Blowback: US and Israeli style

[Comadreja]

Blowback: U.S.- and Israeli-Style:

Israel and its imitator, the United States, have both launched an
aggressive “war on terrorism” that is liable to undermine their long-term
security.
"Israel recently launched its deadliest attack against the Palestinians in more than a year. In a muscular raid against two Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza strip, the Israelis used heavy armor and helicopter gun ships allegedly to attempt to seize weapons and arrest Palestinian attackers, which had fired mortars at nearby Jewish settlements but had injured no settlers. The Israeli incursion killed 14 Palestinians, including three unarmed youths, and injured 83 people, including 40 under the age of 18. But the Israelis made no arrests for the mortar attacks and seized no weapons. Israel and its imitator, the United States, have both launched an aggressive “war on terrorism” that is liable to undermine their long-term security.

Amnesty International has cited numerous incidents of Israeli use of excessive force in populated Palestinian areas, including a 2,000 pound bomb dropped by an F-16 on a densely populated neighborhood in Gaza City to kill a Hamas activist. The July 22, 2002, aerial onslaught killed seven other adults and nine children, injured 70 others and destroyed six neighboring homes. Palestinians are regularly condemned by the American government and media for suicide bombings of Israeli civilians in Israel and Israeli settlers in Palestinian areas. But if we define “terrorism” as the intentional harming of innocents for political gain, the routine Israeli use of excessive force should also fall into that category.

The Israelis know that the use of heavy firepower in populated areas to target a few activists will kill or injure substantial numbers of innocents. The Israelis are especially culpable when other more “surgical” methods are available—for example, the use of raids by special forces to apprehend Palestinian activists. Even targeted assassinations of militants—a questionable tactic—would kill fewer civilians than the blunt method Israel is using. Thus, Israel’s policy seems to be only a slightly more subtle retaliation for the Palestinian killing of innocents. Instead of blatantly targeting civilians, a military target is found in a densely populated area and then excessive force is applied.

Amnesty International has also criticized the Israeli military for destroying vast tracts of cultivated land, water and electricity infrastructure and thousands of Palestinian homes. The organization also notes that the Israelis have quarantined entire Palestinian towns and cities for long periods of time, employed Palestinians as human shields during military operations, targeted medical personnel and blocked medical assistance, used torture on Palestinian detainees, seized Palestinian land to expand infrastructure for Jewish settlements and failed to protect Palestinians under attack from Jewish settlers. To mollify influential domestic pressure groups in the United States, those unacceptable Israeli tactics are routinely ignored by President Bush, the Congress and the American media." (more)

http://www.independent.org/tii/news/040309Eland.html

[number6]

1. ka-boom

2,000 pound bomb dropped by an F-16, for one dude wow :wow:

[number6]

2. kick

..

[fiend]

3. agreed nt