Newest Incarnation of George Bush?

No HopeBama continues Bush's policy of terrorizing the people of the world. G W terrorized the Iraqi people so B H simply shifted the focus to terrorize the people of Afghanistan. So what if hundreds (or hundreds of thousands) of civilians are killed as long as one terrorist is in the bunch?

The American People were hoodwinked into voting for a new face on the old Bush/Cheney policy of terrorizing civilian populations around the world and protecting the special corporate interests via Wall Street and Health Insurance Corporate Bail Outs.

The Washington bubble is doing its job so No Hope Obama doesn't have to hear the cries of the people.

Killing civilians creates terrorists and does NOT make us safer. Where's the change No Hope Obama promised us?

Hat Tip to Omar Shah at the Huffington Post.

Israel Harvested Palestinian organs....

It appears it is not just a rumor. Israel actually harvested organs from Palestinians. Allegedly the practice stopped in the 1990's. Allegedly "civilized" governments like Israel and the US appear to routinely violate human rights these days. So much for good guys in white hats. Here's the source.

More Bush War Crimes....

Isn't the United States of America's history one of fighting war criminals not Be-ing War criminals?

Since when did the belief in justice become an "extremist" view in the United States

?

Georgianne Nienaber: DR Congo: Report Says 100,000 Civilians at Risk of Attack and Humanitarian Aid Desperately Needed

Georgianne Nienaber: DR Congo: Report Says 100,000 Civilians at Risk of Attack and Humanitarian Aid Desperately Needed

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Interview with Colonel Ann Wright, Retired, on Trip to Gaza

From Grit TV:

Retired US army colonel Ann Wright talks about her recent trip to Gaza. Throughout Israel's intensive war in Gaza, reporters and international observers have been barred from entering the region. Wright says that the damage is extensive and Israel's disproportionate response "criminal." During her visit to Egypt and Gaza, Philip Rizk, a 26 year old student of Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Cairo was detained after participating in a rally in support of Gazans. Rizk has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli invasion and of the Egyptian government's feeble response to the suffering of Palestinian civilians. His whereabouts remain unknown and no formal charges have been issued. A demonstration in support of his release will take place on Wednesday, February 11 at 11:30 in front of the Egyptian Consulate in New York.

Congolese Midwives Struggle To Help Mothers Brutalized By War (SLIDESHOW) by Georgianne Nienaber

See the original article at Huffington Post.

*****
















I hate the border crossing from Rwanda into Goma at Gisenyi. It frays nerves and sullies sunny dispositions in a heartbeat. Male street thugs prowl past luggage, waiting for that instant of inattention. Professional beggars steal into your personal space while the truly hungry are too afraid to ask for a franc or two, and the secret police pour over passports and personal possessions with imperious disregard for common courtesy.

Journalist Helen Thomas and a medical doctor from the States were joining me for a meeting with a midwife group from Goma, and we were waiting for my Congolese friend Omer to meet us with the required invitation from APROSAF (Action Pour la PROmotion de la Sage - Femme). I had not seen Omer in two years and cannot adequately express the relief I felt when I saw his round face and perpetual smile.

















A Swahili welcome in song from the APROSAF midwives and mothers said it all. “Welcome and we wish you a long life.”

(To see the complete photoessay of 13 photos by Georgianne Nienaber, click here.)

After Omer smoothed the way through the border crossing, we piled into a small car and made our way through the mean lava streets of Goma to our hotel. It all looked familiar--nothing had changed in the two years since my last visit except for the increased MONUC (UN mission to DR Congo) visibility in the center of town.

It is a peculiar characteristic of Congolese society that people don't offer a request in a straightforward manner. Suggestions are made, and it is up to the listener to be sensitive to the fact that an offhand remark might actually be an important request. One of the young men helping us to get settled into our rooms mentioned to me that the volunteer APROSAF midwife group was having a meeting that afternoon. I asked Omer about it and he positively beamed, excited that we would consider attending. The doctor with us had brought medicines and supplies, so it seemed to us as good a time as any to deliver them, although we were all exhausted from work and travel.

After bouncing over streets filled with lava rock, we pulled into a school's parking area. Schools in this part of the world consist of a row of classroom doors facing a central area. Think of it as resembling an old-fashioned motel. What happened next was extraordinary and certainly an unforgettable experience for eyes and ears.

A whoop sounding for all the world like the battle cry of Native Americans in a B western, was followed by applause and a whirl of color as thirty to forty Congolese women, all singing and shouting in Swahili, poured through the door to one of the classrooms and surrounded us. Hands touching and hands holding reached for us. Eyes dancing with light and genuine welcome embraced us. These were the midwives. These were the brave women--the guardians of what remains of civilized society in Congo.

The midwives had been waiting hours for our arrival.

After the days we spent dodging drunken, angry men and opportunistic border guards, this was relief. This was healing. This also represented a personal sacrifice on the part of the midwives, some of who had hiked for miles to visit the American women writers and the male doctor who offered hope that they could find the tools they need to do their work.

Their work is simple and it is profound. The APROSAF midwives risk their own lives to bring new life into the world. An advisor to the Red Cross told us about them. Their lives are spent in service to the ancient rhythms of creation-- assisting the newborn and mothers. 45,000 people a month are dying from war-related caused in Congo, yet life refuses to capitulate to the war, and the midwives hold firmly to a banner of promise and hope. But they have nothing to work with. Their needs are simple by American standards of health care. Some textbooks, basic medical kits, which include surgical gloves, and a small clinic building for transfer cases and HIV counseling.

The classroom was arranged so that the visitors faced the midwives, our backs to the black slate board. The wooden benches and desks were tiny, with barely enough room for a notebook. Strong serious faces, some young, some older-- faces filled with expectation and wrapped in hats and scarves riotous with the colors of Africa watched as we fiddled with cameras and recorders. We were there to learn and it occurred to me that the classroom should have been arranged differently, with the visitors in the desks made for the students.

Doctor Kahavi Chrisogone, the APROSAF coordinator began the presentation Dr. Chrisogone has a regular practice at Heal Africa (The former DOCS Hospital) in Goma. In a quiet voice, Doctor Chrisogone outlined the pilot maternity project while Omer translated. The midwives need a small maternity center in Goma where they can bring pregnant women and rape cases in need of emergency care. All too often the pregnant woman and the rape victims are one and the same.

The midwives also risk rape and shootings to reach the women who need them.

Goma health authorities are supportive, feeling it necessary to find an adequate solution to risks faced by the newborn and mothers in the extreme wartime conditions of Nord Kivu Province.

Doctor Chrisogone completed his presentation, and what happened next was powerful and riveting. In response to a question from Thomas and myself: "What do the midwives want to say?" there was perhaps a minute of uncomfortable silence. Then, one after the other, in strong sure voices and demeanor, the midwives approached the head of the classroom and spoke to us through Omer.

There were tales of heinous abuse, gentle pleas for help, and simple requests.

There was no laughter this time. No smiling. Faces remained strong, but eyes welled up as the tales mounted and mounted until he listener felt that there was no way the stories could get worse, but they did. You could hear the murmurs of discontent while your head felt like it might explode from information that assaulted rational thought.

The dream of the midwives is simple by American standards. A ten-bed clinic with the supplies and capacity to deliver seven to ten babies a day. The pricetag? $112,000--the cost of ten good quality AK-47 assault rifles.

Guest Editorial: Under the Black Flag by Uri Avnery

Guest Editorial from OpEdNews.com by Uri Avnery, Israeli writer, ex-Israeli soldier and now peace activist with Gush Shalom:

Israeli War Crimes

Under the Black Flag

(Click here for original article.)

By URI AVNERY

A Spanish judge has instituted a judicial inquiry against seven Israeli political and military personalities on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The case: the 2002 dropping of a one ton bomb on the home of Hamas leader Salah Shehade. Apart from the intended victim, 14 people, most of them children, were killed.

For those who have forgotten: the then commander of the Israeli Air Force, Dan Halutz, was asked at the time what he feels when he drops a bomb on a residential building. His unforgettable answer: “A slight bump to the wing.” When we in Gush Shalom accused him of a war crime, he demanded that we be put on trial for high treason. He was joined by the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who accused us of wanting to “turn over Israeli army officers to the enemy”. The Attorney General notified us officially that he did not intend to open an investigation against those responsible for the bombing.

I should be happy, therefore, that at long last somebody is ready to put that action to a judicial test (even if he seems to have been thwarted by political pressure.) But I am sorry that this has happened in Spain, not in Israel.

* * *

ISRAELI TV VIEWERS have lately been exposed to a bizarre sight: army officers appearing with their faces hidden, as usual for criminals when the court prohibits their identification. Pedophiles, for example, or attackers of old women.

On the orders of the military censors, this applies to all officers, from battalion commanders down, who have been involved in the Gaza war. Since the faces of brigade commanders and above are generally known, the order does not apply to them.

Immediately after the cease-fire, the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, promoted a special law that would give unlimited backing by the state to all officers and soldiers who took part in the Gaza war and who might be accused abroad of war crimes. This seems to confirm the Hebrew adage: “On the head of the thief, the hat is burning”.

* * *

I DO NOT object to trials abroad. The main thing is that war criminals, like pirates, should be brought to justice. It is not so important where they are caught. (This rule was applied by the State of Israel when it abducted Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and hanged him in Israel for heinous crimes committed outside the territory of Israel and, indeed, before the state even existed.)

But as an Israeli patriot, I would prefer suspected Israeli war criminals to be put on trial in Israel. That is necessary for the country, for all decent officers and soldiers of the Israeli army, for the education of future generations of citizens and soldiers.

There is no need to rely on international law alone. There are Israeli laws against war crimes. Enough to mention the immortal phrase coined by Justice Binyamin Halevy, serving as a military judge, in the trial of the border policemen who were responsible for the 1956 massacre in Kafr Kassem, when dozens of children, women and men were mown down for violating a curfew which they did not even know about.

The judge announced that even in wartime, there are orders over which flies “the black flag of illegality”. These are orders which are “manifestly” illegal – that is to say, orders which every normal person can tell are illegal, without having to consult a lawyer.

War criminals dishonor the army whose uniform they wear – whether they are generals or common soldiers. As a combat soldier on the day the Israeli Defense Army was officially created, I am ashamed of them and demand that they be cast out and be put on trial in Israel.

My list of suspects includes politicians, soldiers, rabbis and lawyers.

* * *

THERE IS not the slightest doubt that in the Gaza war, crimes were committed. The question is to what extent and by whom.

Example: the soldiers call on the residents of a house to leave it. A woman and her four children come out, waving white handkerchiefs. It is absolutely clear that they are not armed fighters. A soldier in a near-by tank stands up, points his rifle and shoots them dead at short range. According to testimonies that seem to be beyond doubt, this happened more than once.

Another example: the shelling of the United Nations school full of refugees, from which there was no shooting – as admitted by the army, after the original pretexts were disproved.

These are ”simple” cases. But the spectrum of cases is far wider. A serious judicial investigation has to start right from the top: the politicians and senior officers who decided on the war and confirmed its plans must be investigated about their decisions. In Nuremberg it was laid down that the starting of a war of aggression is a crime.

An objective investigation has to find out whether the decision to start the war was justified, or if there existed another way of stopping the launching of rockets against Israeli territory. Without doubt, no country can or should tolerate the bombing of its towns and villages from beyond the border. But could this be prevented by talking with the Gaza authorities? Was our government’s decision to boycott Hamas, the winner of the democratic Palestinian elections, the real cause of this war? Did the imposition of the blockade on a million and a half Gaza Strip inhabitants contribute to the launching of the Qassams? In brief: were the alternatives considered before it was decided to start a deadly war?

The war plan included a massive attack on the civilian population of the Strip. The real aims of a war can be understood less from the official declarations of its initiators, than from their actions. If in this war some 1300 men, women and children were killed, the great majority of whom were not fighters; if about 5000 people were injured, most of them children; if some 2500 homes were partly or wholly destroyed; if the infrastructure of life was totally demolished – all this clearly could not have happened accidentally. It must have been a part of the war plan.

The things said during the war by politicians and officers make it clear that the plan had at least two aims, which might be considered war crimes: (1) To cause widespread killing and destruction, in order to “fix a price tag”. “to burn into their consciousness”, “to reinforce deterrence”, and most of all – to get the population to rise up against Hamas and overthrow their government. Clearly this affects mainly the civilian population. (2) To avoid casualties to our army at (literally) any price by destroying any building and killing any human being in the area into which our troops were about to move, including destroying homes over the heads of their inhabitants, preventing medical teams from reaching the victims, killing people indiscriminately. In certain cases, inhabitants were warned that they must flee, but this was mainly an alibi-action: there was nowhere to flee to, and often fire was opened on people trying to escape.

An independent court will have to decide whether such a war-plan is in accordance with national and international law, or whether it was ab initio a crime against humanity and a war-crime.

This was a war of a regular army with huge capabilities against a guerrilla force. In such a war, too, not everything is permissible. Arguments like “The Hamas terrorists were hiding within the civilian population” and “They used the population as human shields” may be effective as propaganda but are irrelevant: that is true for every guerrilla war. It must be taken into account when a decision to start such a war is being considered.

In a democratic state, the military takes its orders from the political establishment. Good. But that does not include “manifestly” illegal orders, over which the black flag of illegality is waving. Since the Nuremberg trials, there is no more room for the excuse that “I was only obeying orders”.

Therefore, the personal responsibility of all involved - from the Chief of Staff, the Front Commander and the Division Commander right down to the last soldier - must be examined. From the statements of soldiers one must deduce that many believed that their job was “to kill as many Arabs as possible”. Meaning: no distinction between fighters and non-fighters. That is a completely illegal order, whether given explicitly or by a wink and a nudge. The soldiers understood this to be “the spirit of the commander”.

* * *

AMONG THOSE suspected of war crimes, the rabbis have a place of honor.

Those who incite to war crimes and call upon soldiers, directly or indirectly, to commit war crimes may be guilty of a war crime themselves.

When one speaks of “rabbis”, one thinks of old men with long white beards and big hats, who give tongue to venerable wisdom. But the rabbis who accompanied the troops are a very different species.

In the last decades, the state-financed religious educational system has churned out “rabbis” who are more like medieval Christian priests than the Jewish sages of Poland or Morocco. This system indoctrinates its pupils with a violent tribal cult, totally ethnocentric, which sees in the whole of world history nothing but an endless story of Jewish victimhood. This is a religion of a Chosen People, indifferent to others, a religion without compassion for anyone who is not Jewish, which glorifies the God-decreed genocide described in the Biblical book of Joshua.

The products of this education are now the “rabbis” who instruct the religious youths. With their encouragement, a systematic effort has been made to take over the Israeli army from within. Kippa-wearing officers have replaced the Kibbutzniks, who not so long ago were dominant in the army. Many of the lower and middle-ranking officers now belong to this group.

The most outstanding example is the “Chief Army Rabbi”, Colonel Avichai Ronsky, who has declared that his job is to reinforce the “fighting spirit” of the soldiers. He is a man of the extreme right, not far from the spirit of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose party was outlawed in Israel for its fascist ideology. Under the auspices of the army rabbinate, religious-fascist brochures of the ultra-right “rabbis” were distributed to the soldiers.

This material includes political incitement, such as the statement that the Jewish religion prohibits “giving up even one millimeter of Eretz Israel”, that the Palestinians, like the Biblical Philistines (from whom the name Palestine derives), are a foreign people who invaded the country, and that any compromise (such as indicated in the official government program) is a mortal sin. The distribution of political propaganda violates, of course, army law.

The rabbis openly called upon the soldiers to be cruel and merciless towards the Arabs. To treat them mercifully, they stated, is a “terrible, awful immorality”. When such material is distributed to religious soldiers going into war, it is easy to see why things happened the way they did.

* * *

THE PLANNERS of this war knew that the shadow of war crimes was hovering over the planned operation. Witness: the Attorney General (whose official title is “Legal Advisor to the Government”) was a partner to the planning. This week the Chief Army Attorney, Colonel Avichai Mandelblut, disclosed that his officers were attached throughout the war to all the commanders, from the Chief of Staff down to the Division Commander.

All this together leads to the inescapable conclusion that the legal advisors bear direct responsibility for the decisions taken and implemented, from the massacre of the civilian police recruits at their graduating ceremony to the shelling of the UN installations. Every attorney who was a partner to the deliberations before an order was given is responsible for its consequences, unless he can prove that he objected to it.

The Chief Army Attorney, who is supposed to give the army professional and objective advice, speaks about “the monstrous enemy” and tries to justify the actions of the army by saying that it was fighting against “an unbridled enemy, who declared that he ‘loves death’ and finds shelter behind the backs of women and children”. Such language is, perhaps, pardonable in a pep-talk of a war-drunk combat commander, like the battalion chief who ordered his soldiers to commit suicide rather than be captured, but totally unacceptable when it comes from the chief legal officer of the army.

* * *

WE MUST pursue all the legal processes in Israel and call for an independent investigation and the indictment of suspected perpetrators. We must demand this even if the chances of it happening are slim indeed.

If these efforts fail, nobody will be able to object to trials abroad, either in an international court or in the courts of those nations that respect human rights and international law.

Until then, the black flag will still be waving.

Iraq's Shocking Human Toll: Perhaps 1 Million Killed, 4.5 Million Displaced, 1-2 Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans

From an article posted on OpEdNews.com (click here for original)

We are now able to estimate the number of Iraqis who have died in the war instigated by the Bush administration. Looking at the empirical evidence of Bush's war legacy will put his claims of victory in perspective. Of course, even by his standards--"stability"--the jury is out. Most independent analysts would say it's too soon to judge the political outcome. Nearly six years after the invasion, the country remains riven by sectarian politics and major unresolved issues, like the status of Kirkuk.

We have a better grasp of the human costs of the war. For example, the United Nations estimates that there are about 4.5 million displaced Iraqis--more than half of them refugees--or about one in every six citizens. Only 5 percent have chosen to return to their homes over the past year, a period of reduced violence from the high levels of 2005-07. The availability of healthcare, clean water, functioning schools, jobs and so forth remains elusive. According to Unicef, many provinces report that less than 40 percent of households have access to clean water. More than 40 percent of children in Basra, and more than 70 percent in Baghdad, cannot attend school.

The mortality caused by the war is also high. Several household surveys were conducted between 2004 and 2007. While there are differences among them, the range suggests a congruence of estimates. But none have been conducted for eighteen months, and the two most reliable surveys were completed in mid-2006. The higher of those found 650,000 "excess deaths" (mortality attributable to war); the other yielded 400,000. The war remained ferocious for twelve to fifteen months after those surveys were finished and then began to subside. Iraq Body Count, a London NGO that uses English-language press reports from Iraq to count civilian deaths, provides a means to update the 2006 estimates. While it is known to be an undercount, because press reports are incomplete and Baghdad-centric, IBC nonetheless provides useful trends, which are striking. Its estimates are nearing 100,000, more than double its June 2006 figure of 45,000. (It does not count nonviolent excess deaths--from health emergencies, for example--or insurgent deaths.) If this is an acceptable marker, a plausible estimate of total deaths can be calculated by doubling the totals of the 2006 household surveys, which used a much more reliable and sophisticated method for estimates that draws on long experience in epidemiology. So we have, at present, between 800,000 and 1.3 million "excess deaths" as we approach the six-year anniversary of this war.

Rachel Maddow Show: Richard Engel Reporting From Gaza

This Rachel Maddow video discusses Israel's media planning and strategy to time and spin the war on Gaza, planning that began well before the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was put into effect in later June, 2008, according to reporter Richard Engel, who has been talking to Israeli officials and states that Israel planned the Gaza operation for about a year. This means that for Israel, the ceasefire was only a Machiavellian tactic, not an end goal. Massive damage to Gaza was the end goal, and this was achieved, at the costs of thousands of deaths and injuries. The Lords of Karma are not pleased.

Gaza, War Aftermath Toll...

Welcome to Hell, compliments of the State of Israel, a state in the grip of the Shadow Archetype, to borrow a term from Carl Jung. 1.5 million Gazans have just been put through psychological, physical and mental Hell for 23 days, with well over a thousand dead, thousands more injured, many critically. This is a testament to the innate cruelty and sadism of homo normalis, to paraphrase another psychiatrist's terminology. The worst of it is that now the laws of Karma are kicking in. No one escapes the consequences of their actions in this universe, no matter how rich, how wealthy, how powerful, how vain.

Here is the sidebar for this video:

The Gaza Aftermath, Facts and Statistics.....
As of January 18, 2009.
اللهم انصر اهلنا في غزه
Breath Taken Images....

After 23 Days of Air, Land and Sea Attacks on The Gaza Strip the Death Toll is
1300 (Martyrs)
"Of Which"
417 Children
108 Women
120 Elders
14 Press Personal
The Number of the Injured so far is 5320.

Israel's fierce assaults on The Gaza Strip has destroyed over $2.1 Billion worth of Buildings, Roads, Pipes, Power Lines and other Infrastructure...

And the numbers are rising....

GAZA SHALL OVERCOME!...

War Crimes du Jour: Another UN School in Gaza Hit by Shells - 17 January 2009)

Yet another UN school in Gaza has been hit by shell fire, and as usual, Israel immediately blames Hamas militants, stating that they were firing from the school. Each time the local UN officials have said there is absolutely no proof of this and that they have repeatedly given the Israeli military their coordinates and warned them that there are hundreds of refugees in their facilities.

How many times will Israel use this canard, I wonder? The world is not buying this. There are increasing calls that Israel be investigated for war crimes.

Sidebar for this Video:

UN school in Gaza hit by shells

Jan 17 - Palestinian death toll rises as Israel prepares to decide on a unilateral ceasefire.

At least another six Palestinians have been killed during a wave of Israeli raids on Gaza overnight. The casualties included two boys sheltering at a United Nations school hit by tank fire.

Paul Chapman reports.
---

Independent.co.uk

UN condemns shelling of Gaza school

Saturday, 17 January 2009

A United Nations official has condemned an Israeli shelling attack that struck a UN school in the northern Gaza Strip and killed two people.

Spokesman Chris Gunness said the school was crowded with 1,600 people who had sought shelter from Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza.

It was latest incident in which Israeli fire aimed at militants has struck a UN facility during the offensive. Gunness says Israel had the coordinates of the school and knew it was being used as a shelter. He says there should be an investigation into possible war crimes, and that anyone who is guilty should be brought to justice.

The military was investigating the incident and had no immediate comment. But in similar cases, it has accused Hamas militants of staging attacks from schools, mosques and other civilian areas.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/un-condemns-shelling-of-gaza-school-1418531.html

---
ITN (UK)

More than 1,150 Palestinians have been killed and 5,100 wounded since Israel began attacking Gaza on December 27 with an air blitz, and then moved in with ground forces a week later. A large majority of the dead are civilians.

Bringing Bush and Cheney to JUSTICE by Pepe Escobar

America has to deal with this or a) other countries will bring charges eventually and b) America will continue to exist in an ethical swamp, degenerating deeper from the moral rot of the political elite.

Gaza: Israel War Crimes in Gaza....Part 2

Here are pictures being sent out of Gaza that the Western media are largely not picking up. In fact, in my own local paper, we are lucky to get more than one AP report a day, usually with no photos.

This video shows how extensive the attacks on children have been.

Zionism, for the few of you who do not know, was a concept created by certain European Jews back in the 19th Century to create a Jewish state in the territory of Palestine by emigration and force of arms if necessary, which resulted in the creation of the state of Israel in 1947/48. Zionism has become associated with Israeli colonialism and race ideology and is criticized by many other Jews.

The Young Turks: Israel Strikes a UN Facility - Is it Intentional?

The Young Turks YouTube channel tackles another major news item and controversy, the Israeli shelling of the UN with white phosphorus, as well as shelling the local media building in Gaza, and a hospital (or hospitals?) yesterday, January 15.

White Phosphorus in Gaza: Dante's Inferno

More evidence of Israeli use of white phosphorus (WP), Willy Pete, Whiskey Pete. You are seeing flares shot into the air, but also seeing either artillery shells bursting or invisible in the distance helicopters in the night sky firing bursts of WP. I would tend to think artillery shells, with their telltale tendrils shooting down directly into Gaza. These WP volleys directly into Gaza Strip are likely out-and-out war crimes, I would argue, since the only fig leaf you have of legality is the use of WP for smokescreens and illumination. The bursts are of such velocity, however, that it appears that the bulk of the phosphorus and their casings are smashing into the ground before dissipating in mid-air. This means more concentrated levels of WP may be hitting civilians and their homes, creating greater risks of horrific burns and inhalation of caustic toxins for civilians.

The glows you see in the background could well be buildings set on fire from these attacks. This is like a scene out of Dante's Inferno. Pity the humans that have to live under that barrage. Shame on those that are executing this nightmare.

Now one can begin to understand why Israel doesn't want the international media entering Gaza and investigating all this.

It is really a moot point whether Israel is doing air bursts or ground bursts of WP in legal terms, because the bottom line is that you are endangering the civilian population either way with deadly, deadly substances, and this is a breach of the Geneva Conventions to put civilians in harm's way. So no matter how you cut it, WP usage in or over Gaza is worthy of investigation for war crimes.

White Phosphorus in Iraq - The Burning Truth

More knowledge about Willy Pete, Whiskey Pete, white phosphorus, WP. An ex-GI who took part in the siege of Fallujah in December of 2004 in Iraq at the hands of the US military and Coalition forces describes what WP does and what he saw.

Let us not forget about America's war crimes in Iraq while everyone is discussing Gaza. Modern warfare pretty much is a war crime, period, but the use of WP makes war infinitely more garish. Only cultures suffering from moral insanity would even contemplate using WP AS A WEAPON. Better to ban its use completely than to give armies the temptation to use it on their enemies

From an OpEdNews Article: Israel's Little Shop of Horrors

Israel has been accused of using White Phosphorus (Willy Pete in U.S. Army slang.) on Gaza. Willy Pete is a diabolical weapon when used on humans, clinging to one's skin and burning all the way to the bone. It can't be put out by any normal means. The American military was caught using it in Fallujah in Iraq. Here is a photo from the Fallujah morgue showing what Willy Pete can do to humans:


















This was a woman who was burned alive in Fallujah by Willy Pete, utilized by the American military in their assault on the city.

This is a serious, serious allegation and must be investigated by the United Nations as a potential war crime. I have watched on Aljazeera.net as their cameras panned to white clouds exploding and floating down on Gaza, just like Willy Pete does, and doctors have been reporting horrible burns in the hospitals. The London Times has published an article on this which is posted at OpEdNews, detailing the allegations. Here is the article:

From The Times (London)

January 12, 2009

Gaza's burn victims add to pressure on army over phosphorus (source)

Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem and Michael Evans, Defence Editor

Pressure grew on Israel to end the use of controversial white phosphorus yesterday as The Times saw more evidence of its deployment around civilian populations in Gaza.

More than 50 people with burns were taken into Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Yunis, in what the hospital director, Youssef Abu Al-Reesh, said was a massive case of exposure to white phosphorus.

“We don’t have the medical experience to judge these cases, but we searched the internet according to the cases we have, and it indeed confirmed that it’s white phosphorus munitions. I have been working in this hospital for ten years and I have never seen anything like this.”

The 1980 Geneva treaty says that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas, but there is no blanket ban on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination. It produces a thick white smoke when exposed to oxygen, but can cause severe burns and melt flesh to the bone if it comes into contact with skin.

The sudden influx of burns patients at Nasser Hospital coincided with Israel’s expanded ground offensive, which included the Al-Qarara and Kuza’a suburbs of Khan Yunis.

Muhammad Tahseen, 20, said that he was sitting outside his home in Al-Qarara when a shell exploded above. He described watching his two cousins writhe in pain as he stood metres away, unable to help. “There was an explosion and white smoke. I saw my cousins screaming . . . I saw them burning and their clothes burning. I saw their skin melting.”

Doctors said that they were unable to provide further help to Muhammad Nabih Ahmed, 17, listed in critical condition with burns to the chest and back. The family hope to get Ahmed treated in an Egyptian hospital. But travel from Khan Yunis to the southern border with Egypt is treacherous, and many aid organisations have ceased travelling along the roads.

When first questioned by The Times last week an Israeli military spokesman “categorically denied” using white phosphorus in Gaza. In a statement issued yesterday the spokesman’s office said: “We don’t specify operational details, nor the type of ammunition that we use, but any ammunition that is used by the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] is within the scope of international law.”

Human Rights Watch said it was sure Israel had used white phosphorus. “The use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life,” it said.

Further research by The Times into the type of US-made shells being fired by Israeli gunners on the border with Gaza uncovered additional evidence that the light blue munitions, known as M825A1s, are carriers of white phosphorus, impregnated in more than 100 felt wedges.

The lot number – PB-91J011-002A – visible in a photograph published by The Times last week indicates that the shells being used by the IDF were assembled in September 1991 at Pine Bluff arsenal in America, where all US white phosphorus munitions are reportedly made. The contractors are Chamberlain Manufacturing [metal parts only], General Dynamics, and Ordnance and Tactical Systems.

White phosphorus can be air-burst or ground-burst. It emits a distinct garlic smell. When air-burst, it covers a larger area than ground-burst and is useful to mask large troop movements. However, this spreads the incendiary effect over a wider area.

Munir Albarsh, the Head of Emergency Medicine at Gaza’s Ministry of Health, said that doctors were collecting tissue samples at hospitals across Gaza to send for phosphorus testing at international laboratories. He added that the ministry would demand an independent international investigation into Israel’s use of white phosphorus.

Pope Condemns Violence by Israel and Hamas

Pope condemns Gaza violence after aide angers Jews
08 Jan 2009 11:42:03 GMT
Source: Reuters (original article)
By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Thursday condemned the use of violence by Israel and Hamas Islamists in Gaza a day after one of his senior aides angered Jews by calling the strip "a big concentration camp".

"Once again I would repeat that military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned," he said in a speech to diplomats from some 170 countries accredited to the Vatican.

In the French-language speech about the world situation, he lamented "a renewed outbreak of violence provoking immense damage and suffering for the civilian population" and urged "the rejection of hatred, acts of provocation and the use of arms".

While the pope seemed at pains to make his speech diplomatically even-handed -- calling for the respect of the legitimate aspirations of both sides -- one of his senior aides was not so delicate with his comments about the siege of Gaza.

(For the full article, click here.)

War Crimes du Jour

A UN convoy attacked, the Red Cross blocked and harassed, international journalists blocked in the apparent vain attempt to hide all the murders, dead men, women and children in the roads, all at the hands of the IDF. The list goes on and on. I hope this is all being carefully recorded to present to the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. Fascism, the psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich once said, is the impulse to murder given free rein.

Dr. Mads Gilbert Speaks Out from Shifa Hospital, Again

This is Dr. Mads Gilbert reporting from Shifa Hospital again earlier this week, deploring civilian casualties. Because Dr. Gilbert is confronting Israeli State propaganda, apologists for the assault on Gaza are trying to character-assassinate him as a terrorist sympathizer, a shill for Palestine, and someone has even compared him to the WWII Nazi Dr. Mengele. But the awesome pictures of carnage we are seeing from various news sources, as well as statements from the UN and Red Cross now only corroborate what he is saying.