Pulling The Smoke Over Your Eyes

Conditions: Sweltering.


Smoking The Screen.

Day by day, week after week we saw it on the news. The explosion over the skies of Palestine following by bright white streaks of smoke falling toward the ground. Everyone knew it was white phosphorous, a substance that causes horrific burns on contact with the skin and is banned by international law. The loophole lies in the allowance of white phosphorus to be used as a smokescreen for troop movements. So what's the difference?

According to senior IDF officers, quoted today in the Ha'aretz newspaper, the Israeli military made use of two different types of phosphorus munitions.

The first, they insisted, was contained in 155mm artillery shells, and contained "almost no phosphorus" except for a trace to ignite the smoke screen.

The second munitions, at the centre of the inquiry by Col Alkalai, are standard phosphorus shells - both 88mm and 120mm - fired from mortars.

About 200 of these shells were fired during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and of these - say the IDF - 180 were fired on Hamas fighters and rocket launch crews in northern Gaza.

Alkalai is investigating the circumstances in which the remaining 20 shells were fired, amid compelling evidence on the ground that phosphorus munitions were involved in the attack on a UN warehouse and a UN school.

The mortar system is guided by GPS and according to Israel a failure of the targeting system may have been responsible for civilian deaths. However, critics point out the same explanation was used for mis-targeting deaths in Beit Hanoun in Gaza in 2006.

The brigade's officers, however, added that the shells were fired only at places that had been positively identified as sources of enemy fire.

But surely if the weapon is banned from actually being used as a weapon it wouldn't matter the Israeli forces were trying to fire it only on sources of enemy fire? Ah, well that depends on how you interpret Israeli's legal situation concerning the various international agreements. Consider:

The use of phosphorus as an incendiary weapon as it now appears to have been used against Hamas fighters - as opposed to a smoke screen - is covered by the Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons to which Israel in not a signatory.

However, Israel also is obliged under the Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law to give due care to protecting the civilian population when deciding on appropriate military targeting and response to hostile fire, particularly in heavily built up areas with a strict prohibition on the use of indiscriminate force.

- truthout.org/

Presumably this is the same due care and protection that America gave to the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq when they bombed the crap out of those countries. So essentially if Israel is tweaking the rules a little bit it really is in the full-shadow of America not just breaking the rules but tearing them up and throwing them away. If Israel are guilty of war crimes then it's a small matter compared to the war crimes America must be guilty of. And how many people think the dead Afghanis or Iraqis are ever going to have their day in court?

So is it open season on civilians, now? Are they now officially fodder, to be shot up and wheeled past cameras into hospitals nonstop on the nightly news, 24/7? Is this how our wars are now allowed to be run? I realise it was always thus, I'm just pointing out there used to be a sense of outrage that went along with the sadness over civilians getting caught in the crossfire. These days, the sadness remains, but the outrage seems to have been worn out.



Satirical News Headline O' The Week.





Uh, guys? Guys?





Film Review: Frost Nixon

Once in a while you'll get a film that's based on a play, but it's more rare to have a film that's based on a play, that's based on a television interview. Such is the case here, where Ron Howard has brought us the story of the famous Frost Nixon tapes. The focus is on telling the story of how lightweight TV presenter David Frost got a chance to interview infamous ex-president Ricard Nixon. And it would actually be an interesting story, if it wasn't for two important points. Point the first: We already know the interview happens, so any suspense over it not happening is moot. And two: Frost's financial problems are moot as well, since we know the interviews end up hugely successful. So we have a film where the first half is all this drama about stuff that we already know is going to get worked out. Not a good start.

The second half is where things get interesting, Frank Langella plays Richard Nixon, and plays him well. He's a canny, twisted, fearsome old man who knows the limelight is behind him, but won't accept it. He dominates the young Frost in the early going, and the interviews are portrayed like a boxing match, with David finally knuckling down and hitting back hard in the final Watergate round. It's over far too briefly, because frankly this is where the whole point of the film lays. Frost pins Nixon down to the failings of his adminstration, to his own mistakes and to how the American people need to see him acknoldege them, drawing out the moment where Nixon faces his failings publically.

Of course, this is really all about President Bush. This all happened back in the seventies, nobody cares anymore - not enough for a big Hollywood movie to get made, that's why the actual interviews are brushed over - so we can get to the sweet spot of a President being humbled and forced to admit his wrongs. This isn't about Nixon, this is simply another way for us to get another shot at the still-defiant and unapologetic George W. Bush for his calamitous and terrible eight-year reign. And it's ultimately flawed, because it's over for Nixon. He was never prosecuted, he lived out his remaining years quietly, which was a form of punishment to the man who, as he says, still had the fires burning in his belly. No one can believe the same of President Bush, who never really seemed all that engaged in the Presidency even when he was in the middle of it, and certainly won't get suckered into a damning interview in his retired years with some T.V flack. Ultimately, Frost Nixon comes across as fake. From famous actors doing to-camera interviews pretending to be real people, to the effort to set everything including the wallpaper as 70's-sleek, to the polite smalltalk Frost and Nixon make to each other whenever they meet, this whole thing is cheap, fast, nasty and pointless. It's a reflection of where we are now more than where we were then. And we're in a very dark place. At least people cared about the Presidency when Nixon was damaging it. Two Klieg lights out of Five.


- Peace out.