On Monday May 31, Israel added another shameful chapter to its long history of blatant disregard of international law and the Geneva Conventions when its navy and air force attacked the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla in international waters, killing 19 international activists and wounding dozens of others.
In a wanton act of state-sponsored terrorism, Israeli warships encircled the aid ships, 150 kilometers outside of its territorial waters, and Israeli gunship helicopters dropped commandos onto the ships, who then began shooting the people on board without giving any prior warning.
The Free Gaza Movement website reported that the Israeli commandos were dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck.
Live footage taken from the Turkish passenger ship, which was posted all over the Internet, showed black-clad Israeli commandos rappelling down from helicopters and clashing with activists, as well as several wounded people lying on the deck of the ship.
The flotilla of six small and medium-sized boats was on its way to deliver and distribute food items, medicines, electric generators, building materials, and children’s toys to the Gaza Strip, which has been under a relentless Israeli blockade since the Islamic resistance movement Hamas took control of the coastal territory in June 2007.
In that freest and fairest election ever held in the Arab world, the people of Palestine delivered Hamas a phenomenal mandate of 74 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council against Al-Fatah's 46.
Out of 1.3 million eligible voters, 77.7 percent thronged the polling stations in Hebron, Nablus, North Gaza, Tulkarm, Jenin, Gaza City, Bethlehem, and throughout the occupied territories to express their opinion.
However, instead of appreciating such a spectacle of democracy, in which the Palestinians showed a superb sense of political consciousness in bringing Hamas to power, the hypocritical Western powers, led by the United States, denounced the Islamic resistance movement and launched a dehumanization campaign against high-ranking Hamas officials, which provided an opportunity for the Zionist regime to impose a crippling siege over the ever-suffering people of Gaza.
However, Israel’s latest atrocity even shocked and outraged its closet allies like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Belgium, and the European Union, which all condemned Israel’s assault on civilians in the Mediterranean Sea.
The United Nations, the Arab League, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan also condemned Israel’s crime against a humanitarian mission.
However, all this did not shame the Zionist regime.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon blamed the victim -- in typical Zionist fashion -- saying the activists themselves were responsible for the massacre and branding them allies of international terrorist organizations.
Had they got through, Ayalon said, they would have opened an arms smuggling route to Gaza.
Adding insult to injury, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak insisted that there is no hunger and no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The whole flotilla operation, he said, was “a political and media provocation by anti-Israeli organizations.”
Since 2008, the Free Gaza Movement and a coalition of human rights activists and pro-Palestinian groups have been sending boats and landing or attempting to land supplies to break the blockade of Gaza, including medical equipment and drugs and building materials.
This time the flotilla, the largest to date, carrying over 600 passengers -- believed to include the Swedish author Henning Mankell and the Irish Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire -- was organized by pro-Gaza groups in Greece and Sweden, the Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, and the Turkish-based foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), all coordinated by the Free Gaza Movement.
After this incident, the world should realize it should stop kowtowing to Israel and should inform Tel Aviv that it can no longer flout international law.
All countries should send Israeli ambassadors packing and should call on the International Criminal Court to try the Israeli officials responsible for ordering the murder of unarmed civilians in an act of unprovoked aggression on the open sea.
And the international community should organize an enormous flotilla of aid ships from all over world and send it to break the siege of Gaza.
The Zionist regime understood the importance of this grand mission, and thus tried to instill fear in the hearts of the people of the Middle East with the massacre of unarmed civilians. But Israel’s bloody interception of the Gaza aid flotilla will highlight the continuing blockade of the Gaza Strip in the most dramatic way possible and will certainly increase the pressure to lift the siege.
So the blood of the men and women who sacrificed their lives on Monday for the cause of Palestine will not have been spilt in vain and will usher in a new era of hope for the oppressed people of Palestine.
Gul Jammas Hussain
Showing posts with label Massacre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Massacre. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Fort Hood: US Suffers Collateral Damage From Iraq And Afghan Wars
The impact of Washington's neo-colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the moral impact of the enormous gulf between the “official story” and harsh reality, must find expression within sections of the US military itself. To fight an unpopular war against a hostile population is a demoralising and inevitably brutalising experience.
The mayhem at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday, which has left 13 men and women dead and 30 injured, is a by-product of the brutal wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is a form of “collateral damage” for which the American political and military establishment is ultimately responsible.
The US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have now lasted a combined 14 and a half years Not only is there no end in sight in either case, there is the prospect of the wars’ expansion into Pakistan, with bloodier and more disastrous consequences. The invasions have already led to the devastation of Iraqi and Afghan society, the deaths of as many as a million Iraqis alone, and thousands of Americans killed, or maimed.
The wars are not about democracy, overthrowing tyrants, or protecting the American people from terrorism. The US ruling elite is waging these interventions to seize control of critical energy supplies, to strengthen its position vis à vis its rivals in Europe and Asia, to gain global hegemony through its military superiority.
The impact of these neo-colonial wars, including the moral impact of the enormous gulf between the “official story” and harsh reality, must find expression within sections of the US military itself. To fight an unpopular war against a hostile population is a demoralising and inevitably brutalising experience.
The alleged perpetrator at Fort Hood, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the son of Palestinian immigrant parents now both dead, spent most of his Army medical career at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC. For six years, from 2003 until last summer, he worked as a liaison between wounded soldiers and the hospital’s psychiatric staff.
In that capacity, he dealt with severely wounded military personnel. His aunt told the Washington Post that on the rare occasions “when he spoke of his work in any detail … Hasan told her of soldiers wracked by what they had seen. One patient had suffered burns to his face so intense ‘that his face had nearly melted,’ she said. ‘He told us how upsetting that was to him.’” An op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun by a Vietnam veteran and psychiatrist asks, only half-facetiously, “Is post-traumatic stress disorder something you can catch from your patients like a virus?”
Hasan, a devout Muslim, apparently developed a fierce opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Promoted to the rank of major in May, he subsequently learned he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan. He had hired a military lawyer and had been attempting to avoid being sent overseas and to leave the Army since September. Hasan’s aunt told the Post that the military “would not let him leave even after he offered to repay” the cost of his medical training.
His cousin commented to the media that Hasan was deeply traumatised about seeing wartime service. “We’ve known for the last five years that that was probably his worst nightmare. He would tell us how he hears horrific things [from the wounded] … that was probably affecting him psychologically.”
Many factors combine to produce the sort of breakdown that Hasan obviously underwent, including the overall social and political atmosphere in the country. A co-worker told reporters that Hasan was angry about American involvement in the ongoing wars, and that he “was hoping Obama would pull troops out and that things would settle down, and when things were not going that way, he became more agitated and frustrated with the conflicts over there.” The imperviousness of the existing political system to the sentiments of the population, along with the resulting feelings of alienation and powerlessness, is no small contributor to apparently “senseless” violence.
Personal mental instability is undoubtedly an element. Unmarried and without a girlfriend, a “bookish loner,” increasingly devoted to religion, Hasan had told relatives that “the military was his life.” Bitter disappointment and a sense of betrayal as he discovered the true character of the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and horror over the possibility of being compelled to participate in those wars, may well have pushed a psychologically vulnerable individual over the edge.
The media is already harping on one of its favourite themes whenever a mass shooting takes place in America: how did the authorities miss the “warning signs”? Indeed, there seem to have been numerous such signs in this case, including Hasan’s alleged web site postings in defence of suicide bombers, and his frantic anxiety about deployment to Afghanistan.
On the one hand, the Army’s apparent indifference to Hasan’s state of mind gives some indication of the value the military command places on the work of its psychiatric staff, overworked and overwhelmed in any event as a result of the volume of mentally damaged Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans thrust into the system.
On the other, how is the military to pick out signs of a potential individual collapse, when there are so many indications of mass, collective breakdown?
The Wall Street Journal reported November 3, two days before the Fort Hood killings, that 16 US soldiers killed themselves in October, “an unusually high monthly toll that is fuelling concerns about the mental health of the nation’s military personnel after more than eight years of continuous warfare.”
The Journal notes that 134 active-duty soldiers had taken their lives so far in 2009, putting “the Army on pace to break last year’s record of 140. … The number of Army suicides has risen by 37% since 2006, and last year, the suicide rate surpassed that of the US population for the first time.” More soldiers killed themselves in 2008 than at any time since the Pentagon began keeping track nearly three decades ago.
In late October, a National Guard soldier, who had served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, home on a 15-day leave, shot himself in the head in a Muncie, Indiana movie theatre. In July a 30-year-old soldier was shot and killed by a fellow soldier at a party at Fort Hood, and in September a soldier shot and killed a lieutenant at the base, before killing himself (Fort Hood, the largest military installation in the world, has suffered more than 500 combat deaths and 75 suicides since 2001). In Baghdad earlier this year, an Army sergeant walked into a combat stress centre and opened fire, killing five of his fellow soldiers.
Ten members of a single military unit at Fort Carson, Colorado, were charged with murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter from 2006 through the fall of 2008.
An article in the September 2009 issue of Management Science notes that the tempo of deployment cycles in Iraq is higher than for any war since World War II and that survey data suggests that the rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among Iraq war veterans may be as high as 35 percent.
Endless war is wreaking havoc on American society. The Fort Hood shootings emerge almost inevitably out of this horror and confusion.
David Walsh
The mayhem at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday, which has left 13 men and women dead and 30 injured, is a by-product of the brutal wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is a form of “collateral damage” for which the American political and military establishment is ultimately responsible.
The US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have now lasted a combined 14 and a half years Not only is there no end in sight in either case, there is the prospect of the wars’ expansion into Pakistan, with bloodier and more disastrous consequences. The invasions have already led to the devastation of Iraqi and Afghan society, the deaths of as many as a million Iraqis alone, and thousands of Americans killed, or maimed.
The wars are not about democracy, overthrowing tyrants, or protecting the American people from terrorism. The US ruling elite is waging these interventions to seize control of critical energy supplies, to strengthen its position vis à vis its rivals in Europe and Asia, to gain global hegemony through its military superiority.
The impact of these neo-colonial wars, including the moral impact of the enormous gulf between the “official story” and harsh reality, must find expression within sections of the US military itself. To fight an unpopular war against a hostile population is a demoralising and inevitably brutalising experience.
The alleged perpetrator at Fort Hood, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the son of Palestinian immigrant parents now both dead, spent most of his Army medical career at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC. For six years, from 2003 until last summer, he worked as a liaison between wounded soldiers and the hospital’s psychiatric staff.
In that capacity, he dealt with severely wounded military personnel. His aunt told the Washington Post that on the rare occasions “when he spoke of his work in any detail … Hasan told her of soldiers wracked by what they had seen. One patient had suffered burns to his face so intense ‘that his face had nearly melted,’ she said. ‘He told us how upsetting that was to him.’” An op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun by a Vietnam veteran and psychiatrist asks, only half-facetiously, “Is post-traumatic stress disorder something you can catch from your patients like a virus?”
Hasan, a devout Muslim, apparently developed a fierce opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Promoted to the rank of major in May, he subsequently learned he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan. He had hired a military lawyer and had been attempting to avoid being sent overseas and to leave the Army since September. Hasan’s aunt told the Post that the military “would not let him leave even after he offered to repay” the cost of his medical training.
His cousin commented to the media that Hasan was deeply traumatised about seeing wartime service. “We’ve known for the last five years that that was probably his worst nightmare. He would tell us how he hears horrific things [from the wounded] … that was probably affecting him psychologically.”
Many factors combine to produce the sort of breakdown that Hasan obviously underwent, including the overall social and political atmosphere in the country. A co-worker told reporters that Hasan was angry about American involvement in the ongoing wars, and that he “was hoping Obama would pull troops out and that things would settle down, and when things were not going that way, he became more agitated and frustrated with the conflicts over there.” The imperviousness of the existing political system to the sentiments of the population, along with the resulting feelings of alienation and powerlessness, is no small contributor to apparently “senseless” violence.
Personal mental instability is undoubtedly an element. Unmarried and without a girlfriend, a “bookish loner,” increasingly devoted to religion, Hasan had told relatives that “the military was his life.” Bitter disappointment and a sense of betrayal as he discovered the true character of the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and horror over the possibility of being compelled to participate in those wars, may well have pushed a psychologically vulnerable individual over the edge.
The media is already harping on one of its favourite themes whenever a mass shooting takes place in America: how did the authorities miss the “warning signs”? Indeed, there seem to have been numerous such signs in this case, including Hasan’s alleged web site postings in defence of suicide bombers, and his frantic anxiety about deployment to Afghanistan.
On the one hand, the Army’s apparent indifference to Hasan’s state of mind gives some indication of the value the military command places on the work of its psychiatric staff, overworked and overwhelmed in any event as a result of the volume of mentally damaged Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans thrust into the system.
On the other, how is the military to pick out signs of a potential individual collapse, when there are so many indications of mass, collective breakdown?
The Wall Street Journal reported November 3, two days before the Fort Hood killings, that 16 US soldiers killed themselves in October, “an unusually high monthly toll that is fuelling concerns about the mental health of the nation’s military personnel after more than eight years of continuous warfare.”
The Journal notes that 134 active-duty soldiers had taken their lives so far in 2009, putting “the Army on pace to break last year’s record of 140. … The number of Army suicides has risen by 37% since 2006, and last year, the suicide rate surpassed that of the US population for the first time.” More soldiers killed themselves in 2008 than at any time since the Pentagon began keeping track nearly three decades ago.
In late October, a National Guard soldier, who had served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, home on a 15-day leave, shot himself in the head in a Muncie, Indiana movie theatre. In July a 30-year-old soldier was shot and killed by a fellow soldier at a party at Fort Hood, and in September a soldier shot and killed a lieutenant at the base, before killing himself (Fort Hood, the largest military installation in the world, has suffered more than 500 combat deaths and 75 suicides since 2001). In Baghdad earlier this year, an Army sergeant walked into a combat stress centre and opened fire, killing five of his fellow soldiers.
Ten members of a single military unit at Fort Carson, Colorado, were charged with murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter from 2006 through the fall of 2008.
An article in the September 2009 issue of Management Science notes that the tempo of deployment cycles in Iraq is higher than for any war since World War II and that survey data suggests that the rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among Iraq war veterans may be as high as 35 percent.
Endless war is wreaking havoc on American society. The Fort Hood shootings emerge almost inevitably out of this horror and confusion.
David Walsh
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