Secret CIA Prisoners Still Missing
Human Rights
By Human Rights Watch
Translation
Digg!
Source: News With Conscience
Washington Should Reveal Fate of People ‘Disappeared’ by US
ImageThe US government should account for all the missing detainees once held by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Human Rights Watch said in a report released.
The 50-page report, “Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention,” contains a detailed description of a secret CIA prison from a Palestinian former detainee who was released from custody last year. Human Rights Watch has also sent a public letter to US President George W. Bush requesting information about the fate and whereabouts of the missing detainees.
“President Bush told us that the last 14 CIA prisoners were sent to Guantanamo, but there are many other prisoners ‘disappeared’ by the CIA whose fate is still unknown,” said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. “The question is: what happened to these people and where are they now?”
In early September, 14 detainees were transferred from secret CIA prisons to military custody at Guantanamo Bay. In a televised speech on September 6, President Bush announced that with those 14 transfers, no prisoners were left in CIA custody.
"The CIA program – and the civilian leaders who created it – have inflicted tremendous harm on the reputation, moral standing, and integrity of the United States. It’s time for President Bush to repudiate this program, and to take steps to repair the damage it has done."
Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch
The former CIA detainee, Marwan Jabour, told Human Rights Watch about a number of other people who were in CIA detention but whose present whereabouts are unknown. Jabour saw one of these men, Algerian terrorism suspect Yassir al-Jazeeri, as recently as July 2006 in CIA custody.
“The Bush administration needs to provide a full accounting of everyone who was ‘disappeared’ into CIA prisons, including their names, locations, and when they left US custody,” Mariner said.
Human Rights Watch’s letter to Bush contained two lists of missing detainees. The first list names 16 people whom Human Rights Watch believes were held in CIA prisons and whose current whereabouts are unknown. The second list names 22 people who may have been held in CIA prisons and whose current whereabouts are unknown.
Human Rights Watch expressed concern about what may have happened to the missing prisoners. One possibility is that the US may have transferred some of them to foreign prisons where they remain under the CIA’s effective control.
Another worrying possibility is that prisoners were transferred from CIA custody to places where they may face torture. A serious concern is that some of the missing prisoners might have been returned to their countries of origin, which include Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Syria, where the torture of terrorism suspects is common.
The new report provides the most comprehensive account to date of life in a secret CIA prison, as well as new information regarding 38 possible detainees. The report explains that these prisoners’ treatment by the CIA constitutes enforced disappearance, a practice that is absolutely prohibited under international law.
Marwan Jabour was arrested by Pakistani authorities in May 2004 in Pakistan and held for more than a month at a secret facility in Islamabad operated by both US and Pakistani personnel, during which time he was badly abused. In June, he was flown to another secret prison, which he believes was in Afghanistan, where all or nearly all of the personnel were American.
His clothes were taken from him when he arrived, and he was left completely naked for a month and a half, including during questioning by women interrogators and filming. He was chained tightly to the wall of his small cell so that he could not stand up, placed in painful stress positions so that he had difficulty breathing, and told that if he did not cooperate he would be put in a suffocating “dog box.”
During the more than two years that he was held in this secret prison, Jabour spent nearly all of his time alone in a windowless cell, with little human contact besides his captors. Although he worried incessantly about his wife and three young daughters, he was not allowed even to send them a letter to reassure them that he was alive.
“It was a grave,” Jabour later told Human Rights Watch. “I felt like my life was over.”
The wife of another former CIA detainee whose whereabouts remain unknown told Human Rights Watch that she has had to lie to her four children about her husband’s “disappearance.” She explained that she could not bear telling them that she did not know where he was.
“What I’m hoping,” she said, “is if they find out their father has been detained, that I’ll at least be able to tell them what country he’s being held in, and in what conditions.”
Enforced disappearance involves arbitrary, secret and incommunicado detention, and poses a serious risk to the right to life and to protection from torture and other mistreatment. As these cases make clear, enforced disappearance also inflicts severe mental pain and suffering on the “disappeared” person’s family.
Human Rights Watch expressed grave concern about President Bush’s stated view that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 permits the government to restart the CIA’s secret prison program. Human Rights Watch called upon the Bush administration to reject the use of secret detention and coercive interrogation as tactics in fighting terrorism, and announce that the CIA’s detention and interrogation program has been permanently discontinued.
“The CIA program – and the civilian leaders who created it – have inflicted tremendous harm on the reputation, moral standing, and integrity of the United States,” Mariner said. “It’s time for President Bush to repudiate this program, and to take steps to repair the damage it has done.”
Trailer for Amnesty Internationals "Outlawed" for a full 27 minute version go to google video
Extraordinary Rendition, Torture and Disappearances in the "War on Terror"
Human rights groups and several public inquiries in Europe ... all » have found the U.S. government, with the complicity of numerous governments worldwide, to be engaged in the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition, secret detention, and torture. The U.S. government-sponsored program of renditions is an unlawful practice in which numerous persons have been illegally detained and secretly flown to third countries, where they have suffered additional human rights abuses including torture and enforced disappearance. No one knows the exact number of persons affected, due to the secrecy under which the operations are carried out. For more information visit
www.witness.org.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
New Constitution Proposed for Israel
The following appeared today on my dear friend Steve's blog Desert Peace. Note that Israel does NOT presently have a constitution, (did you know the Palestinians DO have a constitution? but rather has what are called "Basic Laws" What is MISSING from the Basic Laws is a statement of equality of all citizens of Israel. Equality MUST be present in order for a true democracy to exist.
The myth exists that the Arabs want to "push the Israelis into the sea", when in fact, it is the racist policy of Zionism which the Palestinians, other Arabs, and NON-Zionist Jews themselves point to as the true enemy to peace.
The following was just sent to me by Sam Bahour.... an interesting read about a much talked about subject....
This new report, a third from Israeli Palestinians INSIDE Israel who are citizens of the State of Israel, is a major development. These Palestinians are not living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and E. Jerusalem. They are part and parcel of Israel, Palestinians who never fled in 1948 and 1967.
The news report is below, but the actual text of "The Democratic Constitution" may be found at:
ENGLISH COPY: http://www.adalah.org/eng/democratic_constitution-e.pdf
ARABIC COPY: http://www.adalah.org/ara/democratic_constitution-a.pdf
HEBREW COPY: http://www.adalah.org/heb/democratic_constitution-h.pdf
Source: http://www.adalah.org/eng/index.php
And the following from today's HaAretz...
Israeli Arab group proposes new 'multi-cultural' constitution
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
A proposed constitution written by the Israeli Arab advocacy center, Adalah, states that Arab Knesset members will be able to bring about the disqualification of bills that impinge on the rights of Arabs, and classifies the State of Israel as a "bilingual and multicultural" country rather than a Jewish state.
The proposal, entitled "The Democratic Constitution," also calls for majority and minority groups to split control of the government in such a way that will strengthen the Arab minority on issues relating to the character of the state.
Adalah's version of the constitution essentially abolishes the Jewish elements of Israel, but allows the Jewish majority to maintain its character through educational and cultural institutions. The proposal invalidates the Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to people with at least one Jewish grandparent, and states that citizenship will be granted to those who come to Israel for humanitarian reasons, regardless of their religion.
The document states that the "internal refugees" _ Arab residents and their descendants expelled in 1948 and whose number is estimated at about a quarter of today's Israeli Arab citizens _ will return to the area where they used to live and receive compensation. The introduction to the proposed constitution demands that Israel recognize its responsibility for the "historical injustices that it caused the Palestinian nation in its entirety," withdraw from the territories and recognize the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. The proposal sets the state's borders along the 1967 cease-fire lines.
The proposed constitution grants citizenship to all descendants of Israeli citizens, whether they were born here or abroad, as well as to all spouses of Israeli citizens thereby undermining Israeli efforts to limit marriages between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians living in the territories.
Instead of dealing with the issue of who is a Jew, says Adalah, the proposal deals with the issue of who is a citizen.
Adalah's constitution is the first one proposed by an Arab institution, though there have been many proposed by various Jewish ones. Adalah chairman Prof. Marwan Dwairy said the other proposals are not based on democratic values.
"They relate to Arab citizens like foreigners in this homeland, in which history, memory and collective rights are the legacy of Jews alone," he wrote.
Adalah hopes that its proposal will spur public discourse on the legal and cultural standing of Israeli Arabs.
"If this 'Democratic Constitution' succeeds in highlighting the large gaps that exist between it and the other proposals, and generates dialogue and topical public discussion on the nature of the freedoms and rights in the this country, we will see it as an important step," wrote Dwairy.
According to the proposed constitution, all assets of the Waqf (the Muslim religious trust) that were expropriated after 1948 and all assets seized by the state from Arabs will be returned to their original owners, who will also receive compensation for the period of expropriation. The state must also immediately recognize all unrecognized Arab villages, the proposal states.
The document does not state what the symbols of the country should be, but says that they will be determined either by a Knesset committee, half of whose members will be Arab, or by agreement of 75 percent of Arab MKs.
All official publications, court rulings and media reports will be in both Hebrew and Arabic, according to Adalah. The proposal states that every cultural group, whether religious or ethnic, will be able to run their own institutions, and that national minorities can choose their own representative body, at the state's expense.
The proposed constitution grants the judicial system the authority to overturn any laws that contradict the constitution.
Adalah says that many of its sections are based on international declarations of human rights, and has consulted with legal experts from around the world, including some who were involved in South Africa's changeover from an apartheid state to a democratic one.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/831400.html
"Israel's So-Called Democracy": Israeli professor Benjamin Beit Hallahmi speaking at the Tree of Life Conference 12/06 in CT tells about the basic defects in Israeli democracy
The myth exists that the Arabs want to "push the Israelis into the sea", when in fact, it is the racist policy of Zionism which the Palestinians, other Arabs, and NON-Zionist Jews themselves point to as the true enemy to peace.
NEW CONSTITUTION PROPOSED FOR ISRAEL
The following was just sent to me by Sam Bahour.... an interesting read about a much talked about subject....This new report, a third from Israeli Palestinians INSIDE Israel who are citizens of the State of Israel, is a major development. These Palestinians are not living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and E. Jerusalem. They are part and parcel of Israel, Palestinians who never fled in 1948 and 1967.
The news report is below, but the actual text of "The Democratic Constitution" may be found at:
ENGLISH COPY: http://www.adalah.org/eng/democratic_constitution-e.pdf
ARABIC COPY: http://www.adalah.org/ara/democratic_constitution-a.pdf
HEBREW COPY: http://www.adalah.org/heb/democratic_constitution-h.pdf
Source: http://www.adalah.org/eng/index.php
And the following from today's HaAretz...
Israeli Arab group proposes new 'multi-cultural' constitution
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
A proposed constitution written by the Israeli Arab advocacy center, Adalah, states that Arab Knesset members will be able to bring about the disqualification of bills that impinge on the rights of Arabs, and classifies the State of Israel as a "bilingual and multicultural" country rather than a Jewish state.
The proposal, entitled "The Democratic Constitution," also calls for majority and minority groups to split control of the government in such a way that will strengthen the Arab minority on issues relating to the character of the state.
Adalah's version of the constitution essentially abolishes the Jewish elements of Israel, but allows the Jewish majority to maintain its character through educational and cultural institutions. The proposal invalidates the Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to people with at least one Jewish grandparent, and states that citizenship will be granted to those who come to Israel for humanitarian reasons, regardless of their religion.
The document states that the "internal refugees" _ Arab residents and their descendants expelled in 1948 and whose number is estimated at about a quarter of today's Israeli Arab citizens _ will return to the area where they used to live and receive compensation. The introduction to the proposed constitution demands that Israel recognize its responsibility for the "historical injustices that it caused the Palestinian nation in its entirety," withdraw from the territories and recognize the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. The proposal sets the state's borders along the 1967 cease-fire lines.
The proposed constitution grants citizenship to all descendants of Israeli citizens, whether they were born here or abroad, as well as to all spouses of Israeli citizens thereby undermining Israeli efforts to limit marriages between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians living in the territories.
Instead of dealing with the issue of who is a Jew, says Adalah, the proposal deals with the issue of who is a citizen.
Adalah's constitution is the first one proposed by an Arab institution, though there have been many proposed by various Jewish ones. Adalah chairman Prof. Marwan Dwairy said the other proposals are not based on democratic values.
"They relate to Arab citizens like foreigners in this homeland, in which history, memory and collective rights are the legacy of Jews alone," he wrote.
Adalah hopes that its proposal will spur public discourse on the legal and cultural standing of Israeli Arabs.
"If this 'Democratic Constitution' succeeds in highlighting the large gaps that exist between it and the other proposals, and generates dialogue and topical public discussion on the nature of the freedoms and rights in the this country, we will see it as an important step," wrote Dwairy.
According to the proposed constitution, all assets of the Waqf (the Muslim religious trust) that were expropriated after 1948 and all assets seized by the state from Arabs will be returned to their original owners, who will also receive compensation for the period of expropriation. The state must also immediately recognize all unrecognized Arab villages, the proposal states.
The document does not state what the symbols of the country should be, but says that they will be determined either by a Knesset committee, half of whose members will be Arab, or by agreement of 75 percent of Arab MKs.
All official publications, court rulings and media reports will be in both Hebrew and Arabic, according to Adalah. The proposal states that every cultural group, whether religious or ethnic, will be able to run their own institutions, and that national minorities can choose their own representative body, at the state's expense.
The proposed constitution grants the judicial system the authority to overturn any laws that contradict the constitution.
Adalah says that many of its sections are based on international declarations of human rights, and has consulted with legal experts from around the world, including some who were involved in South Africa's changeover from an apartheid state to a democratic one.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/831400.html
"Israel's So-Called Democracy": Israeli professor Benjamin Beit Hallahmi speaking at the Tree of Life Conference 12/06 in CT tells about the basic defects in Israeli democracy
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
"Leaving Beirut" and "To Kill the Child"
Ah Roger Waters. Ah Pink Floyd. The first time I saw Pink Floyd was in 1972. Then in (I think it was 1974) I saw them again performing "The Wall" concert. Unfortunately I have not seen them since. But to listen to Pink Floyd is to listen to the voice of conscience. I envy musicians who can not only write the lyrics but also the music to move and send a message that must be heard. Below are the lyrics to "Leaving Beirut" and "To Kill the Child". Link here to the interview with Roger Waters himself concerning these two songs and his longing for America to change course.
"Leaving Beirut"
So we left Beirut Willa and I
He headed East to Baghdad and the rest of it
I set out North
I walked the five or six miles to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb side dusk
Holding out my thumb
In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic
Success!
An ancient Mercedes 'dolmus '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi drew up
I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the driver
" J'ai pas de l'argent "
" Venez! " A soft voice from the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the back door
I stooped to look inside at the two men there
One besuited, bespectacled, moustached, irritated, distant, late
The other, the one who had spoken,
Frail, fifty five-ish, bald, sallow, in a short sleeved pale blue cotton shirt
With one biro in the breast pocket
A clerk maybe, slightly sunken in the seat
"Venez!" He said again, and smiled
"Mais j'ai pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"
______________________
Are these the people that we should bomb
Are we so sure they mean us harm
Is this our pleasure, punishment or crime
Is this a mountain that we really want to climb
The road is hard, hard and long
Put down that two by four
This man would never turn you from his door
Oh George! Oh George!
That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small
______________________
He beckoned with a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers together like a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the boot with my rucksack
And off we went
" Vous etes Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, Anglais "
" Ah! Anglais "
" Est-ce que vous parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In small talk between strangers, his French alien but correct
Mine halting but eager to please
A lift, after all, is a lift
Late moustache left us brusquely
And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb
Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of dust
I opened the door and got out
But my benefactor made no move to follow
The driver dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet
And waving away my thanks returned to the boot
Only to reappear with a pair of alloy crutches
Which he leaned against the rear wing of the Mercedes.
He reached into the car and lifted my companion out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur pour nous
Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour manger avec ma femme "
When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She handed me the keys to the car
We motored down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in Antibes by the cops
And fleeced in Naples by the wops
But everyone was kind to us, we were the English dudes
Our dads had helped them win the war
When we all knew what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman abroad is just a US stooge
The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge
______________________
"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not queer
The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No building in sight
What the hell
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced creased in pleasure, he set off in front of me
Swinging his leg between the crutches with agonising care
Up the dusty side road into the darkness
After half an hour we'd gone maybe half a mile
When on the right I made out the low profile of a building
He called out in Arabic to announce our arrival
And after some scuffling inside a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of light in the wide crack under the door
Signalled the approach of someone within
The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp
Stood a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us
She stood aside to let us in and as she turned
I saw the reason for her stoop
She carried on her back a shocking hump
I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for control
The gentleness between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife
Almost too much for me
______________________
Is gentleness too much for us
Should gentleness be filed along with empathy
We feel for someone else's child
Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else's child dies and equities in defence rise
America, America, please hear us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and bustle
You got Atticus Finch
You got Jane Russell
You got freedom of speech
You got great beaches, wildernesses and malls
Don't let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up
For you and the rest of the world
______________________
They talked excitedly
She went to take his crutches in routine of care
He chiding, gestured
We have a guest
She embarrassed by her faux pas
Took my things and laid them gently in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the single room
The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised platform
Some six foot by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots over an open hearth
And brought us tea, hot and sweet
And so to dinner
Flat, unleavened bread, + thin
Cooked in an iron skillet over the open hearth
Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins
My hostess did not eat, I ate her dinner
She would hear of nothing else, I was their guest
And then she retired behind a curtain
And left the men to sit drinking thimbles full of Arak
Carefully poured from a small bottle with a faded label
Soon she reappeared, radiant
Carrying in her arms their pride and joy, their child.
I'd never seen a squint like that
So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its nose
______________________
Not in my name, Tony, you great war leader you
Terror is still terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules
History's not written by the vanquished or the damned
Now we are Genghis Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this child into their home
I wonder what became of them
In the cauldron that was Lebanon
If I could find them now, could I make amends?
How does the story end?
______________________
And so to bed, me that is, not them
Of course they slept on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all night on their earthen bed
Then came the dawn and then their quiet stirrings
Careful not to wake the guest
I yawned in great pretence
And took the proffered bowl of water heated up and washed
And sipped my coffee in its tiny cup
And then with much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We left the woman to her chores
And we men made our way back to the crossroads
The painful slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus duly reappeared
My host gave me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my hand and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I said
" De rien "
" And merci a votre femme, elle est tres gentille "
Giving up his other crutch
He allowed himself to be folded into the back seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he said
And half bowed as the taxi headed south towards the city
I turned North, my guitar over my shoulder
And the first hot gust of wind
Quickly dried the salt tears from my young cheeks.
Lyrics by Roger Waters
"To Kill the Child"
The child lay
In the starlit night
Safe in the glow of his Donald Duck light
How strange to choose to take a life
How strange to choose to kill a child
Hoover, Blaupunkt, Nissan Jeep
Nike, Addidas, Lacoste and cheaper brands
Cadillac, Amtrak, gasoline, diesel
Our standard of living, could this be a reason
That we would choose to kill the child
That we would choose to kill the child
__________
Allah, Jehovah, Buddah, Christ
Confucius and Kali and reds, beans and rice
Goujons of sole, ris de veau, ham hocks
Lox bagels and bones and commandments in stone
The Bible, Koran, Shinto, Islam
Prosciutto, risotto, falafel and ham
Is it dogma, doughnuts, ridicule faith
Fear of the dark, or shame or disgrace
That we would choose to kill the child
That we would choose to kill the child
__________
It's cold in the desert
And the space is too big
The rope is too short
And the walls are too thick
I will show you no weakness
I will mock you in song
Berate and deride you
Belittle and chide you
Beat you with sticks
And bulldoze your home
You can watch my triumphant procession to Rome
Best seat in the house
Up there on the cross
Is it anger or envy, profit or loss
That we would choose to kill the child
That we would choose to kill the child
__________
Take this child and hold him closely
Keep him safe from the holy reign of terror
Take this child hold him closely
Take this child to the moral high ground
Where he can look down on the bigots and bully boys
Slugging it out in the yard
Lyrics by Roger Waters
© 2004 Roger Waters Music Overseas Ltd./Pink Floyd Music Publishers Ltd.
"Leaving Beirut"
"Leaving Beirut"
So we left Beirut Willa and I
He headed East to Baghdad and the rest of it
I set out North
I walked the five or six miles to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb side dusk
Holding out my thumb
In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic
Success!
An ancient Mercedes 'dolmus '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi drew up
I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the driver
" J'ai pas de l'argent "
" Venez! " A soft voice from the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the back door
I stooped to look inside at the two men there
One besuited, bespectacled, moustached, irritated, distant, late
The other, the one who had spoken,
Frail, fifty five-ish, bald, sallow, in a short sleeved pale blue cotton shirt
With one biro in the breast pocket
A clerk maybe, slightly sunken in the seat
"Venez!" He said again, and smiled
"Mais j'ai pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"
______________________
Are these the people that we should bomb
Are we so sure they mean us harm
Is this our pleasure, punishment or crime
Is this a mountain that we really want to climb
The road is hard, hard and long
Put down that two by four
This man would never turn you from his door
Oh George! Oh George!
That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small
______________________
He beckoned with a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers together like a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the boot with my rucksack
And off we went
" Vous etes Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, Anglais "
" Ah! Anglais "
" Est-ce que vous parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In small talk between strangers, his French alien but correct
Mine halting but eager to please
A lift, after all, is a lift
Late moustache left us brusquely
And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb
Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of dust
I opened the door and got out
But my benefactor made no move to follow
The driver dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet
And waving away my thanks returned to the boot
Only to reappear with a pair of alloy crutches
Which he leaned against the rear wing of the Mercedes.
He reached into the car and lifted my companion out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur pour nous
Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour manger avec ma femme "
When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She handed me the keys to the car
We motored down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in Antibes by the cops
And fleeced in Naples by the wops
But everyone was kind to us, we were the English dudes
Our dads had helped them win the war
When we all knew what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman abroad is just a US stooge
The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge
______________________
"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not queer
The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No building in sight
What the hell
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced creased in pleasure, he set off in front of me
Swinging his leg between the crutches with agonising care
Up the dusty side road into the darkness
After half an hour we'd gone maybe half a mile
When on the right I made out the low profile of a building
He called out in Arabic to announce our arrival
And after some scuffling inside a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of light in the wide crack under the door
Signalled the approach of someone within
The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp
Stood a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us
She stood aside to let us in and as she turned
I saw the reason for her stoop
She carried on her back a shocking hump
I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for control
The gentleness between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife
Almost too much for me
______________________
Is gentleness too much for us
Should gentleness be filed along with empathy
We feel for someone else's child
Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else's child dies and equities in defence rise
America, America, please hear us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and bustle
You got Atticus Finch
You got Jane Russell
You got freedom of speech
You got great beaches, wildernesses and malls
Don't let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up
For you and the rest of the world
______________________
They talked excitedly
She went to take his crutches in routine of care
He chiding, gestured
We have a guest
She embarrassed by her faux pas
Took my things and laid them gently in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the single room
The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised platform
Some six foot by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots over an open hearth
And brought us tea, hot and sweet
And so to dinner
Flat, unleavened bread, + thin
Cooked in an iron skillet over the open hearth
Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins
My hostess did not eat, I ate her dinner
She would hear of nothing else, I was their guest
And then she retired behind a curtain
And left the men to sit drinking thimbles full of Arak
Carefully poured from a small bottle with a faded label
Soon she reappeared, radiant
Carrying in her arms their pride and joy, their child.
I'd never seen a squint like that
So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its nose
______________________
Not in my name, Tony, you great war leader you
Terror is still terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules
History's not written by the vanquished or the damned
Now we are Genghis Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this child into their home
I wonder what became of them
In the cauldron that was Lebanon
If I could find them now, could I make amends?
How does the story end?
______________________
And so to bed, me that is, not them
Of course they slept on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all night on their earthen bed
Then came the dawn and then their quiet stirrings
Careful not to wake the guest
I yawned in great pretence
And took the proffered bowl of water heated up and washed
And sipped my coffee in its tiny cup
And then with much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We left the woman to her chores
And we men made our way back to the crossroads
The painful slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus duly reappeared
My host gave me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my hand and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I said
" De rien "
" And merci a votre femme, elle est tres gentille "
Giving up his other crutch
He allowed himself to be folded into the back seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he said
And half bowed as the taxi headed south towards the city
I turned North, my guitar over my shoulder
And the first hot gust of wind
Quickly dried the salt tears from my young cheeks.
Lyrics by Roger Waters
"To Kill the Child"
The child lay
In the starlit night
Safe in the glow of his Donald Duck light
How strange to choose to take a life
How strange to choose to kill a child
Hoover, Blaupunkt, Nissan Jeep
Nike, Addidas, Lacoste and cheaper brands
Cadillac, Amtrak, gasoline, diesel
Our standard of living, could this be a reason
That we would choose to kill the child
That we would choose to kill the child
__________
Allah, Jehovah, Buddah, Christ
Confucius and Kali and reds, beans and rice
Goujons of sole, ris de veau, ham hocks
Lox bagels and bones and commandments in stone
The Bible, Koran, Shinto, Islam
Prosciutto, risotto, falafel and ham
Is it dogma, doughnuts, ridicule faith
Fear of the dark, or shame or disgrace
That we would choose to kill the child
That we would choose to kill the child
__________
It's cold in the desert
And the space is too big
The rope is too short
And the walls are too thick
I will show you no weakness
I will mock you in song
Berate and deride you
Belittle and chide you
Beat you with sticks
And bulldoze your home
You can watch my triumphant procession to Rome
Best seat in the house
Up there on the cross
Is it anger or envy, profit or loss
That we would choose to kill the child
That we would choose to kill the child
__________
Take this child and hold him closely
Keep him safe from the holy reign of terror
Take this child hold him closely
Take this child to the moral high ground
Where he can look down on the bigots and bully boys
Slugging it out in the yard
Lyrics by Roger Waters
© 2004 Roger Waters Music Overseas Ltd./Pink Floyd Music Publishers Ltd.
"Leaving Beirut"
Monday, February 26, 2007
Personne ne s'en sort vivant : Le refus des Américain s de regarder dans le miroir annonce notre propre chute
Today I received an email from Daniel Patrick Welsh, the author of the essay posted under the title of "American Hypocrits: An Essay by Daniel Patrick Welsh" "No One Gets Out Alive: Americans Refusal to Look in the Mirror Presages Our Own Demise" asking me if my blog posts in French and if it does he sent me the French translation to his essay. So Danny, I would be more than happy to post your essay here in French because I think it is one of the best essays I have read concerning our own inability to look in the mirror. Americans, we MUST look at ourselves as a party to the mess our country is in. For years we have been meddling in the affairs of other nations, this is a WELL known fact. But unless we are able to be self-critical as a nation, it WILL be our demise, for to continue down the path we are going is nothing less than destructive to ALL nations, INCLUDING our own.
Personne ne s'en sort vivant :
Le refus des Américains de regarder dans le miroir annonce notre
propre chute
Résumé : L’écrivain américain, Daniel Patrick Welch, affirme que ce
ne sont pas uniquement ces fous bornés à Washington, mais les
aspects bien ancrés de la culture et de la politique américaine, et
plus particulièrement cette foi inébranlable des Américains en notre
propre noblesse, qui nous mène vers le dernier chapitre de la guerre
mondiale.
par Daniel Patrick Welch
http://danielpwelch.com -
J’éprouve souvent un plaisir douteux à écouter les libéraux snobs
pleurnicher sur leur “malaise” devant ce qu’ils appellent la “culture
arabe”. Il existe chez les Américains un phénomène surprenant,
tellement convaincus de notre propre supériorité que nous pouvons
être à la fois totalement ignorants par rapport au monde que nous
dominons et en même temps ne montrer absolument aucun intérêt pour
notre propre histoire, culture et société. Le problème c’est qu’il
faut piger – plus de passe-droit pour les libéraux et les soi-
disant « progressistes » qui préfèrent critiquer les cultures des
autres ou confiner leur colère intérieure à la cabale dans la Maison
Blanche.
Nonobstant les innombrables crimes de guerre commis par ces voyous
faschistes, leur petite entreprise aurait périclité sans la
complicité totale, sans mentionner au début, leurs « amis de l’autre
bord », l’autre moitié du Parti américain pour la Guerre. Ce moment
glorieux et historique de l’histoire des Etats-Unis n’aurait pu avoir
lieu sans des décennies d’entraînement, de pression sur la classe
ouvrière pour qu’elle se laisse embrigader dans les forces armées «
volontaires », et ainsi en militarisant tout ce qui pouvait l’être
dans notre société depuis la mode pour les enfants et les jouets
jusqu’aux budgets en croissance du Pentagone de toutes nos grandes
universités. Promenez vous dans les allées de votre magasin de
jouets, dans les rayons pour les garçons, remplis de chars et de
bombardiers en plastique qui sont même vendus avec des missiles
détachables. Prenez une chemise camouflage, un bandeau ou un sac
d’école, ou n’importe quel autre objet qui peut servir à faire
comprendre à nos enfants la notion que les guerriers que l’on
rencontre partout sont détendus et à la mode. Nous sommes une culture
sur le chemin de la guerre, bien que le terme de culture soit à
utiliser de manière large.
Nous avons longtemps été méprisés dans le monde à cause de notre
manque de culture, et il est peut-être peu surprenant que nous ayons
facilité le vol à grande échelle de certains des trésors culturels
anciens de la civilisation en Irak, ou que nous ayons participé à la
désintégration par la guerre aérienne d’une autre culture ancienne de
la Méditerranée au Liban. Pendant se temps, les libéraux parlent et
se moquent de la manière dont les Arabes traitent les femmes,
empêchés peut-être par leur « malaise » de mettre un terme à cet
holocauste à venir contre l’Iran. La classe moyenne américaine (ne
dites pas ‘bourgeoisie’ sinon vous serez traité de communiste) semble
se complaire dans ce tremblement ; et pourtant elle détient la
richesse et le pouvoir nécessaires pour imposer un changement à la
politique américaine. « Usted no es nada », a un jour déclaré Victor
Jara en critiquant la classe moyenne chilienne. « No es chicha ni
limonada ». Au la pointe de l’histoire, ils auraient pu agir pour
empêcher le règne meurtrier de Pinochet. Mais ils étaient dans leur
petit confort, trop craintifs, trop tremblants.
Les Arabes don’t nous parlons sont en réalité des Perses, mais cette
différence signifie peu de chose quand on parle des autres. Combien
de femmes musulmanes ont été tuées par des bombes et des balles
américaines et israéliennes ? Combien de femmes et d’enfants ont été
affamés et maintenus dans une pauvreté meurtrière par les politiques
soutenues par les Etats-Unis de la Banque mondiale et du FMI ? Peu
importe : les Américains sont aveugles et ne voient pas ces chiffres
puisque nous sommes la cause de la mort de la culture tout autour de
nous. Notre appétit glouton national ruine nos propres vies, tuent
nos ressources naturelles, et même notre propre planète. Nous
soutenons et tentons de nous développer dans une culture qui a grandi
en accusant la victime d’une science sociale sophistiquée, de ceux
qui ont réussi à échapper à notre atroce génocide jusqu’aux vestiges
de notre population d’esclaves importés . La façon dont les Etats-
Unis traitent les immigrants, les ouvriers, les minorités, les
enfants, est la pire de toutes celles du monde dit civilisé que nous
prétendons représenter.
Et lorsque la poussière d’uranium des bombes lâchées au-dessus de
l’Iran est soufflée au-dessus de l’Asie, est-ce que les libéraux
pleureront la mort qui aurait pu être évitée des femmes musulmanes,
des femmes indoues et de leurs enfants dont l’air, l’eau et le corps
seront empoisonnés et ce pour des siècles à venir ? Cette guerre a
déjà commencé : n’importe quel idiot peut le voir dans cette folie
véhiculée par la presse que l’on fait ingurgiter aux Américains. Mais
nous sommes experts dans ce qui est de chercher la critique ailleurs.
Les chefs du Congrès pontifient sur l’Irak, quatre ans après le
tournant : la guerre en Iran a commencé lorsque la légende de la
statue renversée de Saddam Hussein parlait de « libération » de
l’Irak, et ce dans toute la presse complaisante.
En fait, cette pornographie guerrière concerne tout ce qui est au
menu d’une culture dans laquelle les nouvelles expressions copient à
l’identique les photos des “installations nucléaires suspectes” en
Iran et en Corée du Nord. Cela ne fait aucune différence lorsque ce
qui passe pour du journalisme est presque exclusivement du
remplissage qui consiste à utiliser de l’espace entre la pub.
Et les maquereaux de la guerre des deux bords sont ravis de rentrer
dans le jeu, cherchant les mots vides qui correspondent à la furie
pour dire rapidement des choses qui ne veulent rien dire. Lorsque le
parti au pouvoir n’arrive pas à obtenir un débat sur une résolution
non contraignante, c’est parce qu’il n’essaie pas – et pire, il ne
veut pas. Mais il ferait mieux d’essayer : la BBC a récemment rendu
publique une histoire qui prédit que les membres du Congrès
américain, si les Américains devaient attaquer l’Iran, seraient
arrêtés et placés en détention s’ils s’aventuraient dans les
capitales de l’Europe occidentale.
Même ce pantin de Tony Blair annonce ses projets de se retirer
d’Irak. Les Anglais auraient-ils l’intention d’éviter de se faire
embringuer dans le massacre qui s’annonce ? Il n’y aura pas de
possibilité de fuir de cet Armageddon : les Démocrates sont déjà pris
complètement dans le sang. Et personne n’a la moyenne cette fois. Les
Américains devront abandonner cette fantaisie que nous avons d’être
une nation noble, d’être ceux qui portent la coiffe blanche. Mais
c’est précisément ce mythe qui garde la bulle intacte : si nous
devions rencontrer l’ennemi de Pogo dans le miroir, toute cette
entreprise éclaterait. Sans croisade et une destinée auto-importante,
notre quête pour la domination du monde ressemblerait plus à celle de
Genghis Khan que ce que nous souhaitons.
Binyamin Netanyahoo, parlant de maquereaux de guerre, et autres cris
parlent de manière absolument perverse pour dire que cela ressemble à
1938, et que l’Iran est le Troisième Reich, mensonge historique que
même Condi ne va pas avaler. Ce devrait être un signe de la stupidité
de l’analogie, pas une mesure de clareté de la part de Rice. Mais
l’opposition loyale reste attachée à la théorie de la coiffe blanche,
à tel point que la coiffe tombe sur les yeux et nous aveugle. Ce
n’est qu’en enlevant cette coiffe que nous commençons à voir que
l’analogie n’est pas seulement fausse, mais arrierée : c’est nous
(par le biais de nos « alliés » israéliens) qui avons détruit le
Liban pendant que le monde restait à regarder sans réagir. Le monde
regarde la souffrance de la Palestine et des Palestiniens qui peu à
peu sont rayés de la carte ; il nous regarde détruire l’Irak ; et
maintenant détruire l’Iran ?
Regardez dans le miroir de Pogo et dites quelle culture vous met mal
à l’aise.
Traduit par Marie Wagner
© 2007 Daniel Patrick Welch. Autorisation de réimprimer accordée avec
crédits et liens site http://danielpwelch.com. Ecrivain, chanteur,
linguiste et activiste, Daniel Patrick Welch vit et écrit à Salem,
Massachusetts, avec son épouse, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Ensemble
ils dirigent The Greenhouse School http://www.greenhouseschool.org.
Les articles sont traduits en 20 langues. Nous avons besoin de vos
remarques sur le site à l’adresse http://danielpwelch.com.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Taghrid Shbita and Daphe Banai Spoke Together Today
Today I had the pleasure of attending an event in Culver City hosted by the Sholem Center, Women in Black, and the American Friends Service Committee at which Taghrid Shbita, an Arab-Israeli human rights attorney and former candidate to the Knesset for HADASH and Daphne Banai, a founding member of Machsom Watch (checkpoint watch) spoke together. The two women spoke about the alliances they have formed to build a process whereby Israelis and Palestinians work together towards peace, justice and understanding leading to real security for all peoples of the region.
A gentleman from the Sholem Community introduced the two women. When he stood to speak he said, "We are a community of secular Jews who refuse to see ourselves as chosen" What a refreshing statement!! Zionists would like the world to believe that all Jews are Zionists but this is simply NOT the case.
Taghrid spoke to us first. She explained that in 1948. there were approximately 950,000 Palestinians living within present day Israel. When the Nakba occured, some 800,000 Palestinians fled the country believing they would be able to return. We know that was not the case, but approximately 150,000 Palestinians remained and they and their descendents now make up roughly 20% of the population of Israel. But of those who remained, many became internal refugees, uprooted from their homes and forced to move to other villages. Taghrid's own family remained in Tira. In 1948 her uncle was a student in Cairo and when the census was taken, he was not counted, therefor, he was unable to return as were all the Palestinians who were not counted in that census. Taghrid's husband was from another village, Misque (I think that's what she said). They were not able to stay in their village because it was unsafe to do so. In 1952, her husband's family went to Ben Gurion to ask for permission to return to their village. He refused to see them and the next day the entire village was razed. What was once 12,ooo acres of land was reduced to 2,000 through land confiscation laws. Every year they return to the village twice, on Nakba Day and Balfour Day. The former villagers and their descendents meet together and the elders tell the younger ones what happened and where their houses stood. Taghrid told us that this keeps the NEED alive in her children, because they FEEL they NEED to live where they formally lived. The land is empty, why can't they build there? But the Israelis will not allow them. Why I ask? Why? This is thievery and discrimination at it's worst.
Taghrid also spoke of the myth of Israeli democracy. Because Israel was founded as a JEWISH state, all others, NON-Jews as they are referred as, do not share the same rights. They cannot marry a Palestinian from elsewhere and have them move to live with them in Israel. Their family who left in 1948 with the plan to return home, they are not allowed yet Jews from anywhere "who cannot even find Israel on a map" are allowed to live in Israel and become instant citizens under the Law of Return. Laws have been created to KEEP Israel Jewish, and therefor, this is NOT a democracy. The Land Laws which restrict Arab land ownership are also discriminatory. (If you are an American and are reading here, please note, NONE of this is allowable in our own country!! Yet we hold Israel as our friend, support it financially, militarily and refer to it as the only democracy in the Middle East. I'd like you to think about that thought if you believe it.)
She also spoke of the fact that Israel does not have a constitution:
She spoke also of the political party rules and regulations:
Palestinian Arabs rights to run for elections to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, are also limited by their acceptance of the notion of the Jewish state. These limits are expressed in the Law of Political Parties (1992) and, in particular, the amendment of section 7A(1) of the Basic Law: The Knesset which prevents candidates from participating in the elections if their platform suggests the "denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." Under this section a party platform that challenges the Jewish character of the state, that for example calls for full and complete equality between Jews and Arabs in a state for all its citizens, can be disqualified, as lists have been in the past.(4) The law demands that Palestinian Arab citizens may not challenge the state's Zionist identity.
She spoke also of participation in the military. If you do not enlist in the military you do not enjoy the benefits (medical, housing, pension, etc). But on a personal level, her daughter applied for a job at a boutique. When the shop owner asked her if she had served and she replied no, the shop owner immediately denied her the job based on this alone. Her daughter had NO recourse to this discrimination.
In closing, Taghrid addressed the Sholem Community by telling them "I want you to KNOW about this, because maybe if you know, you will want to change it. It cannot remain the same. We are so separated, if you want to meet, it takes so much effort. We do not meet in schools, not in clubs, nowhere. Everyone must ASK for democracy. I am THERE, I am NOT GOING TO LEAVE, it is MY HOME. I am not just complaining, I believe in mixing. Join the Jewish WITH the Palestinians in Israel. We need you as Americans to ask Israel to be democratic. We MUST ask you do this. It's in BOTH party's interest"
Next, Daphne Banai spoke. She is a founding member of Machsom Watch, a group of 400 women who go every day to the checkpoints in the West Bank to try to both document abuses and try to help the Palestinians. She began by stating, "I am an Israeli who CARES about my country. The occupation is WRONG. My best friend doesn't have the same rights that I do, andI cannot live with that.. Most Israelis ignore the occupation and the problem of Arab-Israelis not having the same rights, they are not considered fully human beings. You MUST turn to your congressman to stop supporting this because the pressure will not come from within Israel, it will ONLY come from outside, from America. "
She spoke of the many checkpoints in the West Bank, and that 85% of them are WITHIN the West Bank, NOT between Israel and the West Bank. She showed pictures of not only the checkpoints but also of mounds of dirt and concrete blocks blocking the roads so that the Palestinians cannot drive past them and are forced to walk, no matter how old or infirm. Since 1967 no building permits have been issued in the West Bank, so most buildings are illegal. The IOF can tear down any building they deem necessary (or just for retribution). Some have been torn down to make way for the wall, others to erect illegal settlements and for the Jewish only roads. In addition, the IOF can seize any house they wish for up to three months. In that case, the family is forced to move out without warning. In one case, a settlement complained that the wall was blocking their view and the sunlight, so the Israeli government simply moved the wall to where it completely surrounds a Palestinian home surrounded in barbed wire. Often times the settlers climb up the wall and hurl rocks at the Palestinian family living there.
Dahpne spoke to us of the Palestinian fear of their group because they are Israeli. She read to us an email from a Palestinian woman that Machsom had helped at a checkpoint. I will paraphrase, "When I first saw you, I thought no, no, I cannot get near her, she is Israeli, no no, they have killed us, they have killed my family, I cannot let my guard down. But as I saw that you were there to help and I so needed help, I listened and asked Allah to protect me. Now you were there and I want to thank you as one human being to another for helping me today"
Daphne also told us a telling story. When her son was in elementary school, his teacher called her about him being bullied at school. The teacher asked her, "What kind of soldier is your son going to grow up to be" I find this UTTERLY amazing that a teacher would react in this way. But Daphne told the audience (as I have heard also from other Israelis) that Israeli society is highly militaristic. In elementary school?!! Daphne said that it is nearly impossible to speak to soldiers while they are serving, that they follow orders no matter what and have a disconnection from what they are doing but that many after serving have severe psychological problems. I suggest they have severe psycological problems to begin with if they think they can treat people in this manner no matter WHO tells them to.
In closing, questions were asked. Of course there was a trouble maker who wanted to raise his own voice against these women's efforts towards peace. He said something to the affect, "What do you expect Israel to do with suicide bombings." Daphne spoke to this, her son had been wounded in an incident. It did not stop her, just as Abir's death has not stopped Bassam Aramin in his quest for peace . Let us all pray that NOTHING stops the quest for peace.
Note: Please read "The Future Vision of Palestinian Arabs in Israel" a report issued in December 2006
A gentleman from the Sholem Community introduced the two women. When he stood to speak he said, "We are a community of secular Jews who refuse to see ourselves as chosen" What a refreshing statement!! Zionists would like the world to believe that all Jews are Zionists but this is simply NOT the case.
Taghrid spoke to us first. She explained that in 1948. there were approximately 950,000 Palestinians living within present day Israel. When the Nakba occured, some 800,000 Palestinians fled the country believing they would be able to return. We know that was not the case, but approximately 150,000 Palestinians remained and they and their descendents now make up roughly 20% of the population of Israel. But of those who remained, many became internal refugees, uprooted from their homes and forced to move to other villages. Taghrid's own family remained in Tira. In 1948 her uncle was a student in Cairo and when the census was taken, he was not counted, therefor, he was unable to return as were all the Palestinians who were not counted in that census. Taghrid's husband was from another village, Misque (I think that's what she said). They were not able to stay in their village because it was unsafe to do so. In 1952, her husband's family went to Ben Gurion to ask for permission to return to their village. He refused to see them and the next day the entire village was razed. What was once 12,ooo acres of land was reduced to 2,000 through land confiscation laws. Every year they return to the village twice, on Nakba Day and Balfour Day. The former villagers and their descendents meet together and the elders tell the younger ones what happened and where their houses stood. Taghrid told us that this keeps the NEED alive in her children, because they FEEL they NEED to live where they formally lived. The land is empty, why can't they build there? But the Israelis will not allow them. Why I ask? Why? This is thievery and discrimination at it's worst.
Taghrid also spoke of the myth of Israeli democracy. Because Israel was founded as a JEWISH state, all others, NON-Jews as they are referred as, do not share the same rights. They cannot marry a Palestinian from elsewhere and have them move to live with them in Israel. Their family who left in 1948 with the plan to return home, they are not allowed yet Jews from anywhere "who cannot even find Israel on a map" are allowed to live in Israel and become instant citizens under the Law of Return. Laws have been created to KEEP Israel Jewish, and therefor, this is NOT a democracy. The Land Laws which restrict Arab land ownership are also discriminatory. (If you are an American and are reading here, please note, NONE of this is allowable in our own country!! Yet we hold Israel as our friend, support it financially, militarily and refer to it as the only democracy in the Middle East. I'd like you to think about that thought if you believe it.)
She also spoke of the fact that Israel does not have a constitution:
Israel does not have a formal constitution, but has drawn up a series of Basic Laws that form a constitution in evolution. Prior to 1992, none of these Basic Laws guaranteed any basic rights. However, in 1992 the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom was passed (2) which subsequently authorised courts to overturn Knesset laws that were contrary to the right to dignity, life, freedom, privacy, property and the right to leave and enter the country.
Specifically, however, it did not include the right to equality. Further, section 1A of the law states that it aims to anchor "the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." Given the lack of an explicit law that constitutionally protects equality for all citizens, this emphasis on the Jewishness of the State again compromised the equal rights protection for the Palestinian Arab minority.She spoke also of the political party rules and regulations:
Palestinian Arabs rights to run for elections to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, are also limited by their acceptance of the notion of the Jewish state. These limits are expressed in the Law of Political Parties (1992) and, in particular, the amendment of section 7A(1) of the Basic Law: The Knesset which prevents candidates from participating in the elections if their platform suggests the "denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." Under this section a party platform that challenges the Jewish character of the state, that for example calls for full and complete equality between Jews and Arabs in a state for all its citizens, can be disqualified, as lists have been in the past.(4) The law demands that Palestinian Arab citizens may not challenge the state's Zionist identity.
She spoke also of participation in the military. If you do not enlist in the military you do not enjoy the benefits (medical, housing, pension, etc). But on a personal level, her daughter applied for a job at a boutique. When the shop owner asked her if she had served and she replied no, the shop owner immediately denied her the job based on this alone. Her daughter had NO recourse to this discrimination.
In closing, Taghrid addressed the Sholem Community by telling them "I want you to KNOW about this, because maybe if you know, you will want to change it. It cannot remain the same. We are so separated, if you want to meet, it takes so much effort. We do not meet in schools, not in clubs, nowhere. Everyone must ASK for democracy. I am THERE, I am NOT GOING TO LEAVE, it is MY HOME. I am not just complaining, I believe in mixing. Join the Jewish WITH the Palestinians in Israel. We need you as Americans to ask Israel to be democratic. We MUST ask you do this. It's in BOTH party's interest"
Next, Daphne Banai spoke. She is a founding member of Machsom Watch, a group of 400 women who go every day to the checkpoints in the West Bank to try to both document abuses and try to help the Palestinians. She began by stating, "I am an Israeli who CARES about my country. The occupation is WRONG. My best friend doesn't have the same rights that I do, andI cannot live with that.. Most Israelis ignore the occupation and the problem of Arab-Israelis not having the same rights, they are not considered fully human beings. You MUST turn to your congressman to stop supporting this because the pressure will not come from within Israel, it will ONLY come from outside, from America. "
She spoke of the many checkpoints in the West Bank, and that 85% of them are WITHIN the West Bank, NOT between Israel and the West Bank. She showed pictures of not only the checkpoints but also of mounds of dirt and concrete blocks blocking the roads so that the Palestinians cannot drive past them and are forced to walk, no matter how old or infirm. Since 1967 no building permits have been issued in the West Bank, so most buildings are illegal. The IOF can tear down any building they deem necessary (or just for retribution). Some have been torn down to make way for the wall, others to erect illegal settlements and for the Jewish only roads. In addition, the IOF can seize any house they wish for up to three months. In that case, the family is forced to move out without warning. In one case, a settlement complained that the wall was blocking their view and the sunlight, so the Israeli government simply moved the wall to where it completely surrounds a Palestinian home surrounded in barbed wire. Often times the settlers climb up the wall and hurl rocks at the Palestinian family living there.
Dahpne spoke to us of the Palestinian fear of their group because they are Israeli. She read to us an email from a Palestinian woman that Machsom had helped at a checkpoint. I will paraphrase, "When I first saw you, I thought no, no, I cannot get near her, she is Israeli, no no, they have killed us, they have killed my family, I cannot let my guard down. But as I saw that you were there to help and I so needed help, I listened and asked Allah to protect me. Now you were there and I want to thank you as one human being to another for helping me today"
Daphne also told us a telling story. When her son was in elementary school, his teacher called her about him being bullied at school. The teacher asked her, "What kind of soldier is your son going to grow up to be" I find this UTTERLY amazing that a teacher would react in this way. But Daphne told the audience (as I have heard also from other Israelis) that Israeli society is highly militaristic. In elementary school?!! Daphne said that it is nearly impossible to speak to soldiers while they are serving, that they follow orders no matter what and have a disconnection from what they are doing but that many after serving have severe psychological problems. I suggest they have severe psycological problems to begin with if they think they can treat people in this manner no matter WHO tells them to.
In closing, questions were asked. Of course there was a trouble maker who wanted to raise his own voice against these women's efforts towards peace. He said something to the affect, "What do you expect Israel to do with suicide bombings." Daphne spoke to this, her son had been wounded in an incident. It did not stop her, just as Abir's death has not stopped Bassam Aramin in his quest for peace . Let us all pray that NOTHING stops the quest for peace.
Note: Please read "The Future Vision of Palestinian Arabs in Israel" a report issued in December 2006
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Cluster Bombs
IndyStar.com Metro & State Nation/World
February 24, 2007
46 countries to pursue treaty on cluster bombs
U.S., China, Russia oppose global plan to ban bomblets that can lie dormant for years
By Doug Mellgren
Associated Press
OSLO, Norway -- Forty-six countries agreed Friday to push for a global treaty banning cluster bombs, a move activists hope will force the superpowers that oppose the effort -- the U.S., China and Russia -- to abandon the weapons.
Leading the way: Raymond Johansen, Norway's deputy foreign minister, co-chaired this week's Oslo conference on cluster bombs. - Jarl Fr. Erichsen / Associated Press
Organizers said the declaration was needed despite the absence of key nations to avoid a potential humanitarian disaster posed by unexploded cluster munitions.
Cluster bomblets are packed by the hundreds into artillery shells, bombs or missiles which scatter them over vast areas; some fail to explode immediately. The unexploded bomblets can then lie dormant for years until they are disturbed, often by children attracted by their small size and bright colors.
Of the 49 countries attending the Oslo conference, only three -- Japan, Poland and Romania -- rejected the declaration calling for a treaty by next year. Some key arms makers -- including the U.S., Russia, Israel and China -- snubbed the conference.
But even deeply skeptical nations, including Canada, Britain and Germany, were swayed to join the Norwegian-led initiative in what activists hailed as a major step forward.
Jody Williams, an American who shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for a global campaign to ban land mines, urged nations supporting a cluster bomb treaty to move ahead without the major powers.
"They should do it the same way, with countries that realize that there are 191 countries in the world, and not just three," she told The Associated Press.
Last summer's Israel-Hezbollah war brought the munitions to the international agenda. The U.N. estimated Israel dropped up to 4 million bomblets in southern Lebanon during the conflict, with as many 40 percent failing to explode on impact.
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said Israel did not use any munitions that were outlawed by international treaties or law.
Countries opposed to the Oslo conference say cluster bombs are being discussed under the U.N. Convention on Conventional Weapons.
A report from Lebanon by George T. Cody
Executive Director, American Task Force on Lebanon
December 10, 2006
http://www.atfl.org/index.shtml
"Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz plans to appoint a major general to investigate the use of cluster bombs-some of which were fired against his order-during the Lebanon war. Halutz ordered the IDF to use cluster bombs with extreme caution and not to fire them into populated areas. Nonetheless, it did so anyway, primarily using artillery batteries and Multiple Launch System (MRLS) . IDF artillery, MRLS and aircraft are thought to have delivered thousands of cluster bombs, containing a total of some four million bomblets during the war." Ha'aretz (Israeli daily newspaper) November 20, 2006
On my ten-day trip to Lebanon, I learned that the "very high price" that Israel imposed on Lebanon is still being paid. Lebanese civilians, many of them children, continue to be killed and maimed by unexploded Israeli cluster bomblets-a million of them-which Israel fired during the summer war with Hezbollah. Here is some of what I learned on my trip.
Unexploded Ordnanced Left by Israel: Where is the Accountability?
In the summer war, Israel dropped an estimated 1.2to 4 million cluster "bomblets" on Lebanon from rockets, artillery, and airplanes. The UN estimates that Israel fired 90 percent of those munition in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when Israel knew that the ceasefire (UN Security Council Resolution 1701) was imminent.
The United Nations estimates a 30% to 40% actual failure rate for cluster bomblets in Lebanon, leaving them to kill and maim innocent Lebanese. According to officials I spoke to at the Mine Action Coordination Centre of South Lebanon (MACC-SL), the UN agency responsible for removing unexploded ordnance in Lebanon,23 people have been killed and another 136 injured from unexploded ordnance in Lebanon since August 14, when hostilities ended.
As of November 29, MACC-SL has identified 824 cluster bomb locations in the south, and with the help of UNIFIL engineers and the Lebanese Armed Forces, they have cleared 78,738 unexploded bomblets (about 8% of the total). As MACC-SL spoleswoman Dalya Farran told me, however, not one of the 824 bomb-strewn sites has been fully cleared yet.
What are cluster munitions?
Cluster munitions are bombs or rockets that contain 200 to 600 smaller bombs, or "bomblets" that are designed to scatter over a wide area when t he larger bomb is detonated. Bomblets are typically the size of a soda can or a D-cell battery and are designed to explode soon after impact. But not all of them do. Instead, unexploded bombs often litter the target area-silent and nondescript-until picked up by a child, kicked by a passerby, or stepped on by an unsuspecting farmer or grazing animal. They are hidden killers.
Who clears the bomblets? How is it done?
On October 28th, I met with officials at the MACC-SL office in Tyre. They escorted me to a banana grove near Ismaieyeh and introduced me to the eight[person UN Battle Area Clearance (BAC) team responsible for clearing the unexploded cluster bomblets scattered throughout the site.
Unexploded bomblets are detonated by hand or by special charges that are placed next to the ordnance and then exploded. One of the big problems is obtaining enough explosives to detonate bomblets in teh field. The explosives are imported in bulk but are not manufactuerd quickly enough to meet the need.
The UN officials then escorted me within inches of "live" cluster bombs that had been marked and surrounded by sand bags for later detonation.
How Extensive is the damage?
According to the UN, the cluster bomb contamination in Lebanon is the worst ever seen, worse than the contamination in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The reason for this is the sheer volume of cluster bombs droppped on a "postage stamp" size country like Lebanon. There will be a residual landmine and unexploded ordnance problem in Lebanon for years to come.
Seventy percent of south Lebanon's economy is based on agriculture, mostly tobacco, olives, bananas, citrus fruit and melons. Farmers cannot tend their fields because the bombing and shelling have destroyed crops, and they cannot plant spring crops because the fields and orchards are still contaminated by unexploded cluster bombs.
It has taken three months to locat and clear about 8% of the total estimated bomblets. About 32,000,000 square meters of land in Lebanon are currently contaminated. It will take 50 Bttle Area Clearance (BAC) teams, from the current 38 teams (10-15 persons per team) working 20 days per month, almost a year to clear and "break the back" of the cluster bomb problem to the point where killing will stop and agricultural production can resume.
The above clearing plan depends on adequate funding. The program will be short $7 million to $8 million, with current outlays expected to run out in mid-2007, unless funding continues. A number of countries (including Australia, Canad, Chile and member of the European Union) have provided initial funding. The UAE has provided $20 million. and the US has provided $2 million of a $7 million aid pledge.
Why won't Israel give up the bombing site coordinates to the UN?
The UN has been "SCREAMING" for information on where Israel fired cluster bombs. Israel is reluctant to give up battlefield information that would provide the dates and coordinates, because this would leave them open to international scrutiny on it's use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.
Join the campaign to stop the carnage in Lebanon and ban the cluster bomb by signing the following petition.
"South Lebanon: 100,000 Unexploded Bombs"
February 24, 2007
46 countries to pursue treaty on cluster bombs
U.S., China, Russia oppose global plan to ban bomblets that can lie dormant for years
By Doug Mellgren
Associated Press
OSLO, Norway -- Forty-six countries agreed Friday to push for a global treaty banning cluster bombs, a move activists hope will force the superpowers that oppose the effort -- the U.S., China and Russia -- to abandon the weapons.
Leading the way: Raymond Johansen, Norway's deputy foreign minister, co-chaired this week's Oslo conference on cluster bombs. - Jarl Fr. Erichsen / Associated Press
Organizers said the declaration was needed despite the absence of key nations to avoid a potential humanitarian disaster posed by unexploded cluster munitions.
Cluster bomblets are packed by the hundreds into artillery shells, bombs or missiles which scatter them over vast areas; some fail to explode immediately. The unexploded bomblets can then lie dormant for years until they are disturbed, often by children attracted by their small size and bright colors.
Of the 49 countries attending the Oslo conference, only three -- Japan, Poland and Romania -- rejected the declaration calling for a treaty by next year. Some key arms makers -- including the U.S., Russia, Israel and China -- snubbed the conference.
But even deeply skeptical nations, including Canada, Britain and Germany, were swayed to join the Norwegian-led initiative in what activists hailed as a major step forward.
Jody Williams, an American who shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for a global campaign to ban land mines, urged nations supporting a cluster bomb treaty to move ahead without the major powers.
"They should do it the same way, with countries that realize that there are 191 countries in the world, and not just three," she told The Associated Press.
Last summer's Israel-Hezbollah war brought the munitions to the international agenda. The U.N. estimated Israel dropped up to 4 million bomblets in southern Lebanon during the conflict, with as many 40 percent failing to explode on impact.
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said Israel did not use any munitions that were outlawed by international treaties or law.
Countries opposed to the Oslo conference say cluster bombs are being discussed under the U.N. Convention on Conventional Weapons.
San Francisco – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today urged the Bush Administration to support international efforts to restrict the use, sale or transfer of cluster bombs that pose unacceptable risk to civilians. The following is her statement:
http://feinstein.senate.gov/07releases/r-cluster-bombs-int0223.htm
“Today, 46 nations declared their support for an international treaty that would, as of 2008, prohibit the production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.
I call on the United States to join in this effort and protect civilians from these lethal relics of war.
I am very disappointed that, instead, the Bush Administration failed to send representatives to the conference and refused to sign the international declaration.
Currently, the arsenal of the U.S. military contains 5.5 million cluster bombs – or 728 million bomblets – many of which fail to detonate at a rate of 1 percent or higher.
I have introduced legislation with Senators Leahy, Sanders, and Mikulski that would change our nation’s policy on cluster bombs and limit the humanitarian cost of these indiscriminate weapons.
The bill would restrict the use, sale or transfer of cluster bombs where 1 percent or higher of the bomblets fail to detonate on contact. The bill would also ensure that the risk of civilian exposure to these weapons is minimized.
I urge my colleagues in the Senate and the House to join with us in support of this legislation and to send a bill to the President that would put an end to the senseless death and suffering caused by these weapons.”
Specifically, the bill introduced by Senators Feinstein, Leahy, Sanders, and Mikulski on February 15 would:
- Prohibit any funds from being spent to use, sell, or transfer U.S. cluster bombs with a failure rate of more than one percent.
- The President may waive this provision if he certifies that it is vital to protect the security of the United States.
- Prevent any funds from being spent to use, sell or transfer cluster munitions unless the rules of engagement or the agreement applicable to the sale or transfer of such cluster munitions specify that:
- The cluster munitions will only be used against clearly defined military targets and;
- Will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.
- Third, the bill requires the President to submit a report to the relevant Congressional committees on the plan, including estimated costs, by either the United States Government or the government to which U.S. cluster bombs are sold or transferred to clean up unexploded cluster bombs.
A report from Lebanon by George T. Cody
Executive Director, American Task Force on Lebanon
December 10, 2006
http://www.atfl.org/index.shtml
"Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz plans to appoint a major general to investigate the use of cluster bombs-some of which were fired against his order-during the Lebanon war. Halutz ordered the IDF to use cluster bombs with extreme caution and not to fire them into populated areas. Nonetheless, it did so anyway, primarily using artillery batteries and Multiple Launch System (MRLS) . IDF artillery, MRLS and aircraft are thought to have delivered thousands of cluster bombs, containing a total of some four million bomblets during the war." Ha'aretz (Israeli daily newspaper) November 20, 2006
On my ten-day trip to Lebanon, I learned that the "very high price" that Israel imposed on Lebanon is still being paid. Lebanese civilians, many of them children, continue to be killed and maimed by unexploded Israeli cluster bomblets-a million of them-which Israel fired during the summer war with Hezbollah. Here is some of what I learned on my trip.
Unexploded Ordnanced Left by Israel: Where is the Accountability?
In the summer war, Israel dropped an estimated 1.2to 4 million cluster "bomblets" on Lebanon from rockets, artillery, and airplanes. The UN estimates that Israel fired 90 percent of those munition in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when Israel knew that the ceasefire (UN Security Council Resolution 1701) was imminent.
The United Nations estimates a 30% to 40% actual failure rate for cluster bomblets in Lebanon, leaving them to kill and maim innocent Lebanese. According to officials I spoke to at the Mine Action Coordination Centre of South Lebanon (MACC-SL), the UN agency responsible for removing unexploded ordnance in Lebanon,23 people have been killed and another 136 injured from unexploded ordnance in Lebanon since August 14, when hostilities ended.
As of November 29, MACC-SL has identified 824 cluster bomb locations in the south, and with the help of UNIFIL engineers and the Lebanese Armed Forces, they have cleared 78,738 unexploded bomblets (about 8% of the total). As MACC-SL spoleswoman Dalya Farran told me, however, not one of the 824 bomb-strewn sites has been fully cleared yet.
What are cluster munitions?
Cluster munitions are bombs or rockets that contain 200 to 600 smaller bombs, or "bomblets" that are designed to scatter over a wide area when t he larger bomb is detonated. Bomblets are typically the size of a soda can or a D-cell battery and are designed to explode soon after impact. But not all of them do. Instead, unexploded bombs often litter the target area-silent and nondescript-until picked up by a child, kicked by a passerby, or stepped on by an unsuspecting farmer or grazing animal. They are hidden killers.
Who clears the bomblets? How is it done?
On October 28th, I met with officials at the MACC-SL office in Tyre. They escorted me to a banana grove near Ismaieyeh and introduced me to the eight[person UN Battle Area Clearance (BAC) team responsible for clearing the unexploded cluster bomblets scattered throughout the site.
Unexploded bomblets are detonated by hand or by special charges that are placed next to the ordnance and then exploded. One of the big problems is obtaining enough explosives to detonate bomblets in teh field. The explosives are imported in bulk but are not manufactuerd quickly enough to meet the need.
The UN officials then escorted me within inches of "live" cluster bombs that had been marked and surrounded by sand bags for later detonation.
How Extensive is the damage?
According to the UN, the cluster bomb contamination in Lebanon is the worst ever seen, worse than the contamination in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The reason for this is the sheer volume of cluster bombs droppped on a "postage stamp" size country like Lebanon. There will be a residual landmine and unexploded ordnance problem in Lebanon for years to come.
Seventy percent of south Lebanon's economy is based on agriculture, mostly tobacco, olives, bananas, citrus fruit and melons. Farmers cannot tend their fields because the bombing and shelling have destroyed crops, and they cannot plant spring crops because the fields and orchards are still contaminated by unexploded cluster bombs.
It has taken three months to locat and clear about 8% of the total estimated bomblets. About 32,000,000 square meters of land in Lebanon are currently contaminated. It will take 50 Bttle Area Clearance (BAC) teams, from the current 38 teams (10-15 persons per team) working 20 days per month, almost a year to clear and "break the back" of the cluster bomb problem to the point where killing will stop and agricultural production can resume.
The above clearing plan depends on adequate funding. The program will be short $7 million to $8 million, with current outlays expected to run out in mid-2007, unless funding continues. A number of countries (including Australia, Canad, Chile and member of the European Union) have provided initial funding. The UAE has provided $20 million. and the US has provided $2 million of a $7 million aid pledge.
Why won't Israel give up the bombing site coordinates to the UN?
The UN has been "SCREAMING" for information on where Israel fired cluster bombs. Israel is reluctant to give up battlefield information that would provide the dates and coordinates, because this would leave them open to international scrutiny on it's use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.
Join the campaign to stop the carnage in Lebanon and ban the cluster bomb by signing the following petition.
"South Lebanon: 100,000 Unexploded Bombs"
The Myth of Muslim Support for Terror
This is what I have been saying from LONG personal experience myself, it is a myth that Islam supports terror. BUT, if you keep on repeating the lie long enough, commit actions which under NORMAL human behavior will turn others against you, sooner or later you will be party to creating the very thing you say exists. This is the case in the so called "war on terror" which targets so called "Islamic terrorism". Firstly, one need only look at the statistics of terrorist attacks vs. state sponsored terrorism (illegal invasion and occupation). This administration has gone to war in Iraq based on a COMPLETE pack of lies (notice the date is June 2003, we've known it was lies for a LONG time). Whereas "terrorism" did not exist in Iraq prior to our invasion, or as I like to call it, "the terrorist tea party", we now have full blown (and yes I personally will call it that) civil war which is a direct reaction to the OCCUPATION of Iraq and we here in the US refer to this as "terrorism" but even the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) does not refer to the "Iraqi on Iraqi" civil war as "terrorism"!!!
Newly declassified sections of the NIE do state that "jihdist terrorism" IS on the rise since our ill-thought out imperialist invasion of Iraq. It also states, "Countering the spread of the jihadist movement will require coordinated multilateral efforts that go well beyond efforts to capture or kill terrorist leaders". I refer to this as the "DUH moment". Yet this administration continues to go down the path which is leading to increasing hatred towards our country by peoples who HAPPEN TO BE MUSLIM because it is THEIR countries we are invading and in the case of Israel, another terrorist state which is OCCUPYING a mostly Muslim country, Palestine, we are SUPPORTING them.
For an excellent post titled, "The Top Ten Misconceptions in Islam" link here to my dear friend Karin's blog.
Newly declassified sections of the NIE do state that "jihdist terrorism" IS on the rise since our ill-thought out imperialist invasion of Iraq. It also states, "Countering the spread of the jihadist movement will require coordinated multilateral efforts that go well beyond efforts to capture or kill terrorist leaders". I refer to this as the "DUH moment". Yet this administration continues to go down the path which is leading to increasing hatred towards our country by peoples who HAPPEN TO BE MUSLIM because it is THEIR countries we are invading and in the case of Israel, another terrorist state which is OCCUPYING a mostly Muslim country, Palestine, we are SUPPORTING them.
For an excellent post titled, "The Top Ten Misconceptions in Islam" link here to my dear friend Karin's blog.
The myth of Muslim support for terror
By Kenneth Ballen
Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.
The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland’s prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that “bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians” are “never justified,” while 24 percent believe these attacks are “often or sometimes justified.”
Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world’s most-populous Muslim countries - Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are “never justified”; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.
Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?
Hardly. Yet, far too often, Americans and other Westerners seem willing to draw that conclusion about Muslims. Public opinion surveys in the United States and Europe show that nearly half of Westerners associate Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorists. Given the many radicals who commit violence in the name of Islam around the world, that’s an understandable polling result.
But these stereotypes, affirmed by simplistic media coverage and many radicals themselves, are not supported by the facts - and they are detrimental to the war on terror. When the West wrongly attributes radical views to all of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, it perpetuates a myth that has the very real effect of marginalizing critical allies in the war on terror.
Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice.
Terror Free Tomorrow’s 20-plus surveys of Muslim countries in the past two years reveal another surprise: Even among the minority who indicated support for terrorist attacks and Osama bin Laden, most overwhelmingly approved of specific American actions in their own countries. For example, 71 percent of bin Laden supporters in Indonesia and 79 percent in Pakistan said they thought more favorably of the United States as a result of American humanitarian assistance in their countries - not exactly the profile of hard-core terrorist sympathizers. For most people, their professed support of terrorism/bin Laden can be more accurately characterized as a kind of “protest vote” against current US foreign policies, not as a deeply held religious conviction or even an inherently anti- American or anti-Western view.
In truth, the common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews. Whether recruits to violent causes join gangs in Los Angeles or terrorist cells in Lahore, the enemy is the violence they exalt.
Our surveys show that not only do Muslims reject terrorism as much if not more than Americans, but even those who are sympathetic to radical ideology can be won over by positive American actions that promote goodwill and offer real hope.
America’s goal, in partnership with Muslim public opinion, should be to defeat terrorists by isolating them from their own societies. The most effective policies to achieve that goal are the ones that build on our common humanity. And we can start by recognizing that Muslims throughout the world want peace as much as Americans do.
* Kenneth Ballen is founder and president of Terror Free Tomorrow, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to finding effective policies that win popular support away from global terrorists.
Friday, February 23, 2007
PROTEST Auctioning of Palestinian Owned Land in the West Bank in New Jersey!!!
Below are the phone numbers an contact information to register your protest of the illegal sale of Palestinian land in New Jersey. This is OUTRAGEOUS. Please explain to me how these Zioninst thieves in New Jersey think they can get away with this.
This Sunday-New Jersey Event to Increase the Occupation of Palestinian Land | |||||||
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Thursday, February 22, 2007
American Hypocrits: An Essay by Daniel Patrick Welsh
No One Here Gets Out Alive: Americans' refusal to look in the mirror presages our own demise
Daniel Patrick Welch
Synopsis: US writer Daniel Patrick Welch argues that it is not just the neocon crazies in Washington, but ingrained aspects of US culture and politcs, most of all Americans' unshakable belief in our own nobility, that drives us toward the newest chapter in global war.
I often have the dubious pleasure of listening smug liberals whining about their "discomfort" with what they referred to as "Arab culture." There is an amazing phenomenon among Americans, so convinced of our own superiority, that we can be simultaneously ignorant about the world we dominate and yet utterly uninterested in our own history, culture, and society. The shit is about to hit the fan, folks--no more free passes for liberals and so- called "progressives" who prefer either to criticize foreign cultures or confine their domestic ire to the cabal in the White House.
Notwithstanding the innumerable war crimes committed by the neocon thugs, their little enterprise would have come to nothing without the full complicity, not to mention head start, of their "friends across the isle," the other half of the American War Party. Nor would this glorious and historic moment in US history have been possible without decades of training, of culling the working class into the "volunteer" armed forces, militarizing every nook and cranny of society from children's fashion and toys to the Pentagon-enhanced budgets of all our major universities. Stroll through the "boys" aisle of any local toy store, strewn with plastic tanks and bombers, complete with removable missiles. Pick up a pink camouflage shirt, headband, bookbag, or any of the other items that serve to instill in our children the notion that our ubiquitous warriors are cool and fashionable. We are a culture on the warpath, though culture is a term to be used loosely.
Long despised around the globe for our lack of culture, it is perhaps unremarkable that we facilitated the looting of some of the most ancient cultural treasures in human civilization in Iraq, or aided and abetted the disintegration by air war of another ancient Mediterranean culture in Lebanon. Through it all, liberals will tsk and cluck about how Arabs treat their women, prevented, perhaps, by their "discomfort" from stopping the impending holocaust against Iran. Dithering seems to be a favorite distraction for the US middle class (don't say bourgeoisie or you're a communist), who hold the wealth and power necessary to force change in US policy.
The Arabs about whom we are talking are actually Persian, but such distinctions mean little when they are about other people. How many Muslim women have been murdered by US and Israeli bombs and bullets? How many women and their children starved and kept in murderous poverty by US-backed policies at the World Bank and the IMF? No matter: Americans are as blind to these numbers as we are to the dearth and death of culture all around us. Our national gluttony is ruinous to our own lives, to our natural resources, and even to the planet itself. We condone and try to thrive in a culture that has raised blaming the victim to a sophisticated social science, from those who managed to escape our founding genocide to the vestiges of our imported slave population. US treatment of immigrants, of workers, of minorities, of children, is by regular measure among the worst in the "civilized" world we like to crow about representing.
And when the uranium dust from bombs over Iran wafts across south Asia, will liberals bemoan the preventable deaths of Muslim women, Hindu women, and their children, whose air, water and bodies will be poisoned for a century? This war is already started: any idiot can see it in the press frenzy now being forced down American throats. But we are experts in looking for blame elsewhere. Congressional "leaders' pontificate about Iraq, four years behind the curve: the war on Iran started when staged footage of Saddam's falling statue capped the war porn coverage of Iraq's "liberation" by an embedded press.
In fact, war porn is about all that is on the menu in a culture where news outlets paste in identical photos of "suspected nuclear facilities" in Iran and North Korea. What difference does it make, when what passes for journalism is almost exclusively filler to take up the space between the ads.
And war pimps from both "sides of the aisle" are happy to oblige, mouthing empty rhetoric that matches the press in its fury to say nothing quickly. When the ruling party can't manage to get a debate on a nonbinding resolution, it's because they aren't trying--and worse, they don't want to. But try they had better: the BBC recently ran a story predicting that members of the US Congress, should the Americans actually go ahead and attack Iran, would be subject to arrest and detention should they venture into Western European capitals.
Even Phony Tony Blair is announcing plans for a withdrawal from Iraq. Could it be that the Brits are eager to avoid being caught up in the coming slaughter? There will be no escape from this Armageddon: Democrats are already up to their elbows in blood. And nobody gets a pass this time. Americans will have to give up the fantasy of ourselves as a noble nation, the ones wearing the white hats. But it is precisely this myth that keeps the bubble intact: if we were to face Pogo's enemy in the mirror, the whole enterprise would burst. Without a crusade and a self-important destiny, our quest for world domination would seem more on a par with Genghis Khan than we would like.
Binyamin Netanyahoo, speaking of war pimps, and other wackos scream the truly perverse mantra that it is 1938, and Iran is the Third Reich, a historical lie that even Condi couldn't swallow. This should be a sign of how crazy the analogy is, not any measure of clarity on Rice's part. But the loyal opposition still clings to the white hat theory so strongly that it pulls the hat clear down over our eyes. Only by removing the hat can we begin to see that the analogy is not only wrong but backwards: it is we (through our Israeli "allies") who destroyed Lebanon while the world sat by and did next to nothing. The world watches the plight of the Palestinian people, being slowly wiped off the map; watches us destroy Iraq; and now, destroy Iran? Look in Pogo's mirror and say which culture makes you "uncomfortable."
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Israeli Bedouin Embroidery
In these days, bedouin culture in Israel is in peril. These bedouins, who have lived for millenia on their lands, roaming and tending their herds, are being forced into an urban lifestyle. Although in Israel the bedouins are being forced off there land, bedouins in other lands are losing their livelihood due to the advance of "modernity". We should ALL lament this as a culture is in danger of disappearing. When I lived in Saudi Arabia (as an urban dweller), we had a lot of bedouin handicrafts as decoration in our home. Once, when travelling by car from Riyadh to Dammam (at that time-1976-before the highways were constructed, it took seven hours) we came across a lone bedouin man crossing the desert with his herd of camels. We stopped to talk to him and ask him if we could take his picture. Being a true Wahabi, he declined our request to take his picture because they call this "al ax", a forbidden thing to do in their faith. He got down from his camel and asked us if we had some water to share because I guess he had underestimated the amount he needed on his trip. Luckily we had a case of water with us and shared it with him. He in return shared his dates with us. There we were, in the middle of nowhere, sharing dates with this bedouin man. Bedouin hospitality is a given. Now, with more bedouins being forced (either literally or my encroaching modernity), the two worlds are having to share the same turf so to speak. This is an article about just such a circumstance, and how these bedouin women in Israel are dealing with their new circumstances. (Thanks Steve for the link!!) where they have been forced to adjust.
Embroidery center of women of Laqiya
Women’s collective desert embroidery operates in the Bedouin village producing beautiful handmade ethnic embroidery. This empowers women whose status degenerated after move to permanent settlements Tali Heruti-Sover Published: 02.20.07, 22:19 / Israel News
There is a lot of activity in the room next to the large Bedouin tent. One woman is cutting, another is sorting through threads, a third is at the computer and another is walking around carrying a tray of small cups of sweet tea with hyssop.
Women come and go carrying squares of black cloth, laughing, and caressing the heads of children running around. Today is payday at the women’s collective “Desert Embroidery” that operates in the Bedouin village of Laqiya in the Negev, and there is excitement is in the air.
Naama Al-Sana, who founded the Association for Improvement of the Status of Women: Laqiya which operates the project, supervises the buzz of activity. She is 41 years old and has a husband and 4 children waiting for her at home, yet she looks like a young girl. She has worked for many years to empower Bedouin women and improve their independence.
“If we do not help ourselves no one will help us”, she says, and despite the daily difficulties, she insists on implementing her doctrine. Al-Sana relates that this doctrine, which espouses women’s independence and education, is inherited from her father, who was not an educated man himself. “Whoever learns and succeeds will go far”, he would repeat in her ears and the ears of her six sisters. “Whoever fails - will tend sheep”.
She became aware of the complicated situation of Bedouin women, which began with their move to permanent housing, when she was a young girl nearing the end of high school. During that time, Al-Sana and her friends ran a camp for the village children during summer vacation.
“While we were running the camp, the mothers of the children would come and ask us to teach them to read and write. Sometimes they did not even know how to write their name”, she remembers. “We understood that we had to change things from the core; that we had to do something for the women in our community, to improve their level of education and allow them to leave the house and earn money by themselves”.
Bedouin traditional products
They learned to stand for themselves
“In the past the Bedouin woman was very busy”, described Al-Sana. “She would go to herd the sheep and would meet her friends when she would bring water from the well, she would cook and sew the tents and would spend a lot of time in nature. The move to houses made us lose many of our chores.
Among a considerable number of the families the husband was also unemployed, and since the women tend not to leave the house and also do not support themselves, their standard of living dropped”.
Since 1996, the Association for Improvement of the Status of Women: Laqiya that Al-Sana formed together with other women, has been working to change the situation.
Six years ago, with the support of different social grants, they established “Desert Embroidery”, a creative center that enables women from the village to support themselves from embroidery, the traditional handiwork that they are experts in from their youth.
“The women come to the center once every week or two, and receive cloth squares and embroidery thread”, details Al-Sana. “They do the embroidery work at home, during their free time, and they return the embroidered squares to us. Once a month they are paid according to the number of embroideries that they give us, and they receive anywhere from 600-1,800 shekels”.
Six women who work in the center turn the embroidered squares into pretty handbags, pouches, pillow covers, wall hangings, bookmarks, greeting cards, and other products, which are impeccably arranged on the shelves and waiting for customers.
“The work enables women to leave the house and meet other women, to participate in lectures that we give once a month and mostly to make money”, continues Al-Sana. “Sometimes this is the only money earned in the household, which gives them pride and power. In the beginning they were very docile, they obeyed instructions and asked for very little, but today I see a difference."
"The working women are more assertive, they request lectures on certain subjects and know what they want to hear. They are not willing to take every job; they do the financial calculations and learn how to stand up for themselves. Thirty of the women live in an unrecognized village. They walk kilometers in the mud, but they will not give up," she explains.
Enthusiasm? Yes. Budget? Not so much
The bustle in the center, the telephone that rings non-stop and the fact that it was difficult to find a large bag adorned with embroidery in shades of red, could testify to the business success of “Desert Embroidery”, but it is not so.
In the not-so-distant past, 165 women would come every week to receive embroidery assignments from the center; today they only come every other week. An additional 200 women are waiting for their turn to participate in the activities, but the center suffers from chronic budget deficit and cannot pay them.
According to Al-Sana, despite the large number of sales and rising interest in their embroidery products, they need an additional yearly budget of 100,000 shekels, in order to integrate more women into their work cycle and to expand their activities.
“If only the State of Israel would allocate some funds for us, and not just various grants that we have to apply for every year”, she says. “Everyone is impressed with our initiative and our important activities. But a budget? That is already another story”.
The budget, Al-Sana adds, is not only used to expand their business-community initiative. Aside from the center, they operate a series of community projects. The association teaches women from the village and from unrecognized Bedouin villages to read and write; they maintain a pre-school so that the mothers can go out to work; they lead a young leadership project for girls ages 13-16 and they operate a mobile library that travels between the villages, and loans out books in Arabic, Hebrew and English. " What is next? Al-Sana dreams of opening a tourist center, where they would sell the embroidery products and would represent the project “Desert Weaving”, which also operates in Laqiya and specializes in traditional weaving earning the woman in the village a living.
In the meantime, together with the other projects, she continues to fight for the project’s existence and apply, year after year, for grant support. Just like the unrecognized Bedouin villages near Laqiya, the State of Israel does not recognize “Desert Embroidery”.
“Desert Embroidery” merchandise is sold in the visitor’s center in Lakiya and in the gift shop at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. For more details call 08-6513208.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
"Peace on Earth" 1939 Cartoon
While surfing youtube (one of my favorite passtimes) today I came across this wonderful 1939 cartoon, "Peace on Earth" done by Hugh Harmon of MGM studios. It is the only cartoon to have ever been nominated for a Nobel Prize. In it's thought provoking portrayal, it shows how the animals have to pick up the pieces after man has destroyed himself through war. At this time, Harman created his masterwork, Peace on Earth. Released during the holiday season of 1939 (immediately after the outbreak of World War II in Europe), Peace on Earth was a serious work which dealt with the idea of what a post-apocalyptic world would be like. Peace on Earth was nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons), as well as for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Now almost 70 years later, this cartoon is even more relevent as man owns the means by which to destroy en masse, as the politicians rattle their sabers at eachother threatening war. I hope this cartoon from many years ago makes everyone think about the consequences of this behavior.
Now almost 70 years later, this cartoon is even more relevent as man owns the means by which to destroy en masse, as the politicians rattle their sabers at eachother threatening war. I hope this cartoon from many years ago makes everyone think about the consequences of this behavior.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Children of Abraham: Death in the Desert
It has been a little less than a year now since the news of the US military massacre of civilians in Haditha first became known. In December, the US military brought charges against those involved in the massacre. In the incident in the video above, in the Iraqi village of Ishaqi, the US miliatary absolved those of any wrong doing We also know now, that it is estimated that 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result directly or indirectly of the US invasion. It is a SEVERE misinterpretation to point to Haditha as an "anomaly", one of those occurances which will be punished by our military when we are still occupying Iraq. Although Haditha is a case of cold-blooded murder, what about all the other dead Iraqis? Are they any less dead if they died of disease in the hospitals ill-equipped to care for them due to lack of medicine, or mistakenly killed in "cross-fire"? I suggest sincerely they are no less dead and we are no less responsible. We need to end our occupation of Iraq for one very simple reason: we should NEVER have begun this war to begin with and every single day we prolong the occupation OUR nation is responsible for more Iraqi death. I do not propose that ending the occupation will bring peace to Iraq any time soon, but the longer we remain there and do not reverse course, the more we are implicated. The more WE are responsible for Iraqi deaths. Don't people get it? It's NOT about our military losses, it is about US killing! There is NO way out of this quagmire that we instigated. Those supporting the troop surge and "getting the job done" have NO means to do so. As I write, I have a pain deep inside for what my country has unleashed upon the Iraqi people. Nothing we can do now can bring back your dead or your country to any form of normalcy. We have sinned against humanity, we have sinned against the people of Iraq AND the people of America. The hatred unleashed against our country for this invasion is unprecedented in our history. George Bush, you will rot in hell, as will the corporate and Zionist interests who perpetuated this attrocity.
Grim images of massacre found on US laptops
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/grim-images-of-massacre-found-on-us-laptops/2007/01/07/1168104868095.html
Under investigation … one of the images taken by US soldiers of the massacre of civilians in Haditha in November 2005.
Under investigation … one of the images taken by US soldiers of the massacre of civilians in Haditha in November 2005.
Photo: AP
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Josh White in Washington
January 8, 2007
UNITED STATES investigators have tracked down dozens of gruesome photographs taken by marines of 24 Iraqi civilians massacred in Haditha.
The images, found on laptop computers and digital media drives, provide evidence of a series of shootings beside a taxi and inside three homes that military criminal investigators have alleged were murders.
The images have provided the Naval Criminal Investigative Service with powerful and visceral evidence of what happened in Haditha on November 19, 2005.
Many photographs were on laptop computers that had been shipped back to the US, and deleted images were also recovered from a Sony PlayStation Portable memory drive, investigative documents showed.
Marines were found to have downloaded the images from each other's devices, traded them and loaded them onto personal websites. One marine told investigators he saw some photographs set to music on another marine's computer. Some were emailed from Iraq to a civilian in the US.
There were also photographs showing the bomb crater and the destroyed vehicle in which Corporal Miguel Terrazas was killed and which triggered the Haditha killings.
There was a picture of a young boy with a helicopter on the front of his pajamas, slumped over, his face and head covered in blood and in another a mother was lying on a bed, arms splayed, the bodies of three young children huddled against her right side.
The images were contained in thousands of pages of investigative documents obtained by The Washington Post, though it was decided that most of the pictures were too graphic to publish in the newspaper.
A leaked copy of the inquiry quotes a horrified witness as saying that the marines went "crazy" after the roadside bomb.
They took revenge on the occupants of the taxi, which arrived at the scene shortly afterwards. The report described how, after telling the passengers to get out of the vehicle, the marines' squad leader, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, allegedly opened fire on the Iraqis even though some of them had their hands up. The men dropped to the ground as an Iraqi soldier attached to the marines unit looked on in horror.
Sergeant Asad Amer Mashoot, who later gave evidence to the naval inquiry, said in his statement: "They didn't even try to run away."
Sergeant Sanick Dela Cruz described how he later urinated on one of the corpses.
Marines Dela Cruz, Wuterich, Justin Sharratt and Stephen Tatum have been charged with murder, and face life imprisonment if found guilty.
A naval investigation spokesman, Ed Buice, said the idea that someone might leak any investigative products was "deeply troubling".
Report: Evidence Supports Haditha Allegations
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5601036
Listen to this story...Day to Day, August 2, 2006 · Military investigators have found there is evidence supporting allegations that U.S. Marines killed unarmed civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha last November, according to unnamed Pentagon sources.
Los Angeles Times reporter Tony Perry talks with Alex Chadwick about the Pentagon's ongoing investigation and what happens next for the Marines held as suspects.
Timeline: Investigating Haditha
by Tom Bowman
Full Coverage
*
May 30, 2006
Investigating the Haditha Killings
NPR.org, December 21, 2006 · Haditha first gained widespread notice in the U.S. media after a roadside bomb there killed 14 U.S. Marines in August 2005. But the town is under the spotlight again after U.S. Marines allegedly killed as many as 24 unarmed civilians in a November 2005 attack. Four Marines have been charged with murder and four others were charged with dereliction of duty.
Meanwhile, other incidents involving alleged atrocities committed by U.S. forces in other Iraqi cities have also come to light.
Aug. 8, 2005: A roadside bomb kills 14 U.S. Marines in Haditha, a Sunni stronghold 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. It is the site of intense insurgent activity.
Nov. 19, 2005: A Marine and Iraqi civilians are killed in Haditha.
Nov. 20, 2005: The Marines release a preliminary report claiming that an improvised explosive device killed 15 Iraqis and one Marine in Haditha on Nov. 19. (Subsequently, the number of Iraqi civilian casualties is revised to 24, including 11 women and children.)
Nov. 22, 2005: The Department of Defense formally announces the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas, in Haditha on Nov. 19.
Feb. 10, 2006: A Time magazine reporter contacts military sources in Baghdad about the circumstances of the Haditha incident.
Feb. 14, 2006: Army Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, appoints Army Col. Gregory Watt to head a preliminary investigation into the Haditha deaths.
March 3, 2006: Col. Watt completes preliminary report, which recommends further investigation.
March 9, 2006: Lt. Gen. Chiarelli receives the findings of Col. Watt's preliminary report and directs further review.
March 10, 2006: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, learn of the Haditha investigation.
March 12, 2006: The top Marine commander in Western Iraq, Richard Zilmer, determines there is enough evidence from Watt's preliminary report to mount a full criminal investigation into the Haditha incident and requests the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) to proceed with such a probe.
March 13, 2006: The initial NCIS team arrives in Haditha.
March 15, 2006: In a second incident in which Iraqis claim that U.S. forces intentionally killed civilians and that eventually will attract the scrutiny of Pentagon investigators, U.S. forces attack a site at Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, looking for a suspected terrorist and a bomb-maker. Under heavy fire, U.S. forces bring in attack helicopters and warplanes and later find the bodies of the bomb-maker and three civilians. An official military report says that as many as nine civilians could be dead, though it's hard to say because the walls have collapsed. Iraqi civilians claim the Americans shot the civilians, then destroyed to building to hide evidence. The military denies that troops targeted civilians.
On June 2, a military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in the Ishaqi raid clears the troops of misconduct, despite dramatic video footage of slain children. The probe found that the escalation of force was justified under the circumstances (the troops were taking heavy fire) and that allegations the military intentionally killed family is not warranted.
March 16, 2006: The existence of a criminal investigation into the deaths in Haditha is reported in the media.
March 17, 2006: At a press conference, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli summarizes the events at Haditha and the preliminary investigation into Marine involvement in the deaths. He says, "We take these allegations of potential misconduct seriously, and they will be thoroughly investigated."
March 19, 2006: After receiving final recommendations from Col. Watt, Lt. Gen. Chiarelli appoints Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell to investigate two major aspects of what happened in Haditha: training and preparation of Marines prior to the engagement and the reporting of the incident at all levels of the chain of command.
Time magazine publishes report on the civilian deaths in Haditha -- the first to piece together an entire story, from the Iraqi allegations of a massacre to questions regarding reporting up the Marine chain of command.
April 26, 2006: In a third incident in which Iraqis claim that U.S. military personnel intentionally targeted civilians, seven Marines and a Navy medic patrol Hamdania, a city west of Baghdad, for a suspected insurgent. They do not find the man they are looking for. They are accused of then entering a nearby house, removing an Iraqi man, and shooting him. They allegedly leave a shovel and an AK-47 assault rifle to make it look as if the man was an insurgent.
May 9, 2006: In still another incident in which Iraqis claim that U.S. military personnel intentionally targeted civilians, U.S. soldiers shoot and kill three Iraqi prisoners near the volatile town of Balad, north of Baghdad. The soldiers first report that the three were running away when shot.
May 17, 2006: In a press conference, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), a former Marine, speaks about the Nov. 19 incident in Haditha, saying that "(our troops) ... killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
May 25, 2006: The Marines' top officer, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, flies to Iraq to speak with troops to reinforce the need for Marines to adhere to the Corps' values and standards of behavior and to avoid the use of excess force amid allegations of Marine misconduct at Haditha and Hamdania.
May 28, 2006: Sen. John Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, says the panel will hold hearings on the Haditha incident.
Rep. Murtha (D-PA) appears on ABC's This Week and discloses that U.S. Marines made condolence payments to the families of Iraqis killed in Haditha -- at a time when the Marines' official explanation for the deaths was a roadside bomb. (These payments are usually made for accidental deaths during fighting.) Murtha calls Haditha "worse than Abu Ghraib."
May 30, 2006: In his first statement on the case, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says in a television interview that the killings of civilians in Haditha were not justified and expressed remorse over the deaths.
May 31, 2006: President Bush makes his first public comments about the deaths in Haditha, promising that "If in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment."
June 6, 2006: Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Warner says his panel won't investigate alleged U.S. Marine atrocities at Haditha until the Pentagon completes its own investigation. But he renews his vow to hold open hearings on the incident.
June 16, 2006: The report by Maj. Gen. Bargewell into training and preparation of Marines prior to the Haditha incident and the reporting of information concerning the incident is forwarded to Lt. Gen. Chiarelli, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. The report finds no evidence of a cover-up, but instead finds that officers failed to ask the right questions or press the Marines about what happened.
August: Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the incoming commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., is briefed on the Haditha investigative report by officials from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Mattis will convene with his lawyers to determine whether charges should be filed.
Aug. 2, 2006: Military investigators find that there is evidence supporting allegations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot unarmed civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha last November, according to unnamed Pentagon sources. Military prosecutors are still weighing whether to recommend criminal charges.
Dec. 21, 2006: The Marines file charges of unpremeditated murder against Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt and Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum. Charges of dereliction of duty charges for failing to investigate are filed against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, Capt. Lucas McConnell, Capt. Randy Stone and 1st Lt. Andrew A Grayson. Grayson also faces charges of making a false official statement and of obstruction of justice.
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Report: Evidence Supports Haditha Allegations
Listen to this story...
Day to Day, August 2, 2006 · Military investigators have found there is evidence supporting allegations that U.S. Marines killed unarmed civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha last November, according to unnamed Pentagon sources.
Los Angeles Times reporter Tony Perry talks with Alex Chadwick about the Pentagon's ongoing investigation and what happens next for the Marines held as suspects.
Timeline: Investigating Haditha
by Tom Bowman
Full Coverage
*
May 30, 2006
Investigating the Haditha Killings
NPR.org, December 21, 2006 · Haditha first gained widespread notice in the U.S. media after a roadside bomb there killed 14 U.S. Marines in August 2005. But the town is under the spotlight again after U.S. Marines allegedly killed as many as 24 unarmed civilians in a November 2005 attack. Four Marines have been charged with murder and four others were charged with dereliction of duty.
Meanwhile, other incidents involving alleged atrocities committed by U.S. forces in other Iraqi cities have also come to light.
Aug. 8, 2005: A roadside bomb kills 14 U.S. Marines in Haditha, a Sunni stronghold 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. It is the site of intense insurgent activity.
Nov. 19, 2005: A Marine and Iraqi civilians are killed in Haditha.
Nov. 20, 2005: The Marines release a preliminary report claiming that an improvised explosive device killed 15 Iraqis and one Marine in Haditha on Nov. 19. (Subsequently, the number of Iraqi civilian casualties is revised to 24, including 11 women and children.)
Nov. 22, 2005: The Department of Defense formally announces the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas, in Haditha on Nov. 19.
Feb. 10, 2006: A Time magazine reporter contacts military sources in Baghdad about the circumstances of the Haditha incident.
Feb. 14, 2006: Army Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, appoints Army Col. Gregory Watt to head a preliminary investigation into the Haditha deaths.
March 3, 2006: Col. Watt completes preliminary report, which recommends further investigation.
March 9, 2006: Lt. Gen. Chiarelli receives the findings of Col. Watt's preliminary report and directs further review.
March 10, 2006: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, learn of the Haditha investigation.
March 12, 2006: The top Marine commander in Western Iraq, Richard Zilmer, determines there is enough evidence from Watt's preliminary report to mount a full criminal investigation into the Haditha incident and requests the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) to proceed with such a probe.
March 13, 2006: The initial NCIS team arrives in Haditha.
March 15, 2006: In a second incident in which Iraqis claim that U.S. forces intentionally killed civilians and that eventually will attract the scrutiny of Pentagon investigators, U.S. forces attack a site at Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, looking for a suspected terrorist and a bomb-maker. Under heavy fire, U.S. forces bring in attack helicopters and warplanes and later find the bodies of the bomb-maker and three civilians. An official military report says that as many as nine civilians could be dead, though it's hard to say because the walls have collapsed. Iraqi civilians claim the Americans shot the civilians, then destroyed to building to hide evidence. The military denies that troops targeted civilians.
On June 2, a military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in the Ishaqi raid clears the troops of misconduct, despite dramatic video footage of slain children. The probe found that the escalation of force was justified under the circumstances (the troops were taking heavy fire) and that allegations the military intentionally killed family is not warranted.
March 16, 2006: The existence of a criminal investigation into the deaths in Haditha is reported in the media.
March 17, 2006: At a press conference, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli summarizes the events at Haditha and the preliminary investigation into Marine involvement in the deaths. He says, "We take these allegations of potential misconduct seriously, and they will be thoroughly investigated."
March 19, 2006: After receiving final recommendations from Col. Watt, Lt. Gen. Chiarelli appoints Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell to investigate two major aspects of what happened in Haditha: training and preparation of Marines prior to the engagement and the reporting of the incident at all levels of the chain of command.
Time magazine publishes report on the civilian deaths in Haditha -- the first to piece together an entire story, from the Iraqi allegations of a massacre to questions regarding reporting up the Marine chain of command.
April 26, 2006: In a third incident in which Iraqis claim that U.S. military personnel intentionally targeted civilians, seven Marines and a Navy medic patrol Hamdania, a city west of Baghdad, for a suspected insurgent. They do not find the man they are looking for. They are accused of then entering a nearby house, removing an Iraqi man, and shooting him. They allegedly leave a shovel and an AK-47 assault rifle to make it look as if the man was an insurgent.
May 9, 2006: In still another incident in which Iraqis claim that U.S. military personnel intentionally targeted civilians, U.S. soldiers shoot and kill three Iraqi prisoners near the volatile town of Balad, north of Baghdad. The soldiers first report that the three were running away when shot.
May 17, 2006: In a press conference, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), a former Marine, speaks about the Nov. 19 incident in Haditha, saying that "(our troops) ... killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
May 25, 2006: The Marines' top officer, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, flies to Iraq to speak with troops to reinforce the need for Marines to adhere to the Corps' values and standards of behavior and to avoid the use of excess force amid allegations of Marine misconduct at Haditha and Hamdania.
May 28, 2006: Sen. John Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, says the panel will hold hearings on the Haditha incident.
Rep. Murtha (D-PA) appears on ABC's This Week and discloses that U.S. Marines made condolence payments to the families of Iraqis killed in Haditha -- at a time when the Marines' official explanation for the deaths was a roadside bomb. (These payments are usually made for accidental deaths during fighting.) Murtha calls Haditha "worse than Abu Ghraib."
May 30, 2006: In his first statement on the case, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says in a television interview that the killings of civilians in Haditha were not justified and expressed remorse over the deaths.
May 31, 2006: President Bush makes his first public comments about the deaths in Haditha, promising that "If in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment."
June 6, 2006: Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Warner says his panel won't investigate alleged U.S. Marine atrocities at Haditha until the Pentagon completes its own investigation. But he renews his vow to hold open hearings on the incident.
June 16, 2006: The report by Maj. Gen. Bargewell into training and preparation of Marines prior to the Haditha incident and the reporting of information concerning the incident is forwarded to Lt. Gen. Chiarelli, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. The report finds no evidence of a cover-up, but instead finds that officers failed to ask the right questions or press the Marines about what happened.
August: Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the incoming commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., is briefed on the Haditha investigative report by officials from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Mattis will convene with his lawyers to determine whether charges should be filed.
Aug. 2, 2006: Military investigators find that there is evidence supporting allegations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot unarmed civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha last November, according to unnamed Pentagon sources. Military prosecutors are still weighing whether to recommend criminal charges.
Dec. 21, 2006: The Marines file charges of unpremeditated murder against Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt and Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum. Charges of dereliction of duty charges for failing to investigate are filed against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, Capt. Lucas McConnell, Capt. Randy Stone and 1st Lt. Andrew A Grayson. Grayson also faces charges of making a false official statement and of obstruction of justice.