Kurdistan!

[Gondorian]

I support the Kurds, but let me criticize them for a moment.

The PKK is an unforgivable Terrorist Organization.

Nothing gives the Kurds, or anybody else for that matter the right to slaughter the innocent the way the PKK has done. Armenians did not slaughter innocent Turks after the Armenian Genocide, not even children of the perpetrators, and Jews did not kill innocent Germans, not even the children of the perpetrators, Kurds who deliberately target Turkish School Children are no better then the Turkish Army.

However that said the Kurds are entitled to a state, and because like the Arabs and Iranians the Turks have been perfect demons when Kurds where involved part of Turkey along with Iraq Syria and Iran should go to the Kurds.

To any Armenian who likes the PKK let me ask you this question.

What if it was a Turk killing your child instead of a Kurd killing a Turkish one?

I fully support Kurdish statehood 100% but not the PKK.

[imported_Sardarapat]

I support the Kurds, but let me criticize them for a moment.

The PKK is an unforgivable Terrorist Organization.

Nothing gives the Kurds, or anybody else for that matter the right to slaughter the innocent the way the PKK has done. Armenians did not slaughter innocent Turks after the Armenian Genocide, not even children of the perpetrators, and Jews did not kill innocent Germans, not even the children of the perpetrators, Kurds who deliberately target Turkish School Children are no better then the Turkish Army.

However that said the Kurds are entitled to a state, and because like the Arabs and Iranians the Turks have been perfect demons when Kurds where involved part of Turkey along with Iraq Syria and Iran should go to the Kurds.

To any Armenian who likes the PKK let me ask you this question.

What if it was a Turk killing your child instead of a Kurd killing a Turkish one?

I fully support Kurdish statehood 100% but not the PKK.

This is all nonsense. Everyone knows that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist and vice versa.

I don't know if you remember or not, but the KLA went from a terrorist organization to a liberation army overnight because the US decided it to be so and I'm curious as to how you view the KLA.

The exact same PKK that are called terrorist in Turkey, are called "freedom fighters" when they are killing in Iraq because that suits the war mongerers that invaded Iraq on false pretenses.

What about NATO or the USA, what are they, humanitarian organizations or the biggest terrorist organizations in the world today? And please don't even try to convince me that they only bomb military targets to avoid civillian casualties when they in fact target civillians just like they did in FRY and they use DUA so that the rest keeo on dying. If that's not terrorism of the worst kind, I don't know what is.

I'll even bring up the PLO, HAMMAS, Hisbolla or whatever which you probably think are terrorists, but I consider them as freedom fighters (Because by international law, occupied people have the right to resist occupation with ANY MEANS at their disposal) just like the French underground lead by Manouchian, which the Germans called "terrorists". Sure you can say that Palestinians kill children and other innocents, but when the IDF, the US, NATO stops killing children and innocents, then you can criticize the Palestinians and the PKK but not before.

The point I'm making is that it's done by everyone and you can't pick and choose who you decide is a terrorist and who isn't.

[imported_Sardarapat]

I know that he is !!!
But unfortunately beeing an idiot doesn't prevent anyone from having a decision making political post. Or the world wouldn't have known any"Sultan Abdul Hamid II" , "Mehmet Talaat", "Hitler" or even "Saddam Husain" !!!

Do you mean the "Saddam Husain" of WMD fame who used chemical weapons on "his own people"? Well, if you bought the story of Serbs commiting a genocide, then it doesn't surprise me at all.

[Kharpert]

The legacy of Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship far transcends a single event of chemical weapons.

Make no mistake, I am vehemently opposed to the War on Iraq, which I believe is the largest blunder and calamity since the Vietnam war, but this still isn't to say that Saddam Hussein was a nice guy. He was, after all, first put into power by the United States as a puppet dictator.

[imported_Sardarapat]

The legacy of Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship far transcends a single event of chemical weapons.

Make no mistake, I am vehemently opposed to the War on Iraq, which I believe is the largest blunder and calamity since the Vietnam war, but this still isn't to say that Saddam Hussein was a nice guy. He was, after all, first put into power by the United States as a puppet dictator.

No one is saying Saddam is a nice guy, but that still doesn't justify the killing of over a half a million Iraqis under false pretenses of WMD and other such nonsense. Anyway, is George Bush ot Tony Blair any better? No. In fact they are worse, but they didn't make the Hitler list for some strange reason. Yes he was a US puppet and a real nice guy until they didn't want him any more then he was suddenly a tyrant.

OF ALL the reasons that the Bush administration has offered to justify its planned war on Iraq, perhaps the most cynical and hypocritical is that it wants to stop Saddam Hussein’s human rights violations. We’re regularly reminded that Saddam gassed and killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in the village of Halabja in 1988. But as PHIL GASPER explains, Washington’s claims ring hollow.

RIGHT NOW, it suits the U.S. government’s purposes to support the Kurds--in part because they have the only armed forces in Iraq opposed to the current regime. But Washington and the West have a long record of betraying the Kurdish people.

The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country. Their total population is around 26 million--with about half living in Turkey and most of the rest in Iran, Iraq and Syria.

At the end of the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East collapsed, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson promised to create a Kurdish state within two years. This promise, however, was soon forgotten, as Western powers competed to control the region’s oil.

British planes gassed and bombed Kurdish villages in Iraq in order to enforce the borders that the colonial rulers of London wanted. "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas," said Winston Churchill, Britain’s war secretary at the time. "I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes."

Meanwhile, the Turkish government brutally repressed Kurds living in its territory, denying them freedom of language and culture. This violated international treaties, but the Western powers supported the Turks, who were seen as a vital ally in preventing the spread of the Russian revolution.

At the end of the Second World War, Kurds in northern Iran briefly set up their own republic. But the government in Tehran soon crushed this experiment, with the backing of the U.S. and Britain.

In the early 1970s, as tensions between Iran and its neighbor Iraq increased, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger agreed to support a plan devised by the Shah of Iran to encourage an uprising by Kurds in Iraq. By 1975, Kissinger had secretly channeled $16 million in military aid to the Kurds, who believed that Washington was finally supporting their right to self-determination.

But the following year, the House Select Committee on Intelligence issued the Pike report, which revealed that the U.S. never had any intention of supporting a Kurdish state. "Documents in the Committee’s possession clearly show that the President [Richard Nixon], Dr. Kissinger and the foreign head of state [the Shah of Iran] hoped that our clients [the Kurds] would not prevail," the report concluded. "They preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities sufficient to sap the resources of our ally’s neighboring country [Iraq]. This policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue fighting."

After Iran and Iraq resolved their border dispute at the 1975 OPEC summit, however, the Iraqi government was told that U.S. support for the Kurds would now be withdrawn. The Iraqis immediately launched an aggressive campaign against Kurdish rebels. "The insurgents were clearly taken by surprise," the congressional report recounted. "Their adversaries, knowing of the impending aid cut-off, launched an all-out search-and-destroy campaign the day after the agreement [with Iran] was signed. "The autonomy movement was over, and our former clients scattered before the [Iraqi] central government’s superior forces."

As Iraq wiped out the remaining rebels, the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani sent a message to Kissinger. "Our movement and people are being destroyed in an unbelievable way, with silence from everyone," Barzani said. "We feel, your excellency, that the United States has a moral and political responsibility towards our people, who have committed themselves to your country’s policy." Kissinger, however, thought otherwise, and sent no reply.

According to the Pike report, "Over 200,000 refugees managed to escape into Iran. Once there however, neither the United States nor Iran extended adequate humanitarian assistance. In fact, Iran was later to forcibly return over 40,000 of the refugees, and the United States government refused to admit even one refugee into the United States by way of political asylum, even though they qualified for such admittance."

As usual, Kissinger had no trouble justifying this cold-hearted behavior. "Covert action," he explained to a congressional staffer, "should not be confused with missionary work." As the Pike report concluded, "Even in the context of covert actions, ours was a cynical enterprise."

This cynicism continued into the 1980s, when, after the Iranian revolution that overthrew the Shah, the U.S. began supporting Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq--even after Baghdad used chemical weapons in its war on Iran.

During the course of the war, both Iran and Iraq carried out brutal massacres of their own Kurdish populations. In 1988, as the war was winding down, the Iraqi army carried out its murderous and now infamous gas attacks on rebellious Kurdish villages, which it accused of aiding Iran.

In response, some members of Congress called for an end to U.S. military aid to Iraq and other mild sanctions. But these measures were vigorously opposed by both the Reagan and Bush administrations, which called them "premature" and "misguided."

It was only after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that Washington’s concern for Kurdish rights suddenly reappeared--during the build-up to the last Gulf War. George Bush Sr. proclaimed that Saddam Hussein was the new Hitler and said that the U.S. was fighting to free the Iraqi population.

But at the end of the war, when Shia Muslims in the South and Kurds in the North rebelled against the regime, the U.S. abandoned them--even permitting the Iraqi military to use helicopter gunships to crush the insurrections. Washington preferred a unified Iraq under Saddam to successful rebellions that would have split the country and strengthened Iran.

After the war, the U.S. and Britain unilaterally established no-fly zones in the North and South of Iraq, claiming that these were intended to protect the Kurds and the Shias. But the real reason for the no-fly zones was to box in Saddam--in the hope that he would be replaced by a more compliant dictator.

Although Kurds in northern Iraq have taken the opportunity to establish a degree of autonomy for themselves, the area is far from a safe haven. The U.S. permits the Turkish military to cross the border and kill Kurdish rebels whenever it pleases.

Though Washington condemns Iraq for its treatment of the Kurds, it has supported Turkey’s equally brutal repression of its own Kurdish population, where more than 30,000 Kurds have been killed in the past two decades.

The U.S. may tolerate Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq for the time being. But it refuses to recognize the Kurds’ right to a state in the region, because that could weaken allies such as Turkey, making it more difficult for Washington to maintain control.

Weak leadership and antagonisms between competing factions have greatly weakened the Kurdish struggle for freedom. But after a century of Western betrayals, one thing is sure--the Kurdish people must rely on their own struggle, not Washington’s false promises, to win liberation.

http://www.socialistworker.org/2003-1/436/436_10_Kurds.shtml

So why is it that Saddam gets the blame when the US and British were all for it and even encouraging such things against the Kurds and repeatedly betraying them?

As for the chemical weapons, do you know where he got them from and who they were originally intended for? You can rest assured that the US and the British had something to do with it and it was intended to be used against Iran. I have also read some reports that both Iran and Iraq had chemical weapons although Iran had them first and there are two versions of what actually happened. One version is that several hundred people died by gassing at Halabja, because Iraqi Kurds inflicted harm to the Iraqi armed forces during the Iran Iraq war. The other version ids that it wasn't even Iraq that used the chemical weapons but in fact Iran. Some Army War College did conduct an inquiry soon thereafter and in April 1990 concluded that both Iran and Iraq had used gas in their warring exchanges, but that the horrible deaths at Halabja were almost certainly the result of gas in the Iranian inventory, gas not available to the Iraqis, but a certain Jeffrey Goldberg never even mentioned this report. This War College report had been widely reported in April 1990 and the principal author, Dr. Stephen Pelletiere, to this day insists that if there were citizens killed by Iraqi gas at Halabja, it was collateral in the Iraqi engagement with the Iranian army. His report says Iraq used gas, but he says he got this from the Defense Intelligence Administration and it may or may not be true.

If you would take the trouble to read Pelletiere's 2001 report on why oil played such an important role in the Gulf War http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...polyconomicsA/ , you would find he covers other specious information that Goldberg had spoon fed to him by the Kurd rebels, who have a vested interest in keeping alive the story that Saddam had slaughtered as many as 100,000 Kurds at the end of the war with Iran. It was Secretary of State, George Shultz, who leveled this charge at Iraq as soon as the Iran/Iraq war was over, as it was convenient for the US government to join Israel in making Iraq an enemy. In his book, Pelletiere says this was a "hoax, a non-event," as no bodies were ever discovered. In his March 25 report, David, Goldberg does go with the updated version of this hoax, peddled by Human Rights Watch, which is that Iraq actually used conventional weapons, i.e., bullets, to kill 100,000 Kurds, men and boys, and then bury them "in mass graves." Goldberg also notes the graves have never been found.

So things aren't always what some would make it seem and it's usually a lot more complicated than one would tend to think when looking at things with a simplistic view.

BTW, Israel also used chemical weapons in the 1982 war on Lebanon, including hydrogen cyanide, nerve gas and phosphorus shells, but you don't hear about that or how many people died as a result.

[Gondorian]

This is all nonsense. Everyone knows that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist and vice versa.

I don't know if you remember or not, but the KLA went from a terrorist organization to a liberation army overnight because the US decided it to be so and I'm curious as to how you view the KLA.

The exact same PKK that are called terrorist in Turkey, are called "freedom fighters" when they are killing in Iraq because that suits the war mongerers that invaded Iraq on false pretenses.

What about NATO or the USA, what are they, humanitarian organizations or the biggest terrorist organizations in the world today? And please don't even try to convince me that they only bomb military targets to avoid civillian casualties when they in fact target civillians just like they did in FRY and they use DUA so that the rest keeo on dying. If that's not terrorism of the worst kind, I don't know what is.

I'll even bring up the PLO, HAMMAS, Hisbolla or whatever which you probably think are terrorists, but I consider them as freedom fighters (Because by international law, occupied people have the right to resist occupation with ANY MEANS at their disposal) just like the French underground lead by Manouchian, which the Germans called "terrorists". Sure you can say that Palestinians kill children and other innocents, but when the IDF, the US, NATO stops killing children and innocents, then you can criticize the Palestinians and the PKK but not before.

The point I'm making is that it's done by everyone and you can't pick and choose who you decide is a terrorist and who isn't.

1. I don't care about the KLA, just because the US State Department left it's morality behind on the KLA doesn't mean the KLA was not terrorist scum.

2.Hezbollah can't possibly be anything but a terrorist organization because no Lebanese Land is occupied, according to the UN both Israel and Syria has completely withdrawn from Lebanon. You will find no Israeli or Syrian soldiers there.

3.I wonder do you have a morale compass or do you subscribe to cultural relativism?

Name an incident were Israel, or Britain, or France, or Italy targetted civilians ON PURPOSE?

Collateral damage is not morally equal to intentionally killing civilians.

Besides I have the right to criticize whoever I want, I can even go off ranting and criticize Robert Kocharain if I so wished, how dare you go after my freedom of speech simply because I criticized an enemy of Turkey.

Listen, the PKK kills innocent children, it kills women, it targets the local public bus when it is filled with people, like the IRA it is an undisputed terror organizations. The Kurds are entitled to a state, but they are not entitled to kill Turkish Civilians, especially children who are the usual targets. I have no problem with the PKK when it selects a military target, however that just rarely ever happens.

Do you consider Beslan to be justified?

The Chechens are as occupied as the Kurds, so unless you stand for the Chechen Murderers of Russian Children at Beslan I don't see how you can stand by the PKK, or PLO without openly being a hypocrite which you have a right to be if you want to.

One last thing let me explain this to you in so simple a term that a 2 year old would understand.

1. The French Ressiatance never targetter German Civilians and never attacked Germans in Germany.

2. The UN also has condemned Denmark in very harsh terms for not using censorship on the Jyllands Posten, is everything the UN says binding to you? If so you should get ready to make religion unnaisalable and uncriticizable again like it was in the Middle Ages.

I also just don't understand your logic.

You think the current war in iraq is genocide?

Well does the fact that most of it is Iraqi Sectarian Warfare now, and the British and American soldiers now keep a low profile, does that mean anything to you?

Saddam Hussien Commited Genocide, Tony Blair and George Bush are a million times better then him.

One last question

Do you object to the Geneva Convention definition of a terrorist?

[Reincarnated Am]

Rachel’s words

Marking the third anniversary of the sad death of the American peace activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed under the Israeli bulldozers, publishing some letter (first published in March 18 2003 by UK’s The Guardian) written by the great hero who died for the cause of the Palestinian people is the best tribute to pay her.

Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli D9 Caterpillar bulldozer
on March 16, 2003

Hi friends and family, and others,

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking me, "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say, "Bush Majnoon", "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn't quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me: "Bush mish Majnoon" ... Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say, "Bush is a tool", but I don't think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago.

Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean.

When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done. As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah: a city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60% of whom are refugees - many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Today, as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. And then waving and "What's your name?". Something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going on.

International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously - occasionally shouting and also occasionally waving - many forced to be here, many just agressive - shooting into the houses as we wander away.

I've been having trouble accessing news about the outside world here, but I hear an escalation of war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the "reoccupation of Gaza". Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents but I think the fear is that the tanks will enter all the streets and remain here instead of entering some of the streets and then withdrawing after some hours or days to observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. If people aren't already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of the entire region then I hope you will start.

My love to everyone. My love to my mom. My love to smooch. My love to fg and barnhair and sesamees and Lincoln School. My love to Olympia.

Rachel

February 20 2003
Mama,
Now the Israeli army has actually dug up the road to Gaza, and both of the major checkpoints are closed. This means that Palestinians who want to go and register for their next quarter at university can't. People can't get to their jobs and those who are trapped on the other side can't get home; and internationals, who have a meeting tomorrow in the West Bank, won't make it. We could probably make it through if we made serious use of our international white person privilege, but that would also mean some risk of arrest and deportation, even though none of us has done anything illegal.

The Gaza Strip is divided in thirds now. There is some talk about the "reoccupation of Gaza", but I seriously doubt this will happen, because I think it would be a geopolitically stupid move for Israel right now. I think the more likely thing is an increase in smaller below-the-international-outcry-radar incursions and possibly the oft-hinted "population transfer".

I am staying put in Rafah for now, no plans to head north. I still feel like I'm relatively safe and think that my most likely risk in case of a larger-scale incursion is arrest. A move to reoccupy Gaza would generate a much larger outcry than Sharon's assassination-during-peace-negotiations/land grab strategy, which is working very well now to create settlements all over, slowly but surely eliminating any meaningful possibility for Palestinian self-determination. Know that I have a lot of very nice Palestinians looking after me. I have a small flu bug, and got some very nice lemony drinks to cure me. Also, the woman who keeps the key for the well where we still sleep keeps asking me about you. She doesn't speak a bit of English, but she asks about my mom pretty frequently - wants to make sure I'm calling you.

Love to you and Dad and Sarah and Chris and everybody.

Rachel

February 27 2003
(To her mother)
Love you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers outside our house and you and me inside. Sometimes the adrenaline acts as an anesthetic for weeks and then in the evening or at night it just hits me again - a little bit of the reality of the situation. I am really scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched a father lead his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he thought his house was going to be exploded. Jenny and I stayed in the house with several women and two small babies. It was our mistake in translation that caused him to think it was his house that was being exploded. In fact, the Israeli army was in the process of detonating an explosive in the ground nearby - one that appears to have been planted by Palestinian resistance.

This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were rounded up and contained outside the settlement with gunfire over their heads and around them, while tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25 greenhouses - the livelihoods for 300 people. The explosive was right in front of the greenhouses - right in the point of entry for tanks that might come back again. I was terrified to think that this man felt it was less of a risk to walk out in view of the tanks with his kids than to stay in his house. I was really scared that they were all going to be shot and I tried to stand between them and the tank. This happens every day, but just this father walking out with his two little kids just looking very sad, just happened to get my attention more at this particular moment, probably because I felt it was our translation problems that made him leave.

I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years ago. Now only 600 can go to Israel for jobs. Of these 600, many have moved, because the three checkpoints between here and Ashkelon (the closest city in Israel) make what used to be a 40-minute drive, now a 12-hour or impassible journey. In addition, what Rafah identified in 1999 as sources of economic growth are all completely destroyed - the Gaza international airport (runways demolished, totally closed); the border for trade with Egypt (now with a giant Israeli sniper tower in the middle of the crossing); access to the ocean (completely cut off in the last two years by a checkpoint and the Gush Katif settlement).

The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world. There used to be a middle class here - recently. We also get reports that in the past, Gazan flower shipments to Europe were delayed for two weeks at the Erez crossing for security inspections. You can imagine the value of two-week-old cut flowers in the European market, so that market dried up. And then the bulldozers come and take out people's vegetable farms and gardens.

What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't.

If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation.

I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.

You asked me about non-violent resistance.

When that explosive detonated yesterday it broke all the windows in the family's house. I was in the process of being served tea and playing with the two small babies. I'm having a hard time right now. Just feel sick to my stomach a lot from being doted on all the time, very sweetly, by people who are facing doom. I know that from the United States, it all sounds like hyperbole. Honestly, a lot of the time the sheer kindness of the people here, coupled with the overwhelming evidence of the wilful destruction of their lives, makes it seem unreal to me. I really can't believe that something like this can happen in the world without a bigger outcry about it. It really hurts me, again, like it has hurt me in the past, to witness how awful we can allow the world to be. I felt after talking to you that maybe you didn't completely believe me. I think it's actually good if you don't, because I do believe pretty much above all else in the importance of independent critical thinking. And I also realise that with you I'm much less careful than usual about trying to source every assertion that I make. A lot of the reason for that is I know that you actually do go and do your own research. But it makes me worry about the job I'm doing. All of the situation that I tried to enumerate above - and a lot of other things - constitutes a somewhat gradual - often hidden, but nevertheless massive - removal and destruction of the ability of a particular group of people to survive. This is what I am seeing here.

The assassinations, rocket attacks and shooting of children are atrocities - but in focusing on them I'm terrified of missing their context. The vast majority of people here - even if they had the economic means to escape, even if they actually wanted to give up resisting on their land and just leave (which appears to be maybe the less nefarious of Sharon's possible goals), can't leave. Because they can't even get into Israel to apply for visas, and because their destination countries won't let them in (both our country and Arab countries). So I think when all means of survival is cut off in a pen (Gaza) which people can't get out of, I think that qualifies as genocide. Even if they could get out, I think it would still qualify as genocide. Maybe you could look up the definition of genocide according to international law. I don't remember it right now. I'm going to get better at illustrating this, hopefully. I don't like to use those charged words. I think you know this about me. I really value words. I really try to illustrate and let people draw their own conclusions.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world.

This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside.

When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is one of the better things I've ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible.

I love you and Dad. Sorry for the diatribe. OK, some strange men next to me just gave me some peas, so I need to eat and thank them.

Rachel

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=10849

[Reincarnated Am]

Israel's Crimes against Palestinians

Israel's Crimes against Palestinians:War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide

by Francis A. Boyle

(The author served as Legal Adviser to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993. The viewpoints expressed here are his own.)

The International Laws of Belligerent Occupation

Belligerent occupation is governed by The Hague Regulations of 1907, as well as by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the customary laws of belligerent occupation. Security Council Resolution 1322 (2000), paragraph 3 continued: "Calls upon Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a Time of War of 12 August 1949;..." Again, the Security Council vote was 14 to 0, becoming obligatory international law.

The Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, to the Gaza Strip, and to the entire City of Jerusalem, in order to protect the Palestinians living there. The Palestinian People living in this Palestinian Land are "protected persons" within the meaning of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All of their rights are sacred under international law.

There are 149 substantive articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of every one of these Palestinians living in occupied Palestine. The Israeli Government is currently violating, and has since 1967 been violating, almost each and every one of these sacred rights of the Palestinian People recognized by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Indeed, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention are war crimes.

So this is not a symmetrical situation. As matters of fact and of law, the gross and repeated violations of Palestinian rights by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers living illegally in occupied Palestine constitute war crimes. Conversely, the Palestinian People are defending Themselves and their Land and their Homes against Israeli war crimes and Israeli war criminals, both military and civilian.

The U.N. Human Rights Commission

Indeed, it is far more serious than that. On 19 October 2000 a Special Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a Resolution set forth in U.N. Document E/CN.4/S-5/L.2/Rev. 1, "Condemning the provocative visit to Al-Haram Al-Sharif on 28 September 2000 by Ariel Sharon, the Likud party leader, which triggered the tragic events that followed in occupied East Jerusalem and the other occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in a high number of deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians." The U.N. Human Rights Commission then said it was "[g]ravely concerned" about several different types of atrocities inflicted by Israel upon the Palestinian People, which it denominated "war crimes, flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity."

In operative paragraph 1 of its 19 October 2000 Resolution, the U.N. Human Rights Commission then: "Strongly condemns the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in violation of international humanitarian law by the Israeli occupying Power against innocent and unarmed Palestinian civilians...including many children, in the occupied territories, which constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity;..." And in paragraph 5 of its 19 October 2000 Resolution, the U.N. Human Rights Commission: "Also affirms that the deliberate and systematic killing of civilians and children by the Israeli occupying authorities constitutes a flagrant and grave violation of the right to life and also constitutes a crime against humanity;..." Article 68 of the United Nations Charter had expressly required the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council to "set up" this Commission "for the promotion of human rights."

Israel's War Crimes against Palestinians

We all have a general idea of what a war crime is, so I am not going to elaborate upon that term here. But there are different degrees of heinousness for war crimes. In particular are the more serious war crimes denominated "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Since the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada, the world has seen those inflicted every day by Israel against the Palestinian People living in occupied Palestine: e.g., willful killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army and Israel's illegal paramilitary settlers. These Israeli "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention mandate universal prosecution for their perpetrators, whether military or civilian, as well as prosecution for their commanders, whether military or civilian, including Israel's political leaders.

Israel's Crimes Against Humanity against Palestinians

But I want to focus for a moment on Israel's "crime against humanity" against the Palestinian People -- as determined by the U.N. Human Rights Commission itself, set up pursuant to the requirements of the United Nations Charter. What is a "crime against humanity"? This concept goes all the way back to the Nuremberg Charter of 1945 for the trial of the major Nazi war criminals. And in the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, drafted by the United States Government, there was created and inserted a new type of international crime specifically intended to deal with the Nazi persecution of the Jewish People.

The paradigmatic example of a "crime against humanity" is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People. This is where the concept of crime against humanity came from. And this is what the U.N. Human Rights Commission determined that Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian People: Crimes against humanity. Legally, just like what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews.

The Precursor to Genocide

Moreover, a crime against humanity is the direct historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The theory here was that what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People required a special international treaty that would codify and universalize the Nuremberg concept of "crime against humanity." And that treaty ultimately became the 1948 Genocide Convention.

In fairness, you will note that the U.N. Human Rights Commission did not go so far as to condemn Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinian People. But it has condemned Israel for committing crimes against humanity, which is the direct precursor to genocide. And I submit that if something is not done quite soon by the American People and the International Community to stop Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian People, it could very well degenerate into genocide, if Israel is not there already. And in this regard, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is what international lawyers call a genocidaire--one who has already committed genocide in the past.


Mr. Francis A. Boyle is a Professor in International Law.

http://www.mediamonitors.net/francis7.html

[Reincarnated Am]

UN Resolutions Targeting Israel and the Palestinians

Aside from the core issues—refugees, Jerusalem, borders—the major themes reflected in the U.N. resolutions against Israel over the years are its unlawful attacks on its neighbors; its violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations, demolitions of homes and other collective punishments; its confiscation of Palestinian land; its establishment of illegal settlements; and its refusal to abide by the U.N. Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

UN Resolutions Against Israel, 1955-1992

1) Resolution 106: "...‘condemns’ Israel for Gaza raid"
2) Resolution 111: "...‘condemns’ Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people"
3) Resolution 127: "...‘recommends’ Israel suspend its ‘no-man’s zone’ in Jerusalem"
4) Resolution 162: "...‘urges’ Israel to comply with UN decisions"
5) Resolution 171: "...determines flagrant violations’ by Israel in its attack on Syria"
6) Resolution 228: "...‘censures’ Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control"
7) Resolution 237: "...‘urges’ Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees"
8) Resolution 248: "...‘condemns’ Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan"
9) Resolution 250: "...‘calls’ on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem"
10) Resolution 251: "...‘deeply deplores’ Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250"
11) Resolution 252: "...‘declares invalid’ Israel’s acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital"
12) Resolution 256: "...‘condemns’ Israeli raids on Jordan as ‘flagrant violation"
13) Resolution 259: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation"
14) Resolution 262: "...‘condemns’ Israel for attack on Beirut airport"
15) Resolution 265: "...‘condemns’ Israel for air attacks for Salt in Jordan"
16) Resolution 267: "...‘censures’ Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem"
17) Resolution 270: "...‘condemns’ Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon"
18) Resolution 271: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem"
19) Resolution 279: "...‘demands’ withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon"
20) Resolution 280: "....‘condemns’ Israeli’s attacks against Lebanon"
21) Resolution 285: "...‘demands’ immediate Israeli withdrawal form Lebanon"
22) Resolution 298: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s changing of the status of Jerusalem"
23) Resolution 313: "...‘demands’ that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon"
24) Resolution 316: "...‘condemns’ Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon"
25) Resolution 317: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to release Arabs abducted in Lebanon"
26) Resolution 332: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s repeated attacks against Lebanon"
27) Resolution 337: "...‘condemns’ Israel for violating Lebanon’s sovereignty"
28) Resolution 347: "...‘condemns’ Israeli attacks on Lebanon"
29) Resolution 425: "...‘calls’ on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon"
30) Resolution 427: "...‘calls’ on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon’
31) Resolution 444: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces"
32) Resolution 446: "...‘determines’ that Israeli settlements are a ‘serious obstruction’ to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention"
33) Resolution 450: "...‘calls’ on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon"
34) Resolution 452: "...‘calls’ on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories"
35) Resolution 465: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s settlements and asks all member states not to assist Israel’s settlements program"
36) Resolution 467: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s military intervention in Lebanon"
37) Resolution 468: "...‘calls’ on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return"
38) Resolution 469: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s failure to observe the council’s order not to deport Palestinians"
39) Resolution 471: "...‘expresses deep concern’ at Israel’s failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention"
40) Resolution 476: "...‘reiterates’ that Israel’s claims to Jerusalem are ‘null and void’
41) Resolution 478: "...‘censures (Israel) in the strongest terms’ for its claim to Jerusalem in its ‘Basic Law’
42) Resolution 484: "...‘declares it imperative’ that Israel re-admit two deported Palestinian mayors"
43) Resolution 487: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel for its attack on Iraq’s nuclear facility"
44) Resolution 497: "...‘decides’ that Israel’s annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights is ‘null and void’ and demands that Israel rescind its decision forthwith"
45) Resolution 498: "...‘calls’ on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon"
46) Resolution 501: "...‘calls’ on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops"
47) Resolution 509: "...‘demands’ that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon"
48) Resolution 515: "...‘demands’ that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and allow food supplies to be brought in"
49) Resolution 517: "...‘censures’ Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon"
50) Resolution 518: "...‘demands’ that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon"
51) Resolution 520: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s attack into West Beirut"
52) Resolution 573: "...‘condemns’ Israel ‘vigorously’ for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO headquarters
53) Resolution 587: "...‘takes note’ of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw"
54) Resolution 592: "...‘strongly deplores’ the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops"
55) Resolution 605: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians
56) Resolution 607: "...‘calls’ on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention
57) Resolution 608: "...‘deeply regrets’ that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians"
58) Resolution 636: "...‘deeply regrets’ Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians
59) Resolution 641: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s continuing deportation of Palestinians
60) Resolution 672: "...‘condemns’ Israel for violence against Palestinians at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount
61) Resolution 673: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the United Nations
62) Resolution 681: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s resumption of the deportation of Palestinians
63) Resolution 694: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return
64) Resolution 726: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel’s deportation of Palestinians
65) Resolution 799: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel’s deportation of 413 Palestinians and calls for their immediate return.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/un.html

[Jooboian]

1. I don't care about the KLA, just because the US State Department left it's morality behind on the KLA doesn't mean the KLA was not terrorist scum.

I think you missed the point which was "It depends on who you ask".

2.Hezbollah can't possibly be anything but a terrorist organization because no Lebanese Land is occupied, according to the UN both Israel and Syria has completely withdrawn from Lebanon. You will find no Israeli or Syrian soldiers there.

Lebanese Land was indeed occupied for about 20 years, so they were not a terrorist organization. The Israelis purosely did as much damage as they possibly could and I was even told this by Armenians that were there at the time and saw it for themselves. And what about Hammas and the PLO? I guess they can't be terrorists since they're under occupation!?

3.I wonder do you have a morale compass or do you subscribe to cultural relativism?

Same can be asked to you.

Name an incident were Israel, or Britain, or France, or Italy targetted civilians ON PURPOSE?

Are you kidding? I don't know what Italy has to do with it or France for that matter and why not bring in Switzerland while you're at at, while you conviniently leave out the US. I saw footage of American soldiers EXECUTE wounded Iraqi fighters that were no threat to anyone as they lay there moaning and couldn't even move. If this was done to wounded American soldiers, we wouldn't hear the end of it as they would go on and on about violation of international law, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice etc etc. Even lately there is an investigation going on of Americans who herded 11 Iraqis including an old woman and a small child into a house and executed them. As far as Israel goes, everyone knows that they regularly target civilians and it would be futile for you to deny it since there are countless documented cases that can be brought here and posted if you like.

Collateral damage is not morally equal to intentionally killing civilians.

Collateral damage is a BS term invented to sanitize civilian deaths. A military term for "Oops" to pretend it was by accident or unintentional, but how can ove half a million civilian deaths be unintentional? Only in the mind of a real sick person and with your logic, one could just as easily apply the term to the Armenians killed during WWI.

Besides I have the right to criticize whoever I want, I can even go off ranting and criticize Robert Kocharain if I so wished, how dare you go after my freedom of speech simply because I criticized an enemy of Turkey.

I don't think anyone is saying you can't and your pretense of someone trying to take away your freedom of speech is rather pretentious. It has nothing to do with them being an enemy of Turkey, but has everything to do with your hypocracy. You still didn't answer as to how the PKK in Turkey is a terrorist organization and the same PKK in Iraq are freedom fighters.

Listen, the PKK kills innocent children, it kills women, it targets the local public bus when it is filled with people, like the IRA it is an undisputed terror organizations. The Kurds are entitled to a state, but they are not entitled to kill Turkish Civilians, especially children who are the usual targets. I have no problem with the PKK when it selects a military target, however that just rarely ever happens.

And I can just as easily say that the deaths of those civillians are also "Collateral damage". Undisputable? I'll dispute that the IRA is a terrorist organization since they are fighting an occupation.

Do you consider Beslan to be justified?

The Chechens are as occupied as the Kurds, so unless you stand for the Chechen Murderers of Russian Children at Beslan I don't see how you can stand by the PKK, or PLO without openly being a hypocrite which you have a right to be if you want to.

You're the hypocrite because you condone the killing of Iraqi and Palestinian civilians and what's even worse, you deny it.

One last thing let me explain this to you in so simple a term that a 2 year old would understand.

This is the main problem of you and your kind. You go to internet forums and start posting nonsense and when you're called on your hypocracy, you resort to insults. You demand to be heard and complain that your rights to freedom of speech are being violated although I don't see where, when in fact it is the likes of you that want to shut people up when they don't agree with you or point out you blatent hypocracy.

1. The French Ressiatance never targetter German Civilians and never attacked Germans in Germany.

Again, you missed the whole point.

2. The UN also has condemned Denmark in very harsh terms for not using censorship on the Jyllands Posten, is everything the UN says binding to you? If so you should get ready to make religion unnaisalable and uncriticizable again like it was in the Middle Ages.

I think the "international laws" was in reference to the Geneva Convention and peoples rights to resist occupation.

I also just don't understand your logic.

You think the current war in iraq is genocide?

Absolutely!

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

You call it a war? It's not a war, it's naked aggression, occupation and genocide. Anyway, what army are they fighting this supposed war against? Typical Americans who did similat things to the Native Americans when they massacred entire villages of old people, women and children while the men were away and called them, "battles" not unlike the turks killing unarmed Armenian civilians.

How many people did Saddam allegedly kill and how many did the US and British kill in Iraq alone?

Well does the fact that most of it is Iraqi Sectarian Warfare now, and the British and American soldiers now keep a low profile, does that mean anything to you?

Yea, after all the damage has already been done, pass the buck. Just because it has now turned into a sectarian war, that doesn't wash the blood off the hands of the US and British, plus add to that the fact that if it wasn't for them, there would be no sectarian war there today not to metion that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive today and the country wouldn't be in ruins.

Saddam Hussien Commited Genocide, Tony Blair and George Bush are a million times better then him.

They're a hundred times better at commiting genocide. Would you care to compare numbers?

Figures released by IBC today, updated by statistics for the year 2005 from the main Baghdad morgue, show that the total number of civilians reported killed has risen year-on-year since May 1st 2003 (the date that President Bush announced “major combat operations have ended”):

* 6,331 from 1st May 2003 to 19th March 2004
* 11,312 from 20th March 2004 to 19th March 2005
* 12,617 from 20th March 2005 to 1st March 2006

**January and February 2006 lack Baghdad morgue data and should be considered less complete than other months

This doesn't even include the first attack on Iraq for which we have an estimate of 205,000 deaths, 111,000 being civilians, but we still don't know the actual figures and the US certainly doesn't want us to know.

Beth Osborne Daponte, a 29-year-old Commerce Dept. demographer in 1992, when she publicly contradicted then-Defense Secretary Richard Cheney on the highly sensitive issue of Iraqi civilian casualties during the Gulf War, Daponte was told she was losing her job. Her official report disappeared from her desk, and a new estimate, prepared by supervisors, greatly reduced the number of estimated civilian casualties.

The US Department of Defense has refused to give any sort of estimate on deaths.

“We don’t do body counts”
General Tommy Franks, US Central Command

Do you object to the Geneva Convention definition of a terrorist?

That definition would just as easily apply to the US, Israel, Turkey etc etc. Just because they do it in uniforms doesn't make it any different.
Since you seem to think that you are entitled to your own opinion as to who is a terrorist and who is not, because it's fredom of speech, then everyone is sould be entitled as well.

Actually, I would like you to show me what the "Geneva Convention definition of a terrorist" is and then we'll talk.