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US We’re going to lie about things

Let’s not forget the words of a senior military officer involved in planning the US Imperial adventures in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. He said:”This is the most information-intensive war you can imagine…We’re going to lie about things”

A comment to this informative article

Dear U.S Government,

Of course we believe you. You’ve never lied to us before, right?

Operation Northwoods – A False Flag Operation
[Link]
The JFK Assassination Zapruder Film Clip
[Link]
JFK assassination: Watch the Secret Service Standdown
[Link]
Israel’s False Flag Attack on the U.S.S. Liberty
[Link]
The Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination and Cover-up
[Link]
CIA Whistleblower Talks About Heart Attack Gun
[Link]
FBI Informant Built the 1993 World Trade Center Bomb
[Link]
News Reports of Multiple Bombs in Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building
[Link]
Gen Parton Provides Evidence for Multiple Bombs Involved in the
Oklahoma City Bombing – Part 1
[Link]
How to Rig a US Election Via Electronic Voting Machine
[Link]
Senator Mark Dayton Points Out the 9/11 Lies
[Link]
Zelikow’s Key Role as Cover-up Artist for 9-11 Commission
[Link]
Architect Richard Gage: The Controlled Demolition on 9/11
[Link]
9/11: Chemical Engineer Mark Basile Found Nanothermite in WTC Dust
[Link]
9/11: Danish Chemist Niels Harrit Also Found Nanothermite in the WTC Dust
[Link]
9/11 Crime Scene Evidence Was Destroyed – Firefighters For 9/11 Truth
[Link]
9/11:The Lack of Evidence For Flight 93 Crashing in Shanksville, PA
[Link]
Powell and Rice Assure Everyone Iraq is NO THREAT Prior to 9/11
[Link]
Government Lies:How to create an Angry American
[Link]
WTC7: The Smoking Gun of 9/11
[Link]
9/11 Truth in 9 Minutes
[Link]

IF YOU WATCH ONLY ONE OF THESE VIDEOS WATCH THIS ONE!!!!!
Rumsfeld Describes Elaborate Cave System in Afghanistan
[Link]
Feel free to add your own to this list…

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New U.S. Account Says Bin Laden Was Unarmed During Raid

By and

Published: May 3, 2011

WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden was not carrying a weapon when he was killed by American troops in a fortified house in Pakistan, the White House said Tuesday, as it revised its initial account of the nighttime raid.

Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, answered reporters’ questions on Tuesday about the details surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden. More Photos »

Multimedia

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Home Fires: Veterans Views (May 3, 2011)

Readers’ Comments

Members of a Navy Seals team burst in on Bin Laden in the compound where he was hiding and shot him in a room on an upper floor, after a fierce gun battle with other operatives of Al Qaeda on the first floor.

Bin Laden’s wife, who was with him in the room, “rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, reading from the brief account, which was provided by the Defense Department. “Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.”

Mr. Carney said that Bin Laden’s lack of a weapon did not mean he was ready to surrender, and he and other officials reiterated that this was a violent scene, that there was heavy fire from others in the house, and that the commandos did not know whether the occupants were wearing suicide belts or other explosives.

Still, the account diverged in some ways from one given Monday by the president’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan. He had said Bin Laden was “engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in,” adding, “whether or not he got off any rounds, I frankly don’t know.”

Mr. Brennan also said then that Bin Laden used his wife as a “human shield.” But officials now say that the death of another woman in the crossfire on another floor led them to draw that false conclusion.

White House officials said the discrepancies resulted from their haste to provide details about a chaotic, fast-moving military operation to an intensely interested American public. As more of the assault team’s 79 members were debriefed, and their accounts were crosschecked with those of other team members, there were bound to be changes in the account, these officials said.

But the episode also reveals the pressures as the White House, intent on telling a dramatic story about a successful operation, sought to manage a 24-hour news media ravenous for immediate and vivid details. Even as Mr. Brennan was giving his account on Monday, other officials began clarifying parts of the story for reporters.

On Tuesday, one issue officials were wrestling with was whether to release a photo of Bin Laden’s body.

Several experts on the rules of engagement in combat said that in a raid on a target as dangerous as Bin Laden, the Navy Seals team would be justified to open fire at the slightest commotion when they burst into a room.

“If he were surrendering, or knocked out and unconscious on the ground, that would raise serious questions,” said John B. Bellinger III, legal counsel at the National Security Council and State Department in the Bush administration.

“But this is a guy who’s extremely dangerous,” he said. “If he’s nodding at someone in the hall, or rushing to the bookcase or you think he’s wearing a suicide vest, you’re on solid ground to kill him.”

Other experts noted that the members of the Navy Seals faced difficult conditions, moving through dim rooms under gunfire, and needing to make a split-second judgment about whether Bin Laden posed a threat.

“They say he was unarmed now, but did the Seals know he was unarmed?” said Scott L. Silliman, an expert on wartime legal doctrine at Duke University Law School. “It was in the dark. They were wearing goggles.”

At the United Nations, questions arose about the killing. The organization’s senior human rights official, Navi Pillay, called for more details.

While noting that Bin Laden was a dangerous man, she said any operation against him should have been done legally.

During Monday’s briefing, Mr. Brennan said President Obama put a premium on protecting the commandos in the operation, saying that “we were not going to give Bin Laden or any of his cohorts the opportunity to carry out lethal fire on our forces.”

None were harmed, though there was a tense moment when one of the two helicopters suffered a mechanical failure and was destroyed by the commandos.

Despite expecting Bin Laden to put up a fight, Mr. Brennan said the assault team had made contingency plans for capturing, rather than killing him. “If we had the opportunity to take Bin Laden alive, if he didn’t present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that,” he said.

Still, Mr. Brennan was eager to draw larger lessons from what he said was Bin Laden’s use of his wife as a shield.

“Here is Bin Laden, who has been calling for these attacks, living in this million-dollar-plus compound, living in an area that is far removed from the front, hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield,” he said. “I think it really just speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years.”

Leon E. Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday that the troops’ orders were to kill Bin Laden. “But it was also, as part of their rules of engagement, if he suddenly put up his hands and offered to be captured, then they would have the opportunity, obviously, to capture him,” he said.

Some of the confusion in the accounts of the raid stemmed from the difference in time zones. Bin Laden had actually been killed early Monday by Pakistan time, not late on Sunday as had been initially reported.

Meanwhile, the White House continued to grapple with the question of whether to release the photo of the dead Bin Laden, or other documentary evidence. Administration officials said that they are trying to determine whether the visceral desire among Americans — and some skeptics — to see proof outweighs the potential that such images might further inflame Bin Laden’s disciples.

The photo, taken after Bin Laden was killed, clearly identifies the Qaeda leader, according to one official who has viewed it. “It looks like him, covered in blood with a hole in his head,” the official said.

White House officials say they are still deciding what to do, although one official said that they were leaning toward releasing the photo. Mr. Panetta told NBC News that he did not think “there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public.”

Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington, and Neil MacFarquhar from New York.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 4, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: NEW U.S. ACCOUNT IN BIN LADEN RAID: HE WAS UNARMED.
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In Search of Meaning: Osama Bin Laden and the dancing Americans

by Sarah Hawas on May 3, 2011

I heard about Osama Bin Laden’s death through a friend this morning. I dismissed the matter entirely and thought little of it at first: Bin Laden was old news, an alibi with no currency, a bad joke. Chances are, he was caught and killed years ago. What difference did it make? Really, none, I felt. I ran my errands, and sat down to study and write my papers. It was only when I switched on the television to check the news during lunch that I felt compelled to pay attention. Images from outside the White House beg comparison to nothing less than a fourth of July rally. The way Americans have been celebrating at Ground Zero, you would think they had just been through their own revolution. But indeed, between Clinton’s address and worldwide security alerts of anticipated retaliation by Al-Qaeda, the discourse has been less about celebrating the end of an era, and more about fortifying the War on Terror, expanding its scope and reach, increasing and exacerbating racialized securitization. The fight is not over, we hear, and US-led missions in a decapitated Afghanistan and impotent Pakistan only seem to be renewing their license to stay and continue their costly colonization and humiliation of these nations and their neighbors.

The idea of celebrating any death is repulsive. But perhaps, if anyone living today might venture even a sigh of relief at the capture (at least) of Osama Bin Laden (and the presumed symbolic defeat of Al Qaeda, whatever that might mean), it is the countless Muslims and Arabs that have, since 9/11, paid with their lives and dignity, directly and indirectly, for his atrocious acts in the name of countering imperialism and defending Islam. But if you don’t see us dancing in the streets today it is because Al-Qaeda is and has been beyond irrelevant for years. For the last decade, the US War on Terror has reproduced the Osama Bin Laden fiction, transforming him from a relic of Cold War alliances to a contemporary alibi for the brutal invasion and murderous missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Those of us that know history did not begin on September 11th have been resisting the abrasive, suffocating encroachment of imperialist and reactionary elements on our lives and identities, building up to the present moment of revolution: between Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and the rest of the region, Arabs, Muslim or otherwise, are fighting to end the age of US puppet regimes on their own terms. One cannot help but wonder what “victory” the United States can claim in the murder of Osama Bin Laden on Pakistani soil.

The victory, we are told, is in delivering justice. But what measure of justice, and for whom? The governments of this world – a global war-profiteering military-industrial complex spoken for by corporate media – have pulled the trigger on Osama Bin Laden in time to save Obama’s re-election campaign, and to mute the significance of May Day in a climate of increased precarity and dispossession. By funnelling the opium of patriotism (America’s exception to nationalism), Obama might well be preparing the American people for another decade of war, and is undoubtedly shooting the already paralyzed working and tax-paying American in the foot. Five months into a year that has thus far been marked by revolutionary winds, Americans that stood in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution and the ongoing Arab uprisings, many of the same people that were inspired by our movements and held signs saying “Walk Like an Egyptian” in Wisconsin, may now very well be celebrating at Ground Zero in a bizarre performance of patriotism, despite ten years that have left us with a crippled Iraq, a devastated Afghanistan, and the loss of millions of lives, including those of Americans.

In effect, this theatrical display does not pay tribute to the victims of 9/11 (may they rest in peace), nor does it give more meaning to the lives of dead soldiers or the victims of the American-led missions in the region. It is an ecstatic tribute to a death-machine in which the only winners have been a global capitalist elite: arms companies, security apparati, criminal (and in many cases, outgoing) authoritarian regimes, and the many corporations that thrive on disaster. Even more offensive in the Ground Zero party is the continued racialization of what constitutes a grievable human life, such that similar celebrations (by minorities) following 9/11 were seen as evidence of an innately violent culture of death, but popular celebrations of an empty assassination valorize a fictional “justice”. Osama Bin Laden is symbolic, but in effect what many Americans today seem to celebrate is a vicious cycle of violence, a historic tradition in which real or invented causes are allowed to take precedence over collective human dignity and the value of life.

To dance in celebration today is offensive first and foremost to the victims of the attacks on September 11th. They are palpably alone in singing the Star Spangled Banner and celebrating the murder of Osama Bin Laden, thoroughly alone, because no one in the world cares or even remembers. If these dancing Americans, however, were to transform their fear and fascination with violence into rage and courage to occupy the same streets in protest, against the ruling elite that has profited from the loss and grief of 9/11 and the wars that followed, and the undemocratic corporate interests running their lives, they might find the arms of other ordinary working people from around the world extended in solidarity.

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Terrorist (truther) convicted for being on TV show

FREE MOHAMMED HAMID! – An innocent man, ‘Imprisoned for Public Protection’, for the crimes of calling non-Muslims to Islam and helping communities.

PAINTBALLING = WEAPONS TRAINING
CUTTING A WATERMELON = TERRORISM TRAINING
PROPAGATING ISLAM = TERROR RECRUITMENT

PLEASE HELP US STOP THIS INJUSTICE NOW!

Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid…

Petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Hamid/p…

2nd part of interview here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb3R3b…

Mohammed Hamid was convicted in 2008 under politically-motivated circumstances. He was found guilty of “soliciting to murder” under legislation dating back to 1861, despite never actually instructing anyone to any specific act. The conviction was based upon innocuous statements allegedly made by Hamid whilst under covert surveillance which, by the accounts of those who appeared in court for the prosecution, were twisted to suit a government agenda.

As part of a documentary about Muslims in the United Kingdom, “Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic”, the BBC filmed Hamid and others playing paintball. However, the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service felt that there must have been something sinister about Muslims paintballing and camping in the woods. Statements were given by the police, of which the strongest allegation was a testimony that “they were holding sticks exactly as I have seen people in Iraq.” That this was their strongest evidence, even after months of surveillance which included the use of undercover agents and covert recording, is a stark indication of the legitimacy of the prosecution.

It is our contention that it is no more of a crime for Muslims to go paintballing or camping than it is for the thousands of other people who go paintballing and camping every year. Yet, in these “war of terror” times, it has meant that Mohammed Hamid and others are now serving totally unjustifiable sentences for taking part in activities that are not in themselves crimes.

It is our fear that this sentence will be the first of many for Muslims in the United Kingdom — and by extension of the precedent Hamid’s case has set, for non-Muslims too — indeed anyone who does not champion the British government’s foreign policy or who have a different world view.

Hamid’s prosecution amounts to nothing but internment in another guise and is an affront to general principles of law and justice. It was a calculated, cynical attempt to justify a year long undercover operation, which revealed nothing more than that Hamid perhaps had a sense of humour that may not be to the taste of middle England, and that he was openly critical of British foreign policy.

We call on the British government to release Mohammed Hamid and overturn this serious miscarriage of justice.

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Love Boat or Hate Boat? An Interview with IHH

Love Boat or Hate Boat? An Interview with IHH from Cultures of Resistance on Vimeo.

July 16, 2010 By The Gaza Flotilla archive Leave a Comment
Slandering the Good Guys: Some Basic Facts About IHH

IARA LEE/CULTURES OF RESISTANCE—In the immediate aftermath of the massacre aboard the Mavi Marmara on May 31st, 2010, while journalists and activists were detained and isolated from the world, the Israeli government was quick to unleash their own version of events.

Like the physical assault on the boat, the Israeli media assault was also reckless, clumsy, malicious, and dangerous. They were cynical enough to understand that first impressions in the mainstream American media are what count, and with this in mind they began to frantically hurl the word “terrorist” in reference to both the victims of their attack, as well as one of the main organizers of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, the Turkish NGO IHH.

It is a curious thing that few people asked the Israeli government why they would release “terrorists” that they had in their custody, and even fewer asked for (or received) solid evidence to support this claim. Despite the fact that several courageous journalists both in the US and abroad thoroughly debunked the Israeli account of what happened (this includes deliberately doctored footage along with the libelous accusations of links to terrorism), the damage was done.

Before speakers from the Mavi Marmara were scheduled to speak in New York about what happened on May 31st, local politicians began to put forth the rhetoric of their Israeli handlers, using slanderous language to demonize the victims of Israel’s illegal act of war. And most recently, 87 US senators have urged President Obama to launch an investigation of whether or not IHH should be added to the US list of foreign terrorist organizations.

I am a firm believer that actions speak louder than words, and in this spirit I thought it might help to take a closer look at IHH, and judge this group based on their actions, rather than empty words.

IHH began in 1992 as a humanitarian mission to offer relief to victims injured and displaced during the Bosnian war. They have held Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council since 2004, and since becoming a fully-registered NGO in 1995, IHH — The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief — has accumulated more than 60,000 volunteers for their grassroots humanitarian efforts in 120 countries all over the world. Since May 31st, the number of volunteers has skyrocketed.

After the attack on the Mavi Marmara, I had an opportunity to ask the vice president of IHH, Huseyin Oruc, about accusations of IHH terror links. While he was not interested in dignifying such claims, he was very emphatic about the transparency of IHH’s work over the years, and hoped people would look at their large-scale sanitation and medical missions around the African continent — including 40,000 cataract surgeries in Sudan alone, clean water projects in Ethiopia- and IHH’s extensive work dealing with orphans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Gaza. While they are an Islamic organization, Oruc told me that IHH refuses to differentiate who receives attention based on religion, race, or political affiliation, and has noted their various projects in South America where Muslim populations are slight.

Their modus operandi is simple and direct. Given the neutrality of their humanitarian mission, IHH has been able to access some of the most inaccessible and dangerous regions of the world to help those most in need. Like most NGOs, this means they must coordinate with local governments in order to reach these populations. So while they must communicate with the Hamas government of Gaza to help civilians there, they must likewise do so with Fatah in the West Bank, Al Shabab in Somalia, the military junta in Myanmar and so on. Oruc was adamant that this did not mean IHH endorses any of those governments, and said that anyone who cared to investigate their work would find nothing other than great successes in helping ordinary people in situations of war, poverty, and natural disasters in places such as Haiti, Indonesia, and even the US in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He also told me people were free to investigate their funding, most of which comes from lower and middle class donors, while the rest is raised through food fairs, auctions for Turkish artifacts, and other cultural events. By its own mandate, IHH is not beholden to any government or business interests.

We must remember that an attack on IHH is an attack on all humanitarian groups around the world. Given that IHH is among the most courageous humanitarian NGOs in the world — risking their lives to work in places like Somalia, cleaning up American messes in Iraq and Afghanistan — our politicians should perhaps be thanking them, rather than trying to tarnish their stellar reputation. Thankfully, IHH’s track record speaks for itself, as do the actions of their accusers — a comparison which does not calculate favorably for the Israeli government when asking just who, exactly, the terrorists are.

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US penalizes provision of humanitarian aid to groups it dubs terrorist

voltairenet

The U.S. Supreme Court was requested to review the constitutional validity of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

Introduced by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the bill was adopted by an overwhelming majority in response to the Oklahoma City bombing and enthusiastically signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

One of the clauses prescribing that a terrorist suspect can file only one petition for a writ of habeas corpus (a protection against illegal imprisonment) came under heavy fire. In its decision Felker versus Turpin (1997), the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that the limitation was not in breach of article 1 Section 9 paragraph 2 of the Constitution. True, in itself, it does not constitute an extension of the temporary detention even if, after a first appeal rejection, there is no mechanism to prevent the temporary detention from becoming permanent.

Another stipulation of the law was subject to further comment. It prohibits the willful provision of support of whatever nature – with the exception of medical assistance or a religious service – to any foreign terrorist organization. Following pleas by successive administrations – those of Clinton, Bush and Obama – in the past 12 years the courts have ruled that this applies to an association that provided legal advice to the PKK and to the Tamil Tigers even though such advice envisaged a peaceful solution to the Kurdish and Tamil conflicts by bringing the cases before the United Nations. In its decision Holder versus Humanitarian Law Project, of 21 June 2010, the Court held:

That the terms of the law are sufficiently clear to ensure that a person awaiting trial is in no doubt as to what is prohibited;

That this interdiction does not infringe a person’s freedom of speech, as nothing prevents a subject from expressing his support for causes defended by terrorists;

That neither does this interdiction violate his freedom of assembly as it does not prohibit meeting with terrorists or conversing with them.

Traditionally, the US Supreme Court takes a puritanical view of mankind. Just as puritans prohibit assisting a sinner in distress as long as he has not specifically renounced sin, the Court prohibits providing assistance to terrorists as long as they have not repudiated armed activity. In its view, those who assist them legally, educationally, culturally, socially or in any other manner, enable them to conserve their energy for the commitment of Evil.

Moreover, in United States law a terrorist organization is not an organization that has been sentenced for precise criminal acts but a group designated as such on political grounds by the State Department.

In consequence, all types of activity may be punished as “terrorist” by US courts. This is the case, for example, with the provision of UN food aid to Gaza if it is distributed by local councillors who are members of Hamas.

Thank you tlaxcala and have a look at its new look

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Anait Brutian: Armada of Hate and Violence or Armada of Compassion and Love

Almost two weeks after Israel’s attack on the humanitarian aid ships bound for Gaza, there still remain a lot of questions. This is partly due to the fact that while the deadly assault unfolded in open seas, the journalists and observers on board the ships were prevented from sending accurate reports of the brutal massacre that left nine people dead and many injured. President Obama, in a joint press conference with Mahmoud Abbas, supported the idea of initiating an investigation that “met international standards”: “We saw the tragedy with the flotillas, something that I think has drawn attention all around the world to the ongoing problems in Gaza. As part of the United Nations Security Council, we were very clear in condemning the acts that led to this crisis and have called for a full investigation. And it is important that we get all the facts out. But what we also know is that the situation in Gaza is unsustainable.”

Israel bluntly refused to allow an international investigation. The Free Gaza Movement, designed to deliver aid to besieged Gaza and “to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip” was described as “The armada of hate and violence in support of the Hamas terror organization” by Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, who called the Movement a “premeditated and outrageous provocation” and accused the organizers of having “ties to global Jihad, Al-Qaeda and Hamas.” The outrageous accusations completely ignore the fact that according to the UN statistics, almost 70% of Gazans live on less than $US1a day, 75% rely on food aid and 60% have no daily access to water.

Mr. Ayalon’s contemptible comments attempt to hide the true purpose of Israel’s blockade of Gaza – to subject Gazans to collective punishment for electing Hamas in democratic elections and to weaken its popular support by creating unliveable conditions in Gaza. Accusing parliamentarians, international observers, aid workers, journalists, does not deflect the attention of the world from Israel’s “goal to bring down Hamas,” as much as it highlights the need to rethink the Western bias against a legitimately elected government of the Gaza Strip Israel calls a terrorist organization. In light of Israel’s latest massacre of unarmed civilians aboard Mavi Marmara, the West must not only rethink its attitude towards Hamas, but also must question the credibility of all of Israel’s claims – past and present.

While committing despicable acts of violence against the passengers of the humanitarian aid ships, Israel “tightly controlled the images of its naval raid on the flotilla, seized almost all of the photographic and video equipment of the passengers aboard the ship, also jammed all communications as they were raiding the ships.” A few managed to smuggle out videos and photographs that show the activities on board the ships prior to the Israeli assault and the reaction of the passengers during the attack as well as footage that includes the injured and the dead. New York filmmaker and activist Iara Lee’s hour-long unedited video and Australian photographer Kate Geraghty’s photos provide a glimpse of what actually happened on board the ships.

During her interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Iara Lee said that the activists on board “were prepared for a confrontation,” but did not think it was going to be so violent. “When we saw commandos coming down the helicopter and all these Zodiacs full of navy soldiers coming just around, it was just – we had no words.” ” … The Zodiacs came and surrounded, and the helicopters had their commandos coming down. And it was chaos, total chaos. The women were told to go downstairs and stay quiet and calm. And, you know, I was very concerned about my cameraman, my friends, so I went up. And by the time I went up just to see what was going on, I already saw many injured and dead bodies. It was terrifying … At the end of the operation we had all our equipment confiscated.” According to Ms. Lee, people had their cameras and video equipment during the raid and “everybody was documenting.” However, they could not get their footage or photographs out because “everything got confiscated.”

Soon after the attack, the megaphones in every room of the ship announced: “Stay quiet and calm. They’re using live ammunition. There is no way we can resist. They are taking over the ship. Just stay calm and don’t resist at all.” Indeed, apart from rubber bullets and tear gas, Israelis used live ammunition on Mavi Marmara. This statement is corroborated by the eyewitness accounts of two Australian Journalists on board Challenger One – Paul McGeough, the author of Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas, who is the chief correspondent of Sydney Morning Herald, and Kate Geraghty, photographer with the Sydney Morning Herald. In an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Paul McGeough said: “We were about … 150 meters off to the port side of the ship when the Israelis started lobbing sound grenades, tear-gas canisters onto the rear deck of the boat, where there was a big crowd. You could see them in their lifejackets. You could see the flashes of the incendiary devices. You could hear the noise of them exploding, and a panicked, angry reaction to that.”

As Challenger One was taken over, Kate Geraghty, who was photographing at the time, “took a jolt as she was tasered and thrown across the deck”: “I was photographing, standing right next to Paul. And I was looking over the side of the boat, as the commando came – an Israeli commando came up towards us. … [I] basically got hit on the arm just above my elbow, which knocked me about a meter, about a meter and a half. And then, I was immediately sick.” At the moment Kate started to throw up, the commando came towards her and “wrestled” her camera off. There could be no argument with these armed men, whose accomplishments are measured not in combat, but on high seas, in an act of piracy against tasered photographers and other unarmed civilians. What a sorry addition to a Military Résumé! What a poor use of military might! What an inglorious victory!

Sending military units specially trained to make dangerous raids against unarmed civilians was not “the result of an intelligence rift” as the group of top Israeli Naval reserve officers acknowledged in their denouncement of the raid. Israel has the capacity to intercept all radio communications, and knew in advance that the humanitarian ships carried no militants and no guns. Besides, six activists originally onboard Mavi Marmara, remain unaccounted for: “… They are not hurt, they are not injured, they are not killed. They disappeared … some people … speculate that we had spies, so maybe some of these missing people were … Mossad agents.” The assumption is quite reasonable and it helps answer the question as to why Israel used commandos in camouflage and masked faces to storm a humanitarian ship.

Just as Palestinians in Gaza feel the deadly force of the Israeli military for voting the wrong way, so too, must all supporters of Palestine. The attack was designed to intimidate and punish all those that feel compassion towards besieged Gaza – a collective punishment of sorts, imposed on parliamentarians, aid workers, activists, international observers, and journalists. Ironically, the best support for this statement comes from the Israeli commandos themselves who called Mavi Marmara a “hate boat,” despite the fact that some of their injured soldiers were given medical treatment by the passengers of the so called hate boat: “They [the passengers] managed to get hold of some Israeli soldiers, but obviously we were so brainwashed about nonviolence as our methodology that we didn’t kill any of the Israeli soldiers.”

Measuring their actions against their words leaves one puzzled: “Don’t the Israelis have any sense of Right and Wrong? In the middle of international waters, Israelis came onboard a humanitarian ship and “used live ammunition.” They didn’t “come to play ball … they came to kill.” Nine civilians died and forty-eight others suffered gunshot wounds. Yet, they dare call the ship a “hate boat.” The autopsy results for the nine dead confirmed the use of thirty bullets in each case. Five of the victims had gunshot wounds to the head. The nineteen-year-old Furkan Dogan that also held U.S. citizenship “was shot five times from less than 45 cm […], in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.” Yet, Israel’s deputy foreign minister Daniel Ayalon dares call the Free Gaza Movement “the armada of hate and violence.” Shooting a human being at “a point-blank range” five times is not “hate and violence” but bringing aid to Gaza is! One has to question not only Israel’s comprehension of International Law, but also its sense of morality that expresses itself in brutal acts of violence.

While constructing a whole new prison facility to accommodate over 600 kidnapped activists of the Freedom Flotilla at Ashdod port of Israel, the architects of the premeditated attack also came up with an ingenious plan of blinding, silencing, obscuring all sources of information. Kate Geraghty’s camera was wrestled away, while she was vomiting – she suffered bruises, minor burns and nausea. Challenger One’s first mate, Shane Dillon witnessed the attack on Kate Geraghty and the “ripping” of equipment from Paul McGeough: “She was just doing her journalistic duties … She advised them she was a bona fide photographer.”

Despite the letter sent on May 24, 2010 by Sydney Morning Herald’s editor, Peter Fray, to Israeli authorities – “In the event that Israel apprehends the vessel on which they are travelling, I urge you to allow McGeough and Geraghty the freedom to pursue their journalistic duty …” – and despite the fact that the letter was received by the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, before the Flotilla set sail, both journalist were prohibited from doing their job. “… Before they came on the ship, we were able to do our jobs as our contracts require of us. We were filing regular reports. We had satellites. We had handheld sat phones. We had computers that linked into those satellite phones. We had Kate’s very expensive cameras. Anywhere between $60,000 and $80,000 worth of equipment was confiscated from us, and we have not seen it. We were not given receipts for it.”

A similar sentiment was expressed by Iara Lee of Cultures of Resistance, whose hard drives and camera equipment were seized by invading commandos. Despite her demands – “… We demand our footage back … We could reconstruct the events, if we were given our footage back, and not … [in] a manipulative fashion. They [the Israelis] are extracting things for their stories and putting on the YouTube … This is like complete violation of respect for media” – in all likelihood she will not get her equipment. It would beat the purpose of Israel’s censorship.

Fully aware of the illegality of the attack, the Israelis mounted a disproportionate offensive against people repelling them with chairs, broomsticks, pieces of the boat and rubbish. Israeli authorities claimed that the “commandos were attacked by the protesters,” that there were, according to IDF, “hostile weapons on board.” Eyewitness accounts dismiss Israeli claims, reporting that the commandos used “stun grenades, tasers, high velocity paint ball guns,” rubber bullets, tear gas and live ammunition on unarmed civilians.

Israeli lies would have probably been swallowed wholesale, if there were no records of the raid. By confiscating “every recording and communication device it could find,” Israeli government “selected, edited and released footage they wanted the world to see.” Paul McGeough evaluates Israel’s attempt to censor the raid: “… The thing that – talking to people who were on all of the boats, while we were in detention – the systematic attempt and very deliberate first priority for the Israeli soldiers, as they came on the ships, was to shut down the story, to confiscate all cameras, to shut down satellites, to smash the CCTV cameras that were on the Mavi Marmara, to make sure that nothing was going out. They were hell-bent on controlling the story. If you go back to the Dubai disaster, where the story played so badly for the Israelis in January with the murder of the Hamas operative, they are so concerned and so aware of the importance of controlling the narrative at any volatile point in the crisis that their first priority was, as I said, to shut down any other story.”

While Israel “controlled the narrative,” civilians bled to death. The narrative control was not successful either. Iara Lee describes: “I think the miscalculation was that the Israelis thought, by jamming our satellite system, the world would not have any access to information. And they didn’t know that we had a backup system that was able to transmit live some of the events. And obviously it was dark in the middle of the ocean, so they thought they had it all taken care [of] as far as … no information would come out. They would be the only ones holding the information, because they were obviously filming. And we were hundreds of people, so some of us did manage to get … photographs and video footage out. And today we are showing raw, uncensored footage, and everybody can take the clue. And we’ll make it available to the world for investigations.”

Investigation or not, the world did see the raw footage of Israel’s brutality and it formed an opinion. Israeli commandos that were “captured and briefly detained during initial stages of the raid” were given back to the military. Iara Lee rightly observes: “[This] basically proves that we were not there to lynch anybody, because we had the opportunity of killing or really … mistreating these soldiers, and we didn’t … because we are humanitarian[s]. Despite the chaos, we knew we were supposed to stay nonviolent.” And non-violent they remained! One might ask how does Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon’s “armada of hate and violence” or the commandos’ branding of Mavi Marmara as “hate boat,” fit into the uncensored narrative. If there are violence and hatred – the attack on Freedom Flotilla certainly proves that there are – both are aimed at Humanity that hasn’t lost the capacity to care for the oppressed, despite Israeli lies, misrepresentations, distortions and censorship.

* Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music. She can be contacted at anaitbrutian@videotron.caYou might also like:
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Dr. Fintan Lane describes raid on Challenger I

gazafriends — 17 juin 2010 — Dr. Fintan Lane describes raid on Challenger I. IPSC meeting “Gaza – After the flotilla, What Next?”, Dublin, June 12, 2010. Audio: IPSC http://www.ipsc.ie

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Why, really, was the USS Liberty attacked by Israel?

Alan Hart

The following is my keynote address to the annual re-union dinner of the Liberty Veterans’ Association – Long Island, 12 June 2010.

I want to begin by saying that though I covered wars wherever they were taking place on Planet Earth in my television reporting days – it was in Vietnam as a very young correspondent that I first started to ask myself questions about why things are as they are in the world – I am an Englishman and one who didn’t serve in his country’s armed forces. (Not because I was a draft dodger. Conscription had ended). So it is both an honour and a privilege for me to be with you this evening. And please believe me, I really mean it. I’m not a politician just saying it.

We do, of course, have something in common, OUTRAGE that can’t be expressed adequately in polite words at the continued suppression here in America of the truth about a war crime – Israel’s attack on the U.S.S Liberty; an attack which, if it had gone completely according to plan, would have seen the sinking of the ship with the loss, the murder, of all hands on board. (Which means that some of you here tonight would not be here).

In my latest book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, an epic journey in three volumes through the lies and truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, I have a chapter titled The Liberty Affair, “Pure Murder” on a “Great Day”. (I’ll source those quoted comments later).

In that chapter I say the attack ought to have been a sensational, headline-grabbing news story, but beyond the fact that an “accident” had happened and that Israel had apologized, it did not get reported by America’s news organisations. It was too hot an issue for them to handle and pursue. If it had been an Arab or other Muslim attack on an American vessel it would have been an entirely different matter, of course. In that event there would have been saturation coverage with demands for retaliation including war, with columnists and commentators who are pro-Israel right or wrong setting the pace and tone.

I know that one of the prices Liberty survivors pay for telling the truth is vilification by supporters of Israel right or wrong. The message sent to James Ennes was no doubt typical of many. “You are an anti-Semitic, Nazi bastard. Drop dead.”

Those and similar other false and filthy charges come out of the mouths of people who have been brainwashed by Zionist propaganda and are beyond reason. I mean that they are not open to informed, honest and rational debate. And that, simply stated, is the reason why peace has not yet been possible in the Middle East and probably never will be.

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