Three Americans Killed in Gaza Explosion (update)

[cthrumatrix]

Three Americans Killed in Gaza Explosion
2 minutes ago

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip - A massive explosion ripped apart a U.S. diplomatic vehicle Wednesday, killing three Americans and wounding one in the first attack on a U.S. target in three years of Israel-Palestinian fighting.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The attack was condemned by Palestinian officials who said those killed were members of a U.S. monitoring team sent to the region to supervise implementation of a U.S.-backed peace plan.

more

The explosion came hours after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel for building a barrier that cuts into the West Bank.

The United States had sought an alternate draft that would have called on all parties in the Middle East work to dismantle terrorist groups. But Syria, which introduced the draft, went ahead with Tuesday's vote anyway.

snip

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031015/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians&cid=540&ncid=716

[Jacobin]

1. Well, I guess this shows that Smirky was right

Conquer Iraq and the Israeli Palestinian crisis will be resolved.

:eyes:

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. oh I see AP is shifting its spin

massive explosion ripped apart a U.S. diplomatic vehicle Wednesday, killing three Americans and wounding one in the first attack on a U.S. target in three years of Israel-Palestinian fighting....U.S. diplomatic sources said the people in the car were security guards for the U.S. diplomats traveling in the other vehicles. In Washington, State Department officials declined to comment....

The explosion apparently was set off by a remote-control roadside bomb.
Islamic militants, responsible for the bulk of the attacks, have said in the past they have no interest in "exporting" the conflict by taking aim at non-Israeli targets...An AP reporter saw a gray wire with an on-off switch leading from the scene of the attack to a small concrete room at the side of the road....

Mohammed Radwan, a Palestinian taxi driver, said he was at the gas station when the blast went off...."I was about to fill up my car with gas when I saw the American convoy passing," Radwan said. "There was a Palestinian police car in front and then three big (U.S.) cars. When the third one passed, an explosion went off."..Israeli radio reports said CIA officials were traveling in the convoy. Palestinian officials said the diplomats were U.S. monitors. Some of the monitors are from the CIA....

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20031015_451.html

[morebunk]

7. The Palestinian would have no reason to kill US monitors

who were there at their request to check out the brutality of Israel. But Israel would have a reason to do this...just like killing journalists covering Jenin and other territories under brutal Israeli occupation. This smells to high heaven. Mossad will now call in, desguised as Hamas or some other group they have designated as terrorists and claim responsibility. THIS STINKS!!!

The CIA was too close to bringing down the Bush administration, so now they can turn their attention to the Palestinians... how transparent.

[DuctapeFatwa]

23. Well, it is unlikely that any US operative is really checking out the

brutality of Israel, unless it is as part of the consulting Israel has been doing to give the bush regime pointers on crop destruction and home demolition, among other things.

On the other hand, one of the most ridiculous aspects of the whole thing is the way the Palestinian Authority, and to a certain extent, even the Resistance, has this bizarre fawning attitude to the very regime that signs the checks. Arafat, Erekat et al are constantly going on about how good kind most High Sahib US will please help Palestine, and the Resistance puts out statements about how Americans aren't targets with some regularity.

Or it could have been a sparkle by the bush regime itself...

But having said all that, we are back to the principal question: Who benefits? Who makes money?

[AXISofOIL]

3. EXCUSES TO ATTACK

No doubt this attack will be used to justify attacking Iran just as the 9-11 attacks were used for the previous oilwars.


SELLING IRAQ:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3128452.stm

"Having already dished out cushy reconstruction contracts to its favoured companies ... Washington is now effectively auctioning off the spoils of war."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2975186.stm

"Iraq's companies head for sell-off"

"Dozens of Iraq's state-owned companies could be earmarked for privatisation within a year, it has been reported."


The United States oilgovernment first attacked Iraq, with niether legal or moral justification.

Then they systematically siezed control of Iraq's oil and mineral wealth, including what was left of the infrastructure after years of US & Israeli bombing.

Afterwards, the oilmen of the US oilgovernment sent in their own companies to profit from rebuilding the Iraq that they demolished.


Now the U.S. oilgovernment plans to sell the property of the Iraqi people to private companies, in order to make more money.

This is theft.


SEPTEMBER 11 & THE REICHSTAG FIRE:

Has anybody noticed the similarity between the events surrounding the September 11 attacks and the Nazi Reichstag fire?

Let's compare the behavior of the US government over September 11 with the behaviour of the Nazis over the Reichstag fire:


REICHSTAG FIRE:

The German Nazi party knew about the arson attack in advance. It has been suggested that they were actually involved.

After the attack Hitler declared it an act of "terrorism".

The Nazis used Reichstag as an excuse to attack their ethnic and political opponents and to take away people's civil liberties, for example putting people in prison without trial in concentration camps and elsewhere.


THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS:

The U.S. government knew about the attack in advance, having been warned by no less than 11 different governments. The FBI knew that the terrorists were training as pilots but no arrests were made. The US government did nothing, not even warning airports. The U.S. government helped to create the terrorist threat by setting up Mujahidin terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, then arming Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. It has been suggested that the US government was actually involved.

After the attacks Bush declared them an act of "terrorism". He used this as an excuse to attack the ethnic and political opponents of Israel and the Oil War, and to take away people's civil liberties, for example putting people into concentration camps including Guantanamo Bay without trial.


How can people be so sure that the Reichstag fire was a conspiracy, yet completely disregard the possibility that the September 11 attacks were themselves part of an almost identical conspiracy? September 11 helped the US government to attack Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran & Syria, in order to sieze their oil and eliminate opposition to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.


Israel is no better. They keep complaining that Hitler deported and executed people without trial yet they are doing exactly the same thing, funded and armed by the United States (like most of the world's most dangerous and oppressive governments, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia (the so-called "Kernel of Evil", Israel (hence September 11), Islamic terrorists, and many many more.


Oil & The Bush Cabinet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1138000/1138009.stm

Bush & Big Business:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1306000/1306777.stm

American Zionism - Why Arabs hate America:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1552000/1552900.stm


Source:
Acheson Intelligence Group

[sistersofmercy]

12. Welcome AXISofOIL!

Great post!:hi:

[seventhson]

4. Dod Israel do it??? & saying this is the first attack in 3 years is wrong

What about the deadly Israeli attack by bulldozer on the American girl blocking the destruction of Palestinian homes?

[ErasureAcer]

5. Rachel Corrie

I still think about her...very very sad.

Amazing how this all connects. She was protecting the homes that were to be bulldozed to make way for the fence occupying palestinian land created by the israelis.

The U.N. sec. council voted yesterday 10-1 I believe to denounce Israel's fence. The 1 vote and veto?

...the United States.

Today. At least 3 americans dead.

[morebunk]

6. Remember the Liberty!

It would not surprise me if this was an IDF attack (afterall they really control inside Gaza)designed to blame it on the Palestinians. These people will go to any lengths to involve the US in their Zionism.
Just remember the Liberty and the radio device planted inside Lybia and the other black bag operations by Mossad to blame the Arabs. By Jewish Talmud law, no life is sacred except that of the Jew.

[mobuto]

28. Who are you?

Why are you here?

By Jewish Talmud law, no life is sacred except that of the Jew.

I think that's written just below the section where it discusses making matzoh out of the blood of gentile infants.

You may just be an unwitting dupe, but I find it rather troubling that you, Mr. Bunk, manage to perpetuate one of the oldest and most notorious of anti-Semitic libels.

http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf

[IndianaGreen]

35. Mobutu, your political ideology is well known

and your quoting the ADL is pathetic at best.

The survivors of the USS Liberty know full well that Israel intended to sink their ship during the 2-hour attack, including the machine gunning of the Liberty's lifeboats by Israli gunships. A succession of American Administrations have been complicit in covering up Israel's crimes in this incident, just as they have continued to finance Israel's criminal activities in Palestine including the building of settlements.

[shepard]

8. Sadness

What have we become when we look at our own citizens killed in a foreign land and use it for our own political gain?As a Democrat I first wish to express my sympathies to the families of our citizens.This occured to a convoy with cultural ministers of education in it.If this causes me to be blocked from posting I will accept that,but I cannot stand people being killed anywhere.Ahe'ee Nehemah

[Dhalgren]

24. Then your sympathies should also go out

to the thousands of Palestinians who have been killed, wounded and dispossessed by the IDF and the Likud. It is sad and terrible when life is lost, but not just when American life is lost. If we tend to look at events here in as how they will be played for political gain by the Likud and the Republicans, it is because we know that they will be played. We regret any loss of life, but we know that the enemies of humanity are out there - and they don't care, not even a little.

[morebunk]

9. Maybe this is what it takes to get Americans to focus in on who is

its real enemy and what is really in our own national interests. There is no way in hell that you will convince me that Israel is not behind this particular act.

Heartfelt sympathy goes to the families of the victims and all the people of the ME who are innocently suffering from the evil of their leaders.

Remember the Liberty, remember Rachel Corrie, remember the slaughtered journalists...just remember.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

11. as i type US soldiers and chopers are surrounding the Palestinian Hotel

in Bagdad....cnn official story is "terrorist threat" to attack the hotel housing the press in bagdad"...yeah right!...this is bush*s memo to reporters: NO more TRUTH to be sent about Iraq .... only happy rosey iraqi stories are to be send out or else

[sistersofmercy]

15. The CIA is also operating from the Palestinian Hotel

[sistersofmercy]

14. Question...

What was Liberty? Was it the Libian airliner shot down by the Israelis in, I think, 1973? The airliner had to go off course because of bad weather, the pilot and air traffic controllers had notified the Israelis of the changing course due to bad weather but the Israelis went ahead and shot it down saying it violated their airspace. A few hundred ppl were killed.

[newyorican]

18. Nope...

www.ussliberty.org

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. heard on CSpan the convoy was a Bush* brother' private security firm......

employees hired to provide security for CIA Ops in Gaza...those were private security(private soldiers)?....if proven true make will show just how much more the BFEE are profitting from this war on terror and the "no child left behind" bill!

anyone have any info about this?

George W. Bush's brother was on the board of directors of a company providing electronic security for the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport and United Airlines, according to public records. The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for years to the Bush family.

The security company, formerly named Securacom and now named Stratesec, is in Sterling, Va.. Its CEO, Barry McDaniel, said the company had a ``completion contract" to handle some of the security at the World Trade Center ``up to the day the buildings fell down."

It also had a three-year contract to maintain electronic security systems at Dulles Airport, according to a Dulles contracting official. Securacom/Stratesec also handled some security for United Airlines in the 1990s, according to McDaniel, but it had been completed before his arriving on the board in 1998.

McDaniel confirmed that the company has security contracts with the Department of Defense, including the U.S. Army, but did not detail the nature of the work, citing security concerns. It has an ongoing line with the General Services Administration - meaning that its bids for contracts are noncompetitive - and also did security work for the Los Alamos laboratory before 1998.

Marvin P. Bush, the president's youngest brother, was a director at Stratesec from 1993 to fiscal year 2000. But the White House has not publicly disclosed Bush connections in any of its responses to 9/11, nor has it mentioned that another Bush-linked business had done security work for the facilities attacked.

Marvin Bush joined Securacom when it was capitalized by the Kuwait-American Corporation, a private investment firm in D.C. that was the security company's major investor, sometimes holding a controlling interest. Marvin Bush has not responded to telephone calls and e-mails for comment.

KuwAm has been linked to the Bush family financially since the Gulf War. One of its principals and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec.

The managing director at KuwAm, Wirt D. Walker III, was also a principal at Stratesec, and Walker, Marvin Bush and al Sabah are listed in SEC filings as significant shareholders in both companies during that period.

Marvin Bush's last year on the board at Stratesec coincided with his first year on the board of HCC Insurance, formerly Houston Casualty Co., one of the insurance carriers for the WTC. He left the HCC board in November 2002.

But none of these connections has been looked at during the extensive
investigations since 9/11. McDaniel says principals and other personnel at Stratesec have not been questioned or debriefed by the FBI or other investigators. Walker declined to answer the same question regarding KuwAm, referring to the public record.

Walker is also chairman and CEO of Aviation General, a Tulsa, Okla.-based aviation company with two subsidiaries. SEC filings also show al Sabah as a principal and shareholder in Aviation General, which was recently delisted by the Nasdaq. Stratesec was delisted by the American Stock Exchange in October 2002.

The suite in which Marvin Bush was annually re-elected, according to public records, is located in the Watergate in space leased to the Saudi government. The company now holds shareholder meetings in space leased by the Kuwaiti government there. The White House has not responded to various requests for comment.

Speaking of the Watergate, Riggs National Bank, where Saudi Princess Al-Faisal had her ``Saudi money trail" bank account, has as one of its executives Jonathan Bush, an uncle of the president. The public has not learned whether Riggs - which services 95 percent of Washington's foreign embassies - will be turning over records relating to Saudi finance.

Meanwhile, Bush has nominated William H. Donaldson to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Donaldson, a longtime Bush family friend, was a Yale classmate of Jonathan Bush.

On the very day of the tragic space shuttle crash, the government appointed an independent investigative panel, and rightly so. Why didn't it do the same on Sept. 12, 2001?


links
www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm
www.bushwatch.com/bush.htm
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3336.htm
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=989


just google Stratesec Bush

[Evil_Dewers]

13. Nepotism in the Bush Family Evil Empire? Nah!

;)

[sistersofmercy]

16. Holy cow! Great research, this should be on the front page of every

newspaper in the country.

[Guaranteed]

21. It sounds like stuff that'll be in Moore's movie..

coming out (hopefully) just before the election.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

26. BullGooseLoony...i can't wait....i love moore

[LeftHander]

17. Was a hit....

Most terrorist made home bombs result in a fire ball. This type of explosion was a directed steel plate blast. these bombs are use to penetrate heavily secured vechicles. Like the one ripped apart. The blast directs a steel wedge at the vehicle with amazing precision. The wedge actually tears apart the vechicle with incredible force. This was outlined in a NOVA episode about personal security. The bomb is detonated by electric eyes and activated by a person with a remote. This way they can select a vechicle out of a convoy. The NOVA or FRONTLINE showed the result of one such bomb on the assasination of a person. He was riding in a blast and bullet proof limo and the steel wedge ripped it open like a tin can and killed him. The sophistication of these bombs ussually indicates some type of covert intelligence operation.

SOmebody wanted who ever was in that armoured van dead. Not just a terror attack.

[sistersofmercy]

19. Interesting, I didn't know that, thanks for sharing.

[Aidoneus]

20. still nobody taking the claim for this

Hamas & PIJ both say they were not a part of this, and neither are the sort that shrink from such claims when the opportunity arises. :shrug:

[Jack The Tab]

22. No one can convince me this wasn't a Mossad/Neocon op

This thing stinks.

Hamas and Hezbollah have both said they have no interest in bombing Americans or American targets. Now as despicable as both these groups have been, they really haven't targeted anything American.

[soothsayer]

25. when you see "remote controlled bomb" instead of "suicide", it's CIA or

neocon or mossad, yessiree

[Neecy]

27. uh huh, right

This is so predictible...I knew that the point of this thread would be to accuse Israel of this act.

If Rush was a bit smarter and less drug-addled, he would have read some of the hysterical anti-Israel ravings that are all over this forum. What better way to completely offend Jewish voters a year before the election than expose the latent hatred of Israel displayed by the left? And somebody's going to do it. It's just a matter of time.

For the record: not all Democrats believe this crap that Israel is the root of all evil, although when push comes to shove we'll all be tarnished with this same brush when somebody chooses to make an issue out of the hatred here.

[lightbulb]

32. Where in this thread was it stated

that Israel is the root of all evil? What I see here is some very justified criticism of the government of Israel and its rather questionable military adventures. Honestly, there is a lot more criticism of US policies and actions here in the DU forums than of Israel. Harsh words about the Israeli government are not directed at its public at large.

This Democrat believes that an essential component of being a 'progressive' is an unfaltering willingness to question the actions of government... ANY government. We need to shine light on brutality and oppression wherever it occurs, and call a spade a spade regardless of whom it may offend.

[Neecy]

34. oh, okay

If you're going to criticize ANY government involved in brutality and oppression, then you have a wide selection from which to choose, from Africa to Central America to Asia. Why the silence on any country other than Israel? Kind of a double standard, wouldn't you say?

Criticizing a government is legitimate, but openly speculating without evidence that Israel/Mossad MUST have been behind this attack is beyond mere criticism. Like I said, if someone took a random sample of some of the Israeli threads here - particularly the "Jew Jew Jew" variety, which are particularly offensive - and portrayed it as a common paranoia/hatred amongst Democrats, we'd be alientating a rather large voting block next year. Don't think the Republicans wouldn't smear this around in a second - they will.

[Minstrel Boy]

36. Unfortunately, false flag operations aren't paranoid delusions,

in the covert world it's a trick of the trade. Do you think Mossad has never resorted to it? For instance, former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, in his book Profits of War, says that the Achille Lauro hijacking was triggered by undercover Mossad agents paying millions to Abu Abbas to pull it off. He wrote "That was, in fact, an Israeli 'black' propaganda operation to show what a deadly, cutthroat bunch the Palestinians were."

You do know, don't you, the Mossad's official motto is "By way of deception, thou shalt do war"?

As with any crime, ask who stands to benefit.

[mobuto]

29. I don't understand.

Hamas and al-Aqsa frequently claim responsibility for road side bombs.

Are they lying?

[Aidoneus]

30. actually,

While blaming CIA/Israel for this seems a bit absurd to me, to the best of my knowledge roadside bombs/improvised mines as this was are somewhat uncommon. I can think of two used in Gaza, one managed to blow all to hell a modified Merkava (no small feat, those things are heavily armoured just for such an occasion), the other just doing a bit of damage to another armoured unit.

I've found it strange that they aren't used more, considering how often Israeli military assaults involve tanks; they seem to prefer AKs & RPGs/other small arms against the armoured assaults. (which is basically as much a suicide mission as the humanbomb attacks in Israeli cities..)

Have there been more?

[bemildred]

31. Yeah.

You don't see this often, unlike in Iraq.
Which raises the question "Why not"?
And "Why now"?

[TahitiNut]

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