came across my desk this morning...

Mon Feb 17 14:16:53 CST 2003

on 2/17/03 12:22 PM, prozak at anus.com at prozak at anus.com wrote:

> 
> seems everyone's using the gas, gas, gas
> 
Apparently in Chicago too.

<http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Club-Deaths.html>

> Send Hans Blix to Nes Ziona: Civilians Attacked With Poison Gas
> 16/02/2003
> 
> 
> By James Brooks*
> 
> 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
> thirteen 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. The victims seemed unaware of their actions and surroundings.
> One driver said, "If they had anything in their hand - a woman
> carrying her child might throw him down without realizing it. She'd
> just drop him and start clawing at herself from the gas." Many adults
> were required to restrain each violently convulsing victim. (2)
> 
> These attacks with an unknown poison gas were reported in a
> prestigious regional newspaper by respected journalists. (3-4) They
> appeared on European wire services, and on at least one US military
> Web site. (5-8) They were repeatedly documented by an award-winning
> human rights organization affiliated with the UN. (9-13) Graphic film
> documentation of the victims' suffering is available on VHS and DVD.
> (14) Three days after the attacks began, the leader of the targeted
> people publicly alleged the use of "poison gas" against civilians and
> demanded that it stop. Yet the attacks broadened in scope and
> continued for the next six weeks, until they ceased as
> mysteriously as they had begun. (15)
> 
> These facts are all in plain sight. But chances are you've never
> heard about this chemical warfare against innocent civilians. It was
> not the work of Saddam Hussein, or the Russians, or terrorists, at
> least as the term is generally understood. It didn't occur in the
> 1980s, and it didn't require the satellite data and battle planning
> that the US military provided Iraq for its chemical warfare against
> Iran.
> 
> 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. Six weeks after the initial
> attacks, a doctor caring for victims at Ali Nasser Hospital in Gaza
> said, "We still have 10 cases, who we would like to send abroad for
> treatment."(16)
> 
> The poison gas canisters were unfamiliar, marked only with a few
> numerals and Hebrew letters. 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." The
> smoke often spewed in a "rainbow" of changing colors, ending in a
> steady billow of black soot.
> 
> From five to thirty minutes after breathing the gas, victims began to
> feel sick and have difficulty breathing. A searing pain would begin
> to wrench their gut, followed by vomiting, sometimes of blood, then
> complete hysteria and extremely violent convulsions. Many victims
> suffered a relentless syndrome for days or weeks afterward, cycling
> between convulsions and periods of conscious, twitching, vomiting
> agony. Palestinians agreed: "This is like nothing we've ever seen
> before."(17)
> 
> Eyewitness reports identify thirty-three distinct symptoms induced by
> the gas. All but three are typical of nerve gas poisoning.(18) 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."
> 
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> 
> 
> 
> (1) Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram
> Weekly On-line, 5-11 April 2001, Issue No.528,
> http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/528/re3.htm
> 
> (2) Selected Interviews recorded for the documentary film Gaza Strip
> by James Longley, transcripts,
> http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf
> 
> (3) Unprepared for the worst, by Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly
> Online, Feb. 15-21, 2001, Issue No. 521
> http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/521/re1.htm
> 
> (4) Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram
> Weekly On-line, 5-11 April 2001, Issue No.528,
> http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/528/re3.htm
> 
> (5) BBC Monitoring Middle East - Political, February 13, 2001
> 
> (6) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 14, 2001, BC Cycle, 00:45 CET
> 
> (7) AFX News Limited, AFX European Focus, February 13, 2001
> 
> (8) Protests of U.S. and U.K. Air Strikes, Fort Bragg Web site, Feb
> 19, 2001 
> http://www.bragg.army.mil/sid/wwwthreat/CountriesGHI/iraq.htm
> 
> (9) Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report, Feb. 8-
> 14, 2001,
> http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/15-02-2001.htm
> 
> (10) PCHR Weekly Report, February 15-21, 2001,
> http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/22-02-2001.htm
> 
> (11) PCHR Weekly Report, March 1-7, 2001,
> http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/07-03-2001.htm
> 
> (12) PCHR Weekly Report, March 22-29, 2001,
> http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/29-03-2001.htm
> 
> (13) PCHR Weekly Report, March 29-April 4, 2001,
> http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/05-04-2001.htm
> 
> (14) Gaza Strip, a documentary by James Longley, February, 2002,
> http://www.littleredbutton.com/gaza
> 
> (15) The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation,
> James Brooks, Media Monitors Network, January 8, 2003,
> http://www.mediamonitors.net/jamesbrooks2.html
> 
> (16) Selected Interviews recorded for the documentary film Gaza Strip
> by James Longley, transcripts,
> http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf
> 
> (17) ibid.
> 
> (18) Symptoms - The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary
> Investigation, James Brooks,
> http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.jamiedb/Symptoms.htm
> 
> (19) Gas Attack/What Was It?/News Bites, Michael Milner, Chicago
> Reader, August 23,
> 2002 Reader Archive--Article: 2002/020823/HOTTYPE
> 
> (20) Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and
> Arms Control, 
> Avner Cohen, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Fall-
> Winter), pp. 27-53
> http://www.puaf.umd.edu/CISSM/Scholars/Cohen.pdf
> 
> 
> For additional references, see: The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A
> Preliminary Investigation,
> James Brooks 
> http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.jamiedb/The_Israeli_Poison_Gas_Attacks_Pr
> oject.htm 
> 
> 
> *James Brooks of Worcester, Vermont, is an independent researcher and
> former business 
> owner whose articles have been published by Vermont newspapers,
> Antiwar.com, Media
> Monitors Network, Dissident Voice and several other sites. Currently
> Mr. Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in
> Palestine/Israel (www.vtjp.org) and publishes News Links, a free once-
> daily e-mail digest of in-depth Middle East news and commentary. To
> subscribe, contact jamiedb at attglobal.net