Monthly Archive for February, 2007

Page 2 of 8

Inconclusive Evidence, Dummy!

Published on February 19, 2007 in Iran, Iraq, Middle East and US. 0 Comments

There’s an interesting article over at ZNet about US evidence (or more accurately the lack of it) for Iranian involvement is supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents. I am beginning to think IED really stands for ‘Inconclusive Evidence, Dummy’.

On Sunday 11 February, anonymous US officials presented roadside bombs, and components and fragments of bombs, and other weapons used by Iraqi insurgents, claiming that they had been manufactured in Iran and smuggled into Iraq on the orders of the highest levels of the Iranian Government. The language used by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, and by the briefers themselves, however, was tentative rather than conclusive. Dramatic ‘evidence’ that had been promised failed to materialize. Claims that the serial numbers and quality of machining of weapons and components could only have originated in Iran were not substantiated with any detail. No evidence was produced that the weapons and components had come via government channels rather than through criminal markets or informal and irregular contacts with Iranian military units. The Iraqi party and militia closest to Iran has actually been recognized for its support for the US occupation. One previous claim as to the Iranian provenance of insurgent technology actually traces back to the IRA, who apparently acquired the bomb-triggering capability with the knowledge and facilitation of the British Government. Curiously, none of the British national ‘quality’ dailies reports the admission of one of the US briefers that there was ‘no “smoking gun” linking Tehran and Iraqi militants’.

…

[IED Lies, Milan Rai, ZNet]

Technorati Tags: Middle East, Iran, Iraq, US, IED

There’s no business like shoah business

Published on February 19, 2007 in Israel, Middle East, Palestine, US and Video. 0 Comments

Here’s a Jerusalem Post article, detailing the neglect with which the State of the holocaust survivor treats holocaust survivors:

In the Mogilov ghetto, she saw the Nazis chop her four-month-old sister’s head off with an axe and shoot her grandmother to death. The Nazis also did terrible things to Rozenstain herself.

“I have no one to talk to, no grave to go visit,” she says. “I don’t need money, I just need a little relief in my life.”

But the fact is she does need money. Echoing Leopold Rosen, she says, “There are days I don’t eat, but I’m used to not eating. My medicines I have to take, though.”

She suffers from depression, anxiety attacks that don’t let her catch her breath, a heart condition and osteoporosis.

“I need dentures that cost NIS 8,000, and special glasses that cost NIS 2,200,” she adds. “Where am I supposed to get the money?”

Living alone, her two children long having left the house, she and her late husband cashed in his pension in 1990, when, she says, her husband’s heart surgeon convinced them it would be better if the operation was done privately. “My husband died on the operating table,” Rozenstain says.

Her landlord is now trying to evict her from the apartment, which she says she’s been paying for on a “key money,” or virtual ownership, basis since 1963. The eviction proceedings have forced her to borrow NIS 10,000 for a lawyer.

She lives on German reparations that come to about NIS 1,500 a month plus NIS 2,200 a month in Israeli old-age pension.

“But I know other [Holocaust survivors] who have it much worse, who go through the garbage bins for food,” she says. “They make a big joke out of us.”

Meanwhile, Israel is seeking to secure a further $500 million military aid before President Bush leaves office.

US military aid for Israel in the 2008 fiscal year, which begins on October 1, 2007, totals $2.4 billion. There will be no civilian aid, under a 1997 agreement that cut civilian aid by $120 million a year until it was eliminated in the 2008 fiscal year, while military aid was increased by $60 million a year up to a ceiling of $2.4 billion a year.

This state of affairs seems even more shameful, given that Israel, since it’s founding, has exploited the Holocaust to deflect criticism of it’s policy towards the Palestinians and American Jewish organizations have used the plight of needy survivors to extort staggering sums of money from the rest of the world.

The following documentary, The Final Insult, based on Norman Finkelstein’s book The Holocaust Industry provides some of the background to this and proves that there really is no business like Shoah business.

Technorati Tags: Middle East, Israel, Palestine, US, Aid, Shoah, Holocaust, The Final Insult, Norman Finkelstein