Bomb.....Bomb......Bomb Iran!

John Bolton: US should bomb Iranian camps

John Bolton, America’s ex-ambassador to the United Nations, has called for US air strikes on Iranian camps where insurgents are trained for war in Iraq.

"Mr Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards victory in Iraq. While he acknowledged that the risk of a hostile Iranian response harming American’s overseas interests existed, he said the damage inflicted by Tehran would be “far higher” if Washington took no action.

“This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do,” he said. “Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.”......."

The script of the lie, as usual, is handed over to the US by.....Israel:

".....A US spokesman last week confirmed DEBKAfile’s earlier disclosure that the IRGC’s al Qods Brigades had drafted Hizballah personnel to support Iraq’s Shiite militias and train them at facilities in Iran."

Why Isn't It the End of Hillary?

Because she's the War Party's favorite

By Justin Raimondo

"...... What is clear, by now, is that the War Party is openly rooting for Hillary: see the Weekly Standard for the neocons' paean to Hillary the war goddess. Before the Obama surge nearly wiped her out, she was sounding like Obama in his denunciations of the "war that should never have been fought," i.e., Iraq, yet she shifted gears rather abruptly and began presenting herself as a lunch-bucket know-nothing pro-war demagogue who could pass for Joe Lieberman in drag.........

Her "obliterate Iran" jeremiad gained her major traction in those quarters, and the clincher was her endorsement of Charles Krauthammer's demand that the U.S. extend its nuclear shield over Israel. Aside from that, however, and her generally more belligerent attitude toward Iran, is the general tone of her campaign: she's a "tough gal," belting down shots with the boys and showing up the effete intellectual Obama for the wimp that he is........

The War Party – both the Democratic and Republican wings – couldn't be happier. With the Wright smear campaign taking a big chunk out of Obama, and Clinton toeing the party line, they can't lose, unless Obama breaks through......"

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

The question is:

Do you believe that removing Hizbullah's communications network would benefit Israel or Lebanon?

With about 500 responding so far (it is early), 83% said that it would benefit Israel.

Olmert 'may quit over scandal'

(Graphic by Ben Heine)
Abbas: "Damn! After all this "negotiating" I will have to start all over again with another Israeli PM!"

"Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, is likely to step down, or at least have his duties as prime minister suspended as bribery allegations against him are probed.

Walid al-Umari, Al Jazeera's Palestine bureau chief reporting from Ramallah, said some Israeli political sources believe Olmert will step down......."

US terror report misses the point

By Ramzy Baroud
Asia Times

"The US State Department's annual terrorism report makes no secret of the fact that al-Qaeda is back, strong as ever. But if al-Qaeda indeed exists on such a large and influential scale in so many countries, is it not time to question the logic used by the George W Bush administration's "war on terror", which was meant to weaken and destroy al-Qaeda in the first place?.....

Instead of dealing with the obvious truths which the terrorism report highlights, the authors of the report have resorted to other logic that places the blame squarely on external circumstance, never holding the US government accountable for its actions.

Finally, is there really a need for lengthy reports that cost large sums of money and thousands of work hours, if the lessons gleaned are always the wrong ones, leading to more blunders that prompt more violence - and more terrorism reports? "

Sixty years ago in Battir (Part 2)

Hasan Abu Nimah writing from Amman, Jordan, Live from Palestine, 7 May 2008

"For a long time any discussion of the "Arab-Israeli conflict" has skipped one basic fact: Israel, whether one loves or hates it, was created at the expense of the Palestinians. An entire people and hundreds of communities that had lived for centuries in tranquility had to be ruthlessly and unjustly shattered to make room for the Zionist state. The story of my village, Battir, southwest of Jerusalem, is only one of hundreds.

When I was growing up, hardly anyone in the village was aware, or needed to be aware, that our village traced its roots back to the second century. Generation after generation tilled the land, lived off its gifts and engaged in small trade. They adapted to the often harsh environment, brought up their children, interacted with their neighbors from villages near and far and lived their lives relatively happily and peacefully.

Although Palestine had a large Christian population, the 1,200 people in our village were all Muslim -- though there was one German wife who was very popular and known for her kindness, and I believe she was Jewish, by the name of Lina Shaffer -- and lived in effect like a large extended family........

But we are thankful that Battir, unlike hundreds of other Palestinian villages, did survive the Nakba -- the catastrophe. That was only a respite. In 1967, it fell under Israeli occupation along with the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Forty-one years later, Battir is drowning in a sea of Israeli settlements and lies virtually cut off from what is left of its Palestinian environment by Israel's relentless construction of settler roads and apartheid walls.

I was there last in the summer of 1966 spending my usual summer leave with my family. The 1967 occupation shut me out until I managed a brief visit in 1997, 36 years later. There was little that I could recognize and I have not been back again."

Routine killings of civilians in Somalia

Amnesty International

"The dire human rights and humanitarian crisis facing the people of Somalia has been revealed in a groundbreaking new Amnesty International report.

First-hand testimony from scores of traumatized survivors of the conflict is included in the report, which exposes the violations and abuses they have suffered at the hands of a complex mix of perpetrators.

These include Ethiopian and Transitional Federal Government (TFG) troops on the one hand, as well as armed groups on the other. For many civilians, there is nowhere to go to escape the violence.

“The people of Somalia are being killed, raped, tortured; looting is widespread and entire neighbourhoods are being destroyed,” said Michelle Kagari, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme.

Witnesses told Amnesty International of an increasing incidence of what it locally termed as “slaughtering” or “killing like goats” by Ethiopian troops, referring to killing by slitting the throat. The victims of these killings are often left lying in pools of blood in the streets until armed fighters, including snipers, move out of the area and relatives can collect their bodies......."

Click Here to Download Report (pdf)

The Situation in Gaza
By Emad Hajjaj

Blood For Oil

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Khalil Bendib

Israeli President: Nuclear Iran would be 'nightmare'; Israel must remain sole Mideast nuclear power

"The Israeli President, Shimon Peres, stated Monday that "Iran is a danger not only for Israel but also for the rest of the world", adding that if Iran were to get a nuclear weapon, it would be a "nightmare".

In his talk, he tacitly acknowledged that Israel is a nuclear power - something that was long denied by the Israeli state, but has recently been discreetly mentioned by Israeli leaders on a number of occasions.

Peres has long been called the 'father of Israel's bomb', having obtained help from the French government in the 1950s to build Israel's nuclear reactor at Dimona. Since building the reactor, the Israeli government has maintained a policy of "nuclear ambiguity" and has never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Most estimates put the number of nuclear bombs in Israel's arsenal at about 100, which would make it the sixth-largest nuclear power in the world, if it were to come out of the closet and openly admit that it has nuclear weapons.

The nuclear reactor at Dimona was called a "textile factory" by the Israeli government, even after Israeli engineer Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned for eighteen years in solidarity confinement for exposing the nuclear production facility to a British newspaper. Said Peres in 2004, "Well, textiles are out of business, people are going for high-tech today. But the textile business achieved its basic aim as a deterrent."

On Monday, he said, "Nobody is threatening Iran," he said. "On the other hand, Iran is threatening to wipe Israel off the map." Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, has never actually threatened Israel, but has stated that Israel, through its own actions, is destined to disappear.

Disarmament advocates say that it is past time for Israel to stop hiding its nuclear capability, because Israel is not uder threat, and the presence of an Israeli nuclear stockpile, real or perceived, is destabilizing because it promotes an arms race among Arab nations.

"For us it really is a matter of to be or not to be. It is not a simple scope. And everyone that knows Israel knows that Israel is so far from being aggressive," said Peres in 2004.

Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace says, "All nations that have nuclear weapons think that they are responsible and it is the other guys who are irresponsible." Cirincione advocates a "nuclear free Middle East", in which Israel would disarm, and countries like Iran and Syria would thus be discouraged from obtaining nuclear weapons."

و لكم في القصاص حياة

دكاكين + وكالات /حكمت المحكمة العسكرية في الخليل على أحد أفراد الأجهزة الأمنية بالأعدام رميا بالرصاص بعد أن ألقي القبض عليه و هو يحاول الهرب الى داخل الخط الأخضرhttp://arabic1.people.com.cn/31662/6400915.htmlو لكن قامت مجموعة من المواقع الأسرائيلية بنشر هذه الرسالة التي تم ارسالها الى الحكومة الكندية التي وعدت بتقديم 300 مليون دولار لتدريب و تسليح قوات عباس و تتدعي هذه الرسالة أن عماد سعد الجاسوس المحكوم عليه بالأعدام كان فلسطينيا يحارب الأرهاب وتدعة الحكومة الكندية للظغط على أبو مازن لتخفيف حكم الاعدام و هذا رابط للرسالةhttp://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=903النتيجة و لأن الوطنية تتطلب أن لا يكون هناك تنازلات تخفيف الحكم الى سبع سنواتنعم سبع سنوات ليس مؤبد بل سبع سنوات و الرابط من معا "و شاهد شاهدا من أهله "http://www.maannews.net/ar/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=111605ملاحظةلا تستغرب عزيزي القارئ ان شاهدت قريبا اجتياح لمدينة اريحا يرافقه اخلاء

للسجن و هروب غير مقصود لأحد المساجينو لكم في القصاص عبرة ياأولي الألباب

You Too, If You Die For Israel, Could Be Promoted To The Rank of Jew

Soldier killed in Lebanon War 'finally promoted to rank of Jew'

".....Yesmao was accepted to an intensive Jewish Agency program for Ethiopian immigrants in their teens and early 20s.

"He had lived as a Jew in Ethiopia, immigrated to Israel as a Jew, and completed the conversion process successfully," says Rabbi Menachem Waldman, director of the Shvut Am organization, which has accompanied the process for 17 years on the Chief Rabbinate's behalf. "When he arrived at the rabbinic court for the final stage, they pulled the same trick on him as on other youngsters. The rabbinic judges demanded he furnish confirmation from the synagogue he prays at, but from what synagogue is a young guy like him, without a family, going to get confirmation?"

Yesmao enlisted in the IDF at 23 and served as a sniper with Battalion 12 of the Golani Brigade.....Yesmao was killed by a direct hit to the head in a battle with Hezbollah.

Then the issue of his burial place arose. IDF records listed him as non-Jewish, but after special application to Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, Yesmao was ruled to have completed the conversion process, and was buried in a regular plot.

"After his death he was promoted to the rank of Jew," a buddy from his platoon said with bitterness........"

Dayton's Dogs Kill Their Own People. Sorry, Just Obeying Israeli Orders

PA forces kill bystander in clash with Jenin gunmen

"A Palestinian civilian was killed on Tuesday when President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces clashed with gunmen for the first time since launching a law-and-order push in the northern West Bank.

Hundreds of Abbas's forces deployed to the city of Jenin on Saturday in a U.S.-backed security push Washington hopes will show the Palestinians can rein in militants - Israel's main condition for Palestinian statehood.

Residents in the town of Qabatya near Jenin said civilian Ahmed Fawwaz Kmeil, 20, was shot as he tried to escape a standoff between Abbas's forces and local gunmen who were sitting in a cafe.
Palestinian forces said in a statement the man was killed when an "outlawed group" opened fire on the security men, adding they would investigate the incident and keep up their crime-fighting push.

The Jenin deployment by Abbas's forces, some of whom receive U.S.-funded training in Jordan, was the second big Palestinian security campaign in a major West Bank city following a similar mission in Nablus late last year......."

Because The Pharaoh Has No Balls.....He Keeps The Concentration Camp Tightly Closed. Sorry, No Hard Feelings, Just Obeying Israeli Orders

Egypt Braces for New Gaza Influx

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

"CAIRO, May 6 (IPS) - With next-door Gaza Strip in a humanitarian crisis, the government is desperate to avoid a repeat of January's Palestinian influx into the Sinai Peninsula. In recent weeks, the security presence along Egypt's 14-kilometre border with the hapless territory has been significantly reinforced.

"The authorities are still in the process of boosting the police presence and enhancing security along the border," Hatem al-Buluk, independent journalist and resident of al-Arish, located some 40 kilometres west of the border, told IPS.......

Along with the siege, the people of Gaza have also borne the brunt of almost constant Israeli aggression. In March, more than 120 were killed -- many of them civilians -- during a six-day Israeli military incursion employing tanks and helicopter gun-ships.

"Their situation is agonising," said al-Buluk. "In addition to facing brutal Israeli violence on a regular basis, they have almost entirely run out of fuel and most basic food commodities."........

"The situation (in Gaza) is no longer bearable," Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya told reporters. He went on to warn that in light of Gaza's desperate circumstances, an "unprecedented explosion" was "imminent".

Cairo, interpreting the comment as a veiled threat to the integrity of its border, reacted angrily.......

Nevertheless, the government is taking no chances. According to press reports, and confirmed by people in the area, the police presence along the border has been significantly strengthened in recent weeks.

"There has been a gradual reinforcement of Egyptian border security since early April," said al-Buluk. He went on to note that, over the course of the last month, the number of central security officers stationed in the area has been raised from 750 to 2,750.

Al-Buluk also noted that the government was in the process of building an imposing barricade between Egypt and the Gaza Strip "as fast as possible."......."

We didn’t mean to kill them

Israel says it doesn’t mean to kill Palestinian children, yet they keep on dying

B. Michael
Ynet

"We really didn’t mean to do it. Again we didn’t mean to do it. We have never meant to do it. Yet as usual, even though we didn’t mean it – we hit them. We hit them 1,000 times already without meaning to do it. We have killed a total of 1,000 Palestinian children since the second Intifada broke out on September 29, 2000. A thousand.

We already have a special procedure for cases where a Palestinian child dies as a result of a misfired missile, a misaimed shell, an unfocused helicopter, or a distracted sniper. At first, we deny a child even died. Later we argue that his own people killed him. Later we issue explanations and excuses and scenarios that only become dumber with the passage of time.

Then comes the turn of the “investigating officer” (it will never be an investigating judge, a scrutinizing observer, or an inquisitive civilian. It’s always an officer) who proceeds to issue some nonsense that clears us of any wrongdoing. Ultimately, we declare that the evil Arabs are at fault, because they take cover among civilians........"

Pentagon Targeted Iran for Regime Change After 9/11

By Gareth Porter

"Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regimes in Iran, Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

Feith's account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country's top military leaders.

Feith's book, War and Decision, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W. Bush on Sept. 30, 2001, calling for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing "new regimes" in a series of states by "aiding local peoples to rid themselves of terrorists and to free themselves of regimes that support terrorism.".........

The Defense Department guidance document made it clear that U.S. military aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties to terrorism. The document said that the Defense Department would also seek to isolate and weaken those states and to "disrupt, damage, or destroy" their military capacities – not necessarily limited to WMDs.


The document included as a "strategic objective" a requirement to "prevent further attacks against the U.S. or U.S. interests." That language, which extended the principle of preemption far beyond the issue of WMDs, was so broad as to justify plans to use force against virtually any state that was not a client of the United States.".........."

Condi Stomps the Mullahs

By Philip Giraldi

"The war drums are again beating. It's beginning to look like the neocons have cranked up their useful idiots in the Bush administration for a fall offensive, target Iran. And maybe also Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians.

The bad guys' list, which is remarkably similar to a roll call of Israel's enemies, seems to have expanded both vertically and horizontally at a time when the U.S. military is using paper clips and chewing gum to hold together its efforts in Iraq. The critique of Iran has sharpened and intensified and new friends of Iran have been discovered in Afghanistan and Gaza. Even Venezuela is accused of being a tad too close to the mullahs, criticized by the State Department for having "deepened relations" with Iran and establishing a weekly flight connecting Caracas with Tehran via Iran Airlines. Lest there be any misunderstanding, doing business or even talking nice with Iran will not be tolerated........

Last Tuesday, Rice spoke in Washington at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee. She said, "But perhaps of deepest concern, the leaders of Hamas are increasingly serving as the proxy warriors of an Iranian regime that is destabilizing the region, seeking a nuclear capability, and proclaiming its desire to destroy Israel." Rice also described a new "belt of extremism" that includes Hamas, the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah in Lebanon, militants in Iraq, and "radicals even increasingly in places like Afghanistan." Per Secretary Rice, that it is "supported overwhelmingly by Iran and to a certain extent Syria, but particularly Iran, gives this conflict a regional dimension it has not had before."

Rice's problem is that she is spokesman for a worldview that has blinders on. For her, there are no degrees of bad guy, and as they are all terrorists anyway, it is impossible to talk to them. All who oppose U.S. or Israeli policy are subsumed into the same enemy, which conveniently reduces foreign policy to a simple formula that neatly lumps together a whole range of groups with different antecedents and objectives. It is a vision that guarantees failure and that actually makes more terrorists than it succeeds in eliminating, as Rice's own annual report on terrorism concedes. While Rice's ignorant message was undoubtedly reassuring to the American Jewish Committee, it should not comfort the vast majority of Americans who are not threatened by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi militants, Syria, or the Taliban. Nor are Americans threatened by Iran unless U.S. policymakers and their neocon drivers make it so by firing the first shot. And there is no hope from the Democrats. Barack will do whatever it takes to make The Lobby like him, and Hillary's finger is already on the trigger. Eighty million Iranians will be obliterated as soon as that 3 a.m. phone call comes in. One presumes that John McCain will not even wait for the phone call."

The Syrian Affair

Damascus in the Crosshairs

By CONN HALLINAN
CounterPunch

".......Peace between Israel and Syria is not on the neo-cons’ agenda for the Middle East, and what better way to derail it than to accuse Syria of trying to make nuclear weapons? Kristol and company know that, were Olmert to falter, right-wing hawk and former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is waiting in the wings.

Netanyahu and the neo-cons are old buddies. A number of them, including Perle, Abrams and Wolfowitz, played an important role in Netanyahu’s last administration, which was marked by widespread violence and brutality in the Occupied Territories, as well as deep and painful cuts in Israeli social services.

According to Silverstein, the neo-cons want Olmert to fail, Netanyahu to take over, followed by war with Syria. “The neo-cons would rather have a war that bled an ally than a peace that rewarded their foes. It’s called cutting off your friend’s nose to spite his face,” he says."

Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?

By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

"......Like clockwork, the administration's most stalwart surge supporter/journalist -- the New York Times' Michael Gordon -- has a lengthy article today bolstering the administration's war-justifying accusations against Iran. It claims in the lead sentence that "militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran," and that "the training, the Americans say, is carried out at several camps near Tehran that are overseen by the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Command, and the instruction is carried out by militants from Hezbollah, which has long been supported by the Quds Force."

As usual with Gordon's articles, nothing is done here other than uncritically repeating Bush administration claims under the cover of anonymity. Virtually every paragraph in this article is nothing more a mindless recitation of uncorroborated assertions which he copies from Bush officials and then weaves into a news narrative, with the phrase "American officials say" tacked on at the end or the phrase "according to officials" unobtrusively interspersed in the middle......

Gordon's reporting is as predictable as it is uncritical and unreliable. Any time the administration ratchets up its war-threatening rhetoric with Iran, Gordon -- who was almost as responsible as Judy Miller for some of the NYT's most dubious pre-war articles uncritically mouthing administration claims -- pops up with a prominent article that does nothing other than repeat Government claims as fact. In fact, the claims he breathlessly passes along today -- that Iran is using Hezbollah to train Iraqi militants to kill American troops inside Iraq -- are the exact same claims he uncritically "reported" in July of last year, also based exclusively on the claims of Bush officials.......

The administration's war-threatening rhetoric against Iran has plainly reached new heights in the last several weeks. Whether they really intend to follow through on those threats before Bush leaves office is unclear, though some commentators with a history of insight and prescience -- such as Scott Ritter -- are convinced they will. But what is clear is that the administration has no better ally in disseminating its war-provoking accusations than Michael Gordon and his NYT Editors, for whom "reporting" consists of repeating whatever Bush officials say -- no matter how significant or dubious -- and to do so without challenge and while baselessly granting them anonymity to make their provocative accusations without accountability.........

It was this "echo chamber" behavior by Gordon that allowed Dick Cheney to go on Meet the Press prior to the invasion and claim that even the NYT reported that Saddam had sought to obtain aluminum tubes of the type necessary to build a centrifuge. The Government had fed Miller and Gordon that claim; they mindlessly re-printed it; and then the Government cited their "reporting" as proof that it was true. How can someone who did that -- and continues repeatedly to do it -- be anything close to a "good reporter"? .........

For a superb analysis of the current situation in Iraq, including the role of Iran, see this detailed piece by the always-excellent journalist Nir Rosen, who spent several years in Iraq after our invasion.

For real journalism on Iraq, watch this interview (in two 10-minute clips) of Rosen by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now from last month, after Rosen returned from his latest trip to Iraq (where he does not rely on the U.S. military to select his itinerary and herd him around)........."

There is hope in Gaza

A Great Piece
By Miko Peled, The Electronic Intifada, 5 May 2008
(Miko Peled is an Israeli peace activist and writer living in the US. He is co founder of the Elbanna Peled Foundation in memory of Smadar Elhanan and Abir Aramin. Peled is the son of the late Israeli General Matti Peled)

"Israel's assault on the people of Gaza is so horrendous that it will not soon be forgotten. This vicious attempt by Israel to destroy an entire nation has tipped the scales for good and Zionism will forever be remembered as a blemish in the history of the Jewish people. The people of Gaza, however, give us hope and they will forever be remembered for their courage and resilience during these trying times.

The people of Gaza, while being deprived of rights and resources, still find the inner strength and the belief in their destiny to send their children to school. There are close to 800,000 children living in Gaza; they make up more than half of the population. The mothers and fathers and teachers of Gaza are creating hope where others see none, and they are building a future where some would claim there is none. But the price of education in Gaza is dear as the number of children targeted by Israeli violence rises continuously.......

Livni is no different than the young officer who murdered Gazan fishermen. She and other members of the Israeli cabinet along with the military top brass see no problem with Israeli forces killing Palestinian children, and they seek and often receive the support of the world community. In their minds, Palestinians do not deserve the same rights as Israeli Jews, and therefore it is permissible to torture them and murder their children. What is not permissible is to criticize Israel for the killing innocent Palestinians. Livni and her comrades are disturbed that the rest of us do not see this as clearly as they do.

But rather than give attention to the lies and accusations of Zionist militants, we would do well to focus our attention to the people of Gaza and in particular to the children who are forced to live in this concentration camp. These children and their brave and caring parents represent hope in its truest form. They need courageous people who, like Ramzy Baroud's late father, are willing to defy the brutal Zionist regime but who unlike him are free of the restraints of that regime. People who live in Israel and the US need to stand by the people of Gaza and help them to tear down the walls of this ghetto."