The set [of books] the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005. The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included -- as the board that sets accounting rules is considering -- the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

The Clinton administration reported a surplus of $559 billion in its final four budget years. The audited numbers showed a deficit of $484 billion.

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Israel of committing war crimes in a 50-page report released yesterday. Titled "Fatal Strikes: Israel's indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Lebanon", the report provided additional proof that the Zionist state is deliberately targeting civilians as part of its criminal strategy to terrorise and drive out the population of southern Lebanon. "The pattern of attacks during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon suggests that the failures [to distinguish between combatants and civilians] cannot be explained or dismissed as mere accidents," the report explained. "[T]he extent of the pattern and seriousness of the consequences indicate the commission of war crimes." ... The litany of war crimes catalogued in the report provide overwhelming evidence that the Israeli offensive in Lebanon has nothing to do with fighting "terrorism" or with recovering the two IDF soldiers captured by Hezbollah last month. The assault is the culmination of years of military and political strategic planning within Israel, aimed at reducing Lebanon to the status of a degraded protectorate of the Zionist state, and crushing all anti-Israeli resistance in the country. The murder of hundreds of civilians and the creation of nearly a million Lebanese refugees is a central and necessary component of this criminal strategy.

The report also produced further evidence that the Israeli military has systematically covered up and lied about its attacks on Lebanese civilians. "Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF [Israeli Defence Force] attack," it stated, contradicting Israeli claims. "In none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF targeted during or just prior to the attack." These conclusions were drawn from extensive on-the-ground investigations by HRW staff in Lebanon. Researchers conducted interviews with victims and witnesses of Israeli attacks, and corroborated these reports with their own inspections of attack sites, and information from hospitals, humanitarian groups and government bodies. This process was conducted for a selection of Israeli missile and artillery strikes that killed a total of 153 civilians--more than one-third of the total reported Lebanese deaths in the first two weeks of the war.

Does WSWS or HRW spend any time on the other side of the boarder cataloging what the Hezzbollah missles do

Hezbollah and Israel must not under any circumstances attack civilians in Israel and Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on all sides to scrupulously respect the absolute prohibition against targeting civilians or carrying out attacks that indiscriminately harm civilians.

"As president, I strongly believe that my first duty as president is to support and serve the president,"

Some families are waking up to find a Klashnikov bullet and a letter in an envelope with the words "Leave your area or else."

I realized how common it had become only in mid-July when M., a childhood friend, came to say goodbye before leaving the country.[snip] As she told me about one of her neighbors being shot, she opened up the scarf with a flourish, set it on her head like a pro, and pinned it snuggly under her chin with the precision of a seasoned hijab-wearer. All this without a mirror- like she had done it a hundred times over... Which would be fine, except that M. is Christian.

Please read about WWII,

The sharp escalation of the attacks against Lebanon Friday have made it abundantly clear that the objective of this US-Israeli war of aggression is to demolish Lebanon as an independent and sovereign country. The war is aimed at transforming the country into an occupied territory controlled by the US and Israel, perhaps through the medium of a NATO "peacekeeping" force. The destruction of Lebanon is being carried out quite deliberately, and with very definite designs. For Israel, it is yet again a matter of annexation of more territory. And for Washington, it is the preparation of new and even bloodier wars, directed in the first instance against Syria and Iran. The pretense that this war is being waged to defend Israel from terrorism or even to destroy the Shiite Hezbollah movement is belied by the Israeli bombing campaign that is now striking targets and claiming victims far from the Shiite centers of south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

I'll agree Bush and the neo-cons are using Israel to further their agenda and the U.S. has no business intervening.

The Israeli war against Lebanon and Palestine, euphemistically depicted as "self-defense" against Hezbollah and Hamas, is simultaneously an Israeli war for domination, It must be stated unequivocally that this is a war against civilians - there is nothing "collateral" about it. And Israel is responsible for this war. Hezbollah's July 12 raid across the Israeli border may have violated the 1949 armistice agreement between the newly created state of Israel and Lebanon, but it was limited to a military target. The only Israelis killed or captured were soldiers. ... According to Human Rights Watch, "the targeting and capture of enemy soldiers is allowed under international humanitarian law." It was Israel's response, on the other hand, that escalated to a full-scale attack on civilians and civilian infrastructure starting with the bombing of the Beirut international airport. ... The Israeli attack stands in stark violation of the Geneva Conventions prohibitions against collective punishment, targeting civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure and more. The attack was - and remains - a war crime. The distinction is important. The Hezbollah attack on the Israeli army post and the failed Israeli attempt to grab back the captured soldiers, constituted a border skirmish. Such cross-border clashes happen around the world on a daily basis; certainly the Israeli-Lebanon border itself has seen more than its share. But a border skirmish is not a war - it's a border skirmish. It only becomes a war if one or the other party wants it to escalate. In this case, there is no question that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government wanted a war. The San Francisco Chronicle and other mainstream media have highlighted the fact that Israel had had this strategic plan in place since at least 2004, perhaps having started it as early as 2000 when Israeli troops pulled out of Lebanon. Israel was waiting for an appropriate time - or an appropriate pretext - to launch it. This moment, this pretext, they deemed, was the time.

I'm sorry TL, but this is sheer nonsense. I hope you still comsider me as your friend. But friends don't let friends defend war crimes.

Finding themselves somewhat bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, the neoconservatives are reveling in the latest crisis, displaying their customary hubris in re-seizing the initiative. The U.S. press and blogosphere is awash with neocon-inspired calls for indefinite shooting, no talking and extension of hostilities to Syria and Iran,with Gingrich calling this a third world war to "defend civilization." Disentangling Israeli interests from the rubble of neocon "creative destruction" in the Middle East has become an urgent challenge for Israeli policy-makers. An America that seeks to reshape the region through an unsophisticated mixture of bombs and ballots, devoid of local contextual understanding, alliance-building or redressing of grievances, ultimately undermines both itself and Israel. The sight this week of Secretary of State Rice homeward bound, unable to touch down in any Arab capital, should have a sobering effect in Washington and Jerusalem. [emphasis mine]

And the answer is, he has a case of judophobia.

The first of these is what I call 'Judophobia'. I use this word to distinguish it from the expression 'anti-semitism',....... For Judophobia, in the form of anti-Israel prejudice, is very common among PC types.

For Judophobia, in the form of anti-Israel prejudice, is very common among PC types.

He says conservatives should oppose the use of abusive terms such as what he calls the n-word" with just as much fervour as the left. They should not allow PC to have a monopoly of politeness in such matters.

f you had bothered to read Hitches post, you would know that "judophobia" is specifically not racist

Why do I think the closest you've ever been to actual Jews was an old girl friend who made you take her to see Fiddler On The Roof?

"judophobia" is specifically not racist. Instead, it defines a phobia against the country of Israel.

John Mann - Actually you need to argue with Peter Hitchens. I think his email address is in the article.