re war crimes status..

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Lebanon and the Law

On July 23, the United Nations Emergency Relief coordinator, Jan
Egeland, visited Beirut. The BBC reported: "[Egeland] said the
'disproportionate response' by Israel was a 'violation of international
humanitarian law.'" .

The United Nations' top human rights official, Louise Arbour, warned
on July 19: "International law demands accountability. The scale of the
killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the
personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those
in a position of command and control."


FRANCIS BOYLE, (217) 333-7954,  fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
Professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Boyle
serves as counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina in Application of the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia [Serbia and Montenegro]),
currently pending before the International Court of Justice. He said
today: "Although Lebanon is not a party to the Statute of the
International Criminal Court, nevertheless Lebanon can and should file a
declaration ... [and] ask the ICC prosecutor to initiate an
investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by
Israel in Lebanon." Boyle is author of the books "Biowarfare and
Terrorism" and "Destroying World Order."

MARY ROSE OKAR, (202) 244-2990 ext 110,  president@adc.org,
 http://www.adc.org
Okar is president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee, which today filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
failed to fulfill their constitutional and professional obligations and
protect U.S. citizens in a crisis or time of war.
Okar, who is a former member of Congress, said today: "At no time
has President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, or Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld called for a ceasefire in Lebanon. To the contrary, the Bush
administration has encouraged the violence by sending an urgent shipment
of bombs to Israel giving that country the green light to continue in
its indiscriminant bombing of Lebanon. This has placed innocent
civilians, including thousands of U.S. citizens, in harm's way and has
resulted in injuring several U.S. citizens in Lebanon."

FRIDA BERRIGAN, cell: (347) 683-4928,  BerrigaF@newschool.edu
Berrigan is senior research associate at the Arms Trade Resource
Center, which recently released the report "U.S. Military Assistance and
Arms Transfers to Israel: U.S. Aid, Companies Fuel Israeli Military."
PDF is at:
.
She said today: "For more than 30 years, Israel had been the largest
recipient of U.S. foreign assistance and since 1985 it has received
about $3 billion in military and economic aid each year from Washington.
In addition, Israel is one of the United States' largest arms importers.
The bulk of Israel's current arsenal is composed of equipment supplied
under U.S. military aid programs.
"The Arms Export Control Act, enacted in 1976, stipulates that
weapons may be transferred for self-defense, internal security and UN
operations only and establishes a process for Congressional advance
notice of major sales."

FRED ABRAHAMS, (212) 216-1281, cell: (917) 385-7333,  abrahaf@hrw.org,
 http://www.hrw.org
Fred Abrahams is senior emergencies researcher for Human Rights
Watch actions in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon. He said today: "Human Rights
Watch has serious concerns about Israel and Hezbollah's compliance with
international humanitarian law (the laws of war) during military actions
in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon. Two fundamental tenets of international
humanitarian law are those of 'civilian immunity' and the principle of
'distinction.' They impose a duty on all sides in a conflict to
distinguish between combatants and civilians, and to target only the
former. Serious violations of international humanitarian law are war
crimes."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

If you phone in a bomb threat to Prestick Airport then you will close the airport down for half an hour, and you will likely be in prison by the end of the day.

If you phone a bomb threat to Prestwick ATC however then all the civilian staff will be evacuated and RAF controllers will land all outstanding flights safetly. You will also disrupt most cheduled flights across the Atlantic. Although not really dangerous this will cause much more disruption (Swanwick is the English equivalent) and you better be sure you phoned from a country pay-phone, wearing surgical gloves and breathing through a handkerchief for they hate this sort of annoyance. The staff there all have instruction-sheets for bomb threats in front of them (write everything down, note keywords, keep them talking etc) Knowing that they have written instructions and are probably reading them while you are talking allows you to have some fun at their expense, but don't get carried away as police-cars are quicker than you think. Make up a fake password and get off the line. If we all did this once a month then we'd have no over-flights at all and our nephews and nieces would never see Ibiza.

While I was working in atc a British woman phoned a bomb threat in because her mother-in-law was flying in to visit from the States- she got found out and charged £50,000 for the plane reroute to Iceland, and her mother-in-law arrived a day later anyway. It's a crime against international law don't you know ?

The British airlines use both gangsters and police to enforce their profits, be paranoid if you fuck with them, they are nasty. They are kill you nasty rather than smear you nasty.

 http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=2950

July 25, 2006, 2:09 PM (GMT+02:00)

It is carrying fresh stock of bombs, missiles and spare parts for Israeli Air Force aircraft and helicopters. Giant Galaxy C141 transports have been landing, unloading and taking off at short intervals.

DEBKAfile adds: The American airlift to Israel follows the air corridor Iran opened to replenish Hizballah’s stocks on Wednesday, July 19, landing supplies at Syria’s Abu Ad Duhur military airfield north of Homs. The deliveries for Hizballah include large quantities of new missiles, including the long-range Zelzal and Fajr 3 and Fajr 5 missiles, Katyusha rockets, anti-tank and anti-air missiles sent out from the RG HQ in Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf. Some of these missiles can reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Thursday, July 21, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards commander Brig.-Gen Yahya Rahim Safavi (picture) assumed command of the Lebanon war from Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. RG forward command posts are operating out of Iranian embassies in Beirut and Damascus. Syria has placed its army, Scud

missiles and air force in a state of preparedness.

THE Government will allow more American aircraft carrying arms to Israel to stop over in Britain despite private concerns that the Pentagon was “playing fast and loose”.

The US has asked the Government to let two aircraft with missiles and bombs on board stop at Prestwick in the next fortnight.


- the Times


 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2289241,00.html


Remember the Iranian Airliner that the US shot down just before Lockerbie ?
I wonder how many of the civilian airline passengers who use Prestwick are aware that US bomb flights from there have made them a plausible target for military or terrorist action. Maybe we should publicise that fact over the next two weeks ?

The Telegraph says the flights stopped over to refuel and rest the crews. This seems implausible in the extreme given the extra dangers involved in each landing and take-off. There are many daily civilian and military cargo flights directly between the US and Israel. Perhaps the stop-overs are designed to clearly make the UK complicit in Israeli slaughter and so to diminish any independent UK attitude to Israel.

I've noticed that no one in the media has reported who is the charter company that operates the bomb transport aircraft, or published a photo of them. If you object to the UK being used as Israel's munitions ship or America's aircraft carrier, why not get this information, which is likely to be publicly available, or get down there the next time they come through and get some pictures, or better yet, make it known to the crews that they are not welcome in the UK. There are plenty of pictures from Prestwick on www.airliners.net and showing graphically what is being done and who is the company profiting from all this is would make the issue a bit more real to those who aren't thinking of the long term implications, e.g. that Britain is implicitly taking the Israeli side of the conflict and will be targeted for retaliation later.

The aircraft were most widely reported as being charted Airbus 310s. Lately they are being reported as Kalitta Air 747's, and Kalitta are part of the US Air Mobility Command 'Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Who knows what to believe.
I could sit outside Prestwick with a camcorder for the next two weeks and try and record every flight but if I was to go there I'd rather leaflet the passengers and the air-traffic controllers. Any tips or ideas for more of a Shannon-style protest ?


"The aircraft carrying the arms was a chartered Boeing 747 belonging to commercial airfreight company Kalitta Air, which landed at Prestwick at 7am last Saturday and took off again three hours later."  http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1096572006

 http://www.kalittaair.com list their 747s as:
N701CK N702CK N703CK N704CK N705CK N706CK N707CK N709CK N710CK N712CK N713CK N714CK N715CK N716CK N717CK N719CK

Kalitta Air "provides domestic and international scheduled or on-demand cargo service and support for the requirements of the Department of Defense Air Mobility Command." -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalitta_Air


 http://www.amc.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=234
The following air carriers are members of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet.

Long-Range International Section:
ABX Air
Air Transport International
American Airlines
ATA Airlines
Arrow Air
Astar Air Cargo
Atlas Air
Continental Airlines
Delta Air Lines
Evergreen International
FEDEX Express Airlines
Gemini Air Cargo
Hawaiian Airlines
Kalitta Air
North American Airlines
Northwest Airlines
Omni International
Polar Air Cargo
Ryan International
Southern Air
United Airlines
United Parcel Service Airlines
US Airways
World Airways


"BBC Scotland has learned that staff were unhappy about dealing with the US planes because flight plans appeared to mention that there were bombs on board. Some of the 200 air traffic controllers said they were "very uncomfortable" handling certain aircraft. "

I just asked a Reuters contact why they have no pictures of these aircraft online given there are normally plane-spotters outside of Prestwick, attracted by the exotic military craft at the UK's most military 'civilian airport'. I was told most news agencies would probably be interested in purchasing such photos. I'll take a trip to Prestwick and let the plane-spotters there know that. If any of them have photos of the flights then I'll ask if they will post them here too.

Blairs spin-doctors seem to think people are upset that the US lied about the bomb flights having civilian ( ie false and dangerous ) paperwork. I am upset that UK airspace and facilities have been used to ship bombs to be dropped on civilians. Apologising for last weeks flights is hardly sincere let alone gracious when the next flights are still scheduled through Prestwick in the next fortnight. The people of Prestwick, Scotland and the UK are being put at risk to supply bombs to a war that has absolutely no support here, both risk of accidents from these undeclared bombs and from future terrorist reprisals now Prestwick is associated worldwide with US military exports to Israel .


ABOARD PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR'S PLANE (AP)--President George W. Bush has apologized to Britain over the U.S. failure to declare two aircraft were carrying missiles bound for Israel when they refueled at a Scottish airport, Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said Friday.
Britain's Civil Aviation Authority is investigating whether the U.S. had applied for the necessary exemptions to carry hazardous material on two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes that refueled at Glasgow's Prestwick airport last weekend.
"President Bush did apologize for the fact that proper procedures were not followed," Blair's official spokesman told reporters following talks between the two leaders in Washington. "It was a gracious thing to do."
Britain's Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett had earlier complained to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the sidelines of international talks in Rome on Wednesday, warning British procedures had been violated.
Opposition lawmakers had urged Blair to demand an apology from Bush after learning that the two aircraft were carrying 28 GBU28 laser-guided missiles bound from the U.S. to Israel.

 http://www.easybourse.com/Website/dynamic/News.php?NewsID=32993〈=fra&NewsRubrique=2

Either the extra flights have been rushed forward to avoid protests or the earlier report of 'in the next fortnight' was a red-herring for the same reason. Someone on IM recently criticised the peacemovement for being reactive rather than proactive, but we aren't even reacting in time nowadays.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5226910.stm

Two more American flights carrying "hazardous cargoes" bound for Israel are to refuel at Prestwick Airport this weekend, it has emerged.

I don't know how APP found out there is a protest tommorow but there is, meeting at Prestwick at 12:30, organised by Glasgow Stop the War.


US arms for Israel expected
Source: AAP
From correspondents in London
July 29, 2006
TWO US cargo aircraft carrying weapons for Israel are due to make stop-overs at a Scottish airport over the weekend with the approval of the British government, airport authorities said Saturday. The two Boeing 747s are carrying "dangerous material" from Texas to Tel Aviv, and have been given authorisation to land, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said...A demonstration is planned at Prestwick Sunday.

The Prestwick airport website explains why it is effectively the USS Prestwick.

"Detailed discussions with the CAA Safety Regulation Group have resulted in a substantially increased NEQ (Net Explosive Quantity) capacity from 4,000 to 11,000 kilos at Glasgow Prestwick International Airport. Glasgow Prestwick Airport has been able to obtain a NEQ (Net Explosive Quantity) of 11,000 kilo’s. This is the highest capacity throughout the UK outside military airfields. Consequently the airport is now the prime site for the handling and movement of this specialised commodity."

Thats the equivalent of 50 Bali bombs can be flown through Prestwick at any given point - the vehicle bomb outside the Sari Club was between 150kg and 300kg

No Bombs from Prestwick Demo tomorow Sunday 30th July at 12:30.

 http://www.caat.org.uk/publications/companies/raytheon.php

Re: The recent story about the US pushing ahead its order of bunker busting bombs to Israel, refuelling the transport planes at Prestwick airport in Scotland... the makers of those bombs are Raytheon and they have several offices and works in the UK, so I'm spreading the info around in the hope that people will pay them some attention. These bombs cause a vacuum, basically sucking the air out of people's lungs (as well as collapsing buildings, etc), and it looks to me that the attacks in lebanon are all against civilians - terror attacks, collective punishment, call it what you will, but designed to scare the living daylights out of the population. And we should resist the architects of what is going on

Raytheon Systems Limited www.raytheon.co.uk
80 Park Lane
London , W1K 7TR
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)20 7569 5517
Fax: +44 (0)20 7569 5591
email:  corporatecommunications@raytheon.co.uk

Bristol

Raytheon Systems Limited
Argentum House
Building 510
Bristol Business Park
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1EJ

Tel: +44 (0)117 906 3405
Fax: +44 (0)117 906 3627

Broughton

Raytheon Systems Limited
Hawarden Airport
Broughton
North Wales
CH4 0BA

Tel: +44 (0)1244 523888
Fax: +44 (0)1244 523513

Glenrothes

Raytheon Systems Limited
Queensway Industrial Estate
Glenrothes
Fife
KY7 5PY

Tel: 01592 754311
Fax: 01592 759775

Harlow (Registered Head Office)

Raytheon Systems Limited
The Pinnacles
Harlow
Essex
CM19 5BB

Tel: +44 (0)1279 426862
Fax: +44 (0)1279 410413

London

Raytheon Systems Limited
80 Park Lane
London
W1K 7TR

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7569 5500
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7569 5596

Londonderry

Raytheon Systems Limited
Peninsula Court
Ulster Science & Technology Park
Buncrana Road
Londonderry
BT48 0SL
Northern Ireland

Tel: +44 (0)28 7130 4000
Fax: +44 (0)28 7130 4100

Waddington

Raytheon Systems Limited
RAF Waddington
Waddington
Lincolnshire
LN5 9NB

Tel: +44 (0) 1522 728416

Before people start targetting Raytheon, can you confirm the sources for the statement that the bunker bombs passing through the UK are MADE BY raytheon?

Here is what I have found that may prove link

 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/gbu-28.htm

Here it says
"Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Ariz., was awarded on February 10, 2005 a $10,490,029 firm fixed price contract to provide for Guided Bomb Unit-28C/B (BLU-122) guidance control units and tail kits, quantity of 71. The Guided Bomb Unit-28C/B, also known as BLU-122 or Enhanced Paveway III, provides the Air Force with an improved aerial delivery capability for the 5000 Pound BLU-113 P3I warhead. The Guided Bomb Unit-28C/B possesses a Global Positioning System aided laser guidance capability with improved lethality, survivability, and penetration over the Previously produced Guided Bomb Unit-28B/B weapons system. Total funds have been obligated. This work will be complete by May 2006."

Is this contract for the entire bunker bomb, not just the guidance control unit?

The contract for bunker bombs (GBU) is to the US government. Does any other company provide them?

If no, then we assume that they must be Raytheon made bombs passing through the UK?

Thanks