Antiwar.com Blog

Saturday must’ve looked like a promising day to Palestinians.

The International Court of Justice had just declared the Israeli wall illegal, the UN was in the process of drafting resolutions criticizing Israel about it. Ariel Sharon’s position was weakening, he had just turned to Shimon Peres, who made his cooperation conditional to speeding up the pullout from Gaza.

Of course, anyone who has paid any attention to the last half century of this war knew that couldn’t last.

So today, al-Aqsa, a militia affiliated with Fatah, decided this would be a good idea to blow up a bus in Tel Aviv, killing one innocent woman. So now Sharon has postponed his meeting with Peres and is childishly blaming the attack on the ICJ. One can only assume he’ll respond with some kind of retaliatory attack.

Yassir Arafat, for his part, condemned the attack. But it still leaves me sitting here thinking “he’s the leader of Fatah, right?”. I mean, I know al-Aqsa and the other militias operate independently of the parent group, but surely if he had called for an end to attacks beforehand, perhaps while cheering the ICJ ruling the other day, it might’ve been prevented. Even if it hadn’t, calling for an end to attacks would’ve been more meaningful if he’d done it before, rather than after.

Moreover, as he so often does, he suggested that Israel was responsible for the attack. Now, assuming that was true, why would al-Aqsa take credit for it? I mean, again, he’s the leader of Fatah… surely he could’ve at least convinced the militias not to take credit for the thing if they really didn’t do it. That’s almost as stupid as blaming the ICJ for it.

So now Sharon has another excuse to escalate the conflict, and that retaliation will lead to more retaliation from groups like al-Aqsa. Fifty plus years in you’d figure one side or the other would’ve figured out retaliation ad-infinitum isn’t going to end this war.

Senator Edward Kennedy has called the Iraqi prison scandal “the steepest and deepest fall from grace in the history of our country,” “Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management.” As a result, “America is being vilified throughtout the Middle East and in other parts of the world.”

“Now, the image of America the liberator has been replaced by the image of America the occupier and America the torturer,” writes Michael Lind in the Financial Times. “It will take a generation or more to rehabilitate America’s image.”

Thomas Friedman starts a piece “I have never known a time when America and its president were more hated around the world than today.” Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a columnist in London, ends one “I have never had so much correspondence from readers openly expressing their loathing for America, for Bush and now, as violently, for Tony Blair, and increasingly for the American people” (The Independent, May 31, 2004).

“To hold on to the essential and humanising distinctions” between people and “their brutish leaders and cruel orthodoxies” can be difficult. “Don’t blame all Americans,” she implores.

Keeping in mind the prospect of “all Americans” being “vilified” for at least “a generation,” consider the assessment of one Michael Mylrea in The Capital Times: “Madisonians have little in common with the people or the city they hope to adopt in the controversial Madison-Rafah sister-city proposal.”

He is reporting from Rafah, “where the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is conducting an incursion to root out terrorists…Operation Rainbow began May 18th after Palestinian terrorists killed 13 Israeli soldiers.”

Say what? How does he know that the Palestinians who killed the Israeli soldiers are “terrorists?”

He doesn’t, of course, if he was ever aware that “terrorist” is a word with a dictionary meaning, he’s forgotten. As a letter to the editor points out, an article written by a supposed peacenik, while “purporting to discuss the hardships of Rafah…serves as a vehicle to juxtapose the words ‘terror’ or ‘terrorism’ with ‘Palestinian’ 13 times.” Whatever the intentions, the result is “the usual subliminal propaganda.”

Yep, I checked, counting Mylrea’s own usage, his quoting of the Madison Jewish Community Council and a Rafah resident denying he’s one, there are 13 “terrorists.”

The letter reminds me of one I had written in 1993 after Israel had deported 400 Palestinians from Gaza to Lebanon. At a hearing before Israel’s High Court, “the government’s advocate explained that membership in a ‘terrorist organization’ can be grounds for deportation. ‘How many people in Gaza are members of such organizations?’ asked the court. The advocate answered, ‘I think they all are.'”

The point of the letter was that Palestinians “over the years” have been “dehumanised.” The Capital Times titled it “Not all Palestinians are terrorists.”

So, if for at least a generation Palestinians have been “dehumanised” as “terrorists” and for at least a generation Americans are to be “vilified” and “dehumanised” as “occupiers” and “torturers” (not to mention as sex perverts), then it appears that Mylrea is wrong, Madisonians and Rafahites do have something in common. It appears that the people of Madison have something to learn from the experience of the people of Rafah.

‘I tell them straight up. Miami is the biggest war zone we’ve got,’ he said. ‘Every time you turn on the TV we see someone shot.’ Bass uses simple figures. Nine people from southern Florida have died in Iraq, compared with 338 murders in the Florida region last year: ‘They have a better chance in the army than on the streets of Miami.’

No you shady pig, you LIE straight up to people not sharp enough to do the math.

338 “murders” (in quotes because most are most likely the result of membership in some kind of gang organization) out of population of 16,713,149 (Florida in 2002) gives me a death ratio of 1:49,447. I have no idea how many troops in Iraq are from South Florida, but since there are about 135,000 troops there from the US, and then taking into account the population of South Florida, but then also the general absence of patriotism in Miami — well, American patriotism, anyway (yeeees, I’m from there) — let’s guess there are around 7000 troops from South Florida in Iraq. That gives us a 1:777 death ratio for South Floridians in Iraq. Even if there are 20,000 troops in Iraq from SoFlo, that still gives us 1:2222 death ratio. So there’s roughly between 22 and 63 times better chance that some Floridian, mostly likely a gang thug, will get their ass shot off in Iraq than Florida. The number skyrockets when we’re talking about normal people who aren’t criminals.

Death waits in Iraq. But the recruiters don’t care, they’ll pump the propaganda machine and get their bonuses; make another mark on the wall as they send another recruit to their death or their more likely mutilation or mental scarring. The State and its armies want you to sacrifice your life to their glory. And they’ll get you with lies, boys and girls. Outright, obvious, glaring lies.

(If any of my math is wrong, please tell me and I’ll post an embarrassed correction.)

Last month, British PM Tony Blair may have considered stepping down. Why? Just because he lied about WMD evidence, just because he contradicted his own MI6 intelligence service, just because he launched a murderous attack on a defenceless third world nation, killing or injuring tens of thousands of people? Just because his attack was for cynical, political and ideological reasons? Oh come on Tony, it’s no big deal. You may be responsible, in part, for all of these atrocities and more, but you don’t come close to the disastrous Winston Spencer Churchill in the warmonger department. Even though Churchill was responsible for escalating or instigating both world wars, he never resigned. In fact, the fat old nutball just became more popular! Up until the war ended, of course. Then the ignorant British public threw this great man out of office. Nevertheless, he’s become ever more popular with each passing year. Now, he’s considered the Man of the Twentieth Century (I agree, but not for any admirable reason). I say Tony should give the propaganda-and-lies campaign another shot before he gives in. If an epic mass-murderer like Churchill, phallic cigar stuck in his mouth, saliva running down his chin and all, can convince people he’s a hero, Tony should be able to as well. On the other hand, Churchill never had to deal with the Internet, or more specifically, this website. I am optimistic, however, that Tony Blair may, if the human race lasts long enough, be declared, in true Churchillian fashion, the Man of the Twenty-First Century.

I was channel-surfing a few days ago & I saw an alarming local news alert. 200 pounds of explosives had been stolen from a heavily fortified secret government arms depot.

Why were they announcing this? Obviously because they had no leads and hoped for assistance from the public. As expected, a concerned citizen phoned in some information; an arrest was made & the suspect confessed.

“Suspect admits he participated in explosives theft”

“The materials included electric and non-electric blasting caps, various types of detonator cord, smokeless powder, grenades and grenade-type devices, assorted ammunition, binary explosives, and C-4 military explosives.”

The criminal mastermind? A 40-something-year-old drug addict with no fixed address.

The heavily fortified bunker?

“Broken alarm, security failures aided break-in”

There were no regular patrols or security cameras at the site. Locks on the steel doors to the five bunkers where the explosives were kept could be cut away with a torch. The alarm system inside the bunkers was broken for some time, with the full knowledge of the Sheriff’s Office bomb squad, according to Horsley.

“They kept trying to fix it. It never got fixed,” Horsley said.

It was still broken over the Fourth of July weekend, when police believe Michael Alexander Allan, 46, got a vehicle through a series of locked gates and used an acetylene torch to cut the locks off the thick, steel bunker doors. Stolen were 200 pounds of volatile explosives and blasting caps, enough to conduct several terrorist attacks, such as car bombings.

Allan was arrested in Union City on Wednesday night and much of the explosives was recovered.

Horsley said he had not been informed about the broken alarm, but declined to say who on his staff knew about the problem. No disciplinary action is planned.

“I can’t blame someone for a technical problem that they were incapable of fixing,” Horsley said. …

Exactly who is responsible for security at the site is unclear. The San Francisco Police Department, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and FBI all store property there, and security was described as a “shared responsibility.” The Sheriff’s Office recently eliminated a patrol in the area during budget cuts. …

Most of the 3,410 pounds of high explosives stolen last year were from companies with blasting permits. With little commercial resale value, the only motivation for such items is curiosity or criminal purposes, he said.

A ton or two of high explosives can do a lot of damage but a nuclear device might do more. Unfortunately, experts estimate that it will be several years before nuke-sensing equipment is installed to check containers entering US ports. And nukes are a-proliferating. The top guy at the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Abdul Khan, the (reportedly Islamist) father of Pakistan’s nuke program, had nuke-related contact with 20 governments and “large companies.”

“ElBaradei: Pakistan gave nuclear know-how to at least 20 countries”

Meanwhile (according to a report in The New Republic), Pakistani officials claim that the Bushies are turning a blind eye to Khan’s past proliferation in exchange for Pakistan’s capturing or killing a major al Qaeda leader just before the US election. (As I’ve noted elsewhere, Khan’s proliferating ways were known long before they were stopped.)

“PAKISTAN FOR BUSH – July Surprise?”

“Diplomatic and intelligence sources” leaked to the press this week the allegation that the Bushies, overruling the Pentagon and CIA, released Saudi terror suspects in exchange for that nation’s quiet support for the Iraq war. (Backstory for Fox News fans: As part of a Saudi and US government covert program requiring plausible deniability, money was funneled through charity organizations and given to jihadists fighting in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden was one of those jihadists and, more often, one of the fundraisers. The Saudi government claims to have stopped funding bin Laden in 1989 but right up to, and perhaps after, 2001 al Qaeda received funds from the pre-1989 jihad funding charities. Iraq, on the other hand, is not known to have funded or armed al Qaeda at any time.)

“Saudis freed Britons in a secret swap of prisoners”

Which brings to mind the fact that last month the Tampa International Airport contradicted the Bushies and confirmed that on Sept. 13, 2001, when most US air traffic was grounded, 3 young Saudis – including one sharing a hijacker’s last name – accompanied by an ex-cop and an ex-FBI agent, flew to Kentucky, and then out of the USA. (The cop & agent returned to Florida.)

“TIA now verifies flight of Saudis”

And, last but not least, AG Ashcroft has squelched the testimony of a former FBI translator who wants to go public with information about alleged infiltration of the Pentagon, State Dept., and FBI, citing “certain diplomatic relations for national security.”

“Our Broken System”

It’s really a matter of trust.

The sensationally ignorant Charles Krauthammer has a new pro-Israel column in the Washington Post today. Krauthammer claims that the Palestinian intifada is over, due to two factors: The brilliantly effective Israeli strategy in attacking Hamas leaders with precision rockets, and the swell new barrier or wall or whatever it is. Krauthammer calls it a “separation fence”, a neat little turn of phrase.
The notion that Israel might be responsible for provoking the terrorism in the first place is completely off Krauthammer’s radar. To him, Arafat is unilaterally responsible, and Israel is only defending itself from his evil.
Amnesty International has continually issued reports critical of Israel for such things as destruction and confiscation of property, use of Palestinian children as human shields, murdering and arresting innocent people etc.
Ran HaCohen has written columns critical of Israel for their brutal tactics regarding the Hamas organization, and for building the peachy “separation fence”.
No matter, for Krauthammer, all that counts is Israel’s relentless drive for lebensraum.