MATTHEWGOODONLINE

If you read one thing this weekend, or month for that matter, read this piece by former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter. In it, Ritter confronts the shady practices of David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, an organization that Albright himself started. Two of the more revealing passages from Ritter’s piece read…

I can’t say for certain when Albright became “Doctor” Albright. A self-described “physicist,” he allows the term to linger, as he does the title “former U.N. inspector,” in order to create the impression that he possesses a certain gravitas. David Albright holds a Master of Science degree in physics from Indiana University and a Master of Science in mathematics from Wright State University. I imagine that this résumé permits him to assign himself the title physicist, but not in the Robert Oppenheimer/Edward Teller sense of the word. Whatever physics work David Albright may or may not have done in his life, one thing is certain: He has never worked as a nuclear physicist on any program dedicated to the design and/or manufacture of nuclear weapons. He has never designed nuclear weapons and never conducted mathematical calculations in support of testing nuclear weapons, nor has he ever worked in a facility or with an organization dedicated to either.

At best, Albright is an observer of things nuclear. But to associate his sub-par physics pedigree with genuine nuclear weapons-related work is, like his self-promotion as a “former U.N. weapons inspector,” disingenuous in the extreme. His lack of any advanced educational training as a nuclear physicist, combined with his dearth of practical experience with things nuclear, is further exacerbated by his astounding assumption of the title Doctor. In 2007 Albright received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Wright State University. This honorary award is a recognition which should never be belittled, but it in no way elevates David Albright to the status of one who has undergone the formal educational training and has actually earned a doctorate, especially in the demanding field of nuclear physics. While I cannot find any evidence of Albright promoting his honorary title in a manner which indicates direct fraud on his part (i.e., falsely claiming to be a Ph.D. in physics), there are far too many instances where he is referred to by those who interview him as being both “Dr. Albright” and a “physicist” that the uninformed reader might be misled into believing that the two were somehow connected.”

Secondly, and this is of paramount importance…

“David Albright has a history of being used by those who seek to gain media attention for their respective claims. In addition to the Hamza and Obeidi fiascos, Albright and his organization, ISIS, have served as the conduit for other agencies gaining publicity about the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program, the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor, and most recently the alleged Swiss computer containing sensitive nuclear design information. On each occasion, Albright is fed sensitive information from a third party, and then packages it in a manner which is consumable by the media. The media, engrossed with Albright’s misleading résumé (”former U.N. weapons inspector,” “Doctor,” “physicist” and “nuclear expert”). give Albright a full hearing, during which time the particulars the third-party source wanted made public are broadcast or printed for all the world to see. More often than not, it turns out that the core of the story pushed by Albright was, in fact, wrong.

While Iran did indeed possess uranium enrichment capability at Natanz and a heavy water plant (under construction) at Arak (as reported by Albright thanks to information provided by the Iranian opposition group MEK, most probably with the help of Israeli intelligence), Albright’s wild speculation about weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium proved to be wrong. There was indeed a building in Syria which was bombed by Israel. But Albright’s expert opinion, derived from his interpretation of photographs, consists of nothing more than simplistic observation (”The tall building in the image may house a reactor under construction and the pump station along the river may have been intended to supply cooling water to the reactor”) combined with unfocused questions which assumed much, but were in fact based on little (”How far along was the reactor construction project when it was bombed? What was the extent of nuclear assistance from North Korea? Which reactor components did Syria obtain from North Korea or elsewhere, and where are they now?”). And, most recently, we have Albright commenting about the contents of a computer he hasn’t even laid eyes on, though he feels confident enough to raise the specter of global nuclear catastrophe (”How will authorities learn if Iran, North Korea, or even terrorists bought these designs?” Albright asks when referring to the contents of the Swiss computer).

Nowhere in his résumé does Albright cite any formal training as a photographic interpreter; in any case, one would have to have an intimate knowledge of nuclear facilities in order to know what one was looking at when examining an aerial image. A genuine nuclear weapons expert would have been able to discern the technical faults in the logic of the stories being peddled by Albright. And a genuine former U.N. weapons inspector, well versed in preparing airtight investigations based upon verified intelligence information, would have balked at the shabby nature of the evidence provided. Again, because Albright is neither, he and ISIS play the role of patsy, the middleman peddling misinformation to a media too lazy to conduct their own due diligence before running with a story.”

It started two days ago. Earlier in the week the government announced its decision to replace the Beirut airport security chief Brig Wafiq Shoqeir for alleged ties to Hizbullah, He allegedly allowed Hizbullah to install their own security network with in the airport. The government also announced that it will close down Hizbullah’s telecommunication network. And thus overnight Hizbullah leader Hassan Nassrallah contended that these decisions are declarations of war and thus moved his gurilla army to take over Beirut. And so much like Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon, Hizbullah has launched their own version of that war internally.

Once Hizbullah vowed never to use their arms in internal fighting but much like other promises they made they also failed to keep this one. On Wednesday, May 7, Hizbullah supporters closed off the airport road, leading to the complete shut down of Beirut’s international Airport, a similar move to what Israel did in 2006. What Israel didn’t do however Hizbullah did. Yesterday they moved into Beirut and have officially taken over the capitol. Today they burned down one of Future TV’s building and have forced the pro-government TV station to shutdown.

Friends living in Beirut are living in Terror. Random bullets are flying into residential homes. People are sleeping away from windows. Hizbullah is detaining pro-government supporters. People are scared to speak out, already worried that Hizbullah is monitoring their phone calls. They are turning Lebanon into another totalitarian state. The whole country is completely shut down. This is what Hizbullah Leader Hassan Nassrallah calls a democracy.

I am so disappointed, upset, mad, and completely disgusted with Hizbullah. We are on the brinks of a shia vs sunni civil war. History doth repeat itself.

Andrew Cockburn comments on a new US covert initiative that is truly frightening in its scope…

“Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, “unprecedented in its scope.”

Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or “army of god,” the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan – just across the Afghan border — whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother in law’s throat.

Other elements that will benefit from U.S. largesse and advice include Iranian Kurdish nationalists, as well the Ahwazi arabs of south west Iran. Further afield, operations against Iran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon will be stepped up, along with efforts to destabilize the Syrian regime.

All this costs money, which in turn must be authorized by Congress, or at least a by few witting members of the intelligence committees. That has not proved a problem. An initial outlay of $300 million to finance implementation of the finding has been swiftly approved with bipartisan support, apparently regardless of the unpopularity of the current war and the perilous condition of the U.S. economy.

Until recently, the administration faced a serious obstacle to action against Iran in the form of Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon, who made no secret of his contempt for official determination to take us to war. In a widely publicized incident last January, Iranian patrol boats approached a U.S. ship in what the Pentagon described as a “taunting” manner. According to Centcom staff officers, the American commander on the spot was about to open fire. At that point, the U.S. was close to war. He desisted only when Fallon personally and explicitly ordered him not to shoot. The White House, according to the staff officers, was “absolutely furious” with Fallon for defusing the incident.

Fallon has since departed. His abrupt resignation in early March followed the publication of his unvarnished views on our policy of confrontation with Iran, something that is unlikely to happen to his replacement, George Bush’s favorite general, David Petraeus.

Though Petraeus is not due to take formal command at Centcom until late summer, there are abundant signs that something may happen before then. A Marine amphibious force, originally due to leave San Diego for the Persian Gulf in mid June, has had its sailing date abruptly moved up to May 4. A scheduled meeting in Europe between French diplomats acting as intermediaries for the U.S. and Iranian representatives has been abruptly cancelled in the last two weeks. Petraeus is said to be at work on a master briefing for congress to demonstrate conclusively that the Iranians are the source of our current troubles in Iraq, thanks to their support for the Shia militia currently under attack by U.S. forces in Baghdad.

Interestingly, despite the bellicose complaints, Petraeus has made little effort to seal the Iran-Iraq border, and in any case two thirds of U.S. casualties still come from Sunni insurgents. “The Shia account for less than one third,” a recently returned member of the command staff in Baghdad familiar with the relevant intelligence told me, “but if you want a war you have to sell it.”

Even without the covert initiatives described above, the huge and growing armada currently on station in the Gulf is an impressive symbol of American power.”

There he goes flexing his muscles again. I am sick of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nassrallah’s unrelenting threats and hypocrisy. In his latest speech Nasrallah went on to remind the world that he will not allow anyone to disarm Hizbullah. He argued that Hizbullah’s weapons & fighters were prepared “day and night” to defend Lebanon.

“The resistance is ready, day and night, to defend South Lebanon as well as all of Lebanon … to achieve a historic victory that will change the face of the region,” he said.

Well that is interesting… Where were these Hizbullah protectors of Lebanon during the Nahr El Bared Conflict? How come they didn’t use their weapons to protect the innocent from terrorists. I mean if Hizbullah was only protecting Lebanon from Israel then they should say so, and with 13,000 UN peace keepers on the Lebanese/Israeli border I would think that job is pretty much covered.

On the political Scene Nasrallah went on to threaten the majority of electing a president if one is not reached by consensus. Saying that if consensus is not reached, then a simple majority shouldn’t be used to elect the new President and that instead they should hold early parliamentary elections. So here I question Nasrallah, what if the new parliament is similar to the current one (i.e. Hizbullah being in the minority) would he then allow a simple majority vote or is a simple majority vote only acceptable if Hizbullah was part of that majority.

In his speech Nasrallah asked the current president not to allow a simple majority vote “Do not allow the country to fall into the hands of thieves and murderers.” referring to the majority government as thieves and murderers. Here is the part that confused me. The only people that were being assassinated in Lebanon were from the same majority that Nasrallah just called murderers.

Of course Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat lashed back at Nasrallah’s speach saying

“This contradicts the image of thieves and killers who hide themselves under the name of the resistance to turn Lebanon into an arena to serve the thieves and killers of the Syrian regime and their Iranian partners,”

Many others have also criticized this latest speech.

The Lebanese Presidential elections have already been postponed 3 times in order for a consensus to be reached. The latest date is Nov 21st which comes only 3 days prior to President Emile Lahoud’s extended term in office expires. I’ll be waiting, though I doubt consensus will be reached by then and I am afraid Hizbullah will prevent a vote.

In today’s edition of the Observer, Peter Beaumont presents some interesting information about the Israeli operation undertaken on the 6th of this month that violated Syrian airspace. Having mentioned it in an entry yesterday, I thought it important to point out Beaumont’s article…

“The head of Israel’s airforce, Major-General Eliezer Shkedi, was visiting a base in the coastal city of Herziliya last week. For the 50-year-old general, also the head of Israel’s Iran Command, which would fight a war with Tehran if ordered, it was a morale-boosting affair, a meet-and-greet with pilots and navigators who had flown during last summer’s month-long war against Lebanon. The journalists who had turned out in large numbers were there for another reason: to question Shkedi about a mysterious air raid that happened this month, codenamed ‘Orchard’, carried out deep in Syrian territory by his pilots.

Shkedi ignored all questions. It set a pattern for the days to follow as he and Israel’s politicians and officials maintained a steely silence, even when the questions came from the visiting French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner. Those journalists who thought of reporting the story were discouraged by the threat of Israel’s military censor.

But the rumours were in circulation, not just in Israel but in Washington and elsewhere. In the days that followed, the sketchy details of the raid were accompanied by contradictory claims even as US and British officials admitted knowledge of the raid. The New York Times described the target of the raid as a nuclear site being run in collaboration with North Korean technicians. Others reported that the jets had hit either a Hizbollah convoy, a missile facility or a terrorist camp.

Amid the confusion there were troubling details that chimed uncomfortably with the known facts. Two detachable tanks from an Israeli fighter were found just over the Turkish border. According to Turkish military sources, they belonged to a Raam F15I - the newest generation of Israeli long-range bomber, which has a combat range of over 2,000km when equipped with the drop tanks. This would enable them to reach targets in Iran, leading to speculation that it was an ‘operation rehearsal’ for a raid on Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

Finally, however, at the week’s end, the first few tangible details were beginning to emerge about Operation Orchard from a source involved in the Israeli operation.

They were sketchy, but one thing was absolutely clear. Far from being a minor incursion, the Israeli overflight of Syrian airspace through its ally, Turkey, was a far more major affair involving as many as eight aircraft, including Israel’s most ultra-modern F-15s and F-16s equipped with Maverick missiles and 500lb bombs. Flying among the Israeli fighters at great height, The Observer can reveal, was an ELINT - an electronic intelligence gathering aircraft.”

I urge you to read the rest. The link is above.

While tensions begin to mount between Syria and Israel after an Israeli jet violated Syrian airspace during a recent sortie and allegedly dropped live ammunition within the country’s borders – the Israelis would not comment on the incident claiming that they “do not discuss military operations” – Human Rights Watch has released a damning report regarding last year’s conflict in Lebanon entitled - Israeli Indiscriminate Attacks Killed Most Civilians - No Evidence of Widespread Hezbollah ‘Shielding’.

From The Globe & Mail…

“In its harshest condemnation of Israel since last summer’s war, Human Rights Watch charged that most of the Lebanese civilian casualties came from “indiscriminate Israeli air strikes,” according to a report to be released Thursday.

In a statement issued before the report’s release, the human rights organization said there was no basis to the Israeli claim that civilian casualties resulted from Hezbollah guerrillas using civilians as shields. Israel has said it attacked civilian areas because Hezbollah set up rocket launchers in villages and towns.

More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict last summer, which began after Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. They are still being held.

Israeli warplanes targeted Lebanese infrastructure, including bridges and Beirut Airport, and heavily damaged a neighbourhood in Beirut known as a Hezbollah stronghold, as well as attacking Hezbollah centers in villages near the border. Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, killing 119 civilians. In the fighting, 40 Israeli soldiers were killed.

Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said in the statement: “Israel wrongfully acted as if all civilians had heeded its warnings to evacuate southern Lebanon when it knew they had not, disregarding its continuing legal duty to distinguish between military targets and civilians.”

He added, “Issuing warnings doesn’t make indiscriminate attacks lawful.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev rejected the report’s findings.”

There is also another matter to consider – Israel’s use of cluster bombs, dropped throughout Southern Lebanon in the late stages of the conflict in hopes of deterring people from returning to the region (though Israel denies that claim). The United Nations estimated in late 2006 that Southern Lebanon was home to some 1 million unexploded bomblets, and that since August of 2006, 3 people a day are either wounded or killed by them. The region is home to some 650,000 people, which means that they are actually outnumbered by unexploded bomblets.

In October of 2006, the Times (UK) referenced a Haaretz article in which an anonymous source within the Israeli military said…

“What we did was insane and monstrous; we covered entire towns in cluster bombs,” Haaretz reported a head of a military rocket unit in Lebanon as saying in its Sept. 12 edition.”

Of course, when it comes to the actions of the Israelis, we are more than willing to overlook them. Were the same thing to be done by, for example, Syria, it would be universally condemned without question. That is not to say that such actions should not be unviversally condemned, just that when it comes to Israel, they tend not to be.

Fireworks, smiles, and victory signs. The Lebanese army has finally won the three-month Nahr Al Bared war on terror. On May 20th, fighting broke out in Northern Lebanon after a raid on a terrorist group suspected of bank theft. The fighting was concentrated in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al Bared, but as time passed terrorist cells would turn to bombing numerous sites throughout Lebanon creating a state of fear which led many to self-impose curfews.

After 3 months and 13 days, the death of 220 people, including 158 troops, and the destruction of most of the camp, the war is over - and so a little bit of stability is back in the daily lives of many. Still the thought of other terrorist cells out there cannot be avoided. For the last 2 years Lebanon has suffered many terror plots, either targeting their tourist sites or politicians that are part of the cedar revolution. I am still waiting to hear who was behind these plots. Hopefully an investigation will shed some light. Many are pointing fingers at Syria, accusing it of trying to destabilize Lebanon, a promise it made when it was ousted from the country in 2005.

I don’t know how better to present this, so I’m just going to quote the article that appeared in this morning’s Globe & Mail entitled Court lifts lid on secret Arar details…

“Newly declassified information shows that that Canadian agencies worked directly with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and also received information known to be likely derived from Syrian torture during a post-9/11 investigation that culminated in the Maher Arar scandal.

The disclosure follows a pitched legal battle by Mr. Justice Dennis O’Connor, who fought to make public 1,500 words that the Canadian federal government had excised from his four-volume report released last year.

A Federal Court decision resulted in the release of some of the information Thursday morning.

Almost universally, the blotted out passages referred to the CIA or information most likely derived from Syrian torture.

There had been almost no direct references to this until now. As a result, Canadian agencies have borne the brunt of the blame for the scandal.

There had been almost no direct references to this until now. As a result, Canadian agencies have borne the brunt of the blame for the scandal.

Ottawa officials fought to keep the information secret, frequently arguing that it did not want to compromise the goodwill of foreign allies who sent in intelligence from abroad.

As anticipated, the Maher Arar affair was found to be the result of a chain of detentions of Canadian suspects in Syria. Much of what happened appears to have been influenced by the coerced confession of the first Canadian suspect to be jailed there.

Truck driver Ahmad Abou El Maati, just two months after 9/11, “confessed” in Syria to plotting a truck bomb attack in Canada at the behest of his brother, who is still considered a fugitive al-Qaeda suspect.

The truck driver has since returned to Canada, uncharged, and recanted his statements as purely the product of torture. He has also expressed regret that he was forced into naming Canadian associates of his, including Maher Arar, including saying that he saw the telecommunications engineer in Afghanistan in the early 1990s.”

Thus, based on intelligence elicited from a false confession under torture, Maher Arar was rendered to Syria, where he himself was held and tortured for a year and the government of this country willfully attempted to protect the CIA’s involvement in the matter.

The article continues…

“Judge O’Connor found that Mr. Arar was never a threat to Canadian national security and that authorities here had no case against him, but still spread incorrect and misleading information that may have caused the United States to send him to the Middle East, where he was jailed for a year. Canada has since compensated Mr. Arar $10-million.

Newly declassified findings of Judge O’Connor’s report indicate a host of foreign agencies shoulder the blame for what happened:

• Investigating Mounties had no experience in dealing with the CIA before 2001, but a relationship began to develop after the Sept. 11 attacks that year.

• As anticipated, information from abroad – likely the statements by Mr. El Maati – found its way into Canadian searches and interviews conducted in January, 2002. “When applying for search warrants, Project A-O Canada relied on information obtained from a country with a poor human rights record.” The report adds that “no assessment was made of the reliability of that information.”

• In the fall of 2002, the information was still being treated as credible. “In September 2002, the RCMP filed an application for a telephone warrant … [it] referred to [Ahmed Abou El Maati's] confession to the Syrians that he undertook pilot training at the request of his brother and that he accepted a mission to be a suicide bomber by exploding a truck bomb on Parliament hill.”

• Even though the RCMP was made aware that the confession was extracted by “extreme coercion,” they insisted that it was “still accurate and continues to be true.” In this period, RCMP investigators had heard of Mr. El Maati’s complaints of torture but dismissed them as “damage control” and asserted the confession corroborated their earlier investigation of him.

• It was the CIA that sent questions to Canada about Mr. Arar when U.S. border guards arrested him in October, 2002. The CIA, which sent him to the Middle East in shackles aboard a leased Gulfstream jet, appears to have been driving the process to send Mr. Arar to Syria.

• Canadian officials were knowledgeable about the U.S. practice of “rendering” suspects to harsh interrogations third-countries. “I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him,” one CSIS official wrote in an email on October 10, 2002 – two days after Mr. Arar was quietly sent to that country, and on to Syria, for questioning.

• CSIS visited Syria once Mr. Arar was in custody and came back with the impression that officials there “looked upon the matter as more of a nuisance than anything.” He remained jailed there for nearly a year.”

The complicity of our government agencies (the Chrétien era included), and the current government’s willingness to attempt to protect the role and influence of the Central Intelligence Agency in this matter, is, to me, simply incomprehensible. The truth is, an innocent Canadian was sold out to a foreign power by his own government based on lies and engineered falsehoods, and then, after his release, those that were responsible for playing the most significant role in the matter, a foreign intelligence agency, were purposely protected by our government at the expense of our own agencies.

Today, from coast to coast, Canadians should be ashamed of the unscrupulous actions of both this government and that of Mr. Chrétien’s, as well as enraged that any Canadian government would willfully protect the role of a foreign country in the illegal seizure, rendition, imprisonment, and torture of a Canadian citizen. And to think that someone like Mr. Justice Simon Noel would actually exclaim in defense of the matter that…

“The third-party rule is one that is sacred among law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, and is premised on mutual confidence, reliability and trust.”

The truth. Now there’s something, Mr. Noel. In this case, the truth is that an innocent man lost a year of his life and endured God knows what at the hands of jailers in a foreign country based on faulty intelligence provided by a foreign intelligence service that, at the time, was so hyper-sensitive that it was probably willing to believe that pigs could fly if someone they had captured and rendered to one of numerous countries was willing to say as much. And yet when it comes to the truth of the matter, we’re willing to protect them in favour of disregarding the truth.

Now you tell me – what, exactly, is defensible about that?

The Globe was not alone is reporting this story today. The Toronto Star also ran a piece…

“New information made public this morning after a long legal battle with the federal government reveals CSIS suspected within weeks of Maher Arar’s arrest that the United States would ship him off to the Middle East where he likely faced torture.

It also shows Canada’s spy agency received information from Syria barely two months later that even Syrian authorities viewed Arar as a “nuisance” and not “as a major case.”

One can only imagine how Maher Arar must feel this morning.

The CBC provides a link to the original censored report here (.pdf).

Today the President of the United States defended, once again, the war that he, and others, engineered. He spouted the usual nonsense, that to not defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is to say Salafi Jihadis, would result in “surrendering Iraq’s future to al-Qaeda”. Of course, as has been noted by a variety of scholars and regional experts, were the United States to abandon Iraq tomorrow, Salafi Jihadi forces would be the first to be dealt with, and with severe measures. What Mr. Bush doesn’t mention is where the influx of foreign fighters in Iraq stems from. He dare not mention the fact that Saudis compromise a significant number of those foreign fighters currently in Iraq, not to mention Jordanians. That would be singling out nations with which the United States has relations, despite the fact that, in the case of Saudi Arabia, it is a nation that fits the model of a state that the United States has declared “unacceptable” with regards to their desire to spread freedom throughout the world.

Instead, and not surprisingly, the President focused on others…

“President Bush also singled out Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, accusing them of fomenting violence in Iraq.

Iran, he said, was supplying improvised explosive devices to militants there; Hezbollah was training militants to attack coalition forces in Iraq; and Syria was providing a route for suicide bombers heading for the country.”

If you go back in my del.icio.us archives you’ll find articles replete with contradictory information about Iranian involvement in Iraq. Everything from them allying themselves with Sunni insurgents to Salafi Jihadis to the Mahdi Army. At one point, not too long ago, US officials in Baghdad claimed that Iran was planning to support a summer offensive against occupational forces by arming a variety of different groups, claims that were later challenged, and ones that were linked with a US propaganda campaign aimed at Iran.

The reality is, George Bush has disposed of those that have attempted to warn him, or at least tell him the truth, about what is actually transpiring in Iraq. The ‘surge’ has done nothing but produce more US casualties – in fact, more over the last few months than at any point in the war – and more Iraqi civilian casualties. It has placed the Iraqi government in an even more tenuous position, as have US pressures to do with Iraqi oil legislation, and has helped empower Islamic extremists. US intelligence recently claimed that extremist groups are stronger now than they were prior to 9/11, a claim that the President also denies. Because as we all know, he has far more knowledge of such matters than his own intelligence community. Perhaps, given the ‘bogus’ information that he was fed by them prior to the invasion he simply doesn’t trust them anymore. Then again, maybe the yes men that helped fix post war intelligence around policy are all out of creative ideas.

‘A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi… You know, so what?’

Meanwhile, Leonard Doyle provides some morning reading that might make eating breakfast not the wisest of decisions…

“It is an axiom of American political life that the actions of the US military are beyond criticism. Democrats and Republicans praise the men and women in uniform at every turn. Apart from the odd bad apple at Abu Ghraib, the US military in Iraq is deemed to be doing a heroic job under trying circumstances.

That perception will take a severe knock today with the publication in The Nation magazine of a series of in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war from across the US. In the interviews, veterans have described acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi men, women and children with impunity.

The report steers clear of widely reported atrocities, such as the massacre in Haditha in 2005, but instead unearths a pattern of human rights abuses. “It’s not individual atrocity,” Specialist Garett Reppenhagen, a sniper from the 263rd Armour Battalion, said. “It’s the fact that the entire war is an atrocity.”

A number of the troops have returned home bearing mental and physical scars from fighting a war in an environment in which the insurgents are supported by the population. Many of those interviewed have come to oppose the US military presence in Iraq, joining the groundswell of public opinion across the US that views the war as futile.

This view is echoed in Washington, where increasing numbers of Democrats and Republicans are openly calling for an early withdrawal from Iraq. And the Iraq quagmire has pushed President George Bush’s poll ratings to an all-time low.

Journalists and human rights groups have published numerous reports drawing attention to the killing of Iraqi civilians by US forces. The Nation’s investigation presents for the first time named military witnesses who back those assertions. Some participated themselves.

Through a combination of gung-ho recklessness and criminal behaviour born of panic, a narrative emerges of an army that frequently commits acts of cold-blooded violence. A number of interviewees revealed that the military will attempt to frame innocent bystanders as insurgents, often after panicked American troops have fired into groups of unarmed Iraqis. The veterans said the troops involved would round up any survivors and accuse them of being in the resistance while planting Kalashnikov AK47 rifles beside corpses to make it appear that they had died in combat.

“It would always be an AK because they have so many of these lying around,” said Joe Hatcher, 26, a scout with the 4th Calvary Regiment. He revealed the army also planted 9mm handguns and shovels to make it look like the civilians were shot while digging a hole for a roadside bomb.

“Every good cop carries a throwaway,” Hatcher said of weapons planted on innocent victims in incidents that occurred while he was stationed between Tikrit and Samarra, from February 2004 to March 2005. Any survivors were sent to jail for interrogation.

There were also deaths caused by the reckless behaviour of military convoys. Sgt Kelly Dougherty of the Colorado National Guard described a hit-and-run in which a military convoy ran over a 10-year-old boy and his three donkeys, killing them all. “Judging by the skid marks, they hardly even slowed down. But, I mean… your order is that you never stop.”

The worst abuses seem to have been during raids on private homes when soldiers were hunting insurgents. Thousands of such raids have taken place, usually at dead of night. The veterans point out that most are futile and serve only to terrify the civilians, while generating sympathy for the resistance.

Sgt John Bruhns, 29, of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armoured Division, described a typical raid. “You want to catch them off guard,” he explained. “You want to catch them in their sleep … You grab the man of the house. You rip him out of bed in front of his wife. You put him up against the wall… Then you go into a room and you tear the room to shreds. You’ll ask ‘Do you have any weapons? Do you have any anti-US propaganda?’

“Normally they’ll say no, because that’s normally the truth,” Sgt Bruhns said. “So you’ll take his sofa cushions and dump them. You’ll open up his closet and you’ll throw all the clothes on the floor and basically leave his house looking like a hurricane just hit it.” And at the end, if the soldiers don’t find anything, they depart with a “Sorry to disturb you. Have a nice evening”.

Sgt Dougherty described her squad leader shooting an Iraqi civilian in the back in 2003. “The mentality of my squad leader was like, ‘Oh, we have to kill them over here so I don’t have to kill them back in Colorado’,” she said. “He just seemed to view every Iraqi as a potential terrorist.”

‘It would always happen. We always got the wrong house…’

“People would make jokes about it, even before we’d go into a raid, like, ‘Oh fuck, we’re gonna get the wrong house’. Cause it would always happen. We always got the wrong house.”

Sergeant Jesus Bocanegra, 25, of Weslaco, Texas 4th Infantry Division. In Tikrit on year-long tour that began in March 2003

“I had to go tell this woman that her husband was actually dead. We gave her money, we gave her, like, 10 crates of water, we gave the kids, I remember, maybe it was soccer balls and toys. We just didn’t really know what else to do.”

Lieutenant Jonathan Morgenstein, 35, of Arlington, Virginia, Marine Corps civil affairs unit. In Ramadi from August 2004 to March 2005

“We were approaching this one house… and we’re approaching, and they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously, cause it’s doing its job. And my squad leader, just out of nowhere, just shoots it… So I see this dog - I’m a huge animal lover… this dog has, like, these eyes on it and he’s running around spraying blood all over the place. And like, you know, what the hell is going on? The family is sitting right there, with three little children and a mom and a dad, horrified. And I’m at a loss for words.”

Specialist Philip Chrystal, 23, of Reno, 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade. In Kirkuk and Hawija on 11-month tour beginning November 2004

“I’ll tell you the point where I really turned… [there was] this little, you know, pudgy little two-year-old child with the cute little pudgy legs and she has a bullet through her leg… An IED [improvised explosive device] went off, the gun-happy soldiers just started shooting anywhere and the baby got hit. And this baby looked at me… like asking me why. You know, ‘Why do I have a bullet in my leg?’… I was just like, ‘This is, this is it. This is ridiculous’.”

Specialist Michael Harmon, 24, of Brooklyn, 167th Armour Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. In Al-Rashidiya on 13-month tour beginning in April 2003

“I open a bag and I’m trying to get bandages out and the guys in the guard tower are yelling at me, ‘Get that fuck haji out of here,’… our doctor rolls up in an ambulance and from 30 to 40 meters away looks out and says, shakes his head and says, ‘You know, he looks fine, he’s gonna be all right,’ and walks back… kind of like, ‘Get your ass over here and drive me back up to the clinic’. So I’m standing there, and the whole time both this doctor and the guards are yelling at me, you know, to get rid of this guy.”

Specialist Patrick Resta, 29, from Philadelphia, 252nd Armour, 1st Infantry Division. In Jalula for nine months beginning March 2004

‘Every person opened fire on this kid, using the biggest weapons we could find…’

“Here’s some guy, some 14-year-old kid with an AK47, decides he’s going to start shooting at this convoy. It was the most obscene thing you’ve ever seen. Every person got out and opened fire on this kid. Using the biggest weapons we could find, we ripped him to shreds…”

Sergeant Patrick Campbell, 29, of Camarillo, California, 256th Infantry Brigade. In Abu Gharth for 11 months beginning November 2004

“Cover your own butt was the first rule of engagement. Someone could look at me the wrong way and I could claim my safety was in threat.”

Lieutenant Brady Van Engelen, 26, of Washington DC, 1st Armoured Division. Eight-month tour of Baghdad beginning Sept 2003

“I guess while I was there, the general attitude was, ‘A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi… You know, so what?’… [Only when we got home] in… meeting other veterans, it seems like the guilt really takes place, takes root, then.”

Specialist Jeff Englehart, 26, of Grand Junction, Colorado, 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry. In Baquba for a year beginning February 2004

“[The photo] was very graphic… They open the body bags of these prisoners that were shot in the head and [one soldier has] got a spoon. He’s reaching in to scoop out some of his brain, looking at the camera and smiling.”

Specialist Aidan Delgado, 25, of Sarasota, Florida, 320th Military Police Company. Deployed to Talil air base for one year beginning April 2003

“The car was approaching what was in my opinion a very poorly marked checkpoint… and probably didn’t even see the soldiers… The guys got spooked and decided it was a possible threat, so they shot up the car. And they [the bodies] literally sat in the car for the next three days while we drove by them.

Sergeant Dustin Flatt, 33, of Denver, 18th Infantry Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. One-year from February 2004

“The frustration that resulted from our inability to get back at those who were attacking us led to tactics that seemed designed simply to punish the local population…”

Sergeant Camilo Mejía, 31, from Miami, National Guardsman, 1-124 Infantry Battalion, 53rd Infantry Brigade. Six-month tour beginning April 2003

“I just remember thinking, ‘I just brought terror to someone under the American flag’.”

Sergeant Timothy John Westphal, 31, of Denver, 18th Infantry Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. In Tikrit on year-long tour beginning February 2004

“A lot of guys really supported that whole concept that if they don’t speak English and they have darker skin, they’re not as human as us, so we can do what we want.”

Specialist Josh Middleton, 23, of New York City, 2nd Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division. Four-month tour in Baghdad and Mosul beginning December 2004

“I felt like there was this enormous reduction in my compassion for people. The only thing that wound up mattering is myself and the guys that I was with, and everybody else be damned.”

Sergeant Ben Flanders, 28, National Guardsman from Concord, New Hampshire, 172nd Mountain Infantry. In Balad for 11 months beginning March 2004”

Lebanon is fighting a War on many fronts. There is the War on Terror in Naher Al Bared Refugee camp, which continues on its 4th week of fighting. The army today released that they have made considerable progress in the fight and that they are close to an end. What is “close” no one really knows. We keep on hearing “in the next few days” but then weeks pass and the fighting continues. Many of the Palestinians in the camp have been displaced, their homes taking over by terrorists and then bombed by the military. Saudi Arabia has pledged $12 Million to aid those displaced.

Another act of terror was the assassination of MP Eido on Wednesday. The government supporters blamed Syria, while Syria blamed them. All while a news anchor, Sawsan Darwish, for NBN TV station, which is a pro-Syrian/anti- government station, commented by accident on air “Why were they late in killing him [Eido]?,” She then said “they’re [anti-Syrian Politicians] driving us crazy,” “Ahmed Fatfat [Anti-Syrian MP] is left. I’m counting them,” she said as she and the sound engineer laughed. The comments caused a huge stir. How could this woman be so insensitive, just because this man had an opposing political view, was his death justified? How could she go on and gloat about who will be next as if this death comes as no surprise, it seemed as if what had just happened was amusing. How could I ever support anti government politics, when it’s people like this that represent it.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Brotherly War that continues to draw blood from Hamas and Fatah fighters in Gaza has spilled over into some of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps. Tensions were highest at El Bedawi Refugee camp, where Fatah and Hamas supporters clashed. Later in Ain El Halweh refugee camp a Hamas representative was attacked. Of course both Hamas and Fatah leaders in the camps deny that they are promoting violence between their different factions. And so though it looks like most Palestinians in the camps are supporting Palestinian unity, the tensions will not disappear until the problems in Gaza are resolved, a feat that will not be easily accomplished from the looks of things. For a good opinion peace check this article out.

And as if this was not enough for Lebanon to deal with, today a Palestinian militant group launched 3 rockets at Northern Israel followed by Israel launching 5 of its own at Southern Lebanon. Do these people not learn? And why the hell are Palestinians shooting rockets at Israel when they continue to fight amongst themselves in Gaza. Do they really believe that launching a few rockets will free their land? I can’t help but think this is another ploy by Syria to try and draw Lebanon into another war with Israel.

With every passing day I think this is it, it can’t get worse. But it does get worse. I still feel numb to it all. I still don’t feel threatened by what is going on around me. I still wonder if what I feel is normal and it makes me question myself more when I hear my friends’ concerns about their own safety. My mother arrived last night, and as soon as she saw an army check point she wept, remembering all the soldiers that have been killed in that last month. She told me how she really wanted my brother and I to visit them instead but convinced her self that all will be well. My brother and his family arrive on Wednesday, my dad the following Wednesday, and I continue to be optimistic that this will be a good a summer. Am I delusional? I really don’t know.