posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, April 29, 2010
posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, April 28, 2010
posted by Anonymous @ Monday, April 26, 2010
By JEFFERSON CHASE
To understand the present conflict, one has to realize that until 1895 Jews and Muslims had lived together in peace in Palestine for more than1200 years. After the Romans expelled them in 70 A.D., Jews were not allowed to live in Jerusalem for 600 years, but when the conquering Muslim army took that city they invited the Jews to return. And Jews and Muslims lived together in peace for all those centuries until that way of life was destroyed by the interference of Europeans and Americans.
During World War I, the Allied Powers promised self-determination to the Arabic-speaking peoples in the Middle East, but England’s Lord Balfour said, “In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country.” And the Balfour Declaration opened Palestine to Zionist-Jewish colonization despite the repeated protests of the native-born people. This completely illegal action was supported by the other European nations and the United States also. Then in 1946-48, tens of thousands of Zionist Jews invaded Palestine, massacred entire villages (men, women, and children) drove half the population (730,000 people) into exile, systematically looted their homes, farms, and businesses, and purposely destroyed more than 500 Palestinian towns and villages.
This should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Expulsion of the Palestinians has been the clearly stated aim of the Zionists from the beginning. In 1895, Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, said, “We shall endeavor to expel the Arab population across the border unnoticed.” In 1937, David Ben Gurion, a founder of Israel, wrote, “We must expel the Arabs and take their place.” In 1947, he said, “Every attack has to end with occupation, destruction, and expulsion.” In 1998, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, “…there is no Zionism, colonization, or Jewish state without the eviction of the Arabs and expropriation of their lands.” And in 2006, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the U.S. Congress, “I believed, and to this day still believe, in our people’s eternal and historic right to this entire land.”
So the Palestinians are not attacking somebody else’s country, they are trying to drive those Jewish invaders out of their own country. Palestinians and their ancestors have been living on this land for more than 3000 years, but those Zionists just invaded and declared it to be the State of Israel. Their claim that God promised Palestine to them is unfounded because most of the Jewish invaders and 96% of all Jews today are not the descendents of the ancient Hebrews but are descendents of converts (Ashkenazi). And even a valid biblical claim would still not give them any territorial rights to Palestine under international law. In contrast, today’s Palestinians are the true descendants of the ancient inhabitants, the Philistines, as demonstrated by the Arabic rendition of the original name of that land – Filastiniya.
Even Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion admitted the legitimate claim of the Palestinians. In 1956 he said, “If I were an Arab leader, I would never make peace with Israel. That is natural: we have come here and stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” But he still believed that Zionists had the right to drive them out, and Jewish “settlers” have been relentlessly encroaching on Palestinian land ever since. And today, with more than 140 “settlements” already deliberately placed all throughout the West Bank, and more being built every year, the Israelis clearly have no intention of stopping until they have driven the Palestinians out entirely – the total ethnic cleansing that has been their goal since 1895.
So to be a sincere and credible peace-maker, President Obama would have to recognize that Zionism is not Judaism, it is neo-fascism, and that Zionism, not Islam, is responsible for the present hatred and killing. He would have to denounce the Nazi-like ethnic cleansing by Israel and demand justice and freedom for the dispossessed and brutalized Palestinians. He would have to admit that the “two-state solution” is an atrocious arrangement that we would never accept if the U.S. were invaded and occupied. But Obama has shown that he is just as ignorant as Bush, just as dismissive of international law, and just as unwilling to face the unpleasant truth about Israel. So his efforts at peace-making will fail also.
Author’s note: I have no connection whatever with any Arab country or the Muslim religion. In fact, being born and raised in the Mid-West “Bible Belt” I was originally a supporter of the State of Israel.
Jefferson Chase lives in Connecticut.
posted by Anonymous @ Sunday, April 25, 2010
By ANTOINE RAFFOULIsrael has always been in the habit of changing its laws to suit its colonial aims in all of historic Palestine (but specifically in areas it has been occupying since the Partition of Palestine in November 1947) . These aims centre around the one single core policy which lies at the heart of the Zionist programme advocated by Theodor Herzl in 1897: the establishment of a Jewish State in historic Palestine within 50 years. This Zionist programme would eventually include the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by way of expelling its indigenous Palestinian population and the erasure of any physical presence they have.
One of the most notorious of these laws has earned a wide coverage in the press recently when it took effect on 13 April 2010.
Order No.1650 titled 'Order regarding Prevention of Infiltration' was signed on 19 October 2009 by 'Gadi Shamni who is Major General of the IDF Forces in the Judea and Samaria Area [Area: means the whole of the West Bank and Jerusalem]. This law is in essence an Amendment to a previous Order No. 329 issued in June 1969 and which took effect a month later. It was signed then by another Brigadier General Rafael Vardi.
The basic aim of this Law is to prevent infiltration 'knowingly and unlawfully' by anyone into the Area from the East Bank of the Jordan, Syria, Egypt or Lebanon and who does not lawfully carry the 'proper permits'. A person is considered an 'infiltrator' if he or she is present in the Area 'without a document which allows identification as a resident of the Area'. The burden of proof falls upon the 'infiltrator' to show that he did not infiltrate. Anyone who remains in the Area following the expiration of the permit is considered an 'infiltrator'. This applies to Palestinians, foreigners (even holders of American passports) and NGO members. Needless to say, the Order will not apply to Israelis.
The new Order is unclear as to what permits it refers to: a permit that is currently valid or a new permit to be issued by the military command. Suspected 'infiltrators' are liable to sentences of up to 7 years or, in the case of those who have entered the West Bank legally but without permission, the sentence is 3 years. Presently, a typical sentence is 1 year.
There is no question that the new Order's aims are to limit the movement of the Palestinians and to allow their mass expulsion from their land.
Until recently, Palestinians considered East Jerusalemites needed permits to enter Area A which, if you recall under the Oslo Accords, is considered under full control of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
This brings us to the subject of the farcical nature of the so-called Oslo Accords of 1993, not that we should give this much written space except that they relate directly to the above Order. Oslo divided what was left of Palestine [the West Bank and East Jerusalem at that time] into further Bantustans which they labelled as follows:
Area A: which includes major Palestinian cities with no Israeli presence. It constitutes 17% of the West Bank and holds about 55% of its population.Area B: which constitutes 24% of the West bank and holds 41% of its Palestinian population. The PA has civilian control of this area. Israel has total security control.Area C: which constitutes 59% of the West bank and includes 4% of its population. Israel has full control here with the exception of main Palestinian population centres.
But the obvious and simple fact is that Israel did not, does not and will not abide by any agreement, past, present or future. Order 1650 makes this saga a simple one. In fact it is as simple as A, B, C.
posted by Anonymous @ Sunday, April 25, 2010
By Senussi Bsaikri
Middleeastmonitor.org.uk
In Israel, the main factor that determines the right of citizenship is "nationality" rather than the place of birth. Such nationality does not apply to all the current residents of the Zionist state because it is based on ethnicity, as stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Law of Return issued in 1950. According to this racist law, Israel is a national home for the Jewish people; all Jews, all over the world, have the right to Israeli citizenship without any official fuss. Non-Jews are not so privileged.
Israel's Citizenship Act of 1952 prohibits any Palestinians - even those born in the territory now called Israel - from obtaining Israeli citizenship unless they were "registered" as such before 1952. This law deprives all rights of citizenship to around 80% of those who were driven from their homes in 1948 to make way for Jewish immigrants; it also prevents them from returning to their land.
According to official statistics, there were 1,431,700 Palestinians living in Israel in 2008. They have been described by many senior officials of the Israeli government as a "threat" to the state, worthy of deportation; the intelligence chief called them a "strategic threat to Israel's security". They have been discriminated against for many years and stand to lose what few rights they have gained.
Documented evidence shows an increase in concern among Israelis about the Palestinians living in Israel and their status as equal citizens. A 2007 opinion poll reported that more than 40% of Jewish Israelis agreed that Palestinians should not be allowed to participate in political affairs, while 64% believed that "Arab Israelis" threaten the demography of the state because of their relatively high birth rate. A later poll said that 75% of Israeli Jews support the deportation of Palestinians from Israel.
Racist comments by some Israeli leaders have helped to spread anti-Arab hatred among Jews. The extreme right-wing Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has called many times for compulsory military service for all who live in Israel, including the Arab Israelis, and proposed draft legislation compelling pledges of allegiance for the "Jewish nature of the state". There are signs that the government in Israel links equal rights for its Arab citizens to compulsory military service, something that is not imposed on ultra-orthodox Jews who may face the opprobrium of some of their fellow Jewish citizens but do not face official discrimination as the Arabs do. Palestinians serving in the Israel Defence Forces would, of course, end up confronting fellow Palestinians - perhaps their relatives - looking down the barrel of their guns as part of Israel's occupation authorities in the West Bank.
Discrimination against Israeli Arabs takes many forms. There are restrictions on political rights and deliberate economic deprivation as well restricted access to social services. No Arab has the chance to attain high office in state institutions and the campaign to crack down on Arab political movements is gaining momentum, especially in Israel's parliament, the Knesset. It is estimated that just over 61% of Arab families in Israel live below the poverty line; most live in poor neighbourhoods lacking in basic services like sewers and clean water. The Israeli government still refuses to recognise dozens of Arab villages, so no basic services are provided therein. On top of that, the government does not hesitate to confiscate Arab land and demolish homes. As a result of the 60-year process of ethnic cleansing, Palestinians now own just 3% of the land they owned in 1948 when Israel was created. Israel's Arab citizens also face discrimination in education and employment.
Even the judicial system is biased against Israel's Arab citizens. In August 2004, when a Jewish Israeli murdered four of his fellow citizens who happened to be Arabs the government - despite the obvious link in the Israel-Palestine context - refused to accept the murders as an act of terrorism; the victims' families were unable to claim compensation for their loss. There are also cases where the roles have been reversed and the victims have been Jews killed by Arabs; in such cases, the judiciary has sided with the Jews as "victims of terrorism". Such duplicity is commonplace in "democratic" Israel.
Over the past six decades Israel has been promoted as a democratic oasis in the midst of Arab tyranny; the "only democracy in the Middle East". Israel has succeeded in convincing the international community of the truth of this myth. The facts on the ground, however, reveal a very different Israel, a racist state that deprives more than 20% of its citizens of their basic civil and political rights on the basis of their ethnicity. Why is such a state tolerated in the 21st century?
posted by Anonymous @ Saturday, April 24, 2010
By Malalai Joya
The Daily Beast
Amid increasing civilian deaths and resurgent warlordism, Afghan women's leader Malalai Joya writes that Hamid Karzai and the U.S. are losing credibility in Afghanistan day by day.
Almost every day, the NATO occupation of our country continues to kill innocent people. Each time, it seems, military officials try to claim that only insurgents are killed, or they completely deny and cover up their crimes. The work of a few courageous journalists is the only thing that brings some of these atrocities to light.
For instance, it was only after the reporting of Jerome Starkey of the Times of London that officials admitted to the brutal Feb. 12 murder of two pregnant women, a teenage girl, and several young men in a night raid at a home where a family was celebrating the birth of a child.
Night raids, air raid “mistakes,” firing on civilian buses and cars at checkpoints—the occupation finds many ways of killing the people of Afghanistan. The excuses and lies for these deaths are like salt in our wounds, and it is no wonder that protests against the U.S. military are growing. The Afghan people have had enough.
In recent weeks, there has been much talk about Hamid Karzai’s threats to join the Taliban and about his supposed differences with the American government. But for Afghans, Karzai long ago lost all credibility. The joke among our people is that Karzai doesn’t do or say anything without consulting the White House first. No amount of nationalistic rhetoric or demagoguery on his part will change this perception.
Everyone in Afghanistan knows that Karzai was placed into power with the backing of the United States and its allies, and to this day he relies on their support. His regime would not last a day without it. And Afghans know too well the reality of his corrupt government: It has delivered nothing to the country’s poor other than sorrow and destitution, while filling the pockets of drug traffickers, warlords, and its own corrupt officials.
Afghanistan has had puppet leaders before, rulers who served only the interests of foreign occupiers, whether British or Soviet. But Karzai may be the most hated puppet in our history; he has empowered some of the most brutal internal enemies of ordinary Afghans, warlords of the Northern Alliance like Sayyaf, Dr. Abdullah, Rabbani, Mohaqiq, Ismael Kahn, Dostum and many others. Even his two vice presidents, Fahim Qasim and Karim Khalili, are notorious fundamentalist warlords. The president’s brother in Kandahar, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is another thug in power whose links to the drug trade and the CIA have been widely reported.
Karzai made headlines by threatening to “join the Taliban,” but the reality is that for more than eight years he has had no problem working with fundamentalists who are the ideological brothers of the anti-women Taliban. In fact, Karzai himself used to support the Taliban when he was a minor tribal leader in Kandahar in the 1990s, and for years he has been negotiating to bring Taliban leaders into his puppet regime. Some of them are already serving in his regime, and the U.S. government has been encouraging these negotiations by creating the false categories of "moderate" and "extremist" Taliban.
He has also been reaching out to that most brutal warlord and criminal, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a mujahideen leader known for killing civilians and currently designated a terrorist by the U.S. government. Karzai recently appointed Abdul Hadi Arghandewal, an infamous leader of Hekmatyar’s party, as his minister in charge of the economy. These negotiations and flexible alliances by Karzai and the U.S. government are nothing new. For three decades, the U.S. has backed these criminals: Hekmatyar, al Qaeda and other fundamentalists in the 1980s, the Taliban in the 1990s, and now Karzai and his warlord allies.
Progressive-minded Afghans want to break out of this circle of warlordism once and for all. It is ironic that Karzai talks about the possibility that a “national resistance” could develop in Afghanistan. He should know that the prime target of such a movement will be his own regime and its foreign supporters.
Our people are deeply fed up. They have organized many anti-U.S. protests in the past months and if the occupation continues, the resistance will only grow. More than eight years of occupation have made life bleak, and we are tired of being pawns in the U.S. and NATO’s game for control of Central Asia.
We can no longer bear the killing of our pregnant mothers, the killing of our teenagers and young children, the killing of so many Afghan men and women. We can no longer bear these “accidents” and these “apologies” for the deaths of the innocent.
We salute the anti-war movements in the NATO countries. Here, we will struggle to our last breath to stop this war that is tearing apart our beloved Afghanistan.
Malalai Joya, now 31, was the youngest member of the Afghan parliament, elected in 2005. In 2007 she was suspended from parliament because of her consistent criticism of the warlords and other human-rights abusers in the Karzai regime. Joya has survived five assassination attempts to date, and has written her life story in the book A Woman Among Warlords (with Derrick O’Keefe, Scribner, 2009). She writes from Kabul, Afghanistan.
posted by Anonymous @ Saturday, April 24, 2010
posted by Anonymous @ Saturday, April 24, 2010
By Nasim Ahmed
The Palestine Telegraph
Briefing on the Israeli Order regarding Prevention of Infiltration (Amendment No. 2) and the Order regarding Security Provisions (Amendment No. 112) passed on Tuesday, April 13 2010.
Behind the euphuism, 'prevention of Infiltration’ lies a horrible truth which Israeli officials are trying desperately hard to conceal. This simple truth is a truth that has been cardinal throughout Israel’s existence and continues to do so. It’s a truth that connects the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 and the recent military order that would result in the forced expulsion of many thousands of Palestinians. It’s the truth that Israel was founded on a policy of systematic population transfer and it has been committed to this policy ever since its inception.
This simple fact is a natural outcome of Israel’s central creed, 'redemption of the land with as few of the indigenous people as possible’. Since its inception its central creed has been efficiently carried out through modern methods of population transfer and land appropriation. This explains why, even as rhetoric and politics change, expulsion and dispossession continue through various methods.
Its strategy commenced with a total denial of Palestinian as a people. Since than over many decades, Israel has developed and refined policies to disperse imprison and impoverish the Palestinian people, in a relentless effort to destroy them as a nation. It has industrialized Palestinian misery through ever more sophisticated systems of curfews, checkpoints, walls, permits and land grabs. It has transformed the West Bank and Gaza into laboratories for testing the infrastructure of confinement, human resolve and the limits of human despair.
Throughout history Israel rarely missed an opportunity to implement its core principal of population transfer and it has relentlessly pursued this course through its many wars, creeping colonization in the form of settlement building, a regime that combines occupation, apartheid and colonization.
Israel’s entire legal structure in the occupied territory is designed to serve this end. Since 1967, in order to control the occupied Palestinian population, Israel enacted more than 1,200 military orders and has altered the administrative and legal situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in violation of international humanitarian law. Other parts of the occupied West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem, were annexed by Israel immediately after the 1967 war and colonization of the occupied city is ongoing in violation of international law. Its military regime has in effect legalized the illegal.
In securing its aspiration and maintain Jewish privileges over the land Israel enacted the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State’s Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 'temporary’ law banning marriage between Palestinians in Israel and Palestinians of the occupied territories. In consistent with this trend it enacted in April 2010 two further military orders, Order regarding Prevention of Infiltration (Amendment No. 2) and the Order regarding Security Provisions (Amendment No. 112).
This military order is part of a series of steps implemented by Israel to empty the West Bank of Palestinians, especially by removing them to Gaza. It will cause tens of thousands of Palestinians to be deported from the occupied West Bank. The orders substantively changed the definition of "infiltrator" and in effect apply it to anyone who is present in the West Bank without an Israeli permit. The orders do not define what Israel considers a valid permit. The vast majority of people now living in the West Bank have never been required to hold any sort of permit to be present in their own land and a demand to do so is preposterous.
There are tens of thousands of people at risk, who pose no security threat whatsoever they’re just trying to lead their lives. The order will turn them into criminals – making it criminal for them to be present in their own home –As a consequence it will tear away at the fabric of life in the West Bank.
The order classifies people without the right Israeli paperwork as "infiltrators". The wording of the order has been amended from the original order drawn up in 1969 which even back then was in contravention of international law. The definition of "infiltrator" was then: "A person who entered the area knowingly and unlawfully after having been present in the east bank of the Jordan, Syria, Egypt or Lebanon following the effective date (of the order being given)." Under the new order this is to be changed to: "Infiltrator – a person who entered the area unlawfully following the effective date, or a person who is present in the area and does not lawfully hold a permit."
The orders are worded so broadly which theoretically would allow the military to empty the West Bank of almost all its Palestinian inhabitants. The document itself does not specify exactly what is meant by "a permit’’ and leaves Palestinians at the mercy of Israeli hands.
Such an indiscriminate proposal is criminally indifferent to the composition of the Palestinian people. Since the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their land in 1948 the vast majority are forced to live as refugees in host countries across the Middle East and many have also been forced to flee to other parts of the world. The nature of Diasporas is such that people are forced to live under various different regimes with many different challenges and the community functions under extreme difficulty. Such challenges have not stopped Palestinians from returning to their land and living as Palestinians in Palestine.
This indiscriminate assault on the Palestinian family and the Palestinian community contravenes not just international law but basic humanity. The average Palestinian family has global ties and this military order is granted to separate Palestinian families. This will have huge implications threatening pain, anger and frustration to be vented on the streets.
As many as ten different human rights group condemned these measure including Btselem and a number other Israeli ones. They’ve raised grave concerns over its future impact where tens of thousands of Palestinians can conceivably be thrown out of their homes. The human rights organizations have also mentioned its immediate impact, which will be felt in the immediate future by two distinct groups of Palestinains; those from Gaza and Palestinians and non Palestinians from other countries married to Palestinians in the West Bank. Suspected "infiltrators" could also be jailed for up to seven years under the new orders. Furthermore anyone being removed might also have to pay for the cost of their own deportation.
Implicit in the order also is Israel’s effort to fragment the Palestinian cause and hasten Palestinian 'politicide’. Gaza and the West Bank are single entities and Israel has no jurisdiction and legitimate rights to alter that fact.
Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinians in the West Bank are all Palestinians just like British citizens in London and British citizens in Birmingham and there is no moral and legal authority to prejudice the rights of one over the other. Dividing the Palestinian people is a reckless attempt to dissolve the Palestinian cause into manageable units with the intention to prejudice and maybe even scupper final status negotiations.
Israel’s policy of annexation known’s no bounds. It continues to behave like a rogue state with wanton disregard for Palestinians and international law. The international community should not be surprised at this new development as this is just another manifestation of its core tenet coursing through human history and no doubt it will continue to exhibit many more of its ugly features in years to come.
These military orders belong in an apartheid state not in a so called democracy. They are products of a world view based on racist assumptions and not the values of human rights and human freedom.
The international community, if it’s serious about peace and the rule of law, should not accept this military order simply because of its insipid attempt at mass expulsion of Palestinians. No propaganda should be allowed to deter the fact that this is nothing but 21st century legalized mass expulsion. In essence it’s a product of a creed that seeks systematic transfer and expulsion of Palestinians from their land; when war is not an option, when open population transfer is internationally intolerable it seeks other means that is less conspicuous.
The West knows this is occupied territory and Israel through its occupation contravenes international law every day without any compunction and yet it is rewarded with a likely membership to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Rewarding Israel when Israel is little short of a pariah state has been a constant theme and is also the root cause of the constant failure to bring peace and justice to the region. Peace requires justice and justice is never served by double standards in statement and action.
Nasim Ahmed is a British Middle East Researcher.
posted by Anonymous @ Friday, April 23, 2010
6ssraeli soldiers have beaten up and made a Palestinian child drink sewage water after they caught him for alleged stone throwing in the West Bank City of al-Khalil.
posted by Anonymous @ Friday, April 23, 2010
By R. B. Stuart
Globalpost.com
Soldiers, like my sister, return from Iraq gripped by cancer. The US military says cancer isn't a war wound.
NEW YORK — When my sister, 101st Airborne Army Capt. Chaplain Fran E. Stuart, returned from Iraq, she was forever changed.
Not only had the desert sand, gun blasts and heat penetrated her psyche during her one-year deployment, but a carcinogen had made its way into her body as well. Unbeknown to her, the carcinogen was making a home in my sister's body, along with the Anthrax vaccine, depleted uranium, burn pit smoke and contaminated water dished up at every meal.
In March 2006, when my sister was 41, she was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive, stage-IV dysgerminoma cancer, also called "germ cell" cancer, which is usually only seen in pregnant women and teenage girls. The cancer was advancing quickly, wrapping itself around her internal organs like an octopus and gathering fuel from her central abdomen.
My sister was flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for immediate surgery and further testing, when a volleyball-sized tumor was removed from her abdomen. Fortunately, doctors were able to corral her cancer, but only after 10 months and 35 rounds of exhaustive chemotherapy.
She wasn't the only one undergoing such trauma. While visiting her at Walter Reed, I witnessed many soldiers returning from Iraq with cancer, unknown to the public and unacknowledged by the military. Walter Reed had two floors dedicated solely to the soldiers arriving daily with cancer. Their lives were spared on the battlefield, but the cancer was ravaging their bodies from within.
I began to do research, and was alarmed to discover how the military uses depleted uranium, especially in Iraq. Soldiers I talked to at Walter Reed began to say the same thing: Cancer is not a "war wound," so the military denies responsibility.
Since soldiers are uninformed about depleted uranium, they don't wear protective gear and unknowingly inhale the toxic, pollen-like, yellow dust. The toxins develop into different forms of rare cancers within four to 36 months.
In August 2002, before the Iraq war commenced, U.S. Army Col. J. Edgar Wakayama wrote a report for the military, "Depleted Uranium (DU) Munitions," which pointed to the health and environmental risks associated with depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is produced as a byproduct of the enrichment process for nuclear reactor-grade or nuclear weapon-grade uranium. Due to its extreme density, it is used as the armor plating in 16 different size cartridges of U. S. ammunition.
Depleted uranium, which can particularly damage the kidney and bone, is radioactive, which means it produces alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays. Alpha particles can cause cell damage and cancer; beta particles are hazardous to skin and eyes.
Wakayama outlined three methods of human exposure: shrapnel wounds, inhalation (lung fibrosis, risk of lung cancer and thoracic lymph nodes) and ingestion (contaminated soil, contaminated drinking water and food). Children playing at impact sites can ingest heavily contaminated soil. The slow leeching of depleted uranium into the local water supply contaminates plants and food.
Even after the internal release of this study, the Defense Department did not heed warnings. Seven months later, the U.S. military began the "Shock and Awe Campaign." They proceeded to drop 320 metric tons of depleted uranium munitions in Iraq.
In 2003, a Christian Science Monitor journalist Scott Peterson measured radiation in Baghdad at 1,900 times higher than normal. Peterson noted that depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, and total disintegration estimated after 25 billion years. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reaffirmed these findings, and followed up with a map of depleted uranium used worldwide.
The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons was formed in the U.K. in 2003, but despite its strong start, U.K. and U.S. forces continued to use depleted uranium weapons despite warnings that they pose a cancer risk, the BBC reported in November 2006.
CNN aired a special "America Morning" with Greg Hunter in February 2007, during which they discussed the hazardous effects of depleted uranium. Followed by a CBS Evening News feature in 2008 about 29-year old Marine Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez, stricken with stage IV melanoma post-Iraq.
In January 2010 the Guardian released a study, including a map, that highlights 42 contaminated sites in Iraq.
And just last month, the BBC reported that doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are seeing a high level of birth defects — the level of heart defects among newborns is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe.
British-based Iraqi researcher Malik Hamdan told the BBC's World Today program that, based on data from January 2010, the rate of congenital heart defects was 95 per 1,000 births. "I've seen footage of babies born with an eye in the middle of the forehead, or nose on the forehead," she added. BBC correspondent, John Simpson saw a photograph of one baby who was born with three heads.
Doctors and parents believe the culprits are highly sophisticated weapons the U.S. used in Fallujah in 2003. But the U.S. military says it is not aware of any official reports showing an increase in birth defects in the area.
A U.S. military spokesman, Michael Kilpatrick, said they take public health concerns "very seriously," but that "[n]o studies to date have indicated environmental issues resulting in specific health issues."
The aforementioned sources are a mere fraction of the stories telling of depleted uranium's horrific effects. But they don’t garner anywhere near the media attention in the U.S. as do stories about Tiger Woods and the earthquake in Haiti.
The European media consistently chips away at the environmental disaster that infiltrates their borders, while the U.S. media has yet to demand military accountability. And all arrows point to the erroneous decisions of the U.S. to defy Wakayama's recommendations.
The U.S. military's unwillingness to publicly admit there is danger of radiological exposure among deployed troops leaves the American people uninformed, the soldiers on the battlefield unprotected and the Iraqi civilians increasingly at risk.
Our soldiers are offered up for radiological contamination, and possibly death. A byproduct of the greatest weapon of all, an invisible carcinogen, with the capabilities to annihilate everything that lives — that is our gift of democracy that keeps on giving.
R. B. Stuart is a New York author, freelance writer, columnist, photographer and a contributor for The Huffington Post.
posted by Anonymous @ Friday, April 23, 2010
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- A Palestinian source in occupied Jerusalem warned that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) intends to open the museum of the temple a few meters away from the western façade of the Aqsa Mosque in addition to another synagogue called the pride of Israel.
The exhumed bones of dead Muslims [Archives of Al-Aqsa Foundation] The Aqsa Heritage and Endowment Foundation has confirmed that the Israeli "local committee for planning and construction" in the city of Jaffa has conclusively ratified a bid by the Zionist investment company "Nakish" to build a tourist hotel on the site of the Islamic burial grounds of al-Qishleh. The planned hotel building will extend three floors below ground.
In a statement released on Friday 16th April, the al-Aqsa Foundation asserted that it denounced and rejected the decision which effectively authorises the violation of the sanctity of dozens of graves located on the historic Mamluke Islamic burial site of al-Qishleh cemetery.
The statement explained that the Jaffa local committee's decision came on the heels of another decision made by the "local committee" for the Interior Ministry in Liwa' Tel al-Rabee' [Tel Aviv], which had refused various and repeated appeals from the Foundation. This decision means that the city of Jaffa will be forced to witness the disinterment of the bones of dozens of Muslim dead, and the fresh violation of another Muslim burial site.
Occupied Jerusalem - Salim Tayeh
Sheikh Kamal Khatib, deputy head of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, in an interview with Quds Press said: "the recent events in Jerusalem are part of a decided Israeli policy, which are not exceptional, but part of the Zionist project to realize the goal of building the so-called third temple on the ruins of the Aqsa Mosque. This synagogue, (the 'Hurva') which was opened recently comes as a prelude to the building of the temple. We are, therefore, at the front door of a critical, decisive and fateful stage, in regard to Jerusalem in general and the Aqsa Mosque in particular."
Khatib pointed out that: "this project represents the Judaising of the city of Jerusalem and this synagogue is number 60, as it comes after 59 previous synagogues were built in east Jerusalem since 1967. To have 60 synagogues around the Aqsa Mosque in such a small space, confirms that Israel’s aim is to obliterate the Islamic, Arabic, and Palestinian character of this city."
posted by Anonymous @ Sunday, April 18, 2010
If you’re like me, now that we’re in the week that federal income taxes are due, you are finally starting to collect your records and prepare for the ordeal. Either way, whether you are a procrastinator like me, or have already finished and know how much you have paid to the government, it is a good time to stop and consider how much of your money goes to pay for our bloated and largely useless and pointless military.
The budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which has to be voted by Congress by this Oct. 1, looks to be about $3 trillion, not counting the funds collected for Social Security (since the Vietnam War, the government has included the Social Security Trust Fund in the budget as a way to make the cost of America’s imperial military adventures seem smaller in comparison to the total cost of government). Meanwhile, the military share of the budget works out to about $1.6 trillion.
That figure includes the Pentagon budget request of $708 billion, plus an estimated $200 billion in supplemental funding, called “overseas contingency funding” in euphemistic White House-speak), to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some $40 billion or more in “black box” intelligence agency funding, $94 billion in non-DOD military spending (that’s for stuff like the military share of NASA funding, the miilitary operations of the Dept. of Homeland Security and the military activities of the State Dept., etc.), $100 billion in veterans benefits and health care spending, and $400 billion in interest on debt raised to pay for prior wars and the standing military.
The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation-adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out war footing.
This military spending in all its myriad forms represents 53.3% of total US federal spending.
It’s also a budget that is rising at a faster pace than any other part of the budget (with the possible exception of bailing out crooked Wall Street financial firms and their managers). For the past decade, and continuing under the present administration, military budgets have been rising at a 9% annual clip, making health care inflation look tame by comparison.
US military spending isn’t just half of the US budget. It is also half of the entire global spending on war and weaponry. In 2009, according to the venerable War Resisters League, US military spending accounted for 47% of all money spent globally on war, weapons and military preparedness, and that share has certainly risen in the subsequent two years. What makes that staggering figure particularly ridiculous is that America’s allies--countries like France, Britain, Germany, Italy, and Japan--account for another 21% of the world’s military spending. Fully 12 of the top-spenders among big military-spending nations are either allies of the US, or are friendly countries like Brazil and India. That is to say, America and its friends and allies account for more than two-thirds of all military spending worldwide.
Who is the real threat to peace here?
China, in contrast, probably the closest thing to a real “threat” to American interests because of America’s treaty commitments to the island nation of Taiwan, and China’s claim that the island is an integral part of the PRC, spends only some $130 billion on its military, much of which is actually devoted to maintaining military control over the country’s own 1.3 billion people, some of whom might prefer to be independent, or to be freer, if they weren’t under a military jackboot.
The next biggest military spender, Russia, spends less than $80 billion a year on its decrepit military--one-twentieth of the US, and isn’t even technically an enemy of the America anymore. Its military is largely busy keeping restive regions from spinning off from the mother country, anyhow.
Meanwhile Iran, which the White House and Congress are portraying as America’s arch enemy despite its not having invaded another country in hundreds of years, isn’t even on the list of the top 17 military big-spenders. Iran’s current military budget is a teensy $4.8 billion, about the same as the estimated $5 billion spent on the military by North Korea--America’s other “major enemy.” Each of those country’s military budgets is about one-quarter of the military budget of Australia, or a third of the military budget of the Netherlands.
Just to give one an idea of how small $4.8 billion is in comparison to the $1.6 trillion that the US is spending each year on war and planning for war, that number is roughly what the Pentagon plans to spend over the next year on childcare and youth programs, morale and recreation programs and commissaries on its bases! It’s about what the Pentagon will spend acquiring replacement Seahawk, Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters this year.
For the average American, what all this means is that of every dollar you send to the IRS, 53 cents will be going to pay for blowing stuff up, fattening the wallets of colonels, admirals and generals, bloating the portfolios of investors in military industries, and of course funding the bonuses paid to executives of those companies, and the campaign chests and expense accounts of the members of Congress who vote for these outlandish budgets. Your money will also be going to pay for the salaries and the bullets of those brave heroes over in Afghanistan who are executing kids, killing pregnant women (and then digging out the bullets and claiming they were stabbed by their families), and for the anti-personnel weapons that are creating legions of legless Afghan kids.
Next time you hear that the government needs to cut funds for providing medical care to the children of laid-off workers, or that supplemental unemployment funds are running out, next time you hear that federal funds that are needed to fund extra teachers at your school are being cut, or that Social Security benefits need to be cut back, or the retirement age needs to be increased to 70, next time you hear that your local post office has to be shut down for lack of funds, next time you hear that Medicare benefits need to be reduced, think about that 53% of your tax payment that is going to finance the most enormous war machine the world has ever known.
And ask yourself: Is this really necessary? Is this really where I want my money going? Is this really making us safer, or our nation more secure?
Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. He is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation Into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu Jamal. He can be reached at dlindorff@mindspring.com
posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, April 14, 2010
| [ 13/04/2010 - 08:02 AM ] |
 |
| This is the holocaust-carnival season in Israel, or more correctly, the premier annual hasbara event of using the tragic events of World War II to attract sympathy, blackmail the world, and especially divert attention from Israel’s ongoing holocaust against the Palestinian people. |
posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, April 14, 2010
posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, April 14, 2010
