Following Terrorist Abductions, Can a Hamas Hunger Strike Bring Peace?

More than 80 Hamas officials abducted by Apartheid Israel on Thursday night commenced with a hunger strike to protest their detention. The move focuses even more attention on their capture by Apartheid Israel and the racist relativism that pervades the hearts and minds of the Zionist occupiers.

Palestinians stood united in condemnation of the kidnappings. In his first statement since the abductions, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that his government "would not cave into Israeli demands but said he was working hard to end a five-day-old crisis with Israel." He continued:

"When they kidnapped the ministers they meant to hijack the government's position, but we say no positions will be hijacked, no governments will fall...."

Haniyeh said Friday that he was in contact with Arab, Muslim and European leaders to try to resolve the crisis, "but this Israeli military escalation complicates matters and makes it more difficult." He also accused Israel of using Shalit's abduction as a pretext for launching a major offensive aimed at bringing down his government.

"This total war is proof of a premeditated plan."

And while Zionist collaborators in Fatah like Azzam al-Ahmed continued to blame the assault on Hamas, the Palestine News Network reported that "Fateh spokesperson Fahmy Al Zazir condemned the kidnapping operations carried out by Israeli forces against members of Hamas government in the West Bank," noting that "the abductions were merely the latest step in Israel’s long-term goal of eliminating the Palestinian Authority."

Massive protests erupted throughout the Islamic World in response to the abductions. Ordinarily Apartheid Israel's lackey, even the UN appears on the verge of condeming the attack. In Lebanon, the routinely divided sectarian government finally found something on which they agreed, unifying behind the Palestinian Resistance. And the Daily Star reported on the warning by Mustafa al-Fekki, a senior member of President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party. "An Israeli 'war on all fronts'... jeopardizes a peace treaty with Israel," he said, adding that, "Israel should not think the 'peace reached with an Arab country can be guaranteed while it continues to perpetrate its crimes and aggressions'."

Words are one thing; actions, however, are quite another. And the question of Palestine proves that everyone can be bought off. Like the Zionist collaborators in Palestine who get paid by Apartheid Israel to blame Hamas for this invasion, for his support of Apartheid Israel's right to brutalize the Palestinian people, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak earned his allowance from Uncle Sam:

Hundreds of Palestinian and Egyptian police formed human barricades on both sides of the Gaza-Egypt border yesterday to block Palestinians trying to enter Sinai, after masked gunmen blew a four-meter-wide hole in the fence between Palestinian and Egyptian Rafah.

ONGOING ZIONIST MILITARY OPERATIONS

While Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected Defense Minister Peretz's plans for Apartheid Israel's "second front"against Palestinian Gaza, evidence of its naked aggression still took center stage.

Maan News reports on the myriad attacks launched by the Zionist occupiers:

Israeli helicopters launched more than 12 raids on Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip on Thursday night. The Israeli military attack killed one Palestinian from the Al Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, and injured four civilians in the Rafah area and in Gaza City.

Muhammad Abdul Al, 25, died in Rafah's government hospital from wounds he sustained during the raids...

In the same sequence of events, Israeli military helicopters struck a bridge in the Al Mughraqah area, east of Gaza City, and destroyed it with two rockets.

Another raid was launched at the 'Executive Force', recently formed by the interior minister Said Siyam. A military raid on Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City caused huge damages to houses and injured three Palestinians. In the Zahra'a area, helicopters raided Fatah offices, injuring one Palestinian citizen and destroying the Fatah offices.

In the central governorate of the Strip, Israeli helicopters launched two rockets at a building under construction and caused a lot of damage. A media office in the area was attacked by the helicopters and destroyed.

At 3 am the helicopters shelled many Palestinian positions including the offices of Hamas' military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, in the west of Gaza City. Other areas in the north of the Strip and in the An Nasser area were also targeted. As a result, the electricity was cut in the northern Strip and in most of Gaza City.

In the south of the Strip, fighter jets raided a house belonging to a leading member of the Al Qassam Brigades. No injures were reported.

The Israeli artillery also intensified its bombardment of the north of the Strip, targeting the 'open areas' of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun. In addition, Israeli fighter jets shelled the area and a Palestinian child was injured.

Apartheid Israel also threatened to kidnap more Palestinian officials and to kill Haniyeh.

In what Ha'aretz calls an "unprecedented punishment," Apartheid Israel stripped 4 Palestinian officials of their residency in Jerusalem, taking away their right to live in the city.

Additionally, Haviv Rettig and Yaakov Katz report on the attack against Palestine's Interior Ministry in the Jerusalem Post. "IAF fighter jets struck close to a dozen targets before dawn Friday hitting the Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry and a Fatah office in Gaza City. Missiles also struck a Hamas training camp on the outskirts of the city."

But Apartheid Israel did not reserve its attacks on Hamas alone. Rather, its campaign of collective punishment intensified. The occupier army has forbidden travel to the Palestinian West Bank for most of East Jerusalem's 237,000 residents. This is a punative measure because, "the vast majority [of its residents] are not Israeli citizens" and have lives that "are intertwined with the nearby West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem, whether by family ties, commercial interests or culture."

On early Friday morning, it launched a raid "on several institutions and humanitarian services and charities" including a school for deaf children. Palestine News Network reports:

Israeli forces invaded the Bethlehem area early this morning, smashing windows, confiscating computers, files, and crucial materials from several humanitarian organizations...

Israeli forces incurred into Bethlehem City at approximately 3:00 am, with ten military patrols and army vehicles, and raided a kindergarten, bombing its doors open. They searched the contents in the dark of night, and confiscated three computers.

They also raided the Charitable Medical Center east of Bethlehem where the on-duty doctor, Haitham Abu Hahmameed and the night watchman were working.

PALESTINIAN RESPONSE

The Palestinian Resistance responded to these offensive measures undertaken by Apartheid Israel in a number of ways.

The Daily Star reports on ongoing Resistance preparations in northern Gaza, where "hundreds of Palestinian gunmen wielding assault rifles and anti-tank weapons took up positions waiting for Israel to open a second front."

Abu Obeidiya, spokesman for Hamas' military wing - the Al Qassam Brigades - announced that "all Palestinian factions and their various military wings have established a joint operations room in the Gaza Strip to prepare themselves as well as possible for the continual Israeli onslaught." Obeidiya continued, reasserting Hamas's negotiating position and warning that that:

"Full entry into the Gaza Strip would cost the Zionist entity dearly... We want acknowledgement of the over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, many of them who have spent more than 20 years in these occupation prisons. Many also are children, others still are women. We will make a trade."

Maan News reports that the military wing of Islamic Jihad - the Al Quds Brigades - launched "two homemade projectiles into the Israeli towns of Kfar Azza and Kfar Sa'ad early on Friday morning...in response to Israeli aggression and the assassination policy." It also reports that the Al Aqsa Brigades, Fatah's military wing, "launched two homemade 'Aqsa 103' missiles against the Israeli town of Sderot" and "threatened that they are 'ready to transfer the battlefield abroad, namely an Israeli embassy in a certain country will be targeted within days.'"

Amidst this barbaric incursion into Palestine, one can summarize the Palestinian state of mind best simply by listening to the Palestinians themselves. The accounting Hana Sagher provides to the Daily Star offers us the chance to do exactly that:

Hana Sagher sits at the entrance to her family's rented single-story home, washing clothes by hand. "Meats, fruits, and everything else that has to be kept in the refrigerator has gone rotten," she says.

Her wide, angry eyes punctuate her chronicle of the hardships she has suffered at the hands of Israel. Her family owned a simple home near Gaza's border with Egypt, but in 2004 the Israelis bulldozed it, along with dozens of others, as part of "security" measures.

"I wish we would kidnap five more soldiers," she says, spitting at suggestions that the Palestinian militants holding the soldier are responsible for her suffering. "It is not a problem if I have to suffer more. We suffer so the next generation can live better.

"We have 10,000 prisoners in Israeli jails. They come and kill whole families on our beaches," Sagher says, referring to a family of picnickers who were killed by an Israeli artillery shell earlier this month.

The Palestinian struggle for Liberation has its voice in women like Saghe. As revolutionaries elsewhere, we must listen to that voice and offer our support and Solidarity as she and her people as they struggle to remove the shackles of Apartheid and oppression. The Zionist over-reaction during its ongoing assault on Gaza and the grotesque Zionist savagery that has emerged from it, while treacherous and brutal, offers us the opportunity to do just that.

Apartheid Israel Intensifies Gaza Genocide

Almost two days into a brutal assault on the Palestinians of Gaza that has left 65% without electricity and thousands more without clean water, pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz reports on the myriad terrorist operations:

IDF troops carried out an air strike Thursday afternoon against a car in Gaza City carrying a senior Islamic Jihad militant, who survived the attack...

IAF aircrafts fired missiles near Khan Yunis late Thursday morning....

Palestinian witnesses said an IAF plane fired a missile at the Islamic University in Gaza City early Thursday morning....

The IAF also bombarded seven roads the military said were being used by Qassam launch crews, and Israel Navy vessels were involved overnight in shelling targets in Gaza.

There were no reports of Palestinian casualties following the strikes...

But in spite of the crippling attacks on what little Palestinian infrastructre it hasn't already destroyed, Apartheid Israel still finds itself on the warpath searching for ways to induce more suffering upon the Palestinians.

Day two of Apartheid Israel's invasion of Palestinian Gaza produced nothing more than an increase in number of the same predictable operations undertaken many times over. The Daily Star describes the reality on the ground:

In Gaza, tanks and infantry, backed by assault helicopters and artillery, set up a strategic observation post at an airport - ruined by previous Israeli attacks - outside the southern town of Rafah as Palestinian gunmen waited behind barricades for battle to begin.

Anonymous collaborators from Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party have blamed Hamas for Apartheid Israel's attack on Palestinian Gaza. And Ha'aretz reports that Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak continues to act closely in consult with its Zionist allies.

Some 2,500 Egyptian border guards were deployed in the Rafah area on Monday - the former Philadelphi Route - due to fears that the people who abducted Shalit would try to smuggle him into Egypt, Palestinian sources said.

But the Palestinian resistance quickly moved to scuttle this Egyptian-Zionist collaboration, blowing "a 4-meter wide hole in the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt," as part of its wider Resistance:

Dozens of Palestinian militants armed with grenades and automatic weapons took up positions near sandpiles and barricades in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, in anticipation of an Israel Defense Forces operation.

That resistance also includes the continuation of Palestinian rocket attacks against betwetting colonialist settlers:

Two people suffered from shock when Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket that slammed into a horse farm in Sderot on Thursday. The farm, located next to the city's cemetery, was damaged in the rocket attack.

In other developments, Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel reported in pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz that the occupying army launched a "major arrest operation overnight" against the Hamas government, "detaining 64 of the ruling party's cabinet ministers and parliamentarians in the West Bank, as well as another 23 military activists."

According to the paper, "The IDF operation is designed to gain 'bargaining chips'" against the Palestinians.

Citing Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin, the authors of the piece corroborate the claim made by Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri, who called the operation, "a pre-planned plot to destroy the [Palestinian] Authority, the government and the parliament and to bring the Palestinian people to their knees." They reported that Diskin "[told] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the day of the kidnapping: 'If the soldier is not returned in 24 hours, Israel will not allow the Palestinian government to survive...'"

But the consequences of this operation may yield quite another outcome. Abu Obaida, a spokesperson for the Al Qassam Brigades, the Hamas armed resistance wing, told the Palestine News Network Thursday morning "that the arrests among the ranks of the government and the continuing incursion into Gaza will cause more reaction."

“The actions of Israel stresses that it is unaware of the nature of the Palestinian resistance and that it will not succumb, regardless of what they do to us.”

Even as Apartheid Israel's terrorist operations continue in Southern Gaza, Yaakov Katz reports in the pro-Apartheid Jerusalem Post that it may soon open a second front:

IDF tanks, bulldozers and APCs carrying Givati Brigade soldiers were preparing to move into the northern Gaza Strip Thursday morning. The incursion would be the second phase of "Operation Summer Rains."

Another maneuver, already invoked by the Zionist government, involves using propaganda and misinformation about the current episode as a pretext to launch a much wider-scale war against Syria. Issuing a direct threat against the Syrian government, Public Security Minister and former head of Shin Bet Avi Dichter explained that because Israel "warned" Syria in the past about the presence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders, "this therefore gives Israel full permission to attack these assassins."

Jennie Matthew reports in Middle East Online that:

Israel was on high alert Thursday for possible retaliation after it... flew warplanes over Syria's presidential palace.

Israeli warplanes overflew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's palace in northern Syria Wednesday while the leader was inside, an operation Syrian state television called an "aggressive act and an unacceptable provocation."

In addition to the Syrian 'threat', Matthew then offers yet another pretext confected by Apartheid Israel to expand the conflict: Hizbullah. Despite the repeated statements by Hizbullah that it concerns itself with Resistance to Apartheid Israel's occupation of Lebanon, the Zionist colony conjures it up as a threat anyway:

The army said it was bracing for any strikes by the Syrian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia...

"This measure has been taken due to concerns that the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah or other organizations will try to trigger an escalation of hostilities by launching border attacks," an [unnamed] army spokeswoman said.

Apartheid Israel's contempt for the truth and its arrogant and ruthless display of military and political barbarity has provoked a storm worldwide outcry. Hardly confining itself to the Arab world alone, rallies to express solidarity with the Palestinians are even planned in places where support for Apartheid Israel is most steadfast: England and on Uncle Sam's Plantation.

Apartheid Israel knows that by itself, this assault on Palestinian Gaza is a public relations catastrophe. Which explains precisely why, rather than retreat, it has begun to fabricate a justification for an attack on Lebanon or Syria that fully ignite the Middle East Tinderbox.

Thavage Justice Disptached to Klanwatch

After less than a week of operation, we at Savage Justice must report with a heavy heart that the wacky and imaginative fascists who created a parody of this blog - Thavage Justice - have already reverted the the very behavior that landed them on the Klanwatch to begin with: censorship and fear of words.

And, while we at Savage Justice encourage participation in all unmoderated blogs and enjoy laughing as much as the next Comrade, we have no tolerance for Klanwatch-style censorship.

The unfortunate decision has forced us to revisit our support for the silly and original site and begin to include it, sadly, in the Klanwatch.

Another Free Pass for Limbaugh in Uncle Sam's War on Drugs

We at Savage Justice had quite a laugh when we learned that 8-Ball Fascist Rush Limbaugh - Uncle Sam's Impotent, Pill-Popping Propagandist - "broke the law by obtaining Viagra in someone else's name" according to the Chicago Tribune. This marks the second time in the last few years that Limbaugh lied to doctors (one can hardly doubt he had difficulty lying) to get drugs.

He wasn't arrested, of course.

Because unlike the millions and millions of non-White people incarcerated in Uncle Sam's Gulag on the phony pretext of a 'War on Drugs' - basically a 'War on Terror' against Blacks and Latin@s - Rush Limbaugh is a 'made' man. He gets a free pass.

Isn't Limbaugh quite the metaphor for Uncle Sam?

A fat, ignorant White Supremacist Man geeked up on prescription drugs and impotence pills who talks shit all day long.

Wow.

He reminds me of SAMBO WARREN the INJUN KILLER

Apartheid Israel Crusades Through Palestine

"Khaled Meshaal initiated the whole attack. We will take care of him." So promises Shimon Peres, the Nobel Peace Prize winning 'dove' in his description of how Apartheid Israel plans to prosecute Operation "Summer Rain."

Similar claims were echoed by others, including Justice Minister Haim Ramon. "He is definitely in our sights... he is a target," Ramon told Army Radio. "Khaled Mashaal, as some who is overseeing, actually commanding the terror acts, is definitely a target."

The Palestinian leadership responded to these threats by warning Apartheid Israel against attacking Syria, where Meshaal lives, and made assurances that no military action undertaken by Apartheid Israel against the people of Palestine will change its demand for a prisoner swap that liberates the Palestinian women and children detained by Apartheid Israel. Speaking in Lebanon, Hamas' representative there, Osama Hamdan, said:

They have to think thoroughly about the consequences (of killing Mashaal), which could be bigger than they imagine.

Our position does not change: We have said there is a national interest to achieve through discussing a mechanism to win the release of prisoners in the occupation jails in return for the soldier.

Hamdan added that:

If Israel does not negotiate, the militants will take it as a message "that they should capture more soldiers so that the Israelis will speak to them... the message for the resistance is to kill soldiers, even if they have the opportunity to capture them."

The Palestinian leadership makes this threat of escalating their attacks on Zionist colonialists and occupiers, amidst a growing outcry over the abduction of Australian colonialist Eliyahu Yitzhak Asheri. Ha'aretz reports:

The Popular Resistance Committees held a press conference on Wednesday, during which a spokesman for the group displayed the national identification card of Itamar settler Eliyahu Yitzhak Asheri.

Asheri has been missing since Sunday, and the PRC has maintained for two days that it has abducted the youth.

Earlier Wednesday, a PRC spokesman told Al-Jazeera satellite TV that the settler would be "butchered in front of TV cameras" if doesn't stop its raid on the Gaza Strip, which began in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

In an earlier statement, the PRC said "we are running out of patience."

Israel Radio reported that Mohammad Abdel-Al, a spokesman of the PRC, said the release of more information would depend on Israel. "The Zionists are looking for any information. We remind them there is nothing for free," he said. Middle East Online reported the PRC claim that, "Unless the aggression stops, we will kill the settler."

While threats bounced back and forth between Palestinians and the Zionist occupiers, military operations began throughout the region.

The Daily Star announced that Egypt, ally to the Zionist aggressors, "deployed 2,500 extra troops along the border with Gaza to prevent an influx of Palestinians if Israel invades. It also imposed a night-time curfew on local residents."

Before launching the operation, Apartheid Israel's Prime Minster Ehud Olmert consulted his ally Mahmoud Abbas. Ha'aretz reports that, Apartheid Israel "ordered Palestinian security forces deployed near Rafah to leave their positions. The IDF then confirmed its forces had crossed the border," commencing the operation with attacks properly considered collective punishment against Gaza's only airport, the main bridges, and the electrical network leaving 700,000 without power and affecting water supplies.

Promising that "we do not intend to reoccupy Gaza. We do not intend to stay there," Olmert claimed falsely that, "We have one objective, and that is to bring Gilat home."

And thus began Apartheid Israel's futile military operation.

IDF troops penetrated one kilometer into the southern Strip, deploying tanks and armored vehicles in open areas east of the border town of Rafah, including the disused international airport at Dahaniyeh, Gaza's only airport...

Ahead of the ground invasion, an Israel Air Force aircraft attacked three bridges in central Gaza late Tuesday night. An IDF official said the attack was meant to prevent miltants from moving Shalit to different locations within Gaza....

IAF aircrafts also attacked a Gaza City power station after midnight Tuesday, cutting power to much of the area, Palestinian security officials said.

The Jerusalem Post reports on additional air raids launched by Apartheid Israel:

Israeli aircraft struck a Hamas training camp in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah on Wednesday afternoon, witnesses said.

The two missiles fell about 200 meters apart, one in an empty training camp for Hamas, witnesses said. The other rocket hit an empty field nearby, and witnesses said they saw militants running away from the missile. Ambulances had no immediate reports of injuries.

But as if to underscore the abject futility of this campaign, the report added that:

At nearly the same time, OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Gallant told reporters in a press conference that kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit was still in the Gaza Strip.

Five minutes after the press conference, a Kassam rocket landed a few hundred meters from where reporters were standing.

Anticipating the attack, Middle East Online reports that the Resistance:

Had erected earthen mounds across roads and sealed off entrances to refugee camps in parts of Gaza, one of the most densely populated regions on earth.

Men, women and children packed into cars and a horse-drawn cart fled into Rafah from areas to the east as Israeli troops entered the territory while armed gunmen prowled the streets.

Ha'aretz also reported the Palestinian leadership's call for armed resistance:

In the Shajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City, not far from the border fence, armed militants took up positions before the troops moved in. The militants told residents to leave the area.

A leader of Hamas exhorted its fighters to confront the IDF troops. "Fight your enemies, who came to their deaths. Grab your rifles and resist," Nizar Rayan said in a radio message.

More than any moment in the last several decades, Apartheid Israel's latest attack on Palestine and its lack of a serious military objective spells out the weakness, alienation, and isolation of the Zionist state vis-a-vis the question of Palestine.

Perhaps that explains the latest calls to use a murder attempt on Khaled Meshaal in Syria to change the dynamic and expand the terrain of struggle.

Colonialist Zionist Settlers Attack Christian Tourists

In today's pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz, Jonathan Lis reported:

A group of 50 pro-Israel Christian tourists came under attack Wednesday from some 100 residents of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea She'arim in Jerusalem.

Three of the tourists and a police officer were wounded in the attack. They received treatment at the scene...

As they neared one of the squares, the local residents apparently identified them as Christians and began to hit them.

Zionists love to portray their theft of Palestine as a religious conflict - a war between 'moslems' and Jews. But stories like these underscore a different reality: it really does not matter whether one bows their head to G-d or Jesus or Allah. In the end, land stealing colonialists attack and vilify anyone who opposes that theft.

Iraq Resistance Report: 26-27 June 2006

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice

• Three US troops reported killed in Resistance ambush in ar-Ramadi at dawn Monday.
• US Marine reportedly killed by Resistance sharpshooter’s bullet in Abu Ghurayb Monday morning.
• Badr Brigade death squad raids dormitory in Baghdad university, 10 Sunni students from ar-Ramadi beaten, abducted Monday night.
• Pro-American Shi‘i sectarian militia, “Shock Troops” launch attack on Palestinian refugees in Baghdad’s al-Baladiyat area midday Monday. Four Palestinians reported killed as local Iraqi residents rush to support the refugees. Residents accuse US forces of protecting the sectarian killers.
• US soldier reported killed in early morning Resistance bombing in Baghdad suburb of ad-Durah.
• Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday evening confirms likely death of abducted Russian diplomats at hands of al-Qa‘idah in Iraq.
• Resistance arrests, executes 15 Badr Brigade death squad members sent to kill former Iraqi Air Force pilots, religious scholars in at-Tarimiyah.
• Resistance Katyusha rockets blast into British headquarters in al-Basrah.
• Two US troops reported killed by Iraqi Resistance sharpshooter in al-Hadithah.
• Baath Party and General Command of Iraqi Armed Forces Resistance group reject “National Reconciliation” offer of US-installed “Prime Minister” Nuri al-Maliki.
• Official in puppet regime in Baghdad reveals: 629 Palestinians have been killed or kidnapped in Iraq, and the number is on the rise.
• Russia takes aim at US occupation authorities over murders of diplomats in Iraq.

Read the 26 June Report
Read the 27 June Report

Internally Displaced New Orleanians Fight Ray Nagin's Campaign of Genocide

Ongoing developments continue to unfold concerning Uncle Sam's ongoing Race War in the Gulf Coast.

Writing in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Bruce Eggler reports on the effort by local officials in New Orleans to enforce a selective set of laws that will ethnically cleanse New Orleans of its Black Population. Eggler writes:

Don't necessarily look for the city to start seizing and gutting droves of mold-infested homes when a deadline for owners to clean them expires at the end of August...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Monday that the city is likely to face court challenges when it tries to gain access to the properties...

The New Orleans City Council passed a law in April setting a deadline of Aug. 29, the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, for homeowners to clean, gut and board up flooded homes or risk having the city seize and clean or even demolish them.

The ordinance setting the Aug. 29 deadline was approved 7-0 by the council.

While New Orleans's city council and Uncle Sam's 'laws' may favor ethnic cleansing of New Orleans, Mayor Nagin knows that the strong, united population of Black New Orleans plans to resist his campain to expel the them from their homes.

That's why Nagin is bracing for an assault on the very people of New Orleans he claims so loudly to represent. The piece continues:

Based on the city's experience early this year in trying to demolish some of the most severely damaged houses in the Lower 9th Ward and other hard-hit neighborhoods, Nagin said, he anticipates a flood of lawsuits from homeowners and activist groups when the city starts trying to enforce the Aug. 29 deadline.

The city announced plans in December to demolish buildings in the most flood-ravaged neighborhoods that had been pushed off their foundations and were blocking rights of way and otherwise impeding recovery efforts, but a lawsuit filed by homeowners and activists halted work until March.

Residents in the Lower 9th Ward accused the city of failing to provide fair notice before sending in the wrecking crews. The city settled the lawsuit and agreed to a list of rules for notification that included publishing legal notices in The Times-Picayune and on the city's Web site.

The storied resistance of New Orleans' Black community continues to confound Nagin and the rest of the would-be genociders so eager to ethnically cleanse New Orleans and gentrify it as they have so many other cities on Sam's Plantation.

Instead of justice, the internally displaced victims of the huricane and Uncle Sam's subsequent race war have suffered indignity after indignity. They are vilified for 'defrauding' the government when the government, in fact, used the disaster as a pretext to dole out corporate welfare to expoliters and profiteers - a $7,900,000 renovation of a deserted Army base in Alabama or "$860 million worth of [mobile homes] at an airfield in Arkansas, where FEMA is paying $250,000 a month to store them."

It is a testament to their strength and capacity to struggle that the oppressed, internally displaced residents of New Orleans continue to fight the relentless campaign underway at every level of government to steal their land and make them disappear.

Check Out the Savage Justice Parody Blog

Savage Justice can announce with pride its discovery of a parody of this site called Thavage Justice.

Conceived by a group of imaginative fascists, many of whom populate our Klanwatch section because they moderate and censor their own blogs, the hysterical idea was totally their own.

It offers them an opportunity to show off their unique creativity and imagination.

Behind the Scenes, Apartheid Israel Plans a Massacre

Minute-by-minute the clock continues to tick, counting down the near-certain intensification of Apartheid Israel's occupation of Palestine. On the ground, the Palestinian people overwhelmingly back a swap of prisoners. Khaled Abu Toameh reports in today's pro-Apartheid Jerusalem Post:

Eighty-two percent of Palestinians are of the opinion that the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit should only be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a survey conducted by the Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported on Tuesday...

On Monday, many families and groups appealed to the Hamas kidnappers not to release the soldier unless Israel agreed to set free a large number of prisoners.

In Ramallah and Gaza City, the relatives of some of the prisoners held press conferences during which they urged the kidnapers to resist efforts to release Shalit without security the release of their sons. The families also staged sit-in protests outside the offices of the International Committee for the Red Cross to demand the release of their sons.

Such a demands echo 'Military Statement 1' which gave the demands of the three groups who staged the operation. Their communique read: "The Occupation will not get any information about its missing soldier unless it abides by the following: release all female prisoners in Israeli jails... and children under the age of 18."

Fearing that many would find their demands reasonable, Apartheid Israel flatly rejected the idea of negotiation and deployed domestic spies to actively disrupt attempts to resolve the conflict. Meanwhile, they continue to plan for an invasion.

Quoting from a speech given by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, The Daily Star reported on such plans:

"The question of releasing prisoners is not on the agenda of the Israeli government at all."

"The moment when we will launch a large-scale military operation is approaching. We will not wait indefinitely, because we have no intention of being blackmailed by Hamas..."

The piece continued, announcing the intensification of the already crippling siege:

He added that Gaza had been "totally isolated by land and by sea," and that no one was being allowed to enter or exit.

"It's a first step. We will take others with patience and with level heads, but with great firmness," Olmert said. "[Sunday] I instructed the heads of the army to deploy our forces in order to be ready to prepare for a prolonged and extensive military operation in order to strike the terror organizations and commanders. We will reach everyone, anywhere and they know. There will be no immunity for anyone."

According to anonymous Egyptian officials, Ha'aretz reports that "Egypt," ever the lacky of Apartheid Israel (thanks largely to the annual bribe Uncle Sam pays Mubarak to remain its ally), "deployed 1,200 riot police along its border with the Gaza Strip by Tuesday in an effort to stop any Palestinian attempts to cross illegally in the event of an Israeli raid."

What will such a raid mean for the Palestinian people?

Middle East Online quoted cabinet minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who warned that it could commence with the kidnapping of Palestine's highest-profile politicians.

"If we start with kidnappings, Israel has no problem entering the Gaza Strip and kidnapping half the Palestinian government.... They have to understand one thing, that nobody is immune, including [Hamas' Damascus-based leader] Khaled Meshal. Nobody is immune," Ben-Eliezer told army radio on day three of the hostage crisis.

Ha'aretz reports on how the operation will proceed if launched:

A large military contingent has been massed on the Gaza border since Sunday night. Dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers are gathered near Sderot. If necessary, the army will deploy two brigade-level combat teams from Givati and Golani, along with armored troops.

Apartheid Israel's occupying military will not attack in order to release the prisoner, however. Instead, the paper reports, "The entry of large-scale ground forces would essentially be a punitive operation if negotiations fail."

The aim, in other words, is collective punishment against all Palestinians. The piece continues:

Military sources conceded last night that these forces do not intend to rescue the soldier. If such a mission is decreed, special units would be requested to carry it out. The troop concentration, along with direct death threats against Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, are meant to clarify Israel's later intentions if its demands are not met...

Such an attack, if launched, will no doubt be terribly punishing. But practically, it will solve nothing. It will not end the Palestinian Resistance, as the Jerusalem Post noted today:

Even as IDF forces were massing in large numbers on Gaza's border for a possible ground incursion to rescue kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, three Kassam rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel Monday evening...

As a result of the hit, four people were lightly injured from shrapnel, and were taken to Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital. Sderot Spokesman Yossi Cohen said that in the course of the evening, a total of 11 people had been treated for shock. At least one person also suffered from cardiological distress as a result of the latest Kassam barrage.

Bedwetting... shock... cardiological distresss: as Apartheid Israel proves itself unwilling to fight and die on behalf of these White Colonialist Settlers, petty complaints may bring the occupation of Palestine to an end.

The rocket caused damage to the electrical lines causing a power outage throughout the city, according to the report....

The rocket fire comes as Islamic Jihad claimed to have developed a new longer-range rocket to be used against Israeli targets, Channel 1 reported. The groups said the new "Quds 4" projectile has a range of 20 kilometers, three times longer then the crude Kassam rockets.

On Sunday, Fatah announced that they had biological and chemical weapons capabilities. They said that they would not hesitate to use unconventional warheads on missiles.

It's becomming increasingly clear that the White Colonialist occupiers have a choice to make in very short order: return Palestine to the Palestinians or continue to suffer political defeats that stem from Apartheid policies.

Palestinian Resistance Responds to Zionist Terrorism

The pro-Apartheid media in Israel today is apoplectic after the brazen Palestinian resistance operation against the occupier army "that ended with one soldier kidnapped, two dead and four wounded," according to Amos Harel's piece in the pro-Apartheid daily Ha'aretz. A joint statement from Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) called the operation an "Earthquake reaction to the massacre of civilians."

The Daily Star elaborates on the motive for the Palestinian operation:

A deadly attack on an Israeli Army post near the Gaza Strip on Sunday was a message to Israel to stop killing civilians, the groups behind the assault said in a statement Sunday.

"This operation was a clear and final message to the enemy leaders: They need to keep civilians far from their hateful bullets and leave the battle between the heroes of the resistance and the [Israeli] soldiers," the joint statement said.

In the past two weeks, 14 Palestinian civilians, including a pregnant woman and young children, were killed by errant Israeli air strikes. Eight people were also killed on a Gaza beach, seven of whom belonged to a single family, by an Israeli shell.

Hamas lawmaker Musheer al-Masry hailed the pre-dawn assault, which was claimed by the ruling Hamas movement's military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the radical Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) and the previously unknown Army of Islam group.

"We consider this operation part of the natural response to the Zionist crimes, especially after the series of killings of children, women, old men and whole families in Gaza," Masry said. "It is the right of our people to defend themselves with all the means available."

Further details on why the groups carried out the attack ran in Ha'aretz:

The armed groups who took part in the strike said the attack was in response to the recent Israeli assassination of a militant leader...

Jamal Abu Samhadana, the head of the Popular Resistance Committees, was killed in a strike on a training camp in Gaza.

The details of the sophisticated operation, undertaken by three separate Palestinian resistance groups acting in unison - "the military wing of the Hamas, Iz al-Din al-Qassam; the Popular Resistance Committees"; "and a previously unknown group called Jish al-Islam ("the Army of Islam"), apparently comprised of Fatah breakaways" - have come to light. Ha'aretz reports:

The incident began shortly before dawn, at about 5:30 A.M., when eight Palestinians crossed the border between Gaza and Israel via a tunnel that they had dug over the past several months...

After they emerged, the Palestinians split into three groups that attacked the outpost almost simultaneously. The southern strike force, consisting of two Palestinians, attacked the outpost's "pillbox" and even tried to scale it with a ladder, sparking a fire fight in which both assailants were killed. Three soldiers were wounded during this fight, one moderately and two lightly.

The tunnel was apparently very deep and almost a kilometer long, emerging into Israel about 300 meters east of border fence, just north of Kerem Shalom. Despite the army's numerous lookout posts in this area, no soldiers noticed the Palestinians emerging from the tunnel.

The second strike force wasted most of its ammunition, which included a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and hand grenades, on an empty armored personnel carrier that had been stationed near the outpost as a decoy.

However, the northern strike force scored a major success: Under cover of a line of trees, it was able to approach a tank located about 600 meters north of the pillbox undetected and attack it with an RPG and hand grenades. The attack killed two of the four-member crew: the commander, First Lieutenant Hanan Barak, 20, of Arad, and the loader, Staff Sergeant Pavel Slutzker of Dimona. It also seriously wounded the driver and moderately wounded Shalit, the gunner, though Major General Elazar Stern, the head of the army's Personnel Directorate, later told Shalit's parents that he left the tank "on his own two feet." Apparently, none of the crew managed to return fire.

After the attack, the six assailants left alive returned to Gaza overland, rather than via the tunnel, using either a small bomb or an antitank missile to blow a hole in the border fence.

Following the brazen Palestinian resistance operation, Ha'aretz reported that, "Senior Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip went underground... The officials would not take phone calls, fearing IDF assassination attempts after Israeli government."

Apartheid Israel finds itself confused over how to respond. The Jerusalem Post quotes Olmert promising that, "From our standpoint, it's not over... No one has immunity." And Middle East Online reports that Olmert took steps to initiate an all-out attack on Gaza:

Israel tanks, troops and Apache combat helicopters stormed into southern Gaza in response to search for the missing soldier and investigate the tunnel used by the attackers.

Public radio reported that further forces were massing on the border.

"This attack was carried out and spearheaded by senior members of the Hamas and authorized by the party's leadership," an army spokesman told AFP.

"The IDF (Israel Defence Force) holds the Palestinian Authority and democratically elected Hamas government responsible for the attack and the fate of the missing soldier."

Yet no attack on Gaza has commenced. Others weighed in, too.

"I recommended the assassination of Hamas leaders," Likud MK Silvan Shalom said. And Binyamin Netanyahu urged a quick and forceful response: "I would not, at all costs, wait for the act because the soldier might never come home. The soldier can be freed. We need an aggressive approach and not the fawning of the government."

Popular pro-genocide MK Avigdor Lieberman called on Monday for a massive military retaliation against the Palestinians, "and said Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas should be kidnapped by the army and hustled across the border into Israel."

He continued:

"We need to tell Haniyeh and the Hamas leaders that after a Qassam rocket barrage on Sderot, we will turn their homes into soccer fields. We won't harm innocent people but will give them half an hour to leave [their homes]," Lieberman said.

But while Lieberman's pompous bluster may garner him votes from Apartheid Israel's far-right lunatic fringe, it's unlikely to play well elsewhere. While Lieberman may not want to admit it, this attack demonstrates that Apartheid Israel's terrorist actions - the bulldozing of homes, the massacre of civilians, and the assassination of political leaders - come at a price that the resistance can and will extract.

Less than a week after the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade declared war on Apartheid Israel, the Jerusalem Post reports that the group announced its ability "to manufacture and develop at least 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons."

"The group said its members would not hesitate to add the new weapons to Kassam rockets that are being fired at Israeli communities almost every day. It also threatened to use the weapons against IDF soldiers if Israel carried out its threats to invade the Gaza Strip."

We should most certainly be wary of such an announcement reported by only one source, but, if true, it puts yet another arrow in the quiver of the Palestinian resistance in their liberation struggle against Apartheid Israel.

Because the Zionists' in Apartheid Israel live in fear of their own shadows and demand constant protection from the Apartheid nanny-state, the balance of forces has changed markedly over the last months. Palestinians continue to suffer the most severe indignities on the planet, but, because its Resistance now has the capacity to turn Zionist land thieves into fear-filled bed-wetters, the Apartheid state now finds itself impotent to act without fearing the consequences for doing so.

Uncle Sam's Silly "Peace Overture"

One day after the silly Senate vote rejecting a timeline to end Uncle Sam's occupation of Iraq, the Times of London reports on the latest in a long line of fake overtures made by Uncle Sam to the Iraqi Resistance promising 'amnesty' to those who agree to quit fighting and disarm. Of course, since the occupation began the Iraq resistance has demanded Uncle Sam's retreat from Iraq as a precondition for negotiations, it goes without saying that they will pay no mind to this absurd offer.

The 'offer' comes amidst reports of another massacre committed by Uncle Sam's GI Joes. On Wednesday, the military brought charges against seven Marines with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment for murder and kidnapping. One Navy corpsman was also charged.

At the time of the attack, Uncle Sam's GI Joes:

Said they came upon Hashim digging a hole for a bomb near his home in the Sunni Arab village of about 30 homes near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. The Marines said they killed Hashim in a brief gun battle and that they found an AK-47 assault rifle and a shovel by his side.

Predictably, we have learned that this fanciful story is totally false. Ellen Knickmeyer's 5 June Washington Post piece continues:

According to accounts given by Hashim's neighbors and members of his family, and apparently supported by photographs, the Marines went to Hashim's home, took the 52-year-old disabled Iraqi outside and shot him four times in the face. The assault rifle and shovel next to his body had been planted by the Marines, who had borrowed them from a villager, family members and other residents said.

Essentially corroborating the eyewitness account, the Financial Times summarized the case against the men, stating that the men killed a "52-year-old disabled Iraqi man," in the town of Hamdaniyah, "placing a weapon and shovel near his body to suggest he was involved in planting roadside bombs."

Middle East Online adds that charge sheets released by Uncle Sam's Marine Corps accuse the men:

Of breaking into the home of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, knocking him to the ground and dragging him away with his hands and feet bound...

Other charges against them include assault, larceny for allegedly stealing a shovel and an AK-47 assault rifle, housebreaking, making false official statements and obstruction of justice.

With these ubiquitous reports of Uncle Sam's GI Joes shooting handicapped men in the face, its hardly surprising that Uncle Sam has made this 'offer' now, at a precarious time of real weakness.

Which is precisely why the resistance will ignore the offer.

Uncle Sam's fate in Iraq is a very simple one, dependent on only its own actions: Cut'N'Run or Stay'N'Die.

Uncle Sam's Race War against Katrina Victims Continues

Here at Savage Justice, we have written about how Uncle Sam has used the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina as a pretext to further intensify its ongoing Race War against Black people living on the plantation. More evidence of such an attack emerged this week.

The New York Times reported on the latest episode in FEMA's never-ending psychological attack on those displaced by the hurricane:

In yet another change of housing plans for Hurricane Katrina evacuees, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has suspended the eviction of 3,000 families who are living in government trailers in Mississippi.

The move is the latest in a series of announcements and reversals that have caused confusion and occasionally panic among families unable to live in their ruined homes in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast. For several months, FEMA has repeatedly changed deadlines, sent conflicting letters to applicants, and declared people ineligible for housing assistance for the lack of signatures or failures to appear in person for property inspections.

From its domed concentration camps to the home bulldozings to its broken promises of aid to its deliberate reversals on housing questions, FEMA has played an unceasing PsyOp against Mind Game the internally displaced people of the Gulf Coast.

FEMA is hardly alone in fighting the Race War. While it has carried out Uncle Sam's genocidal campaign with efficiency, at important points in its campaign other of Uncle Sam's instruments have helped to provide it with the elbow room vital to cleanse the Gulf Coast of its Black population. One such assist came recently from one of Uncle Sam's Court Jesters - District Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. - who:

Denied claims for increased aid and notices of benefits, found FEMA did not discriminate on economic or other grounds, and said delays were "inevitable," given the consequences of the storm.

And on Tuesday, Democracy Now! featured a segment that reported on the Uncle Sam's announcement "that more than 5,000 public housing units for the poor were to be demolished even though tens of thousands of low-income residents remain displaced." The report continued:

We take a look at the situation with public housing in New Orleans. Last week, Federal housing officials announced that more than 5,000 public housing units for the poor were to be demolished even though tens of thousands of low-income residents remain displaced. On Saturday, public housing residents and advocates protested the decision by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and vowed to use any means necessary to stop the bulldozing of their apartments. The HUD decision means that at least 3,000 families who lived in the units before the storm will have to find someplace else to go. If the federal government's plan goes forward, New Orleans will have lost 85 percent of its public housing over the past decade.

As these stories reveal, the unceasing institutional effort by Uncle Sam to ethnically cleanse New Orleans will continue at every level - federal, state, and local. But, since it's dead broke, Uncle Sam's plan for New Orleans is hardly a fait accompli. To expel the Black population and gentrify the city requires an enormous amount of corporate welfare, which, thanks to its other commitments, Uncle Sam cannot afford to do so.

Its weakness and impotence to fully implement this scheme offers an opportunity for the revolutionary forces here on the Plantation to make New Orleans our own Ground Zero - the new Jerusalem - of class struggle.

The Memory Hole uncovers Pfizer's Chemical/Biological Weapons Report

This news from the invaluable Memory Hole, which exposes the deeply entrenched connections between government and industry concerning one of Uncle Sam's chief talents: producing Weapons of Mass Destruction:

Pfizer's Chemical/Biological Weapons Report

Back when the US had an openly acknowledged, offensive chemical-biological-radiological weapons program (as opposed to the secret, illegal one it has now), many pharmaceutical and chemical corporations developed these weapons for the military. Among them was drug giant Pfizer, whose better-known products include Viagra, Zoloft, Rogaine, and Rolaids.

In this 1964 report, the company (then called Chas. Pfizer & Co., Inc.) discusses its first year of research under its contract to create incapacitating agents, which produce tremors, dysphoria, confusion, muscle fatigue, pain, vomiting, diarrhea, difficulty breathing or swallowing, hypersensitive skin, dangerously low blood pressure, and/or - most intriguingly - retrograde amnesia. Despite the absence of the word biological from the report's title, Pfizer also discusses its work with microbes in addition to chemicals.

The report was declassified on 16 April 2001, although it doesn't appear to have made it to the general public until now. After seeing it listed in a bibliography I requested from the Defense Technical Information Center, I filed a FOIA request for it.

Iraqi Resistance Report: 21 June

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice

• Resistance bomb reportedly kills three US troops in southern al-Fallujah.
• Resistance bomber blasts Buratha Shi‘i mosque headquarters of the pro-American Shi‘i sectarian Badr Brigades.
• Resistance barrages drive British troops out of their base near al-‘Amarah and into animal pens for the night.
• US soldier reported killed in Resistance bombing near al-Khalidiyah.
• Russian Foreign Ministry issues appeal for the lives of captive diplomats.
• Sister of Russian Muslim diplomat abducted in Iraq appeals for diplomats’ release.
• Dozens of employees abducted from puppet regime plant where barbed wire and barricades that serve US occupation forces are manufactured.
• Defense lawyer for Iraqi President Saddam Husayn assassinated in Baghdad after US announces that it was withdrawing protection from legal team.
• American troops arrest 12 villagers celebrating release of man from Abu Ghurayb.
• Series of four Resistance bombs rips through US column in al-Miqdadiyah Wednesday evening.

Read the 21 June Report

Apartheid Israel: "Nothing Will Stop Us from Slaughtering Palestinian Children"

In today's Middle East Online, Jean-Luc Renaudie reported from Jerusalem:

Israel vowed Thursday to continue air attacks in the Gaza Strip, despite global outcry over the killing of civilians in botched raids, as the Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in Jordan.

Fourteen Palestinian civilians, including five children, have been killed in air strikes over Gaza in nine days, following an upsurge in cross-border violence that has seen nearly 150 rockets fired at Israel in two weeks.

Two air attacks carried out in the past 48 hours missed their targets of presumed Palestinian militants and instead killed three children on Tuesday and another two civilians on Wednesday, one of them a pregnant woman.

Despite the visceral relief such attacks bring to the Apartheid Colonist Settlers and their allies, the recent escalation of collective punishment against the Palestinian people - the wholesale slaughter of families, pregnant women, and children - occuring in Gaza has eroded the legitimacy of Apartheid Israel's occupation of Palestine.

With these attacks, the true naked savagery of the barbarous occupation reveals itself. Apartheid Israel's air force commander, General Eliezer Shkedi, outlines the scope of the Zionist escalation of violence. "The air force had, since the beginning of 2006, carried out five times the number of air strikes as last year." He continues:

"We are acting with extreme caution ... I think that at this time we have to make a very big effort to try everything possible to avoid harming those who are not involved," the general said.

Shkedi said aircraft were encountering growing difficulties to prevent "collateral damage" during sorties over Gaza, one of the most densely populated regions on earth, with militants choosing to operate in built-up areas.

The savage attacks launched on civilian areas has produced an enormous global outcry that is growing less and less tolerant of the fabricated excuses the occupier army produces whenever it committs another atrocity.

The growing number of civilian deaths has incurred heavy criticism from Middle East peace sponsors, Russia and the United Nations, which called on Israel to respect international law, and from EU heavyweight Britain.

Israeli Tourism Minister Yitzhak Herzog openly acknowledged that the Jewish state faced a "serious dilemma" in its fight against Palestinian militants.

"On the one hand, we have to exercise maximum care not to hurt innocent civilians but on the other hand we must act against terrorists," he said.

In other words, if Apartheid Israel wants to continue on the offensive against the Palestinians - if they insist on intensifying and deepening their military occupation in Palestine - the attacks must continue no matter the outrage they produce. But the outrage only fuels the resistance.

Thus, Apartheid Israel's Catch-22.

Colombian Pusherman Alvaro Uribe "Loses" the Drug War

Joshua Goodman begins his recent AP piece with these lines:

A key component of the U.S.-backed war on drugs appears to be failing.

Despite record drug seizures and spraying of herbicides, production of the plant used to make cocaine increased by 8 percent in Colombia, to 330 square miles, the United Nations said Tuesday - even as authorities sprayed coca fields totaling 25 times the size of Manhattan.

The two reports are the strongest evidence yet that a cornerstone of the U.S.-led war on drugs - the aerial fumigation of coca fields - is failing to meet its goal of halving coca production in the Andes.

In the piece, the author simply refuses to entertain the idea that Uncle Sam's "War on Drugs" is as phony and fraudulent as the "War on Terror".

If it had anything to do with drugs, the "aerial fumigaion" campaign undertaken by Uncle Sam's privatized DynCorp mercinaries would aim these chemical weapons at the government controlled teritories producing what he calls, "the source of 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States," instead of enormous swaths of peasant-controlled lands whose inhabitants have barely survived the country's 50-year civil war.

As with each of Uncle Sam's other military conquests, the war in Colombia has everything to do with power, domination, and control of geopolitical resources. Uncle Sam's campaign of chemical warfare against the peasants of Colombia serves these interests, creating hostility and friction between the peasants and FARC, the organized peasant resistance movement.

Goodman's laughable suggestion that Uncle Sam's "War on Drugs" aims to eradicate drug possession bears nothing in common with reality. For years in Colombia, Uncle Sam has actively supported the drug trade, arming and training a paramilitary army of Narco Trafficers.

This collaboration between Uncle Sam and the Colombian Narcos has risen to epic heights, including NarcoPresident Alvaro Uribe and former paramilitary commanders now integrated into the Colombian military.

Uncle Sam's "Drug War" - like the "War on Terror" - offers a phony pretext in which it can manufacture a geopolitical crisis. And right now the terrain of that crisis has shifted from the Colombian countryside to places like Bolivia and Venezuela - places that have committed themselves to resisting Uncle Sam directly.

And sure enough, Goodman carries water for the Empire like a good stenographer. He continues:

In Colombia, the world's largest cocaine producer, the biggest increases were in the lawless, largely uninhabited jungles near its borders with Venezuela and Ecuador.

The spread of the coca frontier eastward toward Venezuela is in line with comments by U.S. anti-drug officials who have alleged that corruption within the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may be converting Colombia's neighbor into a major drug route.

Although production is on the rise in Colombia, the U.N. said it declined in Peru and Bolivia.

Coca production in Bolivia fell by 8 percent last year, according to the U.N. The United States, however, is concerned Bolivia's leftist, coca-growing President Evo Morales - who took office in January - could relax his country's drug-fighting efforts....

The apparent declines differ widely from findings by the United States... which estimated coca plantings grew by... 10 percent in Bolivia last year.

Totally taken in by State Department propaganda, Goodman never bothers to consider the geopolitical dimensions of this "failed" campaign. He never bothered to look in whose economic and geostrategic interest the "failure" serves.

The "War on Drugs" offers Uncle Sam an issue to drum up support for military action against not only Colombia and Venezuela, but also Peru, Mexico, and Ecuador. And, as its fortunes slip in the Middle East, and as the Bolivarian Revolution increasinly forces Sam's hand in America, we must assume it's propaganda will seize upon this fake "War" to justify its imperial machinations as it does elsewhere throughout the world.

Supreme Court Jesters Legitimate Land Theft by Eminent Domain

In today's Washington Times, Joyce Howard Price has a striking piece detailing the degree to which major corporations and local governments have taken to using the legal fiction of 'Eminent Domain' to legitimate the theft of land. Based on information in a newly released report from the Institute of Justice, Price reports:

Since the high court's 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn., a year ago Friday, 5,783 properties nationwide have been either seized or threatened with seizure under eminent domain.

That number compares with 10,281 examples over the five-year period from 1998 to 2002, said the institute, a public-interest law firm that argued the Kelo case before the Supreme Court. During that period, threats were made to seize 6,560 properties, and 3,721 condemnation filings or authorizations were recorded.

In the past year, 5,429 property seizures have been threatened for economic redevelopment projects, plus 354 condemnation filings or authorizations, the institute said.

The use of 'Eminent Domain' to steal land is nothing new. Under the guise of 'urban renewal' or 'community redevelopment' through a process of ethnic cleansing euphamistically called 'gentrification', the poor have been purged and uprooted from their homes and property for years.

Yet even in this light, the Kelo decision has serious implications. Now, codified by the Supreme Court Jesters, real estate developers and bought-off local politicians can undertake the arbitrary theft of land on the flimsiest of pretexts with no fear of legal recrimination.

Apartheid Israeli Terrorists Kill More Children; Al-Aksa Declares War

Speaking at a meeting on Tuesday morning, Israeli collaborator Mahmoud Abbas lamented the Palestinian Resistance tactic of launching rockets into Zionist controlled Palestine, arguing that it gives Apartheid Israel an adequate pretext for ignoring the non-existent 'peace process.'

This is, of course, a silly argument since it implies that Apartheid Israel ever adhered to the agreement, which it did not. Instead, after Oslo the Zionist campaign of ethnic cleansing and land theft actually accelerated.

In an act of willful self-delusion, Abbas simply ignores the obvious fact that atrocities committed against the Palestinian people continue unabated. On Tuesday, only hours after Abbas's statement, Middle East Online reported:

An Israeli air strike targeting Palestinian militants killed three children in Gaza Tuesday, only hours after Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas demanded that militants end rocket attacks on Israel or be responsible for reprisals.

Fourteen other people were wounded in the strike, including five children, while the two men said to be members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades escaped from the car targeted by the strike, Palestinian sources said...

Palestinian medics identified the three children killed as Mohammed Jamal Roqa, aged five, a six-year-old girl, Sania al-Sharif, and a 16-year-old boy, Bilal al-Hissi.

The Jerusalem Post adds some details to the attack:

Senior Aksa Brigades operatives Amad Abu Hamed, who was the target of the attack, evaded the strike by jumping out of the way in the last minute. Still, he was lightly wounded in the attack. The IDF said that the targeted cell was responsible for launching three rockets at Sderot earlier in the day.

The al-Aska Martyrs Brigades promptely issued a communique saying that Apartheid Israel's failed assassination attempt would have severe consequences. Yaakov Katz's report in the Post continues:

In response to the strike, al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades declared war against Sderot, urging its operatives to launch rockets at the city.

"The reprisal is coming soon," said Abu Qussa, spokesman the Aksa Martyrs' Brigades. Abu Qussa said the revenge attacks could be anywhere and called on other militants to strike as well...

"We will strike against the enemy everywhere," an Aksa Brigades flier read, "The Palestinian organizations must increase the attacks against the occupiers and declare war on Sderot and the other Zionist settlements."

The declaration of war on the Sderot Bedwetters by al-Aska, an organization nominally under Fatah control, marks an important sea-change in the trajectory of the Palestinian resistance struggle. If they can reach a common understanding with Hamas and other political organizations that centers around unity to and resistance against the Apartheid Occupation, they further isolate Abbas's clique and stand to overcome the Machiavellian maneuvering by Apartheid Israel and its allies to foment a sectarian civil war in Occupied Palestine much like the one being engineered in Iraq.

As we discussed last week, the only tactical shift available to Apartheid Israel is to escalate the level of collective punishment against the Palestinian people. But this strategy, too, stands to backfire when it crystalizes rage against the occupier. And with this latest massacre, Apartheid Israel seems to have done precisely that.

Savage Stormwatch: Tiger Force and the Thar Thar Massacre

ON Tuesday, Andrew Buncombe reported in The Independent about yet another savage, barbaric episode in Uncle Sam's occupation of Iraq.

This time, Uncle Sam's Torture-Squaders come from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the infamous 101st Airborne Division, commanded by Thomas R. Turner II.

After Turner's men murdered 3 Iraqi men, they covered up their actions and claimed the men were trying to flee custody.

One ought to recall that the 101st Airborne already has a legendary legacy of brutality and torture in Vietnam. This episode gives the advanced warning of a similar one in Iraq. So we must be careful not to accept their words at face value. First, we must demand to know the truth of their actions.

And typically, the military is trying to conceal that truth. Their silly little cover-up investigation is... wait for it... 'ongoing'!

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Buncombe reports:

Details of what happened have not been released but the soldiers charged apparently claimed that the men were trying to escape.

One should ask Buncombe how one 'apparently claims' to do something.

He continues:

On the day the alleged murders occurred, the unit commander ordered an inquiry, the statement said. It added that an investigation was launched on 17 May and was continuing. It said the men were being confined while it was decided whether to proceed to with a court martial.

What sort of system holds men in custody for no reason and murders them without the commission of a crime?

'Democracy', Sam-style!

Bedwetting: A Uniquetly Zionist Response to Rocket Attacks

The recently adopted Palestinian resistance tactic of firing rockets into lands held by their Apartheid occupier is working, exposing the weakness of the Zionist government and demonstrating the vulnerabilities of its ethnic cleansing policy.

The rockets have fueled divisions between colonialists occupying Palestine and demanding protection by the state on one hand and the Apartheid government, unable to provide that protection, on the other. An AP report highlights these disagreements:

Residents of this southern Israeli town brought the community to a standstill on Tuesday...to protest the government's inability to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

About 30 demonstrators gathered at the main entrance to Sderot, placing a bulldozer and truck in the road to prevent traffic from entering. Town workers were striking and threatened to cut all electricity at night in protest. Sderot recently shut its schools for the summer several weeks ahead of schedule

The Zionist colonialists feel betrayed because, aside from the savage slaughter of a few dozen civilians, the Apartheid government has done nothing to protect them. The piece continues:

Although the crude Kassam rockets are inaccurate, they have killed six Sderot residents, damaged buildings and severely disrupted life in Sderot. Residents are woken almost every night by sirens alerting them to incoming rockets.

Further upsetting residents, Vice Premier Shimon Peres dismissed Sderot residents' fears as "hysterical" and suggested that their complaints were encouraging militants to keep up the attacks.

Feeling scared out of their wits and unable or unwilling to defend themselves, the attacks have forced the land thieves into a constant state of fear.

"They know we are scared here ... We are tired and want to sleep peacefully at night," said Hava Gad, 41, an unemployed mother of three who has been staging a hunger strike for nine days.

Gad said she lost a marketing job because she missed so much work time tending to her terrified children. She said she and her children have gone into therapy, and her youngest child, who is 7 1/2 years old, has started wetting his bed again.

The solution to their crisis is a simple one: return the stolen land. But in order for that to occur, the struggle must deepen and intensify beyond bed-wetting colonialists crying to the state for help to questioning the viability of the state itself.

It will demand organization, focus, and more strategic errors on the part of Apartheid Israel.

Iran, Venezuela, and the Face of Resistance

Amidst the chess-like geopolitical deliberations surrounding the maunfactured showdown over Iran's nuclear energy capacity, a much more intriguing set of strategic military, political, and economic developments has begun to unfold among governments taking a more overt position against the geostrategic machinations of Uncle Sam and its vassal states.

Two recent polls - one commissioned by Pew Research Centre and the other by Harris - paint of picture of a world angry at Uncle Sam's behavior and untrusting of its ambitions. The Harris Poll confined itself to opinion about Uncle Sam in Europe, finding:

36 per cent of respondents identify the US as the greatest threat to global stability.

The poll, conducted in association with the FT, questioned a representative sample of 5,000 people in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain on a range of issues. Thirty per cent of respondents named Iran as the greatest threat to global stability, with 18 per cent selecting China.

The Pew poll is even more stark. It reported:

The Washington-based Pew Research Centre, in a poll of 17,000 people in 15 countries between March and May, found more people concerned about the US presence in Iraq than about Iran's alleged nuclear weapons ambitions...

In Muslim countries with which the US has traditionally enjoyed a good relationship, such as Turkey - a member of Nato - and Indonesia, there have also been slumps. In Indonesia favourable ratings for the US have dropped from 75% to 30%, and in Turkey from 52% to 12%...

Favourable ratings of the US in India dropped over the year from 71% to 56%.

This climate of distrust provided the backdrop for last week's Shanghai Cooperation Organisation negotiations in China, which brought together the leaders of 10 nations in and around central Asia. In the Guardian, Jonathan Watts highlights the myriad ways in which the meeting infringed on Uncle Sam's strategic interests:

The group's potential role as a counterweight to the US was underlined by the presence of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who received a warm welcome in Shanghai despite his country's standoff with international nuclear inspectors over Tehran's uranium enrichment program.

Mr Ahmadinejad said his country's participation could "turn the SCO into a strong, influential economic, political and trading institution at both regional and international levels and prevent the threats of domineering powers and their aggressive interference in global affairs".

The growing power of China has prompted a rethink in Washington, where rightwing analysts now speak of the SCO as an embryonic rival to Nato. Their fears have been strengthened in the past two years by the inclusion in the SCO of Iran, Pakistan, India, Mongolia and Afghanistan as either observer or guest nations.

While Uncle Sam's omnipresent threat against Iran no-doubt made its presence at the conference galling, the support Ahmadinejad received there for the positions he took no doubt left it apoplectic!

Such a developing alliance unified around resisting Uncle Sam's imperial grand strategy has many different components. Economically, China has begun to deepen its relationship with Iran while reaching out to African nations, including one of Uncle Sam's most obedient vassal states: Egypt. And, in a move that binds together Venezuela with Uncle Sam's chief nemesis in each hemisphere, Michael Fox reported in Venezuela Analysis that:

The Iranian Vice-Minister of Light Industry, Faisal Megdad, announced this week that the Islamic Republic of Iran is planning to invest more than $9 billion in 125 development projects in Venezuela as part of bilateral cooperation agreements between the two countries.

Fox went on to report that, "Megdad also proposed strengthening social and economic relations between Venezuela and Syria."

These moves - which aim to build a strong, unified, global economic foundation - represent an important element in the anti-imperialist struggle against Uncle Sam's oppressive neoliberal brand of economic suffocation. Moves away from the Greenback, which we've documented extensively here at Savage Justice help to build this foundation, too.

And while it is essential to create an economic infrastructre capable of operating outside Uncle Sam's hegemonic domination, it is naive to think of creating such an infrastructure without simultaneously making preparations to defend it - by force, if necessary.

To that end, the same countries resisting Uncle Sam's 'Debt Leverage Imperialism' economic model have, to Sam's chagrin, also begun to deepen their military ties. Registering its hostility to this development, the AP reported that Uncle Sam sanctioned four Chinese companies on fake pretexts, accusing it of helping Iran acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Syria and Iran just announced a series of new cooperation agreements "based on a strategic pact and unity against common threats," in which the two nations announced "a joint Supreme Defense Commission," according to AFP.

Russia and Venezuela, too, continue do business. In addition to Venezuela's purchace of 100,000 Russian-made AK-103 assault rifles, Comrade "Chavez also confirmed that an agreement had been reached for Venezuela to purchase 24 Russian Sukhoi-30 fighter jets.P and 24 Russian Sukhoi-30 fighter jets." To this, Christopher Toothaker of AP reports that, Comrade "Hugo Chavez's plans to build the first Kalashnikov factory in South America are stirring fears Venezuela could start arming his leftist allies in the hemisphere with Russian assault rifles."

Comrade Chavez knows the stakes of this struggle and has made preparations for whatever eventuality Uncle Sam has planned in its crusade to preserve itself. Similarly China, Bolivia, Iran, and Russia now understand the total unity of strategy and purpose required to confront Uncle Sam's global empire.