So, I was reading this article about continued trouble between the Israelis and Hamas, and caught this near the end of the article:
Responding to Israel's concerns, U.S. Army engineers arrived at the Gaza-Egypt frontier on Sunday to set up ground-penetrating radar to detect smuggling tunnels, an Egyptian security official said.
Inside the Rafah terminal — the gateway between Egypt and Gaza — four army trucks loaded with wooden crates and drills could be seen accompanied by four U.S. Army engineers. The Egyptian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.
I hadn't know we had the Army Corps of Engineers doing this kind of worker on the Egyptian/Israeli-Palestine border, so went and look up to see when we started this work and found this from early January of this year:
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Army Corps of Engineers has been helping the Egyptian government detect tunnels used to move weapons and other contraband into Gaza, the Pentagon said Thursday.
A small number of US civilians with the Corps have been providing technical advice to the Egyptians over a period of months, said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary.
"There has been a concerted effort for some time by the Egyptians to go after some of these tunnels -- detect them, block them, eliminate them -- and I think the Army Corps of Engineers has provided some technical advice on how to do so," Morrell said.
The Army Corps of Engineers role was providing "strictly technical advice," he said.
Morrell said no US civilians were working near the border with Gaza currently because of the violence arising from an Israeli ground offensive.
So, we've been doing this, at least, for months. And, it seems the article is quite outdated, as the article from yesterday shows that we're not just giving advice, but doing the scanning of the tunnels, ourselves. Kind of makes it hard for Egypt and/or the United States to be even close to honest brokers in this, huh?
In other news, the Israeli offensive on Gaza has, once again, brought out the political divisions of the Palestinian government. There is even reporting saying that Hamas has resulted to thuggish tactics killing dozens of Fatah-aligned members in Gaza:
CAIRO (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas lashed out at his Hamas rivals on Sunday, as officials from Palestinian groups gathered in Cairo amid hopes of bolstering a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Abbas, at a news conference in Cairo where he was to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday, accused the Islamist movement Hamas of putting Palestinian lives and their hopes for statehood in peril.
...
Khaled Meshaal who heads Hamas's politburo from exile in Damascus said earlier in the week that the PLO had become obsolete and called for "a new, national authority."
His comments were not supported by Hamas-allied militants, who said the PLO should be reformed rather than replaced.
Hamas is not a member of the Palestinian umbrella group, which Egypt founded in 1964 and which Fatah took over in 1968.
What a bloody mess, this all is.
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We supply the IDF with weaponized Caterpiller bulldozers--
--one of them was used to kill Rachel Corrie. She thought her small body would halt a bulldozer, prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home. I wonder what Ghandi would have told her....
So, what're a few tech specialists to assist one's fellow occupiers? We supplied the white phosphorous and the DIME weapons with the insidious metallic fibers which can't be removed and remain to cause cancer. Of course, the DIMEs also tend of cut off legs, whatever flesh is in the cutting range (fairly close to the ground). It appears we have been letting Israel's government test some of our newer weapons in actual "battle" situations and with actual flesh and blood.
Eli at Left Eye on the News has a post up about the deliberate destruction of factories in Gaza. Somewhere I read about destruction of dairies and ice cream makers. Must be on the principle that if people are fed, they live; if they live, some of them might fight against the occupiers; ergo, destroy food production so that fewer people of the wrong group live.
This post has video of a CNN report on the destruction of a cement factory. The usual argument from occupiers is that weapons were hidden there. But how does explain tipping over the cement trucks? Might use concrete to make cement balls for catapults?
At the very top of the post, Eli has a link to a recent post about an attack on a metal shop, which, of course, was making weapons. Eli does a great job of showing how influential the Israeli government propagandists are in getting the Western press to tell only their side of things. Eli asks why, with all the time spent in Gaza, did the IDF attack hospitals, mosques, universities, schools -- and leave known weapons building sites intact?
Knowing what we do makes despair for my country.
Jawbone, I knew we supplied Israel
I knew about our intricate involvement with the IDF and the Israel government, I did not, however, realize we were helping Mubarak blockade Palestine. Egypt's involvement in all of this makes me even angrier, because they should know better. I expect for Israel and the US to be in cahoots in terms of the blockade, but that Egypt is so intricately a part of it is just maddening.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...