The Wider World - news summaries   

"The lesson of history is that people do not learn the lesson of history." AJP Taylor:

"If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.": Howard Zinn, historian and author "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." Groucho Marx

ARCHIVE September 05 - May 06 and earlier archives

Today's Papers, radio and other media

August 14 2006 ~ No word from Hezbollah that it will remove its troops from southern Lebanon as required for the ceasefire to hold.

August 14 2006 ~ " purposeless catastrophes" Guest Comment from Patrick McGreevy writing from Beirut - Informed Comment (should be read in full)

"....... Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced that Israel will negotiate for the release of the two prisoners captured on July 12, something Hezbollah was ready to do 33 days ago. Was the capture of these soldiers the equivalent of George Bush's weapons of mass destruction, a mere pretext for an operation to create a "new Middle East"? Both initiatives produced disasters for civilians, but did they achieve some hidden strategic objective too subtle for average people to grasp? Or are both of these wars of choice the purposeless catastrophes they appear to be? At least the battle of Lebanon has the possibility of passing away. The death watch continues. ..."

August 14 2006 ~ " It would be a demo for Iran" Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker claims that the Bush administration gave the "green light" to Israel's military strikes against Hizbollah - with plans drawn up months before two Israeli soldiers were seized. George Bush and Dick Cheney were convinced that it could both increase Israel's security and serve as a prelude to a American pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear installations. The White House also wanted Hezbollah stripped of the ability to retailiate against Israel in the wake of an American attack on Iran.

The Independent reports

".... .officials apparently started their inquiries with Vice-President Dick Cheney, knowing that if they secured his support, obtaining the backing of President Bush and Condoleezza Rice would be easier.
The report by Seymour Hersh quotes an unidentified US government consultant with close ties to the Israelis who says: "The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits. Why oppose it? We'll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran." ...."

August 14 2006 ~ "The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis" The New Yorker article above quotes Richard Armitage, who served as Deputy Secretary of State in Bushs first term

"If the most dominant military force in the region - the Israel Defense Forces - cant pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million. The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis."

August 14 2006 ~ Muslims must do more to tackle extremism in their communities Government ministers are, according to the Today Programme, "cross" that Muslim leaders have sent an open letter calling for a shift in British foreign policy to stop the radicalisation of young Muslims. (See BBC)
We remember that in early July the Government said "Moderate British Muslims are not doing enough to tackle the problem of extremism in their communities, which cannot be defeated by the Government alone" (sic) The Labour MP for Tooting, Sadiq Khan pointed out that the Task Force Preventing Extremism Together had not listened to the recommendations of the moderate Muslims that took part

".......Marched all these talented British Muslims up to the top of the hill of consultation and marched them down again .... ..if you don't do consultation, dialogue and engagement properly, the concern is they will think it has been a waste of time..."

It is encouraging at least that William Hague, now Shadow Foreign Secretary, is saying that the vast majority of Muslims in the UK are moderates who need support from the wider community.

"Much of the answer to this lies within our own domestic policy," he said. "We all have to stand four-square with them in confronting this problem and creating a greater sense of cohesion in our own society and a greater shared identity in Britain."

(Yet we hear with deep misgiving of a planned "English Crusade" in London on 10th September which, however peaceful and determinedly "English", could well be used by extremists to stir up more tension.)

August 14 2006 ~ Threat level In spite of the fact that the attacks were not imminent, the threat level went up to "critical" on Thursday 10th on the day when - apparently as a result of pressure from the US - it was decided to arrest suspects and John Reid had made his speech about the "need" to "modify" some of our "freedoms". (See below) John Reid says that police have been investigating around two dozen major terror plots and that at least four major terror plots had been foiled in the past year. Now, the threat level has been downgraded to "severe".
See article in the Telegraph

August 13 2006 ~The UN ceasefire is set to start at 0500 GMT tomorrow.

August 13 2006 ~ Iraq "A Shi'ite leader has called for neighborhood committees to provide security in their own districts and questioned the ability of Iraqi and U.S. forces to ease violence, which killed 48 more people on Sunday in Baghdad. .." Reuters reports

August 13 2006 ~ "an attack was not imminent... the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets.... some did not even have passports...." MSNBC reports that it was US officials that pressured the UK to arrest the suspects being watched. A spokesman from the White House is quoted in the article. He uses language that should raise more than mere hackles:

"...we worked together to protect our citizens from harm while ensuring that we gathered as much info as possible to bring the plotters to justice. There was no disagreement between U.S. and U.K. officials.."

No sense here of the accused being assumed innocent until proved guilty. One does rather wonder what freedoms we still have. Alex Cox below also muses on freedoms; " We still have the freedom to shop, of course. And the freedom to go on a ludicrously-cheap piss-up weekend in Florida or the New Europe, as long as we don't mind sundry humiliations en route..."

August 13 2006 ~ "Almost everyone hates air travel. And so, Mr Tony's latest airport panic scare (coming the same day as British commanders in Afghanistan - in open rebellion against Blair's government - withdrew all their troops to Kabul) may backfire in a big way. If enough middle-aged, white businessmen like me choose not to fly, it will bankrupt several airlines and shut down a host of sock emporia and handbag shops. The Spanish purchase of Britain's airports will seem a very poor deal indeed. ...." Read Alex Cox on "Why I oppose Freedom"

August 13 2006 ~ The United Nations said Israeli and Lebanese leaders had agreed a ceasefire would take effect at 0500 GMT on Monday to end the month-old war, but fighting raged on Sunday as Israeli forces met fierce resistance from Hizbollah guerrillas.... Reuters

August 13 2006 ~ "replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military .." Chalmers Johnson is a professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego

"Four sorrows ... are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787.
First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut.
Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co- equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.
Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.
Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens.": Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire

August 13 2006 ~ Matthew Parris ".....Watch out for the commentary that "after this week's discoveries, nothing will ever be quite the same again" - and prepare to spit. .." Times

"......how it must have felt to be a doubter in 1930s Germany, as clever, vigilant men joined up the dots and saw an international Jewish conspiracy. The chaps who, behind the apparent world, can discern the shadowy outline of witches, papists, communists or capitalist plotters will often appear cleverer and more prudent than the chaps who can't. .." read in full

August 12 2006 ~ Why now? Who benefits from the new security measures?
John Reid says that all the "main players" have been accounted for. (See FT) Scotland Yard Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson has announced that "we are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and commit mass murder".
The independent London journalist, Gwynne Dyer, comments:

"...Well done, lads - but if you have them all locked up, why are you closing the airports and bringing in all these draconian security measures now? A couple of months ago, when you first uncovered this plot but didn't know all the "main players", I could understand such drastic precautions, but why now?
Maybe it was those explosive "liquid chemicals" they were planning to smuggle aboard the planes. After all, it's only 160 years since nitroglycerine was invented. It's a mere 11 years since al-Qaeda associate Ramzi Yousef (See another FT article) plotted to blow up 12 airliners flying across the Pacific at the same time with nitro carried aboard in contact lens solution bottles. Who could have foreseen this? Quick! Bring in new security measures!...." Read in full at The Age

The same FT article reveals that Mr Blair and Mr Bush had also "spoken about the plot" in the days before the arrests. Mr Blair's holiday was not delayed. Mr Reid's speech was dead on cue. And our liberties are looking more and more vulnerable from those who tell us that the best way to keep our freedoms is to give them up.

August 12 2006 ~ The UN Security Council Resolution 1701 was adopted unanimously by the Security Council today after more than a week of intense discussions. The resolution calls for a "full cessation of hostilities" and authorises 15,000 peacekeeping troops for the existing UN Interim Force in Lebanon. See BBC

August 12 2006 ~ Daniel Barenboim called for peace in the Middle East during a massive concert of his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Madrid on Thursday. The orchestra is made up of young musicians from countries such as Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The concert was dedicated to the victims of both sides of the current conflict. The statement referred to the "savage brutality" of the conflict between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli armed forces. Daniel Barenboim

"........ maintained he hadn't made a mistake when he insisted on a formal political statement. "I know people will say I'm just a naive musician and that I am making empty gestures that won't change anything in the Middle East," he said. "But what about those who believe that dropping bombs and firing rockets are the solution? I ask you - who is the more naive?"
Various amendments were put to a vote but, eventually, the original text was approved.
In the last day of rehearsals, Barenboim summed up all the disagreements that had taken place. Then, raising his baton, he drew a definitive line under politics.
"Let's play!" he said...." BBC

Edward Said (died 2003) considered the orchestra to be his greatest achievement - a moving statement when you consider Said's worldwide reputation

August 10 2006 ~ Critical. Hmm. The threatened plot was not, apparently going to happen today. Comment from Spy org.uk which should be read in full.

"......If hold luggage is now jammed full of electronic equipment, like laptop computers, mobile phones etc, how can any bomb detonating mechnisms be detected via X-Ray etc ?
This makes a further mockery of the equally stupid "please switch on your electronic equipment" so called security check of hand luggage, which will now not be possible.
Is this Forest Gate all over again, with the media speculating about biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological ("dirty bomb") threats, simply because the Police were wearing protective suits and masks ?
The news reports claim that the authorities have had the plotters under surveillance for some time, but that the threatened plot was not, apparently going to happen today...."

(On the other hand, John Reid's irritated words about those who are under-impressed when there is no evidence given and no proper information released to the public did appear today .)

August 10 2006 ~ "over stretched and under resourced" Huge coverage of Heathrow/bomb alert. Virtually none that the Defence Select Committee has reported today that UK troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are over stretched and under resourced. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4777013.stm "Committee members visited Iraq in June and also say operations in Afghanistan are being done on a "shoe string". ..."

August 10 2006 ~ "Bigger, dafter, creepier" Gordon Brown's ID scheme rescue plan is described by John Lettuce at the Register

Extract "........Identity fraud, the Government keeps telling us, is a major concern (but apparently not major enough to warrant the Government measuring it properly ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/25/id_bill_mk2_fraud_con/ )) and needs to be fought. Banks, credit card companies and major retailers however aren't automatically going to line up behind 'rock solid ID' at any cost, and nor will their customers. Yes, ID fraud is a cost to business and an inconvenience for the victims, but the costs are bearable, and the more security you have in a system, the more inconvenient it's likely to become. So there's a pretty strong argument that businesses think that they've got just about the right level of security now, and that they can keep losses within boundaries and absorb them as a cost of business. If an ID check at POS didn't take any time and was 100 per cent reliable and didn't require new hardware investment and cost virtually nothing, then maybe they'd see it as useful. Otherwise?
In addition to this, businesses aren't likely to want to trust the accuracy, reliability and security of Government systems. ..."

August 10 2006 ~ " Once dismantled, due process of the law will take centuries to rebuild" Meanwhile, in today's Guardian we read that "John Reid yesterday accused the government's anti-terror critics of putting national security at risk by their failure to recognise the serious nature of the threat facing Britain. "They just don't get it," he said..." and he warned that " ...traditional civil liberty arguments were not so much wrong as just made for another age."

"Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world," he said.
Mr Reid said Britain was now facing "probably the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of the second world war" and that the country was facing a new breed of ruthless "unconstrained international terrorists".

And news of a " major terrorist plot" is being reported carefully by the Guardian and elsewhere this very morning. Words like "Allegedly" and "police say" do not appear in articles accidentally.
That there is a threat to what Mr Reid calls "our fundamental values" is undeniable. Read again Lisa Jardine's Point of View

"...The process by which people who are alleged to have committed offences against the state are brought to court, so that the allegations against them can be properly examined, has been honed over centuries. Once dismantled, due process of the law will take centuries to rebuild.
If, in order to be able to detain those we suspect of intending harm, we reduce, for the time being, the long-established methods of accumulating evidence and establishing the burden of proof, how will we be able, at some future date, to reinstate them? How long will it take our children and our grandchildren to recognise the importance of what has been lost, to recover and reinstate the rights we freely gave away? "

August 10 2006 ~ pro-war Joe Lieberman loses crucial vote Mr Lieberman, "a senator for 17 years and Al Gore's running mate in 2000, narrowly lost the Connecticut Democratic primary election to Ned Lamont, a millionaire political near-novice who ran on a platform of opposition to the war in Iraq. The turnout of Connecticut Democrats was 50%, double the normal showing...." See Guardian

August 10 2006 ~ Eager, Erratic and Very Green A disturbing article about Iraq in the NYT " As Baghdad has slid further into chaos, the U.S. military has sent thousands of troops to bolster the raw Iraqi forces that police the capital.

".......Two years after the start of an all-out training effort by the United States and its allies, many of the early troubles remain: weak discipline, divided loyalties, failure to complete tasks, the tendency to fire wildly in every direction at the first sign of danger.
In Dawra, American commanders said they were concerned that their Iraqi counterparts had leaked the plan of the search operation, tipping off residents. In some of the roughly 5,000 buildings searched in the neighborhood, Iraqi officers failed to scour entire floors, then flashed Americans an O.K. sign as if they had. And one Iraqi accidentally shot another..."

August 7 2006 ~ "Most of us today, vigorously defend our political positions but have lost focus on creating and having a constructive dialogue" My friend, Yunes, Management Advisor to the Director General of the Islamic Cultural Centre and Central Mosque in London, recently welcomed a Jewish Delegation. His speech is moving. It should be read in full. In the light (or darkness) of what is happening, his words are a reminder that whatever the historical reasons for the present fear, misery and anger, and whatever the posturing of those addicted to power, it falls to ordinary people like ourselves to try to bring about forgiveness and reconciliation.
An extract from Yunes' speech

" .... Jews and Muslims for over a thousand years have contributed to Middle Eastern civilization ... Both peoples have been tied together by culture and history for centuries.
Most of us today, vigorously defend our political positions but have lost focus ....
.......Muslims and Jews alike should work together to have a constructive dialogue to break down the existing prejudices and discover the 'other'. Continuation of keeping ourselves ignorant of the 'other' will ultimately have overwhelming consequences religiously, socially and politically. If we fail to have a dialogue, we may lose our generations to hate and violence. ..." Read in full

August 6 2006 ~ Peak Oil Theory of the US-Israeli war on Lebanon Professor Cole says, "I've had a message from a European reader that leads me to consider a Peak Oil Theory of the US-Israeli war on Lebanon (and by proxy on Iran). I say, "consider" the "theory" because this is a thought experiment. I put it on the table to see if it can be knocked down, the way you would preliminary hypotheses in a science experiment...."
(An extract from what Prof Cole "puts on the table" follows - but I would urge warmwell readers to look in full both at Professor Cole's post and the letter to which he refers.)

".....JFR explained to the astonished audience that Iran was the most valuable country on the planet. They have one of the biggest holdings of gas and oil reserves in the world. second in gas, second in oil. On top of that they have direct access to the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the Caspian Sea what makes them a potential platform for the distribution of oil and gas to South Asia, Europe and East Asia. JRF called Iran 'the prize' . . .
The disaster in Lebanon actually was also part of JFR's presentation. He explained that the US government is 100% convinced, fanatically and completely convinced, that both, Hamas and Hizballah are creatures of Iran and that Iran uses them to undermine US goals in the region . . .
.....US petroleum corporations are denied significant opportunities for investment in the Iranian petroleum sector. Worse, Iran has made a big energy deal with China and is negotiating with India. As those two countries emerge as the superpowers of the 21st century, they will attempt to lock up Gulf petroleum and gas in proprietary contracts.
In a worst case scenario, Washington would like to retain the option of military action against Iran, so as to gain access to its resources and deny them to rivals. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, however, that option will be foreclosed. ..." Read in full

August 6 2006 ~ Former Israeli Education Minister Shulamit Aloni spoke out in the demonstration by thousands of Israelis who marched from the Rabin Square to the Cinematheque plaza in Tel Aviv in protest of the fighting in Lebanon on Saturday. She said, "the government has allowed the destructive powers of the army to drag us into the killing. The Defense Forces cannot be tuned into the army of occupation and killing. We must call in international forces, negotiate and make peace." The demonstrators urged Israeli soldiers not to take part in the Lebanon operation, chanting: "Listen up, soldier - it's your duty to refuse." Other slogans recited by the participants were: "The occupation is a disaster, leave Lebanon now," and "Children in Beirut and Haifa want to go on living."
See also Informed Comment by Professor Juan Cole who adds,

".....Some readers question my repeated condemnation of Hizbullah for targeting civilian populations with its rockets. But the condemnation is much merited. What they are doing would be a war crime if they were a government. Since they aren't even a government, just a party-militia, I think the charge should be even more severe.
The Israeli public is beginning to turn on its political elite for its prosecution of the war and for its inability so far to stop the rockets. The Washington Post reveals that even in territories actually controlled by Israeli troops in Lebanon, the number of rocket launches is still 50% of what it would be were there no Israeli troops there. That admission is quite astonishing. So far the Israeli army can only cut the attacks from 200 to 100, even when it actually occupies the territory from which the attacks are coming! Some 38 percent of Israelis believe "no one" is winning this war. You can say that again."

August 6 2006 ~"The Israelis lack good intelligence. They have completely underestimated the size of the Hezbollah arsenal, the amount of weapons they've got stockpiled," Rosemary Hollis of the Chatham House foreign affairs institute said Saturday. (Yahoo News) "It's the classic situation of a guerrilla (war). You can't win except by the most appalling devastation, which is a pyrrhic victory anyway." Israel failed to identify how deep the militants bury themselves in southern Lebanon, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert allowed himself to be convinced by the chief of staff -- who is from the air force -- that air power could achieve more that it can, the analyst believes.

August 6 2006 ~ Both sides spoke of fighting on " Israeli troops battled Hizbollah in south Lebanon and eight civilians died in two of many Israeli air strikes on Sunday as both sides spoke of fighting on, even if the U.N. Security Council votes to end the violence. .." Reuters
The UN resolution calls for

a "full cessation of hostilities,"

asks U.N. peacekeepers to monitor it

and stipulates principles necessary for a permanent political settlement.
Reuters says "A vote has not been set yet but is expected on Monday or Tuesday. The resolution is the result of negotiations by the United States, an ally of Israel, and France, tipped as the possible leader of an anticipated international force for south Lebanon. The resolution is the first of two to deal with the violence that has killed more than 700 Lebanese and 78 Israelis. The second measure, expected in about two weeks, would cover plans for a permanent peace agreement and authorize the international force. Despite negative reactions from Lebanon and Hizbollah, most council members hope the resolution will at least subdue the fighting and allow access for relief workers."

August 6 2006 ~ UK Closure of Cottage Hospitals "...The decision to close many cottage hospitals across the country is driven by panic rather than patient need," said Karen Jennings, head of health at Unison.

"The relentless pressure on NHS Trusts to clear deficits is creating a perverse situation which goes against the government's own goal of providing more community-based services."

Amicus, which represents 100,000 NHS workers, described the closures as the "ugly face of the government's reform agenda". "The effect of the reforms is felt by small communities across the country," a spokesperson said. ..." BBC

August 6 2006 ~ Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said on Sunday that any countries that impose sanctions on Iran's atomic work will get a painful riposte

"If they do, we will react in a way that would be painful for them," he told a news conference when asked about what would happen if the U.N. Security Council passed sanctions. "They should not think that they can hurt us and that we would stand still without reaction." Reuters

August 5 2006 ~ A Deal? " Lebanon suffered more Israeli airstrikes on Saturday, a day after jets killed at least 40 civilians and Hizbollah rockets hit deep inside Israel, as world powers edged slowly toward a deal to end hostilities. .....The main division on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution is between France and the United States. Paris wants existing U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanon's army to monitor a truce, while Washington wants the Israeli army to stay in southern Lebanon until an international force arrives. ." Reuters

".....Israeli jets (Saturday) hit a refugee camp in the coastal area south of Tyre which wounded one civilian, security sources said. Another air raid shook the northern entrance to Tyre. Israeli helicopters hovered overhead. On Friday, one Israeli airstrike killed 33 farm workers loading plums and peaches onto trucks and wounded another 20 near Qaa, in the Bekaa Valley close to the Syrian border....
....Hizbollah's response was not long in coming. Several rockets landed in or near the Israeli city of Hadera, some 80 km (50 miles) from the border -- the deepest rocket attack so far."

haaretz.com reports that "A senior Iranian official admitted for the first time Friday that Tehran did indeed supply long-range Zelzal-2 missiles to Hezbollah." The NYT says, "The Bush administration has carefully stopped short of accusing Iran of inciting the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. .."

August 5 2006 ~ Families of soldiers killed in Iraq are to form political movement aimed at bringing down those they hold culpable for the deaths of their sons.

".....Spectre's steering committee is likely to comprise Mr Keys, Mrs Gentle and Mr Mackenzie, with Mike Aston, whose son Russell died alongside Thomas Keys, Peter Brierley, whose son Shaun died in Kuwait in 2003, Sue Smith, whose son Phillip Hewett died in a roadside bombing last year, and Beverley Clarke, who lost her son David to "friendly fire" in 2003. Mr Brierley, who put up £11,000 of his own money to fund last week's successful court action, says: "We can do a lot of damage to the ministers who supported the war. I don't particularly have an argument with the Labour party, or even most of the government. I blame the personal ambitions of one man: Tony Blair."...." Guardian

August 5 2006 ~ Israeli soldiers recount stories of a terrifying week facing the snipers and missiles of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon "It was hell. They are really well trained. They're not suckers, they know how to fight, said one, slumped on the pavement. You're scared the whole time over there. We didn't get any sleep the whole week." There was not a voice of dissent..." Times

August 5 2006 ~ UK debt "1.1 million adults in Great Britain are in some danger of becoming insolvent. The situation is here to stay and is set to grow.......Mark Sands, director of personal insolvency at KPMG, said: "Pressure could mount further as consumers face higher energy bills and rising interest rates and we predict a record number of personal insolvencies of 100,000 in 2006, and we think the figures mean someone is entering formal insolvency every minute of the working day."
The financial advisers Grant Thornton said the problem was "spiralling out of control". ...Vince Cable, Treasury spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, blamed the financial services industry for aggressive selling of credit and called on ministers to work with lenders to establish independent advice centres. .." Guardian

August 5 2006 ~ ".an Army unit numbed by months of extreme combat stress and left at one of the deadliest security checkpoints in Iraq without experienced leaders" The NYT reports on the case against U.S. soldiers accused of raping and killing a 14 year-old Iraqi girl

"You have to understand, the civilians here do not like us," the sergeant said. "They had a good life before we came here. It is 100-percent Sunni. They all work against us even when they act like our best friends."

August 4 2006 ~ Hasan Nasrallah issued a videotape on Thursday in which he threatened to send rockets on Tel Aviv if the Israelis bombed Beirut again. He told the Arab leaders that they are not going to be able to keep their positions in America's "New Middle East." They will be overthrown, he said, and their countries will be reduced to chaos and split up into small postage stamp countries. (He appeared to be reasoning on the basis of what the US has done to Iraq). Excerpts from the Daily Star article:

"Let my words be clear, any attack on Lebanon's capital, Beirut, will result in Hizbullah bombarding the Zionist entity's capital, Tel Aviv . . . We are ready to keep the whole thing restricted to a military fight with the Israeli Army, on the ground, fighters to fighters . . ."

Nasrallah mocked the "stupid, massive and ignorant Israeli military machine"
Juan Cole comments:

".....Israeli television quoted a high Israeli military official saying in response that if Tel Aviv is hit, all of Lebanese infrastructure will be destroyed. AFP doesn't state the man's name, but he needs to read the Geneva Conventions..."

He also says,

"...Nasrallah fancies himself a statesman and guerrilla fighter, but nothing could be more cowardly than to kill ordinary people on the street or in their cars. The indiscriminate character of his bombardments is demonstrated by his penchant for managing to kill so many Palestinian Israelis. Nasrallah is not the head of a state and has no recognized authority to wage war, and so is just a common serial murderer."

It is falling to France, Egypt and Jordan to - as Cole says - "play the grownups" and try to get a cessation of military hostilities.

August 4 2006 ~Moscow takes Syria under its protection

".....According to our sources, Russia is deepening the port of Tartus ( Syria) where it has a naval materiel and technical supplies center. This may be regarded as evidence of Russia's determination to make Syria a bridgehead for boosting its influence with Middle East..." Global Research

August 4 2006 ~"What would you call a country where there is an armed insurgency that kills thousands each month?" Professor Juan Cole comments today, in his daily informed commentary on Iraq, "There was an outbreak of candor, deliberate and inadvertent, among UK and US officials on Thursday. In the UK, a dark memo from the outgoing British ambassador in Baghdad to Prime Minister Tony Blair was leaked..." However, he adds,

"....Patey's fear is misplaced. The real prospect is that the Sadrists will be the government of Iraq, not just an armed outsider.
The retired British Foreign Office diplomats generally feel that "Mr Blair has done more damage to British interests in the Middle East than Anthony Eden, who led the UK to disaster in Suez 50 years ago."
General John Abizaid, in a victory for plain talking, told the Senate on Thursday that Iraq was as bad as he had seen it and could easily slip into full-scale sectarian civil war. Abizaid was also the first general to admit that the country was in a guerrilla war. However, it is worth noting that by social science standards, Iraq has been in a civil war for years. What would you call a country where there is an armed insurgency that kills thousands each month?
Donald Rumsfeld in his testimony just dusted off Ayman al-Zawahiri's stock speech about a caliphate from Spain to the Philippines (which is ridiculous) and drew the opposite conclusion from that of Zawahiri-- the US must stay militarily in the Muslim world, otherwise the extremists win.
Uh, Donald, there were no Islamist extremists to speak of in Iraq before you invaded and occupied it. Leave, and maybe the Iraqis will find it easier to go back to a moderate secularism. Stay, and create a sea of beards.
The domino theory was false with regard to Communism. It is sure as hell false with regard to Bin Ladenism ...." Read in full

August 3 2006 ~ "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it," General John Abizaid, the commander of US central command, told the Senate armed services committee. He said the top priority in the Iraq war was to secure the capital, where factional violence has surged in recent weeks despite efforts by the new Iraqi government to stop the fighting..." Guardian

August 3 2006 ~ "Each deeply suspicious..."
Hizbollah fired more rockets into Israel on Wednesday than on any previous day of the 22-day-old war, killing one Israeli and wounding 123 after helicopter-borne commandos launched Israel's deepest raid into Lebanon. Reuters
Israeli jets pounded Hizbollah's Beirut stronghold and troops battled the guerrillas in the south on Thursday while world powers struggled to come up with a plan to stop a war now in its fourth week. Reuters

August 3 2006 ~ "Civil war is the most likely outcome in Iraq a confidential memo to ministers obtained by the BBC from Britain's outgoing ambassador in Baghdad, William Patey, has warned

"...the position is not hopeless" - but Iraq would remain "messy and difficult" for the next five to 10 years.

The Foreign Office said it did not comment on leaked documents. " BBC

August 3 2006 ~ Security: In Iraq, It's Difficult to Trust Anyone in Uniform NYT Iraqis have become suspicious and fearful of men dressed as those who are supposed to protect and serve.

August 2 2006 ~ "The United States and Britain are hoping that a United Nations Security Council resolution will force Iran and Syria to tread carefully before rearming Hezbollah, even though an existing resolution calling for the disarming of Lebanese militias has not been carried out. The Bush administration is also hoping that an international agreement will convince Hezbollah that it cannot continue to function as a military organization.
But the strategy depends on a weak Lebanese government being able to stand up to Hezbollah and on Israel pushing Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon. And it assumes that a settlement can be reached without Syrian assistance, something few diplomats, except those in the Bush administration, think is possible. The administration does not talk to Syria; it withdrew its ambassador last year after the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister. United Nations investigators have linked Syria to the killing.
United States officials hope that their main Arab allies - Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia - can pressure Syria to distance itself from Iran and endorse the peace plan." NYT

August 2 2006 ~ Tony Blair is back in Britain. Deputy UN Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown has urged Mr Blair to take a back seat in Mid-East peace talks.
During his four day trip to the US Mr Blair has continued to avoid calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, insisting that he wants a proper plan for longlasting peace. The BBC has learned that Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett had urged Mr Blair to press the US to call for an immediate end to hostilities but that Downing Street rejected this. In Mr Blair's speech on Tuesday to the World Affairs Council he said that Syria and Iran were miscalculating if they continued to support terrorism and said they would "be confronted". :

"There is an arc of extremism now stretching across the Middle East and touching countries far outside that region."

Reaction to Mr Blair's speech in the UK has been mixed, says the BBC.

"........Former Conservative Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said it was "either naive or over-simplistic" of the prime minister to say conflicts such as those in Chechnya or Kashmir were part of a "world battle against terror".
"In Chechnya it's not a battle between freedom and terrorism, it's between Russian nationalism and Chechnya nationalism. In Kashmir, it's between India and Pakistan and to try and just draw all these threads in and simplify it in a rather foolish way indicates that the prime minister has become totally bereft of original thinking. The single greatest triumph of what he (Mr Blair) calls Islamic terrorism has been in Iraq, which is a direct consequence of his own policy and that of George Bush."

August 2 2006 ~ Hezbollah fired a barrage of more than 100 rockets at northern Israel today, killing an Israeli man at a kibbutz and wounding six. One missile reached as far south as the West Bank. The number of rockets hitting Israel had started to drop away in recent days, but today's total suggests that Hezbollah's military capacity remains far from crippled.
This morning Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, pledged that Israeli soldiers would carry on fighting in Lebanon until a strong international force was posted there to keep out Hezbollah and keep the peace.
"We are trying to push, more and more, the Hezbollah from where they were and to open up for the international force to take over, and the sooner the better," Mr Olmert told Reuters.

August 2 2006 ~ "....With France and the US vying to take the diplomatic lead, the UN chief summoned ambassadors from the five veto-bearing powers to breakfast at his residence to try to prevent a repeat of the splits over the 2003 Iraq war. . The big powers are considering dispatching a rapid reaction force to Lebanon, to be followed by a larger international force as part of a political settlement, diplomats said. ." Times

August 1 2006 ~ ".....Some Lebanese civilians took advantage of the bombing lull to move north out of southern Lebanon, and aid agencies drove convoys of food and medical supplies into the south. Lebanese rescue workers retrieved at least 49 bodies from destroyed buildings, Reuters said.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said Israel had agreed to the suspension and a 24-hour safe-passage period for civilians heading out of southern Lebanon as a way to "take the steam" out of Sunday's bombing in Qana.
But he also said the fight against Hezbollah would continue until there was a diplomatic solution that stopped the rocket fire against Israel and that deployed an international force on the border. "We couldn't ignore Qana," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, as is customary. "And if we want to continue to get the full cease-fire we want, with an international force, it was important to change the tone and the conversation."....." NewYork Times

August 1 2006 ~" Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hizbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon early on Tuesday, as the Jewish state gave the green light to widen a ground offensive and push deep into Lebanese territory. Hizbollah said it was battling Israeli incursions near the border areas of Aita al-Shaab and the village of Kfar Kila. An Israeli military source reported "on and off" clashes but did not give further details...
...Israel's inner security cabinet gave the go-ahead to widen the ground offensive against Hizbollah. "The security cabinet approved a widening of ground operations without any objections," a government official said early on Tuesday. The aim was to push Hizbollah back to the Litani River, some 20 km (13 miles) north of the border, a political source said. Israel Radio reported plans to call up more reserve soldiers to support the expanded ground operations. The radio said additional three divisions -- which could mean at least a further 15,000 reservists -- would be called up. " Reuters

August 1 2006 ~ Iraq "After months of struggling to forge a unified stance on the Iraq war, top congressional Democrats joined voices yesterday to call on President Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. troops by the end of the year and to "transition to a more limited mission" in the war-torn nation..." Washington Post

July 31 2006 ~ Sergeant Steven Roberts Times "An urgent request from army commanders for enhanced combat body armour to give extra protection to troops preparing to fight a war with Iraq in 2003 was delayed for two months by Geoff Hoon, then Defence Secretary.
A devastating report by a board of inquiry into the death of Sergeant Steven Roberts of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, who was not wearing one of the vital life-savers and died of a bullet wound in the chest on the fifth day of the war, said he would have survived had he been protected by the special body armour...."

July 31 2006 ~ no ceasefire"... Ehud Olmert has said there would be no ceasefire in the war until the threat from Hizbollah rocket attacks was removed and captured Israeli soldiers were freed. "The fighting continues. There is no ceasefire and there will not be any ceasefire in the coming days," Olmert told local officials, drawing sustained applause. Civilians fled battered villages in southern Lebanon after Israel agreed partially to halt air strikes for 48 hours, and aid convoys headed into the area to deliver supplies...." Reuters

July 31 2006 ~ "They have mounted a tiger, and can't be sure of getting off without being torn to pieces. War has its own rules. Unexpected things happen and dictate the next moves. And the next moves tend to be in one direction: escalation. ..." Informationclearinghouse Uri Avnery, an Israeli journalist, writer and peace activist.

".... one day before the outbreak of this war, our [Israeli] minister of national infrastructures, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, took part in the inauguration ceremony of the big pipeline that will conduct oil from the huge Caspian Sea reserves to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, just next to the Syrian border. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline avoids Russia and passes through Azerbaijan and Georgia, two countries closely aligned with Israel, like Turkey itself.
There is a plan to bring a part of the oil from there along the Syrian and Lebanese coast to Ashkelon, where an existing pipeline will conduct it to Eilat, to be exported to the Far East.
Israel and Turkey are to secure the area for the United States.
Must the sliding into a war with Syria happen? Is there no alternative?
Of course there is. To stop now, at once." Read in full

July 31 2006 ~ Prime Minister Ehud Olmert clarified Monday morning that the decision to halt Israel's air strikes for 48 hours was the fruit of an Israeli initiative and not a "capitulation" to the United States' demands.
Sources at the Prime Minister's Office told Ynet on Monday morning that the Americans only asked for the creation of a humanitarian corridor through which refugees will be able to leave southern Lebanon and head north, but Israel decided to suspend its strikes in order to allow an investigation into the Qana village bombing, which killed 60 civilians, including 27 children. ..." Ynet

July 31 2006 ~ Robert Fisk in the Independent ".....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..."

July 31 2006 ~ "Condoleezza Rice returns to the U.S. capital today, her Middle East diplomatic mission in tatters after the Qana bombing and Washington's relationship with Jerusalem showing signs of strain for the first time since the fighting began....Rice did win agreement from Jerusalem to halt air strikes for 48 hours unless the Israelis learned that attacks were being prepared against them. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed Israel would work with the United Nations to provide safe passage out of southern Lebanon for all those wishing to leave, the state department announced..." Toronto Star

July 31 2006 ~ Hezbollah firing metres away from apartment block Disturbing photos from the Herald Sun (Australia) include one of a group of men and youths preparing to fire an anti-aircraft gun metres from an apartment block with sheets hanging out on a balcony to dry.
Others show a militant with AK47 rifle guarding no-go zones after Israeli blitzes.
Another depicts the remnants of a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket in the middle of a residential block blown up in an Israeli air attack. The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be named said he was less than 400m from the block when it was obliterated.

"Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets," he said."Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated. ..."

July 31 2006 ~ Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has vowed to rain down more rockets on Israel Al Jazeera "....His comments came as Israel pressed ahead with its massive air and ground assault on Lebanon aimed at securing the release of two troops captured by Hezbollah in a July 12 cross-border raid.
The UN relief chief, Jan Egeland, had earlier appealed for a truce to allow casualties to be removed and food and medicine to be dispatched to war zones, saying one third of the casualties in the conflict were children.
There is something fundamentally wrong with a war where there are more dead children than armed men. That has to stop," he said, quoting Lebanese figures that put the death toll at 600. But the Israeli government spokesman, Avi Pazner, said, "There is no need for a 72-hour temporary ceasefire because Israel has opened a humanitarian corridor to and from Lebanon."..."

July 30 2006 ~ US: No immediate ceasefire, despite QanaUS Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns emphasized that, in the event of an immediate ceasefire, "Hizbullah will keep firing on Israelis and Israel will stay in Lebanon."
He added that efforts to create a multinational force will continue, stating that several nations expressed willingness to participate in such a force, but refraining from naming them explicitly. Earlier, ynet reported that these states were France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Turkey, and India, who had been approached by the US. .."www.ynetnews.com

July 30 2006 ~ Pope Benedict XVI today appealed for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East. "In the name of God, I appeal to all those responsible for this spiral of violence, so that they immediately put down their arms on all sides," he said.

July 30 2006 ~ Kofi Annan urges UN call for Lebanon ceasefire Annan said both sides bear responsibility for the violence and probably violations of international law. He said that no one disputed Israel's right to defend itself "but its manner of doing so it is causing death and suffering." France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, expressing dismay at the attack on Qana, said "such an action cannot be justified" and renewed his government's plea for an immediate end to the fighting...." Reuters

July 30 2006 ~ "Hezbollah has launched rockets at northern Israel for years. "They come every few months," said Kobi Simchi, a bomb disposal technician at the Galilee district's bomb squad headquarters in Acre. There are several kinds of rockets falling on Israel, many of them more powerful than Katyushas..... ..." NYT ".....The United States....backs Israeli demands for the Lebanese army, bolstered by an international force, to deploy to the south of the country currently controlled by Hizbollah which has used the territory to rain rockets down on towns in northern Israel. "

July 30 2006 ~ QANA, Lebanon " An Israeli air strike killed 54 civilians, including 37 children, on Sunday, prompting Lebanon to tell U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice she was unwelcome in Beirut and fuelling world pressure for a ceasefire. .." Reuters
"....Prime Minister Ehud Olmert justified the action, saying Tel Aviv had warned residents to leave and put the blame on Hizbollah for launching rockets from the area.

"All the residents were warned and called to leave. There are hiding places for rockets inside the village, and the village itself constitutes a shelter for rocket launchers," Olmert said.
"No one gave an instruction to fire on civilians, and this doesn't mean that any of us gave an order to fire at civilians. We have no policy of killing innocent civilians. For 18 days hundreds and thousands of missiles have been fired, aimed at murdering innocent civilians in the north." Zeenews.com

July 30 2006 ~"...The prime minister, who held talks with President Bush at the White House on Friday, is now spending several days in California promoting his climate change plans and UK hi-tech business. " BBC

July 30 2006 ~ Something bad is going to happen Robert Fisk on Seymour Hersh : "The greying, bespectacled, obscenity-swearing Hersh is about all we have left to frighten the most powerful man in the world....robert-fisk.com So it's good to know he's still doing some fighting...

"I know some serious generals," he says. "I can't urge them to go public. They'd be attacked by Fox (TV), and the (New York) Times and The Washington Post would wring their hands. It's a mechanism. You don't get rewarded in the newsroom for being a malcontent...They don't know what it's like to be on social welfare. Their families weren't in Vietnam and their families are not in Iraq." The BBC, too, has "fallen off the way"
.....Hersh has also been casting his wizened eye on the Brits.
"Your country is very worried about what Bush is going to do - your people" - Hersh means the Foreign Office - "are really worried. There are no clearances ... no consultations."
In Washington, "advocating humanity, peace, integrity is not a value in the power structure ... my government are incapable of leaving (Iraq). They don't know how to get out of Baghdad. We can't get out. In this war, the end is going to be very, very messy - because we don't know how to get out. We're going to get out body by body. I think that scares the hell out of me." It's all put neatly by one of Hersh's sources in the Pentagon: "The problem is that the Iranians realise that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the US. Something bad is going to happen."

July 30 2006 ~ "Aid" corridors are an illusion " An international medical charity has said that Israel's promised humanitarian aid corridors in south Lebanon are an illusion and that rockets have landed close to its teams two days in a row." english.aljazeera.net

"It's a kind of humanitarian alibi because in effect there is no real humanitarian access in the south," said Christopher Stokes of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) "The international community is deluding itself, if it believes there is."

July 30 2006 ~ The truth of Blair's 'urgent diplomacy' Blair and his masters regard ceasefires as a weapon, a means to a political end.
Robert Fisk in the Independent

".... the compliant, gutless, shameful refusal of Bush, Rice and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara to bring this bloodbath to an end sentenced many hundreds of innocent Lebanese to death. As I write this near the village of Blat, which has its own little list of civilian dead, it's quite clear that many more innocent Lebanese are being prepared for the slaughter - and will indeed die in the coming days. What was it Condoleezza Rice said? That "a hasty ceasefire would not be a good thing"? What was Blair's pathetic excuse at the G8 summit? That it was much better to have a ceasefire that would last than one which might break down? .."

July 29/30 2006 ~ "More than 1,000 tonnes of Red Cross emergency relief has reached Lebanon, where concern is growing about shortages of water and food in many villages. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported that the health, water and nutrition situation is "alarming" after recent visits to villages in the far south of Lebanon. Water is scarce, as tanker trucks are no longer supplying some of the villages. Moreover, water pumps are not working due to lack of electricity and fuel. Food supplies are running low and basic medicines are needed, in particular for the treatment of chronic diseases...." Donate to the International Red Cross (new window) - and hope that some aid does get there.

July 29/30 2006 ~ stark, staring bonkers "How mad for Britain to be the US poodle: the neocons will fade away" Matthem Parris in the Times is aghast at ".... some dangerous voices in the Parliamentary Conservative Party, and outside it among the set to whom senior Tories listen. One of these voices is Michael Gove, my fellow-columnist and the capable frontbencher who speaks on housing and has just had a notable success on housing information packs. Michael is a moral man, a subtle and persuasive writer, a spellbinding speaker and a powerful mind. He is also - on questions of foreign policy - stark, staring bonkers.

"....I have enough faith in Michael's intellect and honesty to be confident that, in 20 years time, he will look back on this phase in his ideological journey as a passing embarrassment. But Michael is free to alter his opinions. Mr Cameron, if he gets stuck on the record with any variant of them, will not be. This Conservative leader has no need yet to nail his colours to any mast. Let him give the good ship Neo-con a wide berth. In five years time her hulk will be with the fishes. And it will not be "anti-American" to say so."

July 29 2006 ~ " Israel on Saturday rejected a United Nations call for a 72-hour truce in the Lebanon conflict to enable humanitarian aid to get to trapped civilians. "We cannot accept a ceasefire with Hezbollah ... " www.dnaindia.com
The BBC reports:

"......One minister, Eli Yishai of the Shas party, said that after warnings had been given, "we must not enter villages where Hezbollah terrorists are hiding before we have turned them into sand boxes".
But there is a mismatch of information about these villages. Haim Ramon, the Justice Minister and Kadima party colleague of the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, claimed that Bint Jbeil had been emptied of its civilians.
Some Israeli ministers favour targeting Lebanon's infrastructure "Only Hezbollah gunmen remain," he said, " [and it] should be pounded from the air and with artillery before ground troops enter."
Yet an Israeli military spokesman was simultaneously telling the BBC in a live interview that Hezbollah had deliberately kept the villagers inside Bint Jbeil in order to hinder Israeli operations. .."

July 29 2006 ~ Nebulous language While Mr Blair yesterday was saying of Hezbollah (see NYT)

"We're not going to defeat this ideology until we in the West go out with sufficient confidence in our own position and say, this is wrong. It's not just wrong in its methods, it's wrong in its ideas, it's wrong in its ideology, it's wrong in every single wretched reactionary thing about it."

we also see, with Dahr Jamail what happens when the bombs fall

"......one of the larger hospitals in Beirut where I photographed civilian casualties. All of them were tragic cases but one really grabbed me-that of a little 8 year-old girl, lying in a large bed. She was on her side, with a huge gash down the right side of her face and her right arm wrapped in gauze. She was hiding in the basement of her home with 12 family members when they were bombed by an Israeli fighter jet.
Her father was in a room downstairs with both of his legs blown off. Her other family members were all seriously wounded. She lay there whimpering, with tears streaming down her face.
I think I won Ahmed's trust after that. I walked out the car, got in and sat down. He asked me where I wanted to go now.
Ahmed put his hand on my shoulder and said, "This is what I've been seeing for my entire life. Nothing but pain and suffering......" ">NYT

July 29 2006 ~ Ceasefire "sometime" NYT "........Facing pressure from Arab and European allies to end the violence, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, at a joint White House appearance, painted the broad outlines of a plan in which an international peacekeeping force would insert itself between the warring sides and help the weak Lebanese military take control of the southern region controlled by Hezbollah. ...The rising civilian death toll has placed added pressure on Mr. Bush from European and Arab allies who have called for an immediate cease-fire. But Mr. Bush has said that Israel cannot stop its attacks unless Hezbollah does first....The United Nations will begin talks about the makeup of the force on Monday, though the official said it was almost certain that United States troops would not be part of it. ....."

July 29 2006 ~ de Menezes "Brazilian's family shocked at 'hurtful' decision ....Sir Ian (Blair) is himself the focus of a separate IPCC inquiry following allegations about his behaviour after the shooting. ....." says Guardian

July 28 2006 ~ "more than half believe that the Blair Government's handling of the affair has been poor or very poor." Times "... According to a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph, more than three fifths of people think that Israel's response has been disproportionate, and more than half believe that the Blair Government's handling of the affair has been poor or very poor. Nearly two thirds think that Mr Blair is doing whatever the Americans tell him.
An ICM poll in The Guardian showed that 63 per cent think Mr Blair has tied Britain too closely to the US, including more than half of Labour supporters.
Public support has already been strained by the dispute over the American failure to notify Britain that bombs being sent to Israel were on aircraft being refuelled in Prestwick. The problem has been the lack of openness rather than the flights, which are likely to continue. ..."

July 28 2006 ~ "The UN warned Israel with at least 10 separate telephone calls during six hours that repeated aerial and artillery attacks had already landed at or dangerously close to their post in Khiam, south Lebanon, before the bombing that killed four of its observers there on Tuesday. Independent

While expressing their "sorrow" Ehud Olmert, Israel's Prime Minister, and Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister, sharply criticised Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, for suggesting the attack on the Khiam post was "apparently deliberate."
But an internal report on the incident says there were more than 20 aerial and artillery attacks on the post on Tuesday, including four artillery rounds that directly hit the UN position an hour before the fatal guided bomb attack that killed the unarmed personnel taking refuge in a bomb shelter. The report says that, each time, the Israeli officer promised that the attacks would stop. ....... Dermot Ahern, Ireland's Foreign Minister, summoned Israel's ambassador to his office in protest and declared "Evidence we have would suggest this was either an incredible accident or else was in some way directly targeted."

July 28 2006 ~ UN Human Rights Committee has said that the US should immediately shut all secret detention facilities used in its campaign against terror groups and has called on the US to give the International Red Cross prompt access to those held in such jails. BBC

"....The UN report also covered the domestic human rights situation in the US. It urged the government to ensure the rights of poor people and blacks are respected in relief efforts. Both groups were "disadvantaged" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the UN committee noted."

July 28 2006 ~ de Menezes shooting Times "The two police firearms officers involved in the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes are to resume full operational duties, Scotland Yard said today...." See also ITN

July 28 2006 ~ Central London blackout Times : A second wave of power cuts could affect thousands of homes and businesses in Central London today, the energy supplier, EDF, has warned....

July 27 2006 ~ "Could the Prime Minister really not speak up....?" Sir Stephen Wall, one of Tony Blair's former foreign policy advisers, has said in the New Statesman "Could the Prime Minister really not speak up for the simple proposition that the slaughter of innocent people in Lebanon, and the destruction of their country and the ruin of half a million lives, were wrong and should stop immediately?"

".......No 10, which is both hothouse and bunker, is well stocked with TV sets. Prime ministers do not find much time to watch. They should. John Major led the rescue of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991, not because he followed a clever Foreign Office plan but because, sitting at home over Easter, he had time to look at the news. What he saw shocked him into action. He mobilised the EU and then challenged George Bush Sr to back his plan for safe havens for the Kurds. A reluctant Bush was, in the end, also moved by what he saw on his screen: the desperate spectacle of human misery.
I defy any person watching TV not to cry out loud for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. Yet our government and that of the US have weasel-worded their way through this tragedy. Why?..." New Statesman

July 27 2006 ~ Lessons Not Learned Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian

"....In one of its most unintentionally ironic curiosities, the Bush White House has created an Office of Lessons Learned. But the thinking that made possible the catastrophe in Iraq is not a subject of this office. The delusional mindset went underground only to surface through the crack of the current crisis. There are no lessons learned about the blowback from Iraq; about Iraq's condemnation of Israel and its sympathy for Hizbullah; or about the US unwillingness to deal with the Palestinian Authority that made inevitable the rise of Hamas; or the counter-productive repudiation of direct contact with Syria and Iran.
Indeed, Rice is ushering in "a new Middle East", one in which the US is distrusted and even hated by traditional Arab allies, and its ability to restrain Israel while negotiating on behalf of its security is relinquished and diminished."

July 26 2006 ~Kofi Annan " is absolutely convinced that the Israelis did deliberately target his forces in southern Lebanon yesterday. He's described vividly how the general in charge of his main command post on the border reported that he was being shelled constantly all yesterday morning. Annan's office called the Israelis, the general called the Israelis. But still the shelling continued. By seven pm the post was all but demolished and four UN soldiers lay dead. It seems to have been a brutal signal to the outside world that this is what can happen to those who might wish to interpose themselves between the warring parties. " Snowmail

July 26 2006 ~ Lebanon continues to be blown to pieces ". Fiddling in Rome Snowmail

"The stumbling block - the word 'immediate. ' Foreign ministers from such diverse places as Saudi Arabia, Britain, America, France and Jordan, could not agree on attaching the word 'immediate' to the word 'ceasefire'. So they didn't call for one. Instead they have urged the international community to look for a ceasefire. All they could agree on was that humanitarian aid should be got to the region and they will all be putting their shoulder to the wheel when it comes to reconstruction. In the meantime Lebanon continues to be blown to pieces. In short your correspondent has attended an international failure. More: http://www.channel4.com/news/content/news-storypage.jsp?id=25952440

July 26 2006 ~ UK airport used to transport bombs to Israel The Times says "The British Government will make a formal complaint to the United States over its use of a British airport for transiting bombs to Israel.."

July 26 2006 ~ "...the UK government has a particular responsibility to uphold and ensure universal respect for international humanitarian law. We also call on the entire international community to press for an immediate ceasefire by all parties; to help secure the release of prisoners held unlawfully, whether by Israel, Hizbullah or by Palestinian militias; and to take even-handed steps to secure the implementation all UN security council resolutions concerning the Middle East, including the realisation of a viable Palestinian state alongside an Israel secure in its lawful borders."
Extract from letter from MPs in the Guardian

(signed) Richard Burden MP, Andy Love MP, Phyllis Starkey MP, Crispin Blunt MP, Colin Breed MP, Rob Marris MP, Nick Harvey MP, John Austin MP, Brian Iddon MP, Sadiq Khan MP, Sandra Osborne MP, David Drew MP, Greg Pope MP, Lynne Jones MP, John Hemming MP, Ann McKechin MP, Joan Ruddock MP, Stephen Williams MP, Harry Cohen MP, Roger Berry MP, Ian Gibson MP, David Lepper MP, Tom Levitt MP, Helen Goodman MP, Janet Dean MP, Alan Whitehead MP, Bob Russell MP, Diane Abbott MP, Brian Jenkins MP, Peter Bottomley MP, John Leech MP, Martin Caton MP, Paul Truswell MP, Derek Wyatt MP, John Grogan MP, Jim Dowd MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Phil Willis MP, Mike Hancock MP, Eric Illsley MP, Dr Hywel Francis MP, Clive Betts MP, Martin Salter MP, Jeff Ennis MP, Richard Younger-Ross MP, Dave Anderson MP, Tom Brake MP, Kerry McCarthy MP, Shahid Malik MP, Jim Dobbin MP, Nicholas Soames MP, Emily Thornberry MP, Kelvin Hopkins MP, Hywel Williams MP

July 24 2006 ~ Rice insists Hizbollah release the two Israeli soldiers and pulls back from the border before any ceasefire. Iraqi premier Nouri al-Maliki says the attacks by Israel on southern Lebanon as it seeks to destroy militant group Hizbullah "violates everything that the international community is based on".
Mr Blair said: "Of course we're fully aware of what is happening to the reputation of the West and our relations with the Arab world if this continues. My message is very, very simple. What is happening in Lebanon is of course a catastrophe - who could watch the pictures of innocent civilians being killed without wanting this to stop now. But it has to stop on both sides and it's not going to stop on both sides unless a plan is in place to make it stop..." Condoleezza Rice flew to Lebanon today. A Lebanese source said she had insisted Hizbollah release two Israeli soldiers and pull back from the border before any ceasefire. See Reuters etc

July 24 2006 ~ Extraordinary renditions See Reuters

"Washington, which acknowledges making secret transfers of terrorism suspects between countries, called "renditions", is not expected to hand over its agents to Italian courts. Prosecutors have not said to what extent they believe Italy was involved. Italian media reports suggest they suspect Sismi helped plan the abduction and even dispatched agents..."

(Sismi is the Italian military intelligence agency. Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister at the time, has denied that he or the Sismi military intelligence agency knew about a plot to kidnap Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr and fly him to Egypt, where Nasr says he was tortured. One of the Sismi suspects, Marco Mancini, says Sismi knew more than authorities have publicly admitted. )

July 23 2006 ~ 'a violation of humanitarian law.'. United Nations relief coordinator Jan Egeland on Sunday condemned the devastation caused by Israeli airstrikes in Beirut describing it as 'horrific' and terming it 'a violation of humanitarian law.'. 'The whole thing has to stop. ...
UN condemns Beirut devastation amid diplomacy, attacks

July 21 2006 ~ "humanitarian truce" called for - but Britain and the US prate about this being a "quick fix" that would "not deliver a sustainable peace in the Middle East" - (as if anyone has been suggesting that it would.)
In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, a hospital flooded with casualties from Israeli bombardment has begun burying the dead in a mass grave today.
Reuters reports that

"...the hospital needed to clear space in its morgue after receiving 106 bodies, including 22 not identified. Relatives had taken away 12 of the bodies, they said. Some bodies had come from other hospitals.
It quotes Kamel Abdallah, 35, whose pregnant wife, five children and father were killed in an air strike on the border village of Marwaheen.
"The circumstances don't allow me to take them back now, so I'll leave them here," he said, as he watched the bodies of his family being placed in the temporary grave..."

July 21 2006 ~ Tony Blair today dismissed increasing demands from the Archbishop of Canterbury and senior Labour MPs to back a UN call for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Lebanon conflict. Guardian "......spokesman also denied a report in The Guardian that a rift has developed between Tony Blair, who has been supportive of Israeli military action, and officials and junior ministers in the Foreign Office who want the UK to back the UN ceasefire call. "

July 21 2006 ~ Israel pounded Lebanon from the air on Friday in its bloody 10-day-old assault against Hizbollah, but the guerrilla group insisted it would only free two Israeli soldiers it is holding as part of a prisoner swap. ".Israel warned residents to leave southern Lebanon on Friday as it considered expanding a ground offensive against Hizbollah guerrillas despite mounting casualties and a looming humanitarian crisis. .." Reuters
"U.S. helicopters plucked frightened Americans from Beirut on Friday and Turkey agreed to become a transit point in the coming days to share the burden with Cyprus which has been flooded with foreign evacuees. ..." Reuters

July 21 2006 ~ Iraq - one of the bloodiest weeks this year. US military officials admitted that the average daily number of attacks in the Baghdad area is up 40%. Prof Juan Cole says,

"...... Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued his strongest plea yet for Iraqis to cease their faith-based reprisal killings, which have been taking the lives of 100 persons a day. Unfortunately, the time when Sistani could control these sectarian passions has passed. The word is that the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr is "boiling," in large part over the Israel assault on the Shiites of Lebanon. ...." More

Reuters reports "Police officers and neighbors said six members of one family were killed when U.S. helicopters rocketed their house. .."

July 21 2006 ~ John Prescott "....The committee for standards and privileges found "shortcomings" requiring "urgent attention" within Mr Prescott's department concerning the recording of ministerial gifts - a pronouncement that prompted the deputy prime minister to launch an "urgent" internal review of his own department. But the committee ruled out further sanctions after it noted that the deputy prime minister eventually "acted correctly" in registering his three-day stay with Philip Anschutz - albeit some eleven months late and only after a complaint was lodged by Tory MP Hugo Swire..." Guardian

July 20 2006 ~ Good News for civil liberty - (via Tim and ChickenYoghurt) we learn that The Independent's parliamentary sketchwriter, Simon Carr, has got a website. As Justin says,

"He's worth keeping an eye on, as a commentator on the decommissioning of Britain's civil liberties, if nothing else. A man who can get under Charles Clarke's skin, to the point that Two Lunches felt compelled to sit down and write a 34-point rebuttal, should be on everybody's blogroll."

July 19 2006 ~"...Margaret Beckett, lost her cool during an interview yesterday morning on BBC Radio 4'sToday programme and denied any connection between the latest Middle East flare-up and the Iraqi quagmire. However, Tony Blair was overheard on Monday telling President Bush, in what he thought was a private conversation, that it is "all part of the same thing". In fact, the Prime Minister has always linked Iraq to the broader Middle East conflict...." Independent Are the events in Lebanon linked to the Iraq conflict?

July 19 2006 ~The situation is both alarming and catastrophic "Tens if not hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have already been displaced. UNICEF's representative in Lebanon told Agence France-Press that "The situation is both alarming and catastrophic. There are about 500,000 people displaced already." (ABC Online) ">

July 19 2006 ~ Israeli war planes have struck an army barracks east of Beirut in an overnight raid in which 11 troops, including four officers, were killed and 40 injured. That wasn't a Hizbullah barracks. That was the regular Lebanese army. As Juan Cole says today, it was the one " the Israelis say they would trust to patrol the Lebanese border with Israel, and which they wish would take on Hizbullah. So why are they bombing the Lebanese Army?"
Xinhua reports that the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Fouad Siniora, (who came to power as part of an anti-Syrian political movement supported by the Bush administration)

"vehemently condemned Israel's continued aggression against the battered country, saying the international community must have been aware that Israel was committing massacres against Lebanese civilians, including children, women and elders. He said that Israel was acting to destroy "everything that allows Lebanon to stay alive". He added that the Israeli troops continued its bombing attacks on Tuesday, targeting Lebanon's gas stations, civilian residences, roads, army barracks and posts, food processing mills and vehicles carrying foodstuff."

Reuters reports " Israel struck Lebanon from the air and made limited attacks across the border on Wednesday as thousands awaited evacuation and the death toll mounted in a conflict that has entered its second week with no end in sight. ..." and we read in the Telegraph that "the second wave of British evacuees from">anon have arrived in Cyprus after a 12 hour journey from Beirut." They were taken by the Royal Navy. ">

July 19 2006 ~ President Bush told Siniora in April tht the United States " strongly supports a free and independent and sovereign Lebanon"
">Professor Cole notes that this is the first sentence of a news item today:

"George W. Bush on Tuesday warned Syria to stay out of Lebanon as he signalled to Israel that it would have more time to carry out its military campaign . . .He said Israel had been asked to ensure that the government of Fouad Siniora survived, but the White House declined to comment on repeated Israeli strikes against Lebanese army units."

Juan Cole comments

"What you have to admire most about W. is how he stands by his friends."

July 19 2006 ~ Gaza "At least nine Palestinians have been killed in fresh Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank. Under heavy gunfire Israeli tanks entered Mughazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip before dawn. ..." BBC

July 19 2006 ~ "...Lashing out in anger was never the way to win the Middle East, and critical friends of Israel wonder if now could be a turning point at which Israel recognises that years of harsh, trigger-happy responses have got it no closer to lasting peace and security. If either Blair or Bush had credibility in the Arab world, they would be better placed to be that critical friend." An article today in the Herald Yo, Blair, who calls the shots in this double act? by Douglas Fraser is well worth reading.

"......The Prime Minister - Mr Yo Blair, as he should now be styled - was a little more coherent, his words and his body language displaying the subservient role he plays in this relationship...."

July 18 2006 ~ Bush Blair chat while Lebonon burns - NYT comments and so does the Independent - at some length.

July 18 2006 ~ "Israel refuses to rule out invasion" "Israeli warplanes pounded Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people, as diplomatic efforts brought no signs of an early end to the week-old assault launched in retaliation against Hezbollah attacks. .." Reuters Professor Cole comments:

".....The Guardian complains that the world leaders again did nothing on Monday to stop the massive Israeli assault on Lebanon.
I should explain to The Guardian about spheres of influence. Great Powers have them, and other Great Powers respect them if they do not want a war. That is why the US did nothing about the Soviets in Hungary 1956 or in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Soviet sphere of influence.
The Levant is now a joint US-Israeli sphere of Influence. Egypt and Jordan both have peace treaties with Israel and are non-NATO allies of the US. So they won't do more than politely disagree that Israel's wholesale destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure is useful. Turkey is part of the joint US-Israeli sphere of influence, with close military ties to both countries. Iraq is now working the American training wheels, in Bush's parlance, and although it has not formally joined the full US-Israeli sphere of influence, it has no military to speak of and basically its legs are broken. The Gulf monarchies have more or less acquiesced in the situation as well.
Syria and Iran are the only two significant dissenters. Syria is weak and isolated, having been expelled from Lebanon and having lost its Soviet patron a decade and a half ago. Iran is distant from the scene and does not have a history of direct military intervention in other countries anyway.
The European Powers all ceded the Levant to the US-Israeli sphere of influence a long time ago. They will not get out ahead of the US. They mostly deeply dislike the Apartheid policies of Israel in the Occupied Territories, but they also deeply dislike and fear Hamas and Hizbullah, having their own large Muslim populations that they don't want radicalized.
So, basically, the Palestinians and the Lebanese are screwed. The Lebanese might not have been in such a vulnerable situation if they had not kicked out the Syrians, though the Syrians were there in 1982 the last time Israel invaded.
That is why there is terrorism in the Middle East. The Israeli occupation of the Occupied Territories has been barbaric and intolerable. It produced Hamas. The Israeli occupation of South Lebanon was barbaric and intolerable. It produced Hizbullah.
But terrorism is a weapon of the weak and should not be over-estimated as a deterrent for Great Powers. Mostly they see it as a cost of doing business, and even where the Powers suffer from it, it has the advantage of rallying home populations behind militaristic policies.
At some point the Europeans may find a way to step in. The elements of an eventual resolution of the current Israeli war on Lebanon are becoming clear in international diplomacy. Italian PM Romano Prodi of Italy is already thinking about how to round up 10,000 UN peacekeepers to insert in the Lebanese south as a buffer between the Israeli army and Hizbullah. Russia agrees and is willing to participate.
Chirac and Blair are also on board with this plan, which will go to the UNSC from the G8 summit.
My advice: don't send the blue helmets unless you authorize them to shoot back when attacked.
On the other hand, the Irish Times report above says that Israeli officials reject a UN deployment and insist instead that the Lebanese army must be stationed along the border. It is probably the Olmert government's hope that this posting will set the Lebanese army against Hizbullah, producing intra-Lebanese fighting that serves Israeli interests. Israel, however, does not always get its way. We'll see. Peacekeeping is a ways off. The Israelis will fight their war first."

July 17 2006 ~ "What both men didn't realise was that a microphone was still switched on..." Snowmail this evening reports "......the crisis in the Middle East has dominated the G8 summit in St Petersburg. In a private conversation with Tony Blair, George Bush spoke candidly about the situation and what he believes needs to be done. You can watch and listen to what was said here now: http://www.channel4.com/more4/news/news-opinion-feature.jsp?id=326

"Viewers are warned - the American president used some undiplomatic language."

You can see more of this on both Channel 4 and More4 News tonight.

July 17 2006 ~ No criminal charges " No police officers will be prosecuted over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station. But the Metropolitan Police will face charges under health and safety laws which require the Met to ensure its operations do not put the public at risk...." Streatham Guardian The paper quotes Ken Livingstone: "... it makes absolutely no sense to apply such legislation in the case of such an extreme situation. I doubt that al-Qaeda will be considering the implications for health and safety legislation when they are planning their terrorist activities."
The De Menezes family will consider private prosecution of officers. See also Guardian

July 17 2006 ~ " Henry Porter is the most important columnist writing today" is the opinion of Alistair Duff in today's Independent

"......it is clear from what recently happened to Messrs Carr and Porter, whose columns in defence of civil liberty were denounced junta-style by senior members of the Government, that political columns, at their best, can make a very serious impact indeed. Porter, who also started getting personal e-mails from the Prime Minister, explains the secret: "If you bang on about a subject, if you do it properly [he spent countless hours acquainting himself with recent legislation before going public about the Government's assaults on freedom], if you are relentless as well as polite, then you can be influential." I believe that Porter is the most important columnist writing today."

The other political columnists examined in Alistair Duff's extremely interesting Independent article are, "Keith Aitken (Scottish Daily Express), Simon Carr (The Independent), Peter Hitchens (The Mail on Sunday), Simon Jenkins (The Guardian and The Sunday Times), Boris Johnson (The Daily Telegraph), Dominic Lawson (The Independent), Deborah Orr (The Independent), Matthew Parris (The Times), Henry Porter (The Observer), William Rees-Mogg (The Times and The Mail on Sunday), and Polly Toynbee (The Guardian). A good mixture."
( See also some of the other Warmwell pages citing Henry Porter)

July 17 2006 ~ Iraq Reuters' FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on July 16 contains news of the now daily horrors in many parts of the country, including Basra.

July 17 2006 ~ Israel may be planning a ground incursion into southern Lebanon, according to The Guardian.
Professor Cole, typically even-handed, comments on both sides with exasperation.

".....Israel struck at large numbers of targets on Sunday, and early Monday morning, that had nothing to do with Hezbollah. The far north of Lebanon is Sunni, as is the port of Tripoli, where the Israelis killed a Catholic Lebanese soldier. They also hit factories in north Beirut, not a Shiite area. They bombed a village near Zahle, a notorious center of Greek Orthodox, killing 3 civilians. The Israelis are either not very good shots, since they have murdered 140 civilians since Wednesday and only managed to kill about 17 Lebanese military personnel. Or they just don't give a damn...
.... Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert conveyed to Lebanon through Italian PM Romano Prodi his conditions for ceasing hostilities against Lebanon. As also reported on CNN they are:
1. The return of two captured Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah
2. A withdrawal of Hizbullah to the Litani River, 30 mi. or so north of the Israeli border deeper into Lebanon.
3. Cessation of rocket attacks on Israel
It is worth noting that if this is what Israel wants, two of the three could have been gotten without reducing the entire country of Lebanon to rubble. They could have traded 3 Hizbullah members in their custody for the 2 Israeli soldiers. And, if they hadn't gone wild bombing everything in sight it is unlikely Hizbullah would have shelled them on this scale in the first place.
As for the demand that Hizbullah withdraw (presumably this means its paramilitary fighters) to the Litani, that talking point will inspire the profoundest fear in the Lebanese that Israel is essentially attempting to move its border north and make the Litany the new border, thus staking a clear claim on the waters of the river, which Israelis have coveted since 1948. It is a non-starter politically, though whether it can be attained with violence is yet to be seen."

but he is also scathing about the "megalomania" of Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah (Hezbollah)

".........He said people were always putting down the Arabs and saying they could not accomplish anything, but, he said, look at the Israeli warship in flames. That was an Arab accomplishment.
Uh, wouldn't an Arab accomplishment be more like, oh, inventing something or building up something nice? Destroying things and killing people is not an accomplishment.
I watched in horror as this maniacal speech unfolded in which Nasrallah actually threatened the Israelis with releasing chemical gas from local factories on civilians in Haifa. Despite fighting them for all those years, he clearly does not understand the Israelis' psyche or the trauma of the Holocaust. ..."

July 16 2006 ~ Israel steeply escalated its military campaign against Hizbollah in Lebanon yesterday with a series of air strikes that left more than 35 civilians dead, including a single strike on a convoy of families fleeing the fighting in a village near Tyre in the south of the country that killed more than 20 people, most of them children... See Observer

July 16 2006 ~ Britain opposed a cease -fire? Professor Cole reports that Lebanon has charged that the US blocked a UN Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire. " If so, it is contemptible," he says. He cites http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=309305&sid=WOR where we read that Britain opposed a cease -fire too

"Qatar, the only Arab nation on the Council, received widespread support during closed Council consultations last night for a press statement calling for an immediate cease-fire, restraint in the use of force, and the protection of civilians caught in the conflict, Council diplomats said.
But Argentina's UN ambassador Cesar Mayoral said the United States objected to any statement and Britain opposed calling for a cease-fire.
The US and Britain want to wait for the outcome of this weekend's Group of Eight meeting in Russia, an Arab League foreign ministers meeting, and a mission sent to the Middle East by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he and other diplomats said..."

July 16 2006 ~ Blair and Bush blame Iran and Syria ITN reports that Tony Blair and US President George W Bush have blamed Iran and Syria for the latest flare-up in the Middle East.

July 14 2006 ~ Emergency UN session as Israel steps up offensive in Lebanon Times

"Chirac: Israel wants to ''destroy Lebanon' Israel stepped up its crippling military offensive in Lebanon today, hitting Beirut's airport and its Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs as the UN Security Council began an emergency meeting to discuss the conflict and avert all-out war in the Middle East. More than 60 people, almost all civilians, have been killed in Lebanon....Overnight and today, the Israelis hit key infrastructure targets including fuel depots and also cut off the main Beirut-Damascus highway, forcing thousands of fleeing tourists to take mountain side roads into the Syrian capital.
....A team of senior UN negotiators was heading to the region tonight and Russia and the European Union were also sending peace envoys. Among Israel's fiercest critics was President Chirac, who said in his traditional Bastille Day television interview that he thought it wanted to destroy Lebanon. He said the Israeli actions were "totally disproportionate" to the Hezbollah provocation.
But President Bush, ....told the Lebanese Prime Minister.... that while he would pressure Israel to limit civilian casualties and contain the damage, he would not demand a ceasefire. ..."

July 13 2006 ~ "Very, very dangerous.." We have become so used to violent ghastliness in the Middle East that it is easy to forget just how extremely dangerous is the situation now in Gaza and now in the Lebanon. Professor Cole's view is, as usual, balanced and deeply worried

".......All hell broke loose on Wednesday in the Mideast, with a Hizbullah attack on the Israeli army and Israeli reprisals, and the Israeli dropping of a 500 pound bomb on Gaza. I roundly condemn Hizbullah's criminal and stupid attack on Israel and escalation of a crisis that is already harming ordinary Palestinians on a massive scale. Likewise, the Beirut airport is not in south Lebanon and for the Israelis to bomb it and neighborhoods in south Beirut is a disproportionate use of force. The Israelis are actually talking about causing "pain to the Lebanese." That is despicable...."

The Independent begins its report "Israel widened its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas today, targeting the country's only international airport and forcing its closure..." Robert Fisk's article begins

" It's about Syria. That was the frightening message delivered by Damascus yesterday when it allowed its Hizbollah allies to cross the UN Blue Line in southern Lebanon, kill three Israeli soldiers, capture two others and demand the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.... Within hours, a country that had begun to believe in peace - without a single Syrian soldier left on its soil - found itself once more at war..."

July 13 2006 ~ Honours scandal reaches Number 10 with the arrest of Lord Levy Guardian "The cash for peerages scandal paralysing Labour moved perilously close to Tony Blair's door when the Metropolitan police yesterday arrested Lord Levy, Mr Blair's personal party fundraiser, Middle East envoy and personal confidant. The news No 10 has been privately dreading for months came after the police spent all day interviewing Lord Levy at a north London police station before releasing him on bail without charge. It is understood that at least three senior Downing Street officials have also been interviewed by the police, but not under caution. Since Mr Blair has himself said the buck stops with him over party fundraising, Downing Street seems to accept that it is inevitable detectives will now interview the prime minister too...."
Jack Dromey's angry comments about how he has been "kept in the dark" and that the Labour party was now being run from Number Ten were quoted this morning on the Today Programme

July 12 2006 ~ "Rethink 'war on terror' strategy Richard Dearlove is quoted in the Guardian. He "singled out CIA rendition flights and the indefinite detention of prisoners in Guantanamo for rebuke. Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado before an audience of global politicians, experts and commentators last week, Sir Richard also said the west was "doomed" unless it "reclaimed the moral high ground".......questioned about which policies he was referring to when he said they "would have been illegal under British common law". Sir Richard replied: the "whole Guantanamo operation" and CIA "rendition", where suspected terror suspects are knowingly transferred to third countries where torture was practised..."
(It will be remembered that in the Panorama programme, Iraq - Tony & the Truth well-placed sources told the BBC that Sir Richard Dearlove was minuted as saying that "the facts and the intelligence" were being "fixed round the policy" by the Bush Administration.)

July 12 2006 ~ Halliburton The U.S. Army will discontinue its multi-billion dollar contract with oil services giant Halliburton Co. to provide logistical support to U.S. troops worldwide, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, has drawn scrutiny for its work in Iraq from auditors, congressional Democrats and the Justice Department, which is investigating potential overcharges for fuel, dining and laundry services.
.... .. the Pentagon plans to split the Iraq work among three companies to be chosen this fall and Halliburton would be eligible to make a bid. ...." (Reuters)

July 12 2006 ~ Mumbai gets back to work "Millions of people packed trains and buses to get to work in India's biggest city on Wednesday, as the country's financial hub shook off seven bombs on its vital commuter rail network that killed at least 183 people. " Reuters

July 12 2006 ~ GAZA (Reuters) - Israel targeted Hamas's top commanders in a Gaza air strike on Wednesday that killed six Palestinians and reduced to rubble a three-storey building where the militants were believed to be meeting.

July 10 2006 ~ Iraq - At least 80 Dead in Civil War Bloodbath Government Forced to Depend on Local Gunmen . Professor Cole reads the daily newspapers in Arabic and is surely the best source for news and informed comment

"Eyewitnesses in the Iraqi capital said that elements of the Mahdi Army, loyal to young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, killed at least 61, among them women and children, on the basis of their religious identity. [Official Iraqi and US sources said these numbers were exaggerated, and most American wire services gave the number of dead as 42.] They set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the Jihad quarter of Baghdad for this purpose. Eyewitnesses said that gunmen wearing civilian clothing set up checkpoint barriers in the streets beginning early Sunday morning and began stopping passers-by. They investigated their identities, and killed anyone whom they found to be Sunni Arab. The eyewitnesses also said that some gunmen entered a number of homes and shot down the inhabitants. Some then set the houses on fire...
Al-Hayat says that local Baghdad television (a largely Sunni outlet) carried pleas from a Sunni eyewitness to the attack for the government and the American forces to intervene to rescue them, but that the pleas went unanswered...."
"....President Jalal Talabani uttered plattitudes about the dangers of sectarian violence devolving into "killings on the basis of identity". His aide, Muwaffaq al-Samarra'i, according to Al-Hayat, said, "Iraq has truly entered into a sectarian civil war; the matter is no longer merely one of sectarian hatred." Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that the situation was under control...."

July 10 2006 ~ IRAQ: Insecurity, under-funding threaten children's health in Basra "...Children are dying in the dozens in southern Iraq because of lack of basic medical care and medicines. Reuters reports, '"There's a lack of everything. Children are dying because of bleeding because there are no blood bags available," said Fernandez. "Antibiotics, Pentostam [an antimony compound used in the treatment of parasite infection], special milk for dehydrated children, and almost all medical material for emergency conditions aren't available." ' . Lack of security, corruption and the flight of middle class professionals have all contributed to the crisis...."

July 10 2006 ~ More British soldiers to Afghanistan ITN "Defence Secretary Des Browne is expected to confirm that more British troops are being sent to Afghanistan." See also BBC

July 10 2006 ~ ID Cards Guardian "Opponents of identity cards yesterday stepped up their campaign for the multi-billion pound scheme to be scrapped, after it emerged that the government is planning a scaled-down version of the project so that it can meet a 2008 deadline..." (But even if the cards themselves are delayed, it has always been the accompanying national database that represents such a serious threat to our privacy. The list of more than fifty categories of information intended to be required for the register demonstrate the present government's obsession with central control. Quite apart from the civil liberties question, the government's lamentable record of IT competence make the whole enterprise dangerous.)

"...More than 100 senior academics, independent experts and industry specialists contributed to the LSE's Identity Project, which concluded that the government's proposals would be "too costly, technically risky and complex"...... Simon Davies, the project's co-mentor, said: "Everything we warned could happen, has happened. If government wants to rescue this scheme from certain oblivion it must take action swiftly to restore the fragments of remaining trust."

July 9 2006 ~ "Suspicion of foreigners, fears over terrorism, suspects held without charge..." Required listening for all - particularly for John Denham perhaps - is this morning's Point of View on Radio 4 in which Lisa Jardine presented a comparison of our own paranoid times with that of Elizabeth 1. She concludes

".... If, in order to be able to detain those we suspect of intending harm, we reduce, for the time being, the long-established methods of accumulating evidence and establishing the burden of proof, how will we be able, at some future date, to reinstate them? How long will it take our children and our grandchildren to recognise the importance of what has been lost, to recover and reinstate the rights we freely gave away? "

It really is worth listening to in full (or reading here) The programme was preceded by Sunday Worship - not a programme I would normally listen to - but the address by the revd Philip Auden, Chaplain to the Port of Bristol, was an impressive example of someone speaking from the heart- just uncomplicated goodness. From St Stephen's Church, Bristol, the music by the Exultate Singers too, was as good as anything I have heard in months.

July 9 2006 ~ ID Cards Sunday Times - ID cards doomed, say officials

"TONY BLAIR'S flagship identity cards scheme is set to fail and may not be introduced for a generation, according to leaked Whitehall e-mails from the senior officials responsible for the multi-billion-pound project. The problems are so serious that ministers have been forced to draw up plans for a scaled-down "face-saving" version to meet their pledge of phasing in the cards from 2008. However, civil servants say there is no evidence that even this compromise is "remotely feasible" and accuse ministers of "ignoring reality" by pressing ahead...."

See also Leading article

July 9 2006 ~ Iraq Professor Juan Cole writes in his website that the National Unity Government of Iraq is on the verge of collapse. The posting should be read in full. Particularly noteworthy is

"....The Los Angeles Times has a real scoop today, having gotten hold of 400 documents regarding the investigation of the Interior Ministry and the Iraqi police. They demonstrate extensive corruption and violations. Solomon Moore writes,
' Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses ranging from the widespread rape of female prisoners and the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes to assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations. '..."

July 9 2006 ~ GAZA Kofi Annan has demanded that Israel take urgent action to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip. See Bahrain News Agency

".... Annan expressed his deep concern on the dangerous situation in Palestine affirming the importance of taking speedy actions to put an end to the Palestinian suffering. In a statement issued last night, he called upon all related sides to maintain self-control and to respect international law. Six UN agencies issued a joint statement expressing their concern regarding the developments in Palestine which claimed the lives of innocent civilians and the suffering of thousands. The statement also indicated that Gaza was suffering a humanitarian crisis which could lead to dangerous repercussions if the necessary steps are not taken immediately. "

There have been more Israeli air strikes overnight on targets in Gaza. A key bridge was bombed despite calls by the United Nations to stop destroying the territory's fragile infrastructure See Euronews

July 9 2006 ~ "George W. Bush is not above the Geneva Conventions" "... 15,000 prisoners detained by the US in Iraq ... held with no access to counsel, no formal charges, or any basic legal process" We also read in Professor Cole's post that

"A pro-Bush Iranian-American film-maker, Cyrus Kar, is suing Donald Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense over being held in detention in Iraq without charges for nearly 2 months, and sometimes abused......
Bush and his officials and lawyers argue that he has "inherent powers" to just arrest people on suspicion and hold them indefinitely, with only an occasional military "review" of the case. The 15,000 prisoners detained by the US in Iraq are likewise being held with no access to counsel, no formal charges, or any basic legal process, with some having been tortured, and some having been held in this way for a year.

July 9 2006 ~ Craig Murray served an injunction Murder in Samarkand The supporting documents in Craig Murray's book are, in view of the behaviour of the Powers that Be (who are deeply offended by being examined by one they'd thought properly housetrained), now being mirrored across the UK internet blogosphere. (See Blairwatch ) In spite of their having been obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the documents Mr Murray had wanted to publish have been blocked and legal action is threatenend over breach of "copyright of the Crown". The documents are published at http://dahrjamailiraq.com - and will soon be appearing on many other sites. Strangely, they keep disappearing from Mr Murray's own website.

July 9 2006 ~ officials of the Environment Agency"..... prefer to see valuable medicines buried in landfill rather than put to use in Africa. This is only the latest example of the growing confusion about what constitutes "waste" under EC law, made worse in Britain by the uniquely zealous way in which the agency enforces the rules..." Christopher Booker's Notebook. in the Sunday Telegraph. Always unmissable

July 8 2006 ~ Israel Update Israel says its troops have left their positions in the northern tip of the Gaza Strip and returned to the Israeli side of the border. BBC

July 8 2006 ~ the NatWest Three "Four of Britain's most eminent law professors have strongly criticised the extradition arrangements.... The professors say that extradition arrangements with America are biased against UK citizens and that some of British justice's traditional guarantees are being undermined by political expediency...." Telegraph (British citizens can be extradited to the US without evidence being produced that there was a case to answer, even though there is no equivalent arrangement for the extradition of American nationals to the UK.)

"...The Extradition Act 2003 was rushed through by David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, following the September 11 attacks. It was meant to help clamp down on international terrorists, but it has been used to bring Britons accused of white-collar crimes to trial in the US.
Keith Patchett, the emeritus professor of law at the University of Wales, said that issues in the NatWest Three case "raise basic questions about the preparedness of the [UK] Government, demonstrated in other matters too, to compromise vital legal protections honed over generations"..."

July 8 2006 ~Afghanistan ".....former defence minister Doug Henderson called for British troops to be confined to barracks until the purpose of the mission was clarified. He told GMTV: "I think until a political strategy has been worked out and agreed ... then in some senses there should be a withdrawal of British troops to barracks". He claimed troops did not know what they were doing or for how long...." Guardian

July 8 2006 ~ Gaza More under-reported horror. The NYT reports,

"... The death toll is difficult to pin down, with news agencies' tallies differing. Dr. Jumaa al-Saqqa, a surgeon and spokesman for Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, said 26 Palestinians died in Gaza on Thursday and more than 80 were wounded. Two of the dead were children, Dr. Saqqa said. He estimated that 20 percent of the wounded were young men under the age of 17..."

July 8 2006 ~ Haditha The BBC tells us that

"... The report has been completed and reviewed by Lt-Gen Peter Chiarelli, the second-rankin