Our blogs about
America's Wars
War on Iraq
War on Drugs
War on Afghanistan
War on Columbia
War on Philippines
War on Venezuela

MORE
Matrix Masters
Blogs
World Events
Katrina's Aftermath
US News
Bush Crime Family News
Science & Health
Earth News
Free Speech
News from Africa
News from Palestine
Bill of Rights Under Attack

Support Bloggers' Rights!

Lorenzo's
Random Musings
. . . about Chaos,
Reason, and Hope

Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
                Imad Khadduri's blog "Free Iraq" (scroll down for English version)

Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Send Hans Blix to Nes Ziona: Civilians attacked with poison gas
By James Brooks - Online Journal Contributing Writer
February 20, 2003—Some of the victims were demonstrators. Some were children in their homes, trying to get away from the gas seeping under the door. Some were old men walking down the street. One of the victims was a 13-year-old boy, playing in a schoolyard when a gas canister enveloped him in a cloud of poisonous smoke.[1] Like many of the others, he suffered recurring severe convulsions for days. Ambulance drivers responding to one of the gas attacks found people on the street jumping around, thrashing their limbs in uncontrollable spasms. These poison gas attacks were perpetrated just two years ago by Israeli troops against civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Although they are documented by a small mountain of detailed and consistent open-source information, they remain a silent, ignored, seemingly untouchable story. At least eight separate attacks were reported from February 12 through March 30, 2001, first in the Gaza Strip and later in the West Bank. Several hundred civilians are reported to have suffered from exposure to the gas. Many required prolonged hospitalization.

The smoking gas they released was non-irritating and initially odorless. After a few minutes a sweet, minty fragrance would emerge. One victim recalled that "the smell was good. You want to breathe more. You feel good when you inhale it." From five to 30 minutes after breathing the gas, victims began to feel sick and had difficulty breathing. A searing pain would begin to wrench their gut, followed by vomiting, sometimes of blood, then complete hysteria and extremely violent convulsions. Palestinians agreed: "This is like nothing we've ever seen before."[17] Tareg Bey, a chemical warfare expert at the University of California-Irvine, told the Chicago Reader that the symptoms "all fit really well to nerve gas," though he was puzzled by the reported fragrance and skin rashes.[19] The gas, which caused no recorded fatalities, may have been a novel "nerve agent" developed in Israel's CBW laboratories at Nes Ziona, where they've been making nerve gases, and many other things, for decades.[20]

Were these gas attacks an "experiment"? What has become of the victims? Who made the decision to conduct this criminal and inhuman campaign? These and many other questions about Israel's willingness to use chemical weapons demand answers. The silence about these attacks must end. Failure to investigate them and bring their perpetrators to justice is a violation of the Geneva Accords. America cannot make a case for war over potential chemical weapons in Iraq, yet turn a blind eye to the actual chemical warfare conducted by its "staunchest ally."

posted by A Curmudgeon 3:59 PM