Indifférence

Dans l’indifférence totale, le drame du Soudan continue! Hier 150 morts, 400 blesses. L’ONU lance un appel pour dons de vivres et aux infirmiers volontaires pour soigner ces blessés livres a eux-mêmes !!!!

[...]La mission de l'ONU au Soudan a lancé un appel aux dons de vivres et à l'adresse d'infirmières volontaires pour venir en aide aux 400 blessés. L'ONU a également averti que les corps des victimes qui jonchent le fleuve du Nil ont contaminé une des principales sources d'eau potable de la ville portuaire de Malakal, où les combats se sont déroulés, située sur le fleuve à environ 640 kilomètres au sud de Khartoum[...]
Source

En Iraq, encore une bombe qui fait 51 morts dans un marché shiite a Bagdad. Cela est devient tellement monotone que je m’étonne un peu, les jours ou rien ne se passe ! Une guerre civile qu’on a décidé d’ignorer complètement :-(

Car bombs tore through a fruit and vegetable market in a Shi'ite area of central Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 51 people in another devastating attack fueling a vicious cycle of sectarian violence.

The bombing came two days after President Bush met Iraq's prime minister to discuss ways to avert all-out civil war and 10 days after the bloodiest attack since the U.S. invasion killed more than 200 people in the capital
Source

Les medias se sont par contre tous mis d’accord pour couvrir les protestations au Liban, l’arrestation de 160 militants de Al Qaeda en Arabie Saoudite, le fait que Rumsfield dit en privé le contraire de ce qu’il dit en public et que Fidel Castro est trop malade pour assister a son 80eme anniversaire.

Je suis d'accord que tout ces sujets sont importants mais pas autant que ce qui se passe en Iraq ou au Soudan. Mais bon, apparemment j'ai mes priorités sens dessus-dessous!!!

NBC: Iraq in civil war; White House disagrees

For the first time a major TV network in the US(NBC), described the situation in Iraq as a civil war, resulting in an official disagreement by the white house. This is very important to understand how the americans get their news. What is obvious to the rest of the world is not for americans who generally get their news from such networks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NBC News on Monday branded the
Iraq conflict a civil war -- a decision that put it at odds with the White House and that analysts said would increase public disillusionment with the U.S. troop presence there.

NBC, a major U.S. television network, said the Iraqi government's inability to stop spiraling violence between rival factions fit its definition of civil war.[....]
Several analysts said NBC's decision was important as the administration would face more pressure to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq if the U.S. public comes to view the conflict as a civil war.

The decision "certainly is a major milestone," said Ted Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.

"That does change the terminology and is likely to change the perspective of viewers, and one suspects other media outlets will sooner or later follow suit."

Public weariness with the conflict -- which has now lasted longer than U.S. involvement in World War Two -- helped Democrats take control of Congress from Bush's Republican Party in November 7 elections.

Analysts said Americans would not tolerate U.S. troops being used as referees between warring Iraqi factions.
NBC: Iraq in civil war; White House disagrees

The roadmap to nowhere.

Tanya Reinhart is a professor at Tel Aviv University and the University of Utrecht. She is author of Israel/Palestine: How to End the 1948 War (Seven Stories Press, 2002) and The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003.

Israel backed by mainstream Western media - describes its war against the Palestinians as a war of defence, a necessary response to Palestinian terror, a noble instance of the global war against terrorism. It is amazing how still now, after two years of massive Israeli destruction of the Palestinian society, so little is known about the real facts of how this war developed, and what Israel's role in it is[....]

Ever since the Palestinian territories were occupied in 1967, the Israeli military and political elites have deliberated over the question how to keep maximum land (and water) with minimum Palestinian population. A simple solution of annexing the heavily populated Palestinian land would have created a "demographic problem" - the fear that a Jewish majority could not be sustained. Therefore, two basic approaches were formed. The Alon plan of the Labor party proposed annexation of 35-40 percent of the territories, and either a Jordanian rule, or some form of autonomy for the rest of the land, to which the Palestinian residents will be confined. In the eyes of its proponents, this plan represented a necessary compromise. They believed it would be inconceivable to repeat the "solution" of the 1948 Independence war, when much of the land was obtained "Arab-free", following mass expulsion of the Palestinian residents. The second approach, whose most vocal spokesman was Sharon, strived to get more. In its extreme realization it maintained that it should be possible to find more acceptable and sophisticated ways to achieve a “1948 style" solution. It would only be necessary to find another state for as many Palestinians as possible. "Jordan is Palestine" was the phrase Sharon coined in the 1980's.[...]

Amid the propaganda, a theme that had already emerged in October 2000 was the analogy linking present circumstances to the war of 1948. Major General Moshe Ya'alon, then deputy chief of staff (and the present chief of staff), explained that "this was Israel's most critical campaign against the Palestinians, including Israel's Arab population, since the 1948 war - for him, in fact, it is the second half of 1948" (Amir Oren, Ha'aretz, November 17, 2000). After two years of brutal Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the leading military and political circles in Israel that produced this analogy still believe that "the second half" - a completion of the ethnic cleansing that started in 1948 - is necessary and possible.
Source of full interview

What kind of people have we become?

We take our breakfast and enjoy our morning coffee while reading or watching the news of hundreds of Iraqis, being blown off by some suicide bomber whose act is supposed to free his country from the US occupation. And then we kiss our wives goodbye and drive to work enjoying our favorite music (George Michael’s for me). During lunch break, we eat a sandwich while surfing the news sites, looking at dead bodies and torn cars and bloody scenes and then go back to work. We’ve been immunized against pain and we got used to injustice, we’re loosing our humanity, we accepted the fact that Iraqis, Palestinians, Sudanese have a different destiny then ours. They die, we watch!

This is what we became, even the Americans who ask for US withdrawal, they do it to save US soldiers life and US money not for the poor Iraqis who are supposed to be free now, enjoying democracy paid by Uncle Sam.

It is as if we’re watching a big reality show, where children, women and men die because of decisions of some lunatic politicians who are telling us that they made it their job to change the world and make it a better place for all of us. BS!!

Isn’t so obvious that the war in Iraq is wrong? Why don’t we leave these poor people live and enjoy their life the way they want it, raise their kids and build their country their way, the same way we do. How can they dare, stand in front of cameras and tell us that this is the right thing to do, and that they’re dying for their own good!!

Isn’t so obvious that the people of Palestine are suffering from injustice and cupidity? Isn’t so obvious that it is time they have their own state? Don’t they deserve to live in security, the same way most of us do? How can they dare explain to us that they deserve this life (or death)!

Why is it that power falls always in the hand of unwise people, blind people, cupid and idiots? Even democracy is failing preventing these aggressions. The US government is staying in Iraq against the will of the majority of US voters, why? Why do the Israelis believe that they are better fighting the Arabs than cooperating with them? Why is it that these leaders who wanted to fight for the freedom of Iraq and liberating it from Saddam, don’t do the same thing for Sudan, or North Korea or a lot of these poor countries in Africa who are still fighting for food and water? Why do they think that we are idiots and will believe such lies? At least during the colonization era, the British or the French were not hiding it that they need these countries for their own use. Now they achieve the same thing by making us believe that they are helping.

Today 150 died and 300 got wounded in Iraq. 3800 died in October, 3300 in September, 3000 in August. 60000 civilians died form violence, more than 500,000 died from the effect of the war on the country infrastructure. A country is losing its population, its history is being looted, thousands of historical artifacts thousand years old are lost, and one of the seven world wonder is being a world blunder. Enough is enough! Stop helping them, leave them alone! Mr. Bush, it is a civil war that you created all right! So at least don’t insult us by saying it is not.

I think we do owe these people an apology, in the form of bringing to justice whoever is responsible for this mess. Whoever opened this Pandora box that is spreading death and misery should be held responsible for his acts.

---

Key points in the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq report released Wednesday:

CIVILIANS VIOLENTLY KILLED: October (3,709), September (3,345), August (3,009), July (3,590).

PROFESSIONAL TARGETS: Assassinations of professionals continued at an alarming rate in the past two months, including journalists, teachers, professors, lawyers, doctors and political and religious leaders.

DISPLACED PEOPLE: An estimated 1.6 million have sought refuge in neighboring countries since 2003. An estimated 418,392 people have been displaced by sectarian violence and 15,240 by military operations since Sunni-Arab insurgents bombed a Shiite shrine in Samara on Feb. 22, 2006. An estimated 100,000 people per month have left Iraq in the past few months.

DETAINEES: At the end of October, there were 29,256 detainees in Iraq, about 46 percent held in coalition facilities and 54 percent in Iraqi prisons.

TARGETED SCHOOLS: Schools have increasingly become a target for sectarian and other criminal attacks. More than 300 teachers and Ministry of Education employees were killed and 1,158 wounded in 2006 alone.

CLAIMING BODIES: During October, more than 200 unidentified bodies were transferred to cemeteries in the two Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf. If a victim is killed in a military operation, family members may be reluctant to claim the body at the morgues, fearing militias or security forces there could take revenge against the rest of the family.

IRAQI SECURITY FORCES: Absenteeism is widespread among Iraqi army and police forces, some of which are infiltrated by militias and death squads. In Kirkuk alone, half of the 5,000 member police force and its 13,000 army soldiers reportedly are not reporting for duty at any given time and many fail to return to duty.
UN Report about Iraq (The Associated Press)

Darfur, the forgotten...

Almost 3.4 million, equivalent of half the population of Sudan is affected by the Darfur drama. 1.3 million children were displaced and live in camp. The UNICEF is overwhelmed and NGO efforts are hindered by the continuous violence. A trap for a million of children who if they make it to be adult, will be marked forever by this experience. And the whole world is watching.....


An estimated 3.4 million people—equivalent to almost 51 percent of the total population in the region—have been affected by the crisis in Darfur. At least 1.3 million children are living in 200 refugee camps as a result.


Darfur's children have borne the brunt of this ongoing conflict. They live in a constant state of fear, according to UNICEF Emergency Communications Officer Gordon Weiss. "They have lost their homes and their families and suffered terrible abuses," he said

In recent weeks, increasing violence has made it extremely difficult for humanitarian workers to continue to effectively respond with needed relief. Acute malnutrition has reached 27 percent in some parts of Darfur and health care systems are failing. Sexual violence against women and children is as widespread as ever, and people yearn for a place where they can feel safe.

The world cannot and should not allow this senseless loss of life to continue. We call upon all parties to cease the conflict and protect the families and children.
Source(UNICEF)
BBC: facts about the crisis
Human right watch: photos of the conflict(may be censored in TN)