Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016
Full Support for the Lebanese Resistance in its Fight Against Israeli State Terrorism - The War Against Zionism Can Only Be Won with the Overthrow of the US's Client Arab Regimes
The Iranian Regime Has Demonstrated That It Is A Paper Tiger – Its Rhetoric in Inverse Proportion to its Actions
Last week’s pager attack on Lebanon signalled the beginning of the Lebanon war. It exposed the hypocrisy behind Western denunciations of terrorism. The triggering of explosives in 5,000 pagers, irrespective of whether the target is Hezbollah, fits every definition of terrorism. It killed dozens of civilians, including children.
As Michael Walzer, author of “Just and Unjust Wars” and co-editor of “The Jewish Political Tradition” wrote in the New York Times,
the explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday were also very likely war crimes — terrorist attacks by a state that has consistently condemned terrorist attacks on its own citizens....
the attacks, which killed at least 37 people and wounded thousands of others, came when the operatives were not operating; they had not been mobilized and they were not militarily engaged. Rather, they were at home with their families, sitting in cafes, shopping in food markets — among civilians who were randomly killed and injured.
Terrorism is
the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.
The definition in Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000 is all but useless.
1. serious violence against a person;
2. serious damage to property;
3. endangering a person's life (other than that of the person committing the action);
4. creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public; and
5. action designed to seriously interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.
No. 1 could be applied to the Metropolitan Police whose violence is a matter of record. No. 4 could be applied to the ‘reforms’ to the NHS proposed by Keir Starmer and equally to the privatisation of the NHS by previous Tory governments for the sake of profit. But of course western governments never think of their actions as ‘terrorist’. If endangering a person’s life is the definition then we should have no standing army! Not in itself a bad idea.
I would define ‘terrorism’ as the use of violence and terror against a population, for political reasons. The classic non-state terrorist groups are ISIS and Al Qaeda. Groups which have a substantial political base such as the IRA, the ANC and PLO were not terrorist though all of them were called that at the time. Terrorists don’t win elections and don’t have a mass base.
Amnesty International posted this report of Israel’s pager attack:
Another witness who was shopping in the southern Beirut suburb of Borj al-Barajne when she saw women and children screaming and running, described the scenes as apocalyptic. “People were running all around me, but my legs couldn’t move,” she said. She later saw young men lying on the ground and dozens of ambulances arriving.
People were running all around me, but my legs couldn’t move
A witness to a pager explosion in Beirut
Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab analyzed 12 videos showing the pagers exploding in crowded civilian areas, such as residential streets and grocery stores, as well as in people’s homes. A verified video of the skyline of Beirut show large smoke plums over at least 10 locations in residential areas.
Lebanon’s Minister of Health, Dr. Firas Abiad, described the attacks as “the epitome of indiscriminate attacks” adding many caused “life-changing injuries”. Ctd....
The last working-class hero in England.
Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018
Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
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