Three missing

The ban also arrived as the American military started to increase its profile on YouTube, posting official footage that aimed “to show another side of operations in Iraq beyond news reports of ‘the car bomb of the day,’” the BBC said.

NYT

DAY BY DAY GENOCIDE—Not a single day passes without a crime being perpetrated by the Israeli occupation army and/or paramilitary Jewish terrorists, otherwise known as settlers, against innocent and helpless Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. And in case a murder is not committed, a home is demolished, a school child is crippled by a Jewish sniper’s indifferent bullets, a farm is bulldozed, a grain field is torched, or a new colony is started on stolen Arab land seized at gunpoint from its lawful proprietors, all in the name of Jewish nationalism.

It is more than the wide wild west here, it is actually very much like pre-war Germany when the Third Reich effectively encouraged Germans to have a free season on Jews, on their lives, homes and businesses.

Let us have just a few examples of what the so-called “chosen people” did in the West Bank in the past 48 hours:

On Wednesday (9 May), the heroes of Zionism shot and killed a 7-month-old fetus inside his mother’s womb. The woman is now fighting for her life in hospital. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli tanks raiding the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein Beit Alma in Nablus, began firing indiscriminately, hitting the woman in her underbelly and killing her fetus. A film showed a fetus image in the hospital after being taken from his mother’s tomb; the fetus is already dead after being shot by a bullet in the head. The treating doctor testified that “the bullets hit the fetus in the head after penetrating the mother’s womb. The latest crime raised the number of Palestinian children murdered by Jewish terrorists since 2000 to 853, of whom 124 were killed in 2006. The Israeli army is still “looking into the incident” just as it is still looking into thousands upon thousands of other murderous crimes committed since Israel’s misbegotten birth sixty years ago.

The same heroes of Zionism yesterday torched hundreds of hectares of harvest-ready fields of grains in various parts of the West Bank. The crimes were committed with the knowledge and in full view of the Israeli army.

In Hebron, crack Israeli soldiers ganged up on peace activists, including Jewish participants, after the activists sought to remove rocks and dirt blocking a major road linking Hebron with the town of Dahiriya. Several protesters were beaten savagely and graphic pictures of the “clashes” have been posted on several internet sites.

Around the same time, the Israeli occupation army rounded more than 51 Palestinians (the daily quota is 15-20), sending them to the notorious concentration camp in the Negev desert where they are interned in harsh conditions for months or years, either on concocted charges or without charge or trial.

There are more than 11000 Palestinians languishing in these detention camps. Israel calls them “terrorists or extremists.” However, the truth of the matter is that these people are doctors, teachers, university professors, nurses, students, lawmakers, government clerks, businesspeople and ordinary people whose only crime is their often peaceful opposition to the Nazi-like Israeli occupation of their country.

"But, Senator," Russert countered, "the Iraqi parliament, a majority of the Iraqi parliament, has signed a petition asking for a date certain for withdrawal of American troops. If the Iraqi parliament wants it, a majority in the Congress want it... then why do you stand there and say, 'No, you can't have it'?"

McCain replied that he understands "that if the American people don't continue to support this effort that [the US] will be forced to withdraw" but his job as a senator is to tell the American people that his assessment is that withdrawal would be "catastrophic."

Staying in Iraq, he said, is the best course of action "in our nation's national security interest."

"But the duly elected people's bodies, the U.S. Congress and the Iraqi parliament, say they want a troop withdrawal," pressed Russert. "That's more than a poll. Isn't that the voice of the people?"

"Well, the--as far as the Iraqi parliament is concerned, the Iraqi government obviously doesn't feel that way, their--the representatives in their government," replied McCain, seemingly dismissing the Iraqi parliament's ability to govern its own country.

"Second of all," he continued, "there is some, a certain amount of domestic political calculations involved there in what the Iraqi, quote, 'parliament' said. The Iraqi parliament has their ability to, to voice their views, and I respect them."

Later, when asked if he would be "in favor of a referendum amongst the Iraqi people to make a decision as to whether US troops should stay or leave," McCain appeared to contradict himself.

"No, no more than I should--would have a referendum in the United States of America as to whether Iraqi troops should leave, or whether we should be in or out of NATO, or any other issue. The Iraqi government is an elected government, and they are functioning," he said, implying that the parliament he had mocked earlier as able only to give opinions was fully functional.