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Making an American 'Impenetrable Underground Wall' the Laughing Stock of the World—Leave It to the People of Gaza
No doubt at the instigation of the Israeli government, the Obama administration has authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers to design a vertical underground wall under the border between Egypt and Gaza.
In March, 2009 the United States provided the government of Egypt with $32 million in March, 2009 for electronic surveillance and other security devices to prevent the movement of food, merchandise and weapons into Gaza. Now details are emerging about an underground steel wall that wil be 6-7 miles long and extend 55 feet straight down into the desert sand.
The steel wall will be made of super-strength steel put together in a jigsaw puzzle fashion. It will be bomb proof and can not be cut or melted. It will be "impenetrable," and reportedly will take 18 months to construct. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
The steel wall is intended to cut the tunnels that go between Gaza and Egypt.
The tunnels are the lifelines for Gaza since the international community agreed to a blockade of Gaza to collectively punish the citizens of Gaza for their having elected in Parliamentary elections in 2006 sufficient Hamas Parliamentarians that Hamas became the government of Gaza. The United States and other western countries have placed Hamas on the list of terrorist organizations.
The underground steel wall is intended to strengthen international governmental efforts to imprison and starve the people of Gaza into submission so they will throw out the Hamas government.
Just as the steel walls of the US Army Corps of Engineers at the base of the levees of New Orleans were unable to contain Hurricane Katrina, the US Army Corps of Engineers' underground steel walls that will attempt to build an underground cage of Gaza will not be able to contain the survival spirit of the people of Gaza.
America's super technology will again be laughed at by the world, as young men dedicated to the survival of their people, will again outwit technology by digging deeper, and most likely penetrating the "impenetrable" in some novel, simple, low-tech way.
I have been to Gaza 3 times this year following the 22-day Israeli military attack on Gaza that killed 1,440, wounded 5,000, left 50,000 homeless and destroyed much of the infrastructure of Gaza. The disproportionate use of force and targeting of the civilian population by the Israeli military is considered by international law and human rights experts as as violations of the Geneva conventions.
When our governments participate in illegal actions, it is up to the citizens of the world to take action. On December 31, 2009, 1,400 international citizens from 42 countries will march in Gaza with 50,000 Gazans in the Gaza Freedom March to end the siege of Gaza. They will take back to their countries the stories of spirit and survival of the pople of Gaza and will return home committed to force their governments to stop these inhuman actions against the people of Gaza.
Just as American smart bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq have not conquered the spirit of Aghans and Iraqis, America's underground walls in Gaza will never conquer the courage of those who are fighting for the survival of their families.
One more time, the American government and the Obama administration has been an active participant in the continued inhumane treatment of the people of Gaza and should be held accountable, along with Israel and Egypt for violations of human rights of the people of Gaza.
- Posted in
67 Comments so far
Show All"the international community agreed to a blockade of Gaza to collectively punish the citizens of Gaza for their having elected in Parliamentary elections in 2006 sufficient Hamas Parliamentarians that Hamas became the government of Gaza"
And by "international community" the author means "international elites."
What does this tell us about the culpability of worldwide elites in virtually every genocide? That they're composed of ladder-climbing Eichmanns who "rule" according to the wishes of the highest bidder?
good point, international elites dominated by the US, of course. Without support from the Empire, Israel could not get away with any of this.
Thanks for the information, I didn't know that we were helping Egypt and Israel blockade Gaza so directly. Disgusting and despicable.
As implied in this article. The answer to a 55' deep wall is a 60' deep tunnel...
Or a good hydraulic jack to push the wall out of the way at 20'. There is no such thing as an Impenetrable wall, just like there's no such thing as an unsinkable ship, nor a uncrashable plane. Trust the country that promotes 'creation science' to come up with such a mind numbingly idiotic oxymoron.
A portable generator and a plasma cutter ,oxy/acetylene torches, and a porta power hydraulic spreader.No steel alloy I know of would stop me ,if I had to get through.Just saying ..but I could be wrong. peace
The Palestinians are unlikely to have the industrial lasers that would go through this like a knife through butter.
The Zionist shills that post here have used the construction of the wall between Gaza and Egypt as "Proof" that even the Egyptians could not tolerate the Palestinians.
Egypt gets billions in Military aid from the USA. This article makes it quite clear who it is dictating the policy of creating another Warsaw Ghetto.
Which shills are you referring to? My experience has been most CD posters are anything BUT Zionist shills.
From yesterday... He's talking about the twits who pop up in the other threads about Israel, but rarely post anything in any of the other threads.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/09-0
sharonsj December 9th, 2009 7:24 pm
I wonder what you anti-Semites will have to say about this: Egypt is building a massive iron wall between it and Gaza. Seems they don't want the troublemakers in their backyard either.
If my abhorrence at the official policy of cruelty toward the indigenous Palestinians by the government of Israel, mostly populated by those of Eastern European ancestry, makes me an anti-Semite then I shall wear that badge with pride. Aside from that, the U.S. gives Israel and Egypt each billions of dollars a year to "keep the peace" between each other. Egypt does as the U.S. dictates. The U.S. does as the Israelis dictate.
I second that. Israel is creating a world of anti-Semites. They are their own worst enemy.
In fact, I would go so far as to say, Israel itself is Anti-Semitic because they are destroying Israel.
And what happens when the cries of a desperate and starving people are answered not only by cold indifference, but active support for this great evil?
The United States of Corporations would happily supply shower curtains to Aushwitz
Yes, it is no secret that IBM supplied machines to the Nazi regime that were used in administration of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ford and other US corps did business with the Nazis as well.
The USA is responsible for well over million deaths in Viet-nam, Cambodia and Laos, not to mention the massive environmental destruction due to carpet bombing, napalm etc.
Not to mention over a million Iraqi deaths more recently and the ongoing and escalating attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Actually, the U.S. caused between 2 and 3 million deaths in Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia, and many thousands are still dying there or being born with horrible birth defects due to Agent Orange.
The same is true of children being born with birth defects in Iraq after U.S. use of depleted uranium, on top of more tha one million Iraqi deaths from the cruel sanctions insisted on by Bush I & Clinton and the British, with the U.N. going along with it. Then, Bush II's genocide in Iraq killed another million.
Add in the hundreds of thousands killed in Indonesia & East Timor, Central America, South America, and Africa due to U.S. proxy wars, and you see how the U.S. is one of the worst mass murderers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Indeed, the truth is quite disturbing and few will look at the facts in the face. The US is almost certainly responsible for more deaths than any other country since WWII. Many call me a traitor and a self-hating American just for bringing it up.
Thank you, Ann Wright.
How fitting that Ms. Wright mentions the levees in New Orleans. The U.S. government didn't deem it necessary to fund the improvement of those levees that might have mitigated the catastrophe of Katrina for American citizens, but eagerly funds the building of a wall to punish Palestinians living in Gaza because Israel has the U.S. wrapped around its finger.
When will American voters start calling the shots to change the kind of government they elect. It would be very easy really. Forget labelling oneself as Democrat or Republican, and vote for the congressional candidate who is really anti-war. Vote for a 3rd party candidate or a truly progressive candidate. The House of Representatives could be transformed by such voting and the funding for war could be stopped immediately.
>>>piltdownman wrote: When will American voters start calling the shots to change the kind of government they elect.
When a sufficient number of voters disinfect themselves from the mind virus that goes by the name of "religion". I'm not against all religion - only the kind that so deeply affects someone's thinking that makes so many atrocities "acceptable" or even "desirable" - because it's been "prophesied". It is a mind virus (I'm saying this after reading the book "Virus of the Mind" by Richard Brodie) spread by "preachers" as well as parents to their children. They also actively seek out and infect people from other countries - who are initially impressed by and grateful for the "friendliness" of the "hosts" (who are actually "carriers"). I have met a few people from China and South Korea, for example, who are otherwise intelligent, but have bought into the entire fairytale package, right down to the 6-day creation. It's easy to infect them because they were not strongly attached to any other beliefs - so they're easy picking. When you have so many people looking at the events in the Middle East through a religious filter, it's so hard to make them see the sufferings of other human beings - unless they share the same belief. And the spreading of this virus is being done relentlessly - 24/7.
I beg to differ, but that alone won't make so much as a hill of beans of a difference (how much is that, really?). What HAS to happen is the complete removal of private money from our elections. Until it's no longer big money that calls the shots, we will NEVER get anyone that is worth shit in office. The few that we have that are worth a spit are there by luck and sheer determination, as well as some people in their areas who understand where THEIR own best interests are.
Until the money is removed from elections, nothing will change, and in fact, things will only get worse. Money has NO intelligence, morals, ethics, or even any survival instinct past it's own furtherance. It will kill off it's own market to ensure that no one else gets a foot hold. It will kill off the entire country if it thinks there is a profit in it. And those who live by it will only end up sitting on their stacks of it, with no joy at having it, just avarice and greed for more.
How else would you explain the Reagan era? Religion is just a tool that money uses to make itself more powerful. So is hate. So is nationalism. So is homophobia and abortion. They are all just more ways for the righties and their money to play divide and conquer. And THAT is the game. You are mistaking a symptom for the disease itself. The real problem is the money. It's using everything else, and is in fact, pointing fingers at everyone else saying "Now THEY are your problem right there. Those horrible (Fill in your own minority or political group in here) are the ones who took your jobs, your futures, your homes away". And the thing is that all kinds of people fall for it. But pull back the curtain, and there is just a stack of money there, no brains, no morals, no ethics, calling the shots.
And that is what has to stop happening for anything to change. Our reps and senators don't stand for us, and the recent health care debates should prove that to anyone who is really paying attention. Notice how everything is set up to be a big fat wet kiss to the insurance industry? And whose money do you think is calling those shots? The Pope? The religious communities across the country? Not hardly. The insurance companies and their money. It's their money that is the problem, and will be until it's kept out of politics forever.
WJM, this story is about Gaza. Read the opening paragraph of this story again: "No doubt at the instigation of the Israeli government, the Obama administration has authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers to design a vertical underground wall under the border between Egypt and Gaza."
I would think that the reason such things happen and there's no objection to such policies either inside the Congress or in the media is because a large number of people are clearly influenced by their religious beliefs. The politicians and the media do not want to alienate or provoke this "believing" crowd. While money may be the key factor in all other matters, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict", I think religious beliefs are probably more important. I know many people personally, including high school kids who clearly view this conflict through the filter of their belief, and they are broadly supportive of the US policies. I could be wrong - because I don't have a statistical basis for my opinion.
P.S. OK, after writing the above, I realized that I was actually responding to piltdownman - whose comment was more general. So, I guess your argument wins - whereas mine would apply only to the Israel-Palestine "conflict" and US policies in that regard. Even there, it could be argued that money plays a big role. So, yup, I agree with you :)
From a purely engineering, topographical and geological point, this "wall' is another total waste of US taxpayers dwindling debt financed project and an insane idea. I am certain that the funding for this hillarious project is being financed by borrowed Asian and Chinese money.
In a sandy porous terrain, this idiotic idea would actually strengthen and provide a solid top cover for the relentless and industrious Gaza tunnel diggers. Now they have over 7 miles of concrete collapse proof solid steel and concrete roof over their ingenious tunnel network that will protect them from cave-ins or Zionist air-attacks. This will also increase the already formidable engineering skills of the beseieged Gaza population who are locked into a desnsely packed coastal strip and being slowly starved to death while the world ignores their plight. The US and the west would be better off by providing food and medicines to the Gaza population and ending the occupation of Palestinian land.
How high is this wall? 20 feet you say?
I have a very nice line of 21 foot ladders.
You do realize that this wall is underground right? It goes 50 feet down supposedly.
Now one thing I see here is bravado about getting past the wall and how the Americans will look foolish. Yeah... maybe. But it is the Egyptians that are doing this (with our help perhaps) and they don't seem to be doing badly in the eyes of the other Arab governments at all. I still see oil from Arab countries here. I see lots of US goods going there. I see Arab products here. How is all this making any real difference to anyone but the Palestinians?
Also remember that while nothing is impenetrable, there is a relationship between the difficulty of a task and the completion of the project. Tunnels are hard to dig. They are many times more difficult to dig if you have to go deeper. If there were an open border, maybe 1000 trucks full of stuff come in. With the border restrictions, maybe 100 truckloads of goods come through (through the tunnels and the limited border crossings) and that is a crisis. Now if the Egyptians are 50% successful, and that is not unreasonable, then that doubles the crisis in Gaza.
This is really serious and regardless of it being porous, it WILL have a disastrous effect regardless of the "size of the ladder"
Walls work really well over short periods of time and a human lifetime is really short. Don't underestimate the value or damage of a wall.
JohnShade, I realise it is underground but I assume there would also be a continuation of the wall above ground too.
Your points are well taken but even if the wall is successful in starving the Gazans this may finally tip world opinion against the US, Israel and Egypt.
Never underestimate the ingenuity of people in the M.E. and also do not underestimate the 'hacker' help that might come from outside in defeating this wall of evil. Maybe you can even just go around it?
It might for example only be necessary to dig down to the normal depth if something like Thermite or acid would penetrate this supposedly impervious structure. Maybe the weak point is in the joints -it can't be 7 miles in one piece. If you can't cut it or melt it how on earth was it made in the first place?
There might also be difficulties in getting the wall built without sabotage.
Any kind of steel - or other metal, can always be cut with an ordinary oxy-acetylene torch. Some pretty noxious gases can get released - wonder how the Gazans ventilate the tunnels.
Obama has authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers to design a vertical underground wall just like the one that protected New Orleans? Our government is building an iron ghetto for the Jews to imprison the civilian population of Gaza. Where are the ovens?
"Our government is building an iron ghetto for the Jews to imprison the civilian population of Gaza."
_______________________________
Since I always try to work on being more optimistic during the holiday season, allow me to point out that at least it'll be a DEFECTIVE iron ghetto.
· Yr Obd't Servant
I had to stop and check to see if Ann Wright wasn't pushing satire on readers, but no the US sponsored underground wall like so much else is deathly real in the Age of Obama, which should rightly be termed, The Age of Audacity.
Washington is so overrun by an Occupation Army of Corporate Lobbyists that gridlock and excuses are the main product, except when it comes to Congressional resolutions denouncing the Goldstone report, promoting escalation and wars of aggression.
Hope? All life forms on the planet can only hope for the demise of the Empire.
And today President Barry said that the USA has never been to war against a democracy....liar.
Thankyou ,you saved me a long angry post! peace
to johnny hempseed: read up on count folk bernadotte. the israeli terrorists responsible for killing this un envoy were friends of ben gurion, israel's first prime minister. the trigger man was a mr. cohn, ben gurion's chauffeur. though israel does not recognize statutes of limitations when 90 year old nazis are involved, their own law forbade prosecution of bernadotte's killers after 1986. only then did they finally confess to killing this swedish ambassador, who only wanted to resolve the boundaries in 1948. he was unarmed, and they killed his driver as well, believing him to be a us envoy. israel is a state founded on and funded through terror, and still committs terror to this day. it has only 8 million citizens, but pretends to have the right to 200 atomic weapons and the world's sixth, and probably most experienced, air force. they use chemical weapons against gaza in the form of white phosphorous, and the mainstream media here ignore the atrocities, allowing israel a free hand to pillage and burn without accountability. we really just hurt ourselves by supporting israel, right or wrong, and we have paid the blowback price both economically and militarily because of our heedless backing of this settler state.
TIMELY reminder , mujeriego!
because the history of US imperialism and foreign wars
that can be found listed, simple facts;
http://www.ilaam.net/Sept11/AmericanWars.html
especially the link below:
TITLED : "American Military interventions from Wounded Knee to Afghanistan"..
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
of these -- over 200 hundred of them ...
only a SINGLE ONE resulted in a democratic country...(world war 2 being debatable since IT was also precipitated BY american and british meddling in the internal affairs of Germany SINCE before world war 2 resulting in a fascist leaning by the germans desperate from the economic and naval blockades instigated BY the USA and England) ....
and THAT democratic country which resulted became a democracy DESPITE US MEDDLING to KEEP IT a rightwing dictatorship. it is SOUTH KOREA.
if anything the student and worker movements in south korea in the 1960's were the result of grievances AGAINST the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee - who was installed BY the USA.
therefore -- the "democratic" south Korea became so DESPITE US desires AGAISNT democracy.
in ALL other countries - the USA's meddling did NOT result in democracy.
so -- OBAMA is a BIG TIME LIAR.
teddy, it's interesting to think (though I don't know enough to agree or disagree) that Germany could actually have been provoked by "american and british meddling in the internal affairs of Germany". It is plausible, though you can't rule out Hitler's own ambitions based on his psychological makeup. I read about how the German hyperinflation soon after WW-I was actually brought about by the international bankers ("Web of Debt" by Ellen Brown - a must read, even if you don't agree with everything that's in there).
Recently I was reading about how post-WW-I Japanese industries and trade were being crippled by excessive tariffs and duties imposed by the US and Britain on Japanese goods - especially textiles. Britain could do so not only at home, but all through the Commonwealth at that time - including Canada, Australia and India. Of course, Japan had its own imperial agenda. But it's easy to see that a resource-starved country like Japan would be that much more affected, and therefore provoked, by these kind of tactics - especially by competing powers. And then there was the US naval blockade of Japan - cutting off its supplies, especially oil. At the same time, I also read somewhere that Standard Oil Company was supplying Germany from the island of Aruba using Spanish tankers - right during WW-II, and none of these tankers were sunk by US submarines. Go figure! I've long been convinced of the need to learn about history from other points of view.
Interesting comment, Alcyon.
Many people opposed the severity of the conditions the Allies set on the Germans in the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. One of them was the British economist John Maynard Keynes; another was US President Woodrow Wilson. The reparations that Germany was required to pay drove it into debt. A more moderate approach to reparations might well have prevented the rise of Hitler.
Of course the Nazis were the result of internal meddling in German affairs, though by France and England more than the US. They were also the result of a lot of other things, far more than I could pretend to trace.
Much if not most of the meddling was quite straightforward, and was included in the settlement to WWI.
None of that should be taken to exclude Hitler's personality and a host of other likely factors. It takes a convergence of disparate things to create any event. Consequently, there's always something at least unspoken, if not incorrect, in analysis of "the cause."
Also, the effects of various actions are mixed. So, for instance, Hitler and Mussolini each had a strong hand in releasing much of the world from the British Empire, though freeing people was not what either of them had in mind.
Of course, one could also argue that it opened the field for the American expansion that followed and the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.
At some level, in some way, this all must plot like the turbulence patterns of flow in pipes or streams --- not that I could begin to imagine the calculations!
Doesn't Coca-Cola dissolve just about any substance ? ?
Gaza: Concentratio/prison camp
Gaza is already a concentration/prison camp run by Israel with the assistance of the USA and Egypt's US supported puppet government.
This wall will just make it look more like such a camp. Thank you Noble Prize winning Obama.
I will and am celebrating the fall of the American Empire....the sooner it hits the bottom the better, the bottom being at a depth that the human race has yet to discover as America digs deeper in moral depravity than any country prior to this historical moment.
Sodom and Gomorrah come to mind...in the Biblical sense, of course.
risingdawn, i too feel that america will eventually get what's coming to us. but as my wife and i toil over the decision to have children or not, it is extremely unsettling to think of this country crumbling. i don't want my children to have to endure the sins of this country!
nonetheless, america at some point will experience what it feels like to be trampled, ignored and forgotten. even with all of the issues we have here (education, health care, employment etc), we are still so pompus and snub that we can't comprehend not being on top. we're unconscious bullies...evil manipulators who have raped, mangled and pillaged thru history.
our time will come, and when it does....those that have the ability to help us, will not.
I, too, fear for my children and grandchildren. If I were of child-bearing age today, I would not have children. A painful decision for sure, but we have no certainty as to how painful the future will be here on Earth. I can't remember a revolution that didn't cause a great deal of suffering for both rich and poor. And it seems that revolution, extinction, or ultimately both will play a big role in our futures.
The U.S. has become a massive metastatic neoplasm on the skin of the planet, going wild like the proverbial mental institution being run by its patients. Are there no nations left with strong consciences and ethics that will stand up to us?
I hope to have a safe haven in some saner corner of this planet for my kids and grandkids should this country continue on to become a Nazi Germany, Franco's Spain, or some other such fascist police state.
What in the name of God is wrong with us? We funded this wretched wall for Israel, and can't come up with a healthcare plan for America? We committed billions to Iraq and Afghanistan, and our states and cities in America are going bankrupt; people are living in tent cities; we have an official unemployment rate of 10.2% and an unofficial one of twice that; our own citizens are sleeping and starving on the streets - what's up with this? The United States has lost its way, and I don't think we're going to find it again anytime soon.
In the most literal sense the U.S. government is nothing more than a large organized crime family.
as GENERAL SMEDLEY BUTLER, US MARINES, 1933 speeches revealed (having been for 30 years "our country's High Class Muscle Enforcer for our big banks, big corporations, chamber of commerce, big finance and war and money racket...in 3 continents")
:
"WE ARE A NATION OF GANGSTERS FOR CAPITALISM ...which is our BIG BOSS...we are RACKETEERS for Capitalism, Big Money and WAR".
and as Reverend MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. said:
"I MUST WITH GREAT SHAME AND SADNESS SAY THAT THE GREATEST PURVEYOR OF VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD TODAY IS MY OWN COUNTRY AND GOVERNMENT....WE ARE A NATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL GIANTS AND MORAL MIDGETS".
all you need to know about israel can be found by googling up the name "count folk bernadotte", a man who helped the european jews ; zionist terrorists killed him in 1948 while he was on a peace mission in palestine. not a single israeli was ever convicted for his murder. he was shot twelve times through the heart. his crime? trying to broker a compromise, of which the terrorist zionists wouldn't hear.
i would also suggest googling "USS Liberty" and "Sabra and Shatila" for extra insight. perhaps "Rachel Corrie" and "Mordechai Vanunu" as well...
Throw in The Stern Gang and Irgun.