welcome to the status quo

Dag Hammarskjold, UN secretary generall in 1957 on Israels retaliation policy:

"It should not be any surprise, but I note with regret that the Israeli government can never transcend its one sided view of how matters may be straightened out. When has Israel ever admitted any responsibility or expressed regret in cases where their people, unprovoked, have violated a ceasefire?"

General Burns, commander of UN force, 1957 on yet another Israeli massacre:

"It is a very sad proof of the fact that the spirit that inspired the notorious Deir Yassin massacre in 1948 is not dead among some of the Israeli armed forces."

Head of gaza UN observation force, L.Col. Bayard, 1957:

"Israeli soldiers were trying to prevent UN obeservers from seeing actions they are taking against the civilian populace. I have come to the conclusion that the treatment of civilians is unwarrantedly rough and that a good number of persons have been shot down in cold blood for no apparent reason. Many key UN relief work personnel are missing from the camps and are believed to have been executed by the Israelis."

General Burns, commander of UN force, 1957 on the annexation of the gaza strip:

"Israel had a record of getting rid of Arabs whose lands they desired. I have been credibly informend that what the Israeli authorities really had in mind was to absorb only about 80,000 (of 200,000) of the Strips population. That this is not a slander on the IDF is, unfortunately, only to well attested, incidents in which they took severe repressive measures against Arab civilians, killing large numbers of them."


From todays Age:

In the Gaza Strip, scene of another Israeli offensive, Israeli forces killed 23 Palestinians, including at least 11 militants, three children and a handicapped man, during fighting.
Israel has killed 140 Palestinians in a month-long campaign to recover a captured soldier and stop rocket fire from Gaza.
......................................................................
O'Dea had met the commander of Ireland's Defence Forces, Lieutenant General Jim Sreenan, and had also spoken by telephone to the most senior army officer in Lebanon, Lieutenant Colonel John Molloy. O'Dea said Molloy had told him that he had personally given six "very specific, very detailed'' warnings to the Israelis.

"Obviously they weren't taken on board. Even after the hit had taken place a number of Indian soldiers who went to rescue the dying and the injured were also fired upon.

"At the very minimum I would have to describe the actions of the Israeli army as grossly reckless at a minimum,'' O'Dea said.

"I can't say for definite whether there was deliberate targeting but if it was an accident, it was a most extraordinary accident.''

there were 21 strikes within 300 metres of the observer post during the six hours before it was completely destroyed.

While there was speculation Israel may have been targeting Hezbollah positions near the Khiam post, Holl Lute said there was no Hezbollah fire coming from near the outpost.
.........................................................

Last night on Lateline the Israeli spokeman declared that while he could give no details of how the "accident" occured, claiming the "fog of war" and general confusion, he could however say with certainty that Hezzbollaz were firing rockets from close to the base. Never let it be said that bad news travels fast, with the IDF, favourable news travels exceptionally quickly, bad news must wait for an offical report, and to top it all off, the IDF have refused to allow the UN to be apart of the investigation, only the IDF can investigate the IDF. Nothing to see here, call back in about three months when its findings are handed down on the blameless IDF.

.............................................................................
Could it be that the Neo-cons and fox news are once again back in charge of foreign policy at the whitehouse, all the talk of the blame being pointed directly at Iran and Syria (with none at Israel) leads me to assume that this is the proxy beginning of the so, so desired war/invasion/strategic bombing of those two countries. There are two strams of thought in this regard, one goes that the US president will want to attack Iran to shore up his chances in the Novemeber mid-term elections, the second goes that if the mid-term elections do not show the swing away from the republicans and they keep control of both houses, then this leaves a lame duck president to do as he please on Iran. This means that as the president does not need to fqace re-election he will be more likely to launch an attack on Iran, whereas a new president would not be so foolish, as he has to face the voters again in the wake of another potentially greater fiasco than Iraq.

The white house demanded that Syria pull out of Lebanon so that it could no longer interfere in the countries politics, now the white house is demanding that they must interfere in the politics of Lebanon. Consistent policy is not what the current adminsitration is very good at, now spin, Pavlov style, they are very good at. Staying on message, no matter how blatantly false, misleading or devoid of reality is what they are past masters at.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/10962352/iran_the_next_war
..................................................................................

From John Pilger:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14211.htm

......................................................................

A perfect summary of the motives for the "War on Terror, from a judge aquitting defendants in another ridiculous "dirty bomb" trial:

the motives were "money on the one hand and selling newspapers on the other".

Add stealing votes through unfounded fear, and you have the Long War in a nutshell.

..................................................................................

To compound the disinformation, 60% of Americans now believe that WMD's have been found in Iraq, this goes along with the 60% who dont believe in evolution, and the 80% who cant find Iraq on a map. Who said that the issue was dead, the numbers who believe the great lie that WMD's were found in Iraq is up over the past year, not down. Can we have a clear statement from someone with a booming voice and bit of authority smack down this is utter crap. Maybe Dik Cheney can do it? Or would that be a bit of a flip flop on the propaganda he has consistently peddled over the past three years.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200607260005

While we are at it we should try to dispel a few other myths

1/ Howards tale of the Iraqis put through a paper shredder under by Saddam, told to parliment and a right load of old bullshit. Closest anyone came to confirming it was an Iraqi who said that he once saw a paper shredder in one of Saddams offices, somehwere, but even that couldnt be confirmed.

2/ GW telling the world, "Saddam tried to kill my daddy" in one of his many jsutifications of going to war, based on an urban myth that was spread about GW 1 when he visited Kuwait after the first gulf war, a real load of old cobblers.