you don't know whether to slap him upside his head or pay for his therapy...

flava flave "the flavor of love"

ok , we admit that at times you have to laugh at his blatant absurdity and we at deskRat admit to having inherited a bit of the "clown gene" ourselves , but is there any redeeming social value remotely connected to this knucklehead since his "public enemy" days ?

i'm not against this brother personally , or the idea of any other brother , or sister getting paid , but in an era when clowns and legions of inarticulate , undereducated athletes , thugs and faux-criminals among us get top billing in terms of recognition and money , do these brothers and sisters have to get their recognition and paychecks at the expense of the image of the rest of us ?

this situation is especially discouraging since there are many aspiring , talented , intelligent blacks in the entertainment industry-- including brothers UNLIKE flava flave , WHO ACTUALLY DO take care of their kids and who refuse to compromise their dignity , or our people's dignity and can't get sufficient work in the industry .

again , we see how the jewish entrepreneurs have carved out an entertainment niche of their own , serving their agenda and interests , telling their story to the world while offering their artists on each side of the camera , opportunities to showcase their skills, and show a profit without sacrificing their collective dignity.

we see how india's "bollywood" cranks out motion picture after motion picture--enough to justify their own awards ceremonies and a host of tv programs in india and the india diaspora that acts as global feeders of public attention into the bollywood phenomena .

the spanish-speaking community has several tv channels of their own , especially those featuring their soap operas , or "novelas" as they are called , but as raunchy , or as silly as some of the shows may at some times be , the programming seems balanced enough not to present a badly distorted image of latinos .


nigeria has its "nollywood" --a film industry that is making its mark on the world and as it improves and expands , holds potential to globally surpass the other "woods" of the planet .


in the arab world there is the advent of al-jazeera , al minar , the various gulf states media and as the recent war between israel and hezbollah revealed , even hezbollah has a concerted , coordinated media effort and tv channel that tells their story and presents them to the world in a positive light.

meanwhile , as other groups get their media/entertainment acts together , america's branch of the african diaspora , though replete with talent , continues to flounder rudderlessly , mainly because of an "every ni_ _a for himself" attitude still rampant among us , a chronic lack of organization , a lack of vision as to WHERE we wish to go and a lack of WILL to get there .

unfortunately since the days of the efforts of oscar micheaux , we have failed to organize and do as others have done and build "an empire of our own " .

because of this , we are left with the gangstas , the thugs , the video hoes , the ballers , the flava flave court jesters , or the racially confused , self hating , spoiled brat-child divas like the character played by this otherwise talented , lovely actress


on the "critically acclaimed" tv show girlfriends

did they bull-sh_ _ us again ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/
Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Published Thursday 17th August 2006 09:42 GMT

Binary liquid explosives are a sexy staple of Hollywood thrillers. It would be tedious to enumerate the movie terrorists who've employed relatively harmless liquids that, when mixed, immediately rain destruction upon an innocent populace, like the seven angels of God's wrath pouring out their bowls full of pestilence and pain.

The funny thing about these movies is, we never learn just which two chemicals can be handled safely when separate, yet instantly blow us all to kingdom come when combined. Nevertheless, we maintain a great eagerness to believe in these substances, chiefly because action movies wouldn't be as much fun if we didn't.

Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?

We're told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane.

Or at least that's what we're hearing, and loudly, through the mainstream media and its legions of so-called "terrorism experts." But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard.
Better killing through chemistry

Making a quantity of TATP sufficient to bring down an airplane is not quite as simple as ducking into the toilet and mixing two harmless liquids together.

First, you've got to get adequately concentrated hydrogen peroxide. This is hard to come by, so a large quantity of the three per cent solution sold in pharmacies might have to be concentrated by boiling off the water. Only this is risky, and can lead to mission failure by means of burning down your makeshift lab before a single infidel has been harmed.

But let's assume that you can obtain it in the required concentration, or cook it from a dilute solution without ruining your operation. Fine. The remaining ingredients, acetone and sulfuric acid, are far easier to obtain, and we can assume that you've got them on hand.

Now for the fun part. Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drinks bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane. It's all right to mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, so long as it remains cool. Don't forget to bring several frozen gel-packs (preferably in a Styrofoam chiller deceptively marked "perishable foods"), a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper. You're going to need them.

It's best to fly first class and order Champagne. The bucket full of ice water, which the airline ought to supply, might possibly be adequate - especially if you have those cold gel-packs handy to supplement the ice, and the Styrofoam chiller handy for insulation - to get you through the cookery without starting a fire in the lavvie.
Easy does it

Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else.

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.

The genius of this scheme is that TATP is relatively easy to detonate. But you must make enough of it to crash the plane, and you must make it with care to assure potency. One needs quality stuff to commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," as Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson put it. While it's true that a slapdash concoction will explode, it's unlikely to do more than blow out a few windows. At best, an infidel or two might be killed by the blast, and one or two others by flying debris as the cabin suddenly depressurizes, but that's about all you're likely to manage under the most favorable conditions possible.

We believe this because a peer-reviewed 2004 study (http://www.technion.ac.il/~keinanj/pub/122.pdf) in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) entitled "Decomposition of Triacetone Triperoxide is an Entropic Explosion" tells us that the explosive force of TATP comes from the sudden decomposition of a solid into gasses. There's no rapid oxidizing of fuel, as there is with many other explosives: rather, the substance changes state suddenly through an entropic process, and quickly releases a respectable amount of energy when it does. (Thus the lack of ingredients typically associated with explosives makes TATP, a white crystalline powder resembling sugar, difficult to detect with conventional bomb sniffing gear.)
Mrs. Satan

By now you'll be asking why these jihadist wannabes didn't conspire simply to bring TATP onto planes, colored with a bit of vegetable dye, and disguised as, say, a powdered fruit-flavored drink. The reason is that they would be afraid of failing: TATP is notoriously sensitive and unstable. Mainstream journalists like to tell us that terrorists like to call it "the mother of Satan." (Whether this reputation is deserved, or is a consequence of homebrewing by unqualified hacks, remains open to debate.)

It's been claimed that the 7/7 bombers used it, but this has not been positively confirmed. Some sources claim that they used C-4, and others that they used RDX. Nevertheless, the belief that they used TATP has stuck with the media, although going about in a crowded city at rush hour with an unstable homebrew explosive in a backpack is not the brightest of all possible moves. It's surprising that none of the attackers enjoyed an unscheduled launch into Paradise.

So, assuming that the homebrew variety of TATP is highly sensitive and unstable - or at least that our inept jihadists would believe that - to avoid getting blown up in the taxi on the way to the airport, one might, if one were educated in terror tactics primarily by hollywood movies, prefer simply to dump the precursors into an airplane toilet bowl and let the mother of Satan work her magic. Indeed, the mixture will heat rapidly as TATP begins to form, and it will soon explode. But this won't happen with much force, because little TATP will have formed by the time the explosion occurs.

We asked University of Rhode Island Chemistry Professor Jimmie C. Oxley, who has actual, practical experience with TATP, if this is a reasonable assumption, and she tolds us that merely dumping the precursors together would create "a violent reaction," but not a detonation.

To release the energy needed to bring down a plane (far more difficult to do than many imagine, as Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Flight_243) neatly illustrates), it's necessary to synthesize a good amount of TATP with care.

Jack Bauer sense

So the fabled binary liquid explosive - that is, the sudden mixing of hydrogen peroxide and acetone with sulfuric acid to create a plane-killing explosion, is out of the question. Meanwhile, making TATP ahead of time carries a risk that the mission will fail due to premature detonation, although it is the only plausible approach.

Certainly, if we can imagine a group of jihadists smuggling the necessary chemicals and equipment on board, and cooking up TATP in the lavatory, then we've passed from the realm of action blockbusters to that of situation comedy.

It should be small comfort that the security establishments of the UK and the USA - and the "terrorism experts" who inform them and wheedle billions of dollars out of them for bomb puffers and face recognition gizmos and remote gait analyzers and similar hi-tech phrenology gear - have bought the Hollywood binary liquid explosive myth, and have even acted upon it.

We've given extraordinary credit to a collection of jihadist wannabes with an exceptionally poor grasp of the mechanics of attacking a plane, whose only hope of success would have been a pure accident. They would have had to succeed in spite of their own ignorance and incompetence, and in spite of being under police surveillance for a year.

But the Hollywood myth of binary liquid explosives now moves governments and drives public policy. We have reacted to a movie plot. Liquids are now banned in aircraft cabins (while crystalline white powders would be banned instead, if anyone in charge were serious about security). Nearly everything must now go into the hold, where adequate amounts of explosives can easily be detonated from the cabin with cell phones, which are generally not banned.
Action heroes

The al-Qaeda franchise will pour forth its bowl of pestilence and death. We know this because we've watched it countless times on TV and in the movies, just as our officials have done. Based on their behavior, it's reasonable to suspect that everything John Reid and Michael Chertoff know about counterterrorism, they learned watching the likes of Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Vin Diesel, and The Rock (whose palpable homoerotic appeal it would be discourteous to emphasize).

It's a pity that our security rests in the hands of government officials who understand as little about terrorism as the Florida clowns who needed their informant to suggest attack scenarios, as the 21/7 London bombers who injured no one, as lunatic "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, as the Forest Gate nerve gas attackers who had no nerve gas, as the British nitwits who tried to acquire "red mercury," and as the recent binary liquid bomb attackers who had no binary liquid bombs.

For some real terror, picture twenty guys who understand op-sec, who are patient, realistic, clever, and willing to die, and who know what can be accomplished with a modest stash of dimethylmercury.

You won't hear about those fellows until it's too late. Our official protectors and deciders trumpet the fools they catch because they haven't got a handle on the people we should really be afraid of. They make policy based on foibles and follies, and Hollywood plots.

Meanwhile, the real thing draws ever closer. ®

cynthia mckinney and the capitol hill police incident

While out of town the past two weeks and without internet access , we were unable to comment on congresswoman cynthia mckinney's loss of her congressional seat in the recent runoff election.

mckinney was the victim of a blatant campaign of character assassination in the media that intensified following an incident in which she was alleged to have , on her way to a congressional vote , slapped a capitol hill police officer with her cell phone after he put his hands on her as she did what all members of congress are allowed to do --walk through the security check point unmolested .

wayne madsen reported at the time that capitol hill police are trained in recognition techniques and are required to recognize members of congress by face . madsen also said he had on occasion , personally witnessed capitol hill police unnecessarily harassing congresswoman mckinney while accompanying her to and from sessions of congress.

the uproar the media created over this incident was a deliberate campaign designed to silence or remove outspoken critics of the bush administration's complicity in the 9-11 attacks , its illegal , immoral defense contractor feeding frenzy that is the petro-war in iraq and the shredding of the Us constitutionally guaranteed freedoms under the guise of the phoney war on terror .

congresswoman mckinney asked rumsfeld , cheney , and bush the obvious questions the lapdog media ran from .

did the administration ignore DIRECT warnings that the 9-11 attacks were imminent ?

why did NORAD (north american air defense system ) in place for almost 5 decades of cold war , fail so miserably on 9-11 ?

was the military running wargames simulating hi-jacked aircraft crashing into the pentagon and other key buildings on the morning of the wtc attacks ?

were friends of the bush family , and friends of the bush administration , profiteering from the phoney war on terror as no-bid contract cash was being doled out hand over fist from the taxpayer's treasury by government?


for asking the real questions--questions we now know the ugly answers to , mckinney was smeared as a conspiracy nut instead of being applauded for having the courage to demand that our spineless "public servants" for once tell us the truth .

in a dumbed down , superficial nation where image is all and content is considered "boring", the content of mckinney's message was ignored and her image was assassinated and lynched by the mainstream media --jon stewart on his tv show , before a national television audience, called her "batshit insane" after attacking media filmclips and media soundbytes of cynthia mckinney underneath a banner of "diary of a mad black woman".

in the democratic primary which forced the run-off election mckinney lost , there were charges by mckinney voters that they witnessed their votes for mckinney go to her opponent --shifted by electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail confirmation of whom the vote was cast for--the same charges that plagued the 2004 national elections --elections stolen by the bush administration .

in the runoff election , cynthia mckinney received even a less percentage of votes than she did in the primary--very unusual since mckinney--because of her non-traditional political stance-- is the kind of candidate who depends solely upon a highly loyal , highly motivated voter base as her only road to office .

mckinney lost to a guy who is basically a political non-entity-- so what happened ?

was this another stolen election courtesy of diebold and company --rigged electronic voting machines made by companies owned and controled by rightwing religious zealots who believe the bill of rights to be just a piece of paper and envision an apocaplytic war of armaggedon in the middle east that signals the end of the world and the return of jesus ?

we'll have to wait and see . s--t usually floats to the top and evidence of crime is eventually revealed , but the right-wingnuts' involvement in mckinney's loss and their campaign of media assassination and lynching of her is clear as glass.

here are some interesting video clips to consider

what doesn't israel understand about the word "cease" ?

despite the Un ceasefire agreed to by israel we see disturbing evidence in the news indicating that the israelis have no intention of stopping their attacks on their neighbors.

you don't make peace by planning to assassinate the leader of the group you just fought a war against --especially when that leader became leader about a decade ago AFTER you assassinated his predecessor and in the process also killed that predecessor's wife and five year old child .

you don't make peace by launching commando raids into the territory of the nation you signed a ceasefire agreement with just one week ago --especially after you so self- righteously bitched and moaned to the rest of the world , and went to war falsely complaining about violations of your "territorial sovereignty ."


and thirdly , you don't make peace by kidnapping more members of a legally elected neighboring government simply because you don't like the party that won that nation's elections.

continuing your foreign policy of assassinations , kidnappings , commando assaults and territorial occupations is NOT the way to make peace , not the way to "win friends and influence people" , and certainly not the way to convince anyone that peace is what you are really after.

but , as any honest observer of the middle east conflicts could tell you , --ISRAEL DOES NOT WANT PEACE .

israel wants land . israel wants water. and israel wants no one left in the region who is able to stand up to them.

MAAN NEWS AGENCY
---------------------------

Israel military officer discusses
assassination of Nasrallah with New York Times
Date: 20 / 08 / 2006 Time: 15:59

Ma'an-A senior Israeli military officer has told the New York Times newspaper that Israel wants to assassinate Hezbollah's Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah.

Israeli ministers who were present at the cabinet meeting where the assassination was discussed have made even more dangerous declarations. Minister of Defence, Amir Peretz, and former Minister of Security, Fuad Bin El-Ezar, have referred to the need to prepare for a new encounter with Hezbollah.

The Israeli cabinet discussed the failure of Israeli military tanks against RPG 19's and Kornet swhich destroyed 10% of the Israeli tanks which entered Lebanon, killing 49 soldiers who were inside the tanks.

Fuad Bin Eli-Ezar, currently Minister of Infrastructure, said that the next war will be in a few months and will take into account the lessons from the way, including the possibility of the strengthening of Hezbollah fighters and Syrian support.

This Israeli will, at cabinet level, to renew the war, reflects an attempt to hide from the angry crowds who have called on Olmert to bring back the captured Israeli soldiers. These crowds criticise what happened to the Israeli reserve soldiers during the war and accuse Olmert and the army of neglecting soldiers.

Olmert has been quoted as having told the cabinet ministers, Half a billion dollars will shut the mouths of the residents of the northern settlements." This irritated the right-wing extremist Knesset member, Arieh Eldad, who immediately called for Olmert to resign.


http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=14619


MAAN NEWS AGENCY
---------------------------

Israeli military kidnaps PLC secretary, Dr Mahmoud Ar-Ramahi, from his home in Ramallah
Date: 20 / 08 / 2006 Time: 18:12

Ramallah - Ma'an - Israeli military forces have, on Sunday afternoon, arrested the secretary of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Dr Mahmoud Ar-Ramahi from his home in Al-Bireh city in eastern Ramallah.

Our correspondent reported that Israeli troops, backed up by several military vehicles invaded the Jinan neighbourhood and kidnapped Dr Ar-Ramahi in less than 5 minutes. The soldiers then headed toward the Israeli settlement of Beit Eil.

Dr Ar-Ramahi received his education in medicine from an Italian university, and has worked as a pharmacist at a hospital in Ramallah. He speaks English and Hebrew fluently.

In 1994-95, he was the representative of prisoners at Ramallah prison. He is married and has four children.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=14628


MAAN NEWS AGENCY
---------------------------

Israeli officer killed, 2 others injured, in unsuccessful commando operation in Lebanon
Date: 19 / 08 / 2006 Time: 11:12

Ma'an-The Israeli army acknowledged Saturday that an Israeli officer was killed and two others seriously injured in an unsuccessful landing, west of Ba'albek, in Lebanon. They were involved in a confrontation with Hezbollah fighters, during which three Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli officer were killed.

Lebanese security sources reported earlier that Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon in the early hours of Saturday morning, The Israeli strike came just hours after the United Nations appealed to the Europeans to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force to separate the two sides.

The Lebanese security source said that Israeli warplanes and helicopters attacked unidentified targets around the village of Bawadi, west of Baalbek, in the Beka'a Valley early on Saturday morning. An Israeli helicopter dropped commandoes in the area for a short time.

The Al Manar satellite channel said, "Hezbollah fighters clashed with Israeli commandoes near the village of Bawadi while the air strikes provided cover. Two commandoes were injured. "

The source said that the Israeli warplanes bombed roads leading to the village and a hill in the west of the village.

This is the first time that Israel has launched an air attack since the UN-brokered truce ended 34 days of fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon.

The truce which began last Monday ended the war which killed 1183 Lebanese and 157 Israelis.

Israeli warplanes and 2 unmanned drones flew over the Beka'a Valley on Friday, close to Hezbollah strongholds. The planes were attacked by fire from the ground and retreated without carrying out air strikes.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=14560

george galloway on israeli war crimes in lebanon and palestine

"i got a right to defend myself... everytime i start a fight"

old general custer was a firm believer in his nation's right to "defend itself"--in fact that's exactly what he was doing on june 26, 1876 when he invaded a sovereign nation's land and attacked a peaceful village that had done nothing to either him or his nation .

unfortunately, gold had been discovered on the lakota indians land and white men wanted it. that meant the indians were either to accept the ridiculously low offer the Us government made them for that land , surrender their arms and their horses to the Us army, and live on whatever piece of worthless dirt the Us decided to give them , or be declared "hostiles" by the Us government and hunted down by the army .

of course most of the remaining plains indians who still had their freedom -- the lakota , the northern arapaho and northern cheyenne , refused this ultimatum .

a military expedition was dispatched by the Us to deal with these "hostiles".

on june 26, 1876 general george custer and about 270 of his men foolishly attacked a village of some 5000 indians who were peacefully minding their own business on their own land and were in no mood for ultimatums from invaders .

custer and all his soldiers were killed because they crossed into a sovereign land and attacked a free people who were guilty of the crime of peacefully minding their own business .

curiously though , this incident is known to this day as "custer's last stand" --as if old georgie was the innocent victim of a crime instead of its willing perpetrator .

back in 1876 when news of the seventh calvary and custer's demise reached the press , a shocked outrage at the audacity of the "bloodthirsty redskins" swept the americans.

nevermind the fact that custer was killed while in the act of attempted genocide --the americans were furious and vowed the indians would pay.

a new and larger army was sent into indian territory and hounded and harrassed and attacked the indians mercilessly --never letting them rest , never allowing them a moments peace until finally , in the winter of 1877 --their winter supplies of food , their clothing , shelters --and their survival equipment--their life support infrastructure-- all destroyed by the Us armies , the indians were forced by cold and starvation to surrender.




seems the world never tires of the game of calvary and indians...

michael chossudovsky over at global research.ca while dissecting the Un security council "resolution" on lebanon as basically a pro-israeli piece of crap , ALSO makes note that the "kidnapped israeli soldiers" that this brutal israeli war on lebanon was supposedly in response to-- were on the wrong side of the border--the israeli soldiers were captured in lebanon--so it was the lebanese who were defending themselves--and not the israelis as the western media sheep have bleated on and on ad nauseum about these past 3 weeks

August 7, 2006

Editorial Note

The draft text turns realities upside down. It essentially presents Hezbollah as the agressor responsible for escalation and civilian deaths, while upholding Israel's legitimate right to self-defense:

"...the continuing escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and in Israel since Hezbollah's attack on Israel on 12 July 2006, which has already caused hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides, extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons,"

It focusses on the abducted soldiers, when it is known and documented that the soldiers were not abducted but arrested inside Lebanese territory. It accepts Israel's casus belli at face value, namely that the abduction of these soldiers was the sole cause, when it is known and documented by defense analyists that a war of this magnitude takes months if not more than a year to prepare.

The Draft does not raise the issue of the illegal occupation of Lebanon and does raise the issue of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Southern Lebanon.

The Draft Resolution calls for the stationing of an international force, pursuant to a Security Council Resolution.
Which countries will send troops? Troops from a NATO country cannot under any circumstances play a "neutral stabilizing" role in Lebanon. NATO's involvement would be dictated by the precise terms of the "NATO-Israel partnership" reached in February 2005 . A NATO "stabilization force", pursuant to a UN Security Council Resolution would side with Israel against Lebanon.

The NATO-Israel partnership establishes NATO's "responsibilities" in relation to its ally Israel: Israel is under attack and has "the legitimate right to defend itself". The terms of the NATO-Israel agreement as defined in the February 2005 consultations in Tel Aviv, specifically point to "the fight against terrorism".

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 7 August 2006

"i didn't know there wuz protestants and catholics in europe--i thot the europeans wuz christians! "

from the website The RAW Story

In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, (Peter) Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

red cross targeted by israelis

Lebanese Red Cross Repeatedly Targeted




*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail

*TYRE, Aug 1 (IPS) - Israeli warplanes are attacking the Lebanese Red
Cross repeatedly, members of the medical aid group say.*

"The night of July 23 we were called to rescue a family whose home was
bombed," Kassem Shaulan, a 28-year-old medic with the Lebanese Red
Cross
in Tyre told IPS. "Just as I finished loading the three injured people
in my ambulance, it was struck by a rocket and all of us were injured."

The ambulance, now parked outside of the Red Cross headquarters in this
coastal city, had a hole through the centre of the red cross painted on
its roof. The inside was heavily damaged and pieces of the metal frame
of the van hung limply, riddled with shrapnel holes.

The Red Cross worker had several wounds on his body, and stitches on
his
chin and leg. He said he could not hear very well any more.

"There was an old man on a stretcher in the ambulance who lost his leg
from the bomb," Shaulan said. "And a child with us is now in coma. The
third person is critically injured."

Shaulan, who has worked with the Red Cross for 13 years, is also
training manager at the headquarters. He said that minutes after his
ambulance was bombed, another ambulance nearby that was collecting
injured people was also bombed.

Nobody seems to feel safe anywhere any more. During the brief let-up in
air strikes after Israel's disastrous strike on a shelter in Qana that
killed at least 60 civilians - more than half of them children --
villagers are fleeing their homes in southern Lebanon by the tens of
thousands.

The United Nations World Food Programme and other relief agencies have
been working tirelessly to take advantage of the short window to ferry
truckloads of aid to stranded civilians.

The brief halt also revealed more death and destruction. Members of the
Lebanese Red Cross in Tyre told IPS that their rescue workers retrieved
more than 30 bodies from destroyed homes, streets, cars, gardens and
ditches as they began their search. They continued to receive calls
about the dead and injured from villages throughout the south.

Shaulan said his headquarters had received calls from Qana pleading for
rescue assistance at 5 am on the morning of the Israeli strike. The
shelter was bombed at 1 am.

"Immediately after we got the call we took three ambulances and headed
to Qana," he said. "But three bombs nearly hit our first ambulance, so
we turned back."

They attempted to head out to Qana a second time, but again their
ambulances were attacked, and they returned to base. "They were keeping
us away," Shaulan said. They succeeded a third time, just before 9 am.

"You can see here that everyone the Israelis are attacking are
civilians
and the Red Cross," Shaulan said. "And now we are having trouble
reaching villages to collect bodies because they've bombed most of the
roads and bridges before they told people to leave their homes."

Mohammad Zatar, who has been working for the Lebanese Red Cross in Tyre
since 1993, said he had never before seen attacks on rescue workers.

"As a Red Cross volunteer I need to be very clear that we are not
political -- we rescue anyone who needs help," the 32-year-old Zatar
told IPS. As a colleague unloaded bodies from bloody stretchers, Zatar
said "whether they are civilian, a resistance fighter or an Israeli
soldier, our policy is to help any human who needs help. But the
Israelis seem to be attacking us now."

Zatar said that most of the bodies they were picking up were of women
and children. "Sometimes we pick younger or middle-aged men, but that
is
uncommon."

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz told the Israeli Parliament Monday
that Israel plans to "expand and strengthen" its attack against
Hezbollah. "It's forbidden to agree to an immediate ceasefire," he
said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would be no ceasefire,
and
that Israeli forces will continue fighting from the air and sea and on
the ground in Lebanon.

_______________________________________________
(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.

while the media wasn't watching...

from the israeli news source haaretz.com --the emphasis , of course is deskRat

97 fatalities in Gaza, but all eyes are on Lebanon
By Avi Issacharoff

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.

Some Gaza Strip residents say, however, that the military pressure is not as bad as it was before the fighting in Lebanon began on July 12.

"The IDF is concentrating on Hezbollah," says Amjad, a Fatah activist in the Gaza Strip.

He says the problem is not the force the IDF is exerting but the absence of media coverage. "Last Wednesday 23 Palestinians were shot dead near Sajaiya, and even the Arab TV channels were busy with the nine IDF soldiers who were killed. In the past such a large number of fatalities would have raised an international storm. Today nobody counts how many Palestinians are killed."

Amjad says the IDF is acting in the strip for "reasons of public relations," not for operative gains. "What was the point of the operations in Sajaiya or al-Mirazi? [There, 15 Palestinians were killed by the IDF at the refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip]. You entered a few kilometers into the strip, shot and wounded dozens of people, including armed ones, but you did not stop the rocket fire or free [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit. Israel simply wants to prove it is continuing its military activity despite Lebanon," he says.

Dozens of Palestinians have been receiving calls on their mobile phones from a blocked number since the fighting in Lebanon began. The voice on the other end, which was later replaced by a recorded message, spoke Arabic, identified the speaker as a member of "IDF headquarters."

"Welcome, you and your family are requested to leave home because the IDF intends to attack it. The house is used to hide warfare or terrorists," the voice says.

Ten days ago the IDF started destroying homes in which terror activity was suspected. The army also warned residents of neighborhoods especially close to Israel that it intended to attack rocket launching sites. Residents of several neighborhoods - east Sajaiya, east al-Mirazi, east Rafah and the neighborhood of al-Nada in the northern Gaza Strip - received warning leaflets to this effect.

"Now we must decide what to do," says Abu Jihad of Sajaiya. "It's a hard choice. I have relatives in Gaza I could stay with. But how long will it last? You can't move in with your uncles for weeks. On the other hand, staying here will put the children in great danger. Dozens of families have left al-Nada, even though it's common knowledge that Palestinian defense forces live there, not Hamas. So whom are you punishing? Like in Lebanon, you think Hamas or Hezbollah will be blamed for your acts. But no, you are. And if next to your house there?s a Jihad activist hiding a rocket - are you supposed to abandon your house because your neighbor hid a rocket?"

Hundreds of families have fled their homes in neighborhoods bordering Israel. Most found shelter with relatives; others moved into UN schools. The landlords are the main beneficiaries - rent prices in Gaza City have doubled due to the migration to the city. But the uprooted, homeless Palestinians are attracting even less attention than the large number of Palestinians killed.