mark from ireland

Aliyah Thoughts Three Months Later - Guest Posting by Alex Stein

markfromireland — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:00:12 +0000

“You’re doing what?” “What on earth is somebody as hostile to zionism as you doing posting an article by a zionist?” “I want to protest your decison to ask a Zionist to write an article here. I feel betrayed.” Just three of the reactions I received when I mentioned that I’d invited Alex Stein to do a guest posting here. Alex is indeed a Zionist and I am indeed hostile to Zionism which I regard as an essentially colonialist ideology. What has that got do with anything? I have always argued that peace can only come about when “men of goodwill” hear, understand, and negotiate with one another in good faith. In the cacophony of voices of hate it is all too easy to ignore the “still small voice” of goodwill. Alex’s voice is one such, I encourage you to read him further and to visit his site.

markfromireland

Aliyah Thoughts Three Months Later

I have just made aliyah. Considering the current pessimism surrounding prospects for peace in the Middle East, this move may surprise many. Given the rise of Hamas and the concomitant entrenchment of unilateralism in Israel, not to mention Iran’s nuclear ambitions, isn”t making aliyah a strange thing to do? I don”t believe so. In fact, for anyone who shares the same Progressive Zionist ideals as I do, now is a wonderful time to be taking the aliyah plunge, for this is a time of destroying and rebuilding.

Glossary:

Aliyah:: Literally ‘going up’. The term used to denote the act of a Jew migrating to Israel. - Alex Stein; The Wikipedia entry on Aliyah can be found here. - mfi
Ulpan:: A school for the intensive study of Hebrew. It is designed to teach adult immigrants to Israel the basic language skills of conversation, writing and comprehension. - Alex Stein; The Wikipedia entry on Ulpan can be found here. - mfi

We go to the land to build it, and be built by it. This was the mantra of the early Zionists. Never has the appeal of nationalism towards progressives been stated so succinctly. In one pithy phrase, the relationship between political progress and self-development is articulated. It may seem perverse, but what better time can there be for moving to Israel than this? For now is a time when the destruction is in place, when events are transpiring to make all our goals further away than ever.

In the case of Israel/Palestine, it is best not to believe the hype until the maps have been published, and even then not to believe the maps unless the source is beyond repute. And although there has been wild speculation over Ehud Olmert’s plans to unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank, the precise parameters of the plan are still unclear. It seems that Olmert is seeking to annex the major settlement blocs - Ariel, Gush Etzion, Ma”aleh Adumim - as well as securing a permanent presence in the Jordan Valley. But this is far from certain. And even if this did constitute the plan, questions remain. Will there be a Jewish presence in Hebron? Will any military bases be left behind? Will Gaza and the West Bank finally be connected? What will happen in Jerusalem? Predictably, though, any suggestion of withdrawal from the West Bank has led to widespread criticism, particularly from the Religious Zionist and Christian Zionist camps. This was inevitable. Giving up one inch is too much for those who value land more life. There can be no satisfying such people.

At the outset, Olmert stated that he wanted to set Israel’s borders by 2010. Following the war in Lebanon, however, the plans have been shelved for the foreseeable future. The reasons for this are obvious. The best that Olmert is prepared to offer the Palestinians do not come close to satisfying their minimal demands. As a result, the Americans are trying to encourage Olmert to engage Palestinian President Abbas, an undoubtedly reasonable man. It seems that a meeting between the two will soon take place, although there is little hope for a significant outcome. Israel will surely soon return to unilateralism. But this should not distract from a basic realisation: Israel will not be stable, in the truest sense of the word, until Palestine is. This should be the Progressive Zionist mantra, the response to unilateralism.

My Zionism, however, is primarily personal, not ideological. In other words, I do not aim to impose my Zionism on other Jews in the Diaspora. The decisions we have to take in our lives are terrifying enough without trying to impose them on other people. Furthermore, I do not summarily dismiss anti-Zionism as self-hatred. I believe anti-Zionists to be fundamentally mistaken, but I acknowledge the legitimacy of the position, and welcome the critique. I, however, hold an axiomatic conviction in the right of Jews to self-determination, and the no less deeply held belief that this does not necessitate persecution of the other.

“Progressive Nationalism” is all the rage nowadays, with the increasing realisation that people express their autonomy more freely within a national context. Zionism needs to keep up the pace. National movements exist to promote what Will Kymlicka calls a ’societal culture”. For progressive nationalists, this culture is necessarily “thin”, given that the state should not intervene in matters of religion, values and lifestyles. But it should not be dismissed as unimportant. The Zionist movement has done a tremendous job in resurrecting the Hebrew language, and a vibrant Israeli national culture. It now has to make sure that the values of pluralism and democracy can spread far deeper into Israeli society.

Thus, in addition to solving the conflict with the Palestinians, Israel has to resolve the contradictions between its commitment to democracy and its commitment to the Jewish people. Despite what some doctrinaire anti-Zionists might say, this remains a viable goal, and many people are working hard at formulating a way forward. Of most importance in this regard is providing Israeli-Arabs with full equality and integration into Israeli society. In addition lays the importance of confronting the religious/secular divide, particularly the status quo which gives the Orthodox establishment such disproportionate influence over the personal lives of Israeli citizens. These tasks may be difficult, but they are certainly feasible.

To dream madly and to imagine all possibilities has always been the Zionist way. As the date of aliyah approaches, one should have delusions of grandeur, which should be replaced by humility on arrival. My five months (I need five years) of ulpan has become a time of observation, of re-acquainting myself with the facts on the ground, and trying to imagine how I can possibly fit in, and what I can do. As soon as this honeymoon is over, I shall know I have arrived.

The above should suffice as an explanation of my ideological commitment to Zionism, and the political context of my aliyah. But I am aware it does not go the heart of why I have made this move. In all honesty, answering the “why” question is an extremely difficult one. It would be great if I could reduce everything down to a neat narrative, but life is more complicated than that. I can”t, for example, name the day I finally decided that Israel was the place for me. Like all the best decisions (I hope), there was a rocky road to a gradual realisation that I wanted to go.

So despite everything: despite Hamas, despite the worship of unilateralism, despite racism (on both sides), despite Ahmadinejad, despite my unerring commitment to universality. We can only really achieve a universal order when we value the particular. I remain cynical as to how sustainable Jewish life is in the Diaspora, at least on a serious level where the decisions we take as Jews have ramifications beyond our tribe. Our little job in achieving the dream of genuine universality is to create an Israel where justice trumps ethnocentrism.

Theodor Herzl famously noted that “if you will it, it is no dream”. To refer to this aphorism is to invite the ridicule that is heaped on a bad poet, or someone unwilling to dirty themselves with detail. But it still remains Zionism’s most potent catchphrase, and one which has never been bettered as the embodiment of Zionism’s revolutionary potential. The time has come for this revolutionary potential to be rediscovered, for Zionism to pave the trail for progressive nationalism everywhere. One of the most tragic aspects of modern history is the constant victory of reactionary nationalisms. Now, at a time of deep-rooted pessimism, is as good a time as ever for this process to be reversed.

Alex Stein

About:

This is an updated version of an article by Alex Stein “A time for rebuilding | Alex Stein takes the plunge into Israeli life “ that first appeared in the UK publication “Jewish Quarterly.” [ Jewish Quarterly | Summer 2006 - Number 202 ] Alex was the Abba Eban Scholar in International Relations (M.Phil) at Queens’ College, Cambridge and following his move to Israel now works as a freelance writer and educator based in Jerusalem. He runs the website “False Dichotomies” which he decribes as “An attempt to understand the world through unravelling its false dichotomies.” He can be contacted by email at the following address:

alex.stein@talk21.com or by leaving a comment at “False Dichotomies.”

American Mercenary Firm Laughs All The Way To The Bank- British Soldiers “make do” (and die) - part 2

markfromireland — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 16:24:46 +0000

Yesterday

“Cruel irony and “not good good enough for ‘our boys’ ” is an understatement. I have no idea why any British reporter would put the word scandal in inverted comments as Brian Brady has done in today’s story. A scandal is exactly what it is. It is scandalous that both ordinary soldiers and bomb disposal specialists should be exposed to yet further danger while a pack of dirty mercenaries should be laughing all the way to the bank. “

Today

“Reuters - Mon Sep 4, 9:49 AM ET Danish soldiers carry the body of one of two British soldiers killed in a roadside bomb attack near Basra in southern Iraq, September 4, 2006. REUTERS/Atef Hassan”

Today

Iraq roadside bomb kills two British soldiers

James Sturcke and agencies
Monday September 4, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Two British soldiers were killed and a third was seriously wounded in Iraq today, the army said.

The soldiers died when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb north of Basra, Major Charlie Burbridge said. The soldiers were travelling in an armoured Land Rover, commonly known as a “snatch vehicle”.

“It appears a roadside bomb was used to attack the convoy,” Maj Burbridge said. “They were in a snatch vehicle. They have been designed to protect the crew against a certain threat and on occasion they have been defeated.”

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said two more were injured - one seriously - in the incident near the town of Ad Dayr. Both were taken by helicopter for emergency medical care at a British field hospital at Shaibah logistics base.

A spokesman for British forces in Basra said the attack happened at about 1pm (1000 BST).

The deaths mean that 117 British armed forces personnel have died serving in Iraq since the start of the campaign in March 2003. The deaths come amid increasing concern about the army’s overseas deployments. One British soldier was killed by a suicide bomb in Afghanistan today, following the deaths of 14 service personnel there at the weekend when their RAF Nimrod crashed close to Kandahar.

Twenty service personnel have been killed while on patrol in snatch vehicles in Iraq. Many experts have questioned whether the Land Rovers provide adequate protection from the weapons used by Iraqi insurgents.

Maj Burbridge told Sky News that the attack happened in an area where the threat had been “relatively low”. He said snatch vehicles were “equipped for the job” and soldiers knew they were “at risk”.

“The equipment we have is the best that was available at the time of going on the operation,” he said. “We have a very complicated operation out here. The equipment is adequate for the task and we have to get on with it.”

The identities of the dead soldiers were not being released until their families had been informed.

Before today’s deaths, 18 soldiers had been killed in snatch vehicles in southern Iraq during the past 16 months. Of the 115 British deaths in Iraq before today, 86 were classed as killed in action, including those which resulted from hostile action; the other 29 had died either as a result of illness, non-combat injuries or accidents, or had not yet been officially assigned a cause of death, pending the outcome of an investigation.

Last month, a Commons report criticised the use of the Land Rovers.

Yes indeed they did this is what they said please note that the emphasis is in the original - mfi

Armoured vehicles

51. At its Basra Palace base, we met the UK’s 20 Armoured Brigade. We were shown the equipment used on patrol, particularly the Snatch Land Rover. We heard that Snatch were very good vehicles, but they were old and could often break down. Many had previously been used in Northern Ireland. They were fast and manoeuvrable but not well armoured and were particularly vulnerable to Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack. Similar concerns were voiced by UK troops at the Shaibah Logistics Base.

…

59. We are concerned at the increasingly sophisticated nature of the threat and the consequent vulnerability of UK Forces travelling in Snatch Land Rovers. We welcome the Secretary of State’s review of the use of Snatch vehicles in Iraq and believe it is essential that this review be completed as quickly as possible. In the long-term, FRES may offer a solution to the difficulties associated with the Snatch, but its introduction is too far off to offer an answer to current operational needs in Iraq. The MoD should consider an “off the shelf” purchase as an immediate and interim replacement for Snatch, even if it does not fulfil the long-term capability requirement. It is unsatisfactory that the lack of capability was not addressed with greater urgency much earlier.

Des Brown, the defence secretary, announced in July that the army would get about 300 new, tougher armoured vehicles, mainly German-designed Pinzgauers and US Cougars, for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they would not be available until the end of the year. Soldiers have been bolting makeshift panels on to the side doors of Land Rovers and the front of trucks to try to protect them from roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades [emphasis mine - mfi].

markfromireland

Dead Man Walking

markfromireland — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 15:09:02 +0000

I think we’ve been all been expecting, and dreading, this. I’ve written about it repeatedly recently:

Back on July 27th I wrote about the Statement issued by Grand Ayatollah Najafi covered in this article in Al-Zaman [Arabic]:

“the situation in the south of the country is coming very badly unstuck for the green zone government. In particular this statement by Grand Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi is ominous:

“We fear the coming of a day when we cannot restrain a revolution of the people, with all its unsavory consequences.”

Al-Najafi is often thought to be second most important of the four Grand Ayatollahs living in Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani being “primus inter pares” (the fifth Grand Ayatollah Kazem al-Hairi lives in Iran.) Al-Najafi’s office would not under any circumstances have issued that statement unless the Grand Ayatollahs (who act collegially) were of the opinion that their ability to restrain their followers was slipping. … … … .”

On August 10th I wrote this:

“It remains to be seen whether the Grand Ayatollahs already deeply concerned that their ability to restrain their followers is slipping will succeed in holding them back one more time. Should they fail the bloodbath created by the American occupation’s policies in Iraq will pale into insignificance.”

The Grand Ayatollahs have been desperately concerned about the situation in Iraq. They’ve been growing increasingly frustrated with the abject inability of the green zone government either to get a grip on the situation or to stand up to the Americans. In addition to that they’ve been desperately concerned that their authority amongst their followers - particularly the young, is slipping. Since the Samarra Bombing there have been repeated attacks on Shi’ite religious ceremonies, shrines, and pilgrims to say nothing of attacks such the al-Ula market bombing, the Jameelah market bombing and other market bombings or the American attack on Sadr City . All of these attacks have undermined the Grand Ayatollah’s authority.

The funeral of the Indian and Pakistani pilgrims in Karbala. Note the size of the crowd. Juan Cole’s posting today makes several very important points about today’s news including on the significance of being buried at Karbala to the Shia devotees. As I was writing this posting news came in that Sheikh Hassan Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawadi al-Sistani’s representative in Amara had been murdered by gunmen today. - mfi

Yesterday’s meeting with the isolated and ineffective al-Maliki, and the attacks on Indian and Pakistani pilgrims in which eleven Pakistani and three Indian Shia pilgrims were murdered have been widely reported throughout the world particularly in Pakistani and Indian newspapers seem to have been the last straw. Grand Ayatollah Sistani has issued a statement in which he roundly rebukes the green zone government [Arabic language]:

“The government’s failure to fulfill its missions and duties in ensuring security and order and protecting the lives of the citizenry creates an opportunity for unofficial forces to arise to fulfill that mission.”

What al-Sistani is saying here is theologically impeccable - if the government fails in it’s duty to protect the community then others will step into to do that task, implicit in this is that the government has lost its legitimacy.

But al-Sistani is saying other things as well and one of them is that he no longer believes his followers will obey further calls from him to hold back. This report in today’s edition of the UK Sunday Telegraph makes grim reading. I suggest you save a copy of it for future reference.

“The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.

Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks.

[snip]

It is a devastating blow to the remaining hopes for a peaceful solution in Iraq and spells trouble for British forces, who are based in and around the Shia stronghold of Basra.

The cleric is regarded as the most important Shia religious leader in Iraq and has been a moderating influence since the invasion of 2003. He ended the fighting in Najaf between Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi army and American forces in 2004 and was instrumental in persuading the Shia factions to fight the 2005 elections under the single banner of the United Alliance.

However, the extent to which he has become marginalised was demonstrated last week when fighting broke out in Diwaniya between Iraqi soldiers and al-Sadr’s Mehdi army. With dozens dead, al-Sistani’s appeals for calm were ignored. Instead, the provincial governor had to travel to Najaf to see al-Sadr, who ended the fighting with one telephone call.

[snip]

Hundreds of thousands of people have turned away from al-Sistani to the far more aggressive al-Sadr. Sabah Ali, 22, an engineering student at Baghdad University, said that he had switched allegiance after the murder of his brother by Sunni gunmen. “I went to Sistani asking for revenge for my brother,” he said. “They said go to the police, they couldn’t do anything.

“But even if the police arrest them, they will release them for money, because the police are bad people. So I went to the al-Sadr office. I told them about the terrorists’ family. They said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get revenge for your brother’. Two days later, Sadr’s people had killed nine of the terrorists, so I felt I had revenge for my brother. I believe Sadr is the only one protecting the Shia against the terrorists.”

According to al-Sadr’s aides, he owes his success to keeping in touch with the people. “He meets his representatives every week or every day. Sistani only meets his representatives every month,” said his spokesman, Sheik Hussein al-Aboudi.

“Muqtada al-Sadr asks them what the situation is on the street, are there any fights against the Shia, he is asking all the time. So the people become close to al-Sadr because he is closer to them than Sistani. Sistani is the ayatollah, he is very expert in Islam, but not as a politician.”

Even the Iraqi army seems to have accepted that things have changed. First Lieut Jaffar al-Mayahi, an Iraqi National Guard officer, said many soldiers accepted that al-Sadr’s Mehdi army was protecting Shias. “When they go to checkpoints and their vehicles are searched, they say they are Mehdi army and they are allowed through. But if we stop Sistani’s people we sometimes arrest them and take away their weapons.”

[snip] “

As I went through the Arabic language press today there was report [Asharq Al Awsat] after report [Aswataliraq] after report [Dar Al Hayat] after report [Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed ] of Maliki putting a brave face on things. I doubt if he believes it his own statements however. I don’t expect him to last much longer, I doubt if he does either.

markfromireland

(Cross posted to gorillas guides)

American Mercenary Firm Laughs All The Way To The Bank- British Soldiers “make do” (and die)

markfromireland — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 08:49:42 +0000

~~Yankee Poodle Tony’s Government~~ ~~The British~~ The Blair Government has sold off 4½ million pounds worth of armoured personnel carriers for £44,000 including four to American mercenary firm Blackwater. British Ministers claimed that adaptations made to the Mamba Mine Protected Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), which if you follow the chain of ownership is manufactured by a BAE (British Aerospace) subsidiary, made it unsuitable for its use in Iraq which included the transportation of bomb disposal teams, and too difficult to maintain. The ministers appear to be being more than somewhat “economical with the actualité.” The American mercenary firm that bought them for the princely sum of £2,933.33 apiece describes them as “the armoured personnel carrier of choice for Blackwater ops in Iraq” and clearly don’t have any problem maintaining them as they’re in daily use on Route Irish - “the most dangerous road in the world.” The British newspaper Scotland on Sunday first broke the story last Sunday and has an even more damning follow-up today.

“Troops risk their lives in Land Rovers while MoD sells off armoured vehicles
Scotland On Sunday Sun 27 Aug 2006 BRIAN BRADY AND NIGEL GREEN

A FLEET of armoured vehicles has been sold abroad for just £44,000 despite the ongoing scandal of British troops forced to patrol war zones in thin-skinned Land Rovers.

The MoD sanctioned the sale of 14 mine-protected Mamba vehicles, which originally cost £4.5m, after an expensive revamp left them “too heavy” to go on patrol.

Some “Back of An Envelope” Calculations

Original Cost

4,500,000.00

Cost of Replacement

50,000,000.00

Total Cost

54,500,000.00

Realised From Sale

44,000.00

Net Cost to UK taxpayer*

54,456,000.00

* All figures above are Pounds Sterling. At mid-market rates for September 3rd 2006 quoted by xe.com 54,456,000.00 GBP = 103,777,108.66 USD. This is a “worst case” calculation as I have not included a figure for depreciation. (I don’t know what depreciation ratio (or method) the MoD use. A depreciation in the order of 20% seems reasonable. I’m sure you’re well capable of firing up Excel and plugging in the figures for yourself.) Nor have I included as a cost the administrative overhead for the sale of the APCs (a further loss) - mfi

The financial loss to taxpayers is another embarrassment for the MoD but far more serious is the suggestion it could have put the lives of British troops at even greater risk.

At least 20 soldiers have been killed in attacks on lightly protected Land Rover patrol vehicles in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and there have been widespread complaints that UK forces are not getting enough protection.

[snip]

Defence Secretary Des Browne was forced to rush an order of new armoured vehicles for British troops last month after attacks on the Land Rovers. Experts claimed the vehicles were unsuitable for service in war zones where they would be routinely attacked with roadside bombs.

The MoD has also been heavily criticised by MPs for failing to provide enough armoured personnel carriers despite the increased terrorist threat in Basra. A report by the House of Commons Defence Select Committee claimed lives were being put at risk by the shortage of equipment and soldiers were left overstretched.

Those killed by roadside bombs while patrolling in Land Rovers in Iraq include Fusilier Gordon Gentle, aged 19, from Glasgow, who died in June last year. [His mother is standing for election to parliament , the British MoD has made several attempts to “gag” her, she’s also one of the parents taking legal action to force an enquiry into the Blair government’s decision to go to war.- mfi]

After an urgent review of security, the MoD is now spending £50m on 100 US-made Cougar armoured vehicles, although they will not be ready for another six months. … … …

[snip]

The department stumbled into problems after it took delivery of the Mambas to support operations in the Balkans in the late 1990s. The vehicles, delivered in three batches, were urgently required by specialist teams for explosive ordnance disposal tasks including reconnaissance, and rescue and recovery as part of Nato-backed operations in Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo.

Commentary

[ In other words the MoD didn’t bother to insist that the manufacturer standardise the adaptations and didn’t bother to insist that the manufacturers keep an inventory of spare parts - mfi

What “road safety issues“? I’ve ridden in the damn things including in post-adaptation models and they’re solid as a rock.

As to “restricted to operational situations where there was a significant threat of mine strikes” amazingly enough when you’re transporting bomb disposal officers it’s often in areas where there is a “significant threat of mine strikes” - that’s what the mamba and its replacements are built to do. But don’t take my word for it here’s what the manufacturer has to say:
“Conceived to protect multi-role forces operating in a mine-threatened environment, the Mamba mine-protected APC and its variants offer high degrees of ballistic and mine protection, coupled with excellent mobility and manoeuvrability.”

For once that’s no more than the unvarnished truth. A lot of the Mamba’s protection is from it’s V-shape hull which is quite effective in protecting you from the blast of anti-tank mines by deflecting the main force of the blast.- mfi.

But, in order to meet the demands of commanders in the field, the vehicles had to be modified with the addition of ‘belly armour’ to withstand attack by shaped-charge mines.

Armed forces minister Adam Ingram has now revealed that the alterations had drastically affected the vehicles’ operational capabilities. “The extra weight of the… armour was found to overload the Mambas and caused reliability and safety problems,” he said. “The high level of maintenance required to keep the vehicles operational was exacerbated by a lack of commonality between the individual vehicles and poor availability of spares.

“In May 2001, due to road safety issues, their use was restricted to operational situations where there was a significant threat of mine strikes.”

The MoD considered modifying and refurbishing the vehicles a second time, “but replacement with a new vehicle was identified as the better option”. As a result, the vehicles have been sold off for a total of £44,000, with nine going to Estonia, four to a US company and one to a company based in Singapore.

It emerged yesterday that British troops in Iraq are still having to risk their lives patrolling in flimsy Land Rovers, despite 18 soldiers having been killed there by roadside bombs.

Soldiers are particularly at risk from projectiles which are designed to fire a football-sized chunk of metal at one mile per second. The projectiles are easily powerful enough to punch straight through a lightly armoured Land Rover. “

Scotland on Sunday published this follow-up story today:

“Armoured cars sold on cheap save lives in Iraq
Scotland On Sunday Sun 03 Sep 2006 BRIAN BRADY WESTMINSTER EDITOR

PERSONNEL from an American private security company are riding round Iraq protected by heavily armoured vehicles originally bought with millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money.

Scotland on Sunday revealed last week that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had sold a multimillion-pound fleet of Mamba mine-protected vehicles for a pittance, after an expensive revamp left them difficult to maintain - and “too heavy” to go on patrol.

[snip]

The vulnerability of the soft-skinned ’snatch’ Land Rovers traditionally used by British forces has been blamed for the deaths of more than 20 soldiers in roadside bomb attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan over recent months. [See here, and here. Somebody is being economical with the truth and profligate with soldiers lives and taxpayers money - mfi]

The MoD protested last week that the Mambas, sold for less than a hundredth of the £4.5m they cost taxpayers, were unsuitable for perilous patrolling duties on the streets of Iraq.

But at least four of the vehicles are now carrying out routine patrol and transport for VIP visitors on a highway described as “the most dangerous road in the world” - between Baghdad Airport and the city centre.

[snip]

“These two guys from the Tern Hill base were killed because they were travelling round in clapped-out old Land Rovers designed for nice tarmacked roads in Northern Ireland,” he said last night. “It is ludicrous that heavily armed vehicles were available and used quite happily in the Balkans, but were sold off when there was still a job to do.”

The vehicles were sold off in 2004 for a total of £44,000, with nine going to Estonia, four to US company Blackwater Security Consulting and one to a company based in Singapore.

The American firm, which describes the Mamba as “the armoured personnel carrier of choice for Blackwater ops in Iraq”, clearly has little problem maintaining the vehicles. It uses the Mambas to transport diplomats, VIPs and US State Department officials along the most dangerous stretch of road in Iraq - the six-mile ’shooting gallery’ of snipers, car bombers and mayhem, otherwise known as the route from Baghdad International Airport to the Green Zone in the city centre.

Convoys are frequently ambushed and the Blackwater Mambas have been targeted by roadside bombers on at least two occasions. Each time, the crew and passengers emerged unscathed.

At least one British soldier has been killed while being transported to the airport in a ’snatch’ Land Rover.

Richard North, who has been waging a campaign to expose the “scandal” of the Mambas deal, said: “It is a cruel irony that vehicles that were not good enough for ‘our boys’ are routinely saving American lives in one of the world’s most hostile environments, carrying them to and from the airport.” “

Cruel irony and “not good good enough for ‘our boys’ ” is an understatement. I have no idea why any British reporter would put the word scandal in inverted comments as Brian Brady has done in today’s story. A scandal is exactly what it is. It is scandalous that both ordinary soldiers and bomb disposal specialists should be exposed to yet further danger while a pack of dirty mercenaries should be laughing all the way to the bank.

markfromireland

If You Don’t Approve Of Bombing Kids Don’t Give The Bombers Money

markfromireland — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:19:21 +0000

‘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.

I found Nejwah Shalhoub lying in the government hospital in Tyre, her jaw and face bandaged like Robespierre’s before his execution. She did not weep, nor did she scream, although the pain was written on her face. Her brother Taisir, who was 46, had been killed. So had her sister Najla. So had her little niece Zeinab, who was just six. “We were in the basement hiding when the bomb exploded at one o’clock in the morning,'’ she said. “What in the name of God have we done to deserve this? So many of the dead are children, the old, women. Some of the children were still awake and playing. Why does the world do this to us?”

Yesterday’s deaths brought to more than 500 the total civilian dead in Lebanon since Israel’s air, sea and land bombardment of the country began on 12 July after Hizbollah members crossed the frontier wire, killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others. But yesterday’s slaughter ended more than a year of mutual antagonism within the Lebanese government as pro-American and pro-Syrian politicians denounced what they described as ” an ugly crime”.

Thousands of protesters attacked the largest United Nations building in Beirut, screaming: “Destroy Tel Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv,” and Lebanon’s Prime Minister, the normally unflappable Fouad Siniora, called US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and ordered her to cancel her imminent peace-making trip to Beirut.

Throughout the day, Qana villagers and civil defence workers dug through the ruins of the building with spades and with their hands, tearing at the muck until they found one body after another still dressed in colourful clothes. In one section of the rubble, they found what was left of a single room with 18 bodies inside. Twelve of the dead were women. All across southern Lebanon now, you find scenes like this, not so grotesque in scale, perhaps, but just as terrible, for the people of these villages are terrified to leave and terrified to stay. The Israelis had dropped leaflets over Qana, ordering its people to leave their homes. Yet twice now since Israel’s onslaught began, the Israelis have ordered villagers to leave their houses and then attacked them with aircraft as they obeyed the Israeli instructions and fled. There are at least 3,000 Shia Muslims trapped in villages between Qlaya and Aiteroun close to the scene of Israel’s last military incursion at Bint Jbeil and yet none of them can leave without fear of dying on the roads.

And Mr Olmert’s reaction? After expressing his “great sorrow”, he announced that: “We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents [sic] this morning. We will continue the activity, and if necessary it will be broadened without hesitation.” But how much further can it be broadened? Lebanon’s infrastructure is being steadily torn to pieces, its villages razed, its people more and more terrorised and terror is the word they used by Israel’s American-made fighter bombers. Hizbollah’s missiles are Iranian-made, and it was Hizbollah that started this war with its illegal and provocative raid across the border. But Israel’s savagery against the civilian population has deeply shocked not only the Western diplomats who have remained in Beirut, but hundreds of humanitarian workers from the Red Cross and major aid agencies.

Incredibly, Israel yesterday denied safe passage to a UN World Food Programme aid convoy en route to the south, a six-truck mission that should have taken relief supplies to the south-eastern town of Marjayoun. More than three quarters of a million Lebanese have now fled their homes, but there is still no accurate figure for the total number still trapped in the south. Khalil Shalhoub, who survived amid the wreckage in Qana yesterday, said that his family and the Hashims were just too “terrified” to take the road out of the village, which has been attacked by aircraft for more than two weeks. The seven-mile highway between Qana and Tyre is littered with civilian homes in ruins and burnt-out family cars. On Thursday, the Israeli Army’s Al-Mashriq radio, which broadcasts into southern Lebanon, told residents that their villages would be “totally destroyed” if missiles were fired from them. But anyone who has watched Israel’s bombing these past two weeks knows that, in many cases, the Israelis do not know the location in which the Hizbollah are firing missiles, and when they do they frequently miss their targets. How can a villager prevent the Hizbollah from firing rockets from his street? The Hizbollah do take cover beside civilian houses just as Israeli troops entering Bint Jbeil last week also used civilian homes for cover. But can this be the excuse for slaughter on such a scale?

Mr Siniora addressed foreign diplomats in Beirut yesterday, telling them that the government in Beirut was now only demanding an immediate ceasefire and was not interested any longer in a political package to go with it. Needless to say, Mr Jeffrey Feltman, whose country made the bomb which killed the innocents of Qana yesterday, chose not to attend.

No one in this country can forget how President George Bush, Ms Rice, and Tony Blair have repeatedly refused to call for an immediate ceasefire a truce that would have saved all those lives yesterday. Ms Rice would say only: “We want a ceasefire as soon as possible,'’ a remark followed by an Israeli announcement that it intended to maintain its bombardment of Lebanon for at least another two weeks.
Throughout the day, Qana villagers and civil defence workers dug through the ruins of the building with spades and with their hands, tearing at the muck until they found one body after another still dressed in colourful clothes. In one section of the rubble, they found what was left of a single room with 18 bodies inside. Twelve of the dead were women. All across southern Lebanon now, you find scenes like this, not so grotesque in scale, perhaps, but just as terrible, for the people of these villages are terrified to leave and terrified to stay. The Israelis had dropped leaflets over Qana, ordering its people to leave their homes. Yet twice now since Israel’s onslaught began, the Israelis have ordered villagers to leave their houses and then attacked them with aircraft as they obeyed the Israeli instructions and fled. There are at least 3,000 Shia Muslims trapped in villages between Qlaya and Aiteroun close to the scene of Israel’s last military incursion at Bint Jbeil and yet none of them can leave without fear of dying on the roads.

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