Israel Claims It Killed 1500+ Palestinian Civilians “in Self Defense” — but Their Intent is Clear:

Israeli Deputy Knesset Speaker Moshe Feiglin Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza

JULY 25, 2014

by BRETT WILKINS

While the world recoils in horror at the sight of Israeli troops slaughtering Palestinians by the hundreds, one high-ranking Israeli parliamentarian says his country should go further and implement its own final solution in Gaza.

In an Arutz Sheva op-ed, Moshe Feiglin, deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset (parliament) and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, outlines his horrifying “solution in Gaza.”

Feiglin, who is banned from entering Britain for “seeking to provoke terrorist acts,” calls for an all-out attack on Gaza with “no consideration for ‘human shields’ or ‘environmental damage.’” He also advocates a “total siege” on Gaza, as if the current siege isn’t total nor devastating enough in its impact on the 1.8 million residents of the world’s largest open-air prison.

After the ‘ultimatum,’ ‘attack,’ ‘siege’ and ‘defense’ phases of Feiglin’s “solution,” we move to what he calls the “conquer” phase.

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will conquer the entire Gaza, using all the means necessary to minimize any harm to our soldiers, with no other considerations.”

That means we’d surely be witnessing more slaughter of innocent men, women, children, infants, the elderly, the ill and the disabled, as if there’s not already enough of that going on in Gaza.

And for what? For Zionist lebensraum and cheaper rent in Tel Aviv:

Turkey erupts in protest over death of 274 coal miners as crowds demand government resign

[Capitalism kills, again.  Notoriously unsafe working conditions (defended by Prime Minister Erdogan) led to an explosion and a mining industry mass murder.  The miners work like slaves, their lives in constant jeopardy, while the owners-exploiters take it all to the bank.  When hundreds died in this accident, and hundreds more injured, thousands gathered in grief and anger, and protests erupted and continue across Turkey.  Scroll through the pictures below. — Frontlines ed.]

By Emma Glanfield and Ted Thornhill, Daily Mail, 13 May 2014

Anger and grief boiled over into violent protests across Turkey, as officials announced at least 274 miners died in an explosion and fire in the town of Soma – the country’s deadliest mining disaster.

Nearly 450 other miners have been rescued, the mining company said, but the fate of an unknown number of others remained unclear.

Mass graves were being dug in the town, as it prepared to bury those who were brought to the surface by nightfall, in line with Muslim tradition.

Tensions were high as hundreds of relatives and miners jostled outside the coal mine waiting for news, countered by a heavy police presence.  In downtown Soma, protesters mostly in their teens and 20s faced off against riot police in front of the ruling NKP party headquarters.

The protesters smashed the party’s office windows with rocks and some in the crowd shouted that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a ‘murderer!’ and a ‘thief!’ .

And in Istanbul, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of mine owner Soma Komur Isletmeleri A.S. , Erdogan, coal mining,

10 Years Later, U.S. Legacy in Iraq : Death, Disease, Devastation, Displacement

By Larry Everest 

Countercurrents.org, 26 March, 2013

Ten years ago, on March 19-20, 2003 , the U.S. invaded Iraq , overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime, and then occupied the country for the next eight and a half years. President George W. Bush said the U.S. went to war to liberate Iraq and “free its people.” This March 19, President Barack Obama issued a statement saluting the U.S. military for their service and giving “the Iraqi people an opportunity to forge their own future…”

What did this U.S. war mean for Iraqis? What does it mean for their future?

• Iraqis killed between March 2003 and December 31, 2011 (when U.S. military forces withdrew): at least 121,754.
• Iraqi deaths as a result of the war, directly and indirectly (due to the destruction and disruption of the war, including to water and power systems, to healthcare and food production): 655,000 according to a 2006 Lancet study; 1 million according to 2008 Opinion Research Business study; current estimate: 1.2 to 1.4 million.
• Iraqis injured: 4.2 million.
• Iraqis driven from their homes: 4.5 million.
• Number of U.S. military personnel killed through 2012: 4,486
• Investigations by the U.S. military, government, or media concerning the number of Iraqis killed, wounded, displaced or who died as a result of the war and occupation: None.

The US War on Iraq: a Criminal Enterprise — But Where Will Justice be Found?

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A decade after the US attempt to “shock and awe” humanity and usher in its new “American century” more than a million Iraqis are dead, and trillions of dollars have been squandered, while the high ranking architects and enablers of these monstrous crimes are still riding high…

War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity: The story of U.S. Exceptionalism in Iraq

by Ajamu Baraka, in Black Agenda Report

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq, one of the most egregious expressions of naked power and imperial ambition since the Second World War. The attack defied both an outraged world opinion — expressed by global mass demonstrations — and the United Nations charter. It also marked a change from the previous veiled decorum of supposed adherence to international law that defined post-war international relations. The Bush administration, armed with the ultimate expression of the arrogance of U.S. exceptionalism – legislation passed by the U.S. Congress – unleashed a murderous assault on the people of Iraq dubbed “Operation Shock and Awe.”

Ten years later, the awesome consequences of that criminal assault are clear. More than a trillion dollars spent, almost five thousand American lives lost, more than 32,000 Americans wounded, estimates of a million dead Iraqis and almost five million displaced, an epidemic of Iraqi birth defects from “depleted” uranium, daily bombings, devastated public services and the dismemberment of the country. Yet, ten years later, no one, not one government official, has been held accountable. The obvious question is: how is it that, in light of one of the most heinous crimes ever committed by a State, there have been no investigations, prosecutions or convictions of the officials responsible for this assault?

The lack of accountability is even more incomprehensible in light of the fact that it is now widely acknowledged that the real reason for the Western invasion of Iraq had little to do with its concern about weapons of mass destruction and everything to do with its desire to steal Iraq’s oil.

“Hands off the People of Iran” exposes Tribunal on Iran’s 1980’s massacre of prisoners

[Frontlines recently posted an article (“The Iran Tribunal and the crimes of the Islamic Republic”) about recent hearings, proclaimed to be in the historic tradition of the Bertrand Russell Tribunals in the 70’s against war crimes, but focused on the mass murder of Iranian political prisoners in the 1980’s.  It was, subsequently, brought to our attention that this recent tribunal (unlike the tradition of the Russell Tribunals) is designed to limit the focus on the “old news” of this Iranian massacre, and prevent inclusion of anti-imperialist evidence of crimes–both historic and current–against the people of Iran, who are not only oppressed by the Iranian regime (which continues today the mass imprionment and executions of its political opponents), but also by the western (US, EU) sanctions and war threats.  And many have stepped forward to expose this recent Tribunal as a US–and particularly, the CIA–as the funders and “limiters” of this Tribunal, apparently to use it as grist for their media mill and western war plans against the Iranian people.  Frontlines thanks those who brought this to our attention.  For more information, see the article below, and the website http://hopoi.org/ — Frontlines ed.]

———————————

The 7 key arguments against the “Iran Tribunal”

by “Hands Off the People of Iran”

1. Payam Akhavan (chair and spokesperson of the tribunal’s steering committee) has links to organisations that have accepted large amounts of money from the US government

2. The tribunal refuses to take a stand against war and sanctions on Iran
3. Mainstream lawyers and politicians like Sir Geoffrey Nice, John Cooper QC and Maurice Copithorne ideologically support the tribunal – why?
4. The pro-war Mujahedeen is closely involved with the tribunal
5. Many organisations and witnesses have withdrawn
6. Critical voices have been silenced
7. Conclusion: The tribunal has become part of the campaign to legitimise war and sanctions to enforce pro-western ‘regime change from above’.

The arguments in more detail:

Indonesia: Ex-political prisoners stage plays to survive stigmatization

[Though this description of the 1965 events and massacre are re-packaged, and carefully cleansed of the CIA role; and the scale of the mass murder was much greater, this article from the Indonesian press does raise the largely unrecognized impact on a million political prisoners from that time, seen through the experience of elderly survivors. — Frontlines ed.]

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Saturday, 06/30/2012

The commemoration of the abortive coup blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) is still a few months away, but former political prisoners always remember Sept. 30, 1965, as the day that changed their lives. Following the attempt, which claimed the lives of six Army generals, the Indonesian Military, with the help of mass organizations, prosecuted anyone thought to have links with the PKI. The precise number of fatalities has been disputed, but some put the number as high as 500,000. Those who survived the massacre lived with the stigma of communism and lost their civil rights. One of them, Nani Nuraini, is now 71 years old.

“Even though we are now aged and frail, we still keep smiling and fighting,” said Nani, who claims she has just been fighting for her rights. At the Central Jakarta District Court in 2008, she won the right to a lifetime identity card just like any other elderly citizen. In April, however, the same court rejected her request for rehabilitation.

She was arrested in 1968 and sent without trial to Bukitduri Women’s Penitentiary in South Jakarta for seven years, simply because, at a young age, she had performed as a presidential palace dancer at the party’s anniversary gathering in June 1965. Nani has lived with the stigma of being an ex-political prisoner and communist sympathizer ever since.