Today's
Stories
April 19, 2006
Christopher Reed
Secrets of the Garden of Bliss
April 18, 2006
Paul Craig Roberts
How Safe is Your Job?
Eric
Wingerter
Washington Post vs. Venezuela
Juan Santos
What Immigrants Need to Learn from
the Black Civil Rights Movement
Greg
Weiher
The Zarqawi Gambit Revisited
Sam Bahour
Is Hamas Being Forced to Collapse?
Behzad
Yaghmaian
In the Gaze of New Orleans
Website of
the Day
The
FBI and the Jack Anderson Files
April 17, 2006
Kevin Zeese
An Interview with the First Arab-American
Senator: Jim Abourezk on Bush's Lies and the Dems' Complicity
Uri Avnery
Olmert the Fox
Norman Solomon
Why Won't Moveon.Org Oppose the Bombing
of Iran?
John Ross
A Real Day Without Mexicans?
Laila al-Haddad
The Earth is Closing in on Us: Dispatch
from Gaza
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Tale of Two Members of Congress
and the Capitol Hill Police
Website of the Day
Dixie
Chicks: Not Ready to Back Down
April
15 / 16, 2006
Jeffrey
St. Clair
How Star Wars Came to the Arctic
Ralph
Nader
Remembering Rev. William Sloan Coffin
Thaddeus
Hoffmeister
The Ghost of Shinseki: the General Who Was Sent Out to Pasture for
Being Right
Kevin Prosen
/ Dave Zirin
Privilege Meets Protest at Duke
Thomas
P. Healy
Taking Care of What We've Been Given: a Conversation with Wendell
Berry
Kristoffer
Larsson
Are 40 Percent of All Swedes Anti-Semitic?: Anatomy of a Statistical
Flim-Flam
Fred
Gardner
Continuing Medical (Marijuana) Education
Edwin Krales
New York's Katrina: the Hidden Toll of AIDS Among Blacks and the
Poor
Brian
Cloughley
Don't Blitz Iran: Risking the Ultimate Blowback
John Holt
Walking Off Vietnam with Edward Abbey's Surrogate Son
Seth
Sandronsky
What Billionaires Mean By Education Reform: Oprah, Bill Gates and
the Privatization of Public Schools
Rafael Renteria
Making It Plain About New Orleans
Michael
Ortiz Hill
In the Ashes of Lament: an Easter Meditation
William A.
Cook
An Israel Accountability Act
Gideon
Levy
Shooting Nasarin: a Story About a Little Girl
Andrew Wimmer
Stopping the Bush Juggernaut: a New Citizens Campaign
Madis
Senner
Talking Points for Easter Weekend: Jesus Didn't Lie, Mr. Bush
Michael Kuehl
The Sex Police State: Women as "Rapists" and "Pedophiles"?
Mark
Scaramella
When Even God Can't Follow His Own Commandments: the Timeless Scarcasm
of Mark Twain
Nate Mezmer
187 Proof: Living and Dying Hip-Hop
Jesse
Walker
Playlist
Poets' Basement
Engel, Laymon and Subiet
Website
of the Weekend
Pink Serenades Bush
April
14, 2006
Col.
Dan Smith
Candor or Career?: Why Few Top Military Officials
Resign on Principle
Saul Landau
Ho Chi Minh City Moves On Without Regrets
Stan
Cox
The Real Death Tax
Kevin Zeese
Hersh vs. Bush on Iran: Who Would You Believe?
Brian
McKinlay
Bad Times for Bush's Buddies
Howard Meyers
Dwarves, Knives and Freedom: Bush, Jr. is No LBJ
Ishmael
Reed
The Colored Mind Doubles: How the Media Uses Blacks
to Chastize Blacks
Website of
the Day
Asshole: a Film Strip
April
13, 2006
CounterPunch
News Service
Powell's "Bitch"?
Norman
Solomon
The Lobby and the Bulldozer
Stanley Heller
Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement
Jeff
Birkenstein
Bush and Freedom of Speech
Evelyn J.
Pringle
Not So Fast, Mr. Powell
Michael
Donnelly
The Week the Bush Administration Fell Apart
Kamran Matin
Synergism of the Neo-Cons: What's Going On In Iran?
Website
of the Day
"Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons"
April
12, 2006
Vijay Prashad
Resisting Fences
Alan
Maass
The Suicide of Anthony Soltero
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Insane First Strike Policy: If You Don't Want to Get Whacked,
You'd Better Get Your Nation a Nuke ... Fast
Ron
Jacobs
Resistance: the Remedy for Fear
Ramzy Baroud
The Imminent Decline of the American Empire?
Randall
Dodd
How a Wal-Mart Bank will Harm Consumers
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Boy President Who Cried "Wolf!"
P. Sainath
The Corporate Hijack of India's Water
Website of
the Day
"The System is Irretrievably Corrupt"
April
11, 2006
Al
Krebs
Corporate Agriculture's Dirty Little Secret: Immigration
and a History of Greed
Lawrence
R. Velvel
The Gang That Couldn't Leak Straight
Sonia Nettinin
Palestinian Health Care Conditions Under Israeli Occupation
Willliam
S. Lind
The Fourth Plague Hits the Pentagon: Generals as Private Contractors
Robert Ovetz
Endangered Species in a Can: the Disappearance of Big Fish
Pratyush
Chandra
Nepalis Say, "Ya Basta!"
Grant F.
Smith
The Bush Administration's Final Surprise?
Laray
Polk
Loud, Soft, Hard, Quiet: Marching Through Dallas for Immigrant Rights
Francis Boyle
O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle: How to Beat a Bully on His Home
Turf
José
Pertierra
A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists: Posada Carriles, Orlando
Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455
Website of
the Day
The Dead Emcee Scrolls
April
10, 2006
Ralph
Nader
Tinhorn Caesar and the Spineless Democrats
Heather Gray
Atlanta and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Uri
Avnery
The Big Wink
Joshua Frank
Big Greens and Beltway Politics: Betting on Losers
Seth
Sandronsky
Immigration and Occupations
Michael Leonardi
The Italian Elections: "Reality is No Longer Important"
Evelyn
Pringle
Did Bush Pull a Fast One on Fitzgerald?
Tom Kerr
FoxNews Does Ward Churchill
Lucinda
Marshall
The Lynching of Cynthia McKinney
Website of
the Day
Brown Berets
April
7 -9, 2006
Alexander
Cockburn
If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Saga of Magnequench: Outsourcing US Missile
Technology to China
Patrick
Cockburn
The War Gets Grimmer Every Day
David Vest
The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney
Dave
Lindorff
The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward
Gary Leupp
"Ideologies of Hatred:" What Did Condi Mean?
Elaine
Cassel
The Moussaoui Trial: What Kind of Justice is This?
Saul Landau
Vietnam Diary: Hue Without Rules
James
Ridgeway
"This is Betty Ong Calling": a Short Film
Ron Jacobs
Why Iran was Right to Refuse US Money
John
Walsh
Kerry Advocates Iraqization: Too Little, Too Late
Ramzy Baroud
The US Attitude Toward Hamas: Disturbing Parallels with Nicaragua
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush Finds Democracy Has Its Limits
Todd Chretien
What the Pentagon Budget Could Buy for America
Jonathan
Scott
Javelins at the Head of the Monolith
John Bomar
What They're Saying About Bush in Arkansas
Michele
Brand
Iran, the US and the EU
Ronan Sheehan
Remember When the Irish First Met the Chinese?
Mickey
Z.
Let Us Now Praise OIL
Don Monkerud
March of the Bunglers
Michael
Dickinson
The Rich Young Man: a Miracle Play
Website
of the Weekend
The Case Against Israel and Munich: Compare and Contrast
| April
19 , 2006
War Crimes Caught on Tape; Still
No Justice
The Massacre at Qana,
10 Years Later
By STANLEY HELLER
News
of atrocious attack on civilians in Tel Aviv is coming in as I write
this article. This will be worldwide news as it should be. The Israeli
newspaper Ha'aretz says Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said the
attack was "a natural result of the continued Israeli crimes
against our people." "Natural" as if no one ordered
this attack on civilians. A repulsive excuse.Yet the steady stream
of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army's low intensity warfare
and siege against the Palestinians, goes by almost unnoticed [26
killed including 5 children in the last three weeks].
Coincidentally
enough the current attacks take place almost exactly ten years after
a terrible Israeli massacre of Lebanese inside a UN compound in
Lebanon [April 18, 1996] This was during the days Israel occupied
southern Lebanon, when Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres was
Prime Minister. During the election campaign Peres decided to have
a little war to improve on his "dovish" image. So he launched
"Operation Grapes of Wrath" causing 400,000 people to
flee their homes, some 800 of them to a UN base called Qana.
On
April 18 the IDF shelled Qana. I quote from the August 1996 issue
of a journal I edit, "The Struggle". "The TV showed
battle hardened journalists weeping as they walked among the corpses.
No TV news in the world could show the most revealing pictures.
Rescuers for a long time didn't know how many people were killed.
There were heaps of body parts all around." Go on the internet
and google "+qana +massacre". Available for viewing is
an absolutely horrifying video of the mangled bodies of children.
The
Israeli government offered various excuses. They said the IDF was
firing at Hizbullah positions and a few shells went long. They explained
that their soldiers didn’t know the UN base was so close,
or that it held civilians. They denied they had any aircraft in
the area. PM Peres was quoted as saying, "In my opinion, everything
was done according to clear logic and in a responsible way. I am
at peace."
The
Israeli excuses were all lies. 36 shells were in and around the
base.
A
UN soldier with a camcorder recorded five minutes of the shelling
and the image of an unmanned Israeli spy plane flying overhead.
UN soliders spotted two helicopters in the area. A UN commander
pleaded with the Israelis during the shelling for a halt. The pleas
fell on deaf ears and the gunners continued their slaughter. The
UN issued a report on Qana which determined that it was "highly
unlikely" that human or mechanical error caused the deaths,
but it ended there. Shamefully the UN didn’t blame anyone.
Why
did the Israeli government do it? Well, Israel was losing the war
to Hizbullah. Its troops were suffering the same number of casualties
as were the Lebanese. Six months before “Grapes of Wrath”
Yitzhak Bailey, an Israeli Defense Ministry official, wrote about
a strategy for an attack on Lebanon. In it he said, "Unfortuantely,
the only way to stop Hizbullah actions against the Israeli forces
in south Lebanon is to inflict heavy blows on the passive population...Then
Hizbullah would be loathed." Pure terrorism. Bin Laden wouldn't
say it any differently.
And
how were the killers punished? Not at all. Peres lost the election
to Netanyahu, but notice of his political death was premature. He
was lately Sharon's Foreign Minister and next Monday he will preside
with the swearing in of Israel’s new Knesset. No Israeli soldier
was put on trial.
The
US President at the time was Bill Clinton. He never said a word
of criticism of the Qana attack and in fact greeted Peres warmly
in Washington a week after the massacre.
On
December 15, 2005, relatives of those killed filed suit in a Washington,
DC, court against former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon for his
role in the deaths. The lawsuit was prepared by the Center for Constitutional
Rights. Yaalon, who is a visiting scholar in Washington, reportedly
refused the papers serving the lawsuit.
The
blood of Qana still cries out for justice.
Stanley
Heller is chairperson of the Middle East Crisis Committee
and host of its weekly TV news program that can be seen on the internet
www.TheStruggle.org. He
is a member of the organizing committee of Connecticut United for
Peace. He can be reached at mail@thestruggle.org
|