International Jury for Lebanon

Not for Hariri, for Lebanon. It is a mock jury made by activists, jurists, Human Rights advocates, and Political scientists, it will examine Israel's war crimes in Lebanon.

Brussels, February 22nd, 23rd and 24th, 2008

Belgian blogger Annie has the complete info on her website.

Weapons of Mass and Durable Destruction in Vietnam and the ME

Three decades after US soldiers and diplomats scrambled aboard the last planes out of Saigon in April 1975, the toxins they left behind still poison Vietnam.

In the 3,160 villages in the southern part of Vietnam within the Agent Orange spraying zone, 800,000 people continue to suffer serious health problems and are in need of constant medical attention. Last month, members of a US Vietnamese working group reported that it will cost at least $14m to remove dioxin residues from just one site around the former US airbase in Danang. The cost of a comprehensive clean-up around three dioxin hotspots and former US bases is estimated at around $60m. The $3m pledged by US Congress last year is a pathetically inadequate amount set against the billions spent in waging war and deploying weapons of mass destruction.

This, as well as Israel's use of outrageously huge amounts of cluster bombs in south Lebanon in 2006, most of them leftovers from US's munitions from the Vietnam war era, will certainly go unnoticed and unpunished while these same countries are waging and threatening wars in the ME in the name of cleaning the area from WMD. I think the lesson to be learned from Vietnam is that the goal of USrael is not to clean the region from WMD but to inundate it with its own, threreby renewing its stock, feeding the war industry, and prolonging the war effects on the ennemy's civilian population, in the absence of a clear military victory against the ennemy.

HRW: Flooding South Lebanon. Israel’s Use of Cluster Munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006.

UPDATE: For a more complete information go and visit Gorilla's Gguides' article which cites this one and expands on it by adding more sources and information.

More from Gorilla's: What a nice way of saying "genocide" (part 2)

And this is how This Old Brit feels about it all.

The General Of The Dead Army

Hezbollah says they have in their possession body parts of Israeli soldiers dead during the July 2006 agression on Lebanon and abandoned on the battlefield by the Israeli army. (Reuters 19.01.08. 22h30 by Yara Bayoumy,)

I read this yesterday and asked myself what is the point of Israeli soldiers' body parts thrown in the middle of a speech on 'Achoura day ? 'Achoura for the Shias designates the tenth day of the first month of the Muslim year during which the community commemorates the killing on year 680, at the orders of the Umayyad Caliph, of Imam Husayn, son of Imam Ali, and grand'son of the prophet. It is a day of atonement, remembrance and mourning.

"O zionists, your army has been lying to you. Parts of your dead soldiers' bodies were left behind in our fields and in our orchards", Nasrallah declared to a crowd of hundred thousands gathered for the commemoration of 'Achoura.
"Our moudjahidins are used to fight these zionists, to kill them and to keep whatever left of their bodies (...) I am telling Israelis, We have your soldiers heads, we have their hands, we have their legs", added Nasrallah, who was speaking on a rare appearance. He has not been seen in a public appearance since months.

The 34 days of the Israeli agression on Lebanon left Israel with 157 deaths, most of them soldiers, while there were more than 1200 victims on the Lebanese side, mostly civilians.
"We even possess an entire body, we also have half bodies or more, from the head to the chest", insisited the head of Hezbollah.

Israel condemned the speech as a disregard for elementary humanitarian principles and even the religious principles of Islam. Some in Israel were of the opinion to ignore the speech as not to give importance to Nasrallah. Some analysts believe that Nasrallah's speech is meant to pressure Israel into releasing Lebanese prisoners in exchange of the two Israeli soldiers detained by Hezbollah and whose kidnapping officially started the 34 days Israeli agression on Lebanon. Twice this month, Israel detained temporarily for interrogation, from Lebanese territory, two Lebanese shepherds. Israel continues also to violate Lebanon's airspace almost daily.

"We believe that Israeli attacks against civilians on the border are humiliations for the lebanese nation and its people. We cannot stay silent in the face of these attacks and we must confront them one day, if God's willing." Threatened Nasrallah.

The head of Hezbollah doubted the capacity of the political and military leadership of Israel to launch another war on Lebanon. But he added that if this were to happen, "We promise them a war that will change the destiny of the region."

Despite the fact that it was delivered to a civil audience, and on a religious occasion, Nasrallah's speech is 100% military speech, destined in the first place to Israel's implicit Lebanese allies, Sanyura, Hariri, and March 14th. Everybody knows that an army that respects itself doesn't leave bodies of soldiers behind or, if it leaves them, it tries to have them back by time of peace either through negotiations or through war. Israel has been ignoring this fact and doing neither, probably becuse it neither wants negotiations nor another defeat.

The theme of dead soldiers' bodies and armies' honor has inspired poets and novelists. One of the most interesting novels on the subject was written by Albanian author Ismail Kadare, "The General Of The Dead Army".

Twenty years after World War II, an Italian general, armed with maps, measurements, and dental records, and accompanied by a priest, is sent to Albania to recover the remains of his country’s fallen soldiers. In addition to the brutal weather, they have to be wary of the hostility of the Albanians working for them. This may be an errand of mercy for the general, but the chance to humiliate their one-time conquerors offers the Albanians a welcome vengeance. But there is an escalation, at a wedding, the Italian general must answer for the crimes of his country and all countries that have invaded this 'land of eagles', seeking to destroy its people.

Beside the fact that Nasrallah is emulating Imam Ali's speeches, this speech is clearly a challenge for Israel to revisit the battlefield where it was defeated because an army that leaves its soldiers behind is an army without honor. Some may think that Nasrallah has gone mad. Why provoke Israel ? To receive the same reply as in July 2006? But we are now in 2008, and, through Israel and its defeat in 2006, Nasrallah is sending a signal to his opponents in Lebanon who are refusing any compromise. We know that Sanyura and March 14th were hoping for a swift Israeli victory over Hezbollah in 2006. Nasrallah is now taunting them. He is showing them how not even Israel wants to visit its battlefield with Hezbollah once again.

Lebanon is going through its worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, and negotiations between the Hezbollah led oppostion and the government on a consensus presidential candidate are stalling to the point many are evoking the risk of a new civil war. Nasrallah has stated on many occasions that Hezbollah will never use its military power against other Lebanese, as he has never done so in the past, an act from which Hezbollah takes pride and popularity. Nasrallah was conciliatory to a maximum with the government and March 14th who are showing no will to talk to his powerful alliance, betting on the inability of Hezbollah to engage in internal warfare and risk losing its popularity. And so Nasrallah is sending a signal to the Sanyura government telling them that Hezbollah can engage at any time in hostilities against Israel, recreating the kind of consensus around him that emerged spontaneously during the Israeli agression on Lebanon. This might be Sanyura's and March 14th's worst nightmare. They would rather prefer a civil war in which they receive US and Israeli support to terminate Hezbollah. But Nasrallah is fully aware of this and aware that this is exactly what is behind the stalling of the negotiations on the future president while the country is without a president since the end of August. So if one party is determined not to engage in a civil war when it had many chances to do so during the last two years, there won't be a civil war, despite the many efforts made by Saudi paid Sunni extremists, renegades from the Iraqi insurgency, to throw chaos in Lebanon leading to a new civil war.

Then the only way this is going to end is, most probably, and if Hezbollah has the means, by a new war with Israel. And don't expect Israel to listen to Sanyura or any other anti-Hezbollah politician in Lebanon, but it will do so only when feels the time is right. Now, fresh from ist defeat, the time isn't right for Israel to launch another war on Lebanon. Hence, Nasrallah,s taunting of Israel about its dead soldiers left behind. Recently, the web has been buzzing with reports from military strategists reflecting on the Israeli debacle against Hezbollah in July 2006 and on future prospects.

And so it seems that Nasrallah's mention of Israel's dead soldiers held by Hezbollah is just a reminder to the lousy politicians in Lebanon that an agreement is unescapable.

UPDATE ON february 16th: Sanyura warns Hezbollah that an open war against israel is bad for Arabs and Muslims.
Le Hezbollah affirme détenir des "restes" de soldats israéliens.

Cluster Bombs: Foreseeable Harm

Just Foreign Policy and Jewish Voice for Peace have launched a petition, hosted by Democracy In Action, in support of legislation s.594 written by senators Patrick Leahy and Diane Feinstein to restrict the sale and use of cluster bombs.
Israel dropped over a million cluster bombs on heavily populated areas in south Lebanon last summer, 90% of them were dropped during the last three days before the official ceasefire took effect.
Israel was even delaying the application of the ceasefire when it dropped the bombs.
Clearly, Israel not only meant but planned and intended harm to civilian populations in south Lebanon when it dropped the million bombs over an area only about two thousand Km2. The results of Israel's use of these bombs have been felt well after the end of the July war which left more than thousand civilians, among them a majority of children and elderly, dead. Cluster bombs killed well after the ceasefire. During the first months post ceasefire there have been over 22 deaths in Lebanon, again most of them children. Villagers in south Lebanon have been unable to harvest their orchards and walk in their fields. Cluster bombs are a silent unreported and an illegl war when the official and media reported war is over.
This use was aknowledged by Israel and condemned by humanitarian organisations and the UN.
In the US, who is the provider of these bombs, there have been some aknowledgment of a breach of the official agreement on the use of these bombs but no official condemnation. According to its six year history relations with Israel, the Bush administration is unlikely to take any action against Israel neither toward a more restrictive use of these bombs. I think we have to seize the opportunity given to us by the senators who wrote the new legislation on cluster bombs and support their initiative. Although, a total ban of these bombs would be preferrable to more restrictions (because initial restrictions were not respected), this is all we have now to go forward and try to defend the fundamental rights of civilians caught in war zones.
Please sign the petition here.

Damned Proud Killers !

Serials, contrary to accidental killers, always like to boast about their superiority, their actions, and their crimes. In his recent revelations on what was going on behind the scenes during the July war of Israeli agression on Lebanon, John Bolton just says loud what everybody has been suspecting, that the US, UK, and the international community at large were blocking a ceasefire in Lebanon, hoping that Israel was going to destroy Hezbollah ! I have written elsewhere on this blog that Hezbollah and its allies are more than 50 % of the Lebanese population and that Hezbollah is unlike any islamist organisation; it is not a criminal network, it is a resistance movement and a national political organisation (not an exported network of terror like Al Qaida); it is part of the Lebanese political landscape, has elected representatives in the parliament and ministers in the government. It enjoys wide popular support in Lebanon and Lebanese consider Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance movement to Israel.

Mr Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire.

Also in the BBC programme, several key players claim that, privately, there were Arab leaders who also wanted Israel to destroy Hezbollah.

More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and an unknown number (less than 100) of Hezbollah fighters were killed in the conflict.

At the time, Ms Rice, US secretary of state, declared that the Israeli agression on Lebanon and its fallouts of displaced civilians (around a million) and dead civilians (more than a thousand mostly women and children) 'were the pangs of birth of a new Middle East'.

South Lebanon, mainly agriculture based, is now littered with US made cluster bombs which continue to kill to this day preventing peasants from harvesting their cultures.

Bolton, who is proud of his actions, was a prominent friend of the pro-Sanyura, pro-Hariri, 14th March movement in Lebanon who honored him in NYC, 2 months before the israeli agression, with the Shield of the Cedar commemorating the now deceased 2005 (thanks mainly to the Israeli agression on Lebanon) Cedar Revolution.

Listen to Bolton speaking to Radio Canada's host Carol Off yesterday (first segment of As It Happens, 8 minutes)

Galloway On Sanyura

The Osterley Times has posted this video in which George Galloway, the famous British MP, relates an encounter with Fouad Sanyura just after the last Israeli agression on Lebanon. The video is less than 2 minutes, it is funny and it tells a lot about Sanyura...

Images of the Israeli agressions in Gaza and Lebanon and Muslim public opinion

The photo above was taken last sunday in Istanbul, Turkey, near the Eyyup Mosque. The banner was displayed in many places in Istanbul by a human rights group in a donations drive effort for the people of Palestine and Lebanon. Behind the banner there was a tent hosting a charity bazaar. The place was crowded. The little girls on the photo were accompanied by their mother and little brother who stood at the left, outside the picture. My attention was first focused on the banner trying to understand what was written on it. I noticed the girls when I decided to take a photo because I was waiting for the crowd who would gather in front of the banner to clear. The little girls kept going back and forth between their mother and the center of the banner pointing to the images of the latest Israeli agressions in Gaza and Lebanon and they did this for the whole time I was there, about ten minutes. The most famous (or infamous) photographs of the Israeli agressions were on the banner: the little Israeli girl signing the bombs with a 'from the children of Israel to the children of Lebanon' . Finally I decided to include them in the picture and they were still standing there when I left. I wondered what the girls were saying to their mother and what their mother might have told them about the terrible images.

The Eyyup mosque stands at the base of the Pierre Loti hill and is visited mostly on sundays by families. After the prayer, entire families, as well as couples, walk up the hill through the cemetary or take the cable car to the top to gather at the terrace of the Pierre Loti Café and sip tea or coffee while enjoying the scenic views of the golden horn and Istanbul. On this particular sunday, the mosque and the bazaar were busy with families coming to celebrate the 'Sunnet' of their 10 year old boys. The celebration is meant to mark the beginning of the age of manhood for boys who are dressed for this particular day like princes and courted by their little brothers, sisters, parents, grand'parents and the extended family.
I wondered what all these Muslims, living in a secular country like Turkey, might have felt inside them by seeing the images of the Israeli agressions on the banner ? What might they have discussed between them and with their children on the topic while sitting and chatting at the Pierre Loti café after the prayer ?

Terrible thoughts crossed my mind: whatever the causes of the recent Israeli agressions on Arab and mostly Muslim civilians, there was no rational and moral justification and no explanation for it, whatever the impact of these agressions, their main and most durable fallout seems to be the misunderstandings and the hate they were building between people of the middle east for generations to come.

I had an irrational fear :
As the war on terror is, from the point of view of USrael, a war on Muslim terror;
and
As the war on Muslim terror is producing casualties mainly among civilians, therefore Muslim civilians, and a lot of opression if we think of Iraq, AbuGhraib and Guantanamo;
and
If there was to be any 'rational' justification to all the nonsense produced by the war on terror (and there may not be any);
It follows that the war on terror's main apparent 'rational' intent is to inflame Muslim public opinion.

Communities tend to stand together in the face of danger and challenges. Since the end of the Ottoman empire, between unjust authoritarian regimes and western opression via Israel's hegemonic wars in the ME, the majority of Muslims in the ME were never able to taste the luxury of individualism that is the immediate and main consequence of a peaceful life and economic development. The absence of physical and moral danger on individuals and of the fears that accompany them are the necessary and sufficient conditions for personal development. No fool will stand alone in the face of oddities. Other animal species have understood this before us. The most common understanding of the theory of Natural Selection is that selection favours genes. However this unimodal and mainstream explanation of selection and adaptation was always challenged by other ones which state that selection is also exerted at the individual and at the group-species levels, and not only at the gene level. Few years ago, philosopher Elliott Sober and biologist David Sloane Wilson wrote an authoritative essay on the subject titled 'Unto others: the evolution and psychology of unselfish behaviour' which became instantly a necessary reading in the field in which they argue that the psychology of unselfish behaviour finds its roots in its biology and that genes and individuals might have played a secondary role in evolution when the selection pressure was more challenging for the survival of the group. Because the survival of the individual and the dissemination of its genes in the species depend mostly on the survival of the group.

The 'War on Terror', as conducted by the US and Israel in the ME, is cementing Muslim communautarism to the extent that this communautarism is reaching secular Muslims in secular countries and Turkey is a clear example. I was in Istanbul the day after the last terrorist attacks in Turkey. I left Istanbul the day after the parliament voted the participation of their armed forces in the multinational force in Lebanon. From my discussions with Turkish people, I felt a strong support for Lebanese and Palestinians and I was not wrong in this impression because I found a poll published by the Economist in its August 19th-25th issue in which more than 60 % of Turkish people claimed they sympathise more with Palestinians than with Israelis while less than 3 % claimed the contrary. In its latest issue, the Economist publishes an article arguing that the radical Islam temptation is running high among kurds. In defense of this thesis the article lists the fact that it was a Muslim group called the 'Kurdistan Freedom Falcons' that claimed the responsibility for the latest attacks against foreigners and the fact that radical Muslim temptation existed before among kurds but was used by Turkish authorities to fight the marxist PKK. This temptation is being fueled by 'anti-Israel and anti-American passions running high across Turkey' and being particularly dangerous in kurdish regions. While I don't agree completely with their analysis because I don't think that the Islamist temptation among kurds can add a particular or an additional menace for Turkey because, Islamist or not, the kurdish separatist issue is destabilising for the region and kurds may turn out to be, as they were before, the sacrificial lamb of conflicting interests, I do hope that Turkey will succeed in resolving these complexe issues related to its future because this is a country where Islam has proved to be able to coexist with secularism, development and the individual quest for the good and ordinary life outside communautarist temptations*.

However, I fear that some on both sides of this wide fabricated conflict that is the 'war on terror' who are not interested in having this model of Islam in Turkey may try to destabilise it through the Kurdish separatist issue. Awakening Muslim communautarist temptations is erasing differences of opinions within communities and between communities of Muslims not only in diversly Muslim and secular Turkey but also worldwide.

The 'War on terror' is a dangerous imposture meant to produce or provoke on the ground a reality for its 'rational justification' out of false premices. By bombing, humiliating, intimidating and menacing Muslim innocents at a large scale to supposedly avenge the misdeeds of the few, Israel and the US and western countries who are accomplices of this imposture are making sure that there will be no Good Muslims and Bad Muslims, but only Muslims !

Israel's last agression on Lebanon and willingly indiscriminate shelling of lebanese civilians is a clear example of this tactic.

* You can read here a previous post I wrote about the quest for ordinary life as a modern moral value.