U.S. SPENDING IN IRAQ

1. Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $800 billion of US taxpayers' funds spent or approved for spending through mid-2009. In April 2009, President Obama announced that he will seek an additional $76 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. U.S. Monthly Spending in Iraq - $12 billion in 2008
3. U.S. Spending per Second - $5,000 in 2008 (per Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on May 5, 2008)
4. Cost of deploying one U.S. soldier for one year in Iraq - $390,000 (Congressional Research Service)
5. Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors. Also, per ABC News, 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles.
6. Missing - $1 billion in tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces. (Per CBS News on Dec 6, 2007.)
7. Mismanaged & Wasted in Iraq - $10 billion, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings
8. Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported - $1.4 billion
9. Amount paid to KBR, a former Halliburton division, to supply U.S. military in Iraq with food, fuel, housing and other items - $20 billion
10. Portion of the $20 billion paid to KBR that Pentagon auditors deem "questionable or supportable" - $3.2 billion
11. Number of major U.S. bases in Iraq - 75 (The Nation/New York Times)

Read further the statistic here.

"History will not forgive those who are partners in crime"

In this videotape, Bassem Aburahma (nick named ElFeel, the elephant, for he was always thought of as a giant among his peers) is seen pleading with Israeli soldiers to wait (saying Raiga in Hebrew) as Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals protested the land confiscation and building of the apartheid fence on village land. The soldiers then shoot Bassem point blank with a high velocity gas grenade which kills him within five minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlbzuZ_50mU

and here is a video of the funeral the next day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F91H8sR64Ro
Please share these videos with media, politicians and others to see what is being done daily under occupation.

"My interest to hit Saddam Hussein"

5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam".

He also said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

And at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions between top administration officials, several lines below the statement "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam Hussein] at same time", is the statement "Hard to get a good case." In other words, top officials knew that there wasn't a good case that Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway.

And yet, the government knew that Al Qaeda and Iraq were not linked. For example, "Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the [9/11] attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda".

And a Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary issued in February 2002 by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy.

And yet Bush, Cheney and other top administration officials claimed and continue to claim that Saddam was behind 9/11. See this analysis. Indeed, Bush administration officials apparently swore in a lawsuit that Saddam was behind 9/11.

Indeed, President Bush's March 18, 2003 letter to Congress authorizing the use of force against Iraq, includes the following paragraph:

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Therefore, the Bush administration expressly justified the Iraq war to Congress by representing that Iraq planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11 attacks. See this.

Ahmadinejad's courageous dream of a just and equal global society

WRITTEN BY AVIGAIL ABARBANEL (artwork by Alessio Marazzi)

I read or heard somewhere that Ahmadinejad's speech was denying the Holocaust. I just read the full text. There is no Holocaust denial in this speech at all. He is also labelled racist by Israel and of course he is not. He is not talking about the character of any people. He criticises Western governments for present and historical injustices against others and against their own people, and for greed and brutality. He is also talking about the inequality in the world community that gives countries like the US the right of veto in the UN Security Council, and the ability to get away with things like the attack on Iraq etc. He is trying to say that hypocrisy rules rather than justice, equality or freedom.

I don't know why everyone attacks this guy. He needs a little bit of editing perhaps, but his speech is right and good. I think it's fashionable to dislike him and dismiss him but his only crime is that he is not complying with the rules of 'politeness' in world diplomacy that mean that everyone ignores what isn't 'pleasant' or politically profitable to talk about, while in the meantime continuing to commit crimes against humanity and injustices everywhere. Ahmadinejad does not see himself bound by Western rules of political politeness and he has the courage to say what he thinks and what needs to be said, knowing full well that this makes him unpopular among world leaders. Wouldn't hurt if more leaders were prepared to speak more plainly and say things honestly.

Ahmadinejad talks about his dream of a just and equal global society. Is this wrong? When he talks about the destruction of Israel he is talking about an end to the exclusively Jewish state, which all anti-Zionists around the world including those from within Israel, are calling for as well. Israel likes to twist this around and say that he wants to destroy Israel or kill Jews. But that's not what he is saying. Funny that Israel with 200 nuclear weapons ready to deploy, and with a rogue government ready to attack civilians at any time, accuses others of developing nuclear weapons. Funny that an apartheid state accuses others of racism… But I guess there is nothing new under the sun. It's just that we want people in the mainstream media to sift through the material and show things as they really are, not as Israel or the US or even the Australian PM Rudd, say they are.

Ahmadinejad believes in god. Surely his understanding that god would want justice for everyone in the world regardless of nationality, should be shared by Jews and by Christians everywhere. Rudd and even Obama flaunt their religious beliefs and Israel's entire project is based on a belief in god (at least on the belief that god has given them the land). Anyone who believes in god should be able to easily identify with Ahmadinejad's just god and his vision of a healthy and just world community.

Anyway, in case you haven't read the speech here it is. I encourage journalists to print the speech so that readers can make up their own minds about it. It has been published in many sites, so it is available for people to read and judge for themselves. I don't want to see the the mainstream media just participating unwittingly in the hate campaign against Ahmadinejad that is based on Israeli propaganda needs rather than anything he is actually saying.

Avigail Abarbanel was born and raised in Israel. She is a professional psychotherapist and counsellor as well as human rights activist and director of the Canberra branch of Deir Yassin Remembered. Her site is:http://www.avigailabarbanel.me.uk/

The Arab World and Israel's Nuclear Arsenal

Today, Israel is widely believed to possess 250-300 nuclear weapons, along with their delivery systems which include the Yariho (Jericho) missiles and the long-range F-15 and F-16 fighter warplanes.

Needless to say, these nuclear missiles are not trained toward Berlin or Warsaw but toward Muslim capitals such as Cairo, Damascus and Tehran.

Israel had consistently denied possessing nuclear weapons and for many years repeated ad nauseam the vague abracadabra that “ Israel won’t be the first state to introduce nuclear weapons to the region.”

In recent years, however, Israeli officials began to admit, although tacitly, that Israel is indeed a well-established nuclear state.

On 12 December, 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Germany's Sat.1 channel that “Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?"

Israeli strategists claim that the Jewish state needs the nuclear deterrent as a “doomsday” or “weapon of last resort” to prevent the possible destruction of the “Third Temple.”

However, this claim seems to be as mendacious and hypocritical as the stale lie that Israel won’t be the first state to introduce nukes to the region.

Hence, one can safely argue that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is intended not merely for “self-protection” or “self-preservation” but also for strategic-aggrandizement and spreading military supremacy all over the Middle East, from Iran to Morocco.

When translating this into simple political language, one reaches the inescapable conclusion that Israel’s ultimate goal is to enslave hundreds of millions of Muslims and Christians from Tehran to Mauritania and from Istanbul to Khartoum.

This is not a phobic assessment of the Israeli strategic doctrine and intentions. This is rather an accurate and realistic reading into Israel’s collective thinking.

From the Nile to the Euphrates

According to the late Yisrael Shahak, author of “Jewish History, Jewish Religion: the Weight of Three Thousand Years,” some rabbinic authorities see the borders of Israel as the following: In the south, all of Sinai and parts of northern Egypt up to the environs of Cairo; in the east, all of Jordan and a large chunk of Saudi Arabia, all of Kuwait and a part of Iraq south of the Euphrates, in the north, all of Lebanon and all of Syria and a huge part of Turkey!! (up to the Lake Van) and in the West, Cyprus.

According to Shahak, these are not, as one would think, anecdotal views among an eccentric rabbinic class. On the contrary, an enormous body of research and learned discussion based on these borders, embodied in atlases, books, articles and more popular forms of propaganda was published in Israel, often with state subsidies, or other forms of support.

Shahak adds that there are influential Jewish religious figures in Israel who believe that Israel will have to conquer these countries sooner or later on the grounds that doing so is a divinely commanded act.

This is why Muslims should be vigilant and constantly on the watch as to Israel’s real intentions. Muslim states should also pay more attention to what Israel does and less to what Israel says.

We Muslims don’t lack the resources to be powerful and deter our enemies. What we do lack is the will to be free, united, sovereign and truly independent.

So, what are we waiting for? Are we waiting for Israel to strike at Mecca and Medina, a possibility that should never be ruled out, given the nefarious nature of the Zionist entity?

Indeed, who would deter, let alone repulse Israel from embarking on the unthinkable? Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Or perhaps the hedonistic, illiterate and ignorant Sheikhs and Emirs and kings who think that erecting high buildings is the ultimate sign of progress and civilization?

The answer is clear. And unfortunately, only one country in the region, apart from the aggressor Israel, is serious about protecting its people from an external aggression of genocidal proportions.

This country ought to be lauded and praised for its dignified determination to be free, not castigated by impotent Arab states that continue to cede their respective sovereignty to the United States.

Read further this article by Khalid Amayreh here.

Read also Israel stands ready to bomb Iran's nuclear sites.

The War Crimes Act of 1996: Bush, Cheney and the Boys could be Indicted under US Law

The War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal statute set forth at 18 U.S.C. § 2441, makes it a federal crime for any U.S. national, whether military or civilian, to violate the Geneva Convention by engaging in murder, torture, or inhuman treatment.

The statute applies not only to those who carry out the acts, but also to those who ORDER IT, know about it, or fail to take steps to stop it. The statute applies to everyone, no matter how high and mighty.

18 U.S.C. § 2441 has no statute of limitations, which means that a war crimes complaint can be filed at any time.

The penalty may be life imprisonment or -- if a single prisoner dies due to torture -- death. Given that there are numerous, documented cases of prisoners being tortured to death by U.S. soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan (see for example this report), that means that the death penalty would be appropriate for anyone found guilty of carrying out, ordering, or sanctioning such conduct.

The general in charge of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq stated this week that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials ORDERED that inhuman treatment and torture be conducted as part of a deliberate strategy. This confirms what the Pullitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam previously wrote.

Indeed, an FBI email declassified in December 2004 states that Bush signed an Executive Order authorizing torture (here is the list of documents obtained through a freedom of information act request, and take a close look, for example, at this one, which mentions the "executive order").

An expert on Constitutional law said that only Bush could have authorized the torture which has occurred.

It has also recently come out that, even after the torture at Abu Ghraib hit the news, torture still continues at that prison and, indeed, the U.S. is still torturing people worldwide. Even to the casual observer, it is obvious that the administration has no plans to stop, but has instead been working tirelessly to make it easier to carry out torture in the future.

Read further the article here from George Washington's Blog.

How Bush Abused Power?

Traces of explosives in 9/11 dust, scientists say

Tiny red and gray chips found in the dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center contain highly explosive materials — proof, according to a former BYU professor, that 9/11 is still a sinister mystery.

Physicist Steven E. Jones, who retired from Brigham Young University in 2006 after the school recoiled from the controversy surrounding his 9/11 theories, is one of nine authors on a paper published last week in the online, peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal. Also listed as authors are BYU physics professor Jeffrey Farrer and a professor of nanochemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

For several years, Jones has theorized that pre-positioned explosives, not fires from jet fuel, caused the rapid, symmetrical collapse of the two World Trade Center buildings, plus the collapse of a third building, WTC-7.

The newest research, according to the journal authors, shows that dust from the collapsing towers contained a "nano-thermite" material that is highly explosive. Although the article draws no conclusions about the source and purpose of the explosives, Jones has previously supported a theory that the collapse of the WTC towers was part of a government conspiracy to ignore warnings about the 9/11 terrorists so that the attack would propel America to wage war against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jones made headlines in 2005 when he argued that the rapid and symmetrical fall of the World Trade Center looked like the result of pre-positioned explosives. He argued that fires alone wouldn't have been hot enough to crumble the buildings; and that even if struck by planes, the towers should have been strong enough to support the weight of the tops as they crumbled — unless they were leveled by explosives.

Celebrating Bush's Failures

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Iqbal Tamimi - From a Saudi girl to USA President Obama ..please help

One might think that the young girls in Saudi Arabia are not affected by what is happening in Gaza and other parts of Palestine, but this is not true, children in every part of the world are feeling the despair and pain of their peers. This lead 12 years old Judy Lu’ay Khashokji to write a plea to USA president Barak Obama. Expressing in her own simple and moving words her feelings of pain and sadness caused by what happened to the children of Gaza. Her feelings are an example of the feelings of millions of Arab and Muslim children who witnessed that attack on Gaza leaving the children drenched in blood inside their schools and while sleeping in their beds at what used to be their families’ homes.

When Israel commits its crimes against Palestinians, the damage is far beyond the Palestinian borders, and this is an important issue that should be kept in mind, an aggression on children anywhere in the world is our business because it bounces back on our children’s feelings, Palestinians or otherwise. The children all over the world saw families killed in Gaza, they saw children of their own age under the rubble with parts of their bodies amputated by the Israeli DIME bombs, and others burned down by white phosphorus bombs. Such images charged the young girl to write an open letter to the American president to interfere and do something to save the children, her message reads:

To President Obama
Friday, January 16, 2009

My name is Judy Lu'ay Khashokji, I’m 12 years old and I live in Saudi Arabia. My school is Almarefah school (school of knowledge) in Jeddah. I would like to tell you about the war in the Gaza Strip because it is the worst war I've seen in my life, you're the President of the most powerful country in the world, only you can stop the war in Gaza. I say this not only because we are Muslims, but because we are children, and we know how children feel when they lose their parents. Worse even when parents witness their own children die in Gaza before their own eyes. Children are dying without committing any crime or taking any action against Israel, and without having committed any wrongdoing. I know you're a father and you have beautiful daughters, we saw them on television, they are of our own age and the age of the children killed in Gaza. Imagine how would you feel if anything bad happened to them, some children and infants are dying because of the explosions. And when they want to take them to the hospital, some children with no heads and no hands or legs. This is not fake because I saw them in the news in front of my eyes, you will be able to see yourself on the Internet in the Arab News, and I know you can do something to stop this war, please do so quickly before more children die, so when I saw it on TV and I saw it I cried. In my dreams it was the worst nightmare I've seen in my life. I think you can stop the tears of my dreams and disappointments. Before I finish the letter I want to tell you I saw the picture in the paper crying father and three of his children dead.

With love
Judy Lu'ay Khashokji

The Bush Six to Be Indicted

Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantanamo. By Scott Horton.

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human rights community on other points: they will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

Both Washington and Madrid appear determined not to allow the pending criminal investigation to get in the way of improved relations.

The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington and former Under-Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.” The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. A group of human rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking the court to look at the possibility of charges against the six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzón Real, the investigating judge, accepted the complaint and referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whether they would accept the case and press it forward. “The evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation,” one of the lawyers associated with the prosecution stated.

Read further the article from here.

U.S. shipped 989 munitions containers to Israel week before Gaza invasion

In the dying days of the Bush administration, and a week before Israel launched an aerial bombing campaign, followed by a land invasion of the Gaza Strip, the U.S. military shipped 989 containers of munitions to Israel.

Each container was 20-feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tonnes. The shipment reportedly reached Israel last month at Ashod, 40 kiometres north of Gaza. The huge arsenal of munitions will replenish those expended in the Gaza War.

According to Amnesty International in the UK, the shipment included white phosphorous.

The international organization says 300 of the containers had been unloaded at Ashod in March by a German cargo ship, Wehr Elb.

"We are sure that the consignment contained arms and munitions." We have a strong suspicion that it contained white phosphorous which has been used against civilians in Gaza," Brian Wood, head of Arms Control Campaign at Amnesty International in London said late this week.

"The cargo ship had been chartered and controlled by US Military Sealift Command. It left the USA for Israel on December 20, one week before the start of Israeli attacks on Gaza. The vessel was carrying 989 containers of munitions, each of them 20-feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tonnes," he said.

"The world community including the Palestinians should be able to know where the remaining 680 containers on board the Wehr Elbe have gone and why the US is not transparent about the final destination of the dangerous cargo.

"A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to Amnesty International that "the unloading of the entire US munitions shipment was successfully completed at Ashdod on March 22," Wood pointed out.

The spokesperson had said the shipment was destined for a US pre-positioned munitions stockpile in Israel, he said. Under a US-Israel agreement, munitions from this stockpile may be transferred for Israeli use if necessary.

"There is a great risk that the new munitions may be used by the Israeli military to commit further violations of international law, like the ones committed during the war in Gaza," Wood said.

"Legally and morally, this US arms shipment should have been halted by the Obama administration given the extent of the evidence showing how military equipment and munitions of this kind were recently used by the Israeli forces for war crimes. Arms supplies in these circumstances are contrary to provisions in US law," he said.

Text taken from here.

Solidarity with the Palestinian Struggle

There are moments in modern history when particular struggles galvanise millions around the world to act in solidarity.

This occurred during the Spanish Civil War, the struggle of the Vietnamese people against US imperialism and the liberation struggles of Southern Africa. The time has now come for progressive humanity to cut through the obfuscations, canards and calumnies and meaningfully support the resistance of the Palestinian people.

For more than 60 years Palestinians have alerted us to one outrage after another, injustices piled upon injustices without the commensurate scale of global solidarity required to make a significant difference to their lives. It is now in our hands to change this unconscionable situation. Not by appealing to the ruling classes of the world and their institutions -- which remain, in the face of abundant evidence, unmoved, callous and hypocritical. Which in fact sustain and provide succour to Israel’s apartheid and terror. It is rather by applying the most potent weapon we have learnt to rely on, forged and steeled through the tried and tested struggles of workers and oppressed people spanning time and space: solidarity. International solidarity in this sense in the words of the late Mozambican revolutionary, Samora Machel is “not an act of charity but an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objectives”.

Acts of defiance and determination against overwhelming odds continue to drive the will of Palestinians. Global solidarity activists need to be inspired and strengthened by this unleashing of creative energies; the fact that obstacles can be surmounted and the debilitating wastefulness of internecine and sectarian conflicts exposed.

Read further the article The campaign to isolate apartheid Israel - lessons from South Africa by Salim Vally.

Dima Omar - So what did we learn about anti-Semitism?

No one expected a calm discussion during the debate entitled “Anti-Semitism – Alive and Well in Europe?”, which was organised by the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival. Along with Aaronovitch, the panel included Gilad Atzmon and the Observer columnist Nick Cohen.

Cohen certainly conceded that whenever Israel launches a fresh attack on Gaza or Lebanon, synagogues and Jewish cemeteries are attacked in the UK. Yet somehow he refuses to accept the correlation between Zionist policies and anti-Semitism. He wants us to believe that anti-Semitism is fuelled by pure hatred for the Jews. After all, Chinese property wasn’t attacked in the aftermath of the Tibetan clashes last year. Sudanese property wasn’t attacked when Darfur was in the media.

Well, Mr. Cohen, maybe it’s because China and Sudan are being condemned in the international community, especially in Britain, while Israel to this day is being hailed as the West’s indispensable partner. Maybe it’s because what Israel has committed in Gaza during “Operation Cast Lead” earlier this year has created more devastation than what happened in Darfur (and this is according to the head of the International Red Cross). Maybe it's because it is acceptable for British Jews to join the IDF, and actively take part in Israel's wars, while British Muslims or Chinese or whatever would never dare join a non-British army.

Read further the article here.

Israel and the Broader Middle East War

Mahdi Nazemroaya is an independent writer based in Ottawa specializing in Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs.

Motorola drops bomb fuse unit following boycott campaign

Motorola has sold a controversial unit that produced bomb fuses and other equipment for the Israeli military, according to the Israeli financial newspaper Globes. The sale rids Motorola of some activities that had made it the target of a growing boycott in the US and worldwide. No explanation was offered in the media reports for the sale by Motorola Israel -- a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola -- of its unit called Government Electronics Department (GED) to the Israeli company Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd.

The sale came just days after a 30 March protest in Brooklyn by The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI) kicking off a city-wide campaign to boycott Motorola over its support for Israeli apartheid. Ryvka Bar Zohar from NYCBI commented,

"We are heartened that Motorola has eliminated at least its production of bomb fuses for bombs that Israel dropped on the Palestinian and Lebanese people. But we will continue our campaign to boycott Motorola until it is clear that it has eliminated production and sale of all products used to support Israeli apartheid."

Human rights advocates in Boston and California also recently protested against Motorola. These campaigns build on the national "Hang Up on Motorola" campaign initiated by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, as well as initiatives by the Presbyterian and Methodist churches. University students have also recently taken up the call to boycott Motorola, achieving a divestment success at Hampshire College. Previously, Motorola had been the target of a successful boycott campaign for its support of the government of apartheid South Africa.

Motorola Israel produced fuses used in cluster, "bunker-buster," and other bombs. Cluster bombs are specifically condemned by an international consensus of human rights organizations, and banned by many countries. The US government has voiced concern over the use of these bombs and recently took steps towards a complete ban on their use. Human Rights Watch researchers reported that they found Motorola parts at the site of the bombing that began Israel's latest assault on Gaza that killed around 1,400 Palestinians, more than 400 of whom were children.

Read further here.

The 21st Arab League Summit - A Summit of Egos.

The 21st Arab League summit held this week in Doha, Qatar ended up being little more than a summit of egos.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir – just indicted for war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court (ICC) – arrived to a red-carpet and hero’s welcome; Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak boycotted the entire gathering; Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi walked out during the opening session; King Abdullah II of Jordan left early, apparently for not having been greeted by the Emir of Qatar but by another member of the royal family; and Hamas was not even invited. Having accomplished little, the summit adjourned one day early.

Overshadowing the gathering of Arab leaders and the League’s stated agenda of ‘reconciliation’ between the decidedly pro-American, anti-Iranian camp of nations (represented by Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) and those more willing to recognize Iran as an important regional power (namely Syria and Qatar), was the presence of al-Bashir.

In embracing al-Bashir and “rejecting” his indictment, the Arab League thumbed their noses at the West and the ICC, who called for his arrest but ignored the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. It may have been an understandable move by the League (which no doubt involved a bit of collective self-preservation), but certainly was not good public relations.

Next, attention was focused on the volatile and unpredictable Libyan leader. In the morning session, he railed against Saudi King Abdullah who he said was “made by Britain and protected by the United States.” The truth in those words were quickly lost however, when he went on to declare, “I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level.” He then stormed out of the hall.

Hosni Mubarak of Egypt chose not to attend the summit altogether, the second year in a row he has snubbed it. His reasons were juvenile and partially borne out of jealousy for Qatar upstaging Egypt’s traditional role as powerbroker in the Arab world and mediator of its internal disputes. It was after all the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Ibn Khalifa al-Thani, who brokered the agreement last year between Lebanon’s March 8 Coalition (Hezbollah, Amal, and the Free Patriotic Movement) and the ruling March 14 Alliance, resulting in an equitable allocation of cabinet seats, eventual election of President Michel Suleiman and an end to the long standoff.

The Emir also convened an emergency Arab summit in Doha during Israel’s assault on Gaza earlier this year, and helped with reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah (and between King Abdullah and Qaddafi during the summit). His backing of Hamas in the Gaza war was another reason Mubarak kept well clear of Doha.

It was Sheikh Ibn Khalifa al-Thani who appeared to have made the most cogent and germane remarks, warning of the potential catastrophic effects the global economic crisis may have on the Middle East, stating, “… the Arab world is in the direction of the wind and the eye of the storm.”

With looming economic concerns, the brouhaha over al-Bashir’s presence, and some notable absences (the kings of Morocco and Bahrain also did not attend); little if any time was spent on the fallout from Israel’s barbaric attack on Gaza. Other than to reiterate the League’s endorsement of the 2002 Saudi Peace Plan calling for full recognition of Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, the League’s position appeared stagnant at a dynamic time.

After an inhumane embargo which had deprived Gaza of basic humanitarian supplies and necessities, the use of white phosphorus against civilians by the Israel Defense Forces, and countless reports of the deliberate targeting of innocent men, women and children (first by Palestinian eyewitnesses, then verified by humanitarian agencies and now confirmed by Israeli soldiers), the Arab League was mute.

To prevent other leaders from boycotting the summit, the remarkable decision of not extending an invitation to Hamas – the democratically-elected Palestinian government –was made. In the meantime, Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory and demolition of homes continues unabated under the new leadership of a right-wing prime minister, a fascist foreign minister and a coalition of extremist religious parties.

Not only did the Arab heads of state fail to heal their deep rifts, they did not tackle the thorny issue of relations with Iran or even begin to address the ramifications an increasingly likely Israeli attack will have on the region. Instead, egos, petty disputes, red-carpet welcomes and diplomatic snubs held sway.

Once again, ordinary citizens of the Middle East this week were reminded why the Arab League has become an utterly irrelevant, feckless institution.

Article taken from here.

Could Bush Be Next?

Any Movie About Palestinian Massacre?

Report excoriates Israel's use of white phosphorous in Gaza

Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher for HRW, said in a press conference in Jerusalem last Thursday that the evidence suggests the Israeli military intentionally used white phosphorus in Gaza for its incendiary properties.

"To us, the evidence suggests that the purpose in some of these cases may have been not to create a smokescreen, but to use white phosphorus specifically for its incendiary effect. Do we know that for sure? No, we don't. But, the evidence is suggestive that they used it for incendiary purposes," Abrahams told journalists.

The HRW report states that "the repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus in populated areas ... reveals a pattern or policy of conduct rather than incidental or accidental usage." These circumstances demand independent investigation, HRW says, and -- if warranted -- the prosecution of all those responsible for war crimes.

"The Israeli military and government is repeatedly blaming Hamas for civilian deaths in Gaza. Now, do we have something to say about Hamas' behavior in Gaza? Yes, we do ... This is the first in a series of reports we will be issuing. Its rocket attacks in Israel ... are a war crime. In the cases of this report ... we did not find evidence of Hamas using civilians as human shields. Now, were they in the area at the time of these attacks? In some cases, we believe they were, and that is documented in the report. We state very clearly where we believe Hamas was, and where it was not. The bottom line, and the crucial point, is even if enemy forces -- from the Israeli perspective, Hamas fighters -- are in the area, white phosphorus should not be used in civilian neighborhoods. And that's the bottom line," Abrahams stated.

The Israeli military issued a statement after the release of HRW report, saying that it was nearing the completion of its own investigation. In the statement, the military claims that its use of white phosphorus had been fully consistent with international humanitarian law.

But, Abrahams said, this shows that Israel has already drawn its conclusions before the investigation was finished. The Israeli military "at first denied repeatedly that white phosphorous was being used. Publicly and to the media, they denied that it was being used. Then, faced with incontrovertible evidence, photographs, that white phosphorus was being used, they back-tracked, and they said, well all the weapons that we use in Gaza are in compliance with international humanitarian law. And now, they tell us that they're opening an investigation. Well, quite frankly, we have a hard time accepting that at face value."

Abrahams also said that Israel "refused to give any details about the investigation, and these are the questions we want answered about the investigation: who's leading it? When will it be completed? What is the scope of the investigation? And, will its findings be made public? We don't have answers to any of those questions ... But, in fact, it doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter, because the statement yesterday concluded that the investigation already determined that the white phosphorus use was 'consistent with international humanitarian law.' So the findings have already been made public."

Moreover, HRW researchers are still denied access into Gaza through Israeli border crossings, Abrahams said, "and we can only conclude that this in an attempt to prevent us from conducting our investigations."

According to Abrahams;

"In our view, the Israeli military has been infected by a climate of impunity, going back over since 2005, the disengagement [Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza]. There is an attitude that soldiers can do what and how they want in Gaza, and this has had a direct impact on civilian lives. It has caused civilians to die. That's because soldiers believe they can get away with what they want -- no one is watching. And that's why investigations are so important, to break this climate of impunity."

Read the 71-pages-long Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, entitled "Rain of Fire: Israel's Unlawful Use of White Phosphorous in Gaza".

Article taken from here.