september 2004

Israeli Conscientious Objectors Released!
The Refuseniks Parents' Forum is pleased to announce that the five draft resisters, Haggai Matar, Noam Bahat, Adam Maor, Shimri Zameret and Matan Kaminer have been officially informed that they are hereby released from the
ranks of the army.  

The release from the IDF comes after an epoch-making court battle and after the five young men have spent close to two years in confinement.  The campaign against the imprisonment of the five, for having resisted mobilization to the IDF, as long as it is an army of occupation, has received wide international attention and evoked strong expressions of solidarity the world over. The release of the five will be marked in a mass public reception this Thursday, September 23 in Tel Aviv.  Expressions of solidarity are pouring in from public figures in Israel and all over the world.

 Congratulations to the attorney for the five, Dov Khenin. This is a victory for all women and men of good conscience who refuse to participate in oppression and occupation.  The calm bravery of these five young men reminds us that we all have the right to refuse to be part of the occupation and suggests that we might well consider that this right is really a duty.  We see this battle as an important chapter in the fight for an Israel living in peace and equality with our Palestinian neighbors and friends, the Palestinian people. Israel will either overcome the occupation or be destroyed by it. All thanks to our many many supporters.

Perfidious "Madonna"MaDonna is visiting Israel to do a propaganda film for the Israeli Department of Tourism. She has ignored the suffering of the Palestinian people under the brutal Israeli occupation, devoting her time and effort to serve the interests of the occupation. Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, Ahmed Al-Tibi, refused to accept her invitation to attend an activity for Israeli children because she did not include or mention the suffering of
Palestinian children (Annahar , 9/20/04)


Falluja, Iraq




United Nations...Congratulations Kofi Annan but why did we have to wait so long?
Mr Annan said in an interview with the BBC World Service ,17th September, that "painful lessons" had been learnt since the war in Iraq.

"Lessons for the US, the UN and other member states. I think in the end everybody's concluded it's best to work together with our allies and through the UN," he said.

Elections loom

Mr Annan told the BBC: "I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time - without UN approval and much broader support from the international community."

He said he believed there should have been a second UN resolution following Iraq's failure to comply over weapons inspections.

And it should have been up to the Security Council to approve or determine the consequences, he added.

When pressed on whether he viewed the invasion of Iraq as illegal, he said: "Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

Venezuala

What's next on the U.S. agenda for Venezuela, the fifth largest oil-producing nation in the world?  The answers flow from simple deductive reasoning and previous experience. 

The real kicker, though, is the reason, or pretext, for this economically punitive action against the people of Venezuela:

"President Bush on Friday ordered a partial cut in U.S. assistance to Venezuela because of its alleged role in the international trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation."

There are no words to contain the sheer arrogance and stunning hypocrisy of this rationale on the part of a country that winks and looks the other way while funding the very existence of a country in which such activity flourishes unchecked.

One of the biggest centers for trafficking women in the world is Israel.  On August 18, 2004, Fox News called Israel a "Human Trafficking Haven":

"TEL AVIV, Israel — Human trafficking is turning into a real problem in Israel, where law enforcement officials say women are bought and sold into the indentured servitude of the sex industry.

"It's a kind of meat market. It's very brutal — most of this kind of auction," said Gadi Eshed of the Israel Police.

Thinking they are escaping the harsh conditions of home, a reported 3,000 prostitutes each year come to Israel. Their fist experience in the Holy Land is a forced march across the Egyptian desert, crossing the Israeli border through routes used to smuggle weapons and drugs .... Once across the border, the women are asked to perform various acts, then traded. When sold, police say their passports are confiscated by their owners and they're locked in brothels where they're forced to work off their $4,000 to $10,000 price tag.”

Russia....

Correspondents say there is rising anger over the Russian authorities' handling of the siege.

Newspapers have also been posing awkward questions, such as whether the security services really had no plans to storm the school.

Some have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using the rallies to deflect public anger over unanswered questions.

But the Russian president responded to his critics strongly on Tuesday, in particular to calls for talks with those seeking independence in Chechnya.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visits Israel to discuss the Beslan School hostage catastrophe: A remark in a quote from Ha'aretz will open some eyes perhaps..."

Reserve IDF colonel Ephraim Michaeli, former Israeli military attache to Russia, indicated Monday that heretofore, anti-terror cooperation between the two nations had been limited, but added that Russian officials held Israel's anti-terrorism capabilities in high esteem.

"In this regard, it could be said that in the eyes of the Russians, we represent a superpower like the United States and Russia, no less than that," he told Army Radio."

Letters from BBC comments:Words can't say enough on this issue - but one thing came to mind thinking about the poor families burying their loved ones - it's this poem.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the mornings hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight;
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.
L Fletcher, Norfolk, England

The tragedy leaves more questions. There will hardly be one right answer. But I think one answer I have - we all, every one of us is a contributor to what is happening in the world. Do we know the world we live in? Do we care about the Kurds fleeing their homes, the Sudanese escaping genocide, the Ethiopians dying from hunger, the Iraqi and Afghans running away from air raids, the Palestinian children fighting tanks? Have we ever thought of all the victims of the terrorist acts in Moscow, New York, Jerusalem, Bali, Madrid or Belfast? Did we all care about the Chechen war before this tragedy?

It is the 10th year of the war! We all use lie, we all feel envy, hatred and anger, we all live with prejudice and stereotypes, we all are ignorant of our environment, we all want more and we'd never stop to achieve our goals. I cannot see when we all are going to change ourselves. Do we need more lives to change the world for the better?
Petr Vinokurov, Yakutsk, Sakha, Russia

...... in all the news I have heard and seen over the last 24 hours, why does no one talk about all the thousands of Chechens who have suffered, died and lost family, children and friends? Why does no one mention their struggle to survive?
Moya, Sheerness, UK

.............................................................................

ASHCROFT , CHENEY AND ALL CAN NOT AFFORD TO COME CLEAN BECAUSE OF THE LIES THAT HAVE PROTECTED THEM SO FAR..... HOW FAR DEAR FRIENDS? HOW FAR?.....(also see NEW article by J.Raimondo)

Attorney General John Ashcroft halted arrests in the Israeli spy case last Friday. From the Sun:

"According to sources familiar with the investigation, the U.S. district attorney in charge of the probe, Paul McNulty, has ordered the FBI not to move forward with arrests that they were prepared to make last Friday when the story broke on CNN and CBS. 'He put the brakes on it in order to look at it,' a source familiar with the investigation told the Sun. 'To see what was there. Basically the FBI wanted to start making arrests and McNulty said "Woa, based on what? Let's look at this before you do anything."' . . .

"Mr. McNulty was only assigned the case by Attorney General Ashcroft last Friday when federal agents came to AIPAC's offices in Washington to request files and hard drives. 'Ashcroft wanted to make sure this case was being handled properly,' the source familiar with the probe said. 'I would not expect any action on this for at least three weeks.' This source added that a grand jury is now being selected, but it was likely the charges, initially reported as espionage, would be scaled back to the mishandling of classified information."

http://www.eco.freedom.org/el/20040901/reader.shtml

People don't get it

By Terry Sater ©

People don't get it. They point out how "suspicious" it is that the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" are "only now" coming out with their charges, as though they should have formed their organization to refute John Kerry when he was a twenty-six-year-old-nobody. Kerry has made his service in Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign. He has only himself to blame that his service has been questioned. It is unfortunate that Bill McClellan, in his column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Wednesday, August 18, refers to them as "that group is funded by Bush supporters." Michael Moore and Whoopie Goldberg spew their venom. The "MoveOn.org" website carries the motto "Democracy in Action." Eric Mink's column refers to "a small group of Vietnam vets, some of whom were on boats near Kerry's...." The Swift Vet's words and actions are frequently referred to as "partisan politics."

I served twelve months with the Mobile Riverine Force, in the Mekong Delta, during 1968 and 1969, manning automatic weapons on an Armored Troop Carrier. During the first three months of 1969, I operated in and around the little village of Ha Tien, at times, with Kerry's Coastal Division 11 Swift Boats.

If one of the men I served with was running for President, I would be extremely proud. If there was any way I could support him for President, I would. The bonds that are formed in combat are special. They are strong. For the men that served in Kerry's unit to state that he is unfit for command cannot, and should not, be brushed off as "partisan politics." It is not a "Republican vs. Democrat", or "conservative vs. liberal" issue. They aren't doing it for money. It is personal.

The Swift Boat Vets are men who came to know John Kerry - in the crucible of war - and saw things in John Kerry that are so disturbing, that they cannot sit quietly. They also saw and heard, one of their own come back from Vietnam, and trash the legacy of everyone who served honorably. John Kerry's lies of atrocities are largely responsible for the terrible reputation Vietnam veterans have lived with for their entire lives. He testified that we were murdering, raping, and torturing, with the consent and direction of the entire chain of command. Now, John Kerry is angry that these 254 men dare to question him.

I haven't read Unfit for Command, yet. I have read John Kerry's Tour of Duty. He reminds me of a popular cartoon in Vietnam, the "Saigon Warrior." The "Saigon Warrior" cartoon figure had his helmet pushed down over his shaded eyes, ammunition belts crossing his puffed out chest, a sword in one hand, and his M-16 in the other. He was a caricature.

If you served in Vietnam, you don't have to read Unfit for Command to question Kerry's record. His own book, Tour of Duty, will do that. I will only point out a few things in his book that stood out, to me.

A photo caption in Kerry's book states: "A Swift boat convoy heading up the Bo De River." If Kerry had spent more than four months in Vietnam, he may have known that the picture was actually a column of "PBR's" (Patrol Boat, River), not his swift boats.

The book often refers to his four-month-stint on the Swifts as Kerry's "second tour," since he had spent time on "the guided-missile frigate U.S.S. Gridley, aboard which he visited Vietnam for the first time in March 1968." He states in his book: "Every day that the Gridley patrolled the Gulf of Tonkin an enemy attack was remotely possible." The Gridley steamed in the Gulf of Tonkin, also known as "Yankee Station." I served on the U.S.S. Enterprise, in the Gulf of Tonkin. No self-respecting sailor who served "in-country" would have considered a tour at "Yankee Station" as a tour of duty in Vietnam, unless you were a Navy pilot.

A lot has been made of John Kerry volunteering for combat. On page 104 of his book, it reads:

• "John Kerry would be training in San Diego for what he thought would be purely coastal patrolling of Operation Market Time, whose objective was to establish a barrier along the coast of Vietnam to interdict the infiltration of insurgent supplies by sea."

On pages 171 and 172, Kerry describes the base for Coastal Division 11, at An Thoi. First, he described the beauty of An Thoi, which was a small village on Phu Quoc Island, off the coast of Vietnam. "But to the U.S. servicemen who fought in the area and had some awareness of such ghastly guerrilla tactics as booby traps, underwater mines, and sniper nests, all An Thoi signified was danger."

While I must admit the possibility that my boat crew may have been painfully ignorant and subjected ourselves to mindless risk, we viewed our occasional trips to An Thoi as the closest thing we could find to "R&R." We swam in the crystal clear waters near the village of An Thoi. We fished with percussion grenades, and watched as the villagers swam out to scoop up the stunned fish. We drank and played on the beach, with the dogs that roamed the island at night.

On page 176, he describes his Swift Boat: "Home neglected to mention that that hull might not be able to stop a BB at a thousand yards." Even his strongest supporters must admit, he has a tendency to exaggerate.

On the same page he states: "For those boats stationed near the Mekong Delta, a fine source of entertainment presented itself: making hell-for-leather dashes up the Viet Cong-infested rivers through "free fire zones," with guns blazing, mostly for kicks, and to have something dramatic to write home about."

Think about it. You are in "Viet Cong-infested rivers." Would you risk low ammo to fire at nothing, "for kicks?" My boat was an armored troop carrier. We carried four .30 cal machine guns, two .50 cal machine guns, two 20 mm cannons and a "Mark 19" grenade launcher. We kept our guns clean. We plugged the ends of the barrels with grease, so that moisture didn't get into the barrel. We kept plenty of ammunition on hand. We did not want to put ourselves at risk by running out of ammunition. We were not allowed to fire freely. During one operation, the last boat in our column was taking sniper fire. The boat captain requested permission to fire back. His request was denied. We could not fire at will, for fun and entertainment.

On page 179, there is a reference to an incident that occurred on October 14th. Page 181 begins with: "Only a few weeks later, Kerry, on a PCF-44 patrol, observed four troop battalions from the Ninth Infantry Division at Dong Tam and five Mobile Riverine Force squadrons staging an assault for the benefit of Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. "To facilitate putting on a good show, an area was picked out for the landing where the chance of guerilla contact was minimal. Nothing was to mess up the show for the secretary of defense." Kerry sneered."

I was with River Assault Squadron 13, during this time period. Melvin Laird was the secretary of defense from January 22, 1969 to January 29, 1973. At the high point, there were only four squadrons of the Mobile Riverine Force. The four squadrons were split into two larger groups; "Group Alpha" and "Group Bravo," in early summer of 1968, spread out over different parts of the Mekong Delta. All four squadrons were never pulled together, to put on a show for Melvin Laird.

Kerry renewed his decades-old smearing of Vietnam veterans, on page 211, describing Cobra gunship pilots: "Yet, Kerry found himself troubled by the realization that some of these wild boys could kill innocent people from a distance, and not be bothered by it. He was no pacifist - far from it- and understood that "accidental atrocities" were a part of war. But, it disturbed him that even a few trigger-happy American yahoos considered killing Vietnamese civilians a sport."

Page 218 relates that Kerry wrote in his notebook, from Sa Dec; ""Merry Christmas from the most inland market time unit." He meant to be clever, and point out to his superiors the incongruity, on a river canal not far from the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon." In truth, Sa Dec isn't near the Cambodian border. Look at a map. Second, hundreds of various types of Navy craft were all over the Mekong Delta, many in much worse places than Kerry. The "Saigon Warrior" would like everyone to think that he was the lone "Rambo," sitting in VC territory, all alone.

I hope that the whole truth comes out. I believe it will, if people read Tour of Duty, Unfit for Command, and Kerry signs the "180" form, which will allow the Navy to release all of his records, not just the ones he has selected.

Slobodan Milosevic opens Defence as Trial re-opens.
MILOSEVIC TRIAL Began Feb 2002 Milosevic faces more than 60 charges Prosecutors' case rested Feb 2004 Court already heard from 295 witnesses

In the first part of his defence argument August 30th, 2004: he blamed the international community for being "the main force for the destruction of Yugoslavia" in the Balkans wars.

"A multicultural, multi-confessional and multi-ethnic state was destroyed ... this constitutes the gravest international crime," he said.

"Hundreds of thousands of people were wounded and maimed. Thousands of people fled their homes, mostly Serbs."

He blamed "the Nato pact" for the conflict in Kosovo, where the prosecution says Mr Milosevic was individually responsible for "the campaign of terror and violence directed at Kosovo Albanian civilians".

Mr Milosevic compared events in Croatia at the start of the Balkan wars in 1991 to the "genocide of Serbs by Croatian fascists in 1941".

He said tens of thousands of Serbs were killed or driven from their homes in Croatia before the Yugoslav army responded.

"This is a classical example of an armed rebellion against a state," he said. "A state has the right to use all means necessary to control the rebellion."

'Distorted picture'

Mr Milosevic, sporting a blue suit and tie the colours of the Yugoslav flag, initially complained he had been given only four hours for his initial speech, while prosecutors were given three days to outline their case when the trial began in February 2002.

Then he launched into his opening statement: "In the international public for a long time an untruthful and distorted picture was created about what happened in Yugoslavia...

"The accusations against me are unscrupulous lies and also a treacherous distortion of history.

"Everything has been presented in a lopsided manner in order to protect those who are truly responsible."

He once again criticised the legality of the tribunal and of his trial.

The trial is seen as a test of the International War Crimes Tribunal, and as one of the most important war crimes trials since the Nuremberg trials that followed World War II, correspondents say.
Excerpts from BBC Report.

Micro lie detectors help screeners ID air passenger threats

World Tribune | August 27 2004

TEL AVIV –
An Israeli firm
has developed a miniature system that can
provide unobtrusive lie detector tests
for commercial air travelers deemed suspicious.

The system uses a miniature computer chip that can provide
voice analysis
of those responding to questions from screeners at airports.

Executives said
the technology which they termed Poly-Layered Voice Analysis,
measured voice for such traits as
deception, excitement, stress, concentration, hesitation, anger, love and lust.

The chip can be inserted in an eyeglass frame and allow screeners to determine
with 98 percent accuracy whether a suspicious traveler has intentions to launch
an attack during flight, Middle East Newsline reported.

The new technology has been relayed to the United States
for marketing by a New York-based company V Entertainment,
which markets a product

to allow screeners to process a would-be
airline passenger within 30 seconds.

Executives said
a chip small enough to fit in an eyeglass frame could read a subject's voice frequency.

The chip was meant to provide
nine analyses and flash
a light upon detection of a lie.

Conventional lie detectors measure the heart beat
in an
effort to detect whether a subject is telling the truth.

The system, termed "Voice Analysis Eyeglasses,"
has been produced by
the Israeli firm Nemesysco,
which develops systems for counter-insurgency and military applications.

The Nemesysco product was said to be
ready for marketing and priced at between $500 and $1,000.

The system was deemed as suitable
for commercial or security applications
and could
also analyze telephone conversations.

Voice Analysis Eyeglasses,
also capable of detecting
gaps in
the answers of a subject,
was said to measure 18 parameters of speech.

---------------------------