PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

STOP THE U.S.--ISRAELI WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND PALESTINE!
by International Action Center-repost by Vinnie Sunday, Jul. 16, 2006 at 4:19 AM

International Action Center statement: STOP THE U.S.--ISRAELI WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND PALESTINE! July 13, 2006 The blood in Gaza and Lebanon is on George Bush's hands. The bombs, shells and missiles now pounding Lebanese and Palestinian cities and villages, wiping out entire families and leaving hundreds of thousands without power or water, are made in the U.S. So are the planes and cannons that launch them.

The Israeli attack on Gaza and the sovereign state of Lebanon is part
of Bush's war against Iraq--part of a decades-long war against the Arab
people and the people of the Middle East.

The Bush regime pays the bills for the Israeli war machine and has
given it a green light to go to war. And it is using the
Israeli-created crisis as a pretext for attacks on Syria and Iran.

Israel has launched a terror bombing against the people of Gaza and
Lebanon, allegedly in response to the capture of Israeli soldiers by
Palestinian and Lebanese freedom fighters. This excuse is a lie.
Israeli artillery murdered a dozen civilians in Gaza, including a
family resting on the beach, the week before Corporal Shalit was
captured.

Israel's invasion of Gaza and kidnapping of Palestinian ministers were
planned six months ago. What Israel seeks is the overthrow of
Palestine's democratically elected government. And the Bush regime
seeks complete control over the Middle East for the greater profit of
Big Oil and the military-industrial complex.

The three captured Israeli soldiers are not hostages, as Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert claims. They are volunteers in the brutal, racist
Israeli military. They are prisoners of war. The real hostages are the
9,000 Palestinian political prisoners, including hundreds of women and
children, held in Israeli concentration camps. They are illegally
imprisoned, and many have been tortured. If the Israeli state cared
about its soldiers' welfare, it would agree to a prisoner exchange.

The three POWs are the latest of many pretenses used by Israel to
justify decades of war and terror against the people of Palestine,
Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan. Since the Palestinian people were
forced from their homes by force and massacre in 1948, hundreds of
thousands of Arab women, men and children have been murdered and maimed
by Israeli bombs and missiles. And the U.S. government has spent
hundreds of billions to make this possible. The U.S. poured arms and
aid to Israel while the people of New Orleans drowned, while Katrina
evacuees are being evicted onto the street, while tens of millions in
this country lack health care.

The International Action Center calls on justice-loving people in the
U.S. and the world over to stand in solidarity with the people of
Palestine and Lebanon. They have a right to defend themselves. They
have a right to fight for land and freedom. They have a right to seek
freedom for their unjustly imprisoned compatriots.

The Lebanese and Palestinian combatants--be they in Hezbollah, Hamas or
the Popular Resistance Committees--are not terrorists. They are freedom
fighters, like the Spear of the Nation in South Africa, like the Jewish
resisters of the Warsaw Ghetto. The Israelis, with their mass
collective punishment of civilians, are emulating the Nazis.

We salute the stand of the Congress of South African Trade Unions
(COSATU), which fought so long against a white minority regime backed
by Israel and the United States. COSATU has denounced Israeli apartheid
as worse than that in South Africa, and called for international
sanctions against the racist Israeli settler state. The South African
Council of Churches has also adopted this call.

Peace in the Middle East is possible. It requires an end to occupation
from Iraq to Palestine, the freedom of Lebanese and Palestinian
prisoners and the right of displaced Palestinians to return to their
homes. It requires the U.S. to withdraw from the region and stop
financing the brutal Israeli war machine.

U.S.-Israel, Hands Off Gaza and Lebanon!
Free All Lebanese and Palestinian Political Prisoners!
U.S. Out of the Middle East!
Stop Aid to Israel!

International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org
212-633-6646

www.iacenter.org

How i spent my summer vacation
by caroline Glick Tuesday, Jul. 25, 2006 at 2:37 PM

Northern Israel is a vacationer's paradise. From hiking trails to walk on, to rivers to swim in, to luxury hotels to bask in, to mystical sites to seek inspiration from, it has something for everyone. This is why, when last week I took my first vacation in four years, I made my way to the North.

As Hizbullah attacked an IDF patrol on the Lebanese border Wednesday morning and so opened its newest round of war, I was standing at the fortress of Megiddo looking at the ruins of civilizations and their wars for this land stretching back 5,000 years. Thursday found me in Nahariya walking on a battlefield of the current war: the street where two hours earlier Monica Seidman was killed by a Katyusha while sitting on her balcony drinking her morning coffee.

After I left Nahariya with its residents huddled in bomb shelters and stairwells of apartment buildings, I headed west along the border highway to Kiryat Shemona. As I drove along the empty, beautiful, mountain road and gazed at the rocket smoke buffeting upwards from Mt. Meron, Safed, and Rosh Pinna below me, commentators on the radio kept asking, "Why is Hizbullah attacking Israel now?" Former generals spoke of the need for Israel to restore our deterrence against Hizbullah.

FOR SIX years, since Ehud Barak surrendered to the demands of the radical, EU-funded Israeli Left and withdrew IDF forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel stood by and did nothing as Hizbullah built up its massive arsenal of rockets and missiles. The IDF did nothing as Iran effectively set up shop along the border.

All day Thursday Lebanese radio stations played military marches. Announcers made repeated statements invoking Allah, Lebanon, mujahadin and jihad. Clearly, they were thrilled that the long anticipated war had begun.

For six years Israel was deterred by Hizbullah. The knowledge that the Iranian proxy has missiles capable of hitting Haifa and Hadera sufficed to convince three successive governments to ignore or appease repeated Hizbullah provocations while praying that Hizbullah would wait for the next government to start its war.

Now that Hizbullah has started the war, can it be deterred from continuing to attack Israel? What can Israel do now, as more than one million Israelis live in areas that have already come under attack?

Hizbullah struck last week because Iran ordered it to attack. Immediately after the Iranian delegation rejected the European-American offer of all manner of goodies in exchange for a suspension of its uranium enrichment activities, they flew to Damascus and gave Hizbullah its marching orders.

Hizbullah is always ready to attack Israel. That is what it exists to do. As its leader Hassan Nasrallah makes clear every day, Hizbullah sees the destruction of Israel as a central battle in the global jihad. And jihad is all that matters to Hizbullah.

In this, Hizbullah is no different from Hamas. Hamas (and Fatah for that matter), defines itself by its goal of destroying Israel and conquering Jerusalem in the name of jihad. Both Hamas and Fatah have used all their resources to build up their political, social and military capabilities to fight Israel.

Because these groups exist only to destroy Israel and advance the cause of global jihad, they cannot be deterred. They have no interest other than war and there is nothing they are not willing to sacrifice in order to win. Since they cannot be deterred, the only thing that Israel can do is destroy their ability to fight by demolishing their military capabilities.

ALTHOUGH IT is impossible to deter Hizbullah, there are parties in the current conflict that can be deterred. Specifically, Israeli officials have rightly pointed their fingers at the Lebanese and Syrian governments as central enablers of Hizbullah. Although both governments are also Iranian proxies, unlike Hizbullah and Hamas, they have interests beyond the destruction of Israel and therefore, they can be deterred. To date, because Lebanon is weaker than Hizbullah, Iran and Syria, successive Lebanese governments have cooperated with Hizbullah rather than fight it.

The Lebanese army cannot disarm Hizbullah. It can however be deterred from assisting Hizbullah. If Israel is able to credibly assert to the Lebanese that IDF forces will not end their operations in Lebanon until Hizbullah is completely destroyed as a fighting force, then it can persuade the Lebanese government to stay out of the conflict and deploy its military along the border with Israel after the fighting is ended.

Syria too has interests unrelated to Israel. Bashar Assad wants to maintain his grip on power. Israel can weaken Syria's bond with Iran by threatening his regime. In the first instance, this should involve targeting Hamas headquarters and Hamas chief Khaled Mashal's home in Damascus.

By targeting Hamas in Syria, Israel would be making clear that national borders are not sacred for states that sponsor terrorism. If attacking Hamas in Damascus is not enough to make Assad recalibrate his national interests, then Israel should attack the headquarters of the regime's secret police as well as Syria's Scud missile bases and its chemical and biological weapons arsenals.

By destroying Hizbullah and peeling away its client states, Israel would be striking a serious blow at Iran which is directing all the violence in Lebanon and Gaza as well as in Judea and Samaria and Iraq. Iran has made destroying Israel a central plank on its agenda because by attacking the hated Jews, Iran is successfully raising its stature as the leader of the Muslim world. By leading the war against Israel, Iran has rendered itself immune to attacks from Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt that, while objecting to Iran's power grab, cannot condemn aggression against the same Israel they have indoctrinated their people to despise.

Iran's proxy war against Israel follows the same strategy as its proxy war against the US in Iraq. In both cases its goal is to defeat its enemies through a prolonged war of attrition that will defeat the will of the Israeli and American people to fight to victory.

Israel is doing pretty well against unarmed civilians
by more than they can chew Tuesday, Jul. 25, 2006 at 7:10 PM

and inanimate objects. Against Hizbollah fighters they have met their match. Oh how the mighty have fallen. They once defeated three armies in six days. Now they need two weeks to take a couple hill tops in sight of the border, and all their bombs and shells can't even slow the rain of Hizbollah rockets.

And Hizbollah was only trained by Iranians. Imagine what fighting the Iranians themselves would be like.

la.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/170508_comment.php

Please read the fine print
by C Wednesday, Jul. 26, 2006 at 1:40 PM

While certainly not a defender of some of Israel's policies, and actions, I must respectfully point out that Hizbullah (or however you spell it) is also really good at hitting inanimate objects and civilians.

Were they worth their guerrilla salt, they would target armour and artillery divisions sitting on the border (you know, the ones providing cover and suppressing fire for the ground troops). All it would take is to re triangulate the rockets. Raining hell on civilians only gets you pissed off civilians, (Guerrilla War 101) as any Lebonese or Israeli would tell ya.

Target the military, not civilians!!

That's not guerrilla war
by Guerrilla War 101 Wednesday, Jul. 26, 2006 at 2:35 PM

Guerrillas only attack when they are certain of victory and able to escape. A three to one advantage is considered minimal.

www.amazon.com/gp/product/1574885553/103-0824518-9245437?v=glance&n=283155

Indeed
by C Wednesday, Jul. 26, 2006 at 6:23 PM

You are absolutely right. Ability to escape and overwhelming power are two other basic tenets of the whole deal.

I ain't arguing that my response was in any way the end all of the guerrilla philosophy, rather just an aspect.

Good point though.

Hizbollah war crimes
by Hizbollah war Crimes Friday, Sep. 01, 2006 at 2:34 PM

>In its August 18, 2006 edition, the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yusuf featured
>an investigative article by Mirfat Al-Hakim titled "Hizbullah's Children's
>Militias." The article reveals that Hizbullah has recruited over 2,000
>children aged 10-15 to serve in armed militias, and that the
>Hizbullah-affiliat ed Mahdi Scouts youth organization is training them to
>become martyrs. The article is accompanied by a photo, which can be viewed
>in the HTML version of this Special Dispatch and at
>http://www.memri. org/images/ uploaded/ sd_127606_ 1.jpg .(1)
>
>The following are excerpts from the article:
>
>
>Hizbullah Recruits Children Barely 10 Years Old
>
>According to Roz Al-Yusuf, "Hizbullah has recruited over 2,000 innocent
>children aged 10-15 to form armed militias. Before the recent war with
>Israel, these children appeared only in the annual Jerusalem Day
>celebrations, and were referred to as the 'December 14 Units,' but today
>they are called istishhadiyun ['martyrs']. ..
>
>"Hizbullah has customarily recruited youths and children and trained them
>to fight from a very early age. These are children barely 10 years old, who
>wear camouflage uniforms, cover their faces with black [camouflage] paint,
>swear to wage jihad, and join the Mahdi Scouts [youth organization] ...
>
>"The children are selected by Hizbullah recruitment [officers] based on one
>criterion only: They must be willing to become martyrs."
>
>
>The Children Train to Become Martyrs
>
>"The children are educated from an early age to become martyrs in their
>youth, like their fathers, and their training is carried out by the Mahdi
>Scouts youth organization. .. [This organization] , which is affiliated with
>Hizbullah, teaches the children the basic principles of Shi'ite ideology
>and of Hizbullah's ideology... The first lesson that the children are
>taught by Hizbullah is 'The Disappearance of Israel,' and it is always an
>important part of the [training] program...
>
>"The Mahdi Scouts organization was founded in Lebanon on May 5, 1985...
>According to the organization' s website, the number of [scouts] who had
>undergone training by the end of 2004 was 1,491, and the number of scout
>groups which had joined [the organization] was 449, with a membership of
>41,960. According to the organization' s most recent statistics, since 2004,
>120 of its members have been ready to become martyrs.
>
>"The organization' s goal is to train an exemplary generation of Muslims
>based on the [principle of] 'the rule of the jurisprudent' [a founding
>principle of the Islamic Revolution in Iran], and to prepare for the coming
>of the Imam Mahdi [the Shi'ite messiah]. Its members, including the
>children, undertake to obey their commanders, to bring honor to the
>[Muslim] nation, and to prepare themselves for helping the Mahdi [when he
>comes]."
>
>
>"A Nation With Child-Martyrs Will Be Victorious"
>
>According to the article, Na'im Qasim, deputy to Hizbullah
>Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, said in an interview on Radio Canada:
>"A nation with child-martyrs will be victorious, no matter what
>difficulties lie in its path. Israel cannot conquer us or violate our
>territories, because we have martyr sons who will purge the land of the
>Zionist filth... This will be done through the blood of the martyrs, until
>we eventually achieve our goals."

don't give 'em any ideas
by don't give 'em any ideas Friday, Sep. 01, 2006 at 3:22 PM

The child predators known as military recruiters would love to do the same.
Maybe they'll lower the age rquirements to address the fact that not too many people, including the flag-sucking trolls who copy and paste garbage on imc's, want to die or be mutilated with the other crusaders?