Rape rampant in US military Rape rampant in US military

Statistics and soldiers’ testimonies reveal a harrowing epidemic of sexual assault in the US military.

Dahr Jamail

Sexual assault within the ranks of the military is not a new problem. It is a systemic problem that has necessitated that the military conduct its own annual reporting on the crisis.
A 2003 Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal prompted the department of defense to include a provision in the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act that required investigations and reports of sexual harassment and assaults within US military academies to be filed. The personal toll is, nevertheless, devastating.

Military sexual trauma (MST) survivor Susan Avila-Smith is director of the veteran’s advocacy group Women Organizing Women. She has been serving female and scores of male clients in various stages of recovery from MST for 15 years and knows of its devastating effects up close.

“People cannot conceive how badly wounded these people are,” she told Al Jazeera, “Of the 3,000 I’ve worked with, only one is employed. Combat trauma is bad enough, but with MST it’s not the enemy, it’s our guys who are doing it. You’re fighting your friends, your peers, people you’ve been told have your back. That betrayal, then the betrayal from the command is, they say, worse than the sexual assault itself.”
On December 13, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups filed a federal lawsuit seeking Pentagon records in order to get the real facts about the incidence of sexual assault in the ranks.
The Pentagon has consistently refused to release records that fully document the problem and how it is handled. Sexual assaults on women in the US military have claimed some degree of visibility, but about male victims there is absolute silence.

Pack Parachute, a non-profit in Seattle, assists veterans who are sexual assault survivors. Its founder Kira Mountjoy-Pepka, was raped as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. In July 2003 she was member of a team of female cadets handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld, at the time the secretary of defense, to tell their stories of having been sexually assaulted. The ensuing media coverage and a Pentagon investigation forced the academy to make the aforementioned major policy changes.

Report reveals alarming statistics
Mountjoy-Pepka often works with male survivors of MST. She stated in a telephone interview that four per cent of men in the military experience MST. “Most choose not to talk about it until after their discharge from the military, largely because the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in over 60 percent of MST cases is too overwhelming,” she informed Al Jazeera.

Last week the Pentagon released its “annual report on sexual harassment and violence at the military service academies”. At its three academies, the number of reports of sexual assault and harassment has risen a staggering 64 percent from last year.

The report attributes the huge increase to better reporting of incidents due to increased training and education about sexual assault and harassment. Veteran’s Administration (VA) statistics show that more than 50 percent of the veterans who screen positive for MST are men.
According to the US Census Bureau, there are roughly 22 million male veterans compared to less than two million female vets.

In Congressional testimony in the summer of 2008, Lt. Gen. Rochelle, the army chief of personnel, reported the little known statistic that 12 percent (approximately 260) of the 2,200 reported rapes in the military in 2007 were reported by military male victims.
Due to their sheer numbers in the military, more men (at a rough estimate one in twenty), have experienced MST than women.

Shamed into silence
Billy Capshaw was 17 when he joined the Army in 1977. After being trained as a medic he was transferred to Baumholder, Germany. His roommate, Jeffrey Dahmer, by virtue of his seniority ensured that Capshaw had no formal assignment, no mail, and no pay. Having completely isolated the young medic, Dahmer regularly sexually assaulted, raped, and tortured him.

Dahmer went on to become the infamous serial killer and sex offender who murdered 17 boys and men before being beaten to death by an inmate at Columbia Correction Institution in 1994.
Capshaw reflects back, “At that young age I didn’t know how to deal with it. My commander did not believe me. Nobody helped me, even though I begged and begged and begged.”
The debilitating lifelong struggle Capshaw has had to face is common among survivors of military sexual assault.

Later during therapy he needed to go public. Since then he says, “I’ve talked to a lot of men, many of them soldiers, who are raped but who won’t go public with their story. The shame alone is overwhelming.”
In 1985 Michael Warren enlisted in the navy and for three years worked as a submarine machinist mate on a nuclear submarine. One day he awoke to find another soldier performing fellatio on him.
He recollects with horror, “I was paralyzed with fear. I was in disbelief... shame. When I reported it to the commander he said it was better for me to deal with it after being discharged. Nobody helped me, not even the chaplain. The commander at the processing centre wouldn’t look me in the face. When I filled out my claim later they didn’t believe me. It’s so frustrating.”
Armando Javier was an active duty Marine from 1990 to 1994. He was a Lance Corporal at Camp Lejeune in 1993 when he was raped.

Five Marines jumped Javier and beat him until he was nearly unconscious, before taking turns raping him. His sexual victimization narrative reads, “One of them, a corporal, pulled down my shorts and instructed the others to ‘Get the grease’. Another corporal instructed someone to bring the stick. They began to insert the stick inside my anus. The people present during this sadistic and ritual-like ceremony started to cajole, cheer, and laugh, saying “stick em’ – stick-em’.”

Extreme shame and trauma compelled him not to disclose the crime to anyone except a friend in his unit. He wrote in his account, “My experience left me torn apart physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was dehumanized and treated with ultimate cruelty, by my perpetrators… I was embarrassed and ashamed and didn’t know what to do. I was young at that time. And being part of an elite organization that values brotherhood, integrity and faithfulness made it hard to come forward and reveal what happened.”

The reality of being less equal
Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775 and their travails are as old. Drill instructors indoctrinate new recruits into it at the outset by routinely referring to them as “girl,” “pussy,” “bitch,” and “dyke.”

A Command Sergeant Major told Catherine Jayne West of the Mississippi National Guard, “There aren’t but two places for women - in the kitchen or in the bedroom. Women have no place in the military.”
She was raped by fellow soldier Private First Class Kevin Lemeiux, at the sprawling Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad. The defense lawyer in court merely wanted to know why, as a member of the army, she had not fought back.

The morning after the rape, an army doctor gave her a thorough examination. The army’s criminal investigation team concluded her story was true. Moreover, Lemeiux had bragged about the incident to his buddies and they had turned him in. It seemed like a closed case, but in court the defense claimed that the fact that West had not fought back during the rape was what incriminated her. In addition, her commanding officer and 1st Sergeant declared, in court, that she was a “promiscuous female.”
In contrast, Lemeiux, after the third court hearing of the trial, was promoted to a Specialist. Meanwhile his lawyer entered a plea of insanity.

He was later found guilty of kidnapping but not rape, despite his own admission of the crime. He was given three years for kidnapping, half of which was knocked off.

The long term affects of MST
Jasmine Black, a human resources specialist in the Army National Guard from June 2006 to September 2008 was raped by another soldier in her battalion when she was stationed in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She reported it to her Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC) and the Military Police, but the culprit was not brought to book.

After an early discharge due to MST and treatment at a PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (PRRTP) facility, she was raped again by a higher-ranking member of the air force in February 2009.
Administrator for a combat engineering instruction unit in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tracey Harmon has no illusions. “For women in the military, you are either a bitch, a dyke, or a whore. If you sleep with one person in your unit you are a whore. If you are a lesbian you are a dyke, and if you don’t sleep with other soldiers you are a bitch.”

Maricela Guzman served in the navy from 1998 to 2002 as a computer technician on the island of Diego Garcia. She was raped while in boot camp, but fear of consequences kept her from talking about it for the rest of her time in the military. “I survived by becoming a workaholic and was much awarded as a soldier for my work ethic.”

On witnessing the way it treated the native population in Diego Garcia, she chose to dissociate from the military. Post discharge, her life became unmanageable. She underwent a divorce, survived a failed suicide attempt and became homeless before deciding to move in with her parents. A chance encounter with a female veteran at a political event in Los Angeles prompted her to contact the VA for help. Her therapist there diagnosed her with PTSD from her rape.

The VA denied her claim nevertheless, “Because they said I couldn’t prove it … since I had not brought it up when it happened and also because I had not shown any deviant behavior while in the service. I was outraged and felt compelled to talk about what happened.”

While it will go to any length to maintain public silence over the issue, the military machine has no such qualms within its own corridors. Guzman discloses, “Through the gossip mill we would hear of women who had reported being raped. No confidentiality was maintained nor any protection given to victims. The boys’ club culture is strong and the competition exclusive. That forces many not to report rape, because it is a blemish and can ruin your career.”

The department of defence reported that in fiscal year 2009, there were 3,230 reports of sexual assault, an increase of 11 percent over the prior year.

However, as high as the military’s own figures are of rape and sexual assault, victims and advocates Al Jazeera spoke with believe the real figures are sure to be higher.
Veteran April Fitzsimmons, another victim of sexual assault, knows what an uphill battle it is for women to take on the military system. “When victims come forward, they are ostracized and isolated from their communities. Many of the perpetrators are officers who use their ranks to coerce women to sleep with them. It’s a closely interwoven community, so they are safe and move fearlessly amongst their victims.”
Her advice to women considering joining the US military?

“The crisis is so severe that I’m telling women to simply not join the military because it’s completely unsafe and puts them at risk. Until something changes at the top, no woman should join the military.”

This is the first in a two part series on sexual harassment in the US military.

Source:  http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/12/2010122182546344551.html
(Aljazeera)

Israeli fighter jets attack Gaza

Israeli fighter jets have attacked the Gaza Strip, wounding two Palestinian fighters, according to a Palestinian medical source and witnesses.

The overnight raids came after the Israeli army accused Palestinian fighters of firing nine mortar shells on Monday into southern Israel, which fell on open ground and caused no deaths.

Monday's raids targeted the town of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas [AFP]

Three raids targeted the town of Khan Younis in the south of the Palestinian enclave governed by Hamas, wounding two fighters of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, one of them seriously, the sources said.

Four other attacks were carried out in the north of Gaza, targeting the Jabailya refugee camp and the towns of Beit Lahya, Beit Hanoun and Zeitoun, with no casualties reported.
The Israeli jets also attacked a tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt near the southern town of Rafah, without causing any injuries.

An Israeli military spokeswoman, contacted by the AFP news agency, spoke of seven air attacks against tunnels used for smuggling weapons and "arms dumps used for terrorist attacks".
She described the raids as "reprisals for attacks on Israeli territory".

Nine mortar rounds were fired at southern Israel from Gaza on Monday, without hurting anyone, the Israeli military spokeswoman said.
Earlier, on Saturday night, Israeli jets struck central Gaza, killing five fighters as they were about to launch a rocket attack, according to the Israeli army and witnesses.

The raid was one of the deadliest since Israel's December 2008-January 2009 war on Gaza's Hamas rulers, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, which cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers. Since Israel's war on Gaza, the number of rocket attacks has has gone down considerably. The Israeli army says more than 200 rockets or shells have been fired since the beginning of this year.

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/12/2010122142226408227.html

UK taxi driver kills 12, wounds 25 in rampage

By SCOTT HEPPELL and JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer Scott Heppell And Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writer



SEASCALE, England – A taxi driver drove his vehicle on a shooting spree across a tranquil stretch of northwest England on Wednesday, methodically killing 12 people and wounding 25 others before turning the gun on himself, officials said. The rampage in the county of Cumbria was Britain's deadliest mass shooting since 1996 and it jolted a country where handguns are banned and multiple shootings rare.

The body of the suspected gunman, 52-year-old Derrick Bird, was found in woods near Boot, a hamlet popular with hikers and vacationers in England's hilly, scenic Lake District. Police said two weapons were recovered from the scene.

Eight of the wounded were in the hospital, with three of them in critical condition. In a sign of the scale of the tragedy, Queen Elizabeth II issued a message saying she was "deeply shocked" and shared in "the grief and horror of the whole country." She passed on her sympathy to the families of the victims.

The shootings had "shocked the people of Cumbria and around the country to the core," Police Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Hyde said.
Police said it was too early to say what the killer's motive was, or whether the shootings had been random. Some reports said Bird had quarreled with fellow cab drivers the night before the killings.
Peter Leder, a taxi driver who knew Bird, said he had seen the gunman Tuesday and didn't notice anything that was obviously amiss. But he was struck by Bird's departing words.

"When he left he said, 'See you Peter, but I won't see you again,'" Leder told Channel 4 News.
The first shootings were reported in the coastal town of Whitehaven, about 350 miles (560 kilometers) northwest of London. Witnesses said the dead there included two of Bird's fellow cabbies.
Police warned residents to stay indoors as they tracked the gunman's progress across the county. Witnesses described seeing the gunman driving around shooting from the window of his car.
Victims died in Seascale and Egremont, near Whitehaven, and in Gosforth, where a farmer's son was shot dead in a field. Workers at the nearby Sellafield nuclear processing plant were ordered to stay inside while the gunman was on the loose.

Hyde said there were 30 separate crime scenes. Many bodies remained on the ground late Wednesday, covered with sheets, awaiting the region's small and overstretched force of forensic officers.
Police would not discuss the identity of those killed, but local reports said Bird killed a 66-year-old woman near her home and a retired man who was out cycling.

A spokesman for the local health authority denied reports that Bird had tried to seek medical assistance Tuesday and said he was not known to their mental health services.
Barrie Walker, a doctor in Seascale who certified one of the deaths, told the BBC that victims had been shot in the face, apparently with a shotgun.

Lyn Edwards, 59, a youth worker in Seascale, said she saw a man who had been shot in his car.
"I could see a man screaming and I could see blood and there were two ladies helping him at the time," she said.

Deadly shootings are rare in Britain, where gun ownership is tightly restricted. In recent years, there have been fewer than 100 gun murders annually across the country.

Rules on gun ownership were tightened after two massacres in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1987, gun enthusiast Michael Ryan killed 16 people in the English town of Hungerford. In 1996, Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and a teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland.
About 600,000 people in Britain legally own a shotgun, most of them farmers and hunters in rural areas. Witnesses described Bird as using a shotgun or a rifle.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the government would do everything it could to help the affected region.
"When lives and communities are suddenly shattered in this way, our thoughts should be with all those caught up in these tragic events, especially the families and friends of those killed or injured," he told lawmakers in the House of Commons.

Local lawmaker Jamie Reed said people in the quiet area were in shock.
"This kind of thing doesn't happen in our part of the world," he told the BBC. "We have got one of the lowest, if not the lowest, crime rates in the country."
Glenda Pears, who runs L&G Taxis in Whitehaven, said one of the victims was another taxi driver who was a friend of Bird's.
"They used to stand together having a (laugh) on the rank," she said. "He was friends with everybody and used to stand and joke on Duke Street."

Sue Matthews, who works at A2B Taxis in Whitehaven, said Bird was self-employed, quiet and lived alone. Some reports said he was divorced and the father of two sons.
"I would say he was fairly popular. I would see him once a week out and about. He was known as 'Birdy,'" she said. "I can't believe he would do that — he was a quiet little fellow."
Emergency services were still working late Wednesday to identify all the dead and inform their families.
Rod Davies, landlord of Gosforth Hall Inn near one of the crime scenes, said residents were "used to 'neighbor's cat missing' stories making the news — not this sort of thing.
"There's a lot of fear. A lot of people are expecting to hear names of people they know."
___
Jill Lawless reported from London. Associated Press Writer Andrew Khouri also contributed to this report.

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See Also Taxi driver 'warned of rampage' before shooting 12

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Under fire Israel to free activists

Facing mounting international outrage over its raid on an aid flotilla aiming to break its siege on Gaza, Israel has said it will expel all activists seized from the ships and dropped threats to prosecute some of them.
A spokesman for Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said on Tuesday that all activists - 682 people from 35 countries – "would be deported immediately" in an operation officials said they hoped to complete in 48 hours.

Nine activists were believed to have been killed when Israeli troops, using helicopters and fast dinghies, stormed the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel of the six-ship convoy dubbed the Freedom Flotilla, on Monday.
The military said it opened fire in self defence when it encountered resistance from activists wielding metal rods and chairs, and released pictures which appeared to show a handful of soldiers being beaten and clubbed by dozens of activists.

GUNS POINTED

Activists' accounts of what happened began to emerge as the first 45 were deported on Tuesday.
Huseyin Tokalak, the captain of one of the seized ships, told a news conference in Istanbul that an Israeli navy ship threatened to sink his vessel before troops boarded and trained their guns on him and his crew.
"They pointed two guns to the head of each of us," Tokalak said.

After holding more than 10 hours of closed-door talks, the UN Security Council called for "a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards".
It also condemned "those acts which resulted in the loss of ... civilians and many wounded", drawing a sharp response from Israel, which said its foreign minister complained in a telephone call with Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, that it was condemned unfairly for "defensive actions".
In Turkey, a visibly angry prime minister told parliamentary deputies that Israel should "definitely be punished" for its "bloody massacre" of the activists.

"The time has come for the international community to say 'enough'," said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who demanded the immediate lifting of "the inhumane embargo on Gaza".
There were signs, however, that the long-term relationship Israel has had with Turkey – arguably its most important Muslim ally – would endure.

Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, spoke to his Turkish counterpart, Vecdi Gonul, on Tuesday, and they agreed the raid would not affect weapons deals – among them a planned delivery to Turkey of $183m in Israeli drones this summer - defence officials said on condition of anonymity.

RAFA BORDER OPENED

Amid the international condemnation, Egypt said it was opening the Rafah border it shares with Gaza for the first time in more than a year, to allow in humanitarian aid after a request from the governing Hamas Palestinian faction.

Egypt, in co-ordination with Israel, has rarely opened the border since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 from forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.
But Israel said it was ready to intercept another aid ship that organisers of the Freedom Flotilla planned to send to the Gaza Strip next week.

Netanyahu convened his security cabinet to debate what Israeli critics called a botched raid, and ministers said the naval blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip would continue.
"The opening of a sea route to Gaza would pose a tremendous risk to the security of our citizens. Therefore we continue a policy of a naval blockade," Netanyahu told his ministers.

Israel's security cabinet said in a statement that it "regrets the fact there were deaths in the incident, but lays full responsibility on those who took violent action that tangibly endangered the lives of Israeli soldiers".
It added: "Israel will continue to defend its citizens against the Hamas terror base," referring to Gaza.

NO US CONDEMNATION

The bloodshed on Monday also put Israel's tense ties with the US under further strain and placed under scrutiny the relationship between the allies.

Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Istanbul, said Erdogan, in his speech, "mentioned the unmentionable, saying that Israel acts because it has powerful friends".
The US has, thus far, refused to condemn the Israeli raid, with Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, telling reporters in Washington DC that "the situation from our perspective is very difficult and requires careful, thoughtful responses from all concerned".

In a telephone call with Erdogan, Barack Obama, the US president, expressed his condolences for those killed in the raid - four of them Turks - and reiterated US support for an impartial investigation "of the facts surrounding this tragedy", the White House said.

He also said it was important to find "better ways to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza without undermining Israel's security" the White House statement added.
 
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Israeli 'nuclear offer' to S Africa

Israel offered to sell apartheid-era South Africa nuclear warheads in 1975, the UK's Guardian newspaper says quoting a forthcoming book. According to documents obtained by the newspaper, a secret meeting between the then-Israeli defence minister, Shimon Peres, and his South African counterpart, PW Botha, ended with an offer by Jerusalem for the sale of warheads "in three sizes". The Guardian claimedon Sunday that those "sizes" referred to conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons. The documents provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence. The classified documents surrounding the agreement between the countries and cited by the Guardian were uncovered by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, an American academic, during research for a book, the newspaper said. The defence ministers also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret. Sunday's report said that the documents were proof that Pretoria wanted the weapons to keep neighbouring states and other enemies from attacking them. The report also said Israeli authorities attempted to keep the South African government from declassifying the documents. Israeli denial A statement issued on Monday by the office of Peres, now Israel's president, rejected the newspaper's report. "There exists no basis in reality for the claims published this morning by The Guardian that in 1975 Israel negotiated with South Africa the exchange of nuclear weapons," it said. "Unfortunately, The Guardian elected to write its piece based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts. "Israel has never negotiated the exchange of nuclear weapons with South Africa. There exists no Israeli document or Israeli signature on a document that such negotiations took place." However, Ian Black, Middle East editor of the Guardian, says the significance of the revelation is that it provides documentary proof that Israel was prepared to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa. "This shows that Israel was prepared to be a proliferator of nuclear weapons and encourage the spread of them around the world," he told Al Jazeera. "We have had definitive evidence since the 1980s that Israel certainly has nuclear weapons, but it's one thing to have weapons, this shows that Israel was going to sell weapons to another country. "Something that was previously known perhaps as a rumour or suspicion, has now been confirmed as fact - that the Israeli government had strong relations with the apartheid government and that Israel was planning to sell nuclear weapons." Documentary proof According to the Guardian, the minutes of the meeting on March 31, 1975, record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available." The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice." in depth Factfile: The world's nuclear stockpile Inside Story: A world without atomic weapons Riz Khan: Global nuclear disarmament Israel's 'nuclear arsenal' Nuclear double standard Polakow-Suransky is also quoted as saying that Israel's offer to equip South Africa with atomic weapons was the result of the regime's need for a military deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states. "South Africa's leaders yearned for a nuclear deterrent - which they believed would force the west to intervene on their behalf if Pretoria were ever seriously threatened - and the Israeli proposition put that goal within reach," the Guardian quoted Polakow-Suransky as writing in his book  published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. But the alleged deal did not go through, according to Polakow-Suransky, although Israel did reportedly provide South Africa with 30 grams of tritium, the substance which provides thermonuclear weapons with a boost to their explosive power. The delivery, according to the Guardian, was enough to build several atomic bombs. Waldo Stumpf, a former chief executive officer of South Africa's Atomic Energy Commission, told Al Jazeera that Botha "was quite adamant that the South African nuclear weapons programme was there for political reasons and was never there for technical reasons". No surprise Allister Sparks, a political commentator and former editor of South Africa's Rand Daily Mail newspaper, told Al Jazeera that the confirmation of a relationship between Israel and the apartheid regime came as no surprise. "Israel will obviously come out and deny this evidence and label anyone who takes it seriously as being anti-Semites," he said, "but this makes it more difficult for Israel to hold the respect of the world." Documents show South Africa wanted missiles as a 'deterrent' [The Guardian]  The documents confirm accounts by Dieter Gerhardt, a former South African naval commander, jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release following the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called "Chalet", which involved an offer by Israel to arm eight Jericho missiles with "special warheads". According to the paper, Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer. The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunuto the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site but provided no written documentation. Israeli 'pressure' According to the Guardian, Israel "pressured" the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he told the Guardian. "The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies." Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, with around 200 warheads, but it has a policy of neither confirming nor denying that. It has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow international surveillance of Dimona in the southern Negev desert. View original source

How Bush's grandpa helped Hitler's rise to power!

Guardian Online

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time.
There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair.
But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him.

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Children behind Israeli bars

published in The Daily Star 01 June 2010

With a timid smile, 16 year-old N twiddles his thumbs as he tells me his frightening story. Israeli soldiers came to his house a year ago at dawn. He was blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken away without any explanation.

When the military jeep finally stopped, the soldiers took him to a room with chairs. They began cursing at him and using derogatory terms against his mother and female siblings. The soldiers then put sunglasses on N's eyes and a female headband on his head.

"They took pictures of me; they were laughing," he told me.

"Aren't you going to confess?" the soldiers kept asking him… "To what?" he would reply. "To throwing stones," they would say.

Afraid of ending up in jail, N refused to confess to the alleged offence."I kept telling them: I didn't do it. I didn't do anything," he recalled. But N's story was just beginning."There was a dog barking outside the room… The soldier told me he would bring it in to f**k me if I didn't confess… I was so scared… The guy then took out a stick; he whipped it forward and it got longer. He told his friends, who were looking on and laughing at me: "This boy doesn't want to talk. Let's pull down his pants so I can shove this stick up his a**."

"I tried to hold on to the chair; he kept poking me, groping my privates with the stick, trying to get me off the chair," N said while avoiding eye contact with me.

The Palestine Chapter of Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected 100 sworn affidavits this year of Palestinian children, under the age of 18, who said they were mistreated by their Israeli interrogators. Fourteen of them say they were either sexually abused or threatened with sexual assault, including rape, if they didn't confess to what their interrogators accused them of.

N is one of these children… His confession landed him a three-month sentence in an Israeli jail.

Because of the stigma attached, there are fears that many more children may have suffered similar abuse but have been afraid to come forward.

N kept telling me he felt awkward talking about his experience. "It feels bad to talk about this. I mean, what a thing to talk about… It's shameful," he told me.

So I asked this shy teenager why he mustered the courage to speak out. "I want justice," he said. "I wish these people could be tried in a court so that they don't do this to other guys."

HOWEVER THE DAILY STAR FORGOT or INTENTIONALLY MISSED THE FOLLOWING of the News and all the pictures

N told me that at prison, he met many boys who had suffered similar abuse.

Israeli forces arrest approximately 700 Palestinian minors every year. During interrogation, these minors are not allowed to have contact with their lawyers or families. Human rights organisations say the alleged abuses happen during this period of isolation.

"These practices are meant to break the children. In a way, when you break the spirit of these children, you're breaking the spirit of the nation," Rifaat Kassis, the director general of DCI, told me.

And it's because of the powerful impact sexual abuse has on these children that DCI has sounded the alarm at the highest possible international levels. The organisation has communicated affidavits to the Special UN Rapporteur on Torture, hoping to galvanise enough international pressure to bring these abuses to an end.

This step is a reflection of the stonewalling human rights organisations usually face from Israeli authorities.

"Most of the time, the Israelis, they just dismiss our allegations and say this is not correct, this is not true; so if this is the case, we challenge them to record these interrogations and let the interrogations happen with the lawyer," Kassis told me.

This time was no different. We tried to request a response from the Israeli army but all our requests were turned down. The army told us they would only comment if they had more specific details about these cases, which is a demand the children's lawyers say could jeopardise their clients.  

But after the report aired on Al Jazeera, the Israeli military issued a statement rejecting the allegations and the DCI report. The army also said its practices were consistent with international law; a claim hotly contested by all human rights organisations working in Israel and the Occupied West Bank.

The Israeli army's response to these allegations also proves what DCI admits: this is a long-term battle.

So is recovery - N still struggles with his experience

"I'll never forget his eyes; the way he looked at me," he said, referring to his interrogator.

N still has nightmares and struggles to curb the fear he feels when the army is on patrol nearby. 

But he's relatively lucky, having a supportive family that has encouraged him to talk about his experience. And N has received counselling from the torture victims' centre of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association). 

Still, this is a frustrating battle, requiring endless patience.

The director general of DCI told me his organisation's petitions and campaigns within the Israeli military system have generally yielded very limited results, if at all. That's why these child rights advocates are hoping that outside pressure will eventually help prevent further instances of abuse and afford children like N the basic rights and protection they should be entitled to. 

The tormenting part of this battle, however, is knowing that until success is achieved, there is nothing these activists can do for the children now detained by Israeli soldiers on a regular basis.

They can only hope that counselling, after the fact, can help them recover. 

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This is how the ISRAELIS are treating our innocent CHILDREN??!!! This is what AMERICA is backing up!!!!

Child-abuse claims against Israel

An international children's rights charity has said it has evidence that Palestinian children held in Israeli custody have been subjected to sexual abuse in an effort to extract confessions from them.

The Geneva-based Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected 100 sworn affadavits from Palestinian children who said they were mistreated by their Israeli captors. Fourteen of the statements say they were sexually abused or threatened with sexual assault to pressure them into confessions.

Al Jazeera's correspondent in the West Bank, Nour Odeh, met one of the children, identified only as "N", who said he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of his interrogators.

Dismissive attitude

DCI officials say that when they complain to the Israeli military about the treatment of the children, their allegations are dismissed as untrue. Now the organisation has submitted its evidence to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to try and increase pressure on Israel to stamp out the alleged abuse.

According to our correspondent, Israel has two sets of laws: one for its citizens and another for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. All Palestinians, minors and adults, are tried in military courts. Children between the ages of 12 and 16 are tried in Israeli military courts as children. From 16 years onwards, Palestinians are tried as adults.

Human-rights groups have criticised Israel's detention policy with regard to children, which denies them access to their families or lawyers during the detention process.Palestinian children arrested by Israel are not permitted to see their lawyers until they are in court.

There are currently 340 Palestinian children in Israeli jails, mostly convicted of throwing stones. An Israeli military order stipulates that stone throwing carries a maximum jail sentence of 20 years, and there is no appeals process for decisions by Israeli military courts.

Israeli reaction

The Israeli military, in a written response, rejected DCI's allegations, saying the detention of minors is consistent with international law.It said all court hearings involving minors in the West Bank were conducted before a special military court which specialises in dealing with issues pertaining to minors.
"Allegations regarding violence in the course of questioning should be raised during the trial or in a formal complaint," the military said.

"Regarding the presence of a lawyer during questioning of a minor, the Youth Law does not require such a presence, even within the state of Israel."Bana Shoughry-Badarne, head of the legal department at the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, an Israeli human-rights group, says there is a huge issue of impunity in Israel with regard to complaints against the security services.

"Our latest report, from 2009, shows that from the 600 complaints that were submitted to Israel's attorney-general, all of them were dismissed," she told Al Jazeera from Jerusalem.

"There was not even one criminal investigation."

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Massacre at GAZA aid flotilla

How low can one go.
Israel is the best example for you to show.

Israeli forces attacked an aid carrying flotilla of ships killing at least 15 and wounding dozens more when they intercepted the convoy of ships known as the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, May 31, 2010. (source)

The flotilla was attacked when it was in the international waters, 65 kms off the Gaza coast. Footage sent by Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal who was on board on the Mavi Marmara showed that armed Israeli soldiers boarding the ship as well as helicopters flying over their heads.
 
Correspondent of Al Jazeera said that a white surrender flag was raised from the ship and there was no live fire coming from the passengers accused as by the Israeli forces. Before losing communication with the correspondent, a voice in Hebrew was clearly heard saying: "Everyone shut up".

Protests

Condemnation are pouring in after this heinous attack by the  Israelis.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, officially declared a three-day state of mourning over Monday's deaths.

Turkey, Spain, Greece and Sweden have all summoned the Israeli ambassador's in their respective countries to protest against the deadly assault.

Protestors Thousands in number in Turky tried to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul soon after the news was flashed. The protesters were heard shouting "Damn Israel" as police blocked them.

"(The interception on the convoy) is unacceptable ... Israel will have to endure the consequences of this behaviour," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, has condemned the Israeli action as "barbaric".

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, including a Nobel laureate and several European legislators, were with the flotilla, aiming to reach Gaza in defiance of an Israeli embargo.

But Israel had said it would not allow the flotilla to reach the Gaza Strip and vowed to stop the six ships from reaching the coastal Palestinian territory.

Israeli Perversion 

Before these, the Israeli Navy contacted the Mavi Marmara Captain, ordering him to identify himself and to say the ships destination.

A few moments later, two Israeli naval vessel came on both side of the flotilla keeping a distance. The flotilla was carrying some 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the inhabitants of GAZA. To avoid any confontration Mavi Marmara slowed down during the night and told all its passengers to were life jackets and asked them to keep low below the deck.

Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Jerusalem, said the Israeli action was surprising.
"All the images being shown from the activists on board those ships show clearly that they were civilians and peaceful in nature, with medical supplies on board. So it will surprise many in the international community to learn what could have possibly led to this type of confrontation," he said.
 
Meanwhile, Israeli police have been put on a heightened state of alert across the country to prevent any civil disturbances.

How Low can Israel Go!!!!