"What We Did Was Insane and Monstrous"

Israel's Cluster Bomb War

By SAREE MAKDISI

Of all the statistics to emerge from Israel's recent war on Lebanon, the most shocking concerns the number of cluster bombs that Israel dropped on or fired into Lebanon.

A cluster bomb is made up of a canister that opens and releases hundreds of individual bomblets, which are dispersed and explode over a wide area, showering it with molten metal and lethal fragments.

About 40 percent of the bomblets dropped by Israel (many of which were American-made) did not explode in the air or on impact with the ground. They now detonate when someone disturbs them--a soldier, a farmer, a shepherd, a child attracted by the lure of a shiny metal object.

Cluster bombs are, by definition, inaccurate weapons that are designed to affect a very wide area unpredictably. If they do not discriminate between civilian and military targets when they are dropped, they certainly do not discriminate in the months and years after the end of hostilities, when they go on killing and maiming anyone who happens upon them.

When the count of unexploded cluster bomblets passed 100,000, the United Nation's undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, expressed his disbelief at the scale of the problem.

"What's shocking and, I would say to me, completely immoral," he said, "is that 90% of the cluster-bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution, when we really knew there would be an end of this."

That was on Aug. 30, by which time U.N. teams had identified 359 separate cluster-bomb sites.

Since then, the true dimensions of the problem have become even clearer: 770 cluster-bomb sites have now been identified. And the current U.N. estimate is that Israel dropped between 2 million and 3 million bomblets on Lebanon, of which up to a million have yet to explode.

In fact, it is estimated that there are more unexploded bomblets in southern Lebanon than there are people. They lurk in tobacco fields, olive groves, on rooftops, in farms, mixed in with rubble. They are injuring two or three people every day, according to the United Nations, and have killed 20 people since the cease-fire in August.

"What we did was insane and monstrous," one Israeli commander admitted to the newspaper Haaretz. "We covered entire towns in cluster bombs."

As Egeland noted, the majority of these bombs were dropped in the last three days of the war--a time when the U.N. resolution to end the fighting had been agreed on, when the war was virtually over, when it was clear that Israel had failed to accomplish its declared objectives in launching this campaign.

Dropped so late in the war, it's hard to imagine what specific military objective these bombs could possibly have been meant to accomplish. Instead, they seem to have been dropped as a final, gratuitous act of violence in a war waged against an entire population. The vast majority of the 1,200 Lebanese killed by Israeli bombardments were civilians; one in three was a child.

With 100,000 innocent people trapped in the south because they could not, or dared not, flee on roads that Israel was indiscriminately bombing every day, Israel's justice minister declared that they were all--men, women and children--"terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah."

Nor was this his view alone. The Israelis dropped leaflets warning that "any vehicle of any kind traveling south of the Litani River will be bombed, on suspicion of transporting rockets, military equipment and terrorists." The Israeli chief of staff was especially clear. "Nothing is safe" in Lebanon, he said. "As simple as that."

Israel carried out 7,000 air raids and fired 160,000 artillery projectiles into Lebanon, a tiny country. That's about two air raids and 40 projectiles per square mile.

But the punishment was not evenly distributed. Israel's war was aimed specifically at Lebanon's Shiite population. Shiite neighborhoods in Beirut were destroyed, but other neighborhoods remained untouched. Shiite villages in the south were obliterated--literally wiped from the surface of the Earth--while nearby Christian villages escaped unscathed, mercifully able to shelter their Shiite neighbors.

Israeli officials said this was a war against Hezbollah, that Hezbollah was hiding in the midst of the population. But this wasn't a war against Hezbollah. It was a war to punish the entire population for its support of the guerrillas.

Not only was Hezbollah not hiding behind civilians, it ought to be obvious that the violence was directed in the first instance at the civilians themselves. To direct such violence at one community, one religious group, one minority--and to deny them the ability to return safely home--was what this war was all about.

To drop two or three bomblets for every man, woman and child in southern Lebanon--after having wiped out their homes, smashed their communities, destroyed their livelihoods--is to wage war against them all.

And we supplied the weapons.

Saree Makdisi, a professor of English at UCLA, is the author of Romantic Imperialism: Universal Empire and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s (University of Chicago Press, 2003). He can be reached at: makdisi@humnet.ucla.edu

To drop two or three bomblets for every man, woman and child in southern Lebanon--after having wiped out their homes, smashed their communities, destroyed their livelihoods--is to wage war against them all.

Cluster Bomb Kills 12-Year-Old Boy In Lebanon

In other news from Lebanon, a twelve-year-old boy died Sunday in the southern village of Halta after a cluster bomb exploded. The boy died while picking olives with his brother. At least 21 people have died in southern Lebanon from cluster bombs since the Israeli war ended in August.

What a piece of work this thing is.

Israel invades Lebanon ( again ) after terrorizing them ( again ) and fires thousands of cluster bombs then blames them for it,

As if the children in their olive groves were soldiers.

This is quintessential zionism. A band of murderous shits that deserve neither life or respect. They, of course, would be the ones screaming the loudest if it were one of theirs. In fact, they scream the loudest, because they value only themselves. Disgusting assholes.

We won't fall for it here. The topic was Israeli terror and it's immoral use of cluster bombs. You can't excuse the inexcusable no matter how much you try to change the subject, skippy.

Thanks-this needs tyo remain a place where folks aren't shouted down by the dominant/.agent group once again. We get enough of the right wing, pro-israel, pro-war crap everywhere else.

SJ's censorship rant:

Utah-IMC's editors have abandoned their posts. Anarchy reigns now.

by TheTroll = neo-Nazi insect Friday October 06, 2006 at 05:04 PM

Naziboy, your rants are ignored and you're laughed at here.

Let's jog our memories as to who we're dealing with here -- a Holocaust denier who was even banned from the SF-IMC cesspit (run by an antisemite, mind you) and had all his posts there hidden for that reason.

Once we get our hands on the administrative passwords your posts here will be toast and just about anything you say will be promptly deleted. You and your goosestepping kind are the subhuman waste that needs to be sorted out and disposed of, the sooner the better. There's nothing to discuss or debate about the Holocaust with a bi-pedal subhuman turd such as yourself.

I call on any person reading these lines willing to visit violence on arch-racist fucktards like you to set you ablaze and see to your death.

But if Israel uses them, I'll never say one word about it as long as only they 'the chosen people' use them; in fact, I'll deny they even use them until the overwhelming evidence forces me to.

Then I'll pretend to be outraged that someone besides Israel, the only real people, use them.

I'll do the same with White Phosphorus or flechet rounds or poison gas or biological weapons are used. Hell, I'll even excuse nuclear weapons as long as I'm told to.

You see, I have no morals. I'm a puppet for Israel.

They can't ever do any wrong.

How absurd--spends a page defending (de facto) Israeli terror in the form of cluster munitions, then, at the end "BTW, I'm opposed to them"

That's a riot.

What makes this an aggravated case, is that they knowingly used the bulk of them when they knew it was over!

THis is big. and nasty. and very, very sleazy.

It cannot be excused w/ deflections, minimizations or lies.

Jan Egeland: "What's shocking and ... completely immoral is that 90% of the cluster-bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution, when we really knew there would be an end of this."

It's called absolute malignant HATRED. This is the best, simplest explanation for all sorts of things Israel does.

Well, to be fair, there's more than one LA Indymedia editor. As far as I can tell, JohnK is trying to play by the rules. There is another editor whose hide-and-gloat habit makes it clear that his policy is "fuck the house rules, I'll hide any damned thing I want because I'm powertripping."

@%<

I got so fed up with the volume of flamewars that I now just hide any reported post within the Israel/Palestine topic. I'm pretty sure this is against the editorial policy, but, arguably, the entire topic, and the ensuing discussion, is outside of the scope of this specific site's mission.

You flamers don't even live in or near Los Angeles, and aren't talking about Los Angeles. You come here because you've been banned or rejected from other IMCs. Ever since you've shown up (by "you" I mean all sides) the site's declined in quality and community participation. You're basically a liability to the site, but, one that we have tolerated because the LA folks, for whatever reasons, tend to not want to actively hide articles.

In the long-term, I'm not sure what's to be done about this problem you all have foisted upon the site. My inclination is to create more site features to allow flamers to "gun each other down at will" and suffer their own consequences. The consequences will be reduced, but the ability to "hide" each other would be simplified. It might be complemented by a feature to allow people to protect each other as well.

What I don't understand is why you all can't just get one of those free, ad-supported message forums, and fight each other there.

I'm definitely hiding, but nothing that hasn't been reported by someone. I don't know who is reporting the posts, but there's definitely a "war" going on with people on both sides hitting those buttons. I'm just telegraphing those wishes by hiding posts within the Palestine/Israel threads.

Show the hidden posts and you might see some patterns. (I haven't bothered to check, but there are hundreds of reports, so patterns should show up.)

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=%22gehrig%22+indymedia&btnG=Google+Search

That is not mentally healthy

It would appear that you are obsessed, a self appointed crusader for Israel, by just doing a cursory google search w/ "gehrig" and indymedia.

Seems wierd.

"What I don't understand is why you all can't just get one of those free, ad-supported message forums, and fight each other there."

Because this is a war. Lives hang on the edge of knowing the structure of lies that enforce the system.

This is an important front. This is why the attack has been so unrelenting.

To disfuntionalize the tool this site provides.

There is no reason whatsoever to believe this.

So articles are hidden because they get a lot of "votes?"

What about the consensed editorial guidelines?

Shouldn't monitors go to items which have been heavily flagged, compare them to the guidelines, and make a decision then?

Or is it just minority rules? And if you happen to be of a minority opinion, you get your stuff hidden ---like I did above with my researched, critical analysis of the Lead Saree Makdisi article, which contained NO AD HOMINEM ATTACKS, NO MISINFORMATION, WAS ON-TOPIC, and raised valid points?

Personally, I rarely use the report buttons, but do so when its required---like on virtually EVERY LaTuff cartoon! I guess I will just have to report TW every time he opens his mouth just to balance out when he does it to me.

As long as taxpayers in Los Angeles continue to support the Israeli war machine, then this topic most definitely concerns you. There is blood on your hands, and only one way to wash it off.

To: Becky

Yes, at this time, there is no reading of material on the p/i threads. I've tried to read them, but it's just overwhelming. There are not enough hours in the day. Please note that there are only around 3 people reading things regularly, and we all have to do other work as well.

The only good that's coming of it is some ideas about how to reduce it, or turn it into some kind of transparent, self-regulating system. The buttons were a first step, because it allowed the folks in the collective to not have to read every single post, and allowed the community to have greater, direct input into the process. The effect was mostly positive, with the overall volume of vitriol far lower than back in 2003. The next step (which I wish to implement) is to give the readers more power to hide (but make hiding less punitive), and make the process more transparent.

Please note that other IMCs have banned your angry posts. For whatever reasons, the people in LA have generally sided with the right of flamewars to exist, and the right for people to post anonymously. For a while, the hidden posts link was not on the page, but it's back. So even hiding has less effect than before. I also personally strive to preserve posts that link to hidden threads.

(In the past, we tried some other things, like checking the content length, and doing things with the author field, but they didn't work. So, putting roadblocks to online venom while retaining some level of anonymous posting is an ongoing problem. There are IP blocks, but they aren't that good, and used mainly against advertisers. There are content blocks, but they mostly target explicitly hateful speech, and code used by ad spammers.)

As for consensus, the general consensus for the past half year or so is that we wish you all didn't have flamewars, and didn't flood the newswire. That's our consensus, but, we are also unwilling to do what it takes to effect this change because we don't really like censorship. If we were, you all would have been banned, like you have been at other IMCs, or we would have really made an effort to use one of the codebases that require registration to comment and then imposed some new restrictions on posting.

Re: Taxpayers

That argument, while valid, doesn't justify the volume of discussion. It's not like 90% of our taxes go there. 90% of the thread traffic is about this topic!

Have you noticed that certain individuals load the newswire with stories on this issue- 8 /10 stories in 15 minutes? Have you noticed that they comment on these stories themselves, usually with something inane like "Can't read about this in the mainstream media"? Have you noticed the same individual continues to throw bait until he elicits a response? And have you noticed that this individual is not a zionist?

"Please note that other IMCs have banned your angry posts."

Becky does not do angry posts. The rest of us, lacking her self discipline, do. Becky was repeatedly censored because her well researched and well documented posts did not toe the line of political correctness. And we haven't actually been banned- rather the censorship became so draconian that we chose not to continue participation.



As for consensus, the general consensus for the past half year or so is that we wish you all didn't have flamewars, and didn't flood the newswire.



The Zionists do not "flood the newswire". And generally, we only comment on items that are deliberately misleading or inflamatory.

" or we would have really made an effort to use one of the codebases that require registration to comment and then imposed some new restrictions on posting."

Since so many of the ZIonists use their real names or their identities are already well known in the local community, I suspect we'd be fine with a registration requirement. It would be interesting to see how the real spammers would feel about it. I suspect Toady, Sheepdog and TW would drop off the face of the planet if registration was required. Am I wrong?

Imagine if, in 1964, you had heard someone complain about the volume of political discussion that the Civil Rights struggle took up, by saying, "It's not like 90% of our states are segregated."

What would you think of that person?

This is the reason these types are here, spamming, forging, lying and just plain attacking this IMC.

Zionism is a cancer that has taken over the body politic as in the AIPAC and other arms of the Zionist lobby. It's the very reason we are poised to involve our countries life blood in Iraq and Iran for a criminal gang of occupiers, murderers and terrorists.

This is very much 90% of our current peril. And the reason for 90% of the noise and hate in this area of our world and life. This is why so much energy is devoted to fouling this forum.

Oct. 25, 2006 at 11:39 AM

Oct. 25, 2006 at 11:45 AM

Didn't someone say this was their job?

Does this person have any other function but to sit at the monitor all day hitting the reload button to reply with flame comments?

It does smell like the arm of the Israeli lobby. So intense is their devotion they can't even take time to proof read their inane wisecracks.

- Zionists for urricanes-

What else could it be but an agency committed to their job.

This is the reason these types are here, spamming, forging, lying and just plain attacking this IMC.



If you actually look at the posted articles that flood the newswire- very few are from a Zionist perspective. Its the anti-Zionists doing the spamming, lying and flooding. And most of these articles aren't original- they are just cut n pastes from some news feed. They are easily accessible through many sources on the web. They really have no place on an IMC.

The problems occur on the comments threads, where we repond to these articles. And sometimes we feel we must. If the headline reads "17 years old Palestinian shot at checkpoint", we are going to mention that he was caught wearing a suicide bombers vest. If the posted article reflects reality, we'll largely ignore it.



Zionism is a cancer that has taken over the body politic as in the AIPAC and other arms of the Zionist lobby.

Zionism is the belief in the Jewish right to self determination in their ancient homeland. It is no different than any other self-determination movement. Just older.

This is why so much energy is devoted to fouling this forum.

We don't feel we are fouling anything. We feel we are moving the system towards truth, by pointing out lies, misrepresentation and bias. Two of the pro-Israel contributors are IMC members and clearly have a great deal of respect for the institution.

Perhaps if the editors limited posting of articles to items that have not already been widely posted across the web, that would limit some of the noise. If people want to receive electronic intifada feeds, they can subscribe to that service. LA IMC does not need to play middleman.

You don't even know how open this propaganda front is.

Your 'different' prospective is a farce in that you echo the same ideology,

The same ideology that rained down needless death and terror on the people of Lebanon. The same killers that slaughtered the refugees at Sabra and Shatela through their fascist proxi death squads while they blocked the exits, used flares to assist the slaughter and later denied all of it. You people are devils on earth. And don't give me the 'wink wink' bull squeeze about being anti Jew, because the fact is that Zionism is a threat to everyone especially the Jews of the earth that don't want a homeland built over the mass graves of their victims. You and your psychotic attack dog, Yid are cut from the same bloody cloth.

He wasn't talking about Jews. He was talking about Zionists. Most Zionists aren't Jews. They're Christians.

One difference between Christians and Jews, of course, is that nessie has never indicated that Indymedia should be used to spread hatred against 99.5% of American Christians, but he _has_ indicated that Indymedia should be used to spread hatred against 99.5% of American Jews. Another antisemite in "anti-Zionist" garb.

@%<

They were hidden because someone reported them. It's really that simple. Someone hit the button. I don't know who it was, but, I would guess it's probably one or two of the anti-Zionists who has a grudge against her.

I would like to suggest that you discuss how to deal with this situation. Perhaps establish some rules of your own to foster reasonable discussion, and maybe have a moratorium on the political button clicking.

>he _has_ indicated that Indymedia should be used to spread hatred against 99.5% of American Jews.

He lies. "Nessie" has indicated no such thing. Au contrair, Indymedia should be used to spread hatred against 100% of all racists. How many of them are Jews is irrelevant. It matters only to racists. Only a racist would care how many are Jews. A racist is a racist is a racist. Throw them all out.

johnk: "maybe have a moratorium on the political button clicking."

I'd recommend that people do what I do -- that is, don't click the button unless it really _is_ fraud, really _is_ a disturbingly personal insult (i.e. "smash their fucken teeth in," not "you're an idiot"), really _is_ a hate post (i.e. "condemning group characteristics is a very Jewish thing to do").

I don't click buttons on posts simply because I disagree with them -- as you can see by the number of posts attacking me that remain up while my posts get hidden.

I appreciate that johnk is trying to get things cleaned up here. But it's an uphill battle. LA Indymedia is still reaping what it sowed a year ago when it abandoned all pretense of editorial fairness and said that no attack against Israel was too scabrous to be considered off-limits while no defense of Israel of any sort was to be allowed, no matter how brief.

That, more than anything else, is what let LA Indymedia degenerate into such a cesspit on that issue.

@%<

Specifically, a fanatically zionist troll(gehrig) from UCIMC who trolls all over the IMC network defending Israel, name calling and has had this multiple year hate (love?) fest with nessie really has no credibility in this whole discussion.

gehrig does bring up an interesting point however- since the Zionist posters rarely use the report buttons, and the anti-Zionists do, it gives this site the appearence of tremendous editorial bias.

An anti-Zionist spam post of pure noise, and a Zionist spam post responding to it. Both completely unnecessary.

Can we give the site editors a break and refrain from empty noise ?

'we don't hide posts'

I don't believe it for one moment, not from these individuals...

gehrig's propensity to lie is legendary. And if he can't lie, he twists the truth so much he may as well flat out lie. In fact, he just did when he said that nessie 'hates Jews'

Like covering Lebanon w/ Cluster munitions, they show NO moral anchor, but instead rely upon repeated falsehoods. Ms. BJ posts the same lies w/ photos of staged 'child bombers', visions of delightful beaches in the west bank that cover the horror of ghetto life under israeli occupation, repeated denials of the killing zionist machine and other mindless, oft repeated swill straight from her coaches. You can almost predict which piece of seen before ( again and again ) crap she will post.

If it wasn't so deadly tragic, one would laugh.

>I'd recommend that people do what I do -- that is, don't click the button unless it really _is_ fraud, really _is_ a disturbingly personal insult (i.e. "smash their fucken teeth in," not "you're an idiot"), really _is_ a hate post (i.e. "condemning group characteristics is a very Jewish thing to do").

He lies again.

See:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/1732422.php

"We feel we are moving the system towards truth, by pointing out lies, misrepresentation and bias."

*Yyyaaaaaaaaaaawwnnn-uhh** shmek shmak mnhmm. Here's a good example of how they "move the system toward truth" -- by trying to drown it out with grotesque lying hasbarah apologetics cloaked in multiple layers of subterfuge (see the next comment after the one this links to):

http://la.indymedia.org/news/hidden.php?id=184882#184978

Clue: the zionists' idea of "the truth to move to" includes the IDF's glaring LIES about its own atrocities. Hey maybe Nuremberg should have taken this view of the Wehrmacht's own accounting of its bloodbaths. If the IDF can do it, why can't the Nazis??! Different occult symbol, same basic jackbooted assholes

anonymouse: "gehrig's propensity to lie is legendary."

Sorta like John Bunyan is legendary -- i.e. non-existent.

@%<

" Couldn't Sheepdog or Hex or TW or Toady be PAID- "

Yes, please send me some cash ( gold is preferred ) and if anyone still thinks that I am part of that gang, ( Hexagram the 'Iran has nukes' mole, or TW the 'planes did it', backboard for your constant simpletoon comments: they are simple. With a memory problem,

Here's the deal, Ms. BJ. You vapid ideologues and your ilk have nothing to say except a whole lot of unfounded 'could be', 'may have beens' and outright lies.

A thief always fears theft, a liar suspects others of lying, and vapid propaganda AGENTS can only infer an organization of their common critics. When they operate as a tag team.

Unlike you, I have a job that serves others in special projects requiring actual design and labor with my hands and training ( and Hexagram as well as the other weasels have been trying to find out who I am and where I work for years- [good luck, boyz]- so they can 'help' me ) that actually improve their life. You, on the other hand, serve the agenda of murder and rape of the innocent victims of zionism. I am unpaid, uncompensated and alone in my hobby here. Security for myself and family is important to me. Unlike Yid, gehrig, yourself and SJ and all the other zionazi weasels who can afford to camp on their keyboards all day, I have to earn a living independent of this circus in hell.

Your teams agenda is clearly sponsored by the arm of the israeli lobby or one of their proxies as anyone could see, by their support of your insipid zionist crap.

After the constant and continuous barrage of lies, I am not impressed by your disclaimers of innocence as well as should others be.

Racistist propagand does not belong on Indymedia bandwidth. Racists do not belong in Indymedia.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bunyan

Great picture of right wing neocon zionist filth

That is great news, that means that the crews are doing a good job

Good article from 10/20 re: cluster munitions

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=76304

Here's a report w/ some reasoning behind the 1 million figure:

http://www.maccsl.org/reports/Leb%20UXO%20Fact%20Sheet%2010%20October%202006.pdf

http://www.mineaction.org/overview.asp?o=540

Good article:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/clusterbombs.html

I can't tell when the last fatality from unexploded cluster munitions in Lebanon was, but the longer the better--hopefully less injuries/fatalities means the ground crews are doing a good job.

Human Rights Watch acknowledged that Hibollah responded to Israel's assault/muder spree with cluster munitions here:

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/18/lebano14412.htm

But "if they do it, too" were an excuse, many human rights violators would be off the hook.

This article wasn't about Hizbollah, it was about Israeli terror.

Islamophobia has replaced anti-Semitism as the focus of the European far right, according to Glyn Ford, a British member of the European Parliament and author of a book on neo-fascism in Europe. "Europe is in danger of seeing its extreme-right parties move into the mainstream," he said, adding, "Islamophobia has become the prejudice of the day, but the threat from the extreme right is real and it is found across the European Union."

http://www.counterpunch.org/sustar10302006.html

Bumping the stories that some want buried

bumpalicious

bumpalicious