Following on from my entry "Part of the Grand Strategy", here's another article to confirm that the attack on Lebanon is all part of the US administration's plan in disrupting the Middle East further and building up to attacks on Iran and, in all likelihood, Syria.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=27459&mode=nested&order=0

Note, particularly, this paragraph:

"In the years prior to Israel's July 12 bombing of Lebanese cities, Hezbollah had become less and less of a threat. It had not killed any Israeli civilians for more than a decade (with the exception of one accidental fatality in 2003 caused by an anti-aircraft missile fired at an Israeli plane that violated Lebanese airspace). Investigations by the Congressional Research Service, the State Department, and independent think tanks failed to identify any major act of terrorism by Hezbollah for over a dozen years.

Prior to the attack, Hezbollah's militia had dwindled to about 1000 men under arms--this number tripled after July 12 when reserves were called up--and a national dialogue was going on between Hezbollah and the government of pro-Western prime minister Fuad Siniora regarding disarmament. The majority of Lebanese opposed Hezbollah, both its reactionary fundamentalist social agenda as well as its insistence on maintaining an armed presence independent of the country's elected government. Thanks to the U.S.-backed Israeli attacks on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure, however, support for Hezbollah, according to polls, has grown to more than 80%, even within the Sunni Muslim and Christian communities.

Even Richard Armitage, a leading hawk and deputy secretary of state under President Bush during his first term, noted that "[T]he only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis."

Watch this space.....

Bush 'Viewed War in Lebanon as a Curtain-Raiser for Attack on Iran'

Wed, 2006-08-16 12:27. 

By Andrew Buncombe, Independent / UK

'The Bush administration was informed in advance and gave the "green light" to Israel's military strikes against Hizbollah ­ with plans drawn up months before two Israeli soldiers were seized ­it has been claimed.

The US reportedly considered Israel's actions as a necessary prerequisite for a possible strike against Iran. A report by a leading investigative reporter says that earlier this summer Israeli officials visited Washington to brief the government on its plan to respond to any Hizbollah provocation and to "find out how much the US would bear".

The officials apparently started their inquiries with Vice-President Dick Cheney, knowing that if they secured his support, obtaining the backing of President Bush and Condoleezza Rice would be easier.

The report by Seymour Hersh quotes an unidentified US government consultant with close ties to the Israelis who says: "The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits. Why oppose it? We'll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran."

A former intelligence officer, also quoted, says: "We told Israel,'Look, if you guys have to go, we're behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later. The longer you wait, the less time we have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office'."

Both Israeli and US officials say that the Israeli military operation against Hizbollah was triggered by the seizing of two Israeli soldiers, apparently to be bargained with for a possible prisoner swap. But Hersh's report, published in today's issue of The New Yorker, adds to evidence that Israel had been anticipating a Hizbollah provocation for some time and planning its response ­ a response that was widely condemned for being disproportionate.

Last month the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hizbollah militants was unfolding according to a plan finalised more than a year ago". The report said that a senior Israeli army officer had been briefing diplomats, journalists and think-tanks for more than a year about the plan and it quoted Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at [Israel's] Bar-Ilan University, who said: "Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared." Last week the New Statesman magazine reported that Britain had also been informed in advance of the military preparations and that the Prime Minister had chosen not to try to stop them "because he did not want to".

This latest report is the first to tie the Israeli operation to a broader framework that includes a possible US strike against Iran.

Unidentified officials said a strike could "ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack". Shabtai Shavit, a national security adviser to the Knesset, said: "We do what we think is best for us, and if it happens to meet America's requirements, that's just part of a relationship between two friends. Hizbollah is armed to the teeth and trained in the most advanced technology of guerrilla warfare. It was just a matter of time."

An anonymous Middle East expert claimed that while the State Department supported the plan because it believed it would help the Lebanese government assert control over the south, the White House was focussed on stripping Hizbollah of its missiles.

The expert added: "If there was to be a military option against Iran's nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hizbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the 'axis of evil', and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hizbollah as part of his interest in democratisation."

Last night the White House denied the allegations contained in Hersh's piece with a brief statement from the President describing it as "patently untrue". Mr Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, added: " The suggestion that the US and Israel planned and co-ordinated an attack on Hizbollah ­ and did so as a prelude to an attack on Iran ­ is just flat wrong."'

Sure, sure, like they tell the truth about anything.  I knew it all along.

There has to have been an ulterior motive for Israel to attack Lebanon. Everyone agrees that their reaction to the supposed kidnapping of 2 soldiers was over the top. They were not interested in diplomacy. It was a (feeble) excuse to go all out.

I found this article:

Kidnapped in Israel or captured in Lebanon?

I can't seem to find the useful feature Blogigo had previously of inserting a link, which is pretty annoying. Now I need to do HTML - an extra (unnecessary) step.

But the article raises questions which need answers. I'm not satisfied with Israel's official reasoning. Israel does not, after all, have a history of listening to its neighbours. It seems to be all part of the strategy of ensuring Western occupation of the Middle East.

Still unsure about this site. It will take some getting used to. It has lost some features I appreciated, such as the ability to post at a later date (so I'm not posting three entries at once).

I will still transfer to Blogger... perhaps I will just keep one or the other as a 'shadow' blog.

I happened to hear the news on the radio this morning (I avoid reading any related propaganda in the newspaper) and listened with disgust at the bias of the report.  It was focussed on Hizbollah attacks and how Israeli soldiers were killed or injured.  FOR ****S SAKE!!!!!  Israel started the whole effin thing and it is they who are the cause of the war - not the government of Lebanon or even, I suspect, Hizbollah.

I was reading a friend's blog and found this entry.  The blogger didn't know who wrote it and nor do I but here it is - an example of the outrage also felt by Americans:

"I am saying this on the record, as an American born person, with both Jewish and Christian heritage: I could not imagine being more ashamed and disgusted by my government (American), the government of Israel and my ignorant fellow Americans. I am stunned at my friends and family members who support Israel regardless of what they do. These people do not even realize that every “news item” that comes from Israel must be approved by Israeli military censors (bullshit democracy). I am sickened and infuriated at the members of the corporate entity known as the U.S. Congress and the U.S. media. I am sickened by the portion of the American public that remains embarrassingly ignorant to the history of lies and atrocities perpetrated and/or supported by the United States. But I am most angry at the press for making people like me have to stop their lives to alert the American public about real world that remains hidden from them by the media.

The press has been complicit in covering up the obliteration of the U.S. Constitution and it has covered up the inhuman assault on the citizens of the world conducted by America and its allies. Even if you simply ignored every gunshot fired and simply focused on the obliteration of environmental protections by the Bush administration you can see the devastating evil that is being perpetrated on mankind by the son of a bitch known as George W. Bush and the behind the scene people in the real shadow world governing body for which he works.

History aside we are witnessing a new level of American hypocrisy and inhumanity; a level that we can no longer simply stand by and permit. To watch Israel destroy Lebanon, a nation smaller than the state of Connecticut, and to watch the Bush administration step up the delivery of munitions to the most arrogant bigots ever to walk the Earth, the Israeli government (not the Jews…the Israeli government…settle down you abusers and misusers of the anti-Semite label), makes me want to organize a complete overthrow of every single nation on Earth. I have had it with these vile maniacs! (Calm down you Department of Homeland Security Nazi bastards…I HAVE NO INTENTION OF DOING THIS!!! I am just expressing my anger here! )

It is time to replace very leader of every nation on Earth. It is time to replace every member of every ruling body in every nation on Earth. They have failed. They are responsible for death and hatred beyond human comprehension. They are leading us to extinction. They are destroying the very planet on which we live. These “deciders” make decisions and pass laws that no citizen of the world would approve. They make decisions that would outrage people of all political and religious beliefs and would vehemently oppose. They force people to hate one another and then they send us to commit atrocities against each other while they remain out of harms way. It is time for the people of the world to wake up from this insanity and stop fighting for these evil people!

If the U.S. had a real news media the people of this nation would be kept apprised of the actions of their leaders. And if they were really aware of what has been taking place perhaps they would become outraged enough to stop the maniacs who are leading us to doom. If the media did their job, perhaps we would have justice in this world. Let me rephrase that…if we had a journalism entity in this nation or on the planet, one that is truly independent from the ruling bodies (governmental and corporate/financial), perhaps we would have a just world."

Hear, hear...

I am completely disgusted by the actions of Israel.  Words aren't sufficient...  And yet the west continue to let Israel bombard Lebanon for the supposed kidnapping of two soldiers - two.  Hundreds of people killed, hundreds homeless, the infrastructure of Lebanon being destroyed and for what - two people.  It's obscene.  The pathetic 'protests' by western governments does nothing.  I'm posting a link to an excellent blog which discusses this invasion at length.

American Leftist

I'll be back.  My outrage has made me speechless.

Before anyone starts glorifying the leader as a man of peace, let's look into his past and review his actions and beliefs.

"I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child's existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger. I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him. With one hit I've
killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah in 1956). I encourage my soldiers to rape Arabic women and girls as the Palestinian women is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do."

- Ariel Sharon, In an interview with General Ouze Merham, 1956

He directed a massacre at the village of Qibya in 1953, in which his men destroyed whole houses with their occupants ­men, women and children ­still inside.  He invaded Lebanon in 1982, in which his army laid siege to Beirut, cut off water, electricity and food supplies and subjected the city's hapless residents to weeks of indiscriminate bombardment by land, sea and air.  He facilitated the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians at the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, and in all about 20,000 people ­ almost all innocent civilians ­ were killed during his Lebanon adventure.

"Extrajudicial assassinations, mass home demolitions, the construction of hideous barriers and walls, population transfers and illegal annexations ­ these were his stock in trade as 'a man of courage and peace'."
Sharon's "painful sacrifices" for peace may have involved Israel keeping less, rather than more, of the territory that it captured violently and has clung to illegally for four decades, but few seem to have noticed that it's not really a sacrifice to return something that wasn't yours to begin with."

Source: Saree Makdis, Los Angeles Times

I read with disgust that a former colonel in the Israeli 'Defence' Force (defence my ass) is in New Zealand to talk to NZ foreign affairs about NZ/Israeli relations (which are 'warming' up) as well as supposed Iranian terrorists.

Former Israel Intel Officer In NZ

It doesn't matter which government is in power - they pander to the allies of the US and Israel is a western democracy within the Middle East so have to be seen as the 'good' guys.   Lerman's research into the Hizballah is naturally biased.  This is just another attempt at the gradual demonising of Iran.

----------------

On the same page at the above Scoop link I read of New Zealanders detained at Baxter, known for its infamous Red One compound apparently.  This is interesting.  It seems various NZers resident in Australia for some years are put in the detention centre only after they've applied for citizenship...

"at least two people have been unlawfully locked away for as long as seven years."

The Kiwi who went to Baxter

The article above includes the experiences of one NZer detained because of a suspended sentence in NZ over 10 years beforehand.  He was kept in Red One - the maximum security compound.

"Suddenly you're ripped from your family and thrown into a prison facility. You don't get a trial. Rights of appeal are, effectively, withheld from you. You have less rights than a convicted criminal. You're cut off completely from the outside world. All of your possessions are taken away from including your small change. Every movement is monitored by closed circuit TV. You have no say in what you eat. Contact with anyone is limited apart from those employed by your captives. You can earn $56 a week cleaning and you have to support your family on the outside. You haven't actually committed any crime in Australia at any time, or anywhere else for over ten years. Any past conviction has been appropriately dealt with. Now understand, this is happening in Australia! "

His wife was also told not to have anything to do with him or her children would be taken away from her. 

"Immigration apparently hadn't finished grinding. According to my partner, Australian welfare services contacted her and informed her, apparently on nothing more than the say-so of Immigration, that I was a 'high risk offender' and she should have no further contact with me. She was further advised that if she tried to ring me at Baxter or have any contact with me, her daughter would be removed from her care. "

To add insult to injury many people are being given a bill for the cost of incarceration.

Any favourable thoughts I had of Australia are being pretty quickly eroded, especially with the new 'anti-terrorist' laws rushed through by Howard.

I read a press conference summary by Dr Mustafa Barghouti about the withdrawal of Israeli settlers.  He provides some interesting statistics which put the whole situation into perspective.  So often we only get the Israeli perspective (because they're good buddies with the US, sponsored by the US).  We never really hear about Palestinian deaths and injustices caused by the Israelis.  We're more likely to see film of a crying Israeli girl forced to leave her home instead of the shooting of an innocent Palestinian boy, for example.

Anyway, back to the press conference:

PRESS CONFERENCE SUMMARY

Aftermath of Disengagement:  More Settlers, More Walls

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi
Palestinian National Initiative
September 6, 2005

"Ramallah – Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi spoke at the
PNI offices about the situation in Palestine
after the Gaza disengagement, particularly in the
West Bank, and with regard to ceasefire
violations by both sides since the Sharm
el-Sheikh Agreements of February 8, 2005.

He noted that Israel’s marketing of the Gaza
disengagement as a ‘withdrawal’ and a move toward
peace is false, yet many foreign and even some
Arabic media tend to fall for it.

"To illustrate his point, he related several facts
on the ground before and after the disengagement,
including the fact that only 25 of over 150
settlements will be dismantled, and only 8,475 of
over 436,000 settlers (less than 2% of settlers)
have been evacuated.  Meanwhile, in the past
year, 12,800 new settlers have moved to the West
Bank – 50% more settlers than were evacuated.

And in fact, the Gaza disengagement is not a
withdrawal at all.  Israel will try to retain
control of all access to Gaza by land, sea, and
air.  Israeli officials have made plans to build
a new border crossing terminal south of Rafah,
where the borders of Israel, Gaza, and Egypt
meet, so that Israel can continue to control the
flow of goods and people between Gaza and Egypt."

" Furthermore, the Gaza strip is only 5.8% of the
Occupied Territories, so that even if it is
withdrawn from eventually, that will leave over
94% of the Palestinian territories still under belligerent military occupation..."

"Violations of the ceasefire

Since a ceasefire agreement was reached at Sharm
el-Sheikh on February 8, Israel has broken it
hundreds of times but has blamed Palestinians for
their intransigence, and the world has generally
agreed with Israel.  However, the following
statistics make the picture much clearer:

Israeli violations

Palestinians killed
75
(including 17 children)
Palestinians injured
717
Shooting incidents
2,184
Settler attacks on Palestinians
394
Palestinians arrested by Israelis
1,916 (many more than the 900 released as per the agreements)
Israeli checkpoints imposed
2,306
Palestinian land confiscated by Israel
34,718 dunams
(8,700 acres or 140 sq km)
Incidents of uprooting and bulldozing Palestinian land by Israel
104

Palestinian violations

Israelis killed
14
(including 2 children)
Israelis injured
149
Qassam rockets launched
92
Attacks inside Israel
3
Israelis arrested by Palestinians
0
Palestinian checkpoints imposed
0
Israeli land confiscated by Palestinians
0
Incidents of uprooting and bulldozing Israeli land by Palestinians
0"

More statistics and details from another press conference:

Israeli Disengagement Plan