Israel

[joeyconcrete]

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis

 

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

[Lovenotfear]

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis

 

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Most Dangerous Alliance in the World

 

 

Media Beat (7/20/06)

 

By Norman Solomon

 

 

After getting out of Lebanon, writer June Rugh told Reuters: “As an American, I’m embarrassed and ashamed. My administration is letting it happen [by giving] tacit permission for Israel to destroy a country.” The news service quoted another American evacuee, Andrew Muha, who had been in southern Lebanon. He said: “It’s a travesty. There’s a million homeless in Lebanon and the intense amount of bombing has brought an entire country to its knees.”

 

Embarrassing. Shameful. A travesty. Those kinds of words begin to describe the alliance between the United States and Israel. Here are a few more: Government criminality. High-tech terror. Mass murder from the skies. The kind of premeditated action that the U.S. representative in Nuremberg at the International Conference on Military Trials -- Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson -- was talking about on August 12, 1945, when he declared that “no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.”

 

The United States and Israel. Right now, it’s the most dangerous alliance in the world.

 

Of course, Israeli officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Hezbollah and Hamas. And Hezbollah and Hamas officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Israel. Plenty of real crimes to go around. At the same time, by any measure, Israelis have done a lot more killing than dying. (If you doubt that, take a look at the website of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and its documentation of deadly events.)

 

In American media, the current mumbling about the need for “restraint” is little better than window-dressing for bomb-dropping. The prevalent dynamic is based on a chain of rarely spoken lies, however conscious or unconscious: none more important than the lie that a religion can make one life worth more than another; render a human death unimportant; elevate certain war-inflicted agonies to spiritual significance.

 

“Israel has overwhelming military superiority in both southern Lebanon and Gaza,” the New York Times noted in mid-July. A pattern is deeply entrenched in U.S. media and politics: the smaller-scale killers condemned, the larger-scale killers justified with endless rationales.

 

Stripping away the righteous rhetoric, media manipulation and routine journalistic contortions, what remains in joint U.S.-Israeli policy is the unspoken assumption that might makes right. Myths spin around as convenient. Israel ceremoniously “withdraws” from Gaza, only to come back with missiles and troops however and whenever it pleases. The West Bank also continues to be a place of subjugation and resistance. And, as W.H. Auden observed, “Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return.”

 

The Israeli leaders who launched July’s state-of-the-killing-art air assault on Gaza and Lebanon had to know that many civilians would be killed, many others wounded, many more terrorized. The smug moral posturing that Israel’s military does not target specific civilians is moldy political grist -- and, in human terms, irrelevant to the totally predictable carnage.

 

“There are terrorists who will blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives,” President Bush said on July 13. Of course he was referring to actions by Hezbollah and Hamas. We’re supposed to pretend that Israel does not also “blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives.”

 

Israel calls itself a Jewish state, and its leadership often claims to represent the interests of Jewish people. Killers who terrorize often claim to be acting on blessed behalf of others of the faith. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus... By now, such demagoguery ought to be transparent.

 

In the 40th year of Israel’s unconscionable occupation of Palestinian territories, Israeli leaders have their agenda. What’s ours?

 

It should include clearly opposing the most dangerous alliance in the world.

 

In the United States, evading the “might makes right” core of the alliance is easy. The dodge makes dropping bombs on Lebanon and Gaza that much easier for the Israeli government. As usual, you can hear it in the weasel-worded statements from even the better politicians on Capitol Hill. You can read it in New York Times editorials. Instead of saying that aggressive war by Israel “is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy,” the message is that aggressive war by Israel is accepted and embraced as an instrument of policy.

 

Most of all, you can hear it in the silence.

 

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[Chinahand]

Kofi Annan goes on Larry King to explain why though he agrees with Israel's long term aim of a stable Lebanese border he disagrees with how Israel is conducting its campaign.

 

UN News Link

 

“I think on quite a lot of the broad issues there's very little disagreement between us,” the Secretary-General, who met with Condoleezza Rice in New York on Friday evening, told the host of the CNN show “Larry King Live.”

 

Washington and the UN “have no disagreement on the longer-term goals,” he said. “Where we may differ is that I'm prepared to ask for immediate cessation of hostilities to allow us to assist the people, allow the diplomacy to take hold, and it does not exclude a longer-term solution and a longer-term package that would ensure that we do not return to the previous situation.”

 

He stressed that he would not advocate a return to the past. “I am not suggesting that we go back to the previous situation.”

 

Mr. Annan recalled that he has put forward a package of proposals including not only a cessation of hostilities but also a longer-term solution which would include deployment of international forces to the south of Lebanon to stabilize the area and to help the Lebanese Government rebuild its army and expand its authority throughout its own territory.

 

Asked about his characterization that Israel has used “excessive force,” Mr. Annan said if the country “had focused its target narrowly on Hezbollah and Hezbollah targets, it would be understandable. But the extensive bombing of Lebanese civilian infrastructure, of bridges, of the airport, and the blockade imposed on Lebanon, both sea and land, and the destruction of the bridges, making it very difficult for people to move around and eventually going to make it difficult to move in supplies of food, medication and others, is a punishment for the Lebanese people as a whole.”

 

He emphasized that Lebanon, a democratic State, did not support what Hizbollah did. “And, therefore, to punish the people of Lebanon and pressure a democratic Government to a point where it may collapse is a very serious situation,” he cautioned.

[Lovenotfear]

http://decider.cf.huffingtonpost.com/

untitled.bmp

[magneto]

It looks like Israel's ultimate war aim at this stage is regime change in Lebanon (that’s why they are targeting civilian infrastructure, power station’s, water treatment plants etc) which in turn will give it a stronger position to take on Syria in the coming months (google search 'a clean break' its all there). Whilst we condemn Israel for its aggressive tactics we fail to take into account that they are the ‘hard chargers’ of our current Western foreign policy. Any criticism of them is also a criticism of us, our excesses & the politcians we have elected.

 

Although I don't support it ... I try to understand it..

[simon]

[Albert Tatlock]

Mind boggling link Simon! There are people on both sides of this that should be kicked off the planet. They should be ashamed of themselves involving children and other innocents like this. But of course that's the problem, the kids get brainwashed at such an early age on both sides.

[T Reznor]

Mind boggling link Simon! There are people on both sides of this that should be kicked off the planet. They should be ashamed of themselves involving children and other innocents like this. But of course that's the problem, the kids get brainwashed at such an early age on both sides.

 

I've seen many pictures of US military personel doing the same thing. However, the situation is getting worse by the day and I can't help thinking that the neo-cons have been planning this for a while. Remember cheif neo-con Paul Wolfowitz, very pro-Israel is now head of the World Bank, is he financing this conflict? Also worries me that Cheney & Rumsfeld have been very quiet, why?? what are they up to? Gives them the perfect excuse to extend the 'long-war' (as the US now calls it) and gives the neo-cons the opportunity they always want to enforce 'regime-change' on the middle east, god help us if they're trying to spread the 'values' of the current US administration!

 

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

 

and more interesting reading:

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14159.htm

[Albert Tatlock]

Yup! A fiver says it ends with an attack on an Iran 'power station'.

[simon]

I've seen many pictures of US military personel doing the same thing.

 

More about that picture here.

[LoneWolf]

In the 40th year of Israel’s unconscionable occupation of Palestinian territories, Israeli leaders have their agenda. What’s ours?

 

A total load of rubbish. There have never been any Palestinian territories for Israel to occupy.

[Gladys]

Although I don't support it ... I try to understand it..

And, in a nutshell, you have summed up all that is needed to bring about an end to this, and other, conflicts.

[P.K.]

I'm now sure the most prejudiced poster on here is Tugger.

No... it's still Rog (although you're definitely pushing him at times).

By all means show which race, colour or creed I am prejudiced against. Because it's news to me....

 

I still think this is the game plan:

The ones I feel sorry for are the Maronite Christians, the Sunnis and the Druze. They don't want an armed Hezbollah terrorist organisation in their country either but their infrastructure is being wrecked to try and turn Shia opinion against the nutters firing rockets.

 

Because the Lebanese state is so weak and their army mostly Shia i.e. Hezbollah supporters, if they can't be stopped from within then it looks like a UN action to police the south of the country.

 

So I guess from an Isreali standpoint the more they bomb the infrastructure the more pressure goes on Hezbollah supporters and the more pressure is applied on the UN to do something. Looks like a win/win from here.

The usual SOP is to keep your movements concealed from the enemy and to strike where he least expects it. That way you keep your casualties to the minimum. Not so the IDF in this case. They made sure that everyone was aware that they were massing on the border preparing for punitive strikes. They even air-dropped leaflets on the entire area telling non-combatants (sic) to evacuate. From a purely military standpoint it's a strange way to behave. Telling the enemy you are coming will ensure he is ready for you. Telling folks to evacuate the area (Tugger ignore this humanitarian gesture as per usual) is a laudable effort to try and minimise non-combatant casualties. So why guarantee you will have more casualties than if you had followed the usual SOP?

 

The IDF alone cannot instigate regime change. What they are doing is drawing in as many Hezbollah terrorists into the kill zone as they possibly can. In doing so they are giving Hezbollah every opportunity to inflict IDF casualties. The IDf and it's political masters think that the extra casualties are worth it if they can destroy as much of the armed Hezbollah faction as possible. Strange but true Israel is actually enforcing a UN resolution to disarm Hezbollah. That's how I see it at the moment.

 

But at the end of the day all of Israel's neighbours know that if you attack Israel then the response will be robust. The destruction in Lebanon is entirely down to Hezbollah. What, did they think by killing Israeli civilians they were somehow "defending" Lebanon? Of course they weren't, they were deliberately terrorising Israel. The sooner they are removed as a threat to stability the better.

[Albert Tatlock]

The usual SOP is to keep your movements concealed from the enemy and to strike where he least expects it. That way you keep your casualties to the minimum. Not so the IDF in this case. They made sure that everyone was aware that they were massing on the border preparing for punitive strikes. They even air-dropped leaflets on the entire area telling non-combatants (sic) to evacuate. From a purely military standpoint it's a strange way to behave. Telling the enemy you are coming will ensure he is ready for you. Telling folks to evacuate the area (Tugger ignore this humanitarian gesture as per usual) is a laudable effort to try and minimise non-combatant casualties. So why guarantee you will have more casualties than if you had followed the usual SOP?

Hang on a minute. Whether you tell them or not, and people who have nothing to do with this conflict do not leave their homes, it is a WAR CRIME to attack those people (either individuals or their property).

 

The IDF alone cannot instigate regime change. What they are doing is drawing in as many Hezbollah terrorists into the kill zone as they possibly can. In doing so they are giving Hezbollah every opportunity to inflict IDF casualties. The IDf and it's political masters think that the extra casualties are worth it if they can destroy as much of the armed Hezbollah faction as possible. Strange but true Israel is actually enforcing a UN resolution to disarm Hezbollah. That's how I see it at the moment.

Again - sucking fighters into an area which is civilian by nature and then attacking everything that moves in that area indiscrimantely is a WAR CRIME.

 

But at the end of the day all of Israel's neighbours know that if you attack Israel then the response will be robust. The destruction in Lebanon is entirely down to Hezbollah. What, did they think by killing Israeli civilians they were somehow "defending" Lebanon? Of course they weren't, they were deliberately terrorising Israel. The sooner they are removed as a threat to stability the better.

You are generalising by assuming all of the civilian population that are left in this 'killing zone' of yours will have this view and are therefore open to attack. Again this is a WAR CRIME.

 

You don't seem to have learned much P.K. in your time in the forces. If you remember your green card, yellow card etc. soldiers have an individual responsibility under national and international law i.e. individual soldiers can be accused of WAR CRIMES whether following orders or not.

 

Legitimacy under international law is key here.

[Lovenotfear]

In the 40th year of Israel’s unconscionable occupation of Palestinian territories, Israeli leaders have their agenda. What’s ours?

 

A total load of rubbish. There have never been any Palestinian territories for Israel to occupy.