Obama Hiroshima visit not first time US president returns to scene of war crime

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Eric Verlo

We’re told President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima will the first by a sitting US president. Hiroshima being where America demonstrated its first atomic bomb. Ranked by scale of civilian casualties, Hiroshima has multiple sister cities who could share the honor of being sites of the greatest single day attrocity beneath US bombers. Travelogue wise, if there isn’t a sign saying “Washington slept here” obvously everywhere has a first for American presidents, so what makes Hiroshima newsworthy? Let’s agree as the objective of Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project, Hiroshima was the most calculated. Nagazaki was the reproductive test serving as reprise for the international stage. Obviously President Obama’s next visit should be to Nagazaki as proof that paying tribute via presidential visitation doesn’t amount to an apology, expression of regret, or even recognition of a lesson learned. The gesture may be a nod to self-reflection but it’s not guilt. What Obama is doing is taking a bow. The imperial pageant of unending curtain calls, for an old show called gunboat diplomacy.

WWII air veterans of Doolittle Raiders celebrate 71 years of bombing civilians

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Eric Verlo

Doolittle nose-art
I read 30 Seconds Over Tokyo when I was still a war-playing kid, before I would understand the mischievous consequences of the Doolittle Raiders B-25 bombers deploying without their bombsights. This was to prevent US war-making advantages falling into enemy hands but it also precluded dropping bombs with accuracy. I’m pretty certain the account for young readers also didn’t explain why over a quarter of the squadron’s bombs were of the incidiary cluster variety. Readers today know what those are for. Doolittle claimed to be targeting military sites in Japan’s capitol, but “invariably” hit civilian areas including four schools and a hospital. Of the American fliers captured, three were tried and executed by the despicable “Japs”, who considered the straffing of civilians to be war crimes. After the war, the US judged the Japanese officers responsible, as if their verdict was a greater injustice against our aviators’ “honest errors”. Today we rationalize our systemic overshoot policy as “collateral damage”.

Every year since WWII, Doolittle’s commandos are feted for their milestone bombing mission. This Veterans Day is to be the last due to their advanced ages. But it is fitting, because isn’t it time Americans faced what we’re celebrating? There’s no denying it took suicidal daring, but the Doolittle Raid inaugurated what became a staple of US warfare, the wholesale terrorizing of civilians from on high, with impunity and indifference. To be fair, the American public has always been kept in the dark. American aircraft have fire-bombed civilians at every diplomatic opportunity since 1942, and a Private Manning sits in the brig for trying to give us a chance to object.

We now know that the Doolittle Raid didn’t turn the tide, nor shake Japanese resolve. It was a retalliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, intended to boost US morale as if to say, America wasn’t defeated. Kinda like why and how we struck back at Afghanistan after 9/11, just as indiscriminately.

The “Mark Twain” ersatz bombsight
substitute bombsight The Norden bombsight was a closely guarded US secret weapon. An airstrike without it would today be like lobotomizing so-called smart bombs, and deciding to opt for imprecision bombing. The official army record recounts that a subsitute sighting mechanism was improvised for the raid, dubbed the “Mark Twain” and judged to be effective enough. Now a bad joke. Indochina and Wikileaks-wisened, we know the mendacity of that assessment. The vehemently anti-imperialist, anti-racist Twain would not have been honored.

Twain satirized Western so-called Enlightenment thus: “good to fire villages with, upon occasion”.

Post-postwar hagiographies of the raid have suggested the improvised bombsight was better suited to low-altitude missions than the Norden model. That conclusion is easily dismissed because the device was used only for the Doolittle run and never after. The sight’s designer, mission aviator C. Ross Greening, offered a explanation for why he named the device after Mark Twain in his pothumously published memoir Not As Briefed. He didn’t.

The bombsight is named the “Mark Twain” in reference to the “lead line” depth finder used on the Mississippi River paddle wheelers in bygone days.

Because its design was so simple, we’re left to suppose. Greening’s bombsight was named for the same “mark” which Samuel Langhorne Clemens adopted as his celebrated pen name. I find it disingeneous to pretend to repurpose an archaic expression whose meaning was already eclipsed by the household name of America’s most outspoken anti-imperialist. Who would believe you named your dog “Napoleon” after a French pastry?

We are given another glimpse into Greening’s sense of humor by how he named his plane, the “Hari-Kari-er” ready to deal death by bomb-induced suicide. Greening’s B-25 is the one pictured above, with the angelic tart holding a bomb aloft. Greening’s plane was another that carried only incendiary ordnance.

Much was made of the sight’s two-piece aluminum construction, reportedly costing 20 cents at the time compared to the $10,000 Norden. This provided the jingoist homefront the smug satisfaction perhaps, combining a frugality born of the Depression with the American tradition of racism, that only pennies were expensed and or risked on Japanese lives.

War Crimes
Targeting civilians, taking insufficient care to avoid civilian casualties, using disproportunate force, acts of wanton retaliation, and the use of collective punishment are all prohibited by international convention. They are war crimes for which the US prosecutes adversaries but with which our own military refuses to abide. Americans make much of terrorism, yet remain blind to state terrorism. Doolittle’s historic raid, judged by the objective against which it is celebrated as a success, was an act of deliberate terrorism.

Forcing the Japanese to deploy more of their military assets to protect the mainland sounds like a legitimate strategy, except not by targeting civilians to illustrate the vulnerability, nor by terrorizing the population, one of Doolittle’s stated aims. He called it a “fear complex”.

It was hoped that the damage done would be both material and psychological. Material damage was to be the destruction of specific targets with ensuing confusion and retardation of production. The psychological results, it was hoped, would be the recalling of combat equipment from other theaters for home defense, the development of a fear complex in Japan, improved relationships with our Allies, and a favorable reaction in the American people.

There is no defending Japan’s imperialist expansion in the Pacific, and certainly not its own inhumanity. The Japanese treated fellow Asians with the same racist disregard with which we dispatched Filipinos. While Americans point in horror at how the Japanese retalliated against the Chinese population for the Doolittle Raid, we ignore that Doolittle purposely obscured from where our bombers were launched, leaving China’s coast as the only probably suspect.

To be fair, most of Doolittle’s team was kept in the dark about the mission until they were already deployed. I hardly want to detract from the courage they showed to undertake a project that seemed virtually suicidal. But how long should all of us remain in the dark about the true character of the Doolittle Raid?

Out of deference for the earlier generation of WWII veterans, those in leadership, certain intelligence secrets were kept until thirty years after the war. Unveiled, they paint a very different picture of what transpired. The fact that the US knew the German and Japanese codes from early on revealed an imbalance not previously admitted, as an example.

About the Doolittle Raid, much is already openly documented, if not widely known. The impetus for the raid was public knowledge, the evidence of its intent in full view.

BY DESIGN
In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, American newspapers were already touting offers of cash rewards for whoever would be the first to strike back at Japan. President Roosevelt expressed a deliberate interest in hitting the Japanese mainland, in particular Tokyo, to retaliate for the Japanese strike against Pearl Harbor, never mind it had been a solely military target.

Plans were made to exploit the Japanese homeland’s vulnerability to fire, as ninety percent of urban structures were made of paper and wood. Writes historian William Bruce Jenson:

In his “confidential” meeting with reporters back in November, Marshall had declared that the US would have no cavil about burning Japan’s paper cities.

For the Doolittle Raid, a bombing strategy was developed to overwhelm the fire department of his target, the Shiba ward.

A former naval attache in Tokyo told Doolittle: “I know that Tokyp fire department very well. Seven big scattered fires would be too much for it to cope with.”

As lead plane, Doolittle’s role was to literally blaze the way. Fellow pilot Richard Joyce told Nebraska History Magazine in 1995:

The lead airplane, which was going to have Doolittle on board as the airplane commander, was going to be loaded with nothing but incendiaries -2.2 pound thermite incendiaries- in clusters. They drop these big clusters and then the straps break and they spray, so they set a whole bunch of fires. He was to be the pathfinder and set a whole bunch of fires in Tokyo for pathfinding purposes.

Doolittle’s report outlined his objective more formally:

one plane was to take off ahead of the others, arrive over Tokyo at dusk and fire the most inflammable part of the city with incendiary bombs. This minimized the overall hazard and assured that the target would be lighted up for following airplanes.

Greening paints the most vivid picture, of burning the Japanese paper houses to light the way:

Doolittle planned to leave a couple of hours early, and in the dark set fire to Tokyo’s Shiba ward … the mission’s basic tactic had been that Doolittle would proceed alone and bomb a flammable section of Tokyo, creating a beacon in the night to help guide following planes to their targets.

Doolittle’s copilot Lt Richard Cole, told this to interviews in 1957:

Since we had a load of incendiaries, our target was the populated areas of the west and northwest parts of Tokyo.

After the bombers had left on their raid, and before news got back about whether or not they accomplished it, the Navy crew on the carrier USS Hornet already sang this song, which went in part:

Little did Hiro think that night
The skies above Tokyo would be alight
With the fires that Jimmy started in Tokyo’s dives
To guide to their targets the B-25s.
When all of a sudden from out of the skies
Came a basket of eggs for the little slant eyes

Incendiaries

Most of the bombers were loaded with three demolition bombs and an incendiary cluster bomb. Some of the planes carried only incendiaries. According to Doolittle’s official report of the raid, here were some of their stated objectives:

Plane no. 40-2270, piloted by Lt. Robert Gray:
thickly populated small factories district. … Fourth scattered incendiary over the correct area

Plane No. 40-2250, Lt. Richard Joyce:
Incendiary cluster dropped over thickly populated and dense industrial residential sector immediately inshore from primary target. (Shiba Ward)

“The third dem. bomb and the incendiary were dropped in the heavy industrial and residential section in the Shiba Ward 1/4 of a mile in shore from the bay and my tat.”

Aircraft 40-2303, Lt Harold Watson:
the congested industrial districts near the railroad station south of the Imperial Palace

AC 40-2283, David Jones:
the congested area Southeast of the Imperial Palace

Even though the planned night raid became a daytime mission, Doolittle did not alter his original role, intended to light the way for the following planes. His target remained the Shiba District of Tokyo. His own plane: “changed course to the southwest and incendiary-bombed highly inflammable section.”

Doolittle’s report included a description of the incendiary bombs:

The Chemical Warfare Service provided special 500 incendiary clusters each containing 128 incendiary bombs. These clusters were developed at the Edgewood Arsenal and test dropped by the Air Corps test group at Aberdeen. Several tests were carried on to assure their proper functioning and to determine the dropping angle and dispersion. Experimental work on and production of these clusters was carried on most efficiently.

As has become an aerial bombardment tradition, crews were let to inscribe messages on the bombs about to be dropped. Accounts made the most of these chestnuts: “You’ll get a BANG out of this.” And “I don’t want to set the world on fire –only Tokyo.”

These details, which reveal the intentions of the raid, were not made known to the public immediately. The Doolittle Raid was planned and executed in secret, with US government and military spokesmen denying knowledge of the operation even in its aftermath. The first word to reach the American public came from the New York Times, citing Japanese sources:

Enemy bombers appeared over Tokyo for the first time in the current war, inflicting damage on schools and hospitals. Invading planes failed to cause and damage on military establishments, although casualties in the schools and hospitals were as yet unknown. This inhuman attack on these cultural establishments and on residential districts is causing widespread indignation among the populace.

This report was dismissed as propaganda. When Japan declared its intention to charge the airman it had taken captive with war crimes, the US protestations redoubled. The accusations were belittled even as our own reports conceded to the possibilities.

Lieutenant Dawson’s Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was the first published account of the raid. Printed less than a year after the event, wartime-sensitive details such as the phony guns made of broomstick handles poking out the back were left out. Targets were also not specified, but a candor remained, probably intended to be threatening. Lawson described the 500-pound incendiaries as “something like the old Russian Molotov Breadbasket”, and related US naval attache Jurika’s advice:

“If you can start seven good fires in Tokyo, they’ll never put them out,” Jurika promised us. … “I wouldn’t worry too much about setting fires in flimsy-looking sections of Tokyo,” he said. “The Japanese have done an amazing job of spreading out some of their industries, instead of concentrating them in large buildings. There’s probably a small machine shop under half of these fragile-looking roofs.”

“Flimsy” became Lawson’s keyword for the residential areas. Here Lawson described dropping his third and fourth bombs, when he saw their corresponding red light indicators:

The third red light flickered, and, since we were now over a flimsy area in the southern part of the city, the fourth light blinked. That was the incendiary, which I knew would separate as soon as it hit the wind and that dozens of small fire bombs would molt from it.

I was satisfied about the steel-smelter and hoped the other bombs had done as well. There was no way of telling, but I was positive that Tokyo could have been damaged that day with a rock.

Our actual bombing operation, from the time the first one went until the dive, consumed not more than thirty seconds.

Thus: Chance of hitting civilian homes: 50/50.
Charges of Excessive Force could be expected, because
blame the victim for being weaker than: a rock.
Care taken to avoid innocent casualties: 30 seconds.

In a later afterword, Lawson blamed Tokyo for having insufficient bomb shelters.

After the war, US occupation forces recovered Japanese records which documented the losses attributed to the Doolittle Raid: fifty dead, 252 wounded, ninety buildings. Besides military or strategic targets, that number included nine electric power buildings, a garment factory, a food storage warehouse, a gas company, two misc factories, six wards of Nagoya 2nd Temporary Army Hospital, six elementary or secondary schools, and “innumerable nonmilitary residences”.

Strafing
Japan accused the fliers of indescriminate strafing civilians. The US countered that defending fighters were responsible for stray bullets when their gunfire missed the bombers. That’s very likely, except the raiders were candid about their strafing too. Lawson:

I nosed down a railroad track on the outskirts of the city and passed a locomotive close enough to see the surprised face of the engineer. As I went by I could have kicked myself for not giving the locomotive’s boiler a burst of our forward 30-calibre guns, then I remembered that we might have better use for the ammunition.

A big yacht loomed up ahead of us and, figuring it must be armed, I told Thatcher to give it a burst. We went over it, lifted our nose to put the tail down and Thatcher sprayed its deck with our 50-calibre stingers.

Greening’s account of firing on a sailor, raises the moral ambiguity of air warfare with which few airmen grapple. By virtue that technology allows it, combatants become slave to a predetermined outcome:

When we attacked the next patrol boat, a Japanese sailor threw his hands up as if to surrender. I guess he expected us to stop and take him prisoner. We shot him and left this boat smoking too.

The Medals
Friendship Medals exchanged between Japan and the US found themselves requisitioned for Doolittle’s Raid:

Several years prior to the war, medals of friendship and good relationship were awarded to several people of the United States by the Japanese government. In substance these medals were symbolic of the friendship and cooperation between the nations and were to represent the duration of this attitude. It was decided by the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Frank Knox, that the time was appropriate to have these medals returned. They had been awarded to Mr. Daniel J. Quigley, Mr. John D. Laurey, Mr. H. Vormstein and Lt. Stephen Jurkis.

After arrangements had been made and the medals secured, a ceremony was held on the deck of the Hornet during which the medals were wired to a 500 lb. bomb to be carried by Lt. Ted Lawson and returned to the Japanese government in an appropriate fashion.

Lawson’s plane no 40-2261 dropped that bomb on an “industrial section of Tokyo” omitting to mention that Japan’s industry was still a post-feudal cottage industry.

“The medals were subsequently delivered in small pieces to their donors in Tokyo by Lt. Ted Lawson at about noon, Saturday, April 18, 1942.”

–Mitscher, M.A. Letter Report to Commander Pacific Fleet.

“Through the courtesy of the War Department your Japanese medal and similar medals, turned in for shipment, were returned to His Royal Highness, The Emperor of Japan on April 18, 1942.”

–Knox, F. Letter Report to Mr. H. Vormstein

US forces push women to front lines, canon fodder being traditional minority role

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Eric Verlo

Pentagon lifts ban on women in combat. I guess US prisons have consumed the traditional canon fodder labor pool. What’s the upside to this news –a kinder gentler militarized empire? Fail. Our culture of violence doesn’t breed matriarchs. American women on the front lines is good news for insurgents in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc, etc, now Mali, who must welcome the chance to even the score, US forces having targeted so many of their women. And this retaliatory killing comes with no karmic debt, unlike our civilian casualties, because US female soldiers, like gay don’t-ask-don’t-tell turnstile jumpers, are gung-ho eager-for-carnage volunteers. Have at it ladies. Insurgents must be really encouraged by recruiting trends in US schools which promise the prospect of the US soon deploying kids. We owe our colonial victims so many children’s lives.

NY Times pretends the Afghanistan War Logs is news that does not fit

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Is it surprising that the US newspaper of record, the NYT which prints all the news that’s fit, should declare of the Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs: there’s nothing much new there? Oh REALLY? Point me to a NYT headline that read US Death Squads, or Civilian Casualties: We DO Body-Counts, or Insurgents Armed With Heat-Seeking Missiles, or War Crimes Being Committed Daily. Are we to accept that the NYT knew about these, but thought wisest not to report them? The only revelation which has been known, Pakistan Directs Taliban, is the leak they’re running with, because those reports are founded on intelligence, ie dubious conjecture, to discredit the others based on first hand accounts, and to rationalize more attacks on Pakistan.

I’m galled even that Wikileaks chose to let the NYT in on the advance team. Of course the NYT went right to the White House and Pentagon to warn them of what was about to be unleashed.

The files were given to three news organizations simultaneously to limit the spin each might try to apply. The move to involve the press in advance was for stories and their context could hit the ground running.

It’s curious that most columnists and news blogs are favoring the Guardian’s analysis the logs, over the NYT’s.

In spite of the peer review, the NYT is pushing back harder the the White House, which isn’t disputing the authenticity of the material, only their outrage that the facts are being made public. Small wonder.

Worse than denying them, the NYT is dismissive. No big deal. And it’s working. The rest of the MSM is characterizing the “alleged” logs as “accusations.” Despite the un-argued official admission that these are the unadulterated records.

Most of the discussion is about the leak itself, and Julian Assange’s motive as an activist. No mention he’s anactivist for “justice.” Not partisan, not pacifist, but moral. You’d think that shouldn’t differentiate him from a journalist.

The NYT has some nerve to pretend the logs aren’t going to bring on a sea change of despondency about the war, even in Iraq. In particular with the soldiers’ families starved for news, who will recognize from the reports the snippets of sensitive information they get from their individual soldier, with no idea it forms the character of the whole picture. We’re fucked. We can’t throw more at it, we can’t fire truer, wiser, safer. This is unwinnable.

And those are the reports our government has been seeing. Maybe that’s what the NYT means to say, we/they already know this material. Our leaders have been reading these reports daily and they don’t dispute that. Their glass-half-full projections for success in Afghanistan is half-full with blood. Now we know it.

That’s the sordid quality of these revelations. Soldiers lives FUBAR. These are more than the Pentagon Papers, these are American war-making unspun, undone.

NYT et al, will have us blame the messenger, condemn Private Bradley Manning for his breach of security. Our national security depends on keeping secrets is their unchallenged theme. Do you believe it’s the media pressing that point? These assholes are embedded so far into America’s military export industry, we need to look elsewhere for the news that’s fit.

Wikileaks spills “Afganistan War Logs” detail Task Force 373, US death squad

Posted on July 25, 2010 by Eric Verlo

You thought death squads were only for banana republics? Meet covert US Task Force 373 which circulates in Afghanistan with a 2,058 name “Kill or Capture List” killing all witnesses, even policemen, who get in their way. The sudden transparency is due the AFGHANISTAN WAR LOGS, courtesy at last from Wikileaks. While dodging US DHS agents, Wikileak’s Julian Assange was able to coordinate a clever self-checking joint release of the documents via the Guardian UK, Der Spiegel, and the New York Times. The events reported aren’t accusations, they’re the soldiers’ own records.

This leak of over 90,000 files represents the US military’s account of the Afghanistan conflict virtually in its entirety. The news outlets have attempted the present the data in manageable articles, while also providing the raw material for download. The Guardian even offers a tutorial.

The coordinated release ensures that no one can alter the information, and Assange’s choice of outlets was also clever: all three of them are/were pro-war.

There will be lots of revelations from these leaked document, including underestimates of civilian casualties, and acknowledgment of casualties not admitted to the media, CIA hits, and another Black Ops SF squad called Scorpion 26, but let’s get back to the death squad.

We don’t have to allege that TF 373 is an extrajudicial, fully-illegal assassination team, we have their own logs. Who they killed, tried to kill, killed instead, killed trying to get there, killed covering their tracks. Men, women and children. The logs cover up to November 2009, but we have no reason to think they’re not killing still.

Task Force 373 operates out of Kabul, Kandahar and Khost, comprised of soldiers of the 7th Special Forces Group of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. They are transported by Chinook and Cobra helicopters flown by 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, of Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia. Special Forces Airborne death squads.

Or is America inured by our armed drones which assassinate from up high. Whether the trigger man wears a mask in Afghanistan, or sits at a console in Nevada, the hit is a war crime. Outside of a field of battle, it’s simply murder.

And lookey here, the 7th Special Forces have a patch for their record in El Salvador in 1984…

Addressed by their commander in 2001: “From Fort Bragg to Colombia to Venezuela to Peru to Ecuador to Bolivia to Nicaragua to Argentina, you have been instrumental in forging deeper bonds with the democracies of Latin America,”

So before I let the banana republic slur go. Let’s recall that Latin American death squads were often trained at the US School of the Americas, when they or their governments weren’t being directed by Americans outright. Or the 7th, the “Devil’s Brigade.”

CC students stage Afghanistan die-in

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO SPRINGS- The Colorado College chapter of the SDS staged a die-in on March 8 to mark the 1,000 US death in Afghanistan. Students wore names and brief bios of both soldier and civilian casualties of the continuing war.

Uzi Landau doesn’t steal Palestinian homes because there is no such thing

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Eric Verlo

DENVER- Israeli PR envoy Uzi Landau addressed CU Denver students today, the majority of whom were antagonistic to his message. Denver policemen lined the walls, altar and choir loft, as Landau went on about the mortal threat which “extremist” Islam poses to Judeo-Christian civilization. Landau likened Iran to Nazi Germany and Ahmadinejad to Hitler, but had no comparison for the nefarious and subversive terror plots which Iran has been foisting on the free world. I’m thinking perhaps, like the CIA or Mossad?

Landau entered the room strangely like a Mafia don, flanked by an entourage of black coats and security. A well dressed man and a woman who an hour earlier had been loitering behind me as I protested outside, and whom I took to be Russian when I heard them speak to each other, now appeared as part of Landau’s party.

Due to the sudden snowfall, the campus closed for the afternoon. As a result, the turnout for Landau’s speech was sparse. The security detail of Denver and campus police officers which subjected attendees to metal detectors and bag searches, and kept vigil from the sidelines, would have been disproportionate even if all the seats had been filled. One got the impression that law enforcement were there to assure the audience stayed awake and respectful. Policemen could be seen conspicuously conferring about the seating area occupied by activist Glenn Spagnuolo and his colleagues. When Glenn rose and walked forward to queue for the microphone, a handful of the officers adjusted their positions accordingly.

Glenn was responsible for pulling together voices to oppose Uzi Landau’s appearance. Glenn had a personal connection to Landau, having worked in the occupied territories like Rachel Corrie, and knew the activist who was ultimately killed by a bulldozer working under orders of Uzi Landau. Subsequent to that event, Glenn was deported to Jordan.

When Glenn announced the protest against Landau’s visit, the CU organizers were faced with additional security costs, for which they had no budget. Attempts were made to negotiate calling off the protest. Ultimately the Israeli embassy fronted the funds for the added police.

You might ask, against whom were the officers protecting Uzi Landau? Considering audience members had already been search for weapons, were the police trying to prevent a citizen’s arrest?

The good news, Israeli PR envoy Uzi Landau is not a very good speaker. His heavy accent and habit of letting his voice trail off confident the audience is hanging on his words, makes Landau a fortuitous emissary for those cheering against a military attack upon Iran. The bad news is that landau is as far right as they come, and if he’s reaching sympathetic ears, there are too many racist Americans without any understanding of international law.

I was surprised to discover that this Israeli minister’s talking points were no more nuanced than the flack we receive at this website from IDF Internet Megaphone trolls. Landau reflected the same disrespect for the people from whom lands were taken, and are still being taken. He argued that soldiers must be permitted to target insurgents regardless the civilian casualties.

Landau spoke confidently without batting an eye about the plight of Palestinians. He justified increased Israeli settlements based on Israel’s better record of land stewardship, and of course, he argued that anti-Semitism nugget: why should there be any lands forbidden to Jews? Specifically, to paraphrase: “If Israel can be 20% Palestinian, why cannot the Occupied Territories be 20% Jewish?”

Because Israel then builds walls around settlements and claims more land.

To his credit, Uzi Landau was entertainingly pugilistic in his response to audience questions. Instead of ignoring comments being made out of turn, he took them on, so confident and self-righteous he was about Israel’s actions. Even in Gaza, even in the context of over 60 years of occupation. But to Landau, the Palestinian Problem is dismissed easily. Palestinians don’t exist. They didn’t exist, they didn’t accept the offers of statehood when given the chance, their opportunity past, they never were.

Landau accused his detractors of offering no facts. He, on the other hand, came equipped with facts. One fact of his, from history: Even before it was declared a Jewish nation by the UN, the land of Israel had been in continuous possession of the Jews. So called “Palestinians” only came to the area for the jobs the Israelis offered them.

One of the best questions posed had to do with borders. If G-d promised the holy land to the Jews, which land was that precisely, as defined by what borders? For example, the UN granted land to inaugurate the nation of Israel. It didn’t include Jerusalem, nor much of to what Israel is laying claim. Does the “promised land” encompass more than Israel has even now? What can be the expected boundaries of Israel’s assumed birthright?

Dr. Landau didn’t dwell long on this polemic, except to say with a smile: “that will depend on our neighbors.”

US Senate represents Insurance, Israel

Posted on September 29, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Are you represented by a US senator? I doubt it. Today the Senate Finance Committee rejected Public Option amendments to the health care reform legislation; continued to vilify ACORN based on fraudulent accusations hyped the MSM; and thirty two senators signed a letter drafted by AIPAC, to urge Secretary of State Clinton to block further investigation of Israel for its crimes in Gaza based on the findings of the Goldstone Report.

Abolish the Senate! Does America have any use for a House of Lords?

Today five Democrats joined the ten Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee to reject a PUBLIC OPTION. The senators voting no were: Max Baucus (D-MT), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Thomas Carper (D-DE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Charles Grassley (R-IA), John Ensign (R-NV), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Mike Enzi (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX)

Senator Rockerfeller promoted his public option saying that “the public option is on the march.” There should be more pitchforks than that on the march. Who are these rich bastards who lord over our representatives in Congress? It’s a House of Lords, representing America’s moneyed interests, against the needs of the common people.

Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga) collected signatures last week to urge the GAO to investigate ACORN. I mention this letter because of similar source of today’s letter.

Isakson and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) circulated the letter to block the UN from taking action against Israel. The other senators, among them 16 Democrats, are: Charles Schumer (D-NY), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Carl Levin (D-MI), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Tim Johnson (D-SD), David Vitter (D-ND), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Mark Begich (D-AK), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dan Inouye(D-HI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), James Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Roger Wicker (R-MS), John McCain (R-AZ), John Thune (R-SD), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

Do these people represent the American People? Here is their letter sent on behalf of Israel:

Dear Madam Secretary,

We appreciate the State Department publicly raising significant concerns about the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone. We believe it is critical that the U.S. continue to work very hard to block any punitive actions against Israel that this report mentions, whether at the Security Council or other U.N. bodies. The loss of innocent lives is unfortunate wherever it occurs – in Israel or in Gaza. But this biased report ignores many of the key facts, and this should be recognized by the international community.

We commend the State Department statements criticizing the one-sided mandate directing the Goldstone report and highlighting the real causes of the war between Israel and Hamas. In particular, we are gratified that the Department has very serious concerns about the report’s recommendations, including calls that this issue be taken up in international fora outside the Human Rights Council and in national courts of countries not party to the conflict. As the United Nations Human Rights Council moves toward a resolution on the Goldstone report, we trust you and your team will denounce the unbalanced nature of this investigation.

There are many serious flaws with the Goldstone report and the investigatory process. The Goldstone mission’s mandate was problematic from the start. The fact that the mission exceeded this mandate by also criticizing some of Hamas’ activities does not diminish the problem that the vast majority of the report focuses on Israel’s conduct, rather than that of Hamas. The report further fails to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism and other external threats, a right of all UN Members under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The report ignores the fact that Israel acted in self-defense only after its civilian population suffered eight years of attacks by rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately from Gaza. Furthermore, the report does not adequately recognize the extraordinary measures taken by the Israel Defense Forces to minimize civilian casualties, which frequently put Israeli soldiers at risk.

As the State Department has stated, Israel is a democratic country, like the United States, with an independent judiciary and democratic institutions to investigate and prosecute abuses. The Israel Defense Forces have a reputation for investigating alleged violations of international law and its internal military code of conduct. As a law-abiding state, Israel is in the process of conducting numerous investigations for which it should be commended not condemned.

We hope you will succeed in your efforts to ensure that consideration of the report at the current meetings of the UN Human Rights Council will not provide an opportunity for Israel’s critics to unfairly use the Council and the report to bring this matter to the UN Security Council.

Sincerely,

Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand

Senator Johnny Isakson

For the record, here also is Isakson’s letter trying to bring heat to the poverty-rights advocacy group ACORN:

The Honorable Gene L. Dodaro
Acting Comptroller General
U.S. Government Accountability Office

Dear Mr. Dodaro,

I am writing to request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) undertake a review of ACORN, otherwise known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. For purposes of this letter, the term ACORN shall mean the organization itself, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, and the employees of all such organizations.

Any such investigation should:

(1) Analyze the business structure and organizational management of ACORN.

(2) Analyze ACORN’s compliance with state, local and federal law.

(3) Examine ACORN’s tax structure focusing on a delineation of what activities fall under their 501(c)3 umbrella and what, if any, do not.

(4) Compile a comprehensive list of all federal funding that ACORN has received since its inception; including, but not limited to, contracts, cooperative agreements, grants, appropriations and emergency funding.

(5) Examine grants or payments for services made by ACORN, its subsidiaries or affiliates.

(6) Examine grants or payments for services received by ACORN, its subsidiaries or affiliates.

Current voter fraud investigations in several states, prior fraud convictions, and new video showing apparent illegal activity by ACORN employees suggest that at the very least the organization warrants a top to bottom investigation on behalf of the taxpayer. Taxpayers deserve nothing less than a thorough and transparent accounting of ACORN’s activities.

US, Sri Lanka, share concern for civilians

Posted on May 6, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Do you wonder why US criticism hasn’t been more pronounced, as Sri Lanka’s military keeps bombing the Tamil Tiger rebels in spite of disproportionately high civilian casualties? Collateral Damage is our M.O.! From Afghanistan today come reports of Truckloads of dead civilians after Afghan battle, specifically a US aerial bombardment. As always, US Commander: Afghan Civilian Casualties Not from US Forces.

That was last year’s official response to the 90 Afghan civilian deaths after a US air raid on Azizabad.

The Independent is reporting that the Farah Province civilian casualty is closer to 120 than the US DoD’s reported five. We are left only to check with Google to learn what will turn out to have happened, irrespective of what US-NATO media relations eventually confirms. Google the village of Ganj Abad, in the Bala Baluk district.

Civilians everywhere receive special care

Posted on April 24, 2009 by NMT

From the AP comes news of nearly 6,500 civilians killed in ______: “Foreign Secretary [X] said the government took special care to avoid civilian casualties, and that many of those killed were combatants dressed in civilian clothing.”

“At least 6,432 civilians have been killed in the intense fighting over the past three months and 13,946 wounded, according to a private U.N. document circulated among diplomatic missions in ________ in recent days. A foreign diplomat gave a copy to The Associated Press on Friday.

“The U.N. has declined to publicly release its casualty figures and had no immediate comment on the document.

“Civilian deaths have increased dramatically, according to the U.N. An average of 33 civilians were killed each day at the end of January, and that jumped to 116 by April, the document said. More than 5,500 of those killed were inside a government-declared “no-fire” zone.

Who is going to tell Obama no more war?

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Eric Verlo

I miss the old days of 2008 when we’d get word that Candidate Obama was visiting Colorado and we’d head up to put our antiwar message under his nose. These days he visits Denver to sign the new Stimulus Bill –why Denver, is the Denver Mint doing the honors printing the money?– and we sit flat-footed in front of our TV. On the same day the UN reported that civilian casualties in Afghanistan are up 40% over last year. On the day the Pentagon has announced a “remissioning” of 8,000 additional US Marines, and 4,000 US Army men to Afghanistan, as part of Obama’s surge. And we can’t say Obama hadn’t made his Afghan warmongering intentions clear.

What’s the matter? The term redeployment didn’t cut it? “Remissioning?”

Israeli fury seals a Single State Solution

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Israel’s relentless and unrepentant program to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza, will yield but a single outcome. And it would certainly please the Palestinians, if they live to see it. First, if Palestine is deprived of viability as an independent state, Israel is left with only a single state solution. Second, with Israel convinced that its security from rocket fire depends on every last Arab neighbor being interned or interred, there is no other choice but cloistered Apartheid. Will the international community long tolerate a feudal theocracy constantly inflaming the resentment of its indigenous laborers?

I was being facetious to suggest that Palestinians will not live to see Israel vanquished.

Much as Israel might try, the Palestinians won’t be killed off like North America’s original natives. Neither Gaza nor the West Bank will succumb to genocide, alcoholism or uranium poisoning, nor vanish like an eclipsed civilization. They can be driven off, and dispersed among the neighbors, but the Palestinian diaspora will hang interminable with a much fresher claim to the lands of their fathers than ever had the Zionists.

But on the ground, the captive Palestinians will never reconstitute even a client state, so long as Israel pens them in like Soweto. Lands allotted to Palestinians will be work camps, and prison camps, with every un-free man’s right to rebel against the yoke of occupation. Israel will dodge rockets until the last slave is shackled.

And I guess the world will sit by and let them do that. However blatant they want to be about it.

Knowing that after Lebanon and Gaza, Israel has disciplinary actions aimed at Syria and Iran, what are the prospects for cohabitation in the Middle East? Does Israel expect that its “right to exist” grants it a swath of no-man’s zone, extended beyond the borders of all its neighbors? Israel’s wrathful attack on Gaza, as retaliation for Hamas’ motley rockets, the disproportionality of the air strikes, and the IDF’s disregard for innocent civilian casualties, betrays Israel’s racist ambivalence about the fate of non-Jews. Without a humanitarian regard for others, how can Israel expect to be asked to the adult’s table?

So Israel has sealed its own fate. Obliterate the Palestinians or drive them off, ostracize the neighbors until you are all alone. Israel will be a solitary state, inhabited by the white elite, separated by a state religion forbidden to their darker working castes. The untouchables will live behind apartheid walls until delivered by an Arab Mandela. Then international pressure, hopefully too a domestic conscience, will bring Democracy, and then, as current opponents of a single-state-solution fear, a popular vote will eradicate the oppression of religious rule.

Say goodbye to Israel, the Jewish State. It will “be wiped off the map” of the Middle East, and left for Jews and Palestinians to inhabit with equality. So long as particular Palestinians do not survive who have claims to properties appropriated by the Zionists, or so long as some compensation is offered to buy off the Palestinian’s right of return, the rich Jewish enclaves will coexist with the have-nots, like the gated communities of any other third world nation.

Or Israelis could choose the single state solution right now.

Nawabad Afghanistan civilian casualties

Posted on September 8, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Oops. US military spokesmen have had to do an about-face on their account of the NATO air raid on Nawabad which may have killed in excess of 60 Afghan children. It turns out a western doctor on the scene the next day made a video record on his cell phone which depicted more bodies than the US Special Forces had admitted, by a factor of too many.

UN and Afghan representatives are calling for an investigation into the over 90 casualties. Their counts are corroborated by the villagers and eyewitnesses. The official US and NATO casualty figure is still eight. This is the number recorded by the ISAF soldiers and corroborated by an embed reporter, working for none other than Fox News, and being none other than Oliver North!

South Ossetia a land grab by US Georgia

Posted on August 11, 2008 by NMT

Russian tanks come to protect South Ossetia The US is decrying Russian aggression in South Ossetia, a breakaway province of Georgia, itself a breakaway of the ex-Soviet states. Georgia is a US proxy and a NATO beachhead aimed toward Russia and the Middle East. South Ossetia is a critical part. Here’s analysis from Global Research:

War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation?
By Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 10, 2008

During the night of August 7, coinciding with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Georgia’s president Saakashvili ordered an all-out military attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia.

The aerial bombardments and ground attacks were largely directed against civilian targets including residential areas, hospitals and the university. The provincial capital Tskhinvali was destroyed. The attacks resulted in some 1500 civilian deaths, according to both Russian and Western sources. “The air and artillery bombardment left the provincial capital without water, food, electricity and gas. Horrified civilians crawled out of the basements into the streets as fighting eased, looking for supplies.” (AP, August 9, 2008). According to reports, some 34,000 people from South Ossetia have fled to Russia. (Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake City, August 10, 2008)

The importance and timing of this military operation must be carefully analyzed. It has far-reaching implications.

Georgia is an outpost of US and NATO forces, on the immediate border of the Russian Federation and within proximity of the Middle East Central Asian war theater. South Ossetia is also at the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipeline routes.

Georgia does not act militarily without the assent of Washington. The Georgian head of State is a US proxy and Georgia is a de facto US protectorate.

Who is behind this military agenda? What interests are being served? What is the purpose of the military operation.

There is evidence that the attacks were carefully coordinated by the US military and NATO.

Moscow has accused NATO of “encouraging Georgia”. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underscored the destabilizing impacts of “foreign” military aid to Georgia: .

“It all confirms our numerous warnings addressed to the international community that it is necessary to pay attention to massive arms purchasing by Georgia during several years. Now we see how these arms and Georgian special troops who had been trained by foreign specialists are used,” he said.(Moscow accuses NATO of having “encouraged Georgia” to attack South Ossetia, Russia Today, August 9, 2008)

Moscow’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, sent an official note to the representatives of all NATO member countries:

“Russia has already begun consultations with the ambassadors of the NATO countries and consultations with NATO military representatives will be held tomorrow,” Rogozin said. “We will caution them against continuing to further support of Saakashvili.”

“It is an undisguised aggression accompanied by a mass propaganda war,” he said.

(See Moscow accuses NATO of having “encouraged Georgia” to attack South Ossetia, Russia Today, August 9, 2008)

According to Rogozin, Georgia had initially planned to:

“start military action against Abkhazia, however, ‘the Abkhaz fortified region turned out to be unassailable for Georgian armed formations, therefore a different tactic was chosen aimed against South Ossetia’, which is more accessible territorially. The envoy has no doubts that Mikheil Saakashvili had agreed his actions with “sponsors”, “those with whom he is negotiating Georgia’s accession to NATO “. (RIA Novosti, August 8, 2008)

Contrary to what was conveyed by Western media reports, the attacks were anticipated by Moscow. The attacks were timed to coincide with the opening of the Olympics, largely with a view to avoiding frontpage media coverage of the Georgian military operation.

On August 7, Russian forces were in an advanced state readiness. The counterattack was swiftly carried out.

Russian paratroopers were sent in from Russia’s Ivanovo, Moscow and Pskov airborne divisions. Tanks, armored vehicles and several thousand ground troops have been deployed. Russian air strikes have largely targeted military facilities inside Georgia including the Gori military base.

The Georgian military attack was repealed with a massive show of strength on the part of the Russian military.
Act of Provocation?

US-NATO military and intelligence planners invariably examine various “scenarios” of a proposed military operation– i.e. in this case, a limited Georgian attack largely directed against civilian targets, with a view to inflicting civilian casualties.

The examination of scenarios is a routine practice. With limited military capabilities, a Georgian victory and occupation of Tskhinvali, was an impossibility from the outset. And this was known and understood to US-NATO military planners.

A humanitarian disaster rather than a military victory was an integral part of the scenario. The objective was to destroy the provincial capital, while also inflicting a significant loss of human life.

If the objective were to restore Georgian political control over the provincial government, the operation would have been undertaken in a very different fashion, with Special Forces occupying key public buildings, communications networks and provincial institutions, rather than waging an all out bombing raid on residential areas, hospitals, not to mention Tskhinvali’s University.

The Russian response was entirely predictable.

Georgia was “encouraged” by NATO and the US. Both Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels were acutely aware of what would happen in the case of a Russian counterattack.

The question is: was this a deliberate provocation intended to trigger a Russian military response and suck the Russians into a broader military confrontation with Georgia (and allied forces) which could potentially escalate into an all out war?

Georgia has the third largest contingent of coalition forces in Iraq after the US and the UK, with some 2000 troops. According to reports, Georgian troops in Iraq are now being repatriated in US military planes, to fight Russian forces. (See Debka.com, August 10, 2008)

This US decision to repatriate Georgian servicemen suggests that Washington is intent upon an escalation of the conflict, where Georgian troops are to be used as canon fodder against a massive deployment of Russian forces.

US-NATO and Israel Involved in the Planning of the Attacks

In mid-July, Georgian and U.S. troops held a joint military exercise entitled “Immediate Response” involving respectively 1,200 US and 800 Georgian troops.

The announcement by the Georgian Ministry of Defense on July 12 stated that they US and Georgian troops were to “train for three weeks at the Vaziani military base” near the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. (AP, July 15, 2008). These exercises, which were completed barely a week before the August 7 attacks, were an obvious dress rehearsal of a military operation, which, in all likelihood, had been planned in close cooperation with the Pentagon.

The war on Southern Ossetia was not meant to be won, leading to the restoration of Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia. It was intended to destabilize the region while also triggering a US-NATO confrontation with Russia.

On July 12, coinciding with the outset of the Georgia-US war games, the Russian Defense Ministry started its own military maneuvers in the North Caucasus region. The usual disclaimer by both Tblisi and Moscow: the military exercises have “nothing to do” with the situation in South Ossetia. (Ibid)

Let us be under no illusions. This is not a civil war. The attacks are an integral part of the broader Middle East Central Asian war, including US-NATO-Israeli war preparations in relation to Iran.

The Role of Israeli Military Advisers

While NATO and US military advisers did not partake in the military operation per se, they were actively involved in the planning and logistics of the attacks. According to Israeli sources (Debka.com, August 8, 2008), the ground assault on August 7-8, using tanks and artillery was “aided by Israeli military advisers”. Israel also supplied Georgia with Hermes-450 and Skylark unmanned aerial vehicles, which were used in the weeks leading up to the August 7 attacks.

Georgia has also acquired, according to a report in Rezonansi (August 6, in Georgian, BBC translation) “some powerful weapons through the upgrade of Su-25 planes and artillery systems in Israel”. According to Haaretz (August 10, 2008), Israelis are active in military manufacturing and security consulting in Georgia.

Russian forces are now directly fighting a NATO-US trained Georgian army integrated by US and Israeli advisers. And Russian warplanes have attacked the military jet factory on the outskirts of Tbilisi, which produces the upgraded Su-25 fighter jet, with technical support from Israel. (CTV.ca, August 10, 2008)

When viewed in the broader context of the Middle East war, the crisis in Southern Ossetia could lead to escalation, including a direct confrontation between Russian and NATO forces. If this were to occur, we would be facing the most serious crisis in US-Russian relations since the Cuban Missile crisis in October 1962.

Georgia: NATO-US Outpost

Georgia is part of a NATO military alliance (GUAM) signed in April 1999 at the very outset of the war on Yugoslavia. It also has a bilateral military cooperation agreement with the US. These underlying military agreements have served to protect Anglo-American oil interests in the Caspian sea basin as well as pipeline routes.

Both the US and NATO have a military presence in Georgia and are working closely with the Georgian Armed Forces. Since the signing of the 1999 GUAM agreement, Georgia has been the recipient of extensive US military aid.

Barely a few months ago, in early May, the Russian Ministry of Defense accused Washington, “claiming that [US as well as NATO and Israeli] military assistance to Georgia is destabilizing the region.” (Russia Claims Georgia in Arms Buildup, Wired News, May 19, 2008). According to the Russian Defense Ministry

“Georgia has received 206 tanks, of which 175 units were supplied by NATO states, 186 armored vehicles (126 – from NATO) , 79 guns (67 – from NATO) , 25 helicopters (12 – from NATO) , 70 mortars, ten surface-to-air missile systems, eight Israeli-made unmanned aircraft, and other weapons. In addition, NATO countries have supplied four combat aircraft to Georgia. The Russian Defense Ministry said there were plans to deliver to Georgia 145 armored vehicles, 262 guns and mortars, 14 combat aircraft including four Mirazh-2000 destroyers, 25 combat helicopters, 15 American Black Hawk aircraft, six surface-to-air missile systems and other arms.” (Interfax News Agency, Moscow, in Russian, Aug 7, 2008)

NATO-US-Israeli assistance under formal military cooperation agreements involves a steady flow of advanced military equipment as well as training and consulting services.

According to US military sources (spokesman for US European Command), the US has more than 100 “military trainers” in Georgia. A Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman “said there were no plans to redeploy the estimated 130 US troops and civilian contractors, who he said were stationed in the area around Tblisi” (AFP, 9 August 2008). In fact, US-NATO military presence in Georgia is on a larger scale to that acknowledged in official statements. The number of NATO personnel in Georgia acting as trainers and military advisers has not been confirmed.

Although not officially a member of NATO, Georgia’s military is full integrated into NATO procedures. In 2005, Georgian president proudly announced the inauguration of the first military base, which “fully meets NATO standards”. Immediately following the inauguration of the Senakskaya base in west Georgia, Tblisi announced the opening of a second military base at Gori which would also “comply with NATO regulations in terms of military requirements as well as social conditions.” (Ria Novosti, 26 May 2006).

The Gori base has been used to train Georgian troops dispatched to fight under US command in the Iraq war theater.

It is worth noting that under a March 31, 2006, agreement between Tblisi and Moscow, Russia’s two Soviet-era military bases in Georgia – Akhalkalaki and Batumi have been closed down. (Ibid) The pullout at Batumi commenced in May of last year, 2007. The last remaining Russian troops left the Batumi military facility in early July 2008, barely a week before the commencement of the US-Georgia war games and barely a month prior to the attacks on South Ossetia.

The Israel Connection

Israel is now part of the Anglo-American military axis, which serves the interests of the Western oil giants in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Israel is a partner in the Baku-Tblisi- Ceyhan pipeline which brings oil and gas to the Eastern Mediterranean. More than 20 percent of Israeli oil is imported from Azerbaijan, of which a large share transits through the BTC pipeline. Controlled by British Petroleum, the BTC pipeline has dramatically changed the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucusus:

“[The BTC pipeline] considerably changes the status of the region’s countries and cements a new pro-West alliance. Having taken the pipeline to the Mediterranean, Washington has practically set up a new bloc with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Israel, ” (Komerzant, Moscow, 14 July 2006)

While the official reports state that the BTC pipeline will “channel oil to Western markets”, what is rarely acknowledged is that part of the oil from the Caspian sea would be directly channeled towards Israel, via Georgia. In this regard, a Israeli-Turkish pipeline project has also been envisaged which would link Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon and from there through Israel’s main pipeline system, to the Red Sea.

The objective of Israel is not only to acquire Caspian sea oil for its own consumption needs but also to play a key role in re-exporting Caspian sea oil back to the Asian markets through the Red Sea port of Eilat. The strategic implications of this re-routing of Caspian sea oil are far-reaching. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 2006)

What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel’s Tipline, from Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon.

“Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East,

The new Turkish-Israeli proposal under discussion would see the transfer of water, electricity, natural gas and oil to Israel via four underwater pipelines.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961328841&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull“Baku oil can be transported to Ashkelon via this new pipeline and to India and the Far East.[via the Red sea]”

“Ceyhan and the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon are situated only 400 km apart. Oil can be transported to the city in tankers or via specially constructed under-water pipeline. From Ashkelon the oil can be pumped through already existing pipeline to the port of Eilat at the Red Sea; and from there it can be transported to India and other Asian countries in tankers. (REGNUM)

In this regard, Israel is slated to play a major strategic role in “protecting” the Eastern Mediterranean transport and pipeline corridors out of Ceyhan. Concurrently, it also involved in channeling military aid and training to both Georgia and Azerbaijan.

A far-reaching 1999 bilateral military cooperation agreement between Tblisi and Tel Aviv was reached barely a month before the NATO sponsored GUUAM agreement. It was signed in Tbilisi by President Shevardnadze and Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyu. These various military cooperation arrangements are ultimately intended to undermine Russia’s presence and influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In a pro forma declaration, Tel Aviv committed itself, following bilateral discussions with Moscow, on August 5, 2008, to cut back military assistance to Georgia.

Russia’s Response

In response to the attacks, Russian forces intervened with conventional ground troops. Tanks and armored vehicles were sent in. The Russian air force was also involved in aerial counter-attacks on Georgian military positions including the military base of Gori.

The Western media has portrayed the Russian as solely responsible for the deaths of civilians, yet at the same time the Western media has acknowledged (confirmed by the BBC) that most of the civilian casualties at the outset were the result of the Georgian ground and air attacks.

Based on Russian and Western sources, the initial death toll in South Ossetia was at least 1,400 (BBC) mostly civilians. “Georgian casualty figures ranged from 82 dead, including 37 civilians, to a figure of around 130 dead…. A Russian air strike on Gori, a Georgian town near South Ossetia, left 60 people dead, many of them civilians, Georgia says.” (BBC, August 9, 2008). Russian sources place the number of civilian deaths on South Ossetia at 2000.

A process of escalation and confrontation between Russia and America is unfolding, reminiscent of the Cold War era.

Are we dealing with an act of provocation, with a view to triggering a broader conflict? Supported by media propaganda, the Western military alliance is intent on using this incident to confront Russia, as evidenced by recent NATO statements.

War on terror comes full circle

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Eric Verlo

President Bush & Co make much ado about staying the course in Iraq because he’d rather fight them there than fight them at here at home. What remains unclarified is that we are fighting them here already.

Since the advent of the Predator drone, and now the much deadlier Reaper, the US has military personnel, at home, looking into video monitors, controlling the remote robotic killing machines, and pulling the trigger. They are fighting the war from here.

How is that different from NORAD monitoring our missile defenses, or Buckley eavesdropping on everyone? Not much perhaps, except that those are support services and not the front line. It means to me that if Joe Mohammed is under attack by our forces and the soldier looking down the barrel at him is sitting in Indian Springs, Nevada, the only way Mohammed can prevent from being fired upon is to address the machine gun nest in Nevada.

We’ve all seen the movie scene, a squadron is pinned down by a thorny and concealed enemy machine-gunner. A volunteer is sought to sneak up the ridge and lob a grenade into the enemy fortification. The mission is heralded as being sheer suicide, but somebody’s got to do it for our guys to move forward. In reality many posthumous Medals of Honor have been awarded for just that job.

Under international rules of engagement wouldn’t Mohammed’s recourse to target Nevada be justified? Our government certainly justifies doing it all the time from warships. We even justify large civilian casualties as collateral damage to our military imperatives. When they do it, it’ll be in self defense.

The drones fly too high for RPGs, the satellites are of course unreachable, the only link accessible is the control room pillbox, 30 miles outside Las Vegas. How surprising that security reports find that the American homeland is becoming a more likely target for “terrorists.”

George Bush and the US military have placed the American people in the direct line of fire. They have brought the battlefield home, at the same time claiming it’s what they want to prevent.

US AIR FORCE BRINGS THE WAR HOME!

Posted on July 16, 2007 by Eric Verlo

Precision bombing in Amerli Iraq
Think we can reduce suicide bomber attacks? How about US casualties? How about civilian casualties which show up at hospitals? Of course we can. In this respect a surge is already working. We’re bombing the hell out of Iraq. Here’s a landscape which leaves no suicide bomber, or child, unburied. We don’t have to count them, they go away. Air strikes reduce having to expose our ground troops to combat. The Air Force has been ramping up its presence at our permanent airbases and today announced the impending deployment of robot attack aircraft, labeled diplomatically enough, Reapers. Here’s how The Scotsman introduced the story:

PILOTED from 7,000 miles away in Nevada, the United States air force is about to deploy the world’s first dedicated robot attack squadron to Iraq, a watershed moment even in a conflict that has seen many innovative ways to hunt and kill.

When our military deploys unmanned killer vehicles to fire upon Afghans and Iraqis, controlled by US operators at Creech Airforce Base in Nevada, where is the battlefield considered to be? Could our enemy be blamed for having to target Nevada? Has the Air Force thus brought the fight home?

Just how stupid is the American public?

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Tony Logan

A recent Washington Post poll reports that over half the US public believes that in the last 4 years of war waged by the US against Iraq, that only 10,000 or less Iraqi civilians have lost their lives!

True, polls often claim to be accurate opinion takers when they are not, but this one seems to ring true. The poll goes on to report, that now, still less than 6 out of 10 believe that the US made a mistake by assaulting Iraq with its troops, which would make sense if over half of Americans also believe that less than 13,000 people (Iraqi civilians and American military personnel combined) have lost their lives, in 4 years of a war that has blown away more than a trillion dollars of US and Iraqi money when combined resources are put together. Or maybe they think that there have been ten to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi combatants killed, while all the civilians got off relatively Scot free? This illogic is not ignorance, but stupidity.

This is more than willful ignorance, too, but actually is just pure gross stupidity. Actually willful ignorance as Americans practice it routinely, over the long run will produce pure stupidity over time. How on earth would any rational person believe that so much money for war making could produce so little civilian casualties? It’s not like the money was going towards Iraqi reconstruction, because it is widely known that nothing works there. Not the oil lines, not the potable water, not the hospitals, not the electrical power grid, not the sewage systems. It takes pure stupidity to believe that all that Pentagon power only killed less than 10,000 civilians in 4 years. Not even Bush and Cheney would state that! So we are left with a population where over 1/2 of the people are even stupider than are the lies they receive from the charlatan liars in the highest offices.

What can we ever do with such a stupid population at hand? It’s not as if we can give half the US population brain transplants. to remedy the situation. It’s not mathematical ignorance that leads so many to add up 2+2 and not get 4, but rather it is lack of any brain power at all. And how many in the US believe the world is only 10,000 or so years old? How many believe in ghosts? Just how stupid is the US public? PLENTY.

Comparing the death tolls

Posted on November 26, 2006 by Eric Verlo

In the aftermath of bombings and indiscriminate attacks in Iraq which reached record numbers on Thanksgiving, I read that the combined Iraqi civilian casualties raised the Baghdad death toll to 202. For the day. For Baghdad. The count starts anew each day.

Meanwhile the US soldier death toll is 50 and climbing, for the month. For all of Iraq. Why the differing units of measure? Why not consider weekly totals for both Americans and Iraqis, to facillitate comparison?

I know something’s wrong on the grocery shelf when the price of some items is given per ounce, while a similar commodity is described per pound. Somebody doesn’t want the price comparison weighed, and I haven’t yet taken a calculator with me to discover who.

Why this discrepancy of value for human lives? I’m thankful at least we are new counting the Iraqi lives lost, although the numbers are themselves distorted. US forces are conducting more air attacks where it’s more difficult to measure the casualties. Won’t somebody come out and say it, we care quite a bit less about Iraqi lives compared to American lives? Even though the Iraqis were likely innocents, often children and children.

How can news outlets simply set the standards of measure as if the most important factor was to have the result fall within manageable ranges, figures we can wrap our head around? Or more accurately, figures they can wrap around our head.

What’s going to happen when the daily toll of civilian deaths reaches higher? Will they break the day into parts, a morning Iraqi death toll for example? To compare not too insanely with the US deaths per month? What a ruse.

Five thousand Iraqis

Posted on October 14, 2006 by Eric Verlo

Johns Hopkins has calculated that 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the US invasion of their country. Six Hundred Fifty Five Thousand.

Quite a difference from the 30,000 by Bush’s estimate, “give or take a thousand.” Or the 45,000 by the official media counts. Or Lancet’s original 100,000 and later 250,000. Both those numbers were contested too, even as they were now probably conservative.

Most people who know that civilian casualties have been understated are still refuting the 655,000. ” I’m not sure the count is that high, but it’s high I’m sure.” Critical thinking without the why. Johns Hopkins methods, like the Lancet’s are peer reviewed for all to see. Our government and its supporters are the only ones to refute the number. When have they yet proven to speak any truth at all?

I’ll tell you I believe the new figure. I read about how it was calculated, based on surveys and statistical studies, with the same means as are used elsewhere in other populations and other catastrophes. I cannot believe, cannot fathom, cannot mourn 650,000 Iraqi lives destroyed by American aggression. What I can conceptualize is the 5,000 more. Tell me you caught a fish one foot and one half inch long, and I’m inclined to believe you measured it.

For those who want to compare the 655,000 to how many Iraqis would have died under Sadam’s continued reign, the number is already taken into account. Let me quote the latest study:

As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions

All the news fit to be shown to Americans

Posted on September 29, 2006 by Eric Verlo

This September has been the most fatal month for Canadians in Afghanistan. The number of Canadian soldiers killed peacekeeping for NATO has been accelerating of late and now stands at 37. It would stand to reason that Afghanistan would make the news.

Amy Goodman’s Independent Media in a Time of War examined the difference between the Iraq war coverage on CNN versus CNN international. Not the difference between Fox-News and the BBC, just the difference between in-house news departments of the same company.

What explains the decision to have a different cover story in this week’s domestic issue of Newsweek? Losing Afghanistan everywhere else, Annie Liebowitz: My Life In Pictures here.

The War in Afghanistan has become the forgotten war, due in large part because it is also kept an invisible war.

It serves to remember that regardless of the occasional expose, our press is neither unvigilant nor asleep. More precisely, their vigilance attends to guarding we don’t lose our sleep.

I have to remind myself, after reading any story critical of the war, that our press is not critical. The Wall Street Journal are terrible Neocon war mongers. The Washington Post, cynical war mongers. The Los Angeles Times, bandwagon war mongers. The New York Times, gatekeeper war mongers. Fox, MSNBC, of course cheerleader war mongers. CBS, ABC, war monger wannabees. Disney, war monger profiteers.

Recently fans are rallying around Keith Olbermann and his recent tirades against this administration. I agree we should support his speaking out, but Olbermann’s got a long way to go before he atones for his full throttle support in the lead-in to war.

Over 250,000 Iraqis are dead as a result of our invasion. Afghanistan too continues to suffer terrible civilian casualties. Our press supported both ventures and continues to support them.

Unsustainable argument making

Posted on April 14, 2006 by Eric Verlo

I attended Colorado College’s symposium about the expected effects of climate change upon the Rocky Mountain region. There was less discussion about adapting to the certain change than there was about hoping still to prevent it.

By focusing on trying to undo global warming, the discussion had to quantify the changes and of course explain their causes. This opened up the door to arguing the causal links, leading to the idea that perhaps we need do nothing at all.

I don’t know but I think I expected to see live scientists deny global warming. What scentist is going to deny global warming? Should be a good show! What I learned was how they deny it. It’s boring but instructive.

Our panel consisted of a student researcher who presented a study of current and forecasted climate change, a representative of the ski industry to present their plans and efforts, and two professors to explain the science. The professors were a father son team from UNC and USC respectively. While they might smilingly present themselves as advocates of environmental issues, I’d call them spoilers.

Elder Roger Pielke went into the technical gobbledegook concluding… nothing. Probably the scientific community needs those guys, but don’t put him on a public panel. His part: spirited, unquestionably qualified, perhaps even well meaning, obfuscation.

His son Robert Pielke explained the need for more unbiased research. Too many scientists have spoken out in alarm about global warming, thus they are biased and their research cannot be trusted. We’ll need more unalarmed scientists to weigh in before we can conclude anything. Follow that logic? This was Pielke’s lesson: always question the motive of a researcher.

Great lesson, in reverse! Someone seeking to deny the warming, underwritten usually by big oil, coal, and general industrial interests, that person’s research might be wise to scrutinize. What pray tell might be the ulterior motives of the 70% of scientists who are currently expressing their alarm about global warming?

Junior Pielke’s approach is the same argument we hear from the unIntelligent Design proponents. Question the motives. Scientists are biased against a deity apparently and therefore evolution findings cannot be trusted. It’s good advice to question the motives. What are the creationists’ motives? To further our understanding of the physical world or to bolster increasingly fallable-looking poppycrock?

Don’t we hear that argument everywhere? Never mind Bush’s motives for slaughtering now up to 250, 000 Iraqi civilians, question the protestor’s motives, no doubt they do not support the troops!

The 250, 000 casualty figure comes from the British medical journal The Lancet, previously unquestioned when they presented their estimates of civilian casualties in the Balkans and Africa. Question their motives. The Lancet figure, estimated to be lower than the probable casualty count, came from American, English and Iraqi doctors. No doubt their ulterior motive is to save lives.

Alito’s new world order executive branch

Posted on January 30, 2006 by Eric Verlo

New Orleans Police kill man armed with three inch knife
Overwelming firepower. In this case against a three-inch knife.

Moments after this video was taken, while the young amateur camera operator was racing down the stairs to film the standoff from street level, the New Orleans police officers shot and killed this man.

We’ve seen this more and more often. There are reports every day of suspects being killed by tasers. Policemen shoot boys armed with BB guns. Police shoot unarmed detainees.

It happens in war. We drop 500 pound bombs on innocent families. We stop vehicles with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. In war this is illegal. It is called use of overwelming force and it is illegal. Kill-boxes, free-fire-zones, shoot-anything-that-moves, bulldozing houses, indescriminate killing, disproportunate civilian casualties, illegal.

With Alito’s appointment to the Supreme Court, the deck is getting stacked against any judicial recourse. False arrest? Police brutality? Tell it to the judge.

Permissible degrees of torture

Posted on January 18, 2006 by Eric Verlo

Department of Information Retrieval.
In the film Brazil, the smallest typo, a brush with an unlicensed repairman, or a humanitarian impulse, can see you in the hotseat.

There are no permissible degrees of torture.

I’d like to try to make that point sometime. I’ll ask for a volunteer. I’ll explain to the volunteer and to those watching what I intend to do. “Put you arm behind your back where I can grab it and twist it slowly. Like this,” I’ll illustrate. “I’ll twist gently but steadily until it might begin to hurt.” It will be up to the people watching to decide at which point I’ve gone too far.

Then I’ll have to hope that there aren’t too many sadists in the crowd. Plan B might be to grab for something like a baseball bat, out of view of the volunteer, and appear prepared to hit him with an unsuspected blow. Much will depend on the onlookers rising to interfere.

In that manner we will all be able to explore what it means to accept a certain degree of torture, up to a point. And that point should lie somewhere between the anticipation of torture and the application of pain. If my subject wets himself or herself at just the thought, perhaps my audience will urge that even the anticipation is going too far.

I hope we can recognize that we want to tolerate not a single degree of torture.

Many experts have been coming out to say that torture is not effective. In this era of modern chemistry, we have all sorts of drugs and serums for overcoming a person’s mental resistance. Putting aside whether those methods are themselves ethical, if interrogators want to learn something from a detainee, there is no need to resort to torture.

Torture is not about interrogation. Torture is about terror. It is terrorism exercised upon a defenseless captive, and it is terrorism practiced against a population who are subjugated by the fear that they too may face torture.

We have declared war on terrorism. Terrorism such as our governement defines it does not exist. There are no idealogues whose chief pursuit in life is the spread of terrorism. This is a myth. Terrorism is not an ideology.

Terrorism is a practice, and we are its greatest perpetrators. In the main it’s called state-sponsored-terrorism. Extra-judicial assassinations, the sanction of indescriminate killing, the tolerance of disproportunate civilian casualties, the imposition of inhumane social structures, all constitute the terror we are imposing upon an occupied people.

Torture is another method by which we terrorise our subjects.

Are we united against terrorism? Why then are we not also aggreed that we are united against torture?

Lost in translation

Posted on January 12, 2006 by Eric Verlo

Stoning the Devil between noon and sunset
Today 345 pilgrims in Saudi Arabia were stampeded to death. Hundreds more were injured. It happened in the frantic scramble of millions of pilgrims trying to edge close enough to three ancient pillars to cast 29 pebbles at them. Or something like that. Before the sun set.

I wish I wasn’t feeling so disheartened by this news. It’s not about the loss of life exactly. Antiwar activists are trying their best to give meaning to the Iraqi deaths we’ve caused in this war while Muslims in Mecca are dying because they’ve trampled each other.

When you take this religious war at face value you can see why many Americans dismiss Islam as a religion for simple people. On one hand you become convinced to take up the responsibility of the white man’s burden, and on the other hand you want to subdue any militancy such a people might entertain toward threatening you.

On a day like today it’s hard not to want to hedge your bets with the Neocon zionists.

A stampede like this has the propensity to happen every year at the ritual of the Ramajat. Sometimes the casualties have been many times more. Each year the government tries to improve the lay of the land to accommodate the increasing millions of pebble-throwing pilgrims. Imagine if everyone descending to the subway was determined to use just the leftmost turnstyle, and they weren’t about to slow down to do it.

Except that these death at Mecca were of their own choosing, and except that to die on the Hajj is an honorable death, this predictable tragedy appears synonymous with the useless muslim deaths by our hand.

I cannot help but feel there’s racism in my sentiments. These pilgrims weren’t killed because they were stupid or simple or primitive. This is tradition meets technology, maximum capacity meets three million persons, this is crowd dynamics.

I do not begrudge the Muslims their holy pursuits, especially as a response to the tragedies we’ve visited upon them. But couldn’t the pilgrims or the Saudi government for that matter take a special war-time care not to appear careless about their own lives?

It’s a hard enough sell over here. Here American newspeople are still asking questions like “civilian casualties -are the lives of our soldiers being jeopardized by too great of a concern for the safety of Iraqi civilians?”

It would be no great leap for a young American soldier to rationalize his callous barbarity. He can believe he’s machine-gunning the “stupid Hadjis” to their eternal paradise.

Iraq War protest concept 2 LONG DISTANCE CONNECTION

Posted on October 4, 2005 by Eric Verlo

A red telephone will float at the surface of an open steel barrel filled with red liquid. The sides of the barrel will be covered with pictures of Iraqi civilian casualties. The handset will be coated with red syrup.

When the handset is handled and held close to the ear, a looped recording will feature the voice of a friend or relative over a long distance telephone line:

“I don’t know anyone who’s gone to Iraq. I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who’s gone to Iraq. I don’t know what’s happening there at all. It doesn’t really touch my life. I feel kind of strange about it I guess. It just doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

Returning the handset to the phone, one’s hand will appear bloodied.

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