thisisbabylon.net

Much love to my MySpace crew for not letting this slide.

So I was turned on to the fact -- many people were offended that I seemed to give the tone of voice from my previous blog that the IDF had infallible credibility. People were incensed that I seemed to place blame on Hezbollah when, in actuality, as is noted on Jewschool.com, even the IDF gave another alternative for what could have happened in Qana.

However, what the subject of the investigation at hand is is precisely what happened between 1 am and 8 am in Qana?

Apparently it's not so simple.

Take, for instance, the story reported by the pro-Iraq uruknet.info. According to Rania Masri, a local from Al-Kura (El Koura), Lebanon:

From 1 to 3.30 am this morning...Israeli bombs were bombing Qana...killing 103 civilians in a UN camp. They bombed, this time, a residential apartment building, far from the road, in a fully residential area, in Qana.

What about the 7:30 AM strikes on buildings a few hundred meters away, and the 8 AM building collapse?

No one was able to come to the bombed site until 8 am this morning.

As the Lebanese civil defense forces are attempting to remove the bodies, the Israeli planes continue to hover and continue to bomb the roads.

The missile was fired at the Qana building at 1 a.m. Lebanese time. According to scores of local reporters, the building collapsed at about 8 a.m. – leaving open a seven-hour gap military officials currently are attempting to analyze.

Examine the way The New York Times reported the story from the viewpoint of a Mr. Shalhoub, resident of Qana:

The first missile struck around 1 a.m. local time, throwing Mohamed Shalhoub, 38, into an open doorway. His five children, ages 12 to 2, were still inside the house, as was his wife, his mother, and a 10-year-old nephew. He tried to get to them, but minutes later another missile hit. By morning, when the rescue workers arrived, all eight family members were dead.

At least eight people in the house survived, and told of a long, terrifying night. Some remained buried until morning. Others crawled free. Ms. Shalhoub sat under a tree with Mohamed Shalhoub, without his wheelchair, and three others, listening to the planes flying overhead in the dark.

If you will say after 8 AM, then it makes sense with uruknet.info.

However, if you will say before 8 AM, sunrise in Jerusalem that day was at 5:53 AM. This gives a 2 hour window of opportunity for "in the morning".

If what uruknet is saying is true, then the IDF must be lying. If what the IDF is saying is true, then uruknet must be lying. In fact, the Boston Globe lends a bit of creedence to the uruknet article, as it reports that "after 7 a.m. the bombing subsided so rescue crews could get to the site".

These are some DAMN good rescue crews if they can get in and out and rescue people within 1 hour -- before the building "collapsed at 8 AM."

Where are these "scores of local reporters"?

Who knows for sure what happened in Qana?

Posted by Y-Love at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A recent article from Naomi Regan in Haaretz says it all (190K PDF download).

Posted by Y-Love at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yediot Aharonot today reported something I almost can't believe:

Russia on Friday published a list of 17 groups it regards as terrorist organizations and did not include the Palestinian movement Hamas or Lebanon's Hizbullah group, both of which are regarded as terrorists in Washington.

Groups on the list, published in the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, included al-Qaeda and the Taliban as well as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a rebel group fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, and Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood.

The Russian Federal Security Service's top official in charge of fighting international terrorism, Yuri Sapunov, said that Hamas and Hizbullah were not a major threat to Russia and were not regarded as terrorist groups worldwide.

The European Union considers Hamas a terrorist organization and along with the United States slapped financial sanctions on the new Hamas-led government.

But it does not list Hizbullah as a terrorist group.

But Hezbollah? I thought we were all on the same page here, no?

Posted by Y-Love at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Or perhaps, what is up WITH this picture?

(Hat tip to Dena from MySpace for the info.)

Posted by Y-Love at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On October 22, 2002, Hassan Nasrallah told Lebanon’s Daily Star, “If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them world wide.” -- from the National Review Online.

From CAMERA: "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli." (New Yorker, Oct. 14, 2002)

"Martyrdom operations - suicide bombings - should be exported outside Palestine. I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don't be shy about it." (Washington Times, Dec. 6, 2002)

"Just like Hitler fought the Jews, we are a great Islamic nation of jihad, and we too should fight the Jews and burn them." — Hisham Shamas, political science student, at a symposium hosted by... Al-Manar TV at Lebanon's Université Libanaise, November 29, 2005 (from the New York Sun, July 26, 2006).

Just wanted people to know precisely what they are dealing with -- before any more Jews rally behind Tehran.

Posted by Y-Love at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The Jerusalem Post reported today a story which I think kind of misses the point:

A top Iranian envoy was in Syria on Thursday for talks on the Israeli-Hizbullah conflict in a meeting that brought together the guerrilla organization's two key sponsors, according to Iranian news reports. A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah was taking part in the session.

Kuwait's Al-Siyassah (sic) newspaper, known for its opposition to the Syrian regime, said the meeting was designed to discuss ways to maintain supplies to Hezbollah fighters with "Iranian arms flowing through Syrian territories."

"The atmosphere in Syria is in every way an atmosphere of war, or at least of the eve of war. Syrian television for the first time since the '80's has started broadcasting Syrian military marches and nationalistic songs. There is not difference between Syrian television broadcasts and Al-Manar broadcasts of the Hizbullah. The broadcasts are in preparation for war, as if Syria is involved in this war, or is going to be involved at any moment. The local newspapers and the television are conducting themselves as if they are preparing the Syrian public for war."

These comments were made by a senior Syrian journalist in a telephone interview from Damascus.

It should be also noted that this summit occurred after Syrian FM Walid Al-Muallam was quoted -- in the Italian La Repubblica after having not been invited to the Rome summit -- as saying, "Hezbollah has an arsenal allowing it to fight for weeks, and the arms definitely do not go through Damascus.”

And while Egypt ruled out military intervention, Syria seems to keep reiterating its Sunday threat of "intervention" in the event of an Israeli ground offensive. (Israel's ground offensive has been going on for five days so far.)

Could Syria possibly be any MORE implicated?

Posted by Y-Love at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today on the MySpace.com group MySpace Jews, I was confronted by one of my right-wing co-religionists. While I am used to having unpopular political viewpoints -- especially since the 2004 election -- head-to-head confrontations like this are blessedly rare. I try to keep my Jewish conversations centered around Torah, as the Torah is the center of Judaism.

He seemed astounded and appalled at my left-wing opinions -- "I don't understand how could someone be a Torah-observant Jew and be liberal", he eventually admitted after a few heated posts. He decried feminism and liberalism as the downfalls of American Judaism, and stated that unobservant Jews are a symptom of said liberalism.

Following my barrage of expected "WTF"s I felt behooved to write this post.

I find it appalling that Torah-observant people continue to rally around a morally bankrupt GOP. Today's GOP is rife with racism and xenophobia, classism and exploitation, lies and deceit. I find it a hard sell that G-d would endorse the Republican Party. And those who think that He would (chas v'shalom), I would question their understanding of Scripture. The extent to which the GOP is the party of our President is the extent to which it goes against everything I was taught about G-d's Will.

An Op-Ed piece on EURweb.com gives columnist Anthony A. Samad's opinions regarding Bush's much-publicized NAACP visit last week. Mr. Samad writes:

Did the NAACP expect some major revelation from a president that has essentially ignored the civil rights agenda all of his administration? If they did, they are more colored than they were in the 1980s when the agenda was single-handedly dismantled by the Reagan administration.

It was no big deal that he “boycotted” the nation’s oldest civil rights group for five years, because he would’ve had nothing to say...

More painful than watching the President give the NAACP a history lesson on slavery—filled with miscalculations..., rhetoric and some sentimentality that bordered insulting with the invoking of King, Lincoln, and Johnson (Lyndon), was watching the NAACP allow the President to ignore the war in Iraq, the Israel-Lebanon conflict, the economy and rising gas prices, and of course, poverty and the urban crisis—which were the conditions that made Katrina such an overwhelming circumstance.

Where the Bush influence is needed to help African-Americans, he is MIA. He could be developing an economic strategy to replace the disappearing jobs that got African-Americans into the middle class in the last quarter century. Instead his speeches promote illegal immigration as a solution to labor shortages.

Bush didn't want to appear in other years because of criticism over the war and social policies. "You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me," a petulant president complained in 2004 explaining his refusal to speak at NAACP conventions.

That's the price of leadership, Mr. President. His lowest approval rating from African-Americans has been 12 percent....The IRS threat to audit the NAACP was widely viewed as unwarranted punishment for the organization's former President Julian Bond's criticism of the extreme right-wing positions of the administration.

AT AN EVENT in North Carolina to mark Black History Month last February, Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, unleashed a blistering attack on the Bush administration and the Republican Party.

Among other discourtesies, he compared President George W. Bush's judicial appointees to the Taliban and described former Attorney General John Ashcroft, not for the first time, as "J. Edgar Ashcroft." "The Republican Party," Bond was reported as saying, "would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side."

"In the United States today, there's a new twist to the familiar plot," she says. "Income inequality used to be about rich versus poor, but now it's increasingly a matter of the ultra-rich versus everyone else."

"Unwavering support for Israel" does benefit millions of Jews. As school vouchers benefit millions of religious citizens. I can not dispute this, nor do I oppose these things.

However, I think it should be simple to understand why a person of faith would feel disenfranchised by a party which ran on "moral values" platforms -- twice. By a party who, whenever it feels backed against a wall, touts abortion and 9/11 deaths as a rallying cry. And this is all domestic issues, fingers would paralyze worldwide attempting to chronicle all the atrocities of the "War on Terror" in one place.

Blocking a Justice Dept. investigation into the legality of NSA domestic wiretapping? Rep. Specter (R-PA) advocating keeping the citizenry in the dark about the "scope" and "future" of said wiretapping?

This is what the Creator wants? To use a Qur'anic quote:

"We say, show your proofs if you are truthful."

Posted by Y-Love at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

The current Israel-Lebanon conflict is being covered widely throughout the Arabic-speaking world. From al-Manar to al-Jazeera, every TV station with a frequency is giving its take on what is going on in the first full-scale conflict with Lebanon since 1982.

In this respect, these stations are no different than the rest of the world. However, their language differs greatly: the American reporter writes about "Lebanese guerrillas" or perhaps "terrorists", whereas their Farsi-speaking counterpart may write about "fighters" or "soldiers". In America, a Hamas operative gets "kiled", in Palestine they get "martyred."

And who is the enemy? While most people -- especially the more educated ones -- will say "Israel" or perhaps the "Zionists," increasingly the line between "Israel" and "the Jews" gets blurred. The pan-national identity of "Jew" becomes synonymous with the national identity "Israeli" and the rhetoric takes on a whole different flavor.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a story today speaking about feelings of "average" people in the Arab world:

Sitting in the shade as he sold figs in downtown Cairo, Hasan Salem Hasan, a 25-year-old Sunni, summed up a prevailing attitude of the so-called Arab street: "Although Hezbollah is a Shiite party, we are all Muslims, and all Arabs will defiantly support them and fight the Jews."

"Whenever there is a paramount cause which can bring them together, such as a jihad against the Zionists, they will be united," Gamal Sultan, editor of the Cairo-based Islamic monthly Al Mannar Al Jadid, said of the Sunni and Shiite militants.

From the Turkish Press:

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir accused Israel of targeting the Lebanese population as the death toll mounted.

"What is taking place in Lebanon is not a war against Hezbollah but is, rather, a genocidal war in which the forces of the Israeli enemy are targeting the civilians as well as the strategic positions and utilities," Beshir told reporters.

Protests are being held throughout the Muslim and Arabic-speaking world. 100,000 people protest in Yemen. 2,000 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 1,000 rally in Khartoum, Sudan. Thousands in Tripoli, Libya and about 2,000 in Amman. 2,000 Arab Venezuelans in Caracas. 8,000 in Egypt (5,000 in Cairo, 3,000 in Alexandria). 10,000 in Dearborn, Michigan. A small protest in Ankara, Turkey. Colorado Muslims protesting today in Denver.

What are they protesting? The war? Israeli aggression? Or is there an undertone of anti-Jewish hatred there? Would a left-wing non-Israeli (and I mean left wing in the Israeli sense) Jew have been welcomed in Dhaka? Amman?

Like Nicholas Berg pleaded in vain with his captors before he was beheaded, people can not be held responsible for the actions of their governments. How much more so when it's not even your government per se, it's the Israeli (mostly secular) one that you don't pay taxes to, don't answer to.

The line between anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish grows thinner daily. And more seem willing to cross it.

Posted by Y-Love at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm actually kind of ashamed of myself.

Here I was, the entire time, thinking that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was actually speaking for Iran. I would watch the Iranian news on Mosaic from LinkTV and hear Ahmadinejad-style rhetoric and assumed -- it's on the media, it's in the official press releases, so this must be the zeitgeist of Iran. Pro-nuclear, warning of the "wrath of World Muslims", Holocaust denying.

But then I found an article in the ultra-right wing Washington Times entitled "Young Iranians find outlet in Internet":

Young Iranians are turning increasingly to the Internet to voice their dissatisfaction with a hard-line regime that has placed nuclear development and confrontation with the West ahead of economic growth and jobs, according to a new analysis. There are now 70,000 Farsi-language blogs on the Internet, roughly half of which originated in Iran, according to a study by the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, which was released last week.

"Why is it that our planes crash, our buildings collapse at the slightest tremor, our cars burst into flames, we don't have a half-standard football stadium in the entire country, but when it comes to nuclear energy, it's a national issue?" wrote one anonymous Iranian blogger cited in the study.

[...]

"The average Iranian is more concerned about the price of tomatoes than nuclear programs," said Mr. Khalaji, who appeared at the release of the study.

[...]

Some bloggers have even poked fun at the regime's nuclear slogan: "Nuclear energy is our indisputable right." The report quoted Iranian bloggers and public demonstrators as saying, "Permanent employment is our indisputable right," and, "An elected leader is our indisputable right."

[...]

"According to a poll this year by the Iranian Students Polling Agency, 85.4 percent support the nuclear program. But when asked if they'd support it after a referral to the U.N. Security Council, the number dropped to 74.3 percent, and even further in the event of sanctions to 64 percent. Lower still, only 55.6 percent would support the program if it risked military strikes," said Gen. Herzog [author of the report].

• Warning "bullying powers" of the "wrath of world Muslims" and referring to a "volcano of rage";
  
• Sending ambassadors to Manila to denounce Israel;
  
• Sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hezbollah and using perhaps millions to enrich its arsenal when Iranian citizens apparently need the money more;
  
• Summoning the Finnish Ambassador to Iran about "ongoing Zionist atrocities";
  
• Speaking about the end of Israel in the newspaper Ressalat.
  

And enriched uranium does NOT put food on the table.

Posted by Y-Love at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fox News ran a story on Hannity & Colmes and released the transcript today regarding Hezbollah's "activities in the US". The article includes Steve Emerson, author of "American Jihad", saying of Hezbollah:

"...I'm aware a little bit more about the Hezbollah smuggling into the United States. I know from intelligence sources to whom I've spoke in the last year Hezbollah has also been brought up into San Diego from Tijuana. And the fact is that Hezbollah is trying to develop this infrastructure so it can threaten the United States as it has carried out attacks over the past decade and a half."

However, as usual Fox News got caught up in accusations of excessive spin. In addition, Steve Emerson's credibility has already been drawn into question by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

I should have known better than to just think I could trust FOX News. However, what would one say of this?

London-based As-Sharq Al-Awsat reports:

Eight fundamentalist Islamist organizations have received large sums of money in the last month from the Iranian intelligence services, as part of a project to strike U.S military and economic installations across the Middle East Asharq Al-Awsat has learned.

The plan, which also includes the carrying out of suicide operations targeting US and British interests in the region, as well as their Arab and Muslim allies, in case Iran is attacked[.]

Granted, people have been arrested for supplying Hezbollah from America.
The New York Post DID run the article on May 22, 2006, "N.Y. Hezbollah Hunt", saying:

The Hezbollah terror group - one of the most dangerous in the world - may be planning to activate sleeper cells in New York and other big cities to stage an attack as the nuclear showdown with Iran heats up, sources told The Post.

Law-enforcement and intelligence officials told The Post that about a dozen hard-core supporters of Hezbollah have been identified in recent weeks as operating in the New York area.

"...officials said they have detected increased activity by Hezbollah operatives - including more heated rhetoric by its leaders and in Internet chat rooms as the U.S.-Iran diplomatic showdown heats up."

Hezbollah has so far limited its activities in the United States to fund-raising and criminal enterprises. The FBI has already taken down two major rings, one in Charlotte, N.C., and one in Detroit, in which members were smuggling cigarettes, Viagra and baby formula, and kicking profits back to Hezbollah.

Terror is terror. And it must be stopped wherever it exists and in whatever form. But riling up conservatives with rhetoric is only going to create an atmosphere where everyone is waiting to turn everyone else in. Crucible-esque accusations of "terrorist" should not fly because of chat room conversations.

Or is that just the way a PATRIOT acts?

Posted by Y-Love at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It never ceases. Someone asks me "how can you be both pro-Israel and pro-Arab?" and the next stage of the discussion is invariably the same. The person's mind immediately begins the cognitive process to label me with the term "Anti-Zionist". The person then mentally supplants me into the Neturei Karta photos, holding a placard perhaps saying, "True hiphop is against Zionism."

My personal philosophy never actually comes across past this point. And no matter how much I stress that I am not anti-Zionist, but non-Zionist, many others do not -- or perhaps refuse to -- see the distinction.

As the Wikipedia article states, "Zionism is a political movement and ideology that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, where the Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago and where Jewish kingdoms and self-governing states have existed up to the 2nd century." I find it hard to believe that any Jewish person alive disagrees that Jews should live "in Israel", that synagogues should be able to found on this map.

However, as the Wiki continues:

The 1967 war between Israel and the Arab states (the "Six-Day War") marked a major turning point in the history of Israel and of Zionism. Israeli forces captured the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the holiest of Jewish religious sites, the Western Wall of the ancient Temple. They also took over the remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank (from Jordan) and the Gaza Strip (from Egypt). Religious Jews regarded the West Bank (ancient Judaea and Samaria) as an integral part of Eretz Israel, and within Israel voices of the political Right soon began to argue that these territories should be permanently retained. Zionist groups began to build Jewish settlements in the territories as a means of establishing "facts on the ground" that would make an Israeli withdrawal impossible.

More land, more settlements. Further and further into the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel's history has always been rife with violence, but the difference between today's terrorist and the Fedayeen of yore is that today's terrorist is attacking an established sovereign entity. The very first Armistice agreements signed by Israel in 1949 with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan as well as Syria all have one line in common: "No aggressive action by the armed forces - land, sea, or air - of either Party shall be undertaken, planned, or threatened against the people or the armed forces of the other."

While this biased article is rife with spin, it illustrates my other point -- the Arab world, with pre-1967 Zionism (we'll call this Zionism A), was willing to negotiate. This willingness to negotiate actually -- while by all estimates it could have resulted in a horrible transfer of millions of people involuntarily -- was creating solutions complete with jobs and infrastructure to benefit both Jews and Arabs equally.

Then, in 1964, under an Egyptian proposal, the PLO was created. Up until this point, an Israel-free Palestine was not the sole platform of any organization. Following the Jordanian-inflicted "Black September", the Cairo Agreement allowed the PLO to operate in Lebanon.

We're talking post-1967 with a now active PLO with governmental sanction.

At this point, Zionism -- having been identified as an enemy -- began to change form as an ideology. Now everyone became a fighter. Zionism became "get-the-Arabs-out"-ism. This is not me.

Do I stand with Israel? As a Jewish homeland? Yes. But in my personal opinion, it would still be the homeland for all Jews were it called "Palestine". And moving there would still be considered aliyah.

Even if it were called Al-Quds, you would still have to take your tithes to Jerusalem. (And we Jews would probably still call it Yerushalayim, the capital of Eretz Yisra'el.)

Anti-Zionism echoes the same sentiments of the original PLO -- an Israel-free Palestine next to the Mediterranean Sea. This is anti-Jewish and can often border on (if not actually be) anti-Semitic. Were this 1949 -- perhaps this could be a valid discussion. One could talk about not establishing Israel.

But now that you have millions of people, millions of families, millions of dollars in property -- this is dismantling a nation. And that can't be done. Realistically speaking, whether to one's chagrin or one's pride, there is a Jewish state on the planet. Palestine extricating it would be like Belgium extricating the Netherlands. And conversely, realistically speaking, there is a place called Palestine as well.

Also realistically speaking, there are Israeli Arabs and other non-Jews. Supporting Israel is supporting them too.

It is only when two nations are recognized as having the right to exist that one can talk about borders, about agreements, about peace.

So the Zionism B we have today, I'm not into that. Call me a proto-Zionist maybe. But not a Zionist now.

I don't want to expand Israel and proliferate settlements. I just want life in whatever Israel there is to be a peaceful one and a spiritual one.

Not anti-, but non-Zionist.

I love Israel. Ani ohev et Yisra'el. W'ana b'ahab al-Isra'il.

Posted by Y-Love at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

From Yediot Aharonot:

An extremist organization called the “Gilad Shalhevet Brigades” claimed it kidnapped two Palestinians, residents of the Jerusalem area. In a statement issued by the groups it was said that the hostages will be released only in exchange for the Israeli soldiers abducted in Gaza and Lebanon...Thursday afternoon the Ynet news desk received a statement reading: “For your information, a few minutes ago we kidnapped two Palestinian workers in the Jerusalem area. The two are being held in a hidden location and we will conduct negotiation for their release through the media.

“We demand the immediate release of the kidnapped (Israeli) soldiers; if they will not be released within the next 48 hours, the lives of the Palestinians will be in danger.”

[...]

The “Shalhevet Gilad Brigades” is an extremist organization that has claimed responsibility for past shooting attacks in which Palestinians were murdered in the territories, but until now no proof has surfaced linking the group to the actual incidents, and no arrests have been made.

The Brigades also claimed responsiblity for killing a Palestinian man in June 2001, in an apparent response to the disco bombing in Tel Aviv at the beginning of the intifada. They were also behind the killing of Diya Tmeizi, a Palestinian toddler from outside of Hebron.

They also claimed responsibility after the fact for the actions of Eden Natan-Zada in Shfaram, resulting in the deaths of 5 Israeli Arabs, and wounding 13 others. Natan-Zada opened fire on a crowded bus on August 4, 2005. The Brigades claimed responsibility on August 6.

Rarely does one see armed terrorists on the Israeli side. The Gaza pullout being a notable exception, which saw Israelis threatening suicide like never before. While the number of actions undertaken by the Shalhevet Gilad Brigades pales in comparison to their Palestinian counterparts in Islamic Jihad or Al-Aqsa, for Israel, it is still a scary thought: living not only under threat from outside attackers, but living in the often volatile shadow of domestic extremism.

Again I ask, is this what G-d wants?

Posted by Y-Love at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From Reuters:

The U.S. military order to apply basic provisions of the Geneva Conventions to terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay does not mean they will get the...full protections afforded to recognized prisoners of war, experts said on Wednesday.

Nor will it prevent interrogation of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners -- so long as the questioning is conducted without violence and without humiliating or degrading treatment -- the legal and human rights experts said.

"Interrogations are allowed but they're not allowed in the way they've been conducted at Guantanamo," said Bill Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents about 200 prisoners at the U.S. navy base in Cuba. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies to Guantanamo prisoners and in a memo made public on Tuesday, a top Pentagon official ordered military personnel to apply it to all detainees.

The Geneva Conventions are international treaties to limit the barbarity of war. Common Article 3 sets minimum standards for humane treatment of everyone caught up in armed conflict, including civilians and irregular forces. It prohibits torture and humiliating or degrading treatment, and bars sentencing or executing prisoners without a decision by "a regularly constituted court" with judicial guarantees.

"Common Article 3 really is a floor. You can't go any lower than this for any kind of conflict, including any kind of combatant," said Muneer Ahmad, an American University law professor who represents Canadian detainee Omar Khadr.

But neither the Supreme Court decision nor the Pentagon order recognizes the 450 Guantanamo detainees as prisoners of war -- a classification enjoyed by Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Panama's Manuel Noriega.

And perhaps the most disgusting quote in all of this, from the Boston Globe:

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, a top Pentagon attorney urged lawmakers to resist changing the military commissions set up for detainees at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Defense Department's principal deputy general counsel, Daniel J. Dell'Orto, said that reworking established procedures "even modestly" would hamper efforts to bring terrorists to justice.

This is Babylon.

Posted by Y-Love at 05:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the South African Independent Online:

Ministers from 26 African countries have adopted a plan to fight the trafficking of people on the continent, particularly children and women forced into labour and prostitution.

Members of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and the 11 countries of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) signed the deal on Thursday evening after considering expert reports on the problem, which affects millions of people in Africa.

[...]

Thousands of children fall victim to trafficking every year across central and West Africa, most of them because of poverty, according to Ecowas. Nigeria is a major hub, with children smuggled in from neighbouring countries such as Benin to serve in quarries or as domestic workers, and women smuggled out to work as prostitutes in Europe and the Gulf.

Lee Swepson, a human rights spokesperson for the ILO, said child labour was decreasing worldwide but Africa was an exception to the trend, with some 50 million children there made to work - a quarter of the overall world figure.

The West African countries that accepted the deal are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. In central Africa, the states joining the agreement are Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda and the archipelago republic São Tomé and Principe.

"[The] ILO estimates put a figure of about 1.2 million young victims each year of which 32 percent are Africans." -- AllAfrica.com.

However, besides kidnapping, another story belies much of the child slavery. Parents living in desperation and selling their children in hopes that the family can live on the proceeds.

Introducing Augustine Dognon. Aged 11, his father sent him along with his two brothers away from their home in Benin to work in Nigeria, breaking rocks in quarries. The Independent Online reports:

It all started with the boy's father, Roger Dognon, negotiating a "good price" for his three sons from Za Hla village in central Benin. The money was enough to keep Dognon's family of about 20 children fed for a month. But his three sons had no idea what faced them in Nigeria. "They told us we were going to work with chickens and collect eggs, but when we arrived in Nigeria we had to work like adults, crushing stone at the quarries. It was terrible work, really tough. We got very little to eat and we were not allowed to go anywhere."

The boys' father has four wives. He says he could not cope and felt forced to sell his boys' labour to a trafficker. It is what is done around here. I was promised good money for the boys for one year and I got a down payment. We are very poor."

The case of Augustin and his brothers is typical of many in the region. It is estimated that each year between 200 000 and 800 000 children are trafficked across the porous borders throughout West and Central Africa.

He received 10 000 Central African Francs (CFA) as a down payment from the trafficker for the boys to go and work in Nigeria. He was told he would get CFA90 000 for his three sons for a year.

For his three children. And it was only enough to feed his family for a month. He had to lease them for a year. By the way, the children are back home in Benin now. They were saved and their tuition paid for by UNICEF.

And may it be successful.

For more information on efforts to abolish slavery, click the iAbolish.com link at the right.

Posted by Y-Love at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Again, another video from the Iraqi resistance, apparently directly addressing many of the things which America has listed as achievements. Secretary-General of the Sunni Clerics Association in Iraq, Sheik Hareth Al-Dhari speaks on Syrian TV on June 24:

Some of the transcript, courtesy of memritv.org:

Sheik Hareth Al-Dhari: The Iraqis are not hostile to the Americans or the American people. They were not hostile even to the American army before it entered Iraq. The Americans could become our friends, if they leave Iraq peacefully, according to a timetable. Then they could become like other friends of Iraq. Britain colonized Iraq, and later became its friend, benefited from Iraq, and so on.

The occupation, the destruction, the killing, and so on only increase the hatred of the Iraqis towards America, the Americans, and the American army. The Iraqis will continue to put up resistance to the American army as long as blood flows in their veins, even if it stays there for decades.

Therefore, I advise the Americans - the reasonable Americans, if there are any - to pressure their administration to consider leaving this country, leaving its people, which could then run it and maintain security.

As for the resistance - it is as clear as day. Only those who have lost their minds would deny its existence. The Iraqi resistance exists in the Iraqi scene. It began three weeks after the occupation, and then continued, developed, and grew stronger with time. It continues to operate. It will not come to an end or decline with the death of any of its commanders or heroes.

The resistance has lost many of its heroes - dozens of commanders, officers who commanded martyrdom and Jihad operations against the occupation, but other people have taken their place, Allah be praised...

I say with all honesty: the Iraqi resistance is under siege by all Iraq's neighbors, even if this siege takes different forms. They besiege it, harm it, and try to demoralize it, even though all of Iraq's neighbors are indebted to the resistance.

Thanks to the Iraqi resistance, American's influence and covetous designs in the region were limited. Thanks to the Iraqi resistance, the evil that threatened some of the countries in the region was removed.

I'm sure killing teenagers must violate some fataawa. If not the words of the Qur'an and Ahadeeth themselves.

As a Jew, I can not dare to open my mouth against a sheikh when it comes to a matter of Islam, and Heaven forbid that I would even try. I hold all clergy in very high esteem generally. My only question is, in light of so many people and sources adamantly proclaiming -- with premises based in metaphysics and text -- that Islam is a religion of peace to all of humanity, making videos like this (RealPlayer), what words are there to refute these people?

Now, the sheikh is referring to the resistance in the 3rd person.

One thing he says is undoubtable however, the Resistance does look like it's alive and well.

But is such a thing G-d's praise?

Posted by Y-Love at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)