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The terrible and strange death of Nick Berg By James Conachy 14 May 2004 Use this version to print |
news:[email protected]... > Heil Dubya! > > The terrible and strange death of Nick Berg > By James Conachy > 14 May 2004 > Use this version to print |
<[email protected] > wrote: >"Jerome Bibuld" <[email protected]> wrote in message >news:[email protected]... >> Heil Dubya! >> >> The terrible and strange death of Nick Berg >> By James Conachy >> 14 May 2004 >> Use this version to print |
news:[email protected]... <SNIP > > There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the Iraquis are any better or worse > people than those who are bombing them. Really?? So a couple of tasteless and inappropriate photograhs taken by maybe seven to a dozen soldiers among the myriad deployed over there is just as bad as chopping off an innocent civilian's head? Apparently you haven't seen the video. Either that, or you equate a speeding ticket with capital murder. Regards, Matt |
<[email protected] > wrote: >"J�rgen Rennenkampff" <[email protected]> wrote in message >news:[email protected]... > ><SNIP> > >> There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the Iraquis are any better >or worse >> people than those who are bombing them. > >Really?? > >So a couple of tasteless and inappropriate photograhs taken by maybe seven >to a dozen soldiers among the myriad deployed over there is just as bad as >chopping off an innocent civilian's head? Apparently you haven't seen the >video. Either that, or you equate a speeding ticket with capital murder. True enough, I haven't seen it and probably won't, since I don't have a TV. I am not equating 'your crimes' to 'their crimes' nor applying any kind of arithmetic to 13 years of bombing or to the horrors of Saddam's regime, both of which have killed thousands of innocents and some guilty people. It is extremely important to understand that the sadism of the jailers is not an 'American' crime, nor an isolated crime. This kind of behavior occurs in similar circumstances in practically all cultures, both East and West. We need to understand what these circumstances are and to learn how to avoid them. Of course, people who are infected by patriotism find it difficult to admit the occurrence: Denial in the form of "Not the America I know" or "just six or seven sexual deviates" is the result. - Remember that the crimes of the Nazis were also perpetrated by (mostly) normal, civilized people. The veneer of civilization is extremely thin. J�rgen > >Regards, > >Matt > > |
Heil Dubya! Either you are NOT in the Navy, as you claim, or you are a liar in the service of your rulers. I spent 37+ months in the U. S. Army during and after the Second Great Imperialist War of the Twentieth Century. I have a son who spent four years in the U. S. Navy and a grandson who has spent the last four years on active duty in the U. S. Navy. NONE OF US has believes that " ... seven to a dozen ... " enlisted personnel, ON THEIR OWN, conceivably could have gotten away with what was presented in the originally published photographs, much less with what has come out in the Taguba report or the reports of the ICRC. Incidentally, who else, besides your fellow U. S. dupes and co-criminals would agree with what you have posted? Only the absolutely naive AND totally ignorant. >> There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the Iraquis are any better >or worse >> people than those who are bombing them. > >Really?? > >So a couple of tasteless and inappropriate photograhs taken by maybe seven >to a dozen soldiers among the myriad deployed over there is just as bad as >chopping off an innocent civilian's head? Apparently you haven't seen the >video. Either that, or you equate a speeding ticket with capital murder. > >Regards, > >Matt > Heute Uhmuhrikkka, Afghanistan, Irak und Ha�ti. Morgen die ganze Welt! Uhmuhrikkka, Uhmuhrikkka �ber Alles! (The more information that comes out about the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001 the more it appears that those attacks were organized by the rulers of the United States and were intended to have the same effect on the people of the United States that the Reichstag fire had on the people of Germany in 1933.) Fight terrorism! Dissolve the CIA and disarm the Pentagon! (I have watched the hearings of the Commission to investigate the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001. As a result, I have become convinced that every one of the witnesses and their four Presidents - and every one of the Commissioners - should be tried for: (1. Conspiracy to commit terrorism; and/or (2. Commission of terrorist acts; and/or (3. Conspiracy to commit murder; and/or (4. Commission of murder; and/or (5. Treason; and/or (6. Suborning one or more of the above acts.) Not in the least fraternally, Jerome Bibuld gens una sumus |
Heil Dubya! Either you are NOT in the Navy, as you claim, or you are a liar in the service of your rulers. I spent 37+ months in the U. S. Army during and after the Second Great Imperialist War of the Twentieth Century. I have a son who spent four years in the U. S. Navy and a grandson who has spent the last four years on active duty in the U. S. Navy. NONE OF US believes that " ... seven to a dozen ... " enlisted personnel, ON THEIR OWN, conceivably could have gotten away with what was presented in the originally published photographs, much less with what has come out in the Taguba report or the reports of the ICRC. Incidentally, who else, besides your fellow U. S. dupes and co-criminals would agree with what you have posted? Only the absolutely naive AND totally ignorant. >> There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the Iraquis are any better >or worse >> people than those who are bombing them. > >Really?? >> >So a couple of tasteless and inappropriate photograhs taken by maybe seven >to a dozen soldiers among the myriad deployed over there is just as bad as >chopping off an innocent civilian's head? Apparently you haven't seen the >video. Either that, or you equate a speeding ticket with capital murder. > >Regards, > >Matt > Heute Uhmuhrikkka, Afghanistan, Irak und Ha�ti. Morgen die ganze Welt! Uhmuhrikkka, Uhmuhrikkka �ber Alles! (The more information that comes out about the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001 the more it appears that those attacks were organized by the rulers of the United States and were intended to have the same effect on the people of the United States that the Reichstag fire had on the people of Germany in 1933.) Fight terrorism! Dissolve the CIA and disarm the Pentagon! (I have watched the hearings of the Commission to investigate the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001. As a result, I have become convinced that every one of the witnesses and their four Presidents - and every one of the Commissioners - should be tried for: (1. Conspiracy to commit terrorism; and/or (2. Commission of terrorist acts; and/or (3. Conspiracy to commit murder; and/or (4. Commission of murder; and/or (5. Treason; and/or (6. Suborning one or more of the above acts.) Not in the least fraternally, Jerome Bibuld gens una sumus |
news:[email protected]... > Nemmers: > > Heil Dubya! > > Either you are NOT in the Navy, as you claim, I don't have to prove anything to the likes of you. > or you are a liar in the service > of your rulers. Says who? You?! I think your "credibility" is already well established on this forum, Jeraldo. > I spent 37+ months in the U. S. Army during and after the > Second Great Imperialist War of the Twentieth Century. And....? Nobody with a General Discharge has any business bragging about their "service," though this is a tactic hardly beneath you. > I have a son who spent > four years in the U. S. Navy and a grandson who has spent the last four years > on active duty in the U. S. Navy. This proves NOTHING and does absolutely ZERO to substantiate your ridiculous opinions. > NONE OF US has believes that " ... seven to > a dozen ... " enlisted personnel, ON THEIR OWN, conceivably could have gotten > away with what was presented in the originally published photographs, much less > with what has come out in the Taguba report or the reports of the ICRC. What exactly are they "getting away with?" Last I heard their court-martial was set for May 19th. They're fucked -- they aren't getting away with anything. > Incidentally, who else, besides your fellow U. S. dupes and co-criminals would > agree with what you have posted? Only the absolutely naive AND totally > ignorant. ROFLMFAO!!! I DEFY YOU to name ONE SINGLE PERSON -- other than one of your brainwashed family members, who obviously have issues of their own -- who believes ANY of the putrid conspiracy theories you've spewed here. "Not in the least fraternally" (as if I actually give a shit about you), PN1(SW) Matt Nemmers, United States Navy |
> So a couple of tasteless and inappropriate photograhs taken by maybe seven > to a dozen soldiers .... You're confusing the message with the messenger. The problem isn't the photographs, it's the scene being photographed. I'm thankful the photographs WERE made (and publicized), rather than having the inappropriate incidents covered up. And it isn't just "seven or a dozen soldiers", although I'm sure the upcoming courts martial will try to paint it that way. These soldiers were getting their orders from somewhere. And, after what Rumsfeld said to the congressional investigators, it appears that the "somewhere" was quite high up. The problem is systemic. It's not just a handful of isolated incidents. > .... is just as bad as > chopping off an innocent civilian's head? .... Of course not. But that does not excuse violations of the Geneva conventions by the American military. Bill Smythe |
news:[email protected]... > Of course not. But that does not excuse violations of the Geneva > conventions by the American military. > > Bill Smythe I wonder, why is it that the Americans are always the only ones held accountable for the Geneva Conventions? Regards, Matt |
<[email protected] > wrote: >"Bill Smythe" <[email protected]> wrote in message >news:[email protected]... > >> Of course not. But that does not excuse violations of the Geneva >> conventions by the American military. >> >> Bill Smythe > >I wonder, why is it that the Americans are always the only ones held >accountable for the Geneva Conventions? Americans are far from "always the only ones". There is no conceivable excuse - no matter what conventions have been signed and regardless of what other people do to each other - for a civilized society not to subscribe to the basic requirement of the Geneva convention, namely "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria." In fact, the reason why the mistreatment of prisoners and non-combatents by the U.S. has made such an enormous impression is that higher standards were applied to the U.S. and Britain than, for rxample, to Serbia and Uganda. I am confident that you agree that this is as it should be. J�rgen > >Regards, > >Matt > > |
> "Bill Smythe" <[email protected]> wrote in message > news:[email protected]... > > > Of course not. But that does not excuse violations of the Geneva > > conventions by the American military. > > > > Bill Smythe > > I wonder, why is it that the Americans are always the only ones held > accountable for the Geneva Conventions? > > Regards, > > Matt The US is almost never truly held accountable for its violations of the Geneva conventions. It would be "inconvenient". However, it is hard to conduct a war without committing "War Crimes". The Geneva Convention, along with rules about War Crimes, was vague and obsolete before it was ever signed. There is no serious expection that combatants adhere to the letter of "International Laws" or conventions. The laws governing the conduct of war may have been appropriate during the Napoleonic Era, when armies engaged each other in an empty field. But it is simply silly to condemn an army for destroying a few buildings in an urban area, when those building are being used as ad hoc fortification from which to launch attacks. In any case, a State like the US should hnot be demanded to adhere so strictly to Conventions and lawa of War, when the opponent has no such constraints whatsoever. The only moral rule that makes sense is that of "proportionality". For instance, in the recent fighting in Gaza, about 30 Palestinians have been killed, while the Israelis have lost 15 or so. Thus, the Israeli response in clearly proportionate. Actually, given the bestiality of the behavior of the Arabs, in such situations a "Kill Ratio" of 5 or 10 to one wouldn't be excessive. A pity that the US doesn't have the balls to take Fallujah with a main blow. This will be a big problem, since not dealing with Fallujah sends the wrong message. |
Gunsberg) wrote: > The laws governing the conduct of war may have been >appropriate during the Napoleonic Era, when armies engaged each other >in an empty field. >But it is simply silly to condemn an army for destroying a few >buildings in an urban area, when those building are being used as ad >hoc fortification from which to launch attacks. So, according to you, it was OK for an Israeli Airforce F-17 to send a missile into a crowded apartment building at night killing everybody inside including dozens of women and children, because one supposed terrorist was sleeping there? Sam Sloan |
> On 16 May 2004 05:19:14 -0700, [email protected] (Isidor > Gunsberg) wrote: > > > The laws governing the conduct of war may have been > >appropriate during the Napoleonic Era, when armies engaged each other > >in an empty field. > >But it is simply silly to condemn an army for destroying a few > >buildings in an urban area, when those building are being used as ad > >hoc fortification from which to launch attacks. > > So, according to you, it was OK for an Israeli Airforce F-17 to send a > missile into a crowded apartment building at night killing everybody > inside including dozens of women and children, because one supposed > terrorist was sleeping there? That's a tough one, Sam. I'm not sure about sending an "F-17".... But an F-15 or an F-16 should be OK. It all depends on the circumstances. If the terrorist leader was really bad, it might be justified. These women and children ought not be turned into human shields. Then the situation wouldn't come up. If a terrorist moved into the residence where I lived, I would move out, in a hurry. I would not stay in a place that will become a terrorist command and control center. In any case, your question is purely hypothetical. The Israelis have yet to conduct such a missile attack, where ***dozens*** of women and children were killed. In the case of the terrorist leader Shahade, there were about 15 people killed along with Shahade himself, and most of them were militants. On the other hand, the Israelis are refining their methods, and are increasingly able to avoid collatoral casualties. The Israeli record is far superior to that of the US in Iraq. The point is that the good guys are trying to avoid civilain casualties. That ought to count for something! When Israel killed Rantisi, not a single civilian was killed. It was a precision operation. > > Sam Sloan |
> .... the Israelis are refining their methods, and are > increasingly able to avoid collatoral casualties. .... This reminds me of language used by Timothy McVey, the Oklahoma City bomber. He referred to the deaths of dozens of children as "collateral damage". Bill Smythe |
> "Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: > > .... the Israelis are refining their methods, and are > > increasingly able to avoid collatoral casualties. .... > > This reminds me of language used by Timothy McVey, the Oklahoma City bomber. > He referred to the deaths of dozens of children as "collateral damage". > > Bill Smythe This is an extremely poor analogy, Bill, and is indicative of your bias on this subject. Irrespective of what language you are reminded of, there remain huge differences between the actions of the Israelis and those of Timothy McVeigh. Israel considers ALL civilian casualties to be regrettable. McVeigh only regretted (maybe) the death of the children. Palestinian militants often rejoice at the death of Israaeli children, including (especially) children. Israel seeks to minimize the number of civilian deaths (both Israeli and Palestinian) McVeigh sought to kill the maximum number of civilians. Palestinian terrorists seek to kill the maximum number of civilians Israel refrains from using maximum force in the Palestinian areas. Indeed, Israel is quite restrained in its conduct of combat, even compared to the shining example of the US, in Iraq McVeigh used maximum force, and deliberately targeted a civilian target. The Palestinian militant groups use maximum force. Most of their attacks are targeted against Israeli civilains. If Israel did not have the capacity to prevent it, the Palestinians would kill every Jew in Israel. Only about 3,000 Palestinian have been killed by the IDF since the start of Intifada II. That averages to about 1,000/year, or less than 3 a day. The majority of those Palestinians who were killed were either militants or unlawful combatants. Compare this to what is going in elsewhere in the Arab/Muslim world, where Arab/Muslims are killing Arab/Muslims at a much higher rate. But then, I doubt you know much about that, or that you at all care.... The reasons why the problem continues to fester are: 1) Palestinians receive financial resources and weapons from outside sources. Indeed, the problems in Rafah stem from Egypt's refusal to prevent the tunneling activities from their side of the border. 2) Israel, because it is a client state of the US, is forbidden from taking decisive action. There are about 40,000 soldiers in the PLO itself, and maybe another 60,000 militants in all of the rest of the dozen or so Palestinian terrorist organizations. Israel should be given "freedom of action" to assertively engage these terror groups 3) The Palestinians receive sympathy from naifs, and also benefit from Ant-Jewish sentiments which create the circumstances for expceptional and unwarranted criticism of Israeli actions. 4) Billions of $$ of petrodollar financed propaganda help maintain the distorted viewpoints. |
> .... there remain huge differences between the actions of the Israelis > and those of Timothy McVeigh. .... There are a lot of differences, but I fear there may also be similarities, more than people of your stripe care to admit or recognize. Terrorism is terrorism, no matter who commits it. I worry about anybody who refers to civilian casualties as "collateral damage". > .... Palestinians receive financial resources and weapons from outside > sources. .... And the Israelis don't? > .... Israel, because it is a client state of the US, is forbidden from > taking decisive action. .... That's an interesting statement, considering that the USA is taking all kinds of aggressive action (which it would like to be decisive) on its own. Bill Smythe |
<[email protected] > wrote: >"Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: >> .... there remain huge differences between the actions of the Israelis >> and those of Timothy McVeigh. .... >There are a lot of differences, but I fear there may also be similarities, >more than people of your stripe care to admit or recognize. Terrorism is >terrorism, no matter who commits it. I worry about anybody who refers to >civilian casualties as "collateral damage". What term would you use for unintended civilian casualties caused by military action, the prime target of which is an enemy military resource? It seems to me McVeigh's use was a deliberate distortion or perversion of the way the term is normally employed -- he was not a military person and his prime targets were civilian law enforcement officials. >> .... Palestinians receive financial resources and weapons from outside >> sources. .... >And the Israelis don't? >> .... Israel, because it is a client state of the US, is forbidden from >> taking decisive action. .... >That's an interesting statement, considering that the USA is taking all >kinds of aggressive action (which it would like to be decisive) on its own. Relatively recently (within the last 30 years or so) Syria, Iraq and Jordan have all taken what most people would call decisive action against internal dissident, rebellious groups. >Bill Smythe > > |
> What term would you use for unintended civilian casualties caused by > military action, the prime target of which is an enemy military > resource? It seems to me McVeigh's use was a deliberate distortion or > perversion of the way the term is normally employed -- he was not a > military person and his prime targets were civilian law enforcement > officials. I think your version is also a bit distorted. If you drop a 2000 pound bomb on an apartment building full of civilians because you think there's a terrorist in the building, you might not have WANTED to create civilian casualties, but it's perverse to say that they were unintended. |
news:<[email protected] >... > "Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: > > .... there remain huge differences between the actions of the Israelis > > and those of Timothy McVeigh. .... > > There are a lot of differences, but I fear there may also be similarities, > more than people of your stripe care to admit or recognize. > Terrorism is terrorism, no matter who commits it. It seems to me that comparative judgements about 'terrorism' have depended heavily on whether its victims are perceived as 'one of us' or 'one of them'. It also seems to me that comparative judgements about the fundamental humanity of entire peoples have depended heavily on whether they are perceived as 'one of us' or 'one of them'. Racist dehumanisation seems common in the world. Many, perhaps most, 'Westerners' tend to infer a vital 'moral' distinction between, say, having an expensive United States-made aeroplane drop bombs (from high altitude, of course, to minimise any risks to the 'heroic' air crew) into a neighbourhood of 'non-Western' civilians, whose casualties thereby become known, quite 'acceptably', as only 'collateral damage' (according to the conventional American euphemism), and, say, a 'non-Westerner' who commits suicide by driving a vehicle carrying a bomb into a military outpost, whose casualties thereby became known as 'victims of terrorism'. The Americans who dropped countless bombs (and toxic chemicals) in Southeast Asia were quick to condemn the Vietnamese Communist partisans for their alleged barbarity in making concealed 'booby traps' with sharpened punji stakes. Many people in Vietnam today continue to suffer and die prematurely as a consequence of long-term exposure to the persistent American toxic chemicals. But that's a story that the United States government and the 'patriotic' United States media evidently prefer to ignore about as much as possible. Here's an article, "There were rockets, shells. It was war. Then bulldozers destroyed everything" by Chris McGreal in Rafah for 'The Guardian': http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1219225,00.html "Since the beginning of the intifada more than three years ago, Israel's armoured bulldozers have destroyed 1200 houses in Rafah and, according to the UN, made more than 12000 people homeless: one in 10 of the population. ... 'My brother was against us leaving', said Hamad. 'He said we should stay and defend the house, but there were too many children. So he helped us move the all the kids and then said he was going back to pick up some important documents. We pleaded with him not to go, but he was stubborn.' Ashraf Qishta was last seen alive by his relatives standing in the doorway of his home with a white flag in one hand and an axe in another. 'He thought the Israelis would respect him if he stood there and said he would defend his house', said Hamad. 'They just hit shot him in the chest. The bulldozer pulled the building on to him. When we found him we could see where the blade hit ihis head.' That night, several rows of houses in Saladin disappeared under the bulldozers. Yesterday Hamad Qishta was bundling up the pathetic remains of his house plus a few pots and pans given to him by the Red Cross. 'They bulldozed my home so I moved my things to my sister's place. Now I think they will bulldoze it too', he said. ... Abdel Karim Hasham's house was demolished in stages....As his family bundled up its possessions and fled, Mr Hasham's eldest son, Ayman, 23, was shot dead by an Israeli sniper. 'They saw we were evacuating the whole family. The soldier saw it and he still shot Ayman', he said. 'It's not enough that they kill my son, now we are homeless as though we are the criminals, as though we are the ones occupying their land.' On Friday, the bulldozers finished the work on Mr Hasham's house. Almost his entire street was destroyed." --Chris McGreal (18 May 2004, 'The Guardian') On 18 April 1996, a deliberate Israeli artillery bombardment killed more one hundred Arab civilians, mostly women and children, who had been taking refuge (where they had expected they should be safe) at a United Nations headquarters in Lebanon. Here's an eyewitness report, 'Massacre in Sanctuary' by Robert Fisk, for 'The Independent' (19 April 1996): http://www.mideastfacts.com/massacre_Fisk.html "Qana, southern Lebanon--It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila (During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, an estimated several hundred to a few thousand defenceless Palestinian civilians were massacred in those two refugee camps by Lebanese Phalangist militia, who were allied with and operating within the command area of the Israel Defence Force.) had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this. The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their hands or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disembowelled....The Israeli shells had scythed through them as they lay in the United Nations shelter, believing that they were safe under the world's protection. Like the Muslims of Srebrenica, the Muslims of Qana were wrong. ... Israel's slaughter of civilians in this terrible 10-day offensive--206 by last night--has been so cavalier, so ferocious, that not a Lebanese will forgive this massacre. There had been the ambulance attacked on Saturday, the sisters killed in Yohmor the day before, the 2-year-old girl decapitated by an Israeli missile four days ago. And earlier yesterday, the Israelis had slaughtered a family of 12--the youngest was a four-day-old baby--when Israeli helicopter pilots fired missiles into their home. ... The blood of all the refugees ran quite literally in streams from the shell-smashed UN compound restaurant in which the Shiite Muslims from the hill villages of southern Lebanon--*who had heeded Israel's order to leave their homes*--had pathetically sought shelter." --Robert Fisk (19 April 1996, 'The Independent') In an interview with Matthew Rothschild for 'The Progressive' (July 1998), Robert Fisk discussed more about his experiences in reporting from Lebanon: http://www.progressive.org/rothfisk0907.htm Some UN soldiers observed an Israeli drone ('the eyes' of Israeli artillery) that was flying over the UN compound at Qana before and during the Israeli bombardment that killed more than one hundred civilians on 18 April 1996. Evidently, according to Robert Fisk, the United States pressured the United Nations to suppress or to destroy the video evidence (which had been taken by a UN Norwegian soldier) of that Israeli drone. Robert Fisk received an anonymous phone call, mentioning only a location and a time for a meeting. "And he (a UN soldier) walked up to me and he said, 'The drone is on the film. I've seen it, and I've copied it before the UN took it.' He said, 'I have two children at home the same age as the children I carried dead in my arms at Qana, and this is for them.' ... So I got it back to Beirut and we broke the story. My paper ('The Independent') ran three pages on it and carried an editorial saying that the people (Israelis) responsible for this should be brought to justice, which of course they were not. We had lots of copies of the tape, and we gave them to all the TV stations, including the Americans, who hardly used it. CNN used a bit of it. And we gave it to Israeli TV, which showed more of it than the American television did. The U.N. was forced to publish a report and acknowledge the film." --Robert Fisk (quoted in 'The Progressive', July 1998) Matthew Rothschild asked Robert Fisk: "Why didn't we hear more about this (On 13 April 1996, an Israeli helicopter intentionally--Israel admitted it later--fired a missile at a Lebanese ambulance, killing several civilians. Evidently, Israel attempted to justify its attack on the grounds that the ambulance might have been carrying a member of Hezbollah.) in the United States?" Robert Fisk responded by citing how the "New York Times" had sought to downplay the significance of that 'incident'. "One is because U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive....American journalists go for safe stories. They don't like controversy....The conformity of American journalism is going to be one of the nails in its coffin. ... There is a very powerful Israeli lobby in this country (the United States). It's a fact. People who dare to criticize Israel are often made to regret it. ... American journalists, whether they be on television or in the press, are very frightened of writing a report which is going to make Israel--or, more important, Israel's supporters in the United States--unhappy. If you dare to criticize Israel's policies or their actions--and, of course, you should also criticize the Arabs, let's not get romantic about this--but if you dare to criticize Israel, you will inevitably get the claim that you must be racist, anti-Semitic, and that is intended to shut you up. And in many cases in this country, I'm afraid it's successful." --Robert Fisk (quoted in 'The Progressive', July 1998) Here's an excerpt from Robert Fisk's book, 'Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon', about the 1982 massacres of Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps: http://www.mideastfacts.com/Fisk_Sabra.html "When does a killing become an outrage? When does an atrocity become a massacre? Or, put another way, how many killings make a massacre? Thirty? A hundred? Three hundred? When is a massacre not a massacre? When the figures are too low? Or when the massacre is carried out by Israel's friends rather than Israel's enemies? That, I suspected, was what this argument was about. If Syrian troops had crossed into Israel, surrounded a Kibbutz and allowed their Palestinian allies to slaughter the Jewish inhabitants, no Western news agency would waste its time afterwards arguing about whether or not it should be called a massacre. But in Beirut, the victims were Palestinians. The guilty were certainly (Lebanese) Christian militiamen...but the Israelis were also guilty. If the Israelis had not taken part in the killings, they had certainly sent militia into the camp. They had trained them, given them uniforms...Then they had watched the murderers in the camps, they had given them military assistance--the Israeli airforce had dropped all those flares (in order to make it harder for the Palestinian civilians to hide in the darkness) to help the men who were murdering the inhabitants of Sabra and Chatila--and they had established military liason with the murderers in the camps." --Robert Fisk (Pity the Nation) > I worry about anybody who refers to civilian casualties as > "collateral damage". As I recall, there seem to be more writers in the chess newsgroups who have objected to such 'politically correct' euphemisms as 'chairperson' than those who have objected to such 'patriotically correct' euphemisms as 'collateral damage'. Here's an excerpt from "I Saw Ramallah" by Mourid Barghouti, which won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature when it was published in Arabic in 1997. Mourid Barghouti was born in 1944 in Palestine. Today he lives in Cairo with his wife, Radwa Ashour, who's also a well-known writer. "Funerals were an integral part of the lives of Palestinians wherever they were, in the homeland or in exile, in the days of their calm and the days of their Intifada, in the days of their wars and the days of their peace punctuated by massacres. So when Yitzhak Rabin spoke so eloquently of the tragedy of Israelis as absolute victims, and the eyes of his listeners in the White House garden and in the whole world grew wet, I knew that I would not forget for a long time his words tht day: 'We are the victims of war and violence. We have not known a year or a month when mothers have not mourned their sons.' I felt that tremor that I know so well and which I feel when I know that I have not done my best, that I have failed: Rabin has taken everything, even the story of our death. This leader knew how to demand that the world should respect Israeli blood, the blood of every Israeli individual without exception. He knew how to demand that the world should respect Israeli tears, and he was able to present Israel as the victim of a crime perpetrated by us. He changed facts, he altered the order of things, he presented us as the initiators of violence in the Middle East and said what he said with eloquence, with clarity and conviction.... It is easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from 'Secondly'. Yes, this is what Rabin did. He simply neglected to speak of what happened first. Start your story with 'Secondly', and the world will be turned upside-down. Start your story with 'Secondly', and the arrows of the Red Indians are the original criminals and the guns of the white men are entirely the victim. It is enough to start with 'Secondly', for the anger of the black man against the white to be barbarous. Start with 'Secondly', and Gandhi becomes responsible for the tragedies of the British. You only need to start your story with 'Secondly', and the burned Vietnamese will have wounded the humanity of napalm, and Victor Jara's songs will be the shameful thing and not Pinochet's bullets, which killed so many thousands in the Santiago stadium. It is enough to start the story with 'Secondly', for my grandmother, Umm 'Ata, to become the criminal and Ariel Sharon her victim. ... The (Israeli) houses built on top of ours gallantly declare their willingness to understand our odd predilection toward living in camps scattered in the Diaspora of gods and flies, as though we had begged them to throw us out of our homes and to send their bulldozers to destroy them in front of our very eyes. Their generous guns in Deir Yassin forgive us the fact that they piled our bodies high at the sunset hour there one day. Their fighter jets forgive the graves of our martyrs in Beirut. Their soldiers forgive the tendency of our teenages' bones to break. Israel the victim polishes its hot, red knife with the sheen of forgiveness." --Mourid Barghouti (I Saw Ramallah, pp. 177-9, translated from the Arabic by Ahdar Soueif) --Nick |
> "Bill Smythe" <[email protected]> wrote in message > news:<[email protected]>... > > "Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: > > > .... there remain huge differences between the actions of the Israelis > > > and those of Timothy McVeigh. .... > > > > There are a lot of differences, but I fear there may also be similarities, > > more than people of your stripe care to admit or recognize. > > Terrorism is terrorism, no matter who commits it. > > It seems to me that comparative judgements about 'terrorism' have depended > heavily on whether its victims are perceived as 'one of us' or 'one of them'. > It also seems to me that comparative judgements about the fundamental humanity > of entire peoples have depended heavily on whether they are perceived as > 'one of us' or 'one of them'. Racist dehumanisation seems common in the world. > > Many, perhaps most, 'Westerners' tend to infer a vital 'moral' distinction > between, say, having an expensive United States-made aeroplane drop bombs > (from high altitude, of course, to minimise any risks to the 'heroic' air crew) > into a neighbourhood of 'non-Western' civilians, whose casualties thereby > become known, quite 'acceptably', as only 'collateral damage' (according to > the conventional American euphemism), and, say, a 'non-Westerner' who commits > suicide by driving a vehicle carrying a bomb into a military outpost, whose > casualties thereby became known as 'victims of terrorism'. > > The Americans who dropped countless bombs (and toxic chemicals) in Southeast > Asia were quick to condemn the Vietnamese Communist partisans for their alleged > barbarity in making concealed 'booby traps' with sharpened punji stakes. > Many people in Vietnam today continue to suffer and die prematurely as a > consequence of long-term exposure to the persistent American toxic chemicals. > But that's a story that the United States government and the 'patriotic' > United States media evidently prefer to ignore about as much as possible. > > Here's an article, "There were rockets, shells. It was war. Then bulldozers > destroyed everything" by Chris McGreal in Rafah for 'The Guardian': > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1219225,00.html > > "Since the beginning of the intifada more than three years ago, Israel's > armoured bulldozers have destroyed 1200 houses in Rafah and, according to > the UN, made more than 12000 people homeless: one in 10 of the population. > ... these numbers are grossly inflated! > 'My brother was against us leaving', said Hamad. 'He said we should stay > and defend the house, but there were too many children. So he helped us move > the all the kids and then said he was going back to pick up some important > documents. We pleaded with him not to go, but he was stubborn.' > > Ashraf Qishta was last seen alive by his relatives standing in the doorway > of his home with a white flag in one hand and an axe in another. > > 'He thought the Israelis would respect him if he stood there and said he would > defend his house', said Hamad. 'They just hit shot him in the chest. The > bulldozer pulled the building on to him. When we found him we could see where > the blade hit ihis head.' He got what he deserved. He was an armed militant, who was misusing the flag of truce. If he had dropped his weapon, he probably would still be alive. > > > > Here's an excerpt from Robert Fisk's book, 'Pity the Nation: The Abduction > of Lebanon', about the 1982 massacres of Palestinian civilians at the Sabra > and Chatila refugee camps: > > http://www.mideastfacts.com/Fisk_Sabra.html > > "When does a killing become an outrage? When does an atrocity become a > massacre? Or, put another way, how many killings make a massacre? Thirty? > A hundred? Three hundred? When is a massacre not a massacre? When the > figures are too low? Or when the massacre is carried out by Israel's friends > rather than Israel's enemies? > > That, I suspected, was what this argument was about. If Syrian troops had > crossed into Israel, surrounded a Kibbutz and allowed their Palestinian allies > to slaughter the Jewish inhabitants, no Western news agency would waste its > time afterwards arguing about whether or not it should be called a massacre. > > But in Beirut, the victims were Palestinians. The guilty were certainly > (Lebanese) Christian militiamen...but the Israelis were also guilty. Perhaps most guilty of all was the PLO. They had killed tens of thousand of Lebanese Christians. Most notable was the Damour massacre. . .. So many of the Christian militiamen who took part in the Sabra and Shatila massacres were survivers of the Damour massacre, who had seen their parents killed, that the unit was nicknamed "The Orphan's Brigade". The Palestinians in the camps had, years earlier, shouted for joy when they heard the news of the glorious military successes of the brave palestinian fighters.... > > > I worry about anybody who refers to civilian casualties as > > "collateral damage". > > As I recall, there seem to be more writers in the chess newsgroups who have > objected to such 'politically correct' euphemisms as 'chairperson' than those > who have objected to such 'patriotically correct' euphemisms as 'collateral > damage'. > |
> "Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: > > .... there remain huge differences between the actions of the Israelis > > and those of Timothy McVeigh. .... > > There are a lot of differences, but I fear there may also be similarities, > more than people of your stripe care to admit or recognize. Terrorism is > terrorism, no matter who commits it. I worry about anybody who refers to > civilian casualties as "collateral damage". > > > .... Palestinians receive financial resources and weapons from outside > > sources. .... > > And the Israelis don't? Well, Israel does'n't receive a "Bounty" from the US, for every Palestinian it kills. In contrast, the families of Palestinian suicide terrorists receive money. Moreover, the more "successful" the operation is in achieving the deaths of innocent Israelis, the more money they receive. The weapons that Israel receives are for use against those engaged in attacks against Israelis. The weapons that the Palestinians receive are for use in attacks against Israelis. > > > .... Israel, because it is a client state of the US, is forbidden from > > taking decisive action. .... > > That's an interesting statement, considering that the USA is taking all > kinds of aggressive action (which it would like to be decisive) on its own. You mean, like their actions against Fallujah. Unfortunately, the Saudi Oil barons still pay the piper, and get to call the tunes. the Marines were hung out to dry in Fallujah. They should have been allowed to force the town, and completely obliterate all resistance. The craven actions of the Pentagon will only result in more US casualties in the long run. The entirely wrong message was given to the Arabs, by the willingness to fall back, due to the blandishments of the Pan-Arabist Fascist sympathizers! Still, the US has afforded itself the "privilege" of engaging in far more aggressive combat activities than the Israelis are allowed to use. Just in the past year, 50 times as many Iraqi civilians have been killed, as compared to the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis. Yet the number of Palestinian militants killed by Israel is about the same as the number of Iraqi militants killed by the coalition forces. > > Bill Smythe |
> .... the > Marines were hung out to dry in Fallujah. They should have been > allowed to force the town, and completely obliterate all resistance. .... In other words, I suppose, kill every man, woman, and child in Fallujah. After all, there would simply be no time to determine which Fallujah residents were our friends, and which were our enemies. Besides, even if they said they were our friends, how would we know they're telling the truth? Better kill 'em all, just to be sure. > .... Just in the past year, 50 times as many Iraqi civilians have > been killed, as compared to the number of Palestinians killed by > Israelis. .... And this is a good thing? Bill Smythe |
> "Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: > > .... the > > Marines were hung out to dry in Fallujah. They should have been > > allowed to force the town, and completely obliterate all resistance. .... > > In other words, I suppose, kill every man, woman, and child in Fallujah. > After all, there would simply be no time to determine which Fallujah > residents were our friends, and which were our enemies. Besides, even if > they said they were our friends, how would we know they're telling the > truth? Better kill 'em all, just to be sure. Nice of you to snip away all contextual text, Bill. Did you learn that trick from Eric Johnson. Note that i wrote that the Marines should have been allowed to obliterate all ***resistance*** . I didn't write that they should have been allowed to obliterate the whole city. If the women and children are armed, then they are combatants, and therefore are fair game. If women and children are in the same building as the insurgent fighters, then one can criticize them for being foolish, or criticize their adult male realtives for forcing them to stay in harm's way. If you are an innocent civilian, does ot not make sense to flee a combat zone? If you let yourself get exploited as a human shield, just how innocent are you? Once the Marines had made a serious push into the city, the insugent's bluff would have been called, and most of the civilians would have endeavored to leave the city. > > > .... Just in the past year, 50 times as many Iraqi civilians have > > been killed, as compared to the number of Palestinians killed by > > Israelis. .... > > And this is a good thing? It's a good thing for the Palestinians that it is the Israelis, rather than the Americans, who are fighting the militants in Gaza and the West Bank. Otherwise, I suspect that many more Palestinians would now be dead, including more "civilians". It's a bad thing if you happen to be throwing a wedding party in Iraq, and you insist upon firing your automatic weapons into the air. Americans have reason to be ashamed of the actions of Graner and England in the Abu Ghraib prison. However, I find the American military's conduct of the fighting in Iraq to be, on the whole, quite honorable. True, the Americans aren't as restrained as the Israelis, but they have done a good job under the circumstances. > > Bill Smythe |
> .... Note that i wrote that the Marines should have been allowed to > obliterate all ***resistance*** . I didn't write that they should > have been allowed to obliterate the whole city. .... The problem with this approach, is that is virtually impossible to distinguish the "resistance" from the "whole city". Obviously, the "resistance" has considerable support among Fallujah residents. It's like walking into a Republican convention and shooting only the Bush supporters. Many Americans have far too great a tendency to assume that "they love us everywhere we go" (Tom Lehrer) and that all we need to do is knock down a few despotic leaders. Well, guess what. We ran the despotic leader out of town early on, and searched for (and never found) "weapons of mass destruction". We achieved the first goal early, and the second was non-existent. Yet, we're still there. Initially, some Iraqis may have welcomed us, but months later, after weeks without electricity, police protection, etc (did the electricity ever come back on?), we are getting less and less popular. It's a shame so many Americans won't admit this. > .... If you are an innocent civilian, does ot not make sense to flee a > combat zone? If you let yourself get exploited as a human shield, just > how innocent are you? .... If the "combat zone" is the home you've been living in for many years, how would you feel when somebody suggests you should flee it? Your attitude is EXTREMELY callous, to say the least. Bill Smythe |
>searched for (and never found) "weapons of mass destruction". We achieved >the first goal early, and the second was non-existent. Well, except for that "little bit" of serin nerve agent and mustard gas. Kyle Word "Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot." -- D.H. Lawrence |
We ain't as efficient as we claim to be if it took us a full year after Dubya declared "victory" to get the gas transported to Iraq and "discovered". >>Well, guess what. We ran the despotic leader out of town early on, and >>searched for (and never found) "weapons of mass destruction". We achieved >>the first goal early, and the second was non-existent. > >Well, except for that "little bit" of serin nerve agent and mustard gas. > >Kyle Word > >"Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say >what you've got to say, and say it hot." -- D.H. Lawrence > Heute Uhmuhrikkka, Afghanistan, Irak und Ha�ti. Morgen die ganze Welt! Uhmuhrikkka, Uhmuhrikkka �ber Alles! (The more information that comes out about the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001 the more it appears that those attacks were organized by the rulers of the United States and were intended to have the same effect on the people of the United States that the Reichstag fire had on the people of Germany in 1933.) Fight terrorism! Dissolve the CIA and disarm the Pentagon! (I have watched the hearings of the Commission to investigate the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001. As a result, I have become convinced that every one of the witnesses and their four Presidents - and every one of the Commissioners - should be tried for: (1. Conspiracy to commit terrorism; and/or (2. Commission of terrorist acts; and/or (3. Conspiracy to commit murder; and/or (4. Commission of murder; and/or (5. Treason; and/or (6. Suborning one or more of the above acts.) Fraternally, Jerome Bibuld gens una sumus |
> "Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: > > .... Note that i wrote that the Marines should have been allowed to > > obliterate all ***resistance*** . I didn't write that they should > > have been allowed to obliterate the whole city. .... > > The problem with this approach, is that is virtually impossible to > distinguish the "resistance" from the "whole city". Obviously, the > "resistance" has considerable support among Fallujah residents. It's like > walking into a Republican convention and shooting only the Bush supporters. I don't get your point....??? It's not virtually impossible to determine who is is actively resisting you (in the military sense). Weapons fire is usually a good indication of that. I think that it is OK to attack those places from where weapons fire is emanating. Hopefully, there won't be some unarmed kids sitting next to the guy with the machine gun or the RPG, when return fire is directed at the window from where the combatant is firing. In Fallujah, there would be excellent chances to keep most of the structures intact, while killing the 5,000--10,000 armed militants who enter the combat. If nearly ALL of the inhabitants of Fallujah, including Women and Children, CHOSE to become combatants, then they would not have much complaint about having to face the consequences. > > Many Americans have far too great a tendency to assume that "they love us > everywhere we go" (Tom Lehrer) and that all we need to do is knock down a > few despotic leaders. > > Well, guess what. We ran the despotic leader out of town early on, and > searched for (and never found) "weapons of mass destruction". We achieved > the first goal early, and the second was non-existent. Yet, we're still > there. Initially, some Iraqis may have welcomed us, but months later, after > weeks without electricity, police protection, etc (did the electricity ever > come back on?), we are getting less and less popular. It's a shame so many > Americans won't admit this. > > > .... If you are an innocent civilian, does ot not make sense to flee a > > combat zone? If you let yourself get exploited as a human shield, just > > how innocent are you? .... > > If the "combat zone" is the home you've been living in for many years, how > would you feel when somebody suggests you should flee it? Your attitude is > EXTREMELY callous, to say the least. I would flee my home, just as I would flee it in the event of some oncoming, utterly predicatable, natural disaster. If you knew a Category 5 Hurricane was likely to reach land right where your beachfront home was, you'd have to be foolish to try to "ride it out". You can always rebuild. It's just stuff. Likewise, those who opt to stay in a combat zone are taking a big risk. Most will come away unscathed, but there will be some who draw the short straw. > > Bill Smythe |
> .... It's a bad thing if you happen to be throwing a wedding party in > Iraq, and you insist upon firing your automatic weapons into the air. .... That incident appears to have been a case of an unfortunate (though common) Middle East tradition of celebrating by shooting off guns, combined with the trigger-happy Americans assuming the worst every time. Bill Smythe |
"Bill Smythe" <[email protected] > wrote in message news:[email protected]... > "Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: > > .... It's a bad thing if you happen to be throwing a wedding party in > > Iraq, and you insist upon firing your automatic weapons into the air. > .... > > That incident appears to have been a case of an unfortunate (though common) > Middle East tradition of celebrating by shooting off guns, combined with the > trigger-happy Americans assuming the worst every time. My understanding is that they fired on the troops who then called in the gunship. StanB |
> My understanding is that they fired on the troops who then called in the > gunship. That, no doubt, is the version the American military wants you to believe. Bill Smythe |
<[email protected] > wrote: >"StanB" wrote: >> My understanding is that they fired on the troops who then called in the >> gunship. > >That, no doubt, is the version the American military wants you to believe. > >Bill Smythe Regardless of the "official" military version of the incident, one has to question the common sense of firing off weapons to celebrate when the country is in the middle of a guerilla war, insurrection, invasion, whatever, with foreign (i.e., American) troops everywhere, armed and at the ready. It doesn't take a lot of multi-cultural insight to realize that the foreign soldiers might, perhaps mistakenly, believe they were under attack. |
> Regardless of the "official" military version of the incident, one has > to question the common sense of firing off weapons to celebrate when > the country is in the middle of a guerilla war, insurrection, > invasion, whatever, with foreign (i.e., American) troops everywhere, > armed and at the ready. It doesn't take a lot of multi-cultural > insight to realize that the foreign soldiers might, perhaps > mistakenly, believe they were under attack. I do not disagree. Yet, incidents like this ought to make people question the whole idea of going to war in the first place. Bill Smythe |
> "Mike Murray" wrote: > > Regardless of the "official" military version of the incident, one has > > to question the common sense of firing off weapons to celebrate when > > the country is in the middle of a guerilla war, insurrection, > > invasion, whatever, with foreign (i.e., American) troops everywhere, > > armed and at the ready. It doesn't take a lot of multi-cultural > > insight to realize that the foreign soldiers might, perhaps > > mistakenly, believe they were under attack. > > I do not disagree. Yet, incidents like this ought to make people question > the whole idea of going to war in the first place. > > Bill Smythe No Bill. It just means that we have to switch the justification again. Vince Hart |
"Bill Smythe" <[email protected] > wrote in message news:[email protected]... > "StanB" wrote: > > My understanding is that they fired on the troops who then called in the > > gunship. > > That, no doubt, is the version the American military wants you to believe. And yours of course is the version al Qaeda wants you to believe. StanB |
> And yours of course is the version al Qaeda wants you to believe. I suspect the American military and Al Qaeda are equally guilty, when it comes to telling versions of a story which suit their goals. Bill Smythe |
"Bill Smythe" <[email protected] > wrote in message news:[email protected]... > > And yours of course is the version al Qaeda wants you to believe. > > I suspect the American military and Al Qaeda are equally guilty, when it > comes to telling versions of a story which suit their goals. Get back to me when you know for sure. StanB |
> "StanB" wrote: > > My understanding is that they fired on the troops who then called in the > > gunship. > > That, no doubt, is the version the American military wants you to believe. > > Bill Smythe I'm beginning to have doubts out who was killed in the incident. Certainly, there are arethose who might be tempted to misrepresent the engagement, and there is serious disgreement over the demographic composition of the deceased. Both the US military and the Iraqis have rough parity, with regrads to the number of people killed. If the report about the Wedding massacre had been promulgated by Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf ("Comical Ali"), then I would tend to believe the "victim" version of events. However, since Sahhaf no longer is spokesman, I have noticed that the quality and accuracy of the information which is spread about by Iraqis looks to have seriously deteriorated. The US claims few women, no children, and no geezers were among the dead. Anyway, there is no doubt that the dead were found with plenty of weapons among them. That, in conjunction with the fact that they were in an area of Iraq that is a notorious region for arms smuggling, is sufficient reason to blow them away. There is a strong likelihood that they were up to no good! Still, it has taken Israel nearly a week to kill about the same number of Palestinians, and yet the Palestinians bitch and moan about supposed rough treatment and "collective punishment". Sheesh! Of course, they would spew out as much of their propaganda unless there was a ready supply of naifs in the West ready to lap it all up. The Arabs need to stop waging war in a perfidious manner. Once they do so, and adhere to the Rules of War, then the number of murky incidents will no doubt decline. |
"Bill Smythe" <[email protected] > wrote in message news:[email protected]... > "Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: > > .... It's a bad thing if you happen to be throwing a wedding party in > > Iraq, and you insist upon firing your automatic weapons into the air. > .... > > That incident appears to have been a case of an unfortunate (though common) > Middle East tradition of celebrating by shooting off guns, combined with the > trigger-happy Americans assuming the worst every time. What idiot would fire a gun knowing there are trigger-happy Americans assuming the worst flying around? Good riddance to the lot of em. |
> assuming the worst flying around? > Good riddance to the lot of em. < Mike Varney, Humanitarian! Mike Varney, friend of all people! Mike Varney, as sensitive guy who cares! Or maybe...Mike Varney, useless asshole? You choose... |
"The Masked Bishop" <[email protected] > wrote in message news:[email protected]... > > What idiot would fire a gun knowing there are trigger-happy Americans > > assuming the worst flying around? > > Good riddance to the lot of em. > < > > Mike Varney, Humanitarian! Mike Varney, friend of all people! Mike > Varney, as sensitive guy who cares! > > Or maybe...Mike Varney, useless asshole? You choose... Struck a nerve, did I? Good. |
> "Bill Smythe" <[email protected]> wrote in message > news:[email protected]... > >>"Isidor Gunsberg" wrote: >> >>> .... It's a bad thing if you happen to be throwing a wedding party in >>>Iraq, and you insist upon firing your automatic weapons into the air. >> >>.... >> >>That incident appears to have been a case of an unfortunate (though > > common) > >>Middle East tradition of celebrating by shooting off guns, combined with > > the > >>trigger-happy Americans assuming the worst every time. > > > What idiot would fire a gun knowing there are trigger-happy Americans > assuming the worst flying around? > Good riddance to the lot of em. > > As we saw in Afghanistan, when allied troops (Canadian in this case) go through a scheduled training session, trigger-happy Americans are quite happy to drop bombs on them. Many years ago, a European gentleman (I forget his homeland) said of his World War II memories: "When the Germans dropped bombs, we would hide. When the British dropped bombs, the Germans would hide. When the Americans dropped bombs, everyone would hide." |
in message news:<gD5sc.572818$Ig.260035@pd7tw2no >... > Michael Varney wrote: > > What idiot would fire a gun knowing there are trigger-happy Americans > > assuming the worst flying around? Good riddance to the lot of em. "The incapacity of the United States to see Arabs as other human beings is consistent with the ebbing of universalism within American society." --Emmanuel Todd (After the Empire, p. 118) > As we saw in Afghanistan, when allied troops (Canadian in this case) go > through a scheduled training session, trigger-happy Americans are quite > happy to drop bombs on them. Would any 'compensation' for that 'collateral damage' be offered in Canadian dollars? > Many years ago, a European gentleman (I forget his homeland) His homeland's identity would matter to some readers here, but not much to me. > said of his World War II memories: "When the Germans dropped bombs, > we would hide. When the British dropped bombs, the Germans would hide. > When the Americans dropped bombs, everyone would hide." As I recall, on more than one occasion the United States bombed towns in neutral Switzerland (killing Swiss civilians) in the misguided belief that the targets were in Germany. On one occasion when an American bomber was flying over Switzerland, it was intercepted by a Swiss fighter (with red-and-white insignia), which compelled the American bomber to land in Switzerland. Then the American pilot expressed his dismay that he would have been intercepted by a 'Red Cross' aeroplane! :-) --Nick |
> The Green Bastard from Parts Unknown <[email protected]> wrote > in message news:<gD5sc.572818$Ig.260035@pd7tw2no>... . . . >>As we saw in Afghanistan, when allied troops (Canadian in this case) go >>through a scheduled training session, trigger-happy Americans are quite >>happy to drop bombs on them. > > > Would any 'compensation' for that 'collateral damage' be offered in > Canadian dollars? > . . . The American military gave Bronze Stars to the families of the four soldiers killed as compensation. Apparently being bombed by an ally during a routine training session was considered an act of bravery. GBFPU |
in message news:<hensc.574134$oR5.58663@pd7tw3no >... > Nick wrote: > > The Green Bastard from Parts Unknown <[email protected]> wrote > > in message news:<gD5sc.572818$Ig.260035@pd7tw2no>... > > > As we saw in Afghanistan, when allied troops (Canadian in this case) go > > > through a scheduled training session, trigger-happy Americans are quite > > > happy to drop bombs on them. > > > > Would any 'compensation' for that 'collateral damage' be offered in > > Canadian dollars? > > The American military gave Bronze Stars to the families of the four > soldiers killed as compensation. Apparently being bombed by an ally > during a routine training session was considered an act of bravery. At least the dead Canadians were spared from having to hear any inane rhetoric in the United States media about, say, "the Canadians who *gave their lives* in the war against terrorism..." On 3 July 1988, the United States Navy warship USS Vincennes (which was illegally in Iran's territorial waters) shot down an Iranian A300 Airbus en route (in a normal flight path) to Dubai, killing all 290 persons aboard. Here's a news article, "Sea of Lies", from 'Newsweek' (13 July 1992): http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/vince.html After the shoot-down, the United States did whatever it could to cover up what had really happened, propagating lies in order to place the blame on the Iranians, who had done nothing wrong in this case. None of the Americans involved ever had to face a military court of inquiry, and some Americans were even commended and decorated for shooting down the Iranian airliner. Eventually, in 1996--eight years after the 'tragic incident'--the United States, without admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to pay a total of 61.8 million USD to the families of the 248 Iranians who had been killed (the payments varied from 150,000 USD to 300,000 USD for each death). As far as I know, the United States, beyond a pro forma general expression of regret, has never apologised or admitted to any wrongdoing in the shooting down of the Iranian airliner and the killing of 290 men, women, and children. --Nick |
> The Green Bastard from Parts Unknown <[email protected]> wrote > in message news:<hensc.574134$oR5.58663@pd7tw3no>... > > Nick wrote: > > > The Green Bastard from Parts Unknown <[email protected]> wrote > > > in message news:<gD5sc.572818$Ig.260035@pd7tw2no>... > > > > As we saw in Afghanistan, when allied troops (Canadian in this case) go > > > > through a scheduled training session, trigger-happy Americans are quite > > > > happy to drop bombs on them. > > > > > > Would any 'compensation' for that 'collateral damage' be offered in > > > Canadian dollars? > > > > The American military gave Bronze Stars to the families of the four > > soldiers killed as compensation. Apparently being bombed by an ally > > during a routine training session was considered an act of bravery. > > At least the dead Canadians were spared from having to hear any inane rhetoric > in the United States media about, say, "the Canadians who *gave their lives* > in the war against terrorism..." > > On 3 July 1988, the United States Navy warship USS Vincennes (which was > illegally in Iran's territorial waters) shot down an Iranian A300 Airbus > en route (in a normal flight path) to Dubai, killing all 290 persons aboard. > > Here's a news article, "Sea of Lies", from 'Newsweek' (13 July 1992): > http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/vince.html > > After the shoot-down, the United States did whatever it could to cover up > what had really happened, propagating lies in order to place the blame on > the Iranians, who had done nothing wrong in this case. None of the Americans > involved ever had to face a military court of inquiry, and some Americans > were even commended and decorated for shooting down the Iranian airliner. > Eventually, in 1996--eight years after the 'tragic incident'--the United > States, without admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to pay a total of 61.8 million > USD to the families of the 248 Iranians who had been killed (the payments > varied from 150,000 USD to 300,000 USD for each death). As far as I know, > the United States, beyond a pro forma general expression of regret, has > never apologised or admitted to any wrongdoing in the shooting down of > the Iranian airliner and the killing of 290 men, women, and children. > > --Nick The shooting down of the Iranian airliner was done to exact "revenge" for the missile attack on the USS Stark <wink >, which took place on May 17, 1987, and was perpetrated by the Iraqis. http://navysite.de/ffg/FFG31.HTM While deployed to the Arabian Gulf, the USS STARK is hit by two Iraqi Exocet missiles but only one of them detonates. Both missiles were accidentally fired by an Iraqi F-1 Mirage aircraft, killing 37 sailors and wounding 21 others. The pilot later claims that he had mistaken the STARK for an Iranian oil tanker. The suffers heavy damage and could only be saved by the effective damage control efforts of the crew. After the incident a discussion about the efficiency of the Phalanx CIWS, the SLQ 32 and the Mk 92 Fire Control system started because none of the frigate's system detected the incoming missiles. An AWACS plane monitoring the area also did not detect the missiles but only the Iraqi fighter aircraft. After the accident, the STARK got a memorial engraving mounted in the midships' passageway, which listed the names of the lost shipmates. The Navy spent $142 Million to repair the USS STARK. |
When you kill innocent bystanders, you need to accept the *responsibility* for your actions -- not blame them for recklessless in getting in the way of your bullets, and then complain that it's costing you too much to bury them all. A very clever strategist might find a way to draw them out, away from innocent civilians, before opening fire. Of course, this assummes (wrongly?) that those pulling the triggers actually care about who they kill.... |
> A very clever strategist might find a way to draw them out, away from > innocent civilians, before opening fire. Of course, this assummes (wrongly?) > that those pulling the triggers actually care about who they kill.... Or that they would have any way of knowing. Or, for that matter, that there is some magical way of drawing "them" out while getting the "innocent civilians" to stay put. Obviously, "them" aren't that stupid -- that's why they mingle with "innocent civilians" to begin with. Bill Smythe |
> . > When you kill innocent bystanders, you need to accept the *responsibility* > for your actions -- not blame them for recklessless in getting in the way of > your bullets, and then complain that it's costing you too much to bury them > all. > A very clever strategist might find a way to draw them out, away from > innocent civilians, before opening fire. Of course, this assummes (wrongly?) > that those pulling the triggers actually care about who they kill.... ---------------------------------------------------------------- Hey Pollyanna, the photos don't lie! http://www.geocities.com/palestiniansarelies/HumanShields.html Do you really want to argue that the Palestinian kids bear NO responsibility for getting killed or injured, when they situate themselves smack in the middle of a combat zone? What is shown in the photos seems to go far beyond mere "recklessness" on the part of the Palestinian kids. Just what clever strategy would you employ, to have the kids "unshield" the armed, hooded, militants? Yes, if the militants weren't cowards, they would engage the israelis in open combat in an uninhabited area. Of course, they would get killed, but they claim to want to be martyrs, anyhow. Obviously, the plastinian fighters are very comfortable having kids around to shield them from view, deliver more ammunition from arms caches, act as spotters and scounts, and use cell phones to relay realtime information about Israeli troop movements to other strong points. Needless to say, all of the above constitute war crimes on the part of the Palestinians. Yet, where are the UN resolutions condemning them? http://www.geocities.com/palestiniansarelies/HumanShields.html |
Q: What clever strategy would *I* inploy to aviod killing innocent civilians, situated in the midst of the "armed, hooded militants"? A: I would not have to employ any such strategy, as I would not have sent men overseas to kill, mangle, and destroy at my behest. This may seem to be waffling, but in fact, your question equates to "how would you defend against the Grecco sac: Bxh7+, Black to move?" My answer would simply be to back up a move (or perhaps several moves) and not allow such a winning combination, by a process known (if only to a relative few) as "thinking ahead." >comfortable having kids around to >shield them from view, deliver more ammunition from arms caches, act >as spotters and scounts, and use cell phones to relay realtime >information about Israeli troop movements to other strong points. Next you will tell us that Iraqi cell-phone towers are always surrounded by children, who themselves are responsible for getting in our bullets' way -- yet again. As soon as the smoke from our bombs clears, these same evil kids begin rebuilding the towers, right? > Needless to say, all of the above constitute war crimes on the part >of the Palestinians. Yet, where are the UN resolutions condemning >them? There is not much point in condemming the dead. Perhaps Dubya and his cronies should just admit that they *don't know how* to fight Iraqis, without massive so-called "collateral damage." That way, they is no need to continually struggle to *transfer the blame* to the children we kill. Just a thought. >Hey Pollyanna I hated that movie. Call me "Brian," instead. "Always stay on the bright si-de of life. Da-dum, da-da-da-da-da-dum." " ...you've forgotten something -- and that's to laugh and dance and cry and sing!" :-) |
> > [email protected] (Sam Sloan) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>... > > On 16 May 2004 05:19:14 -0700, [email protected] (Isidor > > Gunsberg) wrote: > > > > > The laws governing the conduct of war may have been > > >appropriate during the Napoleonic Era, when armies engaged each other > > >in an empty field. > > >But it is simply silly to condemn an army for destroying a few > > >buildings in an urban area, when those building are being used as ad > > >hoc fortification from which to launch attacks. > > > > So, according to you, it was OK for an Israeli Airforce F-17 to send a > > missile into a crowded apartment building at night killing everybody > > inside including dozens of women and children, because one supposed > > terrorist was sleeping there? > > That's a tough one, Sam. I'm not sure about sending an "F-17".... > But an F-15 or an F-16 should be OK. It all depends on the > circumstances. If the terrorist leader was really bad, it might be > justified. > > These women and children ought not be turned into human shields. > Then the situation wouldn't come up. If a terrorist moved into the > residence where I lived, I would move out, in a hurry. I would not > stay in a place that will become a terrorist command and control > center. > > In any case, your question is purely hypothetical. The Israelis > have yet to conduct such a missile attack, where ***dozens*** of women > and children were killed. In the case of the terrorist leader Shahade, > there were about 15 people killed along with Shahade himself, and most > of them were militants. > > On the other hand, the Israelis are refining their methods, and are > increasingly able to avoid collatoral casualties. The Israeli record > is far superior to that of the US in Iraq. The point is that the good > guys are trying to avoid civilain casualties. That ought to count for > something! > > When Israel killed Rantisi, not a single civilian was killed. It > was a precision operation. Can we take this to mean Gunsberg, that Mossad has got it's ball (s) back?.. |
Why is this being posted here? |
> I am not getting this at all - was Nick Berg a chess player or something? > Why is this being posted here? > > Maybe this is the ".misc" part? GBFPU |
this newsgroup. Give it a Break! Sheesh.... Well, wait...one last comment...has it occured to anyone this whole nine yards is really a religious conflict? And the real perpetrators of this are wacko religious zealots on both the Hebrew and the Islamic sides? "Alan OBrien" <[email protected] > wrote in message news:[email protected]... > I am not getting this at all - was Nick Berg a chess player or something? > Why is this being posted here? > > |
crowd of Palestinian demonstrators Wednesday, and shrapnel from the blasts killed at least 10 Palestinian children and teenagers and wounded 50 people, hospital officials said." New york times another crime of the terrorist group Israel . while distracting us with alqaeda, bin laden,etc, a real genocide goes on unpunished "Isidor Gunsberg" <[email protected] > escribi� en el mensaje news:[email protected]... > [email protected] (Sam Sloan) wrote in message news:<[email protected] >... > > On 16 May 2004 05:19:14 -0700, [email protected] (Isidor > > Gunsberg) wrote: > > > > > The laws governing the conduct of war may have been > > >appropriate during the Napoleonic Era, when armies engaged each other > > >in an empty field. > > >But it is simply silly to condemn an army for destroying a few > > >buildings in an urban area, when those building are being used as ad > > >hoc fortification from which to launch attacks. > > > > So, according to you, it was OK for an Israeli Airforce F-17 to send a > > missile into a crowded apartment building at night killing everybody > > inside including dozens of women and children, because one supposed > > terrorist was sleeping there? > > That's a tough one, Sam. I'm not sure about sending an "F-17".... > But an F-15 or an F-16 should be OK. It all depends on the > circumstances. If the terrorist leader was really bad, it might be > justified. > > These women and children ought not be turned into human shields. > Then the situation wouldn't come up. If a terrorist moved into the > residence where I lived, I would move out, in a hurry. I would not > stay in a place that will become a terrorist command and control > center. > > In any case, your question is purely hypothetical. The Israelis > have yet to conduct such a missile attack, where ***dozens*** of women > and children were killed. In the case of the terrorist leader Shahade, > there were about 15 people killed along with Shahade himself, and most > of them were militants. > > On the other hand, the Israelis are refining their methods, and are > increasingly able to avoid collatoral casualties. The Israeli record > is far superior to that of the US in Iraq. The point is that the good > guys are trying to avoid civilain casualties. That ought to count for > something! > > When Israel killed Rantisi, not a single civilian was killed. It > was a precision operation. > > > > Sam Sloan |
> I wonder, why is it that the Americans are always the only ones held > accountable for the Geneva Conventions? We aren't. The American government is constantly harping on human rights violations by other countries. Bill Smythe |
"J�rgen Rennenkampff" <[email protected] > wrote in message news:[email protected]... > On Sat, 15 May 2004 04:42:39 GMT, "Matt Nemmers" > <[email protected]> wrote: > > >"Jerome Bibuld" <[email protected]> wrote in message > >news:[email protected]... > > This kind of completely > >idiotic false propaganda is beneath even YOU. Or so I thought. > > Yours is an extremely inaccurate characterization: This is a very weak > article based on a few threads of truth and a lot of rumor. However, > it is absolutely appropriate to doubt every word coming from U.S. > officialdom. Not on a chess newsgroup it isn't!! Alan |
news:[email protected]... > There is no > reason whatsoever to believe that the Iraquis are any better or worse > people than those who are bombing them. This is a given, since most of the bombs going off in Iraq are exploding courtesy of Iraqis. -- "What a maroon!" - Bugs Bunny |
Your a sick man. Real sick. Just ask the soldiers what's going on there. Like I said before. All the friggin press including the USA is all propaganda. Yeah we have freedom of speech and press and when you look at the newspapers here its all about making money to sell papers and the editor in chief and the bigwigs who own these newspapers like the NY times etc, etc, are the most irresponsible sick jerks there are. Some of them use thier so called pull for thier own politcal reasons for favors. You have papers that are pro-democrat or pro-republican. I don't read, or listen to them anymore and I believe quite a few americans more and more don't either. Ask the Iraqi people to by the way. I don't think the press over there has asked a single Iraqi citizen how's it going. They only ask those that will sell papers and can make it look bad so they can sell thier papers too. My cousin is over there in Baghdad fighting and he tells me like almost all the soldiers tell thier families the same thing. Be grateful and content with what you have. I'd like to see that in the press, something you never seem to post about or any flippin newspaper anywhere including the USA crap newspapers and TVnews. Just my 2 cents. EZoto |
> Your a sick man. Real sick. Just ask the soldiers what's going on there. United States soldiers may speak for themselves, but they cannot speak for every side of the conflicts in Iraq. If you were an ordinary Iraqi, then would you *always* tell (in Arabic) a passing American soldier *exactly* how you feel about the United States military occupation? > Like I said before. All the friggin press including the USA is all > propaganda. ... I don't read, or listen to them anymore and I believe > quite a few americans more and more don't either. It's good for you to read with a sense of detachment and scepticism. > Ask the Iraqi people to by the way. No single individual Iraqi can yet rightly speak on behalf of the entire Iraqi people. Indeed, the Kurdish nationalists (in northern Iraq) tend to regard themselves as not being Iraqis at all, and they speak in Kurdish, not Arabic. Of course, the United States may appoint an Iraqi to claim to speak on behalf of the entire Iraqi people, and he could be paid to say whatever the United States government prefers. > I don't think the press over there has asked a single Iraqi citizen > how's it going. As far as I know, most Middle East correspondents for United States newspapers are not fluent in Arabic, and therefore they tend to rely on interviews with English-speaking Iraqis or on the services of Arabic-English interpreters who may be connected to (or even paid by) the United States military occupation. Here's a commentary on the United States military occupation of his homeland by Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi writer (who now lives in the UK) who was tortured under Saddam Hussein's regime: "I, too, was tortured in Abu Ghraib: Iraqis did not struggle for decades to replace one oppressor with another" in 'The Guardian' (11 May 2004): http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1214080,00.html "How long will it take Iraqi prisoners under occupation to overcome their sense of humiliation and talk about their ordeal? The Red Cross estimates there are 10,000-15,000 prisoners. No figures are available for the number of women. According to the 'New York Times': 'Iraq has a new generation of missing men.' *Torture has been practised in Iraqi prisons since day one of the occupation.* The country's own human rights organisations reported its use as early as last June. *But the occupation forces have chosen not to see Iraqis as humans.* Faced with the anger of the Iraqi people, members of the *US-appointed 'governing council'* finally echoed the condemnation by the coalition provisional authority of the 'incidents'. Neverthelesss, they rushed to remind the world that 'these incidents are not as bad as what used to occur under Saddam'. Indeed, we were imprisoned, tortured, and many of our loved ones were executed. But let us make this clear: *Saddam's regime has never been our role model for a new Iraq.* Nor has it been a yardstick to measure our aspirations for justice, freedom and democracy. *Iraqis did not struggle for decades to replace one torturer with another.* ... But occupation has resulted in more than 10,000 civilian deaths. This is the humiliation of a nation. Torture as an instrument of submission is a vital part of continuing occupation. It is not enough to condemn torture and demand an inquiry. The occupation forces still seek to justify their crimes by blaming a few individuals. An apology is acceptable only when it genuinely marks an end to unacceptable practices. That is not the case. Last week occupation forces in Tikrit handed over four dead prisoners to their families, tortured and riddled with bullets. ... Saddam's regime managed to oppress us, but only because he was supported by the west for decades and we were then weakened by 13 years of sanctions. This is not going to happen again." --Haifa Zangana (11 May 2004, 'The Guardian') Speaking of the United States-led international economic sanctions against Iraq under Saddam Hussein, here's an excerpt from an American television interview (conducted by Lesley Stahl, a CBS News journalist) of Madeleine Albright, the United States Secretary of State, about the economic sanctions' consequences to the people of Iraq (12 May 1996, 'Sixty Minutes'): Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died in Iraq. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And you know, is the price worth it? Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price-- We think the price is worth it. Madeleine Albright was speaking on behalf of the United States government about its calculations of 'Realpolitik' (and children's lives) in Iraq. I have met some Iraqis 'in exile', who hated Saddam Hussein, who have described the United States-led sanctions as 'genocide' in its effects. Lesley Stahl's figure of 'half a million children' (which Madeleine Albright did *not* dispute) was a rounded-down approximation of a preliminary estimate in a 1995 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five years had died as a consequence of the continuing United States-led economic sanctions against Iraq. In August 1999, UNICEF published its authoritative report based on its field research in Iraq (a survey of 24000 households), estimating the number of 'excess' (if the sanctions had not been in place) deaths of children under the age of five years as about 500,000 (or 'half a million'). Many, if not most, Americans may prefer to forget what Madeleine Albright said in the name of the United States, and they also may prefer to forget that evidently (according to UNICEF) so many children died as a consequence of the United States-led economic sanctions against Iraq. But the people of Iraq have not yet forgotten how many of their children died, and when a United States spokesman tells them, in effect, "You must trust us and do exactly what we say. We care, we have always cared deeply about your lives", they have reasons not to believe him or the promises of the United States. > They only ask those that will sell papers and can make it look bad so they > can sell thier papers too. My cousin is over there in Baghdad fighting and > he tells me like almost all the soldiers tell thier families the same thing. I happen to know an academic from Iraq who used to worry that his family members in Iraq could be detained and tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime. Now he worries, he said, that his family members could be detained and tortured by the United States-led military occupation. 'My grieved country, In a flash You changed me from a poet who wrote love poems To a poet who writes with a knife.' --Nizar Qabbani (1967, translated from the Arabic of "Hawamish 'ala Daftar al-Naksah") --Nick |
[email protected] (Nick) wrote in message news:<[email protected] >... > EZoto <[email protected]> wrote in message > news:<[email protected]>... > (to Jerome Bibuld): > > Your a sick man. Real sick. Just ask the soldiers what's going on there. > > United States soldiers may speak for themselves, but they cannot speak > for every side of the conflicts in Iraq. If you were an ordinary Iraqi, > then would you *always* tell (in Arabic) a passing American soldier > *exactly* how you feel about the United States military occupation? > > > Like I said before. All the friggin press including the USA is all > > propaganda. ... I don't read, or listen to them anymore and I believe > > quite a few americans more and more don't either. > > It's good for you to read with a sense of detachment and scepticism. > > > Ask the Iraqi people to by the way. > > No single individual Iraqi can yet rightly speak on behalf of the entire Iraqi > people. Indeed, the Kurdish nationalists (in northern Iraq) tend to regard > themselves as not being Iraqis at all, and they speak in Kurdish, not Arabic. > Of course, the United States may appoint an Iraqi to claim to speak on behalf > of the entire Iraqi people, and he could be paid to say whatever the United > States government prefers. > > > I don't think the press over there has asked a single Iraqi citizen > > how's it going. > > As far as I know, most Middle East correspondents for United States newspapers > are not fluent in Arabic, and therefore they tend to rely on interviews with > English-speaking Iraqis or on the services of Arabic-English interpreters who > may be connected to (or even paid by) the United States military occupation. > > Here's a commentary on the United States military occupation of his homeland It should be 'her homeland'; Haifa Zangana is a woman. > by Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi writer (who now lives in the UK) who was tortured > under Saddam Hussein's regime: "I, too, was tortured in Abu Ghraib: > Iraqis did not struggle for decades to replace one oppressor with another" > in 'The Guardian' (11 May 2004): Actually, Haifa Zangana *was tortured* under Saddam Hussein's regime, but she *was tortured elsewhere* in Iraq *before* she was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib. > http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1214080,00.html > > "How long will it take Iraqi prisoners under occupation to overcome their > sense of humiliation and talk about their ordeal? > > The Red Cross estimates there are 10,000-15,000 prisoners. No figures are > available for the number of women. According to the 'New York Times': > 'Iraq has a new generation of missing men.' > > *Torture has been practised in Iraqi prisons since day one of the occupation.* > The country's own human rights organisations reported its use as early as last > June. *But the occupation forces have chosen not to see Iraqis as humans.* > > Faced with the anger of the Iraqi people, members of the *US-appointed > 'governing council'* finally echoed the condemnation by the coalition > provisional authority of the 'incidents'. Neverthelesss, they rushed to > remind the world that 'these incidents are not as bad as what used to occur > under Saddam'. > > Indeed, we were imprisoned, tortured, and many of our loved ones were > executed. But let us make this clear: *Saddam's regime has never been our > role model for a new Iraq.* Nor has it been a yardstick to measure our > aspirations for justice, freedom and democracy. *Iraqis did not struggle > for decades to replace one torturer with another.* > ... > But occupation has resulted in more than 10,000 civilian deaths. This is > the humiliation of a nation. Torture as an instrument of submission is a > vital part of continuing occupation. > > It is not enough to condemn torture and demand an inquiry. The occupation > forces still seek to justify their crimes by blaming a few individuals. > An apology is acceptable only when it genuinely marks an end to unacceptable > practices. That is not the case. Last week occupation forces in Tikrit > handed over four dead prisoners to their families, tortured and riddled > with bullets. > ... > Saddam's regime managed to oppress us, but only because he was supported by > the west for decades and we were then weakened by 13 years of sanctions. > This is not going to happen again." > > --Haifa Zangana (11 May 2004, 'The Guardian') > > Speaking of the United States-led international economic sanctions against > Iraq under Saddam Hussein, here's an excerpt from an American television > interview (conducted by Lesley Stahl, a CBS News journalist) of Madeleine > Albright, the United States Secretary of State, about the economic sanctions' > consequences to the people of Iraq (12 May 1996, 'Sixty Minutes'): > > Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died in Iraq. > I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. > And you know, is the price worth it? > Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price-- > We think the price is worth it. > > Madeleine Albright was speaking on behalf of the United States government > about its calculations of 'Realpolitik' (and children's lives) in Iraq. > I have met some Iraqis 'in exile', who hated Saddam Hussein, who have > described the United States-led sanctions as 'genocide' in its effects. > > Lesley Stahl's figure of 'half a million children' (which Madeleine Albright > did *not* dispute) was a rounded-down approximation of a preliminary estimate > in a 1995 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report that > 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five years had died as a consequence > of the continuing United States-led economic sanctions against Iraq. > In August 1999, UNICEF published its authoritative report based on its field > research in Iraq (a survey of 24000 households), estimating the number of > 'excess' (if the sanctions had not been in place) deaths of children under > the age of five years as about 500,000 (or 'half a million'). > > Many, if not most, Americans may prefer to forget what Madeleine Albright > said in the name of the United States, and they also may prefer to forget > that evidently (according to UNICEF) so many children died as a consequence > of the United States-led economic sanctions against Iraq. But the people > of Iraq have not yet forgotten how many of their children died, and when > a United States spokesman tells them, in effect, "You must trust us and do > exactly what we say. We care, we have always cared deeply about your lives", > they have reasons not to believe him or the promises of the United States. > > > They only ask those that will sell papers and can make it look bad so they > > can sell thier papers too. My cousin is over there in Baghdad fighting and > > he tells me like almost all the soldiers tell thier families the same thing. > > I happen to know an academic from Iraq who used to worry that his family > members in Iraq could be detained and tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime. > Now he worries, he said, that his family members could be detained and > tortured by the United States-led military occupation. > > 'My grieved country, > In a flash > You changed me from a poet who wrote love poems > To a poet who writes with a knife.' > --Nizar Qabbani (1967, translated from the Arabic of > "Hawamish 'ala Daftar al-Naksah") --Nick |
wrote: At least in the twentieth century, we have a tendency to *abandon* (for example, POWs in Korea and Viet Nam) our people, not actively promote their killing. I'd want to see more evidence before I accused the Shrub gang of more than hubris and incompetence. However, I suspect the recent events in *Syria*, where some hapless "terrorists" attacked an abandoned United Nations building and were subsequently killed, may be a publicity stunt analogous to what the pre-WW2 Germans did right before they attacked Poland (where they dressed prisoners in Polish uniforms, executed them, and then claimed this as evidence of a Polish attack). |
Heil Dubya! You have made a mistake in "quoting" words I have neither said nor written, as coming from me. Based on your past posts to rgc, I believe this was an inadvertent error and request that you post a correction to this bbs. Thank you. > >On 15 May 2004 03:35:36 GMT, [email protected] (Jerome Bibuld) >wrote: > >At least in the twentieth century, we have a tendency to *abandon* >(for example, POWs in Korea and Viet Nam) our people, not actively >promote their killing. I'd want to see more evidence before I accused >the Shrub gang of more than hubris and incompetence. > >However, I suspect the recent events in *Syria*, where some hapless >"terrorists" attacked an abandoned United Nations building and were >subsequently killed, may be a publicity stunt analogous to what the >pre-WW2 Germans did right before they attacked Poland (where they >dressed prisoners in Polish uniforms, executed them, and then claimed >this as evidence of a Polish attack). > Heute Uhmuhrikkka, Afghanistan, Irak und Ha�ti. Morgen die ganze Welt! Uhmuhrikkka, Uhmuhrikkka �ber Alles! (The more information that comes out about the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001 the more it appears that those attacks were organized by the rulers of the United States and were intended to have the same effect on the people of the United States that the Reichstag fire had on the people of Germany in 1933.) Fight terrorism! Dissolve the CIA and disarm the Pentagon! (I have watched the hearings of the Commission to investigate the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001. As a result, I have become convinced that every one of the witnesses and their four Presidents - and every one of the Commissioners - should be tried for: (1. Conspiracy to commit terrorism; and/or (2. Commission of terrorist acts; and/or (3. Conspiracy to commit murder; and/or (4. Commission of murder; and/or (5. Treason; and/or (6. Suborning one or more of the above acts.) Fraternally, Jerome Bibuld gens una sumus |
wrote: >Dear Mr. Murray, >You have made a mistake in "quoting" words I have neither said nor written, as >coming from me. Based on your past posts to rgc, I believe this was an >inadvertent error and request that you post a correction to this bbs. >Thank you. Sorry. My error. I meant to make a general comment in response to your post, without responding in detail to any specific segment. I can see where it looked like my comments were coming from you, and this is not what I intended. |
Heil Dubya! Thirty lashes with a wet noodle, in MACY'S window at noon on 23 December; a Herald Square window or a 34th Street window, NOT a Seventh Avenue window, so the whole world will know your shame. On second thought, you are NOT a TERRORIST, even though you appear to be a United Statesian, so I think I'll forgive you THIS time. But, DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN or you know the terrible punishment that will be meted out to you. >On 15 May 2004 15:31:02 GMT, [email protected] (Jerome Bibuld) >wrote: > >>Dear Mr. Murray, > >>You have made a mistake in "quoting" words I have neither said nor written, >as >>coming from me. Based on your past posts to rgc, I believe this was an >>inadvertent error and request that you post a correction to this bbs. > >>Thank you. > >Sorry. My error. > >I meant to make a general comment in response to your post, without >responding in detail to any specific segment. I can see where it >looked like my comments were coming from you, and this is not what I >intended. > Heute Uhmuhrikkka, Afghanistan, Irak und Ha�ti. Morgen die ganze Welt! Uhmuhrikkka, Uhmuhrikkka �ber Alles! (The more information that comes out about the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001 the more it appears that those attacks were organized by the rulers of the United States and were intended to have the same effect on the people of the United States that the Reichstag fire had on the people of Germany in 1933.) Fight terrorism! Dissolve the CIA and disarm the Pentagon! (I have watched the hearings of the Commission to investigate the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001. As a result, I have become convinced that every one of the witnesses and their four Presidents - and every one of the Commissioners - should be tried for: (1. Conspiracy to commit terrorism; and/or (2. Commission of terrorist acts; and/or (3. Conspiracy to commit murder; and/or (4. Commission of murder; and/or (5. Treason; and/or (6. Suborning one or more of the above acts.) Fraternally, Jerome Bibuld gens una sumus |
message news:<[email protected] >... > The terrible and strange death of Nick Berg > By James Conachy > 14 May 2004 > > The terrible death of Nick Berg in Iraq--beheaded in front of a video camera > --has taken place in such strange and suspicious circumstances that it raises > deeply troubling questions. Among them is whether American agencies had a > direct or indirect hand in the young man's murder. > > Questions immediately arise from the timing and political consequences of his > killing. At the height of a massive scandal engulfing the Bush administration, > Berg's death has been exploited by the American government and the US media > to launch a counter-offensive against the revelations of systematic US torture > in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. A wholesale attempt is being made to > shift American and international public opinion away from the outrage over > the criminal character of the US occupation of Iraq and behind the > self-serving argument that American forces are needed in Iraq to prevent > the country descending into barbarism and chaos. > > Were Berg's murderers being directly paid by the American government, they > could not have performed a more timely service for the Bush White House. > > Berg's killing was carried out in the name of al-Qaeda-aligned Jordanian > terrorist Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi. Whoever is operating in the name of Zarqawi, > they have a proven record of provocative actions that have only helped to > prop up the American occupation of Iraq. > > On February 9, amid signs that the majority Iraqi Shiite population was on > the verge of joining the armed resistance being fought mainly in Sunni Muslim > areas, a letter was made public, allegedly authored by Zarqawi, calling for > Sunnis to provoke a civil war with the Shiites. American officials used the > letter to argue that their occupation was the only thing holding Iraq's > religious groups apart. Several weeks later, on March 2, suicide bombings at > Shiite mosques in Karbala and Baghdad were blamed on what the US now calls > the 'Zarqawi network'. > > Contrary to the schema outlined by US officials and in Zarqawi's letter, the > bulk of the Iraqi masses spurned sectarianism. The growing unity has been on > display in mass demonstrations and joint struggle since the eruption of a > Shiite uprising in early April. Even before the torture revelations, the US > occupation of Iraq had crumbled into a morass of bloody reprisals against the > Iraqi people and growing American casualties. Opposition has been steadily > growing in the US and internationally. > > The group who carried out the beheading of Berg and then ensured it was > broadcast around the globe must have known that it would horrify American and > world public opinion and assist the efforts at damage control in Washington. > > Further questions are raised by the attempts of the US government to conceal > or distort what it knew about Berg himself and the events leading up to his > disappearance in Baghdad on April 10. Berg vanished in Iraq just 72 hours > after being released from 13 days in US military custody and questioning by > the FBI. > > Berg has been described by his family and friends as adventurous. He had > a limited knowledge of Arabic and an interest in obtaining reconstruction > contracts in Iraq for the family telecommunications company, Prometheus > Methods Tower Service. In December 2003 he travelled to Iraq and went home > on February 1. Among the places the young man inquired for contract work > was the Abu Ghraib prison which he referred to as a 'notorious prison > for army and political prisoners.' He returned to Iraq in mid-March. > > CBS News revealed yesterday that the young man had been on the FBI's books > for at least two years. In 2002, he was interviewed as part of the > investigations in the September 11 terror attacks, over the fact his computer > password had been used by alleged al-Qaeda terrorist Zaccarias Moussaoui. > According to Berg's family, the FBI was reportedly satisfied the password was > obtained during a brief encounter on a bus, when Nick Berg had allowed an > acquaintance of Moussaoui to use his computer. > > On March 7, the pro-Bush website FreeRepublic.com published a list of > 'enemies' who were opposing the US occupation of Iraq. Among the names, > taken from a public list of people who had endorsed a planned March 20 > antiwar demonstration on the website of the group ANSWER, was Michael Berg's > --Nick's father--and the name of the Berg family company. Such information > would be entered into the databases of US intelligence agencies as well. > > Berg was seized on March 24, within one week of returning to Iraq, and held > incommunicado without charges in a Mosul prison for ununspecified 'suspicious > activities.' His parents in Philadelphia were visited by the FBI on March 31 > and asked why their son was in Iraq. Berg reported being interviewed at least > three times during his detention by FBI agents and asked whether he had > constructed pipe bombs or had visited Iran. He was released on April 6 only > after his family filed a federal court case against the US government the day > before for illegal imprisonment. > > Dan Senor, the Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman in Iraq, claimed this > week that Berg had never been detained by US forces, only by Iraqis. This has > been exposed to be a lie. Berg's family has produced an email from Beth A > Payne, a US consular official in Iraq, dated April 1. Payne wrote: 'I have > confirmed that your son, Nick, is being detained by the US military in > Mosul...He was picked up approximately one week ago.' > > The chief of the Iraqi police in Mosul has also publicly rejected the claim > that Berg was detained by his command. He told a press conference on May 13: > 'The Iraqi police never arrested the slain American. Take it from me... that > such reports are baseless.' > > After his release, Nick Berg travelled to Baghdad. His family last heard from > him on April 9, when he reported he was looking to leave Iraq via Kuwait as > soon as it was safe enough. They have indicated Berg told them he was wary of > trying to fly out to Jordan on the grounds it was too dangerous. At the time, > much of Baghdad was in engulfed in heavy fighting. Large parts of the city, > including the roadways leading to the airport, were under constant attack by > the Iraqi resistance and Westerners and Japanese had been taken hostage by > various groups. > > The last alleged contact with Berg by a US official was on April 10. A State > department spokesperson told CBS an American diplomat offered to arrange a > flight for him to Jordan. He allegedly refused and restated his intention to > travel to Kuwait. His hotel has reported he left early on April 10, saying he > intended to be back within a few days. > > If the American government is to be believed, no US agency then took any > further interest in his activities or well-being until it was apparent he had > disappeared. No satisfying answers have been given to obvious questions. Were > Berg's movements in Iraq being monitored by American intelligence? Why was he > detained and on whose orders? Was he under surveillance after he was released > on April 6? If he was, how did he come to be kidnapped in the centre of > Baghdad? > > Throughout this week, Berg's father Michael has repeatedly denounced the > Bush administration for complicity in his son's death. He told Boston radio > station WBUR on Tuesday: "[W]hat cost my son his life was the fact the US > government saw fit to keep him in custody for 13 days without any of due > process or civil rights and released him when they were good and ready. > It goes further than Donald Rumsfeld. It's the whole Patriot Act, it's the > whole feeling in this country that rights don't matter any more > because there are terrorists about. Well in my opinion 'terrorist' is just > another word like 'communist' or 'witch' and it's a witchhunt and this whole > administration is just representing something that is not America." > > Yesterday, he told Philadelphia radio: "My son died for the sins of George > Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did this." He has also demanded > to know whether "it is true that al-Qaeda offered to trade my son's life > for another person" as is alleged in the video-tape statement of Nick > Berg's killers. > > The issues being raised by Michael Berg point to the fact, that at best, > the US authorities created the conditions in which his son could be > kidnapped by extremists and killed. > > The more disturbing possibility that arises from all the evidence that is > known is that Berg's disappearance and subsequent killing was the work of US > agencies or pro-US Iraqi factions. One month after he disappeared, Berg was > murdered at the most opportune moment for the US government. > > Anyone who believes it is unthinkable or outrageous to suggest that the > American government would sanction having one of its citizens murdered to > shore up its fortunes is underestimating the political situation. > > The Bush administration and elements of the American military hierarchy, > media and corporate establishment are indictable war criminals. They ordered, > directed, propagated or have profited from a criminal war, in flagrant > violation of international law. The year since the US-led invasion of Iraq has > been marked by further war crimes and atrocities. For significant sections of > the American ruling class, everything depends upon preventing opposition to > the occupation of Iraq within the American and international working class > from developing into a conscious movement for political and social change. > To them, the life of 26-year-old Nick Berg would have meant nothing. Dear Mr Bibuld, In order to help achieve its objectives (whether or not these are its *stated* objectives) in Iraq, the United States government already has shown that it's quite ready to sacrifice the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of American soldiers. So why should anyone believe that it *must be unthinkable* for the United States government to consider sacrificing one civilian like Nick Berg? James Conachy's article raises some questions about Nick Berg's death. But even if the United States government had the motive, means, and opportunity to have Nick Berg killed, more evidence should be required before one must condemn the United States government for directly contributing to his death. Here's an interview, 'Out in the Cold' (it does *not* begin at the top of the cited webpage; the reader must look further down for it) by Jeff Stein, with Richard Nuccio, a former US State Department official who sacrificed his career to help expose the cover-up of the CIA's involvement in the torture and murder of a United States citizen, Michael Devine, who was living in Guatemala. http://www.salon.com/march97/news/news970313.html Here's a webpage about Jennifer Harbury, the American widow of Efrain Barnaca Velasquez, a Mayan resistance leader who was secretly imprisoned, tortured, and murdered in Guatemala with CIA involvement: http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/harbury.htm For further reading: "Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala" by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer (1999, expanded edition with a foreword by Richard Nuccio, Harvard University Press) "M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America" by H. Bruce Franklin (who's John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University) is an insightful book (1992) about some evident pathologies of modern United States political and popular culture. "The prevailing conviction in the United States (written in 1992) that American prisoners of war are still being held as captives in Indochina may be one of *the strangest and most revealing beliefs* in the world today. 'Bring on Rambo' appropriately commented 'The Wall Street Journal' on August 2, 1991 in reporting that 69 percent of Americans surveyed in a 'Wall Street Journal'/NBC News poll believed that Americans are *still* prisoners of war in Southeast Asia... When I began investigating this belief in live POWs...I had little sense of the breadth and depth of the faith, perhaps because it seemed so obviously irrational...But I soon discovered that this faith was exerting a profound, and even growing, influence in late-twentieth-century America...So now I was committed to writing a book on what seemed to me the POW/MIA fantasy. As I plunged into the literature of true belief, however, I received another shock: it was thoroughly convincing--*to anyone unfamiliar with the actual history of the issue and unacquainted with minimal standards of research and documentation*. The belief in live POWs was based not just on political rhetoric, rumors, and the POW rescue movies, but also on a sizable body of books, pamphlets, and articles that had promulgated a coherent and *superficially plausible pseudohistory compounded of self-deception, amateur research, anecdotes, half-truths, phony evidence, slick political and media manipulation, downright lies, and near-religious fervor*." --H. Bruce Franklin (M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America, xi-xii) "Devotion to American POWs *still supposedly* enslaved in Indochina is hardly a monopoly of the national, state, and local governments. It permeates the society, running especially strong in the working class....How could anyone, especially any loyal American, doubt that there are live American prisoners of war still held in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia? Hundreds of millions of people around the world have actually seen these forgotten heroes...on movie and television screens....David Cline (a Vietnam veteran)...describes one aspect of this phenomenon most succinctly: 'Americans want to believe that we are the good guys and those rotten gooks are still making our boys grow rice.' Yet the story also has much deeper meanings. These forsaken heroes have attained the genuine status and total function of myth--indeed an extraordinarily powerful myth--in late-twentieth-century American culture. I use the term 'myth' in its fundamental and rigorous sense, to refer to a story of ostensibly historic events or beings crucial to the world view and self-image of a people, *a story that, no matter how bizarre it may seem from outside that society or when subjected to rational analysis, appears as essential truth to its believers*. The POW/MIA myth has had a profound political, cultural, and psychological influence in American society, an influence that has continued to deepen into the 1990s...Those not possessed by the faith may find it difficult to comprehend its power. As this book will demonstrate, there has yet to be any credible evidence that any prisoners were withheld in Indochina... The POW myth exerts surprising power on levels of American society from top to bottom. A prudent person would not question the existence of live POWs at a public gathering or in a strange bar, for the belief in their existence, their suffering, and their betrayal often has all the intensity of a religion." --W. Bruce Franklin (M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America, pp. 5-7) "Sooner or later the myth that are still live American POWs in Southeast Asia must fade away....And sooner or later the *political motives for creating the myth in the first place* should die out. The United States has been waging military or economic warfare against Vietnam directly or indirectly ever since the end of World War II. For close to half this period, this warfare has been rationalized first by the POW issue and then by the POW/MIA myth. As we have seen the POW issue was *originally fabricated* in early 1969 to protract the Vietnam War, which it helped to do for four years. Conceived as a means to foment pro-war moral passion, obscure the atrocities the United States was perpetrating, deadlock negotiations, and dehistoricize American's understanding of the war, it proved to be a roaring success, and a far more powerful and long-lived creature than even its makers might have imagined, thus helping to legitimize the ensuing political and economic warfare....What may very well survive, however, is a lingering belief that once upon a time there were American prisoners who were betrayed and abandoned. So even in that form, the myth may retain considerable potency. ... In the final analysis, the POW/MIA myth must be understood not just as a convenient political gimmick for rationalizing various kinds of warfare and jingoism but also as a symptom of a *profound psychological sickness in American culture*. One path back toward mental health would be through an honest self-examination of how and why a society could have been possessed by such a grotesque myth." --H. Bruce Franklin (M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America, pp. 169-70, 1992) Yet how many Americans would be ready to make such an informed 'honest self-examination' of their society and its history? Unfortunately (if I may quote H. Bruce Franklin), too many Americans seem "unfamiliar with the actual history...and unacquainted with minimal standards of research and documentation" so they tend to be easily convinced by any "coherent and superficially plausible pseudohistory compounded of self-deception, amateur research, anecdotes, half-truths, phony evidence, slick political and media manipulation, downright lies, and near-religious fervor." "Americans in positions of power, like the American public, don't know history." --Avi Shlaim (10 May 2002, quoted in the 'Middle East Report 223') --Nick |
message news:<[email protected] >... > The terrible and strange death of Nick Berg > By James Conachy > 14 May 2004 > > The terrible death of Nick Berg in Iraqâ"beheaded in front of a video camera- > has taken place in such strange and suspicious circumstances that it raises > deeply troubling questions. Among them is whether American agencies had a > direct or indirect hand in the young manâs murder. > > Questions immediately arise from the timing and political consequences of his > killing. At the height of a massive scandal engulfing the Bush administration, > Bergâs death has been exploited by the American government and the US media > to launch a counter-offensive against the revelations of systematic US torture > in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. A wholesale attempt is being made to > shift American and international public opinion away from the outrage over the > criminal character of the US occupation of Iraq and behind the self-serving > argument that American forces are needed in Iraq to prevent the country > descending into barbarism and chaos. > > Were Bergâs murderers being directly paid by the American government, they > could not have performed a more timely service for the Bush White House. > > Bergâs killing was carried out in the name of al-Qaeda-aligned Jordanian > terrorist Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi. Whoever is operating in the name of Zarqawi, > they have a proven record of provocative actions that have only helped to > prop up the American occupation of Iraq. > > On February 9, amid signs that the majority Iraqi Shiite population was on the > verge of joining the armed resistance being fought mainly in Sunni Muslim > areas, a letter was made public, allegedly authored by Zarqawi, calling for > Sunnis to provoke a civil war with the Shiites. American officials used the > letter to argue that their occupation was the only thing holding Iraqâs > religious groups apart. Several weeks later, on March 2, suicide bombings at > Shiite mosques in Karbala and Baghdad were blamed on what the US now calls > the âZarqawi network.â > > Contrary to the schema outlined by US officials and in Zarqawiâs letter, the > bulk of the Iraqi masses spurned sectarianism. The growing unity has been on > display in mass demonstrations and joint struggle since the eruption of a > Shiite uprising in early April. Even before the torture revelations, the US > occupation of Iraq had crumbled into a morass of bloody reprisals against the > Iraqi people and growing American casualties. Opposition has been steadily > growing in the US and internationally. > > The group who carried out the beheading of Berg and then ensured it was > broadcast around the globe must have known that it would horrify American and > world public opinion and assist the efforts at damage control in Washington. > > Further questions are raised by the attempts of the US government to conceal > or distort what it knew about Berg himself and the events leading up to his > disappearance in Baghdad on April 10. Berg vanished in Iraq just 72 hours > after being released from 13 days in US military custody and questioning by > the FBI. > > Berg has been described by his family and friends as adventurous. He had a > limited knowledge of Arabic and an interest in obtaining reconstruction > contracts in Iraq for the family telecommunications company, Prometheus > Methods Tower Service. In December 2003 he travelled to Iraq and went home > on February 1. Among the places the young man inquired for contract work was > the Abu Ghraib prisonâ"which he referred to as a ânotorious prison for army > and political prisoners.â He returned to Iraq in mid-March. > > CBS News revealed yesterday that the young man had been on the FBIâs books > for at least two years. In 2002, he was interviewed as part of the > investigations in the September 11 terror attacks, over the fact his computer > password had been used by alleged al-Qaeda terrorist Zaccarias Moussaoui. > According to Bergâs family, the FBI was reportedly satisfied the password was > obtained during a brief encounter on a bus, when Nick Berg had allowed an > acquaintance of Moussaoui to use his computer. > > On March 7, the pro-Bush website FreeRepublic.com published a list of > âenemiesâ who were opposing the US occupation of Iraq. Among the names, > taken from a public list of people who had endorsed a planned March 20 antiwar > demonstration on the website of the group ANSWER, was Michael Bergâ"Nickâs > fatherâ"and the name of the Berg family company. Such information would be > entered into the databases of US intelligence agencies as well. > > Berg was seized on March 24, within one week of returning to Iraq, and held > incommunicado without charges in a Mosul prison for unspecified âsuspicious > activities.â His parents in Philadelphia were visited by the FBI on March 31 > and asked why their son was in Iraq. Berg reported being interviewed at least > three times during his detention by FBI agents and asked whether he had > constructed pipe bombs or had visited Iran. He was released on April 6 only > after his family filed a federal court case against the US government the day > before for illegal imprisonment. > > Dan Senor, the Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman in Iraq, claimed this > week that Berg had never been detained by US forces, only by Iraqis. This has > been exposed to be a lie. Bergâs family has produced an email from Beth A > Payne, a US consular official in Iraq, dated April 1. Payne wrote: âI have > confirmed that your son, Nick, is being detained by the US military in > Mosul...He was picked up approximately one week ago.â > > The chief of the Iraqi police in Mosul has also publicly rejected the claim > that Berg was detained by his command. He told a press conference on May 13: > âThe Iraqi police never arrested the slain American. Take it from me... that > such reports are baseless.â > > After his release, Nick Berg travelled to Baghdad. His family last heard from > him on April 9, when he reported he was looking to leave Iraq via Kuwait as > soon as it was safe enough. They have indicated Berg told them he was wary of > trying to fly out to Jordan on the grounds it was too dangerous. At the time, > much of Baghdad was in engulfed in heavy fighting. Large parts of the city, > including the roadways leading to the airport, were under constant attack by > the Iraqi resistance and Westerners and Japanese had been taken hostage by > various groups. > > The last alleged contact with Berg by a US official was on April 10. A State > department spokesperson told CBS an American diplomat offered to arrange a > flight for him to Jordan. He allegedly refused and restated his intention to > travel to Kuwait. His hotel has reported he left early on April 10, saying he > intended to be back within a few days. > > If the American government is to be believed, no US agency then took any > further interest in his activities or well-being until it was apparent he had > disappeared. No satisfying answers have been given to obvious questions. Were > Bergâs movements in Iraq being monitored by American intelligence? Why was he > detained and on whose orders? Was he under surveillance after he was released > on April 6? If he was, how did he come to be kidnapped in the centre of > Baghdad? > > Throughout this week, Bergâs father Michael has repeatedly denounced the Bush > administration for complicity in his sonâs death. He told Boston radio > station WBUR on Tuesday: â[W]hat cost my son his life was the fact the US > government saw fit to keep him in custody for 13 days without any of due > process or civil rights and released him when they were good and ready. > It goes further than Donald Rumsfeld. Itâs the whole Patriot Act, itâs the > whole feeling in this country that rights donât matter any more because there > are terrorists about. Well in my opinion âterroristâ is just another word > like âcommunistâ or âwitchâ and itâs a witchhunt and this whole > administration is just representing something that is not America.â > > Yesterday, he told Philadelphia radio: âMy son died for the sins of George > Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did this.â He has also demanded > to know whether âit is true that al-Qaeda offered to trade my sonâs life > for another person,â as is alleged in the video-tape statement of Nick > Bergâs killers. > > The issues being raised by Michael Berg point to the fact, that at best, > the US authorities created the conditions in which his son could be kidnapped > by extremists and killed. > > The more disturbing possibility that arises from all the evidence that is > known is that Bergâs disappearance and subsequent killing was the work of US > agencies or pro-US Iraqi factions. One month after he disappeared, Berg was > murdered at the most opportune moment for the US government. > > Anyone who believes it is unthinkable or outrageous to suggest that the > American government would sanction having one of its citizens murdered to > shore up its fortunes is underestimating the political situation. > > The Bush administration and elements of the American military hierarchy, > media and corporate establishment are indictable war criminals. They ordered, > directed, propagated or have profited from a criminal war, in flagrant > violation of international law. The year since the US-led invasion of Iraq has > been marked by further war crimes and atrocities. For significant sections of > the American ruling class, everything depends upon preventing opposition to > the occupation of Iraq within the American and international working class > from developing into a conscious movement for political and social change. > To them, the life of 26-year-old Nick Berg would have meant nothing. Michael Berg (Nick Berg's father) has written a commentary, "George Bush never looked into Nick's eyes: Even more than the murderers who took my son's life, I condemn those who make policies to end lives" for 'The Guardian' (21 May 2004) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1221644,00.html "George Bush never looked into my son's eyes. George Bush doesn't know my son, and he is the worse for it....George Bush can see neither the heart of Nick nor that of the American people, let alone that of the Iraqi people his policies are killing daily. Donald Rumsfeld said that he took responsibility for the sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners. How could he take that responsibility when there was no consequence? Nick took the consequences. Even more than those murderers who took my son's life, I can't stand those who sit and make policies to end lives and break the lives of the still living." --Michael Berg (21 May 2004, 'The Guardian') --Nick |