There will be another 9/11

By Robert Fisk

There will be another 9/11

Sat Aug 5, 2006 18:29

A terrible thought occurs to me - that there will be another 9/11

By Robert Fisk
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14378.htm

08/05/06 "The Independent" -- -- The room shook. Not since the 1983 earthquake has my apartment rocked from side to side. That was the force of the Israeli explosions in the southern suburbs of Beirut - three miles from my home - and the air pressure changed in the house yesterday morning and outside in the street the palm trees moved.

Is it to be like this every day? How many civilians can you make homeless before you start a revolution? And what is next? Are the Israelis to bomb the centre of Beirut? The Corniche? Is this why all the foreign warships came and took their citizens away, to make Beirut safe to destroy?

Yesterday, needless to say, was another day of massacres, great and small. The largest appeared to be 40 farm workers in northern Lebanon, some of them Kurds - a people who do not even have a country. An Israeli missile was reported to have exploded among them as they loaded vegetables on to a refrigerated truck near Al-Qaa, a small village east of Hermel in the far north. The wounded were taken to hospital in Syria because the roads of Lebanon have now all been cratered by Israeli bomb-bursts. Later we learnt that an air strike on a house in the village of Taibeh in the south had killed seven civilians and wounded 10 seeking shelter from attack.

In Israel two civilians were killed by Hizbollah missiles but, as usual, Lebanon bore the brunt of the day's attacks which centred - incredibly - on the Christian heartland that has traditionally shown great sympathy towards Israel. It was the Christian Maronite community whose Phalangist militiamen were Israel's closest allies in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon yet Israel's air force yesterday attacked three highway bridges north of Beirut and - again as usual - it was the little people who died.

One of them was Joseph Bassil, 65, a Christian man who had gone out on his daily jogging exercise with four friends north of Jounieh. "His friends packed up after four rounds of the bridge because it was hot," a member of his family told us later. "Joseph decided to do one more jog on the bridge. That was what killed him." The Israelis gave no reason for the attacks - no Hizbollah fighters would ever enter this Christian Maronite stronghold and the only hindrance was caused to humanitarian convoys - and there were growing fears in Lebanon that the latest air raids were a sign of Israel's frustration rather any serious military planning.

Indeed, as the Lebanon war continues to destroy innocent lives - most of them Lebanese - the conflict seems to be increasingly aimless. The Israeli air force has succeeded in killing perhaps 50 Hizbollah members and 600 civilians and has destroyed bridges, milk factories, gas stations, fuel storage depots, airport runways and thousands of homes. But to what purpose?

Does the United States any longer believe Israel's claims that it will destroy Hizbollah when its army clearly cannot do anything of the kind? Does Washington not realise that when Israel grows tired of this war, it will plead for a ceasefire - which only Washington can deliver by doing what it most loathes to do: by taking the road to Damascus and asking for help from President Bashar al-Assad of Syria?

What in the meanwhile is happening to Lebanon? Bridges and buildings can be reconstructed - with European Union loans, no doubt - but many Lebanese are now questioning the institutions of the democracy for which the US was itself so full of praise last year. What is the point of a democratically elected Lebanese government which cannot protect its people? What is the point of a 75,000-member Lebanese army which cannot protect its nation, which cannot be sent to the border, which does not fire on Lebanon's enemies and which cannot disarm Hizbollah? Indeed, for many Lebanese Shias, Hizbollah is now the Lebanese army.

So fierce has been Hizbollah's resistance - and so determined its attacks on Israeli ground troops in Lebanon - that many people here no longer recall that it was Hizbollah which provoked this latest war by crossing the border on 12 July, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. Israel's threats of enlarging the conflict even further are now met with amusement rather than horror by a Lebanese population which has been listening to Israel's warnings for 30 years with ever greater weariness. And yet they fear for their lives. If Tel Aviv is hit, will Beirut be spared. Or if central Beirut is hit, will Tel Aviv be spared? Hizbollah now uses Israel's language of an eye for an eye. Every Israeli taunt is met by a Hizbollah taunt.

And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, that a rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeli army and air force whose targets - if intended - prove them to be war criminals and if unintended suggest that they are a rif-raff little better than the Arab armies they have been fighting, on and off, for more than half a century? Extraordinary precedents are being set in this Lebanon war.

In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these past three decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to be afraid. Their leaders - our "moderate" pro-Western Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt - may be afraid. But their peoples are not. And once a people have lost their terror, they cannot be re-injected with fear. Thus Israel's consistent policy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works. It is a policy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq.

And all across the Muslim world, "we" - the West, America, Israel - are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching the martyrdom of Lebanon this week - its slaughtered children in Qana packed into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses had to be wrapped in carpets - a terrible and daunting thought occurs to me, day by day. That there will be another 9/11.

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
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A Letter To Robert Fisk

The second Kana massacre and the New Middle East

By Noureddine Ait Messaoudene

The West, in general but particularly meaning western governments, has to abandon the dogma of the moral superiority of Israel over the Arabs altogether, the myth of the only democracy in the Middle East that stands as the ultimate barrier of the “Civilized World” against the threat of “Muslim Terror”.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14384.htm

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Cease Fire Now!

This video is dedicated to the children who have lost their lives because The US, UK and Israel have willingly stopped a ceasefire resulting in the deaths of many civilians in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

7 Minute Video

- Warning -

This video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14337.htm

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Who's the extremist?

By Soumaya Ghannoushi

By his own definition - and his actions - Blair is as much of a danger to world peace as al-Qaida.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14385.htm

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What happens when the American Dream dies?

By Jerry Landay

When dreams fall apart, humans often respond with rage, hysteria, hopelessness, and fear. How many more will find false comfort in the preachments of dangerous demagogues, who offer certitude by finding scapegoats? How many will seek solace in radical religious frenzy, pronouncing wrathful judgment on America while rooting out "the godless"?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14382.htm

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At least 19 killed as U.S. occupation grinds on:

Police said they found nine bodies bearing signs of torture and shot in the head in different parts of the capital.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BUL527954.htm

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20 "militants" believed killed:

In the northern city of Mosul, a provincial governor says 20 militants are believed to have been killed in a prolonged gunbattle with security forces yesterday.
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=5243730

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Seven Iraqi troops killed in war on insurgency:

Iraqi insurgents gunned down five soldiers and killed two police in a separate bomb attack, as government forces stepped up their campaign to regain control of a war-torn country.
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=136275

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Military court to hear Iraq rape case:

A U.S. military court will convene in Baghdad on Sunday to decide whether to court-martial four U.S. soldiers for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her family in March.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060805/ts_nm/iraq_mahmudiya_dc

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At Hearing, Witness Says Troops Fired at Fleeing Iraqis:

Helton said the soldiers fired and one detainee "fell flat down and the second one, wherever he got shot, it was kind of like what you'd see in a movie where he spun around and landed on his back." One was spitting up blood, he said.
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes318.html

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Senator wants U.S. troops out of Iraq within 6 months: .

" The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
http://tinyurl.com/oym2c

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Bush didn't know there were two sects of Islam :

Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq
http://tinyurl.com/eldhs

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Israeli Occupation Forces Kill 4 in Gaza:

The dead included a 16-year-old girl, Kifah Natour, her brother, Amar, 15. Their mother Huda, 50, was seriously injured in the raids.
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745775.html

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Mother, two daughters killed in rocket strike on Bedouin village :

Hezbollah fired 170 Katyusha rockets across northern Israel on Saturday afternoon, 130 of which landed between 4 P.M. and 5 P.M.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746581.html

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Mortar Attack Kills One Israeli Soldier:

The Israeli military says one of its soldiers died and another was wounded in eastern Lebanon.
http://www.tw3w.com/blanco/news_story.asp?story_no=2

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Hezbollah fights off dawn attack on Tyre: :

ISRAELI helicopters struck the southern Lebanese city of Tyre today in a dawn raid that failed to land commandos and left one Israeli dead, Hezbollah said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20027615-1702,00.html

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Israeli Bombs Cut Aid Lifeline:

UN aid officials said the bombing of the main coastal highway north from Beirut to the Syrian border earlier in the day had cut an "umbilical cord" of aid supplies. The bombing halted a convoy of eight lorries carrying 150 tonnes of relief shipments, though aid was arriving by air and by sea.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1837846,00.html

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Hezbollah to Cease Fire If Israel Does: Lebanese Minister:

“We are in a state of defense. If the Israeli aggression ends it would be easier for us to stop our attacks under the condition that Tel Aviv pulls out from Lebanon,” Minister Fneish said.
http://tinyurl.com/pmfcj

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U.S., France OK U.N. Mideast truce pact:

It does not call for an "immediate cessation of violence," those officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft had not yet been made public. That appeared to be a victory for the U.S. and Israel.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4096572.html

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Missiles neutralizing Israeli tanks:

Hezbollah has fired Russian-made Metis-M anti-tank missiles and owns European-made Milan missiles, the army confirmed on Friday.
http://tinyurl.com/m2uy6

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The underground voice of Hezbollah:

EVERY night of this 25-day-old conflict, Israeli warplanes have tried to destroy Hezbollah’s television station, al- Manar. Every night they have failed.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2299863,00.html

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Hizbullah rockets cannot be fired from buildings :

The type of missiles being fired by Hizbullah at Israeli cities cannot be fired from within houses, mosques, hospitals or even UN facilities as has been suggested by the IDF.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=345

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War pimp alert:

Iran to supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missiles:

Iran will supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missile systems in the coming months, boosting the guerrillas' defences against Israeli aircraft, according to a report by specialist magazine Jane's Defence Weekly, citing unnamed Western diplomatic sources.
http://tinyurl.com/oxowd

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Gordon Prather: Bolton strong-arming the U.N
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14381.htm

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UN Approaches the Dustbin of History:

Since the establishment of the UN, the US has used its veto no less than forty times to shield Israel from the international scrutiny and to enable it to violate international norms and to commit war crimes with impunity. The latest such obstruction of the international will occurred only two and a half weeks ago
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14380.htm

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Israel does not act or speak for every Jew:

Until Jews are prepared to articulate the need to sever the identification of Judaism and Israel, anti-Semitism will flourish.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14379.htm

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Why doesn't Israel work for peace?:

Holocaust victims would decry the slaughter of innocent children during attacks on Hezbollah.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14383.htm

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Indigenous Middle Eastern Jews condemn Israeli aggression
http://ww4report.com/node/2278

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UK: More than 100 MPs sign petition attacking Blair :

The extent of the Labour backbench unrest over Tony Blair's handling of the Middle East crisis is laid bare for the first time today in a petition calling for an immediate ceasefire.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1214560.ece

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Fury at Blair as 100,000 take to the streets over Lebanon

Some 100,000 protesters took to the streets of London on Saturday to demand an end to Israel's assault on Lebanon and Gaza - and to express their fury at Tony Blair's refusal to call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9416

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Saab stops Venezuela arms sales :

Saab says it cannot continue sales of anti-aircraft and anti-tank devices to Venezuela because of a US arms embargo against President Chavez's government.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5243880.stm

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Exonerated, Florida Death Row Inmate Tells His Tale :

Some 63 percent of the inmates on death row in the U.S. are black or Latino, even though they represent 25 percent of the total population, according to a 2002 Human Rights Watch report.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34224

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Video: Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons:

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for BBC Channel 4 . It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

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Feds threaten lawsuit over Verizon probe:

The Bush administration is threatening to sue Maine regulators should they decide to investigate whether Verizon Communications illegally turned over customer information to the National Security Agency.
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/2996529.shtml

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DAY 26: CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST — "Radio Your Way", Sat Aug 5 18:25

ANOTHER MORONIC UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION !! — Mike Macaulay, Sun Aug 6 04:06

There will be another 9/11 — By Robert Fisk, Sat Aug 5 18:29