Year: 2004

Master & Slave…

So this is the liberation, democracy, freedom and civilization they promised the Iraqi people?!

Fallujah (Iraq) – An old Iraqi man kisses the hand of U.S. Marine Cpl. Joseph Sharp for some food and water.
[ AP Photo/John Moore, 19 apr.2004 ]

[via Je Blog]

In another blow to President Bush and his coalition partners in Iraq, Honduras followed Spain on Monday in announcing it will pull its troops out of the country.

President Ricardo Maduro said in a television and radio address the withdrawal would be carried out “in the shortest possible time and under safe conditions for our troops.”

Nice…

[More: Yahoo!]
[via Je Blog]

I helped kill a Palestinian today.
If you pay taxes to the U.S. government, so did you.
And unless the policies of the U.S. government change,
tomorrow will be no different.

Robert Jensen, Professor of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin

The same goes for people who buy American and Israeli products.
They should remind themselves that by buying those products, they’re helping kill innocent Palestinians.

[Full Article: I Helped Kill a Palestinian Today]
[via Lawrence of Cyberia]

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Sunday he had given orders for Spain’s 1,400 troops in Iraq to come home as soon as possible.

Zapatero had said previously he would pull out the troops if the United Nations did not take charge in Iraq by June 30. He said he was acting now because there was no prospect of a U.N. resolution being adopted that met Spain’s conditions.

Zapatero’s decision creates more problems for the United States whose forces are locked in the fiercest fighting in Iraq since last year’s war toppled Saddam Hussein.
U.S. combat casualties in Iraq topped 500 Sunday.

I told you I liked this guy.
Bravo Mr. Zapatero, Bravo.

[More: Yahoo! News]
[Via: Je Blog]

The United States refrained from condemning the killing of a top Hamas leader by Israel on Saturday and limited its criticism of the assassination …
Bush stood with Ariel Sharon three days ago and welcomed the Israeli leader’s plan…

In avoiding a condemnation of the Israeli strike, the statement reflected a formula the Washington routinely uses when Israel targets a Palestinian militant :

In Saturday’s statement, the White House said, “Israel has the right to defend itself from terrorist attacks”…

Meanwhile,
– The European Union condemned the killing as unlawful and “not conducive to lowering tension.”
– A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the assassination violated international law and could lead to more violence in the Middle East.
– Pope John Paul II said the killing of Abdelaziz Rantissi and the hostage-takings in Iraq were “inhuman acts”.
– Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie accused the United States of giving a green light to the assassination.
– The outrage in the Arab world at U.S. policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is helping fuel support across the region for an insurgency against American occupation in Iraq.

[via Je Blog]

Top Hamas leader Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi has been killed by an Israeli helicopter missile strike on his car in Gaza City.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official confirmed that the missile strike was a targeted killing.
“We tried to do it a few months ago. At that time, he managed to run away. This time we got him,” Meir said.

Two of his bodyguards were also killed in the attack that took place this evening.

Al-Rantisi, a co-founder of Hamas, has become one of its two main leaders since Israel’s killing of Hamas spiritual head Ahmad Yasin in Gaza on 22 March.

He had long depicted himself as a Hamas politician with no links to the military wing. But Israel had refused to accept the distinction, accusing him of being a top decision-maker on attacks and of using his media role to incite violence.

It’s clear that this is the policy that Israel will be embracing more and more; dirty assassinations and state terrorism.
Of course, why not?
With Israel getting the green light from the US and being sure that any UN resolution against it will be vetoed (just like the resolution after the assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin), there’s nothing to hold them back or make them think twice about killing anyone they feel like killing.

And as Saeb Erakat just said:
“At the end of the day violence will breed more violence, hatred will breed more hatred.”

Leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian groups, as well as ordinary Palestinians are already promising revenge for these killings.

It seems like Peace is very far from being more than an illusion.

A new book by Bob Woodward on President Bush’s Iraq policy says that Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team.

Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war.
Good going Mr. War President!

Bush and his aides have denied accusations they were preoccupied with Iraq at the cost of paying attention to the al Qaeda terrorist threat before the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Obviously they were lying.

Woodward’s account shows the degree to which some members of the administration, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, were focused on Saddam Hussein from the onset of Bush’s presidency and even after the terrorist attacks made the destruction of al-Qaida the top priority.

Woodward says Bush told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to start working on a fresh war plan on Iraq on November 21, 2001 — when U.S. forces and allies were only in control of about half of Afghanistan, and he told him to keep quiet about it. He wasn’t allowed to even tell CIA director George Tenet about it when he wanted to get information and planning help from him.

This also confirms Richard Clarke’s account of things; how this administration has been planning to invade Iraq from the start and how it was always their highest priority, even higher than anti-terrorism and national security efforts.

[Buy Book from Amazon]