Peace and Justice Post

Omer al-Mansouri, Azzaman

Uruknet, April 12, 2008 The number of children who have been handicapped or disabled due to massive U.S. offensives to subdue the restive city of Falluja has reached 500, according to a private aid group. Alaa Hamed of the Society for the Welfare of Children said the U.S-led military operations in the city have left behind “massive destruction and at least 500 mentally or physically handicapped children.” Falluja was once the main stronghold of groups opposing U.S. occupation among them al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The city of nearly 200,000 people exchanged hands several times with the U.S. forces deploying disproportionate fire power from warplanes, heavy artillery and helicopter gun ships. Hamed said all the 500 children were between one to five years of age. U.S. troops invaded Iraq five years ago. He said neither the U.S. nor the Iraqi government was paying any attention to their plight. Hamed said his society was working with international aid organizations to transfer some of the most acute cases to hospitals in Jordan for treatment.

:: Article nr. 42990 sent on 12-apr-2008 19:09 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=42990

Link: www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2008-04-12\kurd.htm

This goes beyond hollow laughter. Since when did armies go around ‘re-liberating’

The Independent, UK, April 12, 2008

After his latest shenanigans, I’ve come to the conclusion that George Bush is the first US president to march backwards. First we had weapons of mass destruction. Then, when they proved to be a myth, Bush told us we had stopped Saddam’s “programmes” for weapons of mass destruction (which happened to be another lie).

Now he’s gone a stage further. After announcing victory in Iraq in 2003 and “mission accomplished” and telling us how this enormous achievement would lead the 21st century into a “shining age of human liberty”, George Bush told us this week that “thanks to the surge, we’ve renewed and revived the prospect of success”.

Now let’s take a look at this piece of chicanery and subject it to a little linguistic analysis. Five years ago, it was victory – ie success – but this has now been transmogrified into a mere “prospect” of success. And not a “prospect”, mark you, that has even been glimpsed. No, we have “renewed” and “revived” this prospect. “Revived”, as in “brought back from the dead”. Am I the only one to be sickened by this obscene semantics? How on earth can you “renew” a “prospect”, let alone a prospect that continues to be bathed in Iraqi blood, a subject Bush wisely chose to avoid?

Continued . . .

The Seatle Post-Intelligence, April 12, 2008

WASHINGTON – Surprise, surprise. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, wants to put a halt to any more troop withdrawals for the foreseeable future.

The highly politicized Petraeus seemed to be dutifully following his White House marching orders when he testified before congressional committees earlier this week.

Under his scenario, there will be no drawdown of U.S. forces in that strife-ridden country until President Bush leaves office.

That’s fine with Bush, who obviously has no intention of ending this futile war on his watch. Apparently feeling no responsibility for starting the war, Bush is planning to pass the Iraqi debacle on to his successor.

You can forget accountability for the yet-to-be defined U.S. military mission which has taken more than 4,000 American lives, possibly a million Iraqi lives and destroyed a country.

Think of President Harry Truman and President Lyndon B. Johnson, who both understood that war was too important to be left to the generals in the field.

Truman fired the popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur because he disobeyed orders in the Korean War. Johnson knew that he had reached the endgame in Vietnam when Gen. William Westmoreland, the top commander in Vietnam, requested 240,000 more troops in 1968 for the prolonged war that also could not be won.

Continued . . .

If you only read one book about the United Nations, make sure that it is Samantha Power’s Chasing the Flame biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello. The excellent reviews that it has received here and here actually do not do it sufficient justice. Whatever you think about the UN, the invasion of Iraq or the various humanitarian crises that took place in the 1990s you will learn something from it.

While many people have extremely strong opinions about “humanitarian interventions”, the subject is surrounded by myths and misconceptions. It is a new, and comparatively under-studied, area of work and, although its influence on international relations is clearly growing, it has been subject to very little serious scrutiny.

Power uses Vieira de Mello’s career to tell a much wider story about how the UN has grappled with the humanitarian crises of the last few decades. Vieira de Mello served in the middle of some of the world’s worst conflict zones and he was responsible for making decisions during some of the UN’s most controversial and difficult missions. He defended the concept of humanitarian neutrality during the siege of Sarajevo, when many argued for a tougher line against the Serbs. He also helped to oversee the forcible closure of the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania, which remains one of UN high commissioner for refugees’ most criticised actions in its history.

Continued . . .

Al-Ahram Weekly, 10-16 April, 2008

“All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts.” This was the religious opinion issued one week ago by Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a long-established religious institute attended by students and soldiers in the Israeli settlements of the West Bank. In an article published by numerous religious Israeli newspapers two weeks ago and run by the liberal Haaretz on 26 March, Rosen asserted that there is evidence in the Torah to justify this stand. Rosen, an authority able to issue religious opinions for Jews, wrote that Palestinians are like the nation of Amalekites that attacked the Israelite tribes on their way to Jerusalem after they had fled from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. He wrote that the Lord sent down in the Torah a ruling that allowed the Jews to kill the Amalekites, and that this ruling is known in Jewish jurisprudence.

Rosen’s article, which created a lot of noise in Israel, included the text of the ruling in the Torah: “Annihilate the Amalekites from the beginning to the end. Kill them and wrest them from their possessions. Show them no mercy. Kill continuously, one after the other. Leave no child, plant, or tree. Kill their beasts, from camels to donkeys.” Rosen adds that the Amalekites are not a particular race or religion, but rather all those who hate the Jews for religious or national motives. Rosen goes as far as saying that the “Amalekites will remain as long as there are Jews. In every age Amalekites will surface from other races to attack the Jews, and thus the war against them must be global.” He urges application of the “Amalekites ruling” and says that the Jews must undertake to implement it in all eras because it is a “divine commandment”.

Continued . . .

Antiwar, April 12, 2008

By: BBC on: 10.04.2008

The next UN investigator into Israeli conduct in the occupied territories has stood by comments comparing Israeli actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis

Speaking to the BBC, Professor Richard Falk said he believed that up to now Israel had been successful in avoiding the criticism that it was due.

Professor Falk is scheduled to take up his post for the UN Human Rights Council later in the year.

But Israel wants his mandate changed to probe Palestinian actions as well.

Professor Falk said he drew the comparison between the treatment of Palestinians with the Nazi record of collective atrocity, because of what he described as the massive Israeli punishment directed at the entire population of Gaza.

He said he understood that it was a provocative thing to say, but at the time, last summer, he had wanted to shake the American public from its torpor.

“If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison,” he said.

That reluctance was, he argued, based on the particular historical sensitivity of the Jewish people, and Israel’s ability to avoid having their policies held up to international law and morality.

These and other comments from Professor Falk comments are, if anything, even harsher than the current UN investigator, John Dugard, who himself has been withering about Israel’s actions.

A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Israel wanted the UN investigator’s mandate changed, so that he could look into human rights violations by the Palestinians as well as Israel.

If that were not to happen, the Israeli government may consider barring entry to the new UN investigator.

By Tim Franks

By Andy Worthington, AlterNet. Posted April 11, 2008.

Sami al-Haj is a journalist, but one unlike any other. For over six years since December 15, 2001 — when he was seized by Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border while on assignment as a cameraman for the Qatar-based broadcaster al-Jazeera — he has been in a disturbing but unique position: a trained journalist held as an “enemy combatant” on the frontline of the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” first in Afghanistan, and then in Guantánamo.
The outline of Sami’s story should be familiar to readers; last summer AlterNet published a detailed article by Rachel Morris: “Prisoner 345: An Arab Journalist’s Five Years in Guantánamo,” which made clear how Sami was seized because of the erroneous claim that he had interviewed Osama bin Laden, and the disturbing fact that his many interrogations in Guantánamo have focused solely on the administration’s attempts to turn him into an informant against al-Jazeera, to “prove” a connection between the broadcaster and Osama bin Laden that does not exist. As his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith of the legal action charity Reprieve, noted bluntly and accurately in his book Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantánamo Bay, “Sami was a prisoner in the Bush Administration’s assault on al-Jazeera.”

Continued . . .

Al-Ahram Weekly, 10-16 April 2008

Who is responsible for the looting of Iraq’s national museum, ransacked in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad in 2006? Are the occupation authorities to blame for failing to provide protection on the spot, the Iraqi state for failing to anticipate what would happen or the international community for watching from the sidelines?

The British Museum’s John Curtis has no doubt Iraq’s occupiers must shoulder most of the blame for what he describes as the systematic destruction of the country’s national collections. Doors were kicked down, papers and computer discs removed and files were shredded, all of which suggests a degree of premeditation.

These acts of vandalism appear designed to erase the memory of Iraqi civilisation, and more significantly of the unity that prevailed under the Babylonians, the Sumerians and the Assyrians. Mesopotamia, as an entity, is clearly something we are intended to forget.

A team of British archaeologists visiting the site of the ancient city of Babylonia (or Gate of God), 55km south of Baghdad, was appalled by the destruction wrought by US troops. The ancient road on which Nebuchadnezzar reviewed his army as part of the Babylonian celebrations of the new year had been crushed beneath advancing US tanks. Hills containing unexcavated ruins had been bulldozed. The Americans might want us to believe they are building a new Iraq, but did they really need to destroy the old one?

Continued . . .

Aftenposten, Norway, April 11, 2008

Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has asked for asylum in Norway for a second time, Norwegian officials said on Friday, but there appears to be little chance it will be granted.

Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu flashes a peace sign during his detention at Tel Aviv’s Magistrate Court in November of 2005. PHOTO: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Related stories:

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Vanunu seeks asylum in Norway – 08.10.2004

Vanunu, whom Israeli authorities have prevented from leaving Israel, sent his application directly to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. His first asylum application to Norway in 2004 was rejected.

“We received it yesterday and it has been sent to the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion, which will handle it,” a spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office said.

Vanunu was convicted of treason and imprisoned for 18 years after informing a British newspaper in 1986 about his work as a technician at Israel’s main atomic reactor. The disclosures cracked the secrecy around the assumed Israeli nuclear arsenal.

Meanwhile, Vanunu answered readers’ questions to newspaper Aftenposten‘s internet edition in real-time on Friday afternoon.

Many of the readers expressed their admiration for Vanunu, while some questioned his motives in uncovering the Israeli nuclear program.

Vanunu replied that his motive was to prevent nuclear war in the Middle East and to “expose secret cooperation between Norway and other European states and the US to help Israel produce nuclear weapons in secret, and the use of atomic weapons in Israel for continued occupation and war in the Middle East.”

Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, but has not been allowed to leave Israel. In 2007, he was sentenced to six months in prison for violating his parole.

Norwegian daily Dagsavisen on Friday cited an Israeli diplomat as saying that giving Vanunu asylum would be considered interference in Israel’s internal affairs and a “sign of the generally anti-Israeli sentiment in Norway”.

Israel neither confirms nor denies having the Middle East’s only nuclear weapons under a policy of “strategic ambiguity.”

Vanunu has been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

REUTERS/Aftenposten English Web Desk