Fighting The International Tyranny Of "We the People"

By Casey Butler

09/25/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Since September 11th, 2001, "We the People" have had ample opportunity for self-examination. When we look around us, "First world" vs. "Third world", if we are honest with ourselves we must recognize that the democracies comprising Western Civilization have collectively become the next world dictator. This dictator is a tyrant unforgiving in its self-righteousness because it gets its very authority from "We the People". We have, inadvertently, through our own irresponsibility and apathy towards participating in our own government, stepped into the shoes of the oppressor.

From those shoes we can see clearly: There are no "Islamic terrorists" in the Middle East.

Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. The IRA were terrorists. Baader-Meinhoff were terrorists.

These were terrorists because they had the right to free speech... They had the right to assemble in protest and to form political parties... They had the right to vote for whom they pleased... They had the right to run for office themselves to work for peaceful change. They were terrorists because they chose violence instead of working for change within the system available to them.

The Fundamentalist Muslims of the Middle East who are fighting us now, on the other hand, have never had such rights. Our American government and the governments that support it, ie. Western Civilization, have never allowed Muslims any method other than violent resistance for addressing grievances.

The most coherent historical analogy to current Western strategies in the Middle East today is the 19th century American belief in the "Manifest Destiny" of the United States, and its impact on Native American tribes. As part of American Manifest Destiny, Native American lands were carved up by force of arms at the request of merchants, farmers, and ranchers. Native American tribes were forced onto tiny "reservations" administered by "Indian Agents". Today this process is viewed by many historians as ethnic cleansing of holocaust proportions.

As European Americans justified their violent conquest of Western North America, the Native American who fought desperately against the American military and the civilian population for his land, people, religion, and, yes, freedom, was labeled a "savage". Rebellious "Indians" were viewed as less-than-human, and not worthy of the rights shared by the rest of mankind. Said American General Philip Sheridan, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

A glance at a world history book tells us that our 20th century Western Civilization carved up Islamic lands into political entities that suited our "strategic" purposes. Since that time, by supporting tyrants, "shahs", kings, and anyone else who would do our bidding, including Saddam Hussein when it was convenient, the West has, by these proxies, purposely oppressed the human rights of Muslims in the Middle East.

In fact, in its quest for a "stable" oil supply and new markets, Western Civilization has consistently denied Middle Eastern Muslims the rights and equalities shared by the rest of us in the community of nations.

When a spark of these rights does happen to be ignited, as they were in Lebanon and Palestine, with rudimentary free elections that garnered many Western compliments and promises... As soon as the Muslim people made their will known to be contrary to the will of Western Civilization, they were labeled "terrorists" and immediately crushed and denied these rights once again.

In reality, the Muslims who fight us, including Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda, freedom fighters in the truest sense of the word, comparable to our own founders, who, after all, also oppressed women - even held slaves - until they enlightened themselves.

What the USA and its Western democratic counterparts actually fight today are religiously devout men and women, righteous ten-commandment-keeping people according to our own moral and religious codes - from Osama bin Laden down to the last innocent Palestinian killed simply for living in Gaza.

It is not, in the least, hyperbole to say that the Fundamentalist Muslims fighting us today are sacrificing their lives for their brothers and sisters; they are heroically defending their homelands, their cultures, and their religion, from the corruption, crime, and decadence intrinsic to Western capitalism as we know it.

They are people just like you and I. They are fighting the international tyranny of "We the People" who did not bother to follow what our governments and corporations have done to "third-world" nations in order to turn a profit. Those of us who are supposed to run our government and corporations, but who, in fact, were too lazy to care what government did on behalf of the corporate mentality.

Our Politicians and media personalities can call Fundamentalist Muslims "terrorists" or "Islamic fascists" until their faces turn blue...

But that does not change the fundamental truth that Muslims are defending their homelands, culture, and religion, using strategies already employed and legitimized by Western Civilization itself over Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, and many other "battlefields", where the homes and businesses of innocent civilians were also considered military targets. It does not change the fundamental truth that Muslims do not fear death because, unlike most of "Western Civilization", they don't just mouth the words, but really believe they are rightfully fighting for God and the survival of their culture and religion. It does not change the fact that Western Civilization's continuing worldwide oppression of Muslims will result in the collapse of democracy everywhere, because democracy is a system based on government by the people, not the wealthy elite... A system, in the USA at least, founded on the fundamental truth of the equality of all before God.

History is clear: No oppressor who has attempted, by force of arms, to implement ideological change among a populace has ever succeeded. By claiming to believe this war is righteous and winnable, our government and the governments of Western Civilization that support it must ignore history and the very world around us. They must twist history to support their own version of "fighting terror", and constantly invent dangers which must be foisted upon their people in order that they can maintain power. In so doing, they have sold the souls of their peoples to the arms industry, to the creators and armorers of the next holocaust.

Is such a "civilization" of any real value to mankind, a civilization based on force of arms seemingly doomed to repeat the errors of its own history? If we are democracies, surely the solution to war is up to us - the people.

Today there is only one way to save our planet from never-ending war and oppression. We must withdraw all Western military and corporate interests from the Middle East. We must encourage democracy there through open, peaceful, positive methods - the types of methods that eventually brought down even the Soviet Union.

The Qur'an, the single authority for all sects of Islam, requires Muslims to accept peace - if a peace is offered that will stop the oppression and the corruption that has obligated Muslims to fight in the first place.

Continuing our present course of war only insures that more Muslims will answer the Qur'an's call for self-defense of the Islamic religion. On the other hand, reversing our course, seeking peace, and positively supporting Middle Eastern Muslim peoples as they seek democracy and self-empowerment through self-determination, will remove all motivation for Muslim resistance.

The West must stop confusing "truth", "liberty", "God", and "democracy" with the brand of secular capitalism that has served it so well. The secular capitalism that drives Western economies is not compatible with the religion of Islam. We in the West must learn to live with this fact, and allow Muslims to develop their own democratic systems and economies. In the West, secular capitalism must re-invent itself under a new paradigm. Unlimited growth, limitless resources, and unrestricted market hegemony are obsolete in today's world. Secular capitalism must evolve or face extinction.

The Muslims who fight us are not criminals. They are not evil. They are not cowards. They are not "fascists".

To bring peace to our globe, all we in the West have to do is stand strong together for what we have always claimed to stand for: The ideal that all people are created equal, with God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We cannot fight our own noble impulses for defending house and home, which, with our eyes open, we can all see reflected in the freedom fighters of Islam today.

We must stop fighting this war, stop endlessly piling war-torn bodies upon the bodies of the nearly 3,000 Americans who perished on September 11th, 2001. We must begin making their deaths meaningful for our planet, we must honor their sacrifice as of the God of Peace, and not of the god of war.

Unlike the Native Americans of the 19th century - many of whom were tribal and warred among themselves, unable to unite to fight their common foe - the Muslims of the Middle East share a powerful commonality: The Qur'an and the religion of Islam.

To have peace we must obliterate our own ignorance of the cultures, traditions, scriptures, and religions of our fellow human beings - with whom we share our planet.

United in peace humanity might stand, but divided by war we will certainly fall.

Copyright Casey Butler - http://firefighter.eyesalve.org/

 

"If I am to die politically because of my stance on this bill, it is better to die on my feet than to live on my knees," Government Backbencher Russell Broadbent during debate on the governments Asylum seeker bill.

 

 SMH August 9, 2006 - 5:26PM

Liberal backbencher Petro Georgiou has described Government laws that would send all asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat offshore as the most "profoundly disturbing" legislation he has ever encountered in Parliament.

The White House is seeking legislation that would allow people not affiliated with terrorism to be prosecuted in military commissions -- with far fewer rights than afforded civilians.


WASHINGTON - A draft Bush administration plan for special military courts seeks to expand the reach and authority of such ''commissions'' to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not al Qaeda members or the Taliban and are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism, according to officials familiar with the proposal plan.

The plan, which would replace a military trial system ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in June, also allows the secretary of defense to add crimes at will to those under the military court's jurisdiction. The two provisions would be likely to put more individuals than previously expected before military juries, officials and independent experts said.

The draft proposed legislation, set to be discussed at two Senate hearings today, is controversial inside and outside the administration because defendants would be denied many protections guaranteed by the civilian and traditional military criminal justice systems.

Under the proposed procedures, defendants would lack rights to confront accusers, exclude hearsay accusations, or bar evidence obtained through rough or coercive interrogations. They would not be guaranteed a public or speedy trial and would lack the right to choose their military counsel, who in turn would not be guaranteed equal access to evidence held by prosecutors.

Detainees also would not be guaranteed the right to be present at their own trials, if their absence is deemed necessary to protect national security or individuals.

An early draft of the new law prepared by civilian political appointees and leaked to the media last week has been modified in response to criticism from uniformed military lawyers. But the provisions allowing a future expansion of the courts to cover new crimes and more prisoners were retained, according to government officials who are familiar with the deliberations.

 

By Katherine Juestel

These haven't been good days for Bush and his pack of lap dogs. It certainly has not been good for his stated goal of spreading democracy through the Middle East. The main problem here is that the man is either totally oblivious to the fact that his decisions and his actions have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the region, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Lebanon and all areas in between, or he really believes that all of these people deserve to die.

Bush continues to insist that Israel's battle with Hezbullah is part of a wider struggle against terrorism. He blindly refuses to lay blame equally on both sides, even as he professes to mourn the loss of "innocent life" both in Israel and Lebanon. Bush continues to insist that "Israel is exercising its right to defend itself," a right he continues to deny the Iraqi people, the people of Lebanon, and the Palestinians who have been the target of systematic genocide for nearly 60 years.

While the majority of the civilized world loudly condemns the excessive force exercised by Israel, Bush continues to play God with peoples lives, not only in the Middle East, but also in his own country where he has seized upon the right to ignore domestic law with as much impunity as he does International laws. And in the process he is dragging Australia and Her people deeper and deeper into the same quagmire of fear and hate and death, bringing the collective hatred of a larger and larger alliance of enemies down upon all of our heads.

"Not In Our Name" was the cry of those who opposed the invasion of Iraq. "Not In Our Name" will you kill innocent children and women and elderly peoples who had nothing to do with any attacks on any citizens of the countries who became part of the "coalition of the willing". But it seems that Bush and Chaney and Rumsfeld and their poodle partners Blair and Howard have succeeded in muting those voices by gagging the opposition and the formerly objective media while letting loose the likes of Coulter and Limbaugh and Drudge and Murdock to plaster the print and electronic media with lies and distortions and cover ups and massive amounts of distractions such as "when will Howard resign", the price of bananas, which actor is cheating on their spouse or what some actor said while in being arrested for driving drunk.

Once again the term "anti-Semitism" is being bantered about in an attempt to silence the voices crying out for the killing to stop. Once again the guilt of one generation is being used to silence another and to justify the crimes committed by the descendants of one group of those who died in the Holocaust.

Could it be that Bush revels in the God-like powers he has, in the life and death decisions he makes, just as he did when he was governor of Texas and presided over the record number of executions that occurred in Texas under his watch?

Bush and those who serve him are true serial killers, mass murderers no different from the mass killers who preceded them. They stand beside Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussain and Melosavitch.

Bush has either deliberately set out to bring about another world war, or he has seriously miscalculated in his stance in Iraq and on the Israel-Hezbullah violence. By allowing Israeli violence against Lebanese citizens to continue unabated, the tide of world opinion against both Israel and the United States has swelled and has fanned support across the Arab world for Hezbullah.

By the United States continued slaughter of the people of Iraq, and it's continued threats against Iran, and it's unwavering support and continued arming of Israel it has helped to forge alliances between many countries who have, until now, had little to do with each other. With each innocent life lost Hezbullah and other organizations of it's type gain more and more recruits, each dedicated to the destruction of Israel, the United States and their allies.

Already the violence has begun to overflow into our own region, even into our own country as the attacks on Synagogues and Mosques become more and more frequent. Our country is becoming more and more polarized as such issues the right of people to hold dual citizenship and the rights of those who do to be rescued from a war zone or their right to fight for their other country dominate talk back radio and blogs in all major newspapers and many smaller local ones. The wars that are occurring thousands of kilometres from our shores are tearing our own people apart, causing friends and neighbours to turn on each other. How long before the bombs begin to explode in our own back yards?

The madness must come to an end, one way or the other. Either the killing has to stop or the nuclear weapons must be deployed and life as we know it must end. There is no longer any middle ground left.

 
July 30, 2006 10:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON Steven Green, the former U.S. soldier accused of raping and murdering an Iraqi girl and members of her family compared killing people in Iraq to "squashing an ant," in an interview with a reporter about a month before the attack.

Writing in Sunday's Washington Post, Andrew Tilghman, a former correspondent for the military paper Stars and Stripes, said he interviewed Green several times in February south of Baghdad.

"I came over here because I wanted to kill people," he quoted Green as saying. "The truth is, it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be. I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience. And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever.'

"I shot a guy who wouldn't stop when we were out at a traffic checkpoint and it was like nothing," Green was quoted as saying. "Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant.

"I mean, you kill somebody and it's like, 'All right, let's go get some pizza.'"

Green is under arrest in Kentucky for the March 12 murders of the Iraqi girl and three of her relatives. He was honorably discharged from the military for a "personality disorder," has pleaded not guilty.

Tilghman said Green saw the war in Iraq as pointless. "I just want to go home alive," he quoted the soldier.

 

To:  Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Members of Australian Parliament

 

We, the undersigned Citizens and Residents of Australia and the World, stand together to condemn the atrocities being committed by the Israeli military against the peoples of Lebanon, and call on Prime Minister John Howard and his Government to stand together with us and call for an immediate cease fire by BOTH sides of this conflict.


The brutal bombing and invasion of Lebanon is an act of Israeli state terrorism, Israel’s indiscriminate bombing if civilian targets in Lebanon is a serious violation of Human Rights, and constitutes another terrifying example of the heightened reliance on military force by both Israel and the United States in their ongoing struggle for hegemony in the Middle East.


Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Lebanon including many children, and scores are missing. The number of refugees is estimated at more than half a million and rising. The attacks on Lebanon’s infrastructure – power stations, factories, bridges, and ports – will take decades to rebuild. The people of Lebanon are already weary from reconstructing their country after years of civil war and the last ruinous Israeli invasion in 1982. Israel has proven that it has no concern for the lives of the innocent by its attack on UN outposts, Red Cross convoys and fleeing civilians.


There is no military solution to the current crisis. War and occupation threaten all life in the region and around the world—and will never bring security to anyone. We call for an immediate cease-fire against Lebanon.


Given the vacuum of political leadership from the governments of the world in the face of U.S. and Israeli intransigence, we feel it is incumbent on ordinary citizens to organize and support peaceful means for bringing economic and political pressure on Israel to end its assault on Lebanon and also on the Palestinian territories. It is urgent that individuals and non-governmental groups apply such means until Israel fully complies with international law and respects the fundamental human rights of all people.


While we unequivocally condemn the killing of civilians in Israel, it must be recognized that Israel's destructive and expansionist policies are primarily to blame for the perpetual "Middle East crisis.” To call Israeli atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon simply a “disproportionate response” helps justify Israeli war crimes by making Israel the victim and obscuring both the short and long-term sources of this catastrophic violence.


We call on Mr Howard to demand an immediate end to the assault on civilians and the destruction of Lebanon, as we realize that by his silence in this matter he makes each and every Australian complicit in the deaths of innocents and the destruction of a country.



Please sign this petition by clicking on the link below.

http://www.petitiononline.com/30072006/petition.html

 

CNN
    
Israeli airstrike bombs refugee shelter; Between 20 to 65 feared dead. Details soon.

 

 

 

It seems that Aussie Tony is facing a full scale rebellion by his own front bench over the crisis in Lebanon. Jack Straw, Tony's former Foreign Secretary and now Leader of the Commons, has issued a statement in which he said that while he grieved for innocent Israelis killed by Hezbulla rockets, he also mourned the "10 times as many innocent Lebanese men, women and children killed by Israeli fire", and warned that Israel's over zealous actions "risked destabilizing the whole of Lebanon".

Prior to Blair's meeting with Bush over the crisis, one minister after another called on Blair to distance himself from Bush's stand on Israel, and called on him to publicly criticize Israel for scale of death and destruction in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. According to one Minister, not one of Aussie Tony's front benchers offered him any support on this issue.

Foreign Minister Kim Howels issued a statement saying that is was "very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics used by Israel", going on to state, "One of the many serious worries I have is that a continuation of such tactics by Israel could destabilise the already fragile Lebanese nation."

Even Blair's closest confidants have urged him to "place distance" between himself and Bush on this issue.

Cabinet in open revolt over Blair's Israel policy 

 

"There is something fundamentally wrong with a war where there are more dead children than armed men. That has to stop. There has been too much suffering in Lebanon, in northern Israel and in Gaza -- which is becoming the forgotten conflict in the Middle East."

 From correspondents in United Nations

July 29, 2006
 
The UN has called for a 72-hour truce in the Middle East

UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland has made an urgent appeal for a 72-hour truce between Israel and Hezbollah to allow casualties to be removed and food and medicine to be sent into the war zone.

Mr Egeland said he had proposed the truce to the UN Security Council overnight and would approach Israel and the Lebanese group, Hezbollah, to agree to the humanitarian cessation of hostilities.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has made repeated calls for a permanent cessation of hostilities and moves toward a full ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. This has so far been rejected.

Mr Egeland said: "I will again go back to the parties, to the Israelis, to the Lebanese, and ask for at least a 72 hour start of this cessation of hostilities so that we can evacuate the wounded, evacuate children, the elderly, the disabled from the crossfire in southern Lebanon."

He said hospitals and clinics would be resupplied and "emergency medical assistance" would be given to the wounded and food delivered to the tens of thousands of displaced.

Mr Egeland has just returned from a mission to Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The conflict, which erupted July 12, has left more than 600 dead in Lebanon alone, according to Mr Egeland, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes in south Lebanon.

Mr Egeland said that at least one third of the casualties were children and that the overall toll would rise because many bodies were buried under rubble in isolated villages.

"The truce would be a period in which we can get generalised access to the people and that those who want to escape can escape in safety," Mr Egeland said, estimating that many thousands of people still wanted to get out of the conflict zone.

Mr Egeland said he also wanted to set up a communications link to the isolated villages "where we have basically lost contact due to the fighting and due to the destruction of roads and bridges."

The UN coordinator said the humanitarian crisis in the region was "dramatic" though relief efforts are being stepped up despite some reports of humanitarian convoys being attacked.

"There is something fundamentally wrong with a war where there are more dead children than armed men. That has to stop. There has been too much suffering in Lebanon, in northern Israel and in Gaza -- which is becoming the forgotten conflict in the Middle East."

At least 145 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have died since Israel launched a massive offensive in late June to recover a soldier captured by Gaza militants and halt rocket fire from the coastal strip.

Mr Egeland said UN agencies and other groups had the capability to send 20,000 tonnes of supplies into Lebanon over the next month but that there must be a halt to the fighting.

He said the United Nations had raised $US15 million ($19.5 million) of the $US150 million ($10.5 million) it needs for operations in Lebanon. He added that he had no plans to return to the region straight away.

Published by Antony Loewenstein July 29th, 2006 in Israel

Robert Fisk, The Independent, July 27:

Is it possible - is it conceivable - that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon?

From this hill village in the south of the country, I am watching the clouds of brown and black smoke rising from its latest disaster in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil: up to 13 Israeli soldiers dead, and others surrounded, after a devastating ambush by Hizbollah guerrillas in what was supposed to be a successful Israeli military advance against a “terrorist centre”.

To my left smoke rises too, over the town of Khiam, where a smashed United Nations outpost remains the only memorial to the four UN soldiers - most of them decapitated by an American-made missile on Tuesday - killed by the Israeli air force.

Indian soldiers of the UN army in southern Lebanon, visibly moved by the horror of bringing their Canadian, Fijian, Chinese and Austrian comrades back in at least 20 pieces from the clearly marked UN post next to Khiam prison, left their remains at Marjayoun hospital yesterday.

In past years, I have spent hours with their comrades in this UN position, which is clearly marked in white and blue paint, with the UN’s pale blue flag opposite the Israeli frontier. Their duty was to report on all they saw: the ruthless Hizbollah missile fire out of Khiam and the brutal Israeli response against the civilians of Lebanon.

Is this why they had to die, after being targeted by the Israelis for eight hours, their officers pleading to the Israeli Defence Forces that they cease fire? An American-made Israeli helicopter saw to that.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Prime Minister displays a modicum of independence on Israel’s war in Lebanon and he’s labelled an “anti-Semite” by the Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean (heading a party on the road to irrelevance). “We don’t need to spend $200 and $300 and $500 billion bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe that Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself and who refuse to condemn Hezbollah”, he said.

What an ungrateful little puppet. 

 

18th century: The German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn initiates a Jewish secularism, which focused on Jewish national identity.

1862: The German Jew Moses Hess publishes the book Rome and Jerusalem where he called for a return of Jews to Palestine. He also said that Jews would never succeed by assimilating into European societies.

1881: Pogroms of Russia result in heavy emigration to USA. Some few Jews even emigrate to Palestine, as they are motivated by religious ideas of Palestine as Jewish homeland.

From What Does It Mean

 

July 27, 2006

US Orders Media Blackout On Troop Movements As Syria Prepares To Attack Israeli Forces

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Russian Subscribers

Russian Military Analysts are reporting today that the United States Military Leaders have issued an order to their propaganda media outlets to immediately cease reporting on American Troop Movements, and which these reports state are ‘massive’.

This latest American move is in apparent response to the expansion of the present Middle East war, and which many are calling World War III, with Syria having issued an ‘ultimatum’ to the United States and Israel to an immediate halt to the fighting and an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and which neither action the Americans or Israelis are likely to heed.

In response to both American and Israeli failing to heed this ultimatum "Syrian President Bashar Assad has placed the military on alert and ordered Syrian infantry commandos, armored units and anti-aircraft batteries to launch preparations for an Israeli strike" , and as reported by the Middle Eastern Online News Service today.

International talks aimed at averting a much wider war have also failed in Rome today as President Putin has likewise ordered Russia’s Military to its highest alert status in 5 years as many Kremlin Analysts predict that the Untied States and Israel are indeed intent upon the remaking of the entire Middle East through their combined war efforts.

Iranian Military Forces are likewise on their highest alert status as attacks upon them are also expected and to which the American President, fearing an expected attack upon US Forces operating in Shiite controlled areas of Iraq, has ordered them to the Sunni controlled areas around Baghdad, and which is currently embroiled in its worst violence since the outset of this war.

In an attempt by the United States to keep Russian Military forces from entering a larger Middle East War, the American backed puppet regime in Georgia has launched a sudden attack upon Abkhazia putting their US Backed Forces in direct conflict with Russian Peacekeepers.

The United States has likewise sought to neutralize Egyptian Military Forces from entering this conflict by allowing their puppet regime in Ethiopia to invade Somali in an attempt to destabilize the entire Horn of Africa region, and which has apparently succeeded in Egypt’s President-For-Life Mubarak, and another puppet regime supported by the US, announcing today his nations intent not to become involved in this present conflict.

As the World today drifts ever closer towards the abyss of Total War, the American people themselves are not being allowed to know of these serious escalation maneuvers by their Military Leaders.  But upon this wider war being started, and the shutting off to the American people of oil from the Middle East, Venezuela and Russia they will soon know the utter folly of this most dangerous path they have allowed themselves to be led upon.

US Orders Media Blackout On Troop Movements As Syria Prepares To Attack Israeli Forces

 

From Human Rights Watch 

Abusive Techniques Were Authorized, Soldiers' Complaints Ignored

(New York, July 23, 2006) – Torture and other abuses against detainees in
U.S. custody in Iraq were authorized and routine, even after the 2004 Abu
Ghraib scandal, according to new accounts from soldiers in a Human
Rights Watch report released today. The new report, containing first-hand
accounts by U.S. military personnel interviewed by Human Rights Watch,
details detainee abuses at an off-limits facility at Baghdad airport and at
other detention centers throughout Iraq.

The Flea can be found in the chat room from 12-2 pm WA time on most days, at at other times as my own schedual permits. Please join me.

Despite mounting calls from world leaders for a ceasefire, the Israel Army is adamant that it is not about to stop it's pounding of Lebanon for at least another week, and is obviously planning a ground assault. Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said the offensive must continue until Hezbollah is pushed away from the border.

Encouraged by the support is is receiving from Washington, the army is treating southern Lebanon as it's own private shooting gallery, hitting cars and buses loaded with refugees heading for relative safety in Tyre with rockets.

As Condi sets out for the Middle East, aids have made it clear that calling for a ceasefire in not on her agenda, repeating the insistence that any ceasefire would have to be preceded by the disarming of the "Iranian backed Hezbullah". On Friday, Rice rejected international calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying the world is witnessing "the birth pangs of a new Middle East".

"A sustainable ceasefire........is sustainable only if we get to the root problem, which is Hezbullah, a terrorist organisation," according to Josh Bolten, President George W Bush's chief of staff.

Meanwhile, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, accused Israel of gross violation international humanitarian law. As he toured the devastated Haret Hreik distict of Lebanon, which has endured 11 days of bombardment, he described the scene as "horrific", going on to say, "I did not know it was block after block of houses."

Senior diplomats from Britain, Germany and France arrived in Israel to urge it towards a ceasefire or at least restraint, prompting Lt Gen Dan Halutz, Israel's chief of staff to state, "The foreign ministers do not determine our time limit. The Israeli government does that."

Washington, which supports Israel's declared aim of forcing the implementation of UN resolution 1559, brushed aside a Syrian offer of direct talks on the crisis, with senior US "Hawk" John Bolton stating, "Syria does not need dialogue to know what to do; they need to lean on Hezbullah."

With tens of thousands of foreign nationals still trying to get out, Israel continues to blast all exits out of the country.  The death toll in Lebanon is now well over 380, including three refugees who died when Israeli warplanes attacked their minibus, and Lebanese photographer Layal Nejib, 23,  who was killed when a missile hit near her taxi in southern Lebanon.

The continued attacks by Israel have displaced at least 700,000 people in Lebanon. The Lebanese town of Sidon is packed with about 35,000 refugees, with more pouring in by the hour. Essential supplies such as food, fuel and even medicines are in seriously short supply. Mayor Abdul-Rahman al-Bizri told the AP, "There are no supplies reaching us, not from other nations, nor from the Lebanese government".

 POPE Benedict XVI led an international day of prayers for peace in the Middle East yesterday, calling on the international community "to look for ways to start negotiations" between the warring parties.