markfromireland

‘How can we stand by and allow this to go on?’
Published: 31 July 2006

They wrote the names of the dead children on their plastic shrouds. ” Mehdi Hashem, aged seven ­ Qana,” was written in felt pen on the bag in which the little boy’s body lay. “Hussein al-Mohamed, aged 12 ­ Qana”, “Abbas al-Shalhoub, aged one ­ Qana.'’ And when the Lebanese soldier went to pick up Abbas’s little body, it bounced on his shoulder as the boy might have done on his father’s shoulder on Saturday. In all, there were 56 corpses brought to the Tyre government hospital and other surgeries, and 34 of them were children. When they ran out of plastic bags, they wrapped the small corpses in carpets. Their hair was matted with dust, most had blood running from their noses.

You must have a heart of stone not to feel the outrage that those of us watching this experienced yesterday. This slaughter was an obscenity, an atrocity ­ yes, if the Israeli air force truly bombs with the ” pinpoint accuracy'’ it claims, this was also a war crime. Israel claimed that missiles had been fired by Hizbollah gunmen from the south Lebanese town of Qana ­ as if that justified this massacre. Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, talked about “Muslim terror” threatening ” western civilisation” ­ as if the Hizbollah had killed all these poor people.

And in Qana, of all places. For only 10 years ago, this was the scene of another Israeli massacre, the slaughter of 106 Lebanese refugees by an Israeli artillery battery as they sheltered in a UN base in the town. More than half of those 106 were children. Israel later said it had no live-time pilotless photo-reconnaissance aircraft over the scene of that killing ­ a statement that turned out to be untrue when The Independent discovered videotape showing just such an aircraft over the burning camp. It is as if Qana ­ whose inhabitants claim that this was the village in which Jesus turned water into wine ­ has been damned by the world, doomed forever to receive tragedy.

And there was no doubt of the missile which killed all those children yesterday. It came from the United States, and upon a fragment of it was written: “For use on MK-84 Guided Bomb BSU-37-B”. No doubt the manufacturers can call it “combat-proven” because it destroyed the entire three-storey house in which the Shalhoub and Hashim families lived. They had taken refuge in the basement from an enormous Israeli bombardment, and that is where most of them died.
(more…)

The attacks on Israeli troops by Hamas and Hizbollah are very unlikely to have been co-ordinated but the effect, a multiplier effect, is as though they were. Both operations, were carried out from territory Israel had evacuated, both resulted in the capture of Israeli soldiers and both have been used as the “cassus belli” for a war of punishment by Israel that targets civilians in the hope of fomenting civil war.

• Israel’s reaction to the two events essentially has been the same:
• Rejection of any negotiation or prisoner swap – which both Hamas and Hizbollah have forward as their core demand.
• A “shock and awe” campaign in Gaza and Lebanon targetting civilians in the hope of pressurising the fighters on them to release the captives.

(more…)

The assault on Lebanon continues. It’s been in the works for quite a few years now. For situational updates here’s a few resources you mightn’t be aware of. All of these links will open in a window or tab depending on which browser you use:

• Naharnet - local news site posts regular updates. Highly recommended.
• The Beiruter - Naharnet’s blog aggregator.
• Lebanese Bloggers Forum - Just what it says, check the side bar for links.
• Lebanese Political Journal - Worth a read.
• Daily Star (Beirut) - Voice of the Lebanese establishment.

I don’t have time to comment on Gaza so I just suggest you read this remarkable woman’s writings:

• “From Gaza with love”

Not counting the various Iraqi resistance groups. There are five major political groups in the Middle East:

1. Hamas,
2. Hizbollah,
3. Syria,
4. Iran,
5. The Muslim Brotherhood.

With whom the western governments in particular the U.S. government won’t talk. The Israelis won’t talk to any of them either and are currently trying to militarily overthrow the elected Hamas administration. There isn’t a hope in hell of ending any of the current conflicts when the only party the west will talk to is Israel and when western governments, in particular the U.S. government, gives them money and weaponry like they were sweets. Mealy mouthed platitudes about “restraint” are recognised in Tel Aviv as what they are - mealy mouthed platitudes.

Here’s a quick take on Lebanon. Six years ago Hizbollah successfully threw the Israelis out of South Lebanon. They did it by killing the invaders and by being prepared to be killed. That’s how you get rid of invaders you accept that you yourself are going to take unbearable pain and you make it too unbearably painful for the invaders to continue to occupy your country by killing a lot of them. The Israeli retreat destroyed the myth of Israeli military invincibility but did not however end the war. The Israelis have been looking to recreate the myth ever since. The excuse used by the Israelis for what they’re currently doing is manifestly a ridiculous lie. The storyline goes something like this:

“Terrorists crossed into Israel from Lebanon and kidnapped two of our soldiers. They did this in coordination with and at the behest of either the Syrians or the Iranians or both. We are going to punish Lebanon for not controlling the Hizb.”

The facts are very different. Hizbollah arose from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Lebanese civil war. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon was characterised by savage brutality and caused a civil war in which everyone slaughtered everyone else and brought Hizbollah to prominence in the South. Hizbollah defeated three Israeli armies in a row Lebanon was effectively crippled and divided and that suited the Israelis, the Syrians, the French, the Saudis, and everyone else.

The idea that the Lebanese army could take over from Hizbollah even if Hizbollah were willing is ridiculous, the Lebanese army is good at looking pretty in a snappy uniform. That’s all they’re good at. The Hariri assassination discussed in the comments to a posting on this blog here created a situation in which for the first time all of the Lebanese parties got serious, well as serious as they get, about actually strengthening Lebanon. I did a short posting on this giving a quick summary back in March. What hasn’t changed is that Israel and Hizbollah are at war. Hizbollah arose in reaction to the brutality of the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. To dismiss them as just a terrorist organisation is very foolish. Like Hamas and the Ikhwanis they’re a social and religious movement incorporating well organised and functional:

• Nationalist.
• Religious,
• Political,
• Social,
• Economic and,
• Military departments.

Granted their military wing often uses terrorist tactics but the fact that they have integrated all of the aspects of their struggle makes them far more formidable than any mere “terrorist group” such as ETA, the UVF, the IRA, or the various groups collectively referred to as “al-Qaeda.” In social terms they’re what has kept Southern Lebanon together, in military terms they’re what defeated three Israeli armies in a row, and every Lebanese knows it. They may have been becoming somewhat less politically popular as they moved toward “using the ballot box more than the AK47″ but that hasn’t stopped them from being a formidable military force. They and they Israelis have been watching and attacking each other on the border ever since Hizbollah was formed neither side has ever stopped.

So what happened and why? The immediate cause was that a bad decision by a junior Israeli officer meant that an Israeli unit was left vulnerable to attack and capture. A panicked attempt to get them back using a tank crossing the border and being destroyed. Or to put it another way - a local Hizbollah commander saw an opportunity that was too good to pass up. An Israeli commander faced with an equivalent opportunity would have done the same thing.

Israel wants to defeat Hizbollah and doesn’t care what it does to achieve this goal. I doubt that that their often stated goal of destroying it is achievable my guess is that for the moment all they want Hizbollah visibly defeated and forced to withdraw a long way from the border. I don’t believe that’s achievable either. Israel’s massive attack against all of Lebanon especially infrastructure and civilians has over the last 48 hours rallied the Lebanese against Israel. Even if this Israeli operation were to succeed and even if their wildest dream was to come true and Hizbollah’s defeat was such that it was effectively destroyed the impact on Israel’s own security is likely to be disastrous. The 1982 invasion produced Hizbollah; this latest aggression against all of Lebanon will either strengthen their support which was beginning to weaken or produce another adversary, more tightly organised, more radical, more militant, more ruthless, and determined to revenge themselves both on those who attacked Lebanon and upon those who facilitated and justified the attack.

markfromireland

• Saudi Arabia pledges 50 million dollars in immediate aid to Lebanon
• Israel faces “unimaginable losses” if it attacks Syria, the Iranian foreign ministry said Sunday
• Israeli PM Ehud Olmert warns of ‘long-term consequences’ after Hizbullah attack on Haifa
• Hizbullah launches a new salvo of Raad 2 and Raad 3 rockets at Haifa, killing 9 and injuring 20
• Al-Manar TV building has been completely destroyed by an Israeli strike
• Israeli special forces are operating on the ground in Lebanon, in conjunction with air and sea forces, General Gadi Eisenkraut, operations chief at central command, confirmed Sunday
• Chirac says that forces “who jeopardize the security, stability and sovereignty of Lebanon must be stopped,” ahead of talks with Bush
• Bush says that Israel had ‘every right to defend itself’ but should be ‘mindful of the consequences’
• Hizbullah denied an Israeli television report that its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, had been injured in an Israeli raid
• Israeli aircraft presses on early Sunday with intensive bombing raids on Beirut’s southern suburbs
• Hizbullah claims Sunday to have repelled the first attempted Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon since hostilities began
• Saniora calls for an immediate ceasefire to end Israel’s “collective punishment” of the Lebanese people
• Morning Roundup: Israel Steps Up Assault on Beirut’s Southern Suburbs
  
  Waves of warplanes thundering through the darkness bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs for hours early Sunday, a day after Israel stepped up its air strikes and tightened a noose around this reeling nation…
• Source: Naharnet.com

I suggest you either bookmark them or use their feed.

markfromireland

200,000 Ak-47 Assault Rifles Missing In Iraq? - It’s Business As Usual - Thanks Rummy

How can it happen that four planeloads of Kalashnikov assault rifles vanish from Bosnia and apparently wind up in Iraq? Put it another way 200,000 AK-47s have gone missing and there’s very good grounds to believe that the US government paid handsomely to have them delivered to person or persons unknown in Iraq, and by person or persons unkown I do not mean the Iraqi government.

HAVE 200,000 AK47S FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF IRAQ TERRORISTS?
FEARS OVER SECRET U.S. ARMS SHIPMENT

SOME 200,000 guns the US sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.

The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown out from a US base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.

Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.

And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.

It follows a separate probe claiming that thousands of guns meant for Iraq’s police and army instead went to al-Qaeda

[snip]

A Nato spokesman said: “There’s no tracking mechanism to ensure they don’t fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some may have been siphoned off.”

[snip]

Meanwhile, Aerocom, the Moldovan air firm at the centre of the 200,000 missing AK47s, was stripped of its licence by its national authorities a day before the first shipment.

Two other companies in the complicated sale claim to have papers proving the guns were delivered in Iraq but refuse to show them.”

Full report here [This link and all exterior links open in new windows - markfromireland].

US in secret gun deal

Small arms shipped from Bosnia to Iraq ‘go missing’ as Pentagon uses dealers

Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Friday May 12, 2006
The Guardian

The Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq in the past two years, using a web of private companies, at least one of which is a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the UN.

According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient.

Full story here

The AK-47 is a superbly well-designed weapon:

• It’s simple and cheap to manufacture.
• It’s very easy to clean and maintain.
• It’s very rugged.
• It’s very reliable.

It has these desirable characteristics because of several features of its design. It has a large gas piston, lots of clearance between its moving parts, and a tapered cartridge case. All of which mean that it can take a lot of abuse and a lot of foreign matter and fouling and still cycle properly. - The down side of this reliability is that it’s not the most accurate weapon in the world.

Depending on where it’s made the factory cost of a new AK-47 is in the region of US$75.00 [seventy five US dollars]. AKs are in heavy demand and the demand is rising for example:
Last year [2005] the US bought the following to equip the new “Iraqi” army:

• 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles,
• 100,000 flak jackets,
• 110,000 pistols,
• 6,000 cars and pickup trucks,
• 230 million rounds of ammunition.

- That was before the program to build an “Iraqi” army really began to get off the ground, and was also at the time when the desertion rate was very high nor does that figure include supplies for the various militias and “security agencies.”

Nor is Iraq the sole source of demand. Venezuela is building up its defenses against an American attack and it’s not just interested in high tech weaponry of the sort it can acquire from Spain or of the deal that Israel was forced to drop or their recent deal with Russia. For obvious reasons the Venezuelan is interested in asymetric warfare defense and is actively acquiring expertise in that field:

“Instructors made comparisons to Viet Cong guerrilla attacks on U.S troops, including the use of secret tunnels, poisons and home-made weapons.

Venezuelan officers have also been sent to Havana to learn civilian-military cooperation from the Cubans as part of the training, said National Guard Gen. Juan Alberto Hernandez

[snip]

“They will guarantee resistance against an invading force in their areas. They’ll be trained in weapons and other home-made artifacts,” said instructor Benavides. “They can be confused with the populace and that is part of asymmetric war.”

Reuters via Herald-Sun 06 Mar 06 “Venezuelans prepare for invasion”

That’s just one source of the rise in demand, there are lots of promising little wars brewing in Africa as well.

However back to Iraq. Quite aside from “official demand” and the demand from various militias there’s a further source of demand, ordinary householders. Under a “law” passed by Bremer every Iraqi household is entitled to one weapon. American troops do NOT confiscate them during searches. By no means all households have a weapon yet, but as the American occupiers continue to engage in policies that actively encourage the break up of Iraq, that’s an oversight that many Iraqis are rushing to correct. After the Samarra bombing the average price of a Russian-made AK-47 went from from US$112 to US$290 literally overnight while bullets jumped to 33 cents up from 24 cents again literally overnight. It’s continuing to climb somewhat and even a large influx of AKs aimed purely at this civilian market will not depress the price enough for arms dealers to make windfall profits.

The temptation to “mislay” a large consignment and make a hefty profit is clear. But how could it have happened? The answer lies here:

“And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.”

Moldova has the unenviable distinction of being the second poorest country in Europe (some say it’s the poorest.) Its bureaucracy is notoriously corrupt and the airline in question is owned by Victor Bout. Bout whose links to blood diamond trade and willingness to supply arms to everybody and anybody are notorious was designated by the US Treasury under Executive Order 13348 [PDF] on April 26th last year. Bout who is a fugitive from justice in two countries is also strongly suspected of smuggling arms to the Taleban. But has been selling to the US PX in Iraq since at least 2004 (he’s cheap) as well as ammunition (same reason.)

By now my readers won’t be surprised to learn that the main contractors who carried out the deal on behalf of the US Government be said to be above reproach:

“The Pentagon commissioned the US security firms Taos and CACI - which is known for its involvement in the Abu Ghraib prison controversy in Iraq - to orchestrate the arms purchases and shipments. They, in turn, subcontracted to a welter of firms, brokers, and shippers, involving businesses based in Britain, Switzerland, Croatia, Moldova, and Bosnia” [Guardian report cited above - mfi]

Nor will I suppose will my readers be surprised to learn that people have been writing about and reporting on for a long time now. Nothing seems to be have done.

How could it happen? Greed, corruption, cronyism, the Bush administration’s omnipresent incompetence, and of course a government not overly concerned with what happens to the country they invaded and are now occupying. The fact that Rumsfeld’s “reforms” meant the decimation of US logistical capacity to make room for contractors made this sort of scandal inevitable. Who could all those weapons have gone to? Everybody and anybody, and that includes householders, assorted militants, and of course all the assorted variations on a peshmerga theme.

Heck of a job Rummy, heck of a job, I’m surprised that US casualties are as low as they are.

markfromireland

PS: The cost of an Ak-47 in Beirut has still not dropped.