LEBANON: THE AFTERMATH OF WAR. A SYNTHESIS

by Sarah Meyer
Index Research

This article originally published on 20/09/06; updated 15/11/06

photo: Carolyn Brown

"The arms trade … is the modern slave trade. It is an industry out of control: every day more than 1,000 people are killed by conventional weapons. The vast majority of those people are innocent men, women and children." Desmond Tutu.

The Israel-Lebanon conflict, known in Lebanon as The July War and in Israel as the Second Lebanese War, was from 12 July to 14 August 2006, when the UN ceasefire went into effect. The Israelis continued to blockade Lebanon until the 8th of September.

1. Lebanon Infrastructure & Environment
2. Cluster Bombs
3. Phosphorus Bombs
4. Depleted Uranium
5. Other Gruesome Weaponry?
6. Displacement and Death
7. Calls for War Crimes Trials
8. Other Responses: Israel, UK, USA
9. “Anti-Semitism”
10. Updates

Lebanon Infrastructure and Environment

On the 23rd of August, Amnesty International presented first hand information on the Israeli policy of deliberate destruction of the civilian infrastructure. The Amnesty report was followed nine days later by a report of The European Commission. This report said that:

• Israel destroyed or damaged in south Lebanon 1489 buildings, 21 of 29 bridges over the Litani river, 535 sections of road and 545 cultivated fields during its 34-day military offensive.


• In Beirut, 326 residential buildings have either been damaged or destroyed in the southern suburbs, of which 269 are located in the Haret Horaik area.


• All runways of Beirut airport and six strategic highway sections have been severely damaged.

The Red Cross reported (12.09): "During the conflict the majority of people affected were civilians and two thirds of them were women and children."

Hezbollah, meanwhile, was rapidly managing to do what the US has failed to do either in Iraq or Afghanistan: make funds available to rebuild the country. By handing out $US 12,000 to families whose homes had been destroyed, and swiftly distributing food, it immediately won the support of the Lebanese people. Not to be outdone by Hezbollah’s generosity, the Lebanese government said it, too, would compensate war victims. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has said his government would pay $40,000 to families whose homes were destroyed. Meanwhile, in Beint Jbeil, the Hezbollah are eager to work. A surveyor working with the council spoke of official shortcomings. 'Hezbollah intervenes quickly; it pays straightaway. It is much faster and less bureaucratic.'

The corporate world raised its profile when the milk factory was bombed in Lebanon. Nestle’s Israeli branch allegedly held the UNIFIL milk contract until 2001. Until the factory was bombed by Israel recently, Lebanon held the contract. Nestle refuses to return calls. Nestle owns 50.1 percent of Israeli food maker Osem Investments and the two together produce snack foods at a plant in Sderot. Nestle also own: Perrier water, Hagen Dazs ice cream, around 50% of l’Oreal, baby milk powder, snack foods, dog and cat food brands, etc. Nestlé says it has over 200, 000 shareholders. (Stop buying Nestle products!)

The oil spill, due to an Israeli strike on the Jeyyeh power station, threatened the entire 105 mile coastline and was spreading out to sea. It was said that it could take 10 years for the affected area to recover. Crisis talks with officials from the UN, EU and National Maritime Association were scheduled to take place in Greece. Israel was unhelpful, as their blockade prevented the clean-up of the oil spill. Environmentalists were prevented from acquiring detailed information on the locations and trajectory of the oil spill.

Ancient civilian heritage was also damaged – by oil, and by bombs. UNESCO has launched an appeal to save Lebanese historic sites. Both ancient and medieval remains were coated in oil following the Israeli bombing of this power plant. Tyre and Baalbek need restorative care from explosions.

On the 14th of September, Lebanon was preparing legal action to sue Israel. This doesn't help the farmer whose olive trees are being cut down and land levelled by Israeli bulldozers whilst the international forces stand by and do nothing but write down the violations in their notebooks.

CLUSTER BOMBS

Ten years to clear the 100,000 cluster bombs in Lebanon.

Israeli forces demolish home with family still inside, father and son killed
16. 08.06. Maan News Agency.

South Lebanon littered with war's lethal leftovers
16.08.06. Reuters. Unexploded ordinance, also known as UXO, have killed at least four people and injured at least eight since a U.N.-backed truce halted fighting between Israel and Hizbollah on Monday. … Jawad Najam, a doctor at a private hospital in nearby Tyre, said his staff had treated 25 people for cluster bomb injuries in 24 hours. He described the bombs as looking "like toys".

Clustered in Fear, and Now Death
16.08.06. B. Wallace, LA Times. AINATA, Lebanon — All the dead were neighbors, killed as they huddled together in the basement of the Fadlallah family house in the old quarter of this southern Lebanese town.

Lebanon: Israeli Cluster Munitions Threaten Civilians
17.08.06. Human Rights News. Israel Must Provide Data To Save Lives.

Lebanese forces defuse cluster bombs in southern Lebanon
18.08.06. Bahrain News Agency. Lebanese forces have so far defused 10,000 cluster bombs and repaired damage caused to electricity, telephone and water works caused by the Israelis.

LEBANON: Leftover Israeli cluster bombs kill civilians
21.08.06. Reuters. In the 40 villages the de-mining group had visited around Nabatiyeh, half had been "severely contaminated" with cluster bombs.

Video. CNN. (3 min). Cluster Bombs in Lebanon (22.08.06).

Israel cluster bombed 170 sites in Lebanon,
23.08.06. Peninsula Qatar.

Report from Southern Lebanon: Ana Nogueira Investigates the Lasting Dangers of Unexploded Israeli Cluster Bombs
23.08.06. Democracy Now. “So the American stuff is much, much worse than the Israeli-manufactured, and primarily the Israelis have been using American weapons.”

IMPRISONED BY BOMBS
29.08.06. Reuters. Sean Sutton of British-based Mines Advisory Group describes a day's work with explosives experts in southern Lebanon.

UN: Israel spewed cluster bombs over Lebanon in last days of war
30.08.06. UN. (Jan Egeland) “said the UN Mine Action Coordination Center had assessed "nearly 85 percent of bombed areas in south Lebanon" and identified "359 separate cluster bomb strike locations that are contaminated with as many 100,000 unexploded bomblets. What's shocking and I would say completely immoral is that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict.”

Annan blasts Israel over cluster bombs
31.08.06. Middle East Times. "Those kinds of weapons shouldn't be used in civilian and populated areas ... and [we need to] move very quickly to disarm them," Annan said ..

BBC: Clearing weapons from South Lebanon. Photos.

IDF defends use of cluster bombs in Lebanon
31.08.06. Jerusalem Post.

Lebanon/Israel: Israel must disclose details of cluster bomb attacks and accept a full investigation
31.08.06. Amnesty International, Press Release.

Pressure for ban on cluster bombs as Israel is accused of targeting civilians
31.08.06. B. Russell, Independent. United Nations officials said that 12 people had been killed, and another 49 injured by such bombs since the war ended and that the casualty rate was likely to rise.

VIDEO. UN: Over 100,000 cluster bombs in Lebanon. Channel 4 Special Report, 31.08.06.

A decade to clear bombs
01.09.06. Washington Post. Three types of artillery-delivered cluster bombs were used by Israel in Lebanon -- two U.S.-made (M42 and M77) and one Israeli (M85), each with roughly the same failure rate of 40 percent, he said.

NZ calls for stronger controls on cluster bombs
07.09.06. "The latest information I have from the United Nations Mine Action Service is that the situation there is without a doubt the worst post-conflict cluster bomb contamination they've ever had to deal with. The latest estimate is that 50 per cent are not detonating on impact and are there waiting for an innocent person to come along. There have so far been 68 confirmed casualties, 12 of them fatal."

Vatican asks UN for moratorium on cluster bombs
08.09.06. Ekklesia.

Cluster bombs wound seven people in Lebanon
13.09.06. Raw Story.

A Walk Through the Rubble: Israel's Use of American Cluster Bombs
14.09.06. Dr. F. Lamb, AlSultaneih / Counterpunch. … "A desire by Israel to get rid of as much of its U.S. cluster bomb inventory as possible, which the Pentagon has stipulated must be reduced to a lower level before Israel can reorder newer models like the M-26. This is why the 33-year old CBU-58, almost extinct, was used so widely. Israel was cleaning out its CBU closet for new orders, one Lebanese army source reported. Senator Ted Stevens and those in the Senate who opposed banning cluster bombs on Sept. 9 might want to reflect on what actual utility the US cluster bombs used by Israel in Lebanon actually achieved."

Deadly harvest: The Lebanese fields sown with cluster bombs
18.09.06. P. Cockburn, Independent. “The casualty figures will rise sharply in the next month as villagers begin the harvest, picking olives from trees whose leaves and branches hide bombs that explode at the smallest movement.”

US MAY ban sale of cluster bombs to Israel
20.09.06. P. Cockburn, Independent. "The US State Department is investigating Israel's use of American-made cluster bombs during the war in Lebanon. In particular, whether or not Israel broke a secret agreement with the United States not to use cluster bombs against civilians. There are letters scrawled in Hebrew on the metal but most of the writing is in English; CBU [Clusturer is identified as Lanson Industries. There are a number of cryptic code numbers reading "Part No 7127151/22290" and "FSN 1325-758-0417" and contract no F42600-72-2676. The bomb was made before the Vietnam War had ended, because there is a marking showing that its warranty ended on 7 February 1974. The expiry of the warranty more than 30 years ago suggests that the manufacturer expected some deterioration in the product."

Why sell cluster bombs in the first place? All production of cluster bombs should be stopped, now. Any company found manufacturing cluster bombs should be prosecuted. The sale / purchase of cluster bombs should be illegal. Meanwhile, it is the Israeli and the U.S. governments who should pay the cost for - and do the work of - clearing the cluster bombs in Lebanon.

PHOSPHORUS BOMBS

Israel utilized white phosphorus in its bombardments of Lebanon
27.08.06. granma.cu. At least three corpses with clear signs of having been attacked with white phosphorus, a chemical weapon banned for use against human beings, were taken to a hospital in the Lebanese city of Baalbek during the war. … samples from the corpses to Beirut … have been forwarded to a chemical weapons research laboratory in Paris to be analyzed.

See Israeli confirmation of the use of phosphorus bombs below, or here.

DEPLETED URANIUM

Iraqi child affected by DU. ALJAZEERA

Whilst there have been many articles on the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon, there has been an inexcusable and irresponsible lack of information concerning the amount of depleted uranium used in Lebanon. In addition to the information given in Index on Illegal US Weapons in Israel, the following information is available.

In March 2006, Raw Story printed an article by John Byrne: U.S. signs $38 million deal for depleted uranium tank shells. It should be asked if these depleted uranium munitions, made by Alliant Techsystems, were used by the Israelis in their war against Lebanon, or if any other DU munitions were sent to Israel.

Dr. Rokke talks about depleted uranium, used in Lebanon
16.08.06. INN World report. If you don’t believe DU is dangerous both to humans and the environment, watch this video and see the results of DU. The use of depleted uranium is a war crime.

Scientists suspect Israeli arms used in South contain radioactive matter
21.08.06. Daily Star / ICH.

Global Diabetes Epidemic Caused by Depleted Uranium
23.08.06. L. Moret, Rense.com. 2 maps of destruction in Lebanon. Short precis on depleted uranium, cluster bombs, missiles and white phosphorus in Lebanon. “(DU) will contaminate the entire Mediterranean, Europe, and beyond... wherever the winds take it, to be rained and snowed out in our back yards.

Roof-top protest at Brighton arms manufacturer
23.08.06. AFP. Parts for the Hellfire missile are made by EDO MBM in Brighton. … EDO (UK) Limited, formerly EDO MBM Technology Limited, is part of the US-based EDO corporation, and designs, develops and manufactures weapon carriage and release systems for the aerospace and defence industries. Clients include Britain's Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, according to its website.

The Middle East : Lethal Legacy
13.09.06. F. Arbuthnot. “A silent holocaust across the region.”

The United States does not have a problem with the illegality of depleted uranium. In fact, according to an AP story, the U.S. has just ordered a new ‘bigger and better’ vehicle, the MGS, which will carry both a depleted uranium armor-piercing round and a “canister round filled with 2,300 tungsten ball bearings.”

OTHER GRUESOME WEAPONRY?

For more photographic evidence of Israeli war crimes in Lebanon, click here.

What Types of Gruesome Weapons Did Israel Use in Lebanon?
23.08.06. N. Sayad, Samidoun Media Center / Global Research. Dr. Omar Morabi, the president of the Association of the Lebanese Belgian Friendship in Brussels, said that a mission of the World Health Organization (WHO) would be traveling to Lebanon with a view to taking samples from dead bodies in South Lebanon.

DISPLACEMENT AND DEATH

Lebanon digs mass graves for war dead
17.08.06. TVNZ.

Lebanon’s pain grows by the hour as death toll hits 1,300
17.08.06. R. Fisk, Independent.

War inflicted $3.6b. damage on Lebanon.
18.08.06. Reuters. 1/4th of the population, or 90,000 are displaced.

CALLS FOR WAR CRIMES TRIALS

The Geneva Conventions

Protocol I, Article 85, Section 3 of the Geneva Convention: "An indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects and resulting in excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions."

A War Crimes Tribunal May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War
01.07.06. F. Boyle, Counterpunch.

Online petition to try Israel for war crimes urged
16.08.06. Gulf Daily News.

The real threat we face is Blair
17.08.06. J. Pilger, New Statesman / ICH. "By any measure of international law, from Nuremberg to the Geneva accords, Blair is a major prima facie war criminal."

War Crimes: The case against Israel
18.08.06. Pravda. "The State of Israel is hereby accused of committing War Crimes in the conflict with Hezbollah IN Lebanon (July 12th to August 12th 2006). We present and document four counts where the Geneva Convention has been seriously breached."

Envoy condemns Israel’s crimes in Lebanon
18.08.06. iran mania. "According to an IRNA report, Iranian Ambassador to Beirut Mohammad-Reza Sheybani in a meeting with Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, condemned Israel's crimes in Lebanon. He urged the need to pursue the crimes, which were committed by the Zionists, through regional and international bodies."

Campaign for Accountability for U.S./Israeli War Crimes
20.08.06. Ramsey Clarke.

Government studies options to sue Israel for war crimes
22.08.06. Daily Star.

War Crimes: The case against Israel
23.08.06. T. Bancroft-Hiunchey, Pravda. We present and document four counts where the Geneva Convention has been seriously breached.

Lebanon Considers Suing Israel for War Crimes,
30.08.06. Democracy Now. Lebanese parliament member Ghassan Moukheiber is leading the charge in the case. He's an attorney and a member of the parliamentary human rights committee.

U.N. Names Panel to Probe Israel Abuses.
01.09.06. AP / Washington Post. They leave for Lebanon on the 23rd of September.

Israel officials warned of possible war crimes prosecutions abroad.
04.09.06. The Jurist. “The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs [official website] has warned senior government and military officials that inflammatory statements some made about the recent conflict with Lebanon, such as advocating the bombing of villages that housed Hezbollah rebels, could lead to war crimes prosecutions abroad, the Israeli Army Radio reported Monday.”

Groups prepare to charge Israel with war crimes
13.09.06. Jerusalem newswire.
& also, but with more detail,
Groups gather evidence of possible Israeli war crimes in Lebanon,
13.09.06 AP.

Under fire: Hizbullah’s attacks on northern Israel,
14.09.06. Amnesty International.

Moroccan Jews charge Israel with war crimes,
14.12.06. workers.org.

In the Swiftian tradition, Prison Planet replied to a discussion following an Israel Lobby Watch article in the Nation: “All this bickering can be put to rest quite simply by the UN issuing an amendment that stipulates the Geneva war convention rules apply to all nations EXCEPT the US, UK and Israel.”

It is not the UN that is trying to change the rules, however. It is President Bush who, fearful of his own part in committing War Crimes, and with the help of supportive “lawyers” is trying to change the rules.

OTHER RESPONSES

With all the contradictory stories flying around, it was good to read an interview with the excellent U.S. reporter, Dahr Jamail, who felt The World Just Stood By.

Israel

The hidden story of Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails
18.08.06. S. Assaf, uruknet. A secret list … has revealed the names of 67 men known to have been kidnapped by Israel and its allies during 18 years of occupation. Thousands of others are missing.

Haaretz (22.08.06) said that Israeli Arabs would get less government war compensation than Jews.

The truth started to emerge from some of the Israeli military.

Video. Channel 4 news (23.08.06, 11 min.) A senior tank commander says at the height of the offensive he disobeyed orders - refusing to send his men into high-risk battle because they just weren't ready. To watch Israeli’s Protest at War Effort, click here.

IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon
12.09.06. Haaretz / ICH. “ ‘What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs,’ the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war. Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets. In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law."
and
Israeli commander says, what the IDF did was "crazy and monstrous.
14.09.06. M. Rapoport, Haaretz. … "The IDF also used cluster shells fired by 155 mm artillery cannons, so the number of cluster bombs fired on Lebanon is even higher. At the same time, soldiers in the artillery corps testified that the IDF used phosphorous shells, which many experts say is prohibited by international law. According to the claims, the overwhelming majority of the weapons mentioned were fired during the last ten days of the war. … At the same time, soldiers are reporting that they fired phosphorous shells, which are supposed to be used by the IDF for marking or setting fire to areas, in order to start fires in Lebanon. The artillery commander says he saw trucks with phosphorous shells en route to artillery batteries in the North."

A former IDF chief said that soldiers were sacrificed as spin (14.09.06 Haaretz). One Israeli general resigned over the Lebanon war (14.09.06, English People).

The Jewish Voice For Peace published the statistics of U.S. Military Aid and Israel.

• Total direct aid to Israel, 1948-2003
  $89.9 billion (uncorrected for inflation)


• Since 1976 Israel has been the largest annual recipient of US aid. It is the largest cumulative recipient since World War II.


• Direct U.S. aid for each Israeli citizen in 2001 (per capita annual income of Israel = $16,710) -- over $500


• Direct U.S. Aid for each Ethiopian citizen in 2001 (per capita annual income of Ethiopia = $100) -- about $0.45


• REGULAR US GRANT AID in FY 2003
  $2.76 billion military aid grant
  $2.1 billion economic support funds
  $600 million refugee resettlement grant


• COMMERCIAL LOAN GUARANTEES IN FY 2003
  $2 billion


• BUSH ADMINISTRATION SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST FOR FY 2003
  Military aid grant $1 billion
  Commercial loan guarantees $9 billion
  Arrow missile development $60 million


• TOTAL AID FOR FY 2003 $14.82 billion


• Percentage of U.S. foreign aid that goes to Israel -- 30%


• Israel's population as a percentage of world population -- .01%


• Section 116 of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) states, "No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." 22 U.S.C. 2304(a)


• Section 4 of the Arms Export Control Act prohibits selling military equipment to countries that use them for non-self-defense purposes.


• The U.S. State Department determined in February 2001 that Israel has committed each of the acts that the law defines as "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges and trial, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, and other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or the security of person." It described Israeli army use of live ammunition against Palestinians when soldiers were not in impending danger as "excessive use of force."

Israel Buys 2 Nuclear-Capable Submarines
24.08.06. All Headline News. Israel has purchased two additional German-made Dolphin submarines enabled to fire nuclear warheads. Military experts say Israel is clearly indicating to Iran that it can retaliate if attacked by nuclear weapons.

And the Israeli air force chief is going to plan the war on Iran. The pot calls the kettle black: Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, said the world “cannot afford” for Iran to have nuclear weapons.

And what now?
Israel Drawing Up Battle Plans For Next Lebanon War
18.09.06, all headlines.

Meanwhile, there is, writes L. Susser (18.09.06) trouble brewing in Israel as "more and more politicians and Israel Defense Force commanders are going public and blaming each other for the war's failures and shortcomings. The public mood and the commission's findings could have major consequences for Israel's military and political leadership."

UK

On the 13th of July, the day after the war started in Lebanon, a Briefing Paper for a parliamentary lobby was presented: Israel’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Cause for Concern. In this paper see: Weapons, Delivery Systems, Use of: pp. 2 – 5; Israeli Arms Trade pp. 12 – 15.

The majority of people in England were very agitated about the ‘Bliar’ (sic) government response. Over 100,000 people attended a demonstration during the Lebanese war.’ A legal bid to block the use of British airports by US planes supplying bombs to Israel has been rejected by the High Court. A judge in London dismissed a plea by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) for permission to seek judicial review and an injunction against the Government, based on the argument that it was knowingly assisting "acts of terrorism" by Israel in its campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Belatedly, the European nations decided not to allow stop-overs of Israeli arms flights. The nations now refusing airport access to Israel include Britain, Germany and Italy.

Blair, already in deep trouble because of the Iraq war and polls which show British people feel less safe since 9/11, was now hit by Lebanon backlash.
A minister admitted the government’s ceasefire 'mistake.' (14.09.06. A. McSmith, Independent.) ‘A Foreign Office minister has conceded that Tony Blair's refusal to call for a ceasefire during 34 days of slaughter in Lebanon may have been a mistake. … The former foreign office minister, Denis MacShane, a Blair supporter, said: "In geopolitical terms, calling for a ceasefire would not have stopped a single bomb from being dropped or a single rocket from being fired, but the whole of Britain was outraged by what they saw on television and there are times when government must consider public opinion." (sm italics)

U.S.A.

Hollywood stars blast Nasrallah,
17.08.06, Ynet news. Some 84 movie stars, film industry members sign a statement condemning Hizbullah, Hamas activities in Middle East. Including: Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton, William Hurt, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner, Sam Raimi; Sumner Redstone; Haim Saban; also: Serena Williams, Rupert Murdoch. Actor Adam Sandler announced that he would donate $100,000 to the children of the north and south, and about 400 Play-Station games purchased by the actor are expected to be transferred to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem in the coming days.

I have been informed that all donations from Jewish Americans to the Israeli government are US - tax – deductible, so perhaps the ‘donations’ are not quite what they seem.

US extends credit line to Israel.
20.08.06. Ynet / ICH. Bush administration agrees to extend by three-year loan guarantees for Israel given to Israel in 2003; Israel has used USD 4.9 billion of a total USD 9 billion. To add insult to injury, the US may consider additional aid to IDF (31.08.06. J/ Katz, Jerusalem Post) “If Israel asks, the US would ‘seriously consider’ granting the Defense Ministry additional financial assistance because of the huge expenses incurred during the war in Lebanon, a high-ranking US diplomat revealed Wednesday.”

US aid to help clear Lebanon mines.
24.08.06. news.com. (The) Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement planned to provide an immediate $US420,000 to help remove unexploded mines and cluster bombs left over from the recent 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas… An additional $US2.0 million ($2.63 million) will be sought to continue the work into the next fiscal year, which begins October 1. The aid (is) subject to congressional approval.” (sm highlight - ie, NOT “immediate”). Sure enough, four days the US said it would withhold aid to Lebanon until troops secure the border (28.08.08, AP). ‘Tom Lantos said Sunday that he would ask the U.S. administration to freeze the U.S. $230 million aid package to Lebanon proposed by President George W. Bush until the Lebanese government takes control of its borders with Syria and prevent arms smuggling to Hezbollah guerrillas.’

Inquiry Opened Into Israeli Use of U.S. Bombs
24.08.06. ‘The State Department is investigating whether Israel’s use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon violated secret agreements with the United States that restrict when it can employ such weapons, two officials said. … The agreements that govern Israel’s use of American cluster munitions go back to the 1970’s, when the first sales of the weapons occurred.’

Two Congressional Research Service reports were produced

• "Israel: Background and Relations with the United States,"
  updated August 31, 2006 (SM: Some chapter headings and subheadings are incorrect; no mention is made of US arms sales to Israel which were used in bombing of Lebanon. Nor is there a discussion of flights with US weapons through UK airports.


• "Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy,"
  updated September 1, 2006.

Senate rejects bomb restrictions
09.09.06. JTA. The U.S. Senate voted down a proposal to restrict sales of cluster bombs. Civilians’ deaths and injuries don’t matter, I guess.

The Jerusalem Post noted that the US was moving to scuttle the Arab plan for an international peace conference.

Bush and Co. don’t want to be tried as war criminals, so Bush is trying to change Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Even the NY Times doesn’t approve of this.

“Anti-Semitism”

The media had its problems, blindspots and corporate considerations during the war. Following the war, the U.S. right - wing press went into overdrive. One result of this distorted information was a barrage of ‘hate mail.’ One has two alternatives: either to 1) junk this post or 2) try to develop a reasonable discussion. The latter has proved impossible for me. Those who write, accusing me of being “anti-semitic, a jew-hater, pathological, a liar, a hateful person, a hate-filled person,” ad nauseum, have no wish to either point out what they find objectionable in an article, or to read any material sent by reply, or to have a reasonable discussion. If readers do wish to complain, it would be more logical, human even, to refer to specific issues raised in an article or speech rather than writing rude and ranting ‘hate-mails.’

Following are 4 articles written on the subject of ‘anti-semitism.’

• Diversionary Strike On a Rights Group
  30.08.06. K. Peratis, Washington Post. "You're biased" is not a rebuttal.


• Criticize Israel? You're an Anti-Semite!
  01.09.06.R. Brooks, LA Times / ICH.


• Blanket Immunity from War Crimes: When criticisms of Cluster Bombs is “Anti-Semitic.”
  2/3.09.06. S. Heller, Counterpunch.


• Kill Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism.
  12.09.06. N. Finkelstein, ICH. “A central thesis of my book Beyond Chutzpah is that whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a "new anti-Semitism" is upon us. So, predictably, just after Israel faced another image problem due to its murderous destruction of Lebanon, a British all-party parliamentary group led by notorious Israel-firster Denis MacShane MP (Labor) released yet another report alleging a resurgence of anti-Semitism (Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Anti-semitism, September 2006).”

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I would like to conclude this roundup with two articles. The first is by James Petras;

The Lobby and the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon: Their Facts and Ours
30.08.06. James Petras, ICH. “The magnitude of the Jewish Lobby’s cover-up of Israel’s massive military assault can be measured in great detail. The Israeli Armed Forces (IDF) launched 5,000 missiles, 5-ton bunker-buster bombs and cluster bombs as well as anti-personnel phosphorus bombs each day into Lebanon for 27 days – totaling over 135,000 missiles, bombs and artillery shells. During the last 7 days of the war Israel launched 6,000 bombs and shells per day – over 42,000, for a grand total of 177,000 over a heavily populated territory the size of the smallest state in the US. In contrast, the Lebanese national resistance launched 4,000 rockets during the entire 34-day period, an average of 118 per day. The ratio was 44 to 1 – without mentioning the size differentials, the long-term killing effects of the thousands of un-exploded cluster bombs (nearly 50 killed or maimed since the end of hostilities) and Israel’s scorched earth military incursion.”

and the second is by the Nobel Prize winner, Desmond Tutu.

The Modern Successor to the Slave Trade
13.09.06. Desmond Tutu. Independent / ICH.
“In 2005, Russia, the United States, France, Germany and the UK accounted for an estimated 82 per cent of the global arms market. And it's big business: the amount rich countries spend on fighting HIV/Aids every year represents just 18 days' global spending on arms. …

“We must end impunity for governments who authorise the supply of weapons when they know there's a great danger those weapons will be used for gross human rights abuses.”

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Updates

Cluster bombs strikes & proven roads 23.09.06.

For further damage assessments / relief activities see Relief Web. See also Reuters story: Lebanon: Southerners live in fear of 1 million cluster bombs. So far, only about 20,000 cluster bomblets have been cleared. That is a lot of future injury and death for civilian people. War Crime.

General

West bars Arab bid at IAEA to rap Israel atom "threat"
22.09.06. Reuters. Western nations foiled a bid by Arab and Islamic states on Friday to declare Israel's reputed nuclear arsenal a threat that must be removed in a politically charged vote at a U.N. atomic watchdog meeting.

The Age of Terror - a landmark report
08.10.06. Robert Fisk, Independent / ICH. “It's always been my view that the people of this part of the Earth would like some of our democracy. They would like a few packets of human rights off our supermarket shelves. They want freedom. But they want another kind of freedom - freedom from us. And this we do not intend to give them.”

Some of war's nastiest effects will be around for a long time
12.10.06. Daily Star.

Contracts and Funding

Obsenity of the Day. Bomb them to bits and then make a fortune clearing it up? It is the Israeli, UK and US defence departments who should fund the clearance of their own filthy weapons. The ‘compassionate’ face of Bush is patently false.
ArmorGroup wins Lebanon bomb clearing contract
25.09.06. Reuters. “Last week, ArmorGroup posted pretax profit of $3.7 million and revenue of $134.4 million for the first six months of 2006.”

Four of America's Corporate leaders launch Lebanon rebuilding effort
26.09.06. Intel, Cisco, Ghafari Inc., Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Congress okays joint project funding
30.09.06. N. Guttman, Jerusalem Post. “The US Congress approved an increase of $460 million in funding for joint Israeli-American defense programs over the weekend, including $20 million for the development of a short-range ballistic missile defense system which will provide protection from Katyusha rockets.”

U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

True Lies About U.S. Aid to" Israeli " War Machinery: Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers
10.11.06 Palestine Free Voice. “Recently Americans have begun to read and hear that "Israel receives $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid." That's true. But it's still a lie. The problem is that in fiscal 1997 alone, Israel received from a variety of other U.S. federal budgets at least $525.8 million above and beyond its $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000.” An analysis of who does give and promote for Israeli interests.

U.S. Arms Sales: Agreements with and Deliveries to Major Clients, 1998-2005,
15.12.06. Congressional Research Service

Cluster Bombs

Calls rise for ban on cluster bombs
26.09.06. Washington Times.

Israeli Bomblets Plague Lebanon
29.09.06. M. Slackman, NY Times. Since the war … ended in August, nearly three people have been wounded or killed each day by cluster bombs Israel dropped in the waning days of the war, and officials now say it will take more than a year to clear the region of them.

U.S. pays to clear cluster bombs
JTA. 10.06. Of funds budgeted for munitions clearance since this summer’s Israel-Hezbollah war, $5 million from the Pentagon will go toward “supporting the Lebanese Army Engineer Regiment’s clearing cluster munitions and other unexploded ordinance in south Lebanon.”

UK refuses to back cluster bomb ban as extent of use in Lebanon revealed
19.10.06. Norton-Taylor, Guardian

Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions
11.06. Handicap International. Handicap International launches the first worldwide report on cluster munition casualties. Civilians constitute 98 % of all recorded cluster submunitions casualties, according to Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions. This groundbreaking preliminary report by Handicap International is the first to document the impact of cluster munitions on the lives of people in all 24 countries and regions which are known to be affected by these weapons.

Cabinet minister calls for ban on cluster bombs
06.11.06. Norton-Taylor, Guardian. Hilary Benn, the international development secretary, is calling for a ban on cluster bombs, a move opposed by the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office.

Cluster munitions: ICRC calls for urgent international action
06.11.06. ICRC.

Britain is determined to protect its right to kill civilians at random
07.11.06. G. Monbiot, Guardian. In Geneva today, at the new review of the conventional weapons treaty, the British government will be using the full force of its diplomacy to ensure that civilians continue to be killed, by blocking a ban on the use of cluster bombs. … Most of the cluster bombs dropped during the past 40 years have been delivered by Britain's two principal allies - the US and Israel - in the "war on terror". … Israel scattered 4m cluster bombs over Lebanon during its latest invasion earlier this year. … Since the invasion, more than two Lebanese civilians have been blown up by cluster bombs each day on average. … These weapons are arguably already illegal. A protocol to the Geneva conventions prohibits attacks which "are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction" and "which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated". I think 98% would be a fair definition of "excessive".

Britain joins talks aimed at banning cluster bombs
09.11.06. Russell / Grice, Independent. ‘In a significant change of policy, ministers have agreed to enter discussions amid widespread international concern at Israel's use of cluster bombs in southern Lebanon which has left an estimated one million unexploded bomblets littering the country. The impetus for the move came from Hilary Benn.’

UN bemoans slow Lebanon cluster bomb clearance
10.11.06. Yahoo. ‘A UN spokeswoman bemoaned the slow progress of a United Nations-led operation to clear Israeli sub-munitions from Lebanon and again called on Israel to hand over detailed maps of where they had been dropped.’

Two dozen countries moving for treaty to curb cluster bombs, rights groups say
13.11.06. Int. Herald Tribune.

UK refuses to back cluster bomb ban as extent of use in Lebanon revealed
19.11.06. Norton-Taylor, Guardian.

Phosphorus Bombs

Israel admits using phosphorus bombs during war in Lebanon
22.10.06. Rappoport, Haaretz. … “The International Red Cross is of the opinion that there should be a complete ban on phosphorus being used against human beings and the third protocol of the Geneva Convention on Conventional Weapons restricts the use of "incendiary weapons," with phosphorus considered to be one such weapon.”

U.N. team confirms use of artillery containing white phosphorus during Israel-Hezbollah war
07.11.06. AP/IHT. ‘A UN team has confirmed that the Israeli military used artillery containing white phosphorous during its war with Hezbollah. However, the team found no evidence of depleted uranium.’ (There appear to be a conflicting stories about the use of DU. See below, DU.)

Depleted Uranium

Robert Fisk: Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb
28.10.06. Independent. “According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry …”

IDF denies using uranium-based warheads during war in Lebanon
29.10.06. M. Rapoport, Haaretz.

Israel War Crimes in Lebanon confirmed: Samples from two bomb craters show high radioactivity
30.01.06. Daily Star / Global Research. … The samples thrown up by Israeli bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures," Chris Busby, the British scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, was quoted as saying…. Britain's Defense Ministry has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples, the report added.

IDF denies using uranium-based warheads during war in Lebanon
29.10.06. M. Rapoport, Haaretz.

Israel War Crimes in Lebanon confirmed: Samples from two bomb craters show high radioactivity
30.01.06, Daily Star / Global Research. … The samples thrown up by Israeli bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures," Chris Busby, the British scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, was quoted as saying…. Britain's Defense Ministry has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples, the report added.

Bunker buster bombs containing depleted uranium warheads used by Israel against civilian targets in Lebanon
06.11.06. D. Rokke, uruknet. “Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens Requiring Immediate Action By President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Olmert. The delivery of at least 100 GBU 28 bunker busters bombs containing depleted uranium warheads by the United States to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon will result in additional radioactive and chemical toxic contamination with consequent adverse health and environmental effects throughout the middle east. Israeli tank gunners are also using depleted uranium tank rounds as photographs verify. Today, U.S., British, and now Israeli military personnel are using illegal uranium munitions- America's and England's own "dirty bombs" while U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, and British Ministry of Defence officials deny that there are any adverse health and environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing, and/or use of uranium munitions to avoid liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive toxic material - depleted uranium. The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime against humanity.”

MEP DEMANDS EU PROBE INTO ISRAEL'S USE OF NEW URANIUM WEAPONS IN LEBANON
08.11.06. Caroline Lukas Press release. ‘EU leaders face calls today to investigate allegations that Israel unlawfully used experimental uranium-based weapons on civilian targets in its recent war with Lebanon. Peace campaigner and Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has written to EU heads of state and the European Commission demanding they investigate the allegations, bring pressure to bear on Israel to scrap the weapons entirely, and take urgent measures to protect humanitarian workers from the resulting radiation.’

Israel Detonated a Radioactive Bunker Buster Bomb in Lebanon
11.11.06. Masella / Saso / Torrealta, Global Research / Rai. “Researcher Dai Williams believes this is a new class of weapons using enriched uranium, not through fission processes but through new physical processes kept secret for at least 20 years. Physicist Emilio del Giudice form the National Institute of Nuclear Physics came to the same conclusion.”

War Crimes

UN team arrives to probe alleged war crimes committed by Israelis
26.09.06. Daily Star.

Hi-tech firm boycotts Israel over 'war crimes'
27.09.06. E. Kenan, Ynetnews. “U2U, refused to cooperate with the Israeli businessman (Avner) because of what they called "Israel's war crimes and apartheid regime."

Israeli group calls power plant attack a 'war crime'
28.09.06. D. MacIntyre, Independent

Israel should probe accusations of war crimes
29.09.06. J. Lipner, Jewish Journal.

UN says Israel blocked inquiry into fatal bombing of peacekeepers in Lebanon
30.09.06. N. Gronewald, Canada.com.

Human Rights Experts: “Israel Committed War Crimes!”
01.10.06. SF Indymedia.

FO’s human rights report omits attacks on Lebanon
13.10.06. E. MacAskill, Guardian. Beckett blames deadline as Israel escapes criticism; Lack of casualty figures to ‘play badly’ with Muslims.

Israeli Activity.

‘Israel still occupies 10 areas of Lebanon’
26.09.06. The News. Now the end of this week is given as a departure date for IDF troops, but Israel ‘reserves the rights’ to carry out air sorties.

Israel violated the U.N.-drawn border with Lebanon, U.N. peacekeeping official says
28.09.06. AP / Int. Herald Tribune.

Lebanon accuses Israeli army of stealing Lebanese water
28.09.06. Yalibnan.

Israel completes withdrawal from Lebanon
30.09.06. Int. Herald Tribune.

Israeli jets fly over Lebanon despite withdrawal
03.10.06. Yahoo /

UN urges Israel's complete, quick pullout from Lebanon
10.10.06. English People. The United Nations (UN) on Monday called for complete and quick withdrawal of Israeli forces from Ghajar, a village straddling the border between Lebanon and Israel-occupied Golan Heights.

Israel Warplanes Again Fly Over Southern, Eastern Lebanon
10.11.06. AP / Nasdaq. ‘Israeli warplanes again flew over towns and villages of southern and eastern Lebanon Thursday, Lebanese security officials said. The move came despite repeated calls by the U.N. for Israel to cease such flights over Lebanese territory. … a squadron of Israeli F-15 fighter planes nose-dived that day over French peacekeepers' positions in southern Lebanon and were "clearly in attack position." French troops responded by readying an anti-aircraft missile, and were seconds away from firing on the warplanes.’

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Index Research articles on Lebanon

Lebanon vs. The BBC
(23.07.06)

Index on Illegal US Weapons in Lebanon
(30.07.06)

Death in Lebanon
(11.08.06)

Appendix to Illegal US Weapons in Lebanon
(16.08.06)

Appendix II: Index on Weapons in Lebanon: War Crimes in Lebanon and Palestine
(16.08.06)


The url to Lebanon: The Aftermath of War. A Synthesis is http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2006/09/lebanon-aftermath-of-war-synthesis.html

This article was first published by the BRussels Tribunal:
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/MeyerLebanon2.htm

Sarah Meyer is a researcher living in the United Kingdom.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Tags : Lebanon, Israel, cluster bombs, Depleted Uranium, Index Research

Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp

by Sarah Meyer
Index Research

Photo by Sigrid Møller

It is the 25th anniversary of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. We lived outside the US base near Newbury, Berkshire, where US Cruise missiles were to be installed. Sometimes there were two or three dozen of us. Sometimes there many more women, especially on weekends and holidays. The first big demonstration, "Embrace the Base,' brought thousands of women to Greenham. Then Greenham became international. All Greenham gates had women living nearby. Women were supported by donations of money, food and blankets. The postmen bent under the bags of post. Writing return letters in the mud and rain in the winter by the fire was not easy.

Ann Pettitt (see below) is highly qualified to write a book about Greenham. I well remember the first time I met her ... she questioned me about why I was living at Greenham. Then we became friends. I don't know how I feel about a man writing a book (see below) concerning what was essentially a woman's experience. The only men whom I feel are qualified to write about the Greenham years are the husbands and sons we left behind whilst we experienced a neolithic lifestyle that alternated between total boredom and high drama. What was the separation like for them, and for our daughters? How did they experience the “embarrassment” and pain of having a Greenham wife / mother? How did the separation affect their lives?

Being arrested became an occasional way of life, whether it was in the UK, Hungary, Sweden, East Germany. In the U.K, a woman could be arrested whilst walking from one gate to the next for “obstructing the pavement.” I remember three policemen arresting us during an ice - cold winter week in Sweden. "Let go of her," said one of my Greenham companions. "Why should we do that?" a policeman asked. "Well," she replied, "you wouldn't let your wife get in the car with a strange man, would you?" Not knowing what to do in such a situation, like many police in those days, I was released. We went back to the 'peace camp' fire outside a large building where some "Very Important People” in suits were deciding the future of the Cold War.

The review mentions one of our more memorable experiences. For Halloween weekend, we arranged, via a ‘telephone tree,’ to cut the fence. We spoke on our tapped telephones about ‘black cardigans’ (bolt cutters). Organisations like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), of which I was not a member, disapproved and refused to support this violation of property - although everyone seemed to be ‘at it’ later. After all, who was (is) doing the violating – non-violent peace protestors or those making nuclear weapons and threatening nuclear war? The police thought we were just going to climb over the fence again. So they built a second fence, and stood ‘shoulder to shoulder’ behind their new ‘security.’ When we, wearing Halloween hats, then started cutting the fence with bolt cutters ranging from petite to Builder’s Best, the police couldn’t get to us. This temporary time-lapse allowed 7,000 of us to cut down 9 miles of fencing. This was hard work, one woman on another woman’s shoulders, but fun nonetheless. So many of us were arrested that they took us to the Newbury Racecourse to process the arrests. It was a good day. We learned that there was no such thing as “security.” This is still true today, except for the burgeoning prison (‘detainee’) cells and amoral torture centres. But there are $s/£s to be made on ‘security,’ you see …

Do I think the Greenham women changed anything? I am often asked this question. Yes. The women changed the awareness and attitude of many people worldwide about nuclear weapons. There were, at that time, over 90 US bases in the U.K, thanks to the friendship and cooperation between the US and UK governments. (Plus ça change) Some of us traveled abroad, joining in on Peace Walks, meetings and conferences (END, WILPF, eg.), encouraging and supporting others. The peace movement in the early 80's was empowering for many people.

I wish more people would now stand up to the present denial and destruction of our basic human rights. I wish more people would INSIST on treaties barring all nuclear weapons, cluster and phosphorus bombs, Depleted Uranium, and all the other experimental horrors that bear no relationship to the meaning of our life on earth. I do realise that these weapons make some people very short-term rich, which I suppose is nice for them - if not for the dead and/or affected families. But these weapons will be a catastrophe for our children and future children. That is, if our planet survives what appears to be a driving and demonic death wish by those in power.

Please read Catherine Taylor’s Guardian review, Bring Your Black Cardigans about two books on the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp at Newbury, Berkshire:

· Common Ground: The Story of Greenham by David Fairhall, 224pp, IB Tauris, £18.99

· Walking to Greenham: How the Peace Camp Began and the Cold War Ended by Ann Pettitt, 190pp, Honno, £8.99

and, if you feel inspired: read Ann’s book; look at Sigrid Møller's and Grethe Andersen's photographs of Greenham here. Also see : The Danish Peace Academy, Documentation: Greenham Common Peace Camp and Sarah Meyer Collection : Commonweal Archives, Special Collections.

The 'Greenham Women' were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.

Thanks to all the women who first walked to Greenham, to all those who supported us,

“Sarah Rainbow Bus”
Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, December 1982 – February 1984.

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Sarah Meyer is a researcher living in England.

The url to Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp is: http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2006/09/greenham-common-womens-peace-camp.html


Tags: Index Research, Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, Ann Pettitt

NATO: THE BATHTUB OF UNREADINESS

by Sarah Meyer
Index Research

This article updated 18/06/07

“In a word, we are at the beginning, not the end, of a profound crisis in the US’ relations with NATO.” Gabriel Kolko.

1. The PNAC and NATO Coven
2. NATO and Europe
3. NATO Goes Global
4. NATO, Israel and Mediterranean Partners
5. NATO in Lebanon?
6. The Bathtub is Overflowing
7. The Bathtub is Draining Out
8. Overstretched NATO in ‘Asscrackistan’
9. NATO and Secret Armies
10. Updates

Please also see : Afghanistan: NATO is now US-ATO

One of the key Project of the New American Century (PNAC)¹ documents is Building America’s Defenses. The thrust of the large section, Building Today’s Armed Services,² is about the “bathtub of unreadiness.”³ The PNAC document expresses the need to build up all branches of the armed forces in order to obtain “long term political or regime change,⁴ global expansion and security, for which a huge extended budget is required as the “American security perimeter expands.” ⁵

This ‘bathtub of unreadiness’ includes NATO.

“Further, improvements should be made to existing air bases in new and potential NATO countries to allow for rapid deployments, contingency exercises, and extended initial operations in times of crisis. … Some of the cost could be covered, it is suggested, by the host nation or NATO.”⁶

“Until the process of transformation is treated as an enduring mission – worthy of a constant allocation of dollars and forces – it will remain stillborn.”⁷

The PNAC and NATO COVEN

NATO’s 'transformation', a favoured word in PNAC documents - and used frequently by Rumsfeld and his coven - was already taking place as early as 1996. The U.S. Committee on Nato was founded in that year by Bruce Jackson and Greg Craig. Originally, it was called ‘The U.S. Committee to Expand NATO’. After its disbandment in 2003, it became the ‘Project on Transitional Democracies’ – in the same office. In 2003-04, ‘The Project on Transitional Democracy’ received 6 grants ⁸ totalling £229,400.

Bruce Jackson is still in his office. His revolving door swings around the Defense Department, Lehman Brothers, various ‘think tanks,’ and ‘non-profit’ affiliations. From 1993 – 2002, he was the Vice President for Strategy and Planning at Lockheed Martin.

The lobbyist, Randy Scheunemann, another PNACer, was also still (2003) in this office. In 2001, he was a consultant on Iraq policy in Rumsfeld’s office, and has been on various congressional committees. He was, for a year, president of Mercury, who handled Lockheed Martin and various gun-related businesses / lobbies. Julie Finley was also a founding member who was still in this office in 2003. All three have been involved with the Committee for the Liberation (sic) of Iraq. “People in the White House said, ‘We need you to do for Iraq what you did for NATO'", Jackson said.

Connections with the U.S. Committee on NATO included PNACers Paul Wolfovitz, Richard Perle, Gary Schmitt and Robert Kagan. Kagan’s wife is Victoria Nuland. Nuland is an accomplished woman. At present, she is the US Ambassador to NATO. From 2000 - 2003, she was a foreign policy advisor to Cheney. Prior to this, she was internationally active.

NATO and EUROPE

The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO in 1999.

On the 29th of March 2004, seven countries became members of NATO: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The Lithuanian Prime Minister said, “… we’ve been preparing for a decade.” NATO, with 2.8 million personnel, was thus adding 200,000 more ‘to fight terrorism.’ New NATO members were in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Romania, for example, had 800 troops in Iraq.

The US Senate was concerned about a provision which would allow America to launch an attack without Romania’s knowledge or permission. General Smith said that "in the future, all NATO bases can be used in case of a (military) conflict, based on an Alliance decision," but underlined that Romania will be able to express its position, ‘as a sovereign nation and NATO member with full rights.’ The U.S. uses four bases in Romania. Romania has been rumoured to be the recipient of ‘extraordinary rendition’ – Pentagon soft-porn for kidnapping / human trafficking.

In mid-February 2006, Slovenian military instructors left for Iraq to partake in a NATO mission, training Iraqi security officers. This government decision provoked controversy.

Also in February 2006, Macedonia, Albania and Croatia said they hoped to become part of NATO by 2008. Pennsylvania’s ex-US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who supported the death penalty and duct tape in an emergency, has been named as a NATO consultant for the Albanian government.

In Bulgaria, the U.S. military will be able to use three Bulgarian bases, as well as another storage facility, for ten years. There is double-speak in the announcement said to be made by the Dutch Secretary General of NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. A Bulgarian newspaper reported (04.06) that nuclear weapons would not be deployed in Bulgaria, but the S.G of NATO said that NATO members would meet to discuss the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons on Bulgaria's territory in the case of a major crisis. (SM italics).

Montenegro, a country of 650,000 people, has asked for NATO ‘Partner for Peace’ (PFP) membership.

Polls indicate that Finland is strongly opposed to joining NATO.

Russia found the expansion ‘offensive.’ France has also objected.

NATO GOES GLOBAL

Gabriel Kolko wrote in an important article, American Foreign Policy and the Future of Nato, that the US’ "ambitious agenda" was outlined by the US ambassador to NATO, Victoria Nuland. The interview appeared in the Financial Times (24.01.06). “The US wants a ‘globally deployable military force’ that will operate everywhere – from Africa to the Middle East and beyond. It will include Japan and Australia as well as the NATO nations. … ‘It’s a totally different animal,’ to quote her, ‘whose ultimate role will be subject to US desires and adventures.’ Ms. Nuland’s emphasis reiterates the NATO policy expressed in the Quadrennial Defense Review:

“Achieving the vision set out in this Report will only be possible by maintaining and adapting the United States’ enduring alliances. Alliances are clearly one of the nation’s greatest sources of strength. Over the past four years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. bilateral alliances with Australia, Japan, Korea and other nations have adapted to retain their vitality and relevance in the face of new threats to international security. These alliances make manifest the strategic solidarity of free democratic states, promote shared values and facilitate the sharing of military and security burdens around the world. The United States places great value on its unique relationships with the United Kingdom and Australia, whose forces stand with the U.S. military in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other operations. These close military relations are models for the breadth and depth of cooperation that the United States seeks to foster with other allies and partners around the world. Implementation of the QDR’s agenda will serve to reinforce these enduring links.”

With the US’s ex-enemies in Eastern Europe now under the US / NATO wing, members further afield are being courted. The task is “going from Europe to global.” Lord Robertson, for example, started leaning on Azerbaijan as early as 2001.

In 2005, Kazakhstan and NATO planned to sign an agreement. Bush does not appear to have problems dealing with government leaders from Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan (accused of pocketing $75m. in bribes) despite the corruption.

In February ’06, it was announced that Georgia would become a NATO member in 2008.

In August ’06, the President of Ukraine continued his country’s drive toward the EU and NATO. Ukrainians protested. Nevertheless, on the 29th of August, a US armed forces delegation arrived in Sebastopol to discuss the ‘NATO Active Endeavor’ anti-terrorist operation which will take place in the Mediterranean. Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Israel, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia will participate alongside NATO member states. It was decided that NATO would double its financing.

And a NATO official saw “Hope for Ties with Uzbekistan.”

Whilst Moldova is not going to join NATO, it is going to introduce NATO standards during the restructuring of the armed forces . The country did not unanimously support this plan.

In Iraq, 140 officers, who had been supervised by 100 NATO trainers from ‘more than 10 countries,’ graduated and will join Iraq’s new army. Germany, the Netherlands and the US were the main contributors. The Czech government paid a $64,000 subsidy and gave five Czech military instructors to be part of that mission.

In early August ’06, Russia was still questioning NATO enlargement.

NATO, ISRAEL and MEDITERRANEAN PARTNERS

At a February NATO meeting in Sicily, AP reported that the United States and other NATO nations were “building ties with friendly nations in North Africa and the Middle East.” This meeting on counterterrorism was in cooperation with NATO's "Mediterranean partners"— Israel, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Mauritania.

On the 3rd of March ’06, focus-fen reported: “US Congressmen Propose Israel to Be Accepted in NATO.” By June, Jordan had offered to host a Middle East NATO training centre for the Mediterranean partners.

The Sunday Times said that Maj. General Tuttleman was showing off an AWACS plane in Israel, suggesting that NATO may help US air strikes on Iran. Israel’s special forces, noted the Sunday Times, ‘are said to be operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country’s secret uranium enrichment sites.’ “We found several suspected sites last year but there must be more,” an Israeli intelligence source said. ‘They are operating from a base in northern Iraq, guarded by Israeli soldiers with the approval of the Americans, according to Israeli sources.’

Tmc.net (17.05.06) announced NATO TO SET UP MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM IN EUROPE. ‘Long-range missile interceptor and related transmitters will allow the United States to monitor a larger area and will help protect its allies and friends in Europe from threats emanating from Iran,” Lt. Gen. Obering said. … “Japan, Israel and the United Kingdom are the U.S.' principal partners in missile defense cooperation. … Japanese investment, including in joint projects with the United States, has exceeded $1 billion.”

Barzilai wrote: “the agreement for Israel’s participation in the NATO cataloguing system was signed in June, after a year of negotiations. Israel is currently an associate member in the system and will obtain full membership within three years.” Israel will thus have access to the uniform framework of inventory and equipment use in all NATO member states.

Concomitant with the NATO activity in Africa is the U.S. Central Command’s interest in filling up the bathtub in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco and other African countries. “In 2005, the US Defense Department tabled a new plan to reorganize its military bases with initial ideas to add more than 10 frontier operation bases or establishments and prepare to transfer most of its servicemen stationed in Europe to Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and other African nations.”

NATO in LEBANON?

Hossein Alai thought there were plots underway to deploy NATO troops there. The U.S. pushed for a NATO force in Lebanon. There were conflicting responses to the American initiative. News 24 reported that “NATO reacted cautiously to US/ Israeli calls, … while diplomats said the military alliance was already hugely stretched, notably in Afghanistan.” But General James Jones, the NATO military commander, said NATO “would be up to the job.” Ken Silverstein asked a potent question in an excellent Harper’s article, “Could U.S. Troops End Up In Lebanon?” Read here.

Jacques Chirac responded: "As far as France is concerned, it is not NATO's mission to put together such a force. Whether we like it or not, NATO is perceived as the armed wing of the West in these regions, and as a result, in terms of image, NATO is not intended for this."

Meanwhile, in Canada in July, NATO soldiers (Canada, UK, Belgium, Denmark, France & Germany) were learning about chemical and nuclear response tactics.

Not content with egregious errors in Lebanon, Israel has been looking towards Iran. On the 24th of August, ‘high ranking Israeli officials’ said that “Israel … may have to go it alone.” Is that ‘alone’ as in Lebanon, where Israel had financial support from as well as the use of illegal US weapons?

With reference to the disaster in Lebanon, Robert Fisk, with characteristic wryness, notes: "No wonder the UN can't find volunteers … The Iraq fiasco - and the growing débâcle in Afghanistan has drained the will of NATO nations to commit troops to peacekeeping operations, certainly for missions which may involve confrontations and violence with Muslims.”

Russia was even more offended, and conducted war games.

THE BATHTUB IS OVERFLOWING

Who is benefiting from this NATO expansion?

James Petras wrote (1997): “The U.S. Congressional Budget Office predicts total cost of NATO enlargement at about $125 billion over 13 years with Washington paying only $19 billion. That means Eastern and Western Europe will have to pay 85 percent of the cost, or $106 billion. … The new members of NATO in East Europe will have to increase their military spending to be on the same footing with their Western partners. U.S. arms manufacturers are the biggest supporters of NATO expansion and will be the principle economic beneficiaries.” (SM emphasis)

NATO spent some US$676 billion on defence during the financial year 2005 - 2006. The amount that each country’s expenditure should be according to their GNP (2004) can be seen here.

What is the sting in the tail? Why are countries rushing to join this new global USATO? Aid. The USAID Administrator and Vice Administrator are appointed by the President. Randall Tobias is the current Administrator. After the army, he joined and became the CEO of AT & T, following which he was the CEO of Eli Lilly and Co. For the USAID budget, see here and then ‘google’ a country of your interest. Romania, for example, received $25m. through a ‘Public–Private Partnership’ - USAID, GMF and the Mott Foundation. Charles Stewart Mott, a GM Motors pioneer, founded the Mott F. in 1926, which now has assets of $2.5b. William S. White is the present CEO. The Romanian president attended a GMF (German Marshall Fund) dinner in July, saying that he was “committed to the transformation of NATO” whilst simultaneously “urging a boost in American investment in Romania.” The GMF was founded in 1972 and has six European offices. The lobbyist Marc Leland is one of the co-chairmen. He is also Director of the Noble Corporation in Texas, which deals in oil and gas drilling and exploration. Guido Goldman of Harvard University and CEO of the Park Avenue finance company First Spring, shares this post. David Ignatius, the spy-intrigue author and associate editor / columnist of The Washington Post, also sits on the GMF Board.

When high ranking Romanian officials asked what kind of military planes Romania should buy to "be of help" to NATO, ‘General Smith said the decision was to be made by the chief of staff and political leaders.’

“Phantom aid” is slowly being revealed. … Ann Jones wrote an excellent article for TomDispatch (27.08.06). Amongst many nuggets: “70 percent of U.S. aid is contingent upon the recipient spending it on American stuff, including especially American-made armaments. The upshot is that 86 cents of every dollar of U.S. aid is phantom aid. … In 2001, Andrew Natsios, then head of USAID, cited foreign aid as "a key foreign policy instrument" designed to help other countries "become better markets for U.S. exports." Read her article here.

“New members will spend a combined $4 billion a year to meet NATO standards,” boosting sales for companies - including Lockheed Martin Corp., the No. 1 U.S. defense contractor, and European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., Europe's biggest aerospace company,” according to Bloomberg (29.03.04). A newly revised 2006 account would see a likely increase in this figure.

"This is the most exciting time in the defence and security market in more than 30 years,” said Tim Page, president of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries. Excellent research by Jorge Barrera for the Ottowa Times and published on Corpwatch (20.08.06), can be read here.

The two ‘behemoths’ that “anchor Ottowa’s defense and security sector” are:

• Lockheed Martin
• General Dynamics

“Canada's military is currently a slave to the whims and needs of the U.S. military; the Canadian military buys most of its supplies from the U.S.,” said P. Tonkin of Tonkin Aerospace.

• $5.4 million worth of ammunition from the U.S. through a non-competitive contract.
• $23.8 million worth of aircraft parts and $6.7 million in guided missiles.

Ottowa’s companies ‘in for the kill’ include:

• ACE Security Laminates
• DEW engineering
• Idokorro

Canada also recently purchased five Skylarks “and the army has an option to buy five more … The military refused to say how much each unit costs because details of the contract with the Canadian supplier for Elbit Systems Ltd. of Israel has yet to be finalized. Seven other NATO countries are already using the Skylark… (Canada) has yet to acquire any of the bigger American UAVs, such the Global Hawk or Predator, which can be armed with missiles.”

In August ’06, the Netherlands bought EUR 25M in Australian Bushmaster IMVs for Afghanistan.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts can be received freely on the internet. For a deluge of US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts see here.⁹ For contracts relating to NATO, see here. The UK charges over £200 for their contract information. Following is a spatter of information.

In the U.K, a £1.15bn contract was agreed for NATO redevelopment, noted the Watford Observer (04.08.06). The contract was awarded to Eastbury Park Ltd, a joint venture between Carillion Defence and HSBC Infrastructure Fund Management Limited.

The MoD bought two £30m US drones to fight the Taliban, said the Telegraph (28.08.06). These Predator drones (UAVs), made by General Atomics, carry four Hellfire missiles, made by Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin gets $105 from each U.S. Taxpayer and $228 from each U.S. household to support their weapons building endeavors.

Some other UK / NATO related contracts:

Raytheon Battlefield Target Identification Device (July ’06);
Atkins Defense Systems: NATO submarine rescue service.

The financial result was predictable. Profits in the weapons manufacturing department have soared whilst their costs have doubled since 9/11.

The Ledger revealed in February ’06 that there was a “A US Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies.” Now, The Institute for Policy Studies has recently released a report, Executive Excess, which highlights the profits made by oil and defense CEOs since 2001. $984m is the total made by 34 defense CEOs, for example, since 9/11. Gross obscenity of the Pop Chart is the $200m pocketed by George David of United Technologies, who make Pratt and Whitney jet engines and Sikorsky helicopters. In 2005, he earned $31.9m. Other elite defense contractors include: Boeing, Halliburton, Oshkosh Truck, Textron, Computer Sciences, URS, Health Net, Armour Holding and General Dynamics. In the oil world, last year’s chief executives earned $512m, with the top prize going to W. Greeley of Valero Energy Corp. Other oil companies mentioned are: Occidental Petroleum, Exxon Mobile, Marathon Oil, EOG Resources, XTO Energy, Conoco Phillips, Halliburton, Amerada Hess and Apache Corp.¹⁰

The war in Afghanistan is about corporate power, profit and control of energy resources, which are the ‘special interests’ of the U.S. government. U.S.-ruled NATO thus has a role to play in energy security.

Martin Walker of UPI wrote (13.10.05): NATO Means Business To Protect Pipelines. “NATO's top military commander is seeking an important new security role for private industry and business leaders as part of a new security strategy that will focus on the economic vulnerabilities of the 26-country alliance. Two immediate and priority projects for NATO officials to develop with private industry are to secure the pipelines bringing Russian oil and gas to Europe against terrorist attacks and to secure ports and merchant shipping, the alliance Supreme Commander, Gen. James Jones of the U.S. Marine Corps said Wednesday. … "the future is that the alliance will continue to grow, beyond the current 26 members …"

Oil and Gas in Afghanistan + map & CIA 01.03.Oil Map of Iraq.¹¹

THE BATHTUB IS DRAINING OUT

There are financial shortfalls. "Low European defense budgets are a brake on our transformation,” said Apathurai, NATO’s spokesperson.

In February ’06, the United States was pushing the NATO allies to increase their defense spending and to modernize their forces so they could “join the U.S. military in more security and counterterrorism missions beyond NATO borders.”

Money was limited. The new members' combined defense budget (2004) of “about $4 billion a year, including $1.4 billion for Romania, is about the same size as Poland's alone and less than 1 percent of total defense spending by current NATO members. Romania, the largest of the new NATO countries, has already upgraded 90 Soviet-made fighters to NATO standards under a $500 million contract with Israel's Elbit Industries. It is upgrading dozens of helicopters, and buying used carrier planes from the U.S. Navy and warships from the British navy.”

‘Are States Paying Too High a Price for Joining NATO?’ asked focus-fen in July.¹² “Croatia was surprised to receive from the NATO Secretary General’s office a list of additional requirements it had to fulfill in order to join the Alliance together with Albania and Macedonia in 2008. NATO wanted Croatian armed forces to send 6,000 militaries in peacekeeping operations around the world. The document even mentioned a strategy according to which the new members of the Alliance should make up 40% of the structure of current peacekeeping missions and 8% of the total number of militaries which should immediately be sent to crisis regions.”

It has also been reported that NATO officials have asked the Czech air force to provide Russian-made Mi-17 Hip helicopters to help the 4,000 British troops in Helmand who are being seriously hampered by a lack of transport helicopters, such as Chinooks.

The U.S. and NATO (01.09.06) want more military aid from Norway, but Norway has staffing problems, and most people in the country are against military actions.

There are some interesting criticisms in the U.S. Army Professional Writing Collection (05.06):

“NATO should revisit its funding policy, which penalizes contributing nations by forcing them to pay for their participation. The use of trust funds is also a growing failure. NATO has committed the political capital of the Alliance and all 26 nations represented to train Iraqi officers. It is now prepared to squander that capital by failing to fund the commitment. …

NATO should revisit its funding policy, which penalizes contributing nations by forcing them to pay for their participation. The use of trust funds is also a growing failure. NATO has committed the political capital of the Alliance and all 26 nations represented to train Iraqi officers. It is now prepared to squander that capital by failing to fund the commitment.”

OVERSTRETCHED NATO IN ‘ASSCRACKISTAN:’¹³

On the 19th of December 2005, the US Defense Department announced that there would be a US troop withdrawal of 2,500, in Afghanistan, “largely because of the increased role NATO is taking in providing security in the country.” Congress confirmed this in June, no questions asked.

In other words, the U.S. is using NATO not only as a further weapons windfall, but also as an extension of their armed forces.

But G. Witte of The Washington Post (03.01.06) swallowed the government spin without question. “The United States says that its shifting approach complements Afghanistan's evolution into a self-sustaining democracy.”

Vance Serchuk, of the American Enterprise Institute asked: “Why has the Bush administration embraced a military strategy for southern Afghanistan that is so dependant on fickle partners? The current mess is a predictable consequence of the Pentagon's determination to have NATO assume more responsibility in Afghanistan and as fast as possible. And it's a portent of even bigger problems to come.”

The NATO merry-go-round in Afghanistan, driven by America’s announced withdrawal of 2,500 - 4,000 (of 19,500) troops in the spring of 2006, went into overdrive. See Afghanistan: The NATO Quagmire, here. For resource material on NATO in Afghanistan, see Index on Afghanistan here

One February ’06 day, two google “Afghanistan / NATO headlines contradicted each other: ‘Afghan people want us here,' said Canada’s former Ambassador to Afghanistan. The following google headline was Suicide Attacks on NATO Escalating in Afghanistan. It seems obvious that the increasing violence is directly related to the increased number of foreign troops spreading out over Afghanistan.

In April, the Senlis Council published the Afghanistan Insurgency Report. The Foreign Office rejected this report, according to The Guardian (05.09.06). “Nato forces in southern Afghanistan are caught in a cycle of violence against the Taliban which is sparking poverty and starvation on a grand scale … Ongoing fighting is turning the average Afghan against British and US-led forces, leading some to claim their lives were better under Taliban rule … The country was 'falling back into the hands of the Taliban' with only 'limited or no central government control …' The report claimed that the international military strategy was wrong and the focus on 'flawed' poppy eradication policies was causing extreme deprivation … Senlis claimed the Taliban were carrying out a 'successful insurgency' and gaining a physical and psychological upper hand over the coalition.”

By May, matters had not improved. Ali Ahmad Jalali,¹⁴ wrote “The absence of joint mechanisms to plan and coordinate the actions of national and international forces in fighting security threats is a significant hurdle in bringing synergy to stability operations. There is little connection between operations separately planned by the US-led Coalition, ISAF, and the Afghan security forces. The situation weakens effectiveness and efficiency and leads to confusion and unintended collateral damage. The establishment of a joint Command and Control Center to plan, conduct, and coordinate joint operations is of prime importance.”

In June 06, the US government became overtly imperialistic. A headline announces: U.S. offers to command NATO in Afghanistan following the ‘British stint.’

In the US (July ’06), M. Sappenfield of the CS Monitor wrote of increasing ‘belt-tightening' at US bases. “An Army long strained by the manpower demands of Iraq and Afghanistan is increasingly facing a new obstacle at home: The service is fast running out of money.”

At the beginning of August, a group of prominent US defense and national security experts¹⁵ sounded an alarm.

“This degraded readiness condition stems from the heavy deployment of combat forces the Army has sustained these past four years. Predictably, this has resulted in accelerated wearout of large quantities of Army equipment, disruptions in training schedules, and strains on meeting recruitment and reenlistment goals.”

The letter referred to an earlier report, The US Military: Under Strain and at Risk, [PDF] “which was met with indifference.”

“The administration's willingness to put our nation at such strategic risk is deeply disturbing. And its failure to adequately support the soldiers who are risking their lives for this nation is unacceptable,” they said.

The “US army also seems to be weak and frail. In early August at a Pentagon press conference, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “acknowledged that the US military had reported a shortage of equipment and a declining capacity of combat readiness.” NATO-led troops in Afghanistan sought more armour.

This was / is not the only problem. “The quality of the US soldiers has also slid because of lowered quality set for the recruitment. There is nothing new for the frequent occurrence of vicious cases in which US officers and soldiers are charged of committing rape and indiscriminate killing in addition to the deflated morale.”

J. Barnes reported in the LA Times (22.08.06): The Marine Corps said Tuesday that it would begin calling thousands of Marines back to active-duty service on an involuntary basis to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan - the latest sign that American armed forces are under strain and a potential signal of the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war among young veterans.” The recruitment drive failed to halt the exodus as the army suffered a shortfall of 1,500.

Meanwhile, in England, a leak revealed a crisis in its army. “The Unions warn that cash shortages will cost lives as a MoD memo orders freezes on manpower and kit.” A Guardian headline agonized: “Soldiers are paying with their lives for this incompetence.” Michael Moriarty, a former British army officer who has been working for a private security firm in Afghanistan, added “Escalating commitments, budget squeezes and big equipment programmes have left Britain's forces fatally overstretched. “

General Dannatt, the new head of the British Army, said to The Guardian (04.09.06): “Can we cope? I pause. I say ‘just.’ “

37 British soldiers have so far (04.09.06) been killed in Afghanistan.
22 of these deaths have been in the past month.

The Canadians are not happy either. With eight Canadian soldiers killed in August, this was their worst month. 33 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed since 2002. Prime Minister Harper narrowly won, by 149 / 145, his May plan to extend Canada’s mission in Afghanistan to 2009. The leader of the opposition party, Jack Layton, representing the wish of Canada’s restive people, has now called for the withdrawal of Canadian troops by February 2007.

Further, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Afghan opium cultivation soared by 59% in 2006. And there are complaints that Karzai is a weak leader, although Bush, in a press conference, wishfully portrayed him as a ‘strong’ leader..

Death: in Iraq, a new Quarterly Pentagon Report says that the overall attacks rose 24% to 792 each week and the daily Iraqi civilian casualties increased by 51% to nearly 120 over the past three months. In the week 24 – 31 September, more than 300 Iraqis were killed.

One only has to look at the increasing deaths in Afghanistan to query the quicksand in NATO operations. Over 1900 Afghanis have been killed to date (04.09.06). NATO has now set a 6 month deadline to beat the Taliban and “show the government is on the winning side.” Mainstream Media parrot press releases and refer to ‘Taliban’ or ‘insurgent’ deaths. A 05.09.06 war-fervor headline reads: NATO troops kill up to 60 ‘Taliban’ in Afghanistan. The AFP story says that some 260 ‘Taliban’ have been killed in the ‘Medusa’ operation. This is convenient, as these people are then not seen as ‘civilians.’

NATO AND SECRET ARMIES

There is a NATO issue which has never been clarified. Dr. Daniele Ganser wrote a report¹⁶ based on excerpts from his December 2004 book, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe.

Dr. Ganser is a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich.

Preceding the reprint of an article by Dr. Ganser, William Bowles asked: “At a time when experts are debating whether NATO is suited to deal with the global “war on terror”, new research suggests that the alliance’s own secret history has links to terrorism.”

Dr. Ganser wrote about the secret ‘stay-behind’ army who, through terrorism, manipulated Italian politics. The ‘Gladio’ were hidden within the Defense Ministry as “a subsection of the military secret police.” …

“The terrorists, supplied by the secret army, carried out bomb attacks in public places, blamed them on the Italian left, and were thereafter protected from prosecution by the military secret service. “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game,” right-wing terrorist Vincezo Vinciguerra explained the so-called “strategy of tension” to Casson. “The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security.

“How strongly NATO and US intelligence backed and supported the use of terror in Italy in order to discredit the political left during the Cold War remains subject of ongoing research. …

“Ever since the discovery of the secret NATO armies in 1990, research into stay-behind armies has progressed only very slowly, due to very limited access to primary documents and the refusal of both NATO and the CIA to comment. …

“NATO’s Secret Armies” confirms for the first time that the secret networks spread across Western Europe, with great details on networks in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Luxemburg, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, as well as the strategic planning of Britain and the US.

“In the context of the ongoing so-called war on terror, the Gladio data promotes the sobering insight that governments in the West have sacrificed the life of innocent citizens and covered up acts of terrorism in order to manipulate the population. Allegations that NATO, the Pentagon, MI6, the CIA, and European intelligence services were linked to terror, coups d’état, and torture in Europe are obviously of an extremely sensitive nature, and future research is needed in the field.”

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Further secret acts of terror in Iraq can be read about in Max Fuller’s articles on the US role in Iraq’s death squads and in my own research of the UK’s MI5 in Basra.

One must also question the on-going secret Pentagon human trafficking of unnamed prisoners on flights that pass through British airports to secret torture locations in Europe and beyond.

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The US government, supported by the UK, is responsible for the increasing violence and loss of democratic principles in their pursuit of this ‘War on Terror’ – a PR cover-up for the control of resources. Is the NATO / USATO involvement part of this disgrace? It would appear that their ‘bathtub of unreadiness’ needs a strong spotlight to reveal the corporate and terrorist grime.

References

NATO official site

Global Security. There is a full section on the 2006 fiscal year and 2007 NATO budgetary costs here.

A new Global Security section contains: Facts involving NATO: Deployments; Security; People; Places; Organizations; Money.

A new Global Security section contains: Facts involving (security); (people); (places); (organisations); (money);

VIDEO: War Corporatism: The New Fascism (2 minutes)

Footnotes

[1] For other PNAC / NATO documents see here.
[2] Rebuilding America's Defences PDF file. pp. 36 - 51
[3] Ibid. p. 60
[4] Ibid. p. 37
[5] Ibid. p. 46.
[6] Ibid. P. 32
[7] Ibid. p. 70
[8] Smith Richardson Foundation (3); Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation (2); William Donner Foundation (1).
[9] There has been an on-going stench about Halliburton overcharging. The Army then fired Halliburton from its Iraq contract.
[10] For Newsday chart, see here
[11] Attacks on Iraqi pipelines, oil installations, oil personnel & another map.
[12] This Focus fen story no longer available
[13] Afghanistan’s nickname by The Troops. ‘Asscrackistan.’
[14] Interior Minister of Afghanistan 2003 – 05; now a Professor at the Near South Asia Center for Strategic Studies of the National Defense University.
[15] William J. Perry Chair, National Security Advisory Group; Madeleine K. Albright, Graham T. Allison, Samuel R. Berger, Ashton B. Carter, Wesley K. Clark, Thomas E. Donilon, Michele A. Flournoy, John D. Podesta, Susan E. Rice, John M. Shalikashvili, Wendy R. Sherman, Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall, James B. Steinberg.
[16] The 30 – page summary of Dr. Ganser’s NATO book can be read here. [PDF file]

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UPDATES

General

United States Outlines "Ambitious Agenda" for Riga NATO Summit
03.11.06. V. Crawley, US info.state.gov. Heads of state plan to discuss Afghanistan, global missions, allied partnerships.
RIGA SUMMIT SEEKS TO EXPAND ALLIED STRATEGIC DIALOGUE
Speaking October 30 at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, Belgium, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Victoria Nuland said the United States has “a very, very ambitious agenda. … We want the strongest possible NATO; we want the strongest possible EU [European Union]; and we want the strongest-possible NATO-EU relationship.”

France blocks Nato bid to create a global terror force
04.11.06. S. Castle, Independent. ‘Paris has always been suspicious of Nato because of America's domination of the organization.’


Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
R. Cummings, Playboy. ... "Still, there is another way to view Jackson's activities. As The New York Times put it in a 1997 article, "at night Bruce Jackson is president of the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO, giving intimate dinners for senators and foreign officials. By day, he is director of strategic planning for Lockheed Martin Corporation, the world's biggest weapons maker. That's how D.C. works. Many of the people making decisions have been in and out of the same set of revolving doors connecting government, conservative think tanks, lobbying firms, law firms and the defense industry. So strong is the bond between lobbyists, defense contractors and the Pentagon that it is known in Washington as "the iron triangle." And this triangle inevitably gets what it wants. Why? Because in the revolving door system, a defense contractor executive can surface as an official in the Department of Defense, from which position he can give lucrative contracts to his former employer, and his prospects for an even better paying job in the private sector brighten. Former aides to members of congress become handsomely paid lobbyists for the companies they were able to help in their position on Capitol Hill. Such lobbyists can spread their corporate-funded largesse to the friendliest members and their aides on the Hill. And so on. These "blow-dried Republican lobbyists," as one Washington district court judge calls them, wield far more power than most of the elected officials in town. Forget dime-a-dozen congressmen." information about Stephen Hadley, Randy Scheunmann, Julie Finley, Rend Al Rahim Franke, and key Lockheed people. ...
When the United States gives military aid to its allies, the benefits accrue to Lockheed Martin, too. Israel, for example, spends much of the $1.8 billion a year it receives in military aid from the U.S. on planes and missile systems from Lockheed. ... Britain's involvement: Bush couldn't go into Iraq without a major ally and Lockheed knew it. To sweeten the pot for Blair, Lockheed dragged BAE Systems into the F-35 deal. ... To make things even better for Blair, Lockheed brought the British in on the new presidential helicopter deal,


Contracts

Contract Award for NATO's Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Programme
09.06. Newsblaze. The contract that will be awarded to the SAIC consortium is focused on the development of a NATO architecture for protection of deployed NATO forces from ballistic missile threats, and the design and installation of an ALTBMD Integration Test Bed (ITB). The winning consortium, led by SAIC from McLean from Virginia, U.S.A., is comprised of the following companies: Raytheon (US), EADS Astrium (Europe), Thales (FR) Thales Raytheon System Company (FR/US); IABG (GE), TNO (NL), Qinetiq (UK), DATAMAT (IT); Diehl (GE). Source selection was conducted using NATO International Competitive Bidding (ICB) procedures by the Alliance's Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) and the ALTBMD Programme Office, under the leadership of the ALTBMD Programme Manager, Michel Billard. The contract is worth approximately Euro75 Million for work that will be conducted over a period of 6 years.

Raytheon units preferred bidder on 95 mln usd NATO missile defence contract
18.09.06. Hemscott. The defence contractor said most of the work will be performed in the Netherlands.

SAIC-Led Consortium Wins NATO Contract
19.08.06. chroncom. An international consortium led by U.S.-based Science Applications International Corp. has won a 75 million euros ($95 million) contract to help NATO develop a battlefield defense system against incoming missiles. The winning consortium, led by Virginia-based SAIC, includes Raytheon Co. from the U.S., French defense electronics company Thales SA, IABG and Diehl from Germany, Britain's Qinetiq Group PLC, Dutch company TNO, DATAMAT from Italy and the European satellite giant EADS Asterism.

Contract Award for NATO's Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Programme
09.06.Newsblaze. The contract that will be awarded to the SAIC consortium is focused on the development of a NATO architecture for protection of deployed NATO forces from ballistic missile threats, and the design and installation of an ALTBMD Integration Test Bed (ITB). The winning consortium, led by SAIC from McLean from Virginia, U.S.A., is comprised of the following companies: Raytheon (US), EADS Astrium (Europe), Thales (FR) Thales Raytheon System Company (FR/US); IABG (GE), TNO (NL), Qinetiq (UK), DATAMAT (IT); Diehl (GE). Source selection was conducted using NATO International Competitive Bidding (ICB) procedures by the Alliance's Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) and the ALTBMD Programme Office, under the leadership of the ALTBMD Programme Manager, Michel Billard. The contract is worth approximately Euro75 Million for work that will be conducted over a period of 6 years.

SAIC-Led Consortium Wins NATO Contract
19.08.06. chroncom. An international consortium led by U.S.-based Science Applications International Corp. has won a 75 million euros ($95 million) contract to help NATO develop a battlefield defense system against incoming missiles. The winning consortium, led by Virginia-based SAIC, includes Raytheon Co. from the U.S., French defense electronics company Thales SA, IABG and Diehl from Germany, Britain's Qinetiq Group PLC, Dutch company TNO, DATAMAT from Italy and the European satellite giant EADS Asterism.

Raytheon units preferred bidder on 95 mln usd NATO missile defence contract
18.09.06. Hemscott. The defence contractor said most of the work will be performed in the Netherlands.

NATO Participation

Bulgaria

Bulgaria’s Participation in NATO Missions to Increase Each Year
15.09.06. Sofia Echo.

Croatia

Bush Supports Croatia Membership in NATO
17.10.06. SFGate. opinion polls showing 30 percent of the population against it. Some Croatians claim being a part of NATO would make it a terror target.

Georgia

Georgia's accession to NATO affects Russian interests, ministry says
22.09.06. The State.

Israel

NATO Deputy Sec.-Gen. to land in Israel on Sunday
18.10.06. Jerusalem Post.

ISRAEL, NATO CONCLUDE COOPERATION ACCORD
22.10.06. menewsline.

Israel to support NATO counter-terrorism patrols
16.10.06. Reuters.

NATO: Israel ties must remain strong
25.10.06. H. Rettig, Jerusalem Post. “Israel's move closer to the trans-Atlantic alliance is widely seen as a significant step in NATO's bid to redefine its post-9/11 role around the world and particularly in the Middle East. Israel is the first state to formalize an ICP agreement with NATO, putting it on what some hope will become a fast track toward close-knit security and political ties, and even membership.”

Macedonia

Macedonia wants to join NATO 2009, EU 2013, says premier By Leon Mangasarian
16.10.06. dpa / Raw Story.

Montenegro

Rumsfeld pledges U.S. support for Montenegro's NATO membership
27.09.06. English People.

Russia

Putin Fights Back
08.10.06. M. Whitney, ICH. “The growing distrust between Washington and Moscow goes beyond Bush’s plan to deploy NATO to the former Soviet republics. Washington is also unhappy with Putin’s nationalizing the oil industry (Gazprom) and ditching the dollar in the oil trade.”

Russia and NATO Hold Joint Anti-Missile Exercises in Moscow
16.10.06. Mos News.

Ukraine

Ukraine parl. speaker blasts NATO inability to maintain security
18.09.06. en.rian.ru.


General Bantz J. Craddock, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) for NATO

The General's Report (25.06.07. Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, Truthout). 6 May meeting with Rumsfeld at Pentagon about Abu Ghraib torture. "The meeting was attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with (Gen. Bantz J.) Craddock and other officials. Taguba, describing the moment nearly three years later, said, sadly, "I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting."

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Sarah Meyer is a researcher living in the UK.

NATO: Bathtub of Unreadiness was first published at http://www.brusselstribunal.org/NATO.htm.

The url to NATO: The Bathtub of Unreadiness is: http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2006/09/nato-bathtub-of-unreadiness.html

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Tags : Afghanistan, NATO, PNAC, Israel, Lebanon,, Index Research