Israel Is About To Make Us The Laughingstock Of The International Community

JERUSALEM — Israeli naval commandos raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning, killing at least 10 people, according to the Israeli military and activists traveling with the flotilla. Some Israeli news reports put the death toll higher.

The confrontation drew widespread international condemnation of Israel, with Israeli envoys summoned to explain their country’s actions in several European countries.

The criticism offered a propaganda coup to Israel’s foes, particularly Hamas, the militant group that holds sway in Gaza, and damaged Israel’s ties to Turkey, one of its most important Muslim partners and the unofficial sponsor of the Gaza-bound convoy. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short a visit to Latin America to return home.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his plans for meeting with President Obama in Washington on Tuesday, an Israeli government official confirmed. Mr. Netanyahu, who is visiting Canada, planned to return home Monday to deal with fallout from the raid, the official said.

NY Times

Once again Israel has chosen to use their military in a way that could only be described as disproportionate, only this time they weren't firing on "suspected Hamas militants" which gave them the slightest bit of cover last year. No, this time they were firing on unarmed activist on a humanitarian mission quasi sponsored by one of our mor important allied countries int the Muslim world Turkey. So lets check the resposes that others have given so far.

Within hours, diplomatic repercussions began to spread from the Mediterranean to Europe where Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, called for a full inquiry into the incident and the immediate lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

snip

A joint statement from Robert Serry and Filippo Grandi, two senior United Nations officials involved in the Middle East peace process and humanitarian aid to Gaza, condemned the raid, which they said was “apparently in international waters.”

“We wish to make clear that such tragedies are entirely avoidable if Israel heeds the repeated calls of the international community to end its counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza,” the officials said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France called Israel’s use of force “disproportionate,”

snip

Turkey strongly condemned the Israeli military action.

“Regardless of any reasoning, such actions against civilians engaged in only peaceful activities are unacceptable,” said a statement on the Foreign Ministry’s Web site on Monday. “Israel will be required to face the consequences of this act that involves violation of the international law.”

snip

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said Israel should provide a full explanation of what happened. News reports said the authorities in Egypt and Jordan, two Arab neighbors which have peace treaties with Israel, had summoned Israeli envoys to protest the action.

That kind of all sounds pretty much the same right? So what has our response been so far?

Bill Burton, a deputy press secretary for the White House, said, “The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy.”

Working to understand the circumstances? WHAT THE FUCK?

That's pretty much sounds like the same load of bullshit we were fed after Israel assaulted the Gaza strip a little over a year ago now. And you know what? You have a better chance of hitting the lottery....in every state than the chance there is that you will hear anything from the U.S. in any stronger terms than that. Moreso, and definitely more damaging, is that we will probably block any and all investigations into the matter just like we did with the Goldstone report.

How many times will we use a charge of anti Semitism to help excuse this kind of behavior from Israel? How many of our other allies will we have to alienate in the name of covering their asses? And for what? Why exactly are we going to cede all moral high ground yet again to defend the indefensible?

There isn't a politician in Washington who will be willing to denounce Israel over this and that goes all the way up to President Obama. As much as we bemoan bank bailouts and oil spills, that may be a reality that is more perilous to our nation than anything else going on right now. When a country knows that no matter what they do you will never, EVER call them out, what exactly do you expect them to do? How exactly do you expect them to act when any move to hold them accountable for their behavior will be seen as political suicide?

I wish it were not so, but you just wait and see. When its all said and done there will be us and Israel on the one side, and pretty much the rest of the world on the other. It is what it is.

UN Calls On The U.S. To Prosecute Bush Co.

I don't know how President Obama and his administration can overlook a call from the United Nations to investigate and prosecute members of the Bush Administration for torture. Kinda makes that whole "we just want to look forward" look moot at this point. What will happen if this pronouncements keep coming from around the globe? Will we ever get our reputation back as a morally upstanding country if we do not prosecute wrong doing by those in power? I don't see how we can. If we are supposed to believe that no one is above the law, its time for us to start proving it.

From RawStory:

The UN's special torture rapporteur called on the US Tuesday to pursue former president George W. Bush and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and bad treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.

"Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation" to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said, in remarks to be broadcast on Germany's ZDF television Tuesday evening.

He noted Washington had ratified the UN convention on torture which required "all means, particularly penal law" to be used to bring proceedings against those violating it.

"We have all these documents that are now publicly available that prove that these methods of interrogation were intentionally ordered by Rumsfeld," against detainees at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nowak said.

"But obviously the highest authorities in the United States were aware of this," added Nowak, who authored a UN investigation report on the Guantanamo prison.

That last line is particularly damning. It pretty much casts a cloud over the leadership in Congress in that it is saying because they knew and know what happened, there shouldn't be any question that an investigation SHOULD be forthcoming. If it isn't the spotlight won't be just on Bush Co, it will also shift to the people who enabled them. Dangerous ground if you ask me.

Where In The Hell Are The Pro Lifers?

I am more pissed right now about this Israeli/Palestinian conflict than I have been throughout the whole military offensive by Israel. Why in the fuck are the Israelis killing innocent children over and over again? About 10 minutes ago I went to MSNBC's website to watch their videos from today. Of course they had a video report on the bullshit unilateral "cease fire" from Israel that is really just a trap for Hamas. So I watchced it anyway because the MSNBC correspondent actually made it into Gaza to conduct some interviews and shoot some footage. But in watching the video right at the end there was a report that Israel had hit another UN school, ANOTHER UN SCHOOL FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. This is the third fucking time this has happened. And THIS time they killed two little boys. That coincides with the announcement that over 300 kids have been killed during the last 22 days and over 1,000 injured.

With all of the Obama train coverage I guess it was just too much to ask that anybody in our bullshit ass mainstream media to report the incident. So instead I had to go to bbc.com just to see if I had seen it right. Three times. Three times the Israelis have fired into a UN facility now killing Palestinian who are trying to avoid the bombings. And don't give me that bullshit about human shield because Israel uses the Palestinians as human shields in the past and are doing it RIGHT NOW with every building that they take over in Gaza. This just so fucking unacceptable on so man levels and I just wish there was somebody I could actually complain to in this country ie an elected official who might actually give a damn and do something about it.

But you know what, most of all I want to know where in the fuck are the loony wing nut pro life protesters? These muthafuckas can protest Krispy Kreme for giving away free donuts. They can call our President Elect a baby killer. They can put up little crosses all over a yard. But when hundreds of kids are being slaughtered every day in the Gaza strip where are these hypocritical ass douche bags? Standing with Israel I am only so sure. Fucking bunch of posers who really don't give a shit about anybody but themselves and their right to look down there noses at everybody else. Well fuck the lot of you. If you can't find it in your heart to speak out against those innocent kids in Gaza being killed indiscriminately then I don't want to hear shit from you about the unborn here. Is that harsh? Yeah probably. But if not then let me say it twice because it didn't work the first time.

FUCK YOU!