The following is testimony to the fact that the human eye can look at an elephant but fail to see him at all. I've also grown tired of the 'Bush-Cheney torture regime' nonsense. Which is not to say it is not true, merely that it is but a small part of the truth. It gives the impression that the U.S. government did not torture before, or that it will not continue to torture, or that its allies are squeaky clean. In the late 80's the New York Times reported two years in a row on a tiny item buried near the obituaries page: something to the effect that Congress had passed a bill allowing the sale of torture implements to friendly nations. They specifically mentioned electric cattle prods and the list of 'friendly nations' included Germany and Japan.
Wake-up coffee, anyone?
From Amnesty International: Gaza white phosphorus shells were US made :
White phosphorus bombs used by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip were produced and supplied by American arms manufacturers, according to an Amnesty International report that called for a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel.
The report documented dozens of weapons used by Israel and Hamas during the three-week offensive, concluding that both groups had carried out attacks on civilians constituting war crimes punishable by international law. The UN Security Council should impose an embargo until a mechanism was established to ensure that military equipment was not used to carry out such violations, said Amnesty.
Donatella Rovera, who headed the Amnesty fact-finding mission, said that the group had systematically collected and catalogued shells across Gaza, and traced serial numbers back to factory production lines in the US.
"All of the evidence points to the failure of America to exercise due oversight of what they sell to Israel, which is in breach of their own laws... which require that weapons will not be sold to a country where they will be misused. And the manner in which these weapons were used in Gaza is a war crime."
The human rights group said that weapons experts in Gaza found white phosphorus artillery shells marked M825 A1 – a US-made munition – throughout the coastal strip. The Times published photographic evidence that Israel was using the M825 A1 shells on January 8. At that time, Israeli military spokesmen denied that the weapon was being used, saying: "This is what we call a quiet shell – it has no explosives and no white phosphorus".
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