for all the people caught in the jaws of the reckless war machine.
Death is supposed to be the great equalizer, but we know that saying wasn't meant for the Middle East...Or for any war...because it seems that my enemy's life is always cheap..and mine is always sacred...A dead Israeli civilian will probably not be mourned in Lebanon...A Palestinian child's life is worth a fine of 12 to 25 Pounds Sterling for the Israeli soldier who aimed, shot and killed him...A Lebanese woman cowering in her shelled village while missiles play Russian roulette with her house is not quite as tragic as the Israelis in bomb shelters...and an Israeli saying he is afraid to go out for fear of being killed in the street is ridiculed by Palestinians who say thay are living in constant fear for their own lives...what savage irony, that we have constructed minefields and barbed wire even around the words we use to describe similar events...
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter goes one idiotic saying..and one man's dead child is another man's collateral damage..etc...etc...But what does this mangling of meaning really provide us with besides new ways to keep from giving a damn about each other?
I have forgotten how to laugh, these past two weeks, and have been feeling guilty that I didn't forget earlier...when Gaza was blasted and when Iraqi bodies piled up by the hundreds every day..and when Darfur wept and wailed and when people on a train in Mumbai ceased to exist and when we killed our oceans and our sky and our earth and when...and when...and when...
How many things do we have to screw up before we decide to do the right thing?
'Enough' is the word being splashed all across the Lebanese television channels..aren't they right? Isn't it time? Or was Yehuda Amichai right when he said:
אני, שהבאתי גוויות מן הגבעות,
יודע לספר שהעולם ריק מרחמים
"I, who have brought the corpses down from the hills,
Know to tell you that the world is empty of mercy."
-
This is the song in my head today.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
One of LBC's stations has been hit..the one that transmits the local channels, and they are now transmitting via LBC Europe...LBC is a major Lebanese local and satellite channel...They have also hit Mobile phone networks, which means people are without even phone contact...according to Al-Arabiya.
-
LBC is now reporting that at around 2:30 Lebanese time Israeli tanks invaded the south.
10 Tanks
-
Is this part of the preparation for a ground offensive..start taking out the local stations, leave everyone in the dark..without news and without mobile phone service?
-
LBC is showing footage of the artillery fire in the southern village of Maroun il-Ras.
It is 2pm GMT now.
-
"It was, our journalists told us, to be the greatest evacuation since Dunkirk. There it was again, the Second World War. And it was another cruel lie which the Lebanese spotted at once. For these mighty craft had not arrived to save Lebanon, to protect a nation now being destroyed by America's ally, Israel, Lebanon whose newly flourishing democracy was hailed by our leaders last year as a rose amid the dictatorships of the Arab world. No, they were creeping through the dawn after asking Israel's permission to help their citizens to flee. These great warships had been sent here by Western leaders (Jacques Chirac excepted) too craven, too gutless, too immoral, to utter a single word of compassion for Lebanon's suffering."
Fisk
-
Israel told the Lebanese in the South to leave, and is planning to invade the south , and reports coming in say that they have already captured locations in South Lebanon...
They will probably blast it to even tinier smithereens.
..
BBC Photo
-
Thanks for the 'humanitarian' warning, it's great when you tell people to run for their lives before you bomb their homes, their schools, their workplaces and their towns and their memories and everything they own... Also, it's pretty great to do that after you have already bombed all the roads, bridges and exits out of the area.
--
The Lebanese are increasingly terrified that once the foreigners have left the country there will be nothing to restrain Israel from going all out and turning Lebanon to dust and ashes..
A British woman being evacuated yesterday said that everyone she knows thinks that there will be a bloodbath once the American and European citizens have left.
--
Israel calls up 3,000 reservists to prepare for ground invasion
Israeli troops mass on Lebanon border
U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis
--
Friday, July 21, 2006
"How soon must we use the words "war crime"? How many children must be scattered in the rubble of Israeli air attacks before we reject the obscene phrase "collateral damage" and start talking about prosecution for crimes against humanity?" Robert Fisk
-
Srifa was a bustling hillside village. Then yesterday the Israeli jets came -
Clancy Chassay outside Srifa
Thursday July 20, 2006
-
..
Photo of Abbas Khalil, a Srifa victim from Al-Nahar July 21st Front page
--
“Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians,” Loiuse Arbour the high commissioner for human rights.
To see what is happening to the Lebanese see here-
Britain and US defy demand for immediate ceasefire
"Two countries, the US and Britain, defiantly refused to back the international clamour for an immediate ceasfire between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas. Their ambivalence about civilian deaths in Lebanon has given Israel a powerful signal that it can continue its attacks with impunity" Independent
"Two countries, the US and Britain, defiantly refused to back the international clamour for an immediate ceasfire between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas. Their ambivalence about civilian deaths in Lebanon has given Israel a powerful signal that it can continue its attacks with impunity" Independent
-
"it's not even a war. What you have are hostilities, at this point, between Israel and Hezbollah. I would not characterize it as a war. "
Tony Snow, the White House spokesperson.
-
...
Thanhniennews Photo
Y'know what, you're right Snowy, why call this a war?
+
Or this..
Ya Libnan Photo
-
Watch Jon Stewart's take on the media not calling what is happening a war.
-----------------
"does anybody still believe this is about saving three Israeli soldiers - a piece of Hollywood schmaltz called "Saving Corporal Shalit" and its two sequels? Are Beirut, Haifa and Gaza City burning for them?
Only a dwindling band of people now believe this, the official pretext for the twin-set of wars Israel is fighting on its northern and southern fronts. If it had been true, there was an obvious solution - swapping prisoners. Israel is currently holding 8,200 Palestinian fighters, as well as at least three Lebanese fighters who were seized in Lebanon itself during the long 18 years when Israel was occupying its entire southern region. Both Hamas and Hizbollah have said the Israeli soldiers will head home as soon as there is a fair swap" Continue Johann Hari's Article
------------------
Thousands flock to hills, parks and schools, but no place safe from bombs
Jonathan Steele
"In small pockets of misery and distress tucked away across Beirut, thousands of Lebanese refugees are sheltering from Israel's relentless bombing."
..
BBC Photo
-
Misery rules in tomb of living dead
-
"What kind of life is being offered to us now?"
"I will tell you what kind: a life of destruction, despair, displacement, dispossession, and death."
"We the Lebanese want life, we have chosen life. We refuse to die. ...I sincerely hope that you will not let us down"
The Lebanese PM addressing the deaf, blind and mute international community...
-----
Save the Children's Emergency appeal
for Lebanon, Palestine and other Middle Eastern tragedies.
----
And thank you Mr. Annan for mentioning Gaza, the land of 1.4 million humans invisible to the rest of the world.
----
A woman being evacuated from her home in South Lebanon wept on Sky News saying "we are humans"...
Because she knows she actually has to remind the world of that fact...
Thursday, July 20, 2006
I read a letter sent from the Lebanese artist Zena el-Khalil to a mutual friend and discovered that she had a blog...she is blogging from Beirut..Her words are beautiful and heart-breaking. Stop by her blog and give her your love and support.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
"Members of a religious sect in central Kenya are bracing themselves for a nuclear war predicted to take place no later than 12 September 2006."
-
And Lebanon...
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those who feel powerless, just watching this unfold:
Help out with donations:
-
FPM's BANK ACCOUNT FOR REFUGEES:>
BANK: SGBL, Sin El Fil, Lebanon> Account: 001-004-361-236446-01-3> Swift: SGLILBBX
+
: BNPI, Achrafieh, Lebanon > Account: 136 932.001.24> Account Name: Caritas Lebanon > Swift: BNPI LBBX> Other accounts are provided here.
+
+
SAMIR KASSIR FOUNDATION
(To support Refugees) > Bank: Byblos Bank - Tabaris> Account (USD): 380.3652902.001> Account (LBP): 380.3652902.002> SWIFT: BYBALBBX
From the blog http://lettersapart.blogspot.com/
-
To help in Gaza :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From YouTube :
Operation Just Reward on Lebanon (The first three days)
-
And Today's cartoon in Al-Nahar
"Don't Speed, Death is faster"
-
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
"Bush: You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over. " Independent
Bush tells Blair in the middle of stuffing his face with food at the G8, when they had no idea the microphone was on...
You can watch the whole thing here
'
Bush and Blair's Less Than Excellent Conversation
Arianna Huffington
-
"For the second time in 48 hours western governments declined to intervene as Israeli forces, on the sixth day of aerial attacks, killed 47 people and wounded at least 53. Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed militia, also stepped up its attacks, launching 50 rockets against Israel, the highest number in a single day. The death toll since Israel began its attack has risen to 210 in Lebanon and 29 in Israel."Guardian
-
....
Getty Photo Ya Libnan Photo
Lebanese victims
-
"US Ambassador John Bolton said there was no moral equivalence between the civilian casualties from the Israeli raids in Lebanon and those killed in
Israel from "malicious terrorist acts". Yahoo News
-
From Tikkun:
Michael Lerner, Gila Svirsky, Uri Avnery and Gideon Levy discuss the political and moral significance of this summer's violence.
End the Suffering in the Middle East
By Rabbi Michael Lerner
+
Understanding Israel in Gaza and Lebanon
We present a view on how to end these crises, along with analyses by Tanya Reinhart, Yitzhak Frankenthal, Michael Rubin, David Horowitz, Arik Diamont (of Courage to Refuse,) Robert Fisk, and others.
-
Cartoon from Al-Nahar, a lebanese daily paper:
"Arabism's Hero"
The cheering ineffective cowards
-
Gaza
Covering up Gaza
The state of Israel, fearful of the truth, continues to control media coverage of its brutal occupation
Jonathan Cook
+
"Israel launched a furious assault on the entire population of Gaza, destroying its only energy plant, which left 700,000 people without power, and seizing more than two dozen Hamas elected officials. Israel's leading liberal daily, Ha'aretz, warned that "the government is losing its reason...arresting people to use as bargaining chips is the act of a gang, not of a state." Amnesty International condemned the attacks against civilian infrastructure as a war crime, and the UN's Relief and Works Agency warned that Gaza is "on the brink of a public health disaster." The Nation
-
The rest of the world:
More than 300 died in Java Tsunami
-
More than 50 killed in Iraq shrine attack
Gunmen kill 56 in sectarian attack on Iraqi market town
-More than a million people demand election recount in Mexico City
Mexico: A Yellow revolution brewing?
Sunday, July 16, 2006
"It will be called the massacre of Marwaheen. All the civilians killed by the Israelis had been ordered to abandon their homes in the border village by the Israelis themselves a few hours earlier. Leave, they were told by loudspeaker; and leave they did, 20 of them in a convoy of civilian cars. That's when the Israeli jets arrived to bomb them, killing 20 Lebanese, at least nine of them children. The local fire brigade could not put out the fires as they all burned alive in the inferno. " Independent
-
"In Lebanon as in Gaza, it is not Israel's right to protect its civilian population from terrorist aggression that is at issue. It is the way Israel goes about exercising that right...military leaders remain addicted to the notion that, whatever they have a right to do, they have a right to overdo" Observer
-
"Yes, Hamas had no right to take an Israeli soldier captive, nor was Hezbollah justified in seizing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight others. But Israel has now killed more than 50 Lebanese civilians, and it is destroying the civilian infrastructure of that country, along with Gaza’s. These aren’t defensive acts. These are acts of aggression."Matthew Rothschild
-
Israel hits Gaza house, Saturday, 15 July
AP Photo
-
"So to suggest that Israel is looking for a solution here, to suggest that it’s playing for peace, is to be as cynical as those imbeciles who claim Israel is being “humanitarian” by raining leaflets of evacuation warnings before dropping its tonnage of barbarism in civilian zones. When rogue goes against rogue, and a rogue-in-chief stands by from his Roman-themed colonnades a Potomac away, a just solution is not only not being sought; it’s a virtual impossibility." Pierre Tristam
-
Some of the thousands fleeing areas in Lebanon
-
"Olmert lacks what the people of Israel like, which is someone who knows how to kill Arabs," Baltiansky said. "It sounds harsh, but Sharon knew when and how to kill Arabs, and when to talk to them" IHT
-
Strikes on Haifa, and other Israeli cities, civilians killed...
Olmert says:
"There will be far-reaching consequences in our relations on the northern border and in the area in general." Newsday
-
The Israeli warship is attacked, Iran is blamed... the soldiers are kidnapped by Hizbullah, Israel says they might be transferred to Iran ...Tiberias hit, Iran blamed...Haifa hit, Iran blamed, Israel says there are even Iranian revolutionary guards in Lebanon...and Iran probably has Hoffa... a close second held by blame on Syria..
Forbes
-
"Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign.... This is the last hurrah"
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Toronto Star
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Kuwait Times, Kuwait
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BBC photos of the effects of this war
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