Israelis fire missile into Gaza demonstrators

Israeli forces fired a missile and four tank shells to hold back a large crowd of Palestinian demonstrators today, and shrapnel from the blasts killed at least 10 Palestinian children and teenagers and wounded 50 people, hospital officials said.

This has nothing to do with self-defense or stopping terrorism, and makes a lie of Israeli claims stating such.

Update:

President Bush called for Israel to exercise restraint and respect for “innocent life” in Gaza Strip on Wednesday but stopped short of condemning the Jewish state for firing on Palestinian protesters.

Bush’s statement makes a mockery of his statements championing human rights, but you already knew that, right?

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Israel destroying town of refugees

Rafah is a refugee city of Palestinians. Israelis troops, tanks, and helicopters are currently flattening it, killing anything that moves.

Under heavy cover fire from helicopters, Israeli troops combed this refugee camp for weapons and gunmen Tuesday in the biggest Gaza offensive in years. Twenty Palestinians were killed, including two teenagers shot as they gathered laundry.

Homes are being bulldozed, sometimes with people in them. Ambulances have been fired on by Israeli helicopters. Anything that moves of the streets is shot at. This is not stopping a terrorist threat, as Sharon and Bush pretend, this IS terrorism. They are attacking and killing noncombatants in a refugee camp.

Homes wrecked, lives destroyed: Israeli tactics fuel the Intifada

Israel was accused yesterday of committing a war crime by its destruction of more than 3,000 Palestinian homes in Israel and the occupied territories since the intifada began three and a half years ago.

The damning report from Amnesty International came as the Israeli army killed up to 19 Palestinians - children as well as militants - in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip where General Moshe Ya’alon, the army chief of staff, warned at the weekend that hundreds more homes could be destroyed.

Israel is also inventing insane excuses saying, for example, that  Palestinians are destroying their own homes. Yeah right.

Asked why Palestinian homeowners would destroy their own property, Ayalon replied: “Maybe they are painting, I don’t know, or wanted to do some renovations and this is a good way to do it.”

What an insulting, inhuman thing to say…

Gaza teenagers killed while feeding pigeons. No doubt Israel will soon announce the pigeons were terrorists, uh huh…

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Former Marine remorseful for killing civilians in Iraq

From AlterNet via the Sacramento Bee. Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey says he and others deliberately killed civilians. On orders.

What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?
The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people.

You mean you fired machine guns?
Well, this particular vehicle we didn’t destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: “Why did you kill my brother? We didn’t do anything wrong.” That hit me like a ton of bricks.

Who gave the order to wipe the demonstrators out?
Higher command.

What kind of firepower was employed?
M-16s, 50-cal. machine guns.

You fired into six or ten kids? Were they all taken out?
Oh, yeah.

Was that the incident that pushed you over the edge, as you put it?
Oh, yeah. Later on I found out that was a typical day. I talked with my commanding officer after the incident. He came up to me and says: “Are you OK?” I said: “No, today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians.” He goes: “No, today was a good day.” And when he said that, I said “Oh, my goodness, what the hell am I into?”

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More on Nick Berg

From Baghdad Burning, an eloquently written blog from an Iraqi woman in Baghdad.

“Ansar Al Islam are a fundamentalist militant group- mostly Kurdish- based in the north of Iraq. They made a name for themselves recently and chose the Kurdish autonomous region as ‘home’ with the full knowledge of the CIA, who had more control over the region than the former regime.

I was sick to my stomach when I first saw the video on some news channel and stood petrified, watching the screen and praying that they wouldn’t show it whole because for some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I feel horrible. Was I shocked? Was I surprised? Hardly. We’ve been expecting this since the first pictures of the torture of Iraqi prisoners broke out. There’s a certain rage in many people that is frightening. There’s a certain hunger and need for revenge that lame apologies from Bush and surprise visits from Rumsfeld won’t appease.

I think beheading was the chosen method of ‘execution’ because the group wanted to shock Americans and westerners in the worst possible way. The torturers at Abu Ghraib and other prisons chose sexual degradation because they knew that nothing would hurt and appall Iraqis and Muslims more than those horrible, sadistic acts. To Iraqis, death is infinitely better than being raped or sexually abused. There are things worse than death itself and those pictures portrayed them.”

They let out around 300+ prisoners today while that sadistic fiend Rumsfeld was in town. Apparently, setting 300 prisoners free of the thousands currently detained is supposed to mollify Iraqis- quite like Bush’s lame half-apology to King Abdallah of Jordan. What is King Abdallah to us? What does it matter if Bush gets down and begs him for forgiveness? What in God’s name does he represent to the Iraqi people?

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In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

At the Camp War Horse detention centre in Baguba, north of Baghdad, it is a surreal scene: US soldiers handing out cash to freed prisoners along with a note saying “You have not been mistreated.”

Desperate to limit the damage from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the US military has launched something of a charm offensive surrounding their detention centres.

What a bunch of dimbulbs! As if saying “you have not been mistreated” and then giving them a bribe could possible make up for the obvious and by now well-documented torture many of them received. The ones that lived, that is…

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They can’t keep their lies straight…

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise and inducing fear as interrogation methods against a single Iraqi inmate at Abu Ghraib prison, according to a description in the classified annex of a military report on prisoner abuse in Iraq.

The disclosure comes a week after Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army’s senior intelligence officer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was “not aware of any situation where Gen. Sanchez gave written approval or requested” any of the harsh interrogation methods.

This is beginning to feel like Watergate, when after months of stonewalling and evasions, the walls began to crumble. For you young pups, a US President was then forced to resign. Let’s hope history repeats itself!

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Go ahead, Bop Bush!

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Surviving Mount Rainier climber evacuated

A helicopter evacuated a climber stranded on Mount Rainier Tuesday, the day after his severely injured companion died on a copter flight to a hospital.

Mt. Ranier, in the state of Washington, is a  mere 14,000+ feet, which makes it puny by Mt. Everest standards. Yet experienced climbers say the glaciers, storms, and often treacherous conditions on Ranier are comparable to most anything in the Himalayas. Yes, it can be that dangerous.

The tallest mountain in the lower 48, Mt. Whitney, can be summited easily in one day in the summer by people wearing shorts. Mt. Ranier, although not quite as tall, has major glaciers, and requires roped climbs with crampons and ice axes - it is orders of magnitude more difficult. And that’s not even considering the storms.

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