Left I on the News  

Update: On a different, but certainly not unrelated, subject, over lunch I listened to part of an interview between a FOX News anchor and Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As with literally all such discussions on American TV (and in the corporate print media), when the subject turned to Iran, the question was not whether Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, but when they would have them. I then happened on Iran's Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Javad Zarif on CNN, speaking to the Security Council this morning against the resolution demanding that Iran cease enriching nuclear fuel. It was a very interesting and informative speech, which as Iran has done on previous occasions, categorically denied that Iran has any intention of developing nuclear weapons. Zarif skewers the hypocrisy of the Council, highlights the aggressive behavior of nuclear-armed Israel, discusses the Iran-Iraq war, and much more, all in a very reasoned tone (which of course got him nowhere; the resolution was subsequently passed, 14-1). All but the very end is online here and here.

The Israel Defense Forces has killed 97 people in the Gaza Strip since the fighting began in Lebanon. Most of them were armed, and the rest were civilians - children, women, men, the elderly. The large number of fatalities suggests the IDF is engaged in indiscriminate killing under the cover of the war in the north.

As for all those phone calls the U.N. observers made to Israel to tell them to stop the shelling and bombing? I guess they must have called a wrong number or something. CNN didn't ask the question. Of course, this is the same CNN who was also telling its viewers that the Qana massacre represented a "PR offensive" by Hizbollah rather than a war crime, with the strong implication that Hizbollah fighters had deliberately lured Israel into killing 60+ civilians in order to exploit their deaths. An implication which, while not quite as reprehensible as the actual act itself, is well up there.

"In the wake of the tragedy that the people and the government of Lebanon are dealing with today, I have decided to postpone my discussions in Beirut," Rice said.

Coming at a particularly sensitive point in negotiations to end the conflict, the attack on the village threw the painstaking process of building toward an agreement into turmoil. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said he would not hold talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice until a ceasefire is called.

"There is no place on this sad morning for any discussion other than an immediate and unconditional ceasefire as well as an international investigation into the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now," Siniora told a news conference in Beirut.

These are, by the way, the same people who have no problem referring to a "war on terror."

Unfortunately, it appears that Israel has now nearly erased that distinction, at least with respect to Qana:

At least 54 Lebanese citizens were killed, at least 37 of them children, in the IAF strike on a building early Sunday, Lebanese police said. Dozens of others were reportedly trapped in the rubble. Several houses collapsed and a three-story building where about 100 civilians were sheltering was destroyed, witnesses and rescue workers said.

Protesters angry over an Israeli air strike in Qana that killed up to 50 refugees broke into the main UN building in the Lebanese capital Sunday, burning UN and American flags.

Outside, demonstrators chanted slogans against Israel and the United States and denounced Arab governments for not doing enough to stop Israel's 19-day bombardment of Lebanon.

"It's absolutely dreadful, it's quite appalling. Undoubtedly today's events will make things worse at least in the short term," [British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett] told Sky News. "We have repeatedly urged Israel to act proportionately."

Hugo Chavez, meanwhile, used slightly different language:

"Israel is perpetrating the same acts against the Lebanese that Hitler perpetrated against the Jews - it is killing children and hundreds of innocent civilians."

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to pour weapons into Israel, just to make sure no one can miss its role in this war (not to mention the junior role of the UK):

Two US cargo aircraft carrying weapons for Israel are due to make stop-overs at a Scottish airport over the weekend with the approval of the British government, airport authorities said Saturday.

It's Guernica. Every single day.

Israeli warplanes blasted bridges and demolished houses, killing seven people, including a woman and her five children.

The woman and her children were crushed in their home by a strike outside the market town of Nabatiyeh, which also killed a man in a nearby house, Lebanese security officials said. In another southern town, six bodies were dug from the rubble of a house destroyed by a strike Friday.

And the U.N., where Picasso's famous picture hangs, does nothing. On one of the trails I run, a house which backs up to the trail has for years had a banner on the fence facing the trail: "U.S. out of the U.N." It's an old (and still current, I suppose) right-wing demand. I'm beginning to come around to that way of thinking. Maybe the U.N. could actually accomplish something if the U.S. (and their junior partners, a.k.a. "Yo Blair") weren't part of it.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, saying that today's violence will lead to a better future for the Middle East.

Bush, Blair stand behind Israel

Rafael Ezra's artillery is pounding unseen targets miles away with blast after deafening blast. But the 21-year-old Israeli soldier isn't too concerned about whether the shells are killing civilians or Hezbollah fighters.

"Most of the people killed in Lebanon lived in Hezbollah neighborhoods," Ezra said while getting his hair shaved and listening to Arabic music as shells soared over a nearby hillside. "So I think they need to choose better where they live. People should know better."

The latest conflict with Hezbollah has united Israel in a way that the fight against Palestinian militants never has. After two weeks of battles that have killed 33 Israeli soldiers, public support for the military action remains above 80 percent.

Some 200 left-wing activists marched outside the house of IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz at the Tzahala neighborhood in Tel Aviv Saturday evening, to protest the killing of civilians in Gaza on Friday.

The demonstrators chanted slogans such as "Tzahala residents, there's a murderer in your neighborhood," and raised signs calling on the government to "put a stop to the murder of civilians" and stating, "Halutz is a killer, the intifada shall prevail." Activists also shouted, "neighbors, ask Halutz why he's killing children and how many."

Dana Olmert, the daughter of Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, also took part in the demonstration.

Here are two chants from yesterday for you to use, should you need them:

Occupation is a crime
Iraq -- Lebanon -- Palestine!
Killing civilians is a crime
Iraq -- Lebanon -- Palestine!

U.S. planes! U.S. bombs! Israel [or US] out of Lebanon!

Two Oakland police officers working undercover at an anti-war protest in May 2003 got themselves elected to leadership positions in an effort to influence the demonstration, documents released Thursday show.

The extent of the officers' involvement in the subsequent march May 12, 2003, led by Direct Action to Stop the War and others, is unclear. But in a deposition related to a lawsuit filed by protesters, Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said activists had elected the undercover officers to "plan the route of the march and decide I guess where it would end up and some of the places that it would go."

Undercover Officers Nobuko Biechler and Mark Turpin had been elected to be leaders in the May 12 demonstration an hour after meeting protesters that day.

A man walked into a Jewish organization Friday afternoon and opened fire, killing one person and injuring at least five others before he was arrested, officials said.

Staff members said they overheard him saying "'I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone."

It might also be argued that it is the repeated insistence of Israel's defenders that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism that caused this man to act not against Israel, but against Jews (I am assuming the people working at the Jewish Federation were Jewish; that generally seems to be the way these things go). For all we know, these particular Jews may well have been critical of Israel. But since Israel's defenders have repeatedly told the world that Israel=Jews and Jews=Israel, this man may be excused for thinking that was so.

If there are doubts in the IDF regarding the necessity of the war, they are not being harbored by the base commander or the squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel K. Hezbollah wants to throw us into the sea, they say, Hezbollah fires from places where there are civilians, and the IDF that is fighting it is "the most moral army in the world." It's as simple as that.

Every case of civilian deaths - "the uninvolved" is the preferred label today in the IDF - has an explanation. Civilians who were killed in the bomb shelter of their home were attacked because their home was found to be a "terror target," civilians who were killed on the highway while fleeing the villages near the border with Israel were killed because their car was "incriminated" for some reason or other. And besides, sometimes there are mistakes. As in the case of Marwahin.

Marwahin is an important case. Twenty-three civilians were killed there, including about 18 children, when they fled from the village near Israel's border, after leaflets calling on the residents to leave their homes were dropped there. Colonel A. says that in that case it was simply a mistake. The pilot was told to hit a certain target, and he made a mistake.

Foreign journalists have reported many cases in which entire families were killed while trying to flee after receiving IDF warnings. A Western official who visited Lebanon recently says that the phenomenon of aerial attacks on the highways is very common. Only UN or Red Cross vehicles can move on the highways in relative security, and even that only after coordination with the IDF at least 12 hours in advance.

The villagers, of course, do not have this option. "The villagers who want to leave their homes are completely defenseless," says the official. "They are in danger of an attack on the highway. Nothing helps. Not a white flag, nothing. That's why many stay behind. They're afraid to stay but even more afraid to travel."

Colonel A. is not familiar with the problem. "The only vehicles that are attacked are vehicles that open fire. I am not familiar with refugee vehicles being targeted."

The only vehicles that are attacked are those that open fire?

Lieutenant Colonel K: "The army does not attack vehicles that we know are civilian vehicles. On the other hand, every vehicle that is attacked undergoes a process of incrimination. Sometimes there is circumstantial evidence that incriminates the vehicle, certain criteria that this vehicle meets and that cause the person making decisions to decide that this vehicle is an incriminated vehicle."

Let me start by repeating two comments I made last night on First Draft:

These kind of ratio tests, based on arbitrary "normal" ratios (as if anyone who could win the Tour de France or even race in it belongs in the "normal" part of the bell curve), are complete bullshit. Mary Decker Slaney was the victim of the same nonsense a few years back.

And the idea that Landis could fail such a test on ONE day, and not have similar levels on other days, is absurd.

And the way it's played in the news, which tends toward the "tested positive in a drug test" as if he were found with some banned drug in his bloodstream, are equally bullshit.

To elaborate on my point above, I think the closest (not perfect) analogy would be banning players over 7'3" from the NBA on the grounds that, since they are so much outside the "normal" range of heights, they must have been taking growth hormones even though there's no proof whatsoever they were.

The basis of the urine test is the T/E ratio, a balance between testosterone and epitestosterone in the body. Most adults have a range between 1:1 to 2:1, but the UCI has set the threshold at 4:1 to allow for riders with naturally occurring high testosterone levels.

The T/E ratio can vary widely within individuals, and in some cases the T/E ratio may be above the 4:1 ratio without doping while others can stay below the threshold despite cheating. The ratio tends to be constant over time, but wild swings may indicate doping. Other factors can cause swings in the ratio, such as dehydration, fatigue and even alcohol.

Landis is holding a press conference which is being broadcast on CNN, which despite his clear explanations, insists on putting up on-screen labels claiming "Landis tested positive for abnormally high levels of testosterone." He did not. He tested positive for a high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone; indeed, I have "heard" (but can't seem to find written proof) that the actual level of testosterone was low, not high, and that the T/E ratio was over the limit not because of high levels of T, but low levels of E.

I'm done ranting. Your turn.

"There is no commander in the army who would deliberately direct fire at civilians or UN soldiers."

A top Israeli general said for the first time that the military had deliberately -- but accidentally -- hit a United Nations outpost Tuesday. The attack killed four unarmed peacekeepers.

Brig. Gen. Shuki Shahar, the deputy chief of the military's Northern Command, said soldiers in the field had accidentally called in the coordinates of the U.N. base and that the airstrike had been approved up the chain of command.

Further proof that Livni and Shahar (and many others) are lying, as if any is needed, comes from the record:

Israeli fire has hit U.N. observation posts in southern Lebanon at least 10 times. The day before the fatal attack, Israeli shelling wounded four Ghanaian soldiers with the U.N. force, said Farhan Haq, an Annan representative. Earlier, another U.N. observer was missing and presumed dead after Israeli shells struck an observation post in the village of Hosh.

U.N. officials said they had tried to prevent an airstrike by making repeated calls to Israeli officials Tuesday as the military hit the outpost where the observers were killed with artillery.

But, as was discussed in a comments thread a while back about John Bolton's nomination, there certainly are cases where things that liberals might view as "the worse" I view exactly the opposite.

As far as I'm concerned, if Bolton is a jerk who bullies people, the less likely he is to get cooperation from other countries at the U.N. and the better off the world's people will be. I have absolutely no desire to see some Colin Powell-type smoothie at the U.N. who will be able to give speeches filled with lies that everyone believes because he's such a "nice guy". The bigger the asshole, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

"My objection isn’t that he’s been a bully, but that he’s been an ineffective bully," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.

Good enough for me.

“Ineffective” is precisely the reason to support Bolton. U.S. foreign policy, and the U.S. desire to use the U.N. in support of that policy in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Lebanon, Gaza, and elsewhere, is thoroughly reactionary. The less “effective” it is, the better.

Update: Reinforcing my point:

If Bolton's style were less divisive, [Senate Democrats] said, he might have achieved more reforms at the United Nations and tougher sanctions against Hezbollah and North Korea.

They don't feed the homeless in Cuba either. That's because, for all intents and purposes, there aren't any.

There are an estimated 3.5 million people who are homeless during any given year in the United States, about 842,000 on any given day.

In Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq, temperatures are in the same range. But all three countries are suffering from power shortages, either because of Israeli bombing of power stations (Gaza and Lebanon) or U.S. bombing of power stations (and failure to reconstruct them after 3+ years of occupation) in the case of Iraq. And, just as critically, power shortages means water pumps don't work, so it often means water shortages as well, and water is the one thing you absolutely cannot live without. Particularly in the case of Lebanon with its bombed roads limiting traffic and bombed ambulances intimidating health care workers, a shortage of available health care is also a critical issue at this time.

So...how many people have died, scratch that, been killed, in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq, not with bombs or bullets fired at them personally, but because they, like the 100 Californians, have died in the heat because they didn't have a fan, didn't have water, or didn't have access to a doctor? I wouldn't even care to guess. I will make one guess though. I'll guess you won't be hearing anyone else even raising the question.

Greater Determination, Less Sensitivity
- Headline in Israeli mass circulation newspaper Ma'ariv, as reported in the Times of London

This is the "determination" they want to increase: 400 dead have now been received in Lebanese hospitals, with 200 more suspected in the rubble. Personally I suspect many more than that; many of the villages in southern Lebanon are basically isolated, unreachable by any Red Cross workers, government officials, or media.

Every Israeli spokesperson swears up and down that they don't target civilians. Well, not every one:

"This is a terrorist institution, a terrorist organization that has to be debilitated and crippled as much as possible and that means its infrastructure, that means its television, its institutions," Army spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal, told The Associated Press in Jerusalem.

"In the war on terror in general, it's not just about hitting an army base, which they don't have, or a bunker. It is also about undermining their ability to operate ... That ranges from incitement on television and radio, financial institutions and, of course, other grass-roots institutions that breed more followers, more terrorists, training bases, obviously, schools."

Shiite cleric Adel Akash, his wife and 10 children were asleep when an Israeli warplane fired a missile into their house on July 13. They were all killed.

A week later, an Israeli airstrike leveled the Shiite seminary where Akash taught. Only the dome of its mosque escaped damage and now sits atop a pile of rubble in the coastal city of Sidon.

Other non-military targets include a Hezbollah orphanage in the eastern city of Baalbek, offices that issue interest-free loans near Sidon, a school in the town of Nabatiyeh to the south and charity offices in the Dahiyah district south of Beirut.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro celebrated the 53rd anniversary of the start of his revolution with an invitation Wednesday: President Bush should visit his communist island and see for himself what a real national health care plan looks like.

Castro also mocked the Bush administration's recently released Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba report, which offered infusions of health, education and vaccination programs for a democratic Cuba.

Citing an endless list of accomplishments - including the number of TV sets available in one province's schools - Castro also said his nemesis up north shouldn't worry: he doesn't plan on remaining in power until he's 100.

Ma'an News reports:

As a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, sixteen Palestinians lost their lives on Wednesday. The Palestinian death toll rose when an Israeli reconnaissance plane fired a deadly rocket at Mahmoud Al Barsh in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.

Earlier in the day, Israeli shelling of the At Tuffah neighborhood in east Gaza City killed Hani Hijlah, a Palestinian man in his 20s. At least 65 were reported to have been injured, with at least five of them suffering from critical injuries.

The Israeli forces also bombed a group of resistance fighters in the Abu Safiyya area, east of Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, allegedly killing one member of the Hamas-affiliated Al Qassam Brigades.

Israeli tanks also targeted a crowd of Palestinian civilians in the Ash Shuja'iyya district in eastern Gaza City. Medical sources said that three of the victims were from one single family. Two remained anonymous and the third was named as 18-year-old Salih Hassanein.

In addition, Israeli tanks killed a three-year-old girl, Su'ad Nasir Habib, and Muhammad Salah Al Bahiti, 22.

In the morning, an activist from the Islamic Jihad-affiliated Al Quds Brigades, Yaser Banat, was killed when a reconnaissance plane fired a rocket at him that destroyed his car as it traveled along Salah Addin Street in the southern Gaza Strip.

A member of the Palestinian ministry of interior's Executive Force, Muhammad Adas, was also killed and five others injured after the Israeli forces shelled the forces' headquarters in the north of Gaza.

The residential tower block of "An Nada Towers" was also bombed on Wednesday afternoon; one Palestinian sustained a head injury. The residential tower block has been targeted several times this week.

Israel also hit in Gaza, with the air force bombing three buildings used for making and storing weapons, according to the Israeli military.

A Palestinian teenager was shot and killed by Israeli troops near Gaza’s border fence, Palestinian hospital officials said. The Israeli military said it fired at people who had planted a bomb.

[Israel on Wednesday sent tanks into Gaza and launched airstrikes, killing two fighters, from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in Gaza City, the Reuters news agency reported, citing medics. Palestinian officials said a total of seven people were killed overnight.]

For those who are keeping score at home, that's 42% of a "9/11" today alone in Gaza.

Update: The latest numbers:

Israeli forces killed 23 Palestinians in fighting across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including at least 11 militants, three children and a handicapped man, medics and witnesses said.

Israel said it intends to damage Hezbollah and establish a "security zone" that would be free of the guerrillas and extend 1.2 miles into Lebanon from the Israeli border. Such a zone would prevent Hezbollah from carrying out cross-border raids such as the one two weeks ago which triggered the Israeli military response.

Does this make any sense whatsoever? Of course it doesn't.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's speech to the U.S. Congress was just interrupted (forcing him to stop) by a woman screaming repeatedly from the gallery, "Iraqis want U.S. troops to leave Iraq now!" Sure sounded like Medea Benjamin to me. How does she do it?

In non-breaking news, Maliki is spending his time spouting meaningless platitudes, while the Congress periodically rises to its feet to applaud. So far he hasn't mentioned Israel or Lebanon; if he does I may not be able to update this blog, since I'll probably have passed out from shock.

Update: The New York Times already has a story up, which does briefly mention the disruption:

Although Mr. Maliki was applauded from time to time, he was also heckled. A young woman wearing a T-shirt with the words “Troops Home Now” shouted during the address and was taken out by security guards.

President Bush has often described the campaign in Iraq as a logical part of the United States’ response to the Sept. 11 carnage. His critics have accused Mr. Bush of disingenuously implying that the Iraq of Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in 9/11. Mr. Bush and his top aides have countered by insisting that the United States could not wait for another terrorist attack and went after a regime that was a known danger.

Second update: You read it here first. Local news (KTVU) is reporting that it was indeed Medea Benjamin in the Congressional Gallery today.

I'm sure the point I want to make is immediately obvious. Look at a graphic like this and you'll think that Hizballah is firing 50% more weaponry at Israel than Israel is firing at Lebanon. Of course this is complete nonsense.

On a related subject, a friend pointed out a phrase that hadn't penetrated my brain, but which is quite telling. Over and over we hear and read about Hizballah "raining down" rockets on Israel. Has anyone here ever heard (from any corporate source, anyway) anyone talk or write about Israel "raining down" missiles on Lebanon? I sure haven't.

Update: Just a little more on the statistics themselves. The New York Times reports this today: "Hezbollah continued to strike at Israel, firing nearly 100 rockets as of Tuesday night, the Israeli military said." The Washington Post says: "Hezbollah fighters fired more than 90 rockets" (no attribution in the Post, but obviously the source is the Israeli military). Now ask yourself this -- how many missiles and rockets and bombs did the Israelis fire yesterday? Surely the Israeli military knows that a lot more accurately than they know how many Hizballah rockets were fired, and since they are the source of the information for the American media, why isn't that being reported? Search the Times or the Post for that information. Your search will be in vain.

If they want to modernize Monopoly, why stop there? They should make the properties increase in value quickly so that anyone who doesn’t purchase the property early rounds will never be able to afford anything. The richest player at any given point in the game will be be able to buy his/her way out of jail, while the poorest has to spend twice as long in jail as any other player. Get rid of Community Chest, Free Parking, and Luxury Tax, since they’re just outdated relics of an era in which people cared more for their society than their wallets. And the person who buys the utilities should be allowed to change the rules at any point during the game to ensure they always win. That’s how it seems to work in the real world.

Tonight I heard several channels talking about the one Israeli girl killed in a missile strike today, and then immediately follow that with a mention that Israel had destroyed ten buildings in Beirut. And...? Was anyone killed there? I have no idea. Even suggesting so apparently doesn't fit with the idea that Hizballah is killing people, while Israel is just "hitting" inanimate objects (or, at worst, those non-persons known as "Hezbollah"). Is it even remotely credible that ten buildings in downtown Beirut were destroyed and not a single person was killed? Of course not, but you'd never know it listening to the corporate media.

Tonight I also heard a report about the 4 UN observers killed. CNN immediately rushed on their "military analyst," who explained how disgusting it was. Not that they had been killed, but that Kofi Annan had condemned it "without knowing all the facts." Apparently the analyst did, since he then proceeded to report on how the UN station had been "colocated" with Hizballah positions, which evidently justifies the killing.

Last night I heard a report about how Israel has been destroying banks where Hizballah has its money, complete with pornographic gun sight videos, and again without the slightest indication that any actual people had been killed in those attacks. It was just Hizballah's bank accounts, don't you know. The report ended with the fact that in addition to the banks, Israel had dropped a bomb on the house of the bank manager, a deed which the Israeli "counter-terrorism" chief interviewed described as "intended to send a message." Was the bank manager killed? His (or her) family? Perhaps a small child or two? The question wasn't even asked. Nor were the words "war crime" mentioned, as if you didn't know.

I simply can't take it any more.

Five soldiers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in south Lebanon were killed in Israeli shelling on Tuesday evening, Aljazeera correspondent reported.

However, agency reports quoted UN officials in south Lebanon and Lebanese security sources saying that four UN observers were killed in an Israeli bombing raid on Tuesday.

Update: From the BBC:

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "shocked" at the "apparently deliberate targeting" of the post.

The UN in Lebanon says the Israeli air force destroyed the observer post, in which four military observers were sheltering.

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, called for a freeze on all arms export licences after government figures showed that British arms sales to Israel more than doubled last year to £22.5m.

And, after listening to what Naccache has to say, hopefully you'll be motivated to do just a little bit more to help stop the carnage. Help build the demonstrations on August 12 in Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, pull together a local demonstration anywhere, anytime, or do anything else you want to. But, as Naccache says, just being informed is not enough.

On those "working within the system":

I respect even some inside the government -- and they are not a few -- whose intention is, as they say, to reduce the damage done by the occupation to the citizens and to alleviate their sufferings, or to carry on the struggle for the liberation of Iraq from inside the political process, though this is a form of wishful thinking.

On Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (this part of the interview conducted before Zarqawi was killed):

I harbor great respect and appreciation for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and I rejoice in his courage, the strength of his faith, and the sacrifices of his fighters, [but] I call on him and his fighters to direct their jihadist struggle against the enemy that has invaded the land of Arabdom and Islam. Let none of us be drawn into the occupying enemy's game of igniting hateful sectarianism. I also affirm that any exposure of citizens and their assets [to harm] will inevitably serve the occupation.

On the resistance:

It is the Iraqi army that today is in charge of the planning and supervision of more than 95% of patriotic resistance operations against the occupation.

And showing a bit of "wishful thinking" himself:

I had very high hopes of President Bush before his election, which I had hoped for -- unlike that of Clinton.

Start with this:

Cuban doctors place a premium on basic skills -- interpreting breath sounds from a stethoscope, for instance -- that have been deemphasized in the high-tech world of U.S. medicine. Not long ago during rounds, Melissa's professor exploded at her when he asked for a diagnosis of a patient, and she replied that the lab results weren't back yet.

"Are you planning to become a doctor or a lab analyst?" he growled. "Tell me what you heard and felt and saw."

Most U.S. medical students are both white and well-off. Only 6 percent of students entering medical school in 2000 were from families earning less than $50,000 a year; only 6 percent of doctors in the United States are black, Hispanic or Native American.

The United States once had a successful program similar to the one being offered by Cuba: The National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program offered thousands of Americans free tuition and expenses in return for later practicing in areas that needed more doctors. Minorities relied heavily on the program: In 1980, one of every four black medical students had a corps scholarship.

But the Reagan administration began slashing the program each budget year. In 1981, the corps offered 6,159 scholarships. In 1982, the number was cut to 2,449. Last year, the corps awarded 90 new scholarships.

At her high school in Houston, Melissa loaded up on as many science courses as possible. She won a full scholarship to Howard, where she graduated as a premed student with a 3.2 grade-point average. She'd saved $1,600 from a part-time job at Howard to pay for the Medical College Admission Test and a prep course. The prep course turned out to be a study in disillusionment.

"They recommended we apply to no less than 14 schools, and each school application costs at least $200. I'd just spent two years saving the $1,600, and now I need another $2,800 just to apply to schools? Then, if you're lucky and a school calls you, you have to fly there and stay in a hotel. They even had the finite details about what to wear, and you'd have to buy a business suit, and everything was more money and more money and more money, and even then maybe you wouldn't get in."

One detail:

The walled compound was a naval base that Castro turned into a medical school to train students from all over Latin America.

And what kind of doctor will these two, and their classmates, become when they finish? The Cuban kind:

During summers with her grandmother in Alabama, she's volunteered at a free medical clinic, where she says there's been real appreciation for the skills she's learned in Cuba. "I've gotten to know a doctor in Birmingham who has worked all over the world. He worked in West Africa on disaster relief, and American doctors were, like, 'I don't have this, I don't have that,' but the Cuban doctors just went to work," she says.

The doctor, Tom Ellison, a Birmingham cardiologist and epidemiologist, says Melissa has the makings of a great doctor. "On rides on our mobile clinic to an impoverished rural area outside Birmingham, I saw her dedication, her work ethic, her rapport with patients," Ellison says.

"Israel is defending the whole world. She's doing all the dirty work."

- 12-year-old Jonathan Sapir, an Israeli living in the U.S., at a pro-Israel rally in San Jose yesterday.

Some of the other quotes from the article are equally interesting. Jonathan's mother Sima says this: "9/11 happened once here. But 9/11s happen almost every week, everywhere in Israel. We are not free." Well, let's see. Israel's population is 7 million people; even considering a "proportionality" of deaths compared to the US' 300 million, a "9/11 every week" would amount to 70 Israelis being killed every week. In the last six years, 1100 Israelis have been killed in conflicts with Palestinians and now Lebanese. That's 3.5 people a week, or 5% of a 9/11 every week.

Let's contrast that to Lebanon. With a population of 3.8 million (two weeks ago, anyway), a "9/11 every week" would amount to 38 people killed a week. Israel has been bombing Lebanon for 12 days now, and killed at least 380 people, or 221 people a week. That's nearly six "9/11's every week."

Or let's contrast the Israeli deaths with Palestinians, of whom 4100 have been killed by Israel in the last six years, or 13 per week. There are 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and 1.3 million in Gaza, or 3.8 million total. That works out to one-third of a 9/11 per week in Palestinian deaths for the last six years (and longer, that's just the statistic I have).

There's still one more quote from the article I need to pass on:

Calling herself a peace activist for more than 20 years, the Rev. Rebecca Kuiken of Willow Glen's Stone Church said she lamented the deaths of Lebanese civilians during this war, but reminded the crowd that innocent civilians have been held hostage by "these terrorists in concert with Syria and Iran."

Update: I revised the numbers from the original posting. That's because I thought the quote was a "9/11 per day", then when I realized it was "per week" I multiplied by 7. That wasn't correct.

Second update: An excellent analysis of the situation by Richard Becker opened my eyes to another statistic. We hear about 900,000 (numbers vary, of course, and increase daily) Lebanese refugees. Becker does the math and notes that that is 23% of the Lebanese population!. Remember Katrina? George Bush doesn't, but I'm sure you do. Several hundred thousand people evacuated from the area, which was a crisis of the first order. Those several hundred thousand people comprise one tenth of one percent of the American population (and less than seven percent of the population of Louisiana). Now consider the implications of 23% of a population being displaced from their homes.

Third update: More statistics. MSNBC reports that Israel has now bombed 80% of Lebanon's highways and 95% of Lebanon's bridges. They also report Israeli claims that 1/3 of Hizballah's weaponry is used up or destroyed, which is pretty remarkable since it's been several days since Israel was claiming a figure of 50%.

Fourth update: I just heard a Deputy Israeli Ambassador on BBC say that Hizbollah had used up 20% of its weapons. The figure keeps dropping!

Since Israel is busy bombing "Hizballah strongholds" all over Lebanon, isn't it more likely they are going to kill the two captured Israeli soldiers than they are to rescue them?

For extra credit, why have you not heard anyone else, particularly any politician or pundit, ask this question?

Floyd Landis pulls on the Yellow (ok, gold) Jersey at the Tour of California, February, 2006

Congratulations to Floyd Landis on his incredible comeback, victorious today in the Tour de France.

And sometimes in a very bad way:

The destruction of Beirut, July, 2006

The number of Lebanese murdered by the Israeli assault now stands "officially" at 380, with a third of them under the age of 12. "Officially" is in quotes because there are certainly dozens if not hundreds buried in the rubble of buildings like the ones in this picture.

Incidentally, speaking of history, here's one way it's not repeating itself. Whenever Israel fires missiles at cars in Gaza, it always claims there were "suspected militants" in the car. But now they've dispensed completely with those pretexts for murder:

Israeli warplanes struck a minibus carrying people fleeing the fighting Sunday in southern Lebanon, killing three people.

On the question of pretext, note this sentence:

Strikes in Baalbek leveled an agricultural compound belonging to Hezbollah and also targeted a factory producing prefabricated houses near the highway to Damascus.

Update: Back to the good news. Just picked this up from First Draft:

We pick it up as Landis' cell phone begins ringing:

.... Reporter: Is that Bush?

.... Landis (laughing): I doubt it. I'll hang up.

One of the few areas where Israel is "winning" in the coverage, and this too spans the networks, is the P.R. war. For every one reprentative of the Lebanese government (or Hizballah or Syria or Iran), I've seen ten Israelis or American Jewish supporters of Israel. You can hardly watch TV for any length of time without seeing an Israeli ambassador, an Israeli military spokesperson, an Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, and so on. So I'm not suggesting that one actually sees balanced coverage. But I am saying that, with Israel committing so many war crimes, if TV broadcasts just 5% of those, and broadcasts 100% of what is happening in Israel, there still is an awful lot of the former and not that much of the latter. Indeed, so desparate are networks for coverage of bad things happening in Israel that today I actually watched footage of firefighters putting out a small brush fire that had been caused by a Hizballah rocket.

Tonight's ABC News broadcast was interesting as a demonstration of what I'm saying here. In addition to exended footage of the damage being done to Lebanon, they showed footage of today's demonstration in London, and today's mass burial in Tyre. But in some ways the most surprising part of the broadcast almost makes me eat my words from the post just below this one. ABC not only reported on the destruction on LBC TV towers, but described it as a "troubling development." Not exactly a condemnation, but definitely more than simple neutral reporting. But there was much more. After pointing out that the two stations affected (LBC and another one) were pro-US stations, they went on to talk about why Israel wanted the stations off the air - to suppress the flow of information about their war crimes (that's my term, not theirs) to the world. They then went on to talk about the 1996 Qana massacre, when Israel shelled a UN compound where refugees from fighting were taking shelter, killing 106 of them, and how the broadcasting of that massacre had forced Israel into a ceasefire because of the world outrage at the massacre. They then showed the mass grave in Tyre, and noted how those images might not have reached the world were it not for LBC.

Powerful stuff indeed. And indicative that blind support for Israel has its limits. Those limits are further suggested by the fate of one of my posts. I cross-posted the post below at Daily Kos, provocatively retitled "The U.S. is now a legitimate military target." My previous posts on the subject of Palestine have met a quick fate there, recommended by only handfuls of people, and have been met with the usual storm of pro-Israel responses. But the response to this one has been quite different. It has received several hundred "recommendations," more than 200 "tips" in the "tip jar," and stayed on the "Recommended Diary" list for almost the entire day. More than 550 comments have included the usual and the expected, but also have stimulated a much more balanced than usual discussion on the question of unquestioning support for Israel. Again illustrating, as I think the press coverage does, that the possibilities for discussion on this subject are very much opening up, thanks to Israel opening up people's eyes with the barbarity of their actions.

Stand up! Speak out! We will stop this outrage! Plan now for major national demonstrations on August 12 in Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, and of course continuous smaller local demonstrations everywhere until then (and afterwards).

Not one journalist that I have seen reporting on either of these events has even blinked, much less expressed the slightest outrage at these actions. Both the right-wing Reporters without Borders and the more neutral Committee to Protect Journalists, whose entire existence is predicated on protecting press freedom, are, as of now, silent.

Update: This report (which is a bit undersourced; I'd like to see more) suggests that the last paragraph above is no longer true.

And CounterPunch today has multiple important articles on the subject that are must-reads.

Update: CNN just aired (brief) footage from the London demo, along with demos in Sydney and Amsterdam, and mentioned a demo in Israel (Tel Aviv I think) as well.

The Mercosur leaders also concluded a deal Friday to foster greater trade with Cuba, despite a 45-year-old U.S. embargo of the island. The accord, announced here, is intended to foster a greater exchange of goods between Mercosur nations and Cuba through tariff reductions and a promise that neither side will arbitrarily hike import fees or taxes.

And of course, the star of the show was someone who attended merely as an observer: Fidel (who surely doesn't need a second name any more than Brazilian soccer stars do).

And for an added bonus, while Fidel is scoring diplomatic triumphs and being given a hero's welcome, chief U.S. "diplomat" Condoleezza Rice has to slink around the world:

She won't go to any Arab countries right away - Egypt reportedly balked at hosting a meeting because of public anger at the Israeli offensive - although diplomats held out the possibility that she would make stops in the Arab world at the end of the trip.

Residents of the small Argentine city [of Alta Gracia] packed the sidewalks, cheering as Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made their way through a middle-class neighborhood to the house, which is now a museum dedicated to "el Che."

See if you can notice the euphemisms in this article:

Iraqi forces backed by a U.S. helicopter battled Sunni gunmen south of Baghdad on Friday, and at least 11 combatants died. U.S. troops killed five Iraqis -- including two women and a child -- in a separate exchange of fire.

The civilian deaths came in an early morning raid in Baquba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where American troops were looking for associates of Al-Qaida in Iraq, the U.S. military said.

The Americans took fire from a rooftop and "several men were seen moving around," the military said in a statement. The troops ordered people to leave the building, but "these instructions were ignored," it said.

A U.S. aircraft fired on the building, and "a third attempt to call the occupants out of the buildings then failed before force was escalated," the statement said. "The troops secured the area using a combination of aerial and ground fire."

The bodies of two men, two women and a young girl were found in the rubble, the U.S. military said. They included two of the girl's aunts, an uncle and a grandfather, police said. They did not know about the child's parents.

Without air power, the U.S. forces in Iraq would be achieving far less "success" (success at achieving their goals of killing people), and, I note once again, the chances that the U.S. will be handing over that air power to the Iraqi government so that their forces can "stand up" are nil. It's up to the American people (and the Iraqi resistance) to force the U.S. out of Iraq, because they aren't leaving voluntarily.

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

I included the second paragraph in that excerpt because of the almost comical use of the word "appearance" by the New York Times. Evidently to the Times, that famous picture of a Vietnamese policeman blowing out the brains of a captured Vietcong just gives the "appearance" of murder. And the picture at right, showing the mass grave of 72 87 [CNN update Saturday morning] of the victims of the massacre of Tyre, just gives the "appearance" of a massacre. More victims, by the way, likely remain in the rubble, but there isn't enough safety or enough people or equipment to find out. And yes, that word "massacre" is my addition; a special Left I award to anyone who can find it in the American corporate media. Don't waste too much time. But make no mistake about it -- a "massacre" it was (and is).

If the U.S. were just out blocking the passage of toothless U.N. ceasefire resolutions, you could ask the question "why do 'they' hate us?" But with the U.S. actively sending fuel and missiles to Israel in the midst of a shooting war, a war producing hundreds of victims like the ones in the picture at right, we've moved way beyond that. The United States is now a legitimate military target in that war. That includes factories making the missiles or any parts or materials that go into them, refineries making aviation fuel, and trucks and railroads and ports and ships and planes being used to transport any of those things, not to mention any of the people involved in those activities. The U.S. hasn't actually "declared war" for 50 years, but make no mistake about it -- it has now declared war against the people of Lebanon every bit as much as it did against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Palestine, and anyplace else they've been "personally" involved in bombing the population into submission.

Iranian officials often say that places with the greatest troubles offer their country the best opportunities.

And of the sources above who aren't "Iranian officials," not one makes any statement that can be remotely interpreted as supporting the opening thesis. The "Iranian Hezbollah official," who might be the closest to an "Iranian official" in the list, merely says that "up to 2,000 fighters are ready to travel to Lebanon if asked by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei."

Israel Launches Psycho War

Update: Long-time readers will hopefully have recognized that this post is not mean seriously. That is, I don't really think Israel's war is a "psycho" war. No, it's yet another manifestation of my classic "liberal vs. radical" definition: A liberal is someone who thinks that Israel's lashing out, demolishing hundreds of civilian targets, killing hundreds of civilians, and flagrantly defying international law is an irrational ("psycho") action in pursuit of a legitimate goal ("self-defense"). A radical is someone who realizes that it's a perfectly rational (albeit misguided and hopefully headed for failure) action in pursuit of a completely illegitimate goal (territorial expansion and the subjugation of the Arab people).

Others, including hundreds of Lebanese, dozens of Israelis, thousands of Palestinians, thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis, and assorted others, see only a step toward the grave. The last step.

Yesterday, all over the news was the claim that Israel had dropped 23 tons of bombs on a "senior leadership bunker" in Beirut. Hizballah denied it, claiming that "the strike hit a building that was under construction for a mosque." Today CNN's Alessio Vinci, along with other reporters, visited the site, and reported that, as far as they could tell, the site was, you guessed it, a mosque under construction.

For credibility, though, not much could surpass this claim:

[Capt. Jacob] Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman] said Israel had hit "1,000 targets in the last eight days -- 20 percent were missile-launching sites and the rest were control and command centers, missiles and so forth."

We report, you decide.

Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon and the Rev. John C. Hagee were among those who roused multiple rounds of applause by saying Israel's attacks against the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah were blows against those who have killed civilians from Bali to Bombay to Moscow.

Back to crowd size. Here's how the Washington Post described it: "Some 1,500 people, according to organizers, stood in Freedom Plaza." Nor is the Post unique in allowing pro-Israel groups to estimate their own rally size. Yesterday there was a similar rally in New York; here's how the New York Times reported its size: "Organizers estimated the crowd at 10,000."

There was another rally yesterday you might have missed. It was a rally opposing the Israeli invasion, and it took place in Detroit (Dearborn to be specific). It wasn't mentioned by the Post or the Times, nor by any of the national broadcast media as far as I know. It was covered in the local Detroit Free Press, who used a more traditional method to report on the crowd size: "Police estimated the crowd in Dearborn at more than 10,000."

Needless to say, none of the corporate media as far as I know reported the "organizers' estimate" of the recent demonstration in Mexico City. Get tens of thousands to an antiwar rally and you'll be lucky if the media report on it at all. But get a few hundred, or a thousand, at a pro-Israel rally, and the media will not only report it, they'll even let you provide your own crowd estimate. What a deal.

I'm sure I don't need to remind readers that those "Hezbollah" targets have included roads, bridges, airports, gas stations, apartment buildings, factories, Lebanese army barracks, vans of fleeing civilians, and more. And we know, based on the "gunsight porn" shots that are shown on TV of Israeli bombs hitting their targets, that, in their vast majority, the Israeli strikes have been intentional strikes, not missiles or bombs gone awry. And, in the face of all this, BBC (and certainly they're not alone in this) dares to suggest that Israel has spent eight days bombing "Hezbollah targets." The Israeli government P.R. department couldn't have said it better.

Update: Just some of today's "Hezbollah" targets:

In Srifa, a neighborhood was wiped out -- 15 houses flattened, 21 people killed, 30 wounded -- in an Israeli airstrike. The town’s mayor, Afif Najdi, called it a massacre.

Warplanes bombed a convoy escaping the town, killing several people and wounding many others.

Fighting erupted between Israeli troops and militants in central Gaza after the army pushed into the strip, killing 10 Palestinians -- five militants and five civilians -- in air strikes and other attacks, medics said.

Israel has killed about 110 Palestinians, around half of them militants, in Gaza since the abduction.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops backed by armored vehicles surrounded a Palestinian security compound in the city of Nablus and killed three gunmen from moderate President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, medics said.

Two civilians were also killed, medics said. The army said troops had confronted civilians who had thrown stones at them as well as gunmen, but that soldiers had only fired at Palestinians who shot at them.

With Israel intensifying its air and artillery attacks on Lebanon and warning of a protracted war, the Senate yesterday unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution endorsing Israel's military campaign and condemning Hezbollah and its two backers, Iran and Syria. A few hours earlier, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) delivered his most strident defense of Israel since the conflict erupted a week ago. The House is expected to pass a similarly pro-Israel resolution today.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--(4) recognizes Israel's longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcomes Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties;

Diplomacy: U.S. has limited leverage with Syria, Iran to rein in Hezbollah

Another article in the same paper is more on the mark. The New York Times, from whence the article originates, runs this headline:

U.S. Appears to Be Waiting to Act on Israeli Airstrikes

U.S.-Israeli strategy: Target Hezbollah for another week

And this is precisely what is happening now, with two members of the same "team" (the U.S. and Israel) working to break not just Hezbollah but the resistance of the Palestinian people and the Arab masses as a whole to U.S.-Israeli domination of the region. Indeed, this strategy is more or less openly acknowledged:

The outlines of an American-Israeli consensus began to emerge on Tuesday, in which Israel would continue to bombard Lebanon for another week or so to degrade the capabilities of the Hezbollah militia, officials of the two countries said.

Then, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would go to the region and seek to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, and perhaps an international force to monitor Lebanon’s borders and prevent Hezbollah from obtaining more rockets for bombarding Israel.

Beyond the desire to give Israel time to weaken Hezbollah militarily, administration officials said Ms. Rice should not go to the region until she can actually produce results.

And Lenin's Tomb has some video from a recent meeting in the U.K., including the usual rousing speech from George Galloway.

What aggressive, militarist regime recently held war maneuvers in the Pacific and tested intercontinental missiles that could carry nuclear warheads for 4,800 miles?

The wrong answer to this question is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The right answer is the United States.

On June 14, the U.S. Air Force held what it called “a quality control test” for its fleet of 500 Minuteman III missiles. One missile traveled 4,800 miles towards the central Pacific, and three test warheads landed near the Marshall Islands. According to the Air Force, that was where they were supposed to land. The Pentagon is supposed to have almost 10,000 nuclear warheads available.

In the midst of last Friday's onslaught, in which Israeli bombers killed dozens of Lebanese civilians, the Pentagon announced the export of $210m of aviation fuel to help Israel "keep peace and security in the region".

Early today, Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah's stronghold in south Beirut.

The phrase "banality of evil" comes to mind.

""We will support her efforts to send a message to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians, to the Iraniains, to all who seek death and domination instead of life and freedom that we will not permit this to happen and we will take whatever steps are necessary."

Israel no longer knows any moral boundaries -- if it ever did. Those who continue to support Israel, who make excuses for it as it descends into corruption, have lost their moral compass.

And speaking of losing your moral compass, WIIIAI this morning brings us pictures of young Israeli girls writing messages on bombs about to be dropped on their counterparts in Lebanon.

First, there was this official exchange at a G-8 press conference:

PRESIDENT BUSH: And I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing.

PRESIDENT PUTIN: We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT BUSH: Just wait.

The second astonishing thing about this quote is the "Just wait." More than 100,000 Iraqis have already found the freedom of the grave waiting for Bush's "democracy," with dozens more joining them every single day, and the rest suffering from daily terror and the lack of water, electricity, jobs, and more, while Bush councils the world to "just wait" for history to prove him a wise and just invader.

The second Bush quote I want to comment on is the famous "unguarded" conversation with Tony Blair, also known as the "ohmygodBushsaidshit" conversation which has the airwaves all atwitter. I'm sure I could care less about Bush's use of "foul" language, or even about his complete lack of understanding of the meaning of the word "irony" (there is nothing ironic about getting "Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's all over"). What I'd like to note is two things. First this:

Yeah I think Condi's [US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] gonna go [to the Middle East] soon.

The other thing to note is the American/Bush arrogance implicit in this quote:

I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.

''We will stand with Israel because Israel is standing up for American values as well as Israeli ones.''

- Sen. Hillary Clinton, speaking at a New York pro-Israel rally today

As an aside, note this interesting phrase from the article: "Organizers estimated the crowd at 10,000." Strangely, that's a phrase that was missing from the recent article on the recent demonstration in Mexico City, not to mention virtually every corporate press article on every antiwar or other progressive demonstration that has occured in recent years (when articles are published at all, that is). Or we can counterpose it to the Darfur rally back in April, whose size was actually described in one article like this: "The organizers' permit estimated a turnout of 10,000 to 15,000 for the rally" (the actual size was almost certainly much smaller than that).

Israeli air strikes killed 42 people across Lebanon on Monday, including 10 civilians hit on a southern bridge, on the sixth day of a bombardment that has wreaked the heaviest destruction in Lebanon for over 20 years.

Rescuers also pulled nine bodies from the wreckage of a building in the southern city of Tire that was bombed on Sunday, raising the death toll since Israel's offensive to 204, all but 14 of them civilian.

Twenty-four Israelis have been killed in the fighting, including 12 civilians hit in rocket attacks.

Update: The report above doesn't illustrate this point, but I have now heard news reports from two different stations which carried the news in this identical way: reporting that 42 Lebanese were killed today and then in the next sentence mentioning the total Israeli fatalities (24) from multiple days, skipping over the total of Lebanese fatalities.

Headline: "Israeli Demand: Let Our People Go"

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Israel will continue to its strikes against Lebanon until its soldiers captured by Hezbollah are returned, rocket attacks on Israeli cities stop, and Lebanese soldiers are deployed along border.

It's clear that in the Middle East, no one is sick of the fighting. They have centuries of grudges to resolve, and will continue fighting until they can get over them.

A large number of Mexicans rallied yesterday to demand a recount in Mexico's Presidential election. Obviously no one knows how many; it's really difficult to estimate such a large crowd. But here's a typical description, this from the Los Angeles Times:

Police officials subordinate to the PRD-led city government said 1.1 million people took part in the daylong protest. Notimex, the semiofficial news agency of the conservative-led federal government, estimated 700,000 were present.

Mr. Lopez Obrador led about 200,000 supporters down one of the city’s main thoroughfares and into the Zocalo, as the city’s main plaza is known. About 200,000 more were already waiting there.

The LA Times, meanwhile, while providing a fair account of the numbers, did its own best to minimize the significance of the event:

Despite the crowd's size, it did not appear to represent growing public support for the leftist challenger's effort to overturn his defeat by 244,000 votes in the July 2 election. Dozens of marchers interviewed all said they had voted for Lopez Obrador and knew of no one in the crowd who had not.

The interesting thing about this kind of news coverage is that, with all the American talk about "spreading democracy," here we have enormous numbers of people in the streets making the most elementary of democratic demands, that every vote in an election be carefully counted, and that demand is not only unsupported but even denigrated by those "champions of democracy" in America. Exposing those bold proclamations about "democracy" for the empty words they are.

Of course, we know why the Bush administration might feel a little sheepish demanding that every vote be counted in an election. But that doesn't excuse the silence, or the implicit or explicit opposition, from the Democrats and the American media.

This report from July 6 gives some basics:

Hamas Cabinet ministers and legislators, abducted by the Israeli occupation last week, appeared in an Israeli occupation military court for the second day. They maintain their arrest is illegal.

Now here they are in the military court at the Ofer Military Base on the outskirts of Ramallah.

They denounced their arrest as a "crime".

Israel thought it captured senior Hamas officials in the West Bank, but the 32 legislators and ministers arrested last week by the Israel Defense Forces denied in interrogation that they belong to the Hamas movement.

According to the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat, when Hamas members were asked about their affiliations they said they were elected on an independent list called The List for Change and Reform and that they do not belong to Hamas.

"Hezbollah rockets landed today in Tiberias, where Jesus worked many of his miracles."

While we're on the religion beat, let me add one detail which I left out of my description of Thursday's demonstration. On one side of the street were those of us protesting Israel's assault on Gaza and Lebanon, a crowd consisting almost exclusively of Palestinians and hard-core leftists. On the other side of the street, a crowd of Israel supporters, consisting (as an educated guess) almost exclusively of Jews. And who was wading through these crowds? Three "Scientology Ministers" (with jackets identifying them as such), passing out literature. Could there have been a less receptive crowd? Well, perhaps they were hoping for one of those miracles.

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold today defended Israel's right to protect itself amid the escalating conflict along its borders, saying, "I don't think any country is going to let their soldiers be kidnapped, transported, killed ... without a serious response."

Feingold said he would not second-guess "whether that response was exactly as it should be."

Said Feingold: "My hope would be that Israel would use as much restraint as possible .... It's in Israel's interest and the interests of peace. But I do think Israel has not only a right but also a responsibility to respond to the Hezbollah attack."

Feingold posted a statement on his Web site Friday saying, "I stand firmly with the people of Israel and their government as they defend themselves against these outrageous attacks."

The Democrats, every bit as much as the Republicans, are the party of imperialism. They may at times advocate different tactics, or even different strategies, but their goals are for all intents and purposes identical.

Saturday: "The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to impose limited sanctions on North Korea for its recent missile tests, and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program."

Test some missiles that land harmlessly in the ocean? Unanimous condemnation. Fire some missiles at targets on land, kill more than a hundred people, and destroy hundreds of civilian targets including power plants, airports, roads, bridges, TV stations, etc., all in violation of the Geneva Convention? Hey, no problem.

At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed in what appeared to be an Israeli airstrike on a convoy of vehicles evacuation a village near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon, a witness said. The convoy was leaving the village of Marwaheen, which abuts the border, when it was attacked. Associated Press Photographer Nasser Nasser said he counted 12 bodies in two cars that burned from the attack shortly after midday .

At least three civilians were killed in another Israeli airstrike on the main highway linking Lebanon to Syria.

Who is it that is targeting civilians? Consider the numbers:

At least 88 people have died in Lebanon, most of the them civilians, in the four-day Israeli offensive, sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. On the Israeli side, at least 15 have been killed -- four civilians and 11 soldiers.

Hezbollah rammed an Israeli warship with an unmanned aircraft rigged with explosives Friday, setting it ablaze after Israeli warplanes smashed Lebanon's links to the world one by one and destroyed the headquarters of the Islamic guerrilla group's leader.

The Israeli army said the ship suffered severe damage and was on fire hours later as it headed home.

More information, flyers, endorsement form, donation information, etc. here.

Red State Son listens to talk radio, as I don't, and finds that liberals like Ed Schultz and Al Franken are either lining up behind Israel or, at best, just "don't know what to think."

ANSWER's Richard Becker (and here), a frequent visitor to the Middle East, offers his knowledgeable analysis of events.

Amy Goodman interviews Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now!. I learned one very interesting concrete fact from the interview. Yesterday, watching CNN, I had a chuckle when Kyra Philips intoned, "The roots of this crisis go very far back." As I awaited a discussion of 1948 (or perhaps even earlier), CNN then proceded to show a timeline which started all the way back on June 25, with the capture of Gilad Shalit! Well, not that this is the "root" of the crisis either, but here's what Chomsky mentioned which I didn't know:

Gaza, itself, the latest phase, began on June 24. It was when Israel abducted two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother. We don't know their names. You don’t know the names of victims. They were taken to Israel, presumably, and nobody knows their fate. The next day, something happened, which we do know about, a lot. Militants in Gaza, probably Islamic Jihad, abducted an Israeli soldier across the border. That’s Corporal Gilad Shalit. And that's well known; first abduction is not.

Just some observations, clearly there are pros and cons to each approach.

For my part, let me note this. Typified by this AP story, press coverage that I have seen universally mentions the "50 Katyusha rockets" (sometimes listed as 75 or 100) that Hizballah has fired at Israel, but not one has quantified the number of Israeli strikes. Of course they mention the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, but any idea that those strikes have been manyfold greater in number, not to mention probably an order of magnitude or two greater in tonnage, is completely absent.

73 Lebanese, "almost all civilians" according to AP, have now been killed. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice describes this in this way: "I think they understand the need to exercise restraint." Evidentally not showing restraint to Condi would involve the use of nuclear weapons; anything else is "exercising restraint," violations of international law and common decency notwithstanding.

And a still if you have trouble seeing the video above:

And while we're on the subject of demonstrations, Politics in the Zeros has videos, stills, mp3 files, and details of a recent anti-Minutemen demonstration in Los Angeles at which demonstrators were viciously beaten by the LAPD (beaten badly enough to require hospital visits). Not only were they beaten, several of the anti-racist demonstrators were arrested; one was actually charged with lynching! ANSWER-LA is now suing the LAPD as well as demanding the charges be dropped; after you familiarize yourself with the details at Politics in the Zeros, stand up for your own rights to demonstrate by sending a letter on behalf of the demonstrators.

Will he win the Tour de France? Stay tuned.

We now return to our regular programming, "As the World Burns." Which, unfortunately, is no soap opera but very much reality TV.

Police said 52 Lebanese civilians, including 15 children, were killed in attacks on Hezbollah targets in Beirut's southern suburbs and across southern Lebanon.

Security sources said the air strikes in south Lebanon also wounded 100 people. Ten members of a family were killed in Dweir village and seven family members died in Baflay.

Update: Note how this story is being headlined and reported, e.g., in this AP story:

Note that the murder of 50 civilians takes a distinct second place to bombing an airport runway, and note also the language: "More than 50 people have died in violence." Not "been killed by Israeli bombs or missiles." They just died in some sort of unspecified violence. Sure they did.

Second update: Kyra Phillips on CNN just now did a summary of what's going on. I'll paraphrase: "Israel has bombed Beirut airport. Hizballah is firing rockets at Israel, including at Haifa. Israeli ships are blockading Lebanese ports." Not one word about the death of 52 (probably more by now) Lebanese civilians. Not a word. Then, just a couple minutes later, she was grilling the Syrian ambassador, asking him about civilian deaths. Israeli deaths, of course. How could she ask about the death of Lebanese civilians when she doesn't even acknowledge that they occur?

Third update: Every reporter on CNN is describing the reported (not completely confirmed; actually denied by Hizballah) landing of two Hizballah-fired rockets in Haifa as a "dangerous escalation." Can anyone explain how that could possibly be an "escalation" after Israel has bombed Lebanese bridges, Beirut airport runways and Beirut airport fuel storage tanks, is blockading ports, and has killed 52 civilians with missile attacks? None of those things has been described by CNN as a "dangerous escalation," yet when (if) Hizballah fires two rockets at Haifa, that's a "dangerous escalation."

Just over a year ago, my translator, Yasser Salihee, was shot dead by an American soldier. Salihee, a 30-year-old medical doctor and aspiring journalist, was working for Knight Ridder News Service to make extra money. He was driving home after a haircut when a U.S. sniper mistook him for a potential car bomber. He couldn't stop in time and was shot between the eyes.

I arrived in Baghdad right after Salihee died and told his story to several Iraqi officials. The reactions were astonishing. Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi told me that an elderly friend of his had just been shot dead by U.S. soldiers. Kurdish parliamentarian Mahmoud Othman told me that he knew of 10 civilians who had been shot dead by U.S. soldiers. Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Samir Sumaidaie (recently appointed ambassador to the United States), complained bitterly to reporters that U.S. Marines had killed his unarmed 21-year-old cousin.

These cases came to light because the victims were well connected. But Salihee's death was investigated only after pressure from Knight Ridder. No one knows how many similar cases are never even reported. And armed civilian contractors there are notorious for shooting at Iraqi civilians with impunity.

A bomb dropped by an Israel Air Force plane destroyed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building in Gaza City early Thursday, witnesses said.

The bomb collapsed the building and caused widespread destruction in the area.

Here in San Francisco, there's another demonstration against this outrage tomorrow; hopefully, the same is true elsewhere around the country and around the world. Stand Up, Speak Out.

Here is an analysis of "Plan Bush" (a name which gives too much credit to George Bush, but anyway...) by the always-compelling Ricardo Alarcon, President of the Cuban National Assembly, which highlights the most important implications of the report.

Here is an article from Granma which notes the illegality and terrorist nature of the fact that the report has a classified appendix, and also notes, among other things:

Implicitly stating the intention to occupy Cuba in one way or another, the authors of the text are seeking personnel. They propose identifying trained Cubans living abroad and other Spanish speakers interested in supporting a possible imperial intervention and encouraging these individuals and groups to keep at the ready.

The text of the “Compact with the People of Cuba” is here. It lists the many things the US will do to support a “Cuban transition government,” whatever that might be, including providing emergency food, water, fuel and medical equipment (none of which except perhaps fuel are in short supply in Cuba), helping “rebuild your shattered economy,” and my favorite, “Discourage third parties from intervening to obstruct the will of the Cuban people.” Presumably the third party they have in mind is Venezuela, but.... third party? The unthinking use of that phrase neatly demonstrates the assumption that intervention by the US (the second party) in the affairs of the Cuban people (the first party) is completely natural and legitimate.

I'm not actually empowered to speak on behalf of Cubans, but I think I do speak for them when I say, "Gracias, pero ningunas gracias, senores imperialistas." Thanks, but no thanks.

U.S. bloody hands off Cuba!

Update: We'll give Hugo Chavez the last word:

Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, told Washington he will maintain his strategic cooperation with Cuba and recommended the US to draw a plan for its own system.

The Israel Air Force struck at the home of a Hamas activist in Gaza City before dawn Wednesday, killing six people and wounding top Hamas commander Mohammed Def, the Israel Defense Forces said.

A mother and four children were among the dead and at least 24 people were wounded, hospital officials said.

An IAF attack helicopter fired a missile at the house in the city's densely-populated Sheikh Radwan neighborhood around 4 A.M. [Ed. note: surely a time when no one else would be home. Right.]

From the force of the blast, the three-story structure collapsed, burying people under the rubble. The family killed in the strike was on the house's upper floor. Hamas activists said additional victims might be buried in the basement.

Update: Also in today's news:

Four Palestinians have died in recent days awaiting entry into the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, which has been closed for nearly two weeks since the kidnapping of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit.

More than 3,000 Palestinians, including 578 deemed "urgent humanitarian cases," have been stranded for 16 days inside a make-shift terminal on the Egyptian side of the crossing, the Red Cross said Monday.

Two Palestinians died at the crossing on Tuesday - a 19-year-old woman and a 1.5-year-old infant.

The young woman, identified as Mona Ismail, was returning from an operation in a Cairo hospital. She died as a result of a severe deterioration in her medical condition as she waited at Rafah. The infant, identified as Hamze Abu Taleb, died of heat stroke.

The huge explosion destroyed the house of Hamas activist Dr. Nabil Abu Salmiyeh, a lecturer at Gaza City's Islamic University, killing him, his wife and seven of their nine children, the Associated Press reported.

Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the government said on Monday, as the U.S. military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.

"If we don't get that, then we'll ask for an effective role in the investigations that are going on. The Iraqi government must have a role." [said Human Rights Minister Wigdan Michael]

The day before handing formal sovereignty back to Iraqis in June 2004, the U.S. occupation authority issued a decree giving its troops immunity from Iraqi law. That remains in force and is confirmed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 on Iraq.

An Israel Air Force strike on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun Monday killed three Palestinian civilians and seriously wounded another, Palestinian security sources said. [AFP reports four killed and four more wounded]

The sources identified the three civilians killed in the attack as Ahmed Abu Amsa, 17, Ahmed Shabaat, 18, and Farid Nassir, 19.

According to the sources, the IAF fired missiles on the teenagers as they were playing soccer in the field outside of the agricultural college in Beit Hanun, near some Qassam launchers that had been set up in the yard.

Now I don't want to scare anyone who might know me, but death seems to follow me around. Just one week less than a year ago today, another person died less than a hundred yards away from this one, again while I was running there. Nor are my encounters with death limited to this one preserve. A few years ago, I was at Nevada Falls in Yosemite when someone slipped into the pool above the falls and died. I watched a surfer drown at Banzai Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu. And there was another one in there somewhere. It's enough to shake a guy up.

Which brings me to the point. Life is a precious gift. It doesn't matter whether you think it's a gift from God, or a gift from Mother Nature, or the statistically probably outcome of Brownian motion in the primordial soup, it's still a precious gift. And for me, that means two things. One is to appreciate my own, every day. Appreciate the sound or sight of a bird, or the smile of a friend, or a beautiful sunset, or, not to slight inanimate objects, a good song or a good movie. Because, just as it did for the unfortunate young man today, or the others whose deaths momentarily shook me as I watched them happen, life can end suddenly, and prematurely.

And the second meaning for me is embodied in the post below this one. Just as I value my own life, so too I recognize the tragedy of so many lives cut short, whether they be identifiable ones like the ones below, or the nameless 12,000 children per day who die of starvation that I posted about not long ago. And so I pledge to continue to fight on their behalf, so that they, like I, can have every day possible to enjoy the precious gift they received at birth.

Aged 14. Raped and murdered, along with her father, mother, and younger sister, by U.S. imperialism.

Out Now! War crimes trials to follow!

In Memoriam: 6-year-old Ruan Hajaj, murdered along with her mother and older brother by an Israeli missile fired into their home in Gaza. No picture available.

In Memoriam: 15-month old Khaled Wahba

Shown here in an Israeli hospital last month, but now dead, joining his mother, his uncle, his unborn sister, and his unborn cousin as victims of yet another Israeli missile attack.

End the occupation! War crimes trials to follow!

"There is no place for racism. It is impossible to love this sport, to play it, or to support a team and be racist or xenophobic at the same time. The values conveyed by football are the exact opposite of racism. Because racism promotes exclusion and hate. Football, in contrast, brings people together to share a common pleasure. Every four years we experience a unique time in which people congregate together, take part together and celebrate together. Racists are not invited."

- Zinedine Zidane, France's legendary player who was awarded the "Golden Ball" as player of the tournament, but who was red-carded (thrown out of the game) in the second overtime period for a vicious head butt on an Italian player

Zinedine Zidane's chestbutt on Marco Materazzi was "provoked" by a comment from the Italy defender, according to the player's agent. And, while Alain Migliaccio did not know what Materazzi said, he confirmed that Zidane would reveal the exact nature of the comments soon.
The former French captain was sent off in the World Cup final - his last game before retirement - after driving his head into the chest of Materazzi in extra-time. But Zidane's agent, Migliaccio, claims Materazzi insulted Zidane, the French-born son of Algerian immigrants.

While doing some Googling (yay! it's now an official word!) for this post, I learned of a campaign going on in Europe called Stand Up Speak Up, sponsored by Nike, to fight racism in football, which has been a big problem in Europe. They were selling intertwined black and white wristbands to symbolize the campaign. I was amused, in an unfunny way, to read this in their FAQ:

Nike is aware that there are many fake versions of the Stand Up Speak Up wristband available (as well as fake version of many other coloured wristbands promoting other causes). Nike’s brand protection team are working with customs and relevant bodies across Europe to address and prevent this problem where possible.

Please be aware that any bands purchased from street traders, or that don’t carry the Nike swoosh logo on the inside of both bands, are likely to be fake. No money from this purchase will go toward the Stand Up Speak Up fund.

Be that as it may, "Stand Up, Speak Up," as I wrote just last week, are good words to live by. But don't, if you can help it, headbutt.

In his classic 1936 film, "Modern Times," Charlie Chaplin has to work so fast tightening bolts in a steel factory that he finally goes crazy. In a memorable scene that has become a metaphor for labor exploitation, the Little Tramp is run through the factory's enormous gears.

For President Hugo Chavez's socialist government, the film is more than just entertainment: It's become a teaching tool. Since January, in a bid to expose the evils of "savage capitalism," the Labor Ministry has shown the Chaplin film to thousands of workers in places such as this rundown industrial suburb of Caracas.

When the screenings at factories or meeting halls end, Labor Ministry officials then take their cue, and use Chaplin's plight to spell out worker rights under occupational safety laws passed last year and now being applied. They are part of Chavez's sweeping reform agenda that he calls Socialism for the 21st Century.

Someone has to say it or we are never going to get out of this rut: I am sick and tired of the founding fathers and all their intents.

The real American question of our times is how our country in a little over 200 years sank from the great hope to the most backward democracy in the West. The United States offers the worst health care program, one of the worst public school systems and the worst benefits for workers. The margin between rich and poor has been growing precipitously while it has been decreasing in Europe.

Among the great democracies, we use military might less cautiously, show less respect for international law and are the stumbling block in international environmental cooperation. Few informed people look to the United States anymore for progressive ideas.

We ought to do something. Instead, we keep worrying about the vision of a bunch of sexist, slave-owning 18th-century white men in wigs and breeches.
...
The founding fathers, unlike the Americans of today, understood their own shortcomings. Thomas Jefferson warned against a slavish worship of their work, which he referred to as "sanctimonious reverence" for the Constitution. Jefferson believed in the ability of humans to grow wiser, of humankind to make progress, and he believed that the Constitution should be rewritten in every generation.

"Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind," Jefferson wrote in 1816. "As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstance, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

In Jabaliya refugee camp, near Beit Lahiya, mourners gathered for the funeral of Shadi al-Sakani, 24, a swimming coach and member of the military wing of Hamas since the age of 18. He died in Atatrah on Thursday from the impact of an Israeli missile fired from a helicopter.

"He said, 'I'm leaving to fight, and I may not come back,' " said his uncle, Zaki al-Sakani, 55, speaking at a makeshift condolence tent near the mosque.

Shadi al-Sakani was married to Widad, who is pregnant with their third child. Mara, 3, is their daughter; Abdul Rahman, 2, their son. His older brother also fought for Hamas, but was wounded in the head a few years ago.

Time for some David Rovics:

On one side is the fighter jet
On the other side the stone
On one side is the slave
On the other is the throne
For the many there are checkpoints
While foreign soldiers rule the street
For one side there is victory
But the people don't accept defeat

The word you need to know is occupation
The very definition of a land without a nation
And if peace is what you're after then let us not deceive
It will come on the day the tanks return to Tel Aviv

Casualties are a different story, but also raise semantic questions. What is a "casualty"? A broken finger? A small piece of shrapnel? Or do you only count "serious" casualties, the kind which remove soldiers either temporarily or permanently from the battlefield? No doubt the U.S. takes every opportunity to choose the tightest possible definition, so as to make the number as small as possible.

But finally we come to equipment losses, and there it's a different story; the U.S. military has every reason to hide the truth, and little reason to come clean. This story ran yesterday at Prensa Latina:

Two US helicopters crashed in the Iraqi village of Al Dur, north of Baghdad, Thursday morning, allegedly shot down by the resistance, local television channel Al Sharquiya reported.

The release quoted some witnesses as saying that clashes between insurgents and US-Iraqi soldiers were also seen in Al Dur town, causing serious damage to various military vehicles.

A US armored vehicle carrying 15 soldiers was destroyed during the clashes with the rebels.

The US Central Command in Iraq has made no comments on the recent incident.

But then today, this follow-up story appeared in Granma (and, I should add, nowhere else):

Two U.S. Apache combat helicopters were brought down yesterday over the town of Al Dur, northeast of this capital, according to the national Al Sharqiya TV.

The U.S. command has not made any comments on the event.

A video recording transmitted by the Al Arabiya channel based in the United Arab Emirates shows an earth-to-air missile being fired on a U.S. helicopter.

According to the press, that footage, which was initially placed on the Internet and then shown on television, belongs to an armed group known as the Mujadin Army, whose members affirm having brought down a helicopter.

Today I thought of Kitty Genovese.

Some of you won’t remember her, but many in my generation will recall the horror and shame they felt after hearing the story of how she was raped and stabbed to death on a New York City street in 1964. What shocked the nation was the fact that 37 witnesses heard Kitty’s cries but did nothing to help. Years later, social scientists, studying this disturbing passivity, termed it the “Genovese Syndrome”.

That’s how I feel about what is happening in Gaza today. Israel is getting away with murder and the world is letting it happen.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted that he intended to commit war crimes in Gaza, telling his cabinet that he wanted “no one to be able to sleep tonight in Gaza”. Olmert thus officially acknowledged Israel’s policy of collectively punishing 1.4 million Palestinians, a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. But none of the US’ three leading newspapers - The New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times - reported Olmert’s statement, even though it was widely quoted around the world.

There was no hint of Olmert’s words in LA Times or Washington Post. The New York Times’ coverage is more interesting. New York Times’ correspondents Steven Erlanger and Ian Fisher reported the quote in an on-line article that was also published in the International Herald Tribune. However, the quote never appeared in the Times’ print edition. The Times’ editors seem to have decided that Olmert’s words were not “fit to print,” and deleted them from their journalists’ report. The conspicuous absence of such a widely reported and telling quote raises the possibility that the leading US papers actively avoid printing information that makes Israel look too obviously bad.

You all know about Steven Green, right? The apparent psychopath who has now pled not guilty to raping an Iraqi woman and killing her and three family members, who is now the designated fall guy for U.S. "apologies" to Iraqis, even though there were multiple American service members involved in both the crime and the coverup. Well, it appears that just six months ago, the U.S. Army was touting him as one of those who was "keeping [the] streets of Iraq safe," while, as the article noted, "still respect[ing] people's rights and property."

This is the picture that accompanied the article:

Note that the word used in the previous sentence was "accompanied," not "accompanies." The ever-sensitive U.S. Army has now (within the last day, it appears) scrubbed the picture from its website. On the left the article as it now appears; on the right the article from a cached version (the colors are where Google highlights certain searched-for words, not actually part of the article as it appeared on the Army's website):

Curiously enough, the picture of Green actually accompanies the latest article on the case at Yahoo News, but without any reference to its origin.

Need I add that the best thing the U.S. Army could do to "keep the streets of Iraq safe" would be to get the hell out. Will there be instant peace and tranquility? Of course not. Will things get worse before they get better? Possibly. But they will never get better unless and until the U.S. and its allies end their illegal, provocative, and murderous occupation.

"An Ortega win at the ballot box in November would be a humiliating setback for the Bush administration. Unlike in other Latin American elections, where Washington has shown admirable neutrality, in Nicaragua it has not concealed its intense desire to keep Ortega from returning to power."

News reports of the incident all refer to how "the group had been infiltrated by a government informant." "Informant" is the media's word. I'm giving even odds that the correct term is agent provocateur, and that the first one to mention the words "Sears Tower" or "ammonium nitrate" was he.

Earlier in the day [during a bail hearing], the FBI admitted that two people working for the agency planted the idea of blowing up government buildings, including an FBI office in Miami, with members of an alleged South Florida terror group known as the Liberty City 7.

The initial preliminary results earlier this week had given Calderon, a pro-U.S. former energy minister, a lead of 0.6 percent.

In its coverage today of the "re"count, Reuters mentions neither the 2.5 (or 3.4) million missing votes, nor the initial supposed lead of 1.0% for Calderon. Now you see it, now you don't.

"Israel's conduct is morally indefensible. I am concerned with the law, and here it is clear that Israel is in violation of the most fundamental norms of humanitarian law and human rights law."

- UN human rights expert John Dugard, testifying before the U.N. Human Rights Council

Is it any wonder that the U.S. is so opposed to the existence of the U.N. Human Rights Council, as it was to its predecessor?

For the rich, there are different standards. Ken Lay was convicted back in May and wasn't even due to be sentenced until October (!!!), in the meantime, he was busy relaxing (evidently not sufficiently) in his Aspen vacation home (which should have been seized years ago and sold off to pay off Enron employees victimized by Lay) when he died.

Bush says N. Korea further isolated

Bush's foreign friends fading fast

Yesterday was the emergency demonstration in San Francisco to protest the Israeli assault on Gaza; you can see more pictures here and here. Unfortunately none of them shows the full extent of the crowd (500-700 pro-Palestinian demonstrators, and a dozen or so Israel supporters) nor conveys the spirit which was present.

Will this demonstration, or any other, stop the course of the Israeli (and U.S.) government? Certainly not. But there are times you have to stand up for what you believe in, even when the struggle is guaranteed to be a long one, and the prospects for success are slim. If nothing else, just giving the Palestinian people the knowledge that they are not alone in the world, and that there are people in the world, even (or perhaps especially) in the United States, willing to stand up for their rights as a people, makes the effort worthwhile.

And speaking of standing up for the Palestinian people, and trying to stop the murderous course of the Israelis, last night after returning home I finally got around to watching a DVD I had bought at some previous solidarity event - Rachel, An American Conscience. Although ostensibly about Rachel Corrie, and framed by her life and death and including a number of interviews with her well-spoken parents, the movie actually has a much larger scope, encompassing the work of the International Solidarity Movement and more, and features interviews with many solidarity activists and others.

And although I've now used the word "interviews" twice, the film is much more than talking heads. For me, perhaps the most powerful footage was scenes of the absolutely immense bulldozers which the Israelis use to knock down Palestinian houses (with scenes of tiny people next to the towering "separation" (apartheid) wall a close second). Truly a case of a picture being worth a thousand words.

You can read a full review of the film here, and purchase a copy of the DVD here (it's not available through Netflix). It's not a great film, but it is a very good one, and definitely worth seeing, or showing to your local solidarity group.

Stand up.

Don't worry, though; just as soon as FOX and its clones can find a way to shift the blame to the victims, I'm sure the coverage of the Mahmudiya story will be stepped up.

IF four buildings - four twin towers for example - full of boys and girls, killing 12,000 were destroyed, surely it would not occur to anyone to argue against that terrible news being the lead story on all news broadcasts, all front pages.

No one, on any editorial board, or in any radio or television studio, would object if the news of those 12,000 dead children dominated all the headlines and columns, opinions and reports, photos and testimonies.

No public figure would miss the opportunity to refer to such a dramatic event and to proclaim that a similar disaster must never happen again.

If an earthquake hit a country or a tsunami unexpectedly slammed into a coastline killing 12,000 children, no one in the media would dare suggest that such a terrible disaster should yield the spotlight to a soccer game, for example, or the illness of a popular singer. No police chief or religious leader in the world would fail to display his or her dismay over the incident, and every government or humanitarian aid agency would mobilize their resources.

If a terrorist gang kidnapped 12,000 children and threatened to execute the hostages if their demands were not met within 24 hours, every plaza in the world would be full of people clamoring for the release of the victims, not one person would be indifferent to the possible fate of these children.

Nevertheless, every day, each time we wake up, 12,000 more children have died. Not from the tsunami that didn't happen yesterday, or from the tower that didn't collapse, or from the terrorist gang that doesn't exist; these 12,000 children have died of starvation, of simple and wretched starvation. And starvation and its miserable consequences are not news.

Audiences would get tired --says the media director-- of a fixed eight columns, every day, in which the only variable would be the increasing tally.

There is no way that these 12,000 dead would merit a brief headline, a lamenting feature, or even a summary in the section "Strange World."

Neither does the opportunity exist to commemorate anniversaries because every day the deaths and their causes reoccur, so every day is both a tragedy and an anniversary of the same misfortune.

Twelve thousand boys and girls who have died between breakfast and dinner, between the morning paper and the evening news.

And we are only talking about starvation. There are many other buildings that fall every day for related reasons: tsunamis of illnesses for which vaccines can not be acquired, earthquakes that demolish schools and playgrounds, terrorist bands that enrich themselves by exploiting child labor and prostitution.

And we are only talking about children.

But not one plaza has filled with people to condemn a crime that does not cease being a crime because of its repetition, neither has any one of the media outlets that have covered similar attacks, interrupted its regular programming to give "live and direct", up to the minute on the spot coverage with a correspondent adjusting the totals of dead and disappeared and interviewing neighbors, before the broadcast turns back to the studios and yields to another barrage of commercials.

According to a United Nations report, "every seven seconds a child dies from starvation." About 12,000 per day.

The press would need several special editions or have to add 60 more pages to each edition in order to superficially report the names, which they have; their faces, which are real; and the agonized and despairing families of those 12,000 cadavers who have no mourners nor headlines, no history, for whom no one organizes anniversary masses or tributes. These 12,000 little ones dead each day at the hands of a rotten economic order sold to us as progress, whose laws protect the solidity of its immune building, and which terrorizes via its monetary gangs the deposed government of life.

"I will never apologise for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what it has done. I don't care what the facts are."

- Vice-President George H. W. Bush, August 1988

The men of the Vincennes were all awarded combat-action ribbons. Commander Lustig, the air-warfare co-ordinator, even won the navy's Commendation Medal for "heroic achievement," his "ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire" having enabled him to "quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure."

On the subject of The Nation, an article (for subscribers only) by Counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn, while correctly (in my opinion, obviously) critiquing the liberal blogosphere for obsessing about Karl Rove, makes the absurd claim that the "blogosphere" (sorry, Skippy) are "loonies, beyond any sanction or reproof by reality." A statement that, without qualifiers, is indeed loony.

And, while we're on the subject of Cuba, the latest issue of Socialism and Liberation magazine has an article which addresses the question of "is Cuba socialist?" (in the face of those on the left who argue in the negative, in favor of a description of "state capitalist"). Worth reading if you have questions on that score.

The U.S. should have assistance in Cuba within weeks of President Fidel Castro's death to support a transitional government and help move the country toward democracy, a government report recommends.

"The U.S. government will need to be prepared well in advance to help in the event assistance is requested by the Cuban transition government," the report says.

Among other things, the U.S. doesn't seem to understand (or want to recognize) that Cuba has an actual government, with elected leaders, laws, and so on. The U.S. media (and government) have been referring to the actions of "Castro" for so long (just as they refer to the actions of "Saddam," "Ahmadinejad," "Chavez", and so on) that they have deluded themselves into thinking that Fidel Castro is the Cuban government. As brilliant a leader and as influential as he is, he isn't.

There's lots more that's funny (and despicable) in the CNN article. Start with the despicable:

Earlier this month, the Cuban government cut off electricity to the U.S. interests section in Havana, the capital.

Then we get this, about the actual U.S. plan:

Lending a hand with health care and clean water would be good starts, the report says.

And speaking of mistaking Cuba for Iraq, how funny is this:

That would include legal experts to help with elections. Training judges and police would be essential, according to the report.

No, what aroused my fingers to action was this, which was part of a list of allegedly "mild" and "restrained" actions taken by the Israelis:

Israel has disrupted power supplies for slightly more than a tenth of Gaza's population.

Not that it matters, of course. There are 1.4 million people in Gaza. "Just" a tenth of that would be 140,000 people made to suffer, and possibly die, as part of the collective punishment (i.e., war crime) being visited upon the Palestinians by the Israelis. Morally, or legally, there isn't the slightest difference between that and 700,000 people. But that doesn't stop the Post from trying to sway the minds of its readers into thinking this was just some trivial, barely noticeable action by the Israelis.

But the main point I wanted to make about this incident is actually hidden in the fine print:

The killing of the family was originally reported by the military as due to "insurgent activity," American officials said.