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24 Jul 2006 @ 00:09, by scotty. Violence, War
I recieved this in an email today ..
Robert Fisk: A gripping diary of one week in the life and death of Beirut
Published: 23 July 2006
Sunday 16 July
It is the first time I have actually seen a missile in this war. They fly too fast - or you are too busy trying to run away to look for them - but this morning, Abed and I actually see one pierce the smoke above us. "Habibi (my friend)!" he cries, and I start screaming "Turn the car round, turn it round" and we drive away for our lives from the southern suburbs. As we turn the corner there is a shattering explosion and a mountain of grey smoke blossoming from the road we have just left. What happened to the men and women we saw running for their lives from that Israeli rocket? We do not know. In air raids, all you see is the few square yards around you. You get out and you survive and that is enough.
I go home to my apartment on the Corniche and find that the electricity is cut. Soon, no doubt, the water will be cut. But I sit on my balcony and reflect that I am not crammed into a filthy hotel in Kandahar or Basra but living in my own home and waking each morning in my own bed. Power cuts and fear and the lack of petrol now that Israel is bombing gas stations mean that the canyon of traffic which honks and roars outside my home until two in the morning has gone. When I wake in the night, I hear the birds and the wash of the Mediterranean and the gentle brushing of palm leaves.
I went to buy groceries this evening. There is no more milk but plenty of water and bread and cheese and fish. When Abed pulls up to let me out of the car, the man in the 4x4 behind us puts his hand permanently on the horn, and when I get out of Abed's car, he mouths the words "Kess uchtak" at me. "Fuck your sister." It is the first time I have been cursed in this war. The Lebanese do not normally swear at foreigners. They are a polite people. I hold my hand out, palm down and twist it palm upwards in the Lebanese manner, meaning "what's the problem?". But he drives away. Anyway, I don't have a sister.
Monday 17 July
The phones are still working and my mobile chirrups like a budgerigar. Too many of the calls are from friends who want to know if they should flee Beirut or flee Lebanon or from Lebanese who are outside Lebanon and want to know if they should return. I can hear the bombs rumbling across Hizbollah's area of the southern suburbs but I cannot answer these questions. If I advise friends to stay and they are killed, I am responsible. If I tell them to leave and they are killed in their cars, I am responsible. If I tell them to come back and they die, I am responsible. So I tell them how dangerous Lebanon has become and tell them it is their decision. But I feel great sorrow for them. Many have been refugees four times in 24 years. Today I am called by a Lebanese woman with Lebanese and Iranian citizenship and one child with a US passport and another with only a Lebanese passport. Her situation is hopeless. I suggest she travels to the Christian mountains around Faraya and try to find a chalet. It will be safe there. I hope.
I come back from Kfar Chim where part of an Israeli missile or an aircraft wing has just partially decapitated the driver of a car. He looked so tragic, his head lolling forward in the driver's seat, just looking at all the blood splashing down his body on to the floor. Abed was getting spooked because I spent too long at the scene. The Israelis always come back. "Habibi, you took too long. Never stay that long again!" He is right. The Israelis did come back and bombed the Lebanese army.
Now my housemaid Fidele is spooked. She thinks it is too dangerous to travel from the Christian district of Beirut to my home since the Israelis blew the top off the local lighthouse 400 metres from my front door. Fidele is from Togo and makes fantastic pizzas (I recommend her Pizza Togolaisi to anyone) so I send Abed off to pick up her up and bring her to my home for one hour. She puts my dirty clothes in the washing machine, and after five minutes the power goes off and we have to take them all out and try again tomorrow.
Tuesday 18 July
At 3.45am, I wake to the sound of tank tracks and a big military motor heaving away in the darkness. I go downstairs to find that the Lebanese army has positioned an American-made armoured personnel carrier in the car park opposite my home. It has been placed strategically under some palm trees, as if this will stop Israeli aircraft from spotting it. I don't like this at all and nor does my landlord, Mustafa, who lives downstairs. The Lebanese army is now an occasional target for the Israelis and this little behemoth looks like a palm tree disguised as a tank. Later in the morning, I call a general in the army who is a friend of mine and army operations calls me back to check the location. It takes an hour before they find the car park on their maps. Then I receive another call telling me that the APC is next to my home to prevent the Hizbollah from using the car park to launch another missile at an Israeli ship. The empty American Community School is just up my road. The Lebanese army is defending us.
The first French warship arrives to pick up French citizens fleeing Lebanon. It steams proudly past my balcony. Many French naval vessels are named after great military leaders, and this particular anti-submarine frigate is called the Jean-de-Vienne. I pad off to consult my little library of French history books. Jean de Vienne, it turns out, was a 14th-century French admiral who raided the Sussex town of Rye and the Isle of Wight and who was killed - oh lordy, lordy - fighting in the Crusades against the Muslim Turks. A suitable ship to start France's evacuation of the ancient Crusader port of Beirut.
Wednesday 19 July
Now that the Israelis are destroying whole apartment blocks in the Shia southern suburbs - there is a permanent umbrella of smoke over the seafront, stretching far out into the Mediterranean - tens of thousands of Shia Muslims have come to seek sanctuary in the undamaged part of Beirut, in the parks and schools and beside the sea. They walk back and forth outside my home, the women in chadors, their bearded husbands and brothers silently looking at the sea, their children playing happily around the palm trees. They speak to me with anger about Israel but choose not to discuss the depth of cynicism of the Shia Hizbollah who provoked Israel's brutality by capturing two of its soldiers. As well as the Hizbollah, the Israelis are now targeting food factories and trucks and buses - not to mention 46 bridges - and the bin men are now reluctant to pick up the rubbish skips each night for fear their innocent rubbish truck is mistaken for a missile launcher. So no rubbish collection this morning.
The local Beirut papers are filled with photographs that would never be seen in the pages of a British paper: of decapitated babies and women with no legs or arms or of old men in bits. Israel's air raids are promiscuous and - when you see the results as we now do with our own eyes - obscene. No doubt Hizbollah's equally innocent civilian victims in Israel look like this but the slaughter in Lebanon is on an infinitely more terrible scale. The Lebanese look at these pictures and see them on television - as does the rest of the Arab world - and I wonder how many of them are provoked to think of another 9/11 or 7/7 or whatever the next date will be.
What does war do to people? Later, I am talking to an Austrian journalist and idly ask what her father does. "He drinks," she says. Why? "Because his father was killed at Stalingrad."
I walk across with tea for the soldiers on the APC in the car park. They are all from Baalbek, Shia Muslims. They would never open fire on a Hizbollah missile crew. Then I return home from another visit to the southern suburbs and find they have gone, along with their behemoth. The first good news of the day.
The minister of finance holds a press conference to talk of the billions of dollars of damage being done to Lebanon by Israel's air raids. "We have had pledges of aid from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar," he proudly announces. "And from Syria and Iran?" the man from Irish radio asks, naming Hizbollah's two principal supporters in the Muslim world. "Nothing," the minister replies dismissively.
Thursday 20 July
A bad day for messages. Phone calls from the States to tell me I am an anti-Semite for criticising Israel. Here we go again. To call decent folk anti-Semites is soon going to make anti-Semitism respectable, I tell the callers before asking them to tell the Israeli air force to stop killing civilians. Then a fax from a Jewish friend in California to tell me that a man called Lee Kaplan - "a columnist for the Israel National News", whatever that is - has condemned me in print for developing a "high-paid speaking career among anti-Semites". Unlike Benjamin Netanyahu and many others I can think of, I never take money for lecturing - ever - but to smear the thousands of ordinary Americans who listen to me as anti-Semites is outrageous.
Another fax from the editor of the forthcoming paperback edition of my book, apologising for bothering me at a "very difficult (sic) time" but promising to send me page proofs by DHL which is still operating to Beirut. I go downtown to check this with DHL. Yes, the man says, parcels for Lebanon are sent to Jordan and then in a truck via Damascus to Beirut. A truck, I say to myself. Ouch.
Friday 21 July
The Israelis have just bombed Khiam prison. An interesting target since this was the jail in which Israel's former proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, used to torture male prisoners by attaching electrodes to their penises and female prisoners by electrocuting their breasts. When the Israeli army retreated in 2000, the Hizbollah turned the prison into a museum. Now the evidence of the SLA's cruelty has been erased. Another "terrorist" target.
The power comes back at home at 11pm and I watch Israel's consul general, Arye Mekel, telling the BBC that Israel is "doing the Lebanese a favour" by bombing Hizbollah, insisting that "most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing". So now I understand. The Lebanese must thank the Israelis for destroying their lives and infrastructure. They must be grateful for all the air strikes and the dead children. It's as if the Hizbollah claimed that Israelis should be grateful to them for attacking Zionism. How far can self-delusion reach?
Saturday 22 July
I have coffee in my landlord's garden and he climbs an old wooden ladder into his fig tree and brings me a plate of fruit. "Every day it gives us our figs," he tells me. "We sit under our tree in the afternoon and with the breeze off the sea, it is like air conditioning." I look at his little paradise of pot plants and sip my Arabic coffee from a little blue mug. We watch the warships sliding into Beirut port. "What will happen when all the foreigners have gone?" he asks. That's what we are all asking. We shall find out this week.
************************************************************************************
I don't know what the hell is going on over there in the middle east - I do know that somehow this madness has to end ..... it must end !!
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 22 Jul 2006 @ 07:07, by judih. Violence, War
...........
early morning brings latest news
sinking heart
escalation of conflicts
engagement in battle
...........
More >
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 5 Jul 2006 @ 16:17, by scotty. Violence, War
I came across a really intersting article yesterday and decided to share it with you all...
Zionism & Judaism...
Comparing Apples To Rocks
By Judy Andreas
[link]
June 10, 2005
As a young person, I was taught that there are three things one must never discuss...... politics, religion and sex. My response was "what else is there to talk about?" I have always found those topics interesting to study, question and discuss.
I call myself a "truth seeker," and my pursuit of truth has led me down some long and winding roads. I was born of Jewish parents, became an atheist in my late teens (it seemed so hip) and ultimately became immersed in psychology. From the readings of Carl Jung, it was a short hop into the realm of metaphysics. My metaphysical pursuits led me to Hinduism where I experienced Shaktipat with a Guru. Next came Buddhism, which, although peace loving, lacked the passion I craved. Eventually, a book about Vedanta introduced me to Jesus Christ.
As a child of Jewish parents, the mention of the name Jesus had been verboten. This was, in part, because my mother had been raised in a neighborhood in which part of the celebration of Easter included throwing stones at my mother and her family and calling them "Christ killers" However, I had not had my mother's experience. The Christ according to Vedanta was a loving being.
I took to the words of Jesus and was baptized in 1991. Christianity was fine until you got past the teachings of Jesus and entered the realm of Paul's "hell fire and brimstone." The "exclusivity" of the religion and the need to chapter and verse people over the head with two by fours, sent me running from the church.
The Wiccan religion was probably my favorite ....... More >
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29 Jun 2006 @ 22:44, by vaxen. Violence, War
I'm terrorized in my own land
And the blame is put on me.
But I will not rest, I shall never settle
For the injustice my people endure.
Palestine is OUR land and there we'll remain
Until the day OUR homeland is secure.
And if that time shall never come,
Then we will never see a day of peace.
I will not be thrown from my own home,
Nor will fight for justice cease. More >
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 25 Jun 2006 @ 17:53, by judih. Violence, War
[link]
How it happened: Militants infiltrated post via 300m tunnel
By Haaretz Staff
The gunmen launched their attack at approximately 5:00 A.M. Eight militants infiltrated Israeli territory via a tunnel adjacent to the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing. More >
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 5 Jun 2006 @ 10:30, by scotty. Violence, War
I’m not Arab - I’m not Muslim - I’m not Jewish …I don’t know much about Middle East politics so why should I even care ?
The hardships of the occupation are creating a decline in quality of life and many innocent people are dying .
This is a conflict in which neither Palestinians nor Israelis are benefiting. Families are mourning on both sides of the security fence.
OK more people are dying in Sudan and Tibet is occupied too and the AIDS epidemic in Africa is getting worse. So - why should I care about what happens in Palestine? More >
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25 May 2006 @ 20:40, by vaxen. Violence, War
"So do I accept the mass extermination of the human herd and shuffle off quietly to the dissenter camp — Camp Ashcroft, I like to call it. In most times these opponents of the herd program would be rehabilitated, retrained, as Orwell suggested in 1984. But now the herd is so big that all these camps have no facilities, no purpose except as secure extermination facilities. Maybe the answer to the fuel problem, ey? Maybe Soylent Green." -- J. Kaminsky More >
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30 Mar 2006 @ 19:22, by gsosbee. Violence, War
Nervous tension is reflected in the following headline statements by U.S. leaders:
Rice: World United Against Iran in Dispute .
Hawk John Bolton: the US will use all tools at its disposal.
Cheney:Israel might act first and "let the rest of the world worry about picking up the diplomatic pieces afterwards" *.
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Sosbee responds: Careful girls , the world presently does not accept your (or the fbi/cia) menacing plans to subjugate the people of Earth (after all, if you for example put a gun to my head and ask for my cooperation and allegiance to your evil agenda, guess what I would do).
As for Cheney's irresponsible innuendos regarding the Jewish State's apparent threats of attack: You seem to shoot (now from the mouth regarding war, then from the shotgun regarding your real life recklessness) striking your own friends in the face (both at home literally and abroad figuratively)without asking yourself "why" ; try picking up their pieces, mR. Vice .
To Bolton I must say : you little sir, are a broken sparrow;watch and I will show you the meaning of the word, "Hawk" .
Rice- those who take you seriously are as befuddled as you and your boss.
Back to the topic:Any incendiary rhetoric (such as that quoted above)issuing from your mouths simply feeds the fires of distrust, over your inhumane global intentions, emanating from every corner of the globe. You three characters quoted above (and the reference to the Israeli 'act') invite the scorn of all nations who see the threats as another symptom of the uSA's hopelessly failed leadership.
----------------
[link]
* The same was said in Viet Nam; where were y'all during that bloodbath?
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29 Mar 2006 @ 00:27, by gsosbee. Violence, War
The stated objectives of the fbi agents in the world today are summarized below by Geral W. Sosbee (who also takes the liberty to edit same in order to highlight the lunacy of this misguided band of thugs):Note that these assassins pretend to know the meaning of the term, "public good", even as they (the fbi agents and their cia cowardly & evil counterparts )murder, torture and imprison good and innocent people worldwide:
excerpted from [link]
MEMBERSHIP
The FBIAA currently has a membership of approximately 7,700 active duty agents, representing about 70% of agents presently employed by the Bureau.
The FBI Agents Association
PO Box 250
New Rochelle, New York 10801
Telephone: (914) 235-7580
Fax: (914) 235-8235
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The Agenda
(as summarized by Geral W. Sosbee)
To promote and encourage public... support for the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. To advance ... the careers, economic interests... of FBI Agents .... To enhance mutual understanding between the FBI and FBI Special Agents....
To promote ties of comradeship... between all law enforcement officers, all for the public good. To perpetuate the memories ... of agents....
To carry out... legislative activity to further the above goals. To function as an advocate in legal... matters as required by the best interest of the membership.
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The above statements were written by the fbi leaders (though edited by Sosbee); any careful reading of the goals cited above (in the context of an understanding of the gestapo tactics regularly employed by the members of this rogue and murderous agency) reveals that the fbi actually believes that it (the agents, operatives and other miscreants of the fbi)are a little government unto themselves, with executive and legislative powers to make and to enforce whatever laws support their economic and fraternal interests; these same fools also assume the power to influence the courts through perjury, suppression of evidence and intimidation.
See:
[link]
See Also:
[link]
See Also:
[link]
(Part One: COINTELPRO)
Finally, the failure of the United States Congress and the judiciary to discipline the rogues in government (at all levels)indicates that these overpaid officials in all branches of government are hopeless fatcats, lethargic, mesmeric and dull in their handling of this nation's most pressing issues. These slovenly legislators and judges no longer serve a useful function in their respective offices and they should be removed from power.
Today the fbi freely engages in murder, torture, false imprisonment and forced suicides at the discretion of the various "Bosses" within that agency. The congress and the courts are silent co-conspirators in the fbi/cia sponsored global fascist state. Any Questions ?
-------- ----------
Ex-FBI Agents Support Accused Colleague
By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer Thu Mar 30, 4:52 AM ET
NEW YORK
"Re:Prosecutors were expected to announce an indictment against 65-year-old R. Lindley DeVecchio on Thursday.
James Kossler (former fbi NY supervisor) , former FBI assistant director James Kallstrom, ex-agent Joe Pistone — known for infiltrating the mob as Donnie Brasco — and other supporters from the federal law enforcement community have begun raising money for DeVecchio's defense on a Web site.
The site notes that the agent already was cleared in previous investigations, and it attributes the renewed allegations to convicted mob turncoats eager to lie in exchange for leniency.
*Scarpa died in prison in 1994 after contracting HIV in a blood transfusion from one of his crime family associates."
____________________________________________________________________
Sosbee notes that the fbi former agents (and no doubt current fbi agents as well) are running to the defense of an associate because they know that if they don't, the barn door will open wider for many fbi criminals (and other undercover fbi agent mob figures ) to be exposed for the murderers and organized thugs that they are. The fact that the famous Kallstrom (mentioned above) leads the charge in defense of DeVecchio should awaken all citizens of the United States (and Texas- where Kallstrom is well known) that this man , Kallstrom, is quite simply an apologist for assassins; but to be kind to Kallstrom, during his fbi career he may simply have only known of or approved the kind of atrocities now alleged against DeVecchio.
for more see:
[link]
*Regarding the statement that Scarpa contracted HIV in prison , all the world should be sceptical as the fbi has the ability, the motive and the opportunity to intentionally implant Scarpa with the virus.
Further, the above statement that the renewed allegations against DeVecchio are made by mob figures "in exchange for leniency", Sosbee responds as follows:
Well, my little fbi murderous punks, active and retired, is this not what you have encouraged and orchestrated against those you set up for death or imprisonment over the past 100 years (i.e.: grant leniency or special favors in return for prosecutorial testimony against those you target) ? Yes, the record confirms that such low tactic is the hallmark of your fascist success story in courts across the land.
Finally, while *DeVecchio is as a matter of law innocent until proven guilty, the many crimes committed by the fbi agents and operatives (both in overt and covert operations) must become known to the general public in order to control or to dismantle the fbi global crime syndicate.
_________________________________________________________
July 14, 2006
*The following info is excerpted from:
[link]
"Lin DeVecchio accused
After a career serving law enforcement and the fight against organized crime, Lin DeVecchio has been accused of having participated in five homicides. A committee has been formed to support Lin in defending these false and unwarranted allegations. It includes former Assistant Directors, Deputy Assistant Directors in Charge, Special Agents in Charge, Assistant Special Agents in Charge and other FBI Supervisors who knew (and know) Lin well. "
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geral Sosbee writes:
What business do these fbi punks have in defending a colleague who is accused of killing 5 people? What other crimes may he have committed, condoned, orchestrated, or sponsored during his dirty tour of duty in the fbi?
The public must have the answers to these and many other questions; the high ranking former fbi officials mentioned above need to come out from the shadows, stop hiding their identities, so that we may investigate their motives for staging this possibly treasonous efforts to protect a possible serial killer in their ranks. I suspect that when all information is released, whether in this or the next century, the crimes of Lin DeVecchio's defenders (from the fbi) will be seen and documented as equal to (or more heinous in scope than) those alleged against DeVecchio.
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26 Mar 2006 @ 05:11, by odamour. Violence, War
I would like to communicate my reflexions of psychoanalyst to you on causes conscious and unconscious of terrorisms and wars, in order to become aware of the more effective actions of assistance to the most stripped ones, which in a state of survival, are ready to die for not that their species dies, and to offer reflexions to most affluent, so that all have the possibility of being released from this more or less unconscious fight for survival, by reflexions and the durable development which offers to help itself has to have vital essence, that is its human ecosystem, habitat integrating a garden to be autonomous in vital energy, to hope to put a term at the wars in becomming respectfull with all individuals on our planetary being.
Sincerely, Magnet O DAmour More >
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