US suspends munitions delivery to Israel

[annabanana]

Source: Guardian

The Pentagon has suspended the delivery of a shipload of munitions to Israel after international concern that it could be used by Israeli forces in Gaza.

The German-owned cargo vessel, Wehr Elbe, under charter by the US Military Sea­lift Command, is currently in Greek waters with its transponder tracking turned off to prevent its location being identified.

~snip~

The Wehr Elbe, owned by the Hamburg company Oskar Wehr, arrived outside the Greek port of Astakos on 1 January, where it was due to transfer its 1,000 containers to another vessel for delivery to Ashdod in Israel.

But after a two week stand-off, amid local protests in Greece, it moved out into the Mediterranean two days ago and disappeared off tracking websites.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/15/pentagon-munitions-israel-gaza

Where is the Wehr Elbe?
Amnesty International says it has "a large consignment - 989 containers - of high explosives and other munitions", "possibly including controversial white phosphorous"
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18014

[aquart]

1. But we had no problem packing and shipping the phosphorous?

Come again?

Which administration is giving these orders?

[dkf]

2. Then shouldn't we be suspending all munitions deliveries period?

Sounds good to me. My biggest gripe with this whole operation is I feel directly responsible for the death and misery of thousands of people in Gaza who have had nothing but hard lives since the day they were born.

I hate that our Government does things that make me feel complicit and guilty.

[balantz]

3. We should rightly call the Pentagon the government distribution agency

for the powerful group of defense contractors commonly known as the Military Industrial Complex.

The owners of our government (not US as it should be) are the war profiteers.

They are the real terrorists who appear to have no regard for innocent people (and babies) who get in their way. We should fear what they are capable of meting out on us as well because they care little for us too if we get in their way. We are ultimately slaves to their will.

[ThomWV]

4. Do we plan to take back our atom bombs from them too?

Because you know good and god dam well Israel does not now have and never has had the capability to make the materials necessary to build or maintain a nuclear weapon.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ThomWV]

6. You've still got to reprocess the 'spent' uranium and there isn't enough room in the country for it

Go to Hanford and see how much room it takes to reprocess the fuel from the reactors and then go to South Carolina to see what it take to replenish the tritium (short half life) needed to keep a modern weapon on line. Look at just the size necessary for those two facilities and then come back and explain to me where they are doing it in Israel. The entire country isn't large enough to contain a weapons processing ability and the notion that they somehow found, bought, or smuggled enough 'yellow cake' into the country to build between 200 and 500 weapons is simply ludicrous. Do you understand how many tons of yellowcake it takes to come up with so much as a gram of Plutonium? Do you understand that yellowcake is transported in dump trucks, convoys of them, not hidden in brief cases?

The same things that made it patently absurd to assert that Sadam had nuclear weapons - that their development could not proceed undetected because of the sheer size of the facilities required, make it equally absurd to assert that Israel came up with its own bomb(s).

[stillcool]

8. no..I don't understand anything about...

how weapons are made...I only read that Israel makes them..which makes me curious as to why they need so much 'military aid' from the United States.

[Greyhound]

7. Good for them, I think. It is strange how few Americans realize that we are,

far and away, the largest arms merchants on the planet. The Russian AK is the most popular small arm and gets the most publicity, but we out sell the Russians in virtually every other category.