How Israel Will Strike Iran Nuclear Facilities

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is in town this week to discuss with White House and Pentagon officials what to do about Iran’s nuclear program. Accompanying Barak is Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz; he’ is the former IDF chief who set off a firestorm recently when he said an Israeli military strike against Iran is “unavoidable.” Current IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi was here last week and met with his Pentagon counterpart, Admiral Michael Mullen. Ashkenazi reportedly said he favors a diplomatic solution, but also issued the standard declaration that “all options must be prepared” for stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

There has been considerable debate about whether Israel could even carry out an effective air strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Analysts say there are too many factories, labs and reactor sites dispersed too widely across the country. According to a 2006 paper published by two MIT doctoral candidates (one of the most thorough pieces of analysis available), it would be impossible for Israel to knock out the entire Iranian nuclear program but the target set could be narrowed to the most critical facilities. They identify the critical nodes as: the Esfahan uranium conversion facility, the gas centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility and the heavy water plant and future plutonium production reactors at Arak.

The MIT analysts identify Natanz as the most difficult target because much of the facility is buried deep and covered with layers of concrete. Israeli bombs would have to penetrate the earth covering, bore through the concrete layers and then dump enough bombs into the hole to generate blast pressures that could damage or destroy the equipment inside. They figure the strike package would have to drop a combination of roughly 24 BLU-109 2,000 lb. and BLU-113 5,000 lb. bunker busters on Natanz. The facilities at Esfahan are not buried and those at Arak are not hardened, so those targets sets would be relatively simple to destroy with no more than 24 2,000 pound GPS guided bombs.

What does Israel have as far as deep strike weapons? The MIT folks count at least 25 F-15I (the Israeli version of the F-15E Strike Eagle) and 20-50 F-16I, both airframes configured specifically for deep strike missions. Israel also has a large number of F-16s that could be fitted as strike aircraft, Wild Weasel jamming aircraft and over 40 F-15A and C versions to escort the bombers. Developments in precision targeting, specifically GPS guided bombs, means all Israeli aircraft carry bombs considerably more accurate than those used in the Osirak raid. They envision a 50 plane strike package evenly split between F-15I and F-16I aircraft.

Then the question becomes how well can Iran defend its airspace. Iranian aircraft are a mix of the old and the very old. Iran’s most modern fighter is the Mig-29, of which they have maybe 40. They also have a large number of 1970s era F-4, F-14, F-5 and some newer Chinese built F-7M and F-6. Iranian fighters would be operating over friendly territory, advantageous when they need to refuel or rearm. They could also draw on ground control radar to guide them into favorable attack positions against IDF aircraft roaming Iranian air space. If the Iranian aircraft could get into firing position against Israeli bombers, which is admittedly a big if, they have sufficiently modern air-to-air missiles that they could probably down a few.

It’s not Iran’s fighter jets that could pose the real challenge, as the Iranian air force is more of an “antique show,” says David Ochmanek, an analyst with RAND who directs an ongoing study for the U.S. Air Force that examines future threats from Iran. The real threat to an attacker, he says, are Iranian surface-to-air missiles. There are reports that the Iranians field some of the newer Russian-built double digit SAMs, such as the SA-10, though not the newer and more potent SA-20 (the newer Russian designation is S-300 and S-400). The S-300 is considered by some accounts to be comparable to the U.S.-built Patriot air defense missile.

Ochmanek says the double digit SAMs are far more capable than the earlier SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6. The newer systems have high powered radars that are difficult to jam and more powerful, faster missiles. Barry Watts, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington thinktank, and a Vietnam-era fighter pilot, says if pilots could spot the smoke trails of the earlier generation of SAMs they could outmaneuver them because of the G-force limitations of those older missiles. With the latest generation SAMs outmaneuvering doesn’t work. “Those missiles went from ten G missiles, to about thirty or forty G’s,” which means the missile’s turn rates are vastly improved, he said. Coupled with the new powerful radars, “if the missile is locked up on you and it’s guiding, the only thing you can do is pull the ejection handles and get out of the airplane.”

Iran has also reportedly bought the fairly sophisticated Tor-M1 SA-15 Gauntlet, a short-range mobile SAM system. The Tor M-1’s greatest strength is its mobility, which, because of Iran’s sizeable and mountainous terrain, could make for a very difficult target because it can pop-up almost anywhere. Iran lacks the resources to protect all of its air space, so it relies on “point defense,” deploying its anti-aircraft guns and missiles around strategically important sites, Ochmanek says.

The MIT folks figured that to carry out an effective strike, twelve F-15Is would have to arrive over Natanz, six F-16I over Esfahan and five F-16I over Arak. Their analysis said that a 50 plane strike package would provide the Israelis significant attrition cushion. The paper’s authors note that to cause the operation to fail, Iranian air defenses would have to down close to 40% of the attacking Israeli jets, an attrition rate that would exceed even the disastrous U.S. raid on Ploesti in Word War II. The MIT analysts conclude that largely because of advances in precision weaponry, “Israeli leaders have access to the technical capability to carry out the attack,” and that it would be no more risky than that of the 1981 raid on Osirak.

If a couple of students from MIT came up with that conclusion, the Israeli intelligence and military communities probably have a fairly high degree of confidence in the success of air strikes. The Israelis likely believe they can set back any progress the Iranians have made in nuclear enrichment by at least five years. What that would buy Israel and the rest of the world in terms of changing Tehran’s policies is anybody’s guess.

Text taken from here.

Palestinians Capture Violence of Israeli Occupation On Video

Published on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
by Peter Beaumont

Bi’ilin - An Israeli child from a far-right settler group in the West Bank city of Hebron hurls a stone up the stairs of a Palestinian family close to their settlement and shouts: “I will exterminate you.” Another spits towards the same family.Another settler woman pushes her face up to a window and snarls: “Whore!”

They are shocking images. There is footage of beatings, their aftermath, and the indifference of Israel’s security forces to serious human rights abuses. There is footage too of those same security forces humiliating Palestinians - and most seriously - committing abuses themselves.


They are contained in a growing archive of material assembled by the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem in a remarkable project called Shooting Back.

The group has supplied almost 100 video cameras to vulnerable Palestinian communities in Hebron, the northern West Bank and elsewhere, to document and gather evidence of assaults and abusive behaviour - largely by settlers.

Read also Israeli Soldiers Rarely Indicted For Abuses

"Undisciplined" Behaviour - the rocks against guns

Ahmed Mousa (facing camera) photographed four hours before he was shot and killed by Israeli forces. (palestinesolidarityproject.org)

A member of the Israeli occupation military's border police shot and killed a 10-year-old Palestinian boy yesterday evening in the West Bank village of Nilin. Ahmed Mousa was shot in the head by live ammunition, according to eyewitnesses, as he turned and left an area that was being targeted with rubber-coated steel bullets by the Israeli military during a demonstration against the annexation wall built on the village land. Several soldiers were ordered to remove themselves from the demonstration by commanding officers, according to a report by the Palestine Solidarity Project, for their violent and "undisciplined" behavior.

His head was pretty much blown off. There was an entry wound in his forehead that completely destroyed his face, and the back of his head was just missing. His brain was not there. The exit wound just blew off the majority of the back of his head.

To come to this particular situation with Ahmed, there was not, in fact, any stone-throwing happening at the time, at least none that we know of coming from Ahmed himself. So the idea that even if he was throwing stones, which we don't believe he was, and eyewitnesses say that he wasn't, but even if he was, we're talking about a ten-year-old kid throwing a rock from dozens of yards away at an armored soldier. And the idea that Israel has continued to perpetuate this image that somehow that is an even playing field -- that rocks against guns and armored personnel carriers -- is somehow an even score, is ridiculous to any sensible human being.

Read further here.

Gravel: Take Bush to The Hague

Former Democratic candidate Mike Gravel says President George W. Bush should be taken to The Hague for war crimes rather than being impeached.

In a Monday video conference with Press TV, the former Alaska senator said President Bush does not 'deserve' to be impeached for invading Afghanistan and Iraq, which has resulted in the loss of 'millions of lives'.

"An Impeachment just means you would only take away his (Bush's) presidency. Well, he is almost done (with) his presidency. What really needs to happen is that these people have to be held accountable for the crimes they have committed," the 78-year-old Libertarian said referring to the US president and Vice President Dick Cheney.

"If you impeach the president and vice president, Nancy Pelosi is going to become president; that is not going to happen," Gravel added.

Gravel is an outspoken advocate of impeaching Bush and Cheney over the disinformation campaign they have led in support of their go-to-war policies.

"There is a lot of very good news that makes me tremendously hopeful that we as a nation are starting to wake up and insist our congressional representatives act to make impeachment happen now," he had said in a statement in January after congressman Dennis Kucinich announced plans to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush.

Reported here.
Read further.

George W. Bush - Terrorist in the White House

Prosecute George Bush and Dick Cheney for War Crimes

Bush confesses to war crimes

Venn Diagram of Bush Administration's Crimes and Misdemeanors

Each scandal is represented by a colored circle that encompasses the people who are implicated. As it's easy to see, many of the players here are mixed up in two, three, or more of the alleged crimes. Hence all the overlapping circles (Venn-diagram heaven!).

The best way to make sense of this legal tangle is to mouse over the title of an individual scandal, which will highlight everyone implicated. For example, the wiretapping bubble ensnares George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, and Alberto Gonzales. At the same time, Ashcroft and Gonzales fall into the overlapping circle for monkey business related to DoJ hiring. Mouse over a person's name for information on how each person is involved. Mouse over the title of each circle for specifics about the particular scandal.

Taken from here.

The Military-Industrial Complex

According to the latest estimate, the cumulative 2009 intelligence budget for the 16 agencies in the U.S. Intelligence Community will be more than $55 billion. However, it's possible that the real figure in the deeply classified budget may soar over $66 billion, which would mean that the U.S. budget for spooks has more than doubled in less than a decade. And as Robert Dreyfuss points out at his invaluable blog at the Nation, even more spectacularly (and wastefully), much of that money will end up in the hands of the "private contractors" who, by now, make up a mini intelligence-industrial complex of their own.

Read further in The Military-Industrial Complex.

The vintage clips of Eisenhower warns about the military industrial complex.

Most Americans have a rough idea what the term "military-industrial complex" means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear a politician mention it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of January 17, 1961.

"Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime," he said, "or indeed by the fighting men of World War II and Korea… We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions… We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications… We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex," five-star Army General Dwight Eisenhower said in his last speech as president in 1961. "The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

In his vow to fight terrorism - to "win the first war of the 21st century" - President Bush has pledged "whatever it takes, whatever it costs...." If the administration's projections are correct, in just a few years that cost will near a half-trillion dollars a year.

Read also http://www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/

Watch also Tom Engelhardt interviewed by Pepe Escobar of the RealNews.com about imperial America.

They are claiming as theirs something that is not.

Arabs under siege as Israel tightens grip on Holy City
The battle for Jerusalem is entering a new phase as Israel continues to build new settlements in the east of the city and a series of violent attacks by lone Arab attackers ratchets up the tension.

Palestinian Fawzia al-Kurd walks past a house displaying Israeli flags in the neighbourhood of occupied east Jerusalem where she lives with her family Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty

Fawzia al-Kurd's home is nothing special. She has lived within its walls for the past quarter of a century, in the heart of East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah district. The house is tidy. But at first glance, it would not appear to be worth $10m.

That is the sum that the al-Kurd family claim they were offered by Israeli buyers as an incentive to move on, a figure confirmed by their lawyer. Fawzia refused to make a deal, whatever the price. It would have hurt her 'integrity' to take it and leave, she said. So last week she received an eviction notice, based on an arcane legal claim to the site that her husband first called home in 1956.

If she and her family are forced to leave as a result, ultra-Orthodox Israeli settlers from a company called Nahlat Shemoun - linked to a nearby Jewish shrine - will take over half of the house. Settlers have already occupied her illegally built extension. The Kurd house may soon be draped with Israeli flags - as is another a handful of metres distant - and Arab East Jerusalem will have shrunk perceptibly once more.

'Their objective [in trying to evict me] is political', said Fawzia. 'They are claiming as theirs something that is not.'

The story of Fawzia's house reflects the larger battle for the future of Jerusalem, a city contested with an intensity and urgency unmatched anywhere else in the world. In the interminable saga of the Middle East peace process, agreement on the 'final status' of the Holy City remains as elusive as ever.

Read further here.

Read also Palestinian Family Denied Even Half a House

"BUSH GUILTY OF 1ST DEG MURDER" - BUGLIOSI TELLS CONGRESS

Watch the clip.

4,000 U.S. Combat Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images

Chris Hondros of Getty Images was with an army unit in Tal Afar on January 18, 2005, when its soldiers killed the parents of this blood-spattered girl at a checkpoint, and his photo was published around the world. Mr. Hondros was kicked out of the unit, though he soon became embedded with a unit in another city.
Photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war.

Zoriah Miller, the photographer who took images of marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack and posted them on his Web site, was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country. Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the Marine commander in Iraq, is now seeking to have Mr. Miller barred from all United States military facilities throughout the world. Mr. Miller has since left Iraq.

Journalists say it is now harder, or harder than in the earlier years, to accompany troops in Iraq on combat missions. Even memorial services for killed soldiers, once routinely open, are increasingly off limits. Detainees were widely photographed in the early years of the war, but the Department of Defense, citing prisoners’ rights, has recently stopped that practice as well.

And while publishing photos of American dead is not barred under the “embed” rules in which journalists travel with military units, the Miller case underscores what is apparently one reality of the Iraq war: that doing so, even under the rules, can result in expulsion from covering the war with the military.

“It is absolutely censorship,” Mr. Miller said. “I took pictures of something they didn’t like, and they removed me. Deciding what I can and cannot document, I don’t see a clearer definition of censorship.”

Reported here.

More pictures here.

At $648 Billion, Cost Of Iraq War Almost Equal To Vietnam

In his 1999 book, A Charge To Keep, President Bush said he had “learned the lessons of Vietnam” about “never again ask[ing] the military to fight a political war.” After launching the Iraq war, in April 2004, Bush rejected the analogy that Iraq was turning into a quagmire like Vietnam:

Q: How do you answer the Vietnam comparison?

BUSH: I think the analogy is false.

Last August, however, President Bush reversed course and embraced the Vietnam analogy, stating Vietnam taught us that “the price of America’s withdrawal” is steep and painful.

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reveals that the real similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is in the price of staying. In constant FY2008 dollars, the Vietnam war cost the U.S. $686 billion. The Iraq war, at just over five years old, is priced at $648 billion:



Text taken from here.

Reported also in Yahoo "Iraq war's total cost nearing Vietnam's price tag":

Top-ranking IDF Sadists

In case someone fails to understand, it is a high-ranking Israeli officer who is caught on video holding a handcuffed man as a still target for the merciless vengeance of another IDF soldier. An unavoidable question pops to air. What are these people made of? Do they share any recognised qualities with the rest of humanity? Clearly, cruelty is deeply rooted in Israeli society. It may take two to tango, but apparently it doesn’t take more than two Israeli soldiers to prove to us all what Israel and the Jewish national revival is all about.

The shooting soldier was not just an ordinary low-ranking infantry recruit, he was a First Sergeant. But it goes much further, the soldier who is caught on video holding the bound Palestinian detainee is no less than a regiment commander, an IDF Lieutenant Colonel.

Seemingly, barbarism is deeply engraved within Israeli society and the Hebraic culture. It shouldn’t take us by surprise. It was that very barbarism that led to the uprooting of the Palestinian population in 1948. It is a barbarism that is fuelled by a complete dismissal of Otherness that has been maintaining Israel and Zionism since then.

Israeli NGO B'Tselem has published this video clip documenting a soldier firing a rubber coated steel bullet, from extremely close range, at a cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee. Watch the clip.


Read further here.

Anthony Löwstedt made an interesting comment about the origins of Zionism in his online book, Apartheid: Ancient, Past, and Present (PDF) :

It is no wonder that the Zionist movement, the ‘national revival of the Jewish people in its ancestral home’, was born in Vienna, the city where, only a decade later, Adolf Hitler himself would be influenced to become a judeophobic right-wing extremist….Hitler stated that he ‘discovered’ anti-Semitism in Vienna. I am not saying that Zionism is a version of or a prerequisite to Nazi ideology. It is not. It is an extremist reaction to an extremist threat… [of] powerful European and Christian judeophobia. But the two movements appeared at roughly the same time, in the very same place. They grew out of the same poisoned, ideological, ethnicist, Euromaniac soil.

Because of the wild ideologies that took root in turn of the century Vienna, it was described by Karl Kraus as “research laboratory for world destruction”. In his book The Founding Myths of Israel, Ze’ev Sternhell noted the many obvious parallels between National Socialism of the Nazis and Nationalist Socialism of the Zionists:

To avoid any misunderstanding or confusion, I have used the term nationalist socialism…But national socialism, which was commonly used at the beginning of the twentieth century, has been contaminated by its association with the Nazis. However, the adjective nationalist, although not traditionally used, in its strict sense describes one of the variants of socialism accurately. There is a nationalist socialism just as there is a democratic or revisionist socialism, often known as social democracy…Nationalist socialism, properly understood, appeared in Europe in the last years of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth as an alternative to both Marxism and liberalism…The uniqueness of European nationalist socialism…lay in one essential point: its acceptance of the principle of the nation’s primacy and its subjection of the values of socialism to the service of the nation. In this way socialism lost its universal significance and became an essential tool in the process of building the nation-state. Thus, the universal values of socialism were subordinated to the particularistic values of nationalism. In practice, this was expressed by a total rejection of the concept of class warfare and by the claim of transcending social contradictions for the benefit of the collectivity as a whole. This form of socialism preached the organic unity of the nation and the mobilization of all classes of society for the achievement of national objectives. According to the theory, this process was to be led by natural elites, whose membership was determined not by class, origin, or educational qualifications but by sentiment, dedication, and a readiness to make sacrifices for all. Nationalist socialism quite naturally disliked people with large fortunes, the spoiled aristocracy, and all those to whom money came easily and who could allow themselves to be idle. It lashed out mercilessly at the bourgeoisie whose money moved from one financial center to another and whose checkbook, close to its heart, served as its identity card. In contrast with all these, nationalist socialism presented the working man with both feet firmly planted on the soil of his native country–the farmer, whose horizons are restricted to the piece of land he tills, the bourgeois, who runs his own enterprise, and the industrial worker: the rich and poor who contribute the sweat of their brow, their talents and their money to increasing the collective wealth…Indeeed, nationalist socialism was based on the idea of the nation as a cultural, historical, and biological unit, or figuratively, an extended family. The industrial worker was regarded as an organic part of the whole, and the whole took precedence over the individual. The blood ties and the cultural ties linking members of the nation, their partnership in the total national effort, took precedence over the position of the individual in the production system.

Read further Story behind the shot protester and the teen who caught it on film.

A Symbolic Citizen Arrest of Condoleezza Rice for USD3,700

NZ students offer cash for "arrest" of U.S.'s Rice

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A group of New Zealand students has come up with a novel way of protesting against a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, offering a cash reward for her "arrest" over U.S. actions in Iraq.

The Auckland University Students' Association has offered NZ$5,000 ($3,700) for any student making a citizen's arrest of Rice during her 36-hour stay that starts later on Friday.

"It's primarily symbolic, but it's a protest against her actions as secretary of state in Iraq and the authorization of the torture of suspected terrorist detainees," said the student body's president, David Do.

Reported here.

Are You Ready to Face the Facts About Israel?

"On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where most of the inhabitants were Arabs."- Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History

I had given up on finding an American with a moral conscience and the courage to go with it and was on the verge of retiring my keyboard when I met the Rev. Thomas L. Are.

Rev. Are is a Presbyterian pastor who used to tell his Atlanta, Georgia, congregation: "I am a Zionist." Like most Americans, Rev. Are had been seduced by Israeli propaganda and helped to spread the propaganda among his congregation.

Around 1990 Rev. Are had an awakening for which he credits the Christian Canon of St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem and author Marc Ellis, co-editor of the book, Beyond Occupation.

Realizing that his ignorance of the situation on the ground had made him complicit in great crimes, Rev. Are wrote a book hoping to save others from his mistake and perhaps in part to make amends, Israeli Peace/Palestinian Justice, published in Canada in 1994.

Rev. Are researched his subject and wrote a brave book. Keep in mind that 1994 was long prior to Walt and Mearsheimer's recent book, which exposed the power of the Israel Lobby and its ability to control the explanation Americans receive about the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Rev. Are begins with an account of Israel's opening attack on the Palestinians, an event which took place before most Americans alive today were born. He quotes the distinguished British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee: "The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. Though nor comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality."

Golda Meir, considered by Israelis as a great leader and by others as one of history's great killers, disputed the facts: "It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."

Golda Meir's apology for Israel's great crimes is so counter-factual that it blows the mind. Palestinian refugee camps still exist outside Palestine filled with Palestinians and their descendants whose towns, villages, homes and lands were seized by the Israelis in 1948. Rev. Are provides the reader with Na'im Ateek's description of what happened to him, an 11-year old, when the Jews came to take Beisan on May 12, 1948. Entire Palestinian communities simply disappeared.

In 1949 the United Nations counted 711,000 Palestinian refugees.

In 2005 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated 4.25 million Palestinians and their descendants were refugees from their homeland.

The Israeli policy of evicting non-Jews has continued for six decades. On June 19, 2008, the Laity Committee in the Holy Land reported in Window Into Palestine that the Israeli Ministry of Interior is taking away the residency rights of Jerusalem Christians who have been reclassified as "visitors in their own city."

On December 10, 2007, MK Ephraim Sneh boasted in the Jerusalem Post that Israel had achieved "a true Zionist victory" over the UN partition plan "which sought to establish two nations in the land of Israel." The partition plan had assigned Israel 56 percent of Palestine, leaving the inhabitants with only 44 percent. But Israel had altered this over time. Sneh proudly declared: "When we complete the permanent agreement, we will hold 78 percent of the land while the Palestinians will control 22 percent."

Sneb could have added that the 22 percent is essentially a collection of unconnected ghettos cut off from one another and from roads, water, medical care, and jobs.

Rev. Are documents that the abuse of Palestinians' human rights is official Israeli policy. Killings, torture, and beatings are routine. On May 17, 1990, the Washington Post reported that Save the Children "documented indiscriminate beating, tear-gassing and shooting of children at home or just outside the house playing in the street, who were sitting in the classroom or going to the store for groceries."

On January 19, 1988, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, later Prime Minister, announced the policy of "punitive beating" of Palestinians. The Israelis described the purpose of punitive beating: "Our task is to recreate a barrier and once again put the fear of death into the Arabs of the area."

According to Save the Children, beatings of children and women are common. Rev. Are, citing the report in the Washington Post, writes: "Save the Children concluded that one-third of beaten children were under ten years old, and one-fifth under the age of five. Nearly a third of the children beaten suffered broken bones."

On February 8, 1988, Newsweek magazine quoted an Israeli soldier: "We got orders to knock on every door, enter and take out all the males. The younger ones we lined up with their faces against the wall, and soldiers beat them with billy clubs. This was no private initiative, these were orders from our company commander.... After one soldier finished beating a detainee, another soldier called him 'you Nazi,' and the first man shot back: 'You bleeding heart.' When one soldier tried to stop another from beating an Arab for no reason, a fist fight broke out."

These were the old days before conscience was eliminated from the ranks of the Israeli military.

In the London Sunday Times, June 19, 1977, Ralph Schoenman, executive director of the Bertrand Russell Foundation, wrote: "Israeli interrogators routinely ill-treat and torture Arab prisoners. Prisoners are hooded or blindfolded and are hung by their wrists for long periods. Most are struck in the genitals or in other ways sexually abused. Most are sexually assaulted. Others are administered electric shock."

Amnesty International concluded that "there is no country in the world in which the use of official and sustained torture is as well established and documented as in the case of Israel."

Even the pro-Israeli Washington Post reported: "Upon arrest, a detainee undergoes a period of starvation, deprivation of sleep by organized methods and prolonged periods during which the prisoner is made to stand with his hands cuffed and raised, a filthy sack covering the head. Prisoners are dragged on the ground, beaten with objects, kicked, stripped and placed under ice-cold showers."

Sounds like Abu Gharib. There are news reports that Israeli torture experts participated in the torture of the detainees assembled by the American military as part of the Bush Regime's propaganda onslaught to convince Americans that Iraq was overflowing with al-Qaeda terrorists. On July 23, 2008, Antiwar.com posted an Iraqi news report that the Iraqi government had released a total of 109,087 Iraqis that the Americans had "detained." Obviously, these "terrorist detainees" had been used for the needs of Bush Regime propaganda. No one will ever know how many of them were abused by Israeli torturers imported by the CIA.

Rev. Are's book makes sensible suggestions for resolving the conflict that Israel began. However, the problem is that Israeli governments believe only in force. The policy of the Israeli government has always been to beat, kill, and brutalize Palestinians into submission and flight. Anyone who doubts this can read the book of Israel's finest historian Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006).

Americans are a gullible and naive people. They have been complicit for 60 years in crimes that in Arnold Toynbee's words "are comparable in quality" to the crimes of Nazi Germany. As Toynbee was writing decades ago, the accumulated Israeli crimes might now be comparable also in quantity.

The US routinely vetoes United Nations condemnations of Israel for its brutal crimes against the Palestinians. Insouciant American taxpayers have been bled for a half century to provide the Israelis with superior military weapons with which Israelis assault their neighbors, all the while convincing America – essentially a captive nation – that Israel is the victim.

John F. Mahoney wrote: "Thomas Are reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: an active pastor who comes to the unsettling realization that he and his people have been fed a terrible lie that is killing and torturing thousands of innocent men, women and children. Not without ample research and prayer does such a pastor, in turn, risk unsettling his congregation. The Reverend Are has done his homework and, I suspect, has prayed often and long during the writing of this courageous book."

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian and pastor who was executed for his active participation in the German Resistance against Nazism.

Professor Benjamin M. Weir, San Francisco Theological Seminary, wrote: "This book will make the reader squirm. It asks you to lend your voice in behalf of the voiceless."

Americans who can no longer think for themselves and who are terrified of disapproval by their peer group are incapable of lending their voices to anyone except those who control the world of propaganda in which they live.

The ignorance and unconcern of Americans is a great frustration to my friends in the Israeli peace movement. Without outside support those Israelis who believe in good will are deprived, by America's support for their government's policy of violence, of any peaceful resolution of a conflict began in 1947 by Israeli aggression against unsuspecting Palestinian villages.

Rev. Are wrote his book with the hope that the pen is mightier than the sword and that facts can crowd out propaganda and create a framework for a just resolution of the Palestinian issue. In his concluding chapter, "What Christians Can Do," Rev. Are writes: "We cannot allow others to dictate our thinking on any subject, especially on anything as important as Christian faithfulness, which is tested by an attitude towards seeking justice for the oppressed. It's a Christian's duty to know."

Duty, of course, has costs. Rev. Are writes: "Speak up for the Palestinians and you will make enemies. Yet, as Christians, we must be willing to raise issues that until now we have chosen to dodge."

More than a decade later, President Jimmy Carter, a true friend of Israel, tried again to awaken Americans' moral conscience with his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter was instantly demonized by the Israel Lobby.

Sixty years of efforts by good and humane people to hold Israel accountable have so far failed, but they are more important today than ever before. Israel has its captive American nation on the verge of attacking Iran, the consequences of which could be catastrophic for all concerned. The alleged purpose of the attack is to eliminate nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons. The real reason is to eliminate all support for Hamas and Hezbollah so that Israel can seize the entire West Bank and southern Lebanon. The Bush regime is eager to do Israel's bidding, and the media and evangelical "Christian" churches have been preparing the American people for the event.

It is paradoxical that Israel is demonstrating that veracity lies not in the Christian belief in good will but in Lenin's doctrine that violence is the effective force in history and that the evangelical Christian Zionist churches agree.

By Paul Craig Roberts; Text taken from here.

All Going for Impeachment.

Who's The Man Behind All The Criminals?

US lawyer seeks to sue US over Iran threats

An American lawyer has offered to represent Iran in an international lawsuit against Israel and his own government in an effort to stop Washington and Tel Aviv from initiating further sanctions against Tehran.

Francis A. Boyle says following Washington's latest ultimatum to Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment within two weeks or face further isolation, Iran needs to act quickly.

I notice that just this week Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei publicly stated that he would sue the United States if it attacked Iran. I am proposing that we sue the United States immediately in order to prevent any attack upon or blockade of Iran, which would be an act of war.

So I am sure there will be further repercussions. But under no circumstance do I want to see a war between Iran and the United States, which could readily degenerate into World War III.

With all due respect to Iran's leaders, they must not underestimate the ruthlessness and cruelty of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and their Straussian Neo-Conservative advisors when it comes to their willingness to use military force against Iran.

We must do everything in our power to prevent a war and obtain a peaceful resolution of this dispute over nuclear reprocessing that in my opinion can be resolved satisfactorily. These World Court lawsuits will contribute towards a peaceful resolution of this dispute between Iran and the United States, which will then order Israel to stand down.

Red further the interview here.

Designed to Appease Israel - Obama Visit to Middle East

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem July 24, 2008.

Every aspect of Obama's visit to Palestine-Israel this week has seemed designed to further appease pro-Israel groups. Typically for an American aspirant to high office, he visited the Israeli Holocaust memorial and the Western Wall. He met the full spectrum of Israeli Jewish (though not Israeli Arab) political leaders. He travelled to the Israeli Jewish town of Sderot, which until last month's ceasefire, frequently experienced rockets from the Gaza Strip. At every step, Obama warmly professed his support for Israel and condemned Palestinian violence.

Other than a cursory 45-minute visit to occupied Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinians got little. According to an Abbas aide, Obama provided assurances that he would be "a constructive partner in the peace process." Some observers took comfort in his promise that he would get engaged "starting from the minute I'm sworn into office". Obama remained silent on the issue of Jerusalem, after boldly promising the "undivided" city to Israel as its capital in a speech to Aipac last month, and then appearing to backtrack amid a wave of outrage across the Arab world.

But Obama missed the opportunity to visit Palestinian refugee camps, schools and even shopping malls to witness first-hand the devastation caused by the Israeli army and settlers, or to see how Palestinians cope under what many call "apartheid". This year alone, almost 500 Palestinians, including over 70 children, have been killed by the Israeli army - exceeding the total for 2007 and dwarfing the two-dozen Israelis killed in conflict-related violence.

Obama said nothing about Israel's relentless expansion of colonies on occupied land. Nor did he follow the courageous lead of former President Jimmy Carter and meet with the democratically elected Hamas leaders, even though Israel negotiated a ceasefire with them. That such steps are inconceivable shows how off-balance is the US debate on Palestine.

One risk is that a President Obama or President McCain would just bring back the Clinton-era approach where the United States effectively acted as "Israel's lawyer", as Aaron David Miller, a 25-year veteran of the US state department's Middle East peace efforts, memorably put it. This led to a doubling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, an upsurge in violence and the failed 2000 Camp David summit where Clinton tried to pressure Arafat into accepting a bantustan. A depressing feature of Obama's visit was the prominent advisory role for Dennis Ross, the official in charge of the peace process under Clinton, and the founder of an Aipac-sponsored pro-Israel think-tank.

Article taken from here.

Ha'aretz Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner concluded that Obama "sounded as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Giuliani. At least rhetorically, Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass. So, he is pro-Israel. Period."

In the Middle East the US leader has much less power. Israel calls the shots, and what's happening on the ground is deeply gloomy and anti-peace. The chances of creating a viable Palestinian state have almost vanished as Israeli settlements on the West Bank go on increasing and yet more checkpoints appear. Since Bush's Annapolis conference no progress has been made. In spite of a half a dozen meetings with Mahmoud Abbas, the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert refuses to put forward drafts for the framework deal that Bush wanted to see signed before he leaves office. It is all talk but no work. Going against peace, another 9,700 housing units for settlers have been announced for East Jerusalem, compared with 1,600 in the previous four years. Eighty-six new checkpoints have gone up in the West Bank. Meanwhile the EU chooses this moment to upgrade its cultural and economic relations with Israel, forfeiting the little leverage it has.

Faced by Israeli intransigence, no US president can do much. Perhaps the only thing Obama could do is to work on the Palestinians. If he helps end the futile boycott and demonisation of Hamas, he will cease playing the Israeli game and help the Palestinians re-create a united front. It would be a step forward, though not enough for peace. The Israelis are not ready, whatever they say.

There Is No Place For Violence In Islam

Peace be upon you. Violence has no place in Islam. 

This is the reminder of the Quran -

"We made a covenant with you, that you shall not shed your blood, nor shall you evict each other from your homes. You agreed and bore witness." (Quran 2:84)

The traits of the believers are reflected in jihad and not in violence as understood from these verses -

"They avoid gross sins and vice, and when angered they forgive. They respond to their Lord by observing the Contact Prayers (Salat). Their affairs are decided after due consultation among themselves, and from our provisions to them they give (to charity). When gross injustice befalls them, they stand up for their rights. Although the just requital for an injustice is an equivalent retribution, those who pardon and maintain righteousness are rewarded by God. He does not love the unjust. Certainly, those who stand up for their rights, when injustice befalls them, are not committing any error. The wrong ones are those who treat the people unjustly, and resort to aggression without provocation. These have incurred a painful retribution. Resorting to patience and forgiveness reflects a true strength of character." (Quran 42:37-43)

Innocent people are victims of violence. Killing innocent people is prohibited and condemned (Quran 17:33; 6:151; 25:68). One such verse states - 

"You shall not kill any person - for God has made life sacred - except in the course of justice. If one is killed unjustly, then we give his heir authority to enforce justice. Thus he shall not exceed the limits in avenging the murder; he will be helped." (Quran 17:33) 

Suicide bombing, which is part of violence, is also prohibited as understood from this verse -

"O you who believe, do not consume each others properties illicitly - only mutually acceptable transactions are permitted. You shall not kill yourselves. God is Merciful towards you." (Quran 4:29)

Grossness of murder can be understood from this verse - 

"Because of this, we decreed for the Children of Israel that anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or horrendous crimes, it shall be as if he murdered all the people. And anyone who spares a life, it shall be as if he spared the lives of all the people. Our messengers went to them with clear proofs and revelations, but most of them, after all this, are still transgressing." (Quran 5:32)

The Quran does not promote fighting but friendship with those who do not fight with believers on religious issues - 

"God does not enjoin you from befriending those who do not fight you because of religion, and do not evict you from your homes. You may befriend them and be equitable towards them. God loves the equitable." (Quran 60:8) 

The Quran promotes peace and it shows the way to establish the same -

"If they resort to peace, so shall you, and put your trust in God. He is the Hearer, the Omniscient." (Quran 8:61)

Another verse states -

"...Therefore, if they leave you alone, refrain from fighting you, and offer you peace, then God gives you no excuse to fight them" (Quran 4:90) 

As the part of the peace process, the Quran urges on the polite treatment of captives -

"They donate their favorite food to the poor, the orphan, and the captive. "We feed you for the sake of God; we expect no reward from you, nor thanks." (Quran 76:8-9)

The Quran teaches us how to treat the non fighting enemies in their territories -

"If one of the idol worshipers sought safe passage with you, you shall grant him safe passage, so that he can hear the word of God, then send him back to his place of security. That is because they are people who do not know." (Quran 9:6)

The Quran teaches us to honor covenants with others - 

"You shall fulfill your covenant with God when you make such a covenant. You shall not violate the oaths after swearing (by God) to carry them out, for you have made God a guarantor for you. God knows everything you do. Do not be like the knitter who unravels her strong knitting into piles of flimsy yarn. This is your example if you abuse the oaths to take advantage of one another. Whether one group is larger than the other, God thus puts you to the test. He will surely show you on the Day of Resurrection everything you had disputed." (Quran 16:91-92)

We may need to fight back only when gross injustice is committed, -

"You may fight in the cause of God against those who attack you, but do not aggress. God does not love the aggressors. You may kill those who wage war against you, and you may evict them whence they evicted you. Oppression is worse than murder. Do not fight them at the Sacred Masjid, unless they attack you therein. If they attack you, you may kill them. This is the just retribution for those disbelievers. If they refrain, then God is Forgiver, Most Merciful. You may also fight them to eliminate oppression, and to worship God freely. If they refrain, you shall not aggress; aggression is permitted only against the aggressors." (Quran 2:190- 193)

Jihad is needed only when peaceful solution fails -

"If it were not for God's support of some people against others, there would be chaos on earth. But God showers His grace upon the people." (Quran 2:251) The Quran allows to fight only if the terms of the treaty is violated- "If they violate their oaths after pledging to keep their covenants, and attack your religion, you may fight the leaders of paganism - "you are no longer bound by your covenant with them - that they may refrain." (Quran 9":12)

Jihad should be waged only for the cause of God and weak people who were persecuted and oppressed. It is the duty of every believer to support people like these and relieve them from oppression-

"those who believe are fighting for the cause of God, while those who disbelieve are fighting for the cause of tyranny. Therefore, you shall fight the devil's allies; the devil's power is nil." (Quran 4:76)

War should be tolerated only to drive away aggression and tyranny -

"Permission is granted to those who are being persecuted, since injustice has befallen them, and God is certainly able to support them. They were evicted from their homes unjustly, for no reason other than saying, "Our Lord is God." If it were not for God's supporting of some people against others, monasteries, churches, synagogues, and masjids - where the name of God is commemorated frequently - would have been destroyed. Absolutely, God supports those who support Him. God is Powerful, Almighty." (Quran 22:39-40)

The Quran urges believers to fight in the cause of God, without any worldly intentions -

"Those who readily fight in the cause of God are those who forsake this world in favor of the Hereafter. Whoever fight in the cause of God, then gets killed, or attains victory, we will surely grant him a great recompense. Why should you not fight in the cause of God when weak men, women, and children are imploring: "Our Lord, deliver us from this community whose people are oppressive, and be You our Lord and Master." (Quran 4:74-75)

Victory should not lead to expansion or dominance but to advocate and establish righteousness -

"They are those who, if we appointed them as rulers on earth, they would establish the Contact Prayers and the obligatory charity, and would advocate righteousness and forbid evil. God is the ultimate ruler." (Quran 22:41)

The ultimate victory belongs to the righteous -

"We reserve the abode of the Hereafter for those who do not seek exaltation on earth, nor corruption. The ultimate victory belongs to the righteous." (Quran 28:83)

Last but not least, this is the important commandment of God -

"You may fight in the cause of God against those who attack you, but do not aggress. God does not love the aggressors." (Quran 2:190)

The Misleading "Central Front"

Much as George W. Bush misled the United States into the Iraq War with false claims about WMD and links to al-Qaeda, he has kept the nation there with false claims about Iraq as the “central front” in the “war on terror,” says journalist Robert Parry.

Most Americans who have followed the twists and turns of the Iraq War would agree that George W. Bush misled the nation into the conflict with false claims about WMD and Saddam Hussein’s links to al-Qaeda. But it’s less understood that Bush never stopped deceiving the public.

Indeed, one of President Bush’s favorite lines – telling the American people to listen to what the enemy says and thus to know that al-Qaeda considers Iraq the “central front” in the “war on terror” – has been every bit as misleading as his earlier false assertions about WMD.

Parry says that even as Bush was making these assertions, U.S. intelligence was intercepting documents showing that the real “central front” was in al-Qaeda’s base camps along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Watch the clip.



Read further The High Cost of Bush’s Iraq Gambit.

The Message of the Bulldozers

What bulldozers destroy, 200 settlements restored for 500,000 Jews in 150,000 housing units. It's on Palestinian agricultural land where zoning restrictions deny them building permits. Since 1967, Israel demolished over 18,000 Palestinian homes, a process now routine, and nearly always for no security reason. Halper calls it a "national obsession," collective punishment, in defiance of international law that Israel disdains. For Palestinians, it's traumatic and devastating. It renders men powerless and emasculating for being unable to provide a family home.

For women, it's worse - dispossession and loss of one's life that's like losing loved ones. Children as well are affected, traumatized, and rendered scared and insecure. It causes bed-wetting, nightmares, fear of abandonment, a drop in grades, leaving school, and exposure to domestic violence that results from parents' emotional upheaval.

Palestinians have no recourse. They get demolition notices. No formal legal, administrative process or orders accompany them. No warning or time to remove belongings. Barely time enough to escape alive, and at times not that when army policy destroys homes on top of residents suspected of being "wanted." Demolitions may be carried out immediately, months later or even years, and nearly always in early morning when inhabitants may be sleeping or at other times when they're most vulnerable.

Watch the clip



Read further The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Other reading An Israeli in Palestine.

The Misjudged Message by Mr Brown at Knesset

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, wearing a traditional Jewish yarmulke, lays a wreath at the Holocaust memorial Photo: AP

Gordon Brown's choice of the Knesset today as the place to make a strong statement on Iran was not the only misjudgment on his trip to Israel. It could not help but give the impression that the prime minister supports the belligerent statements from senior Israelis about the need to strike Iran militarily to block its access to nuclear weapons. At a time when talks are underway with the Iranians and with sanctions still in play, the last thing needed from responsible western leaders is any hint that force is permissible.

A pity, then, that Brown did not speak equally firmly about justice and occupation when he addressed the Knesset. It is not Palestinian politicians but Israeli decision-makers who need to hear tough words. In spite of emphasising the goal of Palestinian economic development, there was nothing in his Knesset speech about the hundreds of roadblocks, including 86 new ones since last year's Annapolis peace promises. When the prime minister talked politely about "needing your help in lifting economic obstacles", the only desirable step he mentioned was the re-opening of the Chamber of Commerce in East Jerusalem. This was banality to the point of ridicule.

Read further article by Jonathan Steele at guardian.co.uk, Monday July 21, 2008.

Read further

Middle East: Seize chance of peace, Brown urges Israel

Gordon Brown promises backing for Israel in face of Iran nuclear threat

The Denial Syndrome of Israel

The orgy of lying, especially the shocking amenability of most Zionist Jews to take the obscene lies at face value caricatures a people that dreads knowing the truth, let alone coping with it. And when the truth eventually manages to penetrate the “iron wall” of Zionist lies, the custodians of the big lie, which is Zionism, resort to a whole set of defense mechanisms to protect the collective mental sanity of a state whose very existence constitutes a crime against humanity. Thus, according to this depraved and psychotic mindset, Israel doesn’t murder children and innocent civilians, It is only the victims that bring death upon themselves. And Israelis don’t steal the land and property of Palestinians, since the entire world was created for the sake of the “chosen people.” And even when Jews do commit “certain mistakes” and “abominable sins,” they are not really to blame for that since it is the victims that always force Jews to make these mistakes.

Hence, the proverbial Palestinian victim of Israeli savagery is always responsible for the demolition of his own home, the murder of his own children and the destruction of his own farm, grove and orchard by Israeli bulldozer!! Eventually, the entire Palestinian Nakba is a self-inflicted calamity which the Palestinians brought upon themselves because they refused to succumb to the will of the “chosen people.” More to the point, if the Palestinians don’t come to terms with the Nakba and the occupation, a greater Nakba, or holocaust, would be inflicted upon them.

Read further the articles by Khaled Amayreh, a Palestine Journalist.

Nine Reasons to Investigate War Crimes Now

Establishing accountability for U.S. war crimes in the Iraq war era is the sine qua non for initiating a new era on different principles. Here are nine reasons why we must not let bygones be bygones:

1. World peace cannot be achieved without human rights and accountability.

According to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals, "The ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law." Moving in that direction will be impossible unless such responsibility applies to the statesmen of the world's most powerful countries, and above all the world's sole superpower. U.S. support for the war crimes charges like those just brought by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will represent little more than hypocrisy if U.S. Presidents are not held to the same standard.

2. The rule of law is central to our democracy.

Most Americans believe that even the highest officials are bound by law. If we send mentally-disabled juveniles to prison as adults, but let government officials who authorize torture and launch illegal wars go scot-free, we destroy the very basis of the rule of law.

3. We must not allow precedents to be set that promote war crimes.

Executive action unchallenged by Congress changes the way our law is interpreted. According to Robert Borosage, writing for Huffington Post, "If Bush's extreme assertions of power are not challenged by the Congress, they end up not simply creating new law, they could end up rewriting the Constitution itself."

4. We must restore the principles of democracy to our government.

The claim that the President, as commander-in-chief, can exercise the unlimited powers of a king or dictator strikes at the very heart of our democracy. As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson put it, we, as citizens, would "submit ourselves to rules only if under rules." Countries like Chile can attest that the restoration of democracy and the rule of law requires more than voting a new party into office -- it requires a rejection of impunity for the criminal acts of government officials.

5. We must forestall an imperialist resurgence.

When they are out of office, the advocates of imperial expansion and global domination have proven brilliant at lying in wait to undermine and destroy their opponents.

They did it to destroy the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. They'll do it again to an Obama Administration unless their machinations are exposed and discredited first.

6. We must have national consensus on the real reasons for the Bush Administration's failures.

Republicans are preparing to dominate future decades of American politics by blaming the failure of the Iraq war on those who "sent a signal" that the U.S. would not "stay the course" whatever the cost. Establishing the real reasons for the failure of the U.S. in Iraq -- the criminal and anti-democratic character of the war -- is the necessary condition for defeating that effort.

7. We must restore America's damaged reputation abroad.

The world has watched as the United States -- the self-proclaimed steward of democracy -- has systematically broken the letter and spirit of its Constitution, violated international treaties, and ignored basic moral tenets of humanity. As former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora recently pointed out to the Senate Armed Services Committee, our nation's "policy of cruelty" has violated our "overarching foreign policy interests and our national security." To establish international legitimacy, we must demonstrate that we are capable of holding our leaders to account.

8. We must lay the basis for major change in U.S. foreign policy.

Real security in the era of global warming and nuclear proliferation must be based on international cooperation. But genuine cooperation requires that the U.S. entirely repudiate the course of the past eight years. The American people must understand why international cooperation rather than pursuit of global domination is necessary to their own security. And other countries must be convinced that we really mean it.

9. We must deter future U.S. war crimes.

The specter of more war crimes haunts our future. Rumors continue to circulate about an American or American-backed Israeli attack on Iran. A recently introduced House resolution promoted by AIPAC "demands" that the President initiate what is effectively a blockade against Iran -- an act seen by some as tantamount to a declaration of war. Nothing could provide a greater deterrent to such future war crimes than establishing accountability for those of the past.

Holding war criminals accountable will require placing the long-term well-being of our country and the world ahead of short-term political advantage. As Rep. Wexler put it, "We owe it to the American people and history to pursue the wrongdoing of this Administration whether or not it helps us politically or in the next election. Our actions will properly define the Bush Administration in the eyes of history and that is the true test."

Full text, read at Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith.

U.S. Perpetuates Mass Killings In Iraq

By Peter Phillips / July 19th, 2008

The United States is directly responsible for over one million Iraqi deaths since the invasion five and half years ago. In a January 2008 report, a British polling group Opinion Research Business (ORB) reports that, “survey work confirms our earlier estimate that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003…. We now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000”.

The ORB report comes on the heels of two earlier studies conducted by Johns Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal that confirmed the continuing numbers of mass deaths in Iraq. A study done by Dr. Les Roberts from January 1, 2002 to March 18 2003 put the civilian deaths at that time at over 100,000. A second study published in the Lancet in October 2006 documented over 650,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since the start of the US invasion. The 2006 study confirms that US aerial bombing in civilian neighborhoods caused over a third of these deaths and that over half the deaths are directly attributable to US forces.

The now estimated 1.2 million dead, as of July 2008, includes children, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, cab drivers, clerics, schoolteachers, factory workers, policemen, poets, healthcare workers, day care providers, construction workers, babysitters, musicians, bakers, restaurant workers and many more. All manner of ordinary people in Iraq have died because the United States decided to invade their country. These are deaths in excess of the normal civilian death rate under the prior government.

The magnitude of these deaths is undeniable. The continuing occupation by US forces guarantees a mass death rate in excess of 10,000 people per month with half that number dying at the hands of US forces — a carnage so severe and so concentrated at to equate it with the most heinous mass killings in world history. This act has not gone unnoticed.

Recently, Dennis Kucinich introduced a single impeachment article against George W. Bush for lying to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq. On July 15, the House forwarded the resolution to the Judiciary Committee with a 238 to 180 vote. That Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s threat to the US is now beyond doubt. Former US federal prosecutor Elizabeth De La Vega documents the lies most thoroughly in her book U.S. v. Bush, and numerous other researchers have verified Bush’s untrue statements.

The American people are faced with a serious moral dilemma. Murder and war crimes have been conducted in our name. We have allowed the war/occupation to continue in Iraq and offered ourselves little choice within the top two presidential candidates for immediate cessation of the mass killings. McCain would undoubtedly accept the deaths of another million Iraqi civilians in order to save face for America, and Obama’s 18-month timetable for withdrawal would likely result in another 250,000 civilian deaths or more.

We owe our children and ourselves a future without the shame of mass murder on our collective conscience. The only resolution of this dilemma is the immediate withdrawal of all US troops in Iraq and the prosecution and imprisonment of those responsible. Anything less creates a permanent original sin on the soul of the nation for that we will forever suffer.

Prosecution of George W. Bush by the International Criminal Court

Prosecution of George W. Bush by the International Criminal Court

An Open Letter to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

by David Swanson

Information and Evidence Unit
Office of the Prosecutor
Post Office Box 19519
2500 CM The Hague
The Netherlands
Fax: +31 70 515 8555
Email: otp.informationdesk@icc-cpi.int [1]
July 15, 2008

Dear Chief Prosecutor,

Congratulations on your request for an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan. When the rule of law cannot be justly enforced within a nation, it must be enforced internationally. In that regard, I would like to recommend that you seek an arrest warrant for the president of my nation, the United States of America. I have read your letter of February 9, 2006, in which you decline to seek prosecution of George W. Bush, and I believe new evidence compels another review.

With all due respect for the difficulty of your work, the case you have brought against the president of Sudan has followed quite different standards than those applied in your refusal to prosecute the president of the United States. In fact, you have refused to consider prosecution of George W. Bush because the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court. But Sudan is also not a member of the International Criminal Court. Were you to consider the evidence of international crimes in Iraq as it exists today, and to consider the crimes committed on behalf of the president of the United States by members of the United States military and mercenaries employed by the United States, I believe you would find a case for prosecution that met the standards you applied, and applied well and admirably, to the president of Sudan.

While there is good reason to expect multiple prosecutions of George W. Bush and of his Vice President and top advisors by individual nations, the rule of law would benefit were the International Criminal Court to take the lead. Should it fail to do so, the entire idea of international law will suffer seriously. In the time since your 2006 letter, Judge Baltasar Garzón of Spain, on March 20, 2008, has written these words in El Pais:

"Breaking every international law, and under the pretext of the war against terror, there has taken place since 2003 a devastating attack on the rule of law and against the very essence of the international community. In its path, institutions such as the United Nations were left in tatters, from which it has not yet recovered....We should look more deeply into the possible criminal responsibility of the people who are, or were, responsible for this war and see whether there is sufficient evidence to make them answer for it....There is enough of an argument in 650,000 deaths for this investigation and inquiry to start without more delay."

You wrote in your 2006 letter that you cannot prosecute the crime of aggressive war but only the commission of war crimes that take place during a war, and that in 2009 it may become possible for you to prosecute the crime of aggression. While we must all strive to make that prosecution possible in 2009, it is not needed in order to prosecute George W. Bush, and his prosecution should not wait. As the Nuremberg Tribunal stated so well, "To initiate a war of aggression…is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." This has proven to be true in Iraq, and in Bush's global "war on terrorism", and there is no reason to delay prosecution for each separate element of the accumulated evil.

In order to prosecute crimes against humanity, you write that you need to identify "widespread or systemic attack directed against any civilian population." The civilian population of Iraq has suffered as a result of the US-led invasion and occupation in numbers and proportion that can only be called widespread and systemic. Iraqi deaths as a result of the invasion and occupation, measured above the high death rate under international sanctions preceding the attack, are estimated at 1.2 million by two independent sources (Just Foreign Policy's updated figure based on the Johns Hopkins / Lancet report, and the British polling company Opinion Research Business's estimate as of August 2007). According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Iraqis who have fled their homes has reached 4.7 million. If these estimates are accurate, a total of nearly 6 million human beings have been displaced from their homes or killed. Many times that many have certainly been injured, traumatized, impoverished, and deprived of clean water and other basic needs.

In examining attacks on civilian populations, some specific incidents can be highlighted, not all of them occurring between March and May 2003, the period of time you referred to in your 2006 letter, and not all of them involving soldiers of the United Kingdom. It is necessary to examine the entire length of the US-led occupation, and to examine the crimes of US troops and mercenaries. Since May of 2005 I have collected evidence of these crimes on a website at http://afterdowningstreet.org[2] A thoroughly documented October 2006 report posted there and prepared by Consumers for Peace ( www.consumersforpeace.org [3]) with the advice of Karen Parker, President of the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers ( www.humanlaw.org [4]) and Chief Delegate to the United Nations for the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project (IED/AHL), will provide you with much useful evidence of crimes during the sieges of Fallujah, Samara, Tal Afar, and other cities, as well as systemic violations of the basic duties of an occupying power, and widespread illegal use of a variety of weapons. See: http://afterdowningstreet.org/warcrimesreport [5]

The above report, as many others, also makes the case that the killing of civilians in thousands of isolated incidents has been standard operating procedure for occupying forces in Iraq:

"One reason for the huge numbers of civilian casualties under the U.S. occupation is that U.S. soldiers have often behaved as if they have been told to shoot anything that moves. As noted in the Christian Science Monitor: 'The rules of engagement instruct U.S. soldiers to bring withering force to bear on positions they're attacked from, even when an insurgent ducks into a private house for cover'. However, many NGOs have attested that private homes and persons who are clearly civilians are attacked without any possible excuse that a particular attack was directed at insurgents....

"'One sergeant in northern Iraq puts it this way: "If someone runs into a house, we're going to light it up. If civilians get killed in there, that's a tragedy, but we're going to keep doing it and people are going to get the message that they should do whatever they can to keep these people out of their neighborhoods."'-- Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor....

"An attack on the small town of Baiji illustrates situations that have been repeated numerous times and on both larger and smaller scales. The following excerpts are taken from an article by Michael Schwartz, using reports from the New York Times and the Washington Post:

'In early January 2006, …a relatively small incident (not even worthy of front page coverage)…illustrated perfectly the capacity of the American military to kill uncounted thousands of Iraqi civilians each year.'

"Schwartz cited the Times account of what happened at Baiji, 150 miles north of Baghdad, on January 3. The account relied on U.S. officials who had stated:

"'A pilotless reconnaissance aircraft detected three men planting a roadside bomb about 9 p.m. The men "dug a hole following the common pattern of roadside bomb emplacement," the military said in a statement. "The individuals were assessed as posing a threat to Iraqi civilians and coalition forces, and the location of the three men was relayed to close air support pilots."

"'The men were tracked from the road site to a building nearby, which was then bombed with "precision guided munitions," the military said. The statement did not say whether a roadside bomb was later found at the site. An additional military statement said Navy F-14's had "strafed the target with 100 cannon rounds" and dropped one bomb."

"'Schwartz continues his narrative: The target was a "building nearby," identified by a drone aircraft as an enemy hiding place. According to eyewitness reports given to the Washington Post, the attack effectively demolished the building, and damaged six surrounding buildings. While in a perfect world, the surrounding buildings would have been unharmed, the reported amount of human damage in them (two people injured) suggests that, in this case at least, the claims of "precision" were at least fairly accurate.

"'The problem arises with what happened inside the targeted building, a house inhabited by a large Iraqi family. Piecing together the testimony of local residents, the Times reporter concluded that fourteen members of the family were in the house at the time of the attack and nine were killed.

"'Because in this case -- unlike in so many others in which American air power utilizes "precisely guided munitions" -- there was on-the-spot reporting for an American newspaper, the U.S. military command was required to explain these casualties. Without conceding that the deaths actually occurred, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, director of the Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad, commented: "We continue to see terrorists and insurgents using civilians in an attempt to shield themselves."

"'Notice that Lt. Col. Johnson (while not admitting that civilians had actually died) did assert U.S. policy: If suspected guerrillas use any building as a refuge, a full-scale attack on that structure is justified, even if the insurgents attempt to use civilians to "shield themselves." These are, in other words, essential U.S. rules of engagement. The attack should be "precise" only in the sense that planes and/or helicopter gunships should seek as best they can to avoid demolishing surrounding structures.''

A thoroughly documented Article of Impeachment introduced in the United States House of Representatives in June 2008 charges, in part:

"In the course of invading and occupying Iraq, the President, as Commander in Chief, has taken responsibility for the targeting of civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, use of antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely settled urban areas, the use of white phosphorous as a weapon, depleted uranium weapons, and the use of a new version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs. Under the direction of President George Bush the United States has engaged in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian populations, including but not limited to blocking roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and plowing over orchards.

"Under the principle of 'command responsibility', i.e., that a de jure command can be civilian as well as military, and can apply to the policy command of heads of state, said command brings President George Bush within the reach of international criminal law under the Additional Protocol I of June 8, 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, Article 86 (2). The United States is a state signatory to Additional Protocol I, on December 12, 1977.

"Furthermore, Article 85 (3) of said Protocol I defines as a grave breach making a civilian population or individual civilians the object of attacks. This offense, together with the principle of command responsibility, places President George Bush's conduct under the reach of the same law and principles described as the basis for war crimes prosecution at Nuremberg, under Article 6 of the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunals: including crimes against peace, violations of the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity, similarly codified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Articles 5 through 8."

See: http://afterdowningstreet.org/busharticleVIII [6]

Your 2006 letter explained that in your investigation of willful killing and inhumane treatment in Iraq you were able to find fewer than 20 victims. It would appear you were limiting your investigation to victims of British troops, if not limiting it in other ways as well. More than 20 victims of U.S. murder, torture, and inhumane treatment can be found in photographic evidence from Abu Ghraib prison alone.

According to the just released book "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals," by Jane Mayer, a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross documents and describes what it concludes is unequivocally torture in widespread use by the United States in Iraq and elsewhere. Mayer reports that this Red Cross report has long been known to President Bush. Bush, of course, signed an order in February 2002 brushing aside the Geneva Conventions and authorizing the use of torture. The evidence of torture by US mercenaries and troops is extensive and includes the testimony of numerous victims and witnesses, photographs, and video.

Here are a few sources of information made public since your 2006 letter:

ACLU Announces Publication of Administration of Torture, a Groundbreaking Account of Prisoner Abuse in U.S. Custody Abroad
http://aclu.org/about/staff/administrationoftorture.html [7]

FBI Details Possible Detainee Abuse
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/16890 [8]

Cheney's Leading Role in Torture
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney [9]

Uninvestigated Crimes: CIA Torture Flights Out of North Carolina
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17997 [10]

Abu Ghraib: "Man In the Hood" provides testimony at War Crimes Conference
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18337 [11]

New Light Shed on CIA's "Black Site" Prisons
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19084 [12]

Aspects of Padilla's Treatment Confirmed
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19085 [13]

What Happened to the Padilla Interrogation Videos?
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19632 [14]

'We Were Torturing People For No Reason' -- A Soldier's Tale
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20720 [15]

'Outsourced Guantanamo' - FBI & CIA Interrogating Detainees in Secret Ethiopian Jails, U.S. Citizen Among Those Held
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20977 [16]

CIA Tortured Me in Iraq, Claims Freed Iranian Diplomat
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20992 [17]

Photos of 'Tortured' Iraqi's Corpse Released
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21391 [18]

Former Guantanamo Inmate Describes Interrogations
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23719 [19]

Rumsfeld, Perjury, and Shoving Things Up Rectums
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23721 [20]

Guantánamo Man’s Family Release 'Torture' Dossier
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25717 [21]

CIA Detention Program Remains Active: U.S. Official
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27486 [22]

Torture Victim Tells His Story to Congress
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27876 [23]

Guantanamo Military Lawyer Breaks Ranks to Condemn "Unconscionable" Detention
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28147 [24]

Dozens of 'Ghost Prisoners' Not Publicly Accounted For
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28211 [25]

Torture Orders Came from Bush
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28347 [26]

Flight Logs Reveal Secret Rendition
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28955 [27]

Jordan's Spy Agency: Holding Cell for the CIA
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29065 [28]

Former Chief Prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions Resigned his Post
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29300 [29]

Kiriakou: White House Approved Abuzabaydah's WaterBoarding
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29335 [30]

*****

In fact, the evidence of crimes against humanity authorized and ordered by my president is overwhelming. Please allow me to recommend for your review just a few sources of information that have become public since your 2006 letter was written:

2007 May 4 United States Army Surgeon General's Report on Declining Morale and War Crimes
http://armymedicine.army.mil/news/mhat/mhat.html [31]

US Attack on Iraqi Peace Parliamentarian
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/16887 [32]

US Electromagnetic Weapons and Human Rights
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17011 [33]

'Shocking' video: Shi'a Iraqi soldiers beat Sunnis as US trainers watch
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17779 [34]

Death Squads, American Style
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17862 [35]

Fifth Marine Pleads Guilty in Murder of Innocent Man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18557 [36]

Jailed Two Years, Iraqi Tells of Abuse by Americans
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18690 [37]

Coerced Labor Building Baghdad Embassy?
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23182 [38]

Marine Told to Destroy Haditha Photos
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23473 [39]

The Other War: Iraq Veterans Speak Out on Shocking Accounts of Attacks on Iraqi Civilians
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24605 [40]

Marine Says Beatings Urged in Iraq
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24762 [41]

Video: Marine on Hamdania Shooting
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25661 [42]

U.S. Soldier Convicted of Beating Iraqi Detainee With Baseball Bat
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25824 [43]

Marine Tells of Order to Execute Haditha Women and Children
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26350 [44]

Documents Show Troops Disregarding Rules
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26439 [45]

U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With ‘Bait’
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27114 [46]

Soldier: Sergeant From N.C. Ordered Me to Shoot Unarmed Iraqi Man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27233 [47]

US Violating Chemical Weapons Convention in Iraq
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28563 [48]

*****

I would, in particular, recommend for your review the first-person testimony of U.S. soldiers and Marines returned from Iraq:
http://ivaw.org/wintersoldier [49]

*****

In your 2006 letter you suggest that the crimes, if they are to be prosecuted, must have been "committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes." I believe this can be well established for the war crimes authorized and ordered by the president of the United States in Iraq and elsewhere. Not only has it been U.S. policy to attack and to punish civilians, to arbitrarily detain, and to torture, but President George W. Bush has gone to great lengths to ensure that those obeying his illegal orders not be subject to prosecution. The question of whether U.S. mercenaries or soldiers will be subject to Iraqi law is a major sticking point in ongoing negotiations between Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

According to a thoroughly documented Article of Impeachment introduced against President Bush in the United States House of Representatives in June 2008, Bush has

"established policies granting United States government contractors and their employees in Iraq immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. law, and international law.

"Lewis Paul Bremer III, then-Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq, on June 27, 2004, issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 17, which granted members of the U.S. military, U.S. mercenaries, and other U.S. contractor employees immunity from Iraqi law.

"The Bush Administration has chosen not to apply the Uniform Code of Military Justice or United States law to mercenaries and other contractors employed by the United States government in Iraq.

"Operating free of Iraqi or U.S. law, mercenaries have killed many Iraqi civilians in a manner that observers have described as aggression and not as self-defense. Many U.S. contractors have also alleged that they have been the victims of aggression (in several cases of rape) by their fellow contract employees in Iraq. These charges have not been brought to trial, and in several cases the contracting companies and the U.S. State Department have worked together in attempting to cover them up.

"Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United States is party, and which under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution is therefore the supreme law of the United States, it is the responsibility of an occupying force to ensure the protection and human rights of the civilian population. The efforts of President Bush and his subordinates to attempt to establish a lawless zone in Iraq are in violation of the law."

See: http://afterdowningstreet.org/busharticleXV [50]

*****

For documentation of crimes by U.S. mercenaries, please review these reports:

2007 Oct 11 UN Report on Blackwater and Other Mercenaries Killing Indiscriminately
http://uniraq.org/FileLib/misc/HR%20Report%20Apr%20Jun%202007%20EN.pdf [51]

Blackwater Security Shot Iraqi Man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18363 [52]

CIA Mercenary Gets 8 Years for Beating a Prisoner to Death
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18556 [53]

Blackwater Guards Killed 16 as U.S. Touted Progress
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27244 [54]

FBI Admits Blackwater Mercenaries Murdered at Least 14 People
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28704 [55]

*****

The crimes of George W. Bush are not limited to Iraq. For an excellent summary and extensive documentation of charges that he has authorized illegal detention, torture, and rendition to nations that torture, please see these three Articles of Impeachment:

http://afterdowningstreet.org/busharticleXVII [56]

http://afterdowningstreet.org/busharticleXVIII [57]

http://afterdowningstreet.org/busharticleXIX [58]

*****

Thank you for your careful and impartial consideration and courage.

Sincerely,

David Swanson